THE
PBOBLEM OF EVIL
ruixTKD HY
spOTTi,s\vooni: AND co., XEW-STHKET
LONDON
THE
PEOBLEM OF EVIL
AN INTRODUCTION
TO
THE PRACTICAL SCIENCES
BY
DANIEL GEEENLEAF THOMPSON
AUTHOR OP 'A SYSTEM OF PSYCHOLOGY'
LONDON
LONGMANS, GEEEN, AND CO,
1887
All rights reserved
TO MY LONG-TIME FRIEND
WILMOT L. WAEEEN
OP SPRINGFIELD, MASS.
IN COMPANIONSHIP WITH WHOM
I BEGAN MY TRAINING IN SYSTEMATIC THOUGHT
AND WHO HAS BEEN PURSUING
HIS OWN GOOD WORK UPON SCIENTIFIC PRINCIPLES
IX ONE OF THE MOST PRACTICAL DEPARTMENTS OF LITERATURE
THIS CONTRIBUTION TO THE THEORY OF PRACTICE
IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED
CONTENTS.
PART I.
Til E MATURE OF EVIL.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. PHYSICAL AND MORAL EVIL 3
II. DIFFERENT THEORIES OF EVIL 6
III. EVIL AND PAIN 10
IV. THE EVOLUTION OF PAIN 18
V. THE OFFICES OF EVIL 22
VI. THE ULTIMATE ORIGIN OF EVIL . 26
PART II.
THE ELIMINATION OF EVIL.
VII. THE PROBLEM OF HAPPINESS 31
VIII. THE MORAL LAW ... 37
IX. SOME QUESTIONS OF MORAL SCIENCE , . . . .45
X. 'NATURAM OBSERVARE' . . 78
XI. THE FOUR CHIEF METHODS OF REDUCING EVIL . . .88
XII. HINDRANCES AND OBSTACLES ... 95
PART III.
THE GREAT THEOLOGICAL SUPERSTITION.
XIII. THE DOCTRINE OF SIN 101
XIV. THE TRUTH OF THE DOCTRINE 109
XV. THE MORALITY OF THE DOCTRINE . . 131
Vlll
CONTENTS.
PART IV.
77/.A' INSTITUTIONAL FETICH.
CHAPTER
XVI. AUTHORITY AND INDIVIDUALISM
XVII, THE FAMILY ....
XVIII. THE STATE .
XIX. THE CHURCH .
PAGE
151
158
173
184
PART V.
THE SOCIALISTIC FALLACY.
XX. THE CO-OPERATIVE IDEA
XXI. SOCIALISM
XXII. THE POLITICAL PARTY
XXIII. INDUSTRIAL CO-OPERATION
209
217
227
234
PART VI.
THE ROOT OF MORAL EVIL.
XXIV. THE EGOISTIC IDEAL
XXV. THE MILITANT SYSTEM .
XXVI. ACTIVE EGOISM IN TUE INDUSTRIAL SYSTEM
XXVII. PASSIVE EGOISM IN THE INDUSTRIAL SYSTEM
XXVIII. THE REMEF
245
249
253
261
268
PART I.
THE NATUEE OF EVIL.
' This is peace
To conquer love of self and lust of life,
To tear deep-rooted passion from the breast,
And still the inward strife.'
ARNOLD, L-iyht of Asia
CHAPTER I.
PHYSICAL AND MORAL EVIL.
THE terms Evil and Good mark antithetical ideas which have
maintained their opposition in all human thought and action. All
experience manifests the distinction between the Good and the
Bad, and hence all language, all literature, all science, and all
action must recognise such a distinction. Speaking generally,
without regard to philosophical exactitude, Good is that . which is
desired, and Evil that which is avoided. To the individual alone
the Good is that which he aims to bring into his experience, con-
serve, and perpetuate ; Evil, on the other hand, is that which he
endeavours to cast out and keep out of his experience. In like
manner to society the Good is that towards which effort is or ought
to be directed to secure and preserve, while Evil is that which is
or ought to be avoided and warded off. Good is to be sought,
Evil is to be extirpated ; Good we would retain for ever, Evil we
would abolish entirely.
It is one of the purposes of this treatise to fix more exactly and
accurately the meanings of Good and Evil, especially the latter
term. The above remarks will, therefore, be sufficient provisionally,
and will answer the end of directing the attention to the questions
to be brought forward for consideration. Religiously considered,
the Problem of Evil is the most perplexing and seemingly the most
insoluble of any that pertain to theism. Given an omnipotent
and benevolent Creator, how can it happen that there is evil at all
in a universe of His creation ? All sorts of solutions have been
proposed, but none of them have been entirely satisfactory, and
hence the question always presents itself anew. I l do not state
1 Fashion varies from time to time with regard to the preference f or ' I ' or
' We ' in introducing the declaration of the author. If either is used exclusively
or too frequently it is tedious to the reader, though the old criticism that ' I '
indicates egotism on the part of the writer is substantially obsolete. In a work
4 THE NATURE OF EVIL. PART I.
this problem with the expectation of solving it, but with the hope
that, by studying the nature of evil and generalising some of the
facts of human experience with respect to it, we may ascertain its
proximate sources, and indicate the general methods by employing
which we may effect its reduction, and, to as great an extent as
may be, its elimination.
Much of the evil of which men are cognisant comes from the
action of physical forces in the inorganic world, and from the
vegetal and animal creation. Electricity, for instance, is a de-
structive agent. The lightning strikes and causes death with a
suddenness against which there could be no prevision. The tornado
destroys houses and villages, utterly regardless of human interests.
Vesuvius with its fiery rain extinguishes the flourishing cities at
its base. On sea and land alike every year witnesses multitudes
doomed to suffering and death through the force of natural agents,
which cannot be avoided or controlled. Not less true is this when
we look for causes higher in the organic scale. Upas trees there
may not be, but poison as deadly as the upas lurks around the Villa
Borghese or along the luxuriant banks of the Amazon. Neither
the tiger nor the serpent knows any mercy or pity. Even in the
crowded streets of a great metropolis the mad steer tramples under
foot the terror-stricken child. Everywhere in nature there are all
the time occurring,, as the results of natural causes, events which,
if we only could, we would prevent or avoid.
Over and above this so-called Physical Evil there exists evil
which is derived from the conduct of sentient beings, or (if we in-
clude the acts of the animal creation below man in the same general
category with manifestation of inorganic force) from the conduct of
human beings. Such is commonly termed Moral Evil. The
distinction thus drawn is very generally accepted, and marks two
grand divisions of the subject now before us.
Evil is still evil, whether it be physical or moral, and as such
is an object for abatement ; but, so far as mankind is concerned,
the two sorts are very differently viewed. Man is commonly
regarded as responsible for moral evil inasmuch as he is considered
the voluntary cause of it, with the power, if only he chose, to
prevent its existence. That it still continues to exist is conse-
quently not alone man's misfortune, but directly his fault. Thus
of this kind it is a relief to the author, and, I think, to the reader, to change
occasionally from the singular to the plural and back again. This plan is, there-
fore, followed in the present book.
CHAP. I. PHYSICAL AND MORAL EVIL. 0
a peculiar character attaches itself to moral evil, separate and
distinct from that pertaining to physical evil. Whether the
current ideas as to the antithesis between the two classes are cor-
rectly entertained or not, and whether or not there is any intrinsic
difference or difference in kind between the twc/ are questions
which will be discussed as we proceed. It is enough at present to
note the claims generally made. Provisionally at least we may
allow a distinction between physical and moral evil.
THE NATURE OF EVIL. PAKT T.
CHAPTER II.
DIFFERENT THEORIES OF EVIL.
BEFORE proceeding to consider further the phenomena which we
call evil or of evil nature, it may be well to note what the human
mind has thought with regard to evil in explanation of its exist-
ence. I do not intend to review in detail the tenets of the various
schools of philosophy, or the creeds of the different religious sects
or other bodies on this subject ; but in the light of what has been
held to exhibit the leading ideas which it is possible for us to
entertain with respect thereto.
It has been most usual to connect evil with the supernatural,
and therefore the problem of evil has been very largely a religious
problem. Evil is certainly interwoven with nature's order through-
out ; and if from nature we look for a source or a cause of the
natural processes and nature's evolution in a supernatural, to this
supernatural must we go for a source and a cause of evil. Assum-
ing this to be the case, we strike at once upon that very old and
very serious question, referred to in the preceding chapter. How
can an all-powerful and all-holy God be the author of evil ?
Epicurus states the difficulty : Either God wishes to prevent evil
and cannot ; or He can and will not ; or He neither will nor can ;
or He both can and will, In the first case He is weak and not
omnipotent ; in the second He is wicked ; in the third He is both
weak and wicked ; in the fourth we are impelled to ask, How is
evil at all possible ? l
If, then, an all-powerful and all-holy God is not the author of
evil, we are first driven over to the Manicheans or, further back,
to the Zoroastrian system. cln the beginning, there was,' said
Zarathrustra, ' a pair of twins — two spirits, each having his own
distinct essence. These, the Good and the Evil, rule over us in
thought, word, and deed.' 2 There are two Gods, or two Principles,
in the supernatural world, each self-existent, and the two struggling
1 Lactantius, De Ira Dei, chap. 13.
2 Hymn from the Avesta; Bunsen, God in, History, i. 280.
CHAP. II. DIFFERENT THEORIES OF EVIL. 7
against each other for the supernatural supremacy and for the
control of the universe. Both of these beings are certainly gods —
Aura-Mainyus no less than Ahura-Mazda. The former is the source
and the cause of Evil, the latter the source and cause of all Good.
There is, however, a middle ground, be it well or ill taken.
The Divine Being may be supposed to be infinite in power, good-
ness, and holiness, and yet for good purposes permit the existence
of evil supernatural beings — Satan and his followers — through
whom and from whom all that is evil emanates. This distinguishes
the Christian doctrine of the Devil from the Persian and the
Manichean dualism. With these latter the strife between the
powers of Good and Evil is eternal ; in the Christian scheme it is
only temporal, to end in the complete triumph of good. ' And
the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and
brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be
tormented day and night for ever and ever.' 1 The queries which
immediately suggest themselves in connection with this theory are,
Whence came the Devil originally ? Why is he permitted to exist,
and evil to flow from him and his works ?
As an answer to the last query, there is still another view of
the supernatural origin of evil, but which may occur either with or
without the notion of a personal devil. This is the doctrine that
all evil is only good in the making. What we esteem to be bad
in the universe is imperfection not yet made perfect. Could we
know the secrets of the Divine Mind, we should perceive that what
we now condemn, reject, and avoid, is only a necessary stage in
the development of God's most beneficent purposes. Thus argued
Dr. William King, Archbishop of Dublin,2 and the brothers Samuel
and John Clarke (the two latter in the Boyle lectures). They
stood, however, always upon the Christian basis of evil and evil
powers permitted in furtherance of God's beneficent purposes, and
they also insisted upon the distinction between moral and physical
evil ; with the former going the doctrine of man's responsibility to
God. Indeed, it is obvious that we must draw sharp distinctions
here. For, if evil be only good in the making, then it may be
asked with the Epicureans, How is evil possible ? That which we
call evil is not evil, but imperfect good. Is there, then, any warrant
for assuming a particular character for moral evil by which any
taint of sinfulness attaches to the perpetrator of that which, bad as
it may seem, is but crude goodness ?
1 Revelation of S. John xx, 10. 2 De Origine Mali;
V
THE NATURE OF EVIL, PART I.
To avoid such a result, which to them seemed subversive of
their whole system of revealed religion, the Christian theologians
and moralists invented the doctrine that although evil was per-
mitted by God to exist for His own wise and good purposes, yet
man has been created wholly free to choose between the good and
the evil. When therefore man does choose evil, he is the cause
and the source of the evil conduct. For moral evil, therefore, man
is responsible and accountable, although it may be that his wrong
conduct is instigated by supernatural beings of satanic character,
and although this evil may exist by God's own permission to the
end of working out His own holy purposes in the end.
Archbishop King distributed evils into three classes : (1) Those
of imperfection ; (2) natural ; (3) moral. The same division was
made by Dr. Samuel Clarke, and this is his argument and expla-
nation, in brief. ' Liberty implying a natural power of doing
evil as well as good ; and the imperfect nature of finite beings
making it possible for them to abuse this their liberty, to the
actual commission of evil ; and it being necessary to the order and
beauty of the whole, and for displaying the infinite wisdom of the
Creator, that there should be different and various degrees of
creatures, whereof consequently some must be less perfect than
others ; hence there necessarily arises a possibility of evil, not-
withstanding that the Creator is infinitely good. In short, thus :
All that we call evil is either an evil of imperfection, as the want
of certain faculties and excellences which other creatures have ;
or natural evil, asjDain, death, and the like ; or moral evil, as all
kinds of vice, f The first of these is not properly an evil.' ' A
deficiency in powers and faculties is an evil to any creature no
more than their never having been created would have been (sic).
The second kind of evil is either a necessary consequence of the
former, or it is counterpoised in the whole with as great or greater
good ; or it is to be regarded as of the nature of pjinishment, in
which case it is a necessary consequence of moral evil < As to this
last, it arises wholly from the abuse of liberty, given for other
purposes, and designed to contribute to the order and perfection of
creation. In this case it is that all sorts of evils have entered the
world, yet without prejudice to the infinite goodness of the Creator
and Governor thereof.' ] This doctrine is further elaborated by
Dr. John Clarke. (Following out the explanation of moral evil,
""^K^
1 I take these extracts from Gillett, God in Human Thought, chap, xxxvii,
The first extract is quoted by this author from Clarke, the rest is an abstract.
CHAP. II. DIFFERENT THEORIES OF EVIL. 9
the latter maintains that ' certain irregularities in the moral world
follow from the finite nature of things/? Yet an analysis of the
faculties and powers of the soul show^that each is individually-
good, and that whatever evil belongs to it belongs to it as infinite.
It is subjected to moral law, and this is required by its nature. If
it violates that law it is its own fault, and hence the cause of every
moral evil in the world is ' the abuse of that liberty with which
God endued every man.' Yet this liberty is itself an excellent
gift. It is essential to rational life and its enjoyments. To with-
draw it would degrade man to an animal or a machine.' l
The foregoing are the chief of what may be called the theo-
logical explanations of evil — those which look to a supernatural
source and cause. In distinction from these we will instance what
may be termed the scientific explanations of evil. They do not
assume to reach the ultimate source and cause of its phenomena,
believing that this is beyond the sphere of human knowledge.
They exhibit the facts of individual and social life which give rise
to the opposition between the good and the bad, and in general-
ising these facts attempt to find the proximate causes of the ills
we experience. In this search, conducted upon such a principle,
it is not to be expected that nature will be transcended. A super-
natural may be postulated, but it is an unknowable supernatural.
The evil. that is made the subject of science is the evil which is in
nature ; and under this term are included the phenomena of mind
both in their individual isolation and in their relations to other
minds. It is my purpose in the present work to treat the problem
of evil upon this method, being persuaded that much more sure
and satisfactory results can be attained than by starting out from
any of the theological hypotheses. In the course of our examina-
tion, however, we shall have occasion to comment upon some of
these latter theories.
We will hence not stay to discuss the doctrines which have
been briefly mentioned in this chapter, but will proceed without
further preface to analyse the theme of our discourse.
1 Gillett, oj}. cit.
10 THE NATURE OF EVIL. PART I.
CHAPTER III.
EVIL AND PAIN.
I HOPE I shall not be considered as taking an unwarrantable liberty
in assuming that evil is relative exclusively to conscious or sentient
beings. For my own part, I am not able to understand how there
can be any sentience without consciousness ; but if there be those
who think this possible, I am willing to stretch my statement so
as to cover all cases of sentience. But, in any event, if there were
no sentient beings there would be neither good nor evil. Of
course it is equally true that there would be no experience what-
ever ; the narrower truth, however, is sufficient for present uses. If,
then, evil be invariably something which relates to sentient beings,
it is something which concerns the mental part of those beings,
for, given sentience, there are at least the rudiments of a mind,
and sentience, as just remarked, is essential to the existence of evil.
If we were asked what we mean by a sentient being, we
should probably say a being which feels. Feeling is one of the in-
separable aspects of consciousness, of which knowledge and volition
are commonly counted as the other two. A creature low down in
the animal scale may have feeling, but cognition is at a minimum.
Its sentience (which we infer) is the sole mental characteristic of
which we are able to take account. There are sundry evidences of
feeling, much more pronounced than any of intelligence. This
feeling is evinced by the sensibility of the animal or its respon-
siveness to impressions from without. In addition to this there is
an automatic mobility which initiates action of the organism upon
the environment. In a word, the feeling which is indicated is that
sort of feeling we ordinarily term sensation, which arises in con-
nection with the action and reaction of the organic integer and its
surrounding world.
We only know what feeling is by a reference to our individual
experience. By feeling we mean, then, feeling as it is in human
consciousness. Whether or not we believe that the rhizopoda have
CHAP. TIT. EVIL AND PAIN.
feeling ; if they do have any, it is feeling as we conscious human
beings have feeling in our own experience — not, indeed, as com-
pletely, not to the same degree, but in the same kind. So all
along the scale of sentience, up or down, from the lowest organisms
to the most highly developed intelligence, there is at any rate
feeling in the form of sensation.
Now all that evil which we have termed physical* and which
Archbishop King and the Clarkes called natural, is something
which primarily affects sensation. We should not know it to be
evil were it not for the fact that it produces a sensational experi-
ence. Moreover, we have in a radical difference in quality of sen-
sational experiences a natural means of determining that which is
physically evil and that which is physically not evil. Sensations
are either pleasurable, or painful, or indifferent. Pain is the index
ofjshjsicallissik — Tliab which liui'lij"me 1 esteem to be evil._ Of
course this is not the whole of even physical evil, for my neighbour
or my race may be injured where I am not, and I unhesitatingly
include under evil things the causes of their injury. But to the
extent just noted, I hardly think there will be serious dispute or
dissent raised by anybody over my propositions.
Let us proceed a little farther. Pain is the index of present
physical evil. As intelligence grows we distinguish and define the
objects which cause pain. More than that, we remember them.
We also form associations from resemblances, and draw inferences
with regard to the hurtfulness of things about us. A man does
not need to be struck by lightning to know that lightning will do
him bodily injury. In proportion to the degree of their intelli-
gence sentient beings organise knowledge so that they form classes
of things which they esteem likely to be sources of physical evil,
and to which they give an evil character. These things are
regarded as proximate agents of evil.
In a similar manner certain actions come to be regarded as
causes of physical evil. The burnt child learns that putting his
hand in the fire will bring harm to him. Pain teaches men the__
avoidance of destructive and damaging ageriM.' Foresight is ren-
dered possible by memory and imagination, and schemes and
courses of conduct thus secure a good or bad character as respects
their relations to physical evil.
This generalisation of which I have been speaking is not
merely with regard to what is beneficial or harmful to one in-
dividual, but rather to all. Objects or actions regarded as causes
12 THE NATURE OF EVIL. PART I.
of physical ills are so esteemed with respect to their relations to
many, to mankind in general, or to all sentient beings, as the
facts warrant the application. To be sure, what may be one
man's poison may be another man's meat, but the investigation
of nature and the operation of natural laws enables us to find out
how far and under what conditions a given substance is poisonous,
and under what circumstances and to whom it is nutritious. But
in all of these cases the test is pain to somebody. A thing is evil
so far forth as it produces pain to some sentient being, and its
evil tendencies are esteemed to be such just in the ratio that they
seem likely to cause pain. Thus far with reference to physical
evil, and up to this point also I should hardly look for substantial
dissent.
Inorganic forces, we may thus say, are evil, so far forth as
their action produces, or tends to produce, pain to human beings ;
for we need not go beyond the sphere of human life, activity, and
passivity. Setting aside for the moment all considerations of
intelligence, it may be declared also that the organic forces of
vegetal and animal life are evil in so far as they cause, or tend
to cause, pain. In the natural or physical world, in material
nature, those forces are evil which are distinctively pain-producing ;
and of those which produce both pleasure and pain, probably the
great majority, their evil character attaches as they have a pain-
producing effect or tendency, and departs when this effect ceases
or this tendency is annulled.
I have already remarked that if there were no sentient beings
there would be no such thing as either good or evil. I now add
to this truism the further remark, which I think must be an
equally obvious truth, that if there were only one sentient being
in existence there would be only physical good and physical evil.
I protest against this habit which obtains of calling any pain a
physical pain, as if all pain were not wholly mental. The suffering
is in my mind, not in my members ; and yet we are forced to
recognise the distinction, almost universally made, between the
physical and the moral as applied to good and evil, with which
this discussion started oat in the first chapter. So far as we have
gone we have only what is usually, though it appears to me faultily,
termed physical evil. When, therefore, I say that if there were
only one sentient being there would exist only physical evil, I
mean to indicate that the form of evil we call moral arises from
the relations of sentient beings to each other. [If Adam were
V- —
CHAP. III. EVIL AND PAIN. 13
living alone in the Garden of Eden upon a vegetable diet, with
the rest of the animal creation absent, he might have pricked his
feet upon the thorns or stumbled upon a stone ; he might have
been made ill by eating green apples, or he might have been
chilled by a cold wind or rain ; yet he would have neither suffered
nor committed moral evjL\ It may be said, and would be main-
tained by many, that, if he had the companionship of the lower
animals, in addition, still he would not know moral evil, since it is
generally esteemed that these animals are things, not persons. But
the moment Eve appears, then there is opportunity for moral
good_ and eviL Indeed, there was a moral relationship before,
according to the story, inasmuch as Adam knew, and had com-
munication with, Jehovah. The essence of the matter is that the
moral relationship is social, and grows out of the social state.
This being so, moral evil, as we understand it, is derived from the
conduct of human beings toward e^]\ nt.TiP.r Up to this point,
again, it seems to me there is substantial agreement. c Force and
right,' said Joubert, ' rule all things in the world ; force before
right arrives ; ' upon which President Seelye makes the very
pertinent comment, ' but right has already arrived when men have
come.' 1
If, then, moral evil in its objective existence, to take this case
first, be something which springs from the conduct of human
beings to each other, such evil, of course, must be evil to someone.
It must be thought, word, or deed which is hurtful to some person.
Now let us see what the experience of such a person must be.
There has been discovered no way of reaching human consciousness
from without except through sensations. The hurtful conduct,
then, of my neighbour must affect me through my sensations. This
evil thought must manifest itself in action which may be word or
deed, as we commonly say, though the word spoken is as much a
deed as the blow struck. The injury may be a direct assault upon
my person with the fist, the knife, the pistol, or the vial of poison.
The evidence to me of the injury committed is the sensation of
pain. The evil is not different, so far as I am concerned, from the
evil which comes from the falling rock, or from eating fortuitously
the poisonous herb. To me it is physical evil. Again, the injury
may be against my property, my person supposably not being
harmed. In this instance I either have or have not feeling. The
cognition of the injury may be accompanied with indifferent feelings,
1 ' Dynamite as a Factor in Civilisation,' North American Review, July 1883.
14 THE NATURE OF EVIL. PART I,
but then the injury is slight. If there be more feeling, there is
either pleasure or pain. Now it is a contradiction to universal
experience and absurd to say that injuries of any kind give pleasure
to the person against whom they are perpetrated. To the extent
that there is injury there is pain of some sort. In the case
supposed there may be present discomfort or fear of consequences ;
often the latter. If a sneak thief steals my overcoat when I have
temporarily laid it aside, my pain will be either present cold, perhaps
prompting me to look for the article, or apprehension that I shall
suffer further from being unable to supply its loss, or both. If my
strong box is robbed, the pain is both present fears and horrible
imaginings. But in any case the injury is marked by pain pre-
sentative or representative. Once more, the injury may be by
spoken word or other action against my reputation. The character-
istic effect in such case is painful emotion. The misfortunes and
ill consequences of a bad reputation as my experience makes them
plain are represented, and dread of their occurrence to me in some
measure is aroused. The sense of injustice is very likely added.
There is generated a mass of painful centrally-initiated feeling, the
quantity of the emotion either pervasive, intense, prolonged, or
recurrent, indicating my intellectual appreciation of the harm done
or likely to ensue. Whatever form the injury may take, whatever
shape the evil which results from the volition or conduct of another
toward me, the sense of harm comes to my consciousness solely
through a feeling of pain.
These truths thus familiarly illustrated are made more evident
still by psychological examination. Our feelings are sensational
or emotional, the latter being a mass of highly representative
feelings. There are centres of mental power which resist inward
influences and initiate outward movements ; but the emotion which
is generated from central sources is still feeling represented, whose
origin was presentative or sensational experience. Indeed there is
reason for the assertion that an emotion is a fusion of ento-peri-
pheral sensations. Now if there be evil inflicted upon us, it must
be evil to our consciousness. Feeling is the basis of consciousness,
so to speak ; we must then feel the evil. We have no other mode
known to consciousness of distinguishing feeling of evil, harm,
injury save by its quality of pain. Our feelings may be either
sensational or emotional ; but in either case this quality of pain
marks the feeling of evil. It begins in the sensations and is an
essential part of the represented sensations which we call emotions.
CHAP. III. EVIL AND PAIN. 15
Evil to me, then, is inevitably and exclusively that which causes or
is expected to cause pain, either sensational or emotional.
If, then, objective evil is the cause of subjective pain ; by the
ordinary processes of association and representation, we form our
general ideas of such evil as being that which is or is likely to be a
cause of pain to human beings. Of course the conditions of the
social state at once apply, and by these what is really evil to one
may be for the good of the many. This, however, is a balancing of
good and evil, by which a less evil is endured or permitted to escape
a greater, but it does not alter the essential character of evil itself.
This latter, so far forth as it is evil, is so by virtue of the fact that
it is a cause of pain.
Thus considering evil objectively, we are not able to discover any
distinction between the moral and the physical. We have not,
indeed, arrived at the grounds of the division to which we are com-
pelled to give so much prominence. For this it is necessary to
make an introspective examination into the motives of human
volition and conduct. For, says Archbishop King, ' moral evil
springs from human choice.' Remarks Principal Tulloch in sub-
stance, ' The essential evil does not come to man from without, but
from within.' * But granting this, the situation is simply that man
chooses to do evil when he might choose the good. We are not
helped by this discovery to any additional light upon the subject of
what evil itself is. On ' the contrary, we are brought directly back
to the individual experience of the distinction between pleasure and
pain, ft choose to do evil ; that is, I choose to do that which to some-
one is eviF; that which is injurious, harmful, baneful, dangerous,
hurtful, displeasing to somebody. I choose to do that which causes
pain, or which may be a cause of pain to some other person7"\ It
does not seem possible to escape from the conclusion before-*eatmed
that evil ij_nothing more or other than that which causes pain.
Therefore the distinction between physical and moral evil is one
of the causes of ^vU, not of the nature of the evil itself. Evil
yrl^rrr^p^T^^frnrn ™vrtgjr> snnrffiH and ig prn^jjfififl fry certain
causes is physical, or natural, if we prefer the term of the Boyle
lecturers ; while evil derived from certain other sources and causes
is moral. But evil itself, subjectively considered, is pain; and,
objectively considered, is that which is, or may be, a cause of pain.
Having thus ascertained what evil itself is, according to the best
of our ability, we may pursue a little farther this question of moral
1 Christian Doctrine of Sin, p. 73.
16 THE NATURE OF EVIL. PART I.
evil, which, as we have just been able to remark, demands solely
an investigation of the causes of evil. The statement of Archbishop
King just cited furnishes the key to this examination. Moral evil
springs from human choice. In the last chapter its general cha-
racter was made evident ; and now, connecting what we learned
there with the results to which we have here arrived, we may say
that moral evil is at any rate pain caused by human volition to
cause pain. Yet that this is not an adequate definition is clear ;
for a parent may have a volition to chastise his disobedient child,
and when the chastisement follows, we cannot call either the
punishment, or the volition to punish, moral evil. It is rather the
disobedience which calls for punishment that is the moral evil.
What we mean by the latter is, evil which is caused by wrongful
or unrighteous volitions to do that which is known to be pain-
producing to some person in immediate result or in tendency.
Intelligent choice to injure or displease another, when Unrighteous,
produces moral evil. Human choice, as Dr. King and the Boyle
lecturers maintained, is the foundation of moral evil— proximately
at least. This choice must be intelligent choice to do that known
to be pain-producing, positively or negatively. It must also be an
unrighteous or wrongful choice, and whether or not it is unrighteous
or wrongful depends upon the ethical system in vogue. Whatever
determines right and wrong conduct will determine what is right
or wrong choice.
Every ethical system is a method which primarily involves a
limitation or restriction of the activity of one by the wants, desires,
purposes of other similar beings. The individuality of one is
restrained and conditioned by other individualities. There has
been in the world's history much discussion over the true rule of
moral action and great dispute about the ultimate principles of
ethics. But on the whole scholars and students have ranged them-
selves in one of two groups : the first, those who believe in a Natural
morality ; the second, those who believe in an. Artificial, or, as it is
otherwise termed, a Supernatural morality. The former system
recognises the organic unity of mankind, each individual being at
the same time means and end of all the rest, and establishes its
rule of right and wrong upon the basis of the general welfare. That
conduct which conduces to the common happiness, the greatest good
of the greatest number, is right ; any other conduct is wrong. The
rule of duty for the individual is to do as one would be done by,
qualified by the necessities of self-preservation, and to some extent
CHAP. in. EVIL AND PAIN. 17
self-development. The other system adopts to a very consider-
able degree the above precepts, but derives them from assumed
or claimed divine commands and establishes their validity upon re-
lations of man to a Divine Being. Natural morality tests every-
thing by its value in promoting happiness. Artificial morality
determines conduct and dispositions with relation to the supposed
pleasure or displeasure of the Deity as the same is revealed through
certain authoritative channels.
But whichever system be adopted, and whatever test be applied
to conduct to determine its morality or immorality, moral evil is still
pain caused by human volition. Not all pain causecl by man's will
is moral evil, since pain may be righteously inflicted ; but that
woe," uimappiness, distress, pain, which comes from unrighteous
dispositions and choices, is included within the category. Evil,
however, as suffered, is always pain, even if it be moral evil, the
latter being only pain arising from certain peculiar causes.
18 THE NATURE OF EVIL. PAKT I.
CHAPTER IV.
THE EVOLUTION OF PAIN.
IN its simplest forms pain is the sentient appreciation of disorgan-
isation in the physical system. A cut, a bruise, a sting at the
periphery, is followed by sensations of pain ; so also an ento-peri-
pheral lesion produces sensations of internal distress. The dis-
organisation may be positive or negative. The cases just instanced
are of the first variety ; but pain may also ensue from the lack
of organising assimilating force. The creature which lies dying of
starvation suffers from sensations of disorganisation as truly as one
which is perishing from a wound. Life is a process of adjustment
and adaptation of organism to environment. Where this adjustment
is incomplete or imperfect, there is a tendency to dissolution and
disintegration of the organism, more or less marked in the ratio
that the imperfection of adjustment is exhibited. Wherever this
disorganisation is initiated or continued, pain is present as the
mental concomitant of physical degeneracy, until death ensues
and the veil is drawn through which we cannot see.
Sensational pain varies in quantity. Its distinctive varieties,
however, are not so much indicated by quantitative differences as
by differences in the localities to which we ascribe the bodily source
of the pain. A pain at the end of my finger, a sharp pang in my eye,
a pinch upon the skin, a headache, a stomach-sickness are varieties
of the indefinite number and kinds of painful sensations. But let
us not fail to note that the heterogeneity so far as it exists depends
upon the increase of intelligence. The more the mind distinguishes
and defines, the greater the variety of pains we apprehend. This
distinguishing and defining, however, is the exercise of intellectual
power. The increase of such power depends upon an increase in
complexity of the nervous system. A more complex nervous
apparatus implies a relatively greater complexity of the whole
organism in structure and function. The truth then becomes
apparent that in all those things which concern quality, pain varies
CHAP. IV. THE EVOLUTION OF PAIN. 1 9
with the degree of intelligence ; that is, it is less definite, less hete-
rogeneous, and less complex as intelligence is low. Respecting
quantity, we are not so sure. How far intensity or pervasiveness
of feeling can subsist with a minimum of cognition is not yet made
certain ; but with a limited range there appears to be a greater
quantity with a less discrimination, and conversely. Below these
indefinite limits I am inclined to believe that feeling is itself
greatly lessened as intelligence is diminished.
The control of action by pleasure and pain as motives depends
upon representation, which in turn requires discrimination and
defining. I must remember the object to which I ascribed my pain,
and in order to do this I must have had an originally definite per-
ception of that object. Now the development of the representative
powers is the index of the development of intelligence. So that
it is as mental action increases in definiteness, complexity, and
heterogeneity that pain as a factor in the determination of conduct
is more certain, definite, and calculable.
It is in the process of this development that emotional pain
comes to play its part. The most conspicuous form is fear, with its
many varieties from diffidence and suspicion to the extremes of
terror. Fear, however, springs from intellectual action. Our past
experience may, when remembered, cause us to anticipate a
recurrence of definite evils, or it may furnish us with the material
out of which our imaginations may construct terrible phantoms to
frighten us. Such apprehensions affect our actions, often con-
trolling our conduct for long periods of time, sometimes changing
the whole course of life. The anticipation of ills to occur in the
future is certainly the cause of the most depressing feelings of
emotional life. Anger also has an element of pain, but this even
is rather from the admixture of fear — of the consequences, either of
conflict or of abstinence from conflict, or both.
As intellectual development proceeds in the order of evolution
the springs of emotional pain are multiplied as the objects which
may become causes of pain become multifold. Association and
representation reach farther, intellectual vision has a longer and a
wider range. We see danger afar off, we connect more closely and
more accurately present circumstances with evils to come. Along-
side of this increase in power of association goes an increased power
of prevision which enables men to avoid in a greater degree the
harm they dread. The prudential virtues become more largely
developed. In the course, however, that form of pain known as
c 2
20 THE NATURE OF EVIL. PART I.
care, solicitude, anxiety appears to a greater extent and exercises
a powerful influence upon mental life. Terror and superstitious
fear are lessened, but these other forms of fear, of which I have just
been speaking, become prominent.
With the greater power of forecasting the future there arises in
the course of mental evolution an increased susceptibility to that
class of pains which may be indicated under the general term
of disappointments. The more the mind anticipates the future, the
more it constructs ideals for realisation in time to come, the more
it dwells in a region of hope ; so correspondingly it must suffer
more keenly from the defeat of its plans, and the failure of its
cherished expectations :
Of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these ' It might have been.'
The memory of such failures is peculiarly depressing, and tends
to lower the vitality, especially as old age comes on, and there
appears no further opportunity to repair the errors of the past or
build upon the ruins of earlier constructions : —
Care keeps his watch in every old man's eye.
Despair exemplifies both disappointment over the past, and fear for
the future.
Once more, a very important group of pains which appear in
mental life as intelligence increases in definiteness, heterogeneity
and complexity, are those which arise from the sympathies.
Sympathy springs from the primitive pleasure of society, but
sympathetic sentiments are not conspicuous where the intellectual
development is at a low point. At the bottom in the scale of
mental evolution antipathetic sentiment are in the ascendant ;
and, indeed, in human life where the militant spirit prevails
sympathy is much deadened and blunted, sometimes nearly extir-
pated. But, generally speaking, when the representative power
enables the mind to perceive the organic connection of society, the
cognition of fellowship is enlarged. In the beginning the family
life is certain to develop sympathetic sentiments to a high degree
of intensity, though perhaps within a narrow range. When the
coherences of the community, the tribe, the nation are established
sympathetic feelings are extended. But whatever may be the
part the sympathies play in the mental life of the individual, as
they increase in potency, of course the ability to feel another's pain
CHAP. IV. THE EVOLUTION OF PAIN.
as one's own is enhanced. We are more inclined to be moved, and
may be made ourselves miserable by the woes of others. The
mother's love is perhaps the most remarkable example of this ; but
it is also found in the sorrow and griefs of a friend, or even in the
misfortunes or the death of a public benefactor or hero whom we
have never seen.
We must not fail to consider that the same progress of intelli-
gence which multiplies the sources of emotional pain also provides
new modes of relief and mitigation. This is, of course, implied.
The conquest of pain indeed proceeds more rapidly than its
development. This is merely saying that mankind grows wiser as
the race grows older. In this fact lies all hope of progressive im-
provement, and the final reduction of both physical and moral evil
to its lowest terms. Some of the methods of accomplishing this
result we hope to indicate in subsequent pages.
Without other specific references, in conclusion it may be said
that the evolution of pain as feeling proceeds from the presentative
to the representative and re-representative as intelligence grows in
definiteness, heterogeneity and complexity. Upon sensational pain
is superinduced reproduced sensational and emotional pain, the
extent, variety and degree of both the latter being dependent upon
development of the representative power in its reminiscent, con-
ceptive, discursive and constructive exercises.
22 THE NATURE OF EVIL. PART T.
CHAPTER V.
THE OFFICES .OF EVIL.
THE final cause of pain humanity is not competent to know, and a
search therefor would be wholly barren of results. The part
which pain plays in mental experience we are able to ascertain
to some extent. The office of sensational pain, at least, is to give
information of disintegration and dissolution in the physical system.
Its effect is to stimulate action to remove the cause of the pain ; but
if the efforts at removal are unsuccessful, and the pain continues, it
depresses the vitality and extinguishes motion. Pain is first a warn-
ing friend, then a tyrannical master. In short, pain is the mental
concomitant of disintegration and dissolution of the organism while-
life lasts. It is a motive to action to remove the pain or cause of pain.
Life may be painlessly extinguished. This is usually done
suddenly by violent means, or by the slow action of anaesthetics.
In either of these cases pain gives no warning of approaching
death. But in the normal and natural movement of the forces of
evolution and dissolution it is an efficient monitor of danger to the
bodily integrity. It shows the absence of that adjustment of
organism to environment upon which the maintenance of life
depends, and stimulates to an attempted attainment of the neces-
sary harmony.
The cases in which pain is itself a benefit, as for instance when
producing pleasure through stimulation, do not militate against
this view. A bitter taste in the mouth is certainly disagreeable,
but the quinine which caused it tones up the whole system. Yet
in all such instances the pain as pain is still a mark of lack of
assimilation, which must be followed by expulsion or by disorgani-
sation, if continued. When, however, the lack of assimilation is
succeeded by a better assimilation, all we can say is to repeat the
very old truth that it is not safe to trust wholly to first appearances.
A moderate degree of pain in one quarter may be useful to prevent
a greater somewhere else. The disorganisation at the surface
caused by a mustard plaster is not any the less disorganisation,
CHAP. V. THE OFFICES OF EVIL. L>3
though it be applied to prevent the greater destruction from the
inflammation within.
The same law as to the office of pain holds good when we pass
from the presentative to the representative. Continued pain,
whether presentative or representative, is followed by great loss of
vitality. Everyone knows how many human beings die from
mental anxiety and distress of one sort or another. Brooding over
past misfortunes and dreading evils expected to happen, sympa-
thetic grief over the misfortunes of others, invariably prostrate the
energies to a greater or less degree according to the weakness or
strength of the individual, and the quantity — extent, intensity,
or duration — of the deteriorating causes. That form of evil com-
monly known as mental pain is more apt to affect unfavourably the
brain, or those organs which are supported by the sympathetic
system of nerves. In addition to direct effects there are, of course,
all the indirect effects coming from alterations of conduct through
the emotional disturbances.
I have alluded to the fact that the effect of pain is in the first
instance to stimulate action to get rid of the pain, by removing the
cause. Effort may also be made to remove one's self from the
sphere of action of that cause. As stated in the first chapter, we
mean by the word evil that which we desire to avoidr ward off,
escape from, prevent. /~Tbe same jbhing is to be said of pain. Now
happed that to prevent or escape pain we may even
go so far as to destroy life itself. Suicide presents itself as a
means of avoidance, the assumption being in such case that death
will be a cessation
Where the wicked cease from troubling,
And the weary are at rest.
The force of present or anticipated evil may be so great as to cause
the encountering of a greater present pain in preference to antici-
pated ills, or in preference to an expected continuance of evils
already upon us. Where a Nirvana of rest is believed in for
existence beyond the grave, or even when annihilation is expected,
suicide is often advocated as a blessed relief. The doctrine of
eternal punishment after death for the wicked, in a contrary manner,
operates as a deterrent, because, to use a homely phrase, it seems
to the sufferer to be jumping from the frying pan into the fire.
To the individual, therefore, pain has its beneficial uses to a
degree. So far as- it serves the purposes of a sentry to warn
'24: THE NATURE OF EVIL. PART I.
against impending danger, it is an advantage. But beyond this it
is the enemy of individual welfare and life. As a means of educa-
tion it is good within a limited range. Otherwise it is an evil, in
fact, evil itself.
The social condition of mankind creates social organisms. To
declare generally a truth to be afterwards amplified — mutual inter-
dependence produces the sentiment that the common good is to be
aimed at and secured, not the benefit of the individual alone.
Hence it is sometimes the case that the interest of society is so far
antagonistic to the welfare of the individual that even the destruc-
tion of the latter may be desirable for the benefit of the former.
That which is evil to the one may be good for the many. This is
on substantially the same principle exemplified in the case of pain
inflicted upon the individual at his own election, in order to prevent
greater evil. Better cut off an offending right hand than to ruin
the whole body. As in this last situation so also in the social
organism, when evil becomes pervasive enough to affect a large
number of individuals, or the whole, then it becomes destructive of
the organic integrity.
The social organism is made up of individuals. Evil to or in
the organism is evil in or to some individual member of that
organism. When, therefore, we say that it is for the good of the
whole that an offending member be <cut off, we mean that it is for
the good of many, or most of the individuals comprising the society
that evil happen to one, on the principle above stated.
It is out of this antagonism of individual interest and social
interest that evil as a social phenomenon to be eradicated presents
itself. To begin with, such evil arises from the antagonisms and
competitions of individuals ; then, as the idea of the organic unity
of mankind grows, this constraint of the will of all upon the one
makes itself more and more manifest and in resistance to this, evil
arises. The choice of individuals inclining toward the injury of
others, then against the welfare of the whole social organism,
through conduct calculated to affect it, is the root and source of
evil in society.
It will be found on examination that evil in the social relations
accomplishes the same results as upon the individual organism.
Where the conduct of any individual toward another, or toward
others, is of such a character as to work injury to the integrity of
the social organism, each of whose parts is at the same time the
means and end of all the rest, then such conduct is symptomatic
CHAP. V. THE OFFICES OF EVIL. 25
of danger, and must be restrained, repressed, or punished. If this
last is not done, but evil conduct be allowed to continue and to
spread, the social organism is destroyed, and a state of war ensues,
wherein each person defends himself and secures his ends as best
he may.
Since the social organism is wholly made up of individuals,
whatever tends to bring happiness to individuals is intrinsically of
advantage to society ; on the contrary, whatever tends to bring
pain upon individuals is in itself bad. The only limitation in any
individual case is the claims of other individuals ; and this limita-
tion makes the infliction of pain on others often praiseworthy and
necessary. It will be remembered that we spoke of moral evil as
that form of evil produced by an intelligent unrighteous choice to
injure or displease another. The righteousness or unrighteousness
is determined by the law of the social organism. It will be seen,
therefore, that while evil must happen to some individuals in a
society, and this beneficially to the whole organism ; yet moral evil
is totally, absolutely opposed and inimical to the social unity.
Physical evil must necessarily always exist while organic life
remains constituted as it is. So long as the individual life perishes
and the body returns to dust there will be pain. Whether moral
evil will ever wholly disappear from the world is a more complicated
question. The egoistic sentiments which are at its root become
less controlling as mankind progresses in civilisation, while the
altruistic, upon which depend the social order, are growing stronger.
But the energies impelling to self-centred development are tremen-
dous. Moreover, even if the disposition to do right exists, it is not
easy always to determine what is right conduct. The total dis-
appearance of moral evil, therefore, is something we can hardly
dare to hope for ; in reality, it seems impossible in a social organism
made up of growing, developing individuals that some conduct
should not occur which is animated by an utter disregard for the
welfare of the many, or by a desire to injure another for self-
gratification. But such conduct can be very closely restrained, and
the desire can be reduced within comparatively harmless limits.
This is what civilisation is doing, and much more in the same direc-
tion may not ujireasonably be expected for the future. The world
is surely growing better, and there is no justification for pessimistic
forebodings. They may be indulged in as a luxury by people who
enjoy pleasures of that fashion, but they are not healthy and have
for a basis only a very superficial seeming of truth.
26 THE NATURE OF EVIL. PART I.
CHAPTER VI.
THE ULTIMATE ORIGIN OF EVIL.
WE know that pain is a universal concomitant of mind, so far as
we are able to make mind a subject of science. To the same
degree, within the limitations of our knowledge, life and mind
are correspondent. T-n _nrdftr_tn pr*p'*fl-1'T1 fop> u1t,JTna,tp. orionri of
pam_we_gTion1d__be obliged_to_explain the n1tjrrifi.t.ft nn'gm^of jmind
and life. This science has never been able to accomplish. And
ifjevil Le pain, proaontoitivo Qr.ruiJiuutnLaliv'e, we are thus_baffled
in our sp,flTnhjor_thpi yiltiTnate origin of evil. We have no facts
from which we can generalise. We do not know; and so far as
human knowledge indicates, anything at all, it is that the problem^
is insoluble and the mysteryinscrutable. Whence evil comes and_
why it exists arebeyon3~our ken.
in (JEapter II. we noticed briefly the principal theological
explanations of the origin of evil. So far as physical evil is
concerned, they do not interfere with the advance of knowledge
or the promotion of right conduct, unless where the doctrine held
is, that it is impious to resist the will of the Deity when he chooses
to scourge. Under such a doctrine, of course, both ignorance and
apathy are encouraged. But, happily, the general religious senti-
ment in the most enlightened communities favours an activity to
prevent and ward off physical pain — a pious submission, indeed,
if it be necessary, but only when it is unavoidable, piety equally
consisting in work to escape and provide against. Yet in no
event is man regarded as responsible for the existence of physical
evil as such. He may be culpable for his foolishness, because of
his failure to use his best energies to ward off such evil, but the
measure of his punishment is generally conceded to be the natural
consequences of his acts and omissions. Now the scientific account
of moral evil supports a similar doctrine with regard to its relations
to human life. He who injures another is indeed responsible to
his fellows for the injury done, and for the sake of preserving the
CHAP. VI. THE ULTIMATE ORIGIN OF EVIL. 27
moral order punishment is inflicted; but the injury done or
intended is always the measure of the guilt, and determines the
extent of the penalty. Man is not in any other sense nor to any
other degree accountable for moral evil. He is not in any wise
responsible for its existence ; but, having broken the law, the
social and socially ordained consequences are the natural and the
only penalties. On the other hand, the theological views of evil
make moral evil to consist in sin in the heart of man, a violation
of God's law, a guilt worthy of endless punishment, for which man
is absolutely responsible to God as an originator of this evil.
There may be a supernatural power which tempts man to go
astray, but if he yields, as he always does, he is absolutely at
fault and worthy of the highest condemnation. This appalling
notion has had such a vast influence upon human life and conduct
that I shall devote a subsequent part of this work to its special
consideration, and thus need not dwell upon the subject here. In
subsequent pages I shall present reasons tending to show that the
doctrine in question is not only untrue, but is obstructive of moral
progress and prejudicial to the best order.
PAKT II.
THE ELIMINATION OF EVIL
' For the individual man there is no radical cure for the evils to which human
nature is heir outside of human nature itself Our healing is not in the
storm or in the whirlwind, it is not in monarchies, or aristocracies, or democracies,
but will be revealed by the still small voice that speaks to the conscience and the
heart, prompting us to a wider and a wiser humanity.'
JAMES KUSSELL LOWELL, Address on Democracy.
31
CHAPTER VII.
THE PROBLEM OF HAPPINESS.
THOUGH we cannot expect wholly to extirpate evil while human
nature is constituted as it is, still from this very constitution we
are for ever compelled to aim at its avoidance and prevention.
Certain it is, indeed, that we cannot always prevent and avoid,
but it is equally sure that we can succeed in such attempts to an
extent whose limits are undefined and appear to become farther
and farther removed as we approach them. In the preceding part
of this work we directed our attention to the Problem of Evil as
a problem of intellectual determination of the nature of evil and
its relations to sentient existence. The reader is now invited to
consider the question as one whose solution primarily concerns the
regulation of conduct. We are thus to regard more closely the
bearings of evil upon volition and action, and of these latter, in
turn, upon evil.
In view of the considerations already advanced, it seems obvious
that the great end of human activity with reference to the subject
before us must be to minimise evil. If we cannot wholly cast it
out from experience, but can to an indefinite degree guard against
it, forestall or counteract ; and if we must perforce of our nature
always be labouring for this result, the end of endeavour just
stated is plainly presented. We are to seek how to reduce the
amount of evil from which we must suffer to the lowest possible
limits.
This is an end which you, reader, must all the time be pro-
posing to yourself. Your actions inevitably must, consciously or
unconsciously, be directed toward the avoidance of evil, andjjf you
intelligently follow a course which will bring pain upon you, it
is only because you expect a resultant satisfaction which to you
is of more value than the pleasure you will lose or the pain you
will incur by such a course.
It is an ultimate fact, which neither you nor I nor anyone
32 THE ELIMINATION OF EVIL. PAKT II.
else can otherwise explain, tha,t the individual does not wish harm
to befall him, except as the means to good. It is an early
experience of everyone that evil does come to him from the
voluntary action of other human beings. It is, therefore, a matter
of interest to you and to me and to every other, that not only
physical evil but moral evil be eliminated and prevented. When
another individual does anything which harms, or which has a
tendency, directly or indirectly, to harm you or me, an interest at
once exists, naturally and because we are living beings, to prevent,
avoid, or counteract that harm ; and since all injurious action on
the part of others proceeds either from ignorance, carelessness, or
positive malevolence, it is of the highest importance that such an
impression be made upon others, that their intelligence, feelings,
and will shall combine to direct their actions so that they
themselves shall not inflict harm or do that which tends to bring
evil upon you and me. This is the problem of the elimination
of evil as regards the individual alone. All else is but means to
an end.
In order to effect the desired result so far as the action of
human beings is concerned, we must know something of their
nature; this we can only determine by observation, which leads
us to analogical reasoning based upon our own consciousness and
introspective examination of ourselves. Upon making such an
examination we find at the outset that the pressure of appetitive
urgencies must be so strong that these creatures about us we call
human beings will inflict harm upon us, or will have the disposition
to do so (unless those urgencies are satisfied), either if we have
the means to satisfy and withhold or if we are in any wise an
obstacle to satisfaction. At least it is necessary for our advantage
(the reader's and mine as individuals, we will suppose) that these
human creatures be restrained from harm, and the most effectual
way to prevent them from entertaining evil intentions under such
circumstances is to supply their wants.
But, still observing and reasoning analogically, we find that
it is not enough merely to satisfy the selfish primary appetites —
lilff^ of hunger, for instance. Men propose ends to themselves,
the aWIAfent of which reaches far into the future. They concern
not merely the present need, but probable or possible future wants ;
they hence involve not alone a single action but a course of action,
tending to create habits and governing dispositions. We must
take into consideration for our own security all the influences
CHAP. VII. THE PROBLEM OF HAPPINESS. 33
which are likely to affect character. This is a perplexing and
troublesome matter.
We may say we will do nothing, but will keep ourselves aloof
from other human beings, relying upon our strength if attacked,
and perhaps indulging the hope that they will rend each other
and let us alone. Yet this is a very dangerous course ; it does
not contribute to peace of mind, and by no means is fruitful in
happy results when actually tried. The same inclination which
prompts them to slaughter each other is liable to turn them against
us. Again we can resolve ourselves to attack, in the hope to
exterminate as many as possible and to intimidate the rest. This
plan, too, is open to objections. Instead of ourselves killing the
others off they may kill us off. Grave risks will be run, and the
issue is at best uncertain. Better to sit still and continue to smile in
the hope of softening their hearts.
Experience has amply proved the superiority of this last
method, or an extension of it. If we can teach other people to
have regard for the interests and the welfare of their fellowmen,
we shall, at the outset, be more secure ourselves and less exposed
to all that class of evils which we have called moral. And not
merely this. We have thus far been looking only to the negative
side ; but there is a positive side to be regarded. It is better that
others shall be encouraged to refrain from injury. It is much
more advantageous if they can be brought actively to assist us.
In view of this, of still greater importance does it become to
control the ends and dispositions of our fellows.
These dispositions could manifestly be best governed and
directed toward the desired end, - if only we could create in
individuals such a natural constitution that each one should find
his greatest pleasure in the pleasure of others. Then through
himself he would continually be stimulated, of his own spontaneous
activity, to remove evil, and the causes of evil, from the life and
environment of those with whom he should be brought in contact.
The misfortunes of others would be a source of pain to him, while
his own ends of life could only be achieved in the happiness of
others. And if the individual could be induced at least tj^hold
up before him such an ideal of life as an end of achievement,
something would certainly be gained of advantage to others, even
though he should fail perfectly to realise his own aim because of
the pressure of egoistic urgencies.
This, though a difficult work, is not impossible. In the first
D
34 THE ELIMINATION OF EVIL. PART II.
place there is in the human constitution a primary pleasure in the
amicable presence of others of one's kind. There exists an appetite
for society which brings human beings together. We thus have
an ally at the outset in human nature itself. Again, the perpetua-
tion of the race depends upon the appetite of sex which draws two
persons together with a power at times almost irresistible. And in
the third place, the natural instinct of maternal affection (with
paternal also, though in less degree) is characteristically self-
forgetful, and sometimes absolutely and uncompromisingly so. We
have thus natural gregariousness which cannot be maintained with-
out some degree of altruism ; sexuality involving altruistic desires
or appetite ; parental affection leading to altruistic conduct. There-
fore we find as a basis for the development of the altruistic ideal
and character instinctive aggregations of individuals, in whom,
however imperfectly, altruism is apprehended as desirable and to
some extent practised. Sympathy, or an ability to share in some
manner the feelings of others, appears as a natural susceptibility
and the still more powerful emotion of love is exhibited as a con-
stitutional trait.
Now, it will be of little avail to you, the reader, and to me, who
are now simply consulting our own interests, if only here and there
an individual be found in whom have been formed an ideal of life
and a disposition for conduct which impel him to help, or at least
not to hurt, his fellowmen. It is necessary that these safeguards
against harm be multiplied as often as possible. We cannot rest
free from apprehension until everybody whom we are likely to meet
is at least put under some sort of self-restraint of the altruistic
nature. The more thorough and the more prevailing the altruism
the better. Therefore, everywhere and in all men we must seek
to develop the altruistic character for the sake of our own interests.
We have thus before us revealed as a social state desirable for
the interest of us, who are observing, a condition wherein each
derives his greatest happiness from the happiness of others and is
animated by a ruling disposition to promote that happiness. If
this state of society could be realised we should have the most
favourable conditions possible for securing, so far as human effort
can accomplish it, the abolition of pain generally, and we should
dry up at the very sources themselves the springs of all moral
evil. Consequently each individual will regard it as the most
important social desideratum that as many people as possible be
inspired by altruistic ideals and governed by altruistic dispositions.
CHAP. VII. THE PROBLEM OF HAPPINESS. 35
We have already noted as evident that the altruistic disposition
will not ordinarily and naturally stand in the face of the urgencies
of self-preservation. Under the pressure of starvation men will
prefer themselves to their neighbours, and be incapable of thinking
of anything else, or seeking anything else but their own relief.
They will seek to remove their own pain first. I do not now take
into account how far education may change this, but am consider-
ing the facts as they are, normally and generally. Hence a prime
requisite to the development of the altruistic spirit is to satisfy the
primary urgencies of human nature, at least to the extent necessary
for the individual's conservation. For like reasons it is of value,
though not so indispensable, that the desires of individuals beyond
the primary appetites be gratified or allowed gratification so far as
they do not in their fulfilment work the injury of others. We men-
tioned in Chapter V. that it is intrinsically of advantage to society
that the individuals composing society be happy, as far as possible.
In a state of comfort and contentment there is less motive to the
individual to harm others. If he is himself happy he will be more
inclined both to permit and to promote the happiness of others,
especially if this can be done with little sacrifice on his part. I am
quite aware that there are important qualifications to be made here,
and many interesting and serious questions relating to the effect of
surrounding conditions on individual motives ; but I think I am
quite safe in enunciating as a general truth that the happier men are
the more favourably disposed they are to the happiness of others ;
and beyond this we need not (at this stage) go. It may be said,
indeed, that by experiences of suffering we are made more sympa-
thetic to the woes of others. This is true in a measure, but this
sympathy arises chiefly after our own pain is over, and in con-
nection with the remembrance of it. While we are in trouble our
thoughts and activities are concentrated upon the means for at-
taining our own relief. We have no leisure and little disposition
to devote ourselves to the aid of others. Charity begins at home.
It surely will not be contended that the best way to make people
mindful of the dole of other human beings is to plunge them into
a like condition of pain and keep them there. This is contrary to
all experience.
Upon a foundation of some degree of security the altruistic
character may successfully be built up. Negatively, we must allow
self-conservation, and positively we must promote the development
of the altruistic character. These two are really complementary.
D 2
36 THE ELIMINATION OF EVIL. TART II.
If every person is careful of, and bo some extent promoting, tlie
happiness of others, the level of happiness will be raised, the
amount of pain diminished ; this fact in turn will beget more
altruism, and thus the progress will go on. Altruism will tend to
increase the general happiness, and this is the same thing as
decreasing the general amount of pain. Hence the problem of the
elimination of evil is identical with the problem of the promotion
of happiness — increasing the excess of pleasure over pain.
We have thus far been viewing the abatement of evil from the
point of view of one or two individuals — the reader and I, as having
an identity of interest — who are examining the environing con-
ditions of life solely with reference to egoistic ends. It is inevit-
able that in a society of human beings each individual should, from
motives such as I have indicated, come to entertain an idea, more
or less elaborated, of the desirability of altruism on the part of other
people. It is for his interest that there should be an altruistic
order governing the conduct of others toward him. And, except
where his interest conflicts with that of another, it is preferable
that altruistic conduct prevail, since this lessens the probability of
malevolence and maleficence toward him. But when you and I
have gone far enough to understand this and to fully appreciate
its truth, are we able to avoid recognising that we also are indi-
viduals, integral parts of the social regime, and applying, however
reluctant we may be to do so, the same precepts to ourselves and
our own conduct that we do to others ? Besides, we have the
same natural altruistic inclinations as others. And above all, we
discover that others are requiring the same dispositions and con-
duct of us that we are requiring of them. Thus, having dictated
to everybody else a law of the subordination of egoistic ends to
altruistic and social, solely from motives of our own interest, we
find ourselves under the domination of the same law. In the
meshes of the net we have spread for others we behold ourselves
hopelessly entangled.
37
CHAPTER VIII.
THE MORAL LAW.
BY a process like that which has been outlined in the last chapter
arises the Moral Law, without which society could not exist.
Hence come the notions of Right and Wrong as affecting conduct,
based upon notions of Good and Evil as ends, themselves derived
from experiences of Pleasure and Pain, presentative and repre-
sentative. What is wrong under the Moral Law is Moral Evil, and
what is right is Moral Good. And in determining what is right
and wrong we must have reference to what is morally Good and
Evil for our own standard or gauge.
The first requisite of a moral science is a determination of what
is ethically Good and Evil. The second requisite is a determina-
tion of the best methods to secure the Good and eliminate and
prevent the Evil. With this last are connected rules of right and
wrong conduct. The conclusions of moral science give us, then, the
mandates of moral law.
We have already maintained that each individual seeks his own
happines^ that is to say, directs Ms actions toward the avoidance
orpain and the experience of pleasure. It would be foolish for us
to claim that the individual ought to aim at securing painful
experiences and avoiding pleasurable ones, that he ought to live
for the sake of enduring torture, or, perhaps, commit suicide by a
painful mode of death. No person will naturally do this, and the
only ground upon which he can be made to do anything like it is
some anticipated pleasure of a future world for himself, or perhaps
others, or some pleasure which he takes in the good of other beings
in this. Left to himself, unaffected by other sentient beings, we
have no warrant for supposing anything but that the individual
would seek for pleasure and avoid pain, would aim at his own
happiness. We are conscious (each to himself) that we seek our
own happiness, and that we have no power to do anything else,
except as we are willing in some way to limit it on account of
other sentient beings.
38 THE ELIMINATION OF EVIL. PART II.
It would thus be purposeless and altogether futile for us to
attempt to modify the activity of individuals, except with regard
to the benefit of others. If, then, the sole limitation upon the
volition and action of one is the happiness of others, the Chief Good
as determining the moral law of the community is the highest
happiness of each, taking in view the happiness of others — or, as
I have already stated it, the maximum happiness of the greatest
number. This- is the ultimate end to be gained in the government
of conduct". Whatever tends toward securing this result is good,
of good character, of a goodly nature, of good report. On the con-
trary, whatever tends to prevent or oppose is evil, of evil nature,
report, or character. Conduct, therefore, of the first description is
Right ; that of the latter description is Wrong^\
Let us now once more direct our attention to the fact already
noted that, in order to obtain this social desideratum of happiness,
individuals must be so moulded as to develop the altruistic
character. They must be inspired by the social ideal — not, of
course, unqualified altruism, but altruism as a means to the social
end. They must be so educated as to have a preference for the
right and a disposition to do right. But it is impossible for any
human being to come into existence, under present conditions at
any rate, without self-regarding tendencies. Consequently, under
the stimulus of these impulses which have self for their end and
the pressure of the social environing influences, assisted by natural
sympathetic inclinations, are born two sets of tendencies, creating
two sets of volitional motives, which, though sometimes coalescent,
are generally conflicting. On the one hand, are the motives to
self-preservation and self-conservation, with self as the end of
volition and activity ; on the other, are the motives to self-
abnegation or self-forgetfulness, with the good of others as that
end. As the one are indulged, so far forth as the influence is
unmodified, it tends toward an egoistic character ; . so far forth as
the latter are followed, the effect is favourable to the development
of the altruistic. To the degree that the motives of the former
class are uncounteracted they will create volitions and lead to
actions which, in their reactions upon the character, will develop
egoistic sentiments with egoistic ends ; and as these last are mad o
more general and controlling, the person's ideals of life will be
pervaded by egoism and will become prevailingly egoistic. To
such a person self will be the end of all his activity, in whatever
direction he may choose to exert it, and everything will be good
CHAP. VIII. THE MORAL LAW. 39
which favours self, while everything will be indifferent or bad
which does not conduce to the benefit of self, or which positively
detracts from selfish satisfaction. In such a case the moral im-
peratives are of no force or weight, save as by heeding the require-
ments of the social order selfish interests are promoted. In the
extreme exemplification of this character there is no voluntary
submission to the moral law, much less any active disposition to
conform to it.
But where the altruistic motives are continually strengthened,
in similar manner but with contrary effect, altruistic sentiments
and altruistic ends are developed, and with these altruistic ideals
of life, whose distinguishing feature is self-forget fulness, with the
pursuit of subordinate ends of altruistic nature — the advantage,
good, or happiness of others, one, a few or many, as the range of
regard is narrower or wider. Then when egoistic impulses come
into conflict with these altruistic motives, if the former are yielded
to, a sense of wrong-doing, of unworthiness, of sorrow or remorse is
generated, while if they are conquered, a feeling of right-doing,
elation and self-approval ensues.
An individual in the formation of personal ends constructs in
imagination a fiction of himself in a certain state or condition of
experience with relation to things and other persons. Intel-
lectually considered, this picture may be one of himself with his
attention directed outward, or with his attention directed inward.
(1) He may represent himself as witnessing his family, his com-
panions, his neighbours, his country, in a state of prosperity,
happiness, general weal, with pain at a minimum ; and, secondarily,
may represent himself as having contributed to this result and done
nothing to hinder it. Further than this he may form no picture
of his own condition. This is the purely Altruistic ideal end. It
will be greatly varied according to the range of objects embraced,
and its value correspondingly affected. A person will not satisfy
the moral law by proposing as an end the happiness of his family
irrespective of the happiness of the community, however devoted
and self-forgetful he may be. But we will look just now only at
the quality of the proposed end taken alone. (2) He may repre-
sent himself as witnessing this state of happiness as contributed
to by him negatively and positively, and himself as included in
it — as wealthy, famous, beloved. This is a mixed end, partly
altruistic and partly egoistic, and might be styled Ego-altruistic.
In attempting to realise it doubtless a conflict would sooner or
40 THE ELIMINATION OF EVIL. PART II.
later occur, in which either altruism or egoism would have to be
chosen to the detriment of the other. Perhaps a compromise
would be effected by which the altruism and egoism would modify
each other, giving a lower degree of both. This sort of com-
promise is very common, and this kind of ideal end is perhaps
that cherished by the majority of civilised and enlightened human
beings, the egoism and altruism varying with respect to each other
according to character and circumstances. (3) He may turn his
attention inward and represent himself as in the possession of
wealth, power, or fame — a Croesus, a Napoleon, a Washington, a
Shakspeare ; but with his contemporaries or posterity benefited
and made happier by his efforts ; the first, however, being primary,
the last secondary. Such an ideal end — to continue our use of
Spencerian terms — is characteristically Altru-egoistic. (4) The
individual may represent himself not as doing, but as being some-
thing, /ca\,oKdya0bs, as having developed to the highest degree of
symmetry his whole nature, as having realised the highest con-
ception of excellence and virtue, as being worthy, or, in other
words, as having attained perfection of character. This amiable
sort of selfishness may be styled jffistho-egoistic. (5) Finally, a
person may imagine himself as attaining wealth, power, glory, or
as enjoying any one of these, but utterly without regard to the
condition of others — whether they be neglected, or whether the
end be achieved at their expense, or through their grief. This is
the purely Egoistic ideal.
Of these ideal ends, one is altruistic, two are mixed, and two
are egoistic. The aestho-egoistic exhibits a very subtle form of
egoism, to which we shall need to give our attention far theron.
It is not dangerous to the social order (except indirectly), be-
cause it adopts the fulfilment of the moral law as the means for
attaining the perfection to which it aims. It does not, however,
and cannot produce either the most useful or the highest type of
character socially considered, since it is after all essentially egoistic.
The moral law, based upon the needs of the social organism,
demands altruism, not blind, but intelligent, governed by the social
idea of the chief good, and will accept nothing else as a sub-
stitute, because in no other way can loyalty and obedience to its
behests be secured.
In proposing to himself these ideal ends to be practically
realised, if possible, and as furnishing the rules of conduct, the
individual contemplates them with pleasurable emotion. They are
™ Jb
CHAP. VIII. THE MORAL
pleasures, groups of pleasures, or series of pleasuresT~~~In the con-
struction and maintenance of these fictions (intellectually speaking)
he feels pleasure, and in the absence of the imagined condition he
feels pain. Thus he has a volitional stimulus to realise a desire for
what he has pictured to himself as enjoyable. This latter, how-
ever, may be restrained by the thought of the impossibility of
attainment, its great difficulty, or the pains which may ensue from
attempting it. Whether then he will persist, or will replace his
selected end by another, depends altogether upon his mental con-
stitution and his circumstances. The result will be governed
wholly by the strength of the motives which arise in his mind,
whether they be suggested from within, or impressed from without.
Whatever end he finally chooses will in any event be an imagined
pleasure, not in possession, but the attainment of which will relieve
or offset present uneasiness and discontent — that is, present pain
of one sort or another, presentative or more or less representative.
It is very generally admitted that the ends of the highest
happiness of the greatest number, and of the individual are not
at all coincident. He who aims at a social and altruistic end may
secure it only with a detriment to his own happiness. This is
undoubtedly true to the observation of other parties who are
lookers on. How far it is true subjectively to the individual
primarily concerned is not so easily decided. When contem-
plating an end of attainment, he may recognise it as an altruistic
end, and at the same time be perfectly well aware that if he aims
to secure it or promote it by his action, much suffering will result
to him, more than if he adopted and followed some egoistic end.
But mere cognitions do not determine volition or action ; the
latter are governed by the quantity of feeling accompanying the
cognition and by organised habits, these habits often adding to, or
subtracting from, the quantity of feeling. If it were not for the
capacity to form dispositions by habitual action, it would be
impossible to follow representative ends at all remote, or to esta-
blish any fixed character. And it is in consequence of this ability
to form and maintain dispositions, and of their actual formation,
that men, on the one hand, see the right and approve it, and yet
the wrong pursue ; and also, on the other hand, behold the wrong,
and are drawn toward it by egoistic considerations, but yet the
right pursue. A person may be so educated that habitually he
derives more pleasure from promoting the happiness of other
people than from acting directly with self-regard. His forecasts
42 THE ELIMINATION OF EVIL. PART II.
and anticipations of future pleasure are all in connection with self-
abnegation of some sort. This may be the case with respect to
all his enjoyments, or it may be generally true with the reserva-
tion of a pet vice or two. Then, if something presents itself as
within his reach and of egoistic advantage, but, if pursued, likely
to bring unhappiness to someone else, the force of habitual desires
to please others is aroused in opposition. Yielding in thought to
the egoism produces present pain, while suppressing the egoism
and yielding to the altruistic pressure of motive brings a feeling
of pleasurable relief. If, then, the pain aroused by thought of
following the egoistic course, and the pleasure experienced in con-
templation of the altruistic outweigh in quantity the pain and the
pleasure of the contrary choice, the egoistic volitions will be
checked and the altruistic prevail, and vice versa. This altruistic
choice may consist perfectly with the intellectual conviction that
more pleasure, as other people view pleasure, would result from the
egoistic choice ; and for the moment the man's attention is given to
the pleasures abandoned, and he feels the pain of regret for having
given them up ; but this very transition of thought produces the
representative pain of the presence of these egoistic advantages
and the absence of the feelings which accompany the knowledge
of altruistic acts performed and of their performance ; the lack is
felt, the mind reverts to the altruistic alternative with a rush of
pleasurable feeling moving volition. Then comes the intellectual
conviction that after all the acquisition and possession of those
things which do give pleasure ordinarily under the circumstances
would not give pleasure to him ; he would not enjoy them, and so
he rests upon his choice, more or less content according to the
strength of feeling aroused on one side or the other. Moreover,
the inability of the mind to dwell upon pain in thought, and to
represent it with great vividness, or perhaps, in better phrase, the
natural tendency to put pain out of mind, prevents ordinarily as
much attention being given to the ills ensuing from a course of
action leading to a particular end, if the ultimate result is repre-
sented as agreeable. In view of all these facts it certainly cannot
be said that the individual in making his choice is moved by any-
thing else but pleasure and pain. Nor is it easy to see how his
preference is otherwise to be accounted for. He is seeking his
happiness as it appears to him, though knowing that on ordinary
reckonings of pleasure and pain he is wrong. Still, the fact
remains that for him happiness lies in the path selected.
CHAP. VIII. TILE MORAL LAW. 4;l
The process is exactly the same, but with an evil result, if the
pet vice be introduced as a powerful motive element. Let us
suppose a person generally altruistic but fond of his cups. He has
plans of a life of useful activity to promote the welfare of his wife
and children, perhaps of others ; but with him great pleasure is
attached to his chosen self-indulgence. He sees that his energies
are diminished, his money spent, his wife and children thereby
made miserable in consequence of his evil habit ; but spite of
all this he cannot get happiness without his drink. He can
represent the condition of himself as existing freed from his habit
as a better condition, and as one in which he would be happier if
lie could only so change himself as to enjoy such a condition. In
such a representation he feels pain at his present situation ; but
this feeling of pain does not compare in intensity with the feeling
of pain which actually arises when he is deprived of his dram.
He yields to the greater feeling ; for him the greater happiness is
in the cup. And by representations of his self-regarding pleasure
his conduct is continually modified with a view to repetitions of it.
He can see that people who are not intemperate are, by comparison
with other people who are drunkards, apparently happier, secure a
greater amount of pleasure, and are afflicted with less pain. He
can also imagine himself as happier in such a condition ; but when
he proposes to conform his conduct to such an ideal, he is made
aware that he is or has become so constituted that for him no
happiness can subsist except with his indulgence. He has con-
structed in imagination another man such as he is not, for whom
happiness can be maintained without drink. Perhaps I may
think it would be better for me if I were an angel, and in being
an angel I might have more self-satisfaction. I can imagine an
angel as happier than I ; but if I follow the things that pertain to
humanity in preference to those I conceive are more peculiar to
angelic beings, it is because, being a man, my happiness can only
be secured by objects within the compass of humanity. I am what
I am ; and if I cannot make myself different, I shall seek what I
can attain, and in that find the greater happiness, although know-
ing that if I were somebody or something else I might in and
by other ways be better or happier.
From what has preceded, it will thus be seen that the social
needs produce social ends, which determine the moral law. That
this law proposes as the chief social good, and thus as the social
end to be attained, the maximum happiness of the greatest num-
44 THE ELIMINATION OF EVIL. PAET II.
ber. That the chief social good is not coincident necessarily with
the maximum happiness of the individual, who may be able only
to find his good in his own selfish ends ; but that, on the other
hand, the latter may be so educated, under certain conditions, as
to derive his highest happiness from the happiness of others, and
to find his chief good in life in contributing to the realisation of
the social summum bonum. Obviously there is room for much
doubt and question oftentimes as to what actually does tend
toward the promotion of the common good, and what is opposed to
it ; also as to what methods are best calculated to produce in
individuals the altruistic disposition and repress the egoistic.
Ethics is thus a theoretical science and a practical as well ; while
closely connected with it is the science and art of Education.
45
CHAPTER IX.
SOME QUESTIONS OF MORAL SCIENCE.
THE doctrines of this work thus far unfolded, with some modifica-
tions according to varying ideas of different thinkers, but never-
theless without essential contro version, have been generally accepted
as furnishing the scientific explanation of the nature of evil, as
supplying the groundwork of the moral law, and as pointing out
the direction in which effort should be put forth to secure its
fulfilment. They furnish the theory and precepts of what we called
in Chapter III. a natural as opposed to an artificial or theological
morality. An influence, however, has arisen in recent English
thought adverse to what is usually termed the Utilitarian or Hedon-
istic Ethics, which, though it certainly has theological postulates
to rest upon, can scarcely be called a theological system. The
advocates of this system of ethics purport to establish its theses
upon a scientific examination of the facts of human consciousness
without any aid from assumed divine commands, its implied
theology being pantheistic. This antagonistic influence proceeds
from an ethical system of ^Estho-egoism which is most fully
developed in the ' Prolegomena to Ethics ' of the late Professor
Thomas Hill Green. Although the ethical tenets of this system are
much involved with the general philosophy of knowledge upon which
they are founded, which fact would prevent a very thorough exami-
nation of the whole treatise, yet in view of what has been stated
above, I can scarcely pass by the propositions of this able writer
without some remark, especially since I have already been taken
to task by critics for omitting reference to them in a former work,
wherein I have indulged in a little ethical discussion.1 If, then,
the reader is not fond of criticism and ethical polemic, I advise him
to omit this chapter, since he will find in it no new principles, and
probably also no new applications of principles already advanced,
except incidentally in connection with the discussion of the ethical
end and the general rule of the moral law. Nevertheless the student
1 System of Psycho loyy, chap. Ixix.
46 THE ELIMINATION OF EVIL. PART II.
of ethics cannot fail to be interested in the new development of
thought mentioned, and will demand at least some consideration of it.
The concluding words of Green's work, in treating of the
practical value of moral theories, declare that the author's point has
been to show that a criterion for the determination of conduct to
those who need some ' counsel of perfection ' above the declarations
of conventional morality 1 ' is afforded by the theory of ultimate
good as a perfection of the human spirit resting on the will to be
perfect (which may be called, in short, the theory of virtue as an
end in itself) but not by the theory of good as consisting in a
maximum of possible pleasure.' Again, in another place, the author
says 2 : ' Our theory has been that the development of morality is
founded on the action in man of an idea of true or absolute good
consisting in the full realisation of the capabilities of the human
soul.' Moral good is c an abiding satisfaction of an abiding self.' 3
' Projecting himself into the future as a permanent subject of
possible well-being or ill-being — and he must so project himself in
seeking for a permanent good. . . ' 4 The idea of a true good as
for one's self is ' ultimately, or in principle, an idea of satisfaction
for a self that abides and contemplates itself as abiding.' i This
well-being he doubtless conceives as his own.'5 The intrinsic
good is ' the perfection of the human soul.6 ' The true good for
man is the realisation of his capabilities, or the perfection of
human life.' 7 c The good will is a will which has such perfection
for its object.' 7 The good will is l the one unconditional good . . .
the end by which we estimate the effects of an action.' 8
From the foregoing quotations it will appear that in last resort
the ethical end of the individual's effort is egoistic. He is to seek
the good, and this good is his own perfection. This is the ideal he
is ever to hold before him. The will to be perfect is the uncon-
ditional good, and in attaining the good, and in labouring for it,
lies the only self-satisfaction. The moral law, then, according to
Green, lays upon each person an imperative to seek his own
perfection, to be virtuous for virtue's sake as an end in itself. It
is possible that some of the adherents of Green's ideas would demur
to having the system termed egoistic ; but how upon any fair con-
1 Book IV. chap. i. p. 308.
2 Book III. chap. v. p. 286. The references in the footnotes of this chapter
will be understood as referring to Green's Prolegomena to Ethics, unless otherwise
stated.
3 Book III. chap. iv. p. 234. " Ibid. p. 231. 5 Ibid. p. 232.
6 Book IV. chap. i. p. 303. 7 Ibid. p. 308. 8 Ibid. p. 292.
CHAP. IX. SOME QUESTIONS OF MORAL SCIENCE. 47
struction of language it can be made to appear otherwise I am at
a loss to understand. Whenever we press the inquiry : c Why
ought I to do thus and not otherwise ? ' we invariably receive the
answer, ' For the sake of your own self-satisfaction, which can be
attained in no other way.' We are always thrown back upon the
perfection of self as an ultimate end.
When we come to consider how the individual is to realise the
ideal of his own perfection, we are informed that it is in a social
good which is not in conflict, but is identical with his own personal
good. ' Society is founded on the recognition by persons of each
other, and their interest in each other as persons, i.e., as beings
who are ends to themselves, who are consciously determined to
action by the conception of themselves as that for the sake of
which they act. They are interested in each other as persons, in
so far as each, being aware that another presents his own self-
satisfaction to himself as an object, finds satisfaction for himself in
procuring or witnessing the self-satisfaction of the other. Society
is founded on such mutual interest. — — ' l ' But the converse is
equally true, that only through society, in the sense explained, is
personality actualised. Only through society is anyone enabled
to give that effect to the idea of himself as the object of his actions,
to the idea of a possible better state of himself, without which the
idea would remain like that of space to a man who had not • the
senses either of sight or touch And just as it is through
the action of society that the individual comes at once practically
to conceive his personality — his nature as an object to himself—-
and to conceive the same personality as belonging to others, so it
is society that supplies all the higher content to this conception,
all those objects of a man's personal interest in living for which he
lives for his own satisfaction, except such as are derived from the
merely animal nature.' 2 Once more, in order to be good in the
truly moral sense, the individual must observe that i the contribu-
tion to human perfection in some way or other must be the object
in which he seeks self-satisfaction, the object for which he is living
for himself.' 3
Accordingly we are presented with an ideal of a society
conditioned by a moral law imposing upon each individual a
striving for his own perfection, which, however, is only to be
attained through seeking for the common good, which is the per-
fection and thus the self-satisfaction of all. This is still egoism.
1 Bock III. chap. ii. p. 191. 2 Ibid. p. 190. 3 Ibid. p. 191.
48 THE ELIMINATION OF EVIL. PART II.
For though the individual secures his own excellence by recog-
nising and favouring the common excellence, yet he can only do
this by presenting himself to himself as gaining his self-satisfaction
in such a course. This last is the end proposed toward which the
other is the recognised means.
Now, to some considerable degree, this doctrine of ideal ends
as determining good and evil resembles universalistic hedonism as
it has been set forth in these pages. With a little construing and
amending we should have no difficulty in reading out of it a
sound, respectable utilitarianism. Certainly, so far as the practical
side is concerned this would be quite simple ; but were we to
make even the suggestion of any possible affinities between the
two, we should be greeted with a terrible outcry from the ^Estho-
egoists who follow Professor Green. They are not only no friends
of hedonism, but their system is absolutely opposed to hedonism,
different in principle, in proof, and in precept. If, then, they
insist on refusing the amendments and constructions necessary for
the object suggested, we must claim that it is greatly the worse
for their doctrine ; since as it stands, as they appear to mean it,
rejecting construction and amendment, the expression of the moral
law is greatly inferior, both from a theoretical and practical point
of view, to the ethics of hedonism.
Beading over the last three quotations from Green, we are
impressed with this similarity to some of the utilitarian tenets to
which I have referred. The average intelligent lay reader would
think an assertion that an individual finds his self-satisfaction only
in witnessing the self-satisfaction of the others in his social
organism to be nearly the same thing as saying that the individual
finds his highest happiness in the highest happiness of those about
him. And if working for this highest happiness of others or their
self-satisfaction constitutes perfection, this is pretty much what
the universalistic hedonist finds as his great precept of the moral
law. The ^Estho-egoist, however, has the most profound contempt
for ' happiness ' or ' pleasure ' as explaining or as furnishing ends
for moral action, and abhors the use of these terms for such
purposes. If. then, we venture to ask him if he means that this
ideal condition of social through individual perfection is a condition
of the maximum of pleasure and the minimum of pain, he flies in
our face, tries to blind our vision by flapping his wings, while he
seeks revenge by scratching us with his claws.
Indeed, Green, when in the midst of his exposition he comes
CHAP. IX. SOME QUESTIONS OF MORAL SCIENCE. 49
to points where the reader would be likely to ask just such questions
as the foregoing, breaks out into attacks upon hedonism, as if to
impress upon the world that a maximum of pleasure is not the
chief good, either individual or social, were a matter of no less
importance than to convince that perfection is the true ethical
end. Hence Green's work has a negative as well as a positive
value, so far as it has value at all. The attempted destructive
criticism of hedonism seems to me to be far the ablest part of the
4 Prolegomena,' for the suggestions there made are often subtle,
ingenious, and plausible, while the positive constructive portions
seem laboured, clothed with an unhealthy phraseology, unsym-
metrical, and at times meaningless, except as interpreted by the
despised hedonistic philosophy. So much is this the case that I
quite agree with Professor Henry Sidgwick ! in thinking that
Green has failed to furnish either a rationale of duties, ' or even
to provide his readers with an outline of a coherent method by
which a system of duties could be philosophically worked out.'
This appears very plainly when we try to find out what Green
means by ' perfection.' In what does it consist ? What are the
outward and visible signs ? What is the perfect social condition ?
How are we to know that one state is more perfect than another ?
The way in which these questions are answered is very unique.
The author tells us that a moral agent is one who is under a
self-direction to seek the true good, and that the true good is
4 that which satisfies the desire of a moral agent, or that in which
a moral agent can find the satisfaction of himself which he neces-
sarily seeks ! ' 2 Anticipating the objection that will at once occur,
Green proceeds to observe that in a sense such objection is valid,
but since man has not secured the full realisation of perfection he
cannot know what it is. ' We know it only according to the
measure of what we have so far done or are doing for its attain-
ment.' 3 ' Of a life of completed development, of activity with the
end attained, we can only speak or think in negatives, and thus
only can we speak or think of that state of being in which,
according to our theory, the ultimate moral good must consist.
Yet the conviction that there must be such a state of being,
merely negative as is our theoretical apprehension of it, may have
supreme influence over conduct, in moving us to that effort after
the Better which, at least as a conscious effort, implies the con-
1 Mind, No. XXXIV7. 2 Book III. chap, i, 171.
* Ibid. chap. ii. 195.
50 THE ELIMINATION OF EVIL. PART II.
viction of there being a Best.' l c It is, therefore, not an illogical
procedure, because it is the only procedure suited to the matter in
hand, to say that the goodness of man lies in devotion to the ideal
of humanity, and then that the ideal of humanity consists in the
goodness of man. It means that such an ideal, not yet realised
but operating as a motive already, constitutes in man an inchoate
form of that life, that perfect development of himself, of which the
completion would be the realised ideal itself.' 2 It will thus be
observed that Green persists in his doctrines in the face of the
admitted fact that they involve a circulus in probando.
Our first emotion on reading the above-quoted words and their
context is one of amusement. Then, on re-reading and reflecting
that Green discerned clearly what we are prone to think his own
folly, and yet deliberately insists upon it after stating the manifest
objection as clearly as any critic could possibly do, we begin to
doubt our faculties, and become suspicious that Green has appre-
hended and is enunciating a profound truth, which our own
obtuseness prevents us from discerning. Some further consideration
is, therefore, very necessary.
That the human mind has a constructive activity admits of no
question. This never has been disputed by anyone in any manner
worthy of serious consideration. By virtue of this ability man
forms imaginative pictures of experiences which do not otherwise
actually occur to him, using for this purpose, indeed, materials
which experience has furnished. He employs the representative
powers, which project into the future in new forms the presenta-
tions of the past. Thus ideals of a better state or condition are
among these products of the constructive activities. Why we
form such ideals and seek to realise them is a question which
Green answers by supposing an eternal spiritual principle, which
gradually reproduces itself in the human soul and prompts to
improvement. I do not regard it necessary to consider what
foundation there is for such a supposition in this place ; but I am
quite willing to concede the fact that ideals of Better, if not Best,
are formed and do stimulate conduct. Allowing this, what we
want to know is how to determine what is Better or Best. This
is what we mean when we inquire what is Moral Good. We can
obtain no practical rule of conduct till we answer this. No positive
system of ethical precepts can be formulated without it. An
individual may, indeed, have a great desire to be good or better,
1 Book III. chap. i. 172. 2 Ibid. chap. ii. 196.
CHAP. IX. SOME QUESTIONS OF MORAL SCIENCE. 51
and may have a definite notion of what is good and better. Does
his will to be good and his attempt to realise his own conception
of the good make him good ? Perhaps so ; but then how comes
in the idea of common good ? Either there must be some outward
standard by which the individual gauges his conduct, and which
is binding on all individuals, or moral good means unadulterated
egoism. In this last view we could have no common moral law
whatever, but in place of it a multitude of individual ideals of
good which each one is striving to realise, and which only by some
happy coincidence agree. How out of such a condition can we
obtain any moral or social order whatever ?
Here, it seems to me, Green's system utterly breaks down.
One would suppose that he must abandon entirely all attempt to
connect moral action with social imperatives, resting entirely on
his explanation of the truly moral good as consisting uncondi-
tionally in the will to be good, leaving the Eternal Cause to work
out the results. To do so would at least be consistent with his
declarations ; and it appears to be the only consistent position for
him to take. Instead of this, however, he lays upon the individual
as an obligation of moral duty the ordinary practical scheme of
morality, which he says legitimately follows from his theory of
good. The imperative to seek perfection, to have the good will,
Green declares, though it i can enjoin nothing, without liability to
exception,1 but disinterested obedience to itself will have no lack
of definite content. The particular duties which it enjoins will,
at least, be all those in the practice of which, according to the
hitherto experience of men, some progress is made towards the
fulfilment of man's capabilities, or some condition necessary to that
progress, is satisfied.'2 These rules, the author goes on to say,
are unconditionally binding, except as against a desire for the
best in conduct, and are binding absolutely as against any conduct
having as an end the individual's pleasure. It is in this way that
Green attempts to connect the ordinary rules of practical duty
with his moral end. I understand him to mean that the ideal of
perfection enjoins that conduct which past experience has shown
to be most conducive to the advancement of the race, unless a
strong subjective conviction or feeling exists that something else
will alone satisfy the will to be good, in which latter case this
conviction is to be followed and not the dictate of convention
based upon general experience. In other words, the ideal of self-
1 Italics his. - Book III. chap. ii. 197.
E 2
52 THE ELIMINATION OF EVIL. TART II.
perfection is first and last ; and if the individual thinks that the
common rules of morality are most conducive to his own perfection,
lie should follow them ; if, on the other hand, his ideal of self-
perfection requires him to make an exception, it is his duty to
make it, though he must be very sure that in such a case he is
not really animated by a desire for his own pleasure, which never
justifies such an exception.
Now, we should naturally fancy that the professed follower of
this ethical philosophy must either declare that the moral end is
the perfection of the individual Ego, which is to be the dominant
end whenever any other comes into competition with it, or that
the moral end is the common perfection to which the individual
end is to be subordinated, if need be. Green seeks to evade the
dilemma by the assertion that in fact these two ends coincide. By
this it will be supposed he means that the perfection of the Ego
is to be realised only in seeking for the perfection of others.
Though theoretically each one must seek his own perfection,
practically he can only find it in seeking the perfection of humanity.
This certainly sounds very like the i Fundamental Paradox of
Hedonism.'
Again we are impelled to ask, What is this individual and
common perfection ? We are told that it is subjective, but only
to be achieved through effort upon some outward object. It is a
satisfaction to be gained in labouring for a certain state or con-
dition of other people. It is not pleasure, happiness, or joy.
Perish the thought ! It is satisfaction, self-approbation resting in
the will to be good, and knowing that it can command such self-
satisfaction only in this way. Still perplexed, once more we ask,
What is this perfection ? We get no answer further, except that
at least we must in the main follow the teachings of experience
as to what courses and conditions have contributed most to the
fulfilment of man's capabilities, and improve upon past experience,
if we can. Thus, confessedly, the moral ideal does not furnish us
with any definite schedule of duties, or indeed tell us in what
directions our efforts to realise it are to proceed. For these latter
we must go to past experience. The moral ideal does not even
explain itself, but past experience must be appealed to for an
explanation of its meaning.
If perfection be essentially the will to be good, the individual
must have some idea in his mind of what goodness consists in. It
must be some volition affecting character, according to Green.
CHAP. IX. SOME QUESTIONS OF MORAL SCIENCE. 53
And character involves habitual disposition, issuing in actions or
conduct. This conduct bears relation to other beings. It is the
will to do something which shall aid the perfection of others.
When this will exists, the ego is conscious of it and feels satisfac-
tion ; when it does not exist, dissatisfaction exists which the Ego
also/eefo. Judging others by himself, he will infer that when the
good will exists in others they also will fepl satisfaction ; and in the
measure that it is not realised they will feel dissatisfaction. If,
then, I know that I am promoting by my conduct this feeling of self-
satisfaction in others, I shall feel my own self-satisfaction. Hence
I shall be realising my own perfection if I do those things which
promote the feeling of self-satisfaction in others. But I have no
means of determining when others have this feeling except as
they exhibit self-satisfaction. But they may exhibit self-satisfac-
tion with noxious conduct. I am under no moral .obligation to
encourage this, but quite the contrary. I must, then, do those
things which common experience has shown to be conducive to
promoting a will to aid the perfection of others. How, then,
according to common experience, are people esteemed to be better
or worse? They are considered to be made better if they are
taught to obey the laws, to exercise temperance, forbearance, and
benevolence ; to do no murder, to steal not, to avoid covetousness —
in a word, to do as they would be done by and to love their neigh-
bours as themselves. When I sincerely will to promote those
virtues in others and practise them myself I am evincing my own
will to be good. Our will to be good, which is the unconditional
good, subsists in the disposition to practise and promote the
cardinal virtues, which are sometimes said to be epitomised in the
Eleventh Commandment of Scripture. This seems to be the out-
come of Green's ethics. In proceeding to sum up I trust I shall
do the author no injustice. I certainly believe that my formula-
tion is supported both by the quotations I have made and their
context.
1 . The self-satisfaction coming from the possession of individual
virtue is the chief good.
2. Virtue consists in a governing disposition to be virtuous.
3. Being virtuous consists (for the individual) in putting forth
activity (by example and by precept) for making humanity in
general virtuous.
4. Humanity is virtuous when all men are permanently dis-
posed to be virtuous.
54 THE ELIMINATION OF EVIL. PAET II.
If Professor Green had stopped here I do not believe he would
have himself contended that the foregoing conclusions could be
very fruitful in results of any kind. I doubt if they are even
profitable as exhibiting feats of mental gymnastics. But this
seems to be his philosophy as to the Summum Bonum. Now as
to the rules of Right Conduct : —
5. Experience has shown that humanity has been improved
(i.e. men have been made more virtuous, and better realised their
self-satisfaction in virtue) by men not committing murder. Hence
in order to have a will to be virtuous I must have a will to commit
no murder (except a situation arise in which I may feel that my
ideal of self-perfection requires me to commit murder, when it is
my duty to make an exception, provided I am convinced that I am
not constrained to murder from the pleasure of doing so). In like
manner, experience having pronounced in favour of benevolence, I
must have a disposition to be benevolent, subject to similar quali-
fications. So with all the practical virtues.
6. Rules of conduct are hence determined by the experience of
the race as to what is better for humanity and what is worse.
Men who are virtuous must at least (subject to occasional excep-
tion) conform to these rules, else they are not virtuous. They are
still virtuous, however, if they veto these rules from a high sense
of duty without any taint of pleasure.
It thus appears —
(A) The Chief Good is subjective feeling or consciousness of
self-satisfaction. This is attained and kept by right volition
issuing in right conduct.
(B) What is Right is determined by the experience of humanity
as to what is better and worse for humanity, subject to occasional
correction (to be cautiously exercised) by individual ideals of the
Better.
Apropos of this enunciation of the principle of right conduct
(B), it may be said that the experience of humanity must mean the
experience of what is better or worse for individuals more or less.
And better and worse have no meaning except with reference to
the standard of Good. That which is nearer the Chief Good is,
then, better ; that which is more remote is worse. Hence we must
say that Right is determined by the experience of humanity as to
what is the Chief Good of humanity. But the Chief Good is a
form of consciousness subjective to the individual, ^hus right
conduct is that which the experience of humanity has proved to be
CHAP. IX. SOME QUESTIONS OF MORAL SCIENCE. 55
conducive to the securing and maintenance in the individual of
this consciousness. The experience of humanity has shown that
such conduct is altruistic regard for other people. Consequently
altruism becomes a law of conduct.
Really, then, in order to get any meaning out of Green's
doctrines of the Chief Good and the rule of Right, we must resort
to the experience of humanity as to what has been best for
humanity. But experience of humanity being nothing else than
the experience of individuals, we must consider also in what the
latter consists. It certainly consists in consciousness, and con-
sciousness has its three phases — Reeling, cognition, and volition.
There is a consciousness which we seek to eliminate, and a con-
sciousness we seek to retain ; the latter we may call desired, the
former undesired. The desires of individuals come into conflict.
Since the fulfilment of individual desires is the basis of the con-
sideration of experiences as desirable — it being necessary that we
pass to the ideal of desirable from the desired — the only limitation
which humanity can put upon the fulfilment of individual desires
is the ill effect it may have upon the desires of somebody else.
This seems to be an inevitable conclusion.
We are now, I hope, in a better position to see the bearings of
Green's ethical philosophy. We must be confirmed, I think, in
our belief that his circular statements of ethical principle mean
nothing at all, if taken by themselves. When supplemented they
lead either to an indefinite incoherent egoism, wherein the indi-
vidual acts upon the promptings of his own inclinations, guided
only by a vague ideal, which is wholly at the mercy of his selfish
instincts, except as some sort of common morality is beaten into
him by his environment ; or else the ideal principles are subordi-
nated to rules of practical morality derived from experience of the
race, which upon examination are found to involve and postulate
all the utilitarian considerations. This last is Green's actual pro-
cedure. That which experience has taught the world yields the
greatest amount of self-satisfaction to the greatest number of
individuals is good. The Chief Good is the highest degree of good
which we can realise — indefinite indeed as to limits and particular
characteristics further than the general one of self-satisfaction.
But, whatever it is, experiences of the past must determine our
appreciation of it. Hence the Chief Good is a generalisation from
experiences of human life, and our rule of conduct is determined
by those experiences, which Green calls self-satisfaction and the
56 THE ELIMINATION OF EVIL. FAKT IT.
hedonists pleasure. This seems to be ' tweedle-dum ' and ' tweedle-
dee.' In fact, were it not for the frequent and express opposition
to all forms of utilitarianism and hedonism displayed throughout
the c Prolegomena,' the reader would be much disposed to think
that Green, though befogged by the mists of some so-called tran-
scendental philosophy, was feeling his way along the right path
toward a uiiiversalistic hedonism, and had in his mind a nebulous
conception of it which he was trying to express. But we are
prevented from entertaining such a supposition for the reason
stated. We must, therefore, ascertain, if we can, wherein Green
finds hedonism so objectionable theoretically and practically. And
it will be especially convenient to begin this task just here, because
we have come upon a point at which lies, according to our author,
a fundamental fallacy of hedonistic ethic.
This error consists in the non-recognition of what is claimed
to be the fact, that pleasure is not the only object of desire. This
is charged upon hedonists as generally and characteristically their
mistake, Mr. Henry Sidgwick, however, being exonerated, though
at the expense of logical consistency. According to the hedonists
we desire nothing but pleasure, and what we do desire we desire
because it is pleasurable ; according to Green we desire other
things than pleasure, and if in such case pleasure is attached to
the desire, it is because we desire. In other words, pleasure (or
exemption from pain) is not the only end or motive of volition and
action. Green considers desire to have the common characteristic
that it has a direction ' to an object consciously presented as not
yet real, and of which the realisation would satisfy, i.e. extinguish,
the desire. Towards this extinction of itself in the realisation of
its object every desire is in itself an effort ; however the effort may
be prevented from making its outward sign by the interference of
other desires or by the circumstances of the case. Such desire,
then, implies on the part of the desiring subject : (a) a distinction
of itself at once from its desire and from the real world ; (//) a
consciousness that the conditions of the real world are at present
not in harmony with it, the subject of the desire ; (c) an effort,
however undeveloped or misdirected, so to adjust the conditions of
the real world as to produce satisfaction of the desire.' J Moral, or,
as Green puts it, ' distinctively human/ action proceeds from
Motives ; and motives are ideas ' of an end which a self-conscious
subject presents to itself and strives to realise for its own self-
1 Book II. chap. ii. 131, 132.
CHAP. IX. SOME QUESTIONS OF- MORAL SCIENCE. 57
satisfaction.' l Desire, then, seems to be the parent of motive. A
felt want accompanied by an idea of a possible state or condition
in which this want is satisfied or extinguished constitutes the
motive to action.2 The idea of one's self enjoying pleasure in any
manner thus may be a motive ; but this is not the only species of
motive. If now desire is the parent of motive, what is the parent
of desire ? Why do we desire a particular thing, or, in fact, desire
at all ? Because, as nearly as I can make out, the eternal con-
sciousness reproducing itself in the mind of man awakens these
desires, and continually stimulates new desires toward a more
complete self-development or a higher perfection.3 Whether or
not the eternal consciousness stimulates the desires for pleasure or
the lower desires does not appear, I believe. The inference, how-
ever, is that it does ; but speedily improves upon them by inspiring
other and better desires. And, as before set forth, morality con-
sists in the will to seek and promote the self-perfection which the
eternal consciousness is all the while suggesting.
Green has not favoured us with any complete, positive, and
systematic analysis of feeling, nor has he exhibited at all fully his
ideas of the mutual relations of feeling, cognition, and volition,
although he has done much in the work now before us and in other
places in the way of negative criticism of the doctrines of others,
and though he does maintain clearly enough that in all the func-
tions of mind there is the one self or Ego uniting the whole. In-
deed we are very frequently impressed with the author's apparent
lack of attention to psychology. It does not seem as if he had
ever devoted himself to a patient and careful study of the facts of
mental experience and action. Probably he preferred to work out
his theory of knowledge, not indeed without some reference to the
facts of mental action, but deductively from postulates or a priori
principles rather than inductively from observations upon the more
special and particular operations of mind, and upon the structure
and functions of its correlated nerve organisation. Other people
have followed this method before him, and brought great reproach
upon the whole guild of students of mind. And it must be con-
fessed that they have not added much to positive knowledge by
their labours. Hegel was a philosopher who worked in this way.
It cannot be said that hitherto the Hegelian method has been very
fruitful in valuable results to humanity, intellectually or morally.
At any rate, however much Hegel may have been studied, when
1 Book II. chap. i. 87. 2 Book III. chap. i. 175. 3 Ibid. 174.
58 THE ELIMINATION OF EVIL. PART II.
his disciples come to write books they are quite careful to keep all
mention of their master out of the volumes. But I, for one,
sincerely hope that it will not be counted among the benefits to be
conferred by an increase of Kantian influence in England that the
pursuit of the theory of knowledge shall ever be attempted with-
out the fullest and soundest basis being laid in psychology. The
value of any movement which aims to construct such a theory,
except upon this foundation, should be profoundly distrusted. Its
tendency is to undo all the good work which has brought the
knowledge of mind within the circle of the sciences, and caused the
study of mind to be respected and valued.
I can but think that if Green had been distinctively a psycho-
logical student we should have had a much more satisfactory
account of the mutual relations of intellect, feeling, and will. But it
must be confessed that the hedonists have not always been clear,
either in their thoughts or expressions, upon these subjects. And
it is this want of lucidity that sometimes gives Green an advan-
tage in his attacks upon hedonism. The difficulty with the
hedonists has been that they have not seemed to recognise, except
intermittently, the relations of pain to volition. They have not
made prominent the office of pain as a motive. Green is perfectly
right in saying, ' The appetite of hunger must precede and condition
the pleasure which consists in its satisfaction. It cannot, there-
fore, have that pleasure for its exciting object.' l The eating of
food may be presented as an end, but it is for the relief of hunger.
The exciting cause of volition and action then is some felt pain or
discomfort. ' The will moves to the greatest uneasiness.' The
motive is pain, or, if we prefer to say so, a want. Why uneasiness
is produced is a deeper question, which we shall consider later ;
but it is enough to say now that pain, presentative or representa-
tive, is the primary stimulus to action. So far we can allow the
justice of Green's criticism, though I think he would have found
the real ground of his objection rather in the lack of emphasis and
prominence given to the true facts of the case by the thinkers
criticised than in their misapprehension or want of apprehension
of those facts. But, granting that uneasiness is the motive, in
order to obtain relief from that discomfort action must take place.
Past experience connects a pain with actions which have relieved
it. Memory of those actions, and of the state of relief in which
they terminated, creates what we term an end of action or
1 Book III. chap. i. 161.
.
HAP. IX. SOME QUESTIONS OF MORAL SC
volition ; that is, a state of such relief accompanied by the circum-
tances under which it subsists, as, for instance, in the case just
referred to, a loaded table, and myself eating, and free to eat. The
end involves a cognition of an intellectual object having relation to
myself — the table of food, and I eating, and a feeling, we will say,
of satisfaction in such eating. We then say we desire to get and
eat the food, and volition goes forth to fulfil the desire. When we
get and eat the food our desire is satisfied, the pain is gone, a feel-
ing of pleasure takes its place. Now the question arises, Is it the
feeling of pleasure that we desire, or is it the getting and eating
the food ?
It may be safely said, to begin with, that we do not desire any-
thing which we do not in some manner cognise. That is, if we
desire we know that we desire, and if we desire a particular thing
we cognise that thing as desired. It may also be said that we do
not cognise a thing as desired unless its presence in mind produces
at least an incipient feeling of relief from present uneasiness.
Uneasiness is pain; relief from uneasiness is therefore pleasure.
The thing desired is hence an intellectual object which is accom-
panied with pleasurable feeling. Probably Green would not have
quarrelled seriously with this statement. But it seems clear from
these considerations that while the object of desire is a cognition,
the end of desire is a pleasurable feeling. While, then, it is true
that what we desire is an object presented to ourselves as attained,
we desire this object because it creates pleasurable feeling in place
of the pain involved in the desire. Green's own explanations above
quoted seem to confirm this idea. But we shall also notice, if this
be so, the entire erroneousness of Green's assertion that we derive
our pleasure from anything whatever because we desire it. The
cognition with its accompanying pleasure exists before we can be
said at all to desire the thing which is the object of desire. For
desire is certainly not the painful feeling of uneasiness, although
that gives rise to the desire. We may be very much disturbed by
hunger, but if we did not know that food appeased hunger we
should never have what could be called a desire for food. The
representation of food with the representative pleasure creates a
volitional action toward increasing that representative pleasure till
it becomes presentaiive ; so long as this is hindered desire subsists,
but till the representative pleasure comes into experience there is
no such thing as desire for the object with which it is connected.
If, then, we admit that desire postulates a present dissatisfaction,
60 THE ELIMINATION OF EVIL. PART TT.
which we think of as relieved by the attainment of a given
object, which latter would not be desired unless it furnished a
satisfaction to replace the present dissatisfaction, we are forced
to conclude that the object of desire is always an object to
which is attached pleasurable feeling, which alone makes it the
object of desire. We can only avoid this by some new analysis of
feeling with respect to quality, and with respect to its relations to
volition. Psychology makes the fundamental distinction between
pleasurable and painful feelings, there being also feelings of relative
indifference between the two. If, in addition to the quality of
feeling as pleasurable and painful, there is another quality of self-
satisfaction and self-dissatisfaction, or if states of consciousness
have, besides the aspects of cognition, feeling, and volition, the other
aspects of self-satisfaction and self-dissatisfaction, then it may be
true that we do not always desire pleasurable objects because
pleasurable, and that desire is not so far forth as it is desire neces-
sarily directed toward something pleasurable. Again, if we deny
that every state of consciousness involves the three complementary
aspects of feeling, cognition, and volition, and that we have no other
mode of defining or describing a pleasurable experience except in
terms of volition as an experience we seek to retain, while a pain-
ful experience is one we seek to get rid of and prevent, there may
be some room for assertions like those of Green. But to admit the
truth of these latter on the topic of desire we should be forced to
overturn the whole science of psychology, and build it anew. I
certainly am not prepared to do this upon the unsupported dicta of
a writer who does not profess to approach his subject as an unpre-
judiced inquirer, but starts out with the proposition that a philo-
sophy of knowledge and of ethics, which is not a natural science,
is a desideratum, and then attempts to construct one as plausible
as he can make it !
In this consideration of the objects of desire, however, Green
has the benefit (of which he fully avails himself) of another uncer-
tain and ambiguous declaration of the hedonists, namely, that men
always seek pleasure. But when the uncertainty is cleared up, it
does not help Green's position. At first blush it might seem that
to say we always seek (i.e. volition is always directed as to an end
toward) pleasurable objects, or objects which raise pleasurable
feeling, and have no power to seek anything else, and to declare
that we always seek, and must seek, pleasure, is the same thing.
But it is not the same thing. The first statement is true ; the
CHAP. IX. SOME QUESTIONS OF MOHAL SCIENCE. 61
second is false. Green would almost, perhaps quite, accept the
first, but because he does not understand the true meaning of the
second expression, and is afraid of its supposed implications, from
this fear supervenes a theory which is not at all true. The
hedonists, on the other hand, from not clearly seeing what the
dolus latens is in the affirmation that we always seek pleasure,
enunciate a series of declarations which, as Green says, ' offend
the unsophisticated conscience.' * Let us endeavour to elucidate
the situation a little. I have gone over this point once in a work
already before the public,2 but deem that it will be of advantage
to apply the same thoughts to the particular case before us, since
I believe that over the questions here raised broods the thickest
fog that at present obscures the true theory of ethics. Whether
our efforts are or not effectual in dispelling the mists (and of this
others must judge), I am sure even the attempt is useful.
Every present experience involves both cognition and feeling,
else there would be no consciousness. We cannot explain whac
we mean by cognition or by feeling, except by referring to the
experience. To know is to know ; to feel is to feel. In every
state of consciousness there is an objective and a subjective side.
I distinguish (cognition) an object (presentative if you please)
from myself and regard it as other than myself, but existing then
with relation to myself. With this object 3 is experienced feeling.
If the feeling is painful, volition moves to eliminate the object
from experience. If the feeling is relatively indifferent or pleasur-
able, there is no volitional movement beyond that of attention, or
that movement necessary to retain the object in consciousness.
When the object (as cognised) disappears it is liable to recurrence
or representation. When the object is represented, the accom-
panying feeling is represented, both being fainter than the original
presentation. I know (cognition) that when that object was pre-
sentative I experienced pleasure (feeling) which was stronger than
the pleasure now experienced. A want (feeling) is thus experi-
enced, alternating (probably) with a representative pleasure
(feeling), which is attached to the representative object (cogni-
tion), inducing the belief (cognition) that if the representative
object again became presentative, I should have a recurrence of
1 Book III. chap. i. 157. 2 System of Psychology, chap. Lux. sec. 22 ff.
3 Of course our actual experience is not of one but of many objects in co-
existence and succession ; but perhaps I can be better understood by using the
simpler expression, and can do this without substantial inaccuracy.
62 THE ELIMINATION OF EVIL. PART II.
the same strength of pleasure, thus assuaging the want. At this
juncture there are open two courses of mental action. The atten-
tion may be fixed upon a cognition of the pleasure experienced in
the presentative experience, or it may be fixed upon the object
itself with a view of bringing that object into presentative ex-
perience. Let us take a definite example. Suppose I for the
first time drink a glass of wine. Pleasure ensues. I afterward
remember the drinking of that wine, and a desire for a glass of
wine is created. I may now direct my thought to the pleasure of
drinking that wine ; I represent myself as drinking it, and dwell
in thought upon the sensations of pleasure I experienced. I thus
evoke a considerable amount of pleasurable feeling, which is the
pleasure accompanying the cognition of the pleasure of drinking
the glass of wine ; but while I am evoking this pleasure my
activity is paralysed. I am contenting myself with a pleasurable
contemplation, and the want satisfies itself for the moment in this
contemplation. On the other hand, I may direct my attention
upon the glass of wine as an object, and possess myself with the
thought that if I had it I should enjoy the original pleasure. This
thought tends rather to increase than diminish the present
urgency, and stimulates me to activity to get the wine. I desire
the glass of wine, and my energies are bent to obtain it and
drink it. From this line of consideration, pursued to any extent
desirable, we see that Green was right in his assertion that men do
not always make pleasure, or any particular pleasure, as a sub-
jective feeling, experience the object (intellectual) of desire. In
this sense it is true that men do not always seek pleasure. But
he was wrong in claiming that subjective feeling as pain does not
furnish the motive, and subjective feeling as pleasure the sole end
of action. On the other hand, the hedonists are wrong where they
assert that the object of volition and action is always pleasure, but
right in their claim that it is always the end of volition and action.
In this last sense only it is true that men do always seek plea-
sure.
When there is desire for primary pleasures, namely, those of
the fundamental appetitive sensations, if the urgency is great we
are not able to satisfy the want by contemplation. We cannot
content our stomachs by dwelling in imagination upon a good
dinner. We can lessen our activity for the moment by doing so,
but the organic need increases. We must seek things cognised,
the possession of which experience has taught us will relieve the
CHAP. IX. SOME QUESTIONS OF MORAL SCIENCE. 63
present pain. This is true of all the appetites so far as they
demand self-preservation. It is also to a considerable degree the
same with respect to the reproductive appetite. When great
organic urgency is present, it demands real and not ideal satisfac-
tion. So necessary is this that our activity is always largely
directed toward securing the means of gratifying primary desires.
In this way we are always educated by life itself to desire objects
in Green's sense. And it must not be forgotten in this connection
that one of the primary appetites is that of movement and exer-
cise. Thus it comes that we have a pleasure in pursuit which
hence ' is an end in itself.' This fact has very important bearings
on the questions before us. For with a natural appetite for
activity to begin with, according to the admitted laws of the
formation of habits, the pursuit of any object, even of self-
perfection, may become an end in itself, irrespective of the attain-
ment. But just now it is enough to note this circumstance, and
place in connection with it the further fact that we have also a
natural appetitive urgency toward repose, which is intermittent
with the appetite for movement. The two often nullify each
other very curiously, though both are necessary to self-conserva-
tion. For instance, from the impulse to secure repose we may be
impelled to such activity that the pursuit of repose may become
itself the self-sufficient end. And thus it is that a phase of this
pleasure of repose enters into our contemplation of the subjective
pleasure of obtaining anything, thus lessening or suspending our
activity to secure it.
Hence, as intelligence increases in complexity, this increase
exhibiting a great development of representative power, innu-
merable secondary ends arise. These are first (logically and,
in a general way, chronologically) the pleasures of material
objects, around which are clustered in association the primary
pleasures ; next, actions or states which are directly conducive to
securing primary pleasures ; then actions or states more repre-
sentative still, but with the same tendencies ; and, finally, tertiary
pleasures, including the most general and abstract notions of what
are regarded as causes of pleasures. Thus courses of action, habits,
and dispositions are formed, whose ends may be either those of
pursuit of some object, or of the enjoyment of things contemplated
as attained. These ends are all formed by experiences of pain and
pleasure, have pain and pleasure as moving causes, and in pleasure
have their sole significance of accomplishment. If it were not for
64 THE ELIMINATION OF EVIL. TART II.
the pleasure anticipated in this accomplishment they would cease
to be ends, and would not be desired.
As more general ends are formed, the constitution and circum-
stances of the individual determine whether they are self-sufficient
or are to become intermediate to other ends. They also determine
what ends are actually created, and in this whether they are
predominantly ends of activity or of passivity. If the attention is
prevailingly directed toward pleasurable feeling as such, it is quite
easy to see how the moral initiative may be weakened which, in
Green's opinion, constitutes such a strong objection to hedonism.
The author of the ' Prolegomena ' puts this very forcibly, and
undoubtedly the result which he deprecates often does follow from
making pleasure an end. The moral energy may be diminished
from dwelling upon imaginations of pleasure, for the reason already
explained that concentrating the attention upon one's state of
enjoyment diminishes activity. It may also be lessened by the
conviction that if we have no power to desire anything but
pleasure, or enjoy anything but what we do enjoy, effort is useless,
and the only thing to do is to make the most of what comes.
But such a conviction would be false to fact. Nothing in what
has been claimed by the best authorities of hedonism leads to any
such conclusion. Every doctrine is liable to misconstruction, and
a theory which is true ought not to be held responsible for
erroneous deductions from it. Certainly, it would be a curious
procedure, if for the reason that people do not understand or
correctly apply a true principle, we banished that principle and
substituted false doctrines because people would be more likely to
misunderstand the latter to their advantage. The result of our
examination thus far has been to show that, while we have no
power to propose to ourselves ends which do not receive their
distinctive character as ends from the fact that they are pleasures,
and their accomplishment involves pleasure, we do have the
capacity to propose, and are all the time proposing, ends and
accomplishing them without abstracting the notion of pleasure and
consciously aiming for it. In fact, I am unable to see that Green
can successfully avoid the conclusions which we have thus reached,
after his admission that the satisfaction of a desire always involves
pleasure. We have already noted how the objection that the
satisfaction of a desire postulates the desire as first existing avails
nothing against the hedonistic doctrine properly explained, because
if the desire is not the anticipated pleasure, no more is it the
CHAP. IX. SOME QUESTIONS OF MORAL SCIENCE. 65
present pain, but it involves both ; and until the object with its
anticipated pleasure appears, there is no desire for that object,
while the anticipated pleasure, as extinguishing the present pain,
constitutes the object as desired in distinction from other objects
which enter the mind but are not desired. The whole of Green's
reasoning on the topic of desire (which is a fundamental point in
his philosophy) is vitiated by his failure to make a thorough
analysis of this mental state. If he had made such analysis, he
never would have enunciated the remarkable proposition that a
thing is ever pleasurable because we desire it, and that we do not
in such cases desire it because it is pleasurable.
But this weakening of moral initiative to make one's self better
is no less liable to occur under Green's doctrine than under the
hedonistic. A man may become as intoxicated with the contem-
plation of himself as having the good will as he may become with
the imaginations of himself enjoying pleasure, or, as I should
prefer to say, any other pleasure. He may also have his c moral
initiative ' weakened by the thought that perfection is unattainable,
and that we even cannot know what perfection is ; hence, it is
useless to do anything more than to indulge one's self in beatific
visions, and persuade one's self that he has the good will. In its
practical applications the doctrine of perfection may also weaken
the moral initiative. For, if man is bound by the imperative to
' exercise the recognised virtues and excellences,' 1 he may not
consider that he has any business to depart from what custom
enjoins ; on the other hand, if he avails himself of the exception
allowed by Green, his activity is in danger of running so far into
egoism as to subordinate the recognised morality to individual
selfishness. Of course, I do not mean to claim that these are
inevitable results of the ^Estho-egoistic ethics, but I point them out
as evil consequences just as likely to ensue from the adoption of
these principles, and just as pernicious in quality and quantity as
any ill effects either actually seen or reasonably to be anticipated
from hedonistic doctrines.
Perhaps we have sufficiently considered for present purposes
what ends men actually desire to achieve. We will accordingly
pass to questions which arise respecting the desirable and what
ought to be desired. We have allowed that people form ideals of
Good and Better, which they propose to themselves as ends of
possible attainment, as desirable to be realised. And it is well
1 Book IV. chap. iv. 380.
66 THE ELIMINATION OF EVIL. PAKT IT.
enough to call attention to the circumstance that Good may mean
my Good — i.e. of the Ego — or it may mean the general or social
Good. It would seem as if Green and the hedonists were in
accord in declaring that the Good to the individual is a state
of consciousness. The hedonists call this state pleasure ; Green
terms it self-satisfaction. With the hedonists the good generically
is the pleasant ; with Green the common characteristic of the good
is that it satisfies some desire. To be sure, in all satisfaction of
desire there is pleasure, and thus pleasantness in an object is a
necessary incident of its being good ; but its pleasantness depends
on its goodness, not its goodness upon the pleasure it conveys.1
Both Green and the hedonists agree also in the result that the
individual good must be limited by a social or general good
common to all individuals. They concur in asserting that no
individual is morally good without his taking into consideration
with favourable volition the social good. Both aver that the social
good is the same in principle with the individual good; Green,
that the social good is a state of self-satisfaction on the part of all
the individuals included within the community; the hedonists,
that it is the pleasure of all such individuals. It is thus sub-
stantially agreed that the moral good is the social or common
good. It may be legitimately inferred, I think, from both sets of
doctrines that individuals do not always desire the common good.
There is hence an opposition of some sort between individual good
as desired and common good. All this seems to follow naturally
enough from Green's words, and also from the enunciations of
the hedonists.
We may regard the desirable as what may be desired, that is,
what is capable of being desired. In that sense everything which
possibly can be the object of desire is desirable ; what has been
desired, whatever experience has shown may be an object of desire,
is desirable. For reasons already expressed, the present writer
would aver that in the sense explained all desirable objects are
pleasures — that is, their distinctive quality as desirable comes from
their pleasurable quality. This would, of course, be denied by
Green. Anything may be desired by a person, and may be
esteemed as desirable for other persons ; so far forth, however, as
it is desired by him, it is not to him desirable, because already
desired. Whenever an object is presented by the Ego to himself
as desirable for him, it becomes desired to some degree. He may
1 Book III. chap. i. 171.
CHAP. IX. SOME QUESTIONS OF MORAL SCIENCE. 67
present some object as desirable for other people ; that means, he
desires other people to desire that object for themselves, though
he does not desire it for himself. What one desires that someone
else shall desire is, then, a desirable object. Thus an idea of the
desirable as what ought to be desired appears. I posit a common
good (as desirable) for other people, and then include myself under
its obligations. Hence, when I say an object is desirable for me
in the sense that it ought to be desired but is not, all I can
possibly mean is that I desire that I might be under such influences
and conditions as to desire that object more strongly and pre-
vailingly. In other words, there is a conflict of desires. But it
does not follow from this that my desire that I might desire does
not receive its significance from the pleasurable anticipation con-
nected with realising the first desire, and ultimately the second
also. In the same way it is quite possible for me actually to
desire that I might desire the sensational pleasure of eating,
though conscious I do not. The actual desire is faint, and I wish
it were stronger. Hence, a desired object may still be desirable
in the sense that I desire to have a stronger desire for it. Thus,
when I think that an object is desirable for me and ought to be
desired, it must be explained thus : — I desire that the object A be
desired by other people. I desire Non-A. But I am aware that
if other people are to be made to desire A, they will do it only on
condition that I desire A. So far forth as I desire Non-A I
defeat my own desire that other people shall desire A. Hence,
I desire that I might desire A. I also may be aware that other
people on their own account desire that I desire A ; and my fears
of them enter into the sentiment, I say I ought to desire A. If,
as a result of this process or otherwise, I cease to desire Non-A
and do prevailingly desire A, I cease to think that I ought to
desire A, because conscious that I do desire A. It will thus be
observed that while an object prevailingly and consistently desired
cannot be said to be desirable for the person so desiring by him-
self, but only with relation to other persons, it is still true that it
is only actual incipient desire that creates the feeling that he
ought to desire, or that a thing is desirable for him. This in-
cipiency comes from having previously desired the object as some-
thing to be sought by others. And this incipient desire is
prevented from growing to full desire by the alternation and
pressure of other conflicting desires.
The foregoing, I apprehend, is the true meaning of the desir-
F 2
68 THE ELIMINATION OF EVIL. PART II.
able in relation to the common good, and is a true account of the
way in which the latter comes to be the desired in the individual
mind. It ought not to escape our notice that the influence of all
the sympathetic regards must be counted in addition. These do
not always favour the common good, but they do favour the good
of some others than self ; and without this foundation there would
never have been even the nucleus of society. The numbers
included within the protection of the idea of common good have
been increasing from small beginnings, irregularly, but still very
sensibly, throughout the whole history of the race.
I am unable to see that Green can pass, or that he passes, from
the theoretical to the practical part of his ethics by any other
route than the above. But all this is hedonistic doctrine of felt
want and anticipated pleasure — to assuage it the motive and end
of all action. So, to use Green's own expression, in order to make
sense of his utterances, they must be construed and explained by
principles which he repudiates. For, having once detected the
insufficiencies in his analysis of desire, and discovered the ground-
lessness of his fundamental distinction of principle from the
hedonists upon the question whether or not we always desire
pleasure, the dispute becomes largely one of terminology, with the
odds greatly in favour of the hedonists. When, therefore, Green
reiterates that the true good is ultimately self-satisfaction, and
that self can only contemplate itself as attaining satisfaction in
some sort of society, ' can only look forward to a satisfaction of
itself on condition that it shall also be a satisfaction to those in
community with whom alone it can think of itself as continuing to
live,' l we must again ask what he means. Why can self only
contemplate itself as attaining satisfaction in the satisfaction of
others in the community ? Or, if there is no answer to the ques-
tion why, there is at least an answer to the question how ? We
can only ascertain by careful analysis of the facts of human mental
constitution as we know them. This analysis brings us at once to
the conclusions of the hedonists, which express in definite and the
lowest terms what Green puts forth in language indefinite, very
general, and itself continually in need of explanation.
When we come to the practical side of ethics — that is, the rules
of right conduct, as we have heretofore observed — we are thrown
back upon the ultimate notion of a Chief Good as a common good,
which both Green and the hedonists explain by reference to the
1 Book III. chap. iv. 232.
CHAP. IX. SOME QUESTIONS OF MORAL SCIENCE. 09
individual good. But the hedonists declare that the desirable state
of consciousness is a state characteristically pleasurable. The ideal
state would be a continued pleasurable state with no pain. This
is expressed by the term happiness ; and when the social good is
proposed as a limitation upon the individual, the happiness of all
individuals is taken into the account. Setter and worse, then, are
determined by estimates of the quantity of happiness. To this
method of procedure Green objects on the ground that it involves
an absurdity. But I am compelled to think he makes out an
absurdity only by supposing positions that are not held by the
hedonists. Green seems to consider that the hedonists hold an
ideal of the Chief Good as of all pleasures added up and concen-
trated into one intense enjoyment. ' There is no such thing as a
state of feeling made up of a sum of pleasures/ ' However numer-
ous the sources of a state of pleasant feeling, it is one and is over
before another can be enjoyed. It and its successors can be added
together in thought, but not in enjoyment or in imagination of
enjoyment.' * The author might have saved himself the trouble of
making statements like these. They only show that he never
thoroughly understood the hedonistic philosophy. It is to be
wished that he had cited some hedonistic authority claiming the
truth of the doctrine he seeks to refute. Perhaps he apprehended
that somebody would become intoxicated with hedonism as with
new wine, and soberly enunciate such a theory. We can scarcely
share his fear, and we think it would be difficult to find anyone of
present hedonistic teachers who has thus run mad. What the
hedonists do mean by the maximum happiness principle is pre-
cisely what Green declares they do not mean, but ought to mean,
in order ' to make sense ' of their doctrine. Indeed, it may be
believed that most hedonists would substantially endorse the
following passages, which Green employs in his refutation of
hedonism. t It is not the pleasures as a sum that attract him
[i.e. man]. . . . What affects him is the thought of himself as
capable of a state of continuous enjoyable existence, and on the
contrary as liable to a like continuity of pain.' If he rejects a
pleasure it is not because he presents to himself two possible sums
of pleasure, and pronounces the sum with the rejected pleasure left
out to be the larger and thus the more desirable. ' It is because he
believes the pleasure which he disapproves to entail an unnecessary
breach in the enjoyable existence which he wishes for, without
1 Book III. clap. iv. 221.
70 THE ELIMINATION OF EVIL. PART IT.
reference to any sum of pleasures that an enumerator might find
it to contain.' l Although Green thinks this is more consistent
hedonism, he is not satisfied with it. He esteems that such a
sentiment would not avail against the attraction of imagined
pleasure. We think it would and does all the time. But let us
see what Green approves. ' In truth a man's reference to his own
true happiness is a reference to the objects which chiefly interest
him, and has its controlling power on that account. More strictly
it is a reference to an ideal state of well-being, a state in which he
shall be satisfied ; but the objects of the man's chief interests
supply the filling of that ideal state. . . . Just because we wish
for the attainment of such objects we are unhappy till we attain
them ; and thus, owing to the difficulty of mentally articulating
them, we are apt to lump them in our thoughts as happiness.
But they do not consist in pleasures. The ideas of them which we
are seeking to realise are not ideas of pleasures. ... In short, it
is the realisation of those objects in which we are mainly interested,
not the succession of enjoyments which we shall experience in
realising them, that forms the definite content of our idea of true
happiness so far as it has such content at all.' 2
Again, we meet with the endless repetition which occurs in
Green's work of his declarations about desire and pleasure. Here,
again, we encounter that persistent misunderstanding of the
meaning of desire for pleasure, that confusion of objects and ends
which constitutes the warp and woof of his philosophy. It is not
too much to say that his whole ethical doctrine rests upon his
explanation of desire. If he has upon this point raised any sub-
stantial psychological objection to hedonistic principles, or if he
has shown any ground for his own, he may have laid a basis for
his philosophy. If, on the contrary, he has not done this, his
whole edifice falls to the ground. I have shown some reasons for
my own conviction that there is nothing substantial whatever in
his assertions on this topic, and can do no more than to relegate
further examination to others. As to the passages iust quoted —
Jr O u
of course a man's chief interests supply the filling of his ideal
state of happiness. The securing of those objects is his aim. The
ideas of them are, indeed, not ideas of the pleasures as abstracted
from the objects. But they never would be held up as objects of
desire if they were not by experience and association known as
pleasurable, and as such affording the relief from present pain.
J Book III. chap, iv. 228. 2 Ibid.
CHAP. IX. SOME QUESTIONS OF MORAL SCIENCE. 71
Let us now epitomise the hedonistic ethical philosophy, as we
did that of Green a few pages back.1 As ethical, we start with
the assumption that the Chief Good is a common or social good.
How this idea of common good arises I have endeavoured to show.
1. The Chief Ideal Good is the existence of all individuals
without pain, presentative or representative, during the period of
this existence. Since happiness is the excess of pleasure over
pain, the entire exclusion of pain would be the highest happiness,
or greatest happiness.2
2. Right conduct is that which tends to secure the maximum
happiness of all individuals, or the highest happiness of the greatest
number. Right volition is the volition to act according to the
requirements of securing the Chief Good.
I am not able to see how a state of social perfection, wherein
all individuals are self-satisfied in the consciousness of their own
perfection, is anything different from a state of maximum happiness
with no pain. For it certainly could not be claimed that man is
perfect while he remains subject to what is called physical evil
and there is any way of lessening this. Nor is he any more
perfect if he is troubled by moral evil. The ideal of perfection,
then, would involve the elimination of both moral and physical
evil as far as possible. According to Green, the stimulus to
improvement conies from a felt want or dissatisfaction creating the
conviction that there must be a Better and a Best. Unless, then,
willing to be perfect constitutes perfection, the Chief Good must
be attainment. While this stimulus to improvement continues
the end is not attained. But if this attainment is a permanent
state of self-satisfaction in the knowledge that perfection has been
attained, and this knowledge can subsist only in the knowledge
that all moral and physical evil has been eliminated, so far as is
possible for any human power, there is no visible difference
between Green's ideal and the hedonistic.
But we have much difficulty all along from the fact that Green
appears clearly enough to hold that the willing to be perfect, or
the good will, is the Chief Good. We have already discussed his
circulus in probando, and noted that he glories in it. We have
1 Page 54 of this work.
2 I am aware that Mr. H. Sidgwick would criticise this statement, but I will
not branch off into a side controversy with him ; one quarrel at a time is enough.
If the reader does not think the averments in this paragraph are fair statements
of hedonistic doctrine he can readily substitute the usual formula like this, * Tha
Chief Good is the highest happiness of the greatest number,'
72 THE ELIMINATION OF EVIL. PART II.
also urged that if perfection consists in the willing to be perfect
we are led to egoism, which we can only get rid of by appealing
to some other standard of the Good than the one adopted. We
also commented upon the sophisma extra dictionem by which Green
attempts to connect logically his practical rules of duty with his
theoretical principles. His statements are assuredly not consistent.
At one time he seems to regard the attainment of perfection as the
chief good ; at another the disposition to secure the attainment of
perfection. If he really meant the former, he is only a universalistic
hedonist in disguise. If he meant the latter, he has nothing at
all for an objective standard of Good, except as he borrows from
those whom he sets up as his antagonists, and has no subjective
standard except a self-reflecting and self-centred consciousness of
the individual as perfect in his will to be perfect. Thus, it seems,
we are justified in characterising his system, so far as it is not
utilitarian, as a system of ^Estho-Egoism.
The system of utilitarianism, or universalistic hedonism, is not
egoistic. It does allow that all individual action must have
reference to an end as realised or achieved by the individual. In
this view it might be claimed to be egoistic, but in this sense
every system involving action or conduct is egoistic. This sense
merely expresses a fact of all human activity whatever, moral and
non-moral. Utilitarianism, or universalistic hedonism, proposes a
moral law — that is, a law of conduct involving the limitation and
direction of the individualistic activity for an end which is not
egoistic further than that which is involved in the requirement that
the individual find his happiness in the happiness of others. The
social end is in itself a restriction of activity toward egoistic ends.
It is held as superior to all egoistic ends, and as dominant over
them, except as the Ego makes the social end his end, in which
case they coincide. But the law that each person make the
highest happiness of the greatest number his end is contradictory
to the proposition that each make his own happiness his end, save
as the two are made to agree in the manner above stated. It is a fact
that men do often seek their own happiness in self-centred activity ;
it is also true that they can learn to find their happiness in the
happiness of others. The former is egoism, the latter altruism.
Utilitarianism enjoins the latter, because in no other way can its
Chief Good be obtained ; in no other manner can there be secured
a coalescence of ends, a concurrence of dispositions, and that
organic union which is absolutely necessary to the realisation of
CHAP. IX. SOME QUESTIONS OF MORAL SCIENCE. To
the common good. Thus, altruism comes to be the great de-
sideratum of universalistic hedonism.
Here we come upon a most surprising misconception on the
part of Green. He tells us that a Benthamite would repudiate as
unintelligible the notion of an absolute value in the individual
person. ' It is not every person, according to him, but every
pleasure that is of value in itself.' l He then goes on to say that
the utilitarian does not adopt the logical consequences of his
principles, but has to repudiate them in order to get his practical
precepts. Green allows subsequently that the great service of
utilitarianism has been in magnifying the value of the individual
by insisting that it is the greatest number which is to be taken
into account. Whatever a Benthamite ought to believe, according
to Green, I do not imagine one has been actually found who claimed
that pleasure meant anything at all, save with reference to a
person enjoying pleasure, and certainly, in the most egoistic form
of hedonism, the personal Ego is of the supremest value, nor does
he consider pleasure to be of value in itself, but himself as enjoying
pleasure he regards as his end. When, therefore, instead of an
ideal of his own selfish happiness as a supreme end, he gains an
ideal of the happiness of others and then of all ; others as persons
are raised in his estimation of their value, because he considers
them more as possessing his own feelings, sympathises with them
more, and enters more fully into their life. Unless, then, there is
some hidden, transcendental meaning in the word £ absolute,' as
applied to value, or in the word value itself, which I have failed to
reach, I can see no force in Green's accusation above referred to.
He probably attributed the saving grace in utilitarianism to the
unconscious influence of principles like his own, counteracting the
hedonistic virus. To me utilitarianism seems a natural develop-
ment from hedonistic premises. It is not worth while, however,
to spend time over a question already covered by the previous dis-
cussion, and to be still further elucidated by what we are now for
a moment to consider.
Thinkers of Green's stamp appear to have much difficulty over
what has been aptly called c The Fundamental Paradox of Hedonism.'
Certainly it is on its face no more of a paradox than that involved
in Green's circulus in probando, on which he prides himself so much,
and is much easier of resolution. We have already noted 2 how
very like this hedonistic paradox are some of Green's own state-
1 Book III. chap. iii. 214. 2 Page 52 of this work.
74 THE ELIMINATION OF EVIL. PART II.
ments in attempting to reconcile his individual with the social
Chief Good. This goes to show that the paradox in question is not
a peculiarity coming from hedonistic vagaries in assertion and
reasoning, leading to a reductio ad absurdum for hedonism, but
expresses an ultimate fact of human mental constitution. This
fact is no other than the inverse variation of feeling and cognition,
to which we referred in Chapter IV., with its consequences upon
conduct. Within a certain range, when feeling is greater in
quantity, cognition is less. The more the consciousness is feeling-
consciousness the less it is cognitive-consciousness, and generally
the more feeling-consciousness is cultivated at the expense of cog-
nitive activity, the less power reason has as a guide and controller
of conduct. The connection, as influencing volition, between re-
mote, or more representative and general, ends and present action
is not so strong as between more presentative ends and present
action. This we express by saying that the man becomes blinded
by feeling, cannot see his true interest, has his will weakened, and
the like. Now, when we make pleasure — that is, the enjoyment of
pleasurable feeling as such — the direct end of effort, we are con-
tinually engrossed with feeling, our activity is diminished, we
become more and more contented with presentative pleasures,
remote painful consequences are lost sight of, all idea of increased
happiness from conservation is eliminated, our horizon is narrowed,
and we sink into the apathy of the voluptuary, with no more power
to change our disposition and, at last, with no more good left upon
which to satisfy the dispositional cravings which we have already
formed. The reverse of this happens when we make the attain-
ment of some object other than abstracted feeling, and whose utility
has been intellectually determined, our end of effort. Activity, not
passivity, follows, conservation is fostered, vitality is increased. It
appears from considerations like these, which I need not amplify,
because I have treated the topic more fully in another place,1 that
even for egoistic hedonism some reason can be found in self-denial,
which must become practically operative wherever there is intelli-
gence.
When the social good is made prominent, the inculcation of
altruism not only needs no explanation, but appears obviously as
the best means to the end. The altruistic disposition, if prevalent,
avoids much of the difficulty of the hedonistic calculus, to which
last Green is not more alive than Mill, Bain, Spencer, Sidgwick,
1 System of Psychology, chaps. Ixvi.-lxix. more especially.
CHAP. IX. SOME QUESTIONS OF MORAL SCIENCE. 75
and Stephen. If a governing disposition obtain, creating a habit
of action, extra-regarding and not self-regarding, we have only to
enlighten the mind as to what is better for humanity's sake, and
to increase the circle of regards so as to include humanity as a
whole. Without this, enlightenment is wholly in vain ; men are
not made virtuous by making them understand intellectually what
virtue is. With such a disposition, however, errors of judgment
may, indeed, be committed, but the strength of activity which
makes a man a force in the community is thrown on the social
side, not in opposition. He is with us, not against us. It is this
fact that gives its strength, and its only force, to Kant's declara-
tion that c There is nothing in the world which can be termed
absolutely and altogether good, a good will alone excepted.' When
Kant wrote this, psychological analysis was imperfect, the springs
of human action were not fully disclosed, the doctrines of evolution
had not been formulated, hedonism meant sensual pleasure, as
opposed to the c ethics of the dust/ which he beheld advocated ; he
thought he discerned a better way. His enunciation in regard to
the good will did have a meaning of great practical import. Bat
its value arises from the circumstance that the good will, as a pre-
vailingly altruistic disposition, is the only means by which the social
end can be obtained, not that it is the social end in itself.
We have now examined and criticised the leading positions of
that non-theological system of ethics which I have ventured to
characterise as ^Bstho-egoistic. Other points, indeed, remain to be
discussed, but I trust we have covered the most essential. This
examination has been attempted because the present writer has
observed a strong impression created among thinking men by
Green's work, not merely as to the ability with which he has
written, nor yet by the high personal character of the man himself
(in regard to both of which I should add most cordially my own
tribute of praise), but by the supposed truth of what he has
enunciated, and the belief that he has reached a new and a better
point of view. In this last belief I must confess I do not share.
I have given some reasons for my conviction that it is no better,
and were there space I might also give some for the assertion that
it is not new. If anyone will read over Kant's ' Metaphysic of
Ethic ' he will find the entire groundwork of Green's practical
philosophy of morals ; while if he pursues his investigations into
the more speculative works of Kant and of Hegel he will find the
inspiration and the philosophical authority for the whole. Indeed,
7(> THE ELIMINATION OF EVIL. PART II.
Green would not have denied this, and I make the reference only
because his work appears to strike some students as exhibiting a
novelty of doctrine. Value that work has, no doubt, but I appre-
hend that it lies in the incentives it supplies by its criticisms to
repairing, smoothing, and improving the old and travelled road,
not to abandoning it and following others which have become dis-
used, or making a new one. Green has referred to the hedonistic
philosophy as an anachronism. Very possibly it may so seem to
those who live in the atmosphere of a century ago. But they
must not forget that their doctrine also appears anachronistic to
us who believe otherwise, and that we shall continue to insist
upon their substantiating their views by all the means necessary
to produce conviction of truth. When the followers of Kant and
Hegel have done this, I am sure nobody will yield more graceful
acquiescence than the hedonists ; but until this is done they will
not be disturbed by any assertion that hedonistic philosophy is
c played out,' or that their system is ' anachronistic.' l
I have had occasion to observe a style of criticism upon
English experiential (and hedonistic) philosophers, which seems to
take for granted that the latter know nothing of what Kant and
his followers have written. This inference appears to be drawn
from the fact that the experientialists do not deem it necessary to
support every assertion they make by explaining what relation it
bears to the Kantian doctrine. To those who indulge in this sort
of inference I venture to suggest if it is not just possible that
Kant might have been heard of or even read by the objects of
their criticism, with the result of a conviction that all of import-
ance in Kant and his followers may be stated in more intelligible
and significant phraseology than that which appertains to the
Kantian methods of expression ; and that what is not of import-
ance need not longer be mentioned, nor need the omission to
mention it be justified by an apology. If this be conceivable, it is
just possible also that a more thorough study on the part of the
critics themselves might lessen their conviction of the l absolute '
value of both the Kantian ' metaphysic ' and ' ethic.'
As for us, we can agree partially with Professor Green. We
believe that the study of Kant and Hegel is of advantage to
prevent one-sidedness, too great confidence in other systems, and
for the purpose of obtaining many valuable suggestions, But this
study should be followed after a foundation has been laid in a
1 Introduction II. to Hume, Conclusion,
CHAP. IX. SOME QUESTIONS OF MORAL SCIENCE. 77
sound experiential philosophy. We should certainly hope that
the former would be pursued by Englishmen over rather than
' under five and twenty.' To these last we should strongly
recommend that they direct their attention homeward to the
works of the thinkers who have caused the value of philosophy, in
its relations to the practical concerns of life, to be generally
recognised, who have made the knowledge of mind and mental
processes to become a science instead of a speculation, and not to
go a- wandering after strange philosophies.
Notwithstanding that we concede the excellent moral tone of
Green's work, and allow also that he has said many things which
are both beautiful and good, we must, I think, in the face of his
criticism, still regard the ethics of hedonism as ' that good philo-
sophy to which we shall always be obliged to return.'
78 THE ELIMINATION OF EVIL. PART II.
CHAPTER X.
'NATURAM OBSERVARE:
IN one of his ' Three Essays on Religion ' John Stuart Mill dis-
cusses the ancient precept Naturam sequi. The author first
proceeds to show the different senses in which the word may be
taken, and then raises the question whether, if Nature be under-
stood as standing for that which takes place without human in-
tervention, man ought to make the spontaneous course of things
the model of his voluntary actions ? In answer, Mill maintains
that the maxim above cited is both irrational and immoral —
< Irrational, because all human action whatever consists in altering,
and all useful action in improving, the spontaneous course of
nature ; immoral, because the course of natural phenomena being
replete with everything which when committed by human beings
is most worthy of abhorrence, anyone who endeavoured in his
actions to imitate the natural course of things would be universally
seen and acknowledged to be the wickedest of men/ On the
other hand, if Nature be a collective name for everything that is,
the direction to follow Nature is meaningless, because we have no
power to do anything else.
Mill's position, that if we adopt Naturam sequi as a rule of
action we are likely to be irrational arid to promote immorality,
is undoubtedly a sound one, if we adopt it in the sense that
Mill states. If to follow nature means, as his illustrations seem
to indicate, negatively, to cease all efforts at improvement by art,
and, positively, to imitate the killing, the torturing, the devastation
accomplished by nature in its course, then no one will say that
the precept is anything but harmful. Civilised men, however, do
not follow nature in this sense, though perhaps the savage may
so act. Some forms of religious belief, indeed, deprecate activity
to alter circumstances, because these latter indicate the will of
the Deity. We sometimes hear also laudation of a certain line of
conduct on the ground that it is stimulated by natural instincts.
CHAP. X. 'NATURAM OBSERVARE.' 79
To this last-mentioned set of impulses Mill refers as one of the
dangerous results of indorsing the rule in question. In so far as
he seeks to show the fallaciousness of moral principles based upon
the acknowledgment of instinct or appetite as the controlling
guide of conduct, the essay accomplishes a good purpose.
An impression, however, is created by reading what Mill has
to say upon this theme which, in my judgment, it is not desirable
to favour. I confess that to me this essay is the least satisfactory
of Mill's published writings. It seems to serve as a preface or
introduction to the author's doctrine that there is a supernatural
Being who presides over human destinies, whose power is limited,
who is himself striving all the while to subdue nature, and with
whom it is man's duty to co-operate to this end. This is Mill's
theology, and if we had no other expression from him we should
almost place him in the same category with other theological
nature-haters that regard nature as an estate of the devil, who is
kept in possession as a tenant-at-will of the Almighty for some
mysterious reason, which we cannot fathom, but are bound, out of
respect to the Deity, to believe is entirely good.
It should not be forgotten that while undoubtedly many
extravagances, leading to deleterious moral sentiments, have
been committed by those who have urged Naturam sequi as a
precept for conduct, equally dangerous errors have followed the
doctrine that nature is the enemy of God and man. This latter
notion, to which Mill seems to incline in the particular disquisition
before us, has been the source of all that ascetic morality which
inculcates the duty of mortifying the flesh, of despising the things
conducive to material comfort and prosperity, and likewise of that
theology which postulates that the child of nature is also the child
of the devil. It is curious to find the great utilitarian talking
like a monk ; but the difficulty is, he has presented only one side
of the questions raised by the theme. He seems to be holding a
brief ; to be making an argument, exhibiting one side prominently
and obscuring the other — finally leading up to the theological
hypothesis above mentioned. This method of treating a subject
is foreign to the author's usual style; for there is scarcely any
writer who, as a rule, is so careful to look comprehensively, to
examine a topic upon all sides, and show all its bearings in a
thoroughly judicial manner. Hence, the essay on Nature dis-
appoints, and we can but think that if the author had lived to
revise his work we should have had not only a more finished but
80 THE ELIMINATION OF EVIL. PART II.
also a more thoroughgoing and symmetrical treatise upon this
theme, in which these sins of omission of which I have been
speaking would themselves have been omitted.
The direction, Naturam observare, placed at the head of this
chapter, Mill commends as a rational and moral precept. But is
it true that we ought only to observe nature for the purpose of
defeating nature ? Certainly not in the sense mentioned, in which
nature means i the entire system of things with the aggregate of
all their properties,' for it would be of no use. Nature will defeat
us, and we shall be ground to powder. In fact, our own efforts
would be a part of the machinery to effect our discomfiture. In
the other sense, however, the question arises whether, since we
are in respect at least to our physical system a part of nature, we
should not find in the course of nature a stimulus to activity in
the moral and social order along lines which are indicated by the
general method of nature's operations.
Mill can scarcely be said to have apprehended the full force of
the law of evolution. He was acquainted with Spencer and a part
of Spencer's work, but he was not informed of the extensive
application . of the doctrine to the super-organic world. It is as
true in regard to all the departments of human activity as it is
with respect to the action of inorganic and vital forces, that there
is a progressus from the simple, indefinite, and homogeneous to
the complex, the definite, and the heterogeneous. This general
fact has some important bearings upon the determination of the
answer to the questions suggested in the last paragraph.
The writer whom we had occasion to criticise in the last
chapter devoted himself very zealously to the vindication of the
independence of the active powers of the human mind as respects
nature and control by the forces of nature. Green maintained the
existence of a spiritual principle in man, which is not natural and
which must be presupposed in all human activity.
The question is often asked, Why should I trouble myself
about progress ? Why should I ask questions about myself and
my destiny ? Why should I seek to be other than I am ? The
answer may seem to be trifling with the queries, but I opine in
each case the proper answer is simply, Because I do ! I cannot
help doing so. It is a law of my nature that I should ; or, as
Green puts it, an eternal principle within me which constitutes
me, forces me to do these things. In other words, there is in the
action of each Ego implied and postulated a subjective source of
CHAP. X. 'NATURAM OBSERVARE.' 81
activity which somehow acts, or appears to act, upon an environ-
ment, and is affected by it as action and reaction reciprocally
influence each other.
It is not an Hegelian philosophy that either discovered the
truth implied in these remarks, or has been most faithful in
keeping it in view. I read it even in the writings of both Spencer
and Bain, not to mention other experientialists. All knowledge
postulates a subject which is not known. But when we examine
into the mode of the exercise of this subjective activity, we discover
that we know only obj edifications of this postulated self. We
know these only as they come within the laws of all knowledge ;
in other words, they are subject to cognised uniformities. This
is true of all exercises of activity ; we know that they occur in
certain ways, and these exercises of activity are only cognised as
under the conditions by which they may be cognised, which are
conditions of the cognition, not of themselves alone but of all
objects whatsoever, material or mental. Thus there are laws of
mental action, and hence the knowledge of mind as we know it,
and if we know it, must be a natural science. It is a science con-
sisting in the observation of uniformities, as all science consists.
These uniformities involve succession of objects presented to the
mind. These objects are under conditions of time. They have a
beginning and an end. They come and go; and our knowledge
of them postulates a cause and a source. They are produced from
something and by something. Hence, although the subject Ego is
excluded from nature, that which we call its manifestations cannot
be. If they were we should not know them at all. Nature is the
sum total of what is produced, and, so far as something produced
produces something else, the term also includes that which produces
or causes to be produced. Nature is the entire object world, not
merely the world of material objects.
When we proceed to ascertain what the uniformities are in
mental events, we find that, as respecting the lines of change and
progress, these uniformities are expressed by precisely the same
law which expresses the uniformities of change in the material
world, namely, the law of evolution and dissolution. In pursuance
of this truth we notice that the proximate explanation of the fact
of any change whatever is the instability of the homogeneous.
Homogeneity inevitably lapses into heterogeneity, leading to
multiplication of effects, and then to a new unity through separa-
tion and segregation. Of course, this does not tell us anything
82 THE ELIMINATION OF EVIL. PART II.
with regard to ultimate questions, but when we ask these we reach
the limits of knowledge. We may ask, Why do I exist ? But
there is no answer, nor are we able to see how there can be an
answer in human knowledge. So when we inquire, Why is there
change ? we can elicit no response from mind or matter. Our
knowledge is limited to ascertaining how there is change.
We may, if we choose, explain the fact that change occurs by
the supposition of an eternal consciousness reproducing itself
gradually in the mind of man. So far as this has meaning it
means the same thing — a power unknown, save in its manifesta-
tions, necessarily postulated as source and cause of all things which
do appear and proceed. We get no more information. The ex-
pression, however varied, points always to the same fact.
Whatever may be our theories of the connection of mind and
body, or of the mutual relationships of mind and matter generally,
it is evident that there is a relationship, and also that there appears
to be a mutual exclusion. Indeed, it seems to me that the
antithesis is fundamental. I do not see any power in mind to
identify itself with matter without self-contradiction in the thought.
For both the phenomena of mind and the phenomena of matter we
must postulate substances ; but we cannot refer the two sets to the
same substance, though unable to affirm positively that the two
substances may not be one, because we are unable to affirm any-
thing whatever as to their nature. Yet, notwithstanding the
opposition between mind and matter, there are relations between
the two and their phenomena. The appearance is of a relationship of
action and reaction. Mind acts upon matter, and matter upon mind
— as it seems. There is a correlation of mental power with nervous
force. How mind produces effects upon the material organism
science has not conclusively determined. I have elsewhere given
my own impressions,1 and will not repeat them here. But, at all
events, it is no more mysterious than the action and reaction of
material forces. How heat is produced by impact and resistance
we cannot explain. We are accustomed to say that one force is
transformed into another, but this means nothing. We are not able
to conceive of any force whatever being destroyed ; this is acknow-
ledged. Yet we are no more able to conceive of one force becoming
another force, for this implies destruction. The most we can do is
to believe that the one which has disappeared still exists, and is
related with the force that takes its place under some uniformities
1 System of Psychology, chap. Ixxv.
CHAP. X. 'NATURAM OBSERVARE.' 83
of co-existence and succession. New manifestations of force are all
the while appearing in the material world. They produce nothing,
and whence they are produced we know not. Their very succes-
sion implies their co-existence ; their changes postulate their
permanence. So mind, we say, is evolved in the course of nature.
But it is not produced ly material forces, but with them. Side by
side run the phenomena of the two under laws of co-existence. If
it be a delusion to believe that mind acts upon matter, it is equally
a delusion to suppose that matter acts upon mind. Yet the
relationship of the two is of the same sort as the relationship of
material forces inter sese. On each side there is what we call im-
pact and resistance, initiation and reception, activity and passivity,
dynamics and statics. The parallelism is exact and complete.
The one set is invariably a reflection of the other.
Hence mind cannot be studied with any profitable result in
isolation from matter. Mental progress must be estimated as both
determining and being determined by material progress. Mind
in the relations of society forms no exception to this rule.
Moral and social interests, while at one time and in one particular
opposed to material interests, have yet a general correspondence
with the latter, and are reciprocally determined by them. The
moral development is not a development in absolute opposition to
a physical development. The latter is a part of the former, and
the former again is a part of the latter, and neither has any proper
significance without the other. Material nature is not an enemy
relentlessly pitted against us. It is a formative part of all our
mental life, and with our mental and social life is governed by pre-
cisely the same law of progress. While, therefore, it is irrational
to follow nature in the sense of following every natural impulse,
which would be to abdicate our crown of intelligence, it is, on the
other hand, highly rational to follow nature in the sense of contin-
ually adapting ourselves and our life to the general course of nature
as we observe it, and judge that it will obtain. There is within us
an impulse to activity, toward change or progress, as we are fond
of saying. It is in our power practically, however we may explain
the fact speculatively, to direct in a measure the course of that
activity. We can within limits guide it in such a manner as to
thwart, depress, defeat, and crush out the activity itself. We can
control it so as to enlarge, prolong, enhance that power to a great
extent. In the former course there is a shrinking up of all the
vital powers ; in the latter there is increased vitality. For the
84 THE ELIMINATION OF EVIL. TART II.
latter we adapt ourselves to the course of evolution ; in the other
we throw ourselves against the lines of its movement with the
result only of bringing ourselves within the influence of dis-
integrating forces. This last we cannot avoid in the individual
life. It will come sooner or later. But we need not bring on the
fate sooner than need be, and thereby have the consciousness that
we missed a. fulness of life which we might have enjoyed.
The bearing of these remarks upon questions of moral principle
and law is as follows : We should recognise that the moral law
requires only that there must be a moral law, but never fixes
absolutely, and beyond the possibility of change, its precepts. The
critic will say that this sounds like Green's phraseology. I have no
objection to anyone thinking so, but I should hardly venture to
make Green responsible for what I may say, especially as I do not
think that this idea is a product of Green's influence. If there is
coincidence I am certainly glad. But the thought is this : Rules
of conduct always should be means, never ends. Morality is
always relative, and the axiomata media and minora of morals must
always be changing. What is moral under one set of circumstances
and at one time is not moral under another set and at another time.
The chief social good, indeed, will always be the highest happiness
of the greatest number, or some equivalent expression ; but since
what constitutes that happiness continually varies, there must be a
perpetual variation of the precepts of conduct as new applications
for them arise. That continuous adaptation of organism to environ-
ment which is the condition of physical life is represented by a
like necessity in the moral and social universe. Eules and laws
which once served a good purpose hence become obsolete; and
unless we recognise this fact, and replace them by others more
suited to present conditions, they are obstacles to morality instead
of aids to it. They promote in place of preventing evil.
The advantage of allowing as large a liberty as possible to
individual conduct thus appears. For, the individual not the cor-
porate body, is always the first to see and to feel the incongruity of
existing law, moral or positive, with changed circumstances. He
will inevitably apply his better convictions, and if he is allowed
freedom in this application he will inaugurate a better order, and
show forth a better law. If, on the contrary, he is repressed by
fear of untoward consequences, if he is restrained and hampered at
every step by state regulation, or public sentiment, intolerant of
novelty, not only will his better idea fail of being carried into
CHAP. X. 'NATURAM OBSERVARE.' 80
effect, bnt his activity to produce better ideas and put them into
practice will itself be destroyed. If the impulse to unrest which
lies in social homogeneity is not allowed to issue in new segrega-
tions, in diversities, which themselves make new unities, it will turn
into a disintegrating and dissolving force. Wherever in any social
community there is an enforced uniformity with repression of
individual spontaneity, there are already developing the seeds of
death.
But if a maximum, of liberty and a minimum of restraint are to
characterise the social, and thus the moral, law and its enforce-
ment, the necessity of promoting and, indeed, securing the growth
of the altruistic character is again, and still more clearly, evident.
For outward restraint we must substitute self-government, always
in a greater degree proportionate to the lessening of the other.
Unless we do this we shall encourage the following of nature in the
sense in which we agreed with Mill in deprecating the maxim ;
that is, we shall be following the disorganising instead of the
organising forces of nature. The latter are as much a part of
nature as the former. Human beings have an organic develop-
ment. The organic forces furnish us the most directly applicable
guides to determine how our action must necessarily be limited,
and if we desire the preservation and development of an organic
social life, we must observe nature's modes of promoting organic
physical life. If the individual is under no self-restraint, all that
abuse of liberty which has been such a reproach to the name of
freedom is likely to ensue. With this comes just as certainly the
destruction of the organism as when individual spontaneity and
liberty are repressed.
These considerations furnish the two most important general
precepts to govern us in the solution of the Problem of Evil on its
practical side. For the purpose of securing the elimination of evil,
we hence derive two general rules, one negative and the other
positive :—
First : Aim at the minimum of extrinsic restraint and the
maximum of liberty for the individual.
Second : Aim at the most complete and universal development of
the altruistic character.
The reader will find this to be the leading thought of the
present work, the remainder of which will chiefly be devoted to
illustrating, defending, and enforcing these precepts as comple-
mentary to each other, and as furnishing the practical expression of
86 THE ELIMINATION OF EVIL. PART II.
that which is permanently imperative in the moral law — a perma-
nence, however, which is, paradoxically, only secured and main-
tained by change. There was some truth in the old doctrine of
the Eleatics that nothing is, but all is becoming. But though all
things may pass away, yet change still abideth :—
Iram, indeed, is gone with all his rose,
And Jamshyd's seven-ringed cup where no one knows ;
But still a ruby kindles in the vine,
And many a garden by the water blows.1
We thus see how the law of evolution, recognised as governing
mental and social, and thus moral, life, furnishes a new and better
meaning to the precept naturam sequi. In view, however, of the
misconception possible, leading to the consequences depicted by
Mill, the precept naturam observare is, perhaps, the safer expression ;
though we must add to it the implication that we observe nature
in order to follow its teachings as to the laws which both govern
present life and determine progress. If we are wise we will seek
lessons from nature to guide our selective activities. We shall see
to what extent our powers are restrained, and in what directions
they can be freely exercised. It is better to row one's boat when
crossing a stream with the current than against it. To kick
against the pricks is hard. Wasted labour is profitless. Achieve-
ment is always inspiriting; pursuit of the impossible is never
satisfactory. A closer study of the course of evolution in the
whole natural world with the practical purpose of guiding conduct
so as to take advantage of it where we may, and avoid wasting our
energies by running counter to it where such action is useless, will
do much to accomplish that perfection of the human race which to
so many has seemed, in one sense or another, the goal of virtuous
effort.
We have already called attention to the manner in which this
impulse toward change under the stimulus and guidance of pleasure
and pain gives rise through the action of the representative powers
to anticipations of the future, and creates ideals of the Good and the
Better which furnish ends of volition and activity. In these the
painful is eliminated or greatly obscured. To realise such ideals
we are for ever impelled. But, although they are of great use
in awakening and sustaining activity, the moral vitality being per-
petually renewed through them, they are very dangerous unless
1 Rubaiydt of Omar Kliayyam.
CHAP. X. 'NATURAM OBSERVARE.' ^7
they are continually chastened, corrected, and reformed by ex-
perience. This is only accomplished through science. On the
perfection of science rests all progress in amelioration. The con-
structive powers present new possibilities ; the perceptive, associa-
tive, reminiscent and discursive, determine the likelihood of the
attainment of those possibilities.
We will now proceed to enumerate the special methods to be
pursued in the work of the Elimination of Evil.
88 THE ELIMINATION OF EVIL. I 'ART IT.
CHAPTER XI.
THE FOUR CHIEF METHODS OF REDUCING EVIL.
I. THE CONTROL OF MATERIAL FORCES.
WE have seen that the Problem of Happiness and that of the
Elimination of Evil are really one ; and that the attainment of the
maximum happiness for the greatest number means the minimising
of evil. We have also considered in what sense, and to what
degree, the observation of nature is necessary to the reduction of
evil. Pursuing still further this thought, the control and modifi-
cation of material nature appears at once as a primary (though by
no means the final) method to be pursued for accomplishing
the elimination of evil ; certainly for all that evil which is termed
physical, and which causes, no one doubts, a great portion of
human suffering. The exercise of intelligence to remove the
causes of pain is a necessity of all progress, and as much a part of
morality as anything else.
Instinct teaches man in common with other animals to seek
food, drink, shelter and other protection from extremes of tempera-
ture ; and as civilisation advances, the devices for satisfying all the
primary appetites become very complex and elaborate. The greater
part of human industry has always been devoted to improving the
material conditions of existence ; this is usually the chief work of
the individual in life at the present day, the problem which he
proposes to solve for himself and those in whom he is interested.
Men need little stimulation in this direction, and consequently less
need be said about it, although the degree of enterprise exhibited
may vary under different circumstances. Utilising material nature
in some degree is an inseparable concomitant of life.
Effort to modify the action of forces is only absolutely ex-
tinguished in the face of a conviction of impossibility. People do
not attempt to prevent rain or drouth, winter cold or summer
heat — except it may be by prayer to a power higher than human.
They seek to find out the uniformities under which forces work,
CHAP. XI. FOUR CHIEF METHODS OF REDUCING EVIL. 89
that they may have prevision of what is to come and guard them-
selves accordingly. But within the sphere of what they deem
possible of accomplishment activity varies to a remarkable extent.
Climatic conditions have much to do with this. The indolence of
those who inhabit warm regions contrasts strangely with the un-
tiring energy of many who dwell under northern skies. Again,
health and disease everywhere directly stimulate or impair all the
vital energies, respectively increasing or diminishing intellectual
and volitional exercises. Then, too, the effect of social conditions is
powerful now to encourage and now to discourage effort. The
conviction of impossibility is almost as strong a deterrent if that
impossibility be deemed moral instead of physical. Sometimes it
is quite as much so. There have been times when the interests of
religion have been deemed to require cessation of efforts to improve
material conditions. Very likely in Galileo's day it would have
been deemed impious to have invented or applied the electric
telegraph system. Many of these social hindrances we shall con-
sider in later chapters. A reference to them is sufficient for the
present.
A very interesting essay in the line of the subject of this chapter
was the attempt to find an elixir for indefinitely prolonging life.
This seemed to the inquiring mind in the early days of scientific
interest the most important of all problems. It was, indeed, in
their time and with their light, and no one ought to begrudge the
labour spent by these ancient alchemists, ridiculous as their ex-
pectations may now seem. The futility of the attempt is at any
rate no disparagement to the assiduity and earnestness with which
they worked. At some time in human history it was inevitable
that their question should be raised and answers found, if possible.
It seems to be settled that all men must die sooner or later, though
a recent writer speculates with some ingenuity on i The Possibility
of Not Dying.' l But it would be very presumptuous to say that
all the possibilities of prolonging life are exhausted. No one can
aver that the limit of knowledge has been reached with regard
to conservation and renovation of the human body. Indeed, it
seems to me, in view of the enormous progress that has been made
in increasing our knowledge and control of molar and molecular
forces (other than vital), that the physiological, hygienic, and
medical sciences are disproportionately backward. Anatomy is, and
for a long time has been, nearly exact and complete. This cer-
1 H. C. Kirk. New York : Putnams. 1883.
90 THE ELIMINATION OF EVIL. PART II.
tainly cannot be said of physiology ; and, when we consider the
empiricism of the healing art, we wonder that at this epoch in
human enlightenment so little is scientifically known and verified
in regard to the cure of disease. I am not insensible to the diffi-
culties in the way of finding out the agencies at work in bodily
disorders, and learning how to counteract them. Nor am I oblivious
to the fact that very wonderful discoveries have recently been
made as to morbific germs. It is evident that strong and earnest
minds are incessantly labouring to improve medical science. But
with all this, it certainly is not creditable that human knowledge
should be so meagre, and human skill so helpless in the presence
of disease, as it is in a large number of instances. There seem to
be no thoroughly generalised principles of the action of disintegrat-
ing forces within the organism. Equally deficient is the scientific
knowledge as to remedies. Physicians apply them by guess-
work. Trial and error is still their method in dealing with all but
the simplest cases. It is true they educate themselves to make up
in kindness, sympathy, and attention what they lack in knowledge ;
and their ignorance is not the fault of themselves individually, but
of their art. Yet this can hardly be satisfactory, even to the
doctors. The intelligence of the times demands better things of
them. Discoveries are called for at their hands. They must im-
prove the sciences and the arts relating to their profession. They
must find, seize, and control for their purposes the life-giving, the
life-renewing, the life-preserving forces, as the mechanic, the hydro-
static, the pneumatic, and, above all, the electric forces have been
subjugated for industrial uses. There is surely no more noble field
of effort, and, it may be added, there is none in which further
achievements are more needed.
Perhaps the most remarkable of the triumphs over material
nature are the successes achieved in the way of facilitating com-
munication between distant places and people. The railway, the
steamship, the telegraph, the telephone, have carried this perfection
so far that, with the sole exception of aerial navigation, little appa-
rently remains to be accomplished, unless, indeed, a more economical
and better motor than steam be discovered. To a scarcely less
marvellous degree have labour-saving inventions of all sorts
revolutionised the industrial arts. The objections that have been
raised to these last on the score of their depriving workmen of the
means of livelihood have been effectually disposed of by econo-
mists, and need not be discussed here, {Whatever conduces to the
CHAP. XI. FOUR CHIEF METHODS OF REDUCING EVIL. 91
economising of labour, the conservation of vitality, the accomplish-
ment of the greatest results with the least expenditure, is a boon to
the human race and favours increased happiness/^ It is an omen of
evil when activity directed toward the control of material forces
languishes, or is obstructed.
II. SECURITY AND JUSTICE.
The social life of mankind begins with the birth of the race.
The social factors in the development of every individual from the
beginning of his existence are as important as the material con-
ditions of his environment except for the preservation of life itself,
and for the latter purpose they are by no means irrelevant con-
siderations. Men are liable to receive at the hands of their fellows
not only interferences with their actions in the way of prevention
and restraint, but also positive injury. A necessity, then, of all
social order is the preservation of security to each individual who
belongs to the community ; and when this security is violated or
destroyed the worst of social evil follows.
But, though some sort of security is obtained in every social
organisation, maintained through the machinery of governmental
administration, to which is delegated the task of preserving the
common order ; yet it often happens that this security is imperfect.
Its imperfection may arise from the pure malevolence or greed of
human beings determined to ignore everyone but self, and to
satisfy their own lusts at all hazards. But this is not all. It. may
arise from a sense of injustice in the administration of law and
government. Hence a clear and sound notion of justice, and a
faithful dispensing of it by the state authority, is of the highest
importance even for security's sake.
A second method to be pursued in the elimination of evil thus
appears. The first was p.h fl.rn.ntf^risti c, all y Tn d n stri q] . This is
Political. Grovefnrnental^administration in all its departments,
whatever may be its form, aims to reduce evil by securing to each
person the undisturbed pursuit of his own happiness, within the
limits which the prevailing ideas as to the scope and authority of
government will allow. A common order is preserved and as far
as possible perpetuated ; and for the purposes of this common
order it is necessary that in the governmental administration
justice shall prevail. In the words of Mr. Henry Sidgwick, ' the
prominent element in Justice, as ordinarily conceived, is a kind of
92 THE ELIMINATION OF EVIL. PART II.
Equality ; that is, impartiality in the observance or enforcement of
certain general rules allotting good or evil to individuals.' 1
III. ALTRUISTIC EFFORT.
Much can be done for the prevention and abatement of evil by
controlling and applying to beneficent uses the material forces of
nature ; and, in the superorganic world, obtaining by social means
security to all men in equal measure to put into execution their
own purposes, and to work out their own ideals. But even if there
were nothing to annul or defeat the effects which might be expected
from activities put forth in these two lines, a vast amount of evil
would fail to be reached. The maintenance of security and justice
is negative. Modifying nature does not affect men's wills directly,
but only indirectly. In the transitions from a worse to a better
condition, there are always many whom improvement has not yet
reached. Even if all are given an equal chance, all are not able
equally to profit by their opportunities. There are the weak, the
ignorant, the unfortunate, the defeated, who need help, and who,
unless aided, will form an aggregate of misery and woe, lowering
the level of happiness in the community.
There must be, then, some direct and positive effort for the
amelioration of the condition of mankind, in whatever particulars
and in whatever instances there appears to be need. This may be
either individual or co-operative, the latter of course yielding much
more conspicuous results in proportion to the force employed and
the field covered.
There never has been an epoch when practical philanthropy
has reached a higher degree of perfection than it has at present ;
this is a healthy sign. Many devote their whole lives to social
work of privately relieving suffering and of encouraging and main-
taining associations for humanitarian ends. Practical effort for the
amelioration of the condition of people accomplishes the most
beneficent results, if wisely directed, both immediately and indi-
rectly. Besides, its reactive influence upon the workers constitutes
no mean item of its value. It brings people nearer to each other,
breaks down social barriers, destroys the spirit of caste and induces
a long toleration — a very necessary preparation for the inauguration
of genuine philanthropy, which recognises the universal brother-
1 Methods of Ethics, Book III. chap. v.
CHAP. XI. FOUR CHIEF METHODS OF REDUCING EVIL. 93
hood of man. Such practical effort ought to be encouraged and
stimulated in every way.
Without entering upon a full consideration of this very large
topic, it will be enough for our present exigencies that we indicate
as a third line of work to be pursued in the elimination of evil,
what may roughly be termed the Philanthropic.
IV. THEJLEYELOPMENT OF INDIVIDUAL CHARACTER. _
From what has been said in the preceding chapters, it is already
apparent that to remove evil choices and to prevent their formation
is the most transcendent object which can be set before us for
attainment in the work of abating what is termed moral evi'l.
The surest way to secure the prevalence of good is that individuals
in the community shall be good. Less directly, but still essentially,
is the same thing of value for the extinguishment of physical evil
as well, inasmuch as it is the good disposition that is the most
active and effective for the relief of all kinds of human suffering
from whatever cause proceeding.
That it is not an easy matter to teach human beings to derive
their own pleasure from the happiness of others the history of the
world abundantly shows. Character is of slow growth, and is
affected by a thousand and one influences. But the results which
have been actually attained in the way of modifying individual
dispositions are very great, and give promise of still further
development. Indeed, the influences at work in furthering this
happy progress are now so manifold that we may reasonably
expect to see the growth of the altruistic character in the future
proceed in a relatively geometrical ratio, if only we can get rid
of some of the obstacles and hindrances which proceed from mis-
taken ideas of what is really best, and from latent, disguised, but
still persistent egoism. Herein lies the Problem of Evil as it
presents itself to an age which theoretically believes in the
altruistic, but knows not where and how to defeat the subtle
enemy.
The Educational Method involves not merely instruction, but
the actual formation of a capacity for self-control and self-develop-
ment. This requires the subjection of egoism in the individual
and the creation of an altruistic ideal of life for the inspiration
and guidance of conduct. It need scarcely be remarked that the
education of the family is the foundation of every other, for it is
94 THE ELIMINATION OF EVIL. PART II.
the earliest practicable, and thus affords the best opportunity for
dealing with the fundamental question of character. But since
this is not always the best from a variety of causes, which we need
not stop to enumerate, and since sometimes indeed it is altogether
wanting, the importance of training and discipline in early life is
so great that it has come to be regarded (and, I think, justly) as
a necessity even for the community's security. John Stuart Mill,
while advocating in general the laissez-faire system, among the
exceptions which he makes points out the need of a state solicitude
for education. ' Education, therefore,' says he, ' is one of those
things which it is admissible in principle that government should
provide for the people.' ! Although there are serious and fatal
objections to the government making a monopoly of education,
or imposing any particular system of education involving the
support or rejection of particular religious or political theories,
the interest of the community that its children should devote their
minority, or the greater part of it, to education is paramount to
almost every other interest, except an immediate question of life
or death. Minors must be under the protection and guardianship
of adults in any event; this is a necessity of all life. And the
state, in justice to them as well as out of regard for the good of
the entire body politic, ought to make the education of the young
the subject of positive and comprehensive legislation.
In addition to what may be done in the family and by the
state, the work should be supplemented by all the private and
non-official agencies which can be brought to bear. The newspaper
is the most effective educating instrument of modern times. Cheap
standard literature is another valuable help. Associations for the
discussion of social questions and for the dissemination of know-
ledge generally constitute another ; institutions for reform another ;
the pulpit and the church, the lecture platform and the theatre,
still another. So long as perfect toleration of the free expression
of all opinions on all topics exists, the lines of progress are kept
open and the forces of evolution are certain to do their work, but
if we impede or abate those forces as they work through the
spontaneity of the individual (save only for the necessities of the
common freedom), then the counter-forces of disintegration and
dissolution must prevail. In the failure to understand or regard
this truth lies the secret of the decadence of nations.
1 Political Economy, Book V. chap. xi. 87.
95
CHAPTER XII.
HINDRANCES AND OBSTACLES.
WE have now instanced four general methods, or classes of methods,
of pursuing work for the elimination of evil ; nmnely, the Industrial
Method, working for the Control and Modification of Material"
Forces: the Political Met^ori, jrimmgr t.n p.stablisn Security and
Justice; the Philanthropic Method, seeking to remove evil by
direct Altruistic ^fl™*-; ^ ?duj^tiona^J^^^
to effect the Development of Individual Altruistic Character. That
these" methods of life exercise of activity, or these spheres for
activity, as we may be pleased to regard them, are not independent
of one another needs no demonstration. Leading to the same end
they supplement one another, and interactingly affect each other.
The classification is perhaps a rough one, and the classes may
not be mutually exclusive ; but they indicate with distinctness
four large groups into which the activities for the abolition of evil
will naturally be thrown; and they seem to include all those
activities. We shall find, I think, that everyone who is fairly
entitled to be called a promoter of the happiness of his kind has
performed his task in one of these four lines. The man who im-
proves the plough, or invents the cotton gin, or who facilitates
commerce and industry by his output of money, benefits his race in
the first method. The statesman, the judge, the administrator, or
the soldier — each so far as he acts according to moral standards —
labours in the second line. The member of the charity organisation,
the contributor to the hospital, the friend of the poor, the sick, the
forsaken, follows the third course. The teacher of mankind and
the exemplar, who by his own virtues is a burning and a shining
light, belong to the fourth class. The artist, so far as his work
has a moral value, is also an educator. The cause is always one
and the same ; the spheres of labour and the directions of activity
are manifold and ever varying.
In the chapter last preceding the paths necessary to be pursued
96 THE ELIMINATION OF EVIL. PART II.
for increasing the general happiness have been barely indicated.
The subject of each one of the subdivisions is of course large enough
for a separate treatise. We have now settled upon the Nature of
Evil (according to our lights), and determined the general principles
which must guide us in seeking its elimination. We have also
worked out two General Precepts to govern special and practical
effort ; and just now have indicated these four special lines of
activity or spheres of labour. Inasmuch as it is not proposed to
exhibit in this book a complete system of moral science in its
details, much less to compass political and social science generally,
but rather to present an introduction to all the practical sciences
in showing what common principles and precepts determine both
their ultimate ends and their methods in their social bearings, our
object will now best be furthered by turning our course from posi-
tive exposition to negative discussion ; for it is important to note
what obstructions lie in the way of progress along the lines now
disclosed, and what are the hindrances to the application of the
precepts we have developed. The way must be cleared before
we walk in it. I propose, therefore, to consider some of the pre-
sent leading hindrances and obstacles to the achievement of the
maximum happiness of the greatest number, which I believe is
gradually working itself out along the four lines just remarked.
While it must be allowed that there is room for great differences
of opinion upon this score, and therefore no claim can be made
either that this part of the subject is exhausted in what we may
say, or that everyone will agree with the author as to what are the
chief obstructions, or, indeed, as to what are obstructions at all ;
nevertheless, on surveying the whole field, I shall venture to present
what seem to me to be the chief and most serious impediments in
the way of the elimination of evil. To the consideration of these
the remainder of this work will substantially be devoted. In the
course of the discussions to follow, much will be said in the way of
illustration to show how the altruistic work must be prosecuted in
the industries, in politics, in philanthropy, and in education.
The first obstruction lies in the attempt to subordinate human
conduct in its relations to other human beings to an assumed
supernatural system ; in other words, to found a system of ethics
upon a theology. This essay tends to create what was called
in Chapter III. an Artificial Morality. The evil of such attempts,
as well as the unscientific character of the positions assumed, it
will be our aim to make clear.
CHAP. XII. HINDRANCES AND OBSTACLES. 97
The second class of hindrances which seem of sufficient pro-
minence for special consideration arises from the unwarranted
elevation of institutions, established as means for the promotion
of happiness and as agents by and through which this happiness
is to be worked out, to the position of ends in themselves. This
brings up the controversy between Authority and Individualism.
The third class of obstacles is allied to the second. It is the
product of the notion that because there is more power in combined
effort of individuals, therefore social ends are more perfectly
realised through the concentration of power in, and its application
by, organisations. This is, typically, the question of Socialism.
Finally, we have ever present (and in the preceding hindrances
as well) the root of all social evil — the formation and the tenacious
retention by individuals of egoistic ideals of life, and consequently
of egoistic dispositions. These are always reappearing, under new
guises, with every successive advance of altruistic ideas, and con-
stantly need to be exposed and guarded against. An examination
of some of the most important phases of this individualistic egoism
as it is shown in private life, with some remarks upon the relief
against it, will serve also as a summing up of the whole work.
H
PART III.
THE GEEAT THEOLOGICAL SUPERSTITION.
H 2
' Oh, Thou who didst with pitfall and with gin
Beset the road I was to wander in,
Thou wilt not, with Predestined Evil round,
Enmesh and then impute my fall to Sin ! '
Rubaiydt of Omar Khayyam.
101
CHAPTER XIII.
THE DOCTRINE OF SIN.
AT the present day, when enlightened and faithful criticism in
the interest of truth is accomplishing so much toward the overthrow
of false doctrines, the exposure of ancient errors, and the abolition
of the evil which is latent in dogmas supported by authority and
not by reason, it is a matter for surprise that no critical re-examina-
tion is made of the Doctrine of Sin, Nearly all the important
articles of creeds, styled by their promoters ' orthodox ' (in what
is to others than their supporters an amusing irony), have been
canvassed, debated, criticised, and for the most part laid aside as
untrue and worthless, or as needing essential modifications. At
all events, creeds have been made the subject of close attention
and thorough discussion; they have been exposed to reforming
influences within the church and to more radical and hostile
attacks from without. But the doctrine of sin has not received
the criticism it deserves. Its importance in a theological scheme
is far-greater than appears to have been considered. On examina-
tion we shall find it fundamental, and at the basis of the whole
scheme of so-called orthodox Christian theology. The atonement
is of no consequence unless there is need of an atonement in the
sinful character of man ; a discussion of eternal punishment is
idle unless there is guilt to be punished. The redemption by a
Christ is wholly dependent upon an assumed state of sin and
consequent perdition; and this latter is the central idea in the
Christian theological system.
I propose, therefore, to undertake an inquiry into both the
truth and the morality of the Doctrine of Sin, as held by the
' orthodox ' Christian church. In such an inquiry our concern will
not be primarily with what is sometimes termed the question ot
Original Sin, which has been discussed so elaborately by Jonathan
Edwards, among others. The scope of the present discussion will
102 THE GREAT THEOLOGICAL SUPERSTITION. PART III.
be much t>roader. I intend to raise and, so far as I may be able
in outline, to answer the question whether we have any knowledge
or information sufficient to form a belief as to the existence of a
relation between man and a Supreme Being which admits of sin
at all on the part of the former. Moreover, it is my design to
examine the bearings of such a doctrine as that of sin upon
theoretical and practical morality, and thus upon the happiness
of mankind.
In so comprehensive an investigation as this programme would
necessitate, if fully carried out in all directions, I could scarcely
expect the average reader to accompany me. Dr. Julius Miiller,
of Halle-Wittenberg, in a work entitled c The Christian Doctrine
of Sin,' to which I shall refer as we proceed, occupies with his
subject two large-sized octavo volumes, which are replete with
learning ; but I doubt very much if anyone but a theological
student would have the patience to read the book. I wish to
devote attention to the main points to be considered by an
intelligent mind as succinctly as is compatible with accuracy and
a completeness of outline in the subject. I shall not pretend to
exhaust the topic; but I shall endeavour to point out at least
where the difficulties lie, where the uncertainties are to be found,
and how future thought on this theme ought to be conducted.
At the outset, it is necessary to state and define the Doctrine ;
and with such a work we will occupy ourselves in this chapter.
We shall not find a complete uniformity and harmony among theo-
logians as to what is compassed by and contained in the Christian
doctrine of sin ; and yet without a detailed examination of autho-
rities, I conceive we shall be able to exhibit the essential features
of that dogma as maintained by the church generally.
In the first place, we must presuppose a personal God in whose
image the immaterial part of man is made, who is possessed of
perfect goodness. We must also suppose that God has revealed
his will to man. On the part of the human being, we are obliged
to assume that he is capable of apprehending and recognising the
revealed will of God, and that he, himself, has a will free either
to obey or disobey the will of the Divine Being.
The revealed will of God constitutes the moral law. To this
law man is subject, thus being under a Divine Government, God
being the sovereign who requires complete loyalty, and who is able
to, and who will, punish all disobedience*
The moral law is expressed in the Holy Scriptures. Its most
CBAP. XIII. THE DOCTRINE OF SIN. 103
complete and authoritative statement is found in the New Testa-
ment, in the words of Jesus Christ :—
' Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with
all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
4 This is the first and great commandment.
* And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour
as thyself.
' On these two commandments hang all the law and the pro-
phets.' l
This Dr. Miiller regards as ' the avarcs^dXaicocris of all divine
commands to men.2
Sin is disobedience to this law. He who completely obeys it
is free from sin and morally perfect. He who falls short of such
complete obedience is a sinner against God. It will be noticed
that we have as the expression of God's revealed will a double
command, but the first portion is paramount and controlling : ' the
first and great commandment.' As to the relations of these two
members to each other, there is a difference of opinion. It is said
by some that love to God necessarily carries with it love to man,
and that the latter derives life from the former ; but that the
direction of love to man will not necessarily involve a love to God,
and thus obedience to the moral law, however disinterested the
altruism may be. On the other hand, the philosophy contained in
the story of Abou Ben Adhem is by others strenuously urged. It
is held that love to men is love to God, whether the individual is
conscious of such an affection or not. I cannot but think that the
weight of authority in the church has been in favour of the first of
these two constructions, so far as defining the nature of sin is con-
cerned. In the language of Dr. Miiller : ' According to the teach-
ings of Holy Scripture, we are to regard love to God as the proper
essence of moral good, as the absolutely, and on its own account,
good and necessary ; and every other disposition of mind or mode
of action only becomes truly moral by its having its root in this/
And again : ' What true love to God desires is not at all abstract
identity, not a resolution into the Divine Being, but perfect and
undisturbed fellowship with God.'3 So-called orthodoxy will ever
insist that there is no obedience to God's will through works which
do not follow a conscious faith in Him.
The essence of sin, then, consists c in the estrangement of man
1 Mutt hew xxii. 37-39. * CJtristian Doctrine of Sin, Book I. chap. i.
8 Op. tit.
104 THE GREAT THEOLOGICAL SUPERSTITION. PART III.
from God, in the want of love to Him.' ' But sin is not merely
the absence of love to God, but, with this negation of the true
relation between man and God, there is in immediate connection
the affirmation of a false one. All unbelief in the true God and
His holy revelations has ever some superstition for its never-failing
reverse side, if it be only the belief in the all-sufficiency of one's
own critical and sceptical understanding : the departure of the
divine principle of life is immediately connected with a principle in
opposition to the divine, according to the declaration of Christ, he
who is not for Me is against Me. Man cannot dethrone the true
God without putting an idol in His place. What now is this
idol ? ' Dr. Miiller, after asking this question, gives us his
answer in these words : — ' The idol which man in his sin puts
in the place of God can be no other than his own self. This
individual self and its gratification he makes the highest end of his
life. His striving in all the different forms and directions of sin
ever has self ultimately in view ; the inmost nature of sin, the prin-
ciple determining and pervading it in all its forms, is selfishness.' l
All sin is Quilt, and deserving of punishment. The man in
whom it is must be regarded as its author. It originates in and
emanates from him. * If we consider the relation of the notion of
sin to the nature of man, we may call it a suffering of soul, as that
which is foreign and contradictory to its true nature ; if we look at
the way in which sin originates in real life it is not a suffering, but
an act of the soul, either immediately an act or grounded in such
an act.' 2 This notion of guilt is so important to a proper under-
standing of the Christian doctrine of sin that I shall venture to
quote a little more fully from Dr. Miiller upon this point. f Before
the juridical forum guilt is only established when the violation of
right falls in some way in the sphere of outward phenomena, and
it is not sin as such which juridically makes men guilty, but only
so far as it invades the judicial arrangements of civil life. On the
contrary, before the moral forum everything is found to be guilt
which stands in contradiction to the moral law — of course, in
existences which are under obligation to the law, and in those
conditions of their life in which they are so ... and, therefore,
disturbances and disorders of their inward life which have their
ground in the will.
' However, this relation to the will, which is expressed by im-
putation and guilt, requires still a more exact determination.
i Oj). clt. 2 OjJ. cit. Book I. Subd. II. chap. i.
CHAP. XIII. THE DOCTPJNE OF SIN. 105
Indeed, it was not the notion of peccatum voluntarium which first
of all led us to consider the will as its real seat, but the very com-
mencement of our consideration of sin in general ; the notion of
the moral law, as the contrast of which sin first of all enters our
consciousness, cannot be developed without pointing out its con-
stitutive relation to the will, and therewith representing the will
as the essential place of this contrast. But the will may be that,
and still, perhaps, only convey an impulse communicated to it by a
foreign, superhuman power. That it is not merely the essential
place of this contrast in the sphere of human life, but that it is by
its self-determining power the author of real evil in human life,
which first of all teaches us the consciousness of guilt. This con-
sciousness of guilt makes our personality, in its inmost centre,
answerable for our sin. No one can say, when my conscience
rejects my sins, it does not therefore reject me ; but he, himself,
the sinner, is involved indissolubly in his sins, the condemning
judgment is directed against himself.
' But this condemning judgment, which as second moment of
the notion of guilt follows from the objective existence of sin under
presupposition of a subject to whom it can be imputed, is in itself
again a twofold notion. The first is the negativing consequence of
sin, that the sinner is excluded from fellowship with God. . . . Its
peculiar significance lies in this, that this exclusion in consequence
of sin attaches itself to the sinner as an abiding un worthiness for
fellowship with God. He has committed sin ; he is guilty. So
long as the desire after God slumbers, the guilt also slumbers ; but
when the consciousness of guilt awakes, man finds himself separated
from God, unworthy of participation in any revelation of God, save
in His wrath. This conducts us to the second positive consequence,
which attaches to man by virtue of the guilt arising from sin. It
is this, that he therewith has fallen under the holy world-order of
God, for the due punishment of his crime.' *
This existence of guilt is not dependent upon its being recog-
nised in the conscience of the sinner. ' Guilt is of far greater
magnitude and more widely diffused than its consciousness in man.'
The sense may sometimes be awakened very suddenly, and may be
roused to a high degree of acuteness of feeling ; but, on the other
hand, it may be very slight or it may slumber for long periods of
time. Dr. Muller thinks that even if there is wanting a complete
sense of guilt, there is always the germ of the same.
1 Op. cit.
106 THE GREAT THEOLOGICAL SUPERSTITION. PART III.
It thus appears that what are ordinarily termed crimes in
human affairs are not sins, but are the results of sin. They always
indicate a corrupted soul, but are not themselves the sin. The
latter lies farther back, and does not consist in any overt act of
wickedness or immorality, but in the inward alienation of the soul
from God. Where love to God exists man perceives the relations
to each other of all human beings as members of a spiritual com-
monwealth, of which God is the Supreme Law-Giver and Governor.
The love which he has for God, therefore, reacts and diffuses itself
throughout the sphere of humanity, thus working out an obedience
to the second commandment of the moral law. If, however, love
to God is wanting, selfishness and self-seeking become ascendant,
and the egoistic dispositions fostered are apt to issue kin wrongs
and injuries to fellowmen. These latter are the indicia of sin.
The next point of interest in connection with this doctrine is
the extent to which sin is held to prevail. After ascertaining
what is meant by sin as set forth by Dr. Miiller, the correctness of
whose statements, I think, will not be challenged by any of those
who style themselves orthodox, we shall not be surprised to find it
asserted that sin is absolutely universal. Says Dr. Miiller, ' But
as to the better and more noble of mankind, the immediate question
is only, whether also in their life sin is in any way present. The
question here is still purely directed to the mere fact of actual sin,
and the answer can only be given us by experience. But he who
has devoted any attention to this side of human experience will,
although according to the nature of the case a rigid inductive
proof cannot be given, nevertheless consider it as an indubitable
fact, that every human life which has passed beyond the earliest
period of childlike consciousness, is also one which is stained with
real sin. To maintain the opposite must ever be regarded as a
testimony of inexperience and unacquaintance with life, which one
excuses in the youthful enthusiasm for honoured individuals, but
not in the maturer consciousness.' l And again, c If a pure spirit
came down among us, he would undoubtedly find in the highest
degree rejectable the great amount of untruthfulness and petty
selfishness, of intolerance and self-exaltation, of uncharitableness
and inertness to good, which is to be met with in the lives of even
those better and more noble natures. The universal weakness and
infirmity of the human race is just its infidelity towards that which
it ought to regard as the absolutely Holy. And he who acknow-
1 Oj). cit. Book IV. chap. i.
CHAP. XIII. THE DOCTRINE OF SIN. 107
ledges the universality of weaknesses and deficiencies acknowledges
that no human life can declare itself free from contamination with
real sin, with sin condemnable before God.' ' Indeed, we must go
still a step further, and maintain that first in the life of those
better natures sins which are not committed without a heavier or
more definite warning of the conscience are in general oftener to
be met with than in the life of others.'1
If sin is selfishness, self-seeking, self-striving, it is indeed dif-
ficult to see how any individual is free from it. As I understand
the doctrine of sin, any, even the least, degree of this egoism is
sinful. Dr. Miiller remarks, < It must then stand immovably fixed
that it is absolutely blamable to stir even only a finger against the
will of God.' In such a view, it was quite natural that the doctrine
of original or hereditary sin should arise. This holds that men
inherit the sinful disposition, it being a part of their innate charac-
ter. Jonathan Edwards thought it fully proved i That mankind
are all naturally in such a state as is attended without fail with
this consequence or issue, that they universally are the subjects of
that guilt and sinfulness which is, in effect, their utter and eternal
ruin, being cast wholly out of the favour of God, and subjected to
his everlasting wrath and curse.' 2 And ' the proposition laid down
being proved, the consequence of it remains to be made out, viz.,
That the mind of man has a natural tendency or propensity to that
event which has been shown universally and infallibly to take
place ; and that this is a corrupt or depraved propensity.' ' The
great depravity of man's nature appears not only in that they
universally commit sin who spend any long time in the world ; but
in that men are naturally so prone to sin that none ever fail of
immediately transgressing God's law, and so of bringing infinite
guilt on themselves and exposing themselves to eternal perdition
as soon as they are capable of it.'
Setting aside consideration of the varying shades of belief upon
this question of innate depravity, despite their differences, it is
held that whenever and however sin begins in the individual, it
exists in all and is an absolutely universal fact of human experience.
It will hence be seen that the assertion of the importance of this
doctrine which I made at the outset is well grounded. For, by
reason of this sin all men stand condemned before God to eternal
ruin, or at any rate to a punishment of whose duration we have
no knowledge. Not only will all men receive punishment, but
1 Ojj. clt. Book IV. chap. i. 2 Oti Original Sin, Part I. chap. i.
108 THE GREAT THEOLOGICAL SUPERSTITION. PART III.
they are deserving of punishment, they are righteously and pro-
perly subject to the wrath of God. He would not be a God of
infinite perfection if this were not so. ' This sentence of the law,
thus subjecting men for every, even the least, sin, and every minutest
branch and latent principle of sin, to so dreadful a punishment is
just and righteous, agreeable to truth and the nature of things, or
to the natural and proper demerits of sin.' Again, ' The wrath,
condemnation and death, which is threatened in the law to all its
transgressors is final perdition, the second death, eternal ruin ; as
is very plain and indeed confessed. And this punishment which
the law threatens for every sin is a just punishment, being what
every sin truly deserves ; God's law being a righteous law, and the
sentence of it a righteous sentence.' 1 The only escape from this
perdition is through grace as exhibited in the expiatory atonement
of Jesus Christ. By this men are redeemed from the consequences
of their sins, saved from their sins, and made heirs to eternal life.
Now this whole doctrine of atonement rests upon the assumed truth
of the doctrine of sin. If this latter be true, the doctrine of the
atonement is not indeed necessarily proved thereby ; but this latter
dogma cannot be established without allowing the truth of the
former. Any theory, therefore, which assigns to Jesus Christ an
office other than that of a moral teacher must be dependent upon
the truth of the doctrine of sin. I need not say that the so-called
orthodox claim for the Nazarene much more than any mere human
relations as a teacher and exemplar. According to their beliefs he
was sent of God to work out this atonement and expiation of sin
of which we have just been speaking.
Without going into more detail, and without discussing minor
variances, we are justified in saying that such in its essential
features is the doctrine which we have made the subject of our
. consideration.
1 Edwards, op. clt. Part I. chap. i.
109
CHAPTER XIV.
THE TRUTH OF THE DOCTRINE.
ir~~\
No^erson who is sane will deny the existence of evil in the world,
or that there is an opposition between good and evil. The
problems to be discussed are the nature, the origin, and manner of
dealing with evil. It is conceded by all that we have ideals of a
better state of things than we see actually about us, and of a higher
character than we actually possess. What the bearings of these
facts are upon human life and destiny is not so easily determined.
The doctrine of sin furnishes one explanation. In order to decide
whether it is a correct one or not we are compelled first of all to
ascertain what mental capacities we have to receive and obey a
divine command. The first and great commandment is, i Thou
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy
soul, and with all thy mind.' We must inquire what is meant by
such a mandate, then whether or not it is possible to obey it, and,
if possible, what constitutes a compliance.
Assuming that love as commanded in this precept is 'the
leaving of self,' the opposite of which is selfishness and self-seeking,
we must expect to find in love as strong as that which is here en-
joined a well-developed altruistic disposition. We are only able to
interpret language by reference to human experience. Words are
meaningless except as they mark some experience of sentient
beings ; and so far as they are applied to sentiments of the mind,
they can only have their meaning made plain by psychological
analysis. Psychology, as we have in former chapters noted, gene-
ralising the well-verified facts of the human mind learned by intro-
spection and observation of others, shows us two prominent classes
of dispositions, the egoistic and the altruistic. The former have
their roots in and spring from the instincts and ends of self-
preservation. They subserve the growth and development of the
individual. Were it not generally conceded that the root and
indeed the essential fibre of sin is selfishness, it might be necessary
110 THE GREAT THEOLOGICAL SUPERSTITION. PART III.
for us to reduce all sins to egoism, and show how the outward
exhibition of evil of all kinds proceeds from this source ; but by
such a concession we are spared this labour. As a matter of fact
it would not be difficult to demonstrate that all evil and crime
spring from self-seeking and disregard of the good of others.
Certainly everything in the way of wrong and injury which aims
at acquisition by the perpetrator is obviously egoistic. So also
everything which is done under the demand of the individual's
desires for the end of consumption. There has been more or less
dispute as to the origin of pure malevolence, and indeed as to its
existence ; but at all events he who inflicts pain with no apparent
object does it for his own gratification. The inordinate love of
power and of fame is clearly selfish. So it is with every maleficent
action and with every malevolent intent ; all are egoistic in their
nature.
If we identify selfishness with egoism, and if all selfishness be
sin, every human being must be in some degree sinful. Nor will
it be difficult to demonstrate that sin is inherited by everyone. As
we go back to the beginning, however, it will be quite impossible
for us to find any first man who was without sin, if he drew the
breath of life at all. More than that, it is impossible for us to
conceive of any perfect sinless human being, unless existing in
different form and under entirely different conditions from man as
he exists now, or has existed within historical times ; for organic
life postulates egoism. In order that there may be a living
organism there must be processes tending directly to the preserva-
tion of that organism. And if the organic life is guided by a
supervening consciousness, that consciousness must have some
ruling dispositions towards egoistic ends. £jf this were not so
sentient beings would soon be altogether extinguished. If we
have correctly understood the doctrine of sin, there could not have
been, therefore, any sinless human being, and we are at least
obliged to dismiss the hypothesis of an originally perfect man. ^
Whatever altruism humanity may be capable of, it is certain that
the race as constituted must always have had some egoism.
On still further reflection it appears that there can be no
altruism without egoism. Of course if an individual by reckless self-
disregard throws away his life's opportunities and commits suicide,
he thereby diminishes the result of his altruistic accomplishment.
In this respect self-conservation may be a means to a greater
amount of altruistic work, and self-destruction inimical to altruism
CHAP. XIV. THE TRUTH OF THE DOCTRINE. Ill
so far as the human race is concerned. But, more than this, it will
be found that there is some egoism in every exhibition of altruism.
If the inward disposition and not the outward act is the measure
by which to determine the presence or absence of love to God, it
will be seen that such volitions as exhibit this love are pleasurable
and proceed from pleasurable emotions in him who has them.
Moreover, the entire sentiment is itself agreeable. It is not only
conceded but contended that the presence of this love brings peace,
contentment, and happiness, and not merely this, but the richest
and fullest happiness. It hence follows that both inward piety
and altruistic conduct as issuing from this contain an element of
egoistic gratification. We love these things for their own sake,
because they satisfy us. Therefore, on the theory of sin promul-
gated, since all altruism involves egoism, altruism is tainted with
sin, and all conduct whatever is sinful.
Thus, in connection with the question of the truth of the doctrine
of sin, we note in the first place the presence in every human con-
stitution of selfishness as an essential and necessary element, without
which no individual existence is possible. And we observe further
that all unselfishness involves some degree of self-gratification ;
that all this is, so far as we are able to conceive, a necessary con-
dition of human life, without which such life would cease. Such a
conclusion does not, however, abolish all difference between selfish-
ness and unselfishness. There is such a thing, to be sure, as un-
selfish pleasure to be contrasted with selfish pleasure. That pleasure
which comes from doing or favouring the will of another is not the
same pleasure as that which comes from self-seeking. But the
point I wish to make now is that egoism is a necessary part of
human mental constitution, and if we hold that all selfishness is in
itself evil, we must recognise the fact that man is created with it
as an essential part of his constitution. If we do not esteem all
selfishness to be evil in itself, then whether or not it is so must
depend upon its degree and circumstances. We thus depart from
an inward measure to an outward standard. The effects of selfish-
ness must settle this question ; I see no third position to assume.
Now, if we suppose that selfishness is in itself sin, there is no
escape from the conclusion that God is either the author of evil
or is not omnipotent. We find no answer to the queries of
Epicurus (Chapter II.). God either created man with sin as a
necessary part of his constitution, or some other being incorporated
it into man's nature in despite of God. Whichever of these two
112 THE GREAT THEOLOGICAL SUPERSTITION. PART III.
hypotheses we accept, clearly man has no responsibility for the
existence of sin. He is not to blame for what he cannot help.
It is incumbent upon him, we will say, to make the best of his
situation, but no blame can in any event be attached to him for
the mere existence of sin. Everythin£X)f the nature of guilt must
be eliminated from consideration -\J$o plainly does this appear
that, in order to avert the necessary consequence of destroying the
moral character and perfection of the Deity in upholding the
doctrine of sin, theologians have had recourse to that psychological
theory before referred to (Chapter II.), over which there has been
so much discussion and conflict both in philosophy and theology.
I allude to the famous doctrine of the Freedom of the Will. This
doctrine is, in brief, that every man is created with a free agency
of volition, by which it is within his power to choose good or evil ;
that there is in the will an original source of action, a creative or
causative agency. Man, being thus free to choose good or evil, is
responsible to God for his choice as an independent author of his
wickedness, if he commits any, for which wickedness God is in
no wise accountable since He created man free to choose the good.
The tenacity with which this doctrine has been held is owing to
the fact that it has afforded the only hope of escape from the
dilemma above stated. Moreover, it was a subtlety, the meaning or
lack of meaning of which was not liable to be readily apprehended,
whereas the idea that God is not good, or that He is not omni-
potent, appeared to be immediately fatal to the whole system of
theology. But as knowledge increased with respect to the nature
and method of mental operations, the freedom of the will, as held
by theologians, was seen to be self-contradictory and absurd. It
amounts to a denial of causation. Psychological science has
conclusively shown that the will is determined by the strongest
motives. And this conclusion has been confirmed within the
church itself by one of its ablest and most acute thinkers. Says
Jonathan Edwards, whom I have before quoted on the subject of
innate depravity,1 < The choice of the mind never departs from that
which at the time, and with respect to the direct and immediate
objects of decision, appears most agreeable and pleasing, all things
considered. If the immediate objects of the will are a man's own
actions, then those actions which appear most agreeable to him
he wills. If it be now most agreeable to him, all things con-
sidered, to walk, then he now wills to walk. If it be now upon
1 On the Freedom of the Will, Part I. sec. 2.
CHAP. XIV. THE TRUTH OF THE DOCTRINE. 113
the whole of what at present appears to him most agreeable to
speak, then he chooses to speak; if it suits him best to keep
silence, then he chooses to keep silence. There is scarcely a
plainer and more universal dictate of the sense and experience of
mankind than that, when men act voluntarily and do what they
please, then they do what suits them best, or what is most agree-
able to them. To say that they do what pleases them, but yet
not what is agreeable to them, is the same thing as to say they
do what they please but do not act their pleasure ; and that is to
say that they do what they please and yet do not what they
please.'
I shall not undertake to go into the free-will controversy,
which, as Leslie Stephen } says, has been fully ' threshed out.' I
am aware it may be thought arrogant to claim that the battle has
been absolutely lost to the free-will cause. But I shall unhesi-
tatingly make such a claim, and am assured that it is sustained
by all science not suborned to the purposes of theology. There is
not anywhere existing an argument for freedom of the will that
has not been over and over again fully answered. This is as true
of the newer as the older phases of the doctrine. No thorough
and careful study of psychology can fail to make the absurdity of
this principle fully apparent. If my words are not taken on trust,
I shall be obliged to refer the reader to psychological science, or
if he is suspicious of science as harbouring a bias against religion,
to the very full and elaborate treatise of Jonathan Edwards, who,
whatever may be said of him, never can be accused of being an
irreligious man, as religion goes among those who would chiefly
distrust the soundness of my views or the truth of my assertions.
I know of hardly any better discussion of the subject than this of
Edwards, and am quite content to recommend his work to any
student who is earnest for the discovery of truth.
Discarding the theory of self-determination of the will, if
selfishness is in itself sin, it has been implanted in human nature
by the Deity or by some Anti-God in opposition to the Deity
whom we are commanded to love. Therefore, there can be no
moral relation between man and God which admits of anything
like what we term guilt for the existence of this characteristic.
Man did not put it into his nature ; he finds it there : moreover,
he is not able to conceive of an organic or personal being who is
without it. It is one of the preserving and developing forces of
1 Science of Ethics.
I
114 THE GREAT THEOLOGICAL SUPERSTITION. PAKT III.
every life — part and parcel of the constitution of every mind.
This being so, to charge upon one's self guilt for such a condition
of things is simply and literally a mark of insanity. Upon such
a view the doctrine of sin is self-contradictory and, indeed, mean-
ingless.
Let us, however, consider another supposition in this con-
nection. It will be said, perhaps, that the selfishness of which
sin consists is not the self-preference which is ordinarily shown
forth in outward acts as regards others, nor is it the egoism of
self-preservation, but an inward preference of self as an object of
worship and a hatred of God. Where true love to God exists,
then the self-regarding instincts are not indeed destroyed, but
they all are made ministers to the controlling influence of a love to
God. By this law the peculiar wickedness of selfishness is trans-
formed into a benevolent and beneficial sentiment which issues in
altruism toward one's fellows. Without this love to God altruistic
dispositions and deeds are not at all redeemed from the curse of
sin. Man is not justified by works but by faith. This love to
God the natural man is wholly without ; his natural state is that
of hatred and enmity to God. But, to begin with, if we grant the
truth of all such assertions, the query is still pertinent, Who is
responsible for the sinful condition ? Unless the freedom of the
will is conceded, man certainly cannot help his sinfulness if he
would. It is part of his constitution inherited from his ancestors.
To esteem him guilty of anything under such circumstances is to
confound utterly all moral distinctions. He might be imperfect or
unfit for God's companionship, but he is not a criminal.
This, however, is not the whole difficulty, insuperable though
it be. Let us examine more closely our ideas of love and hatred to
God, with the view of ascertaining what these sentiments are in
the mental constitution of man. I apprehend that, as applied to
relations with God, ' love ' and ' hatred ' mean the same things that
they do in purely human relations. Unless this is the case, I see
no use in employing any language whatever to describe relations
with the Deity; except, may be, for the favoured few who make a
technical science of divinity, and even to them terms can have no
meaning except from analogies of human experience. If we coin
new words, still they must stand for experiences, and those ex-
periences must have their likenesses which enable general names
to be employed to indicate common characters. Now love is an
emotion resulting in a sentiment whose constituents are feelings
CHAP. XIV. THE TRUTH OF THE DOCTEINE. 115
of preference for some other person. If we accept the definition
' leaving of self ' as adequate, there must be some person for whom
self is left. If I love a being with all my heart, soul, and mind,
I must desire that person's presence, must be eager to devote myself
to his service, and generally place his interests before my own.
The relations of a happy wedded life exhibit the highest type of
love between equals; those of mother and child that of love
between a superior and a dependent. In all of these are two
elements of satisfaction : one that of companionship, and the other
that of helpfulness. It will hardly be disputed that the sentiment
in question is the strongest toward a person whom we see or have
seen in no very remote period. I may love the Pope, whom I
have never seen, and from whom I am separated by a long distance
of both land and sea. I can form from what I have heard and
read a tolerably definite idea of the Pope's personality ; I have
seen his picture, I have read accounts of his life and character.
I may have a very high admiration for him. If, now, I am
required to love him with mv/whole heart, soul, and mind, does
anyone pretend to say that /it is possible for me to entertain any
such sentiments toward hip as toward my own father, whom I see
every day, with whom I Hve, and whose wants and preferences are
continually under my /Observation ? There is no companionship
either fpom me to the/Pope or from the Pope to me. Nor is there
direct personal helpfulness. I can aid his church, praise him to
others, po much t</ advance his empire, to be sure ; he may thank
me generally, or even specially ; but all that cannot evoke or
sustain m me/a strength of love like that for my father, with whom
I am in near and frequent association. Now, ' no man hath seen
God at any time.' The only definite idea we have of Him is of a
Being of infinite perfections who has a father's love for his crea-
tures. ' Thou canst not see my face ; for there shall no man see
me and live.' We create in our imagination a person omnipotent,
omniscient, beautiful, and good, but nevertheless a fiction (psycho-
logically speaking) formed by the plastic powers of the mind. We
consider ourselves as the dependents of such an absolute Being.
The sentiments primarily aroused by thoughts of such a God are
those of fear, which become softened into admiration and reverence.
There is a power which controls our actions and is superior to our
volitions ; the manifestations of this power inspire us with awe and
dread. By investing this Supreme Being with lovable attributes
we are enabled to have in some degree the emotions which belong
i 2
116 THE GREAT THEOLOGICAL SUPERSTITION. PART III.
to love ; but as these are fixed upon an ideal or representative
object, they are and must be much fainter than when directed even
toward an absent but more definite being like the Pope. All the
love there can ever be must be highly representative and ideal so
far as love means feeling. There can be no satisfaction of the
companionship element of love. No one can be said to have com-
panionship (save in a metaphorical sense) with a creation of the
imagination. On the helpfulness side, there may be a disposition
to obey God's law if it can be ascertained, but that is all. Men
cannot help God. ' God that made the world and all things
therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in
temples made with hands ; neither is worshipped with men's hands,
as though he needed anything, seeing he giveth to all life, and
breath, and all things.' The only way man can carry out God's
law is to help his fellows. Love to God then, as action, can only
be shown in altruistic dispositions towards others, and, as just
noted, so far as feeling can be exhibited, only in an ideal emotion,
which can scarcely be called love at all, but which is chiefly
admiration, reverence, and fear. If anyone, therefore, urges that
I am guilty because I do not love God in the same way and to
the same degree that I love my father or mother, he affirms that
I am guilty because my nature has been so constituted as to make
this an utter impossibility.
Equally true is it that there is a similar natural impossibility
for anyone to be in a state of deep enmity against God. I can
entertain no hatred against a being of whose personal nature I
know nothing except what my imagination pictures ; save an ideal
hatred I cannot harm him, and I cannot make any attempt to
injure him. I may have the unreasoning anger of the savage
who beats the inanimate object that hurts him ; but all the feeling
aroused which savours of malevolence toward God is the spirit of
resistance against misfortunes and evils which have happened, are
happening, or are threatened. I may be possessed of a malevolent
disposition toward my fellow-men, and, so far as I invest God with
a definite personality, I may have an emotion of anger toward
Him, but it is a very faint copy of the sentiment I have toward a
human being. It is a sentiment directed towards an ideal being
with whom I have no direct personal relations. I may disapprove
of Him, disbelieve in Him ; but anything like positive hatred is
impossible. Man's hurtful dispositions are toward other men ; he
can form no disposition to hurt God ; and whatever malevolence
CHAP. XIV. THE TRUTH OF THE DOCTRINE. 117
he has is occasional, and then only toward an ideal object. If
justice is justice, there is no guilt in such feeling.
The conclusion to which these remarks point is that when we
eliminate the egoistic and altruistic sentiments as directed to
human beings from the mental constitution, we shall have left both
for love and for hatred to God only ideal emotions of extreme
tenuity. Both this love and this hatred are only representations
of emotion aroused by experiences with other human beings.
Moreover we shall then be able to find no volitional dispositions,
because there will be no definite ends toward which volition can
move. Hence, if love to God or hatred of Him is to enter into
problems of conduct or into our judgment of the moral value of
actions, it must be measured entirely by man's actions and dispo-
sitions toward his fellows. It is only thus that we can get hold
of anything to which we can attach ideas of praise or blame. A
person's egoism determines his sinfulness. If, ethically speaking,
he is malevolent, so far forth is he sinful ; and in the degree that
his dispositions are altruistic is his character a righteous one.
But if this be so, the universality of sin is no longer to be ad-
mitted ; for however selfish men have been, there have occurred
in all times instances of predominantly altruistic natures, and at
the present they are not uncommon. If sin is to be determined and
measured by ethical laws, then all the considerations of justice in
human affairs must control, and we can predicate of God's govern-
ment no other principles than those which belong to human
government. Sin is injury and wrong to one's fellows, and nothing
more. Evil thought is incipient sin ; evil acts constitute overt
sin. Not all selfishness is sin, but only that which in its purposes
and results is maleficent.
But even upon such conclusions we do not escape the difficulty
that God is the author of evil, and this destroys the guilt of sin.
For all of man's inhumanity to man springs from natural propen-
sities, and can be traced directly to the predatory appetites. They
are elicited and thrown into exercise by surrounding circumstances.
Both these propensities and these circumstances occur in the order
of nature, of which God is the cause. It may be necessary in the
social organism to restrain individual action and maintain some
sort of government which involves punishment of transgression.
Positive law will thus arise, and, back of that, moral law which
creates in each individual an imperative of duty. Self-control,
self-government, and self-direction, will thus assert themselves in
118 THE GREAT THEOLOGICAL SUPERSTITION. PART III.
each mind ; but if ever voluntary control is insufficient to keep
down selfishness, it is only in obedience to natural laws which
God has presumably made. Man, therefore, is not guilty of any
offence against God if his acts are in direct consequence of God's
own laws. He may be imperfect in the light of ideals of attain-
ment which are set before him, but he deserves no punishment
which is not reformatory in its character.
A claim will doubtless be made that love to God is evinced in
a dependence upon Him, which allows a personal communion of a
spiritual nature through His Holy Spirit. It will be said that
this communion is the spiritual life of man, and that when God is
consciously repelled by man the spiritual influence departs, and
the life is merely a carnal or sinful life. The Rev. Timothy
Dwight thus expounds from various Scripture texts the differ-
ence between what is the issue of the flesh and the offspring of
the Spirit : ' The word flesh is customarily used in the Scrip-
tures to denote the native character of man. In this sense the
carnal or fleshly mind is declared by St. Paul to be enmity against
God, not subject to His law, neither indeed capable of being
subject to it. In the same sense, the same apostle says : "In
me, that is, in my flesh," or natural character, " dwelleth no good
thing."
' A contrast is studiously run between that which proceeds from
the Spirit and that which proceeds from the flesh — or, to use the
words of our Saviour in the passage above quoted, between that
which is flesh and that which is Spirit — in several passages of
Scripture. " To be carnally minded," says St. Paul, " is death ;
but to be spiritually minded is life and peace " (Rom. viii. 6). In
the original, " The minding of the flesh is death ; but the minding
of the Spirit is life and peace." And again (Gal. v. 19-23) :
" Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these :
adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witch-
craft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like ; of the
which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that
they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering,
gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance." ' 1
Further expounding the nature of regeneration, Dr. Dwight
says : 2 ' This change of heart consists in a relish for spiritual
1 Dwight's Theology, Ser. Ixxii. (vol. ii.). 2 Ibid. Ser. Ixxiv.
CHAP. XIV. THE TRUTH OF THE DOCTRINE. 119
objects communicated to it by the power of the Holy Ghost. By
spiritual objects I intend the Creator, the Redeemer, the Sanctifier,
Heaven, Angels, the word and the worship of God, virtuous men,
virtuous affections, virtuous conduct, and all the kinds of enjoy-
ment found in the contemplation of these objects, the exercise
of these affections, and the practice of this conduct. The existence
of these objects every man admits; and every man at all con-
versant with human life must admit that a part of mankind
profess to relish them and to find in them real and sincere
pleasure. . . . I will only add on this subject that the relish for
spiritual objects is that which in the Scriptures is called a new
heart, a right spirit, an honest and good heart, a spiritual mind,
and denoted by several other names of a similar import. Thus,
a good man out of the good treasure of his heart is said to bring
forth good things. Thus, also, they who received the seed in good
ground, as exhibited in the parable of the sower, are said to be
such as in an honest and good heart, having received the word,
keep it and bring forth fruit with patience. In these and the
like instances the heart is exhibited as the source of all virtuous
volitions, desires, and conduct. This relish for spiritual objects is,
I apprehend, this very source of these interesting things.'
The above quotations show what is meant by spirituality as
opposed to sinfulness or carnality. Carnal pleasures are sexual
pleasures unrestrained (adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lascivi-
ousness) ; worship of false gods (idolatry, witchcraft) ; delights of
the festive board (drunkenness, revellings) ; predatory, malevolent
enjoyments (witchcraft, hatred, variance, seditions, murders, envy-
ings, &c., &c.), and the like. Spiritual pleasures are the more repre-
sentative sexual joys (love), restrained and temperate enjoyments
of appetitive cravings (temperance), and very largely social ancl
altruistic pleasures embraced in the general description of love to
God and to one's neighbour, including also a relish for the society
of good men, for doing good deeds, for contemplating the pleasures
of Heaven. Still further epitomising roughly, we may say that
carnal pleasures are presentative, egoistic, and malevolent ; spiritual
pleasures representative, altruistic, benevolent.
As a requisite to obtaining spiritual pleasures temperance is
prominent; for without it the carnal pleasures will have full sway.
The pleasures of virtuous action are also of no mean account.
The altruistic pleasures referred to in the foregoing exposition,
like all other altruistic pleasures, are in their very nature social.
120 THE GREAT THEOLOGICAL SUPERSTITION. PART IIT.
Friendship, love, benevolence, and their attendants, make up the
total.
If President Dwight gives correctly the characteristics of
spirituality, it will not be difficult for us to see that the foundation
pleasure of spirituality is that of society. By the latter pleasure
we are able to explain friendship, love, and benevolence, adding
to love in some cases the ingredient of sexuality. While, then, it
might be admitted without hesitation that this pleasure is at the
root of the relish for the society of good men and the approval of
good actions of others, I doubt not it will seem to some that the
love for God's society — ' the Creator, the Redeemer, the Sanctifier '
— and the desire for His approval, is something different in kind,
and not traceable to the primary natural pleasures. And yet one
great effort of the propagators of Christianity has been to establish
the belief in a personal God, a God with a mind and a heart, and
the ascriptions of personal attributes and qualities to Him have
no force or meaning except by analogy to and comparison with the
human personality. Man is said to be created in the image of
God. Moreover, God is represented as a Father, a kind and loving
parent ; and the highest type of love we can have for God, we are
told, is the love of a child for its parent. In God there is the
very perfection of society, and the difference between the pleasure
of God's approval and His social favour and that of a parent is
only that the former is much greater in degree than the latter ;
and the sources of the former pleasure are in no wise different in
kind from those of the latter.
The joy in spiritual objects — the contemplation, worship, and
love of God, the joy of Heaven, Angels, virtuous men, virtuous
affections, virtuous conduct ; love, long-suffering, gentleness, good-
ness, meekness, trust — the pleasures of spirituality, are hence
founded in altruism, which springs, as psychological study shows,
from the primary pleasures of society and sexuality. But I think
there is another important element in spirituality which President
Dwight does not develop prominently enough. This is supplied
in a work ' On Religious Affections/ by Jonathan Edwards,1 in
a section bearing the following title : ' The first objective ground
of gracious affections is the transcendently excellent and amiable
nature of divine things, as they are in themselves ; and not any
conceived relation they bear to self or self-interest.' In the
course of the section occurs this passage, which illustrates what
1 Part III. sec. 2.
OII.VP, XIV. THE TRUTH OF THE DOCTRINE. 121
1 have in mind. ' And as it is with the love of the saints, so it
is with their joy and spiritual delight : the first foundation of it is
not any consideration of their interest in divine things ; but it
primarily consists in the sweet entertainment their minds have
in the contemplation of the divine and holy beauty of these things
as they are in themselves.' By virtue of the redintegrating pro-
cesses, repetition of action tends to produce still further repetition,
until what was originally done for a specific end is done from the
pleasure of doing, independently of any thought of an end for
which the action is performed. A man goes to his daily business
to obtain his livelihood ; but, after a time, his pleasure is trans-
ferred to the activity itself; he does his work because he likes to
work, and unless he is thus occupied he is unhappy, even though
he may have acquired a competence. A student seeks to learn
because he must learn in order to make his way in the world ; but
by-and-bye, sometimes very early, he comes to love knowledge for
its own sake, irrespective of any advantage it is to bring. He
does not think of the good it is to do him ; he takes delight in the
learning and in knowing. An industrious, provident man, in like
manner, becomes a miser and loves his wealth for its own sake
so greatly that he will not part with enough of it to feed and
clothe himself.
This state of mind occurs only after repetition. Inheritance
undoubtedly creates a predisposition, but repetition develops. The
pleasure is one of activity for its own sake, and the direction in
which the activity is exerted habit determines.
Applying these remarks to the subject before us, it should be
observed that the peculiarity just commented upon is doubtless a
characteristic of ' spirituality.' As related to conduct, it is a
concomitant of altruism. The ego-altruistic pleasures are those
into which the pleasures of others enter with the thought present
of the advantage they bring to self. But the pure altruistic
pleasures are those which are satisfied with the pleasure of others
for its own sake. Such are exactly what are termed the pure
spiritual pleasures. They are taken in virtuous conduct, virtuous
society, virtuous disposition, for its own sake, without the conscious
thought of the benefit to accrue to self. It is painful to act in a
manner not virtuous, to be with vicious persons, and to have
vicious determinations of the will. Similarly, the spiritual mind
loves to represent those experiences in which virtuous action and
virtuous companionship form the prevailing part. It loves to
122 THE GREAT THEOLOGICAL SUPERSTITION. PART III.
dwell upon all the associations of virtue and virtuous society, and
to construct by the plastic power of association modifications and
enlargements of experience. So, for their own sake, ' spiritual
objects ' are loved, dwelt upon, cherished ; and virtuous conduct,
with all its attendants, is held of value for itself alone, and not
consciously for any other reward.
It should be further observed that a close relationship between
spiritual and aesthetic pleasures suggests itself here, arising from
a coincidence between one use of the term spiritual and the proper
meaning of ethical. This relationship is that subsisting between
aesthetic and ethical emotions. ^Esthetic pleasures as compared
with spiritual are more notably pleasures of contemplation and
reflection, while the latter are more distinguishably pleasures of
volition and action. Both are alike in being concerned with
objects which are not ministering directly to bodily necessities of
self, and in objects whose enjoyments are not restricted to a single
mind. But further than this the parallel does not hold. The
absence of disagreeable accompaniments in an object is its most
decided qualification for giving aesthetic pleasure ; the experience
must be one free from the disagreeable : it is enough that the
object be beautiful. But in order to secure a spiritual pleasure
the object must bear some relation to the happiness of others, and
the experience must be one in which altruistic thoughts and
altruistic pleasures are uppermost. The contemplation of a beau-
tiful statue gives us an aesthetic delight ; the relieving of the
necessities of the poor a spiritual (or ethical) delight. Listening
to a fine musical entertainment occasions aesthetic pleasure ; the
thought that the money we pay for the enjoyment goes for
charitable uses, deepens the pleasure and superadds the spiritual
element. In a word, in the aesthetic the absence of the disagreeable
is the characteristic factor ; in the spiritual, the altruism.
It is evident that the aesthetic and the spiritual are inter-
mingled with each other. God and Heaven are aesthetic objects,
and they may be regarded from an aesthetic point of view. They are
beautiful ; pain and evil are disassociated from them. But they are
also pre-eminently altruistic objects — God as the Father of all man-
kind, the benevolent Giver of happiness to His creatures and the
Reliever of woe ; Heaven as the place whence evil is banished, where
pain is unknown, and where the best and most virtuous dwell. On
the other hand, virtuous character and conduct have their aesthetic
aspects ; they have their beauty as well as their goodness. Even
CHAP. XIV. THE TRUTH OF THE DOCTRINE. 123
objects peculiarly within the domain of the aesthetic give spiritual
pleasures. The picture of the Virgin, of Christ, or of a saint may
affect us either as a noble work of art or by eliciting the associations
of goodness, beneficence, grace, and charity connected with the
persons represented. Many popular ballads please by the melody
less than by the noble sentiment expressed. The music of a piece
gives aesthetic delight, the words usually appeal to the spiritual
emotions. It is not unfrequently the case that the aesthetic in
religion crowds out and nearly eliminates the spiritual, or ethical,
so that men are in reality worshippers of the beautiful and the
agreeable, without regarding the happiness of their neighbour,
or at any rate placing that of less importance in the scale of their
regards. But though the aesthetic and the spiritual, or ethical,
are thus interfused they are of a distinct character. All pleasures
may become assthetic, both the egoistic and the altruistic. From
every primary pleasure may be developed aesthetic pleasures. On
the contrary, only the altruistic pleasures furnish any ground for
the spiritual, and these are limited to society and sexuality.
From these considerations it is evident that so-called ' spiritu-
ality ' is a natural development from natural pleasures — pleasures
which are just as natural as any egoistic pleasures. In the history
of the human race, men have been more ' carnal ' than ' spiritual '
for the most part, as the predatory appetites have controlled and
overslaughed the social ; and at the present time the majority of
men are more carnal than spiritual ; but there is no time of which
we have record when there were no social appetites, and no time
when benevolence and love have been wholly absent. The pre-
servation and multiplication of the race is evidence of this fact, for,
without allowing the pleasure of society, there is no way to make
possible the gratification of the sexual appetite. As civilisation
advances, the altruistic and representative pleasures gain ground,
until their value is considered, and by many, far greater than that
of the more present at ive and egoistic pleasures. In the more
highly cultivated individuals the representative pleasures are the
most esteemed, and in not a few the altruistic surpass the egoistic.
A study of the records of the past will reveal at any epoch which
may be selected evidences of an egoistic and an altruistic spirit,
though generally speaking the farther back we go the greater the
preponderance of the egoistic. Again, it should be noted that the
spiritual pleasures, though antagonistic to some carnal pleasures,
are closely allied with others. Among the primary pleasures, there
124 THE GREAT THEOLOGICAL SUPERSTITION. PART III.
is an affiliation between the sexual and social in opposition to the
predatory. The pleasures of sexuality, therefore, in connection
with the social, are the matrix out of which the spiritual pleasures
grow.
Since the human mind has an aptitude for both carnal and
spiritual pleasures, and the former have been more originally pre-
valent, and the latter in their strength only a development charac-
teristic of a more complex mental organisation, it appears that the
latter have for the most part to be educated in order to have a
controlling power. Some constitutions are better adapted to enjoy
them than others. When there is a strong animal organisation
and powerful motives are brought to bear (eternal salvation, for in-
stance,) to induce the man to subdue the lusts of the flesh and find
his greatest pleasures in spiritual things, then comes a struggle.
His spirituality is cultivated only at the expense of poignant self-
denial. He has to crucify the flesh. With spiritual enjoyments,
thus are connected a large class of pains. Indeed, the person does
not properly become spiritually minded till he ceases to require an
effort to dwell on spiritual things. Some persons' lives in this way
have been made a perpetual contest. Often men • absorbed in
carnal pleasures are awakened to the appreciation of higher and
better delights by the thoughts of advantages to accrue to them,
either from positive benefits in the way of position, influence,
health, wealth, or power, or in escaping evils. If they persevere in
attempting to change their habits, after a while their ' relish for
spiritual objects ' becomes purely altruistic, and then results delight
in those objects in and for themselves. A proper early education,
continued through childhood and youth, will accomplish, in all cases
where there is not inherited a strong predatory constitution, the
fixing of the mind's ' relish ' for spiritual things so firmly as to
establish a controlling preference for spiritual pleasures, powerful
enough to subdue the baser and more destructive appetites.
Undoubtedly, for a long time, the most cogent motive compel-
ling attention to spiritual things was one which took its rise in
ignorance and superstition. The terror of the wrath of an offended
God, with all the paraphernalia of future torment, drove men to
dwell upon the representative, the altruistic, and the spiritual.
Then the excesses of riotous living, and the ailments and shorten-
ing of life consequent thereon were made apparent as knowledge
grew. The danger to one's own life when a spirit of hatred and
slaughter became rife was pointed out. Enlightened self-interest
yj^g
if
CUAP. XIV, THE TRUTH OF THE DOCTRINE. 125
taught men that altruism is better than unrestrained egoism. The
blessings of being loved taught people to love. All these motives
are still of force in varying degrees, one appealing with the most
force to one constitution, another to another.
The importance of a correct understanding of the nature and
sources of this ' regenerated ' or ' spiritual ' life must be my excuse for
the length of consideration which I have allowed to it. Of course,
I am not able to give within the limits of this treatise a whole
psychology. But perhaps I may be permitted to express an opinion
as to what psychological science teaches, and as to what a careful
study of mental phenomena reveals. In my judgment, after giving
the most serious attention to the subject for twenty years, all that
there is in the feeling of a ' relish for spiritual objects ' is a repre-
sentation of primary feelings entirely natural, arising in obedience
to natural laws of the development of mind, I do not say that it is
not a communion with God ; but I do affirm that, at all events, it
is nothing different in kind from the altruistic spirit, in whatever
form we see it exhibited, and from the aesthetic blended with it.
And if there be a divine influence which we feel in the best
moments of our lives, it is not in any sense a personal communica-
tion, as two human beings communicate with each other in the
spoken or the written word. It is at most an influence, a force,
a power emanating perhaps from a person, but not being itself a
direct, certain, and recognisable communication from the Divine
Being.
Some writers have endeavoured to get over the very obvious
difficulties in the way of the claim that the religious emotions
indicated the immediate presence of a Divine Person, by inventing
a Reason as an assumed faculty for seeing God and knowing him
as one human being knows another. They occupy the strongest
possible ground in support of supernaturalism if they can prove
the existence of this Reason as a fact of mental life. I have else-
where examined this claim with some care,1 convinced of the im-
portance of its bearings, and have endeavoured to show its utter
groundlessness. Our knowledge of God is wholly inferential and
representative, not intuitive or immediate. Hence, if we have any
communion with God, it is only the communion we have with an
absent, unseen person, who, operating through nature and natural
laws, is able to develop in man this ' relish for spiritual objects,' to
appear as a factor of human progress in the course of evolution.
1 System of Psychology, chap. Ivii.
126 THE GREAT THEOLOGICAL SUPERSTITION. PART III.
It is susceptible of cultivation, no doubt ; but it belongs to and is
nothing else than that altruistic and aesthetic development which
has been modifying human nature in natural modes from the
beginning of history.
Thus, whether we consider the love to God of ' the first and
great commandment ' to be absence of selfishness in human rela-
tions, abnegation of self-worship in favour of divine worship, or a
state of spiritual regeneration as opposed to the natural, the
lese cases we are forced to postulate the
sin, or as not omnipotent. This destroys
;he idea of sin. /Moreover, if sin be selfish -
the individual to his environment, then sin
carnal state — in all t
Deity as the Author o:
all that is essential to
ness in the relations of
is absolutely necessary Ito the constitution and existence of every
human being. This m\ist have/oeen so from the beginning, and
any sinless, perfect human life is an utter impossibility. Sin is
the law of organic preservation and growth. Not even love to
God can be maintained, save by the aid of sin, and cannot be con-
ceived without postulating it. This is also fatal to the doctrine.
Again, if the requisite love to God is worship of God, which
consists in an emotional state of strong and controlling power
surpassing any love to human individuals, in the absence of which
sin consists, this also is an impossibility because the human mind
is not so constituted as to admit of it. This also militates
unanswerably against the doctrine of sin. Further, if the love to
God, the lack of which is sin, lies in a state of regeneration wherein
the person converted loves the things of God, it appears upon
examination of these things, as they are explained by theologians,
that they consist in altruistic feeling and volition, or else in objects
of aesthetic contemplation — in other words, that the spiritual love
is a natural development of altruistic and aesthetic interests, the
former being characteristic. The sum and substance of these con-
clusions is that the love to God, without which there is always sin,
is, always was, and ever must be, an impossibility to mankind —
indeed, inconceivable by man ; or its explanation, its test, and its
measure must be found in the relations of men to their fellows :
their feelings, their dispositions, their actions to their own kind.
While, in any and all events wherever sin may be and in whatever
it may consist, there is still the necessary attribution to God of the
ultimate responsibility for sin, unless He be of limited power.
Certainly there is 110 guilt of man as related to a Supernatural
Being.
CHAP. XIV. THE TRUTH OF THE DOCTRINE. ]27
It seems, therefore, that those who regard the words of Jesus
enjoining love to God and to one's neighbour as ' the ava-
K£$a\aiwcris of all divine commands to men,' can only stand upon
the ground that the second member of the double precept is
intended to indicate both the manner and the measure of the love
to God which the ' first and great commandment ' requires. The
only way we can love God with all the heart, soul, and mind is to
love our neighbour as ourself. And if we do obey the second com-
mandment, so far forth are we fulfilling the first. But this second
command is nothing more than the ethical rule of conduct.
Religion is hence thrown back upon science, and its practical
application is measured and governed by scientific laws and rules.
To be moral is to be religious so far as conduct is related to
religion, and to the degree that a man is immoral is he also
irreligious. If, however, this proposition be accepted, it is evident
that the doctrine of sin as herein enunciated is not true. Offences
against the moral law are no greater against God than they are
against men. Upon religious grounds, he who sins against his
fellows may sin against God ; but the measure of his sin is the
harm done or intended, and this is entirely capable of being over-
balanced, expiated, and atoned for by good. There must be a
reasonable estimate of character ; a man's virtues must be placed
to his credit as against his vices. And for the latter, lie receives
punishment at the hands of his fellows in one way or another,
either by experiencing those* positive penalties which society is
obliged to affix to criminal action, or by social losses and depriva-
tions consequent upon his ill-conduct. If wrong-doing be sin
against God, it must be judged by its human relations. Some sins
are venial, some are heinous ; some are mere imperfections, others
are positive villanies ; some are misdemeanours, others are crimes ;
some are omissions, others are sins of commission. But whatever
they may be, they are no greater toward God than they are to
human society. And if a man is sufficiently humane to be entitled
to the recognition, society, and favour of his fellows, he is justly
entitled to at least the same consideration under God's government.
On ordinary principles of justice he is entitled to more favour from
God, since God occupies to him the relation of a Father who
watches over him and cares for him, and also the relation of Author
of his being, his mind, his environment, and his disposition, who
has implanted within him tendencies which, in their working out,
have developed his untoward actions.
128 THE GREAT THEOLOGICAL SUPERSTITION. PART III.
If such, then, be the correct view of the meaning of ' love to
God,' the untruth of the doctrine of sin appears in the following
particulars : —
1. Sin at its worst is not a direct offence, but only an indirect
offence against God, the direct injury being against man, through
which alone God is disobeyed.
2. There is no love or hatred of God in the same degree that
there is toward man ; this love or hatred is highly ideal. Man is
not naturally at enmity with God.
3. Sin is not universal; but so far as it exists, exists in varying
degrees, the measure of sin being malevolence towards one's
fellows.
4. The heinousness of sin in itself is greatly lessened. Man is
not guilty towards God of anything at the very furthest that he is
not guilty of toward man ; and whatever sins he may commit
should be offset by his virtues, and extinguished by them. Man is
not, therefore, under general condemnation, which would be the
grossest kind of injustice.
5. Selfishness is not necessarily sin, but may be, and to a cer-
tain extent is, obedience to God's law.
6. Ground is laid for the argument that sin is imperfection,
which is punished only in the operation of natural laws, and neither
deserves nor will receive any further punishment.
I have thus far been considering the truth of the doctrine of
sin on the supposition that the moral law of Scripture as summed
up in the two great commandments is a direct revelation from God
and is of binding force and authority over and above the authority
of general ethical law. As gauged by this standard, the doctrine
of sin is seen to be untrue upon a fair interpretation put upon the
words of Jesus in accordance with general experience. The diffi-
culties in the way of the so-called orthodox construction of the com-
mands are not to be overcome. In order to substantiate their position
the self-styled orthodox appeal to psychology — for them a most fatal
step ; for psychology exposes the baselessness of their pretensions,
and removes the very ground upon which they stand. The doctrine
is of no value without the hypothesis of the freedom of the will, and
even then it is irreconcilable with any ideas of justice in connection
with omnipotence which are not totally opposed to justice as under-
stood in all human relations. Any theology which makes God the
creator and sustainer of all conscious existence is contradictory to
any theory of man being guilty in the eye of God for acts which
CHAP. XIV. THE TRUTH OF THE DOCTRINE. 129
are the outcome of innate dispositions. The sense of guilt is
necessary and desirable for a human ethical system ; but when we
get beyond this, it is as useless as it is meaningless and absurd.
It must not be overlooked that a large portion of the human
race, and not merely of the common and ignorant, but also of the
select and intelligent, do not accept the Bible scriptures as a direct
revelation from God, or as carrying with them any authority other
than they are entitled to carry upon ethical principles applied to
their subject-matter to determine its value. To all such, the un-
truth of the doctrine of sin is palpable and gross. No argument is
needed to establish its insufficiency. It is a fiction, not only absurd
but immoral. It is very easy to assail the motives of such people,
to impugn their good faith, to decry their intelligence. But at all
events the fact remains, and we must take note of it. If on the
grounds of the believer the doctrine is found untrue, much more,
when judged by the standards of the unbeliever, it is without merit
and wholly unworthy of the place that has been claimed for it
as a truth affecting the interests of mankind.
It cannot be denied that there are in the Bible many passages
which seem to substantiate the view with respect to the existence,
nature, and consequences of sin that are embodied in the foregoing
statements of the doctrine. They are identified with those ideas of
God which represent Him as a cruel and bloodthirsty despot, before
whom all the world stands condemned, and it is an act of beatitude
and grace if He spares anyone at all. An argument can be made
out from Scripture texts which appears to justify these theological
dogmas about man's depravity and God's condemnation. But the
difficulty is they are not substantiated by those texts to which
Christian theology gives pre-eminence as furnishing the ava-
K£$a\aiwcris of all divine commands to men. As measured by
the latter, the force of the argument drawn from the former is
destroyed; for although the former denounce men as universally
sinful and worthy of condemnation — in fact, as already under God's
wrath — the latter, being taken as authoritative, furnish upon a fair
interpretation an explanation of sin which demonstrates that sin
varies in degree, that it arises in accordance with natural laws, that
depravity is not total, and that sin is not a direct offence against
God, but only an injury to man, which ought to be balanced by the
good which an individual may do his fellows.
In any event, conceding everything possible to the supporters
of the doctrine of sin, there is, at the very least that may be
K
130 THE GREAT THEOLOGICAL SUPERSTITION. PART III.
claimed against it enough uncertainty, confusion, contradiction,
want of proof and authority about this dogma to make even the
most deeply religious, the most staunch in their belief in a personal
God, whose revelation is the Bible, very seriously doubt whether
there is any truth in such a doctrine, or, if there be truth, whether
it is not overslaughed by a vast mass of error. Such being the
case, an inquiry into the bearings of this doctrine of sin upon
human morals becomes very pertinent ; and to this we will now
for a while address ourselves.
131
CHAPTER XV.
THE MORALITY OF THE DOCTRINE.
A DOCTRINE is moral or immoral only as it influences conduct, or
is esteemed to influence conduct. A theoretical principle express-
ing a scientific truth, knowledge, as such, has not the quality of
morality. There is no ethical character in the axioms of geometry,
the law of gravitation, the persistence of force, or the law of
evolution. It is only when principles are used as precepts and
made rules of conduct that the question of morality comes in, since
the sphere of ethics is wholly that of conduct as affecting individual
and social welfare.
Actions in their consequences to human beings, as well as
volitions, which are incipient actions, may be classified according
to the following scheme, which I quote from the ' Data of Ethics,'
by Herbert Spencer,1 and which, so far as the classification is
concerned, I believe does not propound anything which will not
be generally conceded. 1 simply make the quotation because the
statement therein contained is succinct, not because there is any-
thing novel in it, nor yet because I hope to smuggle into the
discussion any particular theory of ethics. ' There is a class of
actions directed to personal ends which are to be judged in their
relations to personal well-being, considered apart from the well-
being of others ; though they secondarily affect fellow-men, these
primarily affect the agent himself, and must be classed as in-
trinsically right or wrong according to their beneficial or detri-
mental effects on him. There are actions of another class which
affect fellow-men immediately and remotely, and which, though
their results to self are not to be ignored, must be judged as good
or bad mainly by their results to others. Actions of this last
class fall into two groups. Those of the one group achieve ends
in ways that do or do not unduly interfere with the pursuit of
ends by others — actions which, because of this difference, we call
1 Chap. xvi.
132 THE GEEAT THEOLOGICAL SUPERSTITION. ' PART III.
respectively unjust or just. Those of the other group are a kind
which influence the states of others without directly interfering
with the relations between their labours and the results, in one
way or the other — actions which we speak of as beneficent or
maleficent. And the conduct which we regard as beneficent is
itself sub-divisible, according as it shows us a self-repression to
avoid giving pain, or an expenditure of effort to give pleasure —
negative beneficence and positive beneficence.'
As just indicated, the moral influence of a doctrine is not
confined to actions. It relates also to volitions, and through them
to dispositions, arid thus to character, which, when organised,
determines actions. It is in this way that a man's beliefs are of
direct consequence to him. They modify his governing disposi-
tions, extend his activity in some directions and repress it in
others; they enlarge his sympathies for one class of persons or
things, and increase his antipathies for everything opposed. They
very materially shape his destiny for him ; and as the character
and achievements of individuals are moulded society generally is
affected. It is, therefore, not doctrine as such which is to be
reprobated, but only bad doctrine. We could not get rid of
generalisations in the form of theories and doctrines, if we would.
Mankind will always have creeds and platforms. Intelligence
requires this. Our business, then, is not to condemn all creeds,
but only those that are untrue and of evil influence.
A doctrine which is not true is always, and necessarily,
deleterious to humanity, in the long run, as far as its untruth
affects dispositions or actions. And since all doctrines are liable
to do this latter in greater or less degree, it is highly desirable
that truth should be obtained and preserved and that falsehood
should perish. The church has often claimed this, though often
practically denying the force of the statement when it militated
against church interests. Malebranche, who saw all things in
God, begins his treatise on ' The Search after Truth ' with these
significant words : ' Error is the universal cause of the misery of
mankind.' Samuel Bailey, who quotes Malebranche, begins his
own essay on * The Pursuit of Truth ' with the correlative expres-
sion : ' Truth, by which term is implied accuracy of knowledge
and of inference, is necessarily conducive to the happiness of the
race.' If anyone fails to appreciate the importance to humanity
of truth in all things which are the objects of knowledge at all,
I would commend to his careful reading this essay of Samuel
CTIAP. XV. THE MORALITY OF THE DOCTRINE. 133
Bailey, the one relating to the formation and publication of
opinions. Every person in the least inclined to intolerance should
study diligently these treatises ; and in these times of general
enlightenment and toleration it will be very strange if he does not
come to Bishop Berkeley's conclusion that ' utility and truth are
not to be divided.'
The Doctrine of Sin may be epitomised, for the purpose of
showing its relations to conduct, in two divisions : —
1. All mankind are guilty, and are justly deserving of the
eternal punishment to which God has condemned them for their
guilt,
2. Not by their works, but by faith in the atonement of the
Lord Jesus Christ they may be saved from the consequences of
their sins ; otherwise their lot is just damnation.
Any person who has not been accustomed to accept church*
doctrine implicitly, must first be impressed by the perversion of
the idea of justice which this doctrine indicates, and which we
adverted to in the previous chapter. Some further remarks are
demanded here. This perversion is gross and shocking. The
whole human race is put under the ban of an assumed just wrath
of God for things which the individuals did not commit themselves
at all, or, if they did, they committed the acts by virtue of a
natural proneness which they could not help ! Moreover, there is
no distinction in degree of sin, so far as effecting any exculpation
is concerned. For any, * even the least sin,' and ' every minutest
branch and latent principle of sin,' damnation for ever, ' so dreadful
a punishment,' is 'just and righteous.' We are forced to take the
meaning of words from their ordinary, current, and accepted use.
We cannot say that justice in divine government means anything
different from justice in human government. In the former we
acknowledge ourselves to be under a regime controlled by an
absolute Governor, whose subjects we are, and who is supposed to
realise our highest ideal of goodness, reason, and justice. We can
have no measure for God's justice, except that ideal which is
derived from man's relations. Our highest conception of what
would be just in a human system is all we can assign to the
Supreme polity. Now, it need not be said that in human affairs
such justice as is predicated of the Almighty's administration
would not be tolerated for an instant in any state where the
rights of individuals are respected, and not a great while in any
other state. The condemnation of a whole race of intelligent
134 THE GREAT THEOLOGICAL SUPERSTITION. PART III.
beings to torture without end because of the disobedience of one
pair creating a transmitted perversion of will, and that, too, by a
Being competent to change the disposition, if he would, is the
most monstrous scheme that ever impudence and effrontery ventured
to call just. It appears as if theologians, growing weary of making
discriminations in the degree of offence committed by men accord-
ing to their ideas of sin, had consigned them all to perdition to
save time and trouble, just as Blood-Councillor Hessels in the
Netherlands, waking up from a sound sleep, used to shout out
' Ad patibulum ' as his verdict in every case that came up, and,
having thus disposed of the matter on general principles, sank
back into repose.
If, then, we allow that a divine government is just which
institutes such atrocities, inasmuch as we hold up the divine
administration of justice to be the pattern and model of human
justice, the divine being perfect and the human imperfect, the
divine being pure and holy while the human is impure and only
approximately righteous, every attempt to conform the methods
of human administration to the divine is a step in the way of
moral improvement. But in order to exhibit in human affairs a
governmental order representative of God's sovereignty, there must
be some authorised vicegerency among mankind. Hence arises
a Church and a priesthood to interpret to men God's will, and to
enforce His decrees so far as may be. Sometimes the power they
have had has been a temporal power of a very wide scope ; some-
times it has been merely a moral influence. But in either event
the result is to create an aristocracy of those who assume to be
saved from God's wrath, their guilt forgiven, and thus to occupy
a superior position to the mass of mankind, who are not only
under actual condemnation, but under a deserved sentence. The
latter have no rights ; they can obtain grace on certain con-
ditions, but it is only grace, not what is due and owing ; they are
disobedient, wicked, and without moral health of any sort. They
are really outlaws, and entitled to no consideration.
The most terrible consequences to vast numbers of human
beings have resulted from the creation of just such a sentiment as
this. The whole series of religious persecutions has proceeded from
this notion, and been justified by this principle. The elect were
God's instruments to inflict deserved punishment upon those who
were still in sin. In the opera of the c Huguenots,' when St. Bris
announces that the impious and guilty sect shall shortly disappear,
CHAP. XV. THE MOEALITY OF THE DOCTRINE. 135
De Nevers asks, 'Who condemns them?' The answer is, 'Heaven.'
' And who will smite them ? ' ' We ! '
Noble hearts, supporters of the faith,
Citizens and warriors,
Listen to my thoughts.
Throughout the city let the band be dispersed,
In darkness and silence occupy every road ;
Then at the given signal
Let us all rush to slay.
Let us run, let us slay ;
From fire and from the sword
Not one shall escape..
The soldiers in vain
Shall ask you for mercy.
Let the child and mother fall,
No age be spared.
Heaven wills it, commands it ;
Thus for our sins
Grace will be obtained.
St. Bartholomew is but a specimen of countless massacres insti-
gated by religious zeal and encouraged by the principle that those
who do not adopt a stated means for escaping the ban of almighty
wrath are outlaws whom any man may destroy and be praised for
his deed.
The foundation of temporal power upon assumed divine autho-
rity could scarcely have been made secure without the aid of those
sentiments which are developed by the assertion of and belief in
the doctrine of sin. The history of the struggle on the part of
ecclesiastics and their allies and dependents to retain power is the
history of a contest for justice against injustice, for liberty and
man's natural rights against oppression. The battle for toleration
involved not merely the right to the expression of one's own reli-
gious beliefs without molestation, but it was a contest for rights of
property, rights of private action, and effort in the pursuit of hap-
piness, and very often for life itself. This being so, to characterise
the doctrine in question as immoral, is to use very feeble language.
It is dangerous to human rights; in its tendencies not only sub-
versive of progress, but inimical to law and order.
Fortunately, in the most advanced nations, there has been
effected a divorce between church authority and state authority,
136 THE GREAT THEOLOGICAL SUPERSTITION. PART III.
by which the latter assumes to control the secular and temporal
relations of men, the former applying itself to the regulation of
moral conduct by a system of rewards and punishments, having
their chief interests in a future life. But though the church in
such a case cannot directly govern public policy, it must neces-
sarily exercise an indirect control. For the church creates and
sustains moral sentiments which determine individual character.
Moral sentiments are made up of sympathies and antipathies.
These latter will issue in action according to dispositions ; they
will influence both our conduct towards others and the develop-
ment of our own characters. Indeed, out of moral sentiments
grow political and social sentiments, which determine our laws.
Statutes and decisions are but the offspring of moral sentiments,
and depend upon them for vitality. If, then, there exists in the
community a number of people who are believed to be condemned
of God, they as a class will stand also under a moral and social
condemnation in greater or less degree.
Thus, while the progress of civilisation has established civil
rights upon a secular basis of principles of natural right, it is still
the case that such a doctrine as that of sin creates and perpetuates
sentiments which tend toward institutions and toward individual
conduct sometimes positively unjust, and at least clearly maleficent.
It is not easy to distinguish the unjust from the maleficent
effects of the prevalence of such beliefs as I am now criticising.
Injustice is a higher degree of maleficence, and maleficence makes
toward injustice. It cannot be disputed that a church whose
cardinal doctrine is the one in question is responsible for all the
terrible infractions of natural rights which have occurred in the
many religious persecutions of the world's history. And whatever
blessed results may have followed from the preaching of the gospel
of love by this same church, it is equally true that the most baneful
effects upon human welfare have been wrought through an insistence
upon the depravity of man and his condemnation unless prescribed
methods of avoidance are adopted. But it may be said that in pre-
sent times, when toleration is the rule, and private rights are secure,
there is no likelihood of any injustice being perpetrated through
the maintenance of beliefs in man's sinfulness and worthlessness in
the sight of God. If this should be urged, I desire to call atten-
tion to at least two particulars in which existing laws infringe
directly upon private rights and accomplish flagrant injustice,
under the plea that a man who does not yield allegiance to the
CHAP XV. THE MORALITY OF THE DOCTRINE. 137
dominant system of religion has forfeited some of his rights as a
citizen, and ought to be punished.
We may first instance the blasphemy laws. Whoever blas-
phemes against God or Jesus Christ is liable to fine and imprison-
ment. This not only applies to vulgar profanity, but also to
expressed disbelief in the Christian scheme of redemption. It is
very significant that in the United States an enforcement of the
blasphemy laws has been urged quite strongly in some quarters 1
against Robert G. Ingersoll, a very able and eloquent orator, who
has ventured to attack publicly the ordinary religious doctrines.
The ground upon which the laws rest is that the man who offends,
insults the Almighty, and that it is the business of the state to
vindicate Him. This is to assert that the basis of public adminis-
tration is theocratic, and not democratic ; rights, then, are deter-
mined by the Divine sovereignty, and not by ethical relations of
men to each other. When, therefore, with this theory goes the
doctrine that all men are sinners deserving of eternal death, we
have the system that produced the Inquisition, and may be in a fair
way to have the deeds of the Inquisition repeated. There is pre-
cisely the same justification for these latter that there is for the
blasphemy laws. Now, in enlightened states, justice does not rest
on any such foundation. It depends solely upon human relations.
It is right that men be let alone to work out their own destiny
unless they injure others. It is just to those others that they be
protected, and for this purpose the state government is main-
tained. Granting the soundness of this view, to make a crime of
blasphemy is a patent injustice. No injury is committed against
any man, the freedom of nobody is abridged. Possibly, profanity
might be put in the same category as obscenity, and condemned as
indecent ; but the blasphemy statutes go much farther than this,
and they are usually justified, not because the offence they punish
falls within the class of minor improprieties injurious to good
morals, but because it is an act of high treason against the Supreme
Governor. Hence, either we must abandon the idea of justice as
constitutive of our governmental institutions in free countries and
return to theocratic systems, or we must recognise the fact that
blasphemy laws are a relic of theocratic injustice, and inimical to
the commonweal.
A disability created by law against infidels has not even the
excuse that common decency requires state prohibition. It is still
1 Pennsylvania and Delaware.
138 THE GREAT THEOLOGICAL SUPERSTITION. PART III.
the case that atheists are not allowed to testify in courts of justice
in many places, on the ground that their testimony is not worthy
of credence. It may be too much to charge this disability wholly
to the influence of the doctrine of sin, inasmuch as it might exist
irrespective of that doctrine ; but it is part and parcel of the system
founded on the depravity of mankind. The man who disbelieves
in God and His chosen method of redemption, of course stands con-
demned to eternal perdition, and that deservedly. Hence he is so
utterly corrupt that his testimony is worthless.
Now, everybody of the most ordinary degree of intelligence
knows that atheists and infidels are often most exemplary citizens,
of scrupulous honesty, and lovers of truth. They may be mistaken
as to religious truth ; but if the love of truth, as such, were not
strong in them, they would scarcely incur the penalties of their
atheism and infidelity. To brand such persons as incapable of
giving honest testimony is as gross and flagrant an outrage as can
be imagined next to actual confiscation of property and deprivation
of liberty or life. Its certain teaching is to destroy reputation of
the party whose evidence is excluded, and often it may work
failures of justice to others.
In negative ways not amounting to positive injustice the evil
character of the doctrine of sin as affecting the general happiness
is painfully conspicuous. People who refuse to accept the prevail-
ing religious creed may indeed preserve their civil rights. Their
property may not be confiscated ; they may not be thrown into
prison or executed as malefactors ; but they will be certain to be
deprived of some of the advantages which others share. Sympathy
will be withdrawn from them and antipathies aroused against
them. Instead of being helped, they will be all the time hindered ;
in place of honour they will meet with animadversion and contempt.
The avenues of emolument and preferment will be wholly or
partially closed to them. They will not be respected by their
fellows, and their interests will be esteemed of little importance,
It will be of comparatively slight moment whether they starve or
survive; the feeling will rather be that it were better if they
perished altogether. And if they are not actively helped out of
the world, it will seem favour enough if they are permitted to live
till they die of want. That this picture is not overdrawn I think
many will bear witness. Both in Old England and in New England
I myself have personally known of quite extreme social and busi-
ness discrimination against those who are assumed to be under the
CFIAP. XV. THE MORALITY OF THE DOCTRINE. 139
ban of the Almighty. Their character is not esteemed good ; and
thus they are deprived of that trust and confidence which good
character ensures. And all this quite irrespective of whether they,
in reality, have or have not a good character. They are not judged
by their true moral dispositions, but by their assumed moral dis-
positions. Correct standards of estimation are not applied to them.
They may have all the philanthropy of a Howard, and it will count
for naught. Their theological beliefs are made indicia of their
goodness or badness of heart. A brutal and wicked antipathy is
hence suffered to grow up against such as refuse to accept the
common doctrines, and thus a serious injury is done without
adequate cause. Positive beneficence is completely repressed, and
at most there is negative beneficence — frequently not even the
latter, but, instead of it, some degree of positive maleficence. That
all these things are deleterious to the general happiness does not
admit of doubt. If such a condition were abolished, the estate of
those who inflicted the injury would in nowise be lessened, and a
weight of oppression would be removed from the other class.
Many would be bettered, and no one made worse. This, according
to all but the theological standards, is a gain to morality and to
the social and political welfare of the community.
In close association with the general effect upon the people at
large must be noticed the influence upon individual development
and perfection of a doctrine like the one under consideration.
And, first of all, let us observe the hardening and searing effect
which a belief in such doctrines has upon the conscience, which
ought always to be sensitive to right and wrong. We frequently
see this in both clergymen and laymen. A large class of one's
fellow-beings, indeed the large majority of the human race, is
considered to have done that which causes them to deserve the
severest punishment. No penalty is too great, and while it is
lawful and honourable to pity and save by urging these unfortunates
to accept of proffered mercy, yet so long as the latter venture to
claim anything on the score of justice they are fit only for the
fire and the sword. When, therefore, they are visited with mis-
fortune or meet with cruelty, harshness, or oppression at the hands
of men, instead of that lively sympathy which ought to arise in a
well-balanced and well-regulated mind, and to prompt the exercise
of activity to relieve the sufferer, there is an insensibility to his
wrongs or a positive satisfaction in his ill-fortune, arising from the
feeling that he is receiving punishment for his deserts. 'Who
140 THE GREAT THEOLOGICAL SUPERSTITION. PAKT III.
condemns them ? Heaven ! And who will smite them ? We ! '
Although actual invasion of civil rights may awaken sympathy for
the oppressed, yet where the wrong does not amount to more than
the natural effects of maleficence less than civil injustice, the moral
callousness of which I have been speaking often exists. The
result is that the altruistic character is dwarfed. The sympathies
of a man with his own kind are restricted and narrowed. He
persuades himself that it is his duty to love not all but a few of
his fellows. Crimes against liberty, property, and life are of much
less heinousness, or even may not be crimes at all if committed
against the heterodox. The rights of man as man may be quite
forfeited by reason of his doctrinal beliefs. It is by no means a
long step to a state of mind which justifies war against nations,
the enslavement of individuals, and the confiscation of property.
Such has been the outcome of such sentiments, and to such results
the tendency is inevitable. Counteracting influences may do their
work, but so far as this belief in the deserved perdition of man at
the hands of God has any ascendency, it deadens all noble and
generous feeling, it destroys genuine humility, dries up the springs
of charity, narrows the moral vision, and eliminates that genuine
altruism which lies at the foundation of all moral sentiment, and
which is expressed in that rule which the founder of Christianity
laid down as the standard of action — l Therefore, all things what-
soever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.'
The pharisaical self-righteousness, which esteems that ' I am
holier than thou,' is all the time fostered by the conviction that
the few (quorum pars magna sum) are redeemed and the many
lost. I am God's companion and favourite, my next-door neighbour
is under God's wrath and decree of outlawry. Whatever profes-
sions of self-depreciation are made, there is inherent the secret
self-gratification and self-exaltation which my esteemed, worthier,
and better position entitles me to cherish. This is another phase
of the same deterioration adverted to in the preceding paragraph,
and it issues in an exclusive and selfish disposition inimical to that
true manhood and womanhood, to attain the fulness of which all
high ideals of life stimulate and encourage the mental and moral
activities.
While the adherence to this baleful dogma is sure to develop
in the individual perverted notions of morality, occasioning low
and imperfect ideas of moral duties towards one's fellows, it is no
mean hindrance to the growth of the highest and best religious
CHAP. XV. THE MORALITY OF THE DOCTRINE. 141
sentiments. The very life to subserve the purposes of which this
doctrine is deemed essential is shockingly debased. For, if there
be a God whose very being is Truth, Justice, and Love, what more
flagrant insult could be offered to Him than to attribute to Him
a morality worse than that of the most cruel and bloodthirsty
Eastern or African despot ? And what a blighted, shrivelled, and
meagre spiritual life must be that which draws its inspiration from
an ideal of a Supreme Being capable of such stupendous atrocity !
The Christian religion never made much progress toward satisfying
the spiritual needs of men, and toward becoming the religion
universal through this conception of a Deity. It was forced to
create another God, who, by becoming incarnate, came to possess
human sympathies and sacrificed himself to appease the wrath of
the first God. It is wholly through the ideal character exhibited
in Jesus Christ that Christianity has had any converting power
over men. Fear has doubtless driven many to come within the
church, and to attempt doing the things which the church has
held necessary for salvation. But fear has no vitalising influence
upon character. It will repress but it does not produce growth.
The social sentiments and their sympathies are the outcome of
love, not fear ; and individual development is most perfect only
where the social sentiments take account of the happiness of each
as essential to the good of the whole. Through preaching the
Golden Rule, and encouraging the types of character which are
dominated by this precept, an altruistic principle has largely per-
vaded and controlled Christianity, spite of the hideousness of some
of its doctrines. And that spirituality upon which the Christian
preachers often insist is, as we have seen, prominently a growth
of altruism. Jesus Christ is made the ideal of love ; his rule of
love the great rule of life. In order to give authority to the
gospel of love, and at the same time preserve what was esteemed
essential to the dignity, greatness, and absolute sovereignty of the
Divine Being, men invented the crude and self-contradictory fiction
of a Trinity in Unity. Instead of dismissing utterly the doctrine
of sin and atonement, they sought to combine in the Deity love
and hate, evil and good, in a mystical and revolting melange of
the best and the worst traits of human character. As a con-
sequence, we discern among the adherents of the Christian religion
and those whose lives are moulded by its influence, here an inner
life of sweetness and light, there a spiritual atmosphere murky
with the fumes of the pit. The former life is ennobling to its
14:2 THE GREAT THEOLOGICAL SUPERSTITION. PART III.
possessor, just toward God and man, beneficent to the race ; the
latter is debasing to self, atrociously unjust toward others, and
not less so toward the Supreme Being ; while upon mankind in
general its effect, as we have noted, is maleficent in every direction
in which its influence is exerted.
It thus appears that the doctrine of sin in its influences upon
conduct has a profoundly and widely immoral tendency both in regard
to dispositions and actions having primary reference to personal
well-being and individual development, and also in regard to
dispositions and actions, bearing first relation to the well-being of
others and to the general happiness. This being the case, we
naturally are moved to inquire how such a barbaric dogma came
into prominence as a canon of religious belief, and why it has been
upheld with such tenacity ? But it is not difficult to answer these
queries. The doctrine, I apprehend, is a product of the same
motive causes which have produced war, murder, robbery, torture,
and the whole catalogue of crimes against life and property. It is
an offshoot of the predatory impulses, evincing as it does the
' aigre-doulce poincte de volupte maligne,' 1 so conspicuous in the
savage and by no means absent from the civilised character. If
men are brought into mortal conflict, to end in the death or
mutilation of one or both, with the spoils to the victor, it is not
strange that they should think the Supreme Being in His dealings
with men treated His enemies in similar fashion. And if their
ideas of governmental order allowed the wholesale murder of their
fellows in war, or to satisfy the demands of sovereignty, we ought
not to be surprised that they should formulate like principles for
the Divine administration. All religions are marked by the
ascription to their deities of such attributes as are most in favour
in human characters. For a long time in the history of the race
courage was the highest of all virtues; and courage involved
practice and success in the business of the soldier. Now, everyone
knows that no man succeeds in anything unless his heart is in
the work. He must have the enthusiasm of his calling. The
profession of the soldier forms no exception. Quick sympathies
for the sufferings of others, regard for human life, are hindrances
to the warrior's achievements. * War is cruelty, and you cannot
refine it,' were the memorable words of Gen. William T. Sherman
to the citizens of Atlanta. To Alexander and Napoleon lives
1 Montaigne.
CHAP. XV. THE MORALITY OF THE DOCTRINE. 143
counted for naught, except as they served the purposes of the
ruler. A cruel, ferocious, bloodthirsty disposition is a necessary
concomitant of the militant spirit, which was the governing spirit
of the earliest societies. This was not merely ferocity for an end,
but cruelty for its own sake, a panting ' for the dreadful privilege
to kill.' We have considered how it is entirely in accordance with
human nature that the things we are led to do habitually for a
purpose become finally in themselves pleasurable as forms of
activity. Art and literature thus became ministers to war, which
is only organised murder and robbery. Ideals of Beauty and
Goodness became thoroughly tainted with the malevolent senti-
ments which so generally formed the character. Hence it was
inevitable that religion should be affected in like manner; and
when religious beliefs were established after predatory models of
nobility of character, they of course had their reactive effect to
sustain and renew the dispositions to which they owed their birth.
When once such conceptions of the Deity as were engendered
by the predatory appetites obtained a permanent lodging in the
human mind, and systems of doctrine respecting the relations of
man to God were created and promulgated in accordance with such
conceptions, their perpetuation would necessarily depend upon the
continuance and force of the sentiments underlying them. Indeed,
they would be likely to survive modifications of those sentiments
which affect action. Conservatism in matters of religious belief
has been more marked in the world's history than conservatism in
politics or in private moral action. As a matter of fact, we find
that the doctrine before us for consideration has endured and is
maintained where the immorality of war has been largely recog-
nised, and private murder and robbery have been universally con-
demned. No one being able to verify the truth of this doctrine,
it has seemed to many a speculative and not a practical matter,
and not worth combating, its deleterious influences not being
clearly apprehended. Moreover, it has been so thoroughly coun-
teracted by the influence of the doctrine of love that it has been
possible to satisfy the religious appetites with the latter and still
maintain one's place in the Christian church, all that is required
being to admit the truth of the former and to preach it to the
impenitent with the promises of salvation. It is the increasing
pre-eminence of the gospel of love over that of hate which has
given vitality to Christianity, wherever it has had its greatest
144 THE GllEAT THEOLOGICAL SUPERSTITION. PART HI.
success. And so far forth as the gospel of love has prevailed the
doctrine of sin either has been obscured or has been softened down
in its more obnoxious features. If it could have been totally
eradicated the Christian system would have been saved a most
ugly blemish.
In answer to the considerations which have been presented, it
may be urged that we can entertain no ideal of a perfectly holy
and pure God without supposing that sin is so utterly abhorrent
to His nature that a being tainted with it must be perpetually
under His wrath and displeasure ; that to entertain any other idea
is to cherish low views of the Divine perfection. The answer to
this objection has been already referred to. A perfect character is
perfect only in its relations to some other personality. If God be
perfectly holy His holiness of character must be judged either in
its relations to some other god or supernatural being or to men.
So-styled orthodox Christianity supplies us with three persons in a
Trinity. If, then, the holiness of God the Father in the eyes of
His fellows of the Trinity requires the eternal condemnation of all
His creatures, how can such holiness be appreciated by God the
Son when the latter thinks it necessary, in order to satisfy his ideals
of character, to suffer an ignominious death in human form in order
to propitiate this wrath of the Father ? Certainly, we have no
conceptions of personality which can give us the least comprehen-
sion of such a relationship as allows one Divine Person to be full
of antipathy to men, and another to be full of sympathy ; one
admiring and honouring the other for his antipathy, while at the
same time so sympathising with, the objects of that antipathy as
to be willing to gratify the wrath of the other in his own person.
Certainly the theological doctrine of the Trinity and the Son's
atonement to appease the Father's anger is the most puerile,
clumsy, absurd, preposterous, and nauseating dogma that was ever
put before intelligent human beings as an article of faith. On the
other hand, considering God in relation to man, it is quite im-
possible to regard Him as a God of moral perfection at all when He
is omnipotent and prefers to leave His creatures sinful and torture
them rather than to abolish the sin by His own fiat. All this,
together with the impossibility of making out in human actions
any such thing as sin toward God, save in injury to fellow-men,
we have already sufficiently discussed. There is hence no force in
any argument that the doctrine of sin is necessary to the idea of a
Perfectly Holy Moral Governor.
CHAP. XV. THE MORALITY OF THE DOCTRINE. 145
It may also be claimed that the high ideal of perfection, implied
in the conception that God is absolutely holy and man absolutely
depraved, is extremely salutary in its moral influences, by im-
pressing upon men the need of an absolute and thorough regenera-
tion, and thus stimulating their efforts to attain a .higher life.
But how is anyone to be made better by being led to believe that,
use his utmost efforts, he never can be otherwise than totally
depraved ? And if, then, it is said that his condemnation is just,
how is his morality going to be improved by pointing out to him a
way of avoiding and defeating justice, and encouraging him to seek
it ? This very act by which he is assumed to become a new and
clean moral creature is a fraud against the Divine justice ! There
is no escape from this conclusion if we suppose that justice demands
the eternal punishment of men and that the Divine justice does not
vary. It is impossible to see how morality is to be stimulated by
fear, and its consequent efforts to escape and thwart justice. If,
however, God's grace in saving men arises because it is right
that they be saved — a protection they are justly entitled to at
the hands of a righteous sovereign — I can conceive of a theology
that will be a help to moral conduct. The other seems to me
certain to dry up all the springs of moral effort.
Unless morality is made to mean something different from what
it actually does mean in governing the relations of men and women
to each other, and unless liberty and civil rights, as the basis of
social order, be denied, there is no place in a moral system for any
such doctrines, principles, or notions as are involved in this fiction
of theologians, despots, popes, and priests concerning the depravity
of man in the sight of God. If hence there should result a divorce
between religion and morality, and antagonism of one against the
other, no one ought to hesitate to cast in his lot with the moral rather
than with the religious, nor fear to abide all the consequences both
here and hereafter.
Beyond the clouds, beyond the encircling night,
Faith wanders fearless ; though the skies be dim,
She sees, far off, the white-winged seraphim ;
With us she will not stay. * To worlds more bright/
She cries, * I fain would pass ! This piteous sight
Of earth I love not — nay, with joyous hymn
Through the void air I would ascend to Him
Who reigns unseen, Supreme and Infinite.'
146 THE GREAT THEOLOGICAL SUPERSTITION. PAKE III.
* Farewell, then, sister ! Yes,' Love sighs, ' farewell !
On earth with these I love will I abide ;
With these I love ! My children, 'mid the flowers
And joys of life, contented will we dwell.
Join hands, be kind, be just, fear not dark hours,
Though Faith be fled, yet Love shall be your guide.'
The immorality of the doctrine of sin furnishes corroboration of
its untruth. For no ethical principle is true which legitimately
conducts us to practical precepts deleterious to morality. I do not
mean that we should reason in a circle, proving theoretical truth
by practical morality, and yet determining the latter by the former.
But having established the truth or falsity of a principle, its effects,
when applied, do furnish corroborative evidence of the correctness
of our judgments. In the present case, making the largest con-
cessions, we found that even the ' evangelical ' ought to have, upon
the authority of the Bible, the most serious doubts as to the truth
of this dogma of depravity ; while to everybody else its falsity must
be clear. We have also pointed out that it has led to the most
dreadful crimes against life, property, and reputation in times past,
and that its moral influences are thoroughly deleterious. The con-
clusions to which we must come, therefore, are that, so far as
society is concerned in any of its organised institutions — the family,
the state, the church — this doctrine should be strongly reprobated
as inimical both to truth and to a good social order. Its recog-
nition in any manner in laws, in creeds, or in education, should be
opposed by all who have at heart the good of mankind.
Each individual, according to temperament, education, and
habits generally, will be more or less sensible of the difference
between right and wrong, and will be more or less impressed with
his responsibility to his fellow-men for his conduct. Imperfection
in his own life, error, and wrong-doing will occasion regret and
remorse. But whatever he may have done, or omitted to do, there
is no necessity for his adding to his natural punishment the thought
that, over and above his ill-behaviour to men, he has committed any
offence against the Author of his being, which has to be atoned for
or expiated.
HIS SIN AGAINST GOD, IF IT EXIST, IS IN HIS SIN AGAINST HIS
FELLOWS. Whatever penalties attach to the latter he must expect
and bear ; and so far as he gives to these sins and these penalties
a religious colouring ; so far as he regards the approval or disap-
proval of a Divine Intelligence in connection with his thoughts,
CHAP. XV. THE MORALITY OF THE DOCTRINE. 147
dispositions, and deeds, no theoretical or practical objection can be
raised which cannot be raised against all religion. If, therefore, a
doctrine of sin against God be held at all, it must be constructed
upon this foundation. But the claim that man sustains a relation-
ship to a Supreme Being which allows of any independent or
peculiar sinfulness, or any heinousness of sin, beyond that just
mentioned should be dismissed as a figment, a relic of both
ignorance and wickedness, disreputable to present enlightenment,
and contrary to that altruistic sentiment which recognises, seeks
to secure, and to preserve the brotherhood of man.
PART IV.
THE INSTITUTIONAL FETICH.
4 Wherefore it follows that men are not to unite themselves together in order
to forego any portion of their individuality, but only to lessen the exclusiveness
of their isolation; it is not the object of such a union to transform one being into
another, but to open out approaches between the single natures ; whatever each
himself possesses, he is to compare with that which he receives by communication
with others, and while introducing modifications in his own being by the com-
parison, not to allow its force and peculiarity to be suppressed in the process.
. . . Wherefore it appears to me that the principle of the true art of social inter-
course consists in a ceaseless endeavour to grasp the innermost individuality of
another, to avail oneself of it, and, penetrated with the deepest respect for it as
the individuality of another, to act upon it — a kind of action in which that same
respect will not allow us other means for this purpose than to manifest oneself,
and to institute a comparison, as it were, between the two natures before the
eyes of the other.'
WILHELM VON HuMBOLDT. — Essay on the Sphere and Duties of Government.
CHAPTER XVI.
AUTHORITY AND INDIVIDUALISM.
AT the .present day moral, and especially religious, teachers are
calling the attention of the thinking world to the predominance of
ideas leading to the assertion of the individual's right to think and
act for himself independently of extrinsic restraints, and to thereby
escape many dangers likely to result from undue subordination of
authority to individualism. The Bishop of Long Island, Right Rev.
Dr. A. N. Littlejohn, thought this a subject of so great importance,
that when he was invited to preach a course of sermons in England
in 1880, before the University of Cambridge, he selected Indi-
vidualism as his general theme, and endeavoured to show the
necessity for checking and limiting the individualistic movements
of the times in politics, the family, and in religion. He says in his
first sermon : ( Certainly it will not do ; it is neither wise nor safe
to trust the individual, as things now are, to settle absolutely for
himself, and so to some extent for others, all questions of duty, all
claims of law, all demands made upon him by the authority of
Church and State, or even of the family and of general society.
He is yet a long way off from the intelligent and balanced mastery
of self which would justify such a trust. Outward guides, civil
and ecclesiastical, must still, and for a long time to come, stay his
often feeble steps, and light up the dim gropings of his moral
reason.'
With a like solicitude, and influenced by similar considerations,
President Seelye, of Amherst College, in Massachusetts, preached a
baccalaureate sermon in 1883 having for its topic ' Growth through
Obedience,' in which he endeavoured to show (if the newspapers
correctly report him) that ' growth in wisdom, growth in power —
power over nature, power over one's self, and power over others—-
and growth in character, only come through the submission of the
self-will to authority.' He further says : ' For the last three
hundred years there has been steadily growing in the civilised
Io2 THE INSTITUTIONAL FETICH. PART IV.
world a disposition to assert the individual will above the restraints
of authority.' ' Our chief peril — and there are signs enough to
show that it is grave — consists, I think, in the undue exaltation of
our liberty.' ' The war upon property and the family — the two
institutions upon which the very existence of society depends —
is as evident in America as in Europe.' c We make our law de-
pendent on our liberty ; in other words, we are determined to have
such laws as we will, rather than to will such laws as we ought to
have. But when liberty is put first, and only the law is permitted
which we choose to permit, the liberty soon sinks to a license, and
the license descends into anarchy, and the anarchy only issues in a
despotism.'
Having in preceding parts of this work taken from England
and Germany, respectively, representative examples of doctrines
criticised ; for the present topic we will find our texts in the
words of the two American authors just quoted.
These two give by no means the only expressions of this kind
of sentiment ; but, uttered by representative men whose habits are
reflective, and who make it their business to observe the signs of
the times and to throw the weight of their influence in favour of
what they consider right and against what is wrong, such expres-
sions are entitled to respect, and ought to command attention on
the part of all who have like purposes, in order that we may
ascertain whether the dangers suggested are real or fanciful,
whether the fears revealed are well or ill founded, and whether the
remedies indicated are the proper ones to be of avail under existing
circumstances.
Accordingly I invite the reader who has at heart the best
interests of humanity to consider with me this question of Authority
and Individualism in the several aspects in which it affects human
welfare. Eternal watchfulness is the price of liberty, and we ought
ever to be alert to discover and thwart tendencies towards social
disruption or disorder wherever they lie latent or may be made
manifest.
The sentiment criticised both by Bishop Littlejohn and Presi-
dent Seelye is typified in the doctrine of Protagoras' ' Homo Men-
sura ' : TlavTGW xprj/jbdrcov fjusrpov avOpwiros, rwv JJLSV OVTODV &>y Jerri,
TWV 8s OVK ovrwv u>$ OVK, s(7Tiv. Man (i.e. the individual man) is
the measure of all things ; of things that are, that they are ; of things
that are not, that they are not. Certainly, upon first thought
there does not seem to be anything very alarming in this dictum,
CHAP. XVI. AUTHORITY AND INDIVIDUALISM. loo
though Plato regarded it as poor philosophy, and attempted to
overthrow it in two dialogues. Everything is to each man as it
seems. I must be the final judge for myself of what is right and
wrong, and govern my conduct accordingly. St. Paul inculcated
much the same kind of a rule in that chapter of his Epistle to the
Romans wherein, after rebuking those who presumed to judge
others, he said, ' So then everyone of us shall give account of him-
self to God ; ' and also before this : i One man esteemeth one day
above another ; another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man
be fully persuaded in his own mind.'
Indeed, it is not easy to see how we can establish any different
order than that the individual shall be the final judge of what is
good and bad so far as he himself is concerned. Within the sphere
of intellect, we certainly cannot expect that a man will believe
what he does not believe. Convincing people by authority has
never succeeded in this world's history. We can close their mouths,
but cannot stop the working of their minds. The same thing may
be said of their sympathies and antipathies. Expression may be
prevented by outward constraint, but not the feelings themselves.
Equally true is this of volitions and dispositions. We may persuade,
enlighten, inform, put motives before people, but the belief, the
emotion, the sentiment, the will, the act, is each man's own. If
this were not so, it would be highly irrational to hold any person
responsible to anybody for his conduct. And if a man has a mind
at all, everything must necessarily be to him as it appears. To
assert this is only saying whatever is, is. It appears quite evident,
therefore, that we must seek for some derived meaning of Homo
Mensura, or some application of the dictum which is not exhibited
on the surface of things for the dangerous or injurious consequences
which are apprehended from individualism.
Bishop Littlejohn does not define very exactly the term which
expresses the subject of his university sermons, but characterises
individualism as an undue exaltation of the individual as an end
of effort, and of the individual reason as a court of last resort to
settle disputed questions of social, moral, political, and religious
life. 'We are told,' he says, 'that not only do the family, the
state, and the church exist for the benefit of the individual, and
in his advancing power and glory find the only power and glory
which they can legitimately claim ; but what is a far more radical
and disturbing idea, that they have no divine and unchangeable
principles of organisation ; but, like all lower forms of corporate
154 THE INSTITUTIONAL FETICH. PART IV.
life, are to be dealt with as the accidental and ever mutable
embodiments of the social instincts of man. And, further, coupled
with this drift, nay, as an inevitable effect of it, there is the
notion that the only court of appeal, in determining the character
and extent of these revisions and amendments, is not the collective,
continuous judgment of mankind, nor any standard above and
outside the individual; but each man's reason working out the
problems for and by itself.'
The distinction between egoism and altruism does not seem to
be what is meant by the contrast between individualism and
authority, for altruism carries with it as an end the highest good
of the greatest number of individuals, while egoism may tend to
secure individual power to one or a few and impose authority upon
all the rest. The term individualism, as used by those who
deprecate its tendencies, appears to cover both ends and means.
Bishop Littlejohn says it tends to the enforcement of the doctrine
that institutions like the family, the state, and the church l exist
for the benefit of the individual.' So far the individual is made
an end. Then follows ' a far more radical and disturbing idea,'
namely, that the institutions named are to be dealt with not as
divine and unchangeable in their principles of organisation, but
as mutable embodiments of social instincts, liable to change and
revision according to the judgment of the individual. To this
degree individualism seems to be a method of viewing and treating
the mutual relations of human beings, having only a tendency to
an exaltation of the individual.
If Bishop Littlejohn does not express clearly and distinctly
what he means by individualism, it will be necessary for us to find
a meaning for him in the light of the facts he instances — a mean-
ing, however, which he and those who agree with him will accept
as covering the matters under discussion. In order to obtain a
starting-point, it will be necessary to revert for a moment to the
consideration of what the ends of society are, for this question of
individualism and authority is obviously a social question, since
it affects man most prominently in great departments of social
life. And here I shall make use of a definition of society which
will be quite acceptable to President Seelye, and, I presume, to
Bishop Littlejohn also. Society is an organic whole, of whose
members each is at the same time the means and the end of all
the rest. Therefore the welfare of the individual is an end so
far as it does not militate against the welfare of the rest. The
OHAP. XVI. AUTHORITY AND INDIVIDUALISM. 155
common freedom, and not merely the individual freedom, is to be
considered as a political end determinative of rights ; the general
good, not merely the individual good, is the end of duty. The
highest and broadest liberty should be accorded to the individual
so far as it is consistent with the common liberty, but no farther..
To this extent I suppose thinkers like Bishop Littlejohn and
President Seelye would agree with me. But the next step I shall
probably have to take without their company. To me the idea of
society above enunciated leads logically and necessarily to the
conclusion that the chief social end to be sought is the highest
happiness of the greatest number. They will say that the social
summum bonum is not the greatest happiness of the greatest
number ; that the end of the individual is not his happiness, but
his blessedness ; and that his blessedness for himself and his
worthiness in the sight of others consist in his obedience to the
will of the Divine Author and Governor of the Universe ; that hence
the chief social end is the realisation of God's moral order in the
world. This will more fully appear in the following words of Bishop
Littlejohn : ' It is the delusion of man that he can make what God
only can make, and that things so made have not only their source
but their end in himself : when, from their very nature, they must
begin and end in the purposes of Him who created man and
nature and all being for Himself. Organic life, wherever it exists,
bears the sign manual of Omnipotence, and completes itself only
as it fulfils the divine idea out of which it sprang. It is the
essential property of organic being that the whole exists before
the parts ; not the parts before the whole ; that the parts can
grow only as they are shaped, co-ordinated, and combined by the
life principle working in and through the whole. Now, the Family,
the State, and the Church are in this sense organic wholes. Each
of them antedates and outlasts its individual parts. Each, as
embodying and applying the necessary laws of human develop-
ment, precedes the individual, and provides the conditions apart
from which the individual could not realise a developed personality.
Man can come to manhood only as he is integrated in consciousness
and character by Institutions which are God's workmanship as
truly as himself is. This is true of the Family and the State in
the natural order, and of the Church in the supernatural. It is
well-nigh impossible, certainly it is at best a visionary, Abstraction
to conceive of the individual outside his necessary relations to
these divinely established fellowships. He can realise himself only
156 THE INSTITUTIONAL FETICH. PAKT IV.
through what is other than himself; and, speaking generally, it
is only by the negation or surrender of his own individual self to
a larger self, that he comes to know the meaning of himself as a
spiritual being. To be true to the actual as well as ideal order
of rational life, we must reach the idea of any one of these organic
Institutions, whether the Family, or the State, or the Church, not
by first supposing a number of human beings — each complete in
himself— and then by combining them to form the Institutions ;
but we must first conceive the Institutions in order to know the
individuals.'
We now begin to discern what is intended by Individualism
versus Authority, and Authority versus Individualism. It is not a
question of egoism or altruism, though these are more or less
involved in the controversy; it is not an issue of anarchy or
government, though it will be claimed that order and stability
depend upon the issue ; it is an alternative presented between
Secularism and Theocracy. On the one side is the assertion that
the individual is ethically bound by no belief, doctrine, custom,
habit, order, or institution which does not commend itself as right
and just to his own judgment and conviction ; that he is entitled
to prove all things and hold fast to that which is good ; to
repeatedly question all existing institutions, modify, reform, or
abolish them as general utility dictates; that the only rule of
action and of limitation he ought to recognise is the greatest good
of the greatest number ; that nothing is good which does not
appear to be good in the light of human experience ; and that all
institutions of society exist for the benefit of mankind, not man-
kind for the benefit of institutions. On the other side, it is main-
tained that the world is under a divine administration, in the
course of which certain immutable and eternal truths have been
revealed to men which it is their duty to accept, not because they
are comprehended, nor because they seem reasonable to human
intelligence, but because they come to us with authority as the
revealed word of God ; that in like manner certain institutions,
notably the Family, the State, and the Church, have been ordained
of God, and thus exist superior to any considerations of utility, tran-
scending as ends all individual ends, and as means all the devices
and expedients of individual reason. ' I counsel you,' says President
Seelye in his baccalaureate address to his students, ' to employ all
the growth in wisdom and power and character which you have
gained, and are still to increase through your obedience, in the
CHAP. XVI. AUTHORITY AND INDIVIDUALISM. 157
effort to make more evident the supremacy of law, the authority of
righteousness, the unqualified sovereignty of the Family and the
State — each in its sphere — and the headship and lordship over all
of the Son of God, who has the authority to execute judgment also
because he is the Son of Man.'
Assuming that we have now got at the meaning of Individualism
and its consequents, together with those opposed principles and
sentiments which are indicated by the term Authority, we will
proceed severally to examine the respective tendencies of Authority
and Individualism in their bearings upon the Family, the State,
and the Church.
158 THE INSTITUTIONAL FETICH. PAKT IV.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE FAMILY.
ONE individual does not make a family, neither one man nor one
woman. Two individuals may dwell together and not constitute a
family, as two adult men or two adult women. It is only when
there exists a relationship of husband and wife, or parent and child,
or foster-parent and ward, or the equivalent, that the family comes
into being. Properly speaking a family means husband, wife, and
child or children. There must be at least two individuals, though,
as just remarked, this is not all that is required ; and the complete
idea of family life contemplates the relation of parent and child.
Moreover, so far as the formation of the family is concerned, it
arises through a voluntary union of man and woman ; the relation
of children to parents, for a time at any rate, being involuntary.
It is not held morally obligatory upon any two to form the family
union ; the matter is left to the individual choices.
Whatever may be the origin and the obligations of this institu-
tion, as a matter of simple fact the term Family signifies an aggre-
gation of individuals bound together under certain relationships.
The family may be more than this, but Bishop Littlejohn and
President Seelye would not deny that it is at least this. Now
when we speak of acting, or legislating for or promoting the
welfare of the Family, we must mean the individuals who compose
the family. We may, indeed, have in mind the interest of many
families existing and to exist, but then we change the object of our
solicitude, and for the family substitute the state. As there would
be no family without individuals making up the family, so the
welfare of the family, apart from the welfare of the individuals
comprised, is the welfare either of nobody at all, or of somebody
entirely outside the family. This view is confirmed by the asser-
tion made, as we have seen, by Bishop Littlejohn, that the family
is an organic whole. Each member thus is an end and a means to
all the rest.
CHAP. XVII. THE FAMILY. 159
If, then, the family is formed and maintained by the union of
individuals in an organic relationship, its idea requires a limitation
of individual choice, will, disposition, and action by the interests
and welfare of the other individuals of that family. We may per-
sonify the family and speak of its end, but the family itself can
have, strictly speaking, no end at all. The individuals who com-
pose it have their ends, and those ends are ethically limited and
modi6ed by the family relationship. Each one ought to subordinate
his own acts to the welfare of the others ; and if he shows a dis-
regard of their interests, he ought under proper circumstances to
be compelled to regard those interests. Out of this idea spring all
family rights and duties. There are no ends, purposes, benefits or
injuries in, of, or to the family which are not such in, of, or to the
individuals composing it, who mutually limit each other ; and this
limitation makes the ethics of the family.
It is very difficult to understand the meaning of the assertion,
that the family antedates the individual. Certainly, according to
the scripture account of the creation, the individual was historically
prior to the family. Adam was first formed, then Eve ; then began
family life. Each family now established is created by individuals
whose life as such is first developed. Undoubtedly all persons are
born of union of the two sexes, and generally their union in family
life. Doubtless the father and mother antedate the son and the
daughter ; but the former were individuals before they became a
family. And on theological grounds, how it can be argued that
God first created the family when the Bible says just the contrary
is past finding out. Therefore it would seem that if Bishop
Littlejohn in this matter means what he says, and asserts that the
family antedates its components (that is, all of them), the very
simple and obvious reply is that it does not.
Probably what he does mean is that inasmuch as all mankind
grow up to individual manhood and womanhood under the moulding
formative influence of some sort of family life which existed before
they v/ere born, that therefore the family as an institution was a
part of God's plan of the world's organisation, and thus has a
logical priority. ' The universal is the prim of the particular/
But it is one of the much-vaunted glories of Christianity that it lays
special stress upon God's care for the individual. The sabbath was
a Jewish institution — a religious institution emanating directly
from Jehovah. It then ought to have had a logical priority to the
individual. It was an end in itself; so the Hebrew ecclesiastics
160 THE INSTITUTIONAL FETICH. PART IV.
thought. Jesus of Nazareth, however, repudiated this doctrine and
taught that the sabbath was made for man, not man for the
sabbath ! The whole scheme of Christian redemption points
directly to the singling out of the individual as the objective point
of all God's purposes in the world with respect to man — his eleva-
tion, perfection, salvation. Bishops and doctors of divinity then
ought to have a care how they place any abstract idea or any
concrete institution before the individual man as a superior object
of consideration or end of activity. And as to the metaphysical
dictum above quoted, adopted by Bishop Littlejohn, the latter does
very well to observe immediately after expressing it that ' the
universal must not be conceived as having any reality apart from
the particular, or the organic body apart from its members. The
whole integrate and are integrated by the parts. They at once
feed and are fed by the individuals of which they are composed.'
This last is quite true in my j udgment ; but, if so, how is the
universal the prius of the particular ? Without the particular it is
an abstraction, having no reality. The whole does not exist before
the parts, but the parts are necessary to form the whole.
Equally troublesome to our understanding is the remark that
the family outlasts the individual components. Surely the par-
ticular family does not outlast its members. The family is broken
up, but its component members survive and establish new families.
Parents die while sons and daughters individually join with others
outside the family to form entirely new centres of family life. If
it be meant that the family as an institution survives particular
individuals, it may be urged in reply that the individual is also an
institution. Not a particular man, but man as such ; the human
individual appears at all times and for ever survives, though par-
ticular individuals perish. The individual exists continuously in
just precisely the same sense as the family exists continuously.
Particular families are disintegrated and destroyed, but the family
endures ; particular individuals die and pass out from the stream
of the world's life, but the individual persists. One family succeeds
another ; one individual succeeds another ; but alike in each case
the type may be said to be persistent. We cannot avoid conceding
that individuals are necessary to constitute the family ; without
individuals there would be no family. How then does the family
as such outlast the individual ?
Having now indicated what is meant by the family, and shown
the basis of family ethics, I ask the reader to inquire with me how
U T V
CHAP. XVII. THE FAMILY. 161
Authority and Individualism affect the family relationship. In the
first place, so far as adults are concerned, those principles which it
is commonly said individualism adopts, prescribe as a rule of duty
that each one shall act for the common interest and weal. It is
just as true of the individualistic rule as it is of what Bishop
Littlejohn claims as distinctive of the Christian ideal. 'It teaches
the individual that he can find his true life only by losing it in a
life greater than his own. It puts him under a discipline of self-
abnegation from the start.' The author I am quoting seems very
much disposed to believe that one bulwark of individualism is the
philosophy which supports the greatest happiness or utilitarian
doctrines of morals. If this be so, it is at least impossible to show
a more completely altruistic theory of conduct for the individual
than that belonging to the philosophy thus in considerable measure
held responsible for individualistic excesses. This philosophy
adopts unqualifiedly the Golden Rule as the controlling precept of
individual action, and inculcates the same as a precept for corporate
and institutional action. Whatever individualism does which is
injurious, either directly or indirectly, is done, therefore, in con-
travention of and in opposition to the ethical principles which
belong to the utilitarian system of morals.
If the individualism be consistent, there is one thing which it
may be expected to promote; and that is the equality of rights
and duties on the part of the members of the family. The wife, for
instance, is as important a member as is the husband ; her ends,
her happiness, her development is of as much consequence as his ;
her ethical position is in no wise inferior to his. The husband
owes to the wife just as many duties as she to him. She is a person
with all the rights of personality. He lives for her just as truly
as she for him. Her authority is just as great as his in all family
affairs. In somewhat similar manner the rights of the children
are made more prominent. The Roman patria potestas doctrine is
repudiated. Children are to be worked for as human beings having
their own independent ends, which are to be respected. They are
not to be considered as mere dependents owing allegiance to the
parents, and to subordinate all their activity to the purposes and
pleasure of the parents ; but their welfare, read in the light of their
own self-determinations, assumes a just importance, and is of equal
consequence to the weal of the father or mother. This much is
guaranteed by any theory of family relationship which makes each
member the end and means of all the rest. I do not know whether
M
162 THE INSTITUTIONAL FETICH. PART IV.
or not Bishop Littlejohn and President Seelye would regard the
prevalence of sentiments like these as evidence of a war against the
family ; but unless they do exist and shape conduct, no such thing
as an organic interdependence of its members can subsist at all in
any family.
Further pursuing this line of thought, it is clear that whenever
in the family anyone attempts ' to play the sovereign,' and to
absorb all the life of the others in his own selfish purposes, an
immorality is committed and an injury done to the family, because
an injury is done to certain members of the family. Now, it is
far from my intention to deny that just this exhibition of egoism
often occurs in families. Of course, when it does happen it is an
instance of the undue exaltation of the individual ; but it equally
evinces an undue abasement of other individuals in the family.
There is too much individualism on the one side, and too little on
the other. If, then, individualism were influential to make higher
the low, it would tend to restore the equilibrium, which considera-
tion for individuals aims to preserve. In all such cases, repression
of one individual for the sake of others is what is needed. In a
word, egoism must be abated and altruism cultivated.
Taking the history of family life as a whole, it seems to me
that by far the greatest evil coming from individualistic egoism has
been the assumed supremacy of the husband. From the time
when women were carried off by force and became the slaves of
their captors, down to the period when the husband, claiming to
be God's representative, demands the submission of the wife to his
behests, the female sex has been the suffering sex in family life.
The autonomy of the wife has often, perhaps generally, been wholly
denied. She has been overawed and overwhelmed by the superior
might and the audacious assumptions of her lord and master.
Whatever alteration for the better has occurred in the status of
women has taken place, not alone in the reduction of individualism
as it has been shown in the husband, but also in that increased
development of individualism which has raised to greater pro-
minence and importance the personality of the wife. This has not
happened without a struggle, and that at the present day the
wife has not attained a complete equality with the husband either
in regard to property rights, personal liberty, or control of the
children, existing laws, customs, and habits even in the most
enlightened communities sufficiently prove. And yet in Bishop
Littlejohn's sermons one looks in vain for any mention of this
CHAI>. XVII. THE FAMILY. 163
injurious phase of individualism. One would have supposed that
this very prominent instance of the wrong and the evil of the
undue exaltation of the individual would not have escaped his
notice. The fact that he omits to take note of it must, in the
mind of the careful and serious thinker, cast much doubt upon
the thoroughness of the Bishop's examination of the subject and
the consequent value of his conclusions. Perhaps we ought to be
grateful that Bishop Littlejohn has said no more on this topic
than he has ; for a prominent clergyman of his denomination — the
Rector of Trinity Church in New York — in a series of lectures has
been recently lamenting the departure of the good old times when
women not only kept silence in the churches but in the household
also, unless spoken to, and disapproving in the strongest terms all
efforts to increase the liberty and independence of women. Dr. Dix
even goes so far as to cry out against suggestions for giving
women that weapon of self-sustenance and self-defence which is
found in a higher education ' Higher than what ? ' This
seems to indicate that he does not know what higher education is.
At the present time, it must be said, there exists in family life
an evil which is probably due to an improper exaggeration of the
importance of the individual, and a mistaken notion of the extent
to which individual liberty should be allowed to prevail. This is
the permission of self-will in children and youth. The vice, of
course, is unequally prevalent, and is more characteristic of
American than European life. But certainly in American families
it is a conspicuous and growing evil. Whatever liberty the adult
may claim, and whatever may be the relations of adults to each
other, it is certain that neither the welfare of the individual, the
family, nor the community will allow of unrestrained autonomy in
children. There is a very wholesome truth in President Seelye's
baccalaureate wherein he urges the necessity of obedience to secure
a healthy growth. ' His bashfulness in youth,' quotes President
Seelye from Xenophon on Cyrus, ' was the very true vigour of his
virtue and stoutness afterward.' I have already adverted to the
fact (Chapter XII.) that self-control never can be acquired without
obedience to some outside authority in early life. This is a
psychological fact amply verified. Without self-control and the
power of self-determination, that individual's life is not safe, to
say nothing of the dangers to others. The importance of training
the young to self-government through obedience, I am very sure,
is not appreciated as it ought to be. Children are too often
M 2
164 THE INSTITUTIONAL FETICH. PART IV.
suffered to have tlieir own way in everything ; their whims are
always consulted ; they are taught to esteem themselves of prime
importance in the family ; they are admired and praised, but
seldom corrected and restrained; they are brought forward, not
kept in the background ; instead of being taught to be modest
and self-depreciating, they are allowed, if not encouraged, to be
bold and self-asserting. As a consequence, they grow up self-
willed, selfish, heedless of the wishes, the comforts, even the rights,
of others ; they possess an overweening confidence in themselves
and but little respect for the wisdom of those of greater experience.
Instead of coming to manhood and womanhood with a well-balanced,
self-regulated, altruistic character, they have all the vices of an
egoistic disposition, with the result of being of no use to their
fellows and of comparatively little efficiency for the highest and
best purposes of their own existence. They are of no positive
benefit to the community, and are fitly prepared for all sorts of
injuries to the social order, if opportunity occur and the chances
of punishment are not too great.
I have no doubt that Bishop Littlejohn, as well as President
Seelye, would heartily indorse what I have just said respecting
the discipline of obedience as a necessity of education, and the
prevailing laxity in the enforcement of this discipline in family
life. My only quarrel with them would arise over the grounds
upon which this obedience is to be required and justified. Perhaps
it is not worth while to dispute about these at the present juncture,
inasmuch as in other places I have enough difference of opinion
to express over the principles (and their applications) which govern
this whole subject. It is a wise maxim of jurisprudence not to
disturb a judicial decision which is right because the reasons
assigned for it are wrong. This, of course, will not apply to ethical
discussions, a part of the object of which is to find out proper
reasons, but when our criticisms of principles and arguments is
sufficiently ample in other places, we might be excused for not
finding fault with the course of thought leading to a conclusion
with which we fully agree. Yet I must regard it as exceedingly
unfortunate in that it tends to mislead, confuse, befog, and cast
doubt on the correctness of the teaching to have such declarations
made as the following by Bishop Littlejohn : ' Children are to
serve and obey in all things, not because they are too weak to do
otherwise; nor yet because to do so is the implied condition of
food, shelter, and raiment ; nor because of any animal or physical
CHAP. XVII THE FAMILY. 165
consideration whatever ; but simply for the reason that it is of the
essence of the family that they should do so.' * Every practical
mind will say that it is reason enough for children to be taught
to obey because they are too weak to do otherwise, and because
they owe obedience in consideration of food, shelter, raiment,
protection, social advantage, education, and the like. It is ex-
pedient for the children and for society that they obey. This will
be understood, but people will not understand, when they are told
in terms that these are no reasons for obedience, but that children
should obey inasmuch as it is of the essence of the family that
they should do so. If this is what Bishop Littlejohn preaches he
must expect that his hearers will either go to sleep in their pews,
or will begin seriously to doubt whether it is right that children
should obey their parents at all. His only salvation will be the
possible obstinacy of some minds who will believe that children
ought to be obedient, spite of what the Bishop says ; in the same
manner as the Scotch layman, after his dominie had preached an
elaborate sermon to prove the existence of God, on being asked
by the latter what he thought of the sermon, said it was very fine,
but he could not help believing there was a God after all ! At
any rate, Moses, when he laid down the law, which bishops and
other clergy accept on authority, did not esteem it worth his while
to say anything about the essence of the family, but was quite
content to give a utilitarian reason for the obedience of the young ;
for he said, ' Honour thy father and mother, that thy days may be
long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.'
Having now pointed out the advantages of individualism in
the family relationship, and some prominent examples of its abuse,
let me request the reader's attention to the influence of authority,
and its claims as a remedy for the evils of individualism. President
Seelye advises his young graduates to bend their energies to the
making more evident ' the unqualified sovereignty ' of the family
in its sphere. Bishop Littlejohn says : — ' The family is an ordinance
of God, and invested with an authority commensurate with the
purpose for which it was ordained. Parents bear rule as God's
own deputies, not by virtue of human law ; and they so bear it that
no external power can lawfully restrain its legitimate exercise.' If,
then, the family is unqualifiedly sovereign, and invested with a
paramount authority, it becomes interesting to inquire in whom
is the interpretation and execution of this authority vested ?
1 Italics mine.
166 THE INSTITUTIONAL FETICH. PART IV.
Obviously it must be in some individual, or individuals ; not in the
children, for God's word, the most authoritative expression, enjoins :
1 Children, obey your parents in all things.' Not in the wife, for
the same scripture says : i Wives, submit yourselves unto your own
husbands ; ' and the church marriage service usually requires the
bride to promise to obey her husband. It is in the latter, there-
fore, that the authority of the family is reposed. In any conflict
of wills the husband is the arbiter, and his will is to prevail, not
because he is necessarily the wisest or the best, not because what
he proposes is most advantageous for the common weal, but because
the ' unqualified sovereignty ' of the family is vested in him. We
thus discover, to begin with, that the principle of authority is
responsible for that which we have claimed to be the greatest evil
known in family life. The doctrine of authority, unless qualified,
leads directly to, and has produced, all the various forms of domestic
slavery. The family was just as much an institution in the days of
the patria potestas, or even in ruder times, as it is at present. Why
was it not as divine then as now ? And what right had the indi-
vidual to disturb its established order ? Bishop Littlejohn concedes
that the ownership of the wife by the husband, the son by the
father was wrong, and that the growth of individualism in oppo-
sition to authority rectified that wrong. And yet he contends for
the preservation of precisely the same dogma of authority which
rendered possible and actual the gross despotism he himself con-
demns ! In opposition to this I urge that a principle which leads
to the most extreme and the worst exhibition of individualism in
the family ought on Bishop Littlejohn's own grounds to be entirely
displaced and set aside. If he fears that at present the individual
is likely to be esteemed as superior to the organic whole, he surely
ought to beware of a method of viewing the family organisation which
forbids individual members to call to account or to question the
claims to ascendency of one individual who arrogates to himself a
headship by reason of having been divinely vested with authority.
The doctrine of authority has been from the beginning, and is
to-day, a stumbling-block in the way of woman's liberty and ad-
vancement ; it has even encouraged and been made the justification
for brutality and oppression against gentleness and love ; it has
been, and is, a constant feeder of selfishness and disregard of the
rights and the wishes of the weaker ; it is an ally of all the worst
traits in the domestic character ; it is the foe of all the best
developments of that character. Therefore I say that it is itself
CHAP. XYIT. THE FAMILY. 167
hostile to and subversive of every correct idea of family life, and
dangerous to the integrity of the family considered as a social in-
stitution. The truth is, this notion of authority has replaced the
true idea of the family as a social unity of individuals, of whom
each one is end and means of all the rest, by a fetich ignorantly
worshipped with a grovelling and superstitious devotion, debasing
to the devotee, and destructive of all noble ideals of what the family
ought to be as typifying relationships which may be made of the
greatest value, not only to the happiness of those principally con-
cerned, but also of all mankind, both the present and future gene-
rations.
Passing now to the second instance of undue exaltation of the
individual in the domestic sphere to which I referred, the supporters
of the authority-system may regard it as self-evident that what is
needed to cure the trouble is more authority and more respect for
authority. Undoubtedly this is true in a sense ; while in a sense
also it is wholly untrue. If they mean that children shall be both
taught and made to obey their parents, to repress selfishness, and
to derive their greatest pleasure from the pleasure of others, I have
nothing to say. They must be taught these things in the first
instance without an explanation of why they must thus behave,
because human nature is so constituted that presentative pain and
pleasure determine actions which by repetition give birth to habits
long before the representative powers have developed the mind
sufficiently to allow reasoned conclusions to affect, much less to
govern, conduct. Authority thus far is right because it is expedient
and indeed necessary. But if the doctrine of authority requires, as
I understand it does, that when conduct is to be influenced by
appealing to the understanding of the child or youth, and by in-
stilling a knowledge of right principles of action, then he is to
have it impressed upon him that he ought to obey, not because it
is best for him and others, but because it is of the essence of the
family that he should do so, I totally deny that there is any
virtue in the doctrine whatever. And I thus speak for the reasons
before mentioned. In itself this declaration has no definable
meaning ; but it is admirably adapted and was no doubt originally
invented (not, of course, by Bishop Littlejohn) to cover up gross
individualistic tyranny, and in justifying this is its only vitality.
Sooner or later youth will find this out, with the almost inevitable
result of shaking their faith in precepts supported by such argu-
ments. Morality has many times suffered because sustained by
168 THE INSTITUTIONAL FETICH. PART IV.
false doctrine, as houses have suffered when built on the sands
instead of on a rock. It is the worst possible method of education
to found rules of conduct on false theories. To do this is not only
to adopt an inefficient means to an end, but often it defeats the end
sought.
Let us now examine some of the particulars in which the family
is said to dominate the individual, again taking as our text the
statements of the prelate whose words have already furnished so
many points for our comments. If the family is an ' ordinance of
God,' it is admitted also by Dr. Littlejohn that the individual ' has
an end in himself.' £ He must be treated as more than an instru-
ment or a slave. He bears God's image and is marked for an
eternal as well as a temporal life. His franchises match his hopes
and keep pace with his capabilities.' In this respect, then, the
family does not dominate the individual any more than the indi-
vidual dominates the family. In the second place, it is urged that
' the family dominates the individual, whether man or woman,
because the marriage-bond is more than a simple contract or legal
covenant that may be set aside by mutual consent.' This brings
up the question of divorce, into the discussion of which I shall not
enter, for the reason that I hope to make this topic the theme of a
separate treatise, its importance demanding a more thorough exa-
mination than is possible here. I freely admit, however, that indi-
vidualism maintains that marriage was instituted for men and
women, not men and women for marriage, and claims that whether
marriage ought to be entered into, or when once its responsibilities
are assumed, whether or not the marriage union ought to be dis-
solved, is a question to be settled on the basis of whether or not the
ends of married life in their relations to the married pair, their
children, and the state, are to be promoted and secured by its
continuance. But this seems to me to be a proper individualism
necessary to realise the highest ideals of family life. In this matter
as in everything else an excess of individualism, which ought to be
reprobated, is the self-will and selfishness of either one of the par-
ties, and the law ought never to allow itself to be made the means
of shielding and protecting, and thus encouraging, egoistic self-
absorption. Rights and duties should be made equally prominent.
It is the duty of each to bear and forbear ; but it is also the right
of each that the other shall bear and forbear. If the rights of
individuals are made the prominent object of attention, it is some
evidence that the duties of the other party concerned in each case
CHAP. XVII. THE FAMILY. 169
are neglected. The way to settle difficulties of this sort is not to
set up authority as a judge, whose dictates should be followed
because they are the dictates of a sovereign whose word is law, but
diligently to consider what each one's rights and duties are in the
light of the ends of family life. On the one hand, to be jealous of
preserving everyone's rights ; and, on the other, to impress upon
each one the obligations of moral duty. The true balance is
always preserved when one individual is made unduly prominent
by considering in precept and action the interests of other indi-
viduals. In this signification the family does indeed dominate the
individual, but only thus ; but by family is meant, as I have so
often insisted, not any abstraction but the individuals who compose
the family ; it is their interests, their rights, their welfare that is
to be consulted ; and when these are injured, and only then, is
injury done to the family.
A third respect in which the family is said to be entitled to
rule the individual is c because of an inherent attribute of sacred-
ness.' This is simple fetichism. What warrant have we for
asserting that the family is any more sacred than the individual ?
Holy Scripture does not say so. In the text of Bishop Littlq-
john's first sermon we are told that God has made man a little
lower than the angels and has crowned him with glory and honour.
1 Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands ;
thou hast put all things under his feet.' l And in the New Testa-
ment Jesus Christ declares c This is the Father's will which hath
sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing,
but should raise it up again at the last day ; ' 2 while Paul says,
' Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of
God dwelleth in you ? ' 3 Against such texts as these Bishop Little-
john does not seem to be able to cite anything better than the
Garden of Eden story, and the patriarchal savagery recorded in the
book of Genesis. After all he does not incline to rest so fully upon
scripture in this connection, for he proceeds to remark : ' Largely
as this quality may proceed from Divine institution and enact-
ment, it is quite as largely grounded upon the instincts and tradi-
tions of mankind in every age and in every land ; and upon the
universal conviction that the family is the nursery of the church
and the nation ; and that on the whole, as is the family, so will be
the church and the nation.' It is quite true that the family is the
nursery of the church and the nation through the fact that it is the
1 Psalm viii. 5, 6. 2 S. John vi. 59. 3 1 Cor. ii. 16.
170 THE INSTITUTIONAL FETICH. PART IV.
nursery of the individual. It is also true that if families generally
are corrupt and depraved, communities of all sorts will be so ; but
why ? Because the individuals who compose the families are
corrupt and depraved, and the same persons are both members of
the families and of the community. The family does not seem to
be the end, but the individual ; the former being, in fact, but a
means to the latter. It is important that family life be as perfect
as possible, in order that individual life be made as perfect as
possible. There is no more inherent sacredness about the one
than the other ; or, if there be, it is rather in favour of the indi-
vidual. The family is a venerable institution ; but the individual
antedates it. And I do not know that anything is more sacred
because it is old. Satan has existed a good while, as has also his
kingdom ; but there is no inherent attribute of sacredness about
either as a consequence. I do not wish to be understood as claim-
ing that there is never a presumption in favour of long-existing
institutions, nor do I desire to assert that the family is not to be
respected as an institution. It is respectable, and ought to be
respected ; but attributing to it an inherent sacredness which for-
bids or tends to break the force of individual questioning and
criticism upon its methods of administration and internal regula-
tion, and which prevents the assertion of individual rights, will
only result in making the family relationship a burlesque upon
what it ought to be, until finally it may indeed cease to be respect-
able because it is of so little value for all the essential purposes of
its existence. I can do no better than to quote upon this point
Bishop Littlejohn's own words farther on. The individual has the
right to hold the family ' strictly to its own commission, and to
demand from it all that it was intended to do for him He
has not only a body to be reared, but a soul, a mind, a heart to be
instructed, so that to him the highest freedom will be the service
of truth and righteousness. Such are the claims of the individual
upon the family, and the family serves the individual in all offices
necessary to the satisfaction of these claims. The mastery of the
individual over the family is the mastery of rights founded in the
nature of things and the constitution of humanity.'
The family is not a concrete entity. It has as such no sacred-
ness, no rights, no duties, no power or authority, and no impera-
tives of obedience. It is convenient for us to speak of the family
as if it were a creature of flesh and blood instead of a represen-
tation of men's minds. AJ1 individual persons have rights and
CHAP. XVJ '. THE FAMILY. 171
duties, and some have authority over others in certain relationships
whose ends and limits we indicate when we speak of family rights
and duties. It is these rights and duties of human beings to each
other which have alone an inherent sacredness, and these are
always superior to any abstraction, or any assumed rights of, or
duties to, an abstraction.
The conclusion to which all these considerations tend is that
the principle of authority in family life is much more dangerous
to the welfare of families than are the principles of individualism.
For authority with the meaning of those who push forward its
claims leads directly to the most vicious exaltation of the individual.
It has no compensating advantages which are not secured by the
development of the individualistic tendencies under the idea of the
family which makes each one the end and the means of all the
rest, and requires the limitation of individual volition and action
by the interests, the good, the choices of all the others. In family
education and training individualism, in allowing too great free-
dom is liable to foster selfishness and self-will ; but this untoward
result is not prevented by impressing the doctrine of authority
upon the mind ; it rather is hastened and increased, since it de-
mands a blind, unreasoning, unquestioning obedience. The way
to cure excessive individualism is to inculcate a greater respect
for other individuals and their interests, and to create a deeper
sense of our duties to them apprehended in the light of their wel-
fare. This must ever beget a respect for institutions which in
their nature and in their operation upon social life promote the
highest degree of general good. Such a respect continues so long
as these institutions accomplish their legitimate purposes ; and,
when they fail to do so, the individualistic spirit is quick to detect
their insufficiency, and ready to alter their methods or reform their
constitution to meet the varying needs of human progress and
happiness. Authority makes no allowance for change of conditions ;
it extinguishes life itself by drying up or crushing out the vitalising
forces ; then, when disintegration and putrefaction occur, it changes
the death and corruption to individualism. In the social organism
individualism promotes evolution and integration ; authority stops
differentiation, and its consequent renewed integration, thus lead-
ing to inevitable disintegration and dissolution.
I am unable to discover anything in the ' war against the
family,' which is alleged to be so evident, but a war against this
principle of authority, which I have been endeavouring to show to
172 THE INSTITUTION AT, FETICH. PART IV.
be so deleterious to true family life. If the family has existed
since the beginning of history under all sorts of conditions, and
surviving all kinds of changes, violent shocks, and slow but power-
ful movements in the organic life of the race, it is not likely to
perish now. To use a favourite mode of expression of the sup-
porters of authority, families may die, but the family continues.
Its written and its unwritten laws may pass away, but they will
always be followed by new statutes and precepts adapted to the
changed circumstances. Family life is founded on constitutional
wants of human nature ; this is a better guaranty of its per-
manence than any principle of authority. When you destroy
humanity you will destroy the family, but not till then, unless,
indeed, man's nature be utterly and entirely changed. In heaven,
it has been said, there is no marrying or giving in marriage ; but this
side of heaven marriage is likely to abide permanently as an insti-
tution. If, however, the constitution of human life should ever be
so altered that family life should become no longer of utility to the
race, no principle of authority ought to prevent its abolition ; and
certainly this doctrine must not be allowed to stand in the way of
its attaining through natural differentiations the maximum of
efficiency for all its ends. The individualism we should aim to
suppress is egoism, however and wherever manifested. To do this
the rights of all individuals must be jealously guarded, while on
the side of obligation regard for the rights of others, and a sincere
disposition to lose one's life in the service of others, ought to be
secured and maintained. If this is done we can well afford to let
The Family , as an abstract idea, or as an f organic institution,' or
as a ' life principle,' take care of itself, satisfied that it is not neces-
sary for the world's good that it * dominate ' anybody or anything.
173
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE STATE.
IT is sometimes said that the family is the foundation of the state,
and the state the outgrowth of the family. I do not regard this
view as correct. Those relationships which make up the state are
wider and more universal than those which constitute the family.
The state exhibits that organic connection which subsists between
man and man as human beings before the special relationship of
husband and wife or parent and child arise. Two men, or man
and woman, have general rights and duties as respects each other
belonging to their character as human beings, to which are added
as increments the rights and duties of the family. Family obliga-
tions are built upon and are additional to state obligations. Of
course the family is the nursery of the citizen ; but, on the other
hand, the civil order, the state, is the guardian and protector of
the family. There must be social union before there is sexual
union, and without the latter there is no complete family life,
while the former gives the life of the state or community.
Like the family, the state is an aggregation of individuals
united by certain organic relationships, whose organisation and
whose ends are in no wise different from those of the family. The
means, however, of realising those ends are not the same in the
case of the state as they are with the family, since the conditions
of the relationships are somewhat different. The true idea of the
state is of an organic unity, wherein each member is at once the
means and the end of all the rest. The end of state action (which
I suppose Dr. Littlejohn and his friends would consider to be the
individualistic end) is, for reasons given in the preceding chapters,
to be regarded as the highest happiness of the greatest number.
The means or agencies for carrying out the ends of the state, so far
as any organised action is necessary, lie in the government, which
exercises whatever restraint and control over individuals the rights
of other individuals require. Almost all will agree that some
174 THE INSTITUTIONAL FETICH. PART IV.
restraint and control must be maintained, the chief questions of
dispute being over the degree, the occasions, and the manner of
control.
The state is not a voluntary organisation. Its relationships
exist whether we choose or not. They exist in the nature of
things. The government is a creature of the wills of men, but
the state is not. Given two human beings with the possibility
of communication, and there exists a state relationship, which,
interpret it and regulate it as we may, cannot be evaded. The
natural organic connection may not be fully appreciated, but
avoid it we cannot ; some sort of theory of this connection is
therefore inevitable; and under this some kind of organisation
will be attempted.
What I deem to be an entirely legitimate and proper indi-
vidualism holds that all men are born free and equal as to rights
and duties ; that all men have certain inalienable rights, the chief
of which are life, liberty, and property, to secure which rights
governments are instituted and maintained, deriving their just
powers from the fact of the organic unity of mankind, and being
responsible to the non-governing individuals of the state for their
proper exercise. The government is simply an agent, an instru-
mentality, for the mutual benefit of the whole people, in furthering
the ends of the state. While, therefore, the government controls
the people, the people ought always to have control of the govern-
ment to keep it true to the purposes of its existence. As in the
case of the family, individualism maintains that, since the state
has no existence apart from individuals composing it, the state,
as such, has no rights, obligations, or ends apart from individuals.
Aside from the latter it is an abstraction, the name merely ex-
pressing or indicating certain relationships, rights, and duties of
individuals toward each other.
On the individualistic theory of the state each person is the
ultimate judge of what constitutes his own happiness — that is, he
must determine his own ends and the means of attaining them.
Hence, liberty is of prime importance where men dwell together,
the only restriction being that no man in the use of his liberty
shall employ it to another's injury. Interference with the freedom
of anyone is only justified where it is necessary for the security
of others in their rights. Liberty, equality, and security are thus of
transcendent value in the eyes of individualism, and determine
how the powers of government should be exercised.
CHAP. XVIII. THE STATE. 175
Since these ideas in a great measure underlie the state polity
of what are commonly termed free countries, and are recognised
as sound doctrine very largely and • prevailingly in America,
England, and France, at any rate, to go no further, we should
not expect to find individualism called upon to plead to any indict-
ment here, except by those who favour absolutism and the divine
right of kings. But without stopping to consider at length the
latter doctrines, let us see if we can discover any dangers coming
from individualistic tendencies in politics, even conceding the truth
and the utility of the principles of equal rights. That there are
such dangers I am not disposed to deny ; and among them are the
perils of liberty degenerating into license. It is quite true, as
President Seelye in his baccalaureate says, that elevation of liberty
above law induces license, which degenerates into anarchy, which
issues only in a despotism. Excessive individual egoism, however,
produces anarchy as certainly when it is apparent in a monarch,
under the sanctions of divine authority, as it does in a democracy.
On the other hand, when anarchy prevails the establishment of
a despotism is the first step toward the establishment of order,
though it should not be inferred from this fact that it is the
final step.
The evils and the perils which affect disastrously any social
order arise, broadly speaking, either from positive infringement
and disregard on the part of some individual of the rights of
others, or, negatively, from want of appreciation of one's duty to
others. Of course the latter may lead to the former, and the
former implies the latter. The former of these two general classes
of social evils it is the aim of government and law to prevent ;
but no method has yet been discovered of compelling by extrinsic
force the maintenance of that condition of heart and mind which
prompts care and interest in behalf of others as a matter of love
and duty. Disturbances of the first class are comprised under the
heads of offences against life, liberty, and property, and these are
repressed and prevented by governmental instrumentality. Evils
of the second class are corrected by what are usually termed moral
influences persuading, not compelling save by the force of moral
principles.
So far as the form of government is concerned, it is fair to say
that, on the whole, individualism is represented by democracy and
authority by monarchy and aristocracies. And yet we should not
overlook the fact upon which stress was laid in the last chapter,
176 THE INSTITUTIONAL FETICH. PAKT IV.
that authority must be vested in someone, and where it is centred
in one or a few with the sanctions of a claimed divine commission,
the only result is the most extreme and most dangerous individual
exaltation. The evils ensuing have been so great, so terrible, so
fatal that the most tremendous struggles have taken place all
along the course of history to secure and vindicate the rights of the
people. I need do no more than refer to the eternal, irrepressible
contest for liberty against despotism, so prominent, so absorbing
in all parts of the world and in almost all times, and by no means
yet ended. This conflict has always been a rebellion against
authority and established institutions by individuals in assertion
of what have been claimed to be individual rights. Certainly
whatever benefits have ensued to the world from struggles of this
sort, individualism and not authority is entitled to the credit.
Without such struggles it is clear the better regime would not
have come. True enough, the conflict in each case was inaugurated
by individuals asserting their rights ; they doubtless precipitated
the strife and whatever ruin accompanied it ; but the real cause
was the tyrannous pressure of authority and the refusal to allow
any modification of existing institutions, however unjust and
oppressive, on the plea that whatever is, is right. At any rate,
this much we may safely assert, that wherever anarchical tendencies
have manifested themselves it has been under the conditions of a
class of individuals unduly exalted, whose pre-eminence is supported
by some doctrine of ' inherent sacredness.'
These facts being considered, it is manifestly unfair to charge
upon democratic individualism the responsibility for revolutionary
outbreaks, and that devastation which accompanies attempts to
subvert existing institutions by force. At farthest the responsibility
is a divided one. Action and reaction are equal and opposite.
One side is too aggressive and the other too unyielding. But
those who are fond of talking about the inherent sacredness of
existing institutions are apt to consider that there is no fault any-
where but in the failure to honour and respect what is divine and
unchangeable. The practical result is the upper says to the under,
c Obey, or be crushed.' If obedience is not yielded but resistance
is developed, then the advocates of the authority-system ascribe the
consequent disturbances of order to the ' evil will.' They are quite
right ; but the evil will is their own as much as of those who are
pointed out as offenders. ' To see far and clearly,' says George
Sand, ' is the whole aim of life.' ' The essence of moral energy,'
CHAP. XVIII. THE STATE. 177
remarks Henry James, ' is to survey the whole field.' The people
I am criticising neither see far nor clearly ! nor do they survey the
whole field. As Mme. Sand said of Flaubert, they lack ' a distinct
and extensive view of life.'
So far as the doctrine of authority militates against democracy
and favours the divine right of kings, I presume both President
Seelye and Bishop Littlejohn would repudiate it, though probably
both of them would discourage insurrection and violence to over-
throw monarchy where it now exists, especially with a reasonable
degree of security for individual rights. But, to be consistent, I do
not see how their principles can fail to lead them to sustain
Caesarism and Popery. To be sure, they will say that a power has
a right to rule only so long as it rules righteously. But who, on
their ground, is to determine right and wrong. They will answer
that these questions are to be settled by those in whom God has
reposed the authority to determine and declare. Moses, the law-
giver, gave the laws which God announced to him ; Moses, the
executive, executed God's laws under God's directions. If, there-
fore, God has once conferred authority upon a governor or class of
rulers, the principle of authority requires that they be respected,
revered, and obeyed, because they are the divine representatives.
They must not even be disputed. To question their decrees or
oppose their edicts is -to assert the individual will against the moral
order. Absolutism is the only safe position to be maintained by
those who believe in the inherent sacredness of existing insti-
tutions.
It will doubtless be remarked that while the divine authority
may be conferred for a time upon a sovereign, it will nevertheless
be lost by an unrighteous rule. But certainly the ruler is not
likely to admit that his government is iniquitous ; and if others pro-
claim it and seek to reform or overthrow, what is this but an
outbreak of individualism ? One is reminded of the couplet : —
Treason does never prosper ; what's the reason 1
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.
Practically the believers in the authority-system are forced to
reprobate all agitation against an existing order in its inception
and initiation ; but if it persists and succeeds, then they must like
the Mohammedan fatalists exclaim, ' God wills it,' and transfer
their allegiance to the new power as a new vicegerent of the
All-wise. But if the new regime is a righteous one, those efforts
N
178 THE INSTITUTIONAL FETICH. PAKT IV.
which established it must have been righteous also; if they were, when
the next agitation arises who shall say that it may not also be the
movement of the spirit of God ? What escape from the conclusion
that the individual must be the sole judge for himself and act
according to the best light he has ? Then, pray, what becomes of
the principle of authority ?
To my mind this dogma of authority has been in the world's
history a constant hindrance to progress, and a perpetual opponent
of civilisation. Its effect has been to prevent the growth of a
better and more complete knowledge, which can come only after
questioning and re-examining conclusions already reached and
asserted. And in addition to this it has established unyielding
barriers to practical reforms, which, by modifying institutions that
have ceased to serve any good purpose, or that were originally per-
nicious, might forestall and prevent violent outbreaks tending to
the disruption of society. If people were encouraged to believe
that their protests would be heeded, and that there was a possible
remedy for their wrongs, real or fancied, short of .violence, they
would not care to incur the enormous risks of the latter. A regime
which allows free expression of opinion at all times, and which
provides the means for a speedy change of laws which have become
obnoxious to the interests of any considerable body of people, will
be much less likely to be disturbed by insurrectionary or revolu-
tionary outbreaks than one in which, by reason of beliefs in their
' inherent sacredness,' the laws like those of the Medes alter not.
Plato, I think, refers to the true principle when he makes Socrates
say in the i Theaetetus,' i I may affirm also that the breathless calm
and stillness and the like are wasting and impairing, and wind and
storm preserving.' But surely the gentle breeze, and the strong
fresh wind with its refreshing, revivifying power as it stirs all
nature to health and growth, is better than the tornado which clears
the pestilence-laden air, indeed, but only with cruel and widespread
destruction. The truth also is expressed in that other passage of
the c Theaetetus,' ' There is no one, or some, or any sort of nature,
but out of motion and change and admixture all things are be-
coming.'
When laws exist they must be obeyed and enforced. They
must bear with them that much of authority, and as expressions of
the will of the whole for the benefit of all and of each they must
be respected. But they are means, not ends ; and the moment
we attach to them any sentiment which forbids change on account
CHAP. XVIII. THE STATE. 179
of other considerations than the mutual interest, they become
obstructions to the circulation of the very life-blood of the
organism, and impair its utility. And if it happens, as it often
does, and frequently in democracies, that liberty is placed above
law, the remedy will not be found in claiming that laws have any
other purpose than to promote the welfare of individuals, or that
the government or the state has any other end ; but rather in
making more clear and convincing the doctrine that governmental
administration is necessitated to secure the greatest happiness of
the people, and that this can only be accomplished by obedience
to the same order, subject to the right to use all means, short of
injury to life, liberty, and property, to change that order if it be
deemed itself pernicious.
Conceding the utility of an administration founded upon prin-
ciples of equal rights, what can the doctrine of authority suggest
as likely to cure the ills which come from abuse of individual
liberty ? Those who believe in the doctrine can say that people
ought to respect law more and obey laws better. But that is
what individualists say also. Saying so in neither case accom-
plishes the desired result. In the making of laws individualism
would apply the test of utility for the general happiness ; authority
would legislate according to the dictates of some assumed standard
of divine command, which, we have seen, inevitably leads to an
exaltation of the individual, more ineradicable and dangerous than
that which is caused by mere self-assertion without the support of
authority. And where this course has been taken, we also note that
it does not prevent social disturbances, but only makes them, when
they occur, to be more violent and terrible. Two things, then, we
may conclude : that under systems created according to the prin-
ciple of authority we find only a worse individualism, and that an
authority-system does not abate or prevent those offences against
society which are laid to the charge of individualistic ideas.
President Seelye has himself stated the truth of the matter in
a review article, entitled ' Dynamite as a Factor in Civilisation.' *
He observes, ' The sources of the danger which now threatens are
not new and are not in the dynamite itself. It is not in the
weapon, but in the hands which use it ; and not in these, but in
the hearts which direct them that the real peril is to be found.
The choices of men are the root of the whole trouble.' Then he
adds a most weighty remark, but one which militates very strongly
1 North American Renew, July 1883.
N 2
180 THE INSTITUTIONAL FETICH. PART IV.
against the dogmas of authority which we often find President
Seelye supporting. ' It is quite clear at the outset — human nature
remaining as it is — that political problems are not likely to be
solved by force and fear alone.' Now upon the doctrine of
authority, if right is righteous not because it is right, but because
some constituted authority says it is righteous, the government is
precisely one which is maintained by force and fear : force on the
part of the governors who assert their will because their will is
right ; fear on the part of the governed, who develop those forms
of fear as awe, reverence, regard for inherent sacredness, the
absence of which, people like Bishop Littlejohn so bitterly lament
as indicating the degeneracy of the times. Any system which
does not permit the title of the governing power to be questioned
by the governed in the light of what is best for the general happi-
ness is a system of rule by force and fear, disguise it as you may
under high-sounding phrases, as ' inherent sacredness,' or ' divine
authority.'
Apropos of these remarks, doubtless President Seelye would
say that * the only true means of social safety and strength and
growth ' is i in the principle of self-forgetfulness wherein each one
pleases not himself, but his neighbour.' l I should deem it more
accurate to say : wherein each one pleases himself only in pleasing
his neighbour ; but I will not here quarrel over forms of expres-
sion; the idea involved indicates the truth which I have been
again and again urging. It is agreed that how best to apply this
principle and to accomplish the result sought should be the end of
all thought and effort on the part of those who believe in the
precept of King Archidamus (of whom Thucydides writes), that ' it
is most honourable and most secure for many persons to show
themselves obedient to the same order.' Bishop Littlejohn, and
those who stand upon his platform, however, have not a clear and
distinct notion of the social trouble they seek to remedy. Egoism
is the evil, not individualism ; and direction of the attention to
the latter is only a superficial direction. The root of the evil is
the self-centred disposition, which is not to be remedied by setting
one man above another. The repression of individualism and the
exaltation of institutions advocated by these worthy people means,
the abasement of some individuals and the puffing up of others ;
the serviency of one and the dominancy of another. This will
1 North American Review, op. cit.
CHAP. XVIII. THE STATE. 181
never cure the body politic ; on the contrary, it will make the
disease worse and perhaps fatal.
The fact has been that, wherever foresight apprehending evil
to come, and seeing the sources of the trouble, has pointed out
the way of avoidance, and stimulated efforts toward reform, the
doctrines of authority and their institutional supports have in-
variably stood in the way. Not only direct attempts at change
have been opposed, but all suggestion and agitation have been
reprobated. If more liberty has been asked for, the cry of insur-
rection and revolution has been raised, and stern measures of
repression have been inaugurated, with the only result of making
the insurrection or revolution more certain and more violent,
though postponed for a time. Then the awful effects of individual
license are held up to the world as a warning, and the necessity of
f outward guides, civil and ecclesiastical,' and of c institutional
checks and limitations,' l is emphasised, while the oppression of one
individual by another, and the unyielding domination of institu-
tions, which were the real causes of the woe, are entirely ignored.
Men are not thoroughly philanthropic. They are growing
more and more so as enlightenment progresses, we must believe,
but they are not yet very highly altruistic. It is, then, of the
utmost importance for the welfare of the social organism that the
very largest opportunity be afforded for the individual's own
spontaneity to work out his own destiny. From this it follows
that the action of government ought to be restricted to the obtain-
ing and preserving security of individual rights, and to a limited
degree in carrying on works of public convenience. ' La surete et
la liberte personnel le,' said Mirabeau,2 ' sont les seules choses qu'un
etre isole ne puisse s'assurer par lui-meme.' Remarks Herbert
Spencer : 3 i I hold, then, that, forced as men in society are to seek
satisfaction of their own wants by satisfying the wants of others ;
and led, as they also are, by sentiments which social life has
fostered, to satisfy many wants of others irrespective of their own ;
they are moved by two sets of forces which, working together, will
amply suffice to carry on all needful activities ; and I think the
facts fully justify this belief. Scarcely any scientific-
generalisation has, I think, a broader inductive basis than we have
for the belief that these egoistic and altruistic feelings are powers
which, taken together, amply suffice to originate and carry on all
1 Bishop Littlejohn. 2 Sur VEd ucat. pu blique.
3 « Specialised Administration,' Fortnightly Review, Dec. 1871.
182 THE INSTITUTIONAL FETICH. PART IV.
the activities which constitute healthy national life ; the only pre-
requisite being that they shall be under the negatively-regulative
control of a central power — that the entire aggregate of individuals,
acting through the legislature and executive as its agents, shall
put upon each individual and group of individuals the restraints
needful to prevent aggression, direct and indirect.'
It is such truths as these that the disciples of the authority-
system are constantly overlooking. Would that they might con-
sider them more thoroughly. Here is another of like import and
of like value, in the words of William von Humboldt : ! ' While
the state constitution, by the force of law or custom or its own
preponderating power, imparts a definite relation to the citizens,
there is still another which is wholly distinct from this — chosen
of their own free will, infinitely various, and in its nature ever-
changing. And it is strictly this last — the mutual freedom of
activity among all the members of the nation — which secures all
those benefits for which men longed when they formed themselves
into a society. The state constitution itself is strictly subordinate
to this, as to the end for which it was chosen as a necessary
means ; and since it is always attended with restrictions in free-
dom, as a necessary evil.'
* The world is not in danger of returning to ' the homelessness
and lawlessness of savage life.' As the social organism becomes
more complex, the mutual connection and interdependence of all
its parts likewise becomes more close and more necessary. And it
must not be forgotten that there is in human nature the primitive
pleasure in the pleasure of others before spoken of, a sentiment of
sympathy which goes alongside of all antipathies, and never can
be wholly extinguished. We must admit, in the language of
Adam Smith beginning his treatise on ' The Theory of Moral
Sentiments,' that f How selfish soever man may be supposed, there
are evidently some principles in his nature which interest him in
the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him,
though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it.'
The conclusions to which we are now brought are, that the
'state is nothing apart from the individuals composing it; that
legislation for the state itself, aside from those individuals, is not
only futile but delusive and dangerous to the peace and order of
the community ; that the government is merely the agent of the
people in carrying out such measures of organisation and adminis-
1 Essay on tlie Sphere and Duties of Government, chap. xv.
CHAP. XVIII. THE STATE. 183
tration as are necessary for the common weal ; and that all state
and governmental authority exists solely and exclusively for the
end of the highest happiness of the greatest number of individuals.
Beyond this there is no warrant whatever for the exercise of
authority, and for adherence to this canon all governmental
administration should at all times be held strictly accountable as
a trustee to individual cestuis que trust. In the light of this
doctrine of the constitution of the state, and the function of
government, that individualism which sets one man above another,
or which allows one man to infringe upon the rights of another,
must be prevented and suppressed. Security to the individual is
of the first importance, and when this is obtained the exercise of a
great amount of authority on the part of government is infinitely
more perilous to the common weal than any unrestricted freedom
allowed to individual activity after the rights of others are secured.
Above all, we should never allow any ideas of i inherent sacred-
ness ' of existing institutions to interfere with free criticism and
exposure of defects, and the agitation and carrying out of such
reforms as are needed by changed or changing circumstances.
184 THE INSTITUTIONAL FETICH. PART IV.
CHAPTER XIX.
TEE CHURCH.
IN the ' Charmides' of Plato occurs the following remarkable pas-
sage : ' Soc. . . But our king Zamolxis, said he, who is also a
god, says that, as it is not proper to attempt to cure the eyes with-
out the head, nor the head without the body, so neither is it proper
to cure the body without the soul. . . . For all good and evil, said
he, whether in the body or in human nature, originate, as he
declared, in the soul and flow from thence, as from the head to the
eyes ; and therefore if the head and the body are to be well, you
must begin by curing the soul ; that is the first thing.' Wise and
good men in all ages have seen that the existence of evil, its con-
tinuance, and its source in the egoistic volitions of men, make it
necessary to individual and social welfare that some systematic
organised effort be made to suppress it by purifying the springs from
which it flows ; in other words, as Plato enjoins, by curing the soul.
Stripping away all the superstition and eliminating the adven-
titious, this is the real practical purpose of those organisations which
are built upon a religious foundation and for religious ends. Men
may be controlled for a time and to a degree by force and fear, but
unless -their wills are subdued there is no permanent security for
the authority. A person may be commanded to do a thing under
penalties, and may do it; but vastly superior results can be
obtained at a much less expenditure if he can be induced to com-
mand himself to do this same thing, and cheerfully to obey his own
behests. The government by ' force and fear ' is very imperfect
and transient at best. The government of self-direction and self-
control is the only one that is certain and permanent. Observing
that the egoistic impulses are strong naturally, and, if unchecked,
tend to destroy moral and social order, men came to ascribe the
altruistic disposition, so blessed and beneficent, to a source above
nature, working against natural forces. They joined to other
attributes of the Divine Being, or Beings they worshipped the
CHAP. XIX. THE CHURCH. 185
characteristic of love, and came to believe that God would send the
Spirit of Love into the hearts of men, turning them first to Him
and then filling them with love for God's creatures. In other words,
religious and ethical sentiments became united, and produced
in theoretical directions a creed, holding that the dispositions
of human beings could be changed beneficially by the influx of
a supernatural agency, a sort of Divine Force, which could be
induced under certain conditions. In practical directions this
resulted in organisations for obtaining the results promised by the
creed, for curing the souls of men according to the methods approved
by this theoiy.
The ethico-religious organisations combined, and, more or less
consolidated (which were the outcoming of the sentiments to
which I have been referring), constitute the Church, whose chief
and controlling precept, as Dr. Julius Miiller styles it, the
avatcs$a\alci)(Ti,s of all divine commands to men * — is first to love
God with all the heart, and secondly to love one's neighbour as one's
self. Now, so far as the church visible is concerned, it cannot be
denied that it is at least an association of individuals. It is com-
posed of individual men and women united by certain common
sentiments and purposes. Unlike the association of the state, that
of the church is voluntary. A quibble may be raised here ; for it
may be said that the church is God's state, and that no one can
escape from its obligations : we can no more avoid the divine
administration than we can the civil. This may all be true, but
it by no means follows that a person, by the fact of his being
a man, is therefore a member of every or any church. Of course
the absurdity of this is apparent. However the church invisi-
ble may be constituted, the visible organisations are all that
we can deal with as factors of individual and social develop-
ment; and membership in these is voluntary, except it may
be where church and state are united, and a person is a member
of the church as he is a citizen. The sphere of church action
is limited only by the life of mankind, individual and social, The
bond of church unity is the ever-living desire of man to make
men better, higher, nobler ; and the determination to subdue all
unrighteousness and evil. The idea of the organic unity of man-
kind, each living for all, and all for each, is the nexus of church
union as it is of state union. The methods of church and state
action are unlike, but their ends are not radically different. The
1 Christian Doctrine of Sin, Book I. chap. i.
186 THE INSTITUTIONAL FETICH. PART IV.
church and state express and present only complementary sides of
the same idea ; no wonder that men have tried so often practically
to unite them. Relatively speaking, state action is negative while
church action is positive. The state is cautious, protective, con-
servative ; the church is zealous, stirring, aggressive ; the state is
judicial, the church forensic; the state is calm, solid, defensive ;
the church is impetuous, overwhelming, conquering ; the state is a
shield, the church a fierce lance ; the state is a cordon of strong
forts, the church is an advancing army terrible with its banners ;
the state is the granite mountain or the gnarled oak, the church is
the resistless avalanche that sweeps down the side of the one, or
the mighty blast that assails the tough firmness of the other ; the
state is Argos, the guardian ; the church is Herakles, who slays the
Hydra and cleanses the Augean stables ; the state is strength in
repose, the church strength in active exercise ; the state destroys
its enemies, the church converts them, and adds them to its own
ranks ; the state inflicts the penalty, the church takes away the
guilt ; the state boes its work by removing all hindrances, by
guaranteeing the common freedom, by securing the largest liberty
consistent with the liberty of the whole ; the church then takes
upon itself the completion of the task, and with its aggressive
action warming the heart, stirring the souls of men, everywhere
urging to a higher and better life, sending its missionaries abroad,
relieving the poor, healing the sick, it goes on its way of conquest
by curing men's souls. And ever the church leans upon the pro-
tecting arm of the state, while, on the other hand, the state ever
draws vitality and inspiration from the church. The organisations
of both are organisations of individuals, maintained by individuals
for the benefit of individuals, bound together by the fact of the
organic interdependence of mankind.
Certainly no reasonable objection can be offered to the ends of
a society existing for the purpose of curing the souls of men, so as
to make them derive their chief happiness from the happiness of
others. This is what all the wise and good desire. The only
questions which can arise are as to the fidelity of such societies
to their work and their effectiveness in accomplishing it. Now, in
opposition to Bishop Littlejohn and President Seelye, I shall
venture to claim that just so far as the church has been an active
philanthropic institution, teaching that holiness consists in help-
fulness, and, by its teachings and its active ministrations, working
for the great end of the improvement and happiness of the greatest
CHAP. XIX. THE CFIURCH. 187
number of individuals, so far has it been a benefit to society.
But in so far as it has attempted to impose upon the world or upon
individuals any system of authority, either as to belief or action,
and so far as it has adopted or inculcated other ends than the
happiness of mankind, so far has it been baneful in its influences,
damaging to moral character, and an enemy to the community at
large.
We have now arrived, I fancy, at the central point of the
solicitude which is exhibited by thinkers of the type of those I
have been instancing about this subject of Individualism. The
truth is that individualism, if allowed here, will inevitably destroy
their system ; and this system, they think (I believe wrongly), is
of more importance to mankind than anything else. They consider
that the salvation of both the individual and the- race, here and
hereafter, depends upon its supremacy. Consequently they are
filled with alarm at any exhibition of a growing individualism in
the family and the state, in opinion or in action, wherever it may
appear, seeing the ultimate danger to the ecclesiastical system if
it be not restrained. Their religious and theological beliefs not
only colour but determine their moral and social philosophy, their
politics, and all their ideas of family and state association. Those
beliefs undeniably favour a system of authority, and granting that
ecclesiastical authority as upheld by bishops and doctors of divinity
is of the importance that they claim, they do well to be jealous
of the pretensions and the encroachments of the prevailing indi-
vidualism. This is Bishop Littlejohn's lament : — i Anarchical and
destructive as may be the notions touching the family and the
state now propagated by the advanced schools of individualism, the
full extent of their wild and pernicious tendency crops out only
when we consider their bearing on the church, the foremost of the
institutions commissioned of God for the education and redemption
of man. It is here that they open up chasms in the immemorial
tradition of catholic truth that may well startle us, and compel us
to ask, whereunto these things may grow.'
In opposition to these destructive tendencies of the times
Bishop Littlejohn preaches the doctrine that the church is ' abso-
lutely of God, not of man.' ' Through all the ages it has been
doing its appointed work, has had its creed, its ordinances, its wor-
ship, its priesthood. There have been no changes in its essen-
tial elements save such as have grown out of and corresponded
with God's own successive dispensations, God's own advancing
188 THE INSTITUTIONAL FETICH. PART IV.
revelations of " the mystery of godliness." Patriarchs, prophets,
lawgivers, kings have been its ministers, and all of them were
called and sent of God, not of man.' Moreover, in the ends for
which the church was instituted, c the individual soul, so far from
being its chief, is always its secondary object. In all its functions
it was needful that it should be the master, if, in any, it was to be
the servant of man. In none is it amenable to man, in all it is
responsible to God. It is impossible to study the ends for which
the church exists, as they are set forth in revelation, without
seeing that it has ends which immensely transcend the interests of
mortals, and which, antedating the foundation of the world, will
outlast its dissolution.'
We are not definitely told what these ends are which so < im-
mensely transcend the interests of mortals.' We are informed
generally and vaguely that they are the establishment of Christ's
supremacy in heaven and earth, the glory of God, and the like, the
specific nature of which Bishop Littlejohn does not pretend to
know. But, at all events, no one will venture to dispute the
assertion that so far as our vision goes these ends, whatever they
are, are being worked out in human beings and through human
activities of individuals in a social organism. We know what the
effects of these activities are upon human beings and their rela-
tions ; we do not know what their effects are beyond these. We
have a law commanding us to love God and to love our neighbour.
We are able to determine what love to one's neighbour consists in.
As to what constitutes love to God, we can either affirm that it is
measured by love to man, or that it is to be defined and declared,
even in opposition to ethical law, by some man, body of men, or
institution, acknowledged as the revealer and interpreter of God's
will. In the latter case it may happen, as everyone knows it
often has happened, that conduct has been justified as God's law
which, according to principles of altruistic morality, is wholly
unjustifiable. We thus have the spectacle of men acting under
the first commandment, as they suppose, namely, Love God, while
they are certainly acting in disobedience of the second, Love Man.
The two parts of the revealed law of God are hence made to stand
in contradiction to each other, and chaos results at once in our
determinations of moral duties. The moment we depart from a rule
of belief and action which gauges the right and wrong of conduct
by the principle of utility to the greatest number, that moment we
are at any rate opening the door to the entrance within the social
CHAP. XIX. THE CHURCH. 189
organism of forces liable to work against that organic integrity
according to which each part is at once the means and end of all
the rest.
It will doubtless be said that even if this be true, sad though it
be, we cannot help it. God's ways are not our ways ; His purposes
are not our purposes ; His work immensely transcends the interests
of mortals. It is enough that He has revealed His will in the
Scriptures, and has established His priesthood and His church as
an authority to men to be heeded, followed, and obeyed by all,
however human interests may seem to be affected. But what are
we to do when there exists a great number of organisations each of
which claims that it is the sole or the superior authority ? This
difficulty has frequently been suggested and often been evaded,
but never has been fairly met and overcome. From the nature of
things it cannot be overcome so long as this heterogeneity con-
tinues ; and we can see not the slightest prospect of uniformity.
These fatal objections to the claims of any church to dominate by
reason of an inherent authority are well set forth and fully dis-
cussed by George Cornewall Lewis in l An Essay on the Influence
of Authority in Matters of Opinion.' He shows, in a chapter on
Authority in questions of religion, that there exists in Christendom
no agreement as to what is true doctrine, or what is the teaching
of the church with regard to religious truth ; no consentience as to
what organisation is apostolic or catholic, nor as to the marks of
the true church, nor even as to the correct interpretation of the
Scriptures. The conclusion which he reaches is the following : —
1 The practical deduction from these results seems to be, that the
mere authority of any church or sect cannot of itself reasonably
command assent to its distinctive and peculiar tenets, while the
present divisions of Christendom continue ; and that a person born
in a Christian country can only with propriety adopt one of two
alternatives : viz., either to adhere to the faith of his parents and
predecessors, and that of the church in which he has been educated,
or, if he is unwilling to abide by this creed, to form his own
judgment as to the choice of his sect by means of the best inde-
pendent investigation which his understanding and opportunities
for study enable him to make.' This, of course, is rank indi-
vidualism ; but, since things are as they are, what other conclusion
is left for us ?
For the reasons just given I shall not consider in this discussion
the supernatural relations of the church, but only its humanitarian
190 THE INSTITUTIONAL FETICH. PART IV.
aspects. When theological professors and doctors of divinity, after
lifetimes of study and labour, confess themselves unable to produce
any unanimity of belief as to the location, the justice, and the
extent of authority in the church, it certainly could not be expected
of me that I should contribute anything in aid of such a result,
even though I were to enter upon a thorough examination of the
respective claims of the Roman Church, the Greek Church, the
Church of England, the Dissenting Churches, and the thousand
and one other denominations and sects of the religious world. I
shall, therefore, assume the position on the religious side that the
measure of love to God is solely love to man. More than one
eminent religious teacher has taken this ground, and it is main-
tained by highly respectable religious organisations. I do not see
how any harmonising of science and religion with reference to
morality can ever be effected on any other basis, but on this plat-
form the two may meet and join hands. There is a complete
agreement as to principles, the only room for difference being in
their applications.
I cannot avoid suggesting to theologians and churchmen who
prate about the ends of the church immensely transcending the
interests of mortals, that it would after all be just as religious if
they left the Almighty to take care of those ends Himself, especially
as it is admitted nothing is known about them. Probably they
will not be neglected, but will be carried out just as perfectly if
bishops and other clergy are not so anxious about them. Since
men have only an imaginative idea of what the glory of God
requires beyond the sphere of human relations, and there is no
agreement as to what sort of human conduct is demanded to
subserve these ends apart from human social morality, and since
altruism is clearly and distinctly enjoined by Scripture authority
as one of the two greatest precepts of religious life, is not our duty
to God better performed by confining our thoughts and our interests
to the sphere which the Almighty has Himself established and
limited for human knowledge and action ? However much we
may think and talk about the transcendental, our activity, though
we may seem to direct it beyond, inevitably spends itself and its
whole force upon ourselves or other men. Mankind and the finite
world is the limit of human effort so far as we can see. Should
not the laws of the social organism, therefore, be all-controlling in
settling the righteousness and the wrong of human conduct ?
The position which those who are not professional supporters
CHAI>. XIX. THE CHURCH. 191
of some particular theological system must maintain with regard
to the church is, I conceive, that it is an organisation of individuals
united in the aim of curing the souls of men to make them more
altruistic, to teach them holiness through helpfulness, and that
whatever divine warrant the church possesses lies in this aim;
whatever divine approval it has comes from its fidelity to these
ends, and its success in achieving them. In such a view its the-
ology is immaterial, except so far as it may be shown to have
practical effects, good or bad, upon the altruistic purpose. If, for
instance, such theology requires human sacrifices, the less we have
of it the better ; if, on the other hand, its doctrines inculcate love
as that trait of human character most pleasing to the Divine Being
inasmuch as God is Love, the more we have of the like the more
beneficial will be the result. More attention must hence be paid
to the morality of dogmas. We have no knowledge and hence no
science of the supernatural. All we can predicate of this world
beyond is conjectural ; our visions of it are fictions of the imagina-
tion. Our hypotheses and speculations must therefore be so
regulated and controlled that our ideals of Beauty, Truth, and
Goodness when formed shall favour moral conduct and social
morality. The dogmas of the church do not always lead up to
this result ; the doctrine of sin and atonement through the blood
of Christ, for instance, we have seen to be a hideously immoral
doctrine. Creeds may be necessary, but if they are to be taught,
society has a right to say that they shall not be immoral in their
tendencies ; if they are, the church supporting them must expect
criticism, disfavour, and condemnation.
As I have before indicated, I quite believe (and rejoice in this
belief) that individualism will destroy the ecclesiastical system
represented by Bishop Littlejohn and President Seelye. It seems
to me that its vitality is well nigh gone already. But if anyone
laments its decadence from a dread of this growing individualism,
let me remind him that no less in the church than in the family
and the state does authority necessitate the most pronounced and
most aggravated form of individual domination. The same situa-
tion exists in the spiritual as in the temporal realm, with precisely
the same results. The creation of a class esteemed superior to
others because of divine favour is the very essence of an ecclesias-
tical authority. And in both cases it means death to the organism.
Growth is obstructed and disintegrating forces complete their
work. In the case of the church, the priesthood assumes to declare
192 THE INSTITUTIONAL FETICH. PART IV.
what is true and false, and to decree what is right and wrong, by
virtue of its authority. The logical outcome of their claims, which
they always press to the fullest extent when they dare, is that they
are infallible interpreters of truth and guides of action, against
whom individual judgment and opinion is entitled to no considera-
tion. This is precisely what Bishop Littlejohn's thought clings to
when he deplores that fact, that under the influences of the present
times, ' the Christian priesthood instead of being constituted and
commissioned of God — a veritably Divine ambassadorship from the
Court of Heaven, sinks into a function that has no higher origin
than the instinct or necessity which leads all human societies to
provide for an orderly subdivision of labour.' The papal doctrine
of infallibility is the only self-consistent position for those who
believe in authority, and that this is the most unrestrained form of
individualism needs no argument.
If the church would aid in promoting altruism it must teach
men to learn what is true and to do what is right. In regard to
the first of these offices, the evident tendency of authority is to
repress the search after truth. For authority assumes that what
it declares is true beyond cavil, and that to doubt its declarations
is not only useless but sinful. In the church this assumption has
gone so far as to interfere with and oppose even the progress of
physical science. The mind of every reader will revert to Galileo
and Bruno as a signal confirmation of the correctness of my asser-
tion ; and their cases are not isolated. In metaphysics and philo-
sophy, at the present time, the church constantly insists on its
right to dictate what is true and false. A considerable portion of
Bishop Littlejohn's sermons is taken up with setting forth an
authoritative philosophy and theology. In biology we have only
to notice the great outcry which has been made against the doctrine
of evolution on the ground that it is opposed to the biblical account
of the origin of man. The result of these claims of church autho-
rity has been to retard incalculably the progress of knowledge and
thus of civilisation. Not only error had to be combated, but
intolerance also. The first question that arose with regard to any
alleged discovery in science was, What are its bearings upon
theology and religion ? And the youth were instructed that the
source and end of all learning was religion itself. This is such an
old story in the world's history that I need not repeat it. But I
desire to impress upon all the fact that this obstructiveness to the
progress of knowledge has not departed from the church at the
CHAP. XIX. THE CHURCH. 193
present date, however much it may have been modified from the
time when people were imprisoned for promulgating heterodox
cosmogonies. The attitude of the clergy toward the doctrine of
evolution is sufficient proof of this. Their determined opposition
to the secularisation of our schools is another example in point.
We must first find out what the church authority says on the
given subject ; then, if permission be given, we may consider the
truth and error involved, in the light of this concession.
The fatal difficulty with the establishment of truth by authority
is its impossibility. A proposition is only true to him who believes
it. When doctrines are promulgated they are addressed to in-
dividual minds, and their force and effectiveness depend upon
that belief. But people cannot be made to believe by commanding
them to believe. In order that a proposition be true it must
conform to experience ; he that believes must judge it to be true
according to his own experience. This, however, is not a voluntary
matter at all. His beliefs are not as he chooses them to be. If
they were it would be destructive of the very idea of truth, which
is of something objective and permanent, quite beyond the control
of individual choice. Inasmuch as I have elsewhere discussed the
subject of belief at length, and endeavoured to show its nature
and the manner in which beliefs are formed,1 I shall not here
endeavour to prove what I have just said by psychological analysis,
but will instead enforce my assertion by a quotation from Samuel
Bailey, who justly observes,2 ' Threats and torments would be in
vain employed to compel a geometrician to dissent from a pro-
position in Euclid. He might be compelled to assert the falsity
of the proposition, but all the powers in the universe could not
make him believe what he thus asserted. In the same way no
hopes nor fears, no menaces, no allurements could at all affect a
man's belief in a matter of fact which happened under his own
observation. The remark is also true of innumerable facts which
we have received on the testimony of others. That there have
been such men as Caesar and Cicero, Pope and Newton, and that
there are at present such cities as Paris and Vienna, it is im-
possible to believe by any effort of the will. ... It will, perhaps,
be generally granted that decided belief or decided disbelief, when
once engendered in the mind, cannot be affected by volition.
This influence is usually placed in the middle region of suspense
1 System of Psychology, chap, xxxvi. ' Knowledge and Belief.'
2 Essay on the Formation <>f Opinions.
O
194 THE INSTITUTIONAL FETICH. PAKT IV.
and doubt, and it is supposed that, when the understanding is in
a state of fluctuation between two opinions, it is in the power of
the will to determine the decision. The state of doubt, however,
will be found to be no more subject to the will than any other
state of the intellect. All the various degrees of belief and dis-
belief, from the fullest conviction to doubt and from doubt to
absolute incredulity, correspond to the degree of evidence or to
the nature of the considerations present to the mind. To be in
doubt is to want that degree or kind of evidence which produces
belief; and while the evidence remains the same without addition
or diminution,- the mind must continue in doubt. The under-
standing, it is clear, cannot believe a proposition on precisely the
same evidence as that on which it previously doubted it, and yet
to ascribe to mere volition a change from doubt to conviction is
asserting that this may take place; it is affirming that a man
without the slightest reason may, if he please, believe to-day what
he doubted yesterday. ... To affect his belief you must affect the
subject of it by producing new arguments or considerations. . . .
You can alter perceptions only by altering the thing perceived.
Every man's consciousness will tell him that the will can no more
modify the effect of an argument on the understanding than it
can change the taste of sugar to the palate or the fragrance of a rose
to the smell ; and that nothing can weaken its force, as apprehended
by the intellect, but another argument opposed to it.' 1
Though it be conceded that we cannot by a direct effort of
volition change our beliefs, it is also quite evident that we can
modify them indirectly through our interests and purposes formed
upon them. When, therefore, we are asked to believe anything
upon authority ; having respect for this authority, an interest either
of fear or hope of benefit is aroused which creates a disposition to
place the authority above our own convictions of truth. What is
the ultimate effect of this ? Precisely what Locke says in the
following passage, from Book Fourth of the ' Essay on the Human
Understanding,' 2 quoted also by Bailey. c As knowledge,' observes
the Great Master, i is no more arbitrary than perception ; so I
think assent is no more in our power than knowledge. When
the agreement of any two ideas appears in our minds, whether
immediately or by the assistance of reason, I can no more refuse
to perceive, no more avoid knowing it than I can avoid seeing
those objects which I turn my eyes to and look on in daylight :
1 Section 2. 2 Chap. xx.
CHAP. XIX. THE CHURCH. 195
and what upon full examination I find the most probable I cannot
deny my assent to. But though we cannot hinder our knowledge
where the agreement is once perceived, nor our assent where the
probability manifestly appears upon due consideration of all the
measures of it ; yet we can hinder both knowledge and assent by
stopping our inquiry, and not employing our faculties in the search
of any truth' l This is the only way we can receive truth upon
authority exclusively. We must stop our inquiry and turn our
attention to something else, questioning no more and doubting no
more. That such an habit is inimical to the progress of knowledge
is patent.
But the evil does not stop here. With regard to many things
and with many persons mental inquiry and examination cannot be
prevented. Such investigation, and the consequent reasoning upon
the data obtained, often issue in conclusions opposed to those put
forth and maintained by authority. An intellectual dishonesty
inevitably follows. The person who finds himself in this predica-
ment must smother his convictions, if he supports the authoritative
directions. He must profess to believe what he does not believe.
He must try to deceive himself, and must succeed in deceiving
others, else his reputation suffers. When called upon to defend
his positions he must continually strive to make the worse appear
the better reason. That this is the exact situation of many people
in the church at the present day, with respect to the creeds, cannot
be doubted. Such a condition is demoralising in the extreme,
both to the persons who force themselves to this hypocrisy and to
all upon whom their influence flows.
It may be objected that much of our knowledge we are obliged
to take upon authority; that the testimony of others must be
accepted both in regard to facts and inferences from facts ; that
we must believe the conclusions of those who have been able to
give the subject the study we could not, or who are by nature
better fitted than ourselves to deal with the matter in question.
This no one can well dispute ; but it must be borne in mind that
whatever we accept on authority in this way is received because
of a genuine confidence that, had we the opportunity to verify the
assertions made, we should find them true. We accept the investi-
gations of others in place of our own. Moreover, the dictum of
authority here runs in this wise : < We offer this to you as truth
with the full liberty to verify the conclusion, dispute it, overthrow
1 Italics mine.
o 2
196 THE INSTITUTIONAL FETICH. PART IV.
it if you can. It is true because we have thoroughly tested and
proved it, and we challenge anyone to disprove it.' Now, the
authority which Bishop Littlejohn advocates declares: 'We an-
nounce this to you as truth. We are better able than you to
judge of truth, and after examination we are satisfied and declare
these conclusions. You must receive them because we have thus
declared them. Investigation by you for the purpose of testing or
proving is wholly unnecessary and irrelevant. You must accept
our authority without question.' The vast difference between a
scientific and a religious authority is thus made clear. The one
favours the ascertainment and the confirmation of truth by stimu-
lating investigation and encouraging doubt, through which alone
scientific knowledge can be obtained. The other represses the
search after truth, and creates the most favourable conditions for
the perpetuation of error. Men are not infallible even in regard
to religious doctrine ; changes in creeds have been frequent in
the church ; old ideas and old interpretations of Scripture have
repeatedly given place to new. As we have already remarked,
there is no agreement even in essentials ; indeed, it is by no means
settled what essentials are. Errors have admittedly crept into the
church doctrinal creeds. Authority would have continued them
to this day. Such being the case, why hold on to a principle
which has been shown in the church itself to have been an obstacle
in the way of attaining what the church now cherishes as true,
and which was powerful in sustaining what the church now
discards as error ?
I should be very sorry to believe that there exists any necessity
for arguing the utility of truth in the work of curing the soul.
People must have some sort of intellectual foundation for their
actions, and if that foundation is the insecurity of error, the whole
character is insecurely established. If the young are to be educated
to do the truth, they must als© know the truth. If men are to be
made better, they must, at any rate, know what is the better
way. I grant that this is not sufficient, but it is a prerequisite, at
least. Knowledge is the lamp to guide our feet. To walk in
darkness were small profit. If we walk at all we must have the
light, and we ought to have, if possible, the clearest and the best
light.
Equally prejudicial is the doctrine of authority to the purposes
of making men do what is right. This follows inevitably from the
considerations just advanced. In order to do the right, people
CHAP. XIX. THE CHURCH. 197
must know good from evil. If the search for truth is repressed,
the attainment of truth is rendered more uncertain, and the incul-
cation of error is made both more feasible and more general.
Hence the influence upon altruistic sentiments at large, so far as
their growth and development are concerned, is injurious. Instead
of quickening and vivifying, it blights and kills.
So far as the altruistic disposition is concerned, authority
certainly is of no benefit to those in whom the authority is vested.
It does not enlarge the sympathies to have power. Especially is
this the case where with the power goes the belief in a degree of
infallibility. If it is felt by anyone that his position as an oracle
or as a divinely appointed priest gives to him a just pre-eminence
exempting his dicta from challenge or opposition, when opposition is
made or doubt expressed, intolerance at once arises. As before
remarked, investigation is irrelevant. The one who ventures to
dispute the claims of the divine representative is fit only to be
crushed and consigned to hell fire. That intolerance which in the
history of the church and state has issued in so many religious
wars would never have been possible were it not for this pernicious
sentiment of authority over and above intrinsic value as deter-
mined by utility. It has been the worst enemy that altruism has
had. It may be true that those in authority often do the works
of charity and mercy ; but those acts are done usually as the
bounty of a sovereign is conferred, because it pleases him for his
own glory's sake to have pity on the humble, not because the
latter are esteemed to have any right to such bounty, unless on
the feudal theory of protection in return for fealty. And where-
ever the right of private judgment and action is maintained against
the authority, altruistic dispositions cease, and antipathy has full
sway. This is well illustrated in theories of punishment which
are held by those who sustain the authority-dogma. They say that
punishment is not for the reformation of the criminal, nor yet for
the sake of example and deterrent effects ; but it is for the vindica-
tion of the authority of the sovereign. Such a notion leaves out all
altruistic considerations, and substitutes for them a doctrine which
would both allow and justify the most heartless and malignant
cruelty. If the individual refuses to accept the declaration of
authority as to what is right, then he becomes a rebel, and must
be punished, not to reform him or to benefit the community by
way of example, but to vindicate authority. Should the mandates
of authority be wrong, as has so often happened, there is room for
198 THE INSTITUTIONAL FETICH. PART IV.
the most monstrous injustice, untempered by any mercy. That
this has actually occurred in the history of religious sects needs
neither demonstration nor even illustration. The selfishness of
the priesthood has been just in proportion to the extent to which
their claims of authority have been allowed to go unchecked.
Their sense of responsibility to men is weakened or destroyed ; and
while deluding others, and often themselves — no doubt with the
belief that they are responsible to God only, and are obeying His
behests — they give a loose rein to their own evil self-will.
Egoism begets egoism. The selfish man is not a good practical
teacher of unselfishness. It is of little use to urge the command,
' Love thy neighbour as thyself,' when the one preached to sees
that the preacher does not himself obey the mandate. Jesus of
Nazareth undoubtedly taught this, and always kept the truth in
prominent view as the sum and substance of ethical and religious
law. A self-denying character in the teacher is of more import-
ance than his reiteration to others of the precept. So far forth,
then, as the principle of authority develops in the superior posi-
tion egoistic dispositions, it also tends to create a counteractive
egoism among those in an inferior class.
Moreover, the enforcement of precepts by authority depends
upon fear. It is not the inward prompting of free desire to do
the right that follows upon a command, obedience to which is
required without question because the mandate comes with
authority. No living, growing disposition toward righteousness
is generated by force and fear. The latter produce just those
sentiments and just that character which makes it necessary and
desirable to ' cure the soul.' It is sympathy and not antipathy,
love and not hate, which impels men to do what they ought. They
may indeed be compelled to outward compliance and ostensible
obedience ; but that is not what is sought. The problem of the
church is to change the inward disposition. The smallest acquaint-
ance with the operation of human mental faculties reveals the
impossibility of accomplishing this by any authoritative decrees.
President Seelye preaches that we love God because He first loved
us, and without our love inspired by Him there is no sound and
healthy character. The impulse to right action thus must be a
force within, not an extrinsic power moving from without —the
still small voice, not the thunders of Sinai. If, then, we declare
to men that they must obey a precept, not because they in their
own individuality wish to obey, but because it is commanded that
CHAP. XIX. THE CHURCH. 199
they obey under pains and penalties, we make no more progress
towards securing altruistic conduct than we do under the state
system, with precisely the same objections that exist in the case of
the state against attempting to regulate the positive welfare of the
citizen. People cannot be compelled by extrinsic authority to
love their neighbours as themselves, whether that authority be
state administration of law or the decrees of a priesthood in the
church.
The natural counteractive to that undue exaltation and domi-
nation of the individual which always comes with any system of
authority is no less applicable to the church than to the family and
the state. I mean the concession of equal liberty to all individuals.
The church is not the guardian and protector of rights ; its office
is not one which admits of the exercise of positive authority except
through the instrumentality of the state. Its compulsions are
moral, not legal. Its aim is not to repress evil action by force, but
by curing the soul in taking away the desire to do wrong. Its
purpose is educational, and its methods persuasive. With such
ends the only individualism which can be at all dangerous in the
constitution of the organisation is just this individualism of
authority. In learning and in preaching the truth, the best safe-
guard against error lies in the widest liberty to question, test, and
dispute. That which is true will survive doubt, and in the mul-
titude and in the activity of the seekers after truth there is the
most sure guaranty that the truth will be reached. If the best
methods of curing the soul have been fully discovered, there is no
need of any extrinsic support in authority ; and if they have not
been found out completely, it is of the utmost consequence that
the search after them should in every way be stimulated. Truth
is truth because it is truth, not because anybody says it is truth ;
and if it be truth it will stand any and all tests.
In the attainment of that which is true and right, therefore, no
possible danger can arise from complete freedom of individual in-
vestigation, question, and assertion, provided this freedom is com-
plete and universal. In the practical work of amelioration, there
may be needed to a degree the restraints upon individual action
which all organisation for specific ends necessitates, but there ought
always to be preserved in the constitution of the society facilities
for the expression of individual ideas as to the methods employed
and their effects, and for accomplishing changes in those methods
when they do not subserve the true ends of the church. The test
200 THE INSTITUTIONAL FETICH. PART IV.
of success ought always to be efficiency in instruction and helpful-
ness. In order to secure and preserve such efficiency, church
societies must be subjected to individual criticism, and must submit
themselves to the ordinary laws of social organisations. If they
are successful in curing men's souls, so as to develop or increase
altruism in the community, they will stand ; if not, they must give
place to something better. They exist for the benefit of individuals,
and to individuals forming the social organism they must ever be
held responsible.
It is not doubtful, to my mind at least, that all the vitality of
the Christian church for good has depended upon the maintenance
of this view of its constitution and offices. Jesus of Nazareth in
sending forth his disciples to preach the word and to spread abroad
the knowledge of himself and his teachings, laid the foundation for
the present Christian church societies. These were requisite for
the establishment, the consolidation, the preservation of gospel
truths, and for the development and increase of the altruistic life
in any considerable number of individuals. He did not lay down
stringent laws in regard to membership in those societies, or im-
pose conditions of fellowship between the societies. Least of all
did he demand adhesion to any doctrine. It was evidently intended
that the constitution of the churches should adapt itself to changing
circumstances. Such, indeed, has been the actual result. Forms
of government have varied with varying conditions; and it is
noticeable that, as in the state so in the church, democratic principles
have been gaining ground. Of course it was always demanded of
novitiates that they support the organisation, labour earnestly in
its behalf, seek to build it up, and carry out its objects ; but beyond
this the founder of Christianity did not legislate or decree. What
he sought was a unity of purpose and will, not of means and method.
Jesus himself was not dogmatic. By this statement we are to
understand, not that he laid down no rules, laws, or precepts, but
that he never brought out a connected body of logical doctrine. If
he had done so he would have better pleased the scribes and lawyers.
By omitting to do so he very effectually undermined their power.
A set of logical tenets is adapted only to those who are in a posi-
tion to see the premises, and being used to the form of reasoning
have intellect enough to follow the steps to the conclusion. A col-
lection of declarations will not impress itself upon those who have
not had the range of thought and experience, out of which those
declarations grew. A peasant may take the authority of a church
CHAP. XIX. THE CHURCH. 201
as to doctrines, and confess belief through a feeling of fear or awe,
when he knows nothing of the import of those doctrines, or of the
manner in which they are made authoritative. Jesus did not en-
courage such methods ; He sought to develop the germs of life in
each one according to the knowledge and habit of thought of that
individual, and by so doing he made religion a part of a man's life,
not an exoteric imposition upon him. The best teachers have
always observed the advantage of this plan. Sometimes an internal
development, occurring surely and silently, assimilating to itself, has
at last become powerful and triumphant in the face of the very
strongest restraints from without. Christianity has mainly grown
in this way, and tyrants have often been astonished to find it
stronger than before, after they have prohibited it, banished its
adherents or put them to torture, and thought themselves to have
extirpated the obnoxious growth. This kind of organic develop-
ment was what Jesus laboured to promote. It may be said, to be
sure, that he taught with authority and not as the scribes, setting
himself up as the very foundation of the new religion. This is
true ; but even if we are disposed to regard this as a weakness,
there is a reason for it in view of the fact that in his time and
under his circumstances he could not otherwise have made any
impression. The Jews were looking for a king, and the Messiah
must needs have assumed authority to have drawn men unto him.
But, though using authority to assert the dignity of his mission,
the whole spirit of his teaching was individualistic. If followed
out along its natural lines of development its tendency was to abate
authority as the altruistic life grew in individuals. It substituted
individual self-government for extrinsic compulsions, and aimed to
secure this substitution as one of its principal ends. Sometimes,
but rarely, Jesus seemed to rely upon force and fear ; but only for
an exigency. He sometimes required obedience of his followers
upon the score of his own authority, but only to secure in them
the growth through obedience to a more perfect self-control. On
the whole it seems evident that the radical altruistic disposition
was what he sought for the individual, and, for the social organism,
a complete altruistic freedom. Though he called himself a king,
he was willing to die for sinners.
No doubt the early christians, for the sake of self-preservation,
were obliged to enforce among the members of their organisations
a degree of uniformity in life and in expressed beliefs that would
seem to give a colour to the claims with regard to the primitive
202 THE INSTITUTIONAL FETICH. PART IV.
church of those who preach the authority- system. It was a matter
of physical life and death to the churches that they keep their com-
pact form, and present an unbroken front to temporal as well as
spiritual enemies. But they made the mistake of permanently sub-
ordinating the attainment of the altruistic life in individuals to
the growth and permanence of an ecclesiastical organisation. How
did they get on ? The latter waxed complicated and powerful,
while the former was dwarfed, minimised, and well-nigh extirpated.
Hence arose that horrible domination of ecclesiasticism which the
papal system brought upon the world, and which carried the pro-
fessed followers of Jesus about as far as was possible from the
teachings of their Master.
The church then became an organisation which, unless reformed
and purified, must in the interests of social order, justice, and
peace, have been swept from the face of the earth. It was re-
formed, however, through individualistic efforts urging and vindi-
cating the principles of individualism. Religious freedom was the
rallying cry of the movement, and, as exemplified in the German
Reformation, the sentiments of the reformers toward greater liberty
were largely concentrated upon the end of maintaining the freedom
of each believer to interpret for himself the word of God. From
that time forth the prevailing current of the forces affecting the
church has been to disintegrate by differentiation. Uniformity has
appeared of less consequence, and heterogeneity has prevailed.
The great organisations have been more readily broken in upon,
and their power and influence have been materially curtailed.
Independent societies have everywhere sprung up, each claiming
to be as much representative of the divine purposes as any other.
I suppose Bishop Littlejohn deplores this ; but to me it seems to
have been the salvation of all that is good in the church. Its cer-
tain result has been to lessen the domination of the individual — the
bishop, the priest, and the deacon — and thereby to remove the
great obstacle to the progress of altruism which an organised
priesthood always presents. The world generally has been im-
measurably the gainer, though various abstractions have suffered
and the selfishness of the clergy has been restrained. Individual-
ism, which means aristocracy in the government, and uniformity
sought to be gained by the supremacy of a few and obedience to
their mandates, has, indeed, nearly been the ruin of the church by
destroying its efficiency for good, and often making it an instru-
ment of injustice, persecution, and inhumanity ; but it is the truer
CHAP. XIX. THE CHURCH. 203
and better individualism, which demands freedom for all individuals
to think, to criticise, and to act untrammelled by any ' inherent
sacredness,' which maintains democracy in the government, and
which requires altruism of all, high or low, that has preserved the
church, and will ever save it, if saved it is to be. And I am
wholly unable to see how a ' Christian priesthood ' is any less ' con-
stituted and commissioned of God ' or any less ' a veritably divine
ambassadorship from the Court of Heaven,' if both its origin and
its authority are derived from ' the instinct or necessity which
leads all human societies to provide for an orderly subdivision of
labour.' It seldom seems to occur to i Christian philosophers,' that
God may conceivably work in and through nature, and that cir-
cumstances which create a necessity or give life to an instinct may
be as truly providential and as truly accordant with the divine
plans and methods as the utterances and declarations of a church
council.
The conclusion to which we are forced is that there is even less
danger in the case of the church to be apprehended from what
Bishop Littlejohn and his friends mean by c Individualism ' than
there is in the family and in the state. This individualism is only
subversive of a far more dangerous and deleterious manifestation of
individualism, and has, besides, a direct tendency to promote that
freedom of thought and inquiry needed to secure more light, to
attain the self-development in liberty which is essential to self-
control, which is the beginning and the sine qua non for altruistic
conduct. And, on the other hand, we are quite persuaded of the
truth and force of the remarks of John Greenleaf Whittier, which
Bishop Littlejohn quotes in a note, as an instance of the audacity
of individualistic thought. These are golden words :
< EVERYTHING VALUABLE TO THE SOUL HAS ITS CORRESPONDING
NEED IN THE SOUL. AUTHORITY AS A GROUND AND ELEMENT OF
RELIGION MUST WHOLLY DISAPPEAR. THE TEACHINGS OF CHRISTIANITY
WILL BE ON THE NEEDS OF MAN, AND THE CLAIMS FOR CHRIST WILL
BE BASED ON THE PERFECT CHARACTER OF HIS LIFE AND TEACHINGS,
AND NOT ON HIS AUTHORITY.' l
I sincerely hope that in the discussion which I now bring to a
close, I have shown patience with bishops and doctors of divinity.
I have endeavoured to be both respectful and fair. It is not easy
to argue with people and educate them at the same time. Indeed,
so far as the bishops and doctors of divinity are concerned, I
1 N. S. Times, October 4, 1880.
204 THE INSTITUTIONAL FETICH. PART IV.
certainly should not expect to educate them. They deem it suf-
ficient, in reply to criticism, to iterate and reiterate the doctrines
and arguments they learned in their youth ; and to attempt to
teach them anything new would be like attempting to instruct a
struldbrug of upwards of a century. But, at the same time, we
cannot avoid a reverence for those living among us, who from the
progress of the world have been left as anachronisms. Provided
it does not make us more tender of their opinions, this is com-
mendable. Certainly, though destructive criticism is necessary, it
need not obliterate personal respect, and if it be respectful to the
persons, it is generally and more justly entitled to weight, and is
productive of better results. Men are not always obtuse when we
think them to be, even if they are incapable of changing their
opinions. If we find it necessary to pass strictures upon those
whose expressions have received great weight and high respect, it
should be done in the humility of searchers for truth who will
be bold and unsparing in criticism if occasion require it, but yet
reverent in spirit toward the men who have spent their lives in
building up the temples which, having served their purpose, are
passing into decay. Noble thinkers and workers have given their
energy to the propagation of ideas and measures which, though
well in their season, belong to the civilisation of buried centuries.
The victory of their cherished ideas might, indeed, have been the
triumph of truth ; but as the tide swept on it sought new chan-
nels and left them behind, as the changeful river, cutting through
the yielding sands, leaves the town on its banks an inland city.
Their glory hence becomes a glory of the past, but not the less a
real glory, though in the march of progress they are left behind.
It is not an uncommon spectacle to see in our great cities some
building, an old landmark, a relic of departed magnificence, after
it has filled its place for years, and perhaps been a pride and boast,
at last yield to the hammers of the workmen, who, caring naught
for the sacred associations, ruthlessly and remorselessly knock one
brick from another until no vestige of its unity remains ; but
when from the chaotic mass of ruins there arises the granite ware-
house or the marble palace, who will not say that rightly the
dust returned to dust and justly the old gives place to the new ?
So also with the edifices reared by the human mind. So, too,
indeed, with human existence itself. When fate has wrought
its will by us, we, too, give way, and our time for departure has
come. Wise and good men so situated we see often, and among
CHAP. XIX. THE CHURCH. 205
bishops and doctors of divinity too, men of silver hair, whose life
is in the past, who appear to have nothing in common with the
destructive to-day, but upon whom we look as upon messengers
from a distant land, men whose hopes lie ' beyond the baths of all
the western stars ; ' about whom plays the light which seems to us
the mellow radiance of the setting sun, to them the auroral flash of
a brighter dawn. They have done their work. It is for us, indeed,
to criticise that work, but we are also privileged to honour the
workers. By-and-bye, perhaps, others will do the same for the
newer achievements of to-day. Little comfort there may be in
thus seeing the fondest idols of our creation broken in pieces.
Yet though human means all the time be failing, and man's work
all the time crumbling into ruin, ' out of motion, and change, and
admixture ' all things spring in never-ceasing and still advancing
evolution. The flower fades, the fruit ripens, the seed falls to the
ground, but from it springs a fairer flower and a richer fruit.
If ye lay bound upon the wheel of change,
And no way were of breaking from the chain,
The heart of boundless being is a curse,
The soul of things fell Pain.
Ye are not bound ! The soul of things is sweet,
The heart of being is celestial rest ;
Stronger than woe is will ; that which was Good,
Doth pass to Better — Best.
PART V.
THE SOCIALISTIC FALLACY.
1 Society is a growth, not a manufacture."
HERBERT SPENCER, Essay on the Social Organism.
209
CHAPTER XX.
THE CO-OPERATIVE IDEA.
THAT men will organise for common ends is an inevitable con-
sequence of the social appetite. The family and the state are
pre-eminently fundamental and necessary forms, in which this pro-
pensity manifests itself. The discussions of the preceding part
are sufficient to show this. But that, nevertheless, these institu-
tions are only means to ends, and that they must be judged by
their efficiency in subserving their legitimate ends, we have
endeavoured to make appear. The most formidable difficulty in
the way of reaching this efficiency we found to lie in the tendency
to elevate the means to the importance and dignity of ends in
themselves, in fact to forget the central principle of all organic
life that each part must always be the means and end of all the
rest ; and if this balance is not preserved, the organism perishes.
Since the sphere of the family is very circumscribed, and since
the action of the state — if limited to attaining and preserving
security for individuals — is also restricted, it is not surprising
that the organising tendency in human nature should be still
further developed in many ways, because the increased power arising
from combination is patent and must always be impressing itself
upon popular thought. The church exhibits one direction in
which this development has appeared with great effect ; and there
are still others, which it will now be our task to consider.
The co-operative idea may seek to realise its purposes through
the state administration or outside of it. If the former, to get
control of the government is the first step to be taken ; if the
latter, obtaining the protection of government is all that is desired,
the work being pursued through the channels of non-political life.
Thus in all varieties of industrial, political, philanthropic, and
educational effort we have attempts made to accumulate power for
ends deemed desirable, by combination and co-operation.
Now there can be no doubt of the greater efficiency of organised
210 THE SOCIALISTIC FALLACY. PART V.
co-operative over desultory and unorganised attempts to accom-
plish any purpose. Nor is there room to doubt, either, the utility
of co-operation for ends that are good, so long as it tends to
achieve those ends and has no overbalancing evil consequences.
In the condition of things, for instance, in which authority estab-
lishes itself against progress, co-operation to resist is highly praise-
worthy and advantageous. It is very far from my present purpose
to condemn the principle of combination in its essential character
or to inveigh against its proper applications. But almost every
idea that has been an inspiration of progress has been perverted
to unworthy uses through the blind zeal of those whom it possesses ;
and when any principle is put forward as a panacea for social
evils, it is of the greatest importance to note its tendencies, to
determine where it will lead to excess, and to regulate its power
according to strict interpretations of its usefulness. The idea of
co-operation furnishes no exception to the general rule in this
respect.
It will be recollected that in Chapter X. we found and enun-
ciated two general precepts, which we deemed the most important
to govern us in the determination of conduct to aid in the elimina-
tion of evil. The first of these was to aim at the minimum of
extrinsic restraint and the maximum of liberty for the individual ;
the second was to aim at the most complete and universal develop-
ment of the altruistic character. Let us examine the co-operative
idea in the light of these precepts.
The fundamental notion in co-operation is nothing more than
combination of powers for mutual advantage. It is the social idea
in the sense of society being an organic unity. Its distinctive
feature, however, is the accomplishment of results by union, by
and through the corporation, so to speak, rather than through
individuals. But its ends are those of the general or common
good, as it may be conceived. We may assume, therefore, that
the co-operative idea in its purity does not propose for its objects
of achievement anything different from the ends of general hap-
piness and abatement of evil which have been herein set forth as
fixing the moral law. If, then, the means relied upon are not
the best calculated to promote this end, or if they should work
results opposed to it, they must be condemned, or at least quali-
fied, even according to their own foundation principles.
Observing the evil that undeniably arises in human affairs from
the struggling of individuals against each other in competition,
CHAP. XX. THE CO-OPERATIVE IDEA. 211
wherein every man is for himself and not for any other, many
people have thought that if organisations could be formed wherein
each person should be subordinated to the corporate control, the
beneficial ends of each person could be wrought out far more
perfectly and with less likelihood of detriment through the cor-
porate body. Each person should be equal to every other before
the law, and the corporate authority should be exercised to secure
this equality in everything needed. Inequalities of social con-
dition, arising in regard to property or political or industrial
power, would hence be done away with. In its application to the
governmental administration, this doctrine is expressed in the
demand that the state shall act positively instead of negatively to
secure the welfare of its individuals. And, lest individual domina-
tion should assert itself, all property rights should be vested in the
state, which gives not ownership, but only liberty of use, to
individuals.
Without particularising further just at present, it must appear
that this doctrine does not accord with the precepts above referred
to ; at least with the first one. The minimum of extrinsic restraint
certainly is not aimed at ; on the contrary, extrinsic control is
everywhere sought to be increased and extended. The second
precept is not excluded. It may be urged that the co-operative
idea tends toward securing the universal altruistic disposition, or
it may, perhaps, be said that if a perfect control over individuals
is attained, the want of power to effect will make the disposition
of secondary consequence. These possible claims we shall be
obliged to consider. I do not think it will be urged that the
altruistic disposition is undesirable, unless, perhaps, when it is
exhibited in such form as to weaken the power of firm, determined,
and, perhaps, unsympathetic action and individual exertion for
beneficial ends.
To begin with, let us see, in general, what can be accomplished
and what cannot be accomplished by co-operation, upon a reason-
able view of human capacities and tendencies. It must not be
forgotten, though apt to be, that co-operation is co-operation of
individuals. Whatever is done must be done through the wills
and the acts of individuals. Hence the results to be attained are
wholly conditioned upon the constitution of the men and women
that we have to deal with. The society, therefore, in co-operation
is only an abstract entity. It is an aggregation of individuals.
When we say that power resides in the society, that the society
p 2
212 THE SOCIALISTIC FALLACY. PART V.
is to accomplish this, that, or the other, we mean that some
individuals in the society are to do what the others command,
urge, or acquiesce in, and perhaps are ready to assist in, if need
be. This was sufficiently illustrated in the discussions of the
preceding part. It is hence of the utmost importance in co-
operation that a unanimity of will be secured within the society.
Some degree of this unanimity is the requisite to any co-operation
at all. And so far forth as there is within the organisation a lack
of concentration of disposition its effectiveness is impaired. Much
more will its power be curtailed if there be force within acting in
positive opposition to the ends of co-operation.
Again, there must be something of intellectual agreement.
The best harmony of disposition in the world would be of no
practical use, if everybody had a plan of his own for carrying out
the common purposes, and no one could be persuaded that any
other method than his was of advantage. The unanimity of dis-
position would itself be lost under such circumstances, and the
society would fall to pieces. And so far forth as there is hetero-
genity of opinion, it undoubtedly tends to lessen the disposition
to co-operate and diminishes the force to be employed, although
by concessions disruption may be averted. These two, then —
harmony of volition and intellectual agreement — are necessary
elements of successful co-operation. If there be in the society
homogeneity of will and of opinion, the co-operation is substan-
tially efficient and can accomplish its purposes, except as thwarted
by a vis major of outside resistance.
Unfortunately for this perfection the conditioned suppositions
will inevitably be more largely contrary to than in accordance with
fact. Individuals do not agree. Diversities of mental capacity,
education, environment, ail combine to produce great diversities
in judgment, opinion, and belief. And the more action of a
practical nature is involved the less is the unanimity. People
may agree very readily upon the general proposition that the
welfare of the whole society is paramount, but when it comes to
getting particular questions of casuistry under this principle they
are apt to be hopelessly at variance.
Equally true is it that there is always more or less heterogeneity
of will. I have just remarked that this unavoidably arises from
differences of opinion. But the co-operative society has much
more than this to contend against. It has to encounter the
egoistic disposition. This may be openly manifested or covertly
CHAP. XX. THE CO-OPERATIVE IDEA. 213
maintained. The selfishness of men is all the time prompting
them to utilise the society for their own benefit in disregard of the
rights of others. Men not doing the right will no longer know
or teach the right, and the power of the centrifugal forces will
increase against the centipetal.
These disadvantages inherent in co-operation are greater in
the ratio that the members of the society are larger and its sphere
of action more extended. The more individuals there are, the
more independent centres of action there will be, and the greater
the likelihood of both discordant opinions and wills. And the
more general and far-reaching the aims, the worse it is for
cohesion, since there is greater opportunity for doubt as to the
utility of means, and with this more room for selfishness to covertly
insinuate itself in forming sentiments to determine action — in
making the worse appear the better reason. The natural tendency
of the homogeneous to lapse into heterogeneity all the time works
against the organic unity.
Now in every organisation these influences make themselves
speedily felt, and those who are chiefly interested in the society
have impressed upon them the necessity of doing something to
counteract these tendencies. Very often, indeed, the society is
organised with a view to their counteraction. If they are not met,
the society will come to ruin.
The only way in which they can be defeated is by an enforced
unanimity and uniformity. This means the concentration of power
in the hands of a few, the repression of opposition, and perhaps of
dissent. It involves the restriction of the spontaneity and liberty
of the many, and places their interests for both determination and
promotion in the control of a small number of persons. We are
thus brought around to the question of individualism and authority,
which we discussed in the last part, and have the same problems
and perplexities before us ; for to carry out the co-operative idea,
where there is no real consentience and concurrence of volition, the
power of authority must be brought to bear.
It is thus evident that any co-operative organisation must be
a microcosm of the general social life, and subject to the same
conditions. It has the same disadvantages, the same sources of
weakness, the same inherent difficulties in the way of accomplishing
its ends ; and all this simply and plainly because its elements, its
material, are the same individual components that make up all
human society. For the purposes of this discussion, it may be
214 THE SOCIALISTIC FALLACY. PARTY.
assumed that all developments of the co-operative idea occur in
the midst of an existing social order. We need not suppose a
state of barbarism or anarchy for present considerations. Having
given a social order, co-operation is justified only in the view of
bettering that order, and to this end its efforts are directed.
I have remarked that one phase of the co-operative idea presents
as its immediate aim the securing the powers of the state for the
purpose of gathering into state control the sources of happiness,
manufacturing it and distributing to each man his equal portion.
Less than this comprehensive scheme are many forms of political
co-operation for specific ends. The ordinary political party exhibits
one, where many unite upon a common platform for the sake of
securing reforms in government, more or less radical. In industrial
life there are combinations of capital against labour, and of labour
against capital, associations for mutual protection and for aggressive
action in great variety. Nor are examples of co-operation for
philanthropic and educational purposes wanting. Besides the
church, there are institutions of all sorts for benevolent work. The
school is itself a co-operative organisation, as are still more mani-
festly the innumerable educational associations. In all these
co-operative societies from the highest to the lowest, from the most
comprehensive to the least inclusive, the difficulties in the way of
efficiency which I have suggested are to some degree felt. And
where these are overcome in the ways also mentioned, we have the
evil of individual domination, which is just one of the things which
co-operation starts out to prevent. And this brings on another
very serious trouble. To promote efficiency and to maintain the
integrity of the organisation, loyalty to the powers that be is a sine
qua non. Thus the sentiment comes to be created that the society
itself is superior to that for which it is an end. It begins to have
that c inherent sacredness ' of which we spoke in the former
chapters. The belief is encouraged that only through the particular
society can the ends of the society be wrought. The maintenance of
the society, and often of the status quo in the society, is deemed to
be of transcendent importance. We have hence in the domination
of the few and the repression of the many, both with respect to
criticism and action, together with the commands of authority to
fall down and worship, a strong barrier raised in. the way of all
progressive development. Now, if by any chance the few in power
should be themselves either inefficient, mistaken in their ideas, or
corrupt, the society becomes a power for evil, great in proportion
CHAP. XX. THE CO-OPERATIVE IDEA. 215
to its accumulated strength. The same set of circumstances may
make it as valueless also for its own ends as if it lacked cohe-
siveness. It is liable to be diverted from its original purposes and
to become a machine for the injury rather than for the benefit of
mankind, however beneficent its foundation objects may have
been.
From these considerations it must be evident that the co-
operative idea does not furnish a universal or a perfect cure for the
woes of human social life, because it only proposes to relieve society
by creating societies which themselves are infected with all the
diseases which they propose to heal and prevent. And the wider
the proposed scope of the co-operative effort, the truer is this
remark. So that if we formed a co-operative union for the purpose
of overturning the present order, and providing a better government,
and succeeded in getting enough people into it to prevail, in the
substitution we should have only a new order, subject to all the
imperfections of the former, so far as essential constitution is
concerned, and whose superiority or inferiority to that displaced
would depend, not upon any enforced co-operation, but upon the
good or evil dispositions of the individuals composing the organic
whole. This last factor we never can get rid of by co-operation,
unless perhaps by exceptionally intelligent co-operation to make
people better ; and it is the prime factor in all super-organic
life.
That mere co-operation cannot produce the altruistic character
is clear from the fact that altruism is itself necessary to the success
of the co-operative idea. Without the altruistic disposition there
is no coherence, or, if there be, it is a coherence which defeats its
own ends. This is necessary to organic growth, wherein each part
is at once means and end of all the rest. With this, co-operation
takes place spontaneously and inevitably ; without it real co-
operation is impossible, and the seeming co-operation is egoistic
domination and egoistic subserviency. To be sure, united effort
and subordination to a given end may have a reflective effect in
promoting altruism, but only when the effort has its source in
altruism. At best it is an indirect means, save, as already said,
where the direct purpose of the co-operation is to develop or practise
altruism as in philanthropy and education.
Our general observations have gone far enough to indicate that,
valuable as may be co-operative organisation for specific purposes
and at particular times, the co-operative idea alone, howsoever far
216 THE SOCIALISTIC FALLACY. PART V.
it may be carried out, will not work the elimination of evil ; and
that in some of its assumptions and tendencies it is likely to prove
a decided obstacle in the way of securing the maximum of happiness
for all mankind. I will now invite the reader to an examination
of some of the more particular forms in which this idea is pre-
valent.
217
CHAPTER XXI.
SOCIALISM.
THE co-operative idea finds its most complete development in what
is usually termed Socialism, whose principles tend to a greater
extension of the state authority than is involved in that theory
which makes the sole office of the state to maintain security. The
socialists declare that this latter theory results not in securing
freedom for the individual but only equality of right to freedom.
* If all men were equal in fact, this might answer well enough, but,
since they are not, the result is simply to place the weak at the
mercy of the powerful.' The socialists further claim 'that the
protection of an equality of right to freedom is an insufficient aim
for the state in a morally-ordered community. It ought to be sup-
plemented by the securing of solidarity of interests and community
and reciprocity of development. History all along is an incessant
struggle with nature, a victory over misery, ignorance, poverty,
powerlessness — i.e. over unfreedom, thraldom, restrictions of all
kinds. The perpetual conquest over these restrictions is the de-
velopment of freedom, is the growth of culture. Now this is never
effected by each man for himself. It is the function of the state to
do it. The state is the union of individuals into a moral whole,
which multiplies a millionfold the aggregate of the powers of each.
The end and function of the state is not merely to guard freedom,
but to develop it ; to put the individuals who compose it in a position
to attain and maintain such objects, such levels of existence, such
stages of culture, power, and freedom as they would have been
incapable of reaching by their own individual efforts alone. The
state is the great agency for guiding and training the human race
to positive and progressive development ; in other words, for bring-
ing human destiny (i.e. the culture of which man as man is sus-
ceptible) to real shape and form in actual existence. Not freedom
but development is now the keynote. The state must take a posi-
tive part, proportioned to its immense capacity, in the great work
218 THE SOCIALISTIC FALLACY. PART V.
which . . . constitutes history, and must forward man's progressive
conquest over misery, ignorance, poverty, and restrictions of every
sort. This is the purpose, the essence, the moral nature of the
state, which she can never entirely abrogate without ceasing to be,
and which she has indeed always been obliged by the very force of
things more or less to fulfil, often without her conscious consent,
and sometimes in spite of the opposition of her leaders. In a word,
the state must, by the union of all, help each to his full develop-
ment.'
This exposition of the general socialistic doctrines of Ferdinand
Lassalle, by John Rae, M.A.,1 indicates the central idea of the pre-
vailing socialistic movements. As 'to the imperfections of present
systems, as to the inequalities, the injustice of which socialism
complains, the sufferings of the lower classes, the recklessness and
positive selfishness of the upper, a great deal may be conceded.
But the question arises whether these imperfections and inequali-
ties are the fault of the governmental system and not of human
nature itself, and whether the proposed new order would work any
improvement. The essential character of this new order we see
to be an enlargement of the sphere of activity of the state, and this
doctrine, though not common to all who style themselves or are
styled socialists, is yet the characteristic feature of the leading
developments of socialism at the present time.
The considerations adduced in the last chapter apply them-
selves with much force in opposition to this extreme view. Their
conclusiveness will still further appear when we inquire in what
manner this assumed beneficial power of the state must be main-
tained and exercised. The problem naturally is susceptible of
division into two parts : first, how can the requisite power be ac-
cumulated and so maintained ? secondly, under what regulations
shall it be exercised ? An examination of these two questions will
expose the fallacy of socialism.
The power of a state lies primarily in its men — that is, in the
individual human beings belonging to it. It lies secondarily in
its ability through its individuals to command and control those
things which men desire for their own individual ends. In order
to utilise its men, it must have control over them, it must be able
to employ them as so much force under government and direction.
This can only be accomplished by means of other men. Thus a
governing class must be separated out from the governed, to whom
1 Contemporary Socialism, 1884.
CHAP. XXI. SOCIALISM. 219
the carrying out of the ends of the state must be entrusted. The
more these ends are multiplied, the more need is there of hands to
execute the will of the state. The governing class is hence en-
larged as the work for government to do is increased. And in
order to effectiveness there must be unity, which unity again can
only be secured by the subordination of some of the governing
class to others. The central power must be strengthened in every
way. Consolidation and centralisation must go on even in the
governing body. The result is hence inevitable that power only
can be accumulated and maintained by a hierarchy of which the
heads shall be enabled to wield the whole force of the state for the
state's purposes. It would certainly be Utopian to suppose that
this could be achieved without a strong military organisation, nor
does it seem to be expected by at any rate some of the socialists
themselves, though they are not very consistent on this point.
They however insist upon centralisation. Karl Marx and his fol-
lowers ' insisted that the social regime of collective property and
systematic co-operative production could not possibly be intro-
duced, maintained, or regulated, except by means of an omnipotent
and centralised political authority — call it the state, call it the
collectivity, call it what you like — which should have the final dis-
posal of everything.' } An omnipotent centralised political autho-
rity, which can be sustained only by a large class of both civil
and military officials, is, then, the first outcome of the socialistic
theory.
In order to control the material resources which are of value for
human happiness, one of the first things proposed by the Socialists
is the expropriation of landed property. No private ownership of
land is to be allowed, but all the land is to belong to the state, and
its use allotted to individuals upon just terms. It is undoubtedly
true that the ownership of land in any event means something dif-
ferent from the ownership of movables. All that the former can
mean is the exclusive right to use, this including the right to
prevent others from using. No one can consume land except in a
metaphorical sense. He can strip it of its products, he can im-
poverish the soil, but entirely destroy it he cannot. He does not
produce it, he cannot consume it; he can only utilise it for his own
advantage. Land has been acquired by individuals in various
ways — by original unresisted occupation, by conquest, by pur-
chase, by gift ; but in whatever way gained, individual ownership
1 Op. tit. chap. iii.
220 THE SOCIALISTIC FALLACY. PART V.
from the nature of the case can be only a recognised right to use
and to exclude others from using. Now state ownership of land
can only be a limitation of the individual right to use by other
individuals. The state cannot produce or consume any more than
the individual can ; and the state cannot own except in the sense
of controlling use. This limitation of individual right may be one
of length of tenure, of alienation, of disposition by testament, or a
limitation by imposing conditions of taxation, of improvement of
the ground, of production, and the like. With the principles which
justify taxation of lands for the support of government we are fami-
liar ; but though this will occur under any system, the more com-
plicated the governmental machinery the greater expense will its
support entail, which is of itself a misfortune unless counter-
balanced by resultant benefits. Of course the effects of so-called
state ownership will vary according to the conditions of the limita-
tion proposed, but any plan looking to such ownership will, if
carried into effect, render more uncertain the individual's tenure
than it is at present under the prevailing system. Whatever
incentive to improvement and to production lies in security of
tenure, this will at any rate be diminished by greater liability of
state interference and consequent deprivation. And if the pos-
sessor be ousted, state ownership will only put some other indi-
viduals in occupation under like conditions, with the effects to be
repeated. In that form of socialism which proposes to abolish also
individual occupation and cultivate the land by industrial associa-
tions, security of holding a place is still further attenuated and
the individual is still less able to calculate upon any permanent
benefits to follow his exertions. He is almost wholly at the mercy
of others. Thus, under individual ownership, the state secures a
relative permanency and exclusiness of tenure to the individual
who lawfully acquires, placing alienation within his control (sub-
ject to taxation). Under this proposed state-ownership the state
allows a relative transiency and uncertainty of tenure to the
individual occupying, with perhaps little or no exclusiveness, and
places alienation or termination of occupancy within the control of
other individuals. In the latter case still individuals own the land
in the same sense as in the former, the difference being one of the
exclusiveness, permanency, certainty, and individual control of the
ownership. And in the case of individual ownership so-called, the
state owns the land in the same sense as under the proposed state-
ownership, the difference being in the degree of control over indi-
CHAP. XXI. SOCIALISM. 221
vidual use that it exercises. In other words, the whole question of
land-ownership is one of use by individuals as against each other.
Under the ideal of the socialistic regime, it is also proposed
that the state shall accumulate power by industrial production, and
by acquiring and controlling exclusively the means of transporta-
tion and inter-communication. This can only be done by taxation
of some kind. Individuals are required to put the products of their
labour into the control of the governing class for distribution and
application. They are divested of direct power to apply the results
of their toil. Without following out into their minutice the details
of the socialistic plan, it is evident that state power under such a
system is maintained and sustained by a despotic use of men and
by the gathering of material resources into the hands of a govern-
ing class. On the whole, therefore, the socialistic idea when car-
ried out must work a very considerable abridgment of individual
freedom.
But this is not what the socialists claim. They find fault
because there is not enough liberty under the present system, and
laud their own because, they say, it will secure more. ' The end
and function of the state,' urged Lassalle, ' is not merely to guard
freedom, but to develop it ; to put the individuals who compose it
in a position to attain and maintain such objects, such levels of
existence, such stages of culture, power, and freedom as they would
have been incapable of reaching by their own individual efforts. . . .
In a word, the state must by the union of all help each to his full
development.' l Marx claims that ' class rule and class labour
must be swept away . . . and a new reign must be inaugurated
which would be politically democratic and socially communistic,
and in which the free development of each should be the condition
for the free development of all.' 2 Now the development of indi-
viduals presupposes a force within to develop. Men do not develop
by outside accretions as a sand bar at the mouth of a river grows.
They develop by the expansion of the organic forces within them.
The first condition, then, of development is freedom or removal of
preventing restraints from the environment. Plants do not come
to completeness when they are choked up with other plants, but
when they are relieved from surrounding interferences. All that is
needed is room for their own forces to work the expansion, soil
and climate being supposed constant. Of the same nature is
human growth, and this seems to be conceded in the expressed aim
1 Op. tit. * ibid.
222 THE SOCIALISTIC FALLACY. PART V.
of the socialists to promote the fullest development. When they
declare that the state will do for each what the individual himself
cannot do, they would doubtless say that the state shall merely
supply favouring conditions for awakening and drawing forth to its
fullest extent the individual spontaneity, not crush out that spon-
taneity. That this latter is under present conditions so thoroughly
crushed forms the staple of their bitter complaints. So we must
assume that this very conspicuous abridgment of individual free-
dom, which is necessary in order to make the state ' omnipotent '
in its centralised authority, is only temporary or formal, and to be
compensated in the exercise of the powers acquired by results
which shall really increase freedom and promote individual deve-
lopment.
It is not contemplated that individuals shall be relieved from
labour. On the contrary, it was one of the propositions of Marx
that there should be compulsory obligation of labour upon all
equally. Consequently the benefits must accrue in what men get for
their work — more comforts, greater security for necessaries and per-
haps more leisure, through a more equal distribution of labour. The
state will see to it that the labourer want for nothing, whereas at
present he often suffers for 'lack of daily bread, and with his utmost
efforts can get but little more than what is absolutely essential to
keep him alive. Yet if the state is bound to supply his wants,
and if the products of his labour are beyond his control, he has no
incentive to work, He will only do what he is compelled to do,
and his mental activity will be devoted to calculating how little
work he can do and how much he can get from the state. Hence
instead of co-operation we should still have competition. The
state, therefore, in addition to its primary tasks will inevitably have
the additional burden of compelling people to do their duty.
When we begin to consider how the state shall use its powers
all the perplexity comes upon us which we discerned in the last
chapter respecting action by the society which shall both be effi-
cient and faithful to the ends of the organism. The state must
both allot duties and distribute the products of labour ; that is, the
governors of the state must do so ; that is, some individuals must
do so. Some persons must be a law to others. Some must com-
mand and others must obey. The more the state has to do, the
larger the governing class ; and the larger this class, the more
danger both of venality, uncertainty, and ineffectiveness generally.
In order to determine what are the best methods there must be
CHAP. XXI. SOCIALISM. 223
discussion and consideration, allowing both the formation and the
expression of opinions. But all this is at the expense of unani-
mity and hence of executive efficiency. On the other hand, if
discussion and the formation of opinions be discouraged, the govern-
ment becomes autocratic, bureaucratic, and oligarchical. To say
that this latter form can be sustained by the voluntary submission
of its subjects and unsupported by military authority is so prepos-
terous a claim that it requires no word of refutation. And yet
very often socialists hold up as a virtue of their system that it will
do away with military despotisms. Yet, again, they are for ever
calling for an omnipotent centralised authority. They cannot have
the one without the other, deceive themselves as they may under
plausible generalities of expression.
In dealing with the use of land the governing authority would
be obliged to make some allotment for the purposes of production.
Unless production should continue, there would soon be nothing
to distribute and everybody would perish ; but, as we remarked,
the state would go into the business of promoting production with
the strongest stimulus to productive labour removed from the
minds of its labourers. If the state cultivated all the lands by
means of 'industrial armies,' we should witness the effect of
gangs of hired labourers, who were certain of getting their wages
whether they did more than the most perfunctory work or not.
Everything would tend to a minimum of both skill and labour. If
the state allotted land to individuals without power to alienate or
with uncertainty of tenure, a like result would ensue. The indi-
vidual would be without that inward incentive to production which
creates a disposition to productive activity. Enterprise would be
extinguished or never born, and all vital interest in the cultivation
and improvement of land would cease. Every person would be
expecting that another would reap the benefit of his sowing. He
could make no provision for his own future or that of his family.
His plans in any event, so far as local habitation is concerned,
could only extend to the limits of his tenure, and even within
those limits he would be without that sense of independence and
strength, which security in the permanent occupation of land
always gives. Again, how could the state determine to whom to
allot the good lands and to whom the poor ? How could it say
what should be the limit of each man's capacity for labour, and
how much any default of productiveness was due to the soil ?
Would it take away a man's tenure if he did not produce a good
224 THE SOCIALISTIC FALLACY. PART V.
crop, or would it only fine or flog him ? How much allowance
would it make for sickness or weakness ? On what principle would
it allot the meadow to Tom, the hill pasture to Dick, and the
forest to Harry ? How could it be just in such matters, and how
would it if it only could ?
The same trouble would be inevitable throughout the whole
circuit of productive industries undertaken by the state. No body
of men in official position is ever competent to say what work
individuals are best fitted for. No more is it possible that they
should satisfy everybody in the division of labour. Discontent
would everywhere prevail ; self-development would be impossible ;
energetic application could only be secured by the overseer and the
lash ; that efficiency which comes from love of one's task and from
adaptation growing out of that love would be more rare and uncer-
tain ; in fine, a hopeless mediocrity would characterise all the results
of this centralised co-operative production.
Now when we ask how the state will succeed as a distributor, the
absurdity of this whole scheme is still more apparent. In the first
place, the governing class must be supported in contentment or the
central authority falls in pieces. Their wants must receive an especial
consideration. Then there must be a division of the rest of the
products according to need. In theory everybody is to have all he
wants. Beautiful and blessed as is this anticipation, it sometimes
happens that there is not enough to go around, especially since
individuals will claim to be the judges of their own wants. One
man might not be satisfied unless he had the whole. To be sure
he could not have the whole, but if he desired it and was refused,
it would spoil the theory. If a person desires more than he ought
to, he is not going to be made happy by a denial, however unrea-
sonable his claims may be. People would not agree among them-
selves as to what each ought to have. Hence instead of general
happiness, there would be throughout the state irritation, jealousy,
spite, wrath, which would be very far from the postulated beati-
tude, and which would be highly inimical to social order and pro-
gressive development.
It may be said that, though these may be the tendencies of
Socialism when the latter is superficially apprehended, they are
yet only the uncorrected tendencies, and that Socialism itself will
work the correction. If this be so, we are led to inquire how ?
Karl Marx spoke of his social utopia as a democracy. It may be,
then, that the governing class which we have seen to be necessary
CHAP. XXI. SOCIALISM. 225
is to be selected by popular vote under short tenures of office, so
that unfaithful or inefficient officers may quickly be replaced by
others better qualified. Then we shall see all the evils of popular
elections enormously intensified. Since with the government rests
the control of all the material resources and all the inhabitants of
the state, the allotment of labour, and the distribution of products,
positions in the official service will be all there is worth aiming at.
Hence there will be a tremendous competition for those places.
The competitive strife will be transferred from the industrial to
the political arena, and the scramble will be the more violent and
embittered because all the avenues of industrial success are closed.
The eifect of all this cannot but be injurious both to the moral
character and the efficiency of the administration. Those who are
in office will be anxious to favour those they think will be inclined
to keep them in place. The officials will become trimmers,
and their energy will be paralysed. They will be more likely to
become venal. Bribery of all sorts and trades for corrupt ends
will be greatly increased. On the part of those out of office there
will be constant war upon those within to get them out, and upon
each other to prevent each other from getting in beforehand.
Everywhere there will be such a clash of conflicting interests
as to utterly preclude that unanimity of will and of intellectual
appreciation which we have seen to be so essential to the co-
operative idea.
The only alternative of this is a despotism, and to this latter
socialism inevitably tends, as it grows more practical and less
visionary. It may be admitted that a vast autocratic, bureaucratic
power may be created, and exist, which shall be very efficient in its
action in controlling everything by the power of the state. One
such power at least is now in existence in Europe, to say nothing
of more remote quarters of the globe or of nations of past history.
Why are not the socialists satisfied with this ? Why does it not
exactly fulfil their ideal ? As an actual fact we find them holding
this power in the most utter detestation. Perhaps it is because
they think the autocracy and bureaucracy does not do its work for
the best interests of the people. But how, with such a system, can
they be guaranteed against such a condition as they are al the
while declaiming against ? What socialist is the one truly quali-
fied to be Czar, and what others to be chiefs of bureaus and com-
manders of the centralised army ? When the socialists will
themselves agree upon their hierarchy it will be time enough for
Q
226 THE SOCIALISTIC FALLACY. PART V.
the rest of us to look up the record and pass our judgment upon
qualifications.
At this late day in the world's history, it does not seem neces-
sary, except in an elementary work for schools, to rehearse the
objections against absolutism. The experience of many nations
and of many centuries counts for something, and the world once
emancipated is not likely to return to Csesarisrn, nor to believe
that an improvement has been effected when one form of abso-
lutism has superseded another. Of the two, the old tyrant is
preferable to the new ; for under the old some order, bad as it may
be, has already been settled, and men have learned to adapt them-
selves to it ; whereas under the new all is as yet uncertain and
undetermined. In this view, it is not essential in the case of
socialism to do more than clearly reveal its nature, the character
of its structure, and its inevitable issues. Its power lies in its
exhibition of present evils and wrongs, not in the system which it
has formulated. It may succeed in creating revolutions, but it
will never succeed in establishing a stable order in place of the
government overthrown. It is first anarchic, then despotic, in its
tendencies. It is utterly subversive even of its own proposed ulti-
mate ends. It is either as Utopian as some of the earlier forms of
socialism, like St.-Simonism, in which case it is impracticable ; or
its result would be the most intolerable tyranny the world has ever
seen, utterly fatal to all progress and development, and wholly
destructive of the common happiness.
When all men have become perfect in both knowledge and
goodness, then perhaps the socialistic scheme may be intrinsically
available. But when that time comes we shall have no need for
any government whatever. Under present conditions, after con-
sidering what the socialists propose, we shall see no reason to
qualify the two precepts which we believed to best express the
general course of action necessary to be pursued in seeking the
elimination of evil.
227
CHAPTER XXII.
THE POLITICAL PARTY.
IN all democracies, and under those constitutions where changes in
the governing body itself or in the policy of the government are
effected through suffrage, organisation for the support of measures
and men, as well as in opposition to both, has always been con-
spicuous in the political life. The value of particular organisations
is never to be judged wholly by the ends they propose to them-
selves, for account must always be taken of the personal factors
making up the means the society has for accomplishing its ends.
This is almost always lost to the sight of those who are enthusiastic
over co-operation as a method of achieving results. However ad-
mirable the platform of a party may be, its success and supremacy
may be wholly vicious, and fraught with danger to the common
weal, un]ess its controlling sentiments are those which the moral
law approves. This means that the controlling sentiments of the
individual members of the party who govern it shall be righteous.
It has been pointed out by statesmen of great sagacity and
eminence that the salvation of a popular government depends
upon the vitality of an organised opposition to the party in power.
There must be some check upon those in authority, or they will,
either through carelessness or corruption, abuse their trusts. Un-
doubtedly this is a wise conclusion, amply substantiated by actual
facts of national experience. But of course the party in power
will organise in self-defence, and a serious contest arises between
the two parties for success. Co-operation on one side begets co-
operation upon the other, with a very bitter competition between
the two.
Success on the part of either is obtained for the organisation as
such both by drawing in converts from outside and by increasing
the efficiency within. If there are only two parties, additions to one
must be by defection from the other, supposing everybody to be
more or less closely identified with one of the two. If there are
Q 2
228 THE SOCIALISTIC FALLACY. PART V.
several parties, or a large class of indifferent people as between the
two, recruits may come from any or all ; and there are also more
centres of force for drawing away from each. The maintenance of
the numbers which each one has is thus of great importance.
While seeking to seduce outsiders from their allegiance, care must
be taken that no deserters slip through the lines.
This necessity for thorough cohesive organisation which thus
arises from competition, though it ultimates in co-operation, does
not thereby do away with competition. It only intensifies com-
petition. If there is value in competition this may be very well ;
but if, as is contended, the principle of competition is wrong, and
co-operation alone is right, we certainly have here another incon-
gruity, like that which we found when considering socialism — the
promised co-operation only works out another form of competition.
What ought to happen is the making of a higher synthesis by
which the parties themselves are conceived as working together
for a common good, and always measuring themselves and their
doings by that as a standard and ideal. The statesmen who have
lauded the system of opposing political parties in a state unques-
tionably had this in view, and only bestowed their approbation
upon the supposition that these parties would regard themselves,
and be regarded, as means to a superior end, never to be lost sight
of nor attenuated. In theory such is indeed the case. Partisans
proclaim the good of the whole as their aim, and seek to gain con-
verts oftentimes by attempting to show that this general good is
best attained through the success of their party. The platforms
upon which party action is supposably founded declare for certain
principles and measures as of importance for the welfare of the
country. At least there is a pretence of acting for the good of the
people ; and to make such a pretence is at any rate regarded as a
necessary formality.
Practically, however, the higher end is often defeated by the
old and ever-recurring difficulty — the fixing of so much attention
upon the means that the latter rise to the position of ends in them-
selves. And this, apart from individual selfish ambition, grows
out of excessive confidence in the co-operative idea. In order to
make the co-operation complete and effective, men eliminate that
which alone makes the co-operation valuable. They take away that
real unity of thought and feeling which creates a moral organic
constructive force, and get in place of it blind destructive force, to
be wielded by a few in modes that these few determine. It is the
CHAP. XXII. THE POLITICAL PARTY. 229
co-operation of soldiers in an army. Napoleon said that a soldier
is a machine to obey orders. This is precisely the definition of a
member of a political party in the minds of many political leaders
of the present day. Is it possible that rule by a political army is
what is meant by ' government of the people, by the people, and
for the people ' ? If it is, and this state of things exists, then
popular government has already perished.
Not less upon the leaders than upon the rank and file of the
organisation is this sort of sentiment demoralising. The latter
come to regard loyalty to the party as the test of the full perform-
ance of the duties of the citizen. They allow their chiefs to do
their thinking for them. They vote unblushingly against their
own better judgment if they have ideas of their own. They be-
lieve indefinitely and without reflection that ruin will be wrought
if the other party prevail. They decline to see the faults of their
own side. Theirs to obey, to follow. The country, the state, is
their party ; others are foreigners and strangers. Within is
celestial beauty ; without is darkness, howling, and gnashing of
teeth. Upon the leaders there is the pressure of responsibility for
the direction if they are personally honest. They plan to defeat
the other side. That is the objective point, the chief end. They
must govern their movements accordingly. They must say enough
to satisfy the most, and as little as possible to offend. Generalities
in principles therefore commend themselves, because they are
easily evaded, and anyone can put his own interpretation upon
them. Personal favours must be shown to prevent desertion ; the
enemy must be watched, and every lapse taken advantage of; the
idea of possible good to the whole from the success of the other
side is absolutely excluded. To preserve the organisation and win
success for it is the prime consideration for the chiefs if they expect
to maintain their rank as leaders and to obtain the emoluments of
party success.
In addition to this, the machine organisation affords the very
best opportunity for positive venality and corruption. It is im-
portant to retain the services of a good party worker, even if he be
a thief and enriching himself at the expense of the people. The
temptation to blink his vice is very powerful. And the closeness,
compactness, and discipline of the party present great inducements
for venal persons of all sorts to enter in. They know how to make
themselves of consequence, and as they rise in the ranks their
chances of plunder or private profit indirectly gained are increased.
230 THE SOCIALISTIC FALLACY. PART V.
As their power is enlarged they shape the whole policy of the
party with a view to personal profit. It is difficult for those more
honest to restrain them, because to do so will produce dissension
and injure the party. And if a reign of terror exists, as is often
the case, the one who raises his voice does so at great peril to all
his interests. He is branded as a malcontent, slandered, befouled,
beaten, robbed, and turned out of doors naked.
The result of all this, and much more evil of the same nature —
to detail which would require greater space than can be allowed to
this topic — is to make party declarations mere hypocrisy and with-
out significance ; to make party action merely a contest of one
organisation within the body politic with another or others for
success at all hazards ; and to create a feeling that the only restraint
upon such action, or upon the action of its individuals, in official
station, should be fear of the opposition. Fortunate it is that this
last restraint of competition exists. It is of considerable value ;
but with this only remaining for a reliance, what a terrible state of
demoralisation is revealed ! What an utter want of all that sense
of political and social duty, of the uses and purposes of government,
and, indeed, of moral relations generally, which is necessary to any
kind of organic unity ! In short, if the ' Old Deluder ' had set
himself at work to devise a scheme by which in a state patriotism
should be extirpated, honesty should be depreciated, progressive
development should be chilled and blighted, hypocrisy should be
systematically cultivated, selfishness should be promoted, all high
and lofty ideals of right and duty, as pillars of cloud by day and of
fire by night, for guidance, swept away from the political sky — he
could not have accomplished his purpose better than by planning
and achieving the development of the political party as it has actu-
ally come about, under a perversion of the co-operative idea, in the
largest and most eminent democracy of the present age.
It would be very easy for me to make pointed and definite
illustration of the truth of these words. But it also will be easy
for the reader, and he will enjoy making the application himself
much better than to have me make it. If he be an American, the
democrat will have confirmed his own opinion of the terrible effects
of republican misrule ; while if he be a republican, he will see more
clearly the dangers of democratic ascendency. But what I say I
say as against both alike — against any and all political machines
wherever they may be found. Though my voice reach only a
little way it is directed with no discrimination against both
CHAP. XXTI. THE POLITICAL PARTY. 231
Trojan and Tyrian. The remedy is not in the triumph of any
organisation or in the overthrow of any other. It is not in more
perfect organisation as such, but in less perfect. Or, perhaps
better, as there must be some organisation, it lies in entirely
different ideas of the limitations of organisation — a better under-
standing of where it is needed, how it is to be used, and when it
must stop its work and disintegrate.
Organisation must always be subordinated to organic growth ;
and to promote this last there must be opportunity for every part
to grow. The co-operation must always proceed from within,
never from extrinsic constraint. Individual independence of thought
and of action is what should be cultivated and encouraged. The
sentiment of loyalty to a party should be discountenanced as a moral
absurdity. It is of the greatest consequence to inculcate the
notion that each man may and ought to give effect in his own way
to his own ideas formed by his own independent thought. Impa-
tience of dictation on the one side and unwillingness to constrain
upon the other is the healthy condition.
This must appear to everyone the moment the welfare of the
whole is taken into account as the paramount consideration.
Parties start out with such an idea ; but as the organisation grows
more extensive, more military, more hierarchical, this end is lost
from view. To prevent this growth is, therefore, of importance.
The rebel within the party, the 'scratcher,' the ' kicker,' the
independent, renders an inestimable service to society ; and that
sentiment which favours the growth of such independent thought
and action is the sentiment wherein lies the salvation of the state,
where government by political party is in vogue. Organisation to
promote independence of political character would be most praise-
worthy, and would serve a good purpose, until, indeed, it should
happen that the society itself became an end to itself, when
counter-movement to abolish it would in turn become desirable.
It will, no doubt, be urged that organisation must be met by
counter-organisation ; that a well- organised bad party can only
be defeated by a well-organised good party, and to gain the latter,
there must be discipline and long-continued efforts to obtain
military precision and certainty of movement. This is not denied ;
but that is no reason why the organisation should be perpetuated
for its own sake. Emergencies doubtless will arise when a central-
ised organisation is necessary to meet the crisis, which may be,
indeed, prolonged ; but that crisis sometime will be over and the
232 THE SOCIALISTIC FALLACY. PART V.
end for which the centralised power was developed be accomplished.
Then, under the sentiment of authority, loyalty, and i inherent
sacredness,' the party will try to continue its existence for itself
as an end. The moment this occurs it becomes dangerous to the
state.
It is not the present intention to condemn all co-operative
organisation. As pointed out in the beginning of this Part, it is
our aim only to show the abuse to which an exaggerated notion of
what co-operation can do inevitably leads. That abuse is always
the making the society, its organisation and its methods, the
chief end, forgetting its original purpose. In the social and poli-
tical world the same law prevails as governs the development of
individual character. When there is organised movement for a
social end outside of its own preservation, it is in aid of progress
with all its drawbacks. But when its movements become self-
centred, and its ends its own power and advantage, it ceases to be
of social value, and, on the contrary, becomes an obstacle in the way
of the realisation of the common good.
Besides the education of people to habits of independence in
political thought and action, there is another very practical and
most efficacious remedy against this tendency of political parties to
live for themselves alone. That remedy is to destroy their power
of controlling government patronage. If the bond of community
of interest in the welfare of the state which originally united them
has become weakened, and there is no public policy to hold them
together, it will be private interest which will take the place of
the other. The organisation can only be kept solid by personal
advantages to accrue to its members. If these advantages are cut
off the party goes to pieces. Thus, as complete a divorcement as
is possible of the public service from arbitrary control of the party
in power is highly desirable. If there are no substantial rewards
for faithful party service, there will no longer be any motive for
such service, when patriotic considerations are no longer operative.
This is obvious and plain ; and though the enlargement of the idea,
and its consistent application, is of the highest importance in
practical politics, its vindication on the theoretical side is not
needed. It carries its full weight in the statement ; and it ought
to be enforced with all the moral power of those in the community
who love their country, who are not willing that government shall
become a business of gathering in spoils for the governors at the
expense of the governed, and who believe in that simple and pure
CHAP. XXII. THE POLITICAL PARTY. 233
doctrine that a public office is a public, not merely or principally a
party, trust.
I have had occasion to refer to the United States of America
as exemplifying the evils of party domination. It certainly
ought to be called to our mind, then, that the intelligence and
moral excellence of the American people is working out the salva-
tion of the nation satisfactorily along precisely the lines which
the present discussion has indicated. They have seen the true
remedies and are applying them. And the contest over the
application is the chief i issue ' in American politics to-day. That
the result will be favourable we cannot doubt, because under the
constitutional regime the security and independence of the indi-
vidual are so fully guaranteed.
234 THE SOCIALISTIC FALLACY. PAKT V.
CHAPTER XXIII.
INDUSTRIAL CO-OPERATION.
IN all industrial life there is co-operation in some form, if only in
the comparatively simple relations of employer and employed.
The term, however, is ordinarily used to designate a greater com-
plexity of combination than this — union of a number of men
together, upon a basis of identity of interest, for certain specified
purposes. And this exists for an immense variety of objects and
under very many phases. Sometimes it is an organisation upon
shares under legal forms of incorporation, and sometimes an
association for deliberative purposes and concerted action, with-
out property appertaining to the society and without recognised
legal status. In all of them, however, the general object is to
accumulate power to be used for the mutual advantage of those
concerned.
There are extant, to be sure, some socialistic ideas of carrying
on all the ordinary activities of life which relate to production by
means of societies, even to the extent of accomplishing household
work through the organisation. Experiments of this sort have
been tried, but never succeeded for a very long time. There is
not the peril of society generally in these attempts to form com-
munistic organisations that exist when the design is to use the
powers of the state for such purposes, since it is optional with
the individual to withdraw from the society, which it is not in the
latter case unless by expatriation. But the general objection as
to ineffectiveness through heterogeneity is of full force. It may
be that at times there can arise a co-operative organisation wherein
the minds of its components are so thoroughly of one accord that
the society can exist to the great contentment of its members, and
with a considerable degree of success for all its purposes. But
the thought which recurs to our mind is that such success can
only be achieved through the altruistic character of those united ;
and when they possess this character there is no need of any
Of THE
TJNJVEKSJ
V
CHAP. XXIII. INDUSTRIAL CO-OPERATION. 230
organisation at all. There is the benefit of a neighbourhood
furnishing very good social advantages. It is both better and
pleasanter to be surrounded by good people than by rascals ; but
all the moral ends would be just as well attained without the
communal system, while individual autonomy would be a better
guaranty of a continuance of the happy condition of altruism,
since restriction, inasmuch as it could only be by other individuals,
would be all the while conducing to provoke resistance. As an
educator for altruism communism seems to me to possess no utility
over the ordinary social arrangements. There is much less oppor-
tunity for clashing and collision when the independence of the
individual is little hampered, and, as has been remarked before,
altruism is always a pre-requisite to harmony of close co-operation.
To sleep three in a bed is not a potent means of grace. If the
grace abounds beforehand it may be accomplished successfully-
otherwise the strongest will be moved to kick the others out ;
whereas peace would have prevailed if they had each occupied a
single couch, though in the same room.
Division of labour there must be, and natural laws will by their
operation secure this ; but everyone is best able to judge of what
he can best do. This may be disputed ; but in a broad sense it is
true. The broad sense is, that the stimulus to effective work must
come from the individual conviction and desire, not from the im-
positions of task-masters. The latter is slave-labour, the former
free labour. But in the industrial commune, if there is, as theory
requires, an administrative division, some people at any rate will
get tasks which they do not like and against which they inwardly
rebel. This is likely to be the lot of the many rather than the
few. If a spirit of self-abnegation and conscientious devotion to
the purposes of the organisation prevail the effect of this may be
counteracted and good work turned out. But, as we were just
remarking, the condition is not a favourable one for conscientious-
ness and altruism. Both egoism and altruism wax and wane
according to natural laws, which must be heeded. We cannot
gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles. The truth overlooked
is, that each individual is an organism which must adapt itself to
its environment. It feels its own needs as no other can. It knows
its own meat and its own poison, after some preliminary adolescent
education. Its life is in the growth of its own powers. Unless it
can assimilate it decays and perishes. It can only assimilate by
its own selective activity. Others may place different aliments
236 THE SOCIALISTIC FALLACY. PART V.
around, but it must choose. If the world would appreciate this,
and act accordingly, we should escape many foolish experiments,
and behold a development of humanity that would astonish even
the wildest dreamers. There is no reason to believe, and no evi-
dence in fact, that such a development could ever be produced by
industrial communism.
It is not, however, so much this phase of co-operation that the
present chapter aims to touch, as two classes of exemplifications of
the co-operative idea which are very conspicuous in their present
influences upon industrial life. The one is an organisation of
capital, the other of labour. I refer to the Corporation upon the one
hand, and the Trade Union on the other.
The corporation is the creature of the state, and derives all its
powers from grants, which are conferred by the state upon an
artificial entity called the Company, consisting of individuals who
have certain determined share interests in the common property
and the common earnings. The voting power is regulated accord-
ing to the interests held, counting by number of equal shares, not
by the number of individuals. The practical evil which experience
has shown to be involved in corporate organisation, so far as the
relations of its own members inter sese is concerned, has been the
same evil which always attends the consolidation of power in the
hands of a few, namely, the disregard of the interests of those who
have less power. This can readily be done when the controlling
interest in the corporation is acquired by a small number of indi-
viduals who work together. The others are to a great degree at
the mercy of these few. The law, however, does in theory protect
minority shareholders against fraud, and against the diversion
of their money to other uses than those contemplated at the
organisation of the corporation. But means of evading the law
are too readily found ; so that often the spectacle is presented of
the entire loss of their invested money by the smaller, and the
enrichment of the larger holders through the action of the cor-
porate government. This is very grievous, and all the protection
that the law can give ought to be given to prevent such abuses ;
but no regulation can ever be devised which will be perfect when
the disposition to defraud or to dominate is present. But the fact
that these things do happen in the case of corporations is not
without some compensating advantages to the general public.
They call attention to the power of those in control of corporations
to work iniquities of all sorts and thus create a counteracting force.
CHAI>. XXIII. INDUSTRIAL CO-OPERATION. 237
Of this there is certainly need. For the great public evil which
has arisen from the success of corporate organisations is their
ability to crush out competition, and even to control the powers of
government for their own uses. Both of these have actually
become in many places evils of serious dimensions.
There can be no doubt of the legitimate authority of government
to control corporations to the fullest -extent. They have no powers
except what are conferred. Usurpations and acts ultra vires can
be prevented theoretically. The laws are broad enough. The
trouble lies in the paralysis of the arm of the government by the
fact that agents of the corporation constitute a part of the govern-
ment, and use their delegated governmental powers for the benefit
of their corporation ; or that the corporation overawes or bribes the
legislature, the executive, or the judiciary, or all together. This
evil, it is plain to see, is not one which can be cured by legislation.
No matter how ingenious enactments may be devised, they will not
meet the case. They will only drive the disease from one place to
another, or force it from the surface to work havoc more secretly
within.
The best remedy is that of the ' Charmides ' of Plato, namely,
' curing the soul.' Raising the level of moral excellence is the
only thing which can sweep away these obstructions to the general
welfare. I do not say this with the implication that nothing can
be accomplished by legislation, but to call attention to the fact
that about all that can be done has been done, and that instead of
devoting their force to tinkering the laws people would do much
better to be promoting within their sphere of action the execution
of the laws in letter and spirit. This they can do by carefully
watching the progress of events ; by nominating, supporting, and
voting for men for official station who are incorruptible ; by exposing
corrupt schemes ; by attending to their own duties as citizens, and,
last but not least, by looking well after their own individual
righteousness in all the relations of life.
The great security against corporate domination lies in publicity.
There is hence a very considerable advantage for the public in a
complete system of supervision of corporations by boards clothed
with authority to examine records, take testimony of individuals,
and generally to investigate the acts of corporate bodies. But much
more than any supervisory commission can effect is susceptible of
being done by journalism as at present organised. The remark was
made in an earlier chapter (Chapter XI.) to the effect that the
238 THE SOCIALISTIC FALLACY. PAKT V.
journal, as a newspaper, a gatherer of all the facts of social life, is
incomparably the most efficient educational instrument of to-day
in aid of public and private morality. The justice of this observa-
tion can be vindicated. Much exception is often taken at modern,
particularly American, journalistic methods of investigating with
great pertinacity, and publishing relentlessly, the most personal
facts of individual conduct, both in its domestic, commercial, and
public relations. But though there may be excessive zeal the
general method ought not to be hastily condemned. Just precisely
this habit of prying into everything, unearthing every secret com-
bination, discovering the hidden wickedness, throwing the light
of day upon all the working in darkness, is the most admirable and
effective check upon the sinister purposes of those who fear not
courts nor legislatures, to be sure, but do, and always will, tremble
when their thoughts and deeds are held up in full detail before
the gaze of all the community. Of course a newspaper may be
suborned, but not all newspapers ; and in the event of active com-
petition even the suborned paper scarcely dares to suppress facts
that others have brought out, while its hired character soon becomes
itself a matter of publicity.
In support of whatever means may be taken to repress corporate
transgressions, the composite character of the corporation itself will
be of much assistance. Internal competitions and rivalries will be
likely to occur, and, if occurring, will accrue to the public benefit.
Although the cohesive forces may be stronger than the disinte-
grating, the latter are still present, and are liable to increase as
the maleficent action of the corporate body upon the public weal
increases. For though corporations have no soul, occasionally
some member of the corporation has. At any rate, the members of
the corporation themselves have interests outside of the corpora-
tion. They wish their property and lives to be secure, and thus
they must be supporters of the social system, though sometimes
blinded by their own assent to the injury they are doing to them-
selves and theirs. Moreover, malcontents within the organisation
will not be slow to hold up to view the sins of their opponents ; so
that, altogether, the checks upon corporate despotism are not so
few as many people suppose. Counteracting forces are all the
while at work, and, though alertness on the part of the citizen is
to be encouraged, it need not be thought that nothing is being
done if some change of law is not being successfully urged.
The contrast to the corporation which the trade union presents
CHAP. XXIII. INDUSTRIAL CO-OPERATION. 239
is quite a remarkable one ; and yet there are many points of
resemblance, while the evils flowing from the two are of the
same general character. The fallacies of the co-operative idea are
common to all its developments. The trade union is organised
(generally speaking) to resist the tyranny of capital over labour.
The means proposed are : first, deliberation, to determine what are
the best measures to be taken ; and, secondly, concerted action in
accordance with the result of the deliberation. The focal point of
the action of these societies is the question of wages ; although
hours of labour, the kind of work, and various police regulations
are often made the subject of consideration, as also the different
races of the labourers themselves. Now, as in the instance of the
corporation, two great classes of evils of trade-unionism arise from
despotism within, and, after centralisation, using the acquired
power in disregard of the rights of others without. But in the
case of the trade union there is a great danger, which is not so
common in the other case, namely, the lack of intelligence to
govern action.
To make the trade union of value to the labourer, the union
must know what the true interests of the labourer are. Here is
usually difficulty at the outset. Workmen are not political econo-
mists, nor are their leaders. They are not sufficiently educated to
know when they are committing suicide. In view of this fact, free
interchange of views, calm and careful discussion of plans, and
methods of putting them into execution are of transcendent import-
ance. But the rule is the other way. Their discussions consist of
excited, inflammatory, rhetorical harangues calculated to arouse
passion, not to put reason at work. The calm and sober man who
attempts to express his views is cried down. Indeed he is fortunate
if he escape being knocked down. Very frequently no discussion is
allowed, but — especially in those organisations which are secret —
the word of command is sent down from the highest to the lowest
to be obeyed without question. When this last condition arises,
there has come the extreme evil of co-operative organisation which
we have already so much insisted upon.
The tyranny which prevents free deliberation is also operative
to prevent free action. The few, who have intimidated the many
into resolving upon a certain course, now terrorise them into carry-
ing it out. If a strike be ordered, woe be to him who does not
join in what his society has decreed ! Not only confidence is with-
drawn, but too often there is the sad story of violence, frequently
240 THE SOCIALISTIC FALLACY. PAKT V.
of a shocking and barbarous character, and not seldom terminating
in murder. Thus, through the iron rule of an oligarchical society,
the labourer finds a much worse fate than he encounters under the
despotic commands of capital.
Upon those outside the society this wickedness of co-operative
supremacy also results in the most baleful consequences. The
same reign of terror which is maintained to keep in subjection
those within is employed to coerce those without into joining their
forces with those of the society. Workmen who prefer to judge
and act for themselves, and who see that their interest and the
welfare of their families lie in an opposite course, meet with the
unqualified wrath of the organisation, and suffer substantial wrongs
to a deplorable degree. To some classes the privilege of uniting
with the society is not allowed, but a war of extermination is
waged against them. Such is the hostility of organised labour
against those labourers who are willing to supply the market at
lower rates than are maintained by the organisations. The war
against the Chinese in America is a very pointed example of this.
In the summer of 1885, at Rock Springs, in the territory of
Wyoming, under the instigation and leadership of the Knights of
Labour, a co-operative organisation, an attack was made upon a
community of Chinese labourers while they were preparing to
migrate in obedience to the demands of the organisation. Their
houses were burned, and about fifty men, women, and children were
massacred without mercy, while further outrage was only prevented
by the arrival of a military force. This is the most recent of many
similar barbarities, and is only a sample. If, therefore, people
believe that the cause of labour is to be benefited by labour organi-
sations, they must always recollect that they paralyse the efforts in
their behalf and alienate the sympathies of those whose help they
need most, thus immeasurably retarding the accomplishment of
their own purposes, unless they recognise the rights of individuals
as such both within and without the organised union.
Notwithstanding these ill consequences of labour co-operation,
the organisation of labourers is not to be discouraged if it can be
kept within bounds, difficult though this appears to be. But it
does seem as if the most intelligent of labouring men who read the
newspapers and have a tolerable education must at least apprehend
the prudence both of moderation in action and the diffusion of
knowledge by real, not pretended, deliberation in council. Here
again we encounter the old trouble — the evil disposition ; and the
.CHAP. XXIII. INDUSTRIAL CO-OPEEATION. 241
labourer's soul is not less hard to cure than that of the capitalist.
But wisdom comes by experience ; and as the influences of discussion
outside the organisation cannot be cut off, however much such dis-
cussion may be repressed within, truth is likely sooner or later to
permeate even the most despotic society ; and tend to disintegrate
its centralised power. If labour unions could be maintained under
the guidance of a clear intelligence, a willingness to accord to all
others the freedom they claim for themselves, and a disposition to
work by means of the constructive rather than the destructive
forces, they would be of immense advantage to the labouring
classes, and indeed of no little value to society in general.
Our present aim has been again to illustrate and confirm the
truth that the altruistic disposition is not attained or encouraged
by any increase of restriction upon individual spontaneity or
autonomy ; and that without the altruistic disposition all accumu-
lation of power by extreme compression of the intelligence and will
of individuals is always vanity and vexation of spirit, while with
this disposition such accumulation is not needed. In this view,
while labour organisations may still legitimately and effectively
influence the rate of wages by combined effort — indeed, as Mr. Eae
says, being able to convert the question of wages from the question
how little the labourer can afford to take into the question how
much the employer is able to give — more stress, I conceive, ought
to be laid upon the educational and philanthropic work which such
associations are competent to do. There is nothing so efficacious
to make people understand the advantages of altruism as to induce
them to practise a little. Instead of beating those who refuse to
participate in strikes, if the trade union would do something more
toward insuring those who suffer by the tyranny both of capital
and labour, better results would flow. Sometimes this is done, but
it ought to be more general. Brentano's doctrines ought to be
preached and put into practice. ' The working class must insure
themselves against all the risks of their life by association, just as
they must keep up the rate of wages by association ; and for the
same reasons — first, because they are able to do so under existing
economical conditions ; and second, because it is only as the end
can be gained consistently with the modern moral conditions of their
life, i.e. with the maintenance of their personal freedom, equality,
and independence.' If the working classes sought by union to
gather together funds for such insurance, as well as for educational
1 Contemporary Socialism) chap. v.
242 THE SOCIALISTIC FALLACY. PART V.
purposes, and would devote them conscientiously to such uses, they
would find the treasury very often largely increased by the
voluntary contribution of those of the capitalist class who now
assist the labourer much less than they are inclined to, because they
see that their assistance only furnishes the means for oppression
and devastation.
PART VI.
THE EOOT OF MOBAL EVIL.
E 2
4 It seems clear to me, if I do not deceive myself, that the desire of domination
and of possessing superiority over their fellows is so natural to men, that, as a
general rule, those are few indeed in number who really love liberty so well that,
if they had the opportunity of making themselves lords or masters of their fellow
citizens, they would not seek to do so. ... If, then, you will consider attentively
the conduct of those who live together in one and the same city, and will observe
the dissensions which arise among them, you will find that the object in view is
superiority over each other rather than liberty. . . . Thus, those who fill the fore-
most social positions in a city do not strive after liberty, but are ever seeking to
increase their own power and to insure their own superiority and pre-eminence.
They endeavour, indeed, so far as it is in their power, to conceal their ambition
under this plausible name of liberty ; because, inasmuch as there are in any city
many more who fear to be oppressed than those are who can hope to become
oppressors, he has many more adherents who seems to stand forward as the
champion of equality than he who should openly aim at superiority.'
GUICCIAEDINI, Del Reggimento di Firenze.
\ * Act according to that maxim whose universality as law thou canst at the
*" same time will.' — KANT, MetapJiysie of MtTiics.
245
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE EGOISTIC IDEAL.
THE course of our discussions lias been gradually bringing us back
to the point from which we set out. We originally found the
source of moral evil to be the choices of individuals (Chapter III.).
The problem which then presented itself, in addition to questions
of the avoidance of physical evil, was how to affect the choices of
individuals so as to cause them to pursue and promote good rather
than evil. We endeavoured to show wherein the inculcation of a
belief that every man stands justly condemned in the sight of an
All-Perfect Being, instead of being efficacious for such a purpose,
is positively mischievous, and itself productive of more evil than
it can prevent. We in like manner contended that a sentiment of
inherent authority in any social institution is a harm rather than
a help. Again, we essayed to point out that systems of co-
operation, unless established and maintained with important limita-
tions, are productive of more evil than good, and at best cannot
of themselves secure the good-will, which Kant asserted to be the
only unconditioned Good. But in all this discussion, though we
declared the doctrine of sin to be a superstition, the notion of
authority in institutions to be a fetich, and the co-operative idea
in its extremes to be a fallacy, and throughout all strenuously
urged the paramount value, and indeed necessity, of the inde-
pendence and autonomy of the individual ; yet I do not think
we have ever obscured the truth that egoism in the individual
character is the root of all moral evil. Now, after the adverse
criticisms passed upon doctrines and measures which are avowedly
proposed as means for the reduction of evil in the world, it is
incumbent upon us to emphasise once more our own notion of
where lies the greatest obstruction in the way of the elimination
of evil, and to say what we can as to the relief. That obstruction
is the individual egoistic disposition and character.
It must have occurred to the reader, in perusing the last
246 THE ROOT OF MORAL EVIL. PART VI.
two preceding Parts of this work especially, that everywhere
the most alarming development of egoism is found in a lust of
dominion. Historically, the worst egoists have been the patriarchs,
emperors, kings, princes, and popes — those in power ; and the
effort to secure and preserve power has led to more woe in the
world than anything else we can observe. It may be worth our
while, therefore, for a moment to trace the course of development
of this eagerness for supremacy over one's fellows.
Since the beginning and the continuance of life depend upon
incessant motion and resistance to motion, it is unavoidable that
the exercise of force should be the primary idea connected with
the preservation of individual existence. Thence this idea extends
to development, for the preservation of an organism subsists only
in its development. Activity must be put forth ; and inasmuch as
there is always resistance, the overcoming of obstacles is the first
lesson to be learned. To live, it is necessary to work ; while work
means struggle. Primarily, man is prompted to subdue material
nature and utilise natural forces for his ends. This activity, this
work, this struggle, an abundance of vitality makes to a very
considerable degree pleasurable.
The social state of mankind, indeed, creates another sphere for
individual activity, but still one in which the exercise of force and
the idea of resistance are primitive notions. If we suppose a first
man, who never had seen another of his kind, what would be his
emotions and inclinations upon such a sight ? Our actual know-
ledge of man under primitive conditions does not allow us to
suppose that they would be social. It is more probable that they
would be of such a nature as to impel him to catch, appropriate, and
use the newcomer in the same manner as he would use inanimate
objects, or, better, other animal life, assuming him to be familiar
with this at best. Resistance would provoke conflict, so that war
would in all likelihood be the earliest experience of human beings
with each other. This supposition is borne out by what facts we
possess.
Yet a modifying influence must have come in very early. The
social desires would soon make their appearance, especially in
connection with sexual promptings. They would arise even from
captivity of slaves; and in these two classes of appetites, the
Predatory and the Social, are found the germs from which springs
the whole growth of super-organic evolution. The inclinations
towards social life are so strong that they prevent human beings
CHAP. XXIV. THE EGOISTIC IDEAL. 247
from living in isolation. But still the value of society to the
individual is originally dependent almost wholly upon his ability
to use others for his own happiness. Thus his social activity
"becomes directed toward essentially selfish purposes, qualified only
by the inability to obtain society at all without some concessions
to others. Social life is a necessity, but it nevertheless is a life of
struggle and contention of man with his fellows.
After such considerations as these the genesis of an egoistic
ideal is not mysterious. As intellect emerges from its embryonic
existence, with the increase of reminiscent power goes an increased
ability and disposition to form ends of attainment. They grow
more and more comprehensive and far-reaching, and contemplate
action extending over longer and longer periods. Thus there is
evolved with greater or less distinctness an ideal of life, with its
attendant notions of what constitutes good, and what ought to be
the objects of effort and activity ; succeeding in the attainment of
which, life is constituted a success ; failing in which, life, in the
judgment of the individual cherishing such an ideal, becomes a
failure. Under the circumstances just referred to this ideal
naturally becomes one of power attained, or to be attained, in
some one of various forms. Begotten of experiences of activity
put forth and resistance met with, of this resistance overcome,
and enjoyments of the fruits of victory, the desirable in the
social sphere comes to be associated with imaginations of self as
triumphing over one's fellows, transcending them, surpassing
them, capturing them, controlling them, using them for one's own
ends, irrespective of their own status as persons. Under such an
ideal, success in life means overcoming other men and securing
power over them.
This is not, however, the only form of the egoistic ideal. Man
does not always nor for ever covet activity. The desire for action
alternates with that for repose, and as life proceeds the latter often
becomes decidedly ascendant. Sometimes it is so from the begin-
ning. When it is supervened upon the egoistic ideal of activity, it
satisfies itself in the results of its triumphs, and finds its end in
preserving and enjoying what it has gained, regardless still of the
welfare of others, near or far. Devotion to sensual enjoyments
from the outset works the same result. An ideal of life is created
whose chief end is ease, luxury, and satiety. To its devotees,
cEat, drink, and be merry' comprises their 'theory of practice/
To such toil seems a waste, the incurring of peril a foolishness, the
248 THE ROOT OF MORAL EVIL. PART VI.
glories of great achievement but vanity. Yet obliviscence and
disregard of one's fellow-mortals is just as conspicuous, though in
different fashion, as under the other form of individual egoism. A
sybaritic ideal of life is less baneful than the variety of ideal
which appears in the lust for dominion, for its evil is negative. It
is not of necessity exclusively egoistic, though apt to issue in
egoism. Its hurtfulness appears in the indifference which it
creates to the welfare of others. It prevents the formation of a
disposition actively to assist human beings when they need it. It
will cause the adoption of the sentiment expressed in Clough's
' New Decalogue ' —
Thou shalt not kill, but need'st not strive
Officiously to keep alive.
Such a sentiment, though not actively destructive to the social
system, is passively injurious. It weakens the cohesive force and
causes society to fall asunder.
We will now proceed to trace generally the evils which the
egoistic ideal in these two forms develops and maintains in the
social organism.
249
CHAPTER XXV.
THE MILITANT SYSTEM.
As before remarked, war appears to have been historically the
earliest outcome of the social state ; and the reason for this has
been noticed. That war is destructive of society between com-
batants is sufficiently evident ; that defensive war, or resistance
to aggression, may sometimes be necessary in order to preserve
society, is also clear. That, when war occurs, somebody begins the
conflict ; that the strife begun, those who originally acted on the
defensive do not usually stop with defence, but, if they succeed, are
elated and stimulated to become themselves aggressors, are likewise
patent facts. Hence wars are apt to beget further war, to the great
damage of the social system. If all men had been determined that
no blow should ever be struck except in answer to one already
inflicted and another threatened, of course there never would have
been any war at all. But men begin conflict, and when they have
repelled attack deem themselves licensed to destroy and kill to
satisfy their own predatory appetites. The activities employed in
defence are not satisfied with defence. Success in war makes war
seem a good thing, to be followed as an exercise of activity.
The egoistic ideal of activity for acquiring power is both a cause
and an effect of militant social systems. Considering the present
existence of such systems, there can be no doubt that they favour
an ideal of life which makes success to consist very largely in the
triumphs of the soldier. Glory, the winning of battles, the accom-
plishment of deeds of prowess, form the chief ambition of him who
follows the military calling. It is obvious, though not so often
considered, that whatever success is achieved in such a career is
worked out only through a series of events which bring ruin to
many, involving terrible destruction of both property and life. It
is evident also that no man can be a great soldier without actual
campaigning. The very existence of large bodies of men trained
to a military career itself has a tendency to create war, for such
250 THE ROOT OF MOEAL EVIL, PART VI.
men must, and will, have occupation. This is hence a standing
menace to social order.
Nor is the greater likelihood of war where the profession of
arms is encouraged by any means the only evil. From war has
come absolutism, and by it is absolutism sustained. The first ruler
was the military chief; and out of armed conflict sprang the im-
perator. Despotism in all its forms is a direct consequence of the
militant system. Every government which denies equal rights to
all men receives its chief support from and is primarily beholden
for its maintenance to militarism.
So much has been said by writers of all sorts — political, ethical,
and religious — respecting the immorality, the iniquity, and the
uselessness of war, and also concerning the evils of despotic govern-
ment, that it would be wholly superfluous for me in this treatise
to consider at length these topics. But I desire to point out that
any order of things which favours the profession of arms as a
career beyond the necessities of actual defence is a very serious
obstruction to the full development of the altruistic character. As
mentioned in another place (Chapter XV.), the sympathies of
the soldier must necessarily be deadened by his calling ; and as just
now remarked, whatever success he achieves means desolation and
death to some others. If, therefore, we are possessed with earnest
desires to abate the evil existing in the world, it ought to be a
cardinal principle of action always to discourage any sentiment
which favours the continuance of the militant system, or which
attaches to the military profession any other or greater honour than
comes from the exigency (happily growing rarer) of purely defensive
warfare. And until wars cease and standing armies are no longer
deemed a necessity for security against foreign enemies or as sup-
porters of domestic government, it is safe to say that no altruistic
millennium will have arrived.
We have noted the fact that there is a strong feeling in the
civilised world against autocratic government. This often prevails
also in opposition to aristocracies and privileged classes of all
kinds. On the other hand, we have also noticed that, on the part
of the governing and privileged classes, any attempt to change the
existing order is regarded as the worst of crimes. To determine
how and when attempts to overthrow constituted governmental
authority are ethically justifiable is one of the most difficult ques-
tions. Just at the present time the warfare against monarchical
governments seems to be waged chiefly by the methods of the
CHAP. XXV. THE MILITANT SYSTEM. 251
assassin. No doubt there is to some extent secret approbation
upon the part of law-abiding people of attempts that have been
made upon the lives of those high in authority ; and very probably
it is to a degree in reliance upon justification of this sort that such
attempts have been made. But surely there is no principle of
morality which can sanction murder, whether committed by the
sovereign upon the subject, or by the subject upon the sovereign.
Nor is there complete security to any citizen of the state when
secret and stealthy assassination is esteemed praiseworthy. Ni-
hilism and dynamitism are as dangerous to the people as to the
prince. No real reform ever can be effected merely by destruction,
whether individuals are singled out, or there is a blind and pro-
miscuous slaughter. The result will be, if such attempts are
persisted in, that the people will rally to the support of the
sovereign as the standard-bearer in a battle of order against
chaos, law against crime, stability against insecurity to life and
property. Thus the cause of liberty and equal rights, instead of
being advanced, will be retarded in its progress, thrown into dis-
repute, and the encroachments of despotism facilitated.
But in the midst of our condemnation of nihilistic methods we
ought neither to be insidiously seduced into supporting the doc-
trine that £ the king can do no wrong,' nor fail to remember that
times may arise when revolution is justifiable, if entered into
soberly and with the methods of law and order. In such a manner
the American Revolution of 1776 was begun and carried forward.
Kings and princes are not independent of law ; and if they over-
ride law simply because they have the power to do so, whatever
right to rule they have is justly forfeited. Their offences may go
unpunished from fear on the part of the people to proceed against
them ; but, ethically, if a movement took place in such a direction it
would be hard to refuse our justification. It may be said that such
a concession would lead logically to sanctioning the principles of
the dynamiteur. There would be no force, however, in such an
objection ; for a deliberate, considered, consentient movement of a
body of people toward a definite end is a very different thing from
the secret plotting and the destructive acts of men who have not
the courage either to announce their principles or to avow or stand
by the consequences of their deeds. We can admire and even
justify to ourselves Charlotte Corday or Brutus ; but we can find
neither admiration nor justification for the masked murderer, who,
without word or sign, stabs his victim, then flees from the sight of
252 THE HOOT OF MORAL EVIL. PAKI VI.
men and seeks to hide himself in the midnight gloom. It is pos-
sible that averring the responsibility of rulers to law may sometimes
lead to the assumption by individuals of the right to inflict punish-
ment for what they conceive to be violations on the part of the
sovereign of fundamental principles of law and justice. I have
mentioned two instances in point of fact, and others will sug-
gest themselves to the reader. It is even possible that the
nihilist and dynamiteur may found his secret organisation upon
the basis of principles like those enunciated in the American Decla-
ration of Independence. The livery of heaven is often stolen for
the devil's service. But I do not hesitate to say that these things
are less dangerous than the prevalence of the notion that any ruler,
administrator, or governor is infallible, or that he is responsible
only to the Almighty for his acts. He is responsible directly to
the society of which he is a member, and indirectly to the rest of
mankind. This is a truth which no considerations ought to be
deemed sufficient to obscure.
If evil is to be eliminated or materially reduced in the world,
the whole militant system, root and branch, as a system of social
organisation, and as furnishing ends of activity, must be sub-
ordinated completely to a better order, based upon higher ideals
of human character, broader views of what really constitutes the
chief good in life, and a more genuine and symmetrical altruism.
Although the sybaritic ideal is found influencing conduct under
militant systems, it is not therein so prominent or so dangerous a
form of egoism as the lust for power. Its characteristics and its
effects are no different from what they are under the industrial
systems ; and accordingly we will defer what I have to say respect-
ing this egoistic vice to the following chapters.
253
CHAPTER XXVI.
ACTIVE EGOISM IN THE INDUSTRIAL SYSTEM.
THE decay of the militant system before an industrial civilisation
is very apparent, and a still further decadence may not unreasonably
be expected. The most who will read these pages live in the midst
of a social order which is at least predominantly industrial in its
character. The career of the soldier, although an honourable one,
is not esteemed the first or the best occupation for him who would
achieve the highest success in life ; and military glory no longer
commands the enthusiasm or the interest that it uniformly did in
the past. Other ends of activity have risen into greater prominence,
and the soldier has neither the power nor is awarded the considera-
tion of bygone days.
But if militarism be waning, the egoistic ideal of victory and
dominion has not departed, but survives in modified forms, though
unchanged in its essential character. Success in life means power
over one's fellows, victory by raising one's self over a fallen com-
petitor. And it is the prevalence of this ideal, the persistence in
conduct inspired by it, that constitutes the chief obstruction to the
elimination of evil from the most enlightened civilisations of the
present age. Its effects we have already considered in several
directions ; but there is something more to be said, especially
respecting individual character and conduct in the ordinary busi-
ness relations of life.
Strict justice is the proper rule for governmental action in all
cases. Rights are to be preserved and enforced. But the govern-
ment, as before said, is not an original source of activity or life :
it is an artificial creation with delegated powers, whose purpose is
to maintain the common freedom and secure to everyone the free
exercise of his activity. The individual forms his ends, pursues
them, regulates his conduct by them, restricted only (except as
self-restrained) by the requirements of the common liberty. Now
when this common freedom exists in its greatest perfection, the
254 THE ROOT OF MORAL EVIL. PART VI.
individual is very apt to consider that if he forms an ideal of his
own aggrandisement, attained within the limits allowed by the
common liberty, he has complied with all social requirements, and
there ought to be nothing but praise and honour for his success.
All the victories which he can gain in competition with others are
legitimate, and if liberty is allowed to all, at least each man must
look out for himself. Success in life is the achievement of the
individual's own personal ends, which bear little relation to the
advancement of any others or the promotion of their happiness.
Where the paternal and fostering action of government is
removed or reduced to the minimum, throwing on individuals
the burden of working out their own fortune, the stimulus to
competitive effort is very great. To an extent of course this is
healthy. We have seen what would be some of the ill-effects of
suppressing competition. But in all the great commercial and
industrial centres, that which originally is advantageous becomes
hurtful from excess. A character intrinsically selfish is produced,
and a morality in business dealings to which altruism is utterly
foreign.
In fact, as we view the great commercial societies, we must,
I think, concede that the theory and practice of business trans-
actions between men is almost absolutely egoistic. To buy in the
cheapest market and sell in the dearest, to exercise skill in the
selection of commodities and in the disposition of them according
to the laws of supply and demand, is not the whole of the matter.
It is inculcated as a maxim of sound business policy to take
advantage of the weakness of your adversary, with as little regard
to the consequences to him as the soldier in battle is regardless of
the effect upon the man he strikes down. Who ever considers,
in making a bargain or enforcing it, the consequences to the other
party ? That is his business ! ' Caveat emptor ! ' is the sentiment.
Business is business, and charity and benevolence are outside
matters.
That the consequences of business victories are often appalling
to the party at a disadvantage is perfectly apparent. They depress
his energies, annihilate his hopes, take away subsistence from
himself and his family, and actually crush out his life. He is
often ruined socially, mentally, morally, and physically ; while the
man who ruins him goes to church and teaches his Sunday-school
pupils to love their neighbours as themselves !
I do not intend to say that these evils always befall a man
CHAP. XXVI. EGOISM IN THE INDUSTRIAL SYSTEM. 255
who gets the worst of a trade or a course of dealings ; nor do I
mean to aver that a desire to make a profit from one's transactions
is not legitimate. If it were not, commerce and trade would soon
cease altogether. But what I do deprecate and condemn is the
principle that the trader or the operator is bound in business only
to consider himself and his own interest, and has no moral re-
sponsibility for the effects of his own acts. And that from just
such a theory as this ruin abundantly flows to many individuals
does not admit of question.
It will doubtless seem ridiculous to the average business man
to be told that he has any concern in his business but to make
money. The value of philanthropy he will recognise ; he will be
kind to his family, benevolent to his neighbour, perhaps, by
pecuniary contributions, a supporter of charitable institutions ; but
there arises the limit of his altruistic vision. In his counting-
house he is hard, merciless, uncompromising. He is in another
world, in a sphere where charity is out of place. Practically,
then, to him business is war.
Certainly the Christian religion does not sanction this doctrine.
Numbers of those who practically follow it are adherents of
Christianity and profess to adopt the Christian teachings. Though
they are taught better things, they grow callous to the lessons of
the pulpit; or if their conscience suffers they esteem a liberal
contribution to the plate or box to be sufficient atonement for
their sins, and resume their evil practices on the morrow. But it
does seem surprising how little effect the repeated and reiterated
precepts of the New Testament, supported by a wealth of illustra-
tion, and enforced with great eloquence, has upon the business
morals of church congregations.
The foundation of all commercial dealings is the idea of ex-
change on equal terms. The minds of the buyer and seller meet
upon the conviction on the part of the buyer that (to him) what he
gets is at least equivalent to what he gives, and on the part of the
seller that what he receives is (to him) equal to what he parts
with. In the most primitive form of trade each party brings his
goods, exposes them to view, and an exchange is negotiated. It
often happens, of course, that what the buyer gets is of much more
value to him than to the seller, or, conversely, that the price paid is
of more value to the seller than the goods parted with. This
springs from the different circumstances of individuals or from
their different degrees of knowledge ; and out of this fact arise the
256 THE KOOT OF MORAL EVIL. PABT VI.
laws of supply and demand, which largely determine market value.
In addition, the natural value of articles themselves has its influ-
ence, depending partly upon their rarity and partly upon the cost
of producing them, including in the latter the expense of bringing
to market.
It cannot be expected that every trader will furnish eyes or
brains for the other party to the trade. Nor can it be reasonably
required that before he concludes the bargain he make an inquisi-
tion into the other's circumstances with a view of determining
whether or not the trade will also be advantageous for the latter.
But it can be demanded, and the social interest demands it, that a
person shall not deliberately and knowingly take advantage of the
necessities of the other party, or of his ignorance, to get what he
receives without giving the fair, usual, normal equivalent in ex-
change. The moral law exacts this. But the readiness to take
this advantage is one of the commonest features of business ; and
the promptness displayed in resenting any criticism of such action
shows the extent to which the refusal to admit altruistic principles
into business practice has gone. Yet the hardship which often
occurs by reason of this refusal is very apparent. And where the
necessity which gives the advantage is created by the efforts of
him who profits thereby, the injustice is very gross. This is ex-
emplified in the instances where ' corners ' in grain or other com-
modities are effected by purchasing as much as possible of all the
existing stock. To be sure, sometimes and under some conditions
speculation is advantageous to the common weal. Mill, for in-
stance, contends1 that while some speculators do enrich themselves
it is by the losses of other speculators alone, the whole course of
transactions being rather to the advantage of the general public.
But, on the other hand, the distress which speculative operations
cause is often widespread and terrible ; while at least every suc-
cessful attempt to create an artificial scarcity which shall bring
ruin and woe upon others, is as devilish as it would be to lead
them into a chamber of tortures and then extort a heavy price of
release.
Morality cannot lay down in advance an imperative rule for
every case. But it does put upon the individual an obligation of
humanity and social duty to have an altruistic consideration of the
effects of his business action ; to abate his eagerness for profit and
success when he is bringing suffering upon other people ; if he
1 Political Economy, Book IV. chap. ii.
CHAP. XXVI. EGOISM IN THE INDUSTRIAL SYSTEM. 257
has any Christianity to take it along to his counting-house, and if
he has none to get some and bring it there. The disregard of this
obligation, not alone in practice but in theory also, is a veiy serious
evil of the day. We actually find the doctrine that business is
war furnishing the standards of business morality. In the face of
the general principle of all social ethics, namely, that the greatest
happiness of the greatest number is to be secured, in the face of the
general recognition of the Golden Rule, as the true precept of con-
duct, in the midst of general philanthropy and high intelligence,
we are confronted with the methods of the cut-throat not alone put
into practice but sanctioned by common sentiment within the
whole sphere of business dealings between man and man !
It is an inevitable result of such a system of belief and of pro-
cedure that the notion that all is fair in war comes to pervade the
commercial struggle. The passage from negative and indirect to
positive and direct fraud is easy. Fraud in all its forms becomes
prevalent, unchecked save by the laws, means of evading which
ingenuity will readily supply. And there is much so insidious that
the tribunals cannot detect or establish it even if suspected.
There is a wide range within which intelligent selfishness, intent
only on its own aims, can operate with success. The sharpness
which is so common among business men, and which indeed is so
necessary in a business career, bears ample witness to the exist-
ence of common practices of deceit, petty and grand cheating,
rogueries and rascalities of all sorts and descriptions, contrary to
the spirit of fair dealing, though perhaps just beyond the reach of
the law. That such a condition must also be fruitful in crime,
ever and anon breaking out, is not only a reasonable anticipation
but is an abundantly verified fact.
Finally, the outcome of this push and scramble conducted by
force and fraud, in which it is understood from the outset that the
devil takes the hindmost, is that certain individuals emerge,
seared, scarred, and hardened, having in their possession wealth
and the power which wealth gives, holding thereby a control over
their fellows in greater or less degree, and enjoying a greater or less
monopoly of many of the good things of life ; while of those whom
they have surpassed some are still in the midst of toil and struggle,
some are hopelessly thrown out and past the chance of recovery,
while others are dead, destroyed by the fierceness of the contest
and the sense of their own failure. This is not a pleasant picture
of industrial society, but it is not overdrawn. Everyone knows
s
258 THE ROOT OF MORAL EVIL. PART VI.
that the situation might even be painted in more vivid colours
without doing violence to actual truth. It would be strange if
this were to remain the prevailing form of social life. But the
important point to make is, that if this is to be, we might as well
abandon the altruistic principle altogether and revert to barbarism ;
for unless the egoistic tendencies are sufficiently modified and held
in check to abate this selfishness in industrial competition, there
will presently come a disruption, and anarchy will ensue. This
result, however, we will consider further in the next chapter.
It is desirable to note, in addition to the foregoing observations,
that the possession which the egoistic ideal of power is allowed to
take of the individual mind leads to oppression of those whose
assistance is necessary as labourers and servants to carry out the
plans of a master. The strife between capital and labour is evi-
dence of this. The more power is assured and accumulated in the
hands of any one person not influenced by altruistic dispositions,
the fewer concessions is he disposed to make, and the less value is
he inclined to attach to the services of those whom he uses. He
crowds down the wages of labour to the utmost, and heaps up his
contempt upon the labouring man. He thinks no more of the
latter than he does of his cattle, and is just as ready to sacrifice the
one as the other. The relation between himself and his employes
is the feudal relation ; absolute fealty is expected ; and it is also
expected that the servant will be content with whatever grace the
lord condescends to bestow. Some protection of the employe is
necessary. The horse must have shelter, food, and rest, else he
soon ceases to be of use to his owner. But beyond the idea of
securing the greatest amount of benefit to himself the favour and
beneficence of the master does not extend. The idea that the
servant is an independent personality, to be respected, and whose
ends as person the master is bound to promote in and by virtue of
the relationship between them, is so foreign to the mind of the
superior in power, that to suggest it would be deemed preposterous.
Thus, far beyond any necessities of self-preservation and proper
development the egoistic ideal and its dispositions induce such a
disregard of the pleasure of others that even the maintenance of
power over others as dependents, and the increase of power by
putting down and keeping down other human beings in a condition
of subjection, seem the most desirable objects of activity and
effort, and the mind is satisfied with nothing else.
Fortunately, in most industrial civilisations competition ex-
CHAP. XXVI. EGOISM IN THE INDUSTRIAL SYSTEM. 259
tends so far that those who have secured great power are sub-
jected to constant attrition from others near them in position,
and are obliged to resort to every means and to have every care
lest their possessions slip away. This fact often enures to the
advantage of the lower class; for the dominant, spite of his
domination, is after all in great degree dependent upon the servient.
Unless the latter be conciliated his services may suddenly be
transferred to a rival. In order to preserve power, therefore,
larger concessions must be made. The more the competition the
better it is for those who are striving to work upward. It would
seem, therefore, that competition carries along the remedy for its
own evils.
Undoubtedly this is true to a partial extent. But a most serious
and formidable difficulty here arises. Where there are rivals in
positions of vantage, the idea soon occurs to them to make peace,
arrange terms of union, combine their forces, and form an alliance
of wolves against the lambs. Thus the power of each is largely
increased to mutual advantage. Hence the social idea is made use
of to promote ends which are essentially anti-social and predatory.
The egoistic ideal is never abandoned, but altruism is embraced and
practised for the very purpose of subserving the egoism and not an
atom beyond. Repetitions of this process in an ever-widening
circle have produced those most tremendous concentrations of
power referred to in a former chapter (Chapter XXIII.), which
have affected not merely industrial interests but also the whole
machinery of governmental administration.
It will be seen, therefore, that the general situation resulting
from the prevalent assumption and maintenance by individuals of the
egoistic ideal of activity, even where military force is not employed
or sanctioned either to gain or preserve power, presents the exist-
ence of an upper class possessed of wealth and influence, living in
luxury, and oblivious to or contemptuous of the woes, the misfor-
tunes, the ill-conditions of their fellow-beings, while below these
subsists as best it may a much larger class of struggling men and
women, supporting by their labour and through their sufferings the
pomp and state of the wealthy ; knowing, too, that the fruits of
their work instead of profiting themselves chiefly contribute to
swell the coffers of those above them. In such a situation the
tendency is unavoidable for the pressure upon those at the bottom
to grow heavier and more unbearable. Strangely enough, the
tendency also is for those at the top to become more and more
s 2
260 THE ROOT OF MORAL EVIL. PART VI.
inattentive and more callous to the sufferings of those underneath
the press. If they have not gained the objects of their ambition,
they fight on more fiercely, more pitilessly and uncompromisingly.
If they have attained their purposes, or if energy begins to fail,
their active egoism gives place to passive egoism and their ideal of
life changes to the sybaritic. Let us now for a little pursue the
movement of social forces when governed by this latter form of
the egoistic ideal.
261
CHAPTER XXVII.
PASSIVE EGOISM IN THE INDUSTRIAL SYSTEM.
IT is natural for man to deny that he is his brother's keeper ; but if
he occupies a position for the enjoyment of which he is indebted to
society, he will after a time learn — by costly lessons it may be — that
if he does not look after the interests of society, society will with -
draw its support from him with very little ceremony. It is the
neglect of this truth that has brought the most appalling cata-
strophes upon social organisations, oftentimes with the most startling
suddenness, in the midst of a fancied security.
Human experience, after centuries of stupid and obstinate pre-
j udice, resulting in awful cruelty and unspeakable woe — t man's
inhumanity to man ' — has demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt
that the only way to deal with fundamental appetites is to satisfy
them or modify them by careful education in early years. They
cannot be crushed out, for they are inherent in human nature. If a
person is happy and contented he is less prone violently to disturb
the peace of others. If, on the other hand, his primary wants are
not satisfied, there is a perpetual gnawing and craving which
stimulates him to inflict harm on those who are near. The starving
man will not hesitate to steal or murder for the sake of food.
Neither property nor person is safe with him. Injury is a question
only of power, not a matter of restraint by moral sentiment on the
one side or moral suasion on the other.
The denial of these primary appetites, and the fear of such
denial, are indicated in the social condition of poverty — a con-
dition painfully evident in all communities. The poor have not
the means necessary to supply their present necessities, or else not
enough to remove the fear of destitution. Often we observe actual
want ; more frequently still, the other. Vast multitudes of people
are unable to accumulate a reserve store sufficient to protect them
against future distress. Hence they are all the while under pres-
sure to satisfy the instincts and appetites of self-conservation. If
262 THE ROOT OF MORAL EVIL. PART VI.
others oppose them, they are bound to commit injury of some sort,
perhaps crime. The existence of poverty, then, must always be
fruitful in the production of moral evil, and dangerous to that
social order, obedience to which on the part of the citizens of the
state King Archidamus used to call ' most honourable and most
secure.' Wherever there is a class of people oppressed by poverty,
and there exists anything under the control or in the possession of
some by which the poverty of others might be relieved, moral evil
must always arise. Egoism to the extent of self-preservation will
risk life even against the most tremendous odds. Better to die
quickly by violence than slowly with the tortures of starvation.
You may destroy life indeed, but so long as life remains basic
needs will be satisfied, if necessary by force and injury of another.
History everywhere confirms this view. I cannot but wonder
that men have set themselves at work to invent theories of innate
depravity, of a fall from perfection, of diabolical possession and
influence, to account for the presence of evil, when on a calm sur-
vey of the facts of human constitution and of social and political
history the real truth is so plain. All popular tumults and com-
motions disturbing the peace of society spring from the lower
classes, the sans culottes. They are instigated very often by de-
signing leaders ; yet these latter do not furnish the power ; they
merely apply the match to fire the train. The force is the force of
want, of poverty, of wretchedness. The lurid fires of revolution
reveal as the demons of destruction the begrimed face of the work-
man, the toiler with his hands who has no hope for the morrow,
the tattered and ragged form of the homeless beggar who has not
where to lay his head, the wan pallid countenance of the woman
whose babe has drawn its last breath for want of nourishment,
the tawdry prostitute who knows that literally the wages of her
sin is death. A ghastly company they are. They remind us of
the Life-in-Death seen by Coleridge's Ancient Mariner. Hope
having fled, faith also departs, and holy charity. They brandish
the dagger, they whirl the firebrand, they speed the bullet, and
before them crumble the monuments of wealth and luxury. They
cause dust to return to dust. Property vanishes, blood flows,
great names and great honours are ruthlessly smitten. Then at
last we know
The glories of our birth and state
Are shadows, not substantial things.
CHAP. XXVII. PASSIVE EGOISM. 263
The record of the decline and fall of the great empires and
civilisations of earth is invariably a story of destruction at the
hands of the poor and miserable in revolt against the rich and
prosperous. It is often said that Rome perished because of her
vices. True, indeed, but not in the sense ordinarily understood.
The most trustworthy investigations have shown that this great
western power collapsed because Rome made herself a tyrant and
supported her extravagant luxury at the expense of her colonies
and rural dependencies. She taxed and impoverished the country
to maintain the costly reckless lusts of the city. Hence, the pro-
vinces, drained of their resources, and hopeless of prosperity, had
no motive to defend themselves or the city. Thus the capital
became an easy prey to the northern barbarian, who came really as
a liberator of the provinces. Rome grew rich from her tributaries,
but killed the goose that laid the golden egg. She exhausted her
supports and defenders. She certainly sinned against light. She
knew the traditions of the rise and fall of earlier stages. She had
her own sages, and the wisdom of Greece was before her rulers and
people. Three hundred years B.C. Plato had laid down in the
Laws that immortal principle of state-craft :
c In the next place,' said the teacher of the Academy, ' dealings
between man and man require to be suitably regulated. The
principle of them is very simple. Thou shalt not touch that
which is mine if thou canst help, or remove the least thing which
belongs to me without my consent ; and may I, being of sound
mind, do to others as I would they should do to me.'
This truth, so often forgotten or crushed to earth, always rises
again, and the nations of them that are saved must ever be those
who walk in its light.
We need not go back to Rome and Greece for illustrative
example. Nor is it necessary to revert even to that most con-
spicuous phenomenon, the overthrow of the Bourbon dynasty by
the French Revolution, to convince us that social disturbances are
developed through the discontent of the lower and poorer classes
of society. The record of crime in all countries at the present
day demonstrates the fact. Breaches of trust are of course more
common in the higher classes, because the irresponsible are
seldom made trustees. But the large majority of criminal acts,
especially of violence, will be found to have been perpetrated by
those who have no security for a subsistence. Our criminal
204 THE ROOT OF MORAL EVIL. PART VI.
classes, as a rule, are recruited from the unsuccessful, the poor, the
despised. Said Juvenal :
Rarely they rise by virtue's aid, who lie
Plunged in the depths of helpless poverty.
I do not mean to claim, of course, that the condition of poverty
is the sole or the ultimate cause of moral evil, for I have already
said enough to show the contrary, but only that it is a principal
and most fruitful source of that evil. It is the social condition
pre-eminently to be regarded by statesmen, practical philan-
thropists, and philosophers as the breeder of moral and social
disease. To relieve and remove this baleful condition is of prime
importance to the state. Here and there, indeed, we find cases of
crime and manifest injury committed by the rich and powerful.
But the overthrow of social order need not be expected to come
directly from those who have something which they desire to keep.
The man who has great possessions does not aim to produce social
chaos. It is the one who has nothing to lose who esteems pro-
perty to be robbery and human life of trifling consequence. The
thoughtful mind, reflecting upon these facts, asks itself the question,
Why does poverty exist ? Is there not enough for all, so that
the predatory appetites may be satisfied, and the social likewise ?
Cannot men exist and develop their natural activity without
warring against society ?
The ultimate reason why poverty is so general and why society
is so much endangered thereby is not the shiftlessness and impro-
vidence of the poor. It lies, I apprehend, in the rapacity of man-
kind, and the consequent over-accumulation of property and power
in the hands of an aristocracy. Ignorance, debased habits, lack of
industry, doubtless contribute to bring about and maintain the
pauper condition ; but the great trouble is that people who are
possessed by these misfortunes and vices are not helped to stand
and walk, but are struck down. It seems hopeless for them to
struggle. People remain poor much more largely because other
people prevent their rising from the pauper condition. It is idle
to assert that where there is a will there is a way, when the same
causes which are relentlessly operating to block up the way also
crush the will. It is of no use to urge that if men are only frugal,
industrious, and honest they will succeed. The fact is that some-
times they will and sometimes they will not. The condition of
things ought to be such that they always should ; but such is not
CHAP. XXVII. PASSIVE EGOISM. 265
the condition of things. The weakest go to the wall because
thrust and hurled there by the stronger. Many a man sufficiently
determined to win his way and secure a competence is baffled at
every turn, and finally, perhaps amid curses and jeers of his fellows,
is beaten to the ground. Industry, frugality, and honesty in a
vast number of cases are almost powerless in the strife for exist-
ence, especially in large cities, where the press is the most crush-
ing. Moreover, intelligence is usually arrayed on the side of the
rich, and against the poor. The odds are terrible. The power of
wealth, the power of reputation, the power of knowledge, all com-
bine in dreadful array to slaughter the weak and helpless, who
have for their defence — what ? Nothing, but the
Eternal spirit of the chainless mind.
Sometimes the courage of desperation in one or a few will avail
against an army. Sometimes a David slays a Goliath. Here and
there a Winkelried makes way for liberty by gathering into his
bosom a sheaf of hostile spears. But the rule is well-nigh uni-
versal that the heaviest battalions win. And since the antagonism
continues, the poor dashing themselves against those more for-
tunate, and the latter repelling and defeating them, the tendency
is for the strong to grow stronger, the miserable to grow more
wretched — for wealth to become concentrated, and poverty to
become more hopeless. This is always a dangerous situation for
the state.
The wealthy and the prosperous are usually reluctant to ac-
knowledge that anybody is responsible for poverty but the poor.
And so with respect to the moral evils springing from poverty,
they are equally unwilling to consider that blame rests upon any
person but the law-breaker. It is undoubtedly the case that laws
for the protection of life, liberty, and property must be made and
enforced. Order there must be, and infractions must be suppressed
and punished. But when a man strikes him who by fraud guided
by superior intelligence, or by oppression exercised through supe-
rior power, has injured the assailant, there is at least a question
whether the assaulted has not something to account for to society.
Society owes to itself, in its own interest, for the sake of justice
and order, that the poor, the weak, the ignorant receive a better
and more complete protection than those who are able to protect
themselves. As a matter of fact their security is generally much
less. If through pressure men commit wickedness, it is certainly
266 THE ROOT OF MORAL EVIL. TART VI.
both just and rational to remove the pressure. It is very super-
ficial to regard the criminal as the sole author of his crime ; we
must look to the conditions which impel to crime. We may be
very sure that if the lower classes are rebellious to order there is
something the matter with the higher classes. Unless we change
the conditions, and thus remove the operating causes which pro-
duced the crime, we shall have repetitions of it. Those causes
lie in the unequal distribution of property and the unjust discrimi-
nations as to liberty of individuals, involving too great power con-
centrated in one or a few, and too restricted a sphere of action for
the many; and these in their turn spring from individual egoism.
If, therefore, anyone is disposed to consider that he has done
enough for his fellow-men if he refrain from actively injuring
them, and that after all the only satisfactory course to be followed
is to enjoy present good, leaving the course of affairs to work itself
out in its own way, I earnestly advise him to think on these things.
The attitude of everyone is of consequence, and the more content
that one is with his own passivity the more sure is the sign of
danger. For he could scarcely rest in quiet with an untroubled
conscience if he were not supported by a prevalent sentiment ; and
in the prevalence of such a sentiment there is great peril already.
Disintegration is certainly going on, and no one can tell how soon
violence may break up order. Hence, while active egoism is a
more salient and conspicuous evil, passive egoism creates a dry
rot from which the social fabric is liable suddenly to collapse with
a crash.
I cannot avoid closing this chapter with a quotation from the
discussion of the social question by John Rae, in the work already
mentioned,1 in which he significantly comments upon the far-seeing
vision of De Tocqueville. This political philosopher, Mr. Rae re-
marks, has pointed out how remarkably democratic institutions
' nourish two powerful passions, either of which, if it got the
mastery, would prove fatal to freedom. One is the love of equality.
..." They will endure poverty, servitude, pauperism ; but they
will not endure aristocracy." The other is the unreined love of
material gratification. . . . When a passion like this spreads from
the classes whose vanity it feeds to the classes whose envy it
excites, social revolution is at the gates ; and this is one of De
Tocqueville's gravest apprehensions in contemplating the advance
of democracy. For, he says, the passion for material well-being
1 Contemporary Socialism, Introduction.
CHAP. XXVII. PASSIVE EGOISM. 267
lias no check in a democratic community except religion, and if
religion were to decline — and the pursuit of comfort undoubtedly
impairs it — then liberty would perish. . . . It is impossible, there-
fore, in an age when the democratic spirit has grown so strong and
victorious, to avoid taking some reasonable concern for the future
of liberty, more especially as at the same time the sphere and
power of government are being everywhere continually extended ;
the devotion to material well-being, and what is called material
civilisation, is ever increasing; and religious faith, particularly
among the educated and the working classes, is on the decline.'
268 THE ROOT OF MORAL EVIL. PAKT VI.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE RELIEF.
BEFORE dealing with what were considered by the writer to be the
leading obstacles and hindrances in the way of the elimination of
evil, there were indicated four general spheres of action within
which, or lines along which, the work of abating evil must be
prosecuted. And now that we have finished our own task of
pointing out these obstructions to the realisation of our ideals of
the social good, of clearing away misconceptions, and of showing
that what is often esteemed essential is only accidental, that what
many regard as an end is often only a means liable to be perverted,
and when so perverted itself becomes an evil of magnitude — now
that this has been accomplished, these four fields of activity again
appear before us to be entered upon and worked by those willing
to labour for the abatement of evil in society, under the guidance
and direction of two complementary precepts, which, as our con-
tention is, must for ever govern all effective effort for the elimina-
tion of evil and the consequent amelioration of mankind, namely —
First, AIM AT THE MINIMUM OF EXTRINSIC RESTRAINT AND THE
MAXIMUM OF LIBERTY FOR THE INDIVIDUAL.
Secondly, AIM AT THE MOST COMPLETE AND UNIVERSAL DEVE-
LOPMENT OF THE ALTRUISTIC CHARACTER.
If I have succeeded in securing the interest of the reader up to
this point, it may be a surprise to him, perhaps a disappointment,
and probably it will be the occasion of adverse criticism, that I here
bring to a close this treatise on the Problem of Evil. With so much
that is negative and so little that is positive in the way of exhibit-
ing particular measures for the relief against evil, it may appear
that after the travail of a mountain only a mouse has been brought
forth. But if we go on from this position which we have now
reached, let us see what we have before us. We have been en-
deavouring to compass the whole subject of evil generally, and not
any one of its special forms. Our thought thus pursued has now
CHAP. XXVIII. THE RELIEF. 269
brought us to the threshold of many sciences and arts, compre-
hending, indeed, the entire field of human activity. First we have
industrial science, demanding the application of the practical
ethical principles we have tried to justify to questions of econo-
mics in a thousand and one arts, with extensions into various theo-
retical sciences. In the second place there is political science,
embracing all the topics relating to government, law, jurisprudence,
and some of those concerning political economy. In the third
place is presented with equal claims philanthropic science, which
is still inchoate, its data and its laws with respect to its ends not
having yet been co-ordinated. Finally, we note educational science,
with its numerous relations and its various departments — physical,
intellectual, moral, aesthetic, religious. Into which one of these
four great divisions of practical science shall we enter ? To treat
them all would require not one but many volumes, and to deal
with any one would injure the effect of the generalisations we have
already made. Accordingly we shall, I think, be justified in con-
tenting ourselves for the present with the results attained, the
author hoping that the process of elimination pursued in this book
may have yielded some little positive truth as a residuum which
may be of value to others who are pursuing their own work in the
great departments of practical activity just named. But before
closing there are some further remarks called for upon the appli-
cation of the principles and precepts enunciated.
These remarks chiefly concern the relative value of the four
methods in the production of the altruistic and the subjugation
of the egoistic character, which we have found to be the most
important practical social question ; and this also has a direct
bearing upon the subject of the last two chapters.
It cannot be denied that activity in the philanthropic and edu^
cational spheres is likely to be the most purely altruistic in motive
and directly altruistic in its results, inasmuch as within them there
is afforded less opportunity for the schemes of egoistic ambition.
The statesman and the soldier, the inventor, or even the commerr
cial promoter, may indeed display a very high degree of self-abne-
gation and greatly encourage altruism ; but the theatre of their
efforts is in each case one which nominally furnishes the greatest
stimulus to selfish desires. However great may be the benefits
which mankind derives from their activity, those benefits usually
are indirect, the direct end of the person's efforts being his own
aggrandisement. This does not fulfil the moral law. Yet even
270 THE EOOT OF MORAL EVIL. PART VI.
where a man is primarily anxious to do that which will promote
his own super-eminence or pecuniary profit in a political career,
whether civil or military, it not seldom happens that the individual
is greatly inspired by ideals of the benefits to others which his
labours may confer. The approbation of others depends upon this
result ; and this approbation ordinarily enters very largely into the
emoluments of fame — a good reputation certainly is preferable to a
bad one in the minds of most. Moreover, in all political organisa-
tion where competition rather than custom determines who shall
fill the high places, it is indispensable that those whose ambition
lies in the direction of the statesman's meeds should, avowedly at
least, make the ends of their activity the good of the state. If
they fail to do this wiser aspirants walk away with the coveted
prizes. Hence, notwithstanding the inducements to and opportu-
nities for egoism in the political creations, the counteracting
restraints are also powerful.
Besides this, it must be noticed that, in the present state of
civilisation, the highest success in the political career is not achieved
without the possession of the genuine altruistic disposition, and
that this disposition makes the chances of any success much
better. Common observation about us confirms such a statement.
The most successful men of the present age — men like Lincoln,
Gladstone, and Grant — have been predominantly altruistic. Such
characters do not always command political success, but when
supported by powerful intellects they achieve a success that is not
surpassed ; whereas, though strong intellects, unaccompanied by
the self-denying character, may come to the front transiently, their
great deficiency is thereby rendered more conspicuous, and their
fall is only made the greater ; while, indeed, many who are able
enough are so palpably governed by egoistic sentiments that people
will not trust them. Even if they try to deceive they are generally
soon found out. Who has not seen men gifted, possessed of good
ideas on political themes, and anxious to utilise their talents, so
weighted by an utterly selfish and thus worthless character that
they are of no benefit to the community, and wholly unable to
realise their own aspirations ? Endeavouring to make the whole
world revolve around them as the centre, they simply exclude
themselves from the social movement, and this the quicker the
more blatant they are. Other people will catch their ideas and
suggestions, but want nothing further of them, because they are
intrinsically unavailable. To give them power or places of trust
CHAI>. XXVIII. THE RELIEF. 271
would be a dangerous experiment. The result is, that instead of
producing anything in the political field as cultivators, they can
only furnish the manure for another's crop.
The power for harm of active egoism in the political sphere is
greatly heightened and enlarged by that passive egoism in the
constituency which permits politics to become the trade of knaves
who enter political life to make a living out of it by bargaining,
bribery, and almost every form of corruption. Under an autocracy
supported by bayonets, it is very difficult to find a remedy for
abuses of any sort, so long as those who commit the wrong are
faithful in their loyalty to the sovereign power. The evil continues
until it becomes so intolerable as to occasion great upheavals. But
in a country where the right of suffrage remains in the people,
there exists an instrument of relief which is immediately available.
If political evil prevail, it is not because there is no power to check
or eradicate, but because there is neglect to use the power. It is
precisely this neglect that passive egoism fosters, and in such dis-
regard of the duties of a citizen the dangers pointed out in the last
chapter are greatly enhanced.
Yet I do not share the feelings of pessimists, who behold as an
omen of certain and speedy ruin to the governmental order that
corruption which at some periods and in some places disgraces
democratic communities. Indicative of disease such corruption
undoubtedly is, and of disease which ought to be watched and
cured. But the freedom of political action is so great through the
universality of suffrage that it is difficult for abuses to remain long
enough to become firmly fixed. Individualism, even if selfish,
will act as a continual solvent of the most carefully planned com-
binations ; and without co-operation on the part of many, no great
degree of power can either be gained or maintained. Neither
political parties nor political cliques for a very long period in
American history have been able to preserve their sway, where
their domination was at all obviously productive of evil conse-
quences. At the very worst thieves will rise against thieves, and
honest men be able to hold the balance of power.
That this last does not fulfil a very high ideal of social order
may be freely admitted. And that it is possible for popular sen-
timent to become so debased in a community where everyone has
by the constitution the protection of one vote that social chaos
will come again, must also impress itself upon us. Again, no
social order has yet become so good that it might not be made
272 THE HOOT OF MORAL EVIL. PART VI.
better ; and tendencies toward a worse state are apt to produce a
worse state. Such considerations as these ought to be heeded by
those who are too indolent and too much in love with their own
comfort to pay any attention to public affairs. It is important
always to be on the alert lest security may be imperilled. Often
this is done very insidiously, and if security be lost all is lost —
to the sybarite and the ambitious alike.
The difficulties and dangers in the way of attempting to cure
evils by legislation and governmental authority generally, should
not allow us to weaken that authority within its legitimate bounds.
Nor should we forget that circumstances and conditions are all the
while changing ; so that an exercise of governmental restraint,
legislative or executive, may be required on the score of security at
one time, which, tested by the same rule, may be wholly unneces-
sary at another. To discriminate between what is requisite for
security and what is over-government, is a most delicate and per-
plexing matter. Some of the advocates of laissez-faire have carried
their doctrine too far in restricting the sphere of governmental
authority. The Post, for instance, can scarcely be said to be a
necessity for security. It is maintained on grounds of convenience ;
yet few would deem it advisable to abolish this department of
governmental machinery. There can be no inflexible rule as to
what government shall and shall not do. That extremes of theory
should always be avoided is a truism. But though the doctrine of
laissez-faire cannot in its strictness be adopted, yet the principle
upon which it is founded, namely that the office of government is
essentially negative, is the true one. I should qualify this by ex-
cepting education ; though in reality this constitutes no exception,
for education is the most efficient means of promoting security.
Other positive functions demanded by public expediency must un-
doubtedly be conceded from time to time as circumstances vary,
but in these days of socialistic agitation we shall do well to watch
with some jealousy the conferring of powers and duties upon the
government which go beyond the limits marked out by the de-
mands of security. We may, indeed, examine with far-reaching
care into what security requires, but those requirements should
generally be the final test.
The most important economical question to be considered under
existing conditions seems to me to be unquestionably that presented
by the prevalence of poverty, and the contests between capital and
labour. Appertaining to this, arises the problem how far legisla-
CHAP. XX VIII. THE RELIEF. 273
tioii should go to change existing rules as to the holding of property.
Though we may repudiate with impatience the notion that the
holding of property is robbery of someone else, it may still appear to
us upon reflection that undue accumulation may become not only
robbery as to the property^ itself, but may take away from others
liberty and even life. The objections naturally suggesting them-
selves to the abolition of private ownership of land, for instance,
are by no means conclusive, and may not even be pertinent to a
limitation and restriction by legislative authority of the amount of
anyone's holding. As Mr. Rae puts it, the aim ought to be, not to
abolish private ownership, but to facilitate private acquisition, and,
I may add, to multiply the number of owners, till a more equal
distribution is effected. Men must have the produce of land in
order to live. When, therefore, one individual holds more land
than he can cultivate and improve he is certainly depriving others
of the means of subsistence which they might utilise. If he pro-
duces nothing, but his holding results in keeping others from pro-
ducing, then injustice is palpable. This reasoning is not extended
to movables by the majority of those who urge it. They say that
a man is fairly entitled to all the personal property he can acquire ;
so long as he does not monopolise land no restrictions should be
placed upon his accumulation. But, I apprehend, we shall find it
necessary to consider very seriously the expediency of restricting
also, by legislative authority, the amount of personal property
which one individual may hold. Certainly this is a legitimate
question of politics, since it affects very vitally the social security,
for the reasons given in former chapters. And much the same
reasons subsist against monopoly wrhen vast amounts of capital are
locked up and not utilised as when land is withheld from those
wrho desire to produce. For the substantial vice of great accumu-
lation, whether it be of land or of movable capital, lies, wrhen we
get at the root of the matter, in the power it gives one man over
his fellows. Growth and development are prevented, liberty is
abridged, the sources of life are drained, either by the exercise of
this power for ill, or, negatively, by the refraining from exercising
it for good. . I may not use what I have, or be able to use it ; but
by my great possessions I may hold sway over the actions and
destinies of my neighbours, as absolute as that of a military chief.
Thus the tyranny of wealth may be as bad as that of arms. Politi-
cal despotism has been curtailed so far as it is upheld by the sword ;
so far as it is supported by the monopoly of wealth it is everywhere
274 THE ROOT OF MORAL EVIL. PART VI.
rampant. Now, as shown in the last chapter, where industrial
despotisms prevail there is a great danger of a return of military
autocracy. We cannot for ever grind the face of the poor. For
these reasons, in the words of another, a prophet of our own :
' The poverty of the people, not only in the acute but in the chronic
form also of the disease, is an evil in such sense that it ought to be
made a prominent and emphatic part of policy, both social and
individual, fully to avail of the legitimate, practical, and efficient
means tending to its cure or progressive diminution.' l
Whatever is susceptible of accomplishment by the political
method, both negatively and positively, it must never be forgotten
that the political machinery will either run wrong or break down
completely without the proper disposition on the part of the
individuals composing it. In order to clean hands there must be
clean hearts. This brings us again, and finally, to the paramount,
the transcendent, the supreme value of the educational method of
fighting evil. Against all that individual egoism in private busi-
ness dealings which we found to be so prevalent and so merciless,
we are relegated almost wholly to this latter. Legislation here is
peculiarly hazardous. We are never sure that we are not height-
ening rather than lowering the evil, or that we are not suppressing
one vice only to give the opportunity of breaking forth to half a
dozen others. Experience has shown that legislative attempts to
regulate the natural movements of trade conditional upon the laws
of supply and demand is inefficacious. Distress from high prices
of corn and wheat has never been prevented by the government
fixing a maximum rate per bushel ; nor will speculation be stopped
by Act of Parliament forbidding it. Gambling laws may do some-
thing, but not much. The law against fraud, theoretically perfect,
is comparatively impotent to prevent fraud where the disposition
exists to accomplish it. The efficacious remedy is to take away
such a disposition. The moral character of individuals must be
elevated by careful education from the beginning of life onward.
The first thing is to cause the evil of egoism to be seen clearly.
In general terms, that selfishness causes moral evil is admitted. But
the extent of damage is not appreciated, nor the importance of each
one bringing the matter home and regarding and regulating his
own conduct. This is the trouble the preachers always meet with.
Yet everyone can see that it would be better if there were no
fraud, no rapacity, no cruelty, no overreaching of one by his
1 Charles Frederick Adams, National Quarterly Review (U.S.A.), Oct. 1880.
CHAP. XXVIII. THE RELIEF. 275
neighbour ; and the ill-conditions we endeavoured to sketch in the
last two preceding chapters are obvious to the most superficial
view. A continuance of such conditions must work increasing
harm ; and no one can be sure that his turn to be injuriously
affected may not come soon. Is it not common prudence, then, to
give some attention to the matter of arresting these dangerous
tendencies ? The process of thought described in Chapter VII.,
as the one by which the moral law became evolved, is the very one
which ought to operate reflectively upon the disposition of the
egoist. It is undeniably of advantage to the individual that every-
body else be animated by an altruistic spirit, for it will entail less
trouble upon him of guarding his own interests, make his posses-
sions more secure, and increase the facility of his acquisitions. If
he is so disposed, it may improve his chances of cheating or domi-
neering over others. He cannot then afford to allow the laws to be
relaxed, or their execution to be interfered with or nullified. No
more can he safely favour a common sentiment that everyone is at
liberty to take advantage of the necessities of other people to the
fullest extent ; for, however much he may pride himself upon his
abilities, he is not Argus-eyed nor Briar ean-handed. The altruistic
rule that a man is his brother's keeper, and that all mankind are
brothers, if adopted by everybody else, is surely far the best rule
for him. It makes allies everywhere instead of enemies. Hence
it behoves even the most selfish individual to visit with his ap-
proval all actions on the part of people generally which indicate a
disposition to act altruistically, and to favour the formation of such
dispositions ; while he ought for his own most selfish interests
to discourage and disapprove of all exhibitions of reckless or
malevolent selfishness in the lives of others.
In civilised communities most men are intelligent enough to
see this ; they are willing that general laws be passed in aid of
security and justice; they are willing that children, their own
included, shall be taught to obey the laws and to repress self in
the ordinary intercourse of life ; they are also willing that the
preacher and the schoolmaster teach altruism, to other people.
Out of this very fact, indeed, altruism has grown to be itself a
power ; and without this it would scarcely have been able to make
any progress whatever.
But when the egoist has gone thus far, what is his position ?
Remaining egoistic, self-regarding alone, possessed by the egoistic
ideal, and governed wholly by the egoistic disposition, how is his
276 THE BOOT OF MORAL EVIL. PART VI.
own conduct to be affected? If he expects to have any influence
in improving the morale of the community, or if he merely intends
not to be an obstacle in the way of such improvement, he must
himself either be altruistic or seem to be so. Otherwise, not only
is his call to others to be self-denying the howl of the tiger to his
prey to come and throw themselves into his jaws, but his own
example necessarily creates resistant, and thus counter-egoistic,
volitions, actions, and dispositions. If, therefore, the social spirit
makes any impression upon him, he must at least conceal or
counteract in some way his own egoism.
This is what is attempted by the majority in the more enlight-
ened communities of our day and generation. Sometimes it is con-
cealment with deceit and hypocrisy, sometimes it is atonement
by munificence, or generosity in some particular instances, that the
egoist relies upon to frustrate the ill effects upon him of his own
selfishness. While sincerely desiring that other people may be
altruistic, and recognising that his own undisguised egoism is an
obstacle in the way of this, he seeks to preserve his own selfish
ideals, and pursue his own selfish ends without seeming to do so.
It appears to me that if the pulpit and other moral teachers
who are endeavouring to effect the amelioration of character would
direct their attention more particularly to the task of showing the
fruitlessness of this scheme of the egoist, they would accomplish
more than they do by descanting at large upon the advantages of
altruism. That it is better for mankind that each one love his
neighbour is admitted ; but it is not allowed by each one that it
is at all important that he himself love his neighbour. He thinks
lie can escape this in ways such as I have indicated, while at the
same time he reaps for himself the advantage of the altruism of
other people. This is a great reason why it is so hard to work
moral improvement in communities where no one denies but all
approve the Golden Rule.
That the device of concealment is a very shallow one seems
quite evident. I may wish to get an unfair advantage of my neigh-
bour in a trade, and to that end may, by professing a zeal for his
interest, and lying about the real facts of the case, beguile him into
the transaction upon my own terms. But sooner or later he will
find out that he has been cheated ; and my reputation for altruism
is gone with that man for ever. It will not take long to create for
me a reputation which will estimate me at what I really am, not at
what I simulate myself to be. With each person who tries really
CHAP. XX VIII. THE RELIEF. 277
to be egoistic while pretending to be altruistic, a crisis must neces-
sarily come when he must either abandon his egoism' or acquire a
reputation for that and hypocrisy superadded. People are strangely
credulous in supposing that they can deceive in this way. But
professions, explanations, and sophistries are of not the slightest
avail. They are found out, and the result is even more calamitous
than such people suppose. They both acquire a bad reputation,
and deceive themselves in regard to its existence.
Counteracting the bad favour of evil deeds by good ones is
a much safer method for the egoist. It gives the appearance of
repentance, and seems to evince a disposition not wholly selfish.
Besides, if one robs Peter to pay Paul, the latter and his friends
are in some sort propitiated. Acting under this system of pro-
cedure, the egoist may be open and shameless even in malevolence,
relying upon his ability to nullify the ill-repute of this by large
benefactions. He can afford tobrowrbeat, oppress, steal, and rob —
to snatch the bread from the mouths of widows and the fatherless,
till he has acquired wealth ; and then, in the latter portion of his
life, may turn saint and shine as a model of holy charity. Success
in this way, it is quite true, may be achieved. Most people have
within their own experience witnessed instances. It is with very
similar views that the general sentiment, before criticised, arises
that all is fair in business. It is thought legitimate to get what
one can, by means fair or foul, in the counting-house, if only a part
of the wages of sin is placed in the contribution-box or subscribed
for the orphan asylum.
But however much the reputation of the egoist may be saved
by this method, it does not contribute very much to improve the
social condition, upon which, after all, every man is so largely de-
pendent. Force everywhere elicits resistance, and the state of war
continues and increases, producing only destruction, and generating
destructive influences. Besides, the egoistic habit is apt to grow
stronger with indulgence ; so that it will often turn out that the
egoist will wholly forget to become a saint. His benefactions he
will put off to a more convenient season, which will never arrive.
Meantime he goes on smiting, gouging, biting, and scratching
everyone whom he deals with. Not much can be done with him
by society unless he grows bold enough to overstep the limits of
freedom allowed him by the law. If we are theologically inclined,
we may derive some comfort from the thought that hell is yawning
to receive him. But the practical consideration of means by which
278 THE ROOT OF MORAL EVIL. PART VI.
such creatures may be eliminated from the social organism must
force itself upon the minds even of men just like them. And, after
viewing the problem in all its aspects, there is only one conclusion
to be arrived at, namely that the reform must begin at home. If we
expect society to be more altruistic : if we believe it is better that
other people be self-denying, and hope that they will become so : we
must ourselves be in reality, and not in the seeming, contributors
in personal character and example to such a result.
This has been said before. It has been said many times indeed
in this work, and by very many people everywhere. Jesus of
Nazareth said it a long while ago, and it was said centuries before
his time. Preachers and teachers are all the time saying it. That
others will continue the iteration is greatly to be desired. When
critics remark that such sentiment is antiquated and trite, they
also will do a service by calling attention to the truth again ; pro-
vided their remarks are pungent enough to detain anybody's atten-
tion— for there is a vapidity and inanity of criticism which is often
much more intolerable than the literature criticised. No critic
will dare to assert that it is obsolete doctrine. All moral progress
involves and requires iteration ; and being sure that we have the
correct principle and the efficacious practical precept, our only
course is to enforce it by continued and repeated application. Since
people have got tired of pulpit reiteration, perhaps, too, there will
be an advantage in having the truth reached and presented from
another and quite opposite point of view.
We may derive much comfort and become inspired with strong
hope from the reflection that altruism is a natural force working
in and through individuals, and thus throughout the social or-
ganism. As society grows more complex its power is necessarily
increasing ; in all stages of progress it is present in some degree.
The most cruel and bloodthirsty wretch that ever existed had at
least brief intervals of altruistic feeling toward wife, mistress, or
child, if no other. Normally, indeed, the most porcine of mortals
has his porcine affection for his family. This sentiment is capable
of development to all the degrees of altruism, and ever widened
with the advance of civilisation. There is hence a potent natural
influence at work which can confidently be reckoned upon in aid
of the elimination of evil in the social sphere.
There is great need at present of directing the attention of the
truth-loving, and the lovers of their kind, who are unfettered by
the bonds of authority, toward a more thorough examination of
CHAP. XXVIII. THE RELIEF. 279
the nature and value of religion in the newer lights of the existing
age. In our consideration of the Doctrine of Sin (Chapter XIV.),
it appeared that what is called ' spirituality,' or e the spiritual life,'
is a development of natural susceptibilities into altruistic senti-
ment and character. Is this development fostered by a connection
of the spirit of self-abnegation with an assumed or believed divine
presence ? And is there warrant, and if so what warrant, for this
belief? These are the questions both for scientists and for the
supporters of religion to answer. They cannot be answered upon
any declaration of authority. ' Christ and Him crucified ' cannot
longer be preached to the intelligent world on the basis of feudal
relationship. Such preaching has little effect now, and soon it
will become ridiculous. Jesus may be held up as an exemplar, but
not as a sovereign. Yet it still may be that there is a divine force,
or a higher natural force, which comes only ' by fasting and prayer.'
In view of what Christianity has accomplished in the world, we
have no right to despise its assertion that there is such a power for
' curing the soul.' But Christian teachers make a mistake in
their vehement assertions that the existence of such a gift from God
has been demonstrated ; and the methods they take to convince
and persuade are absolutely fatal to their attempts to establish any
truth which can stand for ever because it is truth. If there be
such ' divine grace,' it must be made to appear and be tested by
the methods of observation and experiment in precisely the same
way as the existence and effects of any physical, moral, and social
force are indicated and verified by science. Let me suggest, then,
to the teachers of religion, who are full of alarm, because their
temples are everywhere falling about their heads, that it is quite
possible they may meet and defeat scientific criticism ; but it is
only by use of the scientific method that they can hope to do so.
They must themselves become scientists. When they do this,
their work will be welcomed by scientists, and will be much more
appreciated withal by their own constituencies.
Meantime, it is a matter for congratulation that the scientific
and the religious ends of human effort are becoming so fully coin-
cident. I suppose Paul was right, from the point of view both of
religious and scientific morality, when he enjoined the Romans,
' Owe no man anything but to love one another ; for he that loveth
another hath fulfilled the law.' Thus, if the results of our criticism
in this book are just, and show forth a true doctrine, we find a
common practical problem to be worked out by religion and science
280 THE ROOT OF MORAL EVIL. PART VI.
together, irrespective of differences both of final ends and of the
premises out of which this practical problem comes to present
itself. Science and religion — to use for the moment the ordinary
antithesis, misleading though it be — have before them alike to
investigate and follow in the sense explained : THE BEST METHODS
OF CURING THE SOUL.
In recognising the necessity of this, we have, I think, got upon
our raft — ' the best and most irrefragable of human notions.' 1
There remains further the theoretical question, which indeed may
have important practical bearings, but primarily at least exhibits
a theoretical aspect. Is there in addition some word of God ?
The teachers of religion with emphasis, and often intolerance of
dispute, declare that there is. But attribute it to what they may,
they have not made out their case to the satisfaction of a very large
and increasing body of the most intelligent of their contemporaries.
If only unity upon the practical problem can be preserved, perhaps
after a while, from one side or the other, some Moses will arise
who from a Pisgah height ' of exalted wit ' will behold and declare
unto us a land fairer than any in which we have dwelt, into which
we may enter as into an earthly paradise, and whose- atmosphere
mayhap will fill us with the breath of eternal life.
Our concluding word is, that in all the relations of life, busi-
ness as well as social, men must be taught, and must learn, to
regard their fellows, not as inorganic nature to be used, but as
independent personalities, with aims and ends like their own,
whose development and realisation is a thing which it is the duty
and the pleasure of every other to favour and assist rather than
neglect, blight, and defeat. The true and only self-satisfying ideal
of activity is that which contemplates human beings as acting upon
each other, not as the forces of inorganic nature work — in blind
impact and resistance — but rather as the forces of organic life,
assimilatively, each finding his ends in the ends of the others, and
all working in and through the others for the development of one
organic social whole, in which each individual is at once the means
and the end of all the rest. As Emerson said, c Every man takes
care that his neighbour shall not cheat him. But a day comes
when he begins to care that he do not cheat his neighbour. Then
all goes well. He has changed his market-cart into a chariot of
the Sun.' 2
1 Plato, Phado. - On Worship.
CHAP. XXVIII.
THE RELIEF.
281
It is not past hope that these things may actually become
nearly, perhaps quite, universal characteristics of human social life.
Indeed, the indications are rather that they must, spite of all
hindrances and obstacles. When this perfect ideal of the organic
unity of mankind is realised, then we shall have the minimum of
evil. This ideal is no other than the altruistic ; and its following
makes for the elimination of evil, and secures so far as is possible
the greatest happiness of the greatest number.1
T I am under special obligations to Mr. 0. E. Straus, of New York, for reading
the MSS. of this work, and for many valuable suggestions.
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