FOOTNOTES:

The power of prediction is, thus, evidently not to be interpreted as if the evolution of morality would go on except through the human will, and through this will in individuals. In any assertion to the contrary, the same old contradictory division is assumed, of nature as active opposed to nature as passive; man is first regarded as a part of nature and then again as outside nature and compelled by it. We divide him into two parts: the one necessarily coincident with the nature in himself, the other antagonistic to it; the one absolutely passive, the other active; and yet these two are the same, and we regard them as the same from other points of view. Nor does prediction impose any "laws" upon the will from without; it is simply inference from the observed relations in the action of individuals: it does not create or alter those relations. It reckons, not from man as compelled by "Necessity," but from man as possessing will and acting fromreason. If man is reasonable, he will perceive that it is for the good of himself as well as for that of the rest of his race to attain a state of harmony; as he is reasonable, he will perceive that social progress is for his benefit as well as for that of others. The increasing solidarity of society continually rendering progress desirable, and the line of the fittest, that is, of those who will in a manner that best fits them for social conditions, continually tending to coincidence with the line of moral progress, the final triumph of the moral is assured. It is not in any way denied that man chooses this course of advancement. On the contrary, wherever we begin in our analysis, we come round finally to the variation of reason, emotion, and will.

As above noticed, the false interpretation of the significance of Evolutional Ethics on the subject of man's will in relation to progress sometimes gives rise to the opposite erroneous impression to that just noticed, to the impression, namely, that progress will go on whether men strive for it or not, and that it is of no particular consequence what the individual does, or at least that Evolutional Ethics can furnish nothing but statistics and predictions, never motives to right-doing. This confusion has caused much self-contradiction, has given rise to the most of the discussion on the subject of Absolute and Relative Ethics, and has impelled certain authors to close their books with something very like a half doubt of the efficacy of their own method except as one of observation. But the value of Evolutional Ethics lies not only in the fact that it goes deeper than any other system and analyzes more clearly the ground of moral conduct,—thus removing doubt with those who are open to conviction, and furnishing a less fallible criterion to those who desire to perceive where right lies in order to perform it,—but in that it also renders obvious the fact that conduct opposed to the welfare of society becomes, with time, more and more disadvantageous. The individual may escape punishment for his misdeeds: but the chances against him are greater, the greater these misdeeds and the longer they are persisted in; it is the "average of the line of moral progress" that is favored by natural selection. A system of Ethics is a part of the environment which acts on the individual; its force is no more lost than is that of any other part of the environment, although the result in the particular case will depend, also, on the character of the individual appealed to. But if EvolutionalEthics cannot bring any such force to bear on the individual as will change his character in an instant, rendering him apt and ready to act according to the ideal, whatever may have been his previous character, there is neither any other system of Ethics which can do this, and there has seldom been one so sanguine as to hope to do it. Theological Ethics, or rather, Theology, has asserted the possibility of such instant transformation, and the doctrine of Socrates that the knowledge of right will secure its performance is a much less extreme instance of a similar idea. But Evolutional Ethics, while rendering manifest the necessity of unceasing endeavor, affords us encouragement by its assurance of the possibility of progress, and its demonstration of the fact that the force of endeavor can no more be lost than any other force. It adds dignity to the smallest acts, and lends earnestness and worth to life. It neither contains any excuses for inaction nor leaves any reason open to pessimism except a selfish one; to the man to whom his own selfish gratification is all in all, the knowledge of social evolution is not a matter of encouragement and rejoicing; but to the lover of his kind it must be. Evolutional Ethics admonishes us to labor, yet teaches us the necessity of patience, since, however the individual will, nothing arises all at once, and the evolution of morals in society as a whole must, like all other evolutions, be a gradual, because a many-sided one. It admonishes us, too,—and this is well,—that we cannot sin without leaving ineffaceable stains upon our own character. The past is never dead, either in its results outside ourselves or in our habit; and it is not the drunkard only who one day awakens to find himself irrevocably moulded, by steps of habit so slight as to have been almost imperceptible, to that which he once loathed and detested. "Our deeds are like children that are born to us; they live and act apart from our own will. Nay, children may be strangled, but deeds never; they have an indestructible life both in and out of our consciousness."[268]We may not be a mere spectator of the struggle for existence even if we will; the dead weight of inaction is itself a force opposed to other force. Willy, nilly, so long as we live we must bear the responsibility of taking a part for or against the progress and welfare of the world.

But there is, as I have said, a system which asserts the possibilityof instant entire change of character, as well as of the forgiveness and obliteration of past sins. What manner of obliteration is this? Not the obliteration of the consequences of the acts, since that is impossible, but an obliteration of responsibility for them such that the doer may erase them from his conscience. The innocent on whom the evil results fall are, then, according to this view, the only ones who shall suffer for them. The doctrine of the Atonement takes away that sense of personal responsibility which is most essential to morality, and this removal of responsibility explains the ease with which Christians of all ages have combined a fervid religiosity with vice and crime. Christian theories of morals of the present day forbid the issue of indulgences; but the consciousness that full and free forgiveness is always waiting to receive the offender whenever he gets ready to repent, even if it is not until his death-bed, is most pernicious in its results. So we learn, for instance, that the "Mollie Maguires," a league formed in the mines of Pennsylvania a few years ago, for the express purpose of murder by coöperation, were in the habit of opening their meetings with prayer, and of withdrawing regularly from the society, for one quarter of the year, to attend church, in order then to murder with an easy conscience for the other three quarters. The senior member of Conan Doyle's "Firm of Girdlestone" is no mere fiction of the imagination. I have no desire to join with those who pronounce all Christians, or everything in Christian doctrine, morally unsound; I only maintain that the doctrine of the Atonement is in itself pernicious, and is shown to be so by its easy reconciliation with evil action.

Theological Ethics is defective in other respects also. A system which represents God as accomplishing his own will in the world in "mysterious ways," to question which is sacrilege, has necessarily led to the excusing of much evil as punishment or discipline, and so to inaction against it. "Men can do so little themselves to make the world better," said a fervent Christian to me not long since; "we must leave these things to God." So, poverty has been held to be a mysterious dispensation of Providence which it was not necessary to do away with even if its abolishment were possible, but the slight alleviation of which was counted among the means of atonement for other sin. Thus it has been in other ways than in itself a curse to mankind, furnishinga sort of indulgence for the immoralities of the rich. Poverty has even been represented as a blessing, since it was to be compensated with double joy in the hereafter. The Christian, pointing the miserable and starving to Heaven as a recompense for pain, experienced, without largely inconveniencing himself, a sense of his own piety and desert, and exerting himself to no radical cure but only to a meagre dole of charity, shifted all responsibility of the cure or its omission, by prayer, to God. So Salter is led to exclaim: "If we must pray, let us pray to men; for there all the trouble lies. Could you, O churches, but open the hearts of your worshippers as you seek to move the heart of God, the need for all other prayer would soon be gone."[269]

Again, Theology has continually taught that man's first duty was to save his own soul from hell, and in this doctrine, ideas of repentance and redemption, faith and worship, have played a larger part than "mere morality." The tendency has, therefore, been towards an "other-worldliness," an egoism of the Hereafter, rather than a fulfilment of the commandment of love. Faith has been exalted above love of Truth, and blind obedience above reasoning morality. Thus it was that Christians entered, with such zeal, into the persecution of heretics. Had the commandment of justice: "do unto others as ye would that they should do unto you," been followed, the Inquisition could never have taken place. But Christians forget, when they point to this commandment in evidence of the superiority of Christian Ethics, that it is not the only command or doctrine that the Bible contains. Nor is this conception of love to others, which Christians have continually cited as testimony of the divine origin of their religion, confined to Christianity or even original with it. Many other religions contain it. The Buddhist religion enjoins towards all creatures such love as that with which a mother "watches over her own child, her only child."

It is true that the majority of the objectionable points of Christian Ethics are found in the Old Testament. This testament is, however, accepted as the exponent of divine truth, though the authority it now possesses is slight in comparison with that which it formerly held. Yet Christ himself says: "Think not I am come to destroy the Law (i.e., the Pentateuch),[270]or theProphets, I come not to destroy, but to fulfil. For, verily, I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the Law till all be fulfilled. Whosoever, therefore, shall break one of these least commandments and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven; but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven." Repeatedly, Christ shows himself a strict conformant to the Jewish code. But if we examine the Pentateuch, the Jewish Law, we shall easily find on what grounds the burning of heretics and witches, and all the other cruelties of the Middle Ages were committed in the name of Christianity. Lubbock writes, for instance:[271]"Among the Jews, we find a system of animal sacrifice on a great scale, and symbols of human sacrifice which can, I think, only be understood on the hypothesis that the latter were once usual. The case of Jephthah's daughter is generally looked upon as exceptional; but the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth verses of the twenty-seventh chapter of Leviticus appear to indicate that human sacrifices were at one time habitual, among the Jews." See also 2 Sam. xxi. 1, 5-9, 14. In Lev. xx. 27; Ex. xxii. 18, the stoning of witches is commanded. In Ex. xxii. 20; Deut. xiii. 1-5, 6-10, 14, 15; xvii. 1-5; xviii. 20, it was commanded that men be put to death for idolatry or heresy or for "dreaming dreams" in the service of another god, and that idolatrous cities should be utterly destroyed even to the cattle within them. Superstition and insanity must have fared ill among the Jews. Ex. xxxi. 14, 15; xxxv. 2, 3; sentence of death is pronounced on any who shall perform even so much labor as the kindling of a fire on the Sabbath; and Num. xv. 32-36, describe how a man was put to death, by God's command to Moses, for gathering sticks on that day. Death was also commanded for murmuring and for all sorts of ceremonial offences; see, for instance, Ex. xii. 15, 19; xxx. 33-38; Lev. vii. 20-27; xvii. 8-10, 13-16; xix. 5-8; xxiii. 29, 30; xxiv. 10-16, 23; Num. i. 51; iii. 10, 38; iv. 15, 18-20; xi. 1; xvii. 13; xviii. 3, 7, 22; see also especially Deut. xxviii. 15-68; xxxii. 22-42. Command of subjection to the priesthood on pain of death is found in Deut. xvii. 8-12, and examples offearful punishment for protest against its supremacy are given in Num. xvi. 3-15, 20, 21, 26-35, 41-47, 49. It may be noticed, that here the children are represented as perishing with the parents by God's express command and miracle. Many instances of the stoning and putting to death of whole families for the sins of some member or members of the family are recorded in the Old Testament, and prove that the expression "visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation," is not to be interpreted as a mere reference to heredity, as many have endeavored to prove it to be. See on this point Is. xiv. 21; also Ps. cix. 7-20; cxxxvii. 9. The origin of ordeals may be traced to Num. v. 11-31.

The Old Testament also sanctions slavery, and makes no protest against the selling of children into slavery; see Ex. xxi. 2-6, 7; Lev. xxv. 44-47; although the Israelites were to treat slaves and servants of their own nation with much greater kindness than that used towards those of other nations. Ex. xxi. 20, 21, prescribes that a man shall not be punished for beating his servant to death, provided the servant does not die directly under his hand, but linger a day or two; "for he is his money." Christians have often protested that their religion cannot be held responsible for the sins of the prophets,—for David's murder of Uriah in order to obtain the wife with whom he had already committed adultery; for his torture of the Ammonites with saws and axes and harrows and fire, and his houghing of the horses of a thousand Moabitish chariots; for Solomon's concubinage and his slaughter of Joab according to David's last orders; for Elijah's wholesale slaughter of the priests of Baal; or for the thousand other vices, crimes, and atrocities described in the Old Testament as committed by God's chosen men, generally without punishment or protest from him. However, the case is not so easily dismissed when we find just as great cruelties and atrocities directly ascribed to God's express command or miraculous interposition. A large number of such are included in the passages already noticed; and we further find descriptions of a destruction from God for the crime of census-taking[272]—1 Chron. xxi. 1, 11-15—for touching the ark in the endeavor to save it from a fall—2 Sam. vi. 6, 7,—andfor many other trifling offences. God is always represented as favoring the Israelites in their wars and massacres, and often as commanding the slaughter of thousands; so that we can easily understand how it happened that the cowardly murderers of the Duke of Gloucester, in the time of Richard II., swore "upon the Body of Christ before a certain chaplain of St. George in the church of Our Lady of Calais, that they would not disclose the murder they were about to perpetrate,"[273]as also, on what precedent Russia, at the present day, has her war-engines blessed by priests of the "God of Battles." Deut. xx. 10-15, commands the slaughter of males captured in a siege, but the sparing alive of women and children as booty; and Num. xxxi. describes a case in which the command was carried out, with the reservation of a certain portion of young girls for the priests. See also Deut. xxi. 10-14. Furthermore, a religion that makes man absolute ruler of the earth and all living things, and sanctions animal sacrifice, cannot conduce to a sense of the duty of self-restraint towards other species, and is, in fact, often used as an excuse for the autocracy and cruelty of man.

It is, indeed, strange to see civilized peoples of the nineteenth century proclaiming the divine origin of laws and beliefs like these—laws and beliefs at least as barbarous as those of the Greeks and Romans whose gods the Christians deride, and far behind the Ethics of some philosophical systems produced among those "heathen" peoples. As has been said, various attempts have been made to explain away these barbarities, or to withdraw all responsibility for them from God, to whom the Old Testament often directly ascribes them. But in the light of what we know of other primitive peoples the customs of the Jews are only too easily comprehensible; the same barbarities of human and animal sacrifice, slavery, murder without pity, and unscrupulous cruelty of every sort, were to be found, as we have seen, among many other ancient peoples. As for withdrawing the responsibility from the God of the Jews, Christians forget that, in denying the divine origin of the cruel, brutal, and obscene laws ascribed to God together with other laws of less barbarity but of organic growth with these, they are forever destroying the grounds of belief in any assertion of divine supervision, and throwing doubt, by implication, on the New Testament as well, since Christ andhis followers were believers in the Law and the Prophets, and often refer to their assertions and accounts of divine direction. But most religions have claimed, and do claim, the divine origin and ratification of their laws, as a means of enforcing them.

The God of the Jews, Jehovah, was originally a nature-god, the god of the heavens, like Zeus, Jupiter, and many other of the greatest gods of other peoples. Science has exploded ancient ideas of the sky; but the Christians still cling to the old terms brought into use at a time when men believed in a flat earth and a region of spirits above floored by an opaque heaven. The God of the Jews was, like the gods of all primitive peoples, a "jealous" and revengeful god, rather to be "feared" than loved; for to such peoples, possessing few resources against the powers of nature and ignorant of their character, the destructive forces of the elements appeared at first rather evil than good, and therefore to be conciliated and appeased; the gods take on their friendly character only as man comes to learn how the forces of nature may be employed for his benefit, and as he slowly attains, in himself, to sympathetic and moral feeling. Accordingly, the Jews were continually occupied with all manner of propitiatory offerings of their most valuable possessions—their herds and the fruits of the earth; and these were burnt under the impression common to nearly all primitive and savage tribes, that they suffered by fire a sort of death and entered the spiritual world. Gradually, the Jews became more civilized, and took on the higher ideals of Eastern religions with which they came in contact; but even to very recent date, the "fear" of God was regarded as the chief essential emotion on the part of the worshipper. Of late, as social ideals have become higher, and sympathy more general, the idea of love, lost for a time through the mixture of Eastern peoples with more barbaric ones, has come to the fore. That a doctrine of polytheism is clearly taught in Gen. iii. 22; vi. 1-4, Christians do not generally even notice. The idea of demigods, found in the latter verse, is called by them, when they meet with it in the Greek or Roman religion, a "myth"; and the idea of sexual intercourse between men and gods, also taught in these verses, is held worthy of all abhorrence, when these "heathen" religions are under consideration. The fact is, that exegesis, forced to advance by progressing civilization, has left far behind the simple original meaning of bible-texts,—suchobvious meaning as Christians find in the Buddhist, Persian, or Egyptian Scriptures, when they peruse them. This is true of the New Testament as well as of the Old. The Christian religion has indeed developed into a system of Christian philosophy as different from the Christianity warranted by the Old and New Testaments as were the later Buddhist philosophies from original Buddhism.

When Christ conferred upon his Apostles the power to forgive sins, he laid the foundation for papal authority, and confirmed the ancient authority of the priesthood, preparing the way for that organization of priestcraft which figured so prominently in all the sorrowful history of the Middle Ages. Moreover, the vein of sadness and the subordination of natural modes of life which mark his teaching as they mark only in a greater degree those of the Buddha, easily led to the celibacy and mortification of the flesh which so long condemned the most aspiring from a moral point of view, the most gentle and conscientious, to a life of loneliness, and peopled the world with the progeny of the less moral. Indeed, if we read Matt. xix. 12 correctly, Christ distinctly taught emasculation as a high religious virtue.

The New Testament tolerated the slavery upheld by the Old Testament, and we not only find no protest whatever against it, but we even find Paul returning a runaway slave to his master. Not only Paul, but John also, taught both predestination and hell-fire for idolaters and unbelievers, as well as for the fearful and doubtful, equally with murderers, whoremongers, and liars: Rev. xvii. 8; xx. 15. Christ himself plainly proclaims the damnation of unbelievers—Matt. xxii. 13, 14; xxiii. 14, 33; Mark xvi. 16; etc.—and he at the same time asserts a very positive doctrine of predestination, avowing that he himself takes special pains that many of those to whom he preaches shall not be able to understand him, believe, and be saved: Mark iv. 11, 12; John xii. 39, 40. His language on these subjects is very clear, and bears no sign of being intended as figurative, though modern Christians prefer to regard it as such rather than to relinquish a religion the morals of which would, by other interpretation, be proved inadequate to the demands of the standards of higher civilization; the same method of exegesis applied to the sacred books of Confucianism or of Buddhism, from which it now appears probable that very many of theChristian ideas were derived, would suit them ill. But even if Christ's language were figurative, it must have some meaning; the wrath and vengeance of God are continually spoken of in the New Testament as well as in the Old. Such expressions were not looked upon, until of late, as figurative, and they doubtless did much to justify, to the minds of earlier Christians, the burning of heretics. The justification of all sin in God's elect, a permanent indulgence, is plainly taught by Paul, Rom. viii. 33; iv. 5-8; 1 Cor. vi. 12. Let us take the Buddhist Scriptures, and, in the light of the better passages, or in the light of Siddhartha's devotion to truth and to his fellow men, interpret the passages which, morally, we find wanting, and we shall find this religion as beautiful as the Christian.

A chief reason often advanced by Christians for continued faith in their religion, is the comfort conferred by a belief in immortality and the forgiveness of sins through Christ; that is, the rescue of men from the "wrath of God" through the offering of an innocent being, a "human sacrifice," which was to bear this wrath, and appease it, according to the old Jewish idea of the scapegoat. The morality of the last doctrine we have already condemned; there is no real making atonement in this world; we should recognize this fact, bear the responsibility of our deeds, and in the light of past experience, avoid the repetition of our old sins. And the moral question as to mortality or immortality is not: "What is the pleasanter to believe?" but "What is the truth?" In this recommendation of the pleasant in belief, we have but an illustration of one of the chief defects of Christian theory, which lays most stress upon faith and far less upon a love of the Truth at all costs. The peace of the Christian's death-bed is often made one of the chief arguments in favor of the Christian religion. But the mind in which there exists the noble love of truth will seek this only at the cost of all peace and blind content.

On the general connection of faith and morals, Clifford writes: "Belief in God and in a future life is a source of refined and elevated pleasure to those who can hold it. But the foregoing of a refined and elevated pleasure, because it appears that we have no right to indulge in it, is not in itself, and cannot produce as its consequences, a decline of morality."[274]Indeed, Christianity, ashas been already remarked, and as is conclusively shown by any conscientious and unprejudiced examination of the Bible itself, leaves room for an ease of conscience and a self-excuse in even very great sins, which no high standard of morals can tolerate. How many of those who attend church regularly, on Sunday, are restrained by their religion from practising vice and injustice on week-days, under the consolation, if their conscience troubles them at all, that their prayers for forgiveness and the bestowal of charity, or even, in extremity, a death-bed "repentance" will make their peace with God? In place of an attempt at reparation towards men, against whom sin is really done, Christians are taught to seek the "forgiveness" of God. Some there are, indeed, who remember only the law of love and endeavor to follow it. All honor to them. But they are adherents of a modern Christian Philosophy, the product of many good men who have winnowed out the wheat of their religion and left the chaff; they are not followers of the Bible, or even of the New Testament, as a whole. Many there are who are perceiving this, and the old system needs replacement with a newer and higher—with a system which affords clear and evident grounds for moral action, leaves no room for mysticism, self-justification, or inaction, offers no opiate to conscience. Such a system must be founded on the solid rock of scientific Truth; not on any doctrine of blind obedience to traditions; it must take into account man's evolution, that it may progress with his progress.

Many term the Ethics of science dry and uninspiring, and turn, with preference, to religions which, if they give us mysticism or pessimism, give us poetry also; for man is an emotional as well as an intellectual being; and there may be much poetry in pessimism. But again, it may be said that the Truth is that which we should first seek. And especially let it be remembered that, if poetry is lacking, it may be that the deficiency is in ourselves. It is a history many times repeated, that men call their age and its ideas dry and uninteresting, and seek their ideals and inspirations in the past, until the master-mind arises, who boldly faces and interprets the realities about him; and then men exclaim and wonder, and find that their own blindness, and not the age, was at fault. We cling by habit to the old and fear the new; and so we have yet to inspire these new ideals with the beauty gained by association and habit; in themselves, they do not lack beauty.In truth, as I believe that there is more of poetry in the gray wires strung across our streets and guiding the swift, silent, fearful forces in which lies power to light a city or destroy a life, than ever was in any feeble-flamed Grecian lamp, so I believe also that, in the dry, hard, cold-seeming facts of modern science there lurks more poetry than all the ages gone have known; though we may need the poet to interpret it to us. The highest poetry is that of love; and it is the realization of this poetry that the Ethics of Evolution teaches, promises, and enjoins. Certainly the superficial Utilitarianism which looks only at external forms of government and customs and the arithmetically calculated relations of men, not at their inner character and the organic complexity of moral questions, cannot satisfy in the long run. Nor can the bald Materialism satisfy which, standing by its analysis in physical terms like the physiologist in the dissecting-room with his chemicals about him and the dead nerves and muscles in his hand, exclaims with a triumph that is half a sneer: "This is all." It is not all. The synthesis of nature and of life cannot be represented by its parts merely; the bond of organization wanting, all is wanting. Nor is the action in the brain more real, more forceful, more spontaneous, or freer, than the love for a friend, the thought of him, or the will to do him a kindness.

FOOTNOTES:[256]"Moral Order and Progress," p. 292; Part I., this book, pp. 250, 251.[257]"Moral Order and Progress," p. 287, etc.; Part I. p. 249, this book.[258]"Moral Order and Progress," pp. 307, 312; Part I. pp. 250, 252, 253, this book.[259]"Moral Order and Progress," Book I. Chap. II.; Part I. pp. 231, 232, this book.[260]"Moral Order and Progress," p. 332.[261]See "Die Entwicklungsgeschichte des Weltalls."[262]"Moral Order and Progress," p. 270; Part I., this book, p. 247.[263]On the theory of Weismann.[264]"Human Progress, Past and Present," "The Arena" for Jan., 1892.[265]"Ethik," p. 344.[266]See Part I. p. 147.[267]"The Science of Ethics," pp. 32-34.[268]George Eliot, "Romola."[269]Salter, "Ethical Religion."[270]It is strange that even enlightened Christians often, without thinking, interpret the "Scriptures" referred to by Christ as if they, in some way, included the New Testament, which was not written till long after his death.[271]"The Origin of Civilization," p. 373.[272]Superstitious fears are often awakened in savage tribes, and among the ignorant of our own more advanced societies, by attempts at census-taking.[273]Pike, "History of Crime," I. p. 405.[274]Essays and Lectures, "The Influence upon Morality of a Decline in Religious Belief."

[256]"Moral Order and Progress," p. 292; Part I., this book, pp. 250, 251.

[257]"Moral Order and Progress," p. 287, etc.; Part I. p. 249, this book.

[258]"Moral Order and Progress," pp. 307, 312; Part I. pp. 250, 252, 253, this book.

[259]"Moral Order and Progress," Book I. Chap. II.; Part I. pp. 231, 232, this book.

[260]"Moral Order and Progress," p. 332.

[261]See "Die Entwicklungsgeschichte des Weltalls."

[262]"Moral Order and Progress," p. 270; Part I., this book, p. 247.

[263]On the theory of Weismann.

[264]"Human Progress, Past and Present," "The Arena" for Jan., 1892.

[265]"Ethik," p. 344.

[266]See Part I. p. 147.

[267]"The Science of Ethics," pp. 32-34.

[268]George Eliot, "Romola."

[269]Salter, "Ethical Religion."

[270]It is strange that even enlightened Christians often, without thinking, interpret the "Scriptures" referred to by Christ as if they, in some way, included the New Testament, which was not written till long after his death.

[271]"The Origin of Civilization," p. 373.

[272]Superstitious fears are often awakened in savage tribes, and among the ignorant of our own more advanced societies, by attempts at census-taking.

[273]Pike, "History of Crime," I. p. 405.

[274]Essays and Lectures, "The Influence upon Morality of a Decline in Religious Belief."

Mr. Stephen questions the possibility of our determining at all what a state of ideal morality should be. I should contend, on the contrary, that there would be little disagreement in opinions as to what the ideal should be, but that rather our chief difficulties must lie in the determination of the course to be pursued in order to attain to the ideal. The profligate, it is true, will not be likely to acknowledge that self-control and faithfulness are parts of an ideal condition if he thinks that the acknowledgment binds him in any way to faithfulness and self-control in his own conduct; and the dishonest man will be chary of admitting that honesty is desirable if his consciousness suggests that he ought therefore to practise unvarying honesty himself. But the dishonest man is generally very thoroughly convinced of the desirability of honor and uprightness in every one else; and the profligate also is generally both among the loudest in his denunciation of unfaithfulness in those he feels should be true to him, and sufficiently ready to acknowledge the social advantages of principles opposite to his own, if you can but convince him that it is only a matter of pure theory you are discussing, which will doubtless never be put in practice by society as a whole, and which in no way interferes with your thorough approval of his own action. So, too, the cruel, the rough, and the rude, will easily confess that unselfishness, unfailing kindness, tact, and consideration in the rest of society, are what the world needs. Did these virtues exist, there would be no need of the choice between evils now necessary. That which really troubles us is this choice, the difficulty of ascertaining just what course is the best, which brings us nearest to our ideal, assists most effectually in hastening development towards that goal. For there is no course, under existing conditions, which is wholly advantageous to society,none which does not involve some evil. It follows, from this, that it is insufficient to show that any particular course involves some advantage to some one in order to demonstrate that it is the right one, as also that it is insufficient to show that a course involves evil to some one in order to demonstrate that it is wrong. It is not proved that, because the restraint of any particular desire or passion is attended with pain to the individual, it is wrong. The argument has often been, and is still, advanced—seemingly with the idea that it is conclusive—that the indulgence of physical passion in youth tends to sobriety and steadiness in later years; and, with a similar idea apparently, a dramatic critic falls into a rhapsody over the manner in which the characters in a recent play come out "purified by the evil" they have wrought or endured.[275]But even if this argument were scientifically sound, it would not prove the desirability of self-indulgence, since not the individual alone is to be considered. The argument is, however, erroneous. With advancing years comes in general, in any case, a diminution of passion, or at least a greater admixture of reason; but apart from this, indulgence tends to increase desire and tendency, except as excess may lead to morbid conditions, or the disregard of higher instincts to disappointment and cynicism. When we are told, in another play than the one mentioned above, and apparently with the idea that the statement is an excuse, that the hero could find no other outlet for the exuberance of his youth than the seduction of an innocent girl, we may see no reason to doubt the assertion, but we may question whether society has not a right, nevertheless, to suppress a little of such exuberance or turn it into other channels. The man born with fierce and ungovernable fury in his disposition may likewise feel a strong propensity to express the exuberance of his youth in a murder or two; but I see no reason why society should permit him to do so. The passion of anger is also a perfectly natural one, and the ungovernable fury which led to murder was not an exception with our ancestors of the savage plane, but the rule. Not all natural passion is to be indulged simply because it is natural; and even the fact that a tendency is good in moderation and under certain restrictions is no proof that it is good or to be indulged in immoderation, or without these restrictions. It canhave been only by restriction of the natural savage fury that this fury grew less prominent in character. The cannibal transported into civilized society may still have a strong and perfectly natural hunger for my spareribs, but that is no sufficient reason why he should get them. Jack the Ripper is endowed, evidently, with a very passionate love for his human vivisection, and finds it an outlet for an exuberance which also bubbles out otherwise in many ways; yet I think society will be justified in putting a peremptory end to that exuberance, when it gets the opportunity.

Morality is indeed a matter of welfare, and so, of the gratification of desire and tendency; but neither the present alone, nor the single individual in preference to all the rest of society, is to be considered. Effort should be exerted continually for the reduction of pain to a minimum, in every respect possible, with regard to the individual and the minority as well as with regard to the majority, though the greater good and the greater number must always take precedence. The rule of the majority may be asserted to be moral in that it is the best possible expedient where there is disagreement of desires. The necessity for choice between evils is the origin of the principle of the Greatest Good to the Greatest Number, and this, as has been said, covers all the ground,if rightly applied. But it offers a temptation to stop with the mere comparison of two sums of individuals and degrees of happiness for the time being, without taking into the problem the wider results of a particular choice to society as a whole, through habit and personal influence. The consideration of these last important factors has led, on the other hand, to such rules as that of Kant,—"Act so that the maxims of thy will might be taken as the principle of universal action"; and this rule, because it goes deeper, is less likely to lead to error. The moral requirement of continual effort to find the best method of reducing the evil still remaining, of recompensing the individual and the minority for the good of which they are necessarily deprived, needs especial emphasis; for the continual direction of attention to effort for progress, even where no outward change is, for the moment, possible, constitutes an inward progress in character which is ever ready to issue in external progress the instant opportunity presents itself. Present pain to individuals is the sign of imperfection in those permitting it and those suffering it, and must result in increase of tendencyin this direction of imperfection unless it takes place only in spite of the most vigorous effort for its prevention. Even the reformer must choose that to which he would chiefly apply his endeavor, with some necessary withdrawal of effort from other directions. Yet the neglect of any present opportunity of reform or benefit, though it may sometimes be necessitated for the gain of some more important future good, is still an outer, and also, especially, an inner evil, which can be compensated only by a high degree of superiority in the future good to be obtained. As the man who, perhaps from the fear of failing in thoroughness, leaves all original work until middle age, is likely to find his power of originality much deteriorated by that time, so the man who is cruel to-day, in order to be kind in some wider respect later on, is likely to find, on the final arrival of opportunity, if the period through which the unkindness is exercised be a long one, that his capacity for kindness has diminished. Every neglect of present opportunity is a loss to character as well as an external loss. When the present good passed over for the sake of the future includes the welfare of whole lives, the question of choice and the postponement of good becomes still graver; when it includes generations, we need to consider earnestly before we take on ourselves the responsibility of a choice that shall prefer the future. I cannot agree with those who believe or practically live out the idea that the present generation is only or chiefly for the sake of the future generation, the parents only for the sake of their children, or the individual only for the sake of society as a whole. We need to remember that the race includes present and future, and parents and children, and has no existence outside the individuals that compose it. It is difficult to reconcile the many conflicting principles; and thus it appears that morality is not easy, even where earnest desire for it exists, and that different views with regard to it may be conscientiously held. The difficulty only increases the duty of continual endeavor to reconcile the many different conditions of happiness and welfare.

We come thus naturally to a question of the day,—the contest between the Individualist and the Socialist.

What has already been said makes it sufficiently evident that, if Individualism is to be maintained at all, it cannot be upheld on the ground that the doings of the individual are of no importance to society, and his sins may therefore not be interfered with bysociety. In "Social Statics," Mr. Spencer secures freedom for "personal vice" by turning his principle that a man has a right to seek his own ends as long as he does not prevent others from the pursuit of their ends, into the entirely different one, that a man has a right to seek a certain end if he does not prevent others from seeking the same end.[276]The argument in this form is applied to drunkenness, but it could as well be used to prove the moral rightness of murder or any other crime, the sole condition being that the murderer did not prevent others from committing the crime also.

Nor is the Individualism less self-contradictory which bases its theory on the principle that it is the office of civil law to guard the rights of the individual. What individual? All individuals? If so, then assuredly it is the duty of the State to see that the laborer is paid a fair price for his work.

Nor can it be shown, as Höffding asserts, that intellectual labor benefits the whole of society, while manual labor is less valuable because it is for a few. The intellectual laborer knows well of what value to him and his ilk is the manual labor which feeds him, clothes him, and manufactures the thousand and one things necessary for his comfort, leaving him leisure to pursue his studies with all material wants provided for. The satisfaction of our material wants is the very first requisite of life, without which intellectual labor would be an impossibility.

There are, however, many degrees and shades of Individualism. As Höffding says, Individualism may be identical with Egoism, but it need not be so. And, moreover, as has been noticed, the adherents of theories of Egoistic Morals are not necessarily adherents of any theory of selfishness.

The theories bearing the name of Socialism are also very various,—quite as much so as those included under the head of Individualism. It is, therefore, both confusing to consider Socialism without some notice of the distinction between these various phases of theory, and is likely to lead to protest from one side or the other. But no single party of Socialists can be treated exclusively as "the" Socialists; a minority of the party cannot expect to be regarded as anything but a minority.

Of the tendency to represent the whole of the present order of society as utterly bad,—a tendency not confined to the Socialistparty, but nevertheless strongly developed in many parts of it,—considerable has already been said. As Höffding remarks, it is difficult to perceive how, in an utterly corrupt society, any foundation may be found on which to build the almost flawless society the Socialist proposes to institute. If the course of evolution has hitherto been propitious to the increase of evil, it is difficult to find any scientific grounds for a belief that evolution will now proceed to favor the good. If man, as a being possessing reason, has hitherto chosen, in increasing degree, injustice towards his fellow-man, it is scarcely possible for any one who proceeds upon the supposition of constancy in the action of man as a part of nature to hope that future events will exhibit exactly opposite characters. Assuredly, we are far enough from the goal yet, but in order to demonstrate this fact it is not necessary to prove that we are worse than any previous age has been. The tendency to lay stress, by every means, on present evil, in the endeavor to impress its reality and undesirability upon the mind of society, is comprehensible; and doubtless, too, as the troubles of the individual are likely to appear to himself among the hardest possible, so to those on whom the evils of the age press most severely these are likely to seem greater than the evils of any other times. But this method of regarding history is not the less erroneous. "In the age of chivalry men had at least a common ideal," said a Socialist to me, not long since. But what an ideal! And unity of purpose is not by any means necessarily a sign of a high plane. It may, on the contrary, signify stupidity, lack of the power of independent thought. The first result of thought on any particular subject is sure to be a division of opinion, although mutual criticism gradually evolves harmony from the strife, and brings about a degree of unity again, on a higher plane; for the mutual criticism is sure to have been of intellectual use. The Socialists themselves have demonstrated the fact that division of opinion necessarily arises when men begin to think upon any question, for with the development of their party many different phases of socialistic theory have appeared. The history of the division of the Church into sects, and of the mutual criticism of these sects, has been the history of religious progress.

With some Socialists, again, the already criticised idea of a "return to nature" plays a conspicuous part. But we have never departed from nature; we are as much a part of nature, as natural,as we ever were. Or, if we are to return, who shall tell us at just what point we leave the "artificial" and arrive at the "natural"? There are no stopping-places, no stations or pauses, in the scale of evolution. There is only continual change by inappreciable increments. The theory of evolution carries with it no significance which could authorize us to consider that we had arrived at our goal at one point rather than at another. And, again, if we are to give up the artificial customs of later development and return to earlier habits, then customs of altruistic action, as the most distinctive and characteristic of later forms of conduct, must be chiefly affected. If, however, by a return to nature is meant the adoption of a simpler mode of life in some classes in order that a less simple but more healthful one may become possible in other classes, the question of the desirability of such a change is, of course, open to discussion; but let us consider it under these terms then. To designate the proposed mode of life as a return to the natural, thus making present modes of life artificial, is to smuggle in an illegitimate assumption against the latter.

It is the habit of a portion of the Socialist party to represent the laborer as the epitome of all the virtues, the capitalist as his moral opposite. This view cannot be other than erroneous, considered from any standpoint. Moral evil cannot affect one part of a closely united society without affecting the other parts also, though it may assume different forms in different parts. This should be, in reality, the Socialist's strongest argument, and is, indeed, one which he constantly makes use of in other connections. If the steady labor of one class is often associated with certain virtues, there are many elements of its surroundings which tend to develop and encourage certain vices also; and if, on the other hand, excessive wealth is often the condition, as well as the result, of selfishness, still the relief from material anxieties may be used, on the other hand, as opportunity for other useful labor, and leaves room, indeed, for a development of finer intellectual and moral qualities. To reply that much greater good would accompany other conditions is irrelevant; for we are not now comparing actualities with ideals, but one class of people with another under existing circumstances.

A somewhat similar phase of idea to that just considered is found in the agitation against machinery. This agitation is not of recent date, however; it began over two centuries ago, andwould, if it had succeeded, have deprived the world of nearly all the comforts and conveniences which have, since then, become possible. Doubtless the abolishment of machinery would temporarily furnish labor to all the unemployed. Indeed, it has been computed, from facts supplied by the statistical bureau of Berlin, that it would require about double the number of inhabitants now on the face of the globe to perform the labor accomplished by the steam works of the principal civilized lands. But the increase of the earth's inhabitants depends, to a great extent, on the favorable or unfavorable circumstances of the environment; and we cannot suppose otherwise than that the sudden accession of abundant means of livelihood would cause a very great acceleration of the rate of increase and so a speedy return of the old problem. Even supposing that a certain recklessness of sexual indulgence would be done away with under better circumstances which afforded access to other means of pleasure than the purely physical, this over-indulgence leads quite as often to sterility and disease as to excess of offspring. Habit and opinion not being matters of instantaneous or even rapid change, the new order of society would very largely depend upon the character and ideas acquired under the old order, and population must increase with a rapidity fostered by an immense multiplication of regular marriages, and by more healthful surroundings for offspring at all ages. Unchecked, as hitherto, by the excessive mortality due to famine, filth, and neglect, it must soon arrive at a point where the questions of competition again present themselves. But machinery is a relative term. Every tool and device for lightening labor is, in fact, a machine, and takes, by definition, from the labor of the world. When, therefore, we should find ourselves face to face with the former conditions, I do not see that any consistent course would lie before us but the doing away with our more complicated tools, and, later, with our less complicated ones, and so on, as the increase of the world's inhabitants brought again and again the recurrence of questions of competition, until we should arrive, at length, at that ancient state of things where all transport would be made by porters, land ploughed by the pointed stick, and clothes—if we consented to withdraw labor from the cultivation of the earth for the manufacture of such luxuries—would require for the preparation of each garment several weeks, months, or even years of work. I do not see where else the theory of the abolishmentof machinery for the sake of supplying labor to the unemployed can logically and practically lead, especially as the withdrawal of machinery must mean, in the end, the withdrawal of those opportunities for cultivating the arts and sciences which the leisure from merely mechanical pursuits alone can give. Under more primitive conditions of labor, the ignorance of the masses must spread more and more, until its widening circle must take in the great majority of men, as was the case when these primitive conditions prevailed. In other words, the abolishment of machinery means social retrogression, and, if affording temporary relief, leaves the race, in the end, on a lower plane of evolution, with the work of advancement to its former plane all to do over again.

And this brings us to the consideration of another point, namely, the agitation against luxury,—an agitation carried on not, like that against machinery, by only a portion, if a considerable portion, of the Socialist party, but by that party as a whole. We may inquire, then, as to what luxury is. The Socialists find considerable trouble in defining it; they generally content themselves with the word alone, leaving it undefined or referring, with a general indefiniteness, to "velvets, jewels, and laces," or "diamonds and silks"; the German Socialists have sometimes shown particular antipathy to the glacé glove; and a society of English Socialists listened, not long ago, to a lecture in which, as an example of the reforms proposed by Socialism, it was prophesied that the evening-dresses of the future would be made of more lasting though not less delicate and beautiful material. This last would assuredly be desirable, if it could be carried out; but it remains to be seen in how far it is practicable. The things which are the most delicate, whether they be clothing or other articles, are ordinarily likewise the most perishable; the union of delicacy of texture with endurance is a problem that can be solved only by gradual improvement if at all; and it is probable that it can be solved only relatively in some cases and not at all in others; yet there are few people who will not find delicacy an attribute of beauty. Few will disagree with M. de Laveleye that beauty of costume must consist rather in harmony of colors and purity of line than in the mere costliness of the goods; however, in a large number of cases, excess of price corresponds to some actual superiority of color, durability, or texture, in the goods. Doubtless it is true that some things (M. de Laveleyeinstances opium) may cost much money and yet be useless or even harmful; but this very limited assertion cannot, by any logical method, be converted into an assertion that the price of an article is an argument against it. Even the extra price demanded and paid for novelties corresponds to an actual, general desire for variety, and if this is often carried too far, the fact still remains that the want is inherent in all human nature, indeed, in all life, and cannot be entirely disregarded. The proposal of M. de Laveleye to reinstitute a national dress is, for this reason, a foolish and inartistic one. No two people are suited to exactly the same costume; and the more society develops the more the individual shows a desire for individuality in dress. No nation with a sense of beauty will ever consent to eternal sameness.

Luxury is relative, as M. de Laveleye himself acknowledges. We might define it, as he does at one point,[277]by excess of price or labor expended. In that case, such articles as those African dresses which it takes several years to manufacture would assuredly come under the head of luxuries, and must, as such, be condemned from the standpoint of the tribal plane of advancement; though they are not equal in texture or taste of ornamentation to many of the cheapest of English goods, within the reach of all but the very poorest. What are, with Europeans, the bare necessities, or comforts of lowest grade, represent the extreme of luxury to the Africans on whose plane our ancestors once stood. Many of the things which are regarded by the average individual of to-day as indispensable—every-day comforts—were within the reach of only the wealthy few, a century ago, and could be had only as rare and choice articles, to be preserved with the greatest care. The comforts of a century ago represent, again, the luxuries of a preceding age, and so on. Almost all products of labor are costly and rare before they can become cheap and abundant. Had our ancestors entertained a socialistic prejudice against the luxuries of their age, and resolved, with one accord, to forego their manufacture as supplying only artificial needs, we should not have had them to-day; but it is doubtful whether the social problem would be any nearer solution than it is. The agitation against machinery, at least, is ill combined with an agitation against luxury; for every removal of machinery must make luxuries out of what were, before, mere comforts, and advance the thingsnow regarded as necessities to the plane of the present comforts, as far as expenditure of labor is regarded. M. de Laveleye distinguishes between rational and primitive needs and irrational, "superfluous," or "spurious," ones; and he defines the rational ones as those which reason asserts and hygiene determines.[278]But from the merely hygienic point of view, every need bears with it, by its very existence, a title to some consideration, health and the gratification of desires being most intimately connected. Certainly luxury is not necessarily inconsistent with the most healthy physique, or the longest life. Many of the things ordinarily looked upon as luxuries present unusually favorable conditions for health. Nor can the question be decided by arbitrarily pronouncing all desires for luxury "spurious." To M. de Laveleye and a minority of others they may appear so; but what right has the individual to the assumption that all needs beyond his own are spurious? Even the poorer classes of society would, for the most part, be very glad to possess the luxuries of the rich, and find them desirable; in other words, those desires which M. de Laveleye pronounces spurious appertain to very nearly all human beings who have at all formed a conception of their possibility. The savage does not desire what we term luxury in as far as he knows nothing of it. The argument that luxury is wrong or irrational simply because men once were able to do without it is by no means conclusive. The conditions of life, the employments of human beings, are far different now from those of the time when men "lived in houses of osier." "Primitive" the desire for luxury may not be; but if we attempt to determine what is primitive in man, we shall meet with excessive difficulties. And again, if we decide the question on the basis of any assumption against the non-primitive, we must, in all consistency, exclude, as has already been said, all higher ethical emotion and the love of art and science; none of these can be pronounced primitive. Possibly we might define hunger, thirst, sexual appetite, and the desire for a comfortable degree of warmth, as the most primitive human needs; and these, indeed, are soon satisfied; but the man who has no needs beyond these can not represent the social ideal. The whole history of civilization from century to century is the history of the formation of new needs and the gradual satisfaction of these in larger and larger circles, until their objects, from costlyand hardly obtainable rarities, have become articles of common use. With this course of development, coarseness has decreased, refinement and taste have become more general. Nor can we, as has before been stated, divide the human being into his separate desires and functions, and assume that he can get rid of this or that one without influencing all. The desires of the human being are of organic growth, and the desire for luxury has an organic connection with the taste and refinement with which it has grown. It is impossible that the love of beauty in general should develop without the appearance of a desire for beauty in the details of every-day life,—in utensils, clothing, surroundings of every sort; as it is impossible, also, that this desire for beauty in particulars should be dispensed with without a corresponding retrogression in refinement and love of beauty in general. One of the chief expenses of American entertainments is the profusion of flowers used in decoration, and often most artistically arranged; and whatever else may be said on the subject, the pleasure derived from them can scarcely be termed spurious or irrational. Not all large sums spent by the rich are given for mere display or for sensuality; they may be spent for scientific experiments on a large scale, like those of Edison, for travel, for books, for statuary and fine pictures, for fine architecture, for rich tapestries and carpets, and even in great measure for appliances and methods that secure greater cleanliness and more healthful ways of living altogether. Nor are the appliances of art and culture as desirable in huge museums or draughty and ill-ventilated libraries, or anywhere else where the individual is forced into the noise and numerous other annoyances of a promiscuous crowd, as in his own home, arranged according to his own peculiarities of taste, and associated with all the joys of love and domestic freedom. When sympathy has become so general and so strong that not only men but women also can find their best intellectual enjoyment in public places, these reasons will cease to be of any force, but at present they have even moral force; and since inherent character is a matter of evolution, a condition of general sympathy and mutual consideration, and even of universal common decency, must be of slow growth. It may further be said, in particular, that there is no material more used by artists than the so-much-decried velvet; again, many people of taste, who otherwise spend money for little more than the necessities of life, find a peculiardelight in the delicacy of fine laces, and are willing to forego many other pleasures in order to possess them. George Eliot's Dorothea, otherwise simple of habit, content with her plain wool gown, found a peculiar fascination in the colors of an emerald bracelet, and numerous persons confess to a similar pleasure in the changing rainbow of the diamond, or the clear blue of the sapphire. These desires and pleasures exist; they exist in people of comparative taste; they exist as the result of human progress; they are not confined to a few individuals; and they cannot be dismissed with a mere arbitrary definition of them as "artificial," "superfluous," "irrational," or "spurious."

The more cultivated Socialist complains of the lack of taste in society; and an artist who is also a Socialist not long ago expressed his regret that art was at present "unable to prevent" the wearing of unbecoming forms of dress, etc. But we trust that this is not a hint that socialistic government would undertake to decree what forms of dress should be adopted; and we scarcely think that it could supply taste itself to all people, or render differences of taste impossible. Taste is, like everything else, a matter of evolution; it must make its experiments, and undergo many failures for every step in advance. The modern average of taste is as much in advance upon the average of our savage ancestors as the modern average of morals is an advance upon savage morals. The ideal of taste is, by definition, above the average; and it may be doubted whether the time will ever come when there will not be both degrees and differences of taste, and also an æsthetic superiority of taste among those who devote their lives to art that will render the average "poor" to them.

If, then, we are to condemn luxury on any tenable scientific grounds, we must face the fact that it is an organic feature of the progress of human society in intellectual and moral character, and a part of human happiness; and we must show, over against these undeniable facts, outweighing reasons for condemning it. The matter is more difficult than a superficial Utilitarianism perceives.

The question seems to be one of the relinquishment of certain things on the part of one class, in order that another may be elevated to a higher plane. Certainly, no one can deny that the present misery and degradation in society is a moral wrong, andthat it is our duty to seek some method by which it may be removed as speedily as possible. But what is the degree of relinquishment which will suffice to raise all the poor to a plane of comfort? Without defining the tastes for the refinements or elegancies of life as "spurious," or, except as they are personally injurious or associated with idleness, as in themselves bad, we must admit that there are many exaggerations of expenditure for the mere pleasure of the moment to a very small minority of individuals, which, in view of the joys the same sums might secure for multitudes, cannot be justified. But suppose that we do away with the spending of immense sums for the entertainment of princes and potentates, with the lavishing of wealth on a single dinner, on a single reception, on carriages built for the mere purpose of carrying a single millionaire bride to the church-door, and with the other expenses of this order; shall we be able, as a result, to supply all the destitute with comforts? Or to what length must we go, to what grade of luxury must we descend in our reforms, in order to secure this? It would certainly not be for the general good that society as a whole should relinquish all the refinements that it has won in its evolution and be reduced to a mere bread-and-butter level in the equalizing process. Beyond the superficial utilitarian comparison of the two classes we have to consider also the welfare of society as a whole. If we cannot morally defend the sacrifice of the general good to one class, neither can we defend its sacrifice to another class.

And here we come again to the population question. It is foolish to suppose that character, as already formed, at any period, in adults, as inherited correlative with physical organization, and as further influenced by the contact of children with parents, husbands with wives, friends with friends, and classes with classes, could be changed in the twinkling of an eye. It is foolish to suppose that men would become all at once, with the accession of comfort, wise, prudent, self-controlled, and unselfish. On the contrary, those unused to prosperity are generally the ones who use it least well when their lot is suddenly changed. Many would not perceive or realize what results their action would have on the condition of future generations, and many would not care as long as they themselves escaped those results. We cannot, therefore, conceive otherwise than that the rate of increase of population would suffer an immense acceleration, were prosperityto be all at once secured to all classes. Supposing, then, that the equalization of wealth, or that even comfort to the poorer classes, were possible without a return to too primitive a standard of life for all society, would the reform be a permanent one?

The population question is one that the majority of Socialists systematically avoid. But however avoided theoretically, it cannot be avoided when we come to practice; and for this reason practical men are likely to steer clear of theories that take no account of it. There is a reason for this almost universal avoidance of the population question by Socialists; it is, in fact, a question which stands in the way of the very large majority of socialistic projects. But even the more advanced of Socialists take but little notice of its importance. At a recent meeting of the London Fabian Society, a large number present seemed to agree with a member who argued that population might be left to take its own course since "there is only a tendency" to too rapid increase. Naturally, there is only a tendency to increase beyond the food supply, since beyond this limit comes—death from privation and disease; and since even beyond the limit of comfort come morbid conditions which gradually bring death. If the theory of the Fabian in question is notlaisser faire, then I do not know what is. But the population question never has solved itself and never will; it can only be solved by definite intention.

At the same discussion mentioned above, another debater objected to any decrease in the size of the families of laborers, on the ground that such decrease would tend to lower wages and so also to lower the standard of life. But the payment of higher wages, either on an average to correspond with an actual average of larger families, or in particular cases in view of the size of family in these cases, can never constitute a raising of the standard of life; on the contrary, the wages would be paid on the old standard for the individual, and competition would be increased by the actual increase of population. The standard of life is, and can be, raised only as a higher standard for the individual is demanded and obtained.

But to these various arguments may be objected by the Socialists that under socialistic government the whole environment of human society would be changed, and so the old rules would be of no force. And this brings us to another point.

A word continually in the mouth of certain of the Socialists is"environment." Man is what he is, say they, by virtue of his environment. Change the environment, and he must change. The present bad condition of things is due to the environment; crime is the effect of poverty, selfishness of competition; therefore, we have but to introduce the socialistic form of government in order to do away with poverty and crime at the same time with competition. The argument is attractive and seems to solve the question as easily and indisputably as if it were a mere elementary problem in Geometry. But the solution does not at all harmonize with the course of analysis followed in this essay. From the idea of an individual introduced into social conditions where poverty is absent, it generalizes to the whole of society introduced to a new set of laws. It forgets, in its definition of environment, thatmen themselves are the most important factor of the environment, and that,in order tochange the environment, one must change the moral character of men with respect to each other. The whole argument makes the mistake of choosing the one of two concomitants as alone cause and regarding the other as alone effect. It is perfectly true that, if you can abolish poverty, you will also have abolished crime and sin; and, without looking farther, the Socialist regards this as conclusive evidence that the system he proposes is logically demonstrated to be the right and sure cure for present evil; but it may be added thatit is quite equally truethat, if you can abolish crime and sin, you will have abolished poverty, also; and then it may be further said that neither can be abolished, as a whole, first, in order that the other may be gotten rid of through its disappearance. Competition is no more the cause of selfishness, than selfishness is the cause of competition; the present legal system, the present form of government is no more the cause of the evils in society than the other evils in society are the cause of the defects in the present form of government. Man's nature is no more the effect of the social environment than the social conditions are the effect of his nature. Extreme poverty and crime or vice work reciprocally for each other's increase, or they increase and decrease with what may be termed oscillations; poverty results in vice and vice in poverty, or vice in poverty, and poverty again in vice; in the individual, either may be primary, may precede the other. It is as true that you must change men's characters in order to change all the outer evils of the environment as it is that youmust change the outer evils in order to change men's characters. It is as true that you must get rid of crime and vice in order to get rid of poverty as it is that you must get rid of poverty in order to get rid of crime and vice. Here is the new version of the serpent with its tail in its mouth; but here it is not a symbol of eternity, but of evolution.There is no one cause of the evils in society, but all existing things are interdependent conditions.There is, therefore, no possibility of getting rid of any one of them at one stroke, its abolishment to be followed by the disappearance of the others; as they increase, so they must decrease,—by reciprocal action, or complex action and reaction.

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