"6. We demand that the judicial oath in the courts and in all other departments of the Government shall be abolished, and that simple affirmation under the pains and penalties of perjury shall be established in its stead.
"7. We demand that all laws directly or indirectly enforcing the observance of Sunday as the Sabbath shall be repealed.
"8. We demand that all laws looking to the enforcement of "Christian" morality shall be abrogated, and that all laws shall be conformed to the requirements of natural morality, equal rights, and impartial liberty.
"9. We demand that not only in the Constitutions of the United States, and of the several States, but also in the practical administration of the same, no privilege or advantage shall be conceded to Christianity or any other special religion; that our entire political system shall be founded and administered on a purely secular basis; and that whatever changes shall prove necessary to this end shall be consistently, unflinchingly, and promptly made."
He knew how unlikely it was that the Association would agitate for anything; and in January, 1873, he published a call for organisation of liberal leagues, in order to obtain the freedom already asked. Such leagues were soon formed in most of the States, as well as in Germany and Canada. Among the members were Phillips, Garrison, Lucretia Mott, Higginson, and other famous abolitionists, Karl Heinzen and other radical Germans, several Rabbis and editors of Jewish papers, Inger-soll, Underwood, the editor ofThe Investigatoryand other active agitators, several wealthy men of business, Collyer, Savage, and other Unitarian clergymen. Hundreds of newspapers supported the movement; and eight hundred members had been enrolled before a convention of the National Liberal League met in Philadelphia, on the first four days of July, 1876. The managers of the International Exhibition in that city had already decided that it should be closed on Sunday, in violation of the rights, and against the wishes, of the Jews, unbelievers, and many other citizens. The Free Religious Association had been requested in vain, at a recent meeting, to remonstrate against this iniquity. The League passed a strong vote of censure without opposition, and appointed a committee to present a protest which had been circulated during the convention. Resolutions were also passed asserting the right of all Americans to enjoy on Sunday the public libraries, museums, parks, and similar institutions "for the support of which they are taxed," and demanding "that all religious exercises should be prohibited in the public schools."
It was under the influence of this example that the Free Religious Association held a special convention on November 15, 1876, to protest against the Sunday laws of Massachusetts. A Jewish Rabbi complained that more than two thousand Hebrew children in Boston were prevented from keeping holy the day set apart for rest and worship in Exodus and Deuteronomy, and many of them actually obliged by their teachers to break the Sabbath. This was the effect of the law commanding them to go to school on Saturday, which is that "seventh day" whose observance is required by the fourth commandment. Other speakers declared that no legislation was needed to ensure Sunday's remaining a day of rest. Mention was made of the fact that "any game, sport, play, or public diversion," not specially licensed, on Saturday evening, made all persons present liable to be fined. This was already a dead letter; and the theatres had announced with perfect safety twenty years before, in their playbills, "We defy the law." A few months after this convention, its influence was shown in the opening of the Art Museum free of charge to the people of Boston, Sunday afternoons.
Thus the Association began to co-operate with the National League; and the latter soon had the support of more than sixty local organisations. The movement for establishing "Equal Rights in Religion" was uniting Liberal Christians, Jews, independent theists, Spiritualists, materialists, evolutionists, agnostics, and atheists. All were willing to call themselves "Freethinkers" and work together as they have never done since 1877. Then the League felt itself strong enough to call for "taxation of church property," "secularisation of public schools," "abrogation of Sabbatarian laws," and also for woman suffrage, as well as compulsory education throughout the United States. Steps were taken towards nominating Ingersoll on this platform for President of the Republic.
These plans had to be abandoned; the agitation subsided; and the harmony between lovers of liberty from various standpoints was lost. A fatal difference of opinion was manifest in 1878, in regard to those Acts of Congress called "the Comstock laws."
These statutes forbade sending obscene literature through the mails; and there had been more than a hundred recent convictions. Some of the prosecutions were said to have been prompted by religious bigotry; and there seems to have been unjustifiable examination of mail matter. The most important question was whether the laws ought to be enforced against newspapers and pamphlets about free love and marital tyranny, which were not meant to be indecent but really were so occasionally. A publisher in Massachusetts was sentenced in June, 1878, to two years of imprisonment for trying to mail such a pamphlet; but he was soon released. More severe punishment has been inflicted recently for similar offences. The majority of people in America and England favoured the exclusion by law of indecent literature from circulation; and this course has been considered necessary on account of the known frailty of human nature. The members of the Free Religious Association were willing to have the Comstock laws changed, but not repealed; and they voted, early in 1878, to take no part in what threatened to be an unfortunate controversy. The League, however, was divided on the question whether these laws ought to be amended or repealed. Abbot, Underwood, and other prominent members declared that literature ought to be excluded from the mails or admitted according as it was intentionally and essentially indecent, or only accidentally so. Thus Ingersoll said: "We want all nastiness suppressed for ever; but we also want the mails open to all decent people." Other members held that the Comstock laws ought to be repealed entirely, and no restriction put on the circulation of any literature except by public opinion. This must be admitted to agree with the principle that each one ought to have all the liberty consistent with the equal liberty of everyone else; but this application of the theory cannot be considered politic in agitating for religious freedom. TheInvestigator, Truthseeker, and other aggressive papers, however, called for complete repeal; and a petition with this object received seventy thousand signatures.
The National League had voted, in 1876, that legislation against obscene publications was absolutely necessary, but that the existing laws needed amendment. The question whether this position should be maintained, was announced as the principal business to be settled in the convention which met at Syracuse on October 26, 1878. Mr. Abbot, the president, and other prominent officers declared that they should not be candidates for re-election if the position assumed two years before was not kept. Scarcely had the convention met, when its management passed into the hands of the friends of repeal. They allowed Judge Hurlbut, formerly on the bench in the Supreme Court of the State, to argue in favour of closing the mails against publications "manifestly designed or mainly tending to corrupt the morals of the young." Much respect was due to the author of a book which declared, in 1850, that married women had a right to vote and hold property, as well as that the State "cannot rightfully compel any man to keep Sunday as a religious institution; nor can it compel him to cease from labour or recreation on that day; since it cannot be shown that the ordinary exercise of the human faculties on that day is in any way an infringement upon the rights of mankind." On Sunday morning, October 27th, it was agreed that the question of repeal or reform should be postponed until the next annual convention; but the decision was made a foregone conclusion that afternoon, when three-fifths of the members voted not to re-elect Mr. Abbot and other champions of reform. The defeated candidates left the convention at once, as did Mr. Underwood and many other members, Judge Hurlbut taking the lead. A new league was organised by the seceders; but it was not a success.
The movement for amending, but not repealing, the Comstock laws was given up; and most of those who had favoured it took sides with those who had refused to agitate. There was little interest in "The Demands of Liberalism" thenceforth among the Liberal Christians, Reformed Jews, Transcendentalists, and evolutionists. These and other moderate liberals refuse to call themselves "Freethinkers"; and they make little attempt at collective and distinctive action. The Free Religious Association did nothing towards secularising the laws of Massachusetts between 1876 and 1884. The agitation which began in the latter year ended on May 27, 1887, when the Sunday laws were discussed at Boston in a large and enthusiastic convention. The Legislature had just passed a bill to legalise Saturday evening amusements, as well as boating, sailing, driving, use of telegraph, and sale of milk, bread, newspapers, and medicines on Sunday; the signature of the Governor had not yet been given; but it was agreed that these changes must be made, and for the reason that the old restrictions could not be enforced. Judge Putnam, of the State District Court, told the convention that "the Sunday law, so called, has not in a long, long time been enforced," except by "a prosecution here and there"; and that if it were to be enforced strictly, the prosecutions would occupy nearly all the week. He opposed any restraint on "entertainments not of an immoral tendency." Mr. Garrison, son of the famous abolitionist, declared that Sunday ought to be "the holiday of the week." Captain Adams, of Montreal, said: "This is not a mere question how much men may do or enjoy on Sunday: it is a question of human liberty, a question whether ecclesiastical tyranny shall still put its yoke on our necks." The tone was bold, but thoroughly practical from first to last.
An earnest protest against closing the Chicago Exposition on the people's day of leisure was made by the F. R. A., in May, 1893; and an important victory in behalf of religious liberty was won in 1898 in Massachusetts. The Sunday laws of this State have been so improved as to permit what are called "charity concerts," and are not made up entirely of ecclesiastical music, to be given for the pecuniary benefit of charitable and religious societies on Sunday evenings. The Legislature which met early in 1898 was asked by representatives of the Monday Conference of Unitarian Ministers, the Women's Christian Temperance Union, and several other religious organisations to alter the law so as to prevent any but "sacred music" from being heard on the only evening when many people in Boston can go to concerts. The officers of the F. R. A. made a formal request to be heard by a committee of the Legislature through counsel, who proved that the "charity concerts" were really unobjectionable, and that the opposition to them was due entirely to zeal for an ancient text forbidding Hebrews to labour on Saturday in Palestine.
The injustice of stretching this prohibition so far as to try to stop concerts on Sunday evenings in America was pointed out by representatives, not only of the F. R. A., but also of the International Religious Liberty Association, which has been formed to protect Christians who have kept the Sabbath on the original day set apart in Exodus and Deuteronomy, from being punished for not prolonging their rest from honest labour over an additional day, first selected by an emperor whose decrees are not worthy of reverence. This association has offices in Chicago, New York City, Toronto, London, Basel, and other cities; and its principles are ably advocated in a weekly paper entitled theAmerican Sentinel. Representatives of this organisation assisted those of the F. R. A. in forcing the "charity concerts" question to be decided on its own merits, independent of ancient texts. The members of the legislative committee made a unanimous report against suppressing these harmless amusements; and their opinion was sustained by their colleagues. This victory was duly celebrated at the annual convention of the F. R. A., in Boston, on May 27, 1898. Among the speakers that afternoon was the secretary of the I.R.L. A., who said: "If any nation under heaven has the right to confiscate one-seventh of my time, and tell how I shall and how I shall not use that, then the whole principle of inherent rights is denied, and it now is simply a matter of policy whether it shall not confiscate two-sevenths, three-sevenths, or seven-sevenths, and take away all my liberty."
Since 1878, the agitation for religious equality has been carried on mainly by materialistic atheists and agnostics, with some assistance from Spiritualists. These aggressive liberals continue to call themselves to Liberty in the Nineteenth Century.
"Freethinkers," and to support theInvestigatory Truthseeker, and other papers which have much to say against Sunday laws, religious use of the Bible in public schools, and exemption of churches from taxation. They often reprint "The Demands of Liberalism"; and one of these requests has been so amended in Canada as to ask for the repeal of "all laws directly or indirectly enforcing the observance of Sunday or the Sabbath." The attack on the Comstock laws has subsided; and no reference was made to them in 1897 in the call for a convention of the organisation which took the place of the whole system of national and local leagues in 1885. The name then chosen was "The American Secular Union." The words, "and Freethought Federation" were added in 1895, when two kindred associations were consolidated. It was under strong and constant pressure from these aggressive liberals that the great museums of art and natural history in New York were thrown open on Sundays to longing crowds. One of the petitions was signed by representatives of a hundred and twelve labour organisations. The trustees of the Art Museum were induced to open it in the summer of 1891 by the contribution of $3000, which had been collected by some young ladies for meeting extra expenses. Thirty-eight thousand people took advantage, in August, 1892, of their first opportunity to visit the Museum of Natural History on their one day of leisure; and these visitors were remarkable for good behaviour. There has been a similar experience in the Boston Art Museum ever since the Sunday opening in 1877.
VII. An exciting contest took place at Chicago in 1893. More than fifty nations were co-operating with the people of every one of the United States in commemorating the discovery of America. Disreputable politicians had persuaded Congress to pass a bill, by which closing the Exposition on Sundays was made a condition of receiving aid from the National Treasury. The people of Chicago had given three times as much, however, as Congress; and there was much dissatisfaction among those citizens who had bought stock in the enterprise. The grounds had been kept open to visitors for some months, Sunday after Sunday, until the buildings were formally thrown open on May 1st; and the receipts had been liberal enough to prove that continuance of this course would be greatly to the advantage of these shareholders, while Sunday closing might result in heavy loss. During the first three Sundays of May the gates were kept shut by order of the Board of National Commissioners, made up of members from every State. Their action and that of Congress had been sanctioned by petitions bearing millions of signatures; but it is a significant fact that the alleged signers in Pennsylvania were three times as many as the entire population of the State. Many people had been counted again and again as members of different organisations; and this fraud was committed in other parts of the country. No attempt to find out what the people really wished was made except in Texas; and there the majority was in favour of opening the gates. Sabbatarians acknowledged publicly that they got little support from the secular press; and much opposition was made to them by some of the great dailies, as well as by the organs of aggressive liberalism.
Sunday after Sunday in May the gates were surrounded by immense crowds who waited there vainly, hour after hour. Many of them could evidently not come on other days; and the number was so large that the local directors, who had been elected by the shareholders, voted on May 16th for opening both gates and doors. This action was warmly approved by the leading citizens of Chicago at a public meeting; but Sabbatarians demanded that visitors be kept out by Federal bayonets. The National Commissioners, however, permitted the entrance of a hundred and fifty thousand people on the last Sunday of May. On Monday, the 29th, a judge of Hebrew race, in a State court, pronounced the contract with Congress null and void, because the money had not been fully paid. He decided, accordingly, that there was no excuse for violating the Illinois law, which guaranteed the right of the citizens to visit on Sunday the park where the Exposition was held. This ensured the admission of visitors on June 4th, and for twenty of the remaining twenty-one Sundays. The Government buildings and many others, however, were closed; numerous exhibits, for instance, one of Bibles, were shrouded in white; machinery was not allowed to run; there were no cheap conveyances about the ground; and there was little opportunity to get food or drink. No wonder that the Sunday attendance was comparatively small; but there were one hundred and forty thousand paying visitors on October 22d and 29th.
This was a victory of the press rather than the platform. There has been no successor to the original Liberty League, and no rival to the Sunday Society. The latter was organised in 1875 in England, where there has been constant agitation since 1853 for opening the British Museum, Crystal Palace, and other public institutions to their owners on Sunday. Dean Stanley was president of this society; and among its members have been Herbert Spencer, Huxley, Tyndall, Charles Reade, Lecky, Miss Cobbe, Mrs. Craik, and many prominent clergymen. The real issue was stated clearly at one of the public meetings by Tyndall as follows: "We only ask a part of the Sunday for intellectual improvement." The justice of this request has been so far admitted that on May 24, 1896, all the national museums and galleries in London were opened for the first time on Sunday. Among these educational institutions from which the owners are no longer shut out are the National Gallery and the South Kensington, British, and Natural History Museums. Many libraries and museums in other parts of England were opened some years earlier.
VIII. Nowhere has the platform done so much to regenerate the pulpit as in Chicago. Religious history has been largely a record of strife. There was little brotherly feeling between clergymen of different sects in America before 1860; but they were often brought into co-operation by the great war. Even Unitarians were shocked to hear Emerson speak with reverence of Zoroaster in 1838; but he won only applause in 1869 when he spoke of the charm of finding "identities in all the religions of men." This was at a convention of the Free Religious Association, which has pleaded from the first for "fellowship in religion," and often made this real upon its platform. The secretary, Mr. Potter, said in 1872, that some of his hearers would live to see "a peace convention" "of representatives from all the great religions of the globe." Chicago was so peculiarly cosmopolitan that the local managers of the Columbian Exposition were glad to have products of the various intellectual activities of mankind exhibited freely. Ample provision was made for conventions in behalf of education and reform; but what was to be done for religion?
An orthodox citizen of Chicago, Mr. Charles Carroll Bonney, took counsel in 1891 with Rev. J. LI. Jones, a Unitarian, who has been preaching for twenty years the essential oneness of all religions. Rabbis, bishops, and doctors of divinity were consulted also; and thus was formed the committee which invited "the leading representatives of the great historic religions of the world for the first time in history," to meet in friendly conference and show what they "hold and teach in common," as well as "the important distinctive truths" claimed for each religion. Thus the Columbian Exposition offered an opportunity "to promote and deepen the spirit of human brotherhood among religious men of diverse faiths," "to inquire what light each religion has afforded or may afford to the other religions of the world," and, finally, "to bring the nations of the earth into a more friendly fellowship in the hope of securing a permanent international peace." Thus was announced the "Parliament of Religions." All the members were to meet as equals; and there was to be neither controversy nor domination. The Archbishop of Canterbury and some leading Protestants in America protested against abandoning the exclusive claims made for Christianity; and similar objections were offered by the Sultan of Turkey. The Jews, Buddhists, and other believers in the ancient religions welcomed the invitation, as did the dignitaries of the Greek Church, and also the Protestants on the continent of Europe, and many members of every Christian sect in the United States. The Catholic archbishops of America appointed a delegate; and many Methodist and Episcopalian bishops agreed to attend the Parliament.
The sessions were held in the permanent building erected in the centre of Chicago to accommodate the intellectual portion of the Exposition. Four thousand people assembled on Monday, September 11, 1893, to see a Roman Catholic cardinal mount the platform at 10 A.M., in company with the Shinto high-priest, an archbishop of the Greek Church, a Hindoo monk, a Confucian mandarin, and a long array of Buddhists and Taoists from the far East. All these dignitaries wore gorgeous robes of various colours. With them were a Parsee girl, a Theosophist, a Moslem magistrate from India, a Catholic archbishop from New Zealand, a Russian and an African prince, a negro bishop, several Episcopalian prelates, Rabbis, and Jewesses, missionaries returned from many lands, doctors of divinity of various Protestant sects, and the lady managers of the great Fair. A prominent Presbyterian pastor took the chair, and cordial declarations of the brotherhood of religions were made by Catholic archbishops, the Shinto high-priest, a Buddhist delegate, and the Confucian sent by the Emperor of China. Full hearing was given in subsequent sessions to advocates of the Jain religion, which is perhaps the oldest, as well as of the Parsee, Jewish, Moslem, Taoist, and Vedic faiths, besides a score of the leading Christian denominations. The Parliament lasted seventeen days; and the audiences were so large that most of the essays were repeated in overflow meetings. There were also some forty congresses held in smaller halls for speakers who could not find room on the great platforms. One of these meetings was held by Jewesses, of whom nineteen spoke. Some of them were also heard from the platform of the Parliament; as were many clergy women.
Mr. Underwood presided at the Congress of Evolutionists. There was also a convention of the Free Religionists, in connection with the Parliament which they had made possible; but "The Freethought Federation" could get no chance to meet in the great building, or even to sell pamphlets. Mr. Bonney had proposed a union of all religions against irreligion; and this would have been in harmony with the policy adopted by many States of the American Union. Their Sunday laws and similar statutes show a purpose of encouraging all the popular sects alike, with little regard for the rights of citizens outside of these favoured associations. Most of the speakers in the Parliament, especially the Buddhists, were so zealous for the brotherhood of man, that they protested against any discrimination on account of theology. The great audiences gave most applause to the broadest declarations; and the few utterances of Protestant bigotry were plainly out of place. The general tendency of the Parliament was strongly in favour of recognising the equal rights of all mankind, without regard to belief or unbelief. All legislation inconsistent with this principle will be swept away, sooner or later, by that great wave of public opinion which broke forth during the Parliament of Religions. There the golden age of religion began, and war must give place to peace.
WE have seen how the Transcendentalists tried to suppress vivisection, in spite of all it has done for the health and happiness of mankind. The sanguinary intolerance of Robespierre and other disciples of Rousseau was described earlier in this volume. And the notorious inability of Carlyle and Garrison to argue calmly with those who differed with them further illustrates the tendency of confidence in one's own infallibility. Only he who knows that he may be wrong can admit consistently that those who reject his favourite beliefs may be right. The Parliament of Religions showed that there has been a growing conviction of the equal rights of holders of all forms of belief and unbelief; this conviction has been promoted by recognition of two great facts: first, that knowledge is based upon experience, and, second, that no one's life is so complete that he has nothing to learn from other people. If they do not believe as he does, it may be merely because experience has taught them truth which he still needs to learn. Each one knows only in part; and therefore no one can afford to take it for granted that anyone else is completely in error.
I. This tolerant method of thought has gained greatly in popularity since Darwin proved its capacity to solve the problem of the origin of man. The possibility that all forms of life, even the highest, are results of a natural process of gradual development has often been suggested by poets and philosophers. The probability was much discussed by men of science early in the nineteenth century; but it was not until 1858 that sufficient evidence was presented to justify acceptance of evolution as anything better than merely a theory. Twenty-one years had then elapsed since Darwin began a long series of investigations. In the first place, he collected an irresistible number of cases of the influence of environment in causing variations in structure, and of the tendency of such variations to be inherited. Most men who accepted these propositions admitted their insufficiency to account for the multiplicity of species; but the explanation became complete when Darwin discovered that any plant or animal which is peculiarly fit for survival in the continual struggle for existence is likely to become largely represented in the next generation. A spontaneous variation which prolongs the life of its possessor may thus become not only more common but more firmly fixed in successive generations, until a new species is established.
To this tendency Darwin gave the name "natural selection"; but this term literally implies a deliberate choice by some superhuman power. Herbert Spencer proposed the phrase, "survival of the fittest"; but it must be remembered that the fitness is not necessarily that of greater moral worth.
There may be merely such a superiority in strength and cunning as enables savages to devour a missionary. Spencer says that "the expression, 'survival of the fittest,'" merely means "the leaving alive of those which are best able to utilise surrounding aids to life, and best able to combat or avoid surrounding dangers." Weeds are fitter than flowers for natural growth; and Joan of Arc proved unfit to survive in the contest against wicked men.
This discovery of Darwin's made it his duty to avow a view which was so unpopular that he felt as if he were about "confessing a murder." He was making "a big book" out of the facts he had collected, when a manuscript statement of conclusions like his own was sent him by Wallace, who had discovered independently the great fact of the survival of the fittest. Darwin wished at first to resign all claim to originality; but his friends insisted on his taking a share of the honour of the discovery. Accordingly an essay, which he had written in 1844, was read in company with that sent him by Wallace before the Linnæan Society, in London, on July 1, 1858. The importance of the new view was so well understood that the entire first edition, amounting to 1250 copies, of Darwin'sOrigin of Species, which book he wrote soon after, was sold on the day of publication, November 24, 1859. Other editions followed rapidly, with translations into many languages. No book of the century has been more revolutionary.
II. Theologians still insisted on the supernatural creation of each species of plant or animal, and especially of the human race, in its final form. The inference that man had been developed by natural processes out of some lower animal, was easily drawn from theOrigin of Species, though not expressly stated therein; and there was great alarm among the clergy. An Anglican bishop, who was nicknamed "Soapy Sam" on account of his subserviency to public opinion, declared in a leading quarterly that Darwin held views "absolutely incompatible" with the Bible, and tending to "banish God from nature." Other prominent Episcopalians called the new book "an attempt to dethrone God," and propagate infidelity. Cardinal Manning denounced the "brutal philosophy" which taught that "There is no God, and the ape is our Adam." Both Catholics and Protestants started anti-Darwinian societies in London, and, in 1863, Huxley saw "the whole artillery of the pulpit brought upon the doctrine of evolution and its supporters." The example of England was followed promptly by France and Germany. America was distracted by civil war; and her men of science were so few and timid that the denunciations of Darwinism which were prompted by the theological and metaphysical prejudices of Agassiz were generally accepted as final decisions. The position of the Unitarians and Transcendentalists may be judged from the fact that, during a period of nearly three years after the publication of theOrigin of Species, nothing was said about Darwinism in the extremely liberal divinity school where I was then a student. Evolutionism had to look for advocates in America to Spiritualists like Denton or unbelievers like Underwood at that period.
Clerical opposition increased the general unwillingness of scientific men to snatch up new views. As early as 1863, however, Darwin received the support of the famous geologist, Lyell, as well as of a younger naturalist destined to achieve even more brilliant success. Huxley has distinguished himself in arguments against the scientific value of the Bible. Among his other exploits was a demonstration that a chain, in which no link is missing, connects the horse with a small, extinct quadruped possessed of comparatively few equine peculiarities. In this case, transformation of species is an undeniable fact. Other young naturalists in England, as well as in Germany, gradually became willing to push the new view to its last results; and Darwin was encouraged to publish, in 1871, his elaborate account of the origin of our race, entitledThe Descent of Man. The wrath of the churches blazed forth once more; and Gladstone entered the arena. Englishmen ventured no longer to say much about the differences between Moses and Darwin; for the obvious retort would have been, "So much the worse for Moses." A German Lutheran, however, bade his congregation choose between Christ and Darwin; and the infallibility of Moses was asserted so zealously by a Parisian Catholic as to win formal thanks from the Pope.
America was now wide awake; irreligious tendencies were assigned to evolutionism by the president of Yale, as well as by some Princeton professors; and one of these latter warned believers in the development of man that they would be punished as infidels after death. The verdict of men of science has at last been pronounced so plainly as to be accepted by thoroughly educated people in the Northern States; but the Southerners are more bigoted. Even so late as 1894, a professor of biology at the University of Texas was dismissed, in violation of contract, for teaching evolutionism. A similar offence had been found sufficient, ten years before, by the Presbyterians of South Carolina, for driving a devout member of their own sect from his chair in a theological seminary. That popular writer on geology, Winchell, was requested in 1878 by a Methodist bishop to resign a professorship at Nashville, Tennessee, where he had expressed doubt of the descent of all men from Adam. The geologist refused to resign, and the chair was suppressed.
Voltaire's chief grievance was the intolerance of Christianity. Paine and Bradlaugh complained that there was much immorality in the Old Testament. The most damaging of recent attacks have been made in the name of science. Genesis and geology had been found irreconcilable before the appearance of Darwinism; but the new system widened the breach. The most serious offence to the theologian, however, was that he could not longer point without danger of contradiction to beneficial peculiarities in the structure of plants and animals, as marks of the divine hand. The old argument about design was met by a demonstration that such peculiarities were apt to arise spontaneously, and become permanent under the pressure of the struggle for existence. The theologian has had to retreat to the position that Darwinism has not accounted for the soul, the intellect, and especially the intuitions.
III. Whether Darwin succeeded or not in this part of his work is not so important as the fact that, several years before he announced his great discovery, an elaborate account of the process by which the powers of thought and feeling have been developed gradually out of the lowest forms of consciousness was given by Herbert Spencer. The first edition of hisPrinciples of Psychology, published in 1855, carried the explanation so far as to show the real origin and value of the intuitions. Their importance had been almost ignored by thinkers who relied entirely on individual experience, and greatly overrated by the Transcendentalists; but neither set of philosophers could explain these mysterious ideas. The infallibility of conscience is not to be reconciled with such facts as that Paul thought it his duty to persecute the Christians, or that Garrison, Sumner, John Brown, and Stonewall Jackson were among the most conscientious men of the century. The ancient Greeks agreed in recognising justice, but not benevolence, among the cardinal virtues; precisely the opposite error was made by Kant and Miss Cobbe; and a tabular view of all the lists of fundamental intuitions which have been made out by noted metaphysicians might be mistaken for a relic from the Tower of Babel. Emerson's religious instincts were not so much impressed as Parker's with the personality of God and immortality; but the difference seems almost insignificant when we remember what ideas of theology arose spontaneously in New Zealand. How widely the intuition of beauty varies may be judged from the inability of aesthetic Chinamen to admire the white teeth and rosy cheeks of an English belle. Intuition is plainly not an infallible oracle; but is it merely a misleading prejudice?
The puzzle was solved when Spencer showed that intuition is a result of the experience of the race. Courage, for instance, was so important for the survival of a primitive tribe in the struggle against its neighbours, that every man found his comfort and reputation depend mainly on his prowess. If he fought desperately he gained wealth, honour, and plenty of wives; but cowards were maltreated by other men and scorned even by the women. The bravest man left the largest number of offspring; and every boy was told so early and earnestly to be courageous as to develop a pugnacious instinct, which has come down to the present day in much greater strength than is needed for the ordinary demands of civilised life. We love war too much, because our ancestors were in danger of not loving it enough for their own safety. As courage ceased to be the one all-important excellence, industry, fidelity, and honesty were found so useful as to be encouraged with a care which has done much to mould conscience into its present shape. Other virtues were inculcated in the same way. The welfare of the family was found to depend largely on the fidelity of wife to husband; and the result was that chastity has held a much higher place in the feminine than in the masculine conscience. So our religious instincts owe much of their strength to the zeal with which our ancestors sought to avert the divine wrath. Thus we have ideas which were originally only vague inferences from primitive experience, but which have gradually gained such strength and definiteness, that they have much more power than if we had thought them out unaided by the past. Spencer himself says, "There have been, and still are, developing in the race certain fundamental moral intuitions" which "are the results of accumulated experiences of utility, gradually organised and inherited," but "have come to be quite independent of conscious experience." They "have no apparent basis in the individual experiences of utility"; and thus conscience has acquired its characteristic disinterestedness.
When we feel this inner prompting to a brave or honest action which must be done promptly or left undone, it is our duty to act without hesitation or regard to our own interest. We are serving our race in the way which its experience has taught. Suppose, however, that there is time enough for deliberation, and that we see a possibility of harm to our neighbours, our family, or even to our own highest welfare. In this case, we ought to compare the good and evil results carefully. We should also do well to consider what was the decision of the consciences of the best and wisest men under similar circumstances. If we neglect these precautions, we may be in danger of following not conscience but passion. There is also a possibility that conscience may embody only such primitive ideas of duty as have since been found incorrect. This has often been the case with persecutors and monarchists.
Generosity is still too apt to take an impulsive and reckless form which perpetuates pauperism. Spencer has taught us that conscience is worthy not only of obedience, but of education.
Spencer's attempt to substitute a thoughtful for a thoughtless goodness of character has been much aided by his protest against such undiscriminating exhortations to self-sacrifice as are constantly heard from the pulpit. Good people, and especially good women, welcome the idea of giving up innocent pleasure and enduring needless pain. The glory of martyrdom blinds them to the fact that, as Spencer says in hisPsychology, "Pains are the correlatives of actions injurious to the organism, while pleasures are the correlatives of actions conducive to its welfare." In other words, "Pleasures are the incentives to life-supporting acts, and pains the deterrents from life-destroying acts." Abstinence from pleasure may involve loss of health. Self-sacrifice is scarcely possible without some injury to mind or body; as is the case with people who make it a religious duty to read no interesting books and take scarcely any exercise on Sunday. It is further true that "The continual acceptance of benefits at the expense of a fellow-being is morally injurious"; as "The continual giving up of pleasures and continual submission to pains are physically injurious." Blind self-sacrifice "curses giver and receiver—physically deteriorates the one and morally deteriorates the other," "the outcome of the policy being destruction of the worthy in making worse the unworthy." No wonder that men are stronger, and also more selfish, than women. Almost all self-sacrifice involves loss of individual liberty. The subjection of women has been deepened by their readiness to sacrifice themselves to those they love; their fondness for martyrdom often leads them into the sin of marrying without love; and generosity of heart facilitates ruin. Women would really be more virtuous if they felt less obligation to their lovers and more to their race.
IV. Spencer's psychological discoveries were corollaries to that great principle of evolution of which he made the following announcement as early as 1857 in theWestminster Review. After declaring his belief in "that divergence of many races from one race which we inferred must have continually been occurring during geologic time," he stated that "The law of all progress is to be found in these varied evolutions of the homogeneous into the heterogeneous," or in other words, "out of the simple into the complex." The discoveries of Darwin and Wallace were not announced before 1858, but Spencer avowed in 1852 his belief in "the theory of evolution" or "development hypothesis," according to which "complex organic forms may have arisen by successive modifications out of simple ones." It was without any aid or suggestion from Darwin that Spencer's statement of the law of evolution was brought into the final form published in 1862. Evolution was then described as change, not only from the simple to the complex, but also from the chaotic to the concentric and consolidated, or, in Spencer's own words, "from an indefinite incoherent homogeneity to a definite coherent heterogeneity." Progress, he says, consists in integration as well as differentiation. There is an increase in permanence and definiteness as well as in variety. Higher forms are not only more complex and unlike than lower ones, but also more stable and more strongly marked.
Spencer has been represented by some Transcendentalists as Darwin's pupil; but the whole system just described would, in all probability, have been built up in substantially its present form, if both Darwin and Wallace had kept their discoveries to themselves. The only difference would have been that Spencer could not have been sustained by such a great mass of evidence. All these facts were collected by Darwin merely to prove the physical development of men and other animals from lower forms of life; but Spencer showed that all the phenomena of thought and feeling, as well as of astronomy, geology, and chemistry, are results of the great laws of integration and differentiation. All human history and social relations can be accounted for in this way. And if this extension had not been given to the principle of evolution, Darwin's discoveries might soon have ceased to have much interest, except for students of natural history. Each of the two great evolutionists helped the other gain influence; but their co-operation was almost as unintentional as that of two luminaries which form a double star.
V. Spencer has done much to diminish intolerance, by teaching, as early as 1862, that all religions are necessary steps in the upward march of evolution.
He has also attempted to reconcile religion and science, by teaching that the one all-essential belief is in a great unknowable reality, which is not only inscrutable but inconceivable. In writing about this supreme power, he uses capitals with a constancy which would look like an assumption of knowledge, if the same habit were not followed in regard to many other words of much less importance. He admits that "We cannot decide between the alternative suppositions, that phenomena are due to the variously conditioned workings of a single force, and that they are due to the conflict of two forces." "Matter cannot be conceived," he says, "except as manifesting forces of attraction and repulsion"; but he also says that these antagonistic and conflicting forces "must not be taken as realities but as our symbols of the reality," "the forms under which the workings of the unknowable are cognisable." This creed is accepted by many American evolutionists. It is the doctrine of one of Spencer's most elaborate and brilliant interpreters, Professor John Fiske, of such popular clergymen as Doctors Minot J. Savage and Lyman Abbott, and of many of the members of that energetic organisation, "The Brooklyn Ethical Association."The Open Courtof Chicago and other periodicals are working avowedly for "the Religion of Science"; but that is not to be established without much closer conformity to the old-fashioned creeds and ceremonies than has been made by Spencer. His later works seem more orthodox than his earlier ones; but his final decision is that "The very notions, origin, cause, and purpose, are relations belonging to human thought, which are probably irrelevant to the ultimate reality." He has also admitted that the proposition, "Evolution is caused by mind," "cannot be rendered into thought." And he is right in saying that he has nowhere suggested worship.
Whether he has proposed a reconciliation, or only a compromise, whether evolutionism will ever be as popular in the pulpit as Transcendentalism, and whether there is not more reality in the forces of attraction and repulsion than in Spencer's great unknowable, are problems which I will not discuss. Darwin was an agnostic like Huxley, who held that "We know nothing of what may be beyond phenomena," and "Science commits suicide when she adopts a creed." Huxley pronounced the course of nature "neither moral nor immoral, but non-moral," and declared that "The ethical progress of society depends not on imitating the cosmic process but on combating it." The severity of his criticism of the Gospel narratives called out threats of prosecution for blasphemy. He avowed "entire concurrence" with Haeckel, who holds that belief in a personal God and an immortal soul are incompatible with the fundamental principles of evolution. The German scientist argues in his elaborate history of the development of animals, that life is no manifestation of divine power, working with benevolent purpose, but merely the necessary result of unconscious forces, inherent in the chemical constitution and physical properties of matter, and acting mechanically according to immutable laws. The position of Haeckel and Huxley is all the more significant because Frederic Harrison knows of "no single thinker in Europe who has come forward to support this religion of an unknown cause."
VI. A much more important controversy has been called out by Spencer's theory of the limits of government. As early as 1842 he proposed "the limitation of state action to the maintenance of equitable relations among citizens." HisSocial Staticsdemanded, in 1850, as a necessary condition of high development, "the liberty of each, limited only by the like liberty of all." His ideal would be a government where "every man has freedom to do all he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man." These propositions are repeated in the revised edition of 1892, which differs from the earlier one in omitting a denial of the right of private property in land, and also a demand for female suffrage. How far Spencer had changed his views may be seen in his volume onJustice. Both editions ofSocial Staticsdeny the right of governments to support churches, public schools, boards of health, poorhouses, lighthouses, or mints. Spencer would have titles to land guaranteed by the State, and property-holders protected against unjust lawsuits; but otherwise the government ought to confine itself, he thinks, to managing the army, navy, and police.
This position is defended by an appeal to the fact that the citizen is most energetic and intelligent where he is most free to act for himself. No American is as helpless before pestilence or famine as a Russian peasant, or as afraid to go to a burning house until summoned by the police. A despotism may begin with a strong army; but it ends, like the Roman Empire, in the weakness which it has brought on by crushing the spirit of its soldiers. Strong governments make weak men. Never was there a mightier army than was given by the French Republic to Napoleon. Industrial prosperity depends even more closely than military glory on the energy of men who have been at liberty to think and act freely. People develop most vigorously where they are least meddled with. The average man knows much more than his rulers do about his own private business; and he is active to promote it in ways which secure the general welfare.
Great stress is laid not only inSocial Staticsbut in Spencer's book onThe Man versus the State, and in several essays, on the many times that the British Government has increased an evil by trying to cure it. What is said about its extravagance will not surprise any American who remembers what vast sums are squandered by Congress. The post-office is often spoken of as proof that our Government could run our railroads; but one of Boston's best postmasters said, "No private business could be managed like this without going into bankruptcy." The British Government has a monopoly of the telegraph; and introduction of the telephone was very difficult in consequence. In Victoria, the Postmaster-General has abused his privileges so much as to appoint a "sporting agent" to telegraph the results of a horse-race; and this same highly protectionist colony has had laws forbidding any shop to be open after 7 P.M., except on Saturday, and any woman to work more than forty-eight hours a week in any factory. How governments interfered in former centuries with people's right to feed, clothe, employ, and amuse themselves, seems almost inconceivable at present.
Persecution was one among many forms of mischievous meddling. Locke, in arguing for toleration in 1689, was obliged to take the ground that "The whole jurisdiction of the magistrate reaches only" to securing unto all the people "life, liberty, health," and also "outward things such as money, lands, houses, furniture, and the like." "Government," he said, "hath no end but preservation, and therefore can never have a right to destroy, enslave, or designedly to impoverish the subject." Clearer language was used by those French patriots who declared in the Constitution of 1791 that liberty consists in ability to do everything which brings no harm to others; and, two years afterwards, that the liberty of each citizen should extend to where that of some other citizen begins. Nearly fifty years later, a theory very like Spencer's was published by Wilhelm von Humboldt, brother of the great naturalist. Among the many writers who have held that government ought not to be merely limited but repudiated totally was Thoreau. It was in 1854 that this zealous abolitionist publicly renounced his allegiance to a great anti-slavery commonwealth, and that he asserted, inWalden, the necessity of preserving individual liberty by conforming as little as possible to any social usages, even that of working regularly in order to support one's self and family in comfort. That same year, Spencer showed in his essay onManners and Fashionthe difference between a regulation by which public opinion tries to prevent rude people from making themselves unnecessarily disagreeable to their neighbours, and one which encourages dissipation by arbitrarily check-ing innocent amusement. Even in the latter case, however, there is, as he says, but little gain from any solitary nonconformity. Reform must be carried on in co-operation.
That powerful assailant of Transcendentalism, John Stuart Mill, was not an evolutionist; but it was largely due to his liberal aid that the system of differentiation and integration was published. This generosity was consistent with his own position, that all opinions ought to have a hearing, and especially those which are novel and unpopular, for they are peculiarly likely to contain some exposure of ancient error or revelation of new truth. This fact was set forth with such ability in his book,On Liberty, in 1859, that several long passages were quoted in the public protest, delivered in Ohio five years later by Vallandigham, against the war then carried on for bringing back the seceded States. Mill holds that neither government nor public opinion ought to interfere with any individual, except "to prevent doing harm to others." He says, for instance, that there would be no tyranny in forcing parents to let their children have education enough to become safe members of society. Such a law could scarcely be justified by the principle of giving all the liberty to each compatible with the like liberty of all. Among the restrictions which Mill mentions as oppressive are those in England and America against selling liquor, gambling, and Sunday amusements. He admits the difficulty of deciding "how far liberty may be legitimately invaded for the prevention of crime."
VII. It was in full conformity with the principles of Mill, Spencer, and Locke that the Constitution of Louisiana, as revised in 1879, declared that the only legitimate object of government "is to protect the citizen in the enjoyment of life, liberty, and property. When it assumes other functions, it is usurpation and oppression." Similar sentiments have been occasionally expressed in political platforms. Such narrow limits have not, so far as I know, ever been observed in the United States or in any other civilised land. Few people love liberty so much as not to be willing that the state should give them security against conflagration and contagious disease. There is also a general demand for such safety as is given by roads, streets, bridges, lighthouses, and life-saving stations. The necessity of hospitals, asylums, and poorhouses is manifest. If all this expense had to be met by public-spirited individuals, it is probable that their wealth would prove insufficient. It is further necessary for the public safety that there should be compulsory vaccination during epidemics of smallpox, confinement of dangerous lunatics and tramps, rescue of children from vicious parents, and maintenance of what ought not to be called compulsory but guaranteed education. Marriage has to be made binding for the protection of mothers as well as children. The thirst for drink needs at least as much restraint as is kept up in Scandinavia. And the tendency of bad money to drive out good is strong enough to justify laws against circulation of depreciated currency.
Public schools are particularly important in America, where presidential and congressional elections are apt to turn on financial issues which can scarcely be understood by men not thoroughly educated. Spencer's objections apply more closely to the European system, that of centralisation of management, than to the American. It is well to know also that he was misled by a hasty reference, perhaps by some assistant, to an English statistician named Fletcher. This high authority did admit, in 1849, that he found "a superficial evidence against instruction." He went on, however, to say much which is not mentioned inSocial Statics, and which proved the evidence to be only superficial. By classifying crimes according to enormity, he showed that the worst were most frequent in the least educated districts. He also discovered that those counties in England where ability to sign the marriage register was most common were most free from paupers, dangerous criminals, and illegitimate children. "The conclusion is therefore irresistible," says Fletcher, "that education is essential to the security of modern society." Most of the other testimony brought forward inSocial Staticsis invalidated by Fletcher's method; and Spencer added nothing in the second edition to the insufficient statements in the first.
British education has improved greatly in both quality and quantity since 1876; but the prisons of England and Wales had only two-thirds as many inmates in 1890 as in 1878, and only one-half as large a part of the population. The most dangerous prisoners were only one-third as numerous in 1890 and 1891 as forty-five years earlier; and the percentage of forgers only one-tenth as great as in 1857. We ought further to remember the almost complete unanimity of opinion in favour of free education wherever it is universal.
Public schools in America are all the more useful because they are superintended by town and city officials, elected in great part by men who know them personally. This is also the case with the boards of health, and the managers of poorhouses, cemeteries, public libraries, and parks. Among other subjects of local self-government are the roads, bridges, streets, and sewers. Our large cities are notoriously misgoverned, but it will be easier to raise the character of the officials than to contract their powers. Much is to be hoped from civil service reform, proportional representation, and nonpartisan elections. Town affairs are usually so carefully looked after by people not in office as to be managed for the public welfare. Both in towns and cities the tendency is to enlarge rather than contract the functions of the government. A proposal that any city should let tenements or sell coal more cheaply than is done by individuals, would seem to be for the advantage of everybody except a few payers of heavy taxes. The majority of voters would care little about increase of taxation, in comparison with the prospect of more demand for labour and greater activity in business. It is easy to make extravagance popular where the majority rules. Our State constitutions would probably make it impossible for coal to be sold or tenements let by cities and towns; but these latter often carry on gas-works, water-works, electric roads, and other highly beneficial industries. This may be necessary to check the rapacity of corporations; but otherwise there is too much danger of extravagance, discouragement of individual enterprise, and delay in improving the processes monopolised by the municipality. Some evils would be lessened by a transfer of the control of lighthouses and life-saving stations from the national Government to that of the nearest cities, or else of single States.
Our people are much better able to judge of the success of State than of Federal legislation and management. Of course the chief duties of the State are to pass laws for the protection of life and property against crime, and to manage such indispensable penal, charitable, and educational institutions as are not provided by the municipalities. It is still necessary for the States of our Union to keep up the militia; but perhaps the best thing that could be done for the public safety would be to have tramps kept from crime, and assisted to employment by a State police. Ownership of real estate would be more secure, and sale easier, if titles were guaranteed by the State; and it would also do well, as Spencer suggests, to help people of moderate means resist lawsuits brought to extort money. It seems, at all events, well that our States keep up their boards of health, and their supervision of banks, railroads, steamboats, and factories. There are a great many unnecessary laws, as, for instance, was one in Massachusetts for selling coal below market price. This was fortunately decided to be unconstitutional; but whether this commonwealth ought to continue to supply free text-books, especially in high schools, seems to me questionable. Many individualists object to laws against gambling, selling liquor, and other conduct which does no direct injury except to those who take part voluntarily. There are vicious tendencies enough in human nature, I think, to justify attempts to keep temptation out of sight.
No advantage of this kind can be claimed for the Sunday laws in our Eastern and Southern States. It is certainly desirable to have one day a week of rest from labour and business; but it is equally true that a man's ploughing his field or weeding his garden does not infringe on the liberty of his neighbours, diminish their security of person and property, or encourage their vicious propensities, even on Sunday. It is setting a bad example to break any law; but I do not think that any citizen of Massachusetts was seriously corrupted by resisting the Fugitive Slave Act; and I doubt if any Vermonter was morally the worse for breaking the law in that State against Sunday "visits from house to house, except from motives of humanity or charity, or for moral and religious edification." It is better to have the laws obeyed intelligently than blindly; and those really worthy of respect would have more authority if every prohibition which is never enforced, except out of malice, were repealed. Much aid is given to morality by such religious observances as are voluntary and conscientious; but compulsory observance breeds both slaves and rebels.
How far our Sunday laws are meant to encourage the peculiar usages of the popular sects is seen in the fact that, since 1877, about 150 professed Christians, who had kept the Sabbath on the day set apart in the Bible, were arrested on the charge of having profaned Sunday by such actions as ploughing a retired field, weeding a garden, cutting wood needed for immediate use, or making a dress. They refused to pay any fine; most of them were imprisoned accordingly; in one case the confinement lasted 129 days; two deaths were hastened by incarceration; and in the summer of 1895 eight of these "Saturdarians," as they were nicknamed, were working in a chain-gang on the roads in Tennessee. One of the eight was a clergyman. Among the commonwealths which prosecuted observers of the original Sabbath as Sabbath-breakers were Georgia, Maryland, Missouri, Arkansas, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and seven other States. Such prosecutions were too much like persecutions; for people who kept neither Saturday nor Sunday were not so much molested. If the Sunday laws were really meant for the public welfare, every citizen would be allowed to choose his own Sabbath, and no one who kept Saturday sacred would be required to rest on Sunday also. Such liberal legislation has actually been passed by Rhode Island and many other States.
How strict the law is against doing business on Sunday may be judged from the fact that in 1896 a decrepit old woman was sent to jail in New York City for selling a couple of bananas, and a boy of fifteen was arrested for selling five cents' worth of coal in January. Three men were fined for selling umbrellas in the street on a rainy Sunday in 1895, and others were arrested for selling five cents' worth of ice. People who have no refrigerators suffer under the difficulty of buying ice, fruit, and meat on a hot Sunday in our Eastern cities.
Sunday laws and customs differ so widely in our various States, that they cannot all be wise and just. Rest from labour and business is secured in Southern California, without State legislation, by the action of public opinion; and were this to become too weak, it would be reinforced by the trades-unions. Personal liberty is not necessarily violated by laws prohibiting disturbance of public worship; but it would be if anyone were compelled to testify in court, or sit on the jury, or do any other business elsewhere, on any day set apart for rest by his conscience and religion. There seems to be little necessity for other legislation, except under peculiar local circumstances to which town and city magistrates are better able than members of State and national legislatures to do justice. The question, what places of business that have no vicious tendencies ought to be allowed to open on Sunday, might settle itself, as does the question how early they are to close on other days of the week. There needs no law to prevent business being done at night. Stores which could offer nothing that many people need to buy on Sunday, would have so few customers that the proprietors could ill afford to open their doors. Where the demand is as great and innocent as it is for fresh meat and fruit in hot weather, the interest of the proprietor is no more plain than is the duty of the legislator and magistrate. People employed in hotels, stables, telegraph offices, libraries, museums, and parks, can, of course, protect themselves from overwork, as domestic servants do, by stipulating for holidays and half-holidays.
Whatever may be the gain to public health from cessation of labour and business on Sunday, there is no such advantage, but rather injury, from the prohibition of healthy recreations and amusements, which are acknowledged to be perfectly innocent on at least six days of the week. Sunday is by no means so strictly observed, especially in this respect, on the continent of Europe as in the United States. Sabbatarianism is peculiarly an American and British institution; and this fact justifies the position that it is by no means a necessary condition of the security, or even the welfare, of civilised nations. If our Sunday laws cannot be proved to be necessary, they must be admitted to be oppressive. Over-taxation is but a slight grievance compared with the tyranny of sending men and women to jail for inability or unwillingness to pay the fines imposed in 1895 by the State of Tennessee for working on their farms, or in Massachusetts soon after for playing cards in their own rooms. Further consideration of the question, what amusements should be permitted on Sunday, will be found in an appendix.
Such problems are peculiarly unfit for treatment by our central Government. Its chief duty, of course, is protection of our people against invasion and rebellion; and the authority of the President and Congress ought not to be weakened by vain attempts to settle disputes which would be dealt with much more satisfactorily by the cities and towns. A Sunday law too lax for Pennsylvania might be too strict for California. The system of post-offices is too well adapted for the general welfare to be given up hastily; but the Government ought to surrender the monopoly which now makes it almost impossible for citizens to free themselves from dependence on disobliging or incompetent postmasters. I have nothing to say against the Census, Education, Health, and Patent Bureaus, nor against the Smithsonian Museum, except that our citizens have a right to use their own property as freely on Sunday as on any other day of the week. I do not see why our Government should have more than that of other nations to do with the issue of paper money; but I leave the bank question to abler pens.
The tariff is a much plainer issue. We are told inSocial Staticsthat "A government trenches upon men's liberties of action" in obstructing commercial intercourse; "and by so doing directly reverses its function. To secure for each man the fullest freedom to exercise his faculties, compatible with the like freedom of all others, we find to be the state's duty. Now trade-prohibitions and trade-restrictions not only do not secure this freedom, but they take it away, so that in enforcing them the state is transformed from a maintainer of rights into a violator of rights." The obstacles to importation deliberately set up by American tariffs, indirectly check exportation; for unwillingness to buy from any other nation diminishes not only its willingness but its ability to buy our products in return. The United States are actually exporting large amounts of cattle, wheat, and cotton, as well as of boots and shoes, agricultural implements, steel rails, hardware, watches, and cotton cloth. These commodities are produced by Americans who can defy foreign competition. In some cases the tariff enables them to raise their prices at home, to the loss of their fellow-citizens. Prices abroad cannot be raised by our Government. What it can and does do is to burden both farms and factories by duties on lumber, glass, coal, wool, woollen goods, and many other imports. The rates are arranged with a view to increase, not individual liberty or public security, but the profits of managers of enterprises which would not pay without such help. Men who are carrying on profitable industries have to make up part of what is lost in unprofitable ones. In fact, the cost of living is increased needlessly for all our citizens, except the privileged few.
There would be less injustice in aiding new enterprises by bounties; but the proper authorities to decide how much money should be voted for such purposes are the cities and towns. Some of the makers of our national Constitution wished to make tariff legislation in Congress impossible except by a majority of two-thirds; and this might properly be required for all measures not planned in behalf of individual liberty or the public safety. Much of the business now done by the nation ought to be transferred to the States. They took the lead between 1830 and 1870 in improving rivers and harbours, building railroads, and digging canals. The result of transferring such work to Congress was that in 1890 it voted $25,000,000 to carry on 435 undertakings, more than one-fourth of which had been judged unnecessary by engineers. Two years later, four times as many new jobs were voted as had been recommended by the House committee. Among these plans was one, in regard to the Hudson River, which was the proper business of the State of New York. The extravagance of our pension system is notorious. If the restriction proposed by Spencer is applicable anywhere, it is to central rather than local governments.
VIII. Great as are the evils of unnecessary laws, Spencer's remedy is too sweeping to be universally supported by evolutionists. Huxley protests against it as "administrative Nihilism," and declares that if his next-door neighbour is allowed to bring up children "untaught and untrained to earn their living, he is doing his best to restrict my freedom, by increasing the burden of taxation for the support of gaols and workhouses which I have to pay." His conclusion is that "No limit is or can be theoretically set to state interference." The impossibility of drawing "a hard and fast line" is admitted even by so extreme an individualist as Wordsworth Donisthorpe, who complains that "Crimes go unpunished in England," while the "Great National Pickpocket" is busy "reading through all the comedies and burlesques brought out in the theatres," "running after little boys who dare to play pitch-farthing," or "going on sledging expeditions to the North Pole."
Lecky agrees so far with Spencer and Mill as to say, inDemocracy and Liberty, that punishment should "be confined, as a general rule, to acts which are directly injurious to others," and accordingly that "With Sunday amusements in private life, the legislator should have no concern." As a check to over-legislation, he recommends biennial sessions, instead of annual; and he protests against the despotism of trades-unions. His strongest point against Spencer is that sanitary legislation has added several years to the average length of life in England and Wales, prevented more than eighty thousand deaths there in a single year, and actually reduced the death-rate of the army in India by more than four-fifths.
IX. Spencer has succeeded in increasing the number of individualists so much, that Donisthorpe says they can be counted by the thousand, though there were scarcely enough in 1875 in England to fill an omnibus. Transcendentalism had made individualism comparatively common long before in America. The principle of not interfering with other people, except to prevent their wronging us, is fully applicable, as Spencer says, to the relation of husband with wife, and also to that of parent and teacher with child. It could also be followed with great advantage in the case of domestic servants. There can be no doubt of the correctness of the position, taken in thePrinciples of Sociology, that delight in war has a tendency to stifle love of liberty. Sparta, Russia, and the new German Empire show that where the ideal of a nation is military glory, "The individual is owned by the State." The citizens are so graded, that "All are masters of those below and subjects of those above." The workers must live for the benefit of the fighters, and both be controlled closely by the government. Armies flourish on the decay of individual rights. How difficult it was to avoid this, during some bloody years, even in America, has been shown in Chapter IV. A nation of shopkeepers is better fitted than a nation of soldiers to develop free institutions.