IV—OBJECTIVE MAXIMS.

IV—OBJECTIVE MAXIMS.[Contents]CHAPTER XVI.FOREST CULTURE.[Contents]A.—LESSONS OF INSTINCT.It is wonderful how often instinct has anticipated the practical lessons of science. Long before comparative anatomy taught us the characteristics of our digestive organs the testimony of our natural predilections indicated the advantages of a frugal diet. Long before modern hygiene pointed out the perils of breathing the atmosphere of unventilated dormitories the evidence of our senses warned us against the foulness of that atmosphere. And ages before the researches of agricultural chemistry began to reveal the protective influence of arboreal vegetation, an instinct which the child of civilization shares with the rudest savage revolted against the reckless destruction of fine woodlands, and sought to retrieve the loss by surrounding private homes with groves and parks. The love of forests is as natural to our species as the love of rocks to the mountain-goat. Trees and tree-shade are associated with our traditions of paradise, and that the cradle of the human race was not a brick tenement or a wheat-farm, but a tree-garden, is one of the few points on which the genesis of Darwin agrees with that of the Pentateuch.[195]The happiest days of childhood would lose half their charm without the witchery of woodland rambles, and, like an echo of the foreworld, the instincts of our forest-born ancestors often awake in the souls of their descendants. City children are transported with delight at the first sight of a wood-covered landscape, and the evergreen arcades of a tropical forest would charm the soul of a young Esquimaux as the ever-rolling waves of the ocean would awaken the yearnings of a captive sea-bird. The traveler Chamisso mentions an interview with a poor Yakoot, a native of the North Siberian ice-coast, who happened to get hold of an illustrated magazine with a woodcut of a fine southern landscape: a river-valley, rocky slopes rising toward a park-like lawn with a background of wooded highlands. With that journal on his knees the Yakoot squatted down in front of the traveler’s tent, and thus sat motionless, hour after hour, contemplating the picture in silent rapture. “How would you like to live in a country of that kind?” asked the professor. The Yakoot folded his hands, but continued his reverie. “I hope we shall go there if we are good,” said he at last, with a sigh of deep emotion.The importance of hereditary instincts can be often measured by the degree of their persistence. Man is supposed to be a native of the trans-Caucasian highlands—Armenia, perhaps, or the terrace-lands of the Hindookoosh. Yet agriculture has succeeded in developing a type of human beings who would instinctively prefer a fertile plain to the grandest highland paradise of the East. Warfare has in like manner[196]engendered an instinctive fondness for a life of perilous adventure, as contrasted with the arcadian security of the Golden Age. There are men who prefer slavery to freedom, and think pallor more attractive than the glow of health, but a millennium of unnaturalism has as yet failed to develop a species of human beings who would instinctively prefer the dreariness of a treeless plain to the verdure of a primeval forest.[Contents]B.—REWARDS OF CONFORMITY.The love of forest-trees is a characteristic of the nature-abiding nations of the North, and has rewarded itself by an almost complete reversion of the original contrast between the garden lands of the South and the inhospitable wilderness of the higher latitudes. Forest destruction has turned Southern Europe into a desert, while the preservation of forests has made the homes of the hyperborean hunters an Eden of beauty and fertility. “One-third to the hunter, two-thirds to the husbandman,” was the rule of Margrave Philip in his distribution of forest and fields, and expresses the exact proportion which modern science indicates as most favorable to the perennial fertility of our farm-lands. In a single century the forest-destroying Spaniards turned many of their American colonies from gardens into sand-wastes, while, after fourteen hundred years of continuous cultivation, the fields of the Danubian Valley are still as fertile as in the days of Trajan and Tacitus. Along the river-banks and half-way up the foot-hills the arable land has been cleared, but higher[197]up the forest has been spared. All the highlands from Ratisbon toBuda-Pesthstill form a continuous mountain park of stately oaks and pines, and, as a consequence, springs never fail; crops are safe against winter floods and summer drouths; song-birds still return to their birthland, and reward their protectors by the destruction of noxious insects; meadows, grain-fields, and orchards produce their abundant harvest year after year; famine is unknown, and contagious diseases rarely assume an epidemic form. In Switzerland and Prussia the preservation of the now remaining woodlands is guaranteed by strict protective laws; Scandinavia requires her forest-owners to replant a certain portion of every larger clearing; in Great Britain the parks of the ancient mansions are protected like sacred monuments of the past, and landowners vie in lining their field-trails with rows of shade-trees. The fertility of those lands is a constant surprise to the American traveler disposed to associate the idea of eastern landscapes with the picture of worn-out fields. Surrounded by Russian steppes and trans-Alpine deserts, the homes of the Germanic nations still form a Goshen of verdure and abundance. Forest protectors have not lost their earthly paradise.[Contents]C.—PERVERSION.Sixteen hundred years ago the highlands of the European continent were still covered with a dense growth of primeval forests. The healthfulness and fertility of the Mediterranean coastlands surpassed that of the most favored regions of the present world,[198]and the dependence of those blessings on the preservation of the spring-sheltering woodlands was clearly recognized by such writers as Pliny and Columella, though their own experience did not enable them to suspect all the ruinous consequences of that wholesale forest destruction, which modern science has justly denounced as thene plus ultrafolly of human improvidence. Practical experiments had, however, demonstrated such facts as the failing of springs on treeless slopes, and the violence of winter floods in districts unprotected by rain-absorbing forests, and tree culture was practiced as a regular branch of rational husbandry. But with the triumph of the Galilean church came the millennium of unnaturalism. Rational agriculture became a tradition of the past; the culture of secular science was fiercely denounced from thousands of pulpits; improvidence, “unworldliness,” and superstitious reliance on the efficacy of prayer were systematically inculcated as supreme virtues; the cultivators of the soil were treated like unclean beasts, and for a series of centuries the garden regions of the East were abandoned to the inevitable consequences of neglect and misculture.Millions of acres of fine forest lands passed into the hands of ignorant priests, who, in their greed for immediate gain, and their reckless indifference to the secular welfare of posterity, doomed their trees to the ax, entailing barrenness on regions favored by every natural advantage of soil and climate. Drouths, famines, and locust-swarms failed to impress the protest of nature. Her enemies had no concern with such worldly vanities as the study of climatic vicissitudes,[199]and hoped to avert the consequences of their folly by an appeal to the intercession of miracle-working saints.[Contents]D.—PENALTIES OF NEGLECT.Yet the saints failed to answer that appeal. The outraged laws of nature avenged themselves with the inexorable sequence of cause and effect, and in spite of all prayer-meetings the significance of their crime against the fertility of their Mother Earth was brought home to the experience of the ruthless destroyers. In their net-work of moss and leaves forests absorb the moisture of the atmosphere, and thus nourish the springs which in their turn replenish the brooks and rivers. When the highlands of the Mediterranean peninsulas had been deprived of their woods the general failing of springs turned rivers into shallow brooks, and brook-valleys into arid ravines. Summer rains became too scarce to support the vegetation of the farm lands; the tillers of the soil had to resort to irrigation and eat their bread in a harder and ever harder struggle for existence, till vast areas of once fertile lands had to be entirely abandoned, and the arable territory of this planet was yearly reduced by the growth of an artificial desert. And while the summer drouths became more severe, winter floods became more frequent and destructive. From the treeless slopes of the Mediterranean coastlands winter rains descended like waterfalls, turning once placid rivers into raging torrents, and depriving the fields of their small remnant of fertile mould. Hillsides which in the times of[200]Virgil had furnished pastures for thousands of herds were thus reduced to a state of desolation almost as complete as that of a volcanic cinder-field; their dells choked with rockdebris, their terraces rent by a chaos of gullies and clefts, while the soil, swept from the highlands, was accumulated in mudbanks near the mouth of the river. Harbors once offering anchorage for the fleets of an empire became inaccessible from the ever-growing deposits of diluvium. Yearly mud inundations engendered climatic diseases and all-pervading gnat swarms. Insectivorous birds, deprived of their nest shelter, emigrated to less inhospitable lands, and the scant produce of tillage had to be shared with ever-multiplying legions of destructive insects. Along the south coasts of Italy the shore-hills for hundreds of miles present the same dreary aspect of monotonous barrenness. Greece is a naked rock; forests have almost disappeared from the plains of Spain and Asia Minor; in northern Africa millions of square miles, once teeming with cities and castles, have been reduced to a state of hopeless aridity. The Mediterranean, once a forest-lake of paradise, has become a Dead Sea, surrounded by barren rocks, and sandy or dust clouded plains. According to a careful comparison of the extant data of statistical computations, the population of the territory once comprised under the jurisdiction of the Cæsars has thus been reduced from 290,000,000 to less than 80,000,000,i.e., from a hundred to less than thirty per cent. In other words, an average of seventy-eight in a hundred human beings have been starved out of existence, and the same area of ground[201]which once supported a flourishing village, at present almost fails to satisfy the hunger of a small family. For we must not forget that modern industry has devised methods of subsistence undreamed of by the nations of antiquity, and that the religion of resignation has taught millions to endure degrees of wretchedness which nine out of ten pagans would have refused to prefer to the alternative of self-destruction. A whole tenement of priest-ridden lazaronis now contrive to eke out a subsistence on a pittance which a citizen of ancient Rome would have been too proud to ask a woman to share; yet with all their talent for surviving under conditions of soul and body degrading distress, only eight children of the Mediterranean coastlands can now wring a sickly subsistence from the same area of soil which once sufficed to supply twenty-nine men with all the blessings of health and abundance.[Contents]E.—REFORM.The discovery of two new continents has respited the doomed nations of the Old World, but the rapid colonization of those land supplements will soon reduce mankind to the alternative of tree-culture or emigration to the charity-farm of the New Jerusalem. In the words of a great German naturalist, “We shall have to work the world over again.” On a small scale the practicability of that plan has already been conclusively demonstrated. By tree-culture alone arid sand-wastes have been restored to something like tolerable fertility, if not to anything approaching their pristine productiveness. In the lower valley of[202]the Nile (the ancient Thebaïd) Ibrahim Pasha set out thirty-five million Circassian forest-trees, of which one-third at least took root, and by their growth not only reclaimed the sterility of the soil but increased the average annual rainfall from four to fifteen inches. In the Landes of western France a large tract of land has been reclaimed from the inroads of the coast sand by lining the dunes with a thick belt of trees, and some fifteen hundred square miles of once worthless fields have thus been restored to a high degree of productiveness. In the AustrianKarst, a sterile plateau of limestone cliffs and caves has been dotted with groves till the valleys have been refreshed with the water of resuscitated springs; and pasture-lands, long too impoverished even for the sustenance of mountain goats, once more are covered with herds of thriving cattle.The experience of the next three or four generations will not fail to make every intelligent farmer a tree-planter. Our barren fields will be turned into pine plantations, every public highway will be lined with shade-trees. The communities of the next century will vie in the consecration of township groves, in the founding of forestry clubs, in the celebration of arbor days and woodland festivals. The barren table-lands of our central states will be reclaimed, and before the end of the twentieth century the work of redemption will be extended to the great deserts of the Eastern continents. And as a hundred years ago armies of tree-fellers were busy wresting land from the primeval forest, in a hundred years more armies of tree-planters will be busy wresting land[203]from the desert. The men that will “work the world over again” will not be apt to forget the terms of their second lease.In turning up the soil of the reclaimed desert they will unearth the foundations of buried temples, temples once sacred to the worship of gods whose prophets drenched the world with blood to enforce the observance of circumcision rites, wafer rites, and immersion rites, and filled their scriptures with minute instructions for the ordinances of priests and the mumbling of prescribed prayers. In musing over the ruins of such temples, the children of the future will have a chance for many profitable meditations—the reflection, for instance: From what mistakes those alleged saviors might have saved the world if their voluminous gospels had devoted a single page to an injunction against the earth-desolating folly of forest-destruction![Contents]CHAPTER XVII.RECREATION.[Contents]A.—LESSONS OF INSTINCT.The indoor occupations of civilized life imply the necessity of providing artificial substitutes for the opportunities of physical exercise, which men in a state of nature can find abundantly in the course of such healthful pursuits as hunting, fishing, and primitive agriculture. For similar reasons civilization ought to compensate the lost chance of outdoor sports which only the favorites of fortune can afford[204]to combine with the exigencies of city life. To the children of nature life is a festival; outdoor recreations, exciting sports, offer themselves freely and frequently enough to dispense with artificial supplements; but the dreariness of workshop life makes those substitutes a moral as well as physical necessity. Under the influence of unalloyed drudgery the human soul withers like a plant in a sunless cave, and weariness of heart reacts on the body in a way analogous to the health-undermining effect of sorrow and repeated disappointment. To the unbiased judgment of our pagan forefathers the necessity of providing city dwellers with opportunities for public recreation appeared, indeed, as evident as the necessity of counteracting the rigors of the higher latitudes with contrivances for a supply of artificial warmth. The cities of ancient Greece had weekly and monthly festivals, besides the yearly reunions of competing athletes and artists, and once in four years the champions of the land met to contest the prize of national supremacy in the presence of assembled millions. Hostilities, even during the crisis of civil war, were suspended to insure free access to the plains of Corinth, where the Olympic Games were celebrated with a regularity that made their period the basis of chronological computation for a space of nearly eight hundred years. When Rome became the capital of the world, the yearly disbursements for the subvention of free public recreations equaled the tribute of a wealthy province. There were free race courses, gymnasia, music halls, and wrestling-ring; free public baths and magnificent amphitheaters for[205]the exhibition of free dramatic performances, gladiatorial combats, and curiosities of art and natural history. Every proconsul of a foreign province was instructed to collect wild animals and specimens of rare birds and reptiles; every triumphator devoted a portion of his spoils to a celebration of freecircenses—“circus games”—by no means limited to the mutual slaughter of prize fighters, but including horse races, concerts, trials of skill, and new arts. It would be a mistake to suppose that the liberality of such establishments offered a premium on idleness. The immense increase of the metropolitan population justified the constant extension of that liberality, but even after the erection of permanent amphitheaters the vigilance of public censors discouraged mendicancy; the complaints of wives, creditors, and landlords against habitual idlers were made the basis of penal proceedings, and from the total appropriations for the support of free municipal institutions the overseers of the poor deducted considerable sums for purposes of public charity.Nor did the citizens of the metropolis monopolize the privilege of free public amusements. At the time of the Antonines not less than fifty cities of Italy alone had amphitheaters of their own, and the smallest hamlet had at least apalaestra, where the local champions met every evening for a trial of strength and skill.[Contents]B.—REWARDS OF CONFORMITY.The alternation of day and night should reveal the truth that nature is averse to permanent gloom.[206]Sunlight is a primary condition of all nobler life, and only ignorance or basest selfishness can doom a child of earth to the misery of toil uncheered by the sun-rays of recreation. For even enlightened selfishness would recognize the advantages of the pagan plan. The passions of personal ambition burnt then as fiercely as now, but the Roman world-conquerors thought it wiser, as well as nobler, to share their spoils with the soldiers who had fought their battles, with the workmen who had reared their castles, with the neighbors who had witnessed their triumphs. The very slaves of Greece and Rome were indulged in periodic enjoyments of all the luxuries fortune had bestowed upon their masters; at the end of the working-day menials and artisans forgot their toil amidst the wonders of the amphitheater, and neither their work nor their work-givers were the worse for it. The promise of the evening cheered the labors of the day; minds frequently unbent by the relaxation of diverting pastimes were less apt to break under the strain of toil, less liable to yield to the temptation of despondency, envy, and despair.During the last four weeks of his Egyptian campaign Napoleon relieved the tedium of camp-life by a series of athletic games and horse-races, and thus succeeded in sustaining the spirit of his troops under hardships which at first threatened to demoralize even his veterans. For similar purposes and with similar success, Marshal Saxe indulged his men in a variety of exciting sports, and Captain Kane found dramatic entertainments the best prophylactic against the influence of a monotonous diet combined[207]with an average temperature of fifty degrees below zero. Captain Burton ascribes the longevity of the nomadic Arabs to their habit of passing their evenings as cheerfully as their stock of provisions and anecdotes will permit, and it is a suggestive circumstance that the joy-loving aristocracy of medieval France could boast a surprising number of octogenarians, and that the gay capitals of modern Europe, with all their vices, enjoy a better chance of longevity than the dull provincial towns.[Contents]C.—PERVERSION.The superstition which dooms its votaries to a worship of sorrow has for centuries treated pleasure and sin as synonymous terms. In the era of the Cæsars the licentious passions of a large metropolis gave that asceticism a specious pretext; but its true purpose was soon after revealed by the suppression of rustic pastimes, of athletic sports, and at last, even of the classic festival which for centuries had assembled the champions of the Mediterranean nations on the isthmus of Corinth. With a similar rancor of bigoted intolerance the Puritans suppressed the sports of “merry old England,” and their fanatical protests against the most harmless amusements would be utterly incomprehensible if the secret of Christian asceticism had not been unriddled by the study of the Buddhistic parent-dogma. The doctrine which the apostle of Galilee thought it wisest to veil in parables and metaphors, the Indian messiah of anti-naturalism reveals in its ghastly nakedness as an attempt to wean the hearts of mankind[208]from their earth-born loves and reconcile them to the alternative of annihilation—“Nirvana”—the only refuge from the delusions of a life outweighing a single joy by a hundred sorrows. Not life only, but the very instincts of life were to be suppressed, to prevent their revival in new forms of re-birth; and in pursuit of that plan the prophet of Nepaul does not hesitate to warn his disciples against sleeping twice under the same tree, to lessen the chance of undue fondness for any earthly object whatever. The indulgements of life-endearing desires, that creed denounced as the height of folly and recommended absolute abstinence from physical enjoyments as the shortest path to the goal of redemption. In its practical consequences, if not in its theoretical significances, the same principle asserts itself in the doctrine of the New Testament, and justified the dread of the life-loving pagans in realizing the stealthy growth of the Galilean church, and anticipating the ultimate consequences of that gospel of renunciation whose ideal of perfection was theother-worldlinessof an earth-despising fanatic. More or less consciously, the suppression of earthly desires has always been pursued as the chief aim of Christian dogmatism; the “world” has ever been the antithesis of the Christian kingdom of God, the “flesh” the irreconcilable antagonist of the regenerate soul. Hence that rancorous fury against the “worldliness” of naturalism, against the pagan worship of joy, against the modern revivals of that worship. Hence the grief of those “whining saints who groaned in spirit at the sight of Jack in the Green;” hence the crusade[209]against Easter-fires, May-poles, foot-races, country excursions, round-dances, and picnics; hence the anathemas against the athletic sports of ancient Greece and the entertainments of the modern theater.[Contents]D.—PENALTIES OF NEGLECT.Wherever the fanatics of the Galilean church have trampled the flowers of earth, the wasted gardens have been covered with a rank thicket of weeds. Outlawed freedom has given way to the caprice of despots and the license of crime; outraged common sense has yielded to the vagaries of superstition; the suppression of healthful recreation has avenged itself in the riots of secret vice. The history of alcoholism proves that every revival of asceticism has been followed by an increase of intemperance, as inevitably as the obstruction of a natural river-bed would be followed by an inundation. When the convent-slaves of the Middle Ages had been deprived of every chance of devoting a leisure hour to more healthful recreations, neither the rigor of their vows nor the bigotry of their creed could prevent them from drowning their misery in wine. When the Puritans of the seventeenth century had turned Scotland into an ecclesiastic penitentiary, the burghers of the Sabbath-stricken towns sought refuge in the dreamland of intoxication. The experience of many centuries has, indeed, forced the priesthood of southern Europe to tolerate Sunday recreations as a minor evil. In Spain the bull-rings of the larger cities open every Sunday at 2P.M.In Italy the patronage of Sunday excursions and Sunday theaters is limited[210]only by the financial resources of their patrons. In France Sunday is by large odds the gayest day in the week. In the large cities of Islam the muftis connive at Sunday dances and Sunday horse-races; and as a consequence a much less pardonable abuse of holidays is far rarer in southern Europe than in the cities of the Sabbatarian north, the consumption of Sunday intoxicants being larger in Great Britain than in France, Austria, Spain, Portugal, and Italy taken together. Climatic causes may have their share in effecting that difference; another cause was revealed when the followers of Ibn Hanbal attempted to enforce the asceticism of their master upon the citizens of Bagdad. Ibn Hanbal, the Mohammedan Hudibras, used to travel from village to village, with a horde of bigots, breaking up dance-houses, upsetting the tables of the confectionery pedlers, pelting flower-girls, and thrashing musicians, and when the revolt of a provincial city resulted in the death of the “reformer,” his fanatical followers assembled their fellow-converts from all parts of the country, and raided town after town, till they at last forced their way into the capital of the caliphate. The recklessness of their zeal overcame all resistance, but the completeness of their triumph led to a rather unexpected result. Every play-house of the metropolis was not only closed, but utterly demolished; musicians were jailed; dance-girls were left to choose between instant flight and crucifixion; showmen were banished from all public streets; but the dwellings of private citizens were less easy to control, and those private citizens before long evinced a passionate[211]and ever-increasing fondness for intoxicating drinks. Elders of the mosque were seen wallowing in their gutters, howling blasphemies that would have appalled the heart of the toughest Giaour; dignitaries of the green turban staggered along under the weight of a wine-skin, or waltzed about in imitation of the exiled ballet performers. The Hanbalites convoked tri-weekly, and at last daily, prayer-meetings, but things went from bad to worse, till a counter-revolution finally restored the authority of the old city government, and the flight of the fanatics was attended with a prompt decrease both of spiritual and spirituous excesses.[Contents]E.—REFORM.The predictions of our latter-day augurs would seem to indicate that the civilization of the Caucasian race is drifting toward Socialism; but a modern philosopher reminds us that “a reform, however great, is apt to come out in a different shape from that predicted by the reformers.” The citizens of the coming republic will probably waive their claim to free government lunch-houses and similar “establishments for preventing the natural penalties of idleness,” but they will most decidedly protest against government interference with the legitimate rewards of industry. Even now, few sane persons can realize the degree of ignorance that enabled the clergy of the Middle Ages to fatten on the proceeds of witchcraft trials and heretic hunts, and the time may be near when our children will find it difficult to conceive the degree of infatuation that could[212]induce their forefathers to sacrifice their weekly leisure-day at the bidding of brainless and heartless bigots. Drudgery will perhaps continue the hard task-master of the working-week; but the Sundays of the future will be as free as the light of their sun.[Contents]CHAPTER XVIII.DOMESTIC REFORM.[Contents]A.—LESSONS OF INSTINCT.In the nest-building propensity of the social insects the biologist can recognize the first germ of the instinctive desire for the establishment of a permanent home. Certain birds, like the weaver-thrush of the tropics, imitate the community life of the ant and bee, but in all higher animals the homestead instinct is associated with the desire for domestic privacy. The eagle will suffer no other bird to approach the rock that shelters his eyrie; the hawk, the heron, and the kingfisher rear their brood at the greatest possible distance from the nesting-place of their next relatives. Each pair of squirrels try to get a tree all to themselves; and even the social prairie-dog shares its home with strangers (owls and serpents) rather than with another family of its own tribe. The “homestead instinct” of our primitive forefathers formed the first, and perhaps the most potent, stimulus to the acquisition of personal property. There is a period in life when the desire for the possession of a private domicile asserts itself with the power almost of a vital passion; and success in the realization of that desire[213]solves in many respects the chief problems of individual existence. The love of domestic peace, the delight in the improvement of a private homestead, are the best guarantees of staid habits. There was a time when the neglect ofhusbandrywas considered a conclusive proof of profligate habits; and the office of a Roman censor comprised the duty of reproving careless housekeepers. The poorest citizen of the Roman commonwealth had a littlepatrimoniumof his own, a dwelling-house, an orchard, and a small lot of land, which he did his best to improve, and where his children learned their first lesson of personal rights in defense of their private playgrounds.The ruins of Pompeii show that the civilization of the Mediterranean coast-lands had anticipated the conclusion of our sanitarian reformers, who recommend the advantage of cottage-suburbs as a remedy for the horrors of tenement life. Between theacropolisand the seaside villas the town forms an aggregation of small dwelling-houses, mostly one-story, but each with a private yard (probably a little garden) or a wide portico, with bath-room and private gymnasiums. And though the ancients were well acquainted with the manufacture of glass, their dwelling-houses were lighted by mere lattice-windows, excluding rain and the glare of the sun, but freely admitting every breeze, and thus solving the problem of ventilation in the simplest and most effective manner. The dwellings of our Saxon forefathers, too, resembled the log-cabins of the Kentucky backwoods, and admitted fresh air so freely that the large family-hearth could dispense with a chimney,[214]and vented its smoke through the open eaves of the roof. In the palaces of the Roman patricians there were special winter-rooms, with a smoke-flue resembling a narrow alcove; but even there, ventilation was insured by numerous lattice doors, communicating with as many balconies or terrace roofs.[Contents]B.—REWARDS OF CONFORMITY.The evolution of all hereditary instincts has been explained by the “survival of the fittest,” and the instinct of homestead-love has doubtlessly been developed in the same way. The results of its predominance prevailed against the results of its absence. Defensive love of a private “hearth and home” is the basis of patriotism, so unmistakably, indeed, that the fathers of the Roman republic for centuries refused to employ foreign mercenaries, whohad no personal interest in the defense of the soil. As a modern humorist has cleverly expressed it: “Few men have been patriotic enough to shoulder a musket in defense of a boarding-house.” And the golden age of civic virtues is almost limited to the time when every free citizen of Greece and Rome was a landowner.Nor would it be easy to overrate the subjective advantages of home-life. Health, happiness, and longevity have no more insidious foe than the canker-worm of vexation; and for the unavoidable disappointments of social life there is no more effective specific than the peace of a prosperous private homestead, soothing the mind with evidences of success in the growth of a promising orchard, in the increase[215]and improvement of domestic animals, in the happiness of merry children and contented dependents. Xenophon, after proving the excitements of an adventurous life by land and sea, found a truer happiness in the solitude of his Arcadian hunting-lodge. Felix Sylla, Fortune’s most constant favorite, abandoned the throne of a mighty empire to enjoy the frugal fare of a small hill-farm. Voltaire, worn out by the trials of a fifty years’ life-and-death struggle against the rancor of bigots, recovered his health and his peace of mind amidst the pear-tree plantations of Villa Ferney.In the resources of medicine and scientific surgery the ancients were far behind even the half-civilized nations of modern times, but their children could enjoy their holidays on their own playground, their sleepers could breathe pure air, their worn-out laborers could retire to the peace of a private home; and they enjoyed a degree of health and vigor which our most progressive nations can hope to re-attain only after centuries of sanitary reform.[Contents]C.—PERVERSION.The germ of the ignoble patience which submits to the miseries of modern tenement-life, and learns to prefer the fetor of a crowded slum-alley to the free air of the woods and fields, can be traced to the voluntary prison-life of the first Christian monasteries. With all the gregariousness of the African race, the very slaves of our American plantations preferred to avoid quarrels and constraint by building a separate cabin for the use of each family; but the ethics[216]of the Galilean church recognized no privilege of personal rights; the sympathies of family-life were crushed out by the enforcement of celibacy; every symptom of self-assertion was denounced as a revolt against the duty of passive subordination; the very instincts of individuality were systematically suppressed to make each convert a whining, emasculated, self-despising, and world-renouncing “member of the church of Christ.” The mortification of the body being the chief object of monastic seclusion, the hygienic architecture of convent buildings was considered a matter of such absolute unimportance that many of the cells (dormitories) had no windows at all, but merely a door communicating with an ill-ventilated gallery, after the plan of our old-style prisons. Eight feet by ten, and eight high, were the usual dimensions of those man-pens; and that utter indifference to the physical health of the inmates was but rarely seconded by a view to the advantages of private meditation is proved by the circumstance that the convent-slaves of the eastern church (in the Byzantine empire, for instance) were not often permitted to enjoy the privacy of their wretched dens; their dormitories were packed like the bunks of a Portuguese slave-ship, and the wordSyncellus(cell-mate) is used as a cognomen of numerous ecclesiastics. The abbot, and in less ascetic centuries perhaps the learned clerks (legend-writers, etc.), were the only members of a monastic community who could ever rely on the privacy of a single hour. For the admitted purpose of mortifying their love of physical comforts, the weary sleepers, worn-out with penance and hunger,[217]were summoned to prayer in the middle of the night, or sent out on begging expeditions in the roughest weather. Every vestige of furniture or clothing apt to mitigate the dreariness of discomfort was banished from their cells; they suffered all the hardships without enjoying the peace and security of a hermit’s home; novices (on probation), and even the pupils of the convent-schools, were submitted to a similar discipline, and thus monasticism became the training-school of modern tenement-life.During the latter half of the Middle Ages, feudalism found an additional motive for suppressing the love of domestic independence. The church usurers and aristocrats monopolized real estate, and made it more and more difficult, even for the most industrious of their dependants, to acquire a share of landed property. Every feudal lord secured his control over his serfs by crowding them together in a smallvillage(literally an abode ofvillains,i.e., of vile pariahs), where his slave-drivers could at any time rally them for an extra job of socage duty. The incessant raids of mail-clad highway-robbers—robber knights and marauding partisans—obliged all peace-loving freemen to congregate for mutual protection and rear their children in the stone prisons of an over-crowded burgh. The suppression of all natural sciences, including the science of health, aggravated the evil by a persistent neglect of such partial remedies as disinfectants and artificial ventilation. The home of a medieval artisan combined all the disadvantages of a jail and a pest-house.The revolt against feudalism has at last broken[218]the stone-fetters of our larger cities; city walls have been turned into promenades, and convents into store-houses or lunatic asylums; but the spirit of monasticism still survives; indifference to the blessings of health and domestic independence seems to have acquired the strength of a second nature, and thousands of our modern factory slaves actually prefer their slum-prisons to the freedom of a cheaper suburban home.[Contents]D.—PENALTIES OF NEGLECT.Nature rarely fails to avenge the violation of her laws, but it might be doubted if the perversion of any other natural instinct has entailed more numerous or direr penalties than our habitual outrages against the instinct of home-life. The monstrosities of our tenement system, by a moderate estimate, cost on the average every year the lives of 1,500,000 children under ten years of age (in Europe and North America), and of 1,200,000 consumptives, besides thousands of victims to epidemic disorders, aggravated, if not engendered, by the influence of vitiated air. Habitual intemperance, too, has undoubtedly been increased by the dearth of home-comforts. Our factory-laborers, our mechanics, and thousands of students and young clerks, spend their evenings in riot, because the man-trap of the lowest grog-shop is, after all, less unattractive than the dungeon of a stifling tenement home. In many of our larger cities similar causes have led to a constant increase of a manner of existence which a modern reformer calls the “celibacy of vice.” But the decreasing demand for independent homes is not the[219]only cause of the decreased supply, and the heartless selfishness of our wealthy land-gluttons has provoked a form of nihilism which threatens to shake, if not to subvert, the very foundations of social life.[Contents]E.—REFORM.That latter danger seems, at last, to have awakened our political economists to the necessity of redressing a many-sided abuse, and the failure of earlier reform projects has at least helped to emphasize the demand for more adequate remedies. The traffic in human life in the floating hells of the African slave-traders hardly called for more stringent repressive measures than the inhumanity of our tenement speculators who fatten on the profits of a system propagating the infallible seeds of pulmonary consumption, and sacrificing the lives of more children than the superstition of the dark ages ever doomed to the altars of Moloch. Even in a country where the jealousy of personal rights would hardly countenance legislative interference with the construction ofprivatedwelling-houses, the license of tenement-owners ought to be circumscribed by the conditions of Dr. Paul Boettger’s rule, providing for appropriation of a certain number of cubic feet of breathing space, and square feet of window, front, and garden (or play-ground) room for each tenant or family of tenants. The abuse of sub-renting could be limited by similar provisions, and the adoption of the separate cottage plan should be promoted by the reduction of municipal passenger tariffs and suburban taxes.The plan of equalizing the burden of taxation and[220]the opportunities of land tenure by a general confiscation and redistribution of real estate might recommend itself as a last resort, though hardly in preference to the project of Fedor Bakunin, the “Russian Mirabeau,” who proposed to found new communities under a charter, reserving the tenth part of all building lots for communal purposes, and lease the tenant-right to the highest bidder. The value of those reserve lots would increase with the growth of the town, and by renewing their lease from ten to ten years, the rent could be made to cover the budget of all direct municipal expenses, and leave a fair surplus for charitable and educational purposes. In comparison with the confiscation plan, that project could claim all the advantages which make prevention preferable to a drastic cure.As a check to the evils of land monopoly the least objectionable plan would seem to be Professor De Graaf’s proposition of a graded system of real estate taxation, increasing the rate of tallage with each multiple of a fair homestead lot, and thus taxing a land-shark for the privilege of acquisition, as well as for the actual possession, of an immoderate estate.The art of making home-life pleasant will yet prove the most effective specific in the list of temperance remedies, and will aid the apostles of Secularism in that work of redemption which the gospel of renunciation has failed to achieve.[221][Contents]CHAPTER XIX.LEGISLATIVE REFORM.[Contents]A.—LESSONS OF INSTINCT.Progress is a general law of Nature, and the comparative study of Evolution proves that the tendency to improvement increases with the advance to higher planes of development. Among the lowest organisms the rate of progress is hardly appreciable. The sea shells of the Devonian period can scarcely be distinguished from the shells of our present seas. The balls of amber found on the shores of the Baltic often contain the mummies of insects closely resembling certain species of latter-day flies and beetles, while the horse, the zebra, and other modern varieties of the equine genus, have developed from a creature not much larger than a fox. The Neanderthal skull proves that the heads of our early ancestors were almost ape-like in their protruding jaws and flatness of cranium. The lower animals adhere to inherited habits with a persistency that has often proved their ruin by diminishing their ability of adapting themselves to change of circumstances, as in the case of that sea-lizard of the South sea islands, where its ancestors had for ages managed to escape their only enemies by leaving the water and crawling up the beach, and where their modern descendants persist in crawlinglandward in the hope of escaping from dogs and hunters.The higher animals, on the other hand, rarely fail to profit by lessons of experience. Trappers know[222]that the contrivances for capturing wild animals have to be changed from time to time, the older methods being apt to lose their efficacy after the fate of a certain number of victims has warned their relatives. Old rats have been seen driving their young from a dish of arsenic-poisoned gruel. Deer, foxes, and wild turkeys learn to avoid the favorite trails of the hunter; monkeys, on their first arrival in a cold climate, impatiently tear off the jackets or shawls furnished by the kindness of their keeper, but soon learn to appreciate the advantage of artificial teguments, and even try to increase their stock of wardrobe by appropriating every stray piece of cloth they can lay their hands on.The instinct of adaptation to the conditions of progress has asserted itself both among modern and very ancient nations, though during the mental bondage of the Middle Ages its manifestations were systematically suppressed by the conservatism of religious bigots. Savages show an almost apish eagerness in adopting the habits, fashions, and foibles of civilization. The political institutions of primitive nations are very elastic. The Grecian republics were not only willing but anxious to improve their laws by abolishing abuses and testing amendments. In ancient Rome every general assembly of freemen exercised the functions of a legislative council; legislative reforms were proposed by private citizens and were often carried by acclamation, like the edict for the expulsion of the Tarquins, and the resolution revoking the exile of Cicero.[223][Contents]B.—REWARDS OF CONFORMITY.Legislative reform, the manful renunciation of entangling alliances with the ghosts of the past, is a sword that has more than once cut a Gordian knot of fatal complications. The suppression of monasteries saved four of our Spanish American sister republics from a brood of vampires that had drained the life-blood of Spain for a series of centuries. In England the timely repeal of the corn-laws averted an explosion that might have rent the coherence of the entire British empire. The abolition of slavery with one blow destroyed a hydra that had menaced the safety of the American Union by an endless series of political disputes. By the abolition of serfdom Czar Alexander elevated the Russian empire to the rank of a progressive nation. The very possibility of national progress depends, indeed, on the hope of legislative reform, for the rigor of unalterable laws prevents social development as the clasp of an iron ring prevents the growth of a tree.[Contents]C.—PERVERSION.All the intelligent nations of antiquity were distinguished by a tendency to legislative progress, till the freedom of that progress was checked by the claims of religious infallibility. The founder of the Zendavesta advanced that claim for a pandect of pretended revelations which became the religious code of Central Asia, and as a consequence the intellectual and industrial development of two valiant nations was stunted by legislative conservatism—the[224]proverbially “unalterable laws of the Medes and Persians.” The claims of an infallible revelation preclude the necessity of reform. “Should mortals presume to improve the ordinances of a God?”But the blind hatred of progress which has for so many centuries degraded the Christian hierarchy below the priesthood of all other intolerant creeds, is the earth-renouncing antinaturalism of their founder. The priests of Zoroaster, Moses, and Mohammed claimed the sufficiency of their dogmas for the purposes of national prosperity. The priests of the nature-hating Galilean attempted to suppress the very desire of that prosperity. “The doctrine of renunciation made patriotism an idle dream: the saints, whose ‘kingdom was not of this world,’ had no business with vanities of that sort; no chieftain could trust his neighbor; cities were pitted against cities and castles against castles; patriotic reformers would vainly have appealed to the sympathies of men who had been taught to reserve their interest for the politics of the New Jerusalem” (Secret of the East, p. 76).The Rev. Spurgeon, of London, England, recently provoked the protests of his Liberal colleagues by the confession that he “positively hated advanced thought;” but only five centuries ago such protests were silenced with the gag and the fagot. For nearly a thousand years every clergyman who had the courage to lift his voice in favor of secular reforms was fiercely attacked as a traitor to the sacred cause of other-worldliness. To question the authority of the church was a crime which could not in the least be[225]palliated by such pleas as the temporal interests of mankind, and a mere hint at the fallibility of “revealed scriptures” could only be expiated in the blood of the offender. Nay, thousands of scientists, historians, and philosophers who had never expressed a direct doubt of that sort, were doomed to a death of torture merely because the logical inference of their discoveries was at variance with the dogmas of the Galilean miracle-mongers. From the reign of Charlemagne to the outbreak of the Protestant revolt the intolerance of Christian bigots interposed an insuperable dam between the projects and the realization of social reforms.“I cannot conceive,” says Hallam, “of any state of society more adverse to the intellectual improvement of mankind than one which admitted no middle line between dissoluteness and fanatical mortifications.”If it had not been for the exotic civilization of Moorish Spain, it would be strictly true that at the end of the thirteenth century, when the enemies of nature had reached the zenith of their power, “the countries of Europe, without a single exception, were worse governed, more ignorant, more superstitious, poorer, and unhappier than the worst governed provinces of pagan Rome.”In China and India, too, the resistance of religious prejudice has for ages frustrated the hopes of political development, and the civilization of Europe dates only from the time when a more or less complete separation of church and state was effected by the insurrection of the Germanic nations, and where the[226]work of that separation has been left unfinished the march of reform halts at every step. Every claim of dogmatic infallibility has proved a spoke in the wheels of progress.[Contents]D.—PENALTIES OF NEGLECT.The pig-headed conservatism of orthodox nations has never failed to avenge itself in its ultimate results, but its fatuity has, perhaps, been most strikingly illustrated by the practical consequences of legislative non-progressiveness. There was a time when the small value of real estate made it a trifle for an Italian prince to present afavoriteprelate with a few square leagues of neglected woodlands; but now, when those woods have been turned into vineyards and building-lots, and over-population makes the monopoly of land a grievous burden, hundreds of industrious peasants are obliged to starve to swell the revenues of a bloated priest, who nevertheless succeeds in silencing all protests by an appeal to the “necessity of respecting time-honored institutions.” At a time when agriculture and pastoral pursuits were the chief industries of Scotland, it was no great grievance to sequester the seventh day for the exclusive service of ecclesiastic purposes; but now, when thousands of poor factory children need outdoor recreations as they need sunlight and bread, it has become an infamous outrage on personal rights to enforce a medieval by-law for the suppression of outdoor sports on the day when those who need it most can find their only chance for recreation. Nevertheless, the dread of innovations defeats the urged repeal[227]of a law which for the last hundred years has obliged millions of city dwellers to sacrifice the sunshine of their lives for the benefit of a few clerical vampires. The repeal of the witchcraft laws was preceded by a transition period of at least two hundred years, when the mere dread of an open rupture with the specters of the past cowed intelligent jurists into accepting the charge of an impossible crime, and consigning the victims of superstition to the doom of a hideous death. Their private rationalism might revolt against the absurdity of the proceedings, but there were the witnesses, there were the legal precedents, there were the explicit provisions of the penal code, and with or without the consent of their intellectual conscience they had to pronounce the sentence of death. The penal statutes of medieval England made sheep stealing a capital offense, and the mulish conservatism of British legislators refused to abolish that relic of the Dark Ages till the common sense of the lower classes found means to redress the abuse in a way of their own. Juries agreed to acquit sheep-stealers altogether, rather than vote away their lives for that of a quadruped. It was in vain that the prosecuting attorney established the fact of the offense beyond a shadow of reasonable doubt. It was in vain that the charge of the judge emphatically indorsed the indictment. It was in vain that the defendants themselves completed the evidence of their guilt by a frank confession; they were acquitted amidst the wrathful protests of the court and the plaudits of the audience, till sheep-owners themselves were obliged to petition for the repeal of the[228]time-dishonored law. The idea that the mere antiquity of a legal custom is an argument in its favor is a twin sister of the superstitious veneration of antiquated dogmas.[Contents]E.—REFORM.The superstitious dread of innovation, rather than the want of natural intelligence, has for ages thwarted the hopes of rationalism, and the renunciation of that prejudice promises to rival the blessing of Secular education in promoting the advance of social reforms. Orthodoxrestiveness, rather than any conceivable degree of ignorance, has, for instance, prevented the repeal of the Religious Disability laws which still disgrace the statutes of so many civilized nations. A chemical inventor would be suspected of insanity for trying to demonstrate his theories by quoting the Bible in preference to a scientific text-book, yet on questions as open to investigation and proof as any problem of chemistry, the courts of numerous intelligent nations still refuse to accept the testimony of a witness who happens to prefer the philosophy of Humboldt and Spencer to the rant of an oriental spook-monger. The proposition to oblige a water-drinker to defray the expense of his neighbor’s passion for intoxicating beverages would justly land the proposer in the next lunatic asylum, yet millions upon millions of our Caucasian fellow-men are still taxed to enable their neighbors to enjoy the luxuries of a creed which the conscience of the unwilling tithe-payer rejects as a degrading superstition. In Europe countless Nonconformists have to contribute to the[229]support of a parish-priest or village-rector on pain of having a sheriff sell their household goods at public auction. In America farmers and mechanics have to pay double taxes in order to enable an association of mythology-mongers to hold their property tax-free. Because the pantheon of the Ammonites included a god with cannibal propensities, helpless infants were for centuries roasted on the consecrated gridiron of that god; and because eighteen hundred years ago the diseased imagination of a world-renouncing bigot conceived the idea of a deity delighting in the self-affliction of his creatures, the gloom of death still broods over the day devoted to the special worship of that God, and the coercive penalties of the law are weekly visited upon all who refuse to sacrifice their health and happiness on the altar of superstition.But legislative abuses are not confined to religious anachronisms. The inconsistencies of our penal code still betray the influence of medieval prejudices in the unwise leniency, as well as in the disproportionate severity, of their dealings with purely secular offenses. The vice of intemperance was for centuries encouraged by the example of the clergy, while the control, or even the suppression, of the sexual instinct was enforced by barbarous penalties. And while the panders of the alcohol vice are still countenanced by the sanction of legal license and admitted to official positions of honor and influence, the mediators of sexual vice are treated as social outcasts, and punished with a severity out of all proportion to the actual social standards of virtue. The deserted wife, who in a moment of despair has caused the death of[230]an unborn child, is treated as the vilest of criminals, while the crime of a railway shark or tenement-speculator whose selfishness and greed have caused a fatal disaster, is condoned in consideration of “social respectability,”i.e., a mask of orthodox sentiments and unctuous cant. A Christian jury will thank a banker for shooting a poor wretch whom extreme distress may have driven to enter a house for predatory purposes, but if that same banker should be convicted of embezzling the hard-earned savings of trusting widows and orphans, his fellow-hypocrites will circulate an eloquent petition for his release from a few years of light imprisonment.There is need of other reforms, which recommend themselves by such cogent arguments that their adoption seems only a question of time, such as the protection of forests, the recognition of women’s rights, the “habitual criminal” law, physical education, and the abolition of the poison-traffic.It is undoubtedly true that the progress from barbarism to culture is characterized by the growth of a voluntary respect for the authority of legal institutions, but it is equally true that the highest goals of civilization cannot be reached till the degree of that respect shall be measured by the utility, rather than by the antiquity, of special laws.[231][Contents]CHAPTER XX.THE PRIESTHOOD OF SECULARISM.[Contents]A.—LESSONS OF INSTINCT.An instinct inherited from the habits of many generations teaches our social fellow-creatures to entrust the welfare of their communities to the protection of an experienced leader. Birds that become gregarious only at a certain time of the year select a guide for that special occasion. Others have a permanent leader, and among the more intelligent quadrupeds that leadership becomes dual. Besides the stout champion who comes to the front in moments of danger, wild cattle, horses, antelopes, deer, and the social quadrumana have a veteran pioneer who guides their migrations and sentinels their encampments.Among the primitive tribes of our fellow-men, too, the authority of leadership is divided between a warrior and a teacher, a chieftain and a priest. The obstinacy of savages, who refuse to yield to reason, suggested the plan of controlling their passions by the fear of the unseen, but ghost-mongery was not the only, nor even the most essential, function of primitive priesthood. The elders of the Brahmans were the guardians of homeless children and overseers of public charities. The Celtic Druids were the custodians of national treasures. The rune-wardens of the ancient Scandinavians preserved the historical traditions and law records of their nation. The priests of the Phœnicians (like our Indian medicine men) were trained physicians. The Egyptian[232]hierophants were priests of knowledge, as well as of mythology. They were the historians and biographers of their nation. They codified the national laws. They taught geometry; they taught grammar; they taught and practiced surgery; they devoted a large portion of their time to astronomical observations. Their temple-cities were, in fact, free universities, and the waste of time devoted to the rites of superstition was more than compensated by secular studies, and to some degree also by the political services of learned priests, who seem to have been occasionally employed in diplomatic emergencies.Motives of political prudence induced the law-givers of the Mediterranean nations to circumscribe the authority of their pontiffs, which at last was, indeed, almost limited to the supervision of religious ceremonies. But in Rome, as well as in Greece and the Grecian colonies of western Asia, the true functions of priesthood were assumed by the popular exponents of philosophy, especially by the Stoics and Pythagoreans. The weekly lectures of Zeno were attended by a miscellaneous throng of truth-seekers; the disciples of Pythagoras almost worshiped their master; Diagoras and Carneades traveled from town to town, preaching to vast audiences of spell-bound admirers; Apollonius of Tyana rose in fame till cities competed for the honor of his visits; theclientèleof no Grecian prince was thought complete without a court philosopher; the tyrant Dionysius, in all the pride of his power, invited the moral rigorist Plato and submitted to his daily repeated reproofs. Philosophers[233]were the confessors, the comforters, and the counselors of their patrons, and philosophic tutors were in such request that wealthy Romans did not hesitate to procure them from the traffickers in Grecian captives and indulge them in all privileges but that of liberty. Centuries before a bishop of Rome contrived to avert the wrath of King Alaric, doomed cities had been spared at the intercession of pagan philosophers, and philosophers more than once succeeded in allaying the fury of mutineers who would have ridiculed an appeal to mythological traditions.[Contents]B.—REWARDS OF CONFORMITY.The power of filial love hardly exceeds that of the passionate veneration which kindles about the person of a sincere teacher of truth. The homage paid to an apostle of light is the noblest form of hero-worship. The hosannas of idol-service overflowing upon the idol-priest are marred by the discords of hypocrisy and the reproving silence of reason; but the approval of wisdom is the highest reward of its ministry. The brightness of that prestige shames the gilded halo of the mythology-monger; the minister of Truth may lack the pomp of consecrated temples, but his disciples will make a hermit’s cave a Delphic grotto and will not willingly let the record of his oracles perish. The chants of the Eleusynian festivals, the shout of the Lupercalia, the mumblings of augurs and sibyls, have been forever silenced; but the words of Plato still live; Socrates still speaks to[234]thousands of truth-seekers; the wisdom of Seneca still brightens the gloom of adversity.Religions founded on any basis of truth can survive the fall of their temples. Jerusalem was wrecked in the storm of Roman conquest, but the health-laws of the Mosaic code defied the power of the destroyer, and of all the creeds born on the teeming soil of the East, Judaism alone can still be preached without an alloy of cant and compromise.The enthusiasm of progress has nothing to fear from the growth of skepticism. Mankind will always appreciate their enlightened well-wishers. In cities where the creed of the Galilean supernaturalist has become almost as obsolete as the witchcraft delusion, progressive clergymen still draw audiences of intelligent and sincere admirers, and the apostles of social reform are haunted by anxious inquirers, disciples whom the penalties of heresy fail to deter, and who if barred out all day will come by night: “Master, what shall we do to be saved?”In spite of sham saviors, the search after salvation has never ceased, and after eighteen centuries of clerical caricatures the ideal of true priesthood still survives in the hearts of men.[Contents]C.—PERVERSION.The puerile supernaturalism of the pagan myth-mongers could not fail to injure their prestige, even in an age of superstition; but theantinaturalismof the Galilean fanatics not only neglected but completely inverted the proper functions of priesthood. The pretended ministers of Truth became her remorseless[235]persecutors; the promised healers depreciated the importance of bodily health, the hoped-for apostles of social reform preached the doctrine of renunciation. We should not judge the Christian clergy by the aberrations engendered by the maddening influence of protracted persecutions. It would be equally unfair to give them the credit of latter-day reforms, reluctantly conceded to the demands of rationalism. But we can with perfect fairness judge them by the standard of the moral and intellectual types evolved during the period of their plenary power, the three hundred years from the tenth to the end of the thirteenth century, when the control of morals and education had been unconditionally surrendered into the hands of their chosen representatives. The comparative scale of human turpitude must not include the creations of fiction. We might find ane plus ultraof infamy in the satires of Rabelais, in the myths of Hindostan, or the burlesques of the modern French dramatists. But if we confine our comparison to the records of authentic history, it would be no exaggeration to say that during the period named the type of a Christian priest represented the absolute extreme of all the groveling ignorance, the meanest selfishness, the rankest sloth, the basest servility, the foulest perfidy, the grossest superstition, the most bestial sensuality, to which the majesty of human nature has ever been degraded. Thousands of monasteries fattened on the toil of starving peasants. Villages were beggared by the rapacity of the tithe-gatherer; cities were terrorized by witch-hunts andautos-da-fé. The crimps of the inquisitorial[236]tribunals hired spies and suborned perjurers by promising them a share of confiscated estates. The evidence of intellectual pursuits was equivalent to a sentence of death. Education was almost limited to the memorizing of chants and prayers. “A cloud of ignorance,” says Hallam, “overspread the whole face of the church, hardly broken by a few glimmering lights who owe almost the whole of their distinction to the surrounding darkness.… In 992, it was asserted that scarcely a single person was to be found, even in Rome itself, who knew the first elements of letters. Not one priest of a thousand in Spain could address a common letter of salutation to another.” Every deathbed became a harvest-field of clerical vampires who did not hesitate to bully the dying into robbing their children for the benefit of a bloated convent. Herds of howling fanatics roamed the country, frenzying the superstitious rustics with their predictions of impending horrors. Parishioners had to submit to the base avarice and the baser lusts of insolent parish priests, who in his turn kissed the dust at the feet of an arrogant prelate. The doctrine of Antinaturalism had solved the problem of inflicting the greatest possible amount of misery on the greatest possible number of victims.[Contents]D.—PENALTIES OF NEGLECT.The intellectual interregnum of the Middle Ages, the era of specters and vampires, received the first promise of dawn about the middle of the fourteenth century, when the lessons of the Crusades and the influence of Moorish civilization began to react on[237]the nations of Christian Europe. Yet, by methods of their own, the vampires succeeded in prolonging the dreadful night. They set their owls a-shrieking from a thousand pulpits; they darkened the air with the smoke-clouds ofautos-da-fé. They treated every torch-bearer as an incendiary.But though the delay of redemption completed the ruin of some of their victims, the ghouls did not escape the deserved retribution. Their fire alarms failed to avert the brightening dawn. Daylight found its way even through the painted glass of dome-windows, and in the open air the blood-suckers had to take wing on pain of being shaken off and trampled under foot. The slaves of Hayti never rose more fiercely against their French tyrants than the German peasants against their clerical oppressor. From Antwerp to Leipzig thousands of convents were leveled with the ground; the villages of Holland, Minden, and Brunswick joined in a general priest-hunt, carried on with all the cruelties which the man-hunters of the Frankish crusade had inflicted on the pagan Saxons. In the Mediterranean Peninsulas the Jesuits were expelled as enemies of public peace, and their colleagues could maintain themselves only by an alliance with despotism against the liberal and intellectual elements of their country. To patriots of the Garibaldi type the name of a priest has become a byword implying the very quintessence of infamy. The explosion of the French Revolution struck a still deadlier blow at clerical prestige. The fagot-arguments of the Holy Inquisition were answered by[238]a “burning, as in hell-fire, of priestly shams and lies,” and not one out of twenty French monasteries escaped the fury of the avengers. Our Protestant clergymen see their temple walls cracked by a breach of ever-multiplying schisms, and can prop their prestige only by more and more humiliating concessions, and in every intelligent community have to purchase popularity by rank heresies against the dogmas of their predecessors. Here and there the orthodox tenets of the New Testament have survived the progress of rationalism, but haunt the shade, like specters scenting the morning air, and momentarily expecting the summons that shall banish them to the realms of their native night.[Contents]E.—REFORM.When the harbinger of day dispels the specters of darkness, half-awakened sleepers often mourn the fading visions of dreamland, as they would mourn the memories of a vanished world, till they find that the solid earth still remains, with its mountains and forests, and that the enjoyment of real life has but just begun. With a similar regret the dupes of Jesuitism mourn the collapse of their creed and lament the decline of morality, till they find that religion still remains, with its consolations and hopes, and that the true work of redemption has but just begun.The reign of superstition begins to yield to a religion of reason and humanity. The first forerunners of that religion appeared at the end of the sixteenth century, when the philosophers of northern Europe[239]first dared to appeal from dogma to nature, and since that revival of common-sense the prison walls of clerical obscurantism have been shaken by shock after shock, till daylight now enters through a thousand fissures.But Secularism has a positive as well as a negative mission, and after removing the ruins of exploded idols, the champions of reform will begin the work of reconstruction. Temples dedicated to the religion of progress will rise from the ruins of superstition. Communities of reformants will intrust the work of education to chosen teachers, who will combine the functions of an instructor with those of an exhorter. In the languages of several European nations the word “rector” still bears that twofold significance. The ministers of Secularism will not sacrifice physical health to mental culture. They will begymnasiarchs, like the Grecian pedagogues who superintended the athletic exercises of their pupils and accompanied them on foot journeys and hunting excursions. They will be teachers of hygiene, laboring to secure the foundations of mental energy by the preservation of physical vigor, and to banish diseases by the removal of their causes. They will seek to circumscribe the power of prejudice by the extension of knowledge. They will obviate the perils of poverty by lessons of industry and prudence. Their doctrines will dispense with miracles; they will make experience the test of truth, and justice the test of integrity; they will not suppress, but encourage, free inquiry; their war against error will employ no weapons but those of logic.[240]The religion of reason will limit its proper sphere to the secular welfare of mankind, but will ask, as well as grant, the fullest freedom of metaphysical speculation. Why should the friends of light darken the sunshine of earth with fanatical wars for the suppression of private theories about the mystery of the unrevealed first cause? Why should they rage about the riddle of the veiled hereafter to please the ordainer of the eternal law that visits such inexorable penalties upon the neglect of the present world? Should the friends of common sense quarrel about guesses at the solution of unknowable secrets? We need not grudge our wonder-loving brother the luxury of meditating on the mysteries of the unseen or the possibilities of resurrection. Shall the soul of the dying patriarch live only in his children? Shall it wing its way to distant stars? Shall it linger on earth:“Sigh in the breeze, keep silence in the cave,And glide with airy foot o’er yonder sea?”Why should we wrangle about riddles which we cannot possibly solve? But we might certainly have honesty enough to admit that impossibility. Musing on the enigmas of the “land beyond the veil” may entertain us with the visions of a dreamy hour, but should not engross the time needed for the problems of the only world thus far revealed.Thus, founded on a basis of health-culture, reason, and justice, the office of priesthood will regain its ancient prestige, and the best and wisest of men will become ministers of Secularism by devoting their lives to the science of happiness on earth.[241]

IV—OBJECTIVE MAXIMS.[Contents]CHAPTER XVI.FOREST CULTURE.[Contents]A.—LESSONS OF INSTINCT.It is wonderful how often instinct has anticipated the practical lessons of science. Long before comparative anatomy taught us the characteristics of our digestive organs the testimony of our natural predilections indicated the advantages of a frugal diet. Long before modern hygiene pointed out the perils of breathing the atmosphere of unventilated dormitories the evidence of our senses warned us against the foulness of that atmosphere. And ages before the researches of agricultural chemistry began to reveal the protective influence of arboreal vegetation, an instinct which the child of civilization shares with the rudest savage revolted against the reckless destruction of fine woodlands, and sought to retrieve the loss by surrounding private homes with groves and parks. The love of forests is as natural to our species as the love of rocks to the mountain-goat. Trees and tree-shade are associated with our traditions of paradise, and that the cradle of the human race was not a brick tenement or a wheat-farm, but a tree-garden, is one of the few points on which the genesis of Darwin agrees with that of the Pentateuch.[195]The happiest days of childhood would lose half their charm without the witchery of woodland rambles, and, like an echo of the foreworld, the instincts of our forest-born ancestors often awake in the souls of their descendants. City children are transported with delight at the first sight of a wood-covered landscape, and the evergreen arcades of a tropical forest would charm the soul of a young Esquimaux as the ever-rolling waves of the ocean would awaken the yearnings of a captive sea-bird. The traveler Chamisso mentions an interview with a poor Yakoot, a native of the North Siberian ice-coast, who happened to get hold of an illustrated magazine with a woodcut of a fine southern landscape: a river-valley, rocky slopes rising toward a park-like lawn with a background of wooded highlands. With that journal on his knees the Yakoot squatted down in front of the traveler’s tent, and thus sat motionless, hour after hour, contemplating the picture in silent rapture. “How would you like to live in a country of that kind?” asked the professor. The Yakoot folded his hands, but continued his reverie. “I hope we shall go there if we are good,” said he at last, with a sigh of deep emotion.The importance of hereditary instincts can be often measured by the degree of their persistence. Man is supposed to be a native of the trans-Caucasian highlands—Armenia, perhaps, or the terrace-lands of the Hindookoosh. Yet agriculture has succeeded in developing a type of human beings who would instinctively prefer a fertile plain to the grandest highland paradise of the East. Warfare has in like manner[196]engendered an instinctive fondness for a life of perilous adventure, as contrasted with the arcadian security of the Golden Age. There are men who prefer slavery to freedom, and think pallor more attractive than the glow of health, but a millennium of unnaturalism has as yet failed to develop a species of human beings who would instinctively prefer the dreariness of a treeless plain to the verdure of a primeval forest.[Contents]B.—REWARDS OF CONFORMITY.The love of forest-trees is a characteristic of the nature-abiding nations of the North, and has rewarded itself by an almost complete reversion of the original contrast between the garden lands of the South and the inhospitable wilderness of the higher latitudes. Forest destruction has turned Southern Europe into a desert, while the preservation of forests has made the homes of the hyperborean hunters an Eden of beauty and fertility. “One-third to the hunter, two-thirds to the husbandman,” was the rule of Margrave Philip in his distribution of forest and fields, and expresses the exact proportion which modern science indicates as most favorable to the perennial fertility of our farm-lands. In a single century the forest-destroying Spaniards turned many of their American colonies from gardens into sand-wastes, while, after fourteen hundred years of continuous cultivation, the fields of the Danubian Valley are still as fertile as in the days of Trajan and Tacitus. Along the river-banks and half-way up the foot-hills the arable land has been cleared, but higher[197]up the forest has been spared. All the highlands from Ratisbon toBuda-Pesthstill form a continuous mountain park of stately oaks and pines, and, as a consequence, springs never fail; crops are safe against winter floods and summer drouths; song-birds still return to their birthland, and reward their protectors by the destruction of noxious insects; meadows, grain-fields, and orchards produce their abundant harvest year after year; famine is unknown, and contagious diseases rarely assume an epidemic form. In Switzerland and Prussia the preservation of the now remaining woodlands is guaranteed by strict protective laws; Scandinavia requires her forest-owners to replant a certain portion of every larger clearing; in Great Britain the parks of the ancient mansions are protected like sacred monuments of the past, and landowners vie in lining their field-trails with rows of shade-trees. The fertility of those lands is a constant surprise to the American traveler disposed to associate the idea of eastern landscapes with the picture of worn-out fields. Surrounded by Russian steppes and trans-Alpine deserts, the homes of the Germanic nations still form a Goshen of verdure and abundance. Forest protectors have not lost their earthly paradise.[Contents]C.—PERVERSION.Sixteen hundred years ago the highlands of the European continent were still covered with a dense growth of primeval forests. The healthfulness and fertility of the Mediterranean coastlands surpassed that of the most favored regions of the present world,[198]and the dependence of those blessings on the preservation of the spring-sheltering woodlands was clearly recognized by such writers as Pliny and Columella, though their own experience did not enable them to suspect all the ruinous consequences of that wholesale forest destruction, which modern science has justly denounced as thene plus ultrafolly of human improvidence. Practical experiments had, however, demonstrated such facts as the failing of springs on treeless slopes, and the violence of winter floods in districts unprotected by rain-absorbing forests, and tree culture was practiced as a regular branch of rational husbandry. But with the triumph of the Galilean church came the millennium of unnaturalism. Rational agriculture became a tradition of the past; the culture of secular science was fiercely denounced from thousands of pulpits; improvidence, “unworldliness,” and superstitious reliance on the efficacy of prayer were systematically inculcated as supreme virtues; the cultivators of the soil were treated like unclean beasts, and for a series of centuries the garden regions of the East were abandoned to the inevitable consequences of neglect and misculture.Millions of acres of fine forest lands passed into the hands of ignorant priests, who, in their greed for immediate gain, and their reckless indifference to the secular welfare of posterity, doomed their trees to the ax, entailing barrenness on regions favored by every natural advantage of soil and climate. Drouths, famines, and locust-swarms failed to impress the protest of nature. Her enemies had no concern with such worldly vanities as the study of climatic vicissitudes,[199]and hoped to avert the consequences of their folly by an appeal to the intercession of miracle-working saints.[Contents]D.—PENALTIES OF NEGLECT.Yet the saints failed to answer that appeal. The outraged laws of nature avenged themselves with the inexorable sequence of cause and effect, and in spite of all prayer-meetings the significance of their crime against the fertility of their Mother Earth was brought home to the experience of the ruthless destroyers. In their net-work of moss and leaves forests absorb the moisture of the atmosphere, and thus nourish the springs which in their turn replenish the brooks and rivers. When the highlands of the Mediterranean peninsulas had been deprived of their woods the general failing of springs turned rivers into shallow brooks, and brook-valleys into arid ravines. Summer rains became too scarce to support the vegetation of the farm lands; the tillers of the soil had to resort to irrigation and eat their bread in a harder and ever harder struggle for existence, till vast areas of once fertile lands had to be entirely abandoned, and the arable territory of this planet was yearly reduced by the growth of an artificial desert. And while the summer drouths became more severe, winter floods became more frequent and destructive. From the treeless slopes of the Mediterranean coastlands winter rains descended like waterfalls, turning once placid rivers into raging torrents, and depriving the fields of their small remnant of fertile mould. Hillsides which in the times of[200]Virgil had furnished pastures for thousands of herds were thus reduced to a state of desolation almost as complete as that of a volcanic cinder-field; their dells choked with rockdebris, their terraces rent by a chaos of gullies and clefts, while the soil, swept from the highlands, was accumulated in mudbanks near the mouth of the river. Harbors once offering anchorage for the fleets of an empire became inaccessible from the ever-growing deposits of diluvium. Yearly mud inundations engendered climatic diseases and all-pervading gnat swarms. Insectivorous birds, deprived of their nest shelter, emigrated to less inhospitable lands, and the scant produce of tillage had to be shared with ever-multiplying legions of destructive insects. Along the south coasts of Italy the shore-hills for hundreds of miles present the same dreary aspect of monotonous barrenness. Greece is a naked rock; forests have almost disappeared from the plains of Spain and Asia Minor; in northern Africa millions of square miles, once teeming with cities and castles, have been reduced to a state of hopeless aridity. The Mediterranean, once a forest-lake of paradise, has become a Dead Sea, surrounded by barren rocks, and sandy or dust clouded plains. According to a careful comparison of the extant data of statistical computations, the population of the territory once comprised under the jurisdiction of the Cæsars has thus been reduced from 290,000,000 to less than 80,000,000,i.e., from a hundred to less than thirty per cent. In other words, an average of seventy-eight in a hundred human beings have been starved out of existence, and the same area of ground[201]which once supported a flourishing village, at present almost fails to satisfy the hunger of a small family. For we must not forget that modern industry has devised methods of subsistence undreamed of by the nations of antiquity, and that the religion of resignation has taught millions to endure degrees of wretchedness which nine out of ten pagans would have refused to prefer to the alternative of self-destruction. A whole tenement of priest-ridden lazaronis now contrive to eke out a subsistence on a pittance which a citizen of ancient Rome would have been too proud to ask a woman to share; yet with all their talent for surviving under conditions of soul and body degrading distress, only eight children of the Mediterranean coastlands can now wring a sickly subsistence from the same area of soil which once sufficed to supply twenty-nine men with all the blessings of health and abundance.[Contents]E.—REFORM.The discovery of two new continents has respited the doomed nations of the Old World, but the rapid colonization of those land supplements will soon reduce mankind to the alternative of tree-culture or emigration to the charity-farm of the New Jerusalem. In the words of a great German naturalist, “We shall have to work the world over again.” On a small scale the practicability of that plan has already been conclusively demonstrated. By tree-culture alone arid sand-wastes have been restored to something like tolerable fertility, if not to anything approaching their pristine productiveness. In the lower valley of[202]the Nile (the ancient Thebaïd) Ibrahim Pasha set out thirty-five million Circassian forest-trees, of which one-third at least took root, and by their growth not only reclaimed the sterility of the soil but increased the average annual rainfall from four to fifteen inches. In the Landes of western France a large tract of land has been reclaimed from the inroads of the coast sand by lining the dunes with a thick belt of trees, and some fifteen hundred square miles of once worthless fields have thus been restored to a high degree of productiveness. In the AustrianKarst, a sterile plateau of limestone cliffs and caves has been dotted with groves till the valleys have been refreshed with the water of resuscitated springs; and pasture-lands, long too impoverished even for the sustenance of mountain goats, once more are covered with herds of thriving cattle.The experience of the next three or four generations will not fail to make every intelligent farmer a tree-planter. Our barren fields will be turned into pine plantations, every public highway will be lined with shade-trees. The communities of the next century will vie in the consecration of township groves, in the founding of forestry clubs, in the celebration of arbor days and woodland festivals. The barren table-lands of our central states will be reclaimed, and before the end of the twentieth century the work of redemption will be extended to the great deserts of the Eastern continents. And as a hundred years ago armies of tree-fellers were busy wresting land from the primeval forest, in a hundred years more armies of tree-planters will be busy wresting land[203]from the desert. The men that will “work the world over again” will not be apt to forget the terms of their second lease.In turning up the soil of the reclaimed desert they will unearth the foundations of buried temples, temples once sacred to the worship of gods whose prophets drenched the world with blood to enforce the observance of circumcision rites, wafer rites, and immersion rites, and filled their scriptures with minute instructions for the ordinances of priests and the mumbling of prescribed prayers. In musing over the ruins of such temples, the children of the future will have a chance for many profitable meditations—the reflection, for instance: From what mistakes those alleged saviors might have saved the world if their voluminous gospels had devoted a single page to an injunction against the earth-desolating folly of forest-destruction![Contents]CHAPTER XVII.RECREATION.[Contents]A.—LESSONS OF INSTINCT.The indoor occupations of civilized life imply the necessity of providing artificial substitutes for the opportunities of physical exercise, which men in a state of nature can find abundantly in the course of such healthful pursuits as hunting, fishing, and primitive agriculture. For similar reasons civilization ought to compensate the lost chance of outdoor sports which only the favorites of fortune can afford[204]to combine with the exigencies of city life. To the children of nature life is a festival; outdoor recreations, exciting sports, offer themselves freely and frequently enough to dispense with artificial supplements; but the dreariness of workshop life makes those substitutes a moral as well as physical necessity. Under the influence of unalloyed drudgery the human soul withers like a plant in a sunless cave, and weariness of heart reacts on the body in a way analogous to the health-undermining effect of sorrow and repeated disappointment. To the unbiased judgment of our pagan forefathers the necessity of providing city dwellers with opportunities for public recreation appeared, indeed, as evident as the necessity of counteracting the rigors of the higher latitudes with contrivances for a supply of artificial warmth. The cities of ancient Greece had weekly and monthly festivals, besides the yearly reunions of competing athletes and artists, and once in four years the champions of the land met to contest the prize of national supremacy in the presence of assembled millions. Hostilities, even during the crisis of civil war, were suspended to insure free access to the plains of Corinth, where the Olympic Games were celebrated with a regularity that made their period the basis of chronological computation for a space of nearly eight hundred years. When Rome became the capital of the world, the yearly disbursements for the subvention of free public recreations equaled the tribute of a wealthy province. There were free race courses, gymnasia, music halls, and wrestling-ring; free public baths and magnificent amphitheaters for[205]the exhibition of free dramatic performances, gladiatorial combats, and curiosities of art and natural history. Every proconsul of a foreign province was instructed to collect wild animals and specimens of rare birds and reptiles; every triumphator devoted a portion of his spoils to a celebration of freecircenses—“circus games”—by no means limited to the mutual slaughter of prize fighters, but including horse races, concerts, trials of skill, and new arts. It would be a mistake to suppose that the liberality of such establishments offered a premium on idleness. The immense increase of the metropolitan population justified the constant extension of that liberality, but even after the erection of permanent amphitheaters the vigilance of public censors discouraged mendicancy; the complaints of wives, creditors, and landlords against habitual idlers were made the basis of penal proceedings, and from the total appropriations for the support of free municipal institutions the overseers of the poor deducted considerable sums for purposes of public charity.Nor did the citizens of the metropolis monopolize the privilege of free public amusements. At the time of the Antonines not less than fifty cities of Italy alone had amphitheaters of their own, and the smallest hamlet had at least apalaestra, where the local champions met every evening for a trial of strength and skill.[Contents]B.—REWARDS OF CONFORMITY.The alternation of day and night should reveal the truth that nature is averse to permanent gloom.[206]Sunlight is a primary condition of all nobler life, and only ignorance or basest selfishness can doom a child of earth to the misery of toil uncheered by the sun-rays of recreation. For even enlightened selfishness would recognize the advantages of the pagan plan. The passions of personal ambition burnt then as fiercely as now, but the Roman world-conquerors thought it wiser, as well as nobler, to share their spoils with the soldiers who had fought their battles, with the workmen who had reared their castles, with the neighbors who had witnessed their triumphs. The very slaves of Greece and Rome were indulged in periodic enjoyments of all the luxuries fortune had bestowed upon their masters; at the end of the working-day menials and artisans forgot their toil amidst the wonders of the amphitheater, and neither their work nor their work-givers were the worse for it. The promise of the evening cheered the labors of the day; minds frequently unbent by the relaxation of diverting pastimes were less apt to break under the strain of toil, less liable to yield to the temptation of despondency, envy, and despair.During the last four weeks of his Egyptian campaign Napoleon relieved the tedium of camp-life by a series of athletic games and horse-races, and thus succeeded in sustaining the spirit of his troops under hardships which at first threatened to demoralize even his veterans. For similar purposes and with similar success, Marshal Saxe indulged his men in a variety of exciting sports, and Captain Kane found dramatic entertainments the best prophylactic against the influence of a monotonous diet combined[207]with an average temperature of fifty degrees below zero. Captain Burton ascribes the longevity of the nomadic Arabs to their habit of passing their evenings as cheerfully as their stock of provisions and anecdotes will permit, and it is a suggestive circumstance that the joy-loving aristocracy of medieval France could boast a surprising number of octogenarians, and that the gay capitals of modern Europe, with all their vices, enjoy a better chance of longevity than the dull provincial towns.[Contents]C.—PERVERSION.The superstition which dooms its votaries to a worship of sorrow has for centuries treated pleasure and sin as synonymous terms. In the era of the Cæsars the licentious passions of a large metropolis gave that asceticism a specious pretext; but its true purpose was soon after revealed by the suppression of rustic pastimes, of athletic sports, and at last, even of the classic festival which for centuries had assembled the champions of the Mediterranean nations on the isthmus of Corinth. With a similar rancor of bigoted intolerance the Puritans suppressed the sports of “merry old England,” and their fanatical protests against the most harmless amusements would be utterly incomprehensible if the secret of Christian asceticism had not been unriddled by the study of the Buddhistic parent-dogma. The doctrine which the apostle of Galilee thought it wisest to veil in parables and metaphors, the Indian messiah of anti-naturalism reveals in its ghastly nakedness as an attempt to wean the hearts of mankind[208]from their earth-born loves and reconcile them to the alternative of annihilation—“Nirvana”—the only refuge from the delusions of a life outweighing a single joy by a hundred sorrows. Not life only, but the very instincts of life were to be suppressed, to prevent their revival in new forms of re-birth; and in pursuit of that plan the prophet of Nepaul does not hesitate to warn his disciples against sleeping twice under the same tree, to lessen the chance of undue fondness for any earthly object whatever. The indulgements of life-endearing desires, that creed denounced as the height of folly and recommended absolute abstinence from physical enjoyments as the shortest path to the goal of redemption. In its practical consequences, if not in its theoretical significances, the same principle asserts itself in the doctrine of the New Testament, and justified the dread of the life-loving pagans in realizing the stealthy growth of the Galilean church, and anticipating the ultimate consequences of that gospel of renunciation whose ideal of perfection was theother-worldlinessof an earth-despising fanatic. More or less consciously, the suppression of earthly desires has always been pursued as the chief aim of Christian dogmatism; the “world” has ever been the antithesis of the Christian kingdom of God, the “flesh” the irreconcilable antagonist of the regenerate soul. Hence that rancorous fury against the “worldliness” of naturalism, against the pagan worship of joy, against the modern revivals of that worship. Hence the grief of those “whining saints who groaned in spirit at the sight of Jack in the Green;” hence the crusade[209]against Easter-fires, May-poles, foot-races, country excursions, round-dances, and picnics; hence the anathemas against the athletic sports of ancient Greece and the entertainments of the modern theater.[Contents]D.—PENALTIES OF NEGLECT.Wherever the fanatics of the Galilean church have trampled the flowers of earth, the wasted gardens have been covered with a rank thicket of weeds. Outlawed freedom has given way to the caprice of despots and the license of crime; outraged common sense has yielded to the vagaries of superstition; the suppression of healthful recreation has avenged itself in the riots of secret vice. The history of alcoholism proves that every revival of asceticism has been followed by an increase of intemperance, as inevitably as the obstruction of a natural river-bed would be followed by an inundation. When the convent-slaves of the Middle Ages had been deprived of every chance of devoting a leisure hour to more healthful recreations, neither the rigor of their vows nor the bigotry of their creed could prevent them from drowning their misery in wine. When the Puritans of the seventeenth century had turned Scotland into an ecclesiastic penitentiary, the burghers of the Sabbath-stricken towns sought refuge in the dreamland of intoxication. The experience of many centuries has, indeed, forced the priesthood of southern Europe to tolerate Sunday recreations as a minor evil. In Spain the bull-rings of the larger cities open every Sunday at 2P.M.In Italy the patronage of Sunday excursions and Sunday theaters is limited[210]only by the financial resources of their patrons. In France Sunday is by large odds the gayest day in the week. In the large cities of Islam the muftis connive at Sunday dances and Sunday horse-races; and as a consequence a much less pardonable abuse of holidays is far rarer in southern Europe than in the cities of the Sabbatarian north, the consumption of Sunday intoxicants being larger in Great Britain than in France, Austria, Spain, Portugal, and Italy taken together. Climatic causes may have their share in effecting that difference; another cause was revealed when the followers of Ibn Hanbal attempted to enforce the asceticism of their master upon the citizens of Bagdad. Ibn Hanbal, the Mohammedan Hudibras, used to travel from village to village, with a horde of bigots, breaking up dance-houses, upsetting the tables of the confectionery pedlers, pelting flower-girls, and thrashing musicians, and when the revolt of a provincial city resulted in the death of the “reformer,” his fanatical followers assembled their fellow-converts from all parts of the country, and raided town after town, till they at last forced their way into the capital of the caliphate. The recklessness of their zeal overcame all resistance, but the completeness of their triumph led to a rather unexpected result. Every play-house of the metropolis was not only closed, but utterly demolished; musicians were jailed; dance-girls were left to choose between instant flight and crucifixion; showmen were banished from all public streets; but the dwellings of private citizens were less easy to control, and those private citizens before long evinced a passionate[211]and ever-increasing fondness for intoxicating drinks. Elders of the mosque were seen wallowing in their gutters, howling blasphemies that would have appalled the heart of the toughest Giaour; dignitaries of the green turban staggered along under the weight of a wine-skin, or waltzed about in imitation of the exiled ballet performers. The Hanbalites convoked tri-weekly, and at last daily, prayer-meetings, but things went from bad to worse, till a counter-revolution finally restored the authority of the old city government, and the flight of the fanatics was attended with a prompt decrease both of spiritual and spirituous excesses.[Contents]E.—REFORM.The predictions of our latter-day augurs would seem to indicate that the civilization of the Caucasian race is drifting toward Socialism; but a modern philosopher reminds us that “a reform, however great, is apt to come out in a different shape from that predicted by the reformers.” The citizens of the coming republic will probably waive their claim to free government lunch-houses and similar “establishments for preventing the natural penalties of idleness,” but they will most decidedly protest against government interference with the legitimate rewards of industry. Even now, few sane persons can realize the degree of ignorance that enabled the clergy of the Middle Ages to fatten on the proceeds of witchcraft trials and heretic hunts, and the time may be near when our children will find it difficult to conceive the degree of infatuation that could[212]induce their forefathers to sacrifice their weekly leisure-day at the bidding of brainless and heartless bigots. Drudgery will perhaps continue the hard task-master of the working-week; but the Sundays of the future will be as free as the light of their sun.[Contents]CHAPTER XVIII.DOMESTIC REFORM.[Contents]A.—LESSONS OF INSTINCT.In the nest-building propensity of the social insects the biologist can recognize the first germ of the instinctive desire for the establishment of a permanent home. Certain birds, like the weaver-thrush of the tropics, imitate the community life of the ant and bee, but in all higher animals the homestead instinct is associated with the desire for domestic privacy. The eagle will suffer no other bird to approach the rock that shelters his eyrie; the hawk, the heron, and the kingfisher rear their brood at the greatest possible distance from the nesting-place of their next relatives. Each pair of squirrels try to get a tree all to themselves; and even the social prairie-dog shares its home with strangers (owls and serpents) rather than with another family of its own tribe. The “homestead instinct” of our primitive forefathers formed the first, and perhaps the most potent, stimulus to the acquisition of personal property. There is a period in life when the desire for the possession of a private domicile asserts itself with the power almost of a vital passion; and success in the realization of that desire[213]solves in many respects the chief problems of individual existence. The love of domestic peace, the delight in the improvement of a private homestead, are the best guarantees of staid habits. There was a time when the neglect ofhusbandrywas considered a conclusive proof of profligate habits; and the office of a Roman censor comprised the duty of reproving careless housekeepers. The poorest citizen of the Roman commonwealth had a littlepatrimoniumof his own, a dwelling-house, an orchard, and a small lot of land, which he did his best to improve, and where his children learned their first lesson of personal rights in defense of their private playgrounds.The ruins of Pompeii show that the civilization of the Mediterranean coast-lands had anticipated the conclusion of our sanitarian reformers, who recommend the advantage of cottage-suburbs as a remedy for the horrors of tenement life. Between theacropolisand the seaside villas the town forms an aggregation of small dwelling-houses, mostly one-story, but each with a private yard (probably a little garden) or a wide portico, with bath-room and private gymnasiums. And though the ancients were well acquainted with the manufacture of glass, their dwelling-houses were lighted by mere lattice-windows, excluding rain and the glare of the sun, but freely admitting every breeze, and thus solving the problem of ventilation in the simplest and most effective manner. The dwellings of our Saxon forefathers, too, resembled the log-cabins of the Kentucky backwoods, and admitted fresh air so freely that the large family-hearth could dispense with a chimney,[214]and vented its smoke through the open eaves of the roof. In the palaces of the Roman patricians there were special winter-rooms, with a smoke-flue resembling a narrow alcove; but even there, ventilation was insured by numerous lattice doors, communicating with as many balconies or terrace roofs.[Contents]B.—REWARDS OF CONFORMITY.The evolution of all hereditary instincts has been explained by the “survival of the fittest,” and the instinct of homestead-love has doubtlessly been developed in the same way. The results of its predominance prevailed against the results of its absence. Defensive love of a private “hearth and home” is the basis of patriotism, so unmistakably, indeed, that the fathers of the Roman republic for centuries refused to employ foreign mercenaries, whohad no personal interest in the defense of the soil. As a modern humorist has cleverly expressed it: “Few men have been patriotic enough to shoulder a musket in defense of a boarding-house.” And the golden age of civic virtues is almost limited to the time when every free citizen of Greece and Rome was a landowner.Nor would it be easy to overrate the subjective advantages of home-life. Health, happiness, and longevity have no more insidious foe than the canker-worm of vexation; and for the unavoidable disappointments of social life there is no more effective specific than the peace of a prosperous private homestead, soothing the mind with evidences of success in the growth of a promising orchard, in the increase[215]and improvement of domestic animals, in the happiness of merry children and contented dependents. Xenophon, after proving the excitements of an adventurous life by land and sea, found a truer happiness in the solitude of his Arcadian hunting-lodge. Felix Sylla, Fortune’s most constant favorite, abandoned the throne of a mighty empire to enjoy the frugal fare of a small hill-farm. Voltaire, worn out by the trials of a fifty years’ life-and-death struggle against the rancor of bigots, recovered his health and his peace of mind amidst the pear-tree plantations of Villa Ferney.In the resources of medicine and scientific surgery the ancients were far behind even the half-civilized nations of modern times, but their children could enjoy their holidays on their own playground, their sleepers could breathe pure air, their worn-out laborers could retire to the peace of a private home; and they enjoyed a degree of health and vigor which our most progressive nations can hope to re-attain only after centuries of sanitary reform.[Contents]C.—PERVERSION.The germ of the ignoble patience which submits to the miseries of modern tenement-life, and learns to prefer the fetor of a crowded slum-alley to the free air of the woods and fields, can be traced to the voluntary prison-life of the first Christian monasteries. With all the gregariousness of the African race, the very slaves of our American plantations preferred to avoid quarrels and constraint by building a separate cabin for the use of each family; but the ethics[216]of the Galilean church recognized no privilege of personal rights; the sympathies of family-life were crushed out by the enforcement of celibacy; every symptom of self-assertion was denounced as a revolt against the duty of passive subordination; the very instincts of individuality were systematically suppressed to make each convert a whining, emasculated, self-despising, and world-renouncing “member of the church of Christ.” The mortification of the body being the chief object of monastic seclusion, the hygienic architecture of convent buildings was considered a matter of such absolute unimportance that many of the cells (dormitories) had no windows at all, but merely a door communicating with an ill-ventilated gallery, after the plan of our old-style prisons. Eight feet by ten, and eight high, were the usual dimensions of those man-pens; and that utter indifference to the physical health of the inmates was but rarely seconded by a view to the advantages of private meditation is proved by the circumstance that the convent-slaves of the eastern church (in the Byzantine empire, for instance) were not often permitted to enjoy the privacy of their wretched dens; their dormitories were packed like the bunks of a Portuguese slave-ship, and the wordSyncellus(cell-mate) is used as a cognomen of numerous ecclesiastics. The abbot, and in less ascetic centuries perhaps the learned clerks (legend-writers, etc.), were the only members of a monastic community who could ever rely on the privacy of a single hour. For the admitted purpose of mortifying their love of physical comforts, the weary sleepers, worn-out with penance and hunger,[217]were summoned to prayer in the middle of the night, or sent out on begging expeditions in the roughest weather. Every vestige of furniture or clothing apt to mitigate the dreariness of discomfort was banished from their cells; they suffered all the hardships without enjoying the peace and security of a hermit’s home; novices (on probation), and even the pupils of the convent-schools, were submitted to a similar discipline, and thus monasticism became the training-school of modern tenement-life.During the latter half of the Middle Ages, feudalism found an additional motive for suppressing the love of domestic independence. The church usurers and aristocrats monopolized real estate, and made it more and more difficult, even for the most industrious of their dependants, to acquire a share of landed property. Every feudal lord secured his control over his serfs by crowding them together in a smallvillage(literally an abode ofvillains,i.e., of vile pariahs), where his slave-drivers could at any time rally them for an extra job of socage duty. The incessant raids of mail-clad highway-robbers—robber knights and marauding partisans—obliged all peace-loving freemen to congregate for mutual protection and rear their children in the stone prisons of an over-crowded burgh. The suppression of all natural sciences, including the science of health, aggravated the evil by a persistent neglect of such partial remedies as disinfectants and artificial ventilation. The home of a medieval artisan combined all the disadvantages of a jail and a pest-house.The revolt against feudalism has at last broken[218]the stone-fetters of our larger cities; city walls have been turned into promenades, and convents into store-houses or lunatic asylums; but the spirit of monasticism still survives; indifference to the blessings of health and domestic independence seems to have acquired the strength of a second nature, and thousands of our modern factory slaves actually prefer their slum-prisons to the freedom of a cheaper suburban home.[Contents]D.—PENALTIES OF NEGLECT.Nature rarely fails to avenge the violation of her laws, but it might be doubted if the perversion of any other natural instinct has entailed more numerous or direr penalties than our habitual outrages against the instinct of home-life. The monstrosities of our tenement system, by a moderate estimate, cost on the average every year the lives of 1,500,000 children under ten years of age (in Europe and North America), and of 1,200,000 consumptives, besides thousands of victims to epidemic disorders, aggravated, if not engendered, by the influence of vitiated air. Habitual intemperance, too, has undoubtedly been increased by the dearth of home-comforts. Our factory-laborers, our mechanics, and thousands of students and young clerks, spend their evenings in riot, because the man-trap of the lowest grog-shop is, after all, less unattractive than the dungeon of a stifling tenement home. In many of our larger cities similar causes have led to a constant increase of a manner of existence which a modern reformer calls the “celibacy of vice.” But the decreasing demand for independent homes is not the[219]only cause of the decreased supply, and the heartless selfishness of our wealthy land-gluttons has provoked a form of nihilism which threatens to shake, if not to subvert, the very foundations of social life.[Contents]E.—REFORM.That latter danger seems, at last, to have awakened our political economists to the necessity of redressing a many-sided abuse, and the failure of earlier reform projects has at least helped to emphasize the demand for more adequate remedies. The traffic in human life in the floating hells of the African slave-traders hardly called for more stringent repressive measures than the inhumanity of our tenement speculators who fatten on the profits of a system propagating the infallible seeds of pulmonary consumption, and sacrificing the lives of more children than the superstition of the dark ages ever doomed to the altars of Moloch. Even in a country where the jealousy of personal rights would hardly countenance legislative interference with the construction ofprivatedwelling-houses, the license of tenement-owners ought to be circumscribed by the conditions of Dr. Paul Boettger’s rule, providing for appropriation of a certain number of cubic feet of breathing space, and square feet of window, front, and garden (or play-ground) room for each tenant or family of tenants. The abuse of sub-renting could be limited by similar provisions, and the adoption of the separate cottage plan should be promoted by the reduction of municipal passenger tariffs and suburban taxes.The plan of equalizing the burden of taxation and[220]the opportunities of land tenure by a general confiscation and redistribution of real estate might recommend itself as a last resort, though hardly in preference to the project of Fedor Bakunin, the “Russian Mirabeau,” who proposed to found new communities under a charter, reserving the tenth part of all building lots for communal purposes, and lease the tenant-right to the highest bidder. The value of those reserve lots would increase with the growth of the town, and by renewing their lease from ten to ten years, the rent could be made to cover the budget of all direct municipal expenses, and leave a fair surplus for charitable and educational purposes. In comparison with the confiscation plan, that project could claim all the advantages which make prevention preferable to a drastic cure.As a check to the evils of land monopoly the least objectionable plan would seem to be Professor De Graaf’s proposition of a graded system of real estate taxation, increasing the rate of tallage with each multiple of a fair homestead lot, and thus taxing a land-shark for the privilege of acquisition, as well as for the actual possession, of an immoderate estate.The art of making home-life pleasant will yet prove the most effective specific in the list of temperance remedies, and will aid the apostles of Secularism in that work of redemption which the gospel of renunciation has failed to achieve.[221][Contents]CHAPTER XIX.LEGISLATIVE REFORM.[Contents]A.—LESSONS OF INSTINCT.Progress is a general law of Nature, and the comparative study of Evolution proves that the tendency to improvement increases with the advance to higher planes of development. Among the lowest organisms the rate of progress is hardly appreciable. The sea shells of the Devonian period can scarcely be distinguished from the shells of our present seas. The balls of amber found on the shores of the Baltic often contain the mummies of insects closely resembling certain species of latter-day flies and beetles, while the horse, the zebra, and other modern varieties of the equine genus, have developed from a creature not much larger than a fox. The Neanderthal skull proves that the heads of our early ancestors were almost ape-like in their protruding jaws and flatness of cranium. The lower animals adhere to inherited habits with a persistency that has often proved their ruin by diminishing their ability of adapting themselves to change of circumstances, as in the case of that sea-lizard of the South sea islands, where its ancestors had for ages managed to escape their only enemies by leaving the water and crawling up the beach, and where their modern descendants persist in crawlinglandward in the hope of escaping from dogs and hunters.The higher animals, on the other hand, rarely fail to profit by lessons of experience. Trappers know[222]that the contrivances for capturing wild animals have to be changed from time to time, the older methods being apt to lose their efficacy after the fate of a certain number of victims has warned their relatives. Old rats have been seen driving their young from a dish of arsenic-poisoned gruel. Deer, foxes, and wild turkeys learn to avoid the favorite trails of the hunter; monkeys, on their first arrival in a cold climate, impatiently tear off the jackets or shawls furnished by the kindness of their keeper, but soon learn to appreciate the advantage of artificial teguments, and even try to increase their stock of wardrobe by appropriating every stray piece of cloth they can lay their hands on.The instinct of adaptation to the conditions of progress has asserted itself both among modern and very ancient nations, though during the mental bondage of the Middle Ages its manifestations were systematically suppressed by the conservatism of religious bigots. Savages show an almost apish eagerness in adopting the habits, fashions, and foibles of civilization. The political institutions of primitive nations are very elastic. The Grecian republics were not only willing but anxious to improve their laws by abolishing abuses and testing amendments. In ancient Rome every general assembly of freemen exercised the functions of a legislative council; legislative reforms were proposed by private citizens and were often carried by acclamation, like the edict for the expulsion of the Tarquins, and the resolution revoking the exile of Cicero.[223][Contents]B.—REWARDS OF CONFORMITY.Legislative reform, the manful renunciation of entangling alliances with the ghosts of the past, is a sword that has more than once cut a Gordian knot of fatal complications. The suppression of monasteries saved four of our Spanish American sister republics from a brood of vampires that had drained the life-blood of Spain for a series of centuries. In England the timely repeal of the corn-laws averted an explosion that might have rent the coherence of the entire British empire. The abolition of slavery with one blow destroyed a hydra that had menaced the safety of the American Union by an endless series of political disputes. By the abolition of serfdom Czar Alexander elevated the Russian empire to the rank of a progressive nation. The very possibility of national progress depends, indeed, on the hope of legislative reform, for the rigor of unalterable laws prevents social development as the clasp of an iron ring prevents the growth of a tree.[Contents]C.—PERVERSION.All the intelligent nations of antiquity were distinguished by a tendency to legislative progress, till the freedom of that progress was checked by the claims of religious infallibility. The founder of the Zendavesta advanced that claim for a pandect of pretended revelations which became the religious code of Central Asia, and as a consequence the intellectual and industrial development of two valiant nations was stunted by legislative conservatism—the[224]proverbially “unalterable laws of the Medes and Persians.” The claims of an infallible revelation preclude the necessity of reform. “Should mortals presume to improve the ordinances of a God?”But the blind hatred of progress which has for so many centuries degraded the Christian hierarchy below the priesthood of all other intolerant creeds, is the earth-renouncing antinaturalism of their founder. The priests of Zoroaster, Moses, and Mohammed claimed the sufficiency of their dogmas for the purposes of national prosperity. The priests of the nature-hating Galilean attempted to suppress the very desire of that prosperity. “The doctrine of renunciation made patriotism an idle dream: the saints, whose ‘kingdom was not of this world,’ had no business with vanities of that sort; no chieftain could trust his neighbor; cities were pitted against cities and castles against castles; patriotic reformers would vainly have appealed to the sympathies of men who had been taught to reserve their interest for the politics of the New Jerusalem” (Secret of the East, p. 76).The Rev. Spurgeon, of London, England, recently provoked the protests of his Liberal colleagues by the confession that he “positively hated advanced thought;” but only five centuries ago such protests were silenced with the gag and the fagot. For nearly a thousand years every clergyman who had the courage to lift his voice in favor of secular reforms was fiercely attacked as a traitor to the sacred cause of other-worldliness. To question the authority of the church was a crime which could not in the least be[225]palliated by such pleas as the temporal interests of mankind, and a mere hint at the fallibility of “revealed scriptures” could only be expiated in the blood of the offender. Nay, thousands of scientists, historians, and philosophers who had never expressed a direct doubt of that sort, were doomed to a death of torture merely because the logical inference of their discoveries was at variance with the dogmas of the Galilean miracle-mongers. From the reign of Charlemagne to the outbreak of the Protestant revolt the intolerance of Christian bigots interposed an insuperable dam between the projects and the realization of social reforms.“I cannot conceive,” says Hallam, “of any state of society more adverse to the intellectual improvement of mankind than one which admitted no middle line between dissoluteness and fanatical mortifications.”If it had not been for the exotic civilization of Moorish Spain, it would be strictly true that at the end of the thirteenth century, when the enemies of nature had reached the zenith of their power, “the countries of Europe, without a single exception, were worse governed, more ignorant, more superstitious, poorer, and unhappier than the worst governed provinces of pagan Rome.”In China and India, too, the resistance of religious prejudice has for ages frustrated the hopes of political development, and the civilization of Europe dates only from the time when a more or less complete separation of church and state was effected by the insurrection of the Germanic nations, and where the[226]work of that separation has been left unfinished the march of reform halts at every step. Every claim of dogmatic infallibility has proved a spoke in the wheels of progress.[Contents]D.—PENALTIES OF NEGLECT.The pig-headed conservatism of orthodox nations has never failed to avenge itself in its ultimate results, but its fatuity has, perhaps, been most strikingly illustrated by the practical consequences of legislative non-progressiveness. There was a time when the small value of real estate made it a trifle for an Italian prince to present afavoriteprelate with a few square leagues of neglected woodlands; but now, when those woods have been turned into vineyards and building-lots, and over-population makes the monopoly of land a grievous burden, hundreds of industrious peasants are obliged to starve to swell the revenues of a bloated priest, who nevertheless succeeds in silencing all protests by an appeal to the “necessity of respecting time-honored institutions.” At a time when agriculture and pastoral pursuits were the chief industries of Scotland, it was no great grievance to sequester the seventh day for the exclusive service of ecclesiastic purposes; but now, when thousands of poor factory children need outdoor recreations as they need sunlight and bread, it has become an infamous outrage on personal rights to enforce a medieval by-law for the suppression of outdoor sports on the day when those who need it most can find their only chance for recreation. Nevertheless, the dread of innovations defeats the urged repeal[227]of a law which for the last hundred years has obliged millions of city dwellers to sacrifice the sunshine of their lives for the benefit of a few clerical vampires. The repeal of the witchcraft laws was preceded by a transition period of at least two hundred years, when the mere dread of an open rupture with the specters of the past cowed intelligent jurists into accepting the charge of an impossible crime, and consigning the victims of superstition to the doom of a hideous death. Their private rationalism might revolt against the absurdity of the proceedings, but there were the witnesses, there were the legal precedents, there were the explicit provisions of the penal code, and with or without the consent of their intellectual conscience they had to pronounce the sentence of death. The penal statutes of medieval England made sheep stealing a capital offense, and the mulish conservatism of British legislators refused to abolish that relic of the Dark Ages till the common sense of the lower classes found means to redress the abuse in a way of their own. Juries agreed to acquit sheep-stealers altogether, rather than vote away their lives for that of a quadruped. It was in vain that the prosecuting attorney established the fact of the offense beyond a shadow of reasonable doubt. It was in vain that the charge of the judge emphatically indorsed the indictment. It was in vain that the defendants themselves completed the evidence of their guilt by a frank confession; they were acquitted amidst the wrathful protests of the court and the plaudits of the audience, till sheep-owners themselves were obliged to petition for the repeal of the[228]time-dishonored law. The idea that the mere antiquity of a legal custom is an argument in its favor is a twin sister of the superstitious veneration of antiquated dogmas.[Contents]E.—REFORM.The superstitious dread of innovation, rather than the want of natural intelligence, has for ages thwarted the hopes of rationalism, and the renunciation of that prejudice promises to rival the blessing of Secular education in promoting the advance of social reforms. Orthodoxrestiveness, rather than any conceivable degree of ignorance, has, for instance, prevented the repeal of the Religious Disability laws which still disgrace the statutes of so many civilized nations. A chemical inventor would be suspected of insanity for trying to demonstrate his theories by quoting the Bible in preference to a scientific text-book, yet on questions as open to investigation and proof as any problem of chemistry, the courts of numerous intelligent nations still refuse to accept the testimony of a witness who happens to prefer the philosophy of Humboldt and Spencer to the rant of an oriental spook-monger. The proposition to oblige a water-drinker to defray the expense of his neighbor’s passion for intoxicating beverages would justly land the proposer in the next lunatic asylum, yet millions upon millions of our Caucasian fellow-men are still taxed to enable their neighbors to enjoy the luxuries of a creed which the conscience of the unwilling tithe-payer rejects as a degrading superstition. In Europe countless Nonconformists have to contribute to the[229]support of a parish-priest or village-rector on pain of having a sheriff sell their household goods at public auction. In America farmers and mechanics have to pay double taxes in order to enable an association of mythology-mongers to hold their property tax-free. Because the pantheon of the Ammonites included a god with cannibal propensities, helpless infants were for centuries roasted on the consecrated gridiron of that god; and because eighteen hundred years ago the diseased imagination of a world-renouncing bigot conceived the idea of a deity delighting in the self-affliction of his creatures, the gloom of death still broods over the day devoted to the special worship of that God, and the coercive penalties of the law are weekly visited upon all who refuse to sacrifice their health and happiness on the altar of superstition.But legislative abuses are not confined to religious anachronisms. The inconsistencies of our penal code still betray the influence of medieval prejudices in the unwise leniency, as well as in the disproportionate severity, of their dealings with purely secular offenses. The vice of intemperance was for centuries encouraged by the example of the clergy, while the control, or even the suppression, of the sexual instinct was enforced by barbarous penalties. And while the panders of the alcohol vice are still countenanced by the sanction of legal license and admitted to official positions of honor and influence, the mediators of sexual vice are treated as social outcasts, and punished with a severity out of all proportion to the actual social standards of virtue. The deserted wife, who in a moment of despair has caused the death of[230]an unborn child, is treated as the vilest of criminals, while the crime of a railway shark or tenement-speculator whose selfishness and greed have caused a fatal disaster, is condoned in consideration of “social respectability,”i.e., a mask of orthodox sentiments and unctuous cant. A Christian jury will thank a banker for shooting a poor wretch whom extreme distress may have driven to enter a house for predatory purposes, but if that same banker should be convicted of embezzling the hard-earned savings of trusting widows and orphans, his fellow-hypocrites will circulate an eloquent petition for his release from a few years of light imprisonment.There is need of other reforms, which recommend themselves by such cogent arguments that their adoption seems only a question of time, such as the protection of forests, the recognition of women’s rights, the “habitual criminal” law, physical education, and the abolition of the poison-traffic.It is undoubtedly true that the progress from barbarism to culture is characterized by the growth of a voluntary respect for the authority of legal institutions, but it is equally true that the highest goals of civilization cannot be reached till the degree of that respect shall be measured by the utility, rather than by the antiquity, of special laws.[231][Contents]CHAPTER XX.THE PRIESTHOOD OF SECULARISM.[Contents]A.—LESSONS OF INSTINCT.An instinct inherited from the habits of many generations teaches our social fellow-creatures to entrust the welfare of their communities to the protection of an experienced leader. Birds that become gregarious only at a certain time of the year select a guide for that special occasion. Others have a permanent leader, and among the more intelligent quadrupeds that leadership becomes dual. Besides the stout champion who comes to the front in moments of danger, wild cattle, horses, antelopes, deer, and the social quadrumana have a veteran pioneer who guides their migrations and sentinels their encampments.Among the primitive tribes of our fellow-men, too, the authority of leadership is divided between a warrior and a teacher, a chieftain and a priest. The obstinacy of savages, who refuse to yield to reason, suggested the plan of controlling their passions by the fear of the unseen, but ghost-mongery was not the only, nor even the most essential, function of primitive priesthood. The elders of the Brahmans were the guardians of homeless children and overseers of public charities. The Celtic Druids were the custodians of national treasures. The rune-wardens of the ancient Scandinavians preserved the historical traditions and law records of their nation. The priests of the Phœnicians (like our Indian medicine men) were trained physicians. The Egyptian[232]hierophants were priests of knowledge, as well as of mythology. They were the historians and biographers of their nation. They codified the national laws. They taught geometry; they taught grammar; they taught and practiced surgery; they devoted a large portion of their time to astronomical observations. Their temple-cities were, in fact, free universities, and the waste of time devoted to the rites of superstition was more than compensated by secular studies, and to some degree also by the political services of learned priests, who seem to have been occasionally employed in diplomatic emergencies.Motives of political prudence induced the law-givers of the Mediterranean nations to circumscribe the authority of their pontiffs, which at last was, indeed, almost limited to the supervision of religious ceremonies. But in Rome, as well as in Greece and the Grecian colonies of western Asia, the true functions of priesthood were assumed by the popular exponents of philosophy, especially by the Stoics and Pythagoreans. The weekly lectures of Zeno were attended by a miscellaneous throng of truth-seekers; the disciples of Pythagoras almost worshiped their master; Diagoras and Carneades traveled from town to town, preaching to vast audiences of spell-bound admirers; Apollonius of Tyana rose in fame till cities competed for the honor of his visits; theclientèleof no Grecian prince was thought complete without a court philosopher; the tyrant Dionysius, in all the pride of his power, invited the moral rigorist Plato and submitted to his daily repeated reproofs. Philosophers[233]were the confessors, the comforters, and the counselors of their patrons, and philosophic tutors were in such request that wealthy Romans did not hesitate to procure them from the traffickers in Grecian captives and indulge them in all privileges but that of liberty. Centuries before a bishop of Rome contrived to avert the wrath of King Alaric, doomed cities had been spared at the intercession of pagan philosophers, and philosophers more than once succeeded in allaying the fury of mutineers who would have ridiculed an appeal to mythological traditions.[Contents]B.—REWARDS OF CONFORMITY.The power of filial love hardly exceeds that of the passionate veneration which kindles about the person of a sincere teacher of truth. The homage paid to an apostle of light is the noblest form of hero-worship. The hosannas of idol-service overflowing upon the idol-priest are marred by the discords of hypocrisy and the reproving silence of reason; but the approval of wisdom is the highest reward of its ministry. The brightness of that prestige shames the gilded halo of the mythology-monger; the minister of Truth may lack the pomp of consecrated temples, but his disciples will make a hermit’s cave a Delphic grotto and will not willingly let the record of his oracles perish. The chants of the Eleusynian festivals, the shout of the Lupercalia, the mumblings of augurs and sibyls, have been forever silenced; but the words of Plato still live; Socrates still speaks to[234]thousands of truth-seekers; the wisdom of Seneca still brightens the gloom of adversity.Religions founded on any basis of truth can survive the fall of their temples. Jerusalem was wrecked in the storm of Roman conquest, but the health-laws of the Mosaic code defied the power of the destroyer, and of all the creeds born on the teeming soil of the East, Judaism alone can still be preached without an alloy of cant and compromise.The enthusiasm of progress has nothing to fear from the growth of skepticism. Mankind will always appreciate their enlightened well-wishers. In cities where the creed of the Galilean supernaturalist has become almost as obsolete as the witchcraft delusion, progressive clergymen still draw audiences of intelligent and sincere admirers, and the apostles of social reform are haunted by anxious inquirers, disciples whom the penalties of heresy fail to deter, and who if barred out all day will come by night: “Master, what shall we do to be saved?”In spite of sham saviors, the search after salvation has never ceased, and after eighteen centuries of clerical caricatures the ideal of true priesthood still survives in the hearts of men.[Contents]C.—PERVERSION.The puerile supernaturalism of the pagan myth-mongers could not fail to injure their prestige, even in an age of superstition; but theantinaturalismof the Galilean fanatics not only neglected but completely inverted the proper functions of priesthood. The pretended ministers of Truth became her remorseless[235]persecutors; the promised healers depreciated the importance of bodily health, the hoped-for apostles of social reform preached the doctrine of renunciation. We should not judge the Christian clergy by the aberrations engendered by the maddening influence of protracted persecutions. It would be equally unfair to give them the credit of latter-day reforms, reluctantly conceded to the demands of rationalism. But we can with perfect fairness judge them by the standard of the moral and intellectual types evolved during the period of their plenary power, the three hundred years from the tenth to the end of the thirteenth century, when the control of morals and education had been unconditionally surrendered into the hands of their chosen representatives. The comparative scale of human turpitude must not include the creations of fiction. We might find ane plus ultraof infamy in the satires of Rabelais, in the myths of Hindostan, or the burlesques of the modern French dramatists. But if we confine our comparison to the records of authentic history, it would be no exaggeration to say that during the period named the type of a Christian priest represented the absolute extreme of all the groveling ignorance, the meanest selfishness, the rankest sloth, the basest servility, the foulest perfidy, the grossest superstition, the most bestial sensuality, to which the majesty of human nature has ever been degraded. Thousands of monasteries fattened on the toil of starving peasants. Villages were beggared by the rapacity of the tithe-gatherer; cities were terrorized by witch-hunts andautos-da-fé. The crimps of the inquisitorial[236]tribunals hired spies and suborned perjurers by promising them a share of confiscated estates. The evidence of intellectual pursuits was equivalent to a sentence of death. Education was almost limited to the memorizing of chants and prayers. “A cloud of ignorance,” says Hallam, “overspread the whole face of the church, hardly broken by a few glimmering lights who owe almost the whole of their distinction to the surrounding darkness.… In 992, it was asserted that scarcely a single person was to be found, even in Rome itself, who knew the first elements of letters. Not one priest of a thousand in Spain could address a common letter of salutation to another.” Every deathbed became a harvest-field of clerical vampires who did not hesitate to bully the dying into robbing their children for the benefit of a bloated convent. Herds of howling fanatics roamed the country, frenzying the superstitious rustics with their predictions of impending horrors. Parishioners had to submit to the base avarice and the baser lusts of insolent parish priests, who in his turn kissed the dust at the feet of an arrogant prelate. The doctrine of Antinaturalism had solved the problem of inflicting the greatest possible amount of misery on the greatest possible number of victims.[Contents]D.—PENALTIES OF NEGLECT.The intellectual interregnum of the Middle Ages, the era of specters and vampires, received the first promise of dawn about the middle of the fourteenth century, when the lessons of the Crusades and the influence of Moorish civilization began to react on[237]the nations of Christian Europe. Yet, by methods of their own, the vampires succeeded in prolonging the dreadful night. They set their owls a-shrieking from a thousand pulpits; they darkened the air with the smoke-clouds ofautos-da-fé. They treated every torch-bearer as an incendiary.But though the delay of redemption completed the ruin of some of their victims, the ghouls did not escape the deserved retribution. Their fire alarms failed to avert the brightening dawn. Daylight found its way even through the painted glass of dome-windows, and in the open air the blood-suckers had to take wing on pain of being shaken off and trampled under foot. The slaves of Hayti never rose more fiercely against their French tyrants than the German peasants against their clerical oppressor. From Antwerp to Leipzig thousands of convents were leveled with the ground; the villages of Holland, Minden, and Brunswick joined in a general priest-hunt, carried on with all the cruelties which the man-hunters of the Frankish crusade had inflicted on the pagan Saxons. In the Mediterranean Peninsulas the Jesuits were expelled as enemies of public peace, and their colleagues could maintain themselves only by an alliance with despotism against the liberal and intellectual elements of their country. To patriots of the Garibaldi type the name of a priest has become a byword implying the very quintessence of infamy. The explosion of the French Revolution struck a still deadlier blow at clerical prestige. The fagot-arguments of the Holy Inquisition were answered by[238]a “burning, as in hell-fire, of priestly shams and lies,” and not one out of twenty French monasteries escaped the fury of the avengers. Our Protestant clergymen see their temple walls cracked by a breach of ever-multiplying schisms, and can prop their prestige only by more and more humiliating concessions, and in every intelligent community have to purchase popularity by rank heresies against the dogmas of their predecessors. Here and there the orthodox tenets of the New Testament have survived the progress of rationalism, but haunt the shade, like specters scenting the morning air, and momentarily expecting the summons that shall banish them to the realms of their native night.[Contents]E.—REFORM.When the harbinger of day dispels the specters of darkness, half-awakened sleepers often mourn the fading visions of dreamland, as they would mourn the memories of a vanished world, till they find that the solid earth still remains, with its mountains and forests, and that the enjoyment of real life has but just begun. With a similar regret the dupes of Jesuitism mourn the collapse of their creed and lament the decline of morality, till they find that religion still remains, with its consolations and hopes, and that the true work of redemption has but just begun.The reign of superstition begins to yield to a religion of reason and humanity. The first forerunners of that religion appeared at the end of the sixteenth century, when the philosophers of northern Europe[239]first dared to appeal from dogma to nature, and since that revival of common-sense the prison walls of clerical obscurantism have been shaken by shock after shock, till daylight now enters through a thousand fissures.But Secularism has a positive as well as a negative mission, and after removing the ruins of exploded idols, the champions of reform will begin the work of reconstruction. Temples dedicated to the religion of progress will rise from the ruins of superstition. Communities of reformants will intrust the work of education to chosen teachers, who will combine the functions of an instructor with those of an exhorter. In the languages of several European nations the word “rector” still bears that twofold significance. The ministers of Secularism will not sacrifice physical health to mental culture. They will begymnasiarchs, like the Grecian pedagogues who superintended the athletic exercises of their pupils and accompanied them on foot journeys and hunting excursions. They will be teachers of hygiene, laboring to secure the foundations of mental energy by the preservation of physical vigor, and to banish diseases by the removal of their causes. They will seek to circumscribe the power of prejudice by the extension of knowledge. They will obviate the perils of poverty by lessons of industry and prudence. Their doctrines will dispense with miracles; they will make experience the test of truth, and justice the test of integrity; they will not suppress, but encourage, free inquiry; their war against error will employ no weapons but those of logic.[240]The religion of reason will limit its proper sphere to the secular welfare of mankind, but will ask, as well as grant, the fullest freedom of metaphysical speculation. Why should the friends of light darken the sunshine of earth with fanatical wars for the suppression of private theories about the mystery of the unrevealed first cause? Why should they rage about the riddle of the veiled hereafter to please the ordainer of the eternal law that visits such inexorable penalties upon the neglect of the present world? Should the friends of common sense quarrel about guesses at the solution of unknowable secrets? We need not grudge our wonder-loving brother the luxury of meditating on the mysteries of the unseen or the possibilities of resurrection. Shall the soul of the dying patriarch live only in his children? Shall it wing its way to distant stars? Shall it linger on earth:“Sigh in the breeze, keep silence in the cave,And glide with airy foot o’er yonder sea?”Why should we wrangle about riddles which we cannot possibly solve? But we might certainly have honesty enough to admit that impossibility. Musing on the enigmas of the “land beyond the veil” may entertain us with the visions of a dreamy hour, but should not engross the time needed for the problems of the only world thus far revealed.Thus, founded on a basis of health-culture, reason, and justice, the office of priesthood will regain its ancient prestige, and the best and wisest of men will become ministers of Secularism by devoting their lives to the science of happiness on earth.[241]

[Contents]CHAPTER XVI.FOREST CULTURE.[Contents]A.—LESSONS OF INSTINCT.It is wonderful how often instinct has anticipated the practical lessons of science. Long before comparative anatomy taught us the characteristics of our digestive organs the testimony of our natural predilections indicated the advantages of a frugal diet. Long before modern hygiene pointed out the perils of breathing the atmosphere of unventilated dormitories the evidence of our senses warned us against the foulness of that atmosphere. And ages before the researches of agricultural chemistry began to reveal the protective influence of arboreal vegetation, an instinct which the child of civilization shares with the rudest savage revolted against the reckless destruction of fine woodlands, and sought to retrieve the loss by surrounding private homes with groves and parks. The love of forests is as natural to our species as the love of rocks to the mountain-goat. Trees and tree-shade are associated with our traditions of paradise, and that the cradle of the human race was not a brick tenement or a wheat-farm, but a tree-garden, is one of the few points on which the genesis of Darwin agrees with that of the Pentateuch.[195]The happiest days of childhood would lose half their charm without the witchery of woodland rambles, and, like an echo of the foreworld, the instincts of our forest-born ancestors often awake in the souls of their descendants. City children are transported with delight at the first sight of a wood-covered landscape, and the evergreen arcades of a tropical forest would charm the soul of a young Esquimaux as the ever-rolling waves of the ocean would awaken the yearnings of a captive sea-bird. The traveler Chamisso mentions an interview with a poor Yakoot, a native of the North Siberian ice-coast, who happened to get hold of an illustrated magazine with a woodcut of a fine southern landscape: a river-valley, rocky slopes rising toward a park-like lawn with a background of wooded highlands. With that journal on his knees the Yakoot squatted down in front of the traveler’s tent, and thus sat motionless, hour after hour, contemplating the picture in silent rapture. “How would you like to live in a country of that kind?” asked the professor. The Yakoot folded his hands, but continued his reverie. “I hope we shall go there if we are good,” said he at last, with a sigh of deep emotion.The importance of hereditary instincts can be often measured by the degree of their persistence. Man is supposed to be a native of the trans-Caucasian highlands—Armenia, perhaps, or the terrace-lands of the Hindookoosh. Yet agriculture has succeeded in developing a type of human beings who would instinctively prefer a fertile plain to the grandest highland paradise of the East. Warfare has in like manner[196]engendered an instinctive fondness for a life of perilous adventure, as contrasted with the arcadian security of the Golden Age. There are men who prefer slavery to freedom, and think pallor more attractive than the glow of health, but a millennium of unnaturalism has as yet failed to develop a species of human beings who would instinctively prefer the dreariness of a treeless plain to the verdure of a primeval forest.[Contents]B.—REWARDS OF CONFORMITY.The love of forest-trees is a characteristic of the nature-abiding nations of the North, and has rewarded itself by an almost complete reversion of the original contrast between the garden lands of the South and the inhospitable wilderness of the higher latitudes. Forest destruction has turned Southern Europe into a desert, while the preservation of forests has made the homes of the hyperborean hunters an Eden of beauty and fertility. “One-third to the hunter, two-thirds to the husbandman,” was the rule of Margrave Philip in his distribution of forest and fields, and expresses the exact proportion which modern science indicates as most favorable to the perennial fertility of our farm-lands. In a single century the forest-destroying Spaniards turned many of their American colonies from gardens into sand-wastes, while, after fourteen hundred years of continuous cultivation, the fields of the Danubian Valley are still as fertile as in the days of Trajan and Tacitus. Along the river-banks and half-way up the foot-hills the arable land has been cleared, but higher[197]up the forest has been spared. All the highlands from Ratisbon toBuda-Pesthstill form a continuous mountain park of stately oaks and pines, and, as a consequence, springs never fail; crops are safe against winter floods and summer drouths; song-birds still return to their birthland, and reward their protectors by the destruction of noxious insects; meadows, grain-fields, and orchards produce their abundant harvest year after year; famine is unknown, and contagious diseases rarely assume an epidemic form. In Switzerland and Prussia the preservation of the now remaining woodlands is guaranteed by strict protective laws; Scandinavia requires her forest-owners to replant a certain portion of every larger clearing; in Great Britain the parks of the ancient mansions are protected like sacred monuments of the past, and landowners vie in lining their field-trails with rows of shade-trees. The fertility of those lands is a constant surprise to the American traveler disposed to associate the idea of eastern landscapes with the picture of worn-out fields. Surrounded by Russian steppes and trans-Alpine deserts, the homes of the Germanic nations still form a Goshen of verdure and abundance. Forest protectors have not lost their earthly paradise.[Contents]C.—PERVERSION.Sixteen hundred years ago the highlands of the European continent were still covered with a dense growth of primeval forests. The healthfulness and fertility of the Mediterranean coastlands surpassed that of the most favored regions of the present world,[198]and the dependence of those blessings on the preservation of the spring-sheltering woodlands was clearly recognized by such writers as Pliny and Columella, though their own experience did not enable them to suspect all the ruinous consequences of that wholesale forest destruction, which modern science has justly denounced as thene plus ultrafolly of human improvidence. Practical experiments had, however, demonstrated such facts as the failing of springs on treeless slopes, and the violence of winter floods in districts unprotected by rain-absorbing forests, and tree culture was practiced as a regular branch of rational husbandry. But with the triumph of the Galilean church came the millennium of unnaturalism. Rational agriculture became a tradition of the past; the culture of secular science was fiercely denounced from thousands of pulpits; improvidence, “unworldliness,” and superstitious reliance on the efficacy of prayer were systematically inculcated as supreme virtues; the cultivators of the soil were treated like unclean beasts, and for a series of centuries the garden regions of the East were abandoned to the inevitable consequences of neglect and misculture.Millions of acres of fine forest lands passed into the hands of ignorant priests, who, in their greed for immediate gain, and their reckless indifference to the secular welfare of posterity, doomed their trees to the ax, entailing barrenness on regions favored by every natural advantage of soil and climate. Drouths, famines, and locust-swarms failed to impress the protest of nature. Her enemies had no concern with such worldly vanities as the study of climatic vicissitudes,[199]and hoped to avert the consequences of their folly by an appeal to the intercession of miracle-working saints.[Contents]D.—PENALTIES OF NEGLECT.Yet the saints failed to answer that appeal. The outraged laws of nature avenged themselves with the inexorable sequence of cause and effect, and in spite of all prayer-meetings the significance of their crime against the fertility of their Mother Earth was brought home to the experience of the ruthless destroyers. In their net-work of moss and leaves forests absorb the moisture of the atmosphere, and thus nourish the springs which in their turn replenish the brooks and rivers. When the highlands of the Mediterranean peninsulas had been deprived of their woods the general failing of springs turned rivers into shallow brooks, and brook-valleys into arid ravines. Summer rains became too scarce to support the vegetation of the farm lands; the tillers of the soil had to resort to irrigation and eat their bread in a harder and ever harder struggle for existence, till vast areas of once fertile lands had to be entirely abandoned, and the arable territory of this planet was yearly reduced by the growth of an artificial desert. And while the summer drouths became more severe, winter floods became more frequent and destructive. From the treeless slopes of the Mediterranean coastlands winter rains descended like waterfalls, turning once placid rivers into raging torrents, and depriving the fields of their small remnant of fertile mould. Hillsides which in the times of[200]Virgil had furnished pastures for thousands of herds were thus reduced to a state of desolation almost as complete as that of a volcanic cinder-field; their dells choked with rockdebris, their terraces rent by a chaos of gullies and clefts, while the soil, swept from the highlands, was accumulated in mudbanks near the mouth of the river. Harbors once offering anchorage for the fleets of an empire became inaccessible from the ever-growing deposits of diluvium. Yearly mud inundations engendered climatic diseases and all-pervading gnat swarms. Insectivorous birds, deprived of their nest shelter, emigrated to less inhospitable lands, and the scant produce of tillage had to be shared with ever-multiplying legions of destructive insects. Along the south coasts of Italy the shore-hills for hundreds of miles present the same dreary aspect of monotonous barrenness. Greece is a naked rock; forests have almost disappeared from the plains of Spain and Asia Minor; in northern Africa millions of square miles, once teeming with cities and castles, have been reduced to a state of hopeless aridity. The Mediterranean, once a forest-lake of paradise, has become a Dead Sea, surrounded by barren rocks, and sandy or dust clouded plains. According to a careful comparison of the extant data of statistical computations, the population of the territory once comprised under the jurisdiction of the Cæsars has thus been reduced from 290,000,000 to less than 80,000,000,i.e., from a hundred to less than thirty per cent. In other words, an average of seventy-eight in a hundred human beings have been starved out of existence, and the same area of ground[201]which once supported a flourishing village, at present almost fails to satisfy the hunger of a small family. For we must not forget that modern industry has devised methods of subsistence undreamed of by the nations of antiquity, and that the religion of resignation has taught millions to endure degrees of wretchedness which nine out of ten pagans would have refused to prefer to the alternative of self-destruction. A whole tenement of priest-ridden lazaronis now contrive to eke out a subsistence on a pittance which a citizen of ancient Rome would have been too proud to ask a woman to share; yet with all their talent for surviving under conditions of soul and body degrading distress, only eight children of the Mediterranean coastlands can now wring a sickly subsistence from the same area of soil which once sufficed to supply twenty-nine men with all the blessings of health and abundance.[Contents]E.—REFORM.The discovery of two new continents has respited the doomed nations of the Old World, but the rapid colonization of those land supplements will soon reduce mankind to the alternative of tree-culture or emigration to the charity-farm of the New Jerusalem. In the words of a great German naturalist, “We shall have to work the world over again.” On a small scale the practicability of that plan has already been conclusively demonstrated. By tree-culture alone arid sand-wastes have been restored to something like tolerable fertility, if not to anything approaching their pristine productiveness. In the lower valley of[202]the Nile (the ancient Thebaïd) Ibrahim Pasha set out thirty-five million Circassian forest-trees, of which one-third at least took root, and by their growth not only reclaimed the sterility of the soil but increased the average annual rainfall from four to fifteen inches. In the Landes of western France a large tract of land has been reclaimed from the inroads of the coast sand by lining the dunes with a thick belt of trees, and some fifteen hundred square miles of once worthless fields have thus been restored to a high degree of productiveness. In the AustrianKarst, a sterile plateau of limestone cliffs and caves has been dotted with groves till the valleys have been refreshed with the water of resuscitated springs; and pasture-lands, long too impoverished even for the sustenance of mountain goats, once more are covered with herds of thriving cattle.The experience of the next three or four generations will not fail to make every intelligent farmer a tree-planter. Our barren fields will be turned into pine plantations, every public highway will be lined with shade-trees. The communities of the next century will vie in the consecration of township groves, in the founding of forestry clubs, in the celebration of arbor days and woodland festivals. The barren table-lands of our central states will be reclaimed, and before the end of the twentieth century the work of redemption will be extended to the great deserts of the Eastern continents. And as a hundred years ago armies of tree-fellers were busy wresting land from the primeval forest, in a hundred years more armies of tree-planters will be busy wresting land[203]from the desert. The men that will “work the world over again” will not be apt to forget the terms of their second lease.In turning up the soil of the reclaimed desert they will unearth the foundations of buried temples, temples once sacred to the worship of gods whose prophets drenched the world with blood to enforce the observance of circumcision rites, wafer rites, and immersion rites, and filled their scriptures with minute instructions for the ordinances of priests and the mumbling of prescribed prayers. In musing over the ruins of such temples, the children of the future will have a chance for many profitable meditations—the reflection, for instance: From what mistakes those alleged saviors might have saved the world if their voluminous gospels had devoted a single page to an injunction against the earth-desolating folly of forest-destruction!

CHAPTER XVI.FOREST CULTURE.

[Contents]A.—LESSONS OF INSTINCT.It is wonderful how often instinct has anticipated the practical lessons of science. Long before comparative anatomy taught us the characteristics of our digestive organs the testimony of our natural predilections indicated the advantages of a frugal diet. Long before modern hygiene pointed out the perils of breathing the atmosphere of unventilated dormitories the evidence of our senses warned us against the foulness of that atmosphere. And ages before the researches of agricultural chemistry began to reveal the protective influence of arboreal vegetation, an instinct which the child of civilization shares with the rudest savage revolted against the reckless destruction of fine woodlands, and sought to retrieve the loss by surrounding private homes with groves and parks. The love of forests is as natural to our species as the love of rocks to the mountain-goat. Trees and tree-shade are associated with our traditions of paradise, and that the cradle of the human race was not a brick tenement or a wheat-farm, but a tree-garden, is one of the few points on which the genesis of Darwin agrees with that of the Pentateuch.[195]The happiest days of childhood would lose half their charm without the witchery of woodland rambles, and, like an echo of the foreworld, the instincts of our forest-born ancestors often awake in the souls of their descendants. City children are transported with delight at the first sight of a wood-covered landscape, and the evergreen arcades of a tropical forest would charm the soul of a young Esquimaux as the ever-rolling waves of the ocean would awaken the yearnings of a captive sea-bird. The traveler Chamisso mentions an interview with a poor Yakoot, a native of the North Siberian ice-coast, who happened to get hold of an illustrated magazine with a woodcut of a fine southern landscape: a river-valley, rocky slopes rising toward a park-like lawn with a background of wooded highlands. With that journal on his knees the Yakoot squatted down in front of the traveler’s tent, and thus sat motionless, hour after hour, contemplating the picture in silent rapture. “How would you like to live in a country of that kind?” asked the professor. The Yakoot folded his hands, but continued his reverie. “I hope we shall go there if we are good,” said he at last, with a sigh of deep emotion.The importance of hereditary instincts can be often measured by the degree of their persistence. Man is supposed to be a native of the trans-Caucasian highlands—Armenia, perhaps, or the terrace-lands of the Hindookoosh. Yet agriculture has succeeded in developing a type of human beings who would instinctively prefer a fertile plain to the grandest highland paradise of the East. Warfare has in like manner[196]engendered an instinctive fondness for a life of perilous adventure, as contrasted with the arcadian security of the Golden Age. There are men who prefer slavery to freedom, and think pallor more attractive than the glow of health, but a millennium of unnaturalism has as yet failed to develop a species of human beings who would instinctively prefer the dreariness of a treeless plain to the verdure of a primeval forest.[Contents]B.—REWARDS OF CONFORMITY.The love of forest-trees is a characteristic of the nature-abiding nations of the North, and has rewarded itself by an almost complete reversion of the original contrast between the garden lands of the South and the inhospitable wilderness of the higher latitudes. Forest destruction has turned Southern Europe into a desert, while the preservation of forests has made the homes of the hyperborean hunters an Eden of beauty and fertility. “One-third to the hunter, two-thirds to the husbandman,” was the rule of Margrave Philip in his distribution of forest and fields, and expresses the exact proportion which modern science indicates as most favorable to the perennial fertility of our farm-lands. In a single century the forest-destroying Spaniards turned many of their American colonies from gardens into sand-wastes, while, after fourteen hundred years of continuous cultivation, the fields of the Danubian Valley are still as fertile as in the days of Trajan and Tacitus. Along the river-banks and half-way up the foot-hills the arable land has been cleared, but higher[197]up the forest has been spared. All the highlands from Ratisbon toBuda-Pesthstill form a continuous mountain park of stately oaks and pines, and, as a consequence, springs never fail; crops are safe against winter floods and summer drouths; song-birds still return to their birthland, and reward their protectors by the destruction of noxious insects; meadows, grain-fields, and orchards produce their abundant harvest year after year; famine is unknown, and contagious diseases rarely assume an epidemic form. In Switzerland and Prussia the preservation of the now remaining woodlands is guaranteed by strict protective laws; Scandinavia requires her forest-owners to replant a certain portion of every larger clearing; in Great Britain the parks of the ancient mansions are protected like sacred monuments of the past, and landowners vie in lining their field-trails with rows of shade-trees. The fertility of those lands is a constant surprise to the American traveler disposed to associate the idea of eastern landscapes with the picture of worn-out fields. Surrounded by Russian steppes and trans-Alpine deserts, the homes of the Germanic nations still form a Goshen of verdure and abundance. Forest protectors have not lost their earthly paradise.[Contents]C.—PERVERSION.Sixteen hundred years ago the highlands of the European continent were still covered with a dense growth of primeval forests. The healthfulness and fertility of the Mediterranean coastlands surpassed that of the most favored regions of the present world,[198]and the dependence of those blessings on the preservation of the spring-sheltering woodlands was clearly recognized by such writers as Pliny and Columella, though their own experience did not enable them to suspect all the ruinous consequences of that wholesale forest destruction, which modern science has justly denounced as thene plus ultrafolly of human improvidence. Practical experiments had, however, demonstrated such facts as the failing of springs on treeless slopes, and the violence of winter floods in districts unprotected by rain-absorbing forests, and tree culture was practiced as a regular branch of rational husbandry. But with the triumph of the Galilean church came the millennium of unnaturalism. Rational agriculture became a tradition of the past; the culture of secular science was fiercely denounced from thousands of pulpits; improvidence, “unworldliness,” and superstitious reliance on the efficacy of prayer were systematically inculcated as supreme virtues; the cultivators of the soil were treated like unclean beasts, and for a series of centuries the garden regions of the East were abandoned to the inevitable consequences of neglect and misculture.Millions of acres of fine forest lands passed into the hands of ignorant priests, who, in their greed for immediate gain, and their reckless indifference to the secular welfare of posterity, doomed their trees to the ax, entailing barrenness on regions favored by every natural advantage of soil and climate. Drouths, famines, and locust-swarms failed to impress the protest of nature. Her enemies had no concern with such worldly vanities as the study of climatic vicissitudes,[199]and hoped to avert the consequences of their folly by an appeal to the intercession of miracle-working saints.[Contents]D.—PENALTIES OF NEGLECT.Yet the saints failed to answer that appeal. The outraged laws of nature avenged themselves with the inexorable sequence of cause and effect, and in spite of all prayer-meetings the significance of their crime against the fertility of their Mother Earth was brought home to the experience of the ruthless destroyers. In their net-work of moss and leaves forests absorb the moisture of the atmosphere, and thus nourish the springs which in their turn replenish the brooks and rivers. When the highlands of the Mediterranean peninsulas had been deprived of their woods the general failing of springs turned rivers into shallow brooks, and brook-valleys into arid ravines. Summer rains became too scarce to support the vegetation of the farm lands; the tillers of the soil had to resort to irrigation and eat their bread in a harder and ever harder struggle for existence, till vast areas of once fertile lands had to be entirely abandoned, and the arable territory of this planet was yearly reduced by the growth of an artificial desert. And while the summer drouths became more severe, winter floods became more frequent and destructive. From the treeless slopes of the Mediterranean coastlands winter rains descended like waterfalls, turning once placid rivers into raging torrents, and depriving the fields of their small remnant of fertile mould. Hillsides which in the times of[200]Virgil had furnished pastures for thousands of herds were thus reduced to a state of desolation almost as complete as that of a volcanic cinder-field; their dells choked with rockdebris, their terraces rent by a chaos of gullies and clefts, while the soil, swept from the highlands, was accumulated in mudbanks near the mouth of the river. Harbors once offering anchorage for the fleets of an empire became inaccessible from the ever-growing deposits of diluvium. Yearly mud inundations engendered climatic diseases and all-pervading gnat swarms. Insectivorous birds, deprived of their nest shelter, emigrated to less inhospitable lands, and the scant produce of tillage had to be shared with ever-multiplying legions of destructive insects. Along the south coasts of Italy the shore-hills for hundreds of miles present the same dreary aspect of monotonous barrenness. Greece is a naked rock; forests have almost disappeared from the plains of Spain and Asia Minor; in northern Africa millions of square miles, once teeming with cities and castles, have been reduced to a state of hopeless aridity. The Mediterranean, once a forest-lake of paradise, has become a Dead Sea, surrounded by barren rocks, and sandy or dust clouded plains. According to a careful comparison of the extant data of statistical computations, the population of the territory once comprised under the jurisdiction of the Cæsars has thus been reduced from 290,000,000 to less than 80,000,000,i.e., from a hundred to less than thirty per cent. In other words, an average of seventy-eight in a hundred human beings have been starved out of existence, and the same area of ground[201]which once supported a flourishing village, at present almost fails to satisfy the hunger of a small family. For we must not forget that modern industry has devised methods of subsistence undreamed of by the nations of antiquity, and that the religion of resignation has taught millions to endure degrees of wretchedness which nine out of ten pagans would have refused to prefer to the alternative of self-destruction. A whole tenement of priest-ridden lazaronis now contrive to eke out a subsistence on a pittance which a citizen of ancient Rome would have been too proud to ask a woman to share; yet with all their talent for surviving under conditions of soul and body degrading distress, only eight children of the Mediterranean coastlands can now wring a sickly subsistence from the same area of soil which once sufficed to supply twenty-nine men with all the blessings of health and abundance.[Contents]E.—REFORM.The discovery of two new continents has respited the doomed nations of the Old World, but the rapid colonization of those land supplements will soon reduce mankind to the alternative of tree-culture or emigration to the charity-farm of the New Jerusalem. In the words of a great German naturalist, “We shall have to work the world over again.” On a small scale the practicability of that plan has already been conclusively demonstrated. By tree-culture alone arid sand-wastes have been restored to something like tolerable fertility, if not to anything approaching their pristine productiveness. In the lower valley of[202]the Nile (the ancient Thebaïd) Ibrahim Pasha set out thirty-five million Circassian forest-trees, of which one-third at least took root, and by their growth not only reclaimed the sterility of the soil but increased the average annual rainfall from four to fifteen inches. In the Landes of western France a large tract of land has been reclaimed from the inroads of the coast sand by lining the dunes with a thick belt of trees, and some fifteen hundred square miles of once worthless fields have thus been restored to a high degree of productiveness. In the AustrianKarst, a sterile plateau of limestone cliffs and caves has been dotted with groves till the valleys have been refreshed with the water of resuscitated springs; and pasture-lands, long too impoverished even for the sustenance of mountain goats, once more are covered with herds of thriving cattle.The experience of the next three or four generations will not fail to make every intelligent farmer a tree-planter. Our barren fields will be turned into pine plantations, every public highway will be lined with shade-trees. The communities of the next century will vie in the consecration of township groves, in the founding of forestry clubs, in the celebration of arbor days and woodland festivals. The barren table-lands of our central states will be reclaimed, and before the end of the twentieth century the work of redemption will be extended to the great deserts of the Eastern continents. And as a hundred years ago armies of tree-fellers were busy wresting land from the primeval forest, in a hundred years more armies of tree-planters will be busy wresting land[203]from the desert. The men that will “work the world over again” will not be apt to forget the terms of their second lease.In turning up the soil of the reclaimed desert they will unearth the foundations of buried temples, temples once sacred to the worship of gods whose prophets drenched the world with blood to enforce the observance of circumcision rites, wafer rites, and immersion rites, and filled their scriptures with minute instructions for the ordinances of priests and the mumbling of prescribed prayers. In musing over the ruins of such temples, the children of the future will have a chance for many profitable meditations—the reflection, for instance: From what mistakes those alleged saviors might have saved the world if their voluminous gospels had devoted a single page to an injunction against the earth-desolating folly of forest-destruction!

[Contents]A.—LESSONS OF INSTINCT.It is wonderful how often instinct has anticipated the practical lessons of science. Long before comparative anatomy taught us the characteristics of our digestive organs the testimony of our natural predilections indicated the advantages of a frugal diet. Long before modern hygiene pointed out the perils of breathing the atmosphere of unventilated dormitories the evidence of our senses warned us against the foulness of that atmosphere. And ages before the researches of agricultural chemistry began to reveal the protective influence of arboreal vegetation, an instinct which the child of civilization shares with the rudest savage revolted against the reckless destruction of fine woodlands, and sought to retrieve the loss by surrounding private homes with groves and parks. The love of forests is as natural to our species as the love of rocks to the mountain-goat. Trees and tree-shade are associated with our traditions of paradise, and that the cradle of the human race was not a brick tenement or a wheat-farm, but a tree-garden, is one of the few points on which the genesis of Darwin agrees with that of the Pentateuch.[195]The happiest days of childhood would lose half their charm without the witchery of woodland rambles, and, like an echo of the foreworld, the instincts of our forest-born ancestors often awake in the souls of their descendants. City children are transported with delight at the first sight of a wood-covered landscape, and the evergreen arcades of a tropical forest would charm the soul of a young Esquimaux as the ever-rolling waves of the ocean would awaken the yearnings of a captive sea-bird. The traveler Chamisso mentions an interview with a poor Yakoot, a native of the North Siberian ice-coast, who happened to get hold of an illustrated magazine with a woodcut of a fine southern landscape: a river-valley, rocky slopes rising toward a park-like lawn with a background of wooded highlands. With that journal on his knees the Yakoot squatted down in front of the traveler’s tent, and thus sat motionless, hour after hour, contemplating the picture in silent rapture. “How would you like to live in a country of that kind?” asked the professor. The Yakoot folded his hands, but continued his reverie. “I hope we shall go there if we are good,” said he at last, with a sigh of deep emotion.The importance of hereditary instincts can be often measured by the degree of their persistence. Man is supposed to be a native of the trans-Caucasian highlands—Armenia, perhaps, or the terrace-lands of the Hindookoosh. Yet agriculture has succeeded in developing a type of human beings who would instinctively prefer a fertile plain to the grandest highland paradise of the East. Warfare has in like manner[196]engendered an instinctive fondness for a life of perilous adventure, as contrasted with the arcadian security of the Golden Age. There are men who prefer slavery to freedom, and think pallor more attractive than the glow of health, but a millennium of unnaturalism has as yet failed to develop a species of human beings who would instinctively prefer the dreariness of a treeless plain to the verdure of a primeval forest.

A.—LESSONS OF INSTINCT.

It is wonderful how often instinct has anticipated the practical lessons of science. Long before comparative anatomy taught us the characteristics of our digestive organs the testimony of our natural predilections indicated the advantages of a frugal diet. Long before modern hygiene pointed out the perils of breathing the atmosphere of unventilated dormitories the evidence of our senses warned us against the foulness of that atmosphere. And ages before the researches of agricultural chemistry began to reveal the protective influence of arboreal vegetation, an instinct which the child of civilization shares with the rudest savage revolted against the reckless destruction of fine woodlands, and sought to retrieve the loss by surrounding private homes with groves and parks. The love of forests is as natural to our species as the love of rocks to the mountain-goat. Trees and tree-shade are associated with our traditions of paradise, and that the cradle of the human race was not a brick tenement or a wheat-farm, but a tree-garden, is one of the few points on which the genesis of Darwin agrees with that of the Pentateuch.[195]The happiest days of childhood would lose half their charm without the witchery of woodland rambles, and, like an echo of the foreworld, the instincts of our forest-born ancestors often awake in the souls of their descendants. City children are transported with delight at the first sight of a wood-covered landscape, and the evergreen arcades of a tropical forest would charm the soul of a young Esquimaux as the ever-rolling waves of the ocean would awaken the yearnings of a captive sea-bird. The traveler Chamisso mentions an interview with a poor Yakoot, a native of the North Siberian ice-coast, who happened to get hold of an illustrated magazine with a woodcut of a fine southern landscape: a river-valley, rocky slopes rising toward a park-like lawn with a background of wooded highlands. With that journal on his knees the Yakoot squatted down in front of the traveler’s tent, and thus sat motionless, hour after hour, contemplating the picture in silent rapture. “How would you like to live in a country of that kind?” asked the professor. The Yakoot folded his hands, but continued his reverie. “I hope we shall go there if we are good,” said he at last, with a sigh of deep emotion.The importance of hereditary instincts can be often measured by the degree of their persistence. Man is supposed to be a native of the trans-Caucasian highlands—Armenia, perhaps, or the terrace-lands of the Hindookoosh. Yet agriculture has succeeded in developing a type of human beings who would instinctively prefer a fertile plain to the grandest highland paradise of the East. Warfare has in like manner[196]engendered an instinctive fondness for a life of perilous adventure, as contrasted with the arcadian security of the Golden Age. There are men who prefer slavery to freedom, and think pallor more attractive than the glow of health, but a millennium of unnaturalism has as yet failed to develop a species of human beings who would instinctively prefer the dreariness of a treeless plain to the verdure of a primeval forest.

It is wonderful how often instinct has anticipated the practical lessons of science. Long before comparative anatomy taught us the characteristics of our digestive organs the testimony of our natural predilections indicated the advantages of a frugal diet. Long before modern hygiene pointed out the perils of breathing the atmosphere of unventilated dormitories the evidence of our senses warned us against the foulness of that atmosphere. And ages before the researches of agricultural chemistry began to reveal the protective influence of arboreal vegetation, an instinct which the child of civilization shares with the rudest savage revolted against the reckless destruction of fine woodlands, and sought to retrieve the loss by surrounding private homes with groves and parks. The love of forests is as natural to our species as the love of rocks to the mountain-goat. Trees and tree-shade are associated with our traditions of paradise, and that the cradle of the human race was not a brick tenement or a wheat-farm, but a tree-garden, is one of the few points on which the genesis of Darwin agrees with that of the Pentateuch.[195]The happiest days of childhood would lose half their charm without the witchery of woodland rambles, and, like an echo of the foreworld, the instincts of our forest-born ancestors often awake in the souls of their descendants. City children are transported with delight at the first sight of a wood-covered landscape, and the evergreen arcades of a tropical forest would charm the soul of a young Esquimaux as the ever-rolling waves of the ocean would awaken the yearnings of a captive sea-bird. The traveler Chamisso mentions an interview with a poor Yakoot, a native of the North Siberian ice-coast, who happened to get hold of an illustrated magazine with a woodcut of a fine southern landscape: a river-valley, rocky slopes rising toward a park-like lawn with a background of wooded highlands. With that journal on his knees the Yakoot squatted down in front of the traveler’s tent, and thus sat motionless, hour after hour, contemplating the picture in silent rapture. “How would you like to live in a country of that kind?” asked the professor. The Yakoot folded his hands, but continued his reverie. “I hope we shall go there if we are good,” said he at last, with a sigh of deep emotion.

The importance of hereditary instincts can be often measured by the degree of their persistence. Man is supposed to be a native of the trans-Caucasian highlands—Armenia, perhaps, or the terrace-lands of the Hindookoosh. Yet agriculture has succeeded in developing a type of human beings who would instinctively prefer a fertile plain to the grandest highland paradise of the East. Warfare has in like manner[196]engendered an instinctive fondness for a life of perilous adventure, as contrasted with the arcadian security of the Golden Age. There are men who prefer slavery to freedom, and think pallor more attractive than the glow of health, but a millennium of unnaturalism has as yet failed to develop a species of human beings who would instinctively prefer the dreariness of a treeless plain to the verdure of a primeval forest.

[Contents]B.—REWARDS OF CONFORMITY.The love of forest-trees is a characteristic of the nature-abiding nations of the North, and has rewarded itself by an almost complete reversion of the original contrast between the garden lands of the South and the inhospitable wilderness of the higher latitudes. Forest destruction has turned Southern Europe into a desert, while the preservation of forests has made the homes of the hyperborean hunters an Eden of beauty and fertility. “One-third to the hunter, two-thirds to the husbandman,” was the rule of Margrave Philip in his distribution of forest and fields, and expresses the exact proportion which modern science indicates as most favorable to the perennial fertility of our farm-lands. In a single century the forest-destroying Spaniards turned many of their American colonies from gardens into sand-wastes, while, after fourteen hundred years of continuous cultivation, the fields of the Danubian Valley are still as fertile as in the days of Trajan and Tacitus. Along the river-banks and half-way up the foot-hills the arable land has been cleared, but higher[197]up the forest has been spared. All the highlands from Ratisbon toBuda-Pesthstill form a continuous mountain park of stately oaks and pines, and, as a consequence, springs never fail; crops are safe against winter floods and summer drouths; song-birds still return to their birthland, and reward their protectors by the destruction of noxious insects; meadows, grain-fields, and orchards produce their abundant harvest year after year; famine is unknown, and contagious diseases rarely assume an epidemic form. In Switzerland and Prussia the preservation of the now remaining woodlands is guaranteed by strict protective laws; Scandinavia requires her forest-owners to replant a certain portion of every larger clearing; in Great Britain the parks of the ancient mansions are protected like sacred monuments of the past, and landowners vie in lining their field-trails with rows of shade-trees. The fertility of those lands is a constant surprise to the American traveler disposed to associate the idea of eastern landscapes with the picture of worn-out fields. Surrounded by Russian steppes and trans-Alpine deserts, the homes of the Germanic nations still form a Goshen of verdure and abundance. Forest protectors have not lost their earthly paradise.

B.—REWARDS OF CONFORMITY.

The love of forest-trees is a characteristic of the nature-abiding nations of the North, and has rewarded itself by an almost complete reversion of the original contrast between the garden lands of the South and the inhospitable wilderness of the higher latitudes. Forest destruction has turned Southern Europe into a desert, while the preservation of forests has made the homes of the hyperborean hunters an Eden of beauty and fertility. “One-third to the hunter, two-thirds to the husbandman,” was the rule of Margrave Philip in his distribution of forest and fields, and expresses the exact proportion which modern science indicates as most favorable to the perennial fertility of our farm-lands. In a single century the forest-destroying Spaniards turned many of their American colonies from gardens into sand-wastes, while, after fourteen hundred years of continuous cultivation, the fields of the Danubian Valley are still as fertile as in the days of Trajan and Tacitus. Along the river-banks and half-way up the foot-hills the arable land has been cleared, but higher[197]up the forest has been spared. All the highlands from Ratisbon toBuda-Pesthstill form a continuous mountain park of stately oaks and pines, and, as a consequence, springs never fail; crops are safe against winter floods and summer drouths; song-birds still return to their birthland, and reward their protectors by the destruction of noxious insects; meadows, grain-fields, and orchards produce their abundant harvest year after year; famine is unknown, and contagious diseases rarely assume an epidemic form. In Switzerland and Prussia the preservation of the now remaining woodlands is guaranteed by strict protective laws; Scandinavia requires her forest-owners to replant a certain portion of every larger clearing; in Great Britain the parks of the ancient mansions are protected like sacred monuments of the past, and landowners vie in lining their field-trails with rows of shade-trees. The fertility of those lands is a constant surprise to the American traveler disposed to associate the idea of eastern landscapes with the picture of worn-out fields. Surrounded by Russian steppes and trans-Alpine deserts, the homes of the Germanic nations still form a Goshen of verdure and abundance. Forest protectors have not lost their earthly paradise.

The love of forest-trees is a characteristic of the nature-abiding nations of the North, and has rewarded itself by an almost complete reversion of the original contrast between the garden lands of the South and the inhospitable wilderness of the higher latitudes. Forest destruction has turned Southern Europe into a desert, while the preservation of forests has made the homes of the hyperborean hunters an Eden of beauty and fertility. “One-third to the hunter, two-thirds to the husbandman,” was the rule of Margrave Philip in his distribution of forest and fields, and expresses the exact proportion which modern science indicates as most favorable to the perennial fertility of our farm-lands. In a single century the forest-destroying Spaniards turned many of their American colonies from gardens into sand-wastes, while, after fourteen hundred years of continuous cultivation, the fields of the Danubian Valley are still as fertile as in the days of Trajan and Tacitus. Along the river-banks and half-way up the foot-hills the arable land has been cleared, but higher[197]up the forest has been spared. All the highlands from Ratisbon toBuda-Pesthstill form a continuous mountain park of stately oaks and pines, and, as a consequence, springs never fail; crops are safe against winter floods and summer drouths; song-birds still return to their birthland, and reward their protectors by the destruction of noxious insects; meadows, grain-fields, and orchards produce their abundant harvest year after year; famine is unknown, and contagious diseases rarely assume an epidemic form. In Switzerland and Prussia the preservation of the now remaining woodlands is guaranteed by strict protective laws; Scandinavia requires her forest-owners to replant a certain portion of every larger clearing; in Great Britain the parks of the ancient mansions are protected like sacred monuments of the past, and landowners vie in lining their field-trails with rows of shade-trees. The fertility of those lands is a constant surprise to the American traveler disposed to associate the idea of eastern landscapes with the picture of worn-out fields. Surrounded by Russian steppes and trans-Alpine deserts, the homes of the Germanic nations still form a Goshen of verdure and abundance. Forest protectors have not lost their earthly paradise.

[Contents]C.—PERVERSION.Sixteen hundred years ago the highlands of the European continent were still covered with a dense growth of primeval forests. The healthfulness and fertility of the Mediterranean coastlands surpassed that of the most favored regions of the present world,[198]and the dependence of those blessings on the preservation of the spring-sheltering woodlands was clearly recognized by such writers as Pliny and Columella, though their own experience did not enable them to suspect all the ruinous consequences of that wholesale forest destruction, which modern science has justly denounced as thene plus ultrafolly of human improvidence. Practical experiments had, however, demonstrated such facts as the failing of springs on treeless slopes, and the violence of winter floods in districts unprotected by rain-absorbing forests, and tree culture was practiced as a regular branch of rational husbandry. But with the triumph of the Galilean church came the millennium of unnaturalism. Rational agriculture became a tradition of the past; the culture of secular science was fiercely denounced from thousands of pulpits; improvidence, “unworldliness,” and superstitious reliance on the efficacy of prayer were systematically inculcated as supreme virtues; the cultivators of the soil were treated like unclean beasts, and for a series of centuries the garden regions of the East were abandoned to the inevitable consequences of neglect and misculture.Millions of acres of fine forest lands passed into the hands of ignorant priests, who, in their greed for immediate gain, and their reckless indifference to the secular welfare of posterity, doomed their trees to the ax, entailing barrenness on regions favored by every natural advantage of soil and climate. Drouths, famines, and locust-swarms failed to impress the protest of nature. Her enemies had no concern with such worldly vanities as the study of climatic vicissitudes,[199]and hoped to avert the consequences of their folly by an appeal to the intercession of miracle-working saints.

C.—PERVERSION.

Sixteen hundred years ago the highlands of the European continent were still covered with a dense growth of primeval forests. The healthfulness and fertility of the Mediterranean coastlands surpassed that of the most favored regions of the present world,[198]and the dependence of those blessings on the preservation of the spring-sheltering woodlands was clearly recognized by such writers as Pliny and Columella, though their own experience did not enable them to suspect all the ruinous consequences of that wholesale forest destruction, which modern science has justly denounced as thene plus ultrafolly of human improvidence. Practical experiments had, however, demonstrated such facts as the failing of springs on treeless slopes, and the violence of winter floods in districts unprotected by rain-absorbing forests, and tree culture was practiced as a regular branch of rational husbandry. But with the triumph of the Galilean church came the millennium of unnaturalism. Rational agriculture became a tradition of the past; the culture of secular science was fiercely denounced from thousands of pulpits; improvidence, “unworldliness,” and superstitious reliance on the efficacy of prayer were systematically inculcated as supreme virtues; the cultivators of the soil were treated like unclean beasts, and for a series of centuries the garden regions of the East were abandoned to the inevitable consequences of neglect and misculture.Millions of acres of fine forest lands passed into the hands of ignorant priests, who, in their greed for immediate gain, and their reckless indifference to the secular welfare of posterity, doomed their trees to the ax, entailing barrenness on regions favored by every natural advantage of soil and climate. Drouths, famines, and locust-swarms failed to impress the protest of nature. Her enemies had no concern with such worldly vanities as the study of climatic vicissitudes,[199]and hoped to avert the consequences of their folly by an appeal to the intercession of miracle-working saints.

Sixteen hundred years ago the highlands of the European continent were still covered with a dense growth of primeval forests. The healthfulness and fertility of the Mediterranean coastlands surpassed that of the most favored regions of the present world,[198]and the dependence of those blessings on the preservation of the spring-sheltering woodlands was clearly recognized by such writers as Pliny and Columella, though their own experience did not enable them to suspect all the ruinous consequences of that wholesale forest destruction, which modern science has justly denounced as thene plus ultrafolly of human improvidence. Practical experiments had, however, demonstrated such facts as the failing of springs on treeless slopes, and the violence of winter floods in districts unprotected by rain-absorbing forests, and tree culture was practiced as a regular branch of rational husbandry. But with the triumph of the Galilean church came the millennium of unnaturalism. Rational agriculture became a tradition of the past; the culture of secular science was fiercely denounced from thousands of pulpits; improvidence, “unworldliness,” and superstitious reliance on the efficacy of prayer were systematically inculcated as supreme virtues; the cultivators of the soil were treated like unclean beasts, and for a series of centuries the garden regions of the East were abandoned to the inevitable consequences of neglect and misculture.

Millions of acres of fine forest lands passed into the hands of ignorant priests, who, in their greed for immediate gain, and their reckless indifference to the secular welfare of posterity, doomed their trees to the ax, entailing barrenness on regions favored by every natural advantage of soil and climate. Drouths, famines, and locust-swarms failed to impress the protest of nature. Her enemies had no concern with such worldly vanities as the study of climatic vicissitudes,[199]and hoped to avert the consequences of their folly by an appeal to the intercession of miracle-working saints.

[Contents]D.—PENALTIES OF NEGLECT.Yet the saints failed to answer that appeal. The outraged laws of nature avenged themselves with the inexorable sequence of cause and effect, and in spite of all prayer-meetings the significance of their crime against the fertility of their Mother Earth was brought home to the experience of the ruthless destroyers. In their net-work of moss and leaves forests absorb the moisture of the atmosphere, and thus nourish the springs which in their turn replenish the brooks and rivers. When the highlands of the Mediterranean peninsulas had been deprived of their woods the general failing of springs turned rivers into shallow brooks, and brook-valleys into arid ravines. Summer rains became too scarce to support the vegetation of the farm lands; the tillers of the soil had to resort to irrigation and eat their bread in a harder and ever harder struggle for existence, till vast areas of once fertile lands had to be entirely abandoned, and the arable territory of this planet was yearly reduced by the growth of an artificial desert. And while the summer drouths became more severe, winter floods became more frequent and destructive. From the treeless slopes of the Mediterranean coastlands winter rains descended like waterfalls, turning once placid rivers into raging torrents, and depriving the fields of their small remnant of fertile mould. Hillsides which in the times of[200]Virgil had furnished pastures for thousands of herds were thus reduced to a state of desolation almost as complete as that of a volcanic cinder-field; their dells choked with rockdebris, their terraces rent by a chaos of gullies and clefts, while the soil, swept from the highlands, was accumulated in mudbanks near the mouth of the river. Harbors once offering anchorage for the fleets of an empire became inaccessible from the ever-growing deposits of diluvium. Yearly mud inundations engendered climatic diseases and all-pervading gnat swarms. Insectivorous birds, deprived of their nest shelter, emigrated to less inhospitable lands, and the scant produce of tillage had to be shared with ever-multiplying legions of destructive insects. Along the south coasts of Italy the shore-hills for hundreds of miles present the same dreary aspect of monotonous barrenness. Greece is a naked rock; forests have almost disappeared from the plains of Spain and Asia Minor; in northern Africa millions of square miles, once teeming with cities and castles, have been reduced to a state of hopeless aridity. The Mediterranean, once a forest-lake of paradise, has become a Dead Sea, surrounded by barren rocks, and sandy or dust clouded plains. According to a careful comparison of the extant data of statistical computations, the population of the territory once comprised under the jurisdiction of the Cæsars has thus been reduced from 290,000,000 to less than 80,000,000,i.e., from a hundred to less than thirty per cent. In other words, an average of seventy-eight in a hundred human beings have been starved out of existence, and the same area of ground[201]which once supported a flourishing village, at present almost fails to satisfy the hunger of a small family. For we must not forget that modern industry has devised methods of subsistence undreamed of by the nations of antiquity, and that the religion of resignation has taught millions to endure degrees of wretchedness which nine out of ten pagans would have refused to prefer to the alternative of self-destruction. A whole tenement of priest-ridden lazaronis now contrive to eke out a subsistence on a pittance which a citizen of ancient Rome would have been too proud to ask a woman to share; yet with all their talent for surviving under conditions of soul and body degrading distress, only eight children of the Mediterranean coastlands can now wring a sickly subsistence from the same area of soil which once sufficed to supply twenty-nine men with all the blessings of health and abundance.

D.—PENALTIES OF NEGLECT.

Yet the saints failed to answer that appeal. The outraged laws of nature avenged themselves with the inexorable sequence of cause and effect, and in spite of all prayer-meetings the significance of their crime against the fertility of their Mother Earth was brought home to the experience of the ruthless destroyers. In their net-work of moss and leaves forests absorb the moisture of the atmosphere, and thus nourish the springs which in their turn replenish the brooks and rivers. When the highlands of the Mediterranean peninsulas had been deprived of their woods the general failing of springs turned rivers into shallow brooks, and brook-valleys into arid ravines. Summer rains became too scarce to support the vegetation of the farm lands; the tillers of the soil had to resort to irrigation and eat their bread in a harder and ever harder struggle for existence, till vast areas of once fertile lands had to be entirely abandoned, and the arable territory of this planet was yearly reduced by the growth of an artificial desert. And while the summer drouths became more severe, winter floods became more frequent and destructive. From the treeless slopes of the Mediterranean coastlands winter rains descended like waterfalls, turning once placid rivers into raging torrents, and depriving the fields of their small remnant of fertile mould. Hillsides which in the times of[200]Virgil had furnished pastures for thousands of herds were thus reduced to a state of desolation almost as complete as that of a volcanic cinder-field; their dells choked with rockdebris, their terraces rent by a chaos of gullies and clefts, while the soil, swept from the highlands, was accumulated in mudbanks near the mouth of the river. Harbors once offering anchorage for the fleets of an empire became inaccessible from the ever-growing deposits of diluvium. Yearly mud inundations engendered climatic diseases and all-pervading gnat swarms. Insectivorous birds, deprived of their nest shelter, emigrated to less inhospitable lands, and the scant produce of tillage had to be shared with ever-multiplying legions of destructive insects. Along the south coasts of Italy the shore-hills for hundreds of miles present the same dreary aspect of monotonous barrenness. Greece is a naked rock; forests have almost disappeared from the plains of Spain and Asia Minor; in northern Africa millions of square miles, once teeming with cities and castles, have been reduced to a state of hopeless aridity. The Mediterranean, once a forest-lake of paradise, has become a Dead Sea, surrounded by barren rocks, and sandy or dust clouded plains. According to a careful comparison of the extant data of statistical computations, the population of the territory once comprised under the jurisdiction of the Cæsars has thus been reduced from 290,000,000 to less than 80,000,000,i.e., from a hundred to less than thirty per cent. In other words, an average of seventy-eight in a hundred human beings have been starved out of existence, and the same area of ground[201]which once supported a flourishing village, at present almost fails to satisfy the hunger of a small family. For we must not forget that modern industry has devised methods of subsistence undreamed of by the nations of antiquity, and that the religion of resignation has taught millions to endure degrees of wretchedness which nine out of ten pagans would have refused to prefer to the alternative of self-destruction. A whole tenement of priest-ridden lazaronis now contrive to eke out a subsistence on a pittance which a citizen of ancient Rome would have been too proud to ask a woman to share; yet with all their talent for surviving under conditions of soul and body degrading distress, only eight children of the Mediterranean coastlands can now wring a sickly subsistence from the same area of soil which once sufficed to supply twenty-nine men with all the blessings of health and abundance.

Yet the saints failed to answer that appeal. The outraged laws of nature avenged themselves with the inexorable sequence of cause and effect, and in spite of all prayer-meetings the significance of their crime against the fertility of their Mother Earth was brought home to the experience of the ruthless destroyers. In their net-work of moss and leaves forests absorb the moisture of the atmosphere, and thus nourish the springs which in their turn replenish the brooks and rivers. When the highlands of the Mediterranean peninsulas had been deprived of their woods the general failing of springs turned rivers into shallow brooks, and brook-valleys into arid ravines. Summer rains became too scarce to support the vegetation of the farm lands; the tillers of the soil had to resort to irrigation and eat their bread in a harder and ever harder struggle for existence, till vast areas of once fertile lands had to be entirely abandoned, and the arable territory of this planet was yearly reduced by the growth of an artificial desert. And while the summer drouths became more severe, winter floods became more frequent and destructive. From the treeless slopes of the Mediterranean coastlands winter rains descended like waterfalls, turning once placid rivers into raging torrents, and depriving the fields of their small remnant of fertile mould. Hillsides which in the times of[200]Virgil had furnished pastures for thousands of herds were thus reduced to a state of desolation almost as complete as that of a volcanic cinder-field; their dells choked with rockdebris, their terraces rent by a chaos of gullies and clefts, while the soil, swept from the highlands, was accumulated in mudbanks near the mouth of the river. Harbors once offering anchorage for the fleets of an empire became inaccessible from the ever-growing deposits of diluvium. Yearly mud inundations engendered climatic diseases and all-pervading gnat swarms. Insectivorous birds, deprived of their nest shelter, emigrated to less inhospitable lands, and the scant produce of tillage had to be shared with ever-multiplying legions of destructive insects. Along the south coasts of Italy the shore-hills for hundreds of miles present the same dreary aspect of monotonous barrenness. Greece is a naked rock; forests have almost disappeared from the plains of Spain and Asia Minor; in northern Africa millions of square miles, once teeming with cities and castles, have been reduced to a state of hopeless aridity. The Mediterranean, once a forest-lake of paradise, has become a Dead Sea, surrounded by barren rocks, and sandy or dust clouded plains. According to a careful comparison of the extant data of statistical computations, the population of the territory once comprised under the jurisdiction of the Cæsars has thus been reduced from 290,000,000 to less than 80,000,000,i.e., from a hundred to less than thirty per cent. In other words, an average of seventy-eight in a hundred human beings have been starved out of existence, and the same area of ground[201]which once supported a flourishing village, at present almost fails to satisfy the hunger of a small family. For we must not forget that modern industry has devised methods of subsistence undreamed of by the nations of antiquity, and that the religion of resignation has taught millions to endure degrees of wretchedness which nine out of ten pagans would have refused to prefer to the alternative of self-destruction. A whole tenement of priest-ridden lazaronis now contrive to eke out a subsistence on a pittance which a citizen of ancient Rome would have been too proud to ask a woman to share; yet with all their talent for surviving under conditions of soul and body degrading distress, only eight children of the Mediterranean coastlands can now wring a sickly subsistence from the same area of soil which once sufficed to supply twenty-nine men with all the blessings of health and abundance.

[Contents]E.—REFORM.The discovery of two new continents has respited the doomed nations of the Old World, but the rapid colonization of those land supplements will soon reduce mankind to the alternative of tree-culture or emigration to the charity-farm of the New Jerusalem. In the words of a great German naturalist, “We shall have to work the world over again.” On a small scale the practicability of that plan has already been conclusively demonstrated. By tree-culture alone arid sand-wastes have been restored to something like tolerable fertility, if not to anything approaching their pristine productiveness. In the lower valley of[202]the Nile (the ancient Thebaïd) Ibrahim Pasha set out thirty-five million Circassian forest-trees, of which one-third at least took root, and by their growth not only reclaimed the sterility of the soil but increased the average annual rainfall from four to fifteen inches. In the Landes of western France a large tract of land has been reclaimed from the inroads of the coast sand by lining the dunes with a thick belt of trees, and some fifteen hundred square miles of once worthless fields have thus been restored to a high degree of productiveness. In the AustrianKarst, a sterile plateau of limestone cliffs and caves has been dotted with groves till the valleys have been refreshed with the water of resuscitated springs; and pasture-lands, long too impoverished even for the sustenance of mountain goats, once more are covered with herds of thriving cattle.The experience of the next three or four generations will not fail to make every intelligent farmer a tree-planter. Our barren fields will be turned into pine plantations, every public highway will be lined with shade-trees. The communities of the next century will vie in the consecration of township groves, in the founding of forestry clubs, in the celebration of arbor days and woodland festivals. The barren table-lands of our central states will be reclaimed, and before the end of the twentieth century the work of redemption will be extended to the great deserts of the Eastern continents. And as a hundred years ago armies of tree-fellers were busy wresting land from the primeval forest, in a hundred years more armies of tree-planters will be busy wresting land[203]from the desert. The men that will “work the world over again” will not be apt to forget the terms of their second lease.In turning up the soil of the reclaimed desert they will unearth the foundations of buried temples, temples once sacred to the worship of gods whose prophets drenched the world with blood to enforce the observance of circumcision rites, wafer rites, and immersion rites, and filled their scriptures with minute instructions for the ordinances of priests and the mumbling of prescribed prayers. In musing over the ruins of such temples, the children of the future will have a chance for many profitable meditations—the reflection, for instance: From what mistakes those alleged saviors might have saved the world if their voluminous gospels had devoted a single page to an injunction against the earth-desolating folly of forest-destruction!

E.—REFORM.

The discovery of two new continents has respited the doomed nations of the Old World, but the rapid colonization of those land supplements will soon reduce mankind to the alternative of tree-culture or emigration to the charity-farm of the New Jerusalem. In the words of a great German naturalist, “We shall have to work the world over again.” On a small scale the practicability of that plan has already been conclusively demonstrated. By tree-culture alone arid sand-wastes have been restored to something like tolerable fertility, if not to anything approaching their pristine productiveness. In the lower valley of[202]the Nile (the ancient Thebaïd) Ibrahim Pasha set out thirty-five million Circassian forest-trees, of which one-third at least took root, and by their growth not only reclaimed the sterility of the soil but increased the average annual rainfall from four to fifteen inches. In the Landes of western France a large tract of land has been reclaimed from the inroads of the coast sand by lining the dunes with a thick belt of trees, and some fifteen hundred square miles of once worthless fields have thus been restored to a high degree of productiveness. In the AustrianKarst, a sterile plateau of limestone cliffs and caves has been dotted with groves till the valleys have been refreshed with the water of resuscitated springs; and pasture-lands, long too impoverished even for the sustenance of mountain goats, once more are covered with herds of thriving cattle.The experience of the next three or four generations will not fail to make every intelligent farmer a tree-planter. Our barren fields will be turned into pine plantations, every public highway will be lined with shade-trees. The communities of the next century will vie in the consecration of township groves, in the founding of forestry clubs, in the celebration of arbor days and woodland festivals. The barren table-lands of our central states will be reclaimed, and before the end of the twentieth century the work of redemption will be extended to the great deserts of the Eastern continents. And as a hundred years ago armies of tree-fellers were busy wresting land from the primeval forest, in a hundred years more armies of tree-planters will be busy wresting land[203]from the desert. The men that will “work the world over again” will not be apt to forget the terms of their second lease.In turning up the soil of the reclaimed desert they will unearth the foundations of buried temples, temples once sacred to the worship of gods whose prophets drenched the world with blood to enforce the observance of circumcision rites, wafer rites, and immersion rites, and filled their scriptures with minute instructions for the ordinances of priests and the mumbling of prescribed prayers. In musing over the ruins of such temples, the children of the future will have a chance for many profitable meditations—the reflection, for instance: From what mistakes those alleged saviors might have saved the world if their voluminous gospels had devoted a single page to an injunction against the earth-desolating folly of forest-destruction!

The discovery of two new continents has respited the doomed nations of the Old World, but the rapid colonization of those land supplements will soon reduce mankind to the alternative of tree-culture or emigration to the charity-farm of the New Jerusalem. In the words of a great German naturalist, “We shall have to work the world over again.” On a small scale the practicability of that plan has already been conclusively demonstrated. By tree-culture alone arid sand-wastes have been restored to something like tolerable fertility, if not to anything approaching their pristine productiveness. In the lower valley of[202]the Nile (the ancient Thebaïd) Ibrahim Pasha set out thirty-five million Circassian forest-trees, of which one-third at least took root, and by their growth not only reclaimed the sterility of the soil but increased the average annual rainfall from four to fifteen inches. In the Landes of western France a large tract of land has been reclaimed from the inroads of the coast sand by lining the dunes with a thick belt of trees, and some fifteen hundred square miles of once worthless fields have thus been restored to a high degree of productiveness. In the AustrianKarst, a sterile plateau of limestone cliffs and caves has been dotted with groves till the valleys have been refreshed with the water of resuscitated springs; and pasture-lands, long too impoverished even for the sustenance of mountain goats, once more are covered with herds of thriving cattle.

The experience of the next three or four generations will not fail to make every intelligent farmer a tree-planter. Our barren fields will be turned into pine plantations, every public highway will be lined with shade-trees. The communities of the next century will vie in the consecration of township groves, in the founding of forestry clubs, in the celebration of arbor days and woodland festivals. The barren table-lands of our central states will be reclaimed, and before the end of the twentieth century the work of redemption will be extended to the great deserts of the Eastern continents. And as a hundred years ago armies of tree-fellers were busy wresting land from the primeval forest, in a hundred years more armies of tree-planters will be busy wresting land[203]from the desert. The men that will “work the world over again” will not be apt to forget the terms of their second lease.

In turning up the soil of the reclaimed desert they will unearth the foundations of buried temples, temples once sacred to the worship of gods whose prophets drenched the world with blood to enforce the observance of circumcision rites, wafer rites, and immersion rites, and filled their scriptures with minute instructions for the ordinances of priests and the mumbling of prescribed prayers. In musing over the ruins of such temples, the children of the future will have a chance for many profitable meditations—the reflection, for instance: From what mistakes those alleged saviors might have saved the world if their voluminous gospels had devoted a single page to an injunction against the earth-desolating folly of forest-destruction!

[Contents]CHAPTER XVII.RECREATION.[Contents]A.—LESSONS OF INSTINCT.The indoor occupations of civilized life imply the necessity of providing artificial substitutes for the opportunities of physical exercise, which men in a state of nature can find abundantly in the course of such healthful pursuits as hunting, fishing, and primitive agriculture. For similar reasons civilization ought to compensate the lost chance of outdoor sports which only the favorites of fortune can afford[204]to combine with the exigencies of city life. To the children of nature life is a festival; outdoor recreations, exciting sports, offer themselves freely and frequently enough to dispense with artificial supplements; but the dreariness of workshop life makes those substitutes a moral as well as physical necessity. Under the influence of unalloyed drudgery the human soul withers like a plant in a sunless cave, and weariness of heart reacts on the body in a way analogous to the health-undermining effect of sorrow and repeated disappointment. To the unbiased judgment of our pagan forefathers the necessity of providing city dwellers with opportunities for public recreation appeared, indeed, as evident as the necessity of counteracting the rigors of the higher latitudes with contrivances for a supply of artificial warmth. The cities of ancient Greece had weekly and monthly festivals, besides the yearly reunions of competing athletes and artists, and once in four years the champions of the land met to contest the prize of national supremacy in the presence of assembled millions. Hostilities, even during the crisis of civil war, were suspended to insure free access to the plains of Corinth, where the Olympic Games were celebrated with a regularity that made their period the basis of chronological computation for a space of nearly eight hundred years. When Rome became the capital of the world, the yearly disbursements for the subvention of free public recreations equaled the tribute of a wealthy province. There were free race courses, gymnasia, music halls, and wrestling-ring; free public baths and magnificent amphitheaters for[205]the exhibition of free dramatic performances, gladiatorial combats, and curiosities of art and natural history. Every proconsul of a foreign province was instructed to collect wild animals and specimens of rare birds and reptiles; every triumphator devoted a portion of his spoils to a celebration of freecircenses—“circus games”—by no means limited to the mutual slaughter of prize fighters, but including horse races, concerts, trials of skill, and new arts. It would be a mistake to suppose that the liberality of such establishments offered a premium on idleness. The immense increase of the metropolitan population justified the constant extension of that liberality, but even after the erection of permanent amphitheaters the vigilance of public censors discouraged mendicancy; the complaints of wives, creditors, and landlords against habitual idlers were made the basis of penal proceedings, and from the total appropriations for the support of free municipal institutions the overseers of the poor deducted considerable sums for purposes of public charity.Nor did the citizens of the metropolis monopolize the privilege of free public amusements. At the time of the Antonines not less than fifty cities of Italy alone had amphitheaters of their own, and the smallest hamlet had at least apalaestra, where the local champions met every evening for a trial of strength and skill.[Contents]B.—REWARDS OF CONFORMITY.The alternation of day and night should reveal the truth that nature is averse to permanent gloom.[206]Sunlight is a primary condition of all nobler life, and only ignorance or basest selfishness can doom a child of earth to the misery of toil uncheered by the sun-rays of recreation. For even enlightened selfishness would recognize the advantages of the pagan plan. The passions of personal ambition burnt then as fiercely as now, but the Roman world-conquerors thought it wiser, as well as nobler, to share their spoils with the soldiers who had fought their battles, with the workmen who had reared their castles, with the neighbors who had witnessed their triumphs. The very slaves of Greece and Rome were indulged in periodic enjoyments of all the luxuries fortune had bestowed upon their masters; at the end of the working-day menials and artisans forgot their toil amidst the wonders of the amphitheater, and neither their work nor their work-givers were the worse for it. The promise of the evening cheered the labors of the day; minds frequently unbent by the relaxation of diverting pastimes were less apt to break under the strain of toil, less liable to yield to the temptation of despondency, envy, and despair.During the last four weeks of his Egyptian campaign Napoleon relieved the tedium of camp-life by a series of athletic games and horse-races, and thus succeeded in sustaining the spirit of his troops under hardships which at first threatened to demoralize even his veterans. For similar purposes and with similar success, Marshal Saxe indulged his men in a variety of exciting sports, and Captain Kane found dramatic entertainments the best prophylactic against the influence of a monotonous diet combined[207]with an average temperature of fifty degrees below zero. Captain Burton ascribes the longevity of the nomadic Arabs to their habit of passing their evenings as cheerfully as their stock of provisions and anecdotes will permit, and it is a suggestive circumstance that the joy-loving aristocracy of medieval France could boast a surprising number of octogenarians, and that the gay capitals of modern Europe, with all their vices, enjoy a better chance of longevity than the dull provincial towns.[Contents]C.—PERVERSION.The superstition which dooms its votaries to a worship of sorrow has for centuries treated pleasure and sin as synonymous terms. In the era of the Cæsars the licentious passions of a large metropolis gave that asceticism a specious pretext; but its true purpose was soon after revealed by the suppression of rustic pastimes, of athletic sports, and at last, even of the classic festival which for centuries had assembled the champions of the Mediterranean nations on the isthmus of Corinth. With a similar rancor of bigoted intolerance the Puritans suppressed the sports of “merry old England,” and their fanatical protests against the most harmless amusements would be utterly incomprehensible if the secret of Christian asceticism had not been unriddled by the study of the Buddhistic parent-dogma. The doctrine which the apostle of Galilee thought it wisest to veil in parables and metaphors, the Indian messiah of anti-naturalism reveals in its ghastly nakedness as an attempt to wean the hearts of mankind[208]from their earth-born loves and reconcile them to the alternative of annihilation—“Nirvana”—the only refuge from the delusions of a life outweighing a single joy by a hundred sorrows. Not life only, but the very instincts of life were to be suppressed, to prevent their revival in new forms of re-birth; and in pursuit of that plan the prophet of Nepaul does not hesitate to warn his disciples against sleeping twice under the same tree, to lessen the chance of undue fondness for any earthly object whatever. The indulgements of life-endearing desires, that creed denounced as the height of folly and recommended absolute abstinence from physical enjoyments as the shortest path to the goal of redemption. In its practical consequences, if not in its theoretical significances, the same principle asserts itself in the doctrine of the New Testament, and justified the dread of the life-loving pagans in realizing the stealthy growth of the Galilean church, and anticipating the ultimate consequences of that gospel of renunciation whose ideal of perfection was theother-worldlinessof an earth-despising fanatic. More or less consciously, the suppression of earthly desires has always been pursued as the chief aim of Christian dogmatism; the “world” has ever been the antithesis of the Christian kingdom of God, the “flesh” the irreconcilable antagonist of the regenerate soul. Hence that rancorous fury against the “worldliness” of naturalism, against the pagan worship of joy, against the modern revivals of that worship. Hence the grief of those “whining saints who groaned in spirit at the sight of Jack in the Green;” hence the crusade[209]against Easter-fires, May-poles, foot-races, country excursions, round-dances, and picnics; hence the anathemas against the athletic sports of ancient Greece and the entertainments of the modern theater.[Contents]D.—PENALTIES OF NEGLECT.Wherever the fanatics of the Galilean church have trampled the flowers of earth, the wasted gardens have been covered with a rank thicket of weeds. Outlawed freedom has given way to the caprice of despots and the license of crime; outraged common sense has yielded to the vagaries of superstition; the suppression of healthful recreation has avenged itself in the riots of secret vice. The history of alcoholism proves that every revival of asceticism has been followed by an increase of intemperance, as inevitably as the obstruction of a natural river-bed would be followed by an inundation. When the convent-slaves of the Middle Ages had been deprived of every chance of devoting a leisure hour to more healthful recreations, neither the rigor of their vows nor the bigotry of their creed could prevent them from drowning their misery in wine. When the Puritans of the seventeenth century had turned Scotland into an ecclesiastic penitentiary, the burghers of the Sabbath-stricken towns sought refuge in the dreamland of intoxication. The experience of many centuries has, indeed, forced the priesthood of southern Europe to tolerate Sunday recreations as a minor evil. In Spain the bull-rings of the larger cities open every Sunday at 2P.M.In Italy the patronage of Sunday excursions and Sunday theaters is limited[210]only by the financial resources of their patrons. In France Sunday is by large odds the gayest day in the week. In the large cities of Islam the muftis connive at Sunday dances and Sunday horse-races; and as a consequence a much less pardonable abuse of holidays is far rarer in southern Europe than in the cities of the Sabbatarian north, the consumption of Sunday intoxicants being larger in Great Britain than in France, Austria, Spain, Portugal, and Italy taken together. Climatic causes may have their share in effecting that difference; another cause was revealed when the followers of Ibn Hanbal attempted to enforce the asceticism of their master upon the citizens of Bagdad. Ibn Hanbal, the Mohammedan Hudibras, used to travel from village to village, with a horde of bigots, breaking up dance-houses, upsetting the tables of the confectionery pedlers, pelting flower-girls, and thrashing musicians, and when the revolt of a provincial city resulted in the death of the “reformer,” his fanatical followers assembled their fellow-converts from all parts of the country, and raided town after town, till they at last forced their way into the capital of the caliphate. The recklessness of their zeal overcame all resistance, but the completeness of their triumph led to a rather unexpected result. Every play-house of the metropolis was not only closed, but utterly demolished; musicians were jailed; dance-girls were left to choose between instant flight and crucifixion; showmen were banished from all public streets; but the dwellings of private citizens were less easy to control, and those private citizens before long evinced a passionate[211]and ever-increasing fondness for intoxicating drinks. Elders of the mosque were seen wallowing in their gutters, howling blasphemies that would have appalled the heart of the toughest Giaour; dignitaries of the green turban staggered along under the weight of a wine-skin, or waltzed about in imitation of the exiled ballet performers. The Hanbalites convoked tri-weekly, and at last daily, prayer-meetings, but things went from bad to worse, till a counter-revolution finally restored the authority of the old city government, and the flight of the fanatics was attended with a prompt decrease both of spiritual and spirituous excesses.[Contents]E.—REFORM.The predictions of our latter-day augurs would seem to indicate that the civilization of the Caucasian race is drifting toward Socialism; but a modern philosopher reminds us that “a reform, however great, is apt to come out in a different shape from that predicted by the reformers.” The citizens of the coming republic will probably waive their claim to free government lunch-houses and similar “establishments for preventing the natural penalties of idleness,” but they will most decidedly protest against government interference with the legitimate rewards of industry. Even now, few sane persons can realize the degree of ignorance that enabled the clergy of the Middle Ages to fatten on the proceeds of witchcraft trials and heretic hunts, and the time may be near when our children will find it difficult to conceive the degree of infatuation that could[212]induce their forefathers to sacrifice their weekly leisure-day at the bidding of brainless and heartless bigots. Drudgery will perhaps continue the hard task-master of the working-week; but the Sundays of the future will be as free as the light of their sun.

CHAPTER XVII.RECREATION.

[Contents]A.—LESSONS OF INSTINCT.The indoor occupations of civilized life imply the necessity of providing artificial substitutes for the opportunities of physical exercise, which men in a state of nature can find abundantly in the course of such healthful pursuits as hunting, fishing, and primitive agriculture. For similar reasons civilization ought to compensate the lost chance of outdoor sports which only the favorites of fortune can afford[204]to combine with the exigencies of city life. To the children of nature life is a festival; outdoor recreations, exciting sports, offer themselves freely and frequently enough to dispense with artificial supplements; but the dreariness of workshop life makes those substitutes a moral as well as physical necessity. Under the influence of unalloyed drudgery the human soul withers like a plant in a sunless cave, and weariness of heart reacts on the body in a way analogous to the health-undermining effect of sorrow and repeated disappointment. To the unbiased judgment of our pagan forefathers the necessity of providing city dwellers with opportunities for public recreation appeared, indeed, as evident as the necessity of counteracting the rigors of the higher latitudes with contrivances for a supply of artificial warmth. The cities of ancient Greece had weekly and monthly festivals, besides the yearly reunions of competing athletes and artists, and once in four years the champions of the land met to contest the prize of national supremacy in the presence of assembled millions. Hostilities, even during the crisis of civil war, were suspended to insure free access to the plains of Corinth, where the Olympic Games were celebrated with a regularity that made their period the basis of chronological computation for a space of nearly eight hundred years. When Rome became the capital of the world, the yearly disbursements for the subvention of free public recreations equaled the tribute of a wealthy province. There were free race courses, gymnasia, music halls, and wrestling-ring; free public baths and magnificent amphitheaters for[205]the exhibition of free dramatic performances, gladiatorial combats, and curiosities of art and natural history. Every proconsul of a foreign province was instructed to collect wild animals and specimens of rare birds and reptiles; every triumphator devoted a portion of his spoils to a celebration of freecircenses—“circus games”—by no means limited to the mutual slaughter of prize fighters, but including horse races, concerts, trials of skill, and new arts. It would be a mistake to suppose that the liberality of such establishments offered a premium on idleness. The immense increase of the metropolitan population justified the constant extension of that liberality, but even after the erection of permanent amphitheaters the vigilance of public censors discouraged mendicancy; the complaints of wives, creditors, and landlords against habitual idlers were made the basis of penal proceedings, and from the total appropriations for the support of free municipal institutions the overseers of the poor deducted considerable sums for purposes of public charity.Nor did the citizens of the metropolis monopolize the privilege of free public amusements. At the time of the Antonines not less than fifty cities of Italy alone had amphitheaters of their own, and the smallest hamlet had at least apalaestra, where the local champions met every evening for a trial of strength and skill.[Contents]B.—REWARDS OF CONFORMITY.The alternation of day and night should reveal the truth that nature is averse to permanent gloom.[206]Sunlight is a primary condition of all nobler life, and only ignorance or basest selfishness can doom a child of earth to the misery of toil uncheered by the sun-rays of recreation. For even enlightened selfishness would recognize the advantages of the pagan plan. The passions of personal ambition burnt then as fiercely as now, but the Roman world-conquerors thought it wiser, as well as nobler, to share their spoils with the soldiers who had fought their battles, with the workmen who had reared their castles, with the neighbors who had witnessed their triumphs. The very slaves of Greece and Rome were indulged in periodic enjoyments of all the luxuries fortune had bestowed upon their masters; at the end of the working-day menials and artisans forgot their toil amidst the wonders of the amphitheater, and neither their work nor their work-givers were the worse for it. The promise of the evening cheered the labors of the day; minds frequently unbent by the relaxation of diverting pastimes were less apt to break under the strain of toil, less liable to yield to the temptation of despondency, envy, and despair.During the last four weeks of his Egyptian campaign Napoleon relieved the tedium of camp-life by a series of athletic games and horse-races, and thus succeeded in sustaining the spirit of his troops under hardships which at first threatened to demoralize even his veterans. For similar purposes and with similar success, Marshal Saxe indulged his men in a variety of exciting sports, and Captain Kane found dramatic entertainments the best prophylactic against the influence of a monotonous diet combined[207]with an average temperature of fifty degrees below zero. Captain Burton ascribes the longevity of the nomadic Arabs to their habit of passing their evenings as cheerfully as their stock of provisions and anecdotes will permit, and it is a suggestive circumstance that the joy-loving aristocracy of medieval France could boast a surprising number of octogenarians, and that the gay capitals of modern Europe, with all their vices, enjoy a better chance of longevity than the dull provincial towns.[Contents]C.—PERVERSION.The superstition which dooms its votaries to a worship of sorrow has for centuries treated pleasure and sin as synonymous terms. In the era of the Cæsars the licentious passions of a large metropolis gave that asceticism a specious pretext; but its true purpose was soon after revealed by the suppression of rustic pastimes, of athletic sports, and at last, even of the classic festival which for centuries had assembled the champions of the Mediterranean nations on the isthmus of Corinth. With a similar rancor of bigoted intolerance the Puritans suppressed the sports of “merry old England,” and their fanatical protests against the most harmless amusements would be utterly incomprehensible if the secret of Christian asceticism had not been unriddled by the study of the Buddhistic parent-dogma. The doctrine which the apostle of Galilee thought it wisest to veil in parables and metaphors, the Indian messiah of anti-naturalism reveals in its ghastly nakedness as an attempt to wean the hearts of mankind[208]from their earth-born loves and reconcile them to the alternative of annihilation—“Nirvana”—the only refuge from the delusions of a life outweighing a single joy by a hundred sorrows. Not life only, but the very instincts of life were to be suppressed, to prevent their revival in new forms of re-birth; and in pursuit of that plan the prophet of Nepaul does not hesitate to warn his disciples against sleeping twice under the same tree, to lessen the chance of undue fondness for any earthly object whatever. The indulgements of life-endearing desires, that creed denounced as the height of folly and recommended absolute abstinence from physical enjoyments as the shortest path to the goal of redemption. In its practical consequences, if not in its theoretical significances, the same principle asserts itself in the doctrine of the New Testament, and justified the dread of the life-loving pagans in realizing the stealthy growth of the Galilean church, and anticipating the ultimate consequences of that gospel of renunciation whose ideal of perfection was theother-worldlinessof an earth-despising fanatic. More or less consciously, the suppression of earthly desires has always been pursued as the chief aim of Christian dogmatism; the “world” has ever been the antithesis of the Christian kingdom of God, the “flesh” the irreconcilable antagonist of the regenerate soul. Hence that rancorous fury against the “worldliness” of naturalism, against the pagan worship of joy, against the modern revivals of that worship. Hence the grief of those “whining saints who groaned in spirit at the sight of Jack in the Green;” hence the crusade[209]against Easter-fires, May-poles, foot-races, country excursions, round-dances, and picnics; hence the anathemas against the athletic sports of ancient Greece and the entertainments of the modern theater.[Contents]D.—PENALTIES OF NEGLECT.Wherever the fanatics of the Galilean church have trampled the flowers of earth, the wasted gardens have been covered with a rank thicket of weeds. Outlawed freedom has given way to the caprice of despots and the license of crime; outraged common sense has yielded to the vagaries of superstition; the suppression of healthful recreation has avenged itself in the riots of secret vice. The history of alcoholism proves that every revival of asceticism has been followed by an increase of intemperance, as inevitably as the obstruction of a natural river-bed would be followed by an inundation. When the convent-slaves of the Middle Ages had been deprived of every chance of devoting a leisure hour to more healthful recreations, neither the rigor of their vows nor the bigotry of their creed could prevent them from drowning their misery in wine. When the Puritans of the seventeenth century had turned Scotland into an ecclesiastic penitentiary, the burghers of the Sabbath-stricken towns sought refuge in the dreamland of intoxication. The experience of many centuries has, indeed, forced the priesthood of southern Europe to tolerate Sunday recreations as a minor evil. In Spain the bull-rings of the larger cities open every Sunday at 2P.M.In Italy the patronage of Sunday excursions and Sunday theaters is limited[210]only by the financial resources of their patrons. In France Sunday is by large odds the gayest day in the week. In the large cities of Islam the muftis connive at Sunday dances and Sunday horse-races; and as a consequence a much less pardonable abuse of holidays is far rarer in southern Europe than in the cities of the Sabbatarian north, the consumption of Sunday intoxicants being larger in Great Britain than in France, Austria, Spain, Portugal, and Italy taken together. Climatic causes may have their share in effecting that difference; another cause was revealed when the followers of Ibn Hanbal attempted to enforce the asceticism of their master upon the citizens of Bagdad. Ibn Hanbal, the Mohammedan Hudibras, used to travel from village to village, with a horde of bigots, breaking up dance-houses, upsetting the tables of the confectionery pedlers, pelting flower-girls, and thrashing musicians, and when the revolt of a provincial city resulted in the death of the “reformer,” his fanatical followers assembled their fellow-converts from all parts of the country, and raided town after town, till they at last forced their way into the capital of the caliphate. The recklessness of their zeal overcame all resistance, but the completeness of their triumph led to a rather unexpected result. Every play-house of the metropolis was not only closed, but utterly demolished; musicians were jailed; dance-girls were left to choose between instant flight and crucifixion; showmen were banished from all public streets; but the dwellings of private citizens were less easy to control, and those private citizens before long evinced a passionate[211]and ever-increasing fondness for intoxicating drinks. Elders of the mosque were seen wallowing in their gutters, howling blasphemies that would have appalled the heart of the toughest Giaour; dignitaries of the green turban staggered along under the weight of a wine-skin, or waltzed about in imitation of the exiled ballet performers. The Hanbalites convoked tri-weekly, and at last daily, prayer-meetings, but things went from bad to worse, till a counter-revolution finally restored the authority of the old city government, and the flight of the fanatics was attended with a prompt decrease both of spiritual and spirituous excesses.[Contents]E.—REFORM.The predictions of our latter-day augurs would seem to indicate that the civilization of the Caucasian race is drifting toward Socialism; but a modern philosopher reminds us that “a reform, however great, is apt to come out in a different shape from that predicted by the reformers.” The citizens of the coming republic will probably waive their claim to free government lunch-houses and similar “establishments for preventing the natural penalties of idleness,” but they will most decidedly protest against government interference with the legitimate rewards of industry. Even now, few sane persons can realize the degree of ignorance that enabled the clergy of the Middle Ages to fatten on the proceeds of witchcraft trials and heretic hunts, and the time may be near when our children will find it difficult to conceive the degree of infatuation that could[212]induce their forefathers to sacrifice their weekly leisure-day at the bidding of brainless and heartless bigots. Drudgery will perhaps continue the hard task-master of the working-week; but the Sundays of the future will be as free as the light of their sun.

[Contents]A.—LESSONS OF INSTINCT.The indoor occupations of civilized life imply the necessity of providing artificial substitutes for the opportunities of physical exercise, which men in a state of nature can find abundantly in the course of such healthful pursuits as hunting, fishing, and primitive agriculture. For similar reasons civilization ought to compensate the lost chance of outdoor sports which only the favorites of fortune can afford[204]to combine with the exigencies of city life. To the children of nature life is a festival; outdoor recreations, exciting sports, offer themselves freely and frequently enough to dispense with artificial supplements; but the dreariness of workshop life makes those substitutes a moral as well as physical necessity. Under the influence of unalloyed drudgery the human soul withers like a plant in a sunless cave, and weariness of heart reacts on the body in a way analogous to the health-undermining effect of sorrow and repeated disappointment. To the unbiased judgment of our pagan forefathers the necessity of providing city dwellers with opportunities for public recreation appeared, indeed, as evident as the necessity of counteracting the rigors of the higher latitudes with contrivances for a supply of artificial warmth. The cities of ancient Greece had weekly and monthly festivals, besides the yearly reunions of competing athletes and artists, and once in four years the champions of the land met to contest the prize of national supremacy in the presence of assembled millions. Hostilities, even during the crisis of civil war, were suspended to insure free access to the plains of Corinth, where the Olympic Games were celebrated with a regularity that made their period the basis of chronological computation for a space of nearly eight hundred years. When Rome became the capital of the world, the yearly disbursements for the subvention of free public recreations equaled the tribute of a wealthy province. There were free race courses, gymnasia, music halls, and wrestling-ring; free public baths and magnificent amphitheaters for[205]the exhibition of free dramatic performances, gladiatorial combats, and curiosities of art and natural history. Every proconsul of a foreign province was instructed to collect wild animals and specimens of rare birds and reptiles; every triumphator devoted a portion of his spoils to a celebration of freecircenses—“circus games”—by no means limited to the mutual slaughter of prize fighters, but including horse races, concerts, trials of skill, and new arts. It would be a mistake to suppose that the liberality of such establishments offered a premium on idleness. The immense increase of the metropolitan population justified the constant extension of that liberality, but even after the erection of permanent amphitheaters the vigilance of public censors discouraged mendicancy; the complaints of wives, creditors, and landlords against habitual idlers were made the basis of penal proceedings, and from the total appropriations for the support of free municipal institutions the overseers of the poor deducted considerable sums for purposes of public charity.Nor did the citizens of the metropolis monopolize the privilege of free public amusements. At the time of the Antonines not less than fifty cities of Italy alone had amphitheaters of their own, and the smallest hamlet had at least apalaestra, where the local champions met every evening for a trial of strength and skill.

A.—LESSONS OF INSTINCT.

The indoor occupations of civilized life imply the necessity of providing artificial substitutes for the opportunities of physical exercise, which men in a state of nature can find abundantly in the course of such healthful pursuits as hunting, fishing, and primitive agriculture. For similar reasons civilization ought to compensate the lost chance of outdoor sports which only the favorites of fortune can afford[204]to combine with the exigencies of city life. To the children of nature life is a festival; outdoor recreations, exciting sports, offer themselves freely and frequently enough to dispense with artificial supplements; but the dreariness of workshop life makes those substitutes a moral as well as physical necessity. Under the influence of unalloyed drudgery the human soul withers like a plant in a sunless cave, and weariness of heart reacts on the body in a way analogous to the health-undermining effect of sorrow and repeated disappointment. To the unbiased judgment of our pagan forefathers the necessity of providing city dwellers with opportunities for public recreation appeared, indeed, as evident as the necessity of counteracting the rigors of the higher latitudes with contrivances for a supply of artificial warmth. The cities of ancient Greece had weekly and monthly festivals, besides the yearly reunions of competing athletes and artists, and once in four years the champions of the land met to contest the prize of national supremacy in the presence of assembled millions. Hostilities, even during the crisis of civil war, were suspended to insure free access to the plains of Corinth, where the Olympic Games were celebrated with a regularity that made their period the basis of chronological computation for a space of nearly eight hundred years. When Rome became the capital of the world, the yearly disbursements for the subvention of free public recreations equaled the tribute of a wealthy province. There were free race courses, gymnasia, music halls, and wrestling-ring; free public baths and magnificent amphitheaters for[205]the exhibition of free dramatic performances, gladiatorial combats, and curiosities of art and natural history. Every proconsul of a foreign province was instructed to collect wild animals and specimens of rare birds and reptiles; every triumphator devoted a portion of his spoils to a celebration of freecircenses—“circus games”—by no means limited to the mutual slaughter of prize fighters, but including horse races, concerts, trials of skill, and new arts. It would be a mistake to suppose that the liberality of such establishments offered a premium on idleness. The immense increase of the metropolitan population justified the constant extension of that liberality, but even after the erection of permanent amphitheaters the vigilance of public censors discouraged mendicancy; the complaints of wives, creditors, and landlords against habitual idlers were made the basis of penal proceedings, and from the total appropriations for the support of free municipal institutions the overseers of the poor deducted considerable sums for purposes of public charity.Nor did the citizens of the metropolis monopolize the privilege of free public amusements. At the time of the Antonines not less than fifty cities of Italy alone had amphitheaters of their own, and the smallest hamlet had at least apalaestra, where the local champions met every evening for a trial of strength and skill.

The indoor occupations of civilized life imply the necessity of providing artificial substitutes for the opportunities of physical exercise, which men in a state of nature can find abundantly in the course of such healthful pursuits as hunting, fishing, and primitive agriculture. For similar reasons civilization ought to compensate the lost chance of outdoor sports which only the favorites of fortune can afford[204]to combine with the exigencies of city life. To the children of nature life is a festival; outdoor recreations, exciting sports, offer themselves freely and frequently enough to dispense with artificial supplements; but the dreariness of workshop life makes those substitutes a moral as well as physical necessity. Under the influence of unalloyed drudgery the human soul withers like a plant in a sunless cave, and weariness of heart reacts on the body in a way analogous to the health-undermining effect of sorrow and repeated disappointment. To the unbiased judgment of our pagan forefathers the necessity of providing city dwellers with opportunities for public recreation appeared, indeed, as evident as the necessity of counteracting the rigors of the higher latitudes with contrivances for a supply of artificial warmth. The cities of ancient Greece had weekly and monthly festivals, besides the yearly reunions of competing athletes and artists, and once in four years the champions of the land met to contest the prize of national supremacy in the presence of assembled millions. Hostilities, even during the crisis of civil war, were suspended to insure free access to the plains of Corinth, where the Olympic Games were celebrated with a regularity that made their period the basis of chronological computation for a space of nearly eight hundred years. When Rome became the capital of the world, the yearly disbursements for the subvention of free public recreations equaled the tribute of a wealthy province. There were free race courses, gymnasia, music halls, and wrestling-ring; free public baths and magnificent amphitheaters for[205]the exhibition of free dramatic performances, gladiatorial combats, and curiosities of art and natural history. Every proconsul of a foreign province was instructed to collect wild animals and specimens of rare birds and reptiles; every triumphator devoted a portion of his spoils to a celebration of freecircenses—“circus games”—by no means limited to the mutual slaughter of prize fighters, but including horse races, concerts, trials of skill, and new arts. It would be a mistake to suppose that the liberality of such establishments offered a premium on idleness. The immense increase of the metropolitan population justified the constant extension of that liberality, but even after the erection of permanent amphitheaters the vigilance of public censors discouraged mendicancy; the complaints of wives, creditors, and landlords against habitual idlers were made the basis of penal proceedings, and from the total appropriations for the support of free municipal institutions the overseers of the poor deducted considerable sums for purposes of public charity.

Nor did the citizens of the metropolis monopolize the privilege of free public amusements. At the time of the Antonines not less than fifty cities of Italy alone had amphitheaters of their own, and the smallest hamlet had at least apalaestra, where the local champions met every evening for a trial of strength and skill.

[Contents]B.—REWARDS OF CONFORMITY.The alternation of day and night should reveal the truth that nature is averse to permanent gloom.[206]Sunlight is a primary condition of all nobler life, and only ignorance or basest selfishness can doom a child of earth to the misery of toil uncheered by the sun-rays of recreation. For even enlightened selfishness would recognize the advantages of the pagan plan. The passions of personal ambition burnt then as fiercely as now, but the Roman world-conquerors thought it wiser, as well as nobler, to share their spoils with the soldiers who had fought their battles, with the workmen who had reared their castles, with the neighbors who had witnessed their triumphs. The very slaves of Greece and Rome were indulged in periodic enjoyments of all the luxuries fortune had bestowed upon their masters; at the end of the working-day menials and artisans forgot their toil amidst the wonders of the amphitheater, and neither their work nor their work-givers were the worse for it. The promise of the evening cheered the labors of the day; minds frequently unbent by the relaxation of diverting pastimes were less apt to break under the strain of toil, less liable to yield to the temptation of despondency, envy, and despair.During the last four weeks of his Egyptian campaign Napoleon relieved the tedium of camp-life by a series of athletic games and horse-races, and thus succeeded in sustaining the spirit of his troops under hardships which at first threatened to demoralize even his veterans. For similar purposes and with similar success, Marshal Saxe indulged his men in a variety of exciting sports, and Captain Kane found dramatic entertainments the best prophylactic against the influence of a monotonous diet combined[207]with an average temperature of fifty degrees below zero. Captain Burton ascribes the longevity of the nomadic Arabs to their habit of passing their evenings as cheerfully as their stock of provisions and anecdotes will permit, and it is a suggestive circumstance that the joy-loving aristocracy of medieval France could boast a surprising number of octogenarians, and that the gay capitals of modern Europe, with all their vices, enjoy a better chance of longevity than the dull provincial towns.

B.—REWARDS OF CONFORMITY.

The alternation of day and night should reveal the truth that nature is averse to permanent gloom.[206]Sunlight is a primary condition of all nobler life, and only ignorance or basest selfishness can doom a child of earth to the misery of toil uncheered by the sun-rays of recreation. For even enlightened selfishness would recognize the advantages of the pagan plan. The passions of personal ambition burnt then as fiercely as now, but the Roman world-conquerors thought it wiser, as well as nobler, to share their spoils with the soldiers who had fought their battles, with the workmen who had reared their castles, with the neighbors who had witnessed their triumphs. The very slaves of Greece and Rome were indulged in periodic enjoyments of all the luxuries fortune had bestowed upon their masters; at the end of the working-day menials and artisans forgot their toil amidst the wonders of the amphitheater, and neither their work nor their work-givers were the worse for it. The promise of the evening cheered the labors of the day; minds frequently unbent by the relaxation of diverting pastimes were less apt to break under the strain of toil, less liable to yield to the temptation of despondency, envy, and despair.During the last four weeks of his Egyptian campaign Napoleon relieved the tedium of camp-life by a series of athletic games and horse-races, and thus succeeded in sustaining the spirit of his troops under hardships which at first threatened to demoralize even his veterans. For similar purposes and with similar success, Marshal Saxe indulged his men in a variety of exciting sports, and Captain Kane found dramatic entertainments the best prophylactic against the influence of a monotonous diet combined[207]with an average temperature of fifty degrees below zero. Captain Burton ascribes the longevity of the nomadic Arabs to their habit of passing their evenings as cheerfully as their stock of provisions and anecdotes will permit, and it is a suggestive circumstance that the joy-loving aristocracy of medieval France could boast a surprising number of octogenarians, and that the gay capitals of modern Europe, with all their vices, enjoy a better chance of longevity than the dull provincial towns.

The alternation of day and night should reveal the truth that nature is averse to permanent gloom.[206]Sunlight is a primary condition of all nobler life, and only ignorance or basest selfishness can doom a child of earth to the misery of toil uncheered by the sun-rays of recreation. For even enlightened selfishness would recognize the advantages of the pagan plan. The passions of personal ambition burnt then as fiercely as now, but the Roman world-conquerors thought it wiser, as well as nobler, to share their spoils with the soldiers who had fought their battles, with the workmen who had reared their castles, with the neighbors who had witnessed their triumphs. The very slaves of Greece and Rome were indulged in periodic enjoyments of all the luxuries fortune had bestowed upon their masters; at the end of the working-day menials and artisans forgot their toil amidst the wonders of the amphitheater, and neither their work nor their work-givers were the worse for it. The promise of the evening cheered the labors of the day; minds frequently unbent by the relaxation of diverting pastimes were less apt to break under the strain of toil, less liable to yield to the temptation of despondency, envy, and despair.

During the last four weeks of his Egyptian campaign Napoleon relieved the tedium of camp-life by a series of athletic games and horse-races, and thus succeeded in sustaining the spirit of his troops under hardships which at first threatened to demoralize even his veterans. For similar purposes and with similar success, Marshal Saxe indulged his men in a variety of exciting sports, and Captain Kane found dramatic entertainments the best prophylactic against the influence of a monotonous diet combined[207]with an average temperature of fifty degrees below zero. Captain Burton ascribes the longevity of the nomadic Arabs to their habit of passing their evenings as cheerfully as their stock of provisions and anecdotes will permit, and it is a suggestive circumstance that the joy-loving aristocracy of medieval France could boast a surprising number of octogenarians, and that the gay capitals of modern Europe, with all their vices, enjoy a better chance of longevity than the dull provincial towns.

[Contents]C.—PERVERSION.The superstition which dooms its votaries to a worship of sorrow has for centuries treated pleasure and sin as synonymous terms. In the era of the Cæsars the licentious passions of a large metropolis gave that asceticism a specious pretext; but its true purpose was soon after revealed by the suppression of rustic pastimes, of athletic sports, and at last, even of the classic festival which for centuries had assembled the champions of the Mediterranean nations on the isthmus of Corinth. With a similar rancor of bigoted intolerance the Puritans suppressed the sports of “merry old England,” and their fanatical protests against the most harmless amusements would be utterly incomprehensible if the secret of Christian asceticism had not been unriddled by the study of the Buddhistic parent-dogma. The doctrine which the apostle of Galilee thought it wisest to veil in parables and metaphors, the Indian messiah of anti-naturalism reveals in its ghastly nakedness as an attempt to wean the hearts of mankind[208]from their earth-born loves and reconcile them to the alternative of annihilation—“Nirvana”—the only refuge from the delusions of a life outweighing a single joy by a hundred sorrows. Not life only, but the very instincts of life were to be suppressed, to prevent their revival in new forms of re-birth; and in pursuit of that plan the prophet of Nepaul does not hesitate to warn his disciples against sleeping twice under the same tree, to lessen the chance of undue fondness for any earthly object whatever. The indulgements of life-endearing desires, that creed denounced as the height of folly and recommended absolute abstinence from physical enjoyments as the shortest path to the goal of redemption. In its practical consequences, if not in its theoretical significances, the same principle asserts itself in the doctrine of the New Testament, and justified the dread of the life-loving pagans in realizing the stealthy growth of the Galilean church, and anticipating the ultimate consequences of that gospel of renunciation whose ideal of perfection was theother-worldlinessof an earth-despising fanatic. More or less consciously, the suppression of earthly desires has always been pursued as the chief aim of Christian dogmatism; the “world” has ever been the antithesis of the Christian kingdom of God, the “flesh” the irreconcilable antagonist of the regenerate soul. Hence that rancorous fury against the “worldliness” of naturalism, against the pagan worship of joy, against the modern revivals of that worship. Hence the grief of those “whining saints who groaned in spirit at the sight of Jack in the Green;” hence the crusade[209]against Easter-fires, May-poles, foot-races, country excursions, round-dances, and picnics; hence the anathemas against the athletic sports of ancient Greece and the entertainments of the modern theater.

C.—PERVERSION.

The superstition which dooms its votaries to a worship of sorrow has for centuries treated pleasure and sin as synonymous terms. In the era of the Cæsars the licentious passions of a large metropolis gave that asceticism a specious pretext; but its true purpose was soon after revealed by the suppression of rustic pastimes, of athletic sports, and at last, even of the classic festival which for centuries had assembled the champions of the Mediterranean nations on the isthmus of Corinth. With a similar rancor of bigoted intolerance the Puritans suppressed the sports of “merry old England,” and their fanatical protests against the most harmless amusements would be utterly incomprehensible if the secret of Christian asceticism had not been unriddled by the study of the Buddhistic parent-dogma. The doctrine which the apostle of Galilee thought it wisest to veil in parables and metaphors, the Indian messiah of anti-naturalism reveals in its ghastly nakedness as an attempt to wean the hearts of mankind[208]from their earth-born loves and reconcile them to the alternative of annihilation—“Nirvana”—the only refuge from the delusions of a life outweighing a single joy by a hundred sorrows. Not life only, but the very instincts of life were to be suppressed, to prevent their revival in new forms of re-birth; and in pursuit of that plan the prophet of Nepaul does not hesitate to warn his disciples against sleeping twice under the same tree, to lessen the chance of undue fondness for any earthly object whatever. The indulgements of life-endearing desires, that creed denounced as the height of folly and recommended absolute abstinence from physical enjoyments as the shortest path to the goal of redemption. In its practical consequences, if not in its theoretical significances, the same principle asserts itself in the doctrine of the New Testament, and justified the dread of the life-loving pagans in realizing the stealthy growth of the Galilean church, and anticipating the ultimate consequences of that gospel of renunciation whose ideal of perfection was theother-worldlinessof an earth-despising fanatic. More or less consciously, the suppression of earthly desires has always been pursued as the chief aim of Christian dogmatism; the “world” has ever been the antithesis of the Christian kingdom of God, the “flesh” the irreconcilable antagonist of the regenerate soul. Hence that rancorous fury against the “worldliness” of naturalism, against the pagan worship of joy, against the modern revivals of that worship. Hence the grief of those “whining saints who groaned in spirit at the sight of Jack in the Green;” hence the crusade[209]against Easter-fires, May-poles, foot-races, country excursions, round-dances, and picnics; hence the anathemas against the athletic sports of ancient Greece and the entertainments of the modern theater.

The superstition which dooms its votaries to a worship of sorrow has for centuries treated pleasure and sin as synonymous terms. In the era of the Cæsars the licentious passions of a large metropolis gave that asceticism a specious pretext; but its true purpose was soon after revealed by the suppression of rustic pastimes, of athletic sports, and at last, even of the classic festival which for centuries had assembled the champions of the Mediterranean nations on the isthmus of Corinth. With a similar rancor of bigoted intolerance the Puritans suppressed the sports of “merry old England,” and their fanatical protests against the most harmless amusements would be utterly incomprehensible if the secret of Christian asceticism had not been unriddled by the study of the Buddhistic parent-dogma. The doctrine which the apostle of Galilee thought it wisest to veil in parables and metaphors, the Indian messiah of anti-naturalism reveals in its ghastly nakedness as an attempt to wean the hearts of mankind[208]from their earth-born loves and reconcile them to the alternative of annihilation—“Nirvana”—the only refuge from the delusions of a life outweighing a single joy by a hundred sorrows. Not life only, but the very instincts of life were to be suppressed, to prevent their revival in new forms of re-birth; and in pursuit of that plan the prophet of Nepaul does not hesitate to warn his disciples against sleeping twice under the same tree, to lessen the chance of undue fondness for any earthly object whatever. The indulgements of life-endearing desires, that creed denounced as the height of folly and recommended absolute abstinence from physical enjoyments as the shortest path to the goal of redemption. In its practical consequences, if not in its theoretical significances, the same principle asserts itself in the doctrine of the New Testament, and justified the dread of the life-loving pagans in realizing the stealthy growth of the Galilean church, and anticipating the ultimate consequences of that gospel of renunciation whose ideal of perfection was theother-worldlinessof an earth-despising fanatic. More or less consciously, the suppression of earthly desires has always been pursued as the chief aim of Christian dogmatism; the “world” has ever been the antithesis of the Christian kingdom of God, the “flesh” the irreconcilable antagonist of the regenerate soul. Hence that rancorous fury against the “worldliness” of naturalism, against the pagan worship of joy, against the modern revivals of that worship. Hence the grief of those “whining saints who groaned in spirit at the sight of Jack in the Green;” hence the crusade[209]against Easter-fires, May-poles, foot-races, country excursions, round-dances, and picnics; hence the anathemas against the athletic sports of ancient Greece and the entertainments of the modern theater.

[Contents]D.—PENALTIES OF NEGLECT.Wherever the fanatics of the Galilean church have trampled the flowers of earth, the wasted gardens have been covered with a rank thicket of weeds. Outlawed freedom has given way to the caprice of despots and the license of crime; outraged common sense has yielded to the vagaries of superstition; the suppression of healthful recreation has avenged itself in the riots of secret vice. The history of alcoholism proves that every revival of asceticism has been followed by an increase of intemperance, as inevitably as the obstruction of a natural river-bed would be followed by an inundation. When the convent-slaves of the Middle Ages had been deprived of every chance of devoting a leisure hour to more healthful recreations, neither the rigor of their vows nor the bigotry of their creed could prevent them from drowning their misery in wine. When the Puritans of the seventeenth century had turned Scotland into an ecclesiastic penitentiary, the burghers of the Sabbath-stricken towns sought refuge in the dreamland of intoxication. The experience of many centuries has, indeed, forced the priesthood of southern Europe to tolerate Sunday recreations as a minor evil. In Spain the bull-rings of the larger cities open every Sunday at 2P.M.In Italy the patronage of Sunday excursions and Sunday theaters is limited[210]only by the financial resources of their patrons. In France Sunday is by large odds the gayest day in the week. In the large cities of Islam the muftis connive at Sunday dances and Sunday horse-races; and as a consequence a much less pardonable abuse of holidays is far rarer in southern Europe than in the cities of the Sabbatarian north, the consumption of Sunday intoxicants being larger in Great Britain than in France, Austria, Spain, Portugal, and Italy taken together. Climatic causes may have their share in effecting that difference; another cause was revealed when the followers of Ibn Hanbal attempted to enforce the asceticism of their master upon the citizens of Bagdad. Ibn Hanbal, the Mohammedan Hudibras, used to travel from village to village, with a horde of bigots, breaking up dance-houses, upsetting the tables of the confectionery pedlers, pelting flower-girls, and thrashing musicians, and when the revolt of a provincial city resulted in the death of the “reformer,” his fanatical followers assembled their fellow-converts from all parts of the country, and raided town after town, till they at last forced their way into the capital of the caliphate. The recklessness of their zeal overcame all resistance, but the completeness of their triumph led to a rather unexpected result. Every play-house of the metropolis was not only closed, but utterly demolished; musicians were jailed; dance-girls were left to choose between instant flight and crucifixion; showmen were banished from all public streets; but the dwellings of private citizens were less easy to control, and those private citizens before long evinced a passionate[211]and ever-increasing fondness for intoxicating drinks. Elders of the mosque were seen wallowing in their gutters, howling blasphemies that would have appalled the heart of the toughest Giaour; dignitaries of the green turban staggered along under the weight of a wine-skin, or waltzed about in imitation of the exiled ballet performers. The Hanbalites convoked tri-weekly, and at last daily, prayer-meetings, but things went from bad to worse, till a counter-revolution finally restored the authority of the old city government, and the flight of the fanatics was attended with a prompt decrease both of spiritual and spirituous excesses.

D.—PENALTIES OF NEGLECT.

Wherever the fanatics of the Galilean church have trampled the flowers of earth, the wasted gardens have been covered with a rank thicket of weeds. Outlawed freedom has given way to the caprice of despots and the license of crime; outraged common sense has yielded to the vagaries of superstition; the suppression of healthful recreation has avenged itself in the riots of secret vice. The history of alcoholism proves that every revival of asceticism has been followed by an increase of intemperance, as inevitably as the obstruction of a natural river-bed would be followed by an inundation. When the convent-slaves of the Middle Ages had been deprived of every chance of devoting a leisure hour to more healthful recreations, neither the rigor of their vows nor the bigotry of their creed could prevent them from drowning their misery in wine. When the Puritans of the seventeenth century had turned Scotland into an ecclesiastic penitentiary, the burghers of the Sabbath-stricken towns sought refuge in the dreamland of intoxication. The experience of many centuries has, indeed, forced the priesthood of southern Europe to tolerate Sunday recreations as a minor evil. In Spain the bull-rings of the larger cities open every Sunday at 2P.M.In Italy the patronage of Sunday excursions and Sunday theaters is limited[210]only by the financial resources of their patrons. In France Sunday is by large odds the gayest day in the week. In the large cities of Islam the muftis connive at Sunday dances and Sunday horse-races; and as a consequence a much less pardonable abuse of holidays is far rarer in southern Europe than in the cities of the Sabbatarian north, the consumption of Sunday intoxicants being larger in Great Britain than in France, Austria, Spain, Portugal, and Italy taken together. Climatic causes may have their share in effecting that difference; another cause was revealed when the followers of Ibn Hanbal attempted to enforce the asceticism of their master upon the citizens of Bagdad. Ibn Hanbal, the Mohammedan Hudibras, used to travel from village to village, with a horde of bigots, breaking up dance-houses, upsetting the tables of the confectionery pedlers, pelting flower-girls, and thrashing musicians, and when the revolt of a provincial city resulted in the death of the “reformer,” his fanatical followers assembled their fellow-converts from all parts of the country, and raided town after town, till they at last forced their way into the capital of the caliphate. The recklessness of their zeal overcame all resistance, but the completeness of their triumph led to a rather unexpected result. Every play-house of the metropolis was not only closed, but utterly demolished; musicians were jailed; dance-girls were left to choose between instant flight and crucifixion; showmen were banished from all public streets; but the dwellings of private citizens were less easy to control, and those private citizens before long evinced a passionate[211]and ever-increasing fondness for intoxicating drinks. Elders of the mosque were seen wallowing in their gutters, howling blasphemies that would have appalled the heart of the toughest Giaour; dignitaries of the green turban staggered along under the weight of a wine-skin, or waltzed about in imitation of the exiled ballet performers. The Hanbalites convoked tri-weekly, and at last daily, prayer-meetings, but things went from bad to worse, till a counter-revolution finally restored the authority of the old city government, and the flight of the fanatics was attended with a prompt decrease both of spiritual and spirituous excesses.

Wherever the fanatics of the Galilean church have trampled the flowers of earth, the wasted gardens have been covered with a rank thicket of weeds. Outlawed freedom has given way to the caprice of despots and the license of crime; outraged common sense has yielded to the vagaries of superstition; the suppression of healthful recreation has avenged itself in the riots of secret vice. The history of alcoholism proves that every revival of asceticism has been followed by an increase of intemperance, as inevitably as the obstruction of a natural river-bed would be followed by an inundation. When the convent-slaves of the Middle Ages had been deprived of every chance of devoting a leisure hour to more healthful recreations, neither the rigor of their vows nor the bigotry of their creed could prevent them from drowning their misery in wine. When the Puritans of the seventeenth century had turned Scotland into an ecclesiastic penitentiary, the burghers of the Sabbath-stricken towns sought refuge in the dreamland of intoxication. The experience of many centuries has, indeed, forced the priesthood of southern Europe to tolerate Sunday recreations as a minor evil. In Spain the bull-rings of the larger cities open every Sunday at 2P.M.In Italy the patronage of Sunday excursions and Sunday theaters is limited[210]only by the financial resources of their patrons. In France Sunday is by large odds the gayest day in the week. In the large cities of Islam the muftis connive at Sunday dances and Sunday horse-races; and as a consequence a much less pardonable abuse of holidays is far rarer in southern Europe than in the cities of the Sabbatarian north, the consumption of Sunday intoxicants being larger in Great Britain than in France, Austria, Spain, Portugal, and Italy taken together. Climatic causes may have their share in effecting that difference; another cause was revealed when the followers of Ibn Hanbal attempted to enforce the asceticism of their master upon the citizens of Bagdad. Ibn Hanbal, the Mohammedan Hudibras, used to travel from village to village, with a horde of bigots, breaking up dance-houses, upsetting the tables of the confectionery pedlers, pelting flower-girls, and thrashing musicians, and when the revolt of a provincial city resulted in the death of the “reformer,” his fanatical followers assembled their fellow-converts from all parts of the country, and raided town after town, till they at last forced their way into the capital of the caliphate. The recklessness of their zeal overcame all resistance, but the completeness of their triumph led to a rather unexpected result. Every play-house of the metropolis was not only closed, but utterly demolished; musicians were jailed; dance-girls were left to choose between instant flight and crucifixion; showmen were banished from all public streets; but the dwellings of private citizens were less easy to control, and those private citizens before long evinced a passionate[211]and ever-increasing fondness for intoxicating drinks. Elders of the mosque were seen wallowing in their gutters, howling blasphemies that would have appalled the heart of the toughest Giaour; dignitaries of the green turban staggered along under the weight of a wine-skin, or waltzed about in imitation of the exiled ballet performers. The Hanbalites convoked tri-weekly, and at last daily, prayer-meetings, but things went from bad to worse, till a counter-revolution finally restored the authority of the old city government, and the flight of the fanatics was attended with a prompt decrease both of spiritual and spirituous excesses.

[Contents]E.—REFORM.The predictions of our latter-day augurs would seem to indicate that the civilization of the Caucasian race is drifting toward Socialism; but a modern philosopher reminds us that “a reform, however great, is apt to come out in a different shape from that predicted by the reformers.” The citizens of the coming republic will probably waive their claim to free government lunch-houses and similar “establishments for preventing the natural penalties of idleness,” but they will most decidedly protest against government interference with the legitimate rewards of industry. Even now, few sane persons can realize the degree of ignorance that enabled the clergy of the Middle Ages to fatten on the proceeds of witchcraft trials and heretic hunts, and the time may be near when our children will find it difficult to conceive the degree of infatuation that could[212]induce their forefathers to sacrifice their weekly leisure-day at the bidding of brainless and heartless bigots. Drudgery will perhaps continue the hard task-master of the working-week; but the Sundays of the future will be as free as the light of their sun.

E.—REFORM.

The predictions of our latter-day augurs would seem to indicate that the civilization of the Caucasian race is drifting toward Socialism; but a modern philosopher reminds us that “a reform, however great, is apt to come out in a different shape from that predicted by the reformers.” The citizens of the coming republic will probably waive their claim to free government lunch-houses and similar “establishments for preventing the natural penalties of idleness,” but they will most decidedly protest against government interference with the legitimate rewards of industry. Even now, few sane persons can realize the degree of ignorance that enabled the clergy of the Middle Ages to fatten on the proceeds of witchcraft trials and heretic hunts, and the time may be near when our children will find it difficult to conceive the degree of infatuation that could[212]induce their forefathers to sacrifice their weekly leisure-day at the bidding of brainless and heartless bigots. Drudgery will perhaps continue the hard task-master of the working-week; but the Sundays of the future will be as free as the light of their sun.

The predictions of our latter-day augurs would seem to indicate that the civilization of the Caucasian race is drifting toward Socialism; but a modern philosopher reminds us that “a reform, however great, is apt to come out in a different shape from that predicted by the reformers.” The citizens of the coming republic will probably waive their claim to free government lunch-houses and similar “establishments for preventing the natural penalties of idleness,” but they will most decidedly protest against government interference with the legitimate rewards of industry. Even now, few sane persons can realize the degree of ignorance that enabled the clergy of the Middle Ages to fatten on the proceeds of witchcraft trials and heretic hunts, and the time may be near when our children will find it difficult to conceive the degree of infatuation that could[212]induce their forefathers to sacrifice their weekly leisure-day at the bidding of brainless and heartless bigots. Drudgery will perhaps continue the hard task-master of the working-week; but the Sundays of the future will be as free as the light of their sun.

[Contents]CHAPTER XVIII.DOMESTIC REFORM.[Contents]A.—LESSONS OF INSTINCT.In the nest-building propensity of the social insects the biologist can recognize the first germ of the instinctive desire for the establishment of a permanent home. Certain birds, like the weaver-thrush of the tropics, imitate the community life of the ant and bee, but in all higher animals the homestead instinct is associated with the desire for domestic privacy. The eagle will suffer no other bird to approach the rock that shelters his eyrie; the hawk, the heron, and the kingfisher rear their brood at the greatest possible distance from the nesting-place of their next relatives. Each pair of squirrels try to get a tree all to themselves; and even the social prairie-dog shares its home with strangers (owls and serpents) rather than with another family of its own tribe. The “homestead instinct” of our primitive forefathers formed the first, and perhaps the most potent, stimulus to the acquisition of personal property. There is a period in life when the desire for the possession of a private domicile asserts itself with the power almost of a vital passion; and success in the realization of that desire[213]solves in many respects the chief problems of individual existence. The love of domestic peace, the delight in the improvement of a private homestead, are the best guarantees of staid habits. There was a time when the neglect ofhusbandrywas considered a conclusive proof of profligate habits; and the office of a Roman censor comprised the duty of reproving careless housekeepers. The poorest citizen of the Roman commonwealth had a littlepatrimoniumof his own, a dwelling-house, an orchard, and a small lot of land, which he did his best to improve, and where his children learned their first lesson of personal rights in defense of their private playgrounds.The ruins of Pompeii show that the civilization of the Mediterranean coast-lands had anticipated the conclusion of our sanitarian reformers, who recommend the advantage of cottage-suburbs as a remedy for the horrors of tenement life. Between theacropolisand the seaside villas the town forms an aggregation of small dwelling-houses, mostly one-story, but each with a private yard (probably a little garden) or a wide portico, with bath-room and private gymnasiums. And though the ancients were well acquainted with the manufacture of glass, their dwelling-houses were lighted by mere lattice-windows, excluding rain and the glare of the sun, but freely admitting every breeze, and thus solving the problem of ventilation in the simplest and most effective manner. The dwellings of our Saxon forefathers, too, resembled the log-cabins of the Kentucky backwoods, and admitted fresh air so freely that the large family-hearth could dispense with a chimney,[214]and vented its smoke through the open eaves of the roof. In the palaces of the Roman patricians there were special winter-rooms, with a smoke-flue resembling a narrow alcove; but even there, ventilation was insured by numerous lattice doors, communicating with as many balconies or terrace roofs.[Contents]B.—REWARDS OF CONFORMITY.The evolution of all hereditary instincts has been explained by the “survival of the fittest,” and the instinct of homestead-love has doubtlessly been developed in the same way. The results of its predominance prevailed against the results of its absence. Defensive love of a private “hearth and home” is the basis of patriotism, so unmistakably, indeed, that the fathers of the Roman republic for centuries refused to employ foreign mercenaries, whohad no personal interest in the defense of the soil. As a modern humorist has cleverly expressed it: “Few men have been patriotic enough to shoulder a musket in defense of a boarding-house.” And the golden age of civic virtues is almost limited to the time when every free citizen of Greece and Rome was a landowner.Nor would it be easy to overrate the subjective advantages of home-life. Health, happiness, and longevity have no more insidious foe than the canker-worm of vexation; and for the unavoidable disappointments of social life there is no more effective specific than the peace of a prosperous private homestead, soothing the mind with evidences of success in the growth of a promising orchard, in the increase[215]and improvement of domestic animals, in the happiness of merry children and contented dependents. Xenophon, after proving the excitements of an adventurous life by land and sea, found a truer happiness in the solitude of his Arcadian hunting-lodge. Felix Sylla, Fortune’s most constant favorite, abandoned the throne of a mighty empire to enjoy the frugal fare of a small hill-farm. Voltaire, worn out by the trials of a fifty years’ life-and-death struggle against the rancor of bigots, recovered his health and his peace of mind amidst the pear-tree plantations of Villa Ferney.In the resources of medicine and scientific surgery the ancients were far behind even the half-civilized nations of modern times, but their children could enjoy their holidays on their own playground, their sleepers could breathe pure air, their worn-out laborers could retire to the peace of a private home; and they enjoyed a degree of health and vigor which our most progressive nations can hope to re-attain only after centuries of sanitary reform.[Contents]C.—PERVERSION.The germ of the ignoble patience which submits to the miseries of modern tenement-life, and learns to prefer the fetor of a crowded slum-alley to the free air of the woods and fields, can be traced to the voluntary prison-life of the first Christian monasteries. With all the gregariousness of the African race, the very slaves of our American plantations preferred to avoid quarrels and constraint by building a separate cabin for the use of each family; but the ethics[216]of the Galilean church recognized no privilege of personal rights; the sympathies of family-life were crushed out by the enforcement of celibacy; every symptom of self-assertion was denounced as a revolt against the duty of passive subordination; the very instincts of individuality were systematically suppressed to make each convert a whining, emasculated, self-despising, and world-renouncing “member of the church of Christ.” The mortification of the body being the chief object of monastic seclusion, the hygienic architecture of convent buildings was considered a matter of such absolute unimportance that many of the cells (dormitories) had no windows at all, but merely a door communicating with an ill-ventilated gallery, after the plan of our old-style prisons. Eight feet by ten, and eight high, were the usual dimensions of those man-pens; and that utter indifference to the physical health of the inmates was but rarely seconded by a view to the advantages of private meditation is proved by the circumstance that the convent-slaves of the eastern church (in the Byzantine empire, for instance) were not often permitted to enjoy the privacy of their wretched dens; their dormitories were packed like the bunks of a Portuguese slave-ship, and the wordSyncellus(cell-mate) is used as a cognomen of numerous ecclesiastics. The abbot, and in less ascetic centuries perhaps the learned clerks (legend-writers, etc.), were the only members of a monastic community who could ever rely on the privacy of a single hour. For the admitted purpose of mortifying their love of physical comforts, the weary sleepers, worn-out with penance and hunger,[217]were summoned to prayer in the middle of the night, or sent out on begging expeditions in the roughest weather. Every vestige of furniture or clothing apt to mitigate the dreariness of discomfort was banished from their cells; they suffered all the hardships without enjoying the peace and security of a hermit’s home; novices (on probation), and even the pupils of the convent-schools, were submitted to a similar discipline, and thus monasticism became the training-school of modern tenement-life.During the latter half of the Middle Ages, feudalism found an additional motive for suppressing the love of domestic independence. The church usurers and aristocrats monopolized real estate, and made it more and more difficult, even for the most industrious of their dependants, to acquire a share of landed property. Every feudal lord secured his control over his serfs by crowding them together in a smallvillage(literally an abode ofvillains,i.e., of vile pariahs), where his slave-drivers could at any time rally them for an extra job of socage duty. The incessant raids of mail-clad highway-robbers—robber knights and marauding partisans—obliged all peace-loving freemen to congregate for mutual protection and rear their children in the stone prisons of an over-crowded burgh. The suppression of all natural sciences, including the science of health, aggravated the evil by a persistent neglect of such partial remedies as disinfectants and artificial ventilation. The home of a medieval artisan combined all the disadvantages of a jail and a pest-house.The revolt against feudalism has at last broken[218]the stone-fetters of our larger cities; city walls have been turned into promenades, and convents into store-houses or lunatic asylums; but the spirit of monasticism still survives; indifference to the blessings of health and domestic independence seems to have acquired the strength of a second nature, and thousands of our modern factory slaves actually prefer their slum-prisons to the freedom of a cheaper suburban home.[Contents]D.—PENALTIES OF NEGLECT.Nature rarely fails to avenge the violation of her laws, but it might be doubted if the perversion of any other natural instinct has entailed more numerous or direr penalties than our habitual outrages against the instinct of home-life. The monstrosities of our tenement system, by a moderate estimate, cost on the average every year the lives of 1,500,000 children under ten years of age (in Europe and North America), and of 1,200,000 consumptives, besides thousands of victims to epidemic disorders, aggravated, if not engendered, by the influence of vitiated air. Habitual intemperance, too, has undoubtedly been increased by the dearth of home-comforts. Our factory-laborers, our mechanics, and thousands of students and young clerks, spend their evenings in riot, because the man-trap of the lowest grog-shop is, after all, less unattractive than the dungeon of a stifling tenement home. In many of our larger cities similar causes have led to a constant increase of a manner of existence which a modern reformer calls the “celibacy of vice.” But the decreasing demand for independent homes is not the[219]only cause of the decreased supply, and the heartless selfishness of our wealthy land-gluttons has provoked a form of nihilism which threatens to shake, if not to subvert, the very foundations of social life.[Contents]E.—REFORM.That latter danger seems, at last, to have awakened our political economists to the necessity of redressing a many-sided abuse, and the failure of earlier reform projects has at least helped to emphasize the demand for more adequate remedies. The traffic in human life in the floating hells of the African slave-traders hardly called for more stringent repressive measures than the inhumanity of our tenement speculators who fatten on the profits of a system propagating the infallible seeds of pulmonary consumption, and sacrificing the lives of more children than the superstition of the dark ages ever doomed to the altars of Moloch. Even in a country where the jealousy of personal rights would hardly countenance legislative interference with the construction ofprivatedwelling-houses, the license of tenement-owners ought to be circumscribed by the conditions of Dr. Paul Boettger’s rule, providing for appropriation of a certain number of cubic feet of breathing space, and square feet of window, front, and garden (or play-ground) room for each tenant or family of tenants. The abuse of sub-renting could be limited by similar provisions, and the adoption of the separate cottage plan should be promoted by the reduction of municipal passenger tariffs and suburban taxes.The plan of equalizing the burden of taxation and[220]the opportunities of land tenure by a general confiscation and redistribution of real estate might recommend itself as a last resort, though hardly in preference to the project of Fedor Bakunin, the “Russian Mirabeau,” who proposed to found new communities under a charter, reserving the tenth part of all building lots for communal purposes, and lease the tenant-right to the highest bidder. The value of those reserve lots would increase with the growth of the town, and by renewing their lease from ten to ten years, the rent could be made to cover the budget of all direct municipal expenses, and leave a fair surplus for charitable and educational purposes. In comparison with the confiscation plan, that project could claim all the advantages which make prevention preferable to a drastic cure.As a check to the evils of land monopoly the least objectionable plan would seem to be Professor De Graaf’s proposition of a graded system of real estate taxation, increasing the rate of tallage with each multiple of a fair homestead lot, and thus taxing a land-shark for the privilege of acquisition, as well as for the actual possession, of an immoderate estate.The art of making home-life pleasant will yet prove the most effective specific in the list of temperance remedies, and will aid the apostles of Secularism in that work of redemption which the gospel of renunciation has failed to achieve.[221]

CHAPTER XVIII.DOMESTIC REFORM.

[Contents]A.—LESSONS OF INSTINCT.In the nest-building propensity of the social insects the biologist can recognize the first germ of the instinctive desire for the establishment of a permanent home. Certain birds, like the weaver-thrush of the tropics, imitate the community life of the ant and bee, but in all higher animals the homestead instinct is associated with the desire for domestic privacy. The eagle will suffer no other bird to approach the rock that shelters his eyrie; the hawk, the heron, and the kingfisher rear their brood at the greatest possible distance from the nesting-place of their next relatives. Each pair of squirrels try to get a tree all to themselves; and even the social prairie-dog shares its home with strangers (owls and serpents) rather than with another family of its own tribe. The “homestead instinct” of our primitive forefathers formed the first, and perhaps the most potent, stimulus to the acquisition of personal property. There is a period in life when the desire for the possession of a private domicile asserts itself with the power almost of a vital passion; and success in the realization of that desire[213]solves in many respects the chief problems of individual existence. The love of domestic peace, the delight in the improvement of a private homestead, are the best guarantees of staid habits. There was a time when the neglect ofhusbandrywas considered a conclusive proof of profligate habits; and the office of a Roman censor comprised the duty of reproving careless housekeepers. The poorest citizen of the Roman commonwealth had a littlepatrimoniumof his own, a dwelling-house, an orchard, and a small lot of land, which he did his best to improve, and where his children learned their first lesson of personal rights in defense of their private playgrounds.The ruins of Pompeii show that the civilization of the Mediterranean coast-lands had anticipated the conclusion of our sanitarian reformers, who recommend the advantage of cottage-suburbs as a remedy for the horrors of tenement life. Between theacropolisand the seaside villas the town forms an aggregation of small dwelling-houses, mostly one-story, but each with a private yard (probably a little garden) or a wide portico, with bath-room and private gymnasiums. And though the ancients were well acquainted with the manufacture of glass, their dwelling-houses were lighted by mere lattice-windows, excluding rain and the glare of the sun, but freely admitting every breeze, and thus solving the problem of ventilation in the simplest and most effective manner. The dwellings of our Saxon forefathers, too, resembled the log-cabins of the Kentucky backwoods, and admitted fresh air so freely that the large family-hearth could dispense with a chimney,[214]and vented its smoke through the open eaves of the roof. In the palaces of the Roman patricians there were special winter-rooms, with a smoke-flue resembling a narrow alcove; but even there, ventilation was insured by numerous lattice doors, communicating with as many balconies or terrace roofs.[Contents]B.—REWARDS OF CONFORMITY.The evolution of all hereditary instincts has been explained by the “survival of the fittest,” and the instinct of homestead-love has doubtlessly been developed in the same way. The results of its predominance prevailed against the results of its absence. Defensive love of a private “hearth and home” is the basis of patriotism, so unmistakably, indeed, that the fathers of the Roman republic for centuries refused to employ foreign mercenaries, whohad no personal interest in the defense of the soil. As a modern humorist has cleverly expressed it: “Few men have been patriotic enough to shoulder a musket in defense of a boarding-house.” And the golden age of civic virtues is almost limited to the time when every free citizen of Greece and Rome was a landowner.Nor would it be easy to overrate the subjective advantages of home-life. Health, happiness, and longevity have no more insidious foe than the canker-worm of vexation; and for the unavoidable disappointments of social life there is no more effective specific than the peace of a prosperous private homestead, soothing the mind with evidences of success in the growth of a promising orchard, in the increase[215]and improvement of domestic animals, in the happiness of merry children and contented dependents. Xenophon, after proving the excitements of an adventurous life by land and sea, found a truer happiness in the solitude of his Arcadian hunting-lodge. Felix Sylla, Fortune’s most constant favorite, abandoned the throne of a mighty empire to enjoy the frugal fare of a small hill-farm. Voltaire, worn out by the trials of a fifty years’ life-and-death struggle against the rancor of bigots, recovered his health and his peace of mind amidst the pear-tree plantations of Villa Ferney.In the resources of medicine and scientific surgery the ancients were far behind even the half-civilized nations of modern times, but their children could enjoy their holidays on their own playground, their sleepers could breathe pure air, their worn-out laborers could retire to the peace of a private home; and they enjoyed a degree of health and vigor which our most progressive nations can hope to re-attain only after centuries of sanitary reform.[Contents]C.—PERVERSION.The germ of the ignoble patience which submits to the miseries of modern tenement-life, and learns to prefer the fetor of a crowded slum-alley to the free air of the woods and fields, can be traced to the voluntary prison-life of the first Christian monasteries. With all the gregariousness of the African race, the very slaves of our American plantations preferred to avoid quarrels and constraint by building a separate cabin for the use of each family; but the ethics[216]of the Galilean church recognized no privilege of personal rights; the sympathies of family-life were crushed out by the enforcement of celibacy; every symptom of self-assertion was denounced as a revolt against the duty of passive subordination; the very instincts of individuality were systematically suppressed to make each convert a whining, emasculated, self-despising, and world-renouncing “member of the church of Christ.” The mortification of the body being the chief object of monastic seclusion, the hygienic architecture of convent buildings was considered a matter of such absolute unimportance that many of the cells (dormitories) had no windows at all, but merely a door communicating with an ill-ventilated gallery, after the plan of our old-style prisons. Eight feet by ten, and eight high, were the usual dimensions of those man-pens; and that utter indifference to the physical health of the inmates was but rarely seconded by a view to the advantages of private meditation is proved by the circumstance that the convent-slaves of the eastern church (in the Byzantine empire, for instance) were not often permitted to enjoy the privacy of their wretched dens; their dormitories were packed like the bunks of a Portuguese slave-ship, and the wordSyncellus(cell-mate) is used as a cognomen of numerous ecclesiastics. The abbot, and in less ascetic centuries perhaps the learned clerks (legend-writers, etc.), were the only members of a monastic community who could ever rely on the privacy of a single hour. For the admitted purpose of mortifying their love of physical comforts, the weary sleepers, worn-out with penance and hunger,[217]were summoned to prayer in the middle of the night, or sent out on begging expeditions in the roughest weather. Every vestige of furniture or clothing apt to mitigate the dreariness of discomfort was banished from their cells; they suffered all the hardships without enjoying the peace and security of a hermit’s home; novices (on probation), and even the pupils of the convent-schools, were submitted to a similar discipline, and thus monasticism became the training-school of modern tenement-life.During the latter half of the Middle Ages, feudalism found an additional motive for suppressing the love of domestic independence. The church usurers and aristocrats monopolized real estate, and made it more and more difficult, even for the most industrious of their dependants, to acquire a share of landed property. Every feudal lord secured his control over his serfs by crowding them together in a smallvillage(literally an abode ofvillains,i.e., of vile pariahs), where his slave-drivers could at any time rally them for an extra job of socage duty. The incessant raids of mail-clad highway-robbers—robber knights and marauding partisans—obliged all peace-loving freemen to congregate for mutual protection and rear their children in the stone prisons of an over-crowded burgh. The suppression of all natural sciences, including the science of health, aggravated the evil by a persistent neglect of such partial remedies as disinfectants and artificial ventilation. The home of a medieval artisan combined all the disadvantages of a jail and a pest-house.The revolt against feudalism has at last broken[218]the stone-fetters of our larger cities; city walls have been turned into promenades, and convents into store-houses or lunatic asylums; but the spirit of monasticism still survives; indifference to the blessings of health and domestic independence seems to have acquired the strength of a second nature, and thousands of our modern factory slaves actually prefer their slum-prisons to the freedom of a cheaper suburban home.[Contents]D.—PENALTIES OF NEGLECT.Nature rarely fails to avenge the violation of her laws, but it might be doubted if the perversion of any other natural instinct has entailed more numerous or direr penalties than our habitual outrages against the instinct of home-life. The monstrosities of our tenement system, by a moderate estimate, cost on the average every year the lives of 1,500,000 children under ten years of age (in Europe and North America), and of 1,200,000 consumptives, besides thousands of victims to epidemic disorders, aggravated, if not engendered, by the influence of vitiated air. Habitual intemperance, too, has undoubtedly been increased by the dearth of home-comforts. Our factory-laborers, our mechanics, and thousands of students and young clerks, spend their evenings in riot, because the man-trap of the lowest grog-shop is, after all, less unattractive than the dungeon of a stifling tenement home. In many of our larger cities similar causes have led to a constant increase of a manner of existence which a modern reformer calls the “celibacy of vice.” But the decreasing demand for independent homes is not the[219]only cause of the decreased supply, and the heartless selfishness of our wealthy land-gluttons has provoked a form of nihilism which threatens to shake, if not to subvert, the very foundations of social life.[Contents]E.—REFORM.That latter danger seems, at last, to have awakened our political economists to the necessity of redressing a many-sided abuse, and the failure of earlier reform projects has at least helped to emphasize the demand for more adequate remedies. The traffic in human life in the floating hells of the African slave-traders hardly called for more stringent repressive measures than the inhumanity of our tenement speculators who fatten on the profits of a system propagating the infallible seeds of pulmonary consumption, and sacrificing the lives of more children than the superstition of the dark ages ever doomed to the altars of Moloch. Even in a country where the jealousy of personal rights would hardly countenance legislative interference with the construction ofprivatedwelling-houses, the license of tenement-owners ought to be circumscribed by the conditions of Dr. Paul Boettger’s rule, providing for appropriation of a certain number of cubic feet of breathing space, and square feet of window, front, and garden (or play-ground) room for each tenant or family of tenants. The abuse of sub-renting could be limited by similar provisions, and the adoption of the separate cottage plan should be promoted by the reduction of municipal passenger tariffs and suburban taxes.The plan of equalizing the burden of taxation and[220]the opportunities of land tenure by a general confiscation and redistribution of real estate might recommend itself as a last resort, though hardly in preference to the project of Fedor Bakunin, the “Russian Mirabeau,” who proposed to found new communities under a charter, reserving the tenth part of all building lots for communal purposes, and lease the tenant-right to the highest bidder. The value of those reserve lots would increase with the growth of the town, and by renewing their lease from ten to ten years, the rent could be made to cover the budget of all direct municipal expenses, and leave a fair surplus for charitable and educational purposes. In comparison with the confiscation plan, that project could claim all the advantages which make prevention preferable to a drastic cure.As a check to the evils of land monopoly the least objectionable plan would seem to be Professor De Graaf’s proposition of a graded system of real estate taxation, increasing the rate of tallage with each multiple of a fair homestead lot, and thus taxing a land-shark for the privilege of acquisition, as well as for the actual possession, of an immoderate estate.The art of making home-life pleasant will yet prove the most effective specific in the list of temperance remedies, and will aid the apostles of Secularism in that work of redemption which the gospel of renunciation has failed to achieve.[221]

[Contents]A.—LESSONS OF INSTINCT.In the nest-building propensity of the social insects the biologist can recognize the first germ of the instinctive desire for the establishment of a permanent home. Certain birds, like the weaver-thrush of the tropics, imitate the community life of the ant and bee, but in all higher animals the homestead instinct is associated with the desire for domestic privacy. The eagle will suffer no other bird to approach the rock that shelters his eyrie; the hawk, the heron, and the kingfisher rear their brood at the greatest possible distance from the nesting-place of their next relatives. Each pair of squirrels try to get a tree all to themselves; and even the social prairie-dog shares its home with strangers (owls and serpents) rather than with another family of its own tribe. The “homestead instinct” of our primitive forefathers formed the first, and perhaps the most potent, stimulus to the acquisition of personal property. There is a period in life when the desire for the possession of a private domicile asserts itself with the power almost of a vital passion; and success in the realization of that desire[213]solves in many respects the chief problems of individual existence. The love of domestic peace, the delight in the improvement of a private homestead, are the best guarantees of staid habits. There was a time when the neglect ofhusbandrywas considered a conclusive proof of profligate habits; and the office of a Roman censor comprised the duty of reproving careless housekeepers. The poorest citizen of the Roman commonwealth had a littlepatrimoniumof his own, a dwelling-house, an orchard, and a small lot of land, which he did his best to improve, and where his children learned their first lesson of personal rights in defense of their private playgrounds.The ruins of Pompeii show that the civilization of the Mediterranean coast-lands had anticipated the conclusion of our sanitarian reformers, who recommend the advantage of cottage-suburbs as a remedy for the horrors of tenement life. Between theacropolisand the seaside villas the town forms an aggregation of small dwelling-houses, mostly one-story, but each with a private yard (probably a little garden) or a wide portico, with bath-room and private gymnasiums. And though the ancients were well acquainted with the manufacture of glass, their dwelling-houses were lighted by mere lattice-windows, excluding rain and the glare of the sun, but freely admitting every breeze, and thus solving the problem of ventilation in the simplest and most effective manner. The dwellings of our Saxon forefathers, too, resembled the log-cabins of the Kentucky backwoods, and admitted fresh air so freely that the large family-hearth could dispense with a chimney,[214]and vented its smoke through the open eaves of the roof. In the palaces of the Roman patricians there were special winter-rooms, with a smoke-flue resembling a narrow alcove; but even there, ventilation was insured by numerous lattice doors, communicating with as many balconies or terrace roofs.

A.—LESSONS OF INSTINCT.

In the nest-building propensity of the social insects the biologist can recognize the first germ of the instinctive desire for the establishment of a permanent home. Certain birds, like the weaver-thrush of the tropics, imitate the community life of the ant and bee, but in all higher animals the homestead instinct is associated with the desire for domestic privacy. The eagle will suffer no other bird to approach the rock that shelters his eyrie; the hawk, the heron, and the kingfisher rear their brood at the greatest possible distance from the nesting-place of their next relatives. Each pair of squirrels try to get a tree all to themselves; and even the social prairie-dog shares its home with strangers (owls and serpents) rather than with another family of its own tribe. The “homestead instinct” of our primitive forefathers formed the first, and perhaps the most potent, stimulus to the acquisition of personal property. There is a period in life when the desire for the possession of a private domicile asserts itself with the power almost of a vital passion; and success in the realization of that desire[213]solves in many respects the chief problems of individual existence. The love of domestic peace, the delight in the improvement of a private homestead, are the best guarantees of staid habits. There was a time when the neglect ofhusbandrywas considered a conclusive proof of profligate habits; and the office of a Roman censor comprised the duty of reproving careless housekeepers. The poorest citizen of the Roman commonwealth had a littlepatrimoniumof his own, a dwelling-house, an orchard, and a small lot of land, which he did his best to improve, and where his children learned their first lesson of personal rights in defense of their private playgrounds.The ruins of Pompeii show that the civilization of the Mediterranean coast-lands had anticipated the conclusion of our sanitarian reformers, who recommend the advantage of cottage-suburbs as a remedy for the horrors of tenement life. Between theacropolisand the seaside villas the town forms an aggregation of small dwelling-houses, mostly one-story, but each with a private yard (probably a little garden) or a wide portico, with bath-room and private gymnasiums. And though the ancients were well acquainted with the manufacture of glass, their dwelling-houses were lighted by mere lattice-windows, excluding rain and the glare of the sun, but freely admitting every breeze, and thus solving the problem of ventilation in the simplest and most effective manner. The dwellings of our Saxon forefathers, too, resembled the log-cabins of the Kentucky backwoods, and admitted fresh air so freely that the large family-hearth could dispense with a chimney,[214]and vented its smoke through the open eaves of the roof. In the palaces of the Roman patricians there were special winter-rooms, with a smoke-flue resembling a narrow alcove; but even there, ventilation was insured by numerous lattice doors, communicating with as many balconies or terrace roofs.

In the nest-building propensity of the social insects the biologist can recognize the first germ of the instinctive desire for the establishment of a permanent home. Certain birds, like the weaver-thrush of the tropics, imitate the community life of the ant and bee, but in all higher animals the homestead instinct is associated with the desire for domestic privacy. The eagle will suffer no other bird to approach the rock that shelters his eyrie; the hawk, the heron, and the kingfisher rear their brood at the greatest possible distance from the nesting-place of their next relatives. Each pair of squirrels try to get a tree all to themselves; and even the social prairie-dog shares its home with strangers (owls and serpents) rather than with another family of its own tribe. The “homestead instinct” of our primitive forefathers formed the first, and perhaps the most potent, stimulus to the acquisition of personal property. There is a period in life when the desire for the possession of a private domicile asserts itself with the power almost of a vital passion; and success in the realization of that desire[213]solves in many respects the chief problems of individual existence. The love of domestic peace, the delight in the improvement of a private homestead, are the best guarantees of staid habits. There was a time when the neglect ofhusbandrywas considered a conclusive proof of profligate habits; and the office of a Roman censor comprised the duty of reproving careless housekeepers. The poorest citizen of the Roman commonwealth had a littlepatrimoniumof his own, a dwelling-house, an orchard, and a small lot of land, which he did his best to improve, and where his children learned their first lesson of personal rights in defense of their private playgrounds.

The ruins of Pompeii show that the civilization of the Mediterranean coast-lands had anticipated the conclusion of our sanitarian reformers, who recommend the advantage of cottage-suburbs as a remedy for the horrors of tenement life. Between theacropolisand the seaside villas the town forms an aggregation of small dwelling-houses, mostly one-story, but each with a private yard (probably a little garden) or a wide portico, with bath-room and private gymnasiums. And though the ancients were well acquainted with the manufacture of glass, their dwelling-houses were lighted by mere lattice-windows, excluding rain and the glare of the sun, but freely admitting every breeze, and thus solving the problem of ventilation in the simplest and most effective manner. The dwellings of our Saxon forefathers, too, resembled the log-cabins of the Kentucky backwoods, and admitted fresh air so freely that the large family-hearth could dispense with a chimney,[214]and vented its smoke through the open eaves of the roof. In the palaces of the Roman patricians there were special winter-rooms, with a smoke-flue resembling a narrow alcove; but even there, ventilation was insured by numerous lattice doors, communicating with as many balconies or terrace roofs.

[Contents]B.—REWARDS OF CONFORMITY.The evolution of all hereditary instincts has been explained by the “survival of the fittest,” and the instinct of homestead-love has doubtlessly been developed in the same way. The results of its predominance prevailed against the results of its absence. Defensive love of a private “hearth and home” is the basis of patriotism, so unmistakably, indeed, that the fathers of the Roman republic for centuries refused to employ foreign mercenaries, whohad no personal interest in the defense of the soil. As a modern humorist has cleverly expressed it: “Few men have been patriotic enough to shoulder a musket in defense of a boarding-house.” And the golden age of civic virtues is almost limited to the time when every free citizen of Greece and Rome was a landowner.Nor would it be easy to overrate the subjective advantages of home-life. Health, happiness, and longevity have no more insidious foe than the canker-worm of vexation; and for the unavoidable disappointments of social life there is no more effective specific than the peace of a prosperous private homestead, soothing the mind with evidences of success in the growth of a promising orchard, in the increase[215]and improvement of domestic animals, in the happiness of merry children and contented dependents. Xenophon, after proving the excitements of an adventurous life by land and sea, found a truer happiness in the solitude of his Arcadian hunting-lodge. Felix Sylla, Fortune’s most constant favorite, abandoned the throne of a mighty empire to enjoy the frugal fare of a small hill-farm. Voltaire, worn out by the trials of a fifty years’ life-and-death struggle against the rancor of bigots, recovered his health and his peace of mind amidst the pear-tree plantations of Villa Ferney.In the resources of medicine and scientific surgery the ancients were far behind even the half-civilized nations of modern times, but their children could enjoy their holidays on their own playground, their sleepers could breathe pure air, their worn-out laborers could retire to the peace of a private home; and they enjoyed a degree of health and vigor which our most progressive nations can hope to re-attain only after centuries of sanitary reform.

B.—REWARDS OF CONFORMITY.

The evolution of all hereditary instincts has been explained by the “survival of the fittest,” and the instinct of homestead-love has doubtlessly been developed in the same way. The results of its predominance prevailed against the results of its absence. Defensive love of a private “hearth and home” is the basis of patriotism, so unmistakably, indeed, that the fathers of the Roman republic for centuries refused to employ foreign mercenaries, whohad no personal interest in the defense of the soil. As a modern humorist has cleverly expressed it: “Few men have been patriotic enough to shoulder a musket in defense of a boarding-house.” And the golden age of civic virtues is almost limited to the time when every free citizen of Greece and Rome was a landowner.Nor would it be easy to overrate the subjective advantages of home-life. Health, happiness, and longevity have no more insidious foe than the canker-worm of vexation; and for the unavoidable disappointments of social life there is no more effective specific than the peace of a prosperous private homestead, soothing the mind with evidences of success in the growth of a promising orchard, in the increase[215]and improvement of domestic animals, in the happiness of merry children and contented dependents. Xenophon, after proving the excitements of an adventurous life by land and sea, found a truer happiness in the solitude of his Arcadian hunting-lodge. Felix Sylla, Fortune’s most constant favorite, abandoned the throne of a mighty empire to enjoy the frugal fare of a small hill-farm. Voltaire, worn out by the trials of a fifty years’ life-and-death struggle against the rancor of bigots, recovered his health and his peace of mind amidst the pear-tree plantations of Villa Ferney.In the resources of medicine and scientific surgery the ancients were far behind even the half-civilized nations of modern times, but their children could enjoy their holidays on their own playground, their sleepers could breathe pure air, their worn-out laborers could retire to the peace of a private home; and they enjoyed a degree of health and vigor which our most progressive nations can hope to re-attain only after centuries of sanitary reform.

The evolution of all hereditary instincts has been explained by the “survival of the fittest,” and the instinct of homestead-love has doubtlessly been developed in the same way. The results of its predominance prevailed against the results of its absence. Defensive love of a private “hearth and home” is the basis of patriotism, so unmistakably, indeed, that the fathers of the Roman republic for centuries refused to employ foreign mercenaries, whohad no personal interest in the defense of the soil. As a modern humorist has cleverly expressed it: “Few men have been patriotic enough to shoulder a musket in defense of a boarding-house.” And the golden age of civic virtues is almost limited to the time when every free citizen of Greece and Rome was a landowner.

Nor would it be easy to overrate the subjective advantages of home-life. Health, happiness, and longevity have no more insidious foe than the canker-worm of vexation; and for the unavoidable disappointments of social life there is no more effective specific than the peace of a prosperous private homestead, soothing the mind with evidences of success in the growth of a promising orchard, in the increase[215]and improvement of domestic animals, in the happiness of merry children and contented dependents. Xenophon, after proving the excitements of an adventurous life by land and sea, found a truer happiness in the solitude of his Arcadian hunting-lodge. Felix Sylla, Fortune’s most constant favorite, abandoned the throne of a mighty empire to enjoy the frugal fare of a small hill-farm. Voltaire, worn out by the trials of a fifty years’ life-and-death struggle against the rancor of bigots, recovered his health and his peace of mind amidst the pear-tree plantations of Villa Ferney.

In the resources of medicine and scientific surgery the ancients were far behind even the half-civilized nations of modern times, but their children could enjoy their holidays on their own playground, their sleepers could breathe pure air, their worn-out laborers could retire to the peace of a private home; and they enjoyed a degree of health and vigor which our most progressive nations can hope to re-attain only after centuries of sanitary reform.

[Contents]C.—PERVERSION.The germ of the ignoble patience which submits to the miseries of modern tenement-life, and learns to prefer the fetor of a crowded slum-alley to the free air of the woods and fields, can be traced to the voluntary prison-life of the first Christian monasteries. With all the gregariousness of the African race, the very slaves of our American plantations preferred to avoid quarrels and constraint by building a separate cabin for the use of each family; but the ethics[216]of the Galilean church recognized no privilege of personal rights; the sympathies of family-life were crushed out by the enforcement of celibacy; every symptom of self-assertion was denounced as a revolt against the duty of passive subordination; the very instincts of individuality were systematically suppressed to make each convert a whining, emasculated, self-despising, and world-renouncing “member of the church of Christ.” The mortification of the body being the chief object of monastic seclusion, the hygienic architecture of convent buildings was considered a matter of such absolute unimportance that many of the cells (dormitories) had no windows at all, but merely a door communicating with an ill-ventilated gallery, after the plan of our old-style prisons. Eight feet by ten, and eight high, were the usual dimensions of those man-pens; and that utter indifference to the physical health of the inmates was but rarely seconded by a view to the advantages of private meditation is proved by the circumstance that the convent-slaves of the eastern church (in the Byzantine empire, for instance) were not often permitted to enjoy the privacy of their wretched dens; their dormitories were packed like the bunks of a Portuguese slave-ship, and the wordSyncellus(cell-mate) is used as a cognomen of numerous ecclesiastics. The abbot, and in less ascetic centuries perhaps the learned clerks (legend-writers, etc.), were the only members of a monastic community who could ever rely on the privacy of a single hour. For the admitted purpose of mortifying their love of physical comforts, the weary sleepers, worn-out with penance and hunger,[217]were summoned to prayer in the middle of the night, or sent out on begging expeditions in the roughest weather. Every vestige of furniture or clothing apt to mitigate the dreariness of discomfort was banished from their cells; they suffered all the hardships without enjoying the peace and security of a hermit’s home; novices (on probation), and even the pupils of the convent-schools, were submitted to a similar discipline, and thus monasticism became the training-school of modern tenement-life.During the latter half of the Middle Ages, feudalism found an additional motive for suppressing the love of domestic independence. The church usurers and aristocrats monopolized real estate, and made it more and more difficult, even for the most industrious of their dependants, to acquire a share of landed property. Every feudal lord secured his control over his serfs by crowding them together in a smallvillage(literally an abode ofvillains,i.e., of vile pariahs), where his slave-drivers could at any time rally them for an extra job of socage duty. The incessant raids of mail-clad highway-robbers—robber knights and marauding partisans—obliged all peace-loving freemen to congregate for mutual protection and rear their children in the stone prisons of an over-crowded burgh. The suppression of all natural sciences, including the science of health, aggravated the evil by a persistent neglect of such partial remedies as disinfectants and artificial ventilation. The home of a medieval artisan combined all the disadvantages of a jail and a pest-house.The revolt against feudalism has at last broken[218]the stone-fetters of our larger cities; city walls have been turned into promenades, and convents into store-houses or lunatic asylums; but the spirit of monasticism still survives; indifference to the blessings of health and domestic independence seems to have acquired the strength of a second nature, and thousands of our modern factory slaves actually prefer their slum-prisons to the freedom of a cheaper suburban home.

C.—PERVERSION.

The germ of the ignoble patience which submits to the miseries of modern tenement-life, and learns to prefer the fetor of a crowded slum-alley to the free air of the woods and fields, can be traced to the voluntary prison-life of the first Christian monasteries. With all the gregariousness of the African race, the very slaves of our American plantations preferred to avoid quarrels and constraint by building a separate cabin for the use of each family; but the ethics[216]of the Galilean church recognized no privilege of personal rights; the sympathies of family-life were crushed out by the enforcement of celibacy; every symptom of self-assertion was denounced as a revolt against the duty of passive subordination; the very instincts of individuality were systematically suppressed to make each convert a whining, emasculated, self-despising, and world-renouncing “member of the church of Christ.” The mortification of the body being the chief object of monastic seclusion, the hygienic architecture of convent buildings was considered a matter of such absolute unimportance that many of the cells (dormitories) had no windows at all, but merely a door communicating with an ill-ventilated gallery, after the plan of our old-style prisons. Eight feet by ten, and eight high, were the usual dimensions of those man-pens; and that utter indifference to the physical health of the inmates was but rarely seconded by a view to the advantages of private meditation is proved by the circumstance that the convent-slaves of the eastern church (in the Byzantine empire, for instance) were not often permitted to enjoy the privacy of their wretched dens; their dormitories were packed like the bunks of a Portuguese slave-ship, and the wordSyncellus(cell-mate) is used as a cognomen of numerous ecclesiastics. The abbot, and in less ascetic centuries perhaps the learned clerks (legend-writers, etc.), were the only members of a monastic community who could ever rely on the privacy of a single hour. For the admitted purpose of mortifying their love of physical comforts, the weary sleepers, worn-out with penance and hunger,[217]were summoned to prayer in the middle of the night, or sent out on begging expeditions in the roughest weather. Every vestige of furniture or clothing apt to mitigate the dreariness of discomfort was banished from their cells; they suffered all the hardships without enjoying the peace and security of a hermit’s home; novices (on probation), and even the pupils of the convent-schools, were submitted to a similar discipline, and thus monasticism became the training-school of modern tenement-life.During the latter half of the Middle Ages, feudalism found an additional motive for suppressing the love of domestic independence. The church usurers and aristocrats monopolized real estate, and made it more and more difficult, even for the most industrious of their dependants, to acquire a share of landed property. Every feudal lord secured his control over his serfs by crowding them together in a smallvillage(literally an abode ofvillains,i.e., of vile pariahs), where his slave-drivers could at any time rally them for an extra job of socage duty. The incessant raids of mail-clad highway-robbers—robber knights and marauding partisans—obliged all peace-loving freemen to congregate for mutual protection and rear their children in the stone prisons of an over-crowded burgh. The suppression of all natural sciences, including the science of health, aggravated the evil by a persistent neglect of such partial remedies as disinfectants and artificial ventilation. The home of a medieval artisan combined all the disadvantages of a jail and a pest-house.The revolt against feudalism has at last broken[218]the stone-fetters of our larger cities; city walls have been turned into promenades, and convents into store-houses or lunatic asylums; but the spirit of monasticism still survives; indifference to the blessings of health and domestic independence seems to have acquired the strength of a second nature, and thousands of our modern factory slaves actually prefer their slum-prisons to the freedom of a cheaper suburban home.

The germ of the ignoble patience which submits to the miseries of modern tenement-life, and learns to prefer the fetor of a crowded slum-alley to the free air of the woods and fields, can be traced to the voluntary prison-life of the first Christian monasteries. With all the gregariousness of the African race, the very slaves of our American plantations preferred to avoid quarrels and constraint by building a separate cabin for the use of each family; but the ethics[216]of the Galilean church recognized no privilege of personal rights; the sympathies of family-life were crushed out by the enforcement of celibacy; every symptom of self-assertion was denounced as a revolt against the duty of passive subordination; the very instincts of individuality were systematically suppressed to make each convert a whining, emasculated, self-despising, and world-renouncing “member of the church of Christ.” The mortification of the body being the chief object of monastic seclusion, the hygienic architecture of convent buildings was considered a matter of such absolute unimportance that many of the cells (dormitories) had no windows at all, but merely a door communicating with an ill-ventilated gallery, after the plan of our old-style prisons. Eight feet by ten, and eight high, were the usual dimensions of those man-pens; and that utter indifference to the physical health of the inmates was but rarely seconded by a view to the advantages of private meditation is proved by the circumstance that the convent-slaves of the eastern church (in the Byzantine empire, for instance) were not often permitted to enjoy the privacy of their wretched dens; their dormitories were packed like the bunks of a Portuguese slave-ship, and the wordSyncellus(cell-mate) is used as a cognomen of numerous ecclesiastics. The abbot, and in less ascetic centuries perhaps the learned clerks (legend-writers, etc.), were the only members of a monastic community who could ever rely on the privacy of a single hour. For the admitted purpose of mortifying their love of physical comforts, the weary sleepers, worn-out with penance and hunger,[217]were summoned to prayer in the middle of the night, or sent out on begging expeditions in the roughest weather. Every vestige of furniture or clothing apt to mitigate the dreariness of discomfort was banished from their cells; they suffered all the hardships without enjoying the peace and security of a hermit’s home; novices (on probation), and even the pupils of the convent-schools, were submitted to a similar discipline, and thus monasticism became the training-school of modern tenement-life.

During the latter half of the Middle Ages, feudalism found an additional motive for suppressing the love of domestic independence. The church usurers and aristocrats monopolized real estate, and made it more and more difficult, even for the most industrious of their dependants, to acquire a share of landed property. Every feudal lord secured his control over his serfs by crowding them together in a smallvillage(literally an abode ofvillains,i.e., of vile pariahs), where his slave-drivers could at any time rally them for an extra job of socage duty. The incessant raids of mail-clad highway-robbers—robber knights and marauding partisans—obliged all peace-loving freemen to congregate for mutual protection and rear their children in the stone prisons of an over-crowded burgh. The suppression of all natural sciences, including the science of health, aggravated the evil by a persistent neglect of such partial remedies as disinfectants and artificial ventilation. The home of a medieval artisan combined all the disadvantages of a jail and a pest-house.

The revolt against feudalism has at last broken[218]the stone-fetters of our larger cities; city walls have been turned into promenades, and convents into store-houses or lunatic asylums; but the spirit of monasticism still survives; indifference to the blessings of health and domestic independence seems to have acquired the strength of a second nature, and thousands of our modern factory slaves actually prefer their slum-prisons to the freedom of a cheaper suburban home.

[Contents]D.—PENALTIES OF NEGLECT.Nature rarely fails to avenge the violation of her laws, but it might be doubted if the perversion of any other natural instinct has entailed more numerous or direr penalties than our habitual outrages against the instinct of home-life. The monstrosities of our tenement system, by a moderate estimate, cost on the average every year the lives of 1,500,000 children under ten years of age (in Europe and North America), and of 1,200,000 consumptives, besides thousands of victims to epidemic disorders, aggravated, if not engendered, by the influence of vitiated air. Habitual intemperance, too, has undoubtedly been increased by the dearth of home-comforts. Our factory-laborers, our mechanics, and thousands of students and young clerks, spend their evenings in riot, because the man-trap of the lowest grog-shop is, after all, less unattractive than the dungeon of a stifling tenement home. In many of our larger cities similar causes have led to a constant increase of a manner of existence which a modern reformer calls the “celibacy of vice.” But the decreasing demand for independent homes is not the[219]only cause of the decreased supply, and the heartless selfishness of our wealthy land-gluttons has provoked a form of nihilism which threatens to shake, if not to subvert, the very foundations of social life.

D.—PENALTIES OF NEGLECT.

Nature rarely fails to avenge the violation of her laws, but it might be doubted if the perversion of any other natural instinct has entailed more numerous or direr penalties than our habitual outrages against the instinct of home-life. The monstrosities of our tenement system, by a moderate estimate, cost on the average every year the lives of 1,500,000 children under ten years of age (in Europe and North America), and of 1,200,000 consumptives, besides thousands of victims to epidemic disorders, aggravated, if not engendered, by the influence of vitiated air. Habitual intemperance, too, has undoubtedly been increased by the dearth of home-comforts. Our factory-laborers, our mechanics, and thousands of students and young clerks, spend their evenings in riot, because the man-trap of the lowest grog-shop is, after all, less unattractive than the dungeon of a stifling tenement home. In many of our larger cities similar causes have led to a constant increase of a manner of existence which a modern reformer calls the “celibacy of vice.” But the decreasing demand for independent homes is not the[219]only cause of the decreased supply, and the heartless selfishness of our wealthy land-gluttons has provoked a form of nihilism which threatens to shake, if not to subvert, the very foundations of social life.

Nature rarely fails to avenge the violation of her laws, but it might be doubted if the perversion of any other natural instinct has entailed more numerous or direr penalties than our habitual outrages against the instinct of home-life. The monstrosities of our tenement system, by a moderate estimate, cost on the average every year the lives of 1,500,000 children under ten years of age (in Europe and North America), and of 1,200,000 consumptives, besides thousands of victims to epidemic disorders, aggravated, if not engendered, by the influence of vitiated air. Habitual intemperance, too, has undoubtedly been increased by the dearth of home-comforts. Our factory-laborers, our mechanics, and thousands of students and young clerks, spend their evenings in riot, because the man-trap of the lowest grog-shop is, after all, less unattractive than the dungeon of a stifling tenement home. In many of our larger cities similar causes have led to a constant increase of a manner of existence which a modern reformer calls the “celibacy of vice.” But the decreasing demand for independent homes is not the[219]only cause of the decreased supply, and the heartless selfishness of our wealthy land-gluttons has provoked a form of nihilism which threatens to shake, if not to subvert, the very foundations of social life.

[Contents]E.—REFORM.That latter danger seems, at last, to have awakened our political economists to the necessity of redressing a many-sided abuse, and the failure of earlier reform projects has at least helped to emphasize the demand for more adequate remedies. The traffic in human life in the floating hells of the African slave-traders hardly called for more stringent repressive measures than the inhumanity of our tenement speculators who fatten on the profits of a system propagating the infallible seeds of pulmonary consumption, and sacrificing the lives of more children than the superstition of the dark ages ever doomed to the altars of Moloch. Even in a country where the jealousy of personal rights would hardly countenance legislative interference with the construction ofprivatedwelling-houses, the license of tenement-owners ought to be circumscribed by the conditions of Dr. Paul Boettger’s rule, providing for appropriation of a certain number of cubic feet of breathing space, and square feet of window, front, and garden (or play-ground) room for each tenant or family of tenants. The abuse of sub-renting could be limited by similar provisions, and the adoption of the separate cottage plan should be promoted by the reduction of municipal passenger tariffs and suburban taxes.The plan of equalizing the burden of taxation and[220]the opportunities of land tenure by a general confiscation and redistribution of real estate might recommend itself as a last resort, though hardly in preference to the project of Fedor Bakunin, the “Russian Mirabeau,” who proposed to found new communities under a charter, reserving the tenth part of all building lots for communal purposes, and lease the tenant-right to the highest bidder. The value of those reserve lots would increase with the growth of the town, and by renewing their lease from ten to ten years, the rent could be made to cover the budget of all direct municipal expenses, and leave a fair surplus for charitable and educational purposes. In comparison with the confiscation plan, that project could claim all the advantages which make prevention preferable to a drastic cure.As a check to the evils of land monopoly the least objectionable plan would seem to be Professor De Graaf’s proposition of a graded system of real estate taxation, increasing the rate of tallage with each multiple of a fair homestead lot, and thus taxing a land-shark for the privilege of acquisition, as well as for the actual possession, of an immoderate estate.The art of making home-life pleasant will yet prove the most effective specific in the list of temperance remedies, and will aid the apostles of Secularism in that work of redemption which the gospel of renunciation has failed to achieve.[221]

E.—REFORM.

That latter danger seems, at last, to have awakened our political economists to the necessity of redressing a many-sided abuse, and the failure of earlier reform projects has at least helped to emphasize the demand for more adequate remedies. The traffic in human life in the floating hells of the African slave-traders hardly called for more stringent repressive measures than the inhumanity of our tenement speculators who fatten on the profits of a system propagating the infallible seeds of pulmonary consumption, and sacrificing the lives of more children than the superstition of the dark ages ever doomed to the altars of Moloch. Even in a country where the jealousy of personal rights would hardly countenance legislative interference with the construction ofprivatedwelling-houses, the license of tenement-owners ought to be circumscribed by the conditions of Dr. Paul Boettger’s rule, providing for appropriation of a certain number of cubic feet of breathing space, and square feet of window, front, and garden (or play-ground) room for each tenant or family of tenants. The abuse of sub-renting could be limited by similar provisions, and the adoption of the separate cottage plan should be promoted by the reduction of municipal passenger tariffs and suburban taxes.The plan of equalizing the burden of taxation and[220]the opportunities of land tenure by a general confiscation and redistribution of real estate might recommend itself as a last resort, though hardly in preference to the project of Fedor Bakunin, the “Russian Mirabeau,” who proposed to found new communities under a charter, reserving the tenth part of all building lots for communal purposes, and lease the tenant-right to the highest bidder. The value of those reserve lots would increase with the growth of the town, and by renewing their lease from ten to ten years, the rent could be made to cover the budget of all direct municipal expenses, and leave a fair surplus for charitable and educational purposes. In comparison with the confiscation plan, that project could claim all the advantages which make prevention preferable to a drastic cure.As a check to the evils of land monopoly the least objectionable plan would seem to be Professor De Graaf’s proposition of a graded system of real estate taxation, increasing the rate of tallage with each multiple of a fair homestead lot, and thus taxing a land-shark for the privilege of acquisition, as well as for the actual possession, of an immoderate estate.The art of making home-life pleasant will yet prove the most effective specific in the list of temperance remedies, and will aid the apostles of Secularism in that work of redemption which the gospel of renunciation has failed to achieve.[221]

That latter danger seems, at last, to have awakened our political economists to the necessity of redressing a many-sided abuse, and the failure of earlier reform projects has at least helped to emphasize the demand for more adequate remedies. The traffic in human life in the floating hells of the African slave-traders hardly called for more stringent repressive measures than the inhumanity of our tenement speculators who fatten on the profits of a system propagating the infallible seeds of pulmonary consumption, and sacrificing the lives of more children than the superstition of the dark ages ever doomed to the altars of Moloch. Even in a country where the jealousy of personal rights would hardly countenance legislative interference with the construction ofprivatedwelling-houses, the license of tenement-owners ought to be circumscribed by the conditions of Dr. Paul Boettger’s rule, providing for appropriation of a certain number of cubic feet of breathing space, and square feet of window, front, and garden (or play-ground) room for each tenant or family of tenants. The abuse of sub-renting could be limited by similar provisions, and the adoption of the separate cottage plan should be promoted by the reduction of municipal passenger tariffs and suburban taxes.

The plan of equalizing the burden of taxation and[220]the opportunities of land tenure by a general confiscation and redistribution of real estate might recommend itself as a last resort, though hardly in preference to the project of Fedor Bakunin, the “Russian Mirabeau,” who proposed to found new communities under a charter, reserving the tenth part of all building lots for communal purposes, and lease the tenant-right to the highest bidder. The value of those reserve lots would increase with the growth of the town, and by renewing their lease from ten to ten years, the rent could be made to cover the budget of all direct municipal expenses, and leave a fair surplus for charitable and educational purposes. In comparison with the confiscation plan, that project could claim all the advantages which make prevention preferable to a drastic cure.

As a check to the evils of land monopoly the least objectionable plan would seem to be Professor De Graaf’s proposition of a graded system of real estate taxation, increasing the rate of tallage with each multiple of a fair homestead lot, and thus taxing a land-shark for the privilege of acquisition, as well as for the actual possession, of an immoderate estate.

The art of making home-life pleasant will yet prove the most effective specific in the list of temperance remedies, and will aid the apostles of Secularism in that work of redemption which the gospel of renunciation has failed to achieve.[221]

[Contents]CHAPTER XIX.LEGISLATIVE REFORM.[Contents]A.—LESSONS OF INSTINCT.Progress is a general law of Nature, and the comparative study of Evolution proves that the tendency to improvement increases with the advance to higher planes of development. Among the lowest organisms the rate of progress is hardly appreciable. The sea shells of the Devonian period can scarcely be distinguished from the shells of our present seas. The balls of amber found on the shores of the Baltic often contain the mummies of insects closely resembling certain species of latter-day flies and beetles, while the horse, the zebra, and other modern varieties of the equine genus, have developed from a creature not much larger than a fox. The Neanderthal skull proves that the heads of our early ancestors were almost ape-like in their protruding jaws and flatness of cranium. The lower animals adhere to inherited habits with a persistency that has often proved their ruin by diminishing their ability of adapting themselves to change of circumstances, as in the case of that sea-lizard of the South sea islands, where its ancestors had for ages managed to escape their only enemies by leaving the water and crawling up the beach, and where their modern descendants persist in crawlinglandward in the hope of escaping from dogs and hunters.The higher animals, on the other hand, rarely fail to profit by lessons of experience. Trappers know[222]that the contrivances for capturing wild animals have to be changed from time to time, the older methods being apt to lose their efficacy after the fate of a certain number of victims has warned their relatives. Old rats have been seen driving their young from a dish of arsenic-poisoned gruel. Deer, foxes, and wild turkeys learn to avoid the favorite trails of the hunter; monkeys, on their first arrival in a cold climate, impatiently tear off the jackets or shawls furnished by the kindness of their keeper, but soon learn to appreciate the advantage of artificial teguments, and even try to increase their stock of wardrobe by appropriating every stray piece of cloth they can lay their hands on.The instinct of adaptation to the conditions of progress has asserted itself both among modern and very ancient nations, though during the mental bondage of the Middle Ages its manifestations were systematically suppressed by the conservatism of religious bigots. Savages show an almost apish eagerness in adopting the habits, fashions, and foibles of civilization. The political institutions of primitive nations are very elastic. The Grecian republics were not only willing but anxious to improve their laws by abolishing abuses and testing amendments. In ancient Rome every general assembly of freemen exercised the functions of a legislative council; legislative reforms were proposed by private citizens and were often carried by acclamation, like the edict for the expulsion of the Tarquins, and the resolution revoking the exile of Cicero.[223][Contents]B.—REWARDS OF CONFORMITY.Legislative reform, the manful renunciation of entangling alliances with the ghosts of the past, is a sword that has more than once cut a Gordian knot of fatal complications. The suppression of monasteries saved four of our Spanish American sister republics from a brood of vampires that had drained the life-blood of Spain for a series of centuries. In England the timely repeal of the corn-laws averted an explosion that might have rent the coherence of the entire British empire. The abolition of slavery with one blow destroyed a hydra that had menaced the safety of the American Union by an endless series of political disputes. By the abolition of serfdom Czar Alexander elevated the Russian empire to the rank of a progressive nation. The very possibility of national progress depends, indeed, on the hope of legislative reform, for the rigor of unalterable laws prevents social development as the clasp of an iron ring prevents the growth of a tree.[Contents]C.—PERVERSION.All the intelligent nations of antiquity were distinguished by a tendency to legislative progress, till the freedom of that progress was checked by the claims of religious infallibility. The founder of the Zendavesta advanced that claim for a pandect of pretended revelations which became the religious code of Central Asia, and as a consequence the intellectual and industrial development of two valiant nations was stunted by legislative conservatism—the[224]proverbially “unalterable laws of the Medes and Persians.” The claims of an infallible revelation preclude the necessity of reform. “Should mortals presume to improve the ordinances of a God?”But the blind hatred of progress which has for so many centuries degraded the Christian hierarchy below the priesthood of all other intolerant creeds, is the earth-renouncing antinaturalism of their founder. The priests of Zoroaster, Moses, and Mohammed claimed the sufficiency of their dogmas for the purposes of national prosperity. The priests of the nature-hating Galilean attempted to suppress the very desire of that prosperity. “The doctrine of renunciation made patriotism an idle dream: the saints, whose ‘kingdom was not of this world,’ had no business with vanities of that sort; no chieftain could trust his neighbor; cities were pitted against cities and castles against castles; patriotic reformers would vainly have appealed to the sympathies of men who had been taught to reserve their interest for the politics of the New Jerusalem” (Secret of the East, p. 76).The Rev. Spurgeon, of London, England, recently provoked the protests of his Liberal colleagues by the confession that he “positively hated advanced thought;” but only five centuries ago such protests were silenced with the gag and the fagot. For nearly a thousand years every clergyman who had the courage to lift his voice in favor of secular reforms was fiercely attacked as a traitor to the sacred cause of other-worldliness. To question the authority of the church was a crime which could not in the least be[225]palliated by such pleas as the temporal interests of mankind, and a mere hint at the fallibility of “revealed scriptures” could only be expiated in the blood of the offender. Nay, thousands of scientists, historians, and philosophers who had never expressed a direct doubt of that sort, were doomed to a death of torture merely because the logical inference of their discoveries was at variance with the dogmas of the Galilean miracle-mongers. From the reign of Charlemagne to the outbreak of the Protestant revolt the intolerance of Christian bigots interposed an insuperable dam between the projects and the realization of social reforms.“I cannot conceive,” says Hallam, “of any state of society more adverse to the intellectual improvement of mankind than one which admitted no middle line between dissoluteness and fanatical mortifications.”If it had not been for the exotic civilization of Moorish Spain, it would be strictly true that at the end of the thirteenth century, when the enemies of nature had reached the zenith of their power, “the countries of Europe, without a single exception, were worse governed, more ignorant, more superstitious, poorer, and unhappier than the worst governed provinces of pagan Rome.”In China and India, too, the resistance of religious prejudice has for ages frustrated the hopes of political development, and the civilization of Europe dates only from the time when a more or less complete separation of church and state was effected by the insurrection of the Germanic nations, and where the[226]work of that separation has been left unfinished the march of reform halts at every step. Every claim of dogmatic infallibility has proved a spoke in the wheels of progress.[Contents]D.—PENALTIES OF NEGLECT.The pig-headed conservatism of orthodox nations has never failed to avenge itself in its ultimate results, but its fatuity has, perhaps, been most strikingly illustrated by the practical consequences of legislative non-progressiveness. There was a time when the small value of real estate made it a trifle for an Italian prince to present afavoriteprelate with a few square leagues of neglected woodlands; but now, when those woods have been turned into vineyards and building-lots, and over-population makes the monopoly of land a grievous burden, hundreds of industrious peasants are obliged to starve to swell the revenues of a bloated priest, who nevertheless succeeds in silencing all protests by an appeal to the “necessity of respecting time-honored institutions.” At a time when agriculture and pastoral pursuits were the chief industries of Scotland, it was no great grievance to sequester the seventh day for the exclusive service of ecclesiastic purposes; but now, when thousands of poor factory children need outdoor recreations as they need sunlight and bread, it has become an infamous outrage on personal rights to enforce a medieval by-law for the suppression of outdoor sports on the day when those who need it most can find their only chance for recreation. Nevertheless, the dread of innovations defeats the urged repeal[227]of a law which for the last hundred years has obliged millions of city dwellers to sacrifice the sunshine of their lives for the benefit of a few clerical vampires. The repeal of the witchcraft laws was preceded by a transition period of at least two hundred years, when the mere dread of an open rupture with the specters of the past cowed intelligent jurists into accepting the charge of an impossible crime, and consigning the victims of superstition to the doom of a hideous death. Their private rationalism might revolt against the absurdity of the proceedings, but there were the witnesses, there were the legal precedents, there were the explicit provisions of the penal code, and with or without the consent of their intellectual conscience they had to pronounce the sentence of death. The penal statutes of medieval England made sheep stealing a capital offense, and the mulish conservatism of British legislators refused to abolish that relic of the Dark Ages till the common sense of the lower classes found means to redress the abuse in a way of their own. Juries agreed to acquit sheep-stealers altogether, rather than vote away their lives for that of a quadruped. It was in vain that the prosecuting attorney established the fact of the offense beyond a shadow of reasonable doubt. It was in vain that the charge of the judge emphatically indorsed the indictment. It was in vain that the defendants themselves completed the evidence of their guilt by a frank confession; they were acquitted amidst the wrathful protests of the court and the plaudits of the audience, till sheep-owners themselves were obliged to petition for the repeal of the[228]time-dishonored law. The idea that the mere antiquity of a legal custom is an argument in its favor is a twin sister of the superstitious veneration of antiquated dogmas.[Contents]E.—REFORM.The superstitious dread of innovation, rather than the want of natural intelligence, has for ages thwarted the hopes of rationalism, and the renunciation of that prejudice promises to rival the blessing of Secular education in promoting the advance of social reforms. Orthodoxrestiveness, rather than any conceivable degree of ignorance, has, for instance, prevented the repeal of the Religious Disability laws which still disgrace the statutes of so many civilized nations. A chemical inventor would be suspected of insanity for trying to demonstrate his theories by quoting the Bible in preference to a scientific text-book, yet on questions as open to investigation and proof as any problem of chemistry, the courts of numerous intelligent nations still refuse to accept the testimony of a witness who happens to prefer the philosophy of Humboldt and Spencer to the rant of an oriental spook-monger. The proposition to oblige a water-drinker to defray the expense of his neighbor’s passion for intoxicating beverages would justly land the proposer in the next lunatic asylum, yet millions upon millions of our Caucasian fellow-men are still taxed to enable their neighbors to enjoy the luxuries of a creed which the conscience of the unwilling tithe-payer rejects as a degrading superstition. In Europe countless Nonconformists have to contribute to the[229]support of a parish-priest or village-rector on pain of having a sheriff sell their household goods at public auction. In America farmers and mechanics have to pay double taxes in order to enable an association of mythology-mongers to hold their property tax-free. Because the pantheon of the Ammonites included a god with cannibal propensities, helpless infants were for centuries roasted on the consecrated gridiron of that god; and because eighteen hundred years ago the diseased imagination of a world-renouncing bigot conceived the idea of a deity delighting in the self-affliction of his creatures, the gloom of death still broods over the day devoted to the special worship of that God, and the coercive penalties of the law are weekly visited upon all who refuse to sacrifice their health and happiness on the altar of superstition.But legislative abuses are not confined to religious anachronisms. The inconsistencies of our penal code still betray the influence of medieval prejudices in the unwise leniency, as well as in the disproportionate severity, of their dealings with purely secular offenses. The vice of intemperance was for centuries encouraged by the example of the clergy, while the control, or even the suppression, of the sexual instinct was enforced by barbarous penalties. And while the panders of the alcohol vice are still countenanced by the sanction of legal license and admitted to official positions of honor and influence, the mediators of sexual vice are treated as social outcasts, and punished with a severity out of all proportion to the actual social standards of virtue. The deserted wife, who in a moment of despair has caused the death of[230]an unborn child, is treated as the vilest of criminals, while the crime of a railway shark or tenement-speculator whose selfishness and greed have caused a fatal disaster, is condoned in consideration of “social respectability,”i.e., a mask of orthodox sentiments and unctuous cant. A Christian jury will thank a banker for shooting a poor wretch whom extreme distress may have driven to enter a house for predatory purposes, but if that same banker should be convicted of embezzling the hard-earned savings of trusting widows and orphans, his fellow-hypocrites will circulate an eloquent petition for his release from a few years of light imprisonment.There is need of other reforms, which recommend themselves by such cogent arguments that their adoption seems only a question of time, such as the protection of forests, the recognition of women’s rights, the “habitual criminal” law, physical education, and the abolition of the poison-traffic.It is undoubtedly true that the progress from barbarism to culture is characterized by the growth of a voluntary respect for the authority of legal institutions, but it is equally true that the highest goals of civilization cannot be reached till the degree of that respect shall be measured by the utility, rather than by the antiquity, of special laws.[231]

CHAPTER XIX.LEGISLATIVE REFORM.

[Contents]A.—LESSONS OF INSTINCT.Progress is a general law of Nature, and the comparative study of Evolution proves that the tendency to improvement increases with the advance to higher planes of development. Among the lowest organisms the rate of progress is hardly appreciable. The sea shells of the Devonian period can scarcely be distinguished from the shells of our present seas. The balls of amber found on the shores of the Baltic often contain the mummies of insects closely resembling certain species of latter-day flies and beetles, while the horse, the zebra, and other modern varieties of the equine genus, have developed from a creature not much larger than a fox. The Neanderthal skull proves that the heads of our early ancestors were almost ape-like in their protruding jaws and flatness of cranium. The lower animals adhere to inherited habits with a persistency that has often proved their ruin by diminishing their ability of adapting themselves to change of circumstances, as in the case of that sea-lizard of the South sea islands, where its ancestors had for ages managed to escape their only enemies by leaving the water and crawling up the beach, and where their modern descendants persist in crawlinglandward in the hope of escaping from dogs and hunters.The higher animals, on the other hand, rarely fail to profit by lessons of experience. Trappers know[222]that the contrivances for capturing wild animals have to be changed from time to time, the older methods being apt to lose their efficacy after the fate of a certain number of victims has warned their relatives. Old rats have been seen driving their young from a dish of arsenic-poisoned gruel. Deer, foxes, and wild turkeys learn to avoid the favorite trails of the hunter; monkeys, on their first arrival in a cold climate, impatiently tear off the jackets or shawls furnished by the kindness of their keeper, but soon learn to appreciate the advantage of artificial teguments, and even try to increase their stock of wardrobe by appropriating every stray piece of cloth they can lay their hands on.The instinct of adaptation to the conditions of progress has asserted itself both among modern and very ancient nations, though during the mental bondage of the Middle Ages its manifestations were systematically suppressed by the conservatism of religious bigots. Savages show an almost apish eagerness in adopting the habits, fashions, and foibles of civilization. The political institutions of primitive nations are very elastic. The Grecian republics were not only willing but anxious to improve their laws by abolishing abuses and testing amendments. In ancient Rome every general assembly of freemen exercised the functions of a legislative council; legislative reforms were proposed by private citizens and were often carried by acclamation, like the edict for the expulsion of the Tarquins, and the resolution revoking the exile of Cicero.[223][Contents]B.—REWARDS OF CONFORMITY.Legislative reform, the manful renunciation of entangling alliances with the ghosts of the past, is a sword that has more than once cut a Gordian knot of fatal complications. The suppression of monasteries saved four of our Spanish American sister republics from a brood of vampires that had drained the life-blood of Spain for a series of centuries. In England the timely repeal of the corn-laws averted an explosion that might have rent the coherence of the entire British empire. The abolition of slavery with one blow destroyed a hydra that had menaced the safety of the American Union by an endless series of political disputes. By the abolition of serfdom Czar Alexander elevated the Russian empire to the rank of a progressive nation. The very possibility of national progress depends, indeed, on the hope of legislative reform, for the rigor of unalterable laws prevents social development as the clasp of an iron ring prevents the growth of a tree.[Contents]C.—PERVERSION.All the intelligent nations of antiquity were distinguished by a tendency to legislative progress, till the freedom of that progress was checked by the claims of religious infallibility. The founder of the Zendavesta advanced that claim for a pandect of pretended revelations which became the religious code of Central Asia, and as a consequence the intellectual and industrial development of two valiant nations was stunted by legislative conservatism—the[224]proverbially “unalterable laws of the Medes and Persians.” The claims of an infallible revelation preclude the necessity of reform. “Should mortals presume to improve the ordinances of a God?”But the blind hatred of progress which has for so many centuries degraded the Christian hierarchy below the priesthood of all other intolerant creeds, is the earth-renouncing antinaturalism of their founder. The priests of Zoroaster, Moses, and Mohammed claimed the sufficiency of their dogmas for the purposes of national prosperity. The priests of the nature-hating Galilean attempted to suppress the very desire of that prosperity. “The doctrine of renunciation made patriotism an idle dream: the saints, whose ‘kingdom was not of this world,’ had no business with vanities of that sort; no chieftain could trust his neighbor; cities were pitted against cities and castles against castles; patriotic reformers would vainly have appealed to the sympathies of men who had been taught to reserve their interest for the politics of the New Jerusalem” (Secret of the East, p. 76).The Rev. Spurgeon, of London, England, recently provoked the protests of his Liberal colleagues by the confession that he “positively hated advanced thought;” but only five centuries ago such protests were silenced with the gag and the fagot. For nearly a thousand years every clergyman who had the courage to lift his voice in favor of secular reforms was fiercely attacked as a traitor to the sacred cause of other-worldliness. To question the authority of the church was a crime which could not in the least be[225]palliated by such pleas as the temporal interests of mankind, and a mere hint at the fallibility of “revealed scriptures” could only be expiated in the blood of the offender. Nay, thousands of scientists, historians, and philosophers who had never expressed a direct doubt of that sort, were doomed to a death of torture merely because the logical inference of their discoveries was at variance with the dogmas of the Galilean miracle-mongers. From the reign of Charlemagne to the outbreak of the Protestant revolt the intolerance of Christian bigots interposed an insuperable dam between the projects and the realization of social reforms.“I cannot conceive,” says Hallam, “of any state of society more adverse to the intellectual improvement of mankind than one which admitted no middle line between dissoluteness and fanatical mortifications.”If it had not been for the exotic civilization of Moorish Spain, it would be strictly true that at the end of the thirteenth century, when the enemies of nature had reached the zenith of their power, “the countries of Europe, without a single exception, were worse governed, more ignorant, more superstitious, poorer, and unhappier than the worst governed provinces of pagan Rome.”In China and India, too, the resistance of religious prejudice has for ages frustrated the hopes of political development, and the civilization of Europe dates only from the time when a more or less complete separation of church and state was effected by the insurrection of the Germanic nations, and where the[226]work of that separation has been left unfinished the march of reform halts at every step. Every claim of dogmatic infallibility has proved a spoke in the wheels of progress.[Contents]D.—PENALTIES OF NEGLECT.The pig-headed conservatism of orthodox nations has never failed to avenge itself in its ultimate results, but its fatuity has, perhaps, been most strikingly illustrated by the practical consequences of legislative non-progressiveness. There was a time when the small value of real estate made it a trifle for an Italian prince to present afavoriteprelate with a few square leagues of neglected woodlands; but now, when those woods have been turned into vineyards and building-lots, and over-population makes the monopoly of land a grievous burden, hundreds of industrious peasants are obliged to starve to swell the revenues of a bloated priest, who nevertheless succeeds in silencing all protests by an appeal to the “necessity of respecting time-honored institutions.” At a time when agriculture and pastoral pursuits were the chief industries of Scotland, it was no great grievance to sequester the seventh day for the exclusive service of ecclesiastic purposes; but now, when thousands of poor factory children need outdoor recreations as they need sunlight and bread, it has become an infamous outrage on personal rights to enforce a medieval by-law for the suppression of outdoor sports on the day when those who need it most can find their only chance for recreation. Nevertheless, the dread of innovations defeats the urged repeal[227]of a law which for the last hundred years has obliged millions of city dwellers to sacrifice the sunshine of their lives for the benefit of a few clerical vampires. The repeal of the witchcraft laws was preceded by a transition period of at least two hundred years, when the mere dread of an open rupture with the specters of the past cowed intelligent jurists into accepting the charge of an impossible crime, and consigning the victims of superstition to the doom of a hideous death. Their private rationalism might revolt against the absurdity of the proceedings, but there were the witnesses, there were the legal precedents, there were the explicit provisions of the penal code, and with or without the consent of their intellectual conscience they had to pronounce the sentence of death. The penal statutes of medieval England made sheep stealing a capital offense, and the mulish conservatism of British legislators refused to abolish that relic of the Dark Ages till the common sense of the lower classes found means to redress the abuse in a way of their own. Juries agreed to acquit sheep-stealers altogether, rather than vote away their lives for that of a quadruped. It was in vain that the prosecuting attorney established the fact of the offense beyond a shadow of reasonable doubt. It was in vain that the charge of the judge emphatically indorsed the indictment. It was in vain that the defendants themselves completed the evidence of their guilt by a frank confession; they were acquitted amidst the wrathful protests of the court and the plaudits of the audience, till sheep-owners themselves were obliged to petition for the repeal of the[228]time-dishonored law. The idea that the mere antiquity of a legal custom is an argument in its favor is a twin sister of the superstitious veneration of antiquated dogmas.[Contents]E.—REFORM.The superstitious dread of innovation, rather than the want of natural intelligence, has for ages thwarted the hopes of rationalism, and the renunciation of that prejudice promises to rival the blessing of Secular education in promoting the advance of social reforms. Orthodoxrestiveness, rather than any conceivable degree of ignorance, has, for instance, prevented the repeal of the Religious Disability laws which still disgrace the statutes of so many civilized nations. A chemical inventor would be suspected of insanity for trying to demonstrate his theories by quoting the Bible in preference to a scientific text-book, yet on questions as open to investigation and proof as any problem of chemistry, the courts of numerous intelligent nations still refuse to accept the testimony of a witness who happens to prefer the philosophy of Humboldt and Spencer to the rant of an oriental spook-monger. The proposition to oblige a water-drinker to defray the expense of his neighbor’s passion for intoxicating beverages would justly land the proposer in the next lunatic asylum, yet millions upon millions of our Caucasian fellow-men are still taxed to enable their neighbors to enjoy the luxuries of a creed which the conscience of the unwilling tithe-payer rejects as a degrading superstition. In Europe countless Nonconformists have to contribute to the[229]support of a parish-priest or village-rector on pain of having a sheriff sell their household goods at public auction. In America farmers and mechanics have to pay double taxes in order to enable an association of mythology-mongers to hold their property tax-free. Because the pantheon of the Ammonites included a god with cannibal propensities, helpless infants were for centuries roasted on the consecrated gridiron of that god; and because eighteen hundred years ago the diseased imagination of a world-renouncing bigot conceived the idea of a deity delighting in the self-affliction of his creatures, the gloom of death still broods over the day devoted to the special worship of that God, and the coercive penalties of the law are weekly visited upon all who refuse to sacrifice their health and happiness on the altar of superstition.But legislative abuses are not confined to religious anachronisms. The inconsistencies of our penal code still betray the influence of medieval prejudices in the unwise leniency, as well as in the disproportionate severity, of their dealings with purely secular offenses. The vice of intemperance was for centuries encouraged by the example of the clergy, while the control, or even the suppression, of the sexual instinct was enforced by barbarous penalties. And while the panders of the alcohol vice are still countenanced by the sanction of legal license and admitted to official positions of honor and influence, the mediators of sexual vice are treated as social outcasts, and punished with a severity out of all proportion to the actual social standards of virtue. The deserted wife, who in a moment of despair has caused the death of[230]an unborn child, is treated as the vilest of criminals, while the crime of a railway shark or tenement-speculator whose selfishness and greed have caused a fatal disaster, is condoned in consideration of “social respectability,”i.e., a mask of orthodox sentiments and unctuous cant. A Christian jury will thank a banker for shooting a poor wretch whom extreme distress may have driven to enter a house for predatory purposes, but if that same banker should be convicted of embezzling the hard-earned savings of trusting widows and orphans, his fellow-hypocrites will circulate an eloquent petition for his release from a few years of light imprisonment.There is need of other reforms, which recommend themselves by such cogent arguments that their adoption seems only a question of time, such as the protection of forests, the recognition of women’s rights, the “habitual criminal” law, physical education, and the abolition of the poison-traffic.It is undoubtedly true that the progress from barbarism to culture is characterized by the growth of a voluntary respect for the authority of legal institutions, but it is equally true that the highest goals of civilization cannot be reached till the degree of that respect shall be measured by the utility, rather than by the antiquity, of special laws.[231]

[Contents]A.—LESSONS OF INSTINCT.Progress is a general law of Nature, and the comparative study of Evolution proves that the tendency to improvement increases with the advance to higher planes of development. Among the lowest organisms the rate of progress is hardly appreciable. The sea shells of the Devonian period can scarcely be distinguished from the shells of our present seas. The balls of amber found on the shores of the Baltic often contain the mummies of insects closely resembling certain species of latter-day flies and beetles, while the horse, the zebra, and other modern varieties of the equine genus, have developed from a creature not much larger than a fox. The Neanderthal skull proves that the heads of our early ancestors were almost ape-like in their protruding jaws and flatness of cranium. The lower animals adhere to inherited habits with a persistency that has often proved their ruin by diminishing their ability of adapting themselves to change of circumstances, as in the case of that sea-lizard of the South sea islands, where its ancestors had for ages managed to escape their only enemies by leaving the water and crawling up the beach, and where their modern descendants persist in crawlinglandward in the hope of escaping from dogs and hunters.The higher animals, on the other hand, rarely fail to profit by lessons of experience. Trappers know[222]that the contrivances for capturing wild animals have to be changed from time to time, the older methods being apt to lose their efficacy after the fate of a certain number of victims has warned their relatives. Old rats have been seen driving their young from a dish of arsenic-poisoned gruel. Deer, foxes, and wild turkeys learn to avoid the favorite trails of the hunter; monkeys, on their first arrival in a cold climate, impatiently tear off the jackets or shawls furnished by the kindness of their keeper, but soon learn to appreciate the advantage of artificial teguments, and even try to increase their stock of wardrobe by appropriating every stray piece of cloth they can lay their hands on.The instinct of adaptation to the conditions of progress has asserted itself both among modern and very ancient nations, though during the mental bondage of the Middle Ages its manifestations were systematically suppressed by the conservatism of religious bigots. Savages show an almost apish eagerness in adopting the habits, fashions, and foibles of civilization. The political institutions of primitive nations are very elastic. The Grecian republics were not only willing but anxious to improve their laws by abolishing abuses and testing amendments. In ancient Rome every general assembly of freemen exercised the functions of a legislative council; legislative reforms were proposed by private citizens and were often carried by acclamation, like the edict for the expulsion of the Tarquins, and the resolution revoking the exile of Cicero.[223]

A.—LESSONS OF INSTINCT.

Progress is a general law of Nature, and the comparative study of Evolution proves that the tendency to improvement increases with the advance to higher planes of development. Among the lowest organisms the rate of progress is hardly appreciable. The sea shells of the Devonian period can scarcely be distinguished from the shells of our present seas. The balls of amber found on the shores of the Baltic often contain the mummies of insects closely resembling certain species of latter-day flies and beetles, while the horse, the zebra, and other modern varieties of the equine genus, have developed from a creature not much larger than a fox. The Neanderthal skull proves that the heads of our early ancestors were almost ape-like in their protruding jaws and flatness of cranium. The lower animals adhere to inherited habits with a persistency that has often proved their ruin by diminishing their ability of adapting themselves to change of circumstances, as in the case of that sea-lizard of the South sea islands, where its ancestors had for ages managed to escape their only enemies by leaving the water and crawling up the beach, and where their modern descendants persist in crawlinglandward in the hope of escaping from dogs and hunters.The higher animals, on the other hand, rarely fail to profit by lessons of experience. Trappers know[222]that the contrivances for capturing wild animals have to be changed from time to time, the older methods being apt to lose their efficacy after the fate of a certain number of victims has warned their relatives. Old rats have been seen driving their young from a dish of arsenic-poisoned gruel. Deer, foxes, and wild turkeys learn to avoid the favorite trails of the hunter; monkeys, on their first arrival in a cold climate, impatiently tear off the jackets or shawls furnished by the kindness of their keeper, but soon learn to appreciate the advantage of artificial teguments, and even try to increase their stock of wardrobe by appropriating every stray piece of cloth they can lay their hands on.The instinct of adaptation to the conditions of progress has asserted itself both among modern and very ancient nations, though during the mental bondage of the Middle Ages its manifestations were systematically suppressed by the conservatism of religious bigots. Savages show an almost apish eagerness in adopting the habits, fashions, and foibles of civilization. The political institutions of primitive nations are very elastic. The Grecian republics were not only willing but anxious to improve their laws by abolishing abuses and testing amendments. In ancient Rome every general assembly of freemen exercised the functions of a legislative council; legislative reforms were proposed by private citizens and were often carried by acclamation, like the edict for the expulsion of the Tarquins, and the resolution revoking the exile of Cicero.[223]

Progress is a general law of Nature, and the comparative study of Evolution proves that the tendency to improvement increases with the advance to higher planes of development. Among the lowest organisms the rate of progress is hardly appreciable. The sea shells of the Devonian period can scarcely be distinguished from the shells of our present seas. The balls of amber found on the shores of the Baltic often contain the mummies of insects closely resembling certain species of latter-day flies and beetles, while the horse, the zebra, and other modern varieties of the equine genus, have developed from a creature not much larger than a fox. The Neanderthal skull proves that the heads of our early ancestors were almost ape-like in their protruding jaws and flatness of cranium. The lower animals adhere to inherited habits with a persistency that has often proved their ruin by diminishing their ability of adapting themselves to change of circumstances, as in the case of that sea-lizard of the South sea islands, where its ancestors had for ages managed to escape their only enemies by leaving the water and crawling up the beach, and where their modern descendants persist in crawlinglandward in the hope of escaping from dogs and hunters.

The higher animals, on the other hand, rarely fail to profit by lessons of experience. Trappers know[222]that the contrivances for capturing wild animals have to be changed from time to time, the older methods being apt to lose their efficacy after the fate of a certain number of victims has warned their relatives. Old rats have been seen driving their young from a dish of arsenic-poisoned gruel. Deer, foxes, and wild turkeys learn to avoid the favorite trails of the hunter; monkeys, on their first arrival in a cold climate, impatiently tear off the jackets or shawls furnished by the kindness of their keeper, but soon learn to appreciate the advantage of artificial teguments, and even try to increase their stock of wardrobe by appropriating every stray piece of cloth they can lay their hands on.

The instinct of adaptation to the conditions of progress has asserted itself both among modern and very ancient nations, though during the mental bondage of the Middle Ages its manifestations were systematically suppressed by the conservatism of religious bigots. Savages show an almost apish eagerness in adopting the habits, fashions, and foibles of civilization. The political institutions of primitive nations are very elastic. The Grecian republics were not only willing but anxious to improve their laws by abolishing abuses and testing amendments. In ancient Rome every general assembly of freemen exercised the functions of a legislative council; legislative reforms were proposed by private citizens and were often carried by acclamation, like the edict for the expulsion of the Tarquins, and the resolution revoking the exile of Cicero.[223]

[Contents]B.—REWARDS OF CONFORMITY.Legislative reform, the manful renunciation of entangling alliances with the ghosts of the past, is a sword that has more than once cut a Gordian knot of fatal complications. The suppression of monasteries saved four of our Spanish American sister republics from a brood of vampires that had drained the life-blood of Spain for a series of centuries. In England the timely repeal of the corn-laws averted an explosion that might have rent the coherence of the entire British empire. The abolition of slavery with one blow destroyed a hydra that had menaced the safety of the American Union by an endless series of political disputes. By the abolition of serfdom Czar Alexander elevated the Russian empire to the rank of a progressive nation. The very possibility of national progress depends, indeed, on the hope of legislative reform, for the rigor of unalterable laws prevents social development as the clasp of an iron ring prevents the growth of a tree.

B.—REWARDS OF CONFORMITY.

Legislative reform, the manful renunciation of entangling alliances with the ghosts of the past, is a sword that has more than once cut a Gordian knot of fatal complications. The suppression of monasteries saved four of our Spanish American sister republics from a brood of vampires that had drained the life-blood of Spain for a series of centuries. In England the timely repeal of the corn-laws averted an explosion that might have rent the coherence of the entire British empire. The abolition of slavery with one blow destroyed a hydra that had menaced the safety of the American Union by an endless series of political disputes. By the abolition of serfdom Czar Alexander elevated the Russian empire to the rank of a progressive nation. The very possibility of national progress depends, indeed, on the hope of legislative reform, for the rigor of unalterable laws prevents social development as the clasp of an iron ring prevents the growth of a tree.

Legislative reform, the manful renunciation of entangling alliances with the ghosts of the past, is a sword that has more than once cut a Gordian knot of fatal complications. The suppression of monasteries saved four of our Spanish American sister republics from a brood of vampires that had drained the life-blood of Spain for a series of centuries. In England the timely repeal of the corn-laws averted an explosion that might have rent the coherence of the entire British empire. The abolition of slavery with one blow destroyed a hydra that had menaced the safety of the American Union by an endless series of political disputes. By the abolition of serfdom Czar Alexander elevated the Russian empire to the rank of a progressive nation. The very possibility of national progress depends, indeed, on the hope of legislative reform, for the rigor of unalterable laws prevents social development as the clasp of an iron ring prevents the growth of a tree.

[Contents]C.—PERVERSION.All the intelligent nations of antiquity were distinguished by a tendency to legislative progress, till the freedom of that progress was checked by the claims of religious infallibility. The founder of the Zendavesta advanced that claim for a pandect of pretended revelations which became the religious code of Central Asia, and as a consequence the intellectual and industrial development of two valiant nations was stunted by legislative conservatism—the[224]proverbially “unalterable laws of the Medes and Persians.” The claims of an infallible revelation preclude the necessity of reform. “Should mortals presume to improve the ordinances of a God?”But the blind hatred of progress which has for so many centuries degraded the Christian hierarchy below the priesthood of all other intolerant creeds, is the earth-renouncing antinaturalism of their founder. The priests of Zoroaster, Moses, and Mohammed claimed the sufficiency of their dogmas for the purposes of national prosperity. The priests of the nature-hating Galilean attempted to suppress the very desire of that prosperity. “The doctrine of renunciation made patriotism an idle dream: the saints, whose ‘kingdom was not of this world,’ had no business with vanities of that sort; no chieftain could trust his neighbor; cities were pitted against cities and castles against castles; patriotic reformers would vainly have appealed to the sympathies of men who had been taught to reserve their interest for the politics of the New Jerusalem” (Secret of the East, p. 76).The Rev. Spurgeon, of London, England, recently provoked the protests of his Liberal colleagues by the confession that he “positively hated advanced thought;” but only five centuries ago such protests were silenced with the gag and the fagot. For nearly a thousand years every clergyman who had the courage to lift his voice in favor of secular reforms was fiercely attacked as a traitor to the sacred cause of other-worldliness. To question the authority of the church was a crime which could not in the least be[225]palliated by such pleas as the temporal interests of mankind, and a mere hint at the fallibility of “revealed scriptures” could only be expiated in the blood of the offender. Nay, thousands of scientists, historians, and philosophers who had never expressed a direct doubt of that sort, were doomed to a death of torture merely because the logical inference of their discoveries was at variance with the dogmas of the Galilean miracle-mongers. From the reign of Charlemagne to the outbreak of the Protestant revolt the intolerance of Christian bigots interposed an insuperable dam between the projects and the realization of social reforms.“I cannot conceive,” says Hallam, “of any state of society more adverse to the intellectual improvement of mankind than one which admitted no middle line between dissoluteness and fanatical mortifications.”If it had not been for the exotic civilization of Moorish Spain, it would be strictly true that at the end of the thirteenth century, when the enemies of nature had reached the zenith of their power, “the countries of Europe, without a single exception, were worse governed, more ignorant, more superstitious, poorer, and unhappier than the worst governed provinces of pagan Rome.”In China and India, too, the resistance of religious prejudice has for ages frustrated the hopes of political development, and the civilization of Europe dates only from the time when a more or less complete separation of church and state was effected by the insurrection of the Germanic nations, and where the[226]work of that separation has been left unfinished the march of reform halts at every step. Every claim of dogmatic infallibility has proved a spoke in the wheels of progress.

C.—PERVERSION.

All the intelligent nations of antiquity were distinguished by a tendency to legislative progress, till the freedom of that progress was checked by the claims of religious infallibility. The founder of the Zendavesta advanced that claim for a pandect of pretended revelations which became the religious code of Central Asia, and as a consequence the intellectual and industrial development of two valiant nations was stunted by legislative conservatism—the[224]proverbially “unalterable laws of the Medes and Persians.” The claims of an infallible revelation preclude the necessity of reform. “Should mortals presume to improve the ordinances of a God?”But the blind hatred of progress which has for so many centuries degraded the Christian hierarchy below the priesthood of all other intolerant creeds, is the earth-renouncing antinaturalism of their founder. The priests of Zoroaster, Moses, and Mohammed claimed the sufficiency of their dogmas for the purposes of national prosperity. The priests of the nature-hating Galilean attempted to suppress the very desire of that prosperity. “The doctrine of renunciation made patriotism an idle dream: the saints, whose ‘kingdom was not of this world,’ had no business with vanities of that sort; no chieftain could trust his neighbor; cities were pitted against cities and castles against castles; patriotic reformers would vainly have appealed to the sympathies of men who had been taught to reserve their interest for the politics of the New Jerusalem” (Secret of the East, p. 76).The Rev. Spurgeon, of London, England, recently provoked the protests of his Liberal colleagues by the confession that he “positively hated advanced thought;” but only five centuries ago such protests were silenced with the gag and the fagot. For nearly a thousand years every clergyman who had the courage to lift his voice in favor of secular reforms was fiercely attacked as a traitor to the sacred cause of other-worldliness. To question the authority of the church was a crime which could not in the least be[225]palliated by such pleas as the temporal interests of mankind, and a mere hint at the fallibility of “revealed scriptures” could only be expiated in the blood of the offender. Nay, thousands of scientists, historians, and philosophers who had never expressed a direct doubt of that sort, were doomed to a death of torture merely because the logical inference of their discoveries was at variance with the dogmas of the Galilean miracle-mongers. From the reign of Charlemagne to the outbreak of the Protestant revolt the intolerance of Christian bigots interposed an insuperable dam between the projects and the realization of social reforms.“I cannot conceive,” says Hallam, “of any state of society more adverse to the intellectual improvement of mankind than one which admitted no middle line between dissoluteness and fanatical mortifications.”If it had not been for the exotic civilization of Moorish Spain, it would be strictly true that at the end of the thirteenth century, when the enemies of nature had reached the zenith of their power, “the countries of Europe, without a single exception, were worse governed, more ignorant, more superstitious, poorer, and unhappier than the worst governed provinces of pagan Rome.”In China and India, too, the resistance of religious prejudice has for ages frustrated the hopes of political development, and the civilization of Europe dates only from the time when a more or less complete separation of church and state was effected by the insurrection of the Germanic nations, and where the[226]work of that separation has been left unfinished the march of reform halts at every step. Every claim of dogmatic infallibility has proved a spoke in the wheels of progress.

All the intelligent nations of antiquity were distinguished by a tendency to legislative progress, till the freedom of that progress was checked by the claims of religious infallibility. The founder of the Zendavesta advanced that claim for a pandect of pretended revelations which became the religious code of Central Asia, and as a consequence the intellectual and industrial development of two valiant nations was stunted by legislative conservatism—the[224]proverbially “unalterable laws of the Medes and Persians.” The claims of an infallible revelation preclude the necessity of reform. “Should mortals presume to improve the ordinances of a God?”

But the blind hatred of progress which has for so many centuries degraded the Christian hierarchy below the priesthood of all other intolerant creeds, is the earth-renouncing antinaturalism of their founder. The priests of Zoroaster, Moses, and Mohammed claimed the sufficiency of their dogmas for the purposes of national prosperity. The priests of the nature-hating Galilean attempted to suppress the very desire of that prosperity. “The doctrine of renunciation made patriotism an idle dream: the saints, whose ‘kingdom was not of this world,’ had no business with vanities of that sort; no chieftain could trust his neighbor; cities were pitted against cities and castles against castles; patriotic reformers would vainly have appealed to the sympathies of men who had been taught to reserve their interest for the politics of the New Jerusalem” (Secret of the East, p. 76).

The Rev. Spurgeon, of London, England, recently provoked the protests of his Liberal colleagues by the confession that he “positively hated advanced thought;” but only five centuries ago such protests were silenced with the gag and the fagot. For nearly a thousand years every clergyman who had the courage to lift his voice in favor of secular reforms was fiercely attacked as a traitor to the sacred cause of other-worldliness. To question the authority of the church was a crime which could not in the least be[225]palliated by such pleas as the temporal interests of mankind, and a mere hint at the fallibility of “revealed scriptures” could only be expiated in the blood of the offender. Nay, thousands of scientists, historians, and philosophers who had never expressed a direct doubt of that sort, were doomed to a death of torture merely because the logical inference of their discoveries was at variance with the dogmas of the Galilean miracle-mongers. From the reign of Charlemagne to the outbreak of the Protestant revolt the intolerance of Christian bigots interposed an insuperable dam between the projects and the realization of social reforms.

“I cannot conceive,” says Hallam, “of any state of society more adverse to the intellectual improvement of mankind than one which admitted no middle line between dissoluteness and fanatical mortifications.”

If it had not been for the exotic civilization of Moorish Spain, it would be strictly true that at the end of the thirteenth century, when the enemies of nature had reached the zenith of their power, “the countries of Europe, without a single exception, were worse governed, more ignorant, more superstitious, poorer, and unhappier than the worst governed provinces of pagan Rome.”

In China and India, too, the resistance of religious prejudice has for ages frustrated the hopes of political development, and the civilization of Europe dates only from the time when a more or less complete separation of church and state was effected by the insurrection of the Germanic nations, and where the[226]work of that separation has been left unfinished the march of reform halts at every step. Every claim of dogmatic infallibility has proved a spoke in the wheels of progress.

[Contents]D.—PENALTIES OF NEGLECT.The pig-headed conservatism of orthodox nations has never failed to avenge itself in its ultimate results, but its fatuity has, perhaps, been most strikingly illustrated by the practical consequences of legislative non-progressiveness. There was a time when the small value of real estate made it a trifle for an Italian prince to present afavoriteprelate with a few square leagues of neglected woodlands; but now, when those woods have been turned into vineyards and building-lots, and over-population makes the monopoly of land a grievous burden, hundreds of industrious peasants are obliged to starve to swell the revenues of a bloated priest, who nevertheless succeeds in silencing all protests by an appeal to the “necessity of respecting time-honored institutions.” At a time when agriculture and pastoral pursuits were the chief industries of Scotland, it was no great grievance to sequester the seventh day for the exclusive service of ecclesiastic purposes; but now, when thousands of poor factory children need outdoor recreations as they need sunlight and bread, it has become an infamous outrage on personal rights to enforce a medieval by-law for the suppression of outdoor sports on the day when those who need it most can find their only chance for recreation. Nevertheless, the dread of innovations defeats the urged repeal[227]of a law which for the last hundred years has obliged millions of city dwellers to sacrifice the sunshine of their lives for the benefit of a few clerical vampires. The repeal of the witchcraft laws was preceded by a transition period of at least two hundred years, when the mere dread of an open rupture with the specters of the past cowed intelligent jurists into accepting the charge of an impossible crime, and consigning the victims of superstition to the doom of a hideous death. Their private rationalism might revolt against the absurdity of the proceedings, but there were the witnesses, there were the legal precedents, there were the explicit provisions of the penal code, and with or without the consent of their intellectual conscience they had to pronounce the sentence of death. The penal statutes of medieval England made sheep stealing a capital offense, and the mulish conservatism of British legislators refused to abolish that relic of the Dark Ages till the common sense of the lower classes found means to redress the abuse in a way of their own. Juries agreed to acquit sheep-stealers altogether, rather than vote away their lives for that of a quadruped. It was in vain that the prosecuting attorney established the fact of the offense beyond a shadow of reasonable doubt. It was in vain that the charge of the judge emphatically indorsed the indictment. It was in vain that the defendants themselves completed the evidence of their guilt by a frank confession; they were acquitted amidst the wrathful protests of the court and the plaudits of the audience, till sheep-owners themselves were obliged to petition for the repeal of the[228]time-dishonored law. The idea that the mere antiquity of a legal custom is an argument in its favor is a twin sister of the superstitious veneration of antiquated dogmas.

D.—PENALTIES OF NEGLECT.

The pig-headed conservatism of orthodox nations has never failed to avenge itself in its ultimate results, but its fatuity has, perhaps, been most strikingly illustrated by the practical consequences of legislative non-progressiveness. There was a time when the small value of real estate made it a trifle for an Italian prince to present afavoriteprelate with a few square leagues of neglected woodlands; but now, when those woods have been turned into vineyards and building-lots, and over-population makes the monopoly of land a grievous burden, hundreds of industrious peasants are obliged to starve to swell the revenues of a bloated priest, who nevertheless succeeds in silencing all protests by an appeal to the “necessity of respecting time-honored institutions.” At a time when agriculture and pastoral pursuits were the chief industries of Scotland, it was no great grievance to sequester the seventh day for the exclusive service of ecclesiastic purposes; but now, when thousands of poor factory children need outdoor recreations as they need sunlight and bread, it has become an infamous outrage on personal rights to enforce a medieval by-law for the suppression of outdoor sports on the day when those who need it most can find their only chance for recreation. Nevertheless, the dread of innovations defeats the urged repeal[227]of a law which for the last hundred years has obliged millions of city dwellers to sacrifice the sunshine of their lives for the benefit of a few clerical vampires. The repeal of the witchcraft laws was preceded by a transition period of at least two hundred years, when the mere dread of an open rupture with the specters of the past cowed intelligent jurists into accepting the charge of an impossible crime, and consigning the victims of superstition to the doom of a hideous death. Their private rationalism might revolt against the absurdity of the proceedings, but there were the witnesses, there were the legal precedents, there were the explicit provisions of the penal code, and with or without the consent of their intellectual conscience they had to pronounce the sentence of death. The penal statutes of medieval England made sheep stealing a capital offense, and the mulish conservatism of British legislators refused to abolish that relic of the Dark Ages till the common sense of the lower classes found means to redress the abuse in a way of their own. Juries agreed to acquit sheep-stealers altogether, rather than vote away their lives for that of a quadruped. It was in vain that the prosecuting attorney established the fact of the offense beyond a shadow of reasonable doubt. It was in vain that the charge of the judge emphatically indorsed the indictment. It was in vain that the defendants themselves completed the evidence of their guilt by a frank confession; they were acquitted amidst the wrathful protests of the court and the plaudits of the audience, till sheep-owners themselves were obliged to petition for the repeal of the[228]time-dishonored law. The idea that the mere antiquity of a legal custom is an argument in its favor is a twin sister of the superstitious veneration of antiquated dogmas.

The pig-headed conservatism of orthodox nations has never failed to avenge itself in its ultimate results, but its fatuity has, perhaps, been most strikingly illustrated by the practical consequences of legislative non-progressiveness. There was a time when the small value of real estate made it a trifle for an Italian prince to present afavoriteprelate with a few square leagues of neglected woodlands; but now, when those woods have been turned into vineyards and building-lots, and over-population makes the monopoly of land a grievous burden, hundreds of industrious peasants are obliged to starve to swell the revenues of a bloated priest, who nevertheless succeeds in silencing all protests by an appeal to the “necessity of respecting time-honored institutions.” At a time when agriculture and pastoral pursuits were the chief industries of Scotland, it was no great grievance to sequester the seventh day for the exclusive service of ecclesiastic purposes; but now, when thousands of poor factory children need outdoor recreations as they need sunlight and bread, it has become an infamous outrage on personal rights to enforce a medieval by-law for the suppression of outdoor sports on the day when those who need it most can find their only chance for recreation. Nevertheless, the dread of innovations defeats the urged repeal[227]of a law which for the last hundred years has obliged millions of city dwellers to sacrifice the sunshine of their lives for the benefit of a few clerical vampires. The repeal of the witchcraft laws was preceded by a transition period of at least two hundred years, when the mere dread of an open rupture with the specters of the past cowed intelligent jurists into accepting the charge of an impossible crime, and consigning the victims of superstition to the doom of a hideous death. Their private rationalism might revolt against the absurdity of the proceedings, but there were the witnesses, there were the legal precedents, there were the explicit provisions of the penal code, and with or without the consent of their intellectual conscience they had to pronounce the sentence of death. The penal statutes of medieval England made sheep stealing a capital offense, and the mulish conservatism of British legislators refused to abolish that relic of the Dark Ages till the common sense of the lower classes found means to redress the abuse in a way of their own. Juries agreed to acquit sheep-stealers altogether, rather than vote away their lives for that of a quadruped. It was in vain that the prosecuting attorney established the fact of the offense beyond a shadow of reasonable doubt. It was in vain that the charge of the judge emphatically indorsed the indictment. It was in vain that the defendants themselves completed the evidence of their guilt by a frank confession; they were acquitted amidst the wrathful protests of the court and the plaudits of the audience, till sheep-owners themselves were obliged to petition for the repeal of the[228]time-dishonored law. The idea that the mere antiquity of a legal custom is an argument in its favor is a twin sister of the superstitious veneration of antiquated dogmas.

[Contents]E.—REFORM.The superstitious dread of innovation, rather than the want of natural intelligence, has for ages thwarted the hopes of rationalism, and the renunciation of that prejudice promises to rival the blessing of Secular education in promoting the advance of social reforms. Orthodoxrestiveness, rather than any conceivable degree of ignorance, has, for instance, prevented the repeal of the Religious Disability laws which still disgrace the statutes of so many civilized nations. A chemical inventor would be suspected of insanity for trying to demonstrate his theories by quoting the Bible in preference to a scientific text-book, yet on questions as open to investigation and proof as any problem of chemistry, the courts of numerous intelligent nations still refuse to accept the testimony of a witness who happens to prefer the philosophy of Humboldt and Spencer to the rant of an oriental spook-monger. The proposition to oblige a water-drinker to defray the expense of his neighbor’s passion for intoxicating beverages would justly land the proposer in the next lunatic asylum, yet millions upon millions of our Caucasian fellow-men are still taxed to enable their neighbors to enjoy the luxuries of a creed which the conscience of the unwilling tithe-payer rejects as a degrading superstition. In Europe countless Nonconformists have to contribute to the[229]support of a parish-priest or village-rector on pain of having a sheriff sell their household goods at public auction. In America farmers and mechanics have to pay double taxes in order to enable an association of mythology-mongers to hold their property tax-free. Because the pantheon of the Ammonites included a god with cannibal propensities, helpless infants were for centuries roasted on the consecrated gridiron of that god; and because eighteen hundred years ago the diseased imagination of a world-renouncing bigot conceived the idea of a deity delighting in the self-affliction of his creatures, the gloom of death still broods over the day devoted to the special worship of that God, and the coercive penalties of the law are weekly visited upon all who refuse to sacrifice their health and happiness on the altar of superstition.But legislative abuses are not confined to religious anachronisms. The inconsistencies of our penal code still betray the influence of medieval prejudices in the unwise leniency, as well as in the disproportionate severity, of their dealings with purely secular offenses. The vice of intemperance was for centuries encouraged by the example of the clergy, while the control, or even the suppression, of the sexual instinct was enforced by barbarous penalties. And while the panders of the alcohol vice are still countenanced by the sanction of legal license and admitted to official positions of honor and influence, the mediators of sexual vice are treated as social outcasts, and punished with a severity out of all proportion to the actual social standards of virtue. The deserted wife, who in a moment of despair has caused the death of[230]an unborn child, is treated as the vilest of criminals, while the crime of a railway shark or tenement-speculator whose selfishness and greed have caused a fatal disaster, is condoned in consideration of “social respectability,”i.e., a mask of orthodox sentiments and unctuous cant. A Christian jury will thank a banker for shooting a poor wretch whom extreme distress may have driven to enter a house for predatory purposes, but if that same banker should be convicted of embezzling the hard-earned savings of trusting widows and orphans, his fellow-hypocrites will circulate an eloquent petition for his release from a few years of light imprisonment.There is need of other reforms, which recommend themselves by such cogent arguments that their adoption seems only a question of time, such as the protection of forests, the recognition of women’s rights, the “habitual criminal” law, physical education, and the abolition of the poison-traffic.It is undoubtedly true that the progress from barbarism to culture is characterized by the growth of a voluntary respect for the authority of legal institutions, but it is equally true that the highest goals of civilization cannot be reached till the degree of that respect shall be measured by the utility, rather than by the antiquity, of special laws.[231]

E.—REFORM.

The superstitious dread of innovation, rather than the want of natural intelligence, has for ages thwarted the hopes of rationalism, and the renunciation of that prejudice promises to rival the blessing of Secular education in promoting the advance of social reforms. Orthodoxrestiveness, rather than any conceivable degree of ignorance, has, for instance, prevented the repeal of the Religious Disability laws which still disgrace the statutes of so many civilized nations. A chemical inventor would be suspected of insanity for trying to demonstrate his theories by quoting the Bible in preference to a scientific text-book, yet on questions as open to investigation and proof as any problem of chemistry, the courts of numerous intelligent nations still refuse to accept the testimony of a witness who happens to prefer the philosophy of Humboldt and Spencer to the rant of an oriental spook-monger. The proposition to oblige a water-drinker to defray the expense of his neighbor’s passion for intoxicating beverages would justly land the proposer in the next lunatic asylum, yet millions upon millions of our Caucasian fellow-men are still taxed to enable their neighbors to enjoy the luxuries of a creed which the conscience of the unwilling tithe-payer rejects as a degrading superstition. In Europe countless Nonconformists have to contribute to the[229]support of a parish-priest or village-rector on pain of having a sheriff sell their household goods at public auction. In America farmers and mechanics have to pay double taxes in order to enable an association of mythology-mongers to hold their property tax-free. Because the pantheon of the Ammonites included a god with cannibal propensities, helpless infants were for centuries roasted on the consecrated gridiron of that god; and because eighteen hundred years ago the diseased imagination of a world-renouncing bigot conceived the idea of a deity delighting in the self-affliction of his creatures, the gloom of death still broods over the day devoted to the special worship of that God, and the coercive penalties of the law are weekly visited upon all who refuse to sacrifice their health and happiness on the altar of superstition.But legislative abuses are not confined to religious anachronisms. The inconsistencies of our penal code still betray the influence of medieval prejudices in the unwise leniency, as well as in the disproportionate severity, of their dealings with purely secular offenses. The vice of intemperance was for centuries encouraged by the example of the clergy, while the control, or even the suppression, of the sexual instinct was enforced by barbarous penalties. And while the panders of the alcohol vice are still countenanced by the sanction of legal license and admitted to official positions of honor and influence, the mediators of sexual vice are treated as social outcasts, and punished with a severity out of all proportion to the actual social standards of virtue. The deserted wife, who in a moment of despair has caused the death of[230]an unborn child, is treated as the vilest of criminals, while the crime of a railway shark or tenement-speculator whose selfishness and greed have caused a fatal disaster, is condoned in consideration of “social respectability,”i.e., a mask of orthodox sentiments and unctuous cant. A Christian jury will thank a banker for shooting a poor wretch whom extreme distress may have driven to enter a house for predatory purposes, but if that same banker should be convicted of embezzling the hard-earned savings of trusting widows and orphans, his fellow-hypocrites will circulate an eloquent petition for his release from a few years of light imprisonment.There is need of other reforms, which recommend themselves by such cogent arguments that their adoption seems only a question of time, such as the protection of forests, the recognition of women’s rights, the “habitual criminal” law, physical education, and the abolition of the poison-traffic.It is undoubtedly true that the progress from barbarism to culture is characterized by the growth of a voluntary respect for the authority of legal institutions, but it is equally true that the highest goals of civilization cannot be reached till the degree of that respect shall be measured by the utility, rather than by the antiquity, of special laws.[231]

The superstitious dread of innovation, rather than the want of natural intelligence, has for ages thwarted the hopes of rationalism, and the renunciation of that prejudice promises to rival the blessing of Secular education in promoting the advance of social reforms. Orthodoxrestiveness, rather than any conceivable degree of ignorance, has, for instance, prevented the repeal of the Religious Disability laws which still disgrace the statutes of so many civilized nations. A chemical inventor would be suspected of insanity for trying to demonstrate his theories by quoting the Bible in preference to a scientific text-book, yet on questions as open to investigation and proof as any problem of chemistry, the courts of numerous intelligent nations still refuse to accept the testimony of a witness who happens to prefer the philosophy of Humboldt and Spencer to the rant of an oriental spook-monger. The proposition to oblige a water-drinker to defray the expense of his neighbor’s passion for intoxicating beverages would justly land the proposer in the next lunatic asylum, yet millions upon millions of our Caucasian fellow-men are still taxed to enable their neighbors to enjoy the luxuries of a creed which the conscience of the unwilling tithe-payer rejects as a degrading superstition. In Europe countless Nonconformists have to contribute to the[229]support of a parish-priest or village-rector on pain of having a sheriff sell their household goods at public auction. In America farmers and mechanics have to pay double taxes in order to enable an association of mythology-mongers to hold their property tax-free. Because the pantheon of the Ammonites included a god with cannibal propensities, helpless infants were for centuries roasted on the consecrated gridiron of that god; and because eighteen hundred years ago the diseased imagination of a world-renouncing bigot conceived the idea of a deity delighting in the self-affliction of his creatures, the gloom of death still broods over the day devoted to the special worship of that God, and the coercive penalties of the law are weekly visited upon all who refuse to sacrifice their health and happiness on the altar of superstition.

But legislative abuses are not confined to religious anachronisms. The inconsistencies of our penal code still betray the influence of medieval prejudices in the unwise leniency, as well as in the disproportionate severity, of their dealings with purely secular offenses. The vice of intemperance was for centuries encouraged by the example of the clergy, while the control, or even the suppression, of the sexual instinct was enforced by barbarous penalties. And while the panders of the alcohol vice are still countenanced by the sanction of legal license and admitted to official positions of honor and influence, the mediators of sexual vice are treated as social outcasts, and punished with a severity out of all proportion to the actual social standards of virtue. The deserted wife, who in a moment of despair has caused the death of[230]an unborn child, is treated as the vilest of criminals, while the crime of a railway shark or tenement-speculator whose selfishness and greed have caused a fatal disaster, is condoned in consideration of “social respectability,”i.e., a mask of orthodox sentiments and unctuous cant. A Christian jury will thank a banker for shooting a poor wretch whom extreme distress may have driven to enter a house for predatory purposes, but if that same banker should be convicted of embezzling the hard-earned savings of trusting widows and orphans, his fellow-hypocrites will circulate an eloquent petition for his release from a few years of light imprisonment.

There is need of other reforms, which recommend themselves by such cogent arguments that their adoption seems only a question of time, such as the protection of forests, the recognition of women’s rights, the “habitual criminal” law, physical education, and the abolition of the poison-traffic.

It is undoubtedly true that the progress from barbarism to culture is characterized by the growth of a voluntary respect for the authority of legal institutions, but it is equally true that the highest goals of civilization cannot be reached till the degree of that respect shall be measured by the utility, rather than by the antiquity, of special laws.[231]

[Contents]CHAPTER XX.THE PRIESTHOOD OF SECULARISM.[Contents]A.—LESSONS OF INSTINCT.An instinct inherited from the habits of many generations teaches our social fellow-creatures to entrust the welfare of their communities to the protection of an experienced leader. Birds that become gregarious only at a certain time of the year select a guide for that special occasion. Others have a permanent leader, and among the more intelligent quadrupeds that leadership becomes dual. Besides the stout champion who comes to the front in moments of danger, wild cattle, horses, antelopes, deer, and the social quadrumana have a veteran pioneer who guides their migrations and sentinels their encampments.Among the primitive tribes of our fellow-men, too, the authority of leadership is divided between a warrior and a teacher, a chieftain and a priest. The obstinacy of savages, who refuse to yield to reason, suggested the plan of controlling their passions by the fear of the unseen, but ghost-mongery was not the only, nor even the most essential, function of primitive priesthood. The elders of the Brahmans were the guardians of homeless children and overseers of public charities. The Celtic Druids were the custodians of national treasures. The rune-wardens of the ancient Scandinavians preserved the historical traditions and law records of their nation. The priests of the Phœnicians (like our Indian medicine men) were trained physicians. The Egyptian[232]hierophants were priests of knowledge, as well as of mythology. They were the historians and biographers of their nation. They codified the national laws. They taught geometry; they taught grammar; they taught and practiced surgery; they devoted a large portion of their time to astronomical observations. Their temple-cities were, in fact, free universities, and the waste of time devoted to the rites of superstition was more than compensated by secular studies, and to some degree also by the political services of learned priests, who seem to have been occasionally employed in diplomatic emergencies.Motives of political prudence induced the law-givers of the Mediterranean nations to circumscribe the authority of their pontiffs, which at last was, indeed, almost limited to the supervision of religious ceremonies. But in Rome, as well as in Greece and the Grecian colonies of western Asia, the true functions of priesthood were assumed by the popular exponents of philosophy, especially by the Stoics and Pythagoreans. The weekly lectures of Zeno were attended by a miscellaneous throng of truth-seekers; the disciples of Pythagoras almost worshiped their master; Diagoras and Carneades traveled from town to town, preaching to vast audiences of spell-bound admirers; Apollonius of Tyana rose in fame till cities competed for the honor of his visits; theclientèleof no Grecian prince was thought complete without a court philosopher; the tyrant Dionysius, in all the pride of his power, invited the moral rigorist Plato and submitted to his daily repeated reproofs. Philosophers[233]were the confessors, the comforters, and the counselors of their patrons, and philosophic tutors were in such request that wealthy Romans did not hesitate to procure them from the traffickers in Grecian captives and indulge them in all privileges but that of liberty. Centuries before a bishop of Rome contrived to avert the wrath of King Alaric, doomed cities had been spared at the intercession of pagan philosophers, and philosophers more than once succeeded in allaying the fury of mutineers who would have ridiculed an appeal to mythological traditions.[Contents]B.—REWARDS OF CONFORMITY.The power of filial love hardly exceeds that of the passionate veneration which kindles about the person of a sincere teacher of truth. The homage paid to an apostle of light is the noblest form of hero-worship. The hosannas of idol-service overflowing upon the idol-priest are marred by the discords of hypocrisy and the reproving silence of reason; but the approval of wisdom is the highest reward of its ministry. The brightness of that prestige shames the gilded halo of the mythology-monger; the minister of Truth may lack the pomp of consecrated temples, but his disciples will make a hermit’s cave a Delphic grotto and will not willingly let the record of his oracles perish. The chants of the Eleusynian festivals, the shout of the Lupercalia, the mumblings of augurs and sibyls, have been forever silenced; but the words of Plato still live; Socrates still speaks to[234]thousands of truth-seekers; the wisdom of Seneca still brightens the gloom of adversity.Religions founded on any basis of truth can survive the fall of their temples. Jerusalem was wrecked in the storm of Roman conquest, but the health-laws of the Mosaic code defied the power of the destroyer, and of all the creeds born on the teeming soil of the East, Judaism alone can still be preached without an alloy of cant and compromise.The enthusiasm of progress has nothing to fear from the growth of skepticism. Mankind will always appreciate their enlightened well-wishers. In cities where the creed of the Galilean supernaturalist has become almost as obsolete as the witchcraft delusion, progressive clergymen still draw audiences of intelligent and sincere admirers, and the apostles of social reform are haunted by anxious inquirers, disciples whom the penalties of heresy fail to deter, and who if barred out all day will come by night: “Master, what shall we do to be saved?”In spite of sham saviors, the search after salvation has never ceased, and after eighteen centuries of clerical caricatures the ideal of true priesthood still survives in the hearts of men.[Contents]C.—PERVERSION.The puerile supernaturalism of the pagan myth-mongers could not fail to injure their prestige, even in an age of superstition; but theantinaturalismof the Galilean fanatics not only neglected but completely inverted the proper functions of priesthood. The pretended ministers of Truth became her remorseless[235]persecutors; the promised healers depreciated the importance of bodily health, the hoped-for apostles of social reform preached the doctrine of renunciation. We should not judge the Christian clergy by the aberrations engendered by the maddening influence of protracted persecutions. It would be equally unfair to give them the credit of latter-day reforms, reluctantly conceded to the demands of rationalism. But we can with perfect fairness judge them by the standard of the moral and intellectual types evolved during the period of their plenary power, the three hundred years from the tenth to the end of the thirteenth century, when the control of morals and education had been unconditionally surrendered into the hands of their chosen representatives. The comparative scale of human turpitude must not include the creations of fiction. We might find ane plus ultraof infamy in the satires of Rabelais, in the myths of Hindostan, or the burlesques of the modern French dramatists. But if we confine our comparison to the records of authentic history, it would be no exaggeration to say that during the period named the type of a Christian priest represented the absolute extreme of all the groveling ignorance, the meanest selfishness, the rankest sloth, the basest servility, the foulest perfidy, the grossest superstition, the most bestial sensuality, to which the majesty of human nature has ever been degraded. Thousands of monasteries fattened on the toil of starving peasants. Villages were beggared by the rapacity of the tithe-gatherer; cities were terrorized by witch-hunts andautos-da-fé. The crimps of the inquisitorial[236]tribunals hired spies and suborned perjurers by promising them a share of confiscated estates. The evidence of intellectual pursuits was equivalent to a sentence of death. Education was almost limited to the memorizing of chants and prayers. “A cloud of ignorance,” says Hallam, “overspread the whole face of the church, hardly broken by a few glimmering lights who owe almost the whole of their distinction to the surrounding darkness.… In 992, it was asserted that scarcely a single person was to be found, even in Rome itself, who knew the first elements of letters. Not one priest of a thousand in Spain could address a common letter of salutation to another.” Every deathbed became a harvest-field of clerical vampires who did not hesitate to bully the dying into robbing their children for the benefit of a bloated convent. Herds of howling fanatics roamed the country, frenzying the superstitious rustics with their predictions of impending horrors. Parishioners had to submit to the base avarice and the baser lusts of insolent parish priests, who in his turn kissed the dust at the feet of an arrogant prelate. The doctrine of Antinaturalism had solved the problem of inflicting the greatest possible amount of misery on the greatest possible number of victims.[Contents]D.—PENALTIES OF NEGLECT.The intellectual interregnum of the Middle Ages, the era of specters and vampires, received the first promise of dawn about the middle of the fourteenth century, when the lessons of the Crusades and the influence of Moorish civilization began to react on[237]the nations of Christian Europe. Yet, by methods of their own, the vampires succeeded in prolonging the dreadful night. They set their owls a-shrieking from a thousand pulpits; they darkened the air with the smoke-clouds ofautos-da-fé. They treated every torch-bearer as an incendiary.But though the delay of redemption completed the ruin of some of their victims, the ghouls did not escape the deserved retribution. Their fire alarms failed to avert the brightening dawn. Daylight found its way even through the painted glass of dome-windows, and in the open air the blood-suckers had to take wing on pain of being shaken off and trampled under foot. The slaves of Hayti never rose more fiercely against their French tyrants than the German peasants against their clerical oppressor. From Antwerp to Leipzig thousands of convents were leveled with the ground; the villages of Holland, Minden, and Brunswick joined in a general priest-hunt, carried on with all the cruelties which the man-hunters of the Frankish crusade had inflicted on the pagan Saxons. In the Mediterranean Peninsulas the Jesuits were expelled as enemies of public peace, and their colleagues could maintain themselves only by an alliance with despotism against the liberal and intellectual elements of their country. To patriots of the Garibaldi type the name of a priest has become a byword implying the very quintessence of infamy. The explosion of the French Revolution struck a still deadlier blow at clerical prestige. The fagot-arguments of the Holy Inquisition were answered by[238]a “burning, as in hell-fire, of priestly shams and lies,” and not one out of twenty French monasteries escaped the fury of the avengers. Our Protestant clergymen see their temple walls cracked by a breach of ever-multiplying schisms, and can prop their prestige only by more and more humiliating concessions, and in every intelligent community have to purchase popularity by rank heresies against the dogmas of their predecessors. Here and there the orthodox tenets of the New Testament have survived the progress of rationalism, but haunt the shade, like specters scenting the morning air, and momentarily expecting the summons that shall banish them to the realms of their native night.[Contents]E.—REFORM.When the harbinger of day dispels the specters of darkness, half-awakened sleepers often mourn the fading visions of dreamland, as they would mourn the memories of a vanished world, till they find that the solid earth still remains, with its mountains and forests, and that the enjoyment of real life has but just begun. With a similar regret the dupes of Jesuitism mourn the collapse of their creed and lament the decline of morality, till they find that religion still remains, with its consolations and hopes, and that the true work of redemption has but just begun.The reign of superstition begins to yield to a religion of reason and humanity. The first forerunners of that religion appeared at the end of the sixteenth century, when the philosophers of northern Europe[239]first dared to appeal from dogma to nature, and since that revival of common-sense the prison walls of clerical obscurantism have been shaken by shock after shock, till daylight now enters through a thousand fissures.But Secularism has a positive as well as a negative mission, and after removing the ruins of exploded idols, the champions of reform will begin the work of reconstruction. Temples dedicated to the religion of progress will rise from the ruins of superstition. Communities of reformants will intrust the work of education to chosen teachers, who will combine the functions of an instructor with those of an exhorter. In the languages of several European nations the word “rector” still bears that twofold significance. The ministers of Secularism will not sacrifice physical health to mental culture. They will begymnasiarchs, like the Grecian pedagogues who superintended the athletic exercises of their pupils and accompanied them on foot journeys and hunting excursions. They will be teachers of hygiene, laboring to secure the foundations of mental energy by the preservation of physical vigor, and to banish diseases by the removal of their causes. They will seek to circumscribe the power of prejudice by the extension of knowledge. They will obviate the perils of poverty by lessons of industry and prudence. Their doctrines will dispense with miracles; they will make experience the test of truth, and justice the test of integrity; they will not suppress, but encourage, free inquiry; their war against error will employ no weapons but those of logic.[240]The religion of reason will limit its proper sphere to the secular welfare of mankind, but will ask, as well as grant, the fullest freedom of metaphysical speculation. Why should the friends of light darken the sunshine of earth with fanatical wars for the suppression of private theories about the mystery of the unrevealed first cause? Why should they rage about the riddle of the veiled hereafter to please the ordainer of the eternal law that visits such inexorable penalties upon the neglect of the present world? Should the friends of common sense quarrel about guesses at the solution of unknowable secrets? We need not grudge our wonder-loving brother the luxury of meditating on the mysteries of the unseen or the possibilities of resurrection. Shall the soul of the dying patriarch live only in his children? Shall it wing its way to distant stars? Shall it linger on earth:“Sigh in the breeze, keep silence in the cave,And glide with airy foot o’er yonder sea?”Why should we wrangle about riddles which we cannot possibly solve? But we might certainly have honesty enough to admit that impossibility. Musing on the enigmas of the “land beyond the veil” may entertain us with the visions of a dreamy hour, but should not engross the time needed for the problems of the only world thus far revealed.Thus, founded on a basis of health-culture, reason, and justice, the office of priesthood will regain its ancient prestige, and the best and wisest of men will become ministers of Secularism by devoting their lives to the science of happiness on earth.[241]

CHAPTER XX.THE PRIESTHOOD OF SECULARISM.

[Contents]A.—LESSONS OF INSTINCT.An instinct inherited from the habits of many generations teaches our social fellow-creatures to entrust the welfare of their communities to the protection of an experienced leader. Birds that become gregarious only at a certain time of the year select a guide for that special occasion. Others have a permanent leader, and among the more intelligent quadrupeds that leadership becomes dual. Besides the stout champion who comes to the front in moments of danger, wild cattle, horses, antelopes, deer, and the social quadrumana have a veteran pioneer who guides their migrations and sentinels their encampments.Among the primitive tribes of our fellow-men, too, the authority of leadership is divided between a warrior and a teacher, a chieftain and a priest. The obstinacy of savages, who refuse to yield to reason, suggested the plan of controlling their passions by the fear of the unseen, but ghost-mongery was not the only, nor even the most essential, function of primitive priesthood. The elders of the Brahmans were the guardians of homeless children and overseers of public charities. The Celtic Druids were the custodians of national treasures. The rune-wardens of the ancient Scandinavians preserved the historical traditions and law records of their nation. The priests of the Phœnicians (like our Indian medicine men) were trained physicians. The Egyptian[232]hierophants were priests of knowledge, as well as of mythology. They were the historians and biographers of their nation. They codified the national laws. They taught geometry; they taught grammar; they taught and practiced surgery; they devoted a large portion of their time to astronomical observations. Their temple-cities were, in fact, free universities, and the waste of time devoted to the rites of superstition was more than compensated by secular studies, and to some degree also by the political services of learned priests, who seem to have been occasionally employed in diplomatic emergencies.Motives of political prudence induced the law-givers of the Mediterranean nations to circumscribe the authority of their pontiffs, which at last was, indeed, almost limited to the supervision of religious ceremonies. But in Rome, as well as in Greece and the Grecian colonies of western Asia, the true functions of priesthood were assumed by the popular exponents of philosophy, especially by the Stoics and Pythagoreans. The weekly lectures of Zeno were attended by a miscellaneous throng of truth-seekers; the disciples of Pythagoras almost worshiped their master; Diagoras and Carneades traveled from town to town, preaching to vast audiences of spell-bound admirers; Apollonius of Tyana rose in fame till cities competed for the honor of his visits; theclientèleof no Grecian prince was thought complete without a court philosopher; the tyrant Dionysius, in all the pride of his power, invited the moral rigorist Plato and submitted to his daily repeated reproofs. Philosophers[233]were the confessors, the comforters, and the counselors of their patrons, and philosophic tutors were in such request that wealthy Romans did not hesitate to procure them from the traffickers in Grecian captives and indulge them in all privileges but that of liberty. Centuries before a bishop of Rome contrived to avert the wrath of King Alaric, doomed cities had been spared at the intercession of pagan philosophers, and philosophers more than once succeeded in allaying the fury of mutineers who would have ridiculed an appeal to mythological traditions.[Contents]B.—REWARDS OF CONFORMITY.The power of filial love hardly exceeds that of the passionate veneration which kindles about the person of a sincere teacher of truth. The homage paid to an apostle of light is the noblest form of hero-worship. The hosannas of idol-service overflowing upon the idol-priest are marred by the discords of hypocrisy and the reproving silence of reason; but the approval of wisdom is the highest reward of its ministry. The brightness of that prestige shames the gilded halo of the mythology-monger; the minister of Truth may lack the pomp of consecrated temples, but his disciples will make a hermit’s cave a Delphic grotto and will not willingly let the record of his oracles perish. The chants of the Eleusynian festivals, the shout of the Lupercalia, the mumblings of augurs and sibyls, have been forever silenced; but the words of Plato still live; Socrates still speaks to[234]thousands of truth-seekers; the wisdom of Seneca still brightens the gloom of adversity.Religions founded on any basis of truth can survive the fall of their temples. Jerusalem was wrecked in the storm of Roman conquest, but the health-laws of the Mosaic code defied the power of the destroyer, and of all the creeds born on the teeming soil of the East, Judaism alone can still be preached without an alloy of cant and compromise.The enthusiasm of progress has nothing to fear from the growth of skepticism. Mankind will always appreciate their enlightened well-wishers. In cities where the creed of the Galilean supernaturalist has become almost as obsolete as the witchcraft delusion, progressive clergymen still draw audiences of intelligent and sincere admirers, and the apostles of social reform are haunted by anxious inquirers, disciples whom the penalties of heresy fail to deter, and who if barred out all day will come by night: “Master, what shall we do to be saved?”In spite of sham saviors, the search after salvation has never ceased, and after eighteen centuries of clerical caricatures the ideal of true priesthood still survives in the hearts of men.[Contents]C.—PERVERSION.The puerile supernaturalism of the pagan myth-mongers could not fail to injure their prestige, even in an age of superstition; but theantinaturalismof the Galilean fanatics not only neglected but completely inverted the proper functions of priesthood. The pretended ministers of Truth became her remorseless[235]persecutors; the promised healers depreciated the importance of bodily health, the hoped-for apostles of social reform preached the doctrine of renunciation. We should not judge the Christian clergy by the aberrations engendered by the maddening influence of protracted persecutions. It would be equally unfair to give them the credit of latter-day reforms, reluctantly conceded to the demands of rationalism. But we can with perfect fairness judge them by the standard of the moral and intellectual types evolved during the period of their plenary power, the three hundred years from the tenth to the end of the thirteenth century, when the control of morals and education had been unconditionally surrendered into the hands of their chosen representatives. The comparative scale of human turpitude must not include the creations of fiction. We might find ane plus ultraof infamy in the satires of Rabelais, in the myths of Hindostan, or the burlesques of the modern French dramatists. But if we confine our comparison to the records of authentic history, it would be no exaggeration to say that during the period named the type of a Christian priest represented the absolute extreme of all the groveling ignorance, the meanest selfishness, the rankest sloth, the basest servility, the foulest perfidy, the grossest superstition, the most bestial sensuality, to which the majesty of human nature has ever been degraded. Thousands of monasteries fattened on the toil of starving peasants. Villages were beggared by the rapacity of the tithe-gatherer; cities were terrorized by witch-hunts andautos-da-fé. The crimps of the inquisitorial[236]tribunals hired spies and suborned perjurers by promising them a share of confiscated estates. The evidence of intellectual pursuits was equivalent to a sentence of death. Education was almost limited to the memorizing of chants and prayers. “A cloud of ignorance,” says Hallam, “overspread the whole face of the church, hardly broken by a few glimmering lights who owe almost the whole of their distinction to the surrounding darkness.… In 992, it was asserted that scarcely a single person was to be found, even in Rome itself, who knew the first elements of letters. Not one priest of a thousand in Spain could address a common letter of salutation to another.” Every deathbed became a harvest-field of clerical vampires who did not hesitate to bully the dying into robbing their children for the benefit of a bloated convent. Herds of howling fanatics roamed the country, frenzying the superstitious rustics with their predictions of impending horrors. Parishioners had to submit to the base avarice and the baser lusts of insolent parish priests, who in his turn kissed the dust at the feet of an arrogant prelate. The doctrine of Antinaturalism had solved the problem of inflicting the greatest possible amount of misery on the greatest possible number of victims.[Contents]D.—PENALTIES OF NEGLECT.The intellectual interregnum of the Middle Ages, the era of specters and vampires, received the first promise of dawn about the middle of the fourteenth century, when the lessons of the Crusades and the influence of Moorish civilization began to react on[237]the nations of Christian Europe. Yet, by methods of their own, the vampires succeeded in prolonging the dreadful night. They set their owls a-shrieking from a thousand pulpits; they darkened the air with the smoke-clouds ofautos-da-fé. They treated every torch-bearer as an incendiary.But though the delay of redemption completed the ruin of some of their victims, the ghouls did not escape the deserved retribution. Their fire alarms failed to avert the brightening dawn. Daylight found its way even through the painted glass of dome-windows, and in the open air the blood-suckers had to take wing on pain of being shaken off and trampled under foot. The slaves of Hayti never rose more fiercely against their French tyrants than the German peasants against their clerical oppressor. From Antwerp to Leipzig thousands of convents were leveled with the ground; the villages of Holland, Minden, and Brunswick joined in a general priest-hunt, carried on with all the cruelties which the man-hunters of the Frankish crusade had inflicted on the pagan Saxons. In the Mediterranean Peninsulas the Jesuits were expelled as enemies of public peace, and their colleagues could maintain themselves only by an alliance with despotism against the liberal and intellectual elements of their country. To patriots of the Garibaldi type the name of a priest has become a byword implying the very quintessence of infamy. The explosion of the French Revolution struck a still deadlier blow at clerical prestige. The fagot-arguments of the Holy Inquisition were answered by[238]a “burning, as in hell-fire, of priestly shams and lies,” and not one out of twenty French monasteries escaped the fury of the avengers. Our Protestant clergymen see their temple walls cracked by a breach of ever-multiplying schisms, and can prop their prestige only by more and more humiliating concessions, and in every intelligent community have to purchase popularity by rank heresies against the dogmas of their predecessors. Here and there the orthodox tenets of the New Testament have survived the progress of rationalism, but haunt the shade, like specters scenting the morning air, and momentarily expecting the summons that shall banish them to the realms of their native night.[Contents]E.—REFORM.When the harbinger of day dispels the specters of darkness, half-awakened sleepers often mourn the fading visions of dreamland, as they would mourn the memories of a vanished world, till they find that the solid earth still remains, with its mountains and forests, and that the enjoyment of real life has but just begun. With a similar regret the dupes of Jesuitism mourn the collapse of their creed and lament the decline of morality, till they find that religion still remains, with its consolations and hopes, and that the true work of redemption has but just begun.The reign of superstition begins to yield to a religion of reason and humanity. The first forerunners of that religion appeared at the end of the sixteenth century, when the philosophers of northern Europe[239]first dared to appeal from dogma to nature, and since that revival of common-sense the prison walls of clerical obscurantism have been shaken by shock after shock, till daylight now enters through a thousand fissures.But Secularism has a positive as well as a negative mission, and after removing the ruins of exploded idols, the champions of reform will begin the work of reconstruction. Temples dedicated to the religion of progress will rise from the ruins of superstition. Communities of reformants will intrust the work of education to chosen teachers, who will combine the functions of an instructor with those of an exhorter. In the languages of several European nations the word “rector” still bears that twofold significance. The ministers of Secularism will not sacrifice physical health to mental culture. They will begymnasiarchs, like the Grecian pedagogues who superintended the athletic exercises of their pupils and accompanied them on foot journeys and hunting excursions. They will be teachers of hygiene, laboring to secure the foundations of mental energy by the preservation of physical vigor, and to banish diseases by the removal of their causes. They will seek to circumscribe the power of prejudice by the extension of knowledge. They will obviate the perils of poverty by lessons of industry and prudence. Their doctrines will dispense with miracles; they will make experience the test of truth, and justice the test of integrity; they will not suppress, but encourage, free inquiry; their war against error will employ no weapons but those of logic.[240]The religion of reason will limit its proper sphere to the secular welfare of mankind, but will ask, as well as grant, the fullest freedom of metaphysical speculation. Why should the friends of light darken the sunshine of earth with fanatical wars for the suppression of private theories about the mystery of the unrevealed first cause? Why should they rage about the riddle of the veiled hereafter to please the ordainer of the eternal law that visits such inexorable penalties upon the neglect of the present world? Should the friends of common sense quarrel about guesses at the solution of unknowable secrets? We need not grudge our wonder-loving brother the luxury of meditating on the mysteries of the unseen or the possibilities of resurrection. Shall the soul of the dying patriarch live only in his children? Shall it wing its way to distant stars? Shall it linger on earth:“Sigh in the breeze, keep silence in the cave,And glide with airy foot o’er yonder sea?”Why should we wrangle about riddles which we cannot possibly solve? But we might certainly have honesty enough to admit that impossibility. Musing on the enigmas of the “land beyond the veil” may entertain us with the visions of a dreamy hour, but should not engross the time needed for the problems of the only world thus far revealed.Thus, founded on a basis of health-culture, reason, and justice, the office of priesthood will regain its ancient prestige, and the best and wisest of men will become ministers of Secularism by devoting their lives to the science of happiness on earth.[241]

[Contents]A.—LESSONS OF INSTINCT.An instinct inherited from the habits of many generations teaches our social fellow-creatures to entrust the welfare of their communities to the protection of an experienced leader. Birds that become gregarious only at a certain time of the year select a guide for that special occasion. Others have a permanent leader, and among the more intelligent quadrupeds that leadership becomes dual. Besides the stout champion who comes to the front in moments of danger, wild cattle, horses, antelopes, deer, and the social quadrumana have a veteran pioneer who guides their migrations and sentinels their encampments.Among the primitive tribes of our fellow-men, too, the authority of leadership is divided between a warrior and a teacher, a chieftain and a priest. The obstinacy of savages, who refuse to yield to reason, suggested the plan of controlling their passions by the fear of the unseen, but ghost-mongery was not the only, nor even the most essential, function of primitive priesthood. The elders of the Brahmans were the guardians of homeless children and overseers of public charities. The Celtic Druids were the custodians of national treasures. The rune-wardens of the ancient Scandinavians preserved the historical traditions and law records of their nation. The priests of the Phœnicians (like our Indian medicine men) were trained physicians. The Egyptian[232]hierophants were priests of knowledge, as well as of mythology. They were the historians and biographers of their nation. They codified the national laws. They taught geometry; they taught grammar; they taught and practiced surgery; they devoted a large portion of their time to astronomical observations. Their temple-cities were, in fact, free universities, and the waste of time devoted to the rites of superstition was more than compensated by secular studies, and to some degree also by the political services of learned priests, who seem to have been occasionally employed in diplomatic emergencies.Motives of political prudence induced the law-givers of the Mediterranean nations to circumscribe the authority of their pontiffs, which at last was, indeed, almost limited to the supervision of religious ceremonies. But in Rome, as well as in Greece and the Grecian colonies of western Asia, the true functions of priesthood were assumed by the popular exponents of philosophy, especially by the Stoics and Pythagoreans. The weekly lectures of Zeno were attended by a miscellaneous throng of truth-seekers; the disciples of Pythagoras almost worshiped their master; Diagoras and Carneades traveled from town to town, preaching to vast audiences of spell-bound admirers; Apollonius of Tyana rose in fame till cities competed for the honor of his visits; theclientèleof no Grecian prince was thought complete without a court philosopher; the tyrant Dionysius, in all the pride of his power, invited the moral rigorist Plato and submitted to his daily repeated reproofs. Philosophers[233]were the confessors, the comforters, and the counselors of their patrons, and philosophic tutors were in such request that wealthy Romans did not hesitate to procure them from the traffickers in Grecian captives and indulge them in all privileges but that of liberty. Centuries before a bishop of Rome contrived to avert the wrath of King Alaric, doomed cities had been spared at the intercession of pagan philosophers, and philosophers more than once succeeded in allaying the fury of mutineers who would have ridiculed an appeal to mythological traditions.

A.—LESSONS OF INSTINCT.

An instinct inherited from the habits of many generations teaches our social fellow-creatures to entrust the welfare of their communities to the protection of an experienced leader. Birds that become gregarious only at a certain time of the year select a guide for that special occasion. Others have a permanent leader, and among the more intelligent quadrupeds that leadership becomes dual. Besides the stout champion who comes to the front in moments of danger, wild cattle, horses, antelopes, deer, and the social quadrumana have a veteran pioneer who guides their migrations and sentinels their encampments.Among the primitive tribes of our fellow-men, too, the authority of leadership is divided between a warrior and a teacher, a chieftain and a priest. The obstinacy of savages, who refuse to yield to reason, suggested the plan of controlling their passions by the fear of the unseen, but ghost-mongery was not the only, nor even the most essential, function of primitive priesthood. The elders of the Brahmans were the guardians of homeless children and overseers of public charities. The Celtic Druids were the custodians of national treasures. The rune-wardens of the ancient Scandinavians preserved the historical traditions and law records of their nation. The priests of the Phœnicians (like our Indian medicine men) were trained physicians. The Egyptian[232]hierophants were priests of knowledge, as well as of mythology. They were the historians and biographers of their nation. They codified the national laws. They taught geometry; they taught grammar; they taught and practiced surgery; they devoted a large portion of their time to astronomical observations. Their temple-cities were, in fact, free universities, and the waste of time devoted to the rites of superstition was more than compensated by secular studies, and to some degree also by the political services of learned priests, who seem to have been occasionally employed in diplomatic emergencies.Motives of political prudence induced the law-givers of the Mediterranean nations to circumscribe the authority of their pontiffs, which at last was, indeed, almost limited to the supervision of religious ceremonies. But in Rome, as well as in Greece and the Grecian colonies of western Asia, the true functions of priesthood were assumed by the popular exponents of philosophy, especially by the Stoics and Pythagoreans. The weekly lectures of Zeno were attended by a miscellaneous throng of truth-seekers; the disciples of Pythagoras almost worshiped their master; Diagoras and Carneades traveled from town to town, preaching to vast audiences of spell-bound admirers; Apollonius of Tyana rose in fame till cities competed for the honor of his visits; theclientèleof no Grecian prince was thought complete without a court philosopher; the tyrant Dionysius, in all the pride of his power, invited the moral rigorist Plato and submitted to his daily repeated reproofs. Philosophers[233]were the confessors, the comforters, and the counselors of their patrons, and philosophic tutors were in such request that wealthy Romans did not hesitate to procure them from the traffickers in Grecian captives and indulge them in all privileges but that of liberty. Centuries before a bishop of Rome contrived to avert the wrath of King Alaric, doomed cities had been spared at the intercession of pagan philosophers, and philosophers more than once succeeded in allaying the fury of mutineers who would have ridiculed an appeal to mythological traditions.

An instinct inherited from the habits of many generations teaches our social fellow-creatures to entrust the welfare of their communities to the protection of an experienced leader. Birds that become gregarious only at a certain time of the year select a guide for that special occasion. Others have a permanent leader, and among the more intelligent quadrupeds that leadership becomes dual. Besides the stout champion who comes to the front in moments of danger, wild cattle, horses, antelopes, deer, and the social quadrumana have a veteran pioneer who guides their migrations and sentinels their encampments.

Among the primitive tribes of our fellow-men, too, the authority of leadership is divided between a warrior and a teacher, a chieftain and a priest. The obstinacy of savages, who refuse to yield to reason, suggested the plan of controlling their passions by the fear of the unseen, but ghost-mongery was not the only, nor even the most essential, function of primitive priesthood. The elders of the Brahmans were the guardians of homeless children and overseers of public charities. The Celtic Druids were the custodians of national treasures. The rune-wardens of the ancient Scandinavians preserved the historical traditions and law records of their nation. The priests of the Phœnicians (like our Indian medicine men) were trained physicians. The Egyptian[232]hierophants were priests of knowledge, as well as of mythology. They were the historians and biographers of their nation. They codified the national laws. They taught geometry; they taught grammar; they taught and practiced surgery; they devoted a large portion of their time to astronomical observations. Their temple-cities were, in fact, free universities, and the waste of time devoted to the rites of superstition was more than compensated by secular studies, and to some degree also by the political services of learned priests, who seem to have been occasionally employed in diplomatic emergencies.

Motives of political prudence induced the law-givers of the Mediterranean nations to circumscribe the authority of their pontiffs, which at last was, indeed, almost limited to the supervision of religious ceremonies. But in Rome, as well as in Greece and the Grecian colonies of western Asia, the true functions of priesthood were assumed by the popular exponents of philosophy, especially by the Stoics and Pythagoreans. The weekly lectures of Zeno were attended by a miscellaneous throng of truth-seekers; the disciples of Pythagoras almost worshiped their master; Diagoras and Carneades traveled from town to town, preaching to vast audiences of spell-bound admirers; Apollonius of Tyana rose in fame till cities competed for the honor of his visits; theclientèleof no Grecian prince was thought complete without a court philosopher; the tyrant Dionysius, in all the pride of his power, invited the moral rigorist Plato and submitted to his daily repeated reproofs. Philosophers[233]were the confessors, the comforters, and the counselors of their patrons, and philosophic tutors were in such request that wealthy Romans did not hesitate to procure them from the traffickers in Grecian captives and indulge them in all privileges but that of liberty. Centuries before a bishop of Rome contrived to avert the wrath of King Alaric, doomed cities had been spared at the intercession of pagan philosophers, and philosophers more than once succeeded in allaying the fury of mutineers who would have ridiculed an appeal to mythological traditions.

[Contents]B.—REWARDS OF CONFORMITY.The power of filial love hardly exceeds that of the passionate veneration which kindles about the person of a sincere teacher of truth. The homage paid to an apostle of light is the noblest form of hero-worship. The hosannas of idol-service overflowing upon the idol-priest are marred by the discords of hypocrisy and the reproving silence of reason; but the approval of wisdom is the highest reward of its ministry. The brightness of that prestige shames the gilded halo of the mythology-monger; the minister of Truth may lack the pomp of consecrated temples, but his disciples will make a hermit’s cave a Delphic grotto and will not willingly let the record of his oracles perish. The chants of the Eleusynian festivals, the shout of the Lupercalia, the mumblings of augurs and sibyls, have been forever silenced; but the words of Plato still live; Socrates still speaks to[234]thousands of truth-seekers; the wisdom of Seneca still brightens the gloom of adversity.Religions founded on any basis of truth can survive the fall of their temples. Jerusalem was wrecked in the storm of Roman conquest, but the health-laws of the Mosaic code defied the power of the destroyer, and of all the creeds born on the teeming soil of the East, Judaism alone can still be preached without an alloy of cant and compromise.The enthusiasm of progress has nothing to fear from the growth of skepticism. Mankind will always appreciate their enlightened well-wishers. In cities where the creed of the Galilean supernaturalist has become almost as obsolete as the witchcraft delusion, progressive clergymen still draw audiences of intelligent and sincere admirers, and the apostles of social reform are haunted by anxious inquirers, disciples whom the penalties of heresy fail to deter, and who if barred out all day will come by night: “Master, what shall we do to be saved?”In spite of sham saviors, the search after salvation has never ceased, and after eighteen centuries of clerical caricatures the ideal of true priesthood still survives in the hearts of men.

B.—REWARDS OF CONFORMITY.

The power of filial love hardly exceeds that of the passionate veneration which kindles about the person of a sincere teacher of truth. The homage paid to an apostle of light is the noblest form of hero-worship. The hosannas of idol-service overflowing upon the idol-priest are marred by the discords of hypocrisy and the reproving silence of reason; but the approval of wisdom is the highest reward of its ministry. The brightness of that prestige shames the gilded halo of the mythology-monger; the minister of Truth may lack the pomp of consecrated temples, but his disciples will make a hermit’s cave a Delphic grotto and will not willingly let the record of his oracles perish. The chants of the Eleusynian festivals, the shout of the Lupercalia, the mumblings of augurs and sibyls, have been forever silenced; but the words of Plato still live; Socrates still speaks to[234]thousands of truth-seekers; the wisdom of Seneca still brightens the gloom of adversity.Religions founded on any basis of truth can survive the fall of their temples. Jerusalem was wrecked in the storm of Roman conquest, but the health-laws of the Mosaic code defied the power of the destroyer, and of all the creeds born on the teeming soil of the East, Judaism alone can still be preached without an alloy of cant and compromise.The enthusiasm of progress has nothing to fear from the growth of skepticism. Mankind will always appreciate their enlightened well-wishers. In cities where the creed of the Galilean supernaturalist has become almost as obsolete as the witchcraft delusion, progressive clergymen still draw audiences of intelligent and sincere admirers, and the apostles of social reform are haunted by anxious inquirers, disciples whom the penalties of heresy fail to deter, and who if barred out all day will come by night: “Master, what shall we do to be saved?”In spite of sham saviors, the search after salvation has never ceased, and after eighteen centuries of clerical caricatures the ideal of true priesthood still survives in the hearts of men.

The power of filial love hardly exceeds that of the passionate veneration which kindles about the person of a sincere teacher of truth. The homage paid to an apostle of light is the noblest form of hero-worship. The hosannas of idol-service overflowing upon the idol-priest are marred by the discords of hypocrisy and the reproving silence of reason; but the approval of wisdom is the highest reward of its ministry. The brightness of that prestige shames the gilded halo of the mythology-monger; the minister of Truth may lack the pomp of consecrated temples, but his disciples will make a hermit’s cave a Delphic grotto and will not willingly let the record of his oracles perish. The chants of the Eleusynian festivals, the shout of the Lupercalia, the mumblings of augurs and sibyls, have been forever silenced; but the words of Plato still live; Socrates still speaks to[234]thousands of truth-seekers; the wisdom of Seneca still brightens the gloom of adversity.

Religions founded on any basis of truth can survive the fall of their temples. Jerusalem was wrecked in the storm of Roman conquest, but the health-laws of the Mosaic code defied the power of the destroyer, and of all the creeds born on the teeming soil of the East, Judaism alone can still be preached without an alloy of cant and compromise.

The enthusiasm of progress has nothing to fear from the growth of skepticism. Mankind will always appreciate their enlightened well-wishers. In cities where the creed of the Galilean supernaturalist has become almost as obsolete as the witchcraft delusion, progressive clergymen still draw audiences of intelligent and sincere admirers, and the apostles of social reform are haunted by anxious inquirers, disciples whom the penalties of heresy fail to deter, and who if barred out all day will come by night: “Master, what shall we do to be saved?”

In spite of sham saviors, the search after salvation has never ceased, and after eighteen centuries of clerical caricatures the ideal of true priesthood still survives in the hearts of men.

[Contents]C.—PERVERSION.The puerile supernaturalism of the pagan myth-mongers could not fail to injure their prestige, even in an age of superstition; but theantinaturalismof the Galilean fanatics not only neglected but completely inverted the proper functions of priesthood. The pretended ministers of Truth became her remorseless[235]persecutors; the promised healers depreciated the importance of bodily health, the hoped-for apostles of social reform preached the doctrine of renunciation. We should not judge the Christian clergy by the aberrations engendered by the maddening influence of protracted persecutions. It would be equally unfair to give them the credit of latter-day reforms, reluctantly conceded to the demands of rationalism. But we can with perfect fairness judge them by the standard of the moral and intellectual types evolved during the period of their plenary power, the three hundred years from the tenth to the end of the thirteenth century, when the control of morals and education had been unconditionally surrendered into the hands of their chosen representatives. The comparative scale of human turpitude must not include the creations of fiction. We might find ane plus ultraof infamy in the satires of Rabelais, in the myths of Hindostan, or the burlesques of the modern French dramatists. But if we confine our comparison to the records of authentic history, it would be no exaggeration to say that during the period named the type of a Christian priest represented the absolute extreme of all the groveling ignorance, the meanest selfishness, the rankest sloth, the basest servility, the foulest perfidy, the grossest superstition, the most bestial sensuality, to which the majesty of human nature has ever been degraded. Thousands of monasteries fattened on the toil of starving peasants. Villages were beggared by the rapacity of the tithe-gatherer; cities were terrorized by witch-hunts andautos-da-fé. The crimps of the inquisitorial[236]tribunals hired spies and suborned perjurers by promising them a share of confiscated estates. The evidence of intellectual pursuits was equivalent to a sentence of death. Education was almost limited to the memorizing of chants and prayers. “A cloud of ignorance,” says Hallam, “overspread the whole face of the church, hardly broken by a few glimmering lights who owe almost the whole of their distinction to the surrounding darkness.… In 992, it was asserted that scarcely a single person was to be found, even in Rome itself, who knew the first elements of letters. Not one priest of a thousand in Spain could address a common letter of salutation to another.” Every deathbed became a harvest-field of clerical vampires who did not hesitate to bully the dying into robbing their children for the benefit of a bloated convent. Herds of howling fanatics roamed the country, frenzying the superstitious rustics with their predictions of impending horrors. Parishioners had to submit to the base avarice and the baser lusts of insolent parish priests, who in his turn kissed the dust at the feet of an arrogant prelate. The doctrine of Antinaturalism had solved the problem of inflicting the greatest possible amount of misery on the greatest possible number of victims.

C.—PERVERSION.

The puerile supernaturalism of the pagan myth-mongers could not fail to injure their prestige, even in an age of superstition; but theantinaturalismof the Galilean fanatics not only neglected but completely inverted the proper functions of priesthood. The pretended ministers of Truth became her remorseless[235]persecutors; the promised healers depreciated the importance of bodily health, the hoped-for apostles of social reform preached the doctrine of renunciation. We should not judge the Christian clergy by the aberrations engendered by the maddening influence of protracted persecutions. It would be equally unfair to give them the credit of latter-day reforms, reluctantly conceded to the demands of rationalism. But we can with perfect fairness judge them by the standard of the moral and intellectual types evolved during the period of their plenary power, the three hundred years from the tenth to the end of the thirteenth century, when the control of morals and education had been unconditionally surrendered into the hands of their chosen representatives. The comparative scale of human turpitude must not include the creations of fiction. We might find ane plus ultraof infamy in the satires of Rabelais, in the myths of Hindostan, or the burlesques of the modern French dramatists. But if we confine our comparison to the records of authentic history, it would be no exaggeration to say that during the period named the type of a Christian priest represented the absolute extreme of all the groveling ignorance, the meanest selfishness, the rankest sloth, the basest servility, the foulest perfidy, the grossest superstition, the most bestial sensuality, to which the majesty of human nature has ever been degraded. Thousands of monasteries fattened on the toil of starving peasants. Villages were beggared by the rapacity of the tithe-gatherer; cities were terrorized by witch-hunts andautos-da-fé. The crimps of the inquisitorial[236]tribunals hired spies and suborned perjurers by promising them a share of confiscated estates. The evidence of intellectual pursuits was equivalent to a sentence of death. Education was almost limited to the memorizing of chants and prayers. “A cloud of ignorance,” says Hallam, “overspread the whole face of the church, hardly broken by a few glimmering lights who owe almost the whole of their distinction to the surrounding darkness.… In 992, it was asserted that scarcely a single person was to be found, even in Rome itself, who knew the first elements of letters. Not one priest of a thousand in Spain could address a common letter of salutation to another.” Every deathbed became a harvest-field of clerical vampires who did not hesitate to bully the dying into robbing their children for the benefit of a bloated convent. Herds of howling fanatics roamed the country, frenzying the superstitious rustics with their predictions of impending horrors. Parishioners had to submit to the base avarice and the baser lusts of insolent parish priests, who in his turn kissed the dust at the feet of an arrogant prelate. The doctrine of Antinaturalism had solved the problem of inflicting the greatest possible amount of misery on the greatest possible number of victims.

The puerile supernaturalism of the pagan myth-mongers could not fail to injure their prestige, even in an age of superstition; but theantinaturalismof the Galilean fanatics not only neglected but completely inverted the proper functions of priesthood. The pretended ministers of Truth became her remorseless[235]persecutors; the promised healers depreciated the importance of bodily health, the hoped-for apostles of social reform preached the doctrine of renunciation. We should not judge the Christian clergy by the aberrations engendered by the maddening influence of protracted persecutions. It would be equally unfair to give them the credit of latter-day reforms, reluctantly conceded to the demands of rationalism. But we can with perfect fairness judge them by the standard of the moral and intellectual types evolved during the period of their plenary power, the three hundred years from the tenth to the end of the thirteenth century, when the control of morals and education had been unconditionally surrendered into the hands of their chosen representatives. The comparative scale of human turpitude must not include the creations of fiction. We might find ane plus ultraof infamy in the satires of Rabelais, in the myths of Hindostan, or the burlesques of the modern French dramatists. But if we confine our comparison to the records of authentic history, it would be no exaggeration to say that during the period named the type of a Christian priest represented the absolute extreme of all the groveling ignorance, the meanest selfishness, the rankest sloth, the basest servility, the foulest perfidy, the grossest superstition, the most bestial sensuality, to which the majesty of human nature has ever been degraded. Thousands of monasteries fattened on the toil of starving peasants. Villages were beggared by the rapacity of the tithe-gatherer; cities were terrorized by witch-hunts andautos-da-fé. The crimps of the inquisitorial[236]tribunals hired spies and suborned perjurers by promising them a share of confiscated estates. The evidence of intellectual pursuits was equivalent to a sentence of death. Education was almost limited to the memorizing of chants and prayers. “A cloud of ignorance,” says Hallam, “overspread the whole face of the church, hardly broken by a few glimmering lights who owe almost the whole of their distinction to the surrounding darkness.… In 992, it was asserted that scarcely a single person was to be found, even in Rome itself, who knew the first elements of letters. Not one priest of a thousand in Spain could address a common letter of salutation to another.” Every deathbed became a harvest-field of clerical vampires who did not hesitate to bully the dying into robbing their children for the benefit of a bloated convent. Herds of howling fanatics roamed the country, frenzying the superstitious rustics with their predictions of impending horrors. Parishioners had to submit to the base avarice and the baser lusts of insolent parish priests, who in his turn kissed the dust at the feet of an arrogant prelate. The doctrine of Antinaturalism had solved the problem of inflicting the greatest possible amount of misery on the greatest possible number of victims.

[Contents]D.—PENALTIES OF NEGLECT.The intellectual interregnum of the Middle Ages, the era of specters and vampires, received the first promise of dawn about the middle of the fourteenth century, when the lessons of the Crusades and the influence of Moorish civilization began to react on[237]the nations of Christian Europe. Yet, by methods of their own, the vampires succeeded in prolonging the dreadful night. They set their owls a-shrieking from a thousand pulpits; they darkened the air with the smoke-clouds ofautos-da-fé. They treated every torch-bearer as an incendiary.But though the delay of redemption completed the ruin of some of their victims, the ghouls did not escape the deserved retribution. Their fire alarms failed to avert the brightening dawn. Daylight found its way even through the painted glass of dome-windows, and in the open air the blood-suckers had to take wing on pain of being shaken off and trampled under foot. The slaves of Hayti never rose more fiercely against their French tyrants than the German peasants against their clerical oppressor. From Antwerp to Leipzig thousands of convents were leveled with the ground; the villages of Holland, Minden, and Brunswick joined in a general priest-hunt, carried on with all the cruelties which the man-hunters of the Frankish crusade had inflicted on the pagan Saxons. In the Mediterranean Peninsulas the Jesuits were expelled as enemies of public peace, and their colleagues could maintain themselves only by an alliance with despotism against the liberal and intellectual elements of their country. To patriots of the Garibaldi type the name of a priest has become a byword implying the very quintessence of infamy. The explosion of the French Revolution struck a still deadlier blow at clerical prestige. The fagot-arguments of the Holy Inquisition were answered by[238]a “burning, as in hell-fire, of priestly shams and lies,” and not one out of twenty French monasteries escaped the fury of the avengers. Our Protestant clergymen see their temple walls cracked by a breach of ever-multiplying schisms, and can prop their prestige only by more and more humiliating concessions, and in every intelligent community have to purchase popularity by rank heresies against the dogmas of their predecessors. Here and there the orthodox tenets of the New Testament have survived the progress of rationalism, but haunt the shade, like specters scenting the morning air, and momentarily expecting the summons that shall banish them to the realms of their native night.

D.—PENALTIES OF NEGLECT.

The intellectual interregnum of the Middle Ages, the era of specters and vampires, received the first promise of dawn about the middle of the fourteenth century, when the lessons of the Crusades and the influence of Moorish civilization began to react on[237]the nations of Christian Europe. Yet, by methods of their own, the vampires succeeded in prolonging the dreadful night. They set their owls a-shrieking from a thousand pulpits; they darkened the air with the smoke-clouds ofautos-da-fé. They treated every torch-bearer as an incendiary.But though the delay of redemption completed the ruin of some of their victims, the ghouls did not escape the deserved retribution. Their fire alarms failed to avert the brightening dawn. Daylight found its way even through the painted glass of dome-windows, and in the open air the blood-suckers had to take wing on pain of being shaken off and trampled under foot. The slaves of Hayti never rose more fiercely against their French tyrants than the German peasants against their clerical oppressor. From Antwerp to Leipzig thousands of convents were leveled with the ground; the villages of Holland, Minden, and Brunswick joined in a general priest-hunt, carried on with all the cruelties which the man-hunters of the Frankish crusade had inflicted on the pagan Saxons. In the Mediterranean Peninsulas the Jesuits were expelled as enemies of public peace, and their colleagues could maintain themselves only by an alliance with despotism against the liberal and intellectual elements of their country. To patriots of the Garibaldi type the name of a priest has become a byword implying the very quintessence of infamy. The explosion of the French Revolution struck a still deadlier blow at clerical prestige. The fagot-arguments of the Holy Inquisition were answered by[238]a “burning, as in hell-fire, of priestly shams and lies,” and not one out of twenty French monasteries escaped the fury of the avengers. Our Protestant clergymen see their temple walls cracked by a breach of ever-multiplying schisms, and can prop their prestige only by more and more humiliating concessions, and in every intelligent community have to purchase popularity by rank heresies against the dogmas of their predecessors. Here and there the orthodox tenets of the New Testament have survived the progress of rationalism, but haunt the shade, like specters scenting the morning air, and momentarily expecting the summons that shall banish them to the realms of their native night.

The intellectual interregnum of the Middle Ages, the era of specters and vampires, received the first promise of dawn about the middle of the fourteenth century, when the lessons of the Crusades and the influence of Moorish civilization began to react on[237]the nations of Christian Europe. Yet, by methods of their own, the vampires succeeded in prolonging the dreadful night. They set their owls a-shrieking from a thousand pulpits; they darkened the air with the smoke-clouds ofautos-da-fé. They treated every torch-bearer as an incendiary.

But though the delay of redemption completed the ruin of some of their victims, the ghouls did not escape the deserved retribution. Their fire alarms failed to avert the brightening dawn. Daylight found its way even through the painted glass of dome-windows, and in the open air the blood-suckers had to take wing on pain of being shaken off and trampled under foot. The slaves of Hayti never rose more fiercely against their French tyrants than the German peasants against their clerical oppressor. From Antwerp to Leipzig thousands of convents were leveled with the ground; the villages of Holland, Minden, and Brunswick joined in a general priest-hunt, carried on with all the cruelties which the man-hunters of the Frankish crusade had inflicted on the pagan Saxons. In the Mediterranean Peninsulas the Jesuits were expelled as enemies of public peace, and their colleagues could maintain themselves only by an alliance with despotism against the liberal and intellectual elements of their country. To patriots of the Garibaldi type the name of a priest has become a byword implying the very quintessence of infamy. The explosion of the French Revolution struck a still deadlier blow at clerical prestige. The fagot-arguments of the Holy Inquisition were answered by[238]a “burning, as in hell-fire, of priestly shams and lies,” and not one out of twenty French monasteries escaped the fury of the avengers. Our Protestant clergymen see their temple walls cracked by a breach of ever-multiplying schisms, and can prop their prestige only by more and more humiliating concessions, and in every intelligent community have to purchase popularity by rank heresies against the dogmas of their predecessors. Here and there the orthodox tenets of the New Testament have survived the progress of rationalism, but haunt the shade, like specters scenting the morning air, and momentarily expecting the summons that shall banish them to the realms of their native night.

[Contents]E.—REFORM.When the harbinger of day dispels the specters of darkness, half-awakened sleepers often mourn the fading visions of dreamland, as they would mourn the memories of a vanished world, till they find that the solid earth still remains, with its mountains and forests, and that the enjoyment of real life has but just begun. With a similar regret the dupes of Jesuitism mourn the collapse of their creed and lament the decline of morality, till they find that religion still remains, with its consolations and hopes, and that the true work of redemption has but just begun.The reign of superstition begins to yield to a religion of reason and humanity. The first forerunners of that religion appeared at the end of the sixteenth century, when the philosophers of northern Europe[239]first dared to appeal from dogma to nature, and since that revival of common-sense the prison walls of clerical obscurantism have been shaken by shock after shock, till daylight now enters through a thousand fissures.But Secularism has a positive as well as a negative mission, and after removing the ruins of exploded idols, the champions of reform will begin the work of reconstruction. Temples dedicated to the religion of progress will rise from the ruins of superstition. Communities of reformants will intrust the work of education to chosen teachers, who will combine the functions of an instructor with those of an exhorter. In the languages of several European nations the word “rector” still bears that twofold significance. The ministers of Secularism will not sacrifice physical health to mental culture. They will begymnasiarchs, like the Grecian pedagogues who superintended the athletic exercises of their pupils and accompanied them on foot journeys and hunting excursions. They will be teachers of hygiene, laboring to secure the foundations of mental energy by the preservation of physical vigor, and to banish diseases by the removal of their causes. They will seek to circumscribe the power of prejudice by the extension of knowledge. They will obviate the perils of poverty by lessons of industry and prudence. Their doctrines will dispense with miracles; they will make experience the test of truth, and justice the test of integrity; they will not suppress, but encourage, free inquiry; their war against error will employ no weapons but those of logic.[240]The religion of reason will limit its proper sphere to the secular welfare of mankind, but will ask, as well as grant, the fullest freedom of metaphysical speculation. Why should the friends of light darken the sunshine of earth with fanatical wars for the suppression of private theories about the mystery of the unrevealed first cause? Why should they rage about the riddle of the veiled hereafter to please the ordainer of the eternal law that visits such inexorable penalties upon the neglect of the present world? Should the friends of common sense quarrel about guesses at the solution of unknowable secrets? We need not grudge our wonder-loving brother the luxury of meditating on the mysteries of the unseen or the possibilities of resurrection. Shall the soul of the dying patriarch live only in his children? Shall it wing its way to distant stars? Shall it linger on earth:“Sigh in the breeze, keep silence in the cave,And glide with airy foot o’er yonder sea?”Why should we wrangle about riddles which we cannot possibly solve? But we might certainly have honesty enough to admit that impossibility. Musing on the enigmas of the “land beyond the veil” may entertain us with the visions of a dreamy hour, but should not engross the time needed for the problems of the only world thus far revealed.Thus, founded on a basis of health-culture, reason, and justice, the office of priesthood will regain its ancient prestige, and the best and wisest of men will become ministers of Secularism by devoting their lives to the science of happiness on earth.[241]

E.—REFORM.

When the harbinger of day dispels the specters of darkness, half-awakened sleepers often mourn the fading visions of dreamland, as they would mourn the memories of a vanished world, till they find that the solid earth still remains, with its mountains and forests, and that the enjoyment of real life has but just begun. With a similar regret the dupes of Jesuitism mourn the collapse of their creed and lament the decline of morality, till they find that religion still remains, with its consolations and hopes, and that the true work of redemption has but just begun.The reign of superstition begins to yield to a religion of reason and humanity. The first forerunners of that religion appeared at the end of the sixteenth century, when the philosophers of northern Europe[239]first dared to appeal from dogma to nature, and since that revival of common-sense the prison walls of clerical obscurantism have been shaken by shock after shock, till daylight now enters through a thousand fissures.But Secularism has a positive as well as a negative mission, and after removing the ruins of exploded idols, the champions of reform will begin the work of reconstruction. Temples dedicated to the religion of progress will rise from the ruins of superstition. Communities of reformants will intrust the work of education to chosen teachers, who will combine the functions of an instructor with those of an exhorter. In the languages of several European nations the word “rector” still bears that twofold significance. The ministers of Secularism will not sacrifice physical health to mental culture. They will begymnasiarchs, like the Grecian pedagogues who superintended the athletic exercises of their pupils and accompanied them on foot journeys and hunting excursions. They will be teachers of hygiene, laboring to secure the foundations of mental energy by the preservation of physical vigor, and to banish diseases by the removal of their causes. They will seek to circumscribe the power of prejudice by the extension of knowledge. They will obviate the perils of poverty by lessons of industry and prudence. Their doctrines will dispense with miracles; they will make experience the test of truth, and justice the test of integrity; they will not suppress, but encourage, free inquiry; their war against error will employ no weapons but those of logic.[240]The religion of reason will limit its proper sphere to the secular welfare of mankind, but will ask, as well as grant, the fullest freedom of metaphysical speculation. Why should the friends of light darken the sunshine of earth with fanatical wars for the suppression of private theories about the mystery of the unrevealed first cause? Why should they rage about the riddle of the veiled hereafter to please the ordainer of the eternal law that visits such inexorable penalties upon the neglect of the present world? Should the friends of common sense quarrel about guesses at the solution of unknowable secrets? We need not grudge our wonder-loving brother the luxury of meditating on the mysteries of the unseen or the possibilities of resurrection. Shall the soul of the dying patriarch live only in his children? Shall it wing its way to distant stars? Shall it linger on earth:“Sigh in the breeze, keep silence in the cave,And glide with airy foot o’er yonder sea?”Why should we wrangle about riddles which we cannot possibly solve? But we might certainly have honesty enough to admit that impossibility. Musing on the enigmas of the “land beyond the veil” may entertain us with the visions of a dreamy hour, but should not engross the time needed for the problems of the only world thus far revealed.Thus, founded on a basis of health-culture, reason, and justice, the office of priesthood will regain its ancient prestige, and the best and wisest of men will become ministers of Secularism by devoting their lives to the science of happiness on earth.[241]

When the harbinger of day dispels the specters of darkness, half-awakened sleepers often mourn the fading visions of dreamland, as they would mourn the memories of a vanished world, till they find that the solid earth still remains, with its mountains and forests, and that the enjoyment of real life has but just begun. With a similar regret the dupes of Jesuitism mourn the collapse of their creed and lament the decline of morality, till they find that religion still remains, with its consolations and hopes, and that the true work of redemption has but just begun.

The reign of superstition begins to yield to a religion of reason and humanity. The first forerunners of that religion appeared at the end of the sixteenth century, when the philosophers of northern Europe[239]first dared to appeal from dogma to nature, and since that revival of common-sense the prison walls of clerical obscurantism have been shaken by shock after shock, till daylight now enters through a thousand fissures.

But Secularism has a positive as well as a negative mission, and after removing the ruins of exploded idols, the champions of reform will begin the work of reconstruction. Temples dedicated to the religion of progress will rise from the ruins of superstition. Communities of reformants will intrust the work of education to chosen teachers, who will combine the functions of an instructor with those of an exhorter. In the languages of several European nations the word “rector” still bears that twofold significance. The ministers of Secularism will not sacrifice physical health to mental culture. They will begymnasiarchs, like the Grecian pedagogues who superintended the athletic exercises of their pupils and accompanied them on foot journeys and hunting excursions. They will be teachers of hygiene, laboring to secure the foundations of mental energy by the preservation of physical vigor, and to banish diseases by the removal of their causes. They will seek to circumscribe the power of prejudice by the extension of knowledge. They will obviate the perils of poverty by lessons of industry and prudence. Their doctrines will dispense with miracles; they will make experience the test of truth, and justice the test of integrity; they will not suppress, but encourage, free inquiry; their war against error will employ no weapons but those of logic.[240]

The religion of reason will limit its proper sphere to the secular welfare of mankind, but will ask, as well as grant, the fullest freedom of metaphysical speculation. Why should the friends of light darken the sunshine of earth with fanatical wars for the suppression of private theories about the mystery of the unrevealed first cause? Why should they rage about the riddle of the veiled hereafter to please the ordainer of the eternal law that visits such inexorable penalties upon the neglect of the present world? Should the friends of common sense quarrel about guesses at the solution of unknowable secrets? We need not grudge our wonder-loving brother the luxury of meditating on the mysteries of the unseen or the possibilities of resurrection. Shall the soul of the dying patriarch live only in his children? Shall it wing its way to distant stars? Shall it linger on earth:

“Sigh in the breeze, keep silence in the cave,And glide with airy foot o’er yonder sea?”

“Sigh in the breeze, keep silence in the cave,

And glide with airy foot o’er yonder sea?”

Why should we wrangle about riddles which we cannot possibly solve? But we might certainly have honesty enough to admit that impossibility. Musing on the enigmas of the “land beyond the veil” may entertain us with the visions of a dreamy hour, but should not engross the time needed for the problems of the only world thus far revealed.

Thus, founded on a basis of health-culture, reason, and justice, the office of priesthood will regain its ancient prestige, and the best and wisest of men will become ministers of Secularism by devoting their lives to the science of happiness on earth.[241]

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