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 COEVRIGHT DEPOSIT. 
 
REPRESENTATIVE 
 
 ESSAYS IN 
 MODERN THOUGHT 
 
 A Basis for Composition 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 HARRISON ROSS STEEVES, A.M. 
 
 INSTRUCTOR IN ENGLISH IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 
 AND 
 
 FRANK HUMPHREY RISTINE, Ph.D 
 
 ACTING PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 
 IN HAMILTON COLLEGE 
 
 NEW YORK •:• CINCINNATI •:• CHICAGO 
 
 AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 
 
■i-^ 
 
 ^^^<=.-\ 
 
 Copyright, 1913, by 
 H. E. STEEVE8 AND F. H. RISTINE 
 
 Copyright, 1913, in Great Britain. 
 
 representative essays 
 W. P. I 
 
 ©CLA330978 
 
PREFACE 
 
 In presenting this volume to teachers of English composi- 
 tion, the editors realize that it can hardly fail to suffer from 
 the suspicion of novelty which confronts new publications in a 
 conservative educational field. It is hoped, however, that ini- 
 tial distrust of the book because of its novelty will not outlive a 
 fair trial of the methods and materials which it offers. This 
 hope is based upon successful experiment with much of the sub- 
 stance of the volume among students as varied and as cosmo- 
 politan as the undergraduates in Columbia College, and upon 
 the generous and often enthusiastic support that the underlying 
 idea has received from prominent educators throughout the 
 country who have had occasion to pass judgment upon its value. 
 
 In the preparation of the collection for classroom use we 
 have prefixed to each essay a brief introductory note intended 
 to give relevant biographical facts and to assist the student to 
 an understanding of the design of the work. In addition, where 
 suggestions as to other material of direct bearing upon the sub- 
 ject under discussion seemed to us to be of value for collateral 
 reading, we have included references to such writings. Some 
 of the authors' footnotes to the essays have been omitted as 
 foreign to the purpose of the book, and others have been sup- 
 plied wherever the text seemed to require elucidation or inter- 
 pretation. Our principle has been, however, to restrict the 
 formal teaching apparatus of the volume to the general intro- 
 duction, and to encumber the selections themselves with the 
 minimum of annotation. In the printing of the essays we 
 have followed accurately the original forms, retaining sub-titles 
 and numbered divisions where these were essential to the 
 logical arrangement of the essay. 
 
 This volume includes substantially the essays which, when 
 we first discussed the plan of publication, we chose tentatively 
 
iv PREFACE 
 
 as the most available for our purpose. That what seemed to 
 us the ideal plan should be brought to completion with scarcely 
 a modification is for us a matter for special gratitude, since any 
 effort to reproduce on an extensive scale writings still in copy- 
 right must be conditioned largely upon the generosity of pub- 
 lishers. Our thanks for publishing privileges, therefore, are 
 emphatically more than formal. We have been enabled to 
 use copyright material through the kindness of Mr. Henry 
 James, Jr., Dr. Dole, Mr. Mallock, Professor Hobhouse, Pro- 
 fessor Clark, President Hadley, and Mr. Harrison; and by the 
 permission of Messrs. D. Appleton and Company, Henry Holt 
 and Company, Longmans, Green, and Company, John Murray, 
 The Macmillan Company, the American Association for Inter- 
 national Conciliation, the Fortnightly Review, the Harvard Theo- 
 logical Review, and the Atlantic Monthly. We desire also to 
 express our acknowledgments to Viscount Morley and Dr. 
 Alfred Russel Wallace, and to Macmillan and Company (Lon- 
 don), the Popular Science Monthly, the Contemporary Review, 
 and the Edinburgh Co-operative Printing Company Limited. 
 
 The task of selecting the essays and preparing the collection 
 for publication has been materially lightened by the friendly 
 cooperation of a number of our colleagues who have interested 
 themselves in the undertaking. We are under special obliga- 
 tion to Professor John Erskine, to whom in large measure the 
 credit for the educational program must be given, and who has 
 aided our work with many helpful suggestions. Others to whom 
 we have been indebted for advice and active interest are Pro- 
 fessor Frederick J. E. Woodbridge, Professor Herbert G. Lord, 
 Professor Ashley H. Thorndike, Professor Robert A. Harper, 
 Professor Monroe Smith, Mr. Frederick P. Keppel, Dean of 
 Columbia College, Professor Joseph V. Denney, of Ohio State 
 University, Dr. Carl Van Doren, Mr. John J. Coss, and Dr. 
 
 Ernest Stagg Whitin. 
 
 H. R. S. 
 F. H. R. 
 
 Columbia University, 
 June, 191 2. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction vii 
 
 I. Matthew Arnold : Sweetness and Light . . . i 
 
 II. Thomas Henry Huxley : Science and Culture . . 28 
 
 III. William Kingdon Clifford : The Ethics of Belief . 46 
 
 IV. William James : The Will to Believe . . . .73 
 V. John Stuart Mill : Of the Liberty of Thought and 
 
 Discussion 98 
 
 VI. John Morley : Of the Possible Utility of Error . 141 
 VII. William Hurrel Mallock : The Scientific Bases of 
 
 Optimism 163 
 
 VIII. Thomas Henry Huxley : Darwin on the Origin of 
 
 Species 199 
 
 IX. Alfred Russel Wallace : Darwinism as applied to 
 
 Man 238 
 
 X. John Tyndall : The Belfast Address . . . .272 
 
 XL Charles Fletcher Dole : Truth and Immortality . 321 
 
 XII. Leonard Trelawney Hobhouse : Law and Justice . 341 
 
 XIII. Henry Sumner Maine : The Prospects of Popular 
 
 Government 376 
 
 XIV. Arthur Twining Hadley : Ethics of Corporate Man- 
 
 agement 412 
 
 XV. William Morris : The Labor Question from the So- 
 cialist Standpoint 430 
 
 XVI. John Bates Clark : Education and the Socialist Move- 
 ment .......... 454 
 
 XVII. John Stuart Mill : The Subjection of Women . . 470 
 
 XVIII. Frederic Harrison : The Future of Woman . . 502 
 
 XIX. William James : The Moral Equivalent of War . 519 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 This book has been compiled under the conviction that 
 composition can be taught more effectively with ideas 
 rather than with literary models or set exercises as the point 
 of departure. That this conviction is opposed to some 
 time-honored ideas of composition, the editors are fully 
 aware. They are also aware that most teachers are agreed 
 that the old methods of teaching composition are unsatis- 
 factory ; and it is the prevalence of this opinion which 
 lends support to the belief that a book presenting a new 
 method of handling the subject of composition ought not 
 to be unwelcome, especially if the method has been tried 
 successfully for some time at a representative university. 
 
 To many it must seem that one obvious reason for the 
 failure of the older methods to accomplish the best results 
 lies in the inadequacy of the material commonly employed 
 in composition courses. This material usually consists of 
 literary selections, which, for students of the age and train- 
 ing of the average freshman, generally fail to sustain in- 
 terest ; or it descends to trivialities, in overworking, fre- 
 quently by the "daily theme" method, the small concerns 
 of school or outside life. 
 
 In the behef that a new and more stimulating subject 
 matter was desirable, we endeavored a few years ago at 
 Columbia University to provide material which when used 
 as a basis for composition would serve the purpose of not 
 merely developing a formal accuracy in writing, but of 
 expanding the student's ideas and increasing the number 
 
viii INTRODUCTION 
 
 of his points of contact with vital questions. In selecting 
 more or less classic approaches to such provinces as biol- 
 ogy, philosophy, modern politics, sociology, and practical 
 religion, we relied upon the student's desire to know what 
 fields of knowledge He before him in his academic work, and 
 we relied upon his natural curiosity in questions which, 
 once presented, challenge him, as they challenge everybody, 
 for answers. The only real problems were : first, to find 
 material sufficiently simple and concrete in presentation to 
 insure its fitness for this special period of intellectual 
 development ; and second, to make this material available 
 in a single volume, as naturally the Hbrary facilities were 
 overtaxed to provide a large number of students simultane- 
 ously with the required reading. 
 
 The result of our experiments with this subject matter 
 at Columbia during the past two years has been an im- 
 mediate and emphatic response to the stimulating interest 
 of the questions taken up, once the students had adjusted 
 themselves to the idea. There was scarcely an essay in 
 the course which had not an appearance of forbidding 
 profundity, or which did not seem to presuppose a more 
 special knowledge of a particular field than the average 
 freshman has mastered. But if the writing possessed 
 sufficient irritancy to start speculation over the question 
 presented, the initial objection to profundity disappeared 
 and left the student convinced that his own common 
 sense and reasoning powers were sufficient equipment for an 
 approach to any of the subjects offered. 
 
 The selection of this series of essays as subject matter 
 for a course in English composition does not necessarily 
 restrict the essays to that use, as the cultural relations of 
 the material are sufficiently broad to adapt it to many 
 educational ends. The important fact is that in our mod- 
 
INTRODUCTION ix 
 
 ern college curriculums adequate provision is seldom made 
 for allowing the student's stock of ideas on vital ques- 
 tions an opportunity for better organization and greater 
 expansion, or for orienting him in the field of collegiate 
 studies. Possibly much of the diffuseness and ineffective- 
 ness of the elective system may be traced to this very condi- 
 tion. It may not be the particular province of the English 
 department to remedy these deficiencies, but it seems clear 
 that since teachers of Enghsh are so frequently obhged 
 to go hunting for subject matter, such an opportunity 
 may profitably be accepted, particularly if it serve the 
 purpose of accomplishing two important educational ends 
 at once. With the general and commendable tendency to 
 establish a definite coordination between the various sub- 
 jects of undergraduate study, however, there can be little 
 question that whether the "course in ideas" is given as phi- 
 losophy, history, English, or as the growingly popular general 
 culture course, in any event it has a place of profound value 
 in the college curriculum, and is probably most beneficial 
 when presented as one of the first steps in the student's work. 
 A device which experience has shown to be very successful 
 has been followed all but uniformly throughout the present 
 volume. Whenever a problem has been introduced about 
 which " much may be said on both sides," two typical essays, 
 representing the two points of view, have been offered. For 
 this reason Arnold's Sweetness and Light, which upholds the 
 traditional classical culture, is opposed to Huxley's Science 
 and Culture, which defends the viewpoint of modern science. 
 W. K. Clifford's Ethics of Belief, emphasizing scientific 
 skepticism as a moral obligation, is followed by Professor 
 James's Will to Believe, which justifies the acceptance with- 
 out proof of religious behefs. Huxley's Darwinian essay and 
 Tyndall's Belfast Address, both of which at least suggest a 
 
X INTRODUCTION 
 
 materialistic philosophy, are contrasted with Dr. Dole's 
 Truth and Immortality, a reasoned argument for belief in a 
 future life. The two essays on socialism and the two on 
 the present position of women afford similar contrasts in 
 treatment. Such a grouping of mutually opposed con- 
 structive ideas is of course emphatically more stimulating 
 both to the imagination and the reason than the presentation 
 of one side of questions which have been historically matters 
 of dispute. In the case of such works, however, as Mr. 
 Mallock's Scientific Bases of Optimism, a criticism of a typi- 
 cally modern philosophical position, and Sir Henry Sumner 
 Maine's Prospects of Popular Government, a British analysis 
 of the institution of democracy, the issues defined are aca- 
 demic rather than popular, and are presented with so much 
 originality and force that they are probably sufficient in 
 themselves to establish the high interest of the questions with 
 which they deal, without the risk of cultivating prejudices. 
 Since this volume may represent a new and unfamiliar 
 educational program to many, a word as to our method of 
 handling these essays as materials for composition may not 
 be out of order. In the first place, it has been our custom 
 to use this reading for the second half of the freshman year, 
 and to prepare the way for this term's work by composition 
 drill during the first term, by impromptu themes written in 
 class and based upon assigned selections that give oppor- 
 tunity for an understanding of the methods of scientific in- 
 quiry. An effective method of approach in this first term lies 
 in the use of historical memoirs, autobiography, books of 
 the Bible, and literary works of historical flavor, for the 
 purpose of establishing inductively some primary concep- 
 tions of social, political, and moral evolution. A variety of 
 material of this sort will immediately suggest itself : for ex- 
 ample, Homer, Sophocles, or iEschylus ; Plutarch's Lives ; the 
 
INTRODUCTION xi 
 
 less intricate dialogues of Plato, such as the Protagoras ; 
 Norse sagas — or decently faithful reproductions of their 
 spirit, as Morris's Lovers of Gudrun; parts of CeUini's auto- 
 biography ; Chesterfield's Letters, — anything which depicts 
 vividly the influence of custom upon ideas and actions. We 
 have been accustomed to alternate this reading with literary 
 work less familiar to the average student, and generally less in 
 literary pretentiousness than that which his forced prepara- 
 tory school instruction has brought him to respect — and some- 
 times to detest — without clear reason. Works of this class 
 might include the more unfamiliar plays of Shakespeare ; 
 simple narrative poems like Wordsworth's Michael and Ten- 
 nyson's Enoch Arden; the Ingoldshy Legends ; novels which 
 invite discussion, like Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, David 
 Balfour, Sentimental Tommy ; even the less philosophical of 
 the novels of Meredith or Hardy — • The Ordeal of Richard 
 Feverel, or The Mayor of Casterhridge. The effect of this 
 infusion of lighter literature is to eUminate the student's 
 sense of strangeness in a new field by enlarging at the same 
 time his knowledge of a field in which he already feels some 
 degree of acquaintance. 
 
 With this foundation, then, established during the first 
 term, we find the student relieved more or less of the 
 tendency to argue and think upon presumptive grounds, and 
 generally receptive to the discussion of questions which 
 touch his inner life and his relations to men and institu- 
 tions. 
 
 In the second term's work we have been accustomed to as- 
 sign one piece of reading each week, not limiting ourselves 
 to the series of essays printed here — for, once more, this 
 volume merely makes available a number of important es- 
 says which are generally inaccessible to a large body of 
 students — but supplementing our special inquiry with ma- 
 
xii INTRODUCTION 
 
 terial from the more purely literary field, as it may seem 
 expedient. Large possibilities in this direction may be seen 
 in both the highways and byways of literature of the late 
 nineteenth century, in poems such as Tennyson's In Memo- 
 riam, ia modern editorials or magazine articles, in short 
 stories interpretative of life, such as Hardy's Fellow-Towns- 
 men, Stevenson's Ebb Tide, Kipling's Mowgh stories, or in 
 plays of the most modern of moderns, if the student is kept 
 properly aware of the glamour of the cleverly expressed half 
 truth. 
 
 On each of our weekly assignments we require impromptu 
 themes of about five hundred words, written in the class- 
 room, upon assigned topics which suggest the saHent points 
 of the work under consideration.^ Every effort is made to 
 encourage the student to think for himself and to state his 
 own position on the questions involved. The usual result is 
 that the student discovers, perhaps for the first time, that he 
 has ideas on questions of rehgion, morals, politics, social 
 conduct, and the like, and develops an interest and fluency 
 in expressing them that have been noticeably absent in his 
 previous compositions. With his interest once aroused and 
 his mind free, the frank dislike of composition work too often 
 inspired by distasteful or trivial subject matter may quickly 
 disappear, as well as the self-consciousness in writing that a 
 
 1 The editors have not equipped the essays with suggested topics for 
 themes, beheving that this part of the program should be left to the judg- 
 ment of the teacher in each case. The kind of topics thought most effective, 
 however, for, say, Clifford's Ethics of Belief, may be indicated by the fol- 
 lowing: Why I agree (or disagree) with Clifford. Something from my own ex- 
 perience or observation illustrating the fallacy {or the truth) of one of Clifford's 
 contentions. 
 
 The idea is that the topics should be of such a nature as to allow the stu- 
 dent no opportunity of merely reproducing the argument or substance of 
 the essay, but rather to encourage him to form his own opinions on the ques- 
 tions presented and to give him all possible latitude in expressing them. 
 
INTRODUCTION xiii 
 
 too labored application of rhetorical formulas is apt to 
 develop. 
 
 The following meeting of the class is taken up with a 
 general discussion of the ideas evolved in the writing ; and 
 in this discussion it is not ordinarily necessary to resort to 
 artificial methods of sustaining interest. Such discussions, 
 which are by their nature free, informal, and even intimate, 
 may frequently be pursued into other hours of meeting; 
 but in many cases the necessities of composition work re- 
 quire attention to matters of form — exclusive of mechanical 
 errors, which we beheve should be treated only in individual 
 conferences — and this must inevitably reduce the time 
 devoted to the "ideas" part of the course. Our program of 
 reading and discussion is obviously best adapted to students 
 whose preparatory training in the principles of composi- 
 tion has been adequate. On the other hand, students whose 
 preparation has been deficient should be segregated in a 
 special section and given instruction adapted to their needs, 
 lest their presence in the regular class hinder the profitable 
 employment of the "course in ideas." In the case of stu- 
 dents whose composition is not radically faulty but whose 
 intellectual maturity may be below that of the average fresh- 
 man, discussion of the fundamental problems in the assign- 
 ment might very well precede the writing of the themes. 
 In fact, wherever the substance of the assignment is really 
 profound, or its treatment unusually obscure, an attempt 
 at interpretation or at least clarification of the work is to 
 be recommended as introductory to the writing itself. But 
 whether discussion of the essay precedes or follows the 
 writing, the key to effective understanding is discussion 
 founded upon common sense, and free from even an intima- 
 tion of dogmatic or pedantic assurance. 
 
 This suggested program covers a great deal more material 
 
xiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 than could possibly be utilized to full advantage in a single 
 term's work. We have intimated the extent of the field of 
 choice, however, in the belief that further suggestion may- 
 facilitate the process of selection for the teacher for whom 
 this program is still only experimental. 
 
 It is probably unnecessary to point out that none of the 
 essays in this volume are intended by the editors to represent 
 their judgments upon the issues involved. Whether right 
 or wrong, both conservative and radical points of view have 
 been given. In many cases, however, where a difference of 
 opinion is clearly inevitable, but where the presentation of 
 one side of the question defines the objections that might 
 be urged by the opposition, no effort has been made to ad- 
 here to a systematic impartiality. The purpose of the vol- 
 ume is, after all, to encourage the student to form his own 
 opinions upon proper evidence ; and to this end it is not 
 necessary in every instance to offer him a choice of opinions 
 already formulated. 
 
 Finally, these essays are in many cases not the last word 
 of technical accuracy or theoretical subtlety. What we 
 have sought, and what we believe we have succeeded in se- 
 curing in every work offered here, is a stimulating presenta- 
 tion, sufficiently general and dignified in its handling of the 
 apparent truth to lay just claim to permanent esteem, even 
 though, in some cases, later intellectual progress may 
 demonstrate the work to be partially deficient in method 
 or in scientific detail. 
 
REPRESENTATIVE ESSAYS IN MODERN 
 THOUGHT: A BASIS FOR COMPOSITION 
 
 SWEETNESS AND LIGHT 
 Matthew Arnold 
 
 [Matthew Arnold (1822-1888), son of the famous educator, Dr. Thomas 
 Arnold, is well known as a poet, but more particularly as a critic of litera- 
 ture, religion, politics, and society, and as the foremost apostle of culture 
 and champion of classical education in a scientific and materiahstic age. 
 
 The following essay is admirably illustrative of this latter phase of his 
 activity, and is the recognized classic exposition of the humanist point of 
 view. In it Arnold sets forth his ideal of culture as the panacea for the 
 social evils of the time and as the means of attaining a harmonious and equal 
 development of all those powers in man that are essential for perfect human 
 nature. This view of culture underlies Arnold's protest, set forth later in 
 Literature and Science, against the growing movement of the age to exalt the 
 sciences over the humanities in education. Arnold, while not bhnd to the 
 importance of modern scientific truth, maintains that the pursuit of science 
 tends toward a one-sided development and leaves man with the greater part 
 of his nature unawakened and as unprepared as ever for the practical duty 
 of living a harmonious, well balanced, and perfected human life, which the 
 study of the classics and the old humanities alone can bring about. This 
 contention is answered in the next selection by Huxley, who upholds the 
 cultural and educational value of the physical sciences. 
 
 Sweetness and Light was delivered as Arnold's last lecture in the chair 
 of poetry at Oxford, and first appeared in the Cornhill Magazine for July, 
 1867, under the title Culture and Its Etiemies. In 1869 it was pubhshed 
 in book form as the opening chapter of the volume Culture and Anarchy.] 
 
 The disparagers of culture make its motive curiosity; some- 
 times, indeed, they make its motive mere exclusiveness and 
 vanity. The culture which is supposed to plume itself on a 
 smattering of Greek and Latin is a culture which is begotten by 
 
2 MATTHEW ARNOLD 
 
 nothing so intellectual as curiosity ; it is valued either out of 
 sheer vanity and ignorance or else as an engine of social and 
 class distinction, separating its holder, like a badge or title, from 
 other people who have not got it. No serious man would call 
 this culture, or attach any value to it, as culture, at all. To find 
 the real ground for the very differing estimate which serious 
 people will set upon culture, we must find some motive for 
 culture in the terms of which may lie a real ambiguity ; and such 
 a motive the word curiosity gives us. 
 
 I have before now pointed out that we English do not, like the 
 foreigners, use this word in a good sense as well as in a bad sense. 
 With us the word is always used in a somewhat disapproving 
 sense. A liberal and intelligent eagerness about the things of the 
 mind may be meant by a foreigner when he speaks of curiosity, 
 but with us the word always conveys a certain notion of frivolous 
 and unedifying activity. In the Quarterly Review, some little 
 time ago, was an estimate of the celebrated French critic, M. 
 Sainte-Beuve, and a very inadequate estimate it in my judgment 
 was. And its inadequacy consisted chiefly in this : that in our 
 EngUsh way it left out of sight the double sense really involved 
 in the word curiosity, thinking enough was said to stamp M. 
 Sainte-Beuve with blame if it was said that he was impelled in 
 his operations as a critic by curiosity, and omitting either to 
 perceive that M. Sainte-Beuve himself, and many other people 
 with him, would consider that this was praiseworthy and not 
 blameworthy, or to point out why it ought really to be accounted 
 worthy of blame and not of praise. For as there is a curiosity 
 about intellectual matters which is futile, and merely a disease, 
 so there is certainly a curiosity, — a desire after the things of the 
 mind simply for their own sakes and for the pleasure of seeing 
 them as they are, — which is, in an intelligent being, natural 
 and laudable. Nay, and the very desire to see things as they are 
 implies a balance and regulation of mind which is not often 
 attained without fruitful effort, and which is the very opposite of 
 the blind and diseased impulse of mind which is what we mean to 
 blame when we blame curiosity. Montesquieu says : "The first 
 
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT 3 
 
 motive which ought to impel us to study is the desire to augment 
 the excellence of our nature, and to render an intelligent being 
 yet more intelligent." This is the true ground to assign for 
 the genuine scientific passion, however manifested, and for cul- 
 ture, viewed simply as a fruit of this passion ; and it is a worthy 
 ground, even though we let the term curiosity stand to describe 
 it. 
 
 But there is of culture another view, in which not solely the 
 scientific passion, the sheer desire to see things as they are, nat- 
 ural and proper in an intelligent being, appears as the ground of 
 it. There is a view in which all the love of our neighbor, the im- 
 pulses towards action, help, and beneficence, the desire for re- 
 moving human error, clearing human confusion, and diminishing 
 human misery, the noble aspiration to leave the world better and 
 happier than we found it, — motives eminently such as are called 
 social, — come in as part of the grounds of culture, and the main 
 and preeminent part. Culture is then properly described not as 
 having its origin in curiosity, but as having its origin in the love 
 of perfection ; it is a study of perfection. It moves by the force, 
 not merely or primarily of the scientific passion for pure knowl- 
 edge, but also of the moral and social passion for doing good. 
 As, in the first view of it, we took for its worthy motto Montes- 
 quieu's words : "To render an intelligent being yet more intelli- 
 gent ! " so, in the second view of it, there is no better motto which 
 it can have than these words of Bishop Wilson : " To make reason 
 and the will of God prevail !" 
 
 Only, whereas the passion for doing good is apt to be overhasty 
 in determining what reason and the will of God say, because its 
 turn is for acting rather than thinking and it wants to be begin- 
 ning to act ; and whereas it is apt to take its own conceptions, 
 which proceed from its own state of development and share in all 
 the imperfections and immaturities of this, for a basis of action ; 
 what distinguishes culture is, that it is possessed by the scientific 
 passion as well as by the passion of doing good ; that it demands 
 worthy notions of reason and the will of God, and does not readily 
 suffer its own crude conceptions to substitute themselves for 
 
4 MATTHEW ARNOLD 
 
 them. And knowing that no action or institution can be salutary 
 and stable which is not based on reason and the will of God, it is 
 not so bent on acting and instituting, even with the great aim of 
 diminishing human error and misery ever before its thoughts, 
 but that it can remember that acting and instituting are of little 
 use, unless we know how and what we ought to act and to 
 institute. 
 
 This culture is more interesting and more far-reaching than 
 that other, which is founded solely on the scientific passion for 
 knowing. But it needs times of faith and ardor, times when 
 the intellectual horizon is opening and widening all round us, to 
 flourish in. And is not the close and bounded intellectual horizon 
 within which we have long lived and moved now lifting up, and are 
 not new lights finding free passage to shine in upon us? For 
 a long time there was no passage for them to make their way in 
 upon us, and then it was of no use to think of adapting the world's 
 action to them. Where was the hope of making reason and the 
 will of God prevail among people who had a routine which they 
 had christened reason and the will of God, in which they were 
 inextricably bound, and beyond which they had no power of 
 looking ? But now the iron force of adhesion to the old routine, 
 — social, political, religious, — has wonderfully yielded ; the 
 iron force of exclusion of all which is new has wonderfully yielded. 
 The danger now is, not that people should obstinately refuse to 
 allow anything but their old routine to pass for reason and the 
 will of God, but either that they should allow some novelty or 
 other to pass for these too easily, or else that they should under- 
 rate the importance of them altogether, and think it enough to 
 follow action for its own sake, without troubling themselves to 
 make reason and the will of God prevail therein. Now, then, is 
 the moment for culture to be of service, culture which believes 
 in making reason and the will of God prevail, believes in perfec- 
 tion, is the study and pursuit of perfection, and is no longer 
 debarred, by a rigid, invincible exclusion of whatever is new, 
 from getting acceptance for its ideas, simply because they are 
 new. 
 
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT 5 
 
 The moment this view of culture is seized, the moment it is 
 regarded not solely as the endeavor to see things as they are, to 
 draw towards a knowledge of the universal order which seems 
 to be intended and aimed at in the world, and which it is a man's 
 happiness to go along with or his misery to go counter to, — to 
 learn, in short, the will of God, — the moment, I say, culture is 
 considered not merely as the endeavor to see and learn this, but as 
 the endeavor, also, to make it prevail, the moral, social, and be- 
 neficent character of culture becomes manifest. The mere 
 endeavor to see and learn the truth for our own personal 
 satisfaction is indeed a commencement for making it prevail, a 
 preparing the way for this, which always serves this, and is 
 wrongly, therefore, stamped with blame absolutely in itself and 
 not only in its caricature and degeneration. But perhaps it has 
 got stamped with blame, and disparaged with the dubious title of 
 curiosity, because in comparison with this wider endeavor of 
 such great and plain utility it looks selfish, petty, and unprofit- 
 able. 
 
 And religion, the greatest and most important of the efforts 
 by which the human race has manifested its impulse to perfect 
 itself, — religion, that voice of the deepest human experience, — 
 does not only enjoin and sanction the aim which is the great aim of 
 culture, the aim of setting ourselves to ascertain what perfection 
 is and to make it prevail ; but also, in determining generally in 
 what human perfection consists, religion comes to a conclusion 
 identical with that which culture, — seeking the determination 
 of this question through all the voices of human experience 
 which have been heard upon it, of art, science, poetry, philosophy, 
 history, as well as of religion, in order to give a greater fullness 
 and certainty to its solution, — likewise reaches. Religion says : 
 The kingdom of God is within you; and culture, in like manner, 
 places human perfection in an internal condition, in the growth 
 and predominance of our humanity proper, as distinguished from 
 our animality. It places it in the ever increasing efficacy and 
 in the general harmonious expansion of those gifts of thought 
 and feeling which make the peculiar dignity, wealth, and happi- 
 
6 MATTHEW ARNOLD 
 
 ness of human nature. As I have said on a former occasion: 
 "It is in making endless additions to itself, in the endless ex- 
 pansion of its powers, in endless growth in wisdom and beauty, 
 that the spirit of the human race finds its ideal. To reach this 
 ideal, culture is an indispensable aid, and that is the true value 
 of culture." Not a having and a resting, but a growing and a be- 
 coming, is the character of perfection as culture conceives it ; and 
 here, too, it coincides with religion. 
 
 And because men are all members of one great whole, and the 
 sympathy which is in human nature will not allow one member 
 to be indifferent to the rest or to have a perfect welfare indepen- 
 dent of the rest, the expansion of our humanity, to suit the idea 
 of perfection which culture forms, must be a general expansion.* 
 Perfection, as culture conceives it, is not possible while the indi- 
 vidual remains isolated. The individual is required, under pain 
 of being stunted and enfeebled in his own development if he 
 disobeys, to carry others along with him in his march towards 
 perfection, to be continually doing all he can to enlarge and 
 increase the volume of the human stream sweeping thitherward. 
 And here, once more, culture lays on us the same obligation as 
 religion, which says, as Bishop Wilson has admirably put it, 
 that "to promote the kingdom of God is to increase and hasten 
 one's own happiness." 
 
 But, finally, perfection, — as culture from a thorough dis- 
 interested study of human nature and human experience learns 
 to conceive it, — is a harmonious expansion of all the powers 
 which make the beauty and worth of human nature, and is not 
 consistent with the overdevelopment of any one power at the 
 expense of the rest. Here culture goes beyond religion, as reli- 
 gion is generally conceived by us. 
 
 If culture, then, is a study of perfection, and of harmonious 
 perfection, general perfection, and perfection which consists 
 in becoming something rather than in having something, in an 
 inward condition of the mind and spirit, not in an outward set of 
 circumstances, — it is clear that culture, instead of being the 
 frivolous and useless thing which Mr. Bright, and Mr. Frederic 
 
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT ; 
 
 Harrison/ and many other Liberals ^ are apt to call it, has a very 
 important function to fulfill for mankind. And this function is 
 particularly important in our modern world, of which the whole 
 civilization is, to a much greater degree than the civilization of 
 Greece and Rome, mechanical and external, and tends con- 
 stantly to become more so. But above all in our own country 
 has culture a weighty part to perform, because here that me- 
 chanical character, which civilization tends to take everywhere, 
 is shown in the most eminent degree. Indeed nearly all the 
 characters of perfection, as culture teaches us to fix them, meet 
 in this country with some powerful tendency which thwarts 
 them and sets them at defiance. The idea of perfection as an 
 inward condition of the mind and spirit is at variance with the 
 mechanical and material civilization in esteem with us, and no- 
 where, as I have said, so much in esteem as with us. The idea of 
 perfection as a general expansion of the human family is at vari- 
 ance with our strong individualism, our hatred of all limits to 
 the unrestrained swing of the individual's personality, our 
 maxim of "every man for himself." Above all, the idea of per- 
 fection as a harmonious expansion of human nature is at vari- 
 ance with our want of flexibility, with our inaptitude for 
 seeing more than one side of a thing, with our intense energetic 
 absorption in the particular pursuit we happen to be following. 
 So culture has a rough task to achieve in this country. Its 
 preachers have, and are likely long to have, a hard time of 
 it, and they will much oftener be regarded, for a great while 
 to come, as elegant or spurious Jeremiahs than as friends and 
 benefactors. That, however, will not prevent their doing in the 
 end good service if they persevere. And, meanwhile, the mode 
 of action they have to pursue, and the sort of habits they must 
 fight against, ought to be made quite clear for every one to see, 
 
 ^ See p. 502. In an article entitled Culture; a Dialogue {Fortnightly 
 Review, November, 1867), Mr. Harrison criticized Arnold's advocacy of 
 culture as the remedy for the evils of society. — Editors. 
 
 ^ The Liberal party in English politics is made up of adherents to pro- 
 gressive political principles. — Editors. 
 
8 MATTHEW ARNOLD 
 
 who may be willing to look at the matter attentively and dis- 
 passionately. 
 
 Faith in machinery ^ is, I said, our besetting danger ; often in 
 machinery most absurdly disproportioned to the end which this 
 machinery, if it is to do any good at all, is to serve ; but always 
 in machinery, as if it had a value in and for itself. What is free- 
 dom but machinery ? what is population but machinery ? what 
 is coal but machinery ? what are railroads but machinery ? what 
 is wealth but machinery ? what are, even, religious organizations 
 but machinery ? Now almost every voice in England iS accus- 
 tomed to speak of these things as if they were precious ends in 
 themselves, and therefore had some of the characters of perfec- 
 tion indisputably joined to them. I have before now noticed 
 Mr. Roebuck's stock argument for proving the greatness and 
 happiness of England as she is, and for quite stopping the 
 mouths of all gainsayers. Mr. Roebuck is never weary of reiter- 
 ating this argument of his, so I do not know why I should be 
 weary of noticing it. " May not every man in England say what 
 he likes?" — Mr. Roebuck perpetually asks; and that, he 
 thinks, is quite sufficient, and when every man may say what he 
 likes, our aspirations ought to be satisfied. But the aspirations 
 of culture, which is the study of perfection, are not satisfied, un- 
 less what men say, when they may say what they like, is worth 
 saying, — has good in it, and more good than bad. In the same 
 way the Times, replying to some foreign strictures on the dress, 
 looks, and behavior of the English abroad, urges that the English 
 ideal is that every one should be free to do and to look just as he 
 likes. But culture indefatigably tries, not to make what each 
 raw person may like the rule by which he fashions himself, but 
 to draw ever nearer to a sense of what is indeed beautiful, grace- 
 ful, and becoming, and to get the raw person to like that. 
 
 And in the same way with respect to railroads and coal. Every 
 one must have observed the strange language current during the 
 late discussions as to the possible failure of our supplies of coal. 
 
 * Arnold uses the word machinery throughout this essay in the sense of 
 any kind of means for the accomplishment of ends. — Editors. 
 
 I 
 
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT 9 
 
 Our coal, thousands of people were saying, is the real basis of 
 our national greatness ; if our coal runs short, there is an end of 
 the greatness of England. But what is greatness ? — culture 
 makes us ask. Greatness is a spiritual condition worthy to excite 
 love, interest, and admiration ; and the outward proof of possess- 
 ing greatness is that we excite love, interest, and admiration. 
 If England were swallowed up by the sea to-morrow, which 
 of the two, a hundred years hence, would most excite the love, 
 interest, and admiration of mankind, — would most, therefore, 
 show the evidences of having possessed greatness, — the England 
 of the last twenty years, or the England of Elizabeth, of a time 
 of splendid spiritual effort, but when our coal, and our indus- 
 trial operations depending on coal, were very little developed ? 
 Well, then, what an unsound habit of mind it must be which 
 makes us talk of things like coal or iron as constituting the great- 
 ness of England, and how salutary a friend is culture, bent on 
 seeing things as they are, and thus dissipating delusions of this 
 kind and fixing standards of perfection that are real ! 
 
 Wealth, again, that end to which our prodigious works for 
 material advantage are directed, — the commonest of common- 
 places tells us how men are always apt to regard wealth as a pre- 
 cious end in itself ; and certainly they have never been so apt 
 thus to regard it as they are in England at the present time. 
 Never did people believe anything more firmly than nine English- 
 men out of ten at the present day beUeve that our greatness and 
 welfare are proved by our being so very rich. Now, the use of 
 culture is that it helps us, by means of its spiritual standard of 
 perfection, to regard wealth as but machinery, and not only to 
 say as a matter of words that we regard wealth as but machinery, 
 but really to perceive and feel that it is so. If it were not for this 
 purging effect wrought upon our minds by culture, the whole 
 world, the future as well as the present, would ine\dtably belong 
 to the Philistines.^ The people who believe most that our great- 
 
 ^ With Arnold a term of reproach for uncultured and commonplace 
 people. The Philistines of the Old Testament were the traditional enemies 
 of the "chosen people." Hence the nineteenth-century application of the 
 
lO MATTHEW ARNOLD 
 
 ness and welfare are proved by our being very rich, and who most 
 give their lives and thoughts to becoming rich, are just the very 
 people whom we call Philistines. Culture says : " Consider these 
 people, then, their way of life, their habits, their manners, the 
 very tones of their voice; look at them attentively; observe 
 the literature they read, the things which give them pleasure, 
 the words which come forth out of their mouths, the thoughts 
 which make the furniture of their minds ; would any amount of 
 wealth be worth having with the condition that one was to be- 
 come just like these people by having it ? " And thus culture 
 begets a dissatisfaction which is of the highest possible value in 
 stemming the common tide of men's thoughts in a wealthy and 
 industrial community, and which saves the future, as one may 
 hope, from being vulgarized, even if it cannot save the present. 
 
 Population, again, and bodily health and vigor, are things 
 which are nowhere treated in such an unintelligent, misleading, 
 exaggerated way as in England. Both are really machinery ; yet 
 how many people all around us do we see rest in them and fail 
 to look beyond them ! Why, one has heard people, fresh from 
 reading certain articles of the Times on the Registrar-General's 
 returns of marriages and births in this country, who would talk 
 of our large English families in quite a solemn strain, as if they 
 had something in itself beautiful, elevating, and meritorious in 
 them ; as if the British Philistine would have only to present 
 himself before the Great Judge with his twelve children, in order 
 to be received among the sheep as a matter of right ! 
 
 But bodily health and vigor, it may be said, are not to be 
 classed with wealth and population as mere machinery; they 
 have a more real and essential value. True ; but only as they 
 are more intimately connected with a perfect spiritual condition 
 than wealth or population are. The moment we disjoin them 
 from the idea of a perfect spiritual condition, and pursue them, 
 as we do pursue them, for their own sake and as ends in them- 
 selves, our worship of them becomes as mere worship of machin- 
 
 name to the enemies of culture : those whose interests were limited by 
 narrow and material aims. — Editors. 
 
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT ii 
 
 ery, as our worship of wealth or population, and as unintelligent 
 and vulgarizing a worship as that is. Every one with anything 
 like an adequate idea of human perfection has distinctly marked 
 this subordination to higher and spiritual ends of the cultivation 
 of bodily vigor and activity. "Bodily exercise profiteth little; 
 but godliness is profitable unto all things," says the author of the 
 Epistle to Timothy. And the utilitarian Franklin says just as 
 explicitly: "Eat and drink such an exact quantity as suits the 
 constitution of thy body, in reference to the services of the mind.^^ 
 But the point of view of culture, keeping the mark of human per- 
 fection simply and broadly in view, and not assigning to this per- 
 fection, as religion or utilitarianism assigns to it, a special and 
 limited character, this point of view, I say, of culture is best 
 given by these words of Epictetus : "It is a sign of d<^vta," says 
 he, — that is, of a nature not finely tempered, — "to give your- 
 selves up to things which relate to the body ; to make, for in- 
 stance, a great fuss about exercise, a great fuss about eating, a 
 great fuss about drinking, a great fuss about walking, a great 
 fuss about riding. All these things ought to be done merely by 
 the way : the formation of the spirit and character must be our 
 real concern." This is admirable ; and, indeed, the Greek word 
 €V(f>via, a finely tempered nature, gives exactly the notion of 
 perfection as culture brings us to conceive it : a harmonious per- 
 fection, a perfection in which the characters of beauty and in- 
 telligence are both present, which unites "the two noblest of 
 things," — as Swift, who of one of the two, at any rate, had him- 
 self all too little, most happily calls them in his Battle of the Books, 
 — "the two noblest of things, sweetness and light.'' The ev^uT^s is 
 the man who tends towards sweetness and light ; the a^w/s, on 
 the other hand, is our Philistine. The immense spiritual signifi- 
 cance of the Greeks is due to their having been inspired with this 
 central and happy idea of the essential character of human per- 
 fection ; and Mr. Bright's misconception of culture, as a smatter- 
 ing of Greek and Latin, comes itself, after all, from this wonderful 
 significance of the Greeks having affected the very machinery of 
 our education, and is in itself a kind of homage to it. 
 
12 MATTHEW ARNOLD 
 
 In thus making sweetness and light to be characters of per- 
 fection, culture is of like spirit with poetry, follows one law with 
 poetry. Far more than on our freedom, our population, and our 
 industrialism, many amongst us rely upon our religious organi- 
 zations to save us. I have called religion a yet more important 
 manifestation of human nature than poetry, because it has 
 worked on a broader scale for perfection, and with greater masses 
 of men. But the idea of beauty and of a human nature perfect 
 on all its sides, which is the dominant idea of poetry, is a true and 
 invaluable idea, though it has not yet had the success that the 
 idea of conquering the obvious faults of our animality, and of 
 a human nature perfect on the moral side, — which is the 
 dominant idea of religion, — has been enabled to have ; and 
 it is destined, adding to itself the religious idea of a devout 
 energy, to transform and govern the other. 
 
 The best art and poetry of the Greeks, in which religion and 
 poetry are one, in which the idea of beauty and of a human 
 nature perfect on all sides adds to itself a religious and devout 
 energy, and works in the strength of that, is on this account of 
 such surpassing interest and instructiveness for us, though it was, 
 — as, having regard to the human race in general, and, indeed, 
 having regard to the Greeks themselves, we must own, — a pre- 
 mature attempt, an attempt which for success needed the moral 
 and religious fiber in humanity to. be more braced and developed 
 than it had yet been. But Greece did not err in having the idea 
 of beauty, harmony, and complete human perfection so present 
 and paramount. It is impossible to have this idea too present 
 and paramount ; only, the moral fiber must be braced too. And 
 we, because we have braced the moral fiber, are not on that 
 account in the right way, if at the same time the idea of beauty, 
 harmony, and complete human perfection is wanting or misappre- 
 hended amongst us ; and evidently it w wanting or misapprehended 
 at present. And when we rely as we do on our religious organiza- 
 tions, which in themselves do not and cannot give us this idea, and 
 think we have done enough if we make them spread and prevail, 
 then I say we fall into our common fault of overvaluing machinery. 
 
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT 13 
 
 Nothing is more common than for people to confound the 
 inward peace and satisfaction which follows the subduing of the 
 obvious faults of our animality with what I may call absolute in- 
 ward peace and satisfaction, — the peace and satisfaction which 
 are reached as we draw near to complete spiritual perfec- 
 tion, and not merely to moral perfection, or rather to relative 
 moral perfection. No people in the world have done more and 
 struggled more to attain this relative moral perfection than our 
 English race has. For no people in the world has the command 
 to resist the devil, to overcome the wicked one, in the nearest and 
 most obvious sense of those words, had such a pressing force and 
 reality. And we have had our reward, not only in the great 
 worldly prosperity which our obedience to this command has 
 brought us, but also, and far more, in great inward peace and 
 satisfaction. But to me few things are more pathetic than to see 
 people, on the strength of the inward peace and satisfaction 
 which their rudimentary efforts towards perfection have brought 
 them, employ, concerning their incomplete perfection and the 
 religious organizations within which they have found it, language 
 which properly applies only to complete perfection, and is a far- 
 off echo of the human soul's prophecy of it. Religion itself, I 
 need hardly say, supplies them in abundance with this grand lan- 
 guage. And very freely do they use it ; yet it is really the sever- 
 est possible criticism of such an incomplete perfection as alone we 
 have yet reached through our religious organizations. 
 
 The impulse of the English race towards moral development 
 and self-conquest has nowhere so powerfully manifested itself as 
 in Puritanism. Nowhere has Puritanism found so adequate an 
 expression as in the religious organization of the Independents. 
 The modern Independents have a newspaper, the Nonconformist, 
 written with great sincerity and ability. The motto, the stand- 
 ard, the profession of faith, which this organ of theirs carries 
 aloft, is: "The Dissidence of Dissent and the Protestantism of 
 the Protestant religion." There is sweetness and light, and an 
 ideal of complete harmonious human perfection ! One need not 
 go to culture and poetry to find language to judge it. Religion, 
 
14 MATTHEW ARNOLD 
 
 with its instinct for perfection, supplies language to judge it, lan- 
 guage, too, which is in our mouths every day. "Finally, be of 
 one mind, united in feeling," says St. Peter. There is an ideal 
 which judges the Puritan ideal : "The Dissidence of Dissent and 
 the Protestantism of the Protestant religion!" And religious 
 organizations like this are what people believe in, rest in, would 
 give their lives for ! Such, I say, is the wonderful virtue of even 
 the beginnings of perfection, of having conquered even the plain 
 faults of our animality, that the religious organization which has 
 helped us to do it can seem to us something precious, salutary, 
 and to be propagated, even when it wears such a brand of im- 
 perfection on its forehead as this. And men have got such a 
 habit of giving to the language of religion a special application, 
 of making it a mere jargon, that for the condemnation which 
 religion itself passes on the shortcomings of their religious or- 
 ganizations they have no ear ; they are sure to cheat themselves 
 and to explain this condemnation away. They can only be 
 reached by the criticism which culture, like poetry, speaking a 
 language not to be sophisticated, and resolutely testing these 
 organizations by the ideal of a human perfection complete on all 
 sides, applies to them. 
 
 But men of culture and poetry, it will be said, are again and 
 again failing, and failing conspicuously, in the necessary first 
 stage to a harmonious perfection, in the subduing of the great ob- 
 vious faults of our animality, which it is the glory of these reli- 
 gious organizations to have helped us to subdue. True, they do 
 often so fail. They have often been without the virtues as 
 well as the faults of the Puritan ; it has been one of their dangers 
 that they so felt the Puritan's faults that they too much neg- 
 lected the practice of his virtues. I will not, however, excul- 
 pate them at the Puritan's expense. They have often failed in 
 morality, and morality is indispensable. And they have been 
 punished for their failure, as the Puritan has been rewarded for 
 his performance. They have been punished wherein they erred ; 
 but their ideal of beauty, of sweetness and light, and a human 
 nature complete on all its sides, remains the true ideal of per- 
 
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT 15 
 
 fection still ; just as the Puritan's ideal of perfection remains 
 narrow and inadequate, although for what he did well he has been 
 richly rewarded. Notwithstanding the mighty results of the Pil- 
 grim Fathers' voyage, they and their standard of perfection are 
 rightly judged when we figure to ourselves Shakespeare or Virgil, 
 — souls in whom sweetness and light, and all that in human 
 nature is most humane, were eminent, — accompanying them on 
 their voyage, and think what intolerable company Shakespeare 
 and Virgil would have found them ! In the same way let us 
 judge the religious organizations which we see all around us. 
 Do not let us deny the good and the happiness which they have 
 accomplished ; but do not let us fail to see clearly that their 
 idea of human perfection is narrow and inadequate, and that 
 the Dissidence of Dissent and the Protestantism of the Protest- 
 ant religion will never bring humanity to its true goal. As I 
 said with regard to wealth : Let us look at the life of those 
 who live in and for it, — so I say with regard to the religious 
 organizations. Look at the life imaged in such a newspaper as 
 the Nonconformist, — a life of jealousy of the Establishment, 
 disputes, tea-meetings, openings of chapels, sermons ; and then 
 think of it as an ideal of a human life completing itself on all 
 sides, and aspiring with all its organs after sweetness, light, and 
 perfection ! 
 
 Another newspaper, representing, like the Nonconformist, one 
 of the religious organizations of this country, was a short time ago 
 giving an account of the crowd at Epsom on the Derby day, and of 
 all the vice and hideousness which was to be seen in that crowd ; 
 and then the writer turned suddenly round upon Professor Hux- 
 ley, and asked him how he proposed to cure all this vice and 
 hideousness without religion. I confess I felt disposed to ask the 
 asker this question : and how do you propose to cure it with such 
 a religion as yours ? How is the ideal of a life so unlovely, so 
 unattractive, so incomplete, so narrow, so far removed from a 
 true and satisfying ideal of human perfection, as is the life of your 
 religious organization as you yourself image it, to conquer and 
 transform all this vice and hideousness ? Indeed, the strongest 
 
1 6 MATTHEW ARNOLD 
 
 plea for the study of perfection as pursued by culture, the clearest 
 proof of the actual inadequacy of the idea of perfection held by 
 the religious organizations, — expressing, as I have said, the most 
 widespread effort which the human race has yet made after per- 
 fection, — is to be found in the state of our life and society with 
 these in possession of it, and having been in possession of it I 
 know not how many hundred years. We are all of us included in 
 some religious organization or other ; we all call ourselves, in the 
 sublime and aspiring language of religion which I have before 
 noticed, children of God. Children of God ; — it is an immense pre- 
 tension ! — and how are we to justify it ? .By the works which 
 we do, and the words which we speak. And the work which we 
 collective children of God do, our grand center of life, our city 
 which we have builded for us to dwell in, is London ! London, 
 with its unutterable external hideousness, and with its internal 
 canker of publice egestas, privatim opulentia,^ — to use the words 
 which Sallust puts into Cato's mouth about Rome, — unequalled 
 in the world ! The word, again, which we children of God speak, 
 the voice which most hits our collective thought, the newspaper 
 with the largest circulation in England, nay, with the largest cir- 
 culation in the whole world, is the Daily Telegraph ! I say that 
 when our religious organizations, — which I admit to express 
 the most considerable effort after perfection that our race has yet 
 made, — land us in no better result than this, it is high time to 
 examine carefully their idea of perfection, to see whether it does 
 not leave out of account sides and forces of human nature which 
 we might turn to great use ; whether it would not be more opera- 
 tive if it were more complete. And I say that the English reli- 
 ance on our religious organizations and on their ideas of human 
 perfection just as they stand, is like our reliance on freedom, on 
 muscular Christianity, on population, on coal, on wealth, — mere 
 belief in machinery, and unfruitful ; and that it is wholesomely 
 counteracted by culture, bent on seeing things as they are, and 
 on drawing the human race onwards to a more complete, a har- 
 monious perfection. 
 
 1 Public want and private wealth. — Editors. 
 
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT 17 
 
 Culture, however, shows its single-minded love of perfection, 
 its desire simply to make reason and the will of God prevail, its 
 freedom from fanaticism, by its attitude towards all this machin- 
 ery, even while it insists that it is machinery. Fanatics, seeing 
 the mischief men do themselves by their blind belief in some 
 machinery or other, — whether it is wealth and industrialism, or 
 whether it is the cultivation of bodily strength and activity, or 
 whether it is a political organization, — or whether it is a reli- 
 gious organization, — oppose with might and main the tendency 
 to this or that political and religious organization, or to games 
 and athletic exercises, or to wealth and industrialism, and try 
 violently to stop it. But the flexibility which sweetness and 
 light give, and which is one of the rewards of culture pursued in 
 good faith, enables a man to see that a tendency may be neces- 
 sary, and even, as a preparation for something in the future, salu- 
 tary, and yet that the generations or individuals who obey this 
 tendency are sacrificed to it, that they fall short of the hope of 
 perfection by following it ; and that its mischiefs are to be criti- 
 cized, lest it should take too firm a hold and last after it has 
 served its purpose. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone well pointed out, in a speech at Paris, — and 
 others have pointed out the same thing, — how necessary is the 
 present great movement towards wealth and industrialism, in 
 order to lay broad foundations of material well-being for the 
 society of the future. The worst of these justifications is that 
 they are generally addressed to the very people engaged, body 
 and soul, in the movement in question ; at all events, that they 
 are always seized with the greatest avidity by these people, and 
 taken by them as quite justifying their life ; and that thus they 
 tend to harden them in their sins. Now, culture admits the ne- 
 cessity of the movement towards fortune-making and exaggerated 
 industrialism, readily allows that the future may derive benefit 
 from it; but insists, at the same time, that the passing genera- 
 tions of industrialists, — forming, for the most part, the stout 
 main body of PhiHstinism, — are sacrificed to it. In the same 
 way, the result of all the games and sports which occupy the pass- 
 
1 8 MATTHEW ARNOLD 
 
 ing generation of boys and young men may be the establishment 
 of a better and sounder physical type for the future to work with. 
 Culture does not set itself against the games and sports ; it con- 
 gratulates the future, and hopes it will make a good use of its 
 improved physical basis ; but it points out that our passing 
 generation of boys and young men is, meantime, sacrificed. 
 Puritanism was perhaps necessary to develop the moral fiber of 
 the English race, Nonconformity to break the yoke of ecclesiasti- 
 cal domination over men's minds and to prepare the way for free- 
 dom of thought in the distant future; still, culture points out 
 that the harmonious perfection of generations of Puritans and 
 Nonconformists has been, in consequence, sacrificed. Freedom 
 of speech may be necessary for the society of the future, but the 
 young lions of the Daily Telegraph in the meanwhile are sacrificed. 
 A voice for every man in his country's government may be nec- 
 essary for the society of the future, but meanwhile Mr. Beales 
 and Mr. Bradlaugh are sacrificed. 
 
 Oxford, the Oxford of the past, has many faults ; and she has 
 heavily paid for them in defeat, in isolation, in want of hold upon 
 the modern world. Yet we in Oxford, brought up amidst the 
 beauty and sweetness of that beautiful place, have not failed to 
 seize one truth, — the truth that beauty and sweetness are 
 essential characters of a complete human perfection. When I 
 insist on this, I am all in the faith and tradition of Oxford. I say 
 boldly that this, our sentiment for beauty and sweetness, our 
 sentiment against hideousness and rawness, has been at the bot- 
 tom of our attachment to so many beaten causes, of our op- 
 position to so many triumphant movements. And the senti- 
 ment is true, and has never been wholly defeated, and has shown 
 its power even in its defeat. We have not won our political 
 battles, we have not carried our main points, we have not stopped 
 our adversaries' advance, we have not marched victoriously with 
 the modern world ; but we have told silently upon the mind of 
 the country, we have prepared currents of feeling which sap our 
 adversaries' position when it seems gained, we have kept up our 
 own communications with the future. Look at the course of the 
 
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT 19 
 
 great movement ^ which shook Oxford to its center some thirty- 
 years ago ! It was directed, as any one who reads Dr. New- 
 man's Apology ' may see, against what in one word may be called 
 "Liberalism." Liberalism prevailed; it was the appointed 
 force to do the work of the hour ; it was necessary, it was inevi- 
 table, that it should prevail. The Oxford movement was broken, 
 . it failed ; our wrecks are scattered on every shore : — 
 
 Quae regio in terris nostri non plena laboris ? 
 
 But what was it, this liberalism, as Dr. Newman saw it, and as it 
 really broke the Oxford movement ? It was the great middle- 
 class liberalism, which had for the cardinal points of its belief 
 the Reform Bill of 1832, and local self-government, in politics ; in 
 the social sphere, free trade, unrestricted competition, and the 
 making of large industrial fortunes ; in the religious sphere, the 
 Dissidence of Dissent and the Protestantism of the Protestant 
 religion. I do not say that other and more intelligent forces than 
 this were not opposed to the Oxford movement : but this was the 
 force which really beat it ; this was the force which Dr. Newman 
 felt himself fighting with ; this was the force which till only the 
 other day seemed to be the paramount force in this country, and 
 to be in possession of the future ; this was the force whose achieve- 
 ments fill Mr. Lowe with such inexpressible admiration, and 
 whose rule he was so horror-struck to see threatened. And where 
 is this great force of Philistinism now? It is thrust into the 
 second rank; it is become a power of yesterday, it has lost the 
 future. A new power has suddenly appeared, a power which it 
 is impossible yet to judge fully, but which is certainly a wholly 
 different force from middle-class liberalism ; different in its cardi- 
 nal points of belief, different in its tendencies in every sphere. It 
 
 ' The Oxford or Tractarian Movement, which began at Oxford in 1833 
 under the leadership of John Henry (afterwards Cardinal) Newman, and 
 John Keble, had as its object the intensifying of religious faith and the 
 revival of ecclesiastical and ceremonial tradition in the Church of 
 England. — Editors. 
 
 ^ Newman's Apologia pro Vita Sua, an explanation of his conversion to 
 the Roman Church. — Editors. 
 
20 MATTHEW ARNOLD 
 
 loves and admires neither the legislation of middle-class Parlia- 
 ments, nor the local self-government of middle-class vestries, nor 
 the unrestricted competition of middle-class industrialists, nor 
 the Dissidence of middle-class Dissent and the Protestantism 
 of middle-class Protestant religion. I am not now praising this 
 new force, or saying that its own ideals are better ; all I say is, 
 that they are wholly different. And who will estimate how much 
 the currents of feeling created by Dr. Newman's movements, the 
 keen desire for beauty and sweetness which it nourished, the deep 
 aversion it manifested to the hardness and vulgarity of middle- 
 class liberalism, the strong light it turned on the hideous and 
 grotesque illusions of middle-class Protestantism, — who will 
 estimate how much all these contributed to swell the tide of 
 secret dissatisfaction which has niined the ground under the self- 
 confident liberalism of the last thirty years, and has prepared 
 the way for its sudden collapse and supersession ? It is in this 
 manner that the sentiment of Oxford for beauty and sweetness 
 conquers, and in this manner long may it continue to conquer ! 
 In this manner it works to the same end as culture, and there 
 is plenty of work for it yet to do. I have said that the new and 
 more democratic force which is now superseding our old middle- 
 class liberalism cannot yet be rightly judged. It has its main 
 tendencies still to form. We hear promises of its giving us admin- 
 istrative reform, law reform, reform of education, and I know not 
 what ; but those promises come rather from its advocates, wish- 
 ing to make a good plea for it and to justify it for superseding 
 middle-class liberalism, than from clear tendencies which it has 
 itself yet developed. But meanwhile it has plenty of well-in- 
 tentioned friends against whom culture may ^\ith advantage con- 
 tinue to uphold steadily its ideal of human perfection ; that this 
 is an inward spiritual activity, having for its characters increased 
 sweetness, increased light, increased life, increased sympathy. Mr. 
 Bright, who has a foot in both worlds, the world of middle-class 
 liberalism and the world of democracy, but who brings most of 
 his ideas from the world of middle-class liberalism in which he 
 was bred, always inclines to inculcate that faith in machinery to 
 
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT 21 
 
 which, as we have seen, Englishmen are so prone, and which has 
 been the bane of middle-class liberalism. He complains with 
 a sorrowful indignation of people who "appear to have no proper 
 estimate of the value of the franchise" ; he leads his disciples to 
 believe, — what the Englishman is always too ready to believe, — 
 that the having a vote, like the having a large family, or a large 
 business, or large muscles, has in itself some edifying and perfect- 
 ing effect upon human nature. Or else he cries out to the democ- 
 racy, — "the men," as he calls them, "upon whose shoulders 
 the greatness of England rests," — he cries out to them: "See 
 what you have done ! I look over this country and see the cities 
 you have built, the railroads you have made, the manufactures 
 you have produced, the cargoes which freight the ships of the 
 greatest mercantile navy the world has ever seen ! I see that 
 you have converted by your labors what was once a wilderness, 
 these islands, into a fruitful garden ; I know that you have cre- 
 ated this wealth, and are a nation whose name is a word of 
 power throughout all the world." Why, this is just the very 
 style of laudation with which Mr. Roebuck or Mr. Lowe de- 
 bauches the minds of the middle classes, and makes such Philis- 
 tines of them. It is the same fashion of teaching a man to value 
 himself not on what he is, not on his progress in sweetness and 
 light, but on the number of the railroads he has constructed, or 
 the bigness of the tabernacle he has built. Only the middle 
 classes are told they have done it all with their energy, self-reli- 
 ance, and capital, and the democracy are told they have done it 
 all with their hands and sinews. But teaching the democracy to 
 put its trust in achievements of this kind is merely training them 
 to be Philistines to take the place of the Philistines whom they 
 are superseding; and they too, like the middle class, will be 
 encouraged to sit down at the banquet of the future without hav- 
 ing on a wedding garment, and nothing excellent can then come 
 from them. Those who know their, besetting faults, those who 
 have watched them and listened to them, or those who will read 
 the instructive account recently given of them by one of them- 
 selves, the Journeyman Engineer, will agree that the idea which 
 
22 MATTHEW ARNOLD 
 
 culture sets before us of perfection, — an increased spiritual activ- 
 ity, having for its characters increased sweetness, increased light, 
 increased life, increased sympathy, — is an idea which the new 
 democracy needs far more than the idea of the blessedness of the 
 franchise or the wonderfulness of its own industrial performances. 
 Other well-meaning friends of this new power are for leading it, 
 not in the old ruts of middle-class Philistinism, but in ways 
 which are naturally alluring to the feet of democracy, though in 
 this country they are novel and untried ways. I may call them 
 the ways of Jacobinism.^ Violent indignation with the past, ab- 
 stract systems of renovation applied wholesale, a new doctrine 
 drawn up in black and white for elaborating down to the very 
 smallest details a rational society for the future, — these are the 
 ways of Jacobinism. Mr. Frederic Harrison and other disciples 
 of Comte,^ — one of them, Mr. Congreve, is an old acquaintance of 
 mine and I am glad to have an opportunity of publicly expressing 
 my respect for his talents and character, — are among the friends 
 of democracy who are for leading it in paths of this kind. Mr. 
 Frederic Harrison is very hostile to culture, and from a natural 
 enough motive ; for culture is the eternal opponent of the two 
 things which are the signal marks of Jacobinism, — its fierceness, 
 and its addiction to an abstract system. Culture is always as- 
 signing to system-makers and systems a smaller share in the bent 
 of human destiny than their friends like. A current in people's 
 minds sets towards new ideas ; people are dissatisfied with their 
 old narrow stock of Philistine ideas, Anglo-Saxon ideas, or any 
 other; and some man, some Bentham or Comte, who has the 
 real merit of having early and strongly felt and helped the new 
 current, but who brings plenty of narrowness and mistakes of his 
 own into his feeling and help of it, is credited with being the 
 author of the whole current, the fit person to be intrusted with 
 its regulation and to guide the human race. 
 
 ^ Violent radicalism. The Jacobin party played an aggressive part in 
 the French Revolution. — Editors. 
 
 ^ Auguste Comte, the founder of the " Positivist " philosophy, who paid 
 an exalted deference to the importance of public opinion. — Editors. 
 
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT 23 
 
 The excellent German historian of the mythology of Rome, 
 Preller, relating the introduction at Rome under the Tarquins of 
 the worship of Apollo, the god of light, healing, and reconcilia- 
 tion, will have us observe that it was not so much the Tarquins 
 who brought to Rome the new worship of Apollo, as a current 
 in the mind of the Roman people which set powerfully at that 
 time towards a new worship of this kind, and away from the old 
 run of Latin and Sabine religious ideas. In a similar way, cul- 
 ture directs our attention to the natural current there is in human 
 affairs, and to its continual working, and will not let us rivet our 
 faith upon any one man and his doings. It makes us see not 
 only his good side, but also how much in him was of necessity 
 limited and transient ; nay, it even feels a pleasure, a sense of an 
 increased freedom and of an ampler future, in so doing. 
 
 I remember, when I was under the influence of a mind to 
 which I feel the greatest obligations, the mind of a man who was 
 the very incarnation of sanity and clear sense, a man the most 
 considerable, it seems to me, whom America has yet produced, — 
 Benjamin Franklin, — I remember the relief with which, after 
 long feeling the sway of Franklin's imperturbable common-sense, 
 I came upon a project of his for a new version of the Book of Job 
 to replace the old version, the style of which, says Franklin, has 
 become obsolete, and thence less agreeable. "I give," he con- 
 tinues, "a few verses, which may serve as a sample of the kind of 
 version I would recommend." We all recollect the famous verse 
 in our translation : "Then Satan answered the Lord and said : 
 'Doth Job fear God for nought?'" Franklin makes this: 
 "Does your Majesty imagine that Job's good conduct is the 
 effect of mere personal attachment and affection?" I well 
 remember how, when first I read that, I drew a deep breath of 
 reHef, and said to myself: "After all, there is a stretch of 
 humanity beyond Franklin's victorious good sense !" So, after 
 hearing Bentham cried loudly up as the renovator of modern 
 society, and Bentham's mind and ideas proposed as the rulers 
 of our future, I open the Deontology. There I read: "While 
 Xenophon was writing his history and Euclid teaching geom- 
 
24 MATTHEW ARNOLD 
 
 etry, Socrates and Plato were talking nonsense under pretense 
 of talking wisdom and morality. This morality of theirs con- 
 sisted in words ; this wisdom of theirs was the denial of matters 
 known to every man's experience." From the moment of 
 reading that, I am delivered from the bondage of Bentham ! the 
 fanaticism of his adherents can touch me no longer. I feel the 
 inadequacy of his mind and ideas for supplying the rule of human 
 society, for perfection. 
 
 Culture tends always thus to deal with the men of a system, of 
 disciples, of a school ; with men like Comte, or the late Mr. 
 Buckle, or Mr. Mill.^ However much it may find to admire in 
 these personages, or in some of them, it nevertheless remembers 
 the text : "Be not ye called Rabbi ! " and it soon passes on from 
 any Rabbi. But Jacobinism loves a Rabbi ; it does not want 
 to pass on from its Rabbi in pursuit of a future and still unreached 
 perfection ; it wants its Rabbi and its ideas to stand for perfec- 
 tion, that they may with the more authority recast the world ; 
 and for Jacobinism, therefore, culture, — eternally passing on- 
 wards and seeking, — is an impertinence and an offense. But 
 culture, just because it resists this tendency of Jacobinism to im- 
 pose on us a man with limitations and errors of his own along 
 with the true ideas of which he is the organ, really does the 
 world and Jacobinism itself a service. 
 
 So, too, Jacobinism, in its fierce hatred of the past and of those 
 whom it makes liable for the sins of the past, cannot away with 
 the inexhaustible indulgence proper to culture, the consideration 
 of circumstances, the severe judgment of actions joined to the 
 merciful judgment of persons. "The man of culture is in poli- 
 tics," cries Mr. Frederic Harrison, "one of the poorest mortals 
 alive !" Mr. Frederic Harrison wants to be doing business, and 
 he complains that the man of culture stops him with a "turn for 
 small fault-finding, love of selfish ease, and indecision in action." 
 Of what use is culture, he asks, except for "a critic of new books 
 or a professor of belles-lettres?" Why, it is of use because, in 
 presence of the fierce exasperation which breathes, or rather, I 
 ' See p. 98. — Editors. 
 
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT 25 
 
 may say, hisses through the whole production in which Mr. 
 Frederic Harrison asks that question, it reminds us that the 
 perfection of human nature is sweetness and Hght. It is of use 
 because, Hke religion, — that other effort after perfection, — it 
 testifies that, where bitter envying and strife are, there is con- 
 fusion and every evil work. 
 
 The pursuit of perfection, then, is the pursuit of sweetness and 
 light. He who works for sweetness and light, works to make 
 reason and the will of God prevail. He who works for machin- 
 ery, he who works for hatred, works only for confusion. Culture 
 looks beyond machinery, culture hates hatred ; culture has one 
 great passion, the passion for sweetness and light. It has one 
 even yet greater ! — the passion for making them prevail. It is 
 not satisfied till we all come to a perfect man ; it knows that the 
 sweetness and light of the few must be imperfect until the raw 
 and unkindled masses of humanity are touched with sweetness 
 and light. If I have not shrunk from saying that we must work 
 for sweetness and light, so neither have I shrunk from saying 
 that we must have a broad basis, must have sweetness and 
 light for as many as possible. Again and again I have insisted 
 how those are the happy moments of humanity, how those are 
 the marking epochs of a people's life, how those are the flower- 
 ing times for literature and art and all the creative power of 
 genius, when there is a national glow of life and thought, when 
 the whole of society is in the fullest measure permeated by 
 thought, sensible to beauty, intelligent and alive. Only it must 
 be real thought and real beauty ; real sweetness and real light. 
 Plenty of people will try to give the masses, as they call them, 
 an intellectual food prepared and adapted in the way they think 
 proper for the actual condition of the masses. The ordinary 
 popular literature is an example of this way of working on the 
 masses. Plenty of people will try to indoctrinate the masses 
 with the set of ideas and judgments constituting the creed of their 
 own profession or party. Our religious and political organiza- 
 tions give an example of this way of working on the masses. I 
 condemn neither way ; but culture works differently. It does 
 
26 MATTHEW ARNOLD 
 
 not try to teach down to the level of inferior classes ; it does not 
 try to win them for this or that sect of its own, with ready-made 
 judgments and watchwords. It seeks to do away with classes ; 
 to make the best that has been thought and known in the world 
 current everywhere ; to make all men live in an atmosphere of 
 sweetness and light, where they may use ideas, as it uses them 
 itself, freely, — nourished, and not bound by them. 
 
 This is the social idea; and the men of culture are the true 
 apostles of equaUty. The great men of culture are those who 
 have had a passion for diffusing, for making prevail, for carrying 
 from one end of society to the other, the best knowledge, the 
 best ideas of their time ; who have labored to divest knowledge 
 of all that was harsh, uncouth, difficult, abstract, professional, 
 exclusive ; to humanize it, to make it efficient outside the clique 
 of the cultivated and learned, yet still remaining the best knowl- 
 edge and thought of the time, and a true source, therefore, of 
 sweetness and light. Such a man was Abelard in the Middle 
 Ages, in spite of all his imperfections ; and thence the bound- 
 less emotion and enthusiasm which Abelard excited. Such were 
 Lessing and Herder in Germany, at the end of the last century ; 
 and their services to Germany were in this way inestimably 
 precious. Generations will pass, and literary monuments will 
 accumulate, and works far more perfect than the works of 
 Lessing and Herder will be produced in Germany ; and yet the 
 names of these two men will fill a German with a reverence and 
 enthusiasm such as the names of the most gifted masters will 
 hardly awaken. And why? Because they humanized knowl- 
 edge ; because they broadened the basis of life and intelligence ; 
 because they worked powerfully to diffuse sweetness and light, 
 to make reason and the will of God prevail. With Saint Au- 
 gustine they said : "Let us not leave thee alone to make in the 
 secret of thy knowledge, as thou didst before the creation of the 
 firmament, the division of light from darkness ; let the children 
 of thy spirit, placed in their firmament, make their light shine 
 upon the earth, mark the division of night and day, and an- 
 nounce the revolution of the times ; for the old order is passed, 
 
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT 27 
 
 and the new arises ; the night is spent, the day is come forth ; 
 and thou shalt crown the year with thy blessing, when thou shalt 
 send forth laborers into thy harvest sown by other hands than 
 theirs ; when thou shalt send forth new laborers to new seed- 
 times, whereof the harvest shall be not yet." 
 
11 
 
 SCIENCE AND CULTURE 
 Thomas Henry Huxley 
 
 [Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895) is to be remembered among the 
 great men of the Victorian era who contributed most to human progress 
 and knowledge. As a professional scientist he made invaluable contribu- 
 tions to research ; as a champion of Darwinism he greatly strengthened the 
 foundations of the evolutionary theory; as an educator he completely 
 revolutionized existing methods of scientific teaching ; and as a public lec- 
 turer he did much to popularize the facts of modern science. Most of his 
 writing centers in his two chief interests, scientific exposition and the prob- 
 lem of education, and is characterized by a directness of thought and a lucid- 
 ity of style perhaps unsurpassed in the whole range of English prose. A 
 typical Darwinian essay appears elsewhere in this volume. 
 
 The following lecture on Science and Culture has been selected as 
 expressly directed against the well-known educational views of Matthew 
 Arnold. Huxley's arguments for the cultural and educational value of 
 science as opposed to that of the humanities, it may be noticed, are 
 reiterated by present-day champions of science in discussions over this 
 still vexing and far from settled question. A classical education, it is 
 maintained, while an excellent thing for some, is a waste of time for the 
 practical minded; and, moreover, real culture may be acquired Just as 
 effectively by an exclusively scientific education as by an equally restricted 
 literary education. For the continuation of this debate between Huxley 
 and Arnold, the student is referred to Arnold's Literature and Science (Dis- 
 courses in America, 1885). 
 
 Science and Culture was delivered as an address at the opening of Sir 
 Josiah Mason's Science College, at Birmingham, October i, 1880.] 
 
 Six years ago, as some of my present hearers may remember, 
 I had the privilege of addressing a large assemblage of the in- 
 habitants of this city, who had gathered together to do honor 
 to the memory of their famous townsman, Joseph Priestley; 
 and, if any satisfaction attaches to posthumous glory, we may 
 
 28 
 
SCIENCE AND CULTURE 29 
 
 hope that the manes of the burnt-out philosopher were then 
 finally appeased. 
 
 No man, however, who is endowed with a fair share of com- 
 mon sense, and not more than a fair share of vanity, will identify 
 either contemporary or posthumous fame with the highest 
 good ; and Priestley's life leaves no doubt that he, at any rate, 
 set a much higher value upon the advancement of knowledge, 
 and the promotion of that freedom of thought which is at once 
 the cause and the consequence of intellectual progress. 
 
 Hence I am disposed to think that, if Priestley could be 
 amongst us to-day, the occasion of our meeting would afford 
 him even greater pleasure than the proceedings which cele- 
 brated the centenary of his chief discovery. The kindly heart 
 would be moved, the high sense of social duty would be satisfied, 
 by the spectacle of well-earned wealth, neither squandered in 
 tawdry luxury and vainglorious show, nor scattered with the 
 careless charity which blesses neither him that gives nor him 
 that takes, but expended in the execution of a well-considered 
 plan for the aid of present and future generations of those who 
 are willing to help themselves. 
 
 We shall all be of one mind thus far. But it is needful to share 
 Priestley's keen interest in physical science ; and to have learned, 
 as he had learned, the value of scientific training in fields of 
 inquiry apparently far remote from physical science ; in order 
 to appreciate, as he would have appreciated, the value of the 
 noble gift which Sir Josiah Mason has bestowed upon the inhab- 
 itants of the Midland district. 
 
 For us children of the nineteenth century, however, the es- 
 tablishment of a college under the conditions of Sir Josiah Ma- 
 son's Trust, has a significance apart from any which it could 
 have possessed a hundred years ago. It appears to be an in- 
 dication that we are reaching the crisis of the battle, or rather 
 of the long series of battles, which have been fought over educa- 
 tion in a campaign which began long before Priestley's time, 
 and will probably not be finished just yet. 
 
 In the last century, the combatants were the champions of 
 
30 THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY 
 
 ancient literature, on the one side, and those of modern litera- 
 ture on the other ; but, some thirty years ^ ago, the contest 
 became complicated by the appearance of a third army, ranged 
 round the banner of Physical Science. 
 
 I am not aware that any one has authority to speak in the 
 name of this new host. For it must be admitted to be some- 
 what of a guerilla force, composed largely of irregulars, each of 
 whom fights pretty much for his own hand. But the impres- 
 sions of a full private, who has seen a good deal of service in 
 the ranks, respecting the present position of affairs and the con- 
 ditions of a permanent peace, may not be devoid of interest ; 
 and I do not know that I could make a better use of the present 
 opportunity than by laying them before you. 
 
 From the time that the first suggestion to introduce physical 
 science into ordinary education was timidly whispered, until 
 now, the advocates of scientific education have met with oppo- 
 sition of two kinds. On the one hand, they have been pooh- 
 poohed by the men of business who pride themselves on being 
 the representatives of practicality; while, on the other hand, 
 they have been excommunicated by the classical scholars, in 
 their capacity of Le\dtes in charge of the ark of culture and 
 monopolists of liberal education. 
 
 The practical men believed that the idol whom they worship — 
 rule of thumb — has been the source of the past prosperity, and 
 will suffice for the future welfare of the arts and manufactures. 
 They were of opinion that science is speculative rubbish; that 
 theory and practice have nothing to do with one another ; and 
 that the scientific habit of mind is an impediment, rather than 
 an aid, in the conduct of ordinary affairs. 
 
 I have used the past tense in speaking of the practical men — 
 for although they were very formidable thirty years ago, I am 
 not sure that the pure species has not been extirpated. In fact, 
 
 1 The advocacy of the introduction of physical science into general edu- 
 cation by George Combe and others commenced a good deal earlier; but 
 the movement had acquired hardly any practical force before the time to 
 which I refer. 
 
SCIENCE AND CULTURE 31 
 
 so far as mere argument goes, they have been subjected to such 
 a Jeu d'enjer that it is a miracle if any have escaped. But I 
 have remarked that your typical practical man has an unex- 
 pected resemblance to one of Milton's angels. His spiritual 
 wounds, such as are inflicted by logical weapons, may be as 
 deep as a well and as wide as a church door, but beyond shedding 
 a few drops of ichor, celestial or otherwise, he is no whit the 
 worse. So, if any of these opponents be left, I will not waste 
 time in vain repetition of the demonstrative evidence of the prac- 
 tical value of science ; but knowing that a parable will some- 
 times penetrate where syllogisms fail to effect an entrance, I mil 
 offer a story for their consideration. 
 
 Once upon a time, a boy, w^ith nothing to depend upon but his 
 own vigorous nature, was thrown into the thick of the struggle 
 for existence in the midst of a great manufacturing population. 
 He seems to have had a hard fight, inasmuch as, by the time he 
 was thirty years of age, his total disposable fu'nds amounted to 
 twenty pounds. Nevertheless, middle life found him giving 
 proof of his comprehension of the practical problems he had been 
 roughly called upon to solve, by a career of remarkable prosperity. 
 
 Finally, having reached old age, with its well-earned surround- 
 ings of "honor, troops of friends," the hero of my story be- 
 thought himself of those who were making a like start in life, 
 and how he could stretch out a helping hand to them. 
 
 After long and anxious reflection this successful practical man 
 of business could devise nothing better than to provide them with 
 the means of obtaining "sound, extensive, and practical scien- 
 tific knowledge." And he devoted a large part of his wealth and 
 five years of incessant work to this end. 
 
 I need not point the moral of a tale which, as the solid and spa- 
 cious fabric of the Scientific College assures us, is no fable, nor 
 can anything which I can say intensify the force of this practical 
 answer to practical objections. 
 
 We may take it for granted, then, that, in the opinion of those 
 best qualified to judge, the diffusion of thorough scientific edu- 
 cation is an absolutely essential condition of industrial prog- 
 
32 THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY 
 
 ress ; and that the College which has been opened to-day will 
 confer an inestimable boon upon those whose livelihood is to be 
 gained by the practice of the arts and manufactures of the dis- 
 trict. 
 
 The only question worth discussion is, whether the conditions, 
 under which the work of the College is to be carried out, are such 
 as to give it the best possible chance of achieving permanent 
 success. 
 
 Sir Josiah Mason, without doubt most wisely, has left very 
 large freedom of action to the trustees, to whom he proposes 
 ultimately to commit the administration of the College, so that 
 they may be able to adjust its arrangements in accordance with 
 the changing conditions of the future. But, with respect to 
 three points, he has laid most explicit injunctions upon both 
 administrators and teachers. 
 
 Party politics are forbidden to enter into the minds of either, so 
 far as the work of 'the College is concerned ; theology is as sternly 
 banished from its precincts ; and finally, it is especially declared 
 that the College shall make no provision for "mere literary in- 
 struction and education." 
 
 It does not concern me at present to dwell upon the first two 
 injunctions any longer than may be needful to express my full 
 conviction of their wisdom. But the third prohibition brings us 
 face to face with those other opponents of scientific education, 
 who are by no means in the moribund condition of the practical 
 man, but alive, alert, and formidable. 
 
 It is not impossible that we shall hear this express exclusion of 
 "literary instruction and education" from a College which, 
 nevertheless, professes to give a high and efficient education, 
 sharply criticized. Certainly the time was that the Levites of 
 culture would have sounded their trumpets against its walls as 
 against an educational Jericho. 
 
 How often have we not been told that the study of physical 
 science is incompetent to confer culture ; that it touches none of 
 the higher problems of life ; and, what is worse, that the contin- 
 ual devotion to scientific studies tends to generate a narrow and 
 
SCIENCE AND CULTURE 33 
 
 bigoted belief in the applicability of scientific methods to the 
 search after truth of all kinds. How frequently one has reason 
 to observe that no reply to a troublesome argument tells so well 
 as calling its author a "mere scientific specialist." And, as I am 
 afraid that it is not permissible to speak of this form of opposition 
 to scientific education in the past tense, may we not expect to 
 be told that this, not only omission, but prohibition, of "mere 
 literary instruction and education " is a patent example of scien- 
 tific narrow-mindedness ? 
 
 I am not acquainted with Sir Josiah Mason's reasons for the 
 action which he has taken ; but if, as I apprehend is the case, he 
 refers to the ordinary classical course of our schools and universi- 
 ties by the name of "mere literary instruction and education," 
 I venture to offer sundry reasons of my own in support of that 
 action. 
 
 For I hold very strongly by two convictions: the first is, 
 that neither the discipline nor the subject matter of classical 
 education is of such direct value to the student of physical science 
 as to justify the expenditure of valuable time upon either ; and 
 the second is, that for the purpose of attaining real culture, an 
 exclusively scientific education is at least as effectual as an ex- 
 clusively literary education. 
 
 I need hardly point out to you that these opinions, especially 
 the latter, are diametrically opposed to those of the great majority 
 of educated Englishmen, influenced as they are by school and 
 university traditions. In their belief, culture is obtainable only 
 by a liberal education ; and a liberal education is synonymous, 
 not merely with education and instruction in literature, but in 
 one particular form of literature; namely, that of Greek and 
 Roman antiquity. They hold that the man who has learned 
 Latin and Greek, however little, is educated ; while he who is 
 versed in other branches of knowledge, however deeply, is a more 
 or less respectable specialist, not admissable into the cultured 
 caste. The stamp of the educated man, the University degree, is 
 not for him. 
 
 I am too well acquainted with the generous catholicity of 
 
34 THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY 
 
 spirit, the true sympathy with scientific thought, which pervades 
 the writings of our chief apostle of culture, to identify him with 
 t hese opinions ; and yet one may cull from one and another of 
 those epistles to the Philistines,^ which so much delight all who 
 do not answer to that name, sentences which lend them some 
 support. 
 
 Mr. Arnold tells us that the meaning of culture is "to know the 
 best that has been thought and said in the world." It is the 
 criticism of life contained in literature. That criticism re- 
 gards "Europe as being, for intellectual and spiritual purposes, 
 one great confederation, bound to a joint action and working to 
 a common result ; and whose members have, for their common 
 outfit, a knowledge of Greek, Roman, and Eastern antiquity, 
 and of one another. Special, local, and temporary advantages 
 being put out of account, that modern nation will in the intel- 
 lectual and spiritual sphere make most progress, which most 
 thoroughly carries out this program. And what is that but 
 saying that we too all of us, as individuals, the more thoroughly 
 we carry it out, shall make the more progress ? " ^ 
 
 We have here to deal with two distinct propositions. The 
 first, that a criticism of life is the essence of culture ; the second, 
 that literature contains the materials which suffice for the con- 
 struction of such a criticism. 
 
 I think that we must all assent to the first proposition. For 
 culture certainly means something quite different from learning 
 or technical skill. It implies the possession of an ideal, and the 
 habit of critically estimating the value of things by comparison 
 with a theoretic standard. Perfect culture should supply a com- 
 plete theory of life, based upon a clear knowledge alike of its 
 possibilities and of its limitations. 
 
 But we may agree to all this, and yet strongly dissent from the 
 assumption that literature alone is competent to supply this 
 knowledge. After having learnt all that Greek, Roman, and 
 
 ' See p. g. — Editors. 
 
 ^ The Function of Criticism at the Present Time; in Essays in Criticism, 
 First Series (Macmillan) , p. 39. — Editors. 
 
SCIENCE AND CULTURE 35 
 
 Eastern antiquity have thought and said, and all that modern 
 literatures have to tell us, it is not self-evident that we have laid 
 a sufficiently broad and deep foundation for that criticism of 
 life that constitutes culture. 
 
 Indeed, to any one acquainted with the scope of physical 
 science, it is not at all evident. Considering progress only in the 
 "intellectual and spiritual sphere," I find myself wholly unable 
 to admit that either nations or individuals will really advance, if 
 their common outfit draws nothing from the stores of physical 
 science. I should say that an army, without weapons of preci- 
 sion, and with no particular base of operations, might more hope- 
 fully enter upon a campaign on the Rhine, than a man, devoid 
 of a knowledge of what physical science has done in the last cen- 
 tury, upon a criticism of life. 
 
 When a biologist meets with an anomaly, he instinctively 
 turns to the study of development to clear it up. The rationale 
 of contradictory opinions may with equal confidence be sought in 
 history. 
 
 It is, happily, no new thing that Englishmen should employ 
 their wealth in building and endowing institutions for educa- 
 tional purposes. But, five or six hundred years ago, deeds of 
 foundation expressed or implied conditions as nearly as possible 
 contrary to those which have been thought expedient by Sir 
 Josiah Mason. That is to say, physical science was practically 
 ignored, while a certain literary training was enjoined as a means 
 to the acquirement of knowledge which was essentially theo- 
 logical. 
 
 The reason of this singular contradiction between the actions 
 of men alike animated by a strong and disinterested desire to 
 promote the welfare of their fellows, is easily discovered. 
 
 At that time, in fact, if any one desired knowledge beyond 
 such as could be obtained by his own observation, or by common 
 conversation, his first necessity was to learn the Latin language, 
 inasmuch as all the higher knowledge of the western world was 
 contained in works written in that language. Hence, Latin 
 grammar, with logic and rhetoric, studied through Latin, were 
 
36 THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY 
 
 the fundamentals of education. With respect to the substance 
 of the knowledge imparted through this channel, the Jewish and 
 Christian Scriptures, as interpreted and supplemented by the 
 Romish Church, were held to contain a complete and infallibly 
 true body of information. 
 
 Theological dicta were, to the thinkers of those days, that 
 which the axioms and definitions of Euclid are to the geometers 
 of these. The business of the philosophers of the Middle Ages 
 was to deduce from the data furnished by the theologians, con- 
 clusions in accordance with ecclesiastical decrees. They were 
 allowed the high privilege of showing, by logical process, how and 
 why that which the Church said was true, must be true. And if 
 their demonstrations fell short of or exceeded this limit, the 
 Church was maternally ready to check their aberrations, if 
 need be, by the help of the secular arm. 
 
 Between the two, our ancestors were furnished with a compact 
 and complete criticism of life. They were told how the world 
 began, and how it would end ; they learned that all material ex- 
 istence was but a base and insignificant blot upon the fair face of 
 the spiritual world, and that nature was, to all intents and pur- 
 poses, the playground of the devil ; they learned that the earth is 
 the center of the visible universe, and that man is the cynosure of 
 things terrestrial ; and more especially is it inculcated that the 
 course of nature had no fixed order, but that it could be, and con- 
 stantly was, altered by the agency of innumerable spiritual beings, 
 good and bad, according as they were moved by the deeds and 
 prayers of men. The sum and substance of the whole doctrine 
 was to produce the conviction that the only thing really worth 
 knowing in this world was how to secure that place in a better 
 which, under certain conditions, the Church promised. 
 
 Our ancestors had a living belief in this theory of life, and acted 
 upon it in their dealings with education, as in all other matters. 
 Culture meant saintliness — after the fashion of the saints of 
 those days ; the education that led to it was, of necessity, theo- 
 logical ; and the way to theology lay through Latin. 
 
 That the study of nature — further than was requisite for the 
 
SCIENCE AND CULTURE 37 
 
 satisfaction of everyday wants — should have any bearing on 
 human Hfe was far from the thoughts of men thus trained. In- 
 deed, as nature had been cursed for man's sake, it was an obvious 
 conclusion that those who meddled with nature were likely to 
 come into pretty close contact with Satan. And, if any born 
 scientific investigator followed his instincts, he might safely 
 reckon upon earning the reputation, and probably upon suffering 
 the fate, of a sorcerer. 
 
 Had the western world been left to itself in Chinese isolation, 
 there is no saying how long this state of things might have en- 
 dured. But, happily, it was not left to itself. Even earlier than 
 the thirteenth century, the development of Moorish civilization 
 in Spain and the great movement of the Crusades had introduced 
 the leaven which, from that day to this, has never ceased to work. 
 At first, through the intermediation of Arabic translations, after- 
 wards, by the study of the originals, the western nations of 
 Europe became acquainted with the writings of the ancient phi- 
 losophers and poets, and, in time, with the whole of the vast lit- 
 erature of antiquity. 
 
 Whatever there was of high intellectual aspiration or dominant 
 capacity in Italy, France, Germany, and England, spent itself 
 for centuries in taking possession of the rich inheritance left by 
 the dead civilizations of Greece and Rome. Marvelously aided 
 by the invention of printing, classical learning spread and flour- 
 ished. Those who possessed it prided themselves on having 
 attained the highest culture then within the reach of man- 
 kind. 
 
 And justly. For, saving Dante on his solitary pinnacle, there 
 was no figure in modern literature at the time of the Renascence 
 to compare with the men of antiquity ; there was no art to com- 
 pete with their sculpture; there was no physical science but 
 that which Greece had created. Above all, there was no other 
 example of perfect intellectual freedom — of the unhesitating 
 acceptance of reason as the sole guide of truth and the supreme 
 arbiter of conduct. 
 
 The new learning necessarily soon exerted a profound influ- 
 
38 THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY 
 
 ence upon education. The language of the monks and school- 
 men seemed little better than gibberish to scholars fresh from 
 Virgil and Cicero, and the study of Latin was placed upon a new 
 foundation. Moreover, Latin itself ceased to afford the sole key- 
 to knowledge. The student who sought the highest thought of 
 antiquity, found only a second-hand reflection of it in Roman 
 literature, and turned his face to the full light of the Greeks. And 
 after a battle, not altogether dissimilar to that which is at present 
 being fought over the teaching of physical science, the study of 
 Greek was recognized as an essential element of all higher educa- 
 tion. 
 
 Thus the Humanists,^ as they were called, won the day ; and 
 the great reform which they effected was of incalculable service to 
 mankind. But the Nemesis of all reformers is finality ; and the re- 
 formers of education, like those of religion, fell into the profound, 
 however common, error of mistaking the beginning for the end of 
 the work of reformation. 
 
 The representatives of the Humanists, in the nineteenth cen- 
 tury, take their stand upon classical education as the sole avenue 
 to culture, as firmly as if we were still in the age of the Renascence. 
 Yet, surely, the present intellectual relations of the modern and 
 the ancient worlds are profoundly different from those which 
 obtained three centuries ago. Leaving aside the existence of a 
 great and characteristically modern literature, of modern paint- 
 ing, and, especially, of modern music, there is one feature of the 
 present state of the civilized world which separates it more 
 widely from the Renascence than the Renascence was separated 
 from the Middle Ages. 
 
 This distinctive character of our own times lies in the vast 
 and constantly increasing part which is played by natural knowl- 
 edge. Not only is our daily life shaped by it, not only does the 
 prosperity of millions of men depend upon it, but our whole 
 theory of life has long been influenced, consciously or uncon- 
 
 ' So named because they considered that human interests could be 
 better promoted by the study of the ancient classics (litterae humaniorcs) 
 than by the theology of the medieval churchmen. — Editors. 
 
SCIENCE AND CULTURE 39 
 
 sciously, by the general conceptions of the universe, which have 
 been forced upon us by physical science. 
 
 In fact, the most elementary acquaintance with the results of 
 scientific investigation shows us that they offer a broad and strik- 
 ing contradiction to the opinions so implicitly credited and taught 
 in the Middle Ages. 
 
 The notions of the beginning and the end of the world enter- 
 tained by our forefathers are no longer credible. It is very cer- 
 tain that the earth is not the chief body in the material universe, 
 and that the world is not subordinated to man's use. It is even 
 more certain that nature is the expression of a definite order with 
 which nothing interferes, and that the chief business of mankind 
 is to learn that order and govern themselves accordingly. More- 
 over this scientific "criticism of life" presents itself to us with 
 different credentials from any other. It appeals not to authority, 
 nor to what anybody may have thought or said, but to nature. 
 It admits that all our interpretations of natural fact are more or 
 less imperfect and symbolic, and bids the learner seek for truth 
 not among words but among things. It warns us that the asser- 
 tion which outstrips evidence is not only a blunder but a crime. 
 
 The purely classical education advocated by the representa- 
 tives of the Humanists in our day gives no inkling of all this. 
 A man may be a better scholar than Erasmus, and know no more 
 of the chief causes of the present intellectual fermentation than 
 Erasmus did. Scholarly and pious persons, worthy of all respect, 
 favor us with allocutions upon the sadness of the antagonism of 
 science to the medieval way of thinking, which betray an igno- 
 rance of the first principles of scientific investigation, an incapac- 
 ity for understanding what a man of science means by veracity, 
 and an unconsciousness of the weight of established scientific 
 truths, which is almost comical. 
 
 There is no great force in the tu quoque^ argument, or else the 
 advocates of scientific education might fairly enough retort upon 
 the modern Humanists that they may be learned specialists, but 
 
 1 " Thou too ! " The retort which turns an adversary's argument 
 against himself. — Editors. 
 
40 THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY 
 
 that they possess no such sound foundation for a criticism of Hfe 
 as deserves the name of culture. And, indeed, if we were dis- 
 posed to be cruel, we might urge that the Humanists have brought 
 this reproach upon themselves, not because they are too full of 
 the spirit of the ancient Greek, but because they lack it. 
 
 The period of the Renascence is commonly called that of the 
 "Revival of Letters," as if the influences then brought to bear 
 upon the mind of Western Europe had been wholly exhausted in 
 the field of literature. I think it is very commonly forgotten 
 that the revival of science, effected by the same agency, although 
 less conspicuous, was not less momentous. 
 
 In fact, the few and scattered students of nature of that day 
 picked up the clew to her secrets exactly as it fell from the hands 
 of the Greeks a thousand years before. The foundations of 
 mathematics were so well laid by them that our children learn 
 their geometry from a book written for the schools of Alexandria 
 two thousand years ago.^ Modern astronomy is the natural con- 
 tinuation and development of the work of Hipparchus and of 
 Ptolemy ; modern physics of that of Democritus and of Archi- 
 medes ; it was long before modern biological science outgrew the 
 knowledge bequeathed to us by Aristotle, by Theophrastus, and 
 by Galen. 
 
 We cannot know all the best thoughts and sayings of the 
 Greeks unless we know what they thought about natural phe- 
 nomena. We cannot fully apprehend their criticism of life un- 
 less we understand the extent to which that criticism was affected 
 by scientific conceptions. We falsely pretend to be the inheri- 
 tors of their culture unless we are penetrated, as the best minds 
 among them were, with an unhesitating faith that the free em- 
 ployment of reason, in accordance with scientific method, is the 
 ■sole method of reaching truth. 
 
 Thus I venture to think that the pretensions of our modern 
 
 Humanists to the possession of the monoply of culture and to the 
 
 exclusive inheritance of the spirit of antiquity must be abated, if 
 
 not abandoned. But I should be very sorry that anything I 
 
 ^ Euclid's treatise on geometry. — Editors. 
 
SCIENCE AND CULTURE 41 
 
 have said should be taken to imply a desire on my part to depre- 
 ciate the value of classical education, as it might be and as it 
 sometimes is. The native capacities of mankind vary no less 
 than their opportunities ; and while culture is one, the road by 
 which one man may best reach it is wholly different from that 
 which is most advantageous to another. Again, while scientific 
 education is yet inchoate and tentative, classical education is 
 thoroughly well organized upon the practical experience of genera- 
 tions of teachers. So that, given ample time for learning and 
 destination for ordinary life, or for a literary career, I do not 
 think that a young Englishman in search of culture can do better 
 than follow the course usually marked out for him, supplement- 
 ing its deficiencies by his own efforts. 
 
 But for those who mean to make- science their serious occupa- 
 tion ; or who intend to follow the profession of medicine ; or who 
 have to enter early upon the business of life ; for all these, in my 
 opinion, classical education is a mistake ; and it is for this reason 
 that I am glad to see "mere literary education and instruc- 
 tion" shut out from the curriculum of Sir Josiah Mason's Col- 
 lege, seeing that its inclusion would probably lead to the in- 
 troduction of the ordinary smattering of Latin and Greek. 
 
 Nevertheless, I am the last person to question the importance 
 of genuine literary education, or to suppose that intellectual cul- 
 ture can be complete without it. An exclusively scientific train- 
 ing will bring about a mental twist as surely as an exclusively 
 literary training. The value of the cargo does not compensate 
 for a ship's being out of trim ; and I should be very sorry to 
 think that the Scientific College would turn out none but lop- 
 sided men. 
 
 There is no need, however, that such a catastrophe should 
 happen. Instruction in English, French, and German is pro- 
 vided, and thus the three greatest literatures of the modern world 
 are made accessible to the student. 
 
 French and German, and especially the latter language, are 
 absolutely indispensable to those who desire full knowledge in 
 any department of science. But even supposing that the knowl- 
 
42 THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY 
 
 edge of these languages acquired is not more than sufficient for 
 purely scientific purposes, every Englishman has, in his native 
 tongue, an almost perfect instrument of literary expression ; and, 
 in his own literature, models of every kind of literary excellence. 
 If an Englishman cannot get Hterary culture out of his Bible, his 
 Shakespeare, his Milton, neither, in my belief, will the profoundest 
 study of Homer and Sophocles, Virgil and Horace, give it to him. 
 
 Thus, since the constitution of the College makes sufficient pro- 
 vision for literary as well as for scientific education, and since 
 artistic instruction is also contemplated, it seems to me that a 
 fairly complete culture is offered to all who are willing to take 
 advantage of it. 
 
 But I am not sure that at this point the "practical" man, 
 scotched but not slain, may ask what all this talk about culture 
 has to do with an Institution, the object of which is defined to be 
 " to promote the prosperity of the manufactures and the industry 
 of the country." He may suggest that what is wanted for this 
 end is not culture, not even a purely scientific discipline, but 
 simply a knowledge of applied science. 
 
 I often wish that this phrase, "applied science," had never been 
 invented. For it suggests that there is a sort of scientific knowl- 
 edge of direct practical use, which can be studied apart from 
 another sort of scientific knowledge, which is of no practical util- 
 ity, and which is termed "pure science." But there is no more 
 complete fallacy than this. What people call applied science is 
 nothing but the application of pure science to particular classes 
 of problems. It consists of deductions from those general prin- 
 ciples, established by reasoning and observation, which consti- 
 tute pure science. No one can safely make these deductions 
 until he has a firm grasp of the principles ; and he can obtain 
 that grasp only by personal experience of the operations of ob- 
 servation and of reasoning on which they are founded. 
 
 .\lmost all the processes employed in the arts and manufac- 
 tures fall within the range either of physics or of chemistry. In 
 order to improve them, one must thoroughly understand them ; 
 and no one has a chance of really understanding them, unless he 
 
SCIENCE AND CULTURE 43 
 
 has obtained that mastery of principles and that habit of dealing 
 with facts which is given by long-continued and well-directed 
 purely scientific training in the physical and the chemical labora- 
 tory. So that there really is no question as to the necessity of 
 purely scientific discipline, even if the work of the College were 
 limited by the narrowest interpretation of its stated aims. 
 
 And, as to the desirableness of a wider culture than that 
 yielded by science alone, it is to be recollected that the improve- 
 ment of manufacturing processes is only one of the conditions 
 which contribute to the prosperity of industry. Industry is a 
 means and not an end ; and mankind work only to get something 
 which they want. What that something is depends partly on 
 their innate, and partly on their acquired, desires. 
 
 If the wealth resulting from prosperous industry is to be spent 
 upon the gratification of unworthy desires, if the increasing per- 
 fection of manufacturing processes is to be accompanied by an 
 increasing debasement of those who carry them on, I do not see 
 the good of industry and prosperity. 
 
 Now it is perfectly true that men's views of what is desirable 
 depend upon their characters ; and that the innate proclivities 
 to which we give that name are not touched by any amount of 
 instruction. But it does not follow that even mere intellectual 
 education may not, to an indefinite extent, modify the practical 
 manifestation of the characters of men in their actions, by suf)- 
 plying them with motives unknown to the ignorant. A pleas- 
 ure-loving character will have pleasure of some sort ; but, if 
 you give him the choice, he may prefer pleasures which do not 
 degrade him to those which do. And this choice is offered to 
 every man who possesses in literary or artistic culture a never- 
 failing source of pleasures, which are neither withered by age, 
 nor staled by custom, nor embittered in the recollection by the 
 pangs of self-reproach. 
 
 If the Institution opened to-day fulfills the intention of its 
 founder, the picked intelligences among all classes of the popula- 
 tion of this district will pass through it. No child born in Bir- 
 mingham, henceforward, if he have the capacity to profit by the 
 
44 THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY 
 
 opportunities oflFered to him, first in the primary and other 
 schools and afterwards in the Scientific College, need fail to ob- 
 tain, not merely the instruction, but the culture most appropri- 
 ate to the conditions of his life. 
 
 Within these walls, the future employer and the future artisan 
 may sojourn together for a while, and carry, through all their 
 lives, the stamp of the influences then brought to bear upon them. 
 Hence, it is not beside the mark to remind you, that the pros- 
 perity of industry depends not merely upon the improvement of 
 manufacturing processes, not merely upon the ennobling of the 
 individual character, but upon a third condition; namely, a clear 
 understanding of the conditions of social life on the part of 
 both the capitalist and the operative, and their agreement upon 
 common principles of social action. They must learn that so- 
 cial phenomena are as much the expression of natural laws as 
 any others ; that no social arrangements can be permanent 
 unless they harmonize with the requirements of social statics 
 and dynamics ; and that, in the nature of things, there is an 
 arbiter whose decisions execute themselves. 
 
 But this knowledge is only to be obtained by the application 
 of the methods of investigation adopted in physical researches 
 to the investigation of the phenomena of society. Hence, I 
 confess, I should like to see one addition made to the excellent 
 scheme of education propounded for the College, in the shape 
 of provision for the teaching of sociology. For though we are 
 all agreed that party politics are to have no place in the instruc- 
 tion of the College ; yet in this country, practically governed as it 
 is now by universal suffrage, every man who does his duty must 
 exercise political functions. And, if the evils which are insepar- 
 able from the good of political liberty are to be checked, if the 
 perpetual oscillation of nations between anarchy and despotism 
 is to be replaced by the steady march of self-restraining freedom ; 
 it will be because men will gradually bring themselves to deal 
 with political, as they now deal with scientific, questions ; to be as 
 ashamed of undue haste and partisan prejudice in the one case as 
 in the other ; and to believe that the machinery of society is at 
 
SCIENCE AND CULTURE 45 
 
 least as delicate as that of a spinning jenny, and as little likely 
 to be improved by the meddling of those who have not taken the 
 trouble to master the principles of its action. 
 
 In conclusion, I am sure that I make myself the mouthpiece of 
 all present in offering to the venerable founder of the Institution, 
 which now commences its beneficent career, our congratulations 
 on the completion of his work ; and in expressing the conviction, 
 that the remotest posterity will point to it as a crucial instance 
 of the wisdom which natural piety leads all men to ascribe to 
 their ancestors. 
 
Ill 
 
 THE ETHICS OF BELIEF 
 
 William Kingdon Clifford 
 
 [William Kingdon Clifford (1845-1879) was a celebrated mathematician 
 whose intellectual versatility often led him into quite other fields of interest, 
 as the title of this essay bears witness. He was educated at Cambridge, 
 where he gained a reputation as a mathematical genius, besides winning 
 distinction in literature and the classics. At the conclusion of his residence 
 in 1 87 1 he was appointed professor of applied mathematics at University 
 College, London, a position he held with distinction until his premature 
 death eight years later, when, although but thirty-four years of age, he was 
 recognized as one of the leading scientific thinkers of his day. 
 
 While CHfford's classic contributions are to mathematical hterature, the 
 facile and original bent of his mind is well attested by his essays on meta- 
 physics and philosophy and his habit of applying his mathematically thought 
 out ideas to ethical and religious questions. The Ethics of Belief, which 
 tj^ifies the author's felicity of phrase and illustration as well as his power of 
 subtle if not always convincing reasoning, may be regarded as a plea for an 
 agnostic attitude in all matters of commonly accepted behef, rehgious or 
 otherwise. In this connection it is interesting to note that Clifford as an 
 undergraduate was a High Churchman, fond of experimenting in schemes for 
 the reconciliation of science and dogma; but later under the influence of 
 Darwin and Herbert Spencer he came to regard the possibiUty of such a rec- 
 onciliation as highly improbable. Clifford's arguments for the rejection of 
 all beliefs unsupported by "sufficient evidence" are answered by Professor 
 James in the next essay. 
 
 The Ethics of Belief was first published in the Contemporary Review for 
 January, 1877.] 
 
 I. The Duty of Inquiry 
 
 A SHIPOWNER was about to send to sea an emigrant ship. 
 He knew that she was old, and not overwell built at the first ; 
 that she had seen many seas and climes, and often had needed 
 repairs. Doubts had been suggested to him that possibly she 
 was not seaworthy. These doubts preyed upon his mind, and 
 
 46 
 
THE ETHICS OF BELIEF 47 
 
 made him unhappy ; he thought that perhaps he ought to have 
 her thoroughly overhauled and refitted, even though this should 
 put him to great expense. Before the ship sailed, however, he 
 succeeded in overcoming these melancholy reflections. He said 
 to himself that she had gone safely through so many voyages and 
 weathered so many storms, that it was idle to suppose that she 
 would not come safely home from this trip also. He would put 
 his trust in Providence, which could hardly fail to protect all 
 these unhappy families that were leaving their fatherland to seek 
 for better times elsewhere. He would dismiss from his mind all 
 ungenerous suspicions about the honesty of builders and contrac- 
 tors. In such ways he acquired a sincere and comfortable con- 
 viction that his vessel was thoroughly safe and seaworthy ; he 
 watched her departure with a light heart, and benevolent wishes 
 for the success of the exiles in their strange new home that was to 
 be ; and he got his insurance money when she went down in mid- 
 ocean and told no tales. 
 
 What shall we say of him ? Surely this, that he was verily 
 guilty of the death of those men. It is admitted that he did 
 sincerely believe in the soundness of his ship ; but the sincerity 
 of his conviction can in nowise help him, because he had no right 
 to believe on such evidence as was before him. He had acquired his 
 belief not by honestly earning it in patient investigation, but by 
 stifling his doubts. And although in the end he may have felt 
 so sure about it that he could not think otherwise, yet inasmuch 
 as he had knowingly and willingly worked himself into that 
 frame of mind, he must be held responsible for it. 
 
 Let us alter the case a little, and suppose that the ship was not 
 unsound after all ; that she made her voyage safely, and many 
 others after it. Will that diminish the guilt of her owner ? Not 
 one jot. When an action is once done, it is right or wrong for- 
 ever ; no accidental failure of its good or evil fruits can possibly 
 alter that. The man would not have been innocent ; he would 
 only have been not found out. The question of right or wrong 
 has to do with the origin of his belief, not the matter of it ; not 
 what it was, but how he got it ; not whether it turned out to be 
 
48 WILLIAM KINGDOM CLIFFORD 
 
 true or false, but whether he had a right to believe on such evi- 
 dence as was before him. 
 
 There was once an island in which some of the inhabitants 
 professed a religion teaching neither the doctrine of original sin 
 nor that of eternal punishment. A suspicion got abroad that the 
 professors of this religion had made use of unfair means to get 
 their doctrines taught to children. They were accused of wrest- 
 ing the laws of their country in such a way as to remove children 
 from the care of their natural and legal guardians ; and even 
 of stealing them away and keeping them concealed from their 
 friends and relations. A certain number of men formed them- 
 selves into a society for the purpose of agitating the public about 
 this matter. They published grave accusations against individual 
 citizens of the highest position and character, and did all in their 
 power to injure these citizens in the exercise of their professions. 
 So great was the noise they made, that a Commission was ap- 
 pointed to investigate the facts ; but after the Commission had 
 carefully inquired into all the evidence that could be got, it ap- 
 peared that the accused were innocent. Not only had they been 
 accused on insufficient evidence, but the evidence of their inno- 
 cence was such as the agitators might easily have obtained, if 
 they had attempted a fair inquiry. After these disclosures the 
 inhabitants of that country looked upon the members of the agi- 
 tating society, not only as persons whose judgment was to be 
 distrusted, but also as no longer to be counted honorable men. 
 For although they had sincerely and "conscientiously" believed 
 in the charges they had made, yet they had no right to believe on 
 such evidence as was before them. Their sincere convictions, in- 
 stead of being honestly earned by patient inquiring, were stolen 
 by listening to the voice of prejudice and passion. 
 
 Let us vary this case also, and suppose, other things remain- 
 ing as before, that a still more accurate investigation proved 
 the accused to have been really guilty. Would this make any 
 difference in the guilt of the accusers ? Clearly not ; the ques- 
 tion is not whether their belief was true or false, but whether 
 they entertained it on wrong grounds. They would no doubt 
 
THE ETHICS OF BELIEF 
 
 49 
 
 say, "Now you see that we were right after all; next time 
 perhaps you will believe us." And they might be believed, but 
 they would not thereby become honorable men. They would not 
 be innocent, they would only be not found out. Every one of 
 them, if he chose to examine himself in foro conscientia,^ wovdd 
 know that he had acquired and nourished a belief, when he had 
 no right to believe on such evidence as was before him ; and 
 therein he would know that he had done a wrong thing. 
 
 It may be said, however, that in both of these supposed cases 
 it is not the belief which is judged to be wrong, but the action 
 following upon it. The shipowner might say, "I am perfectly 
 certain that my ship is sound, but still I feel it is my duty to have 
 her examined, before trusting the lives of so many people to her." 
 And it might be said to the agitator, "However convinced you 
 were of the justice of your cause and the truth of your convic- 
 tions, you ought not to have made a public attack upon any 
 man's character until you had examined the evidence on both 
 sides with the utmost patience and care." 
 
 In the first place, let us admit that, so far as it goes, this view 
 of the case is right and necessary ; right, because even when a 
 man's belief is so fixed that he cannot think otherwise, he still 
 has a choice in regard to the action suggested by it, and so can- 
 not escape the duty of investigating on the ground of the 
 strength of his convictions ; and necessary, because those who 
 are not yet capable of controlling their feelings and thoughts 
 must have a plain rule dealing with overt acts. 
 
 But this being premised as necessary, it becomes clear that it 
 is not sufficient, and that our previous judgment is required to 
 supplement it. For it is not possible so to sever the faith from 
 the action it suggests as to condemn the one without condemning 
 the other. No man holding a strong belief on one side of a ques- 
 tion, or even wishing to hold a belief on one side, can investigate 
 it with such fairness and completeness as if he were really in doubt 
 and unbiased ; so that the existence of a belief, not founded on fair 
 inquiry, unfits a man for the performance of this necessary duty. 
 1 Before the tribunal of his conscience. — Editors. 
 
50 WILLIAM KINGDON CLIFFORD 
 
 Nor is that truly a belief at all which has not some influence 
 upon the actions of him who holds it. He who truly believes 
 that which prompts him to an action has looked upon the action 
 to lust after it ; he has committed it already in his heart. If a be- 
 lief is not realized immediately in open deeds, it is stored up for 
 the guidance of the future. It goes to make a part of that aggre- 
 gate of beliefs which is the link between sensation and action at 
 every moment of all our lives, and which is so organized and 
 compacted together that no part of it can be isolated from the 
 rest, but every new addition modifies the structure of the whole. 
 No real belief, however trifling and fragmentary it may seem, is 
 ever truly insignificant ; it prepares us to receive more of its like, 
 confirms those which resembled it before, and weakens others ; 
 and so gradually it lays a stealthy train in our inmost thoughts, 
 which may some day explode into overt action, and leave its 
 stamp upon our character forever. 
 
 And no one man's belief is in any case a private matter which 
 concerns himself alone. Our lives are guided by that general 
 conception of the course of things which has been created by 
 society for social purposes. Our words, our phrases, our forms 
 and processes and modes of thought, are common property, 
 fashioned and perfected from age to age ; an heirloom, which 
 every succeeding generation inherits as a precious deposit and 
 a sacred trust, to be handed on to the next one, not unchanged, 
 but enlarged and purified, with some clear marks of its proper 
 handiwork. Into this, for good or ill, is woven every belief of 
 every man who has speech of his fellows. An awful privilege, 
 and an awful responsibility, that we should help to create the 
 world in which posterity will live. 
 
 In the two supposed cases which have been considered, it has 
 been judged wrong to believe on insufficient evidence, or to nour- 
 ish belief by suppressing doubts and avoiding investigation. 
 The reason of this judgment is not far to seek ; it is that in both 
 these cases the belief held by one man was of great importance 
 to other men. But forasmuch as no belief held by one man, 
 however seemingly trivial the belief, and however obscure the 
 
THE ETHICS OF BELIEF 51 
 
 believer, is ever actually insignificant or without its effect on the 
 fate of mankind, we have no choice but to extend our judgment 
 to all cases of belief whatever. Belief, that sacred faculty, which 
 prompts the decisions of our will, and knits into harmonious work- 
 ing all the compacted energies of our being, is ours not for our- 
 selves but for humanity. It is rightly used on truths which 
 have been established by long tradition and waiting toil, and 
 which have stood in the fierce light of free and fearless question- 
 ing. Then it helps to bind men together, and to strengthen and 
 direct their common action. It is desecrated when given to un- 
 proved and unquestioned statements, for the solace and private 
 pleasure of the believer ; to add a tinsel splendor to the plain, 
 straight road of our life, and display a bright mirage beyond it ; 
 or even to drown the common sorrows of our kind by a self- 
 deception which allows them not only to cast down, but also to 
 degrade us. Whoso would deserve well of his fellows in this 
 matter will guard the purity of his belief with a very fanaticism 
 of jealous care, lest at any time it should rest on an unworthy 
 object, and catch a stain which can never be wiped away. 
 
 It is not only the leader of men, statesman, philosopher, or 
 poet, that owes this bounden duty to mankind. Every rustic 
 who delivers in the village alehouse his slow infrequent sentences, 
 may help to kill or keep alive the fatal superstitions which clog 
 his race. Every hard-worked wife of an artisan may transmit 
 to her children beliefs which shall knit society together, or rend 
 it in pieces. No simplicity of mind, no obscurity of station, can 
 escape the universal duty of questioning all that we believe. 
 
 It is true that this duty is a hard one, and the doubt which 
 comes out of it is often a very bitter thing. It leaves us bare 
 and powerless where we thought that we were safe and strong. 
 To know all about anything is to know how to deal with it under 
 all circumstances. We feel much happier and more secure when 
 we think we know precisely what we do, no matter what hap- 
 pens, than when we have lost our way and do not know where to 
 turn. And if we have supposed purselves to know all about 
 anything, and to be capable of doing what is fit in regard to it, 
 
52 WILLIAM KINGDOM CLIFFORD 
 
 we naturally do not like to find that we are really ignorant and 
 powerless, that we have to begin again at the beginning, and try to 
 learn what the thing is and how it is to be dealt with — if indeed 
 anything can be learned about it. It is the sense of power at- 
 tached to a sense of knowledge that makes men desirous of believ- 
 ing, and afraid of doubting. 
 
 This sense of power is the highest and best of pleasures when 
 the belief on which it is founded is a true belief, and has been 
 fairly earned by investigation. For then we may justly feel 
 that it is common property, and holds good for others as well as 
 for ourselves. Then we may be glad, not that / have learned 
 secrets by which I am safer and stronger, but that we men have 
 got mastery over more of the world ; and we shall be strong, not 
 for ourselves, but in the name of Man and in his strength. But 
 if the belief has been accepted on insufficient evidence, the 
 pleasure is a stolen one. Not only does it deceive ourselves by 
 giving us a sense of power which we do not really possess, but 
 it is sinful, because it is stolen in defiance of our duty to man- 
 kind. That duty is, to guard ourselves from such beliefs as 
 from a pestilence, which may shortly master our own body and 
 then spread to the rest of the town. What would be thought of 
 one who, for the sake of a sweet fruit, should deliberately run 
 the risk of bringing a plague upon his family and his neighbors ? 
 
 And, as in other such cases, it is not the risk only which has to 
 be considered ; for a bad action is always bad at the time when it 
 is done, no matter what happens afterwards. Every time we let 
 ourselves believe for unworthy reasons, we weaken our powers of 
 self-control, of doubting, of judicially and fairly weighing evi- 
 dence. We all suffer severely enough from the maintenance and 
 support of false beliefs and the fatally wrong actions which they 
 lead to, and the evil born when one such belief is entertained is 
 great and wide. But a greater and wider evil arises when the 
 credulous character is maintained and supported, when a habit of 
 believing for unworthy reasons is fostered and made permanent. 
 If I steal money from any person, there may be no harm done 
 by the mere transfer of possession ; he may not feel the loss, or 
 
THE ETHICS OF BELIEF 53 
 
 it may prevent him from using the money badly. But I cannot 
 help doing this great wrong towards Man, that I make myself 
 dishonest. What hurts society is not that it should lose its 
 property, but that it should become a den of thieves ; for then it 
 must cease to be society. This is why we ought not to do evil 
 that good may come ; for at any rate this great evil has come, 
 that we have done evil and are made wicked thereby. In like 
 manner, if I let myself believe anything on insufficient evidence, 
 there may be no great harm done by the mere belief ; it may be 
 true after all, or I may never have occasion to exhibit it in out- 
 ward acts. But I cannot help doing this great wrong towards 
 Man, that I make myself credulous. The danger to society is 
 not merely that it should believe wrong things, though that is 
 great enough ; but that it should become credulous, and lose the 
 habit of testing things and inquiring into them ; for then it must 
 sink back into savagery. 
 
 The harm which is done by credulity in a man is not confined 
 to the fostering of a credulous character in others, and consequent 
 support of false beliefs. Habitual want of care about what I be- 
 lieve leads to habitual want of care in others about the truth of 
 what is told to me. Men speak the truth to one another when 
 each reveres the truth in his own mind and in the other's mind ; 
 but how shall my friend revere the truth in my mind when I 
 myself am careless about it, when I believe things because I 
 want to believe them, and because they are comforting and pleas- 
 ant? Will he not learn to cry, "Peace," to me, when. there is 
 no peace? By such a course I shall surround myself with a 
 thick atmosphere of falsehood and fraud, and in that I must 
 live. It may matter little to me, in my cloud-castle of sweet 
 illusions and darling lies ; but it matters much to Man that I 
 have made my neighbors ready to deceive. The credulous man 
 is father to the liar and the cheat ; he lives in the bosom of this 
 his family, and it is no marvel if he should become even as they 
 are. So closely are our duties knit together, that whoso shall 
 keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of 
 all. 
 
54 WILLIAM KINGDON CLIFFORD 
 
 To sum up : it is wrong always, everywhere, and for any one, 
 to believe anything upon insufficient -evidence. 
 
 If a man, holding a belief which he was taught in childhood or 
 persuaded of afterwards, keeps down and pushes away any doubts 
 which arise about it in his mind, purposely avoids the reading of 
 books and the company of men that call in question or discuss it, 
 and regards as impious those questions which cannot easily be 
 asked without disturbing it ; the life of that man is one long sin 
 against mankind. 
 
 If this judgment seems harsh when applied to those simple 
 souls who have never known better, who have been brought up 
 from the cradle with a horror of doubt, and taught that their 
 eternal welfare depends on what they believe; then it leads to 
 the very serious question. Who hath made Israel to sin? 
 
 It may be permitted me to fortify this judgment with the 
 sentence of Milton ^ : — 
 
 " A man may be a heretic in "the truth ; and if he.believe things 
 only because his pastor says so, or the assembly so determine, 
 without knowing other reason, though his belief be true, yet the 
 very truth he holds becomes his heresy." 
 
 And with the famous aphorism of Coleridge ^ : — 
 
 "He who begins by lo\dng Christianity better than Truth, 
 will proceed by loving his own sect or Church better than Chris- 
 tianity, and end in loving himself better than all." 
 
 Inquiry into the evidence of a doctrine is not to be made once 
 for all, and then taken as finally settled. It is never lawful to 
 stifle a doubt ; for either it can be honestly answered by means 
 of the inquiry already made, or else it proves that the inquiry 
 was not complete. 
 
 "But," says one, "I am a busy man ; I have no time for the 
 long course of study which would be necessary to make me in any 
 degree a competent judge of certain questions, or even able to 
 understand the nature of the arguments." Then he should have 
 no time to believe. 
 
 1 Areopagitica. - Aids to Reflection. 
 
THE ETHICS OF BELIEF 55 
 
 II. The Weight of Authority 
 
 Are we then to become universal skeptics, doubting everything, 
 afraid always to put one foot before the other until we have per- 
 sonally tested the firmness of the road ? Are we to deprive our- 
 selves of the help and guidance of that vast body of knowledge 
 which is daily growing upon the world, because neither we nor any 
 other one person can possibly test a hundredth part of it by imme- 
 diate experiment or observation, and because it would not be com- 
 pletely proved if we did ? Shall we steal and tell lies because we 
 have had no personal experience wide enough to justify the belief 
 that it is wrong to do so ? 
 
 There is no practical danger that such consequences will ever 
 follow from scrupulous care and self-control in the matter of 
 belief. Those men who have most nearly done their duty in 
 this respect have found that certain great principles, and these 
 most fitted for the guidance of life, have stood out more and 
 more clearly in proportion to the care and honesty with which 
 they were tested, and have acquired in this way a practical cer- 
 tainty. The beliefs about right and wrong which guide our 
 actions in dealing with men in society, and the beliefs about 
 physical nature which guide our actions in dealing with animate 
 and inanimate bodies, these never suffer from investigation ; 
 they can take care of themselves, without being propped up by 
 "acts of faith." the clamor of paid advocates, or the suppression 
 of contrary evidence. Moreover, there are many cases in which 
 it is our duty to act upon probabilities, although the evidence 
 is not such as to justify present belief ; because it is precisely 
 by such action, and by observation of its fruits, that evidence is 
 got which may justify future belief. So that we have no reason 
 to fear lest a habit of conscientious inquiry should paralyze the 
 actions of our daily life. 
 
 But because it is not enough to say, "It is wrong to believe 
 on unworthy evidence," without saying also what evidence is 
 worthy, we shall now go on to inquire under what circumstances 
 it is lawful to believe on the testimony of others ; and then, fur- 
 
56 WILLIAM KINGDON CLIFFORD 
 
 ther , we shall inquire more generally when and why we may believe 
 that which goes beyond our own experience, or even beyond the 
 experience of mankind. 
 
 In what cases, then, let us ask in the first place, is the testi- 
 mony of a man unworthy of belief ? He may say that which is 
 untrue either knowingly or unknowingly. In the first case he is 
 lying, and his moral character is to blame ; in the second case he 
 is ignorant or mistaken, and it is only his knowledge or his judg- 
 ment which is in fault. In order that we may have the right to 
 accept his testimony as ground for believing what he says, we 
 must have reasonable grounds for trusting his veracity , that he is 
 really trying to speak the truth so far as he knows it ; his knowl- 
 edge, that he has had opportunities of knowing the truth about 
 this matter ; and \ns judgment, that he has made a proper use of 
 those opportunities in coming to the conclusion which he affirms. 
 
 However plain and obvious these considerations may be, so 
 that no man of ordinary intelligence, reflecting on the matter, 
 could fail to arrive at them, it is nevertheless true that a great 
 many persons do habitually disregard them in weighing testi- 
 mony. Of the two questions, equally important to the trust- 
 worthiness of a witness, "Is he dishonest?" and "May he be 
 mistaken?" the majority of mankind are perfectly satisfied if 
 one can, with some show of probability, be answered in the nega- 
 tive. The excellent moral character of a man is alleged as 
 ground for accepting his statements about things which he can- 
 not possibly have known. A Mohammedan, for example, will 
 tell us that the character of his Prophet was so noble and majestic 
 that it commands the reverence even of those who do not believe 
 in his mission. So admirable was his moral teaching, so wisely 
 put together the great social machine which he created, that 
 his precepts have not only been accepted by a great portion of 
 mankind, but have actually been obeyed. His institutions have 
 on the one hand rescued the negro from savagery, and on the 
 other hand have taught civilization to the advancing West ; 
 and although the races which held the highest forms of his faith, 
 and most fully embodied his mind and thought, have all been 
 
THE ETHICS OF BELIEF 57 
 
 conquered and swept away by barbaric tribes, yet the history 
 of their marvelous attainments remains as an imperishable 
 glory to Islam. Are we to doubt the word of a man so grea' and 
 so good? Can we suppose that this magnificent genius, this 
 splendid moral hero, has lied to us about the most solemn and 
 sacred matters? The testimony of Mohammed is clear, that 
 there is but one God, and that he, Mohammed, is his prophet; 
 that if we believe in him we shall enjoy everlasting felicity, but 
 that if we do not we shall be damned. This testimony rests on 
 the most awful of foundations, the revelation of heaven itself ; 
 for was he not visited by the angel Gabriel, as he fasted and 
 prayed in his desert cave, and allowed to enter into the blessed 
 fields of Paradise? Surely God is God, and Mohammed is 
 the Prophet of God. 
 
 What should we answer to this Mussulman ? First, no doubt, 
 we should be tempted to take exception against his view of the 
 character of the Prophet and the uniformly beneficial influence 
 of Islam : before we could go with him altogether in these 
 matters it might seem that we should have to forget many 
 terrible things of which we have heard or read. But if we chose 
 to grant him all these assumptions, for the sake of argument, 
 and because it is difficult both for the faithful and for infidels to 
 discuss them fairly and \vithout passion ; still we should have 
 something to say which takes away the ground of his belief, and 
 therefore shows that it is wrong to entertain it. Namely this : 
 the character of Mohammed is excellent evidence that he was 
 honest and spoke the truth so far as he knew it ; but it is no evi- 
 dence at all that he knew what the truth was. What means 
 could he have of knowing that the form which appeared to him 
 to be the angel Gabriel was not a hallucination, and that his 
 apparent visit to Paradise was not a dream? Grant that he 
 himself was fully persuaded and honestly believed that he had 
 the guidance of heaven, and was the vehicle of a supernatural 
 revelation ; how could he know that this strong conviction was 
 not a mistake ? Let us put ourselves in his place ; we shall find 
 that the more completely we endeavor to realize what passed 
 
58 WILLIAM KINGDON CLIFFORD 
 
 through his mind, the more clearly we shall perceive that the 
 Prophet could have had no adequate ground for the beUef in 
 his own inspiration. It is most probable that he himself never 
 doubted of the matter, or thought of asking the question ; but we 
 are in the position of those to whom the question has been asked, 
 and who are bound to answer it. It is known to medical observers 
 that solitude and want of food are powerful means of producing 
 delusion and of fostering a tendency to mental disease. Let us 
 suppose, then, that I, like Mohammed, go into desert places to 
 fast and pray ; what things can happen to me which will give me 
 the right to believe that I am divinely inspired ? Suppose that 
 I get information, apparently from a celestial visitor, which upon 
 being tested is found to be correct. I cannot be sure, in the first 
 place, that the celestial visitor is not a figment of my own mind, 
 and that the information did not come to me, unknown at the 
 •time to my consciousness, through some subtle channel of 
 sense. But if my visitor were a real visitor, and for a long time 
 gave me information which was found to be trustworthy, this 
 would indeed be good ground for trusting him in the future as to 
 such matters as fall within human powers of verification; but 
 it would not be ground for trusting his testimony as to any 
 other matters. For although his tested character would justify 
 me in believing that he spoke the truth so far as he knew, yet the 
 same question would present itself — what ground is there for 
 supposing that he knows ? 
 
 Even if my supposed visitor had given me such information, 
 subsequently verified by me, as proved him to have means of 
 knowledge about verifiable matters far exceeding my own ; this 
 would not justify me in believing what he said about matters that 
 are not at present capable of verification by man. It would be 
 ground for interesting conjecture, and for the hope that, as the 
 fruit of our patient inquiry, we might by and by attain to such 
 a means of verification as should rightly turn conjecture into be- 
 lief. For behef belongs to man, and to the guidance of human 
 affairs : no belief is real unless it guide our actions, and those 
 very actions supply a test of its truth. 
 
THE ETHICS OF BELIEF 59 
 
 But, it may be replied, the acceptance of Islam as a system is 
 just that action which is prompted by belief in the mission of the 
 Prophet, and which will serve for a test of its truth. Is it 
 possible to believe that a system which has succeeded so well is 
 really founded upon a delusion ? Not only have individual 
 saints found joy and peace in believing, and verified those 
 spiritual experiences which are promised to the faithful, but na- 
 tions also have been raised from savagery or barbarism to a 
 higher social state. Surely we are at liberty to say that the 
 belief has been acted upon, and that it has been verified. 
 
 It requires, however, but little consideration to show that what 
 has really been verified is not at all the supernal character of the 
 Prophet's mission, or the trustworthiness of his authority in 
 matters which we ourselves cannot test ; but only his practical 
 wisdom in certain very mundane things. The fact that be- 
 lievers have found joy and peace in believing gives us the right 
 to say that the doctrine is a comfortable doctrine, and pleasant 
 to the soul ; but it does not give us the right to say that it is true. 
 And the question which our conscience is always asking about 
 that which we are tempted to believe is not "Is it comfortable 
 and pleasant?" but "Is it true?" That the Prophet preached 
 certain doctrines, and predicted that spiritual comfort would be 
 found in them, proves only his sympathy with human nature 
 and his knowledge of it ; but it does not prove his superhuman 
 knowledge of theology. 
 
 And if we admit for the sake of argument (for it seems that we 
 cannot do more) that the progress made by Moslem nations in 
 certain cases was really due to the system formed and sent forth 
 into the world by Mohammed ; we are not at liberty to conclude 
 from this that he was inspired to declare the truth about things 
 which we cannot verify. We are only at liberty to infer the ex- 
 cellence of his moral precepts, or of the means which he devised 
 for so working upon men as to get them obeyed, or of the social 
 and political machinery which he set up. And it would require 
 a great amount of careful examination into the history of those 
 nations to determine which of these things had the greater share 
 
6o WILLIAM KINGDON CLIFFORD 
 
 in the result. So that here again it is the Prophet's knowledge of 
 
 human nature, and his sympathy with it, that are verified ; not 
 his divine inspiration, or his knowledge of theology. 
 
 If there were only one Prophet, indeed, it might well seem a 
 difficult and even an ungracious task to decide upon what points 
 we would trust him, and on what we would doubt his authority ; 
 seeing what help and furtherance all men have gained in all ages 
 from those who saw more clearly, who felt more strongly, and 
 who sought the truth wath more single heart than their weaker 
 brethren. But there is not only one Prophet ; and while the con- 
 sent of many upon that which, as men, they had real means of 
 knowing and did know, has endured to the end, and been honor- 
 ably built into the great fabric of human knowledge ; the diverse 
 witness of some about that which they did not and could not 
 know remains as a warning to us that to exaggerate the prophetic 
 authority is to misuse it, and to dishonor those who have sought 
 only to help and further us after their power. It is hardly in 
 human nature that a man should quite accurately gauge the 
 limits of his own insight ; but it is the duty of those who profit 
 by his work to consider carefully where he may have been carried 
 beyond it. If we must needs embalm his possible errors along 
 with his solid achievements, and use his authority as an excuse 
 for believing what he cannot have known, we make of his good- 
 ness an occasion to sin. 
 
 To consider only one other such witness : the followers of 
 Buddha have at least as much right to appeal to individual and 
 social experience in support of the authority of the Eastern 
 saviour. The special mark of his religion, it is said, that in which 
 it has never been surpassed, is the comfort and consolation which 
 it gives to the sick and sorrowful, the tender sympathy with 
 which it soothes and assuages all the natural griefs of men. And 
 surely no triumph of social morality can be greater or nobler than 
 that which has kept nearly half the human race from persecuting 
 in the name of religion. If we are to trust the accounts of his 
 early followers, he believed himself to have come down upon 
 earth with a divine and cosmic mission to set rolling the wheel of 
 
THE ETHICS OF BELIEF 6i 
 
 the law. Being a prince, he emptied himself of his kingdom, and 
 of his free will became acquainted with misery, that he might 
 learn how to meet and subdue it. Could such a man speak 
 falsely about solemn things ? And as for his knowledge, was he 
 not a man miraculous, with powers more than man's ? He was 
 born of woman without the help of man ; he rose into the air and 
 was transfigured before his kinsmen ; at last he went up bodily 
 into hea\-en from the top of Adam's Peak. Is not his word to 
 be believed in when he testifies of heavenly things ? 
 
 If there were only he, and no other, with such claims! But 
 there is Mohammed with his testimony ; we cannot choose but 
 listen to them both. The Prophet tells us that there is one God, 
 and that we shall live forever in joy or misery, according as we 
 believe in the Prophet or not. The Buddha says that there is no 
 God, and that we shall be annihilated by and by if we are good 
 enough. Both cannot be infallibly inspired ; one or the other 
 must have been the victim of a delusion, and thought he knew 
 that which he really did not know. Who shall dare to say 
 which? and how can we justify ourselves in believing that the 
 other was not also deluded ? 
 
 We are led, then, to these judgments following. The goodness 
 and greatness of a man do not justify us in accepting a belief upon 
 the warrant of his authority, unless there are reasonable grounds 
 for supposing that he knew the truth of what he was saying. And 
 there can be no grounds for supposing that a man knows that 
 which we, without ceasing to be men, could not be supposed to 
 verify. 
 
 If a chemist tells me, who am no chemist, that a certain sub- 
 stance can be made by putting together other substances in 
 certain proportions and subjecting them to a known process, I 
 am quite justified in believing this upon his authority, unless I 
 know anything against his character or his judgment. For his 
 professional training is one which tends to encourage veracity 
 and the honest pursuit of truth, and to produce a dislike of hasty 
 conclusions and slovenly investigation. And I have reasonable 
 ground for supposing that he knows the truth of what he is saying, 
 
62 WILLIAM KINGDON CLIFFORD 
 
 for although I am no chemist, I can be made to understand so 
 much of the methods and processes of the science as makes it 
 conceivable to me that, without ceasing to be man, I might verify 
 the statement. I may never actually verify it, or even see any 
 experiment which goes towards verifying it; but still I have 
 quite reason enough to justify me in believing that the verifica- 
 tion is within the reach of human appliances and powers, and in 
 particular that it has been actually performed by my informant. 
 His result, the belief to which he has been led by his inquiries, 
 is valid not only for himself but for others ; it is watched and 
 tested by those who are working in the same ground, and who 
 know that no greater service can be rendered to science than the 
 purification of accepted results from the errors which may have 
 crept into them. It is in this way that the result becomes com- 
 mon property, a right object of belief, which is a social affair and 
 matter of public business. Thus it is to be observed that his 
 authority is valid because there are those who question it and 
 verify it ; that it is precisely this process of examining and purify- 
 ing that keeps alive among investigators the love of that which 
 shall stand all possible tests, the sense of public responsibility as 
 of those whose work, if well done, shall remain as the enduring 
 heritage of mankind. 
 
 But if my chemist tells me that an atom of oxygen has existed 
 'unaltered in weight and rate of vibration throughout all time, I 
 have no right to believe this on his authority, for it is a thing 
 which he cannot know without ceasing to be man. He may 
 quite honestly believe that this statement is a fair inference from 
 his experiments, but in that case his judgment is at fault. A 
 very simple consideration of the character of experiments would 
 show him that they never can lead to results of such a kind ; that 
 being themselves only approximate and Hmited, they cannot 
 give us knowledge which is exact and universal. No eminence 
 of character and genius can give a man authority enough to 
 justify us in believing him when he makes ^statements implying 
 exact or universal knowledge. 
 
 Again, an Arctic explorer may tell us that in a given latitude 
 
THE ETHICS OF BELIEF 63 
 
 and longitude he has experienced such and such a degree of cold, 
 that the sea was of such a depth, and the ice of such a character. 
 We should be quite right to believe him in the absence of any 
 stain upon his veracity. It is conceivable that we might, with- 
 out ceasing to be men, go there and verify his statement; it can 
 be tested by the witness of his companions, and there is adequate 
 ground for supposing that he knows the truth of what he is say- 
 ing. But if an old whaler tells us that the ice is three hundred 
 feet thick all the way up to the Pole, we shall not be justified in 
 believing him. For although the statement may be capable of 
 verification by man, it is certainly not capable of verification by 
 him, with any means and appliances which he has possessed ; 
 and he must have persuaded himself of the truth of it by some 
 means which does not attach any credit to his testimony. Even 
 if, therefore, the matter affirmed is within the reach of human 
 knowledge, we have no right to accept it upon authority unless 
 it is within the reach of our informant's knowledge. 
 
 What shall we say of that authority, more venerable and au- 
 gust than any individual witness, the time-honored tradition of 
 the human race ? An atmosphere of beliefs and conceptions has 
 been formed by the labors and struggles of our forefathers, which 
 enables us to breathe amid the various and complex circumstances 
 of our life. It is around and about us and within us ; we cannot 
 think except in the forms and processes of thought which it 
 supplies. Is it possible to doubt and to test it ? and if possible, 
 is it right ? 
 
 We shall find reason to answer that it is not only possible and 
 right, but our bounden duty ; that the main purpose of the tradi- 
 tion itself is to supply us with the means of asking questions, of 
 testing and inquiring into things ; that if we misuse it, and take 
 it as a collection of cut and dried statements, to be accepted 
 without further inquiry, we are not only injuring ourselves here, 
 but by refusing to do our part towards the building up of the 
 fabric which shall be inherited by our children, we are tending to 
 cut off ourselves and our race from the human line. 
 
 Let us take care to distinguish a kind of tradition which es- 
 
64 WILLIAM KINGDOM CLIFFORD 
 
 pecially requires to be examined and called in question, because 
 it especially shrinks from inquiry. Suppose that a medicine man 
 in Central Africa tells his tribe that a certain powerful medicine 
 in his tent will be propitiated if they kill their cattle ; and that 
 the tribe believe him. Whether the medicine was propitiated or 
 not, there are no means of verifying, but the cattle are gone. 
 Still the belief may be kept up in the tribe that propitiation has 
 been effected in this way ; and in a later generation it will be all 
 the easier for another medicine man to persuade them to a similar 
 act. Here the only reason for belief is that everybody has be- 
 lieved the thing for so long that it must be true. And yet the 
 belief was founded on fraud, and has been propagated by credu- 
 lity. That man will undoubtedly do right, and be a friend of 
 men, who shall call it in question and see that there is no evidence 
 for it, help his neighbors to see as he does, and even, if need be, 
 go into the holy tent and break the medicine. 
 
 The rule which should guide us in such cases is simple and ob- 
 vious enough : that the aggregate testimony of our neighbors is 
 subject to the same conditions as the testimony of any one of 
 them. Namely, we have no right to believe a thing true because 
 everybody says so, unless there are good grounds for believing 
 that some one person at least has the means of knowing what is 
 true, and is speaking the truth so far as he knows it. However 
 many nations and generations of men are brought into the wit- 
 ness box, they cannot testify to anything which they do not 
 know. Every man who has accepted the statement from some- 
 body else, without himself testing and verifying it, is out of court ; 
 his word is worth nothing at all. And when we get back at last 
 to the true birth and beginning of the statement, two serious 
 questions must be disposed of in regard to him who first made it : 
 was he mistaken in thinking that he knew about this matter, or 
 was he lying ? 
 
 This last question is unfortunately a very actual and practical 
 one, even to us at this day and In this country. We have no 
 occasion to go to La Salette, or to Central Africa, or to Lourdes 
 for examples of immoral and debasing superstition. It is only 
 
THE ETHICS OF BELIEF 65 
 
 too possible for a child to grow up in London surrounded by an 
 atmosphere of beliefs fit only for the savage, which have in our 
 own time been founded in fraud and propagated by credulity. 
 
 Laying aside, then, such tradition as is handed on without 
 testing by successive generations, let us consider that which is 
 truly built up out of the common experience of mankind. This 
 great fabric is for the guidance of our thoughts, and through 
 them of our actions, both in the moral and in the material world. 
 In the moral world, for example, it gives us the conceptions of 
 right in general, of justice, of truth, of beneficence, and the like. 
 These are given as conceptions, not as statements or propositions; 
 they answer to certain definite instincts, which are certainly 
 within us, however they came there. That it is right to be benefi- 
 cent is a matter of immediate personal experience ; for when a 
 man retires within himself and there finds something, wider and 
 more lasting than his solitary personality, which says, "I want 
 to do right," as well as, "I want to do good to man," he can 
 verify by direct observation that one instinct is founded upon 
 and agrees fully with the other. And it is his duty so to verify 
 this and all similar statements. 
 
 The tradition says also, at a definite place and time, that such 
 and such actions are just, or true, or beneficent. For all such 
 rules a further inquiry is necessary, since they are sometimes 
 established by an authority other than that of the moral sense 
 founded on experience. Until recently, the moral tradition of 
 our own country — and indeed of all Europe — taught that it 
 was beneficent to give money indiscriminately to beggars. But 
 the questioning of this rule, and investigation into it, led men to 
 see that true beneficence is that which helps a man to do the 
 work which he is most fitted for, not that which keeps and 
 encourages him in idleness ; and that to neglect this distinc- 
 tion in the present is to prepare pauperism and misery for 
 the future. By this testing and discussion, not only has prac- 
 tice been purified and made more beneficent, but the very con- 
 ception of beneficence has been made wider and wiser. Now 
 here the great social heirloom consists of two parts : the instinct 
 
66 WILLIAM KINGDON CLIFFORD 
 
 of beneficence, which makes a certain side of our nature, when 
 predominant, wish to do good to men ; and the intellectual con- 
 ception of beneficence, which we can compare with any proposed 
 course of conduct and ask, " Is this beneficent or not ? " By the 
 continual asking and answering of such questions the conception 
 grows in breadth and distinctness, and the instinct becomes 
 strengthened and purified. It appears then that the great use 
 of the conception, the intellectual part of the heirloom, is to 
 enable us to ask questions ; that it grows and is kept straight by 
 means of these questions ; and if we do not use it for that purpose 
 we shall gradually lose it altogether, and be left with a mere code 
 of regulations which cannot rightly be called morality at all. 
 
 Such considerations apply even more obviously and clearly, if 
 possible, to the store of beliefs and conceptions which our fathers 
 have amassed for us in respect of the material world. We are 
 ready to laugh at the rule of thumb of the Australian, who 
 continues to tie his hatchet to the side of the handle, although 
 the Birmingham fitter has made a hole on purpose for him to put 
 the handle in. His people have tied up hatchets so for ages : 
 who is he that he should set himself up against their wisdom? 
 He has sunk so low that he cannot do what some of them must 
 have done in the far distant past — call in question an estab- 
 lished usage, and invent or learn something better. Yet here, in 
 the dim beginning of knowledge, where science and art are one, 
 we find only the same simple rule which applies to the highest 
 and deepest growths of that cosmic Tree ; to its loftiest flower- 
 tipped branches as well as to the profoundest of its hidden roots ; 
 the rule, namely, that what is stored up and handed down to us 
 is rightly used by those who act as the makers acted, when they 
 stored it up ; those who use it to ask further questions, to examine, 
 to investigate ; who try honestly and solemnly to find out what 
 is the right way of looking at things and of dealing with them. 
 
 A question rightly asked is already half answered, said Jacobi ; 
 we may add that the method of solution is the other half of the 
 answer, and that the actual result counts for nothing by the side 
 of these two. For an example let us go to the telegraph, where 
 
THE ETHICS OF BELIEF 67 
 
 theory and practice, grown each to years of discretion, are 
 marvelously wedded for the fruitful service of men. Ohm 
 found that the strength of an electric current is directly propor- 
 tional to the strength of the battery which produces it, and in- 
 versely as the length of the wire along which it has to travel. This 
 is called Ohm's law ; but the result, regarded as a statement to be 
 believed, is not the valuable part of it. The first half is the 
 question : what relation holds good between these quantities ? 
 So put, the question involves already the conception of strength 
 of current, and of strength of battery, as quantities to be measured 
 and compared ; it hints clearly that these are the things to be 
 attended to in the study of electric currents. The second half is 
 the method of investigation ; how to measure these quantities, 
 what apparatus are required for the experiment, and how are 
 they to be used ? The student who begins to learn about elec- 
 tricity is not asked to begin in Ohm's law ; he is made to under- 
 stand the question, he is placed before the apparatus, and he is 
 taught to verify it. He learns to do things, not to think he 
 knows things ; to use instruments and to ask questions, not to 
 accept a traditional statement. The question which required a 
 genius to ask it rightly is answered by a tyro. If Ohm's law were 
 suddenly lost and forgotten by all men, while the question and 
 the method of solution remained, the result could be rediscovered 
 in an hour. But the result by itself, if known to a people who 
 could not comprehend the value of the question or the means of 
 solving it, would be like a watch in the hands of a savage who 
 could not wind it up, or an iron steamship worked by Spanish 
 engineers. 
 
 In regard, then, to the sacred tradition of humanity, we learn 
 that it consists, not in propositions or statements which are to 
 be accepted and beUeved on the authority of the tradition, but in 
 questions rightly asked, in conceptions which enable us to ask 
 further questions, and in methods of answering questions. The 
 value of all these things depends on their being tested day„by 
 day. The very sacredness of the precious deposit imposes upon 
 us the duty and the responsibility of testing it, of purifying 
 
68 WILLIAM KINGDON CLIFFORD 
 
 and enlarging it to the utmost of our power. He who makes use 
 of its results to stifle his own doubts, or to hamper the inquiry of 
 others, is guilty of a sacrilege which centuries shall never be able 
 to blot out. When the labors and questionings of honest and 
 brave men shall have built up the fabric of known truth to a 
 glory which we in this generation can neither hope for nor im- 
 agine ; in that pure and holy temple he shall have no part nor 
 lot, but his name and his works shall be cast out into the dark- 
 ness of oblivion forever. 
 
 III. The Limits of Inference 
 
 The question, in what cases we may believe that which goes 
 beyond our experience, is a very large and delicate one, extending 
 to the whole range of scientific method, and requiring a consider- 
 able increase in the application of it before it can be answered 
 with anything approaching to completeness. But one rule, lying 
 on the threshold of the subject, of extreme simplicity and vast 
 practical importance, may here be touched upon and shortly laid 
 down. 
 
 A little reflection will show us that every belief, even the sim- 
 plest and most fundamental, goes beyond experience when re- 
 garded as a guide to our actions. A burnt child dreads the fire, 
 because it believes that the fire will burn it to-day just as it did 
 yesterday ; but this belief goes beyond experience, and assumes 
 that the unknown fire of to-day is like the known fire of yesterday. 
 Even the belief that the child was burnt yesterday goes beyond 
 present experience, which contains only the memory of a burning, 
 and not the burning itself ; it assumes, therefore, that this 
 memory is trustworthy, although we know that a memory may 
 often be mistaken. But if it is to be used as a guide of action, 
 as a hint of what the future is to be, it must assume something 
 about that future, namely, that it will be consistent with the 
 supposition that the burning really took place yesterday ; which 
 is going beyond experience. Even the fundamental "I am," 
 which cannot be doubted, is no guide to action until it takes to 
 
THE ETHICS OF BELIEF 69 
 
 itself "I shall be," which goes beyond experience. The question 
 is not, therefore, " May we believe what goes beyond experience ? " 
 for this is involved in the very nature of belief; but "How far 
 and in what manner may we add to our experience in forming 
 our beUefs?" 
 
 And an answer, of utter simplicity and universality, is sug- 
 gested by the example we have taken : a burnt child dreads the 
 fire. We may go beyond experience by assuming that what we 
 do not know is like what we do know ; or, in other words, we 
 may add to our experience on the assumption of a uniformity in 
 nature. What this uniformity precisely is, how we grow in the 
 knowledge of it from generation to generation, these are ques- 
 tions which for the present we lay aside, being content to examine 
 two instances which may serve to make plainer the nature of the 
 rule. 
 
 From certain observations made with the spectroscope, we 
 infer the existence of hydrogen in the sun. By looking into the 
 spectroscope when the sun is shining on its slit, we see certain 
 definite bright lines ; and experiments made upon bodies on the 
 earth have taught us that when these bright lines are seen, hy- 
 drogen is the source of them. We assume, then, that the un- 
 known bright lines in the sun are like the known bright lines of 
 the laboratory, and that hydrogen in the sun behaves as hydro- 
 gen under similar circumstances would behave on the earth. 
 
 But are we not trusting our spectroscope too much ? Surely, 
 having found it to be trustworthy for terrestrial substances, 
 where its statements can be verified by man, we are justified in 
 accepting its testimony in other like cases ; but not when it 
 gives us information about things in the sun, where its testimony 
 cannot be directly verified by man ? 
 
 Certainly, we want to know a little more before this inference 
 can be justified ; and fortunately we do know this. The spec- 
 troscope testifies to exactly the same thing in the two cases ; 
 namely, that light vibrations of a certain rate are being sent 
 through it. Its construction is such that if it were wrong about 
 this in one case it would be wrong in the other. When we come 
 
yo WILLIAM KINGDON CLIFFORD 
 
 to look into the matter, we find that we have really assumed the 
 matter of the sun to be like the matter of the earth, made up of 
 a certain number of distinct substances ; and that each of these, 
 when very hot, has a distinct rate of vibration, by which it may 
 be recognized and singled out from the rest. But this is the 
 kind of assumption which we are justified in using when we add 
 to our experience. It is an assumption of uniformity in nature, 
 and can only be checked by comparison with many similar as- 
 sumptions which we have to make in other such cases. 
 
 But is this a true belief, of the existence of hydrogen in the 
 sun ? Can it help in the right guidance of human action ? 
 
 Certainly not, if it is accepted on unworthy grounds, and with- 
 out some understanding of the process by which it is got at. 
 But when this process is taken in as the ground of the belief, it 
 becomes a very serious and practical matter. For if there is no 
 hydrogen in the sun, the spectroscope — that is to say, the meas- 
 urement of rates of vibration — must be an uncertain guide in 
 recognizing different substances ; and consequently it ought not 
 to be used in chemical analysis — in assaying, for example — to 
 the great saving of time, trouble, and money. Whereas the ac- 
 ceptance of the spectroscopic method as trustworthy has en- 
 riched us not only with new metals, which is a great thing, but 
 with new processes of investigation, which is vastly greater. 
 
 For another example, let us consider the way in which we infer 
 the truth of an historical event — say the siege of Syracuse in 
 the Peloponnesian war. Our experience is that manuscripts 
 exist which are said to be and which call themselves manuscripts 
 of the history of Thucydides ; that in other manuscripts, stated 
 to be by later historians, he is described as living during the time 
 of the war ; and that books, supposed to date from the revival 
 of learning, tell us how these manuscripts had been preserved 
 and were then acquired. We find also that men do not, as a rule, 
 forge books and histories without a special motive ; we assume 
 that in this respect men in the past were like men in the present ; 
 and we observe that in this case no special motive was present. 
 That is, we add to our experience on the assumption of a uniform- 
 
THE ETHICS OF BELIEF 
 
 71 
 
 ity in the characters of men. Because our knowledge of this 
 uniformity is far less complete and exact than our knowledge 
 of that which obtains in physics, inferences of the historical 
 kind are more precarious and less exact than inferences in many 
 other sciences. 
 
 But if there is any special reason to suspect the character of 
 the persons who wrote or transmitted certain books, the case be- 
 comes altered. If a group of documents give internal evidence 
 that they were produced among people who forged books in the 
 names of others, and who, in describing events, suppressed 
 those things which did not suit them, while they amplified such 
 as did suit them ; who not only committed these crimes, but 
 gloried in them as proofs of humility and zeal ; then we must 
 say that upon such documents no true historical inference can 
 be founded, but only unsatisfactory conjecture. 
 
 We may, then, add to our experience on the assumption of a 
 uniformity in nature ; we may fill in our picture of what is and 
 has been, as experience gives it to us, in such a way as to make 
 the whole consistent with this uniformity. And practically de- 
 monstrative inference — that which gives us a right to believe 
 in the result of it — ^ is a clear showing that in no other way than 
 by the truth of this result can the uniformity of nature be saved. 
 
 No evidence, therefore, can justify us in believing the truth 
 of a statement which is contrary to, or outside of, the uniformity 
 of nature. If our experience is such that it cannot be filled up 
 consistently with uniformity, all we have a right to conclude is 
 that there is something wrong somewhere ; but the possibility 
 of inference is taken away ; we must rest in our experience, and 
 not go beyond it at all. If an event really happened, which was 
 not a part of the uniformity of nature, it would have two proper- 
 ties ; no evidence could give the right to believe it to any except 
 those whose actual experience it was ; and no inference worthy 
 of belief could be founded upon it at all. 
 
 Are we then bound to believe that nature is absolutely and 
 universally uniform ? Certainly not ; we have no right to be- 
 lieve anything of this kind. , The rule only tells us that in form- 
 
72 WILLIAM KINGDON CLIFFORD 
 
 ing beliefs which go beyond our experience, we may make the 
 assumption that nature is practically uniform so far as we are 
 concerned. Within the range of human action and verification, 
 we may form, by help of this assumption, actual beliefs ; be- 
 yond it, only those hypotheses which serve for the more accurate 
 asking of questions. 
 
 To sum up : — 
 
 We may believe what goes beyond our experience, only when 
 it is inferred from that experience by the assumption that what 
 we do not know is like what we know. 
 
 We may believe the statement of another person, when there 
 is reasonable ground for supposing that he knows the matter of 
 which he speaks, and that he is speaking the truth so far as he 
 knows it. 
 
 It is wrong in all cases to believe on insufficient evidence ; and 
 where it is presumption to doubt and to investigate, there it is 
 worse than presumption to believe. 
 
IV 
 
 THE WILL TO BELIEVE^ 
 
 William James 
 
 [William James (1842-1910), brother of the novelist, Henry James, is 
 recognized as one of the ablest psychologists and philosophers America has 
 produced. After studying medicine at Harvard, he began, in 1872, his life- 
 long connection with that institution, occupying in turn chairs in physiology, 
 psychology, and philosophy. His published work in these fields of knowledge 
 has placed him among the foremost thinkers of our time. 
 
 The following essay on The Will to Believe illustrates James's attitude 
 toward religious faith, his reasonableness and ingenuity in argument, and 
 his unconventionality and charm of style. As the champion of " the right 
 to adopt a believing attitude in religious matters in spite of the fact that 
 our merely logical intellect may not have been coerced," James takes 
 issue flatly with the position of Clifford in the foregoing selection. His 
 thesis is not that we have a right to believe anything we like, but 
 that in the final problems of life, when presented with two alternatives, 
 neither of which is capable of proof or disproof, it is more rational for us to 
 choose the one which is in accord with our hopes rather than our fears. 
 
 This essay was delivered as an address to the Philosophical Clubs of Yale 
 and Brown Universities, in April and May, 1896, and first printed in the 
 New World for June of that year. Its argument, although universally 
 commended for its brilliancy, occasioned many rejoinders, among them : 
 E. Stettheimer's The Will to Believe as a Basis for the Defense of Religious 
 Faith (tr. 1907), Dickinson S. Miller's The Will to Believe and the Duty to 
 Doubt (International Journal of Ethics, January, 1899), and Vernon Lee's The 
 Need to Believe {Fortnightly Review, November, 1899).] 
 
 In the recently published Life by Leslie Stephen of his brother, " 
 Fitz- James, there is an account of a school to which the latter 
 went when he was a boy. The teacher, a certain Mr. Guest, used 
 
 ^ Reprinted by permission from The Will to Believe and other Essays in 
 Popular Philosophy by William James (Longmans, Green, & Co.). 
 
 73 
 
74 WILLIAM JAMES 
 
 to converse with his pupils in this wise : " Gurney, what is the dif- 
 ference between justification and sanctification ? — Stephen, 
 prove the omnipotence of God !" etc. In the midst of our Har- 
 vard freethinking and indifference we are prone to imagine that 
 here at your good old orthodox College conversation continues 
 to be somewhat upon this order; and to show you that we at 
 Harvard have not lost all interest in these vital subjects, I have 
 brought with me to-night something like a sermon on justifi- 
 cation by faith to read to you, — I mean an essay in justifica- 
 tion of faith, a defense of our right to adopt a believing attitude 
 in rehgious matters, in spite of the fact that our merely logical 
 intellect may not have been coerced. The Will to Believe, ac- 
 cordingly, is the title of my paper. 
 
 I have long defended to my own students the lawfulness of 
 voluntarily adopted faith ; but as soon as they have got well im- 
 bued with the logical spirit, they have as a rule refused to admit 
 my contention to be lawful philosophically, even though in point 
 of fact they were personally all the time chock-full of some faith 
 or other themselves. I am all the while, however, so profoundly 
 convinced that my own position is correct, that your invitation 
 has seemed to me a good occasion to make my statements more 
 clear. Perhaps your minds will be more open than those with 
 which I have hitherto had to deal. I will be as Httle technical as 
 I can, though I must begin by setting up some technical distinc- 
 tions that will help us in the end. 
 
 Let us give the name of hypothesis to anything that may be 
 proposed to our belief ; and just as the electricians speak of live 
 3 and dead wires, let us speak of any hypothesis as either live or 
 dead. A live hypothesis is one which appeals as a real possibility 
 to him to whom it is proposed. If I ask you to believe in the 
 Mahdi, the notion makes no electric connection with your na- 
 ture, — it refuses to scintillate with any credibiUty at all. As an 
 hypothesis it is completely dead. To an Arab, however (even 
 if he be not one of the Mahdi's followers), the hypothesis is 
 
THE WILL TO BELIEVE " 75 
 
 among the mind's possibilities : it is alive. This shows that 
 deadness and liveness in an hypothesis are not intrinsic proper- 
 ties, but relations to the individual thinker. They are meas- 
 ured by his willingness to act. The maximum of liveness in an 
 hypothesis means willingness to act irrevocably. Practically, 
 that means belief ; but there is some believing tendency wherever 
 there is willingness to act at all. 
 
 Next, let us call the decision between two hypotheses an op- 
 tion. Options may be of several kinds. They may be: i, liv- 
 ing or dead; 2, forced or avoidable; 3, momentous or trivial; and 
 for our purposes we may call an option a genuine option when it 
 is of the forced, Hving, and momentous kind. 
 
 1. A living option is one in which both hypotheses are live 
 ones. If I say to you: "Be a theosophist or be a Moham- 
 medan," it is probably a dead option, because for you neither 
 hypothesis is Hkely to be alive. But if I say : "Be an agnostic 
 or be a Christian," it is otherwise : trained as you are, each 
 hypothesis makes some appeal, however small, to your belief. 
 
 2. Next, if I say to you: "Choose between going out with 
 your umbrella or without it," I do not offer you a genuine option, 
 for it is not forced. You can easily avoid it by not going out at 
 all. Similarly, if I say, "Either love me or hate me," "Either 
 call my theory true or call it false," your option is avoidable. 
 You may remain indifferent to me, neither loving nor hating, and 
 you may decline to offer any judgment as to my theory. But 
 if I say, "Either accept this truth or go without it," I put on 
 you a forced option, for there is no standing place outside of the 
 alternative. Every dilemma based on a complete logical dis- 
 junction, with no possibility of not choosing, is an option of this 
 forced kind. 
 
 3. Finally, if I were Dr. Nansen and proposed to you to join 
 my North Pole expedition, your option would be momentous; 
 for this would probably be your only similar opportunity, and 
 your choice now would either exclude you from the North Pole 
 sort of immortality altogether or put at least the chance of it 
 into your hands. He who refuses to embrace a unique oppor- 
 
76 WILLIAM JAMES 
 
 tunity loses the prize as surely as if he tried and failed. Per 
 contra, the option is trivial when the opportunity is not unique, 
 when the stake is insignificant, or when the decision is revers- 
 ible if it later prove unwise. Such trivial options abound in 
 the scientific life. A chemist finds an hypothesis live enough 
 to spend a year in its verification : he beheves in it to that ex- 
 tent. But if his experiments prove inconclusive either way, he 
 is quit for his loss of time, no vital harm being done. 
 
 It will facilitate our discussion if we keep all these distinctions 
 well in mind. 
 
 II 
 
 The next matter to consider is the actual psychology of hu- 
 man opinion. When we look at certain facts, it seems as if our 
 passional and volitional nature lay at the root of all our con- 
 victions. When we look at others, it seems as if they could do 
 nothing when the intellect had once said its say. Let us take 
 the latter facts up first. 
 
 Does it not seem preposterous on the very face of it to talk 
 of our opinions being modifiable at will ? Can our will either 
 help or hinder our intellect in its perceptions of truth ? Can we, 
 by just willing it, believe that Abraham Lincoln's existence is a 
 myth, and that the portraits of him in McClure^s Magazine are 
 all of some one else ? Can we, by any effort of our will, or by 
 any strength of wish that it were true, believe ourselves well 
 and about when we are roaring with rheumatism in bed, or feel 
 certain that the sum of the two one-dollar bills in our pocket 
 must be a hundred dollars? We can say any of these things, 
 but we are absolutely impotent to beUeve them ; and of just 
 such things is the whole fabric of the truths that we do believe 
 in made up, — matters of fact, immediate or remote, as Hume 
 said, and relations between ideas, which are either there or not 
 there for us if we see them so, and which if not there cannot be 
 put there by any action of our own. 
 
 In Pascal's Thoughts there is a celebrated passage known in 
 literature as Pascal's wager. In it he tries to force us into 
 Christianity by reasoning as if our concern with truth resembled 
 
THE WILL TO BELIEVE 77 
 
 our concern with the stakes in a game of chance. Translated 
 freely, his words are these : You must either believe or not be- 
 lieve that God is — which will you do ? Your human reason 
 cannot say. A game is going on between you and the nature of 
 things which at the day of judgment, will bring out either heads 
 or tails. Weigh what your gains and your losses would be if 
 you should stake all you have on heads, or God's existence : if 
 you win in such case, you gain eternal beatitude ; if you 
 lose, you lose nothing at all. If there were an infinity of 
 chances, and only one for God in this wager, still you ought to 
 stake your all on God; for though you surely risk a finite loss 
 by this procedure, any finite loss is reasonable, even a certain 
 one is reasonable, if there is but the possibility of infinite gain. 
 Go, then, and take holy water, and have masses said; belief 
 will come and stupefy your scruples, — Cela vous /era croire el 
 vous abetira. Why should you not ? At bottom, what have 
 you to lose ? 
 
 You probably feel that when religious faith expresses itself 
 thus, in the language of the gaming-table, it is put to its last 
 trumps. Surely Pascal's own personal belief in masses and holy 
 water had far other springs ; and this celebrated page of his is 
 but an argument for others, a last desperate snatch at a weapon 
 against the hardness of the unbelieving heart. We feel that a 
 faith in masses and holy water adopted willfully after such a 
 mechanical calculation would lack the inner soul of faith's 
 reality ; and if we were ourselves in the place of the Deity, we 
 should probably take particular pleasure in cutting off believers 
 of this pattern from their infinite reward* It is evident that 
 unless there be some preexisting tendency to believe in masses 
 and holy water, the option offered to the will by Pascal is not a 
 living option. Certainly no Turk ever took to masses and holy 
 water on its account ; and even to us Protestants these means of 
 salvation seem such foregone impossibilities that Pascal's logic, 
 invoked for them specifically, leaves us unmoved. As well 
 might the Mahdi write to us, saying, "I am the Expected One 
 whom God has created in his effulgence. You shall be infinitely 
 
78 WILLIAM JAMES 
 
 happy if you confess me ; otherwise you shall be cut off from 
 the light of the sun. Weigh, then, your infinite gain if I am 
 genuine against your finite sacrifice if I am not ! " His logic 
 would be that of Pascal ; but he would vainly use it on us, for 
 the hypothesis he offers us is dead. No tendency to act on it 
 exists in us to any degree. 
 
 The talk of believing by our volition seems, then, from one 
 point of view, simply silly. From another point of view it is 
 worse than silly; it is vile. When one turns to the magnificent 
 edifice of the physical sciences, and sees how it was reared ; what 
 thousands of disinterested moral lives of men lie buried in its 
 mere foundations ; what patience and postponement, what 
 choking down of preference, what submission to the icy laws of 
 outer fact are wrought into its very stones and mortar; how 
 absolutely impersonal it stands in its vast augustness, — then 
 how besotted and contemptible seems every little sentimentalist 
 who comes blowing his voluntary smoke wreaths, and pretend- 
 ing to decide things from out of his private dream ! Can we 
 wonder if those bred in the rugged and manly school of science 
 should feel like spewing such subjectivism out of their mouths ? 
 The whole system of loyalties which grow up in the schools of 
 science go dead against its toleration ; so that it is only natural 
 that those who have caught the scientific fever should pass over 
 to the opposite extreme, and write sometimes as if the incor- 
 ruptibly truthful intellect ought positively to prefer bitterness 
 and unacceptableness to the heart in its cup. 
 
 It fortifies my soul to know 
 
 That, though I perish. Truth is so — 
 
 sings Clough, while Huxley exclaims: "My only consolation 
 lies in the reflection that, however bad our posterity may be- 
 come, so far as they hold by the plain rule of not pretending 
 to believe what they have no reason to believe, because it may 
 be to their advantage so to pretend [the word ' pretend ' is surely 
 here redundant], they will not have reached the lowest depth of 
 immorality." And that delicious enfant terrible Clifford writes : 
 
THE WILL TO BELIEVE 79 
 
 "Belief is desecrated when given to unproved and unquestioned 
 statements for the solace and private pleasure of the believer. 
 . . . Whoso would deserve well of his fellows in this matter 
 will guard the purity of his belief with a very fanaticism of 
 jealous care, lest at any time it should rest on an unworthy ob- 
 ject, and catch a stain which can never be wiped away. ... If 
 [a] belief has been accepted on insufficient evidence [even though 
 the belief be true, as Clifford on the same page explains] the 
 pleasure is a stolen one. ... It is sinful because it is stolen in 
 deliance of our duty to mankind. That duty is to guard our- 
 selves from such beliefs as from a pestilence which may shortly 
 master our own body and then spread to the rest of the town. 
 ... It is wrong always, everywhere, and for every one, to be- 
 lieve anything upon insufficient evidence." 
 
 Ill 
 
 All this strikes one as healthy, even when expressed, as by 
 Clifford, with somewhat too much of robustious pathos in the 
 voice. Free will and simple wishing do seem, in the matter of 
 our credences, to be only fifth wheels to the coach. Yet if any 
 one should thereupon assume that intellectual insight is what 
 remains after wish and will and sentimental preference have 
 taken wing, or that pure reason is what then settles our opinions, 
 he would fly quite as directly in the teeth of the facts. 
 
 It is only our already dead hypotheses that our willing na- 
 ture is unable to bring to life again. But what has made them 
 dead for us is for the most part a previous action of our willing 
 nature of an antagonistic kind. When I say "willing nature," 
 I do not mean only such deliberate volitions as may have set 
 up habits of behef that we cannot now escape from, — I mean 
 all such factors of belief as fear and hope, prejudice and passion, 
 imitation and partisanship, the circumpressure of our caste 
 and set. As a matter of fact we find ourselves believing, we 
 hardly know how or why. Mr. Balfour gives the name of 
 " authority " to all those influences, born of the intellectual cli- 
 mate, that make hypotheses possible or impossible for us, alive 
 
8o WILLIAM JAMES 
 
 or dead. Here in this room, we all of us believe in molecules 
 and the conservation of energy, in democracy and necessary 
 progress, in Protestant Christianity and the duty of fighting 
 for "the doctrine of the immortal Monroe," all for no reasons 
 worthy of the name. We see into these matters with no more 
 inner clearness, and probably with much less, than any dis- 
 believer in them might possess. His unconventionality would 
 probably have some grounds to show for its conclusions; but 
 for us, not insight, but the prestige of the opinions, is what 
 makes the spark shoot from them and light up our sleeping 
 magazines of faith. Our reason is quite satisfied, in nine hun- 
 dred and ninety-nine cases out of every thousand of us, if it 
 can find a few arguments that will do to recite in case our credu- 
 lity is criticized by some one else. Our faith is faith in some one 
 else's faith, and in the greatest matters this is most the case. 
 Our belief in truth itself, for instance, that there is a truth, and 
 that our minds and it are made for each other, — what is it but 
 a passionate affirmation of desire, in which our social system 
 backs us up ? We want to have a truth ; we want to believe 
 that our experiments and studies and discussions must put us 
 in a continually better and better position towards it ; and on 
 this line we agree to fight out our thinking lives. But if a 
 pyrrhonistic skeptic asks us how we know all this, can our logic 
 find a reply ? No ! certainly it cannot. It is just one volition 
 against another, — we willing to go in for life upon a trust or 
 assumption which he, for his part, does not care to make.^ 
 
 As a rule we disbelieve all facts and theories for which we 
 have no use. Clifford's cosmic emotions find no use for Chris- 
 tian feelings. Huxley belabors the bishops because there is no 
 use for sacerdotalism in his scheme of life. Newman, on the 
 contrary, goes over to Romanism, and finds all sorts of reasons 
 good for staying there, because a priestly system is for him an 
 organic need and delight. Why do so few " scientists " even 
 look at the evidence for telepathy, so called? Because they 
 
 1 Compare the admirable page 310 in S. H. Hodgson's Time atid Space, 
 London, 1865. 
 
THE WILL TO BELIEVE 8i 
 
 think, as a leading biologist, now dead, once said to me, that 
 even if such a thing were true, scientists ought to band together 
 to keep it suppressed and concealed. It would undo the uni- 
 formity of nature and all sorts of other things without which 
 scientists cannot carry on their pursuits. But if this very m^n 
 had been shown something which as a scientist he might do with 
 telepathy, he might not only have examined the evidence, but 
 even have found it good enough. This very law which the logi- 
 cians would impose upon us — if I may give the name of logi- 
 cians to those who would rule out our willing nature here — is 
 based on nothing but their own natural wish to exclude all ele- 
 ments for which they, in their professional quality of logicians, 
 can find no use. 
 
 Evidently, then, our nonintellectual nature does influence 
 our convictions. There are passional tendencies and volitions 
 which run before and others which come after belief, and it is 
 only the latter that are too late for the fair ; and they are not 
 too late when the previous passional work has been already in 
 their own direction. Pascal's argument, instead of being power- 
 less, then seems a regular clincher, and is the last stroke needed 
 to make our faith in masses and holy water complete. The 
 state of things is evidently far from simple ; and pure insight 
 and logic, whatever they might do ideally, are not the only 
 things that really do produce our creeds. 
 
 IV 
 
 Our next duty, having recognized this mixed- up state of af- 
 fairs, is to ask whether it be simply reprehensible and pathologi- 
 cal, or whether, on the contrary, we must treat it as a normal 
 element in making up our minds. The thesis I defend is, briefly 
 stated, this : Our passional nature not only lawfully may, but 
 must, decide an option between propositions, whenever it is a 
 genuine option that cannot by its nature be decided on intellectual 
 grounds; for to say, under such circumstances, "Do not decide, 
 but leave the question open,'' is itself a passional decision, — just 
 like deciding yes or no, — and is attended with the same risk of los- 
 
82 WILLIAM JAMES 
 
 ing the truth. The thesis thus abstractly expressed will, I trust, 
 soon become quite clear. But I must first indulge in a bit more 
 of preliminary work. 
 
 It will be observed that for the purposes of this discussion we 
 are on " dogmatic " ground, — groimd, I mean, which leaves 
 systematic philosophical skepticism altogether out of account. 
 The postulate that there is truth, and that it is the destiny of 
 our minds to attain it, we are deliberately resolving to make, 
 though the skeptic will not make it. We part company with 
 him, therefore, absolutely, at this point. But the faith that 
 truth exists, and that our minds can find it, may be held in two 
 ways. We may talk of the empiricist way and of the absolutist 
 way of believing in truth. The absolutists in this matter say 
 that we not only can attain to knowing truth, but we can know 
 when we have attained to knowing it; while the empiricists 
 think that although we may attain it, we cannot infallibly know 
 when. To know is one thing, and to know for certain that we 
 know is another. One may hold to the first being possible with- 
 out the second ; hence the empiricists and the absolutists, al- 
 though neither of them is a skeptic in the usual philosophic sense 
 of the term, show very different degrees of dogmatism in their 
 lives. 
 
 If we look at the history of opinions, we see that the empiricist 
 tendency has largely prevailed in science, while in philosophy 
 the absolutist tendency has had everything its own way. The 
 characteristic sort of happiness, indeed, which philosophies 
 yield has mainly consisted in the conviction felt by each suc- 
 cessive school or system that by it bottom-certitude had been 
 attained. "Other philosophies are collections of opinions, 
 mostly false ; my philosophy gives standing ground forever," 
 — who does not recognize in this the keynote of every system 
 worthy of the name ? A system, to be a system at all, must 
 come as a dosed system, reversible in this or that detail, per- 
 chance, but in its essential features never ! 
 
THE WILL TO BELIEVE 83 
 
 Scholastic orthodoxy, to which one must always go when one 
 wishes to find perfectly clear statement, has beautifully elabo- 
 rated this absolutist conviction in a doctrine which it calls that 
 of " objective evidence." If, for example, I am unable to doubt 
 that I now exist before you, that two is less than three, or that 
 if all men are mortal, then I am mortal too, it is because these 
 things illumine my intellect irresistibly. The final ground of 
 this objective evidence possessed by certain propositions is the 
 adcequatio intellectus nostri cum re} The certitude it brings in- 
 volves an aptitudinem ad extorquendum certum assensum ^ on the 
 part of the truth envisaged, and on the side of the subject a 
 quietem in cognitione,^ when once the object is mentally received, 
 that leaves no possibility of doubt behind ; and in the whole 
 transaction nothing operates but the entitas ipsa ^ of the object 
 and the entitas ipsa of the mind. We slouchy modern thinkers 
 dislike to talk in Latin, — indeed, we dislike to talk in set terms 
 at all ; but at bottom our own state of mind is very much like 
 this whenever we uncritically abandon ourselves : You believe 
 in objective evidence, and I do. Of some things we feel that 
 we are certain : we know, and we know that we do know. 
 There is something that gives a click inside of us, a bell that 
 strikes twelve, when the hands of our mental clock have swxpt 
 the dial and meet over the meridian hour. The greatest em- 
 piricists among us are only empiricists on reflection : when left 
 to their instincts, they dogmatize like infallible popes. When 
 the Cliffords tell us how sinful it is to be Christians on such 
 " insufficient evidence," insufficiency is really the last thing they 
 have in mind. For them the evidence is absolutely sufficient, 
 only it makes the other way. They believe so completely 
 in an antichristian order of the universe that there is no 
 living option : Christianity is a dead hypothesis from the 
 start. 
 
 ^ A correspondence of the perception with the object. — Editors. 
 2 Capability of compelling unqualified assent. — Editors. 
 ^ Assured knowledge. — Editors. 
 ^ Actual existence. — Editors. 
 
84 WILLIAM JAMES 
 
 VI 
 
 But now, since we are all such absolutists by instinct, what 
 in our quality of students of philosophy ought we to do about 
 the fact ? Shall we espouse and indorse it ? Or shall we treat 
 it as a weakness of our nature from which we must free our- 
 selves, if we can ? 
 
 I sincerely believe that the latter course is the only one we 
 can follow as reflective men. Objective evidence and certitude 
 are doubtless very fine ideals to play with, but where on this 
 moonlit and dream-visited planet are they found ? I am, there- 
 fore, myself a complete empiricist so far as my theory of human 
 knowledge goes. I live, to be sure, by the practical faith that 
 we must go on experiencing and thinking over our experience, 
 for only thus can our opinions grow more true ; but to hold any 
 one of them — I absolutely do not care which — as if it never 
 could be reinterpretable or corrigible, I believe to be a tre- 
 mendously mistaken attitude, and I think that the whole 
 history of philosophy will bear me out. There is but one inde- 
 fectibly certain truth, and that is the truth that pyrrhonistic 
 skepticism itself leaves standing, — the truth that the present 
 phenomenon of consciousness exists. That, however, is the 
 bare starting point of knowledge, the mere admission of a stuff 
 to be philosophized about. The various philosophies are but so 
 many attempts at expressing what this stuff really is. And if 
 we repair to our libraries what disagreement do we discover ! 
 Where is a certainly true answer found? Apart from abstract 
 propositions of comparison (such as two and two are the same 
 as four), propositions which tell us nothing by themselves about 
 concrete reality, we find no proposition ever regarded by any 
 one as evidently certain that has not either been called a false- 
 hood, or at least had its truth sincerely questioned by some one 
 else. The transcending of the axioms of geometry, not in play 
 but in earnest, by certain of our contemporaries (as ZoUner and 
 Charles H. Hinton), and the rejection of the whole Aristotelian 
 logic by the Hegelians, are striking instances in point. 
 
THE WILL TO BELIEVE 85 
 
 No concrete test of what is really true has ever been agreed 
 upon. Some make the criterion external to the moment of per- 
 ception, putting it either in revelation, the consensus gentium,"^ 
 the instincts of the heart, or the systematized experience of the 
 race. Others make the perceptive moment its own test, — Des- 
 cartes, for instance, with his clear and distinct ideas guaranteed 
 by the veracity of God ; Reid with his " common sense " ; and 
 Kant with his forms of synthetic judgment a priori. The in- 
 conceivability of the opposite ; the capacity to be verified by 
 sense ; the possession of complete organic unity or self-relation, 
 realized when a thing is its own other, — are standards which, 
 in turn, have been used. The much lauded objective evidence 
 is never triumphantly there ; it is a mere aspiration or Grenz- 
 begriff, marking the infinitely remote ideal of our thinking life. 
 To claim that certain truths now possess it, is simply to say that 
 when you think them true and they are true, then their evidence 
 is objective, otherwise it is not. But practically one's convic- 
 tion that the evidence one goes by is of the real objective brand 
 is only one more subjective opinion added to the lot. For 
 what a contradictory array of opinions have objective evidence 
 and absolute certitude been claimed ! The world is rational 
 through and through, — its existence is an ultimate brute fact ; 
 there is a personal God, — a personal God is inconceivable ; 
 there is an extra-mental physical world immediately known, — 
 the mind can only know its own ideas ; a moral imperative 
 exists, — obligation is only the resultant of desires ; a permanent 
 spiritual principle is in every one, — there are only shifting 
 states of mind ; there is an endless chain of causes, — there is 
 an absolute first cause ; an eternal necessity, — a freedom ; a 
 purpose, — no purpose ; a primal One, — a primal Many ; a 
 universal continuity, — an essential discontinuity in things ; an 
 infinity, — no infinity. There is this, — there is that ; there 
 is indeed nothing which some one has not thought absolutely 
 true, while his neighbor deemed it absolutely false ; and not an 
 absolutist among them seems ever to have considered that the 
 1 Prevailing opinion. — Editors. 
 
86 WILLIAM JAMES 
 
 trouble may all the time be essential, and that the intellect, even 
 with truth directly in its grasp, may have no infallible signal for 
 knowing whether it be truth or no. When, indeed, one remem- 
 bers that the most striking practical application to life of the 
 doctrine of objective certitude has been the conscientious labors 
 of the Holy Office of the Inquisition, one feels less tempted than 
 ever to lend the doctrine a respectful ear. 
 
 But please observe, now, that when as empiricists we give 
 up the doctrine of objective certitude, we do not thereby give 
 up the quest or hope of truth itself. We still pin our faith on 
 its existence, and still believe that we gain an ever better position 
 towards it by systematically continuing to roll up experiences 
 and think. Our great difference from the scholastic lies in the 
 way we face. The strength of his system lies in the principles, 
 the origin, the terminus a quo of his thought ; for us the strength 
 is in the outcome, the upshot, the terminus ad quem. Not where 
 it comes from, but what it leads to is to decide. It matters not 
 to an empiricist from what quarter an hypothesis may come to 
 him : he may have acquired it by fair means or by foul ; passion 
 may have whispered or accident suggested it ; but if the total 
 drift of thinking continues to confirm it, that is what he means 
 by its being true. 
 
 VII 
 
 One more point, small but important, and our preliminaries 
 are done. There are two ways of looking at our duty in the 
 matter of opinion, — ways entirely different, and yet ways about 
 whose difference the theory of knowledge seems hitherto to have 
 shown very little concern. We must know the truth; and we 
 must avoid error, — these are our first and great command- 
 ments as would-be knowers ; but they are not two ways of stat- 
 ing an identical commandment, they are two separable laws. 
 Although it may indeed happen that when we believe the 
 truth A, we escape as an incidental consequence from believ- 
 ing the falsehood B, it hardly ever happens that by merely 
 disbelieving B we necessarily believe A . We may in escaping 
 
THE WILL TO BELIEVE 87 
 
 B fall into believing other falsehoods, C or D, just as bad 
 as 5 ; or we may escape B by not believing anything at all, 
 not even A. 
 
 Believe truth ! Shun error ! — these, we see, are two ma- 
 terially different laws ; and by choosing between them we may 
 end, coloring differently our whole intellectual life. We may 
 regard the chase for truth as paramount, and the avoidance of 
 error as secondary ; or we may, on the other hand, treat the 
 avoidance of error as more imperative, and let truth take its 
 chance. Clifford, in the instructive passage which I have 
 quoted, exhorts us to the latter course. Believe nothing, he 
 tells us; keep your mind in suspense forever, rather than by clos- 
 ing it on insufficient evidence incur the awful risk of believing 
 lies. You, on the other hand, may think that the risk of being 
 in error is a very small matter when compared with the bless- 
 ings of real knowledge, and be ready to be duped many times 
 in your investigation rather than postpone indefinitely the 
 chance of guessing true. I myself find it impossible to go with 
 Clifford. We must remember that these feelings of our duty 
 about either truth or error are in any case only expressions of 
 our passional life. Biologically considered, our minds are as 
 ready to grind out falsehood as veracity, and he who says, 
 "Better go without belief forever than Relieve a lie!" merely 
 shows his own preponderant private horror of becoming a dupe. 
 He may be critical of many of his desires and fears, but this 
 fear he slavishly obeys. He cannot imagine any one ques- 
 tioning its binding force. For my own part, I have also a horror 
 of being duped ; but I can believe that worse things than being 
 duped may happen to a man in this world: so Clifford's ex- 
 hortation has to my ears a thoroughly fantastic sound. It is 
 like a general informing his soldiers that it is better to keep out 
 of battle forever than to risk a single wound. Not so are vic- 
 tories either over enemies or over nature gained. Our errors 
 are. surely not such awfully solemn things. In a world where 
 we are so certain to incur them in spite of all our caution, a 
 certain lightness of heart seems healthier than this excessive 
 
88 WILLIAM JAMES 
 
 nervousness on their behalf. At any rate, it seems the fittest 
 thing for the empiricist philosopher. 
 
 VIII 
 
 And now, after all this introduction, let us go straight at our 
 question. I have said, and now repeat it, that not only as a 
 matter of fact do we find our passional nature influencing us in 
 our opinions, but that there are some options between opinions 
 in which this influence must be regarded both as an inevitable 
 and as a lawful determinant of our choice. 
 
 I fear here that some of you, my hearers, will begin to scent 
 danger, and lend an inhospitable ear. Two first steps of passion 
 you have indeed had to admit as necessary, — we must think 
 so as to avoid dupery, and we must think so as to gain truth ; 
 but the surest path to those ideal consummations, you will 
 probably consider, is from now onwards to take no further pas- 
 sional step. 
 
 Well, of course, I agree as far as the facts will allow. Wher- 
 ever the option between losing truth and gaining it is not mo- 
 mentous, we can throw the chance of gaining truth away, and 
 at any rate save ourselves from any chance of believing falsehood, 
 by not making up our minds at all till objective evidence has 
 come. In scientific questions, this is almost always the case; 
 and even in human affairs in general, the need of acting is sel- 
 dom so urgent that a false belief to act on is better than no belief 
 at all. Law courts, indeed, have to decide on the best evidence 
 attainable for the moment, because a judge's duty is to make law 
 as well as to ascertain it, and (as a learned judge once said to 
 me) few cases are worth spending much time over : . the great 
 thing is to have them decided on any acceptable principle, and 
 got out of the way. But in our dealings with objective nature 
 we obviously are recorders, not makers, of the truth ; and de- 
 cisions for the mere sake of deciding promptly and getting on 
 to the next business would be wholly out of place. Throughout 
 the breadth of physical nature facts are what they are quite 
 independently of us, and seldom is there any such hurry about 
 
THE WILL TO BELIEVE 89 
 
 them that the risks of being duped by believing a premature 
 theory need be faced. The questions here are always trivial 
 options, the hypotheses are hardly living (at any rate not living 
 for us spectators), the choice between believing truth or false- 
 hood is seldom forced. The attitude of skeptical balance is there- 
 fore the absolutely wise one if we would escape mistakes. What 
 difference, indeed, does it make to most of us whether we have 
 or have not a theory of the Rontgen rays, whether we believe 
 or not in mind stuff, or have a conviction about the causality 
 of conscious states? It makes no difference. Such options 
 are not forced on us. On every account it is better not to make 
 them, but still keep weighing reasons pro et contra with an indif- 
 ferent hand. 
 
 I speak, of course, here of the purely judging mind. For pur- 
 poses of discovery such indifference is to be less highly recom- 
 mended, and science would be far less advanced than she is if 
 the passionate desires of individuals to get their own faiths con- 
 firmed had been kept out of the game. See, for example, the 
 sagacity which Spencer and Weismann now display. On the 
 other hand, if you want an absolute duffer in an investigation, 
 you must, after all, take the man who has no interest whatever 
 in its results : he is the warranted incapable, the positive fool. 
 The most useful investigator, because the most sensitive ob- 
 server, is always he whose eager interest in one side of the ques- 
 tion is balanced by an equally keen nervousness lest he become 
 deceived.^ Science has organized this nervousness into a regu- 
 lar technique, her so-called method of verification ; and she has 
 fallen so deeply in love with the method that one may even say 
 she has ceased to care for truth by itself at all. It is only truth 
 as technically verified that interests her. The truth of truths 
 might come in merely affirmative form, and she would decline 
 to touch it. Such truth as that, she might repeat with Clifford, 
 would be stolen in defiance of her duty to mankind. Human 
 passions, however, are stronger than technical rules. "Le coeur 
 
 * Compare Wilfrid Ward's Essay, "The Wish to Believe," in his Witnesses 
 to the Unseen (Macmillan & Co., 1893). 
 
go WILLIAM JAMES 
 
 a ses raisons," as Pascal says, "que la raison ne connai pas; " ^ 
 and however indifferent to all but the bare rules of the game the 
 umpire, the abstract intellect, may be, the concrete players 
 who furnish him the materials to judge of are usually, each one 
 of them, in love with some pet " live hypothesis " of his own. 
 Let us agree, however, that wherever there is no forced option, 
 the dispassionately judicial intellect with no pet hypothesis, 
 saving us, as it does, from dupery at any rate, ought to be our 
 ideal. 
 
 The question next arises : Are there not somewhere forced 
 options in our speculative questions, and can we (as men who 
 may be interested at least as much in positively gaining truth as 
 in merely escaping dupery) always wait with impunity till the 
 coercive evidence shall have arrived? It seems a priori im- 
 probable that the truth should be so nicely adjusted to our needs 
 and powers as that. In the great boarding house' of nature, 
 the cakes and the butter and the sirup seldom come out so even 
 and leave the plates so clean. Indeed, we should view them 
 with scientific suspicion if they did. 
 
 IX 
 
 Moral questions immediately present themselves as questions 
 whose solutiorTcannot wait for sensible proof. A moral ques- 
 tion is a question not of what sensibly exists, but of what is 
 good, or would be good if it did exist. Science can tell us what 
 exists; but to compare the worths, both of what exists and of 
 what does not exist, we must consult ngt science, but what 
 Pascal calls our heart. Science herself consults her heart when 
 she lays it down that the infinite ascertainment of fact and cor- 
 rection of false belief are the supreme goods for man. Chal- 
 lenge the statement, and science can only repeat it oracularly, 
 or else prove it by showing that such ascertainment and correc- 
 tion bring man all sorts of other goods which man's heart in turn 
 declares. The question of having moral beliefs at all or not 
 having them is decided by our will. Are our moral preferences 
 1 The heart has its reasons with which reason is unacquainted. — • Editors. 
 
THE WILL TO BELIEVE 91 
 
 true or false, or are they only odd biological phenomena, mak- 
 ing things good or bad for us, but in themselves indifferent? 
 How can your pure intellect decide? If your heart does not 
 want a world of moral reality, your head will assuredly never 
 make you believe in one. Mephistophelian skepticism, indeed, 
 will satisfy the head's play instincts much better than any rigor- 
 ous idealism can. Some men (even at the student age) are so 
 naturally cool hearted that the moralistic hypothesis never has 
 for them any pungent life, and in their supercilious presence 
 the hot young moralist always feels strangely ill at ease. The 
 appearance of knowingness is on their side, of naivete and gulli- 
 bility on his. Yet, in the inarticulate heart of him, he clings 
 to it that he is not a dupe, and that there is a realm in which 
 (as Emerson says) all their wit and intellectual superiority is 
 no better than the cunning of a fox. Moral skepticism can no 
 more be refuted or proved by logic than intellectual skepticism 
 can. When we stick to it that there is truth (be it of either 
 kind), we do so with our whole nature, and resolve to stand or 
 fall by the results. The skeptic with his whole nature adopts 
 the doubting attitude ; but which of us is the wiser. Omniscience 
 only knows. 
 
 Turn now from these wide questions of good to a certain class 
 of questions of fact, questions concerning personal relations, 
 states of mind between one man and another. Do you like me 
 or not ? — for example. Whether you do or not depends, in 
 countless instances, on whether I meet you halfway, am willing 
 to assume that you must like me, and show you trust and ex- 
 pectation. The previous faith on my part in your liking's 
 existence is in such cases what makes your liking come. But 
 if I stand aloof, and refuse to budge an inch until I have objec- 
 tive evidence, until you shall have done something apt, as the 
 absolutists say, ad extorquendum assensum meum,^ ten to one 
 your Hking never comes. How many women's hearts are van- 
 quished by the mere sanguine insistence of some man that they 
 must love him ! he will not consent to the hypothesis that they 
 1 For compelling my approval. — Editors. 
 
92 WILLIAM JAMES 
 
 cannot. The desire for a certain kind of truth here brings about 
 that special truth's existence ; and so it is in innumerable cases 
 of other sorts. Who gains promotions, boons, appointments, 
 but the man in whose life they are seen to play the part of live 
 hypotheses, who discounts them, sacrifices other things for their 
 sake before they have come, and takes risks for them in advance ? 
 His faith acts on the powers above him as a claim, and creates 
 its own verification. 
 
 A social organism of any sort whatever, large or small, is 
 what it is because each member proceeds to his own duty with 
 a trust that the other members will simultaneously do theirs. 
 Wherever a desired result is achieved by the cooperation of 
 many independent persons, its existence as a fact is a pure con- 
 sequence of the precursive faith in one another of those imme- 
 diately concerned. A government, an army, a commercial 
 system, a ship, a college, an athletic team, all exist on this condi- 
 tion, without which not only is nothing achieved, but nothing is 
 even attempted. A whole train of passengers (individually 
 brave enough) will be looted by a few highwaymen, simply be- 
 cause the latter can count on one another, while each passenger 
 fears that if he makes a movement of resistance, he will be shot 
 before any one else backs him up. If we believed that the 
 whole earful would rise at once with us, we should each severally 
 rise, and train robbing would never even be attempted. There 
 are, then, cases where a fact cannot come at all unless a prelimi- 
 nary faith exists in its coming. And where faith in a fact can 
 help create the fact, that would be an insane logic which should 
 say that faith running ahead of scientific evidence is the " low- 
 est kind of immorality" into which a thinking being can fall. 
 Yet such is the logic by which our scientific absolutists pretend 
 to regulate our lives ! 
 
 In truths dependent on our personal action, then, faith based 
 on desire is certainly a lawful and possibly an indispensable 
 thing. 
 
THE WILL TO BELIEVE 93 
 
 But now, it will be said, these are all childish human cases, 
 and have nothing to do with great cosmical matters, like the 
 question of religious faith. Let us then pass on to that. Reli- 
 gions differ so much in their accidents that in discussing the 
 religious question we must make it very generic and broad. 
 What then do we now mean by the religious hypothesis? 
 Science says things are ; morality says some things are better 
 than other things ; and religion says essentially two things. 
 
 First, she says that the best things are the more eternal things, 
 the overlapping things, the things in the universe that throw 
 the last stone, so to speak, and say the final word. "Perfection 
 is eternal," — this phrase of Charles Secretan seems a good way 
 of putting this first affirmation of religion, an affirmation which 
 obviously cannot yet be verified scientifically at all. 
 
 The second affirmation of religion is that we are better off even 
 now if we believe her first affirmation to be true. 
 
 Now, let us consider what the logical elements of this situa- 
 tion are in case the religious hypothesis in both its branches be 
 really true. (Of course, we must admit that possibility at the 
 outset. If we are to discuss the question at all, it must involve 
 a living option. If for any of you religion be an hypothesis that 
 cannot, by any living possibility be true, then you need go no 
 farther. I speak to the " saving remnant " alone.) So proceed- 
 ing, we see, first, that religion offers itself as a momentous op- 
 tion. We are supposed to gain, even now, by our belief, and to 
 lose by our nonbelief, a certain vital good. Secondly, religion 
 is a forced option, so far as that good goes. We cannot escape 
 the issue by remaining skeptical and waiting for more light, be- 
 cause, although we do avoid error in that way if religion be un- 
 true, we lose the good, if it be true, just as certainly as if we posi- 
 tively chose to disbelieve. It is as if a man should hesitate in- 
 definitely to ask a certain woman to marry him because he was not 
 perfectly sure that she would prove an angel after he brought her 
 home. Would he not cut himself off from that particular angel- 
 possibility as decisively as if he went and married some one 
 else ? Skepticism, then, is not avoidance of option ; it is option 
 
94 WILLIAM JAMES 
 
 of a certain particular kind of risk. Better risk loss of truth than 
 chance of error, — that is your faith-vetoer's exact position. He 
 is actively playing his stake as much as the believer is; he is 
 backing the field against the religious hypothesis, just as the 
 believer is backing the religious hypothesis against the field. 
 To preach skepticism to us as a duty until " sufficient evidence " 
 for religion be found, is tantamount therefore to telling us, when 
 in presence of the religious hypothesis, that to yield to our fear 
 of its being error is wiser and better than to yield to our hope 
 that it may be true. It is not intellect against all passions, then ; 
 it is only intellect with one passion laying down its law. And 
 by what, forsooth, is the supreme wisdom of this passion war- 
 ranted? Dupery for dupery, what proof is there that dupery 
 through hope is so much worse than dupery through fear? I, 
 for one, can see no proof ; and I simply refuse obedience to the 
 scientist's command to imitate his kind of option, in a case where 
 my own stake is important enough to give me the right to choose 
 my own form of risk. If religion be true and the evidence for it 
 be still insufficient, I do not wish, by putting your extinguisher 
 upon my nature (which feels to me as if it had after all some 
 business in this matter), to forfeit my sole chance in life of get- 
 ting upon the winning side, — that chance depending, of course, 
 on my willingness to run the risk of acting as if my passional 
 need of taking the world religiously might be prophetic and 
 right. 
 
 All this is on the supposition that it really may be prophetic 
 and right, and that, even to us who are discussing the matter, 
 religion is a live hypothesis which may be true. Now, to most 
 of us religion comes in a still further way that makes a veto on 
 our active faith even more illogical. The more perfect and more 
 eternal aspect of the universe is represented in our religions as 
 having personal form. The universe is no longer a mere It to 
 us, but a Thou, if we are religious ; and any relation that may 
 be possible from person to person might be possible here. For 
 instance, although in one sense we are passive portions of the 
 universe, in another we show a curious autonomy, as if we were 
 
THE WILL TO BELIEVE 95 
 
 small active centers on our own account. We feel, too, as if the 
 appeal of religion to us were made to our own active good will, 
 as if evidence might be forever withheld from us unless we met 
 the hypothesis halfway. To take a trivial illustration : just 
 as a man who in a company of gentlemen made no advances, 
 asked a warrant for every concession, and believed no one's 
 word without proof, would cut himself off by such churlishness 
 from all the social rewards that a more trusting spirit would 
 earn, — so here, one who should shut himself up in snarling 
 logicality and try to make the gods extort his recognition willy- 
 nilly, or not get it at all, might cut himself off forever from his 
 only opportunity of making the gods' acquaintance. This 
 feeling, forced on us we know not whence, that by obstinately 
 believing that there are gods (although not to do so would be 
 so easy both for our logic and our life) we are doing the universe 
 the deepest service we can, seems part of the living essence of 
 the religious hypothesis. If the hypothesis ivere true in all its 
 parts, including this one, then pure intellectuaUsm, with its 
 veto on our making willing advances, would be an absurdity ; 
 and some participation of our sympathetic nature would be 
 logically required. I, therefore, for one, cannot see my way to 
 accepting the agnostic rules for truth-seeking, or willfully agree 
 to keep my willing nature out of the game. I cannot do so for 
 this plain reason, that a rule of thinking which would absolutely 
 prevent me from acknowledging certain kinds of truth if those kinds 
 of truth were really there, would he an irrational rule. That for 
 me is the long and short of the formal logic of the situation, no 
 matter what the kinds of truth might materially be. 
 
 I confess I do not see how this logic can be escaped. But 
 sad experience makes me fear that some of you may still shrink 
 from radically saying with me, in abstracto, that we have the 
 right to believe at our own risk any hypothesis that is live enough 
 to tempt our will. I suspect, however, that if this is so, it is be- 
 cause you have got away from the abstract logical point of view 
 altogether, and are thinking (perhaps without realizing it) of 
 some particular religious hypothesis which for you is dead. 
 
96 WILLIAM JAMES . 
 
 The freedom to " believe what we will " you apply to the case of 
 some patent superstition ; and the faith you think of is the 
 faith defined by the schoolboy when he said, " Faith is when you 
 believe something that you know ain't true." I can only re- 
 peat that this is misapprehension. In concreto, the freedom to 
 believe can only cover living options which the intellect of the 
 individual cannot by itself resolve ; and living options never 
 seem absurdities to him who has them to consider. When I 
 look at the religious question as it really puts itself to concrete 
 men, and when I think of all the possibilities which both prac- 
 tically and theoretically it involves, then this command that 
 we shall put a stopper on our heart, instincts, and courage, and 
 wait — acting of course meanwhile more or less as if religion 
 were not true ^ — till doomsday, or till such time as our intellect 
 and senses working together may have raked in evidence enough, 
 — this command, I say, seems to me the queerest idol ever 
 manufactured in the philosophic cave.^ Were we scholastic 
 absolutists, there might be more excuse. If we had an infallible 
 intellect with its objective certitudes, we might feel ourselves 
 disloyal to such a perfect organ of knowledge in not trusting to 
 it exclusively, in not waiting for its releasing word. But if we 
 are empiricists, if we believe that no bell in us tolls to let us know 
 for certain when truth is in our grasp, then it seems a piece of 
 idle fantasticality to preach so solemnly our duty of waiting for 
 the bell. Indeed we may wait if we will, — I hope you do not 
 
 1 Since belief is measured by action, he who forbids us to beHeve religion 
 to be true, necessarily also forbids us to act as we should if we did believe it 
 to be true. The whole defense of religious faith hinges upon action. If the 
 action required or inspired by the religious hypothesis is in no way different 
 from that dictated by the naturalistic hypothesis, then religious faith is a 
 pure superfluity, better pruned away, and controversy about its legitimacy 
 is a piece of idle trifling, unworthy of serious minds. I myself believe, of 
 course, that the religious hypothesis gives to the world an expression which 
 specifically determines our reactions, and makes them in a large part unlike 
 what they might be on a purely naturalistic scheme of belief. 
 
 ^ The " Idol of the Cave " is the form of fallacy in which the reason is 
 overruled by individual preference. — Editors. 
 
THE WILL TO BELIEVE 97 
 
 think that I am denying that, — but if we do so, we do so 
 at our peril as much as if we believed. In either case we acl, 
 taking our life in our hands. No one of us ought to issue vetoes 
 to the other, nor should we bandy words of abuse. We ought, 
 on the contrary, delicately and profoundly to respect one an- 
 other's mental freedom : then only shall we bring about the 
 intellectual republic ; then only shall we have that spirit of 
 inner tolerance without which all our outer tolerance is soulless, 
 and which is empiricism's glory ; then only shall we live and let 
 live, in speculative as well as in practical things. 
 
 I began by a reference to Fitz- James Stephen ; let me end by 
 a quotation from him. " What do you think of yourself ? 
 What do you think of the world ? . . . These are questions 
 with which all must deal as it seems good to them. They are 
 riddles of the Sphinx, and in some way or other we must deal 
 with them. ... In all important transactions of life we have to 
 take a leap in the dark. ... If we decide to leave the riddles 
 unanswered, that is a choice ; if we waver in our answer, that, 
 too, is a choice : but whatever choice we make, we make it at 
 our peril. If a man chooses to turn his back altogether on God 
 and the future, no one can prevent him ; no one can show be- 
 yond reasonable doubt that he is mistaken. If a man thinks 
 otherwise and acts as he thinks, I do not see that any one can 
 prove that he is mistaken. Each must act as he thinks best ; 
 and if he is wrong, so much the worse for him. We stand on a 
 mountain pass in the midst of whirling snow and blinding mist, 
 through which we get glimpses now and then of paths which 
 may be deceptive. If we stand still, we shall be frozen to death. 
 If we take the wrong road, we shall be dashed to pieces. We do 
 not certainly know whether there is any right one. What must 
 we do? 'Be strong and of a good courage.' Act for the best, 
 hope for the best, and take what comes. ... If death ends 
 all, we cannot meet death better." ^ 
 
 ^Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, p. 353, 2d edition (London, 1874). 
 
V 
 
 OF THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND 
 DISCUSSION 
 
 John Stuart Mill 
 
 [John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), eldest son of James Mill, the utilitarian, 
 was a logician, economist, and philosopher, whose influence on the 
 social and political movements of the third quarter of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury can hardly be overestimated. Brought up by his father after the 
 strictest code of the stern utihtarian school, he later became the leader of 
 the group of thinkers who were to continue in modified form the traditions 
 of this older school of economists. He was active in the political discussions 
 of the day, was editor and joint proprietor of the London and Westminster 
 Review for some years, served one term in Parliament, and throughout his 
 life wrote and labored unceasingly for social and political reforms and for the 
 dissemination of the principles he held to be essential to human happiness. 
 
 Of all Mill's writing, the volume On Liberty (published 1859), of 
 which the following selection forms the second chapter, is regarded as the 
 most carefully prepared and highly polished. It contains the clearest statement 
 of the author's modified individualism, which maintained that every man 
 should be allowed all liberty that did not interfere with that of his neighbor ; 
 and, like the Subjection of Women, a chapter of which appears in this volume, 
 it illustrates the author's interest in the practical aspects of his question. The 
 purpose of the essay, as declared in the introductory chapter, is to assert the 
 principle of individual liberty in thought and action, in order that a restraint 
 may be placed upon the growing tendency of the majority to tyrannize, an 
 evil which has supplanted the old tyranny of rulers. Since Mill's day the 
 trend of political opinion has been away from individualism; but among 
 his contemporaries the volume had great influence. A suggestive and 
 elaborate attack on Mill's position may be found in Sir James Fitzjames 
 Stephen's Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity (1873).] 
 
 The time, it is to be hoped, is gone by, when any defense would 
 be necessary of the " Kberty of the press" as one of the securi- 
 ties against corrupt or tyrannical government. No argvasient, we 
 
LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 99 
 
 may suppose, can now be needed, against permitting a legislature 
 or an executive, not identified in interest with the people, to pre- 
 scribe opinions to them, and determine what doctrines or what 
 arguments they shall be allowed to hear. This aspect of the 
 question, besides, has been so often and so triumphantly en- 
 forced by preceding writers, that it needs not be specially in- 
 sisted on in this place. Though the law of England, on the sub- 
 ject of the press, is as servile to this day as it was in the time of 
 the Tudors, there is little danger of its being actually put in force 
 against political discussion, except during some temporary panic, 
 when fear of insurrection drives ministers and judges from their 
 propriety; and, speaking generally, it is not, in constitutional 
 countries, to be apprehended that the government, whether 
 completely responsible to the people or not, will often attempt to 
 control the expression of opinion, except when in doing so it 
 makes itself the organ of the general intolerance of the public. 
 Let us suppose, therefore, that the government is entirely at one 
 with the people, and never thinks of exerting any power of coer- 
 cion unless in agreement with what it conceives to be their voice. 
 But I deny the right of the people to exercise such coercion, either 
 by themselves or by their government. The power itself is ille- 
 gitimate. The best government has no more title to it than the 
 worst. It is as noxious, or more noxious, when exerted in ac- 
 cordance with public opinion than when in opposition to it. If 
 all mankind, minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person 
 were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justi- 
 fied in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, 
 would be justified in silencing mankind. Were an opinion a per- 
 sonal possession of no value except to the owner; if to be ob- 
 structed in the enjoyment of it were simply a private injury, it 
 would make some difference whether the injury was inflicted only 
 on a few persons or on many. But the peculiar evil of silencing 
 the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race ; 
 posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dis- 
 sent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the 
 opinior ' right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchang- 
 
lOO JOHN STUART MILL 
 
 ing error for truth ; if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a 
 benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, 
 produced by its collision with error. 
 
 It is necessary to consider separately these two hypotheses, 
 each of which has a distinct branch of the argument correspond- 
 ing to it. We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeav- 
 oring to stifle is a false opinion ; and if we were sure, stifling it 
 would be an evil still. 
 
 First : the opinion which it is attempted to suppress by author- 
 ity may possibly be true. Those who desire to suppress it, of 
 course, deny its truth ; but they are not infallible. They have no 
 authority to decide the question for all mankind, and exclude 
 every other person from the means of judging. To refuse a hear- 
 ing to an opinion, because they are sure that it is false, is to as- 
 sume that their certainty is the same thing as absolute certainty. 
 All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility. Its 
 condemnation may be allowed to rest on this common argument, 
 not the worse for being common. 
 
 Unfortunately for the good sense of mankind, the fact of their 
 fallibility is far from carrying the weight in their practical judg- 
 ment, which is always allowed to it in theory ; for while every one 
 well knows himself to be fallible, few think it necessary to take 
 any precautions against their own fallibility, or admit the sup- 
 position that any opinion, of which they feel very certain, may 
 be one of the examples of the error to which they acknowledge 
 themselves to be liable. Absolute princes, or others who are 
 accustomed to unlimited deference, usually feel this complete 
 confidence in their own opinions on nearly all subjects. People 
 more happily situated, who sometimes hear their opinions dis- 
 puted, and are not wholly unused to be set right when they are 
 wrong, place the same unbounded reliance only on such of their 
 opinions as are shared by all who surround them, or to whom they 
 habitually defer ; for in proportion to a man's want of confidence 
 in his own solitary judgment, does he usually repose, with im- 
 plicit trust, on the infallibility of " the world " in general. And the 
 
LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION loi 
 
 world, to each individual, means the part of it with which he 
 comes in contact ; his party, his sect, his church, his class of 
 society : the man may be called, by comparison, almost liberal 
 and large-minded to whom it means anything so comprehensive 
 as his own country or his own age. Nor is his faith in this collec- 
 tive authority at all shaken by his being aware that other ages, 
 countries, sects, churches, classes, and parties have thought, and 
 even now think, the exact reverse. He devolves upon his own 
 world the responsibility of being in the right against the dissen- 
 tient worlds of other people ; and it never troubles him that mere 
 accident has decided which of these numerous worlds is the ob- 
 ject of his reliance, and that the same causes which make him a 
 Churchman in London would have made him a Buddhist or a 
 Confucian in Pekin. Yet it is as evident in itself, as any amount 
 of argument can make it, that ages are no more infallible than 
 individuals ; every age having held many opinions which sub- 
 sequent ages have deemed not only false but absurd ; and it Is 
 as certain that many opinions, now general, will be rejected by 
 future ages, as it is that many, once general, are rejected by the 
 present. 
 
 The objection likely to be made to this argument would prob- 
 ably take some such form as the following: There is no greater 
 assumption of infallibility in forbidding the propagation of error 
 than in any other thing which is done by public authority on its 
 own judgment and responsibility. Judgment is given to men 
 that they may use it. Because it may be used erroneously, are 
 men to be told that they ought not to use it at all ? To prohibit 
 what they think pernicious, is not claiming exemption from error, 
 but fulfilling the duty incumbent on them, although fallible, of 
 acting on their conscientious conviction. If we were never to act 
 on our opinions, because those opinions may be wrong, we should 
 leave all our interests uncared for, and all our duties unperformed. 
 An objection which applies to all conduct, can be no valid objec- 
 tion to any conduct in particular. It is the duty of governments, 
 and of individuals, to form -the truest opinions they can ; to form 
 them carefully, and never impose them upon others unless they 
 
102 JOHN STUART MILL 
 
 are quite sure of being right. But when they are sure (such 
 reasoners may say), it is not conscientiousness but cowardice to 
 shrink from acting on their opinions, and allow doctrines which 
 they honestly think dangerous to the welfare of mankind, either 
 in this life or in another, to be scattered abroad without re- 
 straint, because other people, in less enlightened times, have per- 
 secuted opinions now believed to be true. Let us take care, it 
 may be said, not to make the same mistake; but governments 
 and nations have made mistakes in other things, which are not 
 denied to be fit subjects for the exercise of authority; they have 
 laid on bad taxes, made unjust wars. Ought we therefore to lay 
 on no taxes, and, under whatever provocation, make no wars ? 
 Men and governments must act to the best of their ability. 
 There is no such thing as absolute certainty, but there is assur- 
 ance sufficient for the purposes of human life. We may, and 
 must, assume our opinion to be true for the guidance of our own 
 conduct ; and it is assuming no more when we forbid bad men to 
 pervert society by the propagation of opinions which we regard 
 as false and pernicious. 
 
 I answer that it is assuming very much more. There is the 
 greatest difference between presuming an opinion to be true, be- 
 cause, with every opportunity for contesting it, it has not been 
 refuted, and assuming its truth for the purpose of not permitting 
 its refutation. Complete liberty of contradicting and disproving 
 our opinion is the very condition which justifies us in assuming its 
 truth for purposes of action ; and on no other terms can a being 
 with human faculties have any rational assurance of being right. 
 
 When we consider either the history of opinion, or the ordinary 
 conduct of human life, to what is it to be ascribed that the one 
 and the other are no worse than they are ? Not certainly to the 
 inherent force of the human understanding ; for, on any matter 
 not self-evident, there are ninety-nine persons totally incapable of 
 judging of it, for one who is capable ; and the capacity of the 
 hundredth person is only comparative ; for the majority of the 
 eminent men of every past generation held many opinions now 
 known to be erroneous, and did or approved numerous things 
 
LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 103 
 
 which no one will now justify. Why is it, then, that there is on 
 the whole a preponderance among mankind of rational opinions 
 and rational conduct ? If there really is this preponderance, — 
 which there must be, unless human affairs are, and have always 
 been, in an almost desperate state, — ■ it is owing to a quality of 
 the human mind, the source of everything respectable in man 
 either as an intellectual or as a moral being ; namely, that his er- 
 rors are corrigible. He is capable of rectifying his mistakes, by 
 discussion and experience. Not by experience alone. There 
 must be discussion, to show how experience is to be interpreted. 
 Wrong opinions and practices gradually yield to fact and argu- 
 ment; but facts and arguments, to produce any effect on the 
 mind, must be brought before it. Very few facts are able to tell 
 their own story, without comments to bring out their meaning. 
 The whole strength and value, then, of human judgment, de- 
 pending on the one property, that it can be set right when it is 
 wrong, reliance can be placed on it only when the means of set- 
 ting it right are kept constantly at hand. In the case of any per- 
 son whose judgment is really deserving of confidence, how has it 
 become so ? Because he has kept his mind open to criticism of his 
 opinions and conduct. Because it has been his practice to listen 
 to all that could be said against him ; to profit by as much of it as 
 was just, and expound to himself, and upon occasion to others, 
 the fallacy of what was fallacious. Because he has felt, that the 
 only way in which a human being can make some approach to 
 knowing the whole of a subject, is by hearing what can be said 
 about it by persons of every variety of opinion, and studying all 
 modes in which it can be looked at by every character of mind. 
 No wise man ever acquired his wisdom in any mode but this ; 
 nor is it in the nature of human intellect to become wise in any 
 other manner. The steady habit of correcting and completing 
 his own opinion by collating it with those of others, so far from 
 causing doubt and hesitation in carrying it into practice, is the 
 only stable foundation for a just reliance on it ; for, being cogni- 
 zant of all that can, at least obviously, be said against him, and 
 having taken up his position against all gainsay ers, — knowing 
 
104 JOHN STUART MILL 
 
 that he has sought for objections and difficulties, instead of 
 avoiding them, and has shut out no light which can be thrown 
 upon the subject from any quarter, — he has a right to think his 
 judgment better than that of any person, or any multitude, who 
 have not gone through a similar process. 
 
 It is not too much to require that what the wisest of mankind, 
 those who are best entitled to trust their own judgment, find 
 "necessary to warrant their relying on it, should be submitted to 
 by that miscellaneous collection of a few wise and many foolish 
 individuals, called the public. The most intolerant of churches, 
 the Roman Catholic Church, even at the canonization of a saint, 
 admits, and listens patiently to, a "devil's advocate." The holi- 
 est of men, it appears, cannot be admitted to posthumous honors, 
 until all that the devil could say against him is known and 
 weighed. If even the Newtonian philosophy were not permitted 
 to be questioned, mankind could not feel as complete assurance 
 of its truth as they now do. The beliefs which we have most 
 warrant for, have no safeguard to rest on, but a standing invita- 
 tion to the whole world to prove them unfounded. If the chal- 
 lenge is not accepted, or is accepted and the attempt fails, we are 
 far enough from certainty still ; but we have done the best that 
 the existing state of human reason admits of ; we have neglected 
 nothing that could give the truth a chance of reaching us : if the 
 lists are kept open, we may hope that if there be a better truth, it 
 will be found when the human mind is capable of receiving it ; 
 and in the meantime we may rely on having attained such ap- 
 proach to truth as is possible in our own day. This is the 
 amount of certainty attainable by a fallible being, and this the 
 sole way of attaining it. 
 
 Strange it is, that men should admit the validity of the argu- 
 ments for free discussion, but object to their being " pushed to an 
 extreme" ; not seeing that unless the reasons are good for an ex- 
 treme case, they are not good for any case. Strange that they 
 should imagine that they are not assuming infallibility, when 
 they acknowledge that there should be free discussion on all sub- 
 jects which can possibly be doubtful, but think that some partic- 
 
 I 
 
LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 105 
 
 ular principle or doctrine should be forbidden to be questioned 
 because it is so certain, that is, because they are certain that it is 
 certain. To call any proposition certain, while there is any one 
 who would deny its certainty if permitted, but who is not per- 
 mitted, is to assume that we ourselves, and those who agree with 
 us, are the judges of certainty, and judges without hearing the 
 other side. 
 
 In the present age — which has been described as "destitute 
 of faith, but terrified at skepticism" — in which people feel sure, 
 not so much that their opinions are true, as that they should not 
 know what to do without them — the claims of an opinion to be 
 protected from public attack are rested not so much on its truth, 
 as on its importance to society. There are, it is alleged, certain 
 beliefs so useful, not to say indispensable, to well-being that it is 
 as much the duty of governments to uphold those beliefs, as to 
 protect any other of the interests of society. In a case of such 
 necessity, and so directly in the line of their duty, something less 
 than infallibility may, it is maintained, warrant, and even bind, 
 governments, to act on their own opinion, confirmed by the gen- 
 eral opinion of mankind. It is also often argued, and still oftener 
 thought, that none but bad men would desire to Weaken these 
 salutary beliefs ; and there can be nothing wrong, it is thought, in 
 restraining bad men, and prohibiting what only such men would 
 wish to practice. This mode of thinking makes the justification 
 of restraints on discussion not a question of the truth of doctrines, 
 but of their usefulness ; and flatters itself by that means to escape 
 the responsibility of claiming to be an infallible judge of opinions. 
 But those who thus satisfy themselves do not perceive that the 
 assumption of infallibility is merely shifted from one point to an- 
 other. The usefulness of an opinion is itself matter of opinion : 
 as disputable, as open to discussion, and requiring discussion as 
 much, as the opinion itself. There is the same need of an infal- 
 lible judge of opinions to decide an opinion to be noxious, as to 
 decide it to be false, unless the opinion condemned has full oppor- 
 tunity of defending itself. And it will not do to say that the her- 
 etic may be allowed to maintain the utility or harmlessness of 
 
io6 JOHN STUART MILL 
 
 his opinion, though forbidden to maintain its truth. The truth 
 of an opinion is part of its utility. If we would know whether 
 or not it is desirable that a proposition should be believed, 
 is it possible to exclude the consideration of whether or not 
 it is true? In the opinion, not of bad men, but of the best 
 men, no belief which is contrary to truth can be really useful : 
 and can you prevent such men from urging that plea, when 
 they are charged with culpability for denying some doctrine 
 which they are told is useful, but which they believe to be 
 false? Those who are on the side of received opinions never 
 fail to take all possible advantage of this plea ; you do not find 
 them handling the question of utility as if it could be completely 
 abstracted from that of truth; on the contrary, it is, above all, 
 because their doctrine is "the truth," that the knowledge or the 
 belief of it is held to be so indispensable. There can be no fair 
 discussion of the question of usefulness, when an argument so 
 vital may be employed on one side, but not on the other. And in 
 point of fact, when law or public feeling do not permit the truth 
 of an opinion to be disputed, they are just as little tolerant of a 
 denial of its usefulness. The utmost they allow is an exten- 
 uation of its absolute necessity, or of the positive guilt of reject- 
 ing it. 
 
 In order more fully to illustrate the mischief of denying a hear- 
 ing to opinions because we, in our own judgment, have con- 
 demned them, it will be desirable to fix down the discussion to a 
 concrete case ; and I choose, by preference, the cases which are 
 least favorable to me — in which the argument against freedom 
 of opinion, both on the score of truth and on that of utility, is con- 
 sidered the strongest. Let the opinions impugned be the belief 
 in a God and in a future state, or any of the commonly received 
 doctrines of morality. To fight the battle on such ground, gives 
 a great advantage to an unfair antagonist ; since he will be sure 
 to say (and many who have no desire to be unfair will say it in- 
 ternally), Are these the doctrines which you do not deem suffi- 
 ciently certain to be taken under the protection of law ? Is the 
 belief in a God one of the opinions, to feel sure of which you hold 
 
LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 107 
 
 to be assuming infallibility? But I must be permitted to ob- 
 serve, that it is not the feeling sure of a doctrine (be it what it 
 may) which I call an assumption of infallibility. It is the under- 
 taking to decide that question for others, without allowing them 
 to hear what can be said on the contrary side. And I denounce 
 and reprobate this pretension not the less, if put forth on the 
 side of my most solemn convictions. However positive any one's 
 persuasion may be, not only of the falsity, but of the pernicious 
 consequences — not only of the pernicious consequences, but (to 
 adopt expressions which I altogether condemn) the immorality 
 and impiety of an opinion ; yet if, in pursuance of that private 
 judgment, though backed by the public judgment of his country 
 or his contemporaries, he prevents the opinion from being heard 
 in its defense, he assumes infallibility. And so far from the as- 
 sumption being less objectionable or less dangerous because the 
 opinion is called immoral or impious, this is the case of all others 
 in which it is most fatal. These are exactly the occasions on 
 which the men of one generation commit those dreadful mistakes 
 which excite the astonishment and horror of posterity. It is 
 among such that we find the instances memorable in history, 
 when the arm of the law has been employed to root out the best 
 men and the noblest doctrines ; with deplorable success as to the 
 men, though some of the doctrines have survived to be (as if in 
 mockery) invoked, in defense of similar conduct towards those 
 who dissent from them, or from their received interpretation. 
 
 Mankind can hardly be too often reminded that there was once 
 a man named Socrates, between whom and the legal authorities 
 and public opinion of his time there took place a memorable col- 
 lision. Born in an age and country abounding in individual great- 
 ness, this man has been handed down to us by those who best 
 knew both him and the age, as the most virtuous man in it ; while 
 we know him as the head and prototype of all subsequent teachers 
 of virtue, the source equally of the lofty inspiration of Plato and 
 the judicious utilitarianism of Aristotle, "i maestri di color che 
 sanno,^' ^ the two headsprings of ethical as of all other philosophy. 
 1 The teachers of those who know. — Editors. 
 
io8 JOHN STUART MILL 
 
 This acknowledged master of all the eminent thinkers who have 
 since lived — whose fame, still growing after more than two 
 thousand years , all but outweighs the whole remainder of the 
 names which make his native city illustrious — was put to death 
 by his countrymen, after a judicial conviction, for impiety and 
 immorality. Impiety, in denying the gods recognized by the 
 state; indeed his accuser asserted (see the Apologia^) that he 
 believed in no gods at all. Immorality, in being, by his doctrines 
 and instructions, a "corruptor of youth." Of these charges the 
 tribunal, there is every ground for believing, honestly found him 
 guilty, and condemned the man who probably of all then born had 
 deserved best of mankind, to be put to death as a criminal. 
 
 To pass from this to the only other instance of judicial in- 
 iquity, the mention of which, after the condemnation of Socrates, 
 would not be an anticlimax : the event which took place on Cal- 
 vary rather more than eighteen hundred years ago. The man 
 who left on the memory of those who witnessed his life and con- 
 versation such an impression of his moral grandeur that eighteen 
 subsequent centuries have done homage to him as the Almighty 
 in person, was ignominiously put to death, as what ? As a blas- 
 phemer. Men did not merely mistake their benefactor, they mis- 
 took him for the exact contrary of what he was, and treated 
 him as that prodigy of impiety, which they themselves are now 
 held to be, for their treatment of him. The feelings with which 
 mankind now regard these lamentable transactions, especially 
 the later of the two, render them extremely unjust in their judg- 
 ment of the unhappy actors. These were, to all appearance, not 
 bad men — not worse than men commonly are, but rather the 
 contrary ; men who possessed in a full, or somewhat more than a 
 full, measure the religious, moral, and patriotic feelings of their 
 time and people : the very kind of men who, in all times, our own 
 included, have every chance of passing through life blameless 
 and respected. The high priest who rent his garments when the 
 words were pronounced, which, according to all the ideas of his 
 
 ^ Plato's Apology, which purports to give Socrates's own defense at the 
 trial in which he was condemned. — Editors. 
 
LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 109 
 
 country, constituted the blackest guilt, was in all probability 
 quite as sincere in his horror and indignation as the generality 
 of respectable and pious men now are in the religious and moral 
 sentiments they profess ; and most of those who now shudder at 
 his conduct, if they had lived in his time, and been born Jews, 
 would have acted precisely as he did. Orthodox Christians who 
 are tempted to think that those who stoned to death the first 
 martyrs must have been worse men than they themselves are, 
 ought to remember that one of those persecutors was Saint 
 Paul. 
 
 Let us add one more example, the most striking of all, if the 
 impressiveness of an error is measured by the wisdom and virtue 
 of him who falls into it. If ever any one, possessed of power, had 
 grounds for thinking himself the best and most enlightened 
 among his contemporaries, it was the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. 
 Absolute monarch of the whole civilized world, he preserved 
 through life not only the most unblemished justice, but, what was 
 less to be expected from his Stoical breeding, the tenderest 
 heart. The few failings which are attributed to him were all on 
 the side of indulgence; while his writings, the highest ethical 
 product of the ancient mind, differ scarcely perceptibly, if they 
 differ at all, from the most characteristic teachings of Christ. 
 This man, a better Christian in all but the dogmatic sense of. the 
 word, than almost any of the ostensibly Christian sovereigns 
 who have since reigned, persecuted Christianity. Placed at the 
 summit of all the previous attainments of humanity, with an 
 open, unfettered intellect, and a character which led him of him- 
 self to embody in his moral writings the Christian ideal, he yet 
 failed to see that Christianity was to be a good and not an evil 
 to the world, with his duties to which he was so deeply penetrated. 
 Existing society he knew to be in a deplorable state. But such 
 as it was, he saw, or thought he saw, that it was held together, 
 and prevented from being worse, by belief and reverence of the 
 received divinities. As a ruler of mankind, he deemed it his 
 duty not to suffer society to fall in pieces ; and saw not how, if 
 its existing ties were removed, any others could be formed which 
 
no JOHN STUART MILL 
 
 could again knit it together. The new reHgion openly aimed at 
 dissolving these ties; unless, therefore, it was his duty to adopt 
 that religion, it seemed to be his duty to put it down. Inas- 
 much, then, as the theology of Christianity did not appear to him 
 true or of divine origin ; inasmuch as this strange history of a 
 crucified God was not credible to him, and a system which pur- 
 ported to rest entirely upon a foundation to him so wholly un- 
 believable could not be foreseen by him to be that renovating 
 agency which, after all abatements, it has in fact proved to be, — 
 the gentlest and most amiable of philosophers and rulers, under 
 a solemn sense of duty, authorized the persecution of Christianity. 
 To my mind this is one of the most tragical facts in all history. 
 It is a bitter thought, how different a thing the Christianity of 
 the world might have been, if the Christian faith had been adopted 
 as the religion of the empire under the auspices of Marcus 
 Aurelius instead of those of Constantine. But it would be 
 equally unjust to him and false to truth, to deny that no one plea 
 which can be urged for punishing anti-Christian teaching was 
 wanting to Marcus Aurelius for punishing, as he did, the propa- 
 gation of Christianity. No Christian more firmly believes that 
 Atheism is false, and tends to the dissolution of society, than 
 Marcus Aurelius believed the same things of Christianity; he 
 who, of all men then living, might have been thought the most 
 capable of appreciating it. Unless any one who approves of 
 punishment for the promulgation of opinions, flatters himself 
 that he is a wiser and better man than Marcus Aurelius — more 
 deeply versed in the wisdom of his time, more elevated in his in- 
 tellect above it — more earnest in his search for truth, or more 
 single-minded in his devotion to it when found, — let him ab- 
 stain from that assumption of the joint infallibility of himself and 
 the multitude, which the great Antoninus made with so unfortu- 
 nate a result. 
 
 Aware of the impossibility of defending the use of punishment 
 for restraining irreligious opinions, by any argument which will 
 not justify Marcus Antoninus, the enemies of religious freedom, 
 when hard pressed, occasionally accept this consequence, and say, 
 
LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION in 
 
 with Dr. Johnson, that the persecutors of Christianity were in the 
 right ; that persecution is an ordeal through which truth ought 
 to pass, and always passes successfully, legal penalties being, in 
 the end, powerless against truth, though sometimes beneficially 
 effective against mischievous errors. This is a form of the argu- 
 ment for religious intolerance, sufficiently remarkable not to be 
 passed without notice. 
 
 A theory which maintains that truth may justifiably be per- 
 secuted because persecution cannot possibly do it any harm 
 cannot be charged with being intentionally hostile to the recep- 
 tion of new truths ; but we cannot commend the generosity of 
 its dealing with the persons to whom mankind are indebted for 
 them. To discover to the world something which deeply con- 
 cerns it, and of which it was previously ignorant ; to prove to it 
 that it had been mistaken on some vital point of temporal or 
 spiritual interest, is as important a service as a human being can 
 render to his fellow creatures, and in certain cases, as in those 
 of the early Christians and of the Reformers, those who think 
 with Dr. Johnson believe it to have been the most precious gift 
 which could be bestowed on mankind. That the authors of 
 such splendid benefits should be requited by martyrdom ; that 
 their reward should be to be dealt with as the vilest of criminals, 
 is not, upon this theory, a deplorable error and misfortune, for 
 which humanity should mourn in sackcloth and ashes, but the 
 normal and justifiable state of things. The propounder of a 
 new truth, according to this doctrine, should stand, as stood, in 
 the legislation of the Locrians, the proposer of a new law, with 
 a halter round his neck, to be instantly tightened if the public 
 assembly did not, on hearing his reasons, then and there adopt 
 his proposition. People who defend this mode of treating bene- 
 factors cannot be supposed to set much value on the benefit ; 
 and I believe this view of the subject is mostly confined to the 
 sort of persons who think that new truths may have been desir- 
 able once, but that we have had enough of them now. 
 
 But, indeed, the dictum that truth always triumphs over per- 
 secution, is one of those pleasant falsehoods which men repeat 
 
112 JOHN STUART MILL 
 
 after one another till they pass into commonplaces, but which 
 all experience refutes. History teems with instances of truth 
 put down by persecution. If not suppressed forever, it may be 
 thrown back for centuries. To speak only of religious opinions : 
 the Reformation broke out at least twenty times before Luther, 
 and was put down. Arnold of Brescia was put down. Fra Dol- 
 cino was put* down. Savonarola was put down. The Albigeois 
 were put down. The Vaudois were put down. The Lollards 
 were put down. The Hussites were put down. Even after the 
 era of Luther, wherever persecution was persisted in, it was suc- 
 cessful. In Spain, Italy, Flanders, the Austrian empire, Protes- 
 tantism was rooted out ; and, most likely, would have been so in 
 England, had Queen Mary lived, or Queen Elizabeth died. Per- 
 secution has always succeeded, save where the heretics were too 
 strong a party to be effectually persecuted. No reasonable per- 
 son can doubt that Christianity might have been extirpated in 
 the Roman Empire. It spread and became predominant, be- 
 cause the persecutions were only occasional, lasting but a short 
 time, and separated by long intervals of almost undisturbed 
 propagandism. It is a piece of idle sentimentality that truth, 
 merely as truth, has any inherent power denied to error, of pre- 
 vailing against the dungeon and the stake. Men are not more 
 zealous for truth than they often are for error, and a sufficient 
 application of legal or even of social penalties will generally suc- 
 ceed in stopping the propagation of either. The real advantage 
 which truth has, consists in this : that when an opinion is true, 
 it may be extinguished once, twice, or many times, but in the 
 course of ages there will generally be found persons to rediscover 
 it, until some one of its reappearances falls on a time when from 
 favorable circumstances it escapes persecution until it has made 
 such head as to withstand all subsequent attempts to suppress it. 
 It will be said, that we do not now put to death the introducers 
 ^f new opinions ; we are not like our fathers who slew the proph- 
 ets, we even build sepulchers to them. It is true we no longer 
 put heretics to death: and the amount of penal infliction which 
 modern feeling would probably tolerate, even against the most 
 
LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 113 
 
 obnoxious opinions, is not sufficient to extirpate them. But let 
 us not flatter ourselves that we are yet free from the stain even 
 of legal persecution. Penalties for opinion, or at least for its 
 expression, still exist by law ; and their enforcement is not, even 
 in these times, so unexampled as to make it at all incredible that 
 they may some day be revived in full force. In the year 1857, 
 at the summer assizes of the county of Cornwall, an unfortunate 
 man, said to be of unexceptionable conduct in all relations of 
 life, was sentenced to twenty-one months' imprisonment, for 
 uttering, and writing on a gate, some offensive words concern- 
 ing Christianity. Within a month of the same time, at the Old 
 Bailey, two persons, on two separate occasions, were rejected as 
 jurymen, and one of them grossly insulted by the judge and by 
 one of the counsel, because they honestly declared that they 
 had no theological belief ; and a third, a foreigner, for the same 
 reason, was denied justice against a thief. This refusal of re- 
 dress took place in virtue of the legal doctrine, that no person 
 can be allowed to give evidence in a court of justice, who does 
 not profess belief in a God (any god is sufficient) and in a future 
 state ; which is equivalent to declaring such persons to be out- 
 laws, excluded from the protection of the tribunals ; who may 
 not only be robbed or assaulted with impunity, if no one but 
 themselves, or persons of similar opinions, be present, but any 
 one else may be robbed or assaulted with impunity, if the proof 
 of the fact depends on their evidence. The assumption on which 
 this is grounded, is that the oath is worthless, of a person who 
 does not believe in a future state ; a proposition which betokens 
 much ignorance of history in those who assent to it (since it 
 is historically true that a large proportion of infidels in all ages 
 have been persons of distinguished integrity and honor) ; and 
 would be maintained by no one who had the smallest conception 
 how many of the persons in greatest repute with the world, both 
 for virtues and for attainments, are well known, at least to their 
 intimates, to be unbelievers. The rule, besides, is suicidal, and 
 cuts away its own foundation. Under pretense that atheists 
 must be liars, it admits the testimony of all atheists who are 
 
114 JOHN STUART MILL 
 
 willing to lie, and rejects only those who brave the obloquy of 
 publicly confessing a detested creed rather than affirm a false- 
 hood. A rule thus self-convicted of absurdity, so far as regards 
 its professed purpose, can be kept in force only as a badge of 
 hatred, a relic of persecution ; a persecution, too, having the 
 peculiarity that the qualification for undergoing it is the being 
 clearly proved not to deserve it. The rule, and the theory it 
 implies, are hardly less insulting to believers than to infidels. 
 For if he who does not believe in a future state necessarily lies, 
 it follows that they who do believe are only prevented from lying, 
 if prevented they are, by the fear of hell. We will not do the 
 authors and abettors of the rule the injury of supposing that the 
 conception which they have formed of Christian virtue is drawn 
 from their own consciousness. 
 
 These, indeed, are but rags and remnants of persecution, and 
 may be thought to be not so much an indication of the wish to 
 persecute as an example of that very frequent infirmity of Eng- 
 lish minds, which makes them take a preposterous pleasure in 
 the assertion of a bad principle, when they are no longer bad 
 enough to desire to carry it really into practice. But unhappily 
 there is no security in the state of the public mind that the sus- 
 pension of worse forms of legal persecution, which has lasted for 
 about the space of a generation, will continue. In this age the 
 quiet surface of routine is as often ruffled by attempts to resus- 
 citate past evils, as to introduce new benefits. What is boasted 
 of at the present time as the revival of religion is always, in 
 narrow and uncultivated minds, at least as much the revival of 
 bigotry ; and where there is the strong permanent leaven of in- 
 tolerance in the feelings of a people, which at all times abides 
 in the middle classes of this country, it needs but little to pro- 
 voke them into actively persecuting those whom they have never 
 ceased to think proper objects of persecution. For it is this: 
 it is the opinions men entertain, and the feelings they cherish, 
 respecting those who disown the beliefs they deem important, 
 which makes this country not a place of mental freedom. For a 
 long time past, the chief mischief of the legal penalties is that 
 
LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 115 
 
 they strengthen the social stigma. It is that stigma which is 
 really effective, and so effective is it that the profession of opin- 
 ions which are under the law of society is much less common 
 in England than is, in many other countries, the avowal of those 
 which incur risk of judicial punishment. In respect to all persons 
 but those whose pecuniary circumstances make them indepen- 
 dent of the good will of other people, opinion, on this subject, 
 is as efficacious as law ; men might as well be imprisoned, as 
 excluded from the means of earning their bread. Those whose 
 bread is already secured, and who desire no favors from men in 
 power, or from bodies of men, or from the public, have nothing 
 to fear from the open avowal of any opinions, but to be ill- 
 thought of and ill-spoken of, and this it ought not to require 
 a very heroic mold to enable them to bear. There is no room 
 for any appeal ad misericordiam ^ in behalf of such persons. But 
 though we do not now inflict so much evil on those who think 
 differently from us, as it was formerly our custom to do, it may 
 be that we do ourselves as much evil as ever by our treatment 
 of them. Socrates was put to death, but the Socratic philosophy 
 rose like the sun in heaven, and spread its illumination over the 
 whole intellectual firmament. Christians were cast to the lions, 
 but the Christian church grew up a stately and spreading tree, 
 overtopping the older and less vigorous growths, and stifling them 
 by its shade. Our merely social intolerance kills no one, roots 
 out no opinions, but induces men to disguise them, or to abstain 
 from any active effort for their diffusion. With us, heretical 
 opinions do not perceptibly gain, or even lose, ground in each dec- 
 ade or generation ; they never blaze out far and wide, but con- 
 tinue to smolder in the narrow circles of thinking and studious 
 persons among whom they originate, without ever lighting up the 
 general affairs of mankind with either a true or a deceptive light. 
 And thus is kept up a state of things very satisfactory to some 
 minds, because, without the unpleasant process of fining or im- 
 prisoning anybody, it maintains all prevailing opinions outwardly 
 undisturbed, while it does not absolutely interdict the exercise of 
 ^ To sympathy. — Editors. 
 
ii6 JOHN STUART MILL 
 
 reason by dissentients afflicted with the malady of thought. A 
 convenient plan for having peace in the intellectual world, and 
 keeping all things going on therein very much as they do already. 
 But the price paid for this sort of intellectual pacification is the 
 sacrifice of the entire moral courage of the human mind. A state 
 of things in which a large portion of the most active and inquir- 
 ing intellects find it advisable to keep the genuine principles 
 and grounds of their convictions within their own breasts, and 
 attempt, in what they address to the public, to fit as much as 
 they can of their own conclusions to premises which they have 
 internally renounced, cannot send forth the open, fearless char- 
 acters, and logical, consistent intellects who once adorned the 
 thinking world. The sort of men who can be looked for under 
 it are either mere conformers to commonplace, or timeservers for 
 truth, whose arguments on all great subjects are meant for their 
 hearers, and are not those which have convinced themselves. 
 Those who avoid this alternative, do so by narrowing their 
 thoughts and interest to things which can be spoken of without 
 venturing within the region of principles ; that is, to small prac- 
 tical matters, which would come right of themselves, if but the 
 minds of mankind were strengthened and enlarged, and which 
 will never be made effectually right until then; while that which 
 would strengthen and enlarge men's minds, free and daring 
 speculation on the highest subjects, is abandoned. 
 
 Those in whose eyes this reticence on the part of heretics is 
 no evil, should consider in the first place that in consequence of 
 it there is never any fair and thorough discussion of heretical 
 opinions ; and that such of them as could not stand such a dis- 
 cussion, though they may be prevented from spreading, do not 
 disappear. But it is not the minds of heretics that are deterio- 
 rated most, by the ban placed on all inquiry which does not end 
 in the orthodox conclusions. The greatest harm done is to those 
 who are not heretics, and whose whole mental development is 
 cramped, and their reason cowed, by the fear of heresy. Who 
 can compute what the world loses in the multitude of promis- 
 ing intellects combined with timid characters, who dare not f ol- 
 
LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 117 
 
 low out any bold, vigorous, independent train of thought, lest 
 it should land them in something which would admit of being 
 considered irreligious or immoral ? Among them we may occa- 
 sionally see some man of deep conscientiousness, and subtle and 
 refined understanding, who spends a life in sophisticating with 
 an intellect which he cannot silence, and exhausts the resources 
 of ingenuity in attempting to reconcile the promptings of his 
 conscience and reason with orthodoxy, which yet he does not, 
 perhaps, to the end succeed in doing. No one can be a great 
 thinker who does not recognize that as a thinker it is his first 
 duty to follow his intellect to whatever conclusions it may lead. 
 ^' Truth gains more even by the errors of one who, with due study 
 and preparation, thinks for himself, than by the true opinions of O^ 
 those who only hold them because they do not suffer themselves 
 to think. Not that it is solely, or chiefly, to form great thinkers, 
 that freedom of thinking is required. On the contrary, it is as 
 much, and even more indispensable, to enable average human 
 beings to attain the mental stature which they are capable of. 
 There have been, and may again be, great individual thinkers, in 
 a general atmosphere of mental slavery. But there never has 
 been, nor ever will be, in that atmosphere, an intellectually active 
 people. Where any people has made a temporary approach to 
 such a character, it has been because the dread of heterodox 
 speculation w^as for a time suspended. Where there is a tacit 
 convention that principles are not to be disputed ; where the dis- 
 cussion of the greatest questions which can occupy humanity 
 is considered to be closed, we cannot hope to find that generally 
 high scale of mental activity which has made some periods of his- 
 tory so remarkable. Never when controversy avoided the sub- 
 jects which are large and important enough to kindle enthusiasm 
 was the mind of a people stirred up from its foundations, and ^ 
 the impulse given which raised even persons of the most ordinary 
 intellect to something of the dignity of thinking beings. Of such 
 we have had an example in the condition of Europe during the 
 times immediately following the Reformation ; another, though 
 limited to the Continent and to a more cultivated class, in the 
 
ii8 JOHN STUART MILL 
 
 ' speculative movement of the latter half of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury ; and a third, of still briefer duration, in the intellectual 
 fermentation of Germany during the Goethian and Fichtean 
 period. These periods differed widely in the particular opinions 
 which they developed ; but were alike in this, that during all 
 u three the yoke of authority was broken. In each, an old mental 
 ^ despotism had been thrown off, and no new one had yet taken 
 its place. The impulse given at these three periods has made 
 Europe what it now is. Every single improvement which has 
 taken place either in the human mind or in institutions, may be 
 traced distinctly, to one or other of them. Appearances have for 
 some time indicated that all three impulses are well nigh spent ; 
 and we can expect no fresh start, until we again assert our mental 
 freedom. 
 
 Let us now pass to the second division of the argument, and 
 dismissing the supposition that any of the received opinions may 
 be false, let us assume them to be true, and examine into the 
 worth of the manner in which they are likely to be held, when 
 their truth is not freely and openly canvassed. However un- 
 willingly a person who has a strong opinion may admit the pos- 
 sibility that his opinion may be false, he ought to be moved by 
 the consideration that however true it may be, if it is not fully, 
 frequently, and fearlessly discussed, it will be held as a dead 
 dogma, not a living truth. 
 
 There is a class of persons (happily not quite so numerous as 
 formerly) who think it enough if a person assents undoubtingly 
 to what they think true, though he has no knowledge whatever of 
 the grounds of the opinion, and could not make a tenable defense 
 of it against the most superficial objections. Such persons, if 
 they can once get their creed taught from authority, naturally 
 think that no good, and some harm, comes of its being allowed to 
 be questioned. Where their influence prevails, they make it 
 nearly impossible for the received opinion to be rejected wisely 
 and considerately, though it may still be rejected rashly and ig- 
 norantly ; for to shut out discussion entirely is seldom possible, 
 and when it once gets in, beliefs not grounded on conviction are 
 
 
LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 119 
 
 apt to give way before the slightest semblance of an argument. 
 Waiving, however, this possibility, — assuming that the true opin- 
 ion abides in the mind, but abides as a prejudice, a belief inde- 
 pendent of, and proof against, argument, — this is not the way in 
 which truth ought to be held by a rational being. This is not 
 knowing the truth. Truth, thus held, is but one superstition 
 the more, accidentally clinging to the words which enunciate a 
 truth. 
 
 If the intellect and judgment of mankind ought to be culti- 
 vated, a thing which Protestants at least do not deny, on what can 
 these faculties be more appropriately exercised by any one than 
 on the things which concern him so much that it is considered 
 necessary for him to hold opinions on them ? If the cultivation 
 of the understanding consists in one thing more than in another, 
 it is surely in learning the grounds of one's own opinions. What- 
 ever people believe on subjects on which it is of the first impor- 
 tance to believe rightly, they ought to be able to defend against 
 at least the common objections. But, some one may say, "Let 
 them be taught the grounds of their opinions. It does not follow 
 that opinions must be merely parroted because they are never 
 heard controverted. Persons who learn geometry do not simply 
 commit the theorems to memory, but understand and learn like- 
 wise the demonstrations ; and it would be absurd to say that they 
 remain ignorant of the grounds of geometrical truths, because 
 they never hear any one deny, and attempt to disprove them." 
 Undoubtedly : and such teaching suffices on a subject like math- 
 ematics, where there is nothing at all to be said on the wrong 
 side of the question. The peculiarity of the evidence of math- 
 ematical truths is, that all the argument is on one side. There 
 are no objections, and no answers to objections. But on every 
 subject on which difference of opinion is possible, the truth de- 
 pends on a balance to be struck between two sets of conflicting 
 reasons. Even in natural philosophy there is always some other 
 explanation possible of the same facts ; some geocentric theory 
 instead of heliocentric, some phlogiston instead of oxygen ; and 
 it has to be shown why that other theory cannot be the true one; 
 
120 JOHN STUART MILL 
 
 and until this is shown, and until we know how it is shown, we do 
 not understand the grounds of our opinion. But when we turn 
 to subjects infinitely more complicated — to morals, religion, 
 politics, social relations, and the business of life — three fourths 
 of the arguments for every disputed opinion consist in dispelling 
 the appearances which favor some opinion different from it. The 
 greatest orator, save one, of antiquity, has left it on record that 
 he always studied his adversary's case with as great, if not with 
 still greater, intensity than even his own. What Cicero practiced 
 as the means of forensic success, requires to be imitated by all 
 who study any subject in order to arrive at the truth. / He who 
 knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His 
 reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute 
 them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the 
 opposite side ; if he does not so much as know what they are, he 
 has no ground for preferring either opinion. The rational posi- 
 tion for him would be suspension of judgment, and unless he con- 
 tents himself with that, he is either led by authority, or adopts, 
 like the generality of the world, the side to which he feels most 
 inclination. Nor is it enough that he should hear the arguments 
 of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state 
 them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. That 
 is not the way to do justice to the arguments, or bring them into 
 real contact with his own mind. He must be able to hear them 
 from persons who actually believe them; who defend them in 
 earnest, and do their very utmost for them. He must know 
 them in their most plausible and persuasive form ; he must feel 
 the whole force of the difficulty which the true view of the sub- 
 ject has to encounter and dispose of ; else he will never really 
 possess himself of the portion of truth which meets and removes 
 that difficulty. Ninety-nine in a hundred of what are called 
 educated men are in this condition ; even of those who can argue 
 fluently for their opinions. Their conclusion may be true, but 
 it might be false for anything they know ; they have never 
 thrown themselves into the mental position of those who think 
 differently from them, and considered what such persons may 
 
LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 121 
 
 have to say ; and consequently they do not, in any proper sense 
 of the word, know the doctrine which they themselves profess. 
 They do not know those parts of it which explain and justify 
 the remainder ; the considerations which show that a fact which 
 seemingly conflicts with another is reconcilable with it, or that 
 of two. apparently strong reasons, one and not the other ought 
 to be preferred. All that part of the truth which turns the 
 scale and decides the judgment of a completely informed mind, 
 they are strangers to ; nor is it ever really known, but to those 
 who have attended equally and impartially to both sides, and 
 endeavored to see the reasons of both in the strongest light. 
 So essential is this discipline to a real understanding of moral 
 and human subjects, that if opponents of all important truths 
 do not exist, it is indispensable to imagine them, and supply 
 them with the strongest arguments which the most skillful devil's 
 advocate can conjure up. 
 
 To abate the force of these considerations, an enemy of free 
 discussion may be supposed to say that there is no necessity for 
 mankind in general to know and understand all that can be said 
 against or for their opinions by philosophers and theologians. 
 That it is not needful for common men to be able to expose all 
 the misstatements or fallacies of an ingenious opponent. That 
 it is enough if there is always somebody capable of answering 
 them, so that nothing likely to mislead uninstructed persons 
 remains unrefuted. That simple minds, having been taught the 
 obvious grounds of the truths inculcated on them, may trust to 
 authority for the rest, and being aware that they have neither 
 knowledge nor talent to resolve every dilhculty which can be 
 raised, may repose in the assurance that all those which have 
 been raised have been or can be answered, by those who are spe- 
 cially trained to the task. 
 
 Conceding to this view of the subject the utmost that can be 
 claimed for it by those most easily satisfied with the amount of 
 understanding of truth which ought to accompany the belief of 
 it ; even so, the argument for free discussion is no way weakened. 
 For even this doctrine acknowledges that mankind ought to have 
 
122 JOHN STUART MILL 
 
 a rational assurance that all objections have been satisfactorily 
 answered ; and how are they to be answered if that which re- 
 quires to be answered is not spoken ? or how can the answer be 
 known to be satisfactory if the objectors have no opportunity 
 of showing that it is unsatisfactory ? If not the public, at least 
 the philosophers and theologians who are to resolve the difficul- 
 ties, must make themselves familiar with those difficulties in their 
 most puzzling form ; and this cannot be accomplished unless 
 they are freely stated and placed in the most advantageous light 
 which they admit of. The Catholic Church has its own way of 
 dealing with this embarrassing problem. It makes a broad 
 separation between those who can be permitted to receive its 
 doctrines on conviction and those who must accept .them on 
 trust. Neither, indeed, are allowed any choice as to what they 
 will accept ; but the clergy, such at least d,s can be fully confided 
 in, may admissibly and meritoriously make themselves ac- 
 quainted with the arguments of opponents, in order to answer 
 them, and may, therefore, read heretical books ; the laity, not 
 unless by special permission, hard to be obtained. This disci- 
 pline recognizes knowledge of the enemy's case as beneficial to 
 the teachers, but finds means, consistent with this, of denying 
 it to the rest of the world; thus giving to the elite more mental 
 culture, though not more mental freedom, than it allows to the 
 mass. By this device it succeeds in obtaining the kind of mental 
 superiority which its purposes require ; for though culture with- 
 out freedom never made a large and liberal mind, it can make a 
 clever nisi prius advocate of a cause. But in countries profess- 
 ing Protestantism this resource is denied ; since Protestants 
 hold, at least in theory, that the responsibility for the choice of 
 a religion must be borne each for himself, and cannot be thrown 
 off upon teachers. Besides, in the present state of the world, 
 it is practically impossible that writings which are read by the 
 instructed can be kept from the uninstructed. If the teachers 
 of mankind are to be cognizant of all that they ought to know, 
 everything must be free to be written and published without 
 restraint. 
 
LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 123 
 
 If, however, the mischievous operation of the absence of free 
 discussion, when the received opinions are true, were confined 
 to leaving men ignorant of the grounds of those opinions, it 
 might be thought that this, if an intellectual is no moral evil, 
 and does not affect the worth of the opinions, regarded in their 
 influence on the character. The fact, however, is that not only 
 the grounds of the opinion are forgotten in the absence of discus- 
 sion, but too often the meaning of the opinion itself. The words 
 which convey it cease to suggest ideas, or suggest only a small 
 portion of those they were originally employed to communicate. 
 Instead of a vivid conception and a living belief, there remain 
 only a few phrases retained by rote ; or, if any part, the shell 
 and husk only of the meaning is retained, the finer essence being 
 lost. The great chapter in human history which this fact occu- 
 pies and fills cannot be too earnestly studied and meditated on. 
 
 It is illustrated in the experience of almost all ethical doctrines 
 and religious creeds. They are all full of meaning and vitality 
 to those who originate them, and to the direct disciples of the 
 originators. Their meaning continues to be felt in undiminished 
 strength, and is perhaps brought out into even fuller conscious- 
 ness, so long as the struggle lasts to give the doctrine or creed 
 an ascendancy over other creeds. At last it either prevails, and 
 becomes the general opinion, or its progress stops ; it keeps pos- 
 session of the ground it has gained, but ceases to spread further. 
 When either of these results has become apparent, controversy 
 on the subject flags, and gradually dies away. The doctrine has 
 taken its place, if not as a received opinion, as one of the ad- 
 mitted sects or divisions of opinion; those who hold it have 
 generally inherited, not adopted it ; and conversion from one of 
 these doctrines to another, being now an exceptional fact, occu- 
 pies little place in the thoughts of their professors. Instead of 
 being, as at first, constantly on the alert either to defend them- 
 selves against the world, or to bring the world over to them, 
 they have subsided into acquiescence, and neither listen, when 
 they can help it, to arguments against their creed, nor trouble 
 dissentients (if there be such) with arguments in its favor. 
 
124 JOHN STUART MILL 
 
 From this time may usually be dated the decline in the living 
 power of the doctrine. We often hear the teachers of all creeds 
 lamenting the difficulty of keeping up in the minds of believers 
 a lively apprehension of the truth which they nominally recog- 
 nize, so that it may penetrate the feelings, and acquire a real 
 mastery over the conduct. No such difficulty is complained of 
 while the creed is still fighting for its existence; even the weaker 
 combatants then know and feel what they are fighting for, and 
 the difference between it and other doctrines ; in that period of 
 every creed's existence, not a few persons may be found who 
 have realized its fundamental principles in all the forms of 
 thought, have weighed and considered them in all their important 
 bearings, and have experienced the full effect on the character 
 which belief in that creed ought to produce in a mind thoroughly 
 imbued with it. But when it has come to be an hereditary creed, 
 and to be received passively, not actively ; — when the mind is 
 no longer compelled, in the same degree as at first, to exercise 
 its vital powers on the questions which its belief presents to it, 
 there is a progressive tendency to forget all of the belief except 
 the formularies, or to give it a dull and torpid assent, as if ac- 
 cepting it on trust dispenses with the necessity of realizing it in 
 consciousness, or testing it by personal experience; until it al- 
 most ceases to connect itself at all with the inner life of the hu- 
 man being. Then are seen the cases, so frequent in this age 
 of the world as almost to form the majority, in which the creed 
 remains, as it were, outside the mind, incrusting and petrifying 
 it against all other influences addressed to the higher parts of 
 our nature ; manifesting its power by not suffering any fresh and 
 living conviction to get in, but itself doing nothing for the mind 
 or heart, except standing sentinel over them to keep them 
 vacant. 
 
 To what an extent doctrines intrinsically fitted to make the 
 deepest impression upon the mind may remain in it as dead 
 beliefs, without being ever realized in the imagination, the feel- 
 ings, or the understanding, is exemplified by the manner in 
 which the majority of behevers hold the doctrines of Christianity. 
 
LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 125 
 
 By Christianity I here mean what is accounted such by all 
 churches and sects — the maxims and precepts contained in the 
 New Testament. These are considered sacred, and accepted as 
 laws, by all professing Christians. Yet it is scarcely too much 
 to say that not one Christian in a thousand guides or tests his 
 individual conduct by reference to those laws. The standard 
 to which he does refer it is the custom of his nation, his class, 
 or his reHgious profession. He has thus, on the one hand, a col- 
 lection of ethical maxims, which he believes to have been vouch- 
 safed to him by infallible wisdom as rules for his government ; 
 and on the other, a set of everyday judgments and practices, 
 which go a certain length with some of those maxims, not so 
 great a length with others, stand in direct opposition to some, 
 and are, on the whole, a compromise between the Christian 
 creed and the interests and suggestions of worldly life. To the 
 first of these standards he gives his homage ; to the other his 
 real allegiance. All Christians believe that the blessed are the 
 poor and humble, and those who are ill-used by the world ; that 
 it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than 
 for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven ; that they should 
 judge not, lest they should be judged ; that they should swear 
 not at all ; that they should love their neighbor as themselves ; 
 that if one take their cloak, they should give him their coat 
 also ; that they should take no thought for the morrow ; that 
 if they would be perfect, they should sell all that they have and 
 give it to the poor. They are not insincere when they say that 
 they believe these things. They do believe them, as people be- 
 lieve what they have always heard lauded and never discussed. 
 But in the sense of that living belief which regulates conduct, 
 they believe these doctrines just up to the point to which it is 
 usual to act upon them. The doctrines in their integrity are 
 serviceable to pelt adversaries with ; and it is understood that 
 they are to be put forward (when possible) as the reasons for 
 whatever people do that they think laudable. But any one who 
 reminded them that the maxims require an infinity of things 
 which they never even think of doing, would gain nothing but to 
 
126 JOHN STUART MILL 
 
 be classed among those very unpopular characters who affect 
 to be better than other people. The doctrines have no hold on 
 ordinary believers — are not a power in their minds. They have 
 an habitual respect for the sound of them, but no feeling which 
 spreads from the words to the things signified, and forces the mind 
 to take them in, and make them conform to the formula. When- 
 ever conduct is concerned, they look round for Mr. A and B to 
 direct them how far to go in obeying Christ. 
 
 Now we may be well assured that the case was not thus, but 
 far otherwise, with the early Christians. Had it been thus, Chris- 
 tianity never would have expanded from an obscure sect of the 
 despised Hebrews into the religion of the Roman Empire. When 
 their enemies said, "See how these Christians love one another" 
 (a remark not likely to be made by anybody now), they assuredly 
 had a much livelier feeling of the meaning of their creed than they 
 have ever had since. And to this cause, probably, it is chiefly ow- 
 ing that Christianity now makes so httle progress in extending its 
 domain, and, after eighteen centuries, is still nearly confined to 
 Europeans and the descendants of Europeans. Even with the 
 strictly religious, who are much in earnest about their doctrines, 
 and attach a greater amount of meaning to many of them than 
 people in general, it commonly happens that the part which is 
 thus comparatively active in their minds is that which was made 
 by Calvin, or Knox, or some such person much nearer in character 
 to themselves. The sayings of Christ coexist passively in their 
 minds, producing hardly any effect beyond what is caused by 
 mere listening to words too amiable and bland. There are many 
 reasons, doubtless, why doctrines which are the badge of a sect re- 
 tain more of their vitality than those common to all recognized 
 sects, and why more pains are taken by teachers to keep their 
 meaning alive ; but one reason certainly is, that the peculiar 
 doctrines are more questioned, and have to be oftener defended 
 against open gainsayers. Both teachers and learners go to sleep 
 at their post, as soon as there is no enemy in the field. 
 
 The same thing holds true, generally speaking, of all traditional 
 doctrines — those of prudence and knowledge of life, as well as of 
 
LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 127 
 
 morals or religion. All languages and literatures are full of gen- 
 eral observations on life, both as to what it is, and how to conduct 
 one's self in it; observations which everybody knows, which 
 everybody repeats, or hears with acquiescence, which are received 
 as truisms, yet of which most people first truly learn the meaning, 
 when experience, generally of a painful kind, has made it a real- 
 ity to them. How often, when smarting under some unforeseen 
 misfortune or disappointment, does a person call to mind some 
 proverb or common saying familiar to him all his life, the mean- 
 ing of which, if he had ever before felt it as he does now, would 
 have saved him from the calamity. There are, indeed, reasons 
 for this other than the absence of discussion ; there are many 
 truths of which the full meaning cannot be realized until per- 
 sonal experience has brought it home. But much more of the 
 meaning even of these would have been understood, and what 
 was understood would have been far more deeply impressed on 
 the mind, if the man had been accustomed to hear it argued pro 
 and con by people who did understand it. The fatal tendency of 
 mankind to leave off thinking about a thing when it is no longer 
 doubtful is the cause of half their errors. A contemporary 
 author has well spoken of "the deep slumber of a decided 
 Ojpinion." 
 
 J But what ! (it may be asked) Is the absence of unanimity an 
 indispensable condition of true knowledge ? Is it necessary that 
 some part of mankind should persist in error, to enable any to 
 realize the truth? Does a belief cease to be real and vital as 
 soon as it is generally received — and is a proposition never 
 thoroughly understood and felt unless some doubt of it remains ? 
 As soon as mankind have unanimously accepted a truth, does 
 the truth perish within them ? The highest aim and best result 
 of improved intelligence, it has hitherto been thought, is to unite 
 mankind more and more in the acknowledgment of all important 
 truths : and does the intelligence only last as long as it has not 
 achieved its object ? Do the fruits of conquest perish by the 
 very completeness of the victory ? 
 
 I afi&rm no such thing. As mankind improve, the number 
 
128 JOHN STUART MILL 
 
 of doctrines which are no longer disputed or doubted will be 
 constantly on the increase : and the well-being of mankind may 
 almost be measured by the number and gravity of the truths 
 which have reached the point of being uncontested. The cessa- 
 tion, on one question after another, of serious controversy, is one 
 of the necessary incidents of the consolidation of opinion ; a con- 
 solidation as salutary in the case of true opinions, as it is dan- 
 gerous and noxious when the opinions are erroneous. But 
 though this gradual narrowing of the bounds of diversity of 
 opinion is necessary in both senses of the term, being at once 
 inevitable and indispensable, we are not therefore obliged to con- 
 clude that all its consequences must be beneficial. The loss of 
 so important an aid to the intelHgent and living apprehension 
 of a truth as is afforded by the necessity of explaining it to, or 
 defending it against, opponents, though not sufficient to out- 
 weigh, is no trifling drawback from, the benefit of its universal 
 recognition. Where this advantage can no longer be had, I con- 
 fess I should Uke to see the teachers of mankind endeavoring to 
 provide a substitute for it; some contrivance for making the 
 difficulties of the question as present to the learner's conscious- 
 ness as if they were pressed upon him by a dissentient champion, 
 eager for his conversion. 
 
 But instead of seeking contrivances for this purpose, they have 
 lost those they formerly had. The Socratic dialectics, so mag- 
 nificently exempKfied in the dialogues of Plato, were a contri- 
 vance of this description. They were essentially a negative 
 discussion of the great questions of philosophy and Ufe, directed 
 with consummate skill to the purpose of convincing any one who 
 had merely adopted the commonplaces of received opinion, that 
 he did not understand the subject — that he as yet attached no 
 definite meaning to the doctrines he professed ; in order that, 
 becoming aware of his ignorance, he might be put in the way to 
 attain a stable belief, resting on a clear apprehension both of the 
 meaning of doctrines and of their evidence. The school disputa- 
 tions of the Middle Ages had a somewhat similar object. They 
 were intended to make sure that the pupil understood his own 
 
LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 129 
 
 opinion and (by necessary correlation) the opinion opposed to it, 
 and could enforce the grounds of the one and confute those of 
 the other. These last-mentioned contests had, indeed, the incur- 
 able defect that the premises appealed to were taken from au- 
 thority, not from reason ; and, as a discipline to the mind, they 
 were in every respect inferior to the powerful dialectics which 
 formed the intellects of the " Socratici viri:" but the modern 
 mind owes far more to both than it is generally willing to admit, 
 and the present modes of education contain nothing which in 
 the smallest degree supplies the place either of the one or of the 
 other. A person who derives all his instruction from teachers 
 or books, even if he escape the besetting temptation of content- 
 ing himself with cram, is under no compulsion to hear both 
 sides ; accordingly, it is far from a frequent accomplishment, 
 even among thinkers, to know both sides ; and the weakest part of 
 what everybody says in defense of his opinion is what he intends 
 as a reply to antagonists. It is the fashion of the present time to 
 disparage negative logic — that which points out weaknesses in 
 theory or errors in practice without establishing positive truths. 
 Such negative criticism would, indeed, be poor enough as an ulti- 
 mate result ; but as a means to attaining any positive knowledge 
 or conviction worthy the name, it cannot be valued too highly ; 
 and until people are again systematically trained to it, there will 
 be few great thinkers and a low general average of intellect, in 
 any but the mathematical and physical departments of specula- 
 tion. On any other subject no one's opinions deserve the name 
 of knowledge, except so far as he has either had forced upon him 
 by others, or gone through of himself, the same mental process 
 which would have been required of him in carrying on an active 
 controversy with opponents. That, therefore, which when ab- 
 sent, it is so indispensable, but so difhcult, to create, how worse 
 than absurd is it to forego, when spontaneously offering itself ! 
 If there are any persons who contest a received opinion, or who 
 will do so if law or opinion will let them, let us thank them for it, 
 open our minds to listen to them, and rejoice that there is some 
 one to do for us what we otherwise ought, if we have any regard 
 
130 JOHN STUART MILL 
 
 for either the certainty or the vitality of our convictions, to do 
 with much greater labor for ourselves. 
 
 It still remains to speak of one of the principal causes which 
 make diversity of opinion advantageous, and will continue to do 
 so until mankind shall have entered a stage of intellectual ad- 
 vancement which at present seems at an incalculable distance. 
 We have hitherto considered only two possibilities : that the 
 received opinion may be false, and some other opinion, conse- 
 quently, true ; or that, the received opinion being true, a con- 
 flict with the opposite error is essential to a clear apprehension 
 and deep f eehng of its truth. But there is a commoner case than 
 either of these ; when the conflicting doctrines, instead of being 
 one true and the other false, share the truth between them ; and 
 the nonconforming opinion is needed to supply the remainder of 
 the truth, of which the received doctrine embodies only a part. 
 Popular opinions, on subjects not palpable to sense, are often 
 true, but seldom or never the whole truth. They are a part of 
 the truth ; sometimes a greater, sometimes a smaller part, but 
 exaggerated, distorted, and disjoined from the truths by which 
 they ought to be accompanied and limited. Heretical opinions, 
 on the other hand, are generally some of these suppressed and 
 neglected truths, bursting the bonds which kept them down, and 
 either seeking reconciliation with the truth contained in the 
 common opinion, or fronting it as enemies, and setting them- 
 selves up, with similar exclusiveness, as the whole truth. The 
 latter case is hitherto the more frequent, as, in the human mind, 
 one-sidedness has always been the rule, and many-sidedness the 
 exception. Hence, even in revolutions of opinion, one part of 
 the truth usually sets while the other rises. Even progress, 
 which ought to superadd, for the most part only substitutes one 
 partial and incomplete truth for another ; improvement con- 
 sisting chiefly in this, that the new fragment of truth is more 
 wanted, more adapted to the needs of the time, than that which 
 it displaces. Such being the partial character of prevailing 
 opinions, even when resting on a true foundation, every opinion 
 
LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 131 
 
 which embodies somewhat of the portion of truth which the 
 common opinion omits, ought to be considered precious, with 
 whatever amount of error and confusion that truth may be 
 blended. No sober judge of human affairs will feel bound to be 
 indignant because those who force on our notice truths which we 
 should otherwise have overlooked, overlook some of those which 
 we see. Rather, he will think that so long as popular truth is 
 one-sided, it is more desirable than otherwise that unpopular truth 
 should have one7sided asserters too ; such being usually the most 
 energetic, and the most likely to compel reluctant attention to the 
 fragment of wisdom which they proclaim as if it were the whole. 
 Thus, in the eighteenth century, when nearly all the instructed, 
 and all those of the uninstructed who were led by them, were lost 
 in admiration of what is called civilization, and of the marvels of 
 modern science, Uterature, and philosophy, and while greatly 
 overrating the amount of unhkeness between the men of modern 
 and those of ancient times, indulged the belief that the whole of 
 the difference was in their own favor ; with what a salutary 
 shock did the paradoxes of Rousseau explode like bombshells in 
 the midst, dislocating the compact mass of one-sided opinion, and 
 forcing its elements to recombine in a better form and with addi- 
 tional ingredients. Not that the current opinions were on the 
 whole farther from the truth than Rousseau's were ; on the con- 
 trary, they were nearer to it ,' they contained more of positive 
 truth, and very much less of error. Nevertheless, there lay in 
 Rousseau's doctrine, and has floated down the stream of opinion 
 along with it, a considerable amount of exactly those truths 
 which the popular opinion wanted ; and these are the deposit 
 which was left behind when the flood subsided. The superior 
 worth of simplicity of Hfe, the enervating and demorahzing effect 
 of the trammels and hypocrisies of artificial society, are ideas 
 which have never been entirely absent from cultivated minds 
 since Rousseau wrote ; and they will in time produce their due 
 effect, though at present needing to be asserted as much as ever, 
 and to be asserted by deeds, for words, on this subject, have 
 nearly exhausted their power. 
 
132 JOHN STUART MILL 
 
 In politics, again, it is almost a commonplace, that a party of 
 order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both nec- 
 essary elements of a healthy state of political life ; until the one or 
 the other shall have so enlarged its mental grasp as to be a party 
 equally of order and of progress, knowing and distinguishing 
 what is fit to be preserved from what ought to be swept away. 
 Each of these modes of thinking derives its utility from the defi- 
 ciencies of the other ; but it is in a great measure the opposition of 
 the other that keeps each within the Umits of reason and sanity. 
 Unless opinions favorable to democracy and to aristocracy, to 
 property and to equality, to cooperation and to competition, to 
 luxury and to abstinence, to sociality and individuality, to liberty 
 and discipline, and all the other standing antagonisms of practi- 
 cal fife, are expressed with equal freedom, and enforced and de- 
 fended with equal talent and energy, there is no chance of both 
 elements obtaining their due ; one scale is sure to go up, and the 
 other down. Truth, in the great practical concerns of Ufe, is so 
 much a question of the reconciling and combining of opposites, 
 that very few have minds sufficiently capacious and impartial to 
 make the adjustment with an approach to correctness, and it 
 has to be made by the rough process of a struggle between com- 
 batants fighting under hostile banners. On any of the great 
 open questions just enumerated, if either of the two opinions has 
 a better claim than the other, not merely to be tolerated, but to 
 be encouraged and countenanced, it is the one which happens at 
 the particular time and place to be in a minority. That is the 
 opinion which, for the time being, represents the neglected in- 
 terests, the side of human weU-being which is in danger of obtain- 
 ing less than its share. I am aware that there is not, in this 
 country, any intolerance of differences of opinion on most of these 
 topics. They are adduced to show, by admitted and multipUed 
 examples, the universality of the fact, that only through diver- 
 sity of opinion is there, in the existing state of human intellect, 
 a chance of fair play to all sides of the truth. When there are 
 persons to be found who form an exception to the apparent 
 unanimity of the world on any subject, even if the world is in the 
 
LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 133 
 
 right, it is always probable that dissentients have something 
 worth hearing to say for themselves, and that truth would lose 
 something by their silence. 
 
 It maybe objected, "But some received principles, especially 
 on the highest and most vital subjects, are more than half-truths. 
 The Christian morality, for instance, is the whole truth on that 
 subject, and if any one teaches a morahty which varies from it, 
 he is wholly in error." As.this is of all cases the most important 
 in practice, none can be fitter to test the general maxim. But be- 
 fore pronouncing what Christian morality is or is not, it would be 
 desirable to decide what is meant by Christian morality. If it 
 means the morab'ty of the New Testament, I wonder that any 
 one who derives his knowledge of this from the book itself, can 
 suppose that it was announced or intended, as a complete 
 doctrine of morals. The Gospel always refers to a preexisting 
 morality, and confines its precepts to the particulars in which 
 that morality was to be corrected, or superseded by a wide;r and 
 higher ; expressing itself, moreover, in terms most general, often 
 impossible to be interpreted Hterally, and possessing rather the 
 impressiveness of poetry or eloquence than the precision of 
 legislation. To extract from it a body of ethical doctrine has 
 never been possible without eking it out from the Old Testament, 
 that is, from a system elaborate indeed, but in many respects 
 barbarous, and intended only for a barbarous people. St. 
 Paul, a declared enemy to this Judaical mode of interpret- 
 ing the doctrine and filling up the scheme of his Master, 
 equally assumes a preexisting morality, namely, that of the 
 Greeks and Romans ; and his advice to Christians is in a 
 great measure a system of accommodation to that ; even to the 
 extent of giving an apparent sanction to slavery. What is called 
 Christian, but should rather be termed theological, morality, was 
 not the work of Christ or the Apostles, but is of much later origin, 
 having been gradually built up by the Catholic Church of the 
 first five centuries, and though not implicitly adopted by moderns 
 and Protestants, has been much less modified by them than might 
 have been expected. For the most part, indeed, they have con- 
 
134 JOHN STUART MILL 
 
 tented themselves with cutting off the additions which had been 
 made to it in the Middle Ages, each sect supplying the place by 
 fresh additions, adapted to its own character and tendencies. 
 That mankind owe a great debt to this moraUty, and to its early 
 teachers, I should be the last person to deny ; but I do not scruple 
 to say of it, that it is, in many important points, incomplete and 
 one-sided, and that unless ideas and f eeUngs, not sanctioned by it, 
 had contributed to the formation of European life and character, 
 human affairs would have been in a worse condition than they 
 now are. Christian morahty (so called) has all the characters of 
 a reaction ; it is, in great part, a protest against Paganism. Its 
 ideal is negative rather than positive ; passive rather than active ; 
 Innocence rather than Nobleness ; Alastinence from Evil, rather 
 than energetic Pursuit of Good : in its precepts (as has been well 
 said) " thou shalt not " predominates unduly over " thou shalt." 
 In its horror of sensuality, it made an idol of asceticism, which 
 has been gradually compromised away into one of legality. It 
 holds out the hope of heaven and the threat of hell, as the ap- 
 pointed and appropriate motives to a virtuous Ufe : in this falling 
 far below the best of the ancients, and doing what Ues in it to 
 give to human morality an essentially selfish character, by dis- 
 connecting each man's feelings of duty from the interests of his 
 fellow-creatures, except so far as a self-interested inducement is 
 offered to him for consulting them. It is essentially a doctrine 
 of passive obedience ; it inculcates submission to all authorities 
 found established; who indeed are not to be actively obeyed 
 when they command what religion forbids, but who are not to be 
 resisted, far less rebelled against, for any amount of wrong to 
 ourselves. And while, in the morality of the best Pagan nations, 
 duty to the state holds even a disproportionate place, infringing 
 on the just liberty of the individual ; in purely Christian ethics, 
 that grand department of duty is scarcely noticed or acknowl- 
 edged. It is in the Koran, not the New Testament, that we 
 read the maxim — :" A ruler who appoints any man to an office, 
 when there is in his dominions another man better qualified for 
 it, sins against God and against the State." What little recogni- 
 
LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 135 
 
 tion the idea of obligation to the public obtains in modern moral- 
 ity, is derived from Greek and Roman sources, not from Chris- 
 tian ; as, even in the morality of private life, whatever exists of 
 magnanimity, highmindedness, personal dignity, even the sense 
 of honor, is derived from the purely human, not the religious 
 part of our education, and never could have grown out of a 
 standard of ethics in which the only worth, professedly recognized, 
 is that of obedience. 
 
 I am as far as any one from pretending that these defects are 
 necessarily inherent in the Christian ethics, in every manner in 
 which it can be conceived, or that the many requisites of a 
 complete moral doctrine which it does not contain, do not admit 
 of being reconciled with it. Far less would I insinuate this of the 
 doctrines and precepts of Christ himself. I believe that the 
 sayings of Christ are all that I can see any evidence of their 
 having been intended to be; that they are irreconcilable with 
 nothing which a comprehensive morality reqviires ; that every- 
 thing which is excellent in ethics may be brought within them, 
 with no greater violence to their language than has been done to 
 it by all who have attempted to deduce from them any practical 
 system of conduct whatever. But it is quite consistent with 
 this to believe that they contain, and were meant to contain, 
 only a part of the truth ; that many essential elements of the 
 highest morality are among the things which are not provided 
 for, nor intended to be provided for, in the recorded deliverances 
 of the Founder of Christianity, and which have been entirely 
 thrown aside in the system of ethics erected on the basis of those 
 deliverances by the Christian Church, And this being so, I think 
 it a great error to persist in attempting to find in the Christian 
 doctrine that complete rule for our guidance, which its author 
 intended it to sanction and enforce, but only partially to provide. 
 I believe, too, that this narrow theory is becoming a grave prac- 
 tical evil, detracting greatly from the value of the moral training 
 and instruction, which so many well-meaning persons are now 
 at length exerting themselves to promote. I much fear that by 
 attempting to form the mind and feelings on an exclusively re- 
 
136 JOHN STUART MILL 
 
 ligious type, and discarding those secular standards (as for 
 want of a better name they may be called) which heretofore 
 coexisted with and supplemented the Christian ethics, receiving 
 some of its spirit, and infusing into it some of theirs, there will 
 result, and is even now resulting, a low, abject, servile type of 
 character, which, submit itself as it may to what it deems the 
 Supreme Will, is incapable of rising to or sympathizing in the 
 conception of Supreme Goodness. I believe that other ethics 
 than any which can be evolved from exclusively Christian 
 sources, must exist side by side with Christian ethics to produce 
 the moral regeneration of mankind ; and that the Christian sys- 
 tem is no exception to the rule, that in an imperfect state of the 
 human mind, the interests of truth require a diversity of opinions. 
 It is not necessary that in ceasing to ignore the moral truths not 
 contained in Christianity, men should ignore any of those which 
 it does contain. Such prejudice, or oversight, when it occurs, is 
 altogether an evil ; but it is one from which we cannot hope to 
 be always exempt, and must be regarded as the price paid for 
 an inestimable good. The exclusive pretension made by a part 
 of the truth to be the whole, must and ought to be protested 
 against, and if a reactionary imptdse should make the protestors 
 unjust in their turn, this one-sidedness, like the other, may be 
 lamented, but must be tolerated. If Christians would teach in- 
 fidels to be just to Christianity, they should themselves be just 
 to infidelity. It can do truth no service to blink the fact, known 
 to all who have the most ordinary acquaintance with literary 
 history, that a large portion of the noblest and most valuable 
 moral teaching has been the work, not only of men who did not 
 know, but of men who knew and rejected, the Christian faith. 
 
 I do not pretend that the most unlimited use of the freedom of 
 enunciating all possible opinions would put an end to the evils of 
 religious or philosophical sectarianism. Every truth which men 
 of narrow capacity are in earnest about, is sure to be asserted, 
 inculcated, and in many ways even acted on, as if no other truth 
 existed in the w^orld, or at all events none that could limit or 
 qualify the first. I acknowledge that the tendency of all opin- 
 
LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 137 
 
 ions to become sectarian is not cured by the freest discussion, 
 but is often heightened and exacerbated thereby ; the truth 
 which ought to have been, but was not, seen, being rejected all 
 the more violently because proclaimed by persons regarded as 
 opponents. But it is not on the impassioned partisan, it is on 
 the calmer and more disinterested bystander, that this collision 
 of opinion works its salutary effect. Not the violent confhct be- 
 tween parts of the truth, but the quiet suppression of half of it, 
 is the formidable evil : there is always hope when people are 
 forced to listen to both sides ; it is when they attend only to one 
 that errors harden into prejudices, and truth itself ceases to have 
 the effect of truth, by being exaggerated into falsehood. And 
 since there are few mental attributes more rare than that ju- 
 dicial faculty which can sit in intelligent judgment between 
 two sides of a question, of which only one is represented by an 
 advocate before it, truth has no chance but in proportion as 
 every side of it, every opinion which embodies any fraction of 
 the truth, not only finds advocates, but is so advocated as to be 
 listened to. 
 
 We have now recognized the necessity to the mental well-being 
 of mankind (on which all their other well-being depends) of free- 
 dom of opinion, and freedom of the expression of opinion, on 
 four distinct grounds ; which we will now briefly recapitulate. 
 
 First, if any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may, 
 for aught we can certainly know, be true. To deny this is to as- 
 sume our own infallibility. 
 
 Secondly, though the silenced opinion be an error, it may, 
 and very commonly does, contain a portion of truth ; and since 
 the general or prevailing opinion on any subject is rarely or 
 never the whole truth, it is only by the collision of adverse opin- 
 ions that the remainder of the truth has any chance of being 
 supplied. 
 
 Thirdly, even if the received opinion be not only true, but the 
 whole truth ; unless it is suffered to be, and actually is, vigorously 
 and earnestly contested, it will, by most of those who receive it. 
 
138 JOHN STUART MILL 
 
 be held in the manner of a prejudice, with httle comprehension 
 or feeling of its rational grounds. And not only this, but, 
 fourthly, the meaning of the doctrine itself will be in danger of 
 being lost or enfeebled, and deprived of its vital effect on the 
 character and conduct : the dogma becoming a mere formal 
 profession, inefficacious for good, but cumbering the ground, and 
 preventing the growth of any real and heartfelt conviction, 
 from reason or personal experience. 
 
 Before quitting the subject of freedom of opinion, it is fit to 
 take some notice of those who say that the free expression of 
 all opinions should be permitted, on condition that the manner 
 be temperate, and do not pass the bounds of fair discussion. 
 Much might be said on the impossibility of fixing where these 
 supposed bounds are to be placed ; for if the test be offense to 
 those whose opinion is attacked, I think experience testifies that 
 this offense is given whenever the attack is telling and powerful, 
 and that every opponent who pushes them hard, and whom they 
 find it difficult to answer, appears to them, if he shows any strong 
 feeling on the subject, an intemperate opponent. But this, 
 though an important consideration in a practical point of view, 
 merges in a more fundamental objection. Undoubtedly the 
 manner of asserting an opinion, even though it be a true one, 
 may be very objectionable, and may justly incur severe censure. 
 But the principal offenses of the kind are such as it is mostly im- 
 possible, unless by accidental self -betrayal, to bring home to 
 conviction. The gravest of them is, to argue sophistically, to 
 suppress facts or arguments, to misstate the elements of the 
 case, or misrepresent the opposite opinion. But all this, even to 
 the most aggravated degree, is so continually done in perfect 
 good faith, by persons who are not considered, and in many other 
 respects may not deserve to be considered, ignorant or incompe- 
 tent, that it is rarely possible on adequate grounds conscien- 
 tiously to stamp the misrepresentation as morally culpable; 
 and still less could law presume to interfere with this kind of 
 controversial misconduct. With regard to what is commonly 
 meant by intemperate discussion, namely, invective, sarcasm, 
 
LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 139 
 
 personality, and the like, the denunciation of these weapons 
 would deserve more sympathy if it were ever proposed to inter- 
 dict them equally to both sides ; but it is only desired to restrain 
 the employment of them against the prevailing opinion : against 
 the unprevailing they may not only be used without general dis- 
 approval, but will be likely to obtain for him who uses them the 
 praise of honest zeal and righteous indignation. Yet whatever 
 mischief arises from their use, is greatest when they are employed 
 against the comparatively defenseless ; and whatever unfair 
 advantage can be derived by any opinion from this mode of 
 asserting it, accrues almost exclusively to received opinions. 
 The worst offense of this kind which can be committed by a 
 polemic, is to stigmatize those who hold the contrary opinion as 
 bad and immoral men. To calumny of this sort, those who 
 hold any unpopular opinion are peculiarly exposed, because 
 they are in general few and uninfluential, and nobody but them- 
 selves feels much interest in seeing justice done them ; but this 
 weapon is, from the nature of the case, denied to those who attack 
 a prevailing opinion : they can neither use it with safety to 
 themselves, nor, if they could, would it do anything but recoil on 
 their own cause. In general, opinions contrary to those com- 
 monly received can only obtain a hearing by studied moderation 
 of language, and the most cautious avoidance of unnecessary 
 offense, from which they hardly ever deviate even in a slight 
 degree without losing ground : while unmeasured vituperation 
 employed on the side of the prevailing opinion, really does deter 
 people from professing contrary opinions, and from listening to 
 those who profess them. For the interest, therefore, of truth 
 and justice, it is far more important to restrain this employment 
 of vituperative language than the other ; and, for example, if it 
 were necessary to choose, there would be much more need to 
 discourage offensive attacks on infidelity than on religion. It is, 
 however, obvious that law and authority have no business with 
 restraining either, while opinion ought, in every instance, to 
 determine its verdict by the circumstances of the individual case ; 
 condemning every one, on whichever side of the argument he 
 
I40 JOHN STUART MILL 
 
 places himself, in whose mode of advocacy either want of can- 
 dor, or malignity, bigotry, or intolerance of feeling manifest 
 themselves ; but not inferring these vices from the side which a 
 person takes, though it be the contrary side of the question to our 
 own : and giving merited honor to every one, whatever opin- 
 ion he may hold, who has calmness to see and honesty to state 
 what his opponents and their opinions really are, exaggerating 
 nothing to their discredit, keeping nothing back which tells, or 
 can be supposed to tell, in their favor. This is the real moral- 
 ity of public discussion ; and if often violated, I am happy to 
 think that there are many controversialists who to a great extent 
 observe it, and a still greater number who conscientiously strive 
 towards it. 
 
VI 
 
 OF THE POSSIBLE UTILITY OF ERROR 
 John Morley 
 
 [Viscount Morley (1838-) was in the early years of his public life editor 
 of the Fortnightly Rcvino, resigning to enter Parliament in 1883. As a poli- 
 tician he was a strong supporter of Gladstone's policies, and a member of 
 his "Home Rule Cabinet." In the domain of literary study, which has 
 been for him a serious occupation throughout his long parliamentary career, 
 he has shown a penetrating acquaintance with the political and intellectual 
 movements of the eighteenth century in studies of Burke, Rousseau, Voltaire, 
 and Diderot. His interest in the history of Enghsh political reforms is seen 
 in his hfe of Cobden and in his monumental biography of Gladstone. 
 
 Of the Possible Utility of Error constitutes the second chapter of the author's 
 work On Compromise, published in 1874, a cogent and timely discussion, in 
 a period of great spiritual and political uncertainty, of one of the dominant 
 principles of social organization. This chapter is an assertion of the moral 
 weakness, and even the futility in practice, of the plea of expediency which 
 holds it possible to maintain a code of moral principles varied to suit different 
 grades of inteUigence and education. The original importance of this chapter 
 may have lessened since the period when the growth of scientific skepticism 
 seemed to churchmen to threaten the moral restraints inherent in religious 
 faith; but even with our modern recognition of the positive influence of 
 scientific truth upon moral point of view, the essay serves as a useful 
 criticism of an attitude of mind that has by no means disappeared.] 
 
 Das Wahre forderi; aus dent Irrthum entwickelt sich nichts, er 
 verwickelt uns nur} — Goethe. 
 
 At the outset of an inquiry how far existing facts ought to be 
 allowed to overrule ideas and principles that are at variance with 
 them, a preliminary question lies in our way, about which it may 
 be well to say something. This is the question of a dual doc- 
 
 1 The truth helps us ; nothing comes of error : it simply entangles us. 
 — Editors. 
 
 141 
 
142 JOHN MORLEY 
 
 trine. In plainer words, the question whether it is expedient 
 that the more enlightened classes in a community should upon 
 system not only possess their Hght in silence, but whether they 
 should openly encourage a doctrine for the less enlightened classes 
 which they do not believe to be true for themselves, while they 
 regard it as indispensably useful in the case of less fortunate 
 people. An eminent teacher tells us how after he had once 
 succeeded in presenting the principle of Necessity to his own mind 
 in a shape which seemed to bring with it all the advantages of 
 the principle of Free Will, " he no longer suffered under the bur- 
 den so heavy to one who aims at being a reformer in opinions, of 
 thinking one doctrine true, and the contrary doctrine morally 
 beneficial." ^ The discrepancy which thiswTiter thought a heavy 
 burden has struck others as the basis of a satisfactory solution. 
 
 Nil dulcius est bene quam munita tenere 
 Edita doctrina sapientum templa serena, 
 Despicere undo queas alios passimque videre 
 Errare atque viam palantes quaerere vitse.^ 
 
 The learned are to hold the true doctrine; the unlearned are 
 to be taught its morally beneficial contrary. " Let the Church," 
 it has been said, " admit two descriptions of believers, those who 
 are for the letter, and those who hold by the spirit. At a cer- 
 tain point in rational culture, belief in the supernatural becomes 
 for many an impossibility ; do not force such persons to wear a 
 cowl of lead. Do not you meddle with what we teach or write, 
 and then we will not dispute the common people with you ; do 
 not contest our place in the school and the academy, and then we 
 will surrender to your hands the country school." ^ This is only 
 a very courageous and definite way of saying what a great many 
 less accomplished persons than M. Renan have silently in their 
 
 1 Mill's Autobiography, p. 170. 
 
 2 Nothing is sweeter than to dwell in the temples secured and established 
 by the calm teachings of the wise, whence you may look down upon others 
 wandering hither and thither and straggling about in search of the path of 
 life. — Editors. 
 
 ^ M. Renan's Reforme Intelleckielleei Morale de la France, p. 98. 
 
OF THE POSSIBLE UTILITY OF ERROR 143 
 
 hearts, and in England quite as extensively as in France. They 
 do not believe in hell, for instance, but they think hell a useful 
 fiction for the lower classes. They would deeply regret any change 
 in the spirit or the machinery of public instruction which would 
 release the lower classes from so wholesome an error. And as 
 with hell, so with other articles of the supernatural system ; the 
 existence of a Being who will distribute rewards and penalties 
 in a future state, the permanent sentience of each human person- 
 ality, the vigilant supervision of our conduct, as well as our in- 
 most thoughts and desires, by the heavenly powers ; and so 
 forth. 
 
 Let us discuss this matter impersonally, without reference to 
 our own opinions and without reference to the evidence for 
 or against their truth. I am not speaking now of those who 
 hold all these ideas to be certainly true, or highly probable, and 
 who at the same time incidentally insist on the great usefulness of 
 such ideas in confirming morality and producing virtuous types 
 of character. With such persons, of course, there is no question 
 of a dual doctrine. They entertain certain convictions themselves 
 and naturally desire to have their influence extended over others. 
 The proposition which we have to consider is of another kind. 
 It expresses the notions of those who — to take the most impor- 
 tant kind of illustration — think untrue the popular ideas of su- 
 pernatural interference in our obscure human affairs ; who think 
 untrue the notion of the prolongation of our existence after 
 death to fulfill the purpose of the supernatural powers ; or at 
 least who think them so extremely improbable that no reasonable 
 man or woman, once awakened to a conviction of this improba- 
 bility, would thenceforth be capable of receiving effective check 
 or guidance from beliefs, that would have sunk slowly down to 
 the level of doubtful guesses. We have now to deal with those 
 who, while taking this view of certain doctrines, still declare them 
 to be indispensable for restraining from antisocial conduct all 
 who are not acute or instructed enough to see through them. 
 In other words, they think error useful, and that it may be the 
 best thing for society that masses of men should cheat and de- 
 
144 JOHN MORLEY 
 
 ceive themselves in their most fervent aspirations and their 
 deepest assurances. This is the furthest extreme to which the 
 empire of existing facts over principles can well be imagined to 
 go. It lies at the root of every discussion upon the limits which 
 separate lawful compromise or accommodation from palpable 
 hypocrisy. 
 
 It will probably be said that according to the theory of the 
 school of which M. Renan is the most eloquent representative, 
 the common people are not really cheating themselves or being 
 cheated. Indeed M. Renan himself has expatiated on the charm 
 of seeing figures of the ideal in the cottages of the poor, images 
 representing no reality, and so forth. " What a delight," he 
 cries, " for the man who is borne down by six days of toil to come 
 on the seventh to rest upon his knees, to contemplate the tall 
 columns, a vault, arches, an altar ; to listen to the chanting, to 
 hear moral and consoling words ! " ^ The dogmas which criti- 
 cism attacks are not for these poor people " the object of an 
 explicit affirmation," and therefore there is no harm in them ; "it 
 is the privilege of pure sentiment to be invulnerable, and to play 
 with poison without being hurt by it." In other words, the dog- 
 mas are false, but the liturgy, as a performance stirring the senses 
 of awe, reverence, susceptibility to beauty of various kinds, ap- 
 peals to and satisfies a sentiment that is both true and indis- 
 pensable in the human mind. More than this, in the two or 
 three supreme moments of life to which men look forward and 
 on which they look back, — at birth, at the passing of the thresh- 
 old into fullness of life, at marriage, at death, — the Church is 
 present to invest the hour with a certain solemn and dignified 
 charm. That is the way in which the instructed are to look at 
 the services of a Church, after they have themselves ceased to 
 believe its faith, as a true account of various matters which it 
 professes to account for truly. 
 
 It will be perceived that this is not exactly the ground of those 
 who think a number of what they confess to be untruths, whole- 
 some for the common people for reasons of police, and who would 
 ^ Eludes d'Histoire Religieuse, Preface, p. xvi. 
 
OF THE POSSIBLE UTILITY OF ERROR 145 
 
 maintain churches on the same principle on which they maintain 
 the county constabulary. It is a psychological, not a political 
 ground. It is on the whole a more true, as well as a far more 
 exalted, position. The human soul, they say, has these lovely 
 and elevating aspirations ; not to satisfy them is to leave man a 
 dwarfed creature. Why quarrel with a system that leaves you to 
 satisfy them in the true way, and does much to satisfy them in a 
 false but not very harmful way among those who unfortunately 
 have to sit in the darkness of the outer court ? 
 
 This is not a proper occasion for saying anything about the 
 adequateness of the Catholic, or any other special manner of fos- &j 
 tering and solacing the religious impulses of men. We have to 
 assume that the instructed class believe the Catholic dogmas 
 to be untrue, and yet wish the uninstructed to be handed over 
 to a system that reposes on the theory that these dogmas are 
 superlatively true. What then is to be said of the tenableness 
 of such a position ? To the plain man it looks like a deliberate 
 connivance at a plan for the propagation of error — assuming, 
 as I say, for the moment, that these articles of belief are errone- 
 ous and contrary to fact and evidence. Ah, but, we are told, 
 the people make no explicit affirmation of dogma ; that does 
 nothing for them ; they are indifferent to it. A great variety of 
 things might be said to this statement. We might ask, for in- 
 stance, whether the people ever made an explicit affirmation of 
 dogma in the past, or whether it was always the hazy indifferent 
 matter which it is supposed to be now. If so, whether we shall 
 not have to recast our most fundamental notions of the way in 
 which Christian civilization has been evolved. If not, and if peo- 
 ple did once explicitly affirm dogma, when exactly was it that 
 they ceased to do so ? 
 
 The answers to these questions would all go to show that at 
 the time when religion was the great controlling and organizing 
 force in conduct, the prime elemental dogmas were accepted with 
 the most vivid conviction of reality. I do not pretend that the 
 common people followed all the inferences which the intellectual 
 subtlety of the master spirits of theology drew so industriously 
 
146 JOHN MORLEY 
 
 from the simple premises of scripture and tradition. But assur- 
 edly dogma was at the foundation of the whole structure. When 
 did it cease to be so ? How was the structure supported, after 
 you had altered this condition of things ? 
 
 Apart from this historic issue, the main question one would 
 like to put to the upholder of duality of religion on this plea, is 
 the simple one, whether the power of the ceremonial which charms 
 him so much is not actually at this moment drawn wholly from 
 dogma and the tradition of dogma; whether its truth is not 
 explicitly affirmed to the unlettered man, and whether the insep- 
 arable connection between the dogma and the ceremonial is not 
 constantly impressed upon him by the spiritual teachers to whom 
 the dual system hands him and his order over for all time ? If 
 any one of these philosophic critics will take the trouble to listen 
 to a few courses of sermons at the present day, and the remark 
 appHes not less to Protestant than to Catholic churches, he will 
 find that instead of that ' ' parole morale et consolante " ^ which is so 
 soothing to think of, the pulpit is now the home of fervid con- 
 troversy and often exacerbated declamation in favor of ancient 
 dogma against modern science. We do not say whether this is 
 or is not the wisest line for the clergy to follow. We only press 
 the fact against those who wish us to believe that dogma counts 
 for nothing in the popular faith, and that therefore we need not 
 be uneasy as to its effects. 
 
 Next, one would say to those who think that all will go well if 
 you divide the community into two classes, one privileged to 
 use its own mind, the other privileged to have its mind used by a 
 priesthood, that they overlook the momentous circumstance of 
 these professional upholders of dogmatic systems being also pos- 
 sessed of a vast social influence in questions that naturally belong 
 to another sphere. There is hardly a single great controversy in 
 modern politics where the statesman does not find himself in 
 immediate contact with the real or supposed interests, and with 
 the active or passive sentiment, of one of these religious systems. 
 Therefore if the instructed or intellectually privileged class cheer- 
 ^ Moral and comforting word, — Editors. 
 
OF THE POSSIBLE UTILITY OF ERROR 147 
 
 fully leave the field open to men who, ex hypothesi,^ are presumed 
 to be less instructed, narrower, more impenetrable by reason, and 
 the partisans of the letter against the spirit, then this result fol- 
 lows. They are deliberately strengthening the hands of the per- 
 sons least fitted by judgment, experience, and temper for using 
 such power rightly. And they are strengthening them not 
 merely in dealing with religious matters, but, what is of more 
 importance, in dealing with an endless variety of the gravest 
 social and political matters. It is impossible to map out the exact 
 dimensions of the field in which a man shall exercise his influence, 
 and to which he is to be rigorously confined. Give men influence 
 in one matter, especially if that be such a matter as religious be- 
 lief and ceremonial, and it is simply impossible that this influ- 
 ence shall not extend with more or less effect over as much of 
 the whole sphere of conduct as they may choose to claim. This 
 is no discredit to them ; on the contrary it is to their honor. So, 
 in short, in surrendering the common people without dispute or 
 effort to organized priesthoods for religious purposes, you would 
 be inevitably including a vast number of other purposes in the 
 selfsame destination. This does not in the least prejudice 
 practical ways of dealing with certain existing circumstances, 
 such as the propriety or justice of allowing a Catholic people to 
 have a Catholic university. It is only an argument against erect- 
 ing into a complete and definite formula the division of a society 
 into two great castes, the one with a religion of the spirit, the 
 other with a creed of the letter. 
 
 Again, supposing that the enlightened caste were to consent to 
 abandon the common people to what are assumed to be lower and 
 narrower forms of truth, — which is after all little more than a 
 fine phrase for forms of falsehood, — what can be more futile 
 than to suppose that such a compromise will be listened to for a 
 single moment by a caste whose first principle is that they are the 
 possessors and ministers, not of an inferior or superior form of 
 truth, but of the very truth itself, absolute, final, complete, 
 divinely sent, infallibly interpreted ? The disciples of the rela- 
 ^ From our assumption. — Editors. 
 
148 JOHN MORLEY 
 
 tive may afford to compromise. The disciples of the absolute, 
 never. 
 
 We shall see other objections, as we go on, to this state of things, 
 in which a minority holds true opinions and abandons the ma- 
 jority to false ones. At the bottom of the advocacy of a dual 
 doctrine sluipbers the idea that there is no harm in men being 
 mistaken, or at least only so little harm as is more than com- 
 pensated for by the marked tranquillity in which their mistake 
 may wrap them. This is not an idea merely that intellectual 
 error is a pathological necessity of the mind, no more to be 
 escaped than the pathological necessities which afflict and finally 
 dissolve the body. That is historically true. It is an idea that 
 error somehow in certain stages, where there is enough of it, 
 actually does good, like vaccination. Well, the thesis of the 
 present chapter is that erroneous opinion of belief, in itself and as 
 such, can never be useful. This may seem a truism which every- 
 body is willing to accept without demur. But it is one of those 
 truisms which persons habitually forget and repudiate in practice, 
 just because they have never made it real to themselves by consid- 
 ering and answering the objections that may be brought against 
 it. We see this repudiation before our eyes every day. Thiis, for 
 instance, parents theoretically take it for granted that error can- 
 not be useful, while they are teaching or allowing others to teach 
 their children what they, the parents, believe to be untrue. Thus 
 husbands who think the common theology baseless and un- 
 meaning, are found to prefer that their wives shall not question 
 this theology nor neglect its rites. These are only two out of a 
 hundred examples of the daily admission that error may be very 
 useful to other people. I need hardly say that to deny this, as 
 the commonplace to which this chapter is devoted denies it, is a 
 different thing from denying the expediency of letting errors 
 alone at a given time. That is another question, to be discussed 
 afterwards. You may have a thoroughly vicious and dangerous 
 enemy, and yet it may be expedient to choose your own hour and 
 occasion for attacking him. " The passage from error to truth," 
 in the words of Condorcet, ' ' may be accompanied by certain evils. 
 
OF THE POSSIBLE UTILITY OF ERROR 149 
 
 Every great change necessarily brings some of these in its train ; 
 and though they may be always far below the evil you are for 
 destroying, yet it ought to do what is possible to diminish them. 
 It is not enough to do good ; one must do it in a good way. No 
 doubt we should destroy all errors, but as it is impossible to de- 
 stroy them all in an instant, we should imitate a prudent archi- 
 tect who, when obliged to destroy a building, and knowing how 
 its parts are united together, sets about its demolition in such a 
 way as to prevent its fall from being dangerous." 
 
 Those, let us note by the way, who are accustomed to think the / / 
 moral tone of the eighteenth century low and gross compared 
 with that of the nineteenth, may usefully contrast these just and 
 prudent words of caution in extirpating error, with M. Renan's 
 invitation to men whom he considers wrong in their interpreta- 
 tion of religion, to plant their error as widely and deeply as they 
 can ; and who are moreover themselves supposed to be de- 
 moralized, or else they would not be likely to acquiesce in a 
 previous surrender of the universities to men whom they think 
 in mortal error. Apart, however, from M. Renan, Condorcet's 
 words merely assert the duty of setting to work to help on the 
 change from false to true opinions with prudence, and this every 
 sensible man admits. Our position is that in estimating the 
 situation, in counting up and balancing the expediencies of an 
 attack upon error at this or that point, nothing is to be set to the 
 credit of error as such, nor is there anything in its own operations 
 or effects to entitle it to a moment's respite. Every one would 
 admit this at once in the case of physical truths, though there 
 are those who say that some of the time spent in the investiga- 
 tion of physical truths might be more advantageously devoted to 
 social problems. But in the case of moral and religious truths 
 or errors, people, if they admit that nothing is to be set to the 
 credit of error as such, still constantly have a subtle and practi- 
 cally mischievous confusion in their minds between the possible 
 usefulness of error, and the possible expediency of leaving it tem- 
 porarily undisturbed. What happens in consequence of such a 
 confusion is this. Men leave error undisturbed, because they 
 
I50 JOHN MORLEY 
 
 accept in a loose way the proposition that a behef may be "mor- 
 ally useful without being intellectually sustainable." They dis- 
 guise their own dissent from popular opinions, because they re- 
 gard such opinions as useful to other people. We are not now 
 discussing the case of those who embrace a creed for themselves, 
 on the ground that, though they cannot demonstrate its truth to 
 the understanding, yet they find it pregnant with moralizing and 
 elevating characteristics. We are thinking of a very different 
 attitude — that, namely, of persons who believe a creed to be not 
 more morally useful than it is intellectually sustainable, so far as 
 they themselves are concerned. To them it is pure and un- 
 compensated error. Yet from a vague and general idea that 
 what is useless error to them may be useful to others, they 
 insist on doing their best to perpetuate the system which 
 spreads and consecrates the error. And how do they settle the 
 question ? They reckon up the advantages, and forget the 
 drawbacks. They detect and dwell on one or two elements 
 of utility in the false belief or the worn-out institution, and 
 leave out of all account the elements that make in the other 
 direction. 
 
 Considering how much influence this vague persuasion has 
 in encouraging a well-meaning hypocrisy in individuals, and a 
 profound stagnation in societies, it may be well to examine the 
 matter somewhat generally. Let us try to measure the force of 
 some of the most usual pleas for error. 
 
 I. A false opinion, it may be said, is frequently found to have 
 clustering around it a multitude of excellent associations, which 
 do far more good than the false opinion that supports them does 
 harm. In the Middle Ages, for instance, there was a beUef that a 
 holy man had the gift of routing demons, of healing the sick, and 
 of working divers other miracles. Supposing that this belief was 
 untrue, supposing that it was an error to attribute the sudden 
 death of an incredible multitude of troublesome flies in a church 
 to the fact of Saint Bernard having excommunicated them, what 
 then ? The mistaken opinion was still associated with a deep 
 reverence for virtue and sanctity, and this was more valuable 
 
 
OF THE POSSIBLE UTILITY OF ERROR 
 
 151 
 
 than the error of the explanation of the death of the flies was 
 noxious or degrading. 
 
 The answer to this seems to be as follows. First, in making 
 false notions the proofs or close associates of true ones, you are 
 exposing the latter to the ruin which awaits the former. For ex- 
 ample, if you have in the minds of children or servants associated 
 honesty, industry, truthfulness, with the fear of hell-fire, then 
 supposing this fear to become extinct in their minds, — which, 
 being unfounded in truth, it is in constant risk of doing, — the 
 virtues associated with it are likely to be weakened exactly in 
 proportion as that association was strong. 
 
 Second, for all good habits in thought or conduct there are good 
 and real reasons in the nature of things. To leave such habits 
 attached to false opinions is to lessen the weight of these natural 
 or spontaneous reasons, and so to do more harm in the long run 
 than effacement of them seems for a time to do good. Most 
 excellencies in human character have a spontaneous root in our 
 nature. Moreover if they had not, and where they have not, 
 there is always a vahd and real external defense for them. The 
 unreal defense must be weaker than the real one, and the substi- 
 tution of a weak for a strong defense, where both are to be had, is 
 not useful, but the very opposite. 
 
 II. It is true, the objector would probably continue, that there 
 is a rational defense for all excellencies of conduct, as there is for 
 all that is worthy and fitting in institutions. But the force of a 
 rational defense lies in the rationality of the man to whom it 
 is proffered. The arguments which persuade one trained in 
 scientific habits of thought, only touch persons of the same kind. 
 Character is not all pure reason. That fitness of things which 
 you pronounce to be the foundation of good habits, may be borne 
 in upon men, and may speak to them, through other channels 
 than the syllogism. You assume a community of highly trained 
 wranglers and proficient sophisters. The plain fact is that, 
 for the mass of men, use and wont, rude or gracious symbols, 
 blind custom, prejudices, superstitions, — however erroneous in 
 themselves, however inadequate to the conveyance of the best 
 
152 JOHN MORLEY 
 
 truth, — are the only safe guardians of the common virtues. In 
 this sense, then, error may have its usefulness. 
 
 A hundred years ago this apology for error was met by those 
 high-minded and interesting men, the French believers in human 
 perfectibiHty, with their characteristic dogma, — of which Rous- 
 seau was the ardent expounder, — that man is born with a clear 
 and unsophisticated spirit, perfectly able to discern all the simple 
 truths necessary for common conduct by its own imaided light. 
 His motives are all pure and unselfish and his intelligence is un- 
 clouded, until priests and tyrants mutilate the one and corrupt 
 the other. We who have the benefit of the historic method, and 
 have to take into accoimt the medium that surroxmds a human 
 creature the moment it comes into the world, to say nothing of all 
 the inheritance from the past which it brings within it into the 
 world at the same moment, cannot take up this ground. We 
 cannot maintain that everj^body is born with Hght enough to see 
 the rational defenses of things for himself, without the educa- 
 tion of institutions. What we do maintain is — and this is the 
 answer to the plea for error at present under consideration — that 
 whatever impairs the brightness of such light as a man has, is not 
 useful but hurtful. Our reply to those who contend for the use- 
 fulness of error on the ground of the comparative impotence of 
 rationality over ordinary minds, is something of this kind. Super- 
 stition, blind obedience to custom, and the other substitutes for 
 a right and independent use of the mind, may accidentally and 
 in some few respects impress good ideas upon persons who are too 
 darkened to accept these ideas on their real merits. But then 
 superstition itself is the main cause of this very darkness. To 
 hold error is in so far to foster erroneous ways of thinking on all 
 subjects ; is to make the intelligence less and less ready to receive 
 truth in all matters whatever. Men are made incapable of per- 
 cei\ing the rational defenses, and of feehng rational motives, for 
 good habits, — so far as they are thus incapable, — by the very 
 errors which we are asked silently to countenance as useful 
 substitutes for right reason. " Erroneous motives," as Condorcet 
 has expressed this matter, " have an additional drawback at- 
 
OF THE POSSIBLE UTILITY OF ERROR 153 
 
 tached to them, the habit which they strengthen of reasoning ill. 
 The more important the subject on which you reason ill, and the 
 more you busy yourself about it, by so much the more dangerous 
 do the influences of such a habit become. It is especially on 
 subjects analogous to that on which you reason wrongly, or which 
 you connect \sith it by habit, that such a defect extends most 
 powerfully and most rapidly. Hence it is extremely hard for the 
 man who believes himself obliged to conform in his conduct to 
 what he considers truths useful to men, but who attributes the 
 obligation to erroneous motives, to reason very correctly on the 
 truths themselves ; the more attention he pays to such motives, 
 and the more importance he comes to attach to them, the more 
 likely he will be to go wrong." ^ So, in short, superstition does an 
 immense harm by enfeebling rational ways of thinking ; it does a 
 little good by accidentally indorsing rational conclusions in one or 
 two matters. And yet, though the evil which it is said to repair 
 is a trifle beside the e\'il which it is admitted to inflict, the balance 
 of expediencies is after all declared to be such as to warrant us in 
 calling errors useful ! 
 
 III. A third objection now presents itself to me, which I wish to 
 state as strongly as possible. ' ' Even if a false opinion cannot in it- 
 self be more useful than a true one, whatever good habits may 
 seem to be connected with it, yet," it may be contended, " rela- 
 tively to the general mental attitude of a set of men, to their 
 other notions and maxims, the false opinion may entail less harm 
 than would be wrought by its mere demolition. There are false 
 opinions so intimately bound up with the whole way of 
 thinking and feeling, that to introduce one or two detached true 
 opinions in their stead, would, even if it were possible, only serve 
 to break up that coherency of character and conduct which it is 
 one of the chief objects of moralists and the great art of living to 
 produce. For a true opinion does not necessarily bring in its train 
 all the other true opinions that are logically connected with it. 
 On the contrary, it is only too notorious a fact in the history of 
 belief, that not merely indi\dduals but whole societies are capable 
 1 CEuvres, vol. v, p. 354. 
 
154 JOHN MORLEY 
 
 of holding at one and the same time contradictory opinions and 
 mutually destructive principles. On the other hand, neither 
 does a false opinion involve practically all the evil consequences 
 deducible from it. For the results of human inconsistency are 
 not all unhappy, and if we do not always act up to virtuous prin- 
 ciple, no more do we always work ou:t to its remotest inference 
 every vicious principle. Not insincerity, but inconsistency, has 
 constantly turned the adherents of persecuting precepts into 
 friends of tolerant practice." 
 
 " It is a comparatively small thing to persuade a superstitious 
 person to abandon this or that article of his superstition. You 
 have no security that the rejection of the one article which you 
 have displaced will lead to the rejection of any other, and it is 
 quite possible that it may lead to all the more fervid an adhesion 
 to what remains behind. Error, therefore, in view of such con- 
 siderations may surely be allowed to have at least a provisional 
 utility." 
 
 Now undoubtedly the repudiation of error is not at all the same 
 thing as embracing truth. People are often able to see the force 
 of arguments that destroy a given opinion, without being able 
 to see the force of arguments for the positive opinion that ought 
 to replace it. They can only be quite sure of seeing both, when 
 they have acquired not merely a conviction that one notion is 
 false and another true, but have furthermore exchanged a gener- 
 ally erroneous way of thinking for a generally correct way. Hence 
 the truly important object with every one who holds opinions 
 which he deems it of the highest moment that others should ac- 
 cept, must obviously be to reach people's general ways of think- 
 ing ; to stir their love of truth ; to penetrate them with a sense 
 of the difference in the quality of evidence ; to make them will- 
 ing to listen to criticism and new opinion ; and perhaps above all 
 to teach them to take ungrudging and daily trouble to clear up in 
 their minds the exact sense of the terms they use. 
 
 If this be so, a false opinion, like an erroneous motive, can 
 hardly have even a provisional usefulness. For how can you 
 attack an erroneous way of thinking except in detail, that is to say, 
 
OF THE POSSIBLE UTILITY OF ERROR 155 
 
 through the sides of this or that single wrong opinion ? Each of 
 these wrong opinions is an illustration and type, as it is a standing 
 support and abettor, of some kind of wrong reasoning, though 
 they are not all on the same scale nor all of them equally instruc- 
 tive. It is precisely by this method of gradual displacement of 
 error step by step, that the few stages of progress which the race 
 has yet traversed, have been actually achieved. Even if the 
 place of the erroneous idea is not immediately taken by the cor- 
 responding true one, or by the idea which is at least one or two 
 degrees nearer to the true one, still the removal of error in this 
 purely negative way amounts to a positive gain. Why ? For 
 the excellent reason that it is the removal of a bad element which 
 otherwise tends to propagate itself, or even if it fails to do that, 
 tends at the best to make the surrounding mass of error more in- 
 veterate. All error is what physiologists term fissiparous, and 
 in exterminating one false opinion you may be hindering the 
 growth of an uncounted brood of false opinions. 
 
 Then as to the maintenance of that coherency, interdepend- 
 ence, and systematization of opinions and motives, which is 
 said to make character organic, and is therefore so highly prized 
 by some schools of thought. No doubt the loosening of this or 
 that part of the fabric of heterogeneous origin, which constitutes 
 the character of a man or woman, tends to loosen the whole. But do 
 not let us feed ourselves upon phrases. This organic coherency, 
 what does it come to ? It signifies in a general way, to describe it 
 briefly, a harmony between the intellectual, the moral, and the 
 practical parts of human nature ; an undisturbed cooperation 
 between reason, affection, and will ; the reason prescribing noth- 
 ing against which the affections revolt, and proscribing nothing 
 which they crave ; and the will obeying the joint impulses of these 
 two directing forces, without liability to capricious or extrava- 
 gant disturbance of their direction. Well, if the reason were 
 perfect in information and method, and the affections faultless in 
 their impulse, then organic unity of character would be the final 
 consummation of all human improvement, and it would be crimi- 
 nal, even if it were possible, to undermine a structure of such 
 
156 JOHN MORLEY 
 
 priceless value. But short of this there can be no value in co- 
 herency and harmonious consistency as such. So long as error 
 is an element in it, then for so long the whole product is vitiated. 
 Undeniably and most fortunately, social virtues are found side 
 by side with speculative mistakes and the gravest intellectual 
 imperfections. We may apply to humanity the idea which, as 
 Hebrew students tell us, is imputed in the Talmud to the Su- 
 preme Being. God prays, the Talmud says, and his prayer is 
 this: " Be it my will that my mercy overpower my justice." And 
 so with men, with or without their will, their mercifulness 
 overpowers their logic. And not their mercifulness only, but 
 all their good impulses overpower their logic. To repeat the 
 words which I have put into the objector's mouth, we do not 
 always work out every vicious principle to its remotest infer- 
 ence. What, however, is this but to say that in such cases 
 character is saved, not by its coherency, but by the opposite ; to 
 say not that error is useful, but what is a very different thing, 
 that its mischievousness is sometimes capable of being averted or 
 minimized ? 
 
 The apologist may retort that he did not mean logical coher- 
 ency, but a kind of practical everyday coherency, which may be 
 open to a thousand abstract objections, yet which still secures 
 both to the individual and to society a number of advantages that 
 might be endangered by any disturbance of opinion or motive. 
 No doubt, and the method and season of chasing erroneous 
 opinions and motives out of the mind must always be a matter 
 of much careful and farseeing consideration. Only, in the course 
 of such consideration, let us not admit the notion in any form 
 that error can have even provisional utility. For it is not the 
 error which confers the advantages that we desire to preserve, 
 but some true opinion or just motive or high or honest sentiment, 
 which exists and thrives and operates in spite of the error and in 
 face of it, springing from man's spontaneous and unformulated 
 recognition of the real relations of things. This recognition is 
 very faint in the beginnings of society. It grows clearer and 
 firmer with each step forward. And in a tolerably civilized age 
 
OF THE POSSIBLE UTILITY OF ERROR 157 
 
 it has become a force on which you can fairly lean with a con- 
 siderable degree of assurance. 
 
 And this leads to the central point of the answer to the argu- 
 ment from coherency of conduct. In measuring utility you have 
 to take into account not merely the service rendered to the objects 
 of the present hour, but the contribution to growth, progress 
 and the future. From this point of view most of the talk about 
 unity of character is not much more than a glorifying of stagna- 
 tion. It leaves out of sight the conditions necessary for the con- 
 tinuance of the unending task of human improvement. Now 
 whatever ease may be given to an individual or a generation by 
 social or religious error, such error at any rate can conduce 
 nothing to further advancement. That, at least, is not one of 
 its possible utilities. 
 
 This is also one of the answers to the following plea. ''Though 
 the knowledge of every positive truth is an useful acquisition, 
 this doctrine cannot without reservation be applied to negative 
 truth. When the only truth ascertainable is that nothing can 
 be known, we do not, by this knowledge, gain any new fact by 
 which to guide ourselves." ^ But the negative truth that nothing 
 can be known is in fact a truth that guides us. It leads us away 
 from sterile and irreclaimable tracts of thought and emotion and 
 so inevitably compels the energies which would otherwise have 
 been wasted, to feel after a more profitable direction. By leav- 
 ing the old guide-marks undisturbed, you may give ease to an 
 existing generation, but the present ease is purchased at the cost 
 of future growth. To have been deprived of the faith of the old 
 dispensation is the first condition of strenuous endeavor after the 
 new. 
 
 No doubt history abounds with cases in which a false opinion, 
 on moral or religious subjects, or an erroneous motive in conduct, 
 has seemed to be a stepping-stone to truth. But this is in no 
 sense a demonstration of the utility of error. For in all such 
 cases the erroneous opinion or motive was far from being wholly 
 
 1 Mill's Three Essays on Religion, p. 73. I have offered some criticisms 
 on the whole passage in Critical Miscellanies, Second Series, pp. 300-304. 
 
158 JOHN MORLEY 
 
 erroneous, or wholly without elements of truth and reality. If it 
 helped to quicken the speed or mend the direction of progress, 
 that must have been by virtue of some such elements within it. 
 All that was error in it was pure waste, or worse than waste. It 
 is true that the religious sentiment has clothed itself in a great 
 number of unworthy, inadequate, depressing, and otherwise mis- 
 leading shapes, dogmatic and liturgic. Yet on the whole the 
 religious sentiment has conferred enormous benefits on civiliza- 
 tion. This is no proof of the utility of the mistaken direction 
 which these dogmatic or liturgic shapes imposed upon it. On 
 the contrary, the effect of the false dogmas and enervating litur- 
 gies is so much that has to be deducted from the advantages 
 conferred by a sentiment in itself valuable and of priceless capa- 
 bility. 
 
 Yes, it will be urged, but from the historic conditions of the 
 time, truth could only be conveyed in erroneous forms, and mo- 
 tives of permanent price for humanity could only be secured in 
 these mistaken expressions. Here I would again press the point 
 of this necessity for erroneous forms and mistaken expressions 
 being, in a great many of the most important instances, itself 
 derivative, one among other ill consequences of previous moral 
 and religious error. "It was gravely said," Bacon tells us, "by 
 some of the prelates in the Council of Trent, where the doctrines 
 of the Schoolmen have great sway, that the Schoolmen were like 
 Astronomers, which did faigne Eccentricks and Epicycles and 
 Engines of Orbs to save the Phenomena ; though they knew there 
 were no such Things ; and in like manner that the Schoolmen 
 had framed a number of subtile and intricate Axioms and 
 Theorems, to save the practice of the Church." This is true of 
 much else besides scholastic axioms and theorems. Subordi- 
 nate error was made necessary and invented, by reason of some 
 preexistent main stock of error, and to save the practice of the 
 Church. Thus we are often referred to the consolation which 
 this or that doctrine has brought to the human spirit. But 
 what if the same system had produced the terror which made 
 absence of consolation intolerable? How much of the neces- 
 
 
OF THE POSSIBLE UTILITY OF ERROR 159 
 
 sity for expressing the enlarged humanity of the Church in the 
 doctrine of purgatory arose from the existence of the older 
 unsoftened doctrine of eternal hell ? 
 
 Again, how much of this alleged necessity of error, as alloy 
 for the too pure metal of sterling truth, is to be explained by the 
 interest which powerful castes or corporations have had in pre- 
 serving the erroneous forms, even when they could not resist, or 
 did not wish to resist, their impregnation by newer and better 
 doctrine ? This interest Vas not deliberately sinister or malig- 
 nant. It may be more correctly as well as more charitably ex- 
 plained by that infirmity of human nature which makes us very 
 ready to believe what it is on other grounds convenient to us to 
 believe. Nobody attributes to pure malevolence the heartiness 
 with which the great corporation of lawyers, for example, resist 
 the removal of superfluous and obstructive forms in their prac- 
 tice ; they have come to look on such forms as indispensable 
 safeguards. Hence powerful teachers and preachers of all kinds 
 have been spontaneously inclined to suppose a necessity, which 
 had no real existence, of preserving as much as was possible of 
 what we know to be error, even while introducing wholesome 
 modification of it. This is the honest, though mischievous, con- 
 servatism of the human mind. We have no right to condemn our 
 foregoers ; far less to lavish on them the evil names of impostor, 
 charlatan, and brigand, which the zealous unhistoric school of 
 the last century used so profusely. But we have a right to say 
 of them, as we say of those who imitate their policy now, that 
 their conservatism is no additional proof of the utility of error. 
 Least of all is it any justification for those who wish to have 
 impressed upon the people a complete system of religious opin- 
 ion which men of culture have avowedly put away. And, more- 
 over, the very priests must, I should think, be supposed to have 
 put it away also. Else they would hardly be invited deliberately 
 to abdicate their teaching functions in the very seats where teach- 
 ing is of the weightiest and most far-spreading influence. 
 
 Meanwhile our point is that the reforms in opinion which have 
 been effected on the plan of pouring the new wine of truth into 
 
i6o JOHN MORLEY 
 
 the old bottles of superstition — though not dishonorable to the 
 sincerity of the reformers — are no testimony to even the tem- 
 porary usefulness of error. Those who think otherwise do not 
 look far enough in front of the event. They forget the evil 
 wrought by the prolonged duration of the error, to which the 
 added particle of truth may have given new vitality. They over- 
 look the ultimate enervation that is so often the price paid 
 for the temporary exaltation. 
 
 Nor, finally, can they know the truths which the error thus 
 prolonged has hindered from coming to the birth. A strenuous 
 disputant has recently asserted against me that "the region of 
 the might have been lies beyond the limits of sane speculation." ^ 
 It is surely extending optimism too far to insist on carrying it 
 back right through the ages. To me at any rate the history of 
 mankind is a huge pis-aller,^ just as our present society is ; a pro- 
 digious wasteful experiment, from which a certain number of 
 precious results have been extracted, but which is not now, nor 
 ever has been at any other time, a final measure of all the possi- 
 bilities of the time. This is not inconsistent with the scientific 
 conception of history; it is not to deny the great law that 
 society has a certain order of progress ; but only to urge that 
 within that, the only possible order, there is always room for all 
 kinds and degrees of invention, improvement, and happy or 
 unhappy accident. There is no discoverable law fixing precisely 
 the more or the less of these ; nor how much of each of them a 
 community shall meet with, nor exactly when it shall meet 
 with them. We have to distinguish between possibiHty and 
 necessity. Only certain steps in advance are possible at a 
 given time ; but it is not inevitable that these potential advances 
 should all be realized. Does anybody suppose that humanity 
 has had the profit of all the inventive and improving capacity 
 born into the world ? That Turgot, for example, was the only 
 man that ever lived who might have done more for society than 
 he was allowed to do, and spared society a cataclysm ? No, — 
 
 ' Sir J. F. Stephen's Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, 2d ed., p. 19, note. 
 - A condition which must be accepted for want of a better. — Editors. 
 
OF THE POSSIBLE UTILITY OF ERROR i6i 
 
 history is a pis-aller. It has assuredly not moved without the 
 relation of cause and effect ; it is a record of social growth and 
 its conditions ; but it is also a record of interruption and misad- 
 venture and perturbation. You trace the long chain which has 
 made us what we are in this aspect and that. But where are the 
 dropped links that might have made all the difference? Uhi 
 sunt eorum tabula qui post vota nuncupata perierunt ? ^ Where is 
 the fruit of those multitudinous gifts which came into the world 
 in untimely seasons ? We accept the past for the same reason 
 that we accept the laws of the solar system, though, as Comte 
 says, "we can easily conceive them improved in certain respects." 
 The past, like the solar system, is beyond reach of modification 
 at our hands, and we cannot help it. But it is surely the mere' 
 midsummer madness of philosophic complacency to think that 
 we have come by the shortest and easiest of all imaginable 
 routes to our present point in the march ; to suppose that we 
 have wasted nothing, lost nothing, cruelly destroyed nothing, 
 on the road. What we have lost is all in the region of the 
 "might have been," and we are justified in taking this into 
 account, and thinking much of it, and in trying to find causes for 
 the loss. One of them has been want of liberty for the human 
 intelligence ; and another, to return to our proper subject, has 
 been the prolonged existence of superstition, of false opinions, 
 and of attachment to gross symbols, beyond the time when they 
 might have been successfully attacked, and would have fallen 
 into decay but for the mistaken political notion of their utility. 
 In making a just estimate of this utility, if we see reason to be- 
 lieve that these false opinions, narrow superstitions, gross sym- 
 bols, have been an impediment to the free exercise of the in- 
 telligence and a worthier culture of the emotions, then we are 
 justified in placing the unknown loss as a real and most weighty 
 item in the account against them. 
 
 In short, then, the utmost that can be said on behalf of errors 
 in opinion and motive is that they are inevitable elements in 
 
 1 Where are the votive tablets of those who have perished after proclaim- 
 ing their vows ? — Editors. 
 
1 62 JOHN MORLEY 
 
 human growth. But the inevitable does not coincide with the 
 useful. Pain can be avoided by none of the sons of men, yet the 
 horrible and uncompensated subtraction which it makes from 
 the value and usefulness of human life, is one of the most for- 
 midable obstacles to the smoother progress of the world. And 
 as with pain, so with error. .The moral of our contention has 
 reference to the temper in which practically we ought to regard 
 false doctrine and ill-directed motive. It goes to show that if 
 we have satisfied ourselves on good grounds that the doctrine is 
 false, or the motive ill directed, then the only question that we 
 need ask ourselves turns solely upon the possibility of breaking 
 it up and dispersing it, by methods compatible with the doctrine 
 of liberty. Any embarrassment in dealing with it, due to a 
 semi-latent notion that it may be useful to some one else, is a 
 weakness that hinders social progress. 
 
VII 
 
 THE SCIENTIFIC BASES OF OPTIMISM 
 William Hurrel Mallock 
 
 [William Hurrel Mallock (1849-) is a well-known English writer of 
 fiction and of poetry, and an essayist on philosophical, economic, and so- 
 ciological topics. Probably his greatest distinction as a writer lies in this 
 last field, in which he stands as an upholder of conservatism in dealing with 
 the social problems of to-day. 
 
 The Scientific Bases of Optimism was published originally in the Fort- 
 nightly Review for 1889, and was reprinted in 1895 in the author's Studies of 
 Contemporary Superstition. The title possibly fails to convey the actual im- 
 port of the essay, as the writer's view as expressed here is that there are 
 probably no scientific bases for optimism. Mr. Mallock means by this that 
 the evidence of history fails to assure us that the progress of the human race 
 is one of continuous betterment, and that an optimism which seeks in science 
 justification for a belief in consistent human progress is mistaken and unwar- 
 ranted. Religion, he states, has been at least an appreciable encouragement to 
 human conduct and effort which have as their aims the enrichment of life ; but 
 science has as yet produced no equivalent for the moral force of a religious 
 faith. The increased knowledge of life which we have derived from science 
 is, he thinks, as an ethical stimulus almost negligible. In this attitude the 
 author represents the philosophical judgment of not merely many of our 
 contemporary essayists, but of a number of novelists and dramatists who 
 have made their writings the vehicles for a concrete philosophy. As a more 
 or less popular analysis of optimism as a philosophical attitude — and this 
 is to be distinguished from optimism as a commendable habit of mind — 
 this essay is probably as effective as recent years have given us.] 
 
 In many ways public attention in England has lately been called 
 afresh to the great and universal question of what our modern 
 science, if fatal to miraculous Christianity, will itself put, or allow 
 to be put, in place of it. Only a few months since, in the pages 
 of this Review, a new manifesto was issued by one of our best 
 known Positivists, which purported to describe the exact reli- 
 
 163 
 
1 64 WILLIAM HURREL MALLOCK 
 
 gious position taken up by the infant Church of Humanity. 
 Mr. John Morley has repubUshed in ten volumes what is, under 
 one of its aspects, neither more nor less than an anti- Christian 
 creed, imbedded in a series of criticisms. Other eminent writers 
 equally anti-Christian have been again exhibiting their opinions 
 to the gaze of the pitiable millions, who still sit hugging the 
 broken fetters of theology. Indeed, we may say that during the 
 past two years, each of the principal sects into which the Protes- 
 tantism of science has split itself has appealed to us afresh, 
 through the mouth of some qualified minister ; whilst the hold 
 which such questions have on the public mind, whenever they 
 are put in a way which the public can comprehend, has been 
 curiously illustrated by the eagerness of even frivolous people, 
 in devouring a recent novel, which on ordinary grounds would be 
 unreadable, and whose sole interest consisted in its treatment of 
 Christianity. 
 
 Stimulated by the example of our scientific instructors, I 
 propose to follow, as faithfully as I am able, in their footsteps. 
 There are certain canons of criticism and there is a certain skep- 
 tical temper, which they have applied to Christianity, and which 
 they say has destroyed it. The same canons and temper I now 
 propose to apply to the principal doctrine which they offer to the 
 world as a substitute. 
 
 Of course it will be said that thinkers who call themselves 
 scientific offer us doctrines of widely different kinds. No doubt 
 this is true. Amongst men of science as doctrinaires, there are as 
 many sects as there are amongst theological Protestants ; nor was 
 it without meaning, as I shall *how by and by, that I spoke of 
 their creeds collectively, under the name of Scientific Protes- 
 tantism. But though, like theological Protestants, they differ 
 amongst themselves, and even quarrel amongst themselves, 
 like theological Protestants also, they have fundamental points 
 of agreement ; and it is solely with these last that I now propose 
 to concern myself. Let us take first a hasty glance at their dif- 
 ferences ; and it will be presently plain enough what the points 
 of agreement are. 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC BASES OF OPTIMISM 165 
 
 Putting aside, then, all minor questions, Scientific Protes- 
 tantism may be said, with substantial accuracy, to be composed 
 at the present moment of five principal sects, which differ from 
 one another mainly in the following ways. One of them, whilst 
 denying, as they all do, both miracles and a future life, believes 
 in a personal God, not unlike the Father of the Gospels. Indeed, 
 it adopts most of what the Gospels say of Him. It accepts their 
 statements ; it only denies their authority. There is a second 
 sect which retains a God also, but a God, as it fancies, of a much 
 sublimer kind. He is far above any relationship so definite as 
 that of a father; indeed, we gather that he would think even 
 personality vulgar. If we ask what he is, we receive a double 
 answer. He is a metaphysical necessity ; he is also an object of 
 sentiment ; and he is apprehended alternately in a vague sigh 
 and a syllogism. He is, in fact, a God of the very kind that 
 Faust described so finely when engaged in seducing Margaret. 
 Neither of these two sects is greatly admired by a third, which 
 regards the God of the first as a mutilated relic of Christianity, 
 and the God of the second as an idle, maundering fancy. It has, 
 however, an object of adoration of its own, which it declares, like 
 St. Paul, as the reality ignorantly worshiped by the others. Its 
 declaration, however, unlike St. Paul's, is necessarily of extreme 
 brevity, for this Unknown God is nothing else than the Unknow- 
 able. It is the philosopher's substance of the universe underly- 
 ing phenomena ; and it raises our lives somehow by making us 
 feel our ignorance of it. These three sects we may call Unita- 
 rians, Deists, and Pantheists. There is a fourth which consid- 
 ers them all three ridiculous ; but the third, with its Unknow- 
 able, the most ridiculous of all. This fourth sect has also its 
 God, which is best described by saying that it differs from the 
 Unknowable in being known in one particular way. It is re- 
 vealed in a general tendency, discoverable in human affairs, 
 which, taking one thousand years with another, is alleged on the 
 whole to make for righteousness or for progress. The individ- 
 ual man is not made in God's image ; but the fortunes or the 
 misfortunes of a sufficient number of men are something still 
 
1 66 WILLIAM HURREL MALLOCK 
 
 better — they are the manifestations of God himself. Lastly, 
 we have a fifth sect, nearest akin to the fourth, but differing 
 from it and from all the others in one important particular. It 
 rids itself of any idea of God altogether, as a complete superfluity. 
 An object of adoration, like all the others, it has ; and, like the 
 fourth, it finds this object in the tendencies of human history. 
 But why, it asks, should we call them the manifestations of God ? 
 Why wander off to anything so completely beside the point? 
 They are not the manifestations of God. It is obvious what 
 they are ; they are the manifestations of Humanity. We have 
 here, under our noses, in a visible and tangible form, the true ob- 
 ject of all these sublime emotions, those hours of comforting con- 
 templation, which men have been offering in vain to the acceptance 
 of all the infinities in rotation. The object which we have 
 scoured the universe and ransacked our fancies to find, has all 
 the while been actually in contact with ourselves, and we our- 
 selves have been actually integral parts of it. 
 
 Here, then, classified with sufl&cient accuracy, are the principal 
 forms of religion, which those who reject Christianity are now 
 offering the world, in the name of science, as substitutes. Now 
 the great fact which I wish to point out is this : however much 
 the four first differ from one another and from the last, yet the 
 main tenets of the last form an integral part of all. The wor- 
 shipers of Humanity base their worship of it on certain beliefs 
 as to evolution and progress, which give to human events some 
 collective and coherent meaning. Every one of the other sects, 
 let it worship what it will, bases its worship on precisely the 
 same foundation. The Scientific Theists, denying both a future 
 life and a revelation, and yet maintaining that God has moral 
 relations with man, and that a man's personal pleasure is the 
 least thing a man lives for, can explain such a doctrine only by 
 afiirming a social progress which enlarges the purposes of the in- 
 dividual and exhibits the purpose of God. The religion of the 
 Unknowable is obviously but the religion of Humanity, with the 
 Unknowable placed under it, like the body of a violincello, in the 
 hope of producing a deeper moral vibration ; and of every form 
 
 J 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC BASES OF OPTIMISM 167 
 
 of scientific theism we may say the same with equal even if not 
 with such obvious truth. I do not suppose that anybody will 
 dispute this; otherwise I should dwell on it longer, so as to place 
 it beyond a doubt. I will take it then for admitted that in all 
 scientific religions, in all our, modern religions that deny a future 
 life and a revelation, the religion of Humanity is an essential, is 
 indeed the main, ingredient. Let us now consider with a little 
 more exactness what, as a series of propositions, this religion of 
 Humanity is. 
 
 Every religious doctrine has some idea at the bottom of it 
 far simpler than the propositions in which alone it can be stated 
 logically. Let us see what is the idea at the bottom of the reli- 
 gious doctrine of Humanity. It appeals to us most forcibly per- 
 haps under its negative aspect. Under that aspect we may seize 
 it completely, thus. Let us take Shakespeare's lines — 
 
 Life is a tale, 
 Told by an idiot full of sound and fury, 
 Signifying nothing. 
 
 Let us realize fully all that these lines mean. The idea in ques- 
 tion is a protest against that meaning. 
 
 In this form, however, there is nothing scientific about it. It 
 is merely the protest of an individual based on his own emotions, 
 and any other individual may with equal force contradict it. 
 To make it scientific it must be transferred to a different basis 
 — from the subjective experience of the individual to the objec- 
 tive history of the race. The value to each man of his own per- 
 sonal lot depends entirely on what each man thinks it is. No one 
 else can observe it ; therefore no one else can dispute about it. 
 But the lot of the race at large is open to the observation of all. 
 It is obvious to all that this lot is always changing, and the 
 nature of these changes, whether they have any meaning in 
 them or none, is not a matter of opinion, but of facts and induc- 
 tions from facts. The religious doctrine of Humanity asserts 
 that they have a meaning. It asserts that they follow a certain 
 rational order, and that whether or no they are related to the 
 
1 68 WILLIAM HURREL MALLOCK 
 
 purposes of any God, they have a constant and a definite relation 
 to ourselves. It asserts that, taken as a whole, they have been, 
 are, and will be, always working together — though it may be 
 very slowly — to improve the kind of happiness possible for the 
 human being, and to increase the numbers by whom such happi- 
 ness will be enjoyed. 
 
 Here, put in its logical and categorical form, is the primary 
 doctrine common to all our scientific religions. The instant, how- 
 ever, it is thus expressed, another proposition, through a process 
 of logical chemistry, adheres to it and becomes part of its struc- 
 ture. This proposition relates not to the tendencies of the race, 
 but to the constitution of the average individual character. It 
 asserts, and very truly, that a natural element in that character 
 is sympathy ; but it asserts more than this. It asserts that sym- 
 pathy, even as it exists now, is a feeling far stronger and wider 
 than has usually been supposed ; that it is capable, even now, 
 when once the idea of progress has been apprehended, of making 
 the fortunes of the race a part of the fortunes of the individual, 
 and inspiring the individual to work for the progress in which he 
 shares ; and it asserts that, strong as sympathy is now, it will 
 acquire, as time goes on, a strength incalculably greater. 
 
 These two propositions united may be summed up thus. The 
 Human Race as a whole is a progressive and improving organ- 
 ism ; and the conscience, on the part of the individual that such 
 is the case, will be the principal cause of its continued progress 
 in the future, and will make the individual a devoted and happy 
 partaker of it. 
 
 Here is the religion of Humanity reduced to its simplest ele- 
 ments. I have called it the reUgion of Humanity because the 
 name is now familiar, and may help to show the reader what it is 
 I am talking about. But having used it thus far, I shall now 
 beg leave to change it, and instead of the religion of Humanity 
 I shall speak of the creed of Optimism. For my present purpose 
 it is a great deal clearer. A religion is a creed touched with emo- 
 tion ; a creed is nothing but a dry series of propositions. My 
 present purpose is simply to examine two dry propositions, and 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC BASES OF OPTIMISM 169 
 
 I will put all questions of emotion as far as possible into the back- 
 ground. I am aware that the word Optimism is sometimes used 
 with a meaning which many devotees of the religion of Humanity 
 would repudiate. George Eliot, for instance, declared she was 
 not an Optimist. Things were not for the best, she said; but 
 they were always tending to get better. She accordingly said 
 that she would sooner describe herself as a Meliorist. Nobody 
 again lays greater or more solemn weight on the doctrine of prog- 
 ress than does Mr. John Morley ; and yet nobody would more 
 bitterly ridicule the doctrines of Dr. Pangloss. But in spite of 
 the sober and even somber view which such thinkers take of the 
 human lot, they still believe that it holds some distinct and 
 august meaning, that the tides of affairs, however troubled, do 
 not eddy aimlessly, and do not flow towards the darkness, but 
 keep due on towards the light, however distant. They believe, 
 in short, that the human lot has something in it, which makes it, 
 in the eyes of all who can see clearly, a thing to be acquiesced 
 in not merely with resignation, but devoutness. The soberest 
 adherents of the religion of Humanity admit as much as this; 
 and no violence is done to the meaning, or even to the associa- 
 tions of the word, if all who admit thus much, from the most to 
 the least sanguine, are classed together under the common name 
 of Optimists. 
 
 And now having seen what Optimism is, let us before going 
 farther, make ourselves quite clear as to what results on life its 
 exponents claim for it. They do not claim for it, as has been 
 sometimes claimed for Christianity, that it is the foundation of 
 the moral code. Our modern Optimists, without a single excep- 
 tion, hold the foundations of the moral code to be social. Ac- 
 cording to their theory, all its cardinal precepts have been the 
 results not of belief, but of experience, and simply represent the 
 conditions essential to social union. Belief, in certain important 
 ways, may modify them; but it neither created them nor can 
 substantially change them. Christianity, for instance, has put 
 chastity on a pedestal, but it was not Christianity that made 
 adultery a crime, nor would the completest atheism enable us to 
 
lyo WILLIAM HURREL MALLOCK 
 
 construct a society which could live and thrive without some 
 sexual discipline. This is the view taken by modern science, and 
 we may all accept it, as far as it goes, for true. Since then the 
 propositions which compose the creed of Optimism are not prop- 
 ositions from which the moral code is deduced, what moral re- 
 sult is supposed to spring from an assent to them ? The result is 
 supposed to be this — not any new assent to the reasonableness 
 of that code, but a new heart in obeying it. In other words, the 
 end of moral conduct being the welfare of society, our assent to 
 the creed of Optimism makes that welfare incalculably nearer 
 and dearer to us than it would be otherwise, and converts a mere 
 avoidance of such overt acts as would injure it into a willing, a 
 constant, an eager effort to promote it. This is what Optimism, 
 when assented to, and acting on the emotions, claims to do for 
 conduct; and indeed it is no slight thing. It is a thing that 
 makes all the difference between the Hfe of a race of brutes, and 
 the life of a race with something which we have hitherto called 
 divine in it. For those who deny any other life but the present, 
 what Optimism announces is practically the re-creation of the 
 soul, and our redemption from the death of an existence merely 
 selfish and animal. Optimism announces this, and of aU scien- 
 tific creeds it alone pretends to do so ; and if its propositions are 
 true, there are plausible grounds for arguing that a genuine reli- 
 gion of the kind described will result from it. 
 
 And now we come to the question which I propose to ask — 
 Are its propositions true ? Or are we certain that they are true ? 
 And if we are certain, on what kinds of evidence do we base our 
 certainty ? We have already got them into condition to be sub- 
 mitted to this inquiry. We have stripped them, so to speak, for 
 the operation. There they stand, two naked propositions, 
 whose sole claim to our acceptance is that they are scientific 
 truths, that they are genuine inductions from carefully observed 
 facts, that they have been reached legitimately by the daylight 
 of reason, that prejudice and emotion have had nothing to do 
 with the matter ; that they stand, in short, on precisely the same 
 footing as any accepted generalization of physics or physiology. 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC BASES OF OPTIMISM 171 
 
 One of them, as we have seen, is a proposition relating to the 
 changes of human history; the other is a proposition relating to 
 the sympathetic capacity of the individual. 
 
 I propose to show that the first is not as yet a legitimate gen- 
 eralization at all ; that the facts of the case as at present known, 
 not only are insufficient, but point in two opposite ways, that the 
 certainty with which the proposition is held by our scientific in- 
 structors is demonstrably due to some source quite other than sci- 
 entific evidence, and finally, that even if, in any sense, the propo- 
 sition should be found true, the truth would be found inadequate 
 to the expectations based on it. 
 
 This is what I propose to show with regard to the proposition 
 asserting progress. With regard to the proposition that deals 
 with human sympathy, I propose to show that it is less scientific 
 still, that whilst here and there an isolated fact, imperfectly ap- 
 prehended, may suggest it, the great mass of facts absolutely 
 and hopelessly contradict it, and furthermore, that even grant- 
 ing its truth, its truth would cut both ways, and annihilate the 
 conclusions it supported. 
 
 This last proposition we will consider first. Let us repeat it 
 in set terms. It asserts that the sympathetic feelings of the 
 average man are sufiiciently strong and comprehensive to make 
 the alleged progress of the human race a source of appreciable 
 and constant satisfaction to himself. And the satisfaction in 
 question is no mere pensive sentiment, no occasional sunbeam 
 gilding an hour of idleness; but it is a feeling so robust and 
 strong that it can not only hold its own amongst our ordinary 
 joys and sorrows, but actually impart its own color to both. It 
 will also, as progress continues, increase in strength and impor- 
 tance. 
 
 Now in considering if this is true, let us grant all that can be 
 granted ; let us grant, for argument's sake, that progress is an 
 acknowledged reality — that human history, if regarded in a way 
 sufficiently comprehensive, shows us, written across it in gigantic 
 characters, some record of general and still continuing improve- 
 ment. Are our characters such that the knowledge of this fact 
 
172 WILLIAM HURREL MALLOCK 
 
 will really cause us any flow of spirits sufficiently vivid to take 
 rank amongst our personal joys, and to buoy us up in personal 
 despondency and sorrow ? Or again, are they such that this gen- 
 eral improvement of the race will be an object nearer our hearts 
 than our own private prosperity, and will really incite us to sacri- 
 fice our strength and our pleasures to its promotion ? To these 
 questions there are two answers, which I shall give separately. 
 
 The first answer is, that from one point of view they are 
 simply questions of degree. For instance, supposing it were 
 suddenly made known to all of us, that some extraordinary 
 amelioration in the human lot would, owing to certain causes, 
 accomplish itself during the next ten days, the whole race would 
 probably experience a sense of overmastering joy, through which 
 ordinary sorrows and annoyances would hardly make themselves 
 felt. Or again, should it be known that this glorious piece of 
 progress were contingent on every one making some specified 
 effort, we may safely say that for the time very few men would 
 be idle. And again, should it be known that by indulgence in per- 
 sonal passion the results of this progress would be grievously and 
 visibly diminished, for ten days, doubtless, self-restraint would be 
 general. But in proportion as we suppose the rate of the prog- 
 ress to be slower, and the importance to the result of each sepa- 
 rate act to be less, our satisfaction in the one and our anxiety 
 about the other would dwindle, till the former would be percep- 
 tible only in the hush of all other emotions ; and the latter, as 
 affecting action, would cease to be perceptible at all. 
 
 To convince ourselves that such is the law which this feeling 
 would follow, we have only to look at the commonest experiences 
 of life ; for the sympathy with general progress of which we are 
 alleged to be capable, is not supposed to have anything miracu- 
 lous about it, but to be simply a particular application of a 
 faculty in daily exercise. Now an ordinary man is delighted if 
 some great good fortune happens to some other who is very near 
 and dear to him — if his son or his daughter or his brother, for 
 instance, marries well and happily; but if the same good for- 
 tune happens to some unknown connection, his delight is at best 
 
 i 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC BASES OF OPTIMISM 173 
 
 of a very lukewarm kind ; whilst if he hears of a happy marriage 
 in Germany, it is nonsense to pretend that he is really delighted 
 at all. Again, if he reads in the Times of an accident to a train 
 in America, he says it is shocking, and goes on with his breakfast; 
 but if a telegram comes to inform him that his son was amongst 
 the passengers, he at once is in torture till he learns if his son is 
 safe. So too with regard to conduct, the consequences to be ex- 
 pected from any given act will influence his choice or his 
 avoidance of it in proportion to their nearness or their remote- 
 ness, to their certainty or their uncertainty, to the clearness with 
 which he is able to grasp them, and also to their objective magni- 
 tude relative to the amount of effort required from himself in 
 doing the act or in abstaining from it. This is evident in cases 
 where the consequences are consequences to the doer. A reward 
 to be given in ten years time stimulates no one as much as a 
 reward to be given to-morrow ; nor does a fit of the gout hover- 
 ing dimly in the future keep the hand from the bottle like a 
 twinge already threatening. Again, if the ill consequences of 
 an act otherwise pleasant have in them the smallest uncertainty, 
 a numerous class is always ready to risk them ; and as the un- 
 certainty becomes greater, this class increases. All intemper- 
 ance, all gambling, all extravagance, all sports such as cricket 
 and hunting, and the very possibility of a soldier's life as a 
 profession, depend on this fact. Few men would enlist if they 
 knew that they would be shot in a twelvemonth; few men 
 would go hunting if they knew they would come home on a 
 stretcher. And what is true of men's acts regarded as affecting 
 themselves is equally true of them regarded as affecting others. 
 Sympathy follows the same laws as selfishness. Supposing a 
 young man knew that if he did a certain action his mother would 
 instantly hear of it and die of grief in consequence, he would be 
 a young man of very exceptional badness if this knowledge were 
 not a violent check on him. But suppose the act were only one 
 of a series, making his general conduct only a little worse, and 
 suppose that the chance of his mother's hearing of it were slight, 
 and that it would, if she did hear of it, cost her only one extra 
 
174 WILLIAM HURREL MALLOCK 
 
 sigh, the check so strong in the first case would in this be ex- 
 tremely feeble. Here again is a point more important still. In 
 the case of any act, regarded as affecting others, which involves 
 effort or sacrifice, the motive to perform it depends for its 
 strength or weakness on the proportion between the amount of 
 the sacrifice and the amount of good to be achieved by it. A 
 man may be willing to die to save his wife's honor, but he will 
 hardly be willing to do so to save her new ball dress, even though 
 she herself thinks the latter of most value. A man would deny 
 himself one truffle to keep a hundred men from starving, but he 
 would not himself starve to give a hundred men one truffle. 
 The effort is immense on one side, the result infinitesimal on the 
 other, and sympathy does nothing to alter the unequal balance. 
 Lastly, results to others, as apprehended by sympathy, even 
 when not small themselves, are made small by distance. No 
 man thinks so much of what will happen to his great-grand- 
 children as he does of what will happen to his children ; nor 
 would it be easy to raise money for building a hospital which 
 would not be finished for fifteen hundred years. Sympathy then 
 with other people, or with any cause or any object affecting 
 them, influences our actions in proportion as the people are near 
 to us, or as the objects are large, distinct, or important ; whence 
 it follows that to produce a given strength of motive, the more 
 distant an object is the larger and more distinct it must be. 
 
 And now let us turn again to the progress of the human race ; 
 and supposing it to be a fact, and accepting it as described by its 
 prophets, let us consider how far our sympathies are really likely 
 to be affected by it. Is it quick enough ? Is it distinct enough ? 
 Is there a reasonable proportion between the efforts demanded 
 from us on its behalf, and the results to be anticipated from these 
 efforts ? And how far, in each individual case, are the resu^ 
 certain or doubtful ? ^^ 
 
 Now one of the first things which our scientific Optimists im- 
 press on us is, that this progress is extremely slow. Before it has 
 brought the general lot to a condition which in itself is even 
 approximately satisfactory, "immeasurable geologic periods of 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC BASES OF OPTIMISM 175 
 
 time," Mr. Morley tells us, will have to intervene; and Mr. 
 Frederic Harrison, in this Review, a month or two since, warned 
 us not to be in a hurry. He is far more sanguine indeed than 
 Mr. Morley ; but even he thinks that we must wait for three 
 thousand years, before the results of Progress begin to be worth 
 talking about. Now, "to a practical man," says Mr. Harrison, 
 "three thousand years is an eternity." I quite agree with him ; 
 to a practical man it is ; and thus, whether his calculations are 
 accepted, or Mr. Morley's, our own efforts on behalf of the 
 general welfare are divided by a practical eternity from their 
 first appreciable fruits. Now since Mr. Harrison refers us to 
 practical men, let us try to imagine, guided by our common ex- 
 perience, how the knowledge that this kind of progress was a 
 reality would be likely to affect the practical men we know. 
 Let us first think how it would affect their feelings ; and then 
 how, through their feelings, it would affect their actions. The 
 two questions are separate, and involve different sets of consid- 
 erations. 
 
 To begin then with the question of mere feeling. If we wish 
 to form some conjecture as to how men are likely to feel about the 
 things of the remote future, we cannot do better than resort to a 
 test which is suggested to us by the Optimists themselves, and 
 consider how men feel about the things of the remote past. Of 
 course, as we may see in the case of a man's own life, the feel- 
 ings excited by the past differ in kind from those excited by the 
 future ; but the intensity of the one, we may say with confidence, 
 is a fair measure of the intensity of the other. If a man who has 
 caused himself suffering by his own acts, forgets that suffering 
 the first moment it is over, he is not likely to trouble himself 
 about the possibility of its repetition. And the same thing will 
 hold good as to our feeling for past and future generations. 
 Events that are going to happen three thousand years hence will 
 hardly be more to us than events which happened three thousand 
 years ago. Now what man in any practical sense cares anything 
 about what happened three thousand years ago ? To repeople 
 the cities and temples of the past — Memphis, and Thebes, and 
 
176 WILLIAM HURREL MALLOCK 
 
 Babylon — to see at the call of the imagination the earth give 
 up her dead, and buried generations come and go before us, is no 
 doubt an occupation that many of us find fascinating. But the 
 pleasure of watching these afxevrjva Kapyjva ^ has nothing akin to any 
 personal interest in them. Neither, again, has the interest taken 
 in them by the historian. Were we to learn to-day for the first 
 time that all the plagues of Egypt had been repeated ten times 
 over, or that a million slaves had been tortured by Pharaoh Necho, 
 nobody's spirits would be in the least damped by the intelligence. 
 The strongest feelings producible by the longest contemplation 
 of the greatest triumphs and the greatest misfortunes of antiq- 
 uity are mere phantoms, mere wraiths, mere reflections of the 
 reflections of shadows, when compared with the annoyance produ- 
 cible by a smoky chimney. Supposing we were to discover that 
 three thousand years ago there was a perfectly happy and a per- 
 fectly civilized society, the conditions of which were still per- 
 fectly plain to us, the discovery no doubt would be intensely 
 interesting if it afforded us any model that we could ourselves 
 imitate. But our interest would be centered in the thought not 
 that other people had been happy, but that we, or that our chil- 
 dren, were going to be. The two feelings are totally different. 
 Supposing we were to discover on some Egyptian papyrus a re- 
 ceipt for making a certain delicious tart, the pleasure we might 
 take in eating the tart ourselves would have nothing to do with 
 any gratification at the pleasure it gave Sesostris. The conclu- 
 sion, then, that we may draw from our obvious apathy as to the 
 happiness of our remote ancestors is that we are really equally 
 apathetic as to the happiness of our remote descendants. As the 
 past ceases to be remote — as it becomes more and more recent, 
 some faint pulsations of sympathy begin to stir in us ; when we 
 get to the lives of our grandfathers the feeling may be quite 
 recognizable ; when we get to the lives of our fathers, it may be 
 strong. This is true ; and the same thing holds good as to the 
 future. We may feel strongly about the lives of our children, 
 more weakly about the lives of our grandchildren, and then pres- 
 * Fleeting shades. — Editors. 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC BASES OF OPTIMISM 177 
 
 ently we cease to have any feeling at all. Were we promised 
 that progress in the future would be quicker than progress in 
 the past, the case would change in proportion to this promised 
 quickness ; but this is precisely what we are not promised. 
 
 I said that this appeal to the past was suggested by the Op- 
 timists themselves. The feelings indeed which they dwell upon 
 as producible are somewhat different from those on which I have 
 just commented. But they are less to the point as indicating 
 the possibility of any sympathy with the future, and are seen 
 when analyzed to be even more fantastic. What the Optimist 
 tells us that we ought to feel, can feel, and if we do but think 
 over things, must feel, is not so much gladness or sorrow at our 
 ancestors having been happy or unhappy, as gratitude towards 
 them for the happiness that their efforts have secured for us. 
 Now the efforts of our ancestors have secured us a great number 
 of things ; if they have secured us our happiness they have 
 secured us also our afflictions. If we owe to them our present 
 medical skill, we also owe to them consumption, and gout, and 
 scrofula. Our gratitude therefore is to be of a somewhat eclectic 
 character. Its object is not the whole of our ancestors, but only 
 that proportion of them whose lives have been beneficial to us. 
 But we can never know accurately what that proportion is. It 
 is an undistinguished part of a dimly apprehended whole. How 
 are we to be grateful to a shadowy abstraction like this ? Mr. 
 Harrison might tell us, and he actually does tell us, that we 
 know our ancestral benefactors through certain illustrious speci- 
 mens of them — "poets, artists, thinkers, teachers, rulers, dis- 
 coverers;" indeed, he says that the worshiping gratitude in 
 question "is felt in its most definite mode when we enter into 
 communion" with such great men as these. This no doubt 
 makes the idea clearer ; but it only does so to make its absurdity 
 clearer also. Some great men have done good to posterity — 
 good which we feel now ; but many have done evil ; and there 
 are wide differences of opinion as to which of them has done 
 what. Is Frederick the Great, for instance, to be the object of 
 worshiping gratitude, or of aversion? Are we to enter into 
 
178 WILLIAM HURREL MALLOCK 
 
 communion with him, or avoid him? Or supposing all such 
 doubts as these to be settled, and the calendar of the saints of 
 progress to be edited to the satisfaction of us all, there are diffi- 
 culties still greater behind. Many men whose actions have l^een 
 undoubtedly beneficial, have been personally of exceedingly 
 doubtful character ; the good they have done to posterity has 
 been in many cases unforeseen and unintended by themselves ; 
 or even if they have foreseen it, love of posterity has not been 
 their motive in doing it. Who, for instance, feels any worship- 
 ing gratitude to Lord Bacon ? We may admire his genius, or 
 may recognize his services ; but benefit to us was not his object 
 in producing them, and therefore our gratitude is not their rec- 
 ompense. It is as irrational to be grateful for an unintended 
 benefit as it is to be angry for an unintended injury. Of course 
 we have some feeling about such great men. It is shown in its 
 strongest form in the people we call hero- worshipers. But the 
 feeling of the hero-worshiper is the very reverse of the vica- 
 rious feeling for humanity postulated by our Optimists. The 
 hero-worshiper admires his heroes because they differ from the 
 rest of mankind, not because they resemble and represent them. 
 Even could we imagine that one or two great men actually fore- 
 saw our existence, and toiled for us with a prophetic love, we 
 cannot imagine this of the great masses of our predecessors. 
 So far as they are concerned, we are the accidental inheritors of 
 goods which they laid up for themselves ; and if there is any rea- 
 son to praise them for what they have done well, there is equal 
 reason to grumble at them for not having done it better. 
 
 If these reflections do not appear conclusive, let us turn from 
 our ancestral benefactors to our remote contemporary bene- 
 factors. Our attitude towards them will enlighten us some- 
 what further. To some of the remotest of our contemporaries 
 we owe some of our homeliest comforts. To take one instance 
 out of many, we owe tea to the Chinese. Now does any English 
 tea-drinker feel any worshiping gratitude towards the Chinese ? 
 We care for them as little as they care for us ; and if learnt to- 
 morrow that the whole Chinese race was a myth, it is doubtful 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC BASES OF OPTIMISM 179 
 
 if one of us would eat a worse dinner for the news. If we feel so 
 little about remote benefactors who are living, we shall hardly 
 feel more about remote benefactors who are dead; and we 
 shall feel less about remote recipients of benefits who will not be 
 born for an eternity. 
 
 To sum up, then, what experience teaches us as the extent to 
 which an idea like that of human progress, moving imperceptibly 
 to a goal incalculably distant, is able to affect the feelings of the 
 ordinary individual, we must say that there is no evidence of any 
 sort or kind that for practical purposes it is able to affect them 
 . at all. 
 
 And now let us pass on from this consideration to another. 
 The emotions required by the Optimist we have shown to be not 
 possible. Let us now consider how, supposing they were possible, 
 they would be likely to influence action. We shall see that their 
 influence, at the best, would be necessarily very feeble ; and that 
 it would be enfeebled by the very conditions which we mainly 
 counted on to strengthen it. Supposing the human race could 
 last only another two years, even Mr. Harrison would admit that 
 we might well be indifferent about improving it, and feel sad 
 rather than elated at its destiny. As it is, Mr. Harrison, though 
 he cannot say that it is eternal, yet promises it a duration which 
 is an eternity for all practical purposes ; and he conceives that 
 in doing this he is investing it with interest and with dignity. 
 He thinks that, within limits, the longer the race lasts, the more 
 worthy of the service it will seem to our enlightened reason. 
 One of the most solemn reflections which he presses on our hearts 
 is this, that the consequences of each one of our lives will con- 
 tinue ad infinitum. 
 
 Now, from one point of view Mr. Harrison is perfectly right. 
 Granting that we believe in progress, and that our feelings are 
 naturally affected by it, among the chief elements in it which 
 cause it thus to affect them will be its practical eternity — its 
 august magnitude. But the moment we put these feelings, as 
 it were, into harness, and ask them to produce for us action and 
 self-sacrifice, we shall find that the very elements which have 
 
i8o WILLIAM HURREL MALLOCK 
 
 excited the wish to act have an equal tendency to enervate the 
 will. We shall find that, as the porter in Macbeth says, they are 
 "equivocators." They "provoke the desire, but take away the 
 performance." For the longer the period we assign to the dura- 
 tion of the human race and of progress, the mightier the propor- 
 tions of the cause we are asked to work for, the smaller will be the 
 result of our efforts in proportion to the great whole ; less and less 
 would each additional effort be missed. If the consequences of 
 our lives ceased two years after our death, the power of these con- 
 sequences, it is admitted, would be slight either as a deterrent or a 
 stimulant. Mr. Harrison thinks that they will gain force, through 
 our knowledge that they will last ad infinitum. But he quite for- 
 gets the other side of the question, that the longer they last they 
 are a constantly diminishing quantity, ever less and less appreci- 
 able by any single human being, and that we can only think of 
 them as infinite at the expense of thinking of them as infinitesi- 
 mal. 
 
 Now, as I pointed out before, it is a rule of human conduct 
 that there must to produce an act be some equality between the 
 effort and the expected result ; but in the case of any effort ex- 
 pended for the sake of general progress there is no equality at all. 
 And not only is there no equality, but there is no certain connec- 
 tion. The best-meant efforts may do harm instead of good ; and 
 if good will be really done by them, it is impossible to realize what 
 good. How many workmen of the present day would refuse an 
 annuity of two hundred a year, on the chance that by doing so 
 they might raise the rate of wages one per cent in the course of 
 three thousand years ? But why talk of three thousand years ? 
 Our care, as a matter of fact, does not extend three hundred. 
 Do we any of us deny ourselves a single scuttle of coals, so as to 
 make our coal fields last for one more unknown generation ? It 
 is perfectly plain we do not. The utter inefficacy of the motives 
 supplied by devotion to progress, for its own sake, may at once 
 be realized by comparing them with the motives supplied by de- 
 votion to it for the sake of Christianity. The least thing that 
 the Christian does to others he does to Christ. However slight 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC BASES OF OPTIMISM i8i 
 
 the result, Christ judges it by the effort and the intention ; a sin- 
 gle mite may be valued by him as much as a thousand pounds; 
 and however far away from us may be the human beings we bene- 
 fit, Christ, who is served through them, is near. But the naked 
 doctrine of progress has no idea in it at all analogous to this idea 
 of Christ. Compared with Christianity it is like an optical in- 
 strument with some essential lens wanting. Christianity made 
 our infinitesimal influence infinite; scientific Optimism makes 
 our infinite influence infinitesimal. 
 
 But perhaps it will be said that the idea of general progress is 
 not supposed to move and stimulate us directly, but is embodied 
 for each one of us in some homely and definite service which we 
 can do to those about us ; and that we do not do such service for 
 the love of the race in general, but rise to the general love through 
 doing the particular services. The answer to this is obvious. 
 If this is all that is claimed for the idea of progress, all claim for 
 it that it influences action is abandoned. It does not tend to 
 make men energetic, philanthropic, and useful who are not so nat- 
 urally. Such men it leaves exactly as it finds them — the self- 
 ish, selfish still, and the filthy, filthy still. It affects those only 
 who act well independently of it ; and all that it can be supposed 
 to do for these is not to make them choose a particular line of 
 conduct, but to give them a new excuse for being pleased with 
 themselves at having chosen it. This brings us back to the ques- 
 tion of mere feeling ; and the feeling supposed to be produced by 
 the idea of progress, we have already seen to be a mere fancy and 
 illusion. As I have taken special care to point out, nobody 
 claims for Optimism that it supplies us with a rule of right. 
 That is supplied by social science and experience. What is 
 claimed for it is, that it gives us new motives for obeying this 
 rule, and a feeling of blessedness in the thought that it is being 
 obeyed. We have now seen that in no appreciable^ way has it 
 any tendency to give us either. 
 
 All this while we have been supposing that progress was a 
 reality, and inquiring if it will excite certain feelings. Let us 
 now reverse our suppositions. Let us suppose the admittedly 
 
i82 WILLIAM HURREL MALLOCK 
 
 real thing to be our capacity for the feehngs, and inquire what 
 grounds there are for believing in the progress which is to excite 
 them. Of course the question is not one which can be argued 
 out in a page or two ; but we can take stock in a general way 
 of what the arguments are. The first feature that strikes us in 
 human history is change. Do these changes follow any intelli- 
 gible order ? If so, to what extent do they follow it ? And is it 
 an order which can afford us any rational satisfaction ? Now 
 that they follow some intelligible order to some extent is per- 
 fectly undeniable. The advance of certain races from savagery 
 to civilization, and from a civilization that is simple to a civili- 
 zation that is complex, is a fact staring all of us in the face ; and 
 with regard to certain stages of this advance, few people will 
 seriously deny that it has been satisfactory. It is true that, 
 putting aside all theological views of man, certain races of 
 savages have in all probability been the happiest human animals 
 that ever existed; still if we consider the earliest condition of 
 the races that have become civilized, we may no doubt say that 
 up to a certain point the advance of civilization made life a bet- 
 ter thing for them. But is it equally plain that after a certain 
 point has been past, the continuance of the advance has had the 
 same sort of result ? The inhabitants of France under Henri IV 
 may have been a happier set of men than its inhabitants under 
 Clovis ; but were its inhabitants under Louis XVI a happier 
 set of men than its inhabitants under Henri IV? Again, if 
 civilizations rise, civilizations also fall. Is it certain that the 
 new civilizations which in time succeed the old bring the human 
 lot to a veritably higher level ? To answer these questions, or 
 even to realize what these questions are, we must brand into 
 our consciousness many considerations which, though when we 
 think of them they are truisms, we too often forget to think of. 
 To begin, then : Progress for those who deny a God and a future 
 life means nothing, and can mean nothing but such changes as 
 may make men happier ; and this meaning again further unfolds 
 itself into a reference first to the intensity of the happiness ; 
 secondly, to the numbers who partake in it. Thus, what is 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC BASES OF OPTIMISM 183 
 
 commonly called a superior civilization need not, after a certain 
 step, indicate any real progress. It may even be a disguise of 
 retrogression. It seems, for instance, hardly doubtful that in 
 England the condition of the masses some fifty years ago was 
 worse than it had been a hundred years before. The factory 
 system during its earlier stages of development, though a main 
 element in the most rapid advances of civilization ever known 
 to the world, did certainly not add for the time to the sum total 
 of happiness. The mere fact that it did not do so for the time 
 is in itself no proof that it may not have done so since ; but it is 
 a proof that the most startling advances in science, and the mas- 
 tery over nature that has come of them, need not necessarily be 
 things which in their immediate results can give any satisfac- 
 tion to the well-wishers of the race at large. But we may say 
 more than this. Not only need material civilization indicate 
 no progress in the lot of the race at large, but it may well be 
 doubted if it really adds to the happiness of that part of the race 
 who receive the fullest fruits of it. It is difficult in one sense to 
 deny that express trains and Cunard steamships are improve- 
 ments on mail coaches or wretched little saiHng boats like the 
 Mayflower. But are the public in trains happier than the public 
 who went in coaches? Is there more peace or hope in the 
 hearts of the men who go from New York to Liverpool in six 
 days than there was in the hearts of the Pilgrim Fathers ? No 
 doubt we who have been brought up amongst modern appli- 
 ances should be made miserable for the time if they were sud- 
 denly taken away from us. But to say this is a very different 
 thing from saying that we are happier with them than we should 
 have been if we had never had them. A man would be miserable 
 who, being fat and fifty, had to button himself into the waist- 
 coat which he wore when he had a waist and was nineteen. But 
 this does not prove that a large-sized waistcoat makes his mid- 
 dle age a happier time than his youth. Advancing civilization 
 creates wants, and it supplies wants ; it creates habits and it 
 ministers to habits ; but it is not always exhilarating us with 
 fresh surprises of pleasure. Suppose, however, we grant that 
 
i84 WILLIAM HURREL MALLOCK 
 
 up to a certain point the increase of material wants, together 
 with the means of meeting them, does add to happiness, it is 
 perfectly evident that there is a point where this result ceases. 
 A workman who dines daily off beefsteak and beer may be 
 happier than one whose dinner is water and black bread ; but 
 a man whose dinner is ten different dishes need not be happier 
 than the man who puts up with four. There is a certain point, 
 therefore, not an absolute point, but a relative point, beyond 
 which advances in material civilization are not progress any 
 longer — not even supposing all classes to have a proportionate 
 share in it. Accordingly the fact that inventions multiply, 
 that commerce extends, that distances are annihilated, that 
 country gentlemen have big battues, that farmers keep fine 
 hunters, that their daughters despise butter making, and that 
 even agricultural laborers have pink window blinds, is not in 
 itself any proof of general progress. Progress is a tendency 
 not to an extreme, but to a mean. 
 
 Let us now pass to another class of facts, generally held to 
 show that progress is a reality; namely, the great men that 
 civilization has produced. Let us, for instance, take a Shake- 
 speare, or a Newton, or a Goethe, and compare them with the 
 Britons and the Germans of the time of Tacitus. Do we not 
 see an image of progress there? To this argument there is 
 more than one answer. It is an argument that points to some- 
 thing, but does not point to so much as those who use it might 
 suppose. No doubt a man like Newton would be an impossibil- 
 ity in an age of barbarism ; we may give to civilization the whole 
 credit of producing him, and admit that he is an incalculable 
 advance on the shrewdest of unlettered savages. But though 
 we find that civilizations produce greater men than barbarism, 
 we do not find that the modern civilizations produce greater 
 men than the ancient. Were they all to meet in the Elysian 
 Fields Newton would probably not find Euclid his inferior, nor 
 would Thucydides show like a dwarf by Professor Freeman. 
 Further, not only do the limits of exceptional greatness show 
 no tendency to expand, but the existence, at any point, of 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC BASES OF OPTIMISM 185 
 
 exceptionally great men is no sure indication of any answering 
 elevation amongst the masses, any more than the existence of 
 exceptionally rich men is a sure indication that the masses are 
 not poor. The intellectual superiority of Columbus to the 
 American savages was, unfortunately, no sign that his followers 
 were not in many ways inferior to them. 
 
 What, then, is the evidence that progress, in the sense of an 
 increasing happiness for an increasing number, is really a con- 
 tinuous movement running through all the changes of history ? 
 It cannot be said that there are no facts which suggest such a 
 conclusion, but they are absurdly insufficient in number, and 
 they are balanced by others equally weighty, and of quite an 
 opposite character. Isolated periods, isolated institutions, do 
 indeed very strikingly exhibit the movement in question. One 
 of the most remarkable instances of it is the development of 
 the Church of Rome, looked at from the Catholic standpoint. 
 Again, we constantly find periods in a nation's history during 
 which the national happiness has demonstrably moved onwards. 
 Few of the phenomena on which the faith in progress rests have 
 given to that faith such a violent stimulus as the rapid movement 
 observable in such periods. A case in point is the immense and 
 undoubted improvement which during the past forty years has 
 taken place in the condition of the working classes in England ; 
 and no doubt, in spite of the ruinous price paid for it, France 
 purchased by the Revolution an improvement not dissimilar. 
 But these movements are capable of an interpretation very 
 different from that which our sanguine Optimists put on them. 
 They resemble a cure from an exceptional disease rather than 
 any strengthening of the normal health. The French Revo- 
 lution has been thought by many to have been a chopping up 
 of society and a boiling of it in Medea's caldron, from whence 
 it should issue forth born into a new existence. In reality it 
 resembled an ill-performed surgical operation, which may pos- 
 sibly have saved the nation's life, but has shattered its nerves and 
 disfigured it till this day. Whilst as for ordinary democratic 
 reforms — and this is plainest with regard to those which have 
 
1 86 WILLIAM HURREL MALLOCK 
 
 been most really needed — their utmost effect has been to cure 
 a temporary pain, not to add a permanent pleasure. They 
 have been pills, they have not been elixirs.^ 
 
 The most authenticated cases, then, which we have of any 
 genuine progress are to all appearance mere accidents and epi- 
 sodes. They are not analogous to a man progressing, but to a 
 tethered animal which has slipped getting up on its legs again. 
 As to the larger movements which form the main features of 
 history, such as the rise of the Roman Empire, these movements, 
 like waves, are always observed to spend themselves ; and it is 
 impossible to prove, without some aid from theology, that the 
 new waves which have shaped themselves out of the subsided 
 waters, are larger, higher, or more important than the last. This 
 is true even of the parts of such movements as history princi- 
 pally records ; but of the part, which for our modern Optimists 
 is the most important — which is, indeed, the only important 
 part for them, history can hardly be said to have left any gen- 
 eral record at all. The important part of such movements is 
 their relation to the happiness of the masses. Does any one 
 pretend that we have any materials for tracing through the 
 historic ages the flvictuations in the lot of the unnamed multi- 
 tudes ? Here and there some riot, some servile war, or some 
 Jacquerie, shows us that at a certain period the masses in some 
 special district were miserable, and we can trace through other 
 periods some legal ameKoration of their lot. But taking the 
 historic periods of the world as a whole, the history of the hap- 
 piness or the misery of the majority is a book of which every- 
 thing has perished except some scattered fragments, the gaps 
 between which can only be filled up by conjecture, in many cases 
 not even by that ; which fail to suggest in any serious way that 
 
 1 The causes of material or national advance will be probably recognized 
 in time as being mainly, though not entirely, due to the personal ambitions 
 of a gifted and vigorous minority ; and the processes which are now regarded 
 as signs of a universal progress are constant cures, or attempts at cures, of 
 the evils or maladjustments which are at first incident to any important 
 change. 
 
 i 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC BASES OF OPTIMISM 187 
 
 the happiness of the multitudes concerned has followed any- 
 intelligible order, and which certainly negatives the supposition 
 that there has been any continuous advance in it. Mr. Harri- 
 son says that in three thousand years progress should at least 
 be appreciable to the naked eye. Will Mr. Harrison, or any one 
 else, maintain as scientifically demonstrated, that the children 
 whipped to their work in our earlier English factories were hap- 
 pier than the Egyptian brickmakers amongst the melons and 
 the fleshpots ? 
 
 There is, however, another hypothesis possible, which may- 
 give the doctrine of progress a more scientific character. It 
 may be said that though the changes of history hitherto have 
 been seemingly vague and meaningless, they have been really 
 preparatory for a movement which is about to begin now. 
 Telegraphs, ocean steamers, express trains, and printing presses 
 have, it may be admitted, done Httle for the general happiness 
 as yet; their importance may have been slight if we regard 
 them as mere luxuries: but all this while they have been knitting 
 the races of men together ; they have been making the oneness 
 of Humanity a visible and accomplished fact; and very soon 
 we shall all of us start in company on a march towards the 
 higher things that the future has in store for us. What shall 
 we say to some idea of this sort — that progress is a certainty 
 henceforward, though it may have been doubtful hitherto ? 
 The idea is a pleasant one for the fancy to dwell upon, and it is 
 easy to see how it may have been suggested by facts. But facts 
 certainly give us no assurance that it is true ; they do but suggest 
 it, as a cloud may suggest a whale. It is no doubt easier to 
 conceive the possibility of a general onward movement in the 
 future than it is to conceive that of it as a reality in the past. 
 Indeed no one can demonstrate that it will not actually take 
 place. All I wish to point out is that there is no certainty that 
 it will ; and not only no certainty, but no balance of probability. 
 The existing civilization, which some think so stable, and which 
 seems, as I have said, to be uniting us into one community, 
 contains in itself many elements of decay or of self-destruction. 
 
1 88 WILLIAM HURREL M.\LLOCK 
 
 In spite of the way in which the Western races seem to have 
 covered the globe with the network of their power and com- 
 merce, they are outnumbered at this day in a proportion of more 
 than two to one, by the vast nations who are utterly impervious 
 to their influence — impervious to their ideas, and indifferent 
 to their aspirations. What scientific estimate then can be made 
 of the influence of the Mohammedan and Buddhist populations, 
 to say nothing of the others equally alien to our civilization, who 
 alone outnumber the entire brotherhood of the West? Who 
 can forecast — to take a single instance — the part which may 
 in the future be played by China? And again, who can fore- 
 cast the effects of overpopulation ? And who can fail to foresee 
 that they may be far-reaching and terrible ? How, in the face of 
 disturbing elements like these, can the future of progress be 
 anything more than a guess, a hope, an opinion, a poetic fancy ? 
 At all events, whatever it is, it is certainly not science. 
 
 Let us, however, suppose that it is science. Let us suppose 
 that we have full and sufficient evidence to convince us of the 
 reality and continuance of a movement, slow indeed as its 
 exponents admit it to be, but evidently in the direction of some 
 happy consummation in the future. Now what, let us ask, will 
 this consummation be ? It is put before us by the creed of Op- 
 timism as the ultimate justification of all our hope and enthusi- 
 asm, and, as Mr. Morley says, of our "provisional acquiescence" 
 in the existing sorrows of the world. Does any one, then, pro- 
 fess to be able to describe it exactly to us? To ask this is no 
 idle question. Its importance can be proved by reference to 
 Mr. Harrison himself. He says that if a consummation in 
 heaven is to have the least real influence over us, it is " not enough 
 to talk of it in general terms." " The all-important point," 
 he proceeds, " is what kind of heaven ? Is it a heaven of seraphic 
 beatitude and unending hallelujahs as imagined by Dante and 
 Milton, or a life of active exertion? And if of active exertion 
 (and what can life mean without e.xertion?) of what kind of 
 exertion?" Now with regard to heaven it would be perfectly 
 easy to show that this demand for exact knowledge is unreason- 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC BASES OF OPTIMISM 189 
 
 able and unnecessary ; for part of the attraction of the alleged 
 beatitude of heaven consists in the belief that it passes our 
 finite understanding, that we can only dimly augur it, and 
 that we shall be changed before we are admitted to it. But with 
 regard to any blessed consummation on the earth, such details 
 as Mr. Harrison asks for are absolutely indispensable. Our 
 Optimists tell us that, on the expiration of a practical eternity, 
 there will be the beginnings at any rate of a blessed and glorious 
 change in the human lot. In Mr. Harrison's words, I say, What 
 kind of a change ? Will it be a change tending to make life a 
 round of idle luxury, or a course of active exertion ? And if of 
 active exertion, of what kind of exertion ? Will it be practical 
 or speculative? Will it be discovering new stars, or making 
 new dyes out of coal tar ? No one can tell us. 
 
 On one point no doubt we should find a consensus of opinion ; 
 but this point would be negative, not positive. We should 
 be told that poverty, overwork, most forms of sickness, and 
 acute pain would be absent ; and surely it may be' said that this 
 is a consummation fit to be striven for. No doubt it is ; but 
 from the Optimist's point of view, this admission does abso- 
 lutely nothing to help us. The problem is to construct a life of 
 superlative happiness ; and to eliminate physical suffering is 
 merely to place us on the naked threshold of our enterprise. 
 Suppose I see in the street one day some poor orphan girl, utterly 
 desolate, and crying as if her heart would break. That girl is 
 certainly not happy. Let us suppose I see the same girl next 
 day, equally desolate, but distracted by an excruciating tooth- 
 ache. I could not restore her parents to her, but I can, we will 
 say, cure her toothache, and I do. I ease her of a terrible pain. 
 I cause her unutterable relief ; and no doubt in doing so I myself 
 feel happy ; but as to the orphan all I do is this — I restore her 
 to her original misery. And so far as the mere process of stamp- 
 ing out pain is concerned, there is nothing to show that it might 
 not leave life in no better position than that of an orphan cured 
 of a toothache. Indeed, if we may trust the suggestion thrown 
 out by optimistic writers, it would not, even so far as it went, 
 
igo WILLIAM HURREL MALLOCK 
 
 be an unmixed good. These writers have often hinted that pain 
 and trouble probably deepen our pleasures ; so if pain and trouble 
 were ever done away with, the positive blessings of life might, on 
 their own showing, be not heightened but degraded. 
 
 Again, let us approach the question from another side; and 
 instead of regarding progress as an extinction of pain, let us 
 regard it as the equitable distribution of material comforts 
 amongst all. No one would wish to speak flippantly — or at 
 all events no sane man can think lightly — of the importance 
 of giving to all a sufficiency of daily bread. But however we 
 realize that privation and starvation are miseries, it does not 
 follow — indeed we know it not to be true — that a light heart 
 goes with a full stomach. Or suppose us to conceive that in the 
 future it would come to do so, and that men would be com- 
 pletely happy when they all had enough to eat, would this be a 
 consummation calculated to raise our enthusiasm, or move our 
 souls with a solemn zeal to work for it ? Would any human 
 being who was ever capable of anything that has ever been called 
 a high conception of life, feel any pleasure in the thought of a 
 Humanity, "shut up in infinite content," when once it had se- 
 cured itself three meals a day, and smiling every morning a 
 satisfied smile at the universe, its huge lips shining with fried 
 eggs and bacon ? 
 
 I am not for an instant saying that mere physical well-being 
 is the only sort of happiness to which Optimists look forward. 
 But it is the only sort of happiness about which their ideas are 
 at all definite ; and I have alluded to it as I have done, merely 
 to point out that their only definite ideas are ridiculously insuffi- 
 cient ideas. I do not doubt for a moment that thinkers like 
 Mr. Harrison anticipate for transfigured Humanity pleasures 
 which to them seem nobler than the noblest we can enjoy now ; 
 but about these pleasures I say there is no consensus of opinibn ; 
 what opinion there is, is quite indefinite, and there is nothing to 
 show that these pleasures will ever be realized, and judging 
 from the hints we have of them, there is much to show that they 
 would be impossible. To sum up then, the altered Humanity 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC BASES OF OPTIMISM 191 
 
 of the future, even granting that we are advancing towards it, 
 may be compared to an image of which one part only is definite. 
 It is not like an image with feet of clay and with a head of gold, 
 but like an image with a stomach of clay, and everything else 
 of cloud. 
 
 We have now examined the creed of Optimism from two points 
 of view, assuming in turn the truth of each one of its two propo- 
 sitions, and inquiring into the truth of the other. We first 
 assumed the reality of progress, and asked how far our sympathy 
 was capable of being stimulated by it ; we next assumed the 
 alleged capacities of our sympathy, and asked what grounds 
 there were for any belief in a progress by which sympathy of the 
 assumed kind could be roused. And we have seen that, so far 
 as scientific evidence is concerned, both the propositions in ques- 
 tion are unsupported and fanciful. 
 
 There remains for us yet a third test to submit it to, and this 
 will be found to be the most fatal of all. Let us assume, for 
 argument's sake, that both the propositions are true; and we 
 shall see that they contain in themselves elements by which 
 their supposed meaning is annihilated. Let us assume, then, 
 that progress will, in process of time, produce a state of society 
 which we should all regard as satisfactory ; and let us assume 
 that our sympathies are of such a strength and delicacy that the 
 far-off good in store for our remote descendants will be a source 
 of real comfort to our hearts and a real stimulus to our actions 
 — that it will fill life, in fact, with moral meanings and motives. 
 It will only require a very little reflection to show us that if 
 sympathy is really strong enough to accomplish this work, it 
 will inevitably be strong enough to destroy the work which it 
 has accomplished. If we are, or if we should come to be, so 
 astonishingly sensitive that the remote happiness of posterity 
 will cause us any real pleasure, the incalculable amount of pain 
 that will admittedly have preceded such happiness, that has 
 been suffered during the countless years of the past, and will have 
 to be suffered during the countless intervening years of the 
 future, must necessarily convert such pleasure into agony. It 
 
192 
 
 WILLIAM HURREL MALLOCK 
 
 is impossible to conceive, unless we throw reality overboard 
 altogether, and decamp frankly into dreamland — it is impos- 
 sible to conceive our sympathy being made more sensitive to the 
 happiness of others, without its being made also more sensitive 
 to their misery. One might as well suppose our powers of sight 
 increased, but increased only so as to show us agreeable objects ; 
 or our powers of hearing increased, but increased only so as to 
 convey to us our own praises. 
 
 Can any one for an instant doubt that this is a fact ? Can 
 he trick himself in any way into any, even the slightest, evasion 
 of it ? Can he imagine himself, for instance, having a sudden 
 interest roused in him, from whatever cause, in the fortunes of 
 some young man, and yet not feel a corresponding shock if the 
 young man should chance to be hanged for murder? The idea 
 is ridiculous. The truth of the matter is, that unless our sym- 
 pathies had a certain obtuseness and narrowness in them, we 
 should be too tender to endure a day of life. The rose leaves 
 might give a keener pleasure ; but we should be unable to think 
 of it, because our skins would be lacerated with thorns. What 
 would happen to us if, retaining the fastidiousness of man, we 
 suddenly found that our nostrils were as keen as those of dogs ? 
 We should be sick every time we walked through a crowded street. 
 Were our sympathies intensified in a similar way, we should 
 pass through life not sick, but broken-hearted. The whole 
 creation would seem to be groaning and travailing together; 
 and the laughter and rejoicing of posterity would be drowned by 
 the intervening sounds, or else would seem a ghastly mockery. 
 
 But suppose — we have been waiving objections, and we 
 will now waive them again — suppose that the intervening pain 
 does somehow not inconvenience us ; and that our sympathies, 
 "on this bank and shoal of time, jump it," and bring us safely 
 to the joy and prosperity beyond. Now this jump, on Mr. 
 Harrison's own showing, will carry us across an eternity. It 
 will annihilate the distance between our own imperfect condi- 
 tion and our posterity's perfect condition. But how does 
 Mr. Harrison imagine that it will stop there ? He admits that 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC BASES OF OPTIMISM 
 
 193 
 
 all human existence will come to an end some day, but the end, 
 he thinks, does not matter because it is so far ofif. But if sym- 
 pathy acquires this power of jumping across eternities, the end 
 ceases to be far off any longer. The same power that takes us 
 from the beginnings of progress to the consummation of progress 
 will take us from the consummation of progress to its horrible 
 and sure destruction — to its death by inches, as the icy period 
 comes, turning the whole earth into a torture chamber, and 
 effacing forever the happiness and the triumph of man in a 
 hideous and meaningless end. Knowing that the drama is 
 thus really a tragedy, how shall we be able to pretend to our- 
 selves that it is a divine comedy? It is true that death waits 
 for all and each of us ; and yet we continue to eat, drink, and 
 be merry : but that is precisely because our sympathies have not 
 those powers which Mr. Harrison asserts they have, because 
 instead of connecting us with what will happen to others in 
 three thousand years, it connects us only slightly with what will 
 happen to ourselves in thirty. 
 
 We thus see that the creed of Optimism is composed of ideas 
 that do not even agree with each other. They might do that, 
 however, and yet be entirely false. The great question is, do 
 they agree with facts ? and not only that, but are they forced 
 on us by facts ? Do facts leave us no room for rationally con- 
 tradicting or doubting them ? In a word, have they any basis 
 even approximately similar to what would be required to sup- 
 port a theory of light, or heat, or electricity, of the geologic 
 history of the earth, or of the evolution of species ? Is the evi- 
 dence for their truth as overwhelming and as unanimous as the 
 evidence Professor Huxley would require to make him beheve 
 in a miracle ? Or have they ever been submitted to the same 
 eager and searching skepticism which has sought for and weighed 
 every fact, sentence, and syllable that might tend to make in- 
 credible our traditional conception of the Bible? They cer- 
 tainly have not. The treatment they have met with has been 
 not only not this, but the precise opposite. Men who claim 
 to have destroyed Christianity in the name of science justify 
 
194 WILLIAM HURREL MALLOCK 
 
 their belief in Optimism by every method that their science 
 stigmatizes as most immoral. Mr. Harrison admits, with rela- 
 tion to Christianity, that the Redemption became incredible 
 with the destruction of the geocentric theory, because the world 
 became a speck in the universe, infinitely too little for so vast 
 a drama. But when he comes to defending his own religion of 
 Optimism he says, "the infinite littleness of the world" is a 
 thought we "will put away from us" as an "unmanly and 
 unhealthy musing." Similarly Mr. John Morley, who admits 
 with great candor that many facts exist which suggest doubts 
 of progress, instead of examining these doubts and giving their 
 full weight to them, tells us that we ought to set them aside as 
 "unworthy." Was ever such language heard in the mouths of 
 scientific men about any of those subjects which have formed 
 their proper studies ? It is rather a parody of the language of 
 such men as Mr. Keble, who declared that religious skeptics 
 were too wicked to be reasoned with, and who incurred, for this 
 reason more than any other, the indignant scorn of all our 
 scientific critics. Which of such critics was ever heard to defend 
 a theory of the authorship of Job or of the Pentateuch by declar- 
 ing that any doubts of their doubts were "unmanly," or "un- 
 healthy"? Who would answer an attack on the Darwinian 
 theory of coral reefs by calling it " unworthy " ? or meet admitted 
 difficulties in the way of a theory of light by following Mr. Har- 
 rison's example, and saying, "we will put them aside"? 
 
 Let the reader consider another statement explicitly made 
 by Mr. John Morley relative to this very question of Optimism. 
 He quotes the following passage from Diderot: "Does the 
 narrative present me with some fact that dishonors human- 
 ity? Then I examine it with the most rigorous severity. 
 Whatever sagacity I may be able to command I employ in detect- 
 ing contradictions that throw suspicion on the story. It is 
 not so when the action is beautiful, lofty, noble." "Diderot's 
 way,'' says Mr. Morley, "of reading history is not unworthy of 
 imitation." Is it necessary to quote more? This astonishing 
 sentence — not astonishing for the fact it admits, but for the 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC BASES OF OPTIMISM 195 
 
 naive candor of the admission — describes in a nutshell the 
 method which men of science, who have attacked Christianity 
 in the name of the divine duty of skepticism, and of a conscience 
 which forbids them to believe anything not fully proved — this 
 sentence describes the method which such men consider scientific 
 when establishing a religion of their own. Let us swallow what- 
 ever suits us ; whatever goes against us let us examine with the 
 most rigorous severity. 
 
 No feature in the history of modern thought is more instruct- 
 ive than the contrast I have just indicated — the contrast 
 between the skepticism, and the exactingness of science, in its 
 attack on Christianity, and its abject credulity in constructing 
 a futile substitute. That there is no universal, no continuous 
 meaning in the changes of human history, that progress of some 
 sort may not be a reaHty, I am not for a moment arguing. All 
 I have urged hitherto is, that there is no evidence, such as would 
 be accepted either in physical or philosophical science, to prove 
 there is. The facts, no doubt, suggest any number of meanings, 
 but they support none ; and if Professor Huxley is right in saying 
 that it is very immoral in us to believe in such doubtful books 
 as the Gospels, it must be far more immoral in him to believe 
 in the meaning of human existence. What the spectacle of 
 the world's history would really suggest to an impartial scientific 
 observer, who had no religion and who had not contracted to 
 construct one, is a conclusion eminently in harmony with the 
 drift of scientific speculation generally. The doctrines of nat- 
 ural selection and the survival of the fittest, imply on the part 
 of nature a vast number of failures — failures complete or partial. 
 The same idea may be applicable to worlds, as to species in this 
 world. If we conceive, as we have every warrant for conceiving, 
 an incalculable number of inhabited planets, the history of their 
 crowning races will, according to all analogy, be various. Some 
 will arrive at great and general happiness, some at happiness 
 partial and less complete, some may very likely, as long as their 
 inhabitants last, be hells of struggle and wretchedness. Now 
 what to an impartial observer the history of the earth would 
 
196 WILLIAM HURREL MALLOCK 
 
 suggest, would be that it occupied some intermediate position 
 between the completest successes and the absolutely horrible 
 failures — a position probably at the lower end of the scale, 
 though many degrees above the bottom of it. Considered in 
 this light its history becomes intelligible, because we cease 
 to treat as hieroglyphs full of meaning a series of marks which 
 have really no meaning at all. We shall see constant attempts 
 at progress, we shall see progress realized in certain places up to 
 a certain point ; but we shall see that after a certain point, the 
 castle of cards or sand falls to pieces again ; and that others 
 attempt to rise, perhaps even less successfully. We still see 
 numberless words shaping themselves, but never any complete 
 sentence. Taken as a whole, we shall be reminded of certain 
 lines, which I have already alluded to, referring to an "idiot's 
 tale." The destinies of humanity need not be all sound and 
 fury ; but certainly regarding them as a whole, we shall have 
 to say of them, that they are a tale without plot, without coher- 
 ence, without interest — in a word, that they signify nothing. 
 
 I do not say for a moment that this is the truth about Human- 
 ity ; but that this is the kind of conclusion which we should prob- 
 ably arrive at if we trusted to purely scientific observation, with 
 no preconceived idea that life must have a meaning, and no in- 
 terest in giving it one. No doubt such a view, if true, would be 
 completely fatal to everything which to men, in what hitherto 
 we have called their higher moments, has made life dignified, se- 
 rious, or even tolerable. Hitherto in those higher moments they 
 have risen, like the philosophers out of Plato's cavern, from their 
 narrow selfish interests, into the light of a larger outlook, and 
 seen that life is full of august meanings. But that light has not 
 been the light of science. Science will give men a larger outlook 
 also ; but it will raise them above their narrower interests, not to 
 show them wider ones, but to show them none at all. If then 
 the light that is in us is darkness, we may well say, how great is 
 that darkness ! It is from this darkness that religion comes to 
 deliver us, not by destroying what science has taught us, but by 
 adding to it something that it has not taught us. 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC BASES OF OPTIMISM 197 
 
 Whether we can believe in this added something or not is a 
 point I have in no way argued. I have not sought to prove that 
 life has no meaning, but merely that it has none discoverable by 
 the methods of modern science. I will not even say that men of 
 science themselves ^re not certain of its existence, and may not 
 live by this certainty; but only that, if so, they are unaware 
 whence this certainty comes, and that though their inner con- 
 victions may claim our most sincere respect, their own analysis 
 of them deserves our most contemptuous ridicule. 
 
 If there is a soul in man, and if there is a God who has given this 
 soul, the instinct of religion can never die ; but if there is any 
 authentic explanation of the relations between the soul and God, 
 and for some reason or other men in any way cease to accept this, 
 their own explanations may well, by a gradual process, resolve 
 themselves into a denial of the theory they seek to explain. And 
 such, according to our men of science themselves, has been the 
 case with the orthodox Christian faith, when once it began to be 
 disintegrated by the solvent of Protestantism. The process is 
 forcibly alluded to by Mr. Harrison. Traditional Protestantism 
 dissolved into the nebulous tenets of the Broad Churchmen ; the 
 tenets of the Broad Churchmen dissolved into Deism, Deism 
 into Pantheism and the cultus of the Unknowable, and the last 
 into Optimism. Mr. Harrison fails to read the lesson of history 
 further, and to see that Optimism^ in its turn must yield to the 
 solvent of criticism, and leave the religious instinct, or what is 
 the same thing, a sense of a meaning in life, as a forlorn and 
 bewildered emotion without any explanation of itself at all. 
 What Optimism is at present must be abundantly evident. It is 
 the last attempt to discover a peg on which to hang the fallen 
 clothes of Christianity. As Mr. Harrison tells us, most of our 
 scientific Optimists have been brought up with all the emotions 
 of that faith. They have got rid of the faith, but the emotions 
 have been left on their hands. They long for some object on 
 which to lavish them, just as Don Quixote longed to find a lady- 
 love ; and if we may jvidge from certain phrases of Mr. Harrison, 
 they have modestly contented themselves with asking not that 
 
1 98 WILLIAM HURREL MALLOCK 
 
 the object should be a truth, but merely that it should not, on 
 the face of it, be a falsehood. He does not ask how well Human- 
 ity deserves to be thought of, but how well he and his friends will 
 be able to think of it. Once more let us say that this emotion 
 which they call the love of Humanity is not an emotion I would 
 ridicule. I only ridicule their bestowal of it. The love of Hu- 
 manity, with no faith to enlighten it, and nothing to justify it 
 beyond what science can show, is as absurd as the love of Titania 
 lavished on Bottom; and the high priests of Humanity, with 
 their solemn and pompous gravity, are like nothing so much as 
 the Bumbles of a squabbling parish. We all know what Hobbes 
 said to Catholicism, that it was the ghost of the dead Roman Em- 
 pire, sitting enthroned on the ashes of it. Optimism, in the same 
 way, is the ghost of Protestantism sitting on its ashes, not en- 
 throned but gibbering. 
 
 I hope that before long I may again return to this subject, to 
 touch on many points which I have been unable to glance at now. 
 On former occasions I have been asked by certain critics what pos- 
 sible use, even suppose life is not worth much, I could hope to find 
 in laying the fact bare. To the Optimists as men of science no 
 explanation is needed. Every attempt to establish any truth, 
 or even to establish any doubt, according to their principles is not 
 only justifiable, but is a duty. To others, an explanation will 
 not be very far to seek. If there is a meaning in life, we shall 
 never imderstand it rightly till we have ceased to amuse our- 
 selves with understanding it wrongly. Humanity, if there is 
 any salvation for it, will never be saved till it sees that it cannot 
 save itself, and asks in humility, seeking some greater power. 
 Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? But as 
 matters stand, it will never see this or ask this, till it has seen 
 face to face the whole of its ghastly helplessness, and tasted — 
 at least intellectually — the dregs of its degradation. When we 
 have filled our bellies with the husks that swine eat, it may be 
 that we shall arise and go. 
 
 
VIII 
 
 DARWIN ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES 
 
 Thomas Henry Huxley 
 
 [The present essay by Huxley, published in the Westminster Review in 
 April, i860, was one of the earliest reviews of Darwin's epoch-making work, 
 The Origin of Species. Darwin's book is so stupendous an accumulation of 
 scientific data that it needed at the time, and needs now for the casual stu- 
 dent, an interpreter. Huxley fulfilled this function with great success for 
 many years. This article, in fact, is only one of a large number of essays and 
 addresses by Huxley which present the substance of Darwin's investigations 
 in a popular, readily comprehensible light. Huxley's opposition to the advo- 
 cates of the theory of special creation, who represented then in the main the 
 conservative religious element, may seem unnecessarily harsh ; but it must 
 be remembered that in that day the "battle-ground of religion and science" 
 was emphatically real. Dogmatic churchmen of Huxley's time conceived 
 science as nursing an antagonism that could be appeased only by the utter 
 destruction of religious sentiment. That Huxley was mistakenly held to be 
 an arch enemy of religion may be seen in his numerous temperate and open- 
 minded writings on the relations of scientific and spiritual beliefs. 
 
 This essay is a competent discussion of the principal points of the Dar- 
 winian theory, although these points are presented with Huxley's character- 
 istic caution. The fact is here emphasized that Darwin's hypothesis, like all 
 hypotheses, can be accepted only tentatively, until supported by a convinc- 
 ing mass of corroborative evidence. The scientific attitude of our day, 
 however, holds, as Professor E. B. Wilson expresses it, that "biological in- 
 vestigators have long since ceased to regard the fact of organic evolution as 
 open to serious discussion."] 
 
 Mr. Darwin's long-standing and well-earned scientific emi- 
 nence probably renders him indifferent to that social notoriety 
 which passes by the name of success ; but if the calm spirit of the 
 philosopher have not yet wholly superseded the ambition and 
 the vanity of the carnal man within him, he must be well satis- 
 fied with the results of his venture in publishing the Origin of 
 
 199 
 
200 THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY 
 
 Species. Overflowing the narrow bounds of purely scientific 
 circles, the "species question" divides with Italy and the Volun- 
 teers the attention of general society. Everybody has read Mr. 
 Darwin's book, or, at least, has given an opinion upon its merits 
 or demerits ; pietists, whether lay or ecclesiastic, decry it with 
 the mild railing which sounds so charitable ; bigots denounce it 
 with ignorant invective ; old ladies, of both sexes, consider it a 
 decidedly dangerous book, and even savants, who have no better 
 mud to throw, quote antiquated writers to show that its author 
 is no better than an ape himself ; while every philosophical 
 thinker hails it as a veritable Whitworth gun in the armory of 
 liberalism; and all competent naturalists and physiologists, what- 
 ever their opinions as to the ultimate fate of the doctrines put 
 forth, acknowledge that the work in which they are embodied is 
 a solid contribution to knowledge and inaugurates a new epoch 
 in natural history. 
 
 Nor has the discussion of the subject been restrained within 
 the limits of conversation. When the public is eager and inter- 
 ested, reviewers must minister to its wants ; and the genuine 
 litterateur is too much in the habit of acquiring his knowledge 
 from the book he judges — as the Abyssinian is said to pro\dde 
 himself with steaks from the ox which carries him — to be with- 
 held from criticism of a profound scientific work by the mere 
 want of the requisite preliminary scientific acquirement ; while, 
 on the other hand, the men of science who wish well to the new 
 views, no less than those who dispute their validity, have natu- 
 rally sought opportunities of expressing their opinions. Hence it 
 is not surprising that almost all the critical journals have noticed 
 Mr. Darwin's work at greater or less length; and so many dis- 
 quisitions, of every degree of excellence, from the poor product of 
 ignorance, too often stimulated by prejudice, to the fair and 
 thoughtful essay of the candid student of nature, have appeared, 
 that it seems an almost hopeless task to attempt to say anything 
 new upon the question. 
 
 But it may be doubted if the knowledge and acumen of pre- 
 judged scientific opponents, or the subtlety of orthodox special 
 
DARWIN ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES 201 
 
 pleaders, have yet exerted their full force in mystifying the real 
 issues of the great controversy which has been set afoot, and 
 whose end is hardly likely to be seen by this generation ; so that 
 at this eleventh hour, and even failing anything new, it may be 
 useful to state afresh that which is true, and to put the fundamen- 
 tal positions advocated by Mr. Darwin in such a form that they 
 may be grasped by those whose special studies lie in other direc- 
 tions. And the adoption of this course may be the more ad- 
 visable, because notwithstanding its great deserts, and indeed 
 partly on account of them, the Origin of Species is by no means 
 an easy book to read — if by reading is implied the full compre- 
 hension of an author's meaning. 
 
 We do not speak jestingly in saying that it is Mr. Darwin's 
 misfortune to know more about the question he has taken up 
 than any man living. Personally and practically exercised in 
 zoology, in minute anatomy, in geology ; a student of geographi- 
 cal distribution, not on maps and in museums only, but by long 
 voyages and laborious collection ; having largely advanced each 
 of these branches of science, and having spent many years in 
 gathering and sifting materials for his present work, the store of 
 accurately registered facts upon which the author of the Origin 
 of Species is able to draw at will is prodigious. 
 
 But this very superabundance of matter must have been em- 
 barrassing to a writer who, for the present, can only put forward 
 an abstract of his views; and thence it arises, perhaps, that not- 
 withstanding the clearness of the style, those who attempt fairly 
 to digest the book find much of it a sort of intellectual pemmican 
 — a mass of facts crushed and pounded into shape, rather than 
 held together by the ordinary medium of an obvious logical 
 bond : due attention will, without doubt, discover this bond, but 
 it is often hard to find. 
 
 Again, from sheer want of room, much has to be taken for 
 granted which might readily enough be proved; and hence, while 
 the adept, who can supply the missing links in the evidence from 
 his own knowledge, discovers fresh proof of the singular thor- 
 oughness with which all difficulties have been considered and all 
 
202 THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY 
 
 unjustifiable suppositions avoided, at every reperusal of Mr. 
 Darwin's pregnant paragraphs, the novice in biology is apt to 
 complain of the frequency of what he fancies is gratuitous 
 assumption. 
 
 Thus while it may be doubted if, for some years, any one is 
 likely to be competent to pronounce judgment on all the issues 
 raised by Mr. Darwin, there is assuredly abundant room for him, 
 who, assuming the humbler, though perhaps as useful, office of an 
 interpreter between the Origin of Species and the public, con- 
 tents himself with endeavoring to point out the nature of the 
 problems which it discusses ; to distinguish between the ascer- 
 tained facts and the theoretical views which it contains ; and 
 finally, to show the extent to which the explanation it offers satis- 
 fies the requirements of scientific logic. At any rate, it is this 
 office which we purpose to undertake in the following pages. 
 
 It may be safely assumed that our readers have a general con- 
 ception of the nature of the objects to which the word "species" 
 is applied ; but it has, perhaps, occurred to a few, even to those 
 who are naturalists ex professo, to reflect that, as commonly em- 
 ployed, the term has a double sense and denotes two very differ- 
 ent orders of relations. When we call a group of animals, or 
 of plants, a species, we may imply thereby either that all these 
 animals or plants have some common peculiarity of form or struc- 
 ture; or we may mean that they possess some common func- 
 tional character. That part of biological science which deals 
 with form and structure is called Morphology — that which 
 concerns itself with function. Physiology — so that we may con- 
 veniently speak of these two senses or aspects of "species" — the 
 one as morphological, the other as physiological. Regarded 
 from the former point of view, a species is nothing more than a 
 kind of animal or plant, which is distinctly definable from all 
 others by certain constant and not merely sexual, morphological 
 peculiarities. Thus horses form a species, because the group of 
 animals to which that name is applied is distinguished from all 
 others in the world by the following constantly associated 
 characters. They have (i) A vertebral column; (2) Mammae; 
 
DARWIN ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES 203 
 
 (3) A placental embryo ; (4) Four legs ; (5) A single well-devel- 
 oped toe in each foot provided with a hoof ; (6) A bushy tail ; and 
 (7) Callosities on the inner sides of both the fore and the hind 
 legs. The asses, again, form a distinct species, because, with the 
 same characters, as far as the fifth in the above list, all asses have 
 tufted tails, and have callosities only on the inner side of the fore 
 legs. If animals were discovered having the general characters 
 of the horse, but sometimes with callosities only on the fore legs, 
 and more or less tufted tails ; or animals having the general 
 characters of the ass, but with more or less bushy tails, and some- 
 times with callosities on both pairs of legs, besides being inter- 
 mediate in other respects — the two species would have to be 
 merged into one. They could no longer be regarded as mor- 
 phologically distinct species, for they would not be distinctly 
 definable one from the other. 
 
 However bare and simple this definition of species may appear 
 to be, we confidently appeal to all practical naturalists, whether 
 zoologists, botanists, or paleontologists, to say if, in the vast 
 majority of cases, they know, or mean to affirm, anything more 
 of the group of animals or plants they so denominate than what 
 has just been stated. Even the most decided advocates of the 
 received doctrines respecting species admit this. 
 
 "I apprehend," says Professor Owen,^ "that few naturalists 
 nowadays, in describing and proposing a name for what they 
 call 'a new species,'' use that term to signify what was meant by 
 it twenty or thirty years ago ; that is, an originally distinct crea- 
 tion, maintaining its primitive distinction by obstructive genera- 
 tive peculiarities. The proposer of the new species now intends 
 to state no more than he actually knows ; as for example, tha^ 
 the differences on which he founds the specific character are con- 
 stant in individuals of both sexes, so far as observation has 
 reached ; and that they are not due to domestication or to arti- 
 ficially superinduced external circumstances, or to any outward 
 
 ' "On the Osteology of the Chimpanzees and Orangs," Transactions of the 
 Zoological Society, 1858. 
 
204 THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY 
 
 influence within his cognizance; that the species is wild, or is 
 such as it appears by nature." 
 
 If we consider, in fact, that by far the largest proportion of re- 
 corded existing species are known only by the study of their skins, 
 or bones, or other lifeless exuvia; that we are acquainted with 
 none, or next to none, of their physiological peculiarities be- 
 yond those which can be deduced from their structure, or are 
 open to cursory observation ; and that we cannot hope to learn 
 more of any of those extinct forms of life which now constitute no 
 inconsiderable proportion of the known Flora and Fauna of the 
 world ; it is obvious that the definitions of these species can be only 
 of a purely structural or morphological character. It is probable 
 that naturalists would have avoided much confusion of ideas if 
 they had more frequently borne these necessary limitations of 
 our knowledge in mind. But while it may safely be admitted 
 that we are acquainted with only the morphological characters 
 of the vast majority of species, the functional or physiological 
 pecuharities of a few have been carefully investigated, and the 
 result of that study forms a large and most interesting portion of 
 the physiology of reproduction. 
 
 The student of nature wonders the more and is astonished the 
 less, the more conversant he becomes with her operations ; but 
 of all the perennial miracles she offers to his inspection, perhaps 
 the most worthy of admiration is the development of a plant or of 
 an animal from its embryo. Examine the recently laid egg of 
 some common animal, such as a salamander or a newt. It is a 
 minute spheroid in which the best microscope will reveal nothing 
 but a structureless sac, inclosing a glairy fluid, holding granules 
 in suspension. But strange possibilities lie dormant in that semi- 
 fluid globule. Let a moderate supply of warmth reach its watery 
 cradle, and the plastic matter undergoes changes so rapid and 
 yet so steady and purpose-like in their succession, that one 
 can only compare them to those operated by a skilled modeler 
 upon a formless lump of clay. As with an invisible trowel, the 
 mass is divided and subdivided into smaller and smaller portions. 
 
DARWIN ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES 205 
 
 until it is reduced to an aggregation of granules not too large to 
 build withal the finest fabrics of the nascent organism. And, 
 then, it is as if a delicate finger traced out the line to be occupied 
 by the spinal column, and molded the contour of the body; 
 pinching up the head at one end, the tail at the other, and fash- 
 ioning flank and limb into due salamandrine proportions, in so 
 artistic a way, that, after watching the process hour by hour, one 
 is almost involuntarily possessed by the notion that some more 
 subtle aid to vision than an achromatic would show the hidden 
 artist, with his plan before him, striving with skillful manipula- 
 tion to perfect his work. 
 
 As life advances, and the young amphibian ranges the waters, 
 the terror of his insect contemporaries, not only are the nutri- 
 tious particles supplied by its prey, by the addition of which to 
 its frame growth takes place, laid down, each in its proper spot, 
 and in such due proportion to the rest, as to reproduce the form, 
 the color, and the size, characteristic of the parental stock ; but 
 even the wonderful powers of reproducing lost parts possessed by 
 these animals are controlled by the same governing tendency. 
 Cut off the legs, the tail, the jaws, separately or all together, and, 
 as Spallanzani showed long ago, these parts not only grow again, 
 but the redintegrated limb is formed on the same type as those 
 which were lost. The new jaw or leg is a newt's, and never by 
 any accident more like that of a frog. What is true of the newt is 
 true of every animal and of every plant ; the acorn tends to build 
 itself up again into a woodland giant such as that from whose 
 twig it fell ; the spore of the humblest lichen reproduces the green 
 or brown incrustation which gave it birth ; and at the other end of 
 the scale of life, the child that resembles neither the paternal nor the 
 maternal side of the house would be regarded as a kind of monster. 
 
 So that the one end to which in all living beings the formative 
 impulse is tending — the one scheme which the Archaeus of the 
 old speculators strives to carry out — seems to be to mold the 
 offspring into the likeness of the parent. It is the first great law 
 of reproduction, that the offspring tends to resemble its parent 
 or parents, more closely than anything else. 
 
2o6 THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY 
 
 Science will some day show us how this law is a necessary con- 
 sequence of the more general laws which govern matter ; but for 
 the present, more can hardly be said than that it appears to be 
 in harmony with them. We know that the phenomena of vitality 
 are not something apart from other physical phenomena, but 
 one with them ; and matter and force are the two names of the 
 one artist who fashions the living as well as the lifeless. Hence, 
 living bodies should obey the same great laws as other matter — 
 nor, throughout nature, is there a law of wider application than 
 this, that a body impelled by two forces takes the direction of 
 their resultant. But living bodies may be regarded as nothing 
 but extremely complex bundles of forces held in a mass of matter, 
 as the complex forces of a magnet are held in the steel by its 
 coercive force ; and since the differences of sex are comparatively 
 slight, or, in other words, the sum of the forces in each has a very 
 similar tendency, their resultant, the offspring, may reasonably 
 be expected to deviate but little from a course parallel to either, 
 or to both. 
 
 Represent the reason of the law to ourselves by what physical 
 metaphor or analogy we will, however, the great matter is to 
 apprehend its existence and the importance of the consequences 
 deducible from it. For things which are like to the same are like 
 to one another, and if, in a great series of generations, every off- 
 spring is like its parent, it follows that all the offspring and all the 
 parents must be like one another; and that, given an original 
 parental stock with the opportunity of undisturbed multiplica- 
 tion, the law in question necessitates the production, in course of 
 time, of an indefinitely large group, the whole of whose members 
 are at once very similar and are blood relations, having descended 
 from the same parent, or pair of parents. The proof that all the 
 members of any given group of animals, or plants, had thus de- 
 scended would be ordinarily considered sufficient to entitle them 
 to the rank of physiological species, for most physiologists con- 
 sider species to be definable as " the offspring of a single primitive 
 stock." 
 
 But though it is quite true that all those groups we call species 
 
DARWIN ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES 207 
 
 may, according to the known laws of reproduction, have de- 
 scended from a single stock, and though it is very likely they 
 really have done so, yet this conclusion rests on deduction and 
 can hardly hope to establish itself upon a basis of observation. 
 And the primitiveness of the supposed single stock, which, after 
 all, is the essential part of the matter, is not only a hypothesis, 
 but one which has not a shadow of foundation, if by "primitive" 
 be meant "independent of any other living being." A scientific 
 definition, of which an unwarrantable hypothesis forms an essen- 
 tial part, carries its condemnation within itself ; but even sup- 
 posing such a definition were, in form, tenable, the physiologist 
 who should attempt to apply it in nature would soon find him- 
 self involved in great, if not inextricable difficulties. As we have 
 said, it is indubitable that offspring tend to resemble the parental 
 organism, but it is equally true that the similarity attained never 
 amounts to identity, either in form or in structure. There is al- 
 ways a certain amount of deviation, not only from the precise 
 characters of a single parent, but when, as in most animals and 
 many plants, the sexes are lodged in distinct individuals, from 
 an exact mean between the two parents. And, indeed, on gen- 
 eral principles, this slight deviation seems as intelligible as the 
 general similarity, if we reflect how complex the cooperating 
 "bundles of forces" are, and how improbable it is that, in any 
 case, their true resultant shall coincide with any mean between 
 the more obvious characters of the two parents. Whatever be 
 its cause, however, the coexistence of this tendency to minor 
 variation with the tendency to general similarity is of vast im- 
 portance in its bearing on the question of the origin of species. 
 
 As a general rule, the extent to which an offspring differs from 
 its parent is slight enough ; but, occasionally, the amount of 
 difference is much more strongly marked, and then the divergent 
 offspring receives the name of a Variety. Multitudes, of what 
 there is every reason to believe are such varieties, are known, but 
 the origin of very few has been accurately recorded, and of these 
 we will select two as more especially illustrative of the main fea- 
 tures of variation. The first of them is that of the " Ancon," or 
 
2o8 THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY 
 
 "Otter" sheep, of which a careful account is given by Colonel 
 David Humphreys, F.R.S., in a letter to Sir Joseph Banks, pub- 
 lished in the Philosophical Transactions for 1813. It appears 
 that one Seth Wright, the proprietor of a farm on the banks of 
 the Charles River, in Massachusetts, possessed a flock of fifteen 
 ewes and a ram of the ordinary kind. In the year 1791 one of 
 the ewes presented her owner with a male lamb, differing, for no 
 assignable reason, from its parents by a proportionally long body 
 and short bandy legs, whence it was unable to emulate its rela- 
 tives in those sportive leaps over the neighbors' fences, in which 
 they were in the habit of indulging, much to the good farmer's 
 vexation. 
 
 The second case is that detailed by a no less unexceptionable 
 authority than Reaumur, in his Art de faire eclore les Poulets. 
 A Maltese couple, named Kelleia, whose hands and feet were con- 
 structed upon the ordinary human model, had born to them a son, 
 Gratio, who possessed six perfectly movable fingers on each hand 
 and six toes, not quite so well formed, on each foot. No cause 
 could be assigned for the appearance of this unusual variety of 
 the human species. 
 
 Two circumstances are well worthy of remark in both these 
 cases. In each, the variety appears to have arisen in full force, 
 and, as it were, per saltum^ ; a wide and definite difference ap- 
 pearing, at once, between the Ancon ram and the ordinary sheep ; 
 between the six-fingered and six-toed Gratio Kelleia and ordinary 
 men. In neither case is it possible to point out any obvious 
 reason for the appearance of the variety. Doubtless there were 
 determining causes for these, as for all other phenomena ; but 
 they do not appear, and we can be tolerably certain that what are 
 ordinarily understood as changes in physical conditions, as in 
 climate, in food, or the like, did not take place and had nothing 
 to do with the matter. It was no case of what is commonly called 
 adaptation to circumstances ; but, to use a conveniently erro- 
 neous phrase, the variations arose spontaneously. The fruitless 
 search after final causes leads their pursuers a long way; but 
 1 At a jump. — Editors. 
 
 I 
 
DARWIN ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES 209 
 
 even those hardy teleologists, who are ready to break through all 
 the laws of physics in chase of their favorite will-o'-the-wisp, may 
 be puzzled to discover what purpose could be attained by the 
 stunted legs of Seth Wright's ram or the hexadactyl members of 
 Gratio Kelleia. 
 
 Varieties then arise we know not why ; and it is more than prob- 
 able that the majority of varieties have arisen in the spontaneous 
 manner, though we are, of course, far from denying that they 
 may be traced, in some cases, to distinct external influences 
 which are assuredly competent to alter the character of the tegu- 
 mentary covering, to change color, to increase or diminish the 
 size of muscles, to modify constitution, and, among plants, to 
 give rise to the metamorphosis of stamens into petals, and so 
 forth. But however they may have arisen, what especially in- 
 terests us at present is to remark that, once in existence, varieties 
 obey the fundamental law of reproduction that like tends to 
 produce like, and their offspring exemplify it by tending to ex- 
 hibit the same deviation from the parental stock as themselves. 
 Indeed, there seems to be, in many instances, a prepotent influ- 
 ence about a newly arisen variety which gives it what one may 
 call an unfair advantage over the normal descendants from the 
 same stock. This is strikingly exemplified by the case of Gratio 
 Kelleia, who married a woman with the ordinary pentadactyl ex- 
 tremities, and had by her four children, Salvator, George, Andre, 
 and Marie. Of these children Salvator, the eldest boy, had six 
 fingers and six toes, like his father; the second and third, also boys, 
 had five fingers and five toes, like their mother, though the hands 
 and feet of George were slightly deformed ; the last, a girl, had 
 five fingers and five toes, but the thumbs were slightly deformed. 
 The variety thus reproduced itself purely in the eldest, while the 
 normal type reproduced itself purely in the third, and almost 
 purely in the second and last : so that it would seem, at first, as 
 if the normal type were more powerful than the variety. But all 
 these children grew up and intermarried with normal wives and 
 husbands, and then, note what took place : Salvator had four 
 children, three of whom exhibited the hexadactyl members of 
 
2IO THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY 
 
 their grandfather and father, while the youngest had the penta- 
 dactyl limbs of the mother and grandmother ; so that here, not- 
 withstanding a double pentadactyl dilution of the blood, the 
 hexadactyl variety had the best of it. The same prepotency 
 of the variety was still more markedly exemplified in the progeny 
 of two of the other children, Marie and George. Marie (whose 
 thumbs only were deformed) gave birth to a boy with six toes, 
 and three other normally formed children ; but George, who was 
 not quite so pure a pentadactyl, begot, first, two girls, each of 
 whom had six fingers and toes ; then a girl with six fingers on 
 each hand and six toes on the right foot, but only five toes on the 
 left ; and lastly, a boy with only five fingers and toes. In the^e 
 instances, therefore, the variety, as it were, leaped over one gen- 
 eration to reproduce itself in full force in the next. Finally, the 
 purely pentadactyl Andre was the father of many children, not 
 one of whom departed from the normal parental type. 
 
 If a variation which approaches the nature of a monstrosity 
 can strive thus forcibly to reproduce itself, it is not wonderful 
 that less aberrant modifications should tend to be preserved even 
 more strongly ; and the history of the Ancon sheep is, in this re- 
 spect, particularly instructive. With the "cuteness" charac- 
 teristic of their nation, the neighbors of the Massachusetts 
 farmer imagined it would be an excellent thing if all his sheep 
 were imbued with the stay-at-home tendencies enforced by na- 
 ture upon the newly arrived ram ; and they advised Wright to 
 kill the old patriarch of his fold, and install the Ancon ram in his 
 place. The result justified their sagacious anticipations, and 
 coincided very nearly with what occurred to the progeny of 
 Gratio Kelleia. The young lambs were almost always either pure 
 Ancons or pure ordinary sheep. But when sufficient Ancon 
 sheep were obtained to interbreed with one another, it was found 
 that the offspring was always pure Ancon. Colonel Humphreys, 
 in fact, states that he was acquainted with only "one question- 
 able case of a contrary nature." Here, then, is a remarkable and 
 well-established instance, not only of a very distinct race being 
 established per saltmn, but of that race breeding "true" at once, 
 
DARWIN ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES 211 
 
 and showing no mixed forms, even when crossed with another 
 breed. 
 
 By taking care to select Ancons of both sexes for breeding 
 from, it thus became easy to establish an extremely well-marked 
 race, so peculiar that even when herded with other sheep, it was 
 noted that the Ancons kept together. And there is every reason 
 to believe that the existence of this breed might have been in- 
 definitely protracted ; but the introduction of the Merino sheep, 
 which were not only very superior to the Ancons in wool and 
 meat, but quite as quiet and orderly, led to the complete neglect 
 of the new breed, so that, in 1813, Colonel Humphreys found it 
 difl5cult to obtain the specimen whose skeleton was presented to 
 Sir Joseph Banks. We believe that for many years no remnant 
 of it has existed in the United States. 
 
 Gratio Kelleia was not the progenitor of a race of six-fingered 
 men, as Seth Wright's ram became a nation of Ancon sheep, 
 though the tendency of the variety to perpetuate itself appears to 
 have been fully as strong in the one case as in the other. And 
 the reason of the difference is not far to seek. Seth Wright took 
 care not to weaken the Ancon blood by matching his Ancon 
 ewes with any but males of the same variety, while Gratio 
 Kelleia's sons were too far removed from the patriarchal times to 
 intermarry with their sisters ; and his grandchildren seem not to 
 have been attracted by their six-fingered cousins. In other 
 words, in the one example a race was produced, because, for sev- 
 eral generations, care was taken to select both parents of the breed- 
 ing stock from animals exhibiting a tendency to vary in the 
 same direction ; while in the other no race was evolved, because 
 no such selection was exercised. A race is a propagated variety, 
 and as, by the laws of reproduction, offspring tend to assume 
 the parental forms, they will be more likely to propagate a 
 variation exhibited by both parents than that possessed by only 
 one. 
 
 There is no organ of the body of an animal which may not, and 
 does not, occasionally, vary more or less from the normal type ; 
 and there is no variation which may not be transmitted, and 
 
212 THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY 
 
 which, if selectively transmitted, may not become the founda- 
 tion of a race. This great truth, sometimes forgotten by phi- 
 losophers, has long been familiar to practical agriculturists and 
 breeders; and upon it rest all the methods of improving the 
 breeds of domestic animals, which for the last century have been 
 followed with so much success in England. Color, form, size, 
 texture of hair or wool, proportions of various parts, strength 
 or weakness of constitution, tendency to fatten or to remain lean, 
 to give much or little milk, speed, strength, temper, intelligence, 
 special instincts ; there is not one of these characters whose trans- 
 mission is not an everyday occurrence within the experience of 
 cattle breeders, stock farmers, horse dealers, and dog and poultry 
 fanciers. Nay, it is only the other day that an eminent physiol- 
 ogist. Dr. Brown Sequard, communicated to the Royal Society 
 his discovery that epilepsy, artificially produced in guinea pigs, 
 by a means which he has discovered, is transmitted to their off- 
 spring. 
 
 But a race, once produced, is no more a fixed and immutable 
 entity than the stock whence it sprang ; variations arise among 
 its members, and as these variations are transmitted like any 
 others, new races may be developed out of the preexisting one 
 ad infinitum, or, at least, within any limit at present determined. 
 Given sufficient time and sufficiently careful selection, and the 
 multitude of races which may arise from a common stock is as 
 astonishing as are the extreme structural differences which they 
 may present. A remarkable example of this is to be found in 
 the rock pigeon, which Mr. Darwin has, in our opinion, satis- 
 factorily demonstrated to be the progenitor of all our domestic 
 pigeons, of which there are certainly more than a hundred well- 
 marked races. The most noteworthy of these races are the four 
 great stocks known to the "fancy" as tumblers, pouters ^ carriers, 
 and f antails — birds which not only differ most singularly in size, 
 color, and habits, but in the form of the beak and of the skull ; in 
 the proportions of the beak to the skull ; in the number of tail- 
 feathers; in the absolute and relative size of the feet; in the 
 presence or absence of the uropygial gland; in the number of 
 
 
L 
 
 DARWIN ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES 213 
 
 vertebrae in the back ; in short, in precisely those characters 
 in which the genera and species of birds differ from one 
 another. 
 
 And it is most remarkable and instructive to observe that 
 none of these races can be shown to have been originated by the 
 action of changes in what are commonly called external circum- 
 stances, upon the wild rock pigeon. On the contrary, from time 
 immemorial, pigeon fanciers have had essentially similar methods 
 of treating their pets, which have been housed, fed, protected, and 
 cared for in much the same way in all pigeonries. In fact, there 
 is no case better adapted than that of the pigeons to refute the 
 doctrine which one sees put forth on high authority, that "no 
 other characters than those founded on the development of bone 
 for the attachment of muscles " are capable ,of variation. In pre- 
 cise contradiction of this hasty assertion, Mr. Darwin's re- 
 searches prove that the skeleton of the wings in domestic pigeons 
 has hardly varied at all from that of the wild type ; while, on the 
 other hand, it is in exactly those respects, such as the relative 
 length of the beak and skull, the number of the vertebrae, and 
 the number of the tail-feathers, in which muscular exertion can 
 have no important influence, that the utmost amount of varia- 
 tion has taken place. 
 
 We have said that the following out of the properties exhibited 
 by physiological species would lead us into difficulties, and at 
 this point they begin to be obvious ; for if, as a result of spon- 
 taneous variation and of selective breeding, the progeny of a 
 common stock may become separated into groups distinguished 
 from one another by constant, not sexual, morphological charac- 
 ters, it is clear that the physiological definition of species is likely 
 to clash with the morphological definition. No one would hesi- 
 tate to describe the pouter and the tumbler as distinct species, 
 if they were found fossil, or if their skins and skeletons were 
 imported, as those of exotic wild birds commonly are; and, 
 without doubt, if considered alone, they are good and distinct 
 morphological species. On the other hand, they are not physi- 
 
214 THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY 
 
 ological species, for they are descended from a common stock, 
 the rock pigeon. 
 
 Under these circumstances, as it is admitted on all sides that 
 races occur in nature, how are we to know whether any appar- 
 ently distinct animals are really of different physiological species, 
 or not, seeing that the amount of morphological difference is no 
 safe guide ? Is there any test of a physiological species ? The 
 usual answer of physiologists is in the affirmative. It is said 
 that such a test is to be found in the phenomena of hybridization 
 — in the results of crossing races, as compared with the results of 
 crossing species. 
 
 So far as the evidence goes at present, individuals, of what are 
 certainly known to be mere races produced by selection, however 
 distinct they may appear to be, not only breed freely together, 
 but the offspring of such crossed races are also perfectly fertile 
 with one another. Thus, the spaniel and the greyhound, the 
 dray horse and the Arab, the pouter and the tumbler, breed to- 
 gether with perfect freedom, and their mongrels, if matched with 
 other mongrels of the same kind, are equally fertile. 
 
 On the other hand, there can be no doubt that the individuals 
 of many natural species are either absolutely infertile, if crossed 
 with individuals of other species, or, if they give rise to hybrid 
 offspring, the hybrids so produced are infertile when paired to- 
 gether. The horse and the ass, for instance, if so crossed, give rise 
 to the mule, and there is no certain evidence of offspring ever 
 having been produced by a male and female mule. The unions 
 of the rock pigeon and the ring pigeon appear to be equally 
 barren of result. Here, then, says the physiologist, we have a 
 means of distinguishing any two true species from any two varie- 
 ties. If a male and a female, selected from each group, produce 
 oifspring, and that offspring is fertile with others produced in the 
 same way, the groups are races and not species. If, on the other 
 hand, no result ensues, or if the offspring are infertile with others 
 produced in the same way, they are true physiological species. 
 The test would be an admirable one, if, in the first place, it were 
 always practicable to apply it, and if, in the second, it always 
 
DARWIN ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES 215 
 
 yielded results susceptible of a definite interpretation. Unfortu- 
 nately, in the great majority of cases, this touchstone for species 
 is wholly inapplicable. 
 
 The constitution of many wild animals is so altered by confine- 
 ment that they will not even breed with their own females, so 
 that the negative results obtained from crosses are of no value, 
 and the antipathy of wild animals of different species for one 
 another, or even of wild and tame members of the same species, 
 is ordinarily so great that it is hopeless to look for such unions in 
 nature. The hermaphrodism of most plants, the difficulty in the 
 way of ensuring the absence of their own, or the proper working 
 of other pollen, are obstacles of no less magnitude in applying the 
 test to them. And in both animals and plants is superadded the 
 further difficulty, that experiments must be continued over a long 
 time for the purpose of ascertaining the fertility of the mongrel 
 or hybrid progeny, as well as of the first crosses from which they 
 spring. 
 
 Not only do these great practical difficulties lie in the way of 
 applying the hybridization test, but even when this oracle can 
 be questioned, its replies are sometimes as doubtful as those of 
 Delphi. For example, cases are cited by Mr. Darwin, of plants 
 which are more fertile with the pollen of another species than with 
 their own ; and there are others, such as certain /z^c/, whose male 
 element will fertilize the ovule of a plant of distinct species, while 
 the males of the latter species are ineffective with the females of 
 the first. So that, in the last-named instance, a physiologist 
 who should cross the two species in one way, would decide that 
 they were true species ; while another, who should cross them in 
 the reverse way, would, with equal justice, according to the rule, 
 pronounce them to be mere races. Several plants, which there 
 is great reason to believe are mere varieties, are almost sterile 
 when crossed; while both animals and plants, which have al- 
 ways been regarded by naturalists as of distinct species, turn out, 
 when the test is applied, to be perfectly fertile. Again, the sterility 
 or fertility of crosses seems to bear no relation to the structural 
 resemblances or differences of the members of any two groups. 
 
2i6 THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY 
 
 Mr. Darwin has discussed this question with singular ability 
 and circumspection, and his conclusions are summed up as 
 follows, at page 276 of his work : — 
 
 "First crosses between forms sufficiently distinct to be ranked 
 as species, and their hybrids, are very generally, but not uni- 
 versally, sterile. The sterility is of all degrees, and is often so 
 slight that the two most careful experimentalists who have ever 
 lived have come to diametrically opposite conclusions in rank- 
 ing forms by this test. The sterility is innately variable in in- 
 dividuals of the same species, and is eminently susceptible of 
 favorable and unfavorable conditions. The degree of sterility 
 does not strictly follow systematic affinity, but is governed by 
 several curious and complex laws. It is generally different, and 
 sometimes widely different, in reciprocal crosses between the 
 same two species. It is not always equal in degree in a first 
 cross, and in the hybrid produced from this cross. 
 
 "In the same manner as in grafting trees, the capacity of one 
 species or variety to take on another is incidental on generally 
 unknown differences in their vegetative systems; so in crossing, 
 the greater or less facility of one species to unite with another is 
 incidental on unknown differences in their reproductive systems. 
 There is no more reason to think that species have been specially 
 endowed with various degrees of sterility to prevent them cross- 
 ing and breeding in nature, than to think that trees have been 
 specially endowed with various and somewhat analogous degrees 
 of difiiculty in being grafted together, in order to prevent them 
 becoming inarched in our forests. 
 
 " The sterility of first crosses between pure species, which hav€ 
 their reproductive systems perfect, seems to depend on several 
 circumstances ; in some cases largely on the early death of the 
 embryo. The sterility of hybrids which have their reproductive 
 systems imperfect, and which have had this system and their 
 whole organization disturbed by being compounded of two dis- 
 tinct species, seems closely allied to that sterility which so fre- 
 quently affects pure species when their natural conditions of life 
 have been disturbed. This view is supported by a parallelism 
 
 I 
 
DARWIN ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES 217 
 
 of another kind ; namely, that the crossing of forms only slightly 
 different is favorable to the vigor and fertility of the offspring ; 
 and that slight changes in the conditions of life are apparently 
 favorable to the vigor and fertility of all organic beings. It is 
 not surprising that the degree of difficulty in uniting two species, 
 and the degree of sterility of their hybrid offspring should gener- 
 ally correspond, though due to distinct causes ; for both depend 
 on the amount of difference of some kind between the species 
 which are crossed. Nor is it surprising that the facility of effect- 
 ing a first cross, the fertility of hybrids produced from it, and the 
 capacity of being grafted together — though this latter capacity 
 evidently depends on widely different circumstances — should all 
 run to a certain extent parallel with the systematic affinity of the 
 forms which are subjected to experiment ; for systematic affinity 
 attempts to express all kinds of resemblance between all species. 
 
 " First crosses between forms known to be varieties, or suffi- 
 ciently alike to be considered as varieties, and their mongrel 
 offspring, are very generally, but not quite universally, fertile. 
 Nor is this nearly general and perfect fertility surprising, when 
 we remember how liable we are to argue in a circle with respect 
 to varieties in a state of nature ; and when we remember that 
 the greater number of varieties have been produced under do- 
 mestication by the selection of mere external differences, and 
 not of differences in the reproductive system. In all other re- 
 spects, excluding fertility, there is a close general resemblance 
 between hybrids and mongrels." 
 
 We fully agree with the general tenor of this weighty passage, 
 but forcible as are these arguments, and little as the value of 
 fertility or infertility as a test of species may be, it must not be 
 forgotten that the really important fact, so far as the inquiry 
 into the origin of species goes, is, that there are such things in 
 nature as groups of animals and of plants, whose members are 
 incapable of fertile union with those of other groups ; and that 
 there are such things as hybrids, which are absolutely sterile when 
 crossed with other hybrids. For if such phenomena as these 
 were exhibited by only two of those assemblages of living objects, 
 
2i8 THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY 
 
 to which the name of species (whether it be used in its physio- 
 logical or in its morphological sense) is given, it would have to be 
 accounted for by any theory of the origin of species, and every 
 theory which could not account for it would be, so far, imperfect. 
 
 Up to this point we have been dealing with matters of fact, 
 and the statements which we have laid before the reader would, 
 to the best of our knowledge, be admitted to contain a fair expo- 
 sition of what is at present known respecting the essential prop- 
 erties of species, by all who have studied the question. And 
 whatever may be his theoretical views, no naturalist will prob- 
 ably be disposed to demur to the following summary of that 
 exposition : — 
 
 Living beings, whether animals or plants, are divisible into 
 multitudes of distinctly definable kinds, which are morphological 
 species. They are also divisible into groups of individuals, which 
 breed freely together, tending to reproduce their like, and are 
 physiological species. Normally, resembling their parents, the 
 offspring of members of these species are still liable to vary, and 
 the variation may be perpetuated by selection, as a race, which 
 race, in many cases, presents all the characteristics of a morpho- 
 logical species. But it is not as yet proved that a race ever 
 exhibits, when crossed with another race of the same species, 
 those phenomena of hybridization which are exhibited by many 
 species when crossed with other species. On the other hand, 
 not only is it not proved that all species give rise to hybrids in- 
 fertile inter se, but there is much reason to believe that, in cross- 
 ing, species exhibit every gradation from perfect sterility to per- 
 fect fertility. 
 
 Such are the most essential characteristics of species. Even 
 were man not one of them — a member of the same system and 
 subject to the same laws — the question of theii- origin, their 
 causal connection, that is, with the other phenomena of the 
 universe, must have attracted his attention, as soon as his intelli- 
 gence had raised itself above the level of his daily wants. 
 
 Indeed, history relates that such was the case, and has em- 
 balmed for us the speculations upon the origin of living beings,. 
 
DARWIN ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES 219 
 
 which were among the earliest products of the dawning intellec- 
 tual activity of man. In those early days positive knowledge 
 was not to be had, but the craving after it needed, at all hazards, 
 to be satisfied, and according to the country, or the turn of 
 thought of the speculator, the suggestion that all living things 
 arose from the mud of the Nile, from a primeval egg, or from 
 some more anthropomorphic agency, afforded a sufficient rest- 
 ing place for his curiosity. The myths of Paganism are as dead 
 as Osiris or Zeus, and the man who should revive them, in oppo- 
 sition to the knowledge of our time, would be justly laughed to 
 scorn ; but the coeval imaginations current among the rude 
 inhabitants of Palestine, recorded by writers whose very name 
 and age are admitted by every scholar to be unknown, have un- 
 fortunately not yet shared their fate, but, even at this day, are 
 regarded by nine tenths of the civilized world as the authorita- 
 tive standard of fact and the criterion of the justice of scientific 
 conclusions, in all that relates to the origin of things, and, among 
 them, of species. In this nineteenth century, as at the dawn of 
 modern physical science, the cosmogony of the semibarbarous 
 Hebrew is the incubus of the philosopher and the opprobrium 
 of the orthodox. Who shall number the patient and earnest 
 seekers after truth, from the days of Galileo until now, whose 
 lives have been embittered and their good name blasted by the 
 mistaken zeal of bibliolaters? Who shall count the host of 
 weaker men whose sense of truth has been destroyed in the effort 
 to harmonize impossibilities — whose life has been wasted in the 
 attempt to force the generous new wine of science into the old 
 bottles of Judaism, compelled by the outcry of the same strong 
 party ? 
 
 It is true that if philosophers have suffered, their cause has been 
 amply avenged. Extinguished theologians lie about the cradle 
 of every science as the strangled snakes beside that of Hercules ; 
 and history records that whenever science and orthodoxy 
 have been fairly opposed, the latter has been forced to retire 
 from the lists, bleeding and crushed, if not annihilated ; scotched, 
 if not slain. But orthodoxy is the Bourbon of the world of 
 
220 THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY 
 
 thought. It learns not, neither can it forget ; and though at 
 present bewildered and afraid to move, it is as willing as ever to 
 insist that the first chapter of Genesis contains the beginning 
 and the end of sound science, and to visit with such petty thun- 
 derbolts as its half-paralyzed hands can hurl, those who refuse 
 to degrade nature to the level of primitive Judaism. 
 
 Philosophers, on the other hand, have no such aggressive ten- 
 dencies. With eyes fixed on the noble goal to which per as per a 
 et ardua ^ they tend, they may, now and then, be stirred to 
 momentary wrath by the unnecessary obstacles with which the 
 ignorant or the malicious encumber, if they cannot bar, the 
 difficult path ; but why should their souls be deeply vexed ? 
 The majesty of Fact is on their side, and the elemental forms of 
 nature are working for them. Not a star comes to the meridian 
 at its calculated time but testifies to the justice of their methods 
 — their beliefs are "one with the falling rain and with the grow- 
 ing corn." By doubt they are established, and open inquiry is 
 their bosom friend. Such men have no fear of traditions, however 
 venerable, and no respect for them when they become mischiev- 
 ous and obstructive ; but they have better than mere antiquarian 
 business in hand, and if dogmas, which ought to be fossil but are 
 not, are not forced upon their notice, they are too happy to treat 
 them as nonexistent. 
 
 The hypotheses respecting the origin of species which profess 
 to stand upon a scientific basis, and, as such, alone demand 
 serious attention, are of two kinds. The one, the "special crea- 
 tion" hypothesis, presumes every species to have originated 
 from one or more stocks, these not being the result of the modi- 
 fication of any other form of living matter — or arising by natu- 
 ral agencies — but being produced, as such, by a supernatural 
 creative act. 
 
 The other, the so-called "transmutation" hypothesis, con- 
 siders that all existing species are the result of the modification of 
 preexisting species and those of their predecessors, by agencies 
 ^ By rough and steep paths. — Editors. 
 
DARWIN ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES 221 
 
 similar to those which at the present day produce varieties and 
 races, and therefore in an altogether natural way ; and it is a 
 probable, though not a necessary consequence of this hypothesis, 
 that all living beings have arisen from a single stock. With 
 respect to the origin of this primitive stock or stocks, the doc- 
 trine of the origin of species is obviously not necessarily concerned. 
 The transmutation hypothesis, for example, is perfectly consist- 
 ent either with the conception of a special creation of the primi- 
 tive germ, or with the supposition of its having arisen, as a modi- 
 fication of inorganic matter, by natural causes. 
 
 The doctrine of special creation owes its existence very largely 
 to the supposed necessity of making science accord with the 
 Hebrew cosmogony; but it is curious to observe that, as the 
 doctrine is at present maintained by men of science, it is as hope- 
 lessly inconsistent with the Hebrew view as any other (hypothesis. 
 
 If there be any result which has come more clearly out of geo- 
 logical investigation than another, it is, that the vast series of 
 extinct animals and plants is not divisible, as it was once sup- 
 posed to be, into distinct groups, separated by sharply marked 
 boundaries. There are no great gulfs between epochs and forma- 
 tions — no successive periods marked by the appearance of 
 plants, of water animals, and of land animals, en masse. Every 
 year adds to the list of links between what the older geologists 
 supposed to be widely separated epochs : witness the crags 
 linking the Drift with the older Tertiaries ; the Maestricht beds 
 linking the Tertiaries with the Chalk ; the St. Cassian beds ex- 
 hibiting an abundant fauna of mixed Mesozoic and Paleozoic 
 types, in rocks of an epoch once supposed to be eminently poor 
 in life ; witness, lastly, the incessant disputes as to whether a 
 given stratum shall be reckoned Devonian or Carboniferous, Si- 
 lurian or Devonian, Cambrian or Silurian. 
 
 This truth is further illustrated in a most interesting manner 
 by the impartial and highly competent testimony of M. Pictet, 
 from whose calculations of what percentage of the genera of 
 animals existing in any formation lived during the preceding 
 formation, it results that in no case is the proportion less than 
 
2 22 THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY 
 
 one third, or ^t, per cent. It is the Triassic formation, or the 
 commencement of the Mesozoic epoch, which has received this 
 smallest inheritance from preceding ages. The other formations 
 not uncommonly exhibit 60, 80, or even 94 per cent of genera in 
 common with those whose remains are embedded in their prede- 
 cessor. Not only is this true, but the subdivisions of each forma- 
 tion exhibit new species characteristic of, and found only in, 
 them ; and in many cases, as in the Lias, for example, the separate 
 beds of these subdivisions are distinguished by well-marked and 
 peculiar forms of life. A section a hundred feet thick will ex- 
 hibit at different heights a dozen species of ammonite, none of 
 which passes beyond its particular zone of limestone or clay 
 into the zone below it or into that above it ; so that those who 
 adopt the doctrine of special creation must be prepared to admit, 
 that at intervals of time, corresponding with the thickness of 
 these beds, the Creator thought fit to interfere with the natural 
 course of events for the purpose of making a new ammonite. 
 It is not easy to transplant one's self into the frame of mind of 
 those who can accept such a conclusion as this, on any evidence 
 short of absolute demonstration ; and it is difficult to see what 
 is to be gained by so doing, since, as we have said, it is obvious 
 that such a view of the origin of living beings is utterly opposed 
 to the Hebrew cosmogony. Deserving no aid from the powerful 
 arm of bibliolatry, then, does the received form of the hypothesis 
 of special creation derive any support from science or sound 
 logic ? Assuredly not much. The arguments brought forward 
 in its favor all take one form : If species were not supernaturally 
 created, we cannot understand the facts x, or y, or z; we cannot 
 understand the structure of animals or plants, unless we suppose 
 they were contrived for special ends ; we cannot understand the 
 structure of the eye, except by supposing it to have been made 
 to see with ; we cannot understand instincts, unless we suppose 
 animals to have been miraculously endowed with them. 
 
 As a question of dialectics, it must be admitted that this sort 
 of reasoning is not very formidable to those who are not to be 
 frightened by consequences. It is an argumentum ad ignoran- 
 
DARWIN ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES 223 
 
 tiam — take this explanation or be ignorant. But suppose we 
 prefer to admit our ignorance rather than adopt a hypothesis at 
 variance with all the teachings of nature ? Or suppose for a 
 moment we admit the explanation, and then seriously ask our- 
 selves how much the wiser are we ? what does the explanation 
 explain ? Is it any more than a grandiloquent way of announc- 
 ing the fact that we really know nothing about the matter ? A 
 phenomenon is explained when it is shown to be a case of some 
 general law of nature ; but the supernatural interposition of the 
 Creator can by the nature of the case exemplify no law, and if 
 species have really arisen in this way, it is absurd to attempt to 
 discuss their origin. 
 
 Or, lastly, let us ask ourselves whether any amount of evi- 
 dence which the nature of our faculties permits us to attain, can 
 justify us in asserting that any phenomenon is out of the reach of 
 natural causation. To this end it is obviously necessary that we 
 should know all the consequences to which all possible combina- 
 tions, continued through unlimited time, can give rise. If we 
 knew these, and found none competent to originate species, we 
 should have good ground for denying their origin by natural 
 causation. Till we know them, any hypothesis is better than 
 one which involves us in such miserable presumption. 
 
 But the hypothesis of special creation is not only a mere 
 specious mask for our ignorance ; its existence in Biology marks 
 the youth and imperfection of the science. For what is the his- 
 tory of every science but the history of the elimination of the 
 notion of creative, or other interferences, with the natural order 
 of the phenomena which are the subject matter of that science ? 
 When Astronomy was young, " the morning stars sang together 
 for joy," and the planets were guided in their courses by celestial 
 hands. Now, the harmony of the stars has resolved itself into 
 gravitation according to the inverse squares of the distances, and 
 the orbits of the planets are deducible from the laws of the forces 
 which allow a schoolboy's stone to break a window. The Hght- 
 ning was the angel of the Lord ; but it has pleased Providence, 
 in these modern times, that science should make it the humble 
 
224 THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY 
 
 messenger of man, and we know that every flash that shimmers 
 about the horizon on a summer's evening is determined by ascer- 
 tainable conditions, and that its direction and brightness might, 
 if our knowledge of these were great enough, have been calcu- 
 lated. 
 
 The solvency of great mercantile companies rests on the 
 validity of the laws which have been ascertained to govern the 
 seeming irregularity of that human life which the moralist be- 
 wails as the most uncertain of things; plague, pestilence, and 
 famine are admitted, by all but fools, to be the natural result of 
 causes for the most part fully within human control, and not the 
 unavoidable tortures inflicted by wrathful Omnipotence upon his 
 helpless handiwork. 
 
 Harmonious order governing eternally continuous progress, 
 the web and woof of matter and force interweaving by slow de- 
 grees, without a broken thread, that veil which lies between us 
 and the Infinite — that universe which alone we know, or can 
 know — such is the picture which science draws of the world, 
 and in proportion as any part of that picture is in unison 
 with the rest, so may we feel sure that it is rightly painted. 
 Shall Biology alone remain out of harmony with her sister 
 sciences ? 
 
 Such arguments against the hypothesis of the direct creation 
 of species as these are plainly enough deducible from general 
 considerations ; but there are, in addition, phenomena exhibited 
 by species themselves, and yet not so much a part of their very 
 essence as to have required earlier mention, which are in the high- 
 est degree perplexing, if we adopt the popularly accepted hy- 
 pothesis. Such are the facts of distribution in space and in time ; 
 the singular phenomena brought to light by the study of develop- 
 ment ; the structural relations of species upon which our systems 
 of classification are founded ; the great doctrines of philosophical 
 anatomy, such as that of homology, or of the community of 
 structural plan exhibited by large groups of species differing very 
 widely in their habits and functions. 
 
 The species of animals which inhabit the sea on opposite sides 
 
DARWIN ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES 225 
 
 of the isthmus of Panama are wholly distinct ; ^ the animals and 
 plants which inhabit islands are commonly distinct from those 
 of the neighboring mainlands, and yet have a similarity of 
 aspect. The mammals of the latest Tertiary epoch in the Old 
 and New Worlds belong to the same genera, or family groups, as 
 those which now inhabit the same great geographical area. The 
 crocodilian reptiles which existed in the earliest Secondary epoch 
 were similar in general structure to those now Hving, but exhibit 
 slight differences in their vertebrae, nasal passages, and one or 
 two other points. The guinea pig has teeth which are shed before 
 it is born, and hence can never subserve the masticatory purpose 
 for which they seem contrived, and, in like manner, the female 
 dugong has tusks which never cut the gum. All the members of 
 the same great group run through similar conditions in their de- 
 velopment, and all their parts, in the adult state, are arranged 
 according to the same plan. Man is more like a gorilla than a 
 gorilla is like a lemur. Such are a few, taken at random, among 
 the multitudes of similar facts which modern research has estab- 
 lished ; but when the student seeks for an explanation of them 
 from the supporters of the received hypothesis of the origin of 
 species, the reply he receives is, in substance, of oriental simplic- 
 ity and brevity — "Mashallah ! it so pleases God !" There are 
 different species on opposite sides of the isthmus of Panama, 
 because they were created different on the two sides. The Plio- 
 cene mammals are like the existing ones, because such was the 
 plan of creation ; and we find rudimental organs and similarity 
 of plan, because it has pleased the Creator to set before himself 
 a "divine exemplar or archetype," and to copy it in his works ; 
 and somewhat ill, those who hold this view imply, in some of 
 them. That such verbal hocus-pocus should be received as 
 science will one day be regarded as evidence of the low state of 
 intelligence in the nineteenth century, just as we amuse ourselves 
 with the phraseology about Nature's abhorrence of a vacuum, 
 wherewith Torricelli's compatriots were satisfied to explain the 
 
 1 Recent investigations tend to show that this statement is not strictly 
 accurate (1870). 
 
226 THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY 
 
 rise of water in a pump. And be it recollected that this sort of 
 satisfaction works not only negative, but positive ill, by dis- 
 couraging inquiry, and so depriving man of the usufruct of one 
 of the most fertile fields of his great patrimony, Nature. 
 
 The objections to the doctrine of origin of species by special 
 creation which have been detailed must have occurred with more 
 or less force to the mind of every one who has seriously and inde- 
 pendently considered the subject. It is therefore no wonder 
 that, from time to time, this hypothesis should have been met by 
 counter hypotheses, all as well, and some better, founded than 
 itself ; and it is curious to remark that the inventors of the op- 
 posing views seem to have been led into them as much by their 
 knowledge of geology as by their acquaintance with biology. In 
 fact, when the mind has once admitted the conception of the 
 gradual production of the present physical state of our globe, 
 by natural causes operating through long ages of time, it will be 
 little disposed to allow that living beings have made their appear- 
 ance in another way, and the speculations of De Maillet and his 
 successors are the natural complement of Scilla's demonstration 
 of the true nature of fossils. 
 
 A contemporary of Newton and of Leibnitz, sharing, therefore, 
 in the intellectual activity of the remarkable age which witnessed 
 the birth of modern physical science, Benoit de Maillet spent a 
 long life as a consular agent of the French government in various 
 Mediterranean ports. For sixteen years, in fact, he held the office 
 of Consul- General in Egypt, and the wonderful phenomena offered 
 by the valley of the Nile appear to have strongly impressed his 
 mind, to have directed his attention to all facts of a similar order 
 which came within his observation, and to have led him to specu- 
 late on the origin of the present condition of our globe and of its 
 inhabitants. But, with all his ardor for science, De Maillet 
 seems to have hesitated to publish views which, notwithstanding 
 the ingenious attempts to reconcile them with the Hebrew 
 hypothesis contained in the preface to Telliamed (and which 
 we recommend for Mr. MacCausland's perusal), were hardly 
 likely to be received with favor by his contemporaries. 
 
DARWIN ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES 227 
 
 But a short time had elapsed since more than one of the great 
 anatomists and physicists of the Itah'an school had paid dearly 
 for their endeavors to dissipate some of the prevalent errors; 
 and their illustrious pupil, Harvey, the founder of modern physiol- 
 ogy, had not fared so well, in a country less oppressed by the 
 benumbing influences of theology, as to tempt any man to follow 
 his example. Probably not uninfluenced by these considerations, 
 his Catholic majesty's Consul- General for Egypt kept his theo- 
 ries to himself throughout a long life, for Telliamed, the only 
 scientific work which is known to have proceeded from his pen, 
 was not printed till 1735, when its author had reached the ripe 
 a,ge of seventy-nine ; and though De Maillet lived three years 
 longer, his book was not given to the world before 1748. Even 
 then it was anonymous to those who were not in the secret of the 
 anagrammatic character of its title, and the preface and dedica- 
 tion are so worded as, in case of necessity, to give the printer a 
 fair chance of faUing back on the excuse that the work was in- 
 tended for a mere jeu d^ esprit} 
 
 The speculations of the supposititious Indian sage, though quite 
 as sound as those of many a "Mosaic Geology" which sells 
 exceedingly well, have no great value if we consider them by the 
 light of modern science. The waters are supposed to have 
 originally covered the whole globe; to have deposited the 
 rocky masses which compose its mountains by processes com- 
 parable to those which are now forming mud, sand, and shingle ; 
 and then to have gradually lowered their level, leaving the spoils 
 of the animal and vegetable inhabitants embedded in the strata. 
 As the dry land appeared, certain of the aquatic animals are 
 supposed to have taken to it, and to have become gradually 
 adapted to terrestrial and aerial modes of existence. But if we 
 regard the general tenor and style of the reasoning in relation 
 to the state of knowledge of the day, two circumstances appear 
 very well worthy of remark. The first, that De Maillet had a 
 notion of the modifiability of living forms (though without any 
 precise information on the subject), and how such modifia- 
 ^ Play of fancy. — Ed'Uors. 
 
228 THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY 
 
 bility might account for the origin of species; the second, that 
 he very clearly apprehended the great modern geological doctrine, 
 so strongly insisted upon by Hutton, and so ably and comprehen- 
 sively expounded by Lyell, that we must look to existing causes 
 for the explanation of past geological events. Indeed the 
 following passage of the preface in which De Maillet is supposed 
 to speak of the Indian philosopher Telliamed, his alter ego,^ might 
 have been written by the most philosophical uniformitarian of 
 the present day. 
 
 "Ce qu'il y a d'etonnant, est que pour arriver a ces connois- 
 sances il semble avoir perverti I'ordre naturel, puisqu'au lieu de 
 s'attacher d'abord a rechercher I'origine de notre globe il a 
 commence par travailler a s'instruire de la nature. Mais a 
 I'entendre, ce renversement de I'ordre a ete pour lui I'effet d'un 
 genie favorable qui I'a conduit pas a pas et comme par la main 
 aux decouvertes les plus sublimes. C'est en decomposant la 
 substance de ce globe par une anatomic exacte de toutes ses 
 parties qu'il a premierement appris de quelles matieres il etait 
 compose et quels arrangemens ces memes matieres observaient 
 entre elles. Ces lumieres jointes a 1 'esprit de comparaison tou- 
 jours necessaire a quiconque entreprend de percer les voiles dont 
 la nature aime a se cacher, ont servi de guide a notre philosophe 
 pour parvenir a des connoissances plus interessantes. Par la 
 matiere et I'arrangement de ces compositions il pretend avoir 
 reconnu quelle est la veritable origine de ce globe que nous 
 habitons, comment et par qui il a ete forme." — (Pp. xix, xx.)^ 
 
 1 Other self. — Editors. 
 
 2 What is specially remarkable is that to reach these conclusions he seems 
 to have perverted the natural order of reasoning ; for instead of undertak- 
 ing from the beginning to investigate the origin of our world, he has begun 
 by studying nature. But, if we accept his word, this reversal of the natural 
 order has been for him like a friendly spirit, which has led him by the hand, 
 step by step, to the most sublime discoveries. It is by an analysis of the 
 actual substance of this globe, by means of an exact classification of all its 
 parts, that he has, in the first place, learned of what materials it was com- 
 posed and what relations these materials bore to each other. This knowl- 
 edge, combined with the spirit of comparison always necessary to whoever 
 
DARWIN ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES 229 
 
 But De Maillet was before his age, and as could hardly fail to 
 happen to one who speculated on a zoological and botanical 
 question before Linnaeus, and on a physiological problem before 
 Haller, he fell into great errors here and there ; and hence, per- 
 haps, the general neglect of his work. Robinet's speculations 
 are rather behind than in advance of those of De Maillet, and 
 though Linnaeus may have played with the hypothesis of trans- 
 mutation, it obtained no serious support until Lamarck adopted 
 it, and advocated it with great ability in his Philosophie Zoolo- 
 gique. 
 
 Impelled towards the hypothesis of the transmutation of 
 species, partly by his general cosmological and geological views ; 
 partly by the conception of a graduated, though irregularly 
 branching scale of being, which had arisen out of his profound 
 study of plants and of the lower forms of animal life, Lamarck, 
 whose general line of thought often closely resembles that of De 
 Maillet, made a great advance upon the crude and merely specu- 
 lative manner in which that writer deals with the question of the 
 origin of living beings, by endeavoring to find physical causes 
 competent to effect that change of one species into another 
 which De Maillet had only supposed to occur. And Lamarck 
 conceived that he had found in nature such causes, amply suffi- 
 cient for the purpose in view. It is a physiological fact, he says, 
 that organs are increased in size by action, atrophied by inaction ; 
 it is another physiological fact that modifications produced are 
 transmissible to offspring. Change the actions of an animal, 
 therefore, and you will change its structure, by increasing the 
 development of the parts newly brought into use and by the 
 diminution of those less used; but by altering the circum- 
 stances which surround it you will alter its actions, and hence, in 
 the long run, change of circumstance must produce change of 
 
 endeavors to pierce the veils behind which Nature loves to conceal herself, 
 has served our philosopher as a means of coming at more wonderful truths. 
 Through the materials and the arrangement of these constituents he believes 
 he has discovered the real origin of this world which we live in, how and by 
 whom it was made. — Editors. 
 
230 THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY 
 
 organization. All the species of animals, therefore, are in 
 Lamarck's view the result of the indirect action of changes of 
 circumstance upon those primitive germs which he considered 
 to have originally arisen, by spontaneous generation, within the 
 waters of the globe. It is curious, however, that Lamarck should 
 insist so strongly ^ as he has done, that circumstances never in 
 any degree directly modify the form or the organization of ani- 
 mals, but only operate by changing their wants, and consequently 
 their actions ; for he thereby brings upon himself the obvious 
 question, how, then, do plants, which cannot be said to have 
 wants or actions, become modified? To this he replies, that 
 they are modified by the changes in their nutritive processes, 
 which are effected by changing circumstances ; and it does not 
 seem to have occurred to him that such changes might be as well 
 supposed to take place among animals. 
 
 When we have said that Lamarck felt that mere speculation 
 was not the way to arrive at the origin of species, but that it was 
 necessary, in order to the establishment of any sound theory on 
 the subject, to discover, by observation or otherwise, some vera 
 causa, competent to give rise to them ; that he affirmed the true 
 order of classification to coincide with the order of their develop- 
 ment one from another ; that he insisted on the necessity of 
 allowing sufficient time, very strongly ; and that all the varieties 
 of instinct and reason were traced back by him to the same cause 
 as that which has given rise to species, 'j we have enumerated 
 his chief contributions to the advance of the question. On the 
 other hand, from his ignorance of any power in nature competent 
 to modify the structure of animals, except the development of 
 parts, or atrophy of them, in consequence of a change of needs, 
 Lamarck was led to attach infinitely greater weight than it 
 deserves to this agency, and the absurdities into which he was 
 led have met with deserved condemnation. Of the struggle 
 for existence, on which as we shall see Mr. Darwin lays such 
 great stress, he had no conception ; indeed, he doubts whether 
 there really are such things as extinct species, unless they be such 
 1 See Philosophie Zoologique, vol. i, p. 222, et seq. 
 
DARWIN ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES 23 f 
 
 large animals as may have met their death at the hands of man ; 
 and so little does he dream of there being any other destructive 
 causes at work, that, in discussing the possible existence of fossil 
 shells, he asks, "Pourquoi d'ailleurs seroient-ils perdues des 
 que I'homme n'a pu operer leur destruction?"^ Of the in- 
 fluence of selection Lamarck has as little notion, and he makes 
 no use of the wonderful phenomena which are exhibited by 
 domesticated animals, and illustrate its powers. The vast in- 
 fluence of Cuvier was employed against the Lamarckian views, 
 and as the untenability of some of his conclusions was easily 
 shown, his doctrines sank under the opprobrium of scientific as 
 well as of theological heterodoxy. Nor have the efforts made 
 of late years to revive them tended to reestablish their credit in 
 the minds of sound thinkers acquainted with the facts of the 
 case ; indeed it may be doubted whether Lamarck has not 
 suffered more from his friends than from his foes. 
 
 Two years ago, in fact, though we venture to question if even 
 the strongest supporters of the special creation hypothesis had 
 not, now and then, an uneasy consciousness that all was not 
 right, their position seemed more impregnable than ever, if not 
 by its own inherent strength, at any rate by the obvious failure 
 of all the attempts which had been made to carry it. On the 
 other hand, however much the few, who thought deeply on the 
 question of species, might be repelled by the generally received 
 dogmas, they saw no way of escaping from them, save by the 
 adoption of suppositions, so little justified by experiment or by 
 observation, as to be at least equally distasteful. 
 
 The choice lay between two absurdities and a middle condition 
 of uneasy skepticism ; which last, however unpleasant and un- 
 satisfactory, was obviously the only justifiable state of mind 
 under the circumstances. 
 
 Such being the general ferment in the minds of naturalists, it 
 is no wonder that they mustered strong in the rooms of the 
 Linnaean Society, on the first of July of the year 1858, to hear 
 
 ^ How could they have been destroyed, since man has not been able to 
 effect their destruction? — Editors. {Philosophie Zoologique, vo'. i, p. 77.) 
 
232 THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY 
 
 two papers by authors living on opposite sides of the globe, work- 
 ing out their results independently, and yet professing to have 
 discovered one and the same solution of all the problems con- 
 nected with species. The one of these authors was an able 
 naturalist, Mr. Wallace, who had been employed for some years 
 in studying the productions of the islands of the Indian Archi- 
 pelago, and who had forwarded a memoir embodying his views 
 to Mr. Darwin, for communication to the Linnaean Society. On 
 perusing the essay, Mr. Darwin was not a little surprised to find 
 that it embodied some of the leading ideas of a great work which 
 he had been preparing for twenty years, and parts of which, 
 containing a development of the very same views, had been 
 perused by his private friends fifteen or sixteen years before. 
 Perplexed in what manner to do full justice both to his friend 
 and to himself, Mr. Darwin placed the matter in the hands of 
 Dr. Hooker and Sir Charles Lyell, by whose advice he communi- 
 cated a brief abstract of his own views to the Linnaean Society, 
 at the same time that Mr. Wallace's paper was read. Of that 
 abstract, the work on the Origin of Species is an enlargement, 
 but a complete statement of Mr. Darwin's doctrine is looked for 
 in the large and well-illustrated work which he is said to be pre- 
 paring for publication. 
 
 The Darwinian hypothesis has the merit of being eminently 
 simple and comprehensible in principle, and its essential positions 
 may be stated in a very few words : ~ all species have been pro- 
 duced by the development of varieties from common stocks, by 
 the conversion of these, first into permanent races and then into 
 new species, by the process of natural selection, which process is 
 essentially identical with that artificial selection by which man 
 has originated the races of domestic animals — the struggle for 
 existence taking the place of man, and exerting, in the case of 
 natural selection, that selective action which he performs in 
 artificial selection. 
 
 The evidence brought forward by Mr. Darwin in support of 
 his hypothesis is of three kinds. First, he endeavors to prove 
 
 
DARWIN ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES 233 
 
 that species may be originated by selection ; secondly, he at- 
 tempts to show that natural causes are competent to exert 
 selection ; and thirdly, he tries to prove that the most remarkable 
 and apparently anomalous phenomena exhibited by the distri- 
 bution, development, and mutual relations of species, can be 
 shown to be deducible from the general doctrine of their origin, 
 which he propounds, combined with the known facts of geologi- 
 cal change; and that, even if all these phenomena are not at 
 present explicable by it, none are necessarily inconsistent with it. 
 There cannot be a doubt that the method of inquiry which 
 Mr. Darwin has adopted is not only rigorously in accordance 
 with the canons of scientific logic, but that it is the only adequate 
 method. Critics exclusively trained in classics or in mathe- 
 matics, who have never determined a scientific fact in their lives 
 by induction from experiment or observation, prate learnedly 
 about Mr. Darwin's method, which is not inductive enough, not 
 Baconian enough, forsooth, for them. But even if practical 
 acquaintance with the process of scientific investigation is denied 
 them, they may learn, by the perusal of Mr. Mill's admirable 
 chapter "On the Deductive Method," that there are multitudes 
 of scientific inquiries, in which the method of pure induction 
 helps the investigator but a very little way. 
 
 "The mode of investigation," says Mr. Mill, "which, from the 
 proved inapplicability of direct methods of observation and 
 experiment, remains to us as the main source of the knowledge we 
 possess, or can acquire, respecting the conditions and laws of 
 recurrence of the more complex phenomena, is called, in its most 
 general expression, the deductive method, and consists of three 
 operations : the first, one of direct induction ; the second, of 
 ratiocination ; and the third, of verification." 
 
 Now, the conditions which have determined the existence of 
 species are not only exceedingly complex, but, so far as the great 
 majority of them are concerned, are necessarily beyond our 
 cognizance. But what Mr. Darwin has attempted to do is in 
 
234 THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY 
 
 exact accordance with the rule laid down by Mr. Mill ; he has 
 endeavored to determine certain great facts inductively, by ob- 
 servation and experiment ; he has then reasoned from the data 
 thus furnished ; and lastly, he has tested the validity of his rati- 
 ocination by comparing his deductions with the observed facts 
 of nature. Inductively, Mr. Darwin endeavors to prove that 
 species arise in a given way. Deductively, he desires to show 
 that, if they arise in that way, the facts of distribution, develop- 
 ment, classification, etc., maybe accounted for, i.e., may be de- 
 duced from their mode of origin, combined with admitted 
 changes in physical geography and climate, during an indefinite 
 period. And this explanation, or coincidence of observed with 
 deduced facts, is, so far as it extends, a verification of the 
 Darwinian view. 
 
 There is no fault to be found with Mr. Darwin's method, then ; 
 but it is another question whether he has fulfilled all the condi- 
 tions imposed by that method. Is it satisfactorily proved, in 
 fact, that species may be originated by selection ? that there is 
 such a thing as natural selection ? that none of the phenomena 
 exhibited by species are inconsistent with the origin of species 
 in this way ? If these questions can be answered in the affirma- 
 tive, Mr. Darwin's view steps out of the ranks of hypotheses into 
 those of proved theories ; but so long as the evidence at present 
 adduced falls short of enforcing that afl&rmation, so long, to our 
 minds, must the new doctrine be content to remain among the 
 former — an extremely valuable, and in the highest degree prob- 
 able, doctrine, indeed the only extant hypothesis which is worth 
 anything in a scientific point of view ; but still a hypothesis, and 
 not yet the theory of species. 
 
 After much consideration, and with assuredly no bias against 
 Mr. Darwin's views, it is our clear conviction that, as the evidence 
 stands, it is not absolutely proven that a group of animals, having 
 all the characters exhibited by species in nature, has ever been 
 originated by selection, whether artificial or natural. Groups 
 having the morphological character of species, distinct and per- 
 manent races in fact, have been so produced over and over again ; 
 
 1 
 
DARWIN ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES 235 
 
 but there is no positive evidence at present that any group of 
 animals has, by variation and selective breeding, given rise to 
 another group which was even in the least degree infertile with 
 the first. Mr. Darwin is perfectly aware of this weak point, and 
 brings forward a multitude of ingenious and important arguments 
 to diminish the force of the objection. We admit the value of 
 these arguments to their fullest extent ; nay, we will go so far 
 as to express our belief that experiments, conducted by a skillful 
 physiologist, would very probably obtain the desired production 
 of mutually more or less infertile breeds from a common stock, 
 in a comparatively few years ; but still, as the case stands at pres- 
 ent, this "little rift within the lute" is not to be disguised nor 
 overlooked. 
 
 In the remainder of Mr. Darwin's argument our own private 
 ingenuity has not hitherto enabled us to pick holes of any great 
 importance ; and judging by what we hear and read, other 
 adventurers in the same field do not seem to have been much 
 more fortunate. It has been urged, for instance, that in his 
 chapters on the struggle for existence and on natural selection, 
 Mr. Darwin does not so much prove that natural selection does 
 occur, as that it must occur ; but, in fact, no other sort of demon- 
 stration is attainable. A race does not attract our attention in 
 nature until it has, in all probability, existed for a considerable 
 time, and then it is too late to inquire into the conditions of its 
 origin. Again, it is said that there is no real analogy between the 
 selection which takes place under domestication, by human in- 
 fluence, and any operation which can be effected by nature, for 
 man interferes intelligently. Reduced to its elements, this 
 argument implies that an effect produced with trouble by an 
 intelligent agent must, a fortiori,^ be more troublesome, if not im- 
 possible, to an unintelligent agent. Even putting aside the 
 question whether nature, acting as she does according to definite 
 and invariable laws, can be rightly called an unintelligent agent, 
 such a position as this is wholly untenable. Mix salt and sand, 
 and it shall puzzle the wisest of men with his mere natural appli- 
 ^ All the more. — Editors. 
 
236 THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY 
 
 ances to separate all the grains of sand from all the grains of 
 salt ; but a shower of rain will effect the same object in ten min- 
 utes. And so while man may find it tax all his intelligence to 
 separate any variety which arises, and to breed selectively from 
 it, the destructive agencies incessantly at work in nature, if 
 they find one variety to be more soluble in circumstances than 
 the other, will inevitably in the long run eliminate it. 
 
 A frequent and a just objection to the Lamarckian hypothesis 
 of the transmutation of species is based upon the absence of 
 transitional forms between many species. But against the 
 Darwinian hypothesis this argument has no force. Indeed, one 
 of the most valuable and suggestive parts of Mr. Darwin's 
 work is that in which he proves that the frequent absence of 
 transitions is a necessary consequence of his doctrine, and that 
 the stock whence two or more species have sprung, need in no 
 respect be intermediate between these species. If any two 
 species have arisen from a common stock in the same way as the 
 carrier and the pouter, say, have arisen from the rock pigeon, 
 then the common stock of these two species need be no more 
 intermediate between the two than the rock pigeon is between 
 the carrier and pouter. Clearly appreciate the force of this 
 analogy, and all the arguments against the origin of species by 
 selection, based on the absence of transitional forms, fall to the 
 ground. And Mr. Darwin's position might, we think, have 
 been even stronger than it is if he had not embarrassed himself 
 with the aphorism, " Natura nonfacit saltum,'^ ^ which turns up so 
 often in his pages. We believe, as we have said above, that 
 nature does make jumps now and then, and a recognition of the 
 fact is of no small importance in disposing of many minor ob- 
 jections to the doctrine of transmutation. 
 
 But we must pause. The discussion of Mr. Darwin's argu- 
 ments in detail would lead us far beyond the limits within which 
 we proposed, at starting, to confine this article. Our object 
 has been attained if we have given an intelligible, however brief, 
 account of the established facts connected with species, and of 
 ^ Natvire does not advance in leaps. — Editors. 
 
DARWIN ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES 237 
 
 the relation of the explanation of those facts offered by Mr. Dar- 
 win to the theoretical views held by his predecessors and his con- 
 temporaries, and, above all, to the requirements of scientific logic. 
 We have ventured to point out that it does not, as yet, satisfy 
 all those requirements ; but we do not hesitate to assert that it is 
 as superior to any preceding or contemporary hypothesis, in the 
 extent of observational and experimental basis on which it rests, 
 in its rigorously scientific method, and in its power of explaining 
 biological phenomena, as was the hypothesis of Copernicus to the 
 speculations of Ptolemy. But the planetary orbits turned out 
 to be not quite circular after all, and grand as was the service 
 Copernicus rendered to science, Kepler and Newton had to come 
 after him. What if the orbit of Darwinism should be a little 
 too circular ? What if species should offer residual phenomena, 
 here and there, not explicable by natural selection? Twenty 
 years hence naturalists may be in a position to say whether this 
 is, or is not, the case ; but in either event they will owe the 
 author of The Origin of Species an immense debt of gratitude. 
 We should leave a very wrong impression on the reader's mind if 
 we permitted him to suppose that the value of that work depends 
 wholly on the ultimate justification of the theoretical views which 
 it contains. On the contrary, if they were disproved to-morrow, 
 the book would still be the best of its kind — the most compen- 
 dious statement of well-sifted facts bearing on the doctrine of 
 species that has ever appeared. The chapters on Variation, on 
 the Struggle for Existence, on Instinct, on Hybridism, on the 
 Imperfection of the Geological Record, on Geographical Distribu- 
 tion, have not only no equals, but, so far as our knowledge goes, 
 no competitors, within the range of biological literature. And 
 viewed as a whole, we do not believe that, since the publication of 
 von Baer's Researches on Development, thirty years ago, any 
 work has appeared calculated to exert so large an influence, not 
 only on the future of Biology, but in extending the domination of 
 Science over regions of thought into which she has, as yet, hardly 
 penetrated. 
 
IX 
 
 DARWINISM AS APPLIED TO MAN 
 
 AXFRED RUSSEL WALLACE 
 
 [Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-), distinguished as a scientist and as joint 
 proponent, with Darwin, of the theory of evolution, became interested in 
 natural science at about his twentieth year. As early as 1847 his ideas were 
 directed to the study of species, and especially of the causes of their ori- 
 gin. Under an impulse provided in part by Darwin's Journal, he decided to 
 make natural history collections in the region of the Amazon, and later in the 
 Malayan Archipelago. Continuing here his investigations of the phenomena 
 of species, he entered into correspondence with Darwin, to whom in 1858 he 
 communicated his independent discovery of what are now known as the 
 laws of selection and of the surv'ival of the fittest. Darwin himself, how- 
 ever, had formulated the same laws twenty years before, but had occupied 
 himself in the meanwhile by gathering biological and geological evidence in 
 support of his conclusions, in order to publish them not as an unsupported 
 theory, but as substantially a scientific certainty. The results of the sepa- 
 rate investigations of the two scholars were presented simultaneously to the 
 Linnsan Society in 1858; but in the following year Darwin's Origin of 
 Species, which presented an overwhelming mass of scientific evidence in 
 support of the idea, permanently associated Darwin's name with the theory. 
 Wallace's attitude toward the question of credit for the discovery of this 
 theory was throughout one of admirable modesty. 
 
 Darwinism Applied to Man, which is the concluding chapter of the volume 
 Darwinism, published in 1889, is a sound and interesting review of the ap- 
 plication of the law of evolution to mankind, and in addition something of a 
 history of his civilization. Wallace's view of man's place in nature, it must 
 be mentioned, was largely determined by a religious habit of mind. For 
 this reason his interpretation of the most striking point of specific differen- 
 tiation between man and the lower animals, the evidences of what he calls 
 a "higher nature," traces man's special faculties not to inherited capacities 
 but to a distinct spiritual gift. This view presents an interesting contrast 
 to Huxley's opinion that man's special attainments have resulted from his 
 acquisition, through purely evolutional forces, of the power of articulate 
 speech, whence his ability to communicate abstract ideas.] 
 
 238 
 
DARWINISM AS APPLIED TO MAN 239 
 
 Our review of modern Darwinism might fitly have terminated 
 with the preceding chapter ; but the immense interest that at- 
 taches to the origin of the human race, and the amount of miscon- 
 ception which prevails regarding the essential teachings of Dar- 
 win's theory on this question, as well as regarding my own special 
 views upon it, induce me to devote a final chapter to its discussion. 
 
 To any one who considers the structure of man's body, even 
 in the most superficial manner, it must be evident that it is the 
 body of an animal, differing greatly, it is true, from the bodies 
 of all other animals, but agreeing with them in all essential fea- 
 tures. The bony structure of man classes him as a vertebrate ; 
 the mode of suckling his young classes him as a mammal ; his 
 blood, his muscles, and his nerves, the structure bf his heart 
 with its veins and arteries, his lungs and his whole respiratory 
 and circulatory systems, all closely correspond to those of 
 other mammals, and are often almost identical with them. He 
 possesses the same number of limbs terminating in the same num- 
 ber of digits as belong fundamentally to the mammalian class. 
 His senses are identical with theirs, and his organs of sense are 
 the same in number and occupy the same relative position. 
 Every detail of structure which is common to the mammalia as 
 a class is found also in man, while he only differs from them in 
 such ways and degrees as the various species or groups of mam- 
 mals differ from each other. If, then, we have good reason to 
 believe that every existing group of mammalia has descended 
 from some common ancestral form — as we saw to be so com- 
 pletely demonstrated in the case of the horse tribe, — and that 
 each family, each order, and even the whole class must similarly 
 have descended from some much more ancient and more general- 
 ized type, it would be in the highest degree improbable — so 
 improbable as to be almost inconceivable — that man, agreeing 
 with them so closely in every detail of his structure, should have 
 had some quite distinct mode of origin. Let us, then, see what 
 other evidence bears upon the question, and whether it is suffi- 
 cient to convert the probability of his animal origin into a 
 practical certainty. 
 
240 ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE 
 
 All the higher animals present rudiments of organs which, 
 though useless to them, are useful in some allied group, and are 
 believed to have descended from a common ancestor in which 
 they were useful. Thus there are in ruminants rudiments of in- 
 cisor teeth which, in some species, never cut through the gums ; 
 many lizards have external rudimentary legs ; while many birds, 
 as the Apteryx, have quite rudimentary wings. Now man pos- 
 sesses similar rudiments, sometimes constantly, sometimes only 
 occasionally present, which serve intimately to connect his 
 bodily structure with that of the lower animals. Many animals, 
 for example, have a special muscle for moving or twitching the 
 skin. In man there are remnants of this in certain parts of the 
 body, especially in the forehead, enabling us to raise our eye- 
 brows ; but some persons have it in other parts. A few persons 
 are able to move the whole scalp so as to throw ofT any object 
 placed on the head, and this property has been proved, in one 
 case, to be inherited. In the outer fold of the ear there is some- 
 times a projecting point, corresponding in position to the pointed 
 ear of many animals, and believed to be a rudiment of it. In 
 the alimentary canal there is a rudiment — the vermiform ap- 
 pendage of the caecum — which is not only useless, but is some- 
 times a cause of disease and death in man ; yet in many vege- 
 table feeding animals it is very long, and even in the orang-utan 
 it is of considerable length and convoluted. So, man possesses 
 rudimentary bones of a tail concealed beneath the skin, and, in 
 some rare cases, this forms a minute external tail. 
 
 The variability of every part of man's structure is very great, 
 and many of these variations tend to approximate towards the 
 structure of other animals. The courses of the arteries are 
 eminently variable, so that for surgical purposes it has been 
 necessary to determine the probable proportion of each varia- 
 tion. The muscles are so variable that in fifty cases the muscles 
 of the foot were found to be not strictly alike in any two, and in 
 some the deviations were considerable ; while in thirty-six sub- 
 jects Mr. J. Wood observed no fewer than 558 muscular varia- 
 tions. The same author states that in a single male subject 
 
DARWINISM AS APPLIED TO MAN 241 
 
 there were no fewer than seven muscular variations, all of which 
 plainly represented muscles proper to various kinds of apes. 
 The muscles of the hands and arms — parts which are so emi- 
 nently characteristic of man — are extremely liable to vary, so 
 as to resemble the corresponding muscles of the lower animals. 
 That such variations are due to reversion to a former state of 
 existence Mr. Darwin thinks highly probable, and he adds : "It 
 is quite incredible that a man should, through mere accident, 
 abnormally resemble certain apes in no less than seven of his 
 muscles, if there had been no genetic connection between them. 
 On the other hand, if man is descended from some apelike 
 creature, no valid reason can be assigned why certain muscles 
 should not suddenly reappear after an interval of many thou- 
 sand generations, in the same manner as, with horses, asses, and 
 mules, dark colored stripes suddenly reappear on the legs and 
 shoulders, after an interval of hundreds, or more probably of 
 thousands, of generations." ^ 
 
 The progressive development of any vertebrate from the ovum 
 or minute embryonic egg affords one of the most marvelous 
 chapters in Natural History. We see the contents of the ovum 
 undergoing numerous definite changes, its interior dividing and 
 subdividing till it consists of a mass of cells; then a groove ap- 
 pears marking out the median line or vertebral column of the 
 future animal, and thereafter are slowly developed the various 
 essential organs of the body. After describing in some detail 
 what takes place in the case of the ovum of the dog, Professor 
 Huxley continues: "The history of the development of any 
 other vertebrate animal, lizard, snake, frog, or fish, tells the 
 same story. There is always to begin with, an egg having the 
 same essential structure as that of the dog ; the yolk of that egg 
 undergoes division or segmentation, as it is called; the ultimate 
 products of that segmentation constitute the building materials 
 for the body of the young animal ; and this is built up round a 
 primitive groove, in the floor of which a notochord is developed. 
 1 Descent of Man, pp. 41-43; also pp. 13-15. 
 
 r 
 
^42 ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE 
 
 Furthermore, there is a period in which the young of all these 
 animals resemble one another, not merely in outward form, but 
 in all essentials of structure, so closely that the differences 
 between them are inconsiderable, while in their subsequent 
 course they diverge more and more widely from one another. 
 And it is a general law that the more closely any animals re- 
 semble one another in adult structure, the longer and the more 
 intimately do their embryos resemble one another ; so that, for 
 example, the embryos of a snake and of a lizard remain like 
 one another longer than do those of a snake and a bird ; and the 
 embryos of a dog and of a cat remain like one another for a far 
 longer period than do those of a dog and a bird, or of a dog 
 and an opossum, or even than those of a dog and a monkey." ^ 
 We thus see that the study of development affords a test of 
 affinity in animals that are externally very much unlike each 
 other ; and we naturally ask how this applies to man. Is he 
 developed in a different way from other mammals, as we should 
 certainly expect if he has had a distinct and altogether different 
 origin? "The reply," says Professor Huxley, "is not doubtful 
 for a moment. Without question, the mode of origin and the 
 early stages of the development of man are identical with those 
 of the animals immediately below him in the scale." And again 
 he tells us : " It is very long before the body of the young human 
 being can be readily discriminated from that of the young 
 puppy ; but at a tolerably early period the two become distin- 
 guishable by the different forms of their adjuncts, the yolk-sac 
 and the allantois;" and after describing these differences he 
 continues : " But exactly in those respects in which the develop- 
 ing man differs from the dog, he resembles the ape. ... So 
 that it is only quite in the later stages of development that the 
 young human being presents marked differences from the young 
 ape, while the latter departs as much from the dog in its develop- 
 ment as the man does. Startling as this last assertion may ap- 
 pear to be, it is demonstrably true, and it alone appears to me 
 sufl&cient to place beyond all doubt the structural unity of man 
 1 Man's Place in Nature, p. 64. 
 
DARWINISM AS APPLIED TO MAN 243 
 
 with the rest of the animal world, and more particularly and 
 closely with the apes." ^ 
 
 A few of the curious details in which man passes through 
 stages common to the lower animals may be mentioned. At 
 one stage the os coccyx projects like a true tail, extending con- 
 siderably beyond the rudimentary legs. In the seventh month 
 the convolutions of the brain resemble those of an adult baboon. 
 The great toe, so characteristic of man, forming the fulcrum 
 which most assists him in standing erect, in an early stage of the 
 embryo is much shorter than the other toes, and instead of 
 being parallel with them, projects at an angle from the side of 
 the foot, thus corresponding with its permanent condition in the 
 quadrumana. Numerous other examples might be quoted, all 
 illustrating the same general law. 
 
 Though the fact is so well known, it is certainly one of pro- 
 found significance that many animal diseases can be communi- 
 cated to man, since it shows similarity, if not identity, in the 
 minute structure of the tissues, the nature of the blood, the 
 nerves, and the brain. Such diseases as hydrophobia, variola, 
 the glanders, cholera, herpes, etc., can be transmitted from ani- 
 mals to man or the reverse ; while monkeys are liable to many 
 of the same noncontagious diseases as we are. Rengger, who 
 carefully observed the common monkey {Cebus Azarcs) in Para- 
 guay, found it Kable to catarrh, with the usual symptoms, ter- 
 minating sometimes in consumption. These monkeys also 
 suffered from apoplexy, inflammation of the bowels, and cataract 
 in the eye. Medicines produced the same effect upon them as 
 upon us. Many kinds of monkeys have a strong taste for tea, 
 coffee, spirits, and even tobacco. These facts show the simi- 
 larity of the nerves of taste in monkeys and in ourselves, and 
 that their whole nervous system is affected in a similar way. 
 Even the parasites, both external and internal, that affect man 
 are not altogether peculiar to him, but belong to the same 
 families or genera as those which infest animals, and in one case, 
 ^ Man's Place in Nature, p. 67. 
 
244 ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE 
 
 scabies, even the same species.^ These curious facts seem quite 
 inconsistent with the idea that man's bodily structure and nature 
 are altogether distinct from those of animals, and have had a 
 different origin ; while the facts are just what we should expect 
 if he has been produced by descent with modification from some 
 common ancestor. 
 
 By universal consent we see in the monkey tribe a caricature 
 of humanity. Their faces, their hands, their actions and ex- 
 pressions present ludicrous resemblances to our own. But there 
 is one group of this great tribe in which this resemblance is 
 greatest, and they have hence been called the anthropoid or 
 manlike apes. These are few in number, and inhabit only the 
 equatorial regions of Africa and Asia, coim tries where the climate 
 is most uniform, the forests densest, and the supply of fruit 
 abundant throughout the year. These animals are now com- 
 paratively well known, consisting of the orang-utan of Borneo 
 and Sumatra, the chimpanzee and the gorilla of West Africa, 
 and the group of gibbons or long-armed apes, consisting of many 
 species and inhabiting Southeastern Asia and the larger Malay 
 Islands. These last are far less like man than the other three, 
 one or other of which has at various times been claimed to 
 be the most manlike of the apes and our nearest relations 
 in the animal kingdom. The question of the degree of resem- 
 blance of these animals to ourselves is one of great interest, 
 leading, as it does, to some important conclusions as to our 
 origin and geological antiquity, and we will therefore briefly 
 consider it. 
 
 If we compare the skeletons of the orang or chimpanzee with 
 that of man, we find them to be a kind of distorted copy, every 
 bone corresponding (with very few exceptions), but altered some- 
 what in size, proportions, and position. So great is this resem- 
 blance that it led Professor Owen to remark: "I cannot shut 
 my eyes to the significance of that all-pervading similitude of 
 structure — every tooth, every bone, strictly homologous — 
 ^ The Descent of Man, pp. 7, 8. 
 
DARWINISM AS APPLIED TO MAN 245 
 
 which makes the determination of the difference between Homo 
 and Pithecus the anatomist's difficulty." 
 
 The actual differences in the skeletons of these apes and that 
 of man — that is, differences dependent on the presence or ab- 
 sence of certain bones, and not on their form or position — have 
 been enumerated by Mr. Mivart as follows : (i) In the breast- 
 bone consisting of but two bones, man agrees with the gibbons ; 
 the chimpanzee and gorilla having this part consisting of seven 
 bones in a single series, while in the orang they are arranged in 
 a double series of ten bones. (2) The normal number of the 
 ribs in the orang and some gibbons is twelve pairs, as in man, 
 while in the chimpanzee and gorilla there are thirteen pairs. 
 
 (3) The orang and the gibbons also agree with man in having 
 five lumbar vertebrae, while in the gorilla and the chimpanzee 
 there are but four, and sometimes only three. (4) The gorilla 
 and chimpanzee agree with man in having eight small bones in 
 the wrist, while the orang and the gibbons, as well as all other 
 monkeys, have nine.^ 
 
 The differences in the form, size, and attachments of the vari- 
 ous bones, muscles, and other organs of these apes and man are 
 very numerous and exceedingly complex, sometimes one species, 
 sometimes another agreeing most nearly with ourselves, thus 
 presenting a tangled web of affinities which it is very difficult to 
 unravel. Estimated by the skeleton alone, the chimpanzee and 
 gorilla seem nearer to man than the orang, which last is also 
 inferior as presenting certain aberrations in the muscles. In the 
 form of the ear the gorilla is more human than any other ape, 
 while in the tongue the orang is the more manlike. In the 
 stomach and liver the gibbons approach nearest to man ; then 
 come the orang and chimpanzee, while the gorilla has a de- 
 graded liver more resembling that of the lower monkeys and 
 baboons. 
 
 1 Man and Apes. By St. George Mivart, F.R.S., 1873. It is an interest- 
 ing fact (for which I am indebted to Mr. E. B. Poulton) that the human 
 embryo possesses the extra rib and wrist bone referred to above in (2) and 
 
 (4) as occurring in some of the apes. 
 
246 ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE 
 
 We come now to that part of his organization in which man 
 is so much higher than all the lower animals — the brain ; and 
 here, Mr. Mivart informs us, the orang stands highest in rank. 
 The height of the orang's cerebrum in front is greater in propor- 
 tion than in either the chimpanzee or the gorilla. "On compar- 
 ing the brain of. man with the brains of the orang, chimpanzee, 
 and baboon, we find a successive decrease in the frontal lobe, 
 and a successive and very great increase in the relative size of 
 the occipital lobe. Concomitantly with this increase and de- 
 crease, certain folds of brain substance, called ' bridging convo- 
 lutions,' which in man are conspicuously interposed between the 
 parietal and occipital lobes, seem as utterly to disappear in the 
 chimpanzee, as they do in the baboon. In the orang, however, 
 though much reduced, they are still to be distinguished. . . . 
 The actual and absolute mass of the brain is, however, slightly 
 greater in the chimpanzee than in the orang, as is the relative 
 vertical extent of the middle part of the cerebrum, although, 
 as already stated, the frontal portion is higher in the orang; 
 while, according to M. Gratiolet, the gorilla is not only inferior 
 to the orang in cerebral development, but even to his smaller 
 African congener, the chimpanzee." ^ 
 
 On the whole, then, we find that no one of the great apes can 
 be positively asserted to be nearest to man in structure. Each 
 of them approaches him in certain characteristics, while in 
 others it is widely removed, giving the idea, so consonant with 
 the theory of evolution as developed by Darwin, that all are 
 derived from a common ancestor, from which the existing 
 anthropoid apes as well as man have diverged. When, how- 
 ever, we turn from the details of anatomy to peculiarities 
 of external form and motions, we find that in a variety of 
 characters all these apes resemble each other and differ from 
 man, so that we may fairly say that while they have diverged 
 somewhat from each other, they have diverged much more 
 widely from ourselves. Let us briefly enumerate some of these 
 differences. 
 
 * Man and Apes, pp. 138, 144. 
 
DARWINISM AS APPLIED TO MAN 247 
 
 All apes have large canine teeth, while in man these are no 
 longer than the adjacent incisors or premolars, the whole form- 
 ing a perfectly even series. In apes the arms are proportionately 
 much longer than in man, while the thighs are much shorter. 
 No ape stands really erect, a posture which is natural in man. 
 The thumb is proportionately larger in man, and more perfectly 
 opposable than in that of any ape. The foot of man differs 
 largely from that of all apes, in the horizontal sole, the project- 
 ing heel, the short toes, and the powerful great toe firmly at- 
 tached parallel to the other toes ; all perfectly adapted for main- 
 taining the erect posture, and for free motion without any aid 
 from the arms or hands. In apes the foot is formed almost ex- 
 actly like our hand, with a large thumblike great toe quite free 
 from the other toes, and so articulated as to be opposable to 
 them ; forming with the long fingerlike toes a perfect grasping 
 hand. The sole cannot be placed horizontally on the ground ; 
 but when standing on a level surface the animal rests on the 
 outer edge of the foot with the finger and thumblike toes partly 
 closed, while the hands are placed on the ground resting on the 
 knuckles. . . . 
 
 The four limbs, with the peculiarly formed feet and hands, are 
 those of arboreal animals which only occasionally and awkwardly 
 move on level ground. The arms are used in progression equally 
 with the feet, and the hands are only adapted for uses similar to 
 those of our hands when the animal is at rest, and then but 
 clumsily. Lastly, the apes are all hairy animals, like the ma- 
 jority of other mammals, man alone having a smooth and almost 
 naked skin. These numerous and striking differences, even more 
 than those of the skeleton and internal anatomy, point to an 
 enormously remote epoch when the race that was ultimately to 
 develop into man diverged from that other stock which con- 
 tinued the animal type and ultimately produced the existing 
 varieties of anthropoid apes. 
 
 The facts now very briefly summarized amount almost to a 
 demonstration that man, in his bodily structure, has been de- 
 
248 ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE 
 
 rived from the lower animals, of which he is the culminating 
 development. In his possession of rudimentary structures which 
 are functional in some of the mammalia ; in the numerous varia- 
 tions of his muscles and other organs agreeing with characters 
 which are constant in some apes ; in his embryonic development, 
 absolutely identical in character with that of mammalia in 
 general, and closely resembling in its details that of the higher 
 quadrumana ; in the diseases which he has in common with 
 other mammalia ; and in the wonderful approximation of his 
 skeleton to those of one or other of the anthropoid apes, we have 
 an amount of evidence in this direction which it seems impos- 
 sible to explain away. And this evidence will appear more forci- 
 ble if we consider for a moment what the rejection of it implies. 
 For the only alternative supposition is, that man has been 
 specially created — that is to say, has been produced in some 
 quite different way from other animals and altogether inde- 
 pendently of them. But in that case the rudimentary structures, 
 the animal-like variations, the identical course of development, 
 and all the other animal characteristics he possesses are decep- 
 tive, and inevitably lead us, as thinking beings making use of 
 the reason which is our noblest and most distinctive feature, 
 into gross error. 
 
 We cannot believe, however, that a careful study of the facts 
 of nature leads to conclusions directly opposed to the truth ; and, 
 as we seek in vain, in our physical structure and the course of 
 its development, for any indication of an origin independent of 
 the rest of the animal world, we are compelled to reject the idea 
 of "special creation" for man, as being entirely unsupported by 
 facts as well as in the highest degree improbable. 
 
 The evidence we now possess of the exact nature of the re- 
 semblance of man to the various species of anthropoid apes, 
 shows us that he has little special affinity for any one rather than 
 another species, while he differs from them all in several impor- 
 tant characters in which they agree with each other. The con- 
 clusion to be drawn from these facts is, that his points of afl&nity 
 
DARWINISM AS APPLIED TO MAN 249 
 
 connect him with the whole group, while his special peculiarities 
 equally separate him from the whole group, and that he must, 
 therefore, have diverged from the common ancestral form before 
 the existing types of anthropoid apes had diverged from each 
 other. Now, this divergence almost certainly took place as 
 early as the Miocene period, because in the Upper Miocene de- 
 posits of Western Europe remains of two species of ape have 
 been found allied to the gibbons, one of them, Dryopithecus, 
 nearly as large as a man, and believed by M. Lartet to have 
 approached man in its dentition more than the existing apes. 
 We seem hardly, therefore, to have reached, in the Upper Mio- 
 cene, the epoch of the common ancestor of man and the anthro- 
 poids. 
 
 The evidence of the antiquity of man himself is also scanty, 
 and takes us but very little way back into the past. We have 
 clear proof of his existence in Europe in the latter stages of the 
 Glacial epoch, with many indications of his presence in iriter-Gla- 
 cial or even pre-Glacial times ; while both the actual remains and 
 the works of man found in the auriferous gravels of California 
 deep under lava-flows of Pliocene age show that he existed in the 
 New World at least as early as in the Old.^ These earliest re- 
 mains of man have been received with doubt, and even with 
 ridicule, as if there were some extreme improbability in them. 
 But, in point of fact, the wonder is that human remains have 
 not been found more frequently in pre-Glacial deposits. Refer- 
 ring to the most ancient fossil remains found in Europe, — the 
 Engis and Neanderthal crania, — Professor Huxley makes the 
 following weighty remark : "In conclusion, I may say, that the 
 fossil remains of Man hitherto discovered do not seem to me to 
 take us appreciably nearer to that lower pithecoid form, by the 
 modification of which he has, probably, become what he is." 
 The Californian remains and works of art, above referred to, 
 give no indication of a specially low form of man ; and it re- 
 mains an unsolved problem why no traces of the long line of 
 
 ' For a sketch of the evidence of Man's Antiquity in America, see the 
 Nineteenth Century for November, 1887. 
 
2 50 
 
 ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE 
 
 man's ancestors, back to the remote period when he first branched 
 off from the pitheoid type, have yet been discovered. 
 
 It has been objected by some writers — notably by Professor 
 Boyd Dawkins — that man did not probably exist in Pliocene 
 times, because almost all the known mammalia of that epoch 
 are distinct species from those now living on the earth, and that 
 the same changes of the environment which led to the modifica- 
 tion of other mammalian species would also have led to a change 
 in man. But this argument overlooks the fact that man differs 
 essentially from all other mammals in this respect, that whereas 
 any important adaptation to new conditions can be effected in 
 them only by a change in bodily structure, man is able to adapt 
 himself to much greater changes of conditions by a mental de- 
 velopment leading him to the use of fire, of tools, of clothing, 
 of improved dwellings, of nets and snares, and of agriculture. 
 By the help of these, without any change whatever in his bodily 
 structure, he has been able to spread over and occupy the whole 
 earth ; to dwell securely in forest, plain, or mountain ; to in- 
 habit alike the burning desert or the arctic wastes ; to cope with 
 every kind of wild beast, and to provide himself with food in 
 districts where, as an animal trusting to nature's unaided pro- 
 ductions, he would have starved.^ 
 
 It follows, therefore, that from the time when the ancestral 
 man first walked erect, with hands freed from any active part 
 in locomotion, and when his brain power became sufficient to 
 cause him to use his hands in making weapons and tools, houses 
 and clothing, to use fire for cooking, and to plant seeds or roots 
 to supply himself with stores of food, the power of natural selec- 
 tion would cease to act in producing modifications of his body, 
 but would continuously advance his mind through the develop- 
 ment of its organ, the brain. Hence man may have become 
 truly man — the species, Homo sapiens — even in the Miocene 
 period; and while all other mammals were becoming modified 
 
 1 This subject was first discussed in an artiqle in the Anthropological Re- 
 view, May, 1864, and republished in my Contributions to Natural Selection, 
 chap, ix, in 1870. 
 
DARWINISM AS APPLIED TO MAN 251 
 
 from age to age under the influence of ever changing physical 
 and biological conditions, he would be advancing mainly in intel- 
 ligence, but perhaps also in stature, and by that advance alone 
 would be able to maintain himself as the master of all other 
 animals and as the most widespread occupier of the earth. It 
 is quite in accordance with this view that we fioid .the most pro- 
 nounced distinction between man and the anthropoid apes in 
 the size and complexity of his brain. Thus, Professor Huxley 
 tells us that "it may be doubted whether a healthy human adult 
 brain ever weighed less than 31 or 32 ounces, or that the heaviest 
 gorilla brain has exceeded 20 ounces," although "a full-grown 
 gorilla is probably pretty nearly twice as heavy as a Bosjes man, 
 or as many an European woman." ^ The average human brain, 
 however, weighs 48 or 49 ounces, and if we take the average ape 
 brain at only 2 ounces less than the very largest gorilla's brain, 
 or 18 ounces, we shall see better the enormous increase which 
 has taken place in the brain of man since the time when he 
 branched off from the apes ; and this increase will be still greater 
 if we consider that the brains of apes, like those of all other mam- 
 mals, have also increased from earlier to later geological times. 
 If these various considerations are taken into account, we 
 must conclude that the essential features of man's structure as 
 compared with that of apes — his erect posture and free hands 
 — were acquired at a comparatively early period, and were, in 
 fact, the characteristics which gave him his superiority over 
 other mammals, and started him on the line of development 
 which has led to his conquest of the world. But during this 
 long and steady development of brain and intellect, mankind 
 must have continuously increased in numbers and in the area 
 which they occupied — they must have formed what Darwin 
 terms a "dominant race." For had they been few in numbers 
 and confined to a limited area, they could hardly have success- 
 fully struggled against the numerous fierce carnivora of that 
 period, and against those adverse influences which led to the 
 extinction of so many more powerful animals. A large popula- 
 * Man's Place in Nature, p. 102. 
 
2 52 ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE 
 
 tion spread over an extensive area is also needed to supply an 
 adequate number of brain variations for man's progressive im- 
 provement. But this large population and long-continued de- 
 velopment in a single line of advance renders it the more diffi- 
 cult to account for the complete absence of human or prehuman 
 remains in all those deposits which have furnished, in such rich 
 abundance, the remains of other land animals. It is true that 
 the remains of apes are also very rare, and we may well sup- 
 pose that the superior intelligence of man led him to avoid that 
 extensive destruction by flood or in morass which seems to have 
 often overwhelmed other animals. Yet, when we consider that 
 even in our own day men are not unfrequently overwhelmed by 
 volcanic eruptions, as in Java and Japan, or carried away in vast 
 numbers by floods, as in Bengal and China, it seems impossible 
 but that ample remains of Miocene and Pliocene man do exist 
 buried in the most recent layers of the earth's crust, and that 
 more extended research or some fortunate discovery will some 
 day bring them to light. 
 
 It has usually been considered that the ancestral form of man 
 originated in the tropics, where vegetation is most abundant and 
 the climate most equable. But there are some important objec- 
 tions to this view. The anthropoid apes, as well as most of the 
 monkey tribe, are essentially arboreal in their structure, whereas 
 the great distinctive character of man is his special adaptation 
 to terrestrial locomotion. We can hardly suppose, therefore, 
 that he originated in a forest region, where fruits to be obtained 
 by cHmbing are the chief vegetable food. It is more probable 
 that he began his existence on the open plains or high plateaus 
 of the temperate or subtropical zone, where the seeds of in- 
 digenous cereals and numerous herbivora, rodents, and game 
 birds, with fishes and mollusks in the lakes, rivers, and seas 
 supplied him with an abundance of varied food. In such a 
 region he would develop skill as a hunter, trapper, or fisherman, 
 and later as a herdsman and cultivator, — a succession of which we 
 find indications in the paleolithic and neolithic races of Europe. 
 
DARWINISM AS APPLIED TO MAN 253 
 
 In seeking to determine the particular areas in which his 
 earliest traces are likely to be found, we are restricted to some 
 portion of the Eastern Hemisphere, where alone the anthropoid 
 apes exist, or have apparently ever existed. 
 
 There is good reason to believe, also, that Africa must be ex- 
 cluded, because it is known to have been separated from the 
 northern continent in early Tertiary times, and to have acquired 
 its existing fauna of the higher mammalia by a later union with 
 that continent after the separation from it of Madagascar, an 
 island which has preserved for us a sample, as it were, of the 
 early African mammalian fauna, from which not only the anthro- 
 poid apes, but all the higher quadrumana are absent.^ There 
 remains only the great Euro- Asiatic continent ; and its enor- 
 mous plateaus, extending from Persia right across Tibet and 
 Siberia to Manchuria, afford an area, some part or other of 
 which probably offered suitable conditions, in late Miocene or 
 early Pliocene times, for the development of ancestral man. 
 
 It is in this area that we still find that type of mankind — 
 the Mongolian — which retains a color of the skin midway be- 
 tween the black or brown-black of the negro, and the ruddy or 
 olive-white of the Caucasian types, a color which still prevails 
 over all Northern Asia, over the American continents, and over 
 much of Polynesia. From this primary tint arose, under the 
 influence of varied conditions, and probably in correlation with 
 constitutional changes adapted to peculiar climates, the varied 
 tints which still exist among mankind. If the reasoning by 
 which this conclusion is reached be sound, and all the earlier 
 stages of man's development from an animal form occurred in 
 the area now indicated, we can better understand how it is 
 that we have as yet met with no traces of the missing links, or 
 even of man's existence during late Tertiary times, because no 
 part of the world is so entirely unexplored by the geologist as 
 this very region. The area in question is sufficiently extensive 
 and varied to admit of primeval man having attained to a con- 
 
 ' For a full discussion of this question, see the author's Geographical Dis- 
 tribution of Animals, vol. i, p. 285. 
 
254 ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE 
 
 siderable population, and having developed his full human char- 
 acteristics, both physical and mental, before there was any need 
 for him to migrate beyond its limits. One of these earliest im- 
 portant migrations was probably into Africa, where, spreading 
 westward, he became modified in color and hair in correlation 
 with physiological changes adapting him to the climate of the 
 equatorial lowlands. Spreading northwestward into Europe 
 the moist and cool climate led to a modification of an opposite 
 character, and thus may have arisen the three great human types 
 which still exist. Somewhat later, probably, he spread east- 
 ward into Northwest America and soon scattered himself over 
 the whole continent; and all this may well have occurred in 
 early or middle Pliocene times. Thereafter, at very long inter- 
 vals, successive waves of migration carried him into every part 
 of the habitable world, and by conquest and intermixture led 
 ultimately to that puzzling gradation of types which the eth- 
 nologist in vain seeks to unravel. 
 
 From the foregoing discussion it will be seen that I fully ac- 
 cept Mr. Darwin's conclusion as to the essential identity of man's 
 bodily structure with that of the higher mammaHa, and his de- 
 scent from some ancestral form common to man and the an- 
 thropoid apes. The evidence of such descent appears to me to 
 be overwhelming and conclusive. Again, as to the cause and 
 method of such descent and modification, we may admit, at all 
 events provisionally, that the laws of variation and natural selec- 
 tion, acting through the struggle for existence and the continual 
 need of more perfect adaptation to the physical and biological 
 environments, may have brought about, first that perfection of 
 bodily structure in which he is so far above all other animals, 
 and in coordination with it the larger and more developed brain, 
 by means of which he has been able to utilize that structure in 
 the more and more complete subjection of the whole animal and 
 vegetable kingdoms to his service. 
 
 But this is only the beginning of Mr. Darwin's work, since he 
 goes on to discuss the moral nature and mental faculties of man, 
 
DARWINISM AS APPLIED TO MAN 255 
 
 and derives these too by gradual modification and development 
 from the lower animals. Although, perhaps, nowhere distinctly- 
 formulated, his whole argument tends to the conclusion that 
 man's entire nature and all his faculties, whether moral, intel- 
 lectual, or spiritual, have been derived from their rudiments in 
 the lower animals, in the same manner and by the action of 
 the same general laws as his physical structure has been derived. 
 As this conclusion appears to me not to be supported by adequate 
 evidence, and to be directly opposed to many well-ascertained 
 facts, I propose to devote a brief space to its discussion. 
 
 Mr. Darwin's mode of argument consists in showing that the 
 rudiments of most, if not of all, the mental and moral faculties 
 of man can be detected in some animals. The manifestations of 
 intelligence, amounting in some cases to distinct acts of reason- 
 ing, in many animals, are adduced as exhibiting in a much less 
 degree the intelligence and reason of man. Instances of curi- 
 osity, imitation, attention, wonder, and memory are given ; 
 while examples are also adduced which may be interpreted as 
 proving that animals exhibit kindness to their fellows, or mani- 
 fest pride, contempt, and shame. Some are said to have the 
 rudiments of language, because they utter several different 
 sounds, each of which has a definite meaning to their fellows or 
 to their young ; others the rudiments of arithmetic, because they 
 seem to count and remember up to three, four, or even five. A 
 sense of beauty is imputed to them on account of their own bright 
 colors or the use of colored objects in their nests ; while dogs, 
 cats, and horses are said to have imagination, because they ap- 
 pear to be disturbed by dreams. Even some distant approach 
 to the rudiments of religion is said to be found in the deep love 
 and complete submission of a dog to his master.^ 
 
 Turning from animals to man, it is shown that in the lowest 
 
 savages many of these faculties are very little advanced from the 
 
 condition in which they appear in the higher animals; while 
 
 others, although fairly well exhibited, are yet greatly inferior to 
 
 1 For a full discussion of all these points, see Descent of Man, chap. iii. 
 
256 ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE 
 
 the point of development they have reached in civilized races. 
 In particular, the moral sense is said to have been developed 
 from the social instincts of savages, and to depend mainly on the 
 enduring discomfort produced by any action which excites the 
 general disapproval of the tribe. Thus, every act of an individ- 
 ual which is believed to be contrary to the interests of the tribe, 
 excites its unvarying disapprobation and is held to be immoral ; 
 while every act, on the other hand, which is, as a rule, beneficial 
 to the tribe, is warmly and constantly approved, and is thus con- 
 sidered to be right or moral. From the mental struggle, when an 
 act that would benefit self is injurious to the tribe, there arises 
 conscience ; and thus the social instincts are the foundation of 
 the moral sense and of the fundamental principles of moraUty.^ 
 
 The question of the origin and nature of the moral sense and of 
 conscience is far too vast and complex to be discussed here, and a 
 reference to it has been introduced only to complete the sketch of 
 Mr. Darwin's view of the continuity and gradual development of 
 all human faculties from the lower animals up to saVages, and 
 from savage up to civilized man. The point to which I wish spe- 
 cially to call attention is, that to prove continuity and the pro- 
 gressive development of the intellectual and moral faculties from 
 animals to man, is not the same as pro\dng that these faculties 
 have been developed by natural selection ; and this last is what 
 Mr. Darwin has hardly attempted, although to support his the- 
 ory it was absolutely essential to prove it. Because man's physi- 
 cal structure has been developed from an animal form by natural 
 selection, it does not necessarily follow that his mental nature, 
 even though developed pari passu ^ with it, has been developed by 
 the same causes only. 
 
 To illustrate by a physical analogy. Upheaval and depression 
 of land, combined with subaerial denudation by wind and frost, 
 rain and rivers, and marine denudation on coast lines, were long 
 thought to account for all the modeling of the earth's surface not 
 directly due to volcanic action ; and in the early editions of 
 Lyell's Principles of Geology these are the sole causes appealed to. 
 
 1 Descent of Man, chap. iv. 2 Simultaneously. — Editors. 
 
DARWINISM AS APPLIED TO MAN 257 
 
 But when the action of glaciers was studied and the recent occur- 
 rence of a Glacial epoch demonstrated as a fact, many phenomena 
 — such as moraines and other gravel deposits, bowlder clay, 
 erratic bowlders, grooved and rounded rocks, and Alpine lake 
 basins — were seen to be due to this altogether distinct cause. 
 There was no breach of continuity, no sudden catastrophe ; the 
 cold period came on and passed away in the most gradual manner, 
 and its effects often passed insensibly into those produced by 
 denudation or upheaval ; yet none the less a new agency ap- 
 peared at a definite time, and new effects were produced which, 
 though continuous with preceding effects, were not due to the 
 same causes. It is not, therefore, to be assumed, without proof 
 or against independent evidence, that the later stages of an ap- 
 parently continuous development are necessarily due to the 
 same causes only as the earlier stages. Applying this argument 
 to the case of man's intellectual and moral nature, I propose to 
 show that certain definite portions of it could not have been de- 
 veloped by variation and natural selection alone, and that, there- 
 fore, some other influence, law, or agency is required to account 
 for them. If this can be clearly shown for any one or more of the. 
 special faculties of intellectual man, we shall be justified in as- 
 suming that the same unknown cause or power may have had a 
 much wider influence, and may have profoundly influenced the 
 whole course of his development. 
 
 We have ample evidence that, in all the lower races of man, 
 what may be termed the mathematical faculty is either absent, 
 or, if present, quite unexercised. The Bushmen and the Brazil- 
 ian Wood-Indians are said not to count beyond two. Many 
 Australian tribes only have words for one and two, which are com- 
 bined to make three, four, five, or six, beyond which they do not 
 count. The Damaras of South Africa only count to three ; and 
 Mr. Galton gives a curious description of how one of them was 
 hopelessly puzzled when he had sold two sheep for two sticks of 
 tobacco each, and received four sticks in payment. He could 
 only find out that he was correctly paid by taking two sticks and 
 
258 ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE 
 
 then giving one sheep, then receiving two sticks more and giving 
 the other sheep. Even the comparatively intellectual Zulus can 
 only count up to ten by using the hands and fingers. The Ahts 
 of Northwest America count in nearly the same manner, and 
 most of the tribes of South America are no further advanced.^ 
 The Kaffirs have great herds of cattle, and if one is lost they miss 
 it immediately, but this is not by counting, but by noticing the 
 absence of one they know ; just as in a large family or a school a 
 boy is niissed without going through the process of counting. 
 Somewhat higher races, as the Eskimos, can count up to 
 twenty by using the hands and the feet ; and other races get even 
 further than this by saying "one man" for twenty, "two men" 
 for forty, and so on, equivalent to our rural mode of reckoning by 
 scores. From the fact that so many of the existing savage races 
 can only count to four or five. Sir John Lubbock thinks it im- 
 probable that our earliest ancestors could have counted as high 
 as ten.^ 
 
 When we turn to the more civilized races, we find the use of 
 numbers and the art of counting greatly extended. Even the 
 Tongas of the South Sea islands are said to have been able to 
 count as high as 100,000. But mere counting does not imply 
 either the possession or the use of anything that can be really 
 called the mathematical faculty, the exercise of which in any 
 broad sense has only been possible since the introduction of the 
 decimal notation. The Greeks, the Romans, the Egyptians, the 
 Jews, and the Chinese had all such cumbrous systems that any- 
 thing like a science of arithmetic, beyond very simple operations, 
 
 ' Lubbock's Origin of Civilization, fourth edition, pp. 434-440; Tylor's 
 -^,^imitive Culture, chap. vii. 
 
 ^ It has been recently stated that some of these facts are erroneous, and 
 that some Austrahans can keep accurate reckoning up to 100, or more, when 
 required. But this does not alter the general fact that many low races, in- 
 cluding the Australians, have no words for high numbers and never require 
 to use them. If they are now, with a little practice, able to count much 
 higher, this indicates the possession of a faculty which could not have been 
 developed under the law of utility only, since the absence of words for such 
 high numbers shows that they were neither used nor required. 
 
DARWINISM AS APPLIED TO MAN 259 
 
 was impossible ; and the Roman system, by which the year 1888 
 would be written MDCCCLXXXVIII, was that in common use 
 in Europe down to the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries, and 
 even much later in some places. Algebra, which was invented 
 by the Hindus, from whom also came the decimal notation, was 
 not introduced into Europe till the thirteenth century, although 
 the Greeks had some acquaintance with it ; and it reached West- 
 ern Europe from Italy only in the sixteenth century. It was, 
 no doubt, owing to the absence of a sound system of numeration 
 that the mathematical talent of the Greeks was directed chiefly 
 to geometry, in which science Euclid, Archimedes, and others 
 made such brilliant discoveries. It is, however, during the last 
 three centuries only that the civilized world appears to have be- 
 come conscious of the possession of a marvelous faculty which, 
 when suppHed with the necessary tools in the decimal notation, 
 the elements of algebra and geometry, and the power of rapidly 
 communicating discoveries and ideas by the art of printing, has 
 developed to an extent, the full grandeur of wliich can be appre- 
 ciated only by those who have devoted some time (even if unsuc- 
 cessfully) to the study. 
 
 The facts now set forth as to the almost total absence of 
 mathematical faculty in savages and its wonderful development 
 in quite recent^ times are exceedingly suggestive, and in regard 
 to them we are limited to two possible theories. Either pre- 
 historic and savage man did not possess this faculty at all (or 
 only in its merest rudiments) ; or they did possess it, but had 
 neither the means nor tl^e incitements for its exercise. In the 
 former case we have to ask by what means has this faculty been 
 so rapidly developed in all civilized races, many of which a few 
 centuries back were, in this respect, almost savages themselves ; 
 while in the latter case the difficulty is still greater, for we have to 
 assume the existence of a faculty which had never been used 
 either by the supposed possessors of it or by their ancestors. 
 
 Let us take, then, the least difficult supposition — that savages 
 possessed only the mere rudiments of the faculty, such as their 
 ability to count, sometimes up to ten, but with an utter inability 
 
26o ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE 
 
 to perform the very simplest processes of arithmetic or of geom- 
 etry — and inquire how this rudimentary faculty became rapidly 
 developed into that of a Newton, a La Place, a Gauss, or a Cay- 
 ley. We will admit that there is every possible gradation be- 
 tween these extremes, and that there has been perfect continuity 
 in the development of the faculty; but we ask. What motive 
 power caused its development ? 
 
 It must be remembered we are here dealing solely with the 
 capability of the Darwinian theory to account for the origin of 
 the mind, as well as it accounts for the origin of the body of man, 
 and we must, therefore, recall the essential features of that the- 
 ory. These are, the preservation of useful variations in the 
 struggle for life ; that no creature can be improved beyond its 
 necessities for the time being ; that the law acts by life and death, 
 and by the survival of the fittest. We have to ask, therefore, 
 what relation the successive stages of improvement of the mathe- 
 matical faculty had to the life or death of its possessors ; to the 
 struggles of tribe with tribe, or nation with nation ; or to the ulti- 
 mate survival of one race and the extinction of another. If it 
 cannot possibly have had any such effects, then it cannot have 
 been produced by natural selection. 
 
 It is evident that in the struggles of savage man with the ele- 
 ments and with wild beasts, or of tribe with tribe, this faculty 
 can have had no influence. It had nothing to do mth the early 
 migrations of man, or with the conquest and extermination of 
 weaker by more powerful peoples. The Greeks did not success- 
 fully resist the Persian invaders by any aid from their few mathe- 
 maticians, but by military training, patriotism, and self-sacrifice. 
 The barbarous conquerors of the East, Timurlane and Gengkhis 
 Khan, did not owe their success to any superiority of intellect or 
 of mathematical faculty in themselves or their followers. Even 
 if the great conquests of the Romans were, in part, due to their 
 systematic military organization, and to their skill in making 
 roads and encampments, which may, perhaps, be imputed to 
 some exercise of the mathematical faculty, that did not prevent 
 them from being conquered in turn by barbarians, in whom it 
 
DARWINISM AS APPLIED TO MAN 261 
 
 was almost entirely absent. And if we take the most civilized 
 peoples of the ancient world — the Hindus, the Arabs, the 
 Greeks, and the Romans, all of whom had some amount of mathe- 
 matical talent — we find that it is not these, but the descendants 
 of the barbarians of those days — the Celts, the Teutons, and the 
 Slavs — who have proved themselves the fittest to survive in the 
 great struggle of races, although we cannot trace their steadily 
 growing success during past centuries either to the possession of 
 any exceptional mathematical faculty or to its exercise. They 
 have indeed proved themselves, to-day, to be possessed of a mar- 
 velous endowment of the mathematical faculty ; but their suc- 
 cess at home and abroad, as colonists or as conquerors, as individ- 
 uals or as nations, can in no way be traced to this faculty, since 
 they were almost the last who devoted themselves to its exercise. 
 We conclude, then, that the present gigantic development of the 
 mathematical faculty is wholly unexplained by the theory of nat- 
 ural selection, and must be due to some altogether distinct cause. 
 
 These distinctively human faculties follow very closely the 
 lines of the mathematical faculty in their progressive develop- 
 ment, and serve to enforce the same argument. Among the lower 
 savages music, as we understand it, hardly exists, though they 
 all delight in rude musical sounds, as of drums, tom-toms, or 
 gongs; and they also sing in monotonous chants. Almost ex- 
 actly as they advance in general intellect, and in the arts of 
 social life, their appreciation of music appears to rise in propor- 
 tion ; and we find among them rude stringed instruments and 
 whistles, till, in Java, we have regiilar bands of skilled performers, 
 probably the successors of Hindu musicians of the age before the 
 Mohammedan conquest. The Egyptians are believed to have 
 been the earUest musicians, and from them the Jews and the 
 Greeks, no doubt, derived their knowledge of the art ; but it 
 seems to be admitted that neither the latter nor the Romans 
 knew anything of harmony or of the essential features of mod- 
 ern music. Till the fifteenth century little progress appears to 
 have been made in the science or the practice of music; but 
 
262 ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE 
 
 since that era it has advanced with marvelous rapidity, its prog- 
 ress being curiously parallel with that of mathematics, inasmuch 
 as great musical geniuses appeared suddenly among different 
 nations, equal in their possession of this special faculty to any 
 that have since arisen. 
 
 As with the mathematical, so with the musical faculty, it is im- 
 possible to trace any connection between its possession and sur- 
 vival in the struggle for existence. It seems to have arisen as a 
 result of social and intellectual advancement, not as a cause; and 
 there is some evidence that it is latent in the lower races, since 
 under European training native militar}'^ bands have been formed 
 in many parts of the world, which have been able to perform 
 creditably the best modern music. 
 
 The artistic faculty has run a somewhat different course, 
 though analogous to that of the faculties already discussed. 
 Most savages exhibit some rudiments of it, either in drawing or 
 carving human or animal figures ; but, almost without exception, 
 these figures are rude and such as would be executed by the 
 ordinary inartistic child. In fact, modern savages are, in this 
 respect, hardly equal to those prehistoric men who represented 
 the mammoth and the reindeer on pieces of horn or bone. With 
 any advance in the arts of social life, we have a corresponding ad- 
 vance in artistic skill and taste, rising very high in the art of 
 Japan and India, but culminating in the marvelous sculpture of 
 the best period of Grecian history. In the Middle Ages art was 
 chiefly manifested in ecclesiastical architecture and the illumina- 
 tion of manuscripts, but from the thirteenth to the fifteenth 
 centuries pictorial art revived in Italy and attained to a degree 
 of perfection which has never been surpassed. This revival was 
 followed closely by the schools of Germany, the Netherlands, 
 Spain, France, and England, showing that the true artistic fac- 
 ulty belonged to no one nation, but was fairly distributed among 
 the various European races. 
 
 These several developments of the artistic faculty, whether 
 manifested in sculpture, painting, or architecture, are evidently 
 outgrowths of the human intellect which have no immediate 
 
\ 
 
 DARWINISM AS APPLIED TO MAN 263 
 
 influence on the survival of individuals or of tribes, or on the suc- 
 cess of nations in their struggles for supremacy or for existence. 
 The glorious art of Greece did not prevent the nation from falling 
 under the sway of the less advanced Roman ; while we ourselves, 
 among whom art was the latest to arise, have taken the lead in 
 the colonization of the world, thus proving our mixed race to be 
 the fittest to survive. 
 
 The law of Natural Selection or the survival of the fittest is, as 
 its name implies, a rigid law, which acts by the life or death of 
 the individuals submitted to its action. From its very nature it 
 can act only on useful or hurtful characteristics, eliminating the 
 latter and keeping up the former to a fairly general level of effi- 
 ciency. Hence it necessarily follows that the characters devel- 
 oped by its means will be present in all the individuals of a species, 
 and, though varying, will not vary very widely from a common 
 standard. The amount of variation we found, in our third 
 chapter, to be about one fifth or one sixth of the mean value — 
 that is, if the mean value were taken at 100, the variations would 
 reach from 80 to 120, or somewhat more, if very large numbers 
 were compared. In accordance with this law we find that all 
 those characters in man which were certainly essential to him 
 during his early stages of development exist in all savages with 
 some approach to equality. In the speed of running, in bodily 
 strength, in skill with weapons, in acuteness of vision, or in power 
 of following a trail, all are fairly proficient, and the differences 
 of endowment do not probably exceed the limits of variation in 
 animals above referred to. So, in animal instinct or intelligence, 
 we find the same general level of development. Every wren 
 makes a fairly good nest like its fellows ; every fox has an average 
 amount of the sagacity of its race ; while all the higher birds and 
 mammals have the necessary affections and instincts needful for 
 the protection and bringing up of their offspring. 
 
 But in those specially developed faculties of civilized man 
 which we have been considering, the case is very different. 
 They exist only in a small proportion of individuals, while the 
 
264 ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE 
 
 difference of capacity between these favored individuals and the 
 average of mankind is enormous. Taking first the mathematical 
 faculty, probably fewer than one in a hundred really possess it, 
 the great bulk of the population having no natural ability for 
 the study, or feeling the slightest interest in it. And if we at- 
 tempt to measure the amount of variation in the faculty itself 
 between a first-class mathematician and the ordinary run of 
 people who find any kind of calculation confusing and altogether 
 devoid of interest, it is probable that the former could not be 
 estimated at less than a hundred times the latter, and perhaps a 
 thousand times would more nearly measure the difference be- 
 tween them. 
 
 The artistic faculty appears to agree pretty closely with the 
 mathematical in its frequency. The boys and girls who, going 
 beyond the mere conventional designs of children, draw what 
 they see, not what they know to be the shape of things ; who nat- 
 urally sketch in perspective, because it is thus they see objects ; 
 who see, and represent in their sketches, the light and shade as 
 well as the mere outlines of objects ; and who can draw recogniz- 
 able sketches of every one they know, are certainly very few com- 
 pared with those who are totally incapable of anything of the 
 kind. From some inquiries I have made in schools, and from 
 my own observation, I believe that those who are endowed with 
 this natural artistic talent do not exceed, even if they come up to, 
 one per cent of the whole population. 
 
 The variations in the amount of artistic faculty are certainly 
 very great, even if we do not take the extremes. The grada- 
 tions of power between the ordinary man or woman "who does 
 not draw," and whose attempts at representing any object, ani- 
 mate or inanimate, would be laughable, and the average good 
 artist who, with a few bold strokes, can produce a recognizable 
 and even effective sketch of a landscape, a street, or an animal, 
 are very numerous ; and we can hardly measure the difference 
 between them at less than fifty or a hundred fold. 
 
 The musical faculty is undoubtedly, in its lower forms, less un- 
 common than either of the preceding, but it still differs essen- 
 
DARWINISM AS APPLIED TO MAN 265 
 
 tially from the necessary or useful faculties in that it is almost 
 entirely wanting in one half even of civilized men. For every 
 person who draws, as it were instinctively, there are probably 
 five or ten who sing or play without having been taught and from 
 mere innate love and perception of melody and harmony.^ On 
 the other hand, there are probably about as many who seem ab- 
 solutely deficient in musical perception, who take little pleasure 
 in it, who cannot perceive discords or remember tunes, and who 
 could not learn to sing or play with any amount of study. The 
 gradations, too, are here quite as great as in mathematics or 
 pictorial art, and the special faculty of the great musical composer 
 must be reckoned many hundreds or perhaps thousands of times 
 greater than that of the ordinary "unmusical" person above re- 
 ferred to. 
 
 It appears then, that, both on account of the limited number of 
 persons gifted with the mathematical, the artistic, or the musical 
 faculty, as well as from the enormous variations in its development, 
 these mental powers differ widely from those which are essential 
 to man, and are, for the most part, common to him and the 
 lower animals ; and that they could not, therefore, possibly have 
 been developed in him by means of the law of natural selection. 
 
 We have thus shown, by two distinct Hnes of argument, that 
 faculties are developed in civilized man which, both in their 
 mode of origin, their function, and their variations, are altogether 
 distinct from those other characters and faculties which are es- 
 sential to him, and which have been brought to their actual 
 state of efficiency by the necessities of his existence. And be- 
 sides the three which have been specially referred to, there are 
 others which evidently belong to the same class. Such is the 
 metaphysical faculty, which enables us to form abstract concep- 
 tions of a kind the most remote from all practical applications, 
 to discuss the ultimate causes of things, the nature and qualities 
 of matter, motion, and force, of space and time, of cause and 
 
 1 I am informed, however, by a music master in a large school that only 
 about one per cent have real or decided musical talent, corresponding curi- 
 ously with the estimate of the mathematicians. 
 
266 ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE 
 
 effect, of will and conscience. Speculations on these abstract 
 and difficult questions are impossible to savages, who seem to 
 have no mental faculty enabhng them to grasp the essential 
 ideas or conceptions ; yet whenever any race attains to civiliza- 
 tion, and comprises a body of people who, whether as priests or 
 philosophers, are reheved from the necessity of labor or of 
 taking an active part in war or government, the metaphysical 
 faculty appears to spring suddenly into existence, although, like 
 the other faculties we have referred to, it is always confined to a 
 very limited proportion of the population. 
 
 In the same class we may place the peculiar faculty of wit and 
 humor, an altogether natural gift whose development appears 
 to be parallel with that of the other exceptional faculties. Like 
 them, it is almost unknown among savages, but appears more 
 or less frequently as civilization advances and the interests of 
 life become more numerous and more complex. Like them, too, 
 it is altogether removed from utility in the struggle for life, and 
 appears sporadically in a very small percentage of the popula- 
 tion ; the majority being, as is well known, totally unable to say 
 a witty thing or make a pun even to save their Uves. 
 
 The facts now set forth prove the existence of a number of 
 mental faculties which either do not exist at all or exist in a very 
 rudimentary condition in savages, but appear almost suddenly 
 and in perfect development in the higher civilized races. These 
 same faculties are further characterized by their sporadic charac- 
 ter, being well developed only in a very small proportion of the 
 community ; and by the enormous amount of variation in their 
 development, the higher manifestations of them being many 
 times — perhaps a hundred or a thousand times — stronger than 
 the lower. Each of these characteristics is totally inconsistent 
 with any action of the law of natural selection in the production 
 of the faculties referred to ; and the facts, taken in their entirety, 
 compel us to recognize some origin for them wholly distinct from 
 that which has served to account for the animal characteristics 
 — whether bodily or mental — of man. 
 
 
DARWINISM AS APPLIED TO MAN 267 
 
 The special faculties we have been discussing clearly point to 
 the existence in man of something which he has not derived from 
 his animal progenitors — something which we may best refer to 
 as being of a spiritual essence or nature, capable of progressive 
 development under favorable conditions. On the hypothesis 
 of this spiritual nature, superadded to the animal nature of man, 
 we are able to understand much that is otherwise mysterious or 
 unintelUgible in regard to him, especially the enormous influence 
 of ideas, principles, and beliefs over his whole life and actions. 
 Thus alone we can understand the constancy of the martyr, the 
 unselfishness of the philanthropist, the devotion of the patriot, 
 the enthusiasm of the artist, and the resolute and persevering 
 search of the scientific worker after nature's secrets. Thus we 
 may perceive that the love of truth, the delight in beauty, the 
 passion for justice, and the thrill of exultation with which we 
 hear of any act of courageous self-sacrifice, are the workings 
 within us of a higher nature which has not been developed by 
 means of the struggle for material existence. 
 
 It will, no doubt, be urged that the admitted continuity of 
 man's progress from the brute does not admit of the introduction 
 of new causes, and that we have no evidence of the sudden change 
 of nature which such introduction would bring about. The 
 fallacy as to new causes involving any breach of continuity, or 
 any sudden or abrupt change, in the effects, has already been 
 shown ; but we will further point out that there are at least 
 three stages in the development of the organic world when some 
 new cause or power must necessarily have come into action. 
 
 The first stage is the change from inorganic to organic, when 
 the earliest vegetable cell, or the living protoplasm out of which 
 it arose, first appeared. This is often imputed to a mere increase 
 of complexity of chemical compounds ; but increase of com- 
 plexity, with consequent instability, even if we admit that it 
 may have produced protoplasm as a chemical compound, could 
 certainly not have produced living protoplasm — protoplasm 
 which has the power of growth and of reproduction, and of that 
 continuous process of development which has resulted in the 
 
268 ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE 
 
 marvelous variety and complex organization of the whole vege- 
 table kingdom. There is in all this something quite beyond and 
 apart from chemical changes, however complex ; and it has been 
 well said that the first vegetable cell was a new thing in the world, 
 possessing altogether new powers — that of extracting and fixing 
 carbon from the carbon dioxide of the atmosphere, that of indefi- 
 nite reproduction, and, still more marvelous, the power of varia- 
 tion and of reproducing those variations, till endless complica- 
 tions of structure and varieties of form have been the result. 
 Here, then, we have indications of a new power at work, which 
 we may term vitality, since it gives to certain forms of matter 
 all those characters and properties which constitute Life. 
 
 The next stage is still more marvelous, still more completely 
 beyond all possibility of explanation by matter, its laws and 
 forces. It is the introduction of sensation or consciousness, con- 
 stituting the fundamental distinction between the animal and 
 vegetable kingdoms. Here all idea of mere complication of 
 structure producing the residt is out of the question. We feel it 
 to be altogether preposterous to assume that at a certain stage of 
 complexity of atomic constitution, and as a necessary result of 
 that complexity alone, an ego should start into existence, a thing 
 that feels, that is conscious of its own existence. Here we have 
 the certainty that something new has arisen, a being whose nas- 
 cent consciousness has gone on increasing in power and definite- 
 ness tUl it has culminated in the higher animals. No verbal ex- 
 planation or attempt at explanation — such as the statement 
 that life is the residt of the molecular forces of the protoplasm, or 
 that the whole existing organic universe from the amoeba up to 
 man was latent in the fire-mist from which the solar system was 
 developed — can afford any mental satisfaction, or help us in 
 any way to a solution of the mystery. 
 
 The third stage is, as we have seen, the existence in man of a 
 number of his most characteristic and noblest faculties, those 
 which raise him furthest above the brutes and open up possibili- 
 ties of almost indefinite advancement. These faculties could 
 not possibly have been developed by means of the same laws 
 
DARWINISM AS APPLIED TO MAN 269 
 
 which have determined the progressive development of the or- 
 ganic world in general, and also of man's physical organism.^ 
 
 These three distinct stages of progress from the inorganic 
 world of matter and motion up to man, point clearly to an unseen 
 universe — to a world of spirit, to which the world of matter is 
 altogether subordinate. To this spiritual world we may refer 
 the marvelously complex forces which we know as gravitation, 
 cohesion, chemical force, radiant force, and electricity, without 
 which the material universe could not exist for a moment in its 
 present form, and perhaps not at all, since without these forces, 
 and perhaps others which may be termed atomic, it is doubtful 
 whether matter itself could have any existence. And still more 
 surely can we refer to it those progressive manifestations of Life 
 in the vegetable, the animal, and man — which we may classify 
 as unconscious, conscious, and intellectual life, — and which 
 probably depend upon different degrees of spiritual influx. I 
 have already shown that this involves no necessary infraction of 
 the law of continuity in physical or mental evolution ; whence it 
 follows that any difiiculty we may find in discriminating the 
 inorganic from the organic, the lower vegetable from the lower 
 animal organisms, or the higher animals from the lowest types 
 of man, has no bearing at all upon the question. This is to be 
 decided by showing that a change in essential nature (due, prob- 
 ably, to causes of a higher order than those of the material uni- 
 verse) took place at the several stages of progress which I have 
 indicated; a change which may be none the less real because 
 absolutely imperceptible at its point of origin, as is the change 
 that takes place in the curve in which a body is moving when the 
 apphcation of some new force causes the curve to be slightly 
 altered. 
 
 Those who admit my interpretation of the evidence now ad- 
 duced — strictly scientific evidence in its appeal to facts which 
 are clearly what ought not to be on the materialistic theory — will 
 
 1 For an earlier discussion of this subject, with some wider applications, see 
 the author's Conlrlhulions to the Theory of Natural Selection, chap. x. 
 
270 ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE 
 
 be able to accept the spiritual nature of man, as not in any way 
 inconsistent with the theory of evolution, but as dependent on 
 those fundamental laws and causes which furnish the very mate- 
 rials for evolution to work with. They will also be relieved from 
 the crushing mental burden imposed upon those who — main- 
 taining that we, in common with the rest of nature, are but prod- 
 ucts of the bhnd eternal forces of the universe, and believing 
 also that the time must come when the sun will lose his heat and 
 all life on the earth necessarily cease — have to contemplate a not 
 very distant future in which all this glorious earth — which for un- 
 told millions of years has been slowly developing forms of life and 
 beauty to culminate at last in man — shall be as if it had never 
 existed ; who are compelled to suppose that all the slow growths 
 of our race struggling towards a higher life, all the agony of 
 martyrs, all the groans of victims, all the evil and misery and 
 undeserved suffering of the ages, all the struggles for freedom, 
 all the efforts towards justice, all the aspirations for virtue and 
 the well-being of humanity, shall absolutely vanish, and, "like 
 the baseless fabric of a vision, leave not a wrack behind." 
 
 As contrasted with this hopeless and soul-deadening belief, we, 
 who accept the existence of a spirtual world, can look upon the 
 universe as a grand consistent whole adapted in all its parts to 
 the development of spiritual beings capable of indefinite life and 
 perfectibility. To us, the whole purpose, the only raison d^etre 
 of the world — with all its complexities of physical structure, 
 with its grand geological progress, the slow evolution of the 
 vegetable and animal kingdoms, and the ultimate appearance of 
 man — was the development of the human spirit in association 
 with the human body. From the fact that the spirit of man — 
 the man himself — is so developed, we may well believe that this 
 is the only, or at least the best, way for its development ; and 
 we may even see in what is usually termed "evil" on the earth, 
 one of the most efficient means of its growth. For we know that 
 the noblest faculties of man are strengthened and perfected by 
 struggle and effort ; it is by unceasing warfare against physical 
 evils and in the midst of difficulty and danger that energy, cour- 
 
I 
 
 DARWINISM AS APPLIED TO MAN 271 
 
 age, self-reliance, and industry have become the common quali- 
 ties of the northern races ; it is by the battle with moral evil in 
 all its hydra-headed forms, that the still nobler qualities of 
 justice and mercy and humanity and self-sacrifice have been 
 steadily increasing in the world. Beings thus trained and strength- 
 ened by their surroundings, and possessing latent faculties capa- 
 ble of such noble development, are surely destined for a higher 
 and more permanent existence; and we may confidently be- 
 lieve with our greatest living poet — 
 
 That life is not as idle ore, 
 
 But iron dug from central gloom. 
 
 And heated hot with burning fears, 
 And dipt in baths of hissing tears. 
 
 And batter'd with the shocks of doom 
 
 To shape and use. ^ 
 
 We thus find that the Darwinian theory, even when carried out 
 to its extreme logical conclusion, not only does not oppose, but 
 lends a decided support to, a belief in he spiritual nature of man. 
 It shows us how man's body may have been developed from that 
 of a lower animal form under the law of natural selection ; but 
 it also teaches us that we possess intellectual and moral faculties 
 which could not have been so developed, but must have had an- 
 other origin ; and for this origin we can only find an adequate 
 cause in the unseen universe of Spirit. 
 
 • ^ Tennyson's /« Memoriam, cxviii — Editors. 
 
X 
 
 THE BELFAST ADDRESS 
 John Tyndall 
 
 [John Tyndall (1820-1893) holds a position of great fame and importance 
 in the field of investigative science. In his youth he was largely self-educated, 
 and held early positions as surveyor, engineer, and teacher of mathematics. 
 His advanced studies were pursued at Marburg, where he worked with tre- 
 mendous energy, but under straitened financial circumstances. Tyndall's 
 general note probably dated from the period of the publication of his Glaciers 
 of the Alps, 1857-1859, which represented the results of an investigative ex- 
 cursion to Switzerland in company with Huxley. From this time on, he rap- 
 idly gained popularity as a writer and lecturer on scientific topics. It is a 
 mistake, however, to regard Tyndall as merely a popularizer of science, for 
 his investigations, which were both extensive and minute, are numbered 
 among the most important contributions of his century to geological, chem- 
 ical, meteorological, and physical science. 
 
 The so-called Belfast Address was delivered as Tyndall's inaugural address 
 at the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science at 
 Belfast in 1874, and was published in the Popidar Science Monthly in the 
 same year. This address, an imposing reminder that science and Hterary 
 art are not inevitably unrelated, reviews the history of ancient and modern 
 efforts to develop an explanation of physical and spiritual existence from the 
 evidence of scientific observation, as opposed to the assumptions of religious 
 tradition. As a frank challenge to the adherents of a literal interpretation 
 of biblical tradition, the Belfast Address brought down upon Tyndall the full 
 blast of polemical fire that had been smoldering angrily since 1859, when 
 the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species first brought forward conclu- 
 sive justification for the free criticism of dogmatic theology. Tyndall's 
 position in this controversy may be found in his Fragvients of Science.] 
 
 An impulse inherent in primeval man turned his thoughts and 
 questionings betimes toward the sources of natural phenomena. 
 The same impulse, inherited and intensified, is the spur of scien- 
 tific action to-day. Determined by it, by a process of abstraction 
 
 272 
 
THE BELFAST ADDRESS 273 
 
 from experience we form physical theories which lie beyond the 
 pale of experience, but which satisfy the desire of the mind to see 
 every natural occurrence resting upon a cause. In forming 
 their notions of the origin of things, our earliest historic (and 
 doubtless, we inight add, our prehistoric) ancestors pursued, as 
 far as their intelligence permitted, the same course. They also 
 fell back upon experience, but with this difference — that the 
 particular experiences which furnished the weft and woof of 
 their theories were drawn, not from the study of nature, but from 
 what lay much closer to them, the observation of men. Their 
 theories accordingly took an anthropomorphic form. To su- 
 persensual beings, which, "however potent and invisible, were 
 nothing but a species of human creatures, perhaps raised from 
 among mankind, and retaining all human passions and appe- 
 tites," ^ were handed over the rule and governance of natural phe- 
 nomena. 
 
 Tested by observation and reflection, these early notions failed 
 in the long run to satisfy the more penetrating intellects of our 
 race. Far in the depths of history we find men of exceptional 
 power differentiating themselves from the crowd, rejecting 
 these anthropomorphic notions, and seeking to connect natural 
 phenomena with their physical principles. But long prior to 
 these purer effects of the understanding, the merchant had been 
 abroad, and rendered the philosopher possible; commerce had 
 been developed, wealth amassed, leisure for travel and for specu- 
 lation secured, while races educated under different conditions, 
 and therefore differently informed and endowed, had been stim- 
 ulated and sharpened by mutual contact. In those regions 
 where the commercial aristocracy of ancient Greece mingled 
 with its Eastern neighbors, the sciences were born, being nurtured 
 and developed by free-thinking and courageous men. The 
 state of things to be displaced may be gathered from a passage 
 of Euripides quoted by Hume. "There is nothing in the world ; 
 no glory, no prosperity. The gods toss all into confusion ; mix 
 everything with its reverse, that all of us, from our ignorance and 
 1 Hume, Natural History of Religion. 
 
274 JOHN TYNDALL 
 
 uncertainty, may pay them the more worship and reverence." 
 Now, as science demands the radical extirpation of caprice, and 
 the absolute reliance upon law in nature, there grew with the 
 growth of scientific notions a desire and determination to sweep 
 from the field of theory this mob of gods and demons, and to 
 place natural phenomena on a basis more congruent with them- 
 selves. 
 
 The problem which had been previously approached from 
 above was now attacked from below; theoretic effort passed 
 from the super- to the sub-sensible. It was felt that to construct 
 the universe in idea it was necessary to have some notion of its 
 constituent parts — of what Lucretius subsequently called the 
 "First Beginnings." Abstracting again from experience, the 
 leaders of scientific speculation reached at length the pregnant 
 doctrine of atoms and molecules, the latest developments of 
 which were set forth with such power and clearness at the last 
 meeting of the British Association. Thought, no doubt, had 
 long hovered about this doctrine before it attained the precision 
 and completeness which it assumed in the mind of Democritus,^ 
 a philosopher who may well for a moment arrest our attention. 
 "Few great men," says Lange, in his excellent History of Ma- 
 terialism, a work to the spirit and the letter of which I am 
 equally indebted, "have been so despitefully used by history as 
 Democritus. In the distorted images sent down to us through 
 unscientific traditions there remains of him almost nothing but 
 the name of the 'laughing philosopher,' while figures of immeas- 
 urably smaller significance spread themselves at full length 
 before us." Lange speaks of Bacon's high appreciation of De- 
 mocritus — for ample illustrations of which I am indebted to my 
 excellent friend Mr. Spedding, the learned editor and biographer 
 of Bacon. It is evident, indeed, that Bacon considered Democ- 
 ritus to be a man of weightier metal than either Plato or Aris- 
 totle, though their philosophy "was noised and celebrated in the 
 schools, amid the din and pomp of professors." It was not they, 
 but Genseric and Attila and the barbarians, who destroyed the 
 * Born 460 B.C. 
 
THE BELFAST ADDRESS 275 
 
 atomic philosophy. "For at a time when all human learning 
 had suflfered shipwreck, these planks of Aristotelian and Platonic 
 philosophy, as being of a lighter and more inflated substance, 
 were preserved and come down to us, while things more solid 
 sank and almost passed into oblivion." 
 
 The principles enunciated by Democritus reveal his uncom- 
 promising antagonism to those who deduced the phenomena of 
 nature from the caprices of the gods. They are briefly these : 
 I. From nothing comes nothing. Nothing that exists can be 
 destroyed. All changes are due to the combination and sepa- 
 ration of molecules. 2. Nothing happens by chance. Every 
 occurrence has its cause from which it folloM's by necessity. 
 3. The only existing things are the atoms and empty space ; all 
 else is mere opinion. 4. The atoms are infinite in number, and 
 infinitely various in form ; they strike together, and the lateral 
 motions and whirlings which thus arise are the beginnings of 
 worlds. 5. The varieties of all things depend upon the varieties 
 of their atoms, in number, size, and aggregation. 6. The soul 
 consists of free, smooth, round atoms, like those of fire. These 
 are the most mobile of all. They interpenetrate the whole body, 
 and in their motions the phenomena of life arise. Thus the 
 atoms of Democritus are individually without sensation ; they 
 combine in obedience to mechanical laws ; and not only organic 
 forms, but the phenomena of sensation and thought, are also 
 the result of their combination. 
 
 That great enigma, "the exquisite adaptation of one part of 
 an organism to another part, and to the conditions of life," 
 more especially the construction of the human body, Democritus 
 made no attempt to solve. Empedocles, a man of more fiery 
 and poetic nature, introduced the notion of love and hate among 
 the atoms to account for their combination and separation. 
 Noticing this gap in the doctrine of Democritus, he struck in 
 with the penetrating thought, linked, however, with some wild 
 speculation, that it lay in the very nature of those combinations 
 which were suited to their ends (in other words, in harmony with 
 their environment) to maintain themselves, while unfit combina- 
 
276 JOHN TYXDALL 
 
 tions, having no proper habitat, must rapidly disappear. Thus 
 more than 2000 years ago the doctrine of the "sur\'ival of the 
 fittest," which in our day, not on the basis of vague conjecture, 
 but of positive knowledge, has been raised to such extraordinary 
 significance, had received at all events partial enunciation.^ 
 
 Epicurus,^ said to be the son of a poor schoolmaster at Samos, 
 is the next dominant figure in the history of the atomic phi- 
 losophy. He mastered the writings of Democritus, heard lec- 
 tures in Athens, returned to Samos, and subsequently wandered 
 through various countries. He finally returned to Athens, 
 where he bought a garden, and surrounded himself by pupils, 
 in the midst of whom he lived a pure and serene life, and died a 
 peaceful death. His philosophy was alm^^st identical with that 
 of Democritus ; but he never quoted either friend or foe. One 
 main object of Epicurus was to free the world from superstition 
 and the fear of death. Death he treated with indifference. It 
 merely robs us of sensation. As long as we are, death is not ; 
 and when death is, we are not. .Life has no more evil for him 
 who has made up his mind that it is no evil not to live. He 
 adored the gods, but not in the ordinary fashion. The idea of 
 divine power, properly purified, he thought an elevating one. 
 Still he taught, "Not he is godless who rejects the gods of the 
 crowd, but rather he who accepts them." The gods were to 
 him eternal and immortal beings, whose blessedness excluded 
 every thought of care or occupation of any kind. Nature pur- 
 sues her course in accordance with everlasting laws, the gods 
 never interfering. They haunt 
 
 The lucid interspace of world and world 
 Where never creeps a cloud or moves a wind, 
 Nor ever falls the least white star of snow, 
 Nor ever lowest roll of thunder moans, 
 Nor sound of human sorrow mounts to mar 
 Their sacred everlasting calm. ' 
 
 1 Lange, History of Materialism, 2d edit., p. 23. 
 
 ^ Born 342 B.C. 
 
 ^ Tennyson's Lucretius. 
 
THE BELFAST ADDRESS 277 
 
 Lange considers the relation of Epicurus to the gods subjec- 
 tive ; the indication probably of an ethical requirement of his 
 own nature. We cannot read history with open eyes, or study 
 human nature to its depths, and fail to discern such a require- 
 ment. Man never has been and he never will be satisfied with 
 the operations and products of the understanding alone ; hence 
 physical science cannot cover all the demands of his nature. 
 But the history of the efforts made to satisfy these demands 
 might be broadly described as a history of errors — the error 
 consisting in ascribing fixity to that which is fluent, which varies 
 as we vary, being gross when we are gross, and becoming, as 
 our capacities widen, more abstract and sublime. On one great 
 point the mind of Epicurus was at peace. He neither sought nor 
 expected, here or hereafter, any personal profit from his relation 
 to the gods. And it is assuredly a fact that loftiness and serenity 
 of thought may be promoted by conceptions which involve no 
 idea of profit of this kind. "Did I not believe," said a great 
 man to me once, "that an Intelligence is at the heart of things, 
 my life on earth would be intolerable." The utterer of these 
 words is not, in my opinion, rendered less noble, but more noble, 
 by the fact that it was the need of ethical harmony here, and not 
 the thought of personal profit hereafter, that prompted his 
 observation. 
 
 A century and a half after the death of Epicurus, Lucretius ^ 
 wrote his great poem, "On the Nature of Things," in which he, 
 a Roman, developed with extraordinary ardor the philosophy of 
 his Greek predecessor. He wishes to win over his friend Mem- 
 nius to the school of Epicurus ; and although he has no rewards 
 in a future life to offer, although his object appears to be a purely 
 negative one, he addresses his friend with the heat of an apostle. 
 His object, like that of his great forerunner, is the destruction 
 of superstition ; and considering that men trembled before 
 every natural event as a direct monition from the gods, and that 
 everlasting torture was also in prospect, the freedom aimed at 
 by Lucretius might perhaps be deemed a positive good. "This 
 
 ' Born 99 B.C. 
 
278 JOHN TYNDALL 
 
 terror," he says, "and darkness of mind must be dispelled, 
 not by the rays of the sun and glittering shafts of day, but by 
 the aspect and the law of nature." He refutes the notion that 
 anything can come out of nothing, or that that which is once 
 begotten can be recalled to nothing. The first beginnings, the 
 atoms, are indestructible, and into them all things can be dis- 
 solved at last. Bodies are partly atoms and partly combinations 
 of atoms ; but the atoms nothing can quench. They are strong 
 in solid singleness, and by their denser combination all things can 
 be closely packed and exhibit enduring strength. He denies 
 that matter is infinitely divisible. We come at length to the 
 atoms, without which, as an imperishable substratum, all order 
 in the generation and development of things would be destroyed. 
 The mechanical shock of the atoms being in his view the all- 
 sufficient cause of things, he combats the notion that the con- 
 stitution of nature has been in any way determined by intelli- 
 gent design. The interaction of the atoms throughout infinite 
 time rendered all manner of combinations possible. Of these 
 the fit ones persisted, while the unfit ones disappeared. Not 
 after sage deliberation did the atoms station themselves in their 
 right places, nor did they bargain what motions they should 
 assume. From all eternity they have been driven together, 
 and, after trying motions and unions of every kind, they fell 
 at length into the arrangements out of which this system of 
 things has been formed. His grand conception of the atoms 
 falling silently through immeasurable ranges of space and time 
 suggested the nebular hypothesis ^ to Kant, its first propounder. 
 "If you will apprehend and keep in mind these things, nature, 
 free at once, and rid of her haughty lords, is seen to do all things 
 spontaneously, of herself, without the meddling of the gods."^ 
 
 ^ The theory that the stars and the planetary bodies have been evolved from 
 diffused nebulous matter. — ■ Editors. 
 
 2 Monro's translation [of Lucretius]. In his criticism of this work {Con- 
 temporary Review, 1867) Dr. Hayman does not appear to be aware of the 
 really sound and subtile observations on which the reasoning of Lucretius, 
 though erroneous, sometimes rests. 
 
THE BELFAST ADDRESS 279 
 
 During the centuries between the first of these three phi- 
 losophers and the last, the human intellect was active in other 
 fields than theirs. The Sophists had run through their career. 
 At Athens had appeared the three men, Socrates, Plato, and 
 Aristotle, whose yoke remains to some extent unbroken to 
 the present hour. Within this period also the school of Alexan- 
 dria was founded, Euclid wrote his Elements, and he and 
 others made some advance in optics. Archimedes had pro- 
 pounded the theory of the lever and the principles of hydro- 
 statics. Pythagoras had made his experiments on the harmonic 
 intervals, while astronomy was immensely enriched by the dis- 
 coveries of Hipparchus, who was followed by the historically 
 more celebrated Ptolemy. Anatomy had been made the basis of 
 scientific medicine ; and it is said by Draper ^ that vivisection 
 then began. In fact, the science of ancient Greece had already 
 cleared the world of the fantastic images of divinities operating 
 capriciously through natural phenomena. It had shaken itself 
 free from that fruitless scrutiny "by the internal light of the 
 mind alone," which had vainly sought to transcend experience 
 and reach a knowledge of ultimate causes. Instead of accidental 
 observation, it had introduced observation with a purpose; 
 instruments were employed to aid the senses ; and scientific 
 method was rendered in a great measure complete by the union 
 of induction and experiment. 
 
 What, then, stopped its victorious advance ? Why was the 
 scientific intellect compelled, like an exhausted soil, to lie fallow 
 for nearly two millenniums before it could regather the elements 
 necessary to its fertility and strength ? Bacon has already 
 let us know one cause ; Whewell ascribes this stationary period 
 to four causes — obscurity of thought, servility, intolerance of 
 disposition, enthusiasm of temper ; and he gives striking ex- 
 amples of each.- But these characteristics must have had their 
 causes, which lay in the circumstances of the time. Rome 
 and the other cities of the empire had fallen into moral putre- 
 
 ^ History of the Inlelleclual Development of Europe, p. 295. 
 " History of the Inductive Sciences, vol. i. 
 
28o JOHN TYNDALL 
 
 faction. Christianity had appeared, offering the Gospel to the 
 poor, and, by moderation if not asceticism of life, practically 
 protesting against the profligacy of the age. The sufferings of 
 the early Christians, and the extraordinary exaltation of mind 
 which enabled them to triumph over the diabolical tortures to 
 which they were subjected,^ must have left traces not easily 
 effaced. They scorned the earth, in view of that "building of 
 God, that house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." 
 The Scriptures which ministered to their spiritual needs were 
 also the measure of their science. When, for example, the 
 celebrated question of antipodes came to be discussed, the Bible 
 was with many the ultimate court of appeal. Augustine, who 
 flourished a.d. 400, would not deny the rotundity of the earth, 
 but he would deny the possible existence of inhabitants at the 
 other side, "because no such race is recorded in Scripture among 
 the descendants of Adam." Archbishop Boniface was shocked 
 at the assumption of a "world of human beings out of the reach 
 of the means of salvation." Thus reined in, science was not 
 likely to make much progress. Later on, the political and the- 
 ological strife between the Church and civil governments, so 
 powerfully depicted by Draper, must have done much to stifle 
 investigation. 
 
 Whewell makes many wise and brave remarks regarding the ■ 
 spirit of the Middle Ages. It was a menial spirit. The seekers 
 after natural knowledge had forsaken that fountain of living 
 waters, the direct appeal to nature by observation and experi- 
 ment, and had given themselves up to the remanipulation of the 
 notions of their predecessors. It was a time when thought had 
 become abject, and when the acceptance of mere authority led, 
 as it always does in science, to intellectual death. Natural 
 events, instead of being traced to physical, were referred to 
 moral causes, while an exercise of the fantasy, almost as 
 degrading as the Spiritualism of the present day, took the 
 place of scientific speculation. Then came the mysticism 
 of the Middle Ages, magic, alchemy, the Neoplatonic philoso- 
 1 Depicted with terrible vividness in Renan's Antichrist. 
 
THE BELFAST ADDRESS 281 
 
 phy/ with its visionary though sublime attractions, which caused 
 men to look with shame upon their own bodies as hindrances to 
 the absorption of the creature in the blessedness of the Creator. 
 Finally came the scholastic philosophy, a fusion, according to 
 Lange, of the least mature notions of Aristotle with the Chris- 
 tianity of the West. Intellectual immobility was the result. As 
 a traveler without a compass in a fog may wander long, im- 
 agining he is making way, and find himself, after hours of toil, 
 at his starting-point, so the schoolmen, having tied and untied 
 the same knots, and formed and dissipated the same clouds, 
 found themselves at the end of centuries in their old position. 
 
 With regard to the influence wielded by Aristotle in the 
 Middle Ages, and which, though to a less extent, he still wields, 
 I would ask permission to make one remark. When the human 
 mind has achieved greatness and given evidence of extraordinary 
 power in any domain, there is a tendency to credit it with similar 
 power in all other domains. Thus theologians have found com- 
 fort and assurance in the thought that Newton dealt with the 
 question of revelation, forgetful of the fact that the very devotion 
 of his powers, through all the best years of his life, to a totally 
 different class of ideas, not to speak of any natural disqualifica- 
 tion, tended to render him less instead of more competent to 
 deal with theological and historic questions. Goethe, starting 
 from his established greatness as a poet, and indeed from his 
 positive discoveries in natural history, produced a profound 
 impression among the painters of Germany when he published 
 his Farbenlehre, in which he endeavored to overthrow New- 
 ton's theory of colors. This theory he deemed so obviously 
 absurd that he considered its author a charlatan, and attacked 
 him with a corresponding vehemence of language. In the do- 
 main of natural history Goethe had made really considerable 
 discoveries ; and we have high authority for assuming that 
 had he devoted himself wholly to that side of science, he might 
 have reached in it an eminence comparable with that which he 
 
 ' Renaissance Neoplatonism was a revival of an Alexandrian modification 
 of Plato's philosophy influenced in part by Christian teachings. — Editors. 
 
282 JOHN TYNDALL 
 
 attained as a poet. In sharpness of observation, in the detection 
 of analogies, however apparently remote, in the classification 
 and organization of facts according to the analogies discerned, 
 Goethe possessed extraordinary powers. These elements of 
 scientific inquiry fall in with the discipline of the poet. But, 
 on the other hand, a mind thus richly endowed in the direction 
 of natural history may be almost shorn of endowment as re- 
 gards the more strictly called physical and mechanical sciences. 
 Goethe was in this condition. He could not formulate distinct 
 mechanical conceptions ; he could not see the force of mechan- 
 ical reasoning ; and in regions where such reasoning reigns 
 supreme he became a mere ignis Jatuus ^ to those who followed 
 him. 
 
 I have sometimes permitted myself to compare Aristotle 
 with Goethe ; to credit the Stagirite with an almost superhuman 
 power of amassing and systematizing facts, but to consider him 
 fatally defective on that side of the mind in respect to which 
 incompleteness has been justly ascribed to Goethe. Whewell 
 refers the errors of Aristotle, not to a neglect of facts, but to 
 "a neglect of the idea appropriate to the facts; the idea of 
 mechanical cause, which is force, and the substitution of vague 
 or inapplicable notions, involving only relations of space or emo- 
 tions of wonder." This is doubtless true ; but the word "neg- 
 lect" implies mere intellectual misdirection, whereas in Aris- 
 totle, as in Goethe, it was not, I believe, misdirection, but sheer 
 natural incapacity, which lay at the root of his mistakes. As a 
 physicist, Aristotle displayed what we should consider some of 
 the worst attributes of a modern physical investigator — indis- 
 tinctness of ideas, confusion of mind, and a confident use of 
 language, which led to the delusive notion that he had really 
 mastered his subject, while he as yet had failed to grasp even the 
 elements of it. He put words in the place of things, subject in 
 the place of object. He preached induction without practicing 
 it, inverting the true order of inquiry by passing from the general 
 to the particular, instead of from the particular to the general. 
 1 Delusive influence. — -Editors. 
 
 i 
 
THE BELFAST ADDRESS 283 
 
 He made of the universe a closed sphere, in the center of which 
 he fixed the earth, proving from general principles, to his own 
 satisfaction and that of the world for nearly two thousand years, 
 that no other universe was possible. His notions of motion 
 were entirely unphysical. It was natural or unnatural, better 
 or worse, calm or violent — no real mechanical conception 
 regarding it lying at the bottom of his mind. He affirmed that 
 a vacuum could not exist, and proved that if it did exist, motion 
 in it would be impossible. He determined a priori how many 
 species of animals must exist, and showed on general principles 
 why animals must have such and such parts. When an emi- 
 nent contemporary philosopher, who is far removed from errors 
 of this kind, remembers these abuses of the a priori method, 
 he will be able to make allowance for the jealousy of physicists 
 as to the acceptance of so-called d priori truths. Aristotle's 
 errors of detail were grave and numerous. He affirmed that 
 only in man we had the beating of the heart, that the left side 
 of the body was colder than the right, that men have more 
 teeth than women, and that there is an empty space, not at the 
 front, but at the back, of every man's head. 
 
 There is one essential quality in physical conceptions which 
 was entirely wanting in those of Aristotle and his followers. I 
 wish it could be expressed by a word untainted by its associa- 
 tions ; it signifies a capability of being placed as a coherent 
 picture before the mind. The Germans express the act of pic- 
 turing by the word vorstellen, and the picture they call a Vor- 
 stellung. We have no word in English which comes nearer to 
 our requirements than imagination, and, taken with its proper 
 limitations, the word answers very well ; but, as just intimated, 
 it is tainted by its associations, and therefore objectionable to 
 some minds. Compare, with reference to this capacity of mental 
 presentation, the case of the Aristotelian who refers the ascent 
 of water in a pump to Nature's abhorrence of a vacuum, with 
 that of Pascal when he proposed to solve the question of atmos- 
 pheric pressure by the ascent of the Puy de Dome. In the one 
 case the terms of the explanation refuse to fall into place as a 
 
284 JOHN TYNDALL 
 
 physical image ; in the other the image is distinct, the fall and 
 rise of the barometer being clearly figured as the balancing of 
 two varying and opposing pressures. 
 
 During the drought of the Middle Ages in Christendom, the 
 Arabian intellect, as forcibly shown by Draper, was active. 
 With the intrusion of the Moors into Spain, cleanliness, order, 
 learning, and refinement took the place of their opposites. 
 When smitten with disease, the Christian peasant resorted to 
 a shrine ; the Moorish one to an instructed physician. The 
 Arabs encouraged translations from the Greek philosophers, 
 but not from the Greek poets. They turned in disgust "from 
 the lewdness of our classical mythology, and denounced as an un- 
 pardonable blasphemy all connection between the impure Olym- 
 pian Jove and the Most High God." Draper traces still further 
 than Whewell the Arab elements in our scientific terms, and points 
 out that the undergarment of ladies retains to this hour its 
 Arab name. He gives examples of what Arabian men of science 
 accomplished, dwelling particularly on Alhazen, who was the 
 first to correct the Platonic notion that rays of light are emitted 
 by the eye. He discovered atmospheric refraction, and points 
 out that we see the sun and moon after they have set. He 
 explains the enlargement of the sun and moon, and the shorten- 
 ing of the vertical diameters of both these bodies when near the 
 horizon. He is aware that the atmosphere decreases in density 
 with increase of height, and actually fixes its height at fifty- 
 eight and one half miles. In the Book of the Bala)ice Wisdom, 
 he sets forth the connection between the weight of the atmos- 
 phere and its increasing density. He shows that a body will 
 Aveigh differently in a rare and a dense atmosphere. He considers 
 the force with which plunged bodies rise through heavier media. 
 He understands the doctrine of the center of gravity, and applies 
 it to the investigation of balances and steelyards. He recog- 
 nizes gravity as a force, though he falls into the error of making 
 it diminish at a distance, and of making it purely terrestrial. 
 He knows the relation between the velocities, spaces, and times 
 of falling bodies, and has distinct ideas of capillary attraction. 
 
THE BELFAST ADDRESS 285 
 
 He improves the hydrometer. The determination of the den- 
 sities of bodies as given by Alhazen approaches very closely to 
 our own. " I join," says Draper, " in the pious prayer of Alhazen, 
 ' that in the day of judgment the All-Merciful will take pity on 
 the soul of Abur-Raihan, because he was the first of the race of 
 men to construct a table of specific gravities.' " If all this be 
 historic truth (and I have entire confidence in Dr. Draper), 
 well may he "deplore the systematic manner in which the lit- 
 erature of Europe has contrived to put out of sight our scientific 
 obligations to the Mohammedans." ^ 
 
 Toward the close of the stationary period, a word- weariness, 
 if I may so express it, took more and more possession of men's 
 minds. Christendom had become sick of the school philosophy 
 and its verbal wastes, which led to no issue, but left the intellect 
 in everlasting haze. Here and there was heard the voice of one 
 impatiently crying in the wilderness, "Not unto Aristotle, not 
 unto subtle hypotheses, not unto Church, Bible, or blind tradi- 
 tion, must we turn for a knowledge of the universe, but to the 
 direct investigation of nature by observation and experiment." 
 In 1543 the epoch-making work of Copernicus on the paths of 
 the heavenly bodies appeared. The total crash of Aristotle's 
 closed universe with the earth at its center followed as a conse- 
 quence; and "the earth moves" became a kind of watchword 
 among intellectual freemen. Copernicus was the Canon of the 
 Church of Frauenburg, in the diocese of Ermeland. For three 
 and thirty years he had withdrawn himself from the world and 
 devoted himself to the consolidation of his great scheme of the 
 solar system. He made its blocks eternal ; and even to those 
 who feared it and desired its overthrow, it was so obviously 
 strong that they refrained from meddling with it. In the last 
 year of the life of Copernicus his book appeared. It is said that 
 the old man received a copy of it a few days before his death, 
 and then departed in peace. 
 
 The Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno was one of the 
 earliest converts to the new astronomy. Taking Lucretius 
 ' Intellectual Development of Europe, p. 359. 
 
286 JOHN TYNDALL 
 
 as his exemplar, he revived the notion of the infinity of worlds ; 
 and, combining with it the doctrine of Copernicus, reached the 
 sublime generalization that the fixed stars are suns, scattered 
 numberless through space and accompanied by satellites, which 
 bear the same relation to them as the earth does to our sun, or 
 our moon to our earth. This was an expansion of transcendent 
 import ; but Bruno came closer than this to our present line of 
 thought. Struck with the problem of the generation and main- 
 tenance of organisms, and duly pondering it, he came to the con- 
 clusion that nature in her productions does not imitate the 
 technic of man. Her process is one of unraveling and unfolding. 
 The infinity of forms under which matter appears was not im- 
 posed upon it by an external artificer; by its own intrinsic 
 force and virtue it brings these forms forth. Matter is not the 
 mere naked, empty capacity which philosophers have pictured 
 her to be, but the universal mother, who brings forth all things 
 as the fruit of her own womb. 
 
 This outspoken, man was originally a Dominican monk. He 
 was accused of heresy and had to fly, seeking refuge in Geneva, 
 Paris, England, and Germany. In 1592 he fell into the hands of 
 the Inquisition at Venice. He was imprisoned for many years, 
 tried, degraded, excommunicated, and handed over to the civil 
 power, with the request that he should be treated gently and 
 "without the shedding of blood." This meant that he was to be 
 burned ; and burned accordingly he was, on February 16, 1600. 
 To escape a similar fate, Galileo, thirty-three years afterward, 
 abjured, upon his knees and with his hand on the Holy Gospels, 
 the heliocentric doctrine.^ After Galileo came Kepler, who from 
 his German home defied the power beyond the Alps. He traced 
 out from preexisting observations the laws of planetary motion. 
 The problem was thus prepared for Newton, who bound those 
 empirical laws together by the principle of gravitation. 
 
 During the Middle Ages the doctrine of atoms had to all 
 appearance vanished from discussion. In all probability it held 
 its ground among sober-minded and thoughtful men, though 
 
 1 The theory that the sun is the center of our planetary system. — Editors. 
 
 
THE BELFAST ADDRESS 287 
 
 neither the Church nor the world was prepared to hear of it with 
 tolerance. Once, in the year 1348, it received distinct expres- 
 sion. But retraction by compulsion immediately followed, and 
 thus discouraged, it slumbered till the seventeenth century, 
 when it was revived by a contemporary of Hobbes and Descartes, 
 the Pere Gassendi. 
 
 The analytic and synthetic tendencies of the human mind 
 exhibit themselves throughout history, great writers ranging 
 themselves sometimes on the one side, sometimes on the other. 
 Men of lofty feelings, and minds open to the elevating impres- 
 sions produced by nature as a whole, whose satisfaction, there- 
 fore, is rather ethical than logical, have leaned to the synthetic 
 side ; while the analytic harmonizes best with the more precise 
 and more mechanical bias which seeks the satisfaction of the 
 understanding. Some form of pantheism was usually adopted 
 by the one, while a detached Creator, working more or less after 
 the manner of men, was often assumed by the other. ^ Gassendi 
 is hardly to be ranked with either. Having formerly acknowl- 
 edged God as the first great cause, he immediately drops the 
 idea, applies the known laws of mechanics to the atoms, and 
 thence deduces all vital phenomena. God, who created earth 
 and water, plants and animals, produced in the first place a 
 definite number of atoms, which constituted the seed of all things. 
 Then began that series of combinations and decompositions 
 which goes on at the present day, and which will continue in 
 the future. The principle of every change resides in matter. 
 In artificial productions the moving principle is different from 
 the material worked upon ; but in nature the agent works 
 within, being the most active and mobile part of the material 
 itself. Thus this bold ecclesiastic, without incurring the cen- 
 sure of the Church or the world, contrives to outstrip Mr. Dar- 
 
 1 Boyle's model of the universe was the Strasburg clock with an outside 
 artificer. Goethe, on the other hand, sang 
 
 "Ihm ziemt's die Welt im Innern zu bewegen, 
 Natur in sich, sich in Natur zu hegen." 
 
 The same repugnance to the clockmaker conception is manifest in Carlyle, 
 
288 JOHN TYNDALL 
 
 win. The same cast of mind which caused him to detach the 
 Creator from his universe led him also to detach the soul from 
 the body, though to the body he ascribes an influence so large 
 as to render the soul almost unnecessary. The aberrations of- 
 reason were in his view an affair of the material brain. Mental 
 disease is brain disease ; but then the immortal reason sits 
 apart, and cannot be touched by the disease. The errors of 
 madness are errors of the instrument, not of the performer. 
 
 It may be more than a mere result of education, connecting 
 itself probably with the deeper mental structure of the two men, 
 that the idea of Gassendi, above enunciated, is substantially the 
 same as that expressed by Professor Clerk-Maxwell at the close 
 of the very noble lecture delivered by him at Bradford last year. 
 According to both philosophers, the atoms, if I understand 
 aright, are the prepared materials, the "manufactured articles," 
 which, formed by the skill of the Highest, produce by their sub- 
 sequent interaction all the phenomena of the material world. 
 There seems to be this difference, however, between Gassendi 
 and Maxwell. The one postulates, the other infers, his first 
 cause. In his manufactured articles, Professor Maxwell finds 
 the basis of an induction which enables him to scale philosophic 
 heights considered inaccessible by Kant, and to take the logical 
 step from the atoms to their Maker. 
 
 The atomic doctrine, in whole or in part, was entertained by 
 Bacon, Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, Newton, Boyle, and their 
 successors, until the chemical law of multiple proportions en- 
 abled Dalton to confer upon it an entirely new significance. In 
 our day there are secessions from the theory, but it still stands 
 firm. Only a year or two ago Sir William Thomson, with char- 
 acteristic penetration, sought to determine the sizes of the atoms, 
 or rather to fix the limits between which their sizes lie; while 
 only last year the discourses of Williamson and Maxwell illus- 
 trated the present hold of the doctrine upon the foremost scientific 
 minds. What these atoms, self-moved and self-posited, can 
 and cannot accomplish in relation to life, is at the present mo- 
 ment the subject of profound scientific thought. I doubt the 
 
THE BELFAST ADDRESS 289 
 
 legitimacy of Maxwell's logic ; but it is impossible not to feel 
 the ethic glow with which his lecture concludes. There is, 
 moreover, a Lucretian grandeur in his description of the stead- 
 fastness of the atoms: "Natural causes, as we know, are at 
 work, which tend to modify, if they do not at length destroy, 
 all the arrangements and dimensions of the earth and the whole 
 solar system. But though in the course of ages catastrophes 
 have occurred and may yet occur in the heavens, though ancient 
 systems may be dissolved and new systems evolved out of their 
 ruins, the molecules out of which these systems are built, the 
 foundation stones of the material universe, remain unbroken 
 and unworn." 
 
 Ninety years subsequent to Gassendi, the doctrine of bodily 
 instruments, as it may be called, assumed immense importance 
 in the hands of Bishop Butler, who, in his famous Analogy cf 
 Religion, developed from his own point of view, and with con- 
 summate sagacity, a similar idea. The bishop still influences 
 superior minds ; and it will repay us to dwell for a moment on 
 his views. He draws the sharpest distinction between our real 
 selves and our bodily instruments. He does not, as far as I 
 remember, use the word soul, possibly because the term was 
 so hackneyed in his day, as it had been for many generations 
 previously. But he speaks of "living powers," "perceiving" or 
 "percipient powers," "moving agents," "ourselves," in the 
 same sense as we should employ the term soul. He dwells upon 
 the fact that limbs may be removed and mortal diseases assail 
 the body, while the mind, almost up to the moment of death, 
 remains clear. He refers to sleep and to swoon, where the 
 " living powers " are suspended, but not destroyed. He considers 
 it quite as easy to conceive of an existence out of our bodies as 
 in them ; that we may animate a succession of bodies, the dis- 
 solution of all of them having no more tendency to dissolve our 
 real selves, or "deprive us of living faculties — the faculties of 
 perception and action — than the dissolution of any foreign 
 matter which we are capable of receiving impressions from, or 
 making use of, for the common occasions of life." This is the 
 
500 JOHN TYND-\LL 
 
 key of the bishop's position : "Our organized bodies are no 
 more a part of ourselves than any other matter around us." 
 In proof of this, he calls attention to the use of glasses, which 
 "prepare objects" for the "percipient power" exactly as the 
 eye does. The eye itself is no more percipient than the glass, 
 and is quite as much the instrument of the true self, and also as 
 foreign to the true self, as the glass is. "And if we see with our 
 eyes only in the same manner as we do with glasses, the like may 
 justly be concluded from analogy of all our senses." 
 
 Lucretius, as you are aware, reached a precisely opposite con- 
 clusion ; and it certainly would be interesting, if not profit- 
 able, to us all, to hear what he would or could urge in opposition 
 to the reasoning of the bishop. As a brief discussion of the point 
 will enable us to see the bearings of an important question, I 
 will here permit a disciple of Lucretius to try the strength of 
 the bishop's position, and then allow the bishop to retaliate, 
 with the view of rolling back, if he can, the difficulty upon Lucre- 
 tius. Each shall state his case fully and frankly ; and you shall 
 be umpire between them. The argument might proceed in this 
 fashion : 
 
 "Subjected to the test of mental presentation (Vorstellufig), 
 your views, most honored prelate, would present to many minds 
 a great, if not an insuperable, difficulty. You speak of 'living 
 powers,' 'percipient or perceiving powers,' and 'ourselves;' but 
 can you form a mental picture of any one of these apart from the 
 organism through which it is supposed to act? Test yourself 
 honestly, and see whether you possess any faculty that would 
 enable you to form such a conception. The true self has a local 
 habitation in each of us ; thus localized, must it not possess a 
 form ? If so, what form ? Have you ever for a moment realized 
 it ? When a leg is amputated, the body is divided into two parts ; 
 is the true self in both of them or in one? Thomas Aquinas 
 might say in both ; but not you, for you appeal to the conscious- 
 ness associated with one of the two parts to prove that the other 
 is foreign matter. Is consciousness, then, a necessary element 
 of the true self ? If so, what do you say to the case of the whole 
 
 II 
 
THE BELFAST ADDRESS 591 
 
 body being deprived of consciousness? If not, then on what 
 grounds do you deny any portion of the true self to the severed 
 Hmb ? It seems very singular that, from the beginning to the 
 end of your admirable book (and no one admires its sober 
 strength more than I do), you never once mention the brain or 
 nervous system. You begin at one end of the body, and show 
 that its parts may be removed without prejudice to the perceiv- 
 ing power. What if you begin at the other end, and remove, 
 instead of the leg, the brain ? The body, as before, is divided 
 into two parts ; but both are now in the same predicament, and 
 neither can be appealed to to prove that the other is foreign 
 matter. Or, instead of going so far as to remove the brain itself, 
 let a certain portion of its bony covering be removed, and let 
 a rhythmic series of pressure and relaxations of pressure be 
 applied to the soft substance. At every pressure 'the facul- 
 ties of perception and of action ' vanish ; at every relaxation 
 of pressure they are restored. Where, during the intervals of 
 pressure, is the perceiving power ? I once had the discharge of 
 a Leyden battery passed unexpectedly through me : I felt noth- 
 ing, but was simply blotted out of conscious existence for a 
 sensible interval. Where was my true self during that interval ? 
 Men who have recovered from lightning stroke have been much 
 longer in the same state ; and indeed in cases of ordinary con- 
 cussion of the brain, days may elapse during which no experience 
 is registered in consciousness. Where is the man himself during 
 the period of insensibility? You may say that I beg the 
 question when I assume the man to have been unconscious, that 
 he was really conscious all the time, and has simply forgotten 
 what had occurred to him. In reply to this, I can only say that 
 no one need shrink from the worst tortures that superstition 
 ever invented if only so felt and so remembered. I do not think 
 your theory of instruments goes at all to the bottom of the 
 matter. A telegraph operator has his instruments, by means of 
 which he converses with the world ; our bodies possess a nervous 
 system, which plays a similar part between the perceiving powers 
 and external things. Cut the wires of the operator, break his 
 
ig2 JOHN TYNDALL 
 
 battery, demagnetize his needle : by this means you certainly 
 sever his connection with the world ; but inasmuch as these are 
 real instruments, their destruction does not touch the man who 
 uses them. The operator survives, and he knows that he sur- 
 vives. What is it, I would ask, in the human system that an- 
 swers to this conscious survival of the operator when the bat- 
 tery of the brain is so disturbed as to produce insensibility, or 
 when it is destroyed altogether? 
 
 " Another consideration, which you may consider slight, presses 
 upon me with some force. The brain may change from health 
 to disease, and through such a change the most exemplary man 
 may be converted into a debauchee or a murderer. My very 
 noble and approved good master had, as you know, threatenings 
 of lewdness introduced into his brain by his jealous wife's philter ; 
 and sooner than permit himself to run even the risk of yielding 
 to these base promptings, he slew himself. How could the hand 
 of Lucretius have been thus turned against himself if the real 
 Lucretius remained as before ? Can the brain or can it not act 
 in this distempered way without the intervention of the immor- 
 tal reason ? If it can, then it is a prime mover which requires 
 only healthy regulation to render it reasonably self-acting, and 
 there is no apparent need of your immortal reason at all. If it 
 cannot, then the immortal reason, by its mischievous activity 
 in operating upon a broken instrument, must have the credit 
 of committing every imaginable extravagance and crime. I 
 think, if you will allow me to say so, that the gravest conse- 
 quences are likely to flow from your estimate of the body. To 
 regard the brain as you would a staff or an eyeglass — to shut 
 your eyes to all its mystery, to the perfect correlation that reigns 
 between its condition and our consciousness, to the fact that a 
 slight excess or defect of blood in it produces that very swoon 
 to which you refer, and that in relation to it our meat and drink 
 and air and exercise have a perfectly transcendental value and 
 significance — to forget all this does, I think, open a way to 
 innumerable errors in our habits of life, and may possibly in 
 some cases initiate and foster that very disease, and consequent 
 
THE BELFAST ADDRESS 293 
 
 mental ruin, which a wiser appreciation of this mysterious or- 
 gan would have avoided." 
 
 I can imagine the bishop thoughtful after hearing this argu- 
 ment. He was not the man to allow anger to mingle with the 
 consideration of a point of this kind. After due consideration, 
 and having strengthened himself by that honest contemplation 
 of the facts which was habitual with him, and which includes 
 the desire to give even adverse facts their due weight, I can sup- 
 pose the bishop to proceed thus : " You will remember that in the 
 Analogy of Religion, of which you have so kindly spoken, I did 
 not profess to prove anything absolutely, and that I over and 
 over again acknowledged and insisted on the smallness of our 
 knowledge, or rather the depth of our ignorance, as regards the 
 whole system of the universe. My object was to show my 
 deistical friends who set forth so eloquently the beauty and benef- 
 icence of Nature and the Ruler thereof, while they had nothing 
 but scorn for the so-called absurdities of the Christian scheme, 
 that they were in no better condition than we were, and that for 
 every difficulty they found upon our side, quite as great a diffi- 
 culty was to be found on theirs. I will now with your per- 
 mission adopt a similar line of argument. You are a Lucretian, 
 and from the combination and separation of atoms deduce all ter- 
 restrial things, including organic forms and their phenomena. 
 Let me tell you in the first instance how far I am prepared to 
 go with you. I admit that you can build crystalline forms out 
 of this play of molecular force ; that the diamond, amethyst, 
 and snow star are truly wonderful structures which are thus pro- 
 duced. I will go further, and acknowledge that even a tree or 
 flower might in this way be organized. Nay, if you can show 
 me an animal without sensation, I will concede to you that it also 
 might be put together by the suitable play of molecular force. 
 
 "Thus far our way is clear, but now comes my difficulty. 
 Your atoms are individually without sensation ; much more are 
 they without intelligence. May I ask you, then, to try your 
 hand upon this problem ? Take your dead hydrogen atoms, 
 your dead oxygen atoms, your dead carbon atoms, your dead 
 
294 JOHN TYND.\LL 
 
 nitrogen atoms, your dead phosphorus atoms, and all the other 
 atoms, dead as grains of shot, of which the brain is formed. 
 Imagine them separate and sensationless ; observe them run- 
 ning together and forming all imaginable combinations. This, 
 as a purely mechanical process, is seeable by the mind. But can 
 you see, or dream, or in any way imagine, how out of that 
 mechanical act, and from these individually dead atoms, sensa- 
 tion, thought, and emotion are to arise ? You speak of the diffi- 
 culty of mental presentation in my case ; is it less in yours ? I 
 am not all bereft of this Vorstellimgs-kraft^ of which you speak. 
 I can follow a particle of musk until it reaches the olfactory 
 nerve ; I can follow the waves of sound until their tremors 
 reach the water of the labyrinth, and set the otoliths and 
 Corti's fibers in motion ; I can also visualize the waves of ether 
 as they cross the eye and hit the retina. Nay, more, I am able 
 to follow up to the central organ the motion thus imparted at 
 the periphery, and to see in idea the very molecules of the brain 
 thrown into tremors. My insight is not baffled by these physical 
 processes. What baffles me, what I find unimaginable, tran- 
 scending every faculty I possess — transcending, I humbly sub- 
 mit, every faculty you possess — is the notion that out of those 
 physical tremors you can extract things so utterly incongruous 
 with them as sensation, thought, and emotion. You may say, 
 or think, that this issue of consciousness from the clash of 
 atoms is not more incongruous than the flash of light from the 
 union of oxygen and hydrogen. But I beg to say that it is. 
 For such incongruity as the flash possesses is that which I now 
 force upon your attention. The flash is an affair of consciousness, 
 the objective counterpart of which is a vibration. It is a flash 
 only by our interpretation. You are the cause of the apparent 
 incongruity ; and you are the thing that puzzles me. I need not 
 remind you that the great Leibnitz felt the difficulty which I feel, 
 and that to get rid of this monstrous deduction of life from death 
 he displaced your atoms by his monads, which were more or 
 less perfect mirrors of the universe, and out of the summation 
 1 Power of imagining. — Editors. 
 
THE BELFAST ADDRESS 295 
 
 and integration of which he supposed all the phenomena of life 
 — sentient, intellectual, and emotional — to arise. 
 
 "Your difficulty, then, as I see you are ready to admit, is 
 quite as great as mine. You cannot satisfy the human under- 
 standing in its demand for logical continuity between molecular 
 processes and the phenomena of consciousness. This is a rock 
 on which materialism must inevitably split whenever it pretends 
 to be a complete philosophy of life. What is the moral, my 
 Lucretian ? You and I are not likely to indulge in ill temper in 
 the disclission of these great topics, where we see so much room 
 for honest differences of opinion. But there are people of less wit 
 or more bigotry (I say it with humility) on both sides, who are 
 ever ready to mingle anger and vituperation with such discus- 
 sions. There are, for example, writers of note and influence 
 at the present day who are not ashamed to assume the 'deep 
 personal sin' of a great logician to be the cause of his unbelief 
 in a theologic dogma. And there are others who hold that we, 
 who cherish our noble Bible, wrought as it has been into the 
 constitution of our forefathers, and by inheritance into us, must 
 necessarily be hypocritical and insincere. Let us disavow and 
 discountenance such people, cherishing the unswerving faith 
 that what is good and true in both our arguments will be pre- 
 served for the benefit of humanity, while all that is bad or 
 false will disappear." 
 
 It is worth remarking that in one respect the bishop was a 
 product of his age. Long previous to his day the nature of the 
 soul had been so favorite and general a topic of discussion that 
 when the students of the University of Paris wished to know the 
 leanings of a new professor, they at once requested him to lecture 
 upon the soul. About the time of Bishop Butler the question 
 was not only agitated, but extended. It was seen by the clear- 
 witted men who entered this arena that many of their best argu- 
 ments applied equally to brutes and men. The bishop's argu- 
 ments were of this character. He saw it, admitted it, accepted 
 the consequences, and boldly embraced the whole animal world 
 in his scheme of immortality. 
 
296 JOHN TYNDALL 
 
 Bishop Butler accepted with unwavering trust the chronology 
 of the Old Testament, describing it as "confirmed by the natural 
 and civil history of the world, collected from common historians, 
 from the state of the earth, and from the late inventions of arts 
 and sciences." These words mark progress ; they must seem 
 somewhat hoary to the bishop's successors of to-day.^ It is 
 hardly necessary to inform you that since his time the domain 
 of the naturalist has been immensely extended — the whole sci- 
 ence of geology, with its astounding revelations regarding the 
 life of the ancient earth, having been created. The rigidity of 
 old conceptions has been relaxed, the public mind being rendered 
 gradually tolerant of the idea that not for six thousand, nor for 
 sixty thousand, nor for six thousand thousand, but for aeons em- 
 bracing untold millions of years, this earth has been the theater 
 of life and death. The riddle of the rocks has been read by the 
 geologist and paleontologist, from sub-Cambrian depths to the 
 deposits thickening over the sea bottoms of to-day. And upon 
 the leaves of that stone book are, as you know, stamped the char- 
 acters, plainer and surer than those formed by the ink of history, 
 which carry the mind back into abysses of past time compared 
 with which the periods which satisfied Bishop Butler cease to 
 have a visual angle. Everybody now knows this ; all men admit 
 it ; still, when they were first broached, these verities of science 
 found loud-tongued denunciators, who proclaimed not only their 
 baselessness considered scientifically, but their immorality con- 
 sidered as questions of ethics and religion : the Book of Genesis 
 had stated the question in a different fashion ; and science must 
 necessarily go to pieces when it clashed with this authority. 
 And as the seed of the thistle produces a thistle, and nothing else, 
 so these objectors scatter their germs abroad, and reproduce their 
 kind, ready to play again the part of their intellectual progeni- 
 tors, to show the same virulence, the same ignorance, to achieve 
 for a time the same success, and finally to suffer the same inexor- 
 
 ^ Only to some ; for there are dignitaries who even now speak of the 
 earth's rocky crust as so much building material prepared for man at the 
 Creation. Surely it is time that this loose language should cease. 
 
THE BELFAST ADDRESS 297 
 
 able defeat. Sure the time must come at last when human na- 
 ture in its entirety, whose legitimate demands it is admitted 
 science alone cannot satisfy, will find interpreters and expositors 
 of a different stamp from those rash and ill-informed persons who 
 have been hitherto so ready to hurl themselves against every new 
 scientific revelation, lest it should endanger what they are pleased 
 to consider theirs. 
 
 The lode of discovery once struck, those petrified forms in 
 which Ufe was at one time active increased to multitudes and de- 
 manded classification. The general fact soon became evident 
 that none but the simplest forms of life He lowest down, that as 
 we cHmb higher and higher among the superimposed strata more 
 perfect forms appear. The change, however, from form to form 
 was not continuous, but by steps, some small, some great. "A 
 section," says Mr. Huxley, "a hundred feet thick will exhibit at 
 different heights a dozen species of ammonite, none of which 
 passes beyond its particular zone of limestone, or clay, into the 
 zone below it, or into that above it." In the presence of such 
 facts it was not possible to avoid the question. Have these 
 forms, showing, though in broken stages and with many irregu- 
 larities, this unmistakable general advance, been subjected to 
 no continuous law of growth or variation ? Had our education 
 been purely scientific, or had it been sufficiently detached from 
 influences which, however ennobling in another domain, have 
 always proved hindrances and delusions when introduced as 
 factors into the domain of physics, the scientific mind never 
 could have swerved from the search for a law of growth, or al- 
 lowed itself to accept the anthropomorphism which regarded each 
 successive stratum as a kind of mechanic's bench for the manu- 
 facture of new species out of all relation to the old. 
 
 Biased, however, by their previous education, the great major- 
 ity of naturalists invoked a special creative act to account for 
 the appearance of each new group of organisms. Doubtless 
 there were numbers who were clear-headed enough to see that 
 this was no explanation at all ; that in point of fact it was an 
 attempt, by the introduction of a greater difficulty, to account 
 
298 JOHN TYNDALL 
 
 for a less. But having nothing to offer in the way of explana- 
 tion, they for the most part held their peace. Still the thoughts 
 of reflecting men naturally and necessarily simmered round the 
 question. De Maillet, a contemporary of Newton, has been 
 brought into notice by Professor Huxley as one who "had a no- 
 tion of the modifiability of living forms." In my frequent 
 conversations with him, the late Sir Benjamin Brodie, a man of 
 highly philosophic mind, often drew my attention to the fact 
 that, as early as 1794, Charles Darwin's grandfather was the 
 pioneer of Charles Darwin. In 1801, and in subsequent years, 
 the celebrated Lamarck, who produced so profound an impres- 
 sion on the public mind through the vigorous exposition of his 
 views by the author of Vestiges of Creation, endeavored to 
 show the development of species out of changes of habit and ex- 
 ternal condition. In 1813 Dr. Wells, the founder of our present 
 theory of dew, read before the Royal Society a paper in which, 
 to use the words of Mr. Darwin, "he distinctly recognizes the 
 principle of natural selection; and this is the first recognition 
 that has been indicated." The thoroughness and skill with 
 which Wells pursued his work, and the obvious independence 
 of his character, rendered him long ago a favorite with me ; and 
 it gave me the liveliest pleasure to alight upon this additional 
 testimony to his penetration. Professor Grant, Mr. Patrick 
 Matthew, von Buch, the author of the Vestiges, D'Halloy, 
 and others,^ by the enunciation of views more or less clear and 
 correct, showed that the question had been fermenting long 
 prior to the year 1858, when Mr. Darwin and Mr. Wallace simul- 
 taneously, but independently, placed their closely concurrent 
 views upon the subject before the Linnaean Society. 
 
 These papers were followed in 1859 by the publication of the 
 first edition of The Origin of Species. All great things come 
 slowly to the birth. Copernicus, as I informed you, pondered 
 
 ' In 1855 Mr. Herbert Spencer (Principles of Psychology, 2d ed., vol. i, 
 p. 465) expressed " the belief that life under all its forms has arisen by an un- 
 broken ev^olution, and through the instrumentality of what are called nat- 
 iiral causes." 
 
THE BELFAST ADDRESS 299 
 
 his great work for thirty-three years. Newton for nearly twenty 
 years kept the idea of gravitation before his mind ; for twenty 
 years also he dwelt upon his discovery of fluxions, and doubtless 
 would have continued to make it the object of his private thought 
 had he not found that Leibnitz was upon his track. Darwin for 
 two and twenty years pondered the problem of the origin of 
 species, and doubtless he would have continued to do so had he 
 not found Wallace upon his track. ^ A concentrated but full and 
 powerful epitome of his labors was the consequence. The book 
 was by no means an easy one ; and probably not one in every 
 score of those who then attacked it had read its pages through, or 
 was competent to grasp their significance if he had. I do not 
 say this merely to discredit them ; for there were in those days 
 some really eminent scientific men, entirely raised above the heat 
 of popular prejudice, willing to accept any conclusion that science 
 had to offer, provided it was duly backed by fact and argument, 
 and who entirely mistook Mr. Darwin's views. In fact, the work 
 needed an expounder ; and it found one in Mr. Huxley. I know 
 nothing more admirable in the way of scientific exposition than 
 those early articles of his on the origin of species. He swept the 
 curve of discussion through the really significant points of the 
 subject, enriched his exposition with profound original remarks 
 and reflections, often summing up in a single pithy sentence an 
 argument which a less compact mind would have spread over 
 pages. But there is one impression made by the book itself 
 which no exposition of it, however luminous, can convey; and 
 that is the impression of the vast amount of labor, both of ob- 
 servation and of thought, implied in its production. Let us 
 glance at its principles. 
 
 It is conceded on all hands that what are called varieties are 
 continually produced. The rule is probably without exception. 
 No chick and no child is in all respects and particulars the coun- 
 terpart of its brother or sister ; and in such differences we have 
 "variety" incipient. No naturalist could tell how far this varia- 
 
 1 The behavior of Mr. Wallace in relation to this subject has been dignified 
 in the highest degree. 
 
300 JOHN TYNDALL 
 
 tion could be carried ; but the great mass of them held that never 
 by any amount of internal or external change, nor by the mixture 
 of both, could the offspring of the same progenitor so far deviate 
 from each other as to constitute different species. The function 
 of the experimental philosopher is to combine the conditions of 
 nature and to produce her results ; and this was the method of 
 Darwin.^ He made himself acquainted with what could, without 
 any manner of doubt, be done in the way of producing variation. 
 He associated himself with pigeon fanciers — bought, begged, 
 kept, and observed every breed that he could obtain. Though 
 derived from a common stock, the diversities of these pigeons 
 were such that "a score of them might be chosen which, if shown 
 to an ornithologist, and. he were told that they were wild birds, 
 would certainly be ranked by him as well-defined species." The 
 simple principle which guides the pigeon fancier, as it does the 
 cattle breeder, is the selection of some variety that strikes his 
 fancy, and the propagation of this variety by inheritance. With 
 his eye still upon the particular appearance which he wishes to 
 exaggerate, he selects it as it reappears in successive broods, and 
 thus adds increment to increment until an astonishing amount 
 of divergence from the parent type is effected. Man in this case 
 does not produce the elements of the variation. He simply ob- 
 serves them, and by selection adds them together until the re- 
 quired result has been obtained. "No man," says Mr. Darwin, 
 " would ever try to make a fantail till he saw a pigeon with a tail 
 developed in some slight degree in an unusual manner, or a 
 pouter until he saw a pigeon with a crop of unusual size." Thus 
 nature gives the hint, man acts upon it, and by the law of inherit- 
 ance exaggerates the deviation. 
 
 Having thus satisfied himself by indubitable facts that the or- 
 ganization of an animal or of a plant (for precisely the same 
 treatment applies to plants) is to some extent plastic, he passes 
 from variation under domestication to variation under nature. 
 
 1 The first step only toward experimental demonstration has been taken. 
 Experiments now begun might, a couple of centuries hence, furnish data of 
 incalculable value, which ought to be supplied to the science of the future. 
 
THE BELFAST ADDRESS 301 
 
 Hitherto we have dealt with the adding together of small changes 
 by the conscious selection of man. Can nature thus select? 
 Mr. Darwin's answer is, "Assuredly she can." The number of 
 living things produced is far in excess of the number that can be 
 supported; hence at some period or other of their lives there 
 must be a struggle for existence ; and what is the infallible result ? 
 If one organism were a perfect copy of the other in regard to 
 strength, skill, and agility, external conditions would decide. 
 But this is not the case. Here we have the fact of variety offer- 
 ing itself to nature, as in the former instance it offered itself to 
 man ; and those varieties which are least competent to cope with 
 surrounding conditions will infallibly give way to those that are 
 competent. To use a familiar proverb, the weakest comes to 
 the wall. But the triumphant fraction again breeds to over- 
 production, transmitting the qualities which secured its mainte- 
 nance, but transmitting them in different degrees. The struggle 
 for food again supervenes, and those to whom the favorable 
 quality has been transmitted in excess will assuredly triumph. 
 It is easy to see that we have here the addition of increments 
 favorable to the individual still more rigorously carried out than 
 in the case of domestication ; for not only are unfavorable speci- 
 mens not selected by nature, but they are destroyed. This is 
 what Mr. Darwin calls "natural selection," which "acts by the 
 preservation and accumulation of small inherited modifications, 
 each profitable to the preserved being." With this idea he in- 
 terpenetrates and leavens the vast store of facts that he and 
 others have collected. We cannot, without shutting our eyes 
 through fear or prejudice, fail to see that Darwin is here dealing, 
 not with imaginary, but with true, causes; nor can we fail to 
 discern what vast modifications may be produced by natural 
 selection in periods sufficiently long. Each individual increment 
 may resemble what mathematicians call a "differential" (a 
 quantity indefinitely small) ; but definite and great changes may 
 obviously be produced by the integration of these infinitesimal 
 quantities through practically infinite time. 
 If Darwin, like Bruno, rejects the notion of creative power 
 
302 JOHN TYNDALL 
 
 acting after human fashion, it certainly is not because he is un- 
 acquainted with the numberless exquisite adaptations on which 
 this notion of a supernatural artificer has been founded. His 
 book is a repository of the most startling facts of this description. 
 Take the marvelous observation which he cites from Dr. Cruger, 
 where a bucket with an aperture, serving as a spout, is formed in 
 an orchid. Bees visit the flower : in eager search of material for 
 their combs they push each other into the bucket, the drenched 
 ones escaping from their involuntary bath by the spout. Here 
 they rub their backs against the viscid stigma of the flower and 
 obtain glue ; then against the pollen masses, which are thus 
 stuck to the back of the bee and carried away. "When the bee, 
 thus provided, flies to another flower, or to the same flower a 
 second time, and is pushed by its comrades into the bucket, and 
 then crawls out by the passage, the pollen mass upon its back 
 necessarily comes first into contact with the viscid stigma," 
 which takes up the pollen ; and this is how that orchid is ferti- 
 lized. Or take this other case of the Catasetum. "Bees visit 
 these flowers in order to gnaw the labellum ; on doing this they 
 inevitably touch a long, tapering, sensitive projection. This, 
 when touched, transmits a sensation or vibration to a certain 
 membrane, which is instantly ruptured, setting free a spring, by 
 which the pollen mass is shot forth like an arrow in the right 
 direction, and adheres by its viscid extremity to the back of the 
 bee." In this way the fertilizing pollen is spread abroad. 
 
 It is the mind thus stored with the choicest materials of the 
 teleologist that rejects teleology,^ seeking to refer these wonders 
 to natural causes. They illustrate, according to him, the method 
 of nature, not the " technic " of a manlike artificer. The beauty 
 of flowers is due to natural selection. Those that distinguish 
 themselves by vividly contrasting colors from the surrounding 
 green leaves are most readily seen, most frequently \dsited by 
 insects, most often fertilized, and hence most favored by natural 
 selection. Colored berries also readily attract the attention of 
 birds and beasts, which feed upon them, and spread their manured 
 ^ The belief that all things exist for a definite purpose. — -Editors. 
 
THE BELFAST ADDRESS 303 
 
 seeds abroad, thus giving trees and shrubs possessing such berries 
 a greater chance in the struggle for existence. 
 
 With profound analytic and synthetic skill, Mr. Darwin in- 
 vestigates the cell-making instinct of the hive bee. His method 
 of dealing with it is representative. He falls back from the more 
 perfectly to the less perfectly developed instinct — from the 
 hive bee to the bumblebee, which uses its own cocoon as a comb, 
 and to classes of bees of intermediate skill, endeavoring to show 
 how the passage might be gradually made from the lowest to the 
 highest. The saving of wax is the most important point in the 
 economy of bees. Twelve to fifteen pounds of dry sugar are said 
 to be needed for the secretion of a single pound of wax. The 
 quantities of nectar necessary for the wax must therefore be vast ; 
 and every improvement of constructive instinct which results in 
 the saving of wax is a direct profit to the insect's life. The time 
 that would otherwise be devoted to the making of wax is now 
 devoted to the gathering and storing of honey for winter food. 
 He passes from the bumblebee with its rude cells, through the 
 Melipona with its more artistic cells, to the hive bee with its 
 astonishing architecture. The bees place themselves at equal 
 distances apart upon the wax, sweep and excavate equal spheres 
 round the selected points. The spheres intersect, and the planes 
 of intersection are built up with thin laminae. Hexagonal cells 
 are thus formed. This mode of treating such questions is, as I 
 have said, representative. He habitually retires from the more 
 perfect and complex to the less perfect and simple, carries 
 you with him through stages of perfecting, adds increment to 
 increment of infinitesimal change, and in this way gradually 
 breaks down your reluctance to admit that the exquisite climax 
 of the whole could be a result of natural selection. 
 
 Mr. Darwin shirks no difficulty ; and, saturated as the subject 
 was with his own thought, he must have known, better than his 
 critics, the weakness as well as the strength of his theory. This 
 of course would be of little avail were his object a temporary 
 dialectic victory instead of the establishment of a truth which he 
 means to be everlasting. But he takes no pains to disguise the 
 
304 JOHN TYNDALL 
 
 weakness he has discerned ; nay, he takes every pains to bring 
 it into the strongest Hght. His vast resources enable him to cope 
 with objections started by himself and others, so as to leave the 
 final impression upon the reader's mind that, if they be not com- 
 pletely answered, they certainly are not fatal. Their negative 
 force being thus destroyed, you are free to be influenced by the 
 vast positive mass of evidence he is able to bring before you. 
 This largeness of knowledge and readiness of resource render Mr. 
 Darwin the most terrible of antagonists. Accomplished natural- 
 ists have leveled heavy and sustained criticisms against him — 
 not always with the view of fairly weighing his theory, but with 
 the express intention of exposing its weak points only. This 
 does not irritate him. He treats every objection with a soberness 
 and thoroughness which even Bishop Butler might be proud to 
 imitate, surrounding each fact with its appropriate detail, plac- 
 ing it in its proper relations, and usually giving it a significance 
 which, as long as it was kept isolated, failed to appear. This 
 is done without a trace of ill-temper. He moves over the sub- 
 ject with the passionless strength of a glacier ; and the grinding 
 of the rocks is not always without a counterpart in the logical 
 pulverization of the objector. But though in handling this 
 mighty theme all passion has been stilled, there is an emotion of 
 the intellect incident to the discernment of new truth which 
 often colors and warms the pages of Mr. Darwin. His success 
 has been great ; and this implies not only the soHdity of his work, 
 but the preparedness of the public mind for such a revelation. 
 On this head a remark of Agassiz impressed me more than any- 
 thing else. Sprung from a race of theologians, this celebrated 
 man combated to the last the theory of natural selection. One 
 of the many times I had the pleasure of meeting him in the 
 United States was at Mr. Winthrop's beautiful residence at 
 Brookline, near Boston. Rising from luncheon, we all halted 
 as if by a common impulse in front of a window, and continued 
 there a discussion which had been started at table. The maple 
 was in its autumn glory ; and the exquisite beauty of the scene 
 outside seemed, in my case, to interpenetrate without disturb- 
 
 
THE BELFAST ADDRESS 305 
 
 ance the intellectual action. Earnestly, almost sadly, Agassiz 
 turned and said to the gentlemen standing round : " I confess that 
 I was not prepared to see this theory received as it has been by 
 the best intellects of our time. Its success is greater than I 
 could have thought possible." 
 
 In our day great generalizations have been reached. The 
 theory of the origin of species is but one of them. Another, of 
 still wider grasp and more radical significance, is the doctrine 
 of the Conservation of Energy, the ultimate philosophical issues 
 of which are as yet but dimly seen — that doctrine which "binds 
 nature fast in fate" to an extent not hitherto recognized, exact- 
 ing from every antecedent its equivalent consequent, from every 
 consequent its equivalent antecedent, and bringing vital as well 
 as physical phenomena under the dominion of that law of causal 
 connection which, as far as the human understanding has yet 
 pierced, asserts itself everywhere in nature. Long in advance 
 of all definite experiment upon the subject, the constancy and 
 indestructability of matter had been affirmed ; and all subse- 
 quent experience justified the affirmation. Later researches ex- 
 tended the attribute of indestructibility to force. This idea, 
 applied in the first instance to inorganic, rapidly embraced or- 
 ganic, nature. The vegetable world, though drawing almost all 
 its nutriment from invisible sources, was proved incompetent to 
 generate anew either matter or force. Its matter is for the most 
 part transmuted air; its force transformed solar force. The 
 animal world was proved to be equally uncreative, all its motive 
 energies being referred to the combustion of its food. The ac- 
 tivity of each animal as a whole was proved to be the transferred 
 activities of its molecules. The muscles were shown to be stores 
 of mechanical force, potential until unlocked by the nerves, and 
 then resulting in muscular contractions. The speed at which 
 messages fly to and fro along the nerves was determined, and 
 found to be, not, as had been previously supposed, equal to that 
 of light or electricity, but less than the speed of a flying eagle. 
 
 This was the work of the physicist ; then came the conquests 
 of the comparative anatomist and physiologist, revealing the 
 
3o6 JOHN TYNDALL 
 
 structure of every animal, and the function of every organ in the 
 whole biological series, from the lowest zoophyte up to man. 
 The nervous system had been made the object of profound and 
 continued study, the wonderful, and at bottom entirely mysteri- 
 ous, controlling power which it exercises over the whole organism, 
 physical and mental, being recognized more and more. Thought 
 could not be kept back from a subject so profoundly suggestive. 
 Besides the physical life dealt with by Mr. Darwin, there is a 
 psychical life presenting similar gradations, and asking equally 
 for a solution. How are the different grades and orders of mind 
 to be accounted for ? What is the principle of growth of that 
 mysterious power which on our planet culminates in Reason? 
 These are questions which, though not thrusting themselves so 
 forcibly upon the attention of the general public, had not only 
 occupied many reflecting minds, but had been formally broached 
 by one of them before the Origin of Species appeared. 
 
 With the mass of materials furnished by the physicist and 
 physiologist in his hands, Mr. Herbert Spencer, twenty years 
 ago, sought to graft upon this basis a system of psychology ; and 
 two years ago a second and greatly amplified edition of his work 
 appeared. Those who have occupied themselves with the beau- 
 tiful experiments of Plateau will remember that when two spher- 
 ules of olive oil, suspended in a mixture of alcohol and water of 
 the same density as the oil, are brought together, they do not im- 
 mediately unite. Something like a pellicle appears to be formed 
 around the drops, the rupture of which is immediately followed 
 by the coalescence of the globules into one. There are organisms 
 whose vital actions are almost as purely physical as that of these 
 drops of oil. They come into contact and fuse themselves thus 
 together. From such organisms to others a shade higher, and 
 from these to others a shade higher still, and on through an ever 
 ascending series, Mr. Spencer conducts his argument. There 
 are two obvious factors to be here taken into account — the 
 creature and the medium in which it lives, or, as it is often ex- 
 pressed, the organism and its environment. Mr. Spencer's fun- 
 damental principle is, that between these two factors there is 
 
THE BELFAST ADDRESS 307 
 
 incessant interaction. The organism is played upon by the en- 
 vironment, and is modified to meet the requirements of the en- 
 vironment. Life he defines to be "a continuous adjustment of 
 internal relations to external relations." 
 
 In the lowest organisms we have a kind of tactual sense dif- 
 fused over the entire body ; then, through impressions from with- 
 out and their corresponding adjustments, special portions of the 
 surface become more responsive to stimuli than others. The 
 senses are nascent, the basis of all of them being that simple tac- 
 tual sense which the sage Democritus recognized 2300 years ago 
 as their common progenitor. The action of light, in the first 
 instance, appears to be a mere disturbance of the chemical pro- 
 cesses in the animal organism, similar to that which occurs in 
 the leaves of plants. By degrees the action becomes localized in 
 a few pigment cells, more sensitive to light than the surround- 
 ing tissue. The eye is here incipient. At first it is merely 
 capable of revealing differences of light and shade produced by 
 bodies close at hand. Followed, as the interception of the light 
 is in almost all cases, by the contact of the closely adjacent 
 opaque body, sight in this condition becomes a kind of "an- 
 ticipatory touch." The adjustment continues ; a slight bulging 
 out of the epidermis over the pigment granules supervenes. A 
 lens is incipient, and, through the operation of infinite adjust- 
 ments, at length reaches the perfection that it displays in the 
 hawk and the eagle. So of the other senses ; they are special 
 differentiations of a tissue which was originally vaguely sensitive 
 all over. 
 
 With the development of the senses the adjustments between 
 the organism and its environment gradually extend in space, a 
 multiplication of experiences and a corresponding modification of 
 conduct being the result. The adjustments also extend in time, 
 covering continually greater intervals. Along with this exten- 
 sion in space and time, the adjustments also increase in specialty 
 and complexity, passing through the various grades of brute life 
 and prolonging themselves into the domain of reason. Very 
 striking are Mr. Spencer's remarks regarding the influence of 
 
3o8 JOHN TYNDALL 
 
 the sense of touch upon the development of inteUigence. This is, 
 so to say, the mother tongue of all the senses, into which they 
 must be translated to be of service to the organism. Hence its 
 importance. The parrot is the most intelligent of birds, and its 
 tactual power is also greatest. From this sense it gets knowl- 
 edge unattainable by birds which cannot employ their feet as 
 hands. The elephant is the most sagacious of quadrupeds — its 
 tactual range and skill, and the consequent multiplication of 
 experiences which it owes to its wonderfully adaptable trunk 
 being the basis of its sagacity. Feline animals, for a similar 
 cause, are more sagacious than hoofed animals — atonement 
 being to some extent made in the case of the horse by the posses- 
 sion of sensitive prehensile lips. In the Primates the evolution 
 of intellect and the evolution of tactual appendages go hand in 
 hand. In the most intelligent anthropoid apes we find the tac- 
 tual range and delicacy greatly augmented, new avenues of 
 knowledge being thus opened to the animal. Man crowns the 
 edifice here, not only in virtue of his own manipulatory power, 
 but through the enormous extension of his range of experience, 
 by the invention of instruments of precision, which serve as sup- 
 plemental senses and supplemental limbs. The reciprocal action 
 of these is finely described and illustrated. That chastened in- 
 tellectual emotion to which I have referred in connection with 
 Mr. Darwin is, I should say, not absent in Mr. Spencer. His 
 illustrations possess at times exceeding vividness and force, and 
 from his style on such occasions it is to be inferred that the gan- 
 glia of this apostle of the understanding are sometimes the seat 
 of a nascent poetic thrill. 
 
 It is a fact of supreme importance that actions the perform- 
 ance of which at first requires even painful effort and delibera- 
 tion may by habit be rendered automatic. Witness the slow 
 learning of its letters by a child, and the subsequent facility of 
 reading in a man, when each group of letters which forms a 
 word is instantly and without effort fused to a single perception. 
 Instance the billiard player, whose muscles of hand and eye, 
 when he reaches the perfection of his art, are unconsciously co- 
 
THE BELFAST ADDRESS 309 
 
 ordinated. Instance the musician, who by practice is enabled 
 to fuse a multitude of arrangements — auditory, tactual, and 
 muscular — into a process of automatic manipulation. Com- 
 bining such facts with the doctrine of hereditary transmission, 
 we reach a theory of instinct. A chick, after coming out of the 
 egg, balances itself correctly, runs about, picks up food, thus 
 showing that it possesses a power of directing its movements to 
 definite ends. How did the chick learn this very complex co- 
 ordination of eye, muscles, and beak? It has not been indi- 
 vidually taught; its personal experience is nil; but it has the 
 benefit of ancestral experience. In its inherited organization 
 are registered all the powers which it displays at birth. So also 
 as regards the instinct of the hive bee, already referred to. The 
 distance at which the insects stand apart when they sweep their 
 hemispheres and build their cells is "organically remembered." 
 Man also carries with him the physical texture of his ancestry, 
 as well as the inherited intellect bound up with it. The defects 
 of intelligence during infancy and youth are probably less due 
 to a lack of individual experience than to the fact that in early 
 life the cerebral organization is still incomplete. The period 
 necessary for completion varies with the race and with the in- 
 dividual. As a round shot outstrips a rifled one on quitting the 
 muzzle of the gun, so the lower race in childhood may outstrip 
 the higher. But the higher eventually overtakes the lower, and 
 surpasses it in range. As regards individuals, we do not always 
 find the precocity of youth prolonged to mental power in ma- 
 turity ; while the dullness of boyhood is sometimes strikingly 
 contrasted with the intellectual energy of after years. Newton, 
 when a boy, was weakly, and he showed no particular aptitude 
 at school ; but in his eighteenth year he went to Cambridge, and 
 soon afterward astonished his teachers by his power of dealing 
 with geometrical problems. During his quiet youth his brain 
 was slowly preparing itself to be the organ of those energies 
 which he subsequently displayed. 
 
 By myriad blows (to use a Lucretian phrase) the image and 
 superscription of the external world are stamped as states of 
 
3IO JOHN TYNDALL 
 
 consciousness upon the organism, the depth of the impression 
 depending upon the number of the blows. When two or more 
 phenomena occur in the environment invariably together, they 
 are stamped to the same depth or to the same relief, and are 
 indissolubly connected. And here we come to the threshold of 
 a great question. Seeing that he could in no way rid himself 
 of the consciousness of space and time, Kant assumed them to 
 be necessary "forms of thought," the molds and shapes into 
 which our intuitions are thrown, belonging to ourselves solely 
 and without objective existence. With unexpected power and 
 success Mr. Spencer brings the hereditary experience theory, as 
 he holds it, to bear upon this question. "If there exist certain 
 external relations which are experienced by all organisms at all 
 instants of their waking lives — relations which are absolutely 
 constant and universal — there will be established answering in- 
 ternal relations that are absolutely constant and universal. 
 Such relations we have in those of space and time. As the sub- 
 stratum of all other relations of the Non-Ego, they must be 
 responded to by conceptions that are the substrata of all other 
 relations in the Ego. Being the constant and infinitely repeated 
 elements of thought, they must become the automatic elements 
 of thought — the elements of thought which it is impossible to 
 get rid of — the 'forms of intuition.'" 
 
 Throughout this application and extension of the "law of in- 
 separable association," Mr. Spencer stands on totally different 
 ground from Mr. John Stuart Mill, invoking the registered ex- 
 periences of the race instead of the experiences of the individual. 
 His overthrow of Mr. Mill's restriction of experience is, I think, 
 complete. That restriction ignores the power of organizing ex- 
 perience furnished at the outset to each individual ; it ignores 
 the different degrees of this power possessed by different races 
 and by different individuals of the same race. Were there not 
 in the human brain a potency antecedent to all experience, a 
 dog or cat ought to be as capable of education as a man. These 
 predetermined internal relations are independent of the experi- 
 ences of the individual. The human brain is the "organized 
 
THE BELFAST ADDRESS 311 
 
 register of infinitely numerous experiences received during the 
 evolution of life, or rather during the evolution of that series of 
 organisms through which the human organism has been reached. 
 The effects of the most uniform and frequent of these experiences 
 have been successfully bequeathed, principal and interest, and 
 have slowly mounted to that high intelligence which lies latent 
 in the brain of the infant. Thus it happens that the European 
 inherits from twenty to thirty cubic inches more of brain than 
 the Papuan. Thus it happens that faculties, as of music, which 
 scarcely exist in some inferior races, become congenital in su- 
 perior ones. Thus it happens that out of savages unable to 
 count up to the number of their fingers, and speaking a language 
 containing only nouns and verbs, arise at length our Newtons 
 and Shakespeares." 
 
 At the outset of this address it was stated that physical theories 
 which lie beyond experience are derived by a process of abstrac- 
 tion from experience. It is instructive to note from this point 
 of view the successive introduction of new conceptions. The 
 idea of the attraction of gravitation was preceded by the obser- 
 vation of the attraction of iron by a magnet, and of light bodies 
 by rubbed amber. The polarity of magnetism and electricity 
 appealed to the senses ; and thus became the substratum of the 
 conception that atoms and molecules are endowed with definite, 
 attractive, and repellent poles, by the play of which definite 
 forms of crystalline architecture are produced. This molecular 
 force becomes structural. It required no great boldness of 
 thought to extend its play into organic nature, and to recognize 
 in molecular force the agency by which both plants and animals 
 are built up. In this way, out of experience arise conceptions 
 which are wholly ultra-experiential. 
 
 The origination of life is a point lightly touched upon, if at 
 all, by Mr. Darwin and Mr. Spencer. Diminishing gradually 
 the number of progenitors, Mr. Darwin comes at length to one 
 "primordial form ;" but he does not say, as far as I remember, 
 how he supposes this form to have been introduced. He quotes 
 with satisfaction the words of a celebrated author and divine 
 
312 JOHN TYNDALL 
 
 who had "gradually learned to see that it is just as noble a con- 
 ception of the Deity to believe He created a few original forms, 
 capable of self-development into other and needful forms, as to 
 believe that He required a fresh act of creation to supply the 
 voids caused by the action of his laws." What Mr. Darwin 
 thinks of this view of the introduction of life I do not know. 
 Whether he does or does not introduce his "primordial form" 
 by a creative act, I do not know. But the question will inevi- 
 tably be asked, "How came the form there?" With regard 
 to the diminution of the number of created forms, one does not 
 see that much advantage is gained by it. The anthropomor- 
 phism, which it seemed the object of Mr. Darwin to set aside, 
 is as firmly associated with the creation of a few forms as with 
 the creation of a multitude. We need clearness and thorough- 
 ness here. Two courses, and two only, are possible. Either let 
 us open our doors freely to the conception of creative acts, or, 
 abandoning them, let us radically change our notions of matter. 
 If we look at matter as pictured by Democritus, and as defined 
 for generations in our scientific textbooks, the absolute impos- 
 sibility of any form of life coming out of it would be sufficient 
 to render any other hypothesis preferable ; but the definitions 
 of matter given in our textbooks were intended to cover its 
 purely physical and mechanical properties. And taught as we 
 have been to regard these definitions as complete, we naturally 
 and rightly reject the monstrous notion that out of such matter 
 any form of life could possibly arise. But are the definitions 
 complete ? Everything depends on the answer to be given to this 
 question. Trace the line of life backward, and see it approach- 
 ing more and more to what we call the purely physical condi- 
 tion. We reach at length those organisms which I have com- 
 pared to drops of oil suspended in a mixture of alcohol and water. 
 We reach the proto genes of Haeckel, in which we have "a type 
 distinguishable from a fragment of albumen only by its finely 
 granular character." Can we pause here? We break a mag- 
 net and find two poles in each of its fragments. We continue 
 the process of breaking, but however small the parts, each 
 
THE BELFAST ADDRESS 313 
 
 carries with it, though enfeebled, the polarity of the whole. 
 And when we can break no longer, we prolong the intellectual 
 vision to the polar molecules. Are we not urged to do something 
 similar in the case of life? Is there not a temptation to close 
 to some extent with Lucretius, when he affirms that "Nature is 
 seen to do all things spontaneously of herself without the med- 
 dling of the gods ?" or with Bruno, when he declares that mat- 
 ter is not "that mere empty capacity which philosophers have 
 pictured her to be, but the universal mother who brings forth 
 all things as the fruit of her own womb ?" The questions here 
 raised are inevitable. They are approaching us with accelerated 
 speed, and it is not a matter of indifference whether they are 
 introduced with reverence or irreverence. Abandoning all dis- 
 guise, the confession that I feel bound to make before you is 
 that I prolong the vision backward across the boundary of the 
 experimental evidence, and discern in that matter, which we 
 in our ignorance, and notwithstanding our professed reverence 
 for its Creator, have hitherto covered with opprobrium, the 
 promise and potency of every form and quality of life. 
 
 The "materialism" here enunciated may be different from 
 what you suppose, and I therefore crave your gracious patience 
 to the end. "The question of an external world," says Mr. 
 J. S. Mill, "is the great battle ground of metaphysics."^ 
 Mr. Mill himself reduces external phenomena to "possibilities 
 of sensation." Kant,, as we have seen, made time and space 
 "forms" of our own intuitions. Fichte, having first by the in- 
 exorable logic of his understanding proved himself to be a mere 
 link in that chain of external causation which holds so rigidly 
 in nature, violently broke the chain by making nature, and all 
 that it inherits, an apparition of his own mind.^ And it is by 
 no means easy to combat such notions. For when I say I see 
 you, and that I have not the least doubt about it, the reply is, 
 that what I am really conscious of is an affection of my own 
 retina. And if I urge that I can check my sight of you by 
 touching you, the retort would be that I am equally transgress- 
 
 1 Examination of Hamilton, p. 154. ^ Bestimmimg des Menschen. 
 
314 JOHN TYNDALL 
 
 ing the limits of fact ; for what I am really conscious of is, not 
 that you are there, but that the nerves of my hand have under- 
 gone a change. All we hear, and see, and touch, and taste, and 
 smell, are, it would be urged, mere variations of our own con- 
 dition, beyond which, even to the extent of a hair's breadth, we 
 cannot go. That anything answering to our impressions exists 
 outside of ourselves is not a fact, but an inference, to which all 
 validity would be denied by an idealist like Berkeley, or by a 
 skeptic like Hume. Mr. Spencer takes another line. With him, 
 as with the uneducated man, there is no doubt or question as 
 to the existence of an external world. But he differs from the 
 uneducated, who think that the world really is what conscious- 
 ness represents it to be. Our states of consciousness are mere 
 symbols of an outside entity which produces them and deter- 
 mines the order of their succession, but the real nature of which 
 we can never know.^ In fact, the whole process of evolution is 
 the manifestation of a Power absolutely inscrutable to the in- 
 tellect of man. As little in our day as in the days of Job can 
 man, by searching, find this Power out. Considered funda- 
 mentally, it is by the operation of an insoluble mystery that life 
 is evolved, species differentiated, and mind unfolded from their 
 prepotent elements in the immeasurable past. There is, you 
 will observe, no very rank materialism here. 
 
 * In a paper, at once popular and profound, entitled "Recent Progress in 
 the Theory of Vision," contained in the volume of lectures by Helmholtz 
 published by Longmans {Popular Lectures on Scientific Subjects], this sym- 
 bolism of our states of consciousness is also dwelt upon. The impressions of 
 sense are the mere signs of external things. In this paper Helmholtz con- 
 tends strongly against the view that the consciousness of space is inborn; 
 and he evidently doubts the power of the chick to pick up grains of corn 
 without some preliminary lessons. On this point, he says, further experi- 
 ments are needed. Such experiments have been since made by Mr. Spald- 
 ing, aided, I beUeve, in some of his observations by the accomplished and 
 deeply lamented Lady Amberley ; and they seem to prove conclusively that 
 the chick does not need a single moment's tuition to teach it to stand, run, 
 govern the muscles of its eyes, and peck. Helmholtz, however, is contend- 
 ing against the notion of preestablished harmony ; and I am not aware of 
 his views as to the organization of experiences of race or breed. 
 
THE BELFAST ADDRESS ' 315 
 
 The strength of the doctrine of evolution consists, not in an 
 experimental demonstration (for the subject is hardly accessible 
 to this mode of proof), but in its general harmony with the 
 method of nature as hitherto known. From contrast, moreover, 
 it derives enormous relative strength. On the one side we have 
 a theory (if it could with any propriety be so called) derived, as 
 were the theories referred to at the beginning of this address, not 
 from the study of nature, but from the observation of men — 
 a theory which converts the Power whose garment is seen in 
 the visible universe into an. artificer, fashioned after the human 
 model, and acting by broken efforts as man is seen to act. On 
 the other side we have the conception that all we see around us, 
 and all we feel within us — the phenomena of physical nature 
 as well as those of the human mind — have their unsearchable 
 roots in a cosmical life, if I dare apply the term, an infinitesimal 
 span of which only is offered to the investigation of man. And 
 even this span is only knowable in part. We can trace the de- 
 velopment of a nervous system, and correlate with it the parallel 
 phenomena of sensation and thought. We see with undoubting 
 certainty that they go hand in hand. But we try to soar in 
 a vacuum the moment we seek to comprehend the connection 
 between them. An Archimedean fulcrum is here required 
 which the human mind cannot command; and the effort to 
 solve the problem, to borrow an illustration from an illustrious 
 friend of mine, is like the effort of a man trying to lift himself 
 by his own waistband. All that has been here said is to be taken 
 in connection with this fundamental truth. When "nascent 
 senses" are spoken of, when "the differentiation of a tissue at 
 first vaguely sensitive all over" is spoken of, and when these 
 processes are associated with "the modification of an organism 
 by its environment," the same parallelism without contact, or 
 even approach to contact, is implied. There is no fusion pos- 
 sible between the two classes of facts — no motor energy in the 
 intellect of man to carry it without logical rupture from the one 
 to the other. 
 
 Further, the doctrine of evolution derives man, in his totaHty, 
 
3i6 ^ JOHN TYNDALL 
 
 from the interaction of organism and environment through 
 countless ages past. The human understanding, for example — ■ 
 the faculty which Mr. Spencer has turned so skillfully round 
 upon its own antecedents — is itself a result of the play between 
 organism and environment through cosmic ranges of time. 
 Never surely did prescription plead so irresistible a claim. But 
 then it comes to pass that, over and above his understanding, 
 there are many other things appertaining to man whose pre- 
 scriptive rights are quite as strong as that of the understanding 
 itself. It is a result, for example, of the play of organism and 
 environment that sugar is sweet and that aloes are bitter, that 
 the smell of henbane differs from the perfume of a rose. Such 
 facts of consciousness (for which, by the way, no adequate 
 reason has ever yet been rendered) are quite as old as the under- 
 standing itself; and many other things can boast an equally 
 ancient origin. Mr. Spencer at one place refers to that most 
 powerful of passions — the amatory passion — as one which, 
 when it first occurs, is antecedent to all relative experience what- 
 ever ; and we may pass its claim as being at least as ancient and 
 as valid as that of the understanding itself. Then there are 
 such things woven into the texture of man as the feeling of awe, 
 reverence, wonder — and not alone the sexual love just referred 
 to, but the love of the beautiful, physical and moral, in nature, 
 poetry, and art. There is also that deep-set feeling which, since 
 the earliest dawn of history, and probably for ages prior to all 
 history, incorporated itself in the religions of the world. You 
 who have escaped from these religions in the high and dry 
 light of the understanding may deride them; but in so doing 
 you deride accidents of form merely, and fail to touch the im- 
 movable basis of the religious sentiment in the emotional nature 
 of man. To yield this sentiment reasonable satisfaction is the 
 problem of problems at the present hour. And grotesque in re- 
 lation to scientific culture as many of the religions of the world 
 have been and are — dangerous, nay, destructive, to the dearest 
 privileges of freemen as some of them undoubtedly have been, 
 and would, if they could, be again — it will be wise to recognize 
 
THE BELFAST ADDRESS 317 
 
 them as the forms of force, mischievous, if permitted to intrude 
 on the region of knowledge, over which it holds no command, 
 but capable of being guided by liberal thought to noble issues 
 in the region of emotion, which is its proper sphere. It is vain 
 to oppose this force with a view to its extirpation. What we 
 should oppose, to the death if necessary, is every attempt to 
 found upon this elemental bias of man's nature a system which 
 should exercise despotic sway over his intellect. I do not fear 
 any such consummation. Science has already to some extent 
 leavened the world, and it will leaven it more and more. I 
 should look upon the mild light of science breaking in upon the 
 minds of the youth of Ireland, and strengthening gradually to 
 the perfect day, as a surer check to any intellectual or spiritual 
 tyranny which might threaten this island than the laws of 
 princes or the swords of emperors. Where is the cause of fear ? 
 We fought and won our battle even in the Middle Ages : why 
 should we doubt the issue of a conflict now? 
 
 The impregnable position of science may be described in a 
 few words. All religious theories, schemes, and systems, which 
 embrace notions of cosmogony, or which otherwise reach into 
 its domain, must, in so far as they do this, submit to the con- 
 trol of science, and relinquish all thought of controlling it. Act- 
 ing otherwise proved disastrous in the past, and it is simply 
 fatuous to-day. Every system which would escape the fate of 
 an organism too rigid to adjust itself to its environment must 
 be plastic to the extent that the growth of knowledge demands. 
 When this truth has been thoroughly taken in, rigidity will be 
 relaxed, exclusiveness diminished, things now deemed essential 
 will be dropped, and elements now rejected will be 'assimilated. 
 The lifting of the life is the essential point ; and as long as dog- 
 matism, fanaticism, and intolerance are kept out, various modes 
 of leverage may be employed to raise life to a higher level. 
 Science itself not unfrequently derives motive power from an 
 ultra-scientific source. Whewell speaks of enthusiasm of temper 
 as a hindrance to science ; but he means the enthusiasm of weak 
 heads. There is a strong and resolute enthusiasm in which 
 
3i8 JOHN TYNDALL 
 
 science finds an ally ; and it is to the lowering of this fire, rather 
 than to a diminution of intellectual insight, that the lessening 
 productiveness of men of science in their mature years is to be 
 ascribed. Mr. Buckle sought to detach intellectual achieve- 
 ment from moral force. He gravely erred; for without moral 
 force to whip it into action, the achievements of the intellect 
 would be poor indeed. 
 
 It has been said that science divorces itself from literature. 
 The statement, like so many others, arises from lack of knowl- 
 edge. A glance at the less technical writings of its leaders — of 
 its Helmholtz, its Huxley, and its Du Bois-Reymond — would 
 show what breadth of literary culture they command. Where 
 among modern writers can you find their superiors in clearness 
 and vigor of literary style? Science desires no isolation, but 
 freely combines with every effort toward the bettering of man's 
 estate. Single-handed, and supported not by outward sym- 
 pathy, but by inward force, it has built at least one great wing 
 of the many-mansioned home which man in his totality demands. 
 And if rough walls and protruding rafter ends indicate that on 
 one side the edifice is still incomplete, it is only by wise com- 
 bination of the parts required with those already irrevocably 
 built that we can hope for completeness. There is no necessary 
 incongruity between what has been accomplished and what re- 
 mains to be done. The moral glow of Socrates, which we all 
 feel by ignition, has in it nothing incompatible with the physics 
 of Anaxagoras which he so much scorned, but which he would 
 hardly scorn to-day. And here I am reminded of one among 
 us, hoary, but still strong, whose prophet voice some thirty 
 years ago, far more than any other of this age, unlocked what- 
 ever of life and nobleness lay latent in its most gifted minds — 
 one fit to stand beside Socrates or the Maccabean Eleazar, and 
 to dare and suffer all that they suffered and dared — fit, as he 
 once said of Fichte, "to have been the teacher of the Stoa, and 
 to have discoursed of beauty and virtue in the groves of Aca- 
 deme." With a capacity to grasp physical principles which his 
 friend Goethe did not possess, and which even total lack of 
 
THE BELFAST ADDRESS 319 
 
 exercise has not been able to reduce to atrophy, it is the world's 
 loss that he, in the vigor of his years, did not open his mind and 
 sympathies to science, and make its conclusions a portion of 
 his message to mankind. Marvelously endowed as he was — 
 equally equipped on the side of the heart and of the understand- 
 ing — he might have done much toward teaching us how to rec- 
 oncile the claims of both, and to enable them in coming times 
 to dwell together in unity of spirit and in the bond of peace.^ 
 
 And now the end is come. With more time, or greater strength 
 and knowledge, what has been here said might have been better 
 said, while worthy matters here omitted might have received fit 
 expression. But there would have been no material deviation 
 from the views set forth. As regards myself, they are not the 
 growth of a day ; and as regards you, I thought you ought to 
 know the environment which, with or without your consent, is 
 rapidly surrounding you, and in relation to which some adjust- 
 ment on your part may be necessary. A hint of Hamlet's, how- 
 ever, teaches us all how the troubles of common life may be 
 ended ; and it is perfectly possible for you and me to purchase 
 intellectual peace at the price of intellectual death. The world 
 is not without refuges of this description ; nor is it wanting in 
 persons who seek their shelter and try to persuade others to do 
 the same. I would exhort you to refuse such shelter, and to 
 scorn such base repose — to accept, if the choice be forced upon 
 you, commotion before stagnation, the leap of the torrent before 
 the stillness of the swamp. In the one there is at all events life, 
 and therefore hope ; in the other, none. I have touched on de- 
 batable questions, and led you over dangerous ground ; and this 
 partly with the view of telling you, and through you the world, 
 that as regards these questions science claims unrestricted right 
 of search. It is not to the point to say that the views of Lucre- 
 tius and Bruno, of Darwin and Spencer, may be wrong. Here 
 I should agree with you, deeming it indeed certain that these 
 views will undergo modification. But the point is, that, whether 
 right or wrong, we claim the freedom to discuss them. The 
 1 Tyndall refers here to Carlyle. — Editors. 
 
320 JOHN TYNDALL 
 
 ground which they cover is scientific ground; and the right 
 claimed is one made good through tribulation and anguish, in- 
 flicted and endured in darker times than ours, but resulting in 
 the immortal victories which science has won for the human race. 
 I would set forth equally the inexorable advance of man's under- 
 standing in the path of knowledge, and the unquenchable claims 
 of his emotional nature which the understanding can never 
 satisfy. The world embraces not only a Newton, but a Shake- 
 speare ; not only a Boyle, but a Raphael ; not only a Kant, 
 but a Beethoven; not only a Darwin, but a Carlyle. Not in 
 each of these, but in all, is human nature whole. They are not 
 opposed, but supplementary ; not mutually exclusive, but recon- 
 cilable. And if, still unsatisfied, the human mind, with the 
 yearning of a pilgrim for his distant home, will turn to the 
 mystery from which it has emerged, seeking so to fashion it as 
 to give unity to thought and faith — so long as this is done, 
 not only without intolerance or bigotry of any kind, but with 
 the enlightened recognition that ultimate fixity of conception is 
 here unattainable, and that each succeeding age must be held 
 free to fashion the mystery in accordance with its own needs, 
 then, in opposition to all the restrictions of Materialism, I would 
 affirm this to be a field for the noblest exercise of what, in con- 
 trast with the knowing faculties, may be called the creative facul- 
 ties of man. Here, however, I must quit a theme too great for 
 me to handle, but which will be handled by the loftiest minds 
 ages after you and I, like streaks of morning cloud, shall have 
 melted into the infinite azure of the past. 
 
XI 
 
 TRUTH AND IMMORTALITY i 
 Charles Fletcher Dole 
 
 [Charles Fletcher Dole (1845-) is a well-known New England clergy- 
 man and a writer of note on religious and sociological subjects. He gradu- 
 ated from Harvard in 1868 and from the Andover Theological Seminary in 
 1872; four years later he became minister of the First Congregational 
 Church (Unitarian), at Jamaica Plain, Boston, and has continued in that 
 position to the present time. Dr. Dole has been actively identified with 
 a number of religious and social movements and organizations, was Inger- 
 soll lecturer at Harvard in 1906, and is the author of many books and 
 articles in his special fields of interest. 
 
 TrtUh and Immortality, published in the Harvard Theological Review for 
 April, 1909, is a reasoned argument in support of the belief in a future 
 life ; and as such, it may be taken as a reply to the philosophy of such men 
 as Huxley and Tyndall, who find no justification in scientific truth for the 
 hope of immortality. Dr. Dole argues that the hope of immortality, far 
 from being without the province of truth, is, in fact, part and parcel of 
 that province ; that it underlies our conception of an ordered and pur- 
 poseful universe, and is essential to harmonious human development. 
 
 Modern thought on the subject of future life by theologians, scientists, 
 and philosophers, is admirably represented in the series of Ingersoll lectures 
 which have been given annually at Harvard since 1896.] 
 
 One everywhere finds people who have given up the hope of 
 immortaUty or else regard it with extreme doubt. Forms of be- 
 lief with which it has been associated have proved unthinkable 
 to them. Worse yet, to hope for immortality seems not to be 
 loyal to truth. "We want reality," they say. "We propose to 
 face the facts ; we demand honest thinking. We have no use 
 for dreams, however pleasant ; we wish only truth." Mr. Hux- 
 ley's famous letter to his friend Charles Kingsley expresses 
 
 ^ Reprinted by permission from the Harvard Theological Review, April, 1909. 
 
 321 
 
322 CHARLES FLETCHER DOLE 
 
 this attitude. Here is a man who, in the greatest of sorrows, 
 feels obliged to put away comfort and hope in obedience to the 
 demand of truth. It is not possible to divide his mind into ex- 
 clusive compartments, and to indulge an ancient religious emo- 
 tion on one side of himself, while on the other side he remains 
 the conscientious student of science. He must keep his integ- 
 rity at any cost to his feelings. No one can help admiring this 
 type of mind. A multitude of people who have nothing like 
 Mr. Huxley's rigor of conscience are immensely moved by the 
 attitude of such men as he. If he could see no truth in immor- 
 tality and had to remain an agnostic about it, why should we 
 not be agnostics also ? 
 
 I believe that Mr. Huxley was right in his insistence upon 
 truth and conscience. I believe also that he was mistaken as 
 to the relation between truth and the hope of immortality. I 
 shall try to show in this paper that the hope of immortality, so 
 far from being excluded from the realm of truth and reahty, is 
 involved in th^ essential structure of this realm. I shall have 
 occasion to point out considerations to which I see no evidence 
 that Mr. Huxley (and I use his name as the type of a consider- 
 able class) ever paid attention. The fact is, that the thinking 
 men of the last century suffered an immense reaction in the tide 
 of the new thoughts that came in with the scientific period of 
 development. The first net impression was the sense of a loss 
 of the fabric of ancient traditions and religions. It was not easy 
 immediately to adjust one's eyes to the new light and to esti- 
 mate what kind of a universe had been brought to view. I 
 cannot doubt that if such minds as Mr. Huxley had only gone 
 on to urge their splendid courage and loyalty a few steps farther, 
 they would have come to the same constructive conclusions 
 which their somewhat cautious negative work has vastly helped 
 us of a later generation to reach. 
 
 Let us, however, put aside the subject of immortality for a 
 while, and first ask the straight question : What is truth ? Or, 
 what constitutes reality ? As with most ultimate questions, this 
 is not easy precisely to say. The ultimate things appear always 
 
TRUTH AND IMMORTALITY 323 
 
 to be larger than our definitions. In a general and quite un- 
 dogmatic sense we may say that truth is that which fits into its 
 place or order. The untrue is that which does not fit, or match. 
 We are using here a parable taken from outward things, but 
 our thinking is none the worse because it falls into this form 
 of illustration. Does not all thinking proceed by figures and 
 symbols ? 
 
 We make a simple statement : The earth is round. This is 
 true, so far as the description "round" fits the shape of the 
 earth. We know that it is not exactly true. Why is it not 
 quite true ? Because we have an idea of perfect roundness into 
 which the earth, as it is, does not fit. We describe an occurrence, 
 an accident perhaps, which we have witnessed. Our account 
 may possibly express our view of the facts. Yet we can almost 
 never make our description tell the exact story of what happened. 
 Our senses are imperfect instruments of observation; our 
 memories may play us false ; our language is only a makeshift, 
 and never quite conveys even our imperfect impressions of an 
 event. Neither do our words — a system of makeshift symbols 
 — always mean the same thing to another as they mean to us. 
 No two pairs of eyes perhaps witness exactly the same occur- 
 rence. The question already begins to arise : Why, since the 
 truth is so elusive, should we be so strenuous to insist upon it ? 
 
 Our idea of reality is involved with our notion of truth. We 
 hold that, behind impressions and sensations and the words that 
 describe our feelings about things, there is some substance (call 
 it matter or spirit as you please) which, so far as our descrip- 
 tion of it is exact, corresponds to, or matches with, the descrip- 
 tion. We do not pretend that we know or can know this sub- 
 stance, as it is, but we think or assume that we know it at least 
 in the form of its relations to us, and that its relations, as we 
 discover them, translate the reality on the whole fairly well, as 
 if by picture language, for all practical purposes. 
 
 We assume, too, or surmise (may we dare to say that we know ?) 
 that everything in this realm of reality that lies just behind all 
 phenomena is related or matched together with everything else. 
 
324 CHARLES FLETCHER DOLE 
 
 To know the truth would be to know how things fit or are re- 
 lated together. To know all about a grain of sand would thus 
 be to know all about the world. At any rate the phenomena 
 
 — the picture language with which our minds are impressed 
 through our eyes and ears and nerves of sense — come to us in 
 the most elaborate network of relations, sometimes of mere juxta- 
 position, sometimes in relations of what we call cause and effect, 
 always in a certain succession in time, always also suggestive 
 of a unity, or order, or harmony, to which, if we knew enough, 
 all would be found to belong. In other words, we surmise that 
 truth, if we could get at it, would be the complete description of 
 the order and unity of the world in and through all its parts and 
 its motions. 
 
 We are now saihng audaciously over great depths in thought. 
 If any one cares to object and question : How dare you surmise 
 and assume so much ? How dare you speak of fitnesses and order 
 and relations of unity? we have to reply that we cannot help 
 making these bold assumptions if we are going to think at all, 
 or to investigate, or even to live sanely. Our interest and im- 
 pulse to observe, and still more to try to order our observations 
 into the form of science, spring from our conviction, or faith, 
 that there is order and significance and unity to be discovered 
 
 — in other words, that this is not chaos in which we live, but a 
 universe. This is a faith; it certainly is not "solid fact" or 
 knowledge. But the very idea of truth is bound up with the 
 faith. If there were no reality corresponding to our view of 
 things, if things did not fit together so as to spell out into intel- 
 ligible meanings, if the net impression of the world was only an 
 ash heap and not a universe, what possible sense would there be 
 in urging the necessity of truth ? Truth is a postulate of faith, 
 albeit an intellectual and not a supernatural kind of faith. 
 
 We know more about our own minds than we know of anything 
 outside of us. Our minds impose certain forms of thinking upon 
 us. Our minds instinctively work on the lines of order. They 
 tend to expect relations of fitness and harmony. They are 
 prompted by all kinds of stimuli to set up standards and ideals. 
 
TRUTH AND IMMORTALITY 325 
 
 They act under certain universal categories to inquire, Where ? 
 When ? Why ? To use a figure of speech, we may say that they 
 behave like a kaleidoscope, which, turn it as you will, imposes 
 color and order on the material within it. So it is the nature of 
 intelligence to reflect everything which falls upon its mirror in 
 forms of order. The mind seems to be made to construct, that 
 is, to fit its material together, as a poet or architect does. The 
 intelligence looks for and expects significance and unity. Even 
 before it gets demonstration, it tends to proceed on its faith that 
 its world is reasonable, or, at least, that there is a standard of 
 reason and fitness into which, if things do not match, they are 
 futile. Yes. Even when the doubting mind in its pessimist 
 mood pronounces the world an illusion, or when the agnostic 
 mind halts in doubt whether the universe means anything to 
 man beyond his burial ground, this very pronouncement of des- 
 peration proceeds on the marvelous conception of a possible 
 world of order and beauty with which, as a standard, the actual 
 world is tried and found wanting. 
 
 Thus the most negative "truth" gets its meaning out of the 
 depths of an intelligence that cannot help thinking in terms of 
 reason and unity. Why tell the dismal truth, some one asks, that 
 all things are vanity ? Because the mind conceives the idea of 
 a real world which puts a vain world to shame. It is the faith 
 in at least the possibility of a real world that gives character to 
 criticism, blasphemy, and denial. 
 
 What we call "reality," at every point, when we try to ap- 
 proach it, proves to be beyond anything that we distinctly 
 know or can define. Our thought of it arises, indeed, out of the 
 region of our senses and by the aid of our instruments of research. 
 It begins with " solid facts " (which are not solid at all, but merely 
 our consciousness of relations in phenomena) and passes over 
 at once into a realm, absolutely necessary to our thinking and 
 living, and yet always beyond the touch of our senses. We have 
 so many things, a, b, c, etc., given us as our working material, 
 and presently we find x, y, z, into which the simple deliverances 
 of our senses have been irresistibly transformed. The realm of 
 
326 CHARLES FLETCHER DOLE 
 
 what we call known values in things is not so real or necessary to 
 us as is this realm of thoughts, of order, of fitnesses and unity, 
 with which alone truth is concerned. Truth is thus always 
 a -\- xoT b -^ 7,; that is, the thing we get by our senses plus what 
 our minds make of it by the act of the faith of reason, in trying 
 to fit it as well as we can into a place in our realm of reaUty. 
 
 See how true this is in the very beginnings of our thought of 
 the visible world. We call a stone hard and rough. This is 
 the a and b of our knowledge. But we go a step further, and 
 every atom of the stone is in motion. These atoms are unknown 
 creations, x and y. We try to catch the atoms and weigh them 
 and tell in how large platoons they march together. Presently 
 we are not contemplating atoms at all, in the sense of hard bits 
 of stuff. We are in the presence of infinitesimal tornadoes of 
 force. Whatever now we decide to call this substance of the 
 rock, whether matter, or atoms, or centers of force, or spirit, it is 
 the name for our faith in an almighty and wonderful reality 
 rather than an exact description of a solid fact that we know all 
 about. Our conclusion — that is, the truth about matter — is 
 the best makeshift or working theory that we can reach to fit to- 
 gether our experiences of what matter does for us. Truth chal- 
 lenges our modesty as much as the accuracy of our observation 
 and description. 
 
 Take another simple statement of fact. We say that a certain 
 line drawn on the paper is not straight. How do we know this ? 
 No one of us has ever seen a perfect line; yet we carry in our 
 minds the idea of straightness, or of circularity, which has only 
 been suggested to us, but never realized. In the realm of our 
 thought, the idea of the straight line or the perfect circle is essen- 
 tial. It is more real, though invisible, than any line that we see. 
 We are so made that, while intelligence survives, this idea will 
 five with us when all visible lines are expunged. Truth in lines 
 and forms is measured by this ideal and most actual standard. 
 However this standard may have grown out of our experience, it 
 always transcends experience. It is indeed a necessity of our 
 thought. 
 
TRUTH AND IMMORTALITY 327 
 
 We catch sight now of a group of standards and ideals, all 
 different from the actual "facts" of life, related to the facts, sug- 
 gested perhaps by the facts, but always above the facts, and quite 
 as essential to our practical use of the facts as the yardstick or 
 the standard pound is essential in buying and selling. Every 
 utility or convenience, a comfortable dwelling, a hygienic system 
 of plumbing, a proper suit of clothes or pair of shoes, presupposes 
 an ideal, invisible standard of thoroughness and excellence of 
 workmanship. We say that the suit fits ; we say that the founda- 
 tion wall is true. We proceed at every practical issue by ideal 
 standards which no work of man ever completely reached. The 
 ideal of what a house or a ship should be is more real than the 
 actual construction. Moreover, we believe that, if we knew 
 more, we should see even a nobler ideal of fitness and truth than 
 that by which we now measure our workmanship. Our ideal is 
 like the asymptote, always approximating, but never quite touch- 
 ing, the invisible ultimate ideals toward which our faith, guided 
 by each new access of experience, climbs. 
 
 We are introduced immediately into the realm of beauty. To 
 the eyes of the artist or poet there is nothing so actual as the vi- 
 sion of beautiful objects that the visible universe only suggests, 
 but never quite realizes, or can realize, in material form. Our 
 true humanity has not begun till we love these visions of beauty 
 and strive to keep their company. Thus, there is nothing in the 
 world more wonderful and mysterious than the facts, the forms, 
 and the power of music. It arises out of noises and sound waves, 
 but it consists in harmonies which ally it to the ideal kingdom of 
 mathematics. Its delight is in the fact that it fits and satisfies 
 our ears. It demands truth or fidelity in the musician ; it de- 
 pends upon the attunement and the perfect time of his instrument. 
 The standard is always beyond his best effort. This standard, 
 which no man ever reaches, is more real than any of his work. 
 
 Why must the artist or the musician obey the law of this quite 
 ideal vision or standard ? Why must the violinist play up to a 
 degree of perfection that no one can reach? Why must the 
 painter follow his vision, though he may never be thanked or re- 
 
328 CHARLES FLETCHER DOLE 
 
 warded, and though the work of the "pot-boiler" may bring him 
 cheap fame and pay? The fact is that man, at his best, be- 
 longs to an ideal world, which, once being entered upon, becomes 
 more real than the solid ground under his feet. There is no 
 truth, except within this region of invisible realities. 
 
 All the moralities now face us with their commanding pres- 
 ences. "Duty, stern daughter of the voice of God," is here. 
 Conscience sets up its imperative, the strange word "ought." 
 We can get along quite well for a little way with a superficial ex- 
 planation of morality. We may say that it is merely customary 
 conduct, imitating the traditions and usages of a tribe or a fam- 
 ily. We may say that it arises out of social expediency. All 
 this is true. The point which we urge is that all morality, how- 
 ever simply it arises, moves up into the realm of ideal values. In 
 other words, truth in morals is more than the mere fitness of an 
 action to a custom or tradition or an act of legislation ; it is the 
 effort to fit a standard or ideal that no words, least of all the 
 terms of an enactment, can define. Take Mr. Haeckel's in- 
 sistence upon the scientist's duty to say what he thinks. You 
 cannot measure this duty in terms of expediency, any more than 
 you can rate a beautiful painting in so many dollars. You can- 
 not prescribe how far the scientist must go in his telling the truth, 
 any more than you can say how far the musician shall go in his 
 effort after perfection of tone and harmony. You cannot prove 
 that it will do Mr. Haeckel any material good to tell the truth, 
 or even that his truth will do the world any good. Yet we all 
 agree with Mr. Haeckel that he must tell the truth, even if the 
 whole world holds up its hands in horror at him. This idea of 
 an absolute or infinite duty to truth is in another realm from that 
 of the "soHd facts" of the man on the street. It belongs in the 
 realm of the ideal and invisible, and what, for want of any better 
 term, we call the spiritual. But the man on the street applauds 
 it, and believes in it, and owns that it is more real and permanent 
 than the stones under his feet. Yes, it is a part of his being.^ 
 
 ' The lack of clear recognition of the fundamental idea of truth in Mr. 
 William James's Pragmatism is perhaps the chief fault in his treatment. 
 
TRUTH AND IMMORTALITY 329 
 
 Consider, again, the ideal of wedded love. There is nothing 
 that we behold more real and yet more wonderful. It has its 
 rise on the animal side of us. It is related to the bodily senses 
 and to passion. It has a strange, gross, sensual history of ages 
 behind it. It hardly yet more than fairly emerges into the higher 
 consciousness of the average man. The woman is still a chattel 
 or plaything in the eyes of multitudes of brutish men. Never- 
 theless, here stands the ideal of true marriage and a love mutual, 
 loyal, devoted, constant, undying, which no two lovers ever 
 succeeded altogether in compassing, yet without which real love 
 hardly exists. This love already orders thousands of homes. It 
 commands the consciences of a host of people who only feebly 
 Uve up to its splendid "ought." It brings joy and satisfaction 
 wherever men and women obey it. Under its beneficent rule, 
 the passions and senses themselves are at their highest perfec- 
 tion of use, and children are born under auspices most favorable 
 for their health and happiness. The word "home" gets all its 
 wealth of significance from this ideal reality of love. 
 
 What, now, is truth in the marriage relation ? It does not 
 merely mean to hold to a verbal promise or to obey the laws of 
 the state. It means nothing less than fitness of act and thought, 
 and of temper also, to an ideal standard beyond and above all 
 words. Once seeing this ideal, we become base and unworthy 
 to fall away from it. Who in England had a loftier sense of this 
 reality than Mr. Huxley had ? What a world of ethical reality 
 he lived in and belonged to ! 
 
 Consider a moment the almost new sense of humane social re- 
 lations that slowly tends to prevail among men. You can al- 
 ways make out a case for the grim rule of selfishness, more or less 
 enlightened. You can say that the law of life is the survival of 
 the fittest ; you can translate human realities into animal, mili- 
 tary, and commercial terms. You can say, "Every man for 
 himself," and "Every man has his price." Why is it that no 
 man can ever be content in saying such things ? No man who is 
 a man really believes that these things are quite true. What, 
 then, do we all, at our best, hold to be true of social relations ? 
 
330 CHARLES FLETCHER DOLE 
 
 We believe in an unwritten law, quite ideal, beyond the range 
 of all human rewards or penalties. This law bids us each and 
 all to share our good things with one another ; it bids us be ready 
 to suffer and die for the common good — not merely for the na- 
 tion, but for humanity, for those whom we have never seen, for 
 those unborn. It bids us let our own selfish will go, in the name 
 of a universal good will. It sets up martyrs rather than kings, 
 Jesus rather than Caesar, Lincoln and not Napoleon, for the ad- 
 miration of the world There is no true man who does not, at 
 his best, bow to this kind of ideal. Here is a touch of the infinite 
 in man. There is no finite range to the bounds of his duty. 
 
 There is a philosophy that undertakes to explain everything 
 in terms of mechanics. Whatever a man does, or thinks, or feels 
 is registered in the changes of motion in nerve cells. First comes 
 the change in a cell, as the man's senses are moved from without 
 and then, as if pulled by a wire, thought and consciousness follow. 
 No one doubts the fact of this registry of deeds and thoughts. 
 Does it explain anything ? Does it not rather leave a world of 
 mystery still to be explained ? For consciousness is infinitely 
 more wonderful than motion or mechanics, which in no way ex- 
 plain consciousness. The great overpowering fact of life is not 
 the mechanical motion in a man's brain, but the vast range of 
 his consciousness. His life, however related to the brain cells, 
 is not real life at all till it rises into consciousness. All reality, 
 in fact, Ues in the field of consciousness, without which we could 
 not even know anything about the mechanics of motion or the 
 elementary differences between greater and less, higher and lower, 
 better and worse. 
 
 Moreover, so far as consciousness tells any truth, it tells us of 
 moral and spiritual sequences that daily alter the flow of our lives, 
 and in the aggregate make and alter the meaning of history. 
 The story of a hero, a bit of a psalm, " a passage from Euripides," 
 strikes our consciousness, and we become, at least for the moment, 
 changed men in our conduct. The alteration of conduct, itself 
 touching material facts, perhaps costing hard-earned money, or 
 risking labor and life, is a spiritual or humane or social change 
 
TRUTH AND IMMORTALITY 331 
 
 in us. Its value consists in ideal terms, such as happiness, con- 
 tentment, satisfaction. 
 
 We have used the word "happiness." What is this thing that 
 everyone wants, that no one can exactly define, that begins in 
 the plane of creature comforts, and rises into all manner of ideal 
 relations ? Our thought of what truth is helps us to answer this 
 question. Truth is fitness, harmony, the unison of relations. 
 The happy life, then, is the life in which all the parts fit and 
 match and make unity. The body is well and serves the man ; 
 the mind is sane, the conscience is enlightened and prompt to 
 act, the man is full of good will, expressing itself in kindly words 
 and generous deeds. In short, the happy life conforms to, and 
 corresponds with, an ideal beyond and above itself, never yet 
 exactly seen, but the most real furniture that exists in every ma- 
 ture man's consciousness. The perfect truth of manhood is 
 more than the man reaches, yet the reality of the man himself 
 consists in his reaching toward this truth and trying to fit himself 
 to it. His highest satisfaction lies in this effort. In this type of 
 effort all the experiences of his life, even his failures and sorrows, 
 tend to blend and harmonize into the unity of a real person. 
 Consciousness tells us nothing more sure than this, and the more 
 surely, the more often we have made the endeavor. We are 
 happy, we reach approximate unity, in and through every mo- 
 ment of hearty good will. To be true to a man's standard of 
 manhood is the essence of the happy life. 
 
 Here again, as before, truth is both a and x. It is that which 
 fits facts which we have experienced, and it is also an item of 
 faith or venture ; it is that which fits into an ideal beyond actual 
 experience. This transcendental element of truth, this venture 
 from the known towards the higher and unknown, is precisely 
 what gives truth its character of reality. 
 
 Another idea has been, and is still, immensely important as a 
 factor in the highest human activity. It is the idea of progress. 
 It is related intimately to the great scientific thought of develop- 
 ment and evolution. Men think that the world is better than it 
 once was, and they believe or hope that it will grow better. This 
 
332 CHARLES FLETCHER DOLE 
 
 is not an unpractical thought. It adds value, worth, and motive 
 force to action. It is a spur to morality and the noblest forms of 
 devotion. The world and human life are worth more in a world 
 that grows better than in a world that has stopped growing and 
 may even be on the decline. Though I ought to be just, float- 
 ing on a raft and waiting to be annihilated, yet I can have no 
 enthusiasm for justice in such a condition. Give me the hope 
 that my justice may bring rescue from the raft, even though to 
 save others at my own loss, and my whole soul rises to do justice. 
 So men are stirred to activity in the hope of human progress, not 
 for their own sake, but for generations to come. This hope of 
 progress moreover is illimitable. Draw a line anywhere and 
 put an end to it ; translate the efforts of men into any final form 
 of death, however many thousands of years away, and the heart 
 goes out of their work. There is an infinite element in the 
 thought. It seems to point to something beyond the terms of 
 mortal life. It is not a, however multiplied, but a plus x. The 
 unknown part of it makes it true. 
 
 We have already suggested the bold but quite necessary ven- 
 ture of thought that we make in speaking of a world-order, or 
 "universe." We thereby express our faith that all things fit to- 
 gether and make one world. Thus all the sciences are one science. 
 Thus all processes are a part of a universal order. This is faith 
 or trust quite as much as knowledge. But, as Mr. Tyndall has 
 happily shown, science proceeds by leaps of inspired imagination, 
 and arrives at its conclusions in advance of its ammunition trains 
 and baggage wagons. Thus faith proceeds in the face of super- 
 ficial difficulties. At first blush no one sees a universe, but rather 
 the theater of confhcting powers. The savage's gods are in con- 
 flict. Yet we hold, for substance of truth, that all forces are one. 
 Doubt this, and the universe itself begins to dissolve, and truth 
 to disintegrate. 
 
 The mightiest of all generalization follows, inextricably in- 
 volved throughout with all that we have said. It is the thought 
 of God. The word or name is of little moment. We take such 
 words as we have at hand — only symbols at best for a concep- 
 
TRUTH AND IMMORTALITY 333 
 
 tion which no words can do more than suggest. Our thought 
 of God is only the extension and perfecting of our vision of a 
 world-order or universe. It is equally necessary ; it grows out 
 of the other ; it is born of and arises out of our science and ex- 
 perience. It seems compelled upon us by our thought, unless 
 we stop thinking altogether. 
 
 Our thought of God is the expression of our sense of the neces- 
 sary unity of all the values, ideals, and standards which give 
 meaning to life. Order, beauty, intelligence, goodness, truth, love, 
 are so many names of God. They all seem to go together. The 
 realm of beauty is not alien to the realm of righteousness, but one 
 with it. The realm of things — atoms, forces, motions — is not 
 alien to the realm of consciousness, thought, order, ideals, jus- 
 tice, goodness, but subsidiary to it and one with it. 
 
 This carries us further. The thought of God means that the 
 world outside and within, phenomena and consciousness also, 
 is significant. It is an intelligible world — intelligence appealing 
 to, and reflected upon, intelligence. This is the idea that men 
 have expressed in the thought of a purposeful world. They have 
 meant to express the conviction that no blind fate, but an all- 
 inspiring reason, ruled the universe. They meant a conviction 
 that the universe is good, not evil — good in its whirling forces, 
 good on the side of its omnipresent beauty, good in the working 
 of its supreme intelligence. They meant that even seeming evil 
 will be found, when once we know enough, to fall under the com- 
 pelling law of good. 
 
 This is bold to think, but necessary if we think at all. We 
 may not say that we know God instinctively. But we are com- 
 pelled by the quality and framework of our intelligence to think 
 in the terms that sooner or later signify God. The thought of 
 God, in the ultimate analysis, is imposed on our thinking, first, 
 as crudely suggested by the facts of life ; then, as a form of in- 
 tellectual faith ; then, next, as required to meet the demands of 
 that ideal realm of ethics and truth to which as men we belong. 
 World forces running to evil, a universal intelligence without 
 purpose or meaning, consciousness everywhere yet void of reality, 
 
334 CHARLES FLETCHER DOLE 
 
 beauty everywhere expressing nothing real behind it, morality, 
 virtue, conscience, and duty in us pressing us to be willing to die 
 for a principle or an ideal, and yet nothing moral in the universe 
 to match with and correspond to this universal pressure; love 
 in us rising to a sense of infinite devotion, and no infinite love 
 above or beyond us — these things do not fit together, are not 
 intelligible, do not therefore make truth. Our thought of God 
 is our way of afiirming that the universe is real, is one, is beauti- 
 ful, is good, is enduring. 
 
 This faith in the truth of the universe, that is, in God, is akin 
 to the faith that we have in ourselves. We are a mystery and 
 enigma to ourselves. Where are we ? Who are we ? What are 
 the bounds of our personality? How can we be described or 
 defined ? And yet we believe in ourselves, the invisible persons, 
 inhabiting space, using atoms and forces, and dwelling in con- 
 sciousness. We believe in ourselves, the microcosms, much as 
 we believe in God as the universal order. We are what we are, 
 and real persons, by virtue of thought, beauty, good will, unified 
 together and entering into a vast conscious or vital order of good- 
 ness. 
 
 We deny God, and we presently cut at the roots of our faith in 
 ourselves. What is real, if the universe is not real ? What is 
 good, if the life out of which we spring and of which man at his 
 best is the highest and most illustrative fruitage that we know, 
 is not good ? What is worth while — science, or justice, or love, 
 much less food and comfort — unless the standards hold good by 
 which we set values ? Now God is our name for the standards 
 that give life its meaning. 
 
 We have taken a very long circle to reach the idea of immor- 
 tality. But here at last it stands, as inevitable as any of the 
 other items of reality which go to constitute life. Truth, we see, 
 is that which fits and makes harmony and unity. It is whatever 
 is necessary to make the order of thought complete It is what- 
 ever belongs to the realm of reality. Truth is not merely what 
 we see embodied, but beyond our immediate sight — what our 
 faith in the ultimate reality foresees by anticipation. This fact 
 
TRUTH AND IMMORTALITY 335 
 
 has held good at every step which we have taken. Truth was 
 always more than we could define or demonstrate. It was also 
 what our intelligence demanded in order to fit things together 
 and make sense of them. 
 
 It need not disturb us in the least to be told how the hope of 
 immortality may have arisen. Grant that it had its origin in 
 material sensations, in the visions of savages, in the repeating of 
 ghost stories. What human thought, art, or science, did not 
 thus spring out of the earth, and take material shape to clothe 
 itself ? The indisputable fact remains that there is an immate- 
 rial, and yet real, order of life, which characterizes man as human. 
 There is a hierarchy of values, leading up to the True, the Good, 
 the Beautiful. We cannot throw them aside or contemn them, 
 and keep our humanity. We cannot belittle truth or reason 
 and logic — the architect's plan of the Cologne Cathedral, the 
 builder of the Brooklyn Bridge, the painter of the Dresden Ma- 
 donna, the exiles for conscience' sake who founded America, the 
 integrity of honest fathers, the love of our mothers, the death on 
 the Cross. "Here are the infinite values," say all of us, or else 
 we cease to be men. 
 
 We belong to a kingdom of values, an order of good, a uni- 
 verse. Grant this. What of it ? We cannot think then that a 
 man dies like a fly, and that is the end of him. We cannot think 
 that the sweet mothers, and the brave, true-hearted men whom 
 we have known, are of no more use in the order of the universe 
 than the whirling dust in the streets. We cannot think that the 
 life of this planet, with its gigantic cost in blood and sorrow and 
 tears, with its glorious victories of truth, freedom, justice, and 
 love, will all be measured up, in a few thousands of years, in the 
 mute story of the moon — a dead world without a conscious 
 intelligence to shed a tear over it. This is to pronounce the doom 
 of the universe, to break the order and beauty, to bring intelli- 
 gence to confusion, to deny serious values, and to dethrone 
 reality. 
 
 The intellect in us, the sense of right, the instinct for order, 
 the love of beauty and goodness — all that makes us worthy as 
 
336 CHARLES FLETCHER DOLE 
 
 men — the reality in us reacts against an unreal world. The 
 hope of immortality is our sense that the world may be trusted, 
 that the real values abide, that the sum of all life is not death, 
 but life yet more noble. 
 
 This is not a strange and unscientific statement. It is quite 
 like the statement of our senses touching the straightness of a line 
 or the beauty of a face. We know it, but we cannot prove it to a 
 blind man. The standard of our judgment is in our own nature. 
 The one thing is true or fits, and the opposite does not fit or cor- 
 respond. We cannot help trusting this judgment. It is all that 
 we have to trust. Moreover, in this instance, as with the judg- 
 ment of the line or of a righteous act, there tends to be a great and 
 growing consensus of similar judgment. The same mind every- 
 where tends to see something real in the hope of immortality. 
 
 Another harmony now appears. We have seen that a man 
 has a certain integrity as a person. At his best, all his powers 
 working in unison, he is at the acme of efficiency and happiness. 
 Three great spiritual elements go to make such a man. One 
 is faith, or trust, for example, in the validity of law, in the essen- 
 tial righteousness of the world, in the humanity of one's fellow- 
 men — ^ in a word, in a good God. Another element of the com- 
 plete life is love, or good will. The man at his best pours out, 
 or expresses, his good will in all his acts and words, in his face 
 and gestures. Again, the man needs hope in order to be at his 
 best. He will work best, he will best keep his health, he will do 
 most good to his fellows, he will be most truly a man with hope 
 in his eyes. 
 
 We do not say what the object of his hope must be. It surely 
 need not be selfish or personal. But it must be worthy of his 
 manhood and fit the terms of manhood. We will not insist that 
 his hope shall rest on the idea of immortality. But it must rest 
 on reality. It needs to go up into the ideal realm of values, 
 where the idea of the infinite and the immortal belong. The 
 man cannot be satisfied for long with any hope that is sentenced 
 to ultimate death. 
 
 Now we hold that whatever is essential to the best and most 
 
TRUTH AND IMMORTALITY 337 
 
 harmonious life of a man, without which he is reduced in his 
 manhood, deserves to be trusted as true or real. The immense 
 presumption is in its favor. If hope is one element of life, then 
 there is that which corresponds to hope. The hope is entitled 
 to "the benefit of the doubt." If a grand hope is needful to a 
 noble life, then we hold that whatever substance corresponds to 
 the hope will be noble also. True, this is faith again ; but the 
 same kind of faith which we have found to be inseparable from 
 all valid thinking. 
 
 We are often asked if we can believe in personal immortahty. 
 The truth is that in the highest region of thought all terms and 
 definitions are inadequate. We felt this even in our glimpse 
 at the mystery of substance, or matter. We use the terms atoms 
 and wave motions and vortices, not as sufficient to express the 
 reality, but as the best modes of imaging to ourselves the nature 
 of the reality in which, in some sense, we firmly believe. Sub- 
 stance, we say, seems to behave like groupings of orderly atoms, 
 or like whirling forces. It behaves as if waves traversed it. So 
 we say with the use of the term "personal immortality." This 
 is the best form of thought we know to express our sense of 
 the abiding reality of a noble life. Thus In Memoriam rises, 
 in the face of all doubt, to the conviction that the loved friend 
 can never die. As we see no other way to conceive of substance 
 except under the figure of some form which we know, so we see 
 no possible way to conserve immortal values in persons except 
 what we name personal immortality. As substance may prove 
 to be more valid and wonderful than any of our figures of speech, 
 so immortality may prove to be richer and more satisfying than 
 our name for it suggests. We cannot believe it to be less than 
 our name for it. Meanwhile we have to go on using the words 
 that serve to convey the utmost positive sense of reality. That 
 they are popular words does not hurt their value, but rather 
 enhances it. Why should not the popular instinct go in the 
 direction of the best constructive and philosophical thought ? 
 Here is another fitness or harmony such as we find everywhere in 
 our world. What kind of philosophy — that is, love of truth — 
 
338 CHARLES FLETCHER DOLE 
 
 would it be that proved to serve no end except to destroy man's 
 sense of worth and reality ! This would be, in the name of truth, 
 to deny the existence of truth. 
 
 We have proceeded very much as men do in building a struc- 
 ture, for example, an archway. We have used the best material. 
 We have set the base of our structure into the concrete matter 
 of all sorts of facts of life. We have laid logic and reason for 
 foundation stones. We have built the values of order, beauty, 
 justice, truth, humanity, and love into our work. We have 
 found a place for every noble experience of sympathy, of sorrow, 
 of victory, for every aspiration, for every mighty standard. All 
 the high things that make life worth living are in our structure. 
 The name of the structure is the universal life ; it means the in- 
 tegrity of man and the reality of God. 
 
 There is just one stone which we need to make the arch com- 
 plete. It is the keystone of the work. It is small, compared 
 with the massive foundation ; one might possibly think that the 
 columns would stand apart by themselves. They would stand 
 for a while if no great stress were put on the work. But our 
 sense of form and perfection, that is, our sense of truth or fitness, 
 calls for the keystone in order to join the piers and springers 
 together. Our sense of necessity also and our knowledge of the 
 action of forces call for the keystone. Our arch will never be 
 safe till we have put that one binding stone into place. 
 
 So we judge of the hope of immortality. It belongs with and 
 fits into a structure ; it is that without which you can never make 
 the beauty or unity last, without which also the structure tends 
 to fall apart. The arch is not yet true till every stone fits into 
 place. Put the hope of immortality into the crown of the values 
 of life, and they cohere, and all of them take on new significance. 
 Each ston? built into the structure is worth more than it is worth 
 by itself in the field. Each stone is worth still more when the 
 structure is finished. Refuse your keystone the place for which 
 it seems to be fitted exactly, and you have put every precious 
 value at risk. You are not so sure of a good God any longer. 
 Human life is no longer so sisrnificant as it was before. You have 
 
TRUTH AND IMMORTALITY 339 
 
 lost worth out of love and friendship, and leveled them toward 
 the dust. You have reduced patriotism and philanthropy to 
 finite values, each with its price. You have taken buoyant joy 
 and enthusiasm out of all mature men's Hfe, and threatened them 
 with an earlier old age. You have shaken the bases of morality 
 and put righteousness into terms of comfort and policy. You 
 have bidden the artist, the poet, and the prophet laugh at their 
 visions and doubt their vaHdity. You have distinctly shaken 
 man's faith in logic and reason, and brought all intellectual pro- 
 cesses into discredit. For all that logic is for is to bind things 
 into coherence and unity. All values, in fact, belong in the 
 ideal realm ; they go together and make a unity, or else they fall 
 together. 
 
 Fall together ? No ! No man can make the great values fall, 
 or take them apart, or hurt one of them. A man can hurt and 
 mar his own life by his distrust, but he can mar no reaUty. No 
 man's doubt can make justice, beauty, truth, love, less than real. 
 These things are ingrained in our nature. We need only to 
 trust them. They constitute an infinite order. They validate 
 themselves the more we throw our weight upon them. The 
 hope of immortality is simply the keystone, which always stands 
 fast, beyond any man's doubt, at the crown of the structure. It 
 fits its companion values, and they clasp it with their arms into a 
 serene integrity. They bid us trust our lives upon the archway, 
 which every value in the universe has joined to construct. We 
 did not build the beautiful structure : we only found it. 
 
 What is excellent, 
 As God lives, is permanent. 
 
 I have wished to make it plain that the hope of immortality 
 is not merely the concern of sentimentalists, ready to hug a 
 pleasant delusion, much less of egoists, eagerly grasping after 
 every straw of selfish comfort for themselves : it is the serious con- 
 cern of all men who have other values at heart besides pleasures 
 and money; of all who care for law and order, for true homes, 
 for just government, and friendly society among men ; of all who 
 
340 CHARLES FLETCHER DOLE 
 
 love their fellows and struggle for human progress, having faith 
 that such struggle is worth while ; of all who love beauty, and 
 find a noble worth in art and music ; of all who think sanely, and 
 have any sort of faith in a good universe — the poets, the artists, 
 the thinkers, the statesmen, the multitude also of modest and 
 high-minded men and women whose religion consists in acts of 
 faith, hope, and love. The companionship of such persons, the 
 memory of such persons, their faith and their deeds, bring you 
 into, and leave you in, an attitude of hope. This world would 
 not be a quite true world with the hope of immortality left out. 
 This world needs nothing less than the hope of immortality in 
 order to complete its integrity. 
 
XII 
 
 LAW AND JUSTICEi 
 Leonard Trelawney Hobhouse 
 
 [Leonard Trelawney Hobhouse (1864-) has been since 1907 professor of 
 sociology in London University. His place in the world of contemporary 
 thought is secured by unusual breadth of intellectual vision and remarkable 
 command of branches of study collateral with those in which he is specially 
 interested. As a philosopher he is known principally through his Theory of 
 Knowledge, and as a psychologist, through his Mind in Evolution. His socio- 
 logical studies, however, particularly Morals in Evolution and Social Evolu- 
 tion and Political Theory, have probably brought his name more prominently 
 before the intelligent reading public. It may be inferred from the titles of 
 Professor Hobhouse's works that their strength lies in an exceptionally keen 
 analysis of the bearing of evolutionary science upon the entire history of 
 man and his institutions ; this is illustrated impressively in his use of an 
 enormous mass of scientific evidence from fields whose connection with his 
 own is not always apparent to the casual student, and whose whole domain 
 can be covered only by a scholar of exceptional erudition. 
 
 Law and Justice, which is the third chapter of Morals in Evolution, pub- 
 lished in 1906, is an endeavor to trace from their beginnings in the most 
 primitive society our modern conceptions of the legal and judicial func- 
 tions of the state. It is necessary to call attention to the fact that a 
 great amount of illustrative historical and anthropological evidence which 
 is given as footnotes in Professor Hobhouse's volume has been omitted 
 here. That these notes are both very valuable and very interesting goes 
 without saying ; but their bulk makes it impossible to reproduce them in 
 this volume, save in a few cases where they are quite indispensable to the 
 text.] 
 
 I. To the civilized man it seems the merest truism to say that 
 the business of Government is to make and execute laws, to see 
 that crime is suppressed, and that its subjects are maintained in 
 
 ' Reprinted by permission from Morals in Evolution, by L. T. Hobhouse 
 (Henry Holt and Co.). 
 
 341 
 
342 LEONARD TRELAWNEY HOBHOUSE 
 
 possession of their just rights. Not only so, but the broad lines 
 upon which justice is administered are to him so familiar and seem 
 so clearly marked out by reason and common sense that if he were 
 to think of their origin at all he would naturally imagine that 
 here, if anywhere, we had to do with simple and elementary moral 
 ideas, implanted in men by nature, and needing no training nor 
 experience to perfect them. Thus, what could be more obvious 
 to begin with than the distinction of civil and criminal justice ? 
 A may trespass upon the rights of B, but he may do so without 
 fraud, violence, or any criminal intent. In such cases, the loss 
 suffered by B must be made good, but no further punishment 
 should fall upon A. That is, there is ground for a civil action. 
 Or, on the other hand, in injuring B, A may have committed an 
 offense against the social order. In that case he must be pun- 
 ished as a criminal, and is not to escape merely by making good 
 the loss inflicted on B. He has offended society, and society in- 
 sists on punishing him. But, further, if A is a wrongdoer, it must 
 be proved that he is a responsible agent. He must have done 
 wrong with intention, and, if so, he alone ought to suffer. 
 Socially, no doubt, his fall must affect his innocent wife and 
 children, but this is a regrettable result, not a consequence which 
 the law goes about to inflict. Lastly, whether in a civil or crimi- 
 nal case, the function of the law is to set up an impartial author- 
 ity, before whom the question is argued. Both sides are heard. 
 Evidence is cited, and witnesses called, whose testimony the 
 court is free to sift and weigh. Formalities and rules have to be 
 observed, but apart, perhaps, from some which are archaic, they 
 are devised mainly as safeguards against wrongful decisions, and 
 the real business of the inquiry is to get at truth as to the mate- 
 rial facts. In the end, the decision being given, the court can 
 freely use the executive power of Government to enforce it. 
 
 Elementary as all this sounds, it is, historically speaking, the 
 result of a long evolution. The distinction between civil and 
 criminal law, the principle of strictly individual responsibility, 
 the distinction between the intentional and the unintentional, 
 the conception of the court as an impartial authority to try the 
 
LAW AND JUSTICE 343 
 
 merits of the case, the exclusive reliance on evidence and testi- 
 mony, the preference of material to formal rectitude, the execu- 
 tion of the court's decision by a public force — all are matters 
 very imperfectly understood by primitive peoples, and their 
 definite establishment is the result of a slow historical process. 
 Perhaps no other department of comparative ethics gives so 
 vivid an idea of the difficulty which humanity has found in 
 establishing the simple elements of a just social order. 
 
 2. The growth of law and justice is pretty closely connected 
 in its several stages with the forms of social organization that 
 have been described. In quite the lowest races there is, as we 
 have seen, scarcely anything that is strictly to be called the 
 administration of justice. Private wrongs are revenged by 
 private individuals, and any one whom they can get to help 
 them. The neighbors interfere in the least possible degree, 
 and how far a man's family, or the wider group to which he 
 belongs, will stand by him, is a question which is decided in 
 each particular case as its own merits, or the inclinations of 
 those concerned, direct. But even at a very low stage this 
 uncertain and fitful action begins to take a more definite shape. 
 We find something that corresponds roughly to our own adminis- 
 tration of justice, and from the outset we find it in two broadly 
 distinct cases. There are occasions upon which a whole com- 
 munity will turn upon an offender and expel him, or put him to 
 death. Sometimes, indeed, this is merely a kind of lynch law 
 directed against a man who makes himself unbearable, or com- 
 mits some crime which touches a general feeling of resentment 
 into life. But beyond this there are at almost, if not quite, 
 the lowest stages certain actions which are resented as involving 
 the community as a whole in misfortune and danger. These 
 include, besides actual treason, conduct which brings upon the 
 people the wrath of God, or of certain spirits, or which violates 
 some mighty and mysterious taboo. The actions most fre- 
 quently regarded in this light are certain breaches of the mar- 
 riage laws and witchcraft. The breaches of the marriage law 
 which come in question here are confined to those transgres- 
 
344 LEONARD TRELAWNEY HOBHOUSE 
 
 sions'of the prohibitions of intermarriage, upon which primitive 
 races lay such extraordinary stress. A mere violation of the 
 marriage tie is generally in savage society a private matter, 
 avenged by the husband alone, or by those whose duty it is to 
 help him ; but a breach of the rules of exogamy,^ a marriage 
 within the totem, for example, or a marriage outside the per- 
 missible class, is regarded as an offense endangering the com- 
 munity herself, and only to be wiped out by the extinction of the 
 offender. A Central Australian tribe, for instance, which has no 
 regular means of enforcing any law, will make up a war party 
 to spear the man and woman who have married in defiance of 
 these customs. Similarly, common action will often be taken to 
 protect the community from \\itchcraft, obviously a terrible of- 
 fense in a society which firmly believes in it. Among the 
 North American Indians a public sentence was often pronounced 
 and carried out by the chiefs in cases of sorcery, and sometimes 
 also in cases of cowardice or breaches of the marriage customs. 
 The punishment of witchcraft is as widespread as the fear of it, 
 and, prompted as it is by the sense of a danger to the whole 
 community, is often peculiarly ferocious, and directed to the 
 destruction of every one connected with the offender. 
 
 The object of the community in exterminating the criminal is 
 not so much to punish the wicked man as to protect itself from 
 a danger, or purge itself from a curse. Achan takes the accursed 
 thing, the thing which had been devoted to Jahveh. The taboo 
 on the thing devoted is at once communicated to Achan himself 
 as though it were a poison or an infection, or, to take another 
 metaphor, a charge of electricity. It passes from the spoil 
 appropriated to the appropriator, and no resource remains but 
 to devote Achan with all his family and belongings, everything, 
 in fact, which the accursed thing had infected. The Roman 
 criminal, if his offense bore a religious character, was "sacer" 
 — separated from men, made over to the offended deities. His 
 goods were set apart {consecratio bonorum) ,ior they were involved 
 
 1 The custom of prohibiting marriage among members of the same tribe 
 or clan. — Editors. 
 
LAW AND JUSTICE 345 
 
 in his impurity. He was banished, so that none might come into 
 contact with his accursed person. He was cut off from fire and 
 water, not primarily because fire and water were necessary to 
 his life, so that he was sentenced to death by being deprived of 
 them, but rather for fear that his accursed touch should pollute 
 the sacred elements and convey the pollution to others. That 
 the criminal suffered in consequence was a satisfactory collateral 
 effect, but the main thing was to secure the fire and water from 
 pollution. 
 
 Thus far, then, public punishments, where they are any more 
 than an explosion of indignant feeling, may be regarded as public 
 action taken for the sake of public safety. The community is 
 threatened with palpable treason, or with occult magic influence, 
 or by the wrath of the gods. It protects itself by destroying the 
 traitor, or sacrificing, or, at any rate, getting rid of, the witch. 
 It is a kind of pubHc hygiene rather than a dispensation of jus- 
 tice which is in question. 
 
 3. With the redress of wrongs, the maintenance of private 
 rights, and the punishment of the bulk of ordinary offenses, it is 
 different. For these purposes primitive society has no adequate 
 organization. Administration of justice in this sense is in the 
 main a private matter. It is for the sufferer to obtain redress 
 or to avenge himself, and in the lowest stages of all the vengeance 
 is, as we have seen, casual, arbitrary and unsystematized. But 
 as the family and the clan acquire definite and coherent struc- 
 ture a systematic method of redress grows up. The leading 
 characteristics of this method are two — (i) that redress is 
 obtained by retaliation, and (2) that owing to the sohdarity of 
 the family the sufferer will find support in obtaining the redress 
 that he seeks. The individual man, woman, or child no longer 
 stands by himself or herself, but can count with considerable cer- 
 tainty on the protection of his relatives, who are bound to avenge 
 a wrong done to him, or to stand by him in exacting vengeance 
 by every tie of honor and religion. In other words, this is the 
 stage of the blood feud. "He that sheddeth man's blood, by 
 man shall his blood be shed," is the earliest law given in the Old 
 
346 LEONARD TRELAWNEY HOBHOUSE 
 
 Testament, and on this point the Old Testament may be said 
 to be a faithful reflection of the historical facts. 
 
 Though the blood feud is an expression of vengeance, this ven- 
 geance is by no means wholly without regulations and rules of 
 its own. There is a rough justice recognizable in its working, 
 though it is not the justice of an impartial third person surveying 
 the facts as a whole. There is no question of a just judge ren- 
 dering each man his due, but rather of a united kin sympathizing 
 with the resentment of an injured relation when expressing itself 
 in certain traditional forms. Justice as we understand it — the 
 rendering to each man his due as judged by an impartial author- 
 ity — is not distinctly conceived as a social duty in primitive 
 ethics, and that is what, morally speaking, differentiates the 
 primitive ethical consciousness from the ethical consciousness at 
 a higher stage of development. Yet primitive ethics works upon 
 rules in which a certain measure of justice is embodied. Thus in 
 the first place custom prescribes certain rules of retaliation which 
 are recognized as right and proper and have the approval of the 
 neighbors and clansmen. The simplest and earliest of these 
 rules is the famous Lex Talionis, "An eye for an eye, and a 
 tooth for a tooth," familiar to us from thethapter of Exodus, but 
 far earlier than Exodus in its first formulation. We find it, like 
 many other primitive rules of law, in the recently discovered 
 code of King Hammurabi, ^ which is earlier than the Book of the 
 Covenant perhaps by 1300 years, and we find it at the present 
 day among people sociologically at an earlier stage of develop- 
 ment than the Babylonians of the third millennium before Christ. 
 We find it applicable to bodily injuries, to breaches of the mar- 
 riage law, and perhaps we may say in the rules of the twofold 
 restitution for theft and in the symbolic form of mutilating the 
 offending member even to the case of offenses against property. 
 In some cases, the idea of exact retaliation is carried out with the 
 utmost literalness — a grotesque literalness sometimes, as when 
 a man who has killed another by falling on him from a tree is 
 himself put to death by exactly the same method — a relation 
 1 A Babylonian legal code of about 2250 B.C. — Editors. 
 
LAW AND JUSTICE 347 
 
 of the deceased solemnly mounting the tree and much, one 
 would say, at his own risk, descending upon the offender. More 
 often, of course, vengeance is simpler. Stripes, mutilation, or 
 death are inflicted without any attempt to imitate the original 
 offense, though there may very well be a grading of the ven- 
 geance in proportion to the original wrong. The homicide is 
 slain, the adulterer speared, beaten, or mutilated, the thief slain, 
 enslaved, or forced to make restitution, the defaulting debtor 
 enslaved or flogged. 
 
 4. But at a fairly early stage in the growth of social order a 
 fresh principle is introduced tending to mitigate the blood feud 
 and so maintain peace and harmony. For the special vice of the 
 system of retaliation is that it provides no machinery for bringing 
 the quarrel to an end. If one of the Bear totem is killed by a 
 Hawk, the Hawk must be killed by one of the Bears, but it by 
 no means follows that this will end the matter, for the Hawks 
 may now stand by their murdered clansman and take the life 
 of a second Bear in revenge, and so the game goes on, and we 
 have a true course of vendetta. Accordingly, peaceable souls 
 with a view to the welfare of both families, perhaps with the 
 broader view of happiness and harmony within the community, 
 intervene with a suggestion of peace. Let the injured Bears 
 take compensation in another form, let them take cattle or other 
 things to make good the loss of the pair of hands which served 
 them. In a word, let the payment of damages be a salve to 
 vindictive feelings. In that way, the incident may come to an 
 end and peace will reign. When such a practice becomes a cus- 
 tomary institution, we enter upon the stage of composition for 
 offenses, a stage pecuUarly characteristic of the settling down of 
 barbarous tribes into a peaceable and relatively civilized state, 
 and especially of the growth of the power of a chief whose influ- 
 ence is often exerted to enforce the expedient of composition 
 upon a reluctant and revengeful family. As the institution takes 
 shape a regular tariff is introduced, so much for an injury, so 
 much for the loss of an eye, so much for a life. Often a distinc- 
 tion between classes of crime appears. For some it is the rule 
 
348 LEONARD TRELAWNEY HOBHOUSE 
 
 that composition should be accepted. Others are recognized as 
 too grave to be washed out except by blood. Thus among the 
 German tribes murder and rape excited blood revenge, while other 
 injuries were punishable by fine, and the fine is significantly 
 called " faida," as being the feud commuted for money. The dis- 
 tinction lasted into the Middle Ages, even in a period when the 
 fine or a part of it went to the king. Our Leges Henrici still dis- 
 tinguish emendable offenses, in which sacrilege and willful homi- 
 cide without treachery are included, from unemendable offenses 
 such as housebreaking, arson, open theft, aggravated homicide, 
 treason against one's lord, and breach of the church's or the 
 king's peace. These are crimes which in the Anglo-Saxon term 
 had no bot — no bot or money payment atoned for them — 
 they were bot-less, boot-less. Even when the bot was payable, 
 it stood at first at the discretion of the injured family to accept 
 or reject it, and we find the Germanic codes in the early Middle 
 Ages setting themselves to insist on its acceptance as a means of 
 keeping the peace. If the fine is not forthcoming, of course the 
 feud holds. 
 
 But when injuries are being assessed, not only must there be 
 a distinction between the injuries themselves, but also between 
 the persons injured. There must be a distinction of rank, age, 
 sex; a free-born man is worth more than a slave, a grown-up 
 person than a child, generally speaking, a man than a woman, a 
 chief or person of rank than a free man. And so we have the 
 system of " wergilds " ^ familiar to us in the early stages of our own 
 history, and again recognizable in the code of Hammurabi. In 
 one form or another the system of composition prevails or has 
 prevailed almost to this day over a great part of the barbaric 
 world, among the North American Indians, in the Malay Archi- 
 pelago, in New Guinea, among the Indian hill tribes, among the 
 Calmucks and Kirghis of the steppes of Asia, among the rude 
 tribes of the Caucasus, the Bedouins of the Arabian desert, the 
 Somali of East Africa, the negroes of the West Coast, the Congo 
 folk of the interior, the Kaffirs and Basutos of the South. 
 ^ Payments to compromise the shedding of blood. — Editors. 
 
LAW AND JUSTICE 349 
 
 5. Primitive vengeance, then, may be exacted by retaliation 
 or compounded by money payments. In either method a rough 
 justice is embodied, but it is justice enforced by the strong hand. 
 Even graver dififerences separating barbaric vengeance from civi- 
 lized justice have now to be mentioned. These differences are 
 inherent in the nature of the social organization upon which the 
 blood feud rests. For the blood feud is retribution exercised by 
 a family upon a family ; it rests upon the support which each 
 individual can count upon from his own immediate relations, 
 possibly from his whole clan ; it rests, in a word, upon the 
 solidarity of the kindred. But the effect of this solidarity upon 
 the working of retributive justice is by no means wholly favor- 
 able. In the first place it has the effect that the lives of members 
 of other clans are held indifferent. A perfect illustration is af- 
 forded by. the Ungani Nagas, a tribe of the northeast frontier of 
 India, who live in villages composed of two or more "khels," 
 as their clans are called, which, though living side by side and in- 
 termarrying, are for purposes of defense independent communi- 
 ties. A hostile tribe may descend upon the village and massacre 
 all the members of one "khel" while the other "khels" sleep 
 peacefully in their beds and do not raise hand or foot to protect 
 their neighbors. This is cold-blooded, but it is not without a 
 certain reason. The exterminated "khel" has incurred a feud 
 from which the others are free. If they rise in its defense they 
 not only incur the danger of the present fight, but they also in- 
 volve themselves in the permanent feud. Next, in so far as 
 justice rests on the blood feud, and the blood feud is of the nature 
 of a private war between distinct families or clans, it follows that 
 public justice will not deal with offenses committed within the 
 family. These do not excite the blood feud. In some cases, no 
 fixed punishment appears to be assigned for them, but this may 
 happen not only because they do not belong to the province of 
 public custom, but also, perhaps, because they are too rare for 
 any definite custom to have arisen for dealing with them. Like 
 parricide among the Romans, they represent the absolute ulti- 
 mate of human wickedness. Further, generally speaking, there 
 
3 so LEONARD TRELAWNEY HOB HOUSE 
 
 is no need for any recognizable general rule, because offenses 
 within the family are dealt with by the arbitrary justice of the 
 paterfamilias or of the kin collectively, who, even if other means 
 of enforcing authority failed, have always the ready remedy of 
 outlawry, which puts the offender at the mercy of the first comer. 
 Outlawry from the clan is the most effective of all weapons, be- 
 cause in primitive society the exclusion of a man from his kins- 
 folk means that he is delivered over to the first comer absolutely 
 without protection. An illustration may be drawn from the 
 early history of Mohammed's teaching, when the Korais, who 
 found that Mohammed's gospel was very inimical to their gains, 
 wanted above all things to put him out of the way and made the 
 most strenuous efforts to induce Mohammed's uncle, who was 
 head of the clan, to disown him. Had the uncle consented, Mo- 
 hammed would have been left without protection and rnight have 
 been dispatched by any one without fear of consequences, but 
 till the death of the uncle the clan stood by him ; and the leading 
 men of Mecca, powerful as they were, were not bold enough to 
 take upon themselves a blood feud with Mohammed's family. 
 The fear of the blood feud is the great restraint upon disorder in 
 primitive society, and conversely he whose death will excite no 
 blood feud has no legal protection. 
 
 So far the negative side of clan justice. The positive side has 
 peculiarities not less startling to the modern mind, for since it is 
 a member of one body who has done a wrong to a member of an- 
 other body, the whole body to which the offending member be- 
 longs is held responsible by the whole body to which the injured 
 member belongs ; and it is not merely the original criminal who 
 may be punished, but logically any member of his family may 
 serve as a substitute. Responsibility is collective, and therefore 
 also vicarious. Sometimes the whole family of the ofifender is 
 destroyed with him. Sometimes any relation of the offender may 
 suffer for him vicariously. John, who has done the deed, being 
 out of reach, primitive vengeance is quite satisfied with the life of 
 Thomas, his son, or brother, or cousin. Just as in the blind 
 ness of warfare the treacherous act of an enemy is generalized 
 
LAW AND JUSTICE 351 
 
 and perhaps avenged in the next battle by a retaliation which 
 does not stay to ask whether it is falling on the innocent or the 
 guilty, so in the primitive blood feud. The wrong done is the 
 act of the family or clan to which the aggressor belongs, and may 
 be avenged on any member of that family or clan. Sometimes 
 the retaliation is made more specific by a fresh application of the 
 Lex Talionis, and to the rule "eye for eye," there is the pendant 
 "son for son, daughter for daughter, slave for slave, ox for ox." 
 You have slain my son ? Then the true and just retribution is 
 that I should slay yours. It is my daughter who is slain ? Then 
 it is with your daughter that you must pay for her. Sometimes 
 vengeance is specially directed against the chief as representing 
 the clan. Sometimes it may be visited on any male, or even on 
 any adult member of the clan, children alone being excluded. 
 Sometimes this last shred of humanity is torn away. The prin- 
 ciple is pushed to its furthest and most revolting development 
 among the head-hunting tribes common in southeast Asia, in 
 which magical ideas combine with those of revenge, and the skull 
 of the enemy has a potency of its own which makes its possession 
 desirable in itself. The head of a child or woman of the hostile 
 body is no less coveted an object than that of the fighting warrior, 
 and is probably easier to obtain. When the principle of compo- 
 sition arises collective responsibility is reduced, by a less barba- 
 rous logic, to a common pecuniary liability. The clan are col- 
 lectively responsible for the blood money due from a member, and 
 by the same logic they are the collective recipients of blood money 
 due to any member. And as with blood money so with other 
 debts. There is a collective liability — a conception which in 
 this softened form has its uses in the social order, and is 
 in fact enforced and applied to the commune — though in 
 right it belongs rather to the clan — by many Oriental 
 governments. 
 
 6. Further, with the theory of collective responsibility goes al- 
 most necessarily the failure to distinguish between accident and 
 design. In primitive society the real gravamen of a charge 
 against an aggressor is that he has done an injury. How he did 
 
352 
 
 LEONARD TRELAWNEY HOBHOUSE 
 
 the injury, whether of set purpose or by accident, is a matter of 
 less moment. My son, or brother, or cousin, or clansman, is 
 killed ; that is enough for me ; I must have some satisfaction out 
 of the man who did it, and, what is more, my family must have 
 some satisfaction out of his family. Futhermore, the whole dis- 
 tinction between design and accident is by no means so clear to 
 primitive man as it is to us, for though it needs little reflection 
 and a very moderate amount of self-knowledge to distinguish 
 between what one has done one's self by accident or by design, 
 and a very moderate degree of reasoning power to apply the dis- 
 tinction to other men — still, the nascent reflection of the savage 
 is strangled at birth by the prevailing theory of witchcraft and 
 possession. If a tree falls upon a man's head the savage holds 
 that a spirit guided it. If a man, cutting a branch from a tree, 
 dropped his ax on to another's head, it may not have been the 
 man's own soul which guided the ax, but it was another soul 
 which possessed him temporarily; he was possessed by some 
 spirit, and as possessed he should be put out of the way. The 
 treatment of the subject in the Hebrew codes illustrates the dif- 
 ficulty which is experienced even at a higher stage in strictly 
 distinguishing between the two spheres of design and accident. 
 Each code assigns a city of refuge for the excusable homicide, 
 but none make it perfectly clear whether it is unintentional or 
 unpremeditated man-sla)dng that is in view. The Book of the 
 Covenant simply says, "If a man lie not in wait, but God deliver 
 him (the victim) into his hand, then I will appoint thee a place 
 whither he shall flee. And if a man come presumptuously upon 
 his neighbor to slay him with guile, thou shalt take him from 
 mine altar that he may die."^ In Deuteronomy there is an at- 
 tempt to define accident. The city of refuge is appointed for 
 "whoso killeth his neighbor unawares and hated him not in 
 times past." The first qualification would be true of uninten- 
 tional, the second of unpremeditated homicide. Then follows 
 a somewhat elaborate illustration of a case of pure accident.^ 
 "As when a man goeth into the forest with his neighbor to hew 
 1 Exodus xxi. 13, 14. ^ Deut. xix. 4-6. 
 
LAW AND JUSTICE 353 
 
 wood, and his hand fetcheth a stroke with the ax to cut down the 
 tree, and the head sUppeth from the helve, and Hghteth upon his 
 neighbor, that he die, he shall flee unto one of these cities and 
 live :" and then it is once more stated that the slayer ought not 
 to die, "inasmuch as he hated him not in time past," which would 
 be true of any want of premeditation. Furthermore, even in this 
 relatively enlightened code the unintentional slayer is not fully 
 protected. It is clearly anticipated that the "avenger of blood" 
 will pursue him "while his heart is hot, and overtake him because 
 the way is long," and smite him mortally, and there is no hint 
 that the avenger will be punished. Nor was the alternative, 
 exile to the city of refuge, a merely nominal penalty. Finally, 
 in the Priestly Code there is an elaborate attempt to distinguish 
 different cases. The cities of refuge are appointed for every one 
 that "killeth any person unwittingly," or, as the margin renders 
 it, " through error." (An attempt is made to render the meaning 
 clearer by specifying the implements used, of iron, wood or stone.) 
 On the other hand, he who has killed another, "lying in wait" or 
 "in enmity," is to be put to death by the avenger of blood "when 
 he meeteth him." In intermediate cases the congregation shall 
 judge. "But if he thrust him suddenly without enmity, or 
 hurled upon him anything without lying in wait, or with any 
 stone, whereby a man may die, seeing him not, and cast it upon 
 him, so that he died, and he was not his enemy, neither sought 
 his harm : then the congregation shall judge between the smiter 
 and the avenger of blood according to these judgments." ^ Even 
 here, then, the three cases of accident ("seeing him not"), as- 
 sault without intent to kill ("thrust him suddenly"), and unpre- 
 meditated homicide ("without lying in wait") seem to be in a 
 measure confused. And even in this code the avenger may slay 
 the man-slayer anywhere outside the borders of the city of refuge 
 until the death of the high priest. 
 
 Not infrequently in early law we find the distinction that un- 
 intentional homicide is atonable by pajdng the wergild, while 
 deliberate murder gives rise to the blood feud. Thus in the code 
 ^ Numbers xxxv. 15, 20, 21, 22-24. 
 
354 LEONARD TRELAWNEY HOB HOUSE 
 
 of Hammurabi the homicide might swear that the blow was un- 
 intentional and escape with a fine. So, again, though Germanic 
 law begins by holding a man equally imputable for all that he has 
 done, it is an ancient mitigation that for unintentional homicide 
 the wer is due, and the blood feud should not be waged. The 
 disentanglement of innocent from culpable homicide was a very 
 gradual achievement in medieval Europe though aided by the 
 Civil and Canon Law, and the forfeiture of goods — the direct 
 survival of the wergild — remained in theory in English law 
 down to 1828. 
 
 It is a natural, though, to our minds, a bizarre consequence 
 that in early justice animals and even inanimate objects may be 
 regarded as appropriate subjects of punishment. The slaying 
 of offending animals is provided for in the Book of Exodus, Many 
 cruel punishments were inflicted upon animals in the code of the 
 Zendavesta,^ and the same thing occurred in medieval Europe, 
 where, perhaps under the influence of the Mosaic legislation, it 
 even survived in isolated cases to the sixteenth or seventeenth cen- 
 tury. The punishment of animals and inanimate objects was no 
 mere wreaking of blind fury on innocent creatures. Probably to 
 the primitive mind the ox that gored a man, the sword that slew, 
 and the murderer that wielded it, were much more on one level 
 than they can be to us. The animal or tool, if not conscious them- 
 selves, might be endued with a magic power or possessed with an 
 evil spirit. It was well to get rid of them before they did more 
 harm. If not destroyed they might be purified. Thus in the 
 English law of Deodand, which was not abolished till the middle 
 of the last century, there is a survival of the view that anything 
 that has killed a man must undergo a kind of religious purifica- 
 tion ; a cart, for instance, which ran over a man, or a tree which 
 fell on him, was confiscated and sold for charity — at bottom 
 merely a somewhat humanized version of the ancient Athenian 
 process whereby the ax that had slain a man was brought to 
 trial, and, if found guilty, solemnly thrown over the boundary. 
 It need hardly be added that where responsibility is extended to 
 ^ The sacred writings of the Zoroastrian religion. — Editors. 
 
LAW AND JUSTICE 355 
 
 animals and inanimate objects, it is apt to be inadequately 
 defined in the case of idiots, lunatics, and minors. 
 
 The principle of collective responsibility does not necessarily 
 disappear with the rise of public justice under central authority. 
 It lingers on, partly through sheer conservatism, but also in many 
 cases for political reasons, to a late date. Thus it is particularly 
 common to find that in political offenses the family of the offender 
 suffers with him. The principle of collective responsibiUty has 
 always been maintained in the Far East, in China, in the Korea, 
 and, under the influence of Chinese civilization, in Japan, while 
 it is noteworthy that for political offenses the parents and chil- 
 dren might be punished under French law right down to the time 
 of the Revolution. Parallels could be found in the laws of the 
 ancient East, of ancient Persia, and of many states of medieval 
 Europe. It is, in fact, only the decay of the joint family system 
 and the rise of the free individual as the basis of the modern 
 state which definitely does away with this principle, so funda- 
 mentally irreconcilable with the strictly ethical notion of justice. 
 An interesting transitional phase is to be found in the Old Testa- 
 ment, where the visiting of the sins of the fathers upon the chil- 
 dren is very definitely laid down as a piece of Divine justice in 
 the earlier legislation (I mean in the Second Commandment), 
 whereas in the time of Ezekiel it was strongly maintained to be 
 an injustice that when the fathers had eaten sour grapes the chil- 
 dren's teeth should be set on edge. It was, in fact, part of the 
 ethical revolution introduced by the later prophets to estabUsh 
 morally for the Jewish code the principle of individual responsi- 
 bility.i 
 
 7. With the evolution of social order, and in particular with 
 the growth of central authority, the redress of wrongs begins to 
 take the form of an independent and impartial administration of 
 justice. Let us trace this growth in outline from its beginnings. 
 
 ' Ezek. xviii. 2 ; Jer. xxxi. 29. The result is embodied in Deut. xxiv. 16. 
 "The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the 
 children be put to death for the fathers ; every man shall be put to death for 
 his own sin." 
 
356 LEONARD TRELAWNEY HOB HOUSE 
 
 The blood feud proper is revenge guided and limited by cus- 
 tom. It is not justice. It is waged by two conflicting parties, 
 and there is no impartial third party to judge between them. 
 But even in barbaric society the blood feud does not rage wholly 
 without check. , The public opinion of the group is always a force 
 to be reckoned with. Every man's rights and obligations are 
 fixed by custom. The very vengeance taken on those who in- 
 fringe them is a custom, and directed in all its details by tradi- 
 tion. The headman or the elders of the clan or village are pre- 
 pared to listen to complaints, to decide whether a wrong has 
 been done, and, if so, what the reparation ought to be. The in- 
 jured party may appeal to them if he pleases, and it may be that 
 the aggressor will abide by their decision. If so, the affair is 
 arranged perhaps by composition, perhaps by a stated penalty. 
 Otherwise the parties will fight it out or it will come to a feud. 
 In short, there is an effort on the part of the leading men to keep 
 the peace and adjust the quarrel. Sometimes they will inter- 
 vene of themselves if a feud becomes serious and threatens the 
 general peace. 
 
 The "court," if so it may be called, appears at this stage rather 
 as peacemaker than judge. The disputants may ignore it, pre- 
 ferring to trust to their own strength and that of their friends. 
 Yet it is from the first the avenger's interest to have public 
 opinion with him. He relies on the countenance and practical 
 help of his kindred and fellow-tribesmen. At least he must avert 
 their opposition. If the facts are peculiarly flagrant the neighbors 
 will be with him and he will have the less difficulty in executing 
 vengeance. Perhaps even the kindred of the wrongdoer will 
 refuse to stand by him. Thus it becomes the interest of the 
 avenger to make his case plain to the neighbors, and they in 
 turn wish to hear what the accused party has to say. A palaver 
 is held. The avenger comes with his kinsmen and friends. They 
 state their case and announce their intention of seeking revenge. 
 The accused is also present, backed by his kin, and repels the 
 demands made on him. It may be that the matter is settled 
 between the groups concerned. It may be that the neighbors 
 
LAW AND JUSTICE 357 
 
 or the chief give sentence, but even so it does not follow that 
 they enforce it. They may give the appellant their moral sup- 
 port, and leave it to him to obtain satisfaction as best he can. 
 But of course their decision helps him to get the opinion of the 
 tribe on his side, and their moral force will be translatable into 
 physical force. It will mean so many more backers for him, and 
 so many less for his opponents. This support may be disdained 
 by the strong, but it will be valued by the weak, and will be up- 
 held by those who desire internal peace. Thus even under the 
 clan and tribal organization of society some form of pubhc in- 
 tervention may arise alongside of private redress. Feuds are 
 averted by the adjustment of disputes, or, if a wrong has been 
 done, by getting the complainant to accept composition, and 
 the aggressor to undergo some penalty which will be a mitigated 
 form of revenge, or by bringing the two parties to fight it out 
 under the regular forms of a duel. 
 
 Such methods of mitigating the blood feud are stimulated by 
 the growth of the kingly power — that is to say, of an organized 
 force outside the contending families or clans, which can sum- 
 mon them before its bar, decide their cause, and require them to 
 keep the peace. The king, whose duty and interest it is to main- 
 tain public order, treats crime — or certain kinds of crime — no 
 longer as an offense against the individual whom it primarily 
 affects, but as a menace to public tranquiUity, a breach of his 
 "peace." This, if he is strong enough, he will punish directly; 
 if not sufficiently strong, he will deprive the offender of his pro- 
 tection, put him outside the king's peace, and compel him by fine 
 to buy back what he has lost. Thus we find crime punishable 
 by wite as well as by bot — a fine to the king side by side with 
 compensation to the kinsfolk. 
 
 But from moral assistance the transition to physical assistance 
 is not very difficult in idea, however slow and cumbrous it may 
 have been in practice. There is more than one method of transi- 
 tion. Sometimes we find the public authority, the elders or the 
 whole body of the neighbors, or later the regular magistrate, 
 exerting themselves to arrest the offender and handing him over 
 
358 LEONARD TRELAWNEY HOB HOUSE 
 
 to the avenger of blood for execution, or judging between 
 the avenger .of blood and the man-slayer, whose act was 
 " unwitting. " Thus in Deuteronomy, if the dehberate murderer 
 flies to a city of refuge, " then the elders of his city shall send and 
 fetch him thence, and deliver him into the hand of the avenger of 
 blood that he may die." ^ But without taking an active part 
 in the pursuit and capture of the offender the court had an effec- 
 tive weapon in the power of outlawry. Since in accordance with 
 early ideas all personal rights depend upon membership of a 
 society united for mutual protection, it follows that the man ex- 
 cluded from the group is in the position of a stranger and an 
 enemy ; he is a wolf's head, a wild animal whom the first comer 
 may put to death at sight, with whom nobody may associate, to 
 whom nobody may give food or lodging. Outlawry can therefore 
 be applied either as a punishment or as a process — as a method of 
 bringing the accused into court. What more reasonable than that 
 if he will not submit to law he shall lose the protection of the law ? 
 With this weapon, potent in proportion as the social order is de- 
 veloped, the court of early law consolidates its authority, and 
 from being a casual institution of voluntary resort for those who 
 wish the sympathy of their neighbors in avenging their wrongs, 
 becomes an established authority with compulsory powers before 
 which either party can be summoned to appear at the instance of 
 his opponent. 
 
 8. But we are still a long way from a modern Court of Justice. 
 The primary function of a court thus established is not so much 
 to discover the merits of the case and make an equitable award, as 
 to keep the peace and prevent the extension of wild and irregular 
 blood feuds. What the court has to deal with is the fact that a 
 feud exists. A comes before it with a complaint against B of 
 having killed his kinsman, or stolen his cattle, or carried off his 
 daughter. Here is a feud which, in the absence of a court, A 
 will prosecute with his own right arm and that of his kinsmen if 
 he can get them to help him. B, again, will resist with the help 
 of his kinsmen, and so there will be a vendetta The court, 
 1 Deut. xix. 12. 
 
LAW AND JUSTICE 359 
 
 whose primary object is to secure a settlement, does not go into 
 nice questions as to the precise merits and demerits of A and B, 
 but it can prescribe certain tests whereby the appellant or the 
 defendant may establish his case. It sets the litigant "a task 
 that he must attempt. If he performs it, he has won his cause." 
 The performance of this task is not, to our minds, proof of the 
 justice of his cause. It is rather the compliance with a legal and 
 orderly method of establishing a case, but at the stage we are 
 considering it was probably regarded as satisfying justice, at 
 least, as far as justice claimed to be satisfied. 
 
 What task, then, would the court award ? It might be that 
 the litigant should maintain his cause with his body. The par- 
 ties would then have to fight it out in person or by their cham- 
 pions. Here we have the method of the blood feud, but regu- 
 larized, limited, and transformed into the judicial duel. Again, 
 the court might put one or both parties to the oath. But this is 
 not the oath of the modern law court — that is to say, it is not 
 a solemn asseveration of the truth of certain evidence of fact, 
 but an assertion of the general justice of the claim alleged, or of 
 its injustice, as the case may be. And as the feud will not be 
 waged by the individual claimant alone, but with the aid of all 
 his kindred, so the court will expect the kindred to come and take 
 the oath along with him. Hence the institution of oath-helpers, 
 the compurgators, who are in point of fact the fellow-clansmen all 
 bound to the duty at this stage of swearing their friend out of the 
 difficulty, just as before they were bound to help him out of it by 
 arms. The compurgators are simply clansmen fighting with 
 spiritual weapons instead of carnal ones. Success in the cause 
 will depend not on the opinion formed by the court as to the 
 veracity of one side or the perjury of the other, but on the ability 
 of the parties to get the full number of compurgators required, on 
 formal correctness in taking the oath, and if both parties fulfill 
 all conditions and no further means are available for deciding 
 between them, on certain rules as to the burden of proof. 
 
 The pro\dsion of such further means of deciding between the 
 parties is logically the next step. So far, the judicial process has 
 
360 LEONARD TRELAWNEY HOBHOUSE 
 
 appeared merely as a regularization of the blood feud, but both 
 the oath and the judicial combat point the way to a higher ideal 
 The court itself is not in a position to try the merits of the case 
 unless it be some very simple matter of the criminal caught red- 
 handed, but it may refer the decision to the unseen powers, 
 to the gods, or to the magical qualities inherent in certain things. 
 Thus the judicial duel, instead of being a mere carnal fight regu- 
 larized and limited by certain rules, may be conceived rather as 
 an appeal to the judgment of God, and the victory as His sen- 
 tence which the court hesitates to pronounce on the basis of its 
 merely human wisdom. Similarly the oath — though less than 
 evidence as we conceive evidence — is also more, for it is an 
 appeal to powers in which primitive man implicitly believes, to 
 take vengeance on him who swears, if his cause be not just. 
 Hence the form of the oath is everything, for the unknown 
 powers are great sticklers for form. The oath-taker calls down 
 their punishment on himself and his family by a set formula 
 which they will rigidly obey. If in the formula he can leave 
 himself any loophole of escape the oath is void; it is no true 
 summoning of the vengeful powers, and the court will disregard 
 it, but if it is complete and sound in point of form, then there is no 
 escape. One of two things must happen : either the oath was true 
 or the curse will fall, and thus perjury brings its own punishment. 
 
 Hence it is that for any given charge the law may call upon a 
 man to purge himself by oath, or perhaps to purge himself along 
 with a specified number of oath-helpers who will suffer with him 
 if the oath is false, and the oath-helpers required may be increased 
 according to the seriousness of the crime. If the oath fails, the 
 prescribed punishment follows. If it is duly taken, then either 
 the accused was innocent, or he has inflicted the punishment 
 entailed by the broken oath on himself and his oath-helpers. 
 
 But the consequences of a false oath were not immediately 
 apparent. If the court wished to have the judgment of the 
 Unseen Powers before it some more summary process was neces- 
 sary. This was found in the ordeal, a test to which both parties 
 could be submitted if necessary, and of which the results were 
 
 1 
 
LAW AND JUSTICE 361 
 
 immediate and manifest. Probably no institution is more uni- 
 versal at a certain stage of civilization than that of testing the 
 truth or falsity of a case by a certain magico-religious process — 
 the eating of a piece of bread, the handling of burning iron, or 
 boiling oil, jumping into water, walking through fire, exposure to 
 wild beasts, and so forth. The details vary, though even in 
 detail resemblances crop up at the most remote periods and in the 
 most remote places, but the general principle is still more clearly 
 constant through the ages and the climes. Truth cannot at this 
 stage be tested by human evidence. At most, the criminal caught 
 red-handed may be summarily dispatched upon the evidence of 
 eye-witnesses given there and then, but the complicated civil 
 or criminal processes of the civilized world imply an intellectual 
 as well as a moral development which makes them impossible 
 at an early stage. It is the gods who judge ; the man who can 
 handle hot iron is proved by heaven to be innocent ; the woman 
 whom the holy river rejects is a \vitch ; he whom the bread 
 chokes is a perjurer. Nor are these tests wholly devoid of ra- 
 tional basis ; it is not so difficult to understand that the guilty 
 man would be more liable to choke than the innocent, not be- 
 cause bread is holy, but because his nerves are shaken. It is 
 quite intelligible that in a credulous age the false oath would 
 bring its curse in the form of a will paralyzed by terror, just as we 
 know that amongst many savages witchcraft really kills through 
 the sufferer's intense fear of it. Lastly, if the criminal may be 
 ready to take his chances of the curse in preference to the cer- 
 tainties of the scaffold, he may find it difficult to get compurga- 
 tors to stand by him, and in the face of their plain knowledge in- 
 volve themselves in the same risk. 
 
 9. Thus, particularly in the institution of compurgation, we 
 find the beginnings of a new conception, the conception that it is 
 the duty of the court to try the case, to obtain proof of facts, 
 to give its own verdict based on its own judgment, and execute 
 its own sentence by its own officers. The steps by which this 
 change is achieved belong rather to the history of jurisprudence 
 than to that of comparative ethics. Only certain broad fea- 
 
362 LEONARD TRELAWNEY HOBHOUSE 
 
 tures of the new phase concern us. Its primary condition is per- 
 haps not so much a new growth of moral ideas as the formation of 
 an effective organ of government. The elders or the petty chief 
 of the village community hesitate to carry out a death sentence 
 or inflict corporal punishment for fear of involving themselves 
 in the blood feud. There must be an executive power with suffi- 
 cient force behind it to raise its officers above the fear of revenge 
 before a public system of justice, in the full sense, can arise. 
 Hence the decay of blood revenge and the rise of public justice 
 are frequently associated with the growth of kingly power. 
 For example, in Europe in the early Middle Ages we have seen 
 that certain offenses were treated as breaches of the king's peace. 
 This peace was a protection afforded in the first instance to cer- 
 tain places and times, but it was gradually extended, largely it 
 would seem through the king's protection of the roads — "the 
 king's highway" — to all places and all times. Thus the act 
 which had been a breach of the king's peace, punished by the with- 
 drawal of his protection only when committed at certain times 
 and places, now became an offense against him at all times and 
 places. Its punishment was still outlawry. But as outlawry 
 deprived a man of all rights, it enabled the king to inflict what 
 penalty he chose. The criminal, in fact, was at his mercy ; any 
 penalty short of death with forfeiture of all goods would be an 
 indulgence, and hence the royal courts could fix a scale of 
 punishments at their pleasure. 
 
 With the growth of public justice the function of the courts 
 is changed : they have no longer to supervise the feuds of hostile 
 families, but to maintain public order, to detect and punish 
 crime, and to uphold innocent people in their rights. This 
 involves numerous changes. In the first place, self-help, the 
 obtaining of satisfaction by the strong hand, is no longer neces- 
 sary. The injured man can get a remedy from the court, and 
 vengeance is forbidden. The victory is not immediate, and often 
 the state has to come to some compromise with the old system. 
 For example, vengeance may be allowed in flagrante delicto,^ or 
 1 At the moment of the crime. — Editors. 
 
LAW AND JUSTICE 363 
 
 within a certain period after the offense. Where state justice is 
 very weak, an asylum may be granted within which revenge must 
 not be executed ; in other cases where the process is further ad- 
 vanced and justice is getting the upper hand, revenge is allowed 
 only with the consent of a court. Or lastly, excluded from all 
 ordinary cases, revenge is tolerated as a concession to human 
 weakness in cases where strong passions are excited — for example, 
 in breaches of the marriage law to this day in many civilized coun- 
 tries. The transition was the harder because it involved a funda- 
 mental ethical change. From its beginning, as we have seen, 
 social order rested on the readiness of every man to stand by his 
 kinsmen in their quarrels. Hence the duty of avenging the 
 injured kinsman, and therefore of loving one's neighbor in this 
 sense and hating one's enemy, was the most sacred of primitive 
 principles, bound up with everything that made a common life 
 possible. Public justice bade men lay aside this principle, ard 
 its triumph constitutes one of the greatest of social revolutions. 
 
 But if the kindred be no longer allowed to avenge themselves, 
 the corresponding right of the offender to make peace with the 
 kin is also withdrawn. A crime is now a public affair, and in vary- 
 ing degrees according to time and country the public authority 
 takes upon itself the function of maintaining order and of dis- 
 covering as well as punishing offenders. The trial ceases to be 
 a milder form of the blood feud. The complainant no longer 
 exposes himself to equal punishment by way of retaliation in case 
 he loses his suit. What was previously accusation now becomes 
 denunciation. Again, though the injured party may set the 
 whole process in motion, the result will differ vitally according 
 to the nature of the act of which he complains. Justice, having 
 public interests in view, will count not only the magnitude of the 
 injury suffered, but the degree of culpability in the man who 
 inflicted it. Vengeance, the object of the older process, breaks 
 up into the two distinct ideas of punishment inflicted by the judge, 
 and restitution assigned to the complainant. Civil and criminal 
 justice are distinct. 
 
 10. Once become serious in its determination to investigate 
 
364 LEONARD TRELAWNEY HOBHOUSE 
 
 the case before giving sentence, public justice could not long be 
 satisfied with the older supernatural machinery. In medieval 
 Europe it was early a matter of remark that the battle was not 
 always to the just. "We are," says the Lombard king, Luit- 
 prand, "uncertain about the judgment of God, and have heard 
 that many through the battle lose their cause without justice; 
 but the law itself, on account of the custom of our race of Lom- 
 bards, we cannot forbid." 
 
 It was therefore a great step in advance when ordeals, which 
 had been adopted by the church after the barbarian invasions, 
 were condemned by the Lateran Council of 1 215. As a conse- 
 quence they disappear in England after the reign of John, while 
 the oath of compurgators is gradually converted into evidence to 
 character. The ordeal by battle remained, but an alternative 
 was offered in the form of a judicial inquiry with witnesses and 
 evidence. The accused might, in English phrase, "put himself 
 upon his country," i.e., let his case go before a jury, men of his 
 neighborhood knowing the facts and prepared to testify to them, 
 or in French phrase the accused could be offered the "enqueste 
 du pais." ^ And this alternative, if at first optional, soon mani- 
 fested its vast superiority, and the settlement of all disputes and 
 all accusations by an impartial tribunal, which has heard what 
 both sides have to say, becomes an integral part of the civilized 
 order. But even-handed justice is not reached at one stride. 
 The public authorities having once taken up the function of re- 
 pressing crime are more bent on efiiciency in the maintenance 
 of order than on nice considerations of justice to individuals. 
 Their tendency is to treat the accused man as guilty, and means 
 of proving his innocence are somewhat grudgingly meted out to 
 him as privileges rather than as rights, while deficiencies of evi- 
 dence are boldly supplemented by the use of torture. In Eng- 
 lish law, indeed, torture (except in the case of the peine forte et 
 dure) 2 never seems to have been fully recognized ; if used by the 
 absolute monarchy it was as a political instrument rather than 
 
 ' State inquir3^ — Editors. 
 
 2 Torture applied to a prisoner to compel him to plead. — Editors. 
 
LAW AND JUSTICE 365 
 
 as part of the ordinary machinery of law. On the Continent, on 
 the other hand, owing partly perhaps to a stricter theory of the 
 amount of evidence necessary for proof, partly to the fact that 
 the authorities were more determined to suppress crime than to 
 protect individuals from the possibility of undeserved suffering, 
 torture became a recognized method of supplementing defective 
 evidence. The judicial conscience was easier if it extorted a con- 
 fession from a man before condemning him than if it acted solely 
 on evidence undistorted by physical suffering. Even where tor- 
 ture was not allowed the accused was not always put on a level 
 with the prosecution as to the right of giving evidence, calling 
 witnesses and employing counsel. It is not until all these condi- 
 tions are fulfilled that a court of justice can be said to come up 
 to the ideal of a place in which the full merits of the case are 
 investigated before a verdict is given. Even now it must be 
 remarked that an English trial preserves much of the form of the 
 old judicial combat. Its method of obtaining a verdict is still 
 that of pitting attack and defense against one another. It may 
 be that this is the best method of obtaining truth where human 
 interests and passions are at stake, and that the advocate must 
 always retain a place beside the judge : but what seems clear is 
 that the power of the purse in retaining the best legal skill is a 
 make-weight, especially in civil cases, of no slight practical 
 importance ; and it is possible that our descendants will look 
 back upon a system which allowed wealth to count for so much 
 before what should be an absolutely impartial tribunal, as not 
 differing so much as we should like to think from the old ordeal 
 by battle. The fight with the purse is not the ideal substitute 
 for the fight with the person. 
 
 II. We have seen that public justice often led to severity in 
 the process of obtaining truth ; still more was this the case in the 
 punishment of crime. Accompanying the growth of order in a 
 barbarian society there is, as has been remarked above, a tend- 
 ency to substitute a system of composition for blood vengeance 
 by a money payment. This system made for social peace, but, 
 particularly with the increase of wealth and difference of rank, it 
 
366 LEONARD TRELAWNEY HOBHOUSE 
 
 lent itself to frightful abuses. Crimes, punished perhaps too 
 fiercely in early society, became for the well-to-do too lightly and 
 easily atonable, and it is not surprising that at the next stage of 
 social development, in which the central power has consolidated 
 itself and the executive has become strong enough to dismiss any 
 fear of the blood feud, a period of severer punishment should 
 set in. Crime now becomes a revolt against authority, a chal- 
 lenge to the powers that be, civil and perhaps ecclesiastical as 
 well, to put forth all their strength to subdue it. Moreover, the 
 central authority at its best acts in the interests of public order, 
 and on the whole represents the principle of impartial judgment 
 as between disputants, and of progress towards internal peace 
 and the reign of law. On the other hand, order is still difficult 
 to maintain and powerful families are recalcitrant. From such 
 causes as these acting in combination the criminal law now 
 reaches the acme of its rigor. Death penalties or savage mutila- 
 tions are inflicted for offenses of the second and third order, tor- 
 ture is freely used to extort confession, and the brutality of the 
 mob is called in to supplement that of the executioner. 
 
 As to the severity, or rather barbarity, of the criminal law in 
 Europe down to the nineteenth century little need be said, as the 
 broad facts are well known. In England death was theoretically 
 the penalty for all felonies except petty larceny and mayhem, 
 from the Middle Ages down to 1826. This rule was subject to 
 the exceptions based on "benefit of clergy," which originally 
 meant the right of a clerk to be tried in the ecclesiastical courts ; 
 then, being extended to all who could read, became something of 
 the nature of a class privilege, and finally in 1705, the necessity 
 for reading being abolished, was converted into a means of grace. 
 The punishment for a "clergyable" offense was to be branded in 
 the hand and imprisoned for not more than one year, except in 
 the case of larceny, which by the law of 171 7 was punishable by 
 transportation for seven years. From the fifteenth century 
 onwards a succession of statutes excluded more and more offenses 
 from benefit of clergy, and thus at the end of the seventeenth 
 century suc^ offenses as arson, burglary, horse stealing, stealing 
 
LAW AND JUSTICE 367 
 
 from the person above the value of a shilling, rape and abduction 
 with intent to marry, were all capital "whether the offender 
 could read or not." In the eighteenth century the list was 
 lengthened, but transportation was often substituted for the 
 death penalty. Women were still burnt alive for the murder 
 of a husband or master, or for coining. Both men and women 
 were whipped, the men publicly through the streets, the women 
 as a rule privately, for petty thefts. The pillory was still in use 
 for perjury and other offenses. Meanwhile the state of the 
 prisons, where innocent and guilty, debtors (often with their 
 families) and convicted criminals were all huddled together with- 
 out discrimination, was, when Howard began his work, a scandal 
 of the first magnitude. Gaol fever raged, prisons were still 
 private property, and the prisoner, innocent or guilty, had to 
 fee his gaoler and pay for every comfort and even for necessaries. 
 In the Bishop of Ely's prison the gaoler prevented escapes by 
 chaining his prisoners on their backs on the floor, and fastening 
 a spiked iron collar about their necks. "Even when recon- 
 structed it had no free ward, no infirmary and no straw ; and 
 debtors and felons were confined together." 
 
 12. But even before Howard's time a new order of ideas was 
 slowly emerging. As society becomes more confident in its 
 power to maintain order, the cruelty and callousness that are 
 born of fear are seen in a new light. More humane influences 
 make themselves felt, and from that moment excessive severity 
 begins to militate against the proper execution of the law, es- 
 pecially under a jury system like ours. With the advance of 
 civil and religious liberty, political or ecclesiastical offenses grow 
 rare, and a breach of the law becomes more and more synony- 
 mous with a grave moral offense against society. The whole prob- 
 lem of criminal justice is thus transferred to the ethical plane, but 
 the change raises problems which a century has been too short a 
 time to solve. The general right to punish may be derived from 
 the right of society to protect itself. This principle taken by itself ^ 
 
 ' So taken it is a one-sided account. Punishment, like other actions, can 
 only be justified as doing the maximum of good and the minimum of evil 
 
368 LEONARD TRELAWNEY HOBHOUSE 
 
 might be held to justify the barbarities of the old law, had 
 not experience shown that extreme severity was not in real- 
 ity an effective instrument of discipline, while it undoubtedly 
 tended to harden manners and accustom people to witness suffer- 
 ing with indifference. Its dealings with the criminal mark, one 
 may say, the zero point in the scale of treatment which society 
 conceives to be the due of its various members. If we raise this 
 point we raise the standard all along the scale. The pauper 
 may justly expect something better than the criminal, the self- 
 supporting poor man or woman than the pauper. Thus if it is 
 the aim of good civilization to raise the general standard of life, 
 this is a tendency which a savage criminal law will hinder and a 
 humane one assist. Moreover, the old rigor, so far as it rested 
 on reason at all, was based on a very crude psychology. People 
 are not deterred from murder by the sight of the murderer dan- 
 gling from a gibbet. On the contrary, what there is in them of lust 
 for blood is tickled and excited, their sensuality or ferocity is 
 aroused, and the counteracting impulses, the aversion to blood- 
 shed, the compunction for suffering, are arrested. Fear, on 
 which the principle of severity wholly relies, is a master motive 
 only with the weak, and only while it is very present. As soon 
 as there is a chance of escaping detection it evaporates, and, it 
 would seem, the more completely in proportion as the very 
 magnitude of the penalty makes it difficult for a man really to 
 imagine himself as the central figure in so terrible a drama. 
 Finally, the infliction of heavy penalties for secondary crimes 
 may induce a reckless despair, and the saying about the sheep 
 and the lamb was but too apt a comment on the working of the 
 criminal law at the time. Thus the first step of reform was to 
 abolish the ferocious penalties of the old law. In this direction a 
 long list of well-known and honored names, Beccaria, Howard, 
 Bentham, Romilly, Fowell Buxton, Elizabeth Fry, indicate 
 
 admitted by the circumstances to all concerned. If any evil (suffering or 
 loss of character) is inflicted on the criminal which is not absolutely necessi- 
 tated by social security, or the ultimate welfare of the criminal himself, it is 
 evil inflicted for its own sake, which is the essence of immorality. 
 
LAW AND JUSTICE 369 
 
 roughly the intellectual and moral influences at work. The 
 Society of Friends, French Rationalists, English Utilitarians and 
 the Evangelicals played their part in this, as in so many of the 
 changes that have made the modern world. The movement 
 was under way by the second third of the eighteenth century. 
 Beccaria's book was published in 1764 and had an immediate 
 success, bearing early fruit in the abolition of torture on the 
 Continent. Branding was abolished in England in 1779. Capital 
 punishment had been abolished for a time in Russia in 1753, and 
 the purchase of prisoners as galley slaves was forbidden by Maria 
 Theresa in 1762. In England the peine forte et dure was abol- 
 ished in 1772, and in 1770 a House of Commons committee even 
 reported that there were some ofifenses for which the death pen- 
 alty might with advantage be exchanged for some other punish- 
 ment. These few indications show that the tide was beginning 
 to turn. In France the movement was hastened by the Revolu- 
 tion. The Declaration of Rights in 1789 laid down the control- 
 ling principle of the modern theory that "the right to punish is 
 limited by the law of necessity," and this was supplemented in 
 1791 by the declaration of the Assembly that "penalties should 
 be pj-oportioned to the crimes for which they are inflicted, and 
 that they are intended not merely to punish, but to reform the 
 culprit." In accordance with this principle the Assembly made 
 imprisonment the chief method of punishment, and founded 
 the penitentiary system of France. In England the great re- 
 action produced by the Revolution retarded the reform of the 
 criminal law, but throughout the time of the Revolutionary 
 Wars, men like Romilly fought an uphill fight. He succeeded 
 in suppressing the death penalty for pocket-picking in 1808, but 
 his subsequent efforts to abolish capital punishment for stealing 
 goods of the value of five shillings from shops were frustrated by 
 the House of Lords. Little progress, in fact, was made till 1832, 
 when horse and sheep stealing ceased to be capital, and from this 
 time onwards the list of capital offenses was steadily reduced, 
 till in 1 86 1 murder was for all practical purposes the only one that 
 remained. 
 
370 LEONARD TRELAWNEY HOBHOUSE 
 
 Meanwhile, as substitutes for the old savagery, there grew up 
 first the transportation and then the penitentiary system. Re- 
 garded as a means of giving the offender a fresh start in life in 
 new surroundings remote from his old bad associates and the 
 memory of his crimes, transportation has much to recommend 
 it, but it was clearly incompatible with colonial development. 
 It was necessary to fall back on the prison system, and the ef- 
 forts of reformers have been devoted to the task of making con- 
 finement — a thing soul-destructive in itself — as nearly com- 
 patible as may be with the regeneration of the prisoner. These 
 efforts have hardly passed the experimental stage, yet certain re- 
 sults have emerged. The necessity for a classification which 
 prevents the first offender from being contaminated by the hard- 
 ened jail-bird, the benefits of action and practical employment, 
 the superiority of hope to fear as a stimulus to good conduct and 
 the consequent advantages to be found in allowing the convict 
 means of improving his position and even shortening his sen- 
 tence by good behavior, are matters of general agreement. But 
 it is clearly necessary to go further than this. The plan of im- 
 prisoning a man for a longer or shorter term, and then without 
 asking what effect his experience is likely to have had on him, 
 turning him loose again upon society, a broken human being less 
 capable than ever of earning an honest living, cannot stand. 
 The old way of hanging at least rid society of the criminal. It 
 stood condemned for its utter barbarity, which was indirectly as 
 harmful to society as it was cruel to the sufferer. The modern 
 method is still a terrible penalty, at least to the better sort of 
 criminals, and far from relieving society of their presence, tends 
 to harden and degrade them further. Hence judicious thinkers 
 like Frederick Hill, in his report of 1839, soon recognized that a 
 more thorough system was required. The offender must be re- 
 formed, and at need he must even be detained until he was given 
 good promise of reformation, and society must help him back 
 into honest ways. The most thoroughgoing attempt in this 
 direction is that of the Elmira system, followed now in several 
 American states, in which, the sentence being wholly or within 
 
LAW AND JUSTICE 371 
 
 limits indeterminate, the fate of the convict depends on his own 
 exertions. He can raise himself from a lower to a higher grade 
 by continued good behavior, and finally can obtain liberation on 
 parole. 
 
 13. Whatever the outcome of these experiments, the modern 
 state stands committed to the humane method of criminal treat- 
 ment, and could not revert to the old plan save at the risk of a gen- 
 eral rebarbarization. That being so, it is necessary to push the 
 new method through and to treat the criminal throughout as a 
 " case " to be understood and cured. We touch here the scientific 
 conception underlying the modern theory of punishment. Crime, 
 like everything else that men do or suffer, is the outcome of 
 definite conditions. These conditions may be psychological or 
 physical, personal or social. They arise in the character of the 
 agent as it has grown up in him from birth in interaction with the 
 circumstances of his life. We may recognize them in social sur- 
 roundings, in overcrowding or underfeeding, in the sense of 
 despair produced by the denial of justice, or in the overweening 
 insolence of social superiority. But whatever they may be, if 
 we wish to prevent crime, we must discover the conditions operat- 
 ing to produce crime and act upon them. This does not destroy, 
 but defines personal responsibility. The last link in the chain of 
 causation which produces any act is always the disposition of the 
 agent at the time of action, and unless dominated by ungovernable 
 impulse,^ this disposition is always modifiable by the introduc- 
 tion of a fresh motive as a weight in the scale. But though not 
 destroyed, responsibility is transformed by science, and with it 
 the whole conception of punishment." When a wicked act was 
 
 ^ This makes no exception to the general statement that character is the 
 cause of action, since that paralysis of the will which leaves a man the sport 
 of impulse is itself a matter of character. As to control of man's conduct by 
 heredity much nonsense is talked. Heredity is not a force controlling a man 
 from without, but a short expression for the supposed antecedent causes of 
 the quahties which make him what he is, and by what he is, he is to be judged, 
 so far as he is judged at all. 
 
 ^ Responsibility, properly understood, is definable as the capacity to be 
 determined by an adequate motive. A man is responsible who knows what 
 
372 LEONARD TRELAWNEY HOB HOUSE 
 
 held to be something arising in a spontaneous arbitrary manner 
 from the unmotived evil choice of a man, the vindictive retribu- 
 tion which is founded on instinct and fostered by the needs of 
 early society seemed amply justified. When good and evil alike 
 are seen to grow out of assignable antecedents by processes which 
 calmly judging men can pretty closely foretell, to rest on laws 
 of growth and disease which apply to character as other laws 
 apply to the physical organism, to express the lack of imagina- 
 tion or low power of reasoning which makes men hard, cruel, and 
 unjust, or to flow from the over-excitement or insufficient satis- 
 faction of physical impulses that makes them a prey to lust or 
 alcohol, then every thinking man is made to feel in a new sense 
 that but for the grace of conditions which he has only very par- 
 tially and imperfectly controlled, there where the criminal 
 passes to disgrace and misery goes he himself, the juryman, the 
 judge, the newspaper reader who explodes in satisfaction over the 
 swinging sentence. No one can fully face the problem of respon- 
 sibility and become, however dimly, aware of the multitudinous 
 roots from which character and conduct spring, without feeling 
 the utter inadequacy of the retributive theory of punishment. 
 Vindictiveness has its natural sphere in the stage at which crime 
 is only known as an injury to be revenged. As soon as it be- 
 comes a wrong act to be punished, the nature of wrong and the 
 meaning of punishment have to be reconsidered. If the first 
 principle of rational ethics is that action can only be justified by 
 doing good to those whom it affects, this principle receives a 
 striking confirmation from the one quarter in which its applica- 
 tion might seem doubtful. For a natural impulse makes us 
 desire to harm the wicked, but the history of criminal law and the 
 philosophical analysis of responsibility combine to prove to us 
 that this is the impulse of the Old Adam and not warranted by 
 
 is expected of him, understands the consequences of his action, and is deter- 
 mined therein by that iinowledge. Reward and punishment, praise and 
 blame, are therefore justly awarded in so far as they afifect action. Beyond 
 this, retribution is inapphcable, and praise and blame pass into admiration 
 and pity. 
 
LAW AND JUSTICE 373 
 
 reason or justice. Justice, in punishment as in other things, 
 seeks the good of all whom it affects, of the criminal as of the in- 
 jured party. Yet all true punishment inflicts pain, for precisely 
 the truest punishment consists in the full realization of the char- 
 acter of what one has done. This realization, with all the mental 
 misery that it involves, we may justly wish to be the lot of every 
 criminal, whether convicted or unconvicted, whether despised 
 or, like the greatest offenders, honored by the world. So far 
 pain is rightly attached to wrongdoing as, ethically speaking, 
 its inevitable consequence. But any other sort of pain, any 
 physical suffering that has no such healing moral effect, may grat- 
 ify an animal thirst for vengeance but has no solace for our 
 moral thirst for the triumph, even in the mind of the wrongdoer 
 of the righteousness which he has set at naught. 
 
 The modern state upholds its members in the enjoyment of 
 their rights and gives them redress for injuries to themselves in 
 the civil courts. It also intervenes on its own motion to main- 
 tain public order by the punishment of lawbreakers. Religious ' 
 and political offenses falling into the background, legal of- 
 fenses tend to be restricted to criminal acts, and punishment to 
 be proportioned to the imputed degree of moral guilt. ^ But this 
 ethical view of punishment, when pushed home, compels the 
 admission that the individual theory of responsibility is no more 
 final than the old collective theory, and punishment is compelled 
 to justify itself by its actual effect on society in maintaining 
 order without legalizing brutality, on the criminal in deterring 
 him or in aiding his reform, in both relations as doing good, not 
 as doing harm. The criminal, too, has his rights — the right 
 
 1 The converse proposition that wicked acts are all treated as legal 
 offenses does not follow, nor is it true of the modern state. The questions 
 as to the sphere of the state which arise here cannot be dealt with on this 
 occasion. 
 
 Offenses against the public order do not constitute an exception to the 
 statement in the text. In themselves they are slight offenses, and the 
 penalty is always light, but the deUberate defiance of the public order is of 
 course an immoral act unless justified by some bad end which that order 
 may be made to serve. 
 
374 LEONARD TRELAWNEY HOBHOUSE 
 
 to be punished, but so punished that he may be helped in the path 
 of reform. 
 
 Briefly to resume the main phases in the evolution of public 
 justice, we find that at the outset the community interferes 
 mainly on what we may call supernatural grounds only with 
 actions which are regarded as endangering its own existence. 
 Otherwise justice, as we know it, in the sense of an impartial 
 upholding of rights and an impartial punishment of wrongdoing, 
 is unknown. In place of that we have at the outset purely 
 private and personal retaliation. This develops into the sys- 
 tematized blood feuds of consolidated families and clans. At 
 this stage responsibility is collective, redress is collective, in- 
 tention is ignored, and there is no question of assessing punish- 
 ment according to the merit of the individual. When retalia- 
 tion is mitigated by the introduction of money payments no 
 change in ethical principle occurs. It is only as social order 
 evolves an independent organ for the adjustment of disputes 
 and the prevention of crime, that the ethical idea becomes sepa- 
 rated out from the conflicting passions which are its earlier 
 husk, and step by step the individual is separated from his family, 
 his intentions are taken into account, his formal rectitude or 
 want of rectitude is thrown into the background by the essential 
 justice of the case, appeals to magical processes are abandoned, 
 and the law sets before itself the aim of discovering the facts and 
 maintaining right or punishing wrong accordingly. 
 
 The rise of public justice proper necessitates the gradual aban- 
 donment of the whole conception of the trial as a struggle be- 
 tween two parties, and substitutes the idea of ascertaining the 
 actual truth in order that justice may be done. That is at first 
 carried out by supernatural means, viz. by the ordeal and the 
 oath. These in turn give way to a true judicial inquiry by 
 evidence and rational proof. The transition occurred in Eng- 
 land mainly during the thirteenth century, the turning point 
 being marked by the prohibition of the ordeal by Innocent III 
 in 1215. The early stages of public justice administered by the 
 recently developed central power led to excessive barbarity 
 
LAW AND JUSTICE 375 
 
 in the discovery and punishment of crime. It took some more 
 centuries to prove to the world that efficacy in these relations 
 could be reconciled with humanity and a rational consideration 
 of the best means of getting at truth. By so long and round- 
 about a process is a result, so simple and obvious to our minds, 
 attained. 
 
XIII 
 THE PROSPECTS OF POPULAR GOVERNMENT 
 
 Henry Sumner Maine 
 
 [Sir Henry James Sumner Maine (1822-1888) was a prominent British 
 statesman and student of politics. He held important lectureships in civil 
 law and jurisprudence at Cambridge and Oxford and produced a number of 
 works, notably his Ancient Law, pubhshed in 1861, which are regarded as 
 among the first to utihze the new "historical method" in the study of po- 
 litical and legal institutions. 
 
 The Prospects of Popular Government, from the author's Popular Govern- 
 ment, 1885, is by no means a wholly conclusive analysis of modern democ- 
 racy. It can scarcely be questioned that the writer is moved by something 
 dangerously like prejudice against pure democracy. But the essay is so 
 accurate in its presentation of the points of debate, so concrete in illustra- 
 tion, and most importantly, so wholly uninfluenced by the glamour of patri- 
 otic enthusiasm over the generally assumed success of democratic govern- 
 ment, that is possesses a stimulus to interest frequently lacking in more 
 scientific or more impartial writings. Touching closely the question of the 
 success of the democratic idea in England and America, Maine's work 
 met with adverse criticism from some of the most prominent thinkers 
 of the day. The ground upon which it was assailed was that although it ex- 
 hibits much political and legal erudition, its attitude is deduced from the his- 
 tory of democratic theory, corrected by casual observation of the results, 
 rather than from the history of democracy itself. This weakness is discussed 
 in a review by John Morley, reprinted in his Studies in Literature. A reply 
 to Maine's argument directed primarily at his comments upon democratic 
 rule in the United States is found in Lawrence Godkin's An American View 
 of Popular Government, in the Nineteenth Century for February, 1886. God- 
 kin's criticism was answered by Maine in the March number.] 
 
 The blindness of the privileged classes in France to the Revo- 
 lution which was about to overwhelm them furnishes some of 
 the best-worn commonplaces of modern history. There was, no 
 doubt, much in it to surprise us. What king, noble, and priest 
 
 376 
 
THE PROSPECTS OF POPULAR GOVERNMENT 377 
 
 could not see, had been easily visible to the foreign observer. 
 "In short," runs the famous passage in Chesterfield's letter of 
 December 25, 1753, "all the symptoms which I ever met with in 
 history previous to great changes and revolutions in government 
 now exist and daily increase in France." A large number of 
 writers of our day, manifesting the wisdom which comes after 
 the event, have pointed out that the signs of a terrible time ought 
 not to have been mistaken. The court, the aristocracy, and 
 the clergy should have understood that, in face of the irreligion 
 which was daily becoming more fashionable, the belief in privi- 
 lege conferred by birth could not be long maintained. They 
 should have noted the portents of imminent political disturbance 
 in the intense jealousy of classes. They should have been pre- 
 pared for a tremendous social upheaval by the squalor and mis- 
 ery of the peasants. They should have observed the immediate 
 causes of revolution in the disorder of the finances and in the 
 gross inequality of taxation. They should have been wise 
 enough to know that the entire structure, of which the keystone 
 was a stately and scandalous court, was undermined on all sides. 
 "Beautiful Armida Palace, where the inmates live enchanted 
 lives ; lapped in soft music of adulation ; waited on by the splen- 
 dors of the world ; which nevertheless hangs wondrously as by a 
 single hair." ^ 
 
 But although Chesterfield appeals to history, the careful 
 modern student of history will perhaps think the blindness of the 
 French nobility and clergy eminently pardonable. The mon- 
 archy, under whose broad shelter all privilege grew and seemed 
 to thrive, appeared to have its roots deeper in the past than any 
 existing European institution. The countries which now made 
 up France had enjoyed no experience of popular government 
 since the rude Gaulish freedom. From this, they had passed into 
 the condition of a strictly administered, strongly governed, highly 
 taxed, Roman province. The investigations of the young and 
 learned school of historians rising in France leave it question- 
 able whether the Germans, who are sometimes supposed to have 
 ^ Carlyle, French Revolution, vol. vi, p. 4. 
 
378 HENRY SUMNER MAINE 
 
 redeemed their own barbarism by reviving liberty, brought 
 anything like freedom to Gaul. There was little more than a 
 succession of German to Roman privileged classes. German cap- 
 tains shared the great estates, and assumed the rank of the half- 
 ofhcial, half-hereditary nobility, who abounded in the province. 
 A German king, who was in reality only a Roman general bear- 
 ing a barbarous title, reigned over much of Gaul and much of 
 central Europe. When his race was supplanted by another in 
 its kingship, the new power got itself decorated with the old 
 Roman Imperial style ; and when at length a third dynasty arose, 
 the monarchy associated with it gradually developed more vigor 
 and vitality than any other political institution in Europe. 
 From the accession of Hugh Capet to the French Revolution, 
 there had been as nearly as possible 800 years. During all this 
 time, the French royal house had steadily gained in power. 
 It had wearied out and beaten back the victorious armies of 
 England. It had emerged stronger than ever from the wars of 
 religion which humbled English kingship in the dust, dealing it 
 a blow from which it never thoroughly recovered. It had grown 
 in strength, authority, and splendor, till it dazzled all eyes. It 
 had become the model for all princes. Nor had its government 
 and its relation to its subjects struck all men as they seem to have 
 struck Chesterfield. Eleven years before Chesterfield wrote, 
 David Hume, a careful observer of France, had thus written in 
 1742: "Though all kinds of government be improved in modern 
 times, yet monarchical government seems to have made the 
 greatest advance to perfection. It may now be affirmed of 
 civilized monarchies, what was formerly said of republics alone, 
 that they are a government of laws, not of men. They are found 
 susceptible of order, method, and constancy, to a surprising de- 
 gree. Property is there secure ; industry is encouraged ; the arts 
 flourish ; and the prince lives among his subjects like a father 
 among his children." And Hume expressly adds that he saw 
 more "sources of degeneracy" in free governments like England 
 than in France, "the most perfect model of pure monarchy." ^ 
 1 Hume. Essay .xii, "Of Civil Liberty." 
 
 I 
 
THE PROSPECTS OF POPULAR GOVERNMENT 
 
 379 
 
 Nevertheless, Hume was unquestionably wrong in his con- 
 clusion, and Chesterfield was as unquestionably right. The 
 French privileged classes might conceivably have foreseen the 
 great Revolution, simply because it happened. The time, how- 
 ever, which is expended in wondering at their blindness, or in 
 pitying it with an air of superior wisdom, is as nearly as possible 
 wasted. Next to what a modern satirist has called " hypothet- 
 ics" — the science of that which might have happened but did 
 not — there is no more unprofitable study than the investigation 
 of the possibly predictable, which was never predicted. It is of 
 far higher advantage to note the mental condition of the French 
 upper classes as one of the most remarkable facts in history, and 
 to ask ourselves whether it conveys a caution to other generations 
 than theirs. This line of speculation is at the least interesting. 
 We too, who belong to western Europe towards the end of the 
 nineteenth century, live under a set of institutions which all, ex- 
 cept a small minority, regard as likely to be perpetual. Nine 
 men out of ten, some hoping, some fearing, look upon the popu- 
 lar government which, ever widening its basis, has spread and 
 is still spreading over the world, as destined to last forever, or, 
 if it changes its form, to change it in one single direction. The 
 democratic principle has gone forth conquering and to conquer, 
 and its gainsayers are few and feeble. Some Catholics, from 
 whose minds the diplomacy of the present Pope has not banished 
 the syllabus of the last, a fairly large body of French and Spanish 
 Legitimists, and a few aged courtiers in the small circles sur- 
 rounding exiled German and Italian princes, may still believe 
 that the cloud of democratic ascendency will pass away. Their 
 hopes may be as vain as their regrets ; but nevertheless those 
 who recollect the surprises which the future had in store for men 
 equally confident in the perpetuity of the present, will ask them- 
 selves whether it is really true that the expectation of virtual 
 permanence for governments of the modern type rests upon 
 solid grounds of historical experience as regards the past, and of 
 rational probability as regards the time to come. I endeavor 
 in these pages to examine the question in a spirit different from 
 
380 HENRY SUMNER MAINE 
 
 that which animates most of those who view the advent of de- 
 mocracy either with enthusiasm or with despair. 
 
 Out of the many names commonly appHed to the political sys- 
 tem prevailing or tending to prevail in all the civilized portions 
 of the world, I have chosen "popular government " ^ as the name 
 which, on the whole, is least open to objection. But what we 
 are witnessing in west European politics is not so much the 
 establishment of a definite system, as the continuance, at vary- 
 ing rates, of a process. The truth is that, within two hundred 
 years, the view taken of government, or (as the jurists say) of the 
 relation of sovereign to subject, of political superior to political 
 inferior, has been changing, sometimes partially and slowly, 
 sometimes generally and rapidly. The character of this change 
 has been described by John Stuart Mill, in the early pages of his 
 Essay on Liberty, and more recently by Mr. Justice Stephen, 
 who in his History of the Criminal Law of England very strik- 
 ingly uses the contrast between the old and the new view of 
 government to illustrate the difference between two views of the 
 law of seditious libel. I will quote the latter passage as less 
 colored than the language of Mill by the special preferences of 
 the writer : 
 
 " Two different views may be taken of the relation between 
 rulers and their subjects. If the ruler is regarded as the 
 superior of the subject, as being by the nature of his position 
 presumably wise and good, the rightful ruler and guide of the 
 whole population, it must necessarily follow that it is wrong to 
 censure him openly, and, even if he is mistaken, his mistakes 
 should be pointed out with the utmost respect, and that, 
 whether mistaken or not, no censure should be cast on him 
 likely or designed to diminish his authority. If, on the other 
 hand, the ruler is regarded as the agent and servant, and the 
 subject as the wise and good master, who is obliged to delegate 
 his power to the so-called ruler because, being a multitude, he 
 
 1 It will be seen that I endeavor to use the term "democracy," through- 
 out this volume, in its proper and only consistent sense ; that is, for a par- 
 ticular form of government. 
 
 » 
 
 
THE PROSPECTS OF POPULAR GOVERNMENT 381 
 
 cannot use it himself, it must be evident that this sentiment 
 must be reversed. Every member of the pubHc who censures 
 the ruler for the time being exercises in his own person the 
 right which belongs to the whole of which he forms a part. He 
 is finding fault with his own servant." ^ 
 
 The states of Europe are now regulated by political institu- 
 tions answering to the various stages of the transition from the 
 old view, that "rulers are presumably wise and good, the rightful 
 rulers and guides of the whole population," to the newer view, 
 that "the ruler is the agent and servant, and the subject the wise 
 and good master, who is obliged to delegate his power to the so- 
 called ruler because, being a multitude, he cannot use it him- 
 self." Russia and Turkey are the only European states which 
 completely reject the theory that governments hold their powers 
 by delegation from the community, the word "community" 
 being somewhat vaguely understood, but tending more and more 
 to mean at/ least the whole of the males of full age living within 
 certain territorial limits. This theory, which is known on the 
 Continent as the theory of national sovereignty, has been fully 
 accepted in France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Holland, Belgium, 
 Greece, and the Scandinavian states. In Germany it has been 
 repeatedly repudiated by the Emperor and his powerful minister, 
 but it is to a very great extent acted upon. England, as is not 
 unusual with her, stands by herself. There is no country in 
 which the newer view of government is more thoroughly applied 
 to practice, but almost all the language of the law and constitu- 
 tion is still accommodated to the older ideas concerning the rela- 
 tion of ruler and subject. 
 
 But, although no such inference could be drawn from EngHsh 
 legal phraseology, there is no doubt that the modern popular 
 government of our day is of purely English origin. When it came 
 into existence, there were republics in Europe, but they exercised 
 no moral and little political influence. Although in point of 
 fact they were most of them strict oligarchies, they were regarded 
 as somewhat plebeian governments, over which monarchies took 
 1 Stephen's History of the Criminal Law of England, vol. ii., p. 299. 
 
382 HENRY SUMNER MAINE 
 
 rightful precedence. "The republics in Europe," writes Hume 
 in 1742, "are at present noted for want of politeness. The good 
 manners of a Swiss civilized in Holland is an expression for rus- 
 ticity among the French. The English in some degree fall under 
 the same censure, notwithstanding their learning and genius. 
 And if the Venetians be an exception, they owe it perhaps to their 
 communication with other Italians." If a man then called him- 
 self a republican, he was thinking of the Athenian or Roman 
 republic, one for a while in a certain sense a democracy, the 
 other from first to last an aristocracy, but both ruling a depend- 
 ent empire with the utmost severity. In reality, the new prin- 
 ciple of government was solely established in England, which 
 Hume always classes with republics rather than with monar- 
 chies. After tremendous civil struggles, the doctrine that gov- 
 ernments serve the community was, in spirit if not in words, 
 affirmed in 1689. But it was long before this doctrine was either 
 fully carried out by the nation or fully accepted by its rulers. 
 William III was merely a foreign politician and general, who sub- 
 mitted to the eccentricities of his subjects for the sake of using 
 their wealth and arms in foreign war. On this point the admis- 
 sions of Macaulay are curiously in harmony with the view of 
 William taken in the instructions of Louis XIV to his diploma- 
 tists which have lately been published. Anne certainly believed 
 in her own quasi-divine right ; and George I and George II were 
 humbler kings of the same type as William, who thought that 
 the proper and legitimate form of government was to be found, 
 not in England, but in Hanover. As soon as England had in 
 George HI a king who cared more for English politics than for 
 foreign war, he repudiated the doctrine altogether; nor can it 
 be said that it was really admitted by any English sovereign 
 until, possibly, the present reign. But even when the horror of 
 the French Revolution was at its highest, the politician, who 
 would have been much in danger of prosecution if he had toasted 
 the people as the "sole legitimate source of power," could always 
 save himself by drinking to "the principles which placed the 
 House of Hanover on the throne." These principles in the 
 
THE PROSPECTS OF POPULAR GOVERNMENT 383 
 
 meantime were more and more becoming the actual rule of gov- 
 ernment, and before George III died they had begun their vic- 
 torious march over Europe. 
 
 Popular government, as first known to the English, began to 
 command the interest of the Continent through the admiration 
 with which it inspired a certain set of French thinkers towards 
 the middle of the last century. At the outset, it was not Eng- 
 lish liberty which attracted them, but English toleration and 
 also English irreligion, the last one of the most fugitive phases 
 through which the mind of a portion of the nation passed, but 
 one which so struck the foreign observer that, at the beginning 
 of the present century, we find Napoleon Bonaparte claiming the 
 assistance of the Pope as rightfully his because he was the enemy 
 of the British misbeliever. Gradually the educated classes of 
 France, at whose feet sat the educated class of all Continental 
 countries, came to interest themselves in English political insti- 
 tutions ; and then came two events, one of which greatly en- 
 couraged, while the other in the end greatly discouraged, the 
 tendency of popular government to diffuse itself. The first of 
 them was the foundation of the United States. The American 
 constitution is distinctively English ; this might be proved 
 alone, as Mr. Freeman has acutely observed, by its taking two 
 Houses, instead of one, or three, or more, as the normal structure 
 of a legislative assembly. It is in fact the English constitution 
 carefully adapted to a body of Englishmen who had never had 
 much to do with an hereditary king and an aristocracy of birth, 
 and who had determined to dispense with them altogether. The 
 American republic has greatly influenced the favor into which 
 popular government grew. It disproved the once universal 
 assumptions, that no republic could govern a large territory, 
 and that no strictly republican government could be stable. 
 But at first the Republic became interesting for other reasons. 
 It now became possible for Continental Europeans to admire 
 popular government without submitting to the somewhat bitter 
 necessity of admiring the English, who till lately had been the 
 most unpopular of European nations. Frenchmen in particular, 
 
384 HENRY SUMNER MAINE 
 
 who had helped and perhaps enabled the Americans to obtain 
 their independence, naturally admired institutions which were 
 indirectly their own creation ; and Frenchmen who had not 
 served in the American war saw the American freeman reflected 
 in Franklin, who pleased the school of Voltaire because he be- 
 lieved nothing, and the school of Rousseau because he wore a 
 Quaker coat. The other event strongly influencing the fortunes 
 of popular government was the French Revolution, which in the 
 long run rendered it an object of horror. The French, in their 
 new constitutions, followed first the English and then the 
 American model, but in both cases with large departures from the 
 originals. The result in both cases was miserable miscarriage. 
 Political liberty took long to recover from the discredit into 
 which it had been plunged by the Reign of Terror. In England, 
 detestation of the Revolution did not cease to influence politics 
 till 1830. But, abroad, there was a reaction to the older type of 
 popular government in 18 14 and 181 5 ; and it was thought pos- 
 sible to combine freedom and order by copying, with very slight 
 changes, the British constitution. From a longing for liberty, 
 combined with a loathing of the French experiments in it, there 
 sprang the state of opinion in which the constitutional move- 
 ments of the Continent had their birth. The British political 
 model was followed by France, by Spain and Portugal, and by 
 Holland and Belgium, combined in the kingdom of the Nether- 
 lands ; and, after a long interval, by Germany, Italy, and Austria. 
 The principle of modern popular government was thus affirmed 
 less than two centuries ago, and the practical application of that 
 principle outside these islands and their dependencies is not quite 
 a century old. What has been the political history of the com- 
 monwealths in which this principle has been carried out in vari- 
 ous degrees ? The inquiry is obviously one of much importance 
 and interest ; but, though the materials for it are easily obtained, 
 and indeed are to a large extent within the memory of living men, 
 it is very seldom or very imperfectly prosecuted. I undertake 
 it solely with the view of ascertaining, within reasonable limits 
 of space, how far actual experience countenances the common 
 
THE PROSPECTS OF POPULAR GOVERNMENT 385 
 
 assumption of our day, that popular government is likely to be 
 of indefinitely long duration. I will first take France, which 
 began with the imitation of the English, and has ended with the 
 adoption of the American model. Since the introduction of 
 political freedom into France, the existing government, nomi- 
 nally clothed with all the powers of the state, has been three times 
 overturned by the mob of Paris, in 1792, in 1830, and in 1848. 
 It has been three times overthrown by the Army; first in 1797, 
 on the 4th of September (18 Fructidor), when the majority of the 
 Directors with the help of the soldiery annulled the elections of 
 forty-eight departments, and deported fifty-six members of the 
 two Assemblies, condemning also to deportation two of their own 
 colleagues. The second military revolution was effected by the 
 elder Bonaparte on the 9th of November (18 Brumaire), 1799; 
 and the third by the younger Bonaparte, on December 2, 185 1. 
 The French government has also been three times destroyed by 
 foreign invasion, in 1814, 1815, and 1870; the invasion having 
 been in each case provoked by French aggression, sympathized 
 in by the bulk of the French people. In all, putting aside the 
 anomalous period from 1870 to 1885, France, since she began her 
 polrtical experiments, has had forty-four years of liberty and 
 thirty-seven of stern dictatorship.^ But it has to be remembered, 
 and it is one of the curiosities of this period of history, that the 
 elder Bourbons, who in practice gave very wide room to political 
 freedom, did not expressly admit the modern theory of popular 
 government ; while the Bonapartes, who proclaimed the theory 
 without qualification, maintained in practice a rigid despotism. 
 Popular government was introduced into Spain just when the 
 fortune of war was declaring itself decisively in favor of Welling- 
 ton and the EngHsh army. The Extraordinary Cortes signed 
 at Cadiz a constitution, since then famous in Spanish pohtics 
 as the constitution of 181 2, which proclaimed in its first article 
 that sovereignty resided in the nation. Ferdinand VII, on 
 re-entering Spain from France, repudiated this constitution, de- 
 
 1 I include in the thirty-seven years the interval between September, 1797 
 and November, 1799. 
 
386 HENRY SUMNER MAINE 
 
 nouncing it as Jacobinical ; and for about six years he reigned 
 as absolutely as any of his forefathers. But in 1820 General 
 Riego, who was in command of a large force stationed near Cadiz, 
 headed a military insurrection in which the mob joined ; and the 
 king submitted to the constitution of 181 2. In 1823 the for- 
 eign invader appeared ; the French armies entered Spain at the 
 instigation of the Holy Alliance, and reestablished Ferdinand's 
 despotism, which lasted till his death. Popular government 
 was, however, reintroduced by his widow as regent for his 
 daughter, no doubt for the purpose of strengthening Isabella's 
 title to the throne against her uncle, Don Carlos. It is probably 
 unnecessary to give the subsequent political history of Spain in 
 any detail. There are some places in South America where the 
 people date events, not from the great earthquakes, but from the 
 years in which, by a rare intermission, there is no earthquake at 
 all. On the same principle we may note that during the nine 
 years following 1845, ^^d the nine years following 1857, there 
 was comparative, though not complete, freedom from military 
 insurrection in Spain. As to the residue of her political history, 
 my calculation is that between the first establishment of popular 
 government in 1812 and the accession of the present king, there 
 have been forty military risings of a serious nature, in most of 
 which the mob took part. Nine of them were perfectly success- 
 ful, either overthrowing the constitution for the time being, or 
 reversing the principles on which it was administered. I need 
 hardly say that both the queen regent, Christina, and her 
 daughter Isabella, were driven out of Spain by the army or the 
 fleet, with the help of the mob ; and that the present king, Al- 
 fonso, was placed on the throne through a military pronuncia- 
 niento at the end of 1874. It is generally thought that he owes 
 his retention of it since 1875 to statesmanship of a novel kind. 
 As soon as he has assured himself that the army is in earnest, he 
 changes his ministers. 
 
 The real beginning of popular or parliamentary government in 
 Germany and the Austrian dominions, other than Hungary, can- 
 not be placed earlier than 1848. The interest of German politics 
 
THE PROSPECTS OF POPULAR GOVERNMENT 387 
 
 from 181 5 to that year consists in the complaints, ever growing 
 fainter, of the German communities who sought to compel the 
 princes to redeem their promises of constitutions made during 
 the War of Independence, and of the efforts of the princes to es- 
 cape or evade their pledges. Francis the Second expressed the 
 prevailing feeling in his own way when he said to the Hungarian 
 Diet, "totus mundus stultizat, et vult habere novas constitu- 
 tiones." ^ With some exceptions in the smaller states there were 
 no parliamentary institutions in Germany till the King of Prussia 
 conceded, just before 1848, the singular form of constitutional 
 government which did not survive that year. But as soon as the 
 mob of Paris had torn up the French constitutional charter, 
 and expelled the constitutional king, mobs, with their usual 
 accompaniment, the army, began to influence German and even 
 Austrian politics. National assemblies, on the French pattern, 
 were called together at Berlin, at Vienna, and at Frankfort. All 
 of them were dispersed in about a year, and directly or indirectly 
 by the army. The more recent German and Austrian consti- 
 tutions are all of royal origin. Taking Europe as a whole, the 
 most durably successful experiments in popular government have 
 been made either in small States, too weak for foreign war, such 
 as Holland and Belgium,, or in countries like the Scandinavian 
 states, where there was an old tradition of political freedom. 
 The ancient Hungarian constitution has been too much afifected 
 by civil war for any assertion about it to be safe. Portugal, for 
 a while scarcely less troubled than Spain by military insurrection, 
 has been free from it of late ; and Greece has had the dynasty of 
 her kings once changed by revolution. 
 
 If we look outside Europe and beyond the circle of British de- 
 pendencies, the phenomena are much the same. The Civil War 
 of 1861-1865, in the United States, was as much a war of revolu- 
 tion as the war of 17 75-1 782. It was a war carried on by the 
 adherents of one set of principles and one construction of the 
 constitution against the adherents of another body of principles 
 
 ' The whole world is becoming foolish, and wishes to have new constitu- 
 tions. — Editors. 
 
388 HENRY SUMNER MAINE 
 
 and another constitutional doctrine. It would be absurd, how- 
 ever, to deny the relative stability of the government of the 
 United States, which is a political fact of the first importance; 
 but the inferences which might be drawn from it are much weak- 
 ened, if not destroyed, by the remarkable spectacle furnished by 
 the numerous republics set up from the Mexican border line to 
 the Straits of Magellan. It would take many of these pages even 
 to summarize the whole political history of the Spanish- American 
 communities. There have been entire periods of years during 
 which some of them have been disputed between the multitude 
 and the military, and again when tyrants, as brutal as Caligula or 
 Commodus, reigned over them like a Roman Emperor in the 
 name of the Roman people. It may be enough to say of one 
 of them, Bolivia, which was recently heard of through her part 
 in the war on the Pacific coast, that out of fourteen presidents of 
 the Bolivian republic thirteen have died assassinated or in 
 exile. ^ There is one partial explanation of the inattention of 
 English and European politicians to a most striking, instructive, 
 and uniform body of facts : Spanish — though, next to English, 
 it is the most widely diffused language of the civilized world — 
 is little read or spoken in England, France, or Germany. There 
 are, however, other theories to account for the universal and 
 scarcely intermitted political confusion which at times has 
 reigned in all Central and South America, save Chile and the 
 Brazilian Empire. It is said that the people are to a great extent 
 of Indian blood, and that they have been trained in Roman Ca- 
 tholicism. Such arguments would be intelligible if they were used 
 by persons who maintained that a highly special and exceptional 
 political education is essential to the successful practice of popu- 
 lar government ; but they proceed from those who believe that 
 there is at least a strong presumption in favor of democratic 
 institutions everywhere. And as regards the Roman Catholic 
 Church, it should at least be remembered that, whatever else it 
 may be, it is a great school of equality. 
 
 I have now given shortly the actual history of popular govern- 
 1 Arana, Guerre du Pacifique, vol. vii, p. 33. 
 
THE PROSPECTS OF POPULAR GOVERNMENT 389 
 
 ment since it was introduced, in its modem shape, into the civ- 
 ihzed world. I state the facts, as matter neither for congratu- 
 lation nor for lamentation, but simply as materials for opinion. 
 It is manifest that, so far as they go, they do little to support the 
 assumption that popular government has an indefinitely long 
 future before it. Experience rather tends to show that it is 
 characterized by great fragility, and that, since its appearance, 
 all forms of government have become more insecure than they 
 were before. The true reason why the extremely accessible facts 
 which I have noticed are so seldom observed and put together is 
 that the enthusiasts for popular government, particularly when 
 it reposes on a wide basis of suffrage, are actuated by much the 
 same spirit as the zealots of Legitimism. They assume their 
 principle to have a sanction antecedent to fact. It is not thought 
 to be in any way invalidated by practical violations of it, which 
 merely constitute so many sins the more against imprescriptable 
 right. The convinced partisans of democracy care little for in- 
 stances which show democratic governments to be unstable. 
 These are merely isolated triumphs of the principle of evil. But 
 the conclusion of the sober student of history will not be of this 
 kind. He will rather note it as a fact, to be considered in the 
 most serious spirit, that since the century during which the Ro- 
 man emperors were at the mercy of the praetorian soldiery, there 
 has been no such insecurity of government as the world has seen 
 since rulers become delegates of the community. 
 
 Is it possible to assign any reasons for this singular modern loss 
 of political equilibrium ? I think that it is possible to a certain 
 extent. It may be observed that two separate national senti- 
 ments have been acting on western Europe since the beginning 
 of the present century. To call them by names given to them 
 by those who dislike them, one is Imperialism and the other is 
 Radicalism. They are not in the least purely British forms of 
 opinion, but are coextensive with civilization. Almost all men 
 in our day are anxious that their country should be respected 
 of all and dependent on none, that it should enjoy greatness and 
 perhaps ascendancy ; and this passion for national dignity has gone 
 
390 HENRY SUMNER MAINE 
 
 hand in hand with the desire of the many, ever more and more 
 acquiesced in by the few, to have a share of political power under 
 the name of liberty, and to govern by rulers who are their dele- 
 gates. The two newest and most striking of political creations 
 in Europe, the German Empire and the Italian Kingdom, are 
 joint products of these forces. But for the first of these coveted 
 objects, imperial rank, great armies and fleets, are indispensable, 
 and it becomes ever more a necessity that the men under arms 
 should be nearly coextensive with the whole of the males in the 
 flower of life. It is yet to be seen how far great armies are consist- 
 ent with popular government resting on a wide suffrage. No two 
 organizations can be more opposed to one another than an army 
 scientifically disciplined and equipped, and a nation democrati- 
 cally governed. The great military virtue is obedience; the 
 great military sin is slackness in obeying. It is forbidden to 
 decline to carry out orders, even with the clearest conviction of 
 their inexpediency. But the chief democratic right is the right 
 to censure superiors ; public opinion, which means censure as 
 well as praise, is the motive force of democratic societies. The 
 maxims of the two systems flatly contradict one another, and the 
 man who would loyally obey both finds his moral constitution 
 cut into two halves. It has been found by recent experience that 
 the more popular the civil institutions, the harder it is to keep 
 the army from meddling with politics. Military insurrections 
 are made by officers, but not before every soldier has discovered 
 that the share of power which belongs to him as a unit in a regi- 
 ment is more valuable than his fragment of power as a unit in a 
 constituency. Military revolts are of universal occurrence ; but 
 far the largest number have occurred in Spain and the Spanish- 
 speaking countries. There have been ingenious explanations 
 of the phenomenon, but the manifest explanation is habit. An 
 army which has once interfered with politics is under a strong 
 temptation to interfere again. It is a far easier and far more 
 effective way of causing an opinion to prevail than going to a 
 ballot box, and far more profitable to the leaders. I may add 
 that, violent as is the improbability of military interference in some 
 
THE PROSPECTS OF POPULAR GOVERNMENT 391 
 
 countries, there is probably no country except the United States 
 in which the army could not control the government, if it were 
 of one mind and if it retained its military material. 
 
 Popular governments have been repeatedly overturned by the 
 army and the mob in combination ; but on the whole the violent 
 destruction of these governments in their more extreme forms 
 has been effected by the army, while in their more moderate 
 shapes they have had the mob for their principal assailant. It 
 is to be observed that in recent times mobs have materially 
 changed both their character and their method of attack. A 
 mob was once a portion of society in a state of dissolution, a col- 
 lection of people who for the time had broken loose from the ties 
 which bind society together. It may have had a vague prefer- 
 ence for some political or religious cause, but the spirit which 
 animated it was mainly one of mischief, or of disorder, or of panic. 
 But mobs have now come more and more to be the organs of 
 definite opinions. Spanish mobs have impartially worn all colors ; 
 but the French mob which overthrew the government of the elder 
 Bourbonsini830,whileithad a distinct poHtical object in its wish 
 to defeat the aggressive measures of the king, had a further bias 
 towards Ultra-Radicalism or Republicanism, which showed itself 
 strongly in the insurrectionary movements that followed the ac- 
 cession of Louis Philippe to the throne. The mob, which in 1848 
 overturned the government of the younger Bourbons, aimed at 
 establishing a republic, but it had also a leaning to socialism; 
 and the frightful popular insurrection of June, 1848, was entirely 
 socialistic. At present, whenever in Europe there is a disturb- 
 ance like those created by the old mobs, it is in the interest of the 
 parties which style themselves Irreconcilable, and which refuse 
 to submit their opinions to the arbitration of any governments, 
 however wide be the popular suffrage on which they are based. 
 But besides their character, mobs have changed their armament. 
 They formerly wrought destruction by the undisciplined force 
 of sheer numbers ; but the mob of Paris, the most successful of 
 all mobs, owed its success to the barricade. It has now lost this 
 advantage ; and a generation is coming to maturity, which per- 
 
392 HENRY SUMNER MAINE 
 
 haps will never have learned that the Paris of to-day has been 
 entirely constructed with the view of rendering forever impos- 
 sible the old barricade of paving stones in the narrow streets of 
 the demolished city. Still more recently, however, the mob has 
 obtained new arms. During the last quarter of a century, a 
 great part, perhaps the greatest part, of the inventive faculties 
 of mankind has been given to the arts of destruction ; and among 
 the newly discovered modes of putting an end to human Ufe on a 
 large scale, the most effective and terrible is a manipulation of 
 explosive compounds quite unknown till the other day. The 
 bomb of nitro-glycerine and the parcel of dynamite are as char- 
 acteristic of the new enemies of government as their Irrecon- 
 cilable opinions. 
 
 There can be no more formidable symptom of our time, and 
 none more menacing to popular -gcrv^ernment, than the growth 
 of Irreconcilable bodies within the mass of the population. 
 Church and State are alike convulsed by them ; but, in civil life, 
 Irreconcilables are associations of men who hold political opinions 
 as men once held religious opinions. They cling to their creed 
 with the same intensity of belief, the same immunity from doubt, 
 the same confident expectation of blessedness to come quickly 
 which characterizes the disciples of an infant faith. They are 
 doubtless a product of democratic sentiment; they have bor- 
 rowed from it its promise of a new and good time at hand ; but 
 they insist on the immediate redemption of the pledge, and they 
 utterly refuse to wait until a popular majority gives effect to their 
 opinions. Nor would the vote of such a majority have the least 
 authority with them, if it sanctioned any departure from their 
 principles. It is possible, and indeed likely, that if the Russians 
 voted by universal suffrage to-morrow, they would confirm the 
 imperial authority by enormous majorities ; but not a bomb nor 
 an ounce of dynamite would be spared to the reigning emperor 
 by the Nihilists. The Irreconcilables are of course at feud with 
 governments of the older type, but these governments make no 
 claim to their support ; on the other hand, they are a portion of 
 the governing body of democratic commonwealths, and from 
 
THE PROSPECTS OF POPULAR GOVERNMENT 393 
 
 this vantage ground they are able to inflict deadly injury on 
 popular government. There is in reahty no closer analogy than 
 between these infant political creeds and the belligerent religions 
 which are constantly springing up even now in parts of the 
 world ; for instance, that of the Tae-pings in China. Even in 
 our own country we may observe that the earliest political Ir- 
 reconcilables were religious or semireligious zealots. Such were 
 both the Independents and the Jacobites. Cromwell, who for 
 many striking reasons might have been a personage of a much 
 later age, was an Irreconcilable at the head of an army ; and we 
 all know what he thought of the Parliament which anticipated 
 the democratic assemblies of our day. 
 
 Of all modern Irreconcilables, the Nationalists appear to be 
 the most impracticable, and of all governments, popular govern- 
 ments seem least likely to cope with them successfully. Nobody 
 can say exactly what Nationalism is, and indeed the dangerous- 
 ness of the theory arises from its vagueness. It seems full of the 
 seeds of future civil convulsion. As it is sometimes put, it ap- 
 pears to assume that men of one particular race suffer injustice 
 if they are placed under the same political institutions with men 
 of another race. But Race is quite as ambiguous a term as Na- 
 tionality. The earlier philologists had certainly supposed that 
 the branches of mankind speaking languages of the same stock 
 were somehow connected by blood ; but no scholar now believes 
 that this is more than approximately true, for conquest, contact, 
 and the ascendancy of a particular literate class, have quite as 
 much to do with community of language as common descent. 
 Moreover, several of the communities claiming the benefit of the 
 new theory are certainly not entitled to it. The Irish are an 
 extremely mixed race, and it is only by a perversion of language 
 that the Italians can be called a race at all. The fact is that any 
 portion of a political society, which has had a somewhat different 
 history from the rest of the parts, can take advantage of the 
 theory and claim independence, and can thus threaten the entire 
 society with dismemberment. Where royal authority survives 
 in any vigor, it can to a certain extent deal with these demands. 
 
394 HENRY SUMNER MAINE 
 
 Almost all the civilized states derive their national unity from 
 common subjection, past or present, to royal power ; the Ameri- 
 cans of the United States, for example, are a nation because they 
 once obeyed a king. Hence too it is that such a miscellany of 
 races as those which make up the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy 
 can be held together, at all events temporarily, by the authority 
 of the emperor-king. But democracies are quite paralyzed 
 by the plea of Nationality. There is no more effective way of 
 attacking them than by admitting the right of the majority to 
 govern, but denying that the majority so entitled is the particular 
 majority which claims the right. 
 
 The difficulties of popular government, which arise from the 
 modern mihtary spirit and from the modern growth of Irrecon- 
 cilable parties, could not perhaps have been determined without 
 actual experience. But there are other difl&culties which might 
 have been divined, because they proceed from the inherent na- 
 ture of democracy. In stating some of them, I will endeavor to 
 avoid those which are suggested by mere dislike or alarm ; those 
 which I propose to specify were in reality noted more than two 
 centuries ago by the powerful intellect of Hobbes, and it will be 
 seen what light is thrown on some political phenomena of our 
 day by his searching analysis. 
 
 Political liberty, said Hobbes, is political power. When a man 
 burns to be free, he is not longing for the " desolate freedom of the 
 wild ass;" what he wants is a share of political government. 
 But, in wide democracies, political power is minced into morsels, 
 and each man's portion of it is almost inftnitesimally small. One 
 of the first results of this political comminution is described by 
 Mr. Justice Stephen in a work ^ of earlier date than that which I 
 have quoted above. It is that two of the historical watchwords 
 of Democracy exclude one another, and that, where there is 
 political Liberty, there can be no Equality. 
 
 " The man who can sweep the greatest number of fragments 
 of political power into one heap will govern the rest. The 
 strongest man in one form or another will always rule. If the 
 
 ' Liberty, Fraternity, and Equality, by Sir James Stephen, 1873, p. 239. 
 
THE PROSPECTS OF POPULAR GOVERNMENT 395 
 
 government is a military one, the qualities which make a man 
 a great soldier will make him a ruler. If the government is a 
 monarchy, the qualities which kings value in^ counselors, in 
 administrators, in generals, will give power. In a pure democ- 
 racy, the ruling men will be the wire-pullers and their friends ; 
 but they will be no more on an equality with the people than 
 soldiers or ministers of state are on an equality with the sub- 
 jects of a monarchy. ... In some ages, a powerful character, 
 in others cunning, in others power of transacting business, in 
 others eloquence, in others a good hold upon commonplaces 
 and a faciUty in applying them to practical purposes, will 
 enable a man to cHmb on his neighbors' shoulders and direct 
 them this way or that ; but under all circumstances the rank 
 and file are directed by leaders of one kind or another who get 
 the command of their collective force." 
 
 There is no doubt that, in popular governments resting on a 
 wide suffrage, either without an army or having Uttle reason to 
 fear it, the leader, whether or not he be cunning, or eloquent, or 
 well provided with commonplaces, will be the wire-puller. The 
 process of cutting up political power into petty fragments has in 
 him its most remarkable product. The morsels of power are so 
 small that men, if left to themselves, would not care to employ 
 them. In England, they would be largely sold, if the law per- 
 mitted it ; in the United States they are extensively sold in spite 
 of the law ; and in France, and to a less extent in England, the 
 number of "abstentions" shows the small value attributed to 
 votes. But the poUtical chiffonier^ who collects and utilizes the 
 fragments is the wire-puller. I think, however, that it is too 
 much the habit in this country to describe him as a mere organ- 
 izer, contriver, and manager. The particular mechanism which 
 he constructs is no doubt of much importance. The form of 
 this mechanism recently erected in this country has a close re- 
 semblance to the system of the Wesleyan Methodists ; one sys- 
 tem, however, exists for the purpose of keeping the spirit of 
 grace aflame, the other for maintaining the spirit of party at a 
 1 Ragman. — Editors. 
 
396 HENRY SUMNER MAINE 
 
 white heat. The wire-puller is not intelligible unless we take 
 into account one of the strongest forces acting on human nature 
 — party feeling. Party feeling is probably far more a survival of 
 the primitive combativeness of mankind than a consequence of 
 conscious intellectual differences between man and man. It is 
 essentially the same sentiment which in certain states of society 
 leads to civil, intertribal, or international war ; and it is as uni- 
 versal as humanity. It is better studied in its more irrational 
 manifestations than in those to which we are accustomed. It is 
 said that Australian savages will travel half over the Australian 
 continent to take in a fight the side of combatants who wear the 
 same totem as themselves. Two Irish factions who broke one 
 another's heads over the whole island are said to have originated 
 in a quarrel about the color of a cow. In southern India a 
 series of dangerous riots are constantly arising through the ri- 
 valry of parties who know no more of one another than that some 
 of them belong to the party of the right hand and others to that 
 of the left hand. Once a year, large numbers of English ladies 
 and gentlemen, who have no serious reason for preferring one 
 university to the other, wear dark or light blue colors to signify 
 good wishes for the success of Oxford or Cambridge in a cricket 
 match or boat race. Party differences, properly so-called, are 
 supposed to indicate intellectual, or moral, or historical prefer- 
 ences ; but these go a very little way down into the population ; 
 and by the bulk of partisans they are hardly understood and soon 
 forgotten. "Guelf " and "Ghibelline" had once a meaning, but 
 men were under perpetual banishment from their native land for 
 belonging to one or other of these parties long after nobody 
 knew in what the difference consisted. Some men are Tories or 
 Whigs by conviction ; but thousands upon thousands of electors 
 vote simply for yellow, blue, or purple, caught at most by the 
 appeals of some popular orator. 
 
 It is through this great natural tendency to take sides that the 
 wire-puller works. Without it he would be powerless. His 
 business is to fan its flame ; to keep it constantly acting upon 
 the man who has once declared himself a partisan; to make 
 
THE PROSPECTS OF POPULAR GOVERNMENT 397 
 
 escape from it difficult and distasteful. His art is that of the 
 nonconformist preacher, who gave importance to a body of 
 commonplace religionists by persuading them to wear a uniform 
 and take a military title, or of the man who made the success 
 of a temperance society by prevaihng on its members to wear 
 always and openly a blue ribbon. In the long run, these con- 
 trivances cannot be confined to any one party, and their effects 
 on all parties and their leaders, and on the whole ruling de- 
 mocracy, must be in the highest degree serious and lasting. The 
 first of these effects will be, I think, to make all parties very like 
 one another, and indeed in the end almost indistinguishable, 
 however leaders may quarrel and partisan hate partisan. In 
 the next place, each party will probably become more and more 
 homogeneous; and the opinions it professes, and the policy 
 which is the outcome of those opinions, will less and less reflect 
 the individual mind of any leader, but only the ideas which seem 
 to that mind to be most likely to win favor with the greatest 
 number of supporters. Lastly, the wire-pulling system, when 
 fully developed, will infallibly lead to the constant enlargement 
 of the area of suffrage. What is called universal suffrage has 
 greatly declined in the estimation, not only of philosophers 
 who follow Bentham, but of the a priori theorists who assumed 
 that it was the inseparable accompaniment of a republic, but 
 who found that in practice it was the natural basis of a tyranny. 
 But extensions of the suffrage, though no longer believed to be 
 good in themselves, have now a permanent place in the armory 
 of parties, and are sure to be a favorite weapon of the wire- 
 puller. The Athenian statesmen who, worsted in a quarrel 
 of aristocratic cliques, "took the people into partnership," 
 have a close parallel in the modern politicians who introduce 
 household suffrage into towns to "dish" one side, and into 
 counties to "dish" the other. 
 
 Let us now suppose the competition of parties, stimulated to 
 the utmost by the modern contrivances of the wire-puller, to 
 have produced an electoral system under which every adult 
 male has a vote, and perhaps every adult female. Let us 
 
398 HENRY SUMNER MAINE 
 
 assume that the new machinery has extracted a vote from every 
 one of these electors. How is the result to be expressed ? It is, 
 that the average opinion of a great multitude has been obtained, 
 and that this average opinion becomes the basis and standard of 
 all government and law. There is hardly any experience of the 
 way in which such a system would work, except in the eyes of 
 those who believe that history began since their own birth. The 
 universal suffrage of white males in the United States is about 
 fifty years old ; that of white and black is less than twenty. The 
 French threw away universal suffrage after the Reign of Terror ; 
 it was twice revived in France, that the Napoleonic tyranny 
 might be founded on it ; and it was introduced into Germany, 
 that the personal power of Prince Bismarck might be con- 
 firmed. But one of the strangest of vulgar ideas is that a very 
 wide suffrage could or would promote progress, new ideas, new 
 discoveries and inventions, new arts of life. Such a suffrage is 
 commonly associated with Radicalism; and no doubt amid its 
 most certain effects would be the extensive destruction of 
 existing institutions ; but the chances are that, in the long run, 
 it would produce a mischievous form of Conservatism, and drug 
 society with a potion compared with which Eldonine would be 
 a salutary draught. For to what end, towards what ideal 
 state, is the process of stamping upon law the average opinion 
 of an entire community directed ? The end arrived at is 
 identical with that of the Roman Catholic Church, which 
 attributes a similar sacredness to the average opinion of the 
 Christian world. "Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omni- 
 bus,"^ was the canon of Vincent of Lerins. "Securus judicat 
 orbis terrarum," ^ were the words which rang in the ears of 
 Newman and produced such marvelous effects on him. But did 
 any one in his senses ever suppose that these were maxims of 
 progress? The principles of legislation at which they point 
 would probably put an end to all social and political activities, 
 and arrest everything which has ever been associated with Liber- 
 
 1 What is approved always, everywhere, and by all. — • Editors. 
 
 2 The world is secure in its judgment. — Editors. 
 
THE PROSPECTS OF POPULAR GOVERNMENT 399 
 
 alism. A moment's reflection will satisfy any competently 
 instructed person that this is not too broad a proposition. Let 
 him turn over in his mind the great epochs of scientific invention 
 and social change during the last two centuries, and consider what 
 would have occurred if universal suffrage had been established 
 at any one of them. Universal suffrage, which to-day excludes 
 Free Trade from the United States, would certainly have pro- 
 hibited the spinning jenny and the power loom. It would 
 certainly have forbidden the threshing machine. It would have 
 prevented the adoption of the Gregorian calendar; and it 
 would have restored the Stuarts. It would have proscribed the 
 Roman Catholics with the mob which burned Lord Mansfield's 
 house and library in 1780, and it would have proscribed the Dis- 
 senters with the mob which burned Dr. Priestley's house and 
 library in 1791. 
 
 There are possibly many persons who, without denying these 
 conclusions in the past, tacitly assume that no such mistakes 
 will be committed in the future, because the community is 
 already too enlightened for them, and will become more en- 
 lightened through popular education. But without questioning 
 the advantages of popular education under certain aspects, its 
 manifest tendency is to diffuse popular commonplaces, to fasten 
 them on the mind at the time when it is most easily impressed, 
 and thus to stereotype average opinion. It is of course pos- 
 sible that universal suffrage would not now force on govern- 
 ments the same legislation which it would infallibly have 
 dictated a hundred years ago; but then we are necessarily 
 ignorant of what germs of social and material improvement 
 there may be in the womb of time, and how far they may con- 
 flict with the popular prejudice which hereafter will be omnip- 
 otent. There is in fact just enough evidence to show that even 
 now there is a marked antagonism between democratic opinion 
 and scientific truth as applied to human societies. The central 
 seat in all political economy was from the first occupied by the 
 theory of population. This theory has now been generalized by 
 Mr. Darwin and his followers, and, stated as the principle of 
 
400 HENRY SUMNER MAINE 
 
 the survival of the fittest, it has become the central truth of all 
 biological science. Yet it is evidently disliked by the multitude, 
 and thrust into the background by those whom the multitude 
 permits to lead it. It has long been intensely unpopular in 
 France and the continent of Europe; and, among ourselves, 
 proposals for recognizing it through the relief of distress by 
 emigration are visibly being supplanted by schemes founded on 
 the assumption that, through legislative experiments on society, 
 a given space of land may always be made to support in com- 
 fort the population which from historical causes has come to be 
 settled on it. 
 
 It is perhaps hoped that this opposition between democracy 
 and science, which certainly does not promise much for the 
 longevity of popular government, may be neutralized by the 
 ascendancy of instructed leaders. Possibly the proposition 
 would not be very unsafe, that he who calls himself a friend of 
 democracy because he believes that it will be always under wise 
 guidance is in reality, whether he knows it or not, an enemy of 
 democracy. But at all events the signs of our times are not at 
 all of favorable augury for the future direction of great multi- 
 tudes by statesmen wiser than themselves. The relation of 
 political leaders to political followers seems to me to be under- 
 going a twofold change. The leaders may be as able and elo- 
 quent as ever, and some of them certainly appear to have an 
 unprecedentedly "good hold upon commonplaces, and a facility 
 in applying them ;" but they are manifestly listening nervously 
 at one end of a speaking tube which receives at its other end 
 the suggestions of a lower intelligence. On the other hand, the 
 followers, who are really the rulers, are manifestly becoming 
 impatient of the hesitations of their nominal chiefs, and the 
 wrangling of their representatives. I am very desirous of 
 keeping aloof from questions disputed between the two great 
 English parties; but it certainly seems to me that all over Con- 
 tinental Europe, and to some extent in the United States, parlia- 
 mentary debates are becoming ever more formal and perfunc- 
 tory, they are more and more liable to being peremptorily cut 
 
THE PROSPECTS OF POPULAR GOVERNMENT 401 
 
 short, and the true springs of policy are more and more limited 
 to clubs and associations deep below the level of the highest 
 education and experience. There is one state or group of states, 
 whose political condition deserves particular attention. This is 
 Switzerland, a country to which the student of politics may 
 always look with advantage for the latest forms and results of 
 democratic experiment. About forty years ago, just when Mr. 
 Grote was giving to the world the earliest volumes of his 
 History of Greece, he pubUshed Seven Letters on the Recent 
 Politics of Switzerland, explaining that his interest in the Swiss 
 cantons arose from their presenting "a certain analogy nowhere 
 else to be found in Europe" to the ancient Greek states. Now, 
 if Grote had one object more than another at heart in writing his 
 history, it was to show, by the example of the Athenian de- 
 mocracy, that wide popular governments, so far from meriting 
 the reproach of fickleness, are sometimes characterized by the 
 utmost tenacity of attachment, and will follow the counsels 
 of a wise leader, Uke Pericles, at the cost of any amount of suffer- 
 ing, and may even be led by an unwise leader, like Nicias, to the 
 very verge of destruction. But he had the acuteness to discern 
 in Switzerland the particular democratic institution which was 
 likely to tempt democracies into dispensing with prudent and 
 independent direction. He speaks with the strongest disap- 
 proval of a provision in the constitution of Lucerne, by which 
 all laws passed by the Legislative Council were to be submitted 
 for veto or sanction to the vote of the people throughout the 
 canton. This was originally a contrivance of the ultra-Catholic 
 party, and was intended to neutralize the opinions of the Catholic 
 Liberals by bringing to bear on them the average opinion of the 
 whole cantonal population. A year after Mr. Grote had pub- 
 lished his Seven Letters, \h.e French Revolution of 1848 occurred, 
 and three years later, the violent overthrow of the democratic 
 institutions established by the French National Assembly was 
 consecrated by the very method of voting which he had con- 
 demned, under the name of the Plebiscite. The arguments of 
 the French Liberal party against the Plebiscite, during the 
 
402 HENRY SUMNER MAINE 
 
 twenty years of stern despotism which it entailed upon France 
 have always appeared to me to be arguments in reality against 
 the very principle of democracy. After the misfortunes of 
 1870, the Bonapartes and the .Plebiscite were alike involved in 
 the deepest unpopularity ; but it seems impossible to doubt that 
 Gambetta, by his agitation for the scrutin de liste, was attempting 
 to recover as much as he could of the plebiscitary system of 
 voting. Meantime, it has become, in various shapes, one of 
 the most characteristic of Swiss institutions. One article of the 
 federal constitution provides that, if fifty thousand Swiss citi- 
 zens, entitled to vote, demand the revision of the constitution, 
 the question whether the constitution be revised shall be put to 
 the vote of the people of Switzerland, "aye" or "no." Another 
 enacts that, on the petition of thirty thousand citizens, every 
 federal law and every federal decree, which is not urgent, 
 shall be subject to the referendiim; that is, it shall be put to 
 the popular vote. These provisions, that when a certain num- 
 ber of voters demand a particular measure, or require a further 
 sanction for a particular enactment, it shall be put to the vote 
 of the whole country, seem to me to have a considerable future 
 before them in democratically governed societies. When Mr. 
 Labouchere told the House of Commons in 1882 that the people 
 were tired of the deluge of debate, and would some day substitute 
 for it the direct consultation of the constituencies, he had more facts 
 to support his opinion than his auditors were perhaps aware of. 
 
 Here then we have one great inherent infirmity of popular 
 governments, an infirmity deducible from the principle of 
 Hobbes, that liberty is power cut into fragments. Popular 
 governments can only be worked by a process which inciden- 
 tally entails the further subdivision of the morsels of political 
 power; and thus the tendency of these governments, as they 
 widen their electoral basis, is towards a dead level of common- 
 place opinion, which they are forced to adopt as the standard 
 of legislation and policy. The evils likely to be thus produced 
 are rather those vulgarly associated with ultra-Conservatism 
 than those of ultra-Radicalism. So far indeed as the human 
 
THE PROSPECTS OF POPULAR GOVERNMENT 403 
 
 race has experience, it is not by political societies in any way 
 resembling those now called democracies that human improve- 
 ment has been carried on. History, said Strauss — and, con- 
 sidering his actual part in life, this is perhaps the last opinion 
 which might have been expected from him — History is a sound 
 aristocrat.^ There may be oligarchies close enough and jealous 
 enough to stifle thought as completely as an Oriental despot 
 who is at the same time the pontiff of a religion ; but the prog- 
 ress of mankind has hitherto been effected by the rise and fall of 
 aristocracies, by the formation of one aristocracy within another, 
 or by the succession of one aristocracy to another. There have 
 been so-called democracies which haVe rendered services beyond 
 price to civilization, but they were only peculiar forms of aris- 
 tocracy. The short-lived Athenian democracy, under whose 
 shelter art, science, and philosophy shot so wonderfully up- 
 wards, was only an aristocracy which rose on the ruins of one 
 much narrower. The splendor which attracted the original 
 genius of the then civilized world to Athens was provided by the 
 severe taxation of a thousand subject cities ; and the skilled 
 laborers who worked under Phidias, and who built the Parthe- 
 non, were slaves. 
 
 The infirmities of popular government, which consist in its 
 occasional wanton destructiveness, have been frequently dwelt 
 upon and require^ less attention. In the long run, the most 
 interesting question which they suggest is, to what social results 
 does the progressive overthrow of existing institutions promise 
 to conduct mankind? I will again quote Mr. Labouchere, 
 who is not the less instructive because he may perhaps be sus- 
 pected of taking a certain malicious pleasure in stating roundly 
 what many persons who employ the same political watchwords 
 as himself are reluctant to say in public, and possibly shrink 
 from admitting to themselves in their own minds. 
 
 ^ The opinion of Strauss appears to be shared by M. Ernest Renan. It 
 occurs twice in the singular piece which he calls Caliban. "Toute civilisa- 
 tion est d'origine aristocratique " (p. 77). "Toute civilisation est I'cEuvre 
 des aristocrates " (p. 91). 
 
404 HENRY SUMNER MAINE 
 
 "Democrats are told that they are dreamers, and why? 
 Because they assert that, if power be placed in the hands of 
 the many, the many will exercise it for their own benefit. Is 
 it not a still wilder dream to suppose that the many will in 
 future possess power, and use it not to secure what they con- 
 sider to be their interests, but to serve those of others ? . . . 
 Is it imagined that artisans in our great manufacturing towns 
 are so satisfied with their present position that they will hurry 
 to the polls, to register their votes in favor of a system which 
 divides us socially, politically, and economically, into classes, 
 and places them at the bottom with hardly a possibility of 
 rising ? , . . Is the lot (of the agricultural laborer) so happy 
 a one that he will humbly and cheerfully afiix his cross to the 
 name of the man who tells him that it can never be changed 
 for the better ? . . . We know that artisans and agricultural 
 laborers will approach the consideration of political and social 
 problems with fresh and vigorous minds. . . . For the mo- 
 ment, we demand the equalization of the franchise. . . . Our 
 next demands will be electoral districts, cheap elections, pay- 
 ment of members, and abolition of hereditary legislators. 
 When our demands are complied with, we shall be thankful, 
 but we shall not rest. On the contrary, having forged an 
 instrument for democratic legislation, we shall use it." ^ 
 
 The persons who charged Mr. Labouchere with dreaming 
 because he thus predicted the probable course, and defined the 
 natural principles, of future democratic legislation, seem to 
 me to have done him much injustice. His forecast of political 
 events is extremely rational ; and I cannot but agree with him 
 in thinking it absurd to suppose that, if the hard-toiled and the 
 needy, the artisan and the agricultural laborer, become the 
 depositaries of power, and if they can find agents through whom 
 it becomes possible for them to exercise it, they will not employ 
 it for what they may be led to believe are their own interests. 
 But in an inquiry whether, independently of the alarm or enthu- 
 siasm which they excite in certain persons or classes, democratic 
 ^ Fortnightly Review, March i, 1883. 
 
THE PROSPECTS OF POPULAR GOVERNMENT 405 
 
 institutions contain any seed of dissolution or extinction, Mr. 
 Labouchere's speculation becomes most interesting just where it 
 stops. What is to be the nature of the legislation by which the 
 lot of the artisan and of the agricultural laborer is to be not 
 merely altered for the better, but exchanged for whatever 
 station and fortune they may think it possible to confer on them- 
 selves by their own supreme authority? Mr. Labouchere's 
 language, in the above passage and in other parts of his paper, 
 like that of many persons who agree with him in the belief that 
 government can indefinitely increase human happiness, un- 
 doubtedly suggests the opinion that the stock of good things in 
 the world is practically unlimited in quantity, that it is (so to 
 speak) contained in a vast storehouse or granary, and that out 
 of this it is now doled in unequal shares and unfair proportions. 
 It is this unfairness and inequality which democratic law will 
 some day correct. Now I am not concerned to deny that, at 
 various times during the history of mankind, narrow oligarchies 
 have kept too much of the wealth of the world to themselves, 
 or that false economical systems have occasionally diminished 
 the total supply of wealth, and, by their indirect operation, have 
 caused it to be irrationally distributed. Yet nothing is more 
 certain than that the mental picture which enchains the en- 
 thusiasts for benevolent democratic government is altogether 
 false, and that, if the mass of mankind were to make an attempt 
 at redividing the common stock of good things, they would 
 resemble, not a number of claimants insisting on the fair division 
 of a fund, but a mutinous crew, feasting on a ship's provisions, 
 gorging themselves on the meat and intoxicating themselves 
 with the liquors, but refusing to navigate the vessel to port. 
 It is among the simplest of economical truths, that far the largest 
 part of the wealth of the world is constantly perishing by con- 
 sumption, and that, if it be not renewed by perpetual toil and 
 adventure, either the human race, or the particular community 
 making the experiment of resting without being thankful, will 
 be extinguished or brought to the very verge of extinction. 
 This position, although it depends in part on a truth of which. 
 
4o6 HENRY SUMNER MAINE 
 
 according to John Stuart Mill/ nobody is habitually aware 
 who has not bestowed some thought on the matter, admits of 
 very simple illustration. It used to be a question hotly debated 
 among economists how it was that countries recovered with such 
 surprising rapidity from the effects of the most destructive and 
 desolating wars. "An enemy lays waste a country by fire and 
 sword, and destroys or carries away nearly all the movable 
 wealth existing in it, and yet, in a few years after, everything 
 is much as it was before." Mill,^ following Chalmers, gives the 
 convincing explanation that nothing in such a case has hap- 
 pened which would not have occurred in any circumstances. 
 "What the enemy has destroyed would have been destroyed in 
 a little time by the inhabitants themselves; the wealth which 
 they so rapidly reproduce would have needed to be reproduced 
 and would have been reproduced in any case, and probably in 
 as short an interval." In fact, the fund by which the life of the 
 human race and of each particular society is sustained, is never 
 in a statical condition. It is no more in that condition than is 
 a cloud in the sky, which is perpetually dissolving and perpet- 
 ually renewing itself. "Everything which is produced is con- 
 sumed ; both what is saved and what is said to be spent ; and 
 the former quite as rapidly as the latter." The wealth of man- 
 kind is the result of a continuing process, everywhere complex 
 and delicate, and nowhere of such complexity and delicacy as 
 in the British Islands. So long as this process goes on under 
 existing influences, it is not, as we have seen, interrupted by 
 earthquake, flood, or war ; and, at each of its steps, the wealth 
 which perishes and revives has a tendency to increase. But 
 if we alter the character or diminish the force of these influences, 
 are we sure that wealth, instead of increasing, will not dwindle 
 and perhaps disappear ? Mill notes an exception to the revival 
 of a country after war. It may be depopulated, and if there 
 are not men to carry it on, the process of reproduction will 
 stop. But may it not be arrested by any means short of exter- 
 minating the population ? An experience, happily now rare in 
 1 Mill, Principles of Political Economy, i, 5. 5. ^ Ibid., i, 5. 7. 
 
THE PROSPECTS OF POPULAR GOVERNMENT 407 
 
 the world, shows that wealth may come very near to perishing 
 through diminished energy in the motives of the men who repro- 
 duce it. You may, so to speak, take the heart and spirit out 
 of the laborers to such an extent that they do not care to work. 
 Jeremy Bentham observed about a century ago that the Turkish 
 government had in his day impoverished some of the richest 
 countries in the world far- more by its action on motives than by 
 its positive exactions ; and it has always appeared to me that 
 the destruction of the vast wealth accumulated under the 
 Roman Empire, one of the most orderly and efficient of govern- 
 ments, and the decline of western Europe into the squalor and 
 poverty of the Middle Ages, can only be accounted for on the 
 same principle. The failure of reproduction through relaxation 
 of motives was once an everyday phenomenon in the East ; 
 and this explains to students of Oriental history why it is that 
 throughout its course a reputation for statesmanship was always 
 a reputation for financial statesmanship. In the early days of 
 the East India Company, villages "broken by a severe settle- 
 ment" were constantly calling for the attention of the govern- 
 ment ; the assessment on them did not appear to be excessive 
 on English fiscal principles, but it had been heavy enough to 
 press down the motives to labor, so that they could barely recover 
 themselves. The phenomenon, however, is not confined to the 
 East, where no doubt the motives to toil are more easily affected 
 than in western societies. No later than the end of the last 
 century, large portions of the French peasantry ceased to culti- 
 vate their land, and large numbers of French artisans declined 
 to work, in despair at the vast requisitions of the Revolutionary 
 Government during the Reign of Terror ; and, as might be 
 expected, the penal law had to be called in to compel their return 
 to their ordinary occupations.^ 
 
 It is perfectly possible, I think, as Mr. Herbert Spencer has 
 shown in a recent admirable volume,^ to revive even in our day 
 
 1 Taine, Origines de la France Contemporaine, torn, iii., "La Revolution." 
 See, as to artisans, p. 75 (note), and as to cultivators, p. 511. 
 
 2 Herbert Spencer, The Man versus the State. London, 1884. 
 
4o8 HENRY SUMNER MAINE 
 
 the fiscal tyranny which once left even European populations in 
 doubt whether it was worth while preser\dng life by thrift and 
 toil. You have only to tempt a portion of the population into 
 temporary idleness by promising them a share in a fictitious 
 hoard lying (as Mill puts it) in an imaginary strong box which 
 is supposed to contain all human wealth. You have only to 
 take the heart out of those who would willingly labor and save 
 by taxing them ad misericordiam for the most laudable phil- 
 anthropic objects. For it makes not the smallest difference to 
 the motives of the thrifty and industrious part of mankind 
 whether their fiscal oppressor be an Eastern despot, or a feudal 
 baron, or a democratic legislature, and whether they are taxed 
 for the benefit of a corporation called Society, or for the advan- 
 tage of an individual styled King or Lord. Here then is the 
 great question about democratic legislation, when carried to 
 more than a moderate length. How will it affect human mo- 
 tives? What motives will it substitute for those now acting 
 on men ? The motives, which at present impel mankind to the 
 labor and pain which produce the resuscitation of wealth in 
 ever-increasing quantities, are such as infallibly to entail in- 
 equality in the distribution of wealth. They are the springs 
 of action called into activity by the strenuous and never-ending 
 struggle for existence, the beneficent private war which makes 
 one man strive to climb on the shoulders of another and remain 
 there through the law of the survival of the fittest. 
 
 These truths are best exemplified in the part of the world to 
 which the superficial thinker would perhaps look for the triumph 
 of the opposite principle. The United States have justly been 
 called the home of the disinherited of the earth; but, if those 
 vanquished under one sky in the struggle for existence had not 
 continued under another the same battle in which they had been 
 once worsted, there would have been no such exploit performed 
 as the cultivation of the vast American territory from end to 
 end and from side to side. There could be no grosser delusion 
 than to suppose this result to have been attained by democratic 
 legislation. It has really been obtained through the sifting out 
 
THE PROSPECTS OF POPULAR GOVERNMENT 409 
 
 of the strongest by natural selection. The government of the 
 United States, which I examine in another part of this volume, 
 now rests on universal suffrage, but then it is only a political 
 government. It is a government under which coercive restraint, 
 except in politics, is reduced to a minimum. There has hardly 
 ever before been a community in which the weak have been 
 pushed so pitilessly to the wall, in which those who have suc- 
 ceeded have so uniformly been the strong, and in which in so short 
 a time there has arisen so great an inequality of private fortune 
 and domestic luxury. And at the same time, there has never 
 been a country in which, on the whole, the persons distanced 
 in the race have suffered so little from their ill-success. All this 
 beneficent prosperity is the fruit of recognizing the principle 
 of population, and the one remedy for its excess in perpetual 
 emigration. It all reposes on the sacredness of contract and the 
 stability of private property, the first the implement, and the 
 last the reward, of success in the universal competition. These, 
 however, are all principles and institutions which the British 
 friends of the "artisan " and " agricultural laborer " seem not a little 
 inclined to treat as their ancestors did agricultural and industrial 
 machinery. The Americans are still of opinion that more is 
 to be got for human happiness by private energy than by public 
 legislation. The Irish, however, even in the United States, are 
 of another opinion, and the Irish opinion is manifestly rising 
 into favor here. But on the question, whether future democratic 
 legislation will follow the new opinion, the prospects of popular 
 government to a great extent depend. There are two sets of 
 motives, and two only, by which the great bulk of the materials 
 of human subsistence and comfort have hitherto been produced 
 and reproduced. One has led to the cultivation of the territory 
 of the Northern States of the American Union, from the Atlantic 
 to the Pacific. The other had a considerable share in bringing 
 about the industrial and agricultural progress of the Southern 
 States, and in old days it produced the wonderful prosperity of 
 Peru under the Incas. One system is economical competition ; 
 the other consists in the daily task, perhaps fairly and kindly 
 
4IO HENRY SUMNER MAINE 
 
 allotted, but enforced by the prison or the scourge. So far as 
 we have any experience to teach us, we are driven to the conclu- 
 sion that every society of men must adopt one system or the 
 other, or it will pass through penury to starvation. 
 
 I have thus shown that popular governments of the modern 
 type have not hitherto proved stable as compared with other 
 forms of political rule, and that they include certain sources of 
 weakness which do not promise security for them in the near 
 or remote future. My chief conclusion can only be stated nega- 
 tively. There is not at present sufficient evidence to warrant 
 the common belief that these governments are likely to be of 
 indefinitely long duration. There is, however, one positive 
 conclusion from which no one can escape who bases a forecast 
 of the prospects of popular government, not on moral preference 
 or a priori assumption, but on actual experience as witness by 
 history. If there be any reason for thinking that constitutional 
 freedom will last, it is a reason furnished by a particular set of 
 facts, with which Englishmen ought to be familiar, but of which 
 many of them, under the empire of prevailing ideas, are exceed- 
 ingly apt to miss the significance. The British constitution 
 has existed for a considerable length of time, and therefore free 
 institutions generally may continue to exist. I am quite aware 
 that this will seem to some a commonplace conclusion, perhaps as 
 commonplace as the conclusion of M. Taine, who, after describ- 
 ing the conquest of all France by the Jacobin Club, declares that 
 his inference is so simple, that he hardly ventures to state it. 
 "Jusqua'a present, je n'ai guere trouve qu'un (principe) si 
 simple qu'il semblera pueril et que j'ose a peine I'enoncer. II 
 consiste tout entier dans cette remarque, qu'une societe humaine, 
 surtout une societe moderne, est une chose vaste et compliquee." ^ 
 This observation, that "a human society, and particularly a 
 
 1 Up to the present I have found scarcely more than a single generaliza- 
 tion, which is so simple that it will seem childish, and that I hardly ven- 
 ture to pronounce it. It consists wholly in this observation : that a human 
 society, especially a modern society, is a thing vast and complicated. — • 
 Editors. 
 
THE PROSPECTS OF POPULAR GOVERNMENT 411 
 
 modern society, is a vast and complicated thing," is in fact the 
 very proposition which Burke enforced with all the splendor 
 of his eloquence and all the power of his argument; but, as 
 Taine says, it may now seem to some too simple and common- 
 place to be worth putting into words. In the same way, many 
 persons in whom familiarity has bred contempt, may think it a 
 trivial observation that the British constitution, if not (as some 
 call it) a holy thing, is a thing unique and remarkable. A series 
 of undesigned changes brought it to such a condition that satis- 
 faction and impatience, the two great sources of political conduct, 
 were both reasonably gratified under it. In this condition it 
 became, not r netap jiorically but literally, the envy of the 
 world, and the world took on all sides to cop3dng it. The 
 imitations have not been generally happy. One nation alone, 
 consisting of Englishmen, has practiced a modification of it 
 successfully, amidst abounding material plenty. It is not too 
 much to say, that the only evidence worth mentioning for the 
 duration of popular government is to be found in the success 
 of the British constitution during two centuries under special 
 conditions, and in the success of the American constitution 
 during one century under conditions still more peculiar and more 
 unlikely to recur. Yet, so far as our own constitution is con- 
 cerned, that nice balance of attractions, which caused it to move 
 evenly on its stately path, is perhaps destined to be disturbed. 
 One of the forces governing it may gain dangerously at the 
 expense of the other ; but the British political system, with the 
 national greatness and material prosperity attendant on it, 
 may yet be launched into space and find its last affinities in 
 silence and cold. 
 
XIV 
 ETHICS OF CORPORATE MANAGEMENT i 
 
 Arthur Twining Hadley 
 
 [Arthur Twining Hadley (1856-) has been all his life associated with 
 Yale University, as student, tutor, instructor, professor, and since 1899 as 
 its president. President Hadley's special field of interest has been political 
 science and political economy, particularly the practical questions of rail- 
 roads and transportation, on which he is regarded as one of the first 
 authorities in the country. For this reason he was appointed by President 
 Taft in 1910 as head of the Railroad Securities Commission. 
 
 The following address on the Ethics of Corporate Management emphasizes 
 the importance of high moral standards in business relations, an idea which 
 is expressed in many of the author's writings and addresses. This point of 
 view underlies the whole of President Hadley's treatment of the problems 
 of monopoly. These problems, he thinks, cannot be effectively solved 
 either by restrictive legislation or by any of the patent schemes for indus- 
 trial reform, but only by the cultivation of a wider sense of responsibility 
 and fair deahiig on the part of corporations. 
 
 The Ethics of Corporate M anagement was one of the Kennedy Lectures for 
 1906, in the School of Philanthropy, New York. It was first pubUshed in 
 the North American, January, 1907, and in the same year included with 
 the other lectures of the series in the author's Standards of Public 
 Morality.] 
 
 When I go to a responsible store to make a purchase, I have 
 every reason to believe that the price charged will be a fair one. 
 I may not like the goods ; I may not feel that I can afford the 
 price ; but if I like the goods and can afford the price, I assume 
 that I am not being cheated. The competition of different estab- 
 lishments makes the general scale of charges just; and public 
 sentiment in favor of a one-price system assures me that I shall 
 
 ' Reprinted by permission from Standards of Public Morality, by Arthur 
 Twining Hadley (The Macmillan Co.). 
 
 412 
 
ETHICS OF CORPORATE MANAGEMENT 
 
 413 
 
 have the benefit of this general scale of charges in my own par- 
 ticular case. 
 
 If I go to a bank to borrow money on good security, I have the 
 same feeling. The competition of responsible borrowers on the 
 one hand, and responsible lenders on the other, makes a fair 
 interest rate at which the number of those who can give good 
 security for the management of other people's capital absorbs 
 the ofiferings of those who are willing to lend their money. Or, 
 if I try to sell my services in any of the recognized lines of 
 industry, I have confidence that both the self-interest and self- 
 respect of the man with whom I am dealing will lead him to offer 
 me a fair market rate, and that the scale of wages or fees thus 
 created will be more advantageous on the whole than anything 
 which could be devised by law. 
 
 Of course there are numerous exceptions. The man or woman 
 who hires a cab is by no means certain that the self-respect of the 
 cabman will lead him to believe in a one-price system ; and while 
 the competition of different cabs with one another may make a 
 fair enough average rate of compensation, there is great probabil- 
 ity that extortion will be practiced in individual instances. 
 Therefore the law steps in to regulate the price of cabs. The 
 man or woman who has occasion to borrow of a pawnbroker has 
 no assurance that the pawnbroker will believe in a one-price 
 system or give the benefit of a market rate of interest. Hence 
 there is a good deal of well-founded demand for usury laws. The 
 only reason why we do not have them is because the advocates 
 of such laws generally object to interest in itself, rather than to 
 extortionate variations from market rates of interest. 
 
 But the most important cases of departure from the one-price 
 system, and of apparent need of some further protection than is 
 given by competition, do not come in connection with cabs or 
 pawnbrokers or other minor industries of any kind. They come 
 in connection with the dealings of large corporations which 
 obtain a monopoly of the market for some line of goods or 
 services. 
 
 In his charmingly practical book on Politics, Aristotle tells 
 
414 ARTHUR TWINING HADLEY 
 
 two stories which are of perennial interest to the student of 
 industrial combination. In the first of these he relates how 
 Thales of Miletus was a great philosopher, but was reproached 
 by his neighbors because he was not as rich as they were. By 
 his acquaintance with astronomy, Thales foresaw that there 
 would be large crops of olives ; and he purchased all the olive 
 presses of Miletus, depositing a very small sum in each case so 
 as to make the transaction complete. When the olives were 
 ripe, behold ! there was no one but Thales to rent men the 
 presses whereby they might make their oil ; and Thales, who was 
 thus able to charge what price he pleased, realized an enormous 
 sum. He did this, says Aristotle, not because he cared for the 
 money, but to show his neighbors that a philosopher can be 
 richer than anybody else if he wants to, and if he is not, it simply 
 proves that he has more worthy objects of contemplation. 
 
 There was a man in Syracuse, Aristotle goes on to say, in the 
 days of Dionysius the Tyrant, who bought all the iron in Sicily 
 on so narrow a margin that without raising the price very much 
 he was able to make twice the amount of his total investment in a 
 short time. When Dionysius the Tyrant heard of this, he was 
 pleased with the ingenuity of the man ; and he told him that he 
 might keep his money, but that he had better leave Syracuse. 
 
 These stories show plainly enough that monopolies are no new 
 thing ; that more than two thousand years ago there was a 
 Standard Oil Company of Asia Minor and a United States Steel 
 Corporation of Sicily; and that the President of the United 
 States is by no means the first monarch who has addressed him- 
 self somewhat aggressively to the problem of trust regulation. 
 But in ancient times these monopolies of producers or merchants 
 were an exception ; now they are becoming the general rule. 
 
 The development of the power loom and the spinning machine 
 in the middle of the eighteenth century, followed shortly by that 
 of the steam engine, substituted a system of centralized industry, 
 where a number of people work together, for the scattered in- 
 dustry of the older times, where people worked separately. The 
 invention of the steamship and the railroad enabled the large 
 
ETHICS OF CORPORATE MANAGEMENT 415 
 
 factories of modern times to send their goods all over the world, 
 and allowed the establishments to increase in size as long as any 
 economy in production was to be gained by such an increase. 
 The capital required for these large industries was far beyond the 
 power of any one man or any small group of partners to furnish. 
 The modern industrial corporation, with free transfer of stock, 
 limited liability of the shareholders, and representative govern- 
 ment through a board of directors, was developed as a means of 
 meeting this need for capital. Men who could take no direct 
 part in the management of an industrial enterprise, and whose 
 capital was only a very small fraction of what was needed for the 
 purpose, could, under the system of limited liability, safely 
 associate themselves with a hundred or a thousand others to 
 take the chance of profit which concentration of capital afforded. 
 
 These industrial units soon became so large that a single one of 
 them was able to supply the whole market. Competition was 
 done away with, and monopoly took its place. This effect was 
 first felt in the case of railroad transportation. You could not 
 generally have the choice between two independent lines of rail- 
 road, because business which would furnish a profit to one line 
 was generally quite inadequate to support a second. Nor could 
 you hope for the competition of different owners of locomotives 
 and cars on the same line of track, because of the opportunities for 
 accident and loss to which such a system was exposed. In Eng- 
 land, indeed, they were impressed with the analogy of a railroad 
 to a turnpike or canal, and for nearly half a century after the 
 establishment of railroads they made all their laws on the sup- 
 position that cars and locomotives would be owned by different 
 people. But the failure of these laws, when so persistently en- 
 acted and backed by a conservatism of feeling so strong as that 
 of the English nation, is the best proof of the impracticability of 
 the scheme. By 1850 it became pretty clear that most railroads 
 had a monopoly of their local business. By 1870 the conse- 
 quences of this monopoly had become quite clearly apparent. 
 
 These consequences were in some respects good and in some 
 respects bad. The railroad managers were quick to introduce 
 
41 6 ARTHUR TWINING HADLEY 
 
 improvements and to effect economy of organization. These im- 
 provements allowed them to make rates very low on long-dis- 
 tance business in general, and particularly on business which 
 came into competition with other railroads or with water routes. 
 But the extreme lowness of these through rates only emphasized 
 the glaring inequality between the treatment of the through or 
 competitive business, and the local business of which the railroad 
 had a monopoly. On the old turnpike the cost of transportation 
 had been high, but the shipper could rely upon the price as fair. 
 There was always enough competition between different carriers 
 to prevent them from making extortionate profits on any one 
 shipment. On the railroad which took the place of the turnpike 
 the cost of transportation was very much lower, but there was 
 no assurance whatever of fairness. The local rates were some- 
 times kept two or three times as high as the through ones ; and 
 the shipper had to see carloads of freight hauled to market past 
 his house from more distant points at twenty-five dollars a car- 
 load, when he himself was paying fifty dollars a carload for but 
 a part of the same haulage. Nor was this the worst. Arbitrary 
 differences between places were bad enough; but there was a 
 similar discrimination between different persons in the same place. 
 The local freight agent was a sort of almoner of the corporation. 
 The man who gained his ear, whether by honest means or not, got 
 a low rate. The man who failed to get the ear of the freight 
 agent had to pay a much higher rate for the same service. 
 
 In this country things were at their worst in the years imme- 
 diately following the Civil War. While we had a one-price sys- 
 tem in the trade of the country, both wholesale and retail, and in 
 its banking, and to a large degree in its labor market, the whole 
 system of American railroad rates was run on principles which a 
 decently conducted store would have scorned to admit into its 
 management. Our industrial methods had changed too fast for 
 our ethics to keep pace with them. In the old-fashioned lines 
 of business people were allowed to charge what prices they 
 pleased, because competition kept their power of making mis- 
 takes within narrow limits. In the local railroad freight business 
 
ETHICS OF CORPORATE MANAGEMENT 417 
 
 competition was done away with, and the managers did not see 
 the necessity of substituting any other legal or moral restraint in 
 its stead. In fact, they asserted a constitutional right to be free 
 of all other legal or moral restraints. They regarded the liberty 
 to serve the public in their own way, which had been allowed 
 them under the competitive system, as carrying with it a right 
 to hurt the public in their own way when the protection of compe- 
 tition was done away with. Instead of seeing that the constitu- 
 tional rights for the protection of property had grown up because 
 property was wisely used, they asserted that it was none of the 
 public's business how they used the property, as long as they kept 
 within the letter of the Constitution. 
 
 Of course this arbitrary exercise of power provoked a reaction. 
 The state legislatures of the Mississippi Valley passed the various 
 Granger laws which were placed on their statute books from 1870 
 to 1875.^ These laws represented an attempt to reduce rates as 
 unintelligent and crude as had been the attempts of the railroad 
 agents to maintain rates. In the conflict of constitutional au- 
 thority, the courts on the whole took the side of the legislature 
 more than they did that of the railroads ; and the ill-judged laws 
 regulating railroad charges, which could not be repealed until 
 several years too late, were an important factor in increasing the 
 commercial distress that followed the crisis of 1873. 
 
 Just when things were at their worst a really great man ap- 
 peared on the scene of action in Charles Francis Adams of the 
 Massachusetts Railroad Commission. He promulgated an idea, 
 essentially ethical in its character, which not only was of great 
 service at the time, but has been the really vital force in all good 
 schemes of corporate regulation ever since. It is hardly too 
 much to say that all our plans for deaUng with corporate mo- 
 nopoly have been successful according to the extent to which 
 they conformed to Mr. Adams's idea, and that their ill success in 
 various cases has been the result of their departure from it. Mr. 
 Adams's central principle was this. In the management of a 
 
 1 State statutes regulating charges for common carriers and other public 
 service corporations. — Editors. 
 
4i8 ARTHUR TWINING HADLEY • 
 
 railroad the temporary interests of the road and of its various 
 shippers are often divergent ; but the permanent interests of the 
 railroad and of the various shippers come very much closer to- 
 gether than the temporary ones, and can almost be said to coin- 
 cide. A railroad which is managed to make the most profit for 
 the moment will try to make very low rates on through business 
 that might otherwise go to another line, and will squeeze to the 
 utmost the local shippers who have no such refuge. But if a 
 manager looks five years or ten years ahead, he will see that such 
 a policy kills the local business, which after all must furnish the 
 road's best custom, and stimulates a kind of competitive business 
 which can and will go somewhere else when the slightest oppor- 
 tunity is given. Thie manager who looks to the future, therefore, 
 instead of to the present, will put the local business on the same 
 level as the through business ; and if he makes any difference at 
 all in the charge, it will be due to a slightly superior economy 
 of handling large and regular consignments for long distances, as 
 compared with the small and irregular consignments of inter- 
 mediate points. The agent who simply wants to get the most 
 money that he can for the moment will see an apparent advan- 
 tage in making a special bargain with each customer. The agent 
 who takes a long look ahead will do just what the storekeeper 
 does who takes a long look ahead. He will see that the right cus- 
 tomer to develop is the self-respecting man who is content with 
 the same treatment as other customers ; who is too proud for 
 begging and too honest for bribery. 
 
 I cannot go into all the details of the application of this theory. 
 Suffice it to say that during the comparatively short time when 
 he was at the head of the Massachusetts Commission, Mr. Adams 
 did, in fact, persuade the railroad men of his state, and of a great 
 many other states, to take this view of the matter ; that by his 
 recommendation, made without any authority except the au- 
 thority of common sense, he permanently removed more abuses 
 in railroad management than all the various state statutes put 
 together ; and that the judicial decisions of the years from 1875 
 to 1885, when Mr. Adams's influence was dominant, show a con- 
 
ETHICS OF CORPORATE MANAGEMENT 419 
 
 stantly increased understanding, not only of the principles of rail- 
 road economy, but of the principles which make for the perma- 
 nent public welfare of shippers and investors alike. 
 
 I have spoken of Mr. Adams's influence as an ethical one. 
 The Railroad Commission of Massachusetts, under the original 
 bill which established it, had practically no powers except the 
 power to report. It was for this reason regarded by many as 
 likely to be a totally ineffective body. This absence of specific 
 powers was just what Mr. Adams welcomed. It threw the Com- 
 mission back on the power of common sense — which does not 
 seem as strong as statutory rights to prosecute people and put 
 them in prison, but which, in the hands of a man who really 
 possesses it, is actually very much stronger. And when commis- 
 sions of more recent years, disregarding the experience of Mr. 
 Adams, have besought over and over again for an increase of 
 their power to make rates, and their power to prosecute offenders, 
 and their power to keep the courts from reviewing their acts, I 
 am reminded of the minister in the country church, who said, 
 ''O Lord, we pray for power; O Lord, we pray for power;" 
 until an old deacon, unable to contain himself, interrupted, 
 "'Taint power you lack, young man; it's idees !" 
 
 In a complex matter like this we are governed by public opin- 
 ion. Anything that makes it necessary for a man to get public 
 opinion behind a measure of administration or regulation pre- 
 vents him from trying unsound experiments, and assures him 
 that the things that he carries through will be successful in fact 
 and not merely in name. Good sense is needed to create ac- 
 quiescence on the part of the courts, and to prevent widespread 
 evasion of statutes and ordinances by the business men of the 
 community as a body. Any measure which seems to dispense 
 with the necessity of its exercise is pretty sure to end in disaster. 
 
 I have gone into the detail of Mr. Adams's work for the sake 
 of this ethical lesson which it inculcates. We have passed be- 
 yond the conditions of Mr. Adams's time. National regulation 
 has taken the place of state regulation of railroads. Other forms 
 of corporate activity have organized into monopolies perhaps 
 
420 ARTHUR TWINING HADLEY 
 
 more widespread and powerful than any railroad monopoly 
 ever was. The relations of corporations to their employees, and 
 the mutual duties of organizations of capital and labor toward 
 the public in making continuous public service possible, have be- 
 come vastly more complex than they were thirty years ago. But 
 the essential fact still remains that the problem can be settled 
 only by the exercise of common sense and a certain amount of 
 unselfishness. Any law which seeks to render these qualities 
 unnecessary or superfluous is foredoomed to failure. Any citizen 
 who lets these qualities fall into abeyance falls short of a proper 
 conception of public duty. The larger his position of influence 
 in the industrial world, the greater is the responsibility upon him 
 to bring these qualities into use in the conduct of corporate 
 business. 
 
 The president of a large corporation is in a place of public 
 trust. In an obvious sense he is a trustee for the stockholders 
 and creditors of his corporation. In a less obvious but equally 
 important sense he is a trustee on behalf of the public. 
 
 In regard to the first of these points, the community has made 
 substantial and gratifying progress toward proper moral stand- 
 ards and their enforcement. It will perhaps create surprise 
 that I say this so unreservedly, when we have the results of the 
 insurance scandals freshly in mind.^ But bad as these things were, 
 they were not nearly so bad as many things that happened a 
 generation earlier ; and when the insurance scandals became 
 known, they created an outburst of public feeling of a very differ- 
 ent kind from anything which would have developed forty years 
 ago. The spontaneous and overwhelming character of this out- 
 burst shows a great moral advance. In the year 1870 it was the 
 commonest thing in the world for the president of a large corpo- 
 ration to use his position as a means of enriching himself and his 
 friends at the expense of the stockholders in general ; and it 
 might almost be added that it was the rarest thing in the world 
 
 1 The insurance scandals exposed by the New York Legislative Investi- 
 gating Committee in 1905, chiefly involving the Equitable, Mutual, and 
 New York Life companies. — Editors. 
 
ETHICS OF CORPORATE MANAGEMENT 421 
 
 for anybody to object. The fact that Cornelius Vanderbilt ad- 
 mitted his stockholders to the benefit of profitable "deals," instead 
 of taking the whole for himself and his friends, was a sufficient 
 departure from the usage of the time to excite universal remark. 
 The worst things which were done in our insurance companies 
 represent a pious regard for the law and a scrupulous observance 
 of the principles of morality, as compared with some of the trans- 
 actions in Erie in the early seventies. Ten years later things had 
 improved. It was no longer considered proper for a president to 
 wreck his company in order to enrich himself. Yet even in this 
 decade it was held that minorities of stockholders had no rights 
 which majorities were bound to respect; and while the public 
 did not justify the president in getting rich at the expense of his 
 stockholders, it saw no harm if he used his inside information to 
 get rich at the expense of anybody and everybody else. It is 
 greatly to the credit of some of our best railroad men that in the 
 last decade of the nineteenth century we rose above this state of 
 things. The example of a recent president of the Lake Shore 
 Railroad, who died a relatively poor man when the stock of his 
 corporation stood higher than that of almost any other railroad 
 in the country, is a thing which deserves to be remembered — 
 and which has been. 
 
 Banks and railroads were the two lines of business where cor- 
 porate scandals first developed on a large scale. They are now 
 the two lines of business where standards of corporate honor, 
 beyond what the law could enforce, have become pretty well es- 
 tablished. This is no mere coincidence. Corporate powers gave 
 opportunities for abuse which did not exist before. Where these 
 powers were greatest, these abuses developed first and made the 
 earliest public scandals. It was here that the business men them- 
 selves felt the need of remedies deeper reaching than those which 
 the law could give. Combinations of merchants or manufac- 
 turers or of financiers outside the regular lines of banking were a 
 later thing, and therefore we are only at this moment correcting 
 the evils which are incident to their conduct. 
 
 It takes a long time for a man to learn to transfer a principle 
 
422 ARTHUR TWINING HADLEY 
 
 of morality which he fully recognizes in one field to another field 
 of slightly different location and character, particularly if the 
 application of strict morality in the new field is going to hurt his 
 personal interest. I remember a story of a country court in a 
 warranty case which furnishes an instance in point. One man 
 had sold another a cow, and had represented that cow as pos- 
 sessing certain good qualities — adding, however, that he did 
 not warrant her. The cow proved not to possess the qualities 
 alleged, and the buyer sought to recover the purchase money. 
 As there was no dispute about the facts, the plaintiff's attorney 
 thought that he had an easy case; for it is a well-established 
 principle of law that a disclaimer of warranty in such a sale does 
 not protect the transaction from the taint of fraud, if the matters 
 in question were ones which the seller really could know and the 
 buyer could not. He showed a sufficient number of legal prece- 
 dents to illustrate this principle, but was somewhat dumfounded 
 when the opposing lawyer rose and said: "May it please the 
 court, every one of the cases cited by my learned brother is a 
 horse case. I defy him to produce one relating to horned cattle." 
 The court was impressed with this fact, and instructed the jury 
 to the effect that it had been established from time immemorial 
 that a disclaimer of warranty was invalid with regard to a horse, 
 but that the case of a cow was something totally different. We 
 witnessed a somewhat similar condition in recent years, when 
 men who would have recognized that it was wrong to get rich 
 at the expense of a stockholder, who had clear and definite rights 
 to dividends that were earned, were perfectly willing to use all 
 kinds of means to enrich themselves at the expense of the policy- 
 holders, whose rights were vague and indefinite. The lesson of 
 last year was a terrible one ; but I believe that it has been thor- 
 oughly learned. The business community of to-day recognizes 
 that the president and directors of a corporation have a fiduciary 
 relation both to their stockholders and to their creditors ; that 
 any man who disregards this relation is guilty of breach of trust, 
 just as much as he would be if he used his position as guardian of 
 an orphan to enrich himself at the expense of his ward. If any 
 
ETHICS OF CORPORATE MANAGEMENT 423 
 
 man does not see this, the business community despises his intel- 
 lect. If he does see this and acts in disregard of it, the business 
 community despises his character. 
 
 Unfortunately the obligation of the managers of our corpora- 
 tions to the public is not yet as clearly recognized as their obliga- 
 tion to the stockholders. Some of those who are most scrupulous 
 about doing all that they can for the stockholders make this an 
 excuse for doing as little as they can for the public in general, and 
 disclaim indignantly the existence of any wider trust or any out- 
 side duty which should interfere with the performance of their 
 primary trust to the last penny. There is many a man who in 
 the conduct of his own life, and even of his own personal business, 
 is scrupulously regardful of public opinion, but who, as the presi- 
 dent of a corporation, disregards that opinion rather ostenta- 
 tiously. Personally he is sensitive to public condemnation ; but 
 as a trustee he honestly believes that he has no right to indulge 
 any such sensitiveness. He is unselfish in the one case, and 
 selfish in the other. I believe that this results from an extremely 
 shortsighted view of the matter ; and that the conscientious ful- 
 fillment of wider obligations, which he assumes as a matter of 
 course when his own money is at stake, is at once wise policy and 
 sound morality when he is acting as trustee for the money and 
 interests of others. 
 
 Even from the narrowest standpoint of pecuniary interest, the 
 duty of the corporate president to the investors demands that he 
 should by his life and his language strive to diminish the danger 
 of legal spoliation which threatens property rights in general and 
 the rights of corporate property in particular. This obligation is 
 partly recognized, and partly not. Our leaders of industry, as a 
 rule, do not spend great sums on ostentatious luxury, and do 
 spend great sums on objects of public benefit. Both of these 
 facts are invaluable conservative forces. On the other hand, too 
 many of them insist publicly on an extreme view of their legal 
 rights and claims, which cannot help irritating their opponents, 
 and which does a great deal more harm to the interests of prop- 
 erty than most people think. It was the arrogance of the 
 
424 ARTHUR TWINING HADLEY 
 
 freight agents, quite as much as the mistakes in their schedule of 
 charges, that precipitated the Granger agitation. They defi- 
 antly refused to recognize the shipper's point of view. Every 
 such defiance by the head of a large corporation makes more con- 
 verts to radicalism and socialism than the speaker ever dreams. 
 If a man intends to stand on his legal rights, it is generally wise 
 for him to keep as quiet as the circumstances admit. The cases 
 are few and far between where a loud statement in advance that 
 he is going to stand on his legal rights, and that those rights in 
 his judgment are consonant with the laws of God, produces any- 
 thing but an adverse effect on his interests and on the interests of 
 those whom he represents. It is not for the profit of the year's 
 balance sheet that the corporate president should regard himself 
 as responsible, but for the profit in the long run ; and that profit 
 in the long run is identified with the maintenance of a conserva- 
 tive spirit and the avoidance of unnecessary conflicts between 
 those who have and those who have not. 
 
 The duty of the corporate president to the investors also de- 
 mands that he use all wise means for the maintenance of continu- 
 ous public service. The more complete the monopoly which he 
 has, and the more vital the public necessity which he provides, 
 the greater is the importance of this aspect of his trust for the 
 permanence of the interests which he represents. For if the 
 employer is indifferent to the public need in this regard, the em- 
 ployees will be still more indifferent. If he tries to make public 
 necessity a means to reenforce his demands, they will make that 
 public necessity a means to reenforce their demands ; and in this 
 contest the employees will have every advantage on their side. 
 Each conflict of this kind will increase the demand for public 
 regulation of corporate affairs, even if the interests of the inves- 
 tors suffer thereby ; and it may reach a point where many lines 
 of business will be taken out of the hands of private corporations 
 and into the hands of the government. 
 
 In the old days, when the public was served by a number of in- 
 dependent establishments, a strike was a grave matter for the 
 establishment where it existed and a comparatively small thing 
 
ETHICS OF CORPORATE MANAGEMENT 425 
 
 for anybody else. The public got its goods from some other 
 quarter. The slight shortage in the supply might raise the 
 prices a little, but it did not produce a famine. The community 
 as a whole could wait complacently for the fight to be settled. 
 If, however, the company has a monopoly, the conditions are 
 reversed. The strike, if protracted, causes great inconvenience 
 and generally considerable suffering to the public, while the 
 effect on the finances of the corporation is often comparatively 
 slight. Indeed, it has become a proverb that strikes are not as a 
 rule good reasons for sale of the securities of the companies 
 affected. I am afraid that this fact makes the presidents of our 
 corporations, especially those who hold a narrow view of their 
 duties, more careless than they otherwise would be about men 
 whom they choose for positions of superintendence, and about 
 the policy which they adopt in early stages of labor disputes. 
 But it is upon care in these particulars, rather than upon any 
 machinery for compulsory arbitration, that we must rely for the 
 prevention of strikes. I suppose that sometime we shall devise 
 systems of arbitration which will avoid a large number of our in- 
 dustrial quarrels ; but those that I have actually seen in opera- 
 tion do not appear very promising. We are told that compulsory 
 arbitration has been made to work in New Zealand ; but some 
 of the official information which we get from New Zealand has 
 been so totally discredited that we must be a little cautious about 
 accepting any of the testimony which is transmitted to us. Nor 
 do I believe very greatly in the efficiency of profit-sharing sys- 
 tems as a general means of preventing labor troubles. Some- 
 times they work well ; oftener they do not. Plans for attaching 
 the laborers to the corporate service by pension funds, by the 
 distribution of stock, and other means of this kind, are perhaps 
 rather more promising. Yet even these are limited in their 
 applicability, and sometimes cause more unrest than they pre- 
 vent. 
 
 For the present, it is not to any machinery that we must look 
 for the solution of these difficulties. It is to a wider sense of 
 responsibility on the part of directors and general ofl&cers. The 
 
426 ARTHUR TWINING HADLEY 
 
 man who selects his subordinates solely for their fitness in mak- 
 ing the results of the year's accounts look best, and instructs 
 them to work for these results at the sacrifice of all other inter- 
 ests, encourages the employees to work for themselves in defiance 
 of the needs either of the corporation or of the public, and does 
 more than almost any professional agitator to foster the spirit 
 which makes labor organizations unreasonable in their demands 
 and defiant in their attitude. For the laborers, like some of 
 the rest of us, are a good deal more affected by feeling than by 
 reason ; a good deal more influenced by examples than by syl- 
 logisms. 
 
 When I was connected with the Railroad Gazette, we had occa- 
 sion to discuss a strike on the part of one of the best of the labor 
 unions, in which, contrary to the usual practice of that organiza- 
 tion, the demands were quite unreasonable. There was some- 
 thing puzzling in the whole situation, which I could not account 
 for. A close observer who, though he was on the side of the 
 corporation, had sense enough to look at the facts dispassionately, 
 said, "Do you know Blank ?" naming a man high in the operat- 
 ing department of the road concerned. I said that L did. 
 " Blank," he said, " is an honest man. He is, according to all his 
 lights, an honorable man. And yet if Blank were placed over me, 
 I would strike on any pretext, good or bad, just to show how I 
 hated his ways of doing business. This strike is, of course, an 
 unjustifiable one. For the sake of all concerned it should be 
 stopped as soon as possible, and your paper should say so. But 
 when the strike is over, sail into the road with all your might for 
 employing a man like Blank in a position precisely the opposite 
 of anything for which Providence designed him." It soon be- 
 came evident that this was a true account of the origin of the 
 strike. The company saw the situation and transferred the 
 man, on its own account, to another post for which he was more 
 fitted. 
 
 Workmen are accessible to examples of loyalty, as well as 
 examples of selfishness. One of our very large manufacturing 
 concerns in western Pennsylvania a few years ago made a change 
 
I 
 
 ETHICS OF CORPORATE MANAGEMENT 427 
 
 in its operating head. Not many months after the change I had 
 the opportunity to inquire of a foreman how things were work- 
 ing under the new management. "Sir," was the reply, "there 
 isn't a man in the works but what would go straight through hell 
 with the new boss if he wanted it." I told the "new boss" the 
 story ; and all he said was, "I guess they know that I'd do the 
 same for them." That was the voice of a man — an exceptional 
 man; but what he really accomplished represents a kind of 
 result which all of us will do well to keep in view. 
 
 In the great railroad strikes of 1877, when the Brotherhood of 
 Locomotive Engineers, — at that time a far less conservatively 
 managed organization than it has since become, — intoxicated 
 with its successes in the South, ordered a general tie-up of New 
 England, the men of the New York & New England Railroad 
 met the order with a flat refusal. They had no other reason, 
 and they gave no other reason, than their loyalty to a man who 
 was at that time a superintendent of no particular reputation or 
 influence outside of his own immediate sphere of duty, — 
 Charles P. Clark, who afterward became president of the road. 
 That one man by his personality not only prevented a general 
 strike throughout New England, but by that act restored the 
 balance of industrial force in the United States at a time when it 
 was more seriously threatened than it ever has been before or 
 since. 
 
 A few years later, when a strike on the Union Pacific Railroad 
 was scheduled by the Knights of Labor, the president of that 
 road prevented the strike by the simple expedient of so arranging 
 matters that the responsibility for the interruption of public 
 service would at each stage of the proceedings be clearly put upon 
 the labor leaders themselves. If the company had been simply 
 claiming the right to serve itself, they would have claimed an 
 equal right to serve themselves, and might very possibly have 
 had the sympathy of the public behind them. But when matters 
 were so arranged in advance that the responsibility for the inter- 
 ruption rested upon their shoulders alone, even the Knights of 
 Labor — and Western Knights of Labor at that — shrank from 
 
428 ARTHUR TWINING HADLEY 
 
 taking the responsibility of a conflict with the nation. Of course 
 strikes will continue to occur after all precautions are taken. 
 They may come to the man or the company that least deserves it. 
 But we can impress upon the managers of corporations the duty 
 of showing more solicitude for the protection of the public 
 against the disastrous results of the strike when it does come, and 
 the unwisdom of saying much about the sacredness of the rights 
 of private property under the Constitution at a time when such 
 words can only irritate the employees and alienate the suffering 
 public. 
 
 There is, indeed, a sacredness of property right in this country 
 which goes far beyond the letter of the Constitution. The Con- 
 stitution guarantees that no man shall be deprived of his prop- 
 erty without due process of law ; that no state shall pass any 
 law impairing the obligation of contract ; and that a corporation 
 has the right of a person in the sense of being entitled to fair 
 and equal treatment. The conservatism of the American people 
 goes farther than this. It supports a business man in the exer- 
 cise of his traditional rights, because it believes, on the basis of 
 the experience of centuries, that the exercise of these rights will 
 conduce to the public interests. It puts the large industries of 
 the country in the hands of corporations, even when this results 
 in creating corporate monopoly, because it distrusts the unre- 
 stricted extension of government activity, and believes that busi- 
 ness is on the whole better handled by commercial agencies than 
 by political ones. But every case of failure to meet public needs 
 somewhat shakes the public in this confidence ; and this confi- 
 dence is not only shaken but destroyed if the manager of a cor- 
 poration claims immunity from interference as a moral or con- 
 stitutional right, independent of the public interests involved. 
 
 Personally, I am one of those who look with serious distrust on 
 each extension of political activity. I believe that the inter- 
 state commerce law ^ did more to prevent wise railroad regulation 
 than any other event in the history of the country. I think 
 
 1 A federal act for the regulation of railroad rates, passed in 1887. — 
 Editors. 
 
ETHICS OF CORPORATE MANAGEMENT 
 
 429 
 
 that the courts would have dealt with our industrial problems 
 better than they have done if the antitrust act ^ had never been 
 passed. I have gravely doubted the wisdom of some of the 
 more recent measures passed by the national government. But 
 I cannot shut my eyes to the fact that these things are what 
 business men must expect unless business ethics is somewhat 
 modified to meet existing conditions. Industrial corporations 
 grew up into power because they met the needs of the past. 
 To stay in power, they must meet the needs of the present, and 
 arrange their ethics accordingly. If they can do it by their own 
 voluntary development of the sense of trusteeship, that is the 
 simplest and best solution. But if not, one of two things will 
 happen : vastly increased legal regulation, or state ownership 
 of monopolies. Those who fear the effects of increased govern- 
 ment activity must prove by their acceptance of ethical duties 
 to the public that they are not blind devotees of an industrial 
 past which has ceased to exist, but are preparing to accept the 
 heavier burdens and obligations which the industrial present 
 carries with it. 
 
 1 Passed by Congress in 1890 " to protect trade and commerce against 
 unlawful restraints and monopolies." — Editors. 
 
XV 
 
 THE LABOR QUESTION FROM THE 
 SOCIALIST STANDPOINT 
 
 William Morris 
 
 [William Morris (i 834-1 896) as a man of letters was distinguished for his 
 interest in the revival of medieval romanticism. In his pubUc life he was 
 probably still more widely known as a sympathetic and practical philanthro- 
 pist, and a remarkably gifted designer, craftsman, and printer of exquisite 
 books. His social views embrace the belief that much of the sordidness 
 and misery occasioned by our modern industrial system msLy be ehminated 
 by a benevolent sociaHsm, and that the gradual return of simpler conditions 
 of life and a more sincere attitude toward the question of class relationships 
 will revive in man a dignified personal interest in the labor of his hands. In 
 this connection he defines his conception of art : " The thing which I un- 
 derstand by real art is the expression by man of his pleasure in labor. I 
 do not believe he can be happy in his labor without expressing that hap- 
 piness." It is a point of importance that his interest in sociahstic theories 
 was the outgrowth of his study of medieval art, and of the social condi- 
 tions which produced it. Morris stands with John Ruskin not as a skilled 
 economic theorist, but as the exponent of a generous and enlightened hu- 
 manitarianism. 
 
 The Labor Question from the Socialist Standpoint, which is one of Morris's 
 numerous addresses on socialistic topics, was delivered as a lecture in Scot- 
 land in 1886, and was printed in Edinburgh as a penny pamphlet in the same 
 year. The lecture is a criticism of the oppressive tendencies of modern com- 
 mercialism, and not an attempt to formulate a program of amelioration.] 
 
 I HAVE been asked to give you the socialist view on the la- 
 bor question. Now, in some ways that is a difficult matter to 
 deal with — far beyond my individual capacities — and would 
 also be a long business ; yet in another way, as a matter of prin- 
 ciple, it is not difficult to understand or long to tell of, and it 
 does not need previous study or acquaintance with the works 
 
 430 
 
 I 
 
LABOR QUESTION FROM SOCIALIST STANDPOINT 431 
 
 of specialists or philosophers. Indeed, if it did, it would not 
 be a political subject, and I hope to show you that it is preemi- 
 nently political in the sense in which I should use the word ; that 
 is to say, that it is a matter which concerns every one, and has 
 to do with the practical everyday relations of his life, and that 
 not only as an individual, but as a member of a body corporate, 
 nay, as a member of that great corporation — humanity. Thus 
 considered, it would be hard indeed if it could not be understood 
 readily by a person of ordinary intelligence who can bring his 
 mind to bear upon prejudice. Such a person can learn the basis 
 of the opinion in even an hour's talk, if the matter be clearly 
 put before him : it is my task to attempt this ; and whether I 
 fail or succeed, I can at least promise you to use no technical 
 phrases which would require explanation ; nor will I, as far as 
 I can help, go into any speculative matter, but will be as plain 
 and practical as I can be. 
 
 Yet I must warn you that you may be disappointed when you 
 find that I have no elaborate plan, no details of a new society to 
 lay before you, that to my mind to attempt this would be put- 
 ting before you a mere delusion. What I ask you to consider 
 is in the main the clearing away of certain obstacles that stand 
 in the way of the due and unwasteful use of labor — a task not 
 light, indeed, nor to be accomplished without the most strenu- 
 ous effort in the teeth of violent resistance, but yet not impos- 
 sible for humanity as we know it, and, as I firmly believe, not 
 only necessary, but as things now are, the one thing essential to 
 be undertaken. 
 
 Now, you all know that, taking mankind as a whole, it is 
 necessary for man to labor in order to live. Certainly not all 
 things that we enjoy are the works of man's labor ; the beauty 
 of the earth, and the action of nature on our sensations, are 
 always here for us to enjoy, but we can only do so on the terms 
 of our keeping ourselves alive and in good case by means of 
 labor, and no inventions can set aside that necessity. The 
 merest savage has to pluck the berry from the tree, or dig up 
 the root from the ground before he can enjoy his dog-like sleep 
 
432 WILLIAM MORRIS 
 
 in sun or shade; and there are no savages who have not got 
 beyond that stage, while the progressive races of mankind have 
 for many ages got a very long way beyond it, so that we have no 
 record of any time when they had not formed some sort of society, 
 whose aim was to make the struggle with nature for subsistence 
 less hard than it otherwise would have been, to win a more 
 abundant livelihood from her. 
 
 We cannot deal at any length with the historical development 
 of society ; our object is simply to inquire into the constitution 
 of that final development of society under which we live. But 
 one may first ask a few questions : first, since the community 
 generally must labor in order that the individuals composing it 
 may subsist, and labor harder in order that they may attain 
 further advantages, ought not a really successful community so 
 to arrange that labor that each capable person should do a fair 
 share of it and no more ? Second, should not a really successful 
 community — established surely for the benefit of all its mem- 
 bers — arrange that every one who did his due share of labor 
 should have his due share of the wealth earned by that labor ? 
 Third, if any labor was wasted, such waste would throw an 
 additional burden on those who produced what was necessary 
 and pleasant to existence. Should not a successful community, 
 therefore, so organize its labor that it should not be wasted? 
 You must surely answer "Yes" to each of these three questions. 
 I will assert, then, that a successful society — a society which 
 fulfilled its true functions — would take care that each did his 
 due share of labor, that each had his due share of wealth result- 
 ing from that labor, and that the labor of persons generally was 
 not wasted. I ask you to remember those three essentials of a 
 successful society throughout all that follows, and now to let me 
 apply them as a test of success to that society in which we live, 
 the latest development of so many ages of the struggle with 
 nature, our elaborate and highly organized civilization. 
 
 In our society, does each capable person do his fair share of 
 labor ? Is his share of the wealth produced proportionate to his 
 labor ? Is the waste of labor avoided in our society ? 
 
LABOR QUESTION FROM SOCIALIST STANDPOINT 433 
 
 You may, perhaps, hesitate in your answer to the third ques- 
 tion ; you cannot hesitate to say "No " to the two first. I think, 
 however, I shall be able to show you that much labor is wasted, 
 and that, therefore, our society fails in the three essentials neces- 
 sary for a successful society. Our civilization, therefore, though 
 elaborate and highly organized, is a failure ; that is, supposing 
 it to be the final development of society, as some people, nay, 
 most people, suppose it to be. 
 
 Now a few words as to the course of events which have 
 brought us to the society of the present day. In periods almost 
 before the dawn of continuous history, the early progressive 
 races from which we are descended were divided into clans or 
 families, who held their wealth, such as it was, in common within 
 the clan, while all outside the clan was hostile, and wealth not 
 belonging to the clan was looked upon as prize of war. There 
 was consequently continual fighting of clan with clan, and at 
 first all enemies taken in war were slain ; but after a while, as 
 man progressed and got defter with his hands, and learned how 
 to make more effective tools, it began to be found out that, so 
 working, each man could do more than merely sustain himself ; 
 and then some of the prisoners of war, instead of being slain on 
 the field, were made slaves of; they had become valuable for 
 work, like horses. Out of the wealth they produced their mas- 
 ters or owners gave them sustenance enough to live on and took 
 the rest for themselves. Time passed, and the complexity of 
 society grew, the early barbarism passed through many stages 
 into the ancient civilizations, of which Greece and Rome were 
 the great representatives ; but this civilization was still founded 
 on slave labor ; most of its wealth was created by men who 
 could be sold in the market like cattle. But as the old civili- 
 zations began to decay, this slave labor became unprofitable ; 
 the countries comprised in the Roman Empire were disturbed 
 by constant war ; the governments, both central and provincial, 
 became mere taxgathering machines, and grew so greedy that 
 things became unbearable. Society became a mere pretext for 
 taxgathering, and fell to pieces, and chattel slavery fell with it. 
 
434 WILLIAM MORRIS 
 
 since under all these circumstances slaves were no longer valu- 
 able. 
 
 Then came another change. A new society was formed, partly 
 out of the tribes of barbarians who had invaded the Roman Em- 
 pire, and partly out of the fragments of that Empire itself ; the 
 feudal system arose, bearing with it new ideas, which I have 
 not time to deal with here and now. Suffice it to say, that in 
 its early days mere chattel slavery gave place to serfdom. Power- 
 ful men, privileged men, had not forgotten that men can produce 
 more by a day's labor than mil keep them alive for a day ; so 
 now they settled their laborers on certain portions of land, 
 stocked their land with them, in fact, and on these lands they 
 had leave to live as well as they might on the condition that they 
 should work a certain part of their time on the land which be- 
 longed to their lords. The average condition of these serfs was 
 better than that of the chattel slaves. They could not be 
 bought and sold personally, they were a part of the manor on 
 which they lived, and they had as a class a tendency to become 
 tenants by various processes. In one way or another these serfs 
 got gradually emancipated, and during a transitional period, last- 
 ing through the two last centuries of the Middle Ages, the four- 
 teenth and fifteenth centuries, the labor classes were in a far 
 better position than they had been before, and in some ways 
 than they have been since, suffering more from spasmodic arbi- 
 trary violence than from chronic legal oppression. The tran- 
 sition from this period to our own days is one of the most in- 
 teresting chapters of history; but it is impossible for me to 
 touch on it here. All I can say is, that the emancipated serfs 
 formed one of the elements that went to make up our present 
 middle class, and that a new class of workers grew up beneath 
 them — men who were not owned by any one, who were bound 
 by no legal ties to such and such a manor, who might earn what 
 livelihood they could for themselves under certain conditions, 
 which I will presently try to lay before you, and which are most 
 important to be considered, for this new class of so-called free 
 laborers has become our modern working class. 
 
LABOR QUESTION FROM SOCIALIST STANDPOINT 435 
 
 Now it will be clear to you, surely, how much and how griev- 
 ously both the classical period, with its chattel slavery, and the 
 feudal system, with its serfdom, fell short of the society which 
 we have set before us as reasonably successful. In each of them 
 there was a class obviously freed from the necessity of labor, by 
 means of the degradation of another class which labored exces- 
 sively and reaped but a small reward for its excessive labor. 
 Surely there was something radically wrong in these two societies. 
 From the fact that labor is necessary for man's life on the earth, 
 and that nature yields her abundance to labor only, one would 
 be inclined to deduce the probability that he who worked most 
 would be the best off ; but in these slave and serf societies the 
 reverse was the case : the man of leisureless toil lived miserably, 
 the man who did nothing useful lived abundantly. Then, again, 
 as to our third test, was there no waste of labor ? Yes, indeed, 
 there was waste most grievous. I have said that the slave owner 
 or the lord of the manor did nothing useful, and yet he did some- 
 thing — he was bound to do something, for he was often ener- 
 getic, gifted, and full of character — he made war ceaselessly, 
 consuming thereby the wealth which his slaves or his serfs 
 created, and forcing them to work the more grievously. Here 
 was waste enough, and lack of organization of labor. 
 
 Well, all this people found no great difficulty in seeing, and 
 few would like, publicly at least, to confess a regret for these 
 conditions of labor, although in private some men, less hypo- 
 critical or more logical than the bulk of reactionists, admit that 
 they consider the society of cultivated men and chattel slaves the 
 best possible for weak human nature. Yet though we can see 
 what has been, we cannot so easily see what is ; and I admit 
 that it is especially hard for people in our civilization, with its 
 general freedom from the ruder forms of violence, its orderly 
 routine life, and, in short, all that tremendous organization whose 
 very perfection of continuity prevents us from noticing it, — I 
 say it is hard for people under the quiet order and external sta- 
 bility of modern society to note that much the same thing is 
 going on in the relations of employers to the employed, as went 
 
436 WILLIAM MORRIS 
 
 on under the slave society of Athens, or under the serf-sustained 
 baronage of the thirteenth century. 
 
 For I assert that with us, as with the older societies, those who 
 work hardest fare the worst, those who produce the least get 
 the most ; while as to the waste of labor that goes on, the waste 
 of times past is as nothing compared with what is wasted 
 to-day. 
 
 I must now justify this view of mine, and if possible get you 
 to agree with it, by pointing out to you how society at the pres- 
 ent day is constituted. 
 
 Now, as always, there are only two things essential to the 
 production of wealth — labor and raw material ; every one can 
 labor who is not sick or in nonage ; therefore every one, except 
 those, if he can get at raw material, can produce wealth; but 
 without that raw material he cannot produce anything — any- 
 thing, that is, that man can live upon ; and if he does not labor, 
 he must live at the expense of those that do ; unless, therefore, 
 every one can get at the raw material and instruments of produc- 
 tion, the community in general will be burdened by the expense 
 of so many useless mouths, and the sum of its wealth will be 
 less than it ought to be. But in our civilized society of to-day 
 the raw material and the instruments of production are monopo- 
 lized by a comparatively small number of persons, who will not 
 allow the general population to use them for production of wealth 
 unless they pay them tribute for doing so ; and since they are 
 able to exact this tribute, they themselves are able to live with- 
 out producing, and consequently are a burden on the community. 
 Nor are these monopolists content with exacting a bare liveli- 
 hood from the producers, as mere vagabonds and petty thieves 
 do ; they are able to get from the producers in all cases an abun- 
 dant livelihood, including most of the enjoyments and advantages 
 of civilization, and in many cases a position of such power that 
 they are practically independent of the community, and almost 
 out of reach of its laws — although, indeed, the greater part of 
 those laws were made for the purpose of upholding this monopoly 
 — and wherever necessary they do now use the physical force, 
 
LABOR QUESTION FROM SOCIALIST STANDPOINT 437 
 
 which by one means or another they have under their control, 
 for such upholding. 
 
 These monopolists, or capitalists, as one may call them broadly 
 (for I will not at present distinguish the land capitalists from the 
 money capitalists), are in much the same position as the slave 
 owners of ancient Greece and Rome, or the serf masters of the 
 thirteenth century ; but they have this advantage over them, 
 that though really they sustain their position by mere compul- 
 sion, just as the earlier masters did, that compulsion is not visible 
 as the compulsion of the earlier times was, and it is very much 
 their business to prevent it becoming visible, as may be well 
 imagined. But as I am against monopoly and in favor of free- 
 dom, I must try to get you to see it ; since seeing it is the first 
 step towards feeling it, which in its turn is sure to lead to your 
 refusing to bear it. 
 
 I have spoken of the tribute which the capitalists exact as the 
 price of the use of those means of production which ought to be 
 as free to all as the air we breathe is, since they are as necessary 
 to our existence as it is. How do they exact the tribute ? They 
 are, to start with, in a good position, you see, because, even with- 
 out any one's help, they could use the labor power in their own 
 bodies on the raw material they have, and so earn their liveli- 
 hood ; but they are not content with that, as I hinted above — 
 they are not likely to be, because their position, legalized and 
 supported by the whole physical force of the state, enables them 
 "to do better for themselves," as the phrase goes — they can 
 use the labor power of the disinherited, and force them to keep 
 them without working for production. Those disinherited, how- 
 ever, they must keep alive to labor, and they must allow them 
 also opportunity for breeding — these are necessities that pressed 
 equally on the ancient slave owner or the medieval lord of the 
 manor, or, indeed, on the owner of draft cattle ; they must at 
 least do for the workers as much as for a machine, supply them 
 with fuel to enable them to work ; nor need they do more if 
 they are dealing with men who have no power of resistance. 
 But these machines are human ones, instinct with desires and 
 
438 WILLIAM MORRIS 
 
 passions, and therefore they cannot help trying to better them- 
 selves ; and they cannot better themselves except at the expense 
 of the masters, because whatever they produce more than the 
 bare necessaries of hfe the masters will at once take from them 
 if they can ; therefore they have always resisted the full exer- 
 cise of the privilege of the masters, and have tried to raise their 
 standard of livehhood above the mere subsistence limit. Their 
 resistance has taken various forms, from peaceful strikes to open 
 war, but it has always been going on, and the masters, when not 
 driven into a corner, have often yielded to it, although unwiUingly 
 enough; but it must be said that mostly the workers have 
 claimed little more than mere slaves would, who might mutiny 
 for a bigger ration. For, in fact, this wage paid by our modern 
 masters is nothing more than the ration of the slave in another 
 form ; and when the masters have paid it, they are free to use 
 all the rest that the workers produce, just as the slave owner 
 takes all that the slave produces. Remember at this point, 
 therefore, that everything more than bare subsistence which the 
 workers make to-day, they make by carrying on constant war 
 with their masters. I must add that their success in this war 
 is often more apparent than real, and too often it means little 
 more than shifting the burden of extreme poverty from one 
 group of the workers to another; the unskilled laborers, of 
 whom the supply is unlimited, do not gain by it, and their num- 
 bers have a tendency to increase, as the masters, driven to their 
 shifts, use more and more elaborate machines in order to dis- 
 pense with the skilled labor, and also use the auxiliary labor of 
 women and children, to whom they do not pay subsistence wages, 
 thereby keeping down .the wages of the head of the family, and 
 depriving him and them of the mutual help and comfort in the 
 household, which would otherwise be gained from them. 
 
 Thus, then, the capitalists, by means of their monopoly of the 
 means of production, compel the worker to work for less than 
 his due share of the wealth which he produces, — that is, for 
 less than he produces ; he must work, he will die else, and as they 
 are in possession of the raw material, he must agree to the terms 
 
LABOR QUESTION FROM SOCIALIST STANDPOINT 439 
 
 they enforce upon him. This is the "free contract " of which we 
 hear so much, and which, to speak plainly, is a capitalist lie. 
 There is no way out of this freedom save rebellion of some kind 
 or other — strike rebellion, which impoverishes the workers for 
 the time, whether they win the strike or lose it ; or the rebellion 
 of open revolt, which will be put down always, until it is organ- 
 ized for a complete change in the basis of society. 
 
 Now to show you another link or two of the chain which binds 
 the workers. There is one thing which hampers this constant 
 struggle of the workers towards bettering their condition at the 
 expense of their masters, and that is competition for livelihood 
 amongst them. I have told you that unskilled labor is practi- 
 cally unlimited ; and machines, the employment of women and 
 children, long hours of work, and all that cheapening of produc- 
 tion so much bepraised now, bring about this state of things, 
 that even in ordinary years there are more hands than there is 
 work to give them. This is the great instrument of compulsion 
 of modern monopoly ; people undersell one another in our mod- 
 ern slave market, so that the employers have no need to use any 
 visible instrument of compulsion in driving them towards work ; 
 and the invisibility of this whip — the fear of death by starva- 
 tion — has so muddled people's brains, that you may hear men, 
 otherwise intelligent, e.g., answering objections to the uselessness 
 of some occupation by saying, "But, you see, it gives people 
 employment," altliough they would be able to see that if three 
 of them had to dig a piece of ground, and one of them knocked 
 off, and was "employed" in throwing chuckle stones into the 
 water, the other two would have to do his share of the work as 
 well as their own. 
 
 Another invisible link of the chain is this, that the workman 
 does not really know his own master ; the individual employer 
 may be, and often is, on good terms with his men, and really un- 
 conscious of the war between them, although he cannot fail to 
 know that if he pays more wages to his men than other employers 
 in the same line of business as himself do, he will be beaten by 
 them. But the workman's real master is not his immediate em- 
 
440 
 
 WILLIAM MORRIS 
 
 ployer, but his class, which will not allow even the best-inten- 
 tioned employer to treat his men otherwise than as profit-grind- 
 ing machines. By his profit, made out of the unpaid labor of 
 his men, the manufacturer must live, unless he gives up his po- 
 sition and learns to work like one of his own men, which, indeed, 
 as a rule he could not do, as he has usually not been taught to 
 do any useful work ; therefore, as I have said, he must reduce 
 his wages to the lowest point he can, since it is on the margin 
 between his men's production and their wages that his profit de- 
 pends ; his class, therefore, compels him to compel his workmen 
 to accept as little as possible. But further, the workman is a 
 consumer as well as a producer ; and in that character he has 
 not only to pay rent to a landlord (and far heavier proportion- 
 ately than rich people have to pay), and also a tribute to the 
 middleman who lives without producing and without doing serv- 
 ice to the community, by passing money from one pocket to 
 another, but he also has to pay (as consumer) the profits of the 
 other manufacturers who superintend the production of the 
 goods he uses. Again, as a mere member of society, a should-be 
 citizen, he has to pay taxes, and a great deal more than he thinks ; 
 he has to pay for wars, past, present, and future, that are never 
 meant to benefit him, but to force markets for his masters, nay, 
 to keep him from rebellion, from taking his own at some date ; 
 he has also to pay for the thousand and one idiocies of parlia- 
 mentary government, and ridiculous monarchical and official 
 state — for the mountain of precedent, nonsense, and chicanery, 
 with its set of ofiicials, whose business it is, under the name of 
 law, to prevent justice being done to any one. In short, in one 
 way or another, when he has by dint of constant labor got his 
 wages into his pocket, he has them taken away from him again 
 by various occult methods, till it comes to this at last, that he 
 really works an hour for one third of an hour's pay ; while the 
 two thirds go to those who have not produced the wealth which 
 they consume. 
 
 Here, then, as to the first and second conditions of a reason- 
 able society : (i) That the labor should be duly apportioned ; 
 
LABOR QUESTION FROM SOCIALIST STANDPOINT 441 
 
 (2) that the wealth should be duly apportioned. Our society 
 does not merely fail in them, but positively inverts them ; with 
 us, those who consume most produce least, those who produce 
 most consume least. 
 
 There yet remains something to be said on the third condition 
 of a fair-state of society : that it should look to it that labor be 
 not wasted. How does civilization fare in this respect ? I have 
 told you what was the occupation of the ancient slaveholders, 
 set free by slave labor from the necessity of producing — it was 
 fighting with each other for the aggrandizement, in earlier times 
 of their special city, in later of their own selves; similarly, the 
 medieval baron, set free from the necessity of producing by the 
 labor of the serfs who tilled his lands for him, occupied himself 
 with fighting for more serf-tilled land either for himself or for 
 his suzerain. In our own days we see that there is a class freed 
 from the necessity of producing by the tribute paid by the wage 
 earner. What does our free class do ? how does it occupy the 
 lifelong leisure which it forces toil to yield to it ? 
 
 Well, it chiefly occupies itself in war, like those earlier non- 
 producing classes, and very busy it is over it. I know, indeed, 
 that there is a certain portion of the dominant class that does 
 not pretend to do anything at all, except perhaps a little amateur 
 reactionary legislation, yet even of that group I have heard that 
 some of them are very busy in their estate offices trying to make 
 the most of their special privilege, the monopoly of the land; 
 and, taking them altogether, they are not a very large class. Of 
 the rest some are busy in taxing us and repressing our liberties 
 directly, as officers in the army and navy, magistrates, judges, 
 barristers, and lawyers ; they are the salaried officers on the part 
 of the masters in the great class struggle. Other groups there 
 are, as artists and literary men, doctors, schoolmasters, etc., 
 who occupy a middle position between the producers and the 
 nonproducers ; they are doing useful service, and ought to be 
 doing it for the community at large, but practically they are 
 only working for a class, and in their present position are little 
 better than hangers-on of the nonproducing class from whom 
 
442 WILLIAM MORRIS 
 
 they receive a share of their privilege, together with a kind of 
 contemptuous recognition of their position as gentlemen — 
 heaven save the mark ! But the great mass of the nonproduc- 
 ing classes are certainly not idle in the ordinary sense of the woM ; 
 they could not be, for they include men of great energy and force 
 of character, who would, as all reasonable men do, insist on some 
 serious or exciting occupation ; and I say once again their occu- 
 pation is war, though it is "writ large," and called competition. 
 They are, it is true, called organizers of labor ; and sometimes 
 they do organize it, but when they do they expect an extra re- 
 ward for so doing outside their special privilege. A great many 
 of them, though they are engaged in the war, sit at home at 
 ease, and let their generals, their salaried managers to wit, wage 
 it for them, — I am meaning here shareholders, or sleeping part- 
 ners, — but whenever they are active in business they are really 
 engaged in organizing the war with their competitors, the capital- 
 ists in the same line of business as themselves ; and if they are 
 to be successful in that war they must not be sparing of destruc- 
 tion, either of their own or of other people's goods ; nay, they 
 not unseldom are prepared to further the war of sudden, as op- 
 posed to that of Hngering, death, and of late years they have in- 
 volved pretty nearly the whole of Europe in attacks on barbarian 
 or savage peoples, which are only distinguishable from sheer 
 piracy by their being carried on by nations instead of indi- 
 viduals. But all that is only by the way ; it is the ordinary and 
 necessary outcome of their operations that there should be peri- 
 odical slackness of trade following on times of inflation, from the 
 fact that every one tries to get as much as he can of the market 
 to himself at the expense of every one else, so that sooner or 
 later the market is sure to be overstocked, so that wares are sold 
 sometimes at less than the cost of production, which means that 
 so much labor has been wasted on them by misdirection. Nor 
 is that all ; for they are obliged to keep an army of clerks and 
 such-like people, who are not necessary either for the produc- 
 tion of goods or their distribution, but are employed in safe- 
 guarding their master's interests against their master's com- 
 
LABOR QUESTION FROM SOCIALIST STANDPOINT 443 
 
 petitors. The waste is further increased by the necessity of 
 these organizers of the commercial war for playing on the igno- 
 rance and gullibility of the customers by two processes, which in 
 their perfection are specialties of the present century, and even, 
 it may be said, of this latter half of it — to wit, adulteration and 
 puffery. It would be hard to say how much ingenuity and pains- 
 taking have been wasted on these incidents in the war of com- 
 merce, and I am wholly unable to get any statistics of them; 
 but we all know that an enormous amount of labor is spent on 
 them, which is at the very best as much wasted as if those en- 
 gaged on it were employed in digging a hole and filling it up 
 again. 
 
 But, further, there is yet another source of waste involved in 
 our present society. The grossly unequal distribution of w-ealth 
 forces the rich to get rid of their surplus money by means of 
 various forms of folly and luxury, which means further waste of 
 labor. Do not think I am advocating asceticism. I wish us 
 all to make the utmost of what we can obtain from nature to 
 make us happier and more contented while we live ; but, apart 
 from reasonable comfort and real refinement, there is, as I am 
 sure no one can deny, a vast amount of sham wealth and sham 
 service created by our miserable system of rich and poor, which 
 makes no human being the happier on the one hand, while on 
 the other it withdraws vast numbers of workers from the pro- 
 duction of real utihties, and so casts a heavy additional burden 
 of labor on those who are producing them. I have been speak- 
 ing hitherto of a producing and a nonproducing class, but I 
 have been quite conscious all the time that though the first class 
 produces whatever wealth is created, a very great many of them, 
 are prevented from producing wealth at all, are being set to 
 nothing better than turning a wheel that grinds nothing — save 
 their own lives. Nay, worse than nothing. I hold that this 
 sham wealth is not merely a negative evil (I mean in itself), 
 but a positive one. It seems to me that the refined society of 
 to-day is distinguished from all others by a kind of gloomy 
 cowardice — a stolid but timorous incapacity of enjoyment. 
 
444 WILLIAM MORRIS 
 
 He who runs may read the record of the unhappy rich not less 
 than that of the unhappy poor, in the futihty of their amuse- 
 ments and the degradation of their art and Hterature. 
 
 Well, then, the third condition of a reasonable society is vio- 
 lated by our present so-called society ; the tremendous Activity, 
 energy, and invention of modern times is to a great extent 
 wasted; the monopolists force the workers to waste a great 
 part of their labor power, while they waste almost the whole of 
 theirs. Our society, therefore, does not fulfill the true functions 
 of society. Now, the constitution of all society requires that 
 each individual member of it should yield up a part of his liberty 
 in return for the advantages of mutual help and defense; yet 
 at bottom that surrender should be part of the liberty itself; 
 it should be voluntary in essence. But if society does not fulfill 
 its duties towards the individual, it wrongs him; and no man 
 voluntarily submits to wrong — nay, no man ought to. The 
 society, therefore, that has violated the essential conditions of 
 its existence must be sustained by mere brute force; and that 
 is the case of our modern society, no less than that of the ancient 
 slaveholding and the medieval serf-holding societies. As a 
 practical deduction, I ask you to agree with me that such a 
 society should be changed from its base up, if it be possible. 
 And, further, I must ask how, by what, and by whom, such a 
 revolution can be accomplished? But before I set myself to 
 deal with these questions, I will ask you to believe that, though 
 I have tried to argue the matter on first principles, I do not ap- 
 proach the subject from a pedantic point of view. If I could 
 believe that, however wrong it may be in theory, our present 
 system works well in practice, I should be silenced. If I thought 
 that its wrongs and anomalies were so capable of palliation, that 
 people generally were not only contented but were capable of 
 developing their human faculties duly under it, and that we were 
 on the road to progress without a great change, I for one would 
 not ask any one to meddle with it. But I do not believe that, 
 nor do I know of any thoughtful person that does. In thought- 
 ful persons I can see but two attitudes; on the one hand the 
 
LABOR QUESTION FROM SOCIALIST STANDPOINT 445 
 
 despair of pessimism, which I admit is common, and on the 
 other a desire and hope of change. Indeed, in a year Hke the 
 present, when one hears on all sides and from all classes of what 
 people call glepression of trade, which, as we too well know, 
 means misery at least as great as that which a big war bears 
 with it ; and when on all sides there is ominous grumbling of 
 the coming storm, the workers unable to bear the extra burden 
 laid upon them by the "bad times," — in such a year there is, 
 I do not say no hope, but at least no hope except in those changes, 
 the tokens of which are all around us. 
 
 Therefore, again I ask how, or by what, or by whom, the 
 necessary revolution can be brought about ? What I have been 
 saying hitherto has been intended to show you that there has 
 always been a great class struggle going on, which is still sus- 
 tained by our class of monopoly and our class of disinheritance. 
 It is true that in former times no sooner was one form of that 
 class struggle over than another took its place ; but in our days 
 it has become much simplified, and has cleared itself by progress 
 through its various stages of mere accidental circumstances. 
 The struggle for political equality has come to an end, or nearly 
 so ; all men are (by a fiction, it is true) declared to be equal 
 before the law, and compulsion to labor for another's benefit has 
 taken the simple form of the power of the possessor of money, 
 who is all-powerful ; therefore if, as we socialists believe, it is 
 certain that the class struggle must one day come to an end, we 
 are so much nearer to that end by the passing through of some 
 of its necessary stages ; history never returns on itself. 
 
 Now, you must not suppose, therefore, that the revolutionary 
 struggle of to-day, though it may be accompanied (and neces- 
 sarily) by violent insurrection, is paralleled by the insurrections 
 of past times. A rising of the slaves of the ancient period, or 
 of the serfs of the medieval times, could not have been perma- 
 nently successful, because the time was not ripe for such success, 
 because the growth of the new order of things was not sufficiently 
 developed. It is indeed a terrible thought that, although the 
 burden of injustice and suffering was almost too heavy to be 
 
446 WILLIAM MORRIS 
 
 borne in such insurrectionary times, and although all popular 
 uprisings have right on their side, they could not be successful 
 at the time, because there was nothing to put in the place of the 
 unjust system against which men were revolting. And yet it is 
 true, and it explains the fact that the class antagonism is generally 
 more felt when the oppressed class is bettering its condition than 
 when it is at its worst. The consciousness of oppression then 
 takes the form of hope, and leads to action, and is, indeed, the 
 token of the gradual formation of a new order of things under- 
 neath the old decaying order. 
 
 Most thoughtful people are conscious of the fact that the ten- 
 dency of the times is to make the labor classes the great power 
 of the epoch, in the teeth of the other fact that labor is at least 
 as directly under the domination of a privileged class as ever it 
 was. Now these two facts taken together : the obvious uprising 
 of the workers in the scale, and their being face to face with a 
 class that lives by exploiting their labor, — these two facts seem 
 to us socialists to show that one of these classes must give way, 
 and that this giving way must mean that one of those classes 
 must be absorbed in the other, and so the class war be ended. 
 If that position be accepted, it is clear that the class that must 
 come alive out of the struggle must be the producing class, the 
 useful class ; therefore the socialist's view of the labor question 
 is that a new society is in course of development from the work- 
 ing classes — the producing classes, more properly — and that 
 the other classes which now live on their labor will melt into 
 that class. The result of that will be, that, so far as society has 
 any conscious organization, it will be an instrument for the ar- 
 rangement of labor so as to produce wealth from natural ma- 
 terial, and to distribute the wealth when produced without waste 
 of labor ; that is to say, it will satisfy those ideal conditions of 
 its reason for existence which I began by putting before you. 
 
 I told you that I was not prepared to give you any details of 
 the arrangement of a new state of society; but I am prepared 
 to state the principles on which it would be founded, and the 
 recognition of which would make it easy for serious men to deal 
 
I 
 
 LABOR QUESTION FROM SOCIALIST STANDPOINT 447 
 
 with the details of arrangement. Socialism asserts that every 
 one should have free access to the means of production of wealth 
 — the raw material and the stored-up force produced by labor ; 
 in other word§, the land, plant, and stock of the community, 
 which are now monopohzed by certain privileged persons, who 
 force others to pay for their use. This claim is founded on the 
 principle which lies at the bottom of socialism, that the right 
 to the possession of wealth is conferred by the possessor having 
 worked towards its production, and being able to use it for the 
 satisfaction of his personal needs. The recognition of this right 
 will be enough to guard against mere confusion and violence. 
 The claim to property on any other grounds must lead to what is 
 in plain terms robbery ; which will be no less robbery because it 
 is organized by a sham society, and must be no less supported 
 by violence because it is carried on under the sanction of the law. 
 
 Let me put this with somewhat more of detail. No man has 
 made the land of the country, nor can he use more than a small 
 portion of it for his personal needs ; no man has made more than 
 a small portion of its fertility, nor can use personally more than 
 a small part of the results of the labor of countless persons, liv- 
 ing and dead, which has gone to produce that fertility. No man 
 can build a factory with his own hands, or make the machinery 
 in it, nor can he use it, except in combination with others. He 
 may call it his, but he cannot make any use of it as his alone, 
 unless he is able to compel other people to use it for his benefit ; 
 this he does not do personally, but our sham society has so or- 
 ganized itself that by its means he can compel this unpaid service 
 from others. The magistrate, the judge, the policeman, and 
 the soldier, are the sword and pistol of this modern highwayman, 
 and I may add that he is also furnished with what he can use as a 
 mask under the name of morals and religion. 
 
 Now, if these means of production — the land, plant, and 
 stock — were really used for their primary uses, and not as 
 means for extracting unpaid labor from others, they would be 
 used by men working in combination with each other, each of 
 whom would receive his due share of the results of that combined 
 
448 WILLIAM MORRIS 
 
 labor ; the only difficulty would then be what would be his due 
 share, because it must be admitted on all hands that it is impos- 
 sible to know how much each individual has contributed towards 
 the production of a piece of cooperative labor; but the prin- 
 ciple once granted that each man should have his due share of 
 what he has created by his labor, the solution of the difficulty 
 would be attempted, nay, is now hypothetically attempted, in 
 various ways, in two ways mainly. One view is that the state — • 
 that is, society organized for the production and distribution of 
 wealth — would hold all the means of the production of wealth 
 in its hands, allowing the use of them to whomsoever it thought 
 could use them, charging rent, perhaps, for their use, but which 
 rent would be used again only for the benefit of the whole com- 
 munity, and therefore would return to the worker in another 
 form. It would also take on itself the organization of labor in 
 detail, arranging the how, when, and where, for the benefit of the 
 public, — doing all this, one must hope, with as little centrali- 
 zation as possible ; in short, the state, according to this view, 
 would be the only employer of labor. No individual would be 
 able to employ a workman to work for him at a profit, i.e., to work 
 for less than the value of his labor (roughly estimated), because 
 the state would pay him the full value of it ; nor could any man 
 let land or machinery at a profit, because the state would let it 
 without the profit. It is clear that if this could be carried out, 
 no one could live without working. When a man had spent the 
 wealth he had earned personally, he would have to work for more, 
 as there would be no tribute coming to him from the labor of past 
 generations ; on these terms he could not accumulate wealth, nor 
 would he desire to, for he could do nothing with it except satisfy 
 his personal needs with it, whereas at present he can turn the 
 superfluity of his wealth into capital, i.e., wealth used for the 
 extraction of profit. Thus society would be changed. Every 
 one would have to work for his livelihood, and everybody would 
 be able to do so ; whereas at present there are people who refuse 
 to work for their livelihood, and forbid others to do so. Labor 
 would not be wasted, as there would be no competing employ- 
 
LABOR QUESTION FROM SOCIALIST STANDPOINT 449 
 
 ers gambling in the market, and using the real producer and the 
 consumer as their milch cows. The limit of price would be the 
 cost of production, so that buying and selling would be simply the 
 exchange of equivalent values, and there would be no loss on 
 either side in the transaction. Thus there would be a society 
 in which every one would have an equal chance for well-doing, 
 for, as a matter of course, arrangements would be made for the 
 sustaining of people in their nonage, for keeping them in comfort 
 if they were physically incapacitated from working, and also for 
 educating every one according to his capacities. This would at the 
 least be a society which would try to perform those functions of 
 seeing that every one did his due share of work and no more, and 
 had his due share of wealth and no less, and that no labor was 
 wasted, which I have said were the real functions of a true so- 
 ciety. 
 
 But there is another view of the solution of the difficulty as to 
 what constitutes the due share of the wealth created by labor. 
 Those who take it say, since it is not really possible to find out 
 what proportion of combined labor each man contributes, why 
 profess to try to do so ? In a properly ordered community all 
 work that is done is necessary on the one hand, and on the other 
 there would be plenty of wealth in such a community to satisfy 
 all reasonable needs. The community holds all wealth in com- 
 mon, but has the same right to holding wealth that the individual 
 has, — namely, the fact that it has created it and uses it ; but as a 
 community it can only use wealth by satisfying with it the needs 
 of every one of its members — it is not a true community if it 
 does less than this — but their needs are not necessarily de- 
 termined by the kind or amount of work which each man does, 
 though, of course, when they are, that must be taken into ac- 
 count. To say the least of it, men's needs are much more equal 
 than their mental or bodily capacities are ; their ordinary needs, 
 granting similar conditions of climate and the like, are pretty 
 much the same, and could, as above said, be easily satisfied. As 
 for special needs for wealth of a more special kind, reasonable 
 men would be contented to sacrifice the thing which they needed 
 
450 WILLIAM MORRIS 
 
 less for that which they needed more ; and for the rest, the varie- 
 ties of temperament would get over the difficulties of this sort. 
 As to the incentives to work, it must be remembered that even 
 in our own sham society most men are not disinclined to work, so 
 only that their work is not that which they are compelled to do ; 
 and the higher and more intellectual the work is, the more men 
 are resolved to do it, even in spite of obstacles. In fact, the ideas 
 on the subject of the reward of labor in the future are founded 
 on its position in the present. Life is such a terrible struggle for 
 the majority, that we are all apt to think that a specially gifted 
 person should be endowed with more of that which we are all 
 compelled to struggle for — money, to wit — and to value his 
 services simply by that standard. But in a state of society in 
 which all were well-to-do, how could you reward extra services 
 to the community? Give your good worker immunity from 
 work? The question carries with it the condemnation of the 
 idea, and, moreover, that will be the last thing he will thank you 
 for. Provide for his children ? The fact that they are human 
 beings with a capacity for work is enough ; they are provided for 
 in being members of a community which will see that they neither 
 lack work nor wealth. Give him more wealth? Nay; what 
 for ? What can he do with more than he can use ? He cannot 
 eat three dinners a day, or sleep in four beds. Give him domina- 
 tion over other men ? Nay, if he be more excellent than they are 
 in any art, he must influence them for his good and theirs, if 
 they are worth anything ; but if you make him their arbitrary 
 master, he will govern them, but he will not influence them; 
 he and they will be enemies, and harm each other mutually. 
 One reward you can give him, that is, opportunity for developing 
 his special capacity, but that you will do for everybody and not 
 the excellent only. Indeed, I suppose he will not, if he be ex- 
 cellent, lack the admiration — or perhaps it is better to say the 
 affection — of his fellow men, and he will be all the more likely 
 to get that when the relations between him and them are no 
 longer clouded by the fatal gift of mastership. 
 In short, in a duly ordered community, everybody would do 
 
LABOR QUESTION FROM SOCIALIST STANDPOINT 451 
 
 what he could do best, and therefore easiest, and with most 
 pleasure. He who could do the higher work would do it as easily 
 as the man whose capacity was less would do the lower work ; 
 there would be ho more wear and tear to him in it, or if there 
 were, it would mean simply that his needs were greater, and would 
 have to be considered accordingly. 
 
 Moreover, those who see this view of the new society believe 
 that decentralization in it would have to be complete. The 
 political unit with them is not a nation, but a commune ; the 
 whole of reasonable society would be a great federation of such 
 communes, federated for definite purposes of the organization of 
 livelihood and exchange. For a mere nation is the historical 
 deduction from the ancient tribal family, in which there was peace 
 between the individuals composing it, and war with the rest of 
 the world. A nation is a body of people kept together for pur- 
 poses of rivalry and war with other similar bodies, and when 
 competition shall have given place to combination the function 
 of the nation will be gone. 
 
 I will recapitulate, then, the two views taken among socialists 
 as to the future of society. According to the first, the state — 
 that is, the nation organized for unwasteful production and 
 exchange of wealth — will be the sole possessor of the national 
 plant and stock, the sole employer of labor, which she will so 
 regulate in the general interest that no man will ever need to fear 
 lack of employment and due earnings therefrom. Everybody 
 will have an equal chance of livelihood, and, except as a rare dis- 
 ease, there would be no hoarding of money or other wealth. 
 This view points to an attempt to give everybody the full worth 
 of the productive work done by him, after having insured the 
 necessary preliminary that he shall always be free to work. 
 
 According to the other view, the centralized nation would 
 give place to a federation of communities who would hold all 
 wealth in common, and would use that wealth for satisfying the 
 needs of each member, only exacting from each that he should 
 do his best according to his capacity towards the production of 
 the common wealth. Of course, it is to be understood that each 
 
452 WILLIAM MORRIS 
 
 member is absolutely free to use his share of wealth as he pleases 
 without interference from any, so long as he really uses it; that is, 
 does not turn it into an instrument for the oppression of others. 
 This view intends complete equality of condition for every one, 
 though life would be, as always, varied by the differences of capac- 
 ity and disposition ; and emulation in working for the common 
 good would supply the place of competition as an incentive. 
 
 These two views of the future of society are sometimes opposed 
 to each other as socialism and communism ; but to my mind the 
 latter is simply the necessary development of the former, which 
 implies a transition period, during which people would be get- 
 ting rid of the habits of mind bred by the long ages of tyranny and 
 commercial competition, and be learning that it is to the interest 
 of each that all should thrive. 
 
 When men had lost the fear df each other engendered by our 
 system of artificial famine, they would feel that the best way of 
 avoiding the waste of labor would be to allow every man to take 
 what he needed from the common store, since he would have no 
 temptation or opportunity of doing anything with a greater por- 
 tion than he really needed for his personal use. Thus would be 
 minimized the danger of the community falling into bureaucracy, 
 the multiplication of boards and offices, and all the paraphernalia 
 of official authority, which is after all a burden, even when it is 
 exercised by the delegation of the whole people and in accord- 
 ance with their wishes. 
 
 Thus I have laid before you, necessarily briefly, a socialist's 
 view of the present condition of labor, and its hopes for the 
 future. If the indictment against the present society seems to 
 you to be of undue proportions compared with the view of that 
 which is to come, I must again remind you that we socialists 
 never dream of building up by our own efforts in one generation a 
 society altogether new. All I have been attacking has been the 
 exercise of arbitrary authority for the supposed benefit of a 
 privileged class. When we have got rid of that authority and 
 are free once more, we ourselves shall do whatever may be neces- 
 sary in organizing the real society which even now exists under 
 
LABOR QUESTION FROM SOCIALIST STANDPOINT 453 
 
 the authority which usurps that title. That true society of 
 loved and lover, parent and child, friend and friend, the society 
 of well-wishers, of reasonable people conscious of the aspirations 
 of humanity and the duties we owe to it through one another, — 
 this society, I say, is held together and exists by his own inherent 
 right and reason, in spite of what is usually thought to be the 
 cement of society — arbitrary authority to wit — that is to say, 
 the expression of brute force under the influence of unreasoning 
 habit. Unhappily though society exists, it is in an enslaved and 
 miserable condition, because that same arbitrary authority says 
 to us practically : "You may be happy if you can afford it, but 
 unless you have a certain amount of money, you shall not be 
 allowed the exercise of the social virtues ; sentiment, affection, 
 good manners, intelligence even, to you shall be mere words; 
 you shall be less than men, because you are needed as machines 
 to grind on in a system which has come upon us, we scarce know 
 how, and which compels us, as well as you." This is the real, 
 continuously repeated proclamation of law and order to the most 
 part of men who are under the burden of that hierarchy of com- 
 pulsion which governs us under the usurped and false title of 
 society, and which all true socialists or supporters of real society 
 are bound to do their best to get rid of, so as to leave us free to 
 realize to the full that true society which means well-being and 
 well-doing for one and all. 
 
XVI 
 
 EDUCATION AND THE SOCIALIST 
 MOVEMENT! 
 
 John Bates Clark 
 
 [John Bates Clark (1847-), since 1895 professor of political economy in 
 Columbia University, occupies perhaps the foremost position among Eng- 
 lish-speaking economists of the present time. Among his books and mon- 
 ographs should be mentioned his epoch-making work on the Distribution of 
 Wealth (1899), which ranks among the ablest contributions to economic 
 philosophy since the days of John Stuart Mill. 
 
 While always a theoretician, Professor Clark has shown an active interest 
 in many current practical problems; this is exemplified in the following 
 essay on Education and the Socialist Movement, a clear-cut presentation of 
 the practical objections to socialism as they appear to the scientifically trained 
 mind. Among the many analyses and refutations of the claims of the socialis- 
 tic state, this essay is distinguished for its lucid argument, its moderate tone, 
 and for the authority with which its author may speak on a question that 
 must still be argued from theory. The optimistic attitude, with which the 
 essay closes, toward the tendencies of the present industrial system is char- 
 acteristic of the author's position on economic questions.] 
 
 In a noteworthy address delivered at Princeton University, 
 President Cleveland expressed the hope that our higher institu- 
 tions of learning would range themselves like a wall barring the 
 progress of revolutionary doctrines. If one may judge by ap- 
 pearances, this hope has not been realized. There, may be a 
 smaller percentage of educated persons than of uneducated ones 
 in the ranks of radical socialism. Those ranks are most readily 
 recruited from the body of ill-paid workingmen ; but there are 
 enough highly educated persons in them to prove that socialism 
 and the higher culture are not incompatible ; and a question that 
 
 > Reprinted by permission from the Atlantic Monthly, October, 1906.^ 
 
 454 /'■-"' 
 
EDUCATION AND THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 455 
 
 is well worth asking and, if possible, answering, is, What is 
 likely to be the permanent attitude of a scientific mind toward 
 the claims of thoroughgoing socialism? Will it be generally 
 conservative or the opposite? Will there be an alliance be- 
 tween intelligence and discontented labor — the kind of union 
 that was once cynically called a ''coalition of universities and 
 slums " ? If so, it will make a formidable party. 
 
 It is clear, in the first place, that the scientific habit of thought 
 makes one hospitable to new ideas. A man who cultivates that 
 habit is open to conviction where an ignorant person is not so. 
 He is accustomed to pursue the truth and let the quest lead him 
 where it will. He examines evidence which appears to have force, 
 even although the conclusion to which it leads may be new and 
 unpleasant. 
 
 Now, at the very outset of any inquiry about socialism, there 
 appear certain undisputed facts which create a prima facie case in 
 its favor ; and the first of them is the beauty of the ideal which it 
 presents : humanity as one family ; men working together as 
 brethren, and enjoying, share and share alike, the fruits of their 
 labor — what could be more attractive ? There will be an abun- 
 dance for every one, and as much for the weak as for the strong ; 
 and there will be no cause for envy and repining. There will be 
 fraternity insured by the absence of subjects of contention. We 
 shall love our brethren because we shall have no great cause to 
 hate them ; such is the picture. We raise just here no question 
 as to the possibility of realizing it. It is a promised land and not 
 a real one that we are talking about, and for the moment we have 
 given to the socialists carte blanche to do the promising. The 
 picture that they hold up before us certainly has traits of beauty. 
 It is good and pleasant for brethren to dweU together in unity 
 and in abundance. 
 
 Again, there is no. denying the imperfections of the present 
 system both on its ethical and on its economic side. There is 
 enormous inequality of conditions — want at one extreme and 
 inordinate wealth at another. Many a workingman and his 
 family are a prey to irregular employment and continual anxiety. 
 
456 JOHN BATES CLARK 
 
 For such persons what would not a leveling out of inequalities 
 do ? To a single capitalist personally a billion dollars would 
 mean palaces, yachts, and a regiment of retainers. It would 
 mean a redoubling of his present profusion of costly decorations, 
 clothing, and furnishings, and it would mean the exhausting of 
 ingenuity in inventing pleasures, all of which, by a law of human 
 nature, would pall on the man from mere abundance. What 
 would the billionaire lose by parting with ninety-nine one hun- 
 dredths of his wealth ? With the modest ten millions that would 
 be left he could have every pleasure and advantage that money 
 ought to purchase. What would not the sum he would surrender 
 do for a hundred thousand laborers and their families ? It would 
 provide comforts for something like half a million persons. It 
 would give them means of culture and of health, banish the 
 hunger specter, and cause them to live in mental security 
 and peace. In short, at the cost of practically nothing for 
 one man, the redistribution we have imagined would trans- 
 late half a million persons to a comfortable and hopeful level 
 of life. 
 
 Again, the growth of those corporations to which we give the 
 name of "trusts" has lessened the force of one stock argument 
 against socialism, and added a wholly new argument in its favor. 
 The difficulty of managing colossal enterprises formerly stood 
 in many minds as the chief consideration against nationalization 
 of capital and industry. What man, or what body of men, can 
 possibly be wise and skillful enough to handle such operations ? 
 They are now, in some instances, in process of handling them, and 
 those who wish to change the present order tell us that all we 
 have to do is to transfer the ownership of them to the state, and 
 let them continue working as they do at present. We have found 
 men wise enough to manage the trusts, and probably, in most 
 cases, they are honest enough to do so in the interest of the 
 stockholders. On the question of honesty the socialist has the 
 advantage in the argument, for he will tell us that with the pri- 
 vate ownership of capital made impossible by law, the tempta- 
 tion to dishonesty is removed. If the socialistic state could be 
 
EDUCATION AND THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 457 
 
 warranted free from "graft," this would constitute the largest 
 single argument in its favor. 
 
 It is, indeed, not the same thing to manage a myriad of indus- 
 tries as to manage a single one, because certain nice adjustments 
 have to be made between the several industries, and we shall see 
 what this difliculty signifies ; but as we are looking only at prima 
 facie claims, we will give to the argument from the existence of 
 trusts all the force that belongs to it. 
 
 As the difficulty of nationalizing production has been reduced, 
 the need of it has been increased, for the trusts are becoming 
 partial monopolies, able to raise prices, reduce wages, cheapen 
 raw materials, and make themselves, if they shall go much farther 
 in this line, altogether intolerable. Indeed, the single fact of the 
 presence of private monopoly, and the lack of any obvious and 
 sure plan of successfully dealing with it, has been enough to con- 
 vert a multitude of intelligent men to the socialistic, view. 
 
 Here, then, is a list of arguments making an effective case for 
 socialism : the beauty of its ideal, the glaring inequalities of the 
 present system, the reduction of the difficulty of managing great 
 industries through public officials, the growing evils of private 
 monopoly, and the preference for public monopoly as a mode of 
 escape. They captivate a multitude of persons, and it is time 
 carefully to weigh them. It is necessary to decide whether the 
 promises of the socialistic state are to be trusted. Would the 
 ideal materialize? Is it a substantial thing, within reachable 
 distance, or is it a city in the clouds ? If it is not wholly away 
 from the earth, is it on the delectable mountains of a remote 
 millennium ? Is it as wholly desirable as it at first appears ? 
 
 There are some considerations which any educated mind should 
 be able to grasp, which reduce the attractiveness of the socialistic 
 ideal itself. Shall we transform humanity into a great band of 
 brethren by abolishing private property ? Differences of wealth 
 which now excite envy would, of course, be removed. The temp- 
 tation to covetousness would be reduced, since there would not 
 be much to covet. There would be nothing a man could do with 
 plunder — unless he could emigrate with it. Would "hatred 
 
458 JOHN BATES CLARK 
 
 and all uncharitableness " be therefore completely absent, or 
 would they be present in a form that would still make 
 trouble ? 
 
 Even though there would be no differences of possessions 
 between man and man, there would be great differences in 
 the desirability of different kinds of labor. Some work is safe 
 and some is dangerous. Some is agreeable and some is dis- 
 agreeable. The artist, the author, the scientist, the explorer, 
 and the inventor take pleasure in their work ; and that is not 
 often to be said of the stoker, the grinder of tools, the coal 
 miner, or the worker in factories where explosives or poisons are 
 made. It is not to be said of any one who has to undergo ex- 
 hausting labor for long hours. In industries managed by the 
 state there would be no practicable way of avoiding the necessity 
 of assigning men to disagreeable, arduous, unhealthful, or dan- 
 gerous employments. Selections of men for such fields of labor 
 would in some way have to be made, and those selected for the 
 undesirable tasks would have to be held to them by public 
 authority. Well would it be if the men so consigned, looking 
 upon the more fortunate workers, were not good material for 
 an army of discontent. Well would it be if their discontent were 
 not turned into suspicion of their rulers and charges of favorit- 
 ism in personal treatment. There would not be, as now, an 
 abstraction called a "system," on which, as upon the camel's 
 back, it would be possible to load the prevalent evils. Strong in 
 the affections of the people must be the personnel of a government 
 that could survive the discontent which necessary inequalities of 
 treatment would excite. Would the government be likely to be 
 thus strong in popular affection ? We may judge as to this if we 
 look at one further peculiarity of it. 
 
 The pursuit of wealth now furnishes the outlet for the over- 
 mastering ambition of many persons. In the new state, the 
 desire to rise in the world would have only one main outlet, 
 namely, politics. The work of governing the country, and that 
 of managing its industries, would be merged in one great official 
 body. The contrast between rulers and ruled would be enor- 
 
EDUCATION AND THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 459 
 
 mously heightened by this concentration of power in the hands of 
 the rulers, and by the further fact that the ruled would never be 
 able, by means of wealth, to acquire an offset for the advantages 
 of ofhceholding. The desire for public position must therefore 
 be intensified. 
 
 There would be some prizes to be gained, in a worthy way, by 
 other kinds of service, such as authorship, invention, and discov- 
 ery ; but the prizes which would appeal to most men would be 
 those of officialdom. Is it in reason to suppose that the method 
 of securing the ofiices would then be better than it is at present ? 
 Would a man, under the new regime, work quietly at his task in 
 the shoe shop, the bakery, or the mine, waiting for the office to 
 which he aspired to seek him out, or would he try to make terms 
 with other men for mutual assistance in the quest of office? 
 Would rings be less general than they are now? Could there 
 fail to be bosses and political machines ? Would the Tammanys 
 of the new order, then, be an improvement on the Tammanys of 
 the old order ? To the sober second thought which mental train- 
 ing ought to favor, it appears that the claim of the socialistic 
 state to a peculiar moral excellence brought about by its equality 
 of possessions needs a very thorough sifting. 
 
 Without making any dogmatic assertions, we may say that 
 there would certainly have to be machines of some sort for push- 
 ing men into public offices, and that these would have very sinis- 
 ter possibilities. They would be opposed by counter machines, 
 made up of men out of office and anxious to get in. ''I am able 
 to see," said Marshal MacMahon, when nearing the end of his 
 brief presidency of the French Republic, "that there are two 
 classes of men — those who command and those who must obey." 
 If the demarcation were as sharp as that in actual society, and if 
 the great prizes in life were political, brief indeed might be the 
 tenure of place by any one party, and revolutions of more than 
 South American frequency might be the normal state of society. 
 One may look at the ideal which collectivism ^ presents, with no 
 
 ^ The economic idea underlying socialism : ownership by the community 
 of all the means of production. — Editors. 
 
460 JOHN BATES CLARK 
 
 thought of such dangers ; but it is the part of intelligence at least 
 to take account of them. 
 
 Besides the fact that some would be in office and others out, 
 and that some would be in easy and desirable trades and others in 
 undesirable ones, there would be the further fact that some would 
 live in the city and some in the country, and that the mere local- 
 izing of occupations would afford difficulty for the ruling class 
 and be a further cause of possible discontent. But a much more 
 serious test of the capacity of the government would have to be 
 made in another way. Very nice adjustments would have to be 
 made between agriculture on one hand, and manufactures and 
 commerce on the other; and further adjustments would have 
 to be made between the different branches of each generic divi- 
 sion. All this would be done, not automatically as at present, 
 by the action of demand and supply in a market, but by the vol- 
 untary acts of officials. Here is the field in which the wisdom 
 of officials would be overtaxed. They might manage the mills 
 of the steel trust, but it would trouble them to say how many 
 men should be employed in that business and how many in 
 every other, and of the men in that generic branch, how many 
 should work in Pittsburg and how many in the mines of Michigan 
 and Minnesota. 
 
 A fine economic classic is the passage in which Bishop Whately 
 describes the difficulty of provisioning the City of London by the 
 action of an official commissariat, and contrasts it with the per- 
 fection with which this is now done without such official control. 
 Individuals, each of whom seeks only to promote his own inter- 
 est, work in harmony, prevent waste, and secure the city against 
 a lack of any needed element. Far greater would be the con- 
 trast between satisfying by public action every want of a nation, 
 and doing this by the present automatic process ; and yet crude 
 thought even calls competition "chaotic," and calls on the state 
 to substitute an orderly process. Into that particular error dis- 
 criminating thought will not readily fall. 
 
 Difficulties which a discerning eye perceives, and an undiscern- 
 ing one neglects, thus affect the conclusion that is reached as to 
 
EDUCATION AND THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 461 
 
 whether a sociahstic plan of industry could or could not be made 
 to work. Ignorance does not so much as encounter the real 
 difficulties in the case, but lightly assumes that the plan would 
 work, and is eager to try it. I am not, here and now, claiming 
 that the difficulties cited positively prove that the scheme would 
 not work. Granting now, for the sake of further argument, 
 that it could be made to work — that on the political side it 
 would proceed smoothly and peaceably, and that on the economic 
 side it would run on no fatal rocks — would it give a material 
 result worth having ? 
 
 Here is a chance for a wider range of difference between the 
 conclusions of different minds. There are three specific conse- 
 quences of the socialistic plan of industry, each of which is at 
 least possible ; and a prospect that all of them would occur to- 
 gether would suffice to deter practically every one from adhering 
 to this plan. Estimates of the probability of these evils will 
 vary, but that each one of the three is possible, is not to be de- 
 nied. Of these results, the first is, on the whole, the gravest. 
 It is the check that socialism might impose on technical prog- 
 ress. At present we see a bewildering succession of inventions 
 transforming the industries of the world. Machine after ma- 
 chine appears in rapid succession, each displacing its predecessor, 
 working for a time and giving way to still better devices. The 
 power of man over nature increases with amazing rapidity. 
 Even in the relatively simple operations of agriculture, the reaper, 
 the thresher, the seeder, and the gang plow enable a man to- 
 day to do as much work as could a score of men in the colonial 
 period of American history. In manufacturing, the gain is 
 greater ; and in transportation, it is indefinitely greater. The 
 progress goes on without cessation, since the thing which guaran- 
 tees it is the impulse of self-preservation. An employer must 
 improve his mechanism if his rivals do so. He must now and 
 then get ahead of his rivals if he is to make any profit. Con- 
 servatism which adheres to the old is self-destruction, and a 
 certain audacity affords the nearest approach to safety. From 
 this it comes about, first, that forward movements are made 
 
462 JOHN BATES CLARK 
 
 daily and hourly in some part of the field ; and, secondly, that 
 with every forward movement the whole procession must move 
 on to catch up with its new leader. 
 
 Now, it is possible to suppose that under socialism an altru- 
 istic motive may lead men to make inventions and discoveries. 
 They may work for the good of humanity. The desire for dis- 
 tinction may also impel them to such labors, and non-pecuniary 
 rewards offered by the state may second this desire. The in- 
 ventive impulse may act even where no reward is in view. Men 
 will differ greatly in their estimates of the amount of progress 
 that can be gained in this way; but the thing that may be 
 afl&rmed without danger of denial is, that the competitive race 
 absolutely compels progress at a rate that is inspiringly rapid, 
 and that there is much uncertainty as to the amount of progress 
 that would be secured where other motives are relied on. Offi- 
 cialdom is generally unfavorable to the adoption of improved 
 devices, even when they are presented; its boards have fre- 
 quently been the graveyards of inventions, and there is no blink- 
 ing the uncertainty as to whether a satisfactory rate of improve- 
 ment could be obtained where the methods of production should 
 be at the mercy of such boards. The keener the intelligence, the 
 more clearly it will perceive the importance of progress, and the 
 immeasurable e\dl that would follow any check upon it; the 
 more also it will dread every cause of uncertainty as to the main- 
 tenance of the present rate of improvement. 
 
 An important fact concerning competitive industry is the ease 
 with which new technical methods translate themselves, first 
 into temporary profits for employers, and then into abiding 
 returns for other classes. The man who introduces an efficient 
 machine makes money by the means until his competitors get a 
 similar appliance, after which the profit vanishes. The product 
 of the machine still enriches society, by diffusing itself among the 
 people in the shape of lower prices of goods. The profit from 
 any one such device is bound to be temporary, while the gain 
 that comes from cheap goods is permanent. If we watch some 
 one industry, like shoemaking or cotton spinning, we find profits 
 
EDUCATION AND THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 463 
 
 appearing and vanishing, and appearing again and vanishing 
 again. If we include in our vision the system as a whole, we 
 find them appearing now in one branch of industry, now in 
 another, and now in still another, shifting forever their places 
 in the system, but always present somewhere. Steel, cotton, 
 wool, machinery, or flour, takes its turn in affording gains to its 
 producer, and these gains constitute the largest source of addi- 
 tions to capital. These natural profits in themselves burden 
 nobody. Not only is there in them no trace of exploitation of 
 labor, but from the very start the influence that yields the profit 
 improves the condition of labor, and in the end labor, as the great- 
 est of all consumers, gets the major benefit.^ 
 
 Now, an important fact is that such profits based on improved 
 technical processes naturally, and almost necessarily, add them- 
 selves to capital. The employer wishes to enlarge his business 
 while the profits last — " to make hay while the sun shines." He 
 has no disposition to spend the income which he knows will be 
 transient, but has every disposition to enlarge the scale of his 
 operations and provide a permanent income for the future. 
 Easily, naturally, painlessly, the great accretions of capital 
 come ; mainly by advances in technical operations of production. 
 
 In the socialistic state all the incomes of the year would be 
 pooled. They would make a composite sum out of which every 
 one's stipend woiild have to be taken. There would be no spe- 
 cial and personal profit for any one. The gains that come from 
 improved technique would not be distinguishable from those that 
 come from other sources. Every one would be a laborer, and 
 every one would get his daily or weekly stipend ; and if capital 
 had to be increased, — if the needs of an enlarging business had 
 to be provided for at all, — it could only be done by withholding 
 some part of that stipend. It would be an unwelcome way of 
 making accumulations. It would mean the conscious acceptance 
 
 1 A fuller treatment of this subject would take account of the incidental 
 evils which inventions often cause, by forcing some persons to change their 
 employments, and would show that these evils were once great but are now 
 smaller and destined to diminish. 
 
464 JOHN BATES CLARK 
 
 by the entire working class of a smaller income than might 
 otherwise be had. If one has heroic confidence in the far-seeing 
 quality and in the generous purpose of the working class, he may 
 perhaps think that it will reconcile itself to this painful self- 
 denial for the benefit of the future ; but it is clear that there are 
 large probabilities in the other direction. There is danger that 
 capital would not be thus saved in sufficient quantity, and that, 
 if it were not so, no power on earth could prevent the earning 
 capacity of labor from suffering in consequence. From mere 
 dearth of capital the socialistic state, though it were more pro- 
 gressive than we think, would be in danger of becoming poorer 
 and poorer. 
 
 There is another fact concerning the present system which a 
 brief study of economics brings to every one's attention, and 
 which has a very close connection with the outlook for the future 
 of laborers. It is the growth of population. The Malthusian 
 doctrine of population maintains that increased wages are fol- 
 lowed by a quick increase in the number of the working people, 
 and that this brings the wages down to their former level. ^ On its 
 face it appears to say that there is not much hope of permanent 
 gains for labor, and it was this teaching which was chiefly respon- 
 sible for giving to political economy the nickname of the "dismal 
 science." It is true that the teachings of Malthus contain a pro- 
 viso whereby it is not impossible under a certain condition that 
 the wages of labor may permanently increase. Something may 
 raise the standard of living more or less permanently, and this 
 fact may nullify the tendency of population to increase unduly. 
 Modern teachings make the utmost of this saving proviso, and 
 show that standards have in fact risen, that families of the well- 
 to-do are smaller than those of empty-handed laborers, and that, 
 with advancing wages based on enlarged producing power, the 
 workers may not see their gains slipping from their hands in the 
 old Malthusian fashion, but may hold them more and more 
 firmly. Progress may cause further progress. 
 
 Now, socialism proposes to place families in a condition resem- 
 *T. R. Malthus, Essay on Population, 1798. — Editors. 
 
EDUCATION AND THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 465 
 
 bling that in which, in American history, the natural growth has 
 been most rapid, the condition, namely, in which children are 
 ijiaintained without cost to parents, as they were when they lived 
 on farms and were set working at an early age. If this should 
 mean that the old Malthusian law would operate in the socialistic 
 state, the experiment would be hopelessly wrecked. If the state 
 provides for children from their birth to the end of their lives, the 
 particular influence that puts a check on the size of families will 
 be absent. One may not affirm with positiveness that the worst 
 form of Malthusianism would actually operate under socialism ; 
 nothing but experiment will give certain knowledge in this par- 
 ticular; but what a little discernment makes perfectly certain 
 is, that there would be danger of this. 
 
 Quite apart, then, from political uncertainties, three coordinate 
 influences on the purely economic side must be taken full account 
 of by anybody who would intelligently advocate the nationaliz- 
 ing of production. There are : first, the probable check on tech- 
 nical progress ; secondly, the difficulty encountered in enlarging 
 capital ; and thirdly, the possible impetus to the growth of pop- 
 ulation. If the first two influences were to work without the 
 other, socialism would mean that we should all slowly grow poor 
 together; and if the third influence were also to operate, we 
 should grow poor very rapidly. 
 
 We have not proved, as if by incontestable mathematics, that 
 socialism is not practicable and not desirable. We have cited 
 facts which lead a majority of persons to believe this. The 
 unfavorable possibilities of socialism bulk large in an intelligent 
 view, but positive proof as to what would happen in such a state 
 can come only through actual experience. Some country must 
 turn itself into an experimental laboratory for testing the collec- 
 tive mode of production and distribution, before the world can 
 definitely know what that process would involve. In advance 
 of this test, there is a line of inquiry which yields a more assured 
 conclusion than can any estimate of a state which, as yet, is 
 imaginary. It is the study of the present industrial system and 
 its tendencies. When we guess that the collective management 
 
466 JOHN BATES CLARK 
 
 of all production by the state would fail to work, and would lead 
 to poverty even if it succeeded in working, we are met by those 
 who guess it would succeed and lead to general abundance ; and 
 they will certainly claim that their guesses are worth as much as 
 ours. As to the tendencies of the present state, and the outlook 
 they afford, it is possible to know much more. The testimony 
 of facts is positive as to some things, and very convincing as to 
 others. 
 
 No one is disposed to deny the dazzling series of technical 
 improvements which the rivalries of the present day insure. 
 There is not only progress, but a law of progress ; not only the 
 productive power that we are gaining, but the force that, if 
 allowed to work, will forever compel us to gain it. There is no 
 assignable limit to the power that man will hereafter acquire 
 over nature. Again and again, in the coming years and cen- 
 turies, will the wand of inventive genius smite the rock and cause 
 new streams of wealth to gush forth ; and, as already said, much 
 of this new wealth will take naturally and easily the form of 
 capital. It will multiply and improve the tools that labor works 
 with ; and a fact which science proves is that the laborer, quite 
 apart from the capitalist, thrives by the operation. He gets 
 higher and higher pay as his method of laboring becomes more 
 fruitful. It is as though he were personally bringing for his own 
 use new streams from the rock ; and even though this worker 
 were striking a landlord's rock with a capitalist's hammer, the 
 new stream could not fail to come largely to himself. 
 
 Mere labor will have increasing power to create wealth, and to 
 get wealth, as its methods improve and its tools more and more 
 abound. This will not transform the workingman's whole life in 
 a day — it will not instantly place him where the rubbing of a 
 lamp will make genii his servants, but it will give him to-morrow 
 more than he gets to-day, and the day after to-morrow still more. 
 It will enable his own efforts to raise him surely, steadily, in- 
 spiringly, toward the condition of which he dreams. It will 
 throw sunshine on the future hills — substantial and reachable 
 hills, though less briUiant than pictured mountain.^ of cloudland. 
 
EDUCATION AND THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 467 
 
 Well within the possibilities of a generation or two is the gain 
 that will make the worker comfortable and care free. Like the 
 village blacksmith, he may "look the whole world in the face" 
 with independence, but with no latent enmity. Manly self- 
 assertion there may be, with no sense of injury. The well-paid 
 laborer may stand before the rich without envy, as the rich will 
 stand before him without pity or condescension. It may be that 
 the condition described by Edward Atkinson, in which it "will 
 not pay to be rich" because of the cares which wealth must 
 bring, may never arrive. It will always be better to have some- 
 thing than to have nothing ; but it may, at some time, be better 
 to have relatively little than to have inordinately much; and 
 the worker may be able to come nearer and nearer to the state 
 in which, for him, comforts are plentiful and anxieties are scarce. 
 Amid a vast inequality of mere possessions, there may be less and 
 less of inequality of genuine welfare. Many a man with a modest 
 store may have no wish to change lots with the multimillionaire. 
 For comfortable living, for high thinking, and for the finer traits 
 of humanity, the odds may be in his favor. 
 
 In such a state there might easily be realized a stronger democ- 
 racy than any which a leveling of fortunes would bring. Pulling 
 others down that we may pull ourselves up is not a good initial 
 step in a regime of brotherhood ; but raising ourselves and others 
 together is the very best step from the first and throughout. And 
 the fraternity which comes in this way is by far the finer, because 
 of inequality of possessions. If we can love no man truly unless 
 we have as much money as he has, our brotherly spirit is of a 
 very peculiar kind, and the fraternity that would depend on such 
 a leveling would have no virility. It would have the pulpy fiber 
 of a rank weed, while the manlier brotherhood that grows in the 
 midst of inequality has the oaken fiber that endures. The rela- 
 tively poor we shall have with us, and the inordinately rich as well; 
 but it is in the power of humanity to project its fraternal bonds 
 across the chasms which such conditions create. Though there be 
 thrones and principalities in our earthly paradise, they will not mar 
 its perfection, but will develop the finer traits of its inhabitants. 
 
468 JOHN BATES CLARK 
 
 This state is the better because it is not cheaply attained. 
 There are difficulties to be surmounted, which we have barely 
 time to mention and no time to discuss. One of the greatest of 
 these is the vanishing of much competition. The eager rivalry 
 in perfecting methods and multiplying products, which is at the 
 basis of our confidence in the future, seems to have here and there 
 given place to monopoly, which always means apathy and stagna- 
 tion. We have before us a struggle — a successful one, if we 
 rise to the occasion — to keep alive the essential force of compe- 
 tition ; and this fact reveals the very practical relation which 
 intelligence sustains to the different proposals for social improve- 
 ment. It must put us in the way of keeping effective the main- 
 spring of progress — of surmounting those evils which mar the 
 present prospect. Trained intelligence here has its task marked 
 out for it : it must show that monopoly can be effectively attacked, 
 and must point out the way to do it — a far different way from 
 any yet adopted. Our people have the fortunes of themselves, 
 their children, and their children's children, in their own hands. 
 Surely, and even somewhat rapidly, may the gains we have out- 
 lined be made to come by united effort guided by intelligent 
 thought. 
 
 It requires discernment to estimate progress itself at its true 
 value. John Stuart Mill made the remark that no system could 
 be worse than the present one, if that system did not admit of 
 improvement. This remark could be made of any system. How- 
 ever fair a social state might at the outset appear, it would be 
 essentially bad if it could never change for the better. The so- 
 ciety in which efficient methods supplant inefficient ones, and in 
 which able directors come naturally into control of production, 
 insures a perpetual survival of excellence, and however low might 
 be the state from which such a course of progress took its start, 
 the society would ultimately excel any stationary one that could 
 be imagined. A Purgatory actuated by the principle which guar- 
 antees improvement will surpass, in the end, a Paradise which has 
 not this dynamic quality. For a limited class in our own land — 
 chiefly in the slums of cities — life has too much of the purga- 
 
EDUCATION AND THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 469 
 
 torial quality ; for the great body of its inhabitants the condition 
 it affords, though by no means a paradise, is one that would have 
 seemed so to many a civilization of the past and to many a foreign 
 society of to-day. On its future course it is starting from a high 
 level, and is moved by a powerful force toward an ideal which 
 will some day be a reality, and which is therefore inspiring to 
 look upon, even in the distance. 
 
 Like Webster, we may hail the advancing generations and bid 
 them welcome to a land that is fairer than our own, and promises 
 to grow fairer and fairer forever. That this prospect be not im- 
 periled — that the forces that make it a reality be enabled to do 
 their work — is what the men of the future ask of the intelligence 
 of to-day. 
 
XVII 
 
 THE SUBJECTION OF WOMEN 
 
 John Stuart Mill 
 
 [John Stuart Mill's essay, The Subjection of Women (1867), his last pub- 
 lished work, is one of the pioneer documents in a cause that has received 
 constantly increasing attention. Throughout his life Mill had favored the 
 emancipation of women ; but the influence most directly responsible for the 
 volume that embodies his opinions on the subject was his wife, to whom he 
 also assigns a great share of the credit for the work On Liberty. She her- 
 self had written an essay on the Enfranchisement of Women which, with her 
 discussions with her husband, laid the foundation for his book. 
 
 The first chapter of this work has been selected to present the basic argu- 
 ments of the modern suffrage movement, as the book can still claim to be a 
 classic of its kind, despite the fact that it is out of date and that many of the 
 unfair discriminations of that day no longer exist. The distinctive feature of 
 Mill's argument on the emancipation question consists in his assertion that 
 the difference of sex is accidental, like the difference of color, and that there 
 are no grounds for forming any conclusions about the limitations of woman, 
 as we really know absolutely nothing about the possibiHties of her nature. 
 Needless to say. Mill's views, in an age still innocent of miUtant propaganda, 
 brought down upon him a storm of criticism, even from the liberals. A brief 
 for the conservatives on this still very live question is given by Mr. Frederic 
 Harrison in the next essay.] 
 
 The object of this essay is to explain, as clearly as I am able, 
 the grounds of an opinion which I have held from the very earliest 
 period when I had formed any opinions at all on social or politi- 
 cal matters, and which, instead of being weakened or modified, 
 has been constantly growing stronger by the progress of reflec- 
 tion and the experience of life : That the principle which regulates 
 the existing social relations between the two sexes — the legal 
 subordination of one sex to the other — is wrong in itself, and 
 now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement; and 
 
 470 
 
THE SUBJECTION OF WOMEN 471 
 
 that it ought to be replaced by a principle of perfect equality, 
 admitting no power or privilege on the one side, nor disability 
 on the other. 
 
 The very words necessary to express the task I have under- 
 taken, show how arduous it is. But it would be a mistake to 
 suppose that the difficulty of the case must lie in the insufficiency 
 or obscurity of the grounds of reason on which my conviction 
 rests. The difficulty is that which exists in all cases in which 
 there is a mass of feeling to be contended against. So long as an 
 opinion is strongly rooted in the feelings, it gains rather than loses 
 in stability by having a preponderating weight of argument 
 against it. For if it were accepted as a result of argument, the 
 refutation of the argument might shake the solidity of the con- 
 viction ; but when it rests solely on feeling, the worse it fares in 
 argumentative contest, the more persuaded its adherents are 
 that their feeling must have some deeper ground, which the argu- 
 ments do not reach ; and while the feeling remains, it is always 
 throwing up fresh intrenchments of argument to repair any 
 breach made in the old. And there are so many causes tending 
 to make the feelings connected with this subject the most in- 
 tense and most deeply rooted of all those which gather round and 
 protect old institutions and customs, that we need not wonder 
 to find them as yet less undermined and loosened than any of the. 
 rest by the progress of the great modern spiritual and social tran- 
 sition; nor suppose that the barbarisms to which men cling 
 longest must be less barbarisms than those which they earlier 
 shake off. 
 
 In every respect the burden is hard on those who attack an 
 almost universal opinion. They must be very fortunate, as well 
 as unusually capable, if they obtain a hearing at all. They have 
 more difficulty in obtaining a trial than any other litigants have 
 in getting a verdict. If they do extort a hearing, they are sub- 
 jected to a set of logical requirements totally different from 
 those exacted from other people. In all other cases, the bur- 
 den of proof is supposed to lie with the affirmative. If a 
 person is charged with a murder, it rests with those who accuse 
 
472 JOHN STUART MILL 
 
 him to give proof of his guilt, not with himself to prove his inno 
 cence. If there is a difference of opinion about the reality of any 
 alleged historical event, in which the feelings of men in general 
 are not much interested, as the siege of Troy for example, those 
 who maintain that the event took place are expected to produce 
 their proofs, before those who take the other side can be required 
 to say anything ; and at no time are these required to do more 
 than show that the evidence produced by the others is of no 
 value. Again, in practical matters, the burden of proof is sup- 
 posed to be with those who are against liberty ; who contend for 
 any restriction or prohibition ; either any liinitation of the gen- 
 eral freedom of human action, or any disqualification or disparity 
 of privilege affecting one person or kind of persons, as compared 
 with others. The a priori presumption is in favor of freedom and 
 impartiality. It is held that there should be no restraint not 
 required by the general good, and that the law should be no re- 
 specter of persons, but should treat all ahke, save where dissimi- 
 larity of treatment is required by positive reasons, either of 
 justice or of policy. But of none of these rules of evidence will 
 the benefit be allowed to those who maintain the opinion I pro- 
 fess. It is useless for me to say that those who maintain the 
 doctrine that men have a right to command and women are under 
 9,n obligation to obey, or that men are fit for government and 
 women unfit, are on the afiirmative side of the question, and that 
 they are bound to show positive e^ddence for the assertions, or 
 submit to their rejection. It is equally unavailing for me to say 
 that those who deny to women any freedom or privilege rightly 
 allowed to men, having the double presumption against them 
 that they are opposing freedom and recommending partiality, 
 must be held to the strictest proof of their case, and unless their 
 success be such as to exclude all doubt, the judgment ought to 
 go against them. These would be thought good pleas in any 
 common case ; but they will not be thought so in this instance. 
 Before I could hope to make any impression, I should be expected 
 not only to answer all that has ever been said by those who take 
 the other side of the question, but to imagine all that could be 
 
 1 
 
THE SUBJECTION OF WOMEN 473 
 
 said by them — to find them in reasons, as well as answer all 
 I find : and besides refuting all arguments for the afl&rmative, I 
 shall be called upon for invincible positive arguments to prove 
 a negative. And even if I could do all this, and leave the opposite 
 party with a host of unanswered arguments against them, and 
 not a single unrefuted one on their side, I should be thought to 
 have done little ; for a cause supported on the one hand by uni- 
 versal usage, and on the other by so great a preponderance of 
 popular sentiment, is supposed to have a presumption in its 
 favor superior to any conviction which an appeal to reason has 
 power to produce in any intellects but those of a high class. 
 
 I do not mention these difficulties to complain of them : first, be- 
 cause it would be useless ; they are inseparable from having to 
 contend through people's understandings against the hostility of 
 their feelings and practical tendencies : and truly the under- 
 standings of the majority of mankind would need to be much bet- 
 ter cultivated than has ever yet been the case, before they could 
 be asked to place such reliance in their own power of estimating 
 arguments as to give up practical principles in which they have 
 been born and bred and which are the basis of much of the exist- 
 ing order of the world, at the first argumentative attack which 
 they are not capable of logically resisting. I do not therefore 
 quarrel with them for having too little faith in argument, but for 
 having too much faith in custom and the general feeling. It 
 is one of the characteristic prejudices of the reaction of the nine- 
 teenth century against the eighteenth, to accord to the unrea- 
 soning elements in human nature the infallibility which the 
 eighteenth century is supposed to have ascribed to the reasoning 
 elements. For the apotheosis of Reason we have substituted that 
 of Instinct ; and we call everything instinct which we find in 
 ourselves and for which we cannot trace any rational foundation. 
 This idolatry, infinitely more degrading than the other, and the 
 most pernicious of the false worships of the present day, of all of 
 which it is now the main support, will probably hold its ground 
 until it gives way before a sound psychology, laying bare the real 
 root of much that is bowed down to as the intention of nature 
 
474 JOHN STUART MILL 
 
 and the ordinance of God. As regards the present question, I 
 am willing to accept the unfavorable conditions which the preju- 
 dice assigns to me. I consent that established custom, and the 
 general feeling, should be deemed conclusive against me, unless 
 that custom and feeling from age to age can be shown to have 
 owed their existence to other causes than their soundness, and 
 to have derived their power from the worse rather than the better 
 parts of human nature. I am willing that judgment should 
 go against me, unless I can show that my judge has been tam- 
 pered with. The concession is not so great as it might appear ; 
 for to prove this is by far the easiest portion of my task. 
 
 The generality of a practice is in some cases a strong presump- 
 tion that it is, or at all events once was, conducive to laudable 
 ends. This is the case, when the practice was first adopted, or 
 afterwards kept up, as a means to such ends, and was grounded 
 on experience of the mode in which they could be most effectually 
 attained. If the authority of men over women, when first estab- 
 lished, had been the result of conscientious comparison between 
 different modes of constituting the government of society; if, 
 after trying various other modes of social organization — the 
 government of women over men, equality between the two, and 
 such mixed and divided modes of government as might be in- 
 vented — it had been decided, on the testimony of experience, 
 that the mode in which women are wholly under the rule of men, 
 having no share at all in public concerns, and each in private 
 being under the legal obligation of obedience to the man with 
 whom she has associated her destiny, was the arrangement most 
 conducive to the happiness and well-being of both ; its general 
 adoption might then be fairly thought to be some evidence that, 
 at the time when it was adopted, it was the best : though even 
 then the considerations which recommended it may, like so 
 many other primeval social facts of the greatest importance, have 
 subsequently, in the course of ages, ceased to exist. But the 
 state of the case is in every respect the reverse of this. In the 
 first place, the opinion in favor of the present system, which en- 
 tirely subordinates the weaker sex to the stronger, rests upon 
 
THE SUBJECTION OF WOMEN 475 
 
 theory only ; for there never has been trial made of any other : 
 so that experience, in the sense in which it is vulgarly opposed to 
 theory, cannot be pretended to have pronounced any verdict. 
 And in the second place, the adoption of this system of inequality 
 never was the result of deliberation, or forethought, or any social 
 ideas, or any notion whatever of what conduced to the benefit of 
 humanity or the good order of society. It arose simply from the 
 fact that from the very earliest twilight of human society, every 
 woman (owing to the value attached to her by men, combined 
 with her inferiority in muscular strength) was found in a state 
 of bondage to some man. Laws and systems of polity always 
 begin by recognizing the relations they find already existing be- 
 tween individuals. They convert what was a mere physical fact 
 into a legal right, give it the sanction of society, and principally 
 aim at the substitution of public and organized means of assert- 
 ing and protecting these rights, instead of the irregular and law- 
 less conflict of physical strength. Those who had already been 
 compelled to obedience became in this manner legally bound to 
 it. Slavery, from being a mere affair of force between the master 
 and the slave, became regularized and a matter of compact 
 among the masters, who, binding themselves to one another for 
 common protection, guaranteed by their collective strength the 
 private possessions of each, including his slaves. In early times 
 the great majority of the male sex were slaves, as well as the 
 whole of the female. And many ages elapsed, some of them ages 
 of high cultivation, before any thinker was bold enough to ques- 
 tion the rightfulness, and the absolute social necessity, either 
 of the one slavery or of the other. By degrees such thinkers did 
 arise : and (the general progress of society assisting) the slavery 
 of the male sex has, in all the countries of Christian Europe at 
 least (though, in one of them, only within the last few years 
 been at length abolished, and that of the female sex has been 
 gradually changed into a milder form of dependence. But this 
 dependence, as it exists at present, is not an original institution, 
 taking a fresh start from considerations of justice and social ex- 
 1 Serfdom was not abolished in Russia until i86i. — Editors. 
 
476 JOHN STUART MILL 
 
 pediency — it is the primitive state of slavery lasting on, through 
 successive mitigations and modifications occasioned by the same 
 causes which have softened the general manners, and brought all 
 human relations more under the control of justice and the influ- 
 ence of humanity. It has not lost the taint of its brutal origin. 
 No presumption in its favor, therefore, can be drawn from the 
 fact of its existence. The only such presumption which it could 
 be supposed to have, must be grounded on its having lasted till 
 now, when so many other things which came down from the same 
 odious source have been done away with. And this, indeed, is 
 what makes it strange to ordinary ears, to hear it asserted that 
 the inequality of rights between men and women has no other 
 source than the law of the strongest. 
 
 That this statement should have the effect of a paradox is in 
 some respects creditable to the progress of civilization, and the 
 improvement of the moral sentiments of mankind. We now 
 live — that is to say, one or two of the most advanced nations of 
 the world now live — in a state in which the law of the strongest 
 seems to be entirely abandoned as the regulating principle of the 
 world's affairs : nobody professes it, and, as regards most of the 
 relations between human beings, nobody is permitted to practice 
 it. When any one succeeds in doing so, it is under cover of some 
 pretext which gives him the semblance of having some general 
 social interest on his side. This being the ostensible state of 
 things, people flatter themselves that the rule of mere force is 
 ended ; that the law of the strongest cannot be the reason of exist- 
 ence of anything which has remained in full operation down to 
 the present time. However any of our present institutions may 
 have begun, it can only, they think, have been preserved to this 
 period of advanced civilization by a well-grounded feeling of its 
 adaptation to human nature, and conduciveness to the general 
 good. They do not understand the great vitality and durability 
 of institutions which place right on the side of might ; how in- 
 tensely they are clung to ; how the good as well as the bad pro- 
 pensities and sentiments of those who have power in their hands 
 become identified with retaining it ; how slowly these bad insti- 
 
THE SUBJECTION OF WOMEN 477 
 
 tutions give way, one at a time, the weakest first, beginning with 
 those which are least interwoven with the daily habits of life; 
 and how very rarely those who have obtained legal power be- 
 cause they first had physical, have ever lost their hold of it until 
 the physical power had passed over to the other side. Such 
 shifting of the physical force not having taken place in the case 
 of women, this fact, combined with all the peculiar and charac- 
 teristic features of the particular case, made it certain from the 
 first that this branch of the system of right founded on might, 
 though softened in its most atrocious features at an earlier period 
 than several of the others, would be the very last to disappear. It 
 was inevitable that this one case of a social relation grounded on 
 force would survive through generations of institutions grounded 
 on equal justice, an almost solitary exception to the general char- 
 acter of their laws and customs ; but which, so long as it does not 
 proclaim its own origin, and as discussion has not brought out its 
 true character, is not felt to jar with modern civilization, any 
 more than domestic slavery among the Greeks jarred with their 
 notion of themselves as a free people. 
 
 The truth is, that people of the present and the last two or 
 three generations have lost all practical sense of the primitive con- 
 dition of humanity ; and only the few who have studied history 
 accurately, or have much frequented the parts of the world oc- 
 cupied by the living representatives of ages long past, are able 
 to form any mental picture of what society then was. People 
 are not aware how entirely, in former ages, the law of superior 
 strength was the rule of life; how publicly and openly it was 
 avowed, I do not say cynically or shamelessly — for these words 
 imply a feeling that there was something in it to be ashamed of, 
 and no such notion could find a place in the faculties of any per- 
 son in those ages, except a philosopher or a saint. History gives 
 a cruel experience of human nature, in showing how exactly the 
 regard due to the life, possessions, and entire earthly happiness of 
 any class of persons, was measured by what they had the power 
 of enforcing; how all who made any resistance to authorities 
 that had arms in their hands, however dreadful might be the" 
 
478 JOHN STUART MILL 
 
 provocation, had not only the law of force but all other laws and 
 all the notions of social obligation against them ; and in the eyes 
 of those whom they resisted, were not only guilty of crime, but of 
 the worst of all crimes, deserving the most cruel chastisement 
 which human beings could inflict. The first small vestige of a 
 feeling of obligation in a superior to acknowledge any right in 
 inferiors, began when he had been induced, for convenience, to 
 make some promise to them. Though these promises, even 
 when sanctioned by the most solemn oaths, were for many ages 
 revoked or violated on the most trifling provocation or tempta- 
 tion, it is probable that this, except by persons of still worse than 
 the average morality, was seldom done without some twinges of 
 conscience. The ancient republics, being mostly grounded from 
 the first upon some kind of mutual compact, or at any rate 
 formed by a union of persons not very unequal in strength, af- 
 forded, in consequence, the first instance of a portion of human 
 relations fenced round, and placed under the dominion of another 
 law than that of force. And though the original law of force re- 
 mained in full operation between them and their slaves, and also 
 (except so far as limited by express compact) between a common- 
 wealth and its subjects, or other independent commonwealths; 
 the banishment of that primitive law, even from so narrow a field, 
 commenced the regeneration of human nature, by giving birth 
 to sentiments of which experience soon demonstrated the im- 
 mense value even for material interests, and which thencefor- 
 ward only required to be enlarged, not created. Though slaves 
 were no part of the commonwealth, it was in the free states that 
 slaves were first felt to have rights as human beings. The Stoics 
 were, I believe, the first (except so far as the Jewish law consti- 
 tutes an exception) who taught as a part of morality that men were 
 bound by moral obligations to their slaves. No one, after Chris- 
 tianity became ascendant, could ever again have been a stranger 
 to this belief, in theory ; nor, after the rise of the Catholic Church, 
 was it ever without persons to stand up for it. Yet to enforce it 
 was the most arduous task which Christianity ever had to per- 
 form. For more than a thousand years the Church kept up the 
 
THE SUBJECTION OF WOMEN 479 
 
 contest, with hardly any perceptible success. It was not for 
 want of power over men's minds. Its power was prodigious. It 
 could make kings and nobles resign their most valued posses- 
 sions to enrich the Church. It could make thousands, in the 
 prime of life and the height of worldly advantages, shut them- 
 selves up in convents to work out their salvation by poverty, 
 fasting, and prayer. It could send hundreds of thousands across 
 land and sea, Europe and Asia, to give their lives for the deliver- 
 ance of the Holy Sepulcher. It could make kings relinquish 
 wives who were the object of their passionate attachment, be- 
 cause the Church declared that they were within the seventh 
 (by our calculation the fourteenth) degree of relationship. All 
 this it did ; but it could not make men fight less with one another, 
 nor tyrannize less cruelly over the serfs, and when they were able, 
 over burgesses. It could not make them renounce either of the 
 applications of force: force militant, or force triumphant. This 
 they could never be induced to do until they were themselves in 
 their turn compelled by superior force. Only by the growing 
 power of kings was an end put to fighting except between kings, 
 or competitors for kingship ; only by the growth of a wealthy and 
 warlike bourgeoisie in the fortified towns, and of a plebeian in- 
 fantry which proved more powerful in the field than the undis- 
 ciplined chivalry, was the insolent tyranny of the nobles over the 
 bourgeoisie and peasantry brought within some bounds. It was 
 persisted in not only until, but long after, the oppressed had ob- 
 tained a power enabling them often to take conspicuous venge- 
 ance ; and on the Continent much of it continued to the time of 
 the French Revolution, though in England the earher and better 
 organization of the democratic classes put an end to it sooner, by 
 establishing equal laws and free national institutions. 
 
 If people are mostly so little aware how completely, during the 
 greater part of the duration of our species, the law of force was 
 the avowed rule of general conduct, any other being only a special 
 and exceptional consequence of peculiar ties — and from how 
 very recent a date it is that the affairs of society in general have 
 been even pretended to be regulated according to any moral law ; 
 
48o JOHN STUART MILL 
 
 as little do people remember or consider how institutions and cus- 
 toms which never had any ground but the law of force, last on 
 into ages and states of general opinion which never would have 
 permitted their first establishment. Less than forty years ago, 
 EngUshmen might still by law hold human beings in bondage as 
 salable property; within the present century they might kid- 
 nap them and carry them off, and work them literally to death. 
 This absolutely extreme case of the law of force, condemned 
 by those who can tolerate almost every other form of arbi- 
 trary power, and which, of all others, presents features the 
 most revolting to the feelings of all who look at it from an im- 
 partial position, was the law of civihzed and Christian Eng- 
 land within the memory of persons now living ; and in one half 
 of Anglo-Saxon America three or four years ago, not only did 
 slavery exist, but the slave trade, and the breeding of slaves ex- 
 pressly for it, was a general practice between slave states. Yet 
 not only was there a greater strength of sentiment against it, but 
 in England, at least, a less amount either of feehng or of interest in 
 favor of it, than of any other of the customary abuses of force : 
 for its motive was the love of gain, unmixed and undisguised ; and 
 those who profited by it were a very small numerical fraction of 
 the country, while the natural feeling of all who were not per- 
 sonally interested in it, was unmitigated abhorrence. So ex- 
 treme an instance makes it almost superfluous to refer to any 
 other : but consider the long duration of absolute monarchy. In 
 England at present it is the almost universal conviction that 
 military despotism is a case of the law of force, having no other 
 origin or justification. Yet in all the great nations of Europe 
 except England it either still exists, or has only just ceased to 
 exist, and has even now a strong party favorable to it in all ranks 
 of the people, especially among persons of station and conse- 
 quence. Such is the power of an established system, even when 
 far from universal ; when not only in almost every period of his- 
 tory there have been great and well-known examples of the con- 
 trary system, but these have almost invariably been afforded by 
 the most illustrious and most prosperous communities. In this 
 
THE SUBJECTION OF WOMEN 481 
 
 case, too, the possessor of the undue power, the person directly 
 interested in it, is only one person, while those who are subject 
 to it and suffer from it are literally all the rest. The yoke is 
 naturally and necessarily humiliating to all persons, except the 
 one who is on the throne, together with, at most, the one who 
 expects to succeed to it. How different are these cases from that 
 of the power of men over women ! I am not now prejudging the 
 question of its justifiableness. I am showing how vastly more 
 permanent it could not but be, even if not justifiable, than these 
 other dominations which have nevertheless lasted down to our 
 own time. Whatever gratification of pride there is in the 
 possession of power, and whatever personal interest in its 
 exercise, is in this case not confined to a limited class, but com- 
 mon to the whole male sex. Instead of being, to most of its 
 supporters, a thing desirable chiefly in the abstract, or, like the 
 political ends usually contended for by factions, of little private 
 importance to any but the leaders ; it comes home to the person 
 and hearth of every male head of a family, and of every one who 
 looks forward to being so. The clodhopper exercises, or is to 
 exercise, his share of the power equally with the highest nobleman. 
 And the case is that in which the desire of power is the strongest : 
 for every one who desires power, desires it most over those who 
 are nearest to him, with whom his life is passed, with whom he has 
 most concerns in common, and in whom any independence of 
 his authority is oftenest likely to interfere with his individual 
 preferences. If, in the other cases specified, powers manifestly 
 grounded only on force, and having so much less to support them, 
 are so slowly and with so much difficulty got rid of, much more 
 must it be so with this, even if it rests on no better foundation 
 than those. We must consider, too, that the possessors of the 
 power have facilities in this case, greater than in any other, to 
 prevent any uprising against it. Every one of the subjects 
 lives under the very eye, and almost, it may be said, in the 
 hands, of one of the masters — in closer intimacy with him than 
 with any of her fellow-subjects ; with no means of combin- 
 ing against him, no power of even locally overmastering him, 
 
482 JOHN STUART MILL 
 
 and, on the other hand, with the strongest motives for seeking 
 his favor and avoiding to give him offense. In struggles for po- 
 Htical emancipation, everybody knows how often its champions 
 are bought off by bribes, or daunted by terrors. In the case of 
 women, each individual of the subject class is in a chronic state 
 of bribery and intimidation combined. In setting up the stand- 
 ard of resistance, a large number of the leaders, and still more of 
 the followers, must make an almost complete sacrifice of the 
 pleasures or the alleviations of their own individual lot. If ever 
 any system of privilege and enforced subjection had its yoke 
 tightly riveted on the necks of those who are kept down by it, 
 this has. I have not yet shown that it is a wrong system ; but 
 every one who is capable of thinking on the subject must see that 
 even if it is, it was certain to outlast all other forms of unjust au- 
 thority. And when some of the grossest of the other forms still 
 exist in many civilized countries, and have only recently been 
 got rid of in others, it would be strange if that which is so much 
 the deepest rooted had yet been perceptibly shaken anywhere. 
 There is more reason to wonder that the protests and testimonies 
 against it should have been so numerous and so weighty as they 
 are. 
 
 Some will object, that a comparison cannot fairly be made be- 
 tween the government of the male sex and the forms of unjust 
 power which I have adduced in illustration of it, since these are 
 arbitrary, and the effect of mere usurpation, while it on the con- 
 trary is natural. But was there ever any domination which did 
 not appear natural to those who possessed it ? There was a time 
 when the division of mankind into two classes, a small one of 
 masters and a numerous one of slaves, appeared, even to the most 
 cultivated minds, to be a natural, and the only natural, condition 
 of the human race. No less an intellect, and one which contrib- 
 uted no less to the progress of human thought, than Aristotle, 
 held this opinion without doubt or misgiving ; and rested it on 
 the same premises on which the same assertion in regard to the 
 dominion of men over women is usually based, namely, that there 
 are different natures among mankind, free natures, and slave 
 
 « 
 
THE SUBJECTION OF WOMEN 483 
 
 natures ; that the Greeks were of a free nature, the barbarian 
 races of Thracians and Asiatics of a slave nature. But why need 
 I go back to Aristotle ? Did not the slave owners of the south- 
 ern United States maintain the same doctrine, with all the fanat- 
 icism with which men cling to the theories that justify their 
 passions and legitimate their personal interests ? Did they not 
 call heaven and earth to witness that the dominion of the white 
 man over the black is natural, that the black race is by nature 
 incapable of freedom, and marked out for slavery ? — some even 
 going so far as to say that the freedom of manual laborers is an 
 unnatural order of things anywhere. Again, the theorists of ab- 
 solute monarchy have always affirmed it to be the only natural 
 form of government ; issuing from the patriarchal, which was 
 the primitive and spontaneous form of society, framed on the 
 model of the paternal, which is anterior to society itself, and, as 
 they contend, the most natural authority of all. Nay, for that 
 matter, the law of force itself, to those who could not plead any 
 other, has always seemed the most natural of all grounds for the 
 exercise of authority. Conquering races hold it to be nature's 
 own dictate that the conquered should obey the conquerors, or, 
 as they euphoniously paraphrase it, that the feebler and more 
 unwarlike races should submit to the braver and manlier. The 
 smallest acquaintance with human life in the Middle Ages shows 
 how supremely natural the dominion of the feudal nobility over 
 men of low condition appeared to the nobility themselves, and 
 how unnatural the conception seemed of a person of the inferior 
 class claiming equality with them, or exercising authority over 
 them. It hardly seemed less so to the class held in subjection. 
 The emancipated serfs and burgesses, even in their most vigorous 
 struggles, never made any pretension to a share of authority; 
 they only demanded more or less limitation to the power of 
 tyrannizing over them. So true is it that unnatural generally 
 means only uncustomary, and that everything which is usual 
 appears natural. The subjection of women to men being a uni- 
 versal custom, any departure from it quite naturally appears 
 unnatural. But how entirely, even in this case, the feeling is 
 
484 JOHN STUART MILL 
 
 dependent on custom, appears by ample experience. Nothing 
 so much astonishes the people of distant parts of the worid, when 
 they first learn anything about England, as to be told that it is 
 under a queen ; the thing seems to them so unnatural as to be 
 almost incredible. To Enghshmen this does not seem in the 
 least degree unnatural, because they are used to it ; but they do 
 feel it unnatural that women should be soldiers or members of 
 Parliament. In the feudal ages, on the contrary, war and politics 
 were not thought unnatural to women, because not unusual ; it 
 seemed natural that women of the privileged classes should be 
 of manly character, inferior in nothing but bodily strength to 
 their husbands and fathers. The independence of women seemed 
 rather less unnatural to the Greeks than to other ancients, on 
 account of the fabulous Amazons (whom they believed to be his- 
 torical), and the partial example afforded by the Spartan women ; 
 who, though no less subordinate by law than in other Greek 
 states, were more free in fact ; and being trained to bodily exer- 
 cises in the same manner with men, gave ample proof that they 
 were not naturally disqualified for them. There can be little 
 doubt that Spartan experience suggested to Plato, among many 
 other of his doctrines, that of the social and political equality of 
 the two sexes. 
 
 But, it will be said, the rule of men over women differs from all 
 these others in not being a rule of force : it is accepted voluntarily ; 
 women make no complaint, and are consenting parties to it. In 
 the first place, a great number of women do not accept it. Ever 
 since there have been women able to make their sentiments 
 known by their writings (the only mode of publicity which so- 
 ciety permits to them), an increasing number of them have 
 recorded protests against their present social condition : and re- 
 cently many thousands of them, headed by the most eminent 
 women known to the public, have petitioned Parliament for 
 their admission to the Parliamentary suffrage. The claim of 
 women to be educated as solidly, and in the same branches of 
 knowledge, as men, is urged with growing intensity, and with a 
 great prospect of success ; while the demand for their admission 
 
THE SUBJECTION OF WOMEN 485 
 
 into professions and occupations hitherto closed against them, 
 becomes every year more urgent. Though there are not in this 
 country, as there are in the United States, periodical conventions 
 and an organized party to agitate for the rights of women, there 
 is a numerous and active society organized and managed by 
 women, for the more limited object of obtaining the political 
 franchise. Nor is it only in our own country and in America 
 that women are beginning to protest, more or less collectively, 
 against the disabilities under which they labor. France, and 
 Italy, and Switzerland, and Russia now afford examples of the 
 same thing. How many more women there are who silently 
 cherish similar aspirations, no one can possibly know ; but there 
 are abundant tokens how many would cherish them, were they 
 not so strenuously taught to repress them as contrary to the 
 proprieties of their sex. It must be remembered, also, that no 
 enslaved class ever asked for complete liberty at once. When 
 Simon de Montfort called the deputies of the commons to sit 
 for the first time in Parliament, did any of them dream of de- 
 manding that an assembly, elected by their constituents, should 
 make and destroy ministries, and dictate to the king in affairs of 
 state ? No such thought entered into the imagination of the 
 most ambitious of them. The nobility had already these pre- 
 tensions ; the commons pretended to nothing but to be exempt 
 from arbitrary taxation, and from the gross individual oppres- 
 sion of the king's officers. It is a political law of nature that 
 those who are under any power of ancient origin, never begin by 
 complaining of the power itself, but only of its oppressive exer- 
 cise. There is never any want of women who complain of ill 
 usage by their husbands. There would be infinitely more, if 
 complaint were not the greatest of all provocatives to a repeti- 
 tion and increase of the ill usage. It is this which frustrates all 
 attempts to maintain the power but protect the woman against 
 its abuses. In no other case (except that of a child) is the person 
 who has been proved judicially to have suffered an injury, re- 
 placed under the physical power of the culprit who inflicted it. 
 Accordingly wives, even in the most extreme and protracted 
 
486 JOHN STUART MILL 
 
 cases of bodily ill usage, hardly ever dare avail themselves of the 
 laws made for their protection ; and if, in a moment of irrepressible 
 indignation, or by the interference of neighbors, they are induced 
 to do so, their whole effort afterwards is to disclose as little as they 
 can, and to beg off their tyrant from his merited chastisement. 
 
 All causes, social and natural, combine to make it unlikely 
 that women should be collectively rebellious to the power of men. 
 They are so far in a position different from all other subject 
 classes, that their masters require something more from them 
 than actual service. Men do not want solely the obedience of 
 women, they want their sentiments. All men, except the most 
 brutish, desire to have, in the woman most nearly connected with 
 them, not a forced slave but a willing one, not a slave merely, 
 but a favorite. They have therefore put everything in prac- 
 tice to enslave their minds. The masters of all other slaves rely, 
 for maintaining obedience, on fear, — either fear of themselves, 
 or religious fears. The masters of women wanted more than 
 simple obedience, and they turned the whole force of education 
 to effect their purpose. All women are brought up from the very 
 earliest years in the belief that their ideal of character is the 
 very opposite to that of men ; not self-will and government by 
 self-control, but submission and yielding to the control of others. 
 All the moralities tell them that it is the duty of women, and all 
 the current sentimentalities that it is their nature, to live for 
 others, to make complete abnegation of themselves, and to have 
 no life but in their affections. And by their affections are meant 
 the only ones they are allowed to have — those to the men with 
 whom they are connected, or to the children who constitute an 
 additional and indefeasible tie between them and a man. When 
 we put together three things — first, the natural attraction be- 
 tween opposite sexes ; secondly, the wife's entire dependence on 
 the husband, every privilege or pleasure she has being either his 
 gift, or depending entirely on his will ; and lastly, that the princi- 
 pal object of human pursuit, consideration, and all objects of so- 
 cial ambition, can in general be sought or obtained by her only 
 through him, it would be a miracle if the object of being 
 
THE SUBJECTION OF WOMEN 487 
 
 attractive to men had not become the polar star of feminine 
 education and formation of character. And this great means of 
 influence over the minds of women having been acquired, an in- 
 stinct of selfishness made men avail themselves of it to the utmost 
 as a means of holding women in subjection, by representing to 
 them meekness, submissiveness, and resignation of all individual 
 will into the hands of a man, as an essential part of sexual at- 
 tractiveness. Can it be doubted that any of the other yokes 
 which mankind have succeeded in breaking, would have sub- 
 sisted till now if the same means had existed, and had been as 
 sedulously used, to bow down their minds to it ? If it had been 
 made the object of the life of every young plebeian to find per- 
 sonal favor in the eyes of some patrician, of every young serf with 
 some seigneur ; if domestication with him, and a share of his 
 personal affections, had been held out as the prize which they all 
 should look out for, the most gifted and aspiring being able to 
 reckon on the most desirable prizes ; and if, when this prize had 
 been obtained, they had been shut out by a wall of brass from all 
 interests not centering in him, all feelings and desires but those 
 which he shared or inculcated ; would not serfs and seigneurs, 
 plebeians and patricians, have been as broadly distinguished at 
 this day as men and women are? And would not all but a 
 thinker here and there have believed the distinction to be a 
 fundamental and unalterable fact in human nature? 
 
 The preceding considerations are amply sufficient to show that 
 custom, however universal it may be, affords in this case no pre- 
 sumption, and ought not to create any prejudice, in favor of the 
 arrangements which place women in social and political subjec- 
 tion to men. But I may go further, and maintain that the 
 course of history, and the tendencies of progressive human so- 
 ciety, afford not only no presumption in favor of this system of 
 inequality of rights, but a strong one against it ; and that, so far 
 as the whole course of human improvement up to this time, the 
 whole stream of modern tendencies, warrants any inference on 
 the subject, it is, that this relic of the past is discordant with the 
 future, and must necessarily disappear. 
 
488 JOHN STUART MILL 
 
 For, what is the peculiar character of the modern world — the 
 difference which chiefly distinguishes modern institutions, mod 
 em social ideas, modern life itself, from those of times long past ? 
 It is, that human beings are no longer born to their place in life, 
 and chained down by an inexorable bond to the place they are 
 born to, but are free to employ their facilities, and such favorable 
 chances as ofifer, to achieve the lot which may appear to them 
 most desirable. Human society of old was constituted on a very 
 different principle. All were bom to a fixed social position, and 
 were mostly kept in it by law, or interdicted from any means by 
 which they could emerge from it. As some men are born white 
 and others black, so some were born slaves and others freemen 
 and citizens ; some were born patricians, others plebeians ; some 
 were born feudal nobles, others commoners and roturiers} A 
 slave or serf could never make himself free, nor, except by the 
 will of his master, become so. In most European countries it 
 was not till towards the close of the Middle Ages, and as a conse- 
 quence of the growth of regal power, that commoners could be 
 ennobled. Even among nobles, the eldest son was born the ex- 
 clusive heir to the paternal possessions, and a long time elapsed 
 before it was fully established that the father could disinherit 
 him. Among the industrious classes, only those who were born 
 members of a guild, or were admitted into it by its members, 
 could lawfully practice their calling within its local limits ; and 
 nobody could practice any calling deemed important in any 
 but the legal manner — by processes authoritatively prescribed. 
 Manufacturers have stood in the pillory for presuming to carry 
 on their business by new and improved methods. In modern 
 Europe, and most in those parts of it which have participated 
 most largely in all other modern improvements, diametrically 
 opposite doctrines now prevail. Law and government do not 
 undertake to prescribe by whom any social or industrial opera- 
 tion shall or shall not be conducted, or what modes of conduct- 
 ing them shall be lawful. These things are left to the unfet- 
 tered choice of individuals. Even the laws which required that 
 1 Plebeians. — Editors. 
 
 ,' 
 
THE SUBJECTION OF WOMEN 489 
 
 workmen should serve an apprenticeship, have in this country 
 been repealed : there being ample assurance that in all cases 
 in which an apprenticeship is necessary, its necessity will suf- 
 fice to enforce it. The old theory was, that the least possible 
 should be left to the choice of the individual agent ; that all he 
 had to do should, as far as practicable, be laid down for him by 
 superior wisdom. Left to himself he was sure to go wrong. The 
 modern conviction, the fruit of a thousand years of experience, 
 is, that things in which the individual is the person directly in- 
 terested, never go right but as they are left to his own discretion ; 
 and that any regulation of them by authority, except to protect 
 the rights of others, is sure to be mischievous. This conclusion, 
 slowly arrived at, and not adopted until almost every possible 
 application of the contrary theory had been made with disastrous 
 result, now (in the industrial department) prevails universally in 
 the most advanced countries, almost universally in all that have 
 pretensions to any sort of advancement. It is not that all pro- 
 cesses are supposed to be equally good, or all persons to be equally 
 qualified for everything ; but that freedom of individual choice 
 is now known to be the only thing which procures the adoption 
 of the best processes, and throws each operation into the hands 
 of those who are best qualified for it. Nobody thinks it nec- 
 essary to make a law that only a strong-armed man shall be a 
 blacksmith. Freedom and competition suffice to make black- 
 smiths strong-armed men, because the weak-armed can earn 
 more by engaging in occupations for which they are more fit. In 
 consonance with this doctrine, it is felt to be an overstepping 
 of the proper bounds of authority to fix beforehand, on some 
 general presumption, that certain persons are not fit to do cer- 
 tain things. It is now thoroughly known and admitted that if 
 some such presumptions exist, no such presumption is infallible. 
 Even if it be well grounded in a majority of cases, which it is very 
 likely not to be, there will be a minority of exceptional cases in 
 which it does not hold : and in those it is both an injustice to the 
 individuals, and a detriment to society, to place barriers in the 
 way of their using their faculties for their own benefit and for that 
 
490 JOHN STUART MILL 
 
 of others. In the cases, on the other hand, in which the unfit- 
 ness is real, the ordinary motives of human conduct will on the 
 whole suflEice to prevent the incompetent person from making, 
 or from persisting in, the attempt. . 
 
 If this general principle of social and economical science is 
 not true ; if individuals, with such help as they can derive from 
 the opinion of those who know them, are not better judges than 
 the law and the government, of their own capacities and voca- 
 tion ; the world cannot too soon abandon this principle, and re- 
 turn to the old system of regulations and disabilities. But if 
 the principle is true, we ought to act as if we believed it, and not 
 to ordain that to be born a girl instead of a boy, any more than 
 to be born black instead of white, or a commoner instead of a 
 nobleman, shall decide the person's position through all life — 
 shall interdict people from all the more elevated social positions, 
 and from all, except a few, respectable occupations. Even were 
 we to admit the utmost that is ever pretended as to the superior 
 fitness of men for all the functions now reserved to them, the 
 same argument applies which forbids a legal qualification for 
 members of Parliament. If only once in a dozen years the condi- 
 tions of eligibility exclude a fit person, there is a real loss, while 
 the exclusion of thousands of unfit persons is no gain ; for if the 
 constitution of the electoral body disposes them to choose unfit 
 persons, there are always plenty of such persons to choose from. 
 In all things of any difficulty and importance, those who can do 
 them well are fewer than the need, even with the most unre- 
 stricted latitude of choice ; and any limitation of the field of se- 
 lection deprives society of some chances of being served by the 
 competent, without ever saving it from the incompetent. 
 
 At present, in the more improved countries, the disabilities of 
 women are the only case, save one, in which laws and institutions 
 take persons at their birth, and ordain that they shall never in all 
 their lives be allowed to compete for certain things. The one 
 exception is that of royalty. Persons still are born to the throne ; 
 no one, not of the reigning family, can ever occupy it, and no one 
 even of that family can, by any means but the course of heredi- 
 
THE SUBJECTION OF WOMEN 491 
 
 tary succession, attain it. All other dignities and social advan- 
 tages are open to the whole male sex ; many indeed are only at- 
 tainable by wealth, but wealth may be striven for by any one, 
 and is actually obtained by many men of the very humblest 
 origin. The difficulties, to the majority, are indeed insuperable 
 without the aid of fortunate accidents ; but no male human being 
 is under any legal ban ; neither law nor opinion superadd ar- 
 tificial obstacles to the natural ones. Royalty, as I have said, is 
 excepted ; but in this case every one feels it to be an exception — 
 an anomaly in the modern world, in marked opposition to its cus- 
 toms and principles, and to be justified only by extraordinary spe- 
 cial expediencies, which, though individuals and nations differ in 
 estimating their weight, unquestionably do in fact exist. But 
 in this exceptional case, in which a high social function is, for 
 important reasons, bestowed on birth instead of being put up to 
 competition, all free nations contrive to adhere in substance to 
 the principle from which they nominally derogate ; for they cir- 
 cumscribe this high function by conditions avowedly intended to 
 prevent the person to whom it ostensibly belongs from really 
 performing it ; while the person by whom it is performed, the 
 responsible minister, does obtain the post by a competition 
 from which no full-grown citizen of the male sex is legally ex- 
 cluded. The disabilities, therefore, to which women are subject 
 from the mere fact of their birth, are the solitary examples of the 
 kind in modern legislation. In no instance except this, which 
 comprehends half the human race, are the higher social functions 
 closed against any one by a fatality of birth which no exertions, 
 and no change of circumstances, can overcome; for even reli- 
 gious disabilities (besides that in England and in Europe they 
 have practically almost ceased to exist) do not close any career 
 to the disqualified person in case of conversion. 
 
 The social subordination of women thus stands out an isolated 
 fact in modern social institutions ; a solitary breach of what has 
 become their fundamental law ; a single relic of an old world of 
 thought and practice exploded in everything else, but retained 
 in the one thing of most universal interest; as if a gigantic 
 
492 JOHN STUART MILL 
 
 dolmen, or a vast temple of Jupiter Olympus, occupied the site 
 of St. Paul's and received daily worship, while the surrounding 
 Christian churches were only resorted to on fasts and festivals. 
 This entire discrepancy between one social fact and all those 
 which accompany it, and the radical opposition between its 
 nature and the progressive movement which is the boast of the 
 modern world, and which has successively swept away every- 
 thing else of an analogous character, surely affords, to a conscien- 
 tious observer of human tendencies, serious matter for reflection. 
 It raises a prima facie presumption on the unfavorable side, far 
 outweighing any which custom and usage could in such circum- 
 stances create on the favorable; and should at least suffice to 
 make this, like the choice between republicanism and royalty, 
 a balanced question. 
 
 The least that can be demanded is, that the question should 
 not be considered as prejudged by existing fact and existing 
 opinion, but open to discussion on its merits, as a question of 
 justice and expediency ; the decision on this, as on any of the 
 other social arrangements of maijkind, depending on what an 
 enlightened estimate of tendencies and consequences may show 
 to be most advantageous to humanity in general, without dis- 
 tinction of sex. And the discussion must be a real discussion, 
 descending to foundations, and not resting satisfied with vague 
 and general assertions. It will not do, for instance, to assert 
 in general terms, that the experience of mankind has pronounced 
 in favor of the existing system. Experience cannot possibly 
 have decided between two courses, so long as there has only 
 been experience of one. If it be said that the doctrine of the 
 equality of the sexes rests only on theory, it must be remembered 
 that the contrary doctrine also has only theory to rest upon. 
 All that is proved in its favor by direct experience, is that man- 
 kind have been able to exist under it, and to attain the degree of 
 improvement and prosperity which we now see; but whether 
 that prosperity has been attained sooner, or is now greater, than 
 it would have been under the other system, experience does not 
 say. On the other hand, experience does say, that every step in 
 
THE SUBJECTION OF WOMEN 493 
 
 improvement has been so invariably accompanied by a step made 
 in raising the social position of women, that historians and phi- 
 losophers have been led to adopt their elevation or debasement 
 as on the whole the surest test and most correct measure of the 
 civilization of a people or an age. Through all the progressive 
 period of human history, the condition of women has been ap- 
 proaching nearer to equality with men. This does not of itself 
 prove that the assimilation must go on to complete equality; 
 but it assuredly affords some presumption that such is the case. 
 Neither does it avail anything to say that the nature of the two 
 sexes adapts them to their present functions and position, and 
 renders these appropriate to them. Standing on the ground of 
 common sense and the constitution of the human mind, I deny 
 that any one knows, or can know, the nature of the two sexes, 
 as long as they have only been seen in their present relation to 
 one another. If men had ever been found in society without 
 women, or women without men, or if there had been a society 
 of men and women in which the women were not under the 
 control of the men, something might have been positively known 
 about the mental and moral differences which may be inher- 
 ent in the nature of each. What is now called the nature of 
 women is an eminently artificial thing — the result of forced 
 repression in some directions, unnatural stimulation in others. 
 It may be asserted without scruple, that no other class of depend- 
 ents have had their character so entirely distorted from its 
 natural proportions by their relation with their masters ; for, 
 if conquered, and slave races have been, in some respects, more 
 forcibly repressed, whatever in them has not been crushed down 
 by an iron heel has generally been let alone, and if left with any 
 liberty of development, it has developed itself according to its 
 own laws; but in the case of women, a hothouse and stove 
 cultivation has always been carried on of some of the capabilities 
 of their nature, for the benefit and pleasure of their masters. 
 Then, because certain products of the general vital force sprout 
 luxuriantly and reach a great development in this heated atmos- 
 phere and under this active nurture and watering, while other 
 
494 JOHN STUART MILL 
 
 shoots from the same root, which are left outside in the wintry 
 air, with ice purposely heaped all round them, have a stunted 
 growth, and some are burnt off with fire and disappear; men, 
 with that inability to recognize their own work which distin- 
 guishes the unanalytic mind, indolently believe that the tree 
 grows of itself in the way they have made it grow, and that it 
 would die if one half of it were not kept in a vapor bath and the 
 other half in the snow. 
 
 Of all difficulties which impede the progress of thought, and 
 the formation of well-grounded opinions on life and social ar- 
 rangements, the greatest is now the unspeakable ignorance 
 and inattention of mankind in respect to the influences which 
 form human character. Whatever any portion of the human 
 species now are, or seem to be, such, it is supposed, they have a 
 natural tendency to be: even when the most elementary knowl- 
 edge of the circumstances in which they have been placed clearly 
 points out the causes that made them what they are. Because 
 a cotter deeply in arrears to his landlord is not industrious, 
 there are people who think that the Irish are naturally idle. 
 Because constitutions can be overthrown when the authorities 
 appointed to execute them turn their arms against them, there 
 are people who think the French incapable of free government. 
 Because the Greeks cheated the Turks, and the Turks only 
 plundered the Greeks, there are persons who think that the 
 Turks are naturally more sincere: and because women, as is 
 often said, care nothing about politics except their personalities, 
 it is supposed that the general good is naturally less interesting 
 to women than to men. History, which is now so much better 
 understood than formerly, teaches another lesson: if only by 
 showing the extraordinary susceptibility of human nature to 
 external influences, and the extreme variableness of those of its 
 manifestations which are supposed to be most universal and 
 uniform. But in history, as in traveling, men usually see only 
 what they already have in their owij minds ; and few learn much 
 from history who do not bring much with them to its study. 
 
 Hence, in regard to that most difficult question, what are the 
 
THE SUBJECTION OF WOMEN 495 
 
 natural differences between the two sexes — a subject on which 
 it is impossible in the present state of society to obtain complete 
 and correct knowledge — while almost everybody dogmatizes 
 upon it, almost all neglect and make light of the only means by 
 which any partial insight can be obtained into it. This is, an 
 analytic study of the most important department of psychology, 
 the laws of the influence of circumstances on character. For, 
 however great and apparently ineradicable the moral and intel- 
 lectual differences between men and women might be, the evi- 
 dence of their being natural differences could only be negative. 
 Those only could be inferred to be natural which could not pos- 
 sibly be artificial — the residuum, after deducting every char- 
 acteristic of either sex which can admit of being explained from 
 education or external circumstances. The profoundest knowl- 
 edge of the laws of the formation of character is indispensable 
 to entitle any one to affirm even that there is any difference, 
 much more what the difference is, between the two sexes con- 
 sidered as moral and rational beings ; and since no one, as yet, 
 has that knowledge (for there is hardly any subject which, in 
 proportion to its importance, has been so little studied), no one 
 is thus far entitled to any positive opinion on the subject. 
 Conjectures are all that can at present be made; conjectures 
 more or less probable, according as more or less authorized by 
 such knowledge as we yet have of the laws of psychology, as 
 applied to the formation of character. 
 
 Even the preliminary knowledge, what the differences between 
 the sexes now are, apart from all question as to how they are 
 made what they are, is still in the crudest and most incomplete 
 state. Medical practitioners and physiologists have ascertained, 
 to some extent, the differences in bodily constitution ; and this is 
 an important element to the psychologist ; but hardly any medi- 
 cal practitioner is a psychologist. Respecting the mental char- 
 acteristics of women, their observations are of no more worth 
 than those of common men. It is a subject on which nothing 
 final can be known, so long as those who alone can really know it, 
 women themselves, have given but little testimony, and that 
 
496 JOHN STUART MILL 
 
 little, mostly suborned. It is easy to know stupid women. 
 Stupidity is much the same all the world over. A stupid person's 
 notions and feelings may confidently be inferred from those which 
 prevail in the circle by which the person is surrounded. Not 
 so with those whose opinions and feelings are an emanation from 
 their own nature and faculties. It is only a man here and there 
 who has any tolerable knowledge of the character even of the 
 women of his own family. I do not mean, of their capabilities ; 
 these nobody knows, not even themselves, because most of them 
 have never been called out. I mean their actually existing 
 thoughts and feelings. Many a man thinks he perfectly under- 
 stands women, because he has had amatory relations with several, 
 perhaps with many of them. If he is a good observer, and his 
 experience extends to quality as well as quantity, he may have 
 learned something of one narrow department of their nature — 
 an important department, no doubt. But of all the rest of it, 
 few persons are generally more ignorant, because there are few 
 from whom it is so carefully hidden. The most favorable case 
 which a man can generally have for studying the character of 
 a woman, is that of his own wife ; for the opportunities are 
 greater, and the cases of complete sympathy not so unspeakably 
 rare. And in fact, this is the source from which any knowledge 
 worth having on the subject has, I believe, generally come. 
 But most men have not had the opportunity of studying in this 
 way more than a single case ; accordingly one can, to an almost 
 laughable degree, infer what a man's wife is like from his opin- 
 ions about women in general. To make even this one case 
 yield any result, the woman must be worth knowing, and the 
 man not only a competent judge, but of a character so sympa- 
 thetic in itself, and so well adapted to hers, that he can either 
 read her mind by sympathetic intuition, or has nothing in him- 
 self which makes her shy of disclosing it. Hardly anything, I 
 believe, can be more rare than this conjunction. It often hap- 
 pens that there is the most complete unity of feeling and com- 
 munity of interests as to all external things, yet the one has as 
 little admission into the internal life of the other as if they were 
 
THE SUBJECTION OF WOMEN 497 
 
 common acquaintance. Even with true afifection, authority on 
 the one side and subordination on the other prevent perfect 
 confidence. Though nothing may be intentionally withheld, 
 much is not shown. In the analogous relation of parent and 
 child, the corresponding phenomenon must have been in the 
 observation of every one. As between father and son, how many 
 are the cases in which the father, in spite of real affection on 
 both sides, obviously to all the world does not know, nor suspect, 
 parts of the son's character familiar to his companions and equals. 
 The truth is, that the position of looking up to another is ex- 
 tremely unpropitious to complete sincerity and openness with 
 him. The fear of losing ground in his opinion or in his feelings 
 is so strong, that even in an upright character, there is an uncon- 
 scious tendency to show only the best side, or the side which, 
 though not the best, is that which he most likes to see ; and it 
 may be confidently said that thorough knowledge of one another 
 hardly ever exists, but between persons who, besides being inti- 
 mates, are equals. How much more true, then, must all this be, 
 when the one is not only under the authority of the other, but 
 has it inculcated on her as a duty to reckon everything else subor- 
 dinate to his comfort and pleasure, and to let him neither see nor 
 feel anything coming from her, except what is agreeable to him. 
 All these difficulties stand in the way of a man's obtaining any 
 thorough knowledge even of the one woman whom alone, in 
 general, he has sufficient opportunity of studying. When we 
 further consider that to understand one woman is not necessarily 
 to understand any other woman ; that even if he could study 
 many women of one rank, or of one country, he would not thereby 
 understand women of other ranks or countries ; and even if he 
 did, they are still only the women of a single period of history ; 
 we may safely assert that the knowledge which men can acquire 
 of women, even as they have been and are, without reference to 
 what they might be, is wretchedly imperfect and superficial, 
 and always will be so, until women themselves have told all 
 that they have to tell. 
 And this time has not come ; nor will it come otherwise than 
 
498 JOHN STUART MILL 
 
 gradually. It is but of yesterday that women have either 
 been qualified by literary accomplishments, or permitted by 
 society, to tell anything to the general public. As yet very few 
 of them dare tell anything which men, on whom their literary 
 success depends, are unwilling to hear. Let us remember in 
 what manner, up to a very recent time, the expression, even by 
 a male author, of uncustomary opinions, or what are deemed 
 eccentric feelings, usually was, and in some degree still is, re- 
 ceived ; and we may form some faint conception under what 
 impediments a woman, who is brought up to think custom and 
 opinion her sovereign rule, attempts to express in books any- 
 thing drawn from the depths of her own nature. The greatest 
 woman who has left writings behind her sufficient to give her 
 an eminent rank in the literature of her country, thought it 
 necessary to prefix as a motto to her boldest work, " Un homme 
 pent braver V opinion; une femme doit s^y soumettreJ" ^ The 
 greater part of what women write about women is mere syco- 
 phancy to men. In the case of unmarried women, much of it 
 seems only intended to increase their chance of a husband. 
 Many, both married and unmarried, overstep the mark, and 
 inculcate a servility beyond what is desired or relished by any 
 man, except the very vulgarest. But this is not so often the 
 case as, even at a quite late period, it still was. Literary women 
 are becoming more free-spoken, and more willing to express their 
 real sentiments. Unfortunately, in this country especially, they 
 are themselves such artificial products that their sentiments 
 are compounded of a small element of individual observation 
 and consciousness, and a very large one of acquired associations. 
 This will be less and less the case, but it will remain true to a 
 great extent, as long as social institutions do not admit the same 
 free development of originality in women which is possible to 
 men. When that time comes, and not before, we shall see, and 
 not merely hear, as much as it is necessary to know of the nature 
 of women, and the adaptation of other things to it. 
 
 1 A man may defy opinion; a woman must submit to it. — Editors. 
 Title-page of Mme. de Stael's Delphine. 
 
THE SUBJECTION OF WOMEN 499 
 
 I have dwelt so much on the difficulties which at present 
 obstruct any real knowledge by men of the true nature of women, 
 because in this as in so many other things ^^ opinio copicB inter 
 maximas causas inopicE est; " ^ and there is little chance of reason- 
 able thinking on the matter, while people flatter themselves 
 that they perfectly understand a subject of which most men 
 know absolutely nothing, and of which it is at present impossible 
 that any man, or all men taken together, should have knowledge 
 which can qualify them to lay down the law to women as to what 
 is, or is not, their vocation. Happily, no such knowledge is nec- 
 essaiy for any practical purpose connected with the position of 
 women in relation to society and life. For, according to all the 
 principles involved in modern society, the question rests with 
 women themselves — to be decided by their own experience, 
 and by the use of their own faculties. There are no means of 
 finding what either one person or many can do, but by trying 
 — and no means by which any one else can discover for them 
 what it is for their happiness to do or leave undone. 
 
 One thing we may be certain of — that what is contrary to 
 women's nature to do, they never will be made to do by simply 
 giving their nature free play. The anxiety of mankind to inter- 
 fere in behalf of nature, for fear lest nature should not succeed 
 in effecting its purpose, is an altogether unnecessary solicitude. 
 What women by nature cannot do, it is quite superfluous to 
 forbid them from doing. What they can do, but not so well as 
 the men who are their competitors, competition suffices to ex- 
 clude them from ; since nobody asks for protective duties and 
 bounties in favor of women ; it is only asked that the present 
 bounties and protective duties in favor of men should be recalled. 
 If women have a greater natural inclination for some things than 
 for others, there is no need of laws or social inculcation to make 
 the majority of them do the former in preference to the latter. 
 Whatever women's services are most wanted for, the free play 
 of competition will hold out the strongest inducements to them 
 to undertake. And, as the words imply, they are most wanted 
 
 1 Supposed abundance is among the chief causes of want. — Editors. 
 
500 JOHN STUART MILL 
 
 for the things for which they are most fit ; by the apportionment 
 of which to them, the collective faculties of the two sexes can be 
 applied on the whole with the greatest sum of valuable result. 
 
 The general opinion of men is supposed to be, that the natural 
 vocation of a woman is that of a wife and mother. I say, is 
 supposed to be, because, judging from acts — from the whole 
 of the present constitution of society — one might infer that 
 their opinion was the direct contrary. They might be supposed 
 to think that the alleged natural vocation of women was of all 
 things the most repugnant to their nature; insomuch that if 
 they are free to do anything else — if any other means of living, 
 or occupation of their time and faculties, is open, which has 
 any chance of appearing desirable to them — there will not be 
 enough of them who will be willing to accept the condition said 
 to be natural to them. If this is the real opinion of men in 
 general, it would be well that it should be spoken out. I should 
 like to hear somebody openly enunciating the doctrine (it is 
 already implied in much that is written on the subject) — "It 
 is necessary to society that women should marry and produce 
 children. They will not do so unless they are compelled. 
 Therefore it is necessary to compel them." The merits of the 
 case would then be clearly defined. It would be exactly that 
 of the slaveholders of South Carolina and Louisiana. "It is 
 necessary that cotton and sugar should be grown. White men 
 cannot produce them. Negroes will not, for any wages which 
 we choose to give. Ergo they must be compelled." An illus- 
 tration still closer to the point is that of impressment. Sailors 
 must absolutely be had to defend the country. It often happens 
 that they will not voluntarily enlist. Therefore there must be 
 the power of forcing them. How often has this logic been used ! 
 and, but for one flaw in it, without doubt it would have been 
 successful up to this day. But it is open to the retort — First 
 pay the sailors the honest value of their labor. When you have 
 made it as well worth their while to serve you, as to work for 
 other employers, you will have no more difficulty than others 
 have in obtaining their services. To this there is no logical 
 
THE SUBJECTION OF WOMEN 501 
 
 answer except "I will not:" and as people are now not only 
 ashamed, but are not desirous, to rob the laborer of his hire, 
 impressment is no longer advocated. Those who attempt to 
 force women into marriage by closing all other doors against 
 them, lay themselves open to a similar retort. If they mean 
 what they say, their opinion must evidently be, that men do 
 not render the married condition so desirable to women as to 
 induce them to accept it for its own recommendations. It is 
 not a sign of one's thinking the boon one offers very attractive 
 when one allows only Hobson's choice, "that or none." And 
 here, I believe, is the clew to the feelings of those men who have 
 a real antipathy to the equal freedom of women. I believe they 
 are afraid, not lest women should be unwilling to marry, for I 
 do not think that any one in reality has that apprehension ; but 
 lest they should insist that marriage should be on equal condi- 
 tions ; lest all women of spirit and capacity should prefer doing 
 almost anything else, not in their own eyes degrading, rather 
 than marry, when marrying is giving themselves a master, and 
 a master too of all their earthly possessions. And truly, if this 
 consequence were necessarily incident to marriage, I think 
 that the apprehension would be very well founded. I agree in 
 thinking it probable that few women, capable of anything else, 
 would, unless under an irresistible entrainement,^ rendering them 
 for the time insensible to anything but itself, choose such a lot, 
 when any other means were open to them of filling a convention- 
 ally honorable place in life : and if men are determined that the 
 law of marriage shall be a law of despotism, they are quite right, 
 in point of mere policy, in leaving to women only Hobson's 
 choice. But, in that case, all that has been done in the modern 
 world to relax the chain on the minds of women, has been a mis- 
 take. They never should have been allowed to receive a literary 
 education. Women who read, much more women who write, are, 
 in the existing constitution of things, a contradiction and a dis- 
 turbing element : and it was wrong to bring women up with any 
 acquirements but those of an odalisque, or of a domestic servant. 
 ^ Impulse. — Editors. 
 
XVIII 
 
 THE FUTURE OF WOMAN i 
 Frederic Harrison 
 
 [Frederic Harrison (183 1-) is one of the last survivors of a notable 
 generation of critics and men of letters of the late nineteenth century. 
 Throughout his long life Mr. Harrison has written much on general litera- 
 ture, history, biography, philosophy, rehgion, education, and political and 
 economic science. He has also been prominent as a jurist, and has taken 
 an active part in the political and social affairs of England, where he has 
 done much for the practical advancement of progressive opinions. 
 
 Mr. Harrison's political views, however, do not extend to the support of 
 woman suffrage, although he regards the question as a very burning one, 
 and the continued agitation over it "charged with tremendous consequences, 
 political, social, and moral." His opinions on the subject of the rights, 
 duties, and claims of women are contained in four essays, printed in his 
 volume Realities and Ideals (igo8). The introductory essay of this group 
 has been chosen as an able presentation^ of some of the fundamental argu- 
 ments often urged by opponents of woman suffrage. Mr. Harrison makes 
 no apology for male tyranny now or in the past and admits that many legal 
 and social changes are needed for woman's best development ; but he argues 
 that to break down the barriers that tend to distinguish the life of woman 
 from that of man would be to shake the foundations of all family life and 
 bring disaster to civilization. An earlier statement of these opinions, and 
 especially interesting here, is Mr. Harrison's analysis and refutation of the 
 claims of Mill's Subjection of Women in his volume Tennyson, Ruskin, Mill, 
 and other Literary Estimates (1900), pp. 289-297.] 
 
 The system of thought on which this entire series of essays 
 is based seeks to moraHze and to spiritualize the great insti- 
 tutions of society — not to revolutionize or to materialize them. 
 In nothing is this character more conspicuous than in its teach- 
 
 ^ Reprinted by permission of The Macmillan Company, from Realities and 
 Ideals, by Frederic Harrison. 
 
 502 
 
THE FUTURE OF WOMAN 503 
 
 ing as to the social Future of Woman. It is intensely conserva- 
 tive as to the distinctive quality with which civilization has 
 ever invested women, whilst it is ardently progressive in its 
 aim to purify and spiritualize the social function of women. It 
 holds firmly the middle ground between the base apathy which 
 is satisfied with the actual condition of woman as it is, and the 
 restless materialism which would assimilate, as far as possible, 
 the distinctive functions of women to those of men, which would 
 "equalize the sexes" in the spirit of justice, as they phrase it, 
 and would pulverize the social groups of families, sexes, and 
 professions into individuals organized, if at all, by unlimited 
 resort to the ballot box. Herein we are truly conservative in 
 holding society to be made up of families, not of individuals, 
 and in developing, not in annihilating, the differences of sex, 
 age, and relation between individuals. 
 
 But first, let us get rid of the unworthy suspicion that we are 
 content with the condition of women as we see it, even in the 
 advanced populations of the West to-day. As M. Laffitte has 
 so well put it, the "test of civilization is the place which it as- 
 signs to women." In a rudimentary state we find women treated 
 with brutal oppression, little better than slaves or beasts of 
 burden, where the conditions of existence make such tasks al- 
 most a cruel necessity for all. In many societies of a high civili- 
 zation, from the point of view of intellectual activity or military 
 organization, the condition of women is often found to be one 
 of seclusion, neglect, or humiliation, moral, physical, and intel- 
 lectual. Even to-day, under the most favorable conditions — 
 conditions, perhaps, more often found in some sections of the 
 laboring classes of cities rather than amongst the spoiled daugh- 
 ters of wealth and power — it is shocking to see how backward 
 is the education of women as a sex, how much their lives are 
 overburdened by labor, anxiety, and unwomanly fatigues, by 
 frivolous excitement and undue domestic responsibility, by the 
 fever of public ambitions and cynical defiance of all womanly 
 ideals. 
 
 No ! we can never rest satisfied with the current prejudice 
 
504 FREDERIC HARRISON 
 
 that assigns to woman, even to those with ample leisure and 
 resources, an education different in kind and degree and avow- 
 edly inferior to that of men, which supposes that even a superior 
 education for girls should be limited to moderate knowledge 
 of a few modern languages, and a few elegant accomplishments. 
 This truly Mohammedan or Hindu view of woman's education 
 is no longer openly avowed by cultured people of our own gen- 
 eration. But it is too obviously still the practice in fact through- 
 out the whole Western world, even for nine tenths of the rich. 
 And as to the education which is officially provided for the poor, 
 it is in this country, at least, almost too slight to deserve the 
 name at all. For this most dreadful neglect let us call aloud 
 for radical relief. We call aloud for an education for women in 
 the same line as that of men, to be given by the same teachers, 
 and covering the same ground, though not at all necessarily to 
 be worked out in common or in the same form and with the 
 same practical detail. It must be an education, essentially in 
 scientific basis the same as that of men, conducted by the same, 
 and those the best attainable, instructors — an education cer- 
 tainly not inferior, rather superior to that of men, inasmuch as 
 it can easily be freed from the drudgery incidental to the prac- 
 tice of special trades, and also because it is adapted to the more 
 sympathetic, more alert, more tractable, more imaginative in- 
 telligence of women. 
 
 So, also, we look to the good feeling of the future to relieve 
 women from the agonizing wear and tear of families far too 
 large to be reared by one mother' — a burden which crushes 
 down the best years of life for so many mothers, sisters, and 
 daughters — a burden which, whilst it exists, makes all expec- 
 tation of superior education or greater moral elevation in the 
 masses of women mere idle talk — a burden which would never 
 be borne at all, were it not that the cry of the market for more 
 child labor produces an artificial bounty on excessively large 
 families. And to the future we look to set women free from 
 the crushing factory labor which is the real slave trade of the 
 nineteenth century, one of the most retrograde changes in social 
 
THE FUTURE OF WOMAN 505 
 
 order ever, made since Feudalism and Church together extin- 
 guished the slavery of the ancient world. In many ways this 
 slavery of modern Industrialism is quite as demoralizing to men 
 and women, and in some ways as injurious to society, as ever 
 was the mitigated slavery of the Roman Empire, though its 
 evils are not quite so startling and so cruel. 
 
 These are the wants which, in our eyes, press with greatest 
 urgency on the conditions of women, and not their admission 
 to all the severe labors and engrossing professions of men, the 
 assimilation of the life of women to the life of men, and espe- 
 cially to a share in all public duties and privileges. The root 
 of the matter is that the social function of women is essentially 
 and increasingly different from that of men. What is this 
 function ? It is personal, direct, domestic ; working rather 
 through sympathy than through action, equally intellectual 
 as that of men, but acting more through the imagination, and 
 less through logic. We start from this — neither exaggerating 
 the difference, nor denying it, but resting in the organic differ- 
 ence between woman and man. It is proved by all sound 
 biology, by the biology both of man and of the entire animal 
 series. It is proved also by the history of civilization, and the 
 entire course of human evolution. It is brought home to us 
 every hour of the day, by the instinctive practice of every 
 family. And it is illustrated and idealized by the noblest 
 poetry of the world, whether it be the great epics of the past or 
 the sum of njodern romance. 
 
 It is a difference of nature, I say, an organic difference, alike 
 in body, in mind, in feeling, and in character — a difference 
 which it is the part of evolution to develop and not to destroy, 
 as it is always the part of evolution to develop organic differ- 
 ences and not to produce their artificial assimilation. A dif- 
 ference, as I have said ; but not a scale of superiority or inferior- 
 ity. No theory more than ours repudiates the brutal egoism 
 of past ages, and of too many present men of the world, which 
 classes women as the inferiors of men, and the cheap sophistry 
 of the vicious and the overbearing that the part of women in 
 
5o6 FREDERIC HARRISON 
 
 the life of humanity is a lower, a less intellectual, or less active 
 part. Such a view is the refuge of coarse natures and stunted 
 brains. Who can say whether it is nobler to be husband or to 
 be wife, to be mother or to be son ? Is it more blessed to love 
 or to be loved, to form a character or to write a poem ? Enough 
 of these idle conundrums, which are as cynical as they are sense- 
 less. Everything depends on how the part is played, how near 
 each one of us comes to the higher ideal — how our Hf e is worked 
 out, not whether we be born man or woman, in the first half of 
 the century or in the second. The thing which concerns us is 
 to hold fast by the organic difference implanted by Nature be- 
 tween Man and Woman, in body, in mind, in feeling, and in 
 energy, without any balancing of higher and lower, of better or 
 of worse. 
 
 Fully to work out the whole meaning of this difference in all its 
 details, would involve a complete analysis in Anthropology and 
 Ethics, and nothing but the bare heads of the subject can here be 
 noticed. It begins with the difference in physical organization — 
 the condition, and, no doubt in one sense, the antecedent (I do 
 not say the cause) of every other difference. The physical organ- 
 ization of women differs from that of men in many ways : it is 
 more rapidly matured, and yet, possibly, more viable (as the 
 French say), more likely to live, and to live longer; it is more 
 delicate, in all senses of the word, more sympathetic, more elastic, 
 more liable to shock and to change ; it is obviously less in weight, 
 in mass, in physical force, but above all in muscular persistence. 
 It is not true to say that the feminine organization is, on the 
 whole, weaker, because there are certain forms of fatigue, such as 
 those of nursing the sick or the infant, minute care of domestic 
 details, ability to resist the wear and tear of anxiety on the body, 
 in which women certainly at present surpass men. 
 
 But there is one feature in the feminine organization which, 
 for industrial and political purposes, is more important than 
 all. It is subject to functional interruption absolutely incom- 
 patible with the highest forms of continuous pressure. With 
 mothers, this interruption amounts to seasons of prostration 
 
THE FUTURE OF WOMAN 507 
 
 during many of the best years of life; with all women (but a 
 small exception not worth considering) it involves some inter- 
 ruption to the maximum working capacity. A perfectly healthy 
 man works from childhood to old age, marries and brings up a 
 family of children, without knowing one hour of any one day 
 when he was not "quite fit." No woman could say the same; 
 and of course no mother could deny that for months she had 
 been a simple invalid. Now, for all the really severe strains of 
 industrial, professional, and public careers, the first condition 
 of success is the power to endure long continuous pressure at 
 the highest point, without the risk of sudden collapse, even for 
 an hour. 
 
 Supposing all other forces equal, it is just the five per cent of 
 periodical unfitness which makes the whole difference between 
 the working capacity of the sexes. Imagine an army in the 
 field or a fleet at sea, composed of women. In the course of 
 nature, on the day of battle or in storm, a percentage of every 
 regiment and of every crew would be in childbed, and a much 
 larger percentage would be, if not in hospital, below the mark 
 or liable to contract severe disease if subject to the strain of 
 battle or storm. Of course it will be said that civil life is not 
 war, and that mothers are not intended to take part. But all 
 women may become mothers ; and though industry, the profes- 
 sions, and politics are not war, they call forth qualities of en- 
 durance, readiness, and indomitable vigor quite as truly as 
 war. 
 
 Either the theory of opening all occupations to women means 
 opening them to an unsexed minority of women, or it means a 
 diminution and speedy end to the human race, or it means that 
 the severer occupations are to be carried on in a fashion far 
 more desultory and amateurish than ever has yet been known. 
 It is owing to a very natural shrinking from hard facts, and a 
 somewhat misplaced conventionality, that this fundamental 
 point has been kept out of sight, whilst androgynous ignorance 
 has gone about claiming for women a life of toil, pain, and 
 danger, for which every husband, every biologist, every physi- 
 
5o8 FREDERIC HARRISON 
 
 cian, every mother — every true woman — knows that women 
 are, by the law of nature, unfit. 
 
 This is, as I said, merely a preliminary part of the question. 
 It is decisive and fundamental, no doubt, and it lies at the root 
 of the matter. It is a plain organic fact, that ought to be 
 treated frankly, and which I have touched on as an incident 
 only but with entire directness. But I feel it to be, after all, a 
 material, and not an intellectual or spiritual ground, and to 
 belong to the lower aspects of the question. We must notice 
 it, for it cannot be disregarded ; but it is by no means the heart 
 of the matter. The heart of the matter is the greater power of 
 affection in Woman, or, it is better to say, the greater degree 
 in which the nature of Woman is stimulated and controlled by 
 affection. It is a stigma on our generation that so obvious a 
 commonplace should need one word to support it. Happily 
 there is one trait in humanity which the most cynical sophistry 
 has hardly ventured to belittle — the devotion of the mother to 
 her offspring. 
 
 This is the universal and paramount aspect of the matter. 
 For the life of every man and woman now alive, or that ever 
 lived, has depended on the mother's love, or that of some 
 woman who played a mother's part. It is a fact so transcendent 
 that we are wont to call it an animal instinct. It is, however, 
 the central and most perfect form of human feeling. It is 
 possessed by all women : it is the dominant instinct of all 
 women ; it possesses women, whether mothers or not, from the 
 cradle to the grave. The most degraded woman is in this 
 superior to the most heroic man (abnormal cases apart). It is 
 the earliest, most organic, most universal of all the innate forces 
 of mankind. And it still remains the supreme glory of Hu- 
 manity. In this central feature of human nature, Women are 
 always and everywhere incontestably preeminent. And round 
 this central figure of human nature, all human civilization is, 
 and ought to be organized; and to perfecting it all human in- 
 stitutions do and ought to converge. 
 
 I am very far from limiting this glorious part of maternity 
 
THE FUTURE OF WOMAN 509 
 
 in woman to the breeding and nurture of infants; nor do I 
 mean to concentrate civilization on the propagation of the hu- 
 man species. I have taken the mother's care for the infant as 
 the most conspicuous and fundamental part of the whole. But 
 this is simply a type of the affection which in all its forms 
 woman is perpetually offering to man and to woman — to the 
 weak, the suffering, the careworn, the vicious, the dull, and 
 the overburdened, as mother, as wife, as sister, as daughter, 
 as friend, as nurse, as teacher, as servant, as counselor, as 
 purifier, as example, in a word — as woman. The true func- 
 tion of woman is to educate, not children only, but men, to 
 train to a higher civilization, not the rising generation, but the 
 actual society. And to do this by diffusing the spirit of affec- 
 tion, of self-restraint, self-sacrifice, fidelity, and purity. And 
 this is to be effected, not by writing books about these things 
 in the closet, nor by preaching sermons about them in the con- 
 gregation, but by manifesting them hour by hour in each home 
 by the magic of the voice, look, word, and all the incommuni- 
 cable graces of woman's tenderness. 
 
 All this has become so completely a commonplace that the 
 very repeating it sounds almost like a jest. But it has to be 
 repeated now that coarse sophistry has begun, not only to for- 
 get it, but to deny it. And we will repeat it ; for we have 
 nothing to add to all that has been said on this cardinal fact 
 of human nature by poets, from Homer to Tennyson, by mor- 
 alists and preachers, by common sense and pure minds, since 
 the world began. We have nothing to add to it save this — 
 which, perhaps, is really important — that this function of 
 woman, the purifying, spiritualizing, humanizing of society, by 
 humanizing each family and by influencing every husband, 
 father, son, or brother, in daily contact and in unspoken lan- 
 guage, is itself the highest of all human functions, and is nobler 
 than anything which art, philosophy, genius, or statesman- 
 ship can produce. 
 
 The spontaneous and inexhaustible fountain of love, the 
 secret springs whereof are the mystery of womanhood, this is 
 
5IO FREDERIC HARRISON 
 
 indeed the grand and central difference between the sexes. 
 But the difference of function is quite as real, if less in degree, 
 when we regard the intellect and the character. Plainly, the 
 intellect of women on the whole is more early mature, more 
 rapid, more delicate, more agile than that of men ; more im- 
 aginative, more in touch with emotion, more sensitive, more 
 individual, more teachable, whilst it is less capable of prolonged 
 tension, of intense abstraction, of wide range, and of extraordi- 
 nary complication. It may be that this is resolvable into the 
 obvious fact of smaller cerebral masses and less nervous energy, 
 rather than any inferiority of quality. 
 
 The fact remains that no woman has ever approached Aris- 
 totle and Archimedes, Shakespeare and Descartes, Raphael and 
 Mozart, or has ever shown even a kindred sum of powers. On 
 the other hand, not one man in ten can compare with average 
 woman in tact, subtlety of observation, in refinement of mental 
 habit, in rapidity, agility, and sympathetic touch. To ask 
 whether the occasional outbursts of supreme genius in the male 
 sex are higher than the almost universal quickness and fineness 
 of mind in the female sex, is to ask an idle question. To expel 
 either out of human nature would be to arrest civilization and 
 to plunge us into barbarism. And the earliest steps out of 
 barbarism would have to begin again in each wigwam with the 
 quick observation and the flexible mind, and not with the pro- 
 found genius. 
 
 As with the intellect — so with the powers of action. The 
 character or energy of women is very different from that of men ; 
 though here again it is impossible to say which is the superior, 
 and far less easy to make the contrast. Certainly the world 
 has never seen a female Alexander, Julius Caesar, Charlemagne, 
 or Cromwell. And in mass, endurance, intensity, variety, and 
 majesty of will no women ever approach the greatest men, and 
 no doubt from the same reason, smaller cerebral mass and slighter 
 nervous organization. Yet in qualities of copstant movement, 
 in perseverance, in passive endurance, in rapidity of change, in 
 keenness of pursuit (up to a certain range and within a given 
 
THE FUTURE OF WOMAN 511 
 
 time), in adaptability, agility, and elasticity of nature, in in- 
 dustriousness, in love of creating rather than destroying, of 
 being busy rather than idle, of dealing with the minutest sur- 
 roundings of comfort, grace, and convenience, it is a common- 
 place to acknowledge women to be our superiors. And if a 
 million housewives do not equal one Caesar, they no doubt add 
 more to the happiness of their own generation. 
 
 We come back to this — that in body, in mind, in feeling, 
 in character, women are by nature designed to play a different 
 part from men. And all these differences combine to point 
 to a part personal not general, domestic not public, working 
 by direct contact, not by remote suggestion, through the imag- 
 ination more than through the reason, by the heart more than 
 by the head. There is in women a like intelligence, activity, 
 passion ; like and coordinate, but not identical ; equally valu- 
 able, but not equal by measure ; and this all works best in the 
 Home. That is to say, the sphere in which women act at their 
 highest is the Family, and the side where they are the strongest 
 is Affection. The sphere where men act at their highest is in 
 public, in industry, in the service to the State; and the side 
 where men are at their strongest is Activity. Intelligence is 
 common to both, capable in men of more sustained strain, apt 
 in women for more delicate and mobile service. That is to 
 say, the normal and natural work of women is by personal influ- 
 ence within the Home. 
 
 All this is so obvious, it has been so completely the universal 
 and instinctive practice of mankind since civilization began, 
 that to repeat it would be wearisome if the modern spirit of 
 social anarchy were not eager to throw it all aside. And we 
 have only to repeat the old saws on the matter, together with 
 this — that such a part is the noblest which civilization can con- 
 fer, and was never more urgently needed than it is to-day. In 
 accepting it graciously and in filling it worthily, women are 
 placing themselves as a true spiritual force in the vanguard of 
 human evolution, and are performing the holiest and most 
 beautiful of all duties which Humanity has reserved for her 
 
512 FREDERIC HARRISON 
 
 best-beloved children. The source of the outcry we hear for 
 the Emancipation of Women — their emancipation from their 
 noblest duty — is that in this materialist age men are prone to 
 despise what is pure, lofty, and tender, and to exalt what is 
 coarse, vulgar, and vainglorious. 
 
 When we say that we would see the typical work of woman 
 centered in her personal influence in the Home, we are not asking 
 for arbitrary and rigid limitations. We are not calHng out for 
 any new legislation or urging public opinion to close any womanly 
 employment for women. There are a thousand ways in which 
 the activity of women may be of peculiar value to the com- 
 munity, and many of these necessarily carry women outside 
 their own houses and into more or less public institutions. The 
 practice of the ladies connected with our Church alone would 
 satisfy us how great is the part which women have to play in 
 teaching, in directing moral and social institutions, in organizing 
 the higher standard of opinion, in inspiring enthusiasm in young 
 and old. We are heartily with such invaluable work ; and we 
 find that modern civilization offers to women as many careers 
 as it offers to men. 
 
 All that we ask is that such work and such careers shall be 
 founded on womanly ideals, and shall recognize the essential 
 difference in the social functions of men and women. We 
 know that in a disorganized condition of society there are ter- 
 rible accumulations of exceptional and distressing personal 
 hardship. Of course millions of women have, and can have, 
 no husbands; hundreds of thousands have no parents, no 
 brother, no true family. No one pretends that society is 
 without abundant room for unmarried women, and has not a 
 mass of work for women who by circumstances have been de- 
 prived of their natural family and are without any normal 
 home. Many of such women we know to be amongst the no- 
 blest of their sex, the very salt of the earth. But their activity 
 still retains its homelike beauty, and is still womanly and not 
 mannish. All that we ask is that women, whether married or 
 unmarried, whether with families of their own or not, shall 
 
THE FUTURE OF WOMAN 513 
 
 never cease to feel like women, to work as women should, to 
 make us all feel that they are true women amongst us and not 
 imitation men. 
 
 We are not now discussing any practical remedy for a tem- 
 porary dififtculty; we are only seeking to assert a paramount 
 law of human nature. We are defending the principle of the 
 womanhness of woman against the anarchic assertors of the 
 manliness of woman. There is a passionate party of so-called 
 reformers, both men and women, who are crying out for absolute 
 assimilation as a principle ; and such is the weakness of politi- 
 cians and leaders that this coarse and ignorant sophism is be- 
 coming a sort of badge of Radical energy and freedom from 
 prejudice. With all practical remedies for admitted social 
 diseases we are ever ready to sympathize. In the name of 
 mercy let us all do our best with the practical dilemmas which 
 society throws up. But let us not attempt to cure them by pull- 
 ing society down from its foundations and uprooting the very 
 first ideas of social order. Exceptions and painful cases we 
 have by the thousand. Let us struggle to help or to mend them, 
 as exceptions, and not commit the folly of asserting that the 
 exception is the rule. 
 
 We all know that there are more women in these kingdoms 
 than men, and not a little perplexity arises therefrom. But 
 since more males are born than females, the inequaht}^ is the 
 result of abnormal causes — the emigration, wandering habits, 
 dangerous trades, overwork, and intemperance of men. There 
 are other countries, especially across the Ocean, where the men 
 greatly outnumber the women. It is the first and most urgent 
 duty of society to remedy this social disease, and not to turn 
 society upside down in order to palliate a temporary and a 
 local want. Certainly not, when the so-called remedy can only 
 increase the disease by "debasing the moral currency" and 
 desecrating the noblest duties of woman. Certainly, no re- 
 formers whatever can be more eager than we are to do our best 
 to help in any reasonable remedy for our social maladies, be 
 they what they may. But the extent and acuteness of social 
 
514 FREDERIC HARRISON 
 
 maladies make us only more anxious to defend the first prin- 
 ciples of human society — and to us none is so sacred as the 
 inherent and inalienable womanliness of all women's work. 
 
 The prevalent sophistry calls out for complete freedom to 
 every individual, male or female, and the abolition of all re- 
 straints, legal, conventional, or customary, which prevent 
 any adult from living his or her own life at his and her private 
 will. It is specious; but, except in an age of Nihilism, such 
 anarchic cries would never be heard. It involves the destruc- 
 tion of every social institution together. The Family, the State, 
 the Church, the Nation, Industry, social organization, law, — all 
 rest on fixed rules, which are the standing contradiction of this 
 claim of universal personal liberty from restraint. Society im- 
 plies the control of absolute individual license ; and this is a claim 
 for absolute individual license. It is perfectly easy to find objec- 
 tions and personal hardship in every example of social institution. 
 
 Begin with marriage. Many married people would be hap- 
 pier and, perhaps, more useful, if they could separate at will. 
 Therefore (the cry is), let all men and women be always free to 
 live together or apart, when they choose, and as long as they 
 choose, without priests, registrars, law courts, or scandal. Many 
 parents are unworthy to bring up their children. Therefore, 
 let no parent have any control over his child. Many women 
 would be more at ease and perhaps more able to work in their 
 own way, if they wore men's clothes. And some men, among 
 the old and the delicate, might be more comfortable in skirts. 
 Therefore, abolish the foolish restrictions about Male and 
 Female dress. And this our reformers, it seems, are preparing 
 to do. Many men and more women are, at twenty, better 
 fitted to "come of age" than some men at thirty. Therefore, 
 let every one "come of age" when he or she thinks fit. Many 
 a man who, through hunger, steals a turnip is an angel of light 
 compared with a millionaire who speculates. Therefore, abolish 
 all laws against stealing. Many a foreigner living in England 
 knows far more of politics than most native electors. There- 
 fore, abolish all restrictions applying to "aliens" as such. 
 
 
THE FUTURE OF WOMAN 515 
 
 Many a layman can preach a better sermon than most priests, 
 can cure disease better than some doctors, can argue a case 
 better than certain barristers, could keep deposits better than 
 some bankers, find a thief quicker than most poHcemen, and 
 drive a "hansom" better than some cabmen. Therefore — it 
 is argued — let every man, woman, and child live with whomso- 
 ever he or she like, wear breeches or petticoats as he or she pre- 
 fer, put their vote in a ballot box whenever they see one at 
 hand, conduct divine service, treat the sick, plead causes, coin 
 money, carry letters, drive cabs, and arrest their neighbors, as 
 they like, and as long as they like, and so far as they can get 
 others to consent. And thus we shall get rid of all personal 
 hardships, all restrictions as to age, sex, and competence, and 
 all public registration ; we shall abolish monopolies, male tyr- 
 anny, and social oppression generally. 
 
 The claim for the complete "emancipation" of women stands 
 or falls along with these other examples of emancipation. And 
 the answer to it is the same. The restriction, which in a few 
 cases is needless, hard, even unjust, is of infinite social useful- 
 ness in the vast majority of cases, and "to free" the few would 
 be to inflict permanent injury on the mass. To make marriage 
 a mere arrangement of two persons at will would be to introduce 
 a subtle source of misery into every home. To leave women 
 free to go about in men's clothes and men free to adopt women's 
 clothes, would be to introduce unimaginable coaresness, vice, 
 and brutalization. To leave every one free to fill any public 
 office, with or without public guarantee or professional training, 
 would open the door to continual fraud, imposture, disputes, 
 uncertainty, and confusion. It is to prevent all these evils 
 that monopolies, laws, conventions, registers, and other restric- 
 tions on personal license exist. And the first and most funda- 
 mental of all these restrictions are those which distinguish the 
 life of women from that of men. 
 
 Not very many reformers consciously intend the "emanci- 
 pation" of women to go as far as this. There is a great deal 
 of playing with the question, more or less honest, more or less 
 
5i6 FREDERIC HARRISON 
 
 serious, as there is much playing with Socialism, Agnosticism, 
 and so forth, by people who perhaps, in their hearts, merely 
 wish to see women more active and better taught, or some of 
 the worst hardships of workmen redressed, or the dogmas of 
 Orthodoxy somewhat relaxed. But when a great social in- 
 stitution is seriously threatened we must deal with the real revo- 
 lutionists who have a consistent aim and mean what they say. 
 And the real revolutionists aim at the total "emancipation" of 
 women, and by this they mean that law, custom, convention, 
 and public opinion shall leave every adult woman free to do 
 whatever any adult man is free to do, and without let or reproach, 
 to live in any way, adopt any habit, follow any pursuit, and 
 undertake any duty, public or private, which is open or reserved 
 to men. 
 
 Now I deliberately say that this result would be the most 
 disastrous to human civilization of any which could afflict it — 
 worse than to return to slavery and polytheism. If only a 
 small minority of women availed themselves of their "freedom," 
 the beauty of womanliness would be darkened in every home. 
 Just as if but a few married people accepted the legalized 
 liberty of parting by consent, every husband and every wife 
 would feel their married life sensibly precarious and unsettled. 
 There is nothing that I know of but law and convention to hin- 
 der a fair percentage of women from becoming active members 
 of Parliament and useful ministers of the Crown, learned pro- 
 fessors of Hebrew and anatomy, very fair priests, advocates, 
 surgeons, nay, tailors, joiners, cab drivers, or soldiers, if they 
 gave their minds to it. The shouting which takes place when 
 a woman passes a good examination, makes a clever speech, 
 manages well an institution, climbs a mountain, or makes a 
 perilous journey of discovery, always struck me as very foolish 
 and most inconsistent. I have so high an opinion of the brains 
 and energy, the courage and resource of women, that I should 
 be indeed surprised if a fair percentage of women could not 
 achieve all in these lines which is expected of the average man. 
 My estimate of women's powers is so real and so great that if 
 
THE FUTURE OF WOMAN 517 
 
 all occupations were entirely open to women, I believe that 
 a great many women would distinguish themselves in all but 
 the highest range, and that, in a corrupted state of public opin- 
 ion, a very large number of women would waste their lives in 
 struggling after distinction. 
 
 Would waste their lives, I say. For they would be strixdng, 
 with pain and toil and the sacrifice of all true womanly joys, to 
 obtain a lower prize for which they are not best fitted, in lieu 
 of a loftier prize for which they are preeminently fit. A lower 
 prize, although possibly one richer in money, in fame, or in 
 power, but essentially a coarser and more material aim. And 
 in an age like this there is too much reason to fear that ambition, 
 and the thirst for gain and supremacy, would tempt into the 
 unnatural competition many a fine and womanly nature. Our 
 daughters continually desire to see their names in newspapers, 
 to display the cheap glories of academic or professional honors, 
 to contemplate their bankers' pass books in private, and to 
 advertise in public their athletic record. 
 
 Let us teach them that this specious agitation must ultimately 
 degrade them, sterilize them, unsex them. The glory of woman 
 is to be tender, loving, pure, inspiring in her home ; it is to raise 
 the moral tone of every household, to refine every man with 
 whom, as wife, daughter, sister, or friend, she has intimate con- 
 verse ; to form the young, to stimulate society, to mitigate the 
 harshness and cruelty and vulgarity of life everywhere. And it 
 is no glory to woman to forsake all this and to read for honors 
 with towelled head in a college study, to fight with her own 
 brother for a good "practice," to spend the day in offices and the 
 night in the "House." These things have to be done — and 
 men have to do them ; it is their nature. But the other, the 
 higher duties of love, beauty, patience, and compassion, can only 
 be performed by women, and by women only so long as it is 
 recognized to be their true and essential field. 
 
 It is impossible to do both together. Women must choose 
 to be either women or abortive men. They cannot be both 
 women and men. When men and women are once started as 
 
5i8 FREDERIC HARRISON 
 
 competitors in the same fierce race, as rivals and opponents 
 instead of companions and helpmates, with the same habits, 
 the same ambitions, the same engrossing toil, and the same public 
 lives, Woman will have disappeared, society will consist of in- 
 dividuals distinguished physiologically, as are horses or dogs, 
 into male and female specimens. Family will mean groups of 
 men and women who live in common, and Home will mean 
 the place where the group collects for shelter. 
 
 The Family is the real social unit, and what society has to 
 do is to promote the good of the Family. And in the Family 
 woman is as completely supreme as is man in the State. And 
 for all moral purposes the Family is more vital, more beautiful, 
 more universal than the State. To keep the Family true, 
 refined, affectionate, faithful, is a grander task than to govern 
 the State ; it is a task which needs the whole energies, the en- 
 tire life of Woman. To mix up her sacred duty with the coarser 
 occupations of politics and trade is to unfit her for it as com- 
 pletely as if a priest were to embark in the business of a money- 
 lender. That such primary social truths were ever forgotten 
 at all is one of the portents of this age of skepticism, mammon- 
 worship, and false glory. Whilst the embers of the older Chiv- 
 alry and Religion retained their warmth, no decent man, much 
 less woman, could be found to throw ridicule on the chivalrous 
 and saintly ideal of woman as man's guardian angel and queen 
 of the home. But the ideals of Religion of old are grown faint 
 and out of fashion, and the priest of to-day is too often willing 
 to go with the times. Is it to be left to the Religion of Hu- 
 manity to defend the primeval institutions of society? Let 
 us then honor the old-world image of Woman as being relieved 
 by man from the harder tasks of industry, from the defense and 
 management of the State, in order that she may set herself to 
 train up each generation to be worthier than the last, and may 
 make each home in some sense a heaven of peace on earth. 
 
XIX 
 
 THE MORAL EQUIVALENT OF WAR i 
 
 William James 
 
 [The Moral Equivalent of War, the last public utterance of William James, 
 is significant as expressing the opinions of a practical psychologist on a ques- 
 tion of growing popular interest. For the past fifteen years the movement 
 for promoting international peace has been enlisting the support of organi- 
 zations and individuals the world over. That this is a question on which 
 much may be said for the opposition, James, though a pacificist, admits with 
 his usual fair-mindedness, pointing out that militarism is the sole nourisher 
 of certain human virtues that the world cannot let die, and that until the 
 peace party devises some substitute, some moral equivalent, for the dis- 
 ciplinary value of war, their Utopian goal is neither desirable nor possible. 
 His own solution is advanced not as a practical measure, but merely as an 
 illustration to show that the world is full of opportunities for the peaceful 
 development and continuation of the martial qualities of human life. 
 
 This essay was written for general dissemination as a publication of the 
 American Association for International Conciliation, February, 1910. As it 
 not only presents a peace program but defines as well the most familiar 
 arguments of the war party, no militarist article has been included, although 
 it may be mentioned that a suggestive apology for war is to be found among 
 De Quincey's Essays and also in Ruskin's Crown of Wild Olive. Additional 
 documents on conciliation, approaching the question from innumerable 
 points of view, are published by the Association mentioned above.] 
 
 The war against war is going to be no holiday excursion or 
 camping party. The military feelings are too deeply grounded 
 to abdicate their place among our ideals until better substitutes 
 are offered than the glory and shame that come to nations as 
 well as to individuals from the ups and downs of politics and the 
 
 ^ Reprinted by permission of the American Association for International 
 Conciliation, and of Messrs. Longmans, Green, and Company, publishers of 
 Memories and Studies, by William James. 
 
 519 
 
520 WILLIAM JAMES 
 
 vicissitudes of trade. There is something highly paradoxical 
 in the modern man's relation to war. Ask all our millions, 
 north and south, whether they would vote now (were such a 
 thing possible) to have our war for the Union expunged from 
 history, and the record of a peaceful transition to the present 
 time substituted for that of its marches and battles, and probably 
 hardly a handful of eccentrics would say yes. Those ancestors, 
 those efforts, those memories and legends, are the most ideal part 
 of what we now own together, a sacred spiritual possession worth 
 more than all the blood poured out. Yet ask those same people 
 whether they would be willing in cold blood to start another 
 civil war now to gain another similar possession, and not one 
 man or woman would vote for the proposition. In modern 
 eyes, precious though wars may be, they must not be waged solely 
 for the sake of the ideal harvest. Only when forced upon one, 
 only when an enemy's injustice leaves us no alternative, is a 
 war now thought permissible. 
 
 It was not thus in ancient times. The earlier men were hunt- 
 ing men, and to hunt a neighboring tribe, kill the males, loot the 
 village and possess the females, was the most profitable, as well 
 as the most exciting, way of living. Thus were the more martial 
 tribes selected, and in chiefs and peoples a pure pugnacity and 
 love of glory came to mingle with the more fundamental appetite 
 for plunder. 
 
 Modern war is so expensive that we feel trade to be a better 
 avenue to plunder; but modern man inherits all the innate 
 pugnacity and all the love of glory of his ancestors. Showing 
 war's irrationality and horror is of no effect upon him. The 
 horrors make the fascination. War is the strong life; it is life 
 in extremis; war taxes are the only ones men never hesitate 
 to pay, as the budgets of all nations show us. 
 
 History is a bath of blood. The Iliad is one long recital of 
 how Diomedes and Ajax, Sarpedon and Hector, hilled. No 
 detail of the wounds they made is spared us, and the Greek 
 mind fed upon the story. Greek history is a panorama of jin- 
 goism and imperialism — war for war's sake, all the citizens 
 
THE MORAL EQUIVALENT OF WAR 521 
 
 being warriors. It is horrible reading, because of the irration- 
 aHty of it all — save for the purpose of making "history" — ■ 
 and the history is that of the utter ruin of a civihzation in intel- 
 lectual respects perhaps the highest the earth has ever seen. 
 
 Those wars were purely piratical. Pride, gold, women, slaves, 
 excitement, were their only motives. In the Peloponnesian war, 
 for example, the Athenians asked the inhabitants of Melos 
 (the island where the "Venus of Milo" was found), hitherto 
 neutral, to own their lordship. The envoys meet, and hold a 
 debate which Thucydides gives in full, and which, for sweet 
 reasonableness of form, would have satisfied Matthew Arnold. 
 "The powerful exact what they can," said the Athenians, "and 
 the weak grant what they must." When the Meleans say that 
 sooner than be slaves they will appeal to the gods, the Athenians 
 reply: "Of the gods we believe and of men we know that, by 
 a law of their nature, wherever they can rule they will. This 
 law was not made by us, and we are not the first to have acted 
 upon it; we did but inherit it, and we know that you and all 
 mankind, if you were as strong as we are, would do as we do. So 
 much for the gods ; we have told you why we expect to' stand as 
 high in their good opinion as you." Well, the Meleans still 
 refused, and their town was taken. "The Athenians," Thu- 
 cydides quietly says, "thereupon put to death all who were of 
 military age and made slaves of the women and children. They 
 then colonized the island, sending thither five hundred settlers 
 of their own." 
 
 Alexander's career was piracy pure and simple, nothing but 
 an orgy of power and plunder, made romantic by the character 
 of the hero. There was no rational principle in it, and the 
 moment he died his generals and governors attacked one another. 
 The cruelty of those times is incredible. When Rome finally 
 conquered Greece, Paulus ^milius was told by the Roman 
 Senate to reward his soldiers for their toil by "giving" them the 
 old kingdom of Epirus. They sacked seventy cities and carried 
 off a hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants as slaves. How 
 many they killed I know not ; but in EtoUa they killed all the 
 
522 WILLIAM JAMES 
 
 senators, five hundred and fifty in number. Brutus was "the 
 noblest Roman of them all," but to reanimate his soldiers on 
 the eve of Philippi he similarly promises to give them the 
 cities of Sparta and Thessalonica to ravage, if they win the 
 fight. 
 
 Such was the gory nurse that trained societies to cohesiveness. 
 We inherit the warlike type ; and for most of the capacities of 
 heroism that the human race is full of we have to thank this 
 cruel history. Dead men tell no tales, and if there were any 
 tribes of other type than this they have left no survivors. Our 
 ancestors have bred pugnacity into our bone and marrow, and 
 thousands of years of peace won't breed it out of us. The popu- 
 lar imagination fairly fattens on the thought of wars. Let public 
 opinion once reach a certain fighting pitch, and no ruler can 
 withstand it. In the Boer war both governments began with 
 bluflf, but couldn't stay there, the military tension was too much 
 for them. In 1898 our people had read the word WAR in letters 
 three inches high for three months in every newspaper. The 
 pliant politician McKinley was swept away by their eagerness, 
 and our squalid war with Spain became a necessity. 
 
 At the present day, civilized opinion is a curious mental 
 mixture. The military instincts and ideals are as strong as 
 ever, but are confronted by reflective criticisms which sorely 
 curb their ancient freedom. Innumerable writers are showing 
 up the bestial side of military service. Pure loot and mastery 
 seem no longer morally avowable motives, and pretexts must 
 be found for attributing them solely to the enemy. England 
 and we, our army and navy authorities repeat without ceasing, 
 arm solely for "peace," Germany and Japan it is who are bent 
 on loot and glory. "Peace" in military mouths to-day is a 
 synonym for "war expected." The word has become a pure 
 provocative, and no government wishing peace sincerely should 
 allow it ever to be printed in a newspaper. Every up-to-date 
 dictionary should say that "peace" and "war" mean the same 
 thing, now in posse, ^ now in actu? It may even reasonably be 
 ^ As a possibility. — ■ Editors. ^ ^s a fact. — Editors. 
 
THE MORAL EQUIVALENT OF WAR 523 
 
 said that the intensely sharp competitive preparation for war 
 by the nations is the real war, permanent, unceasing ; and that 
 the battles are only a sort of public verification of the mastery 
 gained during the "peace" interval. 
 
 It is plain that on this subject civilized man has developed a 
 sort of double personality. If we take European nations, no 
 legitimate interest of any one of them would seem to justify 
 the tremendous destructions which a war to compass it would 
 necessarily entail. It would seem as though common sense 
 and reason ought to find a way to reach agreement in every 
 conflict of honest interests. I myself think it our bounden duty 
 to believe in such international rationality as possible. But, 
 as things stand, I see how desperately hard it is to bring the 
 peace party and the war party together, and I believe that the 
 difficulty is due to certain deficiencies in the program of pacif- 
 icism which set the militarist imagination strongly, and to a cer- 
 tain extent justifiably, against it. In the whole discussion both 
 sides are on imaginative and sentimental ground. It is but one 
 Utopia against another, and everything one says must be 
 abstract and hypothetical. Subject to this criticism and cau- 
 tion, I will try to characterize in abstract strokes the opposite 
 imaginative forces, and point out what to my own very fallible 
 mind seems the best Utopian hypothesis, the most promising 
 line of conciliation. 
 
 In my remarks, pacificist though I am, I will refuse to speak of 
 the bestial side of the war regime (already done justice to by 
 many writers) and consider only the higher aspects of milita- 
 ristic sentiment. Patriotism no one thinks discreditable; nor 
 does any one deny that war is the romance of history. But 
 inordinate ambitions are the soul of every patriotism, and the 
 possibility of violent death the soul of all romance. The mili- 
 tarily patriotic and romantic-minded everywhere, and especially 
 the professional military class, refuse to admit for a moment 
 that war may be a transitory phenomenon in social evolution. 
 The notion of a sheep's paradise like that revolts, they say, our 
 higher imagination. Where then would be the steeps of life ? 
 
524 WILLIAM JAMES 
 
 If war had ever stopped, we should have to reinvent it, on this 
 view, to redeem life from flat degeneration. 
 
 Reflective apologists for war at the present day all take it 
 religiously. It is a sort of sacrament. Its profits are to the van- 
 quished as well as to the victor ; and quite apart from any ques- 
 tion of profit, it is an absolute good, we are told, for it is human 
 nature at its highest dynamic. Its "horrors" are a cheap price 
 to pay for rescue from the only alternative supposed, of a world 
 of clerks and teachers, of coeducation and zoophily, of "con- 
 sumer's leagues" and "associated charities," of industrialism 
 unlimited and feminism unabashed. No scorn, no hardness, no 
 valor any more ! Fie upon such a cattleyard of a planet ! 
 
 So far as the central essence of this feeling goes, no healthy- 
 minded person, it seems to me, can help to some degree partaking 
 of it. Militarism is the great preserver of our ideals of hardi- 
 hood, and human life with no use for hardihood would be con- 
 temptible. Without risks or prizes for the darer, history would 
 be insipid indeed ; and there is a type of military character which 
 every one feels that the race should never cease to breed, for 
 every one is sensitive to its superiority. The duty is incumbent 
 on mankind, of keeping military characters in stock — of keeping 
 them, if not for use, then as ends in themselves and as pure pieces 
 of perfection, — so that Roosevelt's weaklings and mollycoddles 
 may not end by making everything else disappear from the face 
 of nature. 
 
 This natural sort of feeling forms, I think, the innermost soul 
 of army writings. Without any exception known to me, mili- 
 tarist authors take a highly mystical view of their subject, and 
 regard war as a biological or sociological necessity, uncontrolled 
 by ordinary psychological checks and motives. When the time 
 of development is ripe the war must come, reason or no reason, 
 for the justifications pleaded are invariably fictitious. War is, in 
 short, a permanent human obligation. General Homer Lea, in his 
 recent book. The Fa/oro//gwora»ce,plantshimself squarely on this 
 ground. Readiness for war is for him the essence of nationality, 
 and ability in it the supreme measure of the health of nations. 
 
THE MORAL EQUIVALENT OF WAR 525 
 
 Nations, General Lea says, are never stationary — they must 
 necessarily expand or shrink, according to their vitality or de- 
 crepitude. Japan now is culminating ; and by the fatal law in 
 question it is impossible that her statesmen should not long since 
 have entered, with extraordinary foresight, upon a vast policy of 
 conquest — the game in which the first moves were her wars 
 with China and Russia and her treaty with England, and of 
 which the final objective is the capture of the Philippines, the 
 Hawaiian Islands, Alaska, and the whole of our coast west of 
 the Sierra Passes. This will give Japan what her ineluctable 
 vocation as a state absolutely forces her to claim, the possession 
 of the entire Pacific Ocean ; and to oppose these deep designs we 
 Americans have, according to our author, nothing but our con- 
 ceit, our ignorance, our commercialism, our corruption, and our 
 feminism. General Lea makes a minute technical comparison 
 of the military strength which we at present could oppose to the 
 strength of Japan, and concludes that the islands, Alaska, Oregon, 
 and Southern California, would fall almost without resistance, 
 that San Francisco must surrender in a fortnight to a Japanese 
 investment, that in three or four months the war would be over, 
 and our Republic, unable to regain what it had heedlessly neg- 
 lected to protect sufficiently, would then "disintegrate," until 
 perhaps some Caesar should arise to weld us again into a nation. 
 
 A dismal forecast indeed ! Yet not unplausible, if the mental- 
 ity of Japan's statesmen be of the Caesarian type of which history 
 shows so many examples, and which is all that General Lea seems 
 able to imagine. But there is no reason to think that women can 
 no longer be the mothers of Napoleonic or Alexandrian char- 
 acters ; and if these come in Japan and find their opportunity, 
 just such surprises as The Valor of Ignorance paints may lurk in 
 ambush for us. Ignorant as we still are of the innermost recesses 
 of Japanese mentality, we may be foolhardy to disregard such 
 possibilities. 
 
 Other militarists are more complex and more moral in their 
 considerations. The Philosophie des Krieges, by S. R. Stein- 
 jnetz, is a good example. War, according to this author, is an 
 
$126 <J WILLIAM JAMES ic^-? ^ ^ ( 
 
 ordeal instituted by God, who weighs the nations in its balatice. 
 It is the essential form of the state, and the only function in 
 which peoples can employ all their powers at once and conver- 
 gently. No victory is possible save as the resultant of a totality 
 of virtues, no defeat for which some vice or weakness is not re- 
 sponsible. Fidelity, cohesiveness, tenacity, heroism, conscience, 
 education, inventiveness, economy, wealth, physical health and 
 vigor — there isn't a moral or intellectual point of superiority 
 that doesn't tell, when God holds his assizes and hurls the peoples 
 upon one another. Die W eltgeschichte ist das Weltgericht^; and 
 Dr. Steinmetz does not beheve that in the long run chance and 
 luck play any part in apportioning the issues. 
 
 The virtues that prevail, it must be noted, are virtues anyhow, 
 superiorities that count in peaceful as well as in military com- 
 petition ; but the strain on them, being infinitely intenser in the S 
 latter case, makes war infinitely more searching as a trial. No 
 ordeal is comparable to its winnowings. Its dread hammer is 
 the welder of men into cohesive states, and nowhere but in such 
 states can human nature adequately develop its capacity. The 
 only alternative is "degeneration." 
 
 Dr. Steinmetz is a conscientious thinker, and his book, short as 
 it is, takes much into account. Its upshot can, it seems to me, be 
 summed up in Simon Patten's word, that mankind was nursed 
 in pain and fear, and that the transition to a "pleasure economy" 
 may be fatal to a being wielding no powers of defense against its 
 disintegrative influences. If we speak of the fear of emaricipation 
 from the fear regime, we put the whole situation into a single 
 phrase ; fear regarding ourselves now taking the place of the an- 
 cient fear of the enemy. 
 
 Turn the fear over as I will in my mind, it all seems to lead 
 back to two unwillingnesses of the imagination, one aesthetic, and 
 the other moral : unwillingness, first to envisage a future in 
 which army life, with its many elements of charm, shall be for- 
 ever impossible, and in which the destinies of peoples shall never- 
 more be decided quickly, thrillingly, and tragically, by force, but 
 
 ^ The history of the world is the judgment of the world. — Editors. 
 
THE MORAL EQUIVALENT OF WAR 527 
 
 only gradually and insipidly by ''evolution"; and, secondly 
 unwillingness to see the supreme theater of human strenuousness 
 closed, and the splendid military aptitudes of men doomed to 
 keep always in a state of latency and never show themselves in 
 action. These insistent unwillingnesses, no less than other 
 aesthetic and ethical insistencies, have, it seems to me, to be lis- 
 tened to and respected. One cannot meet them effectively by 
 mere counter-insistency on war's expensiveness and horror. The 
 horror makes the thrill ; and when the question is of getting the 
 extremest and supremest out of human nature, talk of expense 
 sounds ignominious. The weakness of so much merely negative 
 criticism is evident — pacificism makes no converts from the 
 military party. The military party denies neither the bestiality 
 nor the horror, nor the expense ; it only says that these things 
 tell but half the story. It only says that war is worth them ; that, 
 taking human nature as a whole, its wars are its best protection 
 against its weaker and more cowardly self, and that mankind 
 cannot afford to adopt a peace economy. 
 
 Pacificists ought to enter more deeply into the aesthetical and 
 ethical point of view of their opponents. Do that first in any 
 controversy, says J. J. Chapman ; then move the point, and your 
 opponent will follow. So long as anti-militarists propose no sub- 
 stitute for war's disciplinary function, no moral equivalent of war, 
 analogous, as one might say, to the mechanical equivalent of 
 heat, so long they fail to realize the full inwardness of the situa- 
 tion. And as a rule they do fail. The duties, penalties, and 
 sanctions pictured in the Utopias they paint are all too weak and 
 tame to touch the military minded. Tolstoi's pacificism is the 
 only exception to this rule, for it is profoundly pessimistic as re- 
 gards all this world's values, and makes the fear of the Lord fur- 
 nish the moral spur provided elsewhere by the fear of the enemy. 
 But our socialistic peace advocates all believe absolutely in this 
 world's values ; and instead of the fear of the Lord and the fear 
 of the enemy, the only fear they reckon with is the fear of pov- 
 erty if one be lazy. This weakness pervades all the socialistic 
 literature with which I am acquainted. Even n Lowes Dickin- 
 
528 WILLIAM JAMES 
 
 son's exquisite dialogue,^ high wages and short hours are the only 
 forces invoked for overcoming man's distaste for repulsive kinds 
 of labor. Meanwhile men at large still live as they always have 
 lived, under a pain-and-fear economy — for those of us who live 
 in an ease economy are but an island in the stormy ocean — and 
 the whole atmosphere of present-day Utopian literature tastes 
 mawkish and dishwatery to people who still keep a sense for life's 
 more bitter flavors. It suggests, in truth, ubiquitous inferiority. 
 
 Inferiority is always with us, and merciless scorn of it is the key- 
 note of the military temper. "Dogs, would you live forever ?" 
 shouted Frederick the Great. "Yes," say our Utopians, "let us 
 live forever, and raise our level gradually." The best thing 
 about our " inferiors " to-day is that they are as tough as nails, and 
 physically and morally almost as insensitive. Utopianism would 
 see them soft and squeamish, while militarism would keep their 
 callousness, but transfigure it into a meritorious characteristic, 
 needed by "the service," and redeemed by that from the sus- 
 picion of inferiority. All the qualities of a man acquire dignity 
 when he knows that the service of the collectivity that owns him 
 needs them. If proud of the collectivity, his own pride rises in 
 proportion. No collectivity is like an army for nourishing such 
 pride ; but it has to be confessed that the only sentiment which 
 the image of pacific cosmopolitan industrialism is capable of 
 arousing in countless worthy breasts is shame at the idea of be- 
 longing to such a collectivity. It is obvious that the United 
 States of America as they exist to-day impress a mind like Gen- 
 eral Lea's as so much human blubber. Where is the sharpness 
 and precipitousness, the contempt for life, whether one's own, or 
 another's? Where is the savage "yes" and "no," the uncondi- 
 tional duty ? Where is the conscription ? Where is the blood 
 tax ? Where is anything that one feels honored by belonging to ? 
 
 Having said thus much in preparation, I will now confess my 
 own Utopia. I devoutly believe in the reign of peace and in the 
 gradual advent of some sort of a socialistic equilibrium. The 
 fatalistic view of the war function is to me nonsense, for I know 
 
 ^ Justice and Liberty, N. Y., 1909. 
 
THE MORAL EQUIVALENT OF WAR 529 
 
 that war-making is due to definite motives and subject to pruden- 
 tial checlcs and reasonable criticisms, just like any other form of 
 enterprise. And when whole nations are the armies, and the 
 science of destruction vies in intellectual refinement with the 
 sciences of production, I see that war becomes absurd and im- 
 possible from its own monstrosity. Extravagant ambitions will 
 have to be replaced by reasonable claims, and nations must make 
 common cause against them. I see no reason why all this should 
 not apply to yellow as well as to white countries, and I look for- 
 ward to a future when acts of war shall be formally outlawed as 
 between civilized peoples. 
 
 All these beliefs of mine put me squarely into the anti-mili- 
 tarist party. But I do not believe that peace either ought to be 
 or will be permanent on this globe, unless the states pacifically 
 organized preserve some of the old elements of army discipline. 
 A permanently successful peace economy cannot be a simple 
 pleasure economy. In the more or less socialistic future towards 
 which mankind seems drifting we must still subject ourselves col- 
 lectively to these severities which answer to our real position upon 
 this only partly hospitable globe. We must make new energies 
 and hardihoods continue the manliness to which the military 
 mind so faithfully clings. Martial virtues must be the enduring 
 cement ; intrepidity, contempt of softness, surrender of private 
 interest, obedience to command, must still remain the rock upon 
 which states are built — unless, indeed, we wish for dangerous 
 reactions against commonwealths fit only for contempt, and 
 liable to invite attack whenever a center of crystallization for 
 military-minded enterprise gets formed anywhere in their neigh- 
 borhood. 
 
 The war party is assuredly right in affirming and reaffirming 
 that the martial virtues, although originally gained by the race 
 through war, are absolute and permanent human goods. Patri- 
 otic pride and ambition in their military form are, after all, only 
 specifications of a more general competitive passion. They are 
 its first form, but that is no reason for supposing them to be its 
 last form. Men now are proud of belonging to a conquering 
 
530 WILLIAM JAMES 
 
 nation, and without a murmur they lay down their persons and 
 their wealth, if by so doing they may fend ofT subjection. But 
 who can be sure that other aspects of one's country may not, with 
 time and education and suggestion enough, come to be regarded 
 with similarly eflfective feelings of pride and shame ? Why 
 should men not some day feel that it is worth a blood tax to be- 
 long to a collectivity superior in any ideal respect ? Why should 
 they not blush with indignant shame if the community that owns 
 them is vile in any way whatsoever ? Individuals, daily more 
 numerous, now feel this civic passion. It is only a question of 
 blowing on the spark till the whole population gets incandescent, 
 and on the ruins of the old morals of military honor, a stable sys- 
 tem of morals of civic honor builds itself up. What the whole 
 community comes to believe in grasps the individual as in a vise. 
 The war function has grasped us so far ; but constructive inter- 
 ests may some day seem no less imperative, and impose on the 
 individual a hardy lighter burden. 
 
 Let me illustrate my idea more concretely. There is nothing 
 to make one indignant in the mere fact that life is hard, that 
 men should toil and suffer pain. The planetary conditions once 
 for all are such, and we can stand it. But that so many men, by 
 mere accidents of birth and opportunity, should have a life of 
 nothing else but toil and pain and hardness and inferiority im- 
 posed upon them, should have no vacation, while others natively 
 no more deserving never get any taste of this campaigning life at 
 all, — this is capable of arousing indignation in reflective minds. 
 It may end by seeming shameful to all of us that some of us have 
 nothing but campaigning, and others nothing but unmanly ease. 
 If now — and this is my idea — there were, instead of military 
 conscription a conscription of the whole youthful population to 
 form for a certain number of years a part of the army enlisted 
 against Nature, the injustice would tend to be evened out, and 
 numerous other goods to the commonwealth would follow. The 
 military ideals of hardihood and discipline would be wrought into 
 the growing fiber of the people ; no one would remain blind as the 
 luxurious classes now are blind, to man's real relations to the 
 
THE MORAL EQUIVALENT OF WAR 531 
 
 globe he lives on, and to the permanently sour and hard founda- 
 tions of his higher life. To coal and iron mines, to freight trains, 
 to fishing fleets in December, to dishwashing, clothes washing, 
 and window washing, to road building and tunnel making, to 
 foundries and stokeholes, and to the frames of skyscrapers, would 
 our gilded youths be drafted off, according to their choice, to 
 get the childishness knocked out of them, and to come back into 
 society with healthier sympathies and soberer ideas. They 
 would have paid their blood tax, done their own part in the 
 immemorial human warfare against nature, they would tread the 
 earth more proudly, the women would value them more highly, 
 they would be better fathers and teachers of the following 
 generation. 
 
 Such a conscription, with the state of public opinion that would 
 have required it, and the many moral fruits it would bear, would 
 preserve in the midst of a pacific civilization the manly virtues 
 which the military party is so afraid of seeing disappear in peace. 
 We should get toughness without callousness, authority with as 
 little criminal cruelty as possible, and painful work done cheerily 
 because the duty is temporary, and threatens not, as now, to de- 
 grade the whole remainder of one's life. I spoke of the "moral 
 equivalent" of war. So far, war has been the only force that 
 can discipline a whole community, and until an equivalent dis- 
 cipline is organized, I believe that war must have its way. But 
 I have no serious doubt that the ordinary prides and shames of 
 social man, once developed to a certain intensity, are capable of 
 organizing such a moral equivalent as I have sketched, or some 
 other just as effective for preserving manliness of type. It is but 
 a question of time, of skillful propagandism, and of opinion- 
 making men seizing historic opportunities. 
 
 The martial type of character can be bred without war. 
 Strenuous honor and disinterestedness abound elsewhere. Priests 
 and medical men are in a fashion educated to it, and we should 
 all feel some degree of it imperative if we were conscious of our 
 work as an obligatory service to the state. We should be owned, 
 as soldiers are by the army, and our pride would rise accordingly. 
 
532 WILLIAM JAMES 
 
 We could be poor, then, without humihation, as army officers 
 now are. The only thing needed henceforward is to inflame the 
 civic temper as past history has inflamed the military temper. 
 H. G. Wells, as usual, sees the center of the situation. " In many 
 ways," he says, " military organization is the most peaceful of 
 activities. When the contemporary man steps from the street, 
 of clamorous insincere advertisement, push, adulteration, under- 
 selling and intermittent employment, into the barrack yard, he 
 steps on to a higher social plane, into an atmosphere of service 
 and cooperation and of infinitely more honorable emulations. 
 Here at least men are not flung out of employment to degenerate 
 because there is no immediate work for them to do. They are 
 fed and drilled and trained for better services. Here at least a 
 man is supposed to win promotion by self-forgetfulness and not 
 by self-seeking. And beside the feeble and irregular endowment 
 of research by commercialism, its little short-sighted snatches at 
 profit by innovation and scientific economy, see how remarkable 
 is the steady and rapid development of method and appliances 
 in naval and military affairs! Nothing is more striking than 
 to compare the progress of civil conveniences which has been 
 left almost entirely to the trader, to the progress in military ap- 
 paratus during the last few decades. The house appliances of 
 to-day, for example, are little better than they were fifty years 
 ago. A house of to-day is still almost as ill-ventilated, badly 
 heated by wasteful fires, clumsily arranged and furnished as the 
 house of 1858. Houses a couple of hundred years old are still 
 satisfactory places of residence, so little have our standards 
 risen. But the rifle or battleship of fifty years ago was beyond all 
 comparison inferior to those we possess ; in power, in speed, in 
 convenience alike. No one has a use now for such superan- 
 nuated things." ^ 
 
 Wells adds ^ that he thinks that the conceptions of order and 
 discipline, the tradition of service and devotion, of physical fit- 
 ness, unstinted exertion, and universal responsibility, which 
 universal military duty is now teaching European nations, will 
 1 First and Last Things, 1908, p. 215. ^ Ibid., p. 226. 
 
THE MORAL EQUIVALENT OF WAR 533 
 
 remain a permanent acquisition, when the last ammunition has 
 been used in the fireworks that celebrate the final peace. I 
 believe as he does. It would be simply preposterous if the only 
 force that could work ideals of honor and standards of efficiency 
 into English or American natures should be the fear of being 
 killed by the Germans or the Japanese. Great indeed is Fear ; 
 but it is not, as our military enthusiasts believe and try to make 
 us believe, the only stimulus known for awakening the higher 
 ranges of men's spiritual energy. The amount of alteration in 
 public opinion which my Utopia postulates is vastly less than the 
 difference between the mentality of those black warriors who 
 pursued Stanley's party on the Congo with their cannibal war 
 cry of "Meat! Meat!" and that of the "general staff" of any 
 civilized nation. History has seen the latter interval bridged 
 over : the former one can be bridged over much more easily. 
 
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