Class .__-4^V/__ C^mm^' /^/Aa-.. COPyRlGliT DEPOSm ^ ARISTODEMOCRACY Sir Charles Waldstein Letters quoted above, p. 25. 40 They would do better were they to remind us of their past inheritance in their national and civic theatres and concert halls and museums throughout the country, and the facility with which the population at large can enjoy these means of spiritual relaxation. It is in this one particular sphere that other nations can learn from them and are willing to learn from them. But their industrial success and the realisation of the spirit of thoroughness which underlies it was the product of the Germany of the past, the very existence of which they have been undermining, and against which their militarism and the pres- ent war with its barbarous and degrading methods of warfare, are striking the death-blow. Year by year, since 1871, Berlin is asserting itself as the centre of German Kultur, destroying or sap- ping the vitality of all these numerous centres from which emanated the true \ntality of the Ger- man spirit. It is the home and fountain of all Streherthum, which means the undoing of the moral and spiritual vitality of the German nation. Let us pause for a moment and endeavour to recall a picture of the German as we have known him, and let me endeavor in a few strokes to recall to memory the various types of Germans who existed before and who, I repeat, still exist in great numbers. To begin with the most prominent and most powerful caste. I can vividly recall to mind the personality of one of the rulers of the lesser German states, who died at an advanced age, shortly before the war. He was, like the Prince Consort, a successor to those princes who created the Court of Weimar in which Goethe lived and from which an atmosphere of most refined cul- 41 ture emanated over the world. Well over six feet in height and of military and commanding erectness in stature, he had none of the stiff- ness and assertive awkwardness of the typical Prussian soldier. A soldier he was, however, having fought though the whole of the Franco- Prussian War in a high command, and having profitably devoted much time and thought to the theoretical and scientific study of military mat- ters ever since. But he restricted such activities and interests to his military duties and occupa- tions and never carried the manner or tone of the soldier into his civil life as the ruler of his country, and still less into his private and social intercourse. With his clear-cut and refined feat- ures, his bright clear eyes and fair complexion, his long silvery beard, he presented a most at- tractive personality, and combined to the highest and fullest degree dignity, kindness and gentleness. This gentleness was carried so far as to produce a strong element of almost childlike sensitiveness and shyness in his nature, which his own impos- ing bearing and the visible attributes of his ex- alted position could not quite obscure or hide. I can hardly recall among the many people I have met in my life one whose range of education and intellectual interests were at once as wide and deep, as versatile and as thorough, for an exam- ple of which one naturally turns back to the great personalities of the Italian Renaissance. One figure in modern times at once occurs to one's mind as being of the same calibre and qual- ity, namely that of a woman, the Empress Fred- erick. His school and university studies had been most systematic and thorough and were com- 42 pleted in his youth by extensive travels. General education was supplemented by almost profes- sional training in drawing and painting, which led to such proficiency, that the leading German painter of his time, the elder Kaulbach, expressed his regret 'that the Prince could not devote him- self entirely to the pursuit of the painter's craft, as he would certainly have won for himself a prominent place among the artists of his day.' In music his catholic and refined appreciativeness covered the whole field of past and contemporary art and led him to sympathetic support of the new movements which he stimulated and en- couraged, he himself being a distinguished per- former. None of the arts were foreign to him, including sculpture, architecture, and the decora- tive arts. In literature his interest, appreciation and understanding covered the same wide field, far beyond the limits of his own country and its language. Well versed in French and Italian, his English was imperfect; and yet he strove to master and to follow the great movements of English letters and thought and was one of the most thorough Shakespeare scholars in Germany. The same interest was manifested in science and philosophy. He sought the company and friend- ship of the leading scholars and scientists in the neighbouring university, took the keenest and most active interest in learning and research as pursued there, and was himself a direct supporter of the more practical application of science to the higher optical production of scientific instru- ments, which have not only made his small Cap- ital the centre of one of the most advanced and scientifically refined industries for the whole world, but have at the same time given an ex- 43 ample for economic co-operation and the direct bestowal of commercial profit for the social bet- terment of the community. Besides this he was a keen sportsman with the true sportsman's spirit, fond of horses, an exceptionally good shot, who even when eighty years of age stalked and bagged his stag in the woods and laid him low in the most perfect style, avoiding all cruelty and pain. From his earliest days to his recent death he made of his principality and its capital a scene of highest culture. He attracted to it and held there, by the material and social inducements which he could offer, the leading representatives of art and culture. From the early days when Otto Ludwig, the novelist and critic (whose essays on Shakespeare will always remain classical) was resident in his capital, he invited thither the poets Geibel and Bodenstaedt, the dramatist Paul Lin- dau and many others. He drew to his capital the musician Hans von Buelow and many of the now prominent conductors of Germany, to all of whom he gave official positions in order to enable them to devote themselves to their art without ma- terial care, and at the same time made their homes the centres of highest culture for the com- munity over which he presided. Brahms became his personal friend, and constantly visited the capital, so that his own home was one of the centres from which the music of that great master emanated over the world. The orchestra of that small town was one of the foremost in Europe and astonished audiences far away even as Lon- don by the perfection of their rendering of class- ical masterpieces. The most widely known, how- ever, among these peaceful achievements was the theatre; and here, under his personal direction, 44 a new phase of modern dramatic art was initiated which, owing to the visits paid by the company to most of the capitals of the world, marked a distinct epoch in dramatic presentation. When we add to this that the capital of this thinly pop- ulated principality was not long ago inhabited by not more than 15,000 people, and now does not exceed 20,000, it will be understood what the in- fluence of this one leading personality meant. To these qualities must be added the gracious, kindly and warm-hearted attitude which he held towards all those who came in contact wdth him. He was a true gentleman. Finally I must add, that he was strongly opposed to the modern spirit which he identified with Prussia and with Berlin, even though his first wife was a Prussian princess, and that he deplored the change in morals and in tone which he saw coming over Germany from that direction. I can further call up to my mind many Germans of the aristocratic class, narrow though they may have been, and bred in a restricted atmosphere of — to us — an unnatural survival of the feudal system. These are distinct from — in fact may be contrasted to — the Junker-class out of which many a Streber has been enlisted. Through their education they sincerely believed that, by birth and tradition, they were differentiated, in char- acter, in manners and in habits, from the rest of the people among whom they lived. To the mod- ern Englishman or American the sincerity of such a conviction is not quite intelligible. What makes it most difficult for us to understand is the fact that, in spite of their education, thought and experience, their wide range of knowledge and interest, their acquaintance with other coun- 45 tries and peoples, and the widening of their men- tality through travel and reading, such a con- viction could still remain intact and sincere. But the fact that they held it truly is beyond all doubt, and is apparently explained by the fact that they only applied it to their own country and people, and admitted that it might not apply to other countries. Yet, with the limitation of this narrowness of personal outlook as it concerned their own social relations to their own people, there was associated, as an outcome of it, a high development of the sense of honour and of the social responsibilities which rested upon them. The merchant and money-making classes and the pursuits which they followed did not in their eyes favour the lofty integrity of their own prin- ciples and conduct. They were pronouncedly un- mercenary, despisers of money and would spend their gold freely en grand seigneur or bear their povert}^ uncomplainingly and with dignity. Many of them were men of cosmopolitan culture, stu- dents of the arts and sciences, with the most pro- found respect for achievements in every direction. Next to their own immediate caste the *' Knights of the Mind" held the first place. In fact in most cases they would, if the choice had been put before them, have sought the company, and valued the regard of, the representatives of higher culture more even than those of the feudal magnates. Many of them were keen sportsmen and, if only on this ground, bestowed admiration and sympathy on Englishmen above all other foreigners. Their home-life, though retaining most of the simple German characteristics, was chiefly modelled on the pattern of the English country house. Their bearing and manners were 46 marked by reserve and dignity, with strict main- tenance of politeness and affability, with slight reminiscences of German stiffness, but with the avoidance of the typical and assertive formality of the Prussian officer. Such men would at once be characterised as men of refinement and dis- tinction and would be called in Germany ''Vor- nehme H err en." I can next recall brilliant representatives among the merchant class and manufacturers and the old-established bankers. They generally be- longed to the former free cities, where their class had maintained social superiority continuously from the Middle Ages to the present time, from Hamburg and the Hanseatic cities, through Frankfort and Nurenberg, even to the Swiss towns. The traditions of the old German mer- chant, and even the leading craftsman, absorbed by the modern manufacturer and upheld by the best representatives of finance which dominated the mediaeval life of the free cities, still pertained and opposed their obstinate vitality of business honour to the onslaught of modern commercial degeneracy. To them a man's word was as good as his bond; the prospect of insolvency or bank- ruptcy was to them as great a calamity as death itself. When shortly after 1870 the whole of Germany and the world at large were scandalised by the revelations of the promoting swindles {Grunderschwindel), a cry of indignant reproval came from the representative merchants, manu- facturers and financiers who upheld the older traditions of commercial morality. In the Reisch- stag it was especially the National Liberal Party headed by Lasher, who held up these men to public contempt. These men of sterling moral character 47 had received a sound education, generally class- ical, at the gymnasium and at the university; they had travelled much and were conversant with several languages ; and they made of their homes centres of higher culture in which the arts were practised and appreciated and in which the liter- atures of foreign countries, as well as of Ger- many, were cultivated by all its members, includ- ing the women. I can recall such homes where the "Revue des deux Mondes" and the best Eng- lish periodicals were always to be seen and read, together with the leading authors of France and England, and even Italy and Russia. Few homes of such cosmopolitan culture could be found in any other country. But, not only in the towns I have mentioned, but even in Berlin itself, such homes and such social centres existed and carried on traditions of previous generations reaching back even to the Eighteenth Century. The letters of Varnhagen and the memoirs grouping round the Mendelssohn family give a picture of the cul- tured life of such circles at Berlin. The social tone, moreover, was more gracious and graceful, more distinctly expressive of the men and women of the world, than that of the higher bureaucratic militaristic, and even aristocratic, world of the Berlin of those days. I now gratefully turn to another group of Ger- man personalities: namely, the men of science and learning. Many of these were in the past, as they are today, narrow and underbred crafts- men, who happened to have chosen a more in- tellectual craft in lieu of a handicraft, upon which they have specialised to the exclusion of all other humanising, refining and elevating pursuits and practices. But a large number in those days 48 were men of the highest character, of refined general education, and of the loftiest ideals and practices of life. Moreover, however interesting, typical and expressive the type of the poor Ger- man professor inmiortalised by Carlyle's "Teu- felsdroeck" may have been, the men I have now in mind were not poor or circumscribed in their means of living, with corresponding habits and manners of life. It ought to be more widely known — for it has frequently led to important and far-reaching misconceptions — that the Ger- man university professor and man of science and learning was in the past, and is in the present, in his material and financial position, as well placed as the highest representatives in the military, bureaucratic, judicial, and even the ministerial walks of life. The men whom I have in mind lived on the same scale of affluence, and cultivated the amenities of life to the same degree, as those of the wealthy upper classes. They travelled and widened the horizon of their experiences and sympathies. But the whole of their existence and mentality was dominated by higher spiritual aims, which they recognised as being the same for all nationalities. I have endeavored to portray such a man in "Professor Baumann" in my book on " Herculaneum, "^ I have made him the frontispiece for the ideals of a German represen- tative of learning. Such men will ever remain the types of what is highest and best in human nature and will always be the upholders of the higher interests of civilisation, however much they may for the time being be diverted from their true course by passion and ignorance of the truth. (1) Herculaneutn, Past, Present and Future, by C. W. and Leonaxd Shoobridge, pp. 181, seq. 49 When we now recall the tradesmen and shop- keepers of the older days, there rise before us men most capable in the pursuit of their own busi- ness, thoroughly versed in its every detail, who took a definite pride in their life-work. The tradesman brought system and high intelligence to bear upon the sale of his goods and considered the needs of his customers, taking a pride in meeting their wants and tastes. Where could there be found such booksellers as existed in every one of the towns and especially in uni- versity towns? The purchaser who asked for some new books was not met with the eternal, ir- ritating questions in order to identify author and publisher, usually ending up with the statement that 'it is not in the shop, but can be procured in a few days.' Such book-sellers kept in touch with the production of all their goods in every country and every language. You were greeted by them almost as a literary friend and met with new information or new suggestions about books that might possibly interest you and to which your attention was drawn. They made a point of knowing your own inclinations and your own pursuits, as they studied thoroughly the markets of production. "Something new has arrived from England (or from France) which I am sure, Sir, must interest you." Many of these book- sellers were living bibliographical reference books, translators, men of wide reading and high standing. Some still exist in England and in France, but are quite exceptional; whereas in Germany of old they were the rule. Now all these tradesmen and craftsmen, outside of the sphere of their own business, had their higher intellectual and artistic interests. They were 50 members of the glee clnbs, were most of them musical performers, and regular attendants at the theatre and opera, which their municipal or national institution made accessible to their class. Even, if we go lower down in the social scale to the least intellectual occupations, the smallest tradesman, artisan and labourer, through his school education and through the intellectual at- mosphere about him, was at least in sympathetic touch with the higher domains of learning and of art, appreciated and valued them and respected those who represented the spiritual capital of the nation. I shall never forget how, when a student at one of the German universities, during a walk- ing tour with a party in the Black Forest, we came to a small village inn and were greeted by the burly inn-keeper. When he learnt that we were students, he showed the greatest interest in the universities whence we came and asked us which of the faculties we belonged to, whether the theo- ological, the philosophical, the juridical or the medical faculty. To this man, and men of his stamp, the universities were national institutions in close touch with national life, and, though they could not pretend to follow the higher studies, they took a deep and sincere interest in the work that was carried on and did not feel that such higher intellectual work was divorced from the actual life of the people. Throughout the whole nation in those days there was reverence and re- spect for knowledge; not so much because of the material advantages which it brings (as is the case now), as because of the spiritual, and hence the social, value which it presents to national life. Among all these people collectively there was, in the last generation, a spirit of friendliness and 51 cordiality, which indicated a kind heart and pro- duced what they call Gemuthlichkeit ; and this friendly spirit was also extended the foreigner. There was an understanding of, and even an ad- miration for the 'foreign' as such, the Fremdart- ige, not the ignorant English opposition to the foreigner and to what is foreign. At one time — perhaps as a result of the dominance of Louis XIV over the life and fashion of the princeling- oourts throughout Germany, as well as the heri- tage of Napoleonic rule, — this admiration of the foreigner and the foreign may have led to a pref- erence over what was indigenous and national, and may have encouraged a certain absence of self-confidence, if not of servility, which led some true German patriots to combat what they con- sidered the signs of Lakaien-natur in the German. But in those days the German mind, like the German language, showed its assimilative power and its appreciation of the life and thought of all other civilised nations. The wide-reading pub- lic in Germany kept in touch with, and enjoyed fully, the literature of every other country. The cheap popular translations (sixpence or seven- pence per volume) such as those published by Keklam, brought within their reach, not only the most recent books of England and France, but also Italian, Scandinavian and Russian authors. The wider public thus became acquainted with the national ps^^chology of even the Russian mujik, as depicted by a Gogol, as they appreciated the national music of every country. And this wid- ened their own national sympathies. There was no country in the world where the mass of the inhabitants were to the same degree capable of sympathetic understanding of the life of foreign 52 nations, and where they brought towards all for- eigners such friendly curiosity, a readiness to understand, to tolerate, to admire, and to wel- come their foreign fellow-men. All this healthy growth of moral, intellectual and artistic human- ism underlying a friendly feeling towards other nationalities has been checked, weakened in its growth, and finally extirpated, and has been re- placed by an over-weaning arrogance and pride in their own superiority through the growth of Chauvinism and Militarism, and has at last been fanned into consuming hatred of the foreigner, especially the foreigner whose prosperity or po- sition they envied. We are thus convinced that Germany is the aggressor in this war; but we believe that this war has not been forced on the world by the Ger- man nation as a whole, the heirs of the past spirit of Germany, but by that section of the nation who represent militarism and have for the time being effectively gained power over the German mind. The mind of Germany, moreover, has been pre- pared to receive these baneful influences by the steady growth of Chauvinism since 1870. From another point of view it means the dominance of Prussia and the Prussian spirit over the rest of the empire — the Prussianising of Germany. 53 CHAPTER III Prussian Militarism and the Growth of German Chauvinism Since 1870. The Glorifica- tion OF War We all know what is meant by militarism in the narrower acceptation of the terra. In its wider acceptation it includes a modification or an exaggeration in the conception of the State both as regards internal as well as foreign policy. On the one hand, the guardians of national security, the^6XaKesas the ancient Greeks called them, be- come the rulers, and their own special function, which ought only to be concerned with one side of national life, becomes the all-absorbing end of national existence: — all national life is subordi- nated to the chief object of wars. On the other hand, under the militaristic domination, the State as a whole in its relation to other states naturally assumes an antagonistic character, regarding all other nations as their actual or potential enemies and fostering this inimical and warlike attitude of mind throughout the people. In one word, it leads to Chauvinism. I have on more than one occasion defined Chauvinism, as distinguished from patriotism.^ Patriotism is the love of one's country and one's people; Chauvinism is the hatred of other countries and other people. The culmination of this spirit of militarism, penetrated and saturated by Chauvinism, has found its clear, forcible, and uncompromising ex- (1) See Expansion of Western Ideals, by the author, Preface and pp. 136 seq. 54 pression in the writings of Treitschke and Bern- hardi and many other prominent authors. How- ever much it may be denied, the fact remains that these historico-philosophic views, elevated to a definite theoretical system of life and morals, have penetrated into the national life of Germany and have gained practical vitality. This has been brought about, in the first instance, by the action of the State in matters military and dip- lomatic ; by the systematic corruption of the press both at home and abroad; by the elaborate and costly army of secret agents, spread all over the world in times of peace, in order to undermine the national life and solidarity of possible future enemies ; by the state-subventioned penetration of commerce and trade in all parts of the world directly subservient to the chief military aims. Not only in these manifestations of military Mach- iavellism does this nefarious spirit show itself; but it has been systematically and directly intro- duced into national pedagogics through the schools, with a well-drilled and subservient army of masters, even in the most elementary phases of education. It has also found its way, through all intermediate branches, to the very pinnacle of German Education in their great universities. There the leaders of thought in the highest re- gions of science and learning become the respon- sive tools of tyrannous state-administration, and prove to the world, how scientific and literary education may be entirely divorced from political education, and how these leaders of thought have not yet acquired the political insight and training of many a humble and illiterate citizen or sub- ject to a truly free country governed on con- stitutional principles. Those who have known 55 the Germany of the past and the Germany of the present realise this complete change in the whole character and moral of its people. They also realise that, compared with the national life of the past, in addition to this dominance of the militaristic and Chauvinistic spirit, there has been insinuated into the very heart of civil life a moral degeneracy more marked and more vir- ulent in its form than the diseases of social life manifested in any other civilised state of modern times. That it should have attacked the German people in a form so much more virulent than is the case elsewhere is, perhaps, due to the fact that, since the great victories of the Franco-Prus- sian War which made Germany a great empire, and the concomitant and unique rapidity of in- dustrial development leading to the influx of great wealth, the German people, previously poor and possessed of all the virtues that go with simple conditions of life on moderate means, have been Bubject to all the physical and moral diseases of the nouveau riche, the parvenu. Wealth has come to them unprepared to withstand its temp- tations, and the virus which dissolves the moral fibre has, in their case, not been gradually and continuously administered by weaker solutions of its potent venom to insure some immunity. It is a curious phenomenon, that the Germans have charged us with this very disease of moral de- generacy from which they are suffering in so acute a form. We are surely not untainted as regards this modern morbus occidentalis; and there certainly is danger, in view of the more spasmodic and more localised manifestations of the disease among us, that we may diffuse and cultivate its germ still further, and even that, 56 through this very war and its final results, we may suffer from the contagion of those German diseases which have led to this huge moral crime in the world's history. For, even at an early stage of the war, even before it had properly begun, there had been danger signals lest we should be inoculated with militarism, the spirit of which udll surely grow as the war proceeds. We have growing among us and spreading its fibre throughout all classes of the community, the malignant disease of Chau- vinism from wliich in the past we were compara- tively freer than other nations; though we may hope that the symptoms of moral degeneracy so clearly manifest before the war may be checked by the sternness of the national uprising and of our sacrifices, and by the lessons which we may learn from its sinister effects in the corruption of the old healthy German life of the past. I have said that even at the beginning of the war there was fear of contagion from the militar- istic spirit of a Treitschke or a Bernhardi. Para- doxical as it may appear, this very peril has come in the first instance from high-minded and high-spirited prophets who vainly warned us against the Teutonic danger, which so many of us failed to realise, and which we must now admit they wisely foresaw. Nevertheless, in their own anti-militaristic teaching there may be found the insidious and hidden dangers of such contagion. I will but take one leading type of these wise men as manifested in the writings of the late Pro- fessor Cramb. In impressing upon British people in the most forcible manner the peril threatening our very national existence from the growth of German 57 military power, and in warning us in time to de- fend our homes and our position in the world as an empire, he has been carried away by his dra- matic instinct and the exercise of that rare func- tion of intellectual sympathy and altruistic imag- ination, to put the case of our enemies in so glow- ing and favourable a light, that the result upon the impressionable reader may be to ingraft on his imagination the spirit and essence of militar- ism as Treitschke conveyed it to the German people. Perhaps also Professor Cramb himself, evi- dently endowed with an ardent imagination, at- tended the lectures of Treitschke during the im- pressionable period of his youth, and came under the spell of that powerful personality, until he lost sight of the clay feet of his idol, and, while opposing the doctrines of the master as they af- fected the national life of the pupil's country, un- consciously became, at least in part, a disciple himself.^ For my own part I cannot understand that Trietschke should have had any such influ- ence upon anybody, excepting a born Prussian with violent Prussian prejudices. Nor can I un- derstand the high estimate which so learned a (1) This conjecture ia strongly confirmed by a passage in Mr. W. H. Dawson's book, What is wrong with Germany, perhaps the ablest book produced by this war. On p. 38 and the following pages, Mr. Uawson, who attended Treitschke's lectures in 1875, gives a masterly portrait of Treitschke, the lecturer, and shows the influence he had on his audience. He endeavours to dis- tribute light and shade, praise and blame justly, and ends his strong summary with the following words: "Even at this long distance of time, the instincts of loyalty and gratitude refuse to be overborne, and I confess that I, for one, am still as unredeemed that were I required to throw stones at Heinrich von Treitschke, I should wish my stones to be pebbles, and when I throw them I should want to run away." This passage does much credit to the sense of delicacy and the loyalty of Mr. Dawson. But such was not the effect produced upon my Eng- lish and American fellow-students who attended Treitschke's lec- tures at Heidelburg in 1873. 58 scholar and versatile a man of the world, as was Lord Acton, should have formed of Treitschke as an historian. I attended several courses of his lectures during the most impressionable years of my student life when, fresh from my American home, I studied at the University of Heidelburg from 1873-6. The effect which he then had upon the large number of foreign students attending his lectures at that University, and even upon the mass of South Germans, in fact upon those who were not purely Prussian by birth or in spirit, was distinctly one of antagonism. His enthus- iasm, his emphatic diction and violent assertive- ness, were all expressive of the Prussian spirit in its most unattractive form, and the ruthlessness (tactlessness would be too mild a term, as he would have repudiated any claims to such refined social virtues) with which he disregarded and directly offended the national or social sensibili- ties of many of his hearers, showed how he was imbued, not necessarily with the greatness, but certainly with the brutal force, of Bismarckian principles of blood and iron.^ To summarise the chief impression which his personality made upon us foreigners, I should say that we were all strongly impressed with the fact that he was not what we should call a gentle- man. On the other hand, I believe he himself (1) Let me but quote one illustrative instance, though I could show how (with many English, American and French students among his pupils) he constantly made insulting, and sometimes grossly ignorant, remarks about their national characteristics, their political ideals, and even their social habits. In referring to the Balkan peoples, though he knew that there were several Bulgarian, Servian and Roumanian students in his class, he roared out in a voice and with gestures indicative of a mixture between anger and contempt: "Serben, Bulgaren and Walachen — und wie diese schweinetreibende Volker alle heissen mogen!" ("Serbians, Bulgarians and Walachians and whatever else these swine-driving peoples may be called.") 59 would have accepted this stricture and would have gloried in the fact that he did not approve of such an ideal. Were he still alive he might himself have urged, as recently has been done — if the report be true — that that term, hitherto adopted in the vocabulary of the German lang- uage, should be expunged and replaced by a new German word "ein Ganzermann" I It also ap- peared to us, and does so to many highly qualified historical scholars now, that he was not a true historian, according to the old-established higher conception of that type, of which so many representatives have been given to the world by Germany. I mean those who were primarily and ultimately imbued with the scientific Eros, the almost religious striving for pure and unalloyed truth, the devout and humble servants of the goddess Wissenschaft. At best he could be called a publicist, swayed by the spirit of the journalist (whom he despised) consciously subordinating his search after truth and his study of the past to the fixed demands of a living policy ; full of what the Germans in science and art stigmatise as a grave fault, the dominance of Tendenz, the fixed aim, prejudicial to the appreciation of truth, di- recting the tendency towards an immediate and personal goal. He was thus one of the many who since 1870 have consciously endeavoured to undermine the highest Germanic spirit of philosophy and thor- oughness in science, of purity in ideal strivings — the real Kultur, which with its army of scholars and students Germany gave to the world. He thus became one who indirectly led to the estab- lishment of that Streberthum, to which I referred above, centred in Berlin, and percolating through 60 all the towns and villages of the provinces, which has been destroying all German idealism and has placed into the hands of the militaristic lead- ers the tools with which to effect their nefarious purposes. Frequently appealing to the authority of Bismarck in his lectures, I remember his quot- ing a saying of the great stateman, directly af- fecting the system of education in the German universities, and this applied to the faculties of jurisprudence, history and political science. "Ich will keine Kreisrichter hah en" ("I do not want trained magistrates, ' ' marking the first step in the juridical and administrative career) ; nor did he want pure scientists or scholars, unless they could be made subservient to his political ends ; but he did want diplomatic and skilful pol- iticians who could be directly used for state pur- poses. How different this spirit is from that in which the high ideals of science, scholarship and philosophy reigned supreme in the universities, where the pure, supreme and ultimate goal of uni- versity life were untainted by ulterior and lower motives — a spirit which we in England and in America, and even in France, admired and re- spected, and which for some years past we have been endeavouring to infuse into our own aca- demic life. Germany, on the other hand, has been and is doing her best to quench its fire and to exalt the lower mentality arising out of the nat- ural conditions of English and American enter- prise, the dominance of which the best minds in both these nations are endeavouring to counter- act, in part by the inspiration which came from the older Germany. This .spirit of disintegration which has steadily undermined the good, which Germany possessed 61 before 1870 — though of course great bodies and the very nature of the Good are slow in dying, — this disintegration, working more rapidly and ef- fectively in recent years, began about the year 1871 and was not due only to the new school of militaristic leaders and of servile professors grouping round the Kaiser with his Real and Interessen-politik and his commercial material- ism. It was really initiated by Bismarck himself, in his attempt to supplement his successful for- eign policy by (what the future will recognise as the great failure in the life work of that states- man) his home policy. What was needed to Crown his great achieve- ment in founding the German Empire after 1870, was the development of a great nation within, the political education of the people and the consol- idation of the truly national German Kultur in its highest form as it already existed. In these lofty and most important aims the Great Chan- cellor failed. And he failed, not only because he gave an inadequate constitution to the German Empire, and because he did not establish a clear and efficient system of political education for the German nation; but also because in his personal conduct as the leading statesman, in the example which his own character and his every act could give to the people, directly affected by the one great personality who had their reverence and gratitude and whose every word and act became to the whole nation a lesson to learn and an ex- ample to follow, — because he repressed rather than developed their sense of political freedom and responsibility, the rights as well as the duties of a citizen in a modern constitutional state. The tone of his speeches before the Reichstag, — in 62 which he would even venture to refer to his own health or the state of his nerves for the consid- eration of those who opposed his definite political proposals, — were always those of the Prussian non-commissioned officer, wounding to the self- respect of the elected representatives of the peo- ple and ultimately crushing in them their inde- pendence and their training in the thoughts, customs and habits of parliamentary government. Naturally the people as a whole were a fortiori repressed in their political aspirations and de- prived of the political education which they so sorely needed. Only one section of the community withstood him ; and they, who would have formed the constitutional progressive section, were forced into the more violent forms of socialistic agita- tion, claiming for all practical purposes to be inimical to the state and to society as well, out- side the state in fact, if not outside of society as it exists. Still more did he contribute to the destruction of the ideals of pure and high thought as estab- lished in the academic life of Germany. The foundation-stone of this huge national structure, the very core and centre of the national life of the whole country, w^as Academic Liberty, the German LeJir and Lern-freiheit. Though the uni- versities were state institutions, nominally under the Ministry of Education, they were practically self-governing in their own administration, and the election of the professors was practically in the hands of the body of academic teachers them- selves. This tradition was rudely broken by Bis- marck's action, when he forced his own personal physician, Schweninger, into academic honours. The professors, the independent men of science 63 of old, had to obey and to submit to military dis- cipline. But still more destructive, though more insid- ious, than this direct crushing of the spirit of academic independence, was the manner in which science was made subservient to the will of the state, the research and the thorough spirit of scientific investigation, the purity and single- heartedness of all the striving after truth in its highest and unadulterated form, which guided (and to a great extent still guides) the life-work of the German savant. These were curbed to the praginatical service of a definite line of policy which the great Chancellor knew how to impress upon the whole nation and to make the dominant idea of all life and thought. During my student days this dominant thought was expressed by the term Germanenthum. Not only political science and history were de- filed and tainted into conformity with the de- mands of Bismarck's political views; but the studies most remote from practical politics were made to fall into line with the advance of the Teuton army. Chauvinism, which in some form or other may always have existed among the na- tions and the communities of the world who looked upon their neighbours as rivals or enemies, now took a more thoroughly scientific and philosophic form, and widened its basis on a broad ethnolog- ical and scientific foundation in the spirit of Teu- ton pedantry. National Chauvinism claimed an ethnological foundation. It was no longer the German State, with its history throughout the middle ages, a fusion of so many races constantly changing their territories and dwellings as they rushed to and fro over Central Europe, which 64 claimed the allegiance and love and patriotism of the German people. Nor was it on the gromid of the numerous separate states and principalities and their variegated, almost kaleidoscopic, his- tory during the last centuries, which were at last, by the supreme and heroic effort of Bismarck, his predecessors and his followers, welded into the unity of a German Empire, welded together by their very diversity out of which grew the fructifying spirit of their potent and character- istic Kultur, made one by the very sufferings and sacrifices through which they had passed during centuries of cruel wars. In all this common life of suffering, achievement and heroism was not to be found the moral justification for the founda- tion of a German Empire; but in a racial unity that could be measured in terms of the dominant natural sciences of the day, and of the youngest, least developed, of them all, the conclusions of which we must doubt, namely, the study of eth- nology. The distinctive solidarity of the Teu- tonic race had to be established. On this unity of race was to rest, not only the claim for the unity of the German Empire, but also its separate and antagonistic interests in regard to other na- tions, its rivals and potential foes. From 1870 and onwards it is sadly interesting to note how the German professors, the free upholders of truth and pure science, curbed their every effort to establish and to prove the claims of this Ger- manenthuw,. It was not only opposed to the Latin world, to France and to Italy (which had not yet become a part of the Triple Alliance), not only to the Slavs; but, in so far as Great Britain was not purely Saxon, to Great Britain as well. While, on the one side, Germanenthum 66 could thus be identified with a nation opposed to the Italian Papacy, on the other side it proved most expedient for the time to use it as a lever, perhaps even a bait, to be thrown to the socialists and to lead them to concentrate their antagon- ism in a single groove and so to liberate the main current of policy — against the Jews. Germanefir- thum as the supreme expression of the Teuton world thus stood in direct opposition to the Jews, the Semites. The anti-Semitic party was then organised. It mattered not that a great part of Prussia, and of other German states as well, could be shown to be of Slav origin; that the names of many of its greatest men should end in 'ow' and other Slav endings:^ that some of its leaders of life and thought, and even its soldiers, were of recent French origin; that among the foremost men in every department of life, from whom em- anated the actual German Kultur, were many of Jewish origin ! The modern world had to be split up into its pre-historic ethnical constituents by a most inaccurate and misleading scientific induc- tion, so that the modern German State should, not only be confirmed in its imperial unity, but should foster in its people an antagonism which should be based on physical, anatomical and physiological foundations, and bring them nearer to the animal world where the difference of species implies animosity. The response and echo to this wave of ethno- logical Chauvinism was soon to be heard through- out the whole of Europe; it aroused in France and in Italy the same spirit of pedantic intoler- ance and gave life to the Pan-Slav movement in (1) Treitschke is a Slav name. m Eussia. Even in Great Britain there were iso- lated and less powerful attempts at a revival of the Anglo-Saxon spirit, which in Freeman and others took the less violent and more poetic form of the antiquary's and historian's love for his own country. But in Germany, during the whole of the period preceding our own (though it bore some beneficent fruit in the growing study of early Germanic literature and language) history, philology and ethnology were baised and vitiated by the more or less conscious desire to provide a scientific basis for the unity and dominance of the Germanic spirit. Perhaps in the future, when the history of the study of Ethnology is written, this period in German research will be character- ised as the 'Indo-Germanic wave.' The last and most characteristic — though certainly caricatured summary of all these efforts — the swan-song of Germanenthum has been produced by a writer of English birth, Houston Chamberlain, in ''Die Grundlagen des XIX Jahrhunderts."^ Accord- ing to him even Christ during his sojourn on earth was not a Semite, but embodied the Ger- manic spirit. It is interesting and suggestive to note (and I can personally vouch for the accuracy of the statement) that this book was considered by the Kaiser the most important work of modern times, and that it no doubt has furnished him with the historical and scientific ground upon which his political aspirations are based. Thus the foundations for this great structure (1) An English translation of this book has since appeared with and introduction by Lord Redesdale. A more amateurish and unbalanced piece of historical generalisation than this book cannot be found in the whole of historical literature. Lord Redes- dale's introduction, besides bestowing most fulsome praise upon the author, summarises and compresses these over-generalisations and thus exaggerates all the faults of this work. 67 of Chauvinism, in a generally theoretical and specially ethnological form, were laid since 1871 by the policy of Bismarck, and on these have been erected the vast and complicated structure of ac- tive militarism pervading all forms of national life. It has left its stamp upon the whole spirit of scientific research. It has consciously directed the efforts and the conduct of the whole bureauc- racy, not onl}^ in the foreign office, but in the home departments as well. It has penetrated and directly modified the varied and huge machinery of their growing commerce and industry; it has even saturated the very soil of the land and furthered the interests, the financial prosperity and the social vitality, of the classes who live by agriculture. There is not a single aspect of Ger- man life which has not been shaped or essentially modified during the last forty years by this dom- inant Chauvinistic impulse, steadied and made permanent by calculated pedantic forethought. The climax, however, was reached when the pol- icy, out of which it grew and on which it fed, was directly u»ed by the State, and found ready to hand the most demoralising and depraved ma- chinery, another one of the great inheritances of Bismarck's successful state-craft, arising di- rectly out of the victories of 1871. This has per- haps more than any other factor, directly tended to vitiate to the very core the national life of the German people, and has even contaminated to some extent the workings of the Foreign Offices of every one of the Western Powers. This inher- itance is the so-called Reptilien-fonds, the money set apart out of the milliards taken from France, for secret service in every form. It has been used not only in the famous, or rather infamous, 68 Press-bureau of the Wilhelmstrasse, which di- rectly gained control of the German press by bribery and corruption or 'subvention'; and, as we also know now, of the foreign press in every nook and corner of the globe as well. Not only was, and is it used for every form of spying at home; but it has established a band of secret agents spreading over the whole civilised, and even the uncivilised, world to further the ends of the Berlin Foreign Office by traducing into trea- son the citizen subjects of other countries, friend- ly allies, and actual or potential antagonists. And, as the World-policy, the Real-politik , grew so did this nefarious activity extend beyond the great powers and rivals themselves, to the col- onies and dependencies and neighbouring peoples or lands which, in the future might turn to be troublesome enemies to any one of the Powers. We have presented to our horrified moral con- science the picture of a huge web of lying and intrigue, sedition and treachery, at which even a Machiavelli might have shuddered wdth horror. And all these evil spirits are now invoked under the banner and in the name of 'Kultur'l Even in Bismarck's lifetime the central direction of these forces which were to establish German Kul- tur must have been most complicated and puz- zling; for every country, even that of the allies, required curbing and perverting into the -course of German Chauvinism. Treaties had to be en- sured by counter-treaties, as in the famous case of the Eussian, and Austrian agreements. But since then, with the full consolidation and the conscious formulation of Welt-politik and Real- politik, the ends as well as the means of German policy have become so varied and confusingly 69 universal, that not a single country or a single people, or any of their dependencies remained, which they were not forced to consider as po- tential enemies and for which their Reptilien-fonds could not furnish the means of demoralising ac- tivity. From this horrible and grotesque point of view of modern politics, which country could Germany fail to consider its actual or potential enemy, including even its own allies'? Contem- porary history has shown, and will still more show in the inunediate future, that Italy could not be looked upon as a friend.^ I myself had it enjoined upon me from the very highest authority in German affairs some years ago in reference to a peaceful scientific propaganda, that "Italy can- not be trusted." There remains Austria. But the Dual Monarchy, with its motto Divide et impera, is made up of so many separate races and interests and parties representing them, that a most exacting sphere of enterprise and activity was constantly and continuously furnished to the directors of the Reptilien-fonds, to further the Teuton claims, to repress both the Magyar and the Slav elements, so that ultimately, through the dominance of Teuton Austria on the road to the East, straight through the Balkans to Salonica, and by rail along the Bagdad Railway, when the Austrian and the Turkish Empires should be- come a thing of the past, the German Weltreich should push its way towards the East, and swiftly enter its course of encircling the world. Imagine, what, definite corruption from both, what huge sums of money it spent successfully to supersede the British and Russian preponderance at Con- stantinople in the time of Abdul Hamid, and (1) This was written before Italy joined the Entente Powers. 70 then to overcome the effects of the crushing blow to German policy when that tyrant's rule made way for a violent and liberal movement on the part of the Young Turks, whose initial Teuton antagonism must have been aggravated by Austrian annexations, leading to a boycott of everything Austrian — until finally again Teu- ton influence at Constantinople became so pow- erful, that it could force the Turks into an alliance and into a disastrous war! Even their allies thus became their enemies in time of false and perfidious peace, and their action was directly destructive of national loyalty, of truth and honesty within the realms of the friendly country. And as for all the other states, their avowed rivals or enemies, actual docmnents have revealed the monstrous universal diffus- ion, their poisonous activity throughout the whole world civilised and uncivilised, even to the re- motest regions of the East and West, the North and South. Think for a moment of the continuous and persistent moral degeneracy which such chauvinistic and militaristic policy implies and how it directly contravenes the moral principles and the moral consciousness upon which modern civilized life rests ! Let me pause here and show how dangerous may be the exaggeration of that literary and his- torical virtue of intellectual sympathy embodied in the fervent appeal of the late Professor Cramb. For he exalts the spirit of war on grounds which approach dangerously near to national Chauvin- ism, such as has dragged Germany from its moral and intellectual heights of the past down to the very depths of the diabolical perfidy of the pres- ent. We may admit that every great act of self- 71 sacrifice, individual and collective, must, from some one aspect, produce something good and something admirable, especially when raised through its very mass into heroic dimensions. The uprising of millions of people willing to risk their lives for any cause has in itself something inspiring and points to an ennobling element in human nature. Great masses of treasure and blood cannot be expended without producing some possible good. Institutions and charities that dispose of, and spend great sums must do some good ; but the question before us always is: 'Is there any due proportion between the expendi- ture and the results; and what are the evils that arise in the wake of the good we may admit has been effected?' There is hardly a single institu- tion, or charity, or business, which disposes of large sums from which some benefit is not derived by somebody. But it may be found that the pro- portion of such good is ridiculously small; that the evils which it creates or perpetuates are dis- proportionately large, and that the employment of such treasures by a more rational or more moral institution or organisation is made impos- sible because of the existence of what is inferior or almost wholly bad. We are bound then to call such institutions, charities or businesses bad and must reform or destroy them, root and branch, and erect in their stead institutions expressing the rational and moral convictions of our own days and conditions of life. Where is to be found in modern warfare the nobility in outlook or in practice"? See what it engenders before the actual war breaks out, in the preparation for hostilities, not only in the concentration and the hypertrophy of the arma- 72 ment industry and traffic, the evils of which in our economic and social life have been so amply and convincingly shown by many able writers; but by the activity of home and foreign policy subservient to the militaristic ideals, as I have sketched them in the case of Germany. Consider the degradation of all the fundamental virtues upon which the moral conscience of civilised people rest, the sense of truth and honesty and loyalty for all those concerned, for all who con- sciously lead, and for all the mass of the people who semi-consciously or unconsciously follow ! Is there anything heroic to be found in such duplicity clustering round the poisonous plant of financial interests, of gold and silver, of money in its vilest form and uses ? As to war in itself, though there be numerous instances of individual and collective heroism, even of chivalry, consider what this war of in- genious and stupendously effective machinery for destroying life, of broken pledges, of decep- tion and trickery, means! Are not the heroic valour and self-sacrifice entirely submerged in the cruelty and deceit of modern warfare so that the total result is complete dissolution of all moral fibre? We need not invoke the contraventions of the plighted word given at The Hague by Ger- many when unfortified towns are bombarded, as- phyxiating gases used, and Lusitanias sunk. It is enough to realise what emotions and passions are stirred up in battle in the breasts of people who were presumably normally moral human beings in time of peace. I cannot do better than to give a passage from the ''J' Accuse'' by a Ger- man writer to bring home to the imagination of 73 readers the real influence of actual warfare. He says (pp. 300-302) : *'A very interesting contribution to the solu- tion of the question, whether war develops the noblest virtues of man [Fieldmarshal Moltke] " or whether it does not on the contrary "produce more bad men than it removes" [Kant]? — is furnished by the account of a battle published in the Tageblatt of Jauer on Oct. 18, 1914. The author of this account is the non-commissioned of- ficer Klemt of the 1st Company, 154th Regiment and his statements are vouched for and subscribed to by the Company-Commander, Lieut, von Niem. The heading of this letter in the newspaper is: "A Day of Honour for our Regiment, 24 Sep- tember, 1914." The account deserves — as a human, or rather a bestial, document — to be printed in extenso; but I regret that space will only permit me to give extracts : "Already we are discovering the first French- men. They are shot down from the trees like squirrels, and are warmly welcomed below with the butt-end of rifles and bayonets ; they no longer need a doctor; we are no longer fighting against honest foes ; but tricky robbers. With a jump we are over the clearing — here ! there ! in the hedges they are crouching ; now, on to them ! No quarter is given. Standing free, at most kneeling, we shoot away, nobody troubles about cover. We come to a hollow: in masses dead and wounded red-breeches lie about; the wounded are clubbed or stabbed to death; for we already know that these rascals will fire at us from behind. There lies a Frenchman stretched out at full length, his face to the ground ; but he is only shamming death. A kick from a lusty Mushetier teaches him that we are there. He turns and begs for his life ; but 74 already he is nailed to the earth with the words : "Do you see your B . . ., this is how our bodkins prick." Beside me an uncanny cracking sound comes from the blows of the but-end of a rifle which one of our 154 's rains on a French bald- head. Prudently he uses a French rifle for the purpose, not to smash his own. Some of us, especially tender-hearted, finish the wounded Frenchmen off with a charitable bullet, others strike and stab as much as they know. Bravely our enemies fought, they were crack regiments we had before us. They allowed us to come on from 30 to 10 metres, then it certainly was too late ... At the entrance of the watch-huts they lie, lightly and seriously wounded, vainly begging for quarter, but our good Musketiers save the fatherland the expensive maintenance of so many enemies. ' ' ' ' The account concludes with the picture of the tired troops lying down to sleep after the "blood- work": The god of dreams paints for some of them a lovely picture. A prayer of thanks on our lips we slept on towards the coming day." I must add the further comments of the author of ''J 'Accuse" : "The most horrible features of this account are not only the incidents narrated, but almost more than these the brutal naivete with which they are represented as feats of heroism, especially acknowledged by superior officers and published in the most prominent part of the of- ficial newspaper of the district. It is possible that brutalities were committed by the other side as well. When the beast in man is set free it is not astonishing that bestialities should be com- mitted. But I have sought in vain in the foreign press for the publication of such 'heroic deeds.' That, after such murderous work, one can sit 75 dowTi in cold blood and report such low horrors to one's fellow-citizens at home, one's friends, to one's own wife and children, makes the whole affair infinitely sadder than in itself it already is. Of course the 'prayer of thanks' to God could not be omitted from the German battle- report. His Royal Highness, Prince Oscar of Prussia, had to be cited by Sergeant Klemt as admirer of the 'heroic action': "With these Grenadiers and 154 's one can storm Hell itself," the Prince exclaimed and assured the two regi- ments that they were worthy of the name, "The King's Own Brigade." The Jauer Report unites — as is the case in Veterinary Handbooks where a horse is dra^vn showing all possible dis- eases — all the "noblest virtues" which War can produce and must produce: Bestiality, bragging, false piety, etc. Whether "the world would degenerate and would be lost in Ma- terialism" if these qualities remained undevel- oped, I leave to the decision of the wise. ' ' Did not the men who risked their lives when aviation started so as to develop such an in- vention for the use and advancement of the world at large, did they not show courage indomita- ble — the aes triplex and more than triplex — of which the soldier marching to attack shows no loftier or more self-sacrificing form? nor doctors and nurses in the sick room ; the researchers who on their own person make dangerous experiments for the benefit of mankind; every policeman on his beat ; every one who day by day curbs his in- stincts of selfishness and greed out of due re- gard to the claims of his fellow men, — do these not give ample opportunities for the development of altruistic enthusiasm? When we look forward 76 to the day when, consciously brought up to a higher level by a universal education based upon the ideals of modern times, not only will the rich willingly give their larger quota of taxes to further the needs of the state and of an advanc- ing society, but even the poorer and the poorest will directly pay their contributions to the state so that others should be saved from hunger and thirst. Then will the sick, the halt, the needy be comforted, the aged live out their lives without anxiety for the morrow, the honest unemployed no longer wander aimlessly along the roads. All great causes of common humanity, may then be fostered by the immediate sacrifice of the indi- vidual. Consider also the effects of war, (whether it end in victory or defeat) upon those who have engaged in it, upon all those who in reality or in imagination have passed through this hell of internecine bloodshed; when 'Thou shalt not kill' as a fundamental tenet for all civilised life has lost all constraining meaning through the constant repercussion of the slaugh- ter of thousands, fathers of children, sons of par- ents, and husbands of wives ; when to deceive and to spy and to try every trick that may mislead and bring one nearer to a destructive goal be- comes a virtue! Where is the heroism? It is noble to be a patriot, nobler than to limit one's affections to one 's country, or one 's village ; it is even nobler to show active affection for one 's vil- lage than to concentrate it only upon one's family. A good son, a devoted father, a considerate broth- er, is surely nobler than the pure egoist who is only absorbed in his own life and desires. But, the man who encourages himself to hate and to slay his fellowman, not because he is vile or be- 77 cause he endangers his omti existence, but be- cause he lives in another country and talks a different language; whose feelings for humanity, whose ideals for the human race, whose striving after divine perfection throughout the world are not only limited to his own country and the people living in it, but who develops active and violent antagonism towards all people and all things beyond this narrow range, such a man cannot be called a patriot ! Patriotism then turns to Chau- vinism ; it no longer is the love of one 's own coun- tiy and one 's own people, but the hatred of others. There is nothing ideal in war, certainly not in modern warfare; and, though every one of us must feel that it is our duty and our privilege to fight for our country and to offer up our lives when our national existence is in 'danger, we should do it because it is our duty, as a means to safeguard what is best and most holy in our national existence, but we are never to turn this means into the ultimate end of civilised existence. We should go to the operating table with com- posure and fortitude when it may dispel disease, prolong our life so that we can continue to sup- port those who depend upon us ; but we can not consider the torturing and maiming of our bodies as a supreme end of our physical existence. The patriot must never allow himself to be carried away by the hysterical enthusiasm of the pane- gyrists of war; he must not admit Bellona into the cycle of his divinities! Every patriot must beware lest he become a Chauvinist who learns to hate the stranger so intensely and effectively as to lose all power of loving; and that the absorbing intensity of his hatred will lead him at last to loathe his neighbour and 78 grow cold towards his wife and children. For this is the end of the doctrine of hate. Now this militaristic Chauvinism has found the most fertile field for its growth on German soil. No other country and no other people, certainly not England and the English, could show condi- tions so favourable. Perhaps until the "Ger- man scare" began some years ago, no people were freer from this antagonistic attitude to- wards those of other nationalities than were the English. They were hospitable in spirit and hos- pitality became a national characteristic in every layer of society. Definite human envy and jeal- ousy may unavoidably have arisen and shown themselves, especially where certain trades or larger groupings of occupations may have suf- fered by the sudden intrusion of more or less alien bodies in definite localities, whether they were 'foreign,' whether they came from abroad or from Scotland into England, or from the neighbouring town or county. But Englishmen were ever ready to receive, and even to acknowl- edge the qualities, in some cases even the super- iority in definite lines and characteristics, of those who came among them from foreign parts. Perhaps it may have been due to an underlying consciousness of our o^\^l merits, if not of our own ultimate superiority, which made us indif- ferent to those incitements of envy and jealousy. If so, such self-confidence, even if at times un- founded in fact, is not a grave national vice. But the truth remains that we were thus — and let us hope will continue so in the future — the least Chauvinistic of modern civilised peoples. Of all peoples manifesting this disease to a greater or 79 lesser degree, the Germans were certainly fore- most. The main reasons for its growth on German soil are to be found in two national character- istics; the one is the prevalence and intensity of envy as a national characteristic ; the other is the absence, from the national education in all its aspects, of the sense of Fair Play, which might have been the one element exercising a salutary counteracting influence to the spirit of envy. The Germans have their idea of honour, they even have their courts of honour and the duel, especially in military circles; but these are not effective in modern life to counteract envy and to foster gen- erosity. On the contrary, within such social groups, ruled by such courts of honour and ap- pealing to the duel as the arbiter, they developed truculence which is most directly opposed to the spirit of Fair Play. Militarism in its effect upon the nation counteracted the establishment and the rule of Fair Play, until at Zabern and after, the official Seal of State was stamped upon the pre- vailing power of the bully. One of the curses of militarism is, that, while it to a certain extent democratises the people collected together in mil- itary service to the state, by the establishment of fixed ranks and gradations, the higher grades having unquestioned authority over the lower, it naturally leads to bullying and weakens the sense of social fairness and justice among the whole population. If we were to attempt to single out, among the numerous causes which have led to this war, one primary and underlying factor in the national character of the Germans which, more than any other, has led to this catastrophe, it undoubtedly 80 is Envy. It has almost become a platitude to say that people are most prone to ascribe to others the faults which they have themselves; and we need not therefore be astonished to hear it fre- quently stated of late that England's antagon- ism towards Germany, and which lead to the war, was her jealousy, and consequent fear of German rivalry in commerce and in political power. It is quite possible that among individ- uals and among certain groups of people, compe- tition, and rivalry, may lead to jealousy, and that, as human nature goes, English trades and oc- cupations which have suffered from German com- petition may thus have produced jealousy in those suffering from this competition. These cases, natural though they be, are limited and isolated and certainly have not sufficed to pro- duce a national characteristic or a movement, which in any way would have driven the country into war. I venture to repeat that there is hardly a nation among the civilised people as ready, on the whole, to welcome the foreigner, admit his qualities and, by the exercise of the supreme na- tional virtue of fair-play, to counteract all the impulses of national jealousy. Let us only hope and pray that the results of this great war, the over-stimulation of the sense of antagonism and of hatred towards others, the suspicion of the foreigner in moments of great national danger, may not counteract his comparative freedom from that most dangerous and lowest of national vices, and may not end in encouraging the growth of national Chauvinism among us. The symp- toms of such a danger are rife at this moment when the nerves of the people are shaken into 81 abnormal irritability by the constant pressure of suffering and anxiety. But with the Germans the national .vice of envy has been greatly stimulated by the recogni- tion of the fact that, in spite of their rapid and stupendous advance in every direction within the short period since their victory over the French, they have not as yet acquired a Co- lonial Empire such as Great Britain possesses; that, owing to what might be considered the ac- cident of historical fate, Germany arrived too late after the colonial possessions throughout the world had already been divided among all the other peoples. This one fact, though it may nat- urally lead to regret and sorrow in the heart of the patriotic German who loves his Country and believes in its great mission in the world, and though it may move us to understand and sym- pathize, does not justify the envy and hatred towards Great Britain nor other criminal action which has plunged the whole world in misery. Though we can understand the conditions which might create envy or encourage it in the hearts of the Germans, we recognize that they have fal- len upon the fertile soil of a national vice which the Germans, as Germans, possess to the highest degree. As such it does not only turn collectively outwards towards other nations, but it under- mines and disturbs the whole inner social life of the nation. This fact is recognised by their own thinkers and statesmen and appears to have been their ruling vice in the early days of their racial ancestors when, as is noted by Prince Bulow,^ Tacitus tells us that "the Germans destroyed (1) Bismarck referred to the same passage in Tacitus and also considered envy a national characteristic. 82 their liberators, the Cherusci, propter invidiam." The Imperial Chancellor, who knew his people well, says of them :^ ' ' Just as one of the greatest German virtues, the sense of discipline, finds special and disquieting expression in the social democratic movement, so does our old \ace, envy." I remember that one of the wisest of the German diplomats, for some time German Ambassador in London, singled out this vice as being the national fault of his countrymen. Envy necessarily produces hatred. The Hebrew com- posite word Kino-Sino combines envy with hate in one word and points to this causal process in the psychology of man. For it means envy- hatred, the hatred which follows upon envy. And when this passion penetrates into the national sj'stem of Chauvinism, intensifies its violence, and directs its animosity, we c^n well understand the otherwise singular phenomenon of the rapidity with which the all-absorbing antagonism and hatred of Russia at the beginning of the war, then held up as the one supreme cause and jus- tification of the national uprising, should within a short time have disappeared from the public press and the consciousness of the German peo- ple, and have been entirely supplanted by the hatred of England, which finds its supreme ex- pression in the Hymn of Hate. This "Hymn" has since been officially established as the Na- tional War Hymn by a German prince and mili- tary leader. This is, by the way, a very striking instance of the ready servility of the press and the effectiveness mth which the Press-Bureau can manipulate the public opinion of a whole nation. In a few months, or even weeks, the Rus- (2) "Imperial Germany" p. 184. 83 sian * bogey' and the old French animosity were completely dropped and, at the word of command, were at once superseded by another "Battle Cry" throughout the whole nation culminating in the most passionate and violent hatred that even the history of barbaric periods can recall. But, though for the time being, the antagonism to the Slav may have superseded the ingrained histor- ical animosity to the French, from whom they suffered so much in Napoleonic days, both these national antagonisms but thinly covered the hatred towards their 'racial' kinsmen and former allies because this hatred was based upon, and intensified by, the envy so ingrained in their na- tures. No doubt some disappointment and the frustra- tion of monstrously stupid plans may have had something to do with the momentary intensifica- tion of their hatred of England. They may have been sufficiently blind or unwise to assume that, in spite of the gross breach of Belgian neutrality, and in spite of the recognised fact that some agreement existed between England and France, we would stand aside without lifting a finger and see Belgium crushed, her liberties trampled upon, and France crushed as well. I do not think that England has ever been more grossly insulted than by the assumption — quite apart from the Belgian crime — that she would follow only her in- stincts for peace, national security and prosper- ity, and would not stand by her moral agreement with France to shield her in any case of unjus- tifiable aggression. Whatever the exact legal definition of this entente cordiale may have been, an entente cordiale did exist ; and if England had stood aside, she would have merited the ridicu- 84 lously unjust epithet of Perfide Albion, and the world would justly have stigmatised us as a 'na- tion of shop keepers. ' Whatever disappointment, and such disappointment could only be felt by those willfully blinded by the expectation of utter subservience of everybody and everything to their own interests, may have been felt by the Germans and thus intensified their passion against Great Britain, the real cause is to be found in their na- tional vice of envy. As the spirit of Chauvinism develops the pas- sion of hatred in the people collectively towards other nations, and as we realise at the present moment how this is concentrated upon ourselves, this passion manifests itself also as a dominant factor in their whole internal life. If we take their characteristic modern poetry as an expres- sion of popular sentiment, we can find many an instance of a most flagrant kind in which hatred inspires the lyric imagination of their poets. We search in vain in the contemporary literature of other nations and in our own for such expres- sions. To find them at all in ours we must look to the depiction, by an appeal of historical sympathy, of other ages and other conditions of life, in which hatred as a passion is forcibly con- veyed in dramatic lyrics, such as some of the poems of Robert Browning. We can thus recall how that poet imagines himself a tyrant who finds one independent spirit blocking his way and whom he can not subdue.^ Or again w^here, *'In a Spanish Cloister," he shows us the narrowing life with its compressed passion of jealousy when monks are herded together and personal antip- (1) The poem is called Instwns Tyr annus. 85 athy fans the fire of hatred in the breast of one of them for another. But we have nothing in modern literature like the notorious Hymn of Hate evoked by this war, and nothing in daily life like that powerful poem of Liliencron's, the ex- ponent of the spirit of modern Germany, which expresses as a dream the most intense personal hatred. It is called ' Unsurmountable Antip- athy,' and describes the almost animal hatred felt by two people, causing them to spring at each other's throats like wild beasts. But this hatred springing from envy — and it is to this that Prince Biilow refers in the passage quoted — is especially marked in Germany by the envy of one class towards another, leading to burning hatred between them. It is only natural that those who are poor and ill-favoured should covet the blessings of those upon whom fortune has copiously showered her gifts. This is but human and has existed in all times, and it exists with us as well. The recognition of such inequali- ties in the possession of the good things of this world may make socialists or even anarchists of us. However, fortunately for us, we cannot say that resentment and envy of the better fortune of our neighbours have led to manifest antagonism between classes in the daily life of our people. It may be because with us the rich have been more manifestly conscious of the duties which their better fortune imposes upon them, and the poor are fairer-minded and more generous of heart. It may also be due to our free political institu- tions which, through countless ages have given to every man his chance before the law and his op- portunity of expressing his will and pursuing his interests by constitutional means in the ffov- 86 eminent of the country. No doubt also our national sports and pastimes have effectively brought us all together in common games and sports which rest upon the spirit of fair-play as the foundation of all British sport and athletics. I can recall that even during the heat of the Na- tionalist agitation and resentment about 1886, when the peasant classes in Ireland were filled with the strongest hatred of the landlords and the wealthier classes, that while riding to or from hounds, the sportsmanlike spirit was nevertheless too strong in the peasants one met, and provoked a smile or a twinkle in the eye of the brother sportsman to be found in the poorest labourer and venting itself in a cheery greeting and the question: "Had you good sport, and did you catch him?" Whatever the cause, the fact re- mains, that the actual life of the British people in town and country has not to any marked de- gree been vitiated by the spirit of class antagon- ism and of social envy. On the other hand, I can also recall how, while riding through some woods in Prussia with my German hostess, I was struck by the resentment and the scowl in the eyes of the labouring people and the peasantry we met, which seemed to express clearly the hatred they felt towards all who were possessed of more wealth; until, passing through a village, we were met by a shower of stones from the boys who looked upon us as representatives of the fav- oured classes. Jealousy is unfortimately a rudimentary pas- sion in man's breast and may exist wherever there are human beings congregated together. But in Germany the Brodneid, the jealousy of trade and professional envy, for which they have 87 invented so definite a term, is most rampant. It permeates all classes, in themselves regulated by bureaucratic gradations of rank, and sets one class against another. Even in the highest and most enlightened spheres, where we might least expect it, owing to the atmosphere pervading reg- ions of lofty thought, occupation and habits of mind, such as in the scientific world, this spirit has of late years encroached. It has disfigured the pure and noble type of the German scholar and scientist who, though fortunately still sur- viving in some splendid instances of a simple life, is gradually receding and making room for the new type of the militaristic Streber in science and in learning. The temptations of profit are too strong in a world consciously ruled by commer- cialism in which from Kaiser and Reichs-Chan- cellor onwards Real-Politik and Inter essen-Po- litik are preached to dispel the supposed pre- valence of idealism or dreamy Utopianism which have long since departed from among the German people. These temptations and the possibilities of power coming from wealth have completely al- tered the spirit of the old German savant, the Teufelsdroeck of Carlyle, whom we read about and admired in our youth. And thus in the lab- oratories and in the "seminars" where the free interchange of ideas and of work, where the spirit of unity in one supreme endeavour bound the commilitones of former days into one serried rank of a scientific army advancing boldly towards the summit of truth, — these have all given way to a petty and envious spirit of seclusion and of dis- trust among the workers, jealously guarding each new act that might lead to important material results, until the rivalry and struggle for priority 88 becomes the dominant passion of the workers, the modern successors to the noble and generous- spirited men of old. We saw it coming after 1870, when, for some years, there were signs of dis- content with the old order of things, leading to the prevalent pessimism of that period. I en- deavoured to define it in 1878 in an article on "The Social Origin of Nihilism and Pessimism in Germany" ; but ventured to hope that it would tend to a more healthy change and revival. In that article I said '} ' * The German 's nature is essentially and incon- testably an idealistic one. Idealism is an essential coefficient of his well-being; rob him of this, and he will always feel its want. Everywhere our German finds himself repulsed in his innermost longings. We have seen how it is as to family, society, and woman. What aspect does the inner man present on this point? His idealism is soon cut off by stern reality. The young man who formerly lived from hand to mouth, happy with the honour paid him, now experiences, without such compensation, the mean and depressing cares for bread which life from hand to mouth must necessarily bring. The romantic age has passed, when youths walk about with long flowing locks and threadbare coats, and so entered even the princely-drawing-room, respected in spite of their nonconformity, or even perhaps because of it. Formerly a young man 's poverty brought him respect, and such a delicious vain self-content- ment. He had no money, nor did he wish for any ; it would soil his philosophical or poetical hands. He had enough to eat and drink and live on; and was he not beloved by the fair-haired, blue- eyed, dreamy Marguerite ! When age drew on he (1) The Nineteenth Century Review — April, 1878. 89 became a 'philister,' and, either as a small official in some little town, or as a professor or a libra- rian, he lived, quietly on with his wife and family, and revelled in the luxury of the recollections of his youth : his drooping spirits were revived, and the material cares cast off, as then by facts, so now by the remembrance of them. Such was the Elysian life of the German thirty years ago, and he was happy. In his cries and lamentations against political institutions and social states, one could always trace the inner self-content. He was perhaps not satisfied with his surroundings, but he was satisfied with him- self. At every moment the feu sacre burst forth in a flame of youthful poetical eccentricity, Hegel- ian fanciful speculation, or political martyrdom; but in himself there dwelt the sweetest harmony. His imprecations were directed against that life, but not against life in general. The Wertherian melancholy was only adopted for its aesthetically beautiful, dark cloak. He, if we may use the word, had lived himself into that melancholy, because he admired it, but it did not spring from those deep physical and social conditions from which the modern melancholy springs. His romantic lamentations and invectives were the outbursts of a too great energy and vital force, not the apathetic reasonings of today's pessimist. He felt Weltschmerz; our pessimist professes to be indifferent. He pointed out the causes of his woe, for they lay not in himself. He was like the philosopher wlio says, 'That is not the way to cognition,' and not like the sceptic, who says, 'There is no wa}^ to cognition.' He was what Carlyle would call a 'worshipper of sorrow,' who waged internecine warfare with the ' Time Spirit, ' while the other, our pessimist, combats against the whole spirit, because he feels himself a child 90 of his time. The misanthrope loves man and hates men. How different is it at present from what the romantic idealist 's life was then ! The admiration of the poor, thread-bare-coated poet or philos- opher has disappeared. What was formerly a source of pride is now the opposite. The writer himself knows a German poet of great worth and repute, who is not treated by society with the honour due to him, because he is not in the posi- tion to offer expensive hospitality to his friends, while others, acknowledged to be smaller, are the lions of the day. Today, young idealist, your genius will not suffice. You must be a business man, and make money, and wear a new coat, and cut your hair short like everyone else, or you will be laughed at; for a schwdrmer is out of fash- ion. This kills the very idealism which he needs. He finds all romance ridiculed. Like Hamlet, he is not understood by his surroundings, and so becomes indifferent towards the outer world, a despiser of mankind, as Schopenhauer was. Whither, in his distress, does he fly with his idealism? Not to his home, nor to his family, nor to his maiden, for he has them not. Into him- self ! Here he buries all his treasures. Here there is no Grilnderschwindel, no insolence of office, no law's delay: here he who was wont to float on the high paths of idealism need not stoop down and pick up the tiny piece of copper that lies in the dust on the roadside, and that buys bread. Here he is lord, and he revels in the feeling: 'everything is bad; only I am good (for he who can see the bad must stand outside it).' This is probably, unknoA\ai to themselves, the basis of all their pessimist reasonings. Pessimism is the highest stage of Romanticism. Only he is nihilist who has done away with all the desires of life, 91 who has relinquished everything, because to him everything must be nothing. No one is more in need of fulness than he who feels the universal emptiness. No one is more in need of the world than he who weeps for it or inveighs against it. The only true nihilist is the indifferent and the laugher, the blase and the satirist; but the pes- simist is the schwdrmer par excellence. Both Optimism and Pessimism are, so to say, forms of motion, while Nihilism is stagnation. Optimism and Pessimism are like plus and minus, while nihilism is the only zero." Since 1878 the commercial spirit has made still further strides in its predominance throughout the whole life of the German people. Practically it means the desire for Avealth, the greed of money, the realisation of the power of money. The Real and Interessen Politik, preached by the rulers, writ large on the national banner of the people, claiming national expansion in the world to increase the material wealth, and fostering the envy and hatred of those more fortunate in the possession of such a world empire, and above all the hatred of England. These have contrib- uted to the materialisation of the German spirit. I remember how astonished I was, some sixteen or eighteen years ago, at an answer I received from a German prince, who had been sent to study for a time at one of our great English uni- versities. I asked him what he would choose to be, if he had the power of effecting his choice di- rectly; what was his ideal of future activity? His answer was : " I should like to become a Cecil Rhodes." Cecil Rhodes (long before his death and the foundation of the Rhodes scholarship) or Pierpont Morgan were the ideal types of many a young German who were supposed to be, and 92 for themselves claimed to be, actuated by the highest ideals; who were thought to be by their political leaders, fantastic dreamers and unprac- tical Utopians. There are, no doubt, many young men living among us who have the same ideals; but we have never had the reputation abroad of being idealists and dreamers, and those young men would hardly understand what an idealist means. It is precisely among the upper classes who assert the feudal conditions of life and the prestige which it bestows upon them, and who also would shrink from the actual struggle and toil of honest commercial or industrial work, (which they more or less despise) that this desire for gold and the wish to possess the inordinate means with which their industrial magnates are blessed — it is amongst these that crass material- ism shows itself and that the value of money is most clearly realised. But it is also in the upper middle classes, amongst those who have gathered all the fruits of the best education and thought, and who in the Germany of old held high the torch of idealism, where the want of money is most keenly felt and the desire to possess it is one of the strongest passions. But here again it is not coupled with the simple and stern determ- ination to cast off all pretensions and honestly to enter into commerce or industry as a noble vo- cation in itself. They must base their social claims on being 'officers of the reserve,' and fly the colours of militarism for social distinction. Out of this class grows the band of malcontents and agitators; and in this class are to be found the haters of England, who are moved by violent envy towards the economic prosperity of the Eng- lish Empire and its subjects. This lust of gold on 93 the part of those not favoured by its possession, is most powerfully put, again in lyric form, in a poem by that same exponent of the militaristic spirit of modern Germany, Liliencron. I need not say, that I in no way wish to reflect on the per- sonality of this vigorous poet; nor am I blind to the fact, that to depict the passions and moods of all manner of people and in all conditions of life is one of the great tasks of the poet; and that we should be absurdly wrong in ascribing to him the vices and faults which he describes with powerful poetic self detachment. Neverthe- less in his poem, called ''Auf der Kasse," he does present to us a typical instance of the modern life about him, from which, according to Goethe's injunction, the poet seizes the subjects of his art. He there presents to us the sudden impulse of the poor man who is drawing his few shillings from the bank. Upon seeing the masses of gold which the cashiers are sorting he suddenly imagines how, if only they were all blind, he would dive into this mass of gold and carry it off, filling his pockets with it, pursued by the policemen whom he evades, and how then he would enjoy the fruits of his theft. The impulse and the momentary dream pass, and he returns to the bare reality and the mean conditions of his life. It is all both natural and human and is ex- pressed with forcible poetic power. The impulse may have come to many people all over the world. But the mood of this poem and of many others by this same author, expresses directly, in the sub- jective form of personal experience, (as the poems of Heine directly expressed the romanticism of his age), mental conditions which are most char- acteristic of the development of modern Germany, 94 and certainly show, not only this insidious spirit of envy and hatred; but also the direct material form, the desire for wealth, so foreign to the spirit of Teutonic life and of the German people of the past. Furthermore, however, this sudden growth of wealth has led to a degeneration of the social life of the people on a wider scale, especially in the material and sensual depravity prevalent at Ber- lin and in many of the larger provincial towns. Always remembering what the Germany of old was and keeping before our minds the attractive picture of its healthy simplicity, its solidity, coupled with its lofty idealism, if we then turn to the Germany of today as seen in the life of Berlin and the larger provincial cities, such as Hamburg, Frankfort, and Munich, the contrast will be most striking. These centres again affect the life of other towns as patterns of metropolitan elegance and culture, and, by direct contagion, the life of all the inhabitants in smaller towns and in rural districts who pay occasional visits to these centres of recreation and pleasure and carry away with them the germs of degeneration which there find such favourable pabulum for their "culture." If we recall the pictures of the life and the enter- tainments at court and in the upper classes at Berlin in the days of the old Emperor William, the simplicity (which was not, therefore, necessarily attractive or refined), the absence of display, the meagreness of the means of entertainment, and the comparatively small cost which it entailed, with the present expense and luxury the change will impress itself most forcibly. Not only have the ordinary expenses of daily life grown in huge proportions, from house-rent onward; but in the 95 lavish entertainments which do not reflect, as they may in other countries, the well founded wealth which has become habitual and is directly in pro- portion to the more luxurious and brilliant condi- tions of life in which the wealthy classes pass their normal existence, but which is not domestic in character, and partakes of a tone of dissipa- tion. These entertainments are given at the res- taurants or hotels, or are sent from there to the homes. But far more significant of moral de- cadence are the social disintegrating excesses in the desire for amusements and display of Berlin distinctly tending towards the abnormal and morbid. I boldly venture to maintain that of all the great capitals of the world, including Paris, London, Vienna and New York, Berlin is the most patently and crassly depraved, and this depravity is admittedly organised and recognisable. The night-life of Berlin stands quite by itself among the cities of the world. Night is not devoted to sleep, but to the seeking of pleasure in all its forms. It may be said — as has often been replied to the critics of Paris, the Paris of old — that it chiefly concerns the visitors and strangers and is organised for them. No doubt the life of de- praved amusement in Paris during the Second Empire, and still surviving to some extent in our day, was chiefly provided for the hosts of foreign visitors. Yet in Berlin these strangers and vis- itors are not foreigners; but constitute the mass of the German people from every part of the German Empire, who thus are contaminated and depraved. Nor is it true that these amusements are meant to meet the demands of visitors only; for the night-clubs cater chiefly to the residents of Berlin; and among the habitues are representa- 96 tives of old historical houses, even the princes of the Empire, government officials, officers, as well as representatives of great wealth, or those who not having great wealth have the facilities of making great debts. This life of dissipation in its worst and most degenerate forms, goes on all night. The managers of the leading hotels assert that, when their work begins at six o'clock in the morning, about two-thirds of the keys in the hotel are still hanging on the board in the office, show- ing that the inmates of the hotel have not yet re- turned. Novels have been published telling how this poison has filtered through the whole country, even to the distant provinces. I cannot continue to dwell upon the character of some of the clubs frequented by men of high rank. I have said enough, and I only say it to point out the con- trast between the life of recent years and that of Germany before 1870. Nor, as I have said above is it limited to Berlin ; as London and Paris are recognised as the only centres in England and France where flagrant vice flourishes in a huge city. I have had it on good authority that some of the Palais de danse in certain of the more im- portant provincial towns attract even a large pro- portion, of the Bourgeosie. The sums expended and received in these Palais de Danse are incred- ibly large. We all know that such places of amusement and even worse ones, are to be found in Paris; and, though not to the same extent, in London. As many a German feared, the nation has lost some of the warlike efficiency possessed by their fathers of 1870, and to this degeneracy is perhaps to some extent to be traced the most re- volting forms of excesses which their cruelty has taken in Belgium and in France and which, in 97 some cases is only to be explained by a patho- logical perversion of sensuality. In France, on the other hand, it cannot be de- nied, that since the days of the Second Empire, there has been a regeneration of the moral fibre of the French people, especially among the young men of today. The infusion of the athletic spirit and all that it means morally, as consciously adopted from England, fostered by the direct efforts of several individuals, among whom I may single out the Baron Pierre de Couberton, the Vicomte de Jansey and others, in their "Associa- tion pour I' Encouragement des Sports Athlet- iques/' and the seriousness with which the youth of France has been beginning to recognise its duty towards the State, have done much to prove them far different adversaries from those whom the Germans met in 1870, and I venture to pre- dict that this war will have a still more salutary effect in the moral regeneration of the French people. Still, there remains in France the great blot of financial corruption in the political life of the past, the dominance of the haute finance in every form of public activity; and, above all, the evil traditions of a Press which is admittedly in so many, if not in most, cases representative of a definite financial group of interests. The reform, of all others, which is most needed in France, as it may be elsewhere, is that by new laws, corruption in the election of national rep- resentatives should be made impossible, and the immunity of the people's representatives from the disease of financial enterprise and speculation should be jealously safe-guarded and maintained. As for us here in England, we may also take timely warning. The tone of certain sets in the 98 huge society which centres in London has of late drawn dangerously near to degeneracy and de- cadence. London is fortunately so large that it can never be said to be dominated in its social character by any one group of people or any so- called ' ' set. ' ' The Court no doubt exercises, and wdll always exert, a powerful influence as a type and example to direct the social aspirations of the people; but it cannot be said that its tone of in- tercourse and habits of life in any way strike the dominant keynote to the symphony or cacophany of the social world, as is to a far greater extent the case in the society of Vienna or Berlin, or as was the case in the time of monarchical France. No doubt, however, it also exercised considerable influence on the "Surface ethics" of the people. There were and still exist, however, so many varied groups, based on similarity of rank, wealth, occupation or amusements, that no one ''set" could be said definitely to lead and to prescribe — as the case may be — the tone or the pace. This multiplicity of social influences and social standards has made it quite impossible, with any approach of truth to speak of "society" in Lon- don with any idea of accuracy, certainly not in the sense in which it was applied by our fore- fathers in the Eighteenth and earlier Centuries, or even in the earlier part of the Nineteenth Cen- tury. Nor could the term ''society" be used in the sense in which self -complacently the residents in a small provincial to^vn or village use it. On the other hand, owing to the modern system of publicity certain cliques have attained to a predominance before the world, which, no doubt has led to their setting the tone and establishing a tradition among wider social groups, if not for 99 the general public. But it must always be re- membered that these sets form a very small mi- nority; and that numerous other sets in London and in the country, more completely representa- tive of true British traditions of life and morals, command the respect of a wider public, and far out-weigh that minority in numbers, eminence and influence. These latter still represent what is best in English life. The tone of this minority in London society, constantly before the public, was decidedly low- ering to public morals and public taste. Their outer life was luxurious, pleasure-seeking, and even dissolute. Especially was it opposed to the fundamental tradition of home-life, which has ever been essentially private and unconcerned with publicity and display. Their lives were pre- eminently lived in public. The Restaurant had with them superseded the home ; and their amuse- ments and entertainments were thus enjoyed be- fore the eyes of the multitude. The traditions of the modern press, with its advertising publicity, came in to diffuse still further the elements of luxury and of profligacy and the dissolution of the traditional home. As thus foreign habits of Restaurant-life w^ere engrafted, so also foreign tastes in art were estab- lished, which not only hampered the natural growth in expression of national character in art, but actually fostered exotic tastes which exercised deeper influence on life itself. It is no doubt good to broaden one's taste towards catholicity and to increase the capacity of appreciating, not only the life and art of by- gone ages, but also of contemporary peoples re- mote from ourselves in every way. To have had 100 presented to us the characteristic art (and through it the characteristic life as well) of mod- ern Sicily, Belgium and even of China and Japan, through the masterly performances of Sicilian, Belgian, Chinese and Japanese plays enacted by their own people, was an artistic delight and a step towards an extention of aesthetic and intel- lectual sympathy. Not so, however, the position which was assigned to the Russian ballet. The Russian ballet and the masterly and ex- quisite performances witnessed in London of late years presented us with superior art of its kind. But it would be a mistake to assign too prom- inent and representative a position to this par- ticular form of art even in the general national art of Russia. It is well to appreciate and to en- joy such artistic production. But to assign to it a central or dominant influence on artistic na- ture, by submitting continuously and for a long period to its charm, until it prevades our whole taste, is a dangerous exaggeration which may have deeper and far-reaching effects upon national taste and national morals. The brilliancy and oriental sensuousness of such displays, though justified in due proportion in our artistic exper- ience, cannot be healthy for us when they be- come predominant, and must, should they take hold of our moral, destroy the essential elements of our national character as expressed and con- firmed by art. The Arabian Nights are a classic in the world's literature. But to make them the ordinary daily literary pabulum of Western readers and the central standards of Western taste, can only pervert the moral as well as the artistic side of our national life. It appears that, with the recent exaggerated prominence given to 101 the Russian ballet, such influences have already been at work and have permeated into the life of its devotees, even to the modification of taste in dress. These dangers of degeneracy from the example of social minorities and from exotic interference with the true and natural expression of our na- tional life, character and tastes have been checked by the war. With all its horrors, miseries and degradations, it has certainly, by the self-sacrifice of our manhood, the devotion and inwardness of effort of our women — in fact the temporary moral revival of the whole nation, brought us back to our elemental principles of national morals. May it thus pave the way for a lasting national re- generation in every walk and sphere of life in the future. All these menaces in the social life of contem- porary England to which I have referred here are dangerous to the continuance of a healthy na- tional life. In view of the degeneration observable in Germany within the last thirty years, we ought to take heed and conteract these evil influences which tend to undermine our own national health. 102 CHAPTER IV The Conception of the State and of Interna- tional Relations We have hitherto considered the direct and im- mediate causes, national, social and moral, which have led to this war. But, as I urged from the beginning of this book, there are more remote and less manifest, causes of a more general, though more fundamental, nature which are to be found in the constitution of the moral and social life, not only of the Germans, but of the Western civilised peoples throughout the world. Though these causes are of such a general and remote character, they are none the less the fac- tors which have directly contributed to this cat- astrophic climax in the international relations of all civilised peoples. They concern the gen- eral ideas and ideals which at once express and regulate the national and international con- science of civilised peoples. Though definitely formulated and effectively fixed, so as to regu- late and determine the political life of the sev- eral nations, they are in reality in direct contra- diction to the true consciousness, political and moral, of the several peoples upon whom they are imposed. Such contradiction applies to, in the first instance, the conceptions of the State, and the international relations between the States. In spite of the firm foundation and the wide diffusion of democratic principles throughout the civilised world; in spite of Lincoln's epigramatic 103 summary of the object and ultimate aim of gov- ernment, as ''Government of the people, by the people and for the people," in the mind of the Germans and of more autocratically governed nations, the State is still regarded as an en- tity apart from and above the people, its au- thority is conceived as being absolute and auto- cratic and, in some of its aspects, opposed to its citizens, who are to bow down before its author- ity. Even with ourselves, in some aspects of our political life, especially those that develop patri- otic chauvinism, this idea of the State sometimes shows, itself. In this conception there is a dis- tinct line drawn between the rulers and the ruled. Even when the governed revolt against their rul- ers, or harbour the spirit of revolt, they thereby affirm this difference, until they look upon the State and government as criminals look upon the police, not as representatives and guardians of the people's laws — laws made by the people and guardians appointed by them to watch over these laws — but as the inimical representative of an out- side interest opposed to their own. in all these cases, in any event, the State is conceived of as an entity in itself, independent of the people whose unity — derived from whatever causes, geographi- cal, ethnological, legislative, social or moral — constitutes the essence of the State. This con- ception of the State as "a thing in itself," con- firmed in the life and history of early peoples and consciously and intellectually by the Greek writ- ers on history, politics and philosophy, has sur- vived, in spite of all the huge developments of political thought and liberty, and of the democrat- ic spirit manifested in the writings of publicists and philosophers from the Renaissance onwards 104 and notably in the Eighteenth Century and since the French Kevolution. In the writings of many modern historians, especially the Germans, ac- centuated in those of a militaristic turn of mind to whom we have to such a great degree traced the responsibility for this war, the autocratic and theocratic view of the State survive in a more or less manifest form. With these later historians and constitutional historians however, an inter- mediate stage has been developed between the an- cient conception of the absolute unity of the State and the democratic principles of government. This intermediate conception or compromise is found in the term 'national' (Nazional), or rather 'racial' (Eassen-staat), which, as we have seen, to a great extent accounts for the Chauvinistic spirit dominating the German world. Whether this mod- em idea of Nationality, as the chief justification for the existence of the State and as an effective ideal in political life, national and international, is to be traced back to Napoleon or Mazzini, or to a confluence of many historical and political cur- rents in the nineteenth century, the fact remains that it has been, and is, the most powerful factor in political life and in the formation of political theory. Its influence in modern times can be traced in numerous international movements and crises. In the Balkans it has been modified and itensified by the fusion of racial and religious differences, and has thus been the cause of con- tinuous international complications and difficul- ties, the final solution of which is remote in the future and threatens the worM's peace for some time to come. The modem German development of Nationality found full expression since the days of Bismarck, and its development is not only to be 105 seen in such historians as Treitschke, who was taken up by the publicists and the teachers of con- stitutional history throughout Germany, but has been, and is, the current German conception in modem times. I well remember how it formed the central idea in the lectures of the late Professor Bruntschli of Heidelberg who, though a native of Switzerland, still responded directly to the exac- tions of Bismarckian policy. The justification for the German Empire was that it directly responded to, and expressed, the racial unity of the German people; and this racial unity drew a fixed and marked line, as regards the interests and the very existence of the State, between it and other states of different racial origin. Wherever among the inhabitants this racial unity was not clearly ex- pressed, in fact was made doubtful or weakened, it naturally led to internal antagonism : and thus grew up within the people the anti-Semitic party, while the Poles and Danes and any other element that could assert itself, or could at all be recog- nised in its supposed solidarity, was persecuted and suppressed. If this suppression was not com- pletely successful, it naturally led to disquieting elements of disruption and of party contest. It thus favoured antagonism, leading through dislike to hatred without and within. In any case the unity of the State and the close ties of affinity and of national affection which give vitality to its national life — give a soul to the na- tion — ^are very much endangered when they rest upon such ethnological grounds. For when we ask the question, 'Which one of the civilised states of modem times can claim, and truly realise its claim to, racial unity?' the answer must be, 'Not one of them.' While this is being written there 106 are appearing a series of letters in the ' ' Times, ' ' grouping round a controversy waged by eminent men, as to the position which the Anglio^Saxons held in the formation and development of the English nation and of the British Empire. Such discussions appear to me futile and childish, es- pecially when their result is to have a direct bear- ing upon the inner social and political life, and upon the actual foreign relations of our State. Subdivide as you will the subjects of the King of England into the original and aboriginal predeces- sors of modem Englishmen, of paleolithic and ne- olithic inhabitants of Great Britain and Ireland, the Celts and their varied ramifications, Bretons, Picts and Scots, Saxons, Danes and Norsemen, Normans and other races; add to these, in more clearly historical times, the more peaceful incur- sions of other immigrants, who, from their leader- ship in thought and in trade and in all forms of industry, or, by highly educated social groups or individual men, have left their mark upon English history — subdivide as much as you will, you can- not thereby destroy the unity of the British Em- pire, the soul of the nation, welded together by its past history, its political construction, its spirit of liberty, its customs and traditions and its ideals of living. Not only the ethnological groups of its inhabitants in the remote past but these more re- cent accessions to British nationality have had the most powerful influence in giving definite charac- ter and in directing the development of English national life. These comprise the Jews, who no doubt in the Middle Ages in the time of Isaac of York and the other 'bankers' of those days, before their expulsion, exercised a most powerful civilis- ing influence on the development of English life. 107 But since their return in the time of Cromwell, they have produced leading individuals in every walk of life, culminating in the personality of Dis- raeli who, whether admired or condemned by the partisan, certainly left his imprint on the history and political character of his age as perhaps no other individual has done since the days of Pitt. We have also to consider the immigration into England, both from the Low Countries and from France, of the weavers and skilled Artisans, Dutch, Flemish or Huguenot, who undoubtedly gave a turn to the character of British trade and industry. They also furnish us with individual men and families who have duly risen to eminence and who have added most perceptibly to the for- mation of our national character in our own days. It is puerile, as well as absolutely inept and in- effectual, to endeavour to allocate the good or the potently effective in our national life and char- acter among the several ethnological sources from which the truly formative elements in na- tional history are supposed to be derived. Burke, Wellington and Palmerston may or may not have been of pure Celtic origin, but they were practic- ally of Irish descent though they had their fuU share in the making of England, as much as did Cromwell, Pitt, Fox and Gladstone. Were one to adopt experimental and observational methods, such as the field geologist is capable of applying in rapid observation to the theoretical study of geology, one would be absolutely confused and puzzled were one to try to segregate into the var- ious ethnological strata any given number of peo- ple in any one of our towns — not to speak of Lon- don at all — and even in our country villages, ac- cording to the ethnological types which they are 108 supposed to represent. The whole structure of such generalisation in theoretical study, still more in the practical application of such distinctions to the different problems of the social and political life of the country — nay the very basis of the ex- istence of the State as a unity — would at once top- ple to the ground. And tliis is not only true of Great Britain, it is true of every single nation of Western Europe, perhaps even of Slav Russia. Germany and France are in their ethnological constitution as mixed and disparate as any nation claiming na- tional unity can well be. There may be more dif- ference of physique and character, of habits of life, of emotionality, of intellectual predisposition, of temperament and taste, constituting what we call personality, between the South Germans of Bavaria and Wiirtemburg and Baden and the Jiiast Prussian, between them again and the Holsteiner and the Westphalian and those from the Rhine provinces, than between any one of these and cit- izens of Denmark, and Poland, Switzerland or Holland. And their different dialects, though all form part of the German language, their pronun- ciation, and intonation of this same language, are so different that I, as a foreigner, have had to act as an interpreter between the dwellers of the Chalets in the Bavarian highlands and the Tyrol and the North German tourists who vainly en- deavoured to make themselves understood. I do not in any way maintain that the inhab- itants who thus differ from one another should not collectively form a state as little as 1 maintain that, because in language, and perhaps in race, there may be great affinity between sections of the German people and the Swiss, or betwee*'. 109 other sections and the Flemings and Dutch, they are necessarily to form one state that Switzerland, Belgimn and Holland should therefore be deprived of their independence and he incorporated into the German Empire. It is amusing to note how, when would-be scientific and philological princi- ples suit the purposes of German Weltpolitik, they can at once be made subservient to national greed. In an article which has recently appeared, the criminal breach of Belgian neutrality and the prospective annexation of Belgium, by the German Empire is supported on the grounds of such phil- ology and ethnology. Does anybody in his senses, honestly believe that such unsound, pretentious and pedantic ef- forts of the ethnologist establish a moral, and practical ground for the claims of any state to ab- solute power, to the commands of which every individual citizen, all classes of the population, all groups and interests of economic and social life, are toi bow down in unquestioning obedience ? Are the rights of the people dependent upon this flimsy and fantastic structure of pedantic school- masters aspiring to be master-builders of States ? And when we turn from the State in itself to the relations of the several states to one another, how can any one of these, on the ground of an utterly false ethnological generalisation, claim ascen- dency over all the others? What is the concep- tion in the mind of such thinkers and politicians of the relation of the state to the whole inhabited globe with its millions upon millions of human beings, each claiming their own right to live and to think and to act in freedom? On these shadowy figments of narrow and destructive brains they claim the supreme moral right to subjugate other 110 peoples and nations to the interests and desires of one small group of people calling themselves a state, with unrestrained ambition to bend the whole world to their own desires ! Why should a relatively small section of land, a district in Eur- ope marked on the map as Germany, with its sixty or seventy millions of people among the untold millions of human beings, become the absorbing centre of the world's collective life, so that all the world should minister to its desires and swear allegiance to its national exactions, to become, not so much the guiding brain and the sentient heart, but the absorbing stomach to which all life is to be subordinated? It is Imperialism gone mad! The German may answer that his justification for world-power lies in his Kultur, and that the civilisation represented by the German people, has the comparatively highest claim among civilised nations, and ought therefore to dominate the world. Quite apart from the fact that we should absolutely deny this primacy of German civilisa- tion, which, as we have seen before, even their own philosophers deny, how can they diffuse and advance their owti Kultur by the barbarous and degrading methods of war? But even if, argu- menti causa, we were to admit that they were thus fitted to lead, then let them lead onwards and up- wards ; but not push and drive with the brutal, as well as deceitful and utterly demoralising force, their peaceful neighbours and distant peoples back into the fold of their own selfishness, to serve their own interests, increase their wealth and power, to satisfy the lust of dominance, nay, the vanity of this sixty or seventy millions of people in that small portion of the globe. I may be allowed to repeat in substance what I have already written 111 with reference to the Jews,^ "If there is anything good in you — you who may, with more or less doubtful accuracy, be supposed to be the direct descendants of one of the greatest races of the past — show it and let the world benelit by the spirit which moves you and has moved you in the past ; hold on high the torch of your ancestors and let it illumine the world for the good of the world ! But you are most likely to accomplish this, not by segregating yourselves into separate social or pol- itical groups in the states of which you are citi- zens, still less by endeavouring to become a sep- arate nation with all the pretentions, the actual or potential antagonisms to other states which such corporateness implies, but by being perfectly de- veloped and high minded individuals, affectionate and helpful members of your family, devotedly attached to its prosperity and its good name, be- neficent dwellers in any community where you may happen to live, and loyal citizens of the State in which, whether for many centuries or even for a few years, you have been active national miits, contributing as such units, to the free development of the laws and the national life of such a State. Let your poetic imagination and your pride of descent, and the duty which you owe to the good fame of your ancestors, beautify and strengthen your lives, as the works of art or the beauties of literature in due proportion add their refining element to your life of leisure. Sentiment is all, because it groups round the idea, the ideal es- sence, of material things. If any natural evolu- tion of the human kind and any sequence of his- torical events (though in your case, generally sad), (1) See the chapter (II, pp. 54-99) on the Mission of the Jews in my book "The Jewish Question and the Mission of the Jewa." 112 have made you what you are, and what you are is good, let this good permeate into the life about you as individual factors in a complex State, and let all together ultimately lead to the advance of the human race and the diffusion of happiness throughout it. ' ' Deutsche Kultur if you like, whai- ever be best in it ! But not the Kultiir of the Prus- sian Junker, or bureaucrat, the grasping All- Deutscher pauper who wants more money, the beer-heavy stump speaker in a frowsy inn who, indolent in all but his unassuaged rapacity, fans his sentimental Ge7nuthlichkeit of old into hyster- ical passion, until it at last bursts forth into a Hymn of Hate ! Such, however, is the contagion of the Chau\inistic idea, of the so-called Nazional Staat, to which I have before referred, that the Jews themselves have been affected, and a small section of them must needs strive for a Jewish Empire in the conception of the Zionist movement. The objection may be made that all that I have just said and urged against the vicious spirit of All-Deutschland is also directed against all Im- perialism, including British Imperialism. But I would except the British Empire, because it has, in pursuing its own national destiny as a great colonising State, gone as far as, under the dom- inant condition of national and racial ideas of our days, it could go towards the realisation of our true ideals of politics. It aims in every case at cstablisliing freedom and self-government for each colony, of giving of the best to each one of these, which in the course of history have ooime under its influence and dominion, and, fulfilling its mis- sion — as long as Free Trade and the 'open door' rule its policy — of ignoring the selfish call of the immediate interests in the Mother Country. 113 What always remains in welding the numerous and varied peoples of the British Empire to- gether, is the national sentiment, the feeling of a common fpast, of a common origin, of common traditions and of a united struggle for the realisa- tion of definite ideas and ideals in government and social life. Just as the members and descendants of one family are bound together, but are thereby in no way excluded from their vigorous endeav- ours to be good citizens of their countrj' and of the world at large, to realise the tasks in the life set before them and to contribute as indi\dduals to the advancement and betterment of the whole world, so are all the citizens of the British Empire bound together, and this war — to the undoing of German Chauvinists — has proved the reality and strength of these bonds more forcibly than ever before. I repeat : sentiment is a great power and has its direct practical uses and effectiveness, es- pecially in larger collective bodies. It is as real and as effective and less likely to' lead to discord and the clashing of interests, than the manifestly practical aims and allurements of colonial pref- erence or of protective tariffs. But why should Germany, after driving like a wedge its commercial penetration into Asia Minor, or one of the South American Republics, and nat- urally and organically affecting the life of these countries, until the good that may thus arise will of its own force survive? Why should force and brutal compulsion destroy the national life of the people inhabiting these countries and, artificially engraft the conditions which prevail in Germany, meehniically to supersede by force, persuasion, not by evolution and the living civilisation which has grown up out of the soil and out of the history of 114 Asia Minor or South America, arising from legit- imate traditions and national sentiments? Above all finally should they succeed in eistablishing such colonies, should these become merely the means to develop the commerce and wealth, to swell the pockets and paunches of the German officials and manufacturers and merchants — all ending in dis- cord and endless war and bloodshed within and without and over the whole world? But this is the real picture which those who have made, and those who are carrying on this criminal war, have drawn for the edification of the German people. The spirit of German culture is not the aim in itself, and never was, even if they were convinced of its absolute superiority over all other forms of civilisation. The accumulaton of irrefutable evidence from every quarter of the globe, the definite statements and documents revealed since the war began, and the more recent pronouncements of the King of Bavaria concerning Belgium, leave no doubt of the aggressive plans of annexation and land-grab- bing of the dominant leaders of Germany which have matured for years past. Moreover it has been shown by their own official statements that there is no real pressing need for colonisation and **the place in the sun" to find employment for the surplus population of Germany, Emigration has. decreased, not increased within recent years — in fact labour has been continually imported into Germany from other countries in large masses.^ If German Kvltur is the best of all existing forms of civilisation, it will assert itself by its (1) See Helfferich in Soziale Kultur imd VoUcswohlfohrt umhrand der ersten 25 Regierungsjahre Wilhelms II p. 17; also G. L. Beer, in the Forum, May 1915, pp. 550, and J'Accuse; (German edition) pp. 41 seq. 115 intrinsic worth, weight and power. If the German language is the best means of conveying hmnan thought, it will assert itself and supersede ail other languages. But we shall not adopt them at the command of the German Junker or the Ger- man drill-sergeant, or stand by to see them forced upon weaker states, who themselves may possess even an older and nobler civilisation of their own, in order to satisfy the school-boy vanity of Ger- man thinkers of second, third, or fourth-rate cap- acity, devoid of all genius, whose only merit and use, great though it be, consists in tabulating and making handy for the world the achievements of the great geniuses, most of them not German, who marked an epoch in the world of thought and art and invention; nor shall we head the vociferous band of intellectual followers, drunken with the All-Deutsche ideals of a Treitschke, a Nietszche or Bernhardi. Why, to satisfy German national and racial vanity, should Holland, and Belgium, and Switzerland — ^ultimately Denmark, and Nor- way, and Sweden, as well — be expunged from the political map of Europe? Why should Northern France disappear as the courageous and imagina- tive leader of modem thought and taste? Why- should their ambitions be unchecked as regards South America, Asia Minor, China and Japan, and their envious rapacity push on to grasp the colon- ies and dependencies of Great Britain, happy in their political kinship with their political and so- cal parent land, loyal to its dominion and leader- ship, and ready — as the present war has proved — to fight her battles and to assert her might ! The British Empire has, up to the present mo- ment, recognised and acted upon this principle of the open door with regard to its colonies and de- 116 pendencies, and it would be nothing short of a political crime, as well as economic folly, to aban- don this broadest principle of Free Trade, upon which morally as well as materially the prosper- ity of the British Empire has hitherto rested. 117 CHAPTER V The Humanitarian Consciousness of The Modern Man This prinoiple of the "Open Door" has formed the very essence of the policy of the United States, when it has been drawn into the vortex of interna- tional struggle in the case of China, and was clear- ly expressed in the lasting and classic pronounce- ment by the great and wise political leader, the late John Hay. It has been, and will ever remain, the dominant principle of the government of the United States in its relation to the expansion of Western .civilisation. With the recognition of this principle and the absence of all those international intrigues and smouldering, or flaming, antagon- isms for which in the past Germany has been chiefly responsible (though Russia and ourselves and all other States are not free from guilt in the methods and work of their Foreign Offices), there is no reason why the commercial penetration of Asia Minor and all that the building of the Bagdad Railway meant might not ultimately have provid- ed Germany with a vast field for enterprise, for commercial expansion at home, and for the for- eign employment of men with energy and talent from the Mother Country. Of course tney would in justice be bound to consider and to respect the well established claims — established for many years of fruitful activity — which Great Britain possessed on the Persian Gulf and in the adjacent centres bordering it, such as Koweit and Busra. 118 In spite of tlie Monroe Doctrine, why should not Germany have continued the commercial penetra- tion of more than one of the South American re- publics with large groups of German settlers forming, de facto, German colonies; until, again de facto, by the exercise of free and peaceful ac- tivity these colonists would have gamed actual control in directing the course of life, and in set- ting its tone in such countries. Moreover, if their own K'ultur, the civilisation which they collec- tively represent, was actually superior to the civ- ilisation wliich they found and which had before been dominant, it would of itself have changed and ultimately have superseded the lower forms ; and we might in due course have seen the actual transplantation of German Kultur into distant parts of the globe. History has repeatedly shown how the superior civilisation will prevail over the lower forais which it meets in any given country. Ultimately, however, it is possible, nay probable, that such an off-shoot from the parent stock in peaceful colonial development will sever from the parent stem and establish an independent exis- tence and growth of its own; but the civilisation remains the same in its origiiial essence and in the blessings of superiority which the parent nation has conferred upon its off-shoot. Was not the United States a direct oft"-shoot of the English parent stem, and may not in the future the British colonies more and more assert their political and social independence and develop their own local and peculiar characters, enriching the world by a distinct and new form of civilisation on an equal- ity of height with the parent culture; until they may even react upon the old world and modify it in many forms'? So the civilisation of the Greek 119 colonies in Magna Grecia and Sicily reacted upon the Motlier Country, while, in great part through these Greek Colonies the Latin civilisation of the Italic Peninsula was infused with Hellenism. Then, through the vast Roman Empire, nearly every part of the world, was modified to the very depths of social and political existence in the spir- it of Hellenism, as it passed through, and was modified and enlarged by, Rome. Finally, after the Italian Renaissance, the submerged classic spirit again arose in a new, yet pristine, glory ; and the classical spirit of humanity has ever since dominated and been the most potent factor in modem European civilisation, both in Europe it- self and in America, and will ultimately penetrate mto the furthest East and West, and North and South of this earth of ours. But here the cloven foot of Chauvinism in a seemingly noble and more justifiable form shows itself again; and now it is in the spirit of '* na- tional patriotism," as it may be called, or of na- tional vanity as it might more properly be called. The members of a living modem state do not wish to lose one particle of the credit and the glory which comes from seeing themselves and what they consider their own Kultur carried away from them by their migrating sons. Whatever pros- perity may come to these colonising sons, what- ever the good which may flow from them and their efforts into the new home of their adoption, how- ever marked the step in advance which through the new community may thus be made in the civil- isation of the whole world through its infusion in- to distant parts, that of itself is not enough. It must inamediately and in every case reflect the glory of those at home ; it must contribute directly 120 to the prosperity or the fame of the parent hearth^ nay of the parent himself. The unwise Father thus is tempted to play the part of r'rovidence and to project his will far into the future ; as the 'dead hand' in the will of a self-assertive testator endeavors in every detail of life to bind the bene- ficiaries of his testament and to direct and to modify the will, the reason and the actions^ — even the sense of justice — ^of those who succeed him. Consider it as you may, the fact remains, that fundamentally this so-called national patriotism, which insists upon definite and distinct national expansion, is but the outcome of supreme national vanity, narrowed down by a selfish and petty sphere of vision, if it be not the grosser form of clear-sighted selfishness, which only aims at its own immediate material aggrandisement, increase of wealth and comfort, to be derived, not only from the colony as such, but from every individual sent out supposedly for his own good and whose activity it is desired to limit and to hamper in the one direction of the Mother Countr\\ As it has been this antiquated and false concep- tion of the state in its relation to its citizens which is in great part accountable for the growth and development of Chauvinism in Germany, and has led to this catastrophic war, so it is especially this distorted view of colonial expansion, mistaking national vanity for patriotism, which is even more directly responsible for German aggression throughout the world; and, when fanned into the raging heat of passion through the characteristic vice of envy, has produced the spirit of hatred against the British Empire and its inhabitants which has thrown the modem German nation back to the savagery of the primitive Hun. 121 And what will every right-minded German citi- zen say when, without even considering the in- justice and savagery shown to his fellow-men of other countries, nor the initial injustice of Ger- man aggression in this war, he realises through untold suffering the misery and financial ruin of his own country, the torture and suffering ending in the death of millions of his own kith and kin, and the sadness which will come to every German home, not one of which will be without intense anguish ! What will these right-minded and clear thinking Germans say when the scales have fallen from their eyes and they fully realise for what imaginary, what trivial and inanely stupid mo- tives this huge sacrifice of life, wealth and happi- ness — a greater sacrifice than has ever been made in the world's history — has been made, this crim- inal war has been waged ! Remember, moreover, that the German work- man had continuously and for many years been gaining the conviction, (and the determination to act upon it), that by nature interest and morality, he was not severed from his fellow workman living in other countries and belonging to other nations, that — so far from regarding him as his natural enemy — he actually felt him to be his brother, his friend in arms. Within recent times, day by day, and year by year, he became conscious of his power to a:ct in accordance with these true feelings guiding the labouring man all over the world. The International Socialistic Brotherhood was not a mere name without substance or without power. What this pow^- meant and how it could effectu- ally be used against the action of his militarist tyrants became clearly manifest from the moment that in Russia in 1905 the first attempt on a large 122 scale to organize a general strike was made. Though on that occasion the general strike was not completely successful, still it did produce a considerable effect in Russia itself, and was one of the most important events in modem history. It proved to the world what might in the future be done by the united action of the labouring men in any country who knew their own minds, were clear in their purpose, and well organised in car- rying out their plans. Moreover, as the years rolled on, the international aspect of the union of labouring men, leading to concerted action in the interests of the whole body, grew more clearly pronounced and promised more definite mtema- tional action. The so-called sympathetic strikes grew in frequency. It thus became clear to a great many thinkers and to many of the leaders of the Labour Party themselves, that the so-called pacifist tendencies and aims of these powerful bodies all over the world might in the near future effectually prevent any great European War — in fact any war between civilised and well organised modern states. I have referred above (p. 115) to the opinion held by one of the greatest living authorities on the labour question and the inter- national character which strikes were assuming. These facts were a confirmation of my own opin- ion shared by a leading German statesman that in the near future wars between civilised nations might thus become impossible. There can be no doubt that the true consciousness of the mass of the laWuring men in Europe — at all events the most intelligent and most powerful amongst them — was utterly opposed to any great war between civilised nations and had no feeling of opposition, animosity or violent hatred to the population of 123 any other country on the grounds of national or racial, or imperial, differences. On the contrary, they were distinctly anti-Chauvinistic and were cultivating feelings and actions of international comity among all workers in all civilised states. M'ore and more they were preparing- memseives to check and to counteract in every way interna- tional aggression and internecine war. At the same time the action of capital as such and of the capitalistic class, in spite of the potent and overwhelming interests of those concerned in armaments, was working in the same direction to make war in future between civilised nations im- possible, almost inconceivable. Mr. Norman An- gell and many other writers have forcibly im- pressed upon the world the constraining influence of international capital and industry in its op- position to war and the disastrous effects which war would have not only upon the nations con- cerned, but upon neutrals as well. They have also shown how even the victorious nation can not in modern times gain the fruits of its victory. No doubt, in bygone ages the greed of possession and acquisition were generally the motives which led to warlike aggression and immediately rewarded the victor by the increase of his own wealth and of all other amenities of life. But with the mod- ern application of capital and its penetration from one commercial centre into all foreign parts and distant nations, the sensitiveness and interdepen- dence of financial, commercial and industrial bod- ies in every nation offered no such inducements to the aggressor and made it the universal interest of every nation to prevent a war. Apparently all the prophecies of these pacifist writers have been belied by the course of recent 124 events. But this is only apparent and not actually true. The truth is that, perhaps, on the one side, the materialistic interests were too strongly back- ed by that section of the economic world directly interested in armaments; and that, on the other side, the contingency to which I have just re- ferred — that in the race for time the militaristic competitor literally 'stole a march,' and that this war was thus brought about. It may periiaps only have been a question of a few years that the hoplite runner would have been completely out- distanced and beaten by the unarmed, yet fleet and sure-footed, toiler in the fields and in the fac- tory. I must here reproduce the exposition of this question as published by me twenty-one years ago (The Jewish Question and the Mission of the Jews, 6th ed. London and New York, 1894, pp. 82 seq.) : ' ' The present foreign policy of European states shows a disastrous confusion which marks a tran- sition. It is the death-struggle of nationalism, and the transition to a more active and real form of general international federation. In this death- struggle we have the swan-song of the past dynas- tic traditions in monarchy giving form, and often heat and intensity, to the contest upheld in cer- tain customs of diplomatic machinery, with, on the other hand, the birth-struggle towards the or- ganisation of international life, the needs of which are at present only felt practically in the sphere of commerce. This birth- struggle at present man- ifests itself chiefly in narrow and undignified jeal- ously and envy for commercial advantages; and this, unfortunately, is growing the supreme ul- timate aim of all international emulation. We can 125 trace nearly all the diplomatic rivalry ultimately to the interests of commerce and tlie greed for money. One often hears it said that Jewish bank- ers make and unmake wars. This is not true. Money makes and unmakes wars; and if there were not this greed of money among the -eontend- ing people the bankers would not be called upon at all. There are, of course, further complications favoring the older spirit of national envy^, which is dying, though far from being dead. Such are the influences of the huge military organizations, definite wounds unhealed (such as the feeling of reprisal on the part of France), and, finally the last phases of the artificial bolstering up of the idea of the national- staat in Germany and Italy. But the whole of this conception of nationalism, in so far as it implies an initial hatred and enmity towards other national bodies, is doomed. A few generations, perhaps, of disaster and misery ac- companying this death-struggle will see the new era, **Now, there are several practical factors which are paving the way indirectly towards the broad- er national life of this coming era. They are, strange to say, the two main opposite forces of the economical life of the day: Capital and La- bour. Each of these, separately following the in- herent impulse of its great forces, which constant- ly run counter to one another, tends towards the same goal, especially in its pronounced forms. Capital does this in the great international hous- es and in the Stock Exchanges ; Labour, since the first International Convention of 1867, in its great labor organizations. The highly developed sys- tem of modern banking business and of the Stock Exchange, favored by the rapid and easy means of mtercommunication without regard to distance, has made all countries, however far apart, sensi- tive to the fate which befalls each ; and this tends 126 more and more to make Capital an international unit, which can be, and is being, used, whatever its origin, in all the different quarters where there seems a promising demand for it. ' * On the other hand, the growth of organization among the representatives of labor is fast step- ping beyond the narrow limits of national boun- daries, and the common interests tend to increase the directness of this wider institution. I am not adducing these facts in order to suggest any solu- tion of the numerous problems which they involve, nor to direct the attention of the interesting his- torical, economical, and political questions to which they may give rise ; but simply to draw at- tention to the one fact — that in this respect both capital and labor are effectively pa\dng the way, perhaps unknown to the extreme representatives of either interest, towards the increase of a strong and active cosmopolitan spirit of humanitarian- ism. And this spirit, at least as an ideal, is cer- tainly dominant in the minds of the best and wis- est people of our generation."^ Such is the united tendency and action of the two main factors in modem economic life which are supposed to be, and usually are, directly op- posed as inimical forces in the minds of the ex- treme representatives of each factor — namely, capital and labour. But in this great issue, fol- lowing out their separate and, at times, divergent courses and interests, they definitely tend to unite (1) But let no man from the camp of the capitalist (as some anti-Semitic German politicians have endeavoured to do) charge the Jews with being the instigators to Socialism, nor let a Socialist urge his fellow-partisans to an anti- Jewish riot; for the leading spirits of both these antagonistic forces were Jews: the bankers, such as the Rothschilds; and the economists, such as Lasalle ajid Karl Marx. The capitalists can not curse the Jews, and the Socialists can not dynamite the Jews without discerning their very leaders. 127 in one common g'oal of international federation and of opposition to war. More important stni, however, than these two forces in economic modem life has been the grow- ing consciousness of the whole population of the world as represented by all people of right feel- ings and of normal and clear thought. The sense of a common humanity, moved by the same feel- ings, aspirations and ideals and with essentially the same goals and interests to work for, has been growing in extent and in intensity throughout the whole world, irrespective of local, racial, or na- tional differences. Without any Utopian preten- tions, this basal conviction is so strong and real among even the least thoughtful, ordinary people, that, unless they are blinded by momentary pas- sions and relapses into bygone savagery, it is the leading attitude in mind in which all people con- sider their fellow beings in every part of the world. Moreover the actual facilities of intercom- munication and of travel have grown to such an extent in every civilised country, for even the larger mass of the people that they have estab- lished affinities and direct relations numerous ac- tual points de rattachement, with the dwellers be- yond the boundaries of their own country or na- tionality, and these bonds of affinity and of moral or material contact have become so real, that they actually count for more than mere propinquity or even consanguinity within the one country and nation where no such affinity or contact exists. Passionate antagonism and hatred may be more intense between two neighboring villages, between two families and sometimes even between the members of one family than between the inhab- itants of distant countries. I should like to an- 128 ticipate here, what will be dealt with further on, and to add that such individuals and villages woTild at once enforce their enmity by violence were it not for the power of the law backed by the police. Of course this feeling of human soli- darity exists especially amongst those who have attained a higher degree of moral and intellectual development through the channels of higher edu- cation in literature, science or art, and it exists still more between those who in their habits, their tastes, are guided by the same leading principles, and have assimilated into their very moral system the same rules and preferences of conduct in every detail of living. It is here that the formal side of modern national life is antiquated, in fact directly at variance with the inner substance of the life itself as it exists in the consciousness of modern people.^ (1) Since the above was written I find that the author of J' Accuse (p. 316 German edition) has expressed the same idea, even including the terms '"perpendicular and horizontal division of humanity." But such agreement ought not to astonish, con- sidering that it is the conception of truth which we chose and that not only two people but all right-minded people ought to agree. 129 CHAPER VI Patmotism and Cosmopolitanism The Perpendiculak and Horizontal Divisions of Human Society To put it into a crude geographical formula; the subdivisions in the grouping of people have hitherto been on the perpendicular principle; whereas to correspond to what actually exists, they ought to be, and certainly will in the future be, on the horizontal principle. Human beings can no longer be subdivided by lines cutting into the earth and delimiting the frontiers of nations, still less imaginary and inaccurate lines of estab- lished or hypothetical racial origin. Modern com- munications have, as a matter of fact, erased these lines, and military frontiers can only arti- ficially restore them to importance for a short time. Even the sea no longer separates. As a matter of fact, the sea as a means of intercom- munication and of commercial transportation binds together more than it divides. It is often cheaper to send goods to distant countries thou- sands of miles by sea than a score of miles by rail in the same country. Nor can human hearts and minds, human tastes, and habits of living, be united or kept asunder by a geographical line. On the other hand, the horizontal line, which marks the moral and intellectual phases regulat- ing the lives of human beings all over the world, does really provide us with the principle of group- ing corresponding to actuality. To put it grossly : 130 an Englishman of the criminal classes has as little in common with an honourable, noble and high- minded Englishman, as a German, Frenchman or Italian of the same low standards has with that of the higher representatives of those nations. On the other hand, the criminals in each country can readily form a brotherhood with harmonious aims of life and habits; as the high-minded gentlemen of each nation will at once find a common ground for living, for free, profitable, and pleasant inter- course, and, above all, for the higher aspirations of life and living among those of the same type in other countries. These are extreme cases ; but the principle applies to all the finer shadings in the scale of population, of the living and thinking, and feeling of the nations all over the world. It is thus in direct contradiction to the actual consciousness of the peoples of Europe and America to feel enmity towards those in other countries with whom, on the contrary, there exist the strongest links of mutual regard and of brotherhood ; and certainly so-called national dif- ferences cannot justify an antagonism which goes to the length of bloodthirsty attempts to destroy their very lives. If this is true of the individual men and women composing the several states and nations, it also applies to the collective unity of population in the state. In spite of the German conception of the so-called N azional-Staat , of the difference in ori- gin and race upon which the separateness of the several states is to be based, the states thus belie their very principles of union if they base antag- onism which leads to war upon ethnological groimds. For, as Germany is now constituted, the inhabitants of Holstein, shoulder to shoulder 131 with Slav Prussians, might have to fight the Dutchman and the Saxon Englishman with whom they claim a common racial origin — an origin which they might also claim with the Fleming and the inhabitants of Northern France. Perhaps even many Lombards in Northern Italy might thus have to meet in battle their racial brothers from Germany, who have joined the Prussian Slav. Nor can these antagonisms be based upon geo- graphical grounds and the political boundaries thus marked, for then Canada and Australasia could on these grounds not make common cause with Great Britain and Ireland. Nor even in the present condition of military powers can the coalition of states as units be based upon identity or similarity in the essential conception of what a state is and what its aims are. For the alli- ances and ententes belie any such principle of se- lection in their formation. The alliance between Germany, the Nazional-Staat, and the German section of the Hapsburg Empire, would be per- fectly intelligible and logical. But when we come to the Magyar and Slav and Rumanian constit- uents of that Empire the logical ground for such an alliance entirely vanishes, and may even in it- self constitute antagonism rather than unity or harmony of national aspirations. On the other hand, when we consider the essential nature of the State and of government and find the Repub- lic of France, with its vigorous aspirations to- wards political progress and reform, allied with the Russian autocracy, hitherto, of all European states, most clearly identified with political reac- tion; when we realize that but a short time ago the Republic of France manifested a most acute 132 phase of political antagonism to England; when we consider the natural antagonism between Wes- tern Liberalism and Eastern Autocracy and the affinity of principles and aspirations between the German democratic section and those of France and England; we meet with a confusion so com- plex and dense that, at least, one fact rises clearly before our mind: namely, that in the political grouping of the several states there is the same paradoxical discrepancy between the professed political conscience, the essence of political life, and the direct resultant activities of each state in realising its w^ould-be professions of national ex- istence and of national aspirations.^ We actually do not know where we are and on what principle our national alliances are based : and still less why we should fight each other, excepting that the so- called State — or rather a section of its rulers — has commanded us to do so. The manifest net result of these convincing and constraining political conclusions, both as re- gards the position of individual citizens and of the State as a whole is, that our fundamental con- ception of what a State is and ought to be is wrong, and that we must bring it into harmony with the clear and well founded conception of modern man as in his sane moments and with the courage of his convictions he must formulate it., (1) Since the above was written Italy has left the Triple Alliance and has joined the Entente Powers, while Bulgaria has actually joined with Turkey and the Central Powers to fight the Serbians and the Russians. 133 CHAPTER VII Reconsideration of the True Modern Meaning OF State and of Patriotism It thus becomes quite evident that all our ideas concerning the State, and our consequent duties to the State, must be reconsidered in the light of the entirety of our modern life and our moral and social consciousness. This consideration of our duties raises the whole question of patriotism, no doubt one of the cardinal virtues of civilised man. No term has been used to stimulate man to higher and nobler deeds, and at the same time been abused to cover under the specious garb of en- thusiasm and of unselfishness, the narrow and even unprincipled passions of designing self-seek- ers. The term 'patriot' readily recalls to mind the words of Dr. Johnson: ''The last resort of a scoundrel."^ Though we may feel that when nations are at war the time is not suited to a critical considera- tion of patriotic duties, we do feel that in more normal times, and when we are able dispassion- ately to examine political ethics and our own at- titude with regard to patriotism and our obliga- (1) In an excellent article on Patriotiam by Dr. Inge, Dean of St. Paul'a, (Quarterly Review, July, 1915), with which I am in hearty agreement, the writer quotes some moralists "who have condemned patriotism" as pure egoism magnified and dis- guised. "Patriotism," says Ruakin, "is an absurd prejudice founded on an extended selfishness." Mr. Grant Allen calls it a vulgar vice — the national or collective form of the monopo- list instinct. Mr. Havelock Ellis allows it to be "a virtue — among barbarians." For Herbert Spencer it is "reflex egoism • — extended selfishness." 134 tion to the State, it is our bounden duty seriously to reconsider these fundamental conceptions and to modify public opinion in accordance with our feeling for right and wrong as produced by the development of modern civilised life. I would premise two general principles, which ought really to be axiomatic, in dealing with our political duties: (1) Our first duty to the State is, individually as citizens, to keep it up to the es- sential purposes of its existence. As the State is based upon community of past history, of pres- ent laws and customs, political and social, and of future aspirations, political, social, ethical, and cultural, we must contribute our share individu- ally to keep these essential aims before the Gov- ernment, as the "soul" of the nation or State. We must take heed that they are not submerged into lifeless formalism by the established powers of the State or that the State does not become ac- tually subversive of its moral principles, its nat- ional soul. (2) That each group of human duties must al- ways be kept in harmony with the higher and more fundamental — because universal — duties. Our patriotism need never clash with our duties to humanity and religion, provided we keep the State up to its essential purpose and ideals. When once man has risen above the animal stage in which he is entirely guided by uncon- scious instinct, by the need for self-preservation, which is extended, through the course of his in- stincts for propagation, to the support and ad- vance of his offspring, until the family is evolved as a distinct social entity, and through the family, the clan, the tribe, the community, and the nation ; when once he has risen above this purely selfish 135 instinct to the establishment of social laws, in which the interests of the individual are co-ordi- nated and the common interests of wider, and even less tangible and manifest, groups of indi- viduals assert themselves and lead to the estab- lishment of social and moral laws, which all tend to check the powerful and unimpeded course of selfishness — ^then begins the higher phase of civ- ilisation. This is marked, above all, not only by the recognition of ethical codes, in which reason- able altruism supersedes unreasoning egoism, but such moral codes transfuse the consciousness of men through the earliest phases of their infantile education, through every stage of their growth and life down to old age, until the civilised being develops, as an essential feature of his whole moral nature, the recognition of such an ethical code, and this converts the pure animal into, what Aristotle called, the Social Animal, ^.JovTroXtTt/cov. In this scale of rising progress in the civi- lisation of man the reality and the effective- ness of the laws governing corporate, as opposed to individual, existence is a test of advance from the lower to the higher. George Eliot was thus right in convincingly reminding us of the fact that, **An individual man, to be harmoniously great, must belong to a nation of this order, if not in ac- tual existence yet existing in the past, in memory, as a departed, invisible, beloved ideal, once a real- ity, and perhaps to be restored, A conunon hu- manity is not yet enough to feed the rich blood of various activity which makes a complete man. The time is not come for cosmopolitanism to be highly virtuous, any more than for communism to suffice for social energy. I am not bound to feel for a 136 Cliimaman as I feel for my f ellow-countr}^man : I am bound not to demoralise liim with opium, not to compel him to my will by destroying or plunder- ing the fruits of his labour on the alleged ground that he is not cosmopolitan enough, and not to insult him for his want of my tailoring and relig- ion when he appears as a peaceable visitor on the London pavement. It is admirable in a Briton with a good purpose to learn Chinese, but it would not be a proof of fine intellect in him to taste Chi- nese poetry in the original more than he tastes the poetry of his own tongue. Affection, intelli- gence, duty, radiate from a centre, and nature has decided that for us English folk that centre can be neither China nor Peru. Most of us feel this unreflectingly ; for the affectation of undervaluing everything native, and being too fine for one's o^vn country, belongs only to a few minds of no dan- gerous leverage. What is wanting is, that we should reciognise a corresponding attachment to nationality as legitimate in every other people, and understand that its absence is a privation of tbe greatest good." There can be no doubt that by itself the human being who can subordinate his own immediate and individual interests and desires to wider common aims of a larger human group is in so far a nobler human being, and approaches more closely the ideal towards which man strives, than one devoid of such power. But we must never forget that this wider and corporate body which thus claims obedience and submission and self-effacement, must rest upon rational and ethical principles for the justification of its constraining laws and en- actments. It cannot be virtuous to subordinate will, reason and interest to an immoral or crimi- nal organisation. And in view of the fact that in 137 the course of human history not only the material conditions, but also the very spiritual conscious- ness of those constituting a corporate body, have changed and have developed, it is necessary and urgently desirable that we should periodically consider, examine, and test the relationship which these laws and enactments hold to the fundamen- tal principles of reason and of morality out of which they grew and for the realisation of which they exist. For it is a truth equally manifest in the history of things human, that laws and cus- toms have a tendency to become stereotyped and formalised, even to such a degree, that the very spirit is pressed out of them, until only the dead form remains and blocks the way to the realisa- tion of the spirit. Their action is then turned to the very opposite from the healthy primary source out of which they flowed: and, instead of tending towards altruism and the guarding of col- lective rights for the individual constituents of the whole body, they serve pure egoism, in minis- tering only to the interests of a group, a clan, or a class, or even an individual. We may thus lay it down as a law, which almost sounds like a plati- tude, but is far from being recognised in the work- ing of actual life : that when corporate bodies, and the laws which support them, do not fulfil the definite ends for which they are incorporated and which their laws are to effect, their influence be- comes harmful and lowering instead of serving some higher purpose. 138 CHAPTER VIII COBPOEATENESS. ThE AbUSE OF CORPORATE AND Individual. Loyalty Corporateness is only good when it embodies an ideal admitted and confirmed by reason and mor- ality : and the test of its right of existence and of our allegience to its enactments is its conformity to the spiritual ends and ideals of its existence. Moreover — and this is the most usual form of a baneful influence inherent in corporate bodies in their effect upon general life — the collective forms of such organised corporate existence will be ex- erted and made themselves felt in directions and in regions for which the activity and purpose of such bodies was in no way destined, in fact in spheres and objects different from, and often di- ametrically opposed to, their original purpose : so that the effect and the influence of the extended or perverted corporate activity becomes distinctly retarding and even destructive of effective social and moral ends. The actual channel of this nefarious activity of the corporate spirit — all the more dangerous and subversive because it is not manifest and is hid- den from the view of those who believe its course to be in the right direction — marks a general vir- tue, in itself of the highest order, called Loyalty, Discipline, or Esprit de Corps. Loyalty to a body whose interests and aims are unsocial and bad : discipline which subordinates the will as well as the reason and the moral sense to the advance- 139 ment of a body or an institution which may clash with reason and morality in any fn^ven case; the esprit de corps which, through thick and thin, bids and forces the members of the corps to act only in the interest of the body or the individual members of that body, over-riding and wrong- ing the claims of other bodies and the rights of other individuals, these all become harmful and may end in criminality. Of course in such mis- guided action loyalty always remains as a virtue in itself, which will satisfy the conscience of those thus misguided, and will blind them to the un- social and disastrous results of the definite alle- giance which they show to a mistaken, selfish or even criminal interference with wider duties and higher ultimate aims, to which all actions whether corporate or individual ought to be subordinated. I venture to believe that if we seriously consider the ordinary problems that meet us in our daily work and intercourse with our fellow men, we may be astonished, and shall be shocked, to find, how much actual harm, in every conceivable direction and manifestation of our life, is done by the mis- application of this corporate sense, blinding us to the consequence of our action and insinuating itself into the approval of our conscience under the garb of the one great virtue of loyalty. In the appointment to an office, humble or exalted, from that of an ordinary servant to a great public of- ficial, the just claims of the aspirant or applicant, based upon the suitability to perform the tasks of such an office, are wholly destroyed or seriously aflFected by the fact, that other competitors di- rectly or indirectly appeal to the corporate spirit on other grounds. They may have belonged to the same religious sect, come from the same dis- 140 trict, town or village, have attended the same school or university ; — in short have had some lo- cal or social association with the person or per- sons who have the right of disposal or election — that this would-be sense of loyalty may be decisive in turning the scales in favour of the less suitable candidate and in counteracting the serious and just efforts, the long preparation and suitability of the absolutely best claimant, ultimately ruining or embittering his life. I must at once in this connection, anticipate and answer a possible objection and admit the claims of 'corporate' association and knowledge to be considered where a well balanced choice is to be made, namely, in admitting that, ceteris paribus, the personal knowledge and confidence which may come from such corporate association and may be wanting in the case of those with whom it does not exist, is clearly and justly in favour of a can- didate, where all other claims are truly equal. We need not go so far into the regions of tra- vestied impartiality as the would-be just man who would disfavour and ignore the claims of any- body because they were closely related to him by blood or otherwise, however well fitted for the po- sition or the favour he might be. The extreme and perverted moral rigorism of Kant and its harmful effects were thus held up to ridicule by Schiller in one of his epigrams : Geme dien ich den Frewiden dock thu' ich es leider mitweigung. Und so wurmt es mich oft, dass ich nicht tugendhaft bin. and the answer : Da ist Rein anderer Rath, Du musst siwhen, sie ■zu veraehten, 141 Und mit Abscheu alsdann thun wie die FfUcht dir gebeut. Gladly serve I my friends, alas, though, I do it with pleasure And thus often I fear that I not virtuous am. There is no other course, you must learn to despise your friends. And with dislike you must do what stern duty demands. What I mean, however, is, that constant and widespread injustice and definite harm to the ful- filment of the world's needs in every aspect of human life result from the misapplication of this sense of corporate loyalty into directions with which the corporate existence, the aim and spirit of the body to which one thus shows this virtue, have had nothing whatever to do. One of the commonest forms which this insidi- ous virtue takes with the most disastrous results, is sectarian and party loyalties. You will con- stantly hear people say : " I was born and bred in such a faith and I must stick to it. It would be disloyal and treasonable — I should feel something of a traitor — were I to relinquish the sect and step out of the religious community in which I was born — even if I no longer believe in its dogmas and articles of faith." So also: **I was bom and bred a Tory, or an old Whig, or a Conservative, or a Liberal, and I mean to die one. I should be a traitor were I to change parties." Now, it is just in these two domains of life that, by being loyal to a sect or party, we are disloyal to our highest function and duty as intelligent and moral social beings, that we are betraying the supreme trust of humanity and of the divinity in man — his obligations to truth and justice. To load people 142 to believe that we are of a faith we have dis- carded, that we approve of political principles or definite political enactments which we do not deem to be conducive to the good of national life and the improvement of society are acts of treason, not of loyalty: It is obstructing duty and truth, besides retarding all progress and stultifying, or at least delaying the advancement of the human race and human life. The more you consider the effects of this misap- plied corporate spirit in every conceivable aspect of life, the more you will find that you have come to the root of one of the greatest social evils. Consider the actual life of any community, and the interests and social claims of the inhabitants in each, with a view to realising how the noiTnal, reasonable and just conditions of social life, even the business and working side of it, are inter- fered with, mis-directed, and distorted by influ- ences and considerations which have nothing whatever to do with the actual course and de- velopment of that life itself. It will then be seen how they retard, not only the harmony and higher development of social existence, but how they im- pede the work and business of the community. All this mischief may spring from a mistaken sense ultimately arising out of the virtue of loyalty. Moreover, this influence of subconscious loyalty may be associated with the highest forms of or- ganisation in spiritual life, such as religion, po- litical convictions, social traditions all good in themselves, but mis-directing the functions for which originally and essentially they were called into being. The marriage of two people, drawn to each other by true affection and harmony of as- pirations and tastes, may be made impossible, be- 143 cause they happen to belong to different sects in formal religion, though their truly religious be- liefs might be the same. Individuals and families and those naturally destined to be friends may be kept asunder because of these reasons ; social con- ditions stereotyped and formalised, until they have lost all the spirit out of which they grew in the life of the past, may act in the same way. Party politics, even intensified in their antagon- isms by would-be religious or social tradition, di- rectly interfere with the free flow of social life, create antagonisms, and even prevent co-opera- tion for an end which both parties deem just and advisable, to the detriment of the common life about them. Even in a great war, and with the imminent danger to the very exist '^nce of a whole nation, petty partisanship in various forms may intrude its disintegrating influence and weaken the strength of united effort to save the country. Fortunately for us, up to the present, party an- tagonism has to a great extent been kept under and in abeyance, but we can see it lifting its head and ready to spring at any moment. And the worst of it is, that he who thus manifests loyalty and esprit de corps in one of these narrower cor- porate bodies is pleased with himself for doing so and is praised by others for his loyalty. It is not only the coarsened and hardened ''jobbing" poli- tician who lives and lets live by 'graft,' who con- siders it right, and is called trustworthy and loyal by his henchmen, because he will override all the claims of municipal justice and good government, the interests of his fellow-townsmen, and the dic- tates of purity and honesty to which the con- science of the community has subscribed, in order to further the party ends and the material inter- 144 ests of his fellow conspirators. In a lesser and more refined degree you will meet with this spirit everywhere, and in the definite cases that will come to your notice day by day. Justice and rea- son and morality are trampled under foot because of this distorted ideal of loyalty. The way to remedy this widespread evil, strik- ing at the very roots of justice, of social good feeling, of happiness and prosperity for individu- als, communities and nations, is, in the first place, carefully to test, whether the corporate bodies are fulfilling the ideal functions for which they were instituted; and, in the second place, to guard against the misapplication of the purpose, meth- ods and aims of one such body encroaching upon the sphere of another with which it has nothing to do, and in which its action thus becomes detri- mental. Above all he must so co-ordinate the dif- ferent spheres of duty and loyalty, that the wider and higher, the ultimate and universally accepted aims and ideals, are not sacrificed to the narrower and lower interests, however urgent the claim of the more proximate duty may be upon us. What is most needed in the well regulated life of indi- viduals, as well as in larger social bodies, is co- ordination, in which the several duties are har- monised and regulated in due proportion, so that the rational and moral scale is clearly established, which avoids all artificial antagonism and unrea- sonable clashing, and thus conforms to the har- monised development of life. All will then tend to the final realisation of the highest ideals which humanity can establish in each period of its growth and development. It will then be found that each individual call of duty, including that of loyalty to the collective body with which we are 145 associated, fits into the wider and harmonious ethical whole, and that the fulfillment of the one duty need not clash with that of the other, pro- vided always that we can maintain that sense of proportion in which the higher and wider com- prises the narrower and lower manifestations, and receives its real moral justification from the fact that the several constituent parts all tend to the advancement of the great whole. Here too — and above all here — the subdivision of bodies and institutions must be horizontal and not perpendicular. They must not be due to the thoughtless and unreasonable and unjust accidents of locality, of contiguity, even of supposed con- sanguinity — our associates must be shosen, not because they happen to dwell in the same street, have been thrust into the same occupation in mak- ing their living, or because their father or grand- fathers happened to have belonged to one or the other association ; but because of the similarity of social character or tastes, because of the moral and intellectual affinity in thought and in habits and in ultimate ideals. On the other hand, when we are called upon to act together for a definite pur- pose in business or for public and political pur- poses, local as well as national, or a definite task that requires the concentrated effort directed by expert knowledge, we must concentrate our ef- forts upon the task itself and not be distracted by the social affinities which guide us naturally and rightly into the groupings regulating our social life. I have just said that even the considerations of consanguinity are not to act out of place and out of proportion in the general scale of our duties. And this may help me to make clearer in a par- 146 tial, though general, outline the practical work- ing of such a scale of collective duties, the need for which constantly thrusts itself forward in ac- tual life. There can be no doubt that we all have duties to our immediate family. We must guard its integrity, add to its prosperity, maintain its good fame, support those members who require our help, and further their interests to the best of our ability in every direction. This is a para- mount duty from which no right-minded man or woman — however unprejudiced and advanced in their habits of thought and in their critical insight into the very foundations of all laws governing the world — can escape. But there is no reason why obedience to this fundamental command- ment of civilised life should clash with our wider duties towards the community in which we live and towards the nation of which we are citizens. Above all, there is no reason why it should clash with those wider and general duties to Truth, Charity, Honesty, Self-respect, and the higher re- alisation of the harmonious life of humanity fit- ting into our widest conception of a still wider cosmical harmony. On the contrary, I venture ta say that, in the humble and old-fashioned sense of the word, a good son and a good daughter are most likely to be most efficient fworkers in the lo- cality in which they may live ; that they make the best citizens for the nation or the Empire, and,, in their several walks of life — whether concerned in manual, intellectual, or artistic work — they will be the more efficient from thus being good sons-, and datighters. On the other hand, I maintain iwith equal confidence that those who raise this, one and only and restricted form of corporate duty towards the family to a fetish", draw high 147 and dense and impermeable barriers round tlieir affections and sympathies and their obligations, and thus block out from their view and from their hearing all the sights and all the calls upon their activity and their sympathy in the wider regions of communal existence, and the higher and ultimate ideals of human life, Avill not only cripple their manhood and womanhood and stunt the growth and development of their true nature as human social beings, but that, by this very restriction and compression of their sympathies and their power of altruistic affec- tion, they will actually not be such good sons and daughters, such affectionate and unselfish mem- bers of a family, which they would have been had they co-ordinated this one group of duties in their proper place and in their proper proportion to the scale of duties, rising to the highest religious phase of man's conception of human society and the world at large.^ As the Chauvinist is inferior to the patriot be- cause he has limited the range of his altruistic imagination and his habits of unselfish activity, and will be, within the state itself, the more vio- lent partisan, and with the party, the more in- tense self-seeker, so the people whose interests and sympathies are entirely limited to the ad- vancement of their own family will be more selfish, when the clash comes between their own desires and those of the other members of their own family. And this is so, because the powers of af- fection and of altruistic devotion must be prac- tised and strengthened in every direction in order to increase their vitality and vigour; while the more they are limited and contracted, the less do (1) See Jewish Question, etc., 1892, by the author, pp. 90, seq. 148 tliey become efficacious when tested in any given instance. Those who believe and maintain that the best hater is the best lover; that those love best who concentrate their affection upon one be- ing or one friend and shut themselves out from the rest of the world ; that those who diffuse their feelings and passions among a wider range of friends and objects and aims are supposed thereby to weaken the concentrated energy of their affection and devotion when turned upon any one definite recipient of their love, are really misled by a false analogy. Consciously or un- consciously they are led to believe that affection, sympathy, enthusiasm, and altruism exist in the human breast in a certain quantity, like a sub- stance, solid or fluid, of which each individual can expend a certain amount and no more. The larg- er the field over which you expand and spread it, the thinner the layer in each definite point of the field covered. Thus he who loves many, they believe, can love no one as much as he who loves only one. But the analogy fails, because it is not a substance but a function and power which underlies our affections and our sjinpathies, and even our passions ; and powers grow with use, as they dwindle and atrophise with the restriction of such use. There may be extreme limits to either: but the power of affection and of sym- pathy in the heart is like the strength of the mus- cles which increase as we develop them. And it is thus that the good son will be a better mem- ber of his family through extending his interests and his affections far beyond the limits of his own hearth. If charity begins at home, it must not re- main at home. Thus, without clashing, we can proceed upwards and beyond the narrower limits 149 of our duties towards the community in whicli we live, and beyond that, to the State of which we are citizens, and there need be no clashing of well directed interests. In this progression of duties, from the narrower and immediate to the wider and ultimate, the same considerations with regard to our duty to the State and to humanity at large hold good as those we have just noted in our duties to our family in their relation to the wider duties. The questions here involved concern the duties of the true pa- triot. We are confronted by that much discussed and difficult problem of the relation between true patriotism and what has been called cosmopolitan- ism. The two are supposed to clash; and it has justly been said, in the passage quoted above from George Eliot, that ''The time is not yet come for cosmopolitanism to be highly virtuous, any more than for communism to suffice for social en- ergy." As the epithet of patriot is so frequently abused by him who wishes to escape from ordi- nary duties, so cosmopolitanism has often been used by those who wish to shirk the duties of citizenship and pride themselves upon a wider vision and a higher scale of morality than those who, without assertion or pretence, follow the dic- tates of the traditional duties in the conditions in which they live. As Tennyson says: 'He is the best cosmopolite Who loves his native country best.^ On the other hand, I have ventured to supple- ment these lines of the great poet in maintaining that, He loves his native country best Who loves mankind the more. 150 As we have just seen in regard of the family the wider community, so we shall find that the citizen whose scale of morality reaches far beyond his own country and embraces the whole of hu- manity, nay, even includes wider cosmical and religious conceptions and ideals, is more likely to be a good citizen and a true patriot. 151 CHAPTER IX The Wrong and the Right Nationalism We have before considered the effect of Chau- vinism upon good citizenship. To be a good citi- zen also implies, first, that we should have an in- telligent and thoroughly thoughtful conception of what the State means and what in consequence its laws enact; and, second, that we should do our share to make this State a true expression of its purpose and to fashion its laws in accordance with the progressive needs of highest human nature and the ultimate ideals of humanity. No State has a right to exist the aims and objects of which run directly counter to those of humanity at large. When a State develops, or rather degenerates, into such a condition it turns from a moral State to an immoral State, and ought to be reformed or removed from the face of the earth. It might be an over-statement to say, that a State is formed for the definite and direct purpose of confirming and advancing the moral aims of humanity : but I doubt whether any political cynic or modern Ma- chiavelli would venture to hold, that the aims of any State are avowedly immoral and clash with the supreme interests of humanity. The first duty of every citizen, so far as he can, and to how- ever minimal degree, to affect the constitution and function of the State of which he is a citizen, to bring the laws and the activity of his country and its government into harmony with the uni- versally valid and recognised interests and mor- 152 als of a wider humanity. He can then rest as- sured that in following this course he is perform- ing the chief duties of a patriot. ' ' My country ! right or wrong, ' ' may be a good epigrammatic — and therefore exaggerated — statement of the duties arising out of a peculiarly abnormal condition. Just as a good son or a de- voted wife might say "My father" or "My hus- band, right or wrong." The son and the wife can never escape from certain duties which this close relationship imposes upon them. They may provide for the best legal advice, minister as far as possible to the comforts which their criminal relative needs when he is confined in prison and even support him as he is led to the gallows, but they dare not uphold, and thus become party to the crime which he has committed. Before he had become a criminal and after he had been released however, it was their duty to do all in their power to prevent him from falling or relapsing into crime. Though we must follow the call to arms when our country is at war, we must do our best to prevent an unjust war and to make war among civilised people impossible in the future. The an- alogy I have just adduced fails, however, in one most important point ; namely, in that the family is a body definitely fixed by manifest and immut- able biological laws of consanguinity, while the State is not. The individual has nothing to do with the establishment of such a relationship in the family : he is born a son, and the paternal re- lation of the father to the child is a definite physi- cal fact, but humanity has risen above the purely patriarchal conception of the state. The modern State is a voluntary creation of intelligent human beings, based upon fundamental ideas, to the re- 153 alisation of which they all gave their consent, guided by their best thought and confirmed by their moral consciousness. Whatever it may have been in the past, however varied and num- erous may have been the different forms under which that great creation of social being mani- fests itself in histoiy, no one of the earlier con- ceptions will fit the facts and the needs, the po- litical convictions of modern man. In the very able and lucid discourse, "Qu' est ce qu' une nation," Ernest Renan answers the question as to the essence of what a State or a nation really is. After convincingly proving that the modern State does not depend for its essence upon race, language, interests, religious affinities, geography, or military necessity, he then declares that a nation is a "Soul," a spiritual principle: "Une nation est une ame, un principe spirituel," and he then defines what constitutes such a "Soul" such a spiritual principle. The Soul arises out of the common possession of a rich inheritance of memories; the spiritual principle is the actual consent, the desire to live together, the will to continue and to realise in the common life the undivided heritage which has been thus received. I strongly recommend the reader then to study the eloquent exposition of this philos- opher and great master of style. The memories, the inheritance of the past, the sufferings and struggles which have given the soul to a nation and constitute one of its strongest elements of unity, culminate, in what we call its civilisa- tion (Kultur), the degree of civilisation to which each country has attained. Race and country, language and religious affinities, interests and, above all, self-preservation (which corresponds 154 to what Renan called military necessities) may all have contributed in the past to produce this unity and may powerfully urge, as they justify, each citizen to preserve that unity. Each one has its claims. But we must guard against urg- ing the claims of each out of proportion to the wholeness of this organism. It is a far-reaching error to believe, that the more apparently fund- amental, tangible and patently manifest one of these elements is, the more urgent become its claims to consideration for the State and for the support of such claims on the part of the indi- vidual. The very fact that countiy is often syn- onymous with State, that people or nation are used indifferently to convey the idea of race, that religious differences were frequently in history the direct causes of antagonism and war between States, might make each of these elements ap- pear decisive and essential connotations in the conception of a State. But there are other ele- ments which go to the making of a nationality ap- parently remote, but none the less effective. These are the history of morals as well as the common intellectual achievement of the several peoples themselves. They may be more directly and potently creative of the "Nation's Soul" than the other physical factors mentioned above. We again have the horizontal and not the perpendic- ular division forced upon us. In the epigram- matic — perhaps the exaggerated — form of two mottoes to a book^ — I attempted to convey this truth by maintaining, first "that the abolition of Slavery and the Renaissance are as much a father- land as are England, Germany, France, or the (1) The Jewish Question, etc., New York, 1894. 155 United States ' ' ; and, second, (with the doubtful in- troduction of a newly coined word) ''that there is a strong bond of humanity; but there is also the golden chain of gentlemanity. " I endeav- oured to suggest in these epigrams that the com- mon achievements of civilisation, upon which the actual consciousness of the people in a civ- ilised State rests, are as direct and potent a tie — and certainly ought to be so — in binding to- gether into a social and political unity the people with whom these achievements of a common hu- manity have entered into the very bone and mar- row of their moral and intellectual existence, as are race, geography, formal religion or interests. What I miss in the excellent exposition of Renan — though I thoroughly agree with his criti- cal examination and rejection of the several ele- ments that are commonly supposed to determine the conception of a State, and though I agree with the soul-giving importance of common memories and common suffering in the past — what I miss is, that he has not clearly considered the present and future activities of such a collective entity as a State in confirming these memories and in preparing for more definite activities and ideals in the future. We must add in the first place to the elements he has adduced, the common laws and customs and, in the second place, the moral consciousness of this "Soul" of a State. These common laws and customs do not only direct the actual life, the public opinion, the tone and moral of a community or a nation, and give it a common consistency and individuality: but they also lead directly to the formation of a political conscious- ness, manifesting itself in the codified or uncodi- fied constitution of each nation. And it is this 156 immediate self-expression of a State in its politi- cal constitution, itself the outcome of all these several state-forming elements which give it its most clearly manifest individuality and person- ality in its relation to the citizens within and to other States without. But the second element of equal importance in the making and maintenance of a State are its moral and social ideals, towards which as a whole it tends, and which give it the ultimate sanction of the best that is in each one of its citizens. For as it is not enough now to say that the greatest happiness to the greatest number satisfies our political conscience as it did that of the doctrinaires of the Manchester school, it is not even enough to say that we wish to realise our Kultur within ourselves and even to impose it upon others; for this must imply that we are satisfied that our Kultur is worthy of thus being realised and desirable in the in- terests of those upon whom we wish to impose it. In one word it means that we must bring our national and political ethics into conformity with general human ethics. Unless we can hon- estly convince ourselves that the ultimate aim of the State is, not only to satisfy and to elevate its citizens, but to contribute to the welfare and the advancement of humanity at large, w^e can- not feel honestly convinced that our legislative and political activities are following the right course. But when we are satisfied that our na- tional activities are thus harmonised with the wider and ultimate ethical laws of humanity, we can actually adopt, not only cosmopolitan ideals, but definite cosmopolitan duties and aims with- out in any way clashing with our duties as patriots. 157 In any case we then find that race and geo- graphical position are not enough to separate or isolate us from the rest of mankind: that what I have called the perpendicular subdivision must be replaced by the horizontal : and that our ideals, even as applied to the State itself as a separate entity, recognise Humanity and the supreme laws of ethics in the light of humanity that is, and the desirable humanity that is to follow, and are to be subordinated under these supreme laws and adapted to these supreme ends. We then find that, not only is war between such civilised na- tions a monstrosity, but that actually there is the strongest bond uniting together all those who hold the same convictions and who cherish the same aspirations for the future of man and the ad- vancement of civilisation as powerful, if not more powerful, than those which bind human beings together in active or in passive community on the ground merely of race, topography, or local pro- pinquity, or community of material interests. Cosmopolitanism thus becomes a fact which in no way clashes with patriotism and with loyalty to the State of which we are citizens. We shall then have a real federation based, not upon fortui- tous conditions and fluctuating interests, but upon common ideals which are more real and more last- ing than the supposed practical and opportunistic motives in the daily life of the unthinking. There is no danger, moreover, of the destruction of in- dividuality in each separate State as a result of such wider and actual federation. Nor does such wider federation in any way imply absorption of the smaller States and nationalities by the larger. On the contrary the freedom and individuality of 158 the smaller States will thereby be assured and strengthened. There is an insidious fallacy in the reasoning of many people who worship the picturesqueness and variety in a manifestation of individual char- acter from a supposedly artistic, but really from a theatrical and sham-artistic, motive and point of view. They fear the loss of picturesqueness in the world when, through such federation the hu- man races are brought actually more closely to- gether. Such romanticists deplore the spread of freedom and equality in the opportunities of life, of sanitary improvements, of saving of arduous and degrading labour, of the increase of all com- forts in living to the wretched toiler of the field or artisan, as compared with the misery of medi- aeval servitude which they glorify through the distorted and falsified vision of a degraded cow- ardice as regards the present and of an illusory mental obliquity as regards the past. They sel- fishly would like to keep for their own puny the- atricality and artistic enjoyment, the hind and serf dwelling in the most wretched squalor in his pictur- esque hovel and issuing thence in his picturesque costume, as, with cringing servility, he salutes his over-lord and shuffles to and from wretched toil from morning into weary night in order to keep body and soul together for himself and his starv- ing children. He deplores the introduction of all those improvements in living, in education of mind and character, w^hich rob people of this ''picturesque" individuality and raise them col- lectively to a higher standard of human existence ; as he regrets the facile means of modern trans- portation, not only rightly when they wantonly destroy the beauties of nature, but because they 159 make more accessible to the masses of even ig- norant and miappreciative toilers the opportuni- ties of raising their physical vitality and their spiritual taste. And, more or less consciously, he deplores this because it interferes with the quiet and secluded enjoyment of these rare beau- ties by those who deem themselves the supremely privileged aesthetic aristocracy of the world, and whose enjoyment in its concentrated seclusion from all interference is disturbed by the wider participation, as the mystic and sacred circles of the chosen loses its exclusive solidarity.^ But there is no danger that justified and de- sirable individuality as regards states, or com- (1) The following passage from my "T/^e Work of John Rii^l-m" deals with this question, p. 151. "There is a truth strongly put by Ruskin for which he would have gained more universi^l recognition if the statements of it had been more moderate and in conformity with fact, namely, the duty of maintaining the land which we inhabit in the conditions con- ducive to health, and with the careful guarding and preservation of the natural and historical beauties, which are, to omit all their spiritual qualifications, real national possessions of the highest economical value. To allow the smoke from the chim- neys to turn pure air into pestilential miasmata, to see beautiful streams and rivers defiled, to witness the most lovely and unique scenes ruthlessly robbed of their chief charms of natural beauty ■ — these are losses which, if they do not bear comparison with actual industrial loss to individual members or groups of the community, will outweigh them heaviiy. The day may come tvhen one of the most important functions of the government concerned with the internal affairs of a nation will be to secure and guard the public lands for the purposes of national health and of national delectation. But when Ruskin complains that the delightful silence which reigned in some rural districts is now disturbed by the life of industry, and that portions of Switzerland, which he and other kindred spirits could once enjoy in comparative seclusion are vulgarised by numbers of imeducated tourists; when he com- plains of the very facility of approach to many of these sacred haunts brought about by the railways, and the picnics which do not agree with the exquisite musings of the solitary votary of nature, we can not help feeling that this arises not only from a romantic but from an essentially unsocial spirit. There can be no doubt that our enjoyment must be impaired by the reduc- tion of what stimulates our highest emotions to a commonplace; but we must willingly make this sacrifice when we consider the great gain accruing to himdreds or thousands where before it but reached units." 160 munities, localities, or individuals, will be de- stroyed by the realisation of such wider federa- tion towards a common end for the whole of hu- manity. On the contrary, war and conquest are the levellers, and this war does not only mean the clash of arms and the destruction of lives, but it also means a commercial and industrial war as pitiless and as destructive as that of rifle and cannon which is being waged mercilessly through- out the modern world by the upholders of the highest civilisation. Militarism and commercial- ism are the enemies of all individuality as, on the other extreme hand are socialism and the blind and unintelligent tyranny of the trades unions. Freed from these levellers of all superiority and genius, the human individual and the collective groups, local or ethnical, and the separate States, will more freely and more effectually develop their own individualities and contribute to the harmony and progress of humanity as a whole. The separate States all possessing their 'souls,' as Renan has called them, will assert, refine and strengthen their national souls. They exist now in spite of all the forces that go to their undoing ; and we can readily recognise them; and each one of them contributes to the health and vigour and the ennobling of the soul of humanity — nay, of the World-soul. I may be allowed here to quote the words which I addressed to the Congress of German Journalists when they met in London in 1906: ' ' The positive aim, on the other hand, which we must have before us in this meeting, is the safe- guarding and the advancement of that Western European civilisation which rests upon us all to- gether. I do not mean by thisi that this civilisa- 161 tion is tied down to the European continent. The United States is an integral part of it, and, to single out one personality, I am sure you will all agree that no living man is more truly and effect- ually moved by these ideals than President Roose- velt. Moreover, if in the Far East Japan shows her sincere eagerness to adopt and maiie ner own the best that is in our civilisation — the best of our ideals, not merely our material achievements — they too will form an organic part in this great confederation. Yet to feel this community and to further its aims, it is not at all necessary that we should all be the same. On the contrary, it is here, within this sphere of common union, that true Nationalism has its fullest and most eifective play. We are each of us, in our peculiar national character and individuality, necessary to the main- tenance and advance of this common ciWlisation. If, to take but our three great Western nations, I might venture upon a bold generalisation^ — they are always inaccurate — I would sa}^ that in the past history of thought and culture and public life, England has often performed the function of in- vention and initiation; this was the achievement of a Shakespeare, of a Bacon, a Newton, a Darwin, and, in public life, of the birth of Parliamentarism. Germany has with glorious vigour stood before the world as the country of intellectual depth and sincerity of mind, of thoroughness and spiritual- isation of man's achievements in all spheres of un- ending perseverance in the fight for truth, carry- ing everything into the realm of highest and wid- est conception. France is the nation of artistic imagination and courage, which leads them not to fear the attempt of carrying into actual life, into palpitating realisation, the bold ideas conceived by the intellect ; it has, as a nation, the artistic, the creative, the passionate courage in giving actual form to the world of thought. Germany educates 162 the mind. England the character. France the imagination which gives vitality to both. In the peaceful interpenetration of these forces our eth- ical life will be raised. All three of us, fighting with our several weapons, working in our several methods, approaching the common goal from our different roads, lead mankind to what we are bound to consider the best and the highest. ' ' The unity and solidarity of the federation of civilised States is the great reality even now in the consciousness of all right thinking men all over the world. At this moment it rises in the hearts of countless men, from the illiterate un- skilled labourer to the philosopher, in violent though helpless protest, not only against the bar- barism and cruelty and treachery, but against the absolute stupidity, of a war such as is now de- vasting Europe, jeopardising the prosperity of the countries farthest removed from the scene of war, and setting the hands of the clock back for generations in the progress of the world. And the irony of it all is that this unity has received deliberate and powerful expression in the actual international politics of our own days — namely, in the Hague Convention. But what have we wit- nessed within the last few months! That the de- liberate resolutions passed in concert by all the powerful States and subscribed to by them with their sign-manual and political authority in the same spirit that a bond and contract is recognised as binding in the business of daily life between individuals, corporate commercial bodies and all other organisations of civilised States, have been ignored, spurned and set aside ruthlessly, and have made way for the practice of most savage barbarians without even the chivulry that these 163 may have possessed — man turned to beast and ad- ding his cunning to the savagery of the hungry animal. We ask ourselves : How was this pos- sible? How could the whole civilised world with its so-called public opinion, its moral conscious- ness, even its common interests stand aside and see itself ignored and flaunted in the face of its all-powerful will? The answer is: first, because there are many people — even would-be philoso- phers, and psychologists — ^who maintain that war is an inevitable attribute in the life of nations, that it is essential to man, even man who has risen from the pre-historic savage to the citizenship of the most highly civilised states ; and second, that there is no right without might, or rather that the right cannot prevail unless there is might to enforce it. 164 CHAPTEE X The Disease of War 1. It has actually been stated, that war is a ''bi- ological necessity. ' ' Who has ever heard, or who can ever conceive of a biological necessity which means the survival of the unfittest — the slaying of those who are, not only physically, but mor- ally the superior members of the community'? It is a wanton perversion by man of nature's pri- mary law of the Survival of the Fittest. As Dr. Inge has pointed out: "Its dysgenic effect by eliminating the strong- est and healthiest of the population, while leaving the weaklings at home to be fathers of the next generation, is no new discovery. It has been sup- ported by a succession of men, such as Tenon, Duf au, Foissac, de Lapouge, and Richet in France ; Tiedemann and Seeck in Germany, Guerrini in Italy ; Kellogg and Starr Jordon in America. The case is indeed overwhelming. The lives destroyed in war are nearly all males, thus disturbing the sex equilibrium of the population ; they are in the prime of life, at the age of greatest fecundity; and they are picked from a list out of which from 30 to 40 per cent have been rejected for physical unfitness. It seems to be proved that the children born in France during the Napoleonic wars were poor and undersized — 30 millimetres below the normal height. War combined with religious ce- libacy to ruin Spain. 'Castile makes men and wastes them,' said a Spanish writer. "This sub- lime and terrible phrase sums up the whole of 165 Spanish history.'' Shiller was right : 'Immer der Krieg verschlingt die besten.' " We may add that, in countries with voluntary enlistment, like England, the dysgenie effect with regard to the transmission of moral qualities is still more pronounced. For it is the bravest and all those possessed of the highest sense of duty who enlist, while the moral 'wasters' remain at home. Those who maintain the justice of war as an in- eradicable element in the constitution of the hu- man being can claim logical consistency when, in defining war, they maintain that it is the arbitra- ment of superior power and not of reasoned justice. The moment reasoned justice is intro- duced in any degree, there is no logical reason why it should not be introduced in its entirety. You cannot deal with justice as with the curate's egg. There is no partial justice. If you have the power in any way to curb the realisation of might in this struggle of adjudicating right, there is no reason why the whole of might should not be sub- ordinated to reasoned right and bow to its com- mands. War governed by law is a contradiction in terms. It may be said that in the duel of former da.ys, as in the prize fight, certain laws have been enforced regulating the contest and es- tablishing a sub-division of law within the clash- ing of power to satisfy the sense of fair play. But it must never be forgotten that in the case of the duel and of the prize fight there was a superior legal power outside and beyond, which could at any moment have caused the appeal to a decision by power to be entirely quashed and discontinued. Moreover, from a wider point of view, even the 166 introduction of this partial aspect of law in the form of an assurance of fair play in the process of the actual fight did not remove the iniquity that the contestants might not be fairly matched by mere physical preparation or by the concen- tration of practice, ending in professional skill on the part of one of the contestants who sacrifices the whole of his normal humanity and claims to social eligibility by making a mere fighting ma- chine of himself. The analogy therefore does not hold good when it comes to States with no superior constraining power to impress the dictates of equity and law above them, such as exists in the case of contests between individuals. If, therefore, the whole ele- ment of reasoned justice is eliminated from the arbitrament of power in war, it is quite consis- tent to maintain (as has frankly and cynically been done by German historians and politicians) that power must be made as fearful as possible, and there is thus no limit to brutality and sav- agery. That this is in flagrant contradiction to the moral consciousness and to the public opinion of all civilised nations need hardly be insisted upon. Nor can we believe that the theories and the prac- tices of the German militarists who are respon- sible for this war are really endorsed by the vast majority of the German people and wjuld not be repudiated by the thoughtful and highly moral representatives of that nation. The chief fallacy of those who consider war a necessary attriljute in the organisation of human society is based upon a fundamental misconcep- tion of fact in history concerning the action of States towards one another, as well as the social 167 development of the individuals within each State. Those who are thus misled point to the past and ask the question ; whether there ever was a period in man's past when there was no war"? Their views would apparently receive some support as regards progress in the moral development of po- litical units throughout history when we realize the sudden relapse into barbarism and savagery in our own days and at this comparatively ad- vanced stage of development in civilisation. But this astounding modern phenomenon in the his- tory of mankind is to a great extent to be ac- counted for by the prevalent inadequacy of the very conception of what a State is; while, on the other hand, when history is no longer considered by a few centuries in the development of man and human society, it certainly goes to belie the claim to immutability as regards war as a fixed and es- sential institution in the social evolution of man. If we turn back to pre-historic times, we shall find that this fighting instinct of man dominated, not only individual life at a time when it formed a necessary impulse to self-preservation, but also dominated the communal existence of each period, the family, the clan or tribe, or race, or nation. Fighting and war were constantly present in the minds and in the life of the peoples of bygone ages. It was the ruling-factor directing,, their earliest education for which man prepared him- self in every stage, and the skill and superiority he attained in it formed the chief basis of all so- cial distinction and moral praise, and, even, through the further effect upon sexual selection, directed and modified the survival of the fittest and the character of races as they advanced in the course of time. The direct act of mere physical 168 fighting was ever present to the conscious and the subconscious habitual life of bygone peoples. In the earliest stages of man 's history it would have been quite impossible to convince men or com- munities that they were not to look upon this im- mediate neighbor or the people living but a few miles distant, as enemies, whom at any time it might be their duty to subdue by physical force ; that their possession would be secured even for generations to come; that justice in their claims to possession would be enforced without physical intervention, hundreds of miles away, nay, beyond the seas, among people and races whom they might never see and whose existence and whose institutions were completely foreign to them. Imagine the effect upon a man living — we will not say in the palaeolithic, but in the neolithic age, nay, even upon the inhabitants of Central Europe for some centuries in the Middle Ages — if you were to tell him, that he could assert and mani- tain his rights and secure his life and independ- ence in every aspect of his life, from the lowest phases up to his power of selecting his own rulers, and that these claims would be based upon the principles of reasoned justice for which all beings crave from the moment they become sentient and intelligent! Surely, had it been possible to de- scribe such a state of things to our earlier ances- tors, they would not only have considered us Uto- pians and dreamers, but deliberate liars. At all events, they would have met us, had they been given to generalisation, with the dogmatic state- ment, that it was 'contrary to human nature' thus to be subdued by general law ; and, on the narrow analogy of their own immediate and lower experi- ence in which such radical change would appear to 169 be impossible, they would have asserted the abso- lute impossibility of transferring such conditions to wider and yet higher spheres. The step from some conditions prevailing even a century or two ago, when witches were still burnt and their ex- istence was vouched for by the mass of credulous people, to those ruling our present life to such a degree, that we cannot conceive of their not hav- ing existed before us is, I maintain, much greater than from the international warlike attitude of the present day to the day when war between nations is inconceivable. To give but one further instance of the unfound- edness of such negative prediction with regard to future developments of human society, based upon the narrow experience of lower conditions of life prevailing at the time, we need but turn to the consideration of one social institution which dominated the life of the highest class of human beings in civilised countries but a short time ago and which, strangely enough (though upon ex- amination we shall find that it is not so strange) still survives in Germany, This is the duel. Three generations ago, the duel was still the cus- tomary means of righting wrongs among a certain section of society in England. It has entirely van- ished from our lives. Not only our children, but we ourselves of the present generation, can no more think of it as a means of redress for wrongs done to us than we would turn to augury for di- rection in battle, or to the 'Judgment by God' to maintain the justice of our individual claims. Had you asked any gentleman a hundred years ago, whether he could dispense with the duel, he would have said: 'Certainly not; it is essential to human nature to fight, and it is still more es- 170 sential for a man of honour to stand up for his rights in certain contingencies at the risk of his life to punish the aggressor and to defend his honour.' This same view prevails today among some of the most highly intelligent, honourable and distingLiished people in Germany. More than on-ce I have had certain Germans, whom I hold in the highest esteem and in w^hose intelligence and sense of justice in all other respects I have the greatest faith — I have had such men ask me: *'How can you get on in England without the duel? It is impossible to do so." In spite of all the reasons one could give, they considered our attitude to be almost 'against nature,' certainly against higher nature. But we can well under- stand, in the light of what we now know, why a Bernhardi should uphold this effete and absurd institution, even why a Bismarck and (as I have heard him do on the authority of the great states- man) a Treitschke, should have praised the gro- tesque survival of the attenuated form of duel- ling practiced by German students, as a most bene- ficent influence in the development of their social life and character. One can understand why the Kaiser and his immediate military advisers should uphold it, and why the judiciary bench should have committed such a legal crime in deal- ing with the Zabem affair. But surely when the definite example is before their eyes of other civ- ilised nations like the English and the Americans, emerging from this lower and more barbarous survival of earlier days and clearly demonstrat- ing that, in spite of the fighting instinct in man, the duel is entirely expunged from the records of our civilised life, it can then no longer be main- 171 tained that the duel is an essential necessary in- stitution which will maintain itself for all times. Now, the same applies, a fortiori, to war be- tween States. For the quarrels and the fighting between individuals, and the causes which lead to them, are so frequent and imminent in the diversi- fied conditions of human intercourse that they must constantly occur, however readily they may be suppressed by the hand of justice. And when we consider the variation in personal impetuosity and passion among millions of men and women living together, we can understand how the vio- lence of passion and the haste of action may con- stantly produce transgression of the law, even crime in its most destructive forms. But remem- ber: large bodies move slowly. In spite of the ''psychology of the 'crowd' " and the difficulty of calming or subduing the collective passion of a moving mass when once it begins its onward rush, the action of States — especially those blessed with representative government — must be compara- tively slow and deliberate and give time for re- flection and for the consideration of the claims of justice. A man, even the most self-controlled and temperate, may strike a quick blow in a fit of passion; a State cannot go to war without fore- thought and deliberate preparation. At all events, the possibility of such an outburst which may in the end become most passionate, is not conceivable in the case of a modem State, and therefore justice in the case of international dif- ferences and contests can always prevent: while in the individual life within the State it can only menace by general enactments, or punish after the crime has already been committed. It is thus more possible — not less — ^in the relation between 172 states, to counteract and check the instinct for fighting and the antagonism to law and justice, than it is in the case of individuals. The only re- maining difference is that in the one case there is the constraining power behind the law, and in the other it does not yet exist. 173 CHAPTER XI The Cure of the Diseases of War It thus remains for us — and the end of this ter- rible war will mark the initiation — to add the ele- ment of might to that of right, and thus to wipe war among civilised nations from off the face of the world for all times. What Kant and so many philosophers dreamt of will, nay, must, in the ne- cessity of events, now become a reality. We must add to the Hague Tribunal the power of enforc- ing its enactments and of policing international relations. It has been admitted on all sides — in fact it has almost become a common-place to say — that some- thing must be done in the future to assert the col- lective will of civilised humanity in order to con- vert the arbitrament of war into the arbitrament of justice. It has been urged by experienced statesmen, practical and at the same time thought- ful and high-minded, that there must be some form of federation of at least the European States, or of the civilised States of the world, asserting the unity of interests and the unity of ideals which they all have in common, and thus to provide for a tangible safeguard of peace. I venture to doubt whether such a federation by itself would prove practically efficacious. The evil traditions of in- ternational diplomacy are so strongly established that, reform them as you may, the separate inter- ests dominating each one of the States, and within each State powerful bodies, whether political, 174 commercial or financial, would all make for the tmdoing of this spirit of unity. The avowed or implied, the secret or public, formation of groups of alliances or ententes, corresponding to the community of certain interests (themselves tem- porary and changeable), the affinities of race and religions, and many other disintegrating causes, will make themselves felt and aifect the solidarity of such a federation. A closer federation in some form may come, and it will come in the course of evolution, when once the menace of war is re- moved, and will then be more firmly based on the actual growth of the lasting factors which make for humanitarian harmony. But the first and supreme necessity is to add, in the most direct and effective form, the element of might to that of right, the power of constrain- ing the world to bow to the judicial enactments of an international court. Then, and only then, will there be practical efficiency : and this practical ad- vance towards an ideal end will be strengthened by the fact that it conforms to the material inter- ests and requirements, to the economy of public treasure, for each State. The economic princi- ples of co-operation, of division of labor, organi- sation and concentration of energy and resources, has been dominant in modern commerce and in- dustry mainly for the good and sometimes for the bad. But it certainly commends itself to the intelligence and the interests of the modern world. Disarmament, or partial disarmament, is called for by the workers all over the world. The burden of taxation which armaments imply had already become intolerable and in itself led to effective opposition in every one of the States — apart from all the other evil consequences of its 175 effects which have so frequently been pointed out and have been so fully realised of late. The history of the Prussian Army since the days of Frederick the Great and Napoleon have shown how easily any injunction regulating the sizes of armies and navies can be evaded. Nor can it be an advantage to encourage interference with the internal affairs of any State and thus to jeopardise its independence. It will be more effective, as well as more eco- nomical, and in conformity with the spirit of our age, to create international armies and arma- ments, towards which each State pro rata contrib- utes its portion, which will be so much more pow- erful than those of any one State or group of States, that they can enforce the enactments of an international court beyond all doubt or cavil. The international unity within national freedom and independence — nay, safe guarding and strength- ening the independence of each State — must find direct and forcible expression in the establishment of an international court backed by an internat- ional army and navy which are placed entirely under its control. I may be allowed to quote what on this point I published in 1899 (The Expansion of Western Ideals etc. p. 105) in a sketch of how this federa- tion of civilised States might be realised in the institution of one central international tribunal with a corresponding power to enforce its decis- ions : **It is thus that the expansion of Western ideals will ultimately tend towards the supreme goal of the World's Peace ; and I maintain in all sincerity of conviction, that it is through the introduction of the United States into this great expanding 176 movement, and through, as a first step, the realis- ation of the English-speaking Brotherhood, that this ultimate goal is most likely to be attained. "When, within the last decade, colonial expan- sion more and more asserted itself as the domin- ant motive power in the policy of European na- tions, the lovers of progress and peace were struck with horror at the appearance of this new Levia- than, this great enemy of humanity, that threat- ened to furnish a continuance of causes for inter- necine warfare after the dynastic rivalries had died away, and when the racial and territorial dif- ferences seemed to be gradually losing their vir- ulent energy in Europe. It looked as if we were entering into a chaotic period of Universal Grab, in which each nation would rush in to seize all the spoils it could carry, and would frequently have to drop them in order to fight its equally voracious neighbour. This gloomy view has been completely dispelled for the prospect of a real English-speak- ing Brotherhood. For, as regards colonial expan- sion, I can see the English-speaking conception of colonisation is clear opposition, in the domain of material interests as well as in that of ideas and ideals, to that of the Continental European Pow- ers. And this common ground of thought, feeling and action will of necessity tend to bind the Eng- lish-speaking peoples together. Through it I look forward to much more than an Anglo-Saxon Al- liance. I can see the day when there will be a great confederation of the independent and self- governing English-speaking nations, made clearly recognisable and effective to the outer world b}^ some new form of international corporation, which statesmen and jurists will be able to devise when the necessity of things calls for it. For, day by day, this union of the English-speaking peoples is becoming more of an accom-plished fact in the so- cial and economical life of the people themselves. 177 Consider the strength of such a confederation! Who will say nay to it I And the stronger it is, the better for the peace of the world ; it will insure this more effectually than any number of Peace Congresses convoked by the mightiest of mon- archs. ''Step by step this power will advance, binding the nations together, not severing them. For it will be based upon ideas which unite, and not upon race which severs. And all those who share these ideas are ipso facto a part of this union; Ger- many, which stands before the world as a great leader of human intelligence will be with us. France, which overthrew mediaeval feudalism and first raised the torch of freedom, will be with us in spite of the tragic crisis through which it is at present passing, when vicious reaction is contend- ing with delirious anarchy ; — for it must never be forgotten that the France of today produced the Picquarts, Zolas, and many other heroes who fought for the sanctity of justice. Thousands of Russians, their numbers constantly swelling, will be with us in spirit, and the spirit will force its essence into inert matter ; these leaders will edu- cate the people until they will modify (let us hope gradually) the spirit of their own government. ' *■ Then we shall be prepared to make an end of war ; because behind the great humanitarian idea there will be the power to safe-guard these ideas. *No right without might' is a cynical aphorism of which history has proved the truth. To be effec- tive, the law must have behind it the power to en- force its decisions. It is so in national law, and it will be so in international law. ''Let us allow our 'dream' to materialise still further. I can see this great Confederacy of the future established permanently with its local hab- itation, let us say on one of the islands — the Azores, Bermuda, the Canaries, Madeira. And 178 here will be sitting the great Court of Arbitration, composed of most eminent men from all the na- tions in the Confederacy. Here will be assembled, always ready to carry into effect the laws enacted, an international army, and an international fleet — the police of the world's highways. No recalcit- rant nation (then, and only then, will the nations be able to disarm) could venture to oppose its will to that of this supreme representative of justice. Perhaps this court may develop into a court oi appeals, dealing not only with matters of state. The function of this capital to the great Confed- eracy will not only concern war, but peace as well. There will be established here 'Bureaux' repre- senting the interests which all the nations have in common. As regards commerce and industry, they will distribute throughout the world important in- formation concerning the supply and demand of the world's markets, and counteracting to some extent the clumsy economical chaos which now causes so much distress throughout the world. Science and art, which are ever the most effective bonds between civilised peoples, will there find their international habitation, and here will be es- tablished the great international unversities, and libraries, and museums. There will be annual ex-^ hibitions of works of art and industry, so that the nations, comparatively so ignorant of each other's work now, should leern fully to appreciate each other. And at greater intervals there will be greater exhibitions and international meetings, the modem form of the Olympic games. The Am- phyctionic Council of Delphi, as well as the Olym- pic Games of the small Greek communities, will find their natural and unromantic revival in this centre of civilisation, this tangible culminating point of Western Ideals. Thus will the World's. Peace be insured, the nations be brought together,, and the ancient inherited prejudices and hatreds: be stamped out from the face of the earth. ' ' 179 The great Amphyctionic Council, into whose hands all the civilised States will, by mutual con- sent, place the power to enforce its enactments, will consist of the supreme judges delegated by each State. It may at once be questioned whether these international delegates are to be appointed for life, or for a definite term : by whom they are to be appointed ; and in what proportion they are to represent the several States'? 1. As to the duration of their office, it appears to me advisable that the first appointment be made for a definite period ; but that after this test they should receive the security of tenure and the consequent status, prestige and independence which accompany a life position. Of course there would be definite grounds, of incompetence or dis- honesty, on which they could be removed from of- fice. 2, It might prove most practical that the first appointment as a privilege and a grave respon- sibility, be vested in the head of each State, and that it should clearly be understood that, by per- sonal capacity, by training, and by achievement, by prominence in the State, and by integrity of ■character, the appointee be the highest represen- tative whom each head of State can select for such an office. In any case, it would always be desirable that he should not be tainted from the outset by party politics and be merely the repre- sentative of the government which happens at the time to be in power in each State. In fact one supreme qualification should be that the adminis- tration of justice in its highest conception should be the ruling function of one thus chosen to rep- resent each nation on this highest tribunal, and that he distinctly does not hold the mandate to 180 act as council for each separate State in asserting and pushing the interests of that State irrespec- tive of general justice. It therefore becomes de- sirable that the body of these international judges itself should, as a body, have some power in the selection of the individual judge. Though it would not be practical to put into their hands the initial selection in each country, there ought to be given to the body as a whole the power to deter- mine whether the appointee is persona grata or not, a practice such as is now followed as regards acceptance of a foreign diplomatic representative by a State. Whatever method of appointment in each country, and the admission into the body as a whole, may be adopted, at all times the fact ought to be impressed, that the national repre- sentative on this body is to be truly representa- tive of the highest character and standing in the eyes of the nation from which he comes, and of the world at large. 3. It would, furthermore, have to be decided in what proportion the several States are to be rep- resented. Great care will have to be taken — es- pecially in the light of our most recent experi- ences — that the smaller states be duly represen- ted and their interests be not entirely submerged into those of the greater states and empires. Still, unless good reasons can be urged to the con- trary, it would probably be most practical and just, that the representatives be chosen in pro- portion to the number of inhabitants of each country. For, after all, in the ultimate concep- tion of such an International Court it would be humanity at large which is represented and each man in every one of the several States could thus claim a share of representation. 181 In the suggestion which I published some years ago for such an international organization, and which I have reproduced above, I enumerated for the local habitation of this International Court several Islands. Of course it is desirable that topographically the neutrality and international character of such a habitation and centre of jur- isdiction and power should be duly regarded and accentuated. From this point of view it would be desirable that, out of consideration for the Amer- ican Continent, this abode should not be too near to Europe, or so near that it, as it were, forms a dependency of any one State or group of States. Still, considering the facilities of intercommunica- tion, constantly increasing, and the fact that the sea no longer separates but even unites, this con- sideration need not weigh too heavily. Moreover, other attributes may be of still greater impor- tance. These are the suitability of any one site to respond to the full and varied life in every as- pect of its expression, and the dignity and impor- tance and high scale of living to which it ought to attain. To this must be added the strategic ef- ficiency of such a centre for purposes of defen- sive and offensive power to carry out the enact- ments of the Court. There would, of course, be subsidiary military and naval stations distributed all over the globe and under the immediate con- trol of the Central Tribunal, so that, in every part of the world, the decision could without loss of time be effectively enforced. It might not be nec- essary even to choose an island though large and well fortified harbours for the fleet would be an indispensable condition in the choice. Among the islands, however, it might be suggested that, un- less for the reason stated above the United States 182 might object, one of the larger Channel Islands or the whole group of them might prove most op- propriate. To recommend them still further : the admirable temperate climate and the natural beauties which they contain could be a great rec- ommendation in their favor. Of supreme importance for the main purposes of such an International Court would be the army and navy, always at the beck and call of this Court, and ever ready to coerce or to strike in support of the maintenance of International Law. Such an army and such a navy, interaational in character, to which each State would contribute pro rata, would of course, have to be stronger by far than any one of the armies which by mutual consent each State would be authorized to main- tain to uphold within its own country internal or- der — stronger even than any combination of sev- eral of these States. It would of course include military and naval air-craft and would constantly be kept in the highest state of efficiency. At any moment this great power could be hurled at any delinquent state to crush the culprit. Even if it were conceivable that the recalcitrant State or States would muster their forces in opposition to its authority, it is hardly conceivable that, with the co-operation of all the States siding with this central authority, any one State or group of States could long withstand. But as a matter of fact, when once duly established in reality, and when continuous practice and authority had in the course of years impressed this upon all civilised nations so that its existence and traditions formed part of the consciousness of all the peoples throughout the civilised world, opposition to such a Court would be even much more unlikely than 183 an occasional revolt of individuals or bodies against the police or law within a well regulated State. As I have urged before, one of the strong- est arguments in favour of such an international organisation, which will and must carr}^ weight with every nation throughout the civilised world, is not based upon abstract justice or reason and the revolt against the senseless slaughter of hu- man beings (which all right-minded people are now feeling) : but upon the fact that armaments, as they now exist and which have been supposed to be the means of keeping the peace, and the only means of avoiding the lawlessness of man left to his fighting instincts, are sapping the resources of every State and casting unbearable burdens upon the laborers and producers of national wealth. The cost to each individual nation for its con- tribution to these international armaments will be infinitesimal compared to that now weighing upon each separate State, and will be easily borne by each one of them. It is nothing more than the simple application of co-operation and economy of power which has been ruling and is ruling the development of modern commerce and industry. I may leave it to the imagination of every reader to build up for himself the wonderful dis- play of civilised life which such an international centre will create for the world, such as in a few words I have endeavoured slightly to indicate in the passage quoted above. The beneficent activ- ity of such an international centre in directions other than those of immediate legislation and of the protection of international right and law, will readily be realised. The genius of ancient Ath- ens, though no doubt primarily Greek (and this ancient Greece of those days already includes the 184 conflux of many different civilisations), in the hey-day of Athenian culture, was to a great ex- tent due to the fact that the various people — work- men, artisans, artists, philosophers — flocked there from Asia Minor and other parts of the ancient world, and contributed their share of new creative impulse and of vigorous co-operation in the cause of art and culture to the making of the Periclean Age. The common habitation would lead to the facile intercourse of representatives from every nationality; the consequent attraction of visitors, from all parts of the world who would feel that this was no strange country, but that they shared in its common life, would not only counteract nar- rowness and provincialism of feeling and thought,, but would actively stimulate a widening and in- tensified advance in the direction of human sym- pathy, culture and brotherhood. It would, and ought to, become the supreme home and centre for all intellectual life, as there would be created here a clearing-house for all higher endeavour, centered in vast buildings and institutions representing the best and the most beautiful that modern civilisa- tion can produce. The final and less immediate outcome of the activities emanating in every di- rection of human life from this common center is so stupendous and far-reaching, that the imagi- nation staggers in the beatitude of vision rising before our eyes. And it is not only in the great and manifest actions of international and common life, but even in every one of the smallest byways of human activities and human interests that these influences would realise themselves actually and practically, not merely in the world of dreams. I fully realise that there is one great stumbling 185 block to this advance in civilisation and the reali- sation of such unity of international effort and power. This is to be found in the question of lan- guage. It is typified by the Tower of Babel. The ancient Hebrews were led by a correct instinct when they attempted to erect such a tower. But we all know that they failed in this endeavour. Languages will always unite or separate, and dif- ference of language may prevent complete un- derstanding between the peoples. In so far it w^ill prevent complete international understand- ing and international fusion. On the other hand, as I insisted upon the desirability of developing and maintaining individuality throughout the na- tions — which of itself would in no way suffer from wider federation — so I do not think that it would in any way be desirable to check the expression of national individuality by obliterating national language. Still less could it be ever contemplated to deprive ourselves of the treasures of human thought and art which have taken actual form in the national literature of each people. But we cannot doubt that the need of one common lan- guage for all civilised peoples remains. Even the Hague Convention has been enabled to do its work in spite of the great divergence in the languages of its representatives. More and more as time goes on, and the more real the need and the feel- ing for a great international confederation be- comes, until finally we attain to its realisation in such an International Court endowed with the power to coerce all nations into conformity with its supreme dictates, the necessity for one com- mon language, co-existing with all other national languages will make itself felt. Whether this will lead to the establishment of such a language as 186 Volapuq or Esperanto, whether it will be natur- ally developed by the action of physical and men- tal conditions within the ci\'ilised world by a slow process of evolution, or whether any one existing modem language will for one reason or the other, assert its predominance and become established as this language of international intercourse; the fact of its undeniable need will make itself felt more and more as time goes on. The French language has for a long time been adopted as the language of diplomacy; but there exists consid- erable opposition to its universal use. The Middle Ages, or rather the beginnings of the Renaissance, prove the value and the efficiency of such a dominating language. In this case it was the property of the lettered or learned, or of the superior classes, beginning with tlie clerks who held in their hand the all-powerful factor in life, namely, the education of the young. More- over, they had, as a substratum of such in-ternat- ional unity the organisation of the Catholic Church spread over the whole civilised world. Beginning with the Church and its priests, how- ever, the knowledge of this common language ex- tended to a considerable degree among the ruling classes. The result was — to take but one type of most definite and direct influence on the national mind throughout the whole world by one man or a group of men, the bearers of great thought — the result was, that Erasmus could travel, converse and lecture throughout the whole of Europe, oc- cupy a chair in the University of Cambridge, in- fluence the leaders of thought, at one with him in his great endeavour of world reform (not only, or chiefly, reform of sectarian religion) ; in his na- tive Holland, in Germany, in Switzerland, and in 187 Italy, directly affecting by his thought and his teaching people of every class in all these coun- tries, and finally fixing and perpetuating this in- fluence in laying down in his books what he had to say in a language intelligible to the readers of all nations. He and the Oxford reformers real- ised this international power and cherished in- ternational aims not very distant from those which we cherish at this moment. He and his fel- low militants also realised fully the power for good which was vested in a church that was catholic — i. e., universal, international, human. But his chief object was to use it for the human- ising of humanity, not the vicious confirmation of separatism, nationalistic or sectarian, in religion. The supreme aim of these great men was to hu- manise and to educate the clerks who were the teachers of the rising generations and, through them, ultimately to raise mankind higher. So clear and strong was the faith of these men in this final mission, that Moore really sacrificed his life, because he was opposed to nationalism, to Chau- vinism which threatened to rob humanism of its catholic and universal effectiveness, to dehuman- ise the spirit of refining love in mankind and to give full sway to the spread of national and local hatred, ending, as it did, in endless wars through- out the world. Erasmus and his followers possessed the one great strength of a common international lan- guage, which, though it was not destined to help them directly and completely to realise their great and beneficent aims, did undoubtedly contribute to what may perhaps be the greatest advance in civilisation which the world has yet seen since the days of ancient Hellas. 188 It is quite impracticable and utterly unrealis- able to restore the Latin language to life, and, af- ter spreading it throughout the whole world in the education of the young, to leave it in the course of actual evolution to wdden out and modify itself in this process of life, so that it should adapt itself to all the needs of modern in- tercourse and thus contribute a most powerful element to the realisation of our final ideals? It cannot be a disadvantage that it was the bearer of great ideas throughout the Middle Ages, the whole of the Christian civilisation ; that it was the linguistic expression of the widest diffusion of civilisation through the greatest organised instru- ment of civilisation, namely, the Roman Empire. Nor even can it be a disadvantage that it should, to a certain degree, contain and reflect in itself — sometimes only the shadow instead of the reality — the highest spirit of Hellenism. I will be per- sonal and confess that I should have preferred Grreek to Latin, because I deem those elements of higher civilisation embodied in the term Hellen- ism more important for humanity that is to be found in any other language. But a moment's thought will tell us that practically this would be impossible. The mere fact of such a differ- ence of alphabet between Greek and Latin would be of the greatest practical effect as regards the comparative facilities of introducing either. But the Latin alphabet and the Latin script have pene- trated throughout the wiiole of the civilised world and must be acquired by every schoolboy and schoolgirl to whatever nation they may belong. It was not merely pedantry or theatrical roman- ticism which led Bismarck to attempt to drive out the Latin alphabet from writing and print- .189 ing — as far as he was able to do so — in Germany, and to restore Gothic characters. It was not merely meant to be an aid internally to consoli- date Germanenthtim : but it was already a direct anticipation of the dreams of the present Allde- utsche party, to force Pan-Germanism upon the whole civilised world: first, by blood and iron; then by gold and commercial concessions and pro- motions ; and finally by the forcible sup^-emacy of the German Kultur which even a Nietzsche con- sidered inferior to that of the Latin races. In spite of his efforts, no German who can read and write is unacquainted with Latin script. Surely we need not construct a modern language in our study when for countless ages and in the present day the ancient Latin language, never for one moment dead in European history, is still with us, and though asleep still lives and can readily be aroused from its slumbers and assist in the great and peaceful battle which will lead to the final victory of civilised humanity. 190 PART II. The Inadequacy of Modern Morals Nietzsche CHAPTER I All that I have written hitherto to define the conditions now prevailing in civilised life which have led to this disastrous war has confined what I have said at the beginning in the Introduction (pp. 11-14) : that we have to go deeper down to find the essential and underlying causes. For the one great fact must have impressed itself through all the phases and aspects of the enquiry as we have hitherto pursued it — namely, that there is a hiatus, if not a direct contradiction, be- tween our faith and professions and our actions, which did not exist in former ages to the same degree; that civilised humanity is at sea regard- ing its most important ideas and ideals ; and that we are no longer possessed of efficient Faith, the Faith which inspired the Crusaders in the past or the Madhists in modern times. Yet, we all of us, the representatives of Western civilisation, manifest this conflict and contradiction between our ultimate beliefs and our direct course of ac- tion. Nor is the fault merely or mainly to be sought for in our actions and in our inability to live up to the principles on the part of the best and the most thoughtful among us; but it lies chiefly in the fact that our ideals are no longer believed in, that they are not our actual ideals. When we consider the writings or the intellec- tual achievements of philosophers, social reform- 191 ers and artists, who have either had the greatest influence in the fashioning of the intellectual tem- per of our age, or are at least most indicative of its peculiar trend, we find that their main strength and their main influence lie in a negative direc- tion, namely, in the revolt against the dominance of our rules, canons, and philosophies of lies, which no longer fit the needs of the modern world and no longer respond to our actual convictions of what is truest and best. There can be no doubt that the social reform- ers, the great writers and thinkers on philosophy, politics and social questions in the second half of the nineteenth century down to our owti days, have in the main not been constructive, but criti- cal and negative. The nineteenth century and our own days will be noted in history, not so much for their positive achievement in world-reform, not for the solution of questions and problems, as for the putting and formulation of these questions and problems.^ It corresponds very much in this respect to the eighteenth century in France and elsewhere, in which the ''encyclopaedists," po- litical philosophers and educational reformers of the type of Rousseau formulated the main ques- tions by means of their criti-cism of the ancient regime, the positive answers themselves being given by the French and American Revolutions at the end of that century. This criticism of the fundamental standards and ideals governing modern life, culminating in the definite putting of the question to which the future is to give an adequate reply, does not only concern the economic aspect of modem life, the (1) See Article in New York Times, 1910, "The World's Changes in the last Fifty Years." 192 distribution of wealth and the freedom of assert- ing the right to physical existence on the part of individuals; it is not only represented by the writings and the direct influence of Lasalle and Carl Marx and of the theorists and publicists of modern economical schools forming the theoreti- cal basis for socialist and even anarchist agita- tion ; it is not only manifested in the powerful im- peachment of commercialism and capitalism which tyrannise over the inner economic life of eacli nation and community and which extend their dominating influences over all international relations; but it clearly shows itself in the main character and direction of thought in the writers and historians on philosophy, on ethics individual and social, in the direct preachings of historians and social reformers — nay, even in the spirit of the work of great artists and in the theories of writers on art. The one point which all these leaders and fash- ioners of modern thought have in common, how- ever divergent their positive and more definite views may be, is a protest against the existing or- der of things, the more or less conscious feeling and conviction that the fundamental and guiding principles of our life are not truly expressive of the needs of modern man, of the best that he can feel, and think, and do. They thus vary in the directness and truthfulness, and even the blunt- ness, with which they attack the traditions and conventions which the modern world retains and accepts from the past and to which, in conformity with the laws of a well regulated society, moral, or at least decent and respectable, members bow in slavish obedience. From August Comte, (who boldly ventures far beyond into the constructive 193 realm of a positive philosophy which endeavours to supply a system to replace what his criticism destroys), through Schopenhauer and von Hart- mann to Wagner, Ibsen and Nietzsche, and to Tol- stoy (who is the complete antithesis to Nietzsche), and also to Maeterlink, we have the same protest as regards the recognition of the inadequacy of our ideals, our faith and religion as bearing upon the social ethics of the modem •civilised world. These writers and artists differ only as regards the characteristics and personal divergence in the intensity with which they op- pose the existing order of things according to the intellectual atmosphere of their professed style of work or the artistic temperament of their per- sonalities. In a more attenuated, though none the less powerful and effective, form, the same spirit and ethos are manifested in England in the writings of Herbert Spencer and Mill, of Carlyle and Ruskin and Morris, of George Eliot, and even of Matthew Arnold ; while the stupendous achieve- ments in the natural sciences, notably in the es- tablishment of the Darwinian theory, immediately incited their application to moral and social prob- lems by such brilliant exponents as Huxley and W. K. Clifford, finding a powerful echo in Ger- many in the w^ritings of Heckel. At the same time, the continuous attacks of the numerous writ- ers directly opposing religious orthodoxy throughout the last century, beginning with Strauss and R«nan, received the most powerful, though involuntary, support from the growth of scholarly historical criticism, sharpened and strengthened by all the methods of modern scien- tific enquiry, within the theological camp itself — nay, within the very strongholds of sects and 194, churches; until we find that the Roman Catholic Church itself is aroused to the full exertion of all its energy and power to quell the modernist move- ment within its own body. Whatever divergence may exist among these great men, their mentali- ties and their writings, the main fact stands out clearly and irrefutably: that the existing order of things is recognised as inadequate and must be reformed and adapted to the new order of the world. Where these pioneers or iconoclasts dif- fer is in the degree in which they consciously mani- fest this opposition and in the boldness of their attack upon the traditions hitherto recognised as indispensible to the maintenance of civilised so- ciety and morality. The attention which they arouse and the effect which they produce are, from the nature of great movements in man 's his- tory (alas that it should be so) ! dependent upon the boldness — nay, the exaggeration — with which they thus attack the common traditions in which man lives at the time. Luther will always have a more immediate and powerful influence than Erasmus ; though the confirmed optimist may con- sole himself with the fact that idtiniately — though it may be a long time — Erasmus will prevail ; and though it may even be shown that Luther's influ- ence would not have been what it was, unless he had absorbed some of the best that was in Eras- mus. Thus it is that of all these writers and thinkers there may for the time being have had the greatest influence, at all events in Germany, namely, Ibsen, the Dane, Wagner and Nietzsche ; while Schopenhauer and von Hartmann are their immediate precursors. Though Ibsen is concerned with many other aspects of modem life, in which he wishes to snb- 195 stitute for the dead and utterly inadequate tra- ditions, the living and hopeful freedom of man's natural instincts and justified desires to self reali- sation, it is chiefly concerning the relation between the sexes that his dramatic writings have exerted the greatest influence upon modern society. The same applies to Wagner. Both, either by the ruthlessness of their attacks or by the penetrat- ing forcefulness of their artisti-e forms, succeeded in arresting the attention of the thinking world, nay, far beyond this world, the large mass of un- thinking, but strongly feeling men and women. Still, it was chiefly in this particular aspect of modern life that their criticism of existing stand- ards was most effective. Wagner no doubt began his attack on the sterile formalities of our past inheritance in his own narrower and immediate domain of art when, as a most perfect typical ren- dering of his own artistic struggle, he produced the immortal creation of Die Meister^inger in which his new art breaks through the fet- ters of a conventionalised and respectable bour- geois art that blocked the way. No doubt also in the Ring of the Nihelungen, Siegfried stands as the embodiment of vigorous untrammelled power of human life and courage, filled with truth as with energy, against whom, like a new Prome- theus, the powers of the eifete gods could no longer withstand in their dead and formalized privileges of tradition. It appears to me to be beyond all doubt, that, however independent may be the creative genius of Nietzsche, it is from Siegfried that he derived the inspiration for his Superman. And we can well understand how he should have turned against his great artistic in- spirer when the latter produced his Parzifal. For 196 Parzifal is a corrective afterthought, in which the rule of nature and of pure force in man is supple- mented by charity, by the spirit of altruism, so hateful to Nietzsche, by the spirit of service to our fellowmen and to mankind at large, the core and centre of Christian faith. Though artistically the theoretical embodiment of such an idea in a dra- matic and musical form is a failure, and marks in so far a downward step in the artistic achieve- ment of Wagner, despite the great individual beauties in some of the music, there can be no doubt that it is thus meant to be a supplement and corrective to his world philosophy. Except through the direct or indirect influence upon Nietzsche, Wagner's effect upon the w^orld at large as a social reformer w^as like that of Ibsen, mainly concerned with the relation between man and woman, and finds its highest expression, both philosophically and artisti-eally, in Tristan und Isolde. But in Nietzsche we have the complete, fearless: and logical construction of this general revolt against the whole fabric of the religious, moral and social traditions ruling the modern world. It is put, moreover, in a form made lyrically dra- matic in his own personality w^hich is essentially obtruded into every phase of his theoretical ex- position, professedly philosophical. His w^ritings primarily belong to the domain of art, to almost the same degree as do the w^orks of Wagner; and, if he live at all in the future, it will chiefly be as a prose poet, such as, in a vastly different character and atmosphere, Ruskin will live among the Eng- lish-reading public. His personality, probably in real life, and un- doubtedly in the lyric and dramatic form in which 197 it manifests itself in the enunciation of his philo- sophic views, is, above all, filled with the desire for absolute truthfulness and fearlessness in the enunciation of truth. His aim, above all, is to assert independence and absolute freedom from prejudice, which he finds prevailing and dominat- ing the respectable world in which he lives. This truthfulness of diction takes the form of bravado, by the insistence upon his fearlessness, in flying in the face of established conventions, in shocking the sensibilities of his audience ; and he wishes to assert this fearlessness, not only to his hearers, but also to himself. He is thus constantly spur- ring himself on and insisting on correctness of his views and aims; not perhaps consciously, to at- tract the attention of his astonished readers, but to keep the faith in his own cause and to keep out the enemy of compromise and conformity, or of consideration for the feelings of others. He thus tells himself, as well as the world, how right he is and constantly affirms it. The difference in this respect between him and other writers is, that most authors assume they must be right or else they would not write at all. Others proceed im- personally to give their own convictions to the world. But Nietzsche must be personal above all things, and must give consistency and artistic unity to his ideas (though he constantly and glar- ingly fails in this from the very obtrusion of his tickle and nervous personality), by pushing his personality into the foreground of artistic com- position and making it the bearer of uncompro- mising truthfulness in face of the dominant pre- judice and conventions of the world. It therefore becomes, not an eccentric whim or trick, but an organic element in the artistic composition and 198 exposition of his work, that he should boldly as- sert and constantly repeat the fact, that he is "so wise," *'so skilful," "That he writes such excel- lent books" and, in short, is "a Fatality." Still his assertions and statements, always to be under- stood as the direct emanations from his own per- sonality, are subject to the variations and moods of a personality, especially of one so highly ner- vous and imaginative; and his most emphatic statements are therefore not necessarily the tru- est, either to himself or to his doctrine. In fact his constant opposition to idealism and his hatred of it clash with the central idea of his whole human doctrine as embodied in the Super- man. For his Superman is distinctly and directly the outcome of idealism; though it be the one- sided idealism of a narrow and distorted kind, in which the process of isolation of phenomena, when applied to the organic world or to human nature, deprives man of his very organic quality in omit- ting or igTioring some of his essential attributes. He may tell us distinctly and emphatically that "Idealism is foreign to me";^ he may again and again inveigh against idealism as the arch enemy : but he still remains a pure idealist. Yet his is the idealisation of physiological man, not moral and intellectual man — the ideal of the strong man de- void of all feeling for his fellowmen, as well as chivalry towards his equals and his w^eaker breth- ren. This absolutely one-sided conception of the human being, and the consistent idealization of this one side only in human nature and in human life, lead to the grotesque caricature of the or- ganic nature of human life, by depriving it of its essential and leading characteristics which differ- (1 ) Ecce Homo, p. 82. 199 entiate man from animal. It is a misapplication and a misconception of Darwinian principles of evolution, or it is an anticipation, for in this case, it would have been such, of the modern principles of eugenics, in which only physical and physiologi- cal conditions are contemplated in the improve- ment of the individual man and of the human race. The Superman is thus an idealisation of man; but the fundamental mistake is that it idealises only the forceful and physical side, and omits in his mental and moral constitution those essential ele- ments of love and spirituality, of social and intel- lectual altruism, which are the crowning results in man's evolution, leading to the advancement of the human race, human society, and mankind as a whole towards the realisation of most perfect man- hood, the true Superman. There is always this danger in forecasting the future of man and in directing the improvement of the race by the application of exact science; that the more complex the constituents in the study of nature are, (when once we enter the or- ganic sphere or rise still higher into that of science, will, intelligence, morality and idealism), these more complex and none the less essential at- tributes cannot receive their due consideration in our forecasts of the prospective direction of pres- ent life to mould the future. It is most difft-sult, in fact practically impossible to determine the ''ideal" of each species in the animal world. But even when we come to comparatively so simple a phase of eugenistic activity as the breeding of ani- mals, whose sphere of utility and admitted pur- pose — that which Aristotle would have called their evreXexe'ia — are clearly manifest and clearly admitted, we may fail, as breeders are con- 200 stantly failing, in our conclusions and purpose,, because we do not consider the more elusive and uncontrollable "moral factors." The horse and the dog and similar animals are intelligently bred for purposes of strength, or fleetness, or appear- ance (itself essentially modified by these primary considerations). But, as the horse is to be used by us to draw vehicles, to be an agreeable or safe mount as a hack, or a skilful, intrepid and equally docile hunter, or even as a draught horse to be readily guided and turned by his attendant for a variety of uses, the temper and "moral nature," which are conditions of such docility and use, are of supreme importance in its ultimate purpose and in the ideal of its existence. And yet, how many breeders ever consider the question of pro- ducing the desirable "character" in the breeding of horses. They may go so far as occasionally to exclude the grossly vicious horse for purposes of breeding, as the useless and even destructive crim- inal in "equine society." Yet, when does it oc- cur to the breeder seriously and practically to con- template and consider the question of tempera- ment and the mixing of temperaments — of cour- age with docility, of rapid intelligence with stead- iness of control — to produce and improve the race of animals, the destination of which, the ideal pur- pose of whose existence, is so clearly defined by human use and so simple and recognisable in the limited number of such uses? Wlien, however, we come to the human being — to civilised man living amid all the varied and complex conditions of modern life, of vast societies and nations, and of the recognisable future of humanity, to eliminate from the ideal type of man the moral and social elements which are to guide and direct his in- 201 sdiicts, passions and health, what we call Morality and idealism — implies a farcically inadequate conception of a human being as such. Still, Nietzsche in this dithyrambic and rhap- sodical, this lyrical and dramatic exaggeration of his bold and wide philosophic or — as he would call it — ''psychological," generalisation, escapes this manifest condemnation of elementary nonsense when we remember that the main purpose and motive, if not justification, of his whole theory of life is to be found in his bold and uncompromising protest against the inadequacy of contemporary moral standards. As an instance of intellectual -courage in his own personality, (the dramatic cen- tre of all his writings), he puts this protest in the <;:learest and most emphatic form : ^ "My life-task is to prepare for humanity one supreme moment in which it can come to its senses, a Great Noon in which it will turn its gaze back- wards and forwards, in which it will step from under the yoke of accident and of priests, and for the first time set the question of the Why and Wherefore of humanity as a whole — this life-task naturally follows out of the conviction that man- kind does oiot get on the right road of its own ac- cord, that it is by no means divinely ruled, but rather that it is precisely under the cover of its most holy valuations that the instinct of negation, of corruption, and of degeneration has held such seductive sway. The question concerning the ori- gin of moral valuations is therefore a matter of the highest importance to me because it deter- mines the future of mankind. The demand made upon us to believe that everything is really in the best hands, that a certain book, the Bible, gives us the definite and comforting assurance that (1) Ecce Homo, p. 93. Translated by A. M. Ludovici and •edited by Dr. Oscar Levy. 202 there is a Providence that wisely rules the fate of man — when translated back into reality amounts simply to this, namely, the will to stifle the truth which maintains the reverse of all this, which is that hitherto man has been in the worst possible hands, and that he has been governed by the phys- iologically botched, the men of cunning and burn- ing revengefulness, and the so-called 'saints' — those slanderers of the world and traducers of humanity. The definite proof of the fact that the priest (including the priest in disguise, the phil- osopher) has become master, not only within a certain limited religious •community, but every- where, and that the morality of decadence, the will to nonentity, has become morality per se, is to be found in this: that altruism is now an absolute value, and egoism is regarded with hos- tility everywhere. He who disagrees with me on this ipo'int, I regard as infected. But all the world disagrees with me. To a physiologist a like an- tagonism between values admits of no doubt. If the most insignificant organ within the body neg- lects, however slightly, to assert with absolute cei- tainty its self-preservative powers, its recupera- tive claims, and its egoism, the whole system de- generates. The physiologist insists upon the re- moval of degenerated parts, he denies all fellow- feeling for such parts, and has not the smallest feeling of pity for them. But the desire of the priest is precisely the degeneration of the whole of mankind; hence his preservation of that which is degenerate^ — this is what his dominion costs hu- manity. What meaning have those lying concept.^:, those handmaids of morality, 'Soul', 'Spirit', 'Free will', 'God', if their aim is not the physio- logical ruin of mankind? When earnestness is diverted from the instincts that aim at self-preser- vation and an increase of bodily energy, i. e., at an increase of life; when anaemia is raised to an ideal 203 and the contempt of the body is construed as 'the salvation of the soul,' what is all this if it is not a recipe for decadence? Loss of ballast, resist- ance offered to natural instincts, selfishness, in fact — this is what has hitherto been known as morality. With The Dawn of Day I first engaged in a struggle against the morality of self-renuncia- tion." We can well understand how, with this spirit of antagonism to the moral laws and ideals that now govern civilised society, his Superman should have taken this one-sided and caricatured form. If Nietzsche were now alive and would allow me to use the German vernacular of which he is such a master, I am sure he would admit a gentle modi- fication of his views on the ideal man of the fu- ture. The terms of which I would remind him in his own language would be understood by good Germans of whom there must be many, who will condemn this war when once they have realised how it was begun, the forty years of systematic brutal and immoral, nay, perfidious, preparation for it by the leaders of their own people. When the materials for judging are no longer withheld from them, they will be able to recognise the rights and wrongs of its immediate beginnings, the fact that the much-hated England was free from all responsibility for it, (though the German officers for years asserted premeditated animosity against us) ; when they have realised the mon- strous injustice towards Belgium and the in- human pillages perpetrated by their arms during this war upon defenceless people ; all these people will understand, what Nietzsche the man, I am sure, understood and felt, when I appeal for the making of the ideal future man to Menschendiehe 204 that their hearts will thrill in response at the sim- ple phrases : ein guter Mensch, ein gut-herziger Mensch; and their best taste will appreciate the supreme value of ein feiner Mensch, ein fein-fiih- lender Mensch. For all these terms there is no room in the composition of Nietzsche's Super- man; though I strongly suspect that Nietzsche the man and Nietzsche the gentleman, would at once have responded to these terms, however much he endeavoured to suppress and hide his approval of them in theory. It is difficult to gauge the exact extent of the in- fluence of Nietzsche upon the moral views and the practical conduct of the present generation of Grernians. Some judges, w4io are in a position to know, maintain that it is very great ; others that it is not. There can be no doubt that since his death in 1889 he has been very widely read all over the world and especially in Germany, and that to some of the younger generation his Also sprach Zarathustra has become almost a Bible, and, that not only men but women as well, have been strongly affected in their morals and their views of life, if not their conduct, by the powerful rhetoric and the undoubted beauty of his passion- ate German prose. Some may have fondly thought that they had the elements of the super- man or superwoman in themselves, others may have been genuinely convinced of the claims of the superman as an ideal and may even have re- solved that they would follow the master's dictates by their own suppression (Untergang) to further the event of the superman. But most of them were attracted by the promised freedom from the moral -conventions of the society in which they lived, which pressed heavily upon their strong 205 self-indulgent aspirations and by the convenient belief that to follow the natural instincts and pas- sions was of itself right. To a stronger and deeper degree than was the case with Ibsen's dramas and their opposition to the binding laws of conventional morality, there can be no doubt that the persuasive and lofty strength of Nietz- sche's rhetoric must have acted as a strong dis- solvent to the moral sense as we understand it and to every sense of impersonal duty and self- restraint. Still more difficult is it to determine how far Nietzsche is responsible for the part taken by the German people as a whole in this war and the frightfulness with which it is pursued. In so far as it is a popular war, it is based upon the convic- tion and the confidence of the people and their rulers of the existence and the absolute entity and unity of what they call their German Kultur; and furthermore of the superiority of this Kultur over the civilisation of all other nations. From this conviction the step is but a natural one to con- clude, that not only must it be guarded against destruction, interference or domination on the part of inferior civilisation — such as that of the Slav and even of the French and British — ; but that it ought to supersede and dominate — like a collective superman — the civilisation of the rest of the world, and as physical health is the first requirement for the production and the domin- ance of the superman, so physical or military power is the first requirement for the dominance of the superior German Kultur. Such, for in- stance, was, in a bold summary, the political phil- osophy of Treitschke and his followers. But Nietzsche did not consider German Kultur 206 superior to all others. On the contrary, he formed a very low estimate of German Kultur and the Germans, whom he called the Kultur-Phil- istines. He herein agreed with Goethe who, in his talk with Eckerman said: *'We Germans are of yesterday. No doubt in the last hundred years we have been cultivating ourselves quite dili- gently; but it may take a few centuries yet be- fore our countrymen have absorbed sufficient in- tellect and higher culture for it to be said of them that it is a long time since they were barbarians.'^ Nietzsche's estimate of German culture is a very low one. He values French thought and civilisa- tion much more highly. As regards what I should like to call, the Art of Living he even placed the Slav higher than the German, and was singularly proud of being descended from the Polish gentry. He is astonished that Schopenhauer could live in Germany. "Wherever Germany extends she ruins culture" he maintains. He even goes so far as to maintain that ' ' a German cannot know what music is. The men who pass as German musi- cians are foreigners — Slavs, Croats, Italians, Dutchmen or Jews." He even hinted that "Rich- ard Wagner, the glory of German nationalism, was of Jewish descent since his real father seems to have been his step-father Geyer.^ He believes only in French culture ; all other culture is a mis- nomer. Of English culture he apparently had a limited and no first-hand knowledge. It would therefore be difficult to claim Nietzsche in support of the German ideal causes of this great war. All German politicians and historians he regarded with aversion and contempt, especi- (1) See Brandes Friedrich Nietzsche, pp. 114 (seq). 207 ally the so-called anti-Semites. "There is," he says, ^ "Such a thing as the writing of history according to the lights of Imperial Germany; there is, I fear, anti-Semitic history — there is also history written with an eye to the Court, and Herr von Treitsclike is not ashamed of himself." Moreover, in contradistinction to the concep- tion of the state as the absolute entity from which all right of individual existence is derived, which forms the foundations of the theories of German historians and the practice of German Statesmen, Zarathustra loathed the State. To him ' ' the State is the coldest of all cold monsters. Its fundamen- tal lie is that it is the people. In the State, the slow suicide of all is called life. The State is for the many, too many. Only where the State leaves off does the man who is not superfluous begin; the man who is a bridge to the superman."^ He even inveighs against the love of country. ^ ' ' Exiles shall ye be from the fatherlands and your forefatherlands. Not the land of your fathers shall ye love, but your children's land." In spite of this we must believe that those who have been indoctrinated with Nietzsche's philoso- phy of the superman were morally well prepared to clamor for this war and to pursue it with the barbarian ruthlessness which has characterized it hitherto on the German side. Not because, after all, he was an artiller\nnan in the war of 1870; and, whether of Slav origin or an admirer of the French or not, he was still undeniably German in much of his mentality; nor even because he ex- tolled war as such. In this latter respect he cor- (1) Ecce Homo, p. 134. (2) Brandes, op. cit., p. 45 (seq), (3) Op cit., p. 47. 208 responds to his older contemporary, the philoso- pher Eduard von Hartmann, who exercised a great influence upon the German youth in the sec- ond half of the nineteenth century, and who may to some extent have influenced Nietzsche as well. I cannot do better than quote George Brandes' luminous exposition of the teachings of both these German philosophers: "Eduard von Hartmann believes in a beginning and end of the 'world process.' He concludes that no eternity can lie behind us ; otherw ise every- thing possible must already have happened, which — according to his contention — is not the case. In sharp contrast to him, on this point as on others, Zarathustra teaches, with, be it said, a somewhat shallow mysticism — which is derived from the an- cient Pythagoreans ' idea of the circular course of history and is influenced by Cohelet's Hebrew philosophy of life — the eternal recurrence; that is to say that all things eternally return and we ourselves with them, that we have already existed an infinite number of times and all things with us. The great clock of the universe is to him an hour-glass, which is constantly turned and runs out again and again. This is the direct antithesis of Hartmann 's doctrine of universal destruction, and curiously enough it was put forward at about the same time by two French thinkers : by Blan- qui in L'Eternite par tes Astres (1871), and by Gustave Le Bon in L'Hoynme et les Societes (1881). "Friedrich Nietzsche"—^. 48. The real influence of Nietzsche in producing the Germany of today, which is responsible for this war, is not so direct as regards the national atti- tude towards war, but is none the less effective in producing in those who have come under his in- fluence a moral which would account for its incep- 209 tion and the methods of its prosecution. On the negative side all idea of self-restraint, of the sup- pression of those instincts and passions which necessarily encourage envy and rapine, all consid- eration of the rights, the interests or the feelings of one's neighbour, all love and pity for man — all these hitherto accepted guides to conduct, are entirely suppressed. ^ On the positive side, however, the Will of Power is the supreme moral aim, as the desire for health and strength, for physiological life, are the su- preme physical goal. Between the ideal of the superman and its uncompromising colossal indivi- dualism, and those of the socialists, who consci- ously and definitely extol the supremacy of the proletariat as such, German national morals have contended with narrow Chauvinistic militant re- ( 1 ) "Spare not thj' neighbour ! My great love for the re- motest ones commaJids it. Thy neighbour is something that must be surpassed. "Say not: I will do unto others as I would they should do imto me. What thou doest, that can no man do to thee again. There is no requital. "Do not believe that thou mayst not rob. A right which thou canst seize upon, shalt thou never allow to be given thee. "Beware of good men. They never speak the truth. For all that they call evil — the daring venture, the prolonged distrust, the cruel Nay, the deep disgust with men, the \vi\\ and the power to cut into the quick — all this must be present where a truth is to be born." See Brandes' "Friedrich 'Nietzsche"- — p. 46. "Zarathustra is without mercy. It has been said: Push not a leaning waggon. But Zarathustra says: That which is ready to fall, shall ye also push. All that belongs to our day is falling and decaying. No one can preserve it, but Zarathustra will even help it to fall faster. "Zarathustra loves the brave. But not the bravery that taJies up every challenge. There is often more bravery in holding back and passing by and reserving one's self for a worthier foe. Zarathustra does not teach: Ye shall love your enemies, but: Ye shall not engage in combat with enemies ye despise. "Why so hard? men cry to Zarathustra. He replies: Why so hard, once said the charcoal to the diamond; are we not near of kin? The creators are hard. Their blessedness it is to press their hand upon future centuries as upon wax." "Friedrich Nietzsche" — p. 47. 210 ligious sects, unchristian in their fundamental spirit. Whenever these social forces divided among themselves the moral dominion of the peo- ple, the German ship of state would be cast from side to side in its course, rudderless, to the de- struction of itself and of the civilised world. Nietzsche's Individualism on the one side and un- compromising Socialism on the other, united in the Chauvinistic spirit both claim and aim at Power, and desire to wage relentless war against all opponents who stand in their way; Power is the immediate and supreme end of their aspira- tions. Of course between these two extremes lie, not the unthinking, low-minded, selfish, bourgeois Philistine without ideals; but the many clear- headed, warm-hearted and cultured Germans who have hitherto evoked the respect, the admiration, and even the affection, of the civilised world. These have not produced this war, excepting in so far as they have been completely misled by the suppression of truth and positive and systematic propagation of falsehood, not only in the imme- diate present and past but for many years before. As Brandes has pointed out:^ ''Nietzsche re- places Schopenhauer's Will to Life and Darwin's Struggle for Existence by the Will to Power. In his view the fight is not for life — bare existence — but for Power. And he has a great deal to say — somewhat beside the mark — of the mean and pal- try conditions those Englishmen must have had in view who set up the modest conception of the struggle for life. Here is to be found Nietzsche's contact with Darwin and his opposition to him; though there can be no doubt that the Darwinian theory was (1) Op. cit., p. 35. 211 to a very great extent responsible for his first conception of the superman. In the first place, however, it is based on a complete understanding of Darwin's own views. Darwin's theory of evo- lution was meant to furnish a scientific explana- tion of natural phenomena from a purely theoret- ical and scientific point of view. In so far it was not meant to be a practical or ethical guide to future conduct for man. It was eminently con- cerned with causation. Nietzsche's theory of the superman is nothing if not a practical and ethical attempt at fashioning man's conduct to lead to the production of the superman. It is chiefly tel- eological in character. The fundamental differ- ence between the two standpoints has long since been established, and has received the clearest exposition of their antithesis, in Kant's Kritic of Pure Reason on the one hand, and of his Kritic of Practical Reason on the other. Nietzsche's misunderstanding of Darwin's theory — if not his unfairness to him — consists in his attributing to Darwin's thoughts and writings a direct bearing upon ethical and practical problems of human life. This mistake has often been made before, and is constantly being made at the present moment by writers on ethics and pragmatics. It must al- ways be remembered that Science and pure phil- osophy endeavour to give a purely intellectual ex- planation of the world of phenomena, as well as of the world of nooumena, the world of facts and of thoughts, including even the theory of the uni- verse as well as of theology. Ethics, on the other hand, deals with what may be called ideal states, not with things as they are, but with things as man's best thought leads him to believe they ought to be: not with the ^v but with old eivat 212 del as Aristotle puts it. In its widest aspect this ethical activity leads toi the problem as to the final aim of all human existence, if not of the universe. But even this final aim — such will ever remain the limitations of man — must be the aim of the universe frofn man's point of view, the terrestrial man, not even the inhabitants of Mars ; though it must be from man's highest and ultimate power of thought. To Nietzsche the final aim of existence is the production of the superman. He is the Endzweck. 'Humanity must work unceasingly for the pro- duction of solitary great men, this and nothing else is its task.' But Nietzsche's superman could not have been conceived without the prevalent idea of evolution as established by Darwin for the age in which Nietzsche lived. During the per- iod of Nietzsche's life the main ideas of Darwin- ian evolution, with additional diffusion through the writings of Herbert Spencer, nowhere re- ceived greater currency and penetrated more widely among all layers of society, than in Ger- many. This does not mean that its true depth and meaning, its accurate scientific limitation in generalisation, its spirit of conscientious and so- ber induction, which produces the highest spirit of intellectual morality among the esoteric ad- herents, penetrated among the people at large. Nor did it even reach Nietzsche himself who, on the contrary, revolted against, and was opposed to, the tyranny, the scientific spirit of persistent induction. But it did mean the diffusion of some of the leading ideas, such as those of progressive advance in the development of species throughout the ages, based upon the survival of the fittest. Such phrases, moreover, as 'the survival of the 213 fittest', more especially in the particular aspect of the "struggle for existence" {der Kampf urn's Dasein), were the commonplace property of vast numbers of even illiterate Germans and were con- stantly on their lips. From an ethical point of view their application was not always happy or morally beneficial; and they not infrequently formed the intellectual justification to the moral selfishness and unscrupulousness of many an un- social 'Streber'. From a much higher point of view — ^perhaps to him not always quite consciously active in the for- mulation of his theories — Nietzsche applied the theory of evolution to his establishment of the theory of the superman in that he assumed the advance in the human species through the con- scious action of human individuals and human so- ciety as a whole. In the beautiful symbolic lan- guage of Zarathustra : "Man is a connecting-rope between the animal and the superman — a rope over an abyss. "A dangerous crossing, a dangerous wayfar- ing, a dangerous retrospecting, a dangerous trembling and halting. "What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a god; what can be loved in man is that he is a transit and an eocit. ' ' I love such as know not how to live, except as those making their exit, for they are those making their transit. "I love the great despisers, because they are the great venerators, and arrows of aspirations for the other shore. "I love those who do not first seek a reason be- yond the stars for making their exit and being sacrificed, but sacrifice themselves to the earth, 214 that the earth of the superman may arrive some day. ''I love him who lives in order to know, and seeks to know in order that the superman may hereafter live. He thus seeks his own exit. "I love him who labours and invents, that he may build the house for the superman, and pre- pare for him earth, animal and plant ; for he thus seeks his own exit. ' ' The practical forerunner of the fully achieved superman is the man of genius. Those who are not of the species genius (this means human so- ciety as a whole) have, as their aim of existence, to favour and to facilitate the realisation of gen- ius, so that the final goal in the production of the superman may be reached. It will, of course, be difficult for the individual to determine whether he is to obey or to command, whether he is of common clay or of the stuff of which the genius is made. In the determination of this fact lies many a pit-fall in the actual course of human Hfe. But the main question as regards the practical ethics of Nietzsche is how the superman is to be produced; not he who is to obey and follow, but he who is to command and lead. It is here that, to my mind, the whole theory of Nietzsche's super- man fails, I venture to surmise, because of a com- plete misaipprehension of the Darwinian theory of evolution and its misplaced and crude applica- tion to ethics. The Darwinian theory of evolu- tion, which, I repeat, was emphatically not meant to be teLeological, but strictly causal, simply ac- counted for the survival of the fittest in nature's great struggle for existence, chiefly through adap- tation of the organism to its environment. Dar- win himself repeatedly points out the unethical, 215 if not immoral, cruelty of nature in this process. Bacon took quite a different point of view when he upheld the great aim of man placed in nature as the establishment of the Regnum Howiinis, the reasoned victory of man over the unreasoned course of nature. But Darwin deals with no such prospect of man's activity, and is simply con- cerned with the natural progress arising out of such an adaptive principle which leads to the sur- vival of the fittest. From man's point of view, however, if he wishes consciously to apply the principle of the adaptation to the environment, there is no chance of advancement or progress unless the environment itself, as, if I may say so, almost a planetary body, advances. For man may adapt himself to physical conditions that are "lower" instead of "higher." As a matter of fact a good deal of the political and social ethics of our own days is nothing more nor less than this ethical opportunism, of adaptation of man's life to the surrounding conditions of nature, the final goal of which is merely physical subsistence or at most increase of comfort. In one aspect of his powerful writings Nietzsche fulminates against this ideal of comfort. We are thus in a vicious circle if we apply the Darwinian principle of evolution direct to ethical principles. Our only hope would be in a fatalistic renunciation as re- gards all ethical progress, in which we hope that the environing nature itself may "improve"; so that by adapting himself to his environment man himself may improve and ultimately rise to great- er heights of human existence. For Nietzsche's superman, however, this environment does not only consist in the physical conditions in which the human animal finds himself living and by 216 which he is surrounded ; but in the physical con- ditions of man's own body and his own instincts, his inner force of living. These are to guide him. He is to follow these as his true friends and to deny them no claims which they may press upon his conscious will. They thus really become the ** environment " to the central personality of the individual, which we may call soul, spirit, or what- ever else we like. But here again we are placed in the vicious circle, though a circle one step higher than, or perhaps only nearer to, the central core of individual man. For we can hardly see how mere physical health by itself or the following of our individual instincts and passions can ensure progress and lead us to the true superman, unless we can assume that these instincts and passions themselves and in themselves ''improve" and go to the making of the superman.^ On the contrary, not only the unbiased study of anthropology, ethnology, archaeology and his- tory, but also our daily experience of life, teach us that the pursuit of our instincts and passions, unrestricted and mihampered by any further con- sideration or guiding principle, lead, not only to the misery, if not the destruction, of other indi- vidual life ; but in no way produce the type which approaches the conception of even the meanest imagination as to what a superman ought to be. Nietzsche apparently has forgotten or ignored (excellent Greek scholar though he was) the sim- ble statement of Aristotle that man is ^^ov TToXtTiKov. Were each man completely iso- (1)1 may at once anticipate here, what will be dealt with in the course of this enquiry, and say, that only when ideer- man as a true, just and elevating ideal for the future : A superman without love and pity is a monster ; A superman without self-restraint, without the control of the mind over the body, is a monster; A superman without self-effacement in view of the good of humanity and the world in which he is but a unit and mite, is a monster or mil soon grow into one ; A superman who believes that the aim of the existence of others is merely to facilitate nis own self-realisation is a monster ; A superman who knows that he is one or be- must go to the madhouse or the gallows; lieves that he is becoming one, is a monster and A superman who, in becoming one, does not 221 hold before him an impersonal model of super- iority and perf eetability or, at least, an objectified ideal of himself but merely follows his natural in- stincts, is a monster; A superman who in this idea of his perfect self does not include self-discipline and social altru- ism is a monster. Yet in this condemnation of Nietzsche's Immor- ality and his distorted apprehension, not only of social man, but of individual man, we must not fall into the same error of negative and positive exaggeration which prevent the life work of this genius from producing the full fruits of his la- bours for the advancement of mankind. He has once and for all clearly established the rights of the instincts to self-preservation, physical and moral, to be considered in every ethical system, even the loftiest, as not being bad but noble and good. They have in themselves the inalienable right to be considered, to move and to guide man even in his most conscious activity, unless some other current of higher social duties, recognised and admitted by man's reason lead him to sus- pend their sway. Every system of ethics which denies this and lowers the sanctity of the body and the rightness of man's instincts in themselves is either immoral or unreasonable and degrading to man. His other lasting achievement in the domain of morals and sociology is his advocacy of the aris- tocratic principle in social evolution, which raises the whole domain of ethics from a fatalistic sphere of stagnation, if not retrogression, for man and mankind, to a higher sphere of progress in life, of an unbroken advance in the ethics of society, and of a continuous approacli to the reali- 222 sation of a higher type in the human nature of the future. But this higher type will not be guid- ed by blind instinct or passion, or by the desire for power as such, but will necessarily mean the morally higher man. Nietzsche's personality and its expression in his works will, however, stand out most markedly in the history of our age, because of his uncom- promising truthfulness, in his impeachment of the current standards of morality and their inade- quacy in expressing the best and highest in us, as well as their inefficiency to regulate the actions of the individual and of society at large in the directions which lead us on towards a superman, instead of down to the barbarian and the vicious brute. I have selected him and his views for fuller treatment and criticism, not only because his teachings may have a more direct bearing on this tragic war, but because he is thus the clearest and most emphatic exponent of the inadequacy of the practical morals of our day and the crying need for a bold and truthful reconsideration of public and private etliics. Such a treatment, how- ever, must not follow the lines hitherto adopted of vague and general speculation from a purely scientific and theoretical point of view, dealing with the origin of ethics and the basis of human morality; nor must it merely be concerned with the historical enquiry into the ethical systems of the past; but it must definitely and boldly aim at the establishment of the moral code which, with our clearest and best thoughts, we can recognise to be dominant in the present, in order to prepare for an advance in the moral health of the individ- ual and of society at large in the future. On the 223 other hand, we need not, as Nietzsche wished us to do, deny our past, sever ourselves from it by a violent cataclysmal denunciation; nor need we forego the indubitable virtue of reverence which his superman must have in his composition, at least in contemplating a still higher superman, and which his ' ' obedients ' ' must feel for the sup- erman. We must not deny our origin and must gratefully recognise what was good in our past. I have, therefore, chosen the three great types who, to my mind, embody the essential elements in all ethics — of the past, of the present, and for the future — from which to focus the three general elements which make up the moral life of man in its widest aspect: Moses, Christ and Plato. They typify Duty, Charity and Ideality. Inseparably interwoven, acting upon one another and modify- ing each other, these three main aspects of the moral world, as it lives in man's soul or may, we hope, exist beyond the spheres terrestrial, will help us to an understanding of man in the past, harmonise our actions to ennoble ourselves and to benefit our neighbour, while increasing the hap- piness of each; and will make of each one of us, and through us, of our surroundings, forces, how- ever weak, which will lead to the perfecting of future man. AVhat is needed now, above all the crying needs of civilised humanity, is that those who can think best and are most representative of the civilisation in which we live, should hold up a mirror to their age, so that hmnanity can see itself truthfully; and that they should truth- fully and boldly tabulate what in their best belief constitutes the good and the right, irrespective of what was held of old, irrespective of dominant traditions and institutions. Difficult as it always 224 will be to express the most complex thoughts clearly and convincingly by means of faltering human language, they should nevertheless at- tempt to fix these thoughts, so that he who runs may read. 225 PART III. THE MORAL DISEASE AND ITS CURE CHAPTER I The Codification of Modern Morals What modern man and modern society require, above all things, is a clear and distinct codifica- tion of the moral consciousness of civilised man, not merely in a theoretical disquisition or in vague and general terms, which evade immediate ap- l)licatio'n to the more complex or subtle needs of our daily life; but, one which, arising out of the clear and unbiased study of the actual problems of life, is fitted to meet every definite difficulty and to direct all moral effort towards one great and universally accepted end. It is the absence of such an adequate ethical code, truly expressive of the best in us and accepted by all and the means of bringing such a code to the knowledge of men, penetrating our educative system in its most ele- mentary form as it applies even to the youngest children and is continuously impressed upon all people in every age of their life — it is the absence of such an effective system of moral education which lies at the root of all that is bad and ir- rational, not only in individual life, but in national life, and that has made this great war at once barbarous, pedantically cruel and unspeakably stupid — possible in modern times. The reason why such an adequate expression of moral consciousness has not existed among us, 226 in spite of the eminently praictical and urgent need, is that the constitution and the teaching of ethics have been relegated to the sphere of theor- etical study of principles, historical or specula- tive, and have not directly been concerned with establishing a practical guide to conduct. No real attempt has been made to draw up a code of ethics to meet the actual problems of daily life. Or, when thus considered in its immediate and prac- tical bearings, this task has been relegated to the churches and to the priests. It cannot be too emphatically stated that, though never divorced from each other, religion and ethics envisage quite different spheres, and that when in their practice and activity they are indiscriminately mixed up with one another, this fusion does not tend to the good of either. The confusion of the primary attitude of mind which they imply and the definite spheres of activity which they are meant to control results in the lowering or weakening of the spirit and the prac- tice of each. Ethics alone can never replace relig- ion. Religion alone, when wholly dominating the lieart and mind of man, cannot prepare him to solve the problems of ethics with a clear and un- biased mind, intent upon the weighing of evidence and the searching enquiry into the practical needs of society and of individual life. The at once del- icate and exalted moods of religious feeling and of religious thought — not to mention the complex and remote dogmas of each religion — are, to say the least, not favourable to the sober, dispassion- ate and searching analysis of motives, of actions and their i-esults in the daily life of man, or the relations between communities and states. More- over, this strictly logical, unemotional and sober 227 analysis and its prospective application to the regulation of material prosperity, as well as spir- itual health, is of itself destructive of the very essence of that emotional exaltation and that touch of mysticism which forms an essential ele- ment of the religious mood. Its intrusion into the domain of pure religion is of itself lowering to such exaltation and destructive of its most deli- cate and, at the same time, most powerful spirit- ual force. Furthermore, it has undeniably been an ele- ment in all religions of the past that they should be strongly conservative, and, at all events, fer- vently reverential towards the past teachings of their foimders and tenacious of this teaching con- verted into dogma in bygone ages. In so far they are neither fully adapted to consider w^ith clear and unbiased re-ceptiveness, the actual problems of the present, which are generally strongly con- trasted to the life of the past; while much of this lucidity \\411 be lost when an attempt is made to translate the complex life of today into the sim- pler conditions of the past. Moreover in religion all is seen through a veil of antique mysticism. Nor, still less, can such a conservative attitude of mind be favourable to the essential spirit of change, to the adaptation to new conditions implied in the conscious evolution of man towards the higher conditions of a progressive society, and to the continuous flow implied in the very prin- ciple of life which, in the moral and practical spheres are the organic element of a normal, ra- tional and healthy society. No doubt we may rightly hold that, from one point of view, religion enters into every aspect of man's existence, and that it may form the ultimate foundation of our 228 whole moral and intellectual activity. But it does not and cannot deal directly with the practical world, and cannot intrude itself into our con- sciousness when we are bound to concentrate all our mental and even physical energies upon the consummation of some definite task in the ever varying change of our actual life. It is concerned with man's relation to his highest ultimate ideals and is based upon his higher emotional, and not his practical and strictly logical, consciousness. It implies no adaptation to surrounding and vary- ing conditions, no compromise within the struggle of contending claims. In his truly religious moods, in his communion with the Supra-Natural, with his ultimate ideals, there is no room for com- promise, practical opportunism and the adapta- tion to the ever-changing conditions of actual life. Hence, the priest is not directly fitted to be the transmitter of this mioral code of a healthy society in directing the young and in advising the adults as a minister of a definite religious creed. His ethical teaching must always be directly sub- ordinated to the dogmatic creed which he pro- fesses ; and his habit of mind, as well as his con- scious purpose, must in so far unfit him for the problem of establishing a living code of practical ethics and of impressing it clearly as a teacher upon old and young. Moreover, in the present condition of the mod- ern world, we are brought face to face with a definite fact which, perhaps, more than an}i;hing else, has stood in the way of effective and normal advancement of moral teaching among us. For in every community we have not only one creed^ but a number of creeds ; and, whatever their close relationship to one another may in many instan- 229 ces be as regards the fundamental religious tenets, they differ in organisation and administration and in the personality of their ministrants to such a degree, that such difference not infrequently means rivalry and antagonism. The most prac- tical result in our own national life is clearly brought before us in the promulga- tion of the various Education Acts which, in great part, were merely concerned with the adjustment of the claims of the varied sects among us. They have thus led to the exclusion of direct religious teaching and the re- tention of mere scripture reading as the only di- rectly spiritual and moral element in public in- struction, or they have led, and may lead, to the di\ision of spheres of activity of each one of these sects and their clerical representatives of differ- ing forms of religious and moral instruction among separate groups of children. That the im- pression upon the youthful mind, in so glaring and manifest a form, of fundamental differences in religious and moral principles between them, (perhaps suggesting and establishing false stand- ards of social distinction as well), -cannot be con- sidered in itself a moral gain to the establishment of a healthy social instinct in the hearts of the indi\dduals or the development of a healthy and harmonious national and social life for the com- munity at large, can hardly be denied. At all events, such a state of affairs does not bring us nearer to the formulation of a common ethical code, expressive of the highest national llt-e on the ethical side wdthin each age, and the pro^mise of a growing development for the future. Mean- while, whatever may exist among us of ethical principles and moral practices to which we all 230 subscribe, is eliminated from the activity of our educational institutions ; and the younger genera- tion grows up without any instruction in common morality and without any clear knowledge of its definite principles. On the other hand, I should not like it to be thought that I ignore, or am unmindful of, the good work which the priests of all denominations have done on the moral side in the past and are doing in the present. Whether priests of the Church of England or of the Church of Rome, or ministers of the numerous Christian sects, or Rabbis, they have in great numbers devoted them- selves to the betterment of their fellow men, they have held aloft the torch of idealism, and many of them stand out as the noblest types of a life of self-abnegation devoted to the progress to- wards a lofty ideal with complete self-effacement. The positive good which they have done and are doing is undeniable.^ The picture of an English village without its church, not only as a symbol of higher spiritual aspirations, but as an active means of providing for the dull and often purely material daily life of the inhabitants, a gleam of elevating life and beauty, must make him hesitate ( 1 ) On the other hand that strictly clerical morality has gone hopelessly astray. The type of the clergyman and his family, far from extravagantly drawn, and the result of what I should like to call catechismal ethics have never been more powerfully presented than in the history of the Pontifex family in Samuel Butler's "The Waij of all Flesh." This uncaricatured satire of the results of catechismal morality gives an intensely tragic picture of life far from uncommon in the immediate past and far from obsolete in the present. Nor are the Pontifex's types of a lower order of Christian or clerical society. They are good people of the worst kind. The ethical teaching which denied all right to health, pleasure, brightness in life, prematurely and disastrously introducea into the pure mind of the young the idea of Sin, its prevalence, and its dominance, and fills us with revolt and loathing against such a code and such a system of ethics, which we must consider one of the worst crimes which adult man can commit, namely, crime against the young and the helpless. 231 who ruthlessly would destroy it by missiles of cold thought, as those of German steel have ac- tually destroyed the churches in Belgium and France, and shudder at the devastation he might cause. But the firm conviction that what he has to offer is not sheer and wanton destruction ; but that the growth and spread of true morality will clear the way for a brighter, higher and nobler life, ending in the expansion and advancement of pure and uncontaminated religion, removes all doubt and fear and strengthens our conviction in the rightness of the cause for which we also are prepared to lay down our lives. We camiot admit that a morality, however ade- quate and high it may have been for the Jews living many centuries ago, can be adapted and fitted to the requirements of modern society with- out great confusion and loss in this process of adaptation. This is especially the case when, as a chief ground for its unqualified acceptance, re- ligious dogma steps in and maintains that it is of direct divine origin. Even whem thus accepted and effective as a guide to conduct by many, many remain who do not honestly accept the evidence of this direct divine origin. The effect upon these latter is one of clear opposition to the binding power of such moral laws and may end in an opposition to all moral laws. 232 CHAPTER II The Teaching of Moses We must recognise with reverence the exist- ence of moral laws, such as those of Moses, in the past, and the fact that, in the evolution of his- tory, they form the basis of our progressive mor- al consciousness in the present. We must also regard with gratitude and admiration the achieve- ment of those who established such an ethical code for our ancestors, upon which our moral consciousness ultimately rests, and from which we are bound to work onwards and upwards as the conditions of life and the growth of human knowledge bid us and enable us to do in the pres- ent. AVhatever may have been the achievements of Khammurabi and of other law-givers, kings, priests and philosophers, in the dim antiquity of mankind, to us and to the preceding ages of our own civilisation, the Ten Commandments of Moses mark the greatest step in the establishment of law and morality. To him who casts his eye over the evolution of man, from the earliest prehistoric ages onward, the more or less chaotic conditions of human intercourse and incipient social organi- sation the summarisation in definite human lan- guage, reduced to the shortest and most compact form and responding to the essential needs of human society in these Ten Commandments is one of the greatest feats of the human mind in the past. The very fact of their constraining in- 233 fluence throughout all the changes of countless ages and of ethical and climati-c and racial con- ditions, differing so widely from those which ob- tained when Moses proclaimed them to the people of Israel, is so wonderful, that in itself it approaches the miraculous. It is well, however, to remember that Moses was the law-giver and Aaron was the priest. On the other hand, we must recognise that if the task of moral teaching had not been completely usurped by the churches, with the ex-ception of the legal element which has been taken over by the legal functions of the state and the establish- ment of judiciary powers there would have been — or certainly ought to have been — a, succession of moral codes promulgated in various countries and periods and accepted by the people. Yet, the Mosaic laws, having been incorporated as a moral code into the body of the doctrine of the Jewish, Christian and even the Mahommedan churches, not only preserved their binding quality, but also effectively prevented their future development, modification and adaptation and the infusion of newer moral codes into the life of successive so- cieties. Herein lies one of the peculiarities of Jewish religion and ritual and the consequent effective- ness of the religious morality among the Jews in all times. In Biblical days Israel was a theo- cracy and the priests were at the same time the rulers of the people and their guides in all con- ditions of national and social life. In Rabbinic times the rabbi, besides being the minister of religion w^as, above all, the teacher of the people and the head of the community. Down to our very days the truly Jewish communities (I am 234 not referring to the Christianised and modernised reformed sects, who in so far are not distinctly Jewish) the synagogue is called the schul, which is the school for secular teaching as well as relig- ion. It is from this school and the presiding rabbi that the Rabbinic and Talmudic teaching, succeed- ing and supplementing the Mosaic teaching has emanated. The Jews have thus always had the ele- ments of moral evolution and have progressed in their general social organisation with the advance of ages. Their law and their morality effectively penetrated into the actual life of the people and produced for them higher spiritual standards and definite ethical codes which fitted them for the conditions of life in which they found themselves ; while always providing a spiritual stimulus to- wards moral progress, in spite of the occasional retrogressions caused by the lowered standards of the actual life about them, as well as the formali- sation and deadening to which such theological and ritual teaching naturally tends. It is thus that in the Talmudic and other writ- ings we have the striking mixture of lofty moral aspirations — stubble, intellectual, refining thought — with an active and penetrating application to the actual demands of daily life, its business and its pleasures : and all dialectic for- malism tied down to precedents of former dicta of earlier rabbis, as well as the pronouncements of the Bible itself, raised more or less to the weight and importance of religious authority. In the course of time this formalistic element grew ; until the slightest ritual aspects of the func- tions of daily life, for instance, as regards the keeping of the Sabbath, were not only raised out of all proportion in moral significance and value, 235 but were even robbed of what dignity and im- portance they may have had in their relation to actual daily life. Nevertheless, it is to this effec- tive and progressive moral life of the Jewish people in all ages, and to the approximation be- tween their higher moral codes and the practice of daily life, that I venture to attribute the tenac- ity of their survival as a people, and the superior- ity and success which has been theirs in all times, wherever they have lived, even amid persecution and conditions most unfavourable to the develop- ment of a higher life. But the Ten Commandments of Moses have been embodied in Christian ethics and have become canonical in the religious writings of the Christian World. Their importance for the world will ever be that they are the first general and abstract pro- nouncement and expression of the ideas of duty and justice as such. This is what they mean in their totality, and is a summary of their injunc- tion. They thus imply and recognise the sense of duty in man as opposed to his instinctive tenden- cies, of the mere animal in man, leading to the establishment of civilised society; and I, re- peat, that they have thus formed the foundation for the moral consciousness, not only of the West- ern world, but of Miahommedanism as well. Some of these injunctions no longer belong to the do- main of ethics, but have been completely merged in our laws. In the evolution of social organisms, ending in the full establishment of the state, the judicial function, the promulgation of laws and the admin- istration of justice, become, together with the es- tablishment of security from inimical aggression from without, the chief functions of the state. 236 Law becomes the principal guide to public and in- dividual -conduct. But laws can only deal with broad and manifest acts, they are not concerned with the inner moral consciousness of man or his more delicate relations in daily life. We may say that, so soon as actions directly enter the province of law, they no longer enter the domain of ethics — which is far from meaning, that they become un- ethical, but that their premisses assume another validity before ethical thought begins. They are admitted and taken for granted; and the respon- sibility of the individual to establish the rightness of them or to enforce obedience to them, no longer exists. On the other hand, when the moral conscious- ness of the people finds that these laws are an- tiquated, that their action no longer conforms to ethical demands or even directly runs 'Counter to them, a general impulse is created towards the modification of such existing laws in conformity with the ethical consciousness of the people and the age. In great part this process marks the progressive legislative function of the state. When moral tenets have become of such universal importance and validity that they distinctly modify the actions of larger groups of people, they may then produce laws. For instance, when the moral feeling of the public revolted against the tyranny of the employer over the employed, the Factory Acts were promulgated and became law, insisting upon the moral responsibilities of the employer towards his workmen. Under the same category would come all the encroachments of pub- lic laws on the personal and domesti-c freedom of the individual. So too it may be found that certain established laws evoked by the temporary 237 conditions in which civilisation found itself at a given moment, are no longer useful, and may even be harmful and immoral, when the social condi- tions have altered. They will then have to be re- pealed or modified. Thus the laws against witch- craft and those upholding the privileges of certain classes to the detriment of others, against whi-eh the moral consciousness of the people revolted, have been repealed or altered. This interaction between Ethics and Law forms to a great extent the very life of the state and the progressive spirit in its evolution. Now the progressive spirit thus manifested in the interaction between Ethics and Law must be carried into the life of Ethics it- self. New conditions should be established for this organic development of Ethics; and it is the establishment of such conditions which I am ad- vocating as the supreme need of modern times.. We thus require a clear codification so as to be recognised by all people, which must be the es- sential condition for a possible and even a fa«cile modification of our common ethical code in response to the needs of our social life and the advancement of our ethical consciousness. A great and important part of the Mosaic Com- miandments has thus rea-ched the phase of law: **Thou shalt not kill"; ^'Thou shalt not steal"; **Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor"; even "Thou shalt not commit adultery" — these Commandments practically need no longer make an appeal to the ethical conscious- ness of most of us who are not born criminals because they have been embodied in our public laws; and conformity to them is exacted by all the 'Constraining power of the state. On the other hand, public law is not concerned itself with inner 238 morality and man's relation to his fellow men which, for instance, are smumarised under the term of covetousness, a condition which may lead, when that impulse is followed, to most degrading actions as regards the perpetrator and most harm- ful deeds as regards the victims, even ending in crime. The inner moral state, though it be the cause of even criminal action, of which latter the state takes cognisance through its laws, is of it- self not the concern of law, but purely of ethics. But Mosaic Commandments already deal with these more subtle and even recondite spiritual fac- tors, and in a short and concentrated tonn touch upon, if they do not cover, the main groupings of all moral states and duties. The Ten Commandments, as a canon of human duties, naturally fall under three main heads which remain the three natural groupings of human duties for all times. The first is the duty to God, the second the duty to oneself, the third the duty to man and mankind. After enquiring into the adequacy with which they respond to these three groups of duties, and the modifications and additions in the teaching of Christ, I shall en- deavour to sketch out the need of further ethical codification in our own times. 1. One of the great and lasting achievements of the Mosaic law and of the Jewish religion in all times is, that it established the spiritual con- ception of the Deity in so far as the people of that age were able to rise into the domain of pure spirituality. The essence of the First and Second Commandments is the insistence upon the spiritual nature of the Divinity in opposition to the lower practice of ^idolatry,' prevalent among the other peoples of which the people of Israel had 239 knowledge, and, no doubt, prevalent within the Jewish communities in the earlier stages of their development — to which earlier state there are oc- casional relapses censured and opposed by their spiritual rulers. The Jews thus had forcibly en- joined upon them the duty of living up to the highest ideals to which their moral imagination could attain in the conception they formed of their divinity. That this is in itself one of the highest moral achievements no right minded and unbiased thinker can deny. The actual worship of an image wrought by man's hand, or selected by him casu- ally from the realm of nature, often an object pos- sessing no higher spiritual quality of any kind — all of which is implied in the term idolatry — cer- tainly marks a lower stage in the development of intellectual imagination and, beyond all doubt as well, in a creation of a moral imagination. On the positive side this effort of the human mind to rise to the conception of an ideal and perfect world is a distinctive mark of intellectual as well as moral superiority and, as we shall see, may be considered the <3rowning point of all spiritual and moral effort in the functions of the human mind. On the other hand, it must equally be beyond all doubt, that the conception of the divinity, formed by this comparatively advanced people in that early stage of social evolution, corresponds to the more elementary and, in so far, lower, con- ditions of the social life prevailing in those times, and indicated the intelle-ctual and moral position to which it was possible for them to rise. Though one of the most emphatic injunctions of the duty to God in this Commandment is directed against 'the graven image or ;any likeness to things in Heaven or on Earth' and the worship of such, 240 the conception of such a spiritual Godhead is nevertheless so distinctly anthropomorphic, so clearly tied down to the semblance of a human be- ing, however spiritual and exalted that being may be, that its spirituality is to a great extent tainted by the material, earthly and human conception, so as almost to become in its turn a 'graven image.' This anthropomorphism is still further increased by the specially racial and national re- lation which it is claimed the Godhead holds to the Jews. This element, which detracts from the pure spirituality of the Mosaic divinity, is still further emphasised to such a degree in one of the com- mandments that there can hardly be any intelli- gent orthodox believer who has not hesitated, or even drawn back sharply at one important pas- sage in the Commandments, and who, if retaining the passage within his accepted faith, has not made endeavours to expunge it from his conscious- ness, or its significant bearing on the main con- ception of the divinity. This passage deals with the consequences of disobedience to the first and second generations, and affrms that 'God is a jealous God, and visits the sins of the father upon the children unto the third and four gener- ation of them that hate me, and shows mercy un- to thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments.' This is not, as had often been maintained, merely a general statement of fact in the causality of things natural, and the conse- quence of human action in which it may no doubt be shown that the responsibility for evil acts is carried on through generations from the perpe- trator of the crime ; but it is embodied in the moral commandment, enjoined by the divinity itself, in 241 which justice and mercy must form the leading moral attributes; and whether just or unjust the intrusion of reward and punishment as a conse- quence of worship, shows a comparative lowness in the conception of a divine being, intelligible in the people who represented an early and lower stage of civilisation, but inadequate as the expres- sion of the higher moral consciousness of our own time. Furthermore, the inadequacy, as regards our- selves in our own time, implied in this conception of the divinity from the very outset, of a dis- tinctly national or racial bias as the God of Israel, though amply accounted for and justified by the state of civilisation prevailing at the time, must be repugnant to the religious sentiment and the moral consciousness of the mass of thoughtful people whose civilisation has benefited by the higher in- tellectual efforts of the many centuries out of which we have grown. It is, to say the least, purest anthropomorphism, and, in so far, directly opposed to any spiritual conception of a divine ideal. I cannot here enter into a discussion of the exact meaning of the third Commandment, which enjoins that we shall not use the name of the Lord in vain. How far this has a direct theological or ritual significance, and is in so far merely an en- largement of the preceding commandment, or how far it must be taken in connection with the Ninth Commandment, which would give it a distinctly human and social significance, I do not, and need not, venture to determine. If it be the latter, and be mainly concerned with the making of solemn asseveration by associating it with the name of the divinity, such as is the case in the 242 taking of an oath, it might be considered under the heading of our duty to truth. But, intrinsically and by the actual practice in Jewish and Christ- ian life, it seems to me to be rather concerned with the need of keeping the divinity and all that con- cerns man's relations to God high and pure in practice, so that the God-head in man's thought and speech should not be lowered and blunted by frivolous use and abuse. 2. The duty to our self, which forms so impor- tant a part of an ethical code, is practically only represented by one commandment and in one very limited sphere. It is, moreover, based upon so in- adequate a theological reason, and has become so thoroughly formalised by a merely ritual con- ception, that its moral weight and significance have become weakened, if not lost. It is needless to say that for us the injunction to keep a day of rest, based upon the fact that God created the uni- verse in six days, cannot be valid. Nor -can the insistence upon one day, and that day definitely fixed — however convenient and suggestive the as- sociation with astronomical and chronological division may make it — be considered by us as es- sential to a moral conception of the duty to our self. Still less is this moral aspect impressed up- on us by the dead formalism whi-ch later Jewish, as well as Christian, ritual impressed upon this chronological selection. The racial and ritual for- malism, to which Je'wish practice led in later years, is most strikingly illustrated by the laws enacted by orthodox Judaism concerning the keep- ing of the Sabbath. From sunset on Friday even- ing to sunset on Saturday evening the strictly ob- servant Jew was not, and is not, allowed to do any manner of work, and this, in the Conunand- 243 ment, is even extended beyond the immediate family to the servants and the domestic animals, as well as to 'the stranger within thy gate.' Thus orthodox Jewish families even did, and still do, their cooking before the advent of the Sabbath; they dare not light their lamps, or ex- tinguish them, or open a letter, or perform most of the ordinary functions which modern life brings with it. But, on the other hand, when the lamp be lit or extinguished on the Sabbath, they call in some 'Gentile' to perform this act for them. Such an action can only be based on one of two alternatives. Either these commandments, and in consequence the favour of the divinity, are strictly limited to the Jewish race and do not apply to the rest of mankind, or, if they do, the ortho- dox Jew does not concern himself with the sin of his non-Jewish neighbor and the consequent disfavour brought upon him in the eyes of his divinity. Either of these consequences must be revolting to the moral consciousness of civilised and right-thinking man, and are, in so far, grossly immoral. Still, the undeniable and most important fact remains: that this Fourth Commandment, which impresses upon us the duty to our self in provid- ing for that refreshment and reinvigoration of our physical and metal powers, does recognise such a duty to our self. It recognises and directly provides for the maintenance of bodily health as a sacred duty on the part of man, and, in so far, elevates physical life and the cult of the body into higher moral spheres. The same applies to our mental life, in which the Commandment count- eracts the abnormal and unhealthy, as well as ex- clusive, development of the sense of duty in work, 244 which suppresses all instincts towards recreation and the claims of the more passive and receptive side of onr mental life. In so far this command- ment is directly opposed to the ascetic ideal. Im- portant as we may consider the inclusion of such a commandment into the decalogue at this early date, we now must feel that it is not an adequate exposition of such duties in a full codification of moral laws to apply to the actual needs of our advanced life. The consideration of the duty to our self developed by means of a searching and truthful enquiry into its relative -claims, forms one of the most important parts of our moral re- quirements. 3. We now come to the third division of ethical injunction as conveyed by the Ten Command- ments, which deals with man's relation to his fellow men. Social Morality. Beginning at the more proximate and intimate sphere, in the relation of the individual to the family, it naturally puts as a foremost injunction the duty of children to parents. To honour one 's father and mother is an ethical and social law which has been valid in all times since man evolved the institution of the family. The rightness of the family being admitted, the desirability and even the necessity of all that can be summarised under the injunction to * honour' the heads of the family, needs no further comment or support. Where the family is no longer recognised as a social or ethical unit, indispensable to the advance- ment of society as a whole, such a commandment would lose much of its absolutely binding power and of its moral validity. That the family is and, as far as we can project our thoughts, ought to be, an essential unit of civilised society I am firmly 245 convinced. But even if this were not admitted, it cannot be doubted, that the moral habit of man, as well as the discipline attached to it, of showing graditude, or at least deference and -considera- tion, to father and mother, and, by implication as well, to the aged, on the part of the young, are elements that can never be eliminated from the development of higher morality in social beings in whom the moral sense is at all elevated and re- fined. On the other hand, the complete silence as re- gards any duties which parents owe to their chil- dren, duties varying with the different ages which they attain, and the relations which these hold to the family and the world outside, may give an appearance of incompleteness and one- sidedness which might produce, if not justify, opposition to the absoluteness of this command-' ment. Moreover, the regulation of other family relations is an ethical problem of most practical import to the establishment of valid and efficient social ethics. Be it that some doubt may in our times be felt by many as regards the justification of the family as an essential, or at least an im- portant, element in social organisation, or be it merely from the tendency towards self-indulgence or the gradual atrophy of all sense of duty among us, there are many thoughtful people devoid of higher ethical principles, who completely deny the constraining authority of this Fifth command- ment. We have all heard it put bluntly that, ' We were in no way responsible for being put into the world and, having no say in the matter, the lesponsibility rests with the parents, and with them the responsibility to look after their chil- dren; so, on that account, there is no debt 24G of gratitude.' Quite apart from the sober, if not jejeune, consideration of the need for the dis-ci- •plinary organisation of any household correspond- ing to that of any other organisation in which people must live together and regulate all aspects of life, and therefore require graduation of au- thority and discipline the continuous manifesta- tion of affection and of self-abnegation on the part of normal parents, at least throughout the years measured by the childhood of their off- spring, the sacrifi«ce necessarily implied by those who have children as compared to those who have none, ought to appeal to the sense of justice and fair play, and in so far call for gratitude and consideration, if not for more, on the part of the children. Moreover, who would deny that in the sane development of a human soul, correspond- ing to tne healthy development of a human body, the growth and refinement of affection and of the sense of reverence form an integral part to the or- ganic -completeness and social and moral fitness of such a soul. A child brought up without any sense of filial affection, of gratitude, or of rever- ence, is morally incomplete, if not crippled and monstrous. In so far this commandment will ever remain a most important element in every moral code. What must, however, estrange, if not shock, the advanced moral sense of modern man is the passage accompanjdng this injunction and sup- porting it : ' That thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.' WTiatever meaning be attributed to this passage, it cannot be denied, that it is meant to convey consequent reward to those who follow this commandment. Though this be quite intelligible in a compara- tively early stage of social and ethical evolution, for a people for whom these commandments were promulgated, they cannot appeal to the more ad- vanced and refined moral sense of those who live in our age. The four following -commandments are funda- mental to the organisation of society and have since had binding authority upon civilised com- munities in all ages, applying even to our own times. As has already been said above, their validity is so unquestioned that with us they no longer form a part of our ethical code because they are embodied in our laws; and we thus need not include them in our ethical cons-ciousness of which they form an admitted sub-stratum. The last of these four, enjoining that 'Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour,' pronounces the importance of truth as affecting the most apparent and tangible relations of social life in which the infringement of such a commandment brings most manifest and evil results. The duty to truth is here defined and limited to the 'bearing of false witness against thy neigh- bour.' It is this commandment, perhaps taken in conjunction with the third commandment, which is concerned with truth. It cannot be ir- reverential and unreasonable to express surprise that, in the definite and succinct form in which the preceding commandments deal with human life and human property, the commandment did not read simply 'Thou shalt not lie.' The abstract and absolute duty to truth is an ethical injunction which would and must form the corner stone of the ethics of modern man — truth in itself and quite apart from its restricted practical applica- tion to those actions which might directly injure our neighbors. But we cannot expect that in those 248 early stages of social evolution this height of ethical development should have been attained. But the last commandment enters more fully in- to actual social relations, and does not only mani- fest deep knowledge of human nature and of human life, but has also revealed with deep in- sight one of the very fountain-heads of evil in the social intercourse between men. It is more purely ethical than almost any of the other com- mandments, in the sense that it rises above the constraining power of law and points to the ethical process within the very heart of man and the secret founts whence action flows. It is in- tended to counteract the sinister effects of jeal- ousy and envy, from which hatred and malice, and perhaps most of the evils whi-ch man inflicts upon man, are derived. The searching importance at- tached to this last and most comprehensive of moral commandments is shown by the enumera- tion of all the chief groups of possessions reflect- ing the life of the day, from home and wife even to the domestic animals in man's possession. In so far this commandment may be considered the very first guide and landmark to the ethical activi- ties of thinking man for all ages to come. 249 CHAPTER III The Teaching of Christ Though we have seen that most of the Ten Commandments have, in the advancement of hu- man society, since the early date of their tabula- tion been embodied in what we call law in contra- distinction to ethics, and though we feel that the conception of the Godhead and the Command- ments emanating from such a conception are in- adequate to the spiritual needs of modem man; though we furthermore feel that the command- ment which refers to the duty to ourselves does not adequately serve as a guide for the moral consciousness of modern man ; and though, finally, while recognising the supreme moral importance of the last commandment, counteracting our un- social instincts in covetousness we must recognize that the mere formulation of this commandment is not enough to act as an efficient moral guide in the modern conditions of life. In spite of these natural, and even necessary, limitations, we must feel convinced with equal strength that the sum- mary and total influence of the Mosaic command- ments for the Jewish people of that day and for the whole civilised world ever since, has been the clear recognition of the sense of duty and justice in man as a cornerstone to the whole structure of human morals and human conduct. This is one of the greatest achievements in the history of mankind. This sense of duty and sense of justice must be trained in man, so that he should manifest 250 his direct humanity, and they cannot be dispensed with even in Nietzsche's ideal of the superman — a moral postulate to which the conduct of every man must be subordinated. The Will to Live, the following of the natural instincts, can be no guide to man as he is, and still less to man as we must recognise that he ought to be — that is the ideal of man, the superman. To follow the natural instincts consistently and logically must lead either to one of two alternative results, namely, to the mere ruminating or bovine state of complete physical health and negative mental peace, perhaps to the Nirvana which Schopenhauer borrowed from Buddhism ; or to the war of all against all, inter- necine conflict, which the upholders of the con- tract social recognised as the necessary prelimi- nary condition out of which orderly society grew. Now the only power which can be applied to the guidance and regulations of instincts and pas- sions is ultimately Reason. Reason is by its very nature outside and above instincts, the great forces which blindly and often ruthlesslj^ make for self-preservation and self-advancement. It must thus permeate the instinctive passions and give a new direction to them. This implies an out- going, a centrifugal current of the mind, which the Greeks characterized by the term Tvpb(ppoi\ and for which we can find no better term than that of altruism. It means the subjugation and regu- lation of each instinct, however much we may re- gard the justice of its claims and not consider the instinct in itself bad because it is natural. This regulation of our instincts must be in conformity with an idea which human reason (than which we can discover no better guide) establishes and jus- tifies. 251 Moreover, such guiding ethical ideas cannot, and need not, be consciously appealed to nor ap- plied to every definite act on the part of man, in- terrupting and weakening, if not wholly dissolv- ing the strength and spontaneity of action and of will, by their intercession : but they must by edu- cation and practice ending in habit, be trans- formed into emotional states which, in what we may call the moral sense or taste, or even man- ners, modify our passions, our emotive forces and turn them into the ethical and social channels regulated by these guiding ideas sanctioned by Reason. They must create what the Greeks called ethos and produce in man what we call his ''character." I endeavored to show the impor- tance of the proper balance between this relation of emotion and intellect in man in an essay pub- lished many years ago^ To make such a moral and social ethos effective is the task of all ethical education, whether sup- plied in the home, the school or by life itself. The most efficient focus for such education and for the discipline which favours or produces such ulti- mate results is the home. It is here that the con- ditions of life, in which individuals are thrown together constantly and continuously with strong ties of affection and duty always impressed upon them and that the curbing of the selfish instincts,, are from the earliest age, by daily repercussion,, produced and developed. Of itself and in itself this effect of family life, intimate and penetrating and all pervasive within the home, is one of the most efficient and important, if not the chief, justifica- tion for the existence of the family within each (1) The Balance of Emotion and Intellect, London, Kegan Paul & Co., 1878. 252 larger social body or group. No institution or regulation of social life that exists, or none that can be devised and proposed, can replace this. Beginning with the relation of children to parents, as already laid dow^n in the Fifth Commandment, it teaches the young the important discipline of learning to obey; and this quality itself, even when it is entirely dominated by the recognition of what is just and best as the rational justifica- tion of obedience, is one of the most important human qualities which must be developed in every perfect being as a habit and an emotional state. Even the superman — and not only the obeying ones, whom Nietzsche groups round the genius or superman — is not, and can never be, a realisation of highest human qualities and forces unless he possesses this characteristic. For it will be through self-discipline and obedience that he will be enabled to curb and to subdue all those in- stincts and passions (perhaps even those of pity and love) in order that he should mould his life towards the great purpose which as a superman he holds before himself. Perhaps more than any other aspect of contem- porary social ethics, is the neglect of this develop- ment of discipline and the sense of duty which is the most noticeable feature in the moral disease from which we are suffering; and the work of Lord Meath and his supporters in founding the ''Duty and Discipline" movement among us is amply justified in fact. Amid all the undoubted material and moral evils produced by this terrible war, we may be comforted in recognising that, to a certain degree — though not to the extent which some warlike enthusiasts fondly hope — the sense of national duty and discipline has been aroused 253 throughout the country, if not the world, in spite of the lowness of ideals and the unspeakable bare- ness of moral practice which every day and every hour and in every aspect the war itself produces and impresses upon the minds of all the combat- ants, as well as the non-combatant portion of every nation. Admirable as in many directions the organisa- tion of our public schools and the life among the pupils may be, the conditions of such life are still regulated too exclusively from the point of view of the boy-community itself, and, though it estab- lishes its own discipline (not in every respect on grounds which justice or wisdom will always raitify), it can in no way replace the constant curbing of selfish instincts, self-indulgence or de- velop obedience to more unselfish purposes, which the life in a family circle provides. Without this training, afforded from the earliest youth up- wards by family life, where the performance of duties and services are so constantly required by members of ^the family as to create an emotional state or a habit, the discipline of curbing selfish instincts can never be effectively impressed. The Montessori system fails in this respect in not de- veloping duty, though no doubt excellent in pro- ducing love for things taught. Without it there is produced the imperfect hu- man being, the monstrous moral and social crip- ple whom we call the egoist. He is not only es- sentially unlovable, but he becomes socially im- possible, even unjust to himself as well as to oth- ers, and hence less likely to be normally happy. While deficient in the power of self-control, self- detachment and positive self-repression in dealing with ideas or general duties, he is less efiScient in 254 performing the ordinary impersonal tasks of life self-imposed or imposed by circmn stances. From an almost physiological poin/t of view he is bound to become abnormal, if not pathological. The un- checked realisation of selfish instincts inevitably leads to what, from a pathological point of view is technically called hysteria or, as applied to physical consciousness, hypochondriasis.^ If, as a conscious disciple of Nietzsche's or as an un- conscious worshipper of the Will to Live or the Will to Power, he thinks that he has discovered in himself the elements which produced a Caesar, a Napoleon, or a Wagner, he becomes one of that numerous breed of malignant social cripples who generally bring disaster upon themselves. They also produce discord and unhappiness in all their relations of human life, because they think that all things and the wills and interests of all their fellow men ought justly to be subordinated to the advancement of their own little selves, or the great causes with which they have, by a fond, though none the less grotesque, illusion identified their own lives and their own interests. Be- side this pronounced and sometimes pathological development of the egotists, who has not learnt by earlier and by continuous practice in duties from which he cannot escape, to curb his will and his insincts, the experienced observer of life must realise the loss incurred for such moral training without the institution of marriage and of the family. He may often observe that amongst his unmarried acquaintances, the typical "old bachelor" and ''old maid" and even in the happily married childless couples who have de- (1) George Meredith's great satire of the Egoist, Mr. Max- well's novel "In Cotton Wool" illustrate forcibly this patho- logical development. 255 veloped a strong, though limited, affection for one another, the paucity in opportunities for con- tinuous practice in actual unselfish discipline which family life affords, not only diminishes their adaptability and pliancy to meet the needs, even impersonal needs, of daily activity in com- plex social life ; but also, in so far, weakens their general power of complete self-detachment in any given task, and is likely to accentuate abnormal personal idiosyncracy, if not eccentricity. Quite apart from the great question of sexual love and its rational and social regulation — upon which I do not wish ito enter here — the justifica- tion, nay, the essential necessity, of the institution of the family and of marriage are entirely estab- lished by this aspect of ultimate social ethics, both as regards the normal development of the indi- vidual man as such, as well as the best development of social groups and society as a whole. The great Eros (love in its widest acceptation) which is and will ever remain the centrifugal or emo- tional force in humanity and in the world, is ac- tually and continuously developed and strength- ened, if not produced, by conditions which are primarily found in filial relations and in the family. This central power of the soul strength- ens the emotionality of man in an altruistic di- rection, or at least controls the directly selfish impulses ; and this growth and power of love, this increase of cardiac vitality and passion, make a man capable of doing great things and of ulti- mately becoming a superman or of contributing to his development. The superman is above all the man with the biggeslt heart, the strongest ca- pacity for loving, and the greatest power of con- trolling his forceful and pliant affections in any 256 direction wliich his reason and its ultimate ideals may dictate. Tliis love is, if not the only factor, certainly one of the essential ones in the develop- ment of a great human being trained and strengthened in the family and concentrated in personal and individual affection, it rises beyond these to embrace further spheres, extending be- yond the community to the wider country in the form of patriotism, and beyond this to the love of man as such the love of humanity which, above all other powers, makes man a true human being. It is especially in two aspects that Christianity supplements Judaism and marks an ethical ad- vance, an upward step, towards the ultimate ideals of the human species. Beyond the sense of justice and of duty, the central teaching of Christ and the very spirit of Christianity in its purest and noblest form is this all-prevading spirit of love. And, together with the duty towards God and family and nation and the love of them, the spirit of Christ's teaching impresses the whole of mankind and spurns the narrower limits of racial preference. It is no doubt untrue and un- fair to Judaism to maintain, or even to imagine, that its teaching did not inculcate love and pity, and that it excluded from the purview of our duties and our feelings 'the stranger within our gates or even beyond our gates.' Hillel may have anticipated the golden rule of 'doing unto others as we would they should unto us,' and many pass- ages may be found in Jewish moral teachings which distinctly imply that our feelings and duties are not to be bounded by the family or the race. But there cannot be any doubt that, in this natural process of ethical evolution. Mosaic ethics were supplemented and advanced by "the clear and 257 emphatic insistence upon the love of man, upon pity and sympathy with him: and that the con- ception of this relation to man was widened out far beyond the bounds of race and even included the enemies of ithe Jewish people, and the enemy of the individual. On the other hand, it can also not be denied that, however much may be said of the social and ethical attitude of the Jewish people as extending beyond their racial limita- tion, in the eyes of their God, as well as in their popular beliefs some preferential position was as- signed to the people of Israel ; and that in so far this racial or nationalistic attitude counteracted the wider ideals of human love contained in Christ's teaching. The true teachings of Christ will always thus be identified with the opposition to the limitations imposed by race or nationality upon man's duties towards mankind and his af- fection for man as his brother.^ No part of Christ's teaching conveys more clearly and more definitely and with the true ring of authenticity this great moral achievement, than the Sermon on ithe Mount. Whatever the results of modern theological criticism may be as to the direct authorship of this sermon, its date and (1) It is one of the ironies of history, one of the many his- torical absurdities in human profession as contrasted with human action, that during the controversies and passions group- ing around the Drejfvis case in France — a more isolated and attenuated instance of so-called Christian persecution of their fellow-men of the race which produced Christ — the anti- Dreyfusards, representing the claims and interests of the church, should have summarised their chief antagonism against the Jews by the term of approbrium 'sans-patries.' Christ himself was the greatest of all sans-patries in respect of urgmg the claims of a wider humanity; while, on the other hand, it can be noted even in the present war — in spite of the attempted disingenuous identification of international finance with the whole Jewish race — that, fighting with patriotic zeal in every one of the opposing armies, and often protagonists in urging the political claims of each of the several contending nations, Jews are foremost in patriotic ardour. 258 composition and relation to the other parts of the New Testament and the degree of its authenticity, the fact remains: that this Sermon on the Mount will ever stand forth as a great monument in the ethical and religious teaching of mankind. It definitely marks the gread step in ethical develop- ment, in the recognition of love and charity, not only as a ruling principle in the relations of man to man, but also as a power within man which ad- vances him in his perfectability without which no ideal of a human being can be conceived. It is (thus this central doctrine of love with which the Sermon on the Mount is intended to supplement the Mosaic commandments : but, at the same time, it must be beyond all doubt to any fairminded student of that sermon, that it is con- sciously directed in opposition to the process of formalisation which took the life and spirit out of the old established moral laws and which no longer responded to the new needs created by the advance of the later generations and the newer conditions of life. It emphatically implies the insufficiency of the earlier moral code to respond to all these new conditons. Even in Christ's time many of these moral commandments had passed into what we call law, and could be taken for granted. Mere conformity to them was not enough to elevate the moral standards of the in- dividual and to comply with the social needs of the community. Christ did not mean to destroy these accepted laws, but to develop them still fur- ther. 'Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets : I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. ' On the other hand the mere formal compliance with the old laws was not enough. It could only satisfy the formalists whom he called 259 Scribes and Pharisees. ' For I say unto you, that except your righteousness shall exceed the right- eousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. ' ' Thou shalt not kill' was not enough to counteract the evil in the social feelings of man to man; he en- joined that we must go deeper down into our feel- ings itowards our fellow men for the seat of the evil, and we must not kill their self-respect or wound their feelings. 'Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill ; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment, but I say unto you, that whosoever is angry with his brother wdthout a cause shall be in danger of the judgment : and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council : but whosoever shall say. Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.' So, too, the Seventh Commandment did not adequately respond to the higher moral consciousness; 'Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: but I say unto you, thalt who- soever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.' And thus what was merely recognised as illegal is carried still further into the ethical sphere of (the motive which leads to the illegal deed. He carries this moral inwardness, this further refinement and development of the moral sense, still deeper when he definitely condemns the for- malism in those who merely clung to restricted and outwardly manifest laws and did not respond to the higher ethical needs. 'Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them : otherwise ye have no reward of your Father 260 whicli is in heaven. Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the sitreets, that they may have glory of men. But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth * * *. And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, tliat they may be seen of men * * *. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into ithy closet, and when thou has shut thy door, pray to thy Father * * *.' But, above all, he wishes to oppose whatever forces may counteract the positive love of one's fellow men. These forces are the spirit of enmity and the spirit of hate and vengeance. This is im- pressed with the greatest strength, far beyond the confines of mere justice. Justice is, if not super- seded by love, supplemented as far as man's heart goes by love which is to rule there. 'Judge not, that ye be not judged. ' And there is added to it the beautiful warning against selfishness which distorts the truthful judgment of other claims, in the 'beholding of the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye.' Justice can in no way destroy the spirit and the demand of human love : ' An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth ' cannot destroy the claims of charity: and there follow the sublime words that 'whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. ' He combats chiefly the spirit of hatred and re- venge : and the spirit of love is not to be confined to your neighbor, but is to be extended even to 261 your enemies: 'Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you. ' The purity and inwardness of his moral teach- ing is shown in his opposition to mere outward semblance and conformity. 'Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad counten- ance : for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast.' * * * 'But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face ; that thou appear not unto men to fast * * * . ' Throughout this exalted sermon, which estab- lishes for all time the dominant position of love as the chief factor in human relationship and in eth- ics, there is also established for man the ideal of inner moral purity irrespective of outer manfesta- tion and recognition. But, at the same time, we must recognise — as has before this been recog- nised by so many impartial critics — that the ser- mon is essentially modified, if not directly and completely evoked by, the character of the audi- ence whom Christ is addressing : and by the satis- faction of that very impulse of charity in him to comfort and console these fellow beings so much in need of comfort and consolation, the poor and the suffering. It is these whom he wishes to up- lift. To this impulse are to be ascribed the open- ing paragraphs no(t only meant to console, but even to exalt the position of those who are bowed down and whose w:orldly fate is that of the un- favoured by fortune : 'Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is 262 the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn : for tthey shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek : for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness : for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart : for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers : for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are they which are persecuted for right- eousness sake : for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. Ye are the salt of the earth : but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted! It is henceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men. Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. ' The kingdom of heaven is to belong to those who are poor both in material wealth and in spirit, nott to the mighty and the prosperous and the leaders of intelligence. In his enthusiasm for the lowly life and his op- position to worldly prosperity, power and riches, he is carried away to make a positive virtue of the life which does not bring these; and his injunc- tion is that one should spurn all effort which leads to such prosperity and success, invoking as an ex- 263 ample the life of nature and the organic beings de- void of intelligence, imagination, forethought, and after-thought. It is the longing of the roman- ticists driven by opposition to the degeneracy of the dominant forms of civilisation in their age to the cry of ' * back to nature ' ' and to the simplicity, even unintelligence, of such natural life : 'Lay not uip for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where tliieves break throoigh and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal : For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. The light of the body is the eye : if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full lof darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness ! No man can serve two masters : for either he will hate the one, and love the other : or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. Therefore I say unto you, take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink : nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air : for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into bams, yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Con- 264 sider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they toil not, neither do they spin : And yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his gloTy was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothed the grass of the field, which today is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, what shall we eat? or, what shall we drink? or, wherewith- al shall we be clothed ? For after all these things do the Gentiles seek : for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness ; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow : for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. ^ 265 CHAPTER IV The Need for Ethical Evolution Implied in THE Teachings of Christ. Plato It is clear that this position in social ethics is directly at variance with the moral consciousness of our own age and of almost all the ages repre- senting higher civilisation in the past. For, whether we believe in the right of property or not, whether we admit the doctrine of absolute social- ism and collectivism or of unalloyed individualism and laissez faire, the economical standards obtain- ing in the world and the conception of labour which we hold is that they produce the common measure of value in the form of wealth individually or col- lectively, and that such labour and such effort can- not be considered bad, and must be recognised by the approval of society and the corresponding re- ward which they received! From every point of view it must be admitted that competence, in- dustry and thrift are social, as well as individual virtues. And though society must guard against the abuses of certain immoral and unjust develop- ments in definite directions, it must equally recog- nise the virtue of competence, industry, thrift and forethought. At all events, it cannot extol those qualities in man and the results arising out of them which would directly produce their contra- ries. It is against this aspect of Christian ethics that so many thinkers and writers have protested, and that, in the most violent and uncompromising 266 form, Nietzsche has hurled his powerful rhetoric and fiery invective. The glorification of the in- competent and of the mentally deficient, leading to the survival of the unfittest, has led him to maintain that Christianity had produced the mor- als for slaves. Still more is this the case in the attitude which in other parts of the New Testa- ment, and as a leading feature of Christian ethics, is maintained towards the physical life of man, the cult of the body, the natural instinct towards piiys- ical self-preservation. Not only Nietzsche, but the common consciousness of modern man, revolts against the degradation of the body, and upholds its rights and claims to intelligent cultivation; they almost establish the sanctity of the body. The natural instincts are in themselves not bad but good; their claims are just, provided they are maintained in due and moral organic proportion. No instinct is of itself bad, as no earth is unclean ; it only becomes dirt when ' out of place. ' Instincts must be controlled and must even be repressed in accordance with the claims of other instincts, the social and moral ones. In so far the eugenistic movement is highly moral ; and we are all endeav- oring to combat physical degeneration. However sincere and fervid our sympathies and our conse- quent actions in various directions with regard to the mass of the people, "the labouring classes," the proletariat, may be, it is definitely directed to- wards the betterment of their condition ; and this betterment implies that we recognise and strive for the best for man, individual and collective. No champion of the proletariat would venture to draw the logical conclusion of the exaltation of the conditions of life which have produced the lowly, the miserable, and degraded type of indi- 267 vidual out of which it is composed, and would maintain that the weak, inefficient and unrefined are higher and better than the strong, the power- ful, the intellectually and morally refined. Christ's sermon on the Mount and His other teiachings were evoked to meet the formalised abuses of inefficient moral standards prevailing in His day, and of consoling and uplifting those who were bowed down by unjust social conditions and by adversity. And the justification and eternal fitness of such a divine impulse was the spirit of true humanity, of love and charity, which He has brought into the moral consciousness of man as an essential element of His humanness for all times. Marking, as it does, an advance in ethical evolu- tion over the older moral code of Moses, it con- firms the unquestionable belief in us, that the evolution of man would be retarded or directly thwarted if later ages, with essentially different social conditions, needs and aspirations, grounded upon centuries of varying physical conditions and of civilisation, did not require supplementing and modification in order adequately to respond to the social needs of society. It still further im- presses upon us the convicition, by the very in- fluence which for so many centuries Christ's teaching has exercised upon the world, of the need, the absolute necessity, for the clear and ade- quate and effective formulation of the moral standards for successive ages, so that each age should become clearly conscious of its own ethical forces and, allowing them by conscious interaction to penetrate effectively the conduct of individual and collective human life, to prepare each peri- odic group in this social evolution for the progres- sive establishment of ethical conceptions which 268 would favor the advance of civilisation and make of future man and of future society what to their predecessors would have appeared as the super- man and the society of supermen. But the adequate expression of the moral cons- ciousness of an age or a people will, from the very nature of the task, always be most difficult of re- alisation. To the difficulties of clear apprehen- sion of an intellectual world so delicate and com- plex, and still more of clear and convincing ex- pression by means of language must not be added the difficulties inherent in a code destined for people of entirely different origin, living under physical conditions so varied, and representing social and intellectual life so far removed from that of later ages. Moreover, their immediate dependence upon, and interpenetration with, re- ligious conceptions and doctrines, (to M^hich, in the actual form and in the true meaning which they had for these alien people of by gone days, so many of us cannot subscribe and which we even disbelieve — ) make the task still more difficult. The expression of the moral consciousness in the highly complex conditions of modern life, and the difficulty of its just and ready application to the infinitely multiform needs of daily routine, pre- sent of themselves so arduous and illusive a task that a translation into less familiar regions of thought essentially counteracts their effective- ness. Such a clear codification of the ethical consciousness of each age cannot therefore be achieved by a translation into the mystical langu- age of bygone ages or thoughts. It must in every instance be tested by the actualities of life ; as its own recognition and establishment must arise out of the most thorough, unbiased and concentrated 269 study of the actual conditions of such life. In so far it must be absolutely rational: it must be based on empirical induction, strengthened by the test of logic ; and cannot be directly subordinated to the mystical, and often illogical, conditions of purely religious doctrine. Moreover, as I main- tained before, the practical, sober, almost oppor- tunistic, nature of such social laws, when inter- fused with our higher religious aspirations and our material daily wants and activities, can only tend to rob the religious consciousness and life of its essentially emotional and mystically supranat- ural elements, which are inseparable from the truly religious spirit. Nor must such clear and universally convincing expression of the moral consciousness of each age be put in the literary form of involved and suggestive maxims. Such vaguer generalisations, capable of varied inter- pretation, as is given by the oriental garb in which Nietzsche has transferred his principles of indi- vidual and social ethics to the lips of Zarathustra, rob his moral teaching of practical effectiveness. The first task in this great ethical need of ours is the establishment of the true facts and data of life, individual and collective, out of which the ethical consciousness of the age grows and to the needs of which it is to respond. The historical and inductive methods, carried on in their purity and severity, are to establish the facts of social evolution and the moral needs which it involves for man to produce a harmonious adaptation of his life to the physical and social conditions in which he lives. But, having recognised this evolution, his ethical task does not end there; he must not be a slave to Fatalistic Evolutionism, which can- not apply to the intelligent world, to the ethical 270. and social needs of the ' social animal. ' He must establish Conscious Evolution, and must crown his sober, and yet noble, induction by the applica- tion of his deductive faculties, his ideal imagina- tion. Here lies the domain, the powerful and just domain, of man's imagination which, what- ever evidence the eminently successful enquiries of the great biologists in our age may have estab- lished, remains the distinctive power differentiat- ing man from the rest of the organic world, ani- mal and vegetable. Our sober and conscientious induction estab- lishes the facts with regard to our actions and their motives and their relation to human society and its needs ; our imagination shows us for every act and its motive an ideal of perfection. Even for every unfulfilled desire, the realisation of which has never been attempted, and even for those which reason consciously or subconsciously tells us cannot be realised or attempted, there is, by implication, an apprehension of the potential or possible realisation of such desires in a world unlimited by the incompleteness of human power. The absurd impulse to transplant ourselves across the ocean in one moment — nay, to span the globe ■ — which an unfettered imagination may suggest, is at once checked and removed from the sphere of possible desires by rational man. But the pos- sibilities of such perfect and unlimited power must be present to the imagination of man, though he at once realises, by the habitual consciousness of his own limited organism, that it is not within his grasp. It exists in his imagination as an idea. This imagination is regulated and limited — though never extirpated — by reason and logic. Every act thus has its ideal; and the collective 271 acts emanating from one conscious centre which we call a personality, or an individual have their ideal in the perfect man. Still further each social group of such individuals, leading us up to the state and to humanity as a whole, each have their ideal; until we come to the universe and to God in which the imagination outstrips more and more our inductive faculty, which already, through the highest physical and mathematical speculation, transcends the empirical and rises to pure meta- physics and ends in religion. The highest expression of induction and of this imagination are the intellectual achievements of man wliich we call science and art. They repre- sent our imagination led by the logical and aes- thetic faculties ; and these together, when turned to the life of man, lead to ethics and establish the laws of conduct. The scientific side of ethics leads to the adaptation of the human organism, to the surrounding conditions of nature and the inter- relation of man in his social and political organ- isation ; the aesthetic side of ethics enables him to realise and to project before his consciousness the most perfect image for man's activities on the basis of logic and truth with which science has provided him. To use two personal types from the actual history of past thought: the principle upon which the adequate and efficient codification of ethics should be based to meet the needs of our present life and to fulfill the hopes of future pro- gressive generations, (while never discarding, but emphatically embodying, the lasting principles of Mosaic and Christian ethics) is to be the mental fusion of Darwin and Plato. Mere induction, fa- talistic evolutionism, as applied to man's cons- cious life, can never lead us to a true ethical code. 272 Pure idealism, even when based upon the highest religion — nay, because of its very transcendental character — cannot respond to the actual needs of terrestrial life and human society, and cannot con- trol the potent currents of man's instincts, and passions, nor even the instincts and passions of wider social groups and of political bodies. It is, therefore, that, besides Moses and Christ, I have added the third great mental type in the history of human thought, namely, Plato. I do not propose to enter into the minute problems of Plato's theory of Ideas, nor is this essential to my purpose. Nor do I wish to enquire into the fact of how far Plato himself, or his followers, recognised the objective, almost material exis- tence, of such Ideas. The whole mediaeval ques- tion of Nominalism and Realism does not affect us. Whether the ideas have an actual objective existence or not, Plato 's philosophy has confirmed for all times their actual existence in the human mind. It is with the effect (as their conscious re- alisation in our mind) which such ideas and ideals have in regulating our thoughts and actions, that we are here concerned. These thoughts and ac- tions, however, are based upon — saturated with — the inductive realisation of the facts of human life, as scientific and historical experience convey them to us. Evolution made conscious is to be- come a force directing mankind in its ethical prog- ress towards a more perfect state, both as re- gards individual man and human society. Plato for us thus means Rational and Practical Ideal- ism, neither retrospective nor mystical, neither ro- mantic nor Utopian, but idealism all the same which will safely ensure the progress of mankind. 273 CHAPTER V Platonic Idealism Applied to Ethical Evolu- tion. The Ethics of the Future Before attempting to indicate the general out- line and character which the codification of our ethical system will require, I should like to pre- mise tw^o isolated instances, the direct applica- bility of which to the main question before us may not be so evident, but of which in due course I shall illustrate the bearings. The first instance is meant to show the possi- bilities, by means of the creation of favorable ma- terial conditions and of direct education, of the moral and intellectual improvement to which the less favoured classes, including even the unskilled and illiterate labourer may attain. I can vouch for the absolute truth of this statement, free from all exaggeration, from personal experience. The Gilchrist Educational Trust has for many years provided lectures for the laboring classes of Great Britain and Ireland which, by intelligent and careful management on the part of the trus- tees and secretaries, have won for themselves a popularity which ensures for every Gilchrist lec- turer in every part of the United Kingdom huge audiences. They consist almost exclusively of working men and women, the average attendance being about fifteen per cent of the inhabitants of every town or village where these lectures are held. The lowest number of attendants that I can remember would be between four and five hun- 274 dred: while a single lecturer has often had as many as five thousand. The lectures held in the largest room available, from the drill halls and exhibition halls to the crowded schoolrooms, or, where no such public places are to be found, in chapels. The entrance fee is one penny per lec- ture, and not infrequently the tickets are sold out at once and admittance has had to be refused to large numbers. These audiences, consist of min- ers, mill-hands and factory-hands in the various industrial districts, from Scotland to Land 's End, from the West to the East coast, and have also included fishermen and agricultural laborers from fishing villages and agricultural districts, in which the same eagerness to learn has manifested it- self. Moreover this desire is seen most markedly in the fact, that, whereas every lecturer of experi- ence will admit that the attention of the more highly educated audiences elsewhere can hardly be held for more than one hour, these Gilchrist audiences are not satisfied with less than one hour and a quarter and will often willingly sit through a longer period. The absolute stillness and the keen responsiveness of these men and women are most remarkable and exceptional. The Gilchrist lecturers are not of the type of the popular lec- turer, but are generally themselves leading author- ities and specialists in the one subject. The most successful Gilchrist lecturers have been men like Huxley and Sir Robert Ball. Not only science in all its branches has thus been brought before these large audiences of labouring men, but they have even been introduced into the higher realms of lit- erature and art. It is an undeniable fact that thousands of these roughest colliers and miners, sitting in wrapt attention, often with their caps 275 on, for well over an hour, have been made to ap- preciate not only history and poetry — even the poetry of Robert Browning properly read and ex- plained to them — but also the sublime beauty of Greek art more than two thousands years old, presented to them in lantern illustrations by the fragmentary remains of the Parthenon sculp- tures ; and this interest and appreciation has been sincere and lasting. That it has been possible to lead men, with but scanty preparation in elemen- tary education, whose usual form of relaxation and amusement, when not confined to the public house, has been a fight between bull terriers, to appreciate the highest forms of art, which are generally supposed to be the exclusive birthright of the most highly educated portion of the com- munity, furnishes undeniable encouragement for those who believe in the power of social legisla- tion and such forms of education which tend to the advancement of the moral, intellectual and ar- tistic side of human nature. The second incident, the bearing of which, as will readily be seen, is upon the general question of social improvement for the great mass of the people, concerns the fundamental point of view in which this question of betterment is opposed, with exaggerated emphasis, to the prevailing attitude held chiefly by the professed socialists and by those who publicly or privately are con- cerned in the work of social reform. I here give it in the words of the narrator himself: ''Though suffering from a temporary break- down in health, I had promised the organisers of the Summer Extension Meeting in my University to give the opening address in one section of their courses of lectures. They were all addressed to 276 widely varied audiences of less favoured students from all over England, as well as from foreign countries, who flocked to these centres to acquire some of the learning which a university can give them. My condition in accepting the invitation to open the course of lectures was, that I w^ould do this, if I was at the time within two hundred miles, and only in case an eminent colleague of mine, the late Sir Richard Jebb, was unable to do so. It turned out that my colleague was thus prevented. I, on the other hand, after a rest-cure in the Black Forest, was completing a further cure at one of the other German watering-places several hun- dred miles distant from my university. Never- theless, I decided to fulfil my promise, to inter- rupt my cure, to travel direct to England, deliver the lecture, and to return to Germany to continue my cure the very next day. ' ' I had settled myself comfortably in a first-class carriage which, moreover, I fortunately found empty, with sufficient reading material and every other comfort, when, on arriving at Cologne, I found the railway station crowded with people all anxious to enter the express bound for England. The numbers were so great that second and even first class carriages had to be filled with many third-class passengers. There rushed into my compartment five men with much hand luggage, who filled every available seat and who at once began noisily to take possession of the carriage, and, not only ostentatiously made themselves at home in every way, but proceeded to eat and drink in a manner which was far from attractive. A coarse-faced German of the aggressive half Teu- ton, half Slav type of labouring men, flat-faced and brutal in features, took out his -sausage and 277 cheese, cut them into largish squares with his clasp-knife, and ate mtli ostentatious appetite. Though I endeavoured not to show my displeas- ure at this incursion upon my comfort, I soon felt, emanating from my five fellow travellers, an at- mosphere of antagonism to me, which was made still more noticeable by their remarks in German, a language which they evidently thought I did not understand. * ' I soon discovered that they were delegates to the Great Socialist Congress about to be held in London, and it was equally clear that they looked upon me as the blatant and luxurious bourgeois, if not capitalistic aristocrat, the embodied repre- sentative of all the principles which they held in odium and the personal type most antagonistic to themselves. It was also manifest that they rather enjoyed my discomfiture. But the conver- sation grew more and more interesting, especially owing to the part taken by one member of the party, whose physiognomy and manner as well as the acuteness of thought and wide range of knowl- edge displayed in well chosen and beautiful Ger- man, were in strong contrast to the remarks of his companions. He was sallow-faced and had dark hair, with a well cut thin aquiline nose, and luminous darjc eyes — the superior and refined Semitic type, strongly contrasted to the more vul- gar Teutonic and Slav type of the others. As I afterwards learnt, he was one of the leading so- cialist delegates from Saxony. "As the conversation continued, and irrepressi- ble desire arose in me to take part in it — incident- ally to correct their misapprehension as to my own nature and principles, and to punish them for the injustice they had done to me, and through me my 278 kind, and finally, perhaps, to do some good through these leaders of socialist thought, by cor- recting some of their views. Still more there arose in me a certain humorous and paradoxical mood, perhaps not entirely free from a sense of superi- ority and mastery in the very sphere which they professed as exclusively their own. This mood was in some respects akin to the irony of Mephis- topheles when dealing with the schoolboy. '•When at last the opportunity^ offered itself in the course of the discussion, I cut in with exag- gerated quiet and simplicity of manner, apolo- gising for my intrusion, and, in the course of my remarks, I lightly threw in with unaltered nat- uralness and simplicity : " As my late friend Karl Marx often said * * *." The effect was most startling, as if a bomb-shell had exploded amongst them. They all eagerly turned to me and shouted : ''What, you knew Karl Marx? And he was a friend of yours?" I answered in the same quiet tone, unmoved by their almost passionate eager- ness: "0 yes, even a Dutz-freund" (an intimate friend to whom in Germany one says 'thou' in- stead of 'you'). "I must here explain that in my young days, when I was little more than a boy, about 1877, the eminent Russian legal and political writer, since become a prominent member of the Dimia, Pro- fessor Kovalevsky, whom I had met at one of G. H. Lewes and George Eliot's Sunday after- noon parties in London, had introduced me to Karl Marx, then living in Hampstead. I had seen very much of this founder of modem theoretic so- cialism, as well as of his most refined wife {nee von Westphal) ; and, though he had never suc- ceeded in persuading me to adopt socialist views, 279 we often discussed the most varied topics of po- litics, science, literature, and art: Besides learn- ing much from this great man, who was a mine of deep and accurate knowledge in every sphere, I learnt to hold him in high respect and to love the purity, gentleness and refinement of his big heart. He seemed to find so much pleasure in the mere freshness of my youthful enthusiasm and took so great an interest in my own life and welfare, that one day he proposed that we should become Dutz- freunde, and I still possess one of his photographs on which he has thus addressed me. ''But the effect of this revelation upon these worshippers of Karl Marx was so intense and in- stantaneous that, from that moment, they hung upon my lips and showed humble regard and keen interest. The conversation grew more and more interesting, and I was especially attracted by the personality of the Saxon deputy, towards whom, do what I would to include the others, my own conversation was chiefly addressed. "Before we parted, however, I decivied to have the main question out in a most direct and per- sonal form. I then openly returned to the inci- dents of our trip from the moment they had en- tered the carriage and charged them with having assumed that I was their natural enemy, was no friend of the people, and that they had monop- olished all the love of mankind and the sympathy with human suffering ; that I was one of those sel- fish, self-indulgent, luxurious capitalists who fat^ tened on the misery of the poor worker. They had to admit that I was right. " 'Well then,' I continued, 'let us compare notes. Who are you, and who am I? What are you doing, and what am I doing?" I then gave 280 them truthfully a sketch of my own life and ac- tivities, and ended by telling them the mission on which I was engaged at that moment, and the pe- culiar conditions under which I was fulfilling the definite task I had undertaken. '*When I had finished my account, they turned upon me and said: 'But you are one of us. You are a socialist, whatever you may say. There can be no difference between us.' And my Saxon friend continued: "You may say what you will, in Germany you would be considered a socialist, merely from your attitude and action towards the working classes, and those in power would force you into our ranks; for there would be no room for you in any other party. You, at all events, not only love the people, but you have faith in them. ' "My answer to him was : 'You are right in your last remark, but you are all wrong if you think that I am at one with you socialists and that there is no difference between us.' And here I felt driven, perhaps by an oratorical impulse, to make my point doubly clear through paradoxical ex- aggeration of the difference between us, putting this difference in an almost brutal form. ' ' The difference between us, in spite of my love for the people and my faith in them, is that I think it more important for the world, that one man should be made ein feiner Mensch, should be made more refined, than that hundreds, nay perhaps even thousands, of ordinary men should have more food to eat than they have at present. I be- lieve, that in all prosperous and civilised com- munities, every man should have the right to live and even the right to work. I also hold that much will have to be done by direct legislation to check 281 the power of capitalism in finance and in the other forms of manipulation of capital, which lead to that excessive accumulation in the hands of in- dividuals, giving them an unbounded power in public life without corresponding responsibilities ; — that such accumulation of capital in single hands is ' against good policy. ' "I am thus, perhaps, a socialist at the bottom and the top. But I am an absolute individualist in between. Now, having made this concession, I think it more important for me that, by whatever work I am able to do, I should continue to de- velop, if not in man in general, at all events in certain men, those higher spiritual attainments, the totality of which constitutes a higher human being and produces a higher community, and, ul- timately, a higher mankind than that which our own days present. These higher and more re- fined men are to be the leaders of mankind ; and, by their work, impersonal and indirect, as well as personal and direct, they are to draw into their higher circle whoever from the mass of the pro- letariat is capable of such advancement: and by this constant action and reaction {Wechselwirk- ung) the whole of the proletariat, the mass of the people, is to be raised. "But, mark you, these higher individuals are to be the leaders. Let me tell you that Karl Marx was not out of sympathy with this view, even in its negative attitude as regards the claims of the low^er orders ; and it was he who was fond of quot- ing those verses of your great Goethe from his 'West- stliche DivaJi' on the presentation to a lady of a small bottle containing attar of roses : 282 Au SuUeika. Dir mit Wohlgenich zu kosen, Deine Freuden zu erhohn, Knospend miissen tausend Rosen Erst in Gluthen untergehn. Um ein Flaschclien zu besitzen, Das den Ruch auf ewig halt, Schlank wie deine Fingerspitzen, Da bedarf es einer Welt. Finer Welt von Lebenstrieben, Die in ihrer Fiille Drang Ahndeten schon Bulbuls Lieben, Seelerregenden Gresang. Sollte jene Qual uns qualen, Da sie unsre Lust vermehrt? Hat nicht Myriaden Seelen Timur's Herrsiehaft aufgezehrt?^ Thee to woo with perfume sweetest, And thy love to cherish, Blossoming, one thousand roses, Glowing, had to perish. Thus to give a graceful phial. Which should hold the scent, Slim and tap'ring like thy fingers, A whole world was spent. A whole world of living forces, Striving full and long, Prescient of Bulbul's loving And soul-stirring song. Why then grieve at loss and sorrow Which increase our joy? Doth not myriad souls of living Timur's rule destrov? (1) I must subjoin this imperfect translation of an untrans- latable lyric. 283 * ' The action of consistent socialism, with v/hich I am entirely out of sympathy, is lowering, not only to the strong, good, wise, and great indi- vidual; but it is also lowering to mankind as a whole, and gives no hope of an advance towards the ideals which man as man must foiin for the future. In so far I am your enemy and we are opponents. "The Saxon deputy thoughtfully shook his head, and said: 'Well, there is much to be said for your point of view, but you must allow me to refuse to be your enemy and to hope that you will be our friend." We have seen — and, because of the vital im- portance to the main purpose of this book, I have repeated the statement more than once — the cry- ing need for what I have called the codification of contemporary morals, or at least the clear and in- telligible (intelligible even to the average man) expression of the moral consciousness of each age and each country. The great fault in this re- spect has hitherto been that the treatment of ethi- cal subjects in the hands of the philosopher-speci- alist in ethics has almost exclusively been con- cerned with the discussion of the main or abstract principles and foundations of ethics, the mere prolegomena to ethical teaching which should be of direct practical use as a guide to conduct.. Such practical and efficient guides to conduct and teaching of morality has generally been by means of ephemeral or casual moral injunction on the part of the priests of every denomination. It thus, not only received a sectarian or dogmatic bias — often causing the whole moral structure to collapse when the foundations of belief in these dogmas were no longer valid for the person thus 284 instrncted — or in any case, introducing the ele- ment of mysticism and the need for translation into the remote language of bygone ages, races, or conditions of life, and thus making more difficult the arduous task of applying clear principles of action to the complicated exigencies of actual and present life, on the clear understanding of which such principles ought to be based. Furthermore, the cognisance which the State has hitherto taken of this paramount factor in the life of the people and the direct action which the State has taken, has generally been confined to that aspect of 'Social Legislation,' chiefly or ex- clusively concerned in counteracting extreme pov- erty and social inefficiency and the evil results arising out of these, again chiefly from a purely economical point of view. The State has not di- rectly considered the positive moral and social betterment of the conditions of life and living and of the people themselves, nor directly aimed at the highest conceivable goal for social improve- ment. The most crying need before us, therefore, is the clear recognition of such an expression of the moral consciousness of the age and, without any interference with the established religious creeds and their practices as the expression of religious life, to provide for, first, such an expression of our moral requirements and, second, for the ef- fective dissemination of contemporary ethics throughout all layers of human society. The action of the State in this respect must be directly educational, and this educational function must be concerned, first, with the young and their lives and, second, with the adult population and its life. 285 However limited the time set aside in schools for the teaching of ethics may be, certain hours are thus to be devoted to the teaching of morals. The text-book of such elementary ethics is, above all, to be clear and concise, and must contain those moral injunctions which would be universally ac- cepted by all right thinking people within the na- tion and admitted by every religious sect or creed. The teachers themselves should be provided with explanatory additions to the text-books, contain- ing or suggesting instances from actual life which should convincingly illustrate each moral injunc- tion from the short text-book in the hands of the pupils. Of course it will be left to the well quali- fied teacher to increase and to enlarge upon such definite and illuminating examples. Even the question of moral casuistry — the conflict or clash- ing of the various duties — are to be definitely treated. Though I cannot attempt the actual production of such a text-book here, and can only discuss the general principles upon which it is to be based and carried into effect, I may yet touch upon some of the difficulties of moral casuistry without enter- ing too fully into problems which in all ages have led to interminable discussion. The way to deal with such moral casuistics is the purely positive and not the negative method. By that I mean that one valid moral injunction is not eliminated by the fact of its clashing with another. Each one re- mains valid; though at times reason and the ap- plication of a general sense of justice and propor- tion may have to decide whether the one injunc- tion is not stronger than the other. 'Thou shalt not lie' retains its validity, even though 'Thou shalt not endanger the life and the permanent 286 happiness of another' may lead the physician or the friend for the nonce to tell an untruth to an insane person or an invalid when the truth would undermine life or life's efficiency. A practical moral test can always be transmitted to the pupil, in bringing him conscientiously to ask himself whether, imagining that when the cause which led him to tell such an untruth or to commit an in- fraction of an ethical law is removed, he would be prepared to lay before the person to whom he told the untruth, the course of action which he had pursued. That such moral casuistry presents many diffi- culties is undeniable. But who has ever assumed, or had any right to assume, that life can be lived without difficulties? Which one of the studies of science or art, or human learning is free from complications and almost unsurmountable difficul- ties which open the door to doubt and scepticism? Are we therefore not to include even mathematics, and the natural sciences, history and all other studies in our educational system, because such difficulties exist? The several aspects under which ethical ques- tions are to be treated in this elementary form, and which I shall further discuss are : 1. Duty to the family ; 2. Duty to the immediate community In which we live and social duties ; 3. Duty to the state ; 4. Duty to humanity; 5. Duty to self; 6. Duty to things and actions as such ; and 7. Duty to God. Of course I must here assume that the school- 287 masters entrusted with such a task are of high in- tellectual capacity, well prepared and qualified by superior education, the very highest which each country can give. Here again lies one of the most important and crying needs of reform. With great readiness — not always sincere — the political representatives of the people will, on the platform at public meetings, recognise and fer- vently uphold the supreme claims of National edu- cation. But how many are prepared to carry such professions into effect, and to insist that this is perhaps the most important function of na- tional life? To educate the young requires in the teachers themselves, as instruments of supreme precision, the most complete preparation for this important and delicate task. No teachers who are directly, as well as indi- rectly, to influence the youth of the nation, how- ever elementary the immediate subject which they are to teach even to the youngest, are properly qualified, unless they have had the opportunity of attaining to the highest culture which the age can give. The most elementary teacher ought to have liad all the advantages of the highest university instruction and to have been brought to the level of grasping and of assimilating the highest men- tal and moral achievements of the age. We might almost say — and it is not purely paradoxical to say this — That in consideration of the fact that in the earliest ages of childhood are laid the founda- tion of the indestructible and ineradicable ele- ments of character and intelligence, the training of the elementary teacher is of the highest im- portance in order to make him or her, in their mentality and whole personality, completely rep- resentative of the best which the age can give. 288 Were the state and the piiblic to recognise this they would be driven to admit, that from the eco- nomical point of view, as well as from that of so- cial recognition and reward, those entrusted with the most important and valuable functions in our national life ought to receive higher remuneration and the marks of greater public distinction di- rectly by the Government and indirectly in the market which determines values, than the work of the financier or the successful promoter and most of those functions in modern life which now receive the highest remuneration and distinction. But such is the insincerity, the flagrant contra- diction of our true inner beliefs and convictions and our admitted and persistent activity in the common life of the present, that this statement of mine would be received by most of my readers with a smile of compassionate and patronising in- credulity and doubt which, at most, admitting its truth in an ideal world, would deny the possibil- ity of its realisation in this actual world of ours and would stamp the temerity of all who would contemplate the possibility of carrying such principles into practical life as indicative of the unbalanced mind of the fantastic visionary. But history has proved again and again that truth may be delayed but cannot be suppressed forever. True ideas are the only things in the life of man which last; and, as the machinery of state is im- proved and simplified, so that it can with readi- ness eliminate abuses and inaugurate improve- ments, the public will find ways and means to carry into effect what is clearly recognised as be- ing most essential to its ultimate interest. Beside this direct teaching of ethics in scliools and households there remains another important 289 province, less directly bearing upon moral life but most important in its contributory effect to it. This is the other side of the two-fold division of our conscious life, the one of which is our life of work. It concerns our life of play, the recreative or more passive side of our existence. It is com- monly and generally believed by those responsible for the education of the young — parents and schoolmasters — that they are only concerned with the serious aspect of existence, the preparation for the working side of life, efficiency and duty. Their importance in our educational system is beyond all question. But it must be equally un- doubted, that the proper regulation of the recre- ative side in the life of the young — and for that in the adult population as well — is of equal im- portance. Many unwise parents and teachers of- ten think that the instinct for recreation, play and pleasure, is of itself so strong, so constantly potent and effective, in the young, that it is their chief duty to repress it. The result is, as in the case of any natural force which is unduly re- pressed until it finds vent in spontaneous com- bustion through its inherent energy, that the ir- repressible and ineradicable instincts rightly ex- isting in man's nature, which are thus unduly re- pressed, seek for and find expression in violent and detrimental forms, destructive to society as well as to the health and refinement of the indivi- dual. This side of youthful nature must not only not be ignored, but it must be consciously culti- vated. The instincts wiiich make for "play" are to be led into channels, without interference and pedantry (which rob them of their very essence), in which they lead to healthy, elevating and re- fining forms, adding to strength of character re- 290 finement of taste. The recreative and leisure hours are to be filled with forms of interests and amusements increasing physical health as well as moral, intellectual and social refinement. Though the great and lasting advantage to the development of a sense of duty in the young to be derived from the concentration upon each task, the struggle with difficulties, and the repression of all forms of self-indulgence, is one of the most important results of school work, discipline and study, the bearing which these studies have upon the recreative side of human nature, the life of play, must never be lost out of sight. It cannot in any way diminish the great advantages w^hich the teaching of every department of human knowl- edge thus has upon the development of the sense of duty, to aim at producing by such teaching a new intellectual interest which w^ould respond to, and satisfy, the sense for play, recreation itself, and increase the moral and intellectual resource- fulness of man from his earliest age onwards, so that he can find joy and refreshment in such pur- suits and such thoughts that will lie outside of the direct sphere of his productive w^orking exist- ence in after life. Above all, the love of thought, of knowledge, and of art in itself must be stimu- lated as a result of the direct teaching from the elementary school up to the university. These are the broad outlines of the duties of the state as regards the education of the young in securing the moral health of a nation. But as regards the adult population as well, the state has the duty directly to provide for, and to stimulate and satisfy, the need for higher educa- tion. It does this by directly producing or sup- porting the higher institutions of culture, be they 291 universities of other institutions for the purest and highest research in science, or in schools of art in eveiy form, including of course, musical and dramatic art — in one word, in all that immediately responds to culture, i. e., the cultivation of things of the mind for their own sake. Still more direct in its bearing upon ethics is the moral example of the state itself. Truthful- ness in word and deed, justice without compro- mise, must apply to every public function and en- actment of the state. This applies to war as well as to peace. The lasting degradation, if not total inhibition, of morality expressed by the commonly accepted saying that "All is fair in war" is per- haps one of the greatest evils to mankind which war brings in its wake. But in time of peace, any miscarriage of justice on the part of the state has an effect detrimental to the moral consciousness of every citizen in that state, out of all proportion to the individual wrong which it does. Still more insidious and solvent of the public moral fibre is the cynical attitude which many departments of the administration actually put into practice. There are cases on record in which individuals or public bodies have desisted from carrying on a lawsuit against the state because of the disparity of pecuniary means between themselves and the endless resources of the administration from whom they seek justice and equity. The 'law's delay,' as applied to many a public servant or private civilian has kept them from urging their just claims; and they have ended in resigning themselves to bear unfairness with a sense of in- justice against the state. Moreover, the practice in several departments, such as that of customs and public revenue, of not rectifying an undue 292 payment until a claim is made and persistently demanded by the individual, the fact that no ob- ligation is felt by such departments to point out an error made in their favour and against the in- terests of the citizens, and perhaps even inquis- itorial methods and activities which do not come, and are not meant to come, directly to the cognis- ance of the citizen affected by them — all this im- presses a lowness of moral standard on the part of the collective power of the people, to which they look for authority and guidance, which is most lowering to the morals of the whole nation. It is thus by less tangible and far vaguer in- fluences that morality is affected and modified, if not produced. And we must therefore always bear in mind, even when considering the direct teaching of ethical principles in homes and at schools, for which I have just pleaded, that the efficient result of moral teaching, differing to some extent in this from the teaching of any skill of hand or pliability and accuracy of mind, cannot be so direct and directly applied. In order to be ef- fective, it must pass through the whole character of man, produce an ethos, a general moral emo- tional state, which will lead him to become a moral being and to act morally. Nevertheless, to attain this end, the actual apprehension of w^hat the moral laws of the society in which he lives are, is. at some stage of his education and training to be clearly established and presented, so that ulti- mately these laws may permeate bis w^hole being and make him spontaneously feel and act as a moral social being. Finally, there are two facts of great practical importance to be borne in mind when the actual teaching of ethics is considered. 293 The one is, that the teacher of ethics need in no way be a specialist in ethical theory or mani- festly and obviously by profession a pattern and model of higher life in himself. After all, every parent must be a teacher of morals. The theory of ethics requires scientific treatment in no way differing in method and concentration from the theoretical study of any other group of phenom- ena. Such theoretical study does not of necessity fit the specialist for the practical application of theory to actual life and to the education of young and old in accordance with theory. Moreover pro- fessed or specialized philanthropy or a life cor- responding to mystical religious emotionality are very trying to the mental and moral balance and health of their votaries. Clergymen of the "Poi^^ tifex'^ type are warning instances of moral obli- quity, if not degeneracy to which a life based on dogmatic supernatural principles, removed from the healthy versatility of normal life, may lead. The other is, that, especially with the young, the conception of Sin is, as far as possible to be withheld, and that ethics are to be inculcated with a bright and joyful outlook in the positive aspect of right actions and of ideals of perfection to- wards which man is to strive. We must teach positive and joyful, not negative and conuninatory morals. 294 PART IV. OUTLINE OF THE PRINCIPLES OF CONTEMPORARY ETHICS A. Man's Duties as a Social Being CHAPTER I Duty to the Family I have in several of the preceding passages al- ready dwelt with the moral position of the family as regards its efficient training from the very ear- liest days onward in the intimate life of the home. It is here that onr training in intellectual and moral altruism is most effectively realised. As a social unit, forming and developing conditions most conducive to the social welfare of all the larger bodies of human society, it cannot be re- placed. Wlien once the strictly vital principles and practices, which establish the hard and fast privileges of definite classes simply by the fact of birth, have been discarded, the continuous influ- ence of the family in our own days, and prospec- tively on the future advancement of society, is un- doubtedly good. The feudal principle (by which I mean privileges established by birth) did not consider qualifications and efficiency for the social and political functions which its privileges gave; while, on the other hand, it directly offended man's sense of justice, and can therefore not be supported by any society based upon reason and morality. On the other hand, the continuity of collective effort, w^hich with such forcefulness 295 makes itself felt in every member of a collective group, achieves results for the good of the state and in consequence receives recognition and hon- our. The family as a social unit in the state is of the greatest use in advancing the public war- fare. No reasonable person can deny the moral effect upon the individual and its ultimate influ- ence upon society at large to be made to real- ise constantly, with more or less complete con- sciousness, the effect of every single act and of the totality of life-work, not only upon oneself, but upon all members of a household and a family who by physical propinquity and moral interde- pendence are directly concerned in the results of man's every act. There is many a loophole through which we can escape from the perform- ance of our more remote duties; but family life offers no such escape; and hence arises the re- volt against this institution as a whole on the part of those speculative self-(deceivers, coquetting with philosophical generalisations to hide from themselves and others the all-pervading impulse of self-indulgence thwarted by the stern persist- ency of domestic duties, be they frivolous pleas- ure-seekers or philanthropic Mrs. Jellabys. More- over, those possessed of the dullest imagination, can be stirred into projecting the result of their actions into the future, even beyond their own in- dividual life, by the contemplation of the lives of the children who are to succeed them. The home as a lasting unit of private property and the fam- ily as a social entity are among all the possible groups of human institutions perhaps the most effective in giving the stamp of wider unegoistic, and hence more social, motive and guidance to human activity. To make this home, not only di- 296 rectly responsive to the physical needs of the fam- ily; but also, whether cottage or palace, expres- sive of the best that is in the family, and as beau- tiful as taste can make it, is of itself undeniably good. To curb the impulse to squander one's substance on drink in the public house, or on yachts, or on racehorses in order that wife and children may be benefited materially, morally and intellectually ; and even beyond this, to create by such sacrifice of personal self-indulgence, con- ditions which should favour the existence and the improvement of the home and its occupants after one's own death, are surely guides to conduct which directly lead to the future improvement of society as a whole. To summarise these consider- ations in one simple and concrete, yet typical, in- stance: to plant a tree in a cottage garden or a park, which he who plants can never hope to see in full maturity, but with clear consciousness real- ises that he is planting for his children and chil- dren's children cannot be considered selfish or un- social by any right-thinking or public-spirited man. Whatever development in the future the tendencies towards collectivism and state owner- ship may lead to, the justification of individual property, not only in its intrinsic morality, but from the social — even the socialistic — point of view, is greater in the case of the cottage with its garden and the country house with its park, than in the share of the capital in any industrial enter- prise or state security. ^ Not only, however, in this aspect of the family and the home is its influence to be found. It is also to be found in a less apparent, yet directly moral and social, aspect — none the less effective (1) See Appendix IV. 297 in its moral bearing through thus being less evi- dent. In this aspect the family considered as a unit places upon each member a responsibility and a duty to the family as a whole with regard to his conduct and character and position which the individual member of a family establishes to- wards the outer world. In one word this point of view is concerned with family honour. I shall have occasion to touch on this complicated, though most important, moral factor in dealing with man's duty to society and his duty to self. Here again the continuous and intimate relationship of people to one another cannot be replaced, as re- gards its constraining effectiveness, by any con sideration of wi.der, vaguer and less persistent so- cial relationships. In so far the educative and disciplinary influence of the family is supreme and, I repeat again, that if the injustice and ir- rationality of the direct privileges of birth handed on from the Middle Ages, be eliminated, this edu- cative and disciplinary influence is wholly for the good of society and its advancement in the future. To know that you are not only injuring yourself and justly lowering your o\\ti reputation by dis- honest or mean actions or even by self-indulgent idleness and thriftlessness, but that your conduct immediately affects, not only the welfare of the home and the physical existence of those who dwell in it, and further, that it tarnishes the fam- ily honour — such consciousness is surely conduc- ive to the good of society. On the other hand, to know and to realise, while making any noble ef- fort, that not only joy is brought to those who are nearest and dearest, but that by such effort family honour is assured and elevated, is one of the noblest incentives to moral effort, constantly 298 present in the minds and in the lives of even the average human being of untrained and lowly imagination. And when, beyond this, the imagina- tion is stirred to realise that even after death the honour of the family will survive, and that the children and children's children will look back with pride and gratitude to the moral integrity, the intellectual achievement and the successful energy of their parents and grandparents, an ef- fective incentive to good social action is provided which can hardly be replaced jay any other motive, and can at least not be condemned as either harm- ful or ignoble. The realisation of these moral fac- tors emanating from the family, includes in the practice of life the establislunent of a definite group of duties which can be formulated and must be modified by the moral consciousness of each age in their relation to other duties. The first keynote is struck by the Fifth Commandment with which I have dealt above. But this must be enlarged upon and formulated so as to serve as a definite practical guide to conduct, and must therefore include the several duties of the various members of a family to each other and to the fam- ily as a whole. 299 CHAPTER II Duty to the Community and to Society THE ART OF LIVING The Ideal of the Gentleman We have dealt with the duties to the family; but man's duties do not end here, as little as the just impulse to self-advancement frees him from these duties. Each narrower group of duties must fit in with and advance the wider sphere of duties. Fortunately there is no inherent necessity why they need clash. For the best member of a family ought also naturally to be the best mem- ber of a wider society. On the other hand, owing to the limitations of human nature, the absorbing dominance of single passions and instincts, and the centripetal or selfish instinct which congests the sympathies, each narrower sphere of duties ought to be supplemented and rectified by the wider and higher ethical outlook towards which it ought harmoniously to tend. ' ' Charity begins at home," but ought not 'Ho stay at home" is emin- ently and deeply true. Moreover, it can be proved (and I am sure I shall be borne out by any experi- enced observer of life), that the narrower and more exclusive are our sympathies, the less effici- ent are they even when applied to the narrower sphere. ^ The absolute and amoral egoist does not love even himself truly and wisely. And those (1) See the Jewish Question &c., p. 94. 300 members of a family in whom the family feeling is hypertrophied to an abnormal degree, so that it is blunted with regard to the wider life beyond and may even produce an antagonistic attitude to- wards it, are most likely to be, within the family group, intensely selfish, whenever there arises a clashing of interests and passions between them- selves and other members of their family. To them applies what in an earlier portion of this book has been said concerning the Chauvinist. In the progression of duties from the narrower to the wider sphere we proceed from the family to the immediate community in which we live. I in no way wish here to maintain that the social classifications now attaching to birth, wealth or occupation are to be fixed and stereotyped in class distinctions without any appeal to reason and jus- tice, as little as I accept the extreme ideals of ab- solute socialism, which reduce all life and ambi- tions to the same level. But, considering our life as it actually is, we must begin our general social duties by performing those several functions which physically and tangibly lie before us ac- cording to the position in which we are placed, with a view to the material, moral and social ad- vancement of such a community. However re- mote the central occupations of our life may be from the life of the place in which we actually live, we must not, and we need not, ignore our immedi- ate duties to the collective life of this group of people or this locality. In many cases, nay, in most cases, our life-work may be immediately concerned, or connected with, a certain locality. Whether as labourers, or as farmers, or as land- lords ; whether as artisans, or as managers, or as proprietors of factories, or other industrial enter- 301 prises; whether as merchants or as tradesmen, employers or employed, we thus have distinct and definite duties towards those with whom we are co-operating, and, outside the interests of the defi- nite work in hand, we are directly concerned in the collective social life of the place where our work and our interests lie. But even if our home and residence fall within a district far removed from the actual centre of our life-work, even if this work is of so immaterial a character that it reaches beyond the locality and even the country, our immediate duty as members of such a com- munity, to do our share in regulating the social life surrounding our home, always remains. Nor is the social duty we have here to contem-^ plate merely concerned with our not transgress- ing the existing laws that emanate from what is called social legislation ; nor is it only concerned with the provision of all that goes to physical sub- sistence within the commmiity, the fight with pov- erty, misery and want, or merely with the increase of physical comforts and amenities; but it is posi- tively and directly concerned with the advance- ment and improvement of the social life as such,, in so far as we come into contact with it. It even concerns our relation with every member of such a community in which we live. Hitherto the recognised social activity in what is called social reform, as affecting the individual, and still more as leading to state legislation, has been chiefly concerned either with the avoidance of physical misery, or with the removal of injus- tice, or with the increase of physical comfort. From these broad and more public points of view we rise to the consideration of the social relation of individuals among each other in all the com- 302 plexities of private life and intercourse, not only in business or work, but also in the free and var- ied inter-relations of purely social existence. But beyond this there is a further task, when we re- gard human society as a whole. We must then recognise and establish in each successive genera- tion the rules governing such intercourse. Theso are established by an attempt to adapt life to the existing and constraining conditions which we find about us, to make it run smoothly and harmoni- ously with the least friction so as to avoid con- flicts and consequent misery. But by calling in the help of Plato, such rules of social conduct may be raised to a higher level towards the perfec- tion of social intercourse and of society as a whole. Not only physically, but spiritually as well, each successive generation must be led on to higher ex- pressions of its true humanity, to the highest ex- pression of individual man and the highest cor- porate existence of society. Kant's Categorical Imperative, which enjoins upon us to act so that we should guard in everything w^e do the dignity of our neighbour as well as our own, will ever re- main one of the most perfect epigrammatic sum- maries of the duties of man as a social being. As I have said before: most of us are not likely to murder or to steal ; but w^e are all of us prone to murder the dignity and self-respect of our neigh- bour, to steal from him that claim to regard and to esteem which is his by right, both human and di- vine, or to wound his sensibility by our o^vn acts of commission or omission. How often do w^e sin from a want of delicate altruistic imagination! Without directly wishing to hurt or harm, we are led, in selfish preoccupation and bluntness, to wound a man to the very core of his self-respect 303 or more frequently to disregard and ignore hia liarniless vanity. Beyond economical prosperity, even beyond charitable efforts to relieve want and misery, be- yond fair dealing in business and in social inter- course, lies, for the true conception of an ideal so- ciety, the Art of Living itself, upon the refinement and constant realisation of which depends to a great extent the happiness of human beings and the advancement of human society. To make our homes habitations w^iich should harmonise, and thus favour the free development of, our social instincts and to prepare each individual for such perfect intercourse with his fellow men, and to educate and to encourage the individual thus to perfect and harmonise his life in order to increase happiness for himself and for others, is the defin- ite duty before us. The claims of such duty are as weighty and the need of dealing with them as urgent as are all the more manifest and serious duties of morality which have hitherto received the sanction of moral society and of its educators. That community and that nation is highest in which this Art of Living is most completely real- ised in the home itself and in the training of the individual. I venture to say that in this respect, however unfavourably we as a nation may compare in some aspects of our public education with the other nations of Europe, we still stand highest. In certain parts of the United States of America the same high standard is attained. From the cottages of our poorest labourers and the sub- urban villas of our artisans and clerks, to the town dwellings of our merchants and tradesmen, till we come to the larger country houses standing 304 in their parks — all these homes are not only ex- pressive of comparatively greater wealth, but show, on the part of their occupants, some de- sire — whether partly or wholly successful — to beautify the home beyond the mere needs of physi- cal subsistence, to make it respond to the life of its occupants beyond the mere provision of shel- ter and food. From the strip of cottage garden without, to the interior furnishing of the modest cottage, and so on throughout the dwellings of every layer of society, there is shown here some effort to respond to this important contribution to the Art of Living, which in so far surpasses all other European nations. Moreover, as a heritage handed down through centuries of political liberty in representative forms of government, however indirect and often very slight in its effectiveness, the sense of so- cial responsibility and of collective action in every social group throughout the country, is higher than in countries which do not possess as a living tradition the responsibilities, as well as the rights, of the individual as regards communal life. The social sense, based upon justice and fair- ness, has furthermore been most efficiently devel- oped among us by our national sports and pas- times, and their deep penetration into the life of both men and women. Whatever may rightly have been urged against the excess of interest shown in sport among the young in our educa- tional institutions, as well as among our adult population, the fact remains, that the sense of freely established (not imposed from without or from above) social discipline, the steady develop- ment in the public consciousness of the sense o! justice and of fair play, have been of inestimable 305 advantages to our national life and to the social ethics guiding it and in which other countries, not- ably Geraiany, are grossly wanting Let us never forget this essential and conspicuous result of our national sports and cultivate and cherish them ac- cordingly, though the very realisation of their im- portance must lead us to combat all abuses and elements of exaggeration or degeneracy inherent in some of their forms or consequent upon their disproportionate and inapposite cultivation. The more we recognise the importance of these forms of collective physical recreation as factors in the social development of the people, the greater becomes the need to supplement them by the cultivation of the spiritual and moral forms of play, the appreciation and pursuit of science and art, to which, under favourable conditions, even the mass of the people can be made thoroughly responsive. The illustration I gave in an earlier part of this book in the case of the Gilchrist lec- tures will indicate the possibility of such a mde diffusion of culture in all social strata. The un- deniable good wliich during the past centuries — in spite of the blighting interregnum of iconoclastic Puritanism — the Established Church in England has done, by disseminating, through village and town choirs, the appreciation and the practice of music (though limited to church music), has borne its fruit throughout the whole country and has established, notably in Yorkshire and Lanca- shire developments of choir-singing, which so com- petent a judge as the late Professor Joachim pro- claimed to be of the best. No doubt on the secular side of musical development we can learn much in this respect from other countries, especially Ger- many. The same applies to the diffusion among 306 the people of the higher forms of dramatic art which in Germany and France are made acces- sible to the mass of the people. But in all other arts, especially as they are directly reflected in domestic life, whether it be in architecture, in the graphic or decorative arts, their vitalisation in the actual homes and lives of the people at large, Brit- ish Society stands higher than that of Germany. What we are here concerned with is the study of that aspect of these collective human efforts which are connected with the development of the individual towards a higher social ideal, and with those qualities of human character and living which, apart from the mere struggle of material existence, affect the relationship between human beings as such in their intercourse with one an- other. And we hold that this sphere of social ethics is of the utmost importance in the establish- ment of human morals. The summary of the qualities which prepare men for *'The art of living," that most important factor in the ideals of human society, is conveyed by the one term, "gentleman." This term has been adopted by most European nations in its English form and is the modern successor of the Mediaeval Knight or nobleman of the Italian cavaliere of the Renaissance, the French gentil- homme and the modern Austrian return to Me- diaevalism in the Kavalier. To be a gentleman is an indispensable condition to the production of the Superman. The ideal of the gentleman includes in its con- notation above all, that he should be 'a man of honour.' ^ Such a man is one who in all hds ac- (1)1 have on a previous occasion (Jewish Question, 2nd ed., p. 324) attempted to define honour as follows: "Honour is practical conscience, conscience carried into action; and the 307 tions strives to live up to his highest principles in spite of ail the dictates of self-interest or con- venience which may draw or lead him into an- other direction. He has embodied in his code ir- respective of utility or advantage, the highest principles of social ethics prevalent in his day. Honesty and absolute integrity in all his dealings, and truthfulness, whether it be in the material business of life or in the more delicate and com- plex relations of social intercourse, are coupled with the generosity and the courage to uphold be- fore the world and in himself those principles which wilfully ignore all expediency. The man of honour is he who can never act meanly, think meanly or feel meanly. He never can be a moral coward any more than a physical one. He is the embodiment of virility and moral courage. He has developed in himself Plato's rb dviiotibis, true courage, which dominates rb eTnbvu-qTLKbv , the natural instincts and appetites, and enables him, if need be, to stand alone amidst the ruins of selfishness and iniquity, dominating the life about him. Si fractus illabatur orhis, Impavidum ferient ruinae. But it is in this conception of honour, that the need for summarising the highest ethical prin- man of honour is one in whom this practical conscience has be- come second nature, an ineradicable habit. But we must all realise how frequent are the changes in the denotation of this term honour. Each period and every country has its peculiar conception of it, and the one age may oppose or ridicule the conception held by another, as one country may deny the code of its neighbour. One country may consider it to be a stern dictate of the code of honour to fight a duel in satisfaction of wounded vanity; while another country may laugh it away. But what always remains, and will remain, is the connotation of honour — the practical conscience as affecting our common social life, so effective that we are prepared to give up our lives in order to follow its dictates. 308 ciples successively in each age, to the insistence upon which this whole book is meant to contribute, makes itself most clearly felt. For there can be no doubt that in successive generations and under varying social conditions, as well as with the dif- ferent occupations and professions of life, the principles and standards of honour have varied and must naturally vary. They establish the ac- cepted code of honour for men and women living under these changing conditions, until they may become what, in a derogatory sense, is called a convention and what really means the crj^stal-. lised and sometimes fossilised social experi- ence of each age, community, or social group. Now, it is against such conventions and their effect on life that the revolutionary innovators or reformers in our own day before all make war. These, of whom Nietzsche is the clearest and most pronounced type, endeavour with a stroke of the pen to eradicate from human society the sturdy plant of moral growth which has been evolved and streng-thened for centuries, grafted upon and im- proved by the conditions of the progressive and refined life of civilised society. They wish to extirpate it from the moral consciousness of men, calling it a convention which blocks the way to the advent of the superman. But because there is no doubt that the conception of honour thus varies with different social conditions, that it even changes in its character and nature with the dif- ferent social gradations affected by the life-occu- pation of groups within the wider communities, such change only proves the vitality and all-per- vading penetrative effectiveness of such a concep- tion of social ethics and the urgent need for the constant revision and renewed justification of its 309 existence by the application of the highest reason, by the action of Practical Idealism. The more a later generation, looking back with the unprejudiced clearness of impartial apprehen- sion, can realise the limitations and even distor- tions inherent in the conception of honour in previous ages, which have become effete social conditions, the greater and the more crying be- comes the need to modify and to define a new con- ception of social ethics as embodied in the idea of honour in accordance with the best that the suc- ceeding age can think and realise. The ideals em- bodied in the Principe of Machiavelli, in the Cor- tegiano of Castiglione, and to some extent in the ^'Letters of Lord Chesterfield to his Son," can no longer be accepted by us. Many of the principles are directly repugnant to our moral sense; while many others have lost their sigTiificance to such a degree, that the seriousness and emphasis with which they are upheld appear to us frivolous and inept, because of the complete change in the social constitution and the actual life of our own time and society. Still, many of the fundamental prin- ciples might remain, and might be incorporated into a modern code. If we thus consider the conception of honour from the historical point of view, we find that the highest honour in a definite society or state is es- tablished by the ruling class within that state. The keynote in a community with effective aristo- cratic classification, from the ruling classes down to the serfs, is struck by the ruling class. Not in^ frequently the members of such a class claim for themselves (and the claims may be admitted by the lower and humbler gradations of society) the 310 monopoly in the possession of the attributes of honour. Wherever there exists sucli fixed and stereo- typed class distinctions the lower and humbler classes may accept such exclusion from the claim to honour or, at all events, may themselves be lowered in their moral vitality in this respect and to that extent. To give but one broad instance, not so remote in time from ourselves: The ex- treme effectiveness as regards honour pertaining to the ruling class of the Samurai in Japan has re- pressed the moral standards for the commercial and o'dier classes in that country, so that, in spite of the exceptional loftiness of moral standards among the Samurai, the commercial honesty and integrity and all those social qualities affected by the conception of honour have been lowered among the Japanese merchants and traders com- pared with those of China. As the uncompromis- ing and stereotyped class exclusiveness m Japan is making way for wider democratic freedom, the higher standards of the Samurai may become in- adequate and lose their effectiveness ; but, on the other hand, the ideas of commercial honour and other social and ethical forces will extend and rise as the need for such extension and elevation makes itself felt with the rise in social position of the formerly repressed classes. This process of national and social transformation is one of the greatest problems facing the people of Japan. The same phenomenon may be perceived in com- paring the social conditions of the free continen- tal towns during the Middle Ages, which were not dependent upon, and were unaffected by, the conditions of life prevailing amongst the nobilit>' in the country, and where, therefore, standards 311 of honour pertaining to commerce, trades and handicrafts were evolved which conld not be re- pressed to a secondary, and in so far more de- graded position, by the comparative superiority of social conditions and of honour in the nobility. In the same way in our own days the careful ob- server may note that in countries and communities where, social consideration assigns a higher posi- tion to those occupations and conditions of life re- mote from commerce and trade, the social stand- ing and the standards of social living, ultimately the conception of ' honour, among merchants and tradesmen are not as high as in those communities wiiere commerce and trade are not thus repressed. It is equally undoubted that occupations in life and their direct influence upon the mode of living, established special standards of social morality in themselves. The conditions of direct barter, for instance, are lower than in -commerce, because they leave such a wide margin to personal persuasiveness and even deception, which -cannot obtain in those larger commercial transactions where the object bought or sold cannot be seen or tested on the spot and where, therefore, the appeal to, and the direct need of, faith and trust in the truthful statement of vendor and purchaser are a necessary condition to all -commercial transactions. The presentation of a small sample in the hand to represent a shipload of such goods presupposes veracity on the part of vendor and of faith on the part of the pur- chaser. Higher principles and commercial integ- rity, commercial honour, may therefore be evolved in such wider commerce and may establish them- selves among all those following such an occu- pation in life. I wish merely to suggest, and 312 leave the reader to work it out for himself, how certain trades among us, from the very nature of the uncertainty inherent in the objects offered for sale, have proverbially produced standards of hon- our greatly differing from those of other commercial dealings. On the other hand, the extension of modern busi- ness into these vastly widened spheres, as well as the fact that it is almost entirely based upon credit, often unsupported by -corresponding as- sets ; and furthermore the rapid and enormous in- crease of speculation, which must alw^ays form some part in great commercial transactions so that it has become the dominant element, have blunted the sense of commercial responsibility, in- tegrity and honour, and have even opened the doors to downright dishonesty. They have also made the prospect of insolvency or bankruptcy so common a possibility in the results of commercial transactions, that they have blunted the moral sense of responsibility and the old-fashioned standards of commercial honour which shrunk from insolvency and bankruptcy as in themselves dishonorable. Thus the present state of commerce often becomes in effect lowering to the moral standards of society and in its ultimate influence upon the life of civilised communities has eaten into the very core of the social morality of the whole world. Moreover, those con-ceptions of commerce and industry in which they are considered analogous to war, in which proverbially * all is fair, ' though actually prevalent, are certainly not sanctioned by the moral consciousness of the people when they face the question of public and private moral- ity. Competition may be the soul of trade and 313 may be recognised and admitted as su-ch. Its ef- fect in appealing to energy and arousing mental and moral effort in all workers is undoubtedly to the advantage of society, beyond the economical aspect in which it lowers prices to the advantage of the pur-chaser. Not only in the production and cost of goods, but in the rapidity and facilities of distribution and in the transportation of capi- tal in all directions where it is required by labour, commercial activity is undoubtedly to the benefit of society. The hard work, the concentration of energy, the application of human ingenuity and inventiveness to produce labour-saving appliances and to facilitate the transportation of goods as well as of capital, are undoubtedly of the utmost advantage to society, worthy of encouragement and recognition; they rightly bring great re- wards in the acquisition of wealth. Moreover, the results of such qualities, good in themselves, are to be encouraged and protected by society at large and by the state, in making laws to protect and promote them. The extension and enforce- ment of patent laws are wholly just and useful, and so far from being discarded, they ought to be still further developed and enforced. These patent laws must be supplemented by the laws of copyright which ensure the same advan- tages and encouragement to less physically mani- fest inventiveness and originality, to the more im- material and vaguer goods of the mind, be it in direct literary or artisti-e production or in the designs and the creation of new fashions, which {stimulate industry through the exertion and men- tal superiority of the worker. Besides being ad- vantageous to society, the protection and encour- 314 agement of this kind of human productiveness directly appeal to our sense of justice. Though competition can thus be recognised and commended as a beneficent element in' commercial life, the same does distinctly not apply to the de- generation of competition into the unscrupulous- ness and savagery of warfare, wherein the ruling standards of honesty and honour are discarded or ignored. When the methods of commer-ce or in- dustry imply or include and — as is often the case — are chiefly concerned in deception and lying ; when they encourage activities corresponding in a great degree to those of the spy in warfare ; when in dealings between vendor and purchaser and competitors all trust, not only in each other 's state- ments, but in the primary intention on the part of each, to deal fairly with each other while recognis- ing the just claims to self-interest and self-ad- vancement for each, when all these are brushed aside, and the attitude is that of pure antagonism and contest, in which all means to win are resorted to, including untruth and de-ception, then such oc- cupations are distinctly low in the scale of human activities and, if not directly dishonourable, they can lay no claim to honour, and no claim to social re-cognition or regard. Yet, it cannot be denied that a great part of industrial and commercial ac- tivity is carried on by successful men to whom — as a high attribute among their clan, the term ^•cleverness,' or, in America, 'smartness' or — sometimes with a slight dash of subdued disap- proval, yet hardly even with complete condemna- tion — the term 'sharpness' is applied — it cannot be denied that activity is not compatible with the maintenance of a high conception of honour and of the higher social ideals. 315 Society will have to recognise that su-ch occu- pations are low, and show its disapproval in its estimation and treatment of those who pursue them. Now, it must be admitted that the whole sphere of Stock Exchange transactions, in so far as they are founded upon what is called 'speculation,' are essentially of this nature. The 'bulls' and 'bears' must, from the speculative point of view, entirely base their success on the ignorance or misjudg- ment of their opponents. They are, if not directly forced, at least encouraged, to mislead their op- ponents about the deciding facts in the regulation of value and, at all events, they are by this very activity justified in withholding all information which would guide the willingness or eagerness to purchase or to sell on the part of their commercial antagonists. There is but little room for honour in such occupation and none whatever for generos- ity. And if generosity is an essential element in the composition of a man of honour and a gentle- man, there is but little opportunity for its develop- ment in the mental ethos of him whose whole conscious activity in his profession is regulated by such a state of social warfare. Now, though it could only be a Utopian dreamer who would maintain that men enter the struggle of commer- cial 'Competition in order to practice generosity towards their competitors and to cultivate honour and chivalry in themselves, it can and must in sober and deliberate reasonableness be main- tained, that no occupation can be good which so far from encouraging generosity, requires, and stimulates the reverse — namely, -cruelty, ruthless- ness and deception. Such an attitude however, is the necessary result of that development of 316 modern industrial and commercial enterprise which is not only concerned with the expansion and the prosperous development of one's own busi- ness but has, as one of its conscious and dire-ct aims, the destruction and ruin or jeopardising of an opponent's business. Now, the recognised methods developed during the last two genera- tions in the commercial and industrial world, es- pecially through the formation of the larger 'trusts' have included attempts thus to eliminate nil competition and to destroy and ruin the busi- ness of all those who would, and ought to, form the natural competitors. That such a practice and such an attitude of mind are contra honos mores, and shock and revolt the moral consciousness of the society in which we live, will be admitted by all. Here, however, we meet with one of thos fllag- rant moral contradictions referred to in the In- trodu-etion to expose which has been one of the chief aims in the writing of this book. For though it is recognised that such prevailing practices are condemned as immoral and unsocial by the moral consciousness of our age, such is the power of wealth, to whi-ch these practices ultimately lead and the power, the consequent social glitter and prestige which can be given to the life of those possessing this wealth — including even the power to make large contributions towards charitable or public needs — that ultimately wealth itself, ir- respective of its moral or immoral, beautiful or hideous, exalted or despicably turgid sour-ce, will carry with it social recognition and even the con- ference of the highest distinction on the part of the state. Society as well as social groups and, above all, the state, must reconstitute their scale 317 of social valuation. If society and the state are as yet too unwieldy and incapable of positively affecting and regulating by unmistakable signs, recognition, approval and reward, those forms and traditions of activity which themselves di- rectly tend to the advancement of so-ciety and the higher developments of moral standards, they ought at least directly to discourage and to com- bat those forms which are * against good policy' and which distort and vitiate the recognised standards of social morality. I have endeavoured elsewhere^ to show the whole system of what is 'Called finance, besides be- ing dangerous to the individual has had the most disastrous effects upon the natural, intelligent and normal development of adequate social and moral ideals among us. I have further attempted to show how the important function of the Trans- portation of Capital can, not only be most effec- tually carried out by the state, but would also be a most effective means of levying taxes for public purposes. At the same time it would remove the most threatening economical and so-cial danger, namely, the natural accumulation of excessive capital by individuals and bodies, devoid of the responsibility corresponding to the excessive power conveyed. Its chief effect upon the ques- tion we are now considering is, that it would coun- teract the prevalence of most effective false ideals which are demoralising every layer and group of society in every one of the civilised coun- tries of the world. But this reform of the Transportation of Capi- tal is also required for the transportation of that (1) The Political Confession of a Practical Idealist. London, 1911. See Appendix IV. 318 less manifest and more evasive form of capital in the intellectual, scientific or artistic achieve- ments of men in so far as they come under the head of patents and -copyright — in fact all those forms of potential capital which require in- dustrial support to become actual economical values. It is here that the state, by means of its patent and copyright laws, can do much. But vast improvement is required to protect the producer of such goods. As it is, the inventor (unreason- able as he may often be, unpractical and difficult to deal with in his sensitiveness and want of busi- ness habits) is at the mercy, not only of the ordi- nary business man, but of those evil traditions of sharp practice in which all generosity and even all fairness are suspended among those men of pure business who are to realise and make available the invention for industrial and economical pur- poses. The share of the inventor in great profits is thus generally reduced to an unfair minimum. The lead given by Germany in its Patent laws as differing from our own, points to the right direc- tion in which these laws are to ensure ordinary justice and to counteract the distinctly immoral practices of modern business. But beyond dealing with patents and those in- tellectual goods which can be copyrighted, the evil traditions of the business of promotion and fin- ance, perhaps unknown to the mass of the people, are devious, reprehensible and low and are recognised and cynically admitted by the business world itself concerned in such transactions, to be so, when a less definite though negotiable idea or some potential capital in the form of a concession are offered for exploitation. The current prac- tices in this field of business enterprise are most 319 reprehensible and display low standards of busi- ness honour. I could adduce the evidence of one of the most prominent and successful, as well as the most truthful representatives of finance in England to show how in many spheres of finance such low standards prevail.^ The same would emphatically apply to the United States ! Whatever hopes we may have regarding the future action of States, we must lay it do-wn as a law of social ethics in order to free ourselves from direct contradiction in our daily life, which society at large and all individual men who respe-ct themselves and who have the general good of so- ciety at heart, ought to insist on — namely, that no person is to be admitted into an honest and honourable group of society whose private or whose business honour is tarnished; that wealth and power derived from sources and from prac- tices opposed to higher commercial honour, and even from sources which, if not plainly dishonour- able are unsocial in their character, and imply an attitude of mind definitely bent on harming or ruining the competition that such action should not evoke admiration or approval and should not confer upon the possessors of them the claim to social recognition or regard. I have enlarged upon the commercial aspect of modern life because it is so dominant in our own days, and I have endeavoured thereby to illustrate the actual need for the codification of ethics in response to the varied requirement of modern soc- ial evolution. More directly I have endeavoured to show the corresponding need for the modifica- tion of our conception of honour, an idea so im- (1) See "How I placed a Concession in London," Murray'ii Magazine, June, 1889. 320 portant in social ethics, wliicli tlie evolution of our life has made necessary. The gentleman is thus, before all things, a man of honour. He possesses a highly developed and refined sense of truth, honesty and justice, tem- pered by a strong impulse of generosity which goes with strength and is the essential element of chivalry. The consciousness of superior strength must display itself in its attitude towards weak- ness. This in no way establishes the rule of the weak, 'the ethics of slaves,' and the dominance of the inferior; for the true gentleman has ultimate ideals for society and humanity at large of a dis- tinctly aristrocratic character, that is, the pre- dominance of what is best, and will fearlessly work towards the realisation of these ideals. He will assert his power to this end, though such an as- sertion in no way precludes his generosity to- wards the weak, whom he will thereby raise and not degrade him to the slavery which blind and immoral power imposes to the ultimate undoing of its own strength and virtue. I repeat the super- man who is not a gentleman is inconceivable. The same sense of -chivalry must show itself in the attitude of man towards woman. He will al- ways remain conscious of the fact, and manifest this consciousness in his actions towards her, that he is physically the stronger, and he will not take advantage of her weakness. If he does not act thus, he will sin, against his sense not only of justice, but of fairness and generosity. On the other hand, he will not insult and degrade women by excluding her from moral responsibility and from the di-ctates of reason and pure justice and conceive her as an irresponsible being. All that 321 has been said of honour and all social virtues ap- plies to woman in a form suitable to her nature. Besides and beyond being a man of honour and responding to the weightier duties of honesty, jus- tice and chivalry, the true gentleman will develop in himself what, from a mistaken view of the needs of social life, may be considered the lighter and less important duties. These are the social qualities upon which the free intercourse of human beings among ea-ch other as social beings depends ; and from this point of view — of social intercourse and the aggregate daily life of human society — they are most important. They are the essential elements in man's humanity, in the restricted ac- ceptation of that term, whi-ch make him human and produce the humanities. The sins most of us com- mit, in our ordinary daily life chiefly fall under this category, and from this point of view they are most serious and become almost heinous. In fact, the sins against the humanities are as serious as the sins against humanity; they demand no less energetic resistance because they are the sins nearly all of us are likely to commit. To put it epi grammatically, if not with paradoxical exag- geration; for most of us it may be as great a sin to commit a rudeness, to show a want of con- sideration, to shirk answering a letter, to refrain from paying a call which might reassure another human being of our regard, or avoid wounding them by ignoring them, as to refuse a contribu- tion to a deserving charity or to visit the 'slums' where, it is more than likely, our presence is not required and may do no good. The gentleman manifests breeding, consideration and tact; his whole nature is harmoniously attuned to respond to all the calls from the human beings with whom 322 he comes in contact, and to dispel all discords in the life which immediately touches him. The meaning of this humanity or human-ness, has never been more perfectly expounded than in the following passage of M. Bergson.^ *'Each of us has a particular disposition which he owes to nature, to habits engrafted by educa- tion * * * to his profession * * * to his so- cial position. The division of labour which strengthens the union of men in all important matters, making them interdependent one with another, is nevertheless apt to compromise those social relations which should give charm and pleasure to civilised life. It would seem, then, that the power we have of acquiring lasting hab- its appropriate to the circumstances of the place we desire to fill summons in its train yet another which is destined to correct it and give it flexibil- ity — a power, in short, to give up for the moment, when need arises, the habits we have acquired and even the natural disposition we have developed^ — a power to put ourselves in another's place, to in- terest ourselves in his affairs, to think with his thought, to live in his life; in a word, to forget ourselves. These are good manners, which in my opinion are nothing but a kind of moral plastic- ity. The accomplished man of the world knows how to talk to any man on the subject that inter- ests him; he enters into the other's views, yet he does not therefore adopt them; he understands everything, though he does not necessarily excuse everything. So we come to like him when we have hardly begun to know him; wis are speaking to a stranger and are surprised and delighted to find in him a friend. What pleases us about him is the ease with which he descends or rises to our (1) Quoted from the Moniteur dii Puy-de-Dome, Aug. 5, 1885, in Henri Bergson, An Account of Life and Philosophy, by Algot Rule and Nancy Margaret Paul, p. 10. 323 level, and, above all, the skill with which he con- veys the impression that he has a secret prefer- ence for us and is not the same to everybody else. Indeed, the characteristic of this man of consum- mate breeding is to like all his friends equally well and each of them more than all the rest. Consequently our pleasure in talking to him is not without a trace of flattered vanity. "We may say that the charm of his manners is the charm belong- ing to everything that * Good manners are the grace of the mind.' Like the manifestation of bodily grace they evoke the idea of limitless adaptability; they suggest too that this adapt- ability is at our service and that we cannot count upon it. Both, in short, belong to the order of things that have a delicately balanced equilibrium and an unstable position. A mere touch would reverse that equilibrium and send them at once into an opposite state. Between the tinest man- ners and an obsequious hypocrisy there is the same distance as between the desire to serve men and the art of using them in our service * * * The balance is not easy to keep. We need tact, subtlety, and above all a respect for ourselves and for others. ''Beyond this form of good manners, which is no better than a talent, I can conceive another which is almost a virtue * * * There are timid and delicate souls who, because they mistrust themselves, are eager for approbation, and desire to have their vague sense of their own desert up- held by praise from others. Is this vanity or is it modesty? I do not know. But whereas the self- confident man annoys us by his determination to impose on everyone his own good opinion of him- self, we are attracted by those who anxiously await from us that favourable verdict on their worth which we are willing to give. A well-timed compliment, a well-deserved eulogy, may produce 324 in these delicate souls the effect of a sudden gleam of sunlight on a dreary landscape. Like the sun it will bestow new life, and may even transform into fruit, blossoms that without it would have withered untimely. It takes up its dwelling in the soul and gives it warmth and support, inspir- ing that self-confidence which is the condition of joy, bringing hope into the present and offering an earnest of success to come. On the other hand a careless allusion or a word of blame, uttered by those in authority, may throw us into that state of black discouragement in which we feel discon- tented with ourselves, weary of otners, and full of distaste for life itself. Just as a tiny ciystal dropt into a saturated solution summons to itself the immense multitude of scattered molecules and makes the bubbling liquid change suddenly into a mass of solids, so, at the merest hint of re- proach, there hasten from every quarter, from the hidden depths of the heart, fears that were seemingly conquered, wounds of disillusion that were healed over, all the vague and floating griefs which did but await the moment when they might crystallize together into a compacted mass, and press with all their weight upon a soul thence- forward inert and discouraged. Such morbid sensibility is supposed to be rare because it is careful to hide what it suffers; but who among us, even the strongest and best equipped for the battle of life, has not known at times the pain of wounded self-respect, and felt as though the springs of the action he was about to undertake were broken within him * * * while at other times he was uplifted in joy and a sense of har- mony overflowed him, because the right word spoken in a happy hour reached that profound in- terior chord which can vibrate only when all the powers of life thrill in unison. It is some such word that we should know how and when to 325 speak; therein lie the heart's good manners — ^the good manners that are a virtue. For they argue the love of our neighbour and the lively desire to win his love; they shew charity at work in the difficult domain of a man's self-love, where it is as hard to recognize the disease as to have a de- sire to heal it. And this suggests to us a general definition of good manners, as embodying a re- gard for the feelings of others which will enable us to make them pleased with both themselves and us. Underlying them is a great and real kindness, but it may very likely remain ineffec- tual unless there be joined to it penetration of mind, suppleness, the power of making fine dis- tinctions and a profound knowledge of the human heart. "Education, while it increases that mental flexibility which is a quality dominant in the man of the world, enables the best among us to ac- quire knowledge of the hearts of men, whereby kindliness is rendered skilful and becomes the good manners of the heart. This our forefath- ers recognised when they termed the studies of the later years of school life the humanities. Doubtless they held in remembrance the sweet- ness and light coming of long companionship with the best minds of all time and so well summed up in the Latin word humanities. They had in mind also the profound knowledge of the human heart which may be attained through a sympathetic study of the classics and which, add- ing penetration to charity, gives it power to move freely along the thousand byways of sensitiveness and self-love. Perhaps too they had in mind that high self-control with which men who have read much and thought much * * * give utterance even to their most cherished theories, their deep- est convictions. This again is yet another form of good manners * * *. 326 i "There is a way of expressing our opinions without giving offence; there is an art which teaches us to listen, gives us a desire to under- stand, enables us to enter on occasion into the mind of others — in short, to exhibit in discussions, even those on politics, religion and morals, the courtesy too often reserved for trivial and indif- ferent matters. Where this courtesy is main- tained it seems to me that divisions are less acute and disputes less bitter * * * But such respect for the opinions of othersi is not to be acquired without sustained effort; and I know no more powerful ally in the overcoming of that intoler- ance which is a natural instinct then philosophic culture. Aristotle said that in a republic where all the citizens were lovers of knowledge and given to reflection they would all love one an- other. He did not mean by this, I take it, that knowledge puts an end to dispute, but rather that dispute loses its bitterness and strife its intensity when lifted into the realm of pure thought — into the world of tranquility, measure and harmony. For the idea is friendly to the idea, even to the contrary idea * * *" The dirC'Ct cultivation of the moral or social side of our nature is supplemented, and strength- ened, by intellectual culture. Besides its direct aim to fit us for some definite task which in our adult life we are to fulfil and thus to make us specialists in some definite work, the aim of all education must be to develop the humanities in us, to strengthen and to refine our intelligence, our appreciation of truth, our taste, and, above all, what w^e can best -call our intellectual sympa- thies. Education must produce this intellectual sympathy to such a degree, that, without becom- ing a specialist in every departmen- ';i ii.«^rual ac- 327 tivity or, on the other hand, a pretentious socialist or superfi-cial dabbler, the gentleman can enter into all intellectual pursuits and sympathise with their aims, their achievements and the methods which lead to them; so that as a true citizen of the spiritual world he may say: eques sum; nihil intelligihile a me alienum puto. We must always remember that, necessary and important for the advancement of human life as the production of the specialist may be, the ideal of the human be- ing is the harmonious and complete development of the humanity within man, whi-ch includes, or rather means above all things, the spiritual life and achievements of mankind.^ In so far as he is a specialist he sacrifices something of his human- ity and, as he is an organic and not a mechanical being, he must rectify this defective influen-ce of his specialist activity. By training and discipline in the humanistic side of his nature he restores the normal and complete balance of the humanity within him. Education which exclusively aims at the production of the specialist would destroy its own end in the interest of humanity were it to succeed. I have already touched upon this ques- tion as regards the practical activity in our in- stitutions of elementary edu-cation. It is most im- portant also to bear this question in mind when we consider our highest educational institutions, our universities. These universities have a clearly recognisable twofold sphere, towards each of which their exist- ence and their activity tend, namely the imper- sonal and the personal aspect of university work. The impersonal aspect is the more important; (1) See my paper on Specialisalion, A morbid Tendency of our Age, Minerva. Rome, 1880. 328 and it depends upon the regulation and co-ordina- tion of studies whether, after fulfilling its im- personal duties, it cannot be made as well to respond adequately to the personal needs. In this impersonal aspect universities are institu- tions in which the highest pursuits of pure science and research are carried on, irrespective of im- mediate practical application or use from the ma- terial and economic point of view and even from the educational point of view. They are to ad- vance jjure knowledge in its highest form with the most effective concentration upon this one great task, and thus they will advance the com- munity, the state and humanity towards the ideal goal of universal progress. In doing this they will most effectively increase the volume of truth and of human culture and thereby furnish the material for the increase of the humanities, when the results of such work penetrate into the ac- tual life of the communities and of the individuals who compose them. Moreover, the pure and con- centrated spirituality of such effort, and the at- mosphere which emanates from it, will of them- selves be of the greatest disciplinary and educa- tional value in the composition of a cultured in- dividual. I have once ventured to put the differ- ence between the school and the university into an epigram: "A school is scientific because it is educational; a university is educational because it is scientific."^ Even if there were no students to benefit by the teaching of a university, its su- preme purpose in a civilised community would remain as the living centre for the advancement of science. (1) The Ideal of a University. North American Review, Sep- tember, 1903; The Study of Art in Universities, 1896. 329 On the other hand, the directly personal and educative use of a university is not excluded by this recognition of its impersonal aims. The men whom it trains to carry on this lofty and neces- sary work, are not prepared or improved for their supreme task by sacrificing their humanity; and those who are not destined in after life to grasp, hold and keep alight the torch of pure science as kindled in the universities, will be all the more complete in their intellectual development and more fitted to perform their several functions in society, by having dwelt for one comparatively short period of their life in this lofty and atten- uated atmosphere of pure and thorough science and knowledge. But, I repeat, both the potential scientific specialist and the more general worker and explorer of things human in life itself, need not sacrifice the normal development of the hu- manity in them. They will be more efficient, what- ever walk of life they pursue, by becoming more versatile intellectual beings and more perfect so- cial units who can respond to every aspect of purely social life : they need in no way sacrifice their humanity. They will naturally be the bet- ter men of science, and still better statesmen, law- yers, merchants, landowners, and even humbler workers, by being gentlemen. Humanistic studies will always have to be rep- resented in the universities, not only for those who pursue them, but also for those who wish to specialise in even the most abstract and least "human" studies. Those who directly pursue the humanities and aim at a more general education, ought, without falling into pretentious superfic- iality, (which the merely popularised study of science tends to produce), at least to gain some 330 intellectual sympathy with that important de- partment of human knowledge called Science in the restricted sense, by familiarising themselves with the work and the teaching of the great science specialists in the universities. They will thereby also gain an inestimable mental training irom living in the atmosphere of such pure and exalted work for which their after life will give Ihem no opportunity. The personal aspect of university teaching, while thus based above all things on thoroughness and concentration of thought, will directly aim at the well proportioned co-ordination of all aspects of scientific and humanistic endeavour, to pro- duce the true man of culture, who, however effi- cient in any one specialised department of work, will have assimilated the principles and methods of the highest intellectual achievement of the age. in so far the universities will contribute their share towards cultivating in their students the ideal of the gentleman. This aim has to my knowledge never been put more forcibly and more beautifully than by Cardinal Newman when he says :^ "• * * * But a University training is the great ordinary means to a great but ordinary end; it aims at raising the intellectual tone of society, at cultivating the public mind, at purifying the na- tional taste, at supplying true principles to popu- lar enthusiasm and fixed aims to popular aspira- tion, at giving enlargement and sobriety to the ideas of the age, at facilitating the exercise of political power, and refining the intercourse of private life. It is the education which gives a man a clear conscious view of his own opinions (1) "The Idea of a University," by John Henry, Cardinal Newman — p. 177. 331 and judgments, a truth in developing them, an eloquence in expressing them, and a force in urging them. It teaches him to see things as they are, to go right to the point, to disentangle a skein of thought, to detect what is sophistical, and to discard what is irrelevant. It prepares him to fill any post with credit and to master any subject with facility. It shows him how to accommodate himself to others, how to throw himself into their state of mind, how to bring before them his own, how to influence them, how to come to an un- derstanding with them, how to bear with them. He is at home in any society, he has common ground with every class ; he knows when to speak and when to be silent; he is able to converse, he is able to listen; he can ask a question perti- nently, and gain a lesson seasonably, when he has nothing to impart himself; he is ever ready, yet never in the way; he is a pleasant companion, and a comrade you can depend upon ; he knows when to be serious and when to trifle, and he has a sure tact which enables him to trifle with gracefulness and to be serious with effect. He has the repose of a mind which lives in itself, while it lives in the world, and which has re- sources foT its happiness at home when it cannot go abroad. He has a gift which serves him in public, and supports him in retirement, without which good fortune is but vulgar, and with which failure and disappointment have a charm. The art which tends to make a man all this, is in the object which it pursues as useful as the art of wealth or the art of health, though it is less sus- ceptible of method, and less tangible, less cer- tain, less complete in its result." Whatever the shortcomings in the organisation and in the work of our older English universities may be from the point of view of the most highly specialised study — ^though these deficiencies have 332 continuously been overcome by the reforms in- stituted during the last two generations — they have retained in them, in their modes of teaching and study, and especially in their modes of living, as well as in the historical associations clustering round their ancient buildings and the genius of the place — elements which definitely and directly make for the realisation of this particular side in the constitution of the gentleman. We may hope that no modifications or reforms, intended to sat- isfy the m'ore material wants, will counteract or weaken these qualities. In fact there is no need, in spite of all response to modern demands, that they should thus be weakened. But in adopting from German academic institutions some of the best elements in the pursuit of higher university work, through the recent reforms introduced in- to English universities, the danger has become imminent that we may lose the important heri- tage of the traditional character of English uni- versity education, and that, the tendency may have been to disown spiritual possessions of the highest value so that we may das Kind mit dem Bade auschiitten to use a homely German say- ing. I may be allowed to quote a very instructive passage from the essays of Mr. G. Lowes Dickin- son,^ which have recently appeared, bearing on this point: "Scene, a club in a Canadian city; persons, a professor, a doctor, a business man, and a travel- ler (myself). Wine, cigars, anecdotes; and sud- denly, popping uip, like a Jack-in-the-box absurdly crowned with ivy the intolerable subject of edu- cation. I do not remember how it began; but T ( 1 ) Appearances, Culture, pp. 205, seq. 333 know there came a point at which, before I knew where I was, I found myself being assailed on the subject of Oxford and Cambridge. Not, however, in the way you may anticipate. Those ancient seats of learning were not denounced as fossil- ised, effete, and corrupt. On the contrary, I was pressed, urged, implored almost with tears in the eye — to reform them I Noi! to let them alone! "For heaven's sake keep them as they are! You don't know what you've got, and what you might lose! We know! We've had to do without it ! And we know that without it everything else is of no avail. We bluster and brag about educa- tion on this side of the Atlantic. But in our heart of hearts we know that we have missed the one thing needful, and that you, over in England, have got it. ' " " 'And that one thing?' " 'Is Culture! Yes in spite of Matthew Ar- nold, Culture, and Culture, and always Culture.' *' 'Meaning by Culture?' " 'Meaning Aristotle instead of Agriculture, Homer instead of Hygiene, Shakespeare instead of the Stock Exchange, Bacon instead of Bank- ing, Plato instead of Paedagogics! Meaning in- tellect before intelligence, thought before dexter- ity, discovery before invention ! Meaning the only thing that is really practical, ideas ; and the only thing that is really human, the Humanities ! ' "Rather apologetically, I began to explain. At Oxford, I said, no doubt the Humanities still hold the first place. But at Cambridge they have long been relegated to the second or the third. There we have schools of Natural Science, of Econ- omics, of Engineering, of Agriculture. We have even a Training College in Paedagogics. Their faces fell, and they renewed their passionate ap- peal. " 'Stop it,' they cried. 'For heaven's sake, 334 stoip it! In all those things we've got you skinned alive over here ! If you want Agriculture, go to Wisconsin ! If you want Medicine, go to the Rockefeller Institute ! If you want Engineering, go to Pittsburg! But preserve still foir the Eng- lish-speaking world what you alone can give ! Preserve liberal culture ! Preserve the Classics ! Preserve Mathematics ! Preserve the seed ground of all practical invention and appliances ! Pre- serve the integrity of the human mind!" "Interesting, is it not? These gentlemen, no doubt, were not typical Canadians. But they were not the least intelligent men I have met on this continent. And when they had finally landed me in my sleeping-berth in the train, and I was left to my own reflections in that most un- comfortable of all situations, I began to consider how odd it was that in matters educational we are always endeavouring to reform the only part of our system that excites the admiration of for- eigners. *'I do not intend, however, to plunge into that controversy. The point that interests me is the view of my Canadian friends that in America there is no 'culture.' And, in the sense they gave to that term, I think they are right. There is no culture in America. There is instruction ; there is research; there is technical and professional training; there is specialisation in science and in- dustry ; there is every possible application of life, to purpose and ends; but there is no life for its own sake. Let me illustrate. It is, I have read, a maxim of American business that *a man is danuied who knows two things.' 'He is almost a dilettante.' It was said of a student, 'He reads Dante and Shakespeare'! 'The perfect profes- sor, ' said a College President, ' should be willing to work hard eleven months in the year.' These are straws, if you like, but they show the way 335 the wind blows. Again you will find, if you travel long in America, that you are suffering from a kind of atrophy. You will not, at first, realise what it means. But suddenly it will flash upon you that you are suffering from lack of conversa- tion. You do not converse; you cannot; you can only talk. It is the rarest thing to meet a man who, when a subject is started, is willing or able to follow it out into its ramifications, to play with it, to embroider it with pathos or with wit, to pene- trate to its roots, to trace its connections and af- finities. Questions and answer, anecdote and jest are the staple of American conversation; and, above all, information. They have a hunger for positive facts. And you may hear them hour af- ter hour rehearsing to one another their travels, their business transactions, their experience in trains, in hotels, on steamers till you begin to feel you have no alternatives before you but murder or suicide. An American broadly speaking, never detaches himself from experience. His mind is embedded in it; it moves wedged in fact. His only escape is into humour; and even his hu- mour in but a formula of exaggeration. It ap- plies no imagination, no real envisaging of its ob- ject. It does not illuminate a subject, it extin- guishes it, clamping upon every topic the same grotesque mould. That is why it does not really much amuse the English. For the English are accustomed to Shakespeare, and to the London cabby. "This may serve to indicate what I mean by lack of culture. I admit, of course, that neither are the English cultured. But they have culture among them. They do not, of course, value it; the Americans, for aught I know, value it more ; but they produce it, and the Americans do not. I have visited many of their colleges and univer- sities, and everywhere, except perhaps at Rar- 336 vard — unless my impressions are very much at fault — I have found the same atmosphere. It is the atmosphere known as the 'Yale spirit/ and it is very like that of an English Public Schooil, It is virile, athletic, gregarious, all-penetrating, all-embracing. It turns out the whole university to sing rhythmic songs and shout rli\"thmic cries at football matches. It praises action and sniffs at a speculation. It exalts morals and depresses intellect. It suspects the solitary person the dreamer, the loafer, the poet, the prig. Tliis at- mosphere, of course exists in English universi- ties. It is imported there from the Public Schools. But it is not all-pervading. Individu- als and cliques escape. And it is those who es- cape that acquire culture. In America no one escapes, or they are too few to count. I know Americans of culture, know and love them ; but 1 feel them to be lost in the sea of philistinism. They cannot draw together, as in England, and leaven the lump. The lump is bigger, and they are fewer. All the more honour to them ; and all the more loss to America." ^ (1) I cannot agree in this respect with W. Dickinson in his opinion of the American people to this exclusive domi- nance — to the American. No doubt the spirit of pure com- mercialism — especially of finance and company-promoting — is thus essentially opposed to Culture and higher moral refinement. Wherever it dominates it must have this efTect upon the com- munity. But things must have changed greatly within the last twenty or thirty years, if there no longer exists in America a distinctly and admittedly leading group of society in most of the great centres, which is thoroughly representative of culture and of high ideals. I may be pardoned for recording my own personal experience as far as it concerns friends no longer living. My various visits to America during the 80's and 90's of the last century led me then to the conviction that in no European country — in none of the capitals where, by good fortune, I was thrown in contact with people of every class, especially those who could claim and really possessed, culture and refinement — was the cultured tone as high, the manners as good, and the conversation as brilliant, impersonal and im- material, as in some of the houses in America where it also was my g(X)d fortune to be a guest. I recall with admiration and delight the intercourse with members of the "Thursday Club" in Boston, at the house of the late Martin E. Brinmer, where 337 We all know and value the type of man for whom Mr. Dickinson here pleads. And though our German detractors, (whose educational sys- tem also fails in this very respect) or those who know us not, charge us with moral degeneracy, I am justified in claiming, that, among the vast mass of young men who study in our unversities and issue from them, a large number possess and to a great degree realise, such ideals of high- er education on the moral and intellectual side. There is, however, one aspect in which, from the very seriousness with which they uphold these ideals, they appear to me to neglect or wil- fully to ignore, other aspects which go to the making of the gentleman. In fact, as an illustra- tion of the error into which they fall — the very term gentleman might be obnoxious and repuls- with men like Lowell, Charles Eliot Norton, Dr. 0. Wendell Holmes, Mr. Ticknor and Mr. Coolidge, and many others, and with women who in every respect were their equals, the con- versation and the general unobtrusive atmosphere of culture, as well as the exquisite manners of these "men and women of the world" surpassed anything I had met with in any of the European capitals. Moreover, these social entertainments took place in settings of refinement and taste which blended the best of the old world with that of the new. (Mr. Howell's novel, The Rise of Silas Laphum, gives a picture of such true refine- ment in the Cory family.) The same applied to the homes of the late Mr. Schermerhorn, members of the Draper family, not to mention the literary and artistic centres of the late George William Curtis, and of the late Mr. R. W. Gilder and to the Btudio of the sculptor St. Gaudens in New York; to the salons of the late Mr. S. Gray Ward, John Hay, Francis Adams in Washington; while I had reason to believe that in the West, notably in such centres as St. Louis, there existed circles in which intellectual and social ideals were manifest and dominant. All this may have altered within the last twenty years — I cannot judge. But I can hardly believe that such traditions would vanish so soon. Still sadder would it be if such leaders of men were not recognised as the leaders of American society, looked up to and admired by the American people at large; and if in their stead the possessors of mere wealth, whose ambition was the stage-glitter of tinsel social prominence designed for the publicity of a degraded and personal public press, had by their action entirely superseded the older traditions and were now to direct the social taste, ambitions, and ideals of the American people. 338 ive to them or unworthy of serious consideration. In the eagerness and the moral singleness of pur- pose with which they pursue their lofty ideals of life, they may develop in themselves and in their views les defauts de leurs qualites. They may spurn in theory and neglect in practice the claims to serious attention of the lighter social virtues for which I claim the most weighty moral justifi- cation and most important social consideration. I mean the amenities and graces of life, the con- formity to the traditions and customs of refined living and breeding, which society in the course of civilisation has with much labour after many centuries evolved. In one word they have not ''cultivated good manners." In fact, they often have no manners at all, and do not know, what good manners are. As they know — and rightly too — that they are superior in their mentality and in their lives to the majority -of people with low ideals or no ideals at all, they imagine themselves superior to well-mannered people and above the established customs and traditions of good breed- ing. They need not pay a visit, drop a card, though this be the well-founded, ultimately highly moral, custom of the country. They need not greet a friend or recognise an acquaintance with the established form of salute, open the door for a lady, enter into the spirit of ordinary conversa- tion — iui short do their share to contribute to the refined and smoothly running course of social life; — until they really become boors, ignorant, awkward and banausic^ — in outward, apparent life as far removed from the habits and conduct of the gentleman lof old as possible. The sins of omission and commission which the yokel man- ifests from ignorance, they almost assert from 339 eonviction; until their habits of life become as low as his, and the collective tone becomes the same — the only difference between them being that the one's chief work in life is hoeing man- gold wurzels and the other's, digging at pure thought and, perhaps, paring epigrams. We may revolt against the tyranny of social traditions and conventions when once they have lost their mean- ing and have become stereotyped or died or are even associated with social injustice. But so long as no such evil effects attach to them they main- tain their validity and importance. At all events, as direct and outward expressions of the higher art of social life, they are essential to the ad- vancement of society and civilisation. The dead and stereotyped and malignant form ought to be modified and replaced by new forms which truly express the consensus of opinion in response to this art of social living. To maintain and to cul- tivate and to advance good manners, be it that they tend to avoid wounding the sensitiveness of those with whom we live, or that they positively increase their self-esteem, or even give pleasure by their inherent grace and kindliness, is a para- mount duty for every cultured social being, and is in no way exclusive of loftiness of moral pur- pose or efficiency of concentrated life-work. Even to bestow proper care upon outer ap- pearance in the form of dress, need in no way inhibit or impair our work, and our sincerity and efficiency in the more serious aspects of life. On the other hand, it is a constant and positive ex- pression of regard to those about us to show such attention to our own personal appearance. And by this reference to the question of dress I in no way mean that the direct application of higher 340 and absolute aesthetic principles, in adopting the standards and the taste of the ancient Greeks or the people of the glorious Italian Renaissance, will respond to the need for which I am pleading, especially if these should be in direct contrast to the ruling standards of taste evolved by modern times and our immediate age. They would thus only accentuate militant originality, or rather ec- centricity, and the protest against reasonable tra- ditions and good manners as established in our own days.-"^ I assert, without exaggeration or paradox ; but, on the contrary, with a full recognition of the ethical purpose of the subject with which we are dealing, that the custom prevailing in England in almost every class, of washing, and of brush- ing up or changing one's dress before sitting down to a meal, has produced more good moral and social effects than the superficial observer is likely to admit. I would seriously urge that this custom should not be allowed to die out, and should on the contrary be maintained and en- couraged in family life. It is a great national (1) The claims to conformity in the lighter usages and amenities of life were most forcibly brought home to me by the late Paul Rajon. He was one of the most successful and leading etchers in France, of the last generation. In appearance, man- ners and dress, nothing obtruded his artistic vocation ; he might have been a professional man, or a man of affairs, or a "man of leisure or refinement." One day, while I was with him in his beautiful studio in Paris, there arrived a yoiuig artist, who wished to show his work to the master-etcher for criticism. The young man was dressed in the ultra-artistic or Bohemian fashion : enormous felt hat, fluttering tie, Wertherian cloak, which he wore with an assertion of originality and non-conformity. But it appeared that his work was most common-place. Rajon carefully examined alternately the work and the attire of the young man, and at last said: "Vous est-il jamais arrive de penser, qu'il faut s'habiller comme tout le monde et peindre comme persotief" The social frondeur — and this is generally the case in matters far beyond dress — evidently painted like everybody and dressed like nobody. 341 asset. With those of comparative affluence, dressing for dinner and for the life of leisure in evening, has far reaching beneficent conse- quences and can in no way be combatted on the grounds of undue expenditure, be it in time or in money. I can recall how, many years ago, George Eliot, while depicting graphically some oi the un- gainly effects and aspects of the British Sunday in country and town, dwelt with eloquence and vehement insistence upon the important moral and so-cial effect of ' ' Sunday clothes ' ' and especi- ally the changing from working costumes to bet- ter dress. "The labourer hesitates to use coarse language when he has his best coat on" were her words. I would, therefore, urgently plead that all ser- iously minded men and women should realise their responsibility in upholding and cherishing the Art of Living in all its forms, and in develop- ing in themselves the social amenities and graces which are inseparable from our ideal of the gen- tleman. In his perfect realisation he may be rarely met with, but he does exist among us. "How many who have inner nobility and re- finement of taste with outer grace of demeanour, considerateness, and tact; whose intellectual edu- cation embraces, at least as regards their sym- pathies, all the varied spheres of noble mental effort; whose moral culture is so deep and true that they can afford to be light and tolerant on the surface of social conduct without calling in the need of the force-pumps, bucketing up priggish- ness from the heavy deposit of principles at the bottom of their conscience; whose nature is strung so that all the notes are true in tone ; from whom we have never received a jar from their blank limitation or from tortuous malformation of 342 taste, from meanness or grossness — a sudden dis- appointment or shock to tlie best cravings within us putting us out of tune for a whole day, like an ugly picture or a discordant sound? How many have you met, of whatever class of society you may think? And the wrestling for distmc- tion and display pointed out by M. Leroy-Beau- lieu, the grossness of the parvenu^ he refers to, have you not found some, if not all of them, among your closest friends of the highest social distinc- tion? They may sometimes be found among dukes and nobles whose ancestors go back to the crusaders and among princes of the blood. TliacK- eray has seen them and has immortalised them. An act such as the attempt to write a book de- fending a people from abuse, as has been written by M. Leroy-Beaulieu, the tone of fairness, re- finement, and depth of sjonpathy with which it is pervaded brings me nearer in mind to the picture of a true gentleman, sans penr et sans reprocfie, than many a glaring act of valor, or a life passed among the most refined brilliancy of modem so- cial life. "A gentleman is, after all, as has so often been said, made by the kindness of the heart, the ten- derness within strength, the alma gentil. Tact la the rapid and true action directed by ready si)tii- patliy, which keeps us from saying or doing what will harm or cause discomfort to our neighbors — it is loving-kindness and unselfishness carried in- to our slightest actions. Having these, any man may become a gentleman, however favourable tlie circumstances. But mth them and with intellec- tual refinement and culture, put a boy into noble social surroundings, and he will become an orna- ment to every salon into which he steps. But take care that you do not remind him of the fact that he is tolerated! "Here lies the difficulty. No man can display 343 these social qualities, nor can he avoid some ap- pearance of snobbishness, if by your action you make the social ground upon which he stands and moves unsteady, and rob him of the grace and lightness of intercourse. He will be bound to become assertive in some direction and deprived of his social ease." ^ The gentleman thus conceived is the highest so- cial being. The practical necessity and, certainly, the practical advantage, of clearly establishing this ideal and of forcing it into the consciousness of all members of a community as such an ideal, cannot be overestimated. For no moral education is effective unless a type of highest morality -can be clearly brought to the consciousness of thosb who are to be affected. I may be allowed to recall my own youthful experience, and at the same time to record my debt of gratitude to those schoolmas- ters and schoolmistresses in America — not to mention the earliest home-teaching in that coun- try — who constantly held up before the young peo- ple some such ideal of a gentleman, be it positively stimulating ambition to live up to it by selfi're- pression and by definite courageous assertion ; or, negatively, by conveying their condemnation of a mean or unworthy act by denying to the delin- quent the right to consider himself a gentleman. The appeal is here chiefly made, not so much di- rectly to stern morality and to the conscious weighing and balancing of moral injunctions as to our aesthetic faculties, to our taste, from which admiration or disgust naturally emanate. And it is in this aesthetic form that moral teach- ing may perhaps be most effective — not by an ap- peal to duty and theory, but by an appeal to taste. ( 1 ) "The Jewish Question"— p. 329. 344 No moral discipline, moreover, has become thor- oughly efficient, until it has been absorbed into man 's natural tastes and perf erences ; as we may also say that no general social laws have become efficient, until they have been transformed into ad- mitted social traditions and customs, or even, un- til they have become fashionable, and are classi-> tied in the prevailing vernacular as ' ' good or bad form."i All these particular and later ramifications of our social duties, however, are summarized in and naturally lead to the establishment of wider social ideals, in which the intercourse between human beings, productive of material good, tends to the advance of all social groups towards such final ideals, and facilitates and accelerates the domin- ance of what is best. In this ascending scale we thus rise beyond the individual and the larger or smaller communities, as well as the social groupings and classes, to the State and, finally, to humanity as a whole. (1) See Parent's Rcvieiv, March, 1910. Address by the author on The Aesthetic Element in the Education of the IndividuaJ and of the Nation. 345 CHAPTER III Duty to the State As we have seen, our own Anglo-Saxon concep- tion of the State — the French and the Americans have virtually the same^ — differs essentially from that practically accepted in Germany now, and theoretically upheld and developed by those poli- ticians, historians and philosophers who have led the German mind since the last generation. The leading individual exponent of the German con- ception may be considered to be Henrich von Treitschke. In the connotation which they give to the idea of State, it is an entity final and self- existent, from which all individual rights and so- cial rights are derived and to which they are ab- solutely subordinated. The State must thus rep-< resent the ruling powers that be, and it is difficult to see how the rights and claims of individual thinkers or social groups, or even of the majority of its citizens, can successfully assert themselves against these powers, and how any changes, modi- fications, and reforms can be introduced while the ruling powers representing the State are opposed to them, without violence or revolution. If the authority of the State is self-sufficient, and if the social groups and classes derive their rights from it and their power is strictly limited by it, there is no rational, legal or moral right by which the citi- zens can in their turn oppose the will and the au- thority of the State. In our conception of the State, on the contrar>% its authority is entirely 346 based upon the rights, as well as the duties, of the individuals, the groups, the communities, the classes and occupations, and all that constitutes the nation. The State and its authority, its laws, its ecnstitution, may thus change, and ought, in a developing State constantly to change, in re- sponse to, and in harmony with, changes in the in- dividual, communal and social life of its citizens. This life alters through the development of the body of citizens themselves, as things organic grow and develop so long as they live; and fur- ther as such changes and developments are di- rectly caused by the conditions of life surrounding these organic bodies, physical and moral — by all that may be called environment. The whole pol- itical activity of a modern democracy thus directly expresses itself in legislation and administration which it assigns to its government, by which act it confers supreme authority and power upon the State as the final unit. Therefore, in such States revolution and an- archy have no place, no moral or legal grounds for existence. The citizen is bound to obey the laws which are made by him ultimately ; and if he finds these laws unjust or inadequate to the ac- tual needs of life, or unsuited to the changing con- ditions which the advance of human society has produced, the constitution provides him with the means of enforcing his will by himself directing the authority of the State, and not by destroying it. On the other hand, the State itself must al- ways remain in touch with the individual life of its citizens. From this the State draws the very right of its existence. It must summarise in a higher and purer and more unimpeachable form, not only the physical and grossly tangible aspects 347 of life, but also the morality of these smaller units within its wider orbit. The State is never to pre- sent a lower, but rather a higher, morality. It is not only concerned with the material needs of the population but with its higher and spiritual needs as well. It is to uphold and to intensify individual honour, being itself the source of all public hon- our. It has the supreme and all-important func- tion of establishing and confirming the moral val- ues for all its citizens, for all communities, for all public bodies, and for social life as well. Therefore, our moral consciousness must clearly consider and establish our duties to the State, both the passive and the active duties of citizens. The first duty is obedience. The fact of the legislative power of the State having been derived from the body of individual citizens does not les- sen, but increases the need and the justification for obedience to these laws. Nor does the knowl- edge of such an origin diminish the claim to re- spect and even reverence towards the democratic State as compared to the absolutist State. The modern democrat and constitutionalist can repeat the words of Louis XIV .''L etat c' est moi." But realising thus that he individually is a part, how- ever small, of this supreme authority, and that it represents the totality of the whole mass of citi- zens, beings like himself, need surely not dimin- ish his reverence and respect for such a supreme unit as compared with the authority, self-invested or supposedly conferred by the Grace of God, to the person of a Grand Monarque. Nor will intel- ligent and self-respecting human beings be less inclined to offer unlimited obedience when their own free will has been called into activity in the 348 establishment of it, in preference to the absolute command imposed upon them from without by one human being. In addition to such obedience and respect the citizen can even feel affection and love for the impersonation of the State, culminat- ing in the most intense and self-sacrificing patriotism. When called upon, he will be pre- pared to sacrifice his life for his country, his president, or for his constitutional king, who rules with his direct sanction, as readily as, and even more readily, than for the country in the making of whose laws he has had no part or for the abso- lute monarch whose will is with persistent asser- tion imposed upon his own from above. This being the case, it is most important that in the ethical training of such citizens, not only obedience to the law of the land and the authority of the State should be constantly impressed upon them, so that it becomes an inner habit of mind; but also that they should never be allowed or en- couraged to look upon the State and its authority as outside bodies opposed to their own interests and will, whom they may thus readily come to con- sider an antagonistic body, or an enemy, until, like the proverbial Irishman they are "Agin the Government," always ready to oppose or to evade authority. Even in countries with a long and continuous tradition of personal liberty the mass of the people may be inclined to look upon the State official as their enemy. Even some of the most law-abiding citizens find occasionally welling up in them an antagonism to the police, the guardians of their own security, ready to sympathise with, and even to abet, the pursued criminal. This instinct illustrates the survival of traditions from the bygone days of tyranny when 349 the officers of the law were in fact the enemies of the people, imposing upon them the alien will and the interests of rulers completely severed from them by their position and by the lives they led. We are still far removed from that state of poli- tical education in which the mass of our citizens, even the most educated and affluent, are so imbued with the spirit of law and civic morality, that it would be impossible for them to wish to evade the just payment of the custom dues which, by the laws they have sanctioned, the State is bound to claim. Even the highly moral and refined mem- ber of society who would shrink with horror from any manifestly dishonest act, is not fully aware of his dishonesty, and may at times even exult, when he successfully cheats the Custom House official. In the same way, illegally and wrongfully to pay the State less taxes than is its due, by falsifying the returns of income, in slur- ring over accounts, or in yielding to seductive self-deception, is a practice to which many of our best and most highly trained citizens will have to plead guilty. The moral education of our future generations must be such, that it will be impos- sible for them to establish different standards of morality for their dealings with their fellow men or with the State and its officials. Beside the more passive aspect of our duties to the State which lead to obedience and respect for its authority, there is the more active sphere of immediate duty. We must in every way contrib- ute our own individual efforts, however small and inappreciable they may be, to make the State worthy of obedience, respect, and reverence. We must jealously uphold its purity and integrity both in its legislative and administrative func- 350 tions. We must resent and combat every delin- quency of duty on the part of its administrators, whether it directly affects us and our interests or not. It is indifference to the maintenance of the highest standards of purity and efficiency which is at once one of the most insidious as well as dis- astrous outcomes of liberty in democratic com- munities. The less we wish to be dominated by a stereotyped, self-assertive, and tyrannical bureau- cracy, the move ought we to guard the integrity and the efficiency of office, the more ought w^e to make each office worthy of the obedience and re- spect which we willingly offer to them collectively as our chosen administrators of the law. But in a truly democratic and constitutional nation the most important and effective function of the citizen will always be his power of electing his law-making representative. It is here that his most distinctive right comes into action, and, at the same time, his most imperative responsi- bility. The really good citizen is bound to exer- cise his function as a voter. It is a singular fact how little this supreme responsibility of the citi- zen is recognised and, moreover, how often it is ignored — in many cases by the very men who pos- sess the greatest power of thought, deliberation and judgment. In a book on the preliminaries of the present war, purporting to give inaccessible facts and information derived from the very lead- ers in European politics, that popular and success- ful author, William le Queux, writes the following passage: "Now at the outset, I wish to say that I am no party politician. My worst enemy could never call me that, I have never voted for a can- didate in my life, for my motto has ever been, * Britain for the British.' " He claims that all his 351 actions have been inspired by true patriotism. Moreover, his writings imply that he is qualified to judge in matters political. And yet, at the same time, he informs us that he has never exer- cised that most important function which in a con- stitutional country is the chief duty of every citi- zen. But there is one saving clause in his state- ment, conveyed by the term "party politician." All that is implied in the term "party," "party politics" and "party politician" make it most difficult at times for the conscientious voter to ful- fill this primary and supreme duty to the State, Singularly enough this difficulty is increased in the older and more highly developed democracies where the constitutional machinery is most per- fect and works most efficiently; where there have been generations and even centuries of constitu- tional practice, and the principles of freedom and self-government are firmly and clearly estab- lished. In the younger, and less developed democ- racies, less secure in the continuity of their free- dom, still influenced by the traditions and sur- vivals of more autocratic or tyrannical forms of government, these difficulties do not arise to the same degree. In such countries there are so many parties, often merely representative of different leading individuals, that each voter can ade- quately and accurately make his choice coincide with his own political convictions at each election. The more highly organised and firmly establishea democracies, such as Great Britain and the United States, however, have developed the two-party system; and this twofold division, moreover, has implied complete and more or less permanent or- ganisation within each party. It is not necessary to discuss here whether such organisations of 352 party government are essential or desirable. For US the fact as it is remains. Yet, though we may thus accept it, it does not alter the fact that, as regards our political morality, our duty towards the State, we ought to do all in our power to make our parliamentary vote correspond as completely as possible with our political convictions in the light of the needs of the nation as they present themselves to us at the time. One thing is abso- lutely clear and indubitable that we have no right to give our vote to the party with which we have hitherto been associated if their program or platform does not correspond to what, according to our best thought and our truest conviction, we consider the good of the nation. It is here again (as we have seen in Part I of this Book) that a misapplied sense of would-be loyalty, unreasoning and unguided by the dictates of duty and justice, is most vicious in its effect and most destructive of our sense of political morality, in fact of all morality. The man who is expected to give his vote for the best cause and for what he considers the crying need of the country, and who will not hesitate to relinquish his party when its prin- ciples are directly opposed to these, is imtruthful to himself and to his country and is personally, as well as politically, immoral. As we have seen be- fore, he will justify his action by professing to sacrifice himself for the sake of "loyalty" to the party to which he has always belonged, or even because his father and grandfather had belonged to that party. As if this cringing to the heredi- tary or stereotyped authority of fossilised inter- ests of the past did not fly in the face of every idea of constitutional freedom and of political duty, and as though he were not undermining the 853 rational and moral bases of all constitutional gov- ernment by eliminating the principles of reason and justice from the most essential functions of national life. This caricatured, and grossly inept tyranny of loyalty has been most disastrous in its results as it is constantly applied to political lead- ers and to parliamentary representatives them- selves. In spite of the persistent experience and numerous examples in English history, exempli- fied by both Disraeli and Gladstone, who changed their parties within their political life, a slur, if not a deeper stigma, is at once and readily ap- plied to every political person who ventures to change his party on whatever grounds of con- scientious deliberation and conviction. If, how- ever, even the politician by profession, in spite of the many restraining considerations which the nature of the political mechanism brings with it, is bound to act up to his convictions, there are far fewer deterrent causes which ought to prevent the humble elector from conscientiously transferring his vote in accordance with his political faith. The whole theory of representative government rests upon this assumption. The chief difficulty which meets us, however, is presented by those cases in which we may retain our conformity with the main principles of the party to which we have hitherto belonged, but for the time being differ from it and agree with the opposing party on the main issue before the country at the time. There can be no doubt that in the future — whatever may be urged against the system — ^the machinery for taking a referendum on the leading questions of import- ance must be evolved. But, meanwhile, what in the history of American politics has been called 354 the "mugwump" movement will have to become more universal and more actively established among us. Every thoughtful and conscientious citizen ought to be a potential "mugwump." The chief result will at all events be, that the estab- lished parties themselves will become more im- mediately responsive to the best thoughtful opin- ion throughout the country ; that the step from the deliberate will and intelligence of the pepole to its realisation in practical politics will become shorter, and that finally the political party leaders themselves, hardened and crystallised in their ob- durate, almost bureaucratic, machine-work and authority, will be forced to take cognisance of th^ thought and judgment of the best and the most competent citizens within the nation. No doubt the uncertainty and difficulty presented to the party rulers to forecast results and marshall their forces will be infinitely greater when a large body of voters are fluctuating in their opinions and political support. But this will only mean, that the party will no longer be stereotyped and fossilised, ruled by its formal laws and interests ; and that, on the other hand, the party leaders will have to remain in touch with the true intelli- gence and morality of the country, to whom much power will be transferred. In our fundamental conception of the State and its functions we shall less and less limit ourselves io the one single aspect of democratic govern- ment, namely, the advancement of personal lib- erty which, is a purely negative conception of its function, circumscribing its activity as far as possible so as to avoid all interference with per- sonal liberty, until the ideal becomes that of fatal- istic laisses falre. It has long since been realised 355 that a great part of the function of the State nec- essarily means direct interference with personal liberty, and that such positive legislation is not completely summed up in the final aim of the so- called good of the largest number, that it does not spell mere opportunism, the adaptation of the w^hole machinery of State to the immediate ana crying needs ; but that one of the supreme aims and objects of the State is the betterment of the lives of individuals, as well as of the collective life of hu- man society so far as it comes within the range of such political influence. The w^hole sphere of so- cial legislation comes under this head. But social legislation and administration is not only con- cerned with the poor and the helpless, with the betterment of the conditions of life of those citi- zens who are in direct need of support and guid- ance, to sustain life and to save them from the brink of abject misery or crime; it is not only concerned with what are called the lower classes, but with the claims of every class wiiich are to be regulated in due proportion and harmony for the good of human society as a whole. We are but at the initial stages of that political development in which the claims of the separate social groups, classes and occupations are justly recognised and organised. As yet these have only been clearly expressed and formulated and frankly avowed by what is called the Labour Party. But that party will have to realise that, like its own claims to recognition and realisation of its own corporate body, similar claims can with equal justice be urged for the collective represen- tatives of other social groups and occupations in a fully developed organic society. It will, above all, have to realise, that all these claims can and 356 must be recognised and harmonised by the State; and that such harmony, blending into the unity of a well organized, modem State, is possible and necessary and does not presuppose violent clashing and conflict of interests. Social legislation will more and more come to mean the direct endeavour of the body politic to advance the social life of the community in every direc- tion ; to improve the standards of living while im- proving the conditions of life, and to approach more closely to the rational ideals of what a per- fect State and a perfect society ought to be. I know that it may be thought that thus to put before the practical politicians as a definite aim, a spiritual object, directly and practically tending towards the advance of humanity in the more m- tangible moral spheres, may be considered to be Utopian and the theory of a dreamer far removed from the actualities of life. But, fortunately, his- tory affords numerous and undoubted instances in which whole nations have joined in a supreme effort to work for, to fight for, and to die for, such moral objects. To select but two historical in- stances which were of world wide importance and called for the greatest sacrifices : The Crusades of the Middle Ages and the American Civil War stand out most forcibly. No doubt if it can be shown that there are many more proximate and more material causes for these great upheavals. For instance in the American Civil War, the ques- tion of federation or confederation and the conse- quent divergence of material interests between the North and South played a great part. But there can equally be no doubt that all these na- tions were moved to action and to self- sacrifice by the ideals which concerned hu- 357 manity at large: the religious faith of the Crusaders, and the conviction of the union- ists of the North, that slavery was incompatible with their higher ideals of humanity. It is not Utopian or fantastic to maintain, that every sin- gle political act, which interest may dictate and opportunism condone, which flies in the face of hu- manity, which, as an action of individuals, or the State, lowers or retards the advance of humanity, is a crime. 358 CHAPTER IV Duty to Humanity In several earlier passages, dealing with Inter- national Relations, Chauvinism and Patriotism and with Social Duties, I have already entered upon the wider aspect of humanity as well as the duties which thus present themselves. But I wish now more definitely to summarise these prin- ciples here. Through our duty to the state we are necessarily made to face our duty to humanity at large. Nor will the fulfillment of our duties in the narrower spheres, which we have hitherto traversed and which have led us through the state to the infinitely wider region of humanity, clash with these ultimate duties with which they can be, and must be, harmonised. The real difficulty in the activity of the state and in the relation of states to human so-ciety as a whole will always be to reconcile the due care and regard for the mass of the people who require protection and support in the conflict of unequal individualities, with the encouragement of the strong and higher individualities, through whom human society is actually advanced and humanity draws nearer to its ideals. It is the great problem of reconciling socialism with individualism. Such a reconcilia- tion is often considered to be hopeless and is given up as such. But it is possible, nay ne-cessary ; only the two principles apply to different layers of human society. The socialistic point of view, in which the individual is restrained in deference to 359 the rights of existence of all, in which the stronger is -checked in his dominating course in order to protect and support the weaker, is right, if we consider only the weaker members of human so- ciety; and it is right that our social legislation, the direct intervention of the state into the course of human competition, should be in the socialistic spirit and should be wholly -concerned with the poor and the weak. Old Age Pensions and Na- tional Insurance are clearly socialistic in char- acter, and it is right that the state should thus ful- fill one of its primary duties of supporting and protecting those who require such support and protection. It is equally right, and it will be realised still more in the future, that the state must protect itself and the conmmn- ity at large against the undue power which, owing to the dominant economical -conditions and the protection which the state affords, tends to come to individuals in such a form and to such a degree that it endangers the welfare of society and the security of the state itself, is, in fact, against 'good policy.' Conges- tion of capital into single hands to such a degree that the power it affords, without responsibility or control, becomes a danger to society, and must be checked by the -constitutional means which the state has at its disposal. As I have previously said, I plead for socialism at the top and bottom ; but pure individualism in between. Excess of wealth and excess of poverty must be checked by collective legislation from a collective point of view; but, when society is thus secure at its two extremes, where the prohibitory action of the state is called in to produce such security, full freedom must be left to the individual to assert and to 360 realise superior powers, through which effort the individual and society at large advance and are perfected. Within the two extremes of the human scale inequality is to be encouraged in order to give free scope to moral and intellectual forces. Until trade-unions recognise this, their activity will v^e immoral and retrograde. Our motto must be: 'Liberty, fraternity and inequality.' Democ- racy must never degenerate into ochlocracy. Every democracy must be aristocratic in tendency and aim ; for with equality of opportunity it must encourage the realisation of the best. Socrates, as recorded by Plato and by Xenophon, has put the point in the simplest and most convincing form by the parable of the flute-player who is good and useful, and the helmsman who is good and useful ; but we do not call in the helmsman to play the flute, and we do not entrust the ship to the flute- player. The claims of the poor and humble, for which Christ pleaded can be reconciled with those of the superman. As in the moral cons-ciousness of the individual, charity and high ambition can and must go hand in hand, so in the state the care of the poor and feeble, their protection from the rapacious onslaught of the strong and grasping, all those acts of legislation and administration which, not only recognise the lowly and the low- est, but ever tend to establish and maintain equal- ity of rights, must on the other hand, encourage the advance of strong and superior individuals and corporate bodies, and raise the standard of living and efficiency for society. In so far the state will confirm and encourage inequality. All its functions will 'Converge in ultimately raising the 361 ideals of humanity. Plato will then be reconciled with Christ. With the international relations of the state and the duties of its citizens as patriots and as human beings, I need not deal here, as the subject has been treated in the earlier parts of this book. B. THE DUTIES WHICH ARE NOT SOCIAL AND THE IMPERSONAL DUTIES Introduction In all our ethical considerations hitherto we have considered man, if not from the exclusively altruistic point of view, at least from the social point of view. We have conceived man too ex- clusively as Aristotle's social animal fcoov TToXtruov. If this were the only conception we form of man, our ethical system, human morality, would be imperfect, if not completely at fault, both from a practical as well as a theoretical point of view. As a matter of fact both our ethical sys- tems, as well as the ethical thought and the pre- vailing habit of mind among thinking and con- scientious people are defective, because they con- ceive man exclusively, or at least too predominant- ly, merely as a so-cial being, merely in his rela- tion to human society and to his fellow men. Our ethical thought thus suffers from 'Human Provincialism' — or perhaps more proper- ly put, the 'provincialism of Humanity.' Our philosophy is, in the first place, too social, and, in the second place, too psychological. To introduce man where he is not needed is false, as it blocks the way to the attainment of ultimate truth. If 362 this be so, even from the highest philosophical point of view, it is also so in the ordinary -course of life ; for we do not, even in practice, follow the iDurely social and psychologi-cal conception of our duties. The labourer who works at a definite task does not think of nian or the relation of his work to man, while he is engaged upon it. Still less does the student of higher science allow the thought of man to intrude into his search for truth. Thus neither practically nor thoretically are we guided by this primary conception of man's so-cial nature. In fact one of the supreme and most ardu- ous tasks of the scientific student and the philoso- pher is to discard the personal equation, all human bias, the various 'idols' (as Bacon called them), which distort and falsify truth and block the way to its secure establishment. What we really do in practical life and strive to do in the life of pure thought is, without considering human and social relationships and duties, to perform the action and to solve the task we are working at as perfectly as it can be performed, and, as men, to approach as nearly as we can to the per- fect type of the man we ought to be. We do this more or less consciously, and we have before our minds more or less clearly this pattern or ideal of ourself to live up to. If this w so in our life, as we live it from an ethical point of view, there is no doubt also that it ought to be so. Our ethics would thus not be complete, unless we adjust this one-sided exaggeration of its social, as well as its psychological, bearing. Man must be considered in himself, in his relation to him- self, and also to his ideal self ; also as in his rela- tion to the world of things, to his actions, functions 363 and duties in themselves, irrespective of their social bearing. Man must also be considered in his relationship to nature and to the world, irrespective of the definite relationship which these on their part may- hold to man and to humanity — he must break through the crust or tear the veil, pass beyond the restrictive boundaries of ^Humanitarian Provincialism.' To put it into philosophical terms : his final outlook must not only be psycho- Logical, but must ultimately lead him to that in- tellectual eminence where he can become cosmolog- ical, metaphysical and theological — the climax of his whole spiritual life being now, as it was in the past and as it will be in the future, his religious life. The psychologist may remind us that, after all, man 'Can only think as man, neither as a stone nor a plant, nor as a being from Mars or any other planet, nor as a demi-god. But surely, as men, we can and must conceive man, not as a purely and exclusively social being — and we con- stantly have before us, without in any way appeal- ing to our philosophical thought, man's relation to nature and to the universe and to infinity. Vast as this prospect may appear to us, it will be found that it is applied in our ordinary daily life, not only by thinkers and leaders of men but even by the humblest and most thoughtless among us. We have thus, finally, to consider : 1. Our duty to ourself ; 2. Our duty in respect of things and acts; 3. Our duty to the world and to God. In the ethical aspect of this threefold relation- ship, we must be guided by Plato. In realising, both as regards ourselves, as well as the definite functions and activities of man, and finally as re- gards our conception of the universe and the ulti- 364 mate infinite powers of all, the highest and the purest ideals which we can form of each, with W^hich we thus establish a relationship, we may- realise and emphasise our own imperfection and our r^^moteness from such ideals. But, all the same, such high mental activity on our part will not end in an idle and resultless play of the imagination and a dissipation of intellectual energy; but will be, and is of the greatest practical value in the sober and unfailing guidance of human action to- wards the highest ethical goal. 365 CHAPTER V Duty to Our Self This duty to our Self as we here •conceive it^ really means the supreme and constraining power which, through the exercise of the imagination, an ever-present image of an ideal self has over us. Such an active imagination and its power of enforcing itself even upon the most sluggish tem- perament and understanding is not limited to the most highly developed among us, but is the pos- session of practically all human beings. In its lowest and, perhaps, reprehensible form, it mani- fests itself in vanity ; in the higher forms it leads to self-respect and practical idealism. It, of course, includes, and is to a great extent made up of, man's conception of himself as a social being. But it occupies the mind and stimulates and guides action, not be-cause of any definite social relation- ship, but because of the relationship we hold to our Self as a whole, to our own personality, as it manifests itself to us in all acts of self-con- sciousness. Our vanity, our self-respect, and our idealism, are gratified in the degree in which we are successful or in which our individual aichieve- ment, or the wholeness of our personality con- forms to the model or pattern, the ideal which we form of our Self. This even includes the essence of what we call conscience. For whether conscience originally springs from fear, or assumes a relation to be- ings outside and beyond ourselves, its essence 366 really is to be found in the dominance which our ever present conception of a perfect self has over our faltering and imperfect self. The degree of the discomfort or pain which conscience may evoke in us is measured by the discrepancy between our a'Ctual self and the image of our perfect self. Far more than most people would admit, the effective- ness of our imagination in thus appealing to a quasi-dramatic instinct in us, in which we are act- ing our part, not so much in life's play of which ' ' all the world 's at stage, ' ' but in that smaller mic- rocosmical world (infinitely great to us), circum- scribed by our actual and better self, in which^ under the promptership of imagination, the two selves are at once actors and audience. Far more than we would admit are we thus always acting a part, evoking alternate applause and reproval, and fashioning our course of a-ction towards good or evil. And if this is actually the case it is right that it should be so ; and what may in one aspect feed our lowest vanity, in another produces our highest aspirations and leads us onw^ard and up- ward to the noblest and best that is in man. It may even be held — and I for one do hold — that the purest and, perhaps, the noblest guide to conduct and to the rule of the highest morality is to be found in the establishment of such a rela- tionship to our self in a direct and effective in- tensity of moral guidance. When our moral ef- forts — be it in the repression of the lower instincts and desires or in the exertion of all our energy and power towards work and deeds that are good — are wholly independent of a relationship to others, to their regard or approval, but are deter- mined by our self-respect and self-realisation, they are more secure in producing truly moral results.. all! They are then established by our well trained habit or by our conscious determination to live up to the most perfect image we have of our self; and, not only have we attained to a higher stage of ethi- cal development than when our eyes are constant- ly turned to the social world about us, but also, as moral social beings, as members of society, we shall be more perfect and more secure in our course of moral action. We shall thus strive to make both body and mind perfect in their form and in their function ; we shall endeavour to main- tain that supreme harmony of being which the ancient philosophers held up as the goal of man's efforts. But more than this, we shall establish the greatest security for our every act, and under all the most fluid and varying conditions of en- vironment, maintain the loftiness of our moral standards. This will not only guide us in choos- ing in life those occupations which are most likely to bring out the best that is in us, that which brings us nearest to the totality of our highest self, the ideal of our self; not only will it urge us to do our best work and to struggle against fate and untoward circumstance in overcoming opposition within and without; but it will securely confirm those social qualities which we must develop in the interest of a harmonious society. The habits we thus form, the self-control we thus impose up- on ourselves, the amenities we strive to cultivate to please our fellow men and to improve social intercourse, will have tlieir perennial origin, jus- tification and vitalisation, within ourselves, and v/ill not be affected by the uncertainty and mut- ability of fortuitous outer 'circumstances or de- pend upon confirmation from without. We shall be clean of body, clear of mind and delicate of 368 taste, not to please others or to win their approval, but because our own self would not be perfect without such effort and achievement. And we shall thus be furnished wdth an effi-eient guide, not only in the loftier and more spiritual spheres of our life and being, but even in the humblest and most commonplace and lowly action of our varied existence. To cultivate our habits of bodily clean- liness; to dress as appropriately and beautifully as we can in conformity with our position and activities; to eat and drink, not only in modera- tion, but in a manner expressive of refinement and repressive of greed and animal voracity — to do all this, even if we were pla-ced on a desert island, isolated from all social intercourse, simply because we wish to uphold in ourselves the best standards of human civilisation and to make ourselves per- fect human beings, marks the highest, as well as the most efficient, phase of ethical culture. I cannot refrain from pointing out these truths by definite illustrations which in their very slight- ness will emphasise my meaning. I have been as- sured by a friend that, when he finds himself in a state of moral indisposition and depression, his cure is to retire from his companions, to work hard all day, and then in the evening to dress with the greatest care and punctiliousness, arrange his room as perfectly as possible with flowers be- decking the table, and after his evening meal to turn to beautiful books or beautiful thoughts. When as a boy he for the first time left his home, his wise mother begged him, as a personal favour, not to take even a hasty meal without washing; and, if others did not do it for him, that he should lay his o'wn cloth, be it only with a napkin if he could not find a tablecloth. She rightly felt how 369 important it was to guard, as a spontaneous and vital liabit of mind, the higher forms of 'civilisa- tion and refinement. On the other hand, I have heard of a case where a man, brought up and ac- customed to civilised habits, Avas found in the backwoods of Canada, where he had lived as a lonely settler for some years, without even wash- ing the plates after meals because, as he put it, ''the food all came from the same place and went to the same place. ' ' There is perhaps no phase of ethical teaching and discipline which requires more emphasis, de- velopment, and insistence, than the group of duties whi-ch ignore the social and directly altruistic as- pect, and deal with the duties to ourselves, making them ultimately, through conscious recognition, an efficient ethical habit. For it appears to me that our ethical vision has been distorted as regards true proportion, its correctness and soundness im- paired by the exclusive, or at all events exagger- ated, insistence upon its moral, social and humani- tarian province. It has justified the strongest strictures and condenmation of professed amoral- ists like Nietzsche, their opposition to the prev- alent morality and the degeneracy to which so- called altruism must lead. At the same time such one-sided theories of so-cial altruism canont tend to sane happiness : they can only maintain such a state of artificial euphoria by feverish and con- tinuous activity, submerging all consciousness of self, in which we deceive or flatter ourselves into believing that we are doing good to others. And when we -cease to act and stop to think, we are thrown into a maze of restless querying as regards our oAvn relation to our fellow men, which ends in depression or even in despair. We can only be 370 saved by following Matthew Arnold's command- ment to Eesolve to be thyself, and know that he Who finds himself loses his misery. 371 CHAPTER VI Duty to Things and Acts But we must at times go still further in repress- ing the human and personal intrusion. Not only beyond the social aspect of our duties, but even beyond our own personalities, must we realise our definite duties to things and our relation to our own acts. In this form of supreme self-repression and self-detachment for the time being, we must forget ourselves either in pure contemplation or in definite activity and productiveness. Pure con- templation finds its highest expression in science and in art. It constitutes man 's theoretic faculty. To realise this faculty in spiritual and in intellec- tual activity makes of thought and emotion an ac- tivity in itself, and has led mankind to its high- est sphere of human achievement, namely the de- velopment of sciences and arts. But we are chiefly concerned in action and achievement itself as distinct from thought and pure emotion. Such action is likely to be the more sane and perfect and effective the more vigorous and concentrated it is in its enrgy, the more our will commands and directs our energies, as well as our passion and physical strength, to do the thing before us, and to forget ourselves in the doing of it. ' Whatever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.' Now, as there is an ideal of a human being, the ideal or type for animal and organic beings, in fact for all forms in nature, so there is a type and ideal for each definite act, the perfect act. This 372 is a necessary conclusion of the Platonic idea and of Aristotle's cvreXxeia. The degree in which, while acting, we approach this ideal perfection of the act itself determines our triumph or failure, our satisfaction or discontent. The dissatisfac- tion and depression which we feel when we are not successful, the divine discontent out of which all great efforts and great achievements grow, produces in us a conscience, irrespective of our so- cial instincts, irrespective even of our own person- ality, and is, perhaps, of all our moral impulses the highest as it is the most effective. Besides this ethical bearing, it has the most supreme prac- tical bearing in life ; for only through it does man do his best, individually and collectively. All im- provements, inventions and discoveries, find their unassailable justification and their effective ori- gin in this principle of human activity. No doubt there are no new achievements, no discoveries or inventions, which, from the mere fact that being new they do not alter the existing state of things to which they are related, do not in their turn destroy what actually exists and af- fect adversely those who have depended upon the existing state of things. In so far they may pro- duce pain and want and misery and much may be urged against their right of existence from other points of view. But we must ever strive to pro- duce new inventions and new improvements, not so much to increase the fortunes of the discov- erers or promoters, not for the merchants, not even for the labouring populations to whom the exceptional control of such improvements or fa- cilities of production give an advantage over oth- ers; but because perfect production of objects, man's increased control over chance, over na- 373 ture, man's defiance of restricted time and space, are thereby improved. It is therefore immoral artifically to impede or to retard improvements or to lower the quantity or quality of production. To take a definite instance, which the individual artisan and the organised imion of working men should remember : The bricklayer 's duty to do his best work as a bricklayer, to lay as many bricks and to lay them as perfectly as possible in as short a time as possible; not so much to increase the wealth of his employer (though this too is his duty and his definite compact), or his own wealth; but because of the ideal of bricklaying, which must be the ideal of his active existence. The su- preme and final justification of his work is to be found in the work itself, irrespective even of hu- man beings, of human society, of humanity. But I feel bound to qualify what I have con- sidered from one aspect only, though in its abso- lute and unassailable truth, by not only admitting, but by urging the fact, that there are other du- ties with which man individually, and men collec- tively, have to deal ; though these in no way wea- ken the absoluteness of our ideals of impersonal work. We must consider, recognise, and be guided in our action, also by the incidental and temporary suffering frequently following in the wake of discoveries and inventions. It will there- fore devolve on society to alleviate and, if pos- sible, to remove such incidental suffering brought upon a limited group of individuals for the benefit of society and absolutely justified by the imper- sonal improvement of human work and produc- tion. Social legislation will here have to step in and to supplement insurance against old age, against disease, and even unavoidable unemploy- 374 ment, by insurance against acute and temporary forms of unemployment and dislocations of la- bour caused by such improvements and inven- tions. Such social legislation and the relief given to the unavoidable suffering of groups of people will be exceptional ; but it is moral and practically justifiable, if not imperative, on the ground that the community at large, and even future genera- tions, will benefit by the introduction of the im- provements which necessarily cause individual suffering. To give but one definite instance : The undoubted blessing which motor traffic has be- stowed upon mankind has necessarily brought suffering and misery to groups of people entirely dependent upon the superseded means of trans- port; while it has also caused discomfort to the mass of the population. It was but right that all efforts should have been made, on the one hand to support the cabmen and others who lived by horse traffic during the period when these new inven- tions forcibly deprived them of the very means of subsistence; while, on the other hand, public ef- fort ought at once to have been directed towards securing the lives of pedestrians threatened by the new invention and the danger to health and comfort caused by the production of dust on the roads. But these separate duties, called into being by the improvement of production and the expansion of human skill and activity, in no way diminish the absolute duty to further such improvement and to concentrate energy which man must bring to the perfecting of his work as such. Our su- preme duty to things and to acts remains ; and we must act thus, not so much on grounds of human altruism, not as social beings in our direct rela- 375 tion to other beings and our intercourse with them; but simply in our relation to the objects which we are to produce, to modify, or to effect, to make our production as perfect as possible, even if we were the only human beings in the uni- verse. I may be allowed here to quote two di- dactic poems which illustrate this ethical princi- ple with forcible truth and with beauty of form. The one is Matthew Arnold's Self Dependence, from which I have already quoted above, the other is George Eliot's poem Stradivarius. ' * Self-Dependence ' ' AVeary of myself, and sick of asking What I am, and what I ought to be, At this vessel's prow I stand, which bears me Forwards forwards, o'er the starlit sea. And a look of passionate desire 'er the sea and to the stars I send : Ye who from my childhood up have calm'd me, Calm me, ah, compose me to the end! ''All, once more," I cried, **ye stars, ye waters, On my heart, your mighty charm renew ; Still, still let me, as I gaze upon you, Feel my soul becoming vast like you !" From the intense, clear, star-sown vault of heaven, Over the lit sea's unquiet way, In the rustling night-air came the answer : **Wouldst thou be as these are I Live as they. ' * Unaffrighted by the silence round them, Undistracted by the sights they see. These demand not that the things without them Yield them love, amusement, svmpathy. 376 ''And with joy the stars perform their shining,, And the sea its long moon-silver 'd roll; For self -poised they live, nor pine with noting All the fever of some differing soul. ** Bounded by themselves, and unregardful In what state God's other works may be, In their own tasks all their powers pouring, These attain the mighty life you see." air-born voice ! long since, severely clear, A cry like thine in mine own heart I hear . "Resolve to be thyself; and know that he, Who finds himself, loses his misery!" "Stradivaeius" Antonio then: '*! like the gold— well, yes— but not for meals. And as my stomach, so my eye and hand, And inward sense that works along with both,. Have hunger that can never feed on coin. Who draws a line and satisfies his soul, Making it crooked where it should be straight? An idiot with an oyster-shell may draw His lines along the sand, all wavering. Fixing no point or pathway to a point; An idiot one remove may choose his line. Straggle and be content ; but God be praised, Antonio Stradivari has an eye That winces at false work and loves the true, With hand and arm that play upon the tool As willingly as any singing bird Sets him to sing his morning roundelay, Because he likes to sing and likes the song." Then Naldo : " 'Tis a petty kind of fame At best, that comes of making violins; And saves no masses, either. Thou wilt go To purgatory none the less." 377 But he: " 'Twere purgatory here to make them ill; And for my fame — when any master holds 'Twixt chin and hand a violin of mine, He will be glad that Stradivari lived, Made violins, and made them of the best. The masters only know whose work is good : They will choose mine, and while God gives them skill I give them instruments to play upon, Ood choosing me to help Him." "What! were God At fault for violins, thou absent ? "Yes; He were at fault for Stradivari's work." "Why, many hold Guiseppe's violins As good as thine." ' * May be : they are different. His quality declines : he spoils his hand With over-drinking. But were his the best, He could not work for two. My work is mine, And, heresy or not, if my hand slacked I should rob God — since He is fullest good — Lea^dng a blank instead of \iolins. I say, not God Himself can make man 's best Without best men to help Him. I am one best Here in Cremona, using sunlight well To fashion finest maple till it serves More cunningly than throats, for harmony. 'Tis rare delight : I would not change my skill To be the Emperor with bungling hands, And lose my work, which comes as natural As self at waking." ' ' Thou art little more Than a deft potter's wheel, Antonio; Turning out work by mere necessity And lack of varied function. Higher arts Subsist on freedom — eccentricity — 378 I Uncounted inspirations — influence That comes with drinking, gambling, talk turn- ed wild, Then moody misery and lack of food — With every dithyrambic fine excess : These make at last a storm which flashes out In lightning revelations. Steady work Turns genius to a loom; the soul must lie Like grapes beneath the sun till ripeness comes And mellow vintage. I could paint you now The finest Crucifixion; yesternight Returning home I saw it on a sky Blue-black, thick-starred. I want two louis d'ors To buy the canvas and the costly blues — Trust me a fortnight." ''Where are those last two I lent thee for thy Judith! — her thou saw'st In saffron gown, with Holof ernes' head And beauty all complete!" ' ' She is but sketched : I lack the proper model — and the mood. A great idea is an eagle's egg, Graves time for hatcliing ; while the eagle sits Feed her." "If thou wilt call thy pictures eggs I call the hatching, Work. 'Tis God gives skill, But not without men's hands: He could not make Antonio Stradivari's violins Without Antonio. Get thee to thy easel." I end with another illustration from my "Cui Bono": " * * * Have you nothing more to say about the use of science?" *'I have, sir, but before I do I should like to repeat an interesting confession of one of my friends which will put the arguments in favour 379 of scientific pursuits in a more personal and di- rect manner. He is a colleagne of mine, a dis- tinguished archaeologist, and teaches his subject at our university. Some time ago he made a striliing discovery, one of a series he had made in his work. He had found in a foreign museum a marble head, which, by means of his careful and systematic observation and comparison of works cf ancient art, a method developed in his science in the most accTirate maimer by several great scholars, he at once recognised as belonging to a statute by Phidias in London. A cast of the head was made for him by the authorities of the foreign museum. He took it to London, and there, to his own delight and that of all people who love the masterpieces of Greek art, when he tried this head on the neck of the beautiful female figure, each fracture fitted exactly. The precious work of art from the age of Percles, of the art of Phidias, was now complete, after it had re- mained incomplete for centuries. ''When one day I was congratulating him upon this discovery, and saying to him, how happy must have been that moment, and how contented he must be with the successful pursuit of the vocation he had chosen in life, a discussion sim- ilar to the one we are now carrying on ensued, and in it he made to me the following confession as to the light in which at various moments his work appeared to him, and the varying degrees of moral justification which he then recognised as underlying his efforts. '* 'When I am quite well in body and mind,^ he said, 'I work on with delight and vigour. It is pure joy: I never question the Tightness and supreme necessity of my work at all. Nothing in this world appears to me of greater importance for me to work at, and I am almost convinced that the world oould not get on without my work. Con- 380 vinced is not the right word : for I do not think about this general question at all. But at the bottom of this joyous expenditure of creative en- ergy, lies this conviction, and all the justifications which I must now enumerate. For, as my moral or physical health sinks, one of them after the other drops off, until I am left with but the feeble support of the last lame excuse for exertion with which I limp or crawl through my deep dejection and melancholy. " 'With the first disturbance of moral or phy- sical sanity, I begin to doubt and query. It is the first stage of the disease; but I am still full of high and sound spirits. Besides all the others, I feel one supreme motive to action, which is of the highest religious order, so high, that but few peoiple will be able to understand it, and still fewer can sympatliise with it and be moved by it. " ' I look upon my individual work and creation as part of the great universe, even beyond hu- manity. I even transcend the merely human or social basis of ethics, and I feel myself in com- munion with the world in all its infinite vastness. " 'I know this sounds like mysticism, but I as- sure you it is both clear and real to me. I then feel that if there were in this world no single human being to love or care for, instruct or amuse, my work would still be necessary, in view of the great harmony of things, to which right actions, truth discovered, and beauty formed, con- tribute, as their contraries detract from it. 'i '"W^ere there no single person living,' he con- tinued, with growing warmth of enthusiasm, 'it would be right, nay necessary, for me to discover that hend in the foreign museum. That head lay Opining' there in the foreign museum for years and for centuriesi under the earth before it was excavated, until / came, and by the knowledge I possessed (which means the accumulated effort 381 of many learned men establishing the method, as well as my years of preparation and education in acquiring it and making it my own), by this science of mine, I joined it to that torso, that im- perfect fragment of a thing, and made it whole — a living work of art fashioned by the master gen- ius, whose existence two thousand years ago be- came part of the world's richness for all time. So long as that head and that torso remained separate, there was discord and not harmony in the world's great Symphony, the world was so much the poorer, so much the less beautiful and good. I made the world richer by my act, more harmonious, more beautiful; and thus, without self-love or even love of man, I proved my love of God. That is the Amor Dei. Then we are enthusiastic in the Greek sense of the word, we are full of God. " ' In the next stage, when my spirits flag some- what, and reflection and then doubt begin to come over me, I cannot feel moved by this widest and grandest assurance of the bearings of my science. But, in addition to the lower justifications, I then quiet my doubts by the feeling that my work and my teaching are one element in the establishment, increase, and spread of what we call civilisation, culture, and general education. Human life be- comes more elevated and refined by the sum of our efforts. Without good archaeologists, and the consequent of the past, our civilisation would not be as perfect as it is. '* 'Then, when I sink still lower, and can no longer feel this morre general conception of hu- man life, I can still feel that the effect upon those for whom I write and those whom I teach will be refining, and will bring true Hellenism (not the pseudo-Hellenism of morally-degenerate sciolists), nearer to them; and also that I increase their 382 capital of refined intellectual enjoyment, their in- tellectual resources and their taste. '*And when I am lowest of all, I say to myself that I am making good professional archaeolo- gists and curators of museums, am training good schoolmasters for our public schools, and am at least helping these young men to a profession, giving them the means of earning a living. '^ 'When I have arrived at that stage of dejec- tion and lowness oif spirits, I jog on in a "from hand to mouth" existence; but I feel that the sooner I can get a good holiday and some rest, the better it will be for me.' " 38:s CHAPTER VII Duty to God The duty to things and actions, necessarily and logically lead us to the further and final course to which, in the rising scale of ethical thought, they tend. In man's ethical profession, through the objects which man wishes to produce or to modify in nature, he is necessarily led to his ul- timate duties towards the world as a whole, not only the world as his senses and perceptions cause him to realise it, as it is, with all the limitations which his senses and powers of action impose upon him; but the world as his best thought, and his imagination, guided by his highest reason, lead him to feel that it ought to be — his ideal world. This brings him to his duty towards his highest and most impersonal ideals of an ordered uni- verse, a cosmos, and of unlimited powers beyond the limitations of his capacities — his duty to God. Ethics here naturally, logically, necessarily, lead to, and culminate in, religion. The supreme duty in this final phase of ethics, man's religious duties, is Truth to his Religious Ideals. It is here, more than in any other phase of his activities, that there can and ought to be no compromise. This is where he approaches the ideal world in all its purity, free from all limi- tations and modifications by the imperfections of things temporal and material as well as his own erring senses and perceptive faculties. There are no practical or social relationships, no ma- terial ends to be considered, no material interests 384 to be served or advantages gained. The only re- lationship is that between himself and his spir- itual powers and the highest ideal which these en- able him to formulate or to feel. His duty there- fore is to strive after his highest ideals of har- mony, power, truth, justice and charity. Nor does this function of the human mind and this craving of the human heart require exceptional intellec- tual power or training. On the contrary, the his- tory of the human race has shown that at every, phase of human existence, even the earliest and most rudimentary in the very remote haze of pre- historic times, the presence of this religious in- stinct and man's effort to satisfy it are mani- fested ; even though it necessarily be in the crud- est, the most unintelligent and even barbarous forms of what we call superstition and idolatry. Man's every desire, and every experience neces- sarily have a religious concomitant. At every moment of his conscious existence he is reminded of imperfection and limitation without, and inca- pacity within himself . This very consciousness is the mainspring of all endeavour, of all will power, of all the exertion of his physical or mental ca- pacities. For, each conscious experience, as well as each desire and effort, has as a counterpart to its limitation, the more or less present or complete consciousness of its perfect fulfilment. Limita- tion in time and space implies infinity; limita- tion in power implies omnipotence; limitation in knowledge implies omniscience ; injustice, justice ; cruelty, charity. Even if the limitation or the incapacity is admitted, and even if the tutored mind ceases from dwelling upon it as it realizes the impossibility clearly to grasp and to encom- pass the unlimited and relegates such fantastic 385 cravings to the region of the absurd, through long and continuous rationalistic training and habit, this only confirms the correlative conception of in- finite power. The consciousness that we cannot span the world, regulate the powers of nature ac- cording to our will, dominate the seasons and check the course of the tides — not to mention the limitations of every individual and commonplace action of ours — implies our conception of such power and such complete achievement. The higher our spiritual flight and the more highly trained we are through experience and through thought in the range of our imagination and our reason, the higher will be our ideals of the infinite and the omnipotent. The Greek phil- osopher Xenophanes said many centuries ago, that, if lions could draw, they would draw the most perfect lions as their god, and that the god of negroes would be flat-nosed and black. Thus necessarily individuals, the collective groups of men and the different periods within man's his- tory will all vary in their capacity to approach the conception of the highest ideals ; they will differ in their theology and in their religion. But their supreme duty from an ethical point of view, in their attitude towards religion is truth. They must strive so to develop their religious na- ture that it responds to their highest moral and intellectual capacity. They must not accept any religious ideal that contradicts the rising scale of duties from the lower and narrower spheres up- wards as we have enumerated them. All duties must harmonise and culminate in the ultimate ideals which belong to the religious sphere. Credo quia impossible must never mean Credo quia ahsurdum. Man commits a grave sin, per- 386 haps the gravest of all, by lowering his religious ideals, by allowing himself, on whatever grounds of expediency and compromise, to vitiate the di- vine reason he possesses as the highest gift in human nature, and by admitting the irrational into his conception of the divinity. By this I in no way mean to say that either eth- ics, science or art can in any way replace religion : though in their highest ideal flights they closely approach to religion and even merge into it. Of all human activities in science, pure mathematics, which deals with the highest immaterial relation- ships, comes nearest to the ideal sphere of the- ology and indicates the direction for religious emotion to take; and of all the arts, pure music (not program music) unfettered by definite ma- terial objects and individual experiences in the outer world, also approaches most closely in its tendency to some realisation of cosmical and re- ligious ideals. We can thus divine the depth of effort manifested in the philosophy of Pythago- ras, who maintained that number was the essence of all things, and who suggested the music of the spheres. But these are only sign-posts on the high road of thought where science and art give lasting expression to the onward and upward course of human reason; they cannot of them- selves satisfy the religious instinct and the religi- ous craving of man which draws him onwards to his highest ideals. If science and art cannot thus replace religion, ethics which is directly and immediately practical can also not do so. In fact ethics must culminate in religious ideals. Man's duty towards the per- fection of his acts, to the universe at large, as we have endeavoured to indicate it above, logically 387 leads us to and in itself presupposes and pre-de- mands some conception of a final, summary harm- ony to which all human activity tends. All our rational and moral activity pre-demands the cons- ciousness of a final end, not in chaos but in cos- mos; not irrational but rational; not evil but good; not towards the evil one but towards God. Without this infinite boundary to all our thoughts and actions, desires and efforts, man's conscious world would not differ from a madhouse or a gambler's den, or a vast haunt of vice and crimi- nality. Without this upward idealistic impulse all conscious human activity would either go down- ward to lower animal spheres (to Nirvana) or er- ratically whirl round and round in drunken mazes ; it w^ould lose all guidance and ultimate di- rection and be purely at the mercy of fickle chance or relentless passion and greed. But this upward idealistic impulse itself, as a lasting and dominating emotion must be culti- vated. Just as we have seen before, ethics must become emotional and aesthetic to be practically effective. We have also seen that each ethical in- junction need not be, and ought not to be cons- ciously present in the mind of him who is to act rightly; for it would weaken, if not completely dissolve, our will-power and our active energy. It w^ould ultimately lead to the dreamer or the pedant who dreams while he ought to be awake and who idly thinks while he ought to act. The fctep must be made from the intellectual to the emotional sphere; the moral injunction ought to be made part of our emotional system through habituation — it must become subconscious, almost instinctive, if not purely aesthetic — a matter of taste. Rational and efficient education must from 388 our earliest infancy tend to convert this conscious morality into a sub-conscious and fundamental moral state. We must not rest on our oars to think while we ought to be rowing and risk being carried away by the unreasoning current of cir- cumstance. Still there will be moments when we must thus rest on our oars, when we must set the house in which we live in order, when we must ponder over and test the broad principles upon which we act. We must then bring into harmony and proportion the ascending scale of duties, regulating the lower by the higher in due subordination and discard- ing the lower that will not bear the final test of the higher, until we reach the crown of human ex- istence in our religious ideals. But in all this idealistic ascent we must culti- vate the passion for such upsoaring idealism, and it is in our final religious impulses that the emo- tional, nay the mystical, element must itself be nurtured and cultivated. Without this crown of life, life will always be imperfect. The striving for the infinite, which cannot be apprehended and reduced to intellectual formulae, must itself be strengthened and encouraged in the young and through every phase of our life onward to the grave. Let us see that these ideals are not op- posed to our highest reason and truth as far as we have been able to cultivate these in ourselves. But whether our ultimate intellectual achieve- ment and our grasp of truth be high or low, we cannot forego the cultivation and strengthening of our religious emotions. Whoever believes in the dogmatic teaching of any of the innumerable sects and creeds that now exist, truthfully and with the depth of his conviction, let him cling to 389 that creed and the usages, rites and ceremonies of the church or chapel, synagogue, mosque, graves, or sacred shrines and haunts in which his religious emotions are fed and strengthened. But if he does not truthfully believe in the creed and dogmas, he must not subscribe to them, or he will be committing the supreme sin against his best self, "against the Holy Ghost." Those whose re- ligious ideals cannot be compassed, or fettered by any dogmatic creed that is now established and recognised, let them not forego the cultivation of their religious emotions which, as both past ex- perience and all active reasoning teach us, must be created and strengthened by emotional setting, by an atmosphere removed from the absorbing in- terested activities of daily life. The question for these people is, where and how can religious emotion thus be encouraged and cul- tivated? It seems to me that there are two pos- sible localities and methods in which this crying demand can be responded to: either in the do- mestic sphere within the family, or within the -churches themselves, amid the religious associa- tions of the past and the religious atmosphere which is essential to them. As regards the home and the family as the centre for religious worship, some indication of the direction which such a domestic religious cult might take can be derived from Japanese ances- tor-worship which is so vital and so potent an element in the life of that people. As has been pointed out by Nobushige Hozumi,^ Japanese ancestor worship can co-exist with any variety of religious beliefs, doctrines and creeds. For us (1) "Ancestor-worship and Japanese Law," 1913. *^"''' 390 it has in its turn become sterotyped in its formal ritual to such a degree, that it could never be ac- cepted in its actual form by those who brought unbiased criticism to bear upon its binding in- junctions. But the essential fact in its ritual, that it establishes within each family and each house- hold a sacred chamber or alter, of itself sanctified by piety and gratitude towards our ancestors and thus effectively upholding the family spirit and the family honour, with common strivings to- wards higher moral and ideal ends ; furthermore, that it becomes the natural focus for solemn gath- erings and lends spiritual elevation by association and emotional stimulus to the silent prayer of the individual or the collective worship of the whole family — these elements make of it the fit local and physical setting for religious commun- ion or for silent self-communion or prayer when the individual man desires to establish his solemn relationship with his highest ideals. Beyond this domestic and family sphere, how- ever, we possess in every country the churches and shrines associated with definite beliefs in the present and with continuous religious aspirations for centuries in the past. Not only these associa- tions, but the aesthetic qualities in the architec- ture and decorative art within and without, pos- sessed by so many, make them the most suitable places for man's spiritual devotion. If the guar- dians of these sacred buildings admit, as they must, that religious aspirations and desires are in themselves good ; that it is better for those who differ from them in creed to have some religion and that they should cultivate their religious as- pirations rather than that they should have no re- ligion at all and drift through life without any 891 such higher striving, they will surlily lend a hand to support their brethern in their highest efforts, even if they differ from them in form and creed. Let us hope that aU our churches and religious buildings will at certain definite times, when not required for the special worship to which they are dedicated, open their doors to the diifering breth- ern. These buildings ought in the future, even more than at present, to become the centres of purest art, graphic or musical. These felLow strivers may then receive the inestimable benefit of some stimulation in their endeavours silently to commune with their highest ideals, to pray, to think or to feel, and to cultivate their truly re- ligious spiritual emotion. Epilogue At the end of this attempt to put into logical and intelligible form an outline scheme for the moral regeneration of our own times and of the Western civilised nations, a regeneration which of itself would make a war, like the one from which the whole of civilised humanity is now suf- fering, impossible in the future, I must ask my- self whether any good can come from such an ef- fort, whether the mere exposition of truths, and even the realisation and admission of these truths on the part of those who read what I have written, will in any way alter the course of events or the lives of the millions of people who cause these events to take place as they do? Is Nietzsche, and are many other philosophers, right in main- taining that the mass of the people, do not like what they consider superior to themselves and to the general standard of life about them, that they 392 are in reality opposed to their leaders and inimi- cal to what they consider above average exis- tence? Even if — ^whioh is doubtful — what I have here written should reach the eyes of the people who rule by their numbers and if I were able to convince them of the rightness of what is here put before them, would such an achievement in the slightest way modify the course of individual or collective action? A man must be very young or very arrogant who believes, that even the most unassailable truths to which he is able to give ex- pression will of themselves influence the great current of human passion and human action. On the other hand, man's history in the past has proved one truth above all others ; namely, that only ideas last, and that truth must prevail in the end. Moreover, it has proved that the great thinkers of by gone days have set their stamp and seal upon their own age and especially upon the ages that have followed them. In the immediate past, the past that has led up to the present day, in the disasters of which we are all so sadly con- cerned, we can recognise and those who have stud- ied the question must admit it — that the Germany of the generation preceding the present one was fashioned in its character, in its ideals, in its col- lective, and in its individual national life, by the expressed thoughts, the words and the writings of such disciples of truth as were Kent Fichte, Schell- ing and Hegel. The Germany — not Prussia — of the generation preceding 1870 was made what it was by the thought of such men, filtering through the studens of their philosophy down to even the unthinking and illiterate masses of the people. Since then, since 1870, not only Bismark and Moltke and the present Kaiser are responsible for 393 the Germany that is ; but, perhaps even more than these, Treitschke and even Schopenhauer, von Hartmann and Nietzsche, have created the funda- mental and ultimate and still the most pervasive and efficient mentality of the young Germany of today. If this be true, and if there be virtue and in what I have written in this book, there may be some hope that I have not worked in vain, and that some good, though it fall far short of the hopes that have stirred me to make this effort, may come out of what I have done. In any case I may be allowed to say to myself: Dixi et animam meam salvavi. 894 Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide Treatment Date: PreservationTechnologies A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 111 Thomson Park Drive