Law o 
 
 Hyman 
 
 iipi I P
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 THE LAW OF 
 STRUGGLE 
 
 By 
 
 HYMAN SEGAL 
 
 Author qf 
 
 '"The Book of Pain-Struggle' ' 
 
 etc. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 MASSADA PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 NEW YORK
 
 Copyright, 1918 
 New York
 
 "T^-K 
 
 i 
 
 S4-5X 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Chapter 1 11 
 
 The Will to Struggle 
 
 Chapter II 11 
 
 The Psychology of Struggle 
 
 Chapter III 45 
 
 Struggle as Morality 
 
 Chapter IV 69 
 
 Struggle as State-craft 
 
 Chapter V 84 
 
 The Economic Struggle 
 
 Chapter VI 126 
 
 Struggle as War 
 
 Chapter VII 149 
 
 Struggle as Religion
 
 Foreword 
 
 ON THE WAR AND THE BOOK 
 
 WE HAVE promised ourselves that this War is to be 
 the last. Still, how do we know? We did not seek it, 
 yet it came. We are in the grip of momentous cur- 
 rents, we know not how. Evidently, we still do not know the 
 laws by which we live. Tho we have stored up great accu- 
 mulations of miscellaneous, unrelated, unassimilated facts 
 concerning ourselves, these accumulations have only served 
 to make confusion worse confounded. And yet, the great 
 problems with which the world is wrestling so bloodily 
 to-day are compounded of the measure and quality of our 
 self-knowledge. We still do not know our place in the 
 scheme of things; and the blows of the Germans resound- 
 ing against the gates of Paris, beat also upon the faith in 
 the hearts of men. 
 
 If the Great War, which has descended upon us like a 
 visitation from another world, is not really native to our 
 true nature as human beings, why does it have such a hold 
 upon us? Whence does it derive its power to stretch forth 
 its gruesome hand and drag us, open-eyed, protesting, 
 horror-stricken, into its dread vortex? Why are we finally 
 fascinated by it and go exulting into the fray? 
 
 To accuse the world of inconsistency and hypocrisy 
 provides us with no explanation. Beneath every cover of 
 duplicity is concealed some earnestness of purpose. What 
 is it? What is the blundering purpose of the world? 
 
 Some years ago — in the year 1911, to be precise — I 
 wrote a book* in which I attempted to set forth this riddle 
 and its answer. The whole problem seemed to me then — 
 as it does now, in the fourth year of the Great War — to be 
 embodied in the correct understanding of pain and struggle 
 
 *The Book of Pain-Struggle
 
 and their true avenues of expression; the whole solution, in 
 the frank recognition of pain as of the very stuff of life and 
 the way in which it must normally react in struggle. Per- 
 haps if the subject had been given a tithe of the study 
 devoted to armaments and tactics, the world would not to- 
 day be peering so anxiously out of the bloody abyss in which 
 finds it itself. 
 
 I might have been willing to wait a while longer 
 before attempting, with my poor powers, to touch upon 
 this great theme again, but this cataclysmic War which, 
 please God, we shall win, impels me to speak once more at 
 this time. 
 
 Is this War of us or of another? Is it inherent in our 
 life or not? If it is, why do we not adjust our life and our 
 sense of values to it? If not, how comes this eruption in 
 our midst and what can we do to avoid its repetition? In 
 short, what has been wrong with our thinking, what is 
 wanting in our self-knowledge? 
 
 It behooves us to give these questions our serious 
 attention. 
 
 Hyman Segal 
 
 NewYork.May, 1918.
 
 The Law of Struggle
 
 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 THE WILL TO STRUGGLE 
 1. Pain-and-Strug"gle. 
 
 THE scientist in his demonstrations relies not alone upon 
 his statistical charts, but upon a knowledge of life in 
 his readers by which his proofs must ultimately be 
 tested. The statistics of pain and struggle in particular have 
 first of all to be perceived by the inner eye, and only then 
 tested find checked formally. If we have the eye to see it, 
 the necessary data is unescapable wherever we turn, whether 
 we view life as a whole or examine it in small sections under 
 the microscope. 
 
 The essential thing in order to grasp the subject is to 
 know pain when we confront it, even tho we have been 
 wont to recognize it only in tooth-aches and ailments generally 
 which are only acute instances of disproportion between pain 
 and struggle. Our view of pain must become more compre- 
 hensive, and we must recognize struggle even when not ac- 
 companied by the startling signs of physical strife. Physical 
 conflict has always been held out to us as almost the synonym 
 of struggle. And yet, even in this class of struggle, it is not 
 necessarily the most clamorous and ferocious antagonist who 
 is the most redoubtable. So, too, we are accustomed to think 
 of the lion, the tiger, the bandit and the burglar as very 
 formidable fighters indeed but, as a matter of fact, they are 
 very feeble strugglers and have long been out-classed; so 
 much so, in fact, that they hardly enter into our calculations 
 to-day. 
 
 On the other hand, there are a great many far-reaching 
 struggles in nature that seldom arrest our attention. Who, 
 
 11
 
 12 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 for example, stops to think of the battle-royal that goes on 
 between the insect and the plant, the ants and their prey, 
 the innumerable little invaders, such as the nits that settle 
 upon the eye-balls of the African buffalo or the combats 
 which go on in our own blood? Who stops to take stock of 
 the fact that the basis of our daily existence, our goings and 
 our comings, our conversations and dealings, is founded upon 
 pains or yearnings innumerable fulfilling themselves thru 
 the years, in their ordered ways, in barely discernable little 
 struggles? So, for instance, hunger is a form of pain, eating 
 the struggle therefrom; anger is pain, the act of punishment, 
 struggle; fear, anxiety, ambition, desire or yearning of what- 
 ever kind are all forms of pain. The act by which these are 
 allayed or satisfied represents the struggle therefrom. These 
 things occur and recur all the time. Let a man seat himself 
 comfortably in his chair, let him try to lie down, let him 
 walk, let him win the scholarship that he coveted, the fortune 
 or wife of his dreams, yet the surges of pain will reach his 
 highest accomplishment and beget new desires which crave 
 fulfillment or struggle. 
 
 Take any little pastel from life — take this one that any- 
 one may see enacted through his window at one time or 
 another: — 
 
 Two dogs, one a black, wooly-haired mongrel, the other 
 a black-and-tan, are fighting in the street, snarling and biting 
 each other with eager, panting barks. Passers-by pause to 
 watch them; a minister of peaceful mien slows up in his gait 
 somewhat and gazes at them with an amused interest difficult 
 to suppress; the little boys shout with glee; and a grinning 
 policeman approaches the fighting pair with slow, restrained 
 steps, hoping to see a decision before the dogs can be 
 separated. 
 
 Finally, the little black-and-tan dog gives a piteous yelp, 
 and, shaking himself free, skulks away with the crestfallen, 
 disgraced air discernible more or less, in all that experience 
 defeat; with the black dog in triumphant pursuit. 
 
 The little crowd comes to itself again, as it were, the 
 business man hastening to resume the daily struggles of his 
 class, the minister to assail the devil and the problems of his
 
 THE WILL TO STRUGGLE 13 
 
 parish, the policeman to continue his vigil, and the little boys, 
 the adventures of the day. 
 
 The foregoing is simply one of the innumerable trifling 
 but obvious little incidents of a day illuminating the life- 
 interest of sentient beings, the rule of struggle in life. But 
 there are less obvious examples pointing in the same direction. 
 
 For example, who has not paused involuntarily at one 
 time or another to watch a man in the pursuit of a fast-going 
 street-car? We are transfixed, as it were, until we see the 
 eager runner actually aboard the vehicle, when our interest 
 in him ceases. So, too, tho we may consider a prize-fight ever 
 so brutal, if it is brought to our attention, it cannot fail to 
 interest us. 
 
 But I will not cite instances. There are too many. Our 
 little life is rounded with pain-and-struggle. When we are 
 lacking in more concrete evidences of this fact, we are re- 
 minded by those mysterious visitations of vague longings 
 and depressions that haunt even the most cheerful of us all 
 thru life. 
 
 The statistics of struggle are everywhere. There are no 
 exceptions. Moreover, life is so constituted that we must 
 needs suffer if every pain or suggestion of pain is not duly 
 fulfilled. The one horror of human existence is the yearning 
 which is not satisfied, the uplifted hammer which does not 
 descend, the ambition disappointed, the plan which does not 
 work out, the promise not kept, the musical bar which does 
 not fulfill itself, the effort which does not succeed; in fact, 
 all unfulfilled effort, thwarted yearnings crying for struggle, 
 are, in varying degrees, the most pitiable and the most import- 
 ant things in the world. 
 
 I shall perhaps be told, ''Pooh, you are placing too much 
 emphasis upon one aspect of life. All things are relative 
 only. ' ' 
 
 Things are indeed relative, but, as I shall try to show in 
 these pages, this relativity only has reference to relative de- 
 grees of the same thing — degrees of pain and struggle. To 
 unravel the complicated filaments of our relations to these 
 fundamental causes is no easy thing and one may not be 
 uniformly successful in the undertaking. But I shall rejoice 
 — for a while — if I succeed at least in arousing an interest in
 
 14 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 and a study of this old-new theme which has received so little 
 of the consideration of mankind, and which mankind can 
 so little afford not to consider, as this great War shows. Such 
 interest and study, I am convinced^ will aid in revealing our 
 natural relations to the great world-issues of the day, in dis- 
 tinguishing between necessary and unnecessary forms of 
 struggle, and in thus clearing the way for further struggle. 
 
 2. Pain or Sensitiveness. 
 
 ' ' In the beginning ' ' there was pain or sensitiveness. Sen- 
 sitiveness is the oldest thing in the world. It was born in 
 infinity and is without end. It is not computable and cannot 
 be measured in time nor space. It is without dimension and 
 is imponderable. In fact, time, space, dimension have no 
 existence apart from sensitiveness and are mere incidents of 
 it. It is the most universal of all attributes and is the most 
 mysterious. It appears to be perceptible by all the five senses 
 and by none. It has no substance and yet, it is the very stuff 
 of life out of which all things are fashioned and in which all 
 things have their being. Our mind cannot grasp its mystery, 
 its origin, scope and purport. Yet, it is with us all the time. 
 The cool contact of the evening breeze, the grateful taste of 
 water when we are even slightly thirsty, the refreshment 
 that is in rest and change, all these give us but a hint of 
 the yoke of pain or sensitiveness under which we continuously 
 strive. 
 
 In the past, philosophers seem to have overlooked the 
 eternal quality in pain or sensitiveness. This followed nat- 
 urally from the fact that every thinker started out with the 
 intention of providing the world with the cure-all for unhap- 
 piness. The elimination of pain was therefore a first consid- 
 eration and the raison detre of their systems of thought. 
 To confess inability to whisk pain out of life would have been 
 tantamount to a confession of failure and the uselessness of 
 their lucubrations. Pain has therefore always been considered 
 an intruder for whom no place had been provided, a vagrant, 
 troublesome visitation, to be extracted like a sore tooth from 
 the body of life; at best, a transient evil to be eradicated as 
 often as it comes and having but an adventitious hold upon us.
 
 THE WILL TO STRUGGLE 15 
 
 In our time, when the pain of the world stands in stu- 
 pendous relief, we are advised by the votaries of Christian 
 Science that pain can be thought out of existence, somewhat 
 like the belief of certain Hindu sects; while our more mate- 
 rialistic contemporaries, the Socialists and Utilitarians, incline 
 strongly to the view that pain can be eliminated through the 
 socialization of the state, civic reform, sanitation and the like. 
 
 Yet, the evidence presented by all phenomena of life 
 seems to be overwhelming that pain is of the very stuff of 
 life, that it transcends the boundaries of life, and is present in 
 the beast as well as in what we call inanimate matter. Our 
 normal condition is the state of pain from which we are ever 
 struggling. This we realize most completely either when we 
 are overtaken by calamity (which paralyzes our will to strug- 
 gle for the time) or when the pain is concentrated from some 
 cause in a portion of our body or mind. As long, however, 
 as the proportion of innumerable little struggles from these 
 pain-sensations continue, we are fain to believe that we enjoy 
 what is called ''happiness." And the scale on which these 
 pain-combats are carried on are for the most part so fine 
 that we are hardly aware of them. Who, for instance, notices 
 the relief one experiences in breathing, or in easing one's 
 position in a chair by the crossing or uncrossing of a leg, or 
 is conscious of the satisfaction of giving utterance to thoughts 
 or feelings which surge for expression? Indeed, we only 
 realize it when, as I have said, it becomes extreme or when 
 by an effort of the mind we take cognizance of it in some one 
 direction or ''localize" the sensation, as it has been termed; 
 as for instance, when one listens to the vibrations of the 
 atmosphere in his ear-drums or is able, by dispelling all other 
 sensations, to "induce" the feeling of a sensation, say, in 
 his toe. 
 
 Thus, too, all the senses are degrees of sensitiveness or 
 the faculty of feeling pain. Tasting, smelling, feeling (touch), 
 and hearing are degrees of sensitiveness. Seeing, too, is only 
 a sensation of objects sensed through the organ called the eye. 
 It is one of the most delicate of the five, but none the less, a 
 sensation. The sixth and rarest of all is the sense of mental 
 perception, the understanding. For the mind, too, is one of
 
 16 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 the sensitive acids with which man is endowed to perceive 
 rarer substances. 
 
 When we understand, then, that we are normally in a 
 state of pain and that man's function is struggle or the get- 
 ting away from pain, the inference becomes inevitable that 
 all life is the fulfillment of pain in struggle; and that the 
 basic law of life is the will to struggle. We shall see how 
 this definition accords with universal phenomena. 
 
 3. Pain in the Inanimate. 
 
 There is a common impression in the world that things 
 inanimate, i. e., things that do not seem to have the sentient 
 characteristics of living creatures, are devoid of all feeling. 
 
 I do not share this view. I am sure it is all a question of 
 degree. Our own reason should teach us to suspect, even if 
 our sensitiveness does not, that things about us are also 
 sensitive in the same general way, although the evidences 
 thereof do not have that recognizable quality to us as human 
 beings. 
 
 Still, if a flower will wilt after being picked, what reason 
 have we for believing that it does not in some flower-conscious 
 way feel itself dying? Why should not the hoarse shriek of 
 metal under the belaborment of grinding machinery be indi- 
 cative of some degree of sensitiveness, even though so low 
 as to be imperceptible to us ? What reason have we for believ- 
 ing that the log of wood burning and crackling furiously in 
 the blaze is not heat-conscious in some degree? Am I the 
 only one then to have perceived that the water boiling in 
 the kettle, the sugar dissolving in the glass of water, the 
 darting blue flame in the electric current, seem to have a 
 certain impressive responsiveness to sensation? 
 
 Doubtless, it will be explained that the majestic roar of 
 the locomotive is due to purely physical causes; that it might 
 even be diminished or eliminated without effecting the loco- 
 motive as a whole. But are not the stentorian tones of the 
 tenor also due to physical causes which we have not yet 
 learned to manipulate? Suppose we cut out one of his vocal 
 cords, would it not effect his singing ? I am sure, if we apply 
 one of the hot coals stowed in the belly of our metal leviathans
 
 THE WILL TO STRUGGLE 17 
 
 to the flesh of the tenor, the ensuing tones would be simply 
 astounding, and they would be due to the physical properties 
 of the singer over-sensitized by the application of the hot coal 
 to his body exactly as in the case of the locomotive. 
 
 All matter is sensitive, differing only in degree. The data 
 of scientists, whether in the field of astronomy, chemistry, 
 paleontology, metallurgy, physics, biology or elsewhere is 
 simply a record of the sensitiveness of matter under varying 
 conditions. We are always making new discoveries in these 
 fields and we are apt to forget that these discoveries are evi- 
 dences of our relative callousness to the sensitiveness of the 
 elements by which we are surrounded. What are the attrac- 
 tions and repulsions of matter, the heating, sweating and 
 freezing points, dissolutions, evaporations, crystalizations or 
 breakages but the evidence of reaction in struggle by inani- 
 mate matter under varying conditions of pain? 
 
 Matter may not possess the five senses present in man but 
 it has the one sense which is the basis of all the senses — the 
 sense of contact. 
 
 We naturally ask ourselves. But how conscious is matter 
 of its sensitiveness*? We can only speculate. Consciousness 
 is a very high state of sensitiveness. As far as we know, only 
 man has attained to it. I believe matter is sensitive, but not 
 conscious save only in the limited sense in which the word 
 consciousness means sensitiveness. 
 
 4. Struggle and Evolution. 
 
 Although pain is the stuff of life, the universe is not 
 merely a tortured deposit in a cauldron of sensitiveness. It 
 is given us to re-act from pain, to fulfill our pain, or, as it is 
 best put, to struggle. 
 
 Pain is the dynamic force which keeps all creation in a 
 state of universal flux. But it is struggle which gives pur- 
 pose and direction to the world. To borrow a legal plirase, 
 struggle is the executor of pain — an executor who is also a 
 direct heir. The relationship of struggle to pain can only be 
 grasped by us intuitively. It is not a relationship which is 
 capable of the sharp delimitations to which our too human 
 minds are accustomed. We can only think of struggle in
 
 18 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 relation to pain as the expression, the resolution, the embodi- 
 ment and apotheosis of the same thing. Subjectively, it 
 appears to us as relief -with-effort. 
 
 We see then that life is the fulfillment of pain in struggle. 
 We are continually reacting from pain by struggle. These 
 processes go on within us all the time in greater or less degree, 
 depending upon the accumulation of pain within us or our 
 sensitiveness to our experiences. 
 
 Now it is important to remember that although these reac- 
 tions or struggles from pain occur all the time, they are not 
 mechanical operations barren of result. The ceaseless round 
 of pain and the struggle from pain does not make automatons 
 of us. With every urge of pain something is added, some- 
 thing will be gained or created. The longing of one year, if 
 it is sufficiently intense, generally becomes the accomplish- 
 ment of another. The cravings of one generation finds ful- 
 fillment in another. Could the Russian Revolution of which 
 we are witness have been possible without the decades of pain 
 which preceded it ? Into every realization or accomplishment 
 goes the effort, the striving, in brief, the pain-experience of 
 the past. 
 
 To use a simple illustration: Say, a blacksmith is impelled 
 by ambition to wield his hammer daily. Now the sensation 
 of ambition and its reflexes in work again is not barren of 
 all other result. The physical experiences of each day have 
 gone into the development of the blacksmith's muscles. His 
 sinews grow in strength and endurance. Each day has its 
 own gift to its successor. Now what is true of the black- 
 smith 's muscles is also true of his mental faculties. The latter 
 is not always as easily demonstratable in statistical terms, but 
 it is true, just the same, or we never could have developed or 
 evolved. 
 
 We are indebted to certain painstaking observers for the 
 discovery of the fact that the physical characteristics of the 
 animal specie undergo variations conformable to environment. 
 These discoverers have even succeeded in piecing together the 
 consanguinity of almost the whole family of living creatures 
 and shown how and to what extent different physical condi- 
 tions have operated to effect structural growths and forma-
 
 THE WILL TO STRUGGLE 19 
 
 tions. To this tendency in nature has been given the name of 
 Evolution, 
 
 Now it has always seemed to me that the explanations of 
 Evolution do not really explain in that they do not touch the 
 kernel of things. Doubtless, the same thought has occurred 
 to others. It is true that Evolution has established a common 
 tendency in living beings. But in this it does not go far 
 enough. The consanguinity of living beings with all matter 
 has been in the thoughts of mankind from time immemorial, 
 though it still remains to be demonstrated scientifically. 
 
 But the most signal failure of Evolution lies in the fact 
 that it simply points to a tendency but does not suggest a 
 cause or origin. Evolution itself is not a cause but an effect. 
 It is true that the fish in a dark cave will probably be blind, 
 that the giraffe, by enforced stretching for food, will develop 
 a long neck, that my hands will grow callosities with too much 
 handling of the oar or spade; but what is that impulse which 
 moves a specie toward such a struggle with nature as will 
 result in these modifications of life-habits and limbs, the 
 change in the power of the eye or the shape of a foot, wing 
 or fin 1 In other words, is there not some dynamic force in the 
 heart of things impelling every living organism to strive 
 and cope as best it may with all the elements of which it is 
 cognizant? What is it? What is it that impinges all living 
 things against the rock of environment and stamps them 
 with the varying lineaments of sentient life? Is it hunger 
 only? But how about fear, imitativeness, antagonism, the 
 sense of heat and cold, the yearning for the congenial mate? 
 
 It is useless to look for the cause in special appetites or 
 proclivities on the one hand nor in extraordinary places and 
 guises on the other. It lies quite close to our hand. It is 
 nothing more nor less than primal pain or sensitiveness which 
 is the dynamic force actuating all effort to whatever results 
 scientists have been able to tabulate in living things. After 
 all, what is hunger even, save a pain from which we struggle 
 by the assimilation of food? So every other appetite and 
 sensibility is part of the dynamic unrest, yearning or pain 
 calling for its requisite struggle. 
 
 With every struggle from pain something is added; 
 something is contributed to make some function more adap-
 
 20 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 table to this form of struggle. Thus, evolution is an aspect, 
 an incident of the reaction of pain in struggle. But the 
 greatest measure of evolution is obtainable through increased 
 sensitiveness, irrespective of physical metamorphoses. It is 
 this which is the real seat of evolution; and it is important to 
 remember that it is not caused by but is the cause of evolu- 
 tion. The progress implied in evolution can by no means be 
 disassociated from the normal processes of pain expressing 
 itself in struggle. Evolution is an incident of Pain-Struggle. 
 
 5. The WiU To Struggle. 
 
 At the outset, I shall probably be confronted by an objec- 
 tion born of an older school of thought. I shall be told that 
 man has no will to struggle; that he would rather not strug- 
 gle; that he has ''the will to live." Let us consider this. 
 
 When we speak of "will" in the scientific or universal 
 sense, we must reduce this faculty in man to its simplest 
 element. It must not consist of matter by way of speculation 
 as to what he wishes or prefers but what must be. For 
 instance: Let a small dog be thrown into the water. Let us 
 imagine him to have had no experience of water and no ability 
 to swim. It would be easy for him to sink. Nevertheless, to 
 the extent of his ability, he will persist in using his powers 
 of locomotion, however crudely, as long as possible, simply 
 in order not to surrender to the state of helplessness which is 
 the opposite of struggle. 
 
 To cite another example: If I unconsciously place my 
 hand on a hot stove, I hastily withdraw it, not because my life 
 is endangered (although the danger may be conceded to be 
 present), but because I am conscious of pain from which I 
 struggle irrespective of consequences. 
 
 Again, nothing shows us the strength and persistence of 
 the Will to Struggle as the example of the suicide. (As a 
 matter of fact, few things are more common than the habit 
 of risking one 's life which is almost part of the daily routine 
 of many. ) But in the case of the suicide the so-called will to 
 live is flagrantly set at naught. Yet it is of the very nature of 
 a fundamental ''will," if it exists at all, that it be obeyed 
 under all circumstances, that it be unescapable.
 
 THE WILL TO STRUGGLE 21 
 
 But, it may be argued, does not the suicide likewise dis- 
 prove the Will to Struggle, since by taking his life he cuts off 
 his capacity for further endeavor'? This is not the case, 
 however. The suicide is confronted by the overwhelming 
 desire to avoid the immediate pain as he knows it. The act 
 of suicide is an act of struggle freeing him from that pain. 
 Granted that it is of a lower order of struggle, it is still 
 struggle. The fact that by this deed, this struggle, he cuts 
 off all possibilities of further struggle, may be a powerful 
 deterrent, but, however true, it is only matter by way of 
 speculation. He obeys his Will to Struggle in its immediate 
 relation to his present pain, which for the purposes of any 
 analvsis of Will, is all that he is bound to do. It is not a 
 renunciation of struggle, much as he himself may believe it 
 to be; it is the assumption of a lower standard of struggle to 
 counteract the immediate sense of pain. 
 
 I have heard of serpents crossed in love, who in their 
 jealousy or rage bite themselves and die. There we have an 
 instance of the will to evade the immediate pain by plunging 
 into another sensation by way of distraction — from which 
 death, we must presume, in the case of the serpent, comes as 
 an unforeseen result. The habit of some people to bite their 
 lips or fingers or seek other diversions of this kind, is funda- 
 mentally a process of the same kind and is expressive of their 
 will to struggle, each according to the nature of his temper or 
 development. 
 
 But these instances are insignificant in the light of the 
 examples afforded us in the history of the development of 
 man and beast. Struggle with both has been and remains a 
 first principle. It is idle to say that this struggle comes from 
 the conflict of wills to live. From whence comes this percep- 
 tion of conflict in man? But let us imagine that in the case 
 of man it comes by virtue of a sophistication, a perversion of 
 the intellect in which his natural instinct is suppressed. How 
 comes it, however, to the beast f Is this not an extraordinary 
 prerogative for so low an order of creation to arrogate to 
 itself? 
 
 So, too, the doctrine that self-preservation is the first law 
 of nature is utterly wrong. It is the last consideration. Self- 
 preservation is simply incidental to our instinctive habit of
 
 22 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 defence against all forms of attack as a habit of struggle. 
 But when we are not attacked, we ourselves do the attacking. 
 For it is struggle, not self-preservation, which is ''the first 
 law of nature. ' ' 
 
 More worthy of attention than the idea of the so-called 
 ''will to live" is one more recently propounded. It is sug- 
 gested that there is a "will to power." Now, we have seen 
 that the fallacy inherent in the idea of the "will to live" is 
 that it is really an afterthought, not a first consideration. 
 Now, while the first idea suffers from being an after-thought 
 and not a first consideration, the latter suffers from being 
 an approximation, and it is only by resolving the conception 
 of Will into its simplest element that a law of universal appli- 
 cation may be hoped for. 
 
 Let us see what is power. Power is accumulated pain. 
 In other words, pain is power. 
 
 Now pain or power is not a thing that is willed. It is 
 present. When present in sufficient volume it begets struggle, 
 or, as it may be said, it must express itself. This expression 
 is will, but power is simply the thing expressed. Thus, trans- 
 lated in terms of Pain-Struggle, power is accumulated pain, 
 whether it be expressed in the form of a volt of electricity or 
 horse-power, the yet unexpressed longing of an ambitious stu- 
 dent in a garret, the fury of a beast in pain, or the yearnings 
 of a generation of men. In other words, to say that that Will 
 is "will to power" is to say that it is will to pain instead of 
 will to the expression of pain, that is, to struggle. Pain does 
 not crave pain, but to express itself, i. e., to struggle. 
 
 Will may be divided into two classes : Human or organized 
 will, and will in nature or unorganized will. 
 
 Human or organized will is the kind of will in which 
 the element of volition seems to be present. 
 
 Will in nature or unorganized will is present in all phe- 
 nomena, including man, and is proved by the responsiveness 
 of all phenomena to certain stimulii; its presence in man is 
 made evident by his reflex actions, as for example, when we 
 touch hot or cold substances, etc. 
 
 It is apparent, then, that will is fundamental in man and 
 nature. But the attribute of organized or volitional will is
 
 THE WILL TO STRUGGLE 23 
 
 given US in corresponding degrees as we are more or less 
 sensitive or, in other words, as we know pain. 
 
 See you a strong man, a "self-made" man? We can be 
 certain that somehow pain has burnt deeply into his soul and 
 has become resolved into Will. We often find the sons of 
 strong, "self-made" men lacking in will-power because they 
 lack the foundation of experience in pain which would have 
 crystallized into Will. The maniac, the tortured prisoner in 
 bonds, the highly sensitive person, however wrought upon, 
 will show tremendous will-power under the stress of pain and 
 overcome unbelievable obstacles. 
 
 In order to establish the fact that we have really acquired 
 a correct conception of fundamental will, we must make cer- 
 tain, for one thing, that our "will" is universal in character. 
 It must apply to man as well as to beast and to inanimate 
 matter as well as to either. That the will to struggle exists 
 in man and beast is, I hope, established to the satisfaction of 
 the reader. I have also indicated that the same will to strug- 
 gle exists and is bound to exist in matter because matter is 
 also in a state of pain or sensitiveness which is expressed in 
 the struggle or metamorphosis common to matter under given 
 conditions of sensitiveness. 
 
 I admit, however, that there is a difference in the will to 
 struggle in man, beast and matter. There is a difference in 
 the relative will to struggle even as between men. This dif- 
 ference consists in the amount of volition present in the 
 fundamental will. Thus, in matter, although the fundamental 
 will is there, volition is absent. We feel this to be true, 
 because matter will always react in the same way under the 
 same conditions, while we can have no such certainty about 
 the reactions of human beings. On this account, it is best to 
 call the struggle of matter, reflexes. Thus, all the planets 
 flying in their orbits, for example, are not engaged in an act 
 of volition, but represent reflexes from the pain or sensitive- 
 ness of which the}^ are conscious. 
 
 In the case of the beast, we approach somewhat nearer 
 to the idea of volition in the will to struggle. Doubtless, 
 many actions of the beast — as in man — are merely reflex 
 movements from pain, although I am not prepared to say that 
 all actions of all beasts are merely reflex in their nature. But
 
 24 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 this is an inquiry which I would prefer to leave to more 
 learned students of animal life than I am. 
 
 Li man, as in matter, the will to struggle is present in 
 most instances, it is true, as non-volitional reflexes from pain. 
 This has reference to his unconscious existence when he is 
 on the same plane with matter. But he is also capable of and 
 constantly exercises volitional reaction or struggle, which dis- 
 tinguishes him above all other creations responding to the will 
 to struggle. Nay, some men even attain to what is called 
 Free Will which is only obtainable through the comprehension 
 of and union with the universal scheme of things; this is the 
 highest attainment of volition in conjunction with Will. But 
 leaving the question of Free Will out of consideration, the 
 great distinguishing difference between the will to struggle in 
 matter and in man is that, in the one. Will is merely a reflex, 
 Avhile in the other, it is largely volitional. Volitional will is 
 the highest form of organized struggle from pain. 
 
 6. The Survival of the Sensitive. 
 
 It is a fact that, generally speaking, the *' fittest" do sur- 
 vive the unfit. It is a fact in nature which is so obvious that 
 it requires no argument. But it does require some interpre- 
 tation. 
 
 What does it mean to be the * ' fittest ? " I believe it means 
 to be adapted or to be able to adapt one's self to difficult 
 conditions and persist in spite of them. In other words, the 
 survival of the fittest is encompassed through adaptability — 
 adaptability in struggle. But whence comes adaptability? 
 Adaptability comes with sensitiveness. 
 
 Whence comes it, for example, that a race schooled in 
 suffering becomes so adaptable? Why does it so readily 
 assimilate the culture of other peoples and become so pro- 
 ficient in the art, literature, trade, industry, politics and the 
 very manners of alien peoples! To what is it due, save its 
 exceptional experience in pain and struggle which has sharp- 
 ened its sensitiveness to a superlative degree? 
 
 In the flesh, it is the physically best adapted that sur- 
 vive those physically less adapted. As between the flesh and 
 the spirit, the spiritually adapted will survive the physically
 
 THE WILL TO STRUGGLE 25 
 
 adapted because mind is more powerful than matter. This is 
 how man attained to the rule of the animal world and why 
 civilized races exercise dominion over barbarians. 
 
 The '* fittest," then, are the most sensitive; and we have 
 already seen that the most sensitive are the most powerful in 
 struggle. They are the most adaptable and can grapple best 
 with the forces of nature, beast and man. Premonitions of 
 changes of climate — or of politics — reach and affect their 
 sensitive tissues — or consciousness — long before their more 
 callous brethren suspect what is in the wind. 
 
 To become *'fit" in some circumstances may require 
 increased physical strength or endurance or a prehensile tail 
 or wings or a skin covered with thick fur or an acute ear or 
 sharp eyes or keen sense of smell or a good memory or an 
 intuitive mind. It may require several if not all of these 
 things. But none of these things can be gotten or developed 
 through the years save through sensitiveness to the conditions 
 that require them. It is true that the degree of sensitiveness 
 required in the development of claws or of a skin covered 
 with fur may not be of a relatively high order and may be 
 entirely subconscious, it may be nothing but the sensitiveness 
 of tissue; but it is sensitiveness nevertheless, without which 
 there could be no accommodation or adaptability to nature, 
 and therefore no successful struggle insuring survival of the 
 specie in question. For the survival of the ** fittest," whether 
 we have in mind beast or man, can mean nothing else than the 
 survival of the most sensitive. 
 
 The sensitiveness of man is so extraordinary that he can 
 often see his good or his evil on the way before it has arrived. 
 In order to embrace the good and forestall evil, he promul- 
 gates his laws of hygiene, morality, and conduct generally. 
 These laws are intended to have the effect of keeping each 
 generation in health and of enabling it to transmit its strug- 
 gle to succeeding generations. Thus it is that the sensitiveness 
 of man has enabled him to keep his various adversaries at bay 
 while his callous cousins have been surprised by forces 
 beyond their strength, endurance or ingenuity and were anni- 
 hilated or dominated and stunted by them. Man has survived 
 through his sensitiveness; and his laws of hygiene and of
 
 26 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 morality, his traditions of adequate conduct under all circum- 
 stances as well as his spirit of scientific inquiry are simply 
 the expression of his inborn, far-reaching, sleepless anxiety. 
 
 I know that the idea that has gained currency is that the 
 principles of the survival of the fittest implies the survival of 
 the callous, of the brute. Nothing could be further from the 
 truth. 
 
 The survival of man thus far indicates the principle of 
 the survival of the most sensitive. I shall endeavor to show 
 hereafter that the continued survival of man can only be 
 realized by following out the necessary implications of this 
 principle and the extension of sensitiveness into all relation- 
 ships; how our psychology, morality, state-craft and relig- 
 iosity are expressions of this ever-growing sensitiveness ; how 
 our so-called science of economics must reckon with it and 
 express it; and how the Great War of which we are witness 
 is a conflict between a lower and a higher order of sensitive- 
 ness in the world.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF STRUGGLE 
 
 1. Why Psychology? 
 
 THAT psychology is related to individual as well as 
 national struggle there can be no question. The War 
 has taught us something of the practical workings of 
 human psychology. Germany, in particular, has played 
 upon the psychology of peoples and, in fact, all the bellig- 
 erents have had to weave psychological considerations into 
 their war-policy. It is important, then, to know the workings 
 of human psychology, not alone for war purposes, but to 
 enable us to learn the natural limits of our demands upon 
 each other and to abide by them. In fact, our ideas of mo- 
 rality itself can only be clarified by an understanding of the 
 real principles of human psychology. 
 
 2. The Ego. 
 
 In considering the ego or selfhood, much becomes clear 
 if we view self simply as the unit of sensitiveness. So viewed, 
 we can see, for instance, that the germ or the jelly-fish stirring 
 uneasily under some irritant, or the plant opening its leaves 
 to the morning light and shutting them at dusk, are blood- 
 relatives of mankind. All creation is full of units of sensi- 
 tiveness. 
 
 But the ego of man is a thing of infinite capacity for con- 
 traction and expansion. This process in the ego, described 
 roughly as contraction and expansion, grows by an ever- 
 increasing sensitiveness to and contact with pain. "We do not 
 possess a plurality of selves, as is sometimes averred, but self 
 is capable of many modifications under different degrees of 
 pain-stimuli. 
 
 The primitive, naked ego or selfhood is our starting 
 point. It is concerned primarily with self-interest in the 
 narrowest sense of the word. Nature endows this selfhood 
 with the knowledge of pain, hunger, thirst, physical injury, 
 the need for exercise, shelter, rest, and ego expands to this 
 
 27
 
 28 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 extent. Next comes the attachment and responsibility for 
 offspring; then comes the larger interest compelled by love 
 and the devotion to another resulting in a more expanded 
 selfhood. Next, the more or less conscious allegiance to a 
 herd or a tribe or a community and the expansion of indi- 
 vidual interests involved therein. 
 
 In the true consideration of ego, the words selfish and 
 unselfish can be regarded in their accepted sense only if 
 understood to be degrees of the same thing. Both egoism 
 and altruism are stages in the development of the ego; 
 altruism is an enlarging of the radii of self-interest. 
 
 Take, for example, the instance of a suckling infant. At 
 the outset, its ego is limited by the simple physical 'desire for 
 nourishment. This, apparently, is the limit of its interest in 
 the world. Later, its ego expands to include other desires, 
 say, for toys or sundry other objects and even persons. Some 
 are wont to regard these desires as evidence of wilfulness 
 and nascent selfishness. On the contrary, these are indica- 
 tions of the expansion of the ego in the infant to include wider 
 interests. In the course of some years, the infant absorbs the 
 particular personality of its mother so fully that the well- 
 being of the mother becomes almost a cardinal necessity to 
 the child. From this point other interests and attachments 
 enter into the composition of the ego, making it sensitive to 
 all those life-interests which the average person cannot shake 
 off because they become amalgamated with what we call 
 self. The greatest expansion of self is not exemplified in 
 ''selfish" persons but in the friends of mankind, public- 
 spirited persons, patriots, prophets, men who have the wel- 
 fare of the world at heart and feel for its well-being as part 
 of their own well-being, seers who can distend the radii of 
 their self-interest to include other peoples and climes and 
 are sensitive to the harvests of later eras than their own. 
 
 Thus, if I were to represent the ego — or the unit of sensi- 
 tiveness — bv a sketch, I should draw a circle to contain 
 a point like the hub of a wheel with ever-widening radii. 
 I should call the hub or starting-point, the Ego or Unit of 
 Sensitiveness which would represent the narrowest cii-cle of 
 our individual interests in its most undeveloped stage. From 
 the radii springing out of the initial circle of selfhood I
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF STRUGGLE 29 
 
 would draw a wider circle which I should call Filial Sensi- 
 tiveness or Love of Parents. From the combined radii of the 
 initial and succeeding circle I would form a still wider circle 
 which I would call the Sense of Attachment to the Chosen 
 Mate or Love. In the same way, I would form five other 
 circles successively larger in size, all of which would be 
 radiated from the original starting-point or Unit of Sensi- 
 tiveness. Thus, I would call the fourth circle, Sensitiveness 
 or Responsibility to Family; the fifth circle, Sensitiveness to 
 Friendships; the sixth circle. Sensitiveness to the Well-being 
 of the (Community or Nation; then there is the seventh exten- 
 sion of selfhood or circle indicated in the sensitiveness to or 
 sense of identity with the well-being of the world as a whole 
 as shown by the prophets and humanitarians; finally, there 
 is the eighth circle or extension of the ego evinced by those 
 seeking salvation through religion, that is, a selfhood sensi 
 tive as to its place in the cosmic scheme of things and hunger- 
 ing after a form of immortality or survival after death. The 
 order of the extensions of our selfhood may not follow my 
 sketch — which is only an approximation — but it is essentially 
 correct. 
 
 Thus, if we follow the implications of my imaginary 
 sketch, all our aims, no matter how benevolent, are simply 
 extensions of our ego or selfhood. Our ego, which is the unit 
 or starting point of our sensitiveness or interest, is the source 
 and the periphery of all our wishes and our works. 
 
 3. Selfishness, Unselfishness. 
 
 Is there, then, no distinction between selfishness and 
 unselfishness? There is a considerable difference, but it is a 
 measurable one. It lies in the difference in the development 
 or distension of the ego or selfhood. Those who are selfish 
 have a small ego, have a smaller radius of sensitiveness, live 
 in a small world and have more limited interests. The 
 unselfish have a larger ego, a larger radius of sensitiveness, 
 live in a larger world and have wider interests. When we 
 speak of selfishness and unselfishness, therefore, we simply 
 refer to comparative stages in the sensitive development or 
 radius of the ego.
 
 30 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 The Old "Woman Who Lived in a Shoe was certainly 
 unselfish in relation to her numerous progeny. Her selfhood 
 was charged with responsibility for their welfare, nor could 
 she rid herself of her sense of obligation. But suppose a 
 book-agent made his way into her crowded abode and offered 
 to interest her in the complete history of the French Revolu- 
 tion? Her callous imperviousness to this great national 
 tragedy would be the height of selfishness. Nevertheless, we 
 would not condemn her because we realize clearly that her 
 Shoe-ego, broad enough to contain her brood, could not extend 
 far enough to include so divergent an interest. 
 
 4. The Sense of Duty. 
 
 There has been considerable difficulty in finding a defi- 
 nition for duty. Philosophers of former times have wondered 
 because the sense of duty apparently stood in such complete 
 isolation from the other faculties attributed to man. Probably 
 this difficulty would have been overcome if the nature of self 
 would have been better understood and if selfishness and 
 unselfishness would not have been considered as being at 
 opposite poles instead of degrees of the same thing, as they 
 really are. 
 
 For duty stands in no such ethical isolation as has been 
 imagined. Duty is an attribute of extended selfhood. It is 
 simply the extension of the sense of obligation to self beyond 
 the immediate tangible interests of the individual. This does 
 not mean, however, that the element of self-interest is missing 
 in the sense of duty. Thus, one may have a sense of duty 
 to one's friends, family, tribe or country, but they are all 
 extensions of selfhood. 
 
 5. The Growth of Selfhood. 
 
 Since self is the unit of sensitiveness, it follows that the 
 more comprehensive the ego the more sensitive it is and 
 the more complex. As we have already seen, when we speak 
 of unselfishness, we mean selfishness of a wider radius. This 
 wider radius of selfishness — or unselfishness — only comes with 
 the accession of a wider range of sensitiveness. What brings
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF STRUGGLE 31 
 
 a wider range of sensitiveness ? Evidently, experience in pain 
 and struggle. Every experience of pain increases our sensi- 
 tiveness, and, by bringing new centres of sympathy into the 
 radius of our ken, helps to distend our ego or selfhood, and 
 to add new spheres to the world which is in every individual's 
 being. 
 
 We thus come to the consideration of the ego in its 
 manifestations of growth or extension through the experience 
 of pain and struggle. In this connection it would be well to 
 bear in mind that ego and struggle in an individual always 
 maintain an exact proportion. The smaller — the less inclu- 
 sive — the ego in an individual, the smaller the capacity to 
 struggle; the larger — the more extended or inclusive — the 
 greater the capacity to struggle. 
 
 -The struggle of the tiger, for example, is said to be 
 headlong and unpremeditated; it proceeds from an unde- 
 veloped ego whose manifestations in struggle are simple, 
 limited and direct. More extended and wary is the ego and 
 struggle of the fox, say, and argues greater experience of 
 pain. If we go into the realm of men, we find that their 
 struggle is still more subtle and extended, tho, often enough, 
 f|uite as patently contentious as in the lower animals. The 
 battle-line of every man is measured by the extent of his self- 
 hood. The thug and the pick-pocket maintain a struggle that 
 is co-extensive with their egos, the captain of industry, the 
 statesman, the leader of masses, the general and the prophet, 
 in accordance with theirs. As pain expresses itself in struggle 
 in proportion to its content and, as the ego or self is the unit 
 of sensitiveness or pain in every individual, it follows unerr- 
 ingly that the struggle of everyone is exactly in proportion to 
 the ego or unit of sensitiveness that is in him. 
 
 6. The Senses. 
 
 Self is the unit of sensitiveness. The human self, how- 
 ever, contains raanv avenues thru w^hich it receives sensation 
 and which color, intensify or qualify sensation. These ave- 
 nues or senses are the sense of hearing, tasting, smelling, 
 seeing and the sense of touch or contact. Perhaps there is 
 one or more senses which we have not yet succeeded in dis-
 
 32 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 tinguishing, but this is not pertinent at present. The interest- 
 ing question that suggests itself to me is, "What is the true 
 relation between the senses and sensitiveness in general? 
 
 I will hazard a guess that is not altogether a guess, and 
 say that the senses are the protean guises of sensitiveness in 
 general, since there can be no sensitiveness without constant 
 variety in kind or degree (in the last analysis, all variety is 
 variety of degree). I strongly suspect that all the senses 
 simply represent degrees of sensitiveness to phenomena. All 
 the senses have one uniform quality — the sense of contact or 
 "touch." Now what is the difference whether we say that 
 the sense of touch is in our fingers, our nose, our eyes, our 
 tongue or our ears 1 If we substitute the word ' * contact ' ' for 
 *' touch" we can say that all the senses have the same sense 
 but each has a special quality of sensitiveness adapted to 
 register our contact with given objects. I do not pretend to 
 know which of the senses represent the greatest degree of 
 sensitiveness. There are things which can be seen at a great 
 distance, that is, which contact on the retina of the eye but 
 which furnish no contact with the sense of hearing, taste, 
 smell or ordinary sense of touch. On the other hand, there 
 are things which do not register on our sight which we can 
 smell; and so on, right along the line. 
 
 In short, then, the senses are a few of the extensions or 
 conduits, as it were, of sensitiveness in general with special 
 properties of demarcation and registration. 
 
 7. Memory. 
 
 When a given experience has made an impression some- 
 where on our consciousness, the affected part of our conscious- 
 ness remains sensitive in varying degrees depending upon the 
 intensity or number of identical experiences. This sensitive- 
 ness of our consciousness to what has happened is what we 
 call memory or retentiveness. Memory or resensitization 
 comes to us when the sensitive spots in our consciousness are 
 revivified by suggestions or experiences more or less like those 
 which have alreadv affected us.
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF STRUGGLE 33 
 
 8. Intuition. 
 
 Now if memory is the state of sensitiveness in spots of 
 our consciousness after the occurrence of experiences, intui- 
 tion is the ability to remember or resensitize past experiences, 
 analogize or compare with other experiences and draw con- 
 clusions or anticipations. In short, intuition is the ability to 
 re-sensitize or remember, compare and anticipate. 
 
 Intuition is probably the oldest of purely human faculties 
 as well as the most wonderful intellectual property in man. 
 It appears to be present also in animals in some degree. 
 Although intuition is an intellectual attribute, it operates 
 unconsciously like the act of breathing. 
 
 9. Reason. 
 
 Reason is intuition made conscious. Reason is the latest 
 of man's intellectual acquirements and, at present, is very 
 imperfect, being, in fact, comparable to a toy which works for 
 a while and breaks down frequently, especially where it seems 
 to be needed most. Reason's usefulness and functions have 
 been very much exaggerated and over-rated. The fact is that 
 our life is organized and lived, not according to our reason, 
 but according to our intuition. This is because, despite the 
 fulminations of rationalists and utilitarians, we have very 
 little confidence in reason for most purposes. Some of us 
 imagine that we accomplish wonders with our reason, but 
 the truth is that it is of service only in checking up our 
 intuition. Intuition need only justify itself by result. But 
 reason must both explain and justify itself and for this reason 
 it can only traverse a beaten track. Despite all that is claimed 
 for it, reason has no creative power whatever because it can- 
 not anticipate. All invention is the product of intuition. 
 Despite reason's pretensions all it has attained to is the 
 humble though useful office of applying the plumb-line to the 
 anticipations of intuition. 
 
 I said that reason is intuition made conscious. Perhaps 
 I should say reason is the attempt to make intuition conscious, 
 because reason cannot keep pace with intuition. Intuition is 
 capable of seizing hold of innumerable factors and relations
 
 34 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 and wielding them before reason can even realize what has 
 been done. Let the great chemist, biologist and mathema- 
 tician introspect a little and he will find that his formula, 
 statistical record or proof was preceded by one little sacred 
 moment of intuition in which his whole discovery was first 
 conceived. 
 
 The early Greeks made a great ado about the efficacy 
 of reason in human relations and institutions but their ratioci- 
 nations were neither regarded by themselves nor by the world 
 at large. Instead, the world embraced the doctrine of an 
 obscure people whose teachings were not the creation of 
 reason but of intuition born of an intense experience of pain 
 and struggle. To-day, the relics of Greek rationalism are of 
 value, chiefly, as mental exercises. 
 
 10. Instincts or Animal Propensities. 
 
 When we refer to the instinct of an animal, we mean 
 an inherited sensitiveness to a given experience resulting in 
 an unexplained yet responsive act. Instinct is a primitive form 
 of intuition. Instinct stands in the same chronological relation 
 to intuition as intuition does to reason. Instinct, like intuition, 
 is based upon memory; but, unlike intuition, it is vitalized, 
 not through the ability to compare and anticipate, but through 
 sensitiveness intense enough to result in premonition but not 
 sufficiently accentuated to result in the higher state of sensi- 
 tiveness culminating in anticipation. Instinct is the oldest 
 intellectual attribute and, next to memory and sensitiveness 
 itself, the most rudimentary of faculties. Lacking the 
 faculties of comparison and anticipation, which are attributes 
 of intuition, creatures living by instinct alone have naturally 
 proven no match to those who have attained to intuition. 
 
 11. Sensitiveness, Consciousness and Will. 
 
 Sensitiveness, consciousness and will are degrees of the 
 same thing in an ascending scale. Consciousness is a higher 
 degree of sensitiveness. It is sensitiveness cognizant of itself. 
 Will is the crystallization of consciousness and is, therefore, 
 the highest manifestation of sensitiveness. Be it understood
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF STRUGGLE 35 
 
 that when I say "will" I mean will to struggle, for there is 
 no other will. 
 
 12. Imagination. 
 
 What is called flesh and spirit would be translated in our 
 terms as less struggle and greater struggle. Just as spirit is 
 a more powerful emanation of the flesh, so spiritual struggle is 
 a more powerful form of struggle than physical struggle. The 
 more powerful the form of struggle the less liable is it to be 
 perceived by the senses. When a wheel turns slowly we can 
 see the spokes in it ; the more swiftly it revolves the less likely 
 are we to see them. Such is the relative power of mind which 
 is imperceptible as compared to matter which is perceptible. 
 So imagination presents an invisible extension of ordinary 
 struggle beyond the feeble limits of matter. 
 
 13. Fear. 
 
 Fear is the feeling engendered in us by the sense of help- 
 lessness or unpreparedness to master or struggle against an 
 impending pain, I have heard of persons who were fearless 
 but I do not believe any exist. As our capacity to struggle is 
 unevenly distributed, however, it is natural for certain situa- 
 tions to imbue some people with more fear than others and 
 some with none at all, in proportion to the consciousness of 
 strength we can summon to overcome the given diflBculty. 
 
 14. The Terror of Death. 
 
 It may be difficult to hold to the idea but it is none the 
 less true that pain is constantly with us. On this account, in 
 order to keep in good spirit, we have to constantly fortify 
 ourselves with the feeling that the possibilities of struggle are 
 always with us. Every man of us, when he is not struggling, 
 is telling himself that he is still good for a fight. It is thus 
 that he retains faith in himself. Why we have such a terror 
 of death — for there is no use denying it, we are afraid of 
 death — is because death presents to our mind a condition of 
 helplessness or inability to struggle from pain. It is useless
 
 36 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 for us to tell ourselves that pain cannot survive death. Try- 
 as we will, we cannot shake off the consciousness that life 
 provides us with the weapons with which to struggle from 
 pain, whereas death delivers us while still pain-conscious into 
 the hands of the enemy — Helplessness or Inability to Struggle 
 — which is the greatest evil known to man. The reflection 
 that we will probably not carry our pain-consciousness into 
 the halls of death is merely a speculation and has little power 
 over healthy beings who are able to maintain a good propor- 
 tion between their pain and their struggle-from-pain. Inva- 
 lids, persons suffering from great bodily or mental pain whom 
 life has not vouchsafed relief through proportionate struggle, 
 i. e., who are helpless in the face of pain, can naturally look 
 upon death with a greater degree of equinimity if not of 
 longing, as the final corrective of their disproportionate exist- 
 ence, as the only act of struggle, in fact, that remains to them. 
 But the strong can be no lovers of death. The strong 
 will willingly accept death in only one eventuality — as a 
 necessary incident of a great struggle. As the fear of death is 
 born of the fundamental love of struggle so, also, it disappears 
 because of the love of struggle. Death does not weigh much 
 in the balance with love of struggle. This is simply another 
 way of re-stating what we have already found to be true, 
 namely, that love of life or the ''will to live" is not a uni- 
 versal law and is wholly subordinate to the law of struggle. 
 So the secret yearnings of even a child is to die, if die he must, 
 fighting gloriously. There is nothing better or truer than 
 this childish imagining in all the books of wisdom. 
 
 15. The Pain of Disease. 
 
 There are many who imagine that pain is synonymous 
 with disease. But pain is always with us. Disease is simply 
 an acute instance of inability to translate pain into its requi- 
 site struggle; it is, therefore, an interference with the normal 
 processes of pain. 
 
 16. Hate. 
 
 Hate is the feeling engendered in us by anybody who, 
 passively or actively, has the effect of impeding our struggle.
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF STRUGGLE 37 
 
 In relation to the imaginary sketch of the ego already referred 
 to, hate would represent a contraction of the circle of selfhood 
 to exclude identity or sympathy with the person or persons 
 hated. If a person has incurred our enmity, therefore, it 
 means that we are injured to the extent that, in relation to 
 our enemy, at least, the radius of our selfhood has been 
 delimited and interrupted in its sympathies or identity with 
 the world. 
 
 17. Love. 
 
 Love is the feeling of or sense of identity with the pain 
 of another. It follows that there can be no love of another 
 without knowledge of the other, knowledge of the other's 
 pain; also, there can be no knowledge without sensitiveness. 
 Thus, to demand of a barbarous, ignorant and unfeeling world 
 to ''love one another" is not immediately realizable. The 
 world has first to become sensitive to pain, from whence 
 proceeds knowledge or intimacy and then only, love. 
 
 Love is by no means incompatible with struggle. Noth- 
 ing is incompatible with struggle except surrender. We may 
 even struggle with him whom we love; but love compels us 
 to extend our battle-line and fight for wider interests. 
 
 There never was a great lover who was not also a cor 
 respondingly great fighter in proportion to his opportunities. 
 I am not now alluding only to the prophets and saviours of 
 mankind. I am referring also to the much-abused Hannibals 
 and Napoleons of the world. Their battle-lines were not as 
 far-reaching as those of the prophets, but they could not have 
 marshalled vast armies nor carried state-responsibilities upon 
 their shoulders, if they were not essentially devoted men 
 whose self-love was co-extensive to a degree with the interests 
 of the millions under their wing. 
 
 18. Sleep. 
 
 I have often wondered as to the nature of sleep and its 
 relation to consciousness, until it occurred to me that sleep 
 was always preceded by a state of exhaustion or, at least, 
 customarily, by the period when exhaustion was due to occur. 
 The nature of sleep then became reasonably clear.
 
 38 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 As I have already pointed out, our normal condition is the 
 state of pain or sensitiveness. In other words, consciousness 
 is the state of extreme sensitiveness. This extreme sensitive- 
 ness, whether we are aware of it or not, is maintained only 
 with great effort. When we are exhausted, our sensitive fac- 
 ulties relapse into a kind of apathy and from thence the super- 
 lative degree of sensitiveness is still further reduced and falls 
 away into that blurred state of sensitiveness known as sleep. 
 It is probable that sleep is an outgrown state of consciousness 
 like the consciousness of the sensitive plant. In other words, 
 sleep is a feebler degree of consciousness to which we revert in 
 periods of exhaustion. 
 
 The same thing applies to all degrees of semi-conscious- 
 ness. Even in our waking hours, every individual is capable 
 of several degrees of concentration, that is to say, of con- 
 sciousness. The same thing is true of lower stages of con- 
 sciousness in which we revert to discarded levels of intelli- 
 gence which once marked our maximum development. 
 
 What I cannot fathom, however, is how it can be main- 
 tained that a person while in a lower state of consciousness 
 can discover and convey information that he could by no 
 means derive in his waking hours, i. e., when he is in posses- 
 sion of full consciousness and has his maximum powers of 
 concentration. If my analysis is not a mistaken one, here is 
 an instance where we ask of a lower order of sensitiveness or 
 consciousness to do that which we find difficult for superla- 
 tive sensitiveness. If my analysis is correct, the only expla- 
 nation is that the ''mediums" relied upon are untrustworthy 
 or, as I am inclined to think, that their revelations are no 
 more credible than the replies which anyone can elicit from 
 persons given to talking in their sleep. The verbal jangles 
 of persons in a semi-conscious condition cannot be more 
 responsible. Persons in a semi-conscious state may be able 
 to reply cogently to a certain extent. They may, conceivably, 
 relate experiences that have originated in or penetrated to 
 their lower consciousness. But to expect them to transcend 
 the possibilities of consciousness, predict the future and hold 
 converse with people in distant places, is over-shooting the 
 inark somewhat. It would be much more plausible to expect 
 such feats from the conscious state.
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF STRUGGLE 39 
 
 19. Dreams. 
 
 It has been said that dreams represent the fulfillment of 
 the unsatisfied longings of our waking hours. This may hap- 
 pen occasionally but I do not believe that it is the rule. Very 
 frequently quite the opposite occurs, and our dream-state often 
 presents horrors and grotesqueries which have the most 
 adventitious relations to the thoughts and wishes of our wak- 
 ing hours. 
 
 It can hardly be denied, however, that the wishes, deter- 
 minations, experiences and impressions of our waking hours 
 do have some relation and are tangled up with the imaginings 
 of our dream-state. It is impossible to predicate any set rule 
 for our dream-experiences because our will-power is at a low 
 ebb at such times, our sense of discrimination weak and our 
 powers of co-ordination disintegrated, so that the thoughts of 
 the day which remain with us during sleep will result in the 
 most haphazard effects. We are, at such times, like a sensitive 
 harp played upon by the winds of chance. 
 
 There is one permeating thread which runs thru all 
 dreams with unchanging consistency, however, and that is 
 the will to struggle. In the dream-state, as in what we call 
 actuality, our perspective may be all wrong, our visions and 
 sense of relations distorted, our anticipations exaggerated, our 
 plans absurd and our hopes and wishes sinful or grotesque 
 in the light of day, but the impulse to struggle remains true 
 and undeviating. All the stray impressions that remain with 
 us and are compounded in dreams are tossed around by our 
 struggle-instinct like leaves in a gale. 
 
 20. Telepathy. 
 
 Although I do not believe that super-conscious percep- 
 tions are attainable thru subconscious mediums, I do believe 
 that it is not impossible for us to evolve a method of commu- 
 nication, if we have not already attained to it, by mental 
 suggestion; that is, by extreme mental concentration evolved 
 from a greater degree of intellectual sensitiveness than is yet 
 prevalent among men. After all, what is speech and sign 
 language except emotion made perceptible through increased 
 sensitiveness ?
 
 40 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 21. Pleasure. 
 
 Listen to the salubrious phrases of the Christian Scien- 
 tists, the stentorian dogmas of the Socialists and the eloquent 
 nonsense of the full bloom of latter-day rhapsodists and one 
 must come to the conclusion that happiness can be had for the 
 asking and that pain is a demon who can be exorcised with 
 the formula of economic sufficiency and rhapsody, if we were 
 only more perfect. In my unregenerate heart, however, I 
 cannot believe this any more than I could bring myself to 
 believe the statement of a great Russian rhapsodist who said 
 that mankind would be happy indeed if it were not for the 
 women. 
 
 Still, though we must believe in pain and struggle as 
 the eternal and unavoidable law of life, we may yet reserve 
 a place for joy, pleasure and re-current measures of happiness. 
 
 Pleasure is the sensation we experience when some pain 
 is fulfilled or determined in some struggle. Thus, the pain of 
 hunger is fulfilled in the struggle called eating; the pain of 
 thirst in drinking; the pain of love in mating; the pain in all 
 forms of longing whatever is fulfilled in complementary forms 
 of struggle. But unless we know the pain of hunger we cannot 
 know the pleasure of eating; hence, if our hunger is but little, 
 our pleasure in eating will be correspondingly less. 
 
 Thus all forms of pleasure must be in proportion to our 
 pain. To demand pleasure of life without acknowledging pain 
 as a prerequisite is to demand a logical absurdity. Pleasure, 
 then, is the measure of our pain as expressed in struggle. 
 
 Small pain, such as the wish of a child for a toy, can only 
 be reflected in the small pleasure or limited struggle incident 
 to his getting the toy. The low pain of an adult can be 
 gratified in a low form of struggle. But great pain, the pain 
 of great longings, calls for great struggle or achievement 
 which is reflected in a form of pleasure of corresponding mag- 
 nitude experienced by the world's great adventurers. 
 
 22. Happiness. 
 
 When we think of happiness, therefore, we must think 
 of a succession of longings always expressed — if we are for-
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF STRUGGLE 41 
 
 tunate — in corresponding struggles whence all pleasure and 
 happiness proceed. To turn longing into doing is to be happy; 
 and, from the very nature of these processes, happiness cannot 
 be otherwise than transitory. 
 
 23. Joy. 
 
 I am not sure that joy calls for any special definition. 
 But if it does, I should say that joy is the fulfillment either 
 of a pain of which we are not conscious at the moment, or 
 brings an unexpected fulfillment of a pain of which we are 
 conscious. 
 
 24. Humor. 
 
 There is a background of seriousness, of pain, in fact, to 
 every joke and witticism. Why are we so much amused by 
 human foibles, miscarriages and mistakes? Because every 
 foible, miscarriage and mistake is a caricature of deadly 
 earnestness. The humorous element in the staggering of the 
 drunkard is that he is really trying his best to walk straight 
 and with becoming dignity and his performance is so wide of 
 his pretensions. The same general principle applies to the 
 earnest singer with the cracked voice, the dancer whose steps 
 are cumbersome, the actor whose deficiencies break thru his 
 disguise, the speaker who cannot hide his vanity, the foreigner 
 striving to speak a strange language like a native, the novice 
 trying to swim, etc., etc., thru all the gamut of humorous inci- 
 dent. In fact, if we have a mind to always contrast effort 
 with achievement, humor is as wide as the cosmos. But there 
 are efforts which touch our own too closely for us to be able 
 to enjoy the humor of their disproportionate achievement. 
 For, after all, humor is the feint at pain. 
 
 25. Pride, Vanity and the Appetites. 
 
 As we all feel charged with our struggle-mission, it is 
 natural for us to carry ourselves proudly and, however humbly 
 we may intend to demean ourselves, we by no means succeed 
 in shaking off our pride. In our hearts we know ourselves 
 to be fighters; how then can we rid ourselves of pride!
 
 42 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 When the Lord made strugglers of us He mixed with 
 our clay a measure of pride and vanity. It is both foolish and 
 impossible for us to attempt to dispossess ourselves of these 
 essential constituents. On the other hand, our pride and 
 vanity must bear some proportion to the thing of which we 
 are proud or vain. On this account, the prouder we are the 
 less perceptible our pride is apt to be to the undiscerning. 
 
 As for our appetites and our ''lusts" even, what a good 
 laugh they ought to have at the expense of the ascetic of the 
 west and the doctrinaire mystic of the east! For how can we 
 attain understanding save through the intimate knowledge of 
 life imparted to us by our basic appetites which are part of 
 our pain-consciousness? 
 
 Those who advocate the eradication of human pride and 
 the appetites advocate suicide-in-life which is an impossi- 
 bility. 
 
 26. The Sense of Beauty. 
 
 Who has not paused at one time or another to see a man 
 catch and board a car? Nay, we did not turn our eyes away 
 until we saw the runner on the step ; then were we satisfied and 
 turned to other things, for we like to see the fulfillment of all 
 efforts — provided, of course, they are not in conflict with our 
 own. I confess, I never saw a pick-pocket beset by a mob or 
 the police, but I had a secret wish that he might get away; 
 and, when I was a boy, I followed the exploits of the treasure- 
 pilfering pirates of my readings with unholy enthusiasm. 
 This sympathy is not altogether removed from the fond sym- 
 pathy of parents watching their infant child in its first efforts 
 to walk. 
 
 This principle — the fulfillment of patent effort or desire 
 — is the same that applies in art and constitutes what we 
 recognize as beauty. I do not know what desire or suggestion 
 of pain is represented by a straight line, a curve, an angle, 
 the color red, a note in music or one of the many gestures 
 employed in the histrionic art. It rests with others to dis- 
 cover this if it remains undiscovered. But I do know that some 
 suggestion of pain is inherent in the straight line, the curve, 
 the angle, the color, musical note and gesture and, unconsci-
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF STRUGGLE 43 
 
 ously, we are affected by them when we meet them and we 
 wish to see them complemented or fulfilled according to their 
 kind. It requires no argument to prove that the unfinished 
 song, the damaged picture, the broken statue, the ruined 
 structure, the interrupted gesture, affect us disagreeably even 
 as the morsel of food dashed out of our hand. They represent 
 non-fulfillment, ineffectual desire. We have but to stretch 
 our imagination a little bit further to see that the same prin- 
 ciple applies when we are confronted by an unrelieving line, 
 an inappropriate angle, an inharmonious color combination, 
 a jarring note or chord, an awkward gesture. A bad work 
 of art represents so many suggestions of pain which have not 
 been fulfilled. This is what we mean by such expressions as 
 lack of balance, discords, poor technique, clashing color 
 schemes and designs, gracelessness, failures of all kinds. 
 
 It cannot be repeated too often that we live in a condition 
 of pain. Every individual carries tons upon his shoulders, 
 physically as well as spiritually. Every thing we do in this 
 world is to relieve us or struggle from pain. Even our laugh- 
 ter and enjoyment have reference to ever-present pain. It 
 must not surprise us, therefore, that every work of art and 
 every component thereof carries out the suggestion of pain 
 and the attempted fulfillment thereof. Every work of art, 
 therefore, like life itself, is a striving for balance between 
 pain and fulfillment or struggle. A great work of art, like 
 a great man, is an embodiment of a larger consciousness of 
 pain complemented by a larger measure of fulfillment or 
 struggle. This rule applies to the arch, the statue, the quiet 
 but unmistakable suggestiveness of the portrait or landscape 
 painting as well as to the literary idyl, epic or the subtle 
 sj^mphony. 
 
 Beauty, then, is equipoise — equipoise of suggestion and 
 fulfillment, longing and doing, effort and accomplishment, 
 pain and struggle. This is what the artist intuitively per- 
 ceives to be harmony, proportion, consonance, grace; and, it 
 is because we recognize that these qualities are the embodi- 
 ment of all that we look for in life under other names that we 
 derive our enjoyment of art. 
 
 The question naturally arises: What, then, is the differ- 
 ence between great art and lesser art, since all art must have
 
 44 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 pain-suggestion and fulfillment in equipoise? We have only 
 to consult our individual experiences to find that we recog- 
 nize as greater than another that artist who has put more 
 of the pain and struggle of the world into his work without 
 doing violence to the demands of equipoise or proportion. 
 This is the whole difference between a perfect little bisque 
 doll and the statue of the Venus of Milo, or, say, Rodin's 
 ''Thinker;" between Corneille's ''Le Cid" and ** Hamlet," or 
 "Macbeth." This also is the difference between the art of 
 the Greeks and the art of the Hebrews as evidenced by the 
 Bible which is the true precursor of modern art. 
 
 Modern art is deeper in content, more ascetic, more 
 charged with the cumulative pain and struggle of the 
 world, more sensitive and complicated in its color schemes, 
 its sound pulsations and its gestures. On this account, 
 its equipoise of pain-suggestion and pain-fulfillment or 
 harmony, as we call it, is more difficult of attainment. Our 
 susceptibilities have undergone a considerable change since 
 the time when Telemachus, struggling to find a word expres- 
 sive of the dishonor done to his father's house by the suitors 
 of Penelope, could only make the simple plaint that they were 
 wasting his father's substance. We have ceased to think 
 and feel as did the Greeks of Homer's time. This difference 
 was becoming manifest even in the art of the Romans, who 
 lived more intensely than the Greeks. But the Hebrew influ- 
 ence widened the breach most of all.
 
 CHAPTER m. 
 STRUGGLE AS MORALITY 
 1. Morality in Man and Beast. 
 
 THE compass of the ego grows with every experience of 
 pain; that is, its sympathetic perception is thus broad- 
 ened and intensified. From these multiplied experi- 
 ences of pain-sympathies, the intensified feelings created by 
 them and the ever-insistent will to struggle from them, flow 
 all the canons of pure morality in beast and man. 
 
 Pain is the universal substance which is given and the 
 Will to Struggle is its concomitant. Thus, the struggle, say, of 
 a herd of elephants against a common enemy is predicated 
 upon the same fundamental law of morality as the resistance 
 of the Allies at the Marne, and the feeling of the disgrace of 
 surrender has its roots in the same universal recognition of 
 the law of struggle. Indeed, the lower animals never sur- 
 render. As a matter of fact, nobody surrenders. One is first 
 overcome and the formal act of surrender is a recognition of 
 the fact and a manoeuvre to evade avoidable punishment. 
 
 Where, then, lies the difference between the morality of 
 man and beast! The difference is in degree. The struggle 
 of man is greater, more continuous, more embracing, because 
 his sympathies and his appetites are greater, i. e., he has 
 greater experiences of pain. Morality in man and beast, then, 
 flow from the degree of their responsiveness to pain or 
 sensitive experience. 
 
 We unconsciously fall into the habit of regarding the 
 savage beasts, the lion, tiger, snake, etc., as supremely formi- 
 dable. As a matter of fact, man is the most formidable animal. 
 He is the veritable king of beasts and rules them. 
 
 Even animals represent a high order of struggle in that 
 they protect their young and, to this extent, show an enlarged 
 ego. This would apply still more to the animals that have 
 the herd instinct, such as the elephant. As instances of crea- 
 tures having a contracted or small ego with commensurately 
 
 45
 
 46 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 limited intelligence or capacity to struggle, I would mention 
 all those fowl and fish that are wont to eat their young. We 
 may even go further and say that deep experience of pain 
 carries with it the responsibility for posterity as instanced 
 by prophets, patriots and humanitarians. Conversely, a lim- 
 ited experience of pain in a race will carry with it a lack 
 of responsibility for kind as in the case of the cannibal. 
 
 2. The Origin of Law. 
 
 It is idle to speculate which was the first conscious law 
 and whether that law was enforced through economic neces- 
 sity or through the growth of humanitarian feeling, or as I 
 would call it, the increased standard of struggle. I believe 
 too much has been lately ascribed to economic necessity and 
 too little to psychological necessity. Certainly, before we 
 can speak of economic necessity for primitive races there 
 must be in them an appreciation of economic necessity which 
 could only come through an increased sensitiveness in obser- 
 vation and experience or suffering. 
 
 Thus, it is safe to surmise that when a sentiment as 
 to a given act or omission attained unanimity among our 
 primitive forefathers, it gave rise to a custom at first, and then 
 to a more or less vigorously observed law. 
 
 Once a law was accepted and established, justice required 
 that all act in accordance with it, because, to violate it was 
 to lower the standard of struggle for some but not for all, 
 thus giving an undue advantage to some over others. 
 
 From the point of view of Pain-Struggle, however, the 
 trend of all laws is to foster the small struggler and increase 
 his capacity for effort and to place larger burdens upon the 
 greater struggler so as by no means to allow him to batten 
 on his gains. 
 
 Religion has also stepped in and taken a hand in the 
 formation of the law, so that to-day the law of the land is 
 compounded of the natural chivalry of struggle (which pro- 
 hibits one from taking an obviously preponderant advantage 
 over his antagonist) and of Religion (whose tendency is
 
 STRUGGLE AS MORALITY 47 
 
 toward eliminating inter-human conflict as an element of 
 universal conflict). 
 
 The chivalry of struggle enjoins us not to beg, not to 
 steal, to fight bravely, not to take our enemy unawares, to 
 champion the weak against the strong, etc. In short, the 
 natural chivalry of struggle — which is a development of 
 struggle — enjoins us to do all those things in inter-human 
 conflict which will tend to observe the balance of forces so as 
 to render a **fair" fight possible. In fact, all the fantastic 
 ** codes of honor" are an outgrowth of the natural chivalry of 
 struggle as developed in the human fighter. 
 
 Religion adopts and makes the most of certain of the 
 tenets of natural chivalry, such as the injunction against 
 stealing, against the abuse of the weak, etc., but also adds 
 injunctions of its own, such as the prohibition on bloodshed, 
 on quarreling, selfishness, etc. Religion goes even further 
 but of this I will not speak here. Suffice it to say that it 
 makes the most of those of the virtues extant in the natural 
 chivalry of struggle and adds such others as will tend to 
 eliminate human strife as an element of struggle. Our com- 
 mon law is a composite, therefore, of the chivalry of struggle, 
 religion and also, of course, of state-craft or latter-day collec- 
 tive struggle. 
 
 It is true that there is current an impression in the world 
 that the laws against theft, for example, are intended for 
 the protection of property. As a matter of fact, the law is 
 absolutely unconcerned as to who has the property, provided 
 it is acquired according to the accepted standard of struggle. 
 The laws against theft makes acquisition more difficult. They 
 that steal acquire by an easier method, notwithstanding that 
 the method though simpler — and it is simpler — may be fol- 
 lowed by punishment. If stealing were universal, it would 
 be no crime and no wrong. In fact, it would be a virtue. 
 The same with murder. It is easier to commit murder than 
 to live at peace, which is a very drawn out and complicated 
 undertaking requiring great tact and self-control. It is easier 
 to propagate and abandon than it is to raise families. It is 
 easier to neglect than to provide. In short, the tendency of 
 all laws is to make things more difficult even though the 
 citizen habitually imagines that every statute added to the
 
 48 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 Code lightens his burdens. We are so used to living in accord- 
 ance with the law that to be * * law-abiding ' ' has become almost 
 a life-habit with us and we imagine that the law was made for 
 our comfort. Tho they tend to keep us fit for struggle, laws 
 are, in their nature, prohibitions. They compel high standards, 
 thus taking away rights belonging to man in his state of 
 nature. 
 
 It must be conceded, however, that the underlying tend- 
 ency of laws is, also, to increase the possibilities of struggle to 
 the many. These laws are grounded upon the wish to pre- 
 vent the activities of the great struggler from interfering with 
 the normal progress of the efforts of the small struggler. 
 The effect of these laws is to compel the great struggler to 
 extend his struggle on bigger, less conflicting lines and to 
 encourage the small struggler to struggle — but by no means 
 to eliminate the necessity to struggle. In autocracies and 
 despotisms, the aim and tendency of laws is against the easy 
 and unfair standards of the criminal, it is true, but also to 
 confirm the great struggler in his advantages. 
 
 Altho law affects to deal with things, its true province lies 
 in deciding questions of morality. That is why judge and 
 advocate unconsciously assume such a lofty tone in the sor- 
 did disputes and criminal relations which come before them 
 for review. They deal with the great question of comparative 
 standards of struggle in which monetary considerations and 
 penalties are supposed to play but a minor part even though 
 the cupidity or ambition of interested parties operates to place 
 the emphasis elsewhere. The real question that comes before 
 the judge is: Did the defendant sink below the recognized 
 standard of struggle ? If he did, then the state will punish the 
 act or omission, if it constitutes a crime; or if it was a civil 
 infraction, then the plaintiff will be indemnified at the 
 defendant's expense because of the disadvantage at which he 
 was taken and the loss occasioned thereby in the particular 
 struggle or transaction which is the subject of litigation. 
 
 We are so used, however, to living in accordance with the 
 prescribed law and it is so dangerous to live in conflict with it, 
 that we have come to believe that we live by means of it. 
 Nothing of the sort is the case, however. Without it we should 
 still continue to live, although upon a basis not familiar to us 
 at present. Some of us, it is true, would adopt a lower, less
 
 STRUGGLE AS MORALITY 49 
 
 elevated standard of struggle but a more grimly simple one; 
 others, as the anarchist contends, might rise above the bald 
 requirements of the law, which last is a subject for specu- 
 lation, perhaps. 
 
 To summarize by example, the law against theft deprives 
 me of the right to acquire property by stealth. It is true 
 that henceforth my neighbor will also be deprived of this 
 advantage and our deprivations will be neutralized to this 
 extent. Nevertheless the immediate effect upon my struggle 
 is to drive it upon more subtle, more difficult lines. The same 
 thing applies to my neighbor. It was an easier and simpler 
 thing to take a thing when I wanted it, even at the risk of 
 detection, than to serve the long and tortuous apprenticeship 
 for it dictated by the rule of honesty. The early Spartans 
 thought that it was legitimate to steal but disgraceful to be 
 caught at it. To be caught meant to be defeated, and who does 
 not feel disgraced in defeat ? 
 
 3. The Basis of Property-Right. 
 
 Thus, to say that stealing is wrong per se is incorrect 
 unless we have in mind a community wherein the rule is 
 general and property is not so acquired. But where stealing 
 is the generally recognized practice, it should convey a per- 
 fectly good title; and it has done so. To impugn titles 
 acquired by theft and violence in an age when these were the 
 recognized methods of obtaining title is just as absurd as to 
 question the title of one monkey to a nut stolen from his fenian 
 brother. Neither in the one case nor in the other has there 
 been a breach of the standard of struggle evolved by the specie 
 in question at the time in question. This leads us to the defini- 
 tion of the basis of title to property. 
 
 The true basis of title to property is acquisition by strug- 
 gle according to the standard of struggle obtaining at the 
 time the property is acquired. 
 
 With the foregoing as the basis for title to property, the 
 question which naturally suggests itself is, Why should title 
 descending to heirs continue to be good after the standard 
 of struggle by which it was originally acquired has been super- 
 seded ? Without going into the pros and cons of this question
 
 50 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 at^this time, it may be well to point out that the Law of 
 Struggle itself supplies the remedy. All property-right is 
 really in a state of flux in that title-holders have to fight to 
 retain possession according to every new standard of struggle ; 
 and if the heir is not proficient under the new standard, 
 there will be an inevitable change of possession and of title. 
 
 4. Honesty. 
 
 Honesty, then, is an acquired, as distinguished from a 
 natural virtue, enforced by society in order to maintain a 
 standard of struggle. Conversely, theft is a crime, not because 
 it is unnatural but because it represents a betrayal of the 
 common standard of struggle. 
 
 Honesty obtained vogue originally, not as an abstract 
 virtue, but as a mark of the bold warrior who scorned to dis- 
 possess the owner of a thing without fighting for it openly. 
 Honesty came into being as a fighting virtue, succeeding the 
 easier method of acquisition by theft precisely because hon- 
 esty was more difficult and dangerous. Honesty, then, is 
 really a virtue born of the chivalry of struggle. 
 
 In our time, it is true, theft has been made dangerous by 
 law but it has not been made more difficult than honesty. 
 The chagrin of the person whose theft is discovered is due 
 not only to the fact that his purpose has been frustrated but 
 also because he has been caught fighting according to a lower 
 and therefore treacherous standard. 
 
 5. Good and Bad. 
 
 We may speak of abstract virtue and sin, good and evil, 
 but these expressions are simply of the short-hand of human 
 speech. 
 
 There is really no such thing as abstract good and evil. 
 Things are only good or bad in relation to their increasing or 
 diminishing influence on struggle and insofar as they tend to 
 uphold or lower the common standard of struggle attained. 
 
 6. Courage. 
 
 Let us take, for example, courage. It is obvious that in a 
 world-organization of which struggle is the meat, courage
 
 STRUGGLE AS MORALITY 51 
 
 must become a universal virtue. The virtue of courage is a 
 fundamental one. It is present in the beast in varying degrees, 
 according to its life-experience or pain-adventures. It is at 
 its height in man, but is often not discernible as courage, 
 because man has introduced the fabian element of prudence 
 in his battles; that is, man, unlike the tiger for example, 
 reckons not only with the immediate obstacle but with conse- 
 quential factors, as also the fox does on a pettier scale. Strug- 
 gle takes cognizance of courage and honors it whenever and 
 wherever it becomes conspicuous. Courage is not mentioned 
 among the ten commandments of the Hebrews, simply because 
 it is the oldest of human virtues, being, in fact, an animal- 
 virtue and therefore taken for granted. Not to have courage, 
 not to endure, not to persist, is not to live at all. The virtue 
 of courage, however, is so fundamental that it must not sur- 
 prise us to find that all praise takes the form of recognition 
 of courage, whether the subject of it is a soldier who has con- 
 quered or an etymologist who has persevered in his hunt for 
 an old root. 
 
 7. Sin or Surrender. 
 
 It follows that if courage, persistence, endurance and kin- 
 dred virtues are virtues in struggle, the outstanding vice is 
 weak-spiritedness or cowardice as exemplified in surrender. 
 The great virtue of struggle is to struggle, the great vice is 
 to surrender. This applies through the whole gamut of exist- 
 ence from the embattled nation fighting against subjugation, 
 the besieged garrison, the maiden defending her honor, cap- 
 tains of finance and industry, small and great, in their nerve- 
 racking tugs-of-war, the laborer faithful to his monotonous 
 grind, the athlete in his sport, the fighting beasts of the forest, 
 and, I doubt not, the mutual resistance of the so-called inani- 
 mate elements who only yield to the superior onsets of their 
 kind. 
 
 8. The Virtues. 
 
 It follows that with such an organization of the world, 
 whatever is in aid of struggle is a virtue or good, and what-
 
 52 TPIE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 ever retards or defeats struggle is a vice and bad. Just as the 
 athlete training for a great trial of his powers, rigorously 
 adheres to his selected diet of plain fare, so the world in its 
 onward strivings has hammered out habits of life which it 
 terms virtues and which it will do its utmost to press into 
 universal service. As the ancient Hebrews said of their laws 
 of Deuteronomy: "These are the laws of which ye shall live 
 and not die." 
 
 Easily comprehensible as fitting into the scheme of strug- 
 gle are a great many of the common human virtues. Such are 
 courage, industry, prudence, economy, hardihood, tenacity, 
 etc., etc. But there are other human virtues which at first 
 sight do not seem to fit into the struggle-scheme and seem to 
 be in conflict with it. Such are, for example, modesty, sym- 
 pathy, .justice, generosity, self-sacrifice, humbleness, humility, 
 etc. These therefore remain to be considered. 
 
 9. Modesty. 
 
 Most virtues show even upon the most superficial exami- 
 nation that they are virtues by reason of their obvious 
 enhancement of struggle just as most vices are seen to be evil 
 because they run counter to the fundamental requirements of 
 struggle. Thus, for example, it needs no profound investiga- 
 tion to disclose that courage is a virtue and that cowardice is 
 evil. Of such ethical conceptions it is hardly necessary to 
 speak. 
 
 Why is it then that the quality of modesty is considered 
 not only a virtue in a world of struggle but also a grace? 
 Let us examine the main-springs of modesty. Modesty — not 
 bashfulness — properly considered, is a superior kind of pride. 
 The modest man aims so to demean himself, so to struggle, 
 that his actions shall speak for him. It is a recognition that 
 only that is worthy which is obtainable by struggle. Why is 
 it that we stammer and effect to become foolish when we are 
 praised to our faces'? It is because praise is something abnor- 
 mal. It goes against the whole current of our life. We are 
 accustomed to fight for everything. When someone, however, 
 suddenly stands up and says to us: ''Here, I give you gladly 
 what you have been fighting for," it upsets us. We only
 
 STRUGGLE AS MORALITY 53 
 
 appreciate, we hoard only trophies of such gains as were 
 acquired by struggle. Even when we acquire things acci- 
 dentally or without effort, we try to justify the acquisition 
 along the lines of struggle-virtue. All must be justified by 
 struggle. For this reason it is immoral to listen to praise, to 
 eat the bread of idleness, to live on charity, to accept unearned 
 gifts of any kind, to steal another's honors. The modest man 
 is pre-eminently proud. His standards of struggle are high 
 and difficult. He fears praise as a corrupting worm. He is 
 a man of faith because he believes that no word or artifice is 
 necessary to set true struggle in the right light but that it will 
 receive ultimate justice. 
 
 I do not mean by this that the modest man does not like 
 praise. Everybody likes praise. But the modest man will 
 take pains to see that praise of him flows inevitably from his 
 acts; that it is an earned increment; otherwise, he will shud- 
 dering! y turn from the devil of flattery, realizing that it means 
 death to struggle. 
 
 10. Duty. 
 
 Duty stands in no ethical isolation in man. Duty is 
 simply the extension of the sense of obligation beyond the 
 immediate interests of the individual. A man may have a 
 sense of duty to his family, his friends, city or state, but they 
 are all extensions of his sense of duty to his own selfhood. 
 
 11. Sympathy. 
 
 One would imagine that a struggle-system could not 
 admit of s^onpathy as one of its inseparable concomitants; and 
 yet, what is more common than sympathy? 
 
 We have but to analyze the causes of human sympathy 
 in order to understand how naturally it fits into the scheme 
 of things. With whom do we sympathize? 
 
 (a) We sympathize with him whose successful struggle 
 will confer a benefit upon us. 
 
 (b) We s>Tnpathize with him whose struggle has been 
 revealed to us intimately or closely. 
 
 (c) We sympathize with him who has a greater burden 
 of struggle than is proportionate to his strength.
 
 54 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 As for the first cause of sympatliy, it hardly requires 
 explanation. It must be obvious that where we expect to 
 benefit through the successful struggle of another, the result- 
 ant sympathy is the sympathy of self-interest and is akin to 
 sympathy with our own struggle. 
 
 The second cause of sympathy may require some elucida- 
 tion. TTe have all noticed, no doubt, that we have an almost 
 insuperable sympathy with people with whom we have been 
 in contact for a great length of time, or whose striving has 
 been intimately revealed to us as in the case of an invalid or 
 sufferer. Some of these people may have shown disagreeable 
 or even despicable traits in the course of our prolonged ac- 
 quaintance. But, be they saints or sinners, they have some- 
 how been revealed to us in the attitude of struggle against the 
 forces of the world. We have been permitted a glimpse into 
 the interior of their poor defenses and our sympathy has been 
 aroused, consciously or unconsciously. Conversely, strangers, 
 especially strangers without the faculty of instant self -reve- 
 lation in face, manner or smile, that is to say, strangers with- 
 out the knack of revealing themselves in the attitude of 
 struggle against those odds which we all face, have the effect 
 of abridging our sympathies and of looking to our defenses. 
 
 The third cause of s^^npathy is also inherent in the nature 
 of struggle. There can be no struggle where the opposing 
 forces are unequal or, to be more accurate, where the burden 
 of struggle is on one but not on the other. On this account, 
 barring special interests, our sympathies are always with the 
 weaker. The world detests a bully, a giant measuring his 
 strength with an infant. What the world understands by a 
 hero is not one who is simply strong, but one who, be he weak 
 or strong, assumes to measure his strength with forces that 
 are formidable in proportion to his strength. The same prin- 
 ciple holds good whether the medium of the struggle is a 
 game, a prize-fight or a war. Germany, in the attitude of 
 despoiling little Belgium for example, can hardly hope to 
 evoke the sympathy of the impartial observer. It is only 
 when, like the dying Fafnir of its own legends, it lies pros- 
 trate before a more powerful antagonist, that it can hope 
 for a measure of sympathy.
 
 STRUGGLE AS MOEALITY 55 
 
 12. Generosity, Charity. 
 
 Here are a couple of virtues which, at first blush, seem to 
 conflict with the principle of struggle. As a matter of fact, 
 however, they are born of the same horror of failure and 
 frustrated strivings which we all share in greater or less 
 degree in accordance with the sensitiveness to pain that is in 
 us. The struggle of the meanest and weakest among us has 
 the effect of mirroring our own struggle, its anxieties and 
 hopes; and the more sensitive we are the more we will be 
 moved to aid those who feel and strive but cannot achieve — 
 provided, of course, they do not oppose us in our own struggle. 
 The existence of such qualities as generosity, charity and sym- 
 pathy in all their forms proves that the struggle of human 
 beings is not necessarily antagonistic except in its most primi- 
 tive stages. In fact, as already indicated, generosity and 
 charity are extensions of our selfhood beyond the demands of 
 the narrower ego. 
 
 13. Self-Sacrifice. 
 
 There is really no such thing as self-sacrifice. Self-sacri- 
 fice exists in Struggle as an extension of self, not as an elimina- 
 tion of it. An act of self-sacrifice is an assumption of a greater 
 measure of struggle which is demanded by the extension of 
 selfhood. In the economy of struggle it represents the acqui- 
 sition of something, not the surrender of anything, although 
 the act may be fraught with pain, anxiety and fear. It may 
 be said that the struggler surrenders his peace of mind. But 
 there is no provision for peace of mind in the scheme of the 
 world and it is doubtful, to say the least, whether the struggler 
 could acquire it by refusing to assume a struggle for which 
 he has become fit and to which he feels himself called. 
 
 In short, there is nothing in the real nature of self- 
 sacrifice, so called, which is in conflict with the Law of 
 Struggle. 
 
 14. Pity, Mercy. 
 
 He who appeals to us to have mercy invites us to put 
 ourselves in his place and to remember that, in most essentials.
 
 56 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 he typifies our own position in the struggle that never ceases. 
 It requires singular unimaginativeness or a very strong cause 
 to be impervious to such demands. The greater the struggler 
 the more apt he will be to be struck by the full force of such 
 appeals. Far from being at variance with the principle of 
 struggle, however, pity and mercy would have no meaning 
 save in conjunction with struggle. 
 
 15. Justice. 
 
 Justice, too, can have no meaning save in relation to 
 struggle. To do justice is to support him whose fight has been 
 in accordance with the accepted standard of struggle as 
 against him whose fight has been below the standard. To 
 deny justice is to confirm the evil-doer in his treason to the 
 common standard to which the world has progressed and to 
 betray him who has relied upon it. Injustice may, therefore, 
 be regarded as the natural precursor of anarchy which may 
 be defined as a state of struggle without enforceable standards. 
 
 16. Honor. 
 
 There are a class of fighters to whom the observance of 
 the highest standards of struggle is of equal importance with 
 the things for which they strive. High standards, in fact, 
 take precedence with this class. They summarize their alle- 
 giance to these standards by the word "honor." 
 
 Inasmuch as we are creatures of struggle, however, it is 
 ofttimes very difficult to live up to the dictates of honor. 
 We meet this difficulty in sport, discussion, in our business 
 undertakings and in war. But tho the decisions in honor's 
 behalf may come hard, the fact does not belie its existence. 
 
 17. Magnanimity, Benevolence, Nobility. 
 
 Custom, pride and the law compel us to observance of 
 the common standard of struggle. The magnanimous, the 
 benevolent and the noble rise above the common standard of
 
 STRUGGLE AS MORALITY 57 
 
 struggle. They set themselves a higher standard, but they 
 struggle nevertheless. Therein lies all the difference between 
 human littleness and human greatness. 
 
 18. Humbleness, Humility. 
 
 The inability to discern struggle when we see it because 
 of its inoffensive guise, leads many to misunderstand, misin- 
 terpret, overrate and underestimate acts, characteristics, per- 
 sons, people and conditions; to render us unfit for struggle 
 ourselves. 
 
 Humbleness and Humility, like other human and animal 
 qualities, have no meaning whatever except in relation to 
 struggle. Who has not observed at some time a dog of humble 
 mien? That dog, whoever he is and however he came by 
 it, has been thoroughly persuaded, consciously, or uncon- 
 sciously, of his relative powerlessness, his lack of weapons of 
 offence against a militant world in arms against his kind. 
 He may have developed a greater intelligence than his better- 
 born, be-ribboned brother. At any rate he is apt to have a 
 more correct appraisement of his own powers and of the- 
 tactics best suited to his capacities. He has learned that it is 
 better and safer to slink than to spring; to wait until the 
 butcher or cook has disappeared before attacking the slop- 
 pail; to seek his opportunity obscurely; to be wary of other 
 dogs; and so on, in all situations. Who shall say that this 
 is not a well-calculated method of struggle? 
 
 We are accustomed to thinking of many animals as timid, 
 like the deer, for example. Timid in relation to what! Do 
 they overrate the power of their enemies, then? The deer 
 knows that his best weapon is flight. His weapons of offense 
 are inadequate. He struggles, accordingly, like many a gen- 
 eral in a like position. When cornered, they may both attack 
 desperately. So will a rat. The soldier, having a knowledge 
 of the usages of human warfare, may seek safety in surrender- 
 Surrender to an enemy is also a form of struggle, but it is on 
 a terribly low scale — the struggle merely to sustain life which, 
 in terms of Pain-Struggle, means struggle for the existence of 
 struggle and not for its increase. Our error is to be always 
 thinking of struggle in terms of attack. Struggle manifests
 
 58 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 itself in many ways, in fliglit, in surrender, yes, and in hum- 
 bleness. Even the suicide, who represents the most flagrant 
 instance of surrender, struggles in desperation against the 
 immediate pain of which he is conscious, irrespective of 
 consequences. 
 
 Humbleness is not a negation of struggle. It is a way of 
 struggle; generally, an astute and seasoned way, growing out 
 of many conflicts, many defeats. But humbleness is not nec- 
 essarily an attribute of the beaten alone. So to imagine is 
 to have a false and stilted conception of what constitutes a 
 hero. After all, what makes a hero? A hero is one who 
 experiences many defeats, takes many a beating, assimilates 
 them all and, once in a while, when it counts most, puts in a 
 blow on his own account. 
 
 So much for humbleness. But how about humility? Does 
 not this represent a virtue which is at the same time a negation 
 of struggle ? It is true that we associate humility with saints. 
 The Bible speaks of the good as ''walking humbly before the 
 Lord," for example. But this religious humility represents 
 the holy moments of contact between the venturesome spirit 
 of man and revelations of eternity. It is the mute surprise 
 of the frail mortal who, with unlooked-for power, has suddenly 
 brushed aside the mantle from the face of the Lord. He 
 needs must walk much more softly than the world-wise pil- 
 grim among the labyrinths of daily affairs. 
 
 19. Prestige. 
 
 However kind, however humble, sanctimonious, peaceful, 
 modest, demure, unselfish, unaffected or democratic we may 
 be, we never escape the obligation of struggle. We show this 
 in countless ways, although we often make ludicrous attempts 
 to disguise and even to suppress this very human trait. One 
 of the ways in which the aggressiveness of our real attitude 
 is betrayed is through the care we bestow on appearances. 
 Why do we bestow so much of our time, patience and sub- 
 stance upon our dress, manners, the appearance of our homes 
 and whatever is related to us ? Why, except in aid of our pres- 
 tige which in turn is calculated, consciously or unconsciously, 
 to aid us in our struggle!
 
 STRUGGLE AS MORALITY 59 
 
 20. Self -Consciousness. 
 
 Self-consciousness is a state of feeling born of the wish to 
 conquer, coupled, however, with knowledge of inexperience in 
 the particular struggle at hand. 
 
 21. Blood-Guiltiness or Homicide. 
 
 Murder is a heinous offence because it is the most pal- 
 pable instance of the permanent cutting off of another 's strug- 
 gle. The world detests the murderer because the act is an 
 indication of callousness or non-sensitiveness. Conversely, 
 where the murderer is able to show sensitiveness he is gen- 
 erally able to show cause or extenuating circumstances, and 
 the effect on public opinion veers from abhorrence to 
 sympathy. 
 
 22. What Constitutes Progress? 
 
 Human progress is constituted in two ways: Increased 
 sensitiveness to all forms of phenomena and increased strug- 
 gle resulting therefrom. 
 
 Conflicting human interests contain great possibilities of 
 struggle as the world has seen, but to stop at this form of 
 struggle is to stop at a low level of struggle and to limit it. 
 If the world had stopped at this form of struggle, there would 
 have been no exchange of ideas, no social intercourse worth 
 mentioning and men would only meet to dash out each other's 
 brains. Therefore it is that the spirit of all progressive laws 
 tends more and more so to make a man struggle as not to cut 
 off and not to conflict with another man's struggle. All pro- 
 gressively conceived legislation has this end in view, regard- 
 less of its immediate effect. 
 
 For it is true that the immediate effect of much progres- 
 sive legislation, art and invention at present is conflict, but 
 their ultimate tendency is to increase the possibilities of 
 struggle for each individual upon non-conflicting or less con- 
 flicting lines with the interests of other individuals. 
 
 I realize that the question may be asked: If the aim of 
 life is struggle, why try to reduce inter-human conflict? Obvi- 
 ously, the answer is: To release the world to greater struggle. 
 For interhuman conflict is by no means synonymous with
 
 60 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 Struggle; it is only a stage or degree of Struggle which must 
 be passed. For to progress means to go from one degree of 
 struggle to another, and the implications of struggle, strange 
 to say, point not to more inter-human conflict but to the 
 emergence therefrom. 
 
 23. Cruelty. 
 
 Cruelty is abhorrent to sensitive man because it involves 
 firstly, the state of callousness to the pain of others, and, 
 secondly, because cruelty involves the needless interference 
 with or abridgment of the struggle of another. 
 
 24. Crime. 
 
 Human impulses have a centripetal and centrifugal ten- 
 dency, depending on inner and outer stimuli of pain or the 
 suggestions of pain. The radius of our sympathies expands 
 and contracts in accordance with what is in us and the modifi- 
 cations of outer circumstances. There are inner and outer 
 conditions which call for deeds of generosity, sacrifice and 
 heroism. There are conditions which compel to an abridge- 
 ment of these virtues and the ascendency of narrow, calculat- 
 ing longings and deeds. There is current a saying in this 
 country that ''it pays to be honest." Perhaps, it does. I 
 rather think it does. But it must not be pretended that it is 
 easier to be honest. It is far more difficult to be honest, gen- 
 erous and punctilious than to be the opposite. The penal 
 statutes do not weigh much in the balance, because occasions 
 are innumerable when they may be surmounted in the same 
 way that a man daily surmounts the dangers of a street- 
 crossing. 
 
 Let every reader consult his own heart and see if this is 
 not true. It is far more natural to sin than to punish for 
 the sin. No, it is not easy to be virtuous. It constitutes the 
 greatest tax upon human strength and endurance because all 
 virtue represents the highest gamut of struggle. And it is far 
 from easy to maintain the highest. On the contrary, it is 
 quite natural to sink under the strain from time to time. On 
 the other hand, it is equally natural, though more difficult, to 
 rise and go forward again. From such temporary defeats, 
 reactions which every individual suffers from time to time,
 
 STRUGGLE AS MORALITY 61 
 
 spring all development and progressions. They are the spir- 
 itual exercises of humanity, leading from strength to strength, 
 from lower to higher standards of struggle. 
 
 During some such a temporary relapse in struggle, it 
 often happens that the State steps in and puts its heavy hand 
 upon the offender, dragging him down to lower depths than 
 the wretch had thought possible for him to sink. It puts an 
 eternal collar of iron upon all the healthy forward impulses 
 which would have been his had he remained undetected in 
 his temporary lapse or crime. Laborer, banker, merchant, 
 physician, lawyer or official, once discovered in the descend- 
 ing scale of struggle under the stress of some great danger 
 or temptation, he is doomed to the branding-iron of the degen- 
 erate and habitualized criminal. 
 
 The world credits itself with more virtue than it really 
 has or labors under the delusion that it can always be had for 
 the asking, and looks upon those that falter with the merci- 
 lessness of ignorance; all of which is due to the failure to 
 appreciate the fact that life is not static but dynamic; that 
 virtue is an attainment of struggle possible to all but not all 
 the time attainable. Insofar as society acts not from the wish 
 to prevent but to punish, it lacerates itself needlessly and 
 defeats its own purposes. 
 
 25. Despair. 
 
 Despair is the name we have given to the realization that 
 comes over us when our pain cannot express itself in struggle. 
 In this sense, then, despair is a kind of untranslatable pain 
 and is therefore an abnormal state. For pain should always 
 be in a state of liux. We call those people pessimists who do 
 not see that the pain of the world is expressed in the struggle 
 of the world, that yearning is realizable in doing, if not in the 
 periods measured by life, then in the longer spaces of struggle. 
 
 26. Ambition. 
 
 This is another word for desire, yearning or the pain to 
 achieve. 
 
 27. Marriage. 
 
 Marriage organizes our life for struggle. Hence the 
 sanctity of marriage ties.
 
 62 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 28. Bearing Children. 
 
 The begetting of children is an extension of individual 
 struggle not unlike any other. There is a duty to bear chil- 
 dren; but it is absurd to claim that this duty supersedes the 
 duty to give them a fighting chance. To breed without respon- 
 sibility is to help set the world on fire. Nor are numbers alone 
 conducive to the improvement of human quality. On the 
 other hand, it is folly to try to change the way of the world 
 and, as a condition precedent, await a lane of roses. 
 
 29. Love. 
 
 The gradations of pain are wonderful in their variety 
 They range from the most delicate nuances to the most pow- 
 erful degrees. The love-pain suggests a composite pain. That 
 love is a form of pain, however, is not to be doubted. 
 
 30. Sex Relations. 
 
 Those sex relations and sex alliances are permissible 
 which make for increased capacity to struggle on the part 
 of the human race. Humanity has made wide detours in 
 order to avoid such relations as result in sterility, anaemia, 
 enfeeblement of mind and body and loose family organization. 
 
 In arriving at its decisions as to what is good and bad 
 in these matters, humanity has employed, as usual, not its 
 reason, but its intuition which is our true life-line in the sea of 
 human consequences. 
 
 Our modern rationalists demand that the whole matter of 
 sex relations be submitted to the test of reason. But humanity 
 never did and does not now rely upon reason for guidance in 
 these matters. It places its faith in intuition which has 
 enabled it to come forward from untold experiences in the 
 dim past with a wealth of knowledge that runs unerringly 
 true for all that it is inarticulate. 
 
 31. Woman Suffrage. 
 
 The evolution of the suffrage movement among women 
 is a very natural and logical one. As long as man assumed 
 the entire burden of struggle in facing the outer world in 
 behalf of the marital organization, it was natural that all
 
 STRUGGLE AS MORALITY 63 
 
 authority and responsibility should be vested in him, especially 
 in matters affecting the relations of the family organization 
 with the outer world. "When man began to push women into 
 the vanguard of the fighting so that both severally assumed 
 the same burden of struggle, it became perfectly natural in 
 the economy of struggle for women to demand all the powers 
 and privileges that go with independent struggle. Applying 
 the unfailing test of struggle, it will be increasingly difficult 
 to deny women the right of suffrage. 
 
 32. Sex Equality. 
 
 Is woman the equal of man? It is difficult to answer 
 such a question because unlike things can hardly be compared. 
 
 If her potentialities for sensitiveness is developed, there 
 is no setting limits to her attainments. 
 
 But woman is not and should not strive to become the 
 same as man. The demand of some that women be judged by 
 the same code of morality as exists for men is in some respects 
 premature, at least, and in others, definitely absurd. 
 
 As yet, for example, no one would hold up women to the 
 same standard as men in matters involving honesty, courage, 
 etc., which are cardinal virtues with men. 
 
 On the other hand, woman will be held to the strictest 
 account as to her chastity. She may lie, even steal or fly in 
 the face of real or imagined dangers and no one will think 
 that she has seriously compromised herself; but she must be 
 chaste. This virtue is of too great an importance in relation 
 to the peculiar part she plays in the family organization for 
 her to be judged by the same elastic standards as applies to 
 men. In the struggle of the family organization, it is her 
 post of honor to guard the inner solidarity of the establish- 
 ment. 
 
 In this connection, it is significant to note how closely 
 all morality is related to the nature of the struggle which the 
 individual in question has assumed. The sexual morality of 
 the soldier and even of the artist, for example, is not expected 
 to be as high as that of the preacher, etc.
 
 64 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 33. Man and "Superman." 
 
 The "superman" of rhapsodical philosophy is a creature 
 apart from other men, of a different clay, as it were. From 
 the point of view of Pain-Struggle, however, this grandilo- 
 quent word, if it means anything, means more of a man; a 
 man of wider sensitiveness, deeper sympathies, finer under- 
 standing, better discipline, able to strike hard, yet not insensi- 
 ble to the sting in his blow, nor losing touch with the valid 
 interests of his antagonist nor kinship with humanity; a 
 struggler, in short, sensitive to all that is sensitive, a man of 
 cares walking humbly before the Lord. 
 
 34. Tyranny and the Right to Liberty. 
 
 There is no vested title to liberty. Whoever has met a 
 difficulty and struggled with it has known liberty. He is 
 already free who struggles with his bondage. It is, there- 
 fore, impossible to make slave one who struggles to be free. 
 The same principle applies equally to a nation as to an 
 individual. As long as there is any kind of resistance to the 
 conqueror, the national entity continues in being. In fact, 
 it may be stated as an axiom that the test of nationality in 
 any people is in its collective will to struggle. Just what 
 form that struggle is to take I will not say, nor is it import- 
 ant. It is sufficient that its struggle takes some form of 
 resistance. It is not even essential that all or even the 
 majority of a people maintain the struggle. The will to 
 struggle can be demonstrated by a small group or even by 
 one. As long as all resistance has not been annihilated or 
 suppressed, the national entity is still in being. 
 
 The right to liberty is a negative right. Although liberty 
 may not be had without struggle, no one has the right to 
 consciously come in conflict with the struggle of another to 
 attain liberty; and it is the latter act which goes under the 
 name of tyranny. For tyranny is the needless interference 
 with or obstruction to the struggle of another. While no one 
 can grant us liberty, the interference with our own struggle 
 to achieve it is an invasion of our rights. 
 
 Tyranny is not only odious' in its obvious implications 
 but also because it runs counter to the idealism of the world.
 
 STRUGGLE AS MORALITY 65 
 
 Humanity, from time immemorial, has been groping with 
 dimly understood, hardly uttered hopes toward a time when 
 human struggle shall take non-conflicting lines. Tyranny, 
 however, stands for repression of the struggle of some in the 
 narrow interest of others, be they one or many. It represents 
 therefore a stage of inter-human conflict which is bound to 
 be eliminated in the natural progressions of struggle. 
 
 35. Morality and Economics. 
 
 There is current a belief that life is naturally easy but 
 man, by his repressive laws and institutions, has made it 
 difficult; that, if we desire it, we need adhere to no regimen, 
 reap without sowing, marry without responsibility, conquer 
 without striving, extract joy out of life and reject its cares, 
 make sacrifices without hardship, in short, that life is a ready- 
 made jam which the criminality of the capitalist and hypo- 
 crite has hedged around with barbed wire. 
 
 I once heard a socialist orator describe the fall of a 
 shop-girl in this language: ''The poor girl worked all day, 
 she had an invalid mother to support besides a younger 
 brother and sister, and she was naturally deprived of all those 
 comforts and enjoyments which so many others, who hap- 
 pened to be a little more fortunate, had. She saw a chance to 
 forget all the sordidness, discomfort and cares of her home 
 and she abandoned this life for a life of vice. Can you 
 blame her?" 
 
 Certainly not, if we are to view life from the standpoint 
 of the socialist and utilitarian. But viewing life as it is, we 
 must come to quite different conclusions. Morality has no 
 meaning save as standards to be adhered to under difficult 
 conditions. Our wants and capacities for enjoyment are 
 innumerable. They follow us and multiply under all condi- 
 tions. But life is hard, not soft. Doing the easier thing is 
 not struggle. It is surrender — and surrender is sin. The sub- 
 stitution of a different economic system will not furnish us 
 with a morality devoid of austerities, hardships, difficult 
 decisions and possibilities of sin. Morality can have no exist- 
 ence save in relation to struggle. Our sins may be removed 
 to another sphere but they will be relatively just as heinous
 
 66 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 and no one will be able to find a balm for our individual 
 culpability. 
 
 What is the good of pretending that our schemes for 
 economic betterment are a panacea for human failings, pain 
 and struggle? The most that we can claim for our cure-alls 
 is that they will help somewhat to surmount the present 
 struggle in some particular and thus place us to carry on with 
 other struggles. 
 
 36. Callousness. 
 
 Callousness is the antithesis of sensitiveness. Nature 
 abhors callousness — so much so, that, as I have intimated 
 elsewhere, absolute callousness or non-sensitiveness does not 
 exist anywhere. 
 
 Callousness, whether in matter or in man, is the concomi- 
 tant of grossness, unresponsiveness, inability to touch the 
 heights either in feeling or in struggle. Therefore it is that 
 one of the most characteristic traits of the criminal is callous- 
 ness. I do not wish to imply by this that persons capable of 
 terrible deeds are necessarily callous. The outstanding deeds 
 of great men were terrible at the time and under the circum- 
 stances under which they were committed; but though they 
 may have had to steel their hearts to the task, these men were 
 pre-eminently sensitive to the nature of their acts, which fact 
 was the credential of their humanity and their greatness. 
 
 37. Vice. 
 
 The vices are those practices, habits or inclinations which 
 weaken our capacity for struggle. The instinct to struggle 
 is so strongly ingrained in human nature, that vice appears 
 to us, not merely as injurious, but also as ugly and vile. At 
 the same time vice does have a certain attraction for us at 
 times because it presents itself in the form of self-indulgence, 
 which is to say, as offering a lower and therefore easier stand- 
 ard of struggle. But although vice does offer a lower and 
 therefore easier standard of struggle, it can offer no satisfac- 
 tion to those who have once known a higher standard. The 
 original impulse to struggle, although defeated, still remains, 
 embittered, crying for expression, often festering like a wound 
 that has been bound too long, but by no means cured; and
 
 STRUGGLE AS MORALITY 67 
 
 there is a difference between pain that festers and putrefies 
 and becomes venomous and the clean and wholesome pain 
 which expresses itself in natural struggle. 
 
 Just as the athlete training to put himself in condition, 
 avoids the injurious regimen, so mankind in its efforts to 
 overcome the obstacles of life, has painstakingly singled out 
 all the health-giving habits of struggle and lovingly given 
 them the name of virtue while to those practices which are 
 detrimental to the highest standard of struggle it has given 
 the name of vice. 
 
 38. The Punishment of Children. 
 
 Inasmuch as we put an artificial barrier of protection 
 around our children in order to protect them from the natural 
 consequences of their acts, it is necessary that they receive 
 some form of punishment when they act in a way that is 
 injurious or dangerous to their interests. Failure to receive 
 some form of punishment when merited tends to give them an 
 incorrect conception of the world, its obstacles and dangers, 
 and renders them helpless against the time when, according 
 to the law of struggle, they have to shift for themselves. 
 
 How, when and who should administer punishment is quite 
 a problem. What is called ^'natural punishment" seems to 
 be a good system to follow. Above all, however, punishment 
 should be suited to the sensitiveness of the child. Where a 
 word or a look is sufficient, it is worse than folly to brutalize 
 it with harsher methods. What a pity that society has not 
 evolved a similar method — punishment graded to the sensi- 
 tiveness of the individual — in dealing with adults ! 
 
 39. Filial Respect. 
 
 The presumption that age brings with it a harvest of 
 scars, battle-experiences and sensitiveness ripened into a 
 measure of broadmindedness and wisdom may not always be 
 justified, but it is well to believe it if we can. In the case of 
 our parents, however, whose struggles have been more or less 
 of an open book to us and whose broadness of heart, if not of 
 mind, was always apparent where our interests were con- 
 cerned, this presumption may well be made by each of us. 
 This, I think, is what is implied in filial respect.
 
 68 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 40. The Growth of Sensitiveness or Civilization. 
 
 The early Judaean Christians, finding life well nigh intol- 
 erable under the bloody sway of the times, confessed that life 
 was not worth while, but placed great emphasis on the life 
 hereafter in which the virtuous and gentle would find their 
 reward. Their eagerness in holding out this future after 
 death was founded principally upon the belief that men were 
 virtuous or sinful according to a calculated appraisement of 
 life's guerdons. It was apparent that life-on-earth was but 
 a sorry reward for a virtuous life, as exemplified by the tyr- 
 anny of Rome over Judaea, the sufferings of the poor and so 
 on. AVhat incentive was there then for keeping faith with the 
 Lord save in a supernal existence? 
 
 They failed to realize that virtue, sensitiveness, humility, 
 gentleness and the like grew quite irresponsibly and in vary- 
 ing degrees from the normal processes of life in the experience 
 of pain and struggle, leavened by time. No man can become 
 kind and merciful through the expectation of reward here or 
 elsewhere, even though he may imagine so. It can only flow 
 from the attainment of ripeness in feeling and sensing, which 
 once acquired, will persist. It is not a matter of choosing so 
 much as of having or acquiring. And in the fullness of time 
 these attributes of virtue — or as the Bible names them, right- 
 eousness — descend upon the world. 
 
 Thus the Hebraic movement among the pagans which 
 resulted in Christianity could not have been possible if the 
 world had not insensibly moved several steps nearer to the 
 degree of sensitiveness attained by the Hebrews to make a 
 marriage of the tAvo elements possible. 
 
 Rome was surfeited with military victories. Greece and 
 the whole Hellenic culture had lost its pristine struggle-interest 
 and ceased to answer the want in the heart of the people. 
 Even among some of the barbarians like the Norwegians, a 
 certain unconscious disdain of the terrors of war had 
 developed latterly, as was evidenced by the fact that embat- 
 tled warriors would hack their own flesh in sight of the enemy 
 in order to show how little awe they had for physical suffering 
 — an evidence that warfare was losing its place in the gamut 
 of struggle even among the uncivilized, and that the world 
 was ripe for another experience.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 STRUGGLE AS STATE-CRAFT 
 
 1. Gregarious Man. 
 
 IF WE are once committed to the Law of Struggle, we can- 
 not think of man save as a gregarious being. Struggle in 
 its higher form has no meaning or significance save as it 
 effects other human beings. Low standards of struggle, such 
 as are known to those animals whose only striving is to keep 
 alive, are not compatible with the standards of struggle neces- 
 sarily evolved by the highly gregarious state of human society. 
 It is by contact with others that lofty standards of struggle 
 are evolved. It is largely on this account that highly sensitive, 
 aggressive natures seek out the press of men, the populous 
 centers, for a foil to their struggle. 
 
 All experiments to prove that man can live and flourish in 
 a state of isolation have proven that it is impossible to do so. 
 Such a state would only be productive of stunted growths or 
 the sickliness of spirit that passes for mysticism. 
 
 A well-known American writer who lived in the solitude 
 of a forest for two years, imagined he had proven that civilized 
 man can live and thrive non-gregariously. He ruined his 
 argument, however, by returning to civilized life and, still 
 worse, by writing books about his experiences. We are apt 
 to forget that the gregarious habit probably developed as a 
 necessity of struggle and is of incalculable value to the human 
 race. 
 
 Occasional solitude, even years of solitude, may prove 
 very stimulating, just as contact with the life of the large 
 metropolis is stimulating. But this is beside the question. 
 
 A great many of our most important struggle-values can 
 have no existence save against the background of the grega- 
 rious state. Such, for example, are justice, generosity, 
 honesty, charity, etc. These could hardly have been developed 
 save through struggle in the gregarious state. 
 
 69
 
 70 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 The gregarious habit of mind often lies heavy upon us 
 and serves as a check upon the freedom of our movements. 
 We fear to be alone spiritually as well as physically. 
 Every leader, every iconoclast has to look back now 
 and then to reassure himself that the rest of humanity 
 are not far behind or will soon be joined with him. 
 For if they do not come up sooner or later, whence shall he 
 draw comfort or assurance of victory in his struggles? For 
 this reason, only the strong resolute spirits can embark in new 
 movements and even they count on the ultimate accession of 
 numbers on a more intimate basis than ever. 
 
 Since man is necessarily a gregarious entity and must 
 perforce partake of the benefits of gregarious existence, the 
 individual cannot be absolved from a measure of responsibility 
 for the well-being of his fellows. On the other hand, the natu- 
 ral and perfectly legitimate propensity of every individual to 
 struggle to the utmost limit of his powers makes him unwill- 
 ing to be delimited by the petty capacities of the weak and 
 backward. This complicates the problem of political as well 
 as economic concordance. 
 
 2. What Makes a Nation. 
 
 A nation is a people having a common experience in pain 
 from which they collectively re-act or struggle. The degree 
 of their national distinctiveness is bound to be in proportion 
 to the intensity of their collective experience. A nationality 
 is not destroyed as long as it manifests any form of collective 
 struggle against extinction. 
 
 3. Government and State. 
 
 The State is the medium through which the people at 
 large or nation has pooled its power for collective struggle. 
 Technically, the Government is only the executive power of 
 the State. 
 
 4. The Functions of the State. 
 
 Now the functions of the State, acting through the Gov- 
 ernment, are several, such as :
 
 STRUGGLE AS STATE-CRAFT 71 
 
 (a) Providing its citizens with means of protection from 
 the aggressions of other nations. 
 
 (b) Increasing the possibilities of struggle for all. 
 
 (c) Preventing the strong from enslaving or destroying 
 the weak, through the modification of existing stand- 
 ards of struggle. 
 
 (d) Increasing the possibilities of struggle through the 
 creation and maintenance of public facilities. 
 
 (e) Enforcing the observance of standards of struggle 
 attained. 
 
 5. The Origin of Government. 
 
 Government, as the anarchist holds, constitutes a form of 
 organized restriction of the liberties which might otherwise 
 be enjoyed by individuals. Nevertheless, not even the worst 
 of governments exist b}^ usurpation, but because they grew out 
 of the hard need of the people for collective action. The 
 anarchist who believes that government is unnecessary be- 
 cause every man can act for himself or by means of a loose 
 communal organization which need only be assembled when 
 concerted action is indispensable and not otherwise, forgets 
 that that was how government originated. In the early begin- 
 nings, when the need for collective action was infrequent and 
 there was little community of interest with reference to any- 
 thing except, perhaps, defense against or attack of a casual 
 common enemy, government was only occasional. Under such 
 conditions, it did not seem necessary to institutionalize Gov- 
 ernment in the forms of the State to guard the common 
 interests of individuals. 
 
 In the course of time, however, it was felt more and 
 more that such interests as were common to all could profitably 
 be left in charge of one man or King, acting with or without 
 advisers, who was chosen for his ability in determining those 
 issues and in taking such precautionary measures as every 
 individual would have to do for himself without the special 
 knowledge, skill, power and sense of responsibility for the 
 well-being of others that might be expected of the Governing 
 Power or King. Government originated therefore as a trustee- 
 ship for the benefit of the people at large. Individuals might
 
 72 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 usurp the Government or turn its responsibilities into abuses 
 but this does not change the nature of Government nor elimi- 
 nate its uses. It might even degenerate into a tyranny, still 
 its uses as the Government of the people would outweigh its 
 abuses; and this is the secret of the power of all forms of 
 despotisms. Where the abuses of Government patently out- 
 weigh its uses, it lapses again into a state of anarchy, and 
 the probabilities are strong that the head or heads will not 
 long remain the seat of power but will be swept along in the 
 maelstrom of destruction. Abuse of Government, therefore, 
 destroys itself. 
 
 Government, then, is really a means of extending indi- 
 vidual struggle. To be sure, it involves the individual in 
 restrictions. But in this respect it is not different than the 
 checks which every man puts upon himself in order to retain 
 his health, say, and get the most out of his powers; the regi- 
 men of the athlete training for a great test of his powers. In 
 short, government theoretically extends the individual's 
 struggle by organizing, economizing and helping to protect 
 him in such of his relations or activities as are susceptible of 
 mass treatment. 
 
 6. Political Liberty. 
 
 To decry government because it limits our liberties is 
 not consistent if we are desirous of its benefits. There is no 
 absolute liberty in the sense of being entirely free from obli- 
 gations contingent upon our actions. The minute we act at all, 
 we are at once unconsciously involved in a whole chain of 
 consequences and inhibitions for which we become responsi- 
 ble both to ourselves and to others. What does the word 
 Liberty mean then ? It really does not mean anything, unless 
 it means liberty to struggle; and this is what Government 
 helps us to further. Viewed from this angle. Government does 
 not deprive us of liberty but extends its possibilities. We 
 cannot escape this conclusion if we bear in mind that the word 
 ''liberty" is really another word, an approximation, a euphe- 
 mism for ''opportunity to struggle." Whatever extends our 
 opportunities to struggle extends our liberties; whatever 
 limits our opportunities to struggle, abbreviates our liberties.
 
 STRUGGLE AS STATE-CRAFT 73 
 
 This is why men will stake all, will give up life itself, in 
 furtherance of the liberty to struggle. But it cannot be said 
 that a government existing by the will of the people and 
 operating to organize and protect the people in its most 
 essential functions, is inconsistent with liberty. On the con- 
 trary. Government is a necessity born of the will of the people 
 for the maximum of liberty to struggle for all. It is true- 
 however, that Government also operates, through its laws or 
 edicts, to curtail liberty by raising the standard of struggle 
 and enforcing it, although all are not prepared for it. 
 
 7. Genesis of a Mining Camp. 
 
 To those who are accustomed to think of Struggle in 
 terms of fisticuffs and the sword, the assertion that Govern- 
 ment is born of the Will to Struggle will sound like a paradox. 
 I shall perhaps be asked, How can you deny that there is more 
 struggle in one day of life in a small mining-camp than in a 
 week of life in one of your large, well-governed cities? But 
 let us study the genesis of the ''wild and wooly" mining-camp 
 and see for ourselves. 
 
 The fact of the matter is that in the beginning of the 
 history of the mining-camp, practically none of the prospectors 
 has anything. This, coupled with the fact that no standard of 
 struggle has been attained as yet, leads to the feeling of reck- 
 lessness and insecurity; recklessness, because the prospector 
 has as yet nothing to lose save his life, which, as I have 
 already shown, is not as important as struggle; insecurity, 
 because the feeling of recklessness is in the air and there is 
 no settled standard of struggle upon which anybody can rely. 
 
 Some years pass. Conditions have changed. Standards 
 of struggle have been evolved. Various and sundry of the 
 new-comers have amassed fortunes or have acquired various 
 means of livelihood and profit. The prospector now has 
 something to lose. He wishes to safeguard his possessions, 
 the fruits of his struggle. Nor does he wish to risk his life 
 so readily. There is no necessity for it and life has become 
 worth while. His struggle henceforth becomes more subtle, 
 occupies a longer frontage, entails a more complicated attack 
 and defense. Laws are promulgated expressive of new stand-
 
 74 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 ards of struggle. New-comers are compelled to subscribe 
 to them. Functionaries are vested with power to enforce 
 them. The mining-camp has undeniably reformed and become 
 '* better" — by extending its struggle through Government. 
 The petty form of struggle involved in thievery, murder and 
 violence gives way to the almost intangible struggles of 
 industrial aggression, the battle for franchises, political 
 forays, etc. What has come over the mining-camp? Has it 
 reformed? Has its struggle diminished ? 
 
 8. Foundations of Aristocracy. 
 
 Aristocracies spring out of the need of a nation for extra- 
 ordinary service. In such circumstances, the ablest and most 
 aggressive will establish themselves with specially acquired 
 prerogatives or will be established by the state. 
 
 That part of the population which answers best to the 
 national need in any struggle is in line for such ennoblement. 
 This ennoblement may take the form of enrollment in the 
 vested aristocracy of the country upon a hereditary basis or 
 it may take the form of a more personal distinction, depending 
 upon the traditions of the country in question. To deserve 
 this distinction, however, the efforts of the aspirant must have 
 been in line with the recognized need of the nation. On this 
 account, it sometimes happens that the class most singled out 
 for distinction by one nation happens to be most despised in 
 another. 
 
 Take, for example, the Chinese. Many are accustomed to 
 think of them as effete, timid, unreliable. Nothing can be 
 further from the truth. The fact is the great body of the 
 Chinese people have been at peace for many centuries. They 
 have been a merchant people. Consequently there has been 
 no necessity for the growth of a military nobility. The strug- 
 gle of the nation in the latter centuries flowed along what we 
 would call peaceful channels. Under the sway of peace, there 
 was no need for the soldier. The latter was therefore despised. 
 The merchant and civil officer or mandarin attained to distinc- 
 tion and nobility. The best practices and traditions centered 
 among them while the soldiery were held in contempt. 
 
 During the same period the Japanese, on the other hand.
 
 STRUGGLE AS STATE-CRAFT 75 
 
 were constantly at war, civilly and externally. The national 
 necessity could best be served only by those adept at fighting. 
 The country was rife with conflict. Naturally, only that part 
 of the population attaining distinction in war became estab- 
 lished as the nobility of the nation. A true Samurai accounted 
 it unworthy to even know the value of a coin. Trade and 
 industry was relegated to the base and ignoble and, in the 
 natural order of things, fell into disrepute. 
 
 Aristocracies grow out of the hard necessity of the nation, 
 The center of struggle changes in different periods during the 
 life of a nation and begets aristocracies of a corresponding 
 type. Thus, for example, even among an expatriated nation 
 like the Jews, the institution of aristocracy was not absent. 
 The class that attained to this distinction during the earlier 
 days of the dispersion was the rabbi or teacher-class. 
 
 The rabbis of those days were not merely theologians. 
 They were also the political leaders of the people. Realizing 
 that survival by a race in dispersion could only be achieved 
 through intellectual discipline, they sedulously maintained 
 the ethnic distinctiveness of the Jews by keeping fresh their 
 peculiar laws, customs and traditions and renewing their 
 national hopes in one guise or another. The Rabbis thus 
 came to be regarded as the fighting vanguard of the nation. 
 They were the ruling aristocracy of Israel in exile. All that 
 concerned the nation passed through their hands. It was 
 they who taught that the ignorant in the Jewish national 
 crisis was as reprehensible as the traitor. It was they who 
 studied, intensified and refined the racial potentialities of the 
 people to the end that the separatist tendency present in the 
 Jews should not be overwhelmed by the disintegrating pres- 
 sure of the whole alien world. It was they who changed the 
 tactics of the headstrong Hebrews of the times of Josephus 
 into the patient shrug, the smile of long-suffering, which 
 became the badge of the truly resistant Jew of the middle ages. 
 The Rabbinite was cherished by the mass of the Jews as the 
 pinnacle of attainment and, indeed, in many communities they 
 had, up to very recent times, absolute civil as well as religious 
 authority. 
 
 In our time, up to the recrudescence of the war spirit of 
 which we are witness, aristocracies were being recruited from
 
 76 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 among those who distinguished themselves in the other 
 forms of struggle with which the world is rife such as science, 
 commerce, industry, art. As the world grows in experience, 
 the vital importance of attaining proficiency in these forms 
 of struggle becomes more and more apparent to all nations. 
 It has become apparent that wars are not decided on military 
 fields of battles only but that the onset penetrates into the 
 whole life and past of the nation. 
 
 Aristocracies by descent are under the odium of being 
 unmerited. To be sure, aristocracies are often so constituted 
 that they survive the service which begot them, but this 
 cannot and should not impugn the original title to their 
 patents of nobility, even though the standard of struggle by 
 which they were attained has long changed. Nor should we 
 harbor the delusion that democracies do not permit of aris- 
 tocracies. Aristocracies may be recruited from among great 
 democrats just as from others who have signalized themselves 
 by distinction in struggle. All that a democracy can do is 
 to provide for one standard of struggle for all under the law. 
 But persons being born unequal, everything else is unequal. 
 Democracies will allow these inequalities to assert themselves 
 freely and in this way, cultivate an interesting and varied 
 aristocracy of its own for those that have eyes to discern it. 
 Democracies will allow inequalities to assert themselves 
 freely — this is of the very nature of democracy — but they 
 will intervene where the inequality in question leads to an 
 abuse or violation of the common standard of struggle to 
 the permanent detriment of the unequal. Hereditary aristoc- 
 racies, as a rule, are not conducive to the rearing of the most 
 self-reliant proletariat; they lead to the growth of a class 
 often notable for its sense of public responsibility, it is true, 
 but having a tendency to supplant the sense of respon- 
 sibility in the plain people; whereas a democracy, if it stands 
 for anything, stands for universal responsibility. 
 
 9. Despotisms and Democracies. 
 
 If we only applied the test of utilitarianism to govern- 
 mental systems, I strongly suspect that we would have to 
 yield the palm to the despotic form of government. All
 
 STRUGGLE AS STATE-CRAFT 77 
 
 political despotisms are fundamentally *' benevolent despot- 
 isms." The exceptions are simply abortions and do not dis- 
 prove the rule. Despotisms are admirably suited to the 
 handling of large masses. It may be that the subjects of a 
 despotism do not have the individual sense of universal respon- 
 sibility ascribed to citizens of a democracy, but on the other 
 hand, there is a certain assurance of limited responsibility 
 from which there is no escape. This, coupled with the docility 
 to authority enforced by despotisms, makes a greater mobility 
 possible in the employment of masses. 
 
 With the growth of sensitiveness, however, the world has 
 half consciously groped its way to the position that human 
 worth is not wholly expressed in employment; nor is efficiency 
 under all conditions the sum of life. A measure of reverence 
 is due human sensitiveness. And so democracy was born. 
 
 Democracy in a state means universal responsibility. A 
 democratic government means one that is founded upon a 
 universal or general sense of responsibility for the welfare 
 of the state. Strictly speaking, a democracy cannot exist 
 simply by the passive consent of the governed. A democracy 
 exists by the active will of the governed, not by mere suffer- 
 ance. That is why a democracy is the most difficult form of 
 government to maintain and the last to be evolved successfully. 
 A democracy cannot be had simply for the asking. There must 
 be an active and continuous demand for it and an unweary 
 vigilance in its maintenance. Otherwise, it is bound to relapse 
 into anarchy, dictatorship or plutocracy. 
 
 In Russia, for example, until recently, we had an instance 
 of government by the consent of the governed, in the passive 
 sense. The consent was there, otherwise the government 
 could not have existed at all. But there was no general respon- 
 sibility for well-being. The responsibility was not in the 
 mass but in a few. It makes all the difference in the world 
 whether a government is founded upon apathy resident in 
 the Russian peasant or the challenging interest of the Ameri- 
 can proletariat. From the nature of things each must have a 
 government representing what he is. Slaves cannot have free 
 government. Freemen cannot be governed upon terms of 
 slavery. In other words, it is the sensitiveness to their condi-
 
 78 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 tion as a mass which is the deciding element as to the degree 
 of democracy which they can attain. 
 
 10. What Is a Democracy? 
 
 A kingship does not necessarily preclude a democracy; 
 but it militates against the democratic condition. For, as the 
 old prophet Samuel pointed out when the Hebrews asked him 
 to choose a king for them: ''He will take your sons and appoint 
 them unto him, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and 
 they shall run before his chariots; and he will appoint them 
 unto him for captains of thousands and captains of fifties; 
 and he will set some to plow his ground, ' ' etc. 
 
 In other words, a king must have his entourage, and the 
 army of the people may become his personal or dynastic body- 
 guard. Both king and court, in default of popular endorse- 
 ment and support, naturally resort to the weapons with which 
 they are entrusted to maintain themselves in their difficult 
 and dangerous position. Nor does the evil stop there. The 
 people at large, if they do not revolt, soon learn that the 
 real power does not proceed from them and with this con- 
 sciousness in them, they lose their sense of responsibility for 
 the well-being of the state which is the very crux of democ- 
 racy. They school themselves to lean upon those in power 
 for the solution of all questions and to this extent become 
 indifferent citizens, lacking in virility and aggressiveness, and 
 undermining the vitality of the state. 
 
 But it is better not to be too dogmatic about it. There 
 have been, and still are, kings as heads of democracies. And 
 there have been so-called democracies in which there has been 
 more puffed up pride, callousness, slavery and corrup- 
 tion than in many an unassuming little monarchy. Nay, 
 there have been monarchies in which there has been the 
 true spirit of democracy — in which the people were conscious 
 of their failings and their responsibilities, while there have 
 been so-called democracies that bragged and bragged eter- 
 nally and yet lived by force and fraud and relished it withal. 
 Governmental forms are important in maintaining a democ- 
 racy, but a sensitive responsibility as expressed in the life of 
 a people are more important. Contempt of kings and self- 
 indulgence do not make democracy.
 
 STRUGGLE AS STATE-CRAFT 79 
 
 Despite the outward trappings of republicanism and 
 democracy, when individual families are able, in the language 
 of Isaiah, to "join house to house and field to field until they 
 are left alone within the land," and build up great estates 
 upon which, through economic pressure, they can force the 
 great body of free citizens to labor for subsistence, when the 
 mass of the people toil without ownership or title, when 
 extreme opulence goes with extreme poverty and callousness 
 with misery, then, no matter what we may call the government 
 under which this takes place, it is no longer a democracy; 
 and, from the very nature of things, there is not and cannot 
 be justice in it, nor attachment by the people at large to 
 the soil of that land nor individual responsibility for the well- 
 being of the state ; and the nation must become enfeebled, and 
 its democracy a mere shell without content. 
 
 Whenever this disparity takes place in a democracy, the 
 only possible healthy reaction is to so modify the common 
 standard of struggle as to place a greater burden of struggle 
 upon the rich and in so doing increase the possibilities of 
 struggle for the poor. This is the only way of salvation for 
 the state as a whole, or, as the Bible has it, "These are the 
 laws by which ye shall live and not die!" 
 
 There can be no universal responsibility in the political 
 sense without sensitiveness that is universal. The degree 
 of democracy obtaining in any country, irrespective of its 
 political forms and catch-words, must be dependent upon the 
 degree of sensitiveness evolved therein. It is correct, there- 
 fore, to consider democracy as the highest expression and 
 indication of civilization. For what is civilization save sensi- 
 tiveness? A nation is civilized or uncivilized in proportion 
 to its sensitiveness to pain. 
 
 Generally, sensitiveness to pain goes hand in hand with 
 sensitiveness to all phenomena including what we call inani- 
 mate life and the intricate forces of nature as expressed in 
 science. But the latter is not the indispensable prerequisite 
 of the state of civilization. Even though the cannibal is noto- 
 riously ignorant of the science of physics and chemistry (as 
 many of us are) it is not because of this that he is adjudged 
 uncivilized. So a nation may be ever so proficient in the 
 technique of art, science and industry and not be as civilized
 
 80 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 as a simple little shepherd folk with its one emphasis upon the 
 dignity of human worth. This truth is not always understood 
 but it is universally felt: Witness the predominant emphasis 
 by all belligerents in the Great War, over and above all 
 attributes of proficiency, upon the humanity or lack of 
 humanity in the one or the other! This, indeed, is the one 
 test of the message of civilization which each of the bellig- 
 erents professes to bring; and it is by this that each will be 
 judged; and by this, also, as to the degree of democracy 
 evolved by each. 
 
 There is an impression in wide circles in this country 
 that democracy means the gratification of the greatest num- 
 ber. Hence, when in a given community a party of reform 
 is ousted from office by a landslide of reactionary votes, our 
 reforming brethren feel that they have no leg left to stand on. 
 Apparently, the democracy has elected to revert to lower 
 standards. But, as I take it, democracy is not merely synony- 
 mous with numbers. Democracy stands for numbers in the 
 attitude of striving upward. It is not constituted by majori- 
 ties in the key of indifference or retrogression but in respon- 
 sibility and progress. As we cannot be trusted, however, to 
 weigh votes but only to count them, we must continue to do 
 the best we can with the approximations afforded by numbers, 
 unreliable as they often prove to be. One advantage we still 
 have — that victory gravitates to the most sensitive. But this 
 implies that democracy can only be had at the price of eternal 
 sensitiveness. 
 
 11. The Socialist "State." 
 
 As yet, the socialist state is only a state of mind. Li 
 fact, the whole socialist program is in a state of flux and 
 varies in different countries and periods. It may almost be 
 said that every socialist has a different conception of the 
 implications of the socialist state. Historically, socialism 
 has been interpreted by its exponents as communism, collec- 
 tivism, nationalism, social democracy, monarchic socialism, 
 anarchism, radicalism, state ownership, Bolshevism, cosmo- 
 politanism, and simply Socialism as a Principle of Action, 
 whatever that means. There was a time when it threatened to
 
 STRUGGLE AS STATE-CRAFT 81 
 
 become an exact science. This was during the period of Karl 
 Marx. The latter imagined that he had rescued it from Utopi- 
 an ism. Having failed of conforming to scientific formula, 
 socialism became a form of opportunism with a trend toward 
 an economic system upon which there is yet no common agree- 
 ment among socialists. Socialism does have a distinct tend- 
 ency or direction, however. That tendency or direction is 
 toward the improvement of conditions for the laborer and the 
 increase of wages. 
 
 Hence, the socialist conception is not really of a state 
 but a negation of the present state. It is a criticism. As such 
 it is often of practical value, depending upon circumstances, 
 but its chief service is in the direction of increasing sensitive- 
 ness to the yearnings of the working class. 
 
 Unfortunately, however, in the popular mind, socialism 
 cannot be detached from the philosophy of utopianism in 
 which it was cradled. A utopia, by the way, is a state in 
 which achievement may be had without pain or struggle. 
 The Utopian element in socialism lies in the assumption that 
 the happiness of mankind is based upon economic causes and 
 that economic mal-adjustment is at the root of whatever pain 
 there is in the world; that we do not live in order to struggle, 
 but struggle in order to live; and, therefore, that the assur- 
 ance of an easy livelihood is the antidote to human pain, and 
 is realizable thru socialism. 
 
 One would imagine that the socialist, because of this 
 materialistic reading of the scheme of things, would be an 
 avaricious, money grubbing sort of a fellow who spends his 
 days and nights amassing wealth. Actually, however, he is 
 apt to spend his time and his substance trying to educate the 
 masses to their best economic interests and, in the doing, 
 to invite trouble with the propertied classes and the police, 
 to his own economic loss, all unaware of his inconsistency on 
 his main proposition. But, although inconsistent on the main 
 proposition, he will try to be devilishly consistent in collateral 
 matters. Thus, our bred-in-the-bone socialist is at war with 
 religion because he will have no other ideal capable of sup- 
 planting socialism in the imaginings of the proletariat. He 
 is no respecter of marriage ties because it is inaccessible to
 
 82 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 the economic formula and disproves the sufficiency of it. He 
 spurns patriotism for the same reason. 
 
 In short, socialism today is not merely an economic 
 remedy as originally advanced, but a philosophy of life 
 closely akin to a religious cult, like the Hindue Suttee, in which 
 all other values are treated as non-existent or subordinate, to 
 be cast upon the flames of economic sufficiency or socialism. 
 
 Chief among the sacrifices upon the funeral pyre of social- 
 ism is nationalism. From the socialist point of view national- 
 ism has no valid existence and this, despite the whole course 
 of human development and this Great War which is pre- 
 eminently a war of racial aspirations. Socialism has become 
 so enmeshed and tangled in the terminology of its argumen- 
 tation, that curiously enough, on the question of nationalism, 
 socialism has lost its character as a movement of protest 
 against oppression, has assumed an attitude of indifference, 
 and upon occasion, as in Russia, has even played the tyrant 
 with the fates of peoples. 
 
 As a practical measure, socialism is not nearly as danger- 
 ous as it seems because, whatever its doctrines, in practice it 
 must march with the normal requirements of human beings, 
 and, insofar as it is not practical, can have no existence. Inso- 
 far as it has elements of helpfulness, it is bound to be absorbed 
 in the progress of the world. 
 
 Socialism becomes a national menace only in its attitude 
 of separatism. German socialism never had that character. 
 The famous Erfuhrt Program, for example, was not merely an 
 economic declaration, but a German national manifesto, aim- 
 ing, among other things, to enfranchise the German proletariat 
 by universal, equal and secret ballot, which it did not then 
 and still does not possess; to obtain the right of self-govern- 
 ment; to obtain the right of free utterance; woman suffrage; 
 secularization of education; compulsory education at public 
 expense; judicial reforms; a graduated income tax; labor laws, 
 embodying the fixing of a normal working day; prohibition of 
 child labor under a certain age, legal equality of classes of 
 labor as between each other, sanitary working conditions, con- 
 firmation of the rights of association, industrial insurance, 
 etc. All these demands aimed at the reform of local abuses 
 in Germany, the grandoise preamble of the manifesto not-
 
 STRUGGLE AS STATE-CRAFT 83 
 
 withstanding, and were thoroughly German in character. 
 German socialism has since become even more national, if 
 anything. The cosmopolitanism of some of its denationalized 
 Jewish projectors has long since given way to a hardly dis- 
 cernible internationalism. 
 
 It is only socialism outside of Germany that conceives 
 itself at war with national evaluation. 
 
 In normal times, one may laugh at the denationalizing 
 tendency in socialism because such a tendency runs counter 
 to the eternal constitution of humanity. But in times of inter- 
 national crisis, the separatist, anti-national character of soci- 
 alism, as well as its opportunism, constitute a source of danger 
 and, if not checked, may result in national disaster. 
 
 Despite the mass of evidence patently indicating, as it 
 seems to me, that socialism is but a very shallow reading of 
 the motivity of human existence, it is clear that socialists 
 everywhere are under the impression that this war will usher 
 the socialist state into being — an impression that is gaining 
 ground everywhere, due to the fact that the belligerent govern- 
 ments have seized many public and private utilities, are exer- 
 cising control over them, and are regulating prices. But, as I 
 will try to prove in the next chapter, whatever economic 
 advantages are derived from these measures are not attribu- 
 table to the approximation to the so-called socialist state, but 
 to the advantages of the rule of monopoly under state control.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 THE ECONOMIC STRUGGLE 
 1. Struggle as an Economic Factor. 
 
 THE economist habitually sees all struggle as an evil 
 springing out of * * the strife for the economic necessities 
 of life." He traces the red herring of economic want 
 through all the pages of history. He hints that even the semi- 
 mythical war of the Greeks and Trojans had the same origin; 
 that the wars of the Romans, the migrations of the races of 
 Western Europe, the crusades of the Middle Ages, the Ameri- 
 can Revolution and, of course, the Great War of to-day, are 
 born of extreme economic necessity or pressure. To the same 
 cause he attributes practically all human ailments and Pain 
 itself. 
 
 Now our knowledge of that human nature which partakes 
 of universal pain and struggle, should teach us, that although 
 economic want may have been the moving cause in one or 
 more of the great changes in history, it need not necessarily 
 have been the cause. The unrest in peoples leading to wars, 
 invasions and changed domiciles, develops in the fullness of 
 time and is born of the yearnings present in all that know 
 pain, just as the country-boy, though sure of his three square 
 meals on the farm, may run off to try the hazards of the city. 
 Does he flee from economic necessity? Does the prophet 
 preach from economic motives'? If so, what is his economic 
 gain? Does the eloping couple flee from economic motives? 
 Does the Indian, chanting his death-hymn at the stake? 
 
 Doubtless there are innumerable instances in the world 
 from time immemorial of conflicts carried on apparently for 
 no other object than some economic gain. But on the other 
 hand, what of the obstinate struggles that are born, appar- 
 ently, of sheer rivalry, of reaction against any form of estab- 
 lished pre-eminence, of complete sacrifice of the present, strug- 
 gles of faith, struggles for the vindication of ideas, the pain 
 
 84
 
 THE ECONOMIC STRUGGLE 85 
 
 and struggle of love, of aggrandizement, the struggle for 
 fame and so on? 
 
 There is such a thing as a struggle for economic better- 
 ment, to be sure. But ere the struggle for economic better- 
 ment came the consciousness of pain and the will to struggle 
 — sometimes for economic betterment, sometimes for some- 
 thing entirely different. In short. Struggle does not exist 
 because of the need for economic betterment but, on the con- 
 trary, the striving for economic betterment results from the 
 existence of the impulse to struggle. Something of the bitter- 
 ness of struggle in the economic field would evaporate, if it 
 was more generally known and felt that we do not struggle in 
 order to live but live in order to struggle. Where Struggle 
 has reached such a low ebb that it is maintained literally in 
 order to live, it is time for the State to intervene because its 
 interests are in jeopardy; for it cannot afford to allow the 
 strong to destroy the weak or to permanently stand in the 
 way of the weak. Struggle does not mean destruction or per- 
 manent obstruction. It means a certain equilibrium of forces 
 favorable to the development of strong characters anywhere 
 and everywhere. Struggle means struggle — not domination. 
 
 Capital recognizes the test of Struggle and points to the 
 fact that its strongest exemplars have risen from the ranks 
 and, in any case, have their origin in distinguished struggle. 
 Labor recognizes the principal of Struggle, for it predicates 
 its demands upon a foundation of value given which is another 
 word for struggle. It therefore behooves us to weigh the 
 demands of both sides in the light of the common standard 
 of struggle obtaining to-day and judge wherein it falls below 
 the standard of struggle or wherein the standard of struggle 
 is no longer equitable to either side and should be modified. 
 The substitution of the economic principle as the cause of 
 struggle introduces a sinister motivity into human affairs 
 which only embitters and befogs the whole consideration of 
 the subject. 
 
 The fashion to find economic motives for everything has 
 become so prevalent that they are assiduously dug up and 
 established as the deux machina even in such instances where 
 the economic condition at the time was by no means acute. For 
 example, we are even told that our own Civil War was due
 
 86 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 to economic conflicts of interest, regardless of the fact that if 
 the South had not attempted to secede the war would not 
 have taken place. Through the introduction of slavery two 
 hostile points of view, born of conflicting traditions — the 
 Puritan and the Cavalier — came into sharp antagonism until 
 it seemed that each side was trying to dominate the way-of- 
 life of the other. Neither would give way, and the South 
 therefore chose to secede. But secession meant that there- 
 after the nation was to be impaired in its collective capacity 
 to struggle. Therefore war became inevitable. The economic 
 gain to the North was not an issue during the war and cannot 
 therefore be made an issue after the war. 
 
 The American Revolution was distinctly a struggle for 
 Struggle's sake — a struggle against tyranny. The cause of 
 the Erench Revolution was not essentially different, although 
 economic abuses had much to do with it. The rallying cry 
 of the populace. Liberty, Fraternity, Equality, does not nec- 
 essarily pivot around economic considerations. It is true 
 that economic conditions for the poor of France was very bad, 
 but it was not the hungry that brought on the revolution. 
 It was brought on by those who thought, by those who, 
 whether hungry or not, realized that the channels for the 
 opportunity to struggle — sometimes called Liberty — had been 
 gutted, and proceeded to enlist the economically disaffected. 
 
 One who is actuated by the wish for his economic better- 
 ment does not attempt to alleviate his condition through the 
 far-fetched method of national revolt. On the contrary, he 
 proceeds to amass a fortune. The agitator who spends his 
 days and nights demonstrating that the economic principle is 
 paramount, is belied by his own actions. The logical thing 
 for him to do would be to abandon his profitless propaganda 
 and follow in the foot-steps of the Rothschilds, the Rocke- 
 fellers and the Morgans of the world. The fact that he does 
 not do this shows that the actuating principle in the world 
 is not quite what he professes. As a matter of fact, revolu- 
 tions are not engendered by the economically disaffected, the 
 proletariat, but by part of the upper classes moving against 
 the other part. 
 
 The history of the world shows repeated instances of 
 struggles disassociated from economic causes. The Crusades
 
 THE ECONOMIC STRUGGLE 87 
 
 is one, notwithstanding that the contact of races brought in its 
 wake an increase of trade with the Orient. Another note- 
 worthy example is shown by the Jews, a people supposed to 
 be keenly alive to economic advantage, who have withstood 
 the pressure of the world for two thousand years under the 
 most harrowing conditions, although they might have enjoyed 
 every economic advantage if they had been willing to suscribe 
 to principles in no wise injurious economically. 
 
 Doubtless, I shall be told that the present World- War is 
 a clear instance of a great historical event brought on by 
 economic causes. Nothing is further from the truth, however. 
 K labor as labor has no cause to seek war, neither has capital. 
 The life of any mercantile or industrial enterprise depends 
 upon continual turnover. Interruption in turnover is imme- 
 diately fatal, as a rule. Inasmuch as the first effect of war 
 is to threaten the turnover of capital in most enterprises, war 
 is regarded as a destructive visitation. Some enterprises are 
 wiped out, some are crippled and some, it is true, are strength- 
 ened. But on the whole, war comes as a disturbing, if not 
 destructive element, dislocating business from its normal 
 channels of expression or struggle and threatening universal 
 bankruptcy with few exceptions. Certainly, there is a period 
 of readjustment, followed by excessive profits in many lines 
 but few enterprises are in a position to court the period of 
 readjustment involving, as it does, an interruption in the 
 turnover caused by the loss of spheres of import and export, 
 the increased cost of labor, the falling off in demand for non- 
 essentials, etc. 
 
 Capital will go far to create markets but it will not inter- 
 rupt its normal processes to do so, because it has to reckon 
 with the present. The cause of the war must be looked for 
 in other directions. The War is a war for ethnic preponder- 
 ance in which economic factors are employed as weapons of 
 offense and defense as they were before the War. If economic 
 considerations were the sole considerations there would be 
 no war at all. It is the aim of each nation for ethnic prepon- 
 derance which complicates the economic problem and makes 
 it a subordinate consideration, just as the longing of each 
 individual for individual preponderance complicates the solu-
 
 88 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 tion of labor problems. But I will treat of the "War more fully 
 in the succeeding chapter. 
 
 The economic factors in our daily life loom large because 
 they are so common, so tangible and so important, all together. 
 But economic factors are not the cause of human struggle. 
 They form a large part of struggle, it is true, but as the 
 consequence of the impulse to struggle, not as the basic cause 
 thereof. 
 
 2. The Spirit of Acquisition. 
 
 Capital frequently makes complaint that its beneficial 
 character is overlooked. Unfortunately, capital does not 
 address itself to the task of creating benefits but solely to 
 acquisition. Under the circumstances, it is natural for Labor 
 to follow the same line of interest and, instead of seeking its 
 reward in the work created by it irrespective of financial gain, 
 fights for the maximum return obtainable. This is quite in 
 accord with the Law of Struggle and capital need not be 
 surprised thereat, even if it had allowed labor a wage liberal 
 instead of niggardly. 
 
 On the other hand, it is idle for labor to pretend that 
 all it desires is a living wage. It demands the living wage 
 when that is denied but it does not stop there. The fact is 
 that in a world in which achievement in struggle is measured 
 by the acquisition of property, few can resist the longing to 
 acquire. Acquisition, in fact, has become an incident and the 
 final seal of success in struggle. It is this that makes the 
 solution of the economic question so difficult. We are in con- 
 flict with the aims and ideals of human struggle which have 
 not yet risen above the thirst for gain, which, in turn, is 
 augmented by the prestige of acquisition and the relative inse- 
 curity of our economic condition— a consciousness that never 
 escapes us. 
 
 The aims and ideals of human struggle are not perma- 
 nently committed, however, to the striving for wealth. The 
 world offers numerous instances of individuals and masses of 
 men who have risen above the exclusive struggle for the 
 world's goods and devoted themselves to other ambitions.
 
 THE ECONOMIC STRUGGLE 89 
 
 The possibilities of human struggle in this respect are 
 measureless. 
 
 Witness this tremendous Race-War which has drawn 
 millions of men into the trenches, men who have the full 
 realization that, although their children may profit by the 
 sacrifice, they themselves in all likelihood will enter the way 
 of death. Could there be any better proof that the craving 
 for economic gain is not the basis of Struggle? 
 
 But since the world as a whole requires the stimulas of 
 tangible gain in order to extend its efforts to struggle to the 
 utmost, it would be premature to force it to create or amass 
 without possessing, to struggle without the illusion of con- 
 crete gain. All that the State can do at present is to check 
 the strugglers for economic advantage from destroying each 
 other, by forcing standards of struggle upon them. 
 
 Some day, however, it may become manifest to the world 
 that acquisition of economic values is an illusion of Struggle, 
 not a necessity. All the world's pictures, statues, books, 
 houses, devices, etc., are little in themselves but only as show- 
 ing that a degree of Struggle has been attained. What is the 
 recompense of the boy who wins a race? Nothing but the 
 exultation of successful struggle. It is not different with the 
 multi-millionaire who gives up his art-treasures to the public 
 after years of costly and painstaking selection. Nor is it 
 different with the creator of any work. It is not the thing 
 itself that is of prime value to the creator — though it may 
 have value — but as a symbol of achievement by struggle. 
 Possession, then, and least of all, physical possession, is not 
 a necessity of Struggle, save as a confirmation of achievement 
 in Struggle. To strong characters this confirmation may come 
 by the power of visualization only and the extension of self- 
 hood; to weaker natures it can only be realized through public 
 approbation; and to the weakest, by actual physical posses- 
 sion and dominion in some form. It must be confessed, how- 
 ever, that, at present, we are all very weak in this sense and 
 must be constantly re-assured by the crudest means in order 
 to be kept to our task.
 
 90 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 3. Economics and Struggle-Psychology. 
 
 I have no doubt there will be some who will smile at 
 my views of economic causes and relations. They will ask, 
 What has Pain and Struggle to do with the Law of Supply 
 and Demand? And how can you mix psychology with eco- 
 nomics ? 
 
 But "psychology" has everything to do with economics. 
 The resources of the world should be ample to supply the bare 
 needs of mankind. What makes them insufficient? Two fac- 
 tors that are purely psychological : 
 
 One: The withholding of large resources from the many 
 by the few, although those resources are not economically nec- 
 essary to the few. 
 
 Two : The growing diversity of needs for each individual 
 although not economically essential, i. e., not necessary to 
 sustain life. 
 
 As for the first factor, it cannot be seriously contended 
 that it is economically essential for the great capitalists to 
 do with nothing less than millions of dollars' worth of land, 
 mines, securities, or property in any of its forms. It may be 
 helpful or even essential for their commercial undertakings 
 to possess this superfluous wealth but it cannot be said to be 
 economically necessary. Why then do they hang on to this 
 wealth? The reason lies in the psychology of struggle. 
 According to almost universal opinion, which is reflected in 
 our institutions and life-habits, physical acquisition is the 
 seal of success in Struggle; and as far as it goes, justly so, 
 because, as a general proposition, acquisition only comes 
 with struggle. In the present stage of our development, then, 
 great wealth is a psychological necessity only, if it is neces- 
 sary at all. 
 
 As for the second factor, it is well to bear in mind that 
 we are all capitalists by nature. We all wish our struggle to 
 be vindicated by the most tangible signs of fulfillment. 
 
 In other words, our economic problem is fundamentally 
 complicated by our struggle-psychology. All our books on 
 economics ought to be re-written with this fact in mind and 
 our definitions re-framed to include those psychological fac- 
 tors that loom large in the determination of economic relations.
 
 THE ECONOMIC STRUGGLE 91 
 
 For example, one of the chief difficulties in the way of the 
 solution of the labor question is that labor cannot be satisfied 
 permanently any more than capital can be. Had it been 
 possible to satisfy labor, it would never have migrated from 
 the rural to the urban districts. Its demands have grown 
 with its sensitiveness. It is no longer a matter of merely 
 keeping body and soul together even in relative comfort. 
 The capacity for suffering and for enjoyment, both, has grown 
 and is growing tremendously. Our growing sensitiveness to 
 experiences has increased our appetites in a great many direc- 
 tions hitherto unchartered. We are no longer content to live 
 in mud-caves. However needy we may be, we must have 
 curtains on our windows, some few ornaments, some few 
 pictures, however trashy and fly-specked, some burnished 
 spoons — not of wood as formerly — chairs, tables, furniture, 
 however poor, beds and other accessories which would have 
 been accounted luxuries by our primitive forefathers. About 
 five hundred years ago the use of forks was hardly known. 
 Today, who will do without them? We actually throw away 
 perfectly good clothes because they may be worn or have 
 holes in them. We will no longer sleep on the floor, eat with 
 our hands, partake of unspiced foods or do without soap. 
 
 As for those of us who belong to the so-called middle-class, 
 if we but stop to think of it, we adhere to most amazing 
 standards of discomfort in our daily life which we regard as 
 necessary to our comfort. These standards are created for 
 us by those or for those who are accounted strong, i. e., 
 wealthy or successful in the most prevalent form of struggle. 
 Every young couple, for example, on entering upon the marital 
 state, feel compelled to acquire the modicum of silver or 
 cut-glass ware, as the case may be, whether they can afford 
 it or not. Why? Why will they so much prefer a more 
 expensive seat in the theatre even though just as good a 
 view is obtainable for less money in another row? Why will 
 women rush precipitately for straw hats before the winter 
 is done and sweat in winter millinery when the summer is 
 still with us? Why are the poor in such a stew to keep pace 
 with the fashions? What is the role of fashion in the world 
 of struggle? What is the meaning of this primping and 
 embellishment where all is effort and strife ?
 
 92 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 The fashions are simply the grand manners of the strong. 
 All wish to be considered strong and take pains to seem 
 strong. To this end, every available means will be employed. 
 All primping and embellishment therefore is for prestige in 
 aid of struggle. This principle is felt, if not understood, by 
 the poorest shop-girl, the leader of society, the soldier in the 
 army, and Caesar on his throne of porphyry. 
 
 Generally speaking, what is fashionable may also be ex- 
 pected to be aesthetically pleasing. But this is not all-import- 
 ant nor essential. The strong will frequently adopt extremes in 
 order to shake off the weaker imitating brethren who will be 
 sure to appear at a disadvantage in them. On the other hand, 
 the ugliness of the fashion will not be a deterrent to the poor 
 because its aesthetic merit is not relevant to the underlying 
 object, which is prestige. This accounts for the frequent visi- 
 tations and disappearances of expensive fads of all kinds. 
 
 In this connection, I am reminded of a story I was told 
 about ostrich feathers. Prior to the War, it seems, ostrich 
 feathers were very much in fashion, worn by the rich and 
 coveted by the poor. They were quite expensive. The War, 
 however, with its necessary economies and limitation of for- 
 eign markets, made it impossible for the African ostrich 
 farmers to export the feathers either to Great Britain, her 
 allies, or, of course, the Central Powers. The ostrich farmers, 
 therefore, sent all their feathers to America and, in order 
 to force their sale, lowered the price materially so that it 
 came within reach of the poor. The poor bought with avidity 
 for a while, but the rich ceased wearing ostrich feathers 
 because the article had become "cheapened." Then, strange 
 to say, when the poor found that ostrich feathers were easily 
 obtainable and the rich had ceased to wear them, the demand 
 stopped altogether. Today, neither rich nor poor wear or 
 covet ostrich feathers. 
 
 4. The Right to Property. 
 
 Property is acquired by struggle according to the recog- 
 nized or prevailing standard of struggle at the time of its 
 acquisition. 
 
 If title to propert}'- so acquired was good at the time of 
 acquisition, it is good for all time.
 
 THE ECONOMIC STRUGGLE 93 
 
 Although the original title to property cannot be 
 impeached if acquired according to the common standard of 
 struggle, it is amenable to the rules, penalties and exactions 
 of standards of struggle subsequently evolved and commonly 
 recognized- 
 
 Thus, although the original possession was not wrongful 
 at the time, its continued ownership and administration can 
 be naturally affected by the resultant inroads of changed 
 standards of struggle in the economic field or even by the 
 edict of the state, if it be in accordance with the common 
 standard of struggle. 
 
 But the chief thing to remember is that no matter what 
 disposition future standards of struggle may make of prop- 
 erty, it cannot impeach the original title as wrongful unless 
 the property was not acquired according to an accepted stand- 
 ard of struggle. It follows also that we need not march with 
 those that claim that property is theft in order to believe that 
 property-rights are subject to modification by new standards 
 of struggle. 
 
 5. Capital. 
 
 None of the definitions of this term indicates that capital 
 pre-supposes a psychologic as well as a strictly economic 
 value. How then can our conclusions prove correct? 
 
 Capital does not consist simply of subsistence, tools and 
 material nor of labor only nor of all these things together. 
 All these things become capital only when someone assumes 
 the risk of employing these values under conditions of eco- 
 nomic instability for the purpose of obtaining more value. 
 
 From the standpoint of Struggle then — and this is the 
 correct standpoint — value becomes invested with the charac- 
 ter of capital only as an incident of courage or the willingness 
 to take risks. In short, capital is value employed at risk in 
 order to derive more value. 
 
 6. Labor. 
 
 Labor — I mean, of course, wage-labor — is that part of 
 value that is represented by human energy applied without 
 economic risk. It is not capital save to him who assumes the
 
 94 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 market risk in its employment. As soon as the laborer puts 
 his services at risk instead of at a fixed wage, he becomes a 
 capitalist. Indeed, many a laborer becomes a capitalist in 
 just this way — by abandoning the security of a certain income 
 through the medium of the wage to join an enterprise in 
 which there is the element of economic risk and in which he 
 invests his wage-labor as capital. 
 
 7. Capital and Labor. 
 
 As matters stand, then, capital assumes the economic risk 
 and therefore claims and derives its corresponding reward 
 when successful. Of course, the claim may be made that, as a 
 matter of fact, labor does operate at economic risk because 
 there is no stability in the wage-scale. But this risk — if it is a 
 risk — is passive, not active as in the exercise of capital, and 
 there is a world of difference between the two — in fact, it is 
 the whole difference between risking and not risking. 
 
 Labor operates without risk, but also with correspond- 
 ingly reduced hope. It may be said as an axiom that labor 
 works without risk and without hope. 
 
 To alter this state of affairs and put labor and capital 
 upon a more equal basis, either labor must agree to operate at 
 economic risk or the element of risk must be eliminated from 
 the operations of capital. But we will go more fully into this 
 later. 
 
 8. Wealth. 
 
 AVealth is that part of economic value held free from 
 risk. Under this head, then, belong all forms of property not 
 placed in economic risk such as articles of wear used for wear 
 and for nothing else; money that is hoarded instead of being 
 loaned, invested or banked at interest, and all forms of pri- 
 vate and public utility or economic value that is held for 
 direct private or public consumption or enjoyment. 
 
 9. Struggle as Labor. 
 
 In order to gain some idea of the complexities of the 
 labor-problem it would be well to consider the subject under 
 the following:
 
 THE ECONOMIC STRUGGLE 95 
 
 a. Labor Seeking Employment. 
 
 b. Labor Seeking Living Wages. 
 
 c. Labor Seeking More Than Living Wages. 
 
 d. Labor Seeking Better Working Conditions. 
 
 e. Labor as Struggle. 
 
 In considering the subject under the foregoing sub- 
 divisions, I wish chiefly to present the problem from the point 
 of view of Struggle. It will be useful to do this even if for 
 no other purpose than to help clarify the consideration of this 
 great question and remove it from the morass of extreme 
 partisanship and prejudgment which prevent the recognition 
 of the rights of labor and the limits of its just demands upon 
 the world. 
 
 a. Labor Seeking Employment. 
 
 It must be admitted that tho the actual number of the 
 unemployed in different countries at different times may be 
 large, their relative number is small unless we include in the 
 same category those who, tho employed, earn less than living 
 wages. Their actual number, however, is large enough — all 
 too large. 
 
 Unemployment is not only evil in itself but it is a plague- 
 spot on the body of labor itself because it threatens to reduce 
 the wage-scale to lower and lower proportions. Indeed, it 
 represents an apparent glut of the labor market with the 
 attendant ills that go with the glut of any commodity. But 
 whereas ordinary commodities cheapened by glut may be 
 discarded to a certain extent. Labor cannot, that is to say, 
 must not be cheapened below the living wage nor be discarded 
 at any time because we are dealing here with human beings 
 to whose welfare we have become sensitive. 
 
 Upon the face of it, there ought to be no excuse for unem- 
 ployment as a chronic condition. The existence of human 
 beings in whatever numbers should result in keeping the 
 human family occupied in providing for itself. The more 
 there are the more there is to do. There is no fundamental 
 reason why this equation should be disturbed. Labor has, 
 therefore, the right to look for such a rectification of indus- 
 trial values as will provide all with the opportunity to labor.
 
 96 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 The argument has been put forward, however, that the 
 claim of Labor in this particular has no logical premise 
 because the basis of life is the struggle of the fittest to survive. 
 This, as I have already intimated, is utterly wrong and untrue. 
 Struggle is not necessarily competitive. Struggle has no other 
 object save to struggle — to struggle from Pain. In the long 
 course of human development, the existence of other human 
 beings and other interests may have been offensive to us, 
 our incapacity in primitive times may have led us to snatch 
 from others what we have since learned to create for our- 
 selves or in common with others, and we struggled according 
 to the pain that was in us — according to our ''light," as it is 
 said. But there is no basic necessity to struggle at the 
 expense of someone else. On the contrary, as struggle 
 increases, it widens in scope and more and more interests are 
 embraced under its wing. Thus, the greater the struggler, 
 the larger are his responsibilities; the smaller the struggler, 
 the narrower his interests and responsibilities. 
 
 It is true that the world was not born with a living wage 
 and the ability to find compensative employment for all. But 
 the world originated with a lower intelligence and with a 
 lower standard of struggle, and, if we are not to revert to 
 lower standards of struggle again, employment and the liv- 
 ing wage are indispensable. 
 
 Although the proportion of unemployed is relatively 
 small, it is, nevertheless, a tragic incident in the struggle of 
 Labor where it does occur. LTnemployment reveals nakedly 
 the fact that our life is conditioned by struggle — whether fail- 
 ure to find employment is due to individual or collective inca- 
 pacity. In cases of individual incapacity to find employment 
 — as occurs in cities — there is generally the element of unwill- 
 ingness to accept employment that is uncongenial, unfamiliar 
 or not suflficiently remunerative. Indeed, these are the main 
 factors that account for the movement of rural populations 
 towards cities. In short, an analysis of individual instances 
 of incapacity to find employment will show that the cause is 
 psychological rather than economic in the narrower sense of 
 the word. (I do not wish to imply, however, that this inca- 
 pacity is not tragic because it is psychological in its nature. 
 Our psychological experiences have the power to strengthen
 
 THE ECONOMIC STRUGGLE 97 
 
 or to kill us. But we ought to call things by their right names 
 if we are to think intelligently of the real factors that make 
 conditions for us.) 
 
 But, as a general proposition, there is employment for all, 
 simply because we are forced to provide for each other in the 
 natural course of things. The increase of population does not 
 affect the mutuality of this principle. 
 
 During times of economic crisis (which is a period of 
 general timidity due to the demonstration of general inca- 
 pacity in supplying the actual as distinguished from the com- 
 mercial demand for commodities) inability to find employ- 
 ment becomes more general and more acute. 
 
 The only relief for unemployment resulting from such 
 causes, it would seem, is in the standardization of production 
 to accord with actual, as distinguished from stimulated, needs 
 created by over-trading. At present, some have no employ- 
 ment at all, others are compelled to work too many hours per 
 day. The problem is to fix upon such a ratio between the 
 cost of labor, the hours of labor and the essential needs of 
 the world as will provide all with employment. The Eight- 
 Hour Law seems a step in the right direction, but we do. not 
 know. Perhaps there should be a Six-Hour Law, or a Nine- 
 Hour Law. 
 
 To be sure, there are those who believe that we are really 
 suffering from over-population — that, due to the exhaustion 
 of the resources of nature, the returns of labor are ever dimin- 
 ishing. Certainly, no economic system can avail us if the 
 increases of population are such as to outrun our capacity to 
 provide for it. If the world is actually insolvent and, on this 
 account, starving, equality in distribution will not save it. 
 On the contrary, in such a case, there is greater hope in 
 inequality. 
 
 But the fact is, we do not know. Consequently, we neither 
 concentrate upon the production of deficiencies nor place a 
 check upon the growth of population. One of the reasons why 
 we do not know our deficiency nor concentrate upon the prob- 
 lem of supplying it, is because the variable demands of trade 
 are given precedence over every other consideration. Also, 
 we are loath to believe that we are suffering from over-popula- 
 tion, because experience has shown that our capacity to strug-
 
 98 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 gle in the economic field, as in every other field, has increased 
 enormously beyond the limits of what was once thought pos- 
 sible and, despite our past and present limitations, the poten- 
 tialities of human struggle, human resourcefulness and 
 productivity, are endless. True as this may be in the abstract, 
 if we choose to work, not with an abstraction, but with actu- 
 ality, it behooves us to take steps toward the standardization 
 of production and distribution. 
 
 If we cannot or will not effect such provision as will 
 provide labor with employment, the standard of struggle is 
 bound to be violated if not lowered. The unemployed must 
 resort to riot or mass-violence, individual crime, or still the 
 pain of unachievement with drink, drugs and the like which 
 undermine permanently the capacity to struggle. The taint 
 spreads in all directions. 
 
 b. Labor Seeking Living Wages. 
 
 All the world sympathizes with labor in its demand for 
 a living wage. It is recognized that means to sustain life 
 should not be denied anyone. The struggle to sustain life is 
 the most pitiful and the most inglorious known because it is 
 struggle at its lowest ebb or struggle for the existence of 
 struggle. 
 
 Now, however much we may believe in struggle as a uni- 
 versal principle, we have gone beyond the stage when it could 
 be invoked as a formula of oppression or of indifference. 
 The world is too sensitive today to allow labor to remain 
 forever on the rack, if it can be prevented. But how can 
 capital come to the relief when it is itself in jeopardy? 
 
 To offer labor better than prevailing terms comes exceed- 
 ingly hard to capital, because capital is carried along by the 
 momentum of quite another pursuit or struggle — to increase 
 capital and minimize its risk by reducing operating costs. 
 How then can capital be expected to suddenly halt in its 
 tracks, turn around and offer labor a seeming gratuity in the 
 shape of compensation that is not forced by market condi- 
 tions'? Such an act would run counter to the whole thread of 
 commercial struggle.
 
 THE ECONOMIC STRUGGLE 99 
 
 It must be remembered, also, that practically all enter- 
 prises start with an amount of capital that is relatively insuf- 
 ficient for the object in view and are further intimidated by 
 the instability of market conditions. It is here that the ele- 
 ment of economic risk enters. The promoter, however, throws 
 into the scale all the other helpful factors he can command — 
 his own courage, skill and enterprise, his borrowing resources, 
 and the opportunities presented by the markets of the world 
 both as to material and as to labor. Labor in such circum- 
 stances cannot hope for a better wage than is conducive to the 
 interest of capital in its own struggles. It is a condition 
 grown naturally out of the soil of struggle inherent in all 
 relations. 
 
 To be sure, there are a relatively few instances in which 
 some concessions have been made gratuitously, but the 
 donors were generally surfeited with gain or the fighting edge 
 for acquisition had been somewhat dulled by age or, in the 
 best instances, where the possibilities of struggle by means of 
 capital had broadened in the minds of the donors to include 
 more than profits; but even the latter instance must have been 
 preceded by a period of single-minded acquisitiveness. 
 
 Confronted by such a condition, it is natural for Labor 
 to organize with a view to enhancing its market value or at 
 least, to prevent the price of labor from falling below the 
 legitimate life-cost which makes labor possible, and thus exact 
 a living wage from capital. 
 
 Labor, no less than capital, has the right to withdraw 
 from the field when market conditions render operations 
 unprofitable. In doing this labor, like capital, is only exercis- 
 ing its elementary right to struggle. But admitting the right 
 of labor to force the increase of wages in this way, it has still 
 to contend with the increases in the costs of commodities which 
 labor cannot control and which have the effect of neutralizing 
 such wage increases as labor is able to wring from capital. 
 
 But this is only another aspect of the complex labor prob- 
 lem. Let us now consider the subject of 
 
 c. Labor Seeking More Than Living Wages. 
 
 It cannot be said that labor is satisfied with a bare liv- 
 ing wage. It organizes with a view to forcing a higher and
 
 100 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 higher wage irrespective of the demands necessitated by the 
 needs of bare existence. When Labor attains this position in 
 the gamut of struggle, it should by no means forfeit our 
 sympathy. The sympathy of the world goes to whomever has 
 the largest burden of struggle placed upon him and struggles 
 valiantly under it; and this will be the measure of our sym- 
 pathy for labor. 
 
 It may be well to concede, however, that Labor will never 
 be content any more than the rest of us will ever be content. 
 There is no limit to our desires nor to the pursuit of means to 
 gratify our desires. The love of our own kind and the preser- 
 vation of certain fundamental standards of struggle essential 
 to the development of the human race entails a duty upon us 
 to see that no one is denied the minimum opportunities to 
 maintain life or struggle. But the fulfillment of more compli- 
 cated desires are matters of individual acquisition, not matters 
 of right. The quarrel of the individual here is not with any 
 economic ''system" but with life itself. 
 
 As soon as we get beyond the bounds of the reasonably 
 necessary wage, we are no longer in the realm of basic neces- 
 sity but in the sphere of psychological necessity. Psycho- 
 logical necessities are not to be underestimated either; they 
 may be of tragic intensity. But here we are face to face with 
 the intangible conflicts that go on everywhere in the soul of 
 each individual as a result of the mysterious imaginings to 
 which he is bound to fall prey. At this point, every individual 
 has his own peculiar battle and must win whatever support 
 he can on the merits of his particular case. His fight is an 
 aggressive one, not a defensive one, and he must take the 
 portion of the straggler. 
 
 Many a poor man would be glad to work with the advan- 
 tages still left to the bankrupt. But the bankrupt is apt to 
 consider himself permanently ruined and thinks of suicide. 
 Why? Not because the bankrupt is ruined economically but 
 because he is ruined psychologically. It is not the loss of 
 ducats, it is the loss of self-respect as a straggler which proves 
 the heart-blow. 
 
 So, too, the desire for things beyond the requirements of 
 fundamental necessity, is one of a vast number of variable
 
 THE ECONOMIC STRUGGLE 101 
 
 psychological necessities. It is for the individual in his func- 
 tion as a struggler to force society to reckon with his desires, 
 if he can. 
 
 But tho the individual's just demands, as matters of 
 right, may be limited, society itself cannot escape the obliga- 
 tions created by its own sensitiveness. Thus, for example, 
 the desire to sustain life is also merely a psychological neces- 
 sity. But the time has come for society to take cognizance of 
 this necessity, if for no other reason than because it is such an 
 important flowering or developing point in struggle and 
 because it affects us so vitally and so universally in our char- 
 acter as sensitive beings; and we need to retain our sensitive- 
 ness if we are to realize our fullest possibilities in struggle. 
 
 So, too, when we speak of living wages, we must think, 
 not only of a wage sufficient to keep Labor in physical well- 
 being, but also, such an arrangement of its economic position 
 as will keep the way open for further achievement or struggle. 
 
 d. Labor Seeking Better Working Conditions. 
 
 The State itself should, as it often does not, provide 
 reasonably sanitary and safe working conditions for all that 
 labor for wages. 
 
 One may well ask, why this disproportionate solicitude 
 for the physical welfare of the small wage-earner? What is 
 there about the wage-earner that makes his physical well- 
 being a matter of greater concern to the state than the priva- 
 tions of the poor student, the struggling artist, scientist, shop- 
 keeper and professional man? Why do we allow the organizer 
 of railroad systems, the builders of bridges, the founders of 
 great commercial enterprises, the leaders of political move- 
 ments fraught with universal benefit, to labor beyond their 
 capacities until they pass the breaking point? Is the State 
 for the petty struggler and not for the great — for the weak, 
 but not for the strong ? 
 
 The State is for the weak as well as for the strong; for 
 the weak by seeing to it that the struggle does not destroy 
 them; for the strong, by leaving the way open to them to 
 carry a burden of struggle worthy of their strength.
 
 102 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 e. Labor As Struggle. 
 
 But, it may be argued, in a world of struggle, why should 
 labor be at such pains to insure its comforts when there are 
 such innumerable examples of voluntary privation and sacri- 
 fice on the part of unorganized workers in all forms of activity? 
 Is it not a degradation of the noble form of struggle that goes 
 under the name of Work? 
 
 Here we touch upon the most crucial aspect of the whole 
 labor problem and the one which has received the least atten- 
 tion — the yearning of every worker to engage in that form 
 of labor that shall be expressive of himself, that shall contain 
 the possibility of struggle from pain. Given a task in which 
 they are ''interested," men will not hesitate to undergo all 
 the hardship, all the privation that goes with it. That is why 
 one man will pore over his work long after the day is done, 
 or will endure the hazards and hardships of the equator or 
 the arctic regions, while another will be unable to keep his 
 eyes from the factory clock. Why, indeed, should one man 
 grimace at the prospect of spending an extra hour in a factory 
 and another stand knee-deep in the water of a war-trench and 
 not think himself ill-used to face an enemy all day? 
 
 The truth is that the economic factor has been overrated 
 in relation to Labor as in other relations. It is true that prac- 
 tically all strikes are ostensibly for higher wages or better 
 working conditions or both. But if wages were too low and 
 conditions of labor too onerous, why did the employes engage 
 to work in the first place? The answer is that they engaged 
 in the work in response to their will to struggle as it then 
 existed. The work answered to their will to struggle for a 
 time only. But it contained no possibilities of struggle in 
 an ascending degree. On the contrary, it was devoid both 
 of possibility and interest. Struggle could only be satisfied 
 outside of it, not in it. To one engaged in the deadly monotony 
 of labor without interest, activity without the exultation of 
 struggle, the strike itself is a relief, even without a victory. 
 The strike represents the interest which the work fails to 
 offer. 
 
 The wage is not everything. The Belgian Laborers, im- 
 pressed by the Germans, were promised good wages. Did this
 
 THE ECONOMIC STRUGGLE 103 
 
 fill the bill? They called it enslavement. So, too, those that 
 work without labor-interest have to contend for emancipation. 
 Here is where the real tragedy of Labor lies hidden. Not 
 the insufficiency of the wage, not long hours, not unsanitary 
 or perilous conditions — for men have borne all these gladly — 
 but the complete divorce of sympathy for the work in hand. 
 Instead of arousing interest in the work, employers have onh' 
 succeeded in accentuating interest in the wage. Naturally, 
 then, the centre of struggle focused around the wage. The 
 work once mastered by ' ' the hand, ' ' ceases to offer any possi- 
 bilities of struggle. But the wage-question invites to struggle 
 because it calls for all the inventive power, resourcefulness 
 and self-expression of the worker. It is the one struggle in 
 connection with his work in which he is a real factor instead 
 of a pawn. 
 
 Doubtless, men will not long remain passive under a wage 
 that is both insufficient and is capable of being increased. 
 They will make many endeavors to force the increase. Many 
 will even turn from their chosen vocations and engage in 
 more lucrative occupations. All this, however, does not prove 
 that the wage-interest is necessarily the fo'remost one. It 
 may easily become foremost under certain conditions, just as 
 breathing became the premier essential to the British pris- 
 oners penned in the Black Hole of Calcutta. 
 
 At the present time, the wage-interest is the only one for 
 labor because the individuality of the laborer in modern indus- 
 try is completely lost. He is not an artist nor a scientist. He 
 is an anonymous worker. Sacrifices would be meaningless. 
 I, for example, can at least put my name to this book so that 
 all men can see how, where and when I struggled, and my 
 achievement will not be a stone thrown in the dark. So, too, 
 the soldier, however unnoticed, feels that the spectacular and 
 heroic nature of his struggle, makes him the cynosure of all 
 eyes. But the struggle of our laborer, as matters are consti- 
 tuted, if not represented in the wage is not represented at all. 
 
 Thus, what is realh^ chronic in the labor situation is that 
 labor has been robbed of its struggle-motive. Labor has no 
 portion of achievement in the work that labor does. There- 
 fore, unless labor succeeds in wringing satisfaction out of its 
 wage, it is virtually in a state of slavery. If neither the wage
 
 104 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 nor the work itself answers the demands of pain-and-struggle, 
 it is natural for labor to lay great emphasis upon the condi- 
 tions of labor, the length of hours, etc. 
 
 What is the lesson to be drawn from this? To me the 
 conclusion seems inevitable that labor, too, must be supplied 
 with the perspective and zest for achievement enjoyed by the 
 entrepeneur and capitalist, for these are the things that make 
 for struggle. 
 
 How can this be done? I should say, by providing labor, 
 in addition to its necessary wage, with a share in profits, i. e., 
 permitting it to realize the effectiveness of its struggle. 
 
 10. Why Values Must Be Standardized. 
 
 When all is said as to what can be done to compose the 
 differences between labor and capital, i. e., to maintain the 
 equilibrium of their struggle so that neither may be crushed 
 by the other, something remains yet to be said. It is easy 
 enough to talk about allowing labor to share in profits, but 
 what establishments are in a position to do this as things are 
 constituted? As already explained, most enterprises begin 
 with a capital that is insufficient for the ends in view and, 
 even when this insufficiency is subsequently supplied, the 
 momentum of struggle — for even capitalists are subject to the 
 law of struggle — carries them beyond their original objectives, 
 so that a certain disparity always exists between the end and 
 the means to attain the end. This is another way of saying 
 that capital is always conscious of being at risk. This con- 
 sciousness of danger permeates every branch of trade and 
 industry and all actions are weighed down by the dread, even 
 where such dread seems to be unjustified. Labor alone 
 assumes no economic risk. It neither assumes risk nor 
 attempts to mitigate the risk of capital. Why then should 
 capital make sacrifices for labor? But, as we have seen, 
 although labor assumes no risk, the fact does not save it from 
 loss due to the risks assumed by capital. 
 
 The basic reason for the insecurity of capital is due to 
 the fact that commodities have no standard value. Cheaper 
 labor markets, cheaper methods of production, over-produc- 
 ti'vri, subsidized production in other countries, changes in
 
 THE ECONOMIC STRUGGLE 105 
 
 transits, changes in tariffs and the creation of new centres of 
 production, invention and competition in all its forms, operate 
 to upset the schedule of values. These unexpected changes in 
 productivity in different parts of the world keep our markets 
 in a state of uncertainty and turmoil; so many alien factors 
 enter into the problem of the world 's demand and supply that 
 capital is reduced to the position of the gambler. The psy- 
 chology of the gambler thus enters perforce into the opera- 
 tions of capital; every operation must bring its maximum of 
 return for there is no certainty in tomorrow. According to 
 every rule of natural justice, labor is not entitled to share in 
 the profits accruing from the risks of capital because in all the 
 operations of capital labor does not participate as partner 
 but as creditor. 
 
 It is the insecurity of capital, then, with which we have to 
 grapple and which is the chief stumbling block in the way of 
 its regulation by any doctrinaire method. Because of this 
 insecurity of capital — a quite justifiable insecurity under the 
 conditions — practically every industrial and commercial enter- 
 prise is normally in a state of panic. The larger institutions 
 have a knack of disguising their panic more effectively, per- 
 haps, but this is about the only difference. How can capital 
 be cajoled or legislated into a profit-sharing equinimity with 
 labor when we all realize that the economic affairs of the 
 world are in a state of catch-as-catch-can and that capital, for 
 all its bloated appearance, has no assurance of continuity? 
 
 Thus all plans for economic conformity that are not 
 grounded upon the standardization of values are bound to fail. 
 
 11. How Values Can Be Standardized. 
 
 We have seen, then, that however sensitive we may be to 
 the upward struggle of labor, we cannot go with those who 
 claim that property is theft or that labor is being robbed or 
 that labor is entitled to equality of income as a principle of 
 justice. 
 
 But labor can so alter the conditions of struggle as to earn 
 the right and create the means to share in profits over and 
 above market wages even though labor is not now in a position 
 to assume part of the risks of capital.
 
 106 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 We have seen that capital's claim to all the profits springs 
 from the fact that capital assumes the risk incident to its 
 employment; that the laborer who is willing to place his 
 wages in risk as capital, can enter the capitalist class and 
 habitually does so enter it; and that the conditions of risk 
 assumed by capital are created by the uncertainty of values 
 which in turn are caused by the lack of standardization in 
 production and distribution. This lack creates conditions of 
 real risk and the reward which capital derives as the fruit of 
 its enterprise and daring is justified by the fundamental law 
 of struggle to which we all subscribe whether we are aware 
 of it or no. It is on this account that capital is so firmly 
 intrenched in its right of possession and it will so remain. It 
 is on this account also that capital is not and need not be 
 ashamed, despite the fulminations of its traducers, as long as 
 its struggle is in accordance with the standard of struggle. 
 
 Now let us concede that as matters are now constituted, 
 labor as a mass has not the capacity to share economic risks 
 with capital in order to win the right to share in profits. It 
 cannot, therefore, attain its desires from this angle. But by 
 virtue of its position in the electorate of the country, labor has 
 the power to eliminate economic risk from the operations of 
 capital, create standardization of values and by this funda- 
 mental concession, win the right to share in profits, simply 
 paying capital for the use of capital and not for risks since 
 there would be no risks. 
 
 How can labor do this ? 
 
 By introducing a system of legally-recognized, price fixed, 
 profit-sharing monopolies in all fields of production and dis- 
 tribution. 
 
 The era of monopolies is not merely an artificial patch- 
 work of doctrinaire ideas. It is something that is now being 
 evolved and will gradually grow into being, except that we 
 have the power to facilitate its arrival by intelligent adapta- 
 tion to our needs, if we will. 
 
 But in order to see all the implications of the monopolistic 
 idea, let us imagine that we can decree the era of monopolies 
 into being. 
 
 Let us imagine that the Government (X) proceeds to 
 consolidate all the small and large enterprises in every indus-
 
 THE ECONOMIC STRUGGLE 107 
 
 try, thus creating monopolies in every line of endeavor and 
 legalizing these monopolies in such fashion that competition 
 with those monopolies becomes not only difficult but impos- 
 sible because unlawful. 
 
 Let us imagine further that in order to make these monop- 
 olies absolute, X enters into trade agreements with other 
 countries or, failing this, establishes tariffs to protect these 
 monopolies from foreign competition. 
 
 Let us stretch our imagination a little bit further and 
 imagine that all these monopolies are profit-sharing as between 
 employers and employees — say, for example, that fifty per 
 cent, of the net profits is to go to employes beside market 
 wages and exclusive of industrial insurance, etc., and the 
 balance to the owners or investors. 
 
 Let us imagine further that X not only decrees prices and 
 profit-sharing, but also sets a limit upon the salaries of the 
 owners which must be decided by law according to some fixed 
 schedule ; as, for example, a salary measured by the degree of 
 responsibility assumed and ability required for the position 
 of executive, the replaceable cost as employe in the same or 
 a similar enterprise, apart from the owner's share in the 
 profits accruing from his investment. 
 
 Now let us see what must be the result of these measures. 
 
 In the first place, the creation of monopolies in all lines 
 will automatically stop all gambling and speculation in com- 
 modities. 
 
 As X will limit the rate of profit which can be charged 
 against any commodity, prices must go down accordingly to 
 within the limits set. 
 
 In order to obtain the maximum profits obtainable within , 
 the limits set by the Government, each monopoly will endeavor 
 to produce a quantity equal to the demand. 
 
 As distribution would be in the hands of monopolies, there 
 would be no object in manufacturing or producing more than 
 sufficient of any product nor would there be any object in 
 scrambling to be the first to glut the market. 
 
 In order to increase profits, only one method could avail 
 and that by cheapening the cost of production. 
 
 Inasmuch as labor would be entitled to its minimum mar- 
 ket wage besides its share in profits, there could be but one
 
 108 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 method of cheapening production, and that by improved 
 methods. 
 
 Cheaper production through improved methods would be 
 of benefit to everybody, including the creators of it. 
 
 Inasmuch as all monopolies would receive state-recogni- 
 tion and be legalized, capital would be secure. 
 
 Security of capital would result in the maximum of indus- 
 trial and agricultural activity and provide employment for all. 
 
 Values would be standardized and panics eliminated. 
 
 Labor would have no cause to strike on account of insuf- 
 ficient wages inasmuch as it would receive in profits all that 
 it could not obtain as wages. 
 
 Capital would not be in a position to grudge profits to 
 labor, inasmuch as the State — of which labor is a part — would 
 accord capital the security as well as the certainty of profit 
 that goes with monopoly; and as capital would be taking no 
 greater risk than labor, labor would be entitled to an equal 
 partnership. 
 
 Labor could have no cause to oppose monopoly on such 
 terms inasmuch as it would itself be part of it and profit by it. 
 
 The consumer would be protected inasmuch as the State — 
 of which he is a part — would fix the rate of profit on produc- 
 tion by fixing prices; and the consolidation of all enterprises 
 into homogeneous monopolies so controlled must inevitably 
 reduce initial cost upon which profit is figured. 
 
 Capital would not or should not quarrel with the restric- 
 tion of profit; 
 
 Because the privilege of monopoly and the elimination of 
 trade-competition would remove the entire element of risk 
 in the employment of capital and, as we know, capital is 
 quite content to operate upon a smaller profit basis, where the 
 investment offers relative security; 
 
 Because the limitation of profits for the benefit of the State 
 is simply a more direct method of taxation of income and 
 would mitigate the necessity for taxation by other methods; 
 
 Because the limitation of profits as a national principle 
 would insure stability in the cost of materials necessary to 
 every monopoly — whether a distributing monopoly or manu- 
 facturing monopoly.
 
 THE ECONOMIC STRUGGLE 109 
 
 Although all industry and commerce would take the form 
 of monopolies, the individual would have full liberty in the 
 matter electing his line of activity, investment or both, subject 
 only to the natural demand for his labor, capital, or both. It 
 must be remembered in this connection, that the rule of 
 monopolies would create a practically unlimited demand for 
 labor and capital. 
 
 The rule of monopolies would not fasten an economic 
 caste-system upon the world, 
 
 Because the wage-earning capacity of individuals would 
 remain unequal and unrestricted save by the economic value 
 of his services ; 
 
 Because it is as difficult to retain wealth as to earn it, 
 and there would be no check on spending it ; 
 
 Because every wage-earner could invest his surplus profits 
 and thus obtain the status of investor. 
 
 It must be admitted, however, that many holdings of 
 capital would descend intact for some generations. But capital 
 would be entitled to this benefit, in view of the fact that so 
 much of its earning power would be employed for the benefit 
 of wage-earners and the state as a whole. 
 
 Capital at present may object to the inclusion of labor 
 as partner. But such an objection would have to give way 
 before the realities of the situation which indicate that labor 
 has many of the powers of a partner even if without the privi- 
 leges of one. 
 
 Based upon the return demanded by capital as sufficient 
 compensation for safe investment — which often turns out not 
 so safe — capital should be well satisfied to divide profits with 
 labor where capital has the assurance of a legally recognized 
 security conferred upon it by labor. 
 
 The individual capitalist may be averse to forming part 
 of a monopoly, and prefer to maintain a more precarious exist- 
 ence if he can preserve his independence and individuality 
 But the choice of becoming part of a monopoly will not come 
 to the small capitalist at the height of his strength, but only 
 after a long period of industrial or commercial struggle, at the 
 end of which, consolidation will appear a refuge safe and 
 profitable. In other words, the era of monopolies will be 
 evolved as the culmination of an inevitable tendency against
 
 110 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 which it will be demonstrably useless as well as unprofitable 
 to struggle. On the contrary, monopoly will become revealed 
 as introducing into the vortex of economic struggle the ele- 
 ments of order, cohesion, economy, vision and comprehen- 
 siveness by which the whole world will be the gainer. 
 
 There are those, to be sure, who cannot tolerate the idea 
 that the world of the future is to be dominated by privately- 
 owned, even though government-controlled, monopolies. To 
 such, equality of ownership or public ownership, is not merely 
 an economic concept; it is a psychic obsession. What differ- 
 ence does it make, after all, whether the government owns or 
 controls a given monopoly? Is it more pleasant to contem- 
 plate the unescapable inequality of officialdom, of the manda- 
 rin, rather than the inequality that exists elsewhere? Or have 
 the economic fetiches of the day actually bludgeoned us into 
 the belief that there are no distinctions and no inequalities save 
 those created by economic conditions'? If envy is to play a 
 part in the re-organization of the affairs of the world, no 
 economic system will prove adequate, because envy, as well as 
 all other forms of discontent, lies much deeper than economics. 
 Economic equality is no more necessary nor possible than 
 physical, mental, moral or aesthetic equality is necessary or 
 possible. 
 
 Insofar as the inequality of income can be taken advan- 
 tage of by governments to-day for taxing purposes, the 
 medium of graduated taxes would still be available to what- 
 ever extent may be necessary. 
 
 We have still to meet the objection of those who make 
 claim that the resources of the world are being outstripped 
 by the unchecked increases of population. Is this correct? 
 We do not know. But the standardization of production and 
 distribution would enable us to take stock of the world's 
 resources and teach us wherein we are wanting and what 
 remedies to employ and where. 
 
 Throughout, the Government would not only protect labor 
 and capital in its grants of monopolies to the exclusion of 
 private ventures tending to upset the standardization of 
 values, but also in order to protect the interest of the con- 
 sumer against both capital and labor. Inasmuch as the per- 
 sonnel of every monopoly would consist of consumers who
 
 THE ECONOMIC STRUGGLE 111 
 
 would be protected as against the incursions of other monopo- 
 lies, the arbitraments of the government would be a very wel- 
 come factor in the scheme of things. 
 
 Now the economic organization of one country through 
 the medium of monopolies in all fields, including foreign buy- 
 ing and selling, would result in the creation of a very high 
 state of efficiency difficult for other countries to compete with 
 upon a profitable basis — unless those other countries adopt 
 the same method of specialized domestic organization. This 
 would lay the basis for international conformity in the stand- 
 ardization of values through world-monopolies operating 
 under the aegis of the governments concerned. These world- 
 monopolies, whether in the field of agriculture, industry or 
 distribution, in their own self-interest and under the seal of 
 their governments, would apportion markets, standardize pro- 
 duction and values, eliminate useless competition, and substi- 
 tute for the gambling of international commerce a modus of 
 exchange based upon actual requirement and economy in pro- 
 duction and distribution. 
 
 A fair example of a monopoly dove-tailing with the mo- 
 nopolies of other countries is the mailing service. The post- 
 office, by the way, is an excellent example of the advantages 
 of monopoly. To be sure, it suffers from the defect of being 
 government-owned instead of being government-controlled and 
 that neither labor nor capital has any share in it. But the 
 fact that it is a monopoly gives it advantages which make us 
 forget that it is operated by a niggardly and tyrannical 
 employer and that its personnel have no interest in its suc- 
 cess, that the people at large pay its deficits without knowing 
 or the means of knowing whether they are paying much or 
 little for the service. 
 
 As between State-owned and privately-owned, govern- 
 ment-controlled monopolies, the latter are by all means to be 
 preferred. 
 
 Because government-ownership would not be of the 
 slightest advantage to anyone, save that the natural inequali- 
 ties inherent in man will pass from unofficial to official life; 
 
 Because private ownership of monopolies spells greater 
 individual responsibility and initiative;
 
 112 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 Because it is mucli more expedient for the State to con- 
 trol what others own, than to own, operate and control; 
 
 Because the Government already has the power to con- 
 trol, while the power to acquire on such a scale as would be 
 necessary is not in sight; 
 
 Because the Government, in its capacity of employer with 
 absolute ownership and control, must become a tyranny and, 
 as such, would be in conflict with the law and spirit of 
 struggle ; 
 
 Because profit-sharing is an integral aspiration of human 
 nature (human struggle) which would not be available under 
 State-ownership, except, perhaps, as a mooted abstraction; 
 
 Because the State can serve the interests of the people best 
 by specializing in its governmental functions only, of which it 
 also would have a monopoly, subject to criticism and correc- 
 tion, just as every monopoly would be subject to public opinion 
 operating through the Government. 
 
 I shall probably have hurled at me as an argument the 
 benefit of public ownership of the railroads in this country, 
 because of the sorry mess in which the railroads were until 
 the government took them over as a war exigency. 
 
 The fact is we have played the cat-and-mouse policy with 
 the railroads. At the outset, we gave the railroads unre- 
 stricted liberty of action, virtually surrendering all control, 
 and they used their enormous privileges to the utmost. 
 Thereafter, to counteract the resultant abuses, we began to sap 
 their concessions by setting up needless competition. In lieu 
 of preventing the watering of their stock, we began the policy 
 of baiting by taxation. We enacted an eight-hour law under 
 pressure, knowing that this was only an indirect method of 
 increasing wages and that the increase would be paid by 
 the people at large. Under the exigencies of war, we seized 
 that control which we never should have relinquished in the 
 first place. Necessity compelled us to realize the advantages 
 of monopoly. We thereupon took over all the railroads and 
 now stand in danger of confounding the advantages of monop- 
 oly with public ownership. The advantages of monopoly 
 will now be misunderstood as advantages of public ownership. 
 Patriotism and partisanship will prevent intelligent criticism
 
 THE ECONOMIC STRUGGLE 113 
 
 and the understanding of the shortcomings and blunders of 
 public ownership. Labor will become addled as a result, and 
 as strikes are incompatible with State-ownership, its tongue 
 will stick out with its desires and ambitions, but that will be 
 about all. After the war, the Government will have the choice 
 of two blunders; either to complete the blunder of public- 
 ownership and go into the railroad business, or to hand back 
 the railroads upon the old terms, break up a natural monopoly 
 and consign the matter to the old morass of railroad baiting, 
 cat-and-mouse play, strikes and competitive disorganization. 
 There would be still a third choice, but — f 
 
 The principle of monopoly cannot at once be introduced 
 in all lines of activity. 
 
 It must be admitted that not all of our industries are in 
 shape to be consolidated into monopolies. Nor is it advisable 
 to force the process of consolidation because disorganization 
 is evidence that the industry in question has not yet ''grown 
 up." The rule of monopoly will be inaugurated, if not wil- 
 fully opposed, in the natural processes of time, as each indus- 
 try matures, as the result of fulfillment in struggle. Monopoly 
 can be aided but it cannot be forced. It must have its period 
 of gestation. Allowed to come naturally into being upon 
 condition of submitting to profit-sharing and State-control, it 
 would be in consonance with all the implications of the Law of 
 Struggle, conflict with no legitimate interests nor be con- 
 fronted by a world in arms against it. 
 
 State recognition and control of monopolies is not only 
 beneficial but essential for the safety of the State. Otherwise, 
 monopolies, through the power wielded by them, are in a posi- 
 tion to commandeer the liberties of the people and, in effect, 
 usurp and abuse the powers of government. Economically, 
 those great industrial organizations that have become virtual 
 monopolies subject to occasional onslaughts by the govern- 
 ment, are enjoying all the advantages of capital employed at 
 risk although actually taking only a potential risk. These 
 monopolies, then, command all the profits due capital as an 
 incident of courage or the assumption of economic risk, 
 although really assuming no risk save the risk of government 
 interference. Nor, as things are constituted, are these monop- 
 olies under the necessity of dividing profits with employes.
 
 114 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 The application of the principle of standardization and 
 the elimination of economic risk would not only insure profit- 
 sharing, but it would save us these ridiculous railings against 
 great industrial organizations simply because they are great. 
 Nothing has shown more clearly how much our thinking is out 
 of joint with the basic necessities of struggle than the thun- 
 derings of our Government to large undertakings to become 
 small or suffer dissolution. 
 
 All things considered, one of the most hopeful develop- 
 ments in our economic welter is the emergence of great indus- 
 trial organizations. By means of them we can promote and 
 take advantage of 
 
 (a) The consolidation of unorganized enterprises into 
 coherent units. 
 
 (b) The reduction of wastage through the elimination 
 of needlessly duplicated effort and expense in production and 
 distribution. 
 
 (c) The standardization of costs and output. 
 
 (d) The possibilities of reduction in costs due to the 
 foregoing conditions. 
 
 (e) The increased possibilities for international conform- 
 ity in production and distribution. 
 
 (f ) The increased facilities for taxation and government 
 control. 
 
 All the foregoing features of great industrial organiza- 
 tions, added to the guarantee of monopoly given upon condi- 
 tion of submitting to profit-sharing and government price- 
 fixing, would stabilize market-conditions, organize the output 
 and distribution of the world, and be of incalculable value in 
 making the elementary struggle for an economic foothold a 
 minor instead of a major effort. 
 
 12. Private Ownership Under the Rule of Monopoly. 
 
 Under the Rule of Monopoly private ownership would 
 have nothing to fear from the Government any more than now. 
 Every man would be fully entitled to the work of his own 
 hands or to anything produced for his own consumption or the 
 consumption of his establishment or for any other purpose
 
 THE ECONOMIC STRUGGLE 115 
 
 exclusive of trade. There would be no interference with indi- 
 vidual production in which there was no element of trade 
 distribution. 
 
 Any individual who would regard himself self-sufficient 
 in whole or in part, such as small farmers, hermits, and non- 
 gregarious philosophers, could carry on their chosen methods 
 of living without hinderance, by simply registering the limited 
 nature of their productivity. It is only when production goes 
 with distribution — trade distribution — that it would have to 
 be carried on only as part of a monopoly in order not to disturb 
 the standardization of values. In other words, while private 
 ownership would still be legal, the standardization of produc- 
 tion and distribution would have to be enforced as a require- 
 ment of public well-being with which no individual would be 
 permitted to come in conflict. 
 
 13. Land Ownership Under the Rule of Monopoly. 
 
 As the Rule of Monopolies would only concern itself with 
 production and distribution, land as such would not be the 
 subject of monopoly for nothing could be gained by it. 
 
 Private ownership in land is justified in the same way as 
 private ownership of anything else — by acquisition according 
 to the standard of struggle prevailing at the time of acqui- 
 sition. As for the argument that land-owners are not entitled 
 to the ''unearned increment" of land whose value has 
 increased on account of the growth of population in its 
 vicinity, this contention, if true with reference to land, is 
 equally true with reference to any other commodity for Avhich 
 the demand has increased out of proportion to the supply. 
 The basis for this contention about land is the assumption 
 that ownership of land stands in a different moral relationship 
 to man than other things and that the reason why men 
 flock to the cities is because land is held out of use due to 
 excessive taxation on building or improvement. But neither 
 of these assumptions are valid. Land, like any other com- 
 modity, is the prize of standardized struggle. On moral 
 grounds, therefore, the title to land cannot be impugned. I 
 have also shown, I believe, that the influx of populations from 
 agricultural lands to cities, is due, not to economic but to psy-
 
 116 THP] LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 chological causes. In former times, cities were developed out 
 of citadels or centres of collective struggle which, in turn, 
 metamorphosized into trade-centers or battle-places for psy- 
 cho-economic struggles and, as such, were re-duplicated 
 wherever opportunity offered. The influx into cities at the 
 present time is not an attribute of defensive but of aggressive 
 struggle. 
 
 The whole stock of Single Tax arguments are similarly 
 unconvincing. The advantage of a single tax over many 
 forms of taxation is principally an administrative advantage, 
 which would also be available under the Rule of Monopolies. 
 The argument that men cannot subsist without land is also 
 true of the products of land which, under Single Tax, would 
 remain in private hands and still be subject to the employment 
 of capital at economic risk. Furthermore, the fact that 
 Smith, say, has * ' improved ' ' the value of his land by building 
 a mansion on it, is no reason for increasing the taxes on the 
 shack of poor Brown who lives alongside of him or to compel 
 Brown to move elsewhere. Finally, the confiscation of land 
 would be wholly unjust, even if it were as practicable as it 
 is not. 
 
 Nothing could be gained by monopolizing the ownership 
 of land, as owning is but a passive act as distinguished from 
 the improvement of land. Land-improvement would be em- 
 braced in the activities of all the other monopolies charged 
 with the exploitation of the soil. 
 
 There is, therefore, no reason why the State should inter- 
 fere with individual preferences in the matter of land-owner- 
 ship, save only in such instances where individual ownership 
 would interfere with indispensable requirements of monopoly, 
 as in mining lands, oil lands, railroad beds, etc., which should 
 be subject to the right of eminent domain in the interest of the 
 people as a whole, and which can be so acquired on behalf of 
 monopolies decreed by the State where these monopolies are 
 unable to acquire such lands by private agreement with the 
 owners. 
 
 But if State-monopoly in land is inexpedient, it is still 
 more unwise to permit private monopoly in land for purposes 
 of speculation. This can best be prevented:
 
 THE ECONOMIC STRUGGLE 117 
 
 (a) By the levying of a heavy tax upon all land held out 
 of use or held for speculative purposes only. 
 
 (b) By forbidding the alienation of land to any but direct 
 users. 
 
 Those who hold land for direct use, such as farmers, home- 
 steaders and industrial operators would suffer no loss or pen- 
 alty in the land actually held in use by them. Those who hold 
 land for speculative purposes would simply have to accept the 
 changed conditions as the result of poor speculation and get 
 rid of their holdings to direct users upon the best terms avail- 
 able as fast as possible. The effect of such a policy would 
 be to prevent monopoly in land for speculative purposes, 
 bring down the price of land to its correct value as a com- 
 modity in actual use according to its use. Land-values would 
 thus be forced to come down to something like legitimate 
 levels. The pressure of an adequate tax, levied solely upon 
 such land-holdings as are held out of direct use, and inability 
 to convey title to any but direct users under the law, would 
 divest land-values of speculative inflation, effectually pre- 
 vent local monopolies in land, and meet the well-founded 
 objection of exponents of the Single Tax. 
 
 This policy would be warranted on the score of collective 
 expeditiousness; but even on its ethical side, it must be borne 
 in mind that land which is held out of use simply for the 
 sake of possession is, in its essence, nothing but a luxury to 
 the holder, and should, therefore, be taxed as a luxury in 
 favor of those who require it as a necessity of their struggle. 
 No one is in a position to complain of taxes on luxuries or set 
 limits upon them. On the other hand, land which is held out 
 of use for speculative reasons — to await a better price — repre- 
 sents a falsification of the economic books of account, the 
 withholding of commodities needed for economic exchange. 
 This is a solecism in the scheme of things which we have the 
 right to render expensive just as nature makes any error 
 expensive; an instance of mal-adjustment in the distribution 
 of land which must be eliminated just as mal-adjustment in 
 the distribution of other products will be eliminated through 
 the development of legally-recognized, state-controlled, profit- 
 sharing monopolies. 
 
 For tho it may be conceded that the State has no moral
 
 118 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 right — even if it had the power — to declare forfeit all private 
 ownership in land, it does have the right and the might to 
 discourage gambling in land values. Gambling, by the way, 
 is such an assumption of economic risk as leaves neither pro- 
 duction nor service in its wake as far as the economic interests 
 of the world are concerned. Those who trade in commodities 
 presumably give service in bringing things from whence they 
 are produced to places where they are wanted or in such form 
 as they can be used. In this sense trade is service just as 
 truly as labor is service. But the continual transfer of title 
 to land as an incident of land-speculation is an absolutely bar- 
 ren procedure as far as the economic interests of the world are 
 concerned. Such transactions do not differ from gambling 
 upon the exchange or gambling with cards. The land has not 
 been moved or improved thereby. Unless, therefore, the land 
 has been conveyed to a direct user, the transaction constitutes 
 another gamble, a speculation tending to inflate land values 
 and thus increase the necessity for that form of interhuman 
 struggle or economic non-conformity from which we wish to 
 emerge. 
 
 Thus, altho the State may not and, indeed, cannot, con- 
 fiscate land-holdings, it can and should discourage the holding 
 of land out of use and prohibit land-transfers in the nature of 
 speculations. 
 
 14. Taxation. 
 
 The question of taxation has always been a difficult one, 
 and to-day, it has become more difficult to solve than ever. 
 Our taxing systems are hopelessly inept. 
 
 Through the medium of monopolies in the production and 
 distribution of all products the problem of taxation will be- 
 come wonderfully simplified. We have simply to choose 
 whether to tax the profits, gross production or distribution of 
 every monopoly. Whichever method we choose will embrace 
 the best elements of proportional or progressive taxation, will 
 be simple and uniform in application and justly proportionate 
 to the income of labor and capital. The tax would apply at 
 the source of income, would be paid at the source, and would 
 thus become part of the maintenance and distributing expense 
 of every monopoly.
 
 THE ECONOMIC STRUGGLE 119 
 
 In order to simplify the matter of supervision, standard 
 books of account would be introduced and enforced in all 
 monopolies. 
 
 Taxation would thus become simple and relatively inex- 
 pensive to collect. 
 
 15. Price Fixing. 
 
 The real difficulty would lie, not in taxation, but in the 
 matter of governmental price-fixing. The cost of production 
 or distribution would have to be taken into consideration 
 together with an allowable profit as well as the interest of 
 the consumer. Under existing conditions such an adjustment 
 is really impossible, although under the stress of war, govern- 
 ments have gone through the form of solving the riddle. 
 Actually, they have only succeeded here and there in bludgeon- 
 ing down certain patent abuses temporarily, often simply 
 transferring them to other economic spheres. 
 
 Under the regime here indicated, however, our task would 
 be wonderfully facilitated by the standardization of values, 
 through the medium of monopolies in all spheres of production 
 and distribution. "We should thus have the advantage of 
 dealing with static conditions. The enforced maintenance of 
 standard books of account would be of aid in further simpli- 
 fying the problem of the standardization of prices. 
 
 It must be conceded that, from time to time, in the pro- 
 cess of years, prices would have to be re-standardized in order 
 to give the world the benefit of improved productivity or to 
 increase prices where necessary. 
 
 To do this, no doubt, considerable means would have to 
 be permanently employed. Even so, however, the cost would 
 be justified as relatively insignificant. 
 
 16. Profit-Sharing as a Struggle Requisite. 
 
 Although there are some undoubted advantages to capi- 
 tal in the application of the profit-sharing plan, the real test 
 of its efficacy and indispensability rests upon the fact that it is 
 demanded by the law of struggle. Those that demand peace
 
 120 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 in our economic relations cannot have it at the price of the 
 complete subjection of labor. Sufficient provision must be 
 made to allow labor the same realization or fulfillment in 
 struggle that capital seeks. To expect to placate labor and 
 run counter to its struggle is to demand the impossible. 
 
 Profit-sharing would have the effect of eliminating a 
 degree of struggle that should have been reached and passed, 
 the competitive struggle for the means of subsistence, a mean 
 stage in the glorious gamut of human striving. Profit-sharing 
 would break the back of inter-human conflict which threatens 
 to reach almost cannibalistic depths. Profit-sharing threatens 
 no vested interests with destruction. On the other hand, it 
 would prevent the accumulation of wealth to indecent propor- 
 tions by a few in the face of absolute destitution on the part 
 of many. Imagine, for example, if the Corporation X should 
 divide 50 per cent, or 80 per cent, of its total net earnings half 
 and half with its employes, leaving the remaining 20 per cent, 
 to increase the earning capacity of its plant. Would this 
 threaten the X Corporation in any vital respect 1 Let us even 
 concede that some of the stockholders would be out of Docket 
 
 L 
 
 to this extent. But when we talk of changing economic systems 
 and perhaps revolutions, this looks like a very mild kind 
 of mulcting. When we further take into consideration the 
 increased zeal that will be brought to the work, the elimina- 
 tion of strikes and all forms of obstructionism, the sacrifice of 
 our imaginary corporation seems almost tolerable. Finally, 
 profit-sharing is not only an economic requirement, it is a 
 psychological necessity. 
 
 Profit-sharing with employes is not only good morality 
 because it provides labor with a struggle-motive and thus 
 raises it from a condition bordering on slavery, but it is good 
 business, i. e., increases the efficiency of capital, because the 
 zeal or quality of labor is enhanced thereby so that capital 
 becomes more productive. Is it not a decided advantage to 
 any enterprise to have the rank and file sensitive as to its 
 success and thus share the burden of responsibility with its 
 executives! It should not be an impossible achievement to 
 find a modus operandi by which both labor and the entrepeneur 
 can share in the profits and have something added to the capi- 
 tal invested which, after all, would thus accrue to the benefit
 
 THE ECONOMIC STRUGGLE 121 
 
 of both through the increased earning power of the enterprise 
 as a whole. It is doubtful, to say the least, if capital would 
 not gain as much and go further by this method than by 
 operating with an indifferent if not hostile working personnel 
 with its strikes and incentives to waste, depredation, etc. 
 
 One great advantage (to capital) of the profit-sharing 
 principle as a practical measure lies in its elasticity and adap- 
 tability to actual conditions. Profits must be in being in order 
 to be declared and must be available in order to be distrib- 
 uted. The principle guiding it, however, should be fixed 
 and certain, not capricious. Nor should the uncertain pros- 
 pects of profits be allowed to take the place of adequate wages. 
 Profits should begin after the limit of the market wage-scale 
 has been reached, especially where the latter is only barely 
 adequate. 
 
 Governmental regulation can do something to make profit- 
 sharing equitable. If the profits of our investors are paid 
 in cash then a proportionate share of the profits due to labor 
 would also be paid in cash. If the profits are not paid out 
 at all during any year but remain in the enterprise then 
 labor is to be credited with its proportionate share on the 
 books of the enterprise in question until profits are declared. 
 A great many other practical questions naturally suggest 
 tliemselves in connection with the workings of such a plan, 
 concerning which opinions may vary, but they are not vital to 
 the main idea nor does this seem to be the place to dilate 
 upon them. 
 
 These questions may require special study and may, no 
 doubt, be fraught with many complexities, but the basic prin- 
 ciple of profit-sharing is a sound one, both from the standpoint 
 of the requirements of human nature and economic adjust- 
 ment. The institution of profit-sharing would not run counter 
 to any economic laws, nor result in confiscation nor the violent 
 upheaval of industry or market conditions. No industry 
 would be committed to any unwarranted burden of expense 
 because, unlike wages, one year's scale of profits would be no 
 criterion of the next year's profits.
 
 122 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 17. Choosing Economic Systems. 
 
 It seems, then, that the solution of our economic problems, 
 insofar as they can and must be solved, lies in 
 
 One: The elimination of economic risk from the opera- 
 tions of capital, through monopoly and standardization. 
 
 Two: Profit-sharing between labor and capital. 
 
 Three: International conformity in the regulation of 
 monopoly and, through this regulation, the universal stand- 
 ardization of value and supply. 
 
 This looks like a program of slow realization. Admitted. 
 But is there a more quickly realizable one in sight ? I hardly 
 think so. On the other hand, this is the program toward which 
 we are tending anyway, save that it is our power to impede or 
 accelerate its realization, depending upon the mental attitude 
 we bring to the problem. 
 
 The chief difficulty in the way of the revolutionary is 
 that he declines to work with the material which God has 
 given him. He will only work with the motives, methods and 
 men of another world. And yet we know that whatever 
 improvement may be vouchsafed us must develop from things 
 as they are. 
 
 The manufacturer who makes a better shirt for less 
 money and more of them per day than his competitor may 
 be actuated by a purely personal struggle, but the world is the 
 gainer thereby. The projector of the large emporium or 
 department-store may be actuated by quite narrow motives, 
 but as the scope of his struggle widens, he is compelled to 
 provide employment to thousands of others and, to this extent, 
 to march with their interests. In the economic field, these 
 motives and considerations are the pieces with which it is 
 given us to play. 
 
 Due consideration must be given to the fact that the 
 greater the struggler the more possibilities he opens up for 
 others. Nor can the negative leveling by the small struggler 
 be regarded as an all-sufficing substitute for the ability, genius 
 and daring of the great. If it is wrong for the employer to 
 prey upon labor, it is mean and paltry for the employe to stand 
 in opposition to the great struggler simply because he is 
 great. In the main, the interests of employer and employe
 
 THE ECONOMIC STRUGGLE 123 
 
 run together and the point of conflict only begins where the 
 usual unity of interests cease to dove-tail. 
 
 Much has been said against exploitation simply as exploi- 
 tation. As a matter of fact, we all exploit one another. The 
 government exploits the taxpayers of the country and vice 
 versa. The taxpayers exploit the labor of its school-teachers, 
 and the school-teachers exploit the taxpayers. Even the 
 school-children '' exploit" and are ''exploited." It is all a 
 question of just relationships. It serves no purpose to be 
 either prejudiced or intimidated by shibboleths. 
 
 Now, I contend that the valid causes of antagonism 
 between labor and capital will be eliminated by the applica- 
 tion and development of the remedies above mentioned, i. e., 
 the curtailment or increase of the hours of labor in accord- 
 ance with actual requirements, profit-sharing over and above 
 market wages, standardization of values through the growth 
 of monopolies controlled by the state, and international con- 
 formity in the regulation of international monopolies with a 
 view to the standardization of the bases of exchange in all 
 products between nations. 
 
 There are those who believe in equality of income. I 
 do not share this view. Equality of income without equality 
 in the ability to dispose of it would leave things pretty much 
 as they are in a very short time. Besides, we should not at- 
 tempt to perform such an operation upon human nature as will 
 tend to remove those incentives to initiative and achievement 
 which are such a large factor, as yet, in determining the limits 
 of our activity or struggle; for it cannot be denied that for 
 the great mass of human beings, income and economic achieve- 
 ment generally constitute a large part of the pain that 
 expresses itself in struggle and are the measures of their 
 progress in struggle, as I have tried to explain elsewhere. 
 To most of us the incubus of having to provide for our live- 
 lihood has not been without benefit, regardless of the fact that 
 we may feel called to higher things. To many the elimination 
 of this necessity would only result in self-indulgence and gen- 
 eral decline in moral standards; for morality presupposes 
 difficult conditions of struggle to be surmounted. 
 
 In short, the law of struggle does not co-exist with sine- 
 cures in the economic field any more than in any other field.
 
 124 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 Neither labor nor capital can do without provision for expres- 
 sion in struggle; existing conditions and all systems projected 
 for the future will have to square with the law of struggle. 
 Nevertheless, the interests of labor and capital are not neces- 
 sarily antagonistic, save only where short-sightedness and 
 incontinence makes them so, just as when partners quarrel. 
 A recognition of the law of struggle as a universal principle in 
 human nature might lead to the allowance of natural avenues 
 of expression for both sides and the dove-tailing of interests. 
 For although the law of struggle cannot be denied, it does not 
 necessarily involve economic antagonism nor mutual destruc- 
 tion. The profit-sharing principle, which is really a very 
 ancient principle of equity, and a very simple one, releases 
 both sides to the struggle for which we are all intended, but 
 upon non-conflicting lines. 
 
 All the schemes for economic conformity so far advanced 
 seem to be lacking in conformity with human nature. Who- 
 ever wishes to re-create the economic world for us upon a 
 new plan must see to it that his plan conforms to the funda- 
 mental characteristics of human beings and human relations; 
 as, for example, to the fact 
 
 That economic stress is not ascribable to any class, caste 
 or set of men but is quite in keeping with the history of the 
 world and the natural scheme of things ; and, whether intensi- 
 fied by over-population or maladjustment, can only be over- 
 come, now as heretofore, by Struggle — whether Struggle takes 
 the form of restraint, improved production, re-adjustment or 
 all of these things. 
 
 That we are all capitalists by nature and have the wish 
 to acquire apart from the bare needs of existence. 
 
 That most of our so-called economic needs are not ''eco- 
 nomic" at all but psychological. 
 
 That, due to these psychological needs, our economic 
 wants keep continually increasing and will continue to 
 increase. 
 
 That the spirit of acquisition is, indeed, part of our 
 struggle-nature. 
 
 That, due to the natural inequality in men, equality of 
 wealth is not possible even if it were desirable — that inequality
 
 THE ECONOMIC STRUGGLE 125 
 
 of wealth is, in fact, only one of the phases of the inequality 
 in men. 
 
 That, nevertheless, the human family has attained to a 
 state of sensitiveness which dictates that the bare needs for 
 subsistence — or the minimum requirements of struggle — shall 
 not be the subject of interhuman conflict. 
 
 That labor demands a share in profits over and above 
 market-wages, as the psychological necessity of its struggle. 
 
 That the security of capital in turn is dependent upon 
 the standardization of values. 
 
 That industries in the fullness of their development tend 
 to large combinations or monopolies. 
 
 That the standardization of values can be effected through 
 the growth of monopolies and international conformity in the 
 regulation of them. 
 
 That monopolies without the capacity to abuse their 
 powers are economically useful as tending to eliminate redu- 
 plication of effort, disorganization and waste. 
 
 That economic re-adjustment upon less mortally con- 
 flicting lines is dependent, in large measure, upon the security 
 of capital. 
 
 That labor, by co-operating to eliminate economic risk 
 from the operations of capital, can earn the right to share in 
 profits over and above market-wages, through the medium of 
 state-recognized monopolies.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 STRUGGLE AS WAR 
 1. From Peace To War. 
 
 TO ONE schooled in Pain-Struggle, there is still some- 
 thing startling, tho nothing unnatural, in war. War 
 reveals man in a more elementary attitude of struggle 
 than is usually apparent in the complex ramifications of the 
 struggles prevailing in peace-times. The grocer, the baker 
 and the candlestick-maker are also at war. But it is a strug- 
 gle to which we have become accustomed as something normal; 
 nor does it stand out in such sharp relief as war, because the 
 wars of trade and industry are less picturesque, its alignments 
 harder to discern, its attacks and defences, victories and 
 defeats more difficult to follow. 
 
 Certainly, war is another manifestation of the law of 
 struggle. To say, however, that war is a revelation of man in 
 his more natural state is a fallacy, unless we mean by the 
 word ** natural" a lower state. War is a reversion to type, 
 to a lower standard of struggle as between man and man. 
 Above all, war is not synonymous with struggle. It is only 
 a phase of struggle, a small phase ; nor is it an eternally indis- 
 pensable phase. So much for war as war. 
 
 When war becomes part of a great aspiration, however, 
 it takes on the character of its aspiration, becomes one with 
 it, and thus attains to greatness in the scale of struggle. The 
 jQnite becomes infinite in its implication. War, then, becomes 
 a great manifestation of struggle, not because it is war, but 
 because it becomes the embodiment of a great idea, full of 
 innate religious force, transfiguring all classes and all rela- 
 tions. 
 
 Our cynics profess to see no possible relationship between 
 war and religion. And yet, it is the force of religious convic- 
 tion that prepares us spiritually for war. The religious feel 
 consciously what all human beings feel subconsciously — that 
 life itself has nothing final in it. It is only of value and sig- 
 
 126
 
 STRUGGLE AS WAR 127 
 
 nificance in conjunction with struggle. Only to live is to be 
 on a par with the lowest of created things. It is the unconscious 
 perception of this truth that creates the background for that 
 dangerous psychological impasse between nations which is 
 apt to culminate in war. Man was made to struggle and, 
 given a cause, no nation will evade its struggle even if deaths 
 and destructions are incident to it. 
 
 It must not surprise us, therefore, when a nation is 
 impelled to rush to arms in order to avenge the killing of a few 
 citizens on the sea or in its border, where the killing is an 
 infringement of its sovereignty. It is true that the resulting 
 war must inevitably involve the loss of thousands more, but 
 this is no argument. It is not the number of those killed that 
 matters; it is the significance of their dying that counts. It 
 is one thing to die fighting and quite another to be cut down 
 like swine. 
 
 Furthermore, the concept of nationality is inconsistent 
 with submission to the way-of-life or individuality of another 
 nation. A passing wrong may be endured. But permanent 
 obstruction to the natural struggle of a nation cannot be tol- 
 erated and is not compatible with the maintenance of national 
 individuality which is the essence of national differentiation. 
 
 There are those indeed who ascribe this War and all other 
 wars to economic causes, just as they ascribe individual 
 struggle to economic causes. I shall try to show that the wars 
 of nations, like the wars of individuals, are due, not to eco- 
 nomic causes but to the wish for individual or ethnic pre- 
 ponderance in which economic mastery is an incident, a 
 weapon. 
 
 Let us place ever so much insistence upon the economic 
 pretensions of nations, they will not seem sufficient causes of 
 war. The hiatus between peace and war cannot be bridged by 
 such a motive. It is only by changing our conceptions of the 
 nature of human beings and the real motivity in life that we 
 can gain an insight into the causes that loosen the dogs of war. 
 
 That the individual is a creature of struggle we have 
 seen. It cannot be expected, therefore, that the mass of indi- 
 viduals comprised in national groups will be of a different 
 clay. It is a fact, however, that the individual subscribes to 
 certain standards of struggle and reckons with them, and that,
 
 128 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 on the whole, the standards of struggle for the individual are 
 higher than those set for national groups by national groups. 
 Moreover, when a standard of struggle has been attained 
 among individuals, fear of the contumely of men and the penal 
 statutes enacted to keep men to the highest common standard 
 of struggle, prevents the individual or, at any rate, checks 
 him to a degree, from the danger of falling back to the old 
 abyss from whence he emerged. But while the individual is 
 thus compassed about by his sense of personal responsibility, 
 the national group has no standards of struggle to which it 
 holds itself amenable. Neither law nor tradition has fixed the 
 standard of struggle for the national group and there are no 
 dangers compelling it to a permanent standard of struggle 
 save only the temporary, shifting considerations of expediency 
 or fear of this or that power or powers. Under these condi- 
 tions, it is not only difficult but practically impossible for one 
 isolated national group to consistently maintain a higher 
 standard of struggle than the rest of the powers or even to 
 hold permanently to any standard. 
 
 It is not surprising, therefore, that the usages of national 
 groups in relation to each other have not kept pace with 
 the development of the individual but partake of the 
 atmosphere of mutual suspicion in which they live. In the 
 state of international anarchy in which nations live, it is 
 natural for some national groups to exist upon a predatory 
 basis and for others to arm in self-defence. Thus, although 
 nations as such exist in a state of anarchy, it is the predatory 
 groups that create the modus vivendi for the rest. 
 
 These being the conditions, it is useless to rail against 
 armaments unless we are to indorse the corollary that it is 
 wrong to defend ourselves against possible aggression. It is not 
 against armaments that we must be opposed but against theft 
 — the theft of lands and peoples. Eliminate the possibility of 
 the theft or subjugation of alien lands and the whole reason 
 for armaments disappears. What we must attack, then, is not 
 armament but the belief that there are ends to be obtained — 
 ends other than self-defense — which can only be obtained thru 
 the conflict of arms and which are thought worthy of being 
 acquired through this means. The resort to arms for purposes 
 of self-defense is certainly justifiable but, as a matter of fact,
 
 STRUGGLE AS AVAR 129 
 
 it is the lust for ends other than self-defense which makes 
 national armaments necessary even for the purpose of self- 
 defense ! 
 
 War, then, is not a crime in itself but only when asso- 
 ciated with a criminal object. A much greater crime both to 
 the nation involved and to the world at large is submission to 
 conquest. Submission to conquest involves, first, an imme- 
 diate and far-reaching deterioration of the progressive ele- 
 ments in the conquered and a degradation of its whole moral 
 gamut; for the forcible admixture of peoples attendant upon 
 conquest must result in moral chaos, in which the maintenance 
 of a civic or national conscience is indefinitely suspended and 
 no man can adhere to any standard or trust his fellow; and 
 the sinister influence of any people debauched and degraded 
 by conquest, must emanate to all the world. Secondly, the 
 resultant influence upon the conqueror is to numb his sensitive 
 faculties with the state of glut which is the prelude of that 
 callousness, self-indulgence, moral obloquy and inner stagna- 
 tion characteristic of all surfeited nations and which must 
 ultimately lead to their undoing. Third, submission by one 
 nation to conquest upsets the balance of power among other 
 nations and leads to that fatal feeling of insecurity thruout 
 the world. 
 
 "We are familiar with this last proposition in a general 
 way, but have we ever stopped to consider its practical work- 
 ings? It is very simple. For example, if a nation, A, conquers 
 
 B, A must thereafter maintain a standing army to keep B in 
 subjection. Now C cannot afford to allow its neighbor A to 
 possess a stronger armament than it (C) possesses because of 
 the menace constituted by this disparity in armed force. C 
 consequently feels compelled to increase its budget of army 
 and navy expenses, which it proceeds to do. D, a neighbor of 
 
 C, happens to be in the same relation to C from a military 
 standpoint as C was to A. As a result of C's increase of 
 armament D, too, must make an increased showing. And so 
 the movement for increased armaments spreads from nation to 
 nation. 
 
 It is obvious that it would have been far better for B, as 
 well as for the rest of the world, if it had fought until it was 
 absolutely destroyed rather than submit to conquest. This,
 
 130 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 according to the Law of Struggle, is a cardinal sin. For a 
 single nation holding one or more races in subjugation by 
 force, becomes a morass of pestilential proportions, carrying 
 the gospel of permanent and increasing militarism to its neigh- 
 bors and to all the other countries of the world. The most 
 intolerable aspect of this condition of affairs is, that on account 
 of the burglarious attacks upon the free life of the world by 
 these robber nations, other nations who are content to live 
 at peace with the world, i. e., to struggle along non-destructive 
 lines, like the United States, are likewise compelled to arm 
 and to stimulate an enforced easily-misunderstood martial 
 propaganda in self-defense, until they, too, are drawn into the 
 morass of militarism from which they vainly try to escape. 
 The whole world is dragged willy-nilly after the triumphal 
 chariot-wheels of the nations that try to achieve success in 
 subjugating other peoples. Thus it is that blood cries for 
 blood, and no nation is absolved from punishment when one 
 sister nation is permitted to be crushed by another. 
 
 It becomes apparent, then, that the whole guilt of the 
 military system of the world rests upon the shoulders of the 
 nations that rob. If nations were to unite to-day on the prin- 
 ciple of allowing every people the unrestricted possession of 
 its own soil, the entire military system of the world would 
 disappear like a nightmare because there would be left no 
 object for the maintenance of such enormous expenditures of 
 thought, energy and resources. The whole paraphernalia of 
 war would be discarded as the junk of an out-worn form of 
 struggle peculiar to a hyena-period in the life of man. To 
 talk of peace, of banding in organizations for the spreading of 
 the gospel of disarmament, is fatuous where such organiza- 
 tions or movements do not place the elimination of thievery 
 and the freeing of subject peoples in the foreground of their 
 peace-programs. There can be no peace save the peace of 
 justice, the peace of right-doing, of restoring to each what 
 belongs to each. 
 
 2. The Struggle for Ethnic Preponderance. 
 
 The problems occasioned by economic non-conformity are 
 further complicated, if not created, by the struggle of every
 
 STRUGGLE AS WAR 131 
 
 one for individual preponderance. Economic non-conformity 
 does not necessarily follow from this state of facts but, in 
 actuality, it does, due to the fact that we have not yet adopted 
 a method of keeping the economic avenues open for the 
 struggle of the individual upon lines that will not conflict 
 with the struggle of other individuals. This has already been 
 explained. 
 
 Now the problems of international non-conformity are in- 
 tensified in exactly the same way, i. e., by the struggle of every 
 nation for ethnic preponderance. And the solution must be 
 of a similar order as in the case of the individual; channels of 
 natural expression for the struggle of every nationality must 
 be provided but upon non-destructive lines. 
 
 This can only be accomplished through education in the 
 law of struggle and its natural media of expression. 
 
 But before we go into this phase of the matter further, 
 let us see to what extent war in general as well as the present 
 war in particular is occasioned by economic causes. We are 
 all familiar with the oft-repeated claim that Germany was 
 compelled to wage war upon the Allies because her congested 
 area was insufficient for her population — that she was com- 
 pelled to seek additional territory and that she required more 
 markets, etc. Assuming that this is correct, for whom did 
 she require these things, these economic advantages'? For 
 Germany. What is Germany? An empire composed, in the 
 main, of a confederation of tribes possessing an ethnic identity. 
 In other words, Germany reached out to benefit itself eth- 
 nically through the seizure of certain economic advantages. 
 
 Thus, although Germany may be said to have waged 
 war from economic motives, if we please, these motives 
 are economic in an auxiliary sense only. Germany was seeking 
 its maximum good, as it understood it, for itself only and 
 not for the other nations, so that when we say, for example, 
 that the War is being fought on economic grounds, it is a 
 misnomer. The truth is that the War is fought on ethnic 
 grounds, that is, each nation seeks its greatest economic, 
 political and cultural advantages for itself — as auxiliaries for 
 its continued ethnic preponderance. Thus, Germany is not 
 interested in the well-being of its children in other lands 
 unless they persist as Germans. If they prosper as newly-
 
 132 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 constituted Englishmen or Frenchmen, Germany considers 
 them alienated and lost which, indeed, is the fact. The same 
 holds good with reference to the attitude of the other nations 
 toward its emigrants. This is an unavoidable position if we 
 believe in nationalities as distinct ethnic entities. No nation 
 by nature committed to the principle — as all of them are — 
 that its ethnic continuity must be maintained and promoted, 
 will look with equanimity upon the submergence of its sub- 
 jects in alien areas. 
 
 It is folly to infer from this that the continued existence 
 of different races and nationalities is an evil which must be 
 extirpated, as the so-called cosmopolitanist holds. Without 
 entering into a lengthy discussion of this question, it should 
 suffice to say that the climates of the world, if nothing else, 
 are pledged to the perpetuation of different races of men. 
 National forms are simply the natural expression of the life- 
 experience of large ethnic groups. This they can no more 
 eliminate than we can shed our skins. Can Chinamen by an 
 act of will become Britons? Can the Eskimo become a Zulu? 
 In the same way, one must be obtuse to imagine that the 
 Frenchman can at will become a German or vice versa or the 
 Jew become an Irishman. In short, the existence of different 
 races and nationalities in the world is a fact in nature which 
 must be accepted as axiomatic. 
 
 Racial or national differentiation is as sacred and invio- 
 lable as the individuality of persons, except more so. Devel- 
 opment of racial groups, as of individuals, is only possible 
 upon terms of freedom for the expression of natural differen- 
 tiation. There is no other way of life. Interference with 
 national differentiation is, therefore, a crime. 
 
 We are, therefore, committed to two axioms. One, of the 
 basic nature of struggle; two, of the permanent and basic 
 nature of national differentiation. 
 
 From these two axioms follow two concomitants. From 
 the first, which includes the acceptance of struggle as a law 
 of life, flows the concomitant that it is wrong to surrender. 
 ''Thou shalt not surrender" may be said to be a law of all 
 life actuating the most unnoticeable creation of the universe 
 alike with the Indian chanting his death-hymn and the nation 
 battling until its last man falls and its women die by their
 
 STRUGGLE AS WAR 133 
 
 own hand. There is no transcending this law in any code of 
 morality that has ever been formulated. The concomitant of 
 the second axiom, i. e., of the basic nature of national differen- 
 tiation, is that each nation must struggle to maintain its 
 identity at all costs. 
 
 The question suggests itself, doubtless, how can we expect 
 the elimination of war since it has already been conceded that 
 struggle is inevitable in itself and also for the maintenance of 
 national individuality? I have already said, however, that 
 struggle is not synonymous with war. There are innumerable 
 forms of struggle. For example, I am struggling now when 
 I strive through this medium to impose these ideas upon the 
 reader. We know of many struggles carried on similarly 
 which have prevailed although the armed forces of the enemy 
 were aligned in opposition. 
 
 Again, we have already seen that the real object of war is 
 ethnic preponderance and also that ethnic preponderance 
 obtained through war is deceptive, temporary and vicious 
 even in its resultant influence upon the conquerors. Unless 
 one nation absolutely destroys another — which is an absolutely 
 barren act — no permanent conquest is possible through war. 
 The Norman French set out to conquer England which, tech- 
 nically speaking, they did. After a few generations of French 
 rule, however, the garrison of conquerors absolutely disap- 
 peared, swallowed up by the alien life upon which they had 
 come to impose their will, so that their traces are hardly 
 discernible, save to the student of genealogical trees and pet- 
 rified customs. France has since received many a beating at 
 the hands of England, and its poor Norman province with it. 
 Swords decided nothing here. The decisive element was the 
 elementary qualities in the genius of the people. In other 
 words, not war, but strength of soul, the spiritual forces of 
 people decide as to who shall prevail, if either, or whether the 
 struggle shall be a drawn one. The idea that one nation may 
 foist its spirit upon another merely through the resulting issue 
 of a battle is an absurdity. Where such a thing did occur — as 
 through the conquest of one small tribe by another — the result 
 is traceable to the fact that there was no real ethnic difference 
 between the conflicting races and the war was simply a crude 
 mode of contact and amalgamation, although the adversaries
 
 134 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 were too blinded by prejudice to appreciate the fact. Nature 
 itself decides the justice of the case. 
 
 Take, for example, the Jewish nation. According to all 
 rules of military philosophy they should have been swallowed 
 up and utterly submerged in the maelstrom of opposing races 
 among whom they persist, relatively, a handful. 
 
 Had the ethnic difference between the Jews and the rest 
 of the world been slight or had the Jewish people been defi- 
 cient in its ethnic will-power, these exiles from the east could 
 not have survived the temptation to surrender and be at peace, 
 under the pressure put upon them from without. It is folly 
 to ascribe their continued persistence to the fact that they 
 lived in Ghettos. One might say with equal truth, The Rus- 
 sians held out for a number of months against attack at Port 
 Arthur because they lived in a fort ! Were the Russians under 
 compulsion to live in a fort? They might have come out and 
 surrendered as, indeed, they ultimately did. So, too, the 
 Jews might have come out from behind Judeangasse and 
 Ghetto-wall, embraced the religion of their oppressors and 
 submitted to the will of the conqueror. This privilege has 
 always been open to them. What prevented them? Briefly, 
 strength of soul, persistence of the national will to struggle 
 as an ethnic entity. This they did without armaments, mili- 
 tary organizations and the like which were an arm of defence 
 which th,ey had lost in the wars with Rome. The rabbis, who 
 were then the accredited leaders of the Jewish masses and 
 the captains of the thousands and tens of thousands, devised 
 by every means within their power to create a kind of intel- 
 lectual discipline governing every action of the daily life of 
 the Jew, through which the solidarity and national identity of 
 the people might be maintained in the face of the multifarious 
 centres of attack radiating from alien environments. Some- 
 times these rabbinical leaders gave fanciful reasons for their 
 injunctions, but the instinct which begot them was always 
 the same, the conservation of the national identity. As the 
 conception of national distinctiveness could only be instilled 
 through this intellectual discipline, it followed that they held 
 the ignorant Jew in abhorrence ( ' ' Split him open like a fish ! ' ' 
 one rabbi said) because they felt that in the limited mode of 
 struggle open to the nation, the illiterate individual had no
 
 STRUGGLE AS WAR 135 
 
 bold upon the national life-line and must be submerged by any 
 chance wave from the ocean of alien environment. So, too, 
 with the instinct of the herd for seeking out its own best inter- 
 ests, at times they would not re-admit a renegade, no matter 
 how repentant nor what the impelling force that resulted in 
 his apostasy! So, also, dissentients could not be tolerated 
 in the state of siege in which the Jews were. In fact, quite an 
 interesting study could be made by the biologist of the evolu- 
 tion of the struggle of the herd as developed in an intellectual 
 people driven by necessity to novel methods of defence. 
 
 Now I simply cite the foregoing facts about this power- 
 fully-struggling people by way of pointing out how profound 
 the matter of ethnic struggle really is and how pitifully inade- 
 quate a struggle through force of arms alone is to give one 
 race preponderance over another. The victory is simply not 
 to be gained in that manner. Such victories are merely super- 
 ficial and short-lived. Can we really entertain the idea that 
 military legions, drilled to wield the short-sword or the rifle, 
 can superimpose their spirit upon a matured, cultivated 
 nation? Doubtless, they can create waste-places, they can 
 destroy and bring degradation in their wake. But that is the 
 limit of their capacity. 
 
 It is clear, then, that the attack of German militarism upon 
 the normal struggle of the world is not due to economic con- 
 siderations, but to the craving for racial preponderance and 
 to the assumption that it is permissible and practicable to 
 attain it by ** blood and iron." 
 
 The whole world is rife with the onsets of different races 
 and different mixtures of races clamoring for supremacy ! Why 
 the clamor ? What do all these raucous voices hope to accom- 
 plish f Deep in the soul of every inhabitant lies the sure seed 
 of inevitable persistence or disintegration. Time will tell 
 whether the composition of the one or the other is such as to 
 entitle him to a distinct existence in the ethnic state in which 
 he arrived. If their differentiation is sufficiently great, if they 
 have sufficient ethnic soul to justify distinctive ethnic exist- 
 ence, heaven and earth will see to it that their points of dis- 
 similarity are maintained to the extent to which nature and 
 their strength of spirit entitles them. In the meantime, they 
 have their great reservoirs of national inspiration and culture.
 
 136 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 their own homelands ; and if, despite these sources of strength- 
 ening influence, they cannot maintain themselves in foreign 
 areas as distinct entities, they do not deserve nor have they 
 the right to be so maintained by force of arms. The German 
 resort to arms in such a case is the last argument of a weakling 
 attempting something beyond his natural capacity. It is the 
 act of one sick with self-love enviously polluting the food he 
 cannot eat. Nations dedicated to such an unfair method of 
 struggle are the enemies of mankind, as well as themselves. 
 
 Most of the belligerents in this war have their own 
 national reservoirs, they hold sovereign sway over the land 
 which constitutes the national domicile and, save for the war 
 into which they have been plunged, the continuity of their 
 national life is secure. But how about those nations who are 
 without a home of their own ? Are they, too, not entitled to a 
 reservoir of national energy, a place in the sun of life? For 
 them the struggle to maintain their national identity in other 
 lands is a hundred fold more difficult because they have 
 nowhere whence to draw sustenance with which to refresh 
 their souls in the hard and unremitting war which the world 
 is making upon them. Is peace on earth thinkable without 
 justice to the small nationality? No, it is not thinkable and 
 there will be no peace without justice to all that have been 
 despoiled. The epoch-making character of this, as distin- 
 guished from all other wars, is that this issue has at least come 
 into clear relief and that the Allies recognize that their own 
 safety is bound up with the rectification of this injustice. 
 
 3. Germany in the Scale of Struggle. 
 
 Germany offers an interesting example of a people in 
 whom the progress of sensitization has been arrested — tem- 
 porarily, let us hope. Forty-odd years of class military pound- 
 ing, superimposed upon a historic experience of the same 
 general order, has hessianized finer sensibilities. It is signifi- 
 cant that Germany has latterly declined as a factor in art, 
 literature, music and religion. Only in science, industry and 
 trade, that is, in the materialistic perception of sensitive exist- 
 ence, has it been noteworthy. Politically it has rem.ained 
 stunted since that abortion of 1848 which some dignify with
 
 STRUGGLE AS WAR 137 
 
 the name of revolution. Its socialist majorities have signified 
 nothing. There was no more humanitarianism or religious 
 fire back of these political showings than in the stockholders 
 of any corporation clamoring for larger dividends. They 
 have converted a movement, valuable as a movement of pro- 
 test, into a guild ! More and still more wages, better and still 
 better working hours and conditions, pensions and insurance 
 funds, was the polestar of their new guild. Hence when a 
 great moral issue came to them they could only respond — like 
 a guild ! Of the insistence on that minimum of political liberty, 
 which the peoples of England, France and the United States 
 regard as the holy sign manual and indispensable requisite of 
 human worth, there has been no great sign, save on the part of 
 a heroic few. 
 
 German militarism has this in common with all small 
 egos, with all those in the lower scale of struggle, that sup- 
 pression and destruction follow in its wake instead of fructifi- 
 cation and expansion which are incident to great strugglers. 
 The great straggler's way upward is by enlisting the forward 
 impulses of all that he meets in his way and persuading them 
 to travel with him. The way of the small straggler is by 
 trying to crush under foot all that stand in opposition. This 
 is the brutal, limited conception of straggle upheld by the 
 militarist. That is why the great heart of the world beats 
 against Germany to-day and why German militarism will 
 never attain to the world-empire it covets. 
 
 The Germans have and maintain a wonderful military 
 organization, but it cannot stand up against the natural organi- 
 zation of the world and its normal interests. The only great 
 empire-building people of the world, the British, almost al- 
 ways brought order out of chaos. The British are not a very 
 logical people; but they are a sensitive people, blessed with 
 the saving grace of intuition, which has enabled them to sense 
 the fitness of things in almost every crisis. Their strength 
 comes from placing things in right relation to each other and 
 deriving their political advantages and their safety from seek- 
 ing the natural position of things. Hence they are able, with 
 a relative handful of soldiers, to control an empire so vast! 
 German militarism, on the other hand, proposes to encompass 
 world-empire by bringing chaos out of order — by trying to
 
 138 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 stand nations and peoples on their heads in the interests of 
 Germany. It is not a conception born to success. 
 
 The Germans, unlike the British, are an extremely logical 
 people. In fact, they have carried their logical propensity so 
 far that they have rationalized the human element out of 
 existence and become quite positive and conceited about it. 
 The fact is, however, as I have tried to explain elsewhere, we 
 are not at all rational but poor, intuitive creatures to whom an 
 iota of intuition is more decisive than a ton of rationalism. 
 The German attachment to the syllogism has led them to 
 misread the heart of the world and their place in the scheme 
 of things. For example, all the junker-philosophers in Ger- 
 many have been preaching for generations that the State is 
 non-moral and is not amenable to the laws of morality in its 
 relations to other states. This they deduced from the fact 
 that there were no enforceable standards (of struggle) among 
 nations as there are among individuals. It is a fact that there 
 are no enforceable standards among nations, but there are 
 human standards. But it has remained for Germany, with 
 sledge hammer logic, to deduce that, because the standards of 
 humanity could not be enforced in international relations, 
 therefore, they did not exist and to act accordingly. 
 
 It is right and proper for a state that is both logical and 
 non-moral to commandeer the intellect of the nation, to enforce 
 the cult of junkerism thru the state-paid professoren. The 
 junkers, as mainstays of a non-moral State, are not amenable 
 to the ordinary rules of morality either in relation to the 
 civilian in Germany or to the civilian in an enemy country or 
 to the enemj^ in arms. Naturally, this state of non-morality 
 in the professorial and junker class has its repercussions in 
 other lower and wider quarters in Germany. The Germans, 
 let it be remembered, are very patriotic; and the object of 
 their patriotism is non-moral. Is it difficult, then, to image 
 the relation between the German mind and the German act 
 as revealed in the great drama of the war? 
 
 But all the manifestations of the logicalness of the Ger- 
 man mind have yet to reveal themselves. It will lead them 
 on to every resort and expedient with a terrible thoroughness, 
 until all the blood, all the resources, all the last ounce of
 
 STRUGGLE AS WAR 139 
 
 strength shall have been used up. The millions of captives in 
 Germany, so resourcefully employed in order to release more 
 men to the firing lines, are useful enough as far as German 
 logic can see. Actually, however, they are only serving to 
 make the destruction of the German man-power more com- 
 plete. But Germany cannot escape the uncanny power of the 
 demands created by its own reasoning. It must go on to the 
 end. 
 
 Of course, the non-morality of the German State is really 
 immoral; but it does not avail us to call it names. It is a 
 different order of morality than we profess and only rela- 
 tively immoral. Actually, it is a kind of morality, inferior 
 in the scale of struggle, it is true, and founded upon the 
 assumption that 
 
 (a) The duty of every German is to Germany only; 
 
 (b) That every other state is a legitimate object of prey; 
 
 (c) That all recognized standards can properly be sus- 
 pended where there is any kind of conflict of interests 
 between Germany and other states; 
 
 (d) That the physical, moral, cultural and economic 
 ascendency of one state over another can best be 
 gained and maintained by military conquest. 
 
 It is a fact that it is not Germany alone who always har- 
 bored such conceptions. But it has remained for Germany, 
 in our days, to consciously and unflinchingly adopt a state- 
 morality which set the standards of individual morality at 
 naught, practically saying, ^'Evil, be thou my good!" 
 
 In dealing with Germany, therefore, it is of the utmost 
 importance to realize that we are dealing here with a peculiar 
 state-morality; and that whether this Germany speaks fair 
 words or foul it is still speaking from the defenses dictated 
 by its political Code. I take it for granted that it is because 
 the Allied statesmen intuitively feel this to be the case, that 
 they decline to enter into pourparlers with Germany before 
 receiving unmistakable evidence that something has happened 
 in Germany indicating that its dangerous state-morality has 
 been supplanted. So far, the only human accents that have 
 proceeded from Germany have been uttered by a very heroic 
 few, barely discernible in the dominant note of militarism.
 
 140 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 There are some who profess a certain admiration for the 
 fight Germany is making. Certainly, there are elements of 
 fascination in almost any form of struggle. But, tho we can- 
 not but concede the enormous capacity of Germany in this re- 
 spect, it must not be forgotten that this War was begun by 
 Germany, not as a struggle in the heroic meaning of the word, 
 but as an act of aggression, an abuse of power. It was a 
 crime conceived in the night, to make a sudden and overwhelm- 
 ing onslaught upon the unsuspecting world. Why did Ger- 
 many go to war? Nobody pressed it — it suffered from no 
 external abuse — none invaded its prerogatives. It is not in 
 the spirit of divine struggle but sheer ponderous brutality 
 when a first-class power goes marauding among weaker neigh- 
 bors of supposedly lesser resisting force. Struggle — that is, 
 struggle for both opponents — presupposes a certain equality 
 in opposing forces. This fundamental element of struggle is 
 so strongly ingrained in us that we can seldom sympathize 
 with an antagonist who is manifestly too powerful for his 
 opponent. The War is a struggle in relation to the Allies and 
 was so at the start. In relation to Germany, it was conceived 
 as a windfall and began to assume the proportions of a 
 struggle later. 
 
 It can hardly be denied that the Germans have proven 
 themselves very proficient in the business of war. This is 
 due, primarih^ to the fact that their state-morality has induced 
 a state of mind which leaves the field clear for whatever action 
 is deemed necessary to accomplish the end in view and this 
 without any great resolves or halting judgments. Secondly, 
 the comparative lack of sensitiveness and individuality in the 
 masses, admits of easy handling of large, docile groups in long 
 preparation for war as part of their daily existence. Thus, 
 Germany was not only prepared in the technique of war. It 
 was mentally prepared. The difficulties of the civilian are not 
 his fear of the actual field of battle so much as his aversion 
 to donning the soldier's straight-jacket. It is his dread of this 
 change of life which is the most difficult to overcome. For 
 Germany to proceed to war was only to carry the day's busi- 
 ness one step further. With the United States and Great 
 Britain, it was an embarkation into a new and strange world. 
 That they have done it is one of the miracles of truly great
 
 STRUGGLE AS WAR 141 
 
 struggle and should forever discredit the claim of the profes- 
 sional militarist to supremacy in the scale of struggle. 
 
 From the standpoint of Struggle, it would be a world- 
 calamity, greater by far than the War itself, for the Central 
 Powers to win. A drawn result would even be worse because 
 the whole world would have to remain in arms indefinitely 
 and the military caste system of Germany would be fastened 
 — like an iron collar — upon the neck of humanity. Brute force 
 would again become the apparent measure of success in 
 struggle and international distrust a permanent article of 
 faith. Democracy would be banished as belonging to a differ- 
 ent order of struggle. 
 
 To break the dead-lock and restore the normal order of 
 struggle between nations, one of two things must occur. 
 Either the Allies must break the military resistance offered by 
 the enemy and coincidently usher in a revolution which will 
 discredit and destroy the state-morality which is at the root 
 of this onslaught upon the world, or this revolution must take 
 place among the Central Powers without such a victory by 
 the Allies. Certainly, an Allied victory unaccompanied by 
 revolution would be a sterile attainment. For the object of 
 the Allied effort, as I conceive it, is not merely a formal mili- 
 tary triumph, but to drive home to the masses of the Central 
 Powers such a degree of sensitiveness as will make them 
 conscious of the enormity and futility of the mode of struggle 
 they have permitted themselves to adopt in relation to the rest 
 of mankind. 
 
 But far more important and fundamental than any mili- 
 tary decision, is the correct understanding by all the nations 
 of the law of struggle and the resultant conclusion that ethnic 
 preponderance is not attainable by military conquests ; that no 
 nation is entitled to ethnic proponderance, just as no person is 
 entitled to individual preponderance, save only and to the 
 extent only to which we unconsciously influence others by what 
 we are, by the natural revelation of the sensitiveness that is in 
 us in fulfilling our measures of pain. Doubtless, this cannot be 
 fully conveyed by the telling alone, it must be conveyed in 
 the draughts of pain we are imbibing, and the War is one of 
 the avenues by which this knowledge will come to us.
 
 142 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 To those to whom life is an expression of the so-called 
 will-to-live this War will doubtless come as an indictment of 
 God, since he is setting his own law at naught. But this 
 War ought to revise our conception of the aim of existence. 
 To those to whom the Law of Struggle and the Will to Strug- 
 gle are the basis of life, this War, like all phenomena, is one 
 more evidence of the insignificance of all other forms of 
 motivity. The terror and the glory of war is that it is one of 
 the most lurid phenomena disclosing, as through a flash of 
 lightning, how all the important things of life fall away from 
 us beside the awful Law of Struggle. For once, if at no other 
 time, we are able to see ourselves elementally, and the Law by 
 which we live. War, it is true, is a cruder level of struggle 
 than we have developed for ourselves. It is not only cruder 
 but is a feebler manifestation of the possibilities of struggle 
 that is within us. On this account, it involves all the greater 
 exertion, not on the part of the professional soldier, but on 
 the part of those that have war thrust upon them. For the lat- 
 ter, war often offers, not an extension of the possibilities of 
 struggle, but demands rather a contraction of individual strug- 
 gle in line with the requirements of mass effort. It is in this 
 sense that war, although representing struggle on a lower 
 scale, demands the supreme effort of the individual. 
 
 Cruel, implacable, heart-rending and wasteful as this War 
 is, it cannot be said that it constitutes an indictment against 
 God any more than any other war that ever took place can 
 be so regarded. War certainly belies the God of the will-to- 
 live but not the God of the Will-to-Struggle. The evidence of 
 the ages is that wo have emerged from war, that our sensitive- 
 ness has been quickened by it, that succeeding wars have 
 tended to increase the standards of struggle, that the mon- 
 strosities of savagery have given way or, rather, flowered into 
 chivalries which, in turn, have developed into the amenities 
 of struggle which constitute our normal life to-day. The fact 
 that Germany has suffered a relapse, simply evidences that in 
 her the processes of sensitization have not yet reached the 
 stage of development that had been claimed for her. 
 
 If, as a result of this awful bloodshed and universal suffer- 
 ing, this generation is able to pass on to succeeding genera- 
 tions a more sensitive world, one in which the invasion of
 
 STRUGGLE AS WAR 143 
 
 another's right will be regarded as a horror pregnant with 
 calamity, in which every people will cease to be the prey of 
 another and in which the whole direction of human struggle 
 will tend toward mutually helpful channels, will this War 
 have been fought in vain? 
 
 4. Bolshevism in the Scale of Struggle. 
 
 The movement in Russia that goes under the name of 
 Bolshevism can be viewed under several different aspects, 
 each suggesting a contributing cause. As a purely Russian 
 movement, Bolshevism is a reflex of Russian self-indulgence 
 from the tyranny of Czarism; it is compounded also of war- 
 weariness, abetted, financed and accelerated by Germany 
 because of its disintegrating influence upon the unity and 
 military effectiveness of the Russian people. 
 
 But Bolshevism is also an intellectual movement. It is 
 a logical culmination of socialist doctrine; and it is from this 
 aspect that Bolshevism bears a sinister, universal meaning to 
 the world. 
 
 There are socialists, to be sure, who repudiate Bolshevism. 
 And yet Bolshevism, apart from certain natively Russian ear- 
 marks which characterize it, follows naturally from the 
 socialist premise. This is why there are such unmistakable 
 symptoms of it in all countries in which socialism has obtained 
 a foot-hold. It is only in Germany that Bolshevism has made 
 the least headway, and this is due to the fact that German 
 socialism, despite the universalist aims of its early de-nation- 
 alized Jewish projectors, has remained nothing but a German 
 guild. Hence, German socialists, intensely ethnic as they are, 
 in rejecting Bolshevism, have remained thoroughly consistent 
 as Germans. 
 
 When I say that Bolshevism follows naturally from the 
 socialist premise, we must bethink ourselves of the natural 
 implications of that premise. For the socialist, consciously 
 or unconsciously, has abolished all national distinctions, and 
 with the abolishment of national distinctions, the socialist has 
 discarded all national values. Hence, from the socialist view- 
 point, in so far as the Great War is due, not to economic
 
 144 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 causes but to racial aspirations, it is a war carried on for 
 values that have no existence. 
 
 Thus, from the standpoint of Bolshevism, there are no 
 issues, apart from the economic issue, around which the Rus- 
 sian workman or peasant need rally; the Belgian proletariat 
 were foolish to defend Belgium against invasion by Germany 
 because they owned nothing in Belgium and hence had nothing 
 to defend; that it did not concern the French who governed 
 Alsace-Lorraine, as long as the people of those provinces were 
 economically unaffected either way; that English Trade 
 Unionism was far more important than the political fate of 
 France or Great Britain, etc., etc. 
 
 Bolshevism is socialism reduced ad absurdum. It is 
 devoid of patriotism because patriotism is not consistent with 
 the economic motivity assumed to be actuating all relations. 
 It recognizes no ties of honor with the allies of Russia, because 
 honor itself is an anomaly in the economic purview of things. 
 It sees no moral distinctions between the aspirations of the 
 belligerents because all the belligerents have been remiss in 
 failing to force an economic straight-jacket of unvarying 
 dimensions upon their subjects. It has no sympathy with the 
 nationalist aspirations of subject or despoiled peoples, no 
 matter how tragic the case, because the only common human 
 bond it recognizes is the economic bond. 
 
 Thus, the Bolsheviki, abandoning that national appeal 
 thru which even the poor, ignorant mujik was able to feel 
 himself identified with the seat of government, such as it 
 was, left the peasant with nothing but an economic hunger. 
 Naturally, the result is chaos. For the substitution of the 
 economic motive in place of nationalism is an invitation to the 
 lowest form of individual struggle. In the scale of struggle, 
 the economic appeal is an assumption that the human being is 
 contained between his hat and his shoes ; that he has no wider 
 interests and is invulnerable to any other form of sensitiveness 
 or responsibility save the gratification of his economic 
 appetites. 
 
 The Russian proletariat, unleashed with the injunction 
 to fill their stomachs and their pockets as the sacred concomi- 
 tant of the sacred will to live, must pursue the cycle of 
 depredation and destruction to the end. Human nature, which
 
 STRUGGLE AS WAR 145 
 
 must express the law of struggle under all conditions, will not 
 be changed one jot; but the rich peasant must be rendered poor 
 and the poor, rich; the great must be rendered small and vice 
 versa; no stone must be left unturned. Then, when the round 
 of destruction is complete unto nausea, and the rabble — or 
 some of them — attain something worth guarding, the uses of 
 some of the things destroyed will occur to them; and the 
 people will proceed to re-build, stone by stone, what was 
 destroyed, with a measure of improvement here and there such 
 as will be suggested by the increased sensitiveness gained in 
 the turmoil ; and national self-respect will re-assert itself 
 again. 
 
 For national groups cannot subsist as such without 
 national self-respect, any more than the individual can sub- 
 sist without self-respect which is another word for faith in 
 the capacity to struggle further. Remove the basis for 
 national self-respect, either thru conquest, surfeiture or cos- 
 mopolitanism, and you may have left a few individuals who 
 are world-conscious, but the mass of the people become nar- 
 rowly self-seeking, lose their unity of interest and pride, and 
 the current thought becomes, "Every man for himself!" 
 
 In theory, the cosmopolitanist, Ajax-like, carries the 
 whole world upon his shoulders. In practice, having no defin- 
 able mass-obligation, he becomes a bohemian and carries 
 nothing but himself. It was this state of feeling at the close 
 of the French Revolution, resulting in general insecurity and 
 national purposelessness, that culminated in Napoleon; it is 
 this state of feeling that must undermine Bolshevism as well, 
 insofar as the rule of the latter will not be prolonged thru 
 German machinations. 
 
 It becomes apparent, then, that socialism, despite its 
 apparent coherence and its call to economic organization, is 
 an anarchic element in times of national crisis; that at such 
 times it spells disintegration and confusion of all issues and 
 relationships, and is as great a peril upon the horizon of the 
 world as that militarism it aims to counteract. The socialist 
 may or may not have a quiverful of remedies applicable to 
 our state of economic non-conformity; but as long as he fails 
 to grasp the individuality resident in national groups and the 
 sacredness of that individuality, or to realize that national
 
 146 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 self-respect must struggle to express itself nationally, he is in 
 the position of the physician who administers ingenious toxins 
 but forgets the important tho homely element of food, so that 
 his patient must needs die. This aspect of socialism has best 
 been exemplified by the Bolsheviki, as well as by their con- 
 freres in France, England, Italy, and elsewhere, to a lesser 
 degree. 
 
 5. War As a Requisite of Trade. 
 
 The claim that this or any other considerable war was 
 waged as a requirement of trade is untrue. If war had to 
 wait upon the decision of industrial or commercial magnates 
 or organizations there would never be any war. The require- 
 ments of trade do not permit of the interruptions and vicissi- 
 tudes of war, and capital is far too timid and too exacting to 
 embark upon such undertakings for sustenance and increase. 
 Of course, once the state of war is in being, those enterprises 
 that survive the changed condition of affairs try to accom- 
 modate themselves to the new order of things and even to 
 make the most of them. Military conquest does not of itself 
 insure the permanent trend of markets. The conquest of 
 markets, like the ascendency of religions and cultures, is too 
 subtle a task to be within reach of the military arm. Witness 
 how the trade of Germany succeeded in circumnavigating the 
 globe and reach out into the possessions and home markets of 
 all the nations! — a peace-achievement which the War will do 
 nothing to enhance ! 
 
 It cannot be gainsayed, however, that there is an element 
 of great danger in the non-cooperative rivalry of the nations 
 as they strain for exclusive markets. While it is true that the 
 requirements of international trade do not commit the world 
 to resort to arms, it may be a contributing influence psycholog- 
 ically. But it is not trade which resorts to militarism, but 
 militarism which regards trade, like everything else, as the 
 subject of prey. Nowadays our military wiseacres look at the 
 map with a commercial slant and would convert the compe- 
 tition of commerce in terms of militarism. Actually, there is 
 no more excuse for this than for a debating society to resort 
 to fisticuffs. Debating and fisticuffs are both degrees of strug-
 
 STRUGGLE AS WAR 147 
 
 gle, to be sure. All life is made up of gradations in struggle. 
 The whole problem is to prevent the declension of higher to 
 lower forms of struggle which is the difference between 
 ethical and unethical observance, between morality and im- 
 morality, between industry and theft, between war and peace. 
 The temptation to convert trade enterprise into military 
 aggressions is particularly strong where the field of operations 
 happens to lie in the territory of a weak, conquered or other- 
 wise helpless people. As this situation creates a field free 
 from recognized standards, with the advantage to the 
 strongest, it is here that our junkers and super-thugs begin 
 to smell powder and snort fire. This, of course, is another 
 way of saying that peoples and territories regarded as sub- 
 ject of prey by stronger powers are a menace to the peace 
 of the world. 
 
 Apart from this, there exists a natural but unnecessary 
 tug-o'-war in the trade relations of all countries. One nation 
 will spur on the growth of an industry that is being carried on 
 better by its neighbor, and covers up its incapacity by a high 
 tariff. Others, like Germany, will sell some of its products at 
 a loss, in South America, say, simply to keep competitors out 
 of the field and retain control for the sale of more profitable 
 items. Every nation strains to get solid ground under its feet 
 by obtaining exclusive markets or special concessions. Why 
 should the unsuccessful nation be loaded up with unsalable 
 merchandise and its factories cease to operate? Why should 
 it make too much profit on one item and suffer a loss on 
 another? Why should the United States and the nations of 
 Europe look with so much dread upon the enterprise of Japan 
 and the low-priced labor of the Far East? Why should Japan 
 look upon the commerce of Europe and America as so much 
 prey? In short, why foster unnatural competition, over-pro- 
 duction and the unnecessary cheapening of products which 
 have an economic value for the world? 
 
 Why, indeed, but because of the instability of economic 
 values, due to the lack of domestic and international stand- 
 ardization? But, the value of commodities can be gradually 
 standardized, economic risk and excessive production elimi- 
 nated and the direction and quantity of exports adjusted. 
 The era of state-controlled monopolies, operating in the fields
 
 148 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 of transportation, domestic production and distribution, and 
 in foreign buying and selling, would do away with the last 
 vestige of an excuse for war, always provided it be understood 
 that no land becomes subject to forcible annexation by alien 
 powers. 
 
 The problems of world-trade cannot be solved by armies 
 and navies. They can only be solved by the world's best 
 hearts and minds acting co-operatively, with a view to giving 
 to every nation its quid pro quo, even to the last match or 
 grain of wheat, in an absolute adjustment between its natural 
 productions, wants and the requirements of the rest of the 
 world. Values, after all, are artificial creations. Why not 
 adjust values so that they will tend to supply instead of deny 
 the needs of human beings? The economic problems of one 
 nation are the economic problems of all. The world is indeed 
 sick. But when a human being becomes ill do we call in the 
 aid of the executioner? Can the world as a whole do with 
 less of the tender care and the solicitude which we bestow 
 upon an individual?
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 STRUGGLE AS A RELIGION 
 1. The Mystery of Pain. 
 
 WE HA\^ seen how the presence of pain in the univer- 
 sal composition compels to struggle; how common 
 need compels to struggle; and how, in the absence of 
 common need, pain asserts itself in a new guise and compels 
 to struggle; how morality is developed from struggle; how 
 law compels to a maintenance of the common standard of 
 struggle attained; how the arts represent pain and struggle in 
 equilibrium ; how the march of civilization, through all blood- 
 lettings and vicissitudes, tends to the survival of the most 
 sensitive and the creation of higher standards of struggle. 
 
 We now come to the consideration of the place of religion 
 in struggle. 
 
 The prophets who, by concensus of opinion, were intensely 
 religious, viewed God as imbued with loving kindness and, at 
 the same time, as the Lord of Battles. They saw no inconsist- 
 ence in the existence of both these attributes in God. On 
 the contrary, they even said, ''Whom the Lord loveth he 
 chastiseth," and ''A God of Battles is the Lord," and ''From 
 the right hand of the Lord runs a law of fire. ' ' It has remained 
 for our time to soften the conception of God and to imagine 
 him, not in accordance with a cosmic conception of things, 
 but as a panderer to our momentary wishes. 
 
 Religion is recognized as the highest attainment of human 
 growth, and rightly so. It represents the carrying of struggle 
 into domains that are beyond the limits of time, space, and 
 the pressure of immediate relationships. It is therefore an 
 extension of the battle-line beyond the out-posts of local 
 conflicts. 
 
 In the last analysis, religion flows from the wish to 
 account for pain upon terms that are consonant with imme- 
 diate or ultimate human welfare. Thus, it will be seen that 
 religion, too, is struggle from pain. It is a more subtle, more 
 ambitious, more powerful struggle than any in the whole 
 gamut of struggle. It is the lone Jacob wrestling with the 
 
 149
 
 150 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 angel of eternity. All religions are attempts to account for 
 universal pain. 
 
 The first step in the formulation of a creed is to attempt 
 to trace the cause of pain which, with most peoples, is syn- 
 onymous with evil. Having found the cause of pain or evil, 
 the second step is to study how to placate it as (a) the 
 Carthagenians and others did, by offering excruciating sacri- 
 fices and immolations; (b) by attempting to root out pain alto- 
 gether through the castration of the appetites or sensibilities 
 to pain, as do certain Hindu sects; (c) by studying how to live 
 in harmony with it through continual trials or experiences 
 with it, as the Hebrews did. These three are the most inclu- 
 sive methods of accounting for pain. 
 
 The first step in tracing the causes of pain or evil having 
 been taken, and the second process of placating the deity hav- 
 ing also been evolved, the third process follows, which consists 
 in a significant, comparatively rigid ceremonial, liturgy, and 
 certain sacred laws compelling a course of action in keeping 
 with the particular conception of the requirements of the 
 deity; also, a priesthood permanently charged with the task 
 of seeing to the observance of the ceremonies, liturgy and 
 sacred laws on the part of the people. 
 
 The priest-institution, although a very useful one, has 
 often caused great trouble in the world because of the fact 
 that it rapidly became vested, and its task unaltering in its 
 nature and form, whereas the people at large underwent all 
 the modifications natural to growth or experience in pain. 
 Thus it happened, that while the religious conception of the 
 Hebrews at one time had undergone such a development that 
 the institution of sacrifices and burnt offerings was really no 
 longer in harmony with the times, the priesthood still clung 
 to them, although some of the priests, as happens everywhere 
 under like conditions, endeavored to invest the old ceremo- 
 nials with a new significance in keeping with the spirit of the 
 times. This problem still persists in all religions. 
 
 But the question which presents itself at this stage of our 
 analysis is, since it is claimed that all religions are attempts 
 to account for pain, why is it that some religions are based 
 upon the conception of many divinities, others upon two, and 
 others, again, upon only one? This question goes to the root
 
 STRUGGLE AS A RELIGION 151 
 
 of the whole matter. It also affects our understanding of what 
 peoples are deeply religious and which are not. 
 
 A religion may center upon many divinities or upon one, 
 depending upon the scope and intensity of the national expe- 
 rience of the people professing the religion in question. Thus, 
 a barbarian of limited national experience and corresponding 
 deficiency in intellect, will have a proportionately superficial 
 view of divinities. Every force in nature will be apparent as 
 a separate, unrelated devil or god. The fire will be one god, 
 the water another, the sun another, the moon another, etc., 
 etc. Another barbarian, more sensitive to certain inter- 
 relations between these various phenomena, will evolve a 
 family or pantheon of gods or devils with individually defined 
 and coherent functions, as exemplified by the panthea of the 
 Egyptians and the Greeks. In the process of time, perhaps, 
 these beliefs will be superseded by convictions that the 
 authorship of all phenomena is ascribable to one of the gods 
 only, such as the sun-god, which was the belief that was gain- 
 ing ground in Egypt when the Hebrews and the Hittites had 
 the ascendency in that country. The early Canaanites, who 
 were conquered by the Hebrews, seem to have had a highly 
 unified conception of a god, despite their ritual which was 
 quite logical even though harrowing in its apparent immor- 
 ality from the point of view of the Hebrews. Their conception 
 of divinity was still considerably more unified and profound 
 than that of the early Greeks with their more or less hap- 
 hazard pantheon. It seems well established that they wor- 
 shipped Baal and Ashtoreth (or Astarte) as the male and 
 female principle governing all forms of life. Judged by their 
 religion, they had a more intense experience of life than the 
 Greeks and Romans. 
 
 In the early history of the barbarous races of western 
 Europe, the conception of god-head was most diffuse. Their 
 conception of deity began to attain unity only when they 
 became pain-conscious in the larger sense. It is thus apparent, 
 that notwithstanding the glitter and pomp of wars, con- 
 quests and the trappings of culture, the true measure of the 
 wealth of experience absorbed by a nation, is its ability to 
 unify its conception of all phenomena and all relations; and, 
 indeed, as even the Greeks and Romans became older and more
 
 152 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 sensitive to their experiences, their conception of the deity- 
 began to intensify until finally they amalgamated with that 
 Hebrew movement in the world which is called Christianity. 
 
 The people who brought unity of conception into the 
 world in the most startling relief were the Hebrews. This 
 unity of conception sprang from a sublime intuition formed 
 of the very heat and shock of their conflict with the hard facts 
 of life. Intuitively, through all the maze of their experiences, 
 to which they were highly sensitive, they saw God the same 
 in innumerable phases. They did not blink at pain. They 
 recognized it as divine ; that pain must come with knowledge ; 
 that out of the right hand of the Lord runs a law of fire ; that 
 out of many purgings by trials something better and holier 
 may come; that the Lord loves a man acquainted with many 
 sorrows; that the punisher and the punished are instruments 
 in the hands of God; that God may be in the cloud and the 
 sun, the grass and the trees, the land, the water, the thunder 
 and the still small voice; that God ordained that the fruit of 
 evil must be evil; that every generation is responsible to God 
 for what it passes on to the next generation; that a nation 
 may not live half free and half slave; that the acts of daily 
 life are in relation to all other acts, and therefore necessarily 
 holy; that the laws of a nation are the laws by which it shall 
 live and not die; that God is universal and means well by all 
 that follow in his ways; that to follow the statutes of God is 
 the way of health for a nation as for an individual; and that 
 the ways of sin are death or destruction. 
 
 Thus the Hebrews presented to the world a conception 
 that was all-inclusive, unified and signalized that the race 
 stood upon the apex of the world's civilization. For what is 
 civilization in a people but its degree of sensitiveness to pain? 
 In this sense — and it is the only proper sense — the Romans, 
 for example, were not civilized at all, in fact less so than some 
 of the tribes they subdued. 
 
 Thus, as I have said, all religions are attempts to account 
 for pain; and the lower we go in the scale of sensitiveness, the 
 more unorganized, incomplete and casual is the conception of 
 god-head. The greater the experience of pain and struggle, 
 the more monotheistic and universal this conception will be.
 
 STRUGGLE AS A RELIGION 153 
 
 2. The Religion of Suicide. 
 
 The Hindus say, ' ' In the beginning there was desire. ' ' This 
 is not a true saying, because before there can be desire there 
 must be a condition begetting desire. That condition is Pain. 
 Pain begets not only desire but struggle. In a certain sense 
 Struggle is Pain become conscious of itself. Desire and 
 Struggle may or may not be, but pain always is in varying 
 degrees; and it was in the beginning. 
 
 Now the Hindus call desire evil and believe that desire 
 can and should be eliminated because all evils flow from it. 
 The fact is, however, that desire flows from pain, and unless 
 we root out pain, which is an impossibility, desires are inevi- 
 table. Desires are, of course, subject to discipline but their 
 total suppression, as attempted by the Hindu cult, is a subtle 
 but futile attempt at suicide in life. It is an avoidance of life 
 which springs from a too mellifluous conception of the aim 
 of the universe — nirvana or unfeeling, i. e., no pain or hap- 
 piness. 
 
 When the Hindu seers said, '*In the beginning there was 
 desire," they came very close to an understanding of the sub- 
 ject. For, after all, desire is the subjective name of pain. 
 In a sense, pain is desire. But instead of perceiving that pain 
 is of the stuff of life and choosing to express this desire in 
 struggle, they elected to root desire out of the scheme of 
 things. They thus saw pain in wrong relation to the other 
 realities of life and their fumbling quest to find themselves 
 in the maze of their own creation was bound to end in mystic 
 vapours. 
 
 In brief, Pain is not something accidental or adventitious, 
 but of the very stuff of life. There is no release from it save 
 through expression in ever-widening areas of struggle. 
 Religion, far from being a medium of evasion of struggle, is 
 an extension of it through and beyond the borders of life. 
 
 3. Peace in Struggle. 
 
 It may perhaps be imagined that it follows from the 
 acceptance of pain and struggle as the basis of life that peace 
 must be considered forever banished from our conception of 
 things. This by no means follows, however.
 
 154 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 We have seen that pleasure is nothing but the fulfillment 
 of some pain in some struggle ; that beauty, whether in art or 
 in nature, is an impression made upon us by the equipoise or 
 proportion of pain-suggestions and their elements of fulfill- 
 ment. It is apparent then that neither pleasure nor beauty are 
 foreign to nor irreconcilable with pain and struggle but, that 
 on the contrary, they flow from the nature of pain and struggle 
 and cannot be conceived or postulated except as we know pain 
 and struggle. Now the nature of peace in relation to Pain- 
 Struggle is not materially different. Peace is a bigger, more 
 inclusive word than pleasure and means fulfillment. He alone 
 knows peace who can and does turn longing into doing. The 
 word peace is a more inclusive word than pleasure because it 
 does not refer to isolated instances of fulfillment but to the 
 whole gamut of human desires. On the other hand, peace is 
 the complement of beauty in that it implies an equipoise of 
 pain and struggle or fulfillment in human relations, just as 
 beauty implies the same thing in art or nature. 
 
 Obviously, then, the yearning for peace, instead of being 
 inconsistent with the acceptance of Pain-Struggle as the law 
 of life, flows legitimately from it and it is not surprising that 
 the most suffering of peoples should have made peace its mis- 
 sion. The longing for peace is a quest for the adjustment of 
 life to the law of struggle. It is an adjustment which must 
 be a continual adjustment. One must ''walk with God." 
 
 The Hindus, it is true, believe that peace can and should 
 be obtained permanently once and for all time. But here is 
 where Pain-Struggle and the peace-idea part company. We 
 cannot know peace unless we know pain. There is no short 
 cut to peace. Peace can only be had through struggle and 
 through faith in the efficacy of struggle. 
 
 4. Death and Immortality. 
 
 In the terminology of humanity, death is a result follow- 
 ing upon the failure or inability to translate pain into strug- 
 gle in terms of the flesh. 
 
 Humanity asks, Is death the last of the individual! 
 
 If the word ''individual" implies as we were wont to see 
 the one who is dead, the answer is, as far as we are capable
 
 STRUGGLE AS A RELIGION 155 
 
 of knowing, Yes, that is the last of the individual; he is now 
 but a memory. 
 
 Humanity asks again, however, To what end, then, did he 
 strive f Why did he live at all! Why struggle to live if we 
 do not live but die? 
 
 But whence did the world get the belief that we strug- 
 gle in order to live? There is no true foundation for this 
 belief. The contrary is true. We live in order to struggle. 
 It may indeed happen and does happen that the bare keeping 
 of body and soul together taxes almost all our energies, just 
 as, when one stubs his toe, his entire consciousness is centered 
 upon the injured member or when there is no oxygen in a 
 room, our whole aim centers on supplying the lack. Yet our 
 aim in life is not to keep the toe sound nor our body sound. It 
 is doubtful indeed if there ever was a human being who made 
 it his life-aim to preserve his life. 
 
 Humanity argues, however, Well, have it as you say. 
 The departed one did not struggle in order to live, but, as you 
 say, lived in order to struggle. But now that he is dead, is 
 this not the end of his struggle as well as of his life ? 
 
 The answer is that his struggle is not necessarily cut off 
 any more than any other form of energy once set in motion, is 
 cut olf . Struggle is not limited by death. It may reverberate 
 through the ages, long after **life" has ceased; for all we 
 know to the contrary, eternally through the avenues of time, 
 sometimes visibly, sometimes invisibly. Consider the life of 
 any great man, trace his struggles beyond the borders of his 
 **life" into the life of succeeding generations. (Or consider 
 the life of a great people, totally annihilated every few gen- 
 erations or so, nevertheless transmitting its struggle to suc- 
 ceeding generations.) We must consider this phenomenon, 
 not as a poet's vagary, but as a fact with which we must 
 reckon if we wish to realize something of our place in the 
 scheme of things. Life between the borders of birth and 
 death is but a minute in struggle. 
 
 What determines the extent of the reverberations in strug- 
 gle after the period of life! Is there an equality of immor- 
 tality in struggle? It would seem that the immortality given 
 to each is in proportion to the energy of sensitiveness or pain 
 and struggle which the individual experienced in his life. The
 
 156 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 prematurely demised infant has the modicum of discernible 
 immortality that is proportionate to its short span of sensi- 
 tiveness and struggle, and the adult who has passed beyond 
 has a corresponding proportion of discernible immortality. 
 I say discernible to distinguish between the immortality that 
 is perceptible to immediate survivors and the irmnortality 
 which must be taken for granted as a fact in nature even tho 
 we cannot follow it with our limited vision, just as we can- 
 not follow the influences of other progressions of various 
 forms of energy whose motion is, nevertheless, not cut off. 
 
 I do not pretend that this is the kind of immortality which 
 the heart of man craves. Granted. Put me down as one of 
 those who finds it very, very hard to find consolation in 
 such immortality on the part of departed ones dear to me. 
 But this does not prove that this is not immortality. Our 
 natures are simply too finite to appreciate it as we should. 
 Big distances in time and space are not easily surmountable 
 by us at present. Even the most tender-hearted are often 
 unaffected by tragedies occurring in neighboring villages or 
 even streets. Infinity we do not grasp at all. It is therefore 
 exceedingly difficult to follow the immortal flights of the 
 earth-born when we are deprived of the intimate lineaments 
 which characterized them. Nevertheless their true life, which 
 was in struggle, was not arrested but continues. If they did 
 not live long enough or intensively enough, to generate any 
 great struggle capable of surviving them, neither could they 
 have suffered out of proportion. Either way we look at the 
 matter, the basic justice inherent in the law of struggle is 
 unescapable. 
 
 If, however, we are committed to the principle that the 
 "dead" struggled in order to live, the conclusion cannot well 
 be avoided that their life was a delusion, a tragic effort capped 
 by failure and emptiness. Viewed from the opposite stand- 
 point, however, that the *'dead" lived in order to struggle, 
 their life becomes full of meaning nobly justified in itself — 
 they certainly struggled — and replete with significance for 
 the future; and there is a future for the dead, because strug- 
 gle is not interrupted by death. 
 
 The most common recognition of immortality through 
 struggle is exemplified in the sacrifices which men shower
 
 STRUGGLE AS A RELIGION 157 
 
 upon the altar of struggle in war-time. Immortalization thru 
 heroism entailing death is then more easily sensed because 
 the whole nation stands revealed as flowing progressively in 
 the same direction; and a nation cannot commonly be extin- 
 guished even though it is feared that the individual might be. 
 The individual joins his struggle to that of the nation and 
 trusts that this union of struggle will survive even if he does 
 not. At such a time, faith in struggle attains almost to the 
 height of a conscious creed. 
 
 Most difficult, however, is to maintain faith in the immor- 
 tality of individual struggle, in times of so-called peace, 
 when the world is unorganized and the straggler is alone in 
 his endeavor, and the fire of his torch sinks and sputters in 
 the dark alleys of the immense world, and every stray wind 
 threatens to blow out the feeble light and leave him in the 
 darkness unregarded. 
 
 After all is said, I shall perhaps be told. What you say 
 about the immortality of struggle is not very clear. Do you 
 or do you not believe in the immortality of the soul? I 
 should have to admit that, far from knowing anything about 
 the immortalitv of the soul, I do not even know what the soul 
 is. As far as I am aware, there is no soul. There is less strug- 
 gle—corresponding to matter — and there is greater struggle 
 — corresponding to what is called spirit. I believe that, when 
 one dies, that part of the individual which is matter or less 
 struggle becomes associated with kindred matter or struggle, 
 in the cosmic fitness of things ; and that that part of the indi- 
 vidual which is spirit or greater struggle pursues the avenues 
 of spirit or greater struggle ; and that if we could distend our 
 perceptions to embrace this kind of after-life in the individual, 
 we would not and could not seek anything else in the realm 
 of immortality. 
 
 I hear the question asked, But what becomes of the indi- 
 vidual? Or is there no immortality of the individual? 
 
 After all, what is the individual? In a broad sense, indi- 
 viduality is simply another word for limitation. Here and 
 there the unit of sensitiveness which we call self shows cer- 
 tain peculiarities, whimsies, inequalities which mark the bor- 
 der-line between the finite and the infinite. Thus, the individ- 
 uality of a child keeps changing and enlarging in many
 
 158 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 respects so that for the most part the adult shows an entirely 
 different individuality than the infant. We do not recognize 
 it as a different individuality because we can trace the devel- 
 opment and recognize some fixed traits which have not under- 
 gone much of a distension. Nevertheless, the individuality 
 has changed. Now if we can imagine this change or disten- 
 sion to go on indefinitely, would not the original ear-marks 
 of the early individual entity disappear altogether? The 
 things that move an individual once may move him no more. 
 On the other hand, his sympathies, for example, may em.brace 
 a much wider area and may extend indefinitely to include 
 many cities, countries, climates, the world, then, include the 
 world of the infinite future, so that the present would seem 
 of small moment. This complete extension of the individual 
 with infinite realities would create the very condition we so 
 dread in death — the passing of the individual into the form of 
 infinite struggle, or as it could best be put, extension in God. 
 This extension I would by no means call nirvana because 
 the latter is meant to apply to a consummation of the state of 
 negation or atrophy of the fundamental appetities. Extension 
 in God comes, however, from a fullness of experience in the 
 fundamental appetities and their extension into other domains 
 than what we call the flesh. 
 
 5. Ideas of God. 
 
 I think of God as in pain and eternally fulfilling himself 
 in struggle. (Man is made in his image and it is this image in 
 which he is made.) This is what I understand by perfection 
 — pain reacting in struggle. And it is in this wise that I 
 understand God to be perfect. 
 
 I do not think of perfection as being satisfaction. It is 
 the wish for satisfaction that partakes of perfection. Perma- 
 nent satisfaction is abhorrent to the whole idea of Pain-and- 
 Struggle. 
 
 A dissatisfied, punishing, vengeful or suffering God is 
 therefore perfectly logical and clear to me. What other way 
 of the universe is there or can there be ? For permanent satis- 
 faction means death. 
 
 If we understand by love a state of yearning, then God is 
 also love.
 
 STRUGGLE AS A RELIGION 159 
 
 They have a true glimpse of God that perceive him in 
 the state of suffering, but not when they imagine his yearning 
 to be temporary and vicarial only. 
 
 The pain of God and his re-actions in struggle, are 
 expressed in varying degrees in the clod, the tree, the plant, 
 fire, water, the electric current, the beast and man, our specula- 
 tions and yearnings, eternally and universally. 
 
 6. Who Is Sensitive? 
 
 Many a man has gone through battles, storms, sufferings 
 and deaths, travelled through many lands, mingled with many 
 peoples, met the world 's elect, met with adventures that should 
 have been unforgetably beautiful or harrowing, and yet 
 emerged from all this practically as callous, unimpressed and 
 unimpressive as when he began. 
 
 On the other hand, a slatternly little woman dwelling all 
 her life in a little village or in an obscure corner of a city and 
 seldom straying far from the corner grocery, may have more 
 of the world's great vistas locked in her bosom, the knowl- 
 edge of pain and sensitiveness to beautiful relations and noble 
 characters, may have actually seen and experienced more than 
 the far-travelled adventurer ever dreamt. 
 
 I have read the essays of some writers purporting to 
 deal only with the life of turnips and potatoes, but as I read, 
 I could see that although the author only affected to deal with 
 vegetables — with turnips and potatoes, the subject was replete 
 with the profound problems of life, death, struggle and fate. 
 On the other hand, I have seen melodramas and read out- 
 pourings purporting to be about life, death, pain, struggle 
 and fate, and nevertheless, amid all these mouthings, could 
 only discern turnips and potatoes. 
 
 There is an Empire which has won a preponderating posi- 
 tion among the nations of the world by virtue of the magnitude 
 of its industrial achievement, its zeal and fidelity to the study 
 of the phenomena of science and its commercial enterprise, 
 but is so unsensitive at heart that its people have not yet 
 been moved to attain self-government, that despite its employ- 
 ment of the most comprehensive spy-system in the world, it 
 cannot surmise the most patent characteristics of its neigh-
 
 160 THE LAW OF STRUGGLE 
 
 bors to its undoing, and so misreads the psychology of the 
 world 's creatures that every one of its ruthless steps forward, 
 creates seas of division between it and the goal of its desires. 
 Who is sensitive? 
 
 7. Faith. 
 
 The evidences of the universality of struggle as a cosmic 
 principle are simply innumerable. But among the most strik- 
 ing of these evidences is faith. As long as we were committed 
 to the idea that the so-called ''will to live" was the govern- 
 ing principle in the world, faith was an incomprehensible, if 
 not unbelievable, factor, since, as a matter of fact, we do not 
 live. Once we grasp the idea, however, that we live in order 
 to struggle and that struggle is not cut off but pushes on 
 indefinitely beyond the boundaries of our life, faith not only 
 becomes comprehensible but indispensable in the scheme of 
 things. For faith is the connecting link or nexus between 
 the present and the future, between our little life across the 
 mysterious border of death into the stretches of infinity again. 
 Faith carries the hope of the world onward upon the wings of 
 struggle, even in the teeth of death itself, before the visible 
 evidences of destruction and that stench of decay which lies 
 in wait for us. Faith is the voice of struggle crying to the 
 universal Job, **Tho thou be destroyed, believe in me." In 
 short, faith is the form in which struggle manifests its eternal 
 quality to us amid the turmoil in which the world appears to 
 our poor, undeveloped, confused minds. 
 
 Faith is of two kinds, natural or unconscious faitli, and 
 conscious faith. Natural or unconscious faith partakes of 
 our animal or material existence. Unconscious faith, how- 
 ever, is not fully adequate to the needs of man because man 
 has a conscious life, too. Hence there is also conscious faith. 
 Man has always striven, however ineffectually, to make his 
 faith conscious so that it might square with his intellectual 
 perceptions. Inasmuch as man has been taught to believe that 
 pain and struggle are evil and has nevertheless been compelled 
 to undergo both, conscious faith remains well nigh unattain- 
 able. It still remains the task of religion to make faith 
 conscious.
 
 STRUGGLE AS A RELIGION 161 
 
 8. Prayer. 
 
 There are many who pray before and after meals, as a 
 matter of habit. But this is not real prayer. Only those can 
 pray for the common blessings that are with us that have 
 the humility and farsightedness to realize how insecure are 
 all enjoyments and how carefully we must move from one 
 day's accomplishment to the other. 
 
 To be sure, there are also prayers of thanksgiving. But 
 even these, in so far as they are prayer and not pride, derive 
 their real significance and poignancy from the fact that we 
 have been vouchsafed something in the midst of a danger 
 that is always with us. 
 
 Prayer is an emanation of human struggle. It comes to 
 us in its purest form in the shadow of great issues fraught 
 with danger or achievement. Hence, the prayers of battle, no 
 matter from whom they proceed, are always sincere. Hence, 
 also, the difficulty of making prayer a mere habit of life. For 
 prayer is the act of summoning all the powers of which we 
 are cognizant to keep us sensitive and in condition to ward 
 off callousness, error and defeat.
 
 The Book of Pain-Struggle 
 
 By 
 HYMAN SEGAL 
 
 The Story of Pain — and — Struggle in the 
 Language of Prophecy 
 
 "A very remarkable utterance of one of our con- 
 temporaries * * * When one speaks such a deep, 
 clear, true word of life, it would be treason to the 
 best interests of humanity and to the truth of our 
 day to pass it by without distinct attention." — Dr. 
 Merle St. Croix Wright. 
 
 "A new prophet-cry." — Edivin Markham. 
 
 "The poetic presentation of the thought I have 
 enjoyed; and it is specially interesting to me to find 
 the Hebrew parallelism, and the whole spirit of 
 the Hebrew rhapsody, brought into harmony with 
 modern forms of poetry, which makes a leading feature 
 of the book."— Pro/. Richard G. Moulton. 
 
 Cloth, $1.00 postpaid 
 
 MASSADA PUBLISHING CO. 
 
 PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 Form L9-Series 444
 
 UC SOUTHERM REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 AA 000 183 845 7 
 
 DU 

 
 !ii isi 
 
 ; . " 
 
 !l 
 
 ; ;,;iiiT 
 
 |i 
 
 1 
 
 I * 
 
 1 K 
 
 tf.l 
 
 I'll i 
 
 i 
 
 ' 1 ■ ' 1 '1 
 
 i iii 
 j 1^' 
 
 1 : 
 
 1 
 
 i 
 
 ! 
 
 i 
 
 
 11 
 
 w 
 
 ';i i! 
 
 ;i!ir 
 
 :i! 
 
 
 '■■V. ' 
 
 ■1 ! 
 
 t i t 
 
 1 
 
 * 1 
 
 
 ^!i iir 
 
 'i! P 
 
 M 
 
 1 !