Price 5 Cents 
 
 Morals and 
 Socialism 
 
 * 
 
 By Charles H. Kerr 
 
 AND 
 
 The Odd Trick 
 
 By Ernest Belfort Bax 
 
 POCKET LIBRARY OF SOCIALISM No. 10* 
 
 Published by 
 
 CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY 
 
 (co-operative) 
 
 153 E. Kinzie St., Chicago 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 This booklet is not written for special students 
 of ethics, but for those who are trying to solve 
 every-day moral problems in a practical way. 
 No claim is made to originality and space pre¬ 
 vents any attempt to present proofs of the various 
 statements made. For the facts relating to the 
 early development of society from communism to 
 slavery, the reader is referred to Prof. Achille 
 Loria’s work entitled 11 The Economic Foundations 
 of Society.” The statistics of the classes in the 
 United States are taken from the Socialist Alma¬ 
 nac for 1898. The subject of sexual morality has 
 been omitted from the present booklet, partly 
 because the writer’s object here is to suggest gen- 
 oral principles of conduct rather than to enter on 
 the endless detail of applying them, partly because 
 his views on that part of the subject are stated 
 in his contribution to the booklet published under 
 the title, “Was It Gracia’s Fault?” 
 
 The concluding pages under the title “The Odd 
 Trick” are taken from Mr. Bax’s admirable book 
 «ntitled ‘ 1 The Ethics of Socialism. ’ ’ 
 
MORALS AND SOCIALISM. 
 
 Probably no words are more freely used, and 
 yet used with less idea of what they really mean, 
 than words expressing moral judgments on people 
 or actions. A is an honorable man, B is shame¬ 
 fully immoral, Mrs. C is one of the best women 
 that ever lived, Johnny D is the worst boy in town, 
 E ought not to act in that way—such things we 
 hear every day. 
 
 What do they all mean? What is a bad man? 
 What is a good woman? Why ought one to act 
 in any other way than as he likes? 
 
 The orthodox Catholic has a ready answer. Any 
 one is good who obeys the commands of God as 
 given through the infallible Church, and he will 
 receive an everlasting reward in another life. 
 
 The orthodox Protestant has the same answer 
 with the word Bible in place of the word Church. 
 
 Now either of these answers is very simple and 
 complete if true. Whether they are true or not 
 
 p\90^>l 
 
4 
 
 MORALS AND SOCIALISM 
 
 cannot be learned in the world and time we are 
 now living in, but many are willing to accept them, 
 without proof. If you are one of these, the rest 
 of this booklet will not interest you. It is written 
 for the working men and working women who are 
 outside the church, perhaps because they do not 
 wish to accept teachings that cannot be proved; 
 perhaps because they feel that the church is some¬ 
 thing of, for and by the “upper” classes, and 
 that it has no use for the wage-workers, nor they 
 for it. 
 
 That this is the fact with nine-tenths of the 
 Protestant churches in American cities to-day can 
 hardly be denied. Their whole influence (and this 
 is equally true of Catholic churches) is on the side 
 of whatever will best serve to strengthen the rule 
 of the capitalist class. The Catholic churches still 
 retain a hold on the less thoughtful of the laboring 
 class, being in this respect an interesting survival 
 of the churches of the middle ages. The Protestant 
 city churches have long since lost all but a few of 
 their working-class members, and have developed 
 a fitting servility in those they have kept. 
 
 The workers have left the' churches, and think 
 they have freed themselves from any control of 
 the capitalist class over their consciences. But 
 have they? 
 
 This brings us back to our first question: What 
 is right, and what is the reason for doing that 
 which we call right if it is not at the same time 
 the pleasant thing to do? 
 
MORALS AND SOCIALISM 
 
 5 
 
 It will help us to an answer if we look back to 
 the beginnings of society, to a stage like that in 
 which the Roman historians found our Germanic 
 ancestors in the first century of the Christian era. 
 There each man or woman was part of a group 
 of people who carried on production or war, as 
 the case might be, together. They had not learned 
 how to produce millionaires or paupers. There 
 was just one way for any member of the group 
 to secure more comforts, and that was by helping 
 to increase the wealth of the whole group. 
 
 Under such conditions no one would have been 
 likely to say that the golden rule was all right in 
 theory, but that it wouldn't work in practice, nor 
 would the believers in the golden rule have assumed 
 a sanctimonious air and comforted themselves with 
 the hope of a reward in heaven. On the contrary, 
 doing as one would be done by was the only sensible 
 way to live. Each person's own interests were 
 wholly bound up with the group to which he be¬ 
 longed. His relations to outsiders were far from 
 ideal; he had not the least scruple against fighting 
 them or plundering them whenever chance offered. 
 But inside the group he had no desire to steal part 
 of his neighbor’s rations, since he knew that the 
 neighbor would be likely in that case to take his 
 own in turn. If two foolish young men came to 
 blows their elders no doubt reminded them that 
 their arms would be needed in the next fight with 
 the neighboring tribe, and that it would not be a 
 sensible thing to cripple 6ach other. So on the 
 
6 
 
 MORALS AND SOCIALISM 
 
 . whole these ancestors of ours lived their lives 
 without any doubts or fears or troubles over their 
 moral system. 
 
 Their primitive communism, as it is called, con* 
 tinuing as it must have done through ages aftef 
 ages, has left in the human mind an instinct for 
 mutual helpfulness—an instinct that modern civil¬ 
 
 ization has never quite succeeded in destroying. 
 
 The primitive communism itself was swept away 
 by the forces of war. Tribe warred against tribe; 
 the stronger absorbed the weaker; gradually na* 
 tions were formed which carried on great wars 
 against foreign nations. By and by the dis¬ 
 covery was made that the conquerors could obtain 
 less pleasure by killing their prisoners than by 
 keeping them alive and taking away the products 
 of their labor. 
 
 Here modern society begins. Equality has given 
 place to mastery and slavery. Since then the 
 forms have twice changed, but the principle has 
 remained. The chattel slave has made way for the 
 serf and the serf has been followed by the wage 
 laborer. All this has not affected the position of 
 the ruling class, living in luxury on the labor of 
 the workers. 
 
 We have seen that under the primitive commun¬ 
 ism the interest of each individual was bound up 
 with the interests of the whole society. But since 
 slavery has begun the case has become entirely 
 different. The interest of each person is still one; 
 
MORALS AND SOCIALISM 
 
 7 
 
 with that of his own class, but it has become exact* 
 ly opposite to that of the other class. 
 
 It now becomes necessary for the ruling class 
 to exercise control over its slaves and also to a 
 large extent over its own members. In the case 
 of the slaves it is important to keep them from 
 revolt and to make them industrious. In the case 
 of the masters they must be kept from quarrels 
 among themselves which might encourage the slaves 
 to revolt. They must also be kept from any special 
 acts of wanton cruelty against their slaves which 
 might drive them to revolt and desperation. 
 
 Note that there is an important difference be¬ 
 tween the restraint over the masters and that over 
 the slaves. The masters are indeed kept from 
 acting on their own natural impulses, but only for 
 their own advantage in the long run. The slaves 
 are not only kept from acting on their impulses, 
 but also from acting in a way that would really 
 be for their own advantage. 
 
 How has the ruling class established this con¬ 
 trol over its members and its slaves? In three 
 ways—through religion, through public opinion, 
 and through the law, with its judges and soldiers. 
 The last method, though important, does not belong 
 to our present subject. And space forbids our 
 taking up a study of the religious and philosoph¬ 
 ical systems of the ancient world in their relations 
 to morals. We pass on to the establishment of 
 Christianity, and here we come to a remarkable 
 paradox. 
 
8 
 
 MORALS AND SOCIALISM 
 
 Jesus* most emphatically condemned the robbery 
 of the poor by the rich. It was probably this 
 which led to his crucifixion at the demand of the 
 ruling classes of his own nation. The mass of the 
 early converts were poor, many of them chattel 
 slaves. The whole trend of the New Testament 
 teachings is toward communism. How then could 
 it be used as an engine of oppression? 
 
 Tne answer is found in the Christian doctrine of 
 a future life. In the Jewish Bible, the Old Testa¬ 
 ment, this doctrine is wholly absent. In the re¬ 
 ported sayings of Jesus there are traces of it here 
 and there, many of them suspected of being late 
 additions to the manuscripts. But in the epistles 
 oJ^Paul it appears unmistakably, and in the later 
 Christian writings the future life grows to be the 
 subject of chief concern. In an age of persecution 
 the oppressed Christians comforted each other with 
 dreams of a future state in which patient suffering 
 should be rewarded with all conceivable delights. 
 Borne up by this faith, the slaves and laborers for¬ 
 got the idea of revolt, and applied themselves 
 patiently to toil for their masters, looking for a 
 glorious reward in heaven. 
 
 Early in the fourth century the Emperor Con- 
 
 *The present writer assumes the substantial 
 correctness of the gospels as a report of the 
 general tenor of Jesus’ teaching. To those 
 who choose to deny their historic character, it 
 will suffice to point out that the paradox is no 
 less worth study if the Christianity of the 
 gospels be regarded as the thought of an age 
 rather than of an individual. 
 
MORALS AND SOCIALISM 
 
 9 
 
 I 
 
 i 
 
 I 
 
 stantine and the more sagacious members of the 
 ruling class came to a realizing sense of this, and 
 Christianity became the state religion. Ever since 
 that time the ruling classes in the most civilized 
 
 \ 
 
 nations have zealously professed Christianity and 
 / have liberally supported it, while not until lately 
 I has it failed to give them good value for their 
 money by keeping the minds of the working class 
 on the things of another world. 
 
 Within the last twenty-five years the general 
 acceptance of the evolution theory has weakened 
 the popular faith in heaven and hell, and the 
 shrewder minds of the capitalist class long ago 
 perceived that some more efficient means must be 
 employed to keep the workers in subjection. With 
 their usual tact and promptness they redoubled 
 their activity in molding for their own objects one 
 of the strongest of all forces—PUBLIC OPINION. 
 
 It is not a pleasant fact, but a fact all the same, 
 that most people, in the stage of growth we have 
 thus far reached, do not like to do the hard think¬ 
 ing needed to form opinions of their own; they 
 prefer to take their opinions ready made. Until 
 lately they have taken their ideas of right and 
 wrong from the church; since they have left the 
 church they have given equal faith to the ideas 
 which they find in their children’s school books, in 
 their newspapers, or floating around among their 
 neighbors. 
 
 Here let us stop and try, in the light of what we 
 have gone over, to get at the real meaning of thd 
 
10 
 
 MORALS AND SOCIALISM 
 
 words “moral” and “right.” The dictionaries 
 will not help us. They define “moral” as 
 “right,” “right” as “moral /’ and both of them 
 as “according to the will of God.” Now I believe 
 that the more we examine the facts the more fully 
 we shall be convinced of the truth of the following \ 
 definition: 
 
 In any state of society, the commonly accepted 
 idea of moral or right conduct is such conduct as 
 tends to increase the happiness and well-being of 
 the ruling class. 
 
 This is a very broad statement, and an abstract 
 one. Let us test it by examples and see if we 
 get results that seem true when we apply it. 
 
 In Germany, 100 A. D., all members of a group 
 were equal, but they had no fellow feeling for 
 outsiders. There a good man' was one who risked 
 his life fearlessly to bring victory for his group 
 in war and spent his labor prodigally to secure 
 comfort and plenty for his group in peace. The 
 most immoral conduct was cowardice and shirking. 
 
 In Eome at the same date the ruling class con¬ 
 sisted of wealthy land-owners, who were also slave¬ 
 holders, and cultivated their vast estates by slave 
 labor. A pre-eminently good man among the ruling 
 class was one who treated his slaves kindly, so that 
 they would not be tempted to rebel, and who 
 studied and practiced the military art, so as to be 
 of service to the state in suppressing any revolt of 
 slaves or repelling any invasion of barbarians. 
 Among the slaves, on the other hand, a good man 
 
MORALS AND SOCIALISM 
 
 11 
 
 was one who was loyally obedient to his master 
 without any regard to himself or his own class, 
 and the worst criminal was one who stirred up his 
 fellow-slaves to revolt. 
 
 Now let us look to feudal England in the fif¬ 
 teenth century. The ruling class was made up of 
 soldier-barons who owned large tracts of land, cul¬ 
 tivated by people who were free as to their persons, 
 but were obliged to turn out and fight for their 
 lord when needed and to make over to him a cer¬ 
 tain portion of their products each year. A good 
 baron was one who was not too oppressive to his 
 people, but left them enough of what they earned 
 to enable them to grow in numbers and to furnish 
 him with a large and devoted troop of soldiers on 
 proper occasions. A good tenant was one who 
 worked hard to increase the fertility of his lord’s 
 land, and went out cheerfully to fight, perhaps to 
 be killed, whenever his lord thought it desirable. 
 
 Now let us take the United States in the closing 
 year of the nineteenth century. The ruling class 
 consists of the owners of the most wonderful 
 wealth-producing machinery the world has ever 
 seen. The subject class consists of the people who 
 operate this machinery without owning it, and who 
 receive for their labor a small fraction of the 
 wealth which they produce. Here and now a good 
 member of the ruling class is one who refrains 
 from any unusually oppressive acts against his 
 workmen that would incite to revolt, and who gives 
 his surplus wealth freely to charitable societies 
 
12 
 
 MORALS AND SOCIALISM 
 
 that keep the distress caused by the wage system 
 from becoming dangerously acute, and to educa¬ 
 tional institutions that teach the righteousness of 
 capitalism. A bad capitalist is one who foolishly 
 treats his laborers in a way to make them rebel, or 
 who makes a vulgar display of his wealth such as 
 might excite discontent among those who .would 
 like to do the same thing, but cannot. 
 
 A good workingman in American to-day is one 
 who puts the most intense energy into his work 
 for his employer’s benefit, refrains from the use of 
 beverages that might make his labor less efficient, 
 begets and cares for enough children to keep up 
 the supply of future laborers, but not enough to 
 make part of their maintenance fall on the tax¬ 
 payers, and, last but not least, always votes for the 
 political party of his employer. A bad working¬ 
 man is one who shows any marked interest in higher 
 wages or shorter hours; a “walking delegate,” 
 who aims to unite his fellows in a demand for bet¬ 
 ter conditions, is only another name for a dan¬ 
 gerous criminal; while a socialist, who dares to 
 denounce the capitalist system, is, in the eyes of 
 our ruling class and their dupes, a vile outcast, fit 
 only for the gallows or the Gatling gun. 
 
 We shall presently come back to consider the 
 reason for the strange fact that not only the cap¬ 
 italist but most other people in America accept 
 these definitions of good and bad as applied to men 
 of wealth and of poverty, but first let us apply 
 our general definition of moral and right conduct 
 
MORALS AND SOCIALISM 
 
 13 
 
 to the state of society that is coining when the 
 working class has learned to unite, to act in its 
 own behalf, and to control the means of production 
 in the interest of all. 
 
 When that time comes the moral man will be the 
 one who does faithfully his share of work for the 
 common good. And under such conditions I believe 
 it will be clear to any thoughtful person that moral¬ 
 ity will be the usual thing and immorality the rare 
 exception. 
 
 “You can’t change human nature,” we are told 
 by those who talk without thinking. Very true in 
 the main; we must deal with human nature as it 
 is. Let us examine briefly the natural impulses 
 of this human nature of ours, and see what they 
 will lead to under the conditions we are supposing. 
 Most important of these impulses are the desires 
 for good food, comfortable clothing and shelter, 
 beauty of art and of nature, pleasant odors and 
 pleasant sounds, social intercourse, friendship and 
 love. Also to be. considered is the natural im¬ 
 pulse, which we may call laziness for lack of a 
 better term, to expend no more energy than is 
 necessary for the attainment of any given desire. 
 Some claim that the desire for wealth is inborn 
 and can never be uprooted, but a moment’s ex¬ 
 amination will show this desire to be a compound 
 of the simple desires I have named, taken in con¬ 
 nection with the conditions of our present life 
 under capitalism. For as society is now adjusted, 
 he who gets wealth, no matter how, can gratify 
 
14 
 
 MORALS AND SOCIALISM 
 
 most of these desires with little or no exertion, 
 while the man without wealth can gratify but few 
 of them with great exertion. But with private 
 property in machinery and land abolished, and 
 with production carried on in common for the 
 -common good, each member of society will be able 
 to gratify nearly all of these desires by a few 
 hours of social labor each day, while if he should 
 try to shirk this labor he would find much more 
 exertion necessary to satisfy even a few of his 
 desires in any other way. Thus the same natural 
 impulses which now lead men to plunder each other 
 will under socialism lead them to help each other. 
 Then for the first time the golden.rule, “Whatso¬ 
 ever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye 
 even so unto them,” will become a possible and 
 natural way of living, instead of something to 
 preach on Sundays and to explain away on week 
 days. 
 
 But let us come back to America in the nine¬ 
 teenth century’s ending. Why do the working¬ 
 men—most of them—accept the moral ideals which 
 the capitalist class make for them? Why are we 
 apparently so far behind Germany and France, not 
 to speak of Belgium, in intelligence? 
 
 The means employed by the capitalists to impose 
 false moral ideas on the people are the same in all 
 countries—the church, the schools, the personal in¬ 
 fluence of capitalists and their professional hire¬ 
 lings, and especially books and newspapers. But 
 in America they have the immense advantage of ( a 
 
MORALS AND SOCIALISM 
 
 15 
 
 popular prejudice based on what a hundred years 
 ago was a fact—a prejudice to the effect that in 
 America, unlike Europe, there are no social classes, 
 but that the poorest boy has an equal chance with 
 the richest. The absurdity of this prejudice and 
 tne stupidity or bad faith of those who try to 
 keep it alive are so clearly shown by Eobert Blatchr 
 ford in the booklet entitled ‘ ‘ Imprudent Mar¬ 
 riages” that I will not stop over it here. Fortu¬ 
 nately it is being uprooted by the logic of events, a 
 logic stronger than any argument. 
 
 As these words are being written, at the end 
 of the year 1899, the people of the United States 
 may be pretty accurately divided into five distinct 
 classes: 
 
 1. The capitalist class, less than 2 per cent of 
 the whole population, but already controlling all 
 the great manufacturing industries, the department 
 stories in the principal cities, and the transporta¬ 
 tion lines on which the farmers depend for a market 
 and the laborers for their food. 
 
 2. The small mercantile and manufacturing class, 
 about 8 per cent of the population, struggling 
 under a load of debt and vainly trying to meet the 
 competition of the large capitalists. 
 
 3. The farming class, about 30 per cent of the 
 total, most of them paying either a heavy rent or 
 its equivalent in interest on money, and taxed by 
 the transportation companies to an extent that 
 leaves them in most cases only the barest necessi¬ 
 ties of life in return for the hardest labor. 
 
16 
 
 MORALS AND SOCIALISM 
 
 4. The professional class, doctors, lawyers, 
 teachers, preachers, newspaper men, architects, etc., 
 about 6 per cent of the population; formerly well 
 supported by the patronage of the second class; 
 now competing against each other for the sale of 
 their services in a rapidly narrowing market.^ 
 
 5. The class of wage laborers on farms and 
 cities, making up with their' families about 55 per 
 cent of the population, producing nearly all the 
 wealth of the nation and receiving for their labor* 
 less than one-fourth of the annual product. 
 
 Now the events that are in progress involve the 
 transfer of every important industry except possi¬ 
 bly farming into the control of the first class and 
 the consolidation of the other four classes into one. 
 To-day a union of these four classes for common 
 political action is impossible; the little business 
 man fondly hopes to b$ a millionaire soon; the 
 professional man is sure his exceptional talent will 
 soon be rewarded as it deserves; the farmer impre¬ 
 cates the wrath of heaven and hell on the wicked 
 socialist who would deprive him of his hard-earned 
 farm, which is going to raise crops next year that 
 will pay off that mortgage; the trade unionist has 
 no use for a system that will put his skill on a level 
 with the muscle of the common laborer; and the 
 hod-carrier thanks heaven that he is getting enough 
 to pay for his tobacco, and will cast his vote for 
 more prosperity. 
 
 What is the use of urguing against such positive 
 opinions? None at all, except for the few here and 
 
MORALS AND SOCIALS M 
 
 17 
 
 there who are willing to open their eyes and to 
 think. But the socialists look beyond to-day and 
 see the inevitable outcome when trusts, liquid air, 
 electricity and the superior efficiency of large pro¬ 
 duction over small will -have placed the lives and 
 fortunes of all these four classes in the hands of 
 the first class; when the people of the United 
 States can no longer conceal from themselves the 
 fact that they are living under an industrial des¬ 
 potism; when they see that individualism has be¬ 
 come a dream of the past, and that the only hope 
 for freedom is the abolition of classes and the 
 founding of a co-operative commonwealth. All this 
 the socialist sees in the near future and he has no 
 fear as to what the choice of the people will be. 
 
 And now, lastly, in this great throbbing mass 
 of life in which we must work, what is the moral 
 thing, the right thing, for us to do, for us who hear 
 the groans of slavery and who see the light of free¬ 
 dom just ahead? If we accept the moral standards 
 that we find around us, we are riveting our own 
 fetters. Let us then reject them once for all. In 
 the better social order that is coming, that action 
 will be right which is for the good of all. In the 
 battle that is raging the right action for every 
 worker and for every lover of justice is to do his 
 full part, no matter at what temporary loss, to 
 spread the light, to marshal the army, to shatter 
 the last fortress of oppression and establish tub 
 reign of Liberty over the earth. 
 
THE ODD TRICK. 
 
 By E. B. Bax. 
 
 We not infrequently hear a certain school of 
 sentimentalists sneer at Socialism as holding before 
 men a merely low sensuous ideal of existence—of 
 good living, etc., etc. We are accused by such of 
 neglecting the higher ideals of Humanity for the 
 affairs of the stomach and of still more despised 
 organs. The usual and obvious retort to this sort 
 of thing is the ad hovnnem one, that the persons 
 who make the charge are themselves sufficiently 
 well cared for in these lower matters to be able 
 to afford to ignore them and turn thir attention 
 to things above. But though the gist of the mat¬ 
 ter is often contained in the above retort, it is, as 
 it stands, crude, unformulated, and impdlite, even 
 if it were always applicable, which it is not. Let us 
 therefore for the nonce treat these people seriously 
 and develop the answer to their objection in formu¬ 
 lated fashion. Eor in truth this objection springs 
 not merely from deliberate hypocrisy or from 
 thoughtlessness, but has its root in the ethical code 
 in which they have been brought up. This ethical 
 code teaches them that all the highest ideals of 
 man's existence are attainable by a voluntary effort 
 
20 
 
 THE ODD TRICK. 
 
 on the part of the individual, irrespective of his 
 material surroundings, which are matters of small 
 concern. The body is in fact a thing rather to be 
 ashamed of than anything else. 
 
 I would not say that all our sentimental friends 
 carry their sentiment to this extent, but that this 
 principle—the principle of Christian Dualism as 
 opposed to Pagan Monism—underlies their moral 
 consciousness there can be no doubt. It is of course 
 true that this view is facilitated by comfortable 
 bodily conditions. It is easier to think meanly 
 of the “body” when the “body” is all right than 
 when it is not. And this very fact gives us, as we 
 shall know directly, the key to the Socialist position 
 on the subject. There are, however, not a few 
 persons who in all sincerity hold the view that in 
 the overcoming of the body—in the minimization 
 of all bodily satisfactions—is to be found the por¬ 
 tal to the higher life of man, and who act up to 
 their professions. Now it should be observed that 
 to all who earnestly and sincerely accept the cur¬ 
 rent ethical basis, the body still remains an end, 
 although they profess to ignore it. It is an end 
 to them just as much as to the epicure and the 
 libertine, although in another wav. 
 
 Now the difference between this orthodox and 
 the Socialist way of viewing hitman life is, that the 
 Socialist, while not pretending to ignore the body, 
 yet wishes that it should cease to be the main end 
 of human life. At present the satisfaction of per¬ 
 sonal bodily wants fills the mental horizon of the 
 
THE ODD TRICK. 
 
 21 
 
 immense majority of human beings, the only alter¬ 
 native being with those would-be virtuous individu¬ 
 als whose mental horizon is filled, to a large extent 
 at least, with the idea of the suppression of these 
 same bodily wants. That the first of these condi¬ 
 tions is unfavorable to the development of a higher 
 life, be it moral, intellectual, or artistic, few would 
 dispute. That the second is scarcely less so is 
 equally obvious on a little reflection. For in the 
 first place the continued struggle against natural 
 wants, to live on next to nothing, to bear the great¬ 
 est privations, in itself draws off vast stores of 
 moral energy which is wasted on mere suppression. 
 But if the victory is gained, if the man does not 
 succumb in the process, if his devotion to his higher 
 aim, of whatever nature it may be, is so excep¬ 
 tionally great as to carry him through, what has 
 he gained and what has he not lost ? He is purified 
 through suffering, says the Christian. But in how 
 many cases he metaphorically leaves his skin be¬ 
 hind in the process, in how many cases he has lost 
 an essential part of himself, those know who have 
 had much intercourse with or have studied the lives 
 of the exceptional men who have successfully strug¬ 
 gled with adversity, and who have observed the 
 souredness, the one-sidedness, the twistedness, so to 
 say, of character thence resulting. No one can 
 fail to admire and to honor the strength of pur¬ 
 pose which enables a man to pursue a high 
 aifii in the midst of privations; but no 
 one who looks at the matter without preju- 
 
oo 
 
 THE ODD TRICK. 
 
 dice and in the light of broad human interests, can 
 honestly say that the man is better as man for the 
 privations through which he is come, even though 
 he has accomplished his life-work in spite of them. 
 Instances of this may be found in Chatterton, Bee¬ 
 thoven, etc. Of course we leave out of account 
 here the fact that under modern economic condi* 
 tions it is not a case of being contented with a 
 little which is at least there, but of a desperate 
 and exhausting life-struggle to obtain sufficient 
 to sustain life at all. We do so, as we are ad¬ 
 dressing not so much the avowed opponents of 
 Socialism as those who, while professing to sympa¬ 
 thize in a manner with its aims, have lingering 
 prejudices in favor of the ascetic or shall I say 
 the “ austere republican’’ theory of life, and who 
 therefore view with disfavor the stress modern So¬ 
 cialism lays on the satisfaction of mere material 
 wants. 
 
 Even the sentimental moralist in question must 
 admit that at the present time the end-purpose 
 of life is for the majority of men the satisfaction 
 of natural personal wants. There are not a few,, 
 it is true, who pursue gain for the sake of gain, 
 but this is generally after they have satisfied their 
 animal wants. Now the apparent ideal of certain 
 sentimental moralists I have heard talk, is an in¬ 
 surance against absolute destitution, and the rigid 
 repression of all further desires over and above, 
 this minimum. The Positivists to a great extent 
 hold this view. Such a state of things they think 
 
THE ODD TRICK. 
 
 23 
 
 might be attainable (by a kind of state-socialism 
 we suppose) within the framework of present so¬ 
 ciety. The theory, therefore, is not distasteful to 
 those who see that capitalism is unstable and indeed 
 impossible to last as at present constituted, but 
 who would willingly stave off the complete over¬ 
 throw of the system. The latter are anxious merely 
 to retain their monopoly of the good things of 
 life, but they find a useful ally in the introspective 
 moralist who winces at the idea of removing the 
 causes of moral evil for fear of depriving the indi¬ 
 vidual of the opportunity of “ resisting tempta¬ 
 tion,” and who wants to keep him deprived of the 
 comforts and conveniences of life that he may 
 show his strength of mind in being able to do with¬ 
 out them, shutting their eyes to the fact that they 
 thereby perpetuate moral evil. 
 
 ' It is the scientific Socialist who alone seriously 
 wishes to lead men to higher aims than merely 
 sensual ones, while caring not one jot for the empty 
 moral gymnastics which are the end of the intro¬ 
 spective moralist. He sees that his ideal, human 
 happiness, and that in the highest sense, is realiz¬ 
 able rather in the enjoyment of all than in the 
 restraint of each, even in the matter of mere ma¬ 
 terial wants, and that the corrupting influence of 
 luxury hitherto has mainly resided in the fact that 
 it was not enjoyed by all. And his theory is basM 
 on knowledge of the “nature of things.” 
 
 To the sick man what is the highest ideal? 
 Health. His whole horizon of aspiration is filled 
 
24 
 
 THE ODD TRICK. 
 
 in with the notion of health. To him health is 
 gynonymous with happiness. He recovers his health 
 and he finds now that there is something beyond 
 that horizon—that over the mountains there are 
 also oxen. Health now becomes a matter of course, 
 which he accepts as such and does not think about; 
 his mental horizon is now occupied with other ob¬ 
 jects. Had he remained sick he might have been 
 resigned, but health would still have irresistibly 
 presented itself to him as the ideal goal of life. 
 So it is with the completion of health, which con¬ 
 sists in tne full, the adequate satisfaction of bodily 
 wants. So long as they remain a desideratum for 
 the majority of mankind, the majority of mankind 
 will continue to regard them as the one end of 
 life—notwithstanding the precept and example of 
 the heroic ascetic, who despises such low concerns. 
 Let the mass of men once have free access to the 
 means of satisfaction, and they wall then for the 
 first time feel the need of higher objects in life. 
 
 As a matter of fact, it is a trite observation that 
 all the “higher life” of the world has been car¬ 
 ried on by those classes who have been free from 
 the presence of material wants, not by those who 
 have been deprived of them or who have renounced 
 them. What did the really consistent Christian 
 ascetics—the St. Anthonies of the fourth qentury, 
 for example—accomplish beyond seeing visions, 
 performing astounding feats of self-privation, etc.? 
 Were they more than moral mountebanks? Do we 
 not find, on the contrary, that the monks who really 
 
THE ODD TRICK. 
 
 25 
 
 were historians, philosophers, etc., spring from the 
 wealthy Benedictines and other orders whose dis¬ 
 cipline was 11 lax, ’ ’ who kept a well-filled refectory, 
 and whose morality was said to be questionable? 
 led the intellectual life of the middle ages, who 
 So long as monasticism remained ascetic, intel¬ 
 lectual life within the monasteries was impossible. 
 Bodily cravings and the struggle to repress those 
 cravings occupied men’s w r hole attention. Another 
 and still more striking instance of how the fact 
 ■of every possible sensual enjoyment being within 
 reach forces the mind to seek satisfaction in some¬ 
 thing, which if it is not intellectual is at least 
 non-sensual, is that of the tyrannos of the ancient 
 city, or the wealthy noble, the provincial governor, 
 the pro-consul or prefect of the Roman Empire. 
 No one can adequately conceive nowadays of the 
 luxury and sensuous pleasure in which such char¬ 
 acters as these literally weltered—of the gorgeous 
 marble palaces, of the Persian coverings, of the 
 Babylonian couches, the wanes, dishes, and spices 
 from every quarter of the known world, of the most 
 well-favored concubines that could be procured Tor 
 money from Europe, from Asia and from Africa 
 —yet, strange to say, the possessor and enjoyer 
 of all these things was never happy unless risking 
 them all and his life included on the barren chance 
 (in the first instance mentioned) of conquering 
 another city, or (in the second) of intriguing for 
 the purple, the attainment of which experience had 
 taught, in nine cases out of ten, meant death 
 
26 
 
 THE ODD TRICK. 
 
 within a few months. It was not that the conquest 
 of the city or the ascent of the throne added to his 
 luxury, which would have probably been impossible 
 —this was not his object, but that having already 
 his fill of all sensuous pleasures he looked for 
 something more, and this something more he found, 
 in accordance with the manners of his age, in the 
 notion of glory, the glory of founding a dynasty, 
 or of being saluted absolute master of the world. 
 We see a similar thing nowadays in the trades¬ 
 man in possession of all that wealth can purchase, 
 and in absence of all intellectual resources, who, 
 also in accordance with the manners of his age, 
 finds his “something more” in commercial “suc¬ 
 cess, ” which he continues to pursue for its own 
 sake. 
 
 The introspective moralists, Christian, Positivist, 
 or what not, are therefore right when they insist 
 on the satisfaction of material wants not being 
 regarded as the final end of human life. They are 
 only wrong in not seeing that until obtained they 
 must necessarily seem such to the vast majority 
 of men. The signal failure in history of the doc¬ 
 trine of repression, whether it take the form of 
 the “holiness’* of the Christian, or the more plausi¬ 
 ble “ascetic discipline” of the Positivist, after 
 a reign of two thousand years ought, one would 
 think, to give these good people pause as to 
 whether repression is, after all, so conducive to the 
 higher life of man as satisfaction. 
 
THE ODD TRICK. 
 
 27 
 
 The true telos of human life, the “rational ac¬ 
 tivity ’ ’ of Aristotle, 11 the beautiful, the good, the 
 true” of the young man who is taking to literary 
 composition, may be compared, not to speak it pro¬ 
 fanely, to the odd trick in whist, which, though it 
 is the object of the hand to win, yet presupposes 
 the winning of six other tricks. Now the amateur 
 of the “goody-goody” morality—the perfection¬ 
 ist of individual character—thinks to make the odd 
 trick without having completed his regulation half- 
 dozen. The Socialist is rather concerned’ that the 
 human race as a whole should each and all 11 make ’ ’ 
 the first six tricks, called respectively, good and 
 sufficient food and drink, good housing, good 
 clothing, fuel, untaxed locomotion, adequate sexual 
 satisfaction, knowing that before these are scored 
 the “odd,” which is the final purpose of the 
 ‘ 1 deal, ’ ’ will be impossible. With bad and insuffi¬ 
 cient food, with small and squalid dwellings, with 
 scanty and shoddy clothing, with insufficient firing 
 in cold weather, with the lack of change, and 
 with'inadequate satisfaction of a sexual kind, man 
 may exist; but he (i. e., the average man) will see 
 nothing but these things in front of him, his ideal 
 will still be them, and nothing else but them. When 
 once he possesses them they become a part of his 
 ordinary life, and he ceases to think about them. 
 His horizon is then extended. He sees the final, 
 purpose of his life in things of which before hJ 
 had never dreamed. M 
 
28 
 
 THE ODD TRICK. 
 
 Once more, I repeat, let us make no mistake, all 
 asceticism, all privation, is in itself an unmitigated 
 -evil. It is doubtless true that there are occasions 
 when it is our duty, living in a period of struggle, 
 to deprive ourselves, to sacrifice ourselves, for a 
 better society. But even this deprivation, this sac¬ 
 rifice, is in itself an evil. It only becomes a good 
 if it is undergone with the purpose of putting an 
 end to the sempiternal privation and sacrifice which 
 civilization imposes on the majority of our fellow- 
 creatures. One can well appreciate the sacrifice 
 of ourselves, the men of this generation, when 
 necessary for the future, in all the respects named; 
 but I confess that did I, like the Christians, the 
 Positivists, and the sentimental Socialists, such 
 as I understand Count Tolstoi to represent, belief 
 privation and sacrifice (even “ ascetic discipline’ ’) # 
 be it in the most groveling of material matters, t* 
 be the permanent lot of Humanity, my ardor i* 
 the cause of progress would be considerably 
 damped. 
 
 One can scarcely conceive the nobler ."’ife which 
 will result from generations of satisfied (rathor 
 than repressed) animal desires, once tjiey are the 
 lot not of this or that class, but of all. -With food, 
 drink, and other creature comforts to be had for 
 the asking, they will cease to occupy the atten¬ 
 tion of human beings to an extent previously un¬ 
 known in the world’s history. Then for the first 
 Bime will the higher aspirations and faculties of 
 ^in have free play, the “something more,” the 
 
THE ODD TRICK. 
 
 29 
 
 “odd” trick, which is the real goal of human 
 life, will assume a new character and be pursued 
 with an energy rivaling that hitherto devoted to 
 personal gain, ambition or glory, since the path 
 to these things, at least in the old sense, will have 
 been closed forever. 
 
GERMS OF MIND IN PLANTS. 
 
 Translated from the German of R. H. Franca 
 by A. M. Simons. Cloth, 50 cents. 
 
 This is the second volume of the Library of 
 Science for the Workers. It is entertaining, be¬ 
 cause written in a charming style and dealing 
 with strange and interesting facts about plants. 
 It is important, because it supplies an essential 
 link in the chain of evidence which proves the 
 correctness of the Socialist philosophy, according 
 to which the mental and the social life of man 
 are subject to the same unchanging laws which, 
 operate throughout the material universe. In 
 view of the revolutionary tendency of the book, 
 it is hardly to be expected that capifalist re¬ 
 viewers should be prejudiced in its favor, yet 
 Lere is what they say: 
 
 Toledo Blade: A work of unusual interest, 
 (lealing with the wonders of plant life and other 
 botanical marvels. The idea worked out in the 
 book is that plants are living beings which 
 receive impressions from the outside world, and 
 act on those impressions for their own advance¬ 
 ment, as do human beings. * * * The book 
 
 is illustrated and the style of its writing is very 
 pleasing. 
 
 Grand Rapids Herald: The book would be a 
 delightful help in the study of botany. 
 
 Pittsburg Leader: This is a delightful and 
 fascinating book. 
 
 Denver Republican: There is much informa¬ 
 tion on the habits of plants and not a little enter¬ 
 taining reasoning in this book. 
 
 Detroit Evening News: No greater service can 
 be performed than the popularizing of scientific 
 knowledge as is happily accomplished in this 
 l-ittle volume. 
 
 Boston Transcript: A little illustrated volume 
 (dealing sympathetically with nature from a prof¬ 
 itable scientific and popular standpoint. 
 
 IhaRLES H. KERR & C0„ 153 E. Kinzle Si.. Chicago 
 
SCIENCE AND REVOLUTION. 
 
 By Ernest Untermann. Cloth, 50 cents. 
 
 In this work the author traces the development 
 of the evolution theory from the earliest scientific 
 writings that have been preserved down to the 
 present time. He shows that throughout his¬ 
 tory there have been two opposing tendencies 
 in the interpretation of the facts of the universe. 
 Ruling classes, living on the labor of others, 
 have constantly supported in some form or other 
 the idea of a supernatural power to be recognizee 
 as supreme, while the rebellious workers havt 
 slowly been evolviuf; the conception of the unii 
 verse as one and seif-controlled. 
 
 Table of Contents 
 
 1 . 
 
 2 . 
 
 3. 
 
 4. 
 
 5. 
 
 6 . 
 
 7. 
 
 8 . 
 
 Proletarian Science. 
 
 The Starting Point. f! 
 
 The Awakening Philosophy. < 
 
 A Step Forward in Greece. < 
 
 A Step Backward in Rome. 
 
 In the Slough of Ecelestiastic Feudalism, 
 The Struggle for More Light. 
 
 The Resurrection of Natural Philosoph 
 in England. 
 
 9. Natural Philosophy in France. 
 
 10. A Reversion to Idealism in Germany. 
 
 11. In the Melting Pot of the French Revo 
 lution. 
 
 12. The Wedding of Science and Natural 
 
 Philosophy. 
 
 13. The Outcome of Classic Philosophy in 
 Germany. 
 
 14. Science and the Working Class. 
 
 15. The Offspring of Science and Natural 
 
 Philosophy. 
 
 16. A Waif and Its Adoption. 
 
 17. Materialist Monism, the Science and Re¬ 
 ligion of the Proletariat. 
 
 CHARLES H. KERR & CO., 153 E. Ktazie St., Chicag, 
 
The publishing house that issues this 
 booklet is not owned by any capitalist; 
 it is owned by two thousand working 
 people who expect no dividends, but 
 have subscribed ten dollars each for 
 the purpose of having socialist books 
 published and securing the privilege of 
 buying as many of them as they want 
 at cost. 
 
 A full catalogue with particulars of 
 our co-operative plan will be mailed on 
 request. It should be observed that we 
 do not supply books of other publish¬ 
 ers, and have no connection with any 
 periodical except the International So¬ 
 cialist Review. This is an 8o-page 
 monthly, a dollar a year, 10 cents a 
 copy, postpaid. 
 
 Charles H. Kerr & Company, 
 
 153 Kinzie Street, Chicago.