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diff --git a/1717.txt b/1717.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..37ad0c6 --- /dev/null +++ b/1717.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5934 @@ +Project Gutenberg's What's Wrong With The World, by G.K. Chesterton + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: What's Wrong With The World + +Author: G.K. Chesterton + +Posting Date: December 9, 2008 [EBook #1717] +Release Date: April, 1999 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE WORLD *** + + + + +Produced by Georges Allaire, and Martin Ward + + + + + +WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE WORLD + +By G.K. Chesterton + + +CONTENTS + + PART ONE: THE HOMELESSNESS OF MAN + + I The Medical Mistake + II Wanted: An Unpractical Man + III The New Hypocrite + IV The Fear of the Past + V The Unfinished Temple + VI The Enemies of Property + VII The Free Family + XIII The Wildness of Domesticity + IX History of Hudge and Gudge + X Oppression by Optimism + XI The Homelessness of Jones + + PART TWO: IMPERIALISM, OR THE MISTAKE ABOUT MAN + + I The Charm of Jingoism + II Wisdom and the Weather + III The Common Vision + IV The Insane Necessity + + PART THREE: FEMINISM, OR THE MISTAKE ABOUT WOMAN + + I The Unmilitary Suffragette + II The Universal Stick + III The Emancipation of Domesticity + IV The Romance of Thrift + V The Coldness of Chloe + VI The Pedant and the Savage + VII The Modern Surrender of Woman + VIII The Brand of the Fleur-de-Lis + IX Sincerity and the Gallows + X The Higher Anarchy + XI The Queen and the Suffragettes + XII The Modern Slave + + PART FOUR: EDUCATION, OR THE MISTAKE ABOUT THE CHILD + + I The Calvinism of To-day + II The Tribal Terror + III The Tricks of Environment + IV The Truth About Education + V An Evil Cry + VI Authority the Unavoidable + VII The Humility of Mrs. Grundy + VIII The Broken Rainbow + IX The Need for Narrowness + X The Case for the Public Schools + XI The School for Hypocrites + XII The Staleness of the New Schools + XIII The Outlawed Parent + XIV Folly and Female Education + + PART FIVE: THE HOME OF MAN + + I The Empire of the Insect + II The Fallacy of the Umbrella Stand + III The Dreadful Duty of Gudge + IV A Last Instance + V Conclusion + + THREE NOTES + + I On Female Suffrage + II On Cleanliness in Education + III On Peasant Proprietorship + + +DEDICATION + +To C. F G. Masterman, M. P. + +My Dear Charles, + +I originally called this book "What is Wrong," and it would +have satisfied your sardonic temper to note the number of social +misunderstandings that arose from the use of the title. Many a mild lady +visitor opened her eyes when I remarked casually, "I have been doing +'What is Wrong' all this morning." And one minister of religion moved +quite sharply in his chair when I told him (as he understood it) that I +had to run upstairs and do what was wrong, but should be down again in +a minute. Exactly of what occult vice they silently accused me I cannot +conjecture, but I know of what I accuse myself; and that is, of having +written a very shapeless and inadequate book, and one quite unworthy +to be dedicated to you. As far as literature goes, this book is what is +wrong and no mistake. + +It may seem a refinement of insolence to present so wild a composition +to one who has recorded two or three of the really impressive visions of +the moving millions of England. You are the only man alive who can +make the map of England crawl with life; a most creepy and enviable +accomplishment. Why then should I trouble you with a book which, even +if it achieves its object (which is monstrously unlikely) can only be a +thundering gallop of theory? + +Well, I do it partly because I think you politicians are none the worse +for a few inconvenient ideals; but more because you will recognise the +many arguments we have had, those arguments which the most wonderful +ladies in the world can never endure for very long. And, perhaps, you +will agree with me that the thread of comradeship and conversation must +be protected because it is so frivolous. It must be held sacred, it +must not be snapped, because it is not worth tying together again. It +is exactly because argument is idle that men (I mean males) must take it +seriously; for when (we feel), until the crack of doom, shall we have so +delightful a difference again? But most of all I offer it to you because +there exists not only comradeship, but a very different thing, called +friendship; an agreement under all the arguments and a thread which, +please God, will never break. + +Yours always, + +G. K. Chesterton. + + + + +PART ONE. THE HOMELESSNESS OF MAN + + + + +I. THE MEDICAL MISTAKE + +A book of modern social inquiry has a shape that is somewhat sharply +defined. It begins as a rule with an analysis, with statistics, tables +of population, decrease of crime among Congregationalists, growth of +hysteria among policemen, and similar ascertained facts; it ends with a +chapter that is generally called "The Remedy." It is almost wholly due +to this careful, solid, and scientific method that "The Remedy" is never +found. For this scheme of medical question and answer is a blunder; +the first great blunder of sociology. It is always called stating the +disease before we find the cure. But it is the whole definition and +dignity of man that in social matters we must actually find the cure +before we find the disease. + +The fallacy is one of the fifty fallacies that come from the modern +madness for biological or bodily metaphors. It is convenient to speak +of the Social Organism, just as it is convenient to speak of the British +Lion. But Britain is no more an organism than Britain is a lion. The +moment we begin to give a nation the unity and simplicity of an animal, +we begin to think wildly. Because every man is a biped, fifty men are +not a centipede. This has produced, for instance, the gaping absurdity +of perpetually talking about "young nations" and "dying nations," as +if a nation had a fixed and physical span of life. Thus people will say +that Spain has entered a final senility; they might as well say that +Spain is losing all her teeth. Or people will say that Canada should +soon produce a literature; which is like saying that Canada must soon +grow a new moustache. Nations consist of people; the first generation +may be decrepit, or the ten thousandth may be vigorous. Similar +applications of the fallacy are made by those who see in the increasing +size of national possessions, a simple increase in wisdom and stature, +and in favor with God and man. These people, indeed, even fall short in +subtlety of the parallel of a human body. They do not even ask whether +an empire is growing taller in its youth, or only growing fatter in its +old age. But of all the instances of error arising from this physical +fancy, the worst is that we have before us: the habit of exhaustively +describing a social sickness, and then propounding a social drug. + +Now we do talk first about the disease in cases of bodily breakdown; and +that for an excellent reason. Because, though there may be doubt about +the way in which the body broke down, there is no doubt at all about +the shape in which it should be built up again. No doctor proposes to +produce a new kind of man, with a new arrangement of eyes or limbs. The +hospital, by necessity, may send a man home with one leg less: but +it will not (in a creative rapture) send him home with one leg extra. +Medical science is content with the normal human body, and only seeks to +restore it. + +But social science is by no means always content with the normal human +soul; it has all sorts of fancy souls for sale. Man as a social idealist +will say "I am tired of being a Puritan; I want to be a Pagan," or +"Beyond this dark probation of Individualism I see the shining paradise +of Collectivism." Now in bodily ills there is none of this difference +about the ultimate ideal. The patient may or may not want quinine; but +he certainly wants health. No one says "I am tired of this headache; I +want some toothache," or "The only thing for this Russian influenza is +a few German measles," or "Through this dark probation of catarrh I see +the shining paradise of rheumatism." But exactly the whole difficulty in +our public problems is that some men are aiming at cures which other +men would regard as worse maladies; are offering ultimate conditions +as states of health which others would uncompromisingly call states of +disease. Mr. Belloc once said that he would no more part with the idea +of property than with his teeth; yet to Mr. Bernard Shaw property is +not a tooth, but a toothache. Lord Milner has sincerely attempted to +introduce German efficiency; and many of us would as soon welcome German +measles. Dr. Saleeby would honestly like to have Eugenics; but I would +rather have rheumatics. + +This is the arresting and dominant fact about modern social discussion; +that the quarrel is not merely about the difficulties, but about the +aim. We agree about the evil; it is about the good that we should tear +each other's eyes out. We all admit that a lazy aristocracy is a bad +thing. We should not by any means all admit that an active aristocracy +would be a good thing. We all feel angry with an irreligious priesthood; +but some of us would go mad with disgust at a really religious one. +Everyone is indignant if our army is weak, including the people who +would be even more indignant if it were strong. The social case is +exactly the opposite of the medical case. We do not disagree, like +doctors, about the precise nature of the illness, while agreeing about +the nature of health. On the contrary, we all agree that England is +unhealthy, but half of us would not look at her in what the other half +would call blooming health. Public abuses are so prominent and pestilent +that they sweep all generous people into a sort of fictitious unanimity. +We forget that, while we agree about the abuses of things, we should +differ very much about the uses of them. Mr. Cadbury and I would agree +about the bad public house. It would be precisely in front of the good +public-house that our painful personal fracas would occur. + +I maintain, therefore, that the common sociological method is quite +useless: that of first dissecting abject poverty or cataloguing +prostitution. We all dislike abject poverty; but it might be another +business if we began to discuss independent and dignified poverty. We +all disapprove of prostitution; but we do not all approve of purity. +The only way to discuss the social evil is to get at once to the social +ideal. We can all see the national madness; but what is national sanity? +I have called this book "What Is Wrong with the World?" and the upshot +of the title can be easily and clearly stated. What is wrong is that we +do not ask what is right. + +***** + + + + +II. WANTED, AN UNPRACTICAL MAN + +There is a popular philosophical joke intended to typify the endless +and useless arguments of philosophers; I mean the joke about which came +first, the chicken or the egg? I am not sure that properly understood, +it is so futile an inquiry after all. I am not concerned here to enter +on those deep metaphysical and theological differences of which the +chicken and egg debate is a frivolous, but a very felicitous, type. The +evolutionary materialists are appropriately enough represented in the +vision of all things coming from an egg, a dim and monstrous oval germ +that had laid itself by accident. That other supernatural school of +thought (to which I personally adhere) would be not unworthily typified +in the fancy that this round world of ours is but an egg brooded upon by +a sacred unbegotten bird; the mystic dove of the prophets. But it is +to much humbler functions that I here call the awful power of such a +distinction. Whether or no the living bird is at the beginning of our +mental chain, it is absolutely necessary that it should be at the end of +our mental chain. The bird is the thing to be aimed at--not with a gun, +but a life-bestowing wand. What is essential to our right thinking is +this: that the egg and the bird must not be thought of as equal cosmic +occurrences recurring alternatively forever. They must not become a mere +egg and bird pattern, like the egg and dart pattern. One is a means +and the other an end; they are in different mental worlds. Leaving +the complications of the human breakfast-table out of account, in an +elemental sense, the egg only exists to produce the chicken. But the +chicken does not exist only in order to produce another egg. He may also +exist to amuse himself, to praise God, and even to suggest ideas to a +French dramatist. Being a conscious life, he is, or may be, valuable +in himself. Now our modern politics are full of a noisy forgetfulness; +forgetfulness that the production of this happy and conscious life +is after all the aim of all complexities and compromises. We talk of +nothing but useful men and working institutions; that is, we only think +of the chickens as things that will lay more eggs. Instead of seeking to +breed our ideal bird, the eagle of Zeus or the Swan of Avon, or whatever +we happen to want, we talk entirely in terms of the process and the +embryo. The process itself, divorced from its divine object, becomes +doubtful and even morbid; poison enters the embryo of everything; and +our politics are rotten eggs. + +Idealism is only considering everything in its practical essence. +Idealism only means that we should consider a poker in reference to +poking before we discuss its suitability for wife-beating; that we +should ask if an egg is good enough for practical poultry-rearing before +we decide that the egg is bad enough for practical politics. But I know +that this primary pursuit of the theory (which is but pursuit of the +aim) exposes one to the cheap charge of fiddling while Rome is burning. +A school, of which Lord Rosebery is representative, has endeavored to +substitute for the moral or social ideals which have hitherto been the +motive of politics a general coherency or completeness in the social +system which has gained the nick-name of "efficiency." I am not very +certain of the secret doctrine of this sect in the matter. But, as +far as I can make out, "efficiency" means that we ought to discover +everything about a machine except what it is for. There has arisen in +our time a most singular fancy: the fancy that when things go very wrong +we need a practical man. It would be far truer to say, that when things +go very wrong we need an unpractical man. Certainly, at least, we need a +theorist. A practical man means a man accustomed to mere daily practice, +to the way things commonly work. When things will not work, you must +have the thinker, the man who has some doctrine about why they work at +all. It is wrong to fiddle while Rome is burning; but it is quite right +to study the theory of hydraulics while Rome is burning. + +It is then necessary to drop one's daily agnosticism and attempt rerum +cognoscere causas. If your aeroplane has a slight indisposition, a handy +man may mend it. But, if it is seriously ill, it is all the more likely +that some absent-minded old professor with wild white hair will have to +be dragged out of a college or laboratory to analyze the evil. The more +complicated the smash, the whiter-haired and more absent-minded will be +the theorist who is needed to deal with it; and in some extreme cases, +no one but the man (probably insane) who invented your flying-ship could +possibly say what was the matter with it. + +"Efficiency," of course, is futile for the same reason that strong men, +will-power and the superman are futile. That is, it is futile because +it only deals with actions after they have been performed. It has no +philosophy for incidents before they happen; therefore it has no power +of choice. An act can only be successful or unsuccessful when it is +over; if it is to begin, it must be, in the abstract, right or wrong. +There is no such thing as backing a winner; for he cannot be a winner +when he is backed. There is no such thing as fighting on the winning +side; one fights to find out which is the winning side. If any operation +has occurred, that operation was efficient. If a man is murdered, the +murder was efficient. A tropical sun is as efficient in making people +lazy as a Lancashire foreman bully in making them energetic. Maeterlinck +is as efficient in filling a man with strange spiritual tremors as +Messrs. Crosse and Blackwell are in filling a man with jam. But it +all depends on what you want to be filled with. Lord Rosebery, being +a modern skeptic, probably prefers the spiritual tremors. I, being an +orthodox Christian, prefer the jam. But both are efficient when they +have been effected; and inefficient until they are effected. A man who +thinks much about success must be the drowsiest sentimentalist; for he +must be always looking back. If he only likes victory he must always +come late for the battle. For the man of action there is nothing but +idealism. + +This definite ideal is a far more urgent and practical matter in our +existing English trouble than any immediate plans or proposals. For the +present chaos is due to a sort of general oblivion of all that men were +originally aiming at. No man demands what he desires; each man demands +what he fancies he can get. Soon people forget what the man really +wanted first; and after a successful and vigorous political life, he +forgets it himself. The whole is an extravagant riot of second bests, +a pandemonium of pis-aller. Now this sort of pliability does not merely +prevent any heroic consistency, it also prevents any really practical +compromise. One can only find the middle distance between two points if +the two points will stand still. We may make an arrangement between two +litigants who cannot both get what they want; but not if they will +not even tell us what they want. The keeper of a restaurant would much +prefer that each customer should give his order smartly, though it +were for stewed ibis or boiled elephant, rather than that each customer +should sit holding his head in his hands, plunged in arithmetical +calculations about how much food there can be on the premises. Most of +us have suffered from a certain sort of ladies who, by their perverse +unselfishness, give more trouble than the selfish; who almost clamor +for the unpopular dish and scramble for the worst seat. Most of us +have known parties or expeditions full of this seething fuss of +self-effacement. From much meaner motives than those of such admirable +women, our practical politicians keep things in the same confusion +through the same doubt about their real demands. There is nothing that +so much prevents a settlement as a tangle of small surrenders. We are +bewildered on every side by politicians who are in favor of secular +education, but think it hopeless to work for it; who desire total +prohibition, but are certain they should not demand it; who regret +compulsory education, but resignedly continue it; or who want peasant +proprietorship and therefore vote for something else. It is this dazed +and floundering opportunism that gets in the way of everything. If our +statesmen were visionaries something practical might be done. If we ask +for something in the abstract we might get something in the concrete. +As it is, it is not only impossible to get what one wants, but it is +impossible to get any part of it, because nobody can mark it out plainly +like a map. That clear and even hard quality that there was in the old +bargaining has wholly vanished. We forget that the word "compromise" +contains, among other things, the rigid and ringing word "promise." +Moderation is not vague; it is as definite as perfection. The middle +point is as fixed as the extreme point. + +If I am made to walk the plank by a pirate, it is vain for me to offer, +as a common-sense compromise, to walk along the plank for a reasonable +distance. It is exactly about the reasonable distance that the pirate +and I differ. There is an exquisite mathematical split second at which +the plank tips up. My common-sense ends just before that instant; the +pirate's common-sense begins just beyond it. But the point itself is as +hard as any geometrical diagram; as abstract as any theological dogma. + +***** + + + + +III. THE NEW HYPOCRITE + +But this new cloudy political cowardice has rendered useless the old +English compromise. People have begun to be terrified of an improvement +merely because it is complete. They call it utopian and revolutionary +that anyone should really have his own way, or anything be really done, +and done with. Compromise used to mean that half a loaf was better than +no bread. Among modern statesmen it really seems to mean that half a +loaf is better than a whole loaf. + +As an instance to sharpen the argument, I take the one case of our +everlasting education bills. We have actually contrived to invent a new +kind of hypocrite. The old hypocrite, Tartuffe or Pecksniff, was a man +whose aims were really worldly and practical, while he pretended that +they were religious. The new hypocrite is one whose aims are really +religious, while he pretends that they are worldly and practical. The +Rev. Brown, the Wesleyan minister, sturdily declares that he cares +nothing for creeds, but only for education; meanwhile, in truth, the +wildest Wesleyanism is tearing his soul. The Rev. Smith, of the Church +of England, explains gracefully, with the Oxford manner, that the only +question for him is the prosperity and efficiency of the schools; while +in truth all the evil passions of a curate are roaring within him. It +is a fight of creeds masquerading as policies. I think these reverend +gentlemen do themselves wrong; I think they are more pious than they +will admit. Theology is not (as some suppose) expunged as an error. It +is merely concealed, like a sin. Dr. Clifford really wants a theological +atmosphere as much as Lord Halifax; only it is a different one. If Dr. +Clifford would ask plainly for Puritanism and Lord Halifax ask plainly +for Catholicism, something might be done for them. We are all, one +hopes, imaginative enough to recognize the dignity and distinctness of +another religion, like Islam or the cult of Apollo. I am quite ready +to respect another man's faith; but it is too much to ask that I should +respect his doubt, his worldly hesitations and fictions, his political +bargain and make-believe. Most Nonconformists with an instinct for +English history could see something poetic and national about the +Archbishop of Canterbury as an Archbishop of Canterbury. It is when +he does the rational British statesman that they very justifiably get +annoyed. Most Anglicans with an eye for pluck and simplicity could +admire Dr. Clifford as a Baptist minister. It is when he says that he is +simply a citizen that nobody can possibly believe him. + +But indeed the case is yet more curious than this. The one argument that +used to be urged for our creedless vagueness was that at least it saved +us from fanaticism. But it does not even do that. On the contrary, it +creates and renews fanaticism with a force quite peculiar to itself. +This is at once so strange and so true that I will ask the reader's +attention to it with a little more precision. + +Some people do not like the word "dogma." Fortunately they are free, and +there is an alternative for them. There are two things, and two things +only, for the human mind, a dogma and a prejudice. The Middle Ages +were a rational epoch, an age of doctrine. Our age is, at its best, a +poetical epoch, an age of prejudice. A doctrine is a definite point; a +prejudice is a direction. That an ox may be eaten, while a man should +not be eaten, is a doctrine. That as little as possible of anything +should be eaten is a prejudice; which is also sometimes called an ideal. +Now a direction is always far more fantastic than a plan. I would +rather have the most archaic map of the road to Brighton than a general +recommendation to turn to the left. Straight lines that are not parallel +must meet at last; but curves may recoil forever. A pair of lovers might +walk along the frontier of France and Germany, one on the one side and +one on the other, so long as they were not vaguely told to keep away +from each other. And this is a strictly true parable of the effect of +our modern vagueness in losing and separating men as in a mist. + +It is not merely true that a creed unites men. Nay, a difference of +creed unites men--so long as it is a clear difference. A boundary +unites. Many a magnanimous Moslem and chivalrous Crusader must have been +nearer to each other, because they were both dogmatists, than any two +homeless agnostics in a pew of Mr. Campbell's chapel. "I say God is +One," and "I say God is One but also Three," that is the beginning of a +good quarrelsome, manly friendship. But our age would turn these creeds +into tendencies. It would tell the Trinitarian to follow multiplicity as +such (because it was his "temperament"), and he would turn up later with +three hundred and thirty-three persons in the Trinity. Meanwhile, it +would turn the Moslem into a Monist: a frightful intellectual fall. It +would force that previously healthy person not only to admit that there +was one God, but to admit that there was nobody else. When each had, for +a long enough period, followed the gleam of his own nose (like the Dong) +they would appear again; the Christian a Polytheist, and the Moslem a +Panegoist, both quite mad, and far more unfit to understand each other +than before. + +It is exactly the same with politics. Our political vagueness divides +men, it does not fuse them. Men will walk along the edge of a chasm in +clear weather, but they will edge miles away from it in a fog. So a +Tory can walk up to the very edge of Socialism, if he knows what is +Socialism. But if he is told that Socialism is a spirit, a sublime +atmosphere, a noble, indefinable tendency, why, then he keeps out of its +way; and quite right too. One can meet an assertion with argument; but +healthy bigotry is the only way in which one can meet a tendency. I +am told that the Japanese method of wrestling consists not of suddenly +pressing, but of suddenly giving way. This is one of my many reasons for +disliking the Japanese civilization. To use surrender as a weapon is the +very worst spirit of the East. But certainly there is no force so hard +to fight as the force which it is easy to conquer; the force that +always yields and then returns. Such is the force of a great impersonal +prejudice, such as possesses the modern world on so many points. Against +this there is no weapon at all except a rigid and steely sanity, a +resolution not to listen to fads, and not to be infected by diseases. + +In short, the rational human faith must armor itself with prejudice in +an age of prejudices, just as it armoured itself with logic in an age of +logic. But the difference between the two mental methods is marked and +unmistakable. The essential of the difference is this: that prejudices +are divergent, whereas creeds are always in collision. Believers bump +into each other; whereas bigots keep out of each other's way. A creed +is a collective thing, and even its sins are sociable. A prejudice is a +private thing, and even its tolerance is misanthropic. So it is with our +existing divisions. They keep out of each other's way; the Tory paper +and the Radical paper do not answer each other; they ignore each other. +Genuine controversy, fair cut and thrust before a common audience, has +become in our special epoch very rare. For the sincere controversialist +is above all things a good listener. The really burning enthusiast never +interrupts; he listens to the enemy's arguments as eagerly as a spy +would listen to the enemy's arrangements. But if you attempt an actual +argument with a modern paper of opposite politics, you will find that no +medium is admitted between violence and evasion. You will have no answer +except slanging or silence. A modern editor must not have that eager ear +that goes with the honest tongue. He may be deaf and silent; and that is +called dignity. Or he may be deaf and noisy; and that is called slashing +journalism. In neither case is there any controversy; for the whole +object of modern party combatants is to charge out of earshot. + +The only logical cure for all this is the assertion of a human ideal. +In dealing with this, I will try to be as little transcendental as is +consistent with reason; it is enough to say that unless we have some +doctrine of a divine man, all abuses may be excused, since evolution +may turn them into uses. It will be easy for the scientific plutocrat to +maintain that humanity will adapt itself to any conditions which we now +consider evil. The old tyrants invoked the past; the new tyrants +will invoke the future evolution has produced the snail and the owl; +evolution can produce a workman who wants no more space than a snail, +and no more light than an owl. The employer need not mind sending a +Kaffir to work underground; he will soon become an underground animal, +like a mole. He need not mind sending a diver to hold his breath in the +deep seas; he will soon be a deep-sea animal. Men need not trouble to +alter conditions, conditions will so soon alter men. The head can be +beaten small enough to fit the hat. Do not knock the fetters off +the slave; knock the slave until he forgets the fetters. To all this +plausible modern argument for oppression, the only adequate answer is, +that there is a permanent human ideal that must not be either confused +or destroyed. The most important man on earth is the perfect man who +is not there. The Christian religion has specially uttered the ultimate +sanity of Man, says Scripture, who shall judge the incarnate and human +truth. Our lives and laws are not judged by divine superiority, but +simply by human perfection. It is man, says Aristotle, who is the +measure. It is the Son of Man, says Scripture, who shall judge the quick +and the dead. + +Doctrine, therefore, does not cause dissensions; rather a doctrine alone +can cure our dissensions. It is necessary to ask, however, roughly, +what abstract and ideal shape in state or family would fulfil the human +hunger; and this apart from whether we can completely obtain it or not. +But when we come to ask what is the need of normal men, what is the +desire of all nations, what is the ideal house, or road, or rule, or +republic, or king, or priesthood, then we are confronted with a strange +and irritating difficulty peculiar to the present time; and we must call +a temporary halt and examine that obstacle. + +***** + + + + +IV. THE FEAR OF THE PAST + +The last few decades have been marked by a special cultivation of +the romance of the future. We seem to have made up our minds to +misunderstand what has happened; and we turn, with a sort of relief, to +stating what will happen--which is (apparently) much easier. The modern +man no longer presents the memoirs of his great grandfather; but +is engaged in writing a detailed and authoritative biography of his +great-grandson. Instead of trembling before the specters of the dead, +we shudder abjectly under the shadow of the babe unborn. This spirit is +apparent everywhere, even to the creation of a form of futurist romance. +Sir Walter Scott stands at the dawn of the nineteenth century for the +novel of the past; Mr. H. G. Wells stands at the dawn of the twentieth +century for the novel of the future. The old story, we know, was +supposed to begin: "Late on a winter's evening two horsemen might have +been seen--." The new story has to begin: "Late on a winter's evening +two aviators will be seen--." The movement is not without its elements +of charm; there is something spirited, if eccentric, in the sight of so +many people fighting over again the fights that have not yet happened; +of people still glowing with the memory of tomorrow morning. A man in +advance of the age is a familiar phrase enough. An age in advance of the +age is really rather odd. + +But when full allowance has been made for this harmless element of +poetry and pretty human perversity in the thing, I shall not hesitate to +maintain here that this cult of the future is not only a weakness but +a cowardice of the age. It is the peculiar evil of this epoch that even +its pugnacity is fundamentally frightened; and the Jingo is contemptible +not because he is impudent, but because he is timid. The reason why +modern armaments do not inflame the imagination like the arms and +emblazonments of the Crusades is a reason quite apart from optical +ugliness or beauty. Some battleships are as beautiful as the sea; and +many Norman nosepieces were as ugly as Norman noses. The atmospheric +ugliness that surrounds our scientific war is an emanation from that +evil panic which is at the heart of it. The charge of the Crusades was a +charge; it was charging towards God, the wild consolation of the braver. +The charge of the modern armaments is not a charge at all. It is a rout, +a retreat, a flight from the devil, who will catch the hindmost. It is +impossible to imagine a mediaeval knight talking of longer and longer +French lances, with precisely the quivering employed about larger and +larger German ships The man who called the Blue Water School the "Blue +Funk School" uttered a psychological truth which that school itself +would scarcely essentially deny. Even the two-power standard, if it be +a necessity, is in a sense a degrading necessity. Nothing has more +alienated many magnanimous minds from Imperial enterprises than the fact +that they are always exhibited as stealthy or sudden defenses against a +world of cold rapacity and fear. The Boer War, for instance, was colored +not so much by the creed that we were doing something right, as by +the creed that Boers and Germans were probably doing something wrong; +driving us (as it was said) to the sea. Mr. Chamberlain, I think, said +that the war was a feather in his cap and so it was: a white feather. + +Now this same primary panic that I feel in our rush towards patriotic +armaments I feel also in our rush towards future visions of society. The +modern mind is forced towards the future by a certain sense of fatigue, +not unmixed with terror, with which it regards the past. It is propelled +towards the coming time; it is, in the exact words of the popular +phrase, knocked into the middle of next week. And the goad which drives +it on thus eagerly is not an affectation for futurity Futurity does not +exist, because it is still future. Rather it is a fear of the past; a +fear not merely of the evil in the past, but of the good in the past +also. The brain breaks down under the unbearable virtue of mankind. +There have been so many flaming faiths that we cannot hold; so many +harsh heroisms that we cannot imitate; so many great efforts of +monumental building or of military glory which seem to us at once +sublime and pathetic. The future is a refuge from the fierce competition +of our forefathers. The older generation, not the younger, is knocking +at our door. It is agreeable to escape, as Henley said, into the Street +of By-and-Bye, where stands the Hostelry of Never. It is pleasant to +play with children, especially unborn children. The future is a blank +wall on which every man can write his own name as large as he likes; +the past I find already covered with illegible scribbles, such as Plato, +Isaiah, Shakespeare, Michael Angelo, Napoleon. I can make the future as +narrow as myself; the past is obliged to be as broad and turbulent as +humanity. And the upshot of this modern attitude is really this: that +men invent new ideals because they dare not attempt old ideals. They +look forward with enthusiasm, because they are afraid to look back. + +Now in history there is no Revolution that is not a Restoration. Among +the many things that leave me doubtful about the modern habit of fixing +eyes on the future, none is stronger than this: that all the men in +history who have really done anything with the future have had their +eyes fixed upon the past. I need not mention the Renaissance, the very +word proves my case. The originality of Michael Angelo and Shakespeare +began with the digging up of old vases and manuscripts. The mildness of +poets absolutely arose out of the mildness of antiquaries. So the great +mediaeval revival was a memory of the Roman Empire. So the Reformation +looked back to the Bible and Bible times. So the modern Catholic +movement has looked back to patristic times. But that modern movement +which many would count the most anarchic of all is in this sense the +most conservative of all. Never was the past more venerated by men than +it was by the French Revolutionists. They invoked the little republics +of antiquity with the complete confidence of one who invokes the gods. +The Sans-culottes believed (as their name might imply) in a return to +simplicity. They believed most piously in a remote past; some might call +it a mythical past. For some strange reason man must always thus plant +his fruit trees in a graveyard. Man can only find life among the dead. +Man is a misshapen monster, with his feet set forward and his face +turned back. He can make the future luxuriant and gigantic, so long as +he is thinking about the past. When he tries to think about the future +itself, his mind diminishes to a pin point with imbecility, which some +call Nirvana. To-morrow is the Gorgon; a man must only see it mirrored +in the shining shield of yesterday. If he sees it directly he is turned +to stone. This has been the fate of all those who have really seen fate +and futurity as clear and inevitable. The Calvinists, with their perfect +creed of predestination, were turned to stone. The modern sociological +scientists (with their excruciating Eugenics) are turned to stone. The +only difference is that the Puritans make dignified, and the Eugenists +somewhat amusing, statues. + +But there is one feature in the past which more than all the rest defies +and depresses the moderns and drives them towards this featureless +future. I mean the presence in the past of huge ideals, unfulfilled and +sometimes abandoned. The sight of these splendid failures is melancholy +to a restless and rather morbid generation; and they maintain a strange +silence about them--sometimes amounting to an unscrupulous silence. They +keep them entirely out of their newspapers and almost entirely out of +their history books. For example, they will often tell you (in their +praises of the coming age) that we are moving on towards a United States +of Europe. But they carefully omit to tell you that we are moving away +from a United States of Europe, that such a thing existed literally +in Roman and essentially in mediaeval times. They never admit that the +international hatreds (which they call barbaric) are really very recent, +the mere breakdown of the ideal of the Holy Roman Empire. Or again, they +will tell you that there is going to be a social revolution, a great +rising of the poor against the rich; but they never rub it in that +France made that magnificent attempt, unaided, and that we and all the +world allowed it to be trampled out and forgotten. I say decisively that +nothing is so marked in modern writing as the prediction of such ideals +in the future combined with the ignoring of them in the past. Anyone +can test this for himself. Read any thirty or forty pages of pamphlets +advocating peace in Europe and see how many of them praise the old Popes +or Emperors for keeping the peace in Europe. Read any armful of essays +and poems in praise of social democracy, and see how many of them praise +the old Jacobins who created democracy and died for it. These colossal +ruins are to the modern only enormous eyesores. He looks back along the +valley of the past and sees a perspective of splendid but unfinished +cities. They are unfinished, not always through enmity or accident, +but often through fickleness, mental fatigue, and the lust for alien +philosophies. We have not only left undone those things that we ought to +have done, but we have even left undone those things that we wanted to +do + +It is very currently suggested that the modern man is the heir of +all the ages, that he has got the good out of these successive human +experiments. I know not what to say in answer to this, except to ask the +reader to look at the modern man, as I have just looked at the modern +man--in the looking-glass. Is it really true that you and I are two +starry towers built up of all the most towering visions of the past? +Have we really fulfilled all the great historic ideals one after the +other, from our naked ancestor who was brave enough to kill a mammoth +with a stone knife, through the Greek citizen and the Christian saint +to our own grandfather or great-grandfather, who may have been sabred by +the Manchester Yeomanry or shot in the '48? Are we still strong enough +to spear mammoths, but now tender enough to spare them? Does the cosmos +contain any mammoth that we have either speared or spared? When we +decline (in a marked manner) to fly the red flag and fire across a +barricade like our grandfathers, are we really declining in deference to +sociologists--or to soldiers? Have we indeed outstripped the warrior and +passed the ascetical saint? I fear we only outstrip the warrior in the +sense that we should probably run away from him. And if we have passed +the saint, I fear we have passed him without bowing. + +This is, first and foremost, what I mean by the narrowness of the new +ideas, the limiting effect of the future. Our modern prophetic idealism +is narrow because it has undergone a persistent process of elimination. +We must ask for new things because we are not allowed to ask for old +things. The whole position is based on this idea that we have got all +the good that can be got out of the ideas of the past. But we have not +got all the good out of them, perhaps at this moment not any of the +good out of them. And the need here is a need of complete freedom for +restoration as well as revolution. + +We often read nowadays of the valor or audacity with which some rebel +attacks a hoary tyranny or an antiquated superstition. There is not +really any courage at all in attacking hoary or antiquated things, any +more than in offering to fight one's grandmother. The really courageous +man is he who defies tyrannies young as the morning and superstitions +fresh as the first flowers. The only true free-thinker is he whose +intellect is as much free from the future as from the past. He cares +as little for what will be as for what has been; he cares only for +what ought to be. And for my present purpose I specially insist on this +abstract independence. If I am to discuss what is wrong, one of +the first things that are wrong is this: the deep and silent modern +assumption that past things have become impossible. There is one +metaphor of which the moderns are very fond; they are always saying, +"You can't put the clock back." The simple and obvious answer is "You +can." A clock, being a piece of human construction, can be restored by +the human finger to any figure or hour. In the same way society, being a +piece of human construction, can be reconstructed upon any plan that has +ever existed. + +There is another proverb, "As you have made your bed, so you must lie on +it"; which again is simply a lie. If I have made my bed uncomfortable, +please God I will make it again. We could restore the Heptarchy or the +stage coaches if we chose. It might take some time to do, and it might +be very inadvisable to do it; but certainly it is not impossible as +bringing back last Friday is impossible. This is, as I say, the first +freedom that I claim: the freedom to restore. I claim a right to propose +as a solution the old patriarchal system of a Highland clan, if that +should seem to eliminate the largest number of evils. It certainly would +eliminate some evils; for instance, the unnatural sense of obeying cold +and harsh strangers, mere bureaucrats and policemen. I claim the right +to propose the complete independence of the small Greek or Italian +towns, a sovereign city of Brixton or Brompton, if that seems the best +way out of our troubles. It would be a way out of some of our troubles; +we could not have in a small state, for instance, those enormous +illusions about men or measures which are nourished by the great +national or international newspapers. You could not persuade a city +state that Mr. Beit was an Englishman, or Mr. Dillon a desperado, +any more than you could persuade a Hampshire Village that the +village drunkard was a teetotaller or the village idiot a statesman. +Nevertheless, I do not as a fact propose that the Browns and the Smiths +should be collected under separate tartans. Nor do I even propose +that Clapham should declare its independence. I merely declare my +independence. I merely claim my choice of all the tools in the universe; +and I shall not admit that any of them are blunted merely because they +have been used. + +***** + + + + +V. THE UNFINISHED TEMPLE + +The task of modern idealists indeed is made much too easy for them by +the fact that they are always taught that if a thing has been defeated +it has been disproved. Logically, the case is quite clearly the other +way. The lost causes are exactly those which might have saved the world. +If a man says that the Young Pretender would have made England happy, +it is hard to answer him. If anyone says that the Georges made England +happy, I hope we all know what to answer. That which was prevented is +always impregnable; and the only perfect King of England was he who +was smothered. Exactly be cause Jacobitism failed we cannot call it +a failure. Precisely because the Commune collapsed as a rebellion we +cannot say that it collapsed as a system. But such outbursts were brief +or incidental. Few people realize how many of the largest efforts, the +facts that will fill history, were frustrated in their full design and +come down to us as gigantic cripples. I have only space to allude to the +two largest facts of modern history: the Catholic Church and that modern +growth rooted in the French Revolution. + +When four knights scattered the blood and brains of St. Thomas of +Canterbury, it was not only a sign of anger but of a sort of black +admiration. They wished for his blood, but they wished even more for his +brains. Such a blow will remain forever unintelligible unless we realise +what the brains of St. Thomas were thinking about just before they were +distributed over the floor. They were thinking about the great mediaeval +conception that the church is the judge of the world. Becket objected to +a priest being tried even by the Lord Chief Justice. And his reason was +simple: because the Lord Chief Justice was being tried by the priest. +The judiciary was itself sub judice. The kings were themselves in the +dock. The idea was to create an invisible kingdom, without armies or +prisons, but with complete freedom to condemn publicly all the kingdoms +of the earth. Whether such a supreme church would have cured society we +cannot affirm definitely; because the church never was a supreme church. +We only know that in England at any rate the princes conquered the +saints. What the world wanted we see before us; and some of us call it +a failure. But we cannot call what the church wanted a failure, simply +because the church failed. Tracy struck a little too soon. England had +not yet made the great Protestant discovery that the king can do no +wrong. The king was whipped in the cathedral; a performance which I +recommend to those who regret the unpopularity of church-going. But the +discovery was made; and Henry VIII scattered Becket's bones as easily as +Tracy had scattered his brains. + +Of course, I mean that Catholicism was not tried; plenty of Catholics +were tried, and found guilty. My point is that the world did not tire +of the church's ideal, but of its reality. Monasteries were impugned not +for the chastity of monks, but for the unchastity of monks. Christianity +was unpopular not because of the humility, but of the arrogance of +Christians. Certainly, if the church failed it was largely through the +churchmen. But at the same time hostile elements had certainly begun to +end it long before it could have done its work. In the nature of +things it needed a common scheme of life and thought in Europe. Yet +the mediaeval system began to be broken to pieces intellectually, long +before it showed the slightest hint of falling to pieces morally. The +huge early heresies, like the Albigenses, had not the faintest excuse in +moral superiority. And it is actually true that the Reformation began +to tear Europe apart before the Catholic Church had had time to pull +it together. The Prussians, for instance, were not converted to +Christianity at all until quite close to the Reformation. The poor +creatures hardly had time to become Catholics before they were told +to become Protestants. This explains a great deal of their subsequent +conduct. But I have only taken this as the first and most evident case +of the general truth: that the great ideals of the past failed not by +being outlived (which must mean over-lived), but by not being lived +enough. Mankind has not passed through the Middle Ages. Rather mankind +has retreated from the Middle Ages in reaction and rout. The Christian +ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; +and left untried. + +It is, of course, the same in the case of the French Revolution. A great +part of our present perplexity arises from the fact that the French +Revolution has half succeeded and half failed. In one sense, Valmy was +the decisive battle of the West, and in another Trafalgar. We have, +indeed, destroyed the largest territorial tyrannies, and created a free +peasantry in almost all Christian countries except England; of which we +shall say more anon. But representative government, the one universal +relic, is a very poor fragment of the full republican idea. The theory +of the French Revolution presupposed two things in government, things +which it achieved at the time, but which it has certainly not bequeathed +to its imitators in England, Germany, and America. The first of these +was the idea of honorable poverty; that a statesman must be something of +a stoic; the second was the idea of extreme publicity. Many imaginative +English writers, including Carlyle, seem quite unable to imagine how it +was that men like Robespierre and Marat were ardently admired. The best +answer is that they were admired for being poor--poor when they might +have been rich. + +No one will pretend that this ideal exists at all in the haute politique +of this country. Our national claim to political incorruptibility is +actually based on exactly the opposite argument; it is based on the +theory that wealthy men in assured positions will have no temptation to +financial trickery. Whether the history of the English aristocracy, +from the spoliation of the monasteries to the annexation of the mines, +entirely supports this theory I am not now inquiring; but certainly +it is our theory, that wealth will be a protection against political +corruption. The English statesman is bribed not to be bribed. He is born +with a silver spoon in his mouth, so that he may never afterwards be +found with the silver spoons in his pocket. So strong is our faith in +this protection by plutocracy, that we are more and more trusting our +empire in the hands of families which inherit wealth without either +blood or manners. Some of our political houses are parvenue by pedigree; +they hand on vulgarity like a coat of-arms. In the case of many a modern +statesman to say that he is born with a silver spoon in his mouth, is +at once inadequate and excessive. He is born with a silver knife in his +mouth. But all this only illustrates the English theory that poverty is +perilous for a politician. + +It will be the same if we compare the conditions that have come about +with the Revolution legend touching publicity. The old democratic +doctrine was that the more light that was let in to all departments of +State, the easier it was for a righteous indignation to move promptly +against wrong. In other words, monarchs were to live in glass houses, +that mobs might throw stones. Again, no admirer of existing English +politics (if there is any admirer of existing English politics) will +really pretend that this ideal of publicity is exhausted, or even +attempted. Obviously public life grows more private every day. The +French have, indeed, continued the tradition of revealing secrets and +making scandals; hence they are more flagrant and palpable than we, not +in sin but in the confession of sin. The first trial of Dreyfus might +have happened in England; it is exactly the second trial that would have +been legally impossible. But, indeed, if we wish to realise how far we +fall short of the original republican outline, the sharpest way to test +it is to note how far we fall short even of the republican element +in the older regime. Not only are we less democratic than Danton and +Condorcet, but we are in many ways less democratic than Choiseul and +Marie Antoinette. The richest nobles before the revolt were needy +middle-class people compared with our Rothschilds and Roseberys. And +in the matter of publicity the old French monarchy was infinitely more +democratic than any of the monarchies of today. Practically anybody +who chose could walk into the palace and see the king playing with his +children, or paring his nails. The people possessed the monarch, as the +people possess Primrose Hill; that is, they cannot move it, but they can +sprawl all over it. The old French monarchy was founded on the excellent +principle that a cat may look at a king. But nowadays a cat may not look +at a king; unless it is a very tame cat. Even where the press is free +for criticism it is only used for adulation. The substantial difference +comes to something uncommonly like this: Eighteenth century tyranny +meant that you could say "The K__ of Br__rd is a profligate." Twentieth +century liberty really means that you are allowed to say "The King of +Brentford is a model family man." + +But we have delayed the main argument too long for the parenthetical +purpose of showing that the great democratic dream, like the great +mediaeval dream, has in a strict and practical sense been a dream +unfulfilled. Whatever is the matter with modern England it is not +that we have carried out too literally, or achieved with disappointing +completeness, either the Catholicism of Becket or the equality of Marat. +Now I have taken these two cases merely because they are typical of +ten thousand other cases; the world is full of these unfulfilled ideas, +these uncompleted temples. History does not consist of completed and +crumbling ruins; rather it consists of half-built villas abandoned by +a bankrupt-builder. This world is more like an unfinished suburb than a +deserted cemetery. + + +***** + + + + +VI. THE ENEMIES OF PROPERTY + +But it is for this especial reason that such an explanation is necessary +on the very threshold of the definition of ideals. For owing to that +historic fallacy with which I have just dealt, numbers of readers will +expect me, when I propound an ideal, to propound a new ideal. Now I +have no notion at all of propounding a new ideal. There is no new ideal +imaginable by the madness of modern sophists, which will be anything +like so startling as fulfilling any one of the old ones. On the day +that any copybook maxim is carried out there will be something like an +earthquake on the earth. There is only one thing new that can be done +under the sun; and that is to look at the sun. If you attempt it on a +blue day in June, you will know why men do not look straight at their +ideals. There is only one really startling thing to be done with the +ideal, and that is to do it. It is to face the flaming logical fact, and +its frightful consequences. Christ knew that it would be a more stunning +thunderbolt to fulfil the law than to destroy it. It is true of both +the cases I have quoted, and of every case. The pagans had always adored +purity: Athena, Artemis, Vesta. It was when the virgin martyrs began +defiantly to practice purity that they rent them with wild beasts, and +rolled them on red-hot coals. The world had always loved the notion of +the poor man uppermost; it can be proved by every legend from Cinderella +to Whittington, by every poem from the Magnificat to the Marseillaise. +The kings went mad against France not because she idealized this ideal, +but because she realized it. Joseph of Austria and Catherine of Russia +quite agreed that the people should rule; what horrified them was that +the people did. The French Revolution, therefore, is the type of all +true revolutions, because its ideal is as old as the Old Adam, but +its fulfilment almost as fresh, as miraculous, and as new as the New +Jerusalem. + +But in the modern world we are primarily confronted with the +extraordinary spectacle of people turning to new ideals because they +have not tried the old. Men have not got tired of Christianity; they +have never found enough Christianity to get tired of. Men have never +wearied of political justice; they have wearied of waiting for it. + +Now, for the purpose of this book, I propose to take only one of these +old ideals; but one that is perhaps the oldest. I take the principle +of domesticity: the ideal house; the happy family, the holy family of +history. For the moment it is only necessary to remark that it is like +the church and like the republic, now chiefly assailed by those who have +never known it, or by those who have failed to fulfil it. Numberless +modern women have rebelled against domesticity in theory because they +have never known it in practice. Hosts of the poor are driven to the +workhouse without ever having known the house. Generally speaking, the +cultured class is shrieking to be let out of the decent home, just as +the working class is shouting to be let into it. + +Now if we take this house or home as a test, we may very generally lay +the simple spiritual foundations of the idea. God is that which can make +something out of nothing. Man (it may truly be said) is that which can +make something out of anything. In other words, while the joy of God +be unlimited creation, the special joy of man is limited creation, the +combination of creation with limits. Man's pleasure, therefore, is +to possess conditions, but also to be partly possessed by them; to +be half-controlled by the flute he plays or by the field he digs. The +excitement is to get the utmost out of given conditions; the conditions +will stretch, but not indefinitely. A man can write an immortal sonnet +on an old envelope, or hack a hero out of a lump of rock. But hacking +a sonnet out of a rock would be a laborious business, and making a hero +out of an envelope is almost out of the sphere of practical politics. +This fruitful strife with limitations, when it concerns some airy +entertainment of an educated class, goes by the name of Art. But +the mass of men have neither time nor aptitude for the invention of +invisible or abstract beauty. For the mass of men the idea of artistic +creation can only be expressed by an idea unpopular in present +discussions--the idea of property. The average man cannot cut clay into +the shape of a man; but he can cut earth into the shape of a garden; and +though he arranges it with red geraniums and blue potatoes in alternate +straight lines, he is still an artist; because he has chosen. The +average man cannot paint the sunset whose colors be admires; but he can +paint his own house with what color he chooses, and though he paints it +pea green with pink spots, he is still an artist; because that is his +choice. Property is merely the art of the democracy. It means that every +man should have something that he can shape in his own image, as he is +shaped in the image of heaven. But because he is not God, but only a +graven image of God, his self-expression must deal with limits; properly +with limits that are strict and even small. + +I am well aware that the word "property" has been defied in our time by +the corruption of the great capitalists. One would think, to hear people +talk, that the Rothchilds and the Rockefellers were on the side of +property. But obviously they are the enemies of property; because they +are enemies of their own limitations. They do not want their own land; +but other people's. When they remove their neighbor's landmark, they +also remove their own. A man who loves a little triangular field ought +to love it because it is triangular; anyone who destroys the shape, by +giving him more land, is a thief who has stolen a triangle. A man with +the true poetry of possession wishes to see the wall where his garden +meets Smith's garden; the hedge where his farm touches Brown's. He +cannot see the shape of his own land unless he sees the edges of his +neighbor's. It is the negation of property that the Duke of Sutherland +should have all the farms in one estate; just as it would be the +negation of marriage if he had all our wives in one harem. + +***** + + + + +VII. THE FREE FAMILY + +As I have said, I propose to take only one central instance; I will take +the institution called the private house or home; the shell and organ of +the family. We will consider cosmic and political tendencies simply as +they strike that ancient and unique roof. Very few words will suffice +for all I have to say about the family itself. I leave alone the +speculations about its animal origin and the details of its social +reconstruction; I am concerned only with its palpable omnipresence. It +is a necessity far mankind; it is (if you like to put it so) a trap for +mankind. Only by the hypocritical ignoring of a huge fact can any +one contrive to talk of "free love"; as if love were an episode like +lighting a cigarette, or whistling a tune. Suppose whenever a man lit a +cigarette, a towering genie arose from the rings of smoke and followed +him everywhere as a huge slave. Suppose whenever a man whistled a tune +he "drew an angel down" and had to walk about forever with a seraph on +a string. These catastrophic images are but faint parallels to the +earthquake consequences that Nature has attached to sex; and it is +perfectly plain at the beginning that a man cannot be a free lover; he +is either a traitor or a tied man. The second element that creates +the family is that its consequences, though colossal, are gradual; the +cigarette produces a baby giant, the song only an infant seraph. Thence +arises the necessity for some prolonged system of co-operation; and +thence arises the family in its full educational sense. + +It may be said that this institution of the home is the one anarchist +institution. That is to say, it is older than law, and stands outside +the State. By its nature it is refreshed or corrupted by indefinable +forces of custom or kinship. This is not to be understood as meaning +that the State has no authority over families; that State authority +is invoked and ought to be invoked in many abnormal cases. But in most +normal cases of family joys and sorrows, the State has no mode of entry. +It is not so much that the law should not interfere, as that the law +cannot. Just as there are fields too far off for law, so there are +fields too near; as a man may see the North Pole before he sees his own +backbone. Small and near matters escape control at least as much as vast +and remote ones; and the real pains and pleasures of the family form +a strong instance of this. If a baby cries for the moon, the policeman +cannot procure the moon--but neither can he stop the baby. Creatures so +close to each other as husband and wife, or a mother and children, have +powers of making each other happy or miserable with which no public +coercion can deal. If a marriage could be dissolved every morning it +would not give back his night's rest to a man kept awake by a curtain +lecture; and what is the good of giving a man a lot of power where he +only wants a little peace? The child must depend on the most imperfect +mother; the mother may be devoted to the most unworthy children; in such +relations legal revenges are vain. Even in the abnormal cases where +the law may operate, this difficulty is constantly found; as many a +bewildered magistrate knows. He has to save children from starvation by +taking away their breadwinner. And he often has to break a wife's heart +because her husband has already broken her head. The State has no tool +delicate enough to deracinate the rooted habits and tangled affections +of the family; the two sexes, whether happy or unhappy, are glued +together too tightly for us to get the blade of a legal penknife in +between them. The man and the woman are one flesh--yes, even when they +are not one spirit. Man is a quadruped. Upon this ancient and anarchic +intimacy, types of government have little or no effect; it is happy or +unhappy, by its own sexual wholesomeness and genial habit, under the +republic of Switzerland or the despotism of Siam. Even a republic in +Siam would not have done much towards freeing the Siamese Twins. + +The problem is not in marriage, but in sex; and would be felt under the +freest concubinage. Nevertheless, the overwhelming mass of mankind has +not believed in freedom in this matter, but rather in a more or less +lasting tie. Tribes and civilizations differ about the occasions on +which we may loosen the bond, but they all agree that there is a bond to +be loosened, not a mere universal detachment. For the purposes of this +book I am not concerned to discuss that mystical view of marriage in +which I myself believe: the great European tradition which has made +marriage a sacrament. It is enough to say here that heathen and +Christian alike have regarded marriage as a tie; a thing not normally +to be sundered. Briefly, this human belief in a sexual bond rests on a +principle of which the modern mind has made a very inadequate study. It +is, perhaps, most nearly paralleled by the principle of the second wind +in walking. + +The principle is this: that in everything worth having, even in every +pleasure, there is a point of pain or tedium that must be survived, so +that the pleasure may revive and endure. The joy of battle comes after +the first fear of death; the joy of reading Virgil comes after the bore +of learning him; the glow of the sea-bather comes after the icy shock of +the sea bath; and the success of the marriage comes after the failure of +the honeymoon. All human vows, laws, and contracts are so many ways of +surviving with success this breaking point, this instant of potential +surrender. + +In everything on this earth that is worth doing, there is a stage when +no one would do it, except for necessity or honor. It is then that the +Institution upholds a man and helps him on to the firmer ground ahead. +Whether this solid fact of human nature is sufficient to justify the +sublime dedication of Christian marriage is quite an other matter, it is +amply sufficient to justify the general human feeling of marriage as a +fixed thing, dissolution of which is a fault or, at least, an ignominy. +The essential element is not so much duration as security. Two people +must be tied together in order to do themselves justice; for twenty +minutes at a dance, or for twenty years in a marriage In both cases the +point is, that if a man is bored in the first five minutes he must go on +and force himself to be happy. Coercion is a kind of encouragement; and +anarchy (or what some call liberty) is essentially oppressive, because +it is essentially discouraging. If we all floated in the air like +bubbles, free to drift anywhere at any instant, the practical result +would be that no one would have the courage to begin a conversation. It +would be so embarrassing to start a sentence in a friendly whisper, +and then have to shout the last half of it because the other party was +floating away into the free and formless ether. The two must hold each +other to do justice to each other. If Americans can be divorced for +"incompatibility of temper" I cannot conceive why they are not all +divorced. I have known many happy marriages, but never a compatible one. +The whole aim of marriage is to fight through and survive the instant +when incompatibility becomes unquestionable. For a man and a woman, as +such, are incompatible. + +***** + + + + +VIII. THE WILDNESS OF DOMESTICITY + +In the course of this crude study we shall have to touch on what is +called the problem of poverty, especially the dehumanized poverty +of modern industrialism. But in this primary matter of the ideal the +difficulty is not the problem of poverty, but the problem of wealth. +It is the special psychology of leisure and luxury that falsifies life. +Some experience of modern movements of the sort called "advanced" has +led me to the conviction that they generally repose upon some experience +peculiar to the rich. It is so with that fallacy of free love of which I +have already spoken; the idea of sexuality as a string of episodes. That +implies a long holiday in which to get tired of one woman, and a motor +car in which to wander looking for others; it also implies money for +maintenances. An omnibus conductor has hardly time to love his own +wife, let alone other people's. And the success with which nuptial +estrangements are depicted in modern "problem plays" is due to the fact +that there is only one thing that a drama cannot depict--that is a +hard day's work. I could give many other instances of this plutocratic +assumption behind progressive fads. For instance, there is a plutocratic +assumption behind the phrase "Why should woman be economically dependent +upon man?" The answer is that among poor and practical people she isn't; +except in the sense in which he is dependent upon her. A hunter has to +tear his clothes; there must be somebody to mend them. A fisher has +to catch fish; there must be somebody to cook them. It is surely quite +clear that this modern notion that woman is a mere "pretty clinging +parasite," "a plaything," etc., arose through the somber contemplation +of some rich banking family, in which the banker, at least, went to the +city and pretended to do something, while the banker's wife went to the +Park and did not pretend to do anything at all. A poor man and his +wife are a business partnership. If one partner in a firm of publishers +interviews the authors while the other interviews the clerks, is one of +them economically dependent? Was Hodder a pretty parasite clinging to +Stoughton? Was Marshall a mere plaything for Snelgrove? + +But of all the modern notions generated by mere wealth the worst is +this: the notion that domesticity is dull and tame. Inside the home +(they say) is dead decorum and routine; outside is adventure and +variety. This is indeed a rich man's opinion. The rich man knows that +his own house moves on vast and soundless wheels of wealth, is run by +regiments of servants, by a swift and silent ritual. On the other hand, +every sort of vagabondage of romance is open to him in the streets +outside. He has plenty of money and can afford to be a tramp. His +wildest adventure will end in a restaurant, while the yokel's tamest +adventure may end in a police-court. If he smashes a window he can +pay for it; if he smashes a man he can pension him. He can (like the +millionaire in the story) buy an hotel to get a glass of gin. And +because he, the luxurious man, dictates the tone of nearly all +"advanced" and "progressive" thought, we have almost forgotten what a +home really means to the overwhelming millions of mankind. + +For the truth is, that to the moderately poor the home is the only place +of liberty. Nay, it is the only place of anarchy. It is the only spot +on the earth where a man can alter arrangements suddenly, make an +experiment or indulge in a whim. Everywhere else he goes he must accept +the strict rules of the shop, inn, club, or museum that he happens to +enter. He can eat his meals on the floor in his own house if he likes. +I often do it myself; it gives a curious, childish, poetic, picnic +feeling. There would be considerable trouble if I tried to do it in +an A.B.C. tea-shop. A man can wear a dressing gown and slippers in his +house; while I am sure that this would not be permitted at the Savoy, +though I never actually tested the point. If you go to a restaurant +you must drink some of the wines on the wine list, all of them if you +insist, but certainly some of them. But if you have a house and garden +you can try to make hollyhock tea or convolvulus wine if you like. For a +plain, hard-working man the home is not the one tame place in the world +of adventure. It is the one wild place in the world of rules and set +tasks. The home is the one place where he can put the carpet on the +ceiling or the slates on the floor if he wants to. When a man spends +every night staggering from bar to bar or from music-hall to music-hall, +we say that he is living an irregular life. But he is not; he is living +a highly regular life, under the dull, and often oppressive, laws of +such places. Some times he is not allowed even to sit down in the bars; +and frequently he is not allowed to sing in the music-halls. Hotels may +be defined as places where you are forced to dress; and theaters may +be defined as places where you are forbidden to smoke. A man can only +picnic at home. + +Now I take, as I have said, this small human omnipotence, this +possession of a definite cell or chamber of liberty, as the working +model for the present inquiry. Whether we can give every English man +a free home of his own or not, at least we should desire it; and he +desires it. For the moment we speak of what he wants, not of what he +expects to get. He wants, for instance, a separate house; he does not +want a semi-detached house. He may be forced in the commercial race +to share one wall with another man. Similarly he might be forced in a +three-legged race to share one leg with another man; but it is not so +that he pictures himself in his dreams of elegance and liberty. Again, +he does not desire a flat. He can eat and sleep and praise God in a +flat; he can eat and sleep and praise God in a railway train. But a +railway train is not a house, because it is a house on wheels. And a +flat is not a house, because it is a house on stilts. An idea of +earthy contact and foundation, as well as an idea of separation and +independence, is a part of this instructive human picture. + +I take, then, this one institution as a test. As every normal man +desires a woman, and children born of a woman, every normal man desires +a house of his own to put them into. He does not merely want a roof +above him and a chair below him; he wants an objective and visible +kingdom; a fire at which he can cook what food he likes, a door he can +open to what friends he chooses. This is the normal appetite of men; I +do not say there are not exceptions. There may be saints above the need +and philanthropists below it. Opalstein, now he is a duke, may have got +used to more than this; and when he was a convict may have got used +to less. But the normality of the thing is enormous. To give nearly +everybody ordinary houses would please nearly everybody; that is what I +assert without apology. Now in modern England (as you eagerly point out) +it is very difficult to give nearly everybody houses. Quite so; I merely +set up the desideratum; and ask the reader to leave it standing there +while he turns with me to a consideration of what really happens in the +social wars of our time. + +***** + + + + +IX. HISTORY OF HUDGE AND GUDGE + +There is, let us say, a certain filthy rookery in Hoxton, dripping with +disease and honeycombed with crime and promiscuity. There are, let us +say, two noble and courageous young men, of pure intentions and (if you +prefer it) noble birth; let us call them Hudge and Gudge. Hudge, let us +say, is of a bustling sort; he points out that the people must at all +costs be got out of this den; he subscribes and collects money, but he +finds (despite the large financial interests of the Hudges) that the +thing will have to be done on the cheap if it is to be done on the spot. +He therefore, runs up a row of tall bare tenements like beehives; and +soon has all the poor people bundled into their little brick cells, +which are certainly better than their old quarters, in so far as they +are weather proof, well ventilated and supplied with clean water. But +Gudge has a more delicate nature. He feels a nameless something lacking +in the little brick boxes; he raises numberless objections; he even +assails the celebrated Hudge Report, with the Gudge Minority Report; and +by the end of a year or so has come to telling Hudge heatedly that the +people were much happier where they were before. As the people preserve +in both places precisely the same air of dazed amiability, it is very +difficult to find out which is right. But at least one might safely say +that no people ever liked stench or starvation as such, but only some +peculiar pleasures en tangled with them. Not so feels the sensitive +Gudge. Long before the final quarrel (Hudge v. Gudge and Another), Gudge +has succeeded in persuading himself that slums and stinks are really +very nice things; that the habit of sleeping fourteen in a room is +what has made our England great; and that the smell of open drains is +absolutely essential to the rearing of a viking breed. + +But, meanwhile, has there been no degeneration in Hudge? Alas, I fear +there has. Those maniacally ugly buildings which he originally put up +as unpretentious sheds barely to shelter human life, grow every day more +and more lovely to his deluded eye. Things he would never have dreamed +of defending, except as crude necessities, things like common kitchens +or infamous asbestos stoves, begin to shine quite sacredly before him, +merely because they reflect the wrath of Gudge. He maintains, with the +aid of eager little books by Socialists, that man is really happier in +a hive than in a house. The practical difficulty of keeping total +strangers out of your bedroom he describes as Brotherhood; and the +necessity for climbing twenty-three flights of cold stone stairs, I dare +say he calls Effort. The net result of their philanthropic adventure is +this: that one has come to defending indefensible slums and still more +indefensible slum-landlords, while the other has come to treating as +divine the sheds and pipes which he only meant as desperate. Gudge +is now a corrupt and apoplectic old Tory in the Carlton Club; if +you mention poverty to him he roars at you in a thick, hoarse voice +something that is conjectured to be "Do 'em good!" Nor is Hudge more +happy; for he is a lean vegetarian with a gray, pointed beard and an +unnaturally easy smile, who goes about telling everybody that at last we +shall all sleep in one universal bedroom; and he lives in a Garden City, +like one forgotten of God. + +Such is the lamentable history of Hudge and Gudge; which I merely +introduce as a type of an endless and exasperating misunderstanding +which is always occurring in modern England. To get men out of a rookery +men are put into a tenement; and at the beginning the healthy human +soul loathes them both. A man's first desire is to get away as far as +possible from the rookery, even should his mad course lead him to a +model dwelling. The second desire is, naturally, to get away from the +model dwelling, even if it should lead a man back to the rookery. But +I am neither a Hudgian nor a Gudgian; and I think the mistakes of these +two famous and fascinating persons arose from one simple fact. They +arose from the fact that neither Hudge nor Gudge had ever thought for +an instant what sort of house a man might probably like for himself. +In short, they did not begin with the ideal; and, therefore, were not +practical politicians. + +We may now return to the purpose of our awkward parenthesis about the +praise of the future and the failures of the past. A house of his own +being the obvious ideal for every man, we may now ask (taking this need +as typical of all such needs) why he hasn't got it; and whether it is +in any philosophical sense his own fault. Now, I think that in +some philosophical sense it is his own fault, I think in a yet more +philosophical sense it is the fault of his philosophy. And this is what +I have now to attempt to explain. + +Burke, a fine rhetorician, who rarely faced realities, said, I think, +that an Englishman's house is his castle. This is honestly entertaining; +for as it happens the Englishman is almost the only man in Europe whose +house is not his castle. Nearly everywhere else exists the assumption of +peasant proprietorship; that a poor man may be a landlord, though he is +only lord of his own land. Making the landlord and the tenant the same +person has certain trivial advantages, as that the tenant pays no rent, +while the landlord does a little work. But I am not concerned with the +defense of small proprietorship, but merely with the fact that it exists +almost everywhere except in England. It is also true, however, that this +estate of small possession is attacked everywhere today; it has never +existed among ourselves, and it may be destroyed among our neighbors. We +have, therefore, to ask ourselves what it is in human affairs generally, +and in this domestic ideal in particular, that has really ruined the +natural human creation, especially in this country. + +Man has always lost his way. He has been a tramp ever since Eden; but he +always knew, or thought he knew, what he was looking for. Every man has +a house somewhere in the elaborate cosmos; his house waits for him waist +deep in slow Norfolk rivers or sunning itself upon Sussex downs. Man has +always been looking for that home which is the subject matter of this +book. But in the bleak and blinding hail of skepticism to which he +has been now so long subjected, he has begun for the first time to be +chilled, not merely in his hopes, but in his desires. For the first time +in history he begins really to doubt the object of his wanderings on the +earth. He has always lost his way; but now he has lost his address. + +Under the pressure of certain upper-class philosophies (or in other +words, under the pressure of Hudge and Gudge) the average man has +really become bewildered about the goal of his efforts; and his efforts, +therefore, grow feebler and feebler. His simple notion of having a home +of his own is derided as bourgeois, as sentimental, or as despicably +Christian. Under various verbal forms he is recommended to go on to the +streets--which is called Individualism; or to the work-house--which +is called Collectivism. We shall consider this process somewhat more +carefully in a moment. But it may be said here that Hudge and Gudge, or +the governing class generally, will never fail for lack of some modern +phrase to cover their ancient predominance. The great lords will refuse +the English peasant his three acres and a cow on advanced grounds, if +they cannot refuse it longer on reactionary grounds. They will deny him +the three acres on grounds of State Ownership. They will forbid him the +cow on grounds of humanitarianism. + +And this brings us to the ultimate analysis of this singular influence +that has prevented doctrinal demands by the English people. There are, +I believe, some who still deny that England is governed by an oligarchy. +It is quite enough for me to know that a man might have gone to sleep +some thirty years ago over the day's newspaper and woke up last week +over the later newspaper, and fancied he was reading about the same +people. In one paper he would have found a Lord Robert Cecil, a Mr. +Gladstone, a Mr. Lyttleton, a Churchill, a Chamberlain, a Trevelyan, +an Acland. In the other paper he would find a Lord Robert Cecil, a Mr. +Gladstone, a Mr. Lyttleton, a Churchill, a Chamberlain, a Trevelyan, an +Acland. If this is not being governed by families I cannot imagine +what it is. I suppose it is being governed by extraordinary democratic +coincidences. + +***** + + + + +X. OPPRESSION BY OPTIMISM + +But we are not here concerned with the nature and existence of the +aristocracy, but with the origin of its peculiar power, why is it the +last of the true oligarchies of Europe; and why does there seem no +very immediate prospect of our seeing the end of it? The explanation is +simple though it remains strangely unnoticed. The friends of aristocracy +often praise it for preserving ancient and gracious traditions. +The enemies of aristocracy often blame it for clinging to cruel +or antiquated customs. Both its enemies and its friends are wrong. +Generally speaking the aristocracy does not preserve either good or bad +traditions; it does not preserve anything except game. Who would dream +of looking among aristocrats anywhere for an old custom? One might +as well look for an old costume! The god of the aristocrats is not +tradition, but fashion, which is the opposite of tradition. If you +wanted to find an old-world Norwegian head-dress, would you look for it +in the Scandinavian Smart Set? No; the aristocrats never have customs; +at the best they have habits, like the animals. Only the mob has +customs. + +The real power of the English aristocrats has lain in exactly the +opposite of tradition. The simple key to the power of our upper classes +is this: that they have always kept carefully on the side of what is +called Progress. They have always been up to date, and this comes quite +easy to an aristocracy. For the aristocracy are the supreme instances +of that frame of mind of which we spoke just now. Novelty is to them a +luxury verging on a necessity. They, above all, are so bored with the +past and with the present, that they gape, with a horrible hunger, for +the future. + +But whatever else the great lords forgot they never forgot that it was +their business to stand for the new things, for whatever was being most +talked about among university dons or fussy financiers. Thus they were +on the side of the Reformation against the Church, of the Whigs against +the Stuarts, of the Baconian science against the old philosophy, of +the manufacturing system against the operatives, and (to-day) of the +increased power of the State against the old-fashioned individualists. +In short, the rich are always modern; it is their business. But the +immediate effect of this fact upon the question we are studying is +somewhat singular. + +In each of the separate holes or quandaries in which the ordinary +Englishman has been placed, he has been told that his situation is, for +some particular reason, all for the best. He woke up one fine morning +and discovered that the public things, which for eight hundred years +he had used at once as inns and sanctuaries, had all been suddenly and +savagely abolished, to increase the private wealth of about six or seven +men. One would think he might have been annoyed at that; in many places +he was, and was put down by the soldiery. But it was not merely the +army that kept him quiet. He was kept quiet by the sages as well as the +soldiers; the six or seven men who took away the inns of the poor told +him that they were not doing it for themselves, but for the religion +of the future, the great dawn of Protestantism and truth. So whenever a +seventeenth century noble was caught pulling down a peasant's fence and +stealing his field, the noble pointed excitedly at the face of Charles I +or James II (which at that moment, perhaps, wore a cross expression) and +thus diverted the simple peasant's attention. The great Puritan lords +created the Commonwealth, and destroyed the common land. They saved +their poorer countrymen from the disgrace of paying Ship Money, +by taking from them the plow money and spade money which they were +doubtless too weak to guard. A fine old English rhyme has immortalized +this easy aristocratic habit-- + +You prosecute the man or woman Who steals the goose from off the common, +But leave the larger felon loose Who steals the common from the goose. + +But here, as in the case of the monasteries, we confront the strange +problem of submission. If they stole the common from the goose, one can +only say that he was a great goose to stand it. The truth is that they +reasoned with the goose; they explained to him that all this was needed +to get the Stuart fox over seas. So in the nineteenth century the great +nobles who became mine-owners and railway directors earnestly assured +everybody that they did not do this from preference, but owing to a +newly discovered Economic Law. So the prosperous politicians of our own +generation introduce bills to prevent poor mothers from going about with +their own babies; or they calmly forbid their tenants to drink beer in +public inns. But this insolence is not (as you would suppose) howled at +by everybody as outrageous feudalism. It is gently rebuked as Socialism. +For an aristocracy is always progressive; it is a form of going the +pace. Their parties grow later and later at night; for they are trying +to live to-morrow. + +***** + + + + +XI. THE HOMELESSNESS OF JONES + +Thus the Future of which we spoke at the beginning has (in England at +least) always been the ally of tyranny. The ordinary Englishman has been +duped out of his old possessions, such as they were, and always in the +name of progress. The destroyers of the abbeys took away his bread and +gave him a stone, assuring him that it was a precious stone, the white +pebble of the Lord's elect. They took away his maypole and his original +rural life and promised him instead the Golden Age of Peace and Commerce +inaugurated at the Crystal Palace. And now they are taking away the +little that remains of his dignity as a householder and the head of a +family, promising him instead Utopias which are called (appropriately +enough) "Anticipations" or "News from Nowhere." We come back, in fact, +to the main feature which has already been mentioned. The past is +communal: the future must be individualist. In the past are all the +evils of democracy, variety and violence and doubt, but the future is +pure despotism, for the future is pure caprice. Yesterday, I know I was +a human fool, but to-morrow I can easily be the Superman. + +The modern Englishman, however, is like a man who should be perpetually +kept out, for one reason after another, from the house in which he had +meant his married life to begin. This man (Jones let us call him) has +always desired the divinely ordinary things; he has married for love, he +has chosen or built a small house that fits like a coat; he is ready +to be a great grandfather and a local god. And just as he is moving +in, something goes wrong. Some tyranny, personal or political, suddenly +debars him from the home; and he has to take his meals in the front +garden. A passing philosopher (who is also, by a mere coincidence, the +man who turned him out) pauses, and leaning elegantly on the railings, +explains to him that he is now living that bold life upon the bounty of +nature which will be the life of the sublime future. He finds life in +the front garden more bold than bountiful, and has to move into mean +lodgings in the next spring. The philosopher (who turned him out), +happening to call at these lodgings, with the probable intention of +raising the rent, stops to explain to him that he is now in the real +life of mercantile endeavor; the economic struggle between him and the +landlady is the only thing out of which, in the sublime future, the +wealth of nations can come. He is defeated in the economic struggle, and +goes to the workhouse. The philosopher who turned him out (happening at +that very moment to be inspecting the workhouse) assures him that he is +now at last in that golden republic which is the goal of mankind; he is +in an equal, scientific, Socialistic commonwealth, owned by the State +and ruled by public officers; in fact, the commonwealth of the sublime +future. + +Nevertheless, there are signs that the irrational Jones still dreams +at night of this old idea of having an ordinary home. He asked for so +little, and he has been offered so much. He has been offered bribes +of worlds and systems; he has been offered Eden and Utopia and the New +Jerusalem, and he only wanted a house; and that has been refused him. + +Such an apologue is literally no exaggeration of the facts of English +history. The rich did literally turn the poor out of the old guest house +on to the road, briefly telling them that it was the road of +progress. They did literally force them into factories and the modern +wage-slavery, assuring them all the time that this was the only way to +wealth and civilization. Just as they had dragged the rustic from the +convent food and ale by saying that the streets of heaven were paved +with gold, so now they dragged him from the village food and ale by +telling him that the streets of London were paved with gold. As he +entered the gloomy porch of Puritanism, so he entered the gloomy porch +of Industrialism, being told that each of them was the gate of the +future. Hitherto he has only gone from prison to prison, nay, into +darkening prisons, for Calvinism opened one small window upon heaven. +And now he is asked, in the same educated and authoritative tones, to +enter another dark porch, at which he has to surrender, into unseen +hands, his children, his small possessions and all the habits of his +fathers. + +Whether this last opening be in truth any more inviting than the old +openings of Puritanism and Industrialism can be discussed later. But +there can be little doubt, I think, that if some form of Collectivism is +imposed upon England it will be imposed, as everything else has been, by +an instructed political class upon a people partly apathetic and +partly hypnotized. The aristocracy will be as ready to "administer" +Collectivism as they were to administer Puritanism or Manchesterism; in +some ways such a centralized political power is necessarily attractive +to them. It will not be so hard as some innocent Socialists seem to +suppose to induce the Honorable Tomnoddy to take over the milk supply as +well as the stamp supply--at an increased salary. Mr. Bernard Shaw +has remarked that rich men are better than poor men on parish councils +because they are free from "financial timidity." Now, the English ruling +class is quite free from financial timidity. The Duke of Sussex will be +quite ready to be Administrator of Sussex at the same screw. Sir William +Harcourt, that typical aristocrat, put it quite correctly. "We" (that +is, the aristocracy) "are all Socialists now." + +But this is not the essential note on which I desire to end. My main +contention is that, whether necessary or not, both Industrialism and +Collectivism have been accepted as necessities--not as naked ideals or +desires. Nobody liked the Manchester School; it was endured as the only +way of producing wealth. Nobody likes the Marxian school; it is endured +as the only way of preventing poverty. Nobody's real heart is in the +idea of preventing a free man from owning his own farm, or an old woman +from cultivating her own garden, any more than anybody's real heart was +in the heartless battle of the machines. The purpose of this chapter +is sufficiently served in indicating that this proposal also is a pis +aller, a desperate second best--like teetotalism. I do not propose to +prove here that Socialism is a poison; it is enough if I maintain that +it is a medicine and not a wine. + +The idea of private property universal but private, the idea of families +free but still families, of domesticity democratic but still domestic, +of one man one house--this remains the real vision and magnet of +mankind. The world may accept something more official and general, less +human and intimate. But the world will be like a broken-hearted woman +who makes a humdrum marriage because she may not make a happy one; +Socialism may be the world's deliverance, but it is not the world's +desire. + + + + +PART TWO. IMPERIALISM, OR THE MISTAKE ABOUT MAN + + + + +I. THE CHARM OF JINGOISM + +I have cast about widely to find a title for this section; and I confess +that the word "Imperialism" is a clumsy version of my meaning. But +no other word came nearer; "Militarism" would have been even more +misleading, and "The Superman" makes nonsense of any discussion that he +enters. Perhaps, upon the whole, the word "Caesarism" would have been +better; but I desire a popular word; and Imperialism (as the reader will +perceive) does cover for the most part the men and theories that I mean +to discuss. + +This small confusion is increased, however, by the fact that I do also +disbelieve in Imperialism in its popular sense, as a mode or theory +of the patriotic sentiment of this country. But popular Imperialism in +England has very little to do with the sort of Caesarean Imperialism +I wish to sketch. I differ from the Colonial idealism of Rhodes' and +Kipling; but I do not think, as some of its opponents do, that it is +an insolent creation of English harshness and rapacity. Imperialism, +I think, is a fiction created, not by English hardness, but by English +softness; nay, in a sense, even by English kindness. + +The reasons for believing in Australia are mostly as sentimental as the +most sentimental reasons for believing in heaven. New South Wales +is quite literally regarded as a place where the wicked cease from +troubling and the weary are at rest; that is, a paradise for uncles +who have turned dishonest and for nephews who are born tired. British +Columbia is in strict sense a fairyland, it is a world where a magic and +irrational luck is supposed to attend the youngest sons. This strange +optimism about the ends of the earth is an English weakness; but to show +that it is not a coldness or a harshness it is quite sufficient to +say that no one shared it more than that gigantic English +sentimentalist--the great Charles Dickens. The end of "David +Copperfield" is unreal not merely because it is an optimistic ending, +but because it is an Imperialistic ending. The decorous British +happiness planned out for David Copperfield and Agnes would be +embarrassed by the perpetual presence of the hopeless tragedy of Emily, +or the more hopeless farce of Micawber. Therefore, both Emily and +Micawber are shipped off to a vague colony where changes come over them +with no conceivable cause, except the climate. The tragic woman becomes +contented and the comic man becomes responsible, solely as the result of +a sea voyage and the first sight of a kangaroo. + +To Imperialism in the light political sense, therefore, my only +objection is that it is an illusion of comfort; that an Empire whose +heart is failing should be specially proud of the extremities, is to me +no more sublime a fact than that an old dandy whose brain is gone should +still be proud of his legs. It consoles men for the evident ugliness and +apathy of England with legends of fair youth and heroic strenuousness in +distant continents and islands. A man can sit amid the squalor of Seven +Dials and feel that life is innocent and godlike in the bush or on the +veldt. Just so a man might sit in the squalor of Seven Dials and feel +that life was innocent and godlike in Brixton and Surbiton. Brixton and +Surbiton are "new"; they are expanding; they are "nearer to nature," +in the sense that they have eaten up nature mile by mile. The only +objection is the objection of fact. The young men of Brixton are not +young giants. The lovers of Surbiton are not all pagan poets, singing +with the sweet energy of the spring. Nor are the people of the Colonies +when you meet them young giants or pagan poets. They are mostly Cockneys +who have lost their last music of real things by getting out of the +sound of Bow Bells. Mr. Rudyard Kipling, a man of real though decadent +genius, threw a theoretic glamour over them which is already fading. Mr. +Kipling is, in a precise and rather startling sense, the exception that +proves the rule. For he has imagination, of an oriental and cruel kind, +but he has it, not because he grew up in a new country, but precisely +because he grew up in the oldest country upon earth. He is rooted in a +past--an Asiatic past. He might never have written "Kabul River" if he +had been born in Melbourne. + +I say frankly, therefore (lest there should be any air of evasion), that +Imperialism in its common patriotic pretensions appears to me both weak +and perilous. It is the attempt of a European country to create a kind +of sham Europe which it can dominate, instead of the real Europe, which +it can only share. It is a love of living with one's inferiors. The +notion of restoring the Roman Empire by oneself and for oneself is a +dream that has haunted every Christian nation in a different shape +and in almost every shape as a snare. The Spanish are a consistent and +conservative people; therefore they embodied that attempt at Empire +in long and lingering dynasties. The French are a violent people, and +therefore they twice conquered that Empire by violence of arms. The +English are above all a poetical and optimistic people; and therefore +their Empire is something vague and yet sympathetic, something distant +and yet dear. But this dream of theirs of being powerful in the +uttermost places, though a native weakness, is still a weakness in them; +much more of a weakness than gold was to Spain or glory to Napoleon. If +ever we were in collision with our real brothers and rivals we should +leave all this fancy out of account. We should no more dream of pitting +Australian armies against German than of pitting Tasmanian sculpture +against French. I have thus explained, lest anyone should accuse me of +concealing an unpopular attitude, why I do not believe in Imperialism as +commonly understood. I think it not merely an occasional wrong to other +peoples, but a continuous feebleness, a running sore, in my own. But it +is also true that I have dwelt on this Imperialism that is an amiable +delusion partly in order to show how different it is from the deeper, +more sinister and yet more persuasive thing that I have been forced to +call Imperialism for the convenience of this chapter. In order to get to +the root of this evil and quite un-English Imperialism we must cast +back and begin anew with a more general discussion of the first needs of +human intercourse. + +***** + + + + +II. WISDOM AND THE WEATHER + +It is admitted, one may hope, that common things are never commonplace. +Birth is covered with curtains precisely because it is a staggering +and monstrous prodigy. Death and first love, though they happen to +everybody, can stop one's heart with the very thought of them. But while +this is granted, something further may be claimed. It is not merely true +that these universal things are strange; it is moreover true that they +are subtle. In the last analysis most common things will be found to +be highly complicated. Some men of science do indeed get over the +difficulty by dealing only with the easy part of it: thus, they will +call first love the instinct of sex, and the awe of death the instinct +of self-preservation. But this is only getting over the difficulty of +describing peacock green by calling it blue. There is blue in it. That +there is a strong physical element in both romance and the Memento +Mori makes them if possible more baffling than if they had been wholly +intellectual. No man could say exactly how much his sexuality was +colored by a clean love of beauty, or by the mere boyish itch for +irrevocable adventures, like running away to sea. No man could say how +far his animal dread of the end was mixed up with mystical traditions +touching morals and religion. It is exactly because these things are +animal, but not quite animal, that the dance of all the difficulties +begins. The materialists analyze the easy part, deny the hard part and +go home to their tea. + +It is complete error to suppose that because a thing is vulgar therefore +it is not refined; that is, subtle and hard to define. A drawing-room +song of my youth which began "In the gloaming, O, my darling," was +vulgar enough as a song; but the connection between human passion and +the twilight is none the less an exquisite and even inscrutable thing. +Or to take another obvious instance: the jokes about a mother-in-law +are scarcely delicate, but the problem of a mother-in-law is extremely +delicate. A mother-in-law is subtle because she is a thing like the +twilight. She is a mystical blend of two inconsistent things--law and a +mother. The caricatures misrepresent her; but they arise out of a real +human enigma. "Comic Cuts" deals with the difficulty wrongly, but it +would need George Meredith at his best to deal with the difficulty +rightly. The nearest statement of the problem perhaps is this: it is not +that a mother-in-law must be nasty, but that she must be very nice. + +But it is best perhaps to take in illustration some daily custom we have +all heard despised as vulgar or trite. Take, for the sake of argument, +the custom of talking about the weather. Stevenson calls it "the very +nadir and scoff of good conversationalists." Now there are very deep +reasons for talking about the weather, reasons that are delicate as well +as deep; they lie in layer upon layer of stratified sagacity. First of +all it is a gesture of primeval worship. The sky must be invoked; and +to begin everything with the weather is a sort of pagan way of beginning +everything with prayer. Jones and Brown talk about the weather: but so +do Milton and Shelley. Then it is an expression of that elementary idea +in politeness--equality. For the very word politeness is only the Greek +for citizenship. The word politeness is akin to the word policeman: a +charming thought. Properly understood, the citizen should be more polite +than the gentleman; perhaps the policeman should be the most courtly and +elegant of the three. But all good manners must obviously begin with +the sharing of something in a simple style. Two men should share an +umbrella; if they have not got an umbrella, they should at least share +the rain, with all its rich potentialities of wit and philosophy. +"For He maketh His sun to shine...." This is the second element in the +weather; its recognition of human equality in that we all have our hats +under the dark blue spangled umbrella of the universe. Arising out of +this is the third wholesome strain in the custom; I mean that it begins +with the body and with our inevitable bodily brotherhood. All true +friendliness begins with fire and food and drink and the recognition of +rain or frost. Those who will not begin at the bodily end of things are +already prigs and may soon be Christian Scientists. Each human soul has +in a sense to enact for itself the gigantic humility of the Incarnation. +Every man must descend into the flesh to meet mankind. + +Briefly, in the mere observation "a fine day" there is the whole great +human idea of comradeship. Now, pure comradeship is another of those +broad and yet bewildering things. We all enjoy it; yet when we come to +talk about it we almost always talk nonsense, chiefly because we suppose +it to be a simpler affair than it is. It is simple to conduct; but it is +by no means simple to analyze. Comradeship is at the most only one half +of human life; the other half is Love, a thing so different that one +might fancy it had been made for another universe. And I do not mean +mere sex love; any kind of concentrated passion, maternal love, or +even the fiercer kinds of friendship are in their nature alien to pure +comradeship. Both sides are essential to life; and both are known in +differing degrees to everybody of every age or sex. But very broadly +speaking it may still be said that women stand for the dignity of love +and men for the dignity of comradeship. I mean that the institution +would hardly be expected if the males of the tribe did not mount guard +over it. The affections in which women excel have so much more authority +and intensity that pure comradeship would be washed away if it were not +rallied and guarded in clubs, corps, colleges, banquets and regiments. +Most of us have heard the voice in which the hostess tells her husband +not to sit too long over the cigars. It is the dreadful voice of Love, +seeking to destroy Comradeship. + +All true comradeship has in it those three elements which I have +remarked in the ordinary exclamation about the weather. First, it has +a sort of broad philosophy like the common sky, emphasizing that we are +all under the same cosmic conditions. We are all in the same boat, the +"winged rock" of Mr. Herbert Trench. Secondly, it recognizes this bond +as the essential one; for comradeship is simply humanity seen in that +one aspect in which men are really equal. The old writers were entirely +wise when they talked of the equality of men; but they were also very +wise in not mentioning women. Women are always authoritarian; they +are always above or below; that is why marriage is a sort of poetical +see-saw. There are only three things in the world that women do not +understand; and they are Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. But men +(a class little understood in the modern world) find these things the +breath of their nostrils; and our most learned ladies will not even +begin to understand them until they make allowance for this kind of cool +camaraderie. Lastly, it contains the third quality of the weather, the +insistence upon the body and its indispensable satisfaction. No one +has even begun to understand comradeship who does not accept with it a +certain hearty eagerness in eating, drinking, or smoking, an uproarious +materialism which to many women appears only hoggish. You may call the +thing an orgy or a sacrament; it is certainly an essential. It is at +root a resistance to the superciliousness of the individual. Nay, its +very swaggering and howling are humble. In the heart of its rowdiness +there is a sort of mad modesty; a desire to melt the separate soul into +the mass of unpretentious masculinity. It is a clamorous confession of +the weakness of all flesh. No man must be superior to the things that +are common to men. This sort of equality must be bodily and gross and +comic. Not only are we all in the same boat, but we are all seasick. + +The word comradeship just now promises to become as fatuous as the word +"affinity." There are clubs of a Socialist sort where all the members, +men and women, call each other "Comrade." I have no serious emotions, +hostile or otherwise, about this particular habit: at the worst it is +conventionality, and at the best flirtation. I am convinced here only +to point out a rational principle. If you choose to lump all flowers +together, lilies and dahlias and tulips and chrysanthemums and call +them all daisies, you will find that you have spoiled the very fine word +daisy. If you choose to call every human attachment comradeship, if +you include under that name the respect of a youth for a venerable +prophetess, the interest of a man in a beautiful woman who baffles him, +the pleasure of a philosophical old fogy in a girl who is impudent and +innocent, the end of the meanest quarrel or the beginning of the most +mountainous love; if you are going to call all these comradeship, you +will gain nothing, you will only lose a word. Daisies are obvious and +universal and open; but they are only one kind of flower. Comradeship is +obvious and universal and open; but it is only one kind of affection; +it has characteristics that would destroy any other kind. Anyone who +has known true comradeship in a club or in a regiment, knows that it is +impersonal. There is a pedantic phrase used in debating clubs which is +strictly true to the masculine emotion; they call it "speaking to the +question." Women speak to each other; men speak to the subject they are +speaking about. Many an honest man has sat in a ring of his five +best friends under heaven and forgotten who was in the room while he +explained some system. This is not peculiar to intellectual men; men are +all theoretical, whether they are talking about God or about golf. Men +are all impersonal; that is to say, republican. No one remembers after +a really good talk who has said the good things. Every man speaks to a +visionary multitude; a mystical cloud, that is called the club. + +It is obvious that this cool and careless quality which is essential to +the collective affection of males involves disadvantages and dangers. +It leads to spitting; it leads to coarse speech; it must lead to these +things so long as it is honorable; comradeship must be in some degree +ugly. The moment beauty is mentioned in male friendship, the nostrils +are stopped with the smell of abominable things. Friendship must be +physically dirty if it is to be morally clean. It must be in its shirt +sleeves. The chaos of habits that always goes with males when left +entirely to themselves has only one honorable cure; and that is the +strict discipline of a monastery. Anyone who has seen our unhappy young +idealists in East End Settlements losing their collars in the wash and +living on tinned salmon will fully understand why it was decided by the +wisdom of St. Bernard or St. Benedict, that if men were to live without +women, they must not live without rules. Something of the same sort of +artificial exactitude, of course, is obtained in an army; and an army +also has to be in many ways monastic; only that it has celibacy without +chastity. But these things do not apply to normal married men. These +have a quite sufficient restraint on their instinctive anarchy in the +savage common-sense of the other sex. There is only one very timid sort +of man that is not afraid of women. + +***** + + + + +III. THE COMMON VISION + +Now this masculine love of an open and level camaraderie is the life +within all democracies and attempts to govern by debate; without it the +republic would be a dead formula. Even as it is, of course, the spirit +of democracy frequently differs widely from the letter, and a pothouse +is often a better test than a Parliament. Democracy in its human sense +is not arbitrament by the majority; it is not even arbitrament by +everybody. It can be more nearly defined as arbitrament by anybody. I +mean that it rests on that club habit of taking a total stranger for +granted, of assuming certain things to be inevitably common to yourself +and him. Only the things that anybody may be presumed to hold have the +full authority of democracy. Look out of the window and notice the +first man who walks by. The Liberals may have swept England with an +over-whelming majority; but you would not stake a button that the man is +a Liberal. The Bible may be read in all schools and respected in all law +courts; but you would not bet a straw that he believes in the Bible. But +you would bet your week's wages, let us say, that he believes in wearing +clothes. You would bet that he believes that physical courage is a fine +thing, or that parents have authority over children. Of course, he might +be the millionth man who does not believe these things; if it comes +to that, he might be the Bearded Lady dressed up as a man. But these +prodigies are quite a different thing from any mere calculation +of numbers. People who hold these views are not a minority, but a +monstrosity. But of these universal dogmas that have full democratic +authority the only test is this test of anybody. What you would observe +before any newcomer in a tavern--that is the real English law. The first +man you see from the window, he is the King of England. + +The decay of taverns, which is but a part of the general decay of +democracy, has undoubtedly weakened this masculine spirit of equality. I +remember that a roomful of Socialists literally laughed when I told them +that there were no two nobler words in all poetry than Public House. +They thought it was a joke. Why they should think it a joke, since they +want to make all houses public houses, I cannot imagine. But if anyone +wishes to see the real rowdy egalitarianism which is necessary (to +males, at least) he can find it as well as anywhere in the great +old tavern disputes which come down to us in such books as Boswell's +Johnson. It is worth while to mention that one name especially because +the modern world in its morbidity has done it a strange injustice. +The demeanor of Johnson, it is said, was "harsh and despotic." It was +occasionally harsh, but it was never despotic. Johnson was not in the +least a despot; Johnson was a demagogue, he shouted against a shouting +crowd. The very fact that he wrangled with other people is proof that +other people were allowed to wrangle with him. His very brutality was +based on the idea of an equal scrimmage, like that of football. It +is strictly true that he bawled and banged the table because he was +a modest man. He was honestly afraid of being overwhelmed or even +overlooked. Addison had exquisite manners and was the king of his +company; he was polite to everybody; but superior to everybody; +therefore he has been handed down forever in the immortal insult of +Pope-- + +"Like Cato, give his little Senate laws And sit attentive to his own +applause." + +Johnson, so far from being king of his company, was a sort of Irish +Member in his own Parliament. Addison was a courteous superior and was +hated. Johnson was an insolent equal and therefore was loved by all who +knew him, and handed down in a marvellous book, which is one of the mere +miracles of love. + +This doctrine of equality is essential to conversation; so much may be +admitted by anyone who knows what conversation is. Once arguing at a +table in a tavern the most famous man on earth would wish to be +obscure, so that his brilliant remarks might blaze like the stars on the +background of his obscurity. To anything worth calling a man nothing can +be conceived more cold or cheerless than to be king of your company. But +it may be said that in masculine sports and games, other than the great +game of debate, there is definite emulation and eclipse. There is +indeed emulation, but this is only an ardent sort of equality. Games are +competitive, because that is the only way of making them exciting. But +if anyone doubts that men must forever return to the ideal of equality, +it is only necessary to answer that there is such a thing as a handicap. +If men exulted in mere superiority, they would seek to see how far such +superiority could go; they would be glad when one strong runner came +in miles ahead of all the rest. But what men like is not the triumph of +superiors, but the struggle of equals; and, therefore, they introduce +even into their competitive sports an artificial equality. It is sad +to think how few of those who arrange our sporting handicaps can be +supposed with any probability to realize that they are abstract and even +severe republicans. + +No; the real objection to equality and self-rule has nothing to do with +any of these free and festive aspects of mankind; all men are democrats +when they are happy. The philosophic opponent of democracy would +substantially sum up his position by saying that it "will not work." +Before going further, I will register in passing a protest against the +assumption that working is the one test of humanity. Heaven does not +work; it plays. Men are most themselves when they are free; and if I +find that men are snobs in their work but democrats on their holidays, +I shall take the liberty to believe their holidays. But it is this +question of work which really perplexes the question of equality; and +it is with that that we must now deal. Perhaps the truth can be put +most pointedly thus: that democracy has one real enemy, and that is +civilization. Those utilitarian miracles which science has made are +anti-democratic, not so much in their perversion, or even in +their practical result, as in their primary shape and purpose. The +Frame-Breaking Rioters were right; not perhaps in thinking that machines +would make fewer men workmen; but certainly in thinking that machines +would make fewer men masters. More wheels do mean fewer handles; +fewer handles do mean fewer hands. The machinery of science must be +individualistic and isolated. A mob can shout round a palace; but a mob +cannot shout down a telephone. The specialist appears and democracy is +half spoiled at a stroke. + +***** + + + + +IV. THE INSANE NECESSITY + +The common conception among the dregs of Darwinian culture is that +men have slowly worked their way out of inequality into a state +of comparative equality. The truth is, I fancy, almost exactly the +opposite. All men have normally and naturally begun with the idea of +equality; they have only abandoned it late and reluctantly, and always +for some material reason of detail. They have never naturally felt that +one class of men was superior to another; they have always been driven +to assume it through certain practical limitations of space and time. + +For example, there is one element which must always tend to +oligarchy--or rather to despotism; I mean the element of hurry. If the +house has caught fire a man must ring up the fire engines; a committee +cannot ring them up. If a camp is surprised by night somebody must give +the order to fire; there is no time to vote it. It is solely a question +of the physical limitations of time and space; not at all of any mental +limitations in the mass of men commanded. If all the people in the house +were men of destiny it would still be better that they should not +all talk into the telephone at once; nay, it would be better that the +silliest man of all should speak uninterrupted. If an army actually +consisted of nothing but Hanibals and Napoleons, it would still be +better in the case of a surprise that they should not all give orders +together. Nay, it would be better if the stupidest of them all gave the +orders. Thus, we see that merely military subordination, so far from +resting on the inequality of men, actually rests on the equality of men. +Discipline does not involve the Carlylean notion that somebody is always +right when everybody is wrong, and that we must discover and crown that +somebody. On the contrary, discipline means that in certain frightfully +rapid circumstances, one can trust anybody so long as he is not +everybody. The military spirit does not mean (as Carlyle fancied) +obeying the strongest and wisest man. On the contrary, the military +spirit means, if anything, obeying the weakest and stupidest man, +obeying him merely because he is a man, and not a thousand men. +Submission to a weak man is discipline. Submission to a strong man is +only servility. + +Now it can be easily shown that the thing we call aristocracy in Europe +is not in its origin and spirit an aristocracy at all. It is not a +system of spiritual degrees and distinctions like, for example, the +caste system of India, or even like the old Greek distinction +between free men and slaves. It is simply the remains of a military +organization, framed partly to sustain the sinking Roman Empire, partly +to break and avenge the awful onslaught of Islam. The word Duke simply +means Colonel, just as the word Emperor simply means Commander-in-Chief. +The whole story is told in the single title of Counts of the Holy Roman +Empire, which merely means officers in the European army against +the contemporary Yellow Peril. Now in an army nobody ever dreams of +supposing that difference of rank represents a difference of moral +reality. Nobody ever says about a regiment, "Your Major is very humorous +and energetic; your Colonel, of course, must be even more humorous +and yet more energetic." No one ever says, in reporting a mess-room +conversation, "Lieutenant Jones was very witty, but was naturally +inferior to Captain Smith." The essence of an army is the idea of +official inequality, founded on unofficial equality. The Colonel is not +obeyed because he is the best man, but because he is the Colonel. Such +was probably the spirit of the system of dukes and counts when it first +arose out of the military spirit and military necessities of Rome. With +the decline of those necessities it has gradually ceased to have +meaning as a military organization, and become honeycombed with unclean +plutocracy. Even now it is not a spiritual aristocracy--it is not so bad +as all that. It is simply an army without an enemy--billeted upon the +people. + +Man, therefore, has a specialist as well as comrade-like aspect; and the +case of militarism is not the only case of such specialist submission. +The tinker and tailor, as well as the soldier and sailor, require a +certain rigidity of rapidity of action: at least, if the tinker is not +organized that is largely why he does not tink on any large scale. The +tinker and tailor often represent the two nomadic races in Europe: the +Gipsy and the Jew; but the Jew alone has influence because he alone +accepts some sort of discipline. Man, we say, has two sides, the +specialist side where he must have subordination, and the social side +where he must have equality. There is a truth in the saying that ten +tailors go to make a man; but we must remember also that ten Poets +Laureate or ten Astronomers Royal go to make a man, too. Ten million +tradesmen go to make Man himself; but humanity consists of tradesmen +when they are not talking shop. Now the peculiar peril of our time, +which I call for argument's sake Imperialism or Caesarism, is the +complete eclipse of comradeship and equality by specialism and +domination. + +There are only two kinds of social structure conceivable--personal +government and impersonal government. If my anarchic friends will not +have rules--they will have rulers. Preferring personal government, with +its tact and flexibility, is called Royalism. Preferring impersonal +government, with its dogmas and definitions, is called Republicanism. +Objecting broadmindedly both to kings and creeds is called Bosh; at +least, I know no more philosophic word for it. You can be guided by +the shrewdness or presence of mind of one ruler, or by the equality and +ascertained justice of one rule; but you must have one or the other, +or you are not a nation, but a nasty mess. Now men in their aspect of +equality and debate adore the idea of rules; they develop and complicate +them greatly to excess. A man finds far more regulations and definitions +in his club, where there are rules, than in his home, where there is +a ruler. A deliberate assembly, the House of Commons, for instance, +carries this mummery to the point of a methodical madness. The whole +system is stiff with rigid unreason; like the Royal Court in Lewis +Carroll. You would think the Speaker would speak; therefore he is mostly +silent. You would think a man would take off his hat to stop and put it +on to go away; therefore he takes off his hat to walk out and puts it on +to stop in. Names are forbidden, and a man must call his own father +"my right honorable friend the member for West Birmingham." These are, +perhaps, fantasies of decay: but fundamentally they answer a masculine +appetite. Men feel that rules, even if irrational, are universal; men +feel that law is equal, even when it is not equitable. There is a wild +fairness in the thing--as there is in tossing up. + +Again, it is gravely unfortunate that when critics do attack such cases +as the Commons it is always on the points (perhaps the few points) where +the Commons are right. They denounce the House as the Talking-Shop, +and complain that it wastes time in wordy mazes. Now this is just one +respect in which the Commons are actually like the Common People. If +they love leisure and long debate, it is because all men love it; that +they really represent England. There the Parliament does approach to the +virile virtues of the pothouse. + +The real truth is that adumbrated in the introductory section when we +spoke of the sense of home and property, as now we speak of the sense +of counsel and community. All men do naturally love the idea of leisure, +laughter, loud and equal argument; but there stands a specter in our +hall. We are conscious of the towering modern challenge that is called +specialism or cut-throat competition--Business. Business will +have nothing to do with leisure; business will have no truck with +comradeship; business will pretend to no patience with all the legal +fictions and fantastic handicaps by which comradeship protects its +egalitarian ideal. The modern millionaire, when engaged in the agreeable +and typical task of sacking his own father, will certainly not refer +to him as the right honorable clerk from the Laburnum Road, Brixton. +Therefore there has arisen in modern life a literary fashion devoting +itself to the romance of business, to great demigods of greed and to +fairyland of finance. This popular philosophy is utterly despotic and +anti-democratic; this fashion is the flower of that Caesarism against +which I am concerned to protest. The ideal millionaire is strong in the +possession of a brain of steel. The fact that the real millionaire is +rather more often strong in the possession of a head of wood, does not +alter the spirit and trend of the idolatry. The essential argument is +"Specialists must be despots; men must be specialists. You cannot have +equality in a soap factory; so you cannot have it anywhere. You cannot +have comradeship in a wheat corner; so you cannot have it at all. We +must have commercial civilization; therefore we must destroy democracy." +I know that plutocrats have seldom sufficient fancy to soar to such +examples as soap or wheat. They generally confine themselves, with fine +freshness of mind, to a comparison between the state and a ship. One +anti-democratic writer remarked that he would not like to sail in a +vessel in which the cabin-boy had an equal vote with the captain. It +might easily be urged in answer that many a ship (the Victoria, for +instance) was sunk because an admiral gave an order which a cabin-boy +could see was wrong. But this is a debating reply; the essential fallacy +is both deeper and simpler. The elementary fact is that we were all +born in a state; we were not all born on a ship; like some of our great +British bankers. A ship still remains a specialist experiment, like +a diving-bell or a flying ship: in such peculiar perils the need for +promptitude constitutes the need for autocracy. But we live and die in +the vessel of the state; and if we cannot find freedom camaraderie and +the popular element in the state, we cannot find it at all. And the +modern doctrine of commercial despotism means that we shall not find it +at all. Our specialist trades in their highly civilized state cannot (it +says) be run without the whole brutal business of bossing and sacking, +"too old at forty" and all the rest of the filth. And they must be run, +and therefore we call on Caesar. Nobody but the Superman could descend +to do such dirty work. + +Now (to reiterate my title) this is what is wrong. This is the huge +modern heresy of altering the human soul to fit its conditions, instead +of altering human conditions to fit the human soul. If soap boiling +is really inconsistent with brotherhood, so much the worst for +soap-boiling, not for brotherhood. If civilization really cannot get on +with democracy, so much the worse for civilization, not for democracy. +Certainly, it would be far better to go back to village communes, if +they really are communes. Certainly, it would be better to do without +soap rather than to do without society. Certainly, we would sacrifice +all our wires, wheels, systems, specialties, physical science and +frenzied finance for one half-hour of happiness such as has often come +to us with comrades in a common tavern. I do not say the sacrifice will +be necessary; I only say it will be easy. + + + + +PART THREE. FEMINISM, OR THE MISTAKE ABOUT WOMAN + + + + +I. THE UNMILITARY SUFFRAGETTE + +It will be better to adopt in this chapter the same process that +appeared a piece of mental justice in the last. My general opinions on +the feminine question are such as many suffragists would warmly approve; +and it would be easy to state them without any open reference to the +current controversy. But just as it seemed more decent to say first +that I was not in favor of Imperialism even in its practical and popular +sense, so it seems more decent to say the same of Female Suffrage, in +its practical and popular sense. In other words, it is only fair to +state, however hurriedly, the superficial objection to the Suffragettes +before we go on to the really subtle questions behind the Suffrage. + +Well, to get this honest but unpleasant business over, the objection +to the Suffragettes is not that they are Militant Suffragettes. On the +contrary, it is that they are not militant enough. A revolution is a +military thing; it has all the military virtues; one of which is that +it comes to an end. Two parties fight with deadly weapons, but under +certain rules of arbitrary honor; the party that wins becomes the +government and proceeds to govern. The aim of civil war, like the aim of +all war, is peace. Now the Suffragettes cannot raise civil war in +this soldierly and decisive sense; first, because they are women; and, +secondly, because they are very few women. But they can raise something +else; which is altogether another pair of shoes. They do not create +revolution; what they do create is anarchy; and the difference between +these is not a question of violence, but a question of fruitfulness and +finality. Revolution of its nature produces government; anarchy only +produces more anarchy. Men may have what opinions they please about +the beheading of King Charles or King Louis, but they cannot deny that +Bradshaw and Cromwell ruled, that Carnot and Napoleon governed. Someone +conquered; something occurred. You can only knock off the King's +head once. But you can knock off the King's hat any number of times. +Destruction is finite, obstruction is infinite: so long as rebellion +takes the form of mere disorder (instead of an attempt to enforce a new +order) there is no logical end to it; it can feed on itself and renew +itself forever. If Napoleon had not wanted to be a Consul, but only +wanted to be a nuisance, he could, possibly, have prevented any +government arising successfully out of the Revolution. But such a +proceeding would not have deserved the dignified name of rebellion. + +It is exactly this unmilitant quality in the Suffragettes that makes +their superficial problem. The problem is that their action has none of +the advantages of ultimate violence; it does not afford a test. War is +a dreadful thing; but it does prove two points sharply and +unanswerably--numbers, and an unnatural valor. One does discover the two +urgent matters; how many rebels there are alive, and how many are +ready to be dead. But a tiny minority, even an interested minority, may +maintain mere disorder forever. There is also, of course, in the case of +these women, the further falsity that is introduced by their sex. It is +false to state the matter as a mere brutal question of strength. If his +muscles give a man a vote, then his horse ought to have two votes and +his elephant five votes. The truth is more subtle than that; it is that +bodily outbreak is a man's instinctive weapon, like the hoofs to the +horse or the tusks to the elephant. All riot is a threat of war; but the +woman is brandishing a weapon she can never use. There are many weapons +that she could and does use. If (for example) all the women nagged for +a vote they would get it in a month. But there again, one must remember, +it would be necessary to get all the women to nag. And that brings us to +the end of the political surface of the matter. The working objection +to the Suffragette philosophy is simply that overmastering millions of +women do not agree with it. I am aware that some maintain that women +ought to have votes whether the majority wants them or not; but this is +surely a strange and childish case of setting up formal democracy to the +destruction of actual democracy. What should the mass of women decide +if they do not decide their general place in the State? These people +practically say that females may vote about everything except about +Female Suffrage. + +But having again cleared my conscience of my merely political and +possibly unpopular opinion, I will again cast back and try to treat the +matter in a slower and more sympathetic style; attempt to trace the real +roots of woman's position in the western state, and the causes of our +existing traditions or perhaps prejudices upon the point. And for this +purpose it is again necessary to travel far from the modern topic, the +mere Suffragette of today, and to go back to subjects which, though much +more old, are, I think, considerably more fresh. + +***** + + + + +II. THE UNIVERSAL STICK + +Cast your eye round the room in which you sit, and select some three or +four things that have been with man almost since his beginning; which at +least we hear of early in the centuries and often among the tribes. Let +me suppose that you see a knife on the table, a stick in the corner, +or a fire on the hearth. About each of these you will notice one +speciality; that not one of them is special. Each of these ancestral +things is a universal thing; made to supply many different needs; and +while tottering pedants nose about to find the cause and origin of some +old custom, the truth is that it had fifty causes or a hundred origins. +The knife is meant to cut wood, to cut cheese, to cut pencils, to cut +throats; for a myriad ingenious or innocent human objects. The stick +is meant partly to hold a man up, partly to knock a man down; partly to +point with like a finger-post, partly to balance with like a balancing +pole, partly to trifle with like a cigarette, partly to kill with like a +club of a giant; it is a crutch and a cudgel; an elongated finger and an +extra leg. The case is the same, of course, with the fire; about which +the strangest modern views have arisen. A queer fancy seems to be +current that a fire exists to warm people. It exists to warm people, to +light their darkness, to raise their spirits, to toast their muffins, +to air their rooms, to cook their chestnuts, to tell stories to their +children, to make checkered shadows on their walls, to boil their +hurried kettles, and to be the red heart of a man's house and that +hearth for which, as the great heathens said, a man should die. + +Now it is the great mark of our modernity that people are always +proposing substitutes for these old things; and these substitutes always +answer one purpose where the old thing answered ten. The modern man +will wave a cigarette instead of a stick; he will cut his pencil with +a little screwing pencil-sharpener instead of a knife; and he will even +boldly offer to be warmed by hot water pipes instead of a fire. I have +my doubts about pencil-sharpeners even for sharpening pencils; and about +hot water pipes even for heat. But when we think of all those other +requirements that these institutions answered, there opens before us the +whole horrible harlequinade of our civilization. We see as in a vision a +world where a man tries to cut his throat with a pencil-sharpener; where +a man must learn single-stick with a cigarette; where a man must try to +toast muffins at electric lamps, and see red and golden castles in the +surface of hot water pipes. + +The principle of which I speak can be seen everywhere in a comparison +between the ancient and universal things and the modern and specialist +things. The object of a theodolite is to lie level; the object of a +stick is to swing loose at any angle; to whirl like the very wheel of +liberty. The object of a lancet is to lance; when used for slashing, +gashing, ripping, lopping off heads and limbs, it is a disappointing +instrument. The object of an electric light is merely to light (a +despicable modesty); and the object of an asbestos stove... I wonder +what is the object of an asbestos stove? If a man found a coil of rope +in a desert he could at least think of all the things that can be done +with a coil of rope; and some of them might even be practical. He could +tow a boat or lasso a horse. He could play cat's-cradle, or pick oakum. +He could construct a rope-ladder for an eloping heiress, or cord her +boxes for a travelling maiden aunt. He could learn to tie a bow, or he +could hang himself. Far otherwise with the unfortunate traveller +who should find a telephone in the desert. You can telephone with a +telephone; you cannot do anything else with it. And though this is +one of the wildest joys of life, it falls by one degree from its full +delirium when there is nobody to answer you. The contention is, in +brief, that you must pull up a hundred roots, and not one, before you +uproot any of these hoary and simple expedients. It is only with great +difficulty that a modern scientific sociologist can be got to see that +any old method has a leg to stand on. But almost every old method has +four or five legs to stand on. Almost all the old institutions are +quadrupeds; and some of them are centipedes. + +Consider these cases, old and new, and you will observe the operation of +a general tendency. Everywhere there was one big thing that served six +purposes; everywhere now there are six small things; or, rather (and +there is the trouble), there are just five and a half. Nevertheless, we +will not say that this separation and specialism is entirely useless or +inexcusable. I have often thanked God for the telephone; I may any +day thank God for the lancet; and there is none of these brilliant and +narrow inventions (except, of course, the asbestos stove) which might +not be at some moment necessary and lovely. But I do not think the most +austere upholder of specialism will deny that there is in these old, +many-sided institutions an element of unity and universality which +may well be preserved in its due proportion and place. Spiritually, +at least, it will be admitted that some all-round balance is needed to +equalize the extravagance of experts. It would not be difficult to carry +the parable of the knife and stick into higher regions. Religion, the +immortal maiden, has been a maid-of-all-work as well as a servant +of mankind. She provided men at once with the theoretic laws of an +unalterable cosmos and also with the practical rules of the rapid and +thrilling game of morality. She taught logic to the student and told +fairy tales to the children; it was her business to confront the +nameless gods whose fears are on all flesh, and also to see the streets +were spotted with silver and scarlet, that there was a day for wearing +ribbons or an hour for ringing bells. The large uses of religion have +been broken up into lesser specialities, just as the uses of the hearth +have been broken up into hot water pipes and electric bulbs. The romance +of ritual and colored emblem has been taken over by that narrowest of +all trades, modern art (the sort called art for art's sake), and men are +in modern practice informed that they may use all symbols so long as +they mean nothing by them. The romance of conscience has been dried +up into the science of ethics; which may well be called decency for +decency's sake, decency unborn of cosmic energies and barren of artistic +flower. The cry to the dim gods, cut off from ethics and cosmology, +has become mere Psychical Research. Everything has been sundered from +everything else, and everything has grown cold. Soon we shall hear of +specialists dividing the tune from the words of a song, on the ground +that they spoil each other; and I did once meet a man who openly +advocated the separation of almonds and raisins. This world is all one +wild divorce court; nevertheless, there are many who still hear in +their souls the thunder of authority of human habit; those whom Man hath +joined let no man sunder. + +This book must avoid religion, but there must (I say) be many, religious +and irreligious, who will concede that this power of answering many +purposes was a sort of strength which should not wholly die out of our +lives. As a part of personal character, even the moderns will agree that +many-sidedness is a merit and a merit that may easily be overlooked. +This balance and universality has been the vision of many groups of +men in many ages. It was the Liberal Education of Aristotle; the +jack-of-all-trades artistry of Leonardo da Vinci and his friends; the +august amateurishness of the Cavalier Person of Quality like Sir William +Temple or the great Earl of Dorset. It has appeared in literature in our +time in the most erratic and opposite shapes, set to almost inaudible +music by Walter Pater and enunciated through a foghorn by Walt Whitman. +But the great mass of men have always been unable to achieve this +literal universality, because of the nature of their work in the world. +Not, let it be noted, because of the existence of their work. Leonardo +da Vinci must have worked pretty hard; on the other hand, many a +government office clerk, village constable or elusive plumber may do +(to all human appearance) no work at all, and yet show no signs of the +Aristotelian universalism. What makes it difficult for the average man +to be a universalist is that the average man has to be a specialist; he +has not only to learn one trade, but to learn it so well as to uphold +him in a more or less ruthless society. This is generally true of males +from the first hunter to the last electrical engineer; each has not +merely to act, but to excel. Nimrod has not only to be a mighty hunter +before the Lord, but also a mighty hunter before the other hunters. +The electrical engineer has to be a very electrical engineer, or he is +outstripped by engineers yet more electrical. Those very miracles of the +human mind on which the modern world prides itself, and rightly in the +main, would be impossible without a certain concentration which disturbs +the pure balance of reason more than does religious bigotry. No creed +can be so limiting as that awful adjuration that the cobbler must not go +beyond his last. So the largest and wildest shots of our world are but +in one direction and with a defined trajectory: the gunner cannot go +beyond his shot, and his shot so often falls short; the astronomer +cannot go beyond his telescope and his telescope goes such a little way. +All these are like men who have stood on the high peak of a mountain and +seen the horizon like a single ring and who then descend down different +paths towards different towns, traveling slow or fast. It is right; +there must be people traveling to different towns; there must be +specialists; but shall no one behold the horizon? Shall all mankind +be specialist surgeons or peculiar plumbers; shall all humanity be +monomaniac? Tradition has decided that only half of humanity shall be +monomaniac. It has decided that in every home there shall be a tradesman +and a Jack-of-all-trades. But it has also decided, among other things, +that the Jack-of-all-trades shall be a Jill-of-all-trades. It has +decided, rightly or wrongly, that this specialism and this universalism +shall be divided between the sexes. Cleverness shall be left for men and +wisdom for women. For cleverness kills wisdom; that is one of the few +sad and certain things. + +But for women this ideal of comprehensive capacity (or common-sense) +must long ago have been washed away. It must have melted in the +frightful furnaces of ambition and eager technicality. A man must be +partly a one-idead man, because he is a one-weaponed man--and he is +flung naked into the fight. The world's demand comes to him direct; to +his wife indirectly. In short, he must (as the books on Success say) +give "his best"; and what a small part of a man "his best" is! His +second and third best are often much better. If he is the first violin +he must fiddle for life; he must not remember that he is a fine fourth +bagpipe, a fair fifteenth billiard-cue, a foil, a fountain pen, a hand +at whist, a gun, and an image of God. + +***** + + + + +III. THE EMANCIPATION OF DOMESTICITY + +And it should be remarked in passing that this force upon a man to +develop one feature has nothing to do with what is commonly called +our competitive system, but would equally exist under any rationally +conceivable kind of Collectivism. Unless the Socialists are frankly +ready for a fall in the standard of violins, telescopes and electric +lights, they must somehow create a moral demand on the individual that +he shall keep up his present concentration on these things. It was +only by men being in some degree specialist that there ever were any +telescopes; they must certainly be in some degree specialist in order to +keep them going. It is not by making a man a State wage-earner that you +can prevent him thinking principally about the very difficult way he +earns his wages. There is only one way to preserve in the world that +high levity and that more leisurely outlook which fulfils the old vision +of universalism. That is, to permit the existence of a partly protected +half of humanity; a half which the harassing industrial demand troubles +indeed, but only troubles indirectly. In other words, there must be in +every center of humanity one human being upon a larger plan; one who +does not "give her best," but gives her all. + +Our old analogy of the fire remains the most workable one. The fire need +not blaze like electricity nor boil like boiling water; its point is +that it blazes more than water and warms more than light. The wife is +like the fire, or to put things in their proper proportion, the fire +is like the wife. Like the fire, the woman is expected to cook: not to +excel in cooking, but to cook; to cook better than her husband who is +earning the coke by lecturing on botany or breaking stones. Like the +fire, the woman is expected to tell tales to the children, not original +and artistic tales, but tales--better tales than would probably be +told by a first-class cook. Like the fire, the woman is expected to +illuminate and ventilate, not by the most startling revelations or the +wildest winds of thought, but better than a man can do it after breaking +stones or lecturing. But she cannot be expected to endure anything +like this universal duty if she is also to endure the direct cruelty +of competitive or bureaucratic toil. Woman must be a cook, but not +a competitive cook; a school mistress, but not a competitive +schoolmistress; a house-decorator but not a competitive house-decorator; +a dressmaker, but not a competitive dressmaker. She should have not +one trade but twenty hobbies; she, unlike the man, may develop all her +second bests. This is what has been really aimed at from the first in +what is called the seclusion, or even the oppression, of women. Women +were not kept at home in order to keep them narrow; on the contrary, +they were kept at home in order to keep them broad. The world outside +the home was one mass of narrowness, a maze of cramped paths, a madhouse +of monomaniacs. It was only by partly limiting and protecting the woman +that she was enabled to play at five or six professions and so come +almost as near to God as the child when he plays at a hundred trades. +But the woman's professions, unlike the child's, were all truly and +almost terribly fruitful; so tragically real that nothing but her +universality and balance prevented them being merely morbid. This is the +substance of the contention I offer about the historic female position. +I do not deny that women have been wronged and even tortured; but I +doubt if they were ever tortured so much as they are tortured now by the +absurd modern attempt to make them domestic empresses and competitive +clerks at the same time. I do not deny that even under the old tradition +women had a harder time than men; that is why we take off our hats. I do +not deny that all these various female functions were exasperating; but +I say that there was some aim and meaning in keeping them various. I do +not pause even to deny that woman was a servant; but at least she was a +general servant. + +The shortest way of summarizing the position is to say that woman stands +for the idea of Sanity; that intellectual home to which the mind must +return after every excursion on extravagance. The mind that finds its +way to wild places is the poet's; but the mind that never finds its way +back is the lunatic's. There must in every machine be a part that moves +and a part that stands still; there must be in everything that changes +a part that is unchangeable. And many of the phenomena which moderns +hastily condemn are really parts of this position of the woman as the +center and pillar of health. Much of what is called her subservience, +and even her pliability, is merely the subservience and pliability of +a universal remedy; she varies as medicines vary, with the disease. She +has to be an optimist to the morbid husband, a salutary pessimist to the +happy-go-lucky husband. She has to prevent the Quixote from being put +upon, and the bully from putting upon others. The French King wrote-- + + "Toujours femme varie Bien fol qui s'y fie," + +but the truth is that woman always varies, and that is exactly why we +always trust her. To correct every adventure and extravagance with its +antidote in common-sense is not (as the moderns seem to think) to be +in the position of a spy or a slave. It is to be in the position +of Aristotle or (at the lowest) Herbert Spencer, to be a universal +morality, a complete system of thought. The slave flatters; the complete +moralist rebukes. It is, in short, to be a Trimmer in the true sense of +that honorable term; which for some reason or other is always used in a +sense exactly opposite to its own. It seems really to be supposed that +a Trimmer means a cowardly person who always goes over to the stronger +side. It really means a highly chivalrous person who always goes over +to the weaker side; like one who trims a boat by sitting where there are +few people seated. Woman is a trimmer; and it is a generous, dangerous +and romantic trade. + +The final fact which fixes this is a sufficiently plain one. Supposing +it to be conceded that humanity has acted at least not unnaturally in +dividing itself into two halves, respectively typifying the ideals of +special talent and of general sanity (since they are genuinely difficult +to combine completely in one mind), it is not difficult to see why the +line of cleavage has followed the line of sex, or why the female became +the emblem of the universal and the male of the special and superior. +Two gigantic facts of nature fixed it thus: first, that the woman who +frequently fulfilled her functions literally could not be specially +prominent in experiment and adventure; and second, that the same natural +operation surrounded her with very young children, who require to be +taught not so much anything as everything. Babies need not to be taught +a trade, but to be introduced to a world. To put the matter shortly, +woman is generally shut up in a house with a human being at the time +when he asks all the questions that there are, and some that there +aren't. It would be odd if she retained any of the narrowness of a +specialist. Now if anyone says that this duty of general enlightenment +(even when freed from modern rules and hours, and exercised more +spontaneously by a more protected person) is in itself too exacting and +oppressive, I can understand the view. I can only answer that our race +has thought it worth while to cast this burden on women in order to +keep common-sense in the world. But when people begin to talk about this +domestic duty as not merely difficult but trivial and dreary, I simply +give up the question. For I cannot with the utmost energy of imagination +conceive what they mean. When domesticity, for instance, is called +drudgery, all the difficulty arises from a double meaning in the word. +If drudgery only means dreadfully hard work, I admit the woman drudges +in the home, as a man might drudge at the Cathedral of Amiens or drudge +behind a gun at Trafalgar. But if it means that the hard work is more +heavy because it is trifling, colorless and of small import to the soul, +then as I say, I give it up; I do not know what the words mean. To be +Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labors +and holidays; to be Whiteley within a certain area, providing toys, +boots, sheets, cakes and books, to be Aristotle within a certain area, +teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can understand how +this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow +it. How can it be a large career to tell other people's children about +the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one's own children about +the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and +narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman's function is laborious, +but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. I will pity Mrs. +Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its +smallness. + +But though the essential of the woman's task is universality, this does +not, of course, prevent her from having one or two severe though largely +wholesome prejudices. She has, on the whole, been more conscious than +man that she is only one half of humanity; but she has expressed it (if +one may say so of a lady) by getting her teeth into the two or three +things which she thinks she stands for. I would observe here in +parenthesis that much of the recent official trouble about women has +arisen from the fact that they transfer to things of doubt and reason +that sacred stubbornness only proper to the primary things which a woman +was set to guard. One's own children, one's own altar, ought to be a +matter of principle--or if you like, a matter of prejudice. On the +other hand, who wrote Junius's Letters ought not to be a principle or +a prejudice, it ought to be a matter of free and almost indifferent +inquiry. But take an energetic modern girl secretary to a league to show +that George III wrote Junius, and in three months she will believe it, +too, out of mere loyalty to her employers. Modern women defend their +office with all the fierceness of domesticity. They fight for desk +and typewriter as for hearth and home, and develop a sort of wolfish +wifehood on behalf of the invisible head of the firm. That is why they +do office work so well; and that is why they ought not to do it. + +***** + + + + +IV. THE ROMANCE OF THRIFT + +The larger part of womankind, however, have had to fight for things +slightly more intoxicating to the eye than the desk or the typewriter; +and it cannot be denied that in defending these, women have developed +the quality called prejudice to a powerful and even menacing degree. But +these prejudices will always be found to fortify the main position of +the woman, that she is to remain a general overseer, an autocrat within +small compass but on all sides. On the one or two points on which she +really misunderstands the man's position, it is almost entirely in order +to preserve her own. The two points on which woman, actually and of +herself, is most tenacious may be roughly summarized as the ideal of +thrift and the ideal of dignity. + +Unfortunately for this book it is written by a male, and these two +qualities, if not hateful to a man, are at least hateful in a man. But +if we are to settle the sex question at all fairly, all males must make +an imaginative attempt to enter into the attitude of all good women +toward these two things. The difficulty exists especially, perhaps, in +the thing called thrift; we men have so much encouraged each other in +throwing money right and left, that there has come at last to be a sort +of chivalrous and poetical air about losing sixpence. But on a broader +and more candid consideration the case scarcely stands so. + +Thrift is the really romantic thing; economy is more romantic than +extravagance. Heaven knows I for one speak disinterestedly in the +matter; for I cannot clearly remember saving a half-penny ever since I +was born. But the thing is true; economy, properly understood, is the +more poetic. Thrift is poetic because it is creative; waste is unpoetic +because it is waste. It is prosaic to throw money away, because it is +prosaic to throw anything away; it is negative; it is a confession of +indifference, that is, it is a confession of failure. The most prosaic +thing about the house is the dustbin, and the one great objection to the +new fastidious and aesthetic homestead is simply that in such a moral +menage the dustbin must be bigger than the house. If a man could +undertake to make use of all things in his dustbin he would be a broader +genius than Shakespeare. When science began to use by-products; when +science found that colors could be made out of coaltar, she made her +greatest and perhaps her only claim on the real respect of the human +soul. Now the aim of the good woman is to use the by-products, or, in +other words, to rummage in the dustbin. + +A man can only fully comprehend it if he thinks of some sudden joke or +expedient got up with such materials as may be found in a private house +on a rainy day. A man's definite daily work is generally run with such +rigid convenience of modern science that thrift, the picking up of +potential helps here and there, has almost become unmeaning to him. He +comes across it most (as I say) when he is playing some game within four +walls; when in charades, a hearthrug will just do for a fur coat, or a +tea-cozy just do for a cocked hat; when a toy theater needs timber +and cardboard, and the house has just enough firewood and just enough +bandboxes. This is the man's occasional glimpse and pleasing parody of +thrift. But many a good housekeeper plays the same game every day with +ends of cheese and scraps of silk, not because she is mean, but on the +contrary, because she is magnanimous; because she wishes her creative +mercy to be over all her works, that not one sardine should be +destroyed, or cast as rubbish to the void, when she has made the pile +complete. + +The modern world must somehow be made to understand (in theology and +other things) that a view may be vast, broad, universal, liberal and yet +come into conflict with another view that is vast, broad, universal and +liberal also. There is never a war between two sects, but only between +two universal Catholic Churches. The only possible collision is the +collision of one cosmos with another. So in a smaller way it must be +first made clear that this female economic ideal is a part of that +female variety of outlook and all-round art of life which we have +already attributed to the sex: thrift is not a small or timid or +provincial thing; it is part of that great idea of the woman watching +on all sides out of all the windows of the soul and being answerable for +everything. For in the average human house there is one hole by which +money comes in and a hundred by which it goes out; man has to do with +the one hole, woman with the hundred. But though the very stinginess +of a woman is a part of her spiritual breadth, it is none the less true +that it brings her into conflict with the special kind of spiritual +breadth that belongs to the males of the tribe. It brings her into +conflict with that shapeless cataract of Comradeship, of chaotic +feasting and deafening debate, which we noted in the last section. The +very touch of the eternal in the two sexual tastes brings them the more +into antagonism; for one stands for a universal vigilance and the other +for an almost infinite output. Partly through the nature of his moral +weakness, and partly through the nature of his physical strength, the +male is normally prone to expand things into a sort of eternity; he +always thinks of a dinner party as lasting all night; and he always +thinks of a night as lasting forever. When the working women in the poor +districts come to the doors of the public houses and try to get their +husbands home, simple minded "social workers" always imagine that every +husband is a tragic drunkard and every wife a broken-hearted saint. It +never occurs to them that the poor woman is only doing under coarser +conventions exactly what every fashionable hostess does when she tries +to get the men from arguing over the cigars to come and gossip over the +teacups. These women are not exasperated merely at the amount of money +that is wasted in beer; they are exasperated also at the amount of time +that is wasted in talk. It is not merely what goeth into the mouth but +what cometh out the mouth that, in their opinion, defileth a man. They +will raise against an argument (like their sisters of all ranks) the +ridiculous objection that nobody is convinced by it; as if a man wanted +to make a body-slave of anybody with whom he had played single-stick. +But the real female prejudice on this point is not without a basis; the +real feeling is this, that the most masculine pleasures have a quality +of the ephemeral. A duchess may ruin a duke for a diamond necklace; but +there is the necklace. A coster may ruin his wife for a pot of beer; and +where is the beer? The duchess quarrels with another duchess in order to +crush her, to produce a result; the coster does not argue with another +coster in order to convince him, but in order to enjoy at once the sound +of his own voice, the clearness of his own opinions and the sense of +masculine society. There is this element of a fine fruitlessness about +the male enjoyments; wine is poured into a bottomless bucket; thought +plunges into a bottomless abyss. All this has set woman against the +Public House--that is, against the Parliament House. She is there to +prevent waste; and the "pub" and the parliament are the very palaces of +waste. In the upper classes the "pub" is called the club, but that makes +no more difference to the reason than it does to the rhyme. High and +low, the woman's objection to the Public House is perfectly definite and +rational, it is that the Public House wastes the energies that could be +used on the private house. + +As it is about feminine thrift against masculine waste, so it is about +feminine dignity against masculine rowdiness. The woman has a fixed +and very well-founded idea that if she does not insist on good manners +nobody else will. Babies are not always strong on the point of dignity, +and grown-up men are quite unpresentable. It is true that there are +many very polite men, but none that I ever heard of who were not either +fascinating women or obeying them. But indeed the female ideal of +dignity, like the female ideal of thrift, lies deeper and may easily +be misunderstood. It rests ultimately on a strong idea of spiritual +isolation; the same that makes women religious. They do not like being +melted down; they dislike and avoid the mob. That anonymous quality we +have remarked in the club conversation would be common impertinence in +a case of ladies. I remember an artistic and eager lady asking me in her +grand green drawing-room whether I believed in comradeship between +the sexes, and why not. I was driven back on offering the obvious and +sincere answer "Because if I were to treat you for two minutes like a +comrade you would turn me out of the house." The only certain rule on +this subject is always to deal with woman and never with women. "Women" +is a profligate word; I have used it repeatedly in this chapter; but +it always has a blackguard sound. It smells of oriental cynicism and +hedonism. Every woman is a captive queen. But every crowd of women is +only a harem broken loose. + +I am not expressing my own views here, but those of nearly all the women +I have known. It is quite unfair to say that a woman hates other women +individually; but I think it would be quite true to say that she detests +them in a confused heap. And this is not because she despises her own +sex, but because she respects it; and respects especially that sanctity +and separation of each item which is represented in manners by the idea +of dignity and in morals by the idea of chastity. + +***** + + + + +V. THE COLDNESS OF CHLOE + +We hear much of the human error which accepts what is sham and what is +real. But it is worth while to remember that with unfamiliar things +we often mistake what is real for what is sham. It is true that a very +young man may think the wig of an actress is her hair. But it is equally +true that a child yet younger may call the hair of a negro his wig. +Just because the woolly savage is remote and barbaric he seems to be +unnaturally neat and tidy. Everyone must have noticed the same thing in +the fixed and almost offensive color of all unfamiliar things, tropic +birds and tropic blossoms. Tropic birds look like staring toys out of +a toy-shop. Tropic flowers simply look like artificial flowers, +like things cut out of wax. This is a deep matter, and, I think, not +unconnected with divinity; but anyhow it is the truth that when we +see things for the first time we feel instantly that they are fictive +creations; we feel the finger of God. It is only when we are thoroughly +used to them and our five wits are wearied, that we see them as wild and +objectless; like the shapeless tree-tops or the shifting cloud. It is +the design in Nature that strikes us first; the sense of the crosses and +confusions in that design only comes afterwards through experience and +an almost eerie monotony. If a man saw the stars abruptly by accident he +would think them as festive and as artificial as a firework. We talk of +the folly of painting the lily; but if we saw the lily without warning +we should think that it was painted. We talk of the devil not being +so black as he is painted; but that very phrase is a testimony to the +kinship between what is called vivid and what is called artificial. If +the modern sage had only one glimpse of grass and sky, he would say that +grass was not as green as it was painted; that sky was not as blue as it +was painted. If one could see the whole universe suddenly, it would look +like a bright-colored toy, just as the South American hornbill looks +like a bright-colored toy. And so they are--both of them, I mean. + +But it was not with this aspect of the startling air of artifice about +all strange objects that I meant to deal. I mean merely, as a guide to +history, that we should not be surprised if things wrought in fashions +remote from ours seem artificial; we should convince ourselves that nine +times out of ten these things are nakedly and almost indecently honest. +You will hear men talk of the frosted classicism of Corneille or of the +powdered pomposities of the eighteenth century, but all these phrases +are very superficial. There never was an artificial epoch. There never +was an age of reason. Men were always men and women women: and their two +generous appetites always were the expression of passion and the +telling of truth. We can see something stiff and quaint in their mode of +expression, just as our descendants will see something stiff and quaint +in our coarsest slum sketch or our most naked pathological play. But +men have never talked about anything but important things; and the next +force in femininity which we have to consider can be considered best +perhaps in some dusty old volume of verses by a person of quality. + +The eighteenth century is spoken of as the period of artificiality, in +externals at least; but, indeed, there may be two words about that. In +modern speech one uses artificiality as meaning indefinitely a sort of +deceit; and the eighteenth century was far too artificial to deceive. +It cultivated that completest art that does not conceal the art. Its +fashions and costumes positively revealed nature by allowing artifice; +as in that obvious instance of a barbering that frosted every head with +the same silver. It would be fantastic to call this a quaint humility +that concealed youth; but, at least, it was not one with the evil pride +that conceals old age. Under the eighteenth century fashion people did +not so much all pretend to be young, as all agree to be old. The same +applies to the most odd and unnatural of their fashions; they were +freakish, but they were not false. A lady may or may not be as red as +she is painted, but plainly she was not so black as she was patched. + +But I only introduce the reader into this atmosphere of the older and +franker fictions that he may be induced to have patience for a moment +with a certain element which is very common in the decoration and +literature of that age and of the two centuries preceding it. It is +necessary to mention it in such a connection because it is exactly one +of those things that look as superficial as powder, and are really as +rooted as hair. + +In all the old flowery and pastoral love-songs, those of the seventeenth +and eighteenth centuries especially, you will find a perpetual reproach +against woman in the matter of her coldness; ceaseless and stale similes +that compare her eyes to northern stars, her heart to ice, or her bosom +to snow. Now most of us have always supposed these old and iterant +phrases to be a mere pattern of dead words, a thing like a cold +wall-paper. Yet I think those old cavalier poets who wrote about the +coldness of Chloe had hold of a psychological truth missed in nearly all +the realistic novels of today. Our psychological romancers perpetually +represent wives as striking terror into their husbands by rolling on the +floor, gnashing their teeth, throwing about the furniture or poisoning +the coffee; all this upon some strange fixed theory that women are what +they call emotional. But in truth the old and frigid form is much nearer +to the vital fact. Most men if they spoke with any sincerity would +agree that the most terrible quality in women, whether in friendship, +courtship or marriage, was not so much being emotional as being +unemotional. + +There is an awful armor of ice which may be the legitimate protection of +a more delicate organism; but whatever be the psychological explanation +there can surely be no question of the fact. The instinctive cry of the +female in anger is noli me tangere. I take this as the most obvious and +at the same time the least hackneyed instance of a fundamental quality +in the female tradition, which has tended in our time to be almost +immeasurably misunderstood, both by the cant of moralists and the cant +of immoralists. The proper name for the thing is modesty; but as we live +in an age of prejudice and must not call things by their right names, we +will yield to a more modern nomenclature and call it dignity. Whatever +else it is, it is the thing which a thousand poets and a million lovers +have called the coldness of Chloe. It is akin to the classical, and is +at least the opposite of the grotesque. And since we are talking here +chiefly in types and symbols, perhaps as good an embodiment as any of +the idea may be found in the mere fact of a woman wearing a skirt. It is +highly typical of the rabid plagiarism which now passes everywhere for +emancipation, that a little while ago it was common for an "advanced" +woman to claim the right to wear trousers; a right about as grotesque as +the right to wear a false nose. Whether female liberty is much advanced +by the act of wearing a skirt on each leg I do not know; perhaps Turkish +women might offer some information on the point. But if the western +woman walks about (as it were) trailing the curtains of the harem +with her, it is quite certain that the woven mansion is meant for +a perambulating palace, not for a perambulating prison. It is quite +certain that the skirt means female dignity, not female submission; it +can be proved by the simplest of all tests. No ruler would deliberately +dress up in the recognized fetters of a slave; no judge would appear +covered with broad arrows. But when men wish to be safely impressive, as +judges, priests or kings, they do wear skirts, the long, trailing robes +of female dignity The whole world is under petticoat government; for +even men wear petticoats when they wish to govern. + + +***** + + + + +VI. THE PEDANT AND THE SAVAGE + +We say then that the female holds up with two strong arms these two +pillars of civilization; we say also that she could do neither, but for +her position; her curious position of private omnipotence, universality +on a small scale. The first element is thrift; not the destructive +thrift of the miser, but the creative thrift of the peasant; the second +element is dignity, which is but the expression of sacred personality +and privacy. Now I know the question that will be abruptly and +automatically asked by all that know the dull tricks and turns of the +modern sexual quarrel. The advanced person will at once begin to argue +about whether these instincts are inherent and inevitable in woman +or whether they are merely prejudices produced by her history and +education. Now I do not propose to discuss whether woman could now be +educated out of her habits touching thrift and dignity; and that for two +excellent reasons. First it is a question which cannot conceivably ever +find any answer: that is why modern people are so fond of it. From the +nature of the case it is obviously impossible to decide whether any of +the peculiarities of civilized man have been strictly necessary to his +civilization. It is not self-evident (for instance), that even the habit +of standing upright was the only path of human progress. There might +have been a quadrupedal civilization, in which a city gentleman put on +four boots to go to the city every morning. Or there might have been +a reptilian civilization, in which he rolled up to the office on his +stomach; it is impossible to say that intelligence might not have +developed in such creatures. All we can say is that man as he is +walks upright; and that woman is something almost more upright than +uprightness. + +And the second point is this: that upon the whole we rather prefer women +(nay, even men) to walk upright; so we do not waste much of our noble +lives in inventing any other way for them to walk. In short, my second +reason for not speculating upon whether woman might get rid of these +peculiarities, is that I do not want her to get rid of them; nor does +she. I will not exhaust my intelligence by inventing ways in which +mankind might unlearn the violin or forget how to ride horses; and the +art of domesticity seems to me as special and as valuable as all the +ancient arts of our race. Nor do I propose to enter at all into those +formless and floundering speculations about how woman was or is regarded +in the primitive times that we cannot remember, or in the savage +countries which we cannot understand. Even if these people segregated +their women for low or barbaric reasons it would not make our reasons +barbaric; and I am haunted with a tenacious suspicion that these +people's feelings were really, under other forms, very much the same as +ours. Some impatient trader, some superficial missionary, walks across +an island and sees the squaw digging in the fields while the man is +playing a flute; and immediately says that the man is a mere lord of +creation and the woman a mere serf. He does not remember that he might +see the same thing in half the back gardens in Brixton, merely because +women are at once more conscientious and more impatient, while men are +at once more quiescent and more greedy for pleasure. It may often be +in Hawaii simply as it is in Hoxton. That is, the woman does not work +because the man tells her to work and she obeys. On the contrary, the +woman works because she has told the man to work and he hasn't obeyed. I +do not affirm that this is the whole truth, but I do affirm that we have +too little comprehension of the souls of savages to know how far it +is untrue. It is the same with the relations of our hasty and surface +science, with the problem of sexual dignity and modesty. Professors find +all over the world fragmentary ceremonies in which the bride affects +some sort of reluctance, hides from her husband, or runs away from +him. The professor then pompously proclaims that this is a survival of +Marriage by Capture. I wonder he never says that the veil thrown over +the bride is really a net. I gravely doubt whether women ever were +married by capture I think they pretended to be; as they do still. + +It is equally obvious that these two necessary sanctities of thrift +and dignity are bound to come into collision with the wordiness, +the wastefulness, and the perpetual pleasure-seeking of masculine +companionship. Wise women allow for the thing; foolish women try to +crush it; but all women try to counteract it, and they do well. In many +a home all round us at this moment, we know that the nursery rhyme is +reversed. The queen is in the counting-house, counting out the money. +The king is in the parlor, eating bread and honey. But it must be +strictly understood that the king has captured the honey in some heroic +wars. The quarrel can be found in moldering Gothic carvings and in +crabbed Greek manuscripts. In every age, in every land, in every tribe +and village, has been waged the great sexual war between the Private +House and the Public House. I have seen a collection of mediaeval +English poems, divided into sections such as "Religious Carols," +"Drinking Songs," and so on; and the section headed, "Poems of Domestic +Life" consisted entirely (literally, entirely) of the complaints +of husbands who were bullied by their wives. Though the English was +archaic, the words were in many cases precisely the same as those which +I have heard in the streets and public houses of Battersea, protests on +behalf of an extension of time and talk, protests against the nervous +impatience and the devouring utilitarianism of the female. Such, I say, +is the quarrel; it can never be anything but a quarrel; but the aim of +all morals and all society is to keep it a lovers' quarrel. + +***** + + + + +VII. THE MODERN SURRENDER OF WOMAN + +But in this corner called England, at this end of the century, there has +happened a strange and startling thing. Openly and to all appearance, +this ancestral conflict has silently and abruptly ended; one of the two +sexes has suddenly surrendered to the other. By the beginning of the +twentieth century, within the last few years, the woman has in public +surrendered to the man. She has seriously and officially owned that the +man has been right all along; that the public house (or Parliament) is +really more important than the private house; that politics are not +(as woman had always maintained) an excuse for pots of beer, but are +a sacred solemnity to which new female worshipers may kneel; that the +talkative patriots in the tavern are not only admirable but enviable; +that talk is not a waste of time, and therefore (as a consequence, +surely) that taverns are not a waste of money. All we men had grown used +to our wives and mothers, and grandmothers, and great aunts all +pouring a chorus of contempt upon our hobbies of sport, drink and party +politics. And now comes Miss Pankhurst with tears in her eyes, owning +that all the women were wrong and all the men were right; humbly +imploring to be admitted into so much as an outer court, from which she +may catch a glimpse of those masculine merits which her erring sisters +had so thoughtlessly scorned. + +Now this development naturally perturbs and even paralyzes us. Males, +like females, in the course of that old fight between the public and +private house, had indulged in overstatement and extravagance, feeling +that they must keep up their end of the see-saw. We told our wives that +Parliament had sat late on most essential business; but it never crossed +our minds that our wives would believe it. We said that everyone must +have a vote in the country; similarly our wives said that no one must +have a pipe in the drawing room. In both cases the idea was the same. +"It does not matter much, but if you let those things slide there +is chaos." We said that Lord Huggins or Mr. Buggins was absolutely +necessary to the country. We knew quite well that nothing is necessary +to the country except that the men should be men and the women women. +We knew this; we thought the women knew it even more clearly; and we +thought the women would say it. Suddenly, without warning, the women +have begun to say all the nonsense that we ourselves hardly believed +when we said it. The solemnity of politics; the necessity of votes; +the necessity of Huggins; the necessity of Buggins; all these flow in a +pellucid stream from the lips of all the suffragette speakers. I suppose +in every fight, however old, one has a vague aspiration to conquer; but +we never wanted to conquer women so completely as this. We only expected +that they might leave us a little more margin for our nonsense; we never +expected that they would accept it seriously as sense. Therefore I am +all at sea about the existing situation; I scarcely know whether to be +relieved or enraged by this substitution of the feeble platform lecture +for the forcible curtain-lecture. I am lost without the trenchant and +candid Mrs. Caudle. I really do not know what to do with the prostrate +and penitent Miss Pankhurst. This surrender of the modern woman has taken +us all so much by surprise that it is desirable to pause a moment, and +collect our wits about what she is really saying. + +As I have already remarked, there is one very simple answer to all this; +these are not the modern women, but about one in two thousand of the +modern women. This fact is important to a democrat; but it is of very +little importance to the typically modern mind. Both the characteristic +modern parties believed in a government by the few; the only difference +is whether it is the Conservative few or Progressive few. It might +be put, somewhat coarsely perhaps, by saying that one believes in any +minority that is rich and the other in any minority that is mad. But in +this state of things the democratic argument obviously falls out for the +moment; and we are bound to take the prominent minority, merely +because it is prominent. Let us eliminate altogether from our minds the +thousands of women who detest this cause, and the millions of women who +have hardly heard of it. Let us concede that the English people itself +is not and will not be for a very long time within the sphere of +practical politics. Let us confine ourselves to saying that these +particular women want a vote and to asking themselves what a vote is. If +we ask these ladies ourselves what a vote is, we shall get a very +vague reply. It is the only question, as a rule, for which they are not +prepared. For the truth is that they go mainly by precedent; by the mere +fact that men have votes already. So far from being a mutinous movement, +it is really a very Conservative one; it is in the narrowest rut of +the British Constitution. Let us take a little wider and freer sweep of +thought and ask ourselves what is the ultimate point and meaning of this +odd business called voting. + +***** + + + + +VIII. THE BRAND OF THE FLEUR-DE-LIS + +Seemingly from the dawn of man all nations have had governments; and +all nations have been ashamed of them. Nothing is more openly fallacious +than to fancy that in ruder or simpler ages ruling, judging and +punishing appeared perfectly innocent and dignified. These things were +always regarded as the penalties of the Fall; as part of the humiliation +of mankind, as bad in themselves. That the king can do no wrong was +never anything but a legal fiction; and it is a legal fiction still. The +doctrine of Divine Right was not a piece of idealism, but rather a piece +of realism, a practical way of ruling amid the ruin of humanity; a very +pragmatist piece of faith. The religious basis of government was not so +much that people put their trust in princes, as that they did not +put their trust in any child of man. It was so with all the ugly +institutions which disfigure human history. Torture and slavery were +never talked of as good things; they were always talked of as necessary +evils. A pagan spoke of one man owning ten slaves just as a modern +business man speaks of one merchant sacking ten clerks: "It's very +horrible; but how else can society be conducted?" A mediaeval scholastic +regarded the possibility of a man being burned to death just as a modern +business man regards the possibility of a man being starved to death: +"It is a shocking torture; but can you organize a painless world?" It +is possible that a future society may find a way of doing without the +question by hunger as we have done without the question by fire. It +is equally possible, for the matter of that, that a future society may +reestablish legal torture with the whole apparatus of rack and fagot. +The most modern of countries, America, has introduced with a vague savor +of science, a method which it calls "the third degree." This is simply +the extortion of secrets by nervous fatigue; which is surely uncommonly +close to their extortion by bodily pain. And this is legal and +scientific in America. Amateur ordinary America, of course, simply burns +people alive in broad daylight, as they did in the Reformation Wars. But +though some punishments are more inhuman than others there is no such +thing as humane punishment. As long as nineteen men claim the right in +any sense or shape to take hold of the twentieth man and make him even +mildly uncomfortable, so long the whole proceeding must be a humiliating +one for all concerned. And the proof of how poignantly men have always +felt this lies in the fact that the headsman and the hangman, the +jailors and the torturers, were always regarded not merely with fear but +with contempt; while all kinds of careless smiters, bankrupt knights +and swashbucklers and outlaws, were regarded with indulgence or even +admiration. To kill a man lawlessly was pardoned. To kill a man lawfully +was unpardonable. The most bare-faced duelist might almost brandish his +weapon. But the executioner was always masked. + +This is the first essential element in government, coercion; a necessary +but not a noble element. I may remark in passing that when people say +that government rests on force they give an admirable instance of the +foggy and muddled cynicism of modernity. Government does not rest on +force. Government is force; it rests on consent or a conception of +justice. A king or a community holding a certain thing to be abnormal, +evil, uses the general strength to crush it out; the strength is his +tool, but the belief is his only sanction. You might as well say that +glass is the real reason for telescopes. But arising from whatever +reason the act of government is coercive and is burdened with all the +coarse and painful qualities of coercion. And if anyone asks what is the +use of insisting on the ugliness of this task of state violence since +all mankind is condemned to employ it, I have a simple answer to that. +It would be useless to insist on it if all humanity were condemned to +it. But it is not irrelevant to insist on its ugliness so long as half +of humanity is kept out of it. + +All government then is coercive; we happen to have created a government +which is not only coercive; but collective. There are only two kinds +of government, as I have already said, the despotic and the democratic. +Aristocracy is not a government, it is a riot; that most effective +kind of riot, a riot of the rich. The most intelligent apologists of +aristocracy, sophists like Burke and Nietzsche, have never claimed +for aristocracy any virtues but the virtues of a riot, the accidental +virtues, courage, variety and adventure. There is no case anywhere of +aristocracy having established a universal and applicable order, as +despots and democracies have often done; as the last Caesars created +the Roman law, as the last Jacobins created the Code Napoleon. With +the first of these elementary forms of government, that of the king or +chieftain, we are not in this matter of the sexes immediately concerned. +We shall return to it later when we remark how differently mankind +has dealt with female claims in the despotic as against the democratic +field. But for the moment the essential point is that in self-governing +countries this coercion of criminals is a collective coercion. The +abnormal person is theoretically thumped by a million fists and kicked +by a million feet. If a man is flogged we all flogged him; if a man +is hanged, we all hanged him. That is the only possible meaning of +democracy, which can give any meaning to the first two syllables +and also to the last two. In this sense each citizen has the high +responsibility of a rioter. Every statute is a declaration of war, to +be backed by arms. Every tribunal is a revolutionary tribunal. In a +republic all punishment is as sacred and solemn as lynching. + +***** + + + + +IX. SINCERITY AND THE GALLOWS + +When, therefore, it is said that the tradition against Female Suffrage +keeps women out of activity, social influence and citizenship, let us +a little more soberly and strictly ask ourselves what it actually does +keep her out of. It does definitely keep her out of the collective act +of coercion; the act of punishment by a mob. The human tradition does +say that, if twenty men hang a man from a tree or lamp-post, they +shall be twenty men and not women. Now I do not think any reasonable +Suffragist will deny that exclusion from this function, to say the least +of it, might be maintained to be a protection as well as a veto. No +candid person will wholly dismiss the proposition that the idea of +having a Lord Chancellor but not a Lady Chancellor may at least be +connected with the idea of having a headsman but not a headswoman, a +hangman but not a hangwoman. Nor will it be adequate to answer (as is +so often answered to this contention) that in modern civilization women +would not really be required to capture, to sentence, or to slay; that +all this is done indirectly, that specialists kill our criminals as they +kill our cattle. To urge this is not to urge the reality of the vote, +but to urge its unreality. Democracy was meant to be a more direct way +of ruling, not a more indirect way; and if we do not feel that we are +all jailers, so much the worse for us, and for the prisoners. If it is +really an unwomanly thing to lock up a robber or a tyrant, it ought to +be no softening of the situation that the woman does not feel as if she +were doing the thing that she certainly is doing. It is bad enough that +men can only associate on paper who could once associate in the street; +it is bad enough that men have made a vote very much of a fiction. It +is much worse that a great class should claim the vote be cause it is +a fiction, who would be sickened by it if it were a fact. If votes for +women do not mean mobs for women they do not mean what they were meant +to mean. A woman can make a cross on a paper as well as a man; a child +could do it as well as a woman; and a chimpanzee after a few lessons +could do it as well as a child. But nobody ought to regard it merely +as making a cross on paper; everyone ought to regard it as what it +ultimately is, branding the fleur-de-lis, marking the broad arrow, +signing the death warrant. Both men and women ought to face more fully +the things they do or cause to be done; face them or leave off doing +them. + +On that disastrous day when public executions were abolished, private +executions were renewed and ratified, perhaps forever. Things grossly +unsuited to the moral sentiment of a society cannot be safely done in +broad daylight; but I see no reason why we should not still be roasting +heretics alive, in a private room. It is very likely (to speak in the +manner foolishly called Irish) that if there were public executions +there would be no executions. The old open-air punishments, the pillory +and the gibbet, at least fixed responsibility upon the law; and in +actual practice they gave the mob an opportunity of throwing roses as +well as rotten eggs; of crying "Hosannah" as well as "Crucify." But I +do not like the public executioner being turned into the private +executioner. I think it is a crooked oriental, sinister sort of +business, and smells of the harem and the divan rather than of the forum +and the market place. In modern times the official has lost all the +social honor and dignity of the common hangman. He is only the bearer of +the bowstring. + +Here, however, I suggest a plea for a brutal publicity only in order +to emphasize the fact that it is this brutal publicity and nothing else +from which women have been excluded. I also say it to emphasize the +fact that the mere modern veiling of the brutality does not make +the situation different, unless we openly say that we are giving the +suffrage, not only because it is power but because it is not, or in +other words, that women are not so much to vote as to play voting. No +suffragist, I suppose, will take up that position; and a few suffragists +will wholly deny that this human necessity of pains and penalties is +an ugly, humiliating business, and that good motives as well as bad may +have helped to keep women out of it. More than once I have remarked in +these pages that female limitations may be the limits of a temple as +well as of a prison, the disabilities of a priest and not of a pariah. I +noted it, I think, in the case of the pontifical feminine dress. In the +same way it is not evidently irrational, if men decided that a woman, +like a priest, must not be a shedder of blood. + +***** + + + + +X. THE HIGHER ANARCHY + +But there is a further fact; forgotten also because we moderns forget +that there is a female point of view. The woman's wisdom stands partly, +not only for a wholesome hesitation about punishment, but even for a +wholesome hesitation about absolute rules. There was something feminine +and perversely true in that phrase of Wilde's, that people should not +be treated as the rule, but all of them as exceptions. Made by a man the +remark was a little effeminate; for Wilde did lack the masculine power +of dogma and of democratic cooperation. But if a woman had said it +it would have been simply true; a woman does treat each person as a +peculiar person. In other words, she stands for Anarchy; a very ancient +and arguable philosophy; not anarchy in the sense of having no customs +in one's life (which is inconceivable), but anarchy in the sense of +having no rules for one's mind. To her, almost certainly, are due all +those working traditions that cannot be found in books, especially those +of education; it was she who first gave a child a stuffed stocking +for being good or stood him in the corner for being naughty. This +unclassified knowledge is sometimes called rule of thumb and sometimes +motherwit. The last phrase suggests the whole truth, for none ever +called it fatherwit. + +Now anarchy is only tact when it works badly. Tact is only anarchy +when it works well. And we ought to realize that in one half of +the world--the private house--it does work well. We modern men are +perpetually forgetting that the case for clear rules and crude penalties +is not self-evident, that there is a great deal to be said for the +benevolent lawlessness of the autocrat, especially on a small scale; +in short, that government is only one side of life. The other half is +called Society, in which women are admittedly dominant. And they have +always been ready to maintain that their kingdom is better governed than +ours, because (in the logical and legal sense) it is not governed at +all. "Whenever you have a real difficulty," they say, "when a boy is +bumptious or an aunt is stingy, when a silly girl will marry somebody, +or a wicked man won't marry somebody, all your lumbering Roman Law and +British Constitution come to a standstill. A snub from a duchess or a +slanging from a fish-wife are much more likely to put things straight." +So, at least, rang the ancient female challenge down the ages until the +recent female capitulation. So streamed the red standard of the higher +anarchy until Miss Pankhurst hoisted the white flag. + +It must be remembered that the modern world has done deep treason to the +eternal intellect by believing in the swing of the pendulum. A man +must be dead before he swings. It has substituted an idea of fatalistic +alternation for the mediaeval freedom of the soul seeking truth. +All modern thinkers are reactionaries; for their thought is always a +reaction from what went before. When you meet a modern man he is always +coming from a place, not going to it. Thus, mankind has in nearly all +places and periods seen that there is a soul and a body as plainly +as that there is a sun and moon. But because a narrow Protestant sect +called Materialists declared for a short time that there was no +soul, another narrow Protestant sect called Christian Science is +now maintaining that there is no body. Now just in the same way +the unreasonable neglect of government by the Manchester School has +produced, not a reasonable regard for government, but an unreasonable +neglect of everything else. So that to hear people talk to-day one would +fancy that every important human function must be organized and avenged +by law; that all education must be state education, and all employment +state employment; that everybody and everything must be brought to the +foot of the august and prehistoric gibbet. But a somewhat more liberal +and sympathetic examination of mankind will convince us that the cross +is even older than the gibbet, that voluntary suffering was before and +independent of compulsory; and in short that in most important matters +a man has always been free to ruin himself if he chose. The huge +fundamental function upon which all anthropology turns, that of sex +and childbirth, has never been inside the political state, but always +outside of it. The state concerned itself with the trivial question of +killing people, but wisely left alone the whole business of getting them +born. A Eugenist might indeed plausibly say that the government is +an absent-minded and inconsistent person who occupies himself with +providing for the old age of people who have never been infants. I will +not deal here in any detail with the fact that some Eugenists have +in our time made the maniacal answer that the police ought to control +marriage and birth as they control labor and death. Except for this +inhuman handful (with whom I regret to say I shall have to deal with +later) all the Eugenists I know divide themselves into two sections: +ingenious people who once meant this, and rather bewildered people who +swear they never meant it--nor anything else. But if it be conceded +(by a breezier estimate of men) that they do mostly desire marriage to +remain free from government, it does not follow that they desire it to +remain free from everything. If man does not control the marriage market +by law, is it controlled at all? Surely the answer is broadly that man +does not control the marriage market by law, but the woman does control +it by sympathy and prejudice. There was until lately a law forbidding +a man to marry his deceased wife's sister; yet the thing happened +constantly. There was no law forbidding a man to marry his deceased +wife's scullery-maid; yet it did not happen nearly so often. It did not +happen because the marriage market is managed in the spirit and by the +authority of women; and women are generally conservative where classes +are concerned. It is the same with that system of exclusiveness by +which ladies have so often contrived (as by a process of elimination) +to prevent marriages that they did not want and even sometimes procure +those they did. There is no need of the broad arrow and the fleur-de +lis, the turnkey's chains or the hangman's halter. You need not strangle +a man if you can silence him. The branded shoulder is less effective and +final than the cold shoulder; and you need not trouble to lock a man in +when you can lock him out. + +The same, of course, is true of the colossal architecture which we call +infant education: an architecture reared wholly by women. Nothing can +ever overcome that one enormous sex superiority, that even the male +child is born closer to his mother than to his father. No one, staring +at that frightful female privilege, can quite believe in the equality of +the sexes. Here and there we read of a girl brought up like a tom-boy; +but every boy is brought up like a tame girl. The flesh and spirit of +femininity surround him from the first like the four walls of a house; +and even the vaguest or most brutal man has been womanized by being +born. Man that is born of a woman has short days and full of misery; but +nobody can picture the obscenity and bestial tragedy that would belong +to such a monster as man that was born of a man. + +***** + + + + +XI. THE QUEEN AND THE SUFFRAGETTES + +But, indeed, with this educational matter I must of necessity embroil +myself later. The fourth section of discussion is supposed to be about +the child, but I think it will be mostly about the mother. In this +place I have systematically insisted on the large part of life that is +governed, not by man with his vote, but by woman with her voice, or more +often, with her horrible silence. Only one thing remains to be added. +In a sprawling and explanatory style has been traced out the idea +that government is ultimately coercion, that coercion must mean cold +definitions as well as cruel consequences, and that therefore there +is something to be said for the old human habit of keeping one-half of +humanity out of so harsh and dirty a business. But the case is stronger +still. + +Voting is not only coercion, but collective coercion. I think Queen +Victoria would have been yet more popular and satisfying if she had +never signed a death warrant. I think Queen Elizabeth would have stood +out as more solid and splendid in history if she had not earned (among +those who happen to know her history) the nickname of Bloody Bess. I +think, in short, that the great historic woman is more herself when she +is persuasive rather than coercive. But I feel all mankind behind +me when I say that if a woman has this power it should be despotic +power--not democratic power. There is a much stronger historic argument +for giving Miss Pankhurst a throne than for giving her a vote. She might +have a crown, or at least a coronet, like so many of her supporters; +for these old powers are purely personal and therefore female. Miss +Pankhurst as a despot might be as virtuous as Queen Victoria, and she +certainly would find it difficult to be as wicked as Queen Bess, but the +point is that, good or bad, she would be irresponsible--she would not be +governed by a rule and by a ruler. There are only two ways of governing: +by a rule and by a ruler. And it is seriously true to say of a woman, in +education and domesticity, that the freedom of the autocrat appears +to be necessary to her. She is never responsible until she is +irresponsible. In case this sounds like an idle contradiction, I +confidently appeal to the cold facts of history. Almost every despotic +or oligarchic state has admitted women to its privileges. Scarcely one +democratic state has ever admitted them to its rights The reason is very +simple: that something female is endangered much more by the violence +of the crowd. In short, one Pankhurst is an exception, but a thousand +Pankhursts are a nightmare, a Bacchic orgie, a Witches Sabbath. For in +all legends men have thought of women as sublime separately but horrible +in a herd. + +***** + + + + +XII. THE MODERN SLAVE + +Now I have only taken the test case of Female Suffrage because it is +topical and concrete; it is not of great moment for me as a political +proposal. I can quite imagine anyone substantially agreeing with my +view of woman as universalist and autocrat in a limited area; and still +thinking that she would be none the worse for a ballot paper. The real +question is whether this old ideal of woman as the great amateur is +admitted or not. There are many modern things which threaten it much +more than suffragism; notably the increase of self-supporting women, +even in the most severe or the most squalid employments. If there be +something against nature in the idea of a horde of wild women governing, +there is something truly intolerable in the idea of a herd of tame women +being governed. And there are elements in human psychology that make +this situation particularly poignant or ignominous. The ugly exactitudes +of business, the bells and clocks the fixed hours and rigid departments, +were all meant for the male: who, as a rule, can only do one thing and +can only with the greatest difficulty be induced to do that. If clerks +do not try to shirk their work, our whole great commercial system breaks +down. It is breaking down, under the inroad of women who are adopting +the unprecedented and impossible course of taking the system seriously +and doing it well. Their very efficiency is the definition of their +slavery. It is generally a very bad sign when one is trusted very much +by one's employers. And if the evasive clerks have a look of being +blackguards, the earnest ladies are often something very like blacklegs. +But the more immediate point is that the modern working woman bears a +double burden, for she endures both the grinding officialism of the +new office and the distracting scrupulosity of the old home. Few men +understand what conscientiousness is. They understand duty, which +generally means one duty; but conscientiousness is the duty of the +universalist. It is limited by no work days or holidays; it is a +lawless, limitless, devouring decorum. If women are to be subjected to +the dull rule of commerce, we must find some way of emancipating them +from the wild rule of conscience. But I rather fancy you will find it +easier to leave the conscience and knock off the commerce. As it is, the +modern clerk or secretary exhausts herself to put one thing straight in +the ledger and then goes home to put everything straight in the house. + +This condition (described by some as emancipated) is at least the +reverse of my ideal. I would give woman, not more rights, but more +privileges. Instead of sending her to seek such freedom as notoriously +prevails in banks and factories, I would design specially a house in +which she can be free. And with that we come to the last point of all; +the point at which we can perceive the needs of women, like the rights +of men, stopped and falsified by something which it is the object of +this book to expose. + +The Feminist (which means, I think, one who dislikes the chief feminine +characteristics) has heard my loose monologue, bursting all the time +with one pent-up protest. At this point he will break out and say, "But +what are we to do? There is modern commerce and its clerks; there is +the modern family with its unmarried daughters; specialism is expected +everywhere; female thrift and conscientiousness are demanded and +supplied. What does it matter whether we should in the abstract prefer +the old human and housekeeping woman; we might prefer the Garden of +Eden. But since women have trades they ought to have trades unions. +Since women work in factories, they ought to vote on factory-acts. If +they are unmarried they must be commercial; if they are commercial they +must be political. We must have new rules for a new world--even if it +be not a better one." I said to a Feminist once: "The question is not +whether women are good enough for votes: it is whether votes are good +enough for women." He only answered: "Ah, you go and say that to the +women chain-makers on Cradley Heath." + +Now this is the attitude which I attack. It is the huge heresy of +Precedent. It is the view that because we have got into a mess we must +grow messier to suit it; that because we have taken a wrong turn some +time ago we must go forward and not backwards; that because we have lost +our way we must lose our map also; and because we have missed our ideal, +we must forget it. "There are numbers of excellent people who do not +think votes unfeminine; and there may be enthusiasts for our beautiful +modern industry who do not think factories unfeminine." But if these +things are unfeminine it is no answer to say that they fit into each +other. I am not satisfied with the statement that my daughter must have +unwomanly powers because she has unwomanly wrongs. Industrial soot and +political printer's ink are two blacks which do not make a white. Most +of the Feminists would probably agree with me that womanhood is under +shameful tyranny in the shops and mills. But I want to destroy the +tyranny. They want to destroy womanhood. That is the only difference. + +Whether we can recover the clear vision of woman as a tower with +many windows, the fixed eternal feminine from which her sons, the +specialists, go forth; whether we can preserve the tradition of a +central thing which is even more human than democracy and even +more practical than politics; whether, in word, it is possible to +re-establish the family, freed from the filthy cynicism and cruelty of +the commercial epoch, I shall discuss in the last section of this book. +But meanwhile do not talk to me about the poor chain-makers on Cradley +Heath. I know all about them and what they are doing. They are engaged +in a very wide-spread and flourishing industry of the present age. They +are making chains. + + + + +PART FOUR. EDUCATION: OR THE MISTAKE ABOUT THE CHILD + + + + +I. THE CALVINISM OF TO-DAY + +When I wrote a little volume on my friend Mr. Bernard Shaw, it is +needless to say that he reviewed it. I naturally felt tempted to answer +and to criticise the book from the same disinterested and impartial +standpoint from which Mr. Shaw had criticised the subject of it. I was +not withheld by any feeling that the joke was getting a little +obvious; for an obvious joke is only a successful joke; it is only the +unsuccessful clowns who comfort themselves with being subtle. The real +reason why I did not answer Mr. Shaw's amusing attack was this: that one +simple phrase in it surrendered to me all that I have ever wanted, or +could want from him to all eternity. I told Mr. Shaw (in substance) that +he was a charming and clever fellow, but a common Calvinist. He admitted +that this was true, and there (so far as I am concerned) is an end of +the matter. He said that, of course, Calvin was quite right in holding +that "if once a man is born it is too late to damn or save him." That is +the fundamental and subterranean secret; that is the last lie in hell. + +The difference between Puritanism and Catholicism is not about whether +some priestly word or gesture is significant and sacred. It is about +whether any word or gesture is significant and sacred. To the Catholic +every other daily act is dramatic dedication to the service of good +or of evil. To the Calvinist no act can have that sort of solemnity, +because the person doing it has been dedicated from eternity, and is +merely filling up his time until the crack of doom. The difference +is something subtler than plum-puddings or private theatricals; the +difference is that to a Christian of my kind this short earthly life +is intensely thrilling and precious; to a Calvinist like Mr. Shaw it is +confessedly automatic and uninteresting. To me these threescore years +and ten are the battle. To the Fabian Calvinist (by his own confession) +they are only a long procession of the victors in laurels and the +vanquished in chains. To me earthly life is the drama; to him it is +the epilogue. Shavians think about the embryo; Spiritualists about the +ghost; Christians about the man. It is as well to have these things +clear. + +Now all our sociology and eugenics and the rest of it are not so much +materialist as confusedly Calvinist, they are chiefly occupied in +educating the child before he exists. The whole movement is full of a +singular depression about what one can do with the populace, combined +with a strange disembodied gayety about what may be done with posterity. +These essential Calvinists have, indeed, abolished some of the more +liberal and universal parts of Calvinism, such as the belief in an +intellectual design or an everlasting happiness. But though Mr. Shaw and +his friends admit it is a superstition that a man is judged after death, +they stick to their central doctrine, that he is judged before he is +born. + +In consequence of this atmosphere of Calvinism in the cultured world of +to-day, it is apparently necessary to begin all arguments on education +with some mention of obstetrics and the unknown world of the prenatal. +All I shall have to say, however, on heredity will be very brief, +because I shall confine myself to what is known about it, and that is +very nearly nothing. It is by no means self-evident, but it is a current +modern dogma, that nothing actually enters the body at birth except a +life derived and compounded from the parents. There is at least quite as +much to be said for the Christian theory that an element comes from +God, or the Buddhist theory that such an element comes from previous +existences. But this is not a religious work, and I must submit to those +very narrow intellectual limits which the absence of theology always +imposes. Leaving the soul on one side, let us suppose for the sake of +argument that the human character in the first case comes wholly from +parents; and then let us curtly state our knowledge rather than our +ignorance. + +***** + + + + +II. THE TRIBAL TERROR + +Popular science, like that of Mr. Blatchford, is in this matter as mild +as old wives' tales. Mr. Blatchford, with colossal simplicity, explained +to millions of clerks and workingmen that the mother is like a bottle of +blue beads and the father is like a bottle of yellow beads; and so the +child is like a bottle of mixed blue beads and yellow. He might just as +well have said that if the father has two legs and the mother has two +legs, the child will have four legs. Obviously it is not a question +of simple addition or simple division of a number of hard detached +"qualities," like beads. It is an organic crisis and transformation of +the most mysterious sort; so that even if the result is unavoidable, it +will still be unexpected. It is not like blue beads mixed with yellow +beads; it is like blue mixed with yellow; the result of which is green, +a totally novel and unique experience, a new emotion. A man might live +in a complete cosmos of blue and yellow, like the "Edinburgh Review"; a +man might never have seen anything but a golden cornfield and a sapphire +sky; and still he might never have had so wild a fancy as green. If +you paid a sovereign for a bluebell; if you spilled the mustard on the +blue-books; if you married a canary to a blue baboon; there is nothing +in any of these wild weddings that contains even a hint of green. Green +is not a mental combination, like addition; it is a physical result +like birth. So, apart from the fact that nobody ever really understands +parents or children either, yet even if we could understand the parents, +we could not make any conjecture about the children. Each time the force +works in a different way; each time the constituent colors combine into +a different spectacle. A girl may actually inherit her ugliness from +her mother's good looks. A boy may actually get his weakness from his +father's strength. Even if we admit it is really a fate, for us it must +remain a fairy tale. Considered in regard to its causes, the Calvinists +and materialists may be right or wrong; we leave them their dreary +debate. But considered in regard to its results there is no doubt about +it. The thing is always a new color; a strange star. Every birth is as +lonely as a miracle. Every child is as uninvited as a monstrosity. + +On all such subjects there is no science, but only a sort of ardent +ignorance; and nobody has ever been able to offer any theories of moral +heredity which justified themselves in the only scientific sense; that +is that one could calculate on them beforehand. There are six cases, +say, of a grandson having the same twitch of mouth or vice of character +as his grandfather; or perhaps there are sixteen cases, or perhaps +sixty. But there are not two cases, there is not one case, there are no +cases at all, of anybody betting half a crown that the grandfather will +have a grandson with the twitch or the vice. In short, we deal with +heredity as we deal with omens, affinities and the fulfillment of +dreams. The things do happen, and when they happen we record them; but +not even a lunatic ever reckons on them. Indeed, heredity, like dreams +and omens, is a barbaric notion; that is, not necessarily an untrue, but +a dim, groping and unsystematized notion. A civilized man feels himself +a little more free from his family. Before Christianity these tales of +tribal doom occupied the savage north; and since the Reformation and +the revolt against Christianity (which is the religion of a civilized +freedom) savagery is slowly creeping back in the form of realistic +novels and problem plays. The curse of Rougon-Macquart is as heathen and +superstitious as the curse of Ravenswood; only not so well written. +But in this twilight barbaric sense the feeling of a racial fate is not +irrational, and may be allowed like a hundred other half emotions that +make life whole. The only essential of tragedy is that one should take +it lightly. But even when the barbarian deluge rose to its highest in +the madder novels of Zola (such as that called "The Human Beast", a +gross libel on beasts as well as humanity), even then the application +of the hereditary idea to practice is avowedly timid and fumbling. The +students of heredity are savages in this vital sense; that they stare +back at marvels, but they dare not stare forward to schemes. In practice +no one is mad enough to legislate or educate upon dogmas of physical +inheritance; and even the language of the thing is rarely used except +for special modern purposes, such as the endowment of research or the +oppression of the poor. + +***** + + + + +III. THE TRICKS OF ENVIRONMENT + +After all the modern clatter of Calvinism, therefore, it is only with +the born child that anybody dares to deal; and the question is not +eugenics but education. Or again, to adopt that rather tiresome +terminology of popular science, it is not a question of heredity but of +environment. I will not needlessly complicate this question by urging +at length that environment also is open to some of the objections and +hesitations which paralyze the employment of heredity. I will merely +suggest in passing that even about the effect of environment modern +people talk much too cheerfully and cheaply. The idea that surroundings +will mold a man is always mixed up with the totally different idea that +they will mold him in one particular way. To take the broadest case, +landscape no doubt affects the soul; but how it affects it is +quite another matter. To be born among pine-trees might mean loving +pine-trees. It might mean loathing pine-trees. It might quite seriously +mean never having seen a pine-tree. Or it might mean any mixture of +these or any degree of any of them. So that the scientific method here +lacks a little in precision. I am not speaking without the book; on the +contrary, I am speaking with the blue book, with the guide-book and the +atlas. It may be that the Highlanders are poetical because they inhabit +mountains; but are the Swiss prosaic because they inhabit mountains? It +may be the Swiss have fought for freedom because they had hills; did the +Dutch fight for freedom because they hadn't? Personally I should +think it quite likely. Environment might work negatively as well as +positively. The Swiss may be sensible, not in spite of their wild +skyline, but be cause of their wild skyline. The Flemings may be +fantastic artists, not in spite of their dull skyline, but because of +it. + +I only pause on this parenthesis to show that, even in matters +admittedly within its range, popular science goes a great deal too fast, +and drops enormous links of logic. Nevertheless, it remains the working +reality that what we have to deal with in the case of children is, +for all practical purposes, environment; or, to use the older word, +education. When all such deductions are made, education is at least +a form of will-worship; not of cowardly fact-worship; it deals with a +department that we can control; it does not merely darken us with the +barbarian pessimism of Zola and the heredity-hunt. We shall certainly +make fools of ourselves; that is what is meant by philosophy. But we +shall not merely make beasts of ourselves; which is the nearest popular +definition for merely following the laws of Nature and cowering under +the vengeance of the flesh. Education contains much moonshine; but not +of the sort that makes mere mooncalves and idiots the slaves of a silver +magnet, the one eye of the world. In this decent arena there are fads, +but not frenzies. Doubtless we shall often find a mare's nest; but it +will not always be the nightmare's. + +***** + + + + +IV. THE TRUTH ABOUT EDUCATION + +When a man is asked to write down what he really thinks on education, a +certain gravity grips and stiffens his soul, which might be mistaken by +the superficial for disgust. If it be really true that men sickened +of sacred words and wearied of theology, if this largely unreasoning +irritation against "dogma" did arise out of some ridiculous excess of +such things among priests in the past, then I fancy we must be laying up +a fine crop of cant for our descendants to grow tired of. Probably the +word "education" will some day seem honestly as old and objectless as +the word "justification" now seems in a Puritan folio. Gibbon thought +it frightfully funny that people should have fought about the difference +between the "Homoousion" and the "Homoiousion." The time will come when +somebody will laugh louder to think that men thundered against Sectarian +Education and also against Secular Education; that men of prominence and +position actually denounced the schools for teaching a creed and also +for not teaching a faith. The two Greek words in Gibbon look rather +alike; but they really mean quite different things. Faith and creed do +not look alike, but they mean exactly the same thing. Creed happens to +be the Latin for faith. + +Now having read numberless newspaper articles on education, and +even written a good many of them, and having heard deafening and +indeterminate discussion going on all around me almost ever since I +was born, about whether religion was part of education, about whether +hygiene was an essential of education, about whether militarism was +inconsistent with true education, I naturally pondered much on this +recurring substantive, and I am ashamed to say that it was comparatively +late in life that I saw the main fact about it. + +Of course, the main fact about education is that there is no such thing. +It does not exist, as theology or soldiering exist. Theology is a word +like geology, soldiering is a word like soldering; these sciences may +be healthy or no as hobbies; but they deal with stone and kettles, with +definite things. But education is not a word like geology or kettles. +Education is a word like "transmission" or "inheritance"; it is not an +object, but a method. It must mean the conveying of certain facts, views +or qualities, to the last baby born. They might be the most trivial +facts or the most preposterous views or the most offensive qualities; +but if they are handed on from one generation to another they are +education. Education is not a thing like theology, it is not an inferior +or superior thing; it is not a thing in the same category of terms. +Theology and education are to each other like a love-letter to the +General Post Office. Mr. Fagin was quite as educational as Dr. Strong; +in practice probably more educational. It is giving something--perhaps +poison. Education is tradition, and tradition (as its name implies) can +be treason. + +This first truth is frankly banal; but it is so perpetually ignored +in our political prosing that it must be made plain. A little boy in a +little house, son of a little tradesman, is taught to eat his breakfast, +to take his medicine, to love his country, to say his prayers, and to +wear his Sunday clothes. Obviously Fagin, if he found such a boy, would +teach him to drink gin, to lie, to betray his country, to blaspheme +and to wear false whiskers. But so also Mr. Salt the vegetarian would +abolish the boy's breakfast; Mrs. Eddy would throw away his medicine; +Count Tolstoi would rebuke him for loving his country; Mr. Blatchford +would stop his prayers, and Mr. Edward Carpenter would theoretically +denounce Sunday clothes, and perhaps all clothes. I do not defend any of +these advanced views, not even Fagin's. But I do ask what, between the +lot of them, has become of the abstract entity called education. It is +not (as commonly supposed) that the tradesman teaches education plus +Christianity; Mr. Salt, education plus vegetarianism; Fagin, education +plus crime. The truth is, that there is nothing in common at all between +these teachers, except that they teach. In short, the only thing they +share is the one thing they profess to dislike: the general idea of +authority. It is quaint that people talk of separating dogma from +education. Dogma is actually the only thing that cannot be separated +from education. It is education. A teacher who is not dogmatic is simply +a teacher who is not teaching. + +***** + + + + +V. AN EVIL CRY + +The fashionable fallacy is that by education we can give people +something that we have not got. To hear people talk one would think +it was some sort of magic chemistry, by which, out of a laborious +hotchpotch of hygienic meals, baths, breathing exercises, fresh air and +freehand drawing, we can produce something splendid by accident; we can +create what we cannot conceive. These pages have, of course, no other +general purpose than to point out that we cannot create anything good +until we have conceived it. It is odd that these people, who in the +matter of heredity are so sullenly attached to law, in the matter of +environment seem almost to believe in miracle. They insist that nothing +but what was in the bodies of the parents can go to make the bodies of +the children. But they seem somehow to think that things can get into +the heads of the children which were not in the heads of the parents, +or, indeed, anywhere else. + +There has arisen in this connection a foolish and wicked cry typical of +the confusion. I mean the cry, "Save the children." It is, of course, +part of that modern morbidity that insists on treating the State (which +is the home of man) as a sort of desperate expedient in time of panic. +This terrified opportunism is also the origin of the Socialist and other +schemes. Just as they would collect and share all the food as men do in +a famine, so they would divide the children from their fathers, as men +do in a shipwreck. That a human community might conceivably not be in a +condition of famine or shipwreck never seems to cross their minds. This +cry of "Save the children" has in it the hateful implication that it is +impossible to save the fathers; in other words, that many millions of +grown-up, sane, responsible and self-supporting Europeans are to be +treated as dirt or debris and swept away out of the discussion; called +dipsomaniacs because they drink in public houses instead of private +houses; called unemployables because nobody knows how to get them work; +called dullards if they still adhere to conventions, and called loafers +if they still love liberty. Now I am concerned, first and last, to +maintain that unless you can save the fathers, you cannot save the +children; that at present we cannot save others, for we cannot save +ourselves. We cannot teach citizenship if we are not citizens; we cannot +free others if we have forgotten the appetite of freedom. Education is +only truth in a state of transmission; and how can we pass on truth if +it has never come into our hand? Thus we find that education is of +all the cases the clearest for our general purpose. It is vain to save +children; for they cannot remain children. By hypothesis we are teaching +them to be men; and how can it be so simple to teach an ideal manhood to +others if it is so vain and hopeless to find one for ourselves? + +I know that certain crazy pedants have attempted to counter this +difficulty by maintaining that education is not instruction at all, does +not teach by authority at all. They present the process as coming, not +from the outside, from the teacher, but entirely from inside the boy. +Education, they say, is the Latin for leading out or drawing out the +dormant faculties of each person. Somewhere far down in the dim boyish +soul is a primordial yearning to learn Greek accents or to wear clean +collars; and the schoolmaster only gently and tenderly liberates this +imprisoned purpose. Sealed up in the newborn babe are the intrinsic +secrets of how to eat asparagus and what was the date of Bannockburn. +The educator only draws out the child's own unapparent love of long +division; only leads out the child's slightly veiled preference for milk +pudding to tarts. I am not sure that I believe in the derivation; I have +heard the disgraceful suggestion that "educator," if applied to a Roman +schoolmaster, did not mean leading our young functions into freedom; but +only meant taking out little boys for a walk. But I am much more certain +that I do not agree with the doctrine; I think it would be about as +sane to say that the baby's milk comes from the baby as to say that the +baby's educational merits do. There is, indeed, in each living creature +a collection of forces and functions; but education means producing +these in particular shapes and training them to particular purposes, or +it means nothing at all. Speaking is the most practical instance of the +whole situation. You may indeed "draw out" squeals and grunts from the +child by simply poking him and pulling him about, a pleasant but cruel +pastime to which many psychologists are addicted. But you will wait and +watch very patiently indeed before you draw the English language out +of him. That you have got to put into him; and there is an end of the +matter. + +***** + + + + +VI. AUTHORITY THE UNAVOIDABLE + +But the important point here is only that you cannot anyhow get rid of +authority in education; it is not so much (as poor Conservatives say) +that parental authority ought to be preserved, as that it cannot be +destroyed. Mr. Bernard Shaw once said that he hated the idea of forming +a child's mind. In that case Mr. Bernard Shaw had better hang himself; +for he hates something inseparable from human life. I only mentioned +educere and the drawing out of the faculties in order to point out that +even this mental trick does not avoid the inevitable idea of parental or +scholastic authority. The educator drawing out is just as arbitrary and +coercive as the instructor pouring in; for he draws out what he chooses. +He decides what in the child shall be developed and what shall not be +developed. He does not (I suppose) draw out the neglected faculty of +forgery. He does not (so far at least) lead out, with timid steps, a +shy talent for torture. The only result of all this pompous and +precise distinction between the educator and the instructor is that the +instructor pokes where he likes and the educator pulls where he likes. +Exactly the same intellectual violence is done to the creature who is +poked and pulled. Now we must all accept the responsibility of this +intellectual violence. Education is violent; because it is creative. +It is creative because it is human. It is as reckless as playing on the +fiddle; as dogmatic as drawing a picture; as brutal as building a house. +In short, it is what all human action is; it is an interference with +life and growth. After that it is a trifling and even a jocular question +whether we say of this tremendous tormentor, the artist Man, that he +puts things into us like an apothecary, or draws things out of us, like +a dentist. + +The point is that Man does what he likes. He claims the right to take +his mother Nature under his control; he claims the right to make +his child the Superman, in his image. Once flinch from this creative +authority of man, and the whole courageous raid which we call +civilization wavers and falls to pieces. Now most modern freedom is at +root fear. It is not so much that we are too bold to endure rules; it +is rather that we are too timid to endure responsibilities. And Mr. Shaw +and such people are especially shrinking from that awful and ancestral +responsibility to which our fathers committed us when they took the wild +step of becoming men. I mean the responsibility of affirming the truth +of our human tradition and handing it on with a voice of authority, an +unshaken voice. That is the one eternal education; to be sure enough +that something is true that you dare to tell it to a child. From this +high audacious duty the moderns are fleeing on every side; and the only +excuse for them is, (of course,) that their modern philosophies are so +half-baked and hypothetical that they cannot convince themselves enough +to convince even a newborn babe. This, of course, is connected with the +decay of democracy; and is somewhat of a separate subject. Suffice it +to say here that when I say that we should instruct our children, I mean +that we should do it, not that Mr. Sully or Professor Earl Barnes should +do it. The trouble in too many of our modern schools is that the State, +being controlled so specially by the few, allows cranks and experiments +to go straight to the schoolroom when they have never passed through +the Parliament, the public house, the private house, the church, or the +marketplace. Obviously, it ought to be the oldest things that are taught +to the youngest people; the assured and experienced truths that are put +first to the baby. But in a school to-day the baby has to submit to +a system that is younger than himself. The flopping infant of four +actually has more experience, and has weathered the world longer, than +the dogma to which he is made to submit. Many a school boasts of having +the last ideas in education, when it has not even the first idea; +for the first idea is that even innocence, divine as it is, may learn +something from experience. But this, as I say, is all due to the mere +fact that we are managed by a little oligarchy; my system presupposes +that men who govern themselves will govern their children. To-day we all +use Popular Education as meaning education of the people. I wish I could +use it as meaning education by the people. + +The urgent point at present is that these expansive educators do +not avoid the violence of authority an inch more than the old school +masters. Nay, it might be maintained that they avoid it less. The old +village schoolmaster beat a boy for not learning grammar and sent him +out into the playground to play anything he liked; or at nothing, if he +liked that better. The modern scientific schoolmaster pursues him into +the playground and makes him play at cricket, because exercise is so +good for the health. The modern Dr. Busby is a doctor of medicine as +well as a doctor of divinity. He may say that the good of exercise is +self-evident; but he must say it, and say it with authority. It cannot +really be self-evident or it never could have been compulsory. But this +is in modern practice a very mild case. In modern practice the +free educationists forbid far more things than the old-fashioned +educationists. A person with a taste for paradox (if any such shameless +creature could exist) might with some plausibility maintain concerning +all our expansion since the failure of Luther's frank paganism and its +replacement by Calvin's Puritanism, that all this expansion has not +been an expansion, but the closing in of a prison, so that less and less +beautiful and humane things have been permitted. The Puritans destroyed +images; the Rationalists forbade fairy tales. Count Tostoi practically +issued one of his papal encyclicals against music; and I have heard of +modern educationists who forbid children to play with tin soldiers. I +remember a meek little madman who came up to me at some Socialist soiree +or other, and asked me to use my influence (have I any influence?) +against adventure stories for boys. It seems they breed an appetite for +blood. But never mind that; one must keep one's temper in this madhouse. +I need only insist here that these things, even if a just deprivation, +are a deprivation. I do not deny that the old vetoes and punishments +were often idiotic and cruel; though they are much more so in a country +like England (where in practice only a rich man decrees the punishment +and only a poor man receives it) than in countries with a clearer +popular tradition--such as Russia. In Russia flogging is often inflicted +by peasants on a peasant. In modern England flogging can only in +practice be inflicted by a gentleman on a very poor man. Thus only a +few days ago as I write a small boy (a son of the poor, of course) was +sentenced to flogging and imprisonment for five years for having picked +up a small piece of coal which the experts value at 5d. I am entirely +on the side of such liberals and humanitarians as have protested against +this almost bestial ignorance about boys. But I do think it a little +unfair that these humanitarians, who excuse boys for being robbers, +should denounce them for playing at robbers. I do think that those who +understand a guttersnipe playing with a piece of coal might, by a sudden +spurt of imagination, understand him playing with a tin soldier. To +sum it up in one sentence: I think my meek little madman might have +understood that there is many a boy who would rather be flogged, and +unjustly flogged, than have his adventure story taken away. + +***** + + + + +VII. THE HUMILITY OF MRS. GRUNDY + +In short, the new education is as harsh as the old, whether or no it is +as high. The freest fad, as much as the strictest formula, is stiff with +authority. It is because the humane father thinks soldiers wrong that +they are forbidden; there is no pretense, there can be no pretense, that +the boy would think so. The average boy's impression certainly would +be simply this: "If your father is a Methodist you must not play with +soldiers on Sunday. If your father is a Socialist you must not play +with them even on week days." All educationists are utterly dogmatic and +authoritarian. You cannot have free education; for if you left a child +free you would not educate him at all. Is there, then, no distinction +or difference between the most hide-bound conventionalists and the most +brilliant and bizarre innovators? Is there no difference between the +heaviest heavy father and the most reckless and speculative maiden aunt? +Yes; there is. The difference is that the heavy father, in his heavy +way, is a democrat. He does not urge a thing merely because to his +fancy it should be done; but, because (in his own admirable republican +formula) "Everybody does it." The conventional authority does claim some +popular mandate; the unconventional authority does not. The Puritan who +forbids soldiers on Sunday is at least expressing Puritan opinion; +not merely his own opinion. He is not a despot; he is a democracy, a +tyrannical democracy, a dingy and local democracy perhaps; but one that +could do and has done the two ultimate virile things--fight and appeal +to God. But the veto of the new educationist is like the veto of +the House of Lords; it does not pretend to be representative. These +innovators are always talking about the blushing modesty of Mrs. Grundy. +I do not know whether Mrs. Grundy is more modest than they are; but I am +sure she is more humble. + +But there is a further complication. The more anarchic modern may again +attempt to escape the dilemma by saying that education should only be +an enlargement of the mind, an opening of all the organs of receptivity. +Light (he says) should be brought into darkness; blinded and thwarted +existences in all our ugly corners should merely be permitted to +perceive and expand; in short, enlightenment should be shed over +darkest London. Now here is just the trouble; that, in so far as this +is involved, there is no darkest London. London is not dark at all; not +even at night. We have said that if education is a solid substance, then +there is none of it. We may now say that if education is an abstract +expansion there is no lack of it. There is far too much of it. In fact, +there is nothing else. + +There are no uneducated people. Everybody in England is educated; only +most people are educated wrong. The state schools were not the first +schools, but among the last schools to be established; and London had +been educating Londoners long before the London School Board. The error +is a highly practical one. It is persistently assumed that unless +a child is civilized by the established schools, he must remain a +barbarian. I wish he did. Every child in London becomes a highly +civilized person. But here are so many different civilizations, most of +them born tired. Anyone will tell you that the trouble with the poor is +not so much that the old are still foolish, but rather that the young +are already wise. Without going to school at all, the gutter-boy would +be educated. Without going to school at all, he would be over-educated. +The real object of our schools should be not so much to suggest +complexity as solely to restore simplicity. You will hear venerable +idealists declare we must make war on the ignorance of the poor; +but, indeed, we have rather to make war on their knowledge. Real +educationists have to resist a kind of roaring cataract of culture. The +truant is being taught all day. If the children do not look at the large +letters in the spelling-book, they need only walk outside and look at +the large letters on the poster. If they do not care for the colored +maps provided by the school, they can gape at the colored maps provided +by the Daily Mail. If they tire of electricity, they can take to +electric trams. If they are unmoved by music, they can take to drink. If +they will not work so as to get a prize from their school, they may work +to get a prize from Prizy Bits. If they cannot learn enough about law +and citizenship to please the teacher, they learn enough about them to +avoid the policeman. If they will not learn history forwards from the +right end in the history books, they will learn it backwards from the +wrong end in the party newspapers. And this is the tragedy of the whole +affair: that the London poor, a particularly quick-witted and civilized +class, learn everything tail foremost, learn even what is right in the +way of what is wrong. They do not see the first principles of law in a +law book; they only see its last results in the police news. They do not +see the truths of politics in a general survey. They only see the lies +of politics, at a General Election. + +But whatever be the pathos of the London poor, it has nothing to do with +being uneducated. So far from being without guidance, they are guided +constantly, earnestly, excitedly; only guided wrong. The poor are not +at all neglected, they are merely oppressed; nay, rather they are +persecuted. There are no people in London who are not appealed to by the +rich; the appeals of the rich shriek from every hoarding and shout +from every hustings. For it should always be remembered that the queer, +abrupt ugliness of our streets and costumes are not the creation of +democracy, but of aristocracy. The House of Lords objected to the +Embankment being disfigured by trams. But most of the rich men who +disfigure the street-walls with their wares are actually in the House +of Lords. The peers make the country seats beautiful by making the town +streets hideous. This, however, is parenthetical. The point is, that the +poor in London are not left alone, but rather deafened and bewildered +with raucous and despotic advice. They are not like sheep without a +shepherd. They are more like one sheep whom twenty-seven shepherds are +shouting at. All the newspapers, all the new advertisements, all the +new medicines and new theologies, all the glare and blare of the gas and +brass of modern times--it is against these that the national school must +bear up if it can. I will not question that our elementary education is +better than barbaric ignorance. But there is no barbaric ignorance. I +do not doubt that our schools would be good for uninstructed boys. But +there are no uninstructed boys. A modern London school ought not merely +to be clearer, kindlier, more clever and more rapid than ignorance and +darkness. It must also be clearer than a picture postcard, cleverer than +a Limerick competition, quicker than the tram, and kindlier than +the tavern. The school, in fact, has the responsibility of universal +rivalry. We need not deny that everywhere there is a light that must +conquer darkness. But here we demand a light that can conquer light. + +***** + + + + +VIII. THE BROKEN RAINBOW + +I will take one case that will serve both as symbol and example: the +case of color. We hear the realists (those sentimental fellows) talking +about the gray streets and the gray lives of the poor. But whatever +the poor streets are they are not gray; but motley, striped, spotted, +piebald and patched like a quilt. Hoxton is not aesthetic enough to be +monochrome; and there is nothing of the Celtic twilight about it. As a +matter of fact, a London gutter-boy walks unscathed among furnaces of +color. Watch him walk along a line of hoardings, and you will see him +now against glowing green, like a traveler in a tropic forest; now black +like a bird against the burning blue of the Midi; now passant across a +field gules, like the golden leopards of England. He ought to understand +the irrational rapture of that cry of Mr. Stephen Phillips about "that +bluer blue, that greener green." There is no blue much bluer than +Reckitt's Blue and no blacking blacker than Day and Martin's; no more +emphatic yellow than that of Colman's Mustard. If, despite this chaos +of color, like a shattered rainbow, the spirit of the small boy is not +exactly intoxicated with art and culture, the cause certainly does not +lie in universal grayness or the mere starving of his senses. It lies in +the fact that the colors are presented in the wrong connection, on the +wrong scale, and, above all, from the wrong motive. It is not colors he +lacks, but a philosophy of colors. In short, there is nothing wrong with +Reckitt's Blue except that it is not Reckitt's. Blue does not belong to +Reckitt, but to the sky; black does not belong to Day and Martin, but to +the abyss. Even the finest posters are only very little things on a very +large scale. There is something specially irritant in this way about the +iteration of advertisements of mustard: a condiment, a small luxury; +a thing in its nature not to be taken in quantity. There is a special +irony in these starving streets to see such a great deal of mustard to +such very little meat. Yellow is a bright pigment; mustard is a pungent +pleasure. But to look at these seas of yellow is to be like a man who +should swallow gallons of mustard. He would either die, or lose the +taste of mustard altogether. + +Now suppose we compare these gigantic trivialities on the hoardings +with those tiny and tremendous pictures in which the mediaevals recorded +their dreams; little pictures where the blue sky is hardly longer than +a single sapphire, and the fires of judgment only a pigmy patch of gold. +The difference here is not merely that poster art is in its nature more +hasty than illumination art; it is not even merely that the ancient +artist was serving the Lord while the modern artist is serving the +lords. It is that the old artist contrived to convey an impression that +colors really were significant and precious things, like jewels and +talismanic stones. The color was often arbitrary; but it was always +authoritative. If a bird was blue, if a tree was golden, if a fish was +silver, if a cloud was scarlet, the artist managed to convey that these +colors were important and almost painfully intense; all the red red-hot +and all the gold tried in the fire. Now that is the spirit touching +color which the schools must recover and protect if they are really to +give the children any imaginative appetite or pleasure in the thing. It +is not so much an indulgence in color; it is rather, if anything, a sort +of fiery thrift. It fenced in a green field in heraldry as straitly as a +green field in peasant proprietorship. It would not fling away gold +leaf any more than gold coin; it would not heedlessly pour out purple or +crimson, any more than it would spill good wine or shed blameless blood. +That is the hard task before educationists in this special matter; they +have to teach people to relish colors like liquors. They have the heavy +business of turning drunkards into wine tasters. If even the twentieth +century succeeds in doing these things, it will almost catch up with the +twelfth. + +The principle covers, however, the whole of modern life. Morris and the +merely aesthetic mediaevalists always indicated that a crowd in the time +of Chaucer would have been brightly clad and glittering, compared with +a crowd in the time of Queen Victoria. I am not so sure that the real +distinction is here. There would be brown frocks of friars in the first +scene as well as brown bowlers of clerks in the second. There would be +purple plumes of factory girls in the second scene as well as purple +lenten vestments in the first. There would be white waistcoats against +white ermine; gold watch chains against gold lions. The real difference +is this: that the brown earth-color of the monk's coat was instinctively +chosen to express labor and humility, whereas the brown color of the +clerk's hat was not chosen to express anything. The monk did mean to say +that he robed himself in dust. I am sure the clerk does not mean to say +that he crowns himself with clay. He is not putting dust on his head, as +the only diadem of man. Purple, at once rich and somber, does suggest a +triumph temporarily eclipsed by a tragedy. But the factory girl does not +intend her hat to express a triumph temporarily eclipsed by a tragedy; +far from it. White ermine was meant to express moral purity; white +waistcoats were not. Gold lions do suggest a flaming magnanimity; gold +watch chains do not. The point is not that we have lost the material +hues, but that we have lost the trick of turning them to the best +advantage. We are not like children who have lost their paint box and +are left alone with a gray lead-pencil. We are like children who have +mixed all the colors in the paint-box together and lost the paper of +instructions. Even then (I do not deny) one has some fun. + +Now this abundance of colors and loss of a color scheme is a pretty +perfect parable of all that is wrong with our modern ideals and +especially with our modern education. It is the same with ethical +education, economic education, every sort of education. The growing +London child will find no lack of highly controversial teachers who +will teach him that geography means painting the map red; that economics +means taxing the foreigner, that patriotism means the peculiarly +un-English habit of flying a flag on Empire Day. In mentioning these +examples specially I do not mean to imply that there are no similar +crudities and popular fallacies upon the other political side. I mention +them because they constitute a very special and arresting feature of the +situation. I mean this, that there were always Radical revolutionists; +but now there are Tory revolutionists also. The modern Conservative +no longer conserves. He is avowedly an innovator. Thus all the current +defenses of the House of Lords which describe it as a bulwark against +the mob, are intellectually done for; the bottom has fallen out of them; +because on five or six of the most turbulent topics of the day, the +House of Lords is a mob itself; and exceedingly likely to behave like +one. + +***** + + + + +IX. THE NEED FOR NARROWNESS + +Through all this chaos, then we come back once more to our main +conclusion. The true task of culture to-day is not a task of expansion, +but very decidedly of selection--and rejection. The educationist must +find a creed and teach it. Even if it be not a theological creed, it +must still be as fastidious and as firm as theology. In short, it must +be orthodox. The teacher may think it antiquated to have to decide +precisely between the faith of Calvin and of Laud, the faith of Aquinas +and of Swedenborg; but he still has to choose between the faith of +Kipling and of Shaw, between the world of Blatchford and of General +Booth. Call it, if you will, a narrow question whether your child shall +be brought up by the vicar or the minister or the popish priest. You +have still to face that larger, more liberal, more highly civilized +question, of whether he shall be brought up by Harmsworth or by +Pearson, by Mr. Eustace Miles with his Simple Life or Mr. Peter Keary +with his Strenuous Life; whether he shall most eagerly read Miss Annie +S. Swan or Mr. Bart Kennedy; in short, whether he shall end up in the +mere violence of the S. D. F., or in the mere vulgarity of the Primrose +League. They say that nowadays the creeds are crumbling; I doubt it, but +at least the sects are increasing; and education must now be sectarian +education, merely for practical purposes. Out of all this throng of +theories it must somehow select a theory; out of all these thundering +voices it must manage to hear a voice; out of all this awful and aching +battle of blinding lights, without one shadow to give shape to them, it +must manage somehow to trace and to track a star. + +I have spoken so far of popular education, which began too vague and +vast and which therefore has accomplished little. But as it happens +there is in England something to compare it with. There is an +institution, or class of institutions, which began with the same popular +object, which has since followed a much narrower object, but which had +the great advantage that it did follow some object, unlike our modern +elementary schools. + +In all these problems I should urge the solution which is positive, +or, as silly people say, "optimistic." I should set my face, that is, +against most of the solutions that are solely negative and abolitionist. +Most educators of the poor seem to think that they have to teach the +poor man not to drink. I should be quite content if they teach him to +drink; for it is mere ignorance about how to drink and when to drink +that is accountable for most of his tragedies. I do not propose (like +some of my revolutionary friends) that we should abolish the public +schools. I propose the much more lurid and desperate experiment that we +should make them public. I do not wish to make Parliament stop working, +but rather to make it work; not to shut up churches, but rather to +open them; not to put out the lamp of learning or destroy the hedge of +property, but only to make some rude effort to make universities fairly +universal and property decently proper. + +In many cases, let it be remembered, such action is not merely going +back to the old ideal, but is even going back to the old reality. It +would be a great step forward for the gin shop to go back to the inn. It +is incontrovertibly true that to mediaevalize the public schools would +be to democratize the public schools. Parliament did once really mean +(as its name seems to imply) a place where people were allowed to talk. +It is only lately that the general increase of efficiency, that is, of +the Speaker, has made it mostly a place where people are prevented from +talking. The poor do not go to the modern church, but they went to the +ancient church all right; and if the common man in the past had a grave +respect for property, it may conceivably have been because he sometimes +had some of his own. I therefore can claim that I have no vulgar itch of +innovation in anything I say about any of these institutions. Certainly +I have none in that particular one which I am now obliged to pick out +of the list; a type of institution to which I have genuine and personal +reasons for being friendly and grateful: I mean the great Tudor +foundations, the public schools of England. They have been praised for a +great many things, mostly, I am sorry to say, praised by themselves and +their children. And yet for some reason no one has ever praised them the +one really convincing reason. + +***** + + + + +X. THE CASE FOR THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS + +The word success can of course be used in two senses. It may be used +with reference to a thing serving its immediate and peculiar purpose, +as of a wheel going around; or it can be used with reference to a thing +adding to the general welfare, as of a wheel being a useful discovery. +It is one thing to say that Smith's flying machine is a failure, and +quite another to say that Smith has failed to make a flying machine. +Now this is very broadly the difference between the old English public +schools and the new democratic schools. Perhaps the old public schools +are (as I personally think they are) ultimately weakening the country +rather than strengthening it, and are therefore, in that ultimate sense, +inefficient. But there is such a thing as being efficiently inefficient. +You can make your flying ship so that it flies, even if you also make +it so that it kills you. Now the public school system may not work +satisfactorily, but it works; the public schools may not achieve what we +want, but they achieve what they want. The popular elementary schools do +not in that sense achieve anything at all. It is very difficult to point +to any guttersnipe in the street and say that he embodies the ideal +for which popular education has been working, in the sense that the +fresh-faced, foolish boy in "Etons" does embody the ideal for which the +headmasters of Harrow and Winchester have been working. The aristocratic +educationists have the positive purpose of turning out gentlemen, and +they do turn out gentlemen, even when they expel them. The popular +educationists would say that they had the far nobler idea of turning +out citizens. I concede that it is a much nobler idea, but where are the +citizens? I know that the boy in "Etons" is stiff with a rather silly +and sentimental stoicism, called being a man of the world. I do not +fancy that the errand-boy is rigid with that republican stoicism that +is called being a citizen. The schoolboy will really say with fresh +and innocent hauteur, "I am an English gentleman." I cannot so easily +picture the errand-boy drawing up his head to the stars and answering, +"Romanus civis sum." Let it be granted that our elementary teachers are +teaching the very broadest code of morals, while our great headmasters +are teaching only the narrowest code of manners. Let it be granted +that both these things are being taught. But only one of them is being +learned. + +It is always said that great reformers or masters of events can manage +to bring about some specific and practical reforms, but that they never +fulfill their visions or satisfy their souls. I believe there is a real +sense in which this apparent platitude is quite untrue. By a strange +inversion the political idealist often does not get what he asks for, +but does get what he wants. The silent pressure of his ideal lasts much +longer and reshapes the world much more than the actualities by which he +attempted to suggest it. What perishes is the letter, which he +thought so practical. What endures is the spirit, which he felt to be +unattainable and even unutterable. It is exactly his schemes that are +not fulfilled; it is exactly his vision that is fulfilled. Thus the ten +or twelve paper constitutions of the French Revolution, which seemed so +business-like to the framers of them, seem to us to have flown away +on the wind as the wildest fancies. What has not flown away, what is a +fixed fact in Europe, is the ideal and vision. The Republic, the idea +of a land full of mere citizens all with some minimum of manners and +minimum of wealth, the vision of the eighteenth century, the reality +of the twentieth. So I think it will generally be with the creator of +social things, desirable or undesirable. All his schemes will fail, +all his tools break in his hands. His compromises will collapse, his +concessions will be useless. He must brace himself to bear his fate; he +shall have nothing but his heart's desire. + +Now if one may compare very small things with very great, one may say +that the English aristocratic schools can claim something of the same +sort of success and solid splendor as the French democratic politics. +At least they can claim the same sort of superiority over the distracted +and fumbling attempts of modern England to establish democratic +education. Such success as has attended the public schoolboy throughout +the Empire, a success exaggerated indeed by himself, but still positive +and a fact of a certain indisputable shape and size, has been due to the +central and supreme circumstance that the managers of our public schools +did know what sort of boy they liked. They wanted something and they +got something; instead of going to work in the broad-minded manner and +wanting everything and getting nothing. + +The only thing in question is the quality of the thing they got. There +is something highly maddening in the circumstance that when modern +people attack an institution that really does demand reform, they always +attack it for the wrong reasons. Thus many opponents of our public +schools, imagining themselves to be very democratic, have exhausted +themselves in an unmeaning attack upon the study of Greek. I can +understand how Greek may be regarded as useless, especially by those +thirsting to throw themselves into the cut throat commerce which is +the negation of citizenship; but I do not understand how it can be +considered undemocratic. I quite understand why Mr. Carnegie has +a hatred of Greek. It is obscurely founded on the firm and sound +impression that in any self-governing Greek city he would have been +killed. But I cannot comprehend why any chance democrat, say Mr. Quelch, +or Mr. Will Crooks, I or Mr. John M. Robertson, should be opposed to +people learning the Greek alphabet, which was the alphabet of liberty. +Why should Radicals dislike Greek? In that language is written all +the earliest and, Heaven knows, the most heroic history of the Radical +party. Why should Greek disgust a democrat, when the very word democrat +is Greek? + +A similar mistake, though a less serious one, is merely attacking +the athletics of public schools as something promoting animalism and +brutality. Now brutality, in the only immoral sense, is not a vice of +the English public schools. There is much moral bullying, owing to the +general lack of moral courage in the public-school atmosphere. These +schools do, upon the whole, encourage physical courage; but they do not +merely discourage moral courage, they forbid it. The ultimate result +of the thing is seen in the egregious English officer who cannot even +endure to wear a bright uniform except when it is blurred and hidden +in the smoke of battle. This, like all the affectations of our present +plutocracy, is an entirely modern thing. It was unknown to the old +aristocrats. The Black Prince would certainly have asked that any knight +who had the courage to lift his crest among his enemies, should also +have the courage to lift it among his friends. As regards moral courage, +then it is not so much that the public schools support it feebly, as +that they suppress it firmly. But physical courage they do, on the +whole, support; and physical courage is a magnificent fundamental. The +one great, wise Englishman of the eighteenth century said truly that if +a man lost that virtue he could never be sure of keeping any other. Now +it is one of the mean and morbid modern lies that physical courage is +connected with cruelty. The Tolstoian and Kiplingite are nowhere more at +one than in maintaining this. They have, I believe, some small sectarian +quarrel with each other, the one saying that courage must be abandoned +because it is connected with cruelty, and the other maintaining that +cruelty is charming because it is a part of courage. But it is all, +thank God, a lie. An energy and boldness of body may make a man stupid +or reckless or dull or drunk or hungry, but it does not make him +spiteful. And we may admit heartily (without joining in that perpetual +praise which public-school men are always pouring upon themselves) that +this does operate to the removal of mere evil cruelty in the public +schools. English public school life is extremely like English public +life, for which it is the preparatory school. It is like it specially in +this, that things are either very open, common and conventional, or else +are very secret indeed. Now there is cruelty in public schools, just as +there is kleptomania and secret drinking and vices without a name. +But these things do not flourish in the full daylight and common +consciousness of the school, and no more does cruelty. A tiny trio +of sullen-looking boys gather in corners and seem to have some ugly +business always; it may be indecent literature, it may be the beginning +of drink, it may occasionally be cruelty to little boys. But on this +stage the bully is not a braggart. The proverb says that bullies are +always cowardly, but these bullies are more than cowardly; they are shy. + +As a third instance of the wrong form of revolt against the public +schools, I may mention the habit of using the word aristocracy with a +double implication. To put the plain truth as briefly as possible, if +aristocracy means rule by a rich ring, England has aristocracy and the +English public schools support it. If it means rule by ancient families +or flawless blood, England has not got aristocracy, and the public +schools systematically destroy it. In these circles real aristocracy, +like real democracy, has become bad form. A modern fashionable host +dare not praise his ancestry; it would so often be an insult to half the +other oligarchs at table, who have no ancestry. We have said he has +not the moral courage to wear his uniform; still less has he the moral +courage to wear his coat-of-arms. The whole thing now is only a vague +hotch-potch of nice and nasty gentlemen. The nice gentleman never refers +to anyone else's father, the nasty gentleman never refers to his own. +That is the only difference, the rest is the public-school manner. But +Eton and Harrow have to be aristocratic because they consist so largely +of parvenues. The public school is not a sort of refuge for aristocrats, +like an asylum, a place where they go in and never come out. It is a +factory for aristocrats; they come out without ever having perceptibly +gone in. The poor little private schools, in their old-world, +sentimental, feudal style, used to stick up a notice, "For the Sons of +Gentlemen only." If the public schools stuck up a notice it ought to be +inscribed, "For the Fathers of Gentlemen only." In two generations they +can do the trick. + +***** + + + + +XI. THE SCHOOL FOR HYPOCRITES + +These are the false accusations; the accusation of classicism, the +accusation of cruelty, and the accusation of an exclusiveness based on +perfection of pedigree. English public-school boys are not pedants, +they are not torturers; and they are not, in the vast majority of +cases, people fiercely proud of their ancestry, or even people with any +ancestry to be proud of. They are taught to be courteous, to be good +tempered, to be brave in a bodily sense, to be clean in a bodily sense; +they are generally kind to animals, generally civil to servants, and to +anyone in any sense their equal, the jolliest companions on earth. Is +there then anything wrong in the public-school ideal? I think we all +feel there is something very wrong in it, but a blinding network of +newspaper phraseology obscures and entangles us; so that it is hard to +trace to its beginning, beyond all words and phrases, the faults in this +great English achievement. + +Surely, when all is said, the ultimate objection to the English public +school is its utterly blatant and indecent disregard of the duty of +telling the truth. I know there does still linger among maiden ladies +in remote country houses a notion that English schoolboys are taught to +tell the truth, but it cannot be maintained seriously for a moment. +Very occasionally, very vaguely, English schoolboys are told not to tell +lies, which is a totally different thing. I may silently support all the +obscene fictions and forgeries in the universe, without once telling a +lie. I may wear another man's coat, steal another man's wit, apostatize +to another man's creed, or poison another man's coffee, all without +ever telling a lie. But no English school-boy is ever taught to tell the +truth, for the very simple reason that he is never taught to desire the +truth. From the very first he is taught to be totally careless about +whether a fact is a fact; he is taught to care only whether the fact can +be used on his "side" when he is engaged in "playing the game." He takes +sides in his Union debating society to settle whether Charles I ought to +have been killed, with the same solemn and pompous frivolity with +which he takes sides in the cricket field to decide whether Rugby or +Westminster shall win. He is never allowed to admit the abstract notion +of the truth, that the match is a matter of what may happen, but that +Charles I is a matter of what did happen--or did not. He is Liberal or +Tory at the general election exactly as he is Oxford or Cambridge at the +boat race. He knows that sport deals with the unknown; he has not even a +notion that politics should deal with the known. If anyone really +doubts this self-evident proposition, that the public schools definitely +discourage the love of truth, there is one fact which I should think +would settle him. England is the country of the Party System, and it +has always been chiefly run by public-school men. Is there anyone out +of Hanwell who will maintain that the Party System, whatever its +conveniences or inconveniences, could have been created by people +particularly fond of truth? + +The very English happiness on this point is itself a hypocrisy. When a +man really tells the truth, the first truth he tells is that he himself +is a liar. David said in his haste, that is, in his honesty, that +all men are liars. It was afterwards, in some leisurely official +explanation, that he said the Kings of Israel at least told the truth. +When Lord Curzon was Viceroy he delivered a moral lecture to the Indians +on their reputed indifference to veracity, to actuality and intellectual +honor. A great many people indignantly discussed whether orientals +deserved to receive this rebuke; whether Indians were indeed in a +position to receive such severe admonition. No one seemed to ask, as I +should venture to ask, whether Lord Curzon was in a position to give +it. He is an ordinary party politician; a party politician means a +politician who might have belonged to either party. Being such a person, +he must again and again, at every twist and turn of party strategy, +either have deceived others or grossly deceived himself. I do not know +the East; nor do I like what I know. I am quite ready to believe that +when Lord Curzon went out he found a very false atmosphere. I only say +it must have been something startlingly and chokingly false if it was +falser than that English atmosphere from which he came. The English +Parliament actually cares for everything except veracity. The +public-school man is kind, courageous, polite, clean, companionable; +but, in the most awful sense of the words, the truth is not in him. + +This weakness of untruthfulness in the English public schools, in the +English political system, and to some extent in the English +character, is a weakness which necessarily produces a curious crop of +superstitions, of lying legends, of evident delusions clung to through +low spiritual self-indulgence. There are so many of these public-school +superstitions that I have here only space for one of them, which may be +called the superstition of soap. It appears to have been shared by +the ablutionary Pharisees, who resembled the English public-school +aristocrats in so many respects: in their care about club rules and +traditions, in their offensive optimism at the expense of other people, +and above all in their unimaginative plodding patriotism in the worst +interests of their country. Now the old human common sense about washing +is that it is a great pleasure. Water (applied externally) is a splendid +thing, like wine. Sybarites bathe in wine, and Nonconformists drink +water; but we are not concerned with these frantic exceptions. Washing +being a pleasure, it stands to reason that rich people can afford it +more than poor people, and as long as this was recognized all was +well; and it was very right that rich people should offer baths to poor +people, as they might offer any other agreeable thing--a drink or a +donkey ride. But one dreadful day, somewhere about the middle of the +nineteenth century, somebody discovered (somebody pretty well off) +the two great modern truths, that washing is a virtue in the rich and +therefore a duty in the poor. For a duty is a virtue that one can't do. +And a virtue is generally a duty that one can do quite easily; like +the bodily cleanliness of the upper classes. But in the public-school +tradition of public life, soap has become creditable simply because it +is pleasant. Baths are represented as a part of the decay of the Roman +Empire; but the same baths are represented as part of the energy and +rejuvenation of the British Empire. There are distinguished public +school men, bishops, dons, headmasters, and high politicians, who, +in the course of the eulogies which from time to time they pass upon +themselves, have actually identified physical cleanliness with moral +purity. They say (if I remember rightly) that a public-school man is +clean inside and out. As if everyone did not know that while saints can +afford to be dirty, seducers have to be clean. As if everyone did +not know that the harlot must be clean, because it is her business to +captivate, while the good wife may be dirty, because it is her business +to clean. As if we did not all know that whenever God's thunder cracks +above us, it is very likely indeed to find the simplest man in a muck +cart and the most complex blackguard in a bath. + +There are other instances, of course, of this oily trick of turning the +pleasures of a gentleman into the virtues of an Anglo-Saxon. Sport, like +soap, is an admirable thing, but, like soap, it is an agreeable thing. +And it does not sum up all mortal merits to be a sportsman playing the +game in a world where it is so often necessary to be a workman doing the +work. By all means let a gentleman congratulate himself that he has +not lost his natural love of pleasure, as against the blase, and +unchildlike. But when one has the childlike joy it is best to have also +the childlike unconsciousness; and I do not think we should have special +affection for the little boy who ever lastingly explained that it was +his duty to play Hide and Seek and one of his family virtues to be +prominent in Puss in the Corner. + +Another such irritating hypocrisy is the oligarchic attitude towards +mendicity as against organized charity. Here again, as in the case of +cleanliness and of athletics, the attitude would be perfectly human and +intelligible if it were not maintained as a merit. Just as the obvious +thing about soap is that it is a convenience, so the obvious thing about +beggars is that they are an inconvenience. The rich would deserve very +little blame if they simply said that they never dealt directly with +beggars, because in modern urban civilization it is impossible to deal +directly with beggars; or if not impossible, at least very difficult. +But these people do not refuse money to beggars on the ground that such +charity is difficult. They refuse it on the grossly hypocritical ground +that such charity is easy. They say, with the most grotesque gravity, +"Anyone can put his hand in his pocket and give a poor man a penny; but +we, philanthropists, go home and brood and travail over the poor man's +troubles until we have discovered exactly what jail, reformatory, +workhouse, or lunatic asylum it will really be best for him to go to." +This is all sheer lying. They do not brood about the man when they get +home, and if they did it would not alter the original fact that their +motive for discouraging beggars is the perfectly rational one that +beggars are a bother. A man may easily be forgiven for not doing this +or that incidental act of charity, especially when the question is as +genuinely difficult as is the case of mendicity. But there is something +quite pestilently Pecksniffian about shrinking from a hard task on the +plea that it is not hard enough. If any man will really try talking to +the ten beggars who come to his door he will soon find out whether it is +really so much easier than the labor of writing a check for a hospital. + +***** + + + + +XII. THE STALENESS OF THE NEW SCHOOLS + +For this deep and disabling reason therefore, its cynical and abandoned +indifference to the truth, the English public school does not provide +us with the ideal that we require. We can only ask its modern critics +to remember that right or wrong the thing can be done; the factory is +working, the wheels are going around, the gentlemen are being produced, +with their soap, cricket and organized charity all complete. And in +this, as we have said before, the public school really has an advantage +over all the other educational schemes of our time. You can pick out a +public-school man in any of the many companies into which they stray, +from a Chinese opium den to a German Jewish dinner-party. But I doubt +if you could tell which little match girl had been brought up by +undenominational religion and which by secular education. The great +English aristocracy which has ruled us since the Reformation is really, +in this sense, a model to the moderns. It did have an ideal, and +therefore it has produced a reality. + +We may repeat here that these pages propose mainly to show one thing: +that progress ought to be based on principle, while our modern progress +is mostly based on precedent. We go, not by what may be affirmed in +theory, but by what has been already admitted in practice. That is why +the Jacobites are the last Tories in history with whom a high-spirited +person can have much sympathy. They wanted a specific thing; they were +ready to go forward for it, and so they were also ready to go back for +it. But modern Tories have only the dullness of defending situations +that they had not the excitement of creating. Revolutionists make a +reform, Conservatives only conserve the reform. They never reform +the reform, which is often very much wanted. Just as the rivalry of +armaments is only a sort of sulky plagiarism, so the rivalry of parties +is only a sort of sulky inheritance. Men have votes, so women must soon +have votes; poor children are taught by force, so they must soon be fed +by force; the police shut public houses by twelve o'clock, so soon they +must shut them by eleven o'clock; children stop at school till they +are fourteen, so soon they will stop till they are forty. No gleam of +reason, no momentary return to first principles, no abstract asking of +any obvious question, can interrupt this mad and monotonous gallop of +mere progress by precedent. It is a good way to prevent real revolution. +By this logic of events, the Radical gets as much into a rut as the +Conservative. We meet one hoary old lunatic who says his grandfather +told him to stand by one stile. We meet another hoary old lunatic who +says his grandfather told him only to walk along one lane. + +I say we may repeat here this primary part of the argument, because +we have just now come to the place where it is most startlingly and +strongly shown. The final proof that our elementary schools have no +definite ideal of their own is the fact that they so openly imitate the +ideals of the public schools. In the elementary schools we have all the +ethical prejudices and exaggerations of Eton and Harrow carefully copied +for people to whom they do not even roughly apply. We have the same +wildly disproportionate doctrine of the effect of physical cleanliness +on moral character. Educators and educational politicians declare, +amid warm cheers, that cleanliness is far more important than all the +squabbles about moral and religious training. It would really seem that +so long as a little boy washes his hands it does not matter whether he +is washing off his mother's jam or his brother's gore. We have the +same grossly insincere pretense that sport always encourages a sense of +honor, when we know that it often ruins it. Above all, we have the +same great upperclass assumption that things are done best by large +institutions handling large sums of money and ordering everybody about; +and that trivial and impulsive charity is in some way contemptible. +As Mr. Blatchford says, "The world does not want piety, but soap--and +Socialism." Piety is one of the popular virtues, whereas soap and +Socialism are two hobbies of the upper middle class. + +These "healthy" ideals, as they are called, which our politicians and +schoolmasters have borrowed from the aristocratic schools and applied +to the democratic, are by no means particularly appropriate to an +impoverished democracy. A vague admiration for organized government and +a vague distrust of individual aid cannot be made to fit in at all into +the lives of people among whom kindness means lending a saucepan and +honor means keeping out of the workhouse. It resolves itself either into +discouraging that system of prompt and patchwork generosity which is a +daily glory of the poor, or else into hazy advice to people who have no +money not to give it recklessly away. Nor is the exaggerated glory of +athletics, defensible enough in dealing with the rich who, if they did +not romp and race, would eat and drink unwholesomely, by any means so +much to the point when applied to people, most of whom will take a great +deal of exercise anyhow, with spade or hammer, pickax or saw. And for +the third case, of washing, it is obvious that the same sort of rhetoric +about corporeal daintiness which is proper to an ornamental class +cannot, merely as it stands, be applicable to a dustman. A gentleman is +expected to be substantially spotless all the time. But it is no more +discreditable for a scavenger to be dirty than for a deep-sea diver to +be wet. A sweep is no more disgraced when he is covered with soot +than Michael Angelo when he is covered with clay, or Bayard when he +is covered with blood. Nor have these extenders of the public-school +tradition done or suggested anything by way of a substitute for the +present snobbish system which makes cleanliness almost impossible to the +poor; I mean the general ritual of linen and the wearing of the cast-off +clothes of the rich. One man moves into another man's clothes as he +moves into another man's house. No wonder that our educationists are +not horrified at a man picking up the aristocrat's second-hand trousers, +when they themselves have only taken up the aristocrat's second-hand +ideas. + +***** + + + + +XIII. THE OUTLAWED PARENT + +There is one thing at least of which there is never so much as a whisper +inside the popular schools; and that is the opinion of the people. The +only persons who seem to have nothing to do with the education of +the children are the parents. Yet the English poor have very definite +traditions in many ways. They are hidden under embarrassment and irony; +and those psychologists who have disentangled them talk of them as very +strange, barbaric and secretive things. But, as a matter of fact, the +traditions of the poor are mostly simply the traditions of humanity, +a thing which many of us have not seen for some time. For instance, +workingmen have a tradition that if one is talking about a vile thing it +is better to talk of it in coarse language; one is the less likely to be +seduced into excusing it. But mankind had this tradition also, until the +Puritans and their children, the Ibsenites, started the opposite idea, +that it does not matter what you say so long as you say it with long +words and a long face. Or again, the educated classes have tabooed most +jesting about personal appearance; but in doing this they taboo not only +the humor of the slums, but more than half the healthy literature of +the world; they put polite nose-bags on the noses of Punch and Bardolph, +Stiggins and Cyrano de Bergerac. Again, the educated classes have +adopted a hideous and heathen custom of considering death as too +dreadful to talk about, and letting it remain a secret for each person, +like some private malformation. The poor, on the contrary, make a great +gossip and display about bereavement; and they are right. They have hold +of a truth of psychology which is at the back of all the funeral customs +of the children of men. The way to lessen sorrow is to make a lot of it. +The way to endure a painful crisis is to insist very much that it is a +crisis; to permit people who must feel sad at least to feel important. +In this the poor are simply the priests of the universal civilization; +and in their stuffy feasts and solemn chattering there is the smell of +the baked meats of Hamlet and the dust and echo of the funeral games of +Patroclus. + +The things philanthropists barely excuse (or do not excuse) in the life +of the laboring classes are simply the things we have to excuse in all +the greatest monuments of man. It may be that the laborer is as gross as +Shakespeare or as garrulous as Homer; that if he is religious he talks +nearly as much about hell as Dante; that if he is worldly he talks +nearly as much about drink as Dickens. Nor is the poor man without +historic support if he thinks less of that ceremonial washing which +Christ dismissed, and rather more of that ceremonial drinking which +Christ specially sanctified. The only difference between the poor man of +to-day and the saints and heroes of history is that which in all classes +separates the common man who can feel things from the great man who can +express them. What he feels is merely the heritage of man. Now nobody +expects of course that the cabmen and coal-heavers can be complete +instructors of their children any more than the squires and colonels and +tea merchants are complete instructors of their children. There must be +an educational specialist in loco parentis. But the master at Harrow is +in loco parentis; the master in Hoxton is rather contra parentem. The +vague politics of the squire, the vaguer virtues of the colonel, the +soul and spiritual yearnings of a tea merchant, are, in veritable +practice, conveyed to the children of these people at the English public +schools. But I wish here to ask a very plain and emphatic question. Can +anyone alive even pretend to point out any way in which these special +virtues and traditions of the poor are reproduced in the education of +the poor? I do not wish the coster's irony to appeal as coarsely in the +school as it does in the tap room; but does it appear at all? Is +the child taught to sympathize at all with his father's admirable +cheerfulness and slang? I do not expect the pathetic, eager pietas of +the mother, with her funeral clothes and funeral baked meats, to be +exactly imitated in the educational system; but has it any influence at +all on the educational system? Does any elementary schoolmaster accord +it even an instant's consideration or respect? I do not expect the +schoolmaster to hate hospitals and C.O.S. centers so much as the +schoolboy's father; but does he hate them at all? Does he sympathize +in the least with the poor man's point of honor against official +institutions? Is it not quite certain that the ordinary elementary +schoolmaster will think it not merely natural but simply conscientious +to eradicate all these rugged legends of a laborious people, and on +principle to preach soap and Socialism against beer and liberty? In +the lower classes the school master does not work for the parent, but +against the parent. Modern education means handing down the customs of +the minority, and rooting out the customs of the majority. Instead of +their Christlike charity, their Shakespearean laughter and their high +Homeric reverence for the dead, the poor have imposed on them mere +pedantic copies of the prejudices of the remote rich. They must think +a bathroom a necessity because to the lucky it is a luxury; they must +swing Swedish clubs because their masters are afraid of English cudgels; +and they must get over their prejudice against being fed by the parish, +because aristocrats feel no shame about being fed by the nation. + +***** + + + + +XIV. FOLLY AND FEMALE EDUCATION + +It is the same in the case of girls. I am often solemnly asked what +I think of the new ideas about female education. But there are no new +ideas about female education. There is not, there never has been, even +the vestige of a new idea. All the educational reformers did was to ask +what was being done to boys and then go and do it to girls; just as they +asked what was being taught to young squires and then taught it to young +chimney sweeps. What they call new ideas are very old ideas in the wrong +place. Boys play football, why shouldn't girls play football; boys +have school colors, why shouldn't girls have school-colors; boys go +in hundreds to day-schools, why shouldn't girls go in hundreds to +day-schools; boys go to Oxford, why shouldn't girls go to Oxford--in +short, boys grow mustaches, why shouldn't girls grow mustaches--that is +about their notion of a new idea. There is no brain-work in the thing +at all; no root query of what sex is, of whether it alters this or that, +and why, anymore than there is any imaginative grip of the humor and +heart of the populace in the popular education. There is nothing but +plodding, elaborate, elephantine imitation. And just as in the case +of elementary teaching, the cases are of a cold and reckless +inappropriateness. Even a savage could see that bodily things, at least, +which are good for a man are very likely to be bad for a woman. Yet +there is no boy's game, however brutal, which these mild lunatics have +not promoted among girls. To take a stronger case, they give girls very +heavy home-work; never reflecting that all girls have home-work already +in their homes. It is all a part of the same silly subjugation; there +must be a hard stick-up collar round the neck of a woman, because it is +already a nuisance round the neck of a man. Though a Saxon serf, if he +wore that collar of cardboard, would ask for his collar of brass. + +It will then be answered, not without a sneer, "And what would you +prefer? Would you go back to the elegant early Victorian female, with +ringlets and smelling-bottle, doing a little in water colors, dabbling +a little in Italian, playing a little on the harp, writing in vulgar +albums and painting on senseless screens? Do you prefer that?" To which +I answer, "Emphatically, yes." I solidly prefer it to the new female +education, for this reason, that I can see in it an intellectual design, +while there is none in the other. I am by no means sure that even in +point of practical fact that elegant female would not have been more +than a match for most of the inelegant females. I fancy Jane Austen was +stronger, sharper and shrewder than Charlotte Bronte; I am quite certain +she was stronger, sharper and shrewder than George Eliot. She could +do one thing neither of them could do: she could coolly and sensibly +describe a man. I am not sure that the old great lady who could only +smatter Italian was not more vigorous than the new great lady who can +only stammer American; nor am I certain that the bygone duchesses who +were scarcely successful when they painted Melrose Abbey, were so much +more weak-minded than the modern duchesses who paint only their own +faces, and are bad at that. But that is not the point. What was the +theory, what was the idea, in their old, weak water-colors and their +shaky Italian? The idea was the same which in a ruder rank expressed +itself in home-made wines and hereditary recipes; and which still, in +a thousand unexpected ways, can be found clinging to the women of the +poor. It was the idea I urged in the second part of this book: that +the world must keep one great amateur, lest we all become artists and +perish. Somebody must renounce all specialist conquests, that she may +conquer all the conquerors. That she may be a queen of life, she must +not be a private soldier in it. I do not think the elegant female with +her bad Italian was a perfect product, any more than I think the slum +woman talking gin and funerals is a perfect product; alas! there are few +perfect products. But they come from a comprehensible idea; and the new +woman comes from nothing and nowhere. It is right to have an ideal, it +is right to have the right ideal, and these two have the right ideal. +The slum mother with her funerals is the degenerate daughter of +Antigone, the obstinate priestess of the household gods. The lady +talking bad Italian was the decayed tenth cousin of Portia, the great +and golden Italian lady, the Renascence amateur of life, who could be a +barrister because she could be anything. Sunken and neglected in the +sea of modern monotony and imitation, the types hold tightly to their +original truths. Antigone, ugly, dirty and often drunken, will still +bury her father. The elegant female, vapid and fading away to nothing, +still feels faintly the fundamental difference between herself and +her husband: that he must be Something in the City, that she may be +everything in the country. + +There was a time when you and I and all of us were all very close to +God; so that even now the color of a pebble (or a paint), the smell of a +flower (or a firework), comes to our hearts with a kind of authority and +certainty; as if they were fragments of a muddled message, or features +of a forgotten face. To pour that fiery simplicity upon the whole of +life is the only real aim of education; and closest to the child comes +the woman--she understands. To say what she understands is beyond me; +save only this, that it is not a solemnity. Rather it is a towering +levity, an uproarious amateurishness of the universe, such as we felt +when we were little, and would as soon sing as garden, as soon paint as +run. To smatter the tongues of men and angels, to dabble in the dreadful +sciences, to juggle with pillars and pyramids and toss up the planets +like balls, this is that inner audacity and indifference which the human +soul, like a conjurer catching oranges, must keep up forever. This is +that insanely frivolous thing we call sanity. And the elegant female, +drooping her ringlets over her water-colors, knew it and acted on it. +She was juggling with frantic and flaming suns. She was maintaining +the bold equilibrium of inferiorities which is the most mysterious of +superiorities and perhaps the most unattainable. She was maintaining +the prime truth of woman, the universal mother: that if a thing is worth +doing, it is worth doing badly. + + + + +PART FIVE. THE HOME OF MAN + + + + +I. THE EMPIRE OF THE INSECT + +A cultivated Conservative friend of mine once exhibited great distress +because in a gay moment I once called Edmund Burke an atheist. I need +scarcely say that the remark lacked something of biographical precision; +it was meant to. Burke was certainly not an atheist in his conscious +cosmic theory, though he had not a special and flaming faith in God, +like Robespierre. Nevertheless, the remark had reference to a truth +which it is here relevant to repeat. I mean that in the quarrel over the +French Revolution, Burke did stand for the atheistic attitude and mode +of argument, as Robespierre stood for the theistic. The Revolution +appealed to the idea of an abstract and eternal justice, beyond all +local custom or convenience. If there are commands of God, then there +must be rights of man. Here Burke made his brilliant diversion; he did +not attack the Robespierre doctrine with the old mediaeval doctrine of +jus divinum (which, like the Robespierre doctrine, was theistic), he +attacked it with the modern argument of scientific relativity; in short, +the argument of evolution. He suggested that humanity was everywhere +molded by or fitted to its environment and institutions; in fact, that +each people practically got, not only the tyrant it deserved, but the +tyrant it ought to have. "I know nothing of the rights of men," he said, +"but I know something of the rights of Englishmen." There you have the +essential atheist. His argument is that we have got some protection by +natural accident and growth; and why should we profess to think beyond +it, for all the world as if we were the images of God! We are born under +a House of Lords, as birds under a house of leaves; we live under a +monarchy as niggers live under a tropic sun; it is not their fault if +they are slaves, and it is not ours if we are snobs. Thus, long +before Darwin struck his great blow at democracy, the essential of the +Darwinian argument had been already urged against the French Revolution. +Man, said Burke in effect, must adapt himself to everything, like an +animal; he must not try to alter everything, like an angel. The last +weak cry of the pious, pretty, half-artificial optimism and deism of the +eighteenth century came in the voice of Sterne, saying, "God tempers +the wind to the shorn lamb." And Burke, the iron evolutionist, +essentially answered, "No; God tempers the shorn lamb to the wind." +It is the lamb that has to adapt himself. That is, he either dies or +becomes a particular kind of lamb who likes standing in a draught. + +The subconscious popular instinct against Darwinism was not a mere +offense at the grotesque notion of visiting one's grandfather in a cage +in the Regent's Park. Men go in for drink, practical jokes and +many other grotesque things; they do not much mind making beasts +of themselves, and would not much mind having beasts made of their +forefathers. The real instinct was much deeper and much more valuable. +It was this: that when once one begins to think of man as a shifting and +alterable thing, it is always easy for the strong and crafty to twist +him into new shapes for all kinds of unnatural purposes. The popular +instinct sees in such developments the possibility of backs bowed and +hunch-backed for their burden, or limbs twisted for their task. It has +a very well-grounded guess that whatever is done swiftly and +systematically will mostly be done by a successful class and almost +solely in their interests. It has therefore a vision of inhuman hybrids +and half-human experiments much in the style of Mr. Wells's "Island of +Dr. Moreau." The rich man may come to breeding a tribe of dwarfs to be +his jockeys, and a tribe of giants to be his hall-porters. Grooms might +be born bow-legged and tailors born cross-legged; perfumers might have +long, large noses and a crouching attitude, like hounds of scent; and +professional wine-tasters might have the horrible expression of one +tasting wine stamped upon their faces as infants. Whatever wild image +one employs it cannot keep pace with the panic of the human fancy, when +once it supposes that the fixed type called man could be changed. If +some millionaire wanted arms, some porter must grow ten arms like an +octopus; if he wants legs, some messenger-boy must go with a hundred +trotting legs like a centipede. In the distorted mirror of hypothesis, +that is, of the unknown, men can dimly see such monstrous and evil +shapes; men run all to eye, or all to fingers, with nothing left but one +nostril or one ear. That is the nightmare with which the mere notion of +adaptation threatens us. That is the nightmare that is not so very far +from the reality. + +It will be said that not the wildest evolutionist really asks that we +should become in any way unhuman or copy any other animal. Pardon me, +that is exactly what not merely the wildest evolutionists urge, but some +of the tamest evolutionists too. There has risen high in recent +history an important cultus which bids fair to be the religion of the +future--which means the religion of those few weak-minded people who +live in the future. It is typical of our time that it has to look +for its god through a microscope; and our time has marked a definite +adoration of the insect. Like most things we call new, of course, it is +not at all new as an idea; it is only new as an idolatry. Virgil takes +bees seriously but I doubt if he would have kept bees as carefully as +he wrote about them. The wise king told the sluggard to watch the ant, a +charming occupation--for a sluggard. But in our own time has appeared a +very different tone, and more than one great man, as well as numberless +intelligent men, have in our time seriously suggested that we should +study the insect because we are his inferiors. The old moralists merely +took the virtues of man and distributed them quite decoratively and +arbitrarily among the animals. The ant was an almost heraldic symbol of +industry, as the lion was of courage, or, for the matter of that, the +pelican of charity. But if the mediaevals had been convinced that a +lion was not courageous, they would have dropped the lion and kept the +courage; if the pelican is not charitable, they would say, so much the +worse for the pelican. The old moralists, I say, permitted the ant to +enforce and typify man's morality; they never allowed the ant to upset +it. They used the ant for industry as the lark for punctuality; they +looked up at the flapping birds and down at the crawling insects for a +homely lesson. But we have lived to see a sect that does not look down +at the insects, but looks up at the insects, that asks us essentially to +bow down and worship beetles, like ancient Egyptians. + +Maurice Maeterlinck is a man of unmistakable genius, and genius always +carries a magnifying glass. In the terrible crystal of his lens we have +seen the bees not as a little yellow swarm, but rather in golden armies +and hierarchies of warriors and queens. Imagination perpetually peers +and creeps further down the avenues and vistas in the tubes of science, +and one fancies every frantic reversal of proportions; the earwig +striding across the echoing plain like an elephant, or the grasshopper +coming roaring above our roofs like a vast aeroplane, as he leaps from +Hertfordshire to Surrey. One seems to enter in a dream a temple of +enormous entomology, whose architecture is based on something +wilder than arms or backbones; in which the ribbed columns have the +half-crawling look of dim and monstrous caterpillars; or the dome is +a starry spider hung horribly in the void. There is one of the modern +works of engineering that gives one something of this nameless fear +of the exaggerations of an underworld; and that is the curious curved +architecture of the under ground railway, commonly called the Twopenny +Tube. Those squat archways, without any upright line or pillar, look as +if they had been tunneled by huge worms who have never learned to lift +their heads. It is the very underground palace of the Serpent, the spirit +of changing shape and color, that is the enemy of man. + +But it is not merely by such strange aesthetic suggestions that writers +like Maeterlinck have influenced us in the matter; there is also an +ethical side to the business. The upshot of M. Maeterlinck's book on +bees is an admiration, one might also say an envy, of their collective +spirituality; of the fact that they live only for something which +he calls the Soul of the Hive. And this admiration for the communal +morality of insects is expressed in many other modern writers in various +quarters and shapes; in Mr. Benjamin Kidd's theory of living only for +the evolutionary future of our race, and in the great interest of some +Socialists in ants, which they generally prefer to bees, I suppose, +because they are not so brightly colored. Not least among the hundred +evidences of this vague insectolatry are the floods of flattery poured +by modern people on that energetic nation of the Far East of which +it has been said that "Patriotism is its only religion"; or, in other +words, that it lives only for the Soul of the Hive. When at long +intervals of the centuries Christendom grows weak, morbid or skeptical, +and mysterious Asia begins to move against us her dim populations and to +pour them westward like a dark movement of matter, in such cases it +has been very common to compare the invasion to a plague of lice +or incessant armies of locusts. The Eastern armies were indeed like +insects; in their blind, busy destructiveness, in their black nihilism +of personal outlook, in their hateful indifference to individual life +and love, in their base belief in mere numbers, in their pessimistic +courage and their atheistic patriotism, the riders and raiders of the +East are indeed like all the creeping things of the earth. But never +before, I think, have Christians called a Turk a locust and meant it +as a compliment. Now for the first time we worship as well as fear; and +trace with adoration that enormous form advancing vast and vague out +of Asia, faintly discernible amid the mystic clouds of winged creatures +hung over the wasted lands, thronging the skies like thunder and +discoloring the skies like rain; Beelzebub, the Lord of Flies. + +In resisting this horrible theory of the Soul of the Hive, we of +Christendom stand not for ourselves, but for all humanity; for the +essential and distinctive human idea that one good and happy man is an +end in himself, that a soul is worth saving. Nay, for those who like +such biological fancies it might well be said that we stand as chiefs +and champions of a whole section of nature, princes of the house whose +cognizance is the backbone, standing for the milk of the individual +mother and the courage of the wandering cub, representing the pathetic +chivalry of the dog, the humor and perversity of cats, the affection of +the tranquil horse, the loneliness of the lion. It is more to the point, +however, to urge that this mere glorification of society as it is in +the social insects is a transformation and a dissolution in one of the +outlines which have been specially the symbols of man. In the cloud and +confusion of the flies and bees is growing fainter and fainter, as is +finally disappearing, the idea of the human family. The hive has become +larger than the house, the bees are destroying their captors; what the +locust hath left, the caterpillar hath eaten; and the little house and +garden of our friend Jones is in a bad way. + +***** + + + + +II. THE FALLACY OF THE UMBRELLA STAND + +When Lord Morley said that the House of Lords must be either mended +or ended, he used a phrase which has caused some confusion; because +it might seem to suggest that mending and ending are somewhat similar +things. I wish specially to insist on the fact that mending and ending +are opposite things. You mend a thing because you like it; you end a +thing because you don't. To mend is to strengthen. I, for instance, +disbelieve in oligarchy; so I would no more mend the House of Lords +than I would mend a thumbscrew. On the other hand, I do believe in the +family; therefore I would mend the family as I would mend a chair; and +I will never deny for a moment that the modern family is a chair that +wants mending. But here comes in the essential point about the mass of +modern advanced sociologists. Here are two institutions that have always +been fundamental with mankind, the family and the state. Anarchists, I +believe, disbelieve in both. It is quite unfair to say that Socialists +believe in the state, but do not believe in the family; thousands of +Socialists believe more in the family than any Tory. But it is true +to say that while anarchists would end both, Socialists are specially +engaged in mending (that is, strengthening and renewing) the state; and +they are not specially engaged in strengthening and renewing the family. +They are not doing anything to define the functions of father, mother, +and child, as such; they are not tightening the machine up again; they +are not blackening in again the fading lines of the old drawing. With +the state they are doing this; they are sharpening its machinery, +they are blackening in its black dogmatic lines, they are making mere +government in every way stronger and in some ways harsher than before. +While they leave the home in ruins, they restore the hive, especially +the stings. Indeed, some schemes of labor and Poor Law reform recently +advanced by distinguished Socialists, amount to little more than putting +the largest number of people in the despotic power of Mr. Bumble. +Apparently, progress means being moved on--by the police. + +The point it is my purpose to urge might perhaps be suggested thus: +that Socialists and most social reformers of their color are vividly +conscious of the line between the kind of things that belong to the +state and the kind of things that belong to mere chaos or uncoercible +nature; they may force children to go to school before the sun rises, +but they will not try to force the sun to rise; they will not, like +Canute, banish the sea, but only the sea-bathers. But inside the outline +of the state their lines are confused, and entities melt into each +other. They have no firm instinctive sense of one thing being in its +nature private and another public, of one thing being necessarily +bond and another free. That is why piece by piece, and quite silently, +personal liberty is being stolen from Englishmen, as personal land has +been silently stolen ever since the sixteenth century. + +I can only put it sufficiently curtly in a careless simile. A Socialist +means a man who thinks a walking-stick like an umbrella because +they both go into the umbrella-stand. Yet they are as different as a +battle-ax and a bootjack. The essential idea of an umbrella is breadth +and protection. The essential idea of a stick is slenderness and, +partly, attack. The stick is the sword, the umbrella is the shield, but +it is a shield against another and more nameless enemy--the hostile but +anonymous universe. More properly, therefore, the umbrella is the roof; +it is a kind of collapsible house. But the vital difference goes far +deeper than this; it branches off into two kingdoms of man's mind, with +a chasm between. For the point is this: that the umbrella is a shield +against an enemy so actual as to be a mere nuisance; whereas the +stick is a sword against enemies so entirely imaginary as to be a pure +pleasure. The stick is not merely a sword, but a court sword; it is a +thing of purely ceremonial swagger. One cannot express the emotion in +any way except by saying that a man feels more like a man with a stick +in his hand, just as he feels more like a man with a sword at his side. +But nobody ever had any swelling sentiments about an umbrella; it is +a convenience, like a door scraper. An umbrella is a necessary evil. A +walking-stick is a quite unnecessary good. This, I fancy, is the real +explanation of the perpetual losing of umbrellas; one does not hear of +people losing walking sticks. For a walking-stick is a pleasure, a piece +of real personal property; it is missed even when it is not needed. When +my right hand forgets its stick may it forget its cunning. But anybody +may forget an umbrella, as anybody might forget a shed that he has stood +up in out of the rain. Anybody can forget a necessary thing. + +If I might pursue the figure of speech, I might briefly say that the +whole Collectivist error consists in saying that because two men +can share an umbrella, therefore two men can share a walking-stick. +Umbrellas might possibly be replaced by some kind of common awnings +covering certain streets from particular showers. But there is nothing +but nonsense in the notion of swinging a communal stick; it is as if one +spoke of twirling a communal mustache. It will be said that this is a +frank fantasia and that no sociologists suggest such follies. Pardon me +if they do. I will give a precise parallel to the case of confusion +of sticks and umbrellas, a parallel from a perpetually reiterated +suggestion of reform. At least sixty Socialists out of a hundred, when +they have spoken of common laundries, will go on at once to speak of +common kitchens. This is just as mechanical and unintelligent as the +fanciful case I have quoted. Sticks and umbrellas are both stiff rods +that go into holes in a stand in the hall. Kitchens and washhouses +are both large rooms full of heat and damp and steam. But the soul and +function of the two things are utterly opposite. There is only one way +of washing a shirt; that is, there is only one right way. There is no +taste and fancy in tattered shirts. Nobody says, "Tompkins likes five +holes in his shirt, but I must say, give me the good old four holes." +Nobody says, "This washerwoman rips up the left leg of my pyjamas; now +if there is one thing I insist on it is the right leg ripped up." The +ideal washing is simply to send a thing back washed. But it is by no +means true that the ideal cooking is simply to send a thing back cooked. +Cooking is an art; it has in it personality, and even perversity, for +the definition of an art is that which must be personal and may be +perverse. I know a man, not otherwise dainty, who cannot touch common +sausages unless they are almost burned to a coal. He wants his sausages +fried to rags, yet he does not insist on his shirts being boiled to +rags. I do not say that such points of culinary delicacy are of high +importance. I do not say that the communal ideal must give way to +them. What I say is that the communal ideal is not conscious of their +existence, and therefore goes wrong from the very start, mixing a wholly +public thing with a highly individual one. Perhaps we ought to accept +communal kitchens in the social crisis, just as we should accept +communal cat's-meat in a siege. But the cultured Socialist, quite at his +ease, by no means in a siege, talks about communal kitchens as if they +were the same kind of thing as communal laundries. This shows at the +start that he misunderstands human nature. It is as different as three +men singing the same chorus from three men playing three tunes on the +same piano. + +***** + + + + +III. THE DREADFUL DUTY OF GUDGE + +In the quarrel earlier alluded to between the energetic Progressive and +the obstinate Conservative (or, to talk a tenderer language, between +Hudge and Gudge), the state of cross-purposes is at the present moment +acute. The Tory says he wants to preserve family life in Cindertown; +the Socialist very reasonably points out to him that in Cindertown +at present there isn't any family life to preserve. But Hudge, the +Socialist, in his turn, is highly vague and mysterious about whether he +would preserve the family life if there were any; or whether he will try +to restore it where it has disappeared. It is all very confusing. The +Tory sometimes talks as if he wanted to tighten the domestic bonds that +do not exist; the Socialist as if he wanted to loosen the bonds that do +not bind anybody. The question we all want to ask of both of them is +the original ideal question, "Do you want to keep the family at all?" If +Hudge, the Socialist, does want the family he must be prepared for the +natural restraints, distinctions and divisions of labor in the family. +He must brace himself up to bear the idea of the woman having a +preference for the private house and a man for the public house. He must +manage to endure somehow the idea of a woman being womanly, which does +not mean soft and yielding, but handy, thrifty, rather hard, and very +humorous. He must confront without a quiver the notion of a child who +shall be childish, that is, full of energy, but without an idea of +independence; fundamentally as eager for authority as for information +and butter-scotch. If a man, a woman and a child live together any more +in free and sovereign households, these ancient relations will recur; +and Hudge must put up with it. He can only avoid it by destroying the +family, driving both sexes into sexless hives and hordes, and bringing +up all children as the children of the state--like Oliver Twist. But if +these stern words must be addressed to Hudge, neither shall Gudge escape +a somewhat severe admonition. For the plain truth to be told pretty +sharply to the Tory is this, that if he wants the family to remain, +if he wants to be strong enough to resist the rending forces of our +essentially savage commerce, he must make some very big sacrifices and +try to equalize property. The overwhelming mass of the English people at +this particular instant are simply too poor to be domestic. They are +as domestic as they can manage; they are much more domestic than the +governing class; but they cannot get what good there was originally +meant to be in this institution, simply because they have not got enough +money. The man ought to stand for a certain magnanimity, quite lawfully +expressed in throwing money away: but if under given circumstances +he can only do it by throwing the week's food away, then he is not +magnanimous, but mean. The woman ought to stand for a certain wisdom +which is well expressed in valuing things rightly and guarding money +sensibly; but how is she to guard money if there is no money to guard? +The child ought to look on his mother as a fountain of natural fun and +poetry; but how can he unless the fountain, like other fountains, +is allowed to play? What chance have any of these ancient arts and +functions in a house so hideously topsy-turvy; a house where the woman +is out working and the man isn't; and the child is forced by law to +think his schoolmaster's requirements more important than his mother's? +No, Gudge and his friends in the House of Lords and the Carlton Club +must make up their minds on this matter, and that very quickly. If +they are content to have England turned into a beehive and an ant-hill, +decorated here and there with a few faded butterflies playing at an old +game called domesticity in the intervals of the divorce court, then let +them have their empire of insects; they will find plenty of Socialists +who will give it to them. But if they want a domestic England, they must +"shell out," as the phrase goes, to a vastly greater extent than any +Radical politician has yet dared to suggest; they must endure burdens +much heavier than the Budget and strokes much deadlier than the death +duties; for the thing to be done is nothing more nor less than the +distribution of the great fortunes and the great estates. We can now +only avoid Socialism by a change as vast as Socialism. If we are to save +property, we must distribute property, almost as sternly and sweepingly +as did the French Revolution. If we are to preserve the family we must +revolutionize the nation. + +***** + + + + +IV. A LAST INSTANCE + +And now, as this book is drawing to a close, I will whisper in the +reader's ear a horrible suspicion that has sometimes haunted me: the +suspicion that Hudge and Gudge are secretly in partnership. That the +quarrel they keep up in public is very much of a put-up job, and that +the way in which they perpetually play into each other's hands is not +an everlasting coincidence. Gudge, the plutocrat, wants an anarchic +industrialism; Hudge, the idealist, provides him with lyric praises of +anarchy. Gudge wants women-workers because they are cheaper; Hudge calls +the woman's work "freedom to live her own life." Gudge wants steady +and obedient workmen, Hudge preaches teetotalism--to workmen, not to +Gudge--Gudge wants a tame and timid population who will never take arms +against tyranny; Hudge proves from Tolstoi that nobody must take +arms against anything. Gudge is naturally a healthy and well-washed +gentleman; Hudge earnestly preaches the perfection of Gudge's washing +to people who can't practice it. Above all, Gudge rules by a coarse and +cruel system of sacking and sweating and bi-sexual toil which is totally +inconsistent with the free family and which is bound to destroy +it; therefore Hudge, stretching out his arms to the universe with a +prophetic smile, tells us that the family is something that we shall +soon gloriously outgrow. + +I do not know whether the partnership of Hudge and Gudge is conscious +or unconscious. I only know that between them they still keep the common +man homeless. I only know I still meet Jones walking the streets in +the gray twilight, looking sadly at the poles and barriers and low red +goblin lanterns which still guard the house which is none the less his +because he has never been in it. + +***** + + + + +V. CONCLUSION + +Here, it may be said, my book ends just where it ought to begin. I have +said that the strong centers of modern English property must swiftly +or slowly be broken up, if even the idea of property is to remain +among Englishmen. There are two ways in which it could be done, a +cold administration by quite detached officials, which is called +Collectivism, or a personal distribution, so as to produce what is +called Peasant Proprietorship. I think the latter solution the finer and +more fully human, because it makes each man as somebody blamed somebody +for saying of the Pope, a sort of small god. A man on his own turf +tastes eternity or, in other words, will give ten minutes more work than +is required. But I believe I am justified in shutting the door on this +vista of argument, instead of opening it. For this book is not designed +to prove the case for Peasant Proprietorship, but to prove the case +against modern sages who turn reform to a routine. The whole of this +book has been a rambling and elaborate urging of one purely ethical +fact. And if by any chance it should happen that there are still some +who do not quite see what that point is, I will end with one plain +parable, which is none the worse for being also a fact. + +A little while ago certain doctors and other persons permitted by modern +law to dictate to their shabbier fellow-citizens, sent out an order that +all little girls should have their hair cut short. I mean, of course, +all little girls whose parents were poor. Many very unhealthy habits are +common among rich little girls, but it will be long before any doctors +interfere forcibly with them. Now, the case for this particular +interference was this, that the poor are pressed down from above into +such stinking and suffocating underworlds of squalor, that poor people +must not be allowed to have hair, because in their case it must mean +lice in the hair. Therefore, the doctors propose to abolish the hair. It +never seems to have occurred to them to abolish the lice. Yet it could +be done. As is common in most modern discussions the unmentionable thing +is the pivot of the whole discussion. It is obvious to any Christian man +(that is, to any man with a free soul) that any coercion applied to +a cabman's daughter ought, if possible, to be applied to a Cabinet +Minister's daughter. I will not ask why the doctors do not, as a matter +of fact apply their rule to a Cabinet Minister's daughter. I will not +ask, because I know. They do not because they dare not. But what is the +excuse they would urge, what is the plausible argument they would use, +for thus cutting and clipping poor children and not rich? Their argument +would be that the disease is more likely to be in the hair of poor +people than of rich. And why? Because the poor children are forced +(against all the instincts of the highly domestic working classes) +to crowd together in close rooms under a wildly inefficient system of +public instruction; and because in one out of the forty children there +may be offense. And why? Because the poor man is so ground down by the +great rents of the great ground landlords that his wife often has +to work as well as he. Therefore she has no time to look after +the children, therefore one in forty of them is dirty. Because the +workingman has these two persons on top of him, the landlord sitting +(literally) on his stomach, and the schoolmaster sitting (literally) on +his head, the workingman must allow his little girl's hair, first to be +neglected from poverty, next to be poisoned by promiscuity, and, lastly, +to be abolished by hygiene. He, perhaps, was proud of his little girl's +hair. But he does not count. + +Upon this simple principle (or rather precedent) the sociological doctor +drives gayly ahead. When a crapulous tyranny crushes men down into the +dirt, so that their very hair is dirty, the scientific course is clear. +It would be long and laborious to cut off the heads of the tyrants; +it is easier to cut off the hair of the slaves. In the same way, if +it should ever happen that poor children, screaming with toothache, +disturbed any schoolmaster or artistic gentleman, it would be easy to +pull out all the teeth of the poor; if their nails were disgustingly +dirty, their nails could be plucked out; if their noses were indecently +blown, their noses could be cut off. The appearance of our humbler +fellow-citizen could be quite strikingly simplified before we had done +with him. But all this is not a bit wilder than the brute fact that a +doctor can walk into the house of a free man, whose daughter's hair may +be as clean as spring flowers, and order him to cut it off. It never +seems to strike these people that the lesson of lice in the slums is the +wrongness of slums, not the wrongness of hair. Hair is, to say the least +of it, a rooted thing. Its enemy (like the other insects and oriental +armies of whom we have spoken) sweep upon us but seldom. In truth, it +is only by eternal institutions like hair that we can test passing +institutions like empires. If a house is so built as to knock a man's +head off when he enters it, it is built wrong. + +The mob can never rebel unless it is conservative, at least enough to +have conserved some reasons for rebelling. It is the most awful thought +in all our anarchy, that most of the ancient blows struck for freedom +would not be struck at all to-day, because of the obscuration of the +clean, popular customs from which they came. The insult that brought +down the hammer of Wat Tyler might now be called a medical examination. +That which Virginius loathed and avenged as foul slavery might now be +praised as free love. The cruel taunt of Foulon, "Let them eat grass," +might now be represented as the dying cry of an idealistic vegetarian. +Those great scissors of science that would snip off the curls of the +poor little school children are ceaselessly snapping closer and closer +to cut off all the corners and fringes of the arts and honors of the +poor. Soon they will be twisting necks to suit clean collars, and +hacking feet to fit new boots. It never seems to strike them that the +body is more than raiment; that the Sabbath was made for man; that all +institutions shall be judged and damned by whether they have fitted the +normal flesh and spirit. It is the test of political sanity to keep your +head. It is the test of artistic sanity to keep your hair on. + +Now the whole parable and purpose of these last pages, and indeed of all +these pages, is this: to assert that we must instantly begin all over +again, and begin at the other end. I begin with a little girl's hair. +That I know is a good thing at any rate. Whatever else is evil, the +pride of a good mother in the beauty of her daughter is good. It is one +of those adamantine tendernesses which are the touchstones of every age +and race. If other things are against it, other things must go down. If +landlords and laws and sciences are against it, landlords and laws and +sciences must go down. With the red hair of one she-urchin in the gutter +I will set fire to all modern civilization. Because a girl should have +long hair, she should have clean hair; because she should have clean +hair, she should not have an unclean home: because she should not have +an unclean home, she should have a free and leisured mother; because +she should have a free mother, she should not have an usurious landlord; +because there should not be an usurious landlord, there should be a +redistribution of property; because there should be a redistribution +of property, there shall be a revolution. That little urchin with the +gold-red hair, whom I have just watched toddling past my house, she +shall not be lopped and lamed and altered; her hair shall not be cut +short like a convict's; no, all the kingdoms of the earth shall be +hacked about and mutilated to suit her. She is the human and sacred +image; all around her the social fabric shall sway and split and fall; +the pillars of society shall be shaken, and the roofs of ages come +rushing down, and not one hair of her head shall be harmed. + + + + +THREE NOTES + + + + +I. ON FEMALE SUFFRAGE + +Not wishing to overload this long essay with too many parentheses, apart +from its thesis of progress and precedent, I append here three notes on +points of detail that may possibly be misunderstood. + +The first refers to the female controversy. It may seem to many that I +dismiss too curtly the contention that all women should have votes, +even if most women do not desire them. It is constantly said in this +connection that males have received the vote (the agricultural laborers +for instance) when only a minority of them were in favor of it. Mr. +Galsworthy, one of the few fine fighting intellects of our time, has +talked this language in the "Nation." Now, broadly, I have only to +answer here, as everywhere in this book, that history is not a toboggan +slide, but a road to be reconsidered and even retraced. If we really +forced General Elections upon free laborers who definitely disliked +General Elections, then it was a thoroughly undemocratic thing to do; +if we are democrats we ought to undo it. We want the will of the people, +not the votes of the people; and to give a man a vote against his will +is to make voting more valuable than the democracy it declares. + +But this analogy is false, for a plain and particular reason. Many +voteless women regard a vote as unwomanly. Nobody says that most +voteless men regarded a vote as unmanly. Nobody says that any voteless +men regarded it as unmanly. Not in the stillest hamlet or the most +stagnant fen could you find a yokel or a tramp who thought he lost his +sexual dignity by being part of a political mob. If he did not care +about a vote it was solely because he did not know about a vote; he did +not understand the word any better than Bimetallism. His opposition, if +it existed, was merely negative. His indifference to a vote was really +indifference. + +But the female sentiment against the franchise, whatever its size, is +positive. It is not negative; it is by no means indifferent. Such +women as are opposed to the change regard it (rightly or wrongly) as +unfeminine. That is, as insulting certain affirmative traditions to +which they are attached. You may think such a view prejudiced; but +I violently deny that any democrat has a right to override such +prejudices, if they are popular and positive. Thus he would not have +a right to make millions of Moslems vote with a cross if they had a +prejudice in favor of voting with a crescent. Unless this is admitted, +democracy is a farce we need scarcely keep up. If it is admitted, the +Suffragists have not merely to awaken an indifferent, but to convert a +hostile majority. + +***** + + + + +II. ON CLEANLINESS IN EDUCATION + +On re-reading my protest, which I honestly think much needed, against +our heathen idolatry of mere ablution, I see that it may possibly be +misread. I hasten to say that I think washing a most important thing to +be taught both to rich and poor. I do not attack the positive but the +relative position of soap. Let it be insisted on even as much as now; +but let other things be insisted on much more. I am even ready to admit +that cleanliness is next to godliness; but the moderns will not even +admit godliness to be next to cleanliness. In their talk about Thomas +Becket and such saints and heroes they make soap more important than +soul; they reject godliness whenever it is not cleanliness. If we resent +this about remote saints and heroes, we should resent it more about the +many saints and heroes of the slums, whose unclean hands cleanse the +world. Dirt is evil chiefly as evidence of sloth; but the fact remains +that the classes that wash most are those that work least. Concerning +these, the practical course is simple; soap should be urged on them and +advertised as what it is--a luxury. With regard to the poor also the +practical course is not hard to harmonize with our thesis. If we want +to give poor people soap we must set out deliberately to give them +luxuries. If we will not make them rich enough to be clean, then +emphatically we must do what we did with the saints. We must reverence +them for being dirty. + +***** + + + + +III. ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP + +I have not dealt with any details touching distributed ownership, or +its possibility in England, for the reason stated in the text. This book +deals with what is wrong, wrong in our root of argument and effort. This +wrong is, I say, that we will go forward because we dare not go back. +Thus the Socialist says that property is already concentrated into +Trusts and Stores: the only hope is to concentrate it further in the +State. I say the only hope is to unconcentrate it; that is, to repent +and return; the only step forward is the step backward. + +But in connection with this distribution I have laid myself open to +another potential mistake. In speaking of a sweeping redistribution, +I speak of decision in the aim, not necessarily of abruptness in the +means. It is not at all too late to restore an approximately rational +state of English possessions without any mere confiscation. A policy of +buying out landlordism, steadily adopted in England as it has already +been adopted in Ireland (notably in Mr. Wyndham's wise and fruitful +Act), would in a very short time release the lower end of the see-saw +and make the whole plank swing more level. The objection to this course +is not at all that it would not do, only that it will not be done. If +we leave things as they are, there will almost certainly be a crash of +confiscation. If we hesitate, we shall soon have to hurry. But if we +start doing it quickly we have still time to do it slowly. + +This point, however, is not essential to my book. All I have to urge +between these two boards is that I dislike the big Whiteley shop, and +that I dislike Socialism because it will (according to Socialists) be so +like that shop. It is its fulfilment, not its reversal. I do not object +to Socialism because it will revolutionize our commerce, but because it +will leave it so horribly the same. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's What's Wrong With The World, by G.K. Chesterton + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE WORLD *** + +***** This file should be named 1717.txt or 1717.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/1/1717/ + +Produced by Georges Allaire, and Martin Ward + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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