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diff --git a/old/wwwtw10.txt b/old/wwwtw10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ef2605b --- /dev/null +++ b/old/wwwtw10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6292 @@ +Project Gutenberg Etext What's Wrong With The World by Chesterton +#9 in our series by by G.K. Chesterton + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. We need your donations. + + +What's Wrong With The World + +by G.K. 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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 + +* * * + +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 cut. +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 modem 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 till +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 or 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, far 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. +Her 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 kelp 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 in 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 be cause 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 hare it at all. We must have commercial civilization; +therefore we must destroy democracy." I know that plutocrats hare +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 modem 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, modem 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 Gill-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 or 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 an 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 rneans 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 modem 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 Harms +worth 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 carne 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 +be 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 l 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 Etext What's Wrong With The World by Chesterton + |