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diff --git a/38514.txt b/38514.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7c8050f --- /dev/null +++ b/38514.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7634 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Unpopular Review, Number 19, by Various + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Unpopular Review, Number 19 + July-December 1918 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: January 7, 2012 [EBook #38514] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE UNPOPULAR REVIEW, NUMBER 19 *** + + + + +Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +The Unpopular Review + +SOME THINGS IN WHICH WE ARE TRYING TO DO OUR BIT + +In disarming Germany--and, after that's done, everybody else, except an +international police. + +In securing to all nationalities the right to choose their own +governments and affiliations. + +In making trade free. + +In securing the rights of both organized labor and the individual +workman, which involve on the one hand recognition of the Trade Unions, +and on the other, of the Open Shop. + +In cleaning up and bracing up literature and art. + +In modernizing and revivifying religion. + +Our humble efforts for these causes have so far been not only gratuitous +but costly. Therefore we feel justified in suggesting to the reader who +has not yet subscribed, the question whether out of the sums which he +devotes to those great objects, a trifle might not be spent as hopefully +as in any other way, in backing us up by subscription or advertisement. + + + 75 cents a number, $2.50 a year. Bound volumes $2. each, two a + year. (Canadian $2.70, Foreign $2.85.) Cloth covers for + volumes, 50 cents each. No one but the publishers is + authorized to collect money for the Review. Persons + subscribing through agents or dealers to whom they pay money, + do so at their own risk. + + For the present, subscribers remitting direct to the + publishers can have any back number or numbers additional to + those subscribed for, except No. 9, for an additional 50 cents + each (plus 5 cents a number for postage to Canada, 9 cents to + Foreign countries), _provided the whole amount is paid direct + to the publishers at the time of the subscription_. Number 9 + is out of print, and can be furnished only with complete sets, + which are sold at the rate of 75 cents a number. + + Owing to the Post-office department spending many millions + annually in carrying periodicals below cost, it has become so + loaded with them as to be obliged to send them as freight. + Therefore subscribers should not complain to the publishers of + non-receipt of matter under from one to two weeks, according + to distance. This subject is fully treated in No. 2 of THE + UNPOPULAR REVIEW, and in the Casserole of No. 3. + + In order that the new writers may stand an equal chance with + the old, and the old not unduly depend upon their reputations, + the names of writers are not given until the number following + the one in which their articles appear. + + HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY + 18 WEST 45th STREET + NEW YORK CITY + LONDON: WILLIAMS & NORGATE + + + + +CONTENTS OF THE PRECEDING NUMBER (18, for April-June, 1918) + + + WHY AMERICA LAGS, Alvin S. Johnson, Professor in Stanford + University. + ON GOING AFOOT, Charles S. Brooks. + THE PROBLEM OF ALSACE-LORRAINE, C. D. Hazen, Professor in + Columbia University. + VISCOUNT MORLEY, Paul Elmer More, Advisory Editor of _The + Nation_. + THE ADVENTURE OF THE TRAINING CAMP, George R. MacMinn, + Professor in University of California. + HALF SOLES, Herbert Wilson Smith. + PRICE FIXING BY GOVERNMENT, David McGregor Means. + TURKEY UNDER GERMAN TUTELAGE, Rufus W. Lane. + MACHINE AND MAN, Grant Showerman, Professor in University of + Wisconsin. + THE ATHLETIC HABIT OF MIND, Edward F. Hayward. + ARBITERS OF FATE, Virginia Clippinger. + FOOD CONSERVATION AND THE WOMAN, Mary Austin. + SOME REFLECTIONS ON REVOLUTION, T. Lothrop Stoddard. + THE JOB AND THE OUTSIDER, H. W. Boynton. + DURCHALTEN! Vernon L. Kellogg, Professor in Stanford + University. + A NEW PSYCHIC SENSITIVE, The Editor. + CORRESPONDENCE: "The Obscurity of Philosophers"--Our Tax + Troubles Again. + EN CASSEROLE: Concerning these Hasty War Marriages--Bergson + and the Yellow Peril--A Problematic Personality--"Clause" and + "Phrase." + + + + + +CONTENTS + +FOR JULY-SEPTEMBER, 1918 + + + NATURALIZATION IN THE SPOTLIGHT OF WAR 1 + WAR PROPHETS 19 + MY FRIEND THE JAY 33 + THE FLEMISH QUESTION 43 + IMMORTALITY IN LITERATURE 56 + CARLYLE AND KULTUR 66 + THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS 79 + THE CONDITIONS OF TOLERANCE 94 + THE NEO-PARNASSIANS 106 + HUMANISM AND DEMOCRACY 114 + THE MODERN MEDICINE MAN 127 + "THE PUREST OF HUMAN PLEASURES" 140 + WAR FOR EVOLUTION'S SAKE 146 + JOHN FISKE 160 + PLEASE EXPLAIN THESE DREAMS 190 + CORRESPONDENCE 201 + More Freedom from Hereditary Bias + EN CASSEROLE 202 + If We are Late--The Kindly and Modest German--What the Cat + Thinks of the Dog--A Hunting-Ground of Ignorance--Maximum + Price-Fixing in Ancient Rome--Darwin on His Own + Discoveries--Reflections of an Old-Maid Aunt--An Obscure + Source of Education--Heart-to-Heart Advertising--The Curse of + Fall Elections--Larrovitch--Our Index + + + + + The Unpopular Review + + NO. 19 JULY-SEPTEMBER VOL. X + + + + +NATURALIZATION IN THE SPOTLIGHT OF WAR + + +Amid the manifold uncertainties into which the war has plunged us, one +fact stands out with increased definiteness--that in our midst, and even +voting on our policies, of life or death,--we have had for many years +large numbers of people who at best give only a divided allegiance to +this country, and at worst are devoted and violent partisans of some +foreign state. The evidence of this truth has been of the most +diversified character, including the destruction of warehouses, docks, +and munitions factories, the burning of immense quantities of food, the +manufacture of ineffective torpedoes, the attempted blowing up of war +ships, and the dissemination of disease germs among children, soldiers, +and cattle. The uniform object of all these activities has been the +decrease of the war efficiency of the United States. The indications +seem conclusive that the perpetrators have been, not special German +spies or agents sent over here after our entry into the war or in +anticipation of it, but among the candidates for Mr. Gerard's five +thousand lampposts--persons who have lived in our midst for long +periods, and have been accepted as belonging to us. + +So suddenly overwhelming has been the demonstration since the war began, +and particularly since the United States entered the war, that there is +great danger that the impression will become established that the war +created the situation, that the danger is a war danger, and that the +problem will automatically solve itself when the war is over. Nothing +could be more prejudicial to a correct understanding of the situation, +and to a sound solution of the national problems which will confront us +when the war is over. The war has not created the danger from +alien-hearted members of the body politic, it has merely revealed it. +The situation is the creation of our traditional policy toward +foreigners, and the menace inherent in the situation existed, and was +discerned by many close students of political affairs, long before the +war was dreamed of. Although then the manifestations of this danger were +less spectacular, the danger itself was no less persistent, pervasive, +and insidious. When Carl Petersen is triumphantly inducted into +municipal office, not because he is a Republican or a Democrat, not +because he stands thus and so on important public questions, but because +he is a Swede; when Patrick O'Donnell is made detective sergeant, not +because he has the highest qualifications of all the men available, but +because he belongs to the same Irish lodge as the chief of police; when +Salvini, and Goldberg, and Trcka receive political preferment or +judicial favor because of the race from which they spring or the nation +from which they come, the essence of the peril is exactly the same as +when Hans Ahlberg tries to sink an American merchantman because its +cargo of wheat is destined for England instead of Germany. + +The peril in question is the peril of having in a democracy large groups +of voters actuated by racial and national affiliations other than those +of the country in which they live: in other words, large elements of +unassimilated foreigners. The assertion of this danger does not +necessarily carry the implication of any inferiority, mental, physical, +or moral, on the part of the foreigners. Difference without inferiority +is dangerous, difference coupled with inferiority is definitely +injurious. There is no need to reiterate the manifold evils which have +already developed, and which threaten to develop, from immigration of +the poor quality which our selective tests have not sufficed to prevent. +Undoubtedly the physical and mental average of our people, possibly also +the moral average, has already been definitely reduced, and the progress +of the working classes toward a reasonably high standard of living has +been checked, but the point which needs emphasis here is that difference +in itself is dangerous. The immigrant who is still a foreigner in +sympathy and character exerts a prejudicial influence upon the life of +the nation at every point of contact. It is impossible for him to +function as a normal unit in the social complex. If by naturalization he +acquires the right to participate in political affairs, the opportunity +for injury is multiplied. He cannot possibly approach public questions +as if his allegiance were wholly with the country of his residence. +These facts are particularly illustrated with us by the very large +element known as "birds of passage." The only way these evils can be +overcome is through genuine assimilation. + +Assimilation is a spiritual metamorphosis. It manifests itself in many +changes of dress, of language, of manners, and of conduct. But these +outward semblances are not assimilation. An alien is thoroughly +assimilated into a new society only when he becomes completely imbued +with its spiritual heritage. He must cease to think and feel and imagine +in ways determined by his old social environment, and must respond to +the stimuli of social contact in all ways exactly as if from the very +beginning he had developed under the influence of his adopted society. +And this involves, of course, the entire abandonment of any sympathy, +affection, or loyalty different from that which might be felt by any +native of his new home for the country of his origin or the people of +that country. Complete assimilation so defined may seem impossible to +the adult immigrant. This is almost universally the truth. The spiritual +impress of the environment of one's infancy, childhood, and youth, can +seldom be eradicated during the later years of life. Realizing this, +those who hate to admit that our immigrants are not being assimilated, +hasten to modify the definition. But this does not help the case, +because it does not alter the situation. + +In this respect, the war has already rendered a distinct service to this +country. No longer can we blind ourselves to the fact that national +unity does not exist. Professor William Graham Sumner used often to +remark that the United States had no just claim to the name of nation, +because of the presence of the negroes within its borders. Whether that +particular definition of "nation" is adopted or not, there can be no +doubt that real national homogeneity is wholly lacking, and that the +negro is by no means the only discordant element. In fact, in many ways +the immigration problem is more imminent and menacing than the negro +problem: for the negro problem is in a sense static, since it is not +aggravated by continuous accessions from without. We know what the negro +problem is, and can state it in terms which will be relatively +permanent. But the immigration problem presents constantly changing +aspects, not only because of its growing numerical proportions, but +because of the diversity of its elements, and the uncertainty as to its +future developments. + +One of the striking manifestations of this new recognition of our +dangerous situation is the change of front of those who are opposed to +the restriction of immigration. The stock answer to the warnings of the +restrictionists used to be the assertion that assimilation was taking +place with perfectly satisfactory rapidity and completeness. America was +the great "melting-pot" of the nations, out of which was to flow--was, +in fact, actually flowing--a new and better type of man, purged of all +slag and dross. As conclusive proofs of this claim, were advanced all +those superficial adaptations to new surroundings which the immigrant +and his children make with so much display and gusto. The assimilating +power of the American People was asserted to be unlimited, and if there +were any hitches in the process, they could all be remedied by +distribution. How suddenly has this elaborate erection of analogies, +metaphors, and pseudo-arguments been shown up for the flimsy camouflage +that it really was! Miss Grace Abbott, the avowed champion of the +immigrant, is forced to admit that "unity of religion, unity of race, +unity of ideals, do not exist in the United States. We are many +nationalities scattered across a continent." Miss Frances Kellor writes +a book on _Straight America_, in which she confesses the failure of +assimilation in the past, and turns to universal military service as a +last resort. Mrs. Mary Antin remains discreetly silent, and Mr. Isaac A. +Hourwich is less in the public eye than formerly. + + * * * * * + +But even yet the opponents of restriction are not willing to submit to +the logic of the situation, and instead of admitting the present need of +true restriction, come forward with a new substitute. This substitute +goes by the general name of "Americanization," and is urged upon us as +the appropriate and adequate remedy for the ills which none can longer +deny. The essence of this movement is that those who embody the true +American ideas and ideals--a group seldom named or definitely described, +but usually vaguely referred to as "we"--should bend all their energies +toward the assimilation of our foreign population, and should seek by +artificial and purposive expedients to accomplish that cultural +transmutation for which the natural and unconscious relationships of the +immigrant have proved wholly inadequate. And it must be freely granted +that many of the specific proposals of the "Americanizers" are +intrinsically meritorious and worthy of adoption. When it is suggested +that our foreign populations ought to be better housed, fed, clothed, +educated and amused, we all rise in assent--provided he will do his +share toward it; yet in self-defence we must do more than ours. When we +are urged to assist the immigrant to learn the English language and +familiarize himself with the political history and government of this +nation, our common sense gives ready response. The gross absurdity of +the movement lies in the assumption that any or all of these things, +good as they are, constitute assimilation, or will, in the natural +course of their accomplishment, produce assimilation. Who will undertake +to show that those persons of foreign birth who, in the last three and a +half years, have most flagrantly violated their obligations to the +country of their adoption, are on the whole less well educated, less +familiar with the English language, less prosperous, or even less versed +in American institutions, than those who have remained loyal at heart, +or at least in conduct? By all means let us have as small a proportion +of our people as possible who cannot read and write, who do not +understand the English language, who treat their women according to the +code of mediaeval semi-barbarism, and who are content with living +conditions something lower than what we consider proper for domestic +animals. But let us not imagine that those who have freed themselves +from these anomalies are therefore true Americans. + + * * * * * + +However, the crowning insult offered to the intelligence of the American +people by the Americanization movement is the soberly uttered and +persistently reiterated proposition that the best way to cure the evils +of a heterogeneous population is to naturalize the foreigners! In the +voluminous literature issued by the group of organizations directly +connected with this movement, the three injunctions to the foreigner +which appear with the greatest frequency and emphasis are: "Attend night +school," "Learn the English language," "Become an American citizen." As +already stated, no fault can be found with the first two admonitions in +themselves. But the third calls for close scrutiny, particularly as it +involves a fundamental question which is sure to rise to prominence when +the war is over. What benefits can be expected from our hasty +naturalization of aliens? What is the effect upon the aliens and upon +the country, of this urgent invitation to become citizens? Ought it to +be made easier or harder to acquire citizenship? + +The first step in the answer to the foregoing questions is the +examination of the real meaning of naturalization, and the process by +which it is achieved in the United States. Naturalization is the act of +conferring citizenship by a certain state upon a certain individual who +hitherto has been a citizen or subject of another state. Citizenship +implies rights and privileges, allegiance and obligations. The only +difference that may be looked for in an individual after naturalization +is that he now enjoys such rights and privileges, and owes such duties +and obligations as appertain to State B instead of State A. The act of +naturalization is not a developmental experience or process, but merely +the registry of a change of status. Any transformations in the character +of the individual which are regarded as essential to fitness for +citizenship in State B should have taken place before naturalization. +The act of naturalization will not produce them, nor is there adequate +ground for assuming that they will generally follow that act. The only +question which concerns the naturalizing official is whether the +candidate is already affiliated at heart with the new country instead of +the old, and the tests imposed upon the candidate are theoretically +designed to determine or guarantee that affiliation. If, therefore, the +foreigner was in any degree dangerous to his adopted country while an +alien, there is no reason to suppose that he will be materially less so +as a naturalized citizen. On the contrary, he is in a position to do +much greater harm, because of the new powers and opportunities which +naturalization confers, and because of the new confidence and trust +which he enjoys through his citizenship. + +The harm thus done by naturalized but unassimilated citizens may be +malicious and intentional or incidental. Many of the notorious election +scandals of the past have been made possible by large numbers of +foreigners who, having sought citizenship for narrowly selfish reasons, +have used it in unscrupulous ways. It is true that they have frequently +been abetted by native-born politicians; but the foreigners furnished +the material. The injury done involuntarily, however, by +well-intentioned voters who simply are not Americans, is even more +serious because more extensive and more insidious. These are the men who +have taken the oath of allegiance in all sincerity, supposing themselves +to be as much in tune with the spirit of American life as the occasion +called for. They have lived up to their lights as consistently, perhaps, +as the majority of native-born voters of the same class. But their +participation in public affairs has constantly been colored by racial or +national affiliations, by a foreign outlook on life, and by incapacity +to appreciate the true genius of the American nation. Their influence +has therefore been to neutralize or thwart the efforts of conscientious +intelligent Americans to grapple with national problems. An interesting +case in point is the naturalized German referred to in "A Family Letter" +in the December _Atlantic Monthly_, who refused to buy an inch of land +in this country, in order that he might be free at any time to return to +Germany. It has taken the emergency of a war to reveal to many +naturalized citizens how mistaken they were (this at least is the most +charitable interpretation) when they supposed that the old allegiance +had been thoroughly subordinated. + +It is a most extraordinary inversion of logic, this mental process by +which people persuade themselves that rushing our aliens through the +naturalization courts will better our national situation. The line of +argument seems to be something like this: A foreign resident of the +United States who desires to participate fully in the life of the +nation, and who is sincerely devoted to the best interests of the +country, will wish to become a citizen; therefore, every naturalized +citizen desires to participate fully in the life of the nation and is +sincerely devoted to its best interests. Or perhaps a slightly less +fantastic process of cerebration might be this: Naturalization is +conferred upon foreigners who have fitted themselves to be received into +citizenship; therefore, to accelerate the process of naturalization is +to reduce the number of foreigners unfitted for citizenship. + +If our naturalization laws were so strict, and the courts which +administer them so scrupulous, that no alien could acquire citizenship +except upon a convincing demonstration of his assimilation, it would do +less positive harm to urge aliens to become citizens, because they would +know, or would in time learn, that to do so they must bring themselves +into complete harmony with the spirit of the nation. It is therefore +essential to examine the prescribed qualifications for naturalization, +and see exactly what citizenship papers stand for. + + * * * * * + +The requirements are simply stated. The candidate must be a free white +person, or a person of African nativity or African descent. He must be +twenty-one years of age. He must have resided continuously five years in +the United States, and one year in the State in which he makes +application. He must have had his "first paper" at least two years, but +not more than seven years. He must be of good moral character, must be +attached to the principles of the Constitution of the United States, and +must be able to speak English (unless registered under the Homestead +Laws) and to sign his name. He must not be an anarchist or a polygamist. +He must renounce any hereditary title or order of nobility, and all +allegiance and fidelity to any foreign potentate, prince, city, or state +of which he is a subject. He must affirm his intention to reside +permanently in the United States, and must declare on oath that he will +"support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States +against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and bear true faith and +allegiance to the same." He must have as witnesses two citizens of the +United States who testify as to his residence in the United States, his +moral character, his attachment to the Constitution, and his general +fitness (in their opinion) to be admitted to citizenship. + +Now, assuming for the time being that the court officials apply the law +with the utmost possible rigor, what is there in the foregoing list of +requirements that guarantees that the newly made citizen is free from +any lingering attachment to any other country, and ready to enter +single-heartedly into the life of the nation, ready to share its burdens +and the responsibility of grappling with its problems, in a way at all +comparable to the native-born citizen? + +The qualifications in question fall into two groups: first, those which +are matters of demonstrable fact, and second those which are mere +asseverations of the candidate himself, or of his witnesses. Most +important in the first category is the period of residence. With the aid +of the records of the immigration bureau this fact can be definitely +established. But what of it? What does a residence of five years mean as +to assimilation? Under modern conditions almost nothing. This provision +was written into the law over a century ago, after heated debate, and +has never been changed, though in the middle of the nineteenth century +it was subjected to vigorous attacks by powerful parties who wished the +period raised to twenty-one years. In a simpler organization of society, +there was some meaning in the five-year requirement. When communities +were small, when foreigners were few, when the United States still +preserved some of the character of mediaeval society, of which it has +been said, "the essence ... was that, in every manor, every one knew +everything about his neighbor," it was scarcely possible for an alien to +reside five years in the country without becoming well known to a number +of native citizens in his community, and establishing many points of +contact with Americanizing influences. But in twentieth century America +conditions are completely reversed. It is not only possible, but in +innumerable cases the fact, that an alien may live, not only five nor +twenty-one, but forty or fifty years in the midst of an American +community without experiencing more than the most infinitesimal molding +from a definitely American environment. In fact, the majority of recent +immigrants do not really live in America at all, in anything more than a +strictly geographical sense, but in communities almost as foreign as +those from which they came. The mere physical fact of five years +residence of itself signifies absolutely nothing as to the fitness of +the alien to share in controlling the destiny of the nation. Let us +therefore examine the other requirements in this group. + +The candidate must be twenty-one years of age. This is reasonable and +desirable, but tells us nothing of the alien's fitness for citizenship. +The period of at least two years intervening between the issue of the +first and second papers was presumably designed to give opportunity for +investigation of the candidate's fitness, but rarely serves that purpose +now. There remain, then, three positive requirements of fact--race, and +ability to speak English and to sign one's name. The general question of +the greater desirability of one race over another, as material for +American citizenship, is too involved to be adequately treated in this +connection; clearly there is nothing here to indicate the fitness of the +individual. This leaves just two tests of real assimilation, viz., +ability to speak English and to sign one's name. These are assuredly +among the minimum requirements for citizenship, but they do not go very +far. + +Turning then to the qualifications which rest upon the statements of the +candidate and his witnesses, we find that he must be of good moral +character, and not a polygamist nor an anarchist. Assuming that the +truth is told, these requisites are beyond objection, but what do they +tell us of the fitness of the alien for American citizenship? To +renounce hereditary titles is a proper enough requirement, but one that +throws no light upon the candidacy of the majority of modern immigrants. +The statement of intention of permanent residence in this country is +meant as a guarantee of the good purposes of the alien in becoming a +citizen. But naturally this will be treated most lightly by those who +need it most, and it is a question whether a foreigner whose motives are +questionable is any more desirable in the country than out of it. +Anyway, the destination of good intentions is proverbial. Finally, then, +the alien must renounce all foreign allegiance and fidelity, and swear +to his attachment to the principles of the Constitution of this country, +and engage to support and defend it and the laws against all enemies. + +Remembering that, whatever may have been the efficacy of the provision +about witnesses in the early stages of our history, it has degenerated +into a sorry farce in modern times, when professional witnesses hang +about the courts, ready to swear to anything for anybody, what does the +whole naturalization procedure, as stipulated by law, amount to? +Practically to nothing more than the statement by the alien himself that +he wishes to transfer his allegiance from a foreign state to this, and +the swearing of fidelity. We virtually offer citizenship freely to any +alien who can meet certain arbitrary requirements as to residence, race, +etc., and is willing to take the oath of allegiance. The one tangible +thing is the oath, and the unreliability of the oath as a guarantee of +undivided allegiance has been demonstrated over and over again in past +decades, and most emphatically by the traitorous behavior of some of our +naturalized citizens since 1914. + +In practice, officials may or may not add to the requirements of the law +a brief examination designed to reveal the candidate's knowledge of the +workings of the federal and state governments. But even at best, these +questions and their appropriate answers occupy only half a dozen pages +or so in a convenient little textbook, which assures the alien that if +he "thoroughly familiarizes himself with the meaning of the questions +and with the answers thereto, he will be sufficiently qualified to be +admitted to citizenship," even though the order in which the questions +are asked should be varied a little. To cram up on this examination +could hardly occupy an intelligent high school boy a couple of hours. + +Since we thus offer citizenship almost for the asking to any white or +African alien who has resided here five years, it follows that the +issuance of naturalization papers does not guarantee any degree of +assimilation, and to urge aliens to become naturalized is in no sense +equivalent to urging them to fit themselves for the responsibilities of +citizenship. There is accordingly absolutely nothing to be said in +defense of the notion that urging naturalization upon our aliens will +improve our domestic situation. + + * * * * * + +But what of the opposite side of the case? Are there any positive +objections to the propaganda in question? The answer involves an +analysis of the probable effects upon the alien of such vigorous +encouragement, and the probable effects upon the United States of a +large increase of naturalized citizens. The latter problem practically +resolves itself into the query whether an unassimilated foreigner is +less dangerous as citizen than as an alien. This has already been +answered. Because of the added power, opportunity, and protection which +the naturalized citizen enjoys, and because of the greater demands he +may make upon the government, he is in a position to do much more harm, +maliciously or otherwise, as a citizen than as an alien. It is true that +federal naturalization does not give him the right to vote. The suffrage +is a matter of states' rights. Most states require federal +naturalization; some require additional qualifications, such as +literacy, while about fifteen allow even unnaturalized aliens to vote. + +In the absence of guarantees to the contrary, it is quite possible, not +only that the alien may not be fitted for citizenship, but that he may +desire citizenship for unworthy or ulterior purposes. Until stopped by a +recent law, it was a common practice for subjects of backward or +despotic foreign countries to come to the United States, remain five +years and take out their citizenship papers, with no intention of even +remaining longer, but with the definite purpose of returning to their +native land and there carrying on their various businesses in the +enjoyment of the greater facilities and protection given by the American +flag. + +Another common motive is to qualify for a better municipal or state job. +Among the documents issued by the Americanizing agencies is a poster, +bordered in red, white, and blue, and illustrated by a representation of +Uncle Sam, his right hand clasping that of a sturdy immigrant, while his +left points invitingly to the judge who is issuing naturalization +papers. After the customary plea to become a citizen, the legend +continues: "It means a better opportunity and a better home in America. +It means a better job. It means a better chance for your children. It +means a better America." (Why not add, "It means a chance to turn a few +honest dollars on election day?") If these statements were true, the +case would be bad enough, as, with the exception of the last, they +appeal to a decidedly low motive for seeking citizenship. But they are +not true. The newly made citizen in time finds out that they are not +true, and then he feels cheated. When the better home and better job +fail to materialize, any budding sense of obligation to his new country +receives a sad shock. + +Urging citizenship upon the alien must inevitably produce an attitude of +mind exactly the opposite from that which would make him a useful +citizen. That which comes easily is lightly regarded, and that which is +presented in such a way that the taking of it appears a favor, is not +looked upon with great reverence or respect. In this respect much of the +literature of the Americanization movement is most pernicious. Moreover +the emphasis is all on the personal advantages of citizenship, not at +all on its duties or responsibilities. + +In this particular our forefathers were much wiser than we. They +recognized that American citizenship was a thing of great value, to be +regarded as a boon, procurable only by earnest endeavor and true merit. +They could not have comprehended how the liberties for which the +Revolutionary heroes fought and bled could ever be so degraded as to be +hawked about the market place. We would do well to follow their example. +We esteem the United States most highly of all nations. We believe that +it owes a peculiar debt to posterity, that those entrusted with its +career should be imbued with the most profound respect for it, the +deepest sense of their responsibility to it, and the most thorough +equipment for the adequate performance of their duties with respect to +it. To participate in the control of the destiny of this great democracy +is an undertaking of the gravest sort; and five years residence and the +other requirements of the naturalization law are no more a fit +preparation for it than five years of service in the office of a +corporation and familiarity with the office routine fit the office boy +to become a director. + +Any propaganda directed toward our aliens should therefore take the form +of urging, even to the point of insistence, that they _fit themselves_ +for citizenship. This will make them more useful and less troublesome +residents, whether they are eventually naturalized or not. But +citizenship itself should be held aloft, portrayed to them as a +priceless boon, to be won only as a reward of long and patient effort, +and a complete demonstration of their fitness. If this results in +discouraging some foreigners from coming to this country, no harm will +be done. If it results in increasing the proportion of residents who do +not share in the government, and if this is in itself an evil, the +remedy is to be applied at the ports of entry, and not in the +naturalization courts. + +It is emphatically true that changes in our naturalization procedure are +needed. But they should be in the direction of greater strictness, not +of greater laxity. It is not the purpose of this paper to discuss in +detail what these changes should be, but to emphasize the necessity that +in general the requirements should be more inclusive, more positive, +more significant of the assimilation and fitness of the candidate, more +determinative of his good intentions in presenting his petition. One +change that is certainly called for is the modification of state laws, +by federal coercion if necessary, so as to make it impossible for aliens +to vote. As social organization becomes more complex, the influence of +government upon the life of the individual becomes more extensive, more +intimate, and more vital; and as the sphere of government expands, the +responsibilities of the electorate become heavier and more intricate. +When peace is restored, and the period of reconstruction commences, the +demands upon the intelligence, fidelity, and conscience of the voter +will be vastly greater than ever before in the world's history. It is +essential to the maintenance of democracy and the progress of humanity +that the United States face this critical period with the most efficient +and harmonious electorate possible. + +Does emphasis upon national homogeneity and solidarity seem too +reactionary in this crisis of the world's history? Does it appear that +laying stress on the differentiation of nationalities within our borders +will prevent the United States from playing its appropriate part in the +coming period of reconstruction, which, we are told, must involve +recognition of the principle of internationality? A moment's thought +will make it clear that this position is a mistaken one when the war is +over. Nations will still exist, nor will they pass out of existence with +the progress of any revolutionary international adjustments that may be +made. Whatever action is taken in the direction of a world federation +must be made by self-conscious units, and must rest upon the basis of +well-knit nations. The recent unusually sound and suggestive piece of +sociological thinking, _Community_, by Mr. R. M. Maciver, contains a +most timely chapter on "Co-ordination of Community." In the course of +his study of the way the principle of association and common action is +extended, the author observes: + + Whether the ideal of nationality grows stronger or weaker in + the future, the fact of nationality ... will always remain.... + Understanding the service and limits of nationality, we are + now in a position to consider how nations both are and can be + co-ordinated within the wider community which they build. Such + co-ordination can be directly achieved only through the State, + which is the primary association corresponding to the + nation.... It is true that the limits of nations and States + are still far from being coincident, but the great historical + movements have been leading towards that ideal. In any case it + must be the co-operation of States, whether they do or do not + coincide with nations, which will bring order into the still + existing chaos of the nations. + +In the period following the war, the necessity will be greater than ever +before that the government of the United States shall be able to deal +with intricate and far reaching problems with intelligence, unity, +harmony, and force. This can be done only through an electorate that is +intelligent, homogeneous, sympathetic, and free from divisions into +antagonistic or incongruous groups. + +An extreme but significant illustration of this principle is furnished +by the present situation in Russia. If a general truce were declared +tomorrow, and the nations sought to get together to discuss a permanent +basis of settlement, one of the greatest obstacles in the way of success +would be Russia, simply for the reason that at present there is no +Russia in the sense that a nation must exist to participate in such a +council as that supposed. There is no danger that the United States will +fall into any such state of disruption as Russia. But there is a +distinct danger that it may suffer from a lesser degree of the same +malady, the existence of discordant elements in the body politic, and +consequent inability to exert her maximum force in attacking the +problems of reconstruction. + +The period following the war will be a time for new things. Easier than +ever before will it be to shake off the trammels of tradition and +precedent, and inaugurate approved though novel political policies. +Foremost among the matters which the United States will be called upon +to see to will be the reconsideration of our entire attitude toward +aliens, and their naturalization. The time to prepare for that +reconsideration is now. + + + + +WAR PROPHETS + + +The war is generating prophets as the Nile generated frogs under the +mandate of Moses, and there is a similarity in the speech of both +products. The prophets are too cautious to risk their reputation in +predicting the events of the war; their forecasts relate to the sort of +a world we shall find ourselves in after peace returns. But even this +measure of prediction is a by-product of the soothsayers who, whether +their lips have been touched with a coal from off the altar, or not, +certainly wield the pen of the ready writer. The main industry of the +busy prophets is to expound to us the meaning of the war, and to +disclose to us those causes of the war which we should never have +discovered for ourselves. + +The ordinary uninspired man feels when he has read the diplomatic +correspondence of a couple of weeks at the end of July and the beginning +of August, 1914, that he knows fairly well what were the immediate +causes of the war, and where the responsibility lies. If he carries his +reading back as far as the annexation of Bosnia in 1908, he is satisfied +that he has a pretty comprehensive view of the forces that precipitated +the war. And if he has read pretty abundant selections from the +Pan-German literature and the panegyrics on war--such a literature as no +branch of the human race, Christian or pagan, ever produced before--he +thinks he understands how it was possible to plunge the German nation +into this attack on the world. + +But all this is merely a matter of reading and reflection. Any one can +reach such conclusions. The prophet must reach some different conclusion +in order to sustain his claim to inspiration: + + If this young man expresses himself in terms too deep for me, + Why, what a very singularly deep young man this deep young man must be. + +The prophet has got to attribute the war to causes that would not have +occurred to the common mortal, and see in it meanings that ordinary eyes +cannot trace, or abdicate his tripod. + +It is equally unreasonable and equally immoral to say that the war +proves that Christianity is a failure, and to say that it proves +Christianity has never been tried. Because if either of these hypotheses +be correct, one set of belligerents is as deep in the mud as the other +is in the mire, and there is no personal culpability for this war, and +no national culpability either. We are all guilty of not being +Christians, or all unfortunate in having grown up in ignorance of +revelation, and beyond that there is no blame for the war. + +If this war is not the result of certain perfectly well known +individuals using their own nations for an attack on others, but is the +result of impersonal enmity between Teuton and Slav, then no person or +persons are responsible for the war, there is no more blame on one side +than there is on the other, and the moral element is as lacking as it is +in an encounter between the inhabitants of the jungle. It is a curious +thing that the prophet assumes the role of a moral censor, and devotes +much the greater part of his energies to confusing the moral issues, to +obliterating moral distinctions, and to blunting the ethical sense. + +To condemn all war, which is a congenial theme for a moralist, is rank +immorality; for it puts the nation that attacks, and the nation that +repels the invader, in the same category, and refuses to make any +distinction between the burglar, the householder who resists him, and +the policeman who overpowers him and drags him away to jail. + +The prophet readily drops his eye on armies, and at once announces that +it is their existence that accounts for the war. If there were no armies +there would possibly be no wars, but we have shown more than once that +armies can be pretty rapidly extemporized. Besides, this, too, confuses +the moral issues. All nations have armies, and if America and England +had relatively small armies before this war, they had the largest navy +in the world and the navy which ranked second or third. The highwayman +carries a pistol, and so does the paymaster who is obliged to transport +a treasure chest. If the possession of a revolver was the cause of the +homicide that occurred, the guilt lies equally on the souls of both. + +We are told that no truth is more certain than that "if you create a +vast fighting machine it will sooner or later compel you to fight, +whether you want to fight or not"--which is about as dubious a truth as +was ever paraded as an axiom--that "these vast machines, whether armies +or engines of war, are made to be used," and that "the military machine +will overpower the minds which have called it into being." Then their +responsibility is not for the ensuing war, but for carelessness in +leaving a war weapon around. But if these vast military machines were +made to be used, then why complicate the question of responsibility by +representing the machine as overpowering its careless but really +peaceful creator, and compelling him to fight whether he wants to fight +or not? + +If the Kaiser and the Crown Prince and the General Staff and the +military caste and the Pan-German element created the army to use +against other nations, in accordance with Bernhardi's alternative of +"world domination or decline," and if all the professors and preachers +and pamphleteers had taught the people that war was a high, holy, and +beautiful thing, and--more particularly--that Germany could beat any +other nation in a few weeks, and the armies would return loaded down +with spoils and indemnities and title deeds to new provinces, and that +"our good old German God" had specially deputized the German nation to +overpower all the rest of the world, make German the universal tongue, +and the primitive moral code of Germany the ethical law of the world, +then we know precisely who is guilty of this war. But if the German army +compelled the German Government to back Austria in an attack on Servia, +and on its own account to invade Russia, Belgium and France, we are very +much at sea about the place where the moral burden is to be laid. + + * * * * * + +The prophet is particularly prone to find the causes of the war in a +material civilization, in our existing industrial system, and especially +in greed. The prophet and the political orator are equally stern in +their denunciation of greed. At a time when prophets were so accustomed +to physical exercise that they could run ahead of Ahab's chariot, and in +the absence of normal sources of supply, were fed by the ravens, their +indignation at greed, their contempt for commerce, and their superiority +to a material civilization, was free from incongruity. The modern +prophet does not live on locusts and wild honey, nor is his wardrobe +limited to a belt of camel's hair. His uncompromising denunciation of +his age is somewhat impaired by the obvious fact that he has "some of +the pork." + +The deliverances of the prophet on this class of themes are rather +tiresome in their iteration, and distinctly irritating in their oblivion +to history. There is no civilization that does not rest upon the +possession and acquisition of property; there is no clime or time in +which men have not worked for their living, and sought the means of +buying the things which their tastes, coarse or refined, craved, in +which there have not been rich and poor, and in which it has not been +much pleasanter to be the former than the latter. The earliest social +satirist, like the latest, berated the accursed greed for gold, and +castigated his contemporaries for their love of luxury and their eager +pursuit of money. It would seem as if the prophet might recognize that +it is a very old sermon he is preaching, and familiarize himself with +the extraordinary age of those evils of his own day which he feels it +his mission to chastise. + +What distinguishes this age from others, and our own country from others +is that here and now wealth is acquired more easily and more rapidly +than at other times and places. This being the very obvious fact, it +shakes our confidence in the whole fraternity of prophets that they +should, one and all, attribute the larger fortunes made here and now to +the greater love of money, or its more assiduous pursuit. The rich man +is more successful in amassing wealth than the poor man, but he is not +more mercenary. Two men try equally hard to get rich; one succeeds, and +the other fails; the man who failed is quite likely to be more eager for +money than the man who succeeded. + +The industrial system never meets the approval of the prophet. An +occasional prediction is that the war will destroy our deplorable +economic life, in which every man is trying to get as high wages or as +large a salary or as ample profits as possible, and will usher in the +golden age, in which such base considerations as pecuniary compensation +will have a very secondary place in every man's mind. Before this war +came, the most eminent educator in America assured the workingman that +he ought to work for the pleasure of it, and not for the contents of his +Saturday night envelope. Such admonitions have occurred, in one form or +another, in the literature of the sages, for centuries and millenniums. +But it was never evolved by a man who was digging postholes, and a noble +ambition to mine the very best coal cannot carry a miner far when he is +obliged to cut such coal as there is in front of him. + +It is barely possible that by devoting some weeks to the task, a man +could produce a pair of shoes notably superior to the ordinary run of +shoes, and his professional pride as a devout follower of St. Crispin +might take keen delight in the work of his hands; in the fact that he +had made the very finest pair of shoes in the world. But, after all, he +needs food, and possibly he is obliged to pay rent, and he ought to have +a wife to make comfortable, and children to send to school in +presentable form: so something besides pride in his work is necessary. +If he is to be adequately compensated for his labor on that pair of +shoes, their price will be such that only the rich--if the rich are to +be permitted to survive--can buy them; and if such shoemakers prevail, +the greater part of mankind will go barefoot. For does not the prophet +who has poured out the phials of his wrath upon an economic system that +makes quantity and cheapness, instead of real excellence, its ideals, +recognize that the purpose of quantity is to supply the wants of a +greater number of human beings, and the purpose of cheapness is to +enable human beings to supply more of their needs? For certainly if the +shoes which are the very best shoes in the whole world, and whose +excellence affords the keenest satisfaction to the soul of the +shoemaker, cost $50, then it is quite certain that the customer who +carries them home will go without many other things that he ought to +have. If the shoes are made by machinery and sold for $3, they may not +be quite so beautiful or durable as the artistic product of hand labor, +regardless of time, and yet be in the interest of the customer and the +community. + +After the prophet has got through with his ravings at the present +industrial system, the fact will remain that there are a good many +millions of us on this earth, and that we have got to earn our livings, +and that the agriculture and industries of the Middle Ages would not +keep all of us alive. In addition to which, we may also venture to +suggest that the people of the Middle Ages were not quite as honest as +we are, and were not less particular about getting a financial return +for their exertions. The modern industrial system was not created by +capital for capitalists; it is the result of the efforts of the +community as a whole to supply the needs of all of its members, and to +afford employment to all of them. Hunting and fishing are pleasanter +than most of the industries, but 100,000,000 of civilized people are +living and are equipped with intellectual and moral accessories, where a +quarter of a million Indians once roamed. And although they toiled not +(systematically), neither did they spin (much), they were not happier or +better than we are. + +One prophet of more discrimination than most of his clan admits that the +industry and thrift which produce capital are valuable qualities +morally, but he is still confident that the great wealth of the modern +world is thoroughly demoralizing. Whence it appears that the safe course +for the world to pursue is to work hard and save carefully and burn up +its accumulations every year in order to keep itself poor but pious, +like the parents of the subjects of a style of religious biography now +quite out of date. Of course this prophet would prefer the wiser course +of not earning enough to afford wealth to accumulate. If we would only +adopt his system and work for the pleasure of working, and for the +satisfaction of producing absolutely perfect products of our own skill, +there would be no danger of our sinking our souls into perdition with a +load of gold. Noah and his sons appear to have built the Ark by the +processes of domestic industry, in distinction from the accursed factory +or capitalist system. How their support was provided for during the 120 +years has not been recorded, but if one man undertook to build a +locomotive, instead of merely making repetitions of a single part, it +would be necessary to make arrangement for this. And when we are trying +to replace the vessels destroyed by German submarines, it seems +necessary to use more rapid methods of construction than sufficed before +the Deluge. + +Will some prophet please tell us how poor we must be in order to be +virtuous and pacific, and how virtuous and pacific the world was before +it became prosperous? Were there no wars before the Twentieth Century? +The extent of this war is scarcely a result of the world's opulence, +when Sir Edward, now Viscount, Grey, offered to keep England out of it +if Germany would limit the war to the Balkans or to Russia. The war has +involved most of the world because Germany began it by attacking France +and Belgium, and followed that up by attacking Americans on the high +seas, where they had as much right to be as at home. + +This argument that the war is the result of wealth is immoral, because +it makes the guilt of America and England even greater than that of +Germany (for they are richer); and because it is the argument of the +communist--that theft is not wrong, because it is the inevitable +consequence of private property: if no one has any right to anything, +then no one will steal anything. + + * * * * * + +Nothing holds the attention of the prophet better than the idea that the +war is the result of commercial competition. This also is an invention +of the devil to exculpate Germany. All of us are in business for gain; +we are actuated by greed; we are making cotton cloth to cover Africans +for the profit that we can get out of it; we ought to think only of +clothing the naked, and if we would only give the cotton cloth to the +Hottentots without material return, we should have the proud +satisfaction of seeing them draped in chintzes, and we should be safe +from that wealth which is so certain to make us wicked. On those terms +there would be very little competition in supplying the Hottentots, and +no danger whatever that any nation would fight us to gain that portion +of the export trade. + +But the "peaceful penetration" of all other countries by German industry +and commerce had been going on for thirty years before the war. England +had stamped "Made in Germany" upon the imports from that country under +the delusion that people would not buy them if they knew they were not +made by domestic industry, but the only result was to advertise German +business. Shipping interests at Antwerp, factories in France, hotels in +Switzerland, iron works in Italy, commercial establishments in China and +South America, the trade and transportation of Turkey, passed into +German hands, and no nation offered armed resistance. No less a witness +than Prince von Buelow testifies that England could easily have stopped +German naval expansion, but did not do so. German commercial expansion +did not cause the war, unless Great Britain, the principal sufferer from +German business success, attacked Germany in 1914. And this is the +German official explanation of the war supplied for domestic +consumption. And yet it is repudiated by the highest witness who could +be put upon the stand. No less a person than Prince Lichnowsky, who was +German Ambassador in London at the outbreak of the war, traces the war +to Austrian projects in the Balkans, with the "blank check" of Germany, +together with irritation in Russia caused by Germany's own efforts to +establish a dominating influence in Constantinople. This leaves nothing +of the story invented for the German people, and propagated by the +university professors, that England attacked Germany because the latter +was getting its trade away from it. And this falsehood, invented to +shield the guilty nation, has a special fascination for the prophets. It +looks so much like taking a broad and general and impartial view of the +world. Satan is very liberal; it pains him to have guilt attached to any +individual. It is more in accord with his philosophic and humane ideas +to regard crime as a product of social conditions, and war as the result +of trade competition. + + * * * * * + +But the guilt of Germany is betrayed by the selection by Germans of Sir +Edward Grey as the especial subject of hatred among all the hated +British race. Nothing but the consciousness of guilt can explain the +extraordinary vituperation of the British Minister who did in 1914 +precisely what he was highly praised for doing in 1913 in a speech in +the Reichstag by Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg. That was the speech +calling on the Reichstag for an increase of about 136,000 men in the +German army, an addition of $50,000,000 a year to the military budget, +and a non-recurring capital tax for military purposes of $250,000,000. +The difference between 1913 and 1914 was not in anything that Sir Edward +did, but in the fact that before the army increase of 1913 Germany was +not prepared for war and supported Sir Edward's efforts for peace. After +that increase Germany was prepared for war, and would do nothing to +support Sir Edward's efforts to avert war, and the coarse abuse of Sir +Edward is a "smoke box" designed to conceal the changed position of +Germany. + +Dr. von Jagow, Foreign Minister from 1913 to 1916, has been put forward +to reply to Prince Lichnowsky, but agrees with the Prince that England +did not desire war, and that Sir Edward Grey, who is described by a +German divine as having "a cancerous tumor in place of a heart," acted +in good faith in his efforts to find a peaceful solution for the +difficulty. One American writer finds the origin of the war in the rival +interests of Germany and England in the Bagdad Railway, but Dr. Paul +Rohrbach, now or recently of the German Colonial Office, has admitted +that just before the war opened the interests of the two nations were +settled by a treaty, in which England made surprisingly large +concessions. This is also stated by Prince Lichnowsky. So that the +testimony of three particularly eminent Germans destroys the fiction +that England attacked Germany because it was jealous of German +commercial expansion. + +The fundamental trouble with the whole race of war prophets is that they +think the war is a new thing, and they feel called upon to tell the rest +of us what to make of it. War is about the oldest human industry. This +is the greatest of all wars, but that does not alter the meaning of war. +Nor does it necessarily alter the results of war. While it is the +greatest of all wars, it is not yet a long war, and in proportion to the +population it is not certain that it is greater than other wars. It is +not even certain that in proportion to the men involved, it is more +bloody than other wars. We have no means of getting at the figures +except in the loosest way, because the several Governments do not tell +how many men they have at any given time or place, or the casualties in +any individual engagements. But some approximations have been made, and +they do not indicate that the great war is decidedly more bloody, in +proportion to the armies, than other wars have been. Our Civil War +lasted full four years; the War of Independence occupied seven. Before +that was the seven years of the French and Indian war, and one war is +known as the Thirty Years War. From the beginning of the French +Revolution to Waterloo was more than quarter of a century, and at the +end of that period another Bourbon was on the throne of France. Our +Civil War made nearly, if not quite, as heavy a draft upon the +population as the present war has made upon the population of England or +France. + +The moral and religious questions involved in war are not notably +different in the greatest of all wars and in wars which are not quite so +great. Most of them are involved in the ordinary administration of the +criminal law by which an orderly community protects itself from its +predatory members. Doubtless there will be social and political results +from this war, but if other wars have not created a new heaven and a new +earth, why should this one? The prediction that this war will produce +great changes in the direction of democracy and of applied religion are +probably well founded. But the war will act only as an accelerator. +These changes have been going on for a long time; the movements for +fifteen or twenty years before the war opened were very evident. Woman +suffrage and prohibition seem impending, but they are not the products +of this war: they had made great progress between 1900 and 1914. + +None of the prophets betray any knowledge of history, or see things in +any perspective. The great war is the first great cataclysm that they +seem to be aware of, and they are rushing to and fro, like the +Chaldeans, to find explanations of it, and to impress the public by +their ability to forecast its consequences. + +But when peace comes it will leave us face to face with greed and +materialism, and an industrial system in which some men prosper and +others do not, and an obligation to labor from which no important +fraction of mankind can escape, and wants will multiply as fast as the +means of satisfying them increase, and for the greater part of us the +weekly pay envelope and the possibilities of a competence, and the +demand from the other side of the world for the grain we produce, will +continue to be our principal incentives to work. + +Progress, intellectual and moral as well as material, has been made in +the past, but the world has not taken great leaps ahead as the result of +great wars, and still less has it changed the direction of its movement +as the result of wars. The one thing of which the vastness of this war +gives us a fairly good assurance, is that no nation will again be +trained from infancy to old age to regard war as a high, holy and +beautiful process of attaining its manifest destiny to rule the rest of +mankind. For generations no statesman will purpose a war, and no monarch +will again have the power of hurling his people at neighboring nations. +If Germany fails in its present effort, neither Germany nor any other +nation will repeat the experiment of 1914. + +But the prophets will have no chance to point with pride to the great +religious, moral and economic revolutions whose advent they pointed out +amid the clash of arms. We have found our soul, the prophets love to +tell us. They disagree on some things, and those who have no revelation +upbraid the others for not giving us a spiritual interpretation and +getting a vision of the future from the carnage of the war, as the +augurs pretended to see the future when they were only looking at the +viscera of their victims. But all of them agree that we have found our +soul. When did we lose our soul? When Mr. Roosevelt was President he was +very apprehensive that we had lost our "fighting edge." Is any one +worried now about our lack of a "fighting edge?" Possibly our soul was +never lost. We betrayed some evidences of possessing a soul very early +in the war. + +The charge that we had lost our soul, or, at least, had mislaid it, +rests on two facts. One is that we are prosperous. That fatal +alliteration of poverty and piety has a fearful hold upon the soul of +the prophet. The other is that we did not go to the rescue of Belgium +when it was invaded. But Mr. Roosevelt himself did not realize that we +ought to have gone to the rescue of Belgium, till March, 1916. He is on +record in September, 1914, as satisfied with the course of the +Administration, and convinced that we should not have entered the war +when our own interests were not touched. And it ought to be forgiven a +statesman, if he is very reluctant to plunge his country into war, and +declines to put his Government in the position of a knight errant, +wandering around the world in search of maidens to be delivered from +donjons. And furthermore, as the Monroe Doctrine is the corner stone of +our foreign policy, we were properly slow about intruding into a +European quarrel, until it became unmistakable that it was much more +than a European quarrel--that it was an attack upon civilization and +popular Government. We were also justified in assuming that Great +Britain, France and Russia, three of the five guarantors of Belgian +neutrality, were capable of punishing the two guarantors who violated +their pledge, several times renewed by Germany, even up to the day +before Germany invaded the country it had pledged its honor to protect. + +But our soul, whether it was lost or not, is now in our possession. Let +us be thankful that the prophets recognize that encouraging fact. And if +our mind is also in our possession, we may look forward to a world not +entirely different from the one we have known, but unquestionably less +likely to play with firearms, and quite certainly one in which the +common people will have much greater control of their political +destinies, and one in which no War Lord, with chatter about shining +swords and shining armor and mailed fists, will be able to hurl his +nation against the others in a desperate effort to establish for himself +an overlordship of the world. Nor will any nation ever be likely to +rhapsodize over carnage, and feed its sordid soul with thoughts of the +territories and indemnities to be got by war, or intoxicate itself with +the delusion that it is a race of supermen charged by the Almighty with +the duty of forcing its harsh language and its brutal habits upon all +other nations. + + + + +MY FRIEND THE JAY + + +"Every man who comes into the world has need of friends." What Ursa +Major thus profoundly observes of mankind, from China to Peru, might be +applied with special force to the blue jay, at least to those jays that +come into the world. Of the rest "deponent saith not." For by common +consent the blue jay is a rascal, nay even a villain; and to deepen his +turpitude to an infinity of wickedness, I have heard one uncherished +female with a disposition slightly acid liken him to a Man. Indeed, were +some of his detractors to be believed, there is scarcely a crime in the +whole avian calendar that has not been meditated upon and hatched in his +nest. + +It is true that there are people of such impinging personality that +merely mild dislike with respect to them seems impossible. The reactions +they produce are violent. Their admirers, when they have any, pursue +their loyalty to an _O Altitudo!_ their enemies (and such are usually +legion) make of their names a hissing, and spit them out of the mouth. +To particularize, I might refer to a gentleman who was vigorously active +in the political unpleasantness of 1912. His friends saw in him a +Godefroy, come to lead the politically pure against the hordes of the +standpat infidels; his enemies, when they had wiped the froth from their +lips, turned the vocabulary of prayer to evil uses, and accused him of +being in league with the devil. + +But these are merely individuals. The cases in which an indictment is +drawn up against a whole people are comparatively rare,--the Goths, +perhaps, the Turks, and the bloodthirsty Belgians, to bring it down to +modern times, will serve as examples. Just such an inclusive indictment +is brought against the jay. "I fear," says one amiable and authoritative +writer on bird life, "that the blue jay is a reprobate"; and in this +opinion most authorities concur. Are there not, then, three righteous +jays in all Israel? No, say his judges. Peradventure one? "Only in the +museums of natural history," they inexorably answer. All living jays are +impudent, profane, mischievous, cannibalistic, "the hul cussed tribe of +'em," as one exasperated gardener wrathfully declared to me. + +Dear, dear! This is a terrible situation. Like Fuzzy Wuzzy, the poor +blue jay "'asn't got no papers of his own." Nor can he follow the +example of those benevolent corporations whose judicious investments in +advertising space temper the unshorn lamb to receive the shears in a +docile mood, and at the same time protect them from too close scrutiny +by the newspapers. He must bear the slings and air-guns of outrageous +boyhood with scarcely a voice raised in his behalf. It seems hardly +fair. + +It is true that the jay is not delicate in his appetite. He cannot, like +the ethereal maiden whom Burton mentions, subsist for months on the +smell of a rose. I knew one old gentleman, to be sure, who secured a +brief respite from care, and achieved a state of mild hilarity, by +applying his nose to the mouth of a whiskey jug. But the jay enjoys not +these olfactive refections. He needs more substantial food. He is +omnivorous; and out of that important characteristic springs his most +reprehensible trait: he eats little birds. + +One morning last summer I got up rather earlier than usual to transplant +some asters before the sun should come out hot. It was a calm, +breezeless morning, with scarcely a sound to disturb the cool quietude, +except the song of a robin on the top of the old maple. Heaven be +praised! we have no trolley cars in our village, and no factories. +Suddenly there broke out in the alley, the wildest commotion imaginable. +It sounded as though the sparrows from five counties were there, and had +eaten of the insane root. The air was filled with shrill cries, chirps, +and excited chatterings. I rushed to the fence, my fingers all mud, and +looked over. In the midst of a flock of sparrows forty or more in +number, all hopping about distractedly but none daring to attack him, +stood a big blue jay with his crest militantly erect. From time to time +he pecked at something, but what that something was, like Peterkin, I +could not well make out. At every stroke of his strong black beak the +cries of the sparrows shrilled louder; whenever he paused and looked +around in his truculent contempt, their frenzied crescendos somewhat +abated. + +Curious, I drew nearer and discovered that the object of his unpleasant +attention was a young sparrow, a mere fledgeling, scarcely old enough to +be out of the nest. He was murderously pecking it in the eye. The wee +helpless thing fluttered weakly in its agony and cheeped piteously. I +grabbed up an empty fruit jar that had protected a rose cutting from the +blasts of winter, and hurled it at the jay. He flew screaming to a sour +cherry tree a short distance away, from which safe vantage point he +cursed me with every oath and revilement in his scandalous vocabulary. +The little sparrow I put out of its misery. + +As I went back to my asters, I could not help reflecting on the scene I +had witnessed. I seemed to see in it a small counterpart of what had +happened in Europe. Here was little Servia in the person of this young +sparrow--something of a nuisance, perhaps, yet comparatively +defenseless. And here in the arrogant, domineering jay, relentless and +powerful, was Austria. A similitude might likewise be made out for +Belgium and Germany. And where, I wondered, did my own country come in? +With almost sinister significance a sleek bronze grackle, plump and +round, his eyes standing out with fatness, emerged leisurely from among +the currant bushes and gobbled up a worm. I had been vaguely aware of +his presence from the first, and now as I noted his well-fed +complacency, and remembered that he had been foraging around utterly +oblivious of the little tragedy being enacted in the alley, I lost my +patience and let fly a good-sized clod. + +But jays are jays, and it were unfair to demand from them a standard of +conduct that even human beings, with all their centuries of moral +education, find it hard to apply. As a matter of fact the only jay I +ever caught red-beaked at such murderous work was the one in the alley, +and my field of observation has extended clear from the coast of Maine +part way to the Rocky Mountains. Yet if a man from Mars were to pick up +a bundle of newspapers, and could make out the strange little characters +imprinted thereon, he would probably infer that murder was a trade +common enough among human beings, particularly to-day. He would see it +as a highly organized and severely technical activity carried on by +whole nations under the direction of their respective governments. It +must be said, however, that although the sensitive nerve of national +honor seems oftenest to reside in the national belly, nations rarely +murder with the object of eating their victims. And those jays that +murder are censurable chiefly in this: they have learned so little from +humanity's civilized forbearance. + + * * * * * + +To tell the truth, the jay is not the fiercely courageous and militantly +aggressive biped his harsh cries and erected crest might lead one to +suppose. His aspect is doubtless frightful to some small birds, but most +of them recognize in him much of the Pistolian braggart. I have seen a +house-wren, about the size of a large colored gentleman's thumb, drive +him away from her vine-shaded dwelling. Robins quickly put him to +flight, and so, too, do catbirds and cardinals. Even the mourning dove +(gentlest of birds) does not fear to measure her mild weapons with his; +and one of the most amusing spectacles I ever witnessed was the comical +bluff of a dove who puffed out her breast, fierce as a lamb, and +literally pushed the swash-buckling blue jay clean off the feed board. + +That the jay does not always exercise the discretion of which the timid +proverb speaks, the crown of my head can very well testify. One pleasant +afternoon, while I was breathlessly pursuing the phantom of an idea +through the syntactical mazes of a freshman theme, I became aware of the +sharp screaming of a pair of jays directly beneath my open window. I +glanced out and saw (item) one baby jay squatting all hunched up on the +close-cut lawn in the sunlight; (item) one long, lithe, black cat in the +shadow of the syringa bush, blinking its greedy yellow eyes and moving +its tail with a gentle, snaky, anticipatory motion; and (item) two +frantic parent jays darting viciously at the black sphinx, and shrieking +like a couple of suffragettes in the hands of a pair of miserable London +bobbies. I watched the little drama until I saw the cat quivering for +the spring; whereupon, forsaking the role of spectator, I threw my +bottle of red ink and drove the dark marauder from the field. Surely +never was preceptorial red ink put to more humane uses. + +As I turned back to my themes, it occurred to me that here was the very +opportunity I had been looking for. My favorite hobby is taking bird +pictures, and I had long desired a picture of a young jay. Most +fledgelings bear a ludicrous likeness to very old men. They wear an +expression of solemn and pessimistic wisdom such as comes only to those +who have looked long on the vanities of mankind. And it has always +seemed to me that the infant jay bears a weird resemblance to England's +Grand Old Man, Mr. Gladstone, after he had passed the prime of old age. +Out of regard, then, for the great Liberal minister, and also because I +am no rifler of nests, I seized my old black hat and a camera, and +dashed downstairs. My plan was to drop the hat over the unsuspecting +fledgeling so that I could pick him up without any fuss, and pose him on +the grape-vine behind the house. But the young rascal, divining my +intention, hopped away, and kept with exasperating nicety just out of +reach. Finally, by dint of much scrambling along on my knees, taking +care to preserve as innocent an expression as I could, I managed to clap +the hat over him. But as I took him out from the sudden gloom, he gave +one terrified shriek, and the next instant BING! something sharp, +something penetrating, something entirely unexpected, struck me on the +head. It was the marvellously efficient beak of Mr. Jay. + +I did not try to reason with him or placate him in wheedling tones. The +ambient air was too full of a shrapnel burst of screaming, darting, +pecking, whirling, shrieking blue jay. His shrill and angry cries, +moreover, called to his aid three other jays, and such a stream of +feathered Billingsgate followed as, I felt sure, must fix the eyes of +all the neighborhood upon me. And so I retreated to the house, +endeavoring in my gait to preserve that dignity of bearing which is +generally supposed to be the fruit of an academic life. But the jay, +with the uncomfortable persistence of a bee or a small heel-snapping +terrier, pursued me to the very door, and might have chased me upstairs +had it not been for the screen. After that I decided never again to +attempt kidnapping a jay without the protection of a policeman's helmet. + +But the fierce detractors of the blue jay will doubtless scoff at this +as evidence of a sometimes resolute daring. I do not resent the implied +aspersion of my own courage; I am content to leave that to the judgment +of my readers. There is, however, one bit of commendation to which even +they must "assent with civil ear," as a freshman of mine put it. The +blue jay is almost humanly intelligent. Mind, I do not argue that he +can, offhand, give you the distinction between free verse and a page +from a real poet's note-book, or that he can explain precisely why +certain matters are deleted by the British censors. But with the +intrepidity of a new Congressman delivering a speech in the _Record_, I +dare assert, "without fear of _successful_ contradiction," that the blue +jay is among the most intelligent of feathered bipeds. + +Not long ago, during a particularly sharp attack of bitter weather, with +frosty bayonets in the air but no snow on the ground, I was holding a +conference in the English office with one of my students, a girl whose +sweet deep eyes gave no flicker of understanding as I tried to make +clear to her the difference between a sentence and a clause. To conceal +my sorrow I stepped to the window and gazed off through the grayish-blue +beeches with their dead brown leaves shivering in the keen air, trying, +meanwhile, to recall what principle of pedagogic efficiency I had failed +to employ. Presently a blue jay with something white in its beak +alighted upon the twisted limb of a maple not a rod from the window, and +began a close inspection of the rough bark. He found what he was looking +for, a hole; and into this he thrust the white substance which he +carried in his beak, suet possibly, from the feed-board below, or a bit +of bread. He cocked his head on one side and eyed the little cache in a +thoughtful manner. Then he dropped to the ground. + +I thought that was the end, but I was mistaken. Soon he shot up to the +limb, this time with a dead leaf in his beak. I watched intently and saw +him carefully lay the leaf over the hole where he had hidden the suet. A +gust of wind, however, blew the leaf off the limb, and sent it swirling +to the ground. Quick as a hawk the jay swooped after it in an +ineffectual attempt to capture it while it was still in the air. They +reached the ground together. Convinced apparently that the leaf was too +large, he selected another, much smaller, and carried it up to the limb. +This time he did not merely lay the leaf over the hole; he had learned +his lesson. Instead, he rammed the leaf into the hole on top of the +suet, a really difficult job, and packed it firmly with his beak. It was +safe from the other jays if not from the inquisitive redheaded +woodpecker who lived only a few branches away. Now all you host of +cocksure psychologists, was it instinct or reason that led the jay? + +I know it has been argued that since a jay will attack a stuffed owl +placed near his nest, he must be without the power of reason. The test +seems hardly fair, for the ghoulish mystery of the taxidermist is known +to no animal but man. Thus at the very start the jay is laid under an +unreasonable handicap. Consider, too, the ingeniously cruel nature of +this test; it pierces him as it were in the eye of his most sensitive +instinct. Even human parents, faced by an ordeal at all comparable to +this in sudden poignancy, would scarcely act in a manner calmly +rational. What mother, leaving her infant slumbering in the cradle, and +suddenly returning to find a brutal visaged mannikin bent over it in a +posture of menace, would expend the millionth of a second in the +psychologist's reflective delay? Like the jay, she would act in such a +situation from instinct alone, nor would we consider her deficient in +intelligence. + +But even if the jay were as stupid as an old-model political +prison-warden, or an English official in Ireland, which he indubitably +is not, I would still look upon him with an indulgent eye. The redbird +excepted, he is the sole bit of lively color in our winter landscape. No +matter how sharp the wind or deep the snow, you will find him foraging +among the low bushes or uttering his cheerfully vigorous _jay! jay! +jay!_ from the airy chambers of some tall, bare maple. And if you are of +that generous company who share their winter bounty with the birds, from +none of your feathered charity scholars will you receive more evident +tokens of full appreciation than from the maligned jay. He is as prompt +to the feeding board as an impecunious college professor to the bursar's +office at the end of the first quarter. To be sure, his table manners +are somewhat rude, but what he lacks in elegance he more than atones for +with a certain robust beef-and-pudding gusto that I have somehow come to +associate with Lord Macaulay. + +It is in the spring, however, in the days of warm sunshine and clear +air, when the grass begins to quicken along the walks and around the +roots of the big elm-trees, when the vanguard of the crocus legions have +thrust their green spear-heads up through the sere lawn, and the buds on +the lilac bushes along the garden fence have begun to swell, that the +jay reveals how really amiable he can be. To many who do not know him +well it will come as a surprise to learn that he possesses vocal +attainments far beyond the harsh cry from which he takes his name. Under +the spell of love he becomes truly melodic. He will sit for ten minutes +at a time in the old black cherry-tree, and beginning with a soft, +prelusory, ventriloquial whistle, as though he were a musician testing +his flute, he will run through a series of little musical snatches +surprising in their mimetic variety. Now it will seem like a baby's +silver rattle, or like clear water gurgling over a sunny bed of pebbles; +again you will hear a note or two of the robin, or a plaintive echo of +the bluebird's song, or even the beautiful sliding legato of the +cardinal,--with a crack in it, perhaps. + +As the head of a family the blue jay is exemplary. He is not one of +those who think they perform the whole duty of husbands when they preen +their gay feathers in the sunlight, or lift their voices in flattering +song, while their plain little wives build the nest, hatch the eggs, and +go in search of the nourishing worm. Not much! He believes that marriage +is a partnership involving equal duties and responsibilities; and so, +during the nesting season, you will see him busily at work, searching +for the best twigs, paper, string, tendrils, and rootlets obtainable. I +once saw a nest that had a piece of yellow paper sticking out of its +side, with the cryptic legend--_otes for wom_--plainly legible on it, +but I am not sure that it had any real significance. Feeding the young +jays, too, he considers part of his fatherly duties, and sometimes, +though not often, he even treats Mrs. Jay to a specially delicate tidbit +of bug or worm. If the latter should happen to be fuzzy, he will follow +his careful wife's example and thoroughly wipe the fuzz off on the rough +bark of some tree. + +And he likes his bath; no monocled Englishman better. Indeed, if you +really wish to enjoy a treat, set a rusty shallow pan of water on your +lawn, not _too_ near the tulip-bed or shrubbery (Cats!), and see what +follows. If you have been thoughtful enough to place a stone or a piece +of brick near the rim of the pan, Mr. and Mrs. Jay will step right in +and enjoy a thorough wetting without much preliminary skirmishing. But +little Willie Jay and his four brothers will exhibit all the delicious +trepidation of childhood. While their parents are in the bath, they will +be bold enough, even to running up and allowing themselves to be +splashed on; but when it comes to actually entering the water, ugh! They +will linger around the edge of the pan, fluttering their wings, hop +across it, dip their beaks into the water, turn around, and splash the +water with their tails--in short, go through all the motions of a small +boy having his first "duck under" without the assuring grasp of his +father's strong hand. But once let them get in, and oh, what a joyous +splashing ensues, what a ruffling of feathers, what a beating of wings, +what a fan-like fluttering of the tail! Like most small boys, too, they +will stay in until they are thoroughly soaked, scarcely able, in fact, +to fly up to some sunny limb where they may preen themselves and dry off +out of harm's reach. + +No, the jay is not an unprincipled scoundrel, not the bloodthirsty +reprobate he is sometimes made out to be. He has his faults, it is true, +properly censurable; but he has some very commendable virtues as well. +And I am sure that if the reader will watch his career as carefully as I +have, from his fledgeling childhood to his gay and dashing cavalier +youth, he will agree with me that the imaginations of the blue jay's +heart are not wholly evil. + + + + +THE FLEMISH QUESTION + + +_Divide ut imperes_--make a faction among your enemies, and thus +overcome them. This is German policy all over the world. By it the Danes +of Slesvig have been to a large extent robbed of their own language and +national traditions. By it the Prussian intruders have, with +characteristic inability to understand foreign souls, endeavored, in +their periods of repose after acts of brutality, to alienate from France +the French-speaking and French-minded inhabitants of Alsace and +Lorraine. It has failed not only there, but notoriously also in Posen or +Prussian Poland, where it was long ago abandoned in favor of a system of +downright and unscrupulous repression. It has succeeded, for the moment +at least, in Russia, which now lies dismembered at the feet of a +triumphant betrayer. What was a year ago Russia is now dissolved into +Lithuania, Livonia, Esthonia, Courland, Finland, Poland, the Ukraine, +the country of the Don Cossacks, the Caucasus, and the vague and +fluctuating realm of Bolshevism. Historic memories, linguistic +variations, religious differences, local jealousies, class feeling, and +commercial rivalries have been emphasized by German agents behind the +frontier, and through the gaps thus made the German sword has pushed its +point, breaking up the old mortar of loyalty and union. One typical +example of the method employed may be cited here. According to the +Berlin _Lokal Anzeiger_ of March 26, 1917, Zimmermann, the German +Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, our Zimmermann, welcomed a +delegation of Lithuanians and piped sweetly to them about the tender +interest his government took in the welfare of their people, promising +to satisfy various local desires. We have seen the result. + +German intrigue of the same sort has long been at work in India, where +it has happily been baffled by the good sense of the Indian population +who appreciate the fact that with all their numerous languages, races, +and religions, they owe their concord to the light rule of Britain and +to her even-handed justice. One of the boldest, meanest, and cruelest +instances of the same policy of treacherous penetration was the effort +to cause a rebellion in Ireland, for the Germans knew that rebellion +meant the destruction of their own tools and Ireland's shame and ruin. +As Americans, we have reason to keep our eyes upon the large German +colonies in southern Brazil and upon the outposts of German imperialism +in Mexico, Chile, and Argentina, and still greater reason to look out +for the thin wedges of Prussian intrigue insinuating themselves among +our own many racial and confessional varieties. + +The most thinly disguised of all German attempts to conquer by division +is also one of the latest to be disclosed, although it began at least +three years ago. "Love me," says the Kaiser to the outraged daughters of +the Belgian household; "or if you will not both love me, I shall take +the likelier of you, and give her a seat at the royal feast, and put my +ring upon her finger, and make her sister serve us in our mirth." + +As is well known, there is no such thing as a Belgian language, and the +people of Belgium speak one or both of two languages, French and +Flemish. Both French and Flemish are and have long been officially +recognized by the Belgian government, and are used in Parliament, in +public documents, in the courts, and in the national schools. The French +spoken and written by educated Belgians is standard or central French, +differing in no essential respect from the language of France; but among +the people who have French as their native tongue, the Walloons, there +is employed a dialect of French, just as the people of many parts of +France, and indeed of all countries, have their local dialects. The +Walloons differ from the rest of the Belgians chiefly in language and in +the fact that they inhabit the southern and southeastern parts of the +kingdom, where mining and metallurgical industry are highly developed. +They also have more points of contact with France, both geographically +and morally. If you take a map of Belgium and draw a line from Vise, the +point where the Meuse passes into Holland, almost straight west through +Brussels, Audenarde, and Courtrai, or a little south of these cities, +you will have traced the northern boundary of the Walloon country. +Almost anywhere along this imaginary line, one can, by going a short +distance south, be among people who nearly all speak French or the +Walloon dialect of French, and, by going a little way north, be among +people who, though they may write French and speak it as an acquired +language, use Flemish as their native tongue. Nevertheless, in this +densely populated, busy, rich, and closely unified kingdom, the various +elements of the population were happily mingled. Thousands of Belgian +families are part Walloon and part Flemish. When a Walloon family moves +north into a Flemish village it usually changes its language in the +second generation, and vice versa. Many Walloons have Flemish names; +many Flemings have Walloon names. + +Flemish is scarcely distinguishable from Dutch. Although philologically +they may be regarded as twin dialects of one tongue, they are for +practical purposes the same. There are, to be sure, a few slight +differences of idiom, and numerous differences of vocabulary, even +between standard written Flemish and standard written Dutch, but +scarcely more important than those between the English of Mr. Howells +and the English of Mr. Hardy. In popular speech the gap is naturally +wider, and perhaps justifies the view that Flemish and Dutch are +separate dialects of one language, though "dialect" may really be too +strong a word. From my own observation in East Flanders, I should say +that a Dutchman would be in about the same situation there with regard +to difference of speech as a New Englander in Virginia. + +According to the census of 1910, there were in Belgium about 3,832,000 +persons speaking French or belonging to French-speaking families, and +about 4,153,000 speaking Flemish or belonging to Flemish families. The +Flemish population, being to a larger extent agricultural, has for many +years been increasing faster than the Walloons. Yet French, being by +acquisition or second-nature a language perfectly familiar to all +educated Belgians, appears to have, and really has, an immense advantage +over Flemish. The literature of the French language is enriched and +glorified with the names of many great authors, from Jean Froissart and +Philippe de Comines to Maeterlinck and Verhaeren, who belong by birth or +residence to what we now call Belgium. + +But the Flemish had, and probably always will have, a pride of their +own. In the Middle Ages their cities were among the first in Northern +Europe to emerge from obscurity. The names of Flemish towns strike the +ear with a strange ruggedness in the liquid lapse of Dante's lines, but +a stranger thing it is that even in the thirteenth century these +vigorous municipalities were looked to for independence, and called upon +for vengeance on tyranny; we hear, in the Purgatorio, of "the evil plant +that overshadows all the Christian land," and are told that "if Douai, +Lille, Ghent and Bruges had power, there would soon be vengeance taken." +A curious example this of "ancestral voices prophesying war." + +In the sixteenth century Flanders was the scene of tragic resistance to +Spain and the Inquisition. Liberty was lost and recovered and lost +again; but prosperity still bloomed from the ashes of destroyed +commerce, the language and institutions of the land were redeemed with a +fearful price, civilization was preserved with blood and sorrow, art +flourished in the midst of horrors; and how all this came to pass is +explained only by the stubbornness with which the people kept up their +local patriotism. The visible signs of this municipal pride and glory +were, until four years ago, and in part still are, the great churches, +town-halls, and guild-houses of Flanders. Among the most impressive of +these monuments were the Cloth Hall at Ypres, the Belfry of Bruges, the +Town-halls of Audenarde, Alost, Termonde, Louvain, Brussels, and Ghent, +the Cathedrals of Antwerp and Malines, the quaint Beguinages or cities +of retirement for religious women, and many another less renowned but +hardly less beautiful expression of ancient faith and community of +enterprise. + +The Austrian yoke was shaken off at the time of the French Revolution, +and after a short period of republican government Belgium, together with +France, came under the domination of Napoleon. At the Congress of +Vienna, in 1815, Belgium and Holland were united under the name of the +Kingdom of the Netherlands, in an ill-assorted combination which lasted +only till 1830, when the present Kingdom of Belgium was established. +From that year to 1914 the Flemish people of Belgium, though more than +satisfied to live in political union with the Walloons, and indeed being +the more prosperous and rapidly growing part of the population, were +solicitous to preserve their local customs and particularly their own +language. Societies were formed for the cultivation of Flemish +literature. Endowments for the same purpose were established. One of the +parliamentary aims of political parties in the provinces of East and +West Flanders and Antwerp and the northern sections of Brabant and +Limbourg was the safe-guarding of Flemish as one of the official +languages and a medium of instruction. There was not the slightest +flavor of disloyalty in this desire. It was entirely constitutional. It +expressed itself openly, and had no need for secrecy. The tendency thus +created was called the Flamingant movement. No one connected with it, so +far as I can discover, entertained the slightest notion of appealing to +Germany for countenance or support. The Flemings in general and the +Flamingants in particular would have been the last people in the world +to admit that their language was a dialect of _German_ or that their +manifest destiny was absorption in the German Empire. The unity of +Belgium was as precious to them as to the Walloons, and was placed above +every consideration of race and speech. But there is no country under +the sun in which local self-government and community interests are so +highly developed as in Belgium. Under the Belgian constitution the +communes enjoy the maximum of freedom. Civic pride nowhere else burns so +bright. It is the habit of local self-government, the strong +personalities developed under this system, and the spirit of the +communes that have saved Belgium from starvation during the war. As +every one of Mr. Hoover's American delegates in Belgium will testify, +the spectacle was and is magnificent. As early as October, 1914, when +the wave of invasion had passed over Belgium, the communes stood firm, +and in all of them committees with almost absolute power, and enjoying +the perfect confidence of the people, were formed and got to work +commandeering the visible supply of food and distributing it prudently. + +Within a very short time after the invasion the Germans showed that they +intended to take advantage of the difference between Flemings and +Walloons, a difference which, as we have seen, was purely domestic, and +concerned with no really vital political issue. Among the offices of his +hated administration, Governor-General von Bissing established a bureau +for dealing with "the Flemish question," a bureau consisting of German +specialists in philology and discord. For about seven months, this +commission, which was working in secret, attracted hardly any attention. +Then it began to operate visibly. In the summer of 1915, I was +stationed, as delegate of the Hoover commission, in Ghent, the capital +of East Flanders, and witnessed the beginning of German coquetry. As may +be imagined, it was very clumsy and ineffectual. One day an attempt +would be made to flatter the local pride of the peasants by printing +official notices and war bulletins in Flemish and German only, instead +of Flemish, German, and French, as had previously been the practice; the +next day they would be informed, in these same posters, that they must +surrender their hay-crop to the German military authorities. The Germans +appeared to be as much detested in Flanders as anywhere else in Belgium. +I saw the wife of a distinguished citizen of Ghent burst into tears of +vexation and anxiety because a German officer of high rank spoke to her +in a restaurant. She said she feared she would be distrusted for the +rest of her life by her fellow-citizens for having listened to a German +officer. Yet he was evidently a gentleman, behaved with propriety, and +had the excuse for addressing her that he was quartered in her house. I +have known persons in Ghent to go willingly to prison rather than comply +with German rules or pay fines into the German treasury. "Do you see +that man?" said to me an acquaintance in Ghent one day, pointing to a +German in uniform who was speaking Flemish to some peasants. "He lived +here before the war; he will not be able to live here after the war; his +life will not be safe." + +Before the war there were four universities in Belgium: the Catholic +university of Louvain, the liberal or non-sectarian university of +Brussels, and the two state universities of Liege and Ghent. The +instruction was given entirely in French, except that there were certain +courses at Louvain and Ghent which were paralleled, rather expensively, +one would think, by courses in Flemish. In 1911 a bill was introduced in +the Belgian Parliament looking to the gradual transformation of the +University of Ghent into an institution completely Flemish. In 1912 this +proposal was again discussed, and was reported favorably in the Chamber +of Representatives. The war of course put an end to the project. + +Now the Germans have taken it up with enthusiasm, trying to harvest for +their own purposes the sympathies that were formerly cultivated in its +favor. Whether they annex all or part or none of Belgium, they desire to +pose as the liberators of Flanders, and to foment a permanent jealousy +between the Flemish-speaking people and the rest of the Belgian +population. This is precisely like their conduct in the south of +Ireland, in the Province of Quebec, and in Russia. They have their eye +on Antwerp, which they intend to keep, whatever happens, and they +realize that Flanders would be a good basis for the eventual absorption +of Holland. + +On December 2, 1915, it became known in Belgium that the German +authorities purposed to reopen the University of Ghent, which of course +had been closed, and to make Flemish the language of instruction. Their +design was instantly understood by everybody, including the leaders of +the old Flamingant movement, who, instead of falling in with it, met it +with a vigorous protest. This was disregarded, and on the 31st of +December the decree was promulgated. A commission of German professors +was empowered to draw up regulations for carrying out the plan of +transformation. Meanwhile, in order to encourage as many Belgian young +men as possible to escape from the country and find their way into the +Belgian army, the real authorities of the four universities were keeping +these institutions closed. Their passive resistance enraged the Germans, +who, on March 18, 1916, arrested the two most celebrated professors of +Ghent, Henri Pirenne, and Paul Fredericq, eminent historians, and sent +them to prison-camps in Germany, where they have been treated with +disgusting brutality. The colleagues of these two brave men were not +less courageous themselves, and signed a second protest. Thereupon the +Germans made up a ridiculous little faculty of their own, and imposed it +upon the university, which, we must remember had no students. There were +at first seven of these professors, of whom one was a German, another a +native of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, and five were Belgians without +distinction in the learned world or respectability as citizens. To these +were later added a number of equally insignificant Dutch and German +teachers of minor rank, and a very few Belgians. Opinion in Holland rose +in disgust, and an unpleasant life awaits the Dutch instructors if they +ever dare return to the land of their birth. They have been canny enough +to make sure of pensions from the German government, in view of the +probability that they will in the near future be men without a country. + +On April 5, 1916, the German Chancellor, making a curious mixture of +cynicism and hypocrisy, in a speech before the Reichstag, promised that +the Imperial Government would help the Flemish population to free itself +from "the preponderance of French culture." The Germans no doubt +expected some backing from the Flamingant societies, the trustees of the +Flemish endowment funds, and the former political supporters of the +Flemish movement. In this they have been disappointed, for their conduct +has aroused protest upon protest from all these quarters. It is +difficult to determine, from the boasts in the German newspapers and the +denials of exiled Belgians, just how many teachers and students had been +scraped together by the beginning of 1917, but the faculty was a motley +collection of German, Dutch and Belgian nonentities, and there were less +than three students for every teacher. To-day there is only one student +in agriculture, the subject that would naturally be most sought in a +Flemish university. Of all the war-babies, this University of Ghent is +surely the most anaemic. Yet if we are to believe General von Bissing in +the speech in which he declared it alive and viable, "The God of War +held it at the baptismal font with naked sword in hand!" This is _echt +Deutsch_ in taste and feeling. And while these proceedings were solemnly +going on, the deportation of workmen from Ghent was beginning; on the +very day of inauguration, husbands and fathers were being torn from +their families to suffocate in German salt-mines, to sweat and faint in +German collieries, to dig and die in German trenches. Has the world ever +seen a more revolting instance of hypocrisy? I happened to be in +Courtrai one morning when a number of Flemish wives and mothers were +herded into the jail there, from the village of Sweveghem, because their +men had refused to make barbed wire for the Germans. International law +forbids a conqueror to compel the vanquished to produce munitions of +war, but what of that! + +Parallel with the ludicrous pretence of enriching Belgium with a +Germano-Flemish university, close observers of Belgian affairs, by +reading the Dutch and German newspapers, have watched the development of +another German scheme for producing discord. On February 14, 1917, +thirty Belgian tools of the German military authorities set themselves +up, or rather were set up by German backers, as a "Council of Flanders," +with the avowed purpose of creating an autonomous state out of the +Flemish-speaking portion of Belgium. The plot began to culminate in +Baron von Bissing's decree of March 21, 1917, establishing two +administrative regions, one Flemish, the other Walloon. Brussels was to +be the capital of the former, Namur of the latter. This decree sent +consternation into the hearts of all true Belgians, and has led finally +to an ominous result, the resignation of nearly all the Belgian +judiciary. Up to this time, protected by international law and by the +national constitution, which even the Germans professed to respect, the +magistrates of Belgium had continued to perform some of their functions, +thereby shielding the people to a certain extent from direct contact +with German judges and police officers, and no doubt saving the country +from bloody and useless insurrections: for if the minute and daily +administration of local affairs, such as the collection of private debts +and the enforcement of town ordinances, had been all this time in German +hands, the irritation would have been unbearable. + +With a few delightful exceptions, newspapers in Belgium, even though +appearing under their old names and in French, are controlled by the +Germans. I used to amuse myself, in 1915, by translating passages from +_Le Bruxellois_, ostensibly a real Belgian journal, back into the German +in which they were originally written or thought. The style betrayed a +Teutonic source. The delightful exceptions are the brave little +clandestine _Libre Belgique_ and other papers of a similar character, +which keep up the spirits of the Belgian people and drive the Germans to +impotent fury. + +In this case, as in that of the University of Ghent, the Germans +professed to be responding to Belgian desires. They point to the +so-called Council of Flanders, in reality a collection of renegade +Belgians who were brought together by German influence, and protected by +German arms from the violence of Flemish mobs, who dared to hiss them +and insult them. A delegation of these worthies was conducted to Berlin, +where they presented a humble request for the strangulation of Belgian +liberty and the partition of their native land. Against this plot all +Belgium has risen. How can Belgium have risen? The answer will give some +idea of the bravery of those people, even in the isolation and darkness +and hunger of their present life. Last June between four and five +hundred Belgian magistrates and members of the bar signed a fruitless +petition to the German Chancellor against the decree. Judges and local +administrative officials gave up their functions and their livelihood. +For this, many of them were arrested and deported to Germany. Against +the decree of separation, and in favor of "the Belgian Fatherland, Free +and Indivisible," petitions have been signed by nearly all the former +senators and deputies remaining in Belgium, by the Flamingant leaders, +by municipal councils, and by the heroic Cardinal Mercier. The Cardinal +especially drew attention to the fact that international law demands +that the domestic administration of an invaded country shall be allowed +to proceed unmolested, if military necessity permits. To this point +Baron von Falkenhausen, the German Governor-General, made the following +insolent rejoinder: "Your Eminence addressed to me on the 6th of June a +letter in which, taking your stand on the principles of international +law, you criticize certain of my official acts. I must respectfully +reply to your Eminence that I refuse to enter with you upon a discussion +of this subject." + +Decree has followed decree with steady insistence. The courts, even in +Brussels, which is mainly a French-speaking city, must hold their +sessions in Flemish; official correspondence north of the imaginary line +must be in Flemish; the Official Bulletin of German Laws and Decrees in +Occupied Belgium is printed in German and Flemish for one part of the +country and in German and French for the other. On August 9, 1917, von +Falkenhausen issued an edict declaring that in the Flemish +administrative region "Flemish must be the exclusive official language +of all the authorities and all the functionaries of the state, the +provinces, and the communes, as well as their establishments, including +educational institutions and the teachers therein." On October 6 the +communes in the Province of Brabant were ordered immediately to organize +courses in Flemish for the instruction of their employees who did not +know that language. + +The invaders have tried to create a Belgian faction in support of their +policy, and have here and there, at different times, organized meetings +and processions of so-called "Activists," or pro-German Belgians. But +these assemblages have never been other than contemptible in size and +composition. They have been hissed and mobbed by vast crowds of +patriotic Belgians, and in Belgium it takes courage to attack a movement +which is protected by German bayonets. On February 9, 1918, the Chief +Justice and two Associate Judges of the Belgian Court of Appeals at +Brussels were arrested for instituting proceedings against the +"Activists," and were ordered to be deported to Germany. + +With all their cunning the Germans in Belgium have shown themselves +densely stupid. Their near-sighted pedantry inclines them to put their +trust in formulas, when the thing they are dealing with is life. They +think they can _decree_ an indomitable people into submission. Having +begun with butchery, they declined into robbery, and now they imagine +that because bribery is less rude, it will be regarded as a sort of +mercy. Jealous and quarrelsome at home, fussy and petty in their own +local and domestic affairs, they cannot understand magnanimity in +others. German writers have often admitted and lamented the tendency of +the German people to be parochial (_kleinstaedtisch_) in their outlook, +and stencilled (_schablonenhaft_) in their personality. So they are; and +these bad qualities render them incapable of understanding the spirit of +Belgium, which is independent, individual, far-sighted, and bold. Since +July, 1914, the German heel has stamped its imprint on regions several +times as extensive as the German Empire itself. But a nation of pedants +will never rule the world, and the echo of those iron-bound, +blood-spattered boots will cease to ring when the American people +realize that what the Germans have done in Belgium they will try to do +wherever they find room to tramp. + + + + +IMMORTALITY IN LITERATURE + +"_Come l'uom s'eterna_" + + +Now that the immortals in literature have been caught and measured; now +that we know that they fill not more than five feet of shelf room, we +may be pardoned for asking a question or two as to how they "arrived," +what their chances are for "staying put," and whether the place for +classics is inevitably "upon the shelf." These are of course awkward +questions, but there are other regions beside heaven which one must be +as a little child to enter--the Garden of Understanding among them. + +It is in a certain sense a positive relief to find that the really +persistent literature of the past is so compressible, and it is +reassuring as one looks forward to the long future, to think that the +people towards the end of time will not be so unimaginably burdened with +the deathless monuments of their past; although when one multiplies five +feet, the sediment of five millennia, by x, the classic library of the +end of things seems to us of this unheroic age, a trifle depressing. Of +course, the men of the Ultima Thule of time may take their classics less +seriously, and it may be that they will find less of a gap than we +between the thoughts and speech of the immortals and those of daily +intercourse. But since the immortals die not, there is no escaping their +accumulation. + +Yet after all, come to think of it, there is a good deal of an +assumption in the assertion that our five feet of immortals are all +going to perch upon that last library shelf. There have been immortals +of the past who failed to reach even our days; had they all fulfilled +their promise and the prophecies of their friends, the publishers would +not be willing to let us buy our modest set of unquestionable classics +on monthly payments without the guarantee of our great grandchildren. +Paradoxical as it may seem, many immortals have proved mortal, and the +deathless have died. We must lay this troublesome fact to the loose +speech of our forefathers. They were hyperbolic now and then, and they +dubbed a volume immortal without stopping to think whether the twentieth +century A. D. would also find it interesting, and so, of course, really +immortal. Humanity has been fallible in the past, and the result is that +we are forced most unscientifically to accept contradictory ideas with +gravity--in short, to speak of "relative immortality." The work that +outlives its contemporaries is, we may admit, relatively deathless. Such +a statement makes no prophecy, however, as to the remote future. +Relative immortality merely means that a work goes on interesting for a +few years, a generation or two, a century or more. It is only the simon +pure immortal who will not have to get up at the sound of Gabriel's +trump. Blessed relief--the final shelf of unforgettable classics may be +only five feet long after all, and may be even shorter! + +Naturally, your enduring work must have a strong constitution; it must +have all the characteristics of a live creature except the power of +growth within itself, and, alas, of propagating its kind. Perhaps one +might liken it to the Leyden jar which we of the older generation used +to read of in our physics--I do not know whether it is remembered +now-a-days. It has a charge of electricity of more or less strength, and +it has a retaining capacity of more or less endurance, so that to touch +it as the ages pass, is to receive a spark of life. + +Many a work has started out with a tremendous appeal to its first +audience, but has not been able to hold its second or third. The first +night is not always a sure test of the length of a "run." Such a work +had a momentary word to speak which was appropriate, which came as pat +as Vice in the old comedy; but like a jest called out by a passing +event, it raised its crackle of laughter and died. One need not go far +to find examples. Mrs. Radcliffe's _Mysteries of Udolpho_ is pigeonholed +here; and _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ and _The Jungle_ are tied by the same +tape, in spite of a certain uncanny habit of reappearance of Mrs. +Stowe's painful tale. Much literature of this sort is, of course, +temporarily valuable; but Time promptly and wisely puts it into the +wallet at his back. Without endurance, fame is as the fire of thorns +under the pot; without vitality, naught can endure. + +As a matter of fact a work need not be brutally vital to have a fair +chance at long life. It must interest somebody very much indeed. Of +course, the great immortals start out in life popular in the best sense; +but there are lesser immortals too. One does not have to be Dante or +Shakespeare to win out. So long as the second class passengers persist +in interesting a few hearers on the various stages of the road, they +will not be forgotten. They may be, as they usually are, caviare to the +general, but they find from age to age fit audience. Poets like Horace +and Spenser and Blake, the authors of _Emma_ or _Cranford_ may cross the +final line side by side with their great competitors. And some of us who +venture diffident prophecy, expect greater endurance for Mr. Robert +Frost and his shy _North of Boston_ than for the dramatic anachronisms +of the late Stephen Phillips, or the epic _longueurs_ of Mr. Alfred +Noyes. Long life in literature concerns itself with the length of +Clotho's thread, and not at all with the question as to whether it be +labelled "No. 60" or "No. 90." + +But to have transcended its own time by a generation or so is no promise +of immortality. Every work if not hopelessly tangled in the +perishabilities of its own age, is liable to be so tangled in those of +its own century or epoch. How often have men watched with exultation the +endurance of a work, and jumped to conclusions, when wisdom would have +recognized that it could last only while certain ideals or moods +prevailed. Was not Byron a god for a generation? But, alas, as the +waters of time rose, he found himself caught in the eel-grass of +romanticism, and pulled under. And did not the _Romance of the Rose_ +hold men bound by its myriad lines for centuries--and where is it now? +Dusty upon dusty shelves. Its voice was that of Mediaevalism, not of +humanity. It perished with the conventions and provincialism of its era. + +The time never was when a new work appeared to the world without some +external circumstance to modify for good or ill its early reputation. +Even the "anonymous" early ballads must have depended at first in some +measure upon the impression of "good time" which lingered in the minds +of the junketers among whom they sprang up. Even the _Iliad_ or the +_Song of Roland_ must have gained or lost according to the effectiveness +of the reciter or the social status of the patron. And to-day it is a +thousand times truer than ever before, that at the start the genuine +fame which endures is bound up with much that is purely factitious. + +A new book comes to birth and finds a waiting world to welcome, but not +impartial in its attitude. Have not the friends and family announced the +arrival in joyful and ringing tones? Advertiser and advance reviewer +have been busy; the publisher now-a-days is preeminently efficient. The +result is a sort of pre-natal notoriety built up regardless of real +worth. The advertising campaign may be likened to an attack by gas-bombs +on the reading public; but fortunately from long experience a large part +of the public has provided itself with a tolerably good supply of masks +to receive the assault, and--to finish the figure with all possible +despatch--"waits till the clouds roll by." + +Then for the first time, the work gradually emerges for what it is +worth. The public reads and judges; recommends it to its friends, or +warns them off; and speaks the fateful word, which if it is favorable, +leads others to read, and at least makes strangers admit that the book +is "well spoken of." Here is real fame, still struggling for existence, +yet independent of the handicaps of early puffing. Yet it must be said +in all fairness that the early puffing, with its manufactured audience, +hastens for the good book the chance for genuine fame; and makes more +decisive the collapse of the poor book, by bringing sooner to proof the +pinchbeck prophecies. + +But even then the new book has got to stand up against convictions and +prejudices, conventions and dogmas. The public at large--and +incidentally the professional critic--wants more of "the same thing," +more like that of its earlier loves and admirations. Figures of previous +experience rise in the readers' minds with malicious menaces against the +upstart--Dickens, Austen or Trollope; Ward, Sinclair or Tarkington; +perhaps Fielding or Goldsmith--figures moribund or vigorous still, all +are alert to impose "has been" upon "to be." Let the new book differ at +its peril; it becomes easily "revolutionary," "decadent," "not art"--is +damned, in short, unless, by a curious freak of the moment, it takes the +world by storm through its very "freshness." And even then Kipling joins +the ring, and henceforth struggles to impose the Kiplingesque. Such +dangers, such threats--mostly unreal when brought to the proof--the new +book must live through. The vigorous and vital book will be unabashed, +for its claims to long life must rest on stronger virtues than +conformity or non-conformity. + +The ages confirm with Jovian nod the trite fact that every period has a +general cast of opinion about any literary work. San Francisco may not +accept the same order among "the best sellers" as New York, nor New York +as London; yet we accept the unity of age in our use of older epithets, +such as "Elizabethan" and "Victorian," even while we overlook it in the +hurlyburly of the present. It is a complicated and, perhaps, ultimately, +an inexplicable phenomenon; but strong leadership plays its part in +clarifying and fixing the momentary appraisement. Let Dr. Johnson or the +_Edinburgh Review_ utter a critical judgment, and society follows like +the traditional flock of sheep. If such notorious dictatorship is rare +in our larger world, there are yet many smaller Judges and Prophets +scattered abroad, apparent mouthpieces of the _Zeitgeist_. We are all +familiar with the small theatre party. One or two members have definite +ideas about the play and its presentation, and the rest experience all +the sensations but are more or less neutral. The neutrals inevitably +fall in behind the leaders, and the whole party is easily unanimous. +Such in miniature is the working of the critical leadership at large. +The only requirement is, that the leader must not be too far ahead or +behind his time. Thus it would have taken more than Dryden to make +Whitman a success in the days of the Restoration; and we can hardly +fancy Jeffreys forcing _The Widow in the Bye Street_ upon the Edinburgh +subscribers. But as all real leadership is moderate, neat unity seems to +be fairly easy to the backward look. + +Yet the judgment of an age may seem to us the veriest nonsense of +perversity. It irritates us, at the same time that it flatters our sense +of superiority, to see the citizens of the Seventeenth Century tossing +up their caps over Cowley, and proclaiming him celestial; and to see +those of the Eighteenth lose their heads over Pope. We know better. +Cowley and Pope, indeed! Would not any college sophomore place them for +us--Why, of course, Cowley wrote the _Sonnets of Pindar_, and Pope was a +pseudonym. It is pedantic to have read them, and we are proud to know +them only by reputation. Yet we must not blame our unfortunate +ancestors. The old formula reappears:--they clung to what interested +them, and called it deathless. The humor lies rather more in the +inability of the next generation, perhaps our own, to break away from +the stereotyped verdicts of those remote days of questionable authority. +We were all taught that Addison was one of the mighty of earth, and that +his style was the acme of lucidity and charm--"Spend your days and +nights with Addison." But we must admit that this estimate is but the +sluggish echo of auld lang syne. For have you, gentle reader, perused a +single _Spectator_ Paper since you were preparing for your college +examinations? Of course, if Addison really interested his own age by +touching as no one else did its concerns, he deserved the audience he +gathered about him and the fame that transpired; but why should we talk +of him as if he actually interested us profoundly, when no one reads +him? And how about _Tom Jones_ and _Clarissa Harlowe_ and _The Tale of a +Tub_, and _Tristram Shandy_ or _The Vicar of Wakefield_? It is the +tendency of long enduring fame to become sluggish and to sink into +dogmatism. + +It is one of the duties lying nearest to the present--wherever that +present may be--to right the wrongs of the weak, and to humble the pride +of usurpers. Distrust of one's own taste and power, whatever may be the +case among individuals, is impossible to a whole generation. To judge +and to accept as final one's own conclusion is the prerequisite for true +results and positive progress. The saints have always been vigorous in +their unshaken conviction of the truth that is in them; it is the +insinuating voice of the devil which doubts. So, without misgiving, the +Eighteenth Century which wrote up Addison, wrote down Shakespeare; and +the Nineteenth Century which wrote up Browning, wrote down Pope. We, +too, are conscious of wise catholicity, and judge with decisive +orthodoxy. We adore the vigorous brutalities of Kipling and Masefield, +we are interested in the formless feebleness of certain new poets; we +scorn Gray and Landor, and overlook the poetry of Arnold. We are +hospitable to the "newer movements," even to the _outre_; we despise the +ways of our parents and our grandparents, though they were men who +walked with God. We cannot help it, to be sure, and are most unconscious +of our little ways; but now and then it is possible for some of us to +transport ourselves in spirit to the higher ground of the next century, +and to look back upon the plain of our own time. Then it is hard to be +convinced that the universe was not devised to furnish laughter for the +gods. + +Nothing is harder than for us to laugh at ourselves; we prefer to dwell +upon the seriousness, the impressiveness of lasting fame, as proof of +the unity of the human race. When the world of twenty-five centuries +after Homer can thrill at the twang of the bow of Odysseus, and smile at +the laughter of Nausikaa and her maidens, we are kinsmen of the distant +Greeks. Time and race are annihilated before the mighty genius which +touches the deeps of the heart. Institutions and nations may decay, but +the song of Homer calls us brothers. Impressive, indeed, and yet--how +many really thrill and smile over the Odyssean tale? How many in this +age of broad enlightenment ever read the _Odyssey_ at all, or have +dipped into its pages for love of their pure serene? The candid answer +is: Very few. And yet Homer is one of the two or three who reign +supreme, as we almost all still conventionally admit. + +This vaunted proof of racial unity is overworked; Homer has but few +relatives to-day, and they are that select handful who love to widen +their horizons by looking backwards. In spite of our boasted +education--which does not, any more than other panaceas, live up to its +promises--the disciples of the great past will always be few. But since +no age can walk entirely by its lone, there will always be a loyal band +who will spend the best portions of their lives in the great backward +and abysm of time, and will with shining faces bring good tidings to +their fellowmen. How grateful the early Nineteenth Century should have +been to Lamb for his specimens of the well-nigh forgotten Elizabethan +Dramatists; how grateful we should be to Mr. Gilbert Murray for pointing +out to us once more the splendors of Athenian Tragedy! Upon scholars +like these we must rely that too much is not forgotten. + + * * * * * + +The saying that the greater the fame the fewer the readers, is a random +shot, and yet it hits the target, and not the outermost ring. Every +approving reader gained for a work hands on the word to a dozen who have +not read, nor will ever read it. Fame enlarges its sweep through time +like the surge thrown off the prow of a moving steamship, broadening +over the sea until it stretches beyond all apparent relation to the ship +which first stirred it up. But here the figure breaks: for while in most +cases the waves subside, in others, the commotion bids fair to last to +the end of human history. + +The classic once established becomes so sacred to the unthinking public +that to doubt it is _lese majeste_; at least, its fame produces a sort +of hypnotism. No one, for instance, can approach a play of Shakespeare +for the first time unbiassed. He may be actually bored, but he will not +admit it. Perhaps he will make himself believe that he enjoys it, but he +will not be found with it in his hours of honest play. He hardly dares +know what he thinks, lest he should be found heretical, and he feels +safer to swell the lusty chorus of praise. The most influential critics +in such a case get no real hearing. They may capture a few individual +opinions, but the public at large will lend no ear to qualifications. +Only if repetition is carried to the point of damnable iteration, will +modification of appraisal begin slowly to sink down through class after +class; it takes an unconscionable time to reach the bottom, perhaps +centuries. One recalls lesser literature still lingering moribund upon +front parlor tables in village homes--Thomson's _Seasons_ or, perhaps, +Young's _Night Thoughts_. No one reads them; they remain as closely shut +as the parlor doors; but there they lie, the cherished signs of family +respectability, and still accepted unquestioningly as living things. + +Literary fame is a slippery and indefinite thing. There are countless +impossible questions one could ask. How many readers must a work have to +be considered alive at all? Is fame to be allowed to some of the obscure +poets like Campion, Traherne, and Shenstone, who are known only to the +specialist? Definiteness and finality are as difficult of attainment as +to tell a hawk from a handsaw when the wind is northerly. But it is +certain that the immortals are dependent upon an amazingly small set of +followers, which tends to grow smaller as the ages turn. Yet those who +deserve long life will in the long run reach an old age, frosty but +kindly. And we may leave them with confidence in the hands of Time, who, +after all, like Autolycus, pockets only what have come to be +unconsidered trifles. + + + + +CARLYLE AND KULTUR + + +I + +The opinions anyone holds in this momentous crisis are largely +determined by those he has imbibed from the thinkers of the past, and it +is interesting to notice how much Carlyle has been brought into the +discussion on both sides. A somewhat systematic consideration of the +bearing of his teachings on the present war may therefore not be +altogether profitless. + +For many reasons he is not the sort of man to invite much attention from +journalistic, academic, and dilettante writers. He is unpopular in a +double sense; for he is neither superficial nor facile, and his ideas +are opposed to the optimistic convictions that dominate in this +generation. Some insist that he is responsible for the extravagant +paradox and persistent denial of the obvious and the accepted indulged +in so freely by such journalistic products as Shaw and Chesterton, but +these men only imitate his manner to pervert his meaning. That they +imitate him, however, is proof of his influence; for the popular writer +does not imitate anyone whose repute is not of the highest. + +The academic mind is indifferent or hostile to him because the +formlessness of his writings and their abnormal character seem serious +defects to those to whom the formal is more important than the +substantial. His learning, too, while undoubtedly extensive, is not +always accurate or orthodox. The king is not the "cunning or the +kenning" man, and his contempt for "logic-choppers" and "word-mongers" +does not commend him to such as value the theoretical above the +practical. + +To the dilettante he is equally repellant. He hated mediocrity and +superficiality, and he had inconveniently high standards. This latter +reason is the openly avowed one for hostility towards him in the case of +an English writer, Mr. Ford Madox Hueffer, who freely denounces him in +his diffuse discussions of the war, but also cites facts that tend to +disprove his contention that Carlyle is without influence; for he tells +of repeated experiences with British workingmen who were readers of +Carlyle and ardent believers in his gospel. + +Carlyle is undoubtedly a strong influence in Great Britain. The +superficial regard him as a reactionary and an obscurantist who believed +in despotism and serfdom, but those who live closer to the realities of +life detect in his writings a passionate sympathy for the humble and the +oppressed. He may not exert much influence in the learned or the +artistic world, but he is certainly a social and a political force. +Writers on British politics constantly refer to his influence over the +more intelligent voters of the working classes, and this demonstrates +power of the most pregnant kind. + +Outside of Great Britain, too, there are evidences of his influence. It +is mostly within the English speaking world, but some accuse him of +being the progenitor of Nietzsche and his cult of the superman. This is +only superficially true, however, for Nietzsche was exactly the sort of +person he denounced as "quack" and "simulacrum;" but, as in the case of +Shaw and Chesterton, this proves influence, even though it be of a +negative sort. In the United States his _French Revolution_ has +apparently had much influence in the way of making our attitude towards +the past less formal and academic, and in bringing about a tendency to +look more at the principles than at the facts of history. He has also +given us such familiar expressions as "captains of industry," the +"unspeakable Turk," and many others not generally recognized as his; and +the man who fashions our daily speech gives the strongest possible proof +of influence. Here, too, however, his influence is chiefly in the +political and social world, and we can see the effect of his ideas in +one of our most important pieces of recent legislation, the selective +draft; for this act aims to realize his cardinal principle, that the +necessary work of a nation shall be compulsory and shall be apportioned +equitably and in such a way as to ensure each man getting the task for +which he is fitted. + + +II + +The chief question about Carlyle at present, however, is not the extent +of his influence, but how far his teachings justify the theories and +practices now dominant in Germany. The Germans point to his advocacy of +their cause in 1870, and to his glorification of Frederick the Great, as +proofs that he would approve of, and even exalt, all that they have +done. The kaiser has quoted him in a widely discussed speech about "one +man with God being a majority," while less prominent Germans have freely +appealed to his authority. The English speaking world has seemed, on the +whole, disposed to admit that Carlyle's doctrines justify, or at least +tend to produce, ideas such as those that now obsess Germany. Some +writers, like the Mr. Hueffer already mentioned, have seized the +opportunity to belabor his memory as a traitor; while others have risen +up to defend him, although they seem to do so less from conviction than +a desire to deprive the Germans of support. Anyone who knows Carlyle +more than superficially, however, knows that the present German policy +would earn from him nothing but furious denunciation; and the reason +would not be because the Germans began the war, as D. A. Wilson argues +in _The Fortnightly Review_ for February, 1916, nor because he was +pro-Russian, nor because of any other personal prejudice or +predilection, but because the German nation today exhibits about all the +vices he inveighed against as most dangerous to the peace of the world +and the progress of civilization. + +It would be idle to deny that Carlyle did exalt the German nation and +German policies to the English-speaking world, but we shall have to +qualify this exaltation if we accept Dr. Johnson's principle that an +author's works need editing a generation or so after their composition. +This dictum is based on the obvious necessity of recognizing that the +force of what a man says is conditioned by the current opinion of his +time and by his attitude towards it, and it also recognizes the truth of +one of Carlyle's own observations: "It is man's nature to change his +dialect from century to century; he cannot help it though he would." The +dialect of the nineteenth century was not that of the twentieth, and +Carlyle's use of it was affected by several things that still further +obscure his meaning for us. He opposed strongly what he regarded as many +popular fallacies of his time, and in opposing them he overemphasized +things that seemed to him to discredit or to disprove them. To the +undisciplined British populace, impatient of all control and clamoring +for the removal of all restrictions on individual liberty, he extolled +the docile German people; but it was not their absolute so much as their +comparative virtue that he was praising, and he would have recognized +that, under other circumstances, their submissiveness could prove a +vice, as, indeed, it has. Another fact, pointed out by Colonel T. W. +Higginson, a man whose extreme humanitarianism was calculated to make +him unsympathetic towards the eulogist of Dr. Francia, is that Carlyle +was a humorist and a man to whom the humorous attitude was second +nature. It will be necessary, therefore, to discount his praise of the +German people and of German institutions, for two reasons; the first, +because it was heightened to serve as a corrective to the tendency +towards license in his countrymen; and the second, because, as a +humorist, and also because of his ardent temperament, he invariably +indulged in over-statement. + +There is much besides this to indicate that Carlyle's praise of Germany +in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries is anything but +evidence that he would endorse Kultur and Schrecklichkeit. His +fundamental teaching is that we must not be formal, rigidly logical, or +addicted to any fixed method of thinking. The nature of things must be +determined from their effects, and not from any external +characteristics. The national attributes of any people are not +permanent, but they are capable of wide variation, and much of his +invective and striking metaphor was poured forth in an effort to prove +that this variation is very largely a question of good or bad +leadership. In sustaining this thesis he traces the history of Germany +more completely than he does that of any other country; and he indicates +several periods, notably that of the Thirty Years' War, and the reign of +Frederick I, when Prussia, at least, was contemptible in its policies. +France, too, he argues, has not always been the mischief-maker of +Europe; for to him the French Revolution was a salutary outburst of the +native integrity of the French people, to sweep away the intolerable +hypocrisies and injustices of the Old Regime, and to improve not only +French, but human society as well. + + * * * * * + +It is plain, therefore, that he did not affirm the Germans to be +intrinsically good and the French intrinsically bad. His aim was to show +that nations rise in proportion to the extent to which their purposes +are just and their methods intelligent, and that they invariably fall if +they deal unjustly with their own citizens or their neighbors. Sometimes +he contrasted the French unfavorably with the Germans, as, for instance, +when he says that the martial ardor of the French may be compared to +blazing straw, while that of the Germans is more like the burning of +anthracite coal. This, however, is due to his having, like a great many +other people, an impression that the French are more likely to exhibit +superficial and glittering qualities, while the Germans are conspicuous +for the commonplace virtues of industry and thoroughness. Nothing was +more insidious, in his opinion, than to prefer brilliancy to solid +worth; and it was the danger of this preference he was emphasizing, more +than the native depravity of the French national character, when he +compared the Gallic temperament unfavorably with the Teutonic. + + +III + +His attitude towards efficiency was also the direct opposite of the +present German conception of it. To him efficiency was a matter of +adaptation and improvisation, while the German theory is that it is a +question of fixed method and elaborate mechanism. Nobody ever despised +more than Carlyle the perennial fallacy that things can be done better +by the hocus pocus of procedure than by the intelligent application of +the available means to the end desired. He censured any effort to +achieve things automatically. He was never tired of ridiculing trust in +formulas. He insisted that the intelligence must be unfettered by +preconceptions or by a rigid plan. His hero was a man who had "swallowed +all the formulas," and who proceeded to adapt means to ends in any way +that was effective, passing rough-shod over theory, convention, dogmas, +or any other restrictions on his freedom of action. It is true that he +did insist on the necessity of having accurate and comprehensive +knowledge, and on thoroughness and other essentials of what the Germans +regard as scientific procedure. These things, however, were to him not +major but minor virtues. They were the auxiliaries to success, but they +were never to be considered as sufficient to ensure success, for they +had always to be supplemented by intelligence and insight. This is shown +by his depreciation of mere "beaver" industry, and by his fondness for +satirizing "pipe-clay," by which he meant senseless military routine. No +crime, in his eyes, was worse than a failure to recognize the dominant +importance of the sensibly and intellectually imponderable and +intangible elements that are part of every human problem; so that he +reprehended as vices the very things that have been most characteristic +of the Germans during the present war. + +Another thing that Carlyle abused and the Germans display, is +insincerity. Nothing comes in for more invective from him than this, and +to him it meant primarily a subjective attitude. Vanity was its chief +cause, in his opinion. Truth, however unpalatable, must be recognized; +while fiction, however flattering, must be scorned. Personal +relationships must not sway our judgment, and he railed with especial +violence against unwarranted optimism inspired by conceit. He pointed +out, as one of Frederick the Great's chief virtues, the fact that he was +influenced by no delusions created by vanity or sentimentality. He says +Frederick looked facts squarely in the face, and instances his once +offending his brother, the Crown Prince, by telling him that he had +surrounded himself with flatterers, and reminding him that the +Austrians, his enemies in the field, would not flatter him. Carlyle also +points out that Frederick's wars were all conducted on a frank basis, so +far, at least, as acknowledgment to himself of the real situation was +concerned. There was no indulgence in the theatrical or the spectacular, +certainly in none that deceived only himself. Frederick wasted no energy +in striving for apparent triumphs that had no practical worth. He +disregarded purely political or sentimental influences. Berlin was twice +entered by the enemy during the Seven Years War, because Frederick never +paid a military price for a political or a temporary victory, but he +yielded territory whenever strategy demanded it. How different is this +from Germany's present military policy, which sacrifices permanent +advantages for the appearance of victory, and does not succeed in +achieving even a convincing appearance of that? It is plain that the +cheap posturing of the German military policy is just the sort of thing +Carlyle hated and despised, and nobody who has read him more than +casually can have escaped realizing that his insistence on the necessity +of recognizing fact in an honest and unbiased manner is a condemnation +of the delight in conscious and unconscious mendacity displayed by the +present German government. + +Stupidity he warned against as one of the chief implements of the devil. +There is no other crime, he often said, for morality is largely a matter +of intelligence. Better be a villain than a fool, he implies, by quoting +approvingly the boast of the Scotch family that it had produced "many a +blackguard but not one blockhead." The mind which cannot or will not +perceive the obvious, or which persists in denying the unflattering, is +not only hopeless but vicious. Preferring to credit their prejudices or +their desires, instead of the lesson of events, was the chief crime he +ascribed to the men he held responsible for the worst catastrophes of +history. For mere density and well-intentioned incompetence, as in the +case of Louis XVI, he had some pity; but for stupidity arising from +wanton obstinacy and arrogance he had nothing but wrath and scorn. It +would be difficult to find in history a parallel for the infatuated +folly of the German military and political policy during this war, but +we find Carlyle reprehending less aggravated and perverse displays of +trust in bombast, brutality, and pretension, in the case of countries +like Spain and Austria; and this is only one of many things that show +how monstrous in his eyes would seem the insensate policy which has made +Germany the shame of civilization, and has alienated from her every +country in the world except a few contiguous ones that tolerate or +assist her through fear or rapacity. + +What proves the German policy most at variance with Carlyle's +philosophy, however, is the fact that it is guided by materialistic and +cynical convictions. His basic belief was that the fundamental law of +existence is morality; they jeer at any power that is not material. +Besides this, he believed that reliance on the baser qualities of human +nature can never lead anywhere but to perdition. The leadership which +aims to secure itself by appealing to the selfishness or by satisfying +the folly of mankind, is courting disaster. The German policy boastfully +proceeds on the assumption that the only motives that govern human +action are self interest of some base sort, and it credits humanity with +as little intelligence as morality. It is true that Carlyle had slight +respect for the intelligence or the integrity of the masses, but he +insisted that nobility is inherent in human nature, and that a hero who +knows how to arouse it, invariably appears whenever a government becomes +so unjust or so incompetent as to be intolerable. The German theory is +that the weak have no friends; Carlyle's conviction was that nature +avenges all injustice. The Germans declare that might makes right; +Carlyle preached that right makes might, and on every question of +fundamental morality he was diametrically opposed to them. "Savage +animalism is nothing; inventive spiritualism is all," he writes in one +place, and implies in a thousand. The Germans proceed on exactly the +opposite assumption. They trust in nothing but force, and the +neo-Darwinism that guides their policy is only a combination of the +ideas he denounced in the works of such men as Hume, Bentham, Comte, and +Darwin himself, mixed with a sentimental egoism that he abominated above +everything else. + + +IV + +There is, of course, some reason for believing that Carlyle's ideas +resemble those of which the German policy is the expression, but there +is none if we look beyond his superficial meaning. One reason for +branding him as an advocate of German practices is his exaltation of +Frederick the Great. Frederick began his first war by seizing Silesia, +very much as Wilhelm II began the present war by seizing Belgium. As +Carlyle justified the seizing of Silesia, many people cannot see why +that does not warrant the conclusion that he would also justify the +seizure of Belgium. Such people, however, forget that the Prussia of +1740 was not even the Prussia of 1914, to say nothing of the German +Empire or the Teutonic Alliance. Carlyle would detect in Prussia a +change in spirit, but even if this cannot be established, there is +certainly no parallel between Frederick's seizure of Silesia and +Germany's attack on Belgium. In 1740, Prussia was one of the small +countries of Europe. Its population was about half that of Belgium in +1914, and its political importance was not much greater. It was situated +between militaristic France and imperialistic Austria; and its immediate +neighbors: Saxony, Bavaria, Poland, and the Scandinavian kingdoms, were +ready at any moment to profit by its misfortunes. Prussia's seizure of +Silesia was, therefore, very much as if Belgium, learning in advance of +Germany's plan of invasion, had seized German territory adjacent to its +frontiers, and used it as a buffer to defend itself. It was the case of +a small state preserving itself from the aggressions of a big neighbor +aiming at world dominion. The methods employed may not have been +technically legal, but they were justified; therefore Carlyle endorsed +them. He believed that Frederick, cynic and materialist though he admits +him to have been, nevertheless proved himself the valiant defender of +his country's right to self government. He also regarded Frederick as +the man who did most in the eighteenth century to preserve Europe from +being dominated by a lawless imperialism. The rulers of Austria, because +of their almost uninterrupted possession of the office of Holy Roman +Emperor, openly aimed at universal dominion, and never lost an +opportunity of trying to realize it by force of intrigue. France, too, +was striving for the domination of Europe, and Russia was just becoming +conspicuous for the brutality and unscrupulousness of its political +methods quite as much as for the vastness of the power it had suddenly +developed. When these facts are considered, Frederick's action must be +admitted to have been, if not in the interests of democracy, at least in +support of the principle of self-determination for which the Allies +claim to be fighting against Germany; and Carlyle's endorsement of it at +least creates the presumption that he would not sympathize with Germany, +which today, greatly extended, is playing the part of the bullying +nations he commended Frederick for thwarting. + +He seems, however, to advocate autocracy, and to deride democracy, and +this would appear to put him in agreement with the kaiser and his +professorial prompters. It is true that he did deride the notion that +the decision of the majority is always right. He likewise insisted that +all the constitutionality and legality conceivable will not ensure good +government or justify incompetence or unrighteousness in power; and +that, conversely, no formal or technical irregularity disqualifies a +government which is beneficent and capable. He ridiculed the idea that +political equality is synonymous with justice, but this does not mean +that he believed in caste rule. His opposition to political equality was +inspired by no respect for inherited authority or the sanctity of +property, but was the result of a conviction that it is a crude and +materialistic way of trying to solve an immensely complicated problem by +a simple mechanical process. Not external equality, but _equity_, must +be achieved to make government effective and successful, was his +contention. Making men equal in political power, in his opinion, ensured +that the government would be dominated by the ignorance and selfishness +of the mass of men, rather than by the enlightenment and integrity of +the relatively small portion of mankind whom nature fits for leadership +by endowing them with superior moral and intellectual powers. He +believed no man entitled to authority except on the basis of character +and ability, and he was as bitterly opposed to the German scheme of +class rule as he was to the quantitative methods of the radicals. It is +entirely wrong to think that, because he denied that universal suffrage +will guarantee justice and humanity, he endorsed injustice and +oppression. He didn't care how a government was organized or what it +claimed to do, but he only inquired what it had succeeded in doing, and +by this he judged it. The results of the German policy have been +disaster for the world as well as for Germany, and he would condemn the +German government for this, without being at all concerned about its +form. He attached no importance to a government's form; all he judged by +was its spirit. He believed that a government is inevitably the +expression of the intelligence and morality of the people it represents, +and that any form is capable of proving either good or bad in operation. +Germany may be an autocracy in form, but the German people almost +unanimously endorsed the war and its enormities; so what we have is an +exhibition of the fallibility of popular judgment more than a display of +the evils of autocracy. On this point Carlyle's position is clear, while +that of the critics who accuse him of having endorsed German practices, +because he denied that the majority is always right, is much more +susceptible of being considered a justification of Kultur. + +According to his interpretation of history, the case of Germany is +perfectly plain. It is simply an instance of the degeneracy that, he +claimed, inevitably follows the adoption of selfish or materialistic +ambitions. The patient industry and the steady pursuit of the practical +instead of the spectacular brought Germany to greatness, and placed vast +power in the hands of her rulers. Then those rulers were tempted to +misuse that power, and they fell. They decided to corrupt the people and +make them the instrument by which world dominion could be achieved. They +therefore cultivated the baser passions of the populace, and with +infinite thoroughness and resource, they used every agency of the +government to secure public endorsement for a policy of aggression, and +for a swash-buckling and bombastic procedure that appealed only to the +shallow and the reckless. They found this the easier because +circumstances worked with them. The Franco-Prussian War inflamed German +chauvinism and inflated German conceit to an incredible extent. The +success of the war was more the result of France's weakness than +Germany's strength, but it filled the German nation with extravagant +enthusiasm, and inspired it with blind faith in its own invincibility. +Then Germany changed from a country largely agricultural to one mainly +industrial, and wealth came to kindle in a naturally gross and sensual +people a passion for luxury, and to impart to a naturally arrogant one +the insolence of material power. The effect of the first of these things +is shown in the famous night-life of Berlin, which, before the war, was +more gross and lavish than that of any other city in the world; while +the overbearing character of the average German abroad shows how general +was the influence of the second. Thus a change has been effected in the +spirit of Germany. From a nation dull but honest, rude but sincere and +kindly, it has been transformed by bad leadership and sudden prosperity +into a people whose dominant characteristics are brutality and +mendacity. Therefore the Germany that Carlyle praised is not the Germany +that perpetrated the present war, and there is no doubt that his +attitude towards the apostles of Kultur would be the direct opposite of +what it was towards Frederick the Great and Bismarck. + + + + +THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS + + +"It need not be difficult either to define or to secure the freedom of +the seas if the governments of the world sincerely desire to come to an +agreement concerning it." At first thought, the most striking +characteristic of these words of President Wilson in his address to the +Senate last January is their optimism. Freedom of the seas, according to +German authorities, is to be secured by various agencies, including the +unrestricted use of the submarine and an independent Ireland. Primarily +it is to be secured by the destruction of British naval predominance. +Now British authorities have an inconvenient habit of stating that +freedom of the seas was won long ago by means of the British navy, that +it exists today in time of peace, and that its continuance depends upon +Britannia ruling the waves. Our correspondence with Germany before we +entered the war contains polite references to our cooeperation with that +country to secure freedom of the seas through recognition by treaties +and international agreement of principles such as that of the immunity +of private property, not contraband, from capture at sea. But Germany no +longer thinks it possible to secure the freedom of the seas by the +medium of scraps of paper, and other nations show an unflattering +unanimity on this point, with regard to any scraps of paper to which the +present German government might be a party. As to the submarine as a +means of securing freedom of the seas, our entrance into the war is +perhaps a sufficient indication of our estimate of it. The usefulness of +an independent Ireland toward this end would seem even more likely to be +limited. There remains the British navy, and it promises to remain. + +And how are we to define the freedom of the seas? The term has been used +in the past, and examination of our diplomatic correspondence will show +that it has been used in this war, in three different ways. It has been +used in protest against the appropriation by a single nation of definite +areas of the high seas for exclusive uses. The sowing of mines and the +proclamation of danger areas have led to its revival in this sense. It +has been believed to mean the right of private citizens to continue +sea-borne commerce in war time with a minimum of interruption. Our +preoccupation with this usage of the term during the first years of the +war won us a good deal of unpopularity with our present co-belligerents. +It has been used with reference to the safety of human life on the sea. +We are fighting Germany today upon this issue. + +Is the problem one of war times only, or is there anything in the +contention that the potential pressure of sea power operates in times of +peace in restraint of commercial development? The question is not a +simple one, and perhaps it will aid us in understanding the seeming +optimism of our historian-president if we try to understand how this +matter has been dealt with in the past. The sailing ship has given way +to the turbine propeller, the galleon to the dreadnaught, the pinnace to +the submarine, but is the freedom of the seas which is being fought for +to-day of a kind different from that which was fought for in the days of +Drake? And is it to be secured by the same or by different means? + + * * * * * + +We need not dwell upon the recognition by Roman law of the principle of +the right of all to use the seas as a highway, nor upon the claims of +various city-states, notably Venice, to dominate portions of the +Mediterranean. In view of recent pronouncements from the Vatican, it is +interesting to remember that the claim of Venice, picturesquely +symbolized by the annual ceremony of wedding the Adriatic, was based in +part upon the gift of a ring accompanying an alleged papal grant, and +that the struggle for the freedom of the ocean seas began as a challenge +of two actual papal grants of wider significance. In 1454 Nicholas V +rewarded the pertinacity of the Portuguese in pushing their discoveries +southward along the coast of Africa, by granting to the crown of +Portugal exclusive rights of navigation and trade south of Capes Bojador +and Non. In 1493, Alexander VI rewarded the crown of Castile for the +exploit of Columbus, by giving Spain rights similarly exclusive beyond +the meridian one hundred degrees west of the Azores. The details of +these arrangements were later modified by mutual agreement of the powers +concerned, the final understanding being that Portugal had exclusive +rights of trade and navigation by the eastern approach to the Indies, +and Spain in the waters of what was supposed to be the western route +thither. + +Both powers stood ready to defend the privileges which the highest +international authority of the period had granted them. They proceeded +to deal summarily with all foreign vessels found in their preserves. +Although the medieval maritime code, the _Consolato del Mare_, provided +for sparing the lives of the crew of a captured vessel, the +humanitarianism of the king of Portugal took a different form. John II +issued orders to his captains to seize all vessels encountered in the +barred zone, and instructed them to cast the crews into the sea, "In +order that they may die a natural death." + + * * * * * + +It was the mariners of France who most frequently braved this earlier +form of "spurlos versenkt." They persisted in navigating the waters +claimed by Portugal, and established a lucrative trade in Brazil. Their +sovereign, Francis I, seems to have been the earliest champion among +rulers of the freedom of the ocean seas. To the expostulations of the +king of Portugal he maintained, "The act of traffic and exchange of +goods is of all rights one of the most natural and best grounded." To +the remonstrances of the Spanish ruler, the Emperor Charles V, he +replied, "The sun shines for me as well as for others. I should like to +see the clause of Adam's will which excludes me from the partition of +the world." The tales of the exploits of Jean Ango, merchant of Dieppe, +who sank his enormous fortune in his ventures; of his captains, Fleury, +Verrazano, the brothers Parmentier, is an absorbing one. Seeking +fortunes for themselves and revenge for comrades fallen into the hands +of the enemy and treated as pirates; justifying their acts on the +principle that the paths of the sea are free to all; they dared and +suffered, and explored new lands, and brought glory to the maritime +annals of France. They laid the foundations of her overseas commerce and +colonies, but owing to the religious wars at home the superstructure was +not built until a later age. + +The exploits of the French sailors against the Spanish monopoly were +succeeded by those of Hawkins and Drake. Elizabeth's dictum that the sea +and the air were common to all was as emphatic as Francis I's utterances +on the subject, and Elizabeth's was the better maintained. The victories +of Drake in the Caribbean Sea in 1586 meant the death blow to Spain's +hopes of effectually barring the western seas. She was felt to be within +her rights, however, in establishing a monopoly of trade with her +colonies in the new world. The English, in their efforts to obtain +trading concessions, or at least a recognition of their right to trade +in regions not actually occupied by Spain, following French precedent, +sedulously avoided making any agreement that might seem to acknowledge +Spain's right to prevent the vessels of other nations from sailing the +American seas. + +While England was combating Spain's claims in western waters, a new +maritime power, the Netherlands, was breaking down the monopoly of +Portugal in the east. The ships of the Dutch East India Company won +their way against the Portuguese and made prize of their vessels. It was +apparently to set at rest the consciences of members of the company who +hesitated to pocket profits that had not been won in peaceful trade, +that the Dutchman Grotius wrote his treatise on the law of prize, one +chapter of which, under the title _Mare Liberum_, was published as an +independent work. The book claimed the seas as a free highway for the +ships of all nations, and freedom of trade for all nations on every sea. +That age was not ready to accept either claim in its entirety. Two +Englishmen, Welwod and Selden, wrote books to vindicate England's +traditional sovereignty over the British seas, the limits of which no +one was quite certain about. Even the British admirals who were supposed +to defend British authority there, could never get the Crown lawyers to +pronounce exactly on the point, some holding that British seas extended +to the English settlements in America, others being satisfied with a +line drawn from Norway to Cape Finisterre. Charles I set out, with his +ship money fleets, to supplement the discourses of his subjects by "the +louder language of a powerful navy." But it was left for his great +successor, Cromwell, to use this latter language effectively, and to +wring from the Dutch the concession that their ships should strike flag +and topsail in the narrow seas. They always insisted, however, that this +was done in courtesy, not as a recognition of British sovereignty over +any part of the high seas. International incidents arising from the +refusal of French captains to salute occurred until England relinquished +her claim during the Napoleonic wars. + + * * * * * + +As to freedom of trade, the English Navigation Laws stood as a witness +that Spain's policy of monopolizing colonial trade was considered worthy +of emulation. Such monopolies were carefully guarded, as in Elizabeth's +day, and as in her day efforts were made to break them down. To +Cromwell's request that Englishmen be allowed liberty of conscience and +of trade in the West Indies, the Spanish ambassador replied that it was +to ask his master's two eyes. Thereupon Cromwell stopped asking, but +despatched a fleet to the West Indies to seize a post which might become +a centre of British trade. + +This action of Cromwell links his day to ours. That the keynote of +modern diplomacy and its accompaniment of wars is to be found in rivalry +for the possession of land and markets in the extra-European world, has +been fully pointed out by historians. It is a fact which cannot be +emphasized too strongly. Its significance increases with the study of +the whole modern period.[1] One has only to dip into the pamphlet +literature of the eighteenth and late seventeenth centuries, or to read +a few pages of parliamentary debates, to realize the importance of trade +in the eyes of all men. It becomes apparent that the aim of each +progressive nation was to increase its overseas commerce at the expense +of other nations, and that every new enterprise of foreigners loomed as +a menace to national prosperity. Sea-borne trade was the nursery of +seamen, and commerce must be restricted to nationals by navigation acts, +while commercial ventures of rival states were not alone a menace +because they meant diverting profits to the benefit of a rival, but +dangerous as the possible foundation for hostile naval power. Since +commerce was carried on most successfully by trading companies, it was +good policy to give them governmental countenance, and although +occasional voices were raised in criticism of their monopolies and the +high prices for which they were felt to be responsible, their shares +were popular forms of investment, and many of their shareholders sat in +the seats of the mighty. The English and Dutch East India Companies were +among the first to carry on overseas commerce on a large scale, and much +international history is written between the lines of their annals. + + [1] And its illusions were set forth in "The Expansionist + Fallacy," No. 5 of this REVIEW.--ED. + +"And you, Belgians, courage, courage! Continue to defend intrepidly your +rights and your freedom, and with them the freedom of the human race!" +It was not in August of 1914 that these words were spoken. They occur in +a pamphlet published in 1727, and the struggle in which they urge the +Belgians to persist was a struggle for the freedom of the seas. The +ruler of the Belgians in those days was popularly called the German +emperor, and though not a Hohenzollern, he was a Hapsburg. The Emperor +Charles VI was pursuing a project which bade fair to give the Hapsburg +lands something they have not attained to this day: importance as a +maritime power. He had issued a charter to a group of Belgian merchants +who were already carrying on a lucrative trade with the far east from +the port of Ostend. The Dutch and English East India companies, seeing +their monopolies endangered, complained to their respective governments, +which immediately set in motion machinery for the suppression of the +Ostend Company. Diplomatic agents busied themselves at Charles' court, +and a flood of pamphlets, in those days of limited newspaper publicity, +did what they could in the manufacturing of public opinion. The Belgian +pamphlets maintained the principle that "the right to trade in any part +of the globe is inherent in all sovereign peoples." The Dutch pamphlets +opposed the company on the ground of alleged infringement of treaty +rights and agreements. The English pamphlets, wisely refraining from +much comment on documents based on papal grants whose authority England +had never recognized, argued that English pocketbooks would suffer if +the Ostend Company continued to do business. Pitt many years later +stated in Parliament that the English government had no right to demand +the suppression of the company. But, as the British ambassador said to +the Emperor, in language strikingly reminiscent of that of the Spanish +ambassador of Cromwell's day, "In attacking our commerce, you fly in the +eyes of the English nation." In the complicated diplomacy of five years, +the question of the Ostend Company held its own, but in 1731 Charles VI +abandoned it, as he had abandoned many other things of value, to obtain +one more ratification of the Pragmatic Sanction. + +Eight years later it was England that was carrying on a struggle for the +principle of freedom of the seas. Modern research has established beyond +any reasonable doubt that the immortal Jenkins did actually have an ear +sliced off by a Spaniard who was searching his ship for smuggled goods, +and that the tale was not a fabrication of the Opposition that desired +to force Walpole to plunge England into war. The Opposition certainly +recognized the recruiting value of the incident. "The tale of Jenkins' +ear will raise us troops enough!" exclaimed one member on the floor of +the House of Commons. Whether or not Jenkins commended his soul to God +and his cause to his country, his country embraced his cause as that of +the freedom of British commerce from search by Spaniards in time of +peace. The British vessels searched were usually smugglers, but the +British public was not interested in the right of Spain to safeguard her +monopoly of trade with her colonies; they objected to search and to the +contention that British ships must not be found in American waters +outside the straight path between England and her colonies, and they +besieged the doors of Parliament with the slogan: "A free sea or war!" +And so was fought the war of Jenkins' Ear, which might have been avoided +had it not been for the powerful influence, both with the people and +with Parliament, of the South Sea Company; and which did nothing toward +settling the point in controversy. + +Thus far the principle of freedom of the seas had been invoked in +connection with efforts to preserve for the benefit of a whole nation or +of favored groups of nationals, all access to the trade and resources of +certain regions. During the wars for colonies and commerce which arose +from these efforts, the principle was brought forward against +interruption of commerce in time of war. In the days when privateering +was a recognized adjunct of maritime, warfare, commerce-destroying was +reduced to a science that only the last three years have rivalled. The +seizure as contraband of anything which might help the enemy to prolong +the struggle, and the confiscation of cargoes of neutral ships, on the +ground that part of the cargo belonged to the enemy, caused endless +international complications. Treaties of peace began to contain +provisions designed to render less burdensome these rights claimed by +belligerents. The first step toward anything like international +agreement was taken in the treaties of Utrecht in 1713. By these +treaties contraband was limited to articles directly useful in war, +exclusive of foodstuffs; enemy goods on neutral ships were protected on +the principle later reduced to a formula, as "free ships, free goods"; +and the method of visit and search was regulated. These arrangements did +not outlast the peace, but many later treaties renewed, and some +developed more fully, these restrictions, which were naturally more +popular with neutral powers and with powers possessing small navies, +than with the power which possessed the command of the sea. As that +enviable position was held practically without interruption by Great +Britain, and as in time of war she used unsparingly the advantages her +position gave her, she gained in the eyes of opponent and neutral the +reputation of being the enemy of freedom of the seas. + +At the beginning of the Seven Years' War France, realizing that she +would not be able to control the trade with her colonies, threw it open +to neutrals. Great Britain thereupon laid down her famous "Rule of 1756" +that commerce illegal in time of peace was not legal in time of war, and +attacked neutral ships found trading with French colonies. The answer of +Denmark and Sweden to this policy was the formation of the first league +of neutrals to protect neutral commerce. The French, hoping that the +contrast of their policy with that of Great Britain would help their +cause with neutral powers, were careful not to authorize interference +with neutral trade. It is interesting to find the doctrine of which we +have heard so much of late, of the menace of British "navalism," +formulated in the eighteenth century by the minister of a state which, +like England's opponent in the twentieth, was stronger on land than on +the sea. It was a French diplomat who expressed the hope that some day a +union of nations would be able to cope with England and "establish +firmly after the peace, or even during the war, a balance of commerce: +for without it no other people will ever enjoy any but a precarious +navigation, which will last only as long as it is to the interest of the +English government not to destroy it." This statement owes its +significance to the fact that it voiced the attitude of a government +which, under stress of circumstances, indeed, and not because it saw a +light, was departing from the prevailing practice of mercantilism, the +reservation for nationals of the benefits of colonial trade. + + * * * * * + +A British statesman has recently made the assertion that the United +States owes its existence to the struggle for the freedom of the seas. +He was referring to the Elizabethan struggle against Spain's policy of +exclusion, but is not the statement true also in another sense? In so +far as the restrictions laid upon the development of the colonies by the +trade and navigation laws contributed in bringing about the American +Revolution, that movement was a protest against the mercantile system, +under which no freedom of the seas was possible. + +The United States early ranged herself, also, on the side of the nations +that championed freedom of the seas for commerce in time of war. Her +treaty with France regulated the right of search, limited contraband to +munitions of war, and proclaimed the principle, "free ships, free +goods." The treaty which Franklin later negotiated with Prussia +established American advocacy of the immunity of private property from +capture at sea. In the meantime, Great Britain's refusal to limit +herself in any interference with commerce which might hinder her victory +over her revolted colonies and France, gave umbrage to the Scandinavian +powers and to Russia, and in 1780 Catherine II proclaimed the Armed +Neutrality of the North. To the principle of "free flag, free goods," +and the limitation of contraband to actual munitions of war, the Armed +Neutrality joined the principle that a blockade to be binding must be +effectively maintained. Although Catherine jested with the British +ambassador about her armed neutrality, calling it an armed nullity, she +told him that Russian trade and Russian ships were her children, and +that she was determined to protect them. France had favored the +formation of the Armed Neutrality, and Louis XVI improved the occasion +by explaining that his only motive in participating in the war was his +attachment to the principle of the freedom of the seas. + +It is difficult for us today to preserve the proper attitude of respect +for the word of a king in this connection, but it is not so difficult +for us to understand what was the real attitude of France. England had +won from France the greater part of her colonies, and with them a +lucrative commerce, and her remaining commerce was being crippled by the +war policy of the mistress of the seas. Behind the England which refused +to limit her power as a belligerent by accepting a revision of maritime +law, stood the England which was the successful commercial rival of +France. + +The French Republic inherited this much of the view point of Louis XVI. +The remedy for the situation France saw in an imitation of England's +policy. It enacted a navigation law copied after those of Great Britain, +and while declaring that its war against England was a war to free the +seas, it proclaimed that as a war measure it was abandoning the +principle, "free ships, free goods." Napoleon took up the convenient +formula, writing to the Royal Society on paper decorated by a vignette +representing Liberty sailing in a shell, and bearing the motto, _Liberte +de Mer_. Years later he read the same meaning into the formula; +outlining to Narbonne his idea that England should be attacked through +the Orient; he said that the same blow which destroyed her mercantile +greatness in India, would win independence for the west, and the freedom +of the sea. England's attitude toward sea law gave him a convenient +weapon, and he induced his admirer the Czar to form a new Armed +Neutrality, announcing that France would not make peace until neutral +flags were properly respected, "and until England shall have +acknowledged that the sea belongs to all nations." Whether the device of +a league of neutrals could really be an effective force in protecting +commerce in wartime was not proved in 1800, for after the assassination +of the Czar Paul the coalition went to a pieces. As in the present war, +both belligerents used their naval forces to cut off supplies from the +territories controlled by the enemy, and to ruin her commerce. Napoleon +in his attempt to close the markets of Europe to Great Britain +maintained that he was defending the freedom of the seas against Great +Britain's refusal "to recognize international law as observed by other +nations," while England defended her "paper blockades" and policy toward +neutrals, as necessary, since she must preserve her command of the seas +as an "essential to the protection of independent states, and for the +prosperity and good of the human race." + +The damage done to American commerce in the pursuit of these +high-sounding aims precipitated the war of 1812, which was indubitably a +war for the freedom of the seas for neutral commerce in time of war, and +which would probably have been fought with France instead of with Great +Britain had it not been for the question of impressment, and the popular +prejudices which had survived the American Revolution. Our championship +of rules limiting belligerent rights against sea borne commerce, and our +activities in the suppression of the Barbary pirates, have led us into a +rather complacent attitude with regard to our position as to freedom of +the seas. It is salutary therefore for us to remember the Bering Sea +controversy. When, in 1821, Russia claimed sovereignty over Bering Sea, +both the United States and Great Britain protested, and Russia withdrew +her claim. But when in 1886 our activities in connection with pelagic +sealing caused friction with Great Britain, our defense was based in +part upon a claim to have inherited from Russia rights which in 1821 we +had refused to admit that she possessed. And when the case was heard +before an international court, one of our advocates even justified visit +and search in time of peace, regardless of our traditional position on +that subject. However, after a certain amount of journalistic jubilation +when the award went against us, our cousins overseas charitably allowed +the memory of our peccadillo to accumulate dust. That the question of +the right of a nation to protect fisheries in adjacent waters is not a +closed one, was shown by Russia's claim in the White Sea put forward in +1911. That question, as well as the whole matter of the three-mile +limit, is bound to demand further consideration in the near future. + + * * * * * + +What has been the attitude of Great Britain since 1815, and how far does +it foreshadow her future policy? It must not be forgotten that in the +long struggle to safeguard human life as well as property upon the seas, +the chief burden has been borne by her. In the old days of her proud +claim to a salute in the narrow seas, she felt her responsibility to +police those seas, and this sense of responsibility has widened with the +extension of her commerce, so that she has put the whole world in her +debt by rendering the seven seas a safe highway in time of peace. Her +adoption of the principle of free trade was probably the greatest single +step that has been taken in modern times toward freedom of the seas, in +the sense of breaking down the barriers of trade restriction which +supposed national interest had erected. On the other hand, in the race +for markets and raw materials, she has not escaped the tendency toward +that return to the mercantilistic policy of exclusion in favor of +nationals which is so marked in the whole movement today, and which is +the crux of the problem. In the aspect of the question which has to do +with limitation of belligerent right, she has shown herself responsive +to the tendency, so noticeable from 1815 to 1914, to regard war as +something to be limited so far as possible to the armed forces of the +belligerents. Her substantial concessions in 1856, many of her statesmen +have never ceased to deprecate, and it was the growing feeling that she +could not afford to part with any more of the advantages her command of +the sea gave her, that prevented the ratification of the Declaration of +London. The events of the present war make very vital the question how +far rules of this sort contribute toward the solution of the problem. + +The attitude of the English press toward Lord Lansdowne's suggestion +that Great Britain declare her willingness to discuss the problems +connected with the freedom of the seas reflects the shades of British +opinion at present. Certain papers see the problem as one of war times +only, and point out, what American opinion will not fail to echo, that +the submarine question will have to be dealt with first and foremost. +Two writers face the problem squarely as one of commercial policy in +time of peace, and offer solutions according to their creeds. The +_Saturday Review_ expresses the belief that "so far from examining with +other Powers the question of the freedom of the seas, we must re-enact, +without delay, the Navigation Laws, which we foolishly repealed in +1849." On the other hand, the _London Nation_ sees the impartial +distribution of the world's raw materials as one aspect of the real +freedom of the seas, and agrees with the French Socialists that the +mistress of the seas that must secure this freedom for all nations +willing to live by the rule of peace, must be, not Great Britain, but +the future League of Nations. The harmonizing of these two view-points +does not promise to be an easy task, and we may be sure that the whole +question will have full and free discussion in England and throughout +her empire in the months to come. American citizens do not have to +consider the problem of resigning to the keeping of a League of Nations +a proud and long-cherished tradition of wardenship of the seas. But we +are one of the great commercial nations, and no voice will have a more +respectful hearing than ours at the peace settlement. Barere, +phrase-maker of the French Revolution, summed up the foreign policy of +France in 1798 by saying that she had inscribed upon her flags, "Freedom +of the seas, peace to the world, equal rights to all nations." We have +seen how the first of these phrases has been used again and again in the +past to cloak jealousies of the commercial dominance of a rival nation. +We know that one thing that it means today is that never again must the +history of the world be stained by the wanton destruction of the lives +of peaceful travelers upon the world's highway. If it has a meaning also +in relation to the world's commerce, in peace or in war, we must see +that it is a different meaning from that of the past. For we, too, have +inscribed _Freedom of the seas_ upon our battle flags, and it behooves +us to be certain just where our army belongs in the long procession of +armies with banners--just what is the direction in which our standards +point. + + + + +THE CONDITIONS OF TOLERANCE + + +There is one virtue which we implicitly assume when we discuss +philosophy, and usually invoke when we venture to discuss religion. It +is the favorite "intellectual virtue" of our time: for, as the sophists +disquietingly remarked in their day, and as Professor Sumner shows in +_Folkways_, moral touchstones, like clothes, are subject to change of +fashion; those of a former generation, taken for granted in all +soberness, rise out of old books with a quaintness like that of the +"y^e" and the long "s" of our forefathers. The "great, the awful, the +respectable virtues," such as godliness and righteousness, as terms of +approval, are seldom on our lips; the old stalwart, rigid qualities are +less admired today than those which are more gracious and humane--than +flexibility of mind, universal sympathy, open vision. + +But these latter in their turn we have now accepted as ideals, with no +warning Socrates at our elbow to demand: "Precisely what do you mean by +these new standards which you take for granted?" + +"Toleration is so prodigious an impiety," said a member of the +Westminster Assembly, "that this religious parliament cannot but abhor +the meaning of it." Yet, in that constant gradual "transvaluation of all +values" which humanity performs, tolerance has become the golden word of +modern thought. And, like all popular ideas, it is unthinkingly accepted +and facilely claimed. Even those who admit that they have not attained +full measure of it, hide themselves behind the remark: "I am tolerant of +everything except intolerance," and thereby yield them altogether: for +to be tolerant only of a corresponding tolerance, is like confining your +courtesy to polite people. The only attitude which tests the quality of +tolerance is precisely the intolerant attitude. + +But passing by these simple folk, we may yet find in the more +serious-minded the sense of an inconsistency in the very conception, +which puts it forever beyond our reach. We may be undertaking the +difficult experiment of eating our cake and having it too. Yet even so +there may be a refuge: for if paradox should prove to be the final form of +truth--a union of opposites present in all living facts--inconsistency +will have no devastating effect on it. The very fabric of truth may be +woven of just such contradictions; reality may _never_ be consistent. +But whether or no this be the way out, there are plainly difficulties +to be considered, if we are to understand, and at the same time +accept, the ideal of tolerance. + +At the outset the distinction must be drawn between outward physical +toleration and the inward spiritual grace of tolerance. In the first +place, tolerance refers to thought, not to conduct. That heretics are no +longer burned at the stake is the outcome of a change in social policy; +in so far as this change is more than the discovery that heretics are +after all not dangerous to the state, it is due to the obvious fact that +where there is no clearly delineated, uniform orthodoxy, there can be no +heresy--the species is extinct. Whenever the government in power +concludes that an idea _is_ dangerous to the state, it does not hesitate +to break through whatever safeguards to individual liberty of opinion +may have been erected in the past. If such action is not legally +justified, it is at once shown that laws are dead things, powerless +against living human fears and needs. The application of the +Defense-of-the-Realm act in England to distributing copies of the +hitherto innocuous Sermon on the Mount, is evidence enough that the +governmental attitude towards the subject has not changed in principle. +And if, in addition to fear, we have a sharply defined orthodox view, we +find that, though ordinary people no longer advocate capital punishment +for doubting the Trinity, they did attempt to lynch Max Eastman for +doubting the righteousness of the war. In other words, we have ceased to +believe that religious opinions matter to social conduct, while still +believing that political opinions do. + +The genuine intolerance of the middle ages rested on a different basis. +We say: Think what you please, so long as you act in conformity with +what public opinion pleases. Plenty of anarchists and pacifists and +upholders of the Susan B. Anthony Federal Amendment are still at large +because their actions, though not their thoughts, are orthodox. The +Inquisition struck deeper, because it was convinced of the genuine +importance of thought, in relation to conduct. It was not content with +binding the heretic to hold his peace--he must recant. It was so utterly +convinced that not merely expediency, but final universal truth, lay in +its keeping, that mere error, in the face of this revealed truth, became +the ultimate sin. + +The question of the meaning of tolerance, then, if it is not simply a +matter of social usage, becomes the question, How far is it compatible +with conviction? Tolerance may be defined as willingness to sanction the +existence of views at variance with our own. The point at issue is not +the expression of such views; the most intolerant man may egg on his +opponent to complete expression, that he may argue him out of his error. +The real tolerance refers to the relation of thought to thought, not of +thought to speech. The above definition is one which, I believe, the +seeker after tolerance will agree to accept (I have tried it on +several). And yet, though presenting a fair idea of the attitude, it +holds within itself the difficulty which puts the ideal out of reach. + +This inherent contradiction may be stated, in the terms of our +definition, thus: we are willing for an opposite view to exist _only_ +when we are not entirely convinced that our own view is true. The real +belief in absolute truth is a missionary state of mind, and carries with +it the faith that truth is the one thing worth having. In our day, the +infinite variety of ideas which custom does not stale, has long forced +itself upon our attention. In consequence we no longer share the faith +of Plato that knowledge, as distinct from opinion, can be secured. We +cannot believe anything quite as firmly as the mediaeval Catholic +believed in an eternal church independent of argument, or indeed of +humanity. If we could, we should be as intolerant as Billy Sunday, whom +"the pale cast of thought" has never tinged, and, if we were +metaphysicians, should go up and down the world preaching the dangers of +neo-realism, as the evangelist fulminates against the blasphemy of +biological evolution. But Billy Sunday is an inverted anachronism; it is +not in the power of a modern of the _commencement de siecle_ to +recapture his fine careless rapture. + +If this be true, if we have grown too modest to declare the eternal +constitution of the universe, what degree of conviction and what quality +of tolerance are left us? + +The first answer is, that we may be willing to admit a view differing +from our own because we realize that both may be right. But such a +realization, if it is to be more than verbal politeness, implies that +the difference is only partial or nominal, and consequently that my +opponent's error does not shut him out from acknowledging my truth. I +may be a woman suffragist, and yet be tolerant of the views of a friend +who opposes suffrage, not on grounds of sex, but because he believes +that the suffrage is already too wide, requiring restriction rather than +enlargement. If I also am in theory an aristocrat, I can admit the +notion that both of us are in a measure right. + +But the only real tests of tolerance are the far more common cases, in +which, if I am right, you must be wrong. Present species are or are not +the result of development or special creation; the world is or is not an +intelligible order; our individual personalities do or do not survive +bodily death. We cannot be content here to fall back on a different +statement of the problem. When we say: "Oh, yes, we both believe in God; +to me he is Life Force; to you, Jehovah," we know in our hearts that we +are simply conniving at the draining of all definite meaning from the +word, in order to confuse the issue and keep the peace. The one thing +needful is, not that we should find blanket terms under which we seem to +agree, but that we should drag our disagreement into the clearest +possible light, and so find out what we are talking about. Not only our +language, but our intelligence suffers from preferring vague unity to +distinct differentiation. + +Even in such cases there are, however, three conditions which make +tolerance tenable. The first of them is, that we do not really care +about the issue; we have taken sides, but only because it is necessary +to hold some opinion, and so we have no active conviction. We are +tolerant because, after all, we know little about the subject, and are +willing to leave enthusiasm to experts. I have a friend who, even in the +crisis of the present war, keeps critically aloof from questions of +politics, seeming tolerant because his own position is held only +"academically"; he does not care enough about the subject for that +particular truth to seem supremely important. He is tolerant with the +ease of indifference. It is easy to give free play to ideas in which we +have no compelling interest. In consequence, many of us pretend to a +general tolerance, when the fact is, that we carefully choose our +examples from among the issues which least concern us. + +Much of the modern religious tolerance is of this type. Our culture is +so predominantly pagan that Christianity has ceased to play more than a +nominal part in our tests of ideas and conduct. This tendency has +infiltrated even those who are unaware of the influence; the saving of +souls according to Christian theology has become less important than the +preservation of good taste, whose standards are set by an unconsciously +pagan public opinion. On the other hand, the prevailing paganism has not +become self-conscious, since it is hidden behind Christian words; and +few have the time or courage to look beneath words to test their +consonance with things. Being the result, not of directed effort, but of +drifting, the pagan element in our civilization is not eager to assert +itself. So the avowed pagans are tolerant of Christianity, saying: "I do +not care for it for myself, but it is good for the masses. As to the +church, for people who like that sort of thing, why, that is the sort of +thing they like." And the Christians are tolerant of pagan ideals of +self-realization, of personal pride and the worldly splendor of luxury +and art, on the ground that some of the ideals which they are supposed +to accept are after all inapplicable to modern life. Since neither cares +to assert itself for what it is, there is the mutual tolerance of +indifference. If these two ideals dared to stand forth and contest the +field, there would be an end of tolerance,--a holy war, and clearing of +the atmosphere. + +The second condition of tolerance implies deeper thought on the disputed +subject than does the first. It relates to things, about which we are +not indifferent; but it indicates a mental sophistication which is too +cautious lightly to put Q. E. D. at the close of a demonstration. Our +conviction has, as it were, a string to it. I read once in a novel a +phrase like this: "He was as amazed as a Christian, who, waking after +death, should look round the universe and find that there was no God." +Imagination gives us tolerance by marring every faith with the +suggestion that we may wake up and find ourselves mistaken. And this is +just the faith that cannot remove mountains. The idea that the other +fellow may be right, paralyzes activity. Only bigots and fanatics set +fire to the world without scruple. We sit before the hearth, perhaps, +and argue about the brutality and cowardice of much of our current +morality, and the obstacles which convention often raises against a +sincere and heroic life; and yet, unspoken behind our preaching, is the +haunting fear that the wisdom of the ages may not be the hoary folly it +seems, that the melodramatic novels may be true, that considerations +unguessed may be involved--and we continue to sit before the hearth. + +The presence of the little imp of skeptical imagination marks the +difference between philosophical and religious convictions. For good or +ill, the other person's point of view, once seen, cannot cease for us. +Our most ardent idealism is not a belief for which we would willingly be +martyred by the realists: for we might wake and look round the universe +in vain for an Absolute. It may be a good thing that the quality of +religious conviction has died out among us, or it may be a necessary +evil of civilized thinking. But the fact remains that we have no need of +tolerance towards views which, consciously or unconsciously, we admit +may be more nearly true than our own. We are merely not sure enough of +ourselves to risk annihilating the views of our opponents. + +The third form of imperfect conviction on which tolerance may rest is +the view of truth as purely personal or relative. Subjectivism has been +used as a bad name in philosophy for so long that the suspicion of it is +usually resented. But it peers out from behind the respectable robe of +many a philosophy which has not learned to call hard names. To reduce +truth to a fact in individual experience, is to destroy the problem. +Genuine conviction, without which tolerance is a mere form devoid of +substance, is impossible if the truth for me and the truth for you are +isolated facts, having and needing no relation to each other. But little +private truths are sufficient only for little private affairs. + +All of us want, and most of us take for granted, a real beauty in whose +light it is irrelevant that Longfellow is read by a larger number of +people than is Shelley. If I really love Shelley, I must believe that in +some impersonal sense _Prometheus Unbound_ is superior to _The Psalm of +Life_. This insistence upon a standard is at the root of all our serious +thinking; _de gustibus non disputandum_ is a foolish saying: for nothing +as a matter of fact is more fiercely disputed than questions of taste. +The social character of thought is so firmly rooted that a thought which +is limited to a personal impression ceases to interest us. It has become +a mere fact; and we live in a world not of mere facts but of facts which +gain their importance only through meaning. It is only of the most +trivial acts that we say: This is right for me but wrong for you, +because you think it wrong. We do not really even then put the You and +the I on the same level, but imply that you will, if properly educated, +agree with me. Human nature demands that we habitually will that the +maxim of our thought at least, should become a universal law. Only when +we apply our convictions, aesthetic, ethical, or metaphysical, to others +outside ourselves, do they become more than fancies. + +If we go the whole way with Professor Sumner, for example, in the +relativity of morals, we are not really, from the standpoint of modern +Western teaching, looking tolerantly upon other theories which approve, +for instance, the summary extermination of undesirable members of the +family. We are simply refusing to adopt the morality of our own or any +other age, more seriously than as a guide of conduct whereby we avoid +punishment by society. The owning of slaves in the United States, says +Professor Sumner, is no longer expedient; but, under changes of social +and industrial conditions, it may again become so. Morality, that is, is +what its etymology implies--simply custom. + +The holder of such a theory has no real conviction of the position +which, by geographical and temporal accidents, he holds. He is really +trying to place himself at the center of indifference, and his one +conviction is that all standards are relative. Of opposition to this, he +is frequently intolerant enough. The man who holds that Buddhism best +meets the religious needs of India, as Christianity satisfies the +conditions of life in the West, thinks himself tolerant of religious +differences, because all the examples are on his side; but he is +intolerant--and on his premises justly so--of missionaries, who are his +real opponents. + +Such are the forms of incomplete conviction which make tolerance +plausible. There remain those attitudes which frankly abandon, for both +sides, the claim to truth in any absolute sense. Our opinions in any +case, they maintain, are but aspects of an all-embracing truth which can +be known only to a consciousness of the whole. Your opinion and mine +are, therefore, in the limited sense which is alone applicable, equally +true. But the only ideas which we can admit to have an equal claim to +partial truth, are those which are not mutually exclusive, so that the +different facets of the universal truth shall not interfere with one +another. Unless we mean simply that a variety of opinion makes the world +less dull, in which case conviction does not come in at all, we are +unable to admit that a belief diametrically opposed to our own is "just +as good," not as a foil, or a spur, to our own thinking, but in its own +right. It may be that the Bradleyan Absolute can admit contradictories +as equally true, but such mental acrobatics do not come naturally to +human thinking. Since we cannot view the world as the Absolute sees it, +we cannot, in practice, be guided by the theory that opposite answers to +living problems, set in all their complex conditions, are equally true. + +The conviction that is softened by an historic sense or by use of the +terms of biological evolution, meets the same difficulty. In so far as +there is any real demand for tolerance, it must be in the conflict of +present issues. We do not need to be tolerant of the past, unless we +imagine ourselves in that past, and regard its issues as, for the time +being, contemporary with us. Ideas opposing our own may be gently dealt +with, as necessary stages of civilization. But if a stage is now no +longer necessary, the excuse fails. Cannibalism could not be defended as +a civilized practice, simply because it represents a stage of +development. Still less can we tolerate on the same ground what seems to +us wrong in modern life. For we cannot without undue vanity maintain +that the rest of mankind living under our conditions are less highly +developed than we. So the sincere pacifist, for example, cannot properly +be tolerant of war as an expression of prevailing savagery, beyond which +he has himself advanced. + +The theory that opinions and institutions are justified as +"stepping-stones," survivals not yet quite outworn, always carries the +presumption that we are the apex--an assumption, of course, which +evolutionary theory does not bear out. It is possible that our seeming +progress may be retrogressive, that the true apex may have been reached +in Greece some two thousand years ago. When we look kindly upon (to us) +impossible views, with some idea of thesis and antithesis in our minds, +we are taking our own position as the synthesis, and, placing ourselves +at the standpoint of the whole, implying knowledge of that far off, +divine event towards which the Tennysonian creation moves. But if we +really think the truth of our vision worth striving for, it is dangerous +to hold our reputation for urbanity to be of more importance than +insight, by smiling down on opponents as on children at play, not worth +fighting. Imperfect as it is, our little truth must seem to us, as it +stands, better than any other, without smoothing away the stark +contradiction between it and its opposite, and without claiming for it a +higher level than for them, if it is to be at once effective and humble. + +To all of this it may be answered that our idea of tolerance has been an +impossible ideal; that simply by making the definition unwarrantably +strict, the quality has been pushed out of reach; and that, on these +terms of course it cannot exist. Nevertheless the exact quality of +current attempts at tolerance is made visible in the light of that +extreme form which we have been considering: as Plato judged the success +of actual forms of the state by comparison with that perfect justice +which was to be found in none of them. But if, as the situation +suggests, the degree of tolerance is in inverse ratio to the force of +conviction, we cannot hold both as ideals. The question is, Which is the +more valid? + +By assuming tolerance as a possession or even as a goal, we have lost +that driving power of conviction which more primitive, less imaginative +forms of belief still hold. Perfect tolerance would be an anaesthetic +influence; it would militate against that clash of open conflict in +which alone are ideas tested. If tolerance is to be achieved only by +proportionate weakening of conviction, the prevailing acceptance of such +an ideal may be not merely a crying for the moon, but for a burning toy +balloon which would be of no value to us if we had it. + +The past few centuries have deepened the conception of tolerance, given +inner meaning as a virtue to what was originally only a convenience of +social conduct. Tolerance in act has been proved practically advisable. +It rests on the recognition that the intolerant Calvin, burning +Servetus, was a more positively objectionable member of society than the +Greek sage whose skepticism was so complete that he would commit himself +to nothing more than the wagging of his finger. But if we are right in +maintaining the incompatibility of tolerance and conviction, each +gaining ground only at the expense of the other, are we not following +the wrong star? Calvin was doubtless less pleasant to live with than the +Greek skeptic; but, since clear definition of issues is the first step +in judgment, the following of the harsher example may clear the way for +those battles of thought which change the boundaries of its territories, +when diplomacies accomplish nothing. + +Socrates, according to Plato, must have spent a good many hours and days +in buttonholing young men on the streets of Athens, and pricking the +airy bubbles of the catchwords which they used so glibly. His inveterate +questioning often seemed to lead only to a deadlock. "What _is_ this +justice, this temperance, this courage, of which you seem so sure?"--he +would ask, and, after leading them a merry chase along the mazes of +thought, brought them to the reluctant conclusion that virtue is not so +simple, after all. There was something of the spirit of the detective in +this sleuthing among ideas, this quick recognition and rejection of +clues. What Socrates was chiefly trying to do--and no wonder he was +accused of corrupting the young men!--was to cultivate in his +interlocutors the rare art of questioning, to extirpate in them the +prevalent stupidity of taking things for granted. + +But Socrates did not cure the world of using catchwords. In war, in +politics, in religion, even in science, they still pass for the coin of +the realm. They are always dangerous: for they always delude one into +thinking to be easy that which is in truth most difficult. There is +hardly a virtue which we can have without crowding out another virtue. +We of the twentieth century have taken tolerance for granted, as if it +were as much to be expected as good manners. And we have scarcely +thought to ask the price for which it is bought. + +If it is only a utilitarian matter of social policy, to be relinquished +when that policy changes, we have done foolishly to exalt it as a moral +virtue. If we must choose between tolerance and our sense of +ascertainable truth in the world, our eyes should be open to the terms +of that choice; if we must have a slogan, shall it be, Live and Let +Live, or The Truth is Mighty and Shall Prevail? If, on the other hand, +the field of tolerance is limited to cases in which we are indifferent +or skeptical, much is to be gained in humility and sincerity by the +frank avowal. We may cut the Gordian knot, and boldly accept the +paradox. In any case, something is gained, if only that we have asked, +What do we mean by tolerance? + + + + +THE NEO-PARNASSIANS + + "... But I would implore them to abstain from wearing their + knees out before the shrine of the ugly and grotesque when + there is all the beauty of the world for the choosing."--SIR + JOHNSTONE FORBES-ROBERTSON. + + +Away back in the dark ages, when the kindergarten was still an +experiment, a stern elderly person--doubtless a relic of the yet earlier +age in which children addressed their mother as "Honoured Madam," and +never sat down in their father's presence--a person of far-seeing but +ruthless mind, would every now and then arise to predict that Froebel +and his disciples, by making things too easy for the infant +intelligence, would produce a spineless generation, with the mentality +of rubber dolls. Changing the figure, with apparently an eye upon the +dentist, this pessimist would point out that a pap-fed race could have +occasion for, and therefore would develop, no teeth. + +It is far from my purpose to venture, with presumptuous foot, into the +happy fields of pedagogy: it is only that certain straws, gyrating in +the intellectual zephyrs of the moment, have arrested an inquiring eye, +and awakened a mental question as to how far the disaffected prophet may +have been right. Is the multiplication-table set to music, and gayly +sung rather than acquired with labor and sorrow in the dark watches of +the study-hour after school, really responsible for a contemporary +mental condition which seems to demand that even the simplest short +story be expounded by the editor, in type which dwarfs the title, lest +the readers' brains grope vainly for its meaning? Have our early +fumblings with strips of many-colored paper rendered us incapable of +coping with even the most obvious canvas? Were those well-beloved blocks +and cubes the true instigators of Csaky, Brancusi, Delaunay, and the +rest--sculptors who last year set us gasping? Did "Birdie in the +treetop" blaze the trail for the divers exponents of "interpretative +dancing?" Most harrowing of all, have the "finger-plays" of babyhood, +designed for the gradual awakening of the child's consciousness to his +five senses and his little ego, led up to the reverberating chaos of +words which we are now called upon seriously to regard as poetry? + +Let the responsibility rest where it may, we have been relentlessly +herded and driven far by those who in this day and generation assume to +mold our opinions for us. We have survived the onslaught of Cubism, +Futurism, St. Vitism and what not, in art: is there anything in stone or +bronze, or on canvas, that can now take us by surprise? We have outlived +the shock, and can even derive pleasure from the spectacle, of our +elders joyously cavorting between the tables when we ask them out to +dine; other times, other manners. We have learned to listen unabashed +and with the proper modicum of concern while Sweet-and-twenty, who has +been to the "movies" and knows whereof she speaks, discourses between +the soup and fish upon themes erstwhile supposed to be undiscussible, +unless by physicians and students of sociology. We can even look without +remonstrance upon our nearest and dearest attired only less frankly than +Josephine when she essayed to convince the world of the superiority of +her challenged charms to those of Madame Tallien. We have had hitherto +one refuge when all this grew too much for us: we could exclaim, if we +still had the hardihood to quote Tennyson, "I will bury myself in my +books"--of course omitting the remainder of the line, which is +"unsocial." Now this stronghold also has been battered down. If we seek +diversion in a story which is really a story, and not a tract--if we +venture still to take pleasure in those who until to-day have been +considered poets--we are upheld to the contumely of our fellows as +"primitive," "elementary," and our beliefs are made a by-word and a +hissing in the public prints. Ours not to reason why, ours not to make +reply: we are expected to go for artistic and literary pabulum where we +are sent--"forty feeding as one," like Wordsworth's cattle; and perhaps, +to borrow once more from the Light Brigade, ours but to do and die, +intellectually, may be the result. + +Doubtless most of the "advanced investigators" (inspired circumlocution +of M. Andre Salmon) in both art and literature are sincere; yet it seems +an almost unavoidable conclusion that this epidemic which is upon us in +many forms, all disagreeable and unnecessary, like any other epidemic, +arises from a physiological condition akin to the tarantism which once +swept southern Europe, giving the tarantella its name, and not to be +cured even by the startling method of burying the victim up to the neck +in earth. The mythic spider having bitten him, whirl he must, until he +drop exhausted. Crueler than the earlier spider of whose bite noble Tom +Thumb died, the ferocious arachnid of our day, like the _Lycosa +tarantula_ of the Middle Ages, is ravaging at will, and sparing no age, +sex, or previous condition of activity. The "bite" may not prove fatal: +but while the madness lasts, clarity of vision, calm and coherent +utterance, are not to be expected. The dervish-like frenzy of literary +and artistic production will of course eventually wear itself out; but +until it does, those who by Heaven's mercy have been spared the +infection can only, with what patience the gods vouchsafe, stand out of +the way and look on, deafened by the insistent remedial strains. + +Even as heat-waves above the summer fields and sands cause fixed objects +to shimmer and fluctuate before the eyes, sometimes creating actual +mirage, so the extraordinary brain-waves of our day seem to influence +human conduct and, necessarily, its reflex, achievement in art and +letters. It is not that both subject and handling are so often grotesque +or deplorable; it is not--though the spread of any epidemic is +regrettable--that more and more worthy craftsmen fall victims, +hypnotised by others' gyral eccentricities, and by what a recent +promulgator of the cult terms "the strident and colossal song." It is +that these, clamoring for their own prepossession, deny us ours! + +"Dolly," besought the heroine of Miss Broughton's first novel, the novel +which created a school of fiction, and which her unsuspecting father +told her was unfit for her, a young woman, to read: "Dolly, am I so very +ugly? Look!" Her sister, thus adjured, surveyed the appealing face. "I +do not admire you," she returned, calmly. "But that is no reason why +some one should not!" Cannot the apostles of the tarantist persuasion, +in its varying manifestations, show us an equal liberality? They do not +admire what one of them has summed up as "the completely solved, +tabulated, indexed problems of the past:" but may not others who do be +permitted to enjoy them in peace, unobjurgated? Those who are labelled +"early-Victorian," "primitive," "elementary," are usually possessed of +the ornament, no less out of date, of a meek and quiet spirit; and, if +let alone, will continue on their unobtrusive way, neither assailing nor +disparaging schools whose inspirations do not attract them. Why may they +not be permitted to adhere to their ideals, unwhipt of neo-justice?--since +the untrammelled tarantist proclaims with no hesitating voice his right +to stand up, naked and unashamed, for his own! + +There is one certain result of intellectual or any other sort of +bullying; present forcibly enough to any man that he is merely a worm, +and he is bound in the nature of things to "turn," with what vigor he +may--and as the late Sir William Gilbert well said, "Devil blame the +worms!" Tell a man often enough, and contemptuously enough, that he +doesn't know what he is talking about, and his most cherished beliefs +are only so much junk, and you inevitably goad him into nailing his +colors to the mast. The holy martyrs need not have died for their +convictions if they had not been badgered into, not merely holding, but +flaunting them! Again, to fall back upon my Gilbert, "versifier" and +master of "smart-aleckry" though it seems he was, as measured by a +recent standard-- + + "I hate to preach, I hate to prate, + I'm no fanatic croaker;" + +and I am driven to couch my lance and gallop into the lists chiefly by a +modern form of challenge unrecognized of Chivalry: "My ladye is fairest +because yours is foul and void of grace!" Your lady is fairest?--no man +has a better right than you to think so, or to say so: but it is +unknightly to attempt bolstering up her claims by a personal attack upon +_my_ ladye, whose charms I justifiably hold to be supreme. The glaive +being down, there is nothing for it but the onset--and may the best man +win! + +In less archaic phrase, no man who knows his Milton and his Wordsworth +can sit silent and be told that "when a perfect sonnet" (a _perfect_ +sonnet, remember!) "is duly whittled out, it is usually found to be +worth about as much as a well-crocheted lambrequin"--whatever that may +be. No man who has delighted in his Praed, his Ingoldsby, his Locker, +Calverley, Lang, Austin Dobson, Owen Seaman and the rest, can see them +all swept into the scrap-heap as "worn out--an exhibition of adroitness +... for impressing a circus audience!" No man can hear with patience the +undoubted fact that the blank verse of Shakspeare and Milton was +"written quite without rhyme," adduced, with an air of giving light to +them that sit in darkness, by way of supporting a hurly-burly of words +which has been well compared to "pumpkins rolling over a barn-floor." +That blank verse does not rhyme is too "elementary" to need discussion: +and the Eocene minds which still read Shakspeare, Milton, and even +Tennyson, are thoroughly aware that the construction of blank verse is +governed by no less rigorous rules than the sonnet or the dainty old +French forms which Austin Dobson and our own Bunner made exquisite in +English. But the foe of rhyme is by no means limited to blank verse in +support of his thesis: experiments in unrhymed metre are by no means +new. Bulwer tamed the Latin verse-forms to eat out of his hand; Ossian +and his collateral descendant, "Fiona Macleod," made chamber music of +the wild harp of the Gael; Aldrich, in his youth, went far toward +establishing his fame with the _Ballad of Baby Bell_: Charles Henry +Lueders, untimely dead a generation ago, achieved a gem in his brief +dirge, _The Four Winds_. One may be a poet without ever having written a +line in metre. It is doubtful whether Mrs. Meynell's well-won +reputation--a reputation which brought her, in a "popular ballot" for +England's laureateship, nearly six thousand votes, and a place second +only to Rudyard Kipling--does not rest quite as much upon the poetic +beauty of her essays as upon her verse. "The mighty engine of English +prose" is always available for the writer with "a message;" Lincoln did +not elect to "sing" his Gettysburg address, which no recent bard whom it +has been my privilege to read has surpassed. If the bearer of the +"message" have not the sense of music which produces that perfection of +rhythm needing no grace of rhyme; if he object to rhyme "because," +according to a recent candid outburst, "it is so confoundedly hard to +find!" the lyre and even the oaten pipe are not for him. Nothing is +easier to compass, in either prose or metre, than the cryptic, the +portentous; the bellow of the trombone, the thud of the big drum, will +always cause some one to listen, at least long enough to find out what +is causing the disturbance. But neither Vorticist, Polyrhythmicist, nor +any other specialist in Parnassian wares, need flatter himself that +lines of assorted lengths, huddled like jack-straws, make poetry. If any +message be there, it is obscured and marred by its uncouth disguise; if +there be no message, the "work" has even less excuse for being. I am far +from denying the right of every one to express himself in whatever way +he think fit: it is wholly his own affair, and it may be, like +Benedick's hypothetical lady's hair, "of what color it please God." But +if it be neither verse nor honest prose--if it be cacophony for mere +cacophony's sake--he who takes in vain for it the name of poetry, does +it little service. + +One of the strange symptoms of the modern tarantism is this unrelenting +hostility to beauty: in fashion not less than in art it is the ugly and +the queer, in fiction and verse the pathological, the unpleasant, that +seem to be assiduously striven for. The arts are sisters, children of +one father; their aims are closely allied, and if one step down from her +high estate, the others are likely soon to show the unfortunate +influence of her example. Bad taste in sculpture affects us more +disagreeably than bad taste in painting, because sculpture stands forth +with us, in our own atmosphere, while the picture confines within its +frame an atmosphere of its own; bad taste in dancing is worse in the +drawing room than on the stage, being by so much nearer; and bad taste +in literary expression is more distressing than any, because, after all, +it is only music which has so intimate an appeal as the written word. +Only music and the written word become a part of us, dwelling with us +unsought, singing to us unurged, lingering with us in the silent hours +when our mental sentinels or taskmasters are off guard, and if a +graceless pretender, professing to be what he is not, intrude upon the +starry company of the heaven-born, shall not the intrusion be resented? + +What is poetry? There are many definitions with which few of us can +quarrel; but one of the most direct, and at the same time most +comprehensive, is that poetry is the expression, in terms of beauty, of +what humanity feels--that beauty of thought, beauty of feeling, beauty +of form, which implies truth, sympathy, clarity of vision, imagination, +and the unerring sense of fitness which is good taste. And if this +God-given beauty, twin-sister to music, be not inextricably woven, like +a three-fold thread of gold, through and through the very fabric of the +soul, it is never to be acquired--no mastery of prosody, of rules, of +libraries full of the "best examples," will avail. It is distinct from +inspiration, which may be a single bolt from the blue: it is rather an +attribute, to venture upon the methods of Sir Boyle Roche, of the voice +of that inmost higher self which the late F. W. H. Myers called "the +subliminal mind" and which Maeterlinck has termed "our unknown guest." +Let the man whose literary endeavor, well-intended though it be, is +without this essence, call himself what he please: he is not, nor can he +ever be, a poet. + +Meanwhile, those who remain unbitten of the dread _Lycosa_ may find +peace in M. Andre Salmon's dictum that "critics encourage the most +absurd, for the most absurd is necessary to art"--which may be stretched +to include the art of letters--and anything that is really necessary +may, by right effort, be endured. It is sufficiently clear that not on +this side of the bridge of Al Sirat shall we and the Neo-Parnassians +agree: but we can at least avoid each other like gentlemen. + + + + +HUMANISM AND DEMOCRACY + + +When our fathers formulated their program for democracy, and announced +that its chief objective was to secure for the individual, life, +liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, contemporary records show that +they generally believed that if these ends could be attained, a new +golden age would be inaugurated among men, and that all the various ills +would drop out of life. We have been disillusioned. Since the +formulation of the Declaration of Independence we have learned the +extreme antiquity of man upon the earth, and we have learned by what +slow and tortuous paths the human family has zigzagged up to its present +state of imperfection. To-day we do not hope that any form of government +can assure us an immediate millennium, and we look with suspicion upon +any prophet who promises an immediate utopia. Condemned as we are to +look with straining eyes towards a distant land of promise, some remote +perfection of our race, we are all the more jealous of our chance to do +our bit in achieving that goal. The inalienable right to life, liberty, +and pursuit of happiness, has yielded place to the inalienable right to +grow. Forms of government seem worthy to endure, in proportion as they +minister to growth. We still cling to democracy, because it still seems +to promise the largest chance for growth. It is a significant fact that +along with the phrase "make the world safe for democracy," there has +sprung into existence the phrase "make democracy safe for the world," as +if to warn us that democracy like all forms of government, is not an end +in itself, but a means to an end, and that end is humanism. + +In conceiving this paper, my patriotic purpose was to prove how humanism +helps democracy, but all the way along I have been conscious of being +guilty of an enormous _hysteron proteron_, for the real issue is not how +humanism helps democracy, but how much democracy helps humanism. And +what is humanism? Something too large to be defined in a single sentence +or paragraph. It is a number of things. In the first place humanism is +humaneness; not exactly, however, the kind of humaneness that the editor +of the _New Republic_ believes in. Perhaps you remember how a year ago a +distinguished professor of Greek hung a metaphorical millstone about the +neck of Mr. Abraham Flexner and cast him into the midst of the sea, +because he had attempted to poison the well-springs of knowledge for a +whole generation of young people. On the millstone was inscribed the +indictment: "Mr. Flexner is not the first man who has had the courage of +his insensibilities." At this the editor of the _New Republic_ declared +that the distinguished professor had been very inhumane, and was +therefore an unfit exponent of the humanities. One wonders with what +gentle and humane words Minos and Aeacus and Rhadamanthus will speak to +Mr. Flexner when he comes to judgment in that long line of those who, +having done irreparable harm in this world, present as their only excuse +the fact that they were sincere in their good intentions. Humanism is +humaneness based where Socrates and Plato based it, on knowledge, +understanding and intelligence. + +Humanism is a conservation of the highest achievements of the human +spirit. It gives substance to the seemingly paradoxical belief that for +the rank and file of men, nine-tenths of the future lies in the +past,--that certain giant men long dead, still have power to lead the +race to heights that the majority of us but dimly see. To put it +negatively, humanism represents the belief that a majority of each +generation go to their graves without having entered upon their +inheritance, without even having suspected that they had an inheritance, +having lived not so much in their sins, as in ignorance of the glory +that humanity has already attained. + +A true humanism will include and properly appraise the mental +achievements of its own age. The danger always is that the newer +achievements will be seen out of all proportion, and overrated because +of their nearness. To-day we are dazzled and blinded by the stupendous +achievements of a new materialism, a materialism far subtler than that +which sprung up a century ago. In the first half of the Nineteenth +Century some men of repute were saying that "the brain secretes thought +as the liver secretes bile," and "life is but the action of the sun's +rays upon carbon." Against this gross and crass materialism Emerson +arose as our champion, a prophet who had lighted his torch at the altar +of Prometheus in the Academy of Plato. By the light of that torch men +again began to see things in true proportion, and to-day we can say of +those earlier materialists "their knowledge is the wisdom of yesterday." +But the new materialism is far subtler, boasting far greater +achievements. Two years ago the headlines in the papers announced that a +man in Washington had talked by wireless telephony with a man in Hawaii. +We were filled with pride at this new demonstration of the power of the +human mind to master the laws of the external universe. And yet after +all, the question is not how far you talk, but what you say. Did the man +in Washington say to the man in Hawaii anything so important as the +messages which Plato sent by wireless across the centuries to Emerson? +When we read the prayer which Plato put into the mouth of Socrates at +the close of the Phaedrus: "Give me beauty in the inward soul; and may +the outward and inward man be as one. May I reckon the wise to be the +wealthy, and may I have such a quantity of gold as a wise and temperate +man can bear and carry," we are ready to strive to prepare ourselves to +be torch-bearers in the great race. + +This is no small program that humanism undertakes:--to make a man +thoroughly humane; to eradicate all the brutal instincts and all the +cruel traits which two hundred thousand, perhaps two million years of +savagery have implanted in his nature; to conserve for him and in him +all the highest spiritual experiences of the race; to make him a worthy +member of any celestial gathering however nobly conceived and +constituted, this is a program requiring not merely the fifteen or +twenty years usually allotted to formal education, but a lifetime, and +perhaps a million years beyond. The million years beyond is too much for +the practical man, and he holds up his hands in protest, declaring: +"Such doctrine is too other-worldly for me. If you train the children to +tune their harps for another world, who is going to kill the hogs, and +dig the sewers, and mine the coal?" To such a question I would reply in +the same tone: "You need not worry. There is a certain gentleman, a +veritable colossus on the educational sky-line, who uses one foot to +direct the schools at Gary, and the other foot to trample down an +over-rampant idealism in New York City. He will see to it that the +millennium is not ushered in too hastily." In the last municipal +election in the city of New York, we had a splendid example of Tammany's +political astuteness in temporarily aligning itself with the idealism of +the proletariat on the east side. To the foreigner who comes to this +country, America means one thing above all else, and that is the chance +to emerge from the class in which he was born. The rebellion among the +foreign population of New York against the Gary system, was not a +rebellion against industrial education as such, but a rebellion against +the idea that their children were to have industrial education and +nothing more. Our practical man, even if he is unwilling to look forward +a million years, must at any rate look back a million years. No one can +hope to see our educational problem in its true perspective unless he is +willing to take his stand at the entrance of a palaeolithic cave, and +look across the centuries at the toils of our race as it has attempted +to differentiate the brutal from the human. + +In every school house there are palaeolithic children, neolithic +children, bronze age children, iron age children, children of the golden +age, children of a thousand different aptitudes and limitations. The +mussed up condition of our educational program, the incoherent wrangling +about educational theory, is largely due to our failure to keep this +steadily in mind. Somehow we have not fully appreciated the fact that +endowment is more than training, and we are still hoping that in some +way we can perform the miracle and carry the neolithic child on our +shoulders across the ten thousand, or possibly the fifty thousand, years +that intervene between him and abstract thought. And because we have +wished to do the greater miracle, we have failed to do the lesser one +that makes for the slow but sure growth of the race. It is not strange +that a cry has gone up for vocational training. It is strange, however, +that we did not foresee this just demand, and meet it even before the +demand was made. At the present moment there is danger that the +interests of the more gifted child will be sacrificed to meet the need +of the less gifted one, that our whole public school system will be +Garyized, and that the proper foundation of our higher education will be +impaired if not destroyed. In a neighboring state a year or two ago, the +state superintendent of education sent out notes to the smaller high +schools advising that courses in domestic science and agriculture be +substituted for geometry and Virgil. It did not occur to him that he +could establish a lower form of education without destroying a higher +form. It did not occur to him that the state was rich enough to pay for +both forms. Many years ago I lived near a rich stock-man who owned the +finest herd of shorthorn cattle in the Middle West. He paid a man $2,000 +a year to care for his cattle; he sent his children to a school where no +teacher received more than five hundred dollars a year. I will not say +that he cared four times as much for his cattle as for his children, but +I will say that we have here the solution of our problem. If we would +spend four times as much money on our elementary schools, vocational and +industrial courses could be properly established, classes could be +reduced from fifty to fifteen, the needs of each pupil could be +carefully studied, the pupil of lesser gifts could be directed into +industrial courses without humiliation, and the pupil of higher gifts +would make his way normally and naturally to geometry and Virgil. + +In one year of the war we are spending twenty billion dollars. The +interest on this vast sum at four per cent. is eight hundred million +dollars a year,--or just fifty millions more than we spent on all forms +of education last year in the United States. We are willing to spend +this amount of money to make the world safe for democracy. Are we +willing to spend a similar sum to put real meaning and content into the +word democracy? It is conceivable that during the war we may become so +accustomed to giving and tax-paying that after the war we may be willing +to make similar sacrifices that democracy may have a fair chance to bear +its true and legitimate fruits. In the first year of the war Mr. +Rockefeller has given to the Red Cross and other philanthropic causes +$70,000,000. He has done this with immense satisfaction, and without +serious inconvenience. It is to be hoped that during the war he and our +twenty-two thousand other millionaires may become so accustomed to +paying income taxes that it may degenerate into a habit, and that after +the war, from this source our funds for education may be doubled or +trebled. Mr. Rockefeller should be financing not merely Mr. Flexner's +experiment station in secondary education; he should be financing a +hundred other secondary schools in an equally splendid way. But we can +never hope to make our educational program really significant, merely by +compelling the millionaires to pay their rightful share of the expense. +We shall never succeed in this program, until we have become +sufficiently interested in the matter to be willing to make sacrifices +ourselves. It is with extreme regret that I am compelled to admit that +the heart of this great problem is economic, and that the streets of the +New Jerusalem we are striving to build, must be not metaphorically, but +literally paved with gold. + +If we can assume that after the war industrial education will be +properly established and financed without diverting funds from the +higher forms of education, if we can even assume that the funds +available for the more humanistic training will be greatly increased, +there still remain two potent forces in our educational world which +seriously threaten to undermine and impair our democracy and the +humanism which is its eventual goal. I refer to the corrupting influence +of athletics in our high schools and colleges, and the attitude of the +state towards the small college. + +One can hardly "see life steadily and see it whole" without recognizing +the fact that it is necessary to house a sound mind in a sound body; but +after all, the supreme thing is the sound mind. If our school and +college athletics had been willing to make this its chief objective, +little or nothing could be said in arraignment of athletic contests. But +the present athletic situation makes one ready to cry aloud that ancient +indictment found in a fragment of the Autolycus of Euripides: "Of all +the countless ills that prey on Hellas, there is none that can be +compared with this tribe of athletes." + +Since athletics have been introduced into the public high schools of the +Middle West, there is no question that a somewhat larger number of boys +have continued in the high schools. There is also no question that there +has been a very marked lowering of intellectual standards. And what is +worse, our high school students and whole communities have been imbued +with a false sense of proportion. To run half as fast as a greyhound, to +jump one-fifth as far as a kangaroo, to kick one-tenth as hard as a +Missouri mule, these are the principal things, these are the weightier +matters of the law. These contests with the brute world, in which we are +always defeated, have taken the place of the higher intellectual +contests of humanism. The school superintendent or principal who can +turn out a winning team, he is the man, the new patriot in our +democracy. Let me illustrate. Three years ago in one of the small towns +of Iowa, the superintendent of schools received a considerable increase +in salary because he had turned out a basket ball team that had defeated +all the teams in the neighboring high schools. The next fall four +members of the winning team entered the State University of Iowa as +freshmen. Before the end of the year they had all been sent home because +they could not do their intellectual tasks. + +But to turn to a second menace to humanism--the attitude of the state +towards the small college, or perhaps it would be truer to say the +attitude of the administrative officials of our state institutions +towards the small college. A conversation which I had last summer with +the dean of the college of liberal arts in one of our state +universities, will illustrate what I mean. In this conversation the dean +expressed the opinion that the great majority of small colleges in the +Middle West would be reduced to junior colleges (i. e. their work would +be limited to the freshman and sophomore years), or meet with entire +extinction. He was even more specific in his prophecy, saying that five +per cent. of the colleges of the type of College X would die or become +junior colleges during the war (if the war lasted three years) because +of the reduced income from tuition, and reduced financial assistance +from private gifts. He made this prophecy with a smile, as one heralding +a blessing. For the moment he forgot that a majority of the students in +his graduate school came from colleges of the same class as College X, +and he failed to foresee that if his prophecy were fulfilled, large +sections of the state would be left in educational darkness. Now College +X has had an honorable history of forty-five years. It has done much to +make democracy safe for the world. It has sent out hundreds of graduates +and ex-students fit to participate in self-government, and with some +notion of what is meant by an international mind. At the present moment +it counts among its alumni one hundred and forty-two who are engaged in +teaching, including one university president who administers $18,000,000 +for educational purposes, and twenty-five college professors in such +institutions as Beloit, Drury, Dupauw, Lawrence, Grinnell. Many others +of its alumni, on their way to law, medicine, theology, have served the +state effectively as teachers. And yet the dean would brush aside this +work with a smile, would allow this college and similar colleges to die +or be reduced to junior colleges, without a word of protest, perhaps in +the thought that his own college of liberal arts would minister +adequately to the educational needs of the state. In that state at the +present moment privately endowed institutions are caring for more than +twenty thousand students, and are making an annual gift to the state of +more than three million dollars. These institutions are well scattered, +and reach localities untouched by the university. Higher education must +be carried to the various communities. The number of young people that +can be sent to college is increased fivefold, if those young people can +be housed and boarded at home, and if there is no railroad fare to pay. +To illustrate: the county in which the state university in question is +located, sends seven hundred and eighty-nine students to the university, +more than the total number sent by sixty-three counties in remote +corners of the state. Out of five hundred degrees conferred by the +university in one year, one-fifth go to students residing in the county +in which the university is situated. It is obvious that the university +is bringing higher education to one county, and failing to bring it to +sixty-three counties. The work however is being done by the small +colleges. But the dean was right when he intimated that many of these +small colleges are fighting for their lives. Twenty-five years ago the +professors in College X were receiving $1,500 a year,--a home +missionary's salary even in those days; but to-day they are still +getting $1,500. Last year a deficit made a considerable inroad on the +endowment fund. This year the deficit will be larger, because seventy of +her advanced students have gone into the army. And the state stands by +in indifference, watching an institution die that has served it well for +forty-five years--an institution that it must replace at public expense, +or leave a corner of the state in educational darkness. I think that the +real hope of the dean was that such colleges might be reduced to junior +colleges, and that the available funds might be spent in improving the +instruction in the freshmen and sophomore years. But he could hardly say +this, for last year the students in his own university were loudly +protesting that they were being neglected, and that teaching had been +sacrificed on the altar of research. But even if the dean could not say +it, why is it not a reasonable suggestion? Why not cut off the last two +years of the college course and improve the instruction in the earlier +years? For the simple reason that the state is too rich to permit of any +curtailment of the opportunity of intellectual growth for its young +people. It is gratuitous assumption that the students who had done two +years' work in the small college would complete their work in the +university. The small minority who are going into professional work +would do this, but the large majority would end their training with the +sophomore year, and democracy and humanism would suffer simultaneously +an irremediable blow. Let us hope that the historians of later times +will not be compelled to write: "In 1917 the Kaiser not only blew up the +cathedrals in France, but he also helped to dynamite our American +colleges." + +There is an old proverb to the effect that the streets of Jerusalem were +kept clean by every man sweeping that part which lay before his own +door. On one side of our domain runs the Lincoln Highway, on the other +side the road which began before the altar of Prometheus in the groves +of Academe. Both of these roads later converge in that straight and +narrow path that leads unto life. It is our high function to keep these +roads free and unobstructed--to walk a few parasangs with gifted young +people; to fit them to be effective ambassadors of Truth, by persuading +them to thumb a Latin lexicon until they have attained a reasonable +precision of speech; to help them attain the refinement of diction that +shall eventually result in a greater refinement of character; to teach +them to appreciate the beauty of a Greek temple or of a fragment of +Greek sculpture, furnishing them with a basis of aesthetic judgment, that +will serve them well until they meet Plato's archetypes face to face; to +feed their imagination with the radiant buoyant life of Homer; to show +them how Horace fashioned a livable life philosophy out of the _aurea +mediocritas_ of Aristotle; to initiate them into the Socratic doctrine +that Knowledge is the mother of all the virtues; to crown them with a +universal sympathy by interpreting with them the "_Lachryma rerum_" of +Virgil. Can anyone conceive a life in which pleasure and duty are more +inextricably intermingled? + +This is the humanism that is the fairest fruit of democracy, and which +in turn makes democracy possible. Two years ago I heard one of our most +eminent political economists say in a public address that the chance of +success for a democratic form of government was in direct proportion to +the number of citizens who were capable of abstract thought. We do our +abstract thinking in the main through the help of Greek and Latin +derivatives. Let us not underestimate, and let us not permit anyone else +to underestimate, the importance of our contribution to the success of +democracy, when we train our students to a certain precision in the use +of Greek and Latin derivatives, by long years of patient drill in +careful translation. It is our privilege to help develop their latent +powers of abstract thought by furnishing them with the tools with which +they may do their thinking. This is the largest single contribution we +can make to human life, the largest single offering we can lay on the +altar of Truth. + +Our success in holding ourselves and our students to this great task +will be determined largely by the set of life values we carry into the +class room, and by our ability to differentiate that which is important +in Greek and Roman civilization from that which is negligible and +unessential. I sometimes fear that we have forgotten that only the +higher elements of any civilization are worthy to be transmitted to +posterity, and that forgetting this we have permitted many of our +courses to be denaturized, dehumanized, and Germanized. + +In seven out of ten of the text-books of the classics edited for college +use, the notes are written, not for freshmen and sophomores, but for +those who have already attained or are going to attain the degree of +doctor of philosophy, a degree that was first made in Germany. This +blight of the doctor's degree has invaded not only our courses in the +classics, but every course in the university curriculum that can in any +sense be called a humanistic course. It is high time that we form a +solemn procession and make an offering on the altar of Robigo, god or +goddess of the rust. + +In the natural and physical sciences we do not resent or criticize +futile experimentation. We are willing that that six hundred and five +futile experiments may be made that the six hundred and sixth may be +successful. We expect this work of experimentation to be more or less +dehumanizing, in its drudgery, that in the end the fruit of the +successful experiment may confer some blessing upon the human family. We +do not protest against a doctor's dissertation in science in which the +results are wholly negative. But we do protest against a doctor's +dissertation in literature or history, which has compelled the _doctor +designatus_ to spend months of his time on some inconsequential subject, +giving him a false perspective and a false sense of proportion that it +will take him years to get rid of in his teaching. + +Let it be understood that this protest against the doctor's degree is +not a protest against the length of time that is given to graduate +studies in preparation for teaching. This should be increased rather +than diminished. It is a protest against some of the objects to which +years of graduate study have been devoted under the shadow of the +doctor's degree. It is "a place in the sun" that we are demanding. In +using this phrase "a place in the sun," I am not plagiarizing that one +whom Henry Van Dyke has christened "the damned vulture of Potsdam," but +a far better man, Diogenes of Sinope, who once requested Alexander the +Great to get out of his daylight and give him his place in the sun. + +In conclusion let me cite an incident from the life of Zeno, the founder +of Stoicism. It is related that Zeno once asked the oracle what he ought +to do to live in the most excellent way. The reply came back that he +ought to become of the same complexion as the dead. Whereupon he +immediately inferred that he ought to apply himself to reading the books +of the ancients. This is the Zeno who promulgated the doctrines of the +fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, who fashioned the molds in +which the Roman Law and Roman Christianity were cast, who conceived of a +world democracy in which friendship should be the guiding principle, and +in which Greek and barbarian alike should have equal privileges and +equal opportunities for growth. + + + + +THE MODERN MEDICINE MAN + + +Medicine, like other natural phenomena tends to the cyclic. Having +passed safely through the drug period of evolution, both allopathic and +homeopathic, into the no-drug state of so-called "preventive medicine" +which has nothing to do with medicine as the word is commonly +understood, this ancient mystery of the cure of bodies is now reunited +to its equally ancient but long alienated mate the cure of souls, and +this bewildered generation is confronted with the amazing spectacle of +the lion of science and the lamb of religion lying down together. +Whether the ultimate resting place of the lamb will be inside the lion +is not yet disclosed to the anxious and inquiring mind. Again the priest +and the physician are combined in one person, and we see before us the +modern counterpart of the antique medicine man who exorcised the devils +that possessed and tormented the soul and the body, and by sorcery and +incantations treated impartially diseases of the spirit and of the +flesh. Again the accepted cure for blindness is to "go and sin no more." + +It is especially that borderland where soul and body meet and fuse in +what a recent treatise on the diseases of the nervous system calls "the +psychic or symbolic system" that the modern medicine man takes as his +province. In this No Man's Land he is master of all he surveys, and his +sextant comprises the universe in its angle. + +We are prone to think of diseases of the mind as a specialty of modern +life. But the briefest review of history would indicate that these +symptoms of maladjustment to the environment have been evident from the +earliest times. Adam and Eve are said to have developed "paranoiac +delusions of persecution," a kind of _manie a deux_, accompanied by +hallucinations of vision described as "seeing snakes." Their elder son +was afflicted with a "homicidal mania," while the younger was apparently +a case of "constitutional inferiority." Noah was a well recognized +"alcoholic," Job was subject to severe "depressions," Nebuchadnezzar +exhibited "praecox dilapidations of conduct" and Saul was a pronounced +"manic-depressive." The Bible contains many edifying and well worked-out +case histories with prescriptions for the treatment of such +difficulties. It was Isaiah who outlined the newer method when he said, +on the highest authority, "Come now, and let us reason together, saith +the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as +snow." + +It was perhaps through dwelling on his own race history and literature +that the newest prophet in Israel, the famous, to some infamous, +Viennese professor, Sigmund Freud, came to invent the latest prophylaxis +for mental disorders, now widely known under the name of psychoanalysis, +at present the best recognized specific for many mental disorders, and +particularly for those orgies and "hang-overs" of the soul, the +"manic-depressive psychosis." + +This is the chief of the new designations for one of the old diseases, +the failing reserved for the especially refined and subtle mind, the +form of complex developed most frequently in the most delicate +psychological machinery. This psychosis is the protest of the winged +spirit against the humdrum dead levels of the main-traveled roads, a +near relation to the "hysteric" refuge of the aesthetic nature from the +vulgarities of everyday life, the "praecox" preference for childhood's +happy hour, and the "paranoiac" escape from the banalities of a society +composed too exclusively of well-meaning, friendly but unbearably +tiresome folk. All these phenomena are but the outbreak of the higher +nature, the reaction of the superman, that creature of light and air, to +the dullness and dreariness of this underworld, in which the chrysalis +drags out its drab and worm-like existence before the emergence of the +butterfly. + +In view, however, of the stubborn fact that the superman must continue +to exist (unless indeed non-existence is the state preferred) in a world +made up largely of subnormal, or even more deadly normal beings, the +overbred and super-sensitive must seek some form of reconciliation to +the fundamental absurdities that pass for real life, must even submit to +something in the nature of a "cure" for the disease of superevolution, +some esoteric bloodletting process as it were, in order to restrain the +impulse to skip like a lamb in the sun on the hillside, and confine the +gait to an anemic crawl along the narrow path of the commonplace. + +Psychoanalysis appears to be the "indicated" treatment for these +adjustment difficulties, and it is the purpose of this article to +suggest to the as yet uninitiated some of the novel features in the +mechanism of this psychotherapy, and to offer a few reflections thereon. + +To assume the greater ease of the first person singular, I should +perhaps say in passing, or by way of apology, that if I appear somewhat +unduly and indecently personal in my observations on the new psychology, +it is a habit fastened upon me by a half year of indulgence in an orgy +of such voluble self discussion and analysis as I had previously fondly +fancied to exist only in young ladies' boarding schools. Figure to +yourself, if you can, the inevitable result of conversing about your +"soul," and unburdening all its secrets and reserves in tri-weekly +sessions with an inquisitive stranger! The process is a throw-back to +those unsophisticated days when the Knight of La Mancha and a group of +other romantics, met for the first time by accident in a country inn, +whiled away the long evening in the unrestrained and interminable +narrations of their lives and loves, complacently revealing to one +anothers' sympathetic and, one would imagine, sometimes startled gaze, +the secret springs of their existence. + +The psychoanalytic process begins, I may explain, with such a relating +of one's personal history, occupying many hours, and covering all that +one has ever done, said or thought. One starts with reminiscences of the +nursery and the kindergarten, and passes on to a detailed description of +the coloring, height and contour of one's first love. As this, in the +case of a woman, is supposed to be her father, it is necessary to pause +for some time on the aspects of the paternal figure, which affect all +her subsequent emotional reactions, according to the well-known course +of the so-called "Oedipus complex." This is the imposing designation for +the generally observed preference for each other of mothers and sons and +of fathers and daughters, a phenomenon that the new psychologists, who +take the common place with a seriousness! deem worthy of the most +painstaking examination and erudite elucidation. "The root complex" and +"the family romance" are other alluring titles for this parental-filial +relation. This sentiment is supposed to modify all the so-called +"affective" life. If father happens to be tall and thin and blond, then +daughter, having a "fixation" on him, is, for all time to come, +particularly susceptible to the attractions of tall, thin, blond men of +advanced years. The analyst inquires minutely into the shades of +complexion of all the patient's _inamorati_ in a manner that recalls the +familiar "I see a dark man coming over deep water" of the tea-leaves in +the tea-cup stage of one's experience. + +After the patient has sternly and heroically resisted the temptation to +invent in the interest of her own self-respect, and also in mitigation +of the ill-concealed contempt of the masculine practitioner for the +paucity of her experience, a few more numerous and more romantic +emotional episodes than have actually been doled out to her by a +penurious fate, and has completed the short and simple annals of her +poverty-stricken heart history, and after the incredulous inquisitor has +become at last convinced that there is indeed nothing more to be told, +this chapter is closed, and then begins the regime of dreams and "free +association." + + * * * * * + +The interpreting of one's dreams seems to furnish the doctor with a +secret source of amusement that he tries in vain to dissemble, and as +one is only too glad to make up to him in some measure for the hours of +obvious boredom that he has endured while listening to one's _apologia +pro vita sua_, one indulges him by forming the careful habit of grasping +firmly by the tail every elusive dream as it tries to whisk around the +corner of consciousness during one's first waking moments, pulling it +painfully and resistingly back for close and detailed scrutiny, and +laboriously committing to memory and subsequently describing its every +feature and function at the next matinee performance at which one makes +an appearance. + +The chastening discovery of the dreamer who relates his dreams to the +professional interpreter is that all that has been carefully withheld +from revelation in the related autobiography, is disclosed with the most +embarrassing crudity, and that secret sins of which one was quite +unconscious are displayed with mortifying clarity. The dream is a +mechanism for letting the cat out of the bag, all kinds of strange cats, +of the existence of which their harborer was often unaware. + +Dreams seem to reveal the dreamer as a hypocritical, evasive, +self-deluding coward, unable to face the commonest facts of life, or to +call a spade anything less innocent than a parasol, or even to confront +his own friends and acquaintances, except by forcing them to masquerade +under some so-called "surrogate" form. + +My previous personal experience had led me to identify a surrogate as +some kind of judge, but I soon learned that this narrow and technical +meaning must be replaced by the more general signification of +"substitute," though why the word substitute should not be considered +good enough to use in this connection, I never learned. This is but one +of the many examples of the perverse preference of the technicians of +the new science for strange distortions of words with well recognized +and frequently quite different meanings in common parlance. It comes as +somewhat of a shock to the beginner to hear all emotion summarily +classified as "sexual," normal filial or parental affection designated +as "incestuous," friendship as "homosexual," self-respect as +"narcissistic" and the life force or will to power as "the libido." +Soon, however, one becomes as resigned to this strong language as to the +evolutionary hypothesis, and finds it a no more unpalatable thought that +all emotion is derived from sex than that all human beings are descended +from an apelike ancestor. That this common use of the exaggerated +statement leaves no adequate expression for the more intense emotions +fails to disturb a cult that apparently regards all differences of +feeling as of degree rather than of kind. + + * * * * * + +The narration of dreams puts slight work on the dreamer, and sorely +taxes the mental resources and the ingenuity of the interpreter, but the +real labor, the strenuous and unremitting toil to which the unhappy +victim of this ritual is subjected by a pitiless practitioner is in the +rigors of what goes by the disingenuous name of "free association." This +may sound like some pleasant if not spicy and highly unconventional +pastime, but is in fact and literally a procrustean bed of torture. The +helpless patient is forced to remove her bonnet and shawl and recline +upon a couch with her eyes closed. Her merciless tormentor retires to a +comfortable armchair in a corner of the room. There, because he is out +of sight of the patient, he is supposed, according to the workings of +the mysterious masculine psychology, to be entirely removed from her +consciousness, so that she can concentrate her mind on nothingness, just +as if she were alone by the fireside. Then he starts in with something +like the following initiation of the third degree: "What are your +associations with the word authority?" You are supposed to respond to +this irrelevant inquiry with something like the following idiotic +emanations, "Government--Washington--the President--Mrs. +Wilson--orchids--grandfather's greenhouse," and if you are entirely +resigned to making a fool of yourself, and can abandon yourself to the +spirit of this child's play, this is what you finally learn to do, after +many strenuous efforts to play the game, and the final attainment of a +reasonable self-stultification. + +If, however, as is likely to be the case, you are a more or less +feminine person, instinctively unwilling to exhibit your mind in +_deshabille_, and fatuously intent with a persistency worthy of a better +cause on making a good impression on the only person present, you learn +to use these opportunities to tell him everything to your credit that +you can think of, and by carefully working out, preferably in advance, a +chain of passable associations, to present yourself, your character, and +your career in the most favorable light. The wide range of possibilities +in this process that are open to the designing patient seems to be +scarce dreamt of in the philosophy of the gross masculine mind. + + * * * * * + +This brings me by easy and inevitable stages to the important topic of +the "transference." To the unenlightened this may be defined as the mock +modest and deceptive designation invented by the psychoanalyst for the +more or less ardent affection for himself that he cold-bloodedly sets +out to inspire in his victim. The doctor, for the benefit of his +patient, temporarily transfers to himself and appropriates the devotion +which normally belongs to father, brother, husband, son or lover. To be +sure, it is to remembered that as there is no such word as friendship in +the psychoanalytic vocabulary, an attitude of confidence or admiration +must be represented in terms of a deeper sentiment. + +Of course what happens is that the patient mistakes for an attachment of +the heart what is in reality only an intimacy of the mind, because such +an abandon of reserve is indissolubly associated in the feminine mind +with the ties of affection. According to the true Jamesian psychology, +she loves because she confides, instead of confiding because she loves. +How a poor man patient manages can only be surmised, but there are +indications that the knowing of the sex furtively seek the ministrations +of a woman analyst. + + * * * * * + +Apparently the theory on which all the varied forms of this treatment +are based is that the catharsis of the mind is essential to mental +health, the emptying of all that is in it, the expulsion of dead matter. +The nausea of the soul is relieved like its physical analogue by freeing +it from the undigested matter, the "repressions," that lie so heavily +upon it. The self-contained nature that refrains from spilling over and +strives to maintain itself without recourse to the safety valve of +confidence must in the end unload its burden. + +After the destructive process is completed and the ground cleared for +the constructive measures that are to rear the temple of the "_mens sana +in corpore sano_," the heavier half of the work remains to be done; for +the gigantic task to which the practitioner of the new prophylaxis sets +himself is nothing less than the reconstruction of the character of the +patient. Indeed, a recent work on psychoanalysis has for its title _The +Mechanisms of Character Formation_. The conversions that the Rev. Mr. +Sunday and his less notable peers are wont to accomplish in an hour, +these painstaking scientists patiently bring about in from some scores +to some thousands of hours of equally strenuous labor. I am informed +that the cure of the first case of a certain type undertaken by one of +these under-studies of the Eternal, actually consumed two thousand +hours, and that the cure of the specific disease required the entire +reconstruction of the character of the sufferer. Presumably the bill for +"professional services" involved in this beatification was $20,000. One +wonders whether the character that resulted was worth the price. The +consulting room of the psychoanalyst is the new Beauty Parlor where +those dissatisfied with their mental and moral physiognomy may have the +lines of stress and strain smoothed away, and may gain the roses and +lilies of a rejuvenated spiritual complexion. Unhappily I am unable to +speak at length and with authority on this phase of the treatment; for I +am at present only just entering upon the period of metamorphosis. I see +dimly, "as through a glass darkly," my own apotheosis looming ahead, but +the road to that celestial height looks a long and weary and appallingly +expensive journey. + +It is the time element that perhaps most impresses and depresses the +student of the new prophylaxis. In a recent paper by a competent +psychiatrist the writer refers as follows to the impracticability of +studying a group of cases in a public hospital on the plan of getting +the patients to understand and explain their own difficulties: + + At the rate at which the best of the psychoanalysts work, it + would not be possible properly to study in the course of the + year more than a dozen cases. Furthermore, the results of such + work are of importance purely for the individual, and no + generalization can be drawn therefrom.... Also, no + generalization being possible, it is a matter of piece work; + to study one hundred cases according to this method would + require the efforts of fifteen to twenty psychologists on full + time for many months. + +In the opinion of the faithful, Freud, the inventor of psychoanalysis, +is to psychiatry what Darwin was to biology, but as Darwin's theory of +evolution required more aeons than the geologists were able to oblige +him with, so Freud's method requires more time than the calendar +affords. Darwin's theory of the variation of species had to be modified +by the theory of mutations or sports. Freud's methods, to be workable, +must be adapted in some way to the indisputable fact that there are only +twenty-four hours in the day, and only three hundred and sixty-five days +in the year. + +A careful mathematical calculation of the number of hours required to +cure a psychosis by this new prophylaxis reveals an alarming +disproportion between the minute number of physicians available, and the +incalculable number of patients requiring their ministrations. One of +the most ardent devotees of the new method is a practitioner who, +according to the testimony of a confrere, enters upon his daily +endurance test at 9 A. M. and without any luncheon psychoanalyzes +continuously until 7 P. M. As the ordinary patient is supposed to +require three hours a week of this treatment, for about five months, the +doctor can, by working ten hours a day, treat twenty patients in one +week, or allowing him two months vacation in summer (and he will need +it) handle forty patients in one year. This, alas, is but a drop of +medicine in the bucket of disease, and unless, by some homeopathic +adaptation of the five-hundredth-dilution principle, we can make our +medicine go farther it is only a limited number of the rich and leisure +class who can ever be cured by these new methods. This is the +prostrating situation that confronts the humanitarian--a little group of +healers bravely but hopelessly taking up arms against a sea of mental +troubles. + +One cannot help wondering whether such exhaustive thoroughness is really +essential. It seems sometimes to the disillusioned seeker after truth +that the relation of the conscious life history, the revelation of the +unconscious through dreams, the display of the mental processes through +"free association," are but the hocus-pocus devised for keeping up the +conversation between the analyst and the analyzed--a crude, clumsy, +masculine technique for discovering, by somewhat labyrinthine methods, +the essence of the personal quality of an individual. Might not this be +obvious in a few hours of ordinary intercourse to a person of intuition, +practised in the art of plucking the heart out of a mystery, instead of +chopping up the whole anatomy to get at it? + +The expenditure of time and effort and money required to gain the occult +ends of what seems like a blind and blundering process, is certainly +colossal. What the patient puts into it is comparatively unimportant. A +fool and his money might as well be parted sooner as later, and the time +of the patient, especially in the state of depression in which he +ordinarily seeks treatment, is worth so little that killing it is as +good a use as any to make of it. But think of the physician--a man of +parts, of much general and special education, who has added to a large +professional equipment the complicated technique of a laborious method +that only a German thoroughness gone stark and staring mad, could +perpetrate on a makeshift world, which, with all its failings, has not +lost its sense of humor or its perception of the relative value of +things mundane, and does still discriminate between time and eternity. +Think of a first rate mind expending itself for hours on end in the +minute scrutiny of some trivial neurotic mentality, probably as like as +two peas to thousands of other equally insignificant particles of matter +that pass for individual organisms. + + * * * * * + +If indeed the interest in another personality is the essence of the +"cure," one is tempted to ask why these egocentric erotomaniacs should +not derive the same and mutual benefit from interesting themselves in +one another? Why not pair them off, male and female as originally +created, and embark them together on this ark of refuge from the deluge +of the common life in which they are drowning? Let them sit by the hour, +the day, the week, and talk about their "souls," relate to each other's +absorbed attention their life history, interpret each other's dreams, +and join in the freest of "free association." Let the blind lead the +blind, the sick heal the sick, the erotic love the erratic, and silly +soul mate with silly soul, leaving the authentic souls of the doctors to +be saved from stultification, and their talents used for the benefit of +human beings who are really and truly suffering. + +But, alas, there seems to be no such easy panacea for mortal ills: for +to attain its ends the process must apparently be presided over by a +superior if not superhuman intelligence. And the patient, if +scientifically or benevolently minded, can take comfort in the thought +that his case is perhaps sufficiently different from any hitherto +handled to enable the investigator to benefit almost as much as the +patient by the experience. Perhaps the months that the biddable patient +who has overcome his "resistances" devotes to cooeperating with the +scientific explorer, may be reduced to weeks in the treatment of the +next like-minded individual who submits himself for treatment by the +more practised practitioner. I recall my despairing comment upon a +doctor's tale of the case that it took two thousand hours to cure, and +the reassuring response that, now that the technique had been worked out +and published, any competent person could turn the trick in from +one-tenth to one-twentieth of the time. + + * * * * * + +The psychoanalytic approach to mental prophylaxis is perhaps still, +after twenty years of groping progress, in the experimental stage. The +few bold spirits who have braved the ridicule of their conservative +confreres, and left the main travelled roads, are hardy pioneers blazing +trails and treading out paths that will in time be easy traveling. It is +inevitable that in the delicate operations by which these spiritual +sawbones are mastering the mystery of this new art of the vivisection of +the soul, they should sometimes cause pain or even cut in the wrong +place. But they are inspired by a very human sympathy for their +victim-beneficiaries, and are rapidly learning their way about the +spiritual anatomy, and discovering the skillful use of mental +anaesthetics. + +The strangest thing about this extraordinary process is that it really +does cure the mind diseased. Where and what, one asks, and continues to +ask, is the nexus between treatment and cure. Has any patient, however +completely recovered, ever found out? Do the practitioners of this +occult ritual know themselves, or have they simply hit on a practical +technique, without a comprehension of a rational philosophical basis for +its major operations? Is this like early groping experiments with +"animal magnetism," or mysterious forms of electricity which brought +results long before an understanding of the reason of their success was +arrived at? However this may be, it still remains true that, judged by +its results, the new method, however dark and devious, must still be +acknowledged to have attained a success, not sporadic and accidental, +but continuous, consistent and increasing, and apparently, though +incomprehensibly, connected as effect to cause with the procedure which +has been sketched, or shall I say caricatured, in the foregoing pages. + + + + +"THE PUREST OF HUMAN PLEASURES" + + +Top-heavy civilization is always righting itself by a side-reach after +the "primitive" and the "elemental." Weary capitalists and professional +men play--expensively--at what when all's said is but a child's game of +ball enhanced by feats of walking. Science gives us the motor; and +slug-a-beds who have hitherto accepted sunrise as an act of faith grow +to be connoisseurs in effects of morning haze and chiaroscuro. + +Perhaps, then, there are many others who, like myself, have discovered, +in this year of the travail of humanity, the sober and healing pleasures +of the garden. Of course I had always intended to have a garden +sometime, on the same principle by which I hope to see Japan, to read +the Old Testament in Hebrew (having first mastered a dozen other +languages more immediately relevant to my business), to have my twilight +stage of knowledge regarding the material universe dispelled by the +blinding light of modern discovery. I had even used the planning of this +garden, with its companion brook, grove, and lawn, as a lure for sleep. +But that was a paradise for the eye alone; and in my heathen blindness I +dreamed that the joy of the garden was in the beholding. Most pityingly +I look back upon that time of ignorance. Confess, fellow amateurs, is +not the joy in the making? Even harvesting, the end for which the garden +was made, yields the gardener himself a crasser pleasure, as compared +with the stirring of the earth, laying down seeds in a row like a string +of matched stones, and most of all watching the young plants, obedient +to his design, prick through the earth and advance from seed-leaf to +bushiness or stateliness, from foliage to flower. To gather the fruits +of your labor justifies your enterprise, but it is something like +receiving royalties for a work of art born in a flash of inspiration. To +see the delicate green shoots, perfect in their vague promise, and +innocent of the blights, distortions, and frustrations that may overtake +them later on, stretching up and unfolding where the other day there was +only black earth, is akin to the first vision of some great creative +idea, before one meets its penalty in hours of toil and cheated hope. +There is even a tinge of guilt in our pleasure; we have digressed, in +the name of civic duty, from our lawful callings, considering that we +made some sacrifice of time or strength, and our virtue has turned into +an indulgence. + +One of my first discoveries (after the simplest rudiments of the art I +essayed to practise) was that of all topics on the lips of men the +garden is the most conversable, the most fraternal. Hitherto, +observation had led me to suppose children and rheumatism the most +universal of interests. Having neither myself, I have been cut off from +that fluent intercourse upon first steps and first words, adenoids, +preventive dentistry, potatoes carried in the pocket, baths of hot +brine, and the proportion of protein in the diet, which makes strangers +or friends akin. There was always the weather; but--unless one has a +garden, as sensitive as a poet to every nuance of sun or +atmosphere--talk of the weather is a mere subterfuge, a symbol of our +inarticulateness and awkward shyness masking our human yearning to know +our fellows and to wish them well. The garden, as a subject of +discourse, combines all the pretext offered by the weather to hint our +good will without violating our shyness; all the diversity and perpetual +surprise of a child's development; all the right to condole with +misfortune and to be agreeably officious about remedies enjoyed by those +who encounter the rheumatic; all the delight of professional +note-comparing known to invalids, cooks, and pedagogues. To appear in my +garden, equipped with sun-hat and hoe, was, I found, to be hail-fellowed +by every condition of men--pickaninnies, delivery-men, professors, +elegants and inelegants, experts and inexperts. My acquaintanceship +among my neighbors grew like Jonah's gourd. "Do you mind my asking what +that line of white strips is for?" "To warn the English sparrows off my +pea-vines."--"Would you like some young cabbage-plants?"--"Your corn is +lookin' fine!" Common interests were visible and inexhaustible. + + * * * * * + +Other sociabilities also I have found in the garden. We prate a good +deal of "companionship with nature," and go out fussily to seek it, with +camera, bird-book, field-glasses, and expensive camping gear. In the +garden one loses all this self-consciousness. Instead of personifying +nature, and offering her the compliment of man's society, one sinks into +one's place as a piece of nature. The catbird spluttering joyous music +at me, almost forgetting to be afraid; the cardinal that looks down where +I stand tossing off a magnificent plume of spray from my watering-pot, +and whistles, "We-e-ell! Who'd-have-thought-to-see-you-keeping-at-it?" +and I myself, turning to my own uses the perpetual need of life to renew +itself, to evolve out of seed and bulb new seeds and bulbs, which shall +give birth in time to other seeds and bulbs--we are all part of the same +process. + +With our Little Brother the Robin I am approaching intimacy. It is +pleasant to see him assume, with almost human egotism, that the worms I +turn up, the strings I plant by, the stakes I drive, are special +providences for himself. Yet I have never quite won his confidence. I +have often longed to speak to him, explaining that there are worms +enough for us both, and how easy I find it to scatter a few extra +strings for his nest-building; I have longed to reassure the wild doves +who run about on their pretty pink feet in the long grass near the +garden, and at my approach fly away with a protesting soft +"chitter-chitter-chitter." I realize afresh, as I have often realized in +watching people coax squirrels to eat from their hands, or children +lavishing affection on brainless hens and rabbits, that if there had +been no Saint Francis, it behooved mankind to invent him. On the other +hand, the gardener, a fighter in the struggle for food, finds the +impartial views of the dilettante asking for "companionship with nature" +quite unthinkable. The wild rabbit, which only last winter I thought an +engaging creature, has not changed the sleekness of his brown coat, his +funny little white tuft of tail, or his wavelike movements; but he has +become repulsive to me. + +A whole new set of values, in fact, takes possession of mind and senses. +One comes to like the writhings of the angle worms in the muck, knowing +that they do the gardener service. Various sights and contacts, once +offensive, being now considered not simply in themselves, but in +relation to our purposes, become indifferent or actually pleasurable. +Even whiffs of fertilizer, if suggestive merely, give an agreeable sense +that the work is going forward. And what an infinite gulf between "dirt" +and "soil"! There lies between a whole initiation into secrets chemical +and biological. Once I passed by garden tracts with undistinguishing +eyes. Now to see them stifled with weeds, or to see the earth stiff and +lumpy, affects me like walking in New York slums, or like a hideous +grouping of colors; to see the earth mellow and finely tilled is +satisfying, like a good chord in music, or like a firm strong drawing. + +Digging, planting, transplanting, watching the sky, I have come face to +face with the meaning of words I have known all my life, in the dim way +we know most things outside our own importunate concerns. "Except a corn +of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone." It is one +thing to understand this saying botanically, and another to see it +exemplified when you are breathlessly awaiting the result. "An enemy +hath done this!" I cried when the wild rabbit stripped my young +bean-plants, or when some great dog made his bed in my onion-patch. All +sorts of images, from parable, poem, and story, re-awake in my mind with +a morning freshness and brightness. And in my turn I have enacted, or +experienced, many a little apologue. For example, I discover that plants +grown in over-shaded spots fall victim no less surely to what sun they +get, on scorching days, than those quite unprotected. Here are the +facts; the moralist may make of them what he will. + + * * * * * + +What would any art be without its disappointments and anxieties, its +hours of depression that measure the worth of the goal striven for? The +amateur gardener has his share. I pass over in forgiving silence--almost +silence--the haughty fashion in which the masters of the craft, +professing to offer information, so give as to withhold. Your +professional is a thorough classicist; "nothing too much" his motto. +Enough, and not too much, whether it be vanilla in the cookies, exercise +for the invalid, "corroborative detail" in the narrative, or sunshine, +water, fertilizer, depth of earth, mulching for your plants. And this +all-important but inscrutable rule is the despair of every amateur. A +grievance perhaps more personal to myself has been the unnatural +behavior enjoined on me toward seedlings of my own sowing, my own +cosseting. In a sense, I had brought them into the world, and now I was +told some of them must be done away with, that the rest might thrive! As +I edged along the rows, unhappily choosing, among all the pretty +youngsters, the victims for the sacrifice, I reminded myself of Catiline +('tis consoling, at last to have a use for one's education); _notat et +designat oculis ad caedem unumquemque_. Sometimes my human instinct to +value every individual and to lavish care on the weak has got the better +of me. I do not dwell on the experiments to which I have resorted; but +some of them, in spite of the doctrinaires, were triumphs! On the other +hand, I have bitterly resented deformities and discolorations in my +nursery. For the first time in my life I understand how the Spartans +could expose for death infants blemished in mind or body. I understand +what fierce parental pride is at the bottom of many a father's or +mother's blindness to faults and commonplaceness. + +On every side I hear from fellow-enthusiasts detailed schemes for next +year's garden, vows of perpetual gardendom. I do not echo them. I have +been initiated; a certain bond with my kind is mine henceforth. But the +purest of human pleasures, as Bacon called it, is likewise the most +tyrannous. Other joys may be caught up in Gideon's fashion, while one +marches on one's way. Once the garden possesses you, it leaves no room +for anything beside. The garden-seat of Adam and Eve has been +universally regretted. But what had they to do except name the +creatures, dig, sow, and reap? They did not have to pay their way with +money, nor answer letters, nor read the newspapers, nor vote, nor keep +track of the bacterial count in the milk they drank, nor study past +history in order to interpret the present, nor even to learn the science +of horticulture. + + + + +WAR FOR EVOLUTION'S SAKE + + +In its last throes the cruel Neo-Darwinian philosophy of nature and man +is having one terrible, final, satanic triumph, for it is in no mean +measure responsible for this incredible war, and especially for its +incredible brutality. For just as the war and the peculiarly revolting +and degrading methods of its conduct bear the "made in Germany" stamp, +so does the Neo-Darwinian conception of evolution and its method bear +the same precious label. For it was not only that Weismann of Freiburg +gave form and seeming validity to this conception, during the course of +his violent attacks on Lamarckism, but it was his following troop of +German biologists and natural philosophers who gleefully put the +conception into final form for general assimilation. For, as we shall +explain later, it was a kind of biological philosophy that fitted in +beautifully with German political and military philosophy; everything to +the winner, nothing to the loser. + +In the evolution of the human race the different peoples and nations are +the analogue of the different species in lower creation. Just as among +these brute species of field and jungle, ocean and stream, there is a +constant relentless struggle of one species against the other nearest +like it in habits, or nearest it in space, or most in the way of its +increase numerically or expansion geographically, so is it among the +peoples of the earth. And just as the species with the advantage of +longer tooth or claw, or more ferocity, more endurance, or more cunning, +wins by killing out, or, as among certain ant kinds, enslaving the +other, so is it with these higher brutes, the peoples of the earth. + +Human evolution is governed by the same factors as brute evolution, and +the all-mighty and all-sufficient factor is natural selection on a basis +of life and death struggle and survival of the winner. Therefore the +whole matter is very simple: that people is the chosen of Nature and God +that devotes its best attention and energy to the business of fighting +and fights in the most approved brute way with complete rejection of all +those unnatural, debilitating and disadvantageous principles that an +artificial and weakening form of social evolution has grafted on to +human life. For this social evolution that the human species has adopted +is based on a principle that is in direct conflict with nature, the +principle of mutual aid and altruism. Nature's principle is mutual fight +and antagonism. + +Thus said Weismann and his Neo-Darwinian followers; and thus quickly +repeated the men who saw in this philosophy exactly the needed +foundation and sustaining pillars for their own militaristic philosophy. +In this fundamental natural philosophy they found exactly what they +needed to give their militarism full acceptance among the German people; +namely, the cold, disinterested support of science, the potent aid of +scientific dogma. For Science is the German religion. The _Gott_ of the +German Kaiser is a god of steel and power, not of heart and pity. German +success, so far as it goes, and of the kind it is, comes in truth from +_Gott und uns_; but from their kind of god and their kind of us. + +I heard the first impressive exposition of this Germanized Darwinism in +a great German University twenty years ago, and I heard the second +impressive exposition of it only a year ago at the Great Headquarters of +the German General Staff in occupied France. This latter exposition was +well illustrated by the conditions of the moment--and it was a memorable +one for me. Here was the apparently conquering species, pushing into the +land of the struggling native species; here was the species longer in +tooth and claw, more ferocious and brutal, more unscrupulous and +cunning, apparently winning in this biological struggle for +existence,--and taking breath and a few moments to explain why. No +wonder we win; for we are in tune with Nature. We win because we ought +to win for the sake of the future of the human race, for the sake of its +evolution in harmony with natural law. + +But now, in all soberness, what is really to be said of this German +logic; this German philosophy of war and war methods; this holy +justification on a basis of natural law of everything that seems worst +and utterly hopeless to most of the rest of the world? Let us look at +the whole matter, both the biology and the Germanism, in the light of +freedom from dogma and outraged feeling. Let us look both at the alleged +natural law and the German creature so camouflaged by it that he +deceives himself into believing that he is really the superman that his +philosophy paints him. For it is quite true that many Germans, many +educated Germans, do believe what they say of themselves and of their +Holy Crusade under the banner of Natural Law. + +First we can say of this natural law that it isn't natural law. +Evolution is not all caused and controlled by natural selection; natural +selection is not all based on cruel and extinguishing struggle; struggle +is not all blood and violence. In a word, Nature is not all red in tooth +and claw. And, finally, human evolution is not all identical with brute +evolution. + +The last score of years has brought us a wonderful new knowledge of +biology. And it has brought us, too, a new realization of the great deal +that we do not know about biology. The most conspicuous and significant +part of our new positive knowledge has to do with the processes and +results of heredity. The most conspicuous and significant part of our +realization of our lack of knowledge has to do with the explanation of +evolution. And the two things are intimately connected. + +The time has come when the explanations of evolution need to be, and can +be, looked on in a light free from control by dogma. When this is done +the hollowness and the hatefulness of the long reign of the much more +than Darwinian Neo-Darwinism is clear as day. + + * * * * * + +Let us glance over the history of the doctrine. + +The Greeks had ideas about evolution based less on known facts than on +the visions and promptings of minds endowed with creative imagination. +Yet these ideas foreshadowed in curiously close approximation the +evolution conceptions, not only of the natural philosophers of the +seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, to whom are usually ascribed the +first formulations of the evolution doctrine, but even many of the newer +formulations of the present and just passed centuries. + +Even the essence of Darwin's famous explanation of evolution by natural +selection is suggested in the expressions of some of the Attic +philosophers. As, for example, in the writings of Empedocles, who +conceived of a creation of separate animal parts of a great variety of +kinds and the coming together of some of these parts to form viable +organisms and of others to form combinations unable to persist as +successful creatures, because unfit to meet the demands of natural +conditions. + +But it was the great French naturalists, Buffon and Lamarck, who first +expressed the evolution conception in fully worked out and reasonable +form, while it was Lamarck who first offered a simple and wholly +plausible explanation of evolutionary cause and control. His explanation +remains to-day the simplest and most appealing to the reasoning mind of +any that has been offered. + +Unfortunately it lacked, and still lacks, the necessary basis of +indispensable proof for its most fundamental assumption, to-wit, "the +inheritance of acquired characters," that is, the inheritance by the +immediate offspring of those structural and functional changes or +"acquirements" which came to the parents during their life because of +their special use or disuse of parts and their individual reactions to +environmental conditions. The young giraffe had a longer neck than it +otherwise would have had because its parents had stretched their necks +by continual reaching up to the leaves on the highest branches. The +young man-thing of Glacial Times had weaker and less developed scalp +muscles because its parents had gradually given up any considerable use +of these muscles for twitching their heavy shocks of hair to frighten +away the flies. + +Then came Darwin with his natural selection explanation, a very +different explanation from Lamarck's, and one also very plausible and +logical. Darwin did not altogether disbelieve in Lamarck's theory; but +he believed much more in his own. Later came the Neo-Darwinians, and +they went the whole way of rejecting Lamarck's explanation entirely, and +accepting the natural selection explanation as the wholly sufficient +cause and the only one needed to explain all evolution. The leader of +the Neo-Darwinians was August Weismann of the University of Freiburg. He +had as followers most of the German natural philosophers. + +What is this "natural selection" that we all know so well by name, and +so little, I am afraid, by content? For natural selection is much more +widely known as a dominating scientific dogma, accepted popularly with +little question as a sufficient explanation of evolution, than as +something to be itself explained and viewed with a proper scientific +doubt. As a matter of fact, it is high time that it should be generally +known that not many naturalists of standing today accept natural +selection as a sufficient explanation of the thoroughly accepted fact of +evolution, or even as the most important among the numerous probable +contributing factors of evolution. Indeed there are many reputable +naturalists who repudiate natural selection altogether, as an actual +contributing factor in species-forming and descent, and concede its +influence as an evolutionary control, only in most general relations. + +But in the popularization and wide acceptance of the natural selection +dogma, we are in face of one of those familiar histories of the rise and +dominance of a plausible, logically-constructed, apparently simple and +sufficient explanation of a great problem pressing for solution. It is +difficult for the world to accept the evolution theory without a causal +explanation of it. But as the known facts prove the theory beyond +reasonable doubt, it is necessary to accept it. Hence there is to most +people a simultaneous necessity for accepting some explanation of it. +Natural selection has had the fortune of being, since Darwin's time, the +generally accepted explanation. What then is it, really? + +It is an explanation of evolution which it is the merit of Darwin to +have devised;--or perhaps we ought already to say in the light of the +fatal results brought about by the wide unreasoning acceptance of it, it +is the demerit of Darwin to have devised;--an explanation based partly +on certain observed facts, but more largely on a certain logical +elaboration of argument for which the observed facts are assumed to be +sufficient base. + +The more relevant of these facts are the production by parents of too +many young and the slight differing of these young among themselves in +most of their characters, physical and mental. The production of too +many young leads, according to the natural selectionists, to a life and +death struggle for existence among them, and the slight differences +among them lead to a decision in this struggle on a basis of the slight +advantages or disadvantages of these differences. The two logical +conclusions seem to be inevitable on the basis of the two facts. + +On the structure so far reared, however, other blocks are placed. The +selectionists believe that by the laws of heredity, although the young +of a different parent or pair of parents do differ among themselves, +they resemble their own parents more closely than they resemble other +individuals of their kind of species. So that the young produced by the +survivors in the struggle for existence, although again slightly +differing from their parents and each other, will, by the laws of +heredity, tend to reproduce in their make-up the advantageous variations +which were possessed by their parents and which gave these parents +success in the struggle for life. + +More than that: some of these young will tend to possess those +advantageous differences--this by the laws of variation as antidote +needed just here for the laws of heredity--in even more marked degree +than existed in the parents, while others will possess them in less +degree and still others in about the same degree. Hence, the particular +young showing the increased differences will be the individuals of this +generation to survive in the struggle. These will then leave behind them +new young again tending to possess in varying degree those advantageous +variations from the old or species type that make them especially "fit +for the conditions under which they must live." + +Thus there will result, in a series of many generations, a gradual +shifting of the character of the species to the type characterized by an +ever increasing and perfecting of the original advantageous differences. +This is "species transformation," or the "origin of species" by natural +selection. It is evolution on a basis of life and death struggle; +extinction of the unfit; and survival of the fit, fitter or fittest. And +just as with the different individuals inside the species, so with the +different varying species. Each struggles with the other and the one or +ones with the advantageous differences win at the expense of the others. + +There is no doubt of the fascinating plausibility and seeming reality +and sufficiency of this explanation. It makes a strong appeal to the +logical mind; to the theory-spinning brain. You can understand it, prove +it, expand it, improve on it, and, all this almost without ever seeing +an animal or a plant, or knowing anything of its actual life and +relations to the world it lives in. No wonder it fascinated and seized a +world demanding a logical explanation for the theory of evolution. No +wonder that this explanation of Darwin, offered at the same time with a +clear elucidation of the evolution theory itself to a world just ready +for both, came to be the one all-sufficient explanation, came to be a +scientific dogma of the most dogmatic type. + + * * * * * + +Now for real thorough-going dogmatism there is nothing like scientific +dogmatism, there is no dogmatist like a scientific dogmatist. There are +many scientific men who pretend to know absolutely that many things +cannot possibly be because they have never seen them, heard them, felt +them or measured them. It is because of these men, who are not many, but +loud, that we scientific men as a class have a reputation among many +people of being narrow-minded and bigoted; and I hasten to admit that +many of us are. Not all that is called science is proved; and most +certainly not all that is called non-science is disproved, or because as +yet unproved is to be tossed lightly or sneeringly aside. The scientific +man who declares what cannot possibly be, exposes himself as a boaster +and a charlatan, for by such declaration he, by implication, claims to +know all the order of nature, which certainly no man does know. No man +knows all that is or may be; hence no man knows what is not or may not +be. + +It was Weismann's new facts and new theories about heredity that did +much to overthrow Lamarckism and make it possible to expand rational +Darwinism into irrational ultra-Darwinism and then claim for it such an +insolently dominating place among the explanations of evolution. And now +it is the still newer and far less theoretical and more concrete +knowledge of heredity that has dethroned Neo-Darwinism, made impossible +and absurd the German claims of the _Allmacht_ of natural selection as +evolution explanation, and revealed to us how little we really know of +the potent causes and controls of evolution--if we may call that +revelation which reveals darkness where before was apparent light. The +factors of evolution that today we are more certain of than any others +are the unknown factors, the causes we do not know, the methods we do +not understand. + +If this seems to be a humiliating confession to come from a biologist +and professed student of evolution, it is one in which all honest +scholars must join. If the Germans will not, they are not honest. + +The new heredity, to characterize by this term the extraordinary +increase and the more exact kind of knowledge of heredity acquired since +the first recognition, in 1900, of Mendelism, has so shattered the +seemingly unassailable logical structure of the natural selection +explanation of evolution that it stands now only as a tottering skeleton +of its once imposing self. It had always too much assumption of premises +for its foundation and too much logic and finespun theory in its +superstructure to be an enduring building. Even before the new knowledge +of the facts and mechanism of heredity was available natural selection +was already weakening under the criticism of scientific men, although +but little of this was known to the man in the street. And even now when +the new heredity has furnished the knowledge for a complete undermining +of the natural selection theory as a species-forming factor, only +occasional rumors of the disaster find their way into popular +literature. + +But long ago there began a popular revolt against the conception of the +whole world of nature and man as ruled by a theory of continuous +ruthless bloody struggle. Everyone knew that this was not the only +relation of human beings to each other, and even most casual observation +indicated that it was not the only relation of various kinds of the +lower animals to each other. The obvious biological success of the +social or communal insects, the numerous instances of commensalism, or +the living together on terms of mutual advantage of individuals of +different species--the various ants alone have more than a thousand +known kinds of other insects living with them--and the innumerable +observed instances of what might be called balanced adaptations, such as +those of the flower-visiting insects and the insect-visited flowers +resulting in the needed cross-fertilization of the flowers and the +needed supply of nectar and pollen food for the insects--all these had +convinced biologists and nature-students and just nature-lovers that +_if_ natural selection were the all-ruling factor in determining the +present character and the future of the living world it was a very +different natural selection from that so redly painted by the +Neo-Darwinians. + +It is quite certain that Darwin himself never conceived of any such +utterly brutal conception of natural selection as the Teutonized one. In +all his writing he recognizes that the bringing about of adaptation to +the conditions of life is the essential feature of evolution, and, when +it seemed impossible or too far-fetched to explain adaptation by a +ruthless struggle that extinguished some species and preserved others, +he looked for other explanations, even accepting Lamarck's for certain +cases. He accepted everything that could make for adaptation, and among +these other things than bitter fighting that could bring about and +perfect adaptation he especially recognized mutual aid, and repeatedly +called attention to species change based on mutual aid both within and +between species. + +But however suggestive and important it is to note how out of tune with +the facts concerned with general evolution are the natural selection +extremists, our special present interest centers around the attempt to +bring the explanation of human evolution into tune with this out of tune +conception of evolution in general. For it is on this basis, the basis +of an alleged identity between the character and control of human +evolution and the character and control of brute evolution, that the +Germans find their justification in natural law for their war philosophy +and war practise. + +The Germans are greatly given to explanations. These explanations always +contain a specious show of reasoning and pseudo-reasoning. They are in +line with some accepted philosophy or pseudo-philosophy. Their accepted +pseudo-philosophy of human evolution is a thoroughly mechanistic one. It +is one of economy of thought and argument. If man is an animal +descended, or ascended, from the lower ones--as he is--and if animals +are what they are today and will be what they will be tomorrow by +virtue--or evil--of a natural law of bitter, brutal, bloody struggle, +out of which emerge as survivors only those most brutally and fearfully +qualified for such struggle, why, then, the case of man and of human +evolution is simple. _Schluss_ with discussion! + +But the trouble with this simple convincing argument is with the +premises. They are wrong. + +Not only is bitter, brutal, bloody struggle not the single, nor the +chief explanation of general evolution, but it is particularly not the +chief explanation of human evolution, despite our origin and earlier +life in Glacial or pre-Glacial Time as "animal among animals," and +despite the stream of ever more diluted inheritance from tiger and ape +ancestors that flows with us, as we move through the ages, changing, +ever-changing, as we move. The simplicity of the explanation of human +nature and human life from origins makes its appeal to all of us, and +especially to those de-spiritualized ones of us who find in pure +mechanistic conceptions a satisfying and ultra-economical explanation of +every complex and difficult problem. But it is a dangerous explanation, +leading us to be blind to many facts that are, if we are honest in our +seeing, quite clearly before us. No matter when or where we may have +begun the course of our truly human evolution we have come an immensely +long way, a way so long that we have, we may say, almost no right at all +to try to interpret our condition of today by the light of our condition +in the beginning. And we have come to this point by the interjection +into our nature by natural mutation, or conscious self-effort, of +elements that were essentially foreign to our ancestors of the beginning +days. We have, indeed, in our evolution a sort of double line; one that +we may call our natural evolution, concerned with our physical +characteristics and the fundamentals of our mental and social traits, +and like all natural characters carried along in the race by heredity; +and the other, that we may call our social or moral evolution, made +possible, to be sure, only by the stage of our natural evolution, but +concerned chiefly with various acquired mental and social characters, +which are not an integral part of our heredity, but depend on speech, +writing, education, precept and practise for transmission from one +generation to the other, and, thus, for perpetuation and expansion in +the race. + +This social evolution, added to a natural evolutionary development of +the social or altruistic habit based on the advantage of the mutual aid +principle as opposed to the mutual fight principle, has had an amazingly +swift flowering since the earlier days of human prehistory, and today +contains all the present expression and future promise of man's higher +evolution. It has its roots in all of the best of man's natural traits, +and acts as a powerful inhibitor of the worst of them. It finds its +natural validity in the great strength it adds to man's position in +Nature, for it permits a much swifter and more extreme development of +human possibilities than would be possible by the slow processes of +natural evolution. That which would take many generations to incorporate +into our natural heredity can be put quickly into our social inheritance +and still be hardly any the less powerful in its control of our life. + +Now it is all this side of human evolution that the German natural +philosophy, especially as applied to international relations, leaves out +of account. The Germans do indeed recognize the value of social +evolution inside the race or nation, but its advantage is all for the +sake of building up a powerful organism to fight effectively and +viciously with all other races and nations. The different peoples are to +be looked on as the analogues of different brute species, all terribly +and everlastingly at war with each other, each using everything possible +to it to gain the upper hand. Everything that can be construed to be of +military advantage in this struggle is justified as biological +advantage, and there is no doubt that to be inhumanly ferocious, brutal +and cunning is of biological advantage in tiger evolution. + +The test of this war philosophy will come for the Germans when they are +being beaten and are beaten. Will they hold then consistently to their +thesis, and admit that their line of human evolution is proved by their +defeat to be a wrong line because it is not the strongest line? They +have a way out. This way was suggested to me by the principal expositor +at Great Headquarters of the brute struggle and survival theory. He said +that it was possible to conceive of a failure of natural selection to +work its ennobling way because of the perverse opposition to it of the +artificial character of much of human life, but if natural law was to be +restrained or upset by such an interpolated artificial control he, at +least, would prefer to die in the catastrophe and not have to live in a +world perverse to natural law. Of course he did not admit of the +probability of such a situation. The Germans would win because they were +fighting with Nature on their side. They were biologically right, and +biological law would work with them to success. But there was the bare +possibility of such an outcome to be reckoned with. If this possibility +came to reality, why then all was wrong with the world, and he, for one, +would not care to live longer in it. + +I do not mean to say that all Germans think out war in terms of +biological struggle and evolutionary advancement of the human race. But +there are many who do, and they are leaders. Now, in Germany leaders not +only lead; they compel. Most Germans not only do as they are told to do; +they think as they are told to think. Their whole training and tradition +is to put themselves unreservedly in the hands of their masters. And as +long as things go well, or fairly well, or even not very well but with +promise of going better, they make little complaint. But when things are +too hard for too long a time, they begin to question the infallibility +of the All-Highest and the Near-Highest. And Germany already has +suffered terribly and suffered long, and still suffers. + +The German leaders are feverishly longing and working for an end of this +war. They see more danger from within than from the outside. The Allies +have declared that they do not expect to destroy or dismember Germany +but the little people of Germany have not said what they will or will +not do. They will not do anything if an end of the war can be made soon +with some positive gain to be shown, or apparently shown, from it. But +there is no telling what they will do otherwise, do, that is, to the men +who have sacrificed them in vain. + +But they are a long-suffering people, and a philosophizing people who +have been taught that they are the race chosen of God and Nature, and +that the inevitable course of natural evolution is carrying them on to +be the Super-race of all earth. This philosophy will go a long way with +them, and whether all the shrewd, calculating, self-seeking men of the +Court and the General Staff believe it or not, it is a most useful +philosophy for them. It puts all those who do believe it in their hands. +And as I have said, many Germans do believe it. That is the great danger +of the world from the Germans; so many of them believe what they say. + + + + +JOHN FISKE + + +A generation with every nerve strained by the war will probably have +little patience with a statement that the generation whose activities +began soon after the middle of the last century, went through a conflict +of perhaps equal importance, but such is the fact. + +Like the present conflict, that was one between an old and firmly rooted +principle that had outlived most of its usefulness and was fettering +liberty, and a new principle that meant emancipation. + +The contest was between the superstition (it was not consistent enough +to justify calling it an opinion) on the one hand that man has fallen +from a condition of primitive perfection to one of degradation, and on +the other hand, the scientific demonstration that man's experience has +been one of virtually constant progress, up from protoplasm and probably +from inorganic matter. On the former view hung the mass of putrescent +and pestilent dogma that had fastened itself upon the sweet and simple +teachings of Christ. + +The conflict was probably the greatest of all between truth and +superstition. The temper of it was perhaps most strikingly illustrated +when, at the meeting of the British Association in 1860, Bishop +Wilberforce asked Huxley whether it was "through his grandfather or his +grandmother that he claimed descent from a monkey," and Huxley answered: + +"I asserted--and I repeat--that a man has no reason to be ashamed of +having an ape for his grandfather. If there were an ancestor whom I +should feel shame in recalling, it would rather be a man--a man of +restless and versatile intellect--who not content with success in his +own sphere of activity, plunges into scientific questions with which he +has no real acquaintance, only to obscure by an aimless rhetoric, and +distract the attention of his hearers from the real point at issue by +eloquent digressions and skilled appeals to religious prejudice." + +A witness says: "The effect was tremendous. One lady fainted and had to +be carried out; I, for one jumped from my seat." + +Another witness says: "I never saw such a display of fierce party +spirit," and speaks of "the looks of bitter hatred" cast upon those who +were on Huxley's side. + +Perhaps it is not trying to shape great complexities too definitely, to +say that the conflict of which that was one episode, was the third of +the civilized world's greatest intellectual struggles--the establishment +of the Christian church, the reformation of it, and the determination of +its true relation to the progress of knowledge. + +The last conflict, however, was a most hopeful illustration of the +progress made since the first two, in that it involved no exposure of +victims to the lions of the arena, no Nero's torches, no Inquisition, no +Thirty-Years' War, no destruction of venerable and beautiful monuments, +or of institutions for charity or education. + +But of course that conflict of the last century, like all others, had +its pains; yet as it did not directly touch the person or the pocket of +the average man, he cared very little about it. Nevertheless it has +filtered down into his very language, and when he is the sort of average +man who likes to use big words, his share of the victors' spoils +includes the pleasure of frequently uttering, without quite +understanding, such terms as _environment_, _differentiation_, and even +_integration_, while the word _evolution_ has become such a +matter-of-course term that he and everybody else use it +unconsciously--unconscious not only of most of what it implies, but even +of their indebtedness to the men from whom they got it.[2] + + [2] In this connection there was something said about + Herbert Spencer in our Number 16. + +Of those men, one of the most important, and far the most important in +America, was John Fiske. The recent publication of his _Life and +Letters, by John S. Clarke_, (Houghton-Mifflin Co.) gives occasion to +say something about him and his part in the great conflict. + +But first a word regarding the book. It is certainly a remarkable +production for a man well over eighty. Though not entirely free from the +diffuseness and repetition of age, it is nearer free than many +respectable books of much younger men, while in faithfulness, patience +and, on the whole, discrimination, it surpasses most. The author really +understands the implications of Evolution, so far as yet worked out, and +that is something that surprisingly few people do; and there are not a +few places where he states them with a clearness and vigor which would +do credit to anybody, and in a man of his years are no less than +astonishing. Whatever imperfections the book may have, as a guide for +the layman to the great revolution in thought which brought thought for +the first time into stable equilibrium, the book is probably surpassed +by no writing except Fiske's own. + +But while the author's work is not to be estimated lightly, he would be +the first to say that the charm and value of the book are mainly in +Fiske's letters, especially those to his wife and mother, which in +naturalness, vividness, beauty of expression and humor are unsurpassed, +and in wealth and ease of illustrative learning are unequaled, by any +letters of which we know. For readers fond of books of travel, many of +them will be of the very highest interest. Moreover they include a fine +portrait gallery of the greatest men who won the fight for Evolution, at +play as well as at work; and the letters to and from Darwin, Spencer, +and a few others are rich in discussion of the profoundest topics that +have engaged the human mind. In short, we know of no other book which +admits the reader to as much intimacy with as high society. Jenkins +would not agree with our terms, but if high society means the men who +made the greatest intellectual epoch in human history, our assertion is +safe. Fiske himself had no small part in that great feat, and this book +admits us into his intimate friendship with Lyell, Lewes, George Eliot, +Tyndall, Huxley, Darwin, Spencer and not a few others among the leaders +of the race. It seems quite probable that this life of Fiske may give a +clearer idea of Spencer than is given in Mr. Duncan's _Life_, or even in +the _Autobiography_. Perhaps best of all, Fiske's letters set before us +as example a character of rare simplicity, sincerity and tenderness. + +Lest all this praise lead some to disappointment, we hasten to add the +obvious fact that the attractions of cotemporary history or even of +portable epigram, which have made most of the immortal letters in +literature, are hardly to be expected from a writer whose mind was +generally absorbed in the widest generalizations of Philosophy and the +History of the past. + + * * * * * + +And now as to the life itself: + +Edmund Fisk Green, later famous as John Fiske, was born of excellent New +England stock at Hartford, Connecticut, on March 30, 1842. His mother +was early widowed, and went to New York to teach, leaving her son with +her mother in Middletown. When he was thirteen, his mother married in +New York, and this change in her surname probably has something to do +with the change in his, to that originally borne by the grandmother with +whom he continued to live. The grandmother's father, John Fisk, was a +remarkable man, and so his Christian name went with the surname. + +The young John Fiske (the _e_ was his own addition when he found that it +had been used by his earlier ancestors) was precocious, as, despite many +assertions to the contrary, great scholars and geniuses generally have +been; but unlike Mill and Spencer--the cotemporaries he nearest +resembled--Fiske had not the benefit in his early education of any +exceptionally competent guide. From childhood up, however, he stood out +from his companions. + +He had the usual schooling, interspersed with some special tutoring, and +during two considerable intervals he pursued his studies unaided. All +the while that his formal studies were going on, he read ravenously, +and, from a very early age, only things worth reading. Thus in childhood +he began the accumulation of what became a very exceptional private +library. + +When Fiske was fourteen, he joined the Congregational Church in +Middletown, and for a time he was very religious indeed, taking an +active part in the wave of "revival" which swept over the country two +years later, in 1858. But early in 1859 he was reading Gibbon, Grote, +Humboldt, and Buckle, and questioning the dogmas of Christianity, and +quite probably was going through the reaction from the "revival," which, +throughout the country, was about as great as the revival itself; and it +was not long before Fiske abandoned the dogmas altogether. But his +reverence for all in the religion that was worth the attention of a +reasoning being, never left him; and through life he even used its +terminology to a degree that was sometimes hardly consistent with his +fundamental convictions. He became also far the most effective builder +yet known of the new religious superstructure legitimately based on the +philosophy which, at about the time we speak of, was removing from many +minds the traditional bases of religion. + +Fiske's infidelity led to his social ostracism in Middletown, but forty +years later, the place had so far advanced that when it celebrated the +two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of its foundation, it invited Fiske +to be the orator of the occasion. + +In 1860 he entered Harvard. + +Later, of Darwin he said: "There is now and then a mind--perhaps one in +four or five millions--which in early youth thinks the thoughts of +mature manhood." Such a mind was emphatically Fiske's own: while he was +still an undergraduate, two of his essays attracted attention on both +sides of the water. + +In college his marks in Philosophy were low: he knew more than his +teachers did, and differed with them, and probably with his textbooks. + +He was threatened with expulsion from college for disseminating among +the students seditious ideas, including the doctrine of Evolution. Eight +years later he was invited to expound the same ideas in a course of +lectures in one of the chapels of the university. + +A third instance of the revolution in opinion which marked the last +century was the refusal, in 1872, because of Fiske's unorthodoxy, to +invite him to lecture at the Lowell Institute, which was followed less +than twenty years later by invitations to do it. Then the demand for +seats was so great that the evening lectures had to be repeated in +subsequent afternoons. + +After graduation, Fiske studied law, did two years' work in nine months, +passed a triumphant examination, and was admitted to the Bar. But after +waiting for clients two years, during which he read more, in quantity +and quality, than most fairly studious men read in a lifetime, and wrote +several notable essays, he gave up law for the pursuits in which he was +already eminent. + +But though he gave up the law, nearly eighteen years later he could +write thus to his wife (_Life and Letters_, II, p. 205): + +"Judge Gantt thought he would stick me, and so propounded to me the +barbarous law-Latin puzzle propounded by Sir Thomas More to a learned +jurist at Amsterdam, 'whether a plough taken _in withernam_ can be +replevied?' Didn't stick Hezekiah [The author does not give us the +origin of this nickname] _not much_. I gave him a minute account of the +ancient process of distraining and impounding and of the action of +replevin,--considerably to my own amusement and his astonishment." + +The conceptions of the Universe generally held at the time when Fiske +was in college were fragmentary and chaotic, each phenomenon or each +group of phenomena being, like language, a special creation of an +anthropomorphic God, turning out different jobs piecemeal like a man. +The conception of one power behind all had been a dream of not a few +philosophers and poets, but as a fact comprehensible by the average +mind, it was not known until the discovery of the Conservation of Force +about 1860. About the same time was discovered the unity of all organic +life, in its descent from protoplasm, and the identity of its forces +with those of the inorganic universe. The nebular cosmogony, the +persistence of force and the biologic genesis, united together, showed +the power evolving, sustaining and carrying on the entire universe known +to us, to be _one_, and constantly acting in unified process; and that +every detail--from the most minute known to the chemist, physicist and +biologist, up to the greatest known to the geologist and astronomer, and +including all known to the psychologist, economist, and historian--was +caused by a previous detail. It having been established that the same +causes always produced the same results, these uniformities were +recognized as Laws, and it was also recognized that conduct in +conformity with these laws produced good, and conduct counter to them +produced evil. + +It became plain, too, to all normal minds, that the only conceivable +object of these processes was the production of happiness, and that all +records of them proved that they tend not only to produce happiness, but +to increase it. + +These facts rendered entirely superfluous all the previous imaginings of +anthropomorphic deities issuing commands, to obey which was good, and to +disobey which was bad. For all that, was substituted a beneficent Power +transcending man's complete comprehension, but with infinitely greater +claims to gratitude and reverence, and sanctions for morality infinitely +more intelligible and authoritative. + +These great discoveries were at once grasped by Fiske's great +intelligence, and welcomed with enthusiasm. To their dissemination he +mainly devoted his next twenty years, and to their illustration in the +origins and foundation of our national commonwealth, the rest of his +career. + +In explanation of this ordering of his interests, he said that he always +had had a predilection for History, but that a man who needs a +philosophy must get it fixed before he can properly do anything else. It +is to be presumed, however, that he was also attracted to Philosophy by +the fight for Evolution, by his intimacy with Youmans and Spencer, and +perhaps most of all, by the appeal to a mind that, in spite of his +enjoyment of the good things of life, was at bottom profoundly +religious. All this involved his strong conviction of the need of +building up the religious implications of Evolution, to take the place +of the old sanctions which, in many minds, Evolution had set aside. + +Fiske also contributed one generalization to our knowledge of biologic +evolution, and that is a good deal for any man to do: many have attained +fame for less. It was a generalization so important that Darwin +regretted not having developed it himself. The contribution was, as most +of our readers know, regarding the effect of long infancy upon psychic, +and hence upon social, development. The reasons, when suggested, are as +obvious as Columbus's egg: they are, of course, the aid to the evolution +of the family and of altruism. + +When, after Fiske had done his best on these themes, and Evolution in +History became the study of his life, in that work he was a pioneer, and +probably as well fitted for it as any man that ever lived. His cutting +off in the midst of his plans, before he was sixty, was one of those +disasters and apparent wastes which are among the great puzzles of the +Universe. + + * * * * * + +Nowadays the man in the street would expect that in Ireland the +frequency of marriage would vary inversely with the price of potatoes, +and the frequency of illegitimacy would vary directly with it,--that in +France, or anywhere else, the ratio of unstamped letters dropped into +the boxes, to those duly stamped, would be the same year in and year +out; in other words, that the conduct of men in general is regulated by +environment and determined by law. But when Fiske was in college, and +these ideas were new, as far as anything can be new, and when Buckle +brought out a book full of them and their supporting facts, they +appealed at once to Fiske's exceptional powers of correlation--of +tracing order in the history he had been reading, and in the life he was +beginning intelligently to observe. The precocious boy's enthusiasm was +greatly stirred, and yet his critical faculty did not lose its +discrimination. He wrote an essay on Buckle which was praised by the +best judges in England; and when Spencer came along sweeping all these +ideas into the one colossal generalization of Evolution, Fiske was wild +with delight. His own studies of language had been wide enough to enable +him to apply to it the new generalization, and he wrote an essay on _The +Evolution of Language_ which increased the effect of his Buckle essay on +both sides of the Atlantic, and received the commendation of several +leading men, including Spencer himself. How much in advance of the age +these ideas then were, is well illustrated by the fact that somewhere +about 1860, some of the authorities at Yale actually set the students, +who were not Fiske's, as a theme for discussion: "Is language of divine +or human origin?" This theme was not set by Whitney: he already knew +better, and was very much out of gear with Yale because of the +knowledge, though as far as his colleagues were concerned, he kept his +out-of-gearness to himself. + + * * * * * + +Fiske was never absorbingly interested in the specific problems of the +elevation of the less fortunate portion of mankind, but the wider +philosophic and historic problems to which he was devoted include those +specific ones. The widest of all, of course, is Evolution, and probably +he did more to diffuse a knowledge of that than any man of his time +except its two greatest discoverers. Had he lived to apply, as he +proposed, the all-comprehending law to the history of our nation from +the time it became one at Washington's inauguration, his help in the +perplexities which now, next to the war, most beset us, would have been +invaluable. But what he did live to accomplish is of a value that +probably none of us can realize, and not many even suspect. + +The fundamental policy indicated by the law of Evolution is: Build on +what you have. Next to the family, the one institution on which +civilization rests is the right of private property--the opportunity of +every man to obtain and hold it. The growth of this right made the +advance from slavery and feudalism. Owing to the great difference in +men's capacities, its present most marked attainment is capitalism, but +with the gradual development of men's capacities, especially as promoted +by the spread of education, capitalism seems destined to evolve into +cooeperation, of which the germs are already manifest in the +savings-banks and stock companies, especially the avowedly cooeperative +companies whose special development has been in England. The only +legitimate and permanent source of private property is production. The +robbery of Russian landholders or American manufacturers to confer the +semblance of property rights on the incapable, is not evolution, and can +have no permanent results. In all such proceedings, the property has +soon disappeared, or found its way back to the capable. Such processes +are catastrophic: the only successful ones have been evolutionary. The +general realization of this would probably do more to settle the +irrepressible conflict between the haves and the have-nots than any +other purely intellectual agency now within sight. While the word +Evolution is on everybody's tongue, men whose thinking is saturated +through and through by a realization of the law, do not abound. If they +did, there would not be so many Bolsheviks, and Russia would still be in +her place with the allies. + +One of the most important causes of the war which Germany is waging +against civilization, is her imperfect grasp of the philosophy of +Evolution, and one reason for her imperfect grasp is the scarcity of men +like Fiske. The doctrine that the fittest should and must survive is +sound. Germany's doctrine that she is the fittest, is not: for it makes +the tests of fitness brute force, cunning and unscrupulousness, and +ignores the fact that the course of Evolution has brought into the world +such forces as love of justice, sympathy, the cooeperative spirit, and +altruism. Whether these qualities are yet so far evolved as to be the +fittest to survive, is being tested by the conflict now going on. If +Germany proves herself fittest to survive, it will be proved only that +although the other qualities control in many advanced places, the time +for the world's control by them is not yet come. If the Allies conquer, +it will be proved that that time is already here. + +In a rough way it may be said that Spencer, in restricting himself to +demonstrating so much of evolution as could be expressed in terms of +Matter and Motion, left open too much opportunity for the German +conception that evolution stops at the point where those terms stop; and +it can be said, with equally rough justice, that the philosopher who, up +to this time, has traced the law farthest beyond that point, was Fiske. + + * * * * * + +Spencer said in a letter to Fiske, February 2, 1870 (_Life_, I, 368. The +italics are apparently the biographer's. We condense a little.): + +"The deanthropomorphization of men's conceptions has never occupied any +conspicuous or distinctive place in my own mind--_they have been all +along quite secondary to the grand doctrine of Evolution from a physical +point of view_. As I originally conceived it, 'First Principles' was +what now forms its second part. I subsequently saw the need for Part I +(The Unknowable) _simply for the purpose of guarding myself against the +charges of atheism and materialism_. I consider it ['The Synthetic +Philosophy'] as essentially a Cosmogony that admits of being worked out +in physical terms, without necessarily entering upon any metaphysical +questions, and without committing myself to any particular form of +philosophy commonly so called. My _sole original purpose_ was the +interpretation of all concrete phenomena in terms of Matter and Motion, +and I regard all other purposes as incidental and secondary." + +Spencer would not go out of reach of experiment--at least collateral +experiment, but Fiske went into intuition freely. Spencer avoided the +labyrinth altogether, Fiske went into it boldly, but always kept within +reach of the clue of experience. + +But those who do not already know the contrary, should not infer from +this that Spencer ignored the field of Ethics. Quite the reverse: he +made probably the most important scientific contributions to that field +yet made, in tracing the evolution of the conduct of sentient beings +from its first manifestations in reflex action, in the avoidance of +danger, and the procuring of food, through the seeking of mates, the +care of offspring, the forming of groups, up to the highest development +of personal and social relations and the moralities therein involved. + +But for one person who has read Spencer's _Ethics_, a hundred, probably +a thousand, have read his work in the unmoral fields, and tens of +thousands have their ideas of Evolution restricted to the fields +explored by Darwin and Haeckel, and in those fields it is the brute and +the Prussian that survive. But civilization grows in other fields. + +Although Fiske was as thoroughly convinced of Evolution as Spencer was, +he did not stop at its demonstration within the limits which Spencer +imposed upon himself, but followed it into the fields of the spirit, as +illustrated by the titles of some of his essays: _The Idea of God_, +_Through Nature to God_, _Life Everlasting_, _The Origin of Evil_, _The +Unseen World_. + +When, in the fifties and sixties, Science abolished the anthropomorphic +limitations of the Creator, it did not stop there, but abolished, for +the time being, _all_ the anthropomorphic qualities, including those +that have not necessarily any limitations at all. While the universe, +despite frequent inadequacy, disproportion and catastrophe, still +abounds in obvious beauty and happiness, Science for a time shut its +eyes to beneficence, and denied benevolence and even purpose. Fiske did +more than anybody else has yet done to restore them--to show that they +are corollaries of Evolution. He said, in his _Cosmic Philosophy_: "The +process of evolution is itself the working out of a mighty Teleology of +which our finite understandings can fathom but the scantest rudiments." +He did more just there than any modern philosopher, perhaps than any +philosopher, to show that this teleology is beneficent, and so to +restore the attitude of mind which it may not yet be too late to call +Faith in God and Immortality. + +This attitude of mind, however, has received some impetus from new +phenomena now open to Psychical Research, but hardly yet as much new +impetus as the old one Fiske gave it with more limited materials. + +The following passages indicate in brief what Fiske gave at length in +his _Idea of God_, _Destiny of Man_, _Origin of Evil_ and kindred +writings. Contrast them with the quotation from Spencer a page or two +back: This is the closing passage of _The Unseen World_. + +"We must think with the symbols with which experience has furnished us; +and when we so think, there does seem to be little that is even +intellectually satisfying in the awful picture which science shows us, +of giant worlds concentrating out of nebulous vapour, developing with +prodigious waste of energy into theatres of all that is grand and sacred +in spiritual endeavour, clashing and exploding again into dead-vapour +balls, only to renew the same toilful process without end--a senseless +bubble-play of Titan forces, with life, love, and aspiration brought +forth only to be extinguished. The human mind, however 'scientific' its +training, must often recoil from the conclusion that this is all; and +there are moments when one passionately feels that this cannot be all. +On warm June mornings, in green country lanes, with sweet pine odours +wafted in the breeze which sighs through the branches, and cloud-shadows +flitting over far-off blue mountains, while little birds sing their +love-songs and golden-haired children weave garlands of wild roses; or +when in the solemn twilight we listen to wondrous harmonies of Beethoven +and Chopin that stir the heart like voices from an unseen world; at such +times one feels that the profoundest answer which science can give to +our questioning is but a superficial answer after all. At these moments, +when the world seems fullest of beauty, one feels most strongly that it +is but the harbinger of something else--that the ceaseless play of +phenomena is no mere sport of Titans, but an orderly scene, with its +reason for existing in + + One far-off divine event + To which the whole creation moves." + +And the following from a letter to his mother: + +"My chief comfort in affliction would be the recognition that there is a +Supreme Power manifested in the totality of phenomena, the workings of +which are not like the workings of our intelligence, but far above and +beyond them, and which are obviously tending to some grand and worthy +result, even though my individual happiness gets crushed in the process, +so that the only proper mental attitude for me, is that which says: 'not +my will but thine be done.'" + +And this on Immortality (_Life and Letters_, II, 317): + +"The materialistic assumption that the life of the soul ends with the +life of the body is perhaps the most colossal instance of baseless +assumption that is known to the history of philosophy. No evidence for +it can be alleged beyond the familiar fact that during the present life +we know Soul only in its association with Body, and therefore cannot +discover disembodied soul without dying ourselves. This fact must always +prevent us from obtaining direct evidence for the belief in the soul's +survival. But a negative presumption is not created by the absence of +proof in cases where, in the nature of things, proof is inaccessible. +With his illegitimate hypothesis of annihilation, the materialist +transgresses the bounds of experience quite as widely as the poet who +sings of the New Jerusalem with its river of life and its streets of +gold. Scientifically speaking, there is not a particle of evidence for +either view." + +On this his biographer justly comments: + +"This positive statement will be more seriously questioned now than at +the time when Fiske wrote. The many able investigators engaged in +probing scientifically the mysteries of psychical phenomena, are +bringing forth a mass of evidence which goes to show the presence of a +form of existence which transcends mere physical existence." + +And as showing Fiske's attitude toward the religion around him, his +biographer says: + +"In Fiske's mind Christianity was the mightiest drama in human +civilization: it was his rare gift that he could appreciate it with the +feeling of the poet as well as with the critical judgment of the +philosopher." + +The passages quoted will seem almost pathetically limited, in view of +the new phenomena of mind which, whether they be or be not found to +demonstrate for our souls a longer existence than experience has ever +demonstrated before, unquestionably already demonstrate for them a wider +scope. + + * * * * * + +It has not been more than a couple of years since a leading American +author, whose work has often ornamented the pages of the UNPOPULAR +REVIEW, said: "I hate the very name of Evolution." This was because +Spencer traced the law no farther than it could be expressed in terms of +Matter and Motion, and our friend was a profound student of the Greek +and Oriental imaginings which try to transcend all that can be expressed +in those terms. + +And yet a few years before, the same scholar was one of the earliest +students in this country of M. Bergson--the Bergson to whom a friend +lately said: "People run after you because you have covered the colossal +forbidding structure raised by Darwin and Spencer, with flowers." "No," +said Bergson, "I have shown that the flowers necessarily grow out of +it." + +The paradoxical student of Bergson, who did not see these flowers, has +since grown to a better realization of them, and of the Law of +Evolution. He lately said that he was tracing the course of thought from +Plato to Christ, and when his companion remarked: "Oh! You're writing on +the evolution of the Christian religion," he admitted the soft +impeachment. But what Bergson did not do for him, has been partly done, +though indirectly, as the same thing has been done for the world more +than by any other man, by Fiske. + +President Butler once said that Philosophy begins where Spencer left +off. But he did not say, and could not justly say, that it begins beyond +regions whither Spencer pointed the way. In fact he was not just in +saying that Spencer's generalizations, in the regions to which he +confined them, were not Philosophy, or that there was any real break +between those regions and the regions beyond, where they were carried by +Fiske, or even the regions still farther beyond where, whatever may be +the outcome, they are now being carried by students given to legitimate +Psychical Research. Spencer was too early for the movement into the +latter, and as to his relations with the former, Fiske well says +(_Evolution and Religion_, p. 277): + +"There are some people who seem to think that it is not enough that Mr. +Spencer should have made all these priceless contributions to human +knowledge, but actually complain of him for not giving us a complete and +exhaustive system of theology into the bargain." + +Yet Spencer, though he restrained himself from transcendental +speculations regarding Evolution, was by no means insensible to them +when made by others. Some readers not altogether unfamiliar with Emerson +will be surprised at the collection made by Fiske's biographer, of +Emerson's inspirations regarding Evolution, especially as they were +given on an almost negligible knowledge of the scientific development of +the law. Spencer appreciated them so highly that among his few American +pilgrimages was one to Concord, and this despite Spencer's distrust of +intuition, and Emerson's faith in it. + +By some even modern thinkers Intuition is boldly claimed to be an +instrument of research; by others its very existence, outside of morbid +imagination, is denied, and the only legitimate instrument of research +is declared to be observation verified by experiment that can be +repeated at will. The truth, as usual in controversy, includes both +statements, and is covered by neither. Creatures with rudimentary eyes +and ears must have "intuitions" of colors and sounds beyond their +capacity of clear apprehension; and even our eyes, which must be +rudimentary compared with possible eyes, have in regard to even our +spectrum, intuitions, some of which have recently been made clearer by +the photograph and the X-ray. These cleared-up intuitions are now added +to positive knowledge. Intuition is here proved an instrument of +research, and it is one in every discovery. But until verified by +experiment, it is not a _reliable_ instrument of research: for what +seems to be intuition is often mistaken, and is generally so vague as to +be subject of conflicting opinions, and hence of conflicting action. +Moreover, as the subjects of intuition are beyond our knowledge, +intuitions are often held to be superior to knowledge, and worthy of +greater enthusiasm. Consequently conflicting opinions regarding +intuitions have probably led to more tragedies than any other blunder. +There is no intuition more nearly universal than that of the immortality +of the soul. But even so devout a man as Fiske pronounced it +unverifiable, and it is so uncertain that all sorts of conflicting +dogmas have grown up around it, until it has led not only to the +self-immolations of India and the human sacrifices of Mexico, but to the +Arena of Nero, the inquisition of Torquemada, the Thirty Years' War, and +even within the memory of living men, the agonizing rupture of many a +family. + +Fiske did more, through deductions from the law of Evolution, toward +putting this most important of intuitions upon the basis of established +knowledge, than any man had done before him. He did this not only in his +writings on _The Idea of God_, _Through Nature to God_, and _The Destiny +of Man_, but in the whole tendency of his work, not only when expounding +the Law of Evolution as Philosophy, but in tracing it through History. +In this particular he was in advance of his great compeers in his own +department: for he did not hesitate, as Darwin, Spencer, and Huxley did, +to deal with the intuitions of his time. Such intuitions as are true +being necessarily in advance of knowledge, there is danger of assuming +to be true some that are not. This danger kept Huxley almost entirely +away from them, and Spencer farther away than any other great +philosopher. It was this abstention, certainly excusable and probably +justifiable in one who prefers it, that makes his philosophy hated, and +prevents its being even studied, not to say understood, by those who +love the quagmires and mirages built up by mistaken intuition. + +That essential instrument of research--invaluable, despite all its +dangers--Fiske estimated more broadly and _justly_ than, perhaps, any +other philosopher, certainly than his great master. This makes it +singularly pathetic that his premature death should have cut him off +from the investigations which have seemed to many leading minds to point +to a verification--even to have reached a verification, of the greatest +as well as the widest intuition of the ages. If he has risen to a +bird's-eye view, or more probably a teloptic consciousness, of what is +going on here, it must amuse and cheer him to see that the psychical +researchers are not persecuted as the evolutionists were--as he himself +was in his youth, but are at worst merely laughed at as a set of +inoffensive idiots. Balfour, Crookes, Lodge, and Barrett are among them, +and James, Hodgson, Myers, and Sidgwick are passed from among them; and +we believe that Fiske and even Spencer, had their lot been cast in these +days, would be among the most interested of them. + + * * * * * + +We were on the brink of writing that probably most of the readers of +this essay will have heard some of those unprecedented lectures and +addresses on American History delivered by Fiske during his last twenty +years. But we were startled by the realization that almost another +twenty years have elapsed since the last of those lectures was +delivered, and that a large proportion of our readers were then too +young to be interested in them. Some readers perhaps even need to be +told that Fiske was the first eminent historian who had a clear +conception of the Law of Evolution--so far as a clear conception was +then, or is perhaps even now, possible. But his historical works +containing those lectures are so well known that it would be as nearly +superfluous as it is impracticable to descant upon them here. Though +they were published irregularly, they make a continuous narrative from +the influences leading to the discovery of America, down to the +inauguration of Washington; and many high authorities give them the very +first rank, and declare that the author's premature death before +bringing them down to his own time is a great loss to the world. + +Some of his historical lectures were delivered to "the very cream of +London," as Huxley said, and to the unbounded enthusiasm of one of them, +regarding whom Fiske wrote his wife: + +"Spencer said after the lecture, that he was surprised at the tremendous +grasp I had on the whole field of History and the art with which I used +such a wealth of materials. Said I had given him new ideas of Sociology, +and that if I would stick to History, I could go beyond anything ever +yet done. Said still more: I never saw Spencer warm up so. I said I +didn't really dream when writing about American history that there could +be anything so new about it. 'Well,' said Spencer, 'it _is_ new anyway: +you are opening a new world of reflections to me, and I shall come to +the rest of the lectures _to be taught_!'" + +The estimation of Fiske's historical work in England is farther shown by +his having received an invitation, which he could not accept, to deliver +a long course of lectures at Oxford; and another, which he did accept +but died before he could fulfil, to represent America by an oration at +the millenary celebration in honor of King Alfred. + + * * * * * + +To appraise and compare the learning of great scholars is hardly +possible. Fiske was unquestionably one of the most learned of men. In +1863 he pronounced Spencer the most learned man living. I knew them both +pretty well, Fiske very well, and to my ignorant apprehension he always +seemed the more learned of the two. One thing stood out in the learning +of them both--so little of it was "useless knowledge." Many contend that +no such thing exists, their general lemma being: "You never can tell +when a bit of knowledge will come into play." But you attempt to tell +every time you seek a truth: you estimate its value as compared with +other truths that you might be seeking, and while you can know but a +minute portion of all that is known, you do, if you are in earnest, take +precious good care that your portion shall contain what you deem to be +of most worth. If you happen to have a genius for abstract speculation, +whose bearing on human happiness may be imperceptible, you indulge your +propensity, and justify yourself by the "You never can tell." But after +all, probably it will never be told, and the results of your +acquisitions may be as futile as those of the man generally called the +most erudite of our time, all of whose learning did not prevent his +maundering about "infallible authority" in a human brain, speaking +tolerantly of persecution; and writing "different to." Nor did it enable +him to produce any very great work, or give him a range of thought +materially wider than if he had lived six centuries earlier. Fiske's +erudition not only fortified his judgment, but was a basis for many +productions of great scope and importance. + +Fiske wasted very little time on learning that led nowhere. He knew most +of the famous futilities generally called Philosophy, but he studied +them as a pathologist studies his morbid specimens--to learn and teach +what to avoid and how to cure. From his learning grew great and true and +useful thoughts, whereas from the learning of many great scholars grow +no thoughts at all. + +He went to the root of the matter when he said (_Life and Letters_, I, +p. 255): "There are so many things to be learned, that at first sight +they may seem like a confused chaos. The different departments of +knowledge may appear so separate and conflicting, and yet so mingled and +interdependent, as to render it a matter of doubt where the beginning +should be made. But when we have come to a true philosophy, and make +_that_ our stand-point, all things become clear. We know what things to +learn, and what, in the infinite mass of things to leave unlearned--and +then the Universe becomes clear and harmonious." + +Before the vastness of Fiske's knowledge was summed up in his biography, +even those who knew him best probably had a very inadequate idea of it. +The traditional "everything about something and something about +everything" is all that is conventionally expected from great scholars, +but Fiske probably came as near to knowing everything about everything +as any man ever did. He knew more about philosophy than most good +philosophers, more about history than most good historians, more about +biology than most good biologists, more about languages than most good +philologists, more about law than most good lawyers, and even more about +music than most good musicians. Not only had he studied more widely than +most of them, but he remembered with an ease and accuracy seldom +equalled. He said that if he ever read a fact in connection with a date, +the two were fixed together in his memory, and it was astonishing to +test him on such points. For instance, in December, 1898, he might say, +"You remember that on February 27, 1878, you wrote me so-and-so"; and +this, with him, was a mere matter of course. + +His liberality and happy ingenuity in sharing his knowledge with his +friends were delightful. In many a talk into the small hours and even +into the dawn, Fiske did most of the talking; and yet in such a way that +nobody thought of his monopoly of it until afterwards. + +Among the things that his biographer left out was that old black +meerschaum pipe of the late sixties and early seventies. It was an +equilateral triangle about two and a half inches on edge, cut from a +slab of meerschaum a little over an inch thick. It had a cherry stem +about a foot long. When Fiske got settled down, he would slowly pull the +bowl and the stem and the tobacco separately from some of the infinite +recesses of his person, and get them together and in operation, and then +heave one of his immense sighs of contentment, and be ready for +conversation. Yet there's a paradox in my recollections of this pipe. +I'm sure all those I have stated are correct, and yet at that time "the +recesses of his person" had hardly begun to approximate infinity, as +they afterwards did: amid all the impressions is one that he was rather +slight, but that must have had something to do with the thinnish beard +of the portrait before me as I write, which it is a pity was not put +into the biography. + +He was the "broadest-minded" man I ever knew--most alive to the good +points of things he did not endorse. During his whole life his attitude +toward the religion which had persecuted him, was one of reverent but +discriminating affection. + + * * * * * + +Yet it is hardly fair to discourage readers, as it must be admitted +Fiske's biographer does, by leaving the implication that this +extraordinary creature was superhuman. + +With all his colossal powers, he was not, perhaps fortunately for us, +what is usually called a genius: his conclusions were reasoned and +consistent, and his likes and dislikes reliable. But he had not that +intuitive power which leads a man like a bee in a quick straight line to +the essential thing, or to put vast accumulations of truth into +epigrams. He was enormously instructive and always entertaining, but he +was seldom suggestive. He dealt in food, rather than in condiments. He +had to plod to his conclusions in his irresistible elephantine way. To +get rid of Christian dogmatism, when the first page of the Westminster +Catechism is enough for some men, he had to read a library; and when he +was twenty-two, he wrote Spencer that he had "successively adopted and +rejected the system of almost every philosopher from Descartes to +Professor Ferrier." + +He had his faults like the rest of us, but not as many mean ones as most +of us. He was hardly ever selfish or irritable or impatient: the +elephant bides his time, though he never forgets. But Fiske was better +than the elephant, in that he never harbored revenge. His few faults +were "childlike and bland," though, unlike those of the accepted +exemplar of those virtues, never deceitful, and to a great extent they +were forced upon him by circumstances, and of course were "faults of his +qualities"--of a mind that could not hold itself down to the business of +life. But take him by and large--and he was so very large--he was not +only a very great man, but a very good man. Yet he was not, nor was ever +anybody else, such a man as biographers necessarily depict if they write +while there are still living those whom the whole truth could hurt. + +But our present biographer has not even brought out, except as they show +themselves by implication, some of Fiske's remarkable virtues. During an +acquaintance of very exceptional intimacy, I never heard him curse any +human being or speak of one with merciless hate. Of one who, he thought, +had injured him unjustifiably and cruelly, he generally made fun; of +another, who presented fewer temptations to burlesque, he often spoke +admiringly, and perhaps less often with a sarcasm doubly powerful +because judicial. + +He had absolutely no pride of intellect: partly, perhaps, because from +childhood he naturally kept himself, by his chosen reading, in contact +with the greatest intellects, and so was never struck with the greatness +of his own. We had not been out of college long, and I had not made much +progress out of the average new A. B.'s worship of intellect, when, as +we were speaking of a common friend, I said something to the effect that +I wished he had more brains (I now suspect that he had more than I had) +when Fiske, who had more than both of us, made a few remarks, very kind +though very instructive, on the superiority to mere intellectual power, +of goodness, sympathy, and refinement. Once with a friend unknown to +fame, who seemed a mere pigmy beside him, he had had a long talk with +one of the world's greatest men, and Fiske was heard to say that he was +struck throughout by the fact that his obscure friend showed more +intelligence than _he_ did. The fact probably was that his friend's +intelligence really was quicker than the elephantine but irresistible +movements of Fiske's great mind. But Fiske did not think of his own +power, but only of the agility of his friend. The friend subsequently +said that he supposed he had understood all that was in the books of his +two companions, but he certainly did not understand all that was in +their talk--the talk in which Fiske had ascribed to himself the less +intelligence. Another illustration: many years ago, when Taine was on +the lips of all American readers, Fiske said: "He's a sort of big John +Fiske--a diffuser of other men's ideas, without ever having originated +an idea himself." Probably this was before Fiske had developed his own +idea, generally recognized as original, of the effect of long infancy in +evolving the higher qualities of a species. + +Yet Fiske's distinction between finders and diffusers is not necessarily +as modest as, at first sight, it appears, and certainly not as simple. +Newton, Darwin, Spencer, and their kind undoubtedly form a very +respectable group, but so do St. Paul and all the great apostles of all +the faiths, not to speak of the historians. And on which side of the +line, if you run it through all writers, will you put Homer, Dante, and +Shakespear? + + * * * * * + +The world was never as full as it is just now of what pleases to +consider itself "advanced thinking." Some of it is advanced, and a +little of it is thinking; but most of it, all unknown to those who spout +it, has been exploded over and over again. As a mass, its quality is +such that one sometimes (but very rarely, it is to be feared) feels a +half-humorous self-distrust in propounding the share of it that one +believes in most. The risk has to be taken, however, and we venture to +state what seem to us some of the profoundest and most important of our +present views of the universe and man's relation to it, which, based +very largely on the discoveries of Darwin and Spencer, especially of +Spencer, Fiske, on the testimony of Darwin and Spencer themselves, did +more than any other man had then done, or we think has yet done, to +develop and disseminate. To extract them from his voluminous writings +and state them in his own language, with the brevity required here, +would be impossible. We have already said that he was not a maker of +epigrams: the sweep of his mind was too broad and slow. When he gave you +anything, he gave you the whole of it, because, strangely often, he knew +the whole of it, so far as anybody did; but he gave only its essentials: +he was never a bore. + +The Law of Evolution contains nothing counter to the Moral Law: it only +changes the old sanctions of it. In the control of the universe, it +substitutes for an anthropomorphic, tinkering, and even "jealous" God, a +Law that varies not, and, despite terrible apparent exceptions, on the +whole makes for righteousness and for happiness. Even now, while most of +the world is steeped more than ever before in anxiety and grief, and +while scores of miles are covered with slaughter, the vast preponderance +of the earth's surface is covered with beauty, and the vast majority of +human beings are smiling. Moreover, the Law of Evolution indicates that +the favorable conditions are to increase for a period longer than we can +conceive, and then gradually and painlessly disappear, to be revived in +a new evolution. + +The discovery of the Law of Evolution has already done much to solve the +mystery of evil. Catastrophism is a corollary of it: if there were no +imperfection there could be no advance. Evil comes from a lack of +balance between forces. When balance is disturbed--by anything from +indigestion in a protozoon up to a storm on the ocean where he lives, +there is a catastrophe. Evil is not a positive thing, but merely lack of +the good, or lack of proportion in the good--inadequacy or excess, the +excess being when a force or a passion good in itself exceeds the forces +that usually keep it within bounds--when one force of those that hold +the earth's crust in equilibrium becomes excessive, and there is +earthquake; when love of country seeks to expand it, at the expense of +other countries, and there is war; when the appetite that creates and +conserves property exceeds the respect for the rights of others, and +there is theft or robbery or even murder; when the passion that +perpetuates the race grows to excess, and its rightful result in the +family is prevented or destroyed, often with attendant deceit, violence, +murder. + +When Rochefoucauld said: "Our virtues are most frequently but vices +disguised," he said an impossible thing, and spoke, as most proverb +makers do, from mere habit of paradox and love of it. He would have told +a fundamental truth, however, if he had said: Our vices are most +frequently but virtues disguised--by inflation. + +But deeper in the individual soul than any of these problems, is one +that Evolution has as yet directly done little to clarify. In +substituting for Providence, a wisdom that (so far as our poor wits can +state the conditions) provided for the exigencies beforehand by Law, +instead of constantly handling them as they arise, Evolution raises the +question: How far down into the details of our lives does the law go? Of +all questions bearing upon our lives, there is but one deeper and more +anxious: Does the law work out for good as far as it goes? Perhaps the +answer can be settled only by experience, and judgment depends largely +on temperament. And yet experience has provided all thinking peoples +with expressions that assert a favorable solution. Job was not the first +to say: "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." All literatures +abound in such expressions, as Pope's + + All chance, direction, which thou canst not see; + All discord, harmony not understood; + All partial evil, universal good: + And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite, + One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right. + +(Never deny that it's as near right as it _can_ be.) And there are many +such expressions as Tennyson's + + Oh yet we trust that somehow good + Will be the final goal of ill, + +or as Paul's + + Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, + +or Shakespear's + + There is some soul of goodness in things evil, + +or Thomson's + + From seeming evil still educing good, + +or Emerson's + + Every evil [has] its good. + +If the intuitions of these men in advance of the race are not +foolishness, this matter must be regulated by some great +principle--perhaps some corollary of "the law of compensation," that has +been so generally guessed at--notably by Emerson, and which seems +closely akin to the Law of Equilibration, whose demonstration by Spencer +has no small claim to be considered the highest reach of the human mind. + +Few men have given, or even recognized, an answer from their own +experience. Few men, even, live long enough for experience to give very +full indication. Whatever may be the egotism of obtruding here personal +experience on a point so intimate, I follow what in this connection +seems almost a duty, in stating the conviction of a very long life which +has known its share of shadow, that in the average man under average +circumstances the Divine Law does go down farther into the details of +our lives than we can realize, and there work out good from apparent +evil. Yet though the question as we stated it above, in terms of Law +instead of Providence, is not entirely new to thinkers, before the +latter part of the last century it had been as vague as had been the +conceptions of Evolution. It seems but yesterday, and it is with a start +that one realizes that this epoch is already superseded by one where the +range of mind must be mapped out anew, and where reaches of it that +Fiske pronounced impossible are declared by no mean observers to have +actually been accomplished. + +It is, however, questionable how far the testimony of poets and +imaginative thinkers is the result of optimistic generalization, and how +far the result of strict experience. As sober a man as Socrates said +that his attendant monitor always kept him right. Had he had the modern +conception of the universal beneficent Law, and the very modern +conception of impressions, _under Law_, from discarnate intelligences, +perhaps he would have regarded that attendant of his as a manifestation +from the source of all Law--of that Law whose penetration into the +minutiae of our lives we are now considering. + +Now if you are in the habit of testing questions by the law of +Evolution, ask yourself (if you have not already done so and obtained a +satisfactory answer), at what point in your processes and the processes +of your environment, the operation of Law, and the resulting evolution, +stops. Don't bother with the paradox of Free Will and Determinism, or +any other paradox that proves a question to be beyond the range of our +faculties, but accept the fact which you cannot escape, that your life +is the result of the interaction of two processes of Law that manifestly +tend on the whole to happiness, and perhaps you will find it as hard +_not_ to believe that the beneficent Law goes down to the minutest +details of your life, as it is _to_ believe a conception so novel and so +tremendous. + +It may not be unthinkable under average circumstances, but when the +world is cursed as never before with carnage and outrage, in relation to +the millions suffering one hesitates even to suggest such an idea. But +this is hardly the time to pass upon it. And yet many sane people do +pass upon it, and believe that out of all this agony more good than evil +is to come, and to come to each person concerned. Such a belief, +however, is generally based on faith in the immortality of the soul. +Here comes in the pragmatic argument, never so strong as now. If these +millions of bright young lives have been developed merely to be +prematurely snuffed out at the behest of a barbarian mad with the lust +of conquest, the universe is _pro tanto_ a farce. But if, in the glory +of heroism and self-sacrifice, they are advanced to a higher stage of +being, the sanity and beneficence of the universe are vindicated. True, +the pragmatic argument is a dangerous thing, but in this most important +particular, it never had so much support from positive evidence as now. +It looks as if humanity were at last evolved to the point where the +intuitions of the gifted of the ages, from Socrates to Swedenborg, may +soon be supported by experience open to the observation of all. + +In his day, Fiske did probably more than any other man to rationalize +these leading ideas that are still little more than faiths, and to keep +men's minds open to the best within our knowledge, and the influences +that must exist beyond it. + + + + +PLEASE EXPLAIN THESE DREAMS + + +Your travels, your babies, and your dreams,--these, it is said, you may +talk of only at your peril. And yet I am emboldened in this instance to +defy the adage, though in general I believe it to be nearly +incontestable, because I think I may excite a certain curiosity by +recounting a kind of dream that comes to me occasionally, a dream not +wonderful in substance but one that raises a question in psychology, or +in common sense, to which I know no answer. I may say at once that there +is nothing preternatural about the dream, nor anything, I think, that +Freudian analysts will revel in. But there is none the less a puzzle +which for me and for the persons whom I have consulted has remained +completely baffling. What the puzzle is had best be stated at the +outset. + +Everybody is familiar with the kind of story that depends for its effect +upon a surprising "point" that comes at the end, unanticipated by the +hearer and amusing to him largely in proportion as it is unexpected. +Stories of this kind are frequently elaborate; a great deal of detail is +introduced, as artfully as possible, every bit of which must +tantalizingly lead towards the point that is coming, but no word of +which must really divulge that point until the moment when the +_raconteur_ is ready to "spring" it, as we say, with a sudden burst. +Obviously the listener must not guess the point before that moment, or +the story will fall flat, and just as obviously the narrator must have +it in mind continually, or he could not tell the story. He could hardly +recount a tale of this variety unless he knew how it was "coming out." +Especially if it were considerably involved, he could scarcely pick his +way through it step by step towards an end that he did not himself +foresee, arranging in their places dozens of details leading he knew not +where, and then come nicely to a climax that he himself did not +anticipate--a climax which, in this hardly conceivable case, would +obviously surprise him as much as it could his listener. The waking +mind, unless by the rarest of accidents, cannot work in such a fashion. +And my puzzle is, how can the dreaming mind do so? For I, at least, do +dream occasionally in just this manner. I make up a story of this +species in my dream, and usually a complicated story. In it I proceed +from point to point without having any notion of my destination; I +string together a small host of details, though I remain ignorant of +their meaning and unsuspicious of any climax that is coming later to +explain them; and when finally I reach that climax, and see the joke +that I have plotted so unwittingly, I am myself ingenuously amused by +it. And how I manage to do this is my enigma. For obviously I either do +foresee the point of the story or I do not. If I do, how can I be +surprised when it arrives? If I do not, how can I prepare for it so +carefully? Either case supposes a manner of mentation hardly +comprehensible. + +Two dreams of this species I should like to offer for consideration. I +have had not less than twenty others, widely different in substance +though all alike in principle; but the memory of most of them is vague +if not entirely obliterated. Of the first dream here related I may say +that I am repeating it from a fresh memory and am following the notes I +made of it in full immediately upon awakening from it. The account here +given is therefore as accurate as I can make it. I may further explain +that the setting of the dream is a very natural one for me. I happen to +be a college professor, and lecturing to classes is my daily round. Also +I have lived in France, and have studied and written about the +educational system of that country; and I number among my friends a +distinguished French professor now visiting America. The bearing of +these facts upon the dream will be clear in a moment. + +I dreamt that I was lecturing to one of my regular classes in college. +In the class, upon my entrance, I was surprised to find my friend the +French professor, of whom I spoke a moment ago. With him there was an +impressive individual whom I somehow recognized as a French inspector of +schools--one of those officials whose visits to provincial schools and +whose consequent reports to the minister at Paris are the chief hope and +dread of the French pedagogue. How these gentlemen should have come to +be visiting my class, I could not imagine, but I do not think I was much +worried in the dream over that question. I do remember telling myself +that as a mere American professor I had nothing to fear from the +inspector's formidable authority, though perhaps with this reflection +there went also a resolution to put my best foot forward in such +distinguished company. But I had not much time to ponder these matters +before proceeding upon my lecture. + +It was then that a real surprise began. So far as I could tell, my +opening sentences were sufficiently conventional, but the way the class +was affected by them was singular to a degree. Hardly had I reached the +middle of the first one before all the students had their eyes fixed on +me in a way that might possibly have been complimentary had not their +expressions been so various and so peculiar. A few students wore a look +of great relief--for all the world as if they had expected to find me +dumb on that day, and were agreeably surprised to be disillusioned. A +considerably larger number frowned displeasure, just as if I had +disturbed them in the pursuit of something that was no affair of mine. +But the large majority showed mere astonishment, and of that emotion, +indeed, a good measure was written on the faces of all. I had no notion +what to make of these unusual appearances. Inevitably my first thought +was to glance furtively down at my clothes and shoes to see if +everything was well in those departments. Also I raised my hand as +unobtrusively as possible to discover whether perchance I had left my +hair uncombed. In the absence of the mirror's final test I had to +conclude that all was about as it should be. + +Naturally my next sentences hardly came trippingly from the tongue, nor +did any alteration occur in my listeners to facilitate my labors. On the +contrary, what had at first been mainly mere surprise upon their faces +was growing rapidly to obvious merriment with about half of the class, +and to evident disapprobation with the others. "The explanation of what +we call the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century," I remember hurling +at them with a fine generality of dream-eloquence, "is to be sought not +so much in the influence of the doctrines of Descartes proper, or of +those who could call themselves consistent Cartesians, as in the general +dependence upon the guidance of human ratiocination, of which dependence +he was only an illustrious example." This remarkable statement did not +seem to offend any of my hearers, but neither did it mollify them. By a +considerable effort, however, I was regaining a measure of composure, as +I proceeded into my subject, in spite of all the frowners and all the +titterers in the class. There was nothing to do, I felt, but to brave +both parties, and in some degree, as the minutes dragged on, I seemed to +be succeeding in the effort. At least there was less staring at me, and +one after another the faces of my students were turned down to the +desks, and pens began to course across pages in what appeared to me to +be good note-taking fashion. + +But I was soon to find that my troubles had only begun. The class had +indeed ceased to perform like one man in astonishment, but various +individuals now began to act in fashions unaccountably extraordinary. +Not only did resentment at my lecture keep lingering, and growing, on +many countenances, and not only did laughter keep bubbling up in others, +but now certain more specific eccentricities began exhibiting +themselves. A mild instance was the action of one of my most devoted +note-takers, a woman who sat on the front row. She had always taken too +many notes, as I had observed; she never missed anything important, and +she frequently copied down much that was far from important. And now I +noticed that in the middle of certain cardinal statements I was making, +and even making slowly in order that every one who wanted them in a +note-book might have time to get them fully, she took her pen from the +paper, and meditatively putting the end of it in her mouth, proceeded to +gaze out of the window into vacancy as if trying to think what on earth +to write next. + +But this, as I say, was mild. That particular student was too well-bred +to be ruder. So was another girl on the front row who, a little later, +laid aside her pen and paper and sank her head for several minutes into +her hands in such a way as to make me wonder whether she was suffering +from headache or whether she was politely veiling an outbreak of +laughter such as certain other members of the class were at no such +pains to conceal. Certainly when her face emerged it was clear that she +had not even been smiling. She looked at me fixedly for a minute, with +such an inquiring though guarded glance as one might give a stranger +whom one half suspected of mild lunacy, and then resumed work with her +pen. There were numerous examples of similarly harmless but abnormal +conduct, and I had no choice but to endure them in wondering patience. +But when one sedate and trusted student, also a woman, who sat in the +rear of the class, deliberately caught my eye and then impressively laid +her finger tightly over her closed lips, thus giving me the unmistakable +signal for silence, my astonishment and bewilderment grew amain. What on +earth could be wrong with me, I asked myself, that I should be +bedevilling my students in this fashion? What absurdity was at the +bottom of all this? Had everybody in my class gone crazy? Or had I? + +Somehow I went on lecturing. As I remember it now, the lecture seemed +orthodox enough, in spite of the strange events that it inspired. I felt +that I was acquitting myself moderately well, though I remember that I +mopped my brow repeatedly, and longed for the end of the period as I had +never longed for time to pass before. What would my visitors think of +me, or of this precious class of mine? I alone had seen that mute sign +for silence, to be sure, but no one could fail to notice the other +preposterous things that were coming to pass. For now three men toward +the rear of the class began, seemingly by agreement between them, to +shake their heads at me in a solemn and unequivocal signal that I would +do better to leave off my lecture. This, I thought, would be the worst; +but no, in a moment one man actually stepped up to my desk, and when I +paused, whispered a very apologetic request that I would not trouble the +class further by lecturing on this particular day. He had listened with +great interest to my former lectures, he was pleased to say, but he felt +that he was speaking for the whole class in intimating that to-day I +could not but disturb them, and in fact endanger them, if I continued. I +told him that he could save himself from further danger by quitting the +room; and this he did forthwith, his reluctance exceeded only by his +apparent amazement. + +The others seemed to understand what had passed between us, though I was +sure that they could not have overheard a word we said. Four or five of +them, indeed, rose and followed their departing brother from their room, +with faces as full of bewilderment as his. But I was past wondering at +anything by this time. Endeavoring to seem indifferent to their +departure, I ploughed on, with a pertinacity far beyond anything I +possess in a waking state, through the middle of my lecture. I had come +to Rousseau and his battle with the apostles of the Enlightenment. And +about this point the craziest of all the occurrences of this remarkable +hour began. A man on the front row picked up a card-board box from the +floor near his feet. Opening it, he produced a roll of absorbent cotton. +With bits of this he deliberately set about stopping up his ears as +tightly as he could. When he had stuffed them full he resumed work with +his pen, but passed the cotton, with a wink, on to his neighbor, who +repeated the performance. A third student filled his organs of audition +and handed the box on to a fourth. I watched that blessed roll of cotton +make its round of the students. One and all of them, men and women, +stuffed their ears with it! + +How I managed to keep on talking is rather more than I can tell. I can +only say that I continued automatically, and paid the slightest possible +attention to the antics with which my auditors were pleased to amuse +themselves. I was but little surprised when, after a while, they began +to leave. Not concertedly, but one by one, they rose and passed out, +still lowering, giggling, trembling, looking askance at me, or +exhibiting some other inexplicable emotion as they departed. Each one, +with whatever mien, took pains to leave a record in the form of a few +sheets of paper deposited on my desk as he passed out, but I was too +callous or too distraught by this time to do more than barely notice the +circumstance. As for my visitors from France, they had long since +disappeared--not by walking out, like the students, but simply by +vanishing, as people in a dream occasionally do. I kept lecturing, +doggedly, until I had only three students left. But when two of these +arose together and took their departure, I knew nothing to do but cease. +The one auditor remaining, for that matter, was even now about to rise +from his seat. I paused. I waited as he came slowly forward, with wonder +and distress written on his features--he was easily the best scholar in +the class. As I eyed him I could see that he, like so many of the rest, +seemed to be half afraid that I had lost my mind. We shall see about +that, I thought, as I addressed him. + +"Will you kindly tell me, sir," I asked him, with some warmth, "Will you +kindly tell me what I have done to deserve such conduct as I have seen +this last hour? Have all my students gone mad, or have I?" + +Evidently I had, he thought, as was obvious in his face. But he was too +cautious to say so. Instead, he manifestly did his best to placate what +to him was arrant lunacy. + +"Well, professor," he faltered, "I've no doubt we've been behaving +rather badly. But, you see, we--well, we simply couldn't make out why +you should want to lecture all through the examination hour!" + +So that, of all things, was the explanation! I had simply lectured +straight through their examination, and small wonder they took it +strangely. How I had managed to make such a fool of myself, I did not +know; but at once all their queer actions of the last hour were +explained to me. And what a joke on me! How like the absent-minded, +umbrella-carrying professor of the caricaturists--I protest I am not +that kind--to have forgotten that I had set the examination for that +day, had even sent a secretary into the class five minutes ahead of me +to distribute the question-papers, and to have gone in then and insisted +on haranguing the class, in spite of all protest, through the whole +session! + +And thus laughing at my exploit, I awoke. Needless to say, my amusement +continued into the waking state, though it was somewhat less +whole-hearted. But it was soon cut short by my jumping out of bed to put +down the notes of the dream that I have here expanded. + +I fear it is not a very interesting dream in itself, but that I did not +promise. Surely it is one that answers the description given at the +outset, and illustrates the species somewhat elaborately. Can any one +imagine a person when awake making up such a story, planning so many +details of it so carefully, without an inkling in his mind of the +explanation that was to come to clear up all the mystery in the end? I +do not believe so. But if not, how can one do in a dream a thing so +impossible in a wakeful state? I, the dreamer, involve myself in a story +in which I fabricate a series of occurrences incomprehensible to me +unless I have the key that explains them, a series that nobody could +well string together unless he had that key. One would say that I must +have had the key in my possession as I pieced together the occurrences. +Well, then, how could I be totally perplexed at those occurrences as +they were happening, and how could I be astounded and provoked to +laughter when I produced my own explanation of them? This is surely too +much like believing that a magician will be amazed at his own trick. + +Let me recount one other dream of this variety, a shorter one but +possibly even more pointed. As it occurred to me some months ago, and as +it comprises only an after-dinner speech, I cannot now pretend to report +the words of it with literal accuracy. But that is not necessary if the +reader will take my assurance that though I do not give the precise +words of the speech as I heard it in the dream, I offer a version +similar enough to be quite as satisfactory for the present purpose, and +differing in no point of principle from the original. The very vacuity +of the present version will be sufficient evidence, I hope, of my +endeavor to be as faithful as possible to the original. I even feel that +I must request the reader not to be disdainful of the puns that +embellish the oration, since it is something other than the art of +rhetoric that is here in question. + +"Ladies and gentlemen," said the speaker, a man who by the way is +celebrated as a post-prandial artist, but who need not be blamed in +person for this coruscation, "we have with us this evening a man who +bears an honorable and formidable name, a name which, in at least one +person who possessed it, is enrolled on the tablets of immortality. It +is a bellicose name, and therefore timely enough. But it need make no +one tremble, since its most illustrious possessor loved to make the +world shake with laughter as well as wince before the levelled spear of +his sarcasm. I will not say that our guest of the evening has all the +talents of what a tipsy man might call his great 'name-shake;' but I +will answer for it that he can himself give a good imitation of what our +school-boys sometimes call the 'music of the spears.' However, I will +'no be speiring,' as the Scotch say, into their further similarities; I +prefer simply to present to you, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Shakespeare." + +And then all the audience laughed, and I laughed with them. I laughed +because I was taken by surprise when the name came and explained all the +puns that had preceded it. Not by the slightest suspicion had I +anticipated the name; on the contrary, I had been genuinely puzzled by +the queer locutions introductory to it, for I did not even realize that +they were puns upon a name that was to be pronounced later. No doubt the +puns are vapid enough (though vastly amusing in a dream) but they are +also fairly elaborate, and in the dream I think they were considerably +more so than in the transcript here set down from memory. The question +is, how can one dream a thing of this kind? For I, the dreamer, made up +all those puns, since I, of course, concocted the speech I dreamed. And +either I knew the name that I was punning on, or else I did not know it. +If I knew it, how could I be astonished into laughter when it came to +light in the dream? And if I did not know it, how could I invent a lot +of puns on it? What process of cerebration was I guilty of? + +I know no answer to this question, and therefore I submit it to the +public. In the literature of dreams that I have perused I have found +neither a solution of the present problem nor any instance of the kind +of dream here mentioned. Informally I have consulted two or three +psychologists of my acquaintance, but though they have been interested +in the question, they have been unable to suggest an explanation. Only +one other person that I know experiences such dreams as these, and he is +as much interested in them as I am; but although he is himself a bit of +a psychologist, he has no answer to the question here propounded. Can +any one do better? + + * * * * * + +As has been said before in these pages, considerable attention to the +topics covered by "Psychical Research" has given us a very strong +suspicion that the autonomy of each mind is telepathically shared by +other minds, and farther that this is due to a degree of identity of all +mind somewhat similar to the identity of all force and all matter--this +identity of force and matter being now well recognized, despite the +individual manifestations of all three in our personalities. + +Between minds a degree of identity--or at least of telepathic connection +or intermingling, is abundantly manifested by the appearance of several +personalities, or seeming personalities, through the sensitive persons +generally called mediums, and this whether the personalities additional +to the medium's ordinary one are incarnate or apparently postcarnate. + +From these indications follows very directly the guess that such dreams +as our contributor recounts are not really of his construction, but are +constructed outside of him, and not necessarily by excarnate agencies, +or even by deliberate agencies. How or where or by whom must be left for +future knowledge to indicate. + +We have had dreams of the nature of those described by our contributor, +and have correlated them with others entirely beyond construction by our +own capacities.--EDITOR. + + + + +CORRESPONDENCE + + +_More Freedom from Hereditary Bias_ + + + 8 State Circle, Annapolis, Md., + 9 February, 1918. + + GENTLEMEN: + + I have your printed circular of 25 January, with an enclosed + bill for a subscription to the UNPOPULAR REVIEW through 1918. + I have, perhaps unfortunately, not received the January issue + of the review, which you say you sent me. This is no doubt due + to my removal from Princeton, New Jersey, and to the lethargic + Princeton post-office. + + I had several reasons for not renewing my subscription. One + was a need for economy, and the feeling that I could better do + without the UNPOPULAR than without such a periodical as the + _New Republic_. Of the two, the UNPOPULAR mirrors much the + more closely some of my own convictions and principles; but I + find the _New Republic_ indispensable if I am to keep in touch + with the aims and purposes of present-day American Liberalism. + + Another reason I had for not renewing was that the UNPOPULAR, + starting its career with the very greatest promise, had, to my + humble mind, managed very quickly to run up various + side-tracks and blind alleys of opinion, and has + since--amiably but with complacency--stuck there. And there I + am content to leave it, for in losing reality it has lost + life. + + The lightness of touch which its editor has creditably sought + to impart to its contents will not do as a substitute for + life. And even that attempt has failed; it has resulted too + often in mere pertness or a lumbering buffoonery never + agreeable to contemplate, and least of all when invoked in aid + of a cause that demands above all earnest conviction and + anything but a stupid complacency from its adherents. + + Yours faithfully, + (signed) ROBERT SHAFER. + +It may be interesting to compare with this a letter from another +correspondent with a German name, printed in Number 17. + + + + +EN CASSEROLE + + +_If We Are Late_ + +There is every prospect that this number will be out unusually late, on +account of the choke-up in transportation. At this writing the printer +ought to be at work on the paper, which has already been on the way to +him--from Philadelphia to Massachusetts--twenty-six days. + +We hope our readers will not blame the delay to us, and that their +patriotism will cheerfully endure it. + + +_The Kindly and Modest German_ + +Here are some commonplaces that should be iterated in some shape every +time an American organ of opinion goes to press. + +There once was such a man as the kindly and modest German, and through +his virtues he had nearly obtained the industrial and commercial +leadership of the world, when sudden wealth and power aroused in him the +brute instincts that are latent in the best of us, and started him after +more than can be had from industry, and can be had only by force. The +brute instincts were nearer the surface in him than in those who have a +recorded civilization of some seven or eight thousand years: for the +poor Germans, at least the ruling branch of them, have barely as many +hundred. Even Russia was Christianized four centuries before Prussia. + +Now it is a rare parvenu who is not conceited. Germany has camouflaged +the old idea of conquest by that of spreading her Kultur to the inferior +portion of mankind--to the peoples that produced Homer, Dante, +Shakespear, Newton, Darwin and Spencer--as if those peoples were savages +whose territory could be brought under civilization only by conquest, +and as if Germany alone had civilization. And this absurd idea she backs +up by a crude conception of the Law of Evolution--a conception that +stops with the competition of brute forces. Cooeperation, mutual help, +emulation in well doing do not enter into her idea of evolution. She has +thrown away her splendid success in the higher competition, and reverted +to the competition of brute force,--camouflaged again by science and +cunning. + +When a conceited parvenu goes mad, his conceit is as mad as the rest of +him. When he is at the same time bellicose and bloodthirsty, he will not +stop fighting as long as the conceit is in his system, and the only way +to get it out is to whip it out. + +It looks as if in Germany's case we had seriously underestimated one +important feature of that job. For a long time we thought that we had +got to beat only the military class--that they had merely fooled the +kindly and modest Germans we used to know. As lately as this Spring, a +British general told the present writer that his people did not expect +the war to be ended by a military victory--that without an overwhelming +superiority on either side, modern warfare has at last reached the +degree of perfection long ago attained by the Kilkenny cats (only the +general did not put it in that way), and that before, so to speak, the +tails get through fighting, the kindly and modest German people would +take matters into their own hands and stop the war, give up the plunder +they have got from their weaker neighbors (for after all, barring their +sudden occupation of a little of France, they have with all their +boasting whipped only little or undeveloped peoples), and pay +damages--as far as they can be paid. But it has come to look mightily as +if the general and his people were mistaken--as if the kindly and modest +German no longer exists, as if the madness has seized the whole nation, +and as if there will be no way out before we give one side the +overwhelming superiority which was the general's alternative. Plainly we +can't be too quick about it. + +Before the conceit is whipped out of the Germans, they are not going to +submit to any peace short of holding on to their plunder, and as long as +they have enough of that to be visible, they are victors, and with all +their conceit in them. It would drive them into another war as soon as +they could get ready, and even meanwhile the conditions would be +intolerable--intolerable not only for the small peoples they have +conquered, but for the rest of us. + +But things are very respectably intolerable as they are. We have barely +entered the war, and yet you are exceptionally fortunate if your income +has not been pinched, your affairs generally disturbed, heavy anxieties +thrown upon you, and perhaps, even thus early, mourning. Possibly you +have found a grim consolation in realizing that most of the time since +the beginning of human records, our present lot has been the lot of the +greater portion of mankind. Perhaps you have found a consolation less +grim in realizing that this state of affairs has been diminishing--very +notably diminishing during the century preceding this war; and it is to +be hoped that you have found a consolation almost triumphant in the +realization that a large portion of the world at last realizes that such +conditions can be put an end to, and are grimly determined to do it. But +unless it is done thoroughly, unless the Kaiser and his gang are as +safely disposed of as Napoleon and his gang were after Waterloo, these +conditions are going to recur indefinitely. + +Waterloo put an end to _gloire_, but it did not quite end the idea of +the legitimacy of conquering civilized people and good neighbors--it did +not make impossible the attitude of the German statesman who, when asked +by our ambassador Hill why Germany did not conciliate Alsace-Lorraine, +answered without the slightest suspicion that he was showing himself a +barbarian: "But we have conquered them." It was this attitude which +gradually changed Germany's preparations against France's possible +_revanche_ after 1870, into a scheme to conquer the world. This +antiquated idea of right by conquest, and this barbarous passion for it, +have done more than anything else, except perhaps dogmatic religions, +for the misery of mankind. This attitude survives, among lettered +nations, only in Germany and her allies. We have got to fight until we +kill it, no matter how many treaties of peace intervene: and it will not +be killed as long as Germany is left in possession of a foot of the +territory she has seized during the present war. + +All these considerations render the idea of a "Peace without victory" +worse than a mere disgusting piece of sentimentalism. They render it a +danger, and one that unless obliterated, sooner or later must explode. + +But behind all that, it is absurd in its very conception. What could be +more ridiculous than a treaty with Germany? It would of course be +ridiculous on the part of a nation that did not intend to keep it, but +on the part of a nation that did intend to keep it, it would be doubly +ridiculous. Nothing can be plainer than that real peace cannot be +reached, no matter what treaties and intervals of nominal peaces +intervene, before Germany has her conceit whipped out of her, and +whipped out so thoroughly that, as in Napoleon's case, there will be no +need for discussion or pretended agreements, but that she will simply be +told what she must do, and made to do it. + +At one time there was hope that the kindly and modest German the elders +among us knew, would take hold and attend to the matter himself. But he +is not here to do it: we have got to do it ourselves, and we cannot +afford to flinch, or dally, or stop half way. + + +_What the Cat Thinks of the Dog_ + +I am not altogether sure whether I like the Dog or merely tolerate him. +It puzzles me to say just what I do, in a manner, like about my +house-companion. For a certainty, his manners are very distressing, and +they evoke my most hearty disapproval. I cannot abide those rude +volcanic barking fits of his. Often, when lying snugly tail-enfolded by +the gently warming kitchen stove, lost in a comfortable dreamless +doze--how delicious this semi-Nirvana of the senses!--I would suddenly +be startled into undesired wakefulness by my friend's frenzied howls. +You'd think he had wanted to call my attention to a mouse recently +entrapped or, at least, to the arrival of the butcher with a fat quarter +of lamb wherefrom one might expect the carving of good cheer for him and +me. But no! nine times out of ten it would but be some uninteresting +urchin whom he had caught sight of through the window, and who was +sauntering a block away with an insolent swagger that could not but +arouse my profound contempt. I sometimes find it far from easy to keep +my temper in such circumstances and to refrain from wishing him and his +urchin a watery grave the next time they betake themselves to the river +for swimming and diving sports. Yet I must not judge him harshly. An +unkind nature has granted him a most unmusical, a most nerve-shattering +voice, incapable of the least culture. + +I take much exception also to the ungentle and ungraceful manner in +which he swings his tail, or rather flips it back and forth and jerks it +up and down, for one can hardly talk of swinging where no smooth +delicately rounded curves are perceptible. How inferior, both by +heredity and by training, is the Dog's handling of his tail to that of +the Cat! How little he understands the art of curving and waving and +uncurving the tail in the nicely nuanced rhythms and exquisitely +designed patterns that are so familiar to ourselves! If the aerial +artistry of the Cat's tail may be fitly compared to the beautifully +rounded brushwork of our Chinese laundrymen when, as I have incidentally +observed him more than once, he prepares his stock of wash tickets, the +tail movements of the Dog remind me of nothing so much as the ugly +zigzagging and unsymmetrical lines that my master's little boy produces, +squeakingly, on his slate in his vain attempts to draw a locomotive (at +least I gather, from various remarks that I have overheard, that this is +what he has in mind). No, there is not the slightest reason to allow for +an aesthetic strain in my friend's psychology. Frankly, I do not believe +he knows the difference between an Impressionist masterpiece and a +bill-board daub. Nothing, further, can be more absurd than the frequency +with which the Dog's rapid and angular tail movements are executed. No +sooner does the master, or his little boy, or the mistress, or even the +garbage man appear, than this tail that I speak of is set furiously +wagging and swishing, often at the cost of a cup or plate which may +happen to be within reach of its tufted point. I wonder that they +tolerate him in the kitchen at all. I shall never forget the time that, +excited beyond control at the unexpected return of the master from a +fishing excursion, he scampered about madly and lashed his tail from +side to side with the utmost fury. Well accustomed by this time to his +vulgar ways, I paid little attention to the hubbub but continued quietly +lapping up my saucer of milk, when I was suddenly stunned by a powerful +swish of the Dog's milk-spattered tail against my face. Angered beyond +expression, both by the Dog's extreme rudeness and by the almost total +loss of a savory meal, I was about to scratch out his eyes, but the +evident unwillingness of the maid to suffer retaliatory measures, and +the reflection on my part that the Dog's conduct, reprehensible as it +was, had not been dictated by any unfriendly feeling for myself, +prevented a scrimmage. It was as well, for nothing pains me more than to +part company with my dignity, even if only for a moment. + +In view of so many just grounds for complaint,--and there are many that +I might add,--it puzzles me, I repeat, to say just what I like about the +Dog. Can it be that, living, as we do, under the same roof, and thus +forced by circumstance to put up with each other for better or for +worse, we have become habituated to a common lot, and learned to ignore +the numerous divergencies of taste and philosophy? From a strictly +scientific standpoint, this is an excellent explanation of our mutual +forbearance, but I am afraid that sincerity prevents me from accepting +it as a completely satisfying solution of the problem. How comes it +that, when the Dog, in company with his master, has absented himself +from the house for a period of more than usual length, as once for a +week's hunting jaunt, I find myself getting fidgety and morose, as +though there were something missing to complete my usual feeling of +contentment? And how comes it that last year, when the Dog's right +forefoot was caught in the door, and he set up a caterwauling (excuse +the Hibernicism) that made him a frightful nuisance for the rest of the +day, I, who would ordinarily have been the first to resent such a noise, +as evidencing a deplorable lack of vocal self-control and taste, did on +the contrary feel no small amount of sympathy for the suffering wretch? +I imagine that there was something about the tilt of my tail and the +glance in my eye that communicated my compassion to the Dog, for the +next day he seemed a trifle more considerate of my preferences than had +been his wont. I construed this as a species of thankfulness on his +part. (Yet I would not lay too great stress on this; he may merely have +had an attack of the blues, as a result of his recent misadventure.) And +how comes it, farther, that I felt considerably nettled the other day +when the neighbor's boy kicked the Dog three times in succession? +Prudence, to be sure, prevented my taking up an active defence of my +friend, but I certainly felt at least an indefinite impulse in that +direction. + +Such incidents seem to argue a genuine vein of fellow feeling, of +sympathy, for the Dog, though, I must insist, this sympathy never +degenerates into a maudlin sentimentality. After all is said and done, +there is never entirely absent a grain of contempt from my estimate of a +mere dog, even of the Dog of the House. It is enough to admit that there +is commingled with this contempt a certain something of more benevolent +hue, a something which I must leave it to others to explain. + + +_A Hunting-ground of Ignorance_ + +Espapia Palladino is dead, and of course the usual amount of nonsense is +being written about her. The woman certainly had some telekinetic power, +and she certainly pieced it out with humbug, as is generally done when +the power happens to exist in a low order of person. And as most persons +are of a low order, the power is so pieced out in most cases. The same +is of course true regarding telepsychic power. + +But that behind the frauds and mistakes there is something genuine yet +to be accounted for, is doubted by hardly anybody who knows anything +about the subject. If writing about it, and all other subjects, could +only be restricted to those who know something about them, how much +better off we should all be! + +And if dishonesty were only restricted to the inferior type of person! +One of the committee who made out Palladino an unmitigated fraud, told +us that he signed the report with mental reservations, and that he +passed his hands under the table which she held suspended by her +finger-tips on top of it, and found it absolutely disconnected with the +floor! + + +_Maximum Price-fixing in Ancient Rome_ + +"Is there anything whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath +been already of old time, which was before us." The prototype of the +aeroplane is found in the myth of Daedalus' wings; the possibilities of +the submarine--some of them--are illustrated in Lucian's story of the +sea monster; and maximum prices, in sober Roman history. + +The Emperor Diocletian, at the beginning of the fourth century, made a +serious effort to lower the high cost of living, by law. He was +apparently one of that school of amateur economists which holds that the +business man's greed is the root of the evil. In his opinion there were +any number of people who were expert in the art of running up the rates +and charging the poor ultimate consumer, whether civilian or soldier, +all that the traffic would bear. And his eye was on them. A part of the +preface to the edict which was to abolish all the difficulties at one +stroke, reads thus: + + Who is so dull of heart that he does not know that on + merchandise prices have become more than exorbitant, and that + unbridled greed can not be mitigated by abundance of supplies + or rich harvests? And so to the greed of those who, though men + of the greatest wealth so that they could abundantly supply + even nations, still seek private gain. To their greed, O + people of our provinces, our care for common humanity urges us + to put an end. Who does not know that, wherever the common + safety of all demands that our armies be led, there the prices + of merchandise are forced up, not four times or eight times, + but without limit? + +A system of maximum retail prices was to be the cure-all: + + We have decided not to determine exact prices for commodities: + for it does not seem just to do this when at times many + provinces glory in the good fortune of low prices; but we have + decided to establish a maximum of prices, so that when there + is any scarcity greed may be checked. + +If the emperor could have looked down the ages to the year 1918, he +would have found that a maximum price of ten cents for sugar is very +likely to become the regular price everywhere. He did not know this; but +that his law would only be effective if supported by a penalty for +disobedience, he knew right well. He decided on a penalty--a penalty +which would appear adequate, probably even to the thorough-going +Germans: + + It is our pleasure that, if anyone in his audacity opposes + this statute, he be subjected to capital punishment. + +Not only price-raising, but hoarding and speculating were also held to +be opposition to the law. The final statement of the edict makes this +clear: + + And from the penalties of this statute, that man is not free + who, possessing the necessities of life, should think that he + ought to withdraw them from trade for a time after this + statute is in force. + +But the emperor did not confine himself to fixing maximum prices for +food. His was a more ambitious attempt than any of its modern +counterparts. He fixed prices for liquors, and cloth goods and shoes. He +fixed maximum wages for workmen in all sorts of trades, and even for men +in the professions. In some cases pay was by the day, and in some, by +the job. The record does not show that union men were paid more than +non-union men. + +But this economic Utopia, though supported by all the power of an +autocratic government, was not for long. One slight miscalculation +ruined the whole scheme. The maximum price, or maximum wage, was put +quite low in the first place, and yet in any given case was precisely +the same in every province of the empire. In London the barber would +shave you for two denarii (less than one cent), and in Alexandria you +need pay no more. Prunes from Damascus must be sold there and in Cologne +for the same price. Under such artificial conditions legitimate business +could not succeed. The result is briefly told by a church father: + + Then was there much blood shed for trifles; and nothing was + put up for sale, because of fear, and much worse was the + scarcity, until the law was repealed of necessity, after the + death of many. + + +_Darwin on His Own Discoveries_ + +In connection with the article in this number on John Fiske, we are +fortunate in being able to give a letter from Darwin to Dana which is +just appearing in the current _American Journal of Science_. To our +readers, comment would be superfluous. + + Charles Darwin to J. D. Dana + DOWN, BROMLY, KENT, NOV. 11, 1859. + + _My dear Sir_: I have sent you a copy of my Book (as yet only + an abstract) on the Origin of species. I know too well that + the conclusion, at which I have arrived, will horrify you, but + you will, I believe & hope, give me credit for at least an + honest search after the truth. I hope that you will read my + Book, straight through; otherwise from the great condensation + it will be unintelligible. Do not, I pray, think me so + presumptuous as to hope to convert you; but if you can spare + time to read it with care, & will then do what is far more + important, keep the subject under my point of view for some + little time occasionally before your mind, I have hopes that + you will agree that more can be said in favour of the + mutability of species, than is at first apparent. It took me + many long years before I wholly gave up the common view of the + separate creation of each species. Believe me, with sincere + respect & with cordial thanks for the many acts of scientific + kindness which I have received from you, + + My dear Sir + Yours very sincerely + (Signed) CHARLES DARWIN + + +_Reflections of an Old-Maid Aunt._ + +In the elaborately efficient curricula of our modern colleges, although +there are courses of instruction in almost every branch from +Book-agenting to Motherhood, and from Sewing to Integral Calculus, there +is one of endeavor which is, as yet, hopelessly uncharted. I speak of +the art, or, of course, it should be science, of being an old-maid aunt! + +It seems a simple matter to the casual observer and, perhaps, that is +why no one has thought necessary to study the subject and offer a +course. We remember how successfully it was done in our youth by those +delightful old ladies who came for visits and taught us to knit and were +almost sure to have some sort of confection concealed somewhere about +their person or room. We remember how they implanted the idea that +certain words were beyond the vocabulary of any lady, and that a child's +whole duty in life was to be polite in such matters as "Sir" and +"Ma'am", to be obedient to any of the species, Grown-People, and to be +ready at all times to help in the search for spectacles. Their lot was +easy enough and the very suggestion that they needed to be instructed in +their capacity of aunt, would be ridiculous! + +It is no wonder then, with that picture in view, that I launched forth +upon a visit to my small nephew and nieces with no premonitions of the +shoals which lay ahead. After five days in the presence of the strenuous +regime which surrounds and enfolds the modern child, I have returned +once more to the quiet back waters of old-maidenhood and to +contemplation. And now a sadder and a wiser aunt, I offer some +suggestions which might help another unwary one before she breaks into +the complicated existence of the newly developed genus, Child. + +In the first place, don't use that obnoxious word "DON'T". Its use you +will find, or more likely be told, curbs the child's free spirit and +destroys his personality. If, thereof you find him with a redpepper as a +toy, don't try to take it from him, for being stronger than he you may +succeed and thereby put a dent in his tender young willpower! Just trust +that if he should get it into his eyes or mouth the result will not be +fatal, and feel confident that thereafter he will seek some other form +of toy! Or should you find him standing on a chair, before a blazing +fire, reaching for something on the mantel piece, don't remove him +forcibly at once and try to convince him that he should never get there +again. No! Rather divert his mind to something else in the room so that +he will get down of his own accord, and leave the desired object until +there is nobody present to divert him! For do you not see that if you +tell him that there are things in the world which he cannot do, you will +bind his free and birdlike soul and sadden his little life? Be +comforted, though, for, perhaps, when he does fall the fire will be out, +or the chair will tip the other way! + +In the second place don't be surprised to hear him cry, nay rather howl +lustily, all the while he is being fed. Of course you think at once that +he must surely be ill; in your memories of childhood such an occurrence +meant only some dread disease. But before you send a hurried call for +the doctor, take a look at the food. You will find that a sad and +terrible change has come over the stomachs of children! No longer can +they digest oatmeal when accompanied by its time-honored companions, +sugar and cream, but must eat it plain in a luke warm state. Other +cereals have also lost these erstwhile friends, in spite of the alluring +but deceptive impression which you may have gotten from advertisements, +and are eaten, or rather absorbed, for the doing has lost its gusto, +plain. So don't pity the child when you see him eating a teaspoonful of +sugar just before he goes to bed, for that is his theoretical dole of +sweetness for the day. Just hope that somewhere in the background is a +friendly cook who is not yet aware of the fact that children have lost +their powers of digestion! + +And most important of all, don't offer him any sort of refreshment, most +particularly not the innocent-looking but deadly animal cracker! When +Mrs. Noah, for it must have been she who invented that confection for +the small voyage-wearied Ham, Shem, and Japheth, made the first animal +crackers, she probably thought that she was doing a great thing and that +children throughout the age would call her blessed. And so they have +until now a fearful discovery has been made: animal crackers are +absolutely indigestible! We shudder as we think of the menageries we +ourselves have consumed! To what heights of perfection might our +excellent health have risen, were it not for those wolves lurking in the +form of sheep or elephants or overgrown curly-tailed dogs! To what size +might our present too rotund forms have grown, were it not for those +deadly processions marched hither and yon and then eaten in never +varying order, head; tail, when present; feet; and then two bites on the +body. Farewell, Animal Cracker, you are discovered at last! No more +shall you with your treachery delight and entertain innocent little +children, unless some fathers, defiant of the new laws of nature and the +edicts of scientific mothers, procure you on the sly! + +And so it goes. No! The duties of an old-maid aunt cannot be entered +upon lightly. It would really be a charitable act for some one to study +the subject and offer a course for those of us the numbers of whose +nephews and nieces continue to increase. And we in the meantime can only +hope that the pendulum of change will not delay too long in swinging +back to the old-fashioned child, about whom, inside and out, we have a +little knowledge if it is only empirical! + + +_An Obscure Source of Education_ + +Obviously a great deal of education, moral as well as intellectual, and +even physical, is coming from the war, and it obviously comes in part +from an immensely increased amount of reading on informing subjects, +even in the newspapers. But the call for this reading contains a +farther, and relatively obscure, source of education worth thinking of. +We can no longer risk wasting our time, as it is to be feared most of us +have done, by picking up to read the first thing that strikes our fancy. +The greatly increased mass of material has forced upon us the habit of +selecting what we read. The usefulness and importance of that habit +hardly need dwelling upon to the constituency of this REVIEW. + + +_Heart-to-Heart Advertising_ + +I am all things to all advertisers. I like to submit myself to the +experiments of some alert young psychologist, in response to whose plan +(scientifically conceived, artfully presented), I greatly desire to eat, +to see, to hear, to know, to do, to possess, that which he brings to my +attention. Being a person trained to jejune classification, I +automatically pigeon-hole the "appeal," and my mind therefore offers to +advertisements a hospitable retreat under Ambition, or Culture, or +Physical development, or the Senses, or Vanity. + +The last quality and the first are not always distinguishable, the one +from the other. When a page of insinuating text and startling +illustration assures me that the reading of a specified set of books +will enable me,--a person temperamentally shy and physically +inconspicuous--to convince judges and jurors, and to combine into a +glorious whole the abilities of St. Chrysostom, Abelard, Shylock, Daniel +Webster, and a Confederate veteran, I am disposed to feel that though +hitherto I have been unappreciated, it now rests with me (and the set of +books) to alter, even to change, the opinion of my personal public. I +glow, too, under the conviction that correspondence courses can +transform me into a trained nurse, an O. Henry, a Thomas Nast. My vanity +makes the conventional years of hospital service, or a "born" ability to +tell a story, or to caricature, seem superfluous in an equipment for +success. And I am sure I could raise wheat and apples in the north and +oranges and pecans in the south, even though I should bring to my +enterprise no capital, no experience, no commonsense. + +But while I yield readily and sympathetically to the magazine +advertisement, my heartiest response is given to the letter that +altruistically offers me counsels of perfection. There is a certain lack +of privacy about the magazine advertisement; but the letter +advertisement is confidential, even sometimes secretive. True, my name +is frequently misspelled, my sex is changed, and the ink and type are +glaringly different in the heading and in the letter proper. But these +are trifling vagaries: it is my own letter, and the writer knows me +intimately. He says this plainly. And he proves it by offering me the +book, or the beautifier, or the investment which I had not even known I +wanted, but which I do want instantly, and with an intensity that falls +short only of cutting from the lower corner of the page the slanting +coupon that will procure me farther information. + +It is this intimacy of attitude on the part of the writers of +form-letters that gives me keenest pleasure. I like the way in which a +kindly, tolerant young person--youth will always out--assures me that my +manner of life and my personal predilections are as an open book to him. +I like the first-aid flavor of his opening paragraph. I like most of all +the jaunty soul-brother way in which he dallies with his point. + +"The writer of this letter has been pondering a good deal", begins one +of these experts in the personal appeal, "on the sort of letter he would +like to get from So-and-So." And at the conclusion of his clever page, +he inquires ingenuously (or artistically): "Is this the sort of letter +_you_ like to get from So-and-So?" Bless the boy! of course it is. + +And I do enjoy the letter that is designed to make me leap from my seat +with the first line: "Tomorrow may be too late!" or, "This idea was +worth $100 to one person--it may prove even more valuable to you;" or, +"Shakespeare died in 1616!" + +Again, the subject may be approached obliquely: "You have read of +course, the interesting story in the _Sunday Morning Sunshine_, entitled +"Sparkles." You'll remember how Dorothy--" And about the middle of page +two I find that the reason why the heroine was a heroine was because she +had a piece of furniture, the duplicate of which I am granted an +opportunity to purchase, if I act quickly, at greatly reduced rates. + +But although the letter-writing section of psychological advertisers +gives me keen pleasure, they also give me some anxiety. It seems to me +that they waste a good deal of good effort. The reason for this failure +to conserve, lies, I think, in the lack of an ingredient that would fuse +all of this experimental psychology and engaging personality into a +practical working whole. And by "working" I mean money getting: for of +course advertisers have their reason for being, in the persuading of +somebody to buy something, or to subscribe to something. The ingredient +which I miss is businesslike accuracy. Of course I realize that these +are merely form-letters, that the mailing list is compiled from any +available source. But the advertisers wish each person who receives a +letter to feel that it was written for him or her personally, and they +take a great deal of trouble to perfect the atmosphere. It is not +artistic, or professional, therefore, to destroy the illusion by the +address or the opening sentence. It was a disgusted gentleman who +received a letter which began thus: + + "Dr. John Doe + Professor of Latin + University of Utopia + + Dear Sir: + + A friend of yours--she prefers that we should not use her + name--tells us that you are the best dressed woman in your + city. Our new line of evening frocks...." + +And women often receive letters such as the following: + + "Miss Margaret Roe, etc., etc. + + Dear Madam: + + As a man who knows a good pipe from a bad one, will you grant + us an opportunity to show you...." + +Undoubtedly these charming highly imaginative specialists in advertising +give great pleasure. But when business houses month after month send +advertising letters which set forth the glories of something glaringly +impossible of enjoyment by the person to whom the letter is addressed, +then that person is likely to reflect that squandered postage, and +inefficient management, must be paid for in the price or quality of the +thing advertised. + +The literary value of a personal form-letter is not affected, however, +by the question of practical usefulness. Nothing could lessen my +pleasure in a recent letter that shows me how I may realize the "chummy +comradeship of Emerson's nature poems," and the "dainty art of Shelley +and Keats." The writer also tells me that he knows what my principal +problem is. And the opening sentence of the same letter seems to explain +why I enjoy all advertisements: + + "To that 'marvellous interestingness of life' which Arnold + Bennett says literature reflects, is due the fundamental + liking for good reading of some kind...." + + +_The Curse of Fall Elections_ + +We have received the usual number of exhortations to do our duty in +preparing for the fall elections. Thank you. We will do the best we can, +but on account of the war we are already late in getting into the +country for the summer, and our doctor orders us away as soon as we can +go. + +Many of the people who exercise any influence for good are gone already, +while most of those whose influence is evil--who live by politics are +here and will stay here or within easy reach, to attend to business. + +Moreover all those whose laziness, incapacity and crankiness prevent +their having money enough to get away--the whole Bolshevik crowd of +socialists, synadicalists and anarchists, remain here under the +influence of those who live by politics. + +If there ever was an invention of the devil, it is fall elections. + +Elections should be held early in April, before so many good people go +away, and after they have had half the year at home to do their best in. + + +_Larrovitch_ + +Our habitual readers may be surprised at our serving them a book notice. +But the circumstances leading to this one are peculiar. + +In its thirty-six years, the Authors Club has published but two books: +_The Liber Scriptorum_, and _Feodor Vladimir Larrovitch, An Appreciation +of His Life and Works_, which has recently appeared. The name of +Larrovitch was mentioned in the last Casserole; we are now able to +describe the permanent tribute to his personality which the Authors has +made. + +The volume consists of papers read at the Larrovitch centenary +celebration (April 26th, 1917--postponed from April 1st) together with +others since contributed. The contents page notes a sonnet by Clinton +Scollard, Prolegomenon by Prof. Franklin H. Giddings, a personality +sketch by Wm. George Jordan, translations and an article on "The Truth +and False About Larrovitch" by Richardson Wright, translations of three +Larrovitch poems by George S. Hellman, translations of Larrovitch +letters by Thomas Walsh, a paper on his recollection of the great +Russian by Dr. Titus Munson Coan, who, it will be recalled was one of +the original "Friends of Russian Freedom," bibliography and +bibliographical notes by Arthur Colton, whose name is already well known +to readers of the UNPOPULAR REVIEW; and a table of references in +English, French, German, Spanish and Russian compiled by Dr. Gustave +Simonson. There are twelve illustrations in the volume, showing +Larrovitch manuscripts, portraits at various ages, portraits of +Larrovitch's parents, the room at Yalta in which the author died, and +his grave. The book was designed by William Aspenwall Bradley of the +University Press, and executed by Munder of Baltimore, making it a +unique piece of typographical excellence. + +That the Authors should have picked out this Russian from all the +writers whirling in the vortex of literature, is explained in the +preface and the dedication. The book is dedicated to the lasting +sympathy between the American people and the Russian. And the preface +states that the path to peace along which nations can walk to mutual +understanding, is the path of the arts--the path of music and painting +and literature. This is indeed true. + + +_Our Index_ + +The example of our "Father Parmenides," is always good, and we shall +imitate it in the particular set forth in this extract from _The +Atlantic_ for last December: + + Following a convention, unquestioned and well-nigh universal, + the _Atlantic_ has for sixty years published semi-annually in + December and June an index designed for the convenience of + readers who bind their magazines. This index with title-page + occupies six pages; and while of great service to a couple of + thousand subscribers and to a few hundred libraries, it is to + eighty-odd thousand readers [These figures make us feel very + small.] merely a dead and cumbersome weight. This month, + therefore, we are breaking sharply with tradition, ... we are + printing the index in its usual form, but in a small edition, + and as a separate pamphlet, and hold ourselves ready to send + it to _any reader who applies for a copy within thirty days of + the publication of this magazine_. + + This change will involve the saving of a paper-wastage.... + +All paper saved tends to lower the price, which has already reached a +height obstructive to the diffusion of knowledge. + + + + +_A New "OUIJA Board" Book_ + +By PATIENCE WORTH + +HOPE TRUEBLOOD + +_A Mid-Victorian Novel by a Pre-Victorian Writer_ + +By the author of "The Sorry Tale" + +Edited by C. S. Yost + +$1.50 net + +In this new novel of mid-Victorian days with its pervading sense of dark +mystery, "Patience Worth" abandons her archaic dialect, and writes in +modern English. + + "Whether in the body or in the spirit, the author of the + present volume is singularly gifted with imagination, + invention and power of expression. 'Hope Trueblood' is much + superior to 'The Sorry Tale,' partly because it is written in + good English and partly because it displays far greater + ingenuity of imagination ... a work approximating absolute + genius."--_N. Y. Tribune_. + + "A novel that George Eliot might not have been ashamed to own + up to."--_N. Y. Sun_. + + "From the very first there is established an atmosphere true + to type and convincing. 'Hope' is one of the most radiant + children we've met in a book in many a day. 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