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diff --git a/old/51808-0.txt b/old/51808-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index ea1f47b..0000000 --- a/old/51808-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6186 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Harvest of Ruskin, by John W. Graham - -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/license - - -Title: The Harvest of Ruskin - -Author: John W. Graham - -Release Date: April 20, 2016 [EBook #51808] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HARVEST OF RUSKIN *** - - - - -Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images available at The Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - - - - -THE HARVEST -OF RUSKIN - - - - -THE HARVEST -OF RUSKIN - -BY - -JOHN W. GRAHAM, M.A. - -PRINCIPAL OF DALTON HALL, UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER -AUTHOR OF “THE DESTRUCTION OF DAYLIGHT” - -[Illustration: colophon] - -LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD. -RUSKIN HOUSE, 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C. 1 - -_First published in 1920_ - -(_All rights reserved_) - - - - -PREFACE - - -This book is concerned with Ruskin’s teaching in the departments of -Religion and Economics only, including his social reforms and -educational schemes. It leaves out all his work on Art and in Natural -History and Mineralogy. His thoughts on Beauty in Landscape are treated -only so far as that Beauty is damaged by Industrialism or by War. Nor -has any attempt been made to produce an analysis of his literary style -or styles. The long extracts which the plan of the book requires, -however, afford sufficient examples of his artistry in words. - -My aim is to give a critical estimate in a reverent spirit of Ruskin’s -teaching in these two departments, and to apply it to the needs of our -own time. - -The development of Ruskin’s religious faith and its final outcome have -not, I believe, been fully worked out before, and the reconciliation -which I have attempted in the region of Economics is long overdue. These -parts of the book have been delivered as lectures in past years under -the Manchester and Liverpool University Extension Committees, at Summer -Schools, and elsewhere. - -I am indebted to Ruskin’s literary executors for permission to quote -freely from his works. - -J. W. G. - -DALTON HALL, -MANCHESTER. - - - - -CONTENTS - - -CHAPTER PAGE - -I. THE SIGNS OF A PROPHET 9 - -II. THE PILGRIM’S WAY 26 - -III. TO WHAT FOLD? 55 - -IV. RUSKIN AND MILL: A RECONCILIATION 78 - -V. RUSKIN’S RECONSTRUCTION 120 - -VI. RUSKIN’S ECONOMICS TO-DAY 151 - -VII. USURY 185 - -VIII. WAR 203 - -IX. MACHINERY 222 - -EPILOGUE 259 - -INDEX 267 - - - - -The Harvest of Ruskin - - - - -_CHAPTER I_ - -_THE SIGNS OF A PROPHET_ - - -Now that one hundred years have gone by since their one precious boy was -born in London to a Scottish wine merchant and his wife, it may be well -to ask how much of Ruskin’s teaching has proved to be chaff which the -wind driveth away, and how much has been precious seed. Ruskin is just -now suffering from the time of comparative neglect which intervenes -between an author’s contemporaries and posterity, the years when the -immediate appropriateness of his message may have lapsed, when it is no -longer fresh and startling, but its permanent value has not yet been -settled by the verdict of several generations. All or nearly all the -great Victorians are in like case. - -Ruskin’s art criticism is, as a matter of fact, not only ignored but -resolutely rejected nowadays among critical writers. He loved beauty -and charm in subject; he rejected scenes of horror and torture, and also -subjects of mere Dutch commonplace. He loved delicate and accurately -minute drawing, and the realistic detail of the Preraphælites. He -desired that a tree in a picture should be recognized as an oak or a -birch; and he loved above all fine drawing of mosses, leaves, and -peacocks’ wings. This is the day of impressionism, super-impressionism -and impression of impressionism, and so on, through ever greater -abandonment of drawing and significance, to cubism, futurism and other -weird follies. I am not wishful to dogmatize on these matters; I incline -to the sage and wonderful conclusion that all styles are good provided -they are good styles; that conscientiousness in the portrayal of what -the artist really sees will not lead him astray; that originality, or at -any rate a marked individual gift, is a necessity; and that there is no -one orthodox school. As in everything else, the letter killeth, -convention blocks progress, and slovenliness includes a multitude of -sins. - -But this book is not concerned with art criticism, but with the teaching -about human duty and happiness, to which Ruskin’s art interests led -him. The characteristic note he contributed to art criticism was to -regard art as a revelation of God and of Man. He was a prophet of Beauty -from his birth. Concerning his susceptibility in childhood to the power -of natural Beauty, he writes in the third volume of _Modern -Painters_,[1] in words which throw light upon his special gifts of -temperament: “Although there was no definite religious sentiment mingled -with it, there was a continual perception of sanctity in the whole of -Nature, from the slightest thing to the vastest; an instinctive awe, -mixed with delight; an indefinable thrill, such as we sometimes imagine -to indicate the presence of a disembodied spirit. I could only feel this -perfectly when I was alone; and then it would often make me shiver from -head to foot from the joy and fear of it, when, after being some time -away from the hills, I first got to the shore of a mountain river, where -the brown water circled among the pebbles, or when I first saw the swell -of distant land against the sunset, or the first low broken wall covered -with mountain moss. I cannot in the least describe the feeling; but I do -not think this is my fault, nor that of the English language, for I am -afraid no feeling is describable. If we had to explain even the sense of -bodily hunger to a person who had never felt it, we should be hard put -to it for words; and the joy in nature seemed to me to come of a sort of -heart-hunger, satisfied with the presence of a Great and Holy Spirit. -These feelings remained in their full intensity till I was eighteen or -twenty, and then, as the reflective and practical power increased, and -the ‘cares of the world’ gained upon me, faded gradually away, in the -manner described by Wordsworth in his _Intimations of Immortality_.” - -The fact is that we are dealing with a man who belongs to the prophetic -order: and this book is written in the belief that he was not only a -prophet for the nineteenth, but also for the twentieth century. He has -all the prophetic signs. Right or wrong, fantastic or terribly truthful, -we feel that he is coining his soul into golden words. The stress and -strain of his cry against priesthoods, modern business, false teaching -of economics as he thought it, wore him out, and left him subject to -attacks of inflammation of the brain. Rightly he spoke of _Fors -Clavigera_ as the book of his life; “best worth calling a book,” he -said, of anything he had written. With it his serious work ended in -1884. Only the chatty reminiscences of _Præterita_ were to be written -after that. - -He had, besides a dreadful sincerity, another mark of the true afflatus. -Never, as he pleaded, had he written a line for money or for the glory -of self. It was the wrong done to Turner that drove him to write _Modern -Painters_; the necessity of character in a nation was the lesson he had -to teach in tracing the history of Venice in her monuments; the cry of -the poor, and indignation over the wrecking of humanity in the name of -business, drove him to write _Unto This Last_, and all his social and -economic works. He had the single-mindedness of the seer. - -Again, he inspired love and discipleship in hearts ready for his -message, as prophets do. The Master he was called, and the Master he -remains. His loss was a personal loss. The event of January 20, 1900, -was to many of us a real bereavement. The strong personal note which -caused the prophets Isaiah and Hosea to do in their own persons -emblematic acts for a sign, caused Ruskin also to tell his readers more -about himself than anyone would who did not identify himself with his -message. To the unseeing eye this looks like egotism, but it is far -from that. - -His life, too, was such as a prophet’s ought to be. He gave away the -greater part of a fortune of £157,000, and some house property, and -chose to do without advertising his books. In love and in the loss of -love he suffered, but did nothing base, everything that was kind and -true. As a prophet whose burden was wealth and poverty, social tyranny -and human wreckage, he was able to speak as a rich man to members of his -own class. A poor man who prophesies on this subject is apt to be -discounted by blunt humanity, who think that he may be merely an envious -grumbler. - -And, once again, he has that characteristic of the messengers of the -Truth, that their message is too new and strange to be acceptable at -once to their contemporaries. They are accepted by the few: the world -smiles or curses and passes by, but gradually it bends round in one of -its great curves, and round its spiral path revolves as it approaches -the centre of attraction. I shall try to show that much of Ruskin’s -social and economic teaching is just such a centre of our constant -approximation, though we are apparently always going nearly at right -angles to it. - -Here, then, we have every sign of the prophetic character: fidelity to -the deepest motives of the soul, an inevitable and generally unconscious -selflessness, the loyalty of his followers, his frank openness to the -world, his consecrated life and holy sorrow, the antagonisms he evoked -and the contempt of the proud, and the clear influence he is -exerting--these, all together, are prophetic. - -Let us examine his outward qualifications. Ruskin’s judgment was at -times erratic; his playfulness and his petulance prevent our taking -everything he said with prosaic seriousness; he was not always able to -speak in measured tones of sober exactness, but gave way to -exaggeration. But his intellectual equipment was of the best. He was -heir both to Greece and to Judæa. The Bible was his text-book and Plato -was his political teacher. All culture was at his command. Oxford, -Geneva, Rome, Venice, the Alps, the Apennines and the Lake of Coniston -had yielded up their best to him. He prophesied from no street -corner--from the Sheldonian Theatre in the University of Oxford his -message was uttered. - -So much for the signs and for the outward qualifications of the seer. -The prophet’s fire is recognizably there. The tabernacle of God is with -men, as of old; and if He is to speak with a clear Word to our hasting -age, to preach righteousness, purity, work to the idle and rest to the -weary, clean cities, and clean hearts, how else would He preach than -with the text of Ruskin: “Consider the lilies of the field, how they -grow; they toil not, neither do they spin; and yet I say unto you that -your millionaires in all their glory of machines cannot supply to us the -loss of these.” - -At the age of forty-one, about the time when the mind reaches maturity, -begin the social teachings of John Ruskin in full completeness--not to -be much changed, except in one particular, for the quarter of a century -of writing that was left him. The live coal from off the altar came to -him as he was wandering in restless suffering among the valleys of -Savoy, and his first “Thus saith the Lord” was written at Chamonix. Not -that all this came at once. The growth can be traced; but before 1860 he -was chiefly an art critic, and in that year the last volume of _Modern -Painters_ appeared. - -Let us look at the advantages of the delay. They were manifold. A man -should do something else besides prophesy. He should win his position, -take his rank among men, in some walk of life, before he is quite -qualified to tell others how to order their steps. He has a degree to -take in something besides homiletics. It was from the pulpit of a great -literary reputation that the author of _Modern Painters_ opened his -mouth to preach. That reputation he was content utterly to throw away; -to tread on it, step upon it as upon a ladder, that from the top of it -he might be heard when he spoke the words the Spirit taught him. That -was the great renunciation of his literary life. What a refusal of a -call it would have been had he hugged his reputation, been careful of -his influence, that last temptation of noble minds. It is politicians -who do that, not prophets. But these know the glorious liberty into -which they come. - -No doubt any other professional career would have ended with a message. -What an explosion might have occurred in the Church had his mother’s -wish been fulfilled, and he become a clergyman, with a Bishop to look -after him. As it was, his father’s art tastes and preoccupation with -pictures and with picturesque scenery, and the boy’s own early skill -both as writer and draughtsman, led him, after an attempt at poetry, to -become by profession a writer on Art. There he had the opportunity of -elaborating his mighty implement, that superb, facile, plastic -instrument of music and voice of thunder, his inimitable style. It is -that which ensures the preservation of his work. Noble style is the -antiseptic which preserves from decay the written words of men. Books -without style are not read long. - -In classifying the books in our libraries, under what head shall we -place the seventy volumes of John Ruskin? There is much temptation to -fall back helplessly upon the heading “Miscellaneous”; for he wrote on -Art, including Sculpture, Engraving, Architecture and Heraldry; on -Economics, History and constructive Politics; on Botany, Meteorology, -Ornithology, Geology, and Mineralogy; he wrote Guide-books, Poems, -Autobiography, Literary Criticism; he treated Theology, Ethics, -Education, Music and Mythology; he brought out regularly for seven years -a monthly periodical _de omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis_; he edited -Biography, German stories and translations from the Greek and the -Italian: he wrote Dialogue and Fairy Tale. - -Where shall we seek for unity in this manifold outpouring of a versatile -genius, who touched none of these subjects without irradiating it? In -that fact lies our key. With what did he irradiate this comprehensive -list of human interests? The answer cannot be doubtful in the mind of -any careful student. He told us how it seemed to him that all these -things looked to the eye of God. He tried to solve all questions by the -flashlight of the Eternal. He worked at agate and crystal that it might -reveal the beauty of the Lord; he fought his social crusade for the sake -of the dim disinherited multitude who had no eyes for the Divine -loveliness, and no glory to behold: and for the sake of justice and of -love which wealth and luxury denied. He was a messenger of the Most High -to modern needs; and his eager soul found a service throughout this wide -range of science and art. - -Not one of his writings is called a sermon, yet we have found his class, -for he belongs to the class of Divines, ordained in a temple more -Metropolitan and more Catholic than Canterbury or Rome, and not made -with hands. Through nearly half a century of active authorship he -consecrated his every gift to the service of men. He never looked back -in any unfaithfulness that we know of. I wish first to make clear that -all his life the gates between the soul and the Divine Source were open: -that he was truly a religious man under every form of faith and doubt; -and that no one need hesitate about this at any tight place in his -career. Keep this as a sure clue, and we shall fearlessly follow his -story. - -The childish sensibility to landscape beauty I take to be an early -manifestation of the gift of the seer, a significant token of native -nearness to the Unseen. For many years he never climbed a mountain, -alone, without instinctively dropping on his knees on the summit, in -thankful reverence. As the careless foot of an engrossing industrialism -stamped into ashes more and more of the land whose fairness had been his -life’s passion, it seemed to him to be indeed sacrilege and desecration, -a reckless destruction of Divine things. Art he only valued as a form of -expression, a language whose subject was Nature and Man. In the latter -half of his life more emphatically, but more or less from the beginning, -he regarded Man as the object for whose welfare Nature, in the landscape -sense, existed; and he rested not till he had brought Man into due -relation with God, up to whom in the end came all things. - -He was devout by training. Morning and evening he read his chapter out -of the Bible; and the fourteenth century manuscript he used in later -years occupied a prominent and handy place in the study at Brantwood. In -Swiss and Italian villages in his early journeys he read the service -through on Sunday to his servant, when there was no Protestant Church. -From the Biblical references in the indexes to his works, you would -suppose they were a theological library. In his Oxford Lectures Art was -the illustration, but conduct the theme, and Art was chosen as an -illustration because in it the artist shows what manner of Man he is, in -a way that cannot be dissembled. - -What are the qualifications which fit a man to be a religious -researcher, a mountain-top gazer into heaven? - -He must know from his own experience the meaning of holiness, thereby -gaining a practical knowledge of God. He must, in Pauline words, be -crucified with Christ, though he may not care for such an expression; he -must preach not himself and please not himself. Such a man John Ruskin -was. Among the many wayward and impulsive men who have been “dear to -the Muses and to the nymphs not unbeloved,” not all like him have been -also masters of themselves, and kept on their foreheads the white stone, -with the new name written. Ruskin was himself noble and sweet in his -life, a man of sorrows, well acquainted with grief endured in silence, -with nothing ignoble in his eighty years of generous charity and lonely -service. He had passed, too, through that experience which seems -essential to the wielding of spiritual power. He had had his great -renunciation, he had heard some hard call, and had obeyed. The prophets -have all gone on the Via Crucis: they have all lost their lives that -they might find them. As Whittier abandoned a hopeful political career -and remained poor till he was sixty that he might help to free the -slave, and gained his spiritual power thereby, so Ruskin in 1860 went -boldly out to do battle with the Society that loved and honoured him. - -Further, such a man must greatly dare. He must face the demon of the -study first; then, too probably, the resentment of organized religion. -One cannot succeed as a researcher without discovering something new; -and that is bound to modify or overthrow something old and established. - -Nor can such a man usually present a heart of iron and a front of brass -to the darts of controversy. He must be a sensitive man, by the very -nature of his research. He may or may not be privileged to feel strong -in the strength of his cause; but even if he does the shrinking of the -nerves remains. This daring and suffering were pre-eminently the lot of -Ruskin; and it was this which finally broke down his mind. “He was -beside himself for others’ sakes.” It was the neglect with which the St. -George’s Guild and allied reform work were treated by those who were -otherwise his friends, which contributed to drive him into inflammation -of the brain in 1878, and again several times afterwards. “Wounded in -the house of my friends.” - -Besides these essential qualifications Ruskin had his very unusual -gifts, which it may be long before we find again combined with the -religious faculty--his long lifetime free from the need of earning -money, his early popularity, his wonderful style, the vantage ground of -his Professorial chair, his penetrating mind, his wit and his fire. It -may be long before we see his like again. - -I am far from claiming infallibility for Ruskin. Infallibility is an -out-of-date conception altogether. There is no such thing on earth. To -be infallible you must know everything; you must be infinite. The -infallibility of a finite creature is an inhuman, even an inorganic -conception. Organic life means growth, and growth means imperfection; -but growth is Nature’s way of making things. Infallibility is a tyrant -born of ecclesiasticism, and bred on human laziness and fear. It has -become the attribute of the quack pill, and there let it abide. - -But, beyond this safe generality, Ruskin had human weaknesses of an -obvious kind. He loved paradox; he played with his thunderbolts a -little, and rather liked to shock people. He was a humorist as well as a -divine. It is difficult to put down some of his derivations to anything -but sheer fooling; a man who will put the English _Force_ and Latin -_Fors_ down to the same root, will do anything in that line. Again, when -he was in thunderous action he allowed volcanoes of vituperation to -erupt, which one would have wished otherwise. He sadly lacked restraint, -but, like the strong language of the old Prophets, his had its root in -love of man. - -We know more of his intimacies and his foibles, which he loves -humorously to exaggerate, than are generally given to the public. He has -taken means to prevent any artificial pedestal, in idealized aloofness, -ever being raised to him. His utter frankness led him to give the public -his private accounts, which people generally keep to themselves; and -such correspondence as that painful one with Octavia Hill.[2] But when -the faults of others were in question he was silent as the grave, to his -own hurt. He was “kind even to the unthankful and the evil.” As for many -of us, how much more vulgar and base would the world have been without -that noble and lovely soul. Many are those who owe him an irredeemable -debt. His life was not, as he sadly thought, the story of baffled -strife. Of him, as of Dr. Arnold, it could be said that not alone was he -saved.[3] - - - - -_CHAPTER II_ - -_THE PILGRIM’S WAY_ - - -Having now stated our conviction that Ruskin was always essentially -religious, we will trace the history of his beliefs. - -He began life in 1819, under the strong influence of his mother, as a -Calvinistic Protestant, of the narrow type then current. The Ruskins -were properly Scottish Presbyterians, living in London. A Low Church or -Spurgeon’s Tabernacle was equally acceptable. His mother made him read -with her daily portions of the Bible, two or three chapters, undiluted -and unselected. They accomplished the journey from Genesis to Revelation -in about a year, and then began at Genesis again next day, “hard names, -numbers, Levitical Law and all.” They went through it at least six times -together. - -She also taught him, “complete and sure,” twenty-six chapters of the -Bible, including the 119th Psalm, and all the Scottish Paraphrases of -the Psalms.[4] - -This did not make him vitally religious; he was not “converted.” The -Bible was, for the present, a rather tiresome task, and to chapel he and -his father went submissively, feeling their sad inferiority to the -mother in these matters. His mother’s creed he dutifully imbibed, -without question or strong feeling of any kind. He had the proper -antipathy to Rome, and the habit of outward prayer.[5] His real religion -was born at Friar’s Crag, Derwentwater, at four years old, when he -looked with awe into the dark lake over the mossy tree roots, and felt -himself in the Presence. - -He was, as an only child, a protected treasure, the pride of and a great -responsibility to his wealthy parents. He never went to a Public School, -and when he went to Oxford to be made into a Bishop his parents came -with him, lived in the High, and his mother saw him every day. With -them, far into mid-life, he went on all his foreign journeys but two, -those of 1845 and 1858. The parental ideas remained potent with him to -an extent hardly realizable by this generation, which often finds it so -difficult to bring their parents up properly. - -His earlier works are written with the questionless devoutness of the -untried mind. They were narrow in theology, fiercely Protestant, earnest -enough; and on their positive side, still sound and valuable. The first -two volumes of _Modern Painters_, the whole of the _Stones of Venice_ -and the _Seven Lamps of Architecture_, and the Edinburgh _Lectures on -Architecture and Painting_ belong to this period. So, broadly, do the -Manchester Lectures on the _Political Economy of Art_ in 1857; but they -are the herald of the next epoch. - -He resisted the new Geology of Lyell, declared indignantly that God had -created the Alpine valleys, and put the rivers to flow along them, -denying that the rivers had worn their own valleys out. Somewhere in the -later fifties we find him scandalized by the statement of Frederick -Denison Maurice that Jael’s treacherous murder of Sisera was a wicked -deed. The fact that Deborah the Prophetess sang a sacred song over it -was enough to justify it to Ruskin, then over thirty-five.[6] - -Just before this incident, however, his moral sense was beginning to -revolt from certain parts of his creed. He was, he says, invited to a -“fashionable séance of Evangelical doctrine, at the Earl of Ducie’s, -presided over by Mr. Molyneux, then a divine of celebrity in that sect, -who sat with one leg over his other knee, in the attitude always given -to Herod at the Massacre of the Innocents in mediæval sculpture, and -discoursed in tones of consummate assurance and satisfaction, and to the -entire comfort and consent of his Belgravian audience, on the beautiful -parable of the Prodigal Son. Which, or how many, of his hearers he meant -to describe as having personally lived on husks, and devoured their -father’s property, did not of course appear; but that something of the -sort was necessary to the completeness of the joy in heaven over them, -now in Belgrave Square, at the feet, or one foot, of Mr. Molyneux, could -not be questioned. Waiting my time, till the raptures of the converted -company had begun to flag a little, I ventured, from a back seat, to -enquire of Mr. Molyneux what we were to learn from the example of the -other son, not prodigal, who was, his father said, ‘ever with me and all -that I have, thine.’ A sudden horror and unanimous feeling of the -serpent having somehow got over the wall into their Garden of Eden, -fell on the whole company; and some of them, I thought, looked at the -candles, as if they expected them to burn blue. After a pause of a -minute, gathering himself into an expression of pity and indulgence, -withholding latent thunder, Mr. Molyneux explained to me that the -home-staying son was merely a picturesque figure introduced to fill -the background of the parable agreeably, and contained no instruction -or example for the well-disposed scriptural student, but on the -contrary, rather, a snare for the unwary, and a temptation to -self-righteousness--which was, of all sins, the most offensive to God. -Under the fulmination of which answer, I retired from the séance in -silence, nor ever attended another of the kind from that day to -this.”[7] - -It was just this lack of feeling for righteousness as such, the idea -that you needed first to be a “most sinful sinner” if you wished to -become a “most Christian Christian,” and a want of recognition that -forgiveness was a spiritual and inward process, which caused the -contemptuous references to his early form of doctrine which are -scattered thickly throughout Ruskin’s later writings. - -The experiences which make epochs in men’s lives are indeed strangely -various and unexpected. Three events stand out as the destroyers of his -Protestantism and of much of his outward edifice of faith. Their year -was 1858. One was the discovery that the Puritan Sabbath of his youth -had no Scriptural authority, but based itself, without confessing it, on -the Jewish Sabbath Day, by erroneous interpretation. “If they have -deceived me in this, they have deceived me in everything,” he said. His -faith in his mother’s religious guides was gone.[8] In 1858 for the -first time he broke the Sabbath by drawing some flowers on Sunday. That -act, in him, stood for emancipation.[9] He had been finding that -Catholic Psalters were lovely things, that Catholic peasants in Tuscany -led sweet and patient lives, and that “Presbyterian prayers against time -by people who never expected to be any the better for them, were -unlovely and wrong.”[10] The same year he turned in at Turin to hear a -Waldensian pastor. This was the second event. “To an audience of about -seventeen gray-haired women and a few men, the preacher, a somewhat -stunted figure with a cracked voice, put his utmost zeal into a -consolatory discourse on the wickedness of the wide world, more -especially of the plain of Piedmont and the city of Turin, and on the -exclusive favour with God enjoyed by the between nineteen and -twenty-four elect members of his congregation, in the streets of Admah -and Zeboim.” “Myself neither cheered nor greatly alarmed by this -doctrine, I walked back into the condemned city, and up into the gallery -where Paul Veronese’s ‘Solomon and the Queen of Sheba’ glowed in full -afternoon light.” And in that hour’s meditation his “evangelical beliefs -were put away, to be debated of no more.”[11] - -But the solvent influences did not stop there. They seldom fail to -proceed. Rebuilding rather than repair is generally necessary to a -broken down system of thought. But that which left him in great darkness -was an experience which could have so affected no one but Ruskin. This -was the third event. It was the discovery at Venice that the best work -was done by irreligious painters. He found that “Tintoret only -occasionally forgot himself into religion,” and that Titian had no -religion at all, and yet had to be given as the standard of perfection -in painting. Ruskin concluded, first, and quite truly, that “human work -must be done honourably and thoroughly, because we are now men; whether -we expect to be angels, or ever were slugs, being practically no matter. -That by the work we have done and not by our belief we shall be -judged.”[12] He went on, by generalizing, to a further conclusion in -that year, afterwards to be corrected. The conclusion and the correction -divide the periods of Ruskin’s life. He concluded that the group of -great worldly painters of various nations, Turner, Titian, Velasquez, -Sir Joshua, Gainsborough, Tintoret, and Paul Veronese, did more perfect -and stronger work than the sacred army of obedient Catholics headed by -Cimabue, Giotto and Angelico, who worked under the guidance of a -heavenly vision. - -This seems a strange reason for losing faith. It can only be understood -when we remember that Ruskin regarded art as the expression of the -painter’s whole nature, especially the soul of him; and if the endowment -from heaven were really potent, it should inspire the artist to do work -that is clearly supreme. That it did not do so was Ruskin’s -stumbling-block. I will not anticipate the ultimate solution; but only -pause to mourn over the many stumbling-blocks which our theories put in -our way. Because the lot decided unfairly, Silas Marner, the wronged of -heaven, lost his faith. How many have been and are unable to see through -pain and poverty to God. How many have bound their faith to the accuracy -of a record or the fidelity of a frail fellow-creature. - -Of the religious utterances of this first period, which ended in 1858, -the second volume of _Modern Painters_ is the most typical. To me, it -was the door by which in 1882 I entered into my love of Ruskin the -author, as _Fors_ led me to love and reverence the man. The subject is -an analysis of Beauty as a various expression of the mind of God. It is -published separately; it is not a long book; and it might be read for a -second time along with the Author’s notes of 1883. These give us the -verdict of age upon the enthusiasm of its own youth, and are vastly -entertaining. Even as Tennyson, in his “Locksley Hall Sixty Years -After,” puts his quietus upon the ebullitions of the most rhythmic and -moving utterance of his youth, so does Ruskin, with mocking self-blame, -speak with fatherly candour to the Oxford Graduate of 1845. - -To this period, too, belongs his avowedly theological pamphlet, _Notes -on the Construction of Sheepfolds_. It is of 1851, attacks -ecclesiastical pretensions on Scriptural grounds, and in spite of its -sectarian limitations was considered so sound in its main drift that the -author reissued it in his mature period. - -He states that all his works up to 1853 are marred by his narrow -Protestant dogmatism. Now 1858, as we have seen, was his year of freedom -from it, and from much that was more precious. Between 1853 and 1858 -came out volumes iii and iv of _Modern Painters_, the _Lectures on -Architecture and Painting_ at Edinburgh, and the lectures at Manchester -on the _Political Economy of Art_. The last marks transition. It is the -forerunner of the next period; it shows us how his way of treating Art -led him on to Economics. But it is of great interest to study his -position in these two volumes of _Modern Painters_. They are as -religious as ever, and as devout; but between Catholic and Protestant, -frequently brought into contrast, they hold the scales of judgment. The -author casts the lantern of criticism impartially upon both, but his -own faith in the great verities still holds. It is plain, however, that -conduct was rising to the chief place in his mind. The Sermon on the -Mount was becoming, what it ever afterwards remained to him, the central -teaching of the Christian faith. - -If we omit the Poems of his boyhood and youth, and his early minor -scientific contributions to journals, and begin his career as a writer -for the public with the year 1842, when he wrote the first volume of -_Modern Painters_, published next year, we have sixteen years of -authorship for the Early Period. We have also, oddly enough, sixteen -years of authorship, 1858 to 1874, for his Middle Period, shortly to be -described; and if we give sixteen years for the mature period also, that -brings us to 1890, only a few months after the last number of -_Præterita_ struggled into the light from his failing pen. He wrote no -more. We thus have three periods, Early, Middle, and Mature, each of -sixteen years, not difficult to remember, 1842-1858, 1858-1874, and -1874-1890. It is a testimony to his utter frankness and undimmed candour -that we are able thus to map out the growth of his convictions. - -For a growth it was, all the time, though apparently 1858 was a year of -wreck and ruin. We cannot put new wine into old wineskins. His middle -period was the time for the analytical tendency of his mind to have its -way. Mazzini had already said that Ruskin had the most analytic mind in -Europe; and now that searching analysis which had discovered Luini and -placed Tintoretto, and had penetrated, by a way of its own, far into the -hidden secret of Beauty, could not be denied when it faced the -stronghold of the Christian revelation, even though his own heart and -every fibre of his sensitive nature was within the fortress attacked. - -His economic crusade began in 1860; and on his spiritually desolated -heart was piled the sorrow of the social system. Hermit and heretic he -became, in religion and economics alike. Victorious in his championship -of Turner and the Pre-raphaelites, whom single-handed he had placed on -the pinnacle they have never lost, he had the literary and artistic -world at his feet. This great position he cast aside to enter on a -sterner battle. The recognized leader of taste, the arbiter of -reputations, turned aside to abuse so good a man as John Stuart Mill, to -say the most shocking things about the clergy and the clergy’s wives, -to testify against rent and interest, to blaspheme that steam power by -which England was conquering the world, and to utter strange hesitating -sayings which showed that he was not sure of a life to come. Nor could -he brave the storm with the self-confident dogmatism of youth. “I seldom -now feel sure of anything,” he wrote in the first Christmas issue of -_Fors_, “still seldomer, however, do I feel sure of the contrary of -anything.”[13] When we add that this period was marked by the loss of -his parents, who had been everything to him, and by a grievous -disappointment in love--for the girl who loved him would not marry him -because he was not orthodox, so far as reasons can ever be given for -such decisions, but died of a decline instead--we shall see how heavy -was the lonely task set before him to do. Nor had the veneration of -disciples and the growing recognition of all good men come to him yet; -it came afterwards, built the prophet’s shrine, in his lifetime -certainly,[14] but only after the world’s neglect, and his failure even -to carry his own friends with him, had helped to break the powers of -his mind and set his brain reeling in recurring attacks of delirious -inflammation. He was, in that madness, being offered upon the sacrifice -and service of our faith. - -During this middle period of prime mental power, he wrote nineteen -volumes, and numerous catalogues and pamphlets. They are, in order of -time: _The Two Paths_, _Modern Painters_, vol. v., _Unto This Last_, -_Munera Pulveris_, _Sesame and Lilies_, _The Ethics of the Dust_, _The -Crown of Wild Olive_, _Time and Tide_, _The Queen of the Air_, _Lectures -on Art at Oxford_, the first half of _Flors Clavigera_, _Aratra -Pentelici_, _The Eagle’s Nest_, _Love’s Meinie_, _Ariadne Florentina_, -_Val D’Arno_, and most of the papers reprinted in _On the Old Road_. As -an author he was in his full strength. - -The significance of the period is that under the most painful -uncertainties of doctrine, true religion shone still, blazed beaconlike, -in fact: blazed as a beacon blazes when blown by tempest. But few -readers ever thought of the writer as a heretic. He preached all the -time the simple eternal sanction for right conduct which the nature of -man, akin to the Divine, provides. He recognized the ineradicable claim -which the teaching of the New Testament has upon our obedience. He -attacked the Churches, not for being too Christian, but for not being -anything like Christian enough. Referring to his mother’s gift of -twenty-six chapters learnt by heart, he says in 1874:-- - -“The chapters became, indeed, strictly conclusive and protective to me -in all modes of thought; and the body of divinity they contain, -acceptable through all fear or doubt; nor, through any fear or doubt or -fault have I ever lost my loyalty to them, nor betrayed the first -command in the one I was made to repeat oftenest: ‘Let not Mercy and -Truth forsake thee.’ And at my present age of fifty-five, in spite of -some enlarged observations of what modern philosophers call the Reign of -Law, I perceive more distinctly than ever the Reign of a Spirit of Mercy -and Truth--infinite in pardon and purification for its wandering and -faultful children, who have yet Love in their hearts; and altogether -adverse and implacable to its perverse and lying enemies, who have -resolute hatred in their hearts, and resolute falsehood on their -lips.”[15] - -The classical passage, as I should esteem it, for this period is in -_The Eagle’s Nest_,[16] the Oxford Lectures of 1872; which contain some -of his most careful religious writing: - -“All of you who have ever read your Gospels carefully must have wondered -sometimes, what could be the meaning of those words, ‘If any speak -against the Son of Man it shall be forgiven; but if against the Holy -Spirit it shall not be forgiven, neither in this world nor in the next.’ -The passage may have many meanings which I do not know; but one meaning -I know positively, and I tell you so just as frankly as I would that I -knew the meaning of a verse in Homer. Those of you who still go to -Chapel say every day your creed; and, I suppose, too often, less and -less every day believing it. Now, you may cease to believe two articles -of it, and--admitting Christianity to be true--still be forgiven. But I -can tell you, you must not cease to believe the third! - -“You begin by saying that you believe in an Almighty Father. Well, you -may entirely lose the sense of that Fatherhood and yet be forgiven. - -“You go on to say that you believe in a Saviour Son. You may entirely -lose the sense of that Sonship and yet be forgiven. - -“But the third article--disbelieve if you dare! ‘I believe in the Holy -Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life.’ Disbelieve that! and your own being -is degraded into the state of dust driven by the wind; and the elements -of dissolution have entered your very heart and soul. - -“All Nature, with one voice--with one glory--is set to teach you -reverence for the life communicated to you from the Father of Spirits. -The song of birds, and their plumage, the scent of flowers, their -colour, their very existence, are in direct connection with the mystery -of that communicated life: and all the strength, and all the arts of -men, are measured by and founded upon their reverence for the passion, -and their guardianship of the purity, of Love.” - -Such is the utmost asceticism of the soul; the most careful and -determined assimilation of the least quantity of the bread of life. We -may sum his creed in the words: Happy are the pure in heart, for they -yet in their flesh shall see the light of Heaven and know the will of -God. - -Perhaps the question of Divine Personality may be felt even in our most -audacious moments to be beyond our analysis. I do not count the word -Personality a very helpful one, one way or the other. It is clearly on -the human plane, must be imperfect, and may seriously limit our thought -of God. Tennyson’s favourite prayer was “O Thou Infinite, Amen.” And -with this much of personal address or aspiration our souls may surely -rest. Take this as a satisfying account of the Creative Logos of the -Greeks, written in the light of evolution, in 1869 (_Queen of the Air_, -pp. 124-6): - -“With respect to all these divisions and powers of plants--it does not -matter in the least by what concurrences of circumstance or necessity -they may gradually have been developed: the concurrence of circumstance -is itself the supreme and inexplicable fact. We always come at last to a -formative cause, which directs the circumstance, and mode of meeting it. -If you ask an ordinary botanist the reason of the form of a leaf, he -will tell you it is ‘a developed tubercle,’ and that ‘its ultimate form -is owing to the directions of its vascular threads.’ But what directs -its vascular threads? ‘They are seeking for something they want’ he will -probably answer. What makes them want that? What made them seek for it -thus? Seek for it, in five fibres or in three? Seek for it, in -serration, or in sweeping curves? Seek for it, in servile tendrils, or -impetuous spray? Seek for it, in woollen wrinkles rough with stings, or -in glossy surfaces, green with pure strength, and winterless delight? - -“There is no answer. But, the sum of all is, that over the entire -surface of the earth and its waters, as influenced by the power of the -air under solar light, there is developed a series of changing forms, in -clouds, plants and animals, all of which have reference in their action -or nature, to the human intelligence that perceives them; and on which, -in their aspects of horror and beauty, and their qualities of good and -evil, there is engraved a series of myths or words of the forming power, -which, according to the true passion and energy of the human race, they -have been enabled to read into religion. And this forming power has been -by all nations partly confused with the breath of air through which it -acts, and partly understood as a creative wisdom, proceeding from the -Supreme Deity; but entering into and inspiring all intelligences that -work in harmony with Him. And whatever intellectual results may be in -modern days obtained by regarding this effluence only as a motion or -vibration, every formative human art hitherto, and the best states of -human happiness and order, have depended on the apprehension of its -mystery (which is certain), and of its personality (which is probable).” - -He concludes that lecture, the second in _The Queen of the Air_, with -these words: - -“This only we may discern assuredly; this, every true light of science, -every mercifully granted power, every wisely restricted thought, teach -us more clearly day by day, that in the heaven above, and the earth -beneath, there is one continual and omnipotent presence of help, and of -peace, for all men who know that they Live, and remember that they Die.” - -To quote from the religious teaching of these fruitful years would be an -endless task; I must only refer, I fear, without quoting any of it, to -_The Mystery of Life and its Arts_, printed in the complete edition of -_Sesame and Lilies_; a characteristic and pathetic exhortation, and -chiefly perhaps, to §10-16 of the Introduction to _The Crown of Wild -Olive_. - -So much for his constructive teaching. But he was a destroyer too. The -peculiarity of his position and the cause of his loneliness was that he -was always throwing his darts not only into the camp of the business men -and their allies the economists, but also into the two religious camps, -generally opposed to one another, held, one by the clergy, the other by -the materialistic men of science. He rebuked both parties for their -assumptions, and he smote them with all the artillery of sarcasm, wit -and indignation. “You have to guard against the fatalest darkness of the -two opposite Prides: the Pride of Faith, which imagines that the nature -of the Deity can be defined by its convictions; and the Pride of -Science, which imagines that the energy of Deity can be explained by its -analysis.”[17] As sword-play it is fine. He gives what purports to be a -scientific account of Shakespeare: so much water, so much carbo-hydrate -and phosphorus, and thus you build up your organism called William -Shakespeare--with, of course, something left out. He was ever dwelling -on the realities of the spirit which chemistry omits. The fashionable -scientific materialism of the seventies he utterly abhorred: he behaved -to it as St. George to the Dragon. He loathed anatomy, mocked at the -idea that you understood a creature by cutting up its remains; and when -the men of science at Oxford proceeded to vivisection he threw up his -professorship in flaming wrath, sick at heart; every sentiment of -mercy, every safe doctrine of science violated in unholy cruelty and -impatience. - -He describes the limitations of “some scientific minds, which in their -judgment of the Universe can be compared to nothing so accurately as to -the woodworms in the panel of a picture by some great painter, if we may -conceive them as tasting with discrimination of the wood, and with -repugnance of the colour, and declaring that even this unlooked for and -undesirable combination is a normal result of the action of molecular -Forces.”[18] - -We pass on to the third period of sixteen years, the Mature Period as I -call it, from 1874 to 1890, when his productive life ended. He now came -to know more fully the fullness of faith. Here he entered into his -reward, I say. The revelation of God to him became clearer, sweeter, -mightier. As in 1858, the time of crisis was marked by two events which -occurred that year, one in things spiritual and one in things -artistic.[19] - -The artistic event of 1874 was a reversal of the puzzling judgment of -1858 to the effect that the worldly painters excelled the devout ones. -It came about through his copying one of Giotto’s frescoes on the roof -of the Lower Church at Assisi. He was allowed to erect a platform in -that dark church over the High Altar, that he might see the picture. -There he discovered that Giotto was only beaten by Tintoret in mere -science, technique, laws of perspective, composition and light and -shade, and that religion had solemnized and developed every faculty of -Giotto’s heart and hand. The Franciscan monastery at Assisi is one of -the most sacred places on earth anyhow, but 1874 saw one more gift of -light there vouchsafed, and a haunting problem solved. Art was to Ruskin -a visible manifestation of life’s full faculties, in a department he -specially understood; and religion, which is the source of strength and -the support of character, he thought should be judged by its output. - -Now we turn to the second event. His hopes of the reality of a Spirit -world received unexpected and potent confirmation from the fact that in -December, 1875, he had, at the house of Lord Mount Temple, at -Broadlands, Romsey, some psychic experience so definite that he was -convinced that he had true communication with her whom he had lately -lost, the “Rosie” of _Præterita_, No. XXVII.[20] It was a confirmation -to his faith. He became an Honorary Member of the Society for Psychical -Research the year after its formation in 1882, joining in that -well-grounded hope that a true science of human Personality might be -built up by its patient experimental methods. To Lady Mount Temple, -_née_ Tollemache, the Egeria of the winter of 1840 in Rome, we owe much -for the help she was to Ruskin all through life; and much also that from -her came the stimulus to Frederick W. H. Myers and Edmund Gurney to -begin the Society for Psychical Research. Two of Ruskin’s stories of -Death wraiths may be found in _Fors_,[21] also a dream in Letter LXV. He -never took to ordinary spiritualism; it is indeed from an attack upon it -that he turns to a note describing the happiness of his own experience. -“I leave this passage as it was written; though as it passes through the -press, it is ordered by Atropos that I should hear a piece of evidence -on this matter no less clear as to the present ministry of such powers -as that which led Peter out of prison, than all the former, or nearly -all the former, evidence examined by me was of the presence of the -legion which ruled among the tombs of Gennesaret.”[22] He allows the -contradiction to stand; indeed, in this puzzling and partially known -subject, a consistent position is beyond the knowledge of most. He -returns to the attack on Spiritualism, however, in his 1883 note to the -second volume of _Modern Painters_, p. 244. - -In the following year, 1876, at Venice at Christmas, he had vouchsafed -to himself the inward assurance of an immortal life; he entered into a -singular happiness; _Fors_ became the organ of a mysticism truly -Johannine; he loved to expound universal Christian truth, so catholic -indeed in the true sense that Cardinal Manning aspired to turn him to -Rome. That was a vain hope. He still retained his analytical faculty. He -says that he would “give up Moses” if criticism demanded it.[23] -Concerning his lectures of 1877 at Oxford he writes to Miss Beever in -the “hortus inclusus” at Coniston that he has been able for the first -time to speak boldly to the students of immortal life. The concluding -passage of the last lecture is this:[24] - -“But obey the word in its simplicity, in wholeness of purpose and with -severity of sacrifice, like this of the Venetian Maids’, and truly you -shall receive sevenfold into your bosom in this present life, as in the -world to come, life everlasting.” “He shall give his angels charge over -you, to keep you in all your ways; and the peace of God, which passeth -all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ -Jesus.” It came to be true of himself that “if life be led under -heaven’s law, the sense of heaven’s nearness only deepens with advancing -years, and is assured in death.”[25] - -“The faith of the saints and prophets rising into serenity of knowledge, -‘I know that my Redeemer liveth’ is a state of mind of which ordinary -men cannot reason; but which, in the practical power of it, has always -governed the world, and must for ever. No dynamite will ever be invented -that can rule--it can but dissolve and destroy. Only the Word of God and -the heart of man can govern.”[26] - -We cannot conclude this analysis better than by quoting from the last -number of _Fors_ in 1884: - -“Looking back upon my efforts for the last twenty years, I believe that -their failure has been in great part owing to my compromise with the -infidelity of this outer world, and my endeavours to base my pleading -upon motives of ordinary prudence and kindness, instead of on the -primary duty of loving God; foundation other than which no man can lay. -I thought myself speaking to a crowd which could only be influenced by -visible utility; nor was I the least aware how many entirely good and -holy persons were living in the faith and love of God as vividly and -practically now as ever in the early enthusiasm of Christendom. These -have shown me, with lovely initiation, in how many secret places the -prayer was made which I had foolishly listened for at the corners of the -streets, and on how many hills which I had thought left desolate, the -hosts of heaven still moved in chariots of fire.”[27] These passages -show that F. W. H. Myers, in the beautiful obituary which I am permitted -to print as an Epilogue, was not correct in describing the experience -with the medium at Broadlands, as Ruskin’s one brief season of blissful -trust in the Unseen. It is true of his temporary belief in spiritualism. - -I trust it will have become clear that Ruskin’s spiritual history is not -a story of arbitrary and fanciful changes without connected -significance. It is the orderly development of a research, by a man -singularly qualified to hold a religious Research Fellowship. - -He may be said to have matriculated in religion at his mother’s knee. -There he learnt his Bible. He took a degree with the second volume of -_Modern Painters_ and the works allied to it in spirit. He then became a -Master of Arts, qualified to teach, a recognized religious authority -among many authorities. Had he never gone to Venice and seen Tintoret he -might have built, so he says, a Catholic archiepiscopal palace at York -instead of a museum at Sheffield; or he might have been such a man as -Dean Church or John Henry Newman, on Calvinistic Protestant lines. But -Ruskin proceeded to a higher status. He must needs penetrate deeper; and -in the crisis of 1858 he took his Fellowship by a thesis on the -Irreducible Minimum of the Religious Outfit. Thenceforth he carried on -a research, he was a “seeker after God,” often wrote “in much darkness -and sorrow of heart”; and in sixteen years the conclusions were ready, -the convictions matured, the saint perfected. - - - - -_CHAPTER III_ - -_TO WHAT FOLD?_ - - -To what school of thought or to which among our denominations, if to -any, can Ruskin be said to belong? He did not actively, in mature life, -belong to any, or attend Church or Chapel. Let us examine his doctrines -in this connection. - -The first point which strikes the inquirer is Ruskin’s strong hostility -to professionalism in religion, to payment for preaching. Against a -separate order of clergy, maintained for that object, and claiming a -certain position by reason of their ministration, he was the most -poignant voice of his time, from inside Christianity. Letters XXXVIII, -XLIX, and LXII of _Fors Clavigera_ are full of the most unrestrained -expression of this testimony. We will quote: - -“The particular kinds of folly also which lead youths to become -clergymen, uncalled, are specially intractable. That a lad just out of -his teens, and not under the influence of any deep religious enthusiasm, -should ever contemplate the possibility of his being set up in the -middle of a mixed company of men and women of the world, to instruct the -aged, encourage the valiant, support the weak, reprove the guilty, and -set an example to all; and not feel what a ridiculous and blasphemous -business it would be, if he only pretended to do it for hire; and what a -ghastly and murderous business it would be if he did it strenuously -wrong; and what a marvellous and all but incredible thing the Church and -its power must be, if it were possible for him, with all the good -meaning in the world, to do it rightly--that any youth, I say, should -ever have got himself into the state of recklessness or conceit, -required to become a clergyman at all, under existing circumstances, -must put him quite out of the pale of those whom one appeals to on any -reasonable or moral question, in serious writing.... There is certainly -no Bishop now in the Church of England who would either dare in a full -drawing-room to attribute to himself the gift of prophecy, in so many -words; or to write at the head of any of his sermons, ‘On such and such -a day, of such and such a month, in such and such a place, the Word of -the Lord came unto me, saying’:--Nevertheless he claims to have received -the Holy Ghost himself by laying on of hands; and to be able to -communicate the Holy Ghost to other men in the same manner. And he knows -that the office of the prophet is as simply recognized in the -enumeration of the powers of the ancient church, as that of the apostle -or evangelist or doctor. And yet he can neither point out in the Church -the true prophets, to whose number he dares not say that he himself -belongs, nor the false prophets, who are casting out devils in the name -of Christ without being known by him.... But the word ‘Priest’ is one -which he finds it convenient to assume himself, and to give to his -fellow clergymen. He knows, just as well as he knows prophecy to be a -gift attributed to the Christian minister, that priesthood is a function -expressly taken away from the Christian minister (as distinguished, that -is to say, from other members of the Church). He dares not say in the -open drawing-room that he offers sacrifice for any soul there; and he -knows that he cannot give authority for calling himself a priest from -any canonical book of the New Testament. So he equivocates on the sound -of the word ‘Presybter.’ ...”[28] - -“This preaching of Christ has, nevertheless, become an acknowledged -profession and means of livelihood for gentlemen: and the simony of -to-day differs only from that of apostolic times, in that, while the -elder Simon thought the gift of the Holy Ghost worth a considerable -offer in ready money, the modern Simon would on the whole refuse to -accept the same gift of the Third Person of the Trinity, without a nice -little attached income, a pretty church, with a steeple restored by Mr. -Scott, and an eligible neighbourhood.”[29] - -And, in soberer vein: “No way will ever be found of rightly ordaining -men who have taken up the trade of preaching as a means of livelihood, -and to whom it is a matter of personal interest whether they preach in -one place or another; only those who have left their means of living, -that they may preach, and whose peace follows them as they wander, and -abides where they enter in, are of God’s ordaining; and practically -until the Church insists that every one of her ministers shall either -have an independent income, or support himself for his ministry on -Sunday by true bodily toil during the week, no word of the living Gospel -will ever be spoken from her pulpits. How many of those who now occupy -them have verily been invited to such office by the Holy Ghost may be -easily judged by observing how many the Holy Ghost has similarly invited -of religious persons already in prosperous business or desirable -position.”[30] - -Another passage from another place runs: “Take the desire of -teaching--the entirely unselfish and noble instinct for telling to those -who are ignorant the truth we know, and guarding them from the errors we -see them in danger of--there is no nobler, no more constant instinct in -honourable breasts; but let the Devil formalise it, and mix the pride of -a profession with it--get foolish people entrusted with the business of -instruction, and make their giddy heads giddier by putting them up in -pulpits above a submissive crowd--and you have it instantly corrupted -into its own reverse; you have an alliance against the light (saying) -‘Light is in us only. Shut your eyes close and fast and we will lead -you.’”[31] - -In another place he says the difficult question is not, why workmen -don’t go to church, but--why other people do. He asks,[32] “What -Scripture warrant there is for the offices and authority of the clergy, -and defies anyone to find any.” Their functions, he says, must depend on -the needs of the time. “Robinson Crusoe, on his island, wants no Bishop, -and makes a thunderstorm do for an evangelist. The University of Oxford -would do ill without its Bishop, but wants an evangelist besides, and -that forthwith.” - -He says that by yielding to the impression that the most sacred calling -is that of the clergy, “the sacred character of the layman himself is -forgotten, and his own ministerial duty is neglected,” and so laymen -wrongly “devote their whole time and energy to the business of this -world. No mistake can possibly be greater. Every member of the Church is -equally bound to the service of the Head of the Church, and that service -is pre-eminently the saving of souls. There is not a moment of a man’s -active life in which he may not be indirectly preaching, and throughout -a great part of his life he ought to be directly preaching, and teaching -both strangers and friends.” This is from the _Sheepfolds_ pamphlet of -1851; at that time he nevertheless contemplates church officers of a -sort, as organizers, deacons, or visitors, and thinks they may be -maintained for their special work, and includes religious instruction -and exhortation among these duties. But this last advice he supersedes -in _Fors_ of 1873 and later dates, when he places preaching on a purely -amateur basis, in the passages quoted already, and similar ones. - -“All good judging, and all good preaching, must be given gratis. Look -back to what I have incidentally said of lawyers and clergy, as -professional--that is to say, as living by their judgment, and sermons. -You will perhaps now be able to receive my conclusive statement, that -all such professional sale of justice and mercy is a deadly sin. A man -may sell the work of his hands, but not his equity, nor his piety. Let -him live by his spade, and if his neighbours find him wise enough to -decide a dispute between them, or if he is in modesty and simplicity -able to give them a piece of pious advice, let him do so, in Heaven’s -name, but not take a fee for it.”[33] - -In Letter XIII of _Time and Tide_ and in _Sesame and Lilies_ § 22 he -explains the sort of functions he would give to his Bishops, as -described in Chapter V. - -We have incidentally alluded to Ruskin’s teaching on the Priesthood of -all Believers. He asserts that all members of the Universal Church are -Priests,[34] that the exclusive priestly claim of the Clergy is -“blasphemous,” and has no shadow of excuse, “because it has been -ordained by the Holy Spirit that no Christian minister shall once call -himself a Priest as distinguished from his flock from one end of the New -Testament to the other.” - -Schools of religious thought are discriminated by nothing so decisively -as by their attitude to the Bible. They are classed at once if they call -the Bible the Word of God. This bad and quite unauthorized habit has -blinded many eyes. Ruskin attacks it again and again. “The error -consists, first, in declaring a bad translation of a group of books of -various qualities, accidentally associated, to be the Word of God. -Secondly, reading of this singular Word of God, only the bits they like, -and never taking any pains to understand even those. Thirdly, resolutely -refusing to practise even the small bits they do understand, if such -practice happen to go against their own worldly--especially -money--interests.”[35] - -Compare this severe passage with one from _The Ethics of the Dust_, V § -59: “The way in which common people read their Bibles is just like the -way that the old monks thought hedgehogs ate grapes. They rolled -themselves (it was said), over and over, where the grapes lay on the -ground: what fruit stuck to their spines, they carried off and ate. So -your hedgehoggy readers roll themselves over and over their Bibles, and -declare that whatever sticks to their own spines is Scripture, and that -nothing else is.”[36] - -But Ruskin is not satisfied with negative teaching on this great -subject. He tells us what the Word of God is, as well as what it is not: - -“By that Word, or Voice, or Breath, or Spirit, the heavens and earth, -and all the host of them, were made, and in it they exist. It is your -life; and speaks to you always, so long as you live nobly; dies out of -you as you refuse to obey it; leaves you to hear, and be slain by, the -word of an evil spirit, instead. It may come to you in books--come to -you in clouds--come to you in the voices of men--come to you in the -stillness of deserts. You must be strong in evil, if you have quenched -it wholly;--very desolate in this Christian land, if you have never -heard it at all.”[37] - -Much may be gleaned from a man’s use of the word Church. Is it a -building, or a select and limited outward community or more than either? -Ruskin, interpreting Scripture in his _Sheepfolds_,[38] finds a Low -Church divine giving the meaning of the word Church to be an “external -institution of certain forms of worship.” He therefore suggests the -following emendations: “Unto the angel of the external institution of -certain forms of worship at Ephesus write,” and “Salute the brethren -which are at Laodicea, and Nymphas, and the external institution of -certain forms of worship which is in his house.” - -“I continually see subscriptions of ten, fifteen, or twenty thousand -pounds for new churches. Now a good clergyman never wants a church. He -can say all that his congregation essentially need to hear in any of his -parishioners’ best parlours, or upper chambers, or in the ball-room at -the Nag’s Head; or if these are not large enough, in the market-place, -or the harvest field. And until every soul in the parish is cared for, -and saved from such sorrow of body or mind as alms can give comfort in, -no clergyman, but in sin or heresy, can ask for a church at all. What -does he want with altars? Was the Lord’s Supper eaten on one? What with -pews?--unless rents for the pride of them? What with font and -pulpit?--that the next wayside brook, or mossy bank, cannot give him? -The temple of Christ is in His people--His order, to feed them--His -throne, alike of audience and of judgment, in Heaven: were it otherwise, -even the churches which we have already are not always open for -prayer.”[39] - -He suggests that we can decide “who are Christ’s sheep, not by their -being in any definite fold, for many are lost sheep sometimes; but by -their sheeplike behaviour; and a great many are indeed sheep which, on -the far mountain side, in their peacefulness, we take for stones.”[40] -This is a delightful expression of the feeling that you may be a child -of God, without having heard of the Christian Revelation of Him. - -To make Baptism a sign of admission into the visible Church he says is -absurd; “for we know that half the baptized people in the world are very -visible rogues. Also the Holy Ghost is sometimes given before Baptism, -and it would be absurdity to call a man on whom the Holy Ghost had -fallen, an invisible Christian.”[41] - -On the Sacrament he declared to a correspondent in 1888 that he would -take it from anybody’s hand, the Pope’s, the Queen’s or a hedgeside -gipsy’s, and quoted Longfellow’s lines: - - “A holy family, that makes - Each meal a supper of the Lord.” - -He is drastic in his rejection of all Prayer Books. Prayers out of a -book are no prayers to him; he cannot think that varying needs are met -by routine prayer. These statements are in his _Letters to the Clergy on -the Lord’s Prayer and the Church_ (1879), reprinted in _On the Old -Road_, p. 325, and he comments on the distrust in the efficacy of prayer -likely to be produced by having to ask one day “that the rest of our -lives hereafter may be pure and holy,” knowing that next day, or at -least next Sunday, we shall be expected to confess that “there is no -health in us.” He seriously suspects the effect of the Liturgy on the -truthfulness of the English mind. - -When he discusses the vital problem of the seat of Authority in religion -he declares that it ultimately resides within, not in an outward Church -or Book. He is absolutely uncompromising about this. - -“There is, therefore, in matters of doctrine, no such thing as the -authority of the Church. We might as well talk of the authority of a -morning cloud. There may be light in it, but the light is not of it; and -it diminishes the light that it gets; and lets less of it through than -it receives, Christ being its sun. Or, we might as well talk of the -authority of a flock of sheep--for the Church is a body to be taught and -fed, not to teach and feed; and of all sheep that are fed on the earth, -Christ’s sheep are the most simple,” likely to die in the bramble -thickets; “but for their Shepherd, who is for ever finding them and -bearing them back, with torn fleeces and eyes full of fear.”[42] - -There is also an interesting passage in _The Eagle’s Nest_ (p. 135) on -“The Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” - -By way of Church discipline he advises a process of excommunication by a -jury of laymen.[43] - -What of religious decorative art? Surely here the great art critic and -apostle of the Beautiful will be found on the ritualist side? Not so. He -says that Church art, pictures, images, and so on, “make us believe what -we would not otherwise have believed; and, secondly, make us think of -subjects we should not otherwise have thought of, intruding them amidst -our ordinary thoughts in a confusing and familiar manner.” “This art,” -he says, “is misapplied, and in most cases, very dangerously so. Our -duty is to believe in the existence of Divine, or any other, persons, -only upon rational proofs of their existence; and not because we have -seen pictures of them.” - -“But I nevertheless believe that he who trusts much to such helps (as -‘Rafaelesque and other sacred paintings of a high order’) will find them -fail him at his need; and that the dependence, in any great degree, on -the presence or power of a picture, indicates a wonderfully feeble sense -of the presence and power of God. I do not think that any man, who is -thoroughly certain that Christ is in the room, will care what sort of -picture of Christ he has on its walls and, in the plurality of cases, -the delight taken in art of this kind is, in reality, nothing more than -a form of graceful indulgence of those sensibilities which the habits of -a disciplined life restrain in other directions. Such art is, in a word, -the opera and drama of the monk. Sometimes it is worse than this, and -the love of it is the mask under which a general thirst for morbid -excitement will pass itself off for religion. The young lady who rises -in the middle of the day, jaded by her last night’s ball, and utterly -incapable of any simple or wholesome religious exercise, can still gaze -into the dark eyes of the Madonna di San Sisto, or dream over the -whiteness of an ivory crucifix, and returns to the course of her daily -life in full persuasion that her morning’s feverishness has atoned for -her evening’s folly. And, all the while, the art which possesses these -very doubtful advantages is acting for undoubtful detriment, in the -various ways above examined (in a previous passage), on the inmost -fastnesses of faith; it is throwing subtle endearments round foolish -traditions, confusing sweet fancies with sound doctrines, and enforcing -false assertions with pleasant circumstantiality, until, to the usual, -and assuredly sufficient, difficulties standing in the way of belief, -its votaries have added a habit of sentimentally changing what they know -to be true, and of dearly loving what they confess to be false.” - -“Has there then (the reader asks emphatically) been no true religious -ideal? Has religious art never been of any service to mankind? I fear, -on the whole, not. - -“More, I think, has always been done for God by few words than many -pictures, and more by few acts than many words.” - -“And for us all there is in this matter even a deeper danger than that -of indulgence. There is the danger of Artistical Pharisaism. Of all the -forms of pride and vanity, as there are none more subtle, so I believe -there are none more sinful, than those which are manifested by the -Pharisees of art. To be proud of birth, of place, of wit, of bodily -beauty, is comparatively innocent, just because such pride is more -natural, and more easily detected. But to be proud of our sanctities; to -pour contempt upon our fellows because, forsooth, we like to look at -Madonnas in bowers of roses, better than at plain pictures of plain -things; and to make this religious art of ours the expression of our own -perpetual self-complacency--congratulating ourselves, day by day, on -our purities, proprieties, elevations, and inspirations, as above the -reach of common mortals, this I believe to be one of the wickedest and -foolishest forms of human egotism.”[44] - -These clear-sounding testimonies form a coherent whole. Is there any -religious body in England which holds all, or even most of these -positions? Remarkably enough, there is one which holds them all; indeed, -whose separate existence depends on holding just these positions, -positive and negative alike. This one is the Society of Friends. We find -to our surprise that, without knowing it, Ruskin was a real and very -completely furnished Quaker. - -The testimony against a paid or professional clergy, against all -clerical claims, is the very heart of Quaker practice; and the _raison -d’être_ of their separate meetings. The Priesthood of all Believers is -at the heart of their official statements, and the implication in their -ministry. They say that there should be no laity among them, exactly as -Ruskin does. They decline all forms of fixed or routine prayer, and -never practise them. Their meeting houses are plain, and their worship -is ascetically devoid of sensuous attraction in glowing glass or carven -stone or in the odour of incense. - -It is one of their central historical testimonies, dating from the -seventeenth century, that the Bible should not be called the Word of -God. For this they were called atheists by the clergy of Charles II. The -controversies of that time rarely avoided touching on this sore point. -For them, as for Ruskin, the seat of authority is The Light Within, and, -like Ruskin, they are willing to “give up Moses” if history demands it. - -The attitude of Ruskin to Baptism and the Lord’s Supper is a thoroughly -Quaker one. Both hold that they are unnecessary and have no “Validity.” -The only “Church” they recognize is the Universal Church composed of all -faithful men everywhere; and as Ruskin speaks of sheep on distant -mountains who look like stones, so Friends have always held that the -heathen were or could be saints of the household of God, and that -knowledge of the historical Jesus Christ was not essential to salvation -here or hereafter. - -There is a remarkable omission too. So far as I know Ruskin never speaks -of Hell, as an article of faith. Nor does it ever occur in Quaker -ministry. - -It is almost uncanny that there is an agreement also on minor -testimonies which might appear accidental. Friends do not approve of -mourning garments, though there is in this generation some weakness -about this. Ruskin thinks that “the people who really believe in -immortality must be few, else why the Church’s singular habit of putting -on mourning for every one summoned to be with Christ, which is far -better.”[45] - -It is well known that Friends refuse to take judicial Oaths, and gave a -handle thereby to hostile magistrates, when other handles slipped away. -Ruskin says plainly that Oaths are “disobedience to the teaching of -Christ.”[46] - -I believe we have now mentioned all the points of Quakerism, except the -testimony against all War. From Chapter VIII devoted to this, it is -clear that Ruskin was generally, but not always, on Quaker lines. He -wobbled somewhat, and felt puzzled, and I am afraid that a certain -number of Friends have done the same at times of crisis. - -Lastly, the Quaker simplicity of life, the avoidance of luxury and -social pretensions, the fixing of attention chiefly on the things of -the spirit, are Ruskin’s dearest delight, the subject of his most -earnest pleas. Take one: - -“The uses, and the desire, of seclusion, of meditation, of restraint, -and of correction, are they not passing from us in the collision of -worldly interests, and restless contests of mean hope and meaner fear? -The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear?”[47] - -For a man who, in the name and for the sake of spiritual things, fought -the good fight of a reformer during two generations, Ruskin was but -little brought into personal friendship with members of the Society of -Friends. George Baker, of Bewdley, who was one of the early donors to -the St. George’s Guild and was long one of its Trustees, and afterwards -its Master, is the principal personal link he had with the Society. -Henry Swan, formerly his curator at the Sheffield Museum, was a Friend. - -When the writer, as one of a party of Friends, was kindly shown over -Brantwood by its owner in 1884, the only things he had to say to us -about Quakerism in the course of a forty minutes’ talk, were a little -homily on sectarianism, contrasted with a church of “God-fearing -people,” including Catholics and Turks--a little chaff about our -failing in the matter of usury to literally obey our Bibles, as he -supposed we thought we always tried to do--and an astonishing -pronouncement that “Your early Friends would have carried all before -them, if they had not opposed that which is obeyed by the whole of the -animal creation--the love of colour.” We must take this as one of the -characteristic plunges into emphasis (some well-balanced people would -use a stronger term perhaps), which are a cause at once of his strength -as a stimulating teacher, and of his insufficiency as an infallible -oracle, to be mechanically interpreted. - -These three utterances, however, slight as they are, show a misreading -of Quakerism. We are, I trust, the least sectional of little sects. The -religion of the Light Within is at the basis of all other religions too; -it is the absolute religion, religion reduced to its simplest, and it -brings us into sympathetic connection with Evangelical, Ritualist, Jew, -Mohammedan and “heathen,” so far as these have the Divine Spirit shining -through their particular forms of thought and practice. Also, of all -people, we are the least prone to unintelligent Biblical literalism, and -are quite unlikely to be stumbled by the Mosaic regulations about -usury. There is a measure of truth in his third statement about -“colour,” if by that he meant, in a comprehensive sense, those -recreations which relieve the strain of a severely ruled life. We have -become less numerous, I doubt not, through our restrictions (now -abandoned) on art, music, “the theatre and the ball-room.” But there -have been compensations to those who have stayed under the discipline. - -Ruskin, then, never understood the Society of Friends in the outward. -This was the mere result of circumstances. Brought up in the south of -London, educated at Oxford, living much abroad, with local interests and -acquaintances chiefly centering round Denmark Hill, Oxford and Coniston, -he had no great opportunity to meet Friends. - -He never had any Quaker teaching in his youth. The voice of the Society -of Friends was too faint to reach him. He never found his way across the -hill from Brantwood to the ancient meeting house at Hawkshead, but his -word has penetrated further than ours, and all unaware he has done our -work. - -How marvellous is this series of harmonies, unintended, unrecognized on -both sides, between him and the Society of Friends! It looks as though -Quakerism is not an arbitrary group of doctrines gathered up, as he -fancied them, by George Fox, but a coherent system, all whose parts hang -together as they all appear together when they rise up in Ruskin. It is -a strong confirmation of the coherence and validity of the religious -discoveries of our Quaker forefathers in the seventeenth century, when -we find that they are repeated in the research of another emancipated -but devout thinker, a religious rationalist who was an expert in the -things of the soul. - - - - -_CHAPTER IV_ - -_RUSKIN AND MILL_ - -A RECONCILIATION - - -The controversy between Ruskin and the orthodox Political Economists of -his time was central in his career, and has occupied a prominent place -in the thought of the last sixty years. Either Ruskin’s teaching or that -of Mill and his colleagues, or that of both, has been clouded with -uncertainty and so has lost force. If it should be found, as I shall try -to show, that there was no real ground for the controversy at all--that -it was all due to misapprehension, to mere ambiguity in a term, it will -reinforce the conclusions of the economists in their modern revised -form, add cogency to the teaching of Ruskin, and clear away storm clouds -which have done great harm. The mistake arose through a wrong conception -by Ruskin of the scope of Economics--of what its teachers were after. - -Political Economy has always been treated by careful writers as the -science of human action with regard to the acquisition and use of -property. This is a pure science. It is a branch of applied psychology. -It measures motives, and analyses the action of buyers and sellers with -a view to finding out what men in business will normally do, and how -values of land, labour, capital and commodities are determined. This -does not open any question of right or wrong, any question of oppression -or starvation, of luxury, vanity or pride. This is as cold-blooded, as -purely intellectual and critical an inquiry as the study and measurement -of electrical currents; what produces them, conducts them, wastes or -scatters them. An electrician will show how a telephone may be made, he -will invent it, and he will explain it; but it is no business of his to -ask whether courtesy and good feeling or profanity and fraud will -characterize the messages which will go over his instrument. That is not -his business as a scientist, though the use of his own telephone is his -business as a man. - -Now this is a perfectly intelligible, it may be a perfectly blameless, -and, at first sight, a probably useful branch of inquiry. It separates -off from the great mass of human actions a definite field; it omits the -motive of religion, the motive of love, and the motive of self-denying -service, outside service for the family for whom the man under -discussion is economically responsible. - -Concerning it, we must ask three questions: - -1. Is this separation practicable, and in consequence are the results -true or approximately true? - -2. Under what limitations is it useful to make such a separation, and -what real guidance to conduct, if any, follows? - -3. Afterwards we will inquire to what extent the political economists -have rigidly confined themselves to theory, and having found that they -did not, when they went over into practical advice we will ask whether -they were deluded by the results they had reached within their limits, -and whether they hastily assumed that they had found a more complete -guide to human action than they had. - -Is then the separation of dealings which can be expressed in terms of -money from the other dealings of life sufficiently possible to make a -science of those dealings? Are they predictable, given the -circumstances? Will like causes produce like results? Is the motive -measured by money sufficiently separable from other motives, to be -treated by itself? - -We must at once admit that such separation cannot be absolute; that -affection, pity, charity, habit, ignorance, legislative restriction, -public spirit, prevent the individual from always acting according to -his economic interests. He does not always buy in the cheapest shop; he -grumbles but helps a struggling neighbour by his custom, and puts up for -some time with an inferior article. He goes on using old machinery for -want of knowledge or of a progressive mind. He keeps on an old hand for -the sake of the past. Still, in the long run, these qualifications to -the general law do not survive. In general, men in the large may be -trusted to do that which it is their economic interest to do, within -such lines of honesty as are ratified by law, or of honour as are -regarded by public opinion. Competition, that is, is the general rule in -business; and we shall not go far wrong in assuming it as the method in -vogue in Europe and America, unless some special feature of monopoly or -legislative Protection or trade combination supersedes it. - -This is not the same as saying that it is always right to follow the -lines of pure competition. We must at all points check the tendency to -pass from the indicative to the imperative mood, from a science to an -art; from what will raise our profits to what is our duty in our -business. - -So we assert that there is a Theory of Value, and that it is an -approximately verified theory under the present system of business. -Further, that in 1860, when business was less regulated than it is now, -the results were so much nearer verification by experience. - -That business is carried on for self-interest on the whole, seems to me -a safe approximation to reality--and that the exceptions to it are not -chemically explosive of its system as Ruskin says, but can be added to -the enquiry afterwards, like friction or the resistance of the air in -mechanics. - -Whether this is desirable, or the last word of human organization, is -quite another question; and the questions are better kept separate. -Moral considerations are too important to come in as an incidental -qualification to business motives. They should be the dominating -influence, and it is better that economic results should not obtain a -sort of sanction as being tinctured with righteousness, when only a few -drops of the tincture have been administered. It is better that -Economics should keep their place as a science of observed facts. - -At the present moment when war is being diagnosed as the worst disease -of society, there are many voices to point out its origin in economic -greed, and through rivalry in the exploitation of backward peoples. -Military pomp and pride, the mere ambition of Emperors and Generals, -must bear their share of the blame, but greed and oppression are the -tap-root of war, and Ruskin, it happens, was foremost in saying so, as -is pointed out in a later chapter. - -The economic motive is behind many actions where it is not avowed. Since -the elementary need of man is, and always has been, to make a living, -and he tries to make it as pleasantly as possible, this must be so, and -the laws which govern production, distribution and exchange are of prime -importance for men in communities. - -When Ruskin touched on an economic law, on a doctrine of the science -which he thus erroneously blasphemed, he was remarkably correct; he was -an orthodox follower after all of much of the doctrine of Mill. He was -“an utterly fearless and unscrupulous free trader.”[48] His instinct, -the moral sanction to which he always looked--as Mill also did--as a -guide to practice, told him that protection was a wicked action, -forbidding to workers in other countries their right to earn their -living in the way by which they could produce the most. “I mean by -co-operation, not only fellowship between trading firms, but between -trading nations; so that it shall no more be thought (as it is now, with -ludicrous and vain selfishness) an advantage for one nation to undersell -another, and take its occupation away from it; but that the primal and -eternal law of commerce shall be of all men understood--viz., that every -nation is fitted by its character and the nature of its territories for -some particular employments and manufactures, and that it is the true -interest of every other nation to encourage it in such speciality.”[49] -“I do not admit even the idea of reciprocity. Let other nations, if they -like, keep their ports shut; every wise nation will throw its own -open.”[50] He knew every point of the correct economic theory of free -trade. He realized foreign commerce as exchange or barter, with the -dependence of exports upon imports. This dependence, showing the true -nature of International Trade, follows from the correct doctrine of -currency. Ruskin emphasized this doctrine repeatedly. He knew that -every fall in the supply of commodities made the gold currency of less -value. He knew that inflation by paper money similarly sent prices up. -He was enthusiastic for a gold standard, not as being perfect, but being -the best available.[51] Mill’s still valuable chapter on International -Trade and all current economic doctrine on currency are Ruskinian -economy too. Also, when a disciple of the much depreciated Manchester -School talked of _laisser faire_ he generally meant: “Let Protection -alone.” His phrase was general, but in the days of Gladstone’s -chancellorships of the exchequer, the “Manchester” man was thinking -mainly of the removal of tariffs. It would not be in accord with human -psychology if the principle had not been pushed too far, and by friends -and opponents alike the principle of governmental abstention from -interference enlarged, and made universal. In calling for government -action to determine wages and organize employment, Ruskin was simply -uttering a need not yet felt. He was a twentieth century voice, heard -too soon. - -But we must always avoid the snare into which the earlier economists -fell, of assuming that their conclusions were rigid and absolutely -correct. There can be no mechanical infallibility about Economics; it is -not accurate enough to be mathematically true. It expresses tendencies. -In a word, it is a psychological, not a physical science. Its subject is -not wealth, simply, but human motive in regard to wealth. - -Students of the Political Economy of Adam Smith, Ricardo, Bentham and -James Mill, find that these great founders of economic science, in whose -debt we shall ever remain, assumed too much mechanical uniformity in -men’s actions, and did not give enough weight to the reaction of man -upon his circumstances. They counted a man too much as a passively -responsive machine. This is what led them to the doctrines since so -seriously modified--the existence of a fixed Wages Fund, the “Iron Law -of Wages,” the thesis that “A demand for Commodities is not a demand for -Labour.” - -John Stuart Mill began life under these influences, and his _Principles -of Political Economy_ contain them; but in later life he abandoned his -Wages Fund theory, gave greater weight to the human side, the variable -and uncertain factor in economic problems, and under the influence of -Comte and of the Socialists doubted the accuracy of much of his economic -argument. This change was published in his review of the work of his -friend Thornton, who had attacked the Wages Fund theory in 1869. It is -in Mill’s collected Essays. - -The Political Economy which Ruskin attacked was that of Mill’s -_Principles_; and to judge fairly of the controversy we must treat the -science, not as it was left, in high universal abstraction, by Ricardo; -nor as worked up with rich historical material, cautious and well -informed, as in Professor Marshall’s writings, but (between these) as -Mill left it in his first edition of 1848. - -In estimating the extent to which Ruskin’s attack was excusable, we need -to know whether Mill overstepped the bounds of theory, of pure -science--and became a political adviser and exhorter. This he certainly -did, quite often in his book, and he says in his preface that it was -part of his purpose to do so. - -Ruskin says that it is when he is thus inconsistent with his own theory, -and strays into practical teaching, that he begins to take any interest -in him; and certainly Mill gave, precisely because he was a -philanthropist and a social reformer, room for a critic to come in and -say: “Lo, you pretend to be a practical guide to conduct, and you are -only taking account of low and selfish motives; you are an unworthy -exponent of human nature, if we are to regard you as taking it all for -your province.” The chapters chiefly referred to here are those on “The -Advantages of a Stationary State,” and on “The Futurity of the Labouring -Classes.” - -Ruskin recognizes and admits this in a clever but naughty way: - -“I should have regretted the need of pointing out inconsistency in any -portion of Mr. Mill’s work, had not the value of his work proceeded from -its inconsistencies. He deserves honour among economists by -inadvertently disclaiming the principles which he states, and tacitly -introducing the moral considerations with which he claims his science -has no connection. Many of his chapters are therefore true and valuable; -and the only conclusions of his which I have to dispute are those which -follow from his premises.”[52] Mill made the distinction between science -and social reform quite plain in his chapters, and left no room for -confusion. Ruskin must have thoroughly understood this. - -Full in the face of this theoretical investigation comes Ruskin’s -definition of Political Economy, with which he begins _Munera Pulveris_: - -“Political Economy is neither an art nor science, but a system of -conduct and legislature, founded on the sciences, directing the arts, -and impossible, except under certain conditions of moral culture.” - -Here we have an entirely different object. This Economy aims at telling -us what we ought to do for the enriching and purifying of life upon the -earth, and what the state ought to do for the same end. This is -universal politics and social amelioration: frankly and definitely, not -a science at all. - -There need be no conflict between this comprehensive study of political -ethics, including religion, art, and education among its principal -departments--and that science which might usefully come in as one of -those on which it is based. To be sure, both claim to be called -Political Economy; but that is only a verbal rivalry. As to that, -Ruskin’s Political Economy has by derivation the proper right to the -term--the State’s Housekeeping. But it is not always wise to follow -derivations; the scholastic Economy was in possession of the word, -though properly speaking it was not ὁικονομἱα nor was it πολῑτῐκή. -Ruskin’s weakness for playing with etymologies, often curious ones, -helped to maintain this rivalry in words. - -There is room for both studies, the scholastic economies and the -Ruskinian economy. That is my thesis. - -How differently the criticism of Carlyle and Ruskin might have been -launched. Ruskin might have said that he admitted that in business -people must be assumed to follow their own interests, that is, that the -“economic man” would stand as a general average in business relations. -But he might have said, after that, every word that he wanted to say, -about the insufficiency of this principle as a guide to conduct. He -might have dwelt on the strength of loyalties and affections, and on the -powerful economic value of good relations between masters and servants. -He might have shown how misleading were economic results if acted on as -a complete handbook of conduct even in business. He might have written -_Unto This Last_ with an introduction by John Stuart Mill, and -everything positive or constructive left in it. The satire and -sword-play might have been used for something else. - -Much of his attack might have taken the form of entirely sound but -friendly criticism. Great play is made with a sentence of Ricardo’s:[53] -“Utility is not the measure of exchangeable value, though it is -absolutely essential to it.” This non-committal sentence does not carry -us very far, and does not claim to be a definition, but is true as far -as it goes. Ruskin makes hay of Ricardo’s statement next following, that -Labour was, in primitive abstraction at any rate, the sole regulator of -price. Neither he nor Ruskin had reached the modern theory of “marginal -values” which solves so many ancient puzzles and misunderstandings. -Price is fixed where Demand and Supply meet: and it measures two things. -It represents on one side the value in use of the last article produced; -and on the other the cost in labour of the production thereof. Then both -sides are satisfied--the buyer and the seller. But the price does not -represent the utility of the earliest articles produced--the first -loaves of bread would be quite priceless,--nor the cost of the -production of the first few easily grown crops. Both values are “final” -or “marginal.” This simple and permanent plan of determining price, -which nobody can or should alter, is, put shortly, the terrible law of -supply and demand, the very heart of economic theory, about which so -much indignation is wastefully expended. If Ruskin’s penetrating mind -had been devoted to helpful criticism of the gaps left by the -economists, they might have reached this theory much earlier. But Ruskin -wrote in a state of noble rage--a bad state for the scientific temper. -“Nothing in history,” he wrote, “has ever been so disgraceful to human -intellect as the acceptance among us of the common doctrines of -political economy as a science.”[54] This was chiefly because it was -said to be a systematic disobedience to the first principles of its -professed religion, because it taught “the love of money” and “mammon -service”; it was “a science of becoming rich.” Once accept so terrible a -misconception, and all the vials of the prophets’ wrath are not too -profuse. “To this science and to this alone (the professed and organized -pursuit of money) is owing all the evil of modern days. I say all.”[55] -Ruskin wrote in 1865 a letter to the _Daily Telegraph_ in which he says -people cannot get servants by political economy and the law of supply -and demand--as though he had said they cannot be got by physics and the -law of gravitation. To see his real attitude we must add a phrase of -1883: “While I admit there is such a thing as mercantile economy, -distinguished from social, I have always said that neither Mill, Fawcett -nor Bastiat knew the contemptible science they professed to teach.”[56] - -This attitude is pure disaster, comparable to the great _odia -theologica_ which have cursed the world. It is not necessary nor wise to -take sides in an utterly baseless controversy. Let us rather examine the -programme of the science. - -Prof. Marshall gives the following list of the inquiries chiefly pursued -by economic science[57]:-- - -“How does economic freedom tend, so far as its influence reaches, to -arrange the demand for wealth and its production, distribution and -exchange? What organization of industry and trade does economic freedom -tend to bring about; what forms of division of labour; what arrangements -of the money market, of wholesale and retail dealing, and what relations -between employer and employed? How does it tend to adjust values, that -is, the prices of material things, whether produced on the spot or -brought from a distance, rents of all kinds, interest on capital and the -earnings of all forms of work, including that of undertaking and -managing business enterprises? How does it affect the course of foreign -trade? Subject to what limitations is the price of anything a measure of -its real utility? What increase of happiness is _prima facie_ likely to -result from a given increase in the wealth of any class of society? How -far is the industrial efficiency of any class impaired by the -insufficiency of its income? How far would an increase of the income of -any class, if once effected, be likely to sustain itself through its -effects in increasing their efficiency and earning power? - -“How far does, as a matter of fact, the influence of economic freedom -reach, or how far has it reached at any particular time, in any place, -in any rank of society, or in any particular branch of industry? What -other influences are most powerful there? and how is the action of all -these influences combined? In particular, how far does not economic -freedom tend of its own action to build up combinations and monopolies, -and what are their effects? How are the various classes of society -likely to be affected by its action in the long run? What will be the -intermediate effects while its ultimate results are being worked out; -and, account being taken of the time over which they will spread, what -is the relative importance of these two classes of ultimate and -intermediate effects? What will be the incidence of any system of taxes? -What burdens will it impose on the community, and what revenue will it -afford to the State?” - -Such then, is the subject matter of economic science spread out in some -detail. But behind all these there are practical questions which give -the chief motive to our interest in the subject; and though not within -the actual range of the science, it will be of interest to us to hear -the same authority state them. They vary very much from time to time. -The earlier economists were occupied with the need of removing -restrictions on free commerce, and government regulation generally, and -they glorified economic freedom. We ask with Marshall: - -“How should we act so as to increase the good and diminish the evil -influences of economic freedom, both in its ultimate results, and in -the course of its progress? If the first are good and the latter evil, -but those who suffer the evil do not reap the good, how far is it right -that they should suffer for the benefit of others?” - -“Taking it for granted that a more equal distribution of wealth is to be -desired, how far would this justify changes in the institution of -property, or limitations of free enterprise, even when they would be -likely to diminish the aggregate of wealth? In other words, how far -should an increase in the income of the poorer classes and a diminution -of their work be aimed at, even if it involved some lessening of -national material wealth? How far could this be done without injustice, -and without slackening the energies of the leaders of progress? How -ought the burdens of taxation to be distributed among the different -classes of society?” - -“Ought we to rest content with the existing forms of division of labour? -Is it necessary that large numbers of the people should be exclusively -occupied with work that has no elevating character? Is it possible to -educate gradually among the great mass of workers a new capacity for the -higher kinds of work, and in particular for undertaking co-operatively -the management of the businesses in which they are themselves employed?” - -“What are the proper relations of individual and collective action in a -stage of civilization such as ours? How far ought voluntary association -in its various forms, old and new, to be left to supply collective -action for those purposes for which such action has special advantages? -What business affairs should be undertaken by society itself acting -through the Government, imperial or local? Have we, for instance, -carried as far as we should the plan of collective ownership and use of -open spaces, or works of art, of the means of instruction and amusement, -as well as of those material requisites of a civilized life, the supply -of which requires united action, such as gas and water and railways?” - -“When Government does not itself directly intervene, how far should it -allow individuals and corporations to conduct their own affairs as they -please? How far should it regulate the management of railways and other -concerns which are to some extent in a position of monopoly, and again, -of land and other things the quantity of which cannot be increased by -man? Is it necessary to retain in their full force all the existing -rights of property, or have the original necessities for which they were -meant to provide, in some measure passed away?” - -“Are the prevailing methods of using wealth entirely justifiable? What -scope is there for the moral pressure of social opinion in constraining -and directing individual action in those economic relations in which the -rigidity and violence of Government interference would be likely to do -more harm than good? - -“In what respect do the duties of one nation to another in economic -matters differ from those of members of the same nation to one another?” - -In fact, we have to deal with the problems of Socialism, of -Co-operation, of Municipal action, of Luxury and of Trade Wars. He might -have added Pauperism and Old Age Pensions, Standard Wages and Hours, and -Nationalization of various kinds of property. There is a strong and -audible echo of Ruskin’s aims about these practical problems; and one -does not yet see why we cannot make room in our own minds both for -economic science and the Ruskinian Economy to which these issues belong. - -There are passages, too, in Mill, which Ruskin himself might have -written, which look beyond Production and Distribution to the larger -needs and joys of man. He is considering the stationary state of capital -and wealth, when economic progress has ceased, when people are not -always growing more numerous and more wealthy, a state dreaded by the -older economists, and ever to be held at arm’s length. But Mill says he -thinks it would be better than our present condition. “I confess I am -not charmed with the ideal of life held out by those who think that the -normal state of human beings is that of struggling to get on, that the -trampling, crushing, elbowing and treading on each other’s heels, which -form the existing type of social life, are the most desirable lot of -humankind, or anything but the disagreeable symptoms of one of the -phases of industrial progress. The northern and middle states of America -are a specimen of this stage of civilization in very favourable -circumstances, having apparently got rid of all social injustices and -inequalities, that affect persons of Caucasian race and of the male sex, -while the proportion of population to capital and land is such as to -ensure abundance to every able-bodied member of the community who does -not forfeit it by misconduct. They have the six points of Chartism, and -they have no poverty; and all that these advantages do for them is that -the life of the whole of one sex is devoted to dollar-hunting, and of -the other to breeding dollar-hunters. The best state for human nature is -that in which, while no one is poor, no one desires to be richer, nor -has any reason to fear being thrust back by the efforts of others to -push themselves forward.”[58] - -That is Ruskin without the eloquence; that is his advice to stay in the -station in which we have been placed, and not be always trying to get -out of it. A little more from Mill: - -“I know not why it should be matter of congratulation that persons who -are already richer than any one needs to be, should have doubled their -means of consuming things which give little or no pleasure except as -representative of wealth, or that numbers should pass over, every year, -from the middle classes into a richer class, or from the class of the -occupied rich to that of the unoccupied.” - -This reminds one of the well-known passage where Ruskin speaks of those -who try “to advance in life without knowing what life means, who mean -only that they are to get more horses and more footmen and more fortune -and more public honours and--not more personal soul.”[59] - -As some injustice has been done to Mill, particularly by us the pupils -and friends of his eloquent antagonist, I will quote a little more from -him to show that though the laws of Nature were represented by him as -hard, he was himself as Ruskinian as any of us. He suggests a limitation -of the right of bequest, so that no one should receive by gift or -inheritance more than a moderate independence, so that there might be “a -well paid and affluent body of labourers; no enormous fortunes, except -what were earned and accumulated during a single lifetime; but a much -larger body sufficiently at leisure to cultivate freely the graces of -life.” Just so does Ruskin tell us that a man who dies rich dies -disgraced. Mill proceeds to express his dread of greater density of -population, because it crowds out solitude, so needful for depth of -character, and takes away wild natural beauty. The whole passage might -have come from Brantwood. - -As to machinery, Mill goes on in the very spirit of _Fors Clavigera_: -“Hitherto it is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made -have lightened the day’s toil of any human being. They have enabled a -greater population to live the same life of drudgery and imprisonment, -and an increased number of manufacturers and others to make large -fortunes.” I am afraid that with posterity John Stuart Mill may suffer -in reputation from being the object of so much invective, embedded in -peerless English, and written under a mighty spirit of prophesying. -_Fors Clavigera_ and _Unto This Last_ will be read much longer than -Mill’s _Principles_, and future ages may describe him as a cold-blooded -Philistine, when really he was among the best and wisest of men. Certain -Stoics and Epicureans, of whom all we know is that they encountered -Paul, have hardly had justice from the ordinary English reader of the -Acts. Mill obtained the verdict of contemporaries: but the future is the -charmer’s. - -In some ways these two protagonists, both of them among the princes of -our race, were strangely alike in their history. Mill, born in 1806, was -the elder by thirteen years. Both children were extraordinarily -precocious, Mill with his Greek at two, Ruskin with his pencil and his -poetry at seven. At sixteen Mill was writing in _The Traveller_ in -defence of his father and of Ricardo. From eighteen to twenty he -contributed to the _Westminster Review_ and other journals articles on -the Game Laws, the Corn Laws, the Law of Libel and on a Paper Currency, -and reviews of books on Economics. At this age Ruskin’s poetry was -appearing in _Friendship’s Garland_, and at twenty-four he came out with -the first volume of _Modern Painters_, with a fully developed style made -in heaven, and an originality in his art criticism which made him a -public man at once. Each of them, after a long and famous literary life, -gave the world an autobiography it would not willingly lose. - -They were both only sons, brought up with unusual solicitude, close -parental control and remarkably severe if loving discipline. Their -attachment to and regard for their parents was a great power with both, -all their lives. The gravity, earnestness, and deep sense of -responsibility taught in childhood never left either of them. - -Both passed through the fires which try faith; and there are reasons for -believing in both cases that what might have been a happy marriage was -frustrated by want of conventional orthodoxy. So that they both suffered -for the cause of truth in the hardest of all ways. Each of them had -only six or seven years of married life, and neither left any children. - -Strangely enough, also, Mill was forty-one when his _Principles of -Political Economy_ was written, and Ruskin at forty-one brought out his -papers in the _Cornhill_, under the title of _Unto This Last_, which are -his counterblast to Mill. - -Each of them found it necessary in later life to recant some of their -earlier teaching, and each faithfully did so. Mill gave up the Wages -Fund Theory he had learnt from his father, and Ruskin scatters the later -editions of his earlier works with notes denouncing the dogmatic -evangelicalism which runs through them, which he had learnt from his -mother. - -So, in tragic conflict, these two men are before us. Not that Mill ever -replied. He died in 1872, and during his lifetime he could afford to -ignore the eccentricities of an unstable genius, at whom all sober -people smiled in pity. But now I would fain even for Mill’s sake -reconcile them. You have true tragedy, not when right meets wrong, the -noble the ignoble, but when two principles, both noble, are brought into -a conflict they cannot avoid--Mill, the Liberal, the rationalist, with -his watchwords of equality, liberty and a free chance for all--and -Ruskin the Conservative, the indignant enemy of mechanical progress, -speaking ever of order and obedience, reverence and graded ranks:--Mill, -a servant of present humanity, with but a faint critical hold on the -Unseen; Ruskin, emotional and inspired, who not seldom would fain call -down fire from heaven on Mill’s newly enfranchised citizens, because -they blasphemed. - -So that I conclude that scholastic Economics is a reliable, useful -scientific enquiry, forming a basis for the very same practical aims -which Ruskin has set us striving for, and written by men who loved their -fellows and were conspicuous examples of uprightness and benevolence, -truth-keeping and friends of their kind. - -We know how unscrupulous men of business used their conclusions, -particularly those conclusions which have not stood the test of -criticism, as a sort of textbook of oppression, as giving a scientific -necessity for starvation, and so excusing hardness of heart. That this -was so, must be Ruskin’s excuse for declaring war upon the economists. -But it was a war wholly unnecessary; it clouded his prophecy with -confused issues, and it laid the Master himself among the wounded. - -It will be necessary, in order properly to express the scope of -Political Economy, to examine more fully its definition of the two -factors whose action and reaction upon one another form the subject -matter of the science. These two factors are Man and Wealth. What is Man -as an economic being? What is the “economic man”? - -He is assumed by Mill and others[60] as a being who considers his own -side of a bargain only, who in all contracts will do the best he can for -himself, and who, in the use of his capital, and the direction of his -labour, is influenced by an intelligent and passionless eye to his own -interests. He has no regard for custom, or public opinion, or -compassion, or resentment, or personal partiality, or class prejudice. - -Mill does not pretend that this person actually exists; but that the -tendency of things is as though he did exist; and that it is most easy -to assume his existence, and after that recognize the qualifications -which other parts of human nature require us to put in, just as in -mechanics we calculate what would happen if surfaces were smooth, and -then allow for friction afterwards. - -Ruskin’s criticisms are not always fair. He writes: - -“Political Economy, being a science of wealth, must be a science -respecting human capacities and dispositions. But moral considerations -have nothing to do with political economy (says Mill). Therefore, moral -considerations have nothing to do with human capacities and -dispositions.”[61] - -Perhaps the logical fallacy is not very obvious, but it is there. Human -capacities and dispositions touch moral considerations on one side, and -they touch political economy on the other. But these two need not -therefore be connected. Because a man has two relations, as a citizen -and as a father, and because the state does not bring up his children, -and the two relations are separate, we must not argue that the man has -nothing to do with his family, because the state, with which he is also -connected, has nothing to do with it. All this wrong criticism was -produced by the obvious remark of Mill, that the ethical character of a -taste for diamonds is not the economist’s affair. - -It is only as a first approximation, then, that economics postulates the -monster known as the economic man; cold, calculating, well informed, -shrewd, selfish with the unthinking uniformity of a machine. It is -perhaps clearer to say that it can take account only of such motives as -are sufficiently regular and predictable to be worth so much in money. -Some unselfish actions are of that kind, such as a man’s service to his -children, or if he be a Highlander to his third cousin; and we can -predict certain of his regular subscriptions. The Law of Supply and -Demand applies to ministers and missionaries and hospital nurses, though -their payment is all from charitable gifts. To some extent the Charity -Fund is a steady sum in any nation. It could be predicted that when the -national War Fund was absorbing large sums, other charities, -particularly London charities, would suffer; and such has been the case. -The same phenomenon occurred to a less degree when General Booth was -raising his Darkest England Fund. Here is a charitable motive steady -enough to be measurable. - -It is not assumed here, as so constantly asserted by Ruskin, that men -are and must be treated as rogues. The argument of Ruskin was that the -qualifications to be introduced into problems due to the fact that man -is not an economic man, are not like allowances for friction, or other -mechanical matters, but are organic and revolutionary. The right reply -probably is that sometimes this is so, but far more generally not so. - -When remarkable instances of unselfishness occur outside the family -circle, where the economist expects and allows for them, they are told -as instances of the unexpected. When the newspaper boys near the Mansion -House are found giving an undisturbed beat to a lame boy who could not -compete with them in running to customers, and refuse to sell a paper -there, the admiring customer concludes his beautiful and kindly story by -asking how many business men round the Mansion House would leave a rival -in possession because of his weakness? - -The definition of Wealth must now be considered. Mill defines it as -consisting of “All useful and agreeable things which possess -exchangeable value.” - -He decides to include in the wealth of a country such personal -qualities, skill, energy, perseverance, as tend to make the man who -possesses them industrially more valuable. A skilled cotton spinner is a -greater national asset than a labourer; a skilled medical man who can -restore to labourers their industrial efficiency, is also national -wealth, a utility embodied in a person; but a gifted preacher, whose -message may even make a man a less keen producer of wealth than he was -before, would not be an instance of national wealth, unless he made, as -he might, a drunkard or a loafer into a regular wage earner. So the -actor, or the singer, or the orator, unless their work ultimately -produces material goods, is not to be counted wealth in economics. There -is evidently the usual difficulty about drawing the line. - -What is more, the most precious parts of character are excluded from -national wealth in the economic sense. Wealth, that is, is taken to mean -property, and not, more generally, the means of true well-being. Again, -the most necessary things are from their abundance not wealth. Air, -sunshine, and water are not wealth where and when they are given -profusely by nature; though they are the most needful supports to life. -But air which has to be pumped in by a ventilating fan has cost -something, and is wealth; sunshine which has passed through a coal -measure and is brought to our firegrates on a winter’s night is wealth, -water turned on at our taps is wealth for which we pay a water-rate. We -may come to import oxygen into our halls and theatres and lecture rooms, -perhaps even into our cellar workrooms, and then it too will have a -price and an economic value. - -There is clearly room for much difference of opinion in detail here. And -yet it will be plain to all that the subject matter of a science must be -limited; we must know when our studies begin and end. It is not -demoralization which makes an economist deny holiness to be wealth, it -is a classification of sciences. Holiness is not matter either, nor -electricity, nor gas; it does not come into Physics any more than into -Economics. It comes into Ethics and Theology and practical Politics, and -it is the most important thing in the world. It may be true, as Ruskin -urges, that wealth is not any good to a miser or a spendthrift or a -rogue; that it is often I11th rather than Wealth, if it makes its user -soft and slack and selfish, or proud and cruel. But nevertheless, it is -an object of desire, of human motive; and that is enough for the -economist. - -The mistake of the early economists before John S. Mill was in not -recognizing, however, the reaction of man’s possession of wealth upon -his conduct as a producer; how high wages might be remunerative, if they -increased efficiency, and big fortunes wasted if they increased -idleness. We really have to treat two factors, each of which is, in the -language of Mathematics, an implicit function of the other--or, if that -does not make it more clear--each of which acts upon and is acted upon -by the other. The early economists lived in the age when steam engines -and electric telegraphs were great and new achievements, when Chemistry -was being reborn in the atomic theory, and Joule was proving the great -generalization of the conservation of energy. They treated their -subject--man in business--as if he were matter; whereas he has -biological characteristics, and is modifiable and can modify his -environment. Our age, on the contrary, is concerned with the -modification of characteristics under environment. It is the age of -Darwin. Biological evolution is seen to govern the growth of men and -societies; and these, in writings of the dominant school of thinkers -since Herbert Spencer, are seen to follow biological laws of growth. The -Economic man is no exception. - -John Stuart Mill begins his chapter defining wealth by remarking that -everyone has a notion sufficiently correct for common purposes, of what -is meant by wealth. This is not his definition; he reaches that later: -it is a reasonable introductory remark. But Ruskin assumes that this is -his definition, and assails him for his lack of scientific precision and -his looseness of thought, as though an astronomer were to begin by -saying that everyone has a notion, sufficient for common purposes, of -what is meant by a star. The criticism is the more unreasonable, when we -find the critic himself doing the very same thing in his famous chapter -on “The Nature of Gothic” in _The Stones of Venice_, in which, at the -opening, the remark occurs: “We all have some notion, most of us a very -determined one, of the meaning of the term Gothic.” Ruskin goes on to -play with the etymology of value;[62] from _valor_ and _valere_, meaning -that which avails towards life and health; and says true wealth is what -tends to life and the increase of its powers, not pearls nor topaz, but -air and light and cleanliness. “To be wealthy is to have a large stock -of useful articles,” say the economists. What, he asks, is to -“have"--has the embalmed body of Carlo Borromeo the golden crosier and -the cross of emeralds on its breast? Has a gold-filled belt the man whom -it drowns, or has he it? Does not “having” depend on the vital power to -use? What, nextly, is “useful”? Persons called wealthy may be inherently -incapable of wealth, mere reservoirs in the stream of national produce, -if not impediments in its course, and so causing “illth” rather than -“wealth.” Therefore the aim and end of Political Economy is to develop -moral character and capacity for valiantly using valuables, and the -great difficulty is that manly character is apt to suffer from -possessing material wealth and also apt to cast it away. Wealth of -character and wealth of goods tend to undermine one another. - -“In a community regulated by laws of supply and demand but protected -from open violence, the persons who become rich are, generally speaking, -industrious, resolute, proud, covetous, prompt, methodical, sensible, -unimaginative, insensitive and ignorant. The persons who remain poor are -the entirely foolish, the entirely wise, the idle, the reckless, the -humble, the thoughtful, the dull, the imaginative, the sensitive, the -well-informed, the improvident, the irregularly and impulsively wicked, -the clumsy knave, the open thief, and the entirely merciful, just and -godly person.”[63] - -With one further piece of Ruskin’s teaching on the nature of wealth, I -think that the subject will be clear. - -“‘Rich’ is a relative word implying its opposite ‘poor’ as positively as -the word ‘north’ implies its opposite ‘south.’ Men nearly always speak -and write as if riches were absolute, and it were possible by following -certain scientific precepts (Ruskin’s capital error turns up here), for -everybody to be rich. Whereas riches are a power like that of -electricity, acting only through inequalities or negations of itself. -The force of the guinea you have in your pocket depends wholly on the -default of a guinea in your neighbour’s pocket. If he did not want it, -it would be of no use to you; the degree of power it possesses depends -accurately upon the need or desire he has for it--and the art of making -yourself rich, in the ordinary mercantile economist’s sense, is -therefore equally and necessarily the art of keeping your neighbour -poor.”[64] - -This is all true; if by rich we understand, as the use of the word in -common practice warrants, relatively wealthy. The possession of money is -the possession of an order upon labour; and it is of no use if there is -no available labour needing it. Ruskin’s illustration is that of a large -landed proprietor who could get no servants to feed his cattle, mine -his gold, plough his corn lands, because no one was in want of his -wages. He must lead a life of severe and common labour to produce even -ordinary comforts, and live in the midst of a waste desert. Therefore, -what is meant by making oneself rich is to produce the maximum -inequality between ourselves and our neighbours.[65] - -Ruskin is grievously unfair in saying that that is the object of -mercantile (political) economy; that it is “the science of getting -rich.” Such a statement libels both the science and its expounders; and -it contains, for Ruskin, an extraordinary looseness in the use of words. -There cannot be a science of getting rich, that is an art or a craft. -Science is organized knowledge, not practical faculty to do anything or -get anything.[66] - -How wide is the range of Ruskin’s Economy, how practical its objects, -how little of a science it is, how entirely an art, the art of practical -government and production, will be further clear from this statement: - -“Political economy (the economy of a State or of citizens), consists -simply in the production, preservation and distribution, at fittest time -and place, of useful or pleasurable things. The farmer who cuts his hay -at the right time, the shipwright who drives his bolts well home in -sound wood, the builder who lays good bricks in well tempered mortar, -the housewife who takes care of her furniture in the parlour and guards -against all waste in her kitchen, and the singer who rightly disciplines -and never overstrains his voice, are all political economists in the -true and final sense; adding continually to the riches and well-being of -the nation to which they belong.”[67] - -All this is quite true; but not in any sense a rival study to scholastic -Economics. The great misfortune is that the atmosphere of controversy -and revolt runs through all this glorious gospel, so strong and true in -its teachings, so perverse in its criticisms. The sum of the whole -doctrine is put in memorable words near the close of _Unto This Last_: - -“There is no wealth but life. Life, including all its powers of love, of -joy and of admiration. That country is the richest which nourishes the -greatest number of noble and happy human beings; that man is richest -who, having perfected the functions of his own life to the utmost, has -also the widest helpful influence, both personal, and by means of his -possessions, over the lives of others.”[68] - -All railing accusation is out of place. The business of the man whom -Ruskin calls the “vulgar economist” is to theorize, his is to edify. The -one is the theoretical engineer and surveyor for the house of the state; -his part in the ὁικονομἱα is that of a professional consultant. -Ruskin is the actual builder; round his guidance sound the clang of -hammer and anvil, the actual stonemasons’ and plumbers’ tools; under his -eye grow in time the ivy and the flowers; but it is not the business of -the architect or surveyor or sanitary engineer to know all about these, -still less to keep a supply of them in his office. - -The vastness of the task Ruskin had undertaken is now plain to us and -was pathetic for him. _Munera Pulveris_ contains the definitions of the -new science. No more of it has ever appeared in systematic scientific -form. It is touching to find the inspired artist reformer stopped again -and again in his great attempt to write a complete guide to public -action, by some subject needing special research. “I will treat of this -when I come to” coinage or education, or whatever it might be; ever -promising, ever hoping, if so be by a _tour de force_ of genius he might -storm the city of Mansoul; whereas, it needed all the corps of economic -researchers, mining here and there into truth, making a breach here and -there into the wall of the unknown, working on Parliamentary Returns and -tables of statistics, on records of public registrars and clearing house -reports, by patient inquiry to achieve a little at a time. Ruskin wrote -for thirty years after the epoch-making date of 1860; and it is even now -our task to systematize, if we can, his scattered contributions to -practical Economy. - -We may be glad, in John Ruskin’s case, as in that of lesser prophets, -that the greatness of men is measured, not like chains, by their weakest -link, but rather like tides, by the highest they reach. - - - - -_CHAPTER V_ - -_RUSKIN’S RECONSTRUCTION_ - - -The teaching of Ruskin is generally piecemeal and unsystematic, but, -happily, there is one exception to this. In collecting his _Cornhill_ -papers for publication as _Unto This Last_ he wrote a Preface -summarizing his practical proposals at their “worst.” They are as -follows: - -1. Government Schools, in certain cases compulsory, wherein a child -shall be taught - - (_a_) The laws of health, and healthful exercises. - - (_b_) Habits of gentleness and justice. - - (_c_) The calling by which he is to live. - -Compulsory popular education was established ten years after this -demand, and it was long overdue. It was quite central in Mill’s -programme and in that of the school of Cobden and Bright. Only Herbert -Spencer, in obstinate and inflexible individualism, disapproved of State -Schools, and only the Anglican and Catholic Churches, in their own -interest, blocked the way. As to what is taught there, we are slowly -learning Ruskin’s lessons about physical and moral training, and in the -continuation schools and the technical schools are advancing to trade -instruction also; though we are far behind Munich and other German -cities in this regard. More will be found on this on pp. 175-8 in Chap. -VI. The recent orders of the Board of Education distinctly recognize -some difference of subjects for urban, rural and sea-side children. - -2. Government workshops for all articles, in fair competition with -private ventures, and turning out nothing that was not genuine and of -good quality. - -Broadly speaking, this has not matured. Concerning it we may use -Ruskin’s own words on the whole scheme: “It is only possible to answer -for the final truth of principles, not for the direct success of -plans.”[69] The right attitude, I would suggest, is to develop on -practical lines of utility, and have work done by whatever agency does -it most effectively. This is Ruskin’s drift. It looks as though -municipal milk and beer, municipal houses and coal, as well as heat and -light, municipal theatres and opera, and government transport and -electrical power, were already with us in idea, if not yet in -realization. The method is one for gradual application. Every step will, -very properly, be contested. The experience of the transaction of -business by Government during the Great War has just now strongly -reinforced faith in private enterprise. We should keep an open mind. No -high or final principle comes in, and dogma and prejudice are out of -place. - -Hitherto Government has controlled and inspected, rather than itself -carried on the businesses of the country. Very few things are now left -wholly to perfectly free competition. Later on Ruskin gave up Government -workshops in favour of businesses owned and managed by Trade Gilds, thus -anticipating the sequence of public thought in later years. See below in -this Chapter. - -3. The unemployed to be taught, or employed at fixed wages, or medically -treated, or coerced to painful labour, according to the need of each -case. - -This close pastoral care by public authority has never yet been -realized. It has been left to private philanthropy, guided at one time -by the Elberfeld system as practised in the industrial towns on the -Rhine. As in manufactures the State has guided and inspected business, -rather than conducted it, so its Labour Exchanges and its unemployment -allowance and Insurance against sickness have done much to ease and -diminish the pain of unemployment. But, of course, this is only a stage -in our progress. And the comprehensive lines of Ruskin’s case for the -orphans of Great Business may well be earnestly remembered as a standard -to work towards. We have at any rate left behind us mere reliance on the -terrors of starvation and death as the only spur to industry in the -Great Society, as the present world of vast production and exchange has -been called.[70] - -4. Comfort and home for the old and destitute, free from the slur of the -Poor Law. - -This has been provided by Old Age Pensions. - -Thus Ruskin’s schemes are being or are on the way to be realized, in -quite remarkable detail. How much, uttered by leading writers in 1862, -remains so fresh as these in 1920? Ruskin proclaimed some truths too -early for his peace of mind, but not for the service of men. The -characteristic novelty of the proposals was that they were social, not -political, though written in a period when political reforms occupied -the forefront of progressive thought. They were no doubt a necessary -stage. We should not belittle them in disappointment. For without a -democratic franchise no social reforms could have been achieved. -Ruskin’s proposals are also extremely moderate, and essentially -conservative. He declares his disbelief in “the common Socialist idea of -the division of property,”[71] though, as land is to be in the hands of -those who can use it best, there was to be much compulsory purchase, a -practice with which we are increasingly familiar, for housing, for -allotments, and for small holdings. Nationalization of railways is -definitely part of the programme, as we should expect.[72] - -The most radical change concerned Wages. Ruskin declared that wages -should be fixed and steady under the responsibility of either the -Government or the Craft Gilds, and should be independent of the number -of people competing for work. As usual, he blamed the economists because -this was not so in nature, as though physiologists were to blame for -indigestion. But, as mere economics, he understood the doctrine, and -accepted its truth. He says that the cheapening of bread under the -absence of the Corn Laws would cause wages “to fall permanently in -precisely the same proportion.”[73] That is, he accepted the “supply -price” of wages--being the maintenance which the labourer under -competition would accept. - -The great issue for human welfare was then, and is now, whether there is -a supply price for wages above the merest starvation line. Labour, so -far, like commodities, has its price determined by the reciprocal action -of the buyers and sellers of it. On the side of demand the buyers cannot -give more than the value of the product of the last labourer they -engage. On the side of supply the labourer would change his trade, or -not have children, or not bring up his children to that trade, or he -would starve and die, unless he received what he considered a -maintenance. This is the supply price. And in any given trade, wages are -fixed at the point where demand and supply are both satisfied. Enough -labourers are employed to make the least valuable worth the required -maintenance and no more. Now the economists, arguing from the phenomena -they saw believed, with Malthus, that there was no decent supply price -for labour in practice, that people would multiply to the very limit of -subsistence. Hence they deduced the terrible doctrine of the Iron Law of -Wages, that wages tend to a starvation level, because they thought first -that food,[74] and afterwards that capital,[75] was fixed at any time, -or increased very slowly. Finally, J. S. Mill taught that fluid capital -or the Wages Fund, that famous centre of controversy, being fixed, the -total capital available for wages had to be divided between an ever -multiplying number of wage earners, some of whom were therefore always -starving. - -This treatment of Labour as governed by the same law of supply and -demand as commodities, is the only way it can be treated as subject -matter of a science dealing with the production, distribution and -exchange of wealth. But no one would stop there, shutting his eyes to -the fact that behind the labour stands the labourer, a human being, with -all the spiritual and emotional gifts and needs of a man. Only military -authority treats men so. Even an economist, writing on labour as a -commodity, proceeds to explain how it differs from material -commodities--how slow is its reaction on the side of supply--how high -wages up to a point produce a still higher quality of labour, and so -forth. Business management, also, is a commodity subject to the same -law, but I have never heard that the General Managers of Railway -Companies feel degraded for that reason to the mere level of slaves. - -Unluckily the economists, influenced by the poverty that followed the -last great war, which ended in 1815, concluded that the unskilled -labourer would multiply till his children starved. They saw in fact -starvation rampant in England. - -This was why Political Economy was called by Carlyle the Dismal Science. -But the economists were no more responsible for it than theologians are -for the Judgment Day, perhaps much less so. Ruskin believed and hated -the doctrine, and so, in fact, was an orthodox Millite. And both he and -Mill had their remedies. Mill recommended education, emigration and -small families. Ruskin appealed to the state or the gilds. In time Mill -came to the same point of view, and died a Socialist. He was able to do -this because he was persuaded by Thornton that the Wages Fund theory did -not hold; that in fact workers produced their own wages, with the help -of some capital to oil the wheels, that is, to fill the gap in time -caused by distribution under the machinery of payment. This occurred in -1869 after _Munera Pulveris_ had been published in _Fraser’s Magazine_ -in 1862 and 1863, but before it came out in book form in 1872; and it is -grievous that these two men did not consciously co-operate. Ruskin’s -method of controversy, possibly drove Mill to silence. - -The central blast of Ruskin’s attack was against this--ultimately -abandoned--doctrine of hopelessness. I do not mean that we may be quite -cheerful about free competition in wages; for there are departments of -labour so helpless that they cannot obtain a decently living wage.[76] -To meet this, choice of employment is necessary, but cannot always be -found for physically weak or mentally ill-qualified people. The nation -has decided to carry out in specified trades the Ruskinian principle of -the fixed living wage, enforced by the Sweated Industries Acts. Under -these more and more trades may and will come. The economic storm of the -war has broken down the equable course of free competition, and has -caused regulation of wages and prices on all sides. We must not speak as -if this were a normal development either of socialism or of competition. -We have suffered under it as part of the evil of war. The benefits of -competition require time, and a fair field for all forces. There will -still be much done by provision of alternative employment on the land, -by the investment of capital in developing local industries, and -indirectly, by housing, education and temperance reform, to diminish the -remnant of the helpless victims of sweating. Behind these the nation -will probably soon stand, committed to a national minimum in wages and -in hours. Above these government minima stand the various Trades Union -fixed rules. All are Ruskinian,[77] and Mill would rejoice in them too. - -A generation ago a national minimum wage had the support of Socialists -of the school of Sidney and Beatrice Webb, and of J. A. Hobson.[78] For -a long time it was not orthodox. I remember hearing a Professor of -Political Economy speaking on this subject twice, at an interval of -about ten years. The first time he summed up against it, pointing out -how a minimum tended, in Australian experience, to become a maximum, -with certificates of invalidism or incapacity easily obtainable to -authorize a lower wage. The second time he was for a minimum wage, as -what progressive thinkers hoped for. The steps have, of late, become -rapid. Miners had their wages fixed by the Government after the Coal -Strike of 1912, and again, after the Sankey Commission in 1919. The -Railway and Transport Workers are also under Government protection. An -international Labour Charter is part of the Peace of Versailles, which -must lead to an international minimum. It will be a delicate undertaking -to work it out with any completeness. Within a nation the cost of living -varies from place to place; the value of money rises and falls as -general prices fall or rise. Internationally, between San Francisco, New -York, London, Constantinople, and Yokohama, the differences forbid -uniformity of wage. Nobody can compel an employer to employ anybody -whose work results in no profit. Some people exist who are not worth a -minimum wage, unless it is too low to be acceptable. There will have to -be provision for these. Pensions for Old Age and invalidity will assume -larger proportions. The race will have to worry out this complex tangle -of man with his environment. What is clear is that we have reached the -Ruskinian standpoint about it. - -_Fors Clavigera_ is the most remarkable of the writings of Ruskin. He -who has read _Fors_, or a large part of it, knows Ruskin, and if he -loves and reveres the author, has become a Ruskinian. But without -reading _Fors_ no man or woman can become a Ruskinian. In it you become -intimate with the man. He talks to you like a friend, button-holes you -very much as Socrates did, invites you to laugh with him, and join in -laughs at himself, tells you all his troubles, and the causes of the ups -and downs of his spirits, tells you of his loneliness and his hopes and -intentions, shows you his accounts every month, tells you where he has -lost money, and to whom he has given it away, lets you see his letters -and his replies to them, and holds you, by the personal power of him, -while he pours vials of prophetic denunciation upon Society only to be -equalled in the pages of the Hebrew Prophets; and then clinches it all -with “Mind you, I mean every word of it; no exaggeration here.” - -_Fors_ is a book--a message:--it is often playful in style, the matter -all scattered. The subject changes from page to page; nothing in it can -be referred to without that Queen of Indexes which accompanies it: but -the unity of its subject is in the unity of the author. You carry on an -idea, cropping up under all sorts of irrelevancies and chance -illustrations--and you carry on certain jokes too, or humorous -allusions, as we all do in common life. This miscellany, I am persuaded, -will attract readers longer than the stately symmetry of _Modern -Painters_, or the laborious detail of the _Stones of Venice_. Who but -Ruskin could have brought thus out of his treasury things new and old? - -We shall look in vain for a completely worked out system of business and -legislation in Ruskin’s writings. His Utopia is delightfully worked up -here and there in detail, but it has great gaps; it often seems to raise -more difficulties than it settles; and it is not always consistent with -itself. - -Indeed, one could not expect completeness or real mastery of the -problem, either from the man or from the nature of the subject. From the -man, because the prophet and the practical administrator are rarely -combined. Comte went into detail, and we do not much value the -Positivist detail. The prophet is the man with the clear vision and hot -heart. The practical administrator must sit on committees and keep -secretaries, and meet deputations; he must check accounts and hold -dinner parties. What we desire is that practical men should give ear to -the prophet. - -Secondly, the subject is too vast and complicated for complete -treatment. Great as has been the volume and secure the conviction of the -attacks on our present social system, how very little in the way of -stable fabric exists to-day in confessed substitution for it. Socialist -and Communist colonies have failed through their principles being in -advance of the practice of the men who had to pioneer their course. Of -the thirty or forty whose history has been collected, most have broken -up, a few with profit to the members, but most with loss. Religious -communities have, of course, shown the greatest tenacity. The Shakers -are now diminishing and discouraged, though they own some of the richest -land in America, and are commercially connected with a valuable property -besides, known as Mother Siegel’s Syrup. The Doukhobors from Russia now -settled in the far West of Canada, have saved themselves by their -communism under persecution. They again are bound by a mighty religious -bond. But many are being absorbed by the society around, and their -primitive faith in their leader Peter Verigin as an incarnation of God, -will hardly survive Canadian education. We will not, then, expect to see -a complete reconstruction of society. Ruskin’s is most fully worked out -in _Time and Tide_: but _Fors_ is thickly scattered with it too. - -Roughly, then, and in the large, Regulation and Co-operation, rather -than Competition and Economic freedom, are to be the guiding principles. -That is, Ruskin is a Socialist. But he is no revolutionary nor divider -up of property. He desired all things to be gradual, and was too wise to -suppose that anything sweeping could be done at once, or indeed very -much of any kind for a long time. To his private correspondents in -_Fors_ the advice was always given to stay where they were, and do as -well as they could what they had in hand. Ruskin, again, is a Socialist -of the aristocratic variety. He believed in graded ranks, and in people -staying in the class they were born in. He did not say that everybody -was equal. He was also of the earnestly religious type of Socialist. -When I add that he considered that he and Carlyle were the only two -Conservatives left in England, and that he was a Tory of the type of -Scott and Homer, I may perhaps have succeeded in leaving my readers -fairly confused in mind: as every one who tries to classify Ruskin will -become. - -As to Wealth, Ruskin proposes that there shall be a legislative upper -limit to a man’s property; and that those whose superfluity is skimmed -off by law should have titles instead and be employed in public service. -As noted again in the chapter on Usury later, there are various ways of -securing this: by steeply graduating the Income Tax and the Death Duties -at the upper end, or by limiting the legal right of bequest, either by -saying that you must not bequeath more than a certain sum to one person, -or that a person must not inherit more than a certain total sum from all -sources. These startling innovations would no doubt put an effective -check on accumulation, if the State succeeded in fighting the ingenuity -of the lawyers. - -All interest on money he entirely forbids. This I deal with in Chapter -VII. - -All land is to be bought by the State from the landlords, and the -aristocracy, living on the Government annuities thus created, are to -become the legislators and leaders of the people. I don’t know whether -he knew them very well. At any rate these annuities appear to me to be -of the nature of interest. - -War is to be managed by personal encounters between some of the military -aristocrats and the aristocrats of the enemy, to save butchery of -peasants and much needless devastation. A kind of international Rugby -football match without referees might meet the case--where the honour of -England was really at stake. It is a simple suggestion; but soberly -Ruskin loathed war--particularly wars for conquest and all modern war by -machinery and for the benefit of capitalists. This is shown in Chapter -VIII. - -Our factory system and the crowding into towns he detested; though he -gives us no practical suggestions towards ending it except that most -steam power should be abandoned--not quite all. There is a curious -prophecy too about electricity superseding steam and smoke. We are -beginning on hopeful lines here with Mond gas, central electrical power -stations, and Garden Cities--if only we could and would compel our -factories to stop making smoke, the greatest curse of the landscape. -This is treated more fully in Chapter IX. - -Our Government must also take heed to all means of keeping our -population in the country. - -Population Ruskin deals with fantastically by permitting marriages only -to young men and young women after passing a suitable examination in -business or domestic qualifications. He would provide them, on marriage, -with an income for seven years from the State. If they had a private -income beyond this minimum it must accumulate; so that all young couples -start life on the same standard of expenditure. This is the most drastic -of his regulations, and the most out of reach.[79] - -Under land tenure from the State each person was to hold no more than he -could properly make use of--a system of permanent peasant proprietors, -that is, at a quit rent;--the land inalienable in title, and to descend -by primogeniture. - -We have also the somewhat obscure remark[80] that bread, water, and the -roof over his head must be tax (i.e. rent) free to every man. Methods -of administration are to be left to settle themselves. Also, “every man -is to build his own house to his mind, and to have a mind to build it -to.” - -As a system this leaves large gaps. What are to be the exact duties of -the aristocratic annuitant landowners, and who are they to be? There is -an echo of Plato’s “Guardians” in their position and duties: indeed they -seem very like in their functions to those hierarchical beings. It may -have been from Plato too that Ruskin learnt to emphasize the degradation -of continuous mechanical work, particularly that which is connected with -the mechanical use of fire. - -The Church is, as we have seen in Chapter III, to be exactly on the -Quaker model. No one is to be paid for preaching. The preachers are to -earn their living like other men; and the distinction between clergy and -laity is to be absolutely done away. “Of clergymen’s usual work, -admonition, theological demonstration, and the like I shall want very -little done indeed, and that little done for nothing! for I will allow -no man to admonish anybody, until he has previously earned his own -dinner by more productive work than admonition.” The lesson on humility -to religious persons in _Time and Tide_ is very amusing.[81] - -Turning to the business world, the deadliest war of Society would be -against occult stealing, by making bad goods, by adulteration, and -passing off sham articles. These practices would be guarded against by -the formation of trade guilds. Ruskin enumerates in Letter LXXXIX of -_Fors_ twenty-one trades. The men of each trade are to form themselves -into a guild, buy land and buildings, regulate prices and qualities, and -become, in fact, capitalist employers. Retail dealers are to be salaried -officers under the guild. Such is the proposal of _Fors_ of 1879, and -_Time and Tide_ of 1867. In _Unto This Last_ of 1860 the Government is -to have the workshops, not private guilds. Ruskin began to think his -later plan of private guilds more possible as years went on. Also, and -always, property is to be acquired by the guilds by honest payment and -voluntary bargains. It is very striking how prophetic these schemes are -of the proposals now known as Guild Socialism, treated in the next -chapter, at present the most popular form of socialistic reconstruction. -They are, indeed, a sketch of the very thing. - -Competition, outside the guilds or Government shops, is always -allowed--“as a safety valve for outlet of irrepressible vice.” He -believed in the cutaneous and curable eruption of such, rather than in -forcing it into the system of the body politic--a wise and cautious -idea, in no way that of a blind optimist. Another reason for this -permission of outside competition was to provide scope for erratic -ingenuity and original genius, and to conserve individual initiative; -also to protect the rights of foreigners trading here. There is also -much other sensible elasticity of arrangement hinted at. Honesty, -truthfulness, freedom from oppression, some plan by which all the good -national elements could become availing instead of being neglected and -choked off, these are the objects of his trade guilds. The difficulty of -foreign competition at low prices he does not touch, except to -anticipate for a far future a similar international guild system. - -One can easily see that increased facilities for combination are putting -it into the power of combines and trusts to fix qualities and prices in -a way the men of 1867 would never have expected. Is it beyond hope that -what combinations of capital and management can do, labour combinations -may do, for more public ends? Then indeed out of the eater will have -come forth meat. “The lion and the bear shall feed,” and the capitalist -shall dine like the labourer. “They shall not hurt nor destroy” in all -my holy workshops and markets. - -One of the most startling, but at the same time, most thought-compelling -proposals for the ideal State are Mr. Ruskin’s Bishops. The έπίσκοπος of -the New Testament was an Overseer, a man who looked after the members of -the Early Church, the agent of their relief, and the supervisor of their -conduct. This order of men Ruskin proposes to declericalize and to -municipalize. The preaching, we shall remember, is to be separated from -pastoral care, and to be done gratuitously by unofficial ministers. This -leaves no link between the State and the family; even the action of the -Fatherland as a father, now afforded by the State clergy, being done -away with. Therefore, over every fifty or a hundred families there is to -be elected, for life, a Bishop, who is to be a friendly counsellor, and -to keep a record of all notable events--a much extended public -registrar. All exceptional treatment which special circumstances may -render desirable, any mitigation of ordinary law, is arranged through -him. Where law is to be so pervasive, some cushion for its impact would -certainly be necessary. He bears to the Government the relation which -the Charity Organisation Society bears to the Poor Law Guardians, or an -Inebriate Home to the Jail, or (in theory) Equity to Common Law. Thus -the terrible loneliness and neglect of the poor, and haunts of -undiscovered vice, would no longer be possible. The whole episcopal -action was to be elastic, the methods patient, gentle, not compulsory, -and not intrusive. The Bishops were to be paid officers, and they had to -report to a higher officer called a Duke (_Time and Tide_, XIII). - -We now approach the question of national leadership. So great was -Ruskin’s distrust of the People, his hatred of Liberty and Equality, -that he fell back upon our Aristocracy, commonplace as he knew it to be, -for the power of governance. He is not so far out of our current -national habit. We know well that any good, hardworking peer, baronet or -landed magnate of good family, has at once a favourable hearing, and -possesses by birth an open door to the confidence of the people; and he -has only to show that he deserves it, to maintain it with ease. We -democrats love a lord. So the Home Office and police work, also the -Judgeships and the officering of the citizen army are to be the work of -the present landed gentry; the careful husbanding of the nation’s -resources in a glorified Board of Trade is to be the work of the present -kings of business. The Education Department and the now nonexistent -Artistic Department, the Board of Works, together with the few necessary -Doctors, and the Musicians, are the third department of upper-class -work, to be undertaken by the professional classes. It will be -remembered that there are to be no hired soldiers or clergy and very few -lawyers. - -For the realization of this Utopia, no violence is to be used. As a -prophet with an ethical gospel he entirely distrusted methods of -physical force, as leaving you in reality just the men you were before, -only damaged by the conflict in mind and person and estate. Nor did he, -as a Conservative and a believer in continuity, look with favour or hope -on a general confiscation bill, abolishing rent and interest. The whole -thing had to be done by converting the upper classes, those classes -whose glory is in living in comfort and pride served by the labour of -others, and whose alienation from the multitude is graven deep into -their characters by every one of their cherished habits. We have seen -that the landlord would become an annuitant, the parson transformed, the -solicitor and the barrister nearly wiped out. Many merchants, most -bankers and stockbrokers and all shareholders in banks, if and when -interest is abolished, would find themselves without the profits on -which, it is to be feared, much of their happiness depends. Some of -these persons would become public officers, living on salaries and -earning them. Manufacturers would become profit sharers, and be invited -to join a Guild. Doubtless the liquor interest would find that it had a -stern master, though but little detailed allusion to it is made, and -prohibition is not intended. - -If you have ever tried to convince a man by some highly abstruse, or at -any rate, long and intricate process of thought, of truths or proposals -which upset his whole career, blighted his interests, and wrote him down -a useless and pernicious person--if, for instance, you have explained -the wickedness and folly of Protection to a friend from Pennsylvania, or -the theoretical righteousness of Home Rule to a friend from Belfast, or -the innate errors of Vivisection to a physiologist, or discoursed on -Homœopathy to your own medical man, you will be able to foresee the -blank look of polite indifference with which Ruskin’s schemes would be -likely to be received by the Marquis of B. or by the distinguished -directors of your bank. Why am I not to make cotton look like silk? will -be asked by certain very excellent Lancashire firms. Is shoddy not to -continue its useful, if humble career? is the cry of certain parts of -the West Riding; and some of the metallic business of Birmingham would -be a cause of much searching of heart. And there is not a retired old -lady living in her bower of roses from the Lake District to Penzance -whose peace of mind and perhaps nourishment of body would not, if -interest were truly abolished, cease. I always notice that reformers who -would abolish interest do not explain what they would do with the large -class of ladies of all ages, and the smaller class of elderly men who, -after all, do constitute the greater part of the technically idle class, -and who are totally unable to earn a living; since neither the arts of -dress nor of graceful conversation have a market value. - -It must be plain to us that any wholesale conversion and sudden -awakening of the social conscience in Ruskin’s direction is not to be -expected. Neither the intellectual conviction, nor the moral power to -carry it out if formed, will be produced except in a few instances, here -and there. The astonishment and delight with which we hear of the doings -of exceptional employers show how rare they are. Every year, of recent -years, has seemed darker and darker to some of us, in noting the -treatment of public affairs by the wealthy, and the extent to which -“Things are in the saddle, and ride mankind.” - -Nor is it possible to an employer, even if intellectually convinced and -morally sound, to raise his wages much above the rate paid by his -competitors, to avoid drawing from the business wherewithal to pay -interest on capital, nor, generally, to improve quality, with or without -improving price. - -We must fall back on legislation, on democratic conviction expressed by -the organ of the national will, to bring about any portion of this -scheme. We shall have to move all together, if we move at all. Take a -comparative trifle, trifling compared to these large proposals--the -weekly half-holiday. This can only be taken by all or none of a given -trade in a given town; or take the Bank Holidays, popular benefits only -to be won on the floor of the House of Commons, and which cost so much -effort that a certain worthy banker has been canonized for his labours -in obtaining St. Lubbock’s Day. Yet I am of Ruskin’s mind thus far--that -any growth of an enlightened moral sentiment will most easily permeate -the voting masses from individuals of the educated classes. - -Ruskin cherished no delusions about it. He says: “You need not think -that even if you obtained a majority of representatives in the existing -Parliament, you could immediately compel any system of business, broadly -contrary to that now established by custom. If you could pass laws -to-morrow, wholly favourable to yourselves, as you might think, because -unfavourable to your masters, and to the upper classes of society, the -only result would be that the riches of the country would at once leave -it, and you would perish in riot and famine. Be assured that no great -change for the better can ever be easily accomplished, or quickly; nor -by impulsive ill-regulated effort, nor by bad men; nor even by good men, -without much suffering.”[82] - -The scheme as a whole has never been systematized, nor worked out in -detailed proposals. Still less has it been hinged on to our present -social structure. It is a prophetic forecast, an inspiration of genius; -it is a bow of glorious hue set in the clouds. When Ruskin wrote his -economics the view was that by each man doing the best for himself the -general good was automatically best advanced--an unseen hand behind -human activities arranged the world’s welfare with nothing but -individual selfishness to do it with. - -We no longer accept this as a complete account of the matter. We -recognize that that would be a wild-wood kind of a cosmic order; and -that under it human affairs would be left to the same kind of governance -as that of the forest and the jungle. The wolf pack and the wild bramble -are all very well in their scale and their place; but for humanity this -unrestrained individual luxuriance, with its terrible cost and waste, is -now felt by us to be only a first approximation to society. It is the -point whence we begin, not the goal we aim for. It is safe and stable as -a foundation; it cannot be upset or overthrown, for it is actually -itself the ground; and there is nothing to overthrow. Guilds, -Monopolies, Trusts, also Governments and Charities are built upon it to -regulate it; and they grow, and in time may decay and die, leaving the -jungle of free competition to overrun once more the painful clearings. -But out of the wilds men have in fact made their lawns and gardens, -their orchards and their fields of wheat; they have built them palaces -and cities which are permanent and stable enough, though not -everlasting. The higher law of civilization is successfully holding at -bay the wild tendencies. The millions of stray seeds, the storms of wind -and crackings of frost, if let alone, would in time reduce a watering -place like Scarborough to a green cliff side; still Scarborough exists -and will exist, and justify its existence. Similarly there are -limitations, orderly arrangements, which may be put upon the wild nature -of economic freedom; and we may make a better world thereby. We all know -how much is accepted already in the way of civilized restraint. When -Parliament is free to attend to home affairs almost every Act is a -regulation or limitation of individual freedom, or it is the taking up -by Government of what had been previously left to the individual. The -long list of municipal and imperial activities must be too familiar to -need repetition here. We are indeed rushing rapidly in that direction. -Can we go no further? Are we necessarily at the end just here? - -I will try to outline in the following chapter a few ways in which we -may. That is, we will test Ruskin by the changes of the last half -century and those which are looming near; and see how much of his -teaching abides our question. - - - - -_CHAPTER VI_ - -_RUSKIN’S ECONOMICS TO-DAY_ - - -It is well known that none of the proposals in the Preface to _Unto This -Last_, summarized above, nor all of them together, satisfy the ideas of -the most vigorous reformers of the moment. Nothing less than the -abolition of all production and distribution for individual profit is -believed by many earnest and experienced men to go to the root of our -social diseases. On the other hand, State Socialism has fallen into -discredit. The experience of Government officials in war time has taken -all the gas out of that particular experimental balloon. - -Guild Socialism is now the favourite form. Under this the government of -the country is to be twofold, from top to bottom. Guilds of producers -are to own and run businesses, having eliminated the capitalist as such, -and are to be organized into local, county, and national guilds of the -workers in that business. Then all the national guilds unite in a -Parliament of producers, who govern wages, and, I presume, the import -and export trade. Over against this stand our present geographical -constituencies and our present Parliament, which is the nation organized -as consumers. The State, represented by the present geographically -elected Parliament, is to remain supreme, is to be the ultimate owner of -the property used by the Guilds, with the right to tax it, by a quit -rent. The Guilds are to be the taxable units.[83] - -Rent, interest and profits are to be abolished. No provision for -compensation is part of the proposal; but no doubt that would depend -upon circumstances, and upon what could be arranged. It would also give -rise to much difference of opinion among the advocates of the new order. -And much would depend on whether it came gradually and peacefully, by -consent--or after a revolutionary general strike--or, again, after civil -war. One hears of an intention to respect life interests, but no more. -Clearly this issue will subject our people to a political test which -may be beyond their strength, and may, if we are not guided by justice -and mercy, lead to a generation of violence and the ruin of many hopes. - -The ideals behind the movement are noble--to give the workman a -proprietary interest in his work, to break down the pernicious -distribution of wealth which economic freedom has brought about, to -bring up a healthy and well-bred race, not a well-bred class only, to -put public service in place of profit as the motive for labour; to -banish the wretched insecurity of unemployment, and take away the bored -life of the idle rich; to use the surplus wealth of industry for the -education of the whole people and for a full life for all. Nothing less -than this is the guerdon of success. - -If the Guild is to guarantee a wage to all its workers, well and ill, -under good trade and bad, in defiance of changes in demand due to -fashion or invention, or to changes in weather or to foreign imports, -there will certainly have to be great powers in the Guild for the -transfer of labour from where it is not wanted to where it is. Also, -seeing that only a certain number of workers are wanted in the -pleasanter occupations, some authority in the guilds will have to -assign their duty to all labourers, instead of leaving the choice to -competition with the sharp tooth of hunger behind it. - -The coercion of the idle workman will be quite a large task; for -slackness cannot be summarily dealt with as now by dismissal. It is such -rocks of human frailty that will be the danger to the navigation of any -ordered system. Are all childless women to be made to work for guild -wages? Are married and unmarried men to be paid alike? Is any saving to -be permitted? What machinery will determine prices, when demand and -supply are denied their free play? It is not the place of this book to -answer these questions or to pronounce a final opinion. It is enough to -see that opinion is strongly tending in this direction, and that it is -in the sequence of _Fors Clavigera_. - -That this is, however, the direction of advance, one is led to believe, -from the existence of a halfway house. There is in every movement always -the moderate mass and the progressive vanguard, and they sometimes turn -their guns heartily upon one another. The moderate proposal, the rival -to Guild Socialism, is that of the Whitley Councils for bringing in the -present capitalist employers and their workmen as collaborators in the -conduct of businesses, and as joint constituents of a trade Parliament. - -The Builders’ Parliament,[84] or “Industrial Council for the Building -Industry,” was the forerunner of the Whitley Councils, but is on more -thoroughgoing guild lines. Mr. Malcolm Sparkes, a young director of a -carpentry and cabinet-making business in Willesden, was mixed up as an -employer in a disastrous building strike in 1914. Hopeless of any -solution by hostile and suspicious bodies of organized masters and -organized men, never meeting except as opponents, and working by warfare -and the balance of power, he conceived the idea of combined councils, -representing both sides, meeting periodically to consider the well-being -of the industry. Such bodies were not to deal with disputes, but could -often avoid them and remove their causes. Above all they would provide a -friendly atmosphere. He persuaded the men’s organizations first, and -induced them to approach the masters, who responded willingly; and after -due debates, and two years’ permeation of opinion in all the bodies -concerned, the Builders’ Parliament was constituted. At its sixth -quarterly meeting in August, 1919, it passed by an overwhelming majority -a report, called the Foster Report, under which masters would become -paid officials and capitalists would receive a fixed interest. Mr. -Sparkes and the builders, therefore, are using their united organization -to prepare the way for the Guild arrangement, and are favourable to it. -They have offered the labour to build some thousands of houses to the -Corporation of Manchester, if the latter will supply the capital and -take the business risk. But the Whitley Council movement has had a wider -development, if a less advanced one. - -Mr. J. H. Whitley, Chairman of Committees in the House of Commons, and -Chairman of a Government Sub-Committee on the relations of employers and -employed, read an article by Mr. Sparkes on his scheme in the _Venturer_ -for December, 1916, and asked him to prepare a memorandum for him in -detail, and to record his progress to date. This memorandum became the -basis of the Whitley Report. The Government adopted it and organized -under it the Whitley Councils. The day after Mr. Sparkes’s memorandum -reached the printers the author was sent to prison as a conscientious -objector to military service. He was a Quaker; he had refused an -exemption as a works manager in a controlled business; he had resigned -his directorship rather than do war work; and now in defiance of an Act -of Parliament which granted exemption, the blind hand of the Tribunals -and the War Office could do nothing better with this young patriot than -to keep him in gaol for two years. He was liberated a little before the -others because the King happened to ask for the author of the Whitley -Report. This kind of thing gives pause to one’s hopes of better times -coming out of the action of the present militarist states. To all these -proposals Ruskin ought to be recognized as the idealist forerunner. His -guilds of craftsmen, though differently founded, are very much like Mr. -Cole’s. The same social message which Oxford sent through Ruskin from -Christ Church and Corpus, she now sends through a Fellow of Magdalen. As -the consummation of the idealist approaches, it becomes necessary to -work the ideas out, and people will listen to the details, indeed will -fiercely question them, and demand something practical. But in the -history of economic thought, should these ideas become ultimately -fruitful, a greater place should be found for the author of _Fors_ than -has yet been awarded to him by our writers on Economics. The chief -differences between the modern scheme and that of forty years ago is -that Ruskin would confiscate nothing, and would not demand, would even -object to, a labour monopoly in the hands of the Guilds, which Mr. Cole -declares to be a necessity, without which a Guild is not a Guild. It -will be for our successors fifty years hence to say on which side wisdom -lay. - -On one point the age has gone beyond Ruskin. For good or evil we know we -have nothing to trust to but Democracy. From the ugliness and -gullibility of the democracy the secluded artist shrank, living in -beauty and luxury at Oxford or Venice or by the Lake of Coniston. There -was excuse, and there is still much excuse, for men of little faith. The -democracy can be played upon and excited to war: its ruling puppets dare -not take the drink from it even in war time. It has “demanded,” as -economists say, our conscienceless and sensational newspapers, and it -loves to read them. It needs much education, and particularly it needs -what Ruskin hoped for from Education--character and conduct; first, -grace and health and beauty of life; and, as chief intellectual prize, -a relentless love of truth. Would that everybody would refuse to buy -again a paper that had once deceived them, or to vote for a politician -once proved untrustworthy. - -Reformers, forgetting the dead weight they have to shift, turn their -guns on one another. Socialists seem to be most scornful of Liberalism, -and particularly of those employers who are generous and -public-spirited. - -It must be emphasized that Ruskin was an aristocrat in temperament. In -fact he repudiated the idea of an equality which did not, he declared, -exist. His sections in _Munera Pulveris_ against equal voting and on -“natural slavery"--I suppose learnt from Aristotle’s _Politics_--are -clear on this.[85] He did not support negro slavery, but his interests -were chiefly taken up with opposing economic slavery at home, or -reserving it for the fit people. The whole passage must be read to be -understood. - -It is now in 1920 nearly fifty years since _Fors Clavigera_ began to -come out, and the outlines of St. George’s Guild were drawn. Those who -in that decade found a new inspiration and delight in discipleship to -him, are now growing elderly; the glory of the early time when Ruskin’s -genius was irradiating the pages of _Fors_ with the hope of a kingdom of -God to be raised within the kingdom of this world, was in the days of -youth, in the spring of aspiration and a not easily bounded hope. We -nourished our hearts on godlike food; and we owe our Master an -inextinguishable debt. It is often doubtless a thought full of sadness -that the tender grace of a day that is dead will never come back to us, -in the sober light of long experience in the realm of the commonplace. -Our task now is, to gather up in our maturity that which abides; for our -days are passing, and though the growth of the kingdom has not been all -that we might have hoped, its spirit must still be handed on, and fixed, -so far as we can fix it, in the permanent habits of man. - -We Ruskinians are often called sentimental. But it is not sentimental to -keep sentiment in its proper place and to have a sane and well directed -emotion at our beck when something has to be done. “Sentiment” means -ill-directed emotion which slops over. Loyalty is not inconsistent with -criticism. It is essential that that which is merely temporary or -fanciful in the instructions which run through the pages of _Fors_ -should not be insisted upon for ever. Those pages contain many quaint -directions untested by experience. - -The Guild of St. George was intended to be a company of people who would -bind themselves to live in a healthy way, doing harm to no man and no -landscape, cultivating land by hand or water power, and contributing to -the public and educational work of the Guild, at first, one-tenth of -their income; but as this was too much for most people, the amount was -left elastic.[86] - -The Creed of St. George is a noble document. It had to be signed by -every member of the Guild.[87] - -1. I trust in the Living God, Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and -earth, and of all things and creatures, visible and invisible. - -I trust in the kindness of His Law and the goodness of His work. - -2. I trust in the nobleness of human nature, in the majesty of its -faculties, the fulness of its mercy, and the joy of its love. - -I will strive to love my neighbour as myself, and even when I cannot, -will act as if I did. - -3. I will labour, with such strength and opportunity as God gives me, -for my own daily bread: and all that my hand finds to do, I will do with -my might. - -4. I will not deceive, nor cause to be deceived, any human being for my -gain or pleasure; nor hurt, nor cause to be hurt, any human being for my -gain or pleasure: nor rob, nor cause to be robbed, any human being for -my gain or pleasure. - -5. I will not kill or hurt any living creature needlessly, nor destroy -any beautiful thing, but will strive to save and comfort all gentle -life, and guard and perfect all natural beauty upon the earth. - -6. I will strive to raise my own body and soul daily into higher powers -of duty and happiness; not in rivalship or contention with others, but -for the help, delight and honour of others, and for the joy and peace of -my own life. - -7. (On loyalty to the laws.) - -8. (On loyalty to the Guild.) - -As an organization this little realm within the realm came to very -little. It needed advertisement, propagandism, somebody to preach it, -and to organize it. The prophet at Brantwood wrote about it to the then -very limited audience of _Fors_, and there propaganda ended. There were -about forty-two Companions of St. George altogether at one time; and the -Master was autocratic and irregular through ill health. Some land at -Abbeydale, Sheffield, was taken, and a settlement of Socialists -attempted without success. George Baker presented a woodland tract of -fifteen acres at Bewdley; Mrs. Talbot some cliff-like land and cottages -at Barmouth; and a small holding on the Yorkshire coast at Claughton, -near Whitby, was acquired. The land cultivation came to very little. - -The land at Abbeydale is now a successful market garden with a -residence, let to a tenant in the usual way. A house has been built -within recent years on the land at Bewdley, and part, if not all, of it -is at last in cultivation by a Liverpool couple tired of town life. Mrs. -Talbot’s representative manages the cottages at Barmouth on the lines of -an ordinary good landlord. We have sold the bit of Yorkshire moorland, -long troublesome. After delays and legal difficulties, George Baker, a -Quaker alderman of Birmingham, who had been co-trustee of the -properties, and had borne much of the business burden of it from the -beginning, was made Master, and a few new members were enrolled by -invitation. The Guild has held of late years a number of annual -meetings, at Oxford, Coniston, Sheffield, Bewdley, London, Manchester, -Liverpool and Birmingham, which were delightful social occasions, and -which transacted the business of the properties, and made grants from -the income, which, apart from subscriptions, is between one and two -hundred pounds a year, mostly representing Ruskin’s own gifts. The -grants go as a rule to literary, agricultural or other purposes on the -Master’s lines. On the death of Mr. Baker the Mastership was accepted by -Mr. George Thomson, of Huddersfield, the forerunner, under Ruskin’s -guidance, of the profit-sharing movement in this country. He resigned, -through failing health, in 1920, and Mr. H. E. Luxmoor, of Eton, was -appointed. Mr. William Wardle, of 4 Olive Lane, Wavertree, Liverpool, is -the Hon. Sec. Two members represent the Guild on the Committee of the -Sheffield Corporation which has charge of the Ruskin Museum in -Meersbrook Park. This Museum is the property of the Guild on permanent -loan to the Corporation of Sheffield who maintain it. It is indeed among -the Guild properties the one really valuable concrete survival of the -labour and enthusiasm of the founder. It is one of the very lovely -things of the whole world, with its concentrated charm and delicate -fineness. - -These details about the present day of small things, about this remnant -of an ancient hope, are not themselves important, but may not be without -interest to some of the many thousand readers of _Fors Clavigera_. Those -letters are full more of promise and of postponement than of achievement -or permanently established method; and the rather wilful and fantastic -adventures of a mind that was seldom at rest, often overflow into the -monthly budget without as much repression as a sober systematizer would -have exercised, but with endless delight. - -In the early hopeful days, when there floated before Ruskin’s -imagination the conception of an influential and numerous body of -Companions of the Guild, comprising the moral and intellectual -aristocracy of the country, he laid his plans on large lines. In the -Master’s Report for 1881 he wrote that he expected “the Guild to extend -its operations over the Continent of Europe and number its members -ultimately by myriads”; which in the mouth of a Greek scholar means -accurately by tens of thousands. He instructed the Companions to read no -newspapers until he should be able to found a newspaper fit for them to -read, an instruction which his most devout follower has never obeyed. -Moreover there was to be an authorized list of books which alone might -be read, of which _Bibliotheca Pastorum_ was the first part. This is -perhaps the most erratic of all the proposals which crossed his mind. - -He also criticized the coinage of the country, and insisted that there -should be under the rule of St. George sovereigns called ducats, of pure -gold, a metal which is of itself quite unsuited for use as coinage, and -needs to be hardened by alloy before it is fit for the purposes of the -mint. Then the shilling was to be called a florin and was to be divided -into ten pence. This copying of the coins of Florence in the middle -ages, which as Ruskin once said to me, gave her merchants credit in the -time of Edward I, cannot be considered seriously; indeed, these fanciful -commands can only be matter for regret. There can be but one coinage in -a country, even if the Guild of St. George had become a large -institution. So late as 1884 Mr. Ruskin told a party of us at Brantwood -that the St. George’s Company was going to issue coins of pure gold. - -Rents, payable of course to the State, were to be one-tenth of the -produce. Now rents cannot with any justice be settled that way. The -farmer who farms poor land should be as well off and get as good a -return for his labour as he who farms rich land. Under ordinary -competition things turn out that way. All farmers in theory, and -approximately in practice, receive the same return for labour and -capital applied to land, and the margin goes to the landlord as rent. - -Ruskin’s system is known as the metayer system, only that half, not -one-tenth of, the profits usually go to the landlord. It is an -old-fashioned, primitive, and uneconomic system, and is used in Italy, -Portugal, on the Danube, in Russia, and over about one-seventh of -France. At the time of the French Revolution, Arthur Young found -seven-eighths of France managed in this way. It is suited for small -holdings; but it discourages intensive culture, for it would be no use -for a metayer tenant to spend £1 in increasing his product by £2, if -half of the £2 went to the landlord. Ruskin liked it because it made a -friendly co-operation between landlord and tenant. There was never any -clash of interests, and the tenant was never under real hardship. It is -morally a much more attractive plan. It bars any keen competition -between tenants and it leads to permanency of tenure. - -Throughout Ruskin’s proposals for reform we shall nearly always find in -each something fanciful and dainty, but impracticable--a sort of pretty -decoration tacked on in gaiety of heart, in the spirit of Gothic -ornamentation. But if we knock off his little pinnacles, and deny -ourselves the glow of his stained glass windows, we shall generally find -a commodious and serviceable erection of constructive reform left. In -fact, he turns out to have been on the main stream of progress, though -pleading all the time that he was harking back to a happier past. His -agricultural and business proposals contained fruitful elements, -appearing ahead of their time; events from many sides have proved how -illuminating his suggestions were. - -Ruskin, as we have noted, would limit all incomes at the top by slicing -off the superfluity and giving a title instead. In occult ways, -unfortunately, peerages and baronetcies and knighthoods do come about by -the sacrifice of cash; and in more open and creditable form the -graduated income tax, the super-tax, and the steeply rising death -duties are partial measures in the same direction. - -There is perhaps nothing more fanciful in Ruskin’s reconstruction of -Society than his marriage regulations, laid down in _Time and Tide_, and -mentioned in the last chapter. We have not yet put Cupid into harness to -this extent, but the popular interest and concern about the propagation -of the unfit and the feeble-minded, and in general the attention which -is being paid to heredity and the interest in eugenics, are all in the -direction laid down by Ruskin in a thorough-going shape, fearless as the -schemes of childhood. By feeding school children and by doctoring them -the State supplements the weakness of the homes. In many unfamiliar -forms the work of St. George goes on. - -But in his day thought and practice in Social Reform were comparatively -uninstructed by experience. One is reminded of his own phrase about -Cimabue and Giotto. They uttered “the burning messages of prophecy by -the stammering lips of infants.” He goes straight for his object without -fear or hesitation, as an inexperienced child will toddle across a -crowded street, unfearing because unknowing about the motor cars. -Ruskin, for instance, would set the unemployed to reclaim waste lands. -To which of us has not that thought come? Here are the men wanting work; -here is the land wanting workers. Let us put them together. But -experience has shown that the dour nature of the unoccupied land, and -the frequently dour nature of the unoccupied men, render such schemes -generally hopeless, and at times even scandalous, failures. Land and men -are unoccupied because they are hard to occupy, and by putting together -waste land and waste men you only double the difficulty of the task. -When good workers might make something of bad land, or bad workers of -good land, bad workers on bad land are hopeless. Some years ago in the -House of Commons in the debate on the Right to Work Bill, Mr. Burns -explained amid general agreement the complete failure of relief works, -and their tendency rather to increase the evil and waste public -resources. Why is the land out of cultivation? For no other reason than -that it does not pay to cultivate it. The return will not give a -maintenance and pay taxes. We may leave rent out, for landlords would -rather have their lands cultivated for no rent than let them lie a waste -of weeds. And why are the men not at work? Because in normal times -about 40 per cent. of them are unemployable, the degenerates who are -such a cause for alarm and concern to the nation. Of the rest, most are -unsuited to agricultural work, and only a moderate proportion can be -helped in that way. That some tolerable land can be so cultivated, and -some industrious unemployed so maintained is true, but it requires the -spiritual amalgam of the Salvation Army, or some such body of patient -and capable enthusiasts, to solve the difficult problem, for a selected -minority of the submerged, on their farm colonies. They are doing the -work of St. George. - -Above these stricken ones comes the ordinary farm labourer, who is -unfortunately migrating to the towns. Him Mr. Ruskin hoped to settle on -land. Such a scheme of small holdings, if backed by sufficient capital, -worked by experts, and favourably situated for a market, might even in -the seventies have succeeded. Of course it would not have had about it -all the moral excellences, the grace of character and the charm of -nature and art, which delight us so in the St. George’s lands of the -future which we read about in _Fors_. However, Ruskin never concentrated -upon it, but spent most of his time and of the resources of the Guild -on the Sheffield Museum instead. He did what he found he could do the -best. He knew he was leaving great gaps for others to fill up. He says, -touchingly, in the Preface to _Love’s Meinie_ in 1881: “It has been, -throughout, my trust that if Death should write on these plans of mine -‘What this man began to build he was not able to finish,’ God may also -write on them, not in anger, but in aid, ‘A stronger than he cometh.’” - -But with labour and patience and against strong hostile political -forces, the Small Holdings Act has been for some years at work. The -obstruction of the squires still renders it useless in many counties, -and there can be no more true task for St. George than to support -agencies such as the Small Holdings Association. By its means, as a -matter of fact, the peasantry is being restored to the land on a proper -business basis. Tasks of this magnitude require organization on a large -scale, and the payment of proper returns. No social benefit is given by -letting some individual hold land at less than its value. The County -Councils since the war are engaged upon it. We are now again on the eve -of a large settlement of returned soldiers on the land, and of an -attempt to brighten the villages. - -St. George, again, ordered that the homes of workpeople should be -cheerful, that they should have gardens and flowers and sunshine, that -the long miserable rows of uniform cottages should be of the past. These -things, largely under the inspiration of Ruskin, are being done, in -First Garden City at Letchworth, and in such model villages as -Bournville, New Earswick, Port Sunlight, the Hampstead suburb, and -similar suburbs at Manchester and Hull. But it is all on far too small a -scale. The true task of St. George to-day is to strengthen these -progressive movements. The growth of the towns since 1871 has made this -urban problem the most urgent of all. How many rows of dreadful box -homes have been built. The country is being choked by the spreading -towns. Purely agricultural colonies are good, but towns cannot be -founded without the help of the manufacturers who make a town. - -Again, the intention of St. George was to have a happy body of -workpeople, loyally co-operating with a superior type of employer, and -banishing greedy competition. The surviving remnant of the Guild of St. -George has very little in its own power in this way, but amongst the -employers who have built these model villages there exists just this -kind of relation in manifold ways. And again, it pays. When in the -British Association at York the firm of Rowntree and Co. was being -commended for the benefits they are giving their workpeople, Mr. Seebohm -Rowntree, whose whole heart is in the work, made a speech insisting that -it paid them. He did this in order to induce other people to do the -same, and to show that it was feasible for the ordinary manufacturer. - -Broadly speaking, we may say that what we are all striving for is being -done, in ways more wholesale and more complicated than could have been -worked out in the seventies. Two generations of social pioneers, -thinkers, and experimenters, have been grappling with the problems since -then, so that we should not expect precisely the same prescription to be -given by the social physician to-day as was given by one of the great -pioneers of healing nearly fifty years ago. - -The agricultural settlement seems the furthest from practical politics. -Nevertheless, a series of enactments since 1881 have established in -Ireland that very arrangement of a peasant proprietary paying a fixed -rent to the State, which is the essence of Ruskin’s proposal; except -that the Irish rents under the Land Purchase Acts are terminable after a -period of years; and so rather more easy than Ruskin’s. Presumably, if -found successful, the system could be extended. It will certainly occupy -the minds of reformers very much during the immediately coming years. - -Education was naturally a chief concern with St. George, and it occupies -Letter XVI of _Time and Tide_.[88] His schools were to be in the fresh -air of the country, and with large playing fields securely their own. -“The Laws of Health and exercises enjoined by them” are the first -feature of the curriculum; and riding, running, all the honest personal -exercises of offence and defence, and music, are to be included under -this head. Then come “the mental graces of reverence and compassion, -which are to be developed by deliberate and constant exercise,"--which -means, doubtless, that there is to be no girding at passers-by in the -streets, and no rat-catching for amusement. Then, as the bond and -guardian of reverence and compassion, comes “the truth of spirit and -word, of thought and sight--truth earnest and compassionate, sought for -like a treasure, and kept like a crown.” This is to be taught chiefly -“by pressing for close accuracy of statement, as a principle of honour -and as an accomplishment of language.” There is much sound advice about -this in Letter XVI. Then, for the actual curriculum, there come, first, -history; and then natural science and mathematics. But there are to be -three alternative curricula, one for city children, one for country -children, and one for seafaring children. The city children are to study -mathematics and the arts, country children, natural history and -agriculture, and the future sailors, astronomy, geography, and marine -natural history. A beginning of variety of just this kind now exists in -the elementary schools, as noted in the last chapter. - -After this, all children are to be taught the calling whereby they are -to live. - -The curious whimsical paradox that reading and writing are to be -optional subjects, does not, after such a curriculum, amount to much. It -is part of a petulant reaction against merely inferior literary -exercise, by a chief craftsman in it; as a professor of music is the -first to tell you that it is no use teaching music to those who will do -no good with it. Ruskin says that the teaching of the three R’s is of no -use to people who will only read rubbish and write falsehood, and, put -that way, one is bound to agree. - -No school of St. George has ever been begun, though there are schools -which have kindred aims. Such schools are away in the country with farm -and garden, with little pressure of outside examinations, a varied -curriculum, great attention to athletic exercise, to natural science and -history, with classics and the study of grammar practically shelved, and -the prime concern of the school management the inculcation of reverence -and truthfulness and gentleness. The Natural History, the Arts and -Handicrafts, the reading aloud and the committing scripture and poetry -to memory would be after his own heart. - -We recognize in this luminous and suggestive treatment of education that -the right note is struck--the basal idea is that “you have not educated -a boy when you have taught him to know what he did not know, but to be -what he had not been, and to behave as he had not behaved.” And, with -the present stiff system and starved appliances, human and material, -with which we educate the citizens of the future, what a glorious vision -Ruskin’s is, of what that education might so easily be. His protest -against the three R’s is merely a humorous outcry against their -insufficiency, their mechanical character, and their commercial end. How -that much, and that much only, of mental outfit has worked, is printed -large in the circulation of _Illustrated Bits, Scraps_, all sensational -evening papers and the Bottomley, Harmsworth and Hulton presses. But -clerks and pupil teachers are cheap. - -Ruskin’s actual work as a University Professor was notable; and many are -the men, now old or gone, whom he influenced at Oxford. To be one of the -influences at Oxford or Cambridge is a worthy use of gifts of the -highest kind. The present Drawing Schools at Oxford are a monument of -his labour and his liberality. - -It is easy indeed for the Philistine to laugh at the pageantry of the -vision of the England of St. George. There were to be “Marshals” with -great districts subject to them, “Landlords,” men of fortune devoting -their gifts to the service of the Guild, and owing their lordship to the -fact that “they could work as much better than their labourers, as a -good knight than his soldiers.” These were all to be called _Comites -Ministrantes_; under them the _Comites Militantes_ were the rank and -file of the workers on the Company’s lands. Finally the _Comites -Consilii_, the only class who have materialized, were the companions -contributing, but not residing on St. George’s lands.[89] - -To sum up, then, the present public duty of a good Ruskinian: - -He will support the labour colonies of the Salvation Army and Small -Holdings Associations. He will invest in the stock of Garden City or -other Garden Suburbs; he will work for the Minority Report on the Poor -Law, and for all plans for strengthening and humanizing Education, for -Town Planning and Smoke Abatement. He will labour to extend among the -laity the duties of the clergy, and among the clergy the spirit of the -layman, he will help all Peace Societies, and labour to promote good -understanding with other countries through the League of Nations. He -will clip the wings of capital seeking to use the British Flag as a -business asset, and he will do this by a capital levy, the super-tax and -the Death Duties. He will be a mild and reasonable Socialist, so far as -to extend the scope of municipal action as it may be found practicable. -He would support the principle of a minimum wage, co-operative -partnerships, and collective bargaining; and he would probably give -cautiously some power to segregate the feeble-minded. He would provide -Art Galleries and Museums housed in noble buildings, and would -religiously preserve the surviving beauty of the country side. Two -possible changes may be treated at greater length. - -I. The higher professional activities may be still further removed from -competition and put under salaried service. There will be competition -for posts; that is right; but if medical men and lawyers did not depend -upon fees, we should be rid of many abuses; and the work would gain in -dignity. I believe clergymen, professors and public schoolmasters do as -good work as those who follow callings more directly dependent on the -casual payments and goodwill of customers. With regard to education, -there would be danger of loss as well as of gain, if private schools and -private tutors were abolished. They should remain available for those -who desire them. There will always be people who demand a special -religious atmosphere or who wish to make experiments. And there will be -pupils who from bad health, or neglect of early training, could not -properly benefit from the schools of the State. It is not necessary that -the public body in control should be either the State or the -Municipality. In my view, neither the universities nor the public -schools would benefit by such a change. Nevertheless, it is becoming -increasingly agreed that the nation should shoulder a larger part of the -expense, and guarantee the quality of the teaching, more widely and -liberally than it does at present. In this connection it is all the more -necessary that the State should clear itself of militarism. For if -military training were to become compulsory in schools, as is seriously -threatened, the nation would be once more as acutely divided about it, -as it has been, so long and so disastrously, over denominational -schools. We should have conscientious objectors in permanence. - -Nor can we proscribe the private practitioner, for the wealthy, if there -were any, or for the medically heterodox. Yet, how much bad pretentious -work, how much humbug and servility, would be spared to their profession -if most of them became public officials, only doctors know. - -I am not qualified to say whether the legal profession should be -nationalized, nor how much. But things could hardly be in worse case -than they are at present, when the worthy members of a necessary -profession are regarded by many as little better than birds of prey. - -It may be said that modest State salaries would not attract able men -into the professions so organized. But if the profits of trade were -socialized as proposed, or divided among guild members, there would not -be that golden alternative lure. - -II. In those matters which are left to the adjustment of free -competition, it is necessary that everyone should be in a fair position -to bargain, so that there may be no compulsion due to sheer starvation. -This requires to be done so carefully that an actual maintenance at a -tolerable standard, and permanently available without work, should not -be offered to the able-bodied. Two suggestions have been made which are -well worth considering. - -Alfred Russel Wallace proposes that a daily dole of bread, enough to -sustain life, should be easily available to the indigent or the out of -work. Tickets should be accessible at all Post Offices, Police Stations, -and from magistrates, clergymen and others, on making out a claim of -need. Thus actual starvation would be warded off.[90] - -A more elaborate proposal is that to whose advocacy my friend Mr. Dennis -Milner and his wife are devoting their lives. He proposes that everyone, -rich and poor, from birth to death, should be the recipient of a certain -pension, to be provided by a four shillings in the pound Income Tax, on -all incomes great and small, to be deducted at the source. Thus, -one-fifth of everyone’s income would be redistributed on a flat rate, as -a capitation grant. It would provide on pre-war incomes about four -shillings and threepence per week per head. So that a family of five, -receiving twenty-one shillings and threepence a week, or £55 a year, -would also pay £55 Income Tax, if their other income was £220. They -would neither lose nor gain. Every family of that size receiving a -smaller income would gain by the scheme; everyone above that limit would -lose. It would thus encourage marriage and the raising of families, by -constituting a tax on the unmarried. The man of a thousand a year, with -a wife and three children, would pay £200 and receive £55--reducing his -income to £855. One great advantage to the poor would be that it would -save them from most or all of the insurance premiums they pay, of all -sorts. The scheme is attractively expounded in pamphlets.[91] - -Clearly its greatest difficulty is due to the fact that we are likely to -have so great an Income Tax to pay for war, that to pay also for welfare -may be beyond the willingness of the public. - - - - -_CHAPTER VII_ - -_USURY_ - - -Ruskin’s attack upon the taking of interest for capital is the part of -his doctrine which goes deepest into our business system. It has in -consequence weakened his influence, and has not, even by himself, been -put into practice in this country. But he spent much of his strength -upon it in his later years. In _Munera Pulveris_, written in 1862, we -find him stating[92] that Usury is “merely taking an exorbitant sum for -the use of anything"--“the essence of the usury being that it is -obtained by advantage of opportunity or necessity, and not as due reward -for labour,” and he therefore includes high profits for middlemen under -the term: but in later editions he adds a footnote to say that Mr. W. C. -Sillar[93] has since shown him that the payment of any interest at all -is unjustifiable, and is real usury. - -It is well to distinguish carefully between Interest and Profits. The -business man who exploits foreign concessions, and who stimulates wars, -may or may not be a capitalist. He may be using other people’s capital. -He makes his profit as reward for his work, his luck, his enterprise, -and an often risky responsibility. The capitalist, properly so called, -is, on the other hand, an investor who simply takes his interest. Often, -doubtless, one man fills both parts, but in general theoretical -discussion they should be kept separate. - -Interest, even if unavoidable, tends to increase the inequalities of -distribution, and beyond a certain point it becomes a social danger, and -may even become a disease in the body politic. It is one of the least -desirable consequences of the system of private property; but it is, I -fear, an inherent part of it--to be got rid of only under a communal -system where private property does not exist. - -His new convictions did not take an absorbing hold on Ruskin’s mind for -some years. In September, 1872, he writes in _Fors_, Letter XXI, §§ 18, -19, in reply to a remonstrance from Mr. Sillar: “I am very careless -about such minor matters as the present conditions of ... banking. I -hold bank stock simply because I suppose it to be safer than any other -stock, and I take the interest of it because, though taking interest is, -in the abstract, as wrong as war, the entire fabric of society is at -present so connected with both usury and war, that it is not possible -violently to withdraw, nor wisely to set example of withdrawing, from -either evil.” - -“Denunciations of interest are much beside the mark unless they are -accompanied with some explanation of the manner in which borrowing and -lending, when necessary, can be carried on without it.” There is a -passage to the same effect in the notes to _Fors_, Letter XLIII, written -in July, 1874. - -It is easy to show why interest is both just and unavoidable, if we -accept the justice of private property in general. By advancing capital -we enable the borrower to carry on profitable operations which will pay -him after he has given us somewhat for the advance. It pays him to -borrow. He obtains an immediate order upon labour from the lender who -postpones using it for his own pleasure. It is this element of Time -which constitutes the whole reason for interest. Ready money, that is an -immediate order upon labour for which nothing has yet been given, has a -price depending upon the action of those who have it and those who want -it, under the same law of Supply and Demand as governs the price of -other commodities. The current rate of interest, after taking off the -varying payment for risk, represents both the reward for which the -capitalists will save the last portion of fluid capital which is saved, -and the “final” utility of the last dose of money available to -borrowers. The capitalist needs an investment as much as the borrower -needs capital. The advantage is not all on one side. Bankers desire -eagerly to grant overdrafts to safe people. The whole process is -essential to production on a large scale, and to public activity, and -there is not necessarily any oppression in it, in our present state of -society, though it is, like everything else, liable to abuse. - -But to a man who has enough already “abstinence” is no hardship. Time is -his friend. Hence a measure of government interference to stop great -fortunes is just and necessary, whether by a heavy income tax or a -capital levy, or by death duties, all steeply graduated. Another drastic -extension of these duties would be found in the limitation of the right -of bequest, fixing a maximum amount which a man may receive, or may -leave, by inheritance or bequest. Bequest is not a natural, it is a -strictly legal, right; and the law may regulate it.[94] This would check -the worst of the evil of vast fortunes, which are a curse to their -owners, and the other side of the poverty shield. They are rarely made -in one generation. Bacon says: “Usury bringeth the treasure of a realm -into few hands; for the usurer trading on a certainty, and other men on -uncertainties, at the end of the game all the money will be in the box.” - -We will now put Ruskin’s argument, from the one place where he wrote it -out at length. It is the well-known passage on “the position of William” -in the first letter of _Fors_, January, 1871. - -The following is there quoted from Mrs. Fawcett’s _Political Economy for -Beginners_. She translated it from the French of Bastiat: - - There was once in a village a poor carpenter, who worked hard from - morning to night. One day James thought to himself, “With my - hatchet, saw, and hammer, I can only make coarse furniture, and can - only get the pay for such. If I had a plane, I should please my - customers more, and they would pay me more. Yes, I am resolved, I - will make myself a plane.” At the end of ten days James had in his - possession an admirable plane, which he valued all the more for - having made it himself. Whilst he was reckoning all the profits - which he expected to derive from the use of it, he was interrupted - by William, a carpenter in the neighbouring village. William, - having admired the plane, was struck with the advantages which - might be gained from it. He said to James: - - “You must do me a service; lend me the plane for a year.” As might - be expected, James cried out, “How can you think of such a thing, - William? Well, if I do this service, what will you do for me in - return?” - - W. “Nothing. Don’t you know that a loan ought to be gratuitous?” - - J. “I know nothing of the sort; but I do know that if I were to - lend you my plane for a year, it would be giving it to you. To tell - the truth, that was not what I made it for.” - - W. “Very well, then; I ask you to do me a service; what service do - you ask me in return?” - - J. “First, then, in a year the plane will be done for. You must - therefore give me another exactly like it.” - - W. “That is perfectly just. I submit to these conditions. I think - you must be satisfied with this, and can require nothing further.” - - J. “I think otherwise. I made the plane for myself, and not for - you. I expected to gain some advantage from it. I have made the - plane for the purpose of improving my work and my condition; if you - merely return it to me in a year, it is you who will gain the - profit of it during the whole of that time. I am not bound to do - you such a service without receiving anything in return. Therefore, - if you wish for my plane, besides the restoration already bargained - for, you must give me a new plank as a compensation for the - advantages of which I shall be deprived.” - - These terms were agreed to; but the singular part of it is that at - the end of the year, when the plane came into James’s possession, - he lent it again; recovered it, and lent it a third and fourth - time. It has passed into the hands of his son, who still lends it. - Let us examine this little story. The plane is the symbol of all - capital, and the plank is the symbol of all interest. - -Thus far Bastiat: Ruskin comments:-- - -“If this be an abridgment, what a graceful piece of highly wrought -literature the original story must be! I take the liberty of abridging -it a little more. - -“James makes a plane, lends it to William on 1st January for a year. -William gives him a plank for the loan of it, wears it out, and makes -another for James which he gives him on 31st December. On 1st January he -again borrows the new one; and the arrangement is repeated continuously. -The position of William therefore is, that he makes a plane every 31st -December, lends it to James till the next day, and pays James a plank -annually for the privilege of lending it to him on that evening. This, -in future investigations of capital and interest, we will call, if you -please, ‘the Position of William.’ - -“You may not at the first glance see where the fallacy lies: (the writer -of the story evidently counts on your not seeing it at all). - -“If James did not lend the plane to William, he could only get his gain -of a plank by working with it himself, and wearing it out himself. When -he had worn it out at the end of the year, he would, therefore, have to -make another for himself. William, working with it instead, gets the -advantage instead, which he must, therefore, pay James his plank for; -and return to James what James would, if he had not lent his plane, then -have had--not a new plane, but the worn-out one. James must make a new -one for himself, as he would have had to do if no William had existed; -and if William likes to borrow it again for another plank, all is fair. - -“That is to say, clearing the story of its nonsense, that James makes a -plane annually, and sells it to William for its proper price, which, in -kind, is a new plane. But this arrangement has nothing whatever to do -with principal or with interest.” - -I fear Ruskin is wrong. He forgets a sinking fund for depreciation. His -error lies in supposing that a plane can be used for a year, and worn -out, for no return but a plank. If planes only last a year and are of -advantage, their value in use is equal to that of the cost of a plane -plus a plank, plus some more. That is, the cost of making a plane is -less by a plank and more than the benefit a workman can get out of it -before it is worn out, after paying for his labour. The benefit in a -year to the user is more than plane plus plank, or William would not go -on. That is the point of the service of all capital, intelligently -used. - -William has to pay his tax of a plank per annum because he is not -beforehand with his needs. He gets the advantage of the plane every year -twelve months before he can afford to make it; and the advantage of -being in advance of his needs goes to James. The element of Time is -everything. A plane at the beginning of a year is of more service than a -plane you have to wait for till the end. Ruskin begins his sequence of -time on December 31st of the first year, avoiding the whole point. And -the position of William is therefore not unfair; though it is one to be -avoided. - -There is little to be added of the nature of argument; though _Fors_ is -scattered over with allusions to the subject, and discussions with many -correspondents are printed in full.[95] - -These, and many other shorter passages,[96] consist largely of intuitive -prophetic assertion of the sinfulness of interest, even the slightest. -Much space is occupied by criticisms of the author’s own practice in -living on the proceeds of Bank Stock, and his very cogent replies -thereto. They amount to an admission that the doctrine does not fit the -present time. There are impressive accounts also of the miseries of -usury-ridden countries like India, and of the folly of borrowed capital. -But there is no light thrown on how business is to be conducted without -it: there is nothing immediately practical. - -The array of authority against usance for money is weighty and of -ancient date. - -Lev. xxv. 35-37: “And if thy brother be poor and powerless with his -hands at thy side, thou shalt take his part upon thee, to help him, as -thy proselyte and thy neighbour; and thy brother shall live with thee. -Thou shalt take no usury of him, nor anything over and above, and thou -shalt fear thy God. I am the Lord, and thy brother shall live with thee. -Thou shalt not give him thy money for usury; and thou shalt not give him -thy food for increase.” (J. R. translated from LXX.) Exodus xxii. 25 and -Deuteronomy xxiii. 19 are similar in purport. Psalm xv. refers to the -man “who putteth not out his money to usury, nor taketh reward against -the innocent”; as being a fit person to abide in the Lord’s tabernacle, -and dwell in His holy hill. Here we have the taking of interest running -parallel with the corruption of the high trust of the judicial bench. -Ezekiel xviii. 8, 13, 17 is contemporary with Leviticus, and is -practically the same voice, representing Jewish opinion on the -resettlement of the State after the Captivity. Here usury is classed -with every abominable wickedness. - -In these Jewish passages it was the taking of interest from a brother -Hebrew that was forbidden. This limitation to the profitable use of -capital may have early led the Jew capitalist to the permitted Gentile -outlet; and have caused him, in lending to the outside world, to carry -with the act a spice of uncharitableness and conscious ill-will. These -passages are a testimony to the extraordinary cohesiveness and patriotic -consciousness of the restored nation. Such a proviso of itself is both -cause and consequence; it leads to further isolation from others. - -In the parable of the Talents, the king who was made to say, “Thou -knewest that I was an hard man,” is also made to say, “Thou shouldest -have given my money to the bankers that at my coming I should have -received mine own with usury.” But I dare not deduce anything from -this. The Parables never apply all round; they only teach one lesson at -a time. He who taught the duty of prayer by means of the Parable of the -unjust judge, and the duty of using present opportunity by the Parable -of the unjust steward, might easily teach the duty of the use of the -gifts of God, without implying that God was either a “hard man” or a -usurer. All these stories may have been accompanied by some such -addition as this, that if even with unjust and hard men this teaching -holds, will it not be far more worth while to pray to God and to -faithfully use His opportunities and His gifts? - -There is, however, one passage, not in the four Gospels, but well based -on tradition:--“Be honourable bankers”; and it certainly does seem -strange, if the whole business of money-dealing were wrong, that that -illustration of the use of spiritual capital should have been selected. -The fact that usury was denounced by the Early Church may have led to -the non-inclusion of this dubious text in the Canon. - -Denunciations of usury are commonplaces among the Fathers of the Church. -It was wholly forbidden to the clergy and sometimes to the laity. Many -have been the sermons, of the fiercest character, delivered against it -by the Bishops of the Catholic and Anglican Churches. John Wesley told -his followers “to die sooner than put anything in pawn or borrow or lend -on usury.” His rule on the subject was, however, explained later on by -himself as being against “unlawful interest”; upon which Ruskin remarks: -“Doubtless his disciples know what rate of interest is lawful, and what -not; and also by what law it was made so; and always pause with pious -accuracy at the decimal point whereat the excellence of an investment -begins to make it criminal.” Nevertheless, Wesley was right. - -Turning to the Greek world we find usury condemned by Solon and -Lycurgus, Plato and Aristotle (“money sterile by nature”); and a Roman -voice comes from Cato. From Arabia is heard the word of Mohammed. And, -of great Englishmen, we find Lord Bacon, and perhaps Shakespeare, -teaching the same. Concerning these it is to be noted, that being before -the days of joint company ownership, their testimony was solely against -private money-lending; and the one authority, John Wesley, who lived in -the early days of modern business, was not against interest as such in -his later years. Nor again, did these authorities attack Rent, which -Ruskin is consistent in also reprobating. The landowning aristocracy, -we shall remember, are to be the recipients instead of a Government -annuity, as wages for their work of governing their inferiors. Amongst -an agricultural, noncommercial people, the usurer is a sinister figure. -This must have been the case in Palestine, and in agricultural England. -To-day he is the curse of India, whose cultivators are enslaved by the -money-lenders under English law. In short, we may conclude that it -requires a fair field and genuine commercial habits to make interest a -public benefit. - -The change from the earlier to the later John Wesley is most -significant. It represents the change to modern business on a large -scale, which occurred during his lifetime. It is noticeable that since -his time the attack on Interest has ceased, but for Ruskin, among -religious teachers. As a counsel of ultimate perfection in a communist -State, of course, Interest would be abolished; but most Socialists admit -that it is an essential part of the institution of private property, and -must stand or fall with it. - -There may yet be great revolutions in our sense of duty. We may come to -extend kindness to animals to the extraordinary length of not eating -them. That excessive toil and numbing poverty should exist around us, -may some day become a reproach to us, as we feed on the roses and lie on -the lilies of life, which are often provided for us by the said -labourers. By the time, then, that we come to love our neighbours as -ourselves, we shall probably not be anxious to take advantage of our -position of being a little beforehand with the world, of having money to -lend; and may even sink the time advantage thereby at our disposal; and -not take interest. But we shall be different then; and so will the world -we live in. It is a kind of altruism which absolutely needs a fit -environment. If the cessation of income from investments belongs to the -Christianity which is to come, before this faith shall have been -realized we shall have pooled our property into a common store, and the -question of private investment will have fallen to the ground. Only -among the Doukhobors has this kind of Christianity yet notably realized -itself, and great is their well-being. But we must go on like Ruskin and -take our Interest for the present. - -The real trouble is not in the interest, but in the great fortunes. That -an upper limit for wealth would be a blessing to the rich, and a solid -gain to the nation at large, has long been my conviction. Ruskin says it -is also his “long fixed conviction that one of the most important -conditions of a healthful system of social economy, would be the -restraint of the properties and incomes of the upper classes within -certain fixed limits. The temptation to use every energy in the -accumulation of wealth being thus removed, another and a higher ideal of -the duties of advanced life would be necessarily created in the national -mind. By withdrawal of those who had attained the prescribed limits of -wealth from commercial competition, earlier worldly success, and earlier -marriage, with all its beneficent moral results, would become possible -to the young; while the older men of active intellect, whose sagacity is -now lost or warped in the furtherance of their own meanest interest, -would be induced unselfishly to occupy themselves in the superintendence -of public institutions or furtherance of public advantage. And out of -this class it would be found natural and prudent always to choose the -members of the legislative body of the Commons; and to attach to the -order also some peculiar honours, in the possession of which such -complacency would be felt as would more than replace the unworthy -satisfaction of being supposed richer than others, which to many men is -the principal charm of their wealth. And although no law of this purport -would ever be imposed on themselves by the actual upper classes, there -is no hindrance to its being gradually brought into force from beneath, -without any violent or impatient proceedings.”[97] - -As a type of Ruskin’s satirical humour in controversy we will indulge -ourselves with an extract from his argument with the late Bishop of -Manchester on usury. Ruskin publicly challenged Dr. Fraser to the -encounter. The Bishop had somewhat sensibly remarked that religious -sanctions ought not to be imposed in cases which they never originally -contemplated, referring to Leviticus on usury. Ruskin replies: - -“I do not know whether by the phrase, presently after used by your -Lordship, ‘religious sanctions,’ I am to understand the Law of God which -David loved and Christ fulfilled, or whether the splendour, the -commercial prosperity, and the familiar acquaintance with all the -secrets of science and treasures of art, which we admire in the City of -Manchester, must in your Lordship’s view be considered as ‘cases’ which -the intelligence of the Divine Lawgiver could not have originally -contemplated. Without attempting to disguise the narrowness of the -horizon grasped by the glance of the Lord from Sinai, nor the -inconvenience of the commandments which Christ has directed those who -love Him to keep, am I too troublesome or too exigent in asking from one -of those whom the Holy Ghost has made our overseers, at least a distinct -chart of the Old World as contemplated by the Almighty, and a clear -definition of even the inappropriate tenor of the orders of Christ; if -only that the modern scientific Churchman may triumph more securely in -the circumference of his heavenly vision, and accept more gratefully the -glorious liberty of the free thinking children of God?” - - - - -_CHAPTER VII_ - -_WAR_ - - -The fact that War is the commonest and the most pernicious way of using -large masses of capital leads us naturally from Usury to War. Ruskin -connects the subject with Capitalism thus:[98] - -“Capitalists, when they do not know what to do with their money, -persuade the peasants, in various countries, that the said peasants want -guns to shoot each other with. The peasants accordingly borrow guns, out -of the manufacture of which the capitalists get a percentage, and men of -science much amusement and credit. Then the peasants shoot a certain -number of each other, until they get tired; and burn each other’s homes -down, in various places. Then they put the guns back into towers, -arsenals, etc. in ornamental patterns (and the victorious party put also -some ragged flags in churches). And then the capitalists tax both -annually, ever afterwards, to pay interest on the loan of the guns and -gunpowder.” - -The horrors of the Franco-German war of 1871, relatively small as they -now appear, were a nightmare to him, and cloud the first volume of -_Fors_, which records his current thoughts in that year. - -His most prominent utterance is his lecture on “War” delivered to the -students at the Engineering College at Woolwich in 1865 and printed in -_The Crown of Wild Olive_. It appears, throughout, to be in praise of -war. But we shall see that great deductions are to be made. Nevertheless -it begins appallingly enough by stating that all fine arts have been -founded in war, and can only be practised by warlike nations. He gives -as instances, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. The instances are all fallacious, -particularly those of the peace-loving people in the Nile Valley, and -the very inartistic Romans. Nor is there any proof that war either -caused or aided the artistic faculty of the Greeks. How can there be? -The characteristic warrior city--Sparta--was as inartistic as Woolwich. -He goes a step further to please his audience of young warrior-students -by the strange assertion that “war is the foundation of all the high -virtues and faculties of men”: and that, in History, we find coupled -together “peace and sensuality, peace and selfishness--peace and death.” -“I found that all the great nations learned their truth of word and -strength of thought in war: that they were nourished in war, and wasted -by peace; taught by war and deceived by peace; trained by war, and -betrayed by peace; in a word that they were born in war, and expired in -peace.”[99] - -Such is the rash and partial generalization of the rhetorician, based on -this much of historic truth that the early years of a nation’s life have -often been occupied in conflict for safety or empire, and its later, -more peaceful and more prosperous years are marked sometimes by the -weakening influences of wealth, and end in decay. But it is hard, -indeed, impossible I venture to say, to show that the motives or the -methods of war are not, from beginning to end, retrograde and barbaric, -a harking back to the life of the beast; and not the source of any of -these good things named. - -But now comes the antidote; after such an exordium, what manner of peace -address might he not give to those Woolwich men and they listen? - -First he excepts from his approval “the rage of a barbarian wolf flock,” -and the “habitual restlessness or rapine of mountaineers,” and “the -occasional struggle of a strong, peaceful nation for its life"--a -strange exception that--and the “contest of merely ambitious nations for -extent of power"--a wide exception that. It leaves him three kinds of -beneficial war: war for exercise or play, out of mere high spirits and -unused energies of the upper classes--war for aggression against -surrounding evil--and wars for defence of noble institutions and pure -households. - -I. As to wars for pastime, we find that they are to be fought somewhat -in the manner of duels or tournaments by the officers; by the idle young -men who are too proud for peaceful business, and whose arms and legs -want play. There is to be no gathering of peasants to fire into one -another; and Carlyle on the thirty peasants from Dumdrudge is helpfully -quoted, from _Sartor Resartus_. The man who could quote that to Woolwich -students could do most things with an audience. We next have a little -paragraph thrown in on Arbitration. “Grant,” he says sarcastically, -“that no law of reason can be understood by nations; no law of justice -submitted to by them; and that, while questions of a few acres and of -petty cash, can be determined by truth and equity, the questions which -are to issue in the perishing or saving of Kingdoms can be determined -only by the truth of the sword, and the equity of the rifle.”[100] I -doubt if any one has ever had the ear of that audience of thoughtless -aspiring soldier students to an Arbitration argument, before or since. -He proceeds to wash his hands wholly of modern war. - -“If you have to take masses of men from all industrial employment,--to -feed them by the labour of others,--to provide them with destructive -machines varied daily in national rivalship of inventive cost; if you -have to ravage the country which you attack--to destroy, for a score of -future years, its roads, its woods, its cities and its harbours; and if, -finally, having brought masses of men, counted by hundreds of thousands, -face to face, you tear those masses to pieces with jagged shot, and -leave the living creatures, countlessly beyond all help of surgery, to -starve and parch, through days of torture, down into clots of clay--what -book of accounts shall record the cost of your work--what book of -judgment sentence the guilt of it?”[101] - -Methinks it sounds not unlike a Peace Address. - -II. We pass next to wars of aggression against evil--and the lecturer -spends powerful pages on the selfishness and faithlessness of ambitious -warlike kings; on the common degradation of the idea of power; and on -the need for concentrating all our energies on home reforms. We are -warned against supposing that a big nation is a strong one, bade to aim -at union of hearts rather. “Only that nation gains true territory which -gains itself.” “A nation,” he proceeds, “does not strengthen itself by -seizing dominion over races whom it cannot benefit.” “Whatever apparent -increase of majesty and of wealth may have accrued to us from the -possession of India, whether these prove to us ultimately power or -weakness, depends wholly on the degree in which our influence on the -native race shall be benevolent and exalting.”[102] - -He nevertheless believes that the rule of England is for the good of the -subject races, is a national duty and a piece of self-sacrifice and -world service, the English white man’s burden. He has an eloquent -passage on this subject in his Inaugural Lecture at Oxford, beginning -“Reign or die.” His hostility to the Manchester School comes out in his -characteristic style. “I tell you that the principle of -non-intervention, as now preached among us, is as selfish and cruel as -the worst frenzy of conquest, and differs from it only by being not only -malignant, but dastardly.” “Within these last ten years, we English -have, as a knightly nation, lost our spurs: we have fought where we -should not have fought, for gain; and we have been passive, where we -should not have been passive, for fear.”[103] I am indeed much afraid -that this, spoken in 1865, has generally been the case throughout our -history. - -III. As to wars for defence: Ruskin principally devotes himself to -attacking the essential slavery of military obedience: he will have no -mercenary standing armies, only unprofessional citizen armies for -defence. - -So he ends with fatherly counsel to his hearers to be industrious and -serious minded, not to bet, to be pure and honourable, and reverent -towards all women; and the ladies present he exhorts to wear black -whenever there is war, that so, by their influence, there may be no more -wars. - -There you have a summary of the famous lecture on War in the _Crown of -Wild Olive_, which has weakened Ruskin’s influence with many of his -friends, and done undoubted harm. But I call it on the whole a peace -address given by a man who combined with his hatred of violence and ruin -a certain attachment to picturesque mediævalism. The wars of Arthur or -Roland were his ideal. He recognized the heroism and self-abandonment of -such soldiers as he had read about all his life in Homer and Scott. But -our modern wars include everything he hated; they are wars for trade and -for gain, sordid and financial in origin and sordid and financial in -results. - -Ruskin explains his attitude quite clearly in the Appendix to the _Crown -of Wild Olive_, at the beginning of his notes on the Political Economy -of the Kings of Prussia. - -“I am often accused of inconsistency; but believe myself defensible -against the charge with respect to what I have said on nearly every -subject except that of war. It is impossible for me to write -consistently of war, for the groups of facts I have gathered about it -lead me to two precisely opposite conclusions. - -“When I find this the case, in other matters, I am silent, till I can -choose my conclusion: but, with respect to war, I am forced to speak, by -the necessities of the time; and forced to act, one way or another. The -conviction on which I act is, that it causes an incalculable amount of -avoidable human suffering and that it ought to cease among Christian -nations; and if therefore any of my boy-friends desire to be soldiers, I -try my utmost to bring them into what I conceive to be a better mind. -But, on the other hand, I know certainly that the most beautiful -characters yet developed among men have been formed in war--that all -great nations have been warrior nations--and that the only kinds of -peace which we are likely to get in the present age are ruinous alike to -the intellect and the heart. - -“The last lecture in this volume, addressed to young soldiers, had for -its object to strengthen their trust in the virtue of their profession. -It is inconsistent with itself, in its closing appeal to women, praying -them to use their influence to bring wars to an end. And I have been -hindered from completing my long intended notes on the economy of the -Kings of Prussia by continually increasing doubt how far the machinery -and discipline of war, under which they learned the art of government, -was essential for such lesson; and what the honesty and sagacity of the -Friedrich who so nobly repaired his ruined Prussia, might have done for -the happiness of his Prussia, unruined. - -“How far, in the future, it may be possible for men to gain the strength -necessary for kingship without either fronting death, or inflicting it, -seems to me not at present determinable. The historical facts are that, -broadly speaking, none but soldiers, or persons with a soldierly -faculty, have ever yet shown themselves fit to be kings; and that no -other men are so gentle, so just, or so clear-sighted. Wordsworth’s -character of the Happy Warrior cannot be reached in the height of it but -by a warrior; nay, so much is it beyond common strength that I had -supposed the entire meaning of it to be metaphorical, until one of the -best soldiers of England[104] himself read me the poem, and taught me, -what I might have known, had I enough watched his own life, that it was -entirely literal.” - -By extending his soldierly qualification to “persons with a soldierly -faculty,” he gives the case away. For that can only mean the faculty of -courage, organization and command. These qualities a peaceful ruler -like William Penn possessed in striking measure. The whole passage is -the record of a swaying contest between sentiment and conviction; -between the glamour of the glowing haze of distant tradition and actual -facts, only too closely pressing upon mankind to-day. - -Truly the question of the effect of war on character is vital. I had -written here, in pre-war days, some observations upon it; but they seem -to me now faint and platitudinous. We have had since then such -widespread experience of the play of character faced with the dread -calamity of the world-war, that it is too complicated to treat briefly. -We are all saddened and wearied. So I leave it to the experience of the -millions who know more about it from their own experience than I do. - -We need not wait for war to harden our fibre and stiffen our backs. -Surely this can be done without wholesale demoralization and -destruction. Are there not national evils to be fought? privations to be -endured here in fighting vice, ugliness and disease, or in voluntarily -participating in poverty? There is courage needed to stand against -public opinion and to lead it, to sacrifice wealth and social repute if -required. These things are what we must turn to for the exercise of the -courage and unselfishness of the soldier. We want more strenuous -asceticism of a form not so essentially unreasonable and destructive as -war. - -It would entirely overload this chapter to give any idea of the vigour -and number of the passages in _Fors_ which storm against -war:--“storming” is generally the method, varied, as usual with this -master of fancy and emotion, with stinging sarcasm and mocking raillery. -The burden of his plea throughout is that “the game of our nobles and -the gain of our usurers” is war.[105] - -“When you have got the Devil well under foot in Sheffield, you may begin -to stop him from persuading my Lords of the Admiralty that they want a -new grant, etc., etc., to make his machines with.... The fiend sees that -he can blind you, through your lust for drink, into quietly allowing -yourselves to pay fifty millions a year, that the rich may make their -machines of blood, and play at shedding blood.”[106] - -“In this contest (of poor and rich) assuredly, the victory cannot be by -violence; every conquest under the Prince of War retards the standards -of the Prince of Peace.”[107] - -He quotes[108] from the _Daily Telegraph_ the following from its -description of the capture of Paris: “Each demolished house has its own -legend of sorrow, of pain, and horror; each vacant doorway speaks to the -eye, and almost to the ear, of hasty flight, as armies of fire came--of -weeping women and trembling children running away in awful fear, -abandoning the home that saw their birth, the old house they loved--of -startled men seizing quickly under each arm their most valued goods, and -rushing, heavily laden, after their wives and babes, leaving to hostile -hands the task of burning all the rest. When evening falls, the wretched -outcasts, worn with fatigue and tears, reach Versailles, St. Germain, or -some other place outside the range of fire, and there they beg for bread -and shelter, homeless, foodless, broken with despair. And this, -remember, has been the fate of something like a hundred thousand people -during the last four months. Versailles alone has about fifteen thousand -such fugitives to keep alive, all ruined, all hopeless, all vaguely -asking the grim future what still worse fate it may have in store for -them.” - -The following passage is interesting, however feeble it may appear in -view of our recent developments of war:-- - -“We fight inelegantly as well as expensively, with machines instead of -bow and spear; we kill about a thousand now to the score then, in -settling any quarrel--(Agincourt was won with the loss of less than a -hundred men; only 25,000 English altogether were engaged at Creçy; and -12,000, some say only 8,000, at Poictiers); we kill with far ghastlier -wounds, crashing bones and flesh together; we leave our wounded -necessarily for days and nights in heaps on the fields of battle; we -pillage districts twenty times as large, and with completer destruction -of more valuable property; and with a destruction as irreparable as it -is complete; for if the French or English burnt a church one day, they -could build a prettier one the next; but the modern Prussians couldn’t -even build so much as an imitation of one; we rob on credit, by -requisition, with ingenious mercantile prolongations of claim; and we -improve contention of arms with contention of tongues, and are able to -multiply the rancour of cowardice, and mischief of lying, in universal -and permanent print; and so we lose our tempers as well as our money, -and become indecent in behaviour as in raggedness.”[109] - -“The first reason for all wars and for the necessity of national -defences, is that the majority of persons, high and low, in all European -nations, are Thieves, and in their hearts, greedy of their neighbours’ -goods, land, and fame. But besides being Thieves they are also fools, -and have never yet been able to understand that if Cornishmen want -pippins cheap, they must not ravage Devonshire--that the prosperity of -their neighbours is in the end, their own also; and the poverty of their -neighbours, by the communism of God, becomes in the end, their own.” -“And the guilty Thieves of Europe, the real sources of all deadly war in -it, are the Capitalists--that is to say, people who live by percentages -on the labour of others, instead of by fair wages for their own.”[110] - -“There is no physical crime at this day, so far beyond pardon--so -without parallel in its untempted guilt, as the making of war-machinery, -and invention of mischievous substance. Two nations may go mad, and -fight like harlots--God have mercy on them:--you, who hand them carving -knives off the table, for leave to pick up a dropped sixpence, what -mercy is there for you?”[111] - -“The men who have been killed within the last two months, and whose -work, and the money spent in doing it, have filled Europe with misery -which fifty years will not efface, had they been set at the same cost to -do good instead of evil, and to save life instead of destroying it, -might by this 10th January, 1871, have embanked every dangerous stream -at the roots of the Rhine, the Rhone, and the Po, and left to Germany, -to France and to Italy, an inheritance of blessing for centuries to -come--they and their families living all the while in brightest -happiness and peace. And now! Let the Red Prince look to it: red -inundation bears also its fruit in time.”[112] - -He calls War “the moral organization of massacre, and the mechanical -reduplication of ruin.”[113] “All the cruellest wars inflicted, all the -basest luxuries grasped by the idle classes, are thus paid for by the -poor a hundred times over” (in interest on debt).[114] - -Thus Ruskin is to be found among the Peace advocates--uttering indeed -the characteristic refrain of Christianity, and saying emphatically in -_Fors_, in so many words, that we are not to avenge injuries. Yet he was -altogether out of sympathy with the ordinary channels of such advocacy. -Liberalism he loathed, democracy he utterly disbelieved in, John Bright -was the object of his occasional angry or contemptuous reference; -anything that savoured of Manchester was condemned as tainted with -political economy; the British aristocrats, the present ones, not ones -selected on new principles of excellence, but even the ones we have, -were to be the leaders of a regenerated England, and fathers of the -Fatherland. Liberty was a red rag to him; he preferred the servitude of -the shepherd dog to the freedom of the buzzing gnat:--and so he -experienced the awkwardness felt by those who, having on some issue -joined the party of reaction, have yet within them their old reforming -zeal: for in reality Ruskin was an enlightened Socialist philanthropist. - -For these reasons I fear that his peace influence has been very much -neutralized and wasted; and therefore I have had peculiar pleasure in -bringing it out in this chapter. - -All these extracts make it clear that the writer’s hatred of modern war -waged by multitudes of conscript or other soldiers, machine guns, and -chemical explosives, was a constant horror to him; and that his -sentimental admiration for the feudal and Greek chivalry was an academic -and otiose emotion, figuring appropriately as a propitiatory exordium to -the young warriors of Woolwich, but otherwise not an influential part of -his thoughts. - -Nevertheless Ruskin was a devotee of the nobler type of imperialism. He -lived before the sordidness of “Empire,” and its taproot in High -Commerce and Finance, had become as plain as they are to-day; and before -the series of wars of Empire-building had culminated in the struggle for -power in the Near East, power whose pursuit formed the principal motive -for the Great World War. The Inaugural Lecture at Oxford is the central -expression of this imperialism, in its concluding paragraphs. There are -kindred passages in _The Crown of Wild Olive_.[115] _A Knight’s Faith_, -the Life of Sir Herbert Edwardes of the Punjab, is written in the -noblest imperialist vein. In this, though not in his economic teaching -in general, Ruskin falls under the sentimental glamour of popular -phrases, and loses touch with reality. - - - - -_CHAPTER IX_ - -_MACHINERY_ - - -Ruskin, as we have seen, was both a Conservative and a constructive -Socialist. He hated the industrial developments which he saw around -him--that which was called progress he saw to be full of evil, and he -wanted to undo it. That made him a Conservative. But he had his own line -of development, which was an idealized feudalism. What is there for us -to learn now from either of these teachings, the negative Conservative -cry against steam power and railways and bicycles, the positive advance -towards Guild Socialism? - -The pastoral happiness of peasant life Ruskin thought he found in -Bavaria, in Savoy, in Tuscany. He never really lived among the -peasantry, nor was he, the shy visitor to the best hotels, with his -courier and his portfolio, accustomed to familiar intercourse, -particularly on money matters, with the worthy sons and daughters of -toil whose industrious and quiet lives he admired. Neither in England, -Scotland, Ireland, nor the Continent can the “merrie England” ideal of -peasant life ever have existed. - -In Switzerland or France, where there have been since the Revolution no -feudal landlords, it had a good chance; and also among the “statesmen” -of Cumberland and Westmorland while they survived. The Canton Bern is -to-day to the tourist’s eye a happy and prosperous land, and the other -Protestant cantons resemble it. But we know most about our own northern -“statesmen”; the Swiss or French small proprietor’s life must have been -much the same as theirs. It was a hard, narrow life, absorbed in “money -grubbing,” which was in their case no fault but a chief virtue, being -necessary to survival. If a statesman was of a large and genial nature, -the public-house was his common resort; and most of the stocks of -statesmen came to grief by the recklessness or misfortunes of one -generation. The estate was first mortgaged and then foreclosed and sold. -A succession of steady cultivators, careful of the pence, hardly ever -succeeded in making a family well to do or even comfortable, with -reserves to meet disaster. I speak here of my own forbears. The holdings -were too small. They worked all day and every day, in all weathers, -lived and slept in quarters not conducive to delicate sensitiveness of -feeling. A big attic, separated by a curtain into two, was the sleeping -place of the children and servants, if there were any.[116] Books, -education, travel, were denied them. On a lower level is the life of the -peasants of the Rhone Valley, in dirt and hopelessness and overwork. It -makes for degradation. But where feudal landlords exist, as they do in -most places, the case is worse. The condition of the peasantry of -Eastern Europe has been brought before us since the War in the daily -papers so vividly that none can miss it. The system has broken down in -revolution. It appears to an astonished English public, that the mass of -the people have lived under local tyranny and very near the margin of -maintenance, in Russia and her border states, in Roumania, Poland, -Hungary, Prussia, and in the Balkan lands. This is what we find before -industrial development comes in. There is no need to dwell on the -squalor, on the diseases, on the recurring famines, on the contempt of -the proud. It transpires that the peasants to whom the land has now come -by revolution, are described as so covetous, narrow and selfish--their -trade their politics--that Socialists and idealists are baffled by -them. They will starve a city like Buda-Pesth or Petrograd, when their -supplies are abundant. They do not seem capable at present of a national -or international consciousness, nor of any true democracy larger than -the village. - -In England, too, the rustic life which the Industrial Revolution -overthrew, was, in the landlord counties, servile and suffering. The -wages and the politics of the South of England until recent times are -survivals of the system.[117] - -We are bound to conclude that to this system we ought not to recur. With -all their faults and disadvantages the people of the industrial -districts are the most educated, the most independent, the most virile. -Numerous economic writers have destroyed, like a sentimental mirage, our -view of the old English village, with its homely comfort and peaceful -independence. We think more now of its toils, its diseases, its infant -mortality, its lost Commons. - -It was natural for Ruskin, with his love of white thatched cottages and -leafy lanes bordered by neglected wasteful hedges full of wild -flowers--with his wealthy upbringing, and ignorance of the value of -money and of the direness of most people’s need of it, it was natural -and inevitable that he should loathe the dreadful new mining -villages--rows of cheap insanitary brick houses--and the belching smoke -of the colliery chimney. He preferred Coniston to Barrow. But there is -no practical guidance in that revolt, except indeed the revolt itself; -and that was a message to his time, and is still a message to ours. - -There is nothing particularly elevating about farm work, in spite of -Corydon and other shepherds described by the town bred makers of -fantasies. Sheep are the most unpleasant creatures to look after, the -dirtiest and the stupidest. Their scab, fluke, ticks and footrot need -much attention. Apart from their diseases, the scene of the shepherd’s -happy labours will be in winter a turnip field, the crop being eaten off -by sheep. The dirt and squalor of the dung and the animals and the -turnips, the cold and damp, the sleet and the mud and the smells--these -things are not good subjects for poetry. The farmer’s calling is to make -his living out of the death of his animals, and out of their sufferings -when alive, their castration and imprisonment, and their labour. He -measures them by a purely economic test. It is not for us who live on -meat and milk, butter and cheese, and the products of the pig-sty, to -blame farmers for this. They do it for us. But it is not particularly -“improving”; it approaches the calling of the butcher, which is equally -necessary. Why the world is thus built is not, luckily for me, the -subject of this book. - -The rest of the labours of the farm are a struggle with the earth--with -weeds and with weather. It is all primitive and built into the bone and -marrow of the race; but it is not more moralizing, nor more romantic, in -practice than working at looms or ledgers. The labourer does not go to -the land as to a leisurely summer home. Hitherto, no way has been found -in England for inducing young people to stay in the villages. We ought -to try to succeed in this. If we do it will be in a new kind of village, -and it will be effected by cheap and rapid transit, and by widely -scattering the ownership or holding of land. Then Ruskin’s aims will be -realized, but not by the only methods he could see in his day. In fact, -railways and domestic machinery would be essential. - -Division of Labour goes with the factory system. It was early hailed as -one of the great economies obtained by production on a large scale. It -was found that by constantly keeping a man or a child to one -occupation, an extraordinary degree of sure accuracy and readiness was -obtained. Without the necessity for thinking, and so without risk of -thinking wrong, the nimble fingers repeated hour by hour their appointed -trick, the practised eye ever followed the same mechanism and stopped it -at the same point, the same tool in the same place was ready to the same -hand. Physiologically we believe that all this means that there is -established a rut for the tracks of the brain wheels, a habitual nervous -connection between certain sensory centres and certain motor centres, -without the need for every piece of news to be transmitted by the -sensory centre to the central thinking apparatus in the cerebrum, and a -corresponding order sent down from the central control to the motor -centre. - -When we learn to write, the fashion and shape of every _a_, _b_ and _c_ -have to be thought over; the hands learn painfully to follow an order -sent down from the central thinking power in the cerebrum, sent down on -information derived through the sensory centres behind the eye, of the -shape of the copy. But in ordinary life we could copy pages of -manuscript and talk and think about something else the whole time. -There is a direct line of nerve flow between the reading apparatus -behind the eye and the writing apparatus behind the hand; and thought is -not required. We have become so far automatic; we have created a -convenient writing machine within us, which works for us and leaves us -free to do other things. - -So that if we spend our nine hours a day at working a printing machine, -or stitching leather or silk, or boring holes, or driving in nails, or -sharpening a tool’s edge, or wrapping boxes, or counting or piecing -threads, we are really doing the work of a machine. We do not think: to -think would interfere with the sure regularity of our work. - -Now the growth of this division of labour has been quite irresistible. -Its advantages have been such that no manufacturer or nation of -manufacturers could stand without it. The social organism has become -more complex, and with that the differentiation of function has become -more marked. It is a necessary accompaniment of an elaborate social -state; and whether it tends or not to the welfare of the individual it -greatly extends the productive power of the industrial organism, and so -strengthens the organism itself viewed as industrial simply. Thus the -highly differentiated organism has survived, though it may have -sacrificed the individual worker, regarded as a human being. Is there, -therefore, any means whereby we can modify the work of the monotonous -mechanical labourer so as to give him some pleasure in it, and afford -exercise to his other faculties besides that one called out by the -single narrow function he has learnt to repeat day after day? If we can -give scope for his higher faculties, his judgment, his invention, his -knowledge, we shall be avoiding the present waste by which faculties -which might aid production in better ways are wasted on routine. - -The greatest cure hitherto found is inherent in the system itself. For -when the work is such that it is done by a human machine, the step is -not far distant when a machine will be actually invented, with a surer -grip of the material, a readier tool for piercing, a straighter edge for -cutting. This process is going on in every department of manufacture. -Boards are planed, picture frames carved, table legs made, mouldings cut -by machinery. Watches and sewing machines are made of interchangeable -parts, each the product of a machine. The only limit to the taking over -of every manufacture by machines seems to be that a large output is -necessary to make it pay to invent and manufacture and sell costly -machines. So great have been the triumphs of many-fingered machinery -that we are not inclined to limit them. Thus, most of the monotonous, -and most of the physically laborious work is done by the man of steel. -For every textile operative in the country rather more than one horse -power is provided by steam; which is equal to the strength of ten adult -men. Self-feeding furnaces are similarly saving of human flesh and -eyesight. Thus our manual workers have largely become makers and minders -of machines. To help to make a machine, to watch and repair it, and take -care of it--even to understand it and to feed it, is a not unworthy form -of labour. To care for a complex machine requires intelligence and a -wide-awake sense of responsibility. It is much better, at any rate, than -hand-loom weaving was, or than nail-making by hand, or match-box-making -is. Even so mechanical a task as working a sewing machine, poor as it -is, may be a trifle less soul-destroying than working with a needle at -plain sewing all day. And though minding looms is monotonous, yet they -turn out so much more cloth per operative, that the evil of monotony of -which we speak is probably a very small percentage per yard produced, -of what it was when weaving was done in the weavers’ cottages by hand. - -It is therefore in extending machinery for all articles which have no -individual artistic value that we shall get rid of most of the lower and -more degrading forms of labour--machinery for ploughing, sowing, -reaping, binding, thrashing, dairying, laundry work, baking, cooking, -cutting straight and smoothing clean, grinding and polishing, and for -the processes of printing. These are true friends of man. - -It is to be noted that every increase of the gross output which -machinery enables man to produce, increases the demand for the more -skilled portions of the work, for those which require judgment and -character. The multiplication of the printing output of the country has -increased the number of writers, of reporters, of proof-readers, of -overlookers, and of men who can tastefully arrange a title page. It has -also multiplied the demand for men who can draw, can photograph, or can -reproduce illustrations. Similarly the “hands” who work the machines on -a farm are fewer but are probably more intelligent than the agricultural -labourer in a backward country. - -It will be observed that this inquiry has left untouched and -unaffected-- - -1. The skilled artistic crafts where a sense of the beautiful and a -special value in human thought goes to each article. - -2. The mass of unskilled and unspecialized labour at the bottom of the -social ladder which division of labour and machine production leave -largely untouched. - -To the cleansing, quieting, moralizing of machinery, then, not to its -extinction or supersession, social reformers should apply themselves. To -the compulsory consumption of smoke, to sanitary factories and -workshops, to the substitution of gas or electricity for steam, we must -look with hope. - -Therefore, out of the industrial hurly-burly, we must look forward, not -back--accept the industrialization of the world which marked the -nineteenth century, and go on to find a home for humanity in it. It is a -world phenomenon, and it is the result of one thing, the exploitation of -coal. - -It is in the abuse of this very coal, on which all manufacturing and -transport depends, that the most obvious wrong has been done to -humanity. The first condition of human happiness to-day is to be found -in the abolition or sufficient abatement of smoke, so keeping our skins -and clothes clean. - -This is all on Ruskin’s lines; very central to the preservation of all -he loved. How pervasive was this enemy he did not fully see fifty years -ago. He noted the deterioration of climate in England, during his -lifetime, in two lectures on _The Storm Cloud of the Nineteenth -Century_. They were much derided at the time; and they contain curious -passages in which the lack of light, the restless ugly clouds, the -choppy breezes, the cold gloomy summers, were put down to the wrath of -heaven for the sins of the people. They had in fact one simple -explanation--Smoke. A man of Ruskin’s power of perception, constantly -admiring beauty of landscape, could hardly have been wrong in his -impression, fortified by his diaries, that there had been a change for -the worse in the air and skies during his lifetime. The production of -manufacturing smoke over a third (say) of England covered that period. -Over all our coal fields solid particles embarrassed the air currents, -and darkened the sky, and the oily products adhered stickily to the -clouds and to the rain. The weather was, in truth, nature’s punishment -for the haste, the greed, the popular carelessness, which tolerated the -factory and furnace chimneys, and the ill-regulated firesides of -thirty-five millions of people in the British Isles.[118] - -Coal ought not to be burnt raw, any more than meat should be eaten raw. -It should be made into gas, coke, tar and sulphate of ammonia--and all -of it be used. A smokeless domestic fuel made of half coked coal could -be made in all gas works, and should be used everywhere, to economize -our now costly coal. Electric power stations, smokelessly operated, -would save much wasteful private production of power. More rigid and -conscientious smoke inspection, abandoned as unpatriotic on a short view -during the war, should be restored. The law should be amended and its -loopholes fastened up.[119] There are many beautiful inventions ready to -be used to make an end of this most gratuitous of our evils, which -renders life in the industrial districts dark, dirty and ugly to the -best and cleanest of the workpeople. Most municipalities in England -impose an extra rate on those who use gas and electricity by taking -money for the rates from those departments. - -We condemn the town cottage housewife to ceaseless toil, with her dirty -doorstep and window sills, her kitchen floor, her children who play in -the street, and her intolerably swollen laundry. The glorious light of -the country summer is never seen through the smoke haze of the -industrial districts. Look down any long straight town street on any -day, and note the limit of visibility. Fogs are often caused and always -aggravated and prolonged by smoke--and after every long fog the death -rate from lung diseases goes steeply up. Among the many signs of -government incompetence, of narrow popular apathy, and lack of a true -political sense, the present riotous licence of the makers of smoke is -conspicuous. And the reform is all on Ruskin’s lines. - -After dirt, drink. They are not unconnected; for the dull grey street, -the worried wife, the ill-tempered children, all tend to tempt a man to -the cosy blaze of the bar-room, and to the excitement of a shilling on -the next race. Men and women will make life interesting somehow, and if -they are denied the sound pleasures appropriate to their natures they -will find others.[120] - -We will now hear the Prophet on our machine civilization. The passages -are in the famous chapter on _The Nature of Gothic_ in the Second Volume -of _The Stones of Venice_ §§ XI, XII, XIII and others. These passages -are among Ruskin’s earliest social writing. He was led from the -examination of the characters of Byzantine, Gothic and Renaissance -architecture, to inquire into the character of their builders; and so -was led from Art to Man as the subject matter of his life-work. This is -an important transition passage, written about 1850, ten years before -the decisive year when he became an economist always and an Art -Professor at intervals. - -§ XI. “The modern English mind ... intensely desires in all things, the -utmost completion or perfection compatible with their nature. This is a -noble character in the abstract, but becomes ignoble when it causes us -to forget the relative dignities of that nature itself, and to prefer -the perfectness of the lower nature to the imperfection of the higher; -not considering that, as judged by such a rule, all the brute animals -would be preferable to man because more perfect in their functions and -kind, and yet are always held inferior to him, so also in the works of -man, those which are more perfect in their kind are always inferior to -those which are, in their nature, liable to more faults and -shortcomings. For the finer the nature the more flaws it will show -through the clearness of it; and it is a law of this Universe, that the -best things shall be seldomest seen in their best form. The wild grass -grows well and strongly, one year with another; but the wheat is, -according to the greater nobleness of its nature, liable to the bitterer -blight. And therefore, while in all things that we see or do, we are to -desire perfection, and strive for it, we are nevertheless not to set the -meaner thing, in its narrow accomplishment, above the nobler thing, in -its mighty progress; not to esteem smooth minuteness above shattered -majesty, not to prefer mean victory to honourable defeat; not to lower -the level of our aim, that we may the more surely enjoy the complacency -of success. But, above all, in our dealings with the souls of other men, -we are to take care how we check, by severe requirement or narrow -caution, efforts which might otherwise lead to a noble issue; and, still -more, how we withhold our admiration from great excellences, because -they are mingled with rough faults. Now, in the make and nature of every -man, however rude or simple, whom we employ in manual labour, there are -some powers for better things: some tardy imagination, torpid capacity -of emotion, tottering steps of thought, there are, even at the worst; -and in most cases it is all our own fault that they _are_ tardy or -torpid. But they cannot be strengthened, unless we are content to take -them in their feebleness, and unless we prize and honour them in their -imperfection above the best and most perfect manual skill. And this is -what we have to do with all labourers; to look for the thoughtful part -of them, and get that out of them, whatever we lose for it, whatever -faults or errors we are obliged to take with it. For the best that is in -them cannot manifest itself, but in company with much error. Understand -this clearly: You can teach a man to draw a straight line, and to cut -one; to strike a curved line and to carve it; and to copy and carve any -number of given lines or forms, with admirable speed and perfect -precision; and you find his work perfect of its kind: but if you ask him -to think about any of those forms, to consider if he cannot find any -better in his own head, he stops; his execution becomes hesitating; he -thinks, and ten to one he thinks wrong; ten to one he makes a mistake in -the first touch he gives to his work as a thinking being. But you have -made a man of him for all that. He was only a machine before, an -animated tool.” - -§ XII. “And observe, you are put to stern choice in this matter. You -must either make a tool of the creature, or a man of him. You cannot -make both. Men were not intended to work with the accuracy of tools, to -be precise and perfect in all their actions. If you will have that -precision out of them, and make their fingers measure degrees like cog -wheels, and their arms strike curves like compasses, you must unhumanize -them. All the energy of their spirits must be given to make cogs and -compasses of themselves. All their attention and strength must go to the -accomplishment of the mean act. The eye of the soul must be bent upon -the finger point, and the soul’s force must fill all the invisible -nerves that guide it, ten hours a day, that it may not err from its -steely precision, and so soul and sight be worn away, and the whole -human being be lost at last--a heap of sawdust, so far as its -intellectual work in this world is concerned; saved only by its Heart, -which cannot go into the form of cogs and compasses, but expands, after -the ten hours are over, into fireside humanity. On the other hand if you -will make a man of the working creature, you cannot make a tool. Let him -but begin to imagine, to think, to try to do anything worth doing; and -the engine-turned precision is lost at once. Out come all his roughness, -all his dulness, all his incapability; shame upon shame, failure upon -failure, pause after pause: but out comes the whole majesty of him also; -and we know the height of it only when we see the clouds settling upon -him. And whether the clouds be bright or dark, there will be -transfiguration behind and within them.” - -§ XIII. “And, now, reader, look around this English room of yours, about -which you have been proud so often, because the work of it was so good -and strong, and the ornaments so finished. Examine again all those -accurate mouldings, and perfect polishings, and unerring adjustments of -the seasoned wood and tempered steel. Many a time you have exulted over -them, and thought how great England was, because her slightest work was -done so thoroughly. Alas! if read rightly, these perfectnesses are signs -of a slavery in our England a thousand times more bitter and more -degrading than that of the scourged African or helot Greek. Men may be -beaten, chained, tormented, yoked like cattle, slaughtered like summer -flies, and yet remain, in one sense, and the best sense, free. But to -smother their souls within them, to blight and hew into rotting -pollards, the suckling branches of their human intelligence, to make the -flesh and skin, which after the worm’s work on it, is to see God, into -leathern thongs to yoke machinery with--this it is to be slave masters -indeed; and there might be more freedom in England, though her feudal -lords’ lightest words were worth men’s lives, and though the blood of -the vexed husbandman dropped in the furrows of her fields, than there is -while the animation of her multitudes is sent like fuel to feed the -factory smoke, and the strength of them is given daily to be wasted into -the fineness of a web, or racked into the exactness of a line.” - -§ XV. ” ...It is not that men are ill fed, but that they have no -pleasure in the work by which they make their bread, and therefore look -to wealth as the only means of pleasure. It is not that men are pained -by the scorn of the upper classes, but they cannot endure their own; for -they feel that the kind of labour to which they are condemned is verily -a degrading one, and makes them less than men.... In all ages and in all -countries reverence has been paid and sacrifice made by men to each -other, not only without complaint but rejoicingly; and famine and peril -and sword and all evil and all shame have been borne willingly in the -causes of masters and kings; for all these gifts of the heart ennobled -the men who gave, not less than the men who received them, and nature -prompted and God rewarded the sacrifice. But to feel their souls -withering within them, unthanked, to find their whole being sunk into an -unrecognized abyss, to be counted off into a heap of mechanism, numbered -with its wheels, and weighted with its hammer strokes--this nature bade -not--this God blesses not--this humanity for no long time is able to -endure.” - -§ XVI. “We have much studied, and much perfected, of late, the great -civilized invention of the Division of Labour; only we give it a false -name. It is not, truly speaking, the labour that is divided; but the -men:--Divided into mere segments of men--broken into small fragments and -crumbs of life; so that all the little piece of intelligence that is -left in a man is not enough to make a pin, or a nail, but exhausts -itself in making the point of a pin or the head of a nail. Now it is a -good and desirable thing, truly, to make many pins in a day; but if we -could only see with what crystal sand their points were polished,--sand -of human soul, much to be magnified before it can be discussed what it -is--we should think there might be some loss in it also. And the great -cry that rises from all our manufacturing cities, louder than their -furnace blast, is all in very deed for this--that we manufacture -everything there except men--we blanch cotton and strengthen steel and -refine sugar and shape pottery--but to brighten, to strengthen, to -refine or to reform a single living spirit, never enters into our -estimate of advantages. And all the evil to which that cry is urging our -myriads can be met only ... by a right understanding on the part of all -classes, of what kinds of labour are good for men, raising them, and -making them happy; by a determined sacrifice of such convenience or -beauty or cheapness as is to be got only by the degradation of the -workman, and by equally determined demand for the products and results -of healthy and ennobling labour.” - -§ XVII. “And how, it will be asked, are these products to be recognized, -and this demand to be regulated? Easily: by the observance of three -broad and simple rules: - -“1. Never encourage the manufacture of any article not absolutely -necessary, in the production of which Invention has no share. - -“2. Never demand an exact finish for its own sake, but only for some -practical or noble end. - -“3. Never encourage imitation or copying of any kind, except for the -sake of preserving records of great works.” - -This magnificent passage, central as to Ruskin’s teaching and very -typical of the literary power with which his spirit was armed, is -probably of more value as a principle than as a specific cure. We can -without great difficulty obey this three precepts, and do some good -thereby. We can avoid mere meretricious glory of finish; we can choose -our purchases so as to favour originality, when we are buying articles -in gold or silver or glass or bronze or leather or porcelain or wood; -but the great mass of the evil remains untouched. How are we to -cultivate invention when we buy a mackintosh, or a pair of boots, or -common crockery, or pens and paper--and even in an article so full of -inventions as a bicycle, the invention is not due to the mechanic who -makes it. We are not really carried much beyond the æsthetic furnishings -of our existence. So far, however, the advice is excellent and human; it -is likely to lead persons of moderate means to prefer the products of -Switzerland or Japan, hand made and invented, to the machine products of -Birmingham. - -There must be always a measure of tedious soul killing work to be done; -and few entirely escape it. Our professions, as well as our trades, let -alone manual occupations, do us some harm, narrow our outlook, make us -peculiar. I am told that even teachers can be recognized as such, and -the weighty medical manner is well known. You can neither serve behind a -counter nor occupy a pulpit without some of the manner of it becoming -part of yourself. Even so, the day labourer suffers from the lack of -intelligence he is called upon for. We must all find the balance outside -our work. By the reasonable shortening of hours, even the dull routine -labourer may have a chance of exercising his faculties as a man. The -fact that labour is specialized and monotonous constitutes the proper -physiological reason for the eight hour-day or shorter hours still in -some trades. Moreover, to do the dull rough work of the world, there is -no denying that there are annually born a certain number of dull but -strong people, whose gifts lie in the absence of thinking. They are born -into all classes, unfortunately; but born they are. But Ruskin is fully -alive to this solution of the ultimate difficulty, and frequently -alludes to it. - -“It is in the wholesome indisposition of the average mind for -intellectual labour that due provision is made for the quantity of dull -work which must be done in stubbing the Thornaby wastes of the -world.”[121] - -“I have said ... that the rough and worthless may be set to the roughest -and foulest work, and the finest to the finest; the rough and rude work -being, you will in time perceive, the best of charities to the rough and -rude people.”[122] - -Moreover, a measure of routine labour is good, as recreation, for us -all--it is a relief from thinking, planning, inventing. Good spade and -hatchet work, if only one can perspire enough over it, is a condition of -good work in higher ways. Ruskin thinks so too, and set the Oxford -undergraduates to their famous road-making for exercise; surely the -greatest academic triumph a professor ever achieved. - -Ruskin’s attack on Machinery, when carefully read, applies only to steam -machinery, with its soot, smoke, sulphurous gases and noise. Wind or -water power he allows and encourages; a vast scheme of mills worked by -tidal water power is outlined in _Fors_.[123] And oddly enough he -prophesies, so long ago, that electricity will supersede steam; and -therefore if we can generate electrical energy with very much less -publicly vomited smoke than we now make for steam power, we shall be on -right lines, and shall have the Master’s goodwill. Not by vain -retrogression, but by determined reforms on possible lines may we some -day get back an England good to live in. At present we are wasteful and -dirty, and we do not care. - -Ruskin writes: “What is required of the members of St. George’s Company -is, not that they should never travel by railroads, nor that they -should abjure machinery, but that they should never travel -unnecessarily, or in wanton haste; and that they should never do with a -machine what can be done with hands and arms, while hands and arms are -idle.”[124] - -There is no subject which causes more merriment amongst the Philistines -than Ruskin’s objection to railways, combined with the frequent -locomotion indulged in by his most devoted followers. But Ruskin’s -objection to railways was never so absolute as was popularly supposed. -He always approved of them on through main routes, and only objected to -their intrusion into the peace of quiet valleys off the main tracks. He -objected to what appeared to him the excessive provision by which a -lovely valley was spoiled “in order that every fool in Buxton could be -in Bakewell in half an hour.” We must remember that the railway mania of -1844 occurred when Ruskin was five and twenty, at the formative period -of his life, and that he saw all around him rough destruction of that -beauty which affected his soul with a thrill like a lover’s (as he tells -us in the Third Volume of _Modern Painters_, pages 295-298, quoted in -Chapter I). The countryside must have been sadly ruined in the forties, -while the railway embankments were creeping along through the pastures. - -Possibly not all of us know the remarkable passage in the _Cestus of -Aglaia_ in praise of a locomotive:[125] - -“I cannot express the amazed awe, the crushed humility, with which I -sometimes watch a locomotive take its breath at a railway station, and -think what work there is in its bars and wheels, and what manner of men -they must be who dig brown ironstone out of the ground, and forge it -into that! What assemblage of accurate and mighty faculties in them; -more than fleshly power over melting crag and coiling fire, fettered, -and finessed at last into the precision of watchmaking; Titanian -hammer-strokes beating, out of lava, these glittering cylinders and -timely-respondent valves, and fine ribbed rods, which touch each other -as a serpent writhes, in noiseless gliding, and omnipotence of grasp; -infinitely complex anatomy of active steel, compared with which the -skeleton of a living creature would seem, to a careless observer, clumsy -and vile--a mere morbid secretion and phosphatous drop of flesh! What -would the men who thought out this--who beat it out, who touched it -into its polished calm of power, who set it to its appointed task, and -triumphantly saw it fulfil this task to the utmost of their will, feel -or think about this weak hand of mine, timidly leading a little stain of -shadow of something else--mere failure in every motion, and endless -disappointment; what, I repeat, would these Iron-dominant Genii think of -me? and what ought I to think of them? - -“But as I reach this point of reverence, the unreasonable thing is sure -to give a shriek as of a thousand unanimous vultures, which leaves me -shuddering in real physical pain for some half minute following; and -assures me, during slow recovery, that a people which can endure such -fluting and piping among them is not likely soon to have its modest ear -pleased by aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song. Perhaps I am then led -on into meditation respecting the spiritual nature of the Tenth Muse, -who invented this gracious instrument, and guides its modulation by -stokers’ fingers; meditation, also, as to the influence of her invention -amidst the other parts of the Parnassian melody of English education.” - -He further concedes that “steam, or any mode of heat power, may only be -employed, justifiably, under extreme or special conditions of need; and -for speed on main lines of communication, and raising water from great -depths, or other such work beyond human strength.” This is a very large -concession, and may be received with large gratitude. He even permits -steam machinery for such purposes as “the deepening of large river -channels; changing the surfaces of mountainous districts; irrigating -tracts of desert in the torrid zone; breaking up and thus rendering -capable of quicker fusion, edges of ice in the northern and southern -Arctic seas, etc., so rendering parts of the earth habitable, which -hitherto have been lifeless.”[126] - -The teaching of Ruskin is not really revolutionary in immediate -practice; he advises a manufacturer to go on using his machinery; he -merely wants us to set our faces towards the restoration of nature’s -gifts of beauty and peace to the lives of toilers; and for ceasing to -uproot sentiments of cleanliness, reverence and order by unnatural, -foul, crowded and vulgar surroundings. His tastes and instincts are -vehemently against machinery; but his actual requirings are moderate. - -It is the machine-made society we live in that distresses him, and -distresses us; its occasional rough coarseness, its physical ill-health. -There are, of course, scattered through _Fors_ many outbursts against -machinery in general, not so carefully limited as his more weighty -pronouncements. In Letter V, pp. 10, 11, for instance, the assertion is -made that a man and his family can, by their own labour, given land, -feed and clothe themselves without machinery; and that therefore all -labour-saving appliances are so many aids to idleness. I do not know -where is the proof or disproof of the assertion. All we know is that -savage tribes do so live, but no others, and that it is in the time and -strength saved from labour for sheer food and clothing that the best -activities of humanity find room: and that civilization began with the -existence of a leisured class. - -And now, turning to the human product of industrialism, we will take a -sober view, not debiting to the factory system the evils which are -inherent in human nature, but only those due to crowded town life and to -employment in large rooms full of noisy machinery. If we have cured the -smoke evil, and reduced hours to their present reasonable length, what -remains to be done, and will it be on Ruskin’s lines? - -South Lancashire is often taken as the type of industrial England. There -I was born and brought up, and I have lived there for the greater part -of my life. I have known very intimately a great many of the working -people. They are far more pale and undersized than they ought to be. -Their beauty has been taken from them. The half-time system, now -perishing, has interfered with their education. The damp atmosphere in -the hot rooms is bad for their lungs, and minding machines is utterly -monotonous. But they are excellent people--they will stand comparison -with the upper classes. There is every type, of course, they are as -varied as are men at the Universities, or as the ladies who go to any -Church. But, speaking as we must, in general, there is a level of -conduct and intelligence in those mean streets, not different except in -manner from that of the suburbs. The degeneracy is, I believe, only -physical, so far as it is to be debited to the conditions of their work. - -This bad physique is a real evil. The lack of room for cricket and -football, the remoteness of the fields and woods, the ugliness of the -grey streets, the lack of quiet, added to the humid factories and the -smoke, have produced this. Parks and playgrounds and all sorts of open -spaces, including extensive fields and woods and ponds accessible on a -half-holiday, should be provided far more than they have been, and -should be less doctored by parks’ superintendents. - -Then there is a great sphere of service open to the familiar agencies -for good. The Drink traffic should be curtailed, and put out of the -reach of private profit, and better opportunities for sociability, music -and dancing, provided, not as part of the bait of the drink seller, but -by a democratic municipality. The usefulness of picture galleries will -not be fully reached till oral teaching about the pictures is added, and -the great educational value of comparatively cheap coloured -reproductions is perceived. Into the work of founding the Art Museum in -Ancoats, a working class district of Manchester, on exactly these lines, -Mr. Ruskin threw himself heartily. It was indeed an inspiration derived -from his writings by Mr. T. C. Horsfall which caused that Museum to be -founded. It has recently been taken over by the Corporation. - -Solemnly, then, and with due fear and doubt, considering the horror and -difficulty of the case, let us resolutely set ourselves to see if, under -the world of machinery, we can live good and healthy lives. The present -products of our civilization are far from satisfactory to any of us. Are -the crowds of girls who rush forth from the factory when the hour of -freedom strikes, having pieced threads in a hot damp atmosphere, and -shouted across the whirl of wheels all day to one another--are they on -the way to make fit, self-respecting and physically strong wives and -mothers and trainers of children? There are some three hundred thousand -of these girls in the Lancashire factories, who will be mothers of a -million English babies. Or take the young men. Go by a football train on -a Saturday afternoon, when holiday is written on every bloomless and -vulgar and swaggering young face:--what do you hear and see as you crowd -fifteen to a carriage? Bets, ribaldry, ill nature, the carriage floor a -mess, the whole scene an explosion of pent-up spirits of self-assertion -and banal hilarity.[127] - -These young people are undoubtedly products of the age of machinery; but -for machine production they would never have been born, nor their -surroundings formed; but the question is, cannot their tastes and -characters be reformed even while they remain machine-hands? Are not -excellent lives possible, and healthy surroundings obtainable, in -industrial England? For factory life we can confidently point to such. -Bournville, New Earswick, Port Sunlight, and of an earlier date, -Saltaire, Bessbrook, and some other centres which have not a special -local name, show that the thing can be done. For colliers the case is -harder. There are colliery villages on the Tyne which once ran extension -lectures; but the villages themselves are horrible. There are good -colliery villages near Doncaster, one built round a private Park. -Collieries have special difficulties. The coal mine will not last for -ever; and when it is worked out the houses may become useless. They are -therefore built to last only for from thirty to fifty years. They are -erected all at one time; and large rows of houses exactly alike are the -cheapest. They are often outside any municipality with its possibly -watchful surveyor and inspectors. They are completely owned by the -colliery company, which has no competitor as landlord. It is the classic -case in England of the failure of pure competition to care for human -welfare. - - - - -_EPILOGUE_ - - -I am kindly permitted by the Council of the Society for Psychical -Research to reprint here the beautiful tribute by F. W. H. Myers, which -appeared in their _Journal_ for March, 1900; and has been reprinted in -Mr. Myers’s _Fragments of Prose and Poetry_, pp. 89-94. - - Ω οὗτος, οὗτος, Οίδίπους, τί μέλλομεν - χωρείν; πάλαι δἠ τάπὀ σοῦ βραδύνεται - -Ruskin, then, has sunk to rest. The bracken and bilberries of the -Lake-land which he loved so well have hidden the mortal shape of the -greatest man of letters, the loftiest influence which earth still -retained;--have enwrapped “the man dear to the Muses, and by the Nymphs -not unbeloved"-- - - τὀν Μώσαις ϕίλον ἀνδρα, τὀν οὐ Νὐμϕαίσιν ἀπεϰθῆ - -We may rejoice that the long waiting is over; but memory all the more -“goes slipping back to that delightful time” when he was with us in his -force and fire; when it was still granted to hearken to his utterance; -to feel the germ of virtue quickened by his benignant soul. For those -who had the privilege of knowing Ruskin, the author came second to the -man; and in this brief notice of his Honorary Membership of our Society -I may perhaps be pardoned if I dwell in reminiscence, without attempting -any formal review. - -I met him first in my own earliest home, beneath the spurs of -Skiddaw,--its long slopes “bronzed with deepest radiance,” as the boy -Wordsworth had seen them long since in even such an evening’s glow. -Since early morning Ruskin had lain and wandered in the folds and -hollows of the hill; and he came back grave as from a solemn service -from day-long gazing on the heather and the blue. Later came many -another scene;--pacings in the Old Court of Trinity with Edmund Gurney, -who met those generous paradoxes with humorous play; graver hours at -Oxford, in the sick-room of the Duke of Albany, who, coming back to -earth-life from perilous illness, found nowhere a guidance fitter than -Ruskin’s for eager and royal youth. - -But chiefliest I think of him in that home of high thoughts where his -interest in our inquiry first upgrew. For the introduction to the new -hope came to him, as to Edmund Gurney and to myself, through a lady whom -each of us held in equal honour; and it was on the stately lawns of -Broadlands, and in that air as of Sabbatical repose, that Ruskin enjoyed -his one brief season,--since the failure of his youthful Christian -confidence--of blissful trust in the Unseen. To one among that company a -vision came, as of a longed-for meeting of souls beloved in heaven, a -vision whose detail and symbolism carried conviction to Ruskin’s heart. -While that conviction abode with him he was happy as a child; but -presently he suffered what all are like to suffer who do not keep their -minds close pressed to actual evidence by continuous study. That impress -faded; and leaving the unseen world in its old sad uncertainty, he went -back to the mission which was laid on him,--that mission of humanizing -this earth, and being humanized thereby, which our race must needs -accomplish, whatever be the last doom of man. - - Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own; - Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind; - And even with something of a Mother’s mind - And no unworthy aim, - The homely Nurse doth all she can - To make her Foster-child, her Inmate Man, - Forget the glories he hath known, - And that imperial palace whence he came. - -But Ruskin’s task,--however it might be pursued in forgetfulness of that -unrememberable home,--was surely still the task (as Bacon called it) “to -prepare and adorn the bride-chamber of the mind and the universe”; and -that _melior natura_ which seemed to be Ruskin’s, as it was Bacon’s, -divinity has never shone more radiantly upon the inward shrine of any -lover of men. It was half in jest that I would complain to him that to -Earth he gave up what was meant for Infinity, and bent a cosmic passion -upon this round wet pebble of rock and sea. “Ah, my friend!” he answered -once when I spoke of life to come, “if you could only give me fifty -years longer of this life on earth, I would ask for nothing more!” And -half that season was granted to him, and all in vain;--for what Tithonus -may tread for ever unweary the “gleaming halls of Morn”? - -Then as that fervent life wore on, Ruskin turned more and more from the -outward pageant to the human passion; from Alp and sunset to the sterner -beauty of moral law. From the publication of _Unto This Last_, one may -trace that slow-growing revolt against the Age which led him to preach -in the end with such despairing emphasis the duty of protest, of -renunciation, of sheer self-severance from most of the tendencies of -modern life. The strength of this emotion in him was made, I remember, -strangely plain on one occasion, when some of those who cared most for -him had clubbed together, at Lord Mount-Temple’s suggestion, to surprise -him, on his recovery from a serious illness, with the present of a -picture of Turner’s, which he had once possessed and still dearly loved, -but of which he had despoiled himself to meet some generous impulse. -Never were givers more taken aback by the issue of their gift. For the -sudden sight of the lovely landscape hung in his bedroom drew from him a -letter of almost heart-broken pain,--at the thought that those whom he -would so fain have helped,--who were thus willing to do this thing, or -almost anything, to please him,--were yet not willing to do that other -thing for their own souls’ sake;--to come out from the iniquity,--to -shake off the baseness of the age,--to bind themselves in the St. -George’s Guild with that small remnant who clung to things pure and -true. - -Indeed, there was something naïve, something childlike, in his -Brotherhoods, his Leagues, his solemn Covenants against the onflowing -tide of things;--but a stern reality beneath all this became strongly -present to us then;--a deep compassion for the lonely heart, which so -much needed love, yet could scarcely accept a fellowship in love which -was not also a fellowship in all that he held for virtue. - -There are some who fear lest too pervading a belief in that other world -may make men indifferent to the loveliness and irresponsive to the woes -of _this_. Yet must that needs be so? or might we not treat even this -world’s problems with steadier heart, could we regain,--from some surer -foothold in the Invisible,--that ancient serenity of the Saints? -Watching that ardent soul, whose very raptures trembled on the brink of -pain, I have thought that even from Ruskin’s delight in Nature something -of a bitter yearning might have been soothed away, could he have seen in -stream and moorland, nay even in - - great Skiddaw’s self, who shrouds - His double head among Atlantic clouds, - And pours forth streams more sweet than Castaly;-- - -could he have seen, I say, in these, as Plato saw in Castaly or in -Hymettus, only the transitory adumbration and perishing symbol of -somewhat more enduring and more fair. Nay, even from his compassion for -stunted and erring souls might not the burning pain have gone, could he -have seen those souls as Er the Paphlagonian saw them, marshalled in an -everlasting order, of which but a moment’s glimpse is shown;--till even -“this last” of men shall follow out, through all vicissitude, his -endless and his mounting way? - -And turning then, with heart full of such-like fancies, to that -well-loved Leader’s fate;--imagining his baffled isolation, and the -disheartenment of solitary years;--I have pictured him waiting in the -Coniston woodlands, as Œdipus in Colonus’ grove,--waiting in mournful -memory, in uncomplaining calm--till he should hear at last the august -summons,--nay, sounded it not like the loving banter?--of the unguessed -accompanying God. “Come, Œdipus, why linger on our journey? Thou hast -kept me waiting long.” - - - - -INDEX - - -Abbey Dale, land at, 163 - -Alexander, Francesca, 52 - -Ancoats Art Museum, 255 - -Aristocracy, 135, 142 - -Artistical Pharisaism, 70 - -Assisi, 48 - -Authority in Religion, 67 - - -Bacon on Usury, 189, 197 - -Baker, George, 74, 163 - -Baptism, 66 - -Bastiat, 189, 190 - -Beever, Miss, 50, 52 - -Bequest limited, 188, 189 - -Bible not the word of God, 62; - on Usury, 194, 196 - -Bishop of Manchester, 201, 202 - -Bishops, 60, 61, 141, 142 - -Breaking the Sabbath, 31 - -Broadlands, 48, 261 - -Builders’ Parliament, 155, 156 - - -Capitalists and War, 203 - -_Cestus of Aglaia_, quoted on locomotive, 250, 251 - -Christ’s sheep, 65, 67 - -Church, 64; - discipline, 68 - -Claughton, land at, 163 - -Clergy, 55-61, 138 - -Coal, 233 - -Coinage under St. George, 166 - -Cole, Mr. G. H. D., 152, 157, 158 - -Communist colonies, 133 - -Competition allowed, 140 - -_Crown of Wild Olive_, Lecture on War analysed, 204-210; - Appendix to, quoted, 210-213 - - -Democracy, 158 - -Division of labour, 227-230 - -Doukhobors, 133, 199 - -Duke, 142 - -Dull work, 246-248 - - -_Eagle’s Nest_, quoted from, 41, 42, 67, 74 - -_Ethics of the Dust_, 63 - - -Factory System, 136 - -Farming, 226, 227 - -Fawcett, Mrs., 189 - -_Fors Clavigera_, quoted _passim_, 131-132; - passages on War, 214-218 - -Franco-German War, 204, 215, 216, 218 - -Friar’s Crag, 27 - - -Garden Cities and Villages, 173, 257 - -Giotto at Assisi, 48 - -_Gold_, 85 - -Guild of St. George, 23; - _General Statement of_, quoted, 64, 65; - fifty years ago, 159; - Creed of, 161, 162; - land holding, 163; - annual meetings, 164; - officials, 178, 179, 263 - -Guild Socialism, 139, 151-156 - -Guilds, 122, 124, 139 - - -Horsfall, T. C., 255 - - -Individualism, 148, 149 - -Industrial society, 253, 254, 256 - -Infallibility, 24 - -Interest, bound up with private property, 187 - -Irreligious painters at Venice, 32 - - -Labour, 126 - -Lady Mount Temple, 49 - -Land cultivation, 170 - -Land tenure, 137; - in Ireland, 174 - -Law of supply and demand, 92 - -Lawyers’ fees, 61 - -_Lectures on Art_, quoted from, 46, 47 - -_Letters to the Clergy_, 66 - -Locomotive, praise of, 250, 251 - -Lord Mount Temple, 48, 263 - -_Love’s Meinie_, quoted, 172 - -Luxmore, H. E., 164 - - -Machinery, 230-232 - -Marriages in _Time and Tide_, 169 - -Marshall, Prof., quoted, 93-98 - -Mill, J. S., 37, 78-119; - _Principles_, 86, 87; - chapters on social well-being, 88, 98-102; - his career, like Ruskin’s, 102-105 - -Milner, Dennis, 183, 184 - -_Modern Painters_, Vol. II, 34; - Vol. III, quoted, 68-71 - -Mr. Molyneux, 29 - -_Munera Pulveris_, quoted, 89, 128, 159, 185, 203 - -Museum at Sheffield, 164, 172 - -Myers, F. W. H., 49, 52, 259 - - -Nationalization of Schools, 120; - of workshops, 121; - of Railways, 124 - -_Notes on the Construction of Sheepfolds_, 35; - quoted, 59, 60, 62, 64, 65-68 - - -Oaths, 73 - -Old Age Pensions, 123 - -_On the Old Road_, quoted, 51, 64, 66 - - -Parents of Ruskin, 26, 27 - -Pastoral happiness, 222-225 - -Payment of Clergy, 68 - -Peasantry in Europe, 224; - in England, 225 - -Plato, 138, 197 - -Political Economy, orthodox science of, 78-81; - Theory of Value, 82; - connection with morality, 82; - Ruskin’s definition of, 89; - the “economic man,” 106-109; - definition of Wealth, 109, 110 - -Population, 137 - -Position of William, 189-193 - -Prayer Books, 66 - -Present duty of a Ruskinian, 179, 180 - -Priesthood, 57, 62 - -Prodigal Son, 29 - -Professional men as officials, 180-182 - - -Quakerism and Ruskin, 71-77 - -_Queen of the Air_, quoted from, 43-45 - - -Railways, 249-252 - -Religious art, 68 - -Rents under St. George, 167 - -Ricardo, 86, 91 - -Rich, 115, 116 - -Rose La Touche, 38, 261 - -RUSKIN-- - Aristocrat, 159 - Art teaching, 10 - Attack on clergy, 55-61 - Career like Mill’s, 102-105 - Conservative, 222 - Definition of wealth, 115 - Divine, A, 19, 21 - Epochs of religious change, 31, 32, 47-50; - at Venice in 1876, 50 - Free trader, 83, 84 - Guild of St. George, 165 - Imperialist, 209, 220 - Inconsistency, on war, 210-212 - Inflammation of the brain, 23 - Later views on Usury, 185, 187, 188 - Mature period in religion, 47 - Mill (and), 78-119 - Museum, 164 - Neglect of, 9 - Peace advocate, 219 - Political Economy of, 89, 117 - Practical proposals, 120-150 - Professor, 178 - Quakerism, 55-77 - Qualifications of, 15 - Religious history, 26-54 - Religious Research Fellowship, 53 - Sacrifice of reputation, 17, 22, 37 - Selflessness of, 13, 14 - Signs of a Prophet, 11-25 - Sincerity of, 12 - Singlemindedness of, 13 - Socialist, 134 - Style of, 18 - Subjects of works, 18 - Suffering, 38 - Susceptible to landscape beauty in childhood, 11, 20 - Talk on Quakerism, 74-76 - Three Religious Periods, 36 - Twenty-six chapters, 26, 40 - Utopia, 132, 143, 147 - War, 73 - Weaknesses, 24 - - -Sacrament, 66 - -_Sartor Resartus_, 206 - -Schools, 120, 175-178 - -_Sesame and Lilies_, quoted, 101 - -Shakers, 133 - -Shakespeare, 46 - -Shepherds in practice, 226 - -Sillar, W. C., 185, 186 - -Small Holdings, 171, 172 - -Smoke, 234-236; - passages in Ruskin on, 237 - -Society for Psychical Research, 49 - -Sparkes, Malcolm, 155, 157 - -Starvation, to be guarded against, 182-184 - -Statesmen in the North, 223, 224 - -Steam machinery, 248 - -_Stones of Venice_, quoted, 83, 113, 237-245 - -_Storm Cloud of the Nineteenth Century_, 234 - -Sweated Industries Act, 128 - - -Talbot, Mrs., 163 - -_The Nature of Gothic_, quoted, 237-245 - -Thomson, George, 164 - -_Time and Tide_, quoted, 84, 137, 139, 142, 147, 169, 175, 201 - - -Unemployed, the, 122 - -_Unto this Last_, quoted, 84, 88, 91, 113-118, 120, 121, 124, 125, 139 - -Usury, 185-199; - references to, 193; - authorities against, 194-197; - as private money-lending, 198; - as modern investment, 197, 198 - - -Violence, 143 - -Vivisection, 46 - - -Wages, 124-127, 129, 130 - -Wages Fund, 86, 87, 126, 127 - -Wallace, A. R., 182 - -Waldensian Service at Turin, 31 - -War, 136, 203-221; - and capital, 203; - and character, 212-214 - -Wardle, William, 164 - -Wealth, definition of, 109, 110, 113, 114; - Ruskin’s definition, 115; - upper limit to, 135, 168, 199-201 - -Welfare work, 173, 174 - -Wesley, John, on Usury, 197, 198 - -Whitley Councils, 154, 156 - -Word of God, 63 - -Works of the First Religious Period, 28, 35 - -Works of the Second Religious Period, 39 - -Workshops, 121; - by Government, 121, 122; - under Guilds, 122, 124 - -_Printed in Great Britain by_ - -UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON - - -FOOTNOTES: - - [1] Chap. xiv. § 19. - - [2] _Fors_, Letter LXXXVI. - - [3] _Rugby Chapel_, by M. Arnold. - - [4] The passages were: Exod. xv, xx; 2 Sam. i. 17; 1 Kings viii; Ps. - xxiii, xxxii, xc, xci, ciii, cxii, cxix, cxxxix; Prov. ii, iii, viii, - xii; Is. lviii; Matt. v, vi, vii; Acts xxvi; 1 Cor. xiii, xv; James - iv; Rev. v, vi. See _Præterita_ for all this. - - [5] For his actual experience of prayer, see the incident of 1845 in - _Præterita_, vol. ii. pp. 260, 261. - - [6] _Præterita_, iii. 28. - - [7] _Præterita_, III. i. 32-34. Also referred to in _Munera Pulveris_, - App. V. - - [8] _Præterita_, vol. iii. p. 39. - - [9] Id. p. 41. - - [10] Id. p. 48. - - [11] _Præterita_, vol. iii. pp. 44-6. _Fors_, Letter LXXVI. - - [12] _Fors_, Letter LXXVI. - - [13] Letter XII, p. 3. - - [14] Notably in the address and Turner drawing presented by - distinguished men on his 80th birthday. - - [15] _Fors_, Letter XLII. - - [16] Pp. 189-190. - - [17] _Lectures on Art_, p. 50. - - [18] _Lectures on Art_, p. 52. - - [19] See _Fors_, LXXVI, March 1877, vol. iv. p. 69. - - [20] See Epilogue. - - [21] Letter LXIII, vol. vi. p. 89. - - [22] _Fors_, Letter LXI, p. 7, note. - - [23] See also _Fors_, Letter LXVI, vol. vi. p. 172. - - [24] _On the Old Road_, vol. ii. p. 388. - - [25] _Fors_, XCII, 1883. - - [26] Id. XCII, vol. viii. p. 205. - - [27] This reference is known to refer chiefly to Francesca Alexander - and her mother at Florence. Not improbably, also, to the Misses Beever - at Coniston. - - [28] Letter XLIX. - - [29] Letter LV. - - [30] _Fors_, Letter LXXV, § 21. Notes and Correspondence. - - [31] _Time and Tide_, p. 71. - - [32] _Sheepfolds_, p. 269. - - [33] _Fors_, Letter XXXI, § 18, and also Letter LXVII, § 10. - - [34] _Sheepfolds_, p. 271. - - [35] _Fors_, Letter XXXV, § 3. - - [36] See also _Fors_, Letter LXV and Letter XLIV, also Letter XL for - an amusing account of the edifying Bible story of Joab and Abner; and - very numerous other passages. - - [37] _Fors_, Letter XXXVI, § 3. - - [38] _On the Old Road_, vol. ii. p. 253. - - [39] _General Statement as to the Nature and Purpose of the St. - George’s Guild_, p. 12, 1882. - - [40] _Sheepfolds_: in _On the Old Road_, vol. ii. p. 259. - - [41] _Sheepfolds_, p. 259. - - [42] _Sheepfolds_, p. 267. - - [43] _Sheepfolds_, p. 283. - - [44] _Modern Painters_, vol. iii. p. 57 (iv. 4) (1856). - - [45] _Crown of Wild Olive_, Introduction, p. 17. - - [46] _Fors_, Letter XX. - - [47] _Eagle’s Nest_, p. 139. - - [48] _Unto This Last_, Libr. ed. § 53, _n._, small ed. p. 97, and - _Stones of Venice_, iii. 168. This last passage was written just after - the Repeal of the Corn Laws, when the question was hot. - - [49] _Time and Tide_, Letter I, p. 5. - - [50] _Unto This Last_, p. 97 _n._ - - [51] See the privately printed Dialogue on _Gold_; Library ed. vol. - xvii. p. 491, written in 1863, and the letter to _The Times_, on p. - 489. - - [52] _Unto This Last_, Libr. ed. § 58, small ed. pp. 109, 110. - - [53] _Unto This Last_, § 60, small ed. p. 114. - - [54] _Unto This Last_, Libr. ed. § 55, small ed. p. 103. See also § 1. - - [55] Letter to Dr. John Brown, Libr. ed. vol. xvii. p. lxxxii. - - [56] Note to _A Disciple of Plato_, by Wm. Smart, p. 48, Libr. ed., - xviii, lxxxiii. - - [57] _Principles of Economics_, Bk. I. chap. vii. § 3. - - [58] Book iv. § 28. - - [59] _Sesame and Lilies_, i. 42. - - [60] _Unsettled Questions of Political Economy_, Essay V, 1884, and - earlier in the _Westminster Review_. - - [61] _Unto This Last_, small ed. p. 114. - - [62] _Unto This Last_, §§ 61-64, Libr. ed.; small ed. pp. 118-127. - - [63] _Unto This Last_, § 65, or p. 128. - - [64] _Unto This Last_, § 27, or p. 40. - - [65] _Unto This Last_, § 29, or pp. 43, 44. - - [66] See in continuation of this the Apologue of the two sailors: - _Unto This Last_, pp. 49-57 or § 33-7. - - [67] _Unto This Last_, Libr. ed. § 28, or pp. 41, 42 in small ed. - - [68] _Unto This Last_, § 77, or p. 156. - - [69] _Unto this Last_, Preface, p. 7. - - [70] By Graham Wallas, in his book with that title. See later in this - chapter on Ruskin’s Bishops, p. 141. - - [71] _Unto This Last_, § 79, n. - - [72] _Munera Pulveris_, § 128. - - [73] _Unto This Last_, § 53, small ed. pp. 96-8. - - [74] Malthus. - - [75] Ricardo and James Mill. - - [76] Ruskin’s disciple, the late Professor Wm. Smart of Glasgow, has - written a book to show that there may be no supply price to wages. - - [77] See _Arrows of the Chace_, ii. 97. - - [78] John Ruskin, _Social Reformer_, p. 138. - - [79] _Time and Tide_, Letter XX, § 124. - - [80] _Fors_, LXXXIX, p. 135. But _v._ pp. 182-4 below. - - [81] Letter XVIII. - - [82] _Time and Tide_, p. 19. - - [83] The literature of the Guild movement is considerable and growing. - Mr. G. H. D. Cole has written _The World of Labour_, _Labour in War - Time_, _Self Government in Industry_, _Labour in the Commonwealth_, - and _Chaos and Order in Industry_, and edits _The Guildsman_ (office - of the National Guilds League, 39 Cursitor Street, London, E.C. 4). - Mr. A. R. Orage has written _National Guilds_, _The Alphabet of - Economics_, and written much in his paper, _The New Age_; and Mr. S. - G. Hobson has written _National Guilds_. - - [84] For a full account of this remarkable story see a pamphlet issued - by the Garton Foundation, 36 Dean’s Yard, Westminster, 1s., entitled - _The Industrial Council for the Building Industry_. - - [85] § 129-133, and also _Time and Tide_, § 105; _Crown of Wild - Olive_, § 119; _Cestus of Aglaia_, § 55. - - [86] See _Fors_, vol. viii. p. 231. - - [87] _Fors_, Letter LVIII, vol. v. p. 273. - - [88] Cf. the Preface to _Unto This Last_, referred to in chap. v. - above. - - [89] See _Fors_, Letters LVIII and LXIII. - - [90] _The Wonderful Century_, chap. xx. - - [91] _A Reasonable Revolution_, by Bertram Pickard (George Allen & - Unwin, Ltd.). - - [92] P. 115. - - [93] In pamphlets enumerated in Libr. ed. vol. xvii. p. 220, _n_. - - [94] See _The Ethics of Usury and Interest_, by Rev. W. Blissard - (George Allen & Unwin), 2s. 6d. net. - - [95] The numbers which are devoted to lengthy treatment of Usury are: - Letters I, XVIII, p. 17, XXI, pp. 15-18, XLIII, pp. 153-7, LIII, - 142-5, LXVIII, 245-53, LXX, 312-33, LXXVIII and LXXX, and _Arrows of - the Chace_, ii. 103. There is also a long discussion on the subject - with Bishop Fraser of Manchester in _On the Old Road_, vol. ii. pp. - 202-245, reprinted from the _Contemporary Review_. - - [96] See list in Libr. edn. vol. xxvii. Introd. p. xlvii. - - [97] _Time and Tide_, pp. 12, 13, small ed. - - [98] Preface to _Munera Pulveris_, p. xxvi. - - [99] § 94. - - [100] § 98. - - [101] § 102. - - [102] § 115. - - [103] § 116. - - [104] Sir Herbert Edwardes. - - [105] LXXIV, vol. vii. p. 42. - - [106] LXXIV, vol. vii. p. 42. - - [107] Vol. vii. p. 344. - - [108] Letter II, p. 17. - - [109] _Fors Clavigera_, vol. i. Letter IV, p. 18. - - [110] Letter VII, p. 16. - - [111] Letter VII, p. 21. See also Letter XIV, p. 18. - - [112] Letter XXXIII, p. 24. See also Letter XXXVII, pp. 19-23. LXV, p. - 148. LXVII, p. 240. LXXIX, p. 183. - - [113] XLIV, p. 178. - - [114] See also _Munera Pulveris_, p. 46. - - [115] § 159. - - [116] _Hawkshead_, by H. S. Cowper. - - [117] v. _The Rural Labourer_, by Mr. and Mrs. Hammond. - - [118] This explanation of the Storm Cloud I gave in my book on Smoke, - _The Destruction of Daylight_ (1907, now out of print). It was - accepted by the Editors of the Library Edition of Ruskin’s works. Vol. - xxxiv. p. xxvi. - - [119] A Local Government Board Departmental Committee was sitting on - this before the war. It has resumed its sittings under the Ministry of - Health. - - [120] Other passages on Smoke may be found in _Fors_, Letter XLIV, - § 13; Letter XLVI, § 10; Letter LX, § 3; Letter LXXXI, § 17 (in a - letter from Mr. Horsfall); in a youthful reference in _The Poetry of - Architecture_, chap. v. § 63; _Modern Painters_, vol. iii. chap. 13. § - 14; vol. v. pt. ix. § 24; _The Queen of the Air_, Preface (a beautiful - passage) and I. 8; _Ariadne Florentina_, vi. § 221; S. Mark’s Rest, - vi. § 76; _The Art of England_, vi. § 184 (a strong passage); _Aratra - Pentelici_, iv. § 132; _Arrows of the Chace_, ii. p. 181; Letter - printed in Library ed., vol. xxix. pp. 574-6, called “Morning Thoughts - at Geneva,” intended for _Fors_. - - [121] _Fors_, XCV, vol. viii. p. 258. - - [122] Id., LXXXXII, vol. vii. p. 306. A similar solution is outlined - in Letter XVIII of _Time and Tide_. - - [123] Letter LI, p. 85. - - [124] _Fors_, Letter XLIV. - - [125] Library ed. vol. xix. p. 61. - - [126] _Munera Pulveris_, i. p. 16. - - [127] _Fors_, xi. pp. 3-7, on the navvies on the way to Furness Abbey. - - -Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber: - -gathering hinself into=> gathering himself into {pg 30} - -from other notives=> from other motives {pg 80} - -were comparativelty uninstructed=> were comparatively uninstructed {pg -169} - - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Harvest of Ruskin, by John W. 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