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diff --git a/75654-0.txt b/75654-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e8f71df --- /dev/null +++ b/75654-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8158 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75654 *** + + + + + +Transcriber’s Note: Italics are enclosed in _underscores_. Additional +notes will be found near the end of this ebook. + + + + +THE STORY OF UTOPIAS + + + + + THE + STORY OF UTOPIAS + + IDEAL COMMONWEALTHS + AND + SOCIAL MYTHS + + + BY + LEWIS MUMFORD + + With an Introduction + by + HENDRIK WILLEM VAN LOON + + + “_A Map of the World that + does not include Utopia is not + worth even glancing at._...” + + + GEORGE G. HARRAP & CO. LTD. + LONDON CALCUTTA SYDNEY + + + + + _Published 1923 + by_ GEORGE G. HARRAP & CO. LTD. + _39–41 Parker Street, Kingsway, London, W.C.2_ + + + + +ACKNOWLEDGMENTS + + +The first outline of this book dates back ten years; and since then I +have woven it and rewoven it in my mind. The actual work of composition +was started by a suggestion from Mr. Van Wyck Brooks; and without Mr. +Brooks’ encouragement I should perhaps never have begun or carried +through the task. The general background of ideas has been heavily +colored by my contacts with Professor Patrick Geddes, through his +books and by correspondence; and I owe a debt to him I have not always +been able to acknowledge in direct reference or in quotation marks. I +take the opportunity here to express the hearty gratitude which might +otherwise have been conveyed in the more archaic form of a dedication. + +In the revision of the MS. I have been blessed with the generous advice +and criticism of a number of friends; in particular, Mr. Clarence +Britten, Mr. Herbert Feis, Mr. Geroid Robinson, and Miss Sophia +Wittenberg, each of whom performed a unique service. To Messrs. Victor +Branford and Alexander Farquharson of the Sociological Society of Great +Britain I am indebted for many pertinent suggestions. My thanks are +also due to the editors of The Freeman for permission to use extracts +from two articles: Towards a Humanist Synthesis and Beauty and the +Picturesque. Finally, Mr. Hendrik van Loon’s friendly interest calls +for a departing beam of gratitude. + + LEWIS MUMFORD. + +New York City. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + _Introduction by Hendrik Willem van Loon, Ph.D._ + + + CHAPTER ONE + + How the will-to-utopia causes men to live in two worlds, and + how, therefore, we re-read the Story of Utopia--the other + half of the Story of Mankind. 9 + + + CHAPTER TWO + + How the Greeks lived in a New World, and utopia seemed just + round the corner. How Plato in the Republic is chiefly + concerned with what will hold the ideal city together. 27 + + + CHAPTER THREE + + How something happened to utopia between Plato and Sir Thomas + More; and how utopia was discovered again, along with the + New World. 57 + + + CHAPTER FOUR + + How the new Humanism of the Renascence brings us within sight + of Christianopolis; and how we have for the first time a + glimpse of a modern utopia. 79 + + + CHAPTER FIVE + + How Bacon and Campanella, who have a great reputation as + utopians, are little better than echoes of the men who + went before them. 101 + + + CHAPTER SIX + + How something happened in the eighteenth century which made + men “furiously to think,” and how a whole group of + utopias sprang out of the upturned soil of industrialism. + 111 + + + CHAPTER SEVEN + + How some utopians have thought that a good community rested + at bottom on the right division and use of land; and what + sort of communities these land-animals projected. 131 + + + CHAPTER EIGHT + + How Étienne Cabet dreamed of a new Napoleon called Icar, and + a new France called Icaria; and how his utopia, with that + which Edward Bellamy shows us in Looking Backward, gives + us a hint of what machinery might bring us to if the + industrial organization were nationalized. 149 + + + CHAPTER NINE + + How William Morris and W. H. Hudson renew the classic + tradition of utopias; and how, finally, Mr. H. G. Wells + sums up and clarifies the utopias of the past, and brings + them into contact with the world of the present. 171 + + + CHAPTER TEN + + How the Country House and Coketown became the utopias of the + modern age; and how they made the world over in their + image. 191 + + + CHAPTER ELEVEN + + How we reckon up accounts with the one-sided utopias of the + partisans. 235 + + + CHAPTER TWELVE + + How the half-worlds must go, and how eutopia may come; and + what we need before we can build Jerusalem in any green + and pleasant land. 265 + + + BIBLIOGRAPHY 309 + + + + +INTRODUCTION + +[Illustration] + + +It is a sunny day and I am sitting on the top of a mountain. + +Until this morning, it had been the mountain of a fairy story that was +twenty centuries old. + +Now, it is a mighty hill and I can feel its warm coat of white +reindeer-moss, and if I were willing to stretch out my hand, I could +pluck the red berries that are in full bloom. + +A hundred years from now it will be gone. + +For it is really a large chunk of pure iron, dumped by a playful +Providence in the very heart of Lapland. + +Do you remember an old tale of Norse mythology? How somewhere, far in +the north, there stood a high peak of iron, which was a hundred miles +high and a hundred miles wide? And how a little bird came to it once +every thousand years to sharpen its beak? And how, when the mountain +was gone, a single second of all eternity would have passed by? + +I heard it told as a child. + +I remembered it always, and I told it to my own boys when they began +to learn history. It seemed the invention of some prehistoric Hans +Christian Andersen. It belonged to the imaginary scenery of our dreams. + +The story has come true, and I have found my old mountain where I least +expected it. + +To make the cycle of coincidence perfect, this hill was named after +a bird. The Lapp, with a fine sense of sound, called the ptarmigan +“Kiru.” Kirunavaara no longer hears the shrill “kiru-kiru” of rising +birds. Twice a day it listens to the terrific detonation of half a +hundred charges of dynamite. + +Then it is shaken by the little trains which carry the rock to the +valley. + +In the evening, it sees the lights of the large electric engines +which hoist the valuable metal across the arctic wilderness of Lake +Tornotrask. + +Two months later, the ore has been melted and worked into those modern +articles of trade which go by the name of bridges and automobiles and +ships and apartment houses and a thousand other things which once +promised to elevate man from the ranks of the beasts of burden. + +What has become of that promise, the survivors of the last eight years +know with great if gruesome accuracy. + +Even the humble Lapp has heard of the great upheaval, and has asked why +the white people should kill each other when the whole world was full +of reindeer and when God has given us the hills and the plains so that +forever there should be food enough for the long days of summer and the +longer nights of the endless winter. + +[Illustration] + +But the ways of the Lapp are not the ways of the white man. + +These simple followers of a pure and much undiluted nature follow the +even tenor of their ways as their ancestors did, five and ten thousand +years ago. + +We, on the other hand, have our engines and we have our railroad +trains and we have our factories and we cannot get rid of these iron +servants without destroying the very basis of our civilization. We may +hate these ungainly companions, but we need them. In time to come, we +shall know how to be their masters. Then Plato shall give us a revised +Republic where all the houses are heated by steam and where all the +dishes are washed by electricity. + +We are not suffering from too much machinery, but from too little. For +let there be enough iron servants and more of us shall be able to sit +on the tops of mountains and stare into the blue sky and waste valuable +hours, imagining the things that ought to be. + +The Old Testament used to call such people prophets. They raised +strange cities of their hearts’ delight, which should be based +exclusively upon righteousness and piety. But the greatest of all their +prophets the Jews killed to make a Roman holiday. + +The Greeks knew such wise men as philosophers. They allowed them great +freedom and rejoiced in the mathematical precision with which their +intellectual leaders mapped out those theoretical roads which were to +lead mankind from chaos to an ordered state of society. + +The Middle Ages insisted with narrow persistence upon the Kingdom of +Heaven as the only possible standard for a decent Christian Utopia. + +They crushed all those who dared to question the positive existence of +such a future state of glory and content. They built it of stone and +precious metals, but neglected the spiritual fundament. + +[Illustration] + +And so it perished. + +The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries fought many bitter wars to +decide the exact nature of a whitewashed Paradise, erected upon the +crumbling ruins of the mediæval church. + +The eighteenth century saw the Promised Land lying just across the +terrible bulwark of stupidity and superstition, which a thousand years +of clerical selfishness had erected for its own protection and safety. + +There followed a mighty battle to crush the infamy of ignorance and +bring about an era of well-balanced reason. + +Unfortunately, a few enthusiasts carried the matter a trifle too far. + +Napoleon, realist-in-chief of all time, brought the world back to the +common ground of solid facts. + +Our own generation drew the logical conclusion of the Napoleonic +premises. + +Behold the map of Europe and see how well we have wrought. + +For alas! this world needs Utopias as it needs fairy stories. It +does not matter so much where we are going, as long as we are making +consciously for some definite goal. And a Utopia, however strange or +fanciful, is the only possible beacon upon the uncharted seas of the +distant future. + +[Illustration] + +It encourages us in our efforts. Sometimes the light is hidden by the +clouds and for a moment we may lose our way. Then the faint light once +more breaks through the darkness and we press forward with new courage. + +And when life is dull and meaningless (the main curse of all existence) +we find consolation in the fact that a hundred years from now, our +children shall reach the shore for which we were bound when we +ourselves left the bridge and were lowered to the peaceful bottom of +the ocean. + +[Illustration] + +And now the sun has gone down and a chill wind blows from Kebnekajse, +where the wild geese of little Nils Holgerson live amidst the endless +silence of the eternal snow. Soon the top shall be hidden in the mist +and I shall have to find my way back by the noise of the steam shovels, +plying their elephantine trade at the foot of the first terrace. + +The mountain of my fairy story once more will be the profitable +investment of a Company of Iron-mongers. + +But that does not matter. + +Lewis Mumford, for whom I am writing this, will understand what I mean. + +And I shall be content. + +[Illustration: + + Hendrik Willem van Loon +] + + Kiruna, Lapland, + 14 Sept., 1922. + + + + +CHAPTER ONE + + How the will-to-utopia causes men to live in two worlds, and how, + therefore, we re-read the Story of Utopias--the other half of + the Story of Mankind. + + + + +THE STORY OF UTOPIAS + + + + +CHAPTER ONE + + +1 + +Utopia has long been another name for the unreal and the impossible. We +have set utopia over against the world. As a matter of fact, it is our +utopias that make the world tolerable to us: the cities and mansions +that people dream of are those in which they finally live. The more +that men react upon their environment and make it over after a human +pattern, the more continuously do they live in utopia; but when there +is a breach between the world of affairs and the overworld of utopia, +we become conscious of the part that the will-to-utopia has played in +our lives, and we see our utopia as a separate reality. + +It is the separate reality of utopia that we are going to explore in +the course of this book--Utopia as a world by itself, divided into +ideal commonwealths, with all its communities clustered into proud +cities, aiming bravely at the good life. + +This discussion of ideal commonwealths gets its form and its color from +the time in which it is written. Plato’s Republic dates from the period +of social disintegration which followed the Peloponnesian War; and +some of its mordant courage is probably derived from the hopelessness +of conditions that came under Plato’s eye. It was in the midst of a +similar period of disorder and violence that Sir Thomas More laid the +foundations for his imaginary commonwealth: Utopia was the bridge by +which he sought to span the gap between the old order of the Middle +Age, and the new interests and institutions of the Renascence. + +In presenting this history and criticism of utopias we are perhaps +being pulled by the same interests that led Plato and More onwards, for +it is only after the storm that we dare to look for the rainbow. Our +fall into a chasm of disillusion has stimulated us to discuss in a more +thorough way the ultimate goods, the basic aims, the whole conception +of the “good life” by which, in modern times, we have been guided. In +the midst of the tepid and half-hearted discussions that continue to +arise out of prohibition laws and strikes and “peace” conferences let +us break in with the injunction to talk about fundamentals--consider +Utopia! + + +2 + +Man walks with his feet on the ground and his head in the air; and the +history of what has happened on earth--the history of cities and armies +and of all the things that have had body and form--is only one-half the +Story of Mankind. + +In every age, the external scenery in which the human drama has been +framed has remained pretty much the same. There have been fluctuations +in climate and changes in terrain; and at times a great civilization, +like that of the Mayas in Central America, has arisen where now only +a thick net of jungle remains; but the hills around Jerusalem are the +hills that David saw; and during the historic period the drowning +of a city in the Netherlands or the rise of a shifting bank of real +estate along the coast of New Jersey is little more than the wearing +off of the paint or a crack in the plaster. What we call the material +world constantly changes, it goes without saying: mountains are stript +of trees and become wastes, deserts are plowed with water and become +gardens. The main outlines, however, hold their own remarkably well; +and we could have travelled better in Roman days with a modern map than +with the best chart Ptolemy could have offered us. + +If the world in which men live were the world as it is known to the +physical geographer, we should have a pretty simple time of it. We +might follow Whitman’s advice, and live as the animals, and stop +whining for all time about our sins and imperfections. + +What makes human history such an uncertain and fascinating story +is that man lives in two worlds--the world within and the world +without--and the world within men’s heads has undergone transformations +which have disintegrated material things with the power and rapidity +of radium. I shall take the liberty of calling this inner world our +idolum (ido′lum) or world of ideas. The word “ideas” is not used here +precisely in the ordinary sense. I use it rather to stand for what the +philosophers would call the subjective world, what the theologians +would perhaps call the spiritual world; and I mean to include in it all +the philosophies, fantasies, rationalizations, projections, images, and +opinions in terms of which people pattern their behavior. This world +of ideas, in the case of scientific truths, for example, sometimes +has a rough correspondence with what people call the world; but it +is important to note that it has contours of its own which are quite +independent of the material environment. + +Now the physical world is a definite, inescapable thing. Its limits +are narrow and obvious. On occasion, if your impulse is sufficiently +strong, you can leave the land for the sea, or go from a warm climate +into a cool one; but you cannot cut yourself off from the physical +environment without terminating your life. For good or ill, you must +breathe air, eat food, drink water; and the penalties for refusing to +meet these conditions are inexorable. Only a lunatic would refuse to +recognize this physical environment; it is the substratum of our daily +lives. + +But if the physical environment is the earth, the world of ideas +corresponds to the heavens. We sleep under the light of stars that +have long since ceased to exist, and we pattern our behavior by ideas +which have no reality as soon as we cease to credit them. Whilst it +holds together this world of ideas--this idolum--is almost as sound, +almost as real, almost as inescapable as the bricks of our houses or +the asphalt beneath our feet. The “belief” that the world was flat was +once upon a time more important than the “fact” that it was round; +and that belief kept the sailors of the medieval world from wandering +out of sight of land as effectively as would a string of gun-boats or +floating mines. An idea is a solid fact, a theory is a solid fact, a +superstition is a solid fact as long as people continue to regulate +their actions in terms of the idea, theory, or superstition; and it is +none the less solid because it is conveyed as an image or a breath of +sound. + + +3 + +This world of ideas serves many purposes. Two of them bear heavily upon +our investigation of utopia. On one hand the pseudo-environment or +idolum is a substitute for the external world; it is a sort of house of +refuge to which we flee when our contacts with “hard facts” become too +complicated to carry through or too rough to face. On the other hand, +it is by means of the idolum that the facts of the everyday world are +brought together and assorted and sifted, and a new sort of reality is +projected back again upon the external world. One of these functions +is escape or compensation; it seeks an immediate release from the +difficulties or frustrations of our lot. The other attempts to provide +a condition for our release in the future. The utopias that correspond +to these two functions I shall call the utopias of escape and the +utopias of reconstruction. The first leaves the external world the way +it is; the second seeks to change it so that one may have intercourse +with it on one’s own terms. In one we build impossible castles in the +air; in the other we consult a surveyor and an architect and a mason +and proceed to build a house which meets our essential needs; as well +as houses made of stone and mortar are capable of meeting them. + + +4 + +Why, however, should we find it necessary to talk about utopia and the +world of ideas at all? Why should we not rest secure in the bosom of +the material environment, without flying off into a region apparently +beyond space and time? Well, the alternative before us is not whether +we shall live in the real world or dream away our time in utopia; for +men are so constituted that only by a deliberate discipline--such as +that followed by a Hindu ascetic or an American business man--can +one or the other world be abolished from consciousness. The genuine +alternative for most of us is that between an aimless utopia of escape +and a purposive utopia of reconstruction. One way or the other, it +seems, in a world so full of frustrations as the “real” one, we must +spend a good part of our mental lives in utopia. + +Nevertheless this needs a qualification. It is plain that certain +types of people have no need for private utopias and that certain +communities seem to be without them. The savages of the Marquesas whom +Hermann Melville described seem to have had such a jolly and complete +adjustment to their environment that, except for the raids of hostile +tribes--and this turned out to be chiefly sport which only whetted +their appetites for the feast that followed--everything needed for a +good life at the South Sea level could be obtained by direct attack. +The Marquesans had no need to dream of a happier existence; they had +only to grab it. + +At times, during childhood perhaps, life has the same sort of +completeness; and without doubt there are many mature people who have +manufactured out of their limitations a pretty adequate response to a +narrow environment; and have let it go at that. Such people feel no +need for utopia. As long as they can keep their contacts restricted, +only a deliberate raid from the outside world would create such a +need. They are like the sick man in the parable of the Persian poet, +whose only desire was that he might desire something; and there is no +particular reason to envy them. People who will not venture out into +the open sea pay the penalty of never having looked into the bright +eyes of danger; and at best they know but half of life. What such +folk might call the good life is simply not good enough. We cannot be +satisfied with a segment of existence, no matter how safely we may be +adjusted to it, when with a little effort we can trace the complete +circle. + +But there have been few regions, few social orders, and few people +in which the adjustment has not been incomplete. In the face of +perpetual difficulties and obstructions--the wind and the weather +and the impulses of other men and customs that have long outlived +their use--there are three ways, roughly, in which a man may react. +He may run away. He may try to hold his own. He may attack. Looking +around at our contemporaries who have survived the war, it is fairly +evident that most of them are in the first stage of panic and despair. +In an interesting article on The Dénouement of Nihilism, Mr. Edward +Townsend Booth characterized the generation born in the late eighties +as suffering a complete paralysis of will, or else, “if any initiative +remains to them, they emigrate to Europe or the South Sea Islands, or +crawl off into some quiet corner of the United States--but most of them +continue where they were stricken in a state of living death.” + +Speaking more generally, running away does not always mean a physical +escape, nor does an “attack” necessarily mean doing something practical +“on the spot.” Let us use Dr. John Dewey’s illustration and suppose +that a man is denied intercourse with his friends at a distance. One +kind of reaction is for him to “imagine” meeting his friends, and +going through, in fantasy, a whole ritual of meeting, repartee, and +discussion. The other kind of reaction, as Dr. Dewey says, is to see +what conditions must be met in order to cement distant friends, and +then invent the telephone. The so-called extrovert, the type of man +who has no need for utopias, will satisfy his desire by talking to the +nearest human being. (“He may try to hold his own.”) But it is fairly +plain that the extrovert, from the very weakness and inconstancy of his +aims, is incapable of contributing anything but “good nature” to the +good life of the community; and in his hands both art and invention +would probably come to an end. + +Now putting aside the extrovert, we find that the two remaining types +of reaction have expressed themselves in all the historic utopias. It +is perhaps well that we should see them first in their normal, everyday +setting, before we set out to explore the ideal commonwealths of the +past. + +More or less, we have all had glimpses of the utopia of escape: it is +raised and it collapses and it is built up again almost daily. In the +midst of the clanking machinery of a paper factory I have come across +a moving picture actress’s portrait, stuck upon an inoperative part of +the machine; and it was not hard to reconstruct the private utopia of +the wretch who minded the levers, or to picture the world into which +he had fled from the roar and throb and muck of the machinery about +him. What man has not had this utopia from the dawn of adolescence +onwards--the desire to possess and be possessed by a beautiful woman? + +Perhaps for the great majority of men and women that small, private +Utopia is the only one for which they feel a perpetual, warm interest; +and ultimately every other utopia must be translatable to them in some +such intimate terms. Their conduct would tell us as much if their +words did not confess it. They leave their bleak office buildings and +their grimy factories, and night after night they pour into the cinema +theater in order that they may live for a while in a land populated by +beautiful, flirtatious women and tender, lusty men. Small wonder that +the great and powerful religion founded by Mahomet puts that utopia +in the very foreground of the hereafter! In a sense, this is the most +elementary of utopias; for, on the interpretation of the analytical +psychologist, it carries with it the deep longing to return to and +remain at rest in the mother’s womb--the one perfect environment which +all the machinery and legislation of an eager world has never been able +to reproduce. + +In its most elemental state, this utopia of escape calls for a complete +breach with the butcher, the baker, the grocer, and the real, limited, +imperfect people that flutter around us. In order to make it more +perfect, we eliminate the butcher and baker and transport ourselves +to a self-sufficient island in the South Seas. For the most part, of +course, this is an idle dream, and if we do not grow out of it, we must +at any rate thrust other conditions into it; but for a good many of us, +idleness without a dream is the only alternative. Out of such fantasies +of bliss and perfection, which do not endure in real life even when +they occasionally bloom into existence, our art and literature have +very largely grown. It is hard to conceive of a social order so +complete and satisfactory that it would rob us of the necessity of +having recourse, from time to time, to an imaginary world in which our +sufferings could be purged or our delights heightened. Even in the +great idyll painted by William Morris, women are fickle and lovers +are disappointed; and when the “real” world becomes a little too hard +and too sullen to face, we must take refuge, if we are to recover our +balance, into another world which responds more perfectly to our deeper +interests and desires--the world of literature. + +Once we have weathered the storm, it is dangerous to remain in the +utopia of escape; for it is an enchanted island, and to remain there +is to lose one’s capacity for dealing with things as they are. The +girl who has felt Prince Charming’s caresses too long will be repulsed +by the clumsy embraces of the young man who takes her to the theater +and wonders how the deuce he is going to pay the rent if they spend +more than a week on their honeymoon. Moreover, life is too easy in the +utopia of escape, and too blankly perfect--there is nothing to sharpen +your teeth upon. It is not for this that men have gone into the jungle +to hunt beasts and have cajoled the grasses and roots to be prolific, +and have defied, in little open boats, the terror of the wind and sea. +Our daily diet must have more roughage in it than these daydreams will +give us if we are not to become debilitated. + +In the course of our journey into utopia we shall remain a little +while in these utopias of escape; but we shall not bide there long. +There are plenty of them, and they dot the waters of our imaginary +world as the islands that Ulysses visited dotted the Ægean Sea. These +utopias however belong to the department of pure literature, and in +that department they occupy but a minor place. We could dispense with +the whole lot of them, bag and baggage, in exchange for another Anna +Karenin or The Brothers Karamazov. + + +5 + +The second kind of utopia which we shall encounter is the utopia of +reconstruction. + +The first species represents, the analytical psychologist would tell +us, a very primitive kind of thinking, in which we follow the direction +of our desires without taking into account any of the limiting +conditions which we should have to confront if we came back to earth +and tried to realize our wishes in practical affairs. It is a vague and +messy and logically inconsequent series of images which color up and +fade, which excite us and leave us cold, and which--for the sake of the +respect our neighbors have for our ability to add a ledger or plane a +piece of wood--we had better confine to the strange box of records we +call our brain. + +The second type of utopia may likewise be colored by primitive desires +and wishes; but these desires and wishes have come to reckon with the +world in which they seek realization. The utopia of reconstruction is +what its name implies: a vision of a reconstituted environment which +is better adapted to the nature and aims of the human beings who dwell +within it than the actual one; and not merely better adapted to their +actual nature, but better fitted to their possible developments. If the +first utopia leads backward into the utopian’s ego, the second leads +outward--outward into the world. + +By a reconstructed environment I do not mean merely a physical thing. +I mean, in addition, a new set of habits, a fresh scale of values, a +different net of relationships and institutions, and possibly--for +almost all utopias emphasize the factor of breeding--an alteration of +the physical and mental characteristics of the people chosen, through +education, biological selection, and so forth. The reconstructed +environment which all the genuine utopians seek to contrive is a +reconstruction of both the physical world and the idolum. It is in this +that the utopian distinguishes himself from the practical inventor and +the industrialist. Every attempt that has been made to domesticate +animals, cultivate plants, dredge rivers, dig ditches, and in modern +times, apply the energy of the sun to mechanical instruments, has +been an effort to reconstruct the environment; and in many cases the +human advantage has been plain. It is not for the utopian to despise +Prometheus who brought the fire or Franklin who captured the lightning. +As Anatole France says: “Without the Utopians of other times, men would +still live in caves, miserable and naked. It was Utopians who traced +the lines of the first city.... Out of generous dreams come beneficial +realities. Utopia is the principle of all progress, and the essay into +a better future.” + +Our physical reconstructions however have been limited; they have +touched chiefly the surfaces of things. The result is that people +live in a modern physical environment and carry in their minds an odd +assortment of spiritual relics from almost every other age, from that +of the primitive, taboo-ridden savage, to the energetic Victorian +disciples of Gradgrind and Bounderby. As Mr. Hendrik van Loon pithily +says: “A human being with the mind of a sixteenth century tradesman +driving a 1921 Rolls-Royce is still a human being with the mind of +a sixteenth century tradesman.” The problem is fundamentally a human +problem. The more completely man is in control of physical nature, the +more urgently we must ask ourselves what under the heavens is to move +and guide and keep in hand the controller. This problem of an ideal, +a goal, an end--even if the aim persist in shifting as much as the +magnetic north pole--is a fundamental one to the utopian. + +Except in the writings of the utopians, and this is an important point +to notice in our travels through utopia, the reconstruction of the +material environment and the reconstitution of the mental framework +of the creatures who inhabit it, have been kept in two different +compartments. One compartment is supposed to belong to the practical +man; the other to the idealist. The first was something whose aims +could be realized in the Here and Now; the other was postponed very +largely to the sweet by-and-bye. Neither the practical man nor the +idealist has been willing to admit that he has been dealing with a +single problem; that each has been treating the faces of a single thing +as if they were separate. + +Here is where the utopia of reconstruction wins hands down. It not +merely pictures a whole world, but it faces every part of it at +the same time. We shall not examine the classic utopias without +becoming conscious of their weaknesses, their sometimes disturbing +idiosyncrasies. It is important at present that we should realize +their virtues; and should start on our journey without the feeling of +disparagement which the word utopian usually calls up in minds that +have been seduced by Macaulay’s sneer that he would rather have an acre +in Middlesex than a principality in utopia. + + +6 + +Finally, be convinced about the reality of utopia. All that has +happened in what we call human history--unless it has left a building +or a book or some other record of itself--is just as remote and in +a sense just as mythical as the mysterious island which Raphael +Hythloday, scholar and sailor, described to Sir Thomas More. A good +part of human history is even more insubstantial: the Icarians who +lived only in the mind of Étienne Cabet, or the Freelanders who +dwelt within the imagination of a dry little Austrian economist, +have had more influence upon the lives of our contemporaries than +the Etruscan people who once dwelt in Italy, although the Etruscans +belong to what we call the real world, and the Freelanders and Icarians +inhabited--Nowhere. + +Nowhere may be an imaginary country, but News from Nowhere is real +news. The world of ideas, beliefs, fantasies, projections, is (I must +emphasize again) just as real whilst it is acted upon as the post +which Dr. Johnson kicked in order to demonstrate that it was solid. +The man who wholly respects the rights of property is kept out of his +neighbor’s field perhaps even more effectively than the man who is +merely forbidden entrance by a no-trespass sign. In sum, we cannot +ignore our utopias. They exist in the same way that north and south +exist; if we are not familiar with their classical statements we at +least know them as they spring to life each day in our own minds. We +can never reach the points of the compass; and so no doubt we shall +never live in utopia; but without the magnetic needle we should not +be able to travel intelligently at all. It is absurd to dispose of +utopia by saying that it exists only on paper. The answer to this is: +precisely the same thing may be said of the architect’s plans for a +house, and houses are none the worse for it. + +We must lose our sense of remoteness and severity in setting out on +this exploration of ideal commonwealths, as some of the fine minds of +the past have pictured them. Our ideals are not something that we can +set apart from the main facts of our existence, as our grandmothers +sometimes set the cold, bleak, and usually moldy parlor apart from the +living rooms of the house: on the contrary, the things we dream of tend +consciously or unconsciously to work themselves out in the pattern +of our daily lives. Our utopias are just as human and warm and jolly +as the world out of which they are born. Looking out from the top of +a high tenement, over the housetops of Manhattan, I can see a pale +tower with its golden pinnacle gleaming through the soft morning haze; +and for a moment all the harsh and ugly lines in the landscape have +disappeared. So in looking at our utopias. We need not abandon the real +world in order to enter these realizable worlds; for it is out of the +first that the second are always coming. + +Finally, an anticipation and a warning. In our journey through the +utopias of the past we shall not rest content when we have traversed +the whole territory between Plato and the latest modern writer. If +the story of utopia throws any light upon the story of mankind it is +this: our utopias have been pitifully weak and inadequate; and if +they have not exercised enough practical influence upon the course of +affairs, it is because, as Viola Paget says in Gospels of Anarchy, +they were simply not good enough. We travel through utopia only in +order to get beyond utopia: if we leave the domains of history when +we enter the gates of Plato’s Republic, we do so in order to re-enter +more effectively the dusty midday traffic of the contemporary world. So +our study of the classic utopias will be followed by an examination of +certain social myths and partial utopias that have played an important +part in the affairs of the Western World during the last few centuries. +In the end, I promise, I shall make no attempt to present another +utopia; it will be enough to survey the foundations upon which others +may build. + +In the meanwhile, our ship is about to set sail; and we shall not heave +anchor again until we reach the coasts of Utopia. + + + + +CHAPTER TWO + + How the Greeks lived in a New World, and utopia seemed just round + the corner. How Plato, in the Republic, is chiefly concerned + with what will hold the ideal city together. + + + + +CHAPTER TWO + + +1 + +Before the great empires of Rome and Macedonia began to spread their +camps through the length and breadth of the Mediterranean world, +there was a time when the vision of an ideal city seems to have been +uppermost in the minds of a good many men. Just as the wide expanse of +unsettled territory in America caused the people of eighteenth century +Europe to think of building a civilization in which the errors and +vices and superstitions of the old world might be left behind, so the +sparsely settled coasts of Italy, Sicily, and the Ægean Islands, and +the shores of the Black Sea, must have given men the hope of being able +to turn over a fresh page. + +Those years between six hundred and three hundred B.C. were +city-building years for the parent cities of Greece. The city of +Miletus is supposed to have begotten some three hundred cities, +and many of its fellows were possibly not less fruitful. Since new +cities could be founded there was plenty of chance for variation and +experiment; and those who dreamed of a more, generous social order +could set their hands and wits to making a better start “from the +bottom up.” + +Of all the plans and reconstruction programs that must have been +put forward during these centuries, only a scant handful remains. +Aristotle tells us about an ideal state designed by one, Phaleas, who +believed like Mr. Bernard Shaw in a complete equality of property; and +from Aristotle, too, we learn of another utopia which was described +by the great architect, city planner, and sociologist--Hippodamus. +Hippodamus was one of the first city planners known to history, and +he achieved fame in the ancient world by designing cities on the +somewhat monotonous checkerboard design we know so well in America. He +realized, apparently, that a city was something more than a collection +of houses, streets, markets, and temples; and so, whilst he was putting +the physical town to rights, he concerned himself with the more basic +problem of the social order. If it adds at all to our sense of reality +in going through utopia, let me confess that it is ultimately through +the inspiration and example of another Hippodamus--Patrick Geddes, the +town planner for Jerusalem and many other cities--that this book about +utopias came to be written. In many ways the distance between Geddes +and Aristotle or Hippodamus seems much less than that which separates +Geddes and Herbert Spencer. + +When we look at the utopias that Phaleas and Hippodamus and Aristotle +have left us, and compare them with the Republic of Plato, the +differences between them melt into insignificance and their likenesses +are apparent. It is for this reason that I shall confine our +examination of the Greek utopia to that which Plato set forth in the +Republic, and qualified and broadened in The Laws, The Statesman, and +Critias. + + +2 + +Plato’s Republic dates roughly from the time of that long and +disastrous war which Athens fought with Sparta. In the course of +such a war, amid the bombast that patriotic citizens give way to, the +people who keep their senses are bound to get pretty well acquainted +with their enemy. If you will take the trouble to examine Plutarch’s +account of the Laws of Lycurgus and Mr. Alfred Zimmern’s magnificent +description of the Greek Commonwealth you will see how Sparta and +Athens form the web and woof of the Republic--only it is an ideal +Sparta and an ideal Athens that Plato has in mind. + +It is well to remember that Plato wrote in the midst of defeat; a +great part of his region, Attica, had been devastated and burned; and +he must have felt that makeshift and reform were quite futile when +a Peloponnesian war could make the bottom drop out of his world. To +Plato an ill-designed ship of state required more than the science of +navigation to pull it through stormy waters: if it was in danger of +perpetually foundering, it seemed high time to go back to the shipyards +and inquire into the principles upon which it had been put together. +In such a mood, I suggest parenthetically, we today will turn again to +fundamentals. + + +3 + +In describing his ideal community Plato, like a trained workman, begins +with his physical foundations. So far from putting his utopia in a +mythical island of Avilion, where falls not hail nor rain nor any snow, +it is plain that Plato was referring repeatedly to the soil in which +Athens was planted, and to the economic life which grew out of that +soil. Since he was speaking to his own countrymen, he could let a good +many things pass for common knowledge which we, as strangers, must +look into more carefully in order to have a firmer sense of his utopian +realities. Let it be understood that in discussing the physical side of +the Republic, I am drawing from Aristotle as well as Plato, and from +such modern Greek scholars as Messrs. Zimmern, Myres, and Murray. + +Nowadays when we talk about a state we think of an expanse of +territory, to begin with, so broad that we should in most cases be +unable to see all its boundaries if we rose five miles above the +ground on a clear day. Even if the country is a little one, like the +Netherlands or Belgium, it is likely to have possessions that are +thousands of miles away; and we think of these distant possessions and +of the homeland as part and parcel of the state. There is scarcely +any conceivable way in which a Dutchman in Rotterdam, let us say, +possesses the Island of Java: he does not live on the island, he is +not acquainted with the inhabitants, he does not share their ideas +or customs. His interest in Java, if he have an interest at all, is +an interest in sugar, coffee, taxes, or missions. His state is not a +commonwealth in the sense that it is a common possession. + +To the Greek of Plato’s time, on the contrary, the commonwealth +was something he actively shared with his fellow citizens. It was +a definite parcel of land whose limits he could probably see from +any convenient hilltop; and those who lived within those limits had +common gods to worship, common theaters and gymnasia, and a multitude +of common interests that could be satisfied only by their working +together, playing together, thinking together. Plato could probably not +have conceived of a community with civilized pretensions in which the +population was distributed at the rate of ten per square mile; and if +he visited such a territory he would surely have said that the people +were barbarians--men whose way of living unfitted them for the graces +and duties of citizenship. + +Geographically speaking, then, the ideal commonwealth was a +city-region; that is, a city which was surrounded by enough land to +supply the greater part of the food needed by the inhabitants; and +placed convenient to the sea. + +Let us stand on a high hill and take a look at this city-region; the +sort of view that Plato himself might have obtained on some clear +spring morning when he climbed to the top of the Acropolis and looked +down on the sleeping city, with the green fields and sear upland +pastures on one side, and the sun glinting on the distant waters of the +sea a few miles away. + +It is a mountainous region, this Greece, and within a short distance +from mountain top to sea there was compressed as many different kinds +of agricultural and industrial life as one could single out in going +down the Hudson valley from the Adirondack Mountains to New York +Harbor. As the basis for his ideal city, whether Plato knew it or not, +he had an “ideal” section of land in his mind--what the geographer +calls the “valley section.” He could not have gotten the various groups +which were to be combined in his city, had they been settled in the +beginning on a section of land like the coastal plain of New Jersey. +It was peculiarly in Greece that such a variety of occupations could +come together within a small area, beginning at the summit of the +valley section with the evergreen trees and the woodcutter, going down +the slope to the herdsman and his flock of goats at pasture, along +the valley bottom to the cultivator and his crops, until at length one +reaches the river’s mouth where the fisher pushes out to sea in his +boat and the trader comes in with goods from other lands. + +The great civilizations of the world have been nourished in such valley +sections. We think of the river Nile and Alexandria; the Tiber and +Rome, the Seine and Paris; and so on. It is interesting that our first +great utopia should have had an “ideal” section of territory as its +base. + + +4 + +In the economic foundations of the Republic, we look in vain for +a recognition of the labor problem. Now the labor problem is a +fundamental difficulty in our modern life; and it seems on the surface +that Plato is a little highbrow and remote in the ease with which he +gets over it. When we look more closely into the matter, however, and +see the way in which men got their living in the “morning lands”--as +the Germans call them--we shall find that the reason Plato does not +offer a solution is that he was not, indeed, confronted by a problem. + +Given a valley section which has not been ruthlessly stript of trees; +given the arts of agriculture and herding; given a climate without +dangerous extremes of heat and cold; given the opportunity to found new +colonies when the old city-region is over-populated--and it is only by +an exercise of ingenuity that a labor problem could be invented. A man +might become a slave by military capture; he did not become a slave +by being compelled, under threat of starvation, to tend a machine. +The problem of getting a living was answered by nature as long as men +were willing to put up with nature’s conditions; and the groundwork +of Plato’s utopia, accordingly, is the simple agricultural life, the +growing of wheat, barley, olives, and grapes, which had been fairly +well mastered before he arrived on the scene. As long as the soil was +not washed away and devitalized, the problem was not a hard one; and +in order to solve it, Plato had only to provide that there should be +enough territory to grow food on, and that the inhabitants must not let +their wants exceed the bounties of nature. + +Plato describes the foundations of his community with a few simple +and masterly touches. Those who feel that there is something a little +inhuman in his conception of the good life, when he is discussing the +education and duties of the ruling classes, may well consider the +picture that he paints for us here. + +Plato’s society arises out of the needs of mankind; because none of us +is self-sufficing and all have many wants; and since there are many +wants, many kinds of people must supply them. When all these helpers +and partners and co-operators are gathered together in a city the body +of inhabitants is termed a state; and so its members work and exchange +goods with one another for their mutual advantage--the herdsman gets +barley for his cheese and so on down to the complicated interchanges +that occur in the city. What sort of physical life will arise out of +this in the region that Plato describes? + +Well, the people will “produce corn and wine and clothes and shoes +and build houses for themselves.... They will work in summer commonly +stript and barefoot, but in winter substantially clothed and shod. +They will feed on barley and wheat, baking the wheat and kneading the +flour, making noble puddings and loaves; these they will serve up on +a mat of reeds or clean leaves; themselves reclining the while upon +beds of yew or myrtle boughs. And they and their children will feast, +drinking of the wine which they have made, wearing garlands on their +heads, and having the praises of the gods on their lips, living in +sweet society, and having a care that their families do not exceed +their means; for they will have an eye to poverty or war.” + +So Socrates, in this dialogue on the Republic, describes to his +hearers the essential physical elements of the good life. One of his +hearers, Glaucon, asks him to elaborate it a little, for Socrates has +limited himself to bare essentials. It is the same sort of objection, +by the way, that M. Poincaré, the physicist, made to the philosophy +of Tolstoy. Socrates answers that a good state would have the healthy +constitution which he has just described; but that he has no objection +to looking at an “inflamed constitution.” What Socrates describes as +an inflamed constitution is a mode of life which all the people of +Western Europe and America at the present day--no matter what their +religion, economic status, or political creed may be--believe in with +almost a single mind; and so, although it is the opposite of Plato’s +ideal state, I go on to present it, for the light it throws on our own +institutions and habits. + +The unjust state comes into existence, says Plato through the mouth of +Socrates, by the multiplication of wants and superfluities. As a result +of increasing wants, we must enlarge our borders, for the original +healthy state is too small. Now the city will fill up with a multitude +of callings which go beyond those required by any natural want; there +will be a host of parasites and “supers”; and our country, which was +big enough to support the original inhabitants, will want a slice of +our neighbor’s land for pasture and tillage; and they will want a slice +of ours if, like ourselves, they exceed the limits of necessity and +give themselves up to the unlimited accumulation of wealth. “And then +we shall go to war--that will be the next thing.” + +The sum of this criticism is that Plato saw clearly that an ideal +community must have a common physical standard of living; and that +boundless wealth or unlimited desires and gratifications had nothing to +do with a good standard. The good was what was necessary; and what was +necessary was not, essentially, many goods. + +Like Aristotle, Plato wanted a mode of life which was neither +impoverished nor luxurious: those who have read a little in Greek +history will see that this Athenian ideal of the good life fell rather +symbolically between Sparta and Corinth, between the cities which we +associate respectively with a hard, military life and with a soft, +super-sensuous æstheticism. + +Should we moderate our wants or should we increase production? +Plato had no difficulty in answering this question. He held that a +reasonable man would moderate his wants; and that if he wished to +live like a good farmer or a good philosopher he would not attempt to +copy the expenditures of a vulgar gambler who has just made a corner +in wheat, or a vulgar courtesan who has just made a conquest of the +vulgar gambler who has made a corner in wheat. Wealth and poverty, +said Plato, are the two causes of deterioration in the arts: both the +workman and his works are likely to degenerate under the influence +of either poverty or wealth, “for one is the parent of luxury and +indolence, and the other of meanness and viciousness, and both of +discontent.” + +Nor does Plato have one standard of living for his ruling classes and +another for the common people. To each person he would give all the +material things necessary for sustenance; and from each he would be +prepared to strip all that was not essential. He realized that the +possession of goods was not a means of getting happiness, but an effort +to make up for a spiritually depauperate life: for Plato, happiness was +what one could put into life and not what one could loot out of it: +it was the happiness of the dancer rather than the happiness of the +glutton. Plato pictured a community living a sane, continent, athletic, +clear-eyed life; a community that would be always, so to say, within +bounds. There is a horror of laxity and easy living in his Republic. +His society was stripped for action. The fragrance that permeates his +picture of the good life is not the heavy fragrance of rose-petals and +incense falling upon languorous couches: it is the fragrance of the +morning grass, and the scent of crushed mint or marjoram beneath the +feet. + + +5 + +How big is Plato’s community, how are the people divided, what are +their relations? Now that we have discussed the lay out of the land, +and have inquired into the physical basis of this utopia, we are ready +to turn our attention to the people; for it is out of the interaction +of folk, work, and place that every community--good or bad, real or +fancied--exists and perpetuates itself. + + +6 + +It follows almost inevitably from what we have said of Plato’s +environment, that his ideal community was not to be unlimited in +population. Quite the contrary. Plato said that “the city may increase +to any size which is consistent with its unity; that is the limit.” +The modern political scientist, who lives within a national state of +millions of people, and who thinks of the greatness of states largely +in terms of their population, has scoffed without mercy at the fact +that Plato limited his community to an arbitrary number, 5,040, about +the number that can be conveniently addressed by a single orator. As +a matter of fact there is nothing ridiculous in Plato’s definition: +he was not speaking of a horde of barbarians: he was laying down the +foundations for an active polity of citizens: and it is plain enough +in all conscience that when you increase the number of people in a +community you decrease the number of things that they can share in +common. Plato could not anticipate the wireless telephone and the daily +newspaper; still less would he have been likely to exaggerate the +difference which these instrumentalities have made in the matters that +most intimately concern us; and when he set bounds to the population +his city would contain, he was anticipating by more than two thousand +years the verdict of modern town planners like Mr. Raymond Unwin. + +People are not the members of a community because they live under +the same system of political government or dwell in the same country. +They become genuine citizens to the extent that they share certain +institutions and ways of life with similarly educated people. Plato +was primarily concerned with providing conditions which would make +a community hold together without being acted upon by any external +force--as the national state is acted upon today by war or the threat +of war. This concern seems to underlie every line of the Republic. In +attacking his problem, the business of supplying the physical wants of +the city seemed relatively unimportant; and even though Greece in the +time of Plato traded widely with the whole Mediterranean region, Plato +did not mistake commercial unity for civic unity. Hence in his scheme +of things the work of the farmer and the merchant and the trader was +subordinate. The important thing to consider was the general conditions +under which all the individuals and groups in a community might live +together harmoniously. This is a long cry from the utopias of the +nineteenth century, which we will examine later; and that is why it is +important to understand Plato’s point of view and follow his argument. + + +7 + +To Plato, a good community was like a healthy body; a harmonious +exercise of every function was the condition of its strength and +vitality. Necessarily then a good community could not be simply a +collection of individuals, each one of whom insists upon some private +and particular happiness without respect to the welfare and interests +of his fellows. Plato believed that goodness and happiness--for he +would scarcely admit that there was any distinct line of cleavage +between these qualities--consisted in living according to nature; +that is to say, in knowing one’s self, in finding one’s bent, and in +fulfilling the particular work which one had the capacity to perform. +The secret of a good community, therefore, if we may translate Plato’s +language into modern political slang, is the principle of function. + +Every kind of work, says Plato, requires a particular kind of aptitude +and training. If we wish to have good shoes, our shoes must be made +by a shoemaker and not by a weaver; and in like manner, every man has +some particular calling to which his genius leads him, and he finds a +happiness for himself and usefulness to his fellows when he is employed +in that calling. The good life must result when each man has a function +to perform, and when all the necessary functions are adjusted happily +to each other. The state is like the physical body. “Health is the +creation of a natural order and government in the parts of the body, +and the creation of disease is the creation of a state of things in +which they are at variance with the natural order.” The supreme virtue +in the commonwealth is justice; namely, the due apportionment of work +or function under the rule of “a place for every man and every man in +his place.” + +Has any such society ever come into existence? Do not too hastily +answer No. The ideal in Plato’s mind is carried out point for point in +the organization of a modern symphony orchestra. + +Now Plato was not unaware that there were other formulas for happiness. +He expressly points out however that in founding the Republic he +does not wish to make any single person or group happier beyond the +rest; he desires rather that the whole city should be in the happiest +condition. It would be easy enough “to array the husbandmen in rich and +costly robes and to enjoin them to cultivate the ground only with a +view to their pleasure,” and so Plato might have conferred a spurious +kind of felicity upon every individual. If this happened, however, +there would be a brief period of ease and revelry before the whole +works went to pot. In this Plato is a thoroughgoing realist: he is not +looking for a short avenue of escape; he is ready to face the road +with all its ups and downs, with its steep climbs as well as its wide +vistas; and he does not think any the worse of life because he finds +that its chief enjoyments rest in activity, and not, as the epicureans +of all sorts have always believed, in a release from activity. + + +8 + +Plato arrives at his apportionment of functions by a method which is +old-fashioned, and which anybody versed in modern psychology would +regard as a “rationalization.” Plato is trying to give a firm basis +to the division of classes which he favored; and so he compares the +community to a human being, possessed of the virtues of wisdom, valour, +temperance, and justice. Each of these virtues Plato relates to a +particular class of people. + +Wisdom is appropriate to the rulers of the city. Thus arises the class +of guardians. + +Valour is the characteristic of the defenders of the city and hence a +military class, called auxiliaries, appears. + +Temperance, or agreement, is the virtue which relates to all classes. + +Finally, there comes justice. “Justice is the ultimate cause and +condition of all of them.... If a question should arise as to which +of these four qualities contributed most by their presence to the +excellence of the State whether the agreement of rulers and subjects +or the preservation in the soldiers of the opinion which the law +ordains about the true nature of dangers, or wisdom and watchfulness +in the rulers would claim the palm, or whether this which I am about +to mention,” namely, “everyone doing his own work and not being a +busybody--the question would not be easily determined.” Nevertheless, +it is plain that justice is the keystone of the Platonic utopia. + +We must not misunderstand Plato’s division of classes. Aristotle +criticizes Plato in terms of a more simple system of democracy; but +Plato did not mean to institute a fixed order; within his Republic +the Napoleonic motto--_la carrière est ouverte aux talents_--was the +guiding principle. What lay beneath Plato’s argument was a belief which +present-day studies in psychology seem likely to confirm; a belief that +children come into the world with a bent already well marked in their +physical and mental constitutions. Plato advocated, it is true, an +aristocracy or government by the best people; but he did not believe in +fake aristocracies that are perpetuated through hereditary wealth and +position. Having determined that his city was to contain three classes, +rulers, warriors, and workers, his capital difficulty still remained to +be faced; how was each individual to find his way to the right class, +and under what conditions would he best fulfill his functions there? + +The answers to these questions bring us to the boldest and most +original sections of the Republic: the part that has provoked the +greatest amount of antagonism and aversion, because of its drastic +departure from the rut of many established institutions--in particular, +individual marriages and individual property. + +In order to perpetuate his ideal constitution Plato relies upon three +methods: breeding, education, and a discipline for the daily life. Let +us consider the effect of these methods upon each of the classes. + +We may dismiss the class of artisans and husbandmen very briefly. It is +not quite clear whether Plato meant his system of marriage to extend to +the members of this class. As for education, it is clear that he saw +nothing to find fault with in the system of apprenticeship whereby the +smith or the potter or the farmer trained others to follow his calling; +and so he had no reason for departing from methods which had proved, on +the whole, very satisfactory. How satisfactory that system was, indeed, +we have only to look at an Athenian ruin or vase or chalice to find +out. Any improvements that might come about in these occupations would +result from the Platonic rule of justice; and Plato followed his own +injunction strictly enough to keep away from other people’s business. + +This of course seems an odd and hasty manner of treatment, as I +said before, to those of us who live in a world where the affairs +of industry and the tendencies of the labor movement are forever +on the carpet. But Plato justifies his treatment by saying that +“when shoemakers become bad, and are degenerate, and profess to be +shoemakers when they are not, no great mischief happens to the state; +but when the guardians of the law and the State are not so in reality, +but only in appearance, you see how they entirely destroy the whole +constitution, if they alone shall have the privilege of an affluent +and happy life.” Hence Plato concentrates his attack upon the point +of greatest danger: while the shoemaker, as a rule, knows how to mind +his own business, the statesman is for the most part unaware of the +essential business which he has to mind; and tends to be negligent even +when he has some dim notion as to what it may be--being all too ready +to sacrifice it to golf or the favors of a beautiful woman. As we saw +in Plato’s original description of the State, the common folk would +doubtless have a good many of the joys and delights traditional in the +Greek cities; and doubtless, although Plato says nothing one way or the +other, they would be permitted to own such property as might be needed +for the conduct of their business or the enjoyment of their homes. +The very fact that no definite rule was prescribed for them, makes us +suspect that Plato was willing to let these things go on in the usual +way. + +The next class is known as the warriors, or auxiliaries. They are +different in character from the guardians who rule the state; but +frequently Plato refers to the guardians as a single class, including +the auxiliaries; and it seems that they figured in his mind as the +temporal arm of that class. At any rate, the auxiliaries as they are +painted in the Critias, which was the dialogue in which Plato attempted +to show his Republic in action, dwelt by themselves within a single +enclosure; and had common meals and common temples of their own; and +so we may surmise that their way of life was to be similar to that +of the higher guardians, but that it was not capable of being pushed +to the same pitch of development on the intellectual side. These +warriors of Plato are, after all, not so very much unlike the regular +or standing army in a modern State: they have a life of their own +within the barracks, they are trained and drilled to great endurance, +and they are taught to obey without question the Government. When you +examine the naked business of the warriors and artisans, you discover +that Plato is not, for all the difference in scale, so very far away +from modern realities. Apart from the fact that women were permitted +an equal place with men in the life of the camp and the gymnasium and +the academy, the real difference comes in the matter of breeding and +selection. At last we approach the Governors, or the Guardians. + +How does the Guardian achieve his position and power? Plato is a little +chary of answering this question; he hints that it can only happen at +the beginning if a person with the brains of a philosopher happen to +be born with the authority of a king. Let us pass this by. How are the +Guardians born and bred? This is the manner. + +For the well-being of the state the Guardians have the power to +administer medicinal lies. One of these is to be told to the youth when +their education has reached a point at which it becomes possible for +the Guardians to determine their natural talents and aptitudes. + +“Citizens, we shall say to them in our tale, you are brothers, yet God +has framed you differently. Some of you have the power to command, and +these he has composed of gold, wherefore also they have the greatest +honor; others of silver, to be auxiliaries; others again who are to be +husbandmen and craftsmen he has made of brass and iron; and the species +will generally be preserved in the children. But as you are of the same +original family, a golden parent will sometimes have a silver son, or +a silver parent a golden son. And God proclaims to the rulers, as a +first principle, that before all things they should watch over their +offspring, and see what elements mingle in their nature, for if the +son of a golden or silver parent has an admixture of brass and iron, +then nature orders a transposition of the ranks; and the eye of the +ruler must not be pitiful towards his child because he has to descend +in the scale and will become a husbandman or artisan, just as there may +be others sprung from the artisan class who are raised to honor, and +become guardians and auxiliaries.” + +As the safeguard of this principle of natural selection of functions, +Plato proposed a system of common marriage. “The wives of these +guardians are to be common, and their children are also common, and no +parent is to know his own child, nor any child his parent. Starting +from the day of the hymeneal, the bridegroom who was then married +will call all the male children who are born ten and seven months +afterwards his sons, and the female children his daughters, and they +will call him father.... And those who were born at the same time they +will term brothers and sisters, and they are not to intermarry.” One +of the features of this system is that the best stocks--the strongest +and wisest and most beautiful--are to be encouraged to reproduce +themselves. But this is not worked out in detail. There is to be +complete freedom of sexual selection among the guardians; and those who +are most distinguished in their services are to have access to a great +number of women; but beyond encouraging the guardians to be prolific, +Plato did not apparently consider the possibilities of cross-breeding +between the various classes. + +On the whole, one may say that Plato puts it up to the Guardians to +perpetuate themselves properly, and indicates that this is to be one +of their main concerns. His good breeding was biological breeding, not +social breeding. He recognized as some of our modern eugenists have +failed to--that good parents might throw poor stock, on occasion, and +that abject parents might have remarkably good progeny. Even if the +Guardians are to be encouraged to have good children, Plato provides +that the children themselves must prove their goodness before they +are in turn recognized as Guardians. As for the children of the baser +sort--well, they were to be rigorously limited to the needs and +resources of the community. Plato lived at a time when a great many +children were born only to be murdered through “exposure” as it was +called; and he had no qualms, apparently, about letting the Guardians +send the children with a bad heredity into the discard. If his +population could not grow properly in the sunlight without getting rid +of the weeds, he was prepared to get rid of the weeds. People who were +physically or spiritually too deformed to take part in the good life +were to be eliminated. Plato, like a robust Athenian, was for killing +or curing a disease; and he gave short shrift to the constitutional +invalids. + + +9 + +But to breed Guardians is only one-half the problem. The other half +comes under the heads of education and discipline; and when Plato +discusses these things, he is not speaking, as a modern college +president perhaps would, of book-learning alone; he is referring to +all the activities that mold a person’s life. He follows the older +philosopher, Pythagoras, and anticipates the great organizer, Benedict, +by laying down a rule of life for his guardians. He did not imagine +that disinterested activities, spacious thoughts, and clear vision +would arise in people who normally put their personal comfort and +“happiness” above the necessities of their office. + +Let us recognize the depth of Plato’s insight. It is plain that he +did not despise what a modern psychologist would call “the normal +biological career.” For the great majority of people happiness +consisted in learning a definite trade or profession, in doing one’s +daily work, in mating, and when the tension of the day relaxed, in +getting enjoyment and recreation in the simple sensualities of eating, +drinking, singing, love-making, and what not. This normal biological +career is associated with a home, and with the limited horizons of a +home; and a host of small loyalties and jealousies and interests are +woven into the very texture of that life. + +Each home, each small circle of relatives and friends, tends to be a +miniature utopia; there is a limited community of goods, a tendency to +adjust one’s actions to the welfare of the little whole, and a habit of +banding together against the world at large. But the good, contrary +to the proverb, is frequently the enemy of the better; and the little +utopia of the family is the enemy--indeed the principal enemy--of the +beloved community. This fact is notorious. The picture of a trade union +leader which Mr. John Galsworthy portrays in Strife, whose power to +act firmly in behalf of his group is sapped by the demands made by +family ties, could be matched in a thousand places. In order to have +the freedom to act for the sake of a great institution, a person must +be stript of a whole host of restraining ties and sentimentalities. +Jesus commanded his followers to leave their families and abandon their +worldly goods; and Plato, in order to preserve his ideal commonwealth, +laid down a similar rule. For those who as guardians were to apply +the science of government to public affairs, a private life, private +duties, private interests, were all to be left behind. + +As to the education of the Guardians, I have scarcely the space to +treat the more formal part of it in detail; for among other things, as +Jowett points out, the Republic is a treatise on education; and Plato +presents a fairly elaborate plan. The two branches of Greek education, +music and gymnastic, applied in the student’s early years to the +culture of the body and the culture of the mind; and both branches were +to be followed in common by both sexes. Instruction during the early +part of a child’s life was to be communicated through play activities, +as it is today in the City and Country School in New York; and only +with manhood did the student approach his subjects in a more formal +and systematic manner. In the course of this education the students +were to be tested again and again with respect to their mental keenness +and tenacity and fortitude; and only those who came through the fire +purified and strengthened were to be admitted to the class of guardians. + +The daily life of the Guardians is a rigorous, military regime. They +live in common barracks, and in order to avoid paying attention to +private affairs, instead of minding the good of the whole community, +no one is allowed to “possess any substance privately, unless there +be a great necessity for it”; next, Plato continues, none shall have +any dwelling or storehouse into which whoever inclines may not enter; +and as for necessaries, they shall be only such as brave and temperate +warriors may require, and as they are supported by other citizens, they +shall receive such a reward of their guardianship as to have neither an +overplus nor a deficit at the end of the year. They shall have public +meals, as in encampments, and live in common. They are to refrain from +using gold and silver, as all the gold and silver they require is in +their souls. + +All these regulations, of course, are for the purpose of keeping the +Guardians disinterested. Plato believed that the majority of people +did not know how to mind public business; for it seemed to him that +the ordering of a community’s life required a measure of science +which the common man could not possibly possess. Indeed, in a city +of a thousand men he did not see the possibility of getting as many +as fifty men who would be sufficiently well versed in what we should +today call sociology to deal intelligently with public affairs--for +there would scarcely be that many first-rate draughts players. At the +same time, if the government is to be entrusted to a few, the few +must be genuinely disinterested. If they possessed lands and houses +and money in a private way they would become landlords and farmers +instead of Guardians; they would be hateful masters instead of allies +of the citizens; and so “hating and being hated, plotting and being +plotted against, more afraid of the enemies within than the enemies +without, they would drag themselves and the rest of the state to speedy +destruction.” + +It remains to take a glance at the manhood and later life of the +Guardians. + +As young men, the Guardians belong to the auxiliaries; and since +they are not permitted to perform any of the manual arts--for skill +in any of the trades tended to make a man warped and one-sided, like +the symbolic blacksmith god, Hephæstos--their physical edge was +maintained by the unceasing discipline of the gymnasium and “military” +expeditions. I put military in quotation marks, because a greater part +of the warriors’ time is spent not in war but in preparation for war; +and it is plain that Plato looked upon war as an unnecessary evil, for +it arose out of the unjust state; and therefore he must have resorted +to warlike discipline for the educational values he found in it. From +thirty-five to fifty the potential Guardians undertake practical +activities, commanding armies and gaining experience of life. After +fifty, those who are qualified devote themselves to philosophy: out of +their experience and their inner reflection they figure the essential +nature of the good community; and on occasion each guardian abandons +divine philosophy for a while, takes his turn at the helm of the state, +and trains his successors. + + +10 + +What is the business of the Guardian? How does Plato’s ideal statesman +differ from Julius Cæsar or Mr. Theodore Roosevelt? + +The business of the Guardian is to manufacture liberty. The petty laws, +regulations, and reforms with which the ordinary statesman occupies +himself had nothing to do, in Plato’s mind, with the essential business +of the ruler. So Plato expressly foregoes making laws to regulate +marketing, the affairs of industry, graft, bribery, theft, and so +forth; and he leaves these matters with the curt indication that men +can be left to themselves to devise on a voluntary basis the rules +of the game for the different occupations; and that it is not the +business of the Guardian to meddle in such matters. In a well-founded +state, a great number of minor maladjustments would simply fall +out of existence; whilst in any other state, all the tinkering and +reforming in the world is quite powerless to amend its organic defects. +Those make-believe statesmen who try their hand at legislation and +“are always fancying that by reforming they will make an end of the +dishonesties and rascalities of mankind,” do not know that in reality +they are trying to cut away the heads of a hydra. + +The real concern of the Guardians is with the essential constitution of +the state. The means that they employ to perfect this constitution are +breeding, vocational selection, and education. “If once a republic is +set a-going, it proceeds happily, increasing as a circle. And whilst +good education and nurture are preserved, they produce good geniuses; +and good geniuses, partaking of such education, produce still better +than the former, as well in other respects, as with reference to +propagation, as in the case of other animals.” All the activities of +the Republic are to be patterned after the utopia which the Guardians +see with their inward eye. So gradually the community becomes a living +unity; and it exhibits the health of that which is organically sound. + + +11 + +What do we miss when we look around this utopia of Plato’s? Contacts +with the outside world? We may take them for granted. Downy beds, +Corinthian girls, luxurious furniture? We can well spare them. The +opportunity for a satisfactory intellectual and physical life? No: both +of these are here. + +What Plato has left out are the poets, dramatists, and painters. +Literature and music, in order to contribute to the noble education +of the Guardians, are both severely restricted in theme and in +treatment. Plato has his limitations; and here is the principal one: +Plato distrusted the emotional life, and whilst he was prepared to do +full homage to man’s obvious sensualities, he feared the emotions as +a tight-rope walker fears the wind; for they threatened his balance. +In one significant passage he classifies “love” with disease and +drunkenness, as a vulgar misfortune; and though he was ready to permit +the active expression of the emotions, as in the dance or the sexual +act, he treated the mere play upon the feelings, without active +participation, as a form of intemperance. Hence a great deal of music +and dramatic mimicry was taboo. Foreign as this doctrine sounds to +the modern reader, there is perhaps more than a grain of sense in it: +William James used to teach that no one should passively experience an +emotion at a concert or a play without trying to express that emotion +actively as soon as he could make the opportunity. At any rate, let us +leave this problem which Plato opens up with a free mind; and note here +in passing that in the utopia of William Morris novels drop naturally +out of existence because life is too active an ecstasy to be fed with +the pathetic, the maudlin, and the diseased. + + +12 + +As we leave this little city of Plato’s, nestling in the hills, and +as the thin, didactic voice of Plato, who has been perpetually at our +elbows, dies away from our ears--what impression do we finally carry +away? + +In the fields, men are perhaps plowing the land for the autumn sowing; +on the terraces, a band of men, women, and children are plucking the +olives carefully from the trees, one by one; in the gymnasium on the +top of the Acropolis, men and youths are exercising, and as they +practice with the javelin now and then it catches the sun and glints +into our eye; apart from these groups, in a shaded walk that overlooks +the city, a Guardian is pacing back and forth, talking in quick, +earnest tones with his pupils. + +These are occupations which, crudely or elaborately, men have always +engaged in; and here in the Republic they engage in them still. What +has changed? What has profoundly changed is not the things that men do, +but the relations they bear to one another in doing them. In Plato’s +community, servitude and compulsion and avarice and indolence are +gone. Men mind their business for the sake of living well, in just +relations to the whole community of which they are a part. They live, +in the strictest sense, according to nature; and because no one can +enjoy a private privilege, each man can grow to his full stature and +enter into every heritage of his citizenship. When Plato says no to the +institutions and ways of life that men have blindly fostered, his eyes +are open, and he is facing the light. + + + + +CHAPTER THREE + + How something happened to utopia between Plato and Sir Thomas + More; and how utopia was discovered again, along with the New + World. + + + + +CHAPTER THREE + + +1 + +There is a span of nearly two thousand years between Plato and Sir +Thomas More. During that time, in the Western World at any rate, utopia +seems to disappear beyond the horizon. Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus +looks back into a mythical past; Cicero’s essay on the state is a +negligible work; and St. Augustine’s City of God is chiefly remarkable +for a brilliant journalistic attack upon the old order of Rome which +reminds one of the contemporary diatribes of Maximilian Harden. Except +for these works there is, as far as I can discover, scarcely any other +piece of writing which even hints at utopia except as utopia may refer +to a dim golden age in the past when all men were virtuous and happy. + +But while utopia dropt out of literature, it did not drop out of men’s +minds; and the utopia of the first fifteen hundred years after Christ +is transplanted to the sky, and called the Kingdom of Heaven. It is +distinctly a utopia of escape. The world as men find it is full of +sin and trouble. Nothing can be done about it except to repent of the +sin and find refuge from the trouble in the life after the grave. So +the utopia of Christianity is fixed and settled: one can enter into +the Kingdom of Heaven if a passport has been granted, but one can do +nothing to create or mold this heaven. Change and struggle and ambition +and amelioration belong to the wicked world, and bring no final +satisfaction. Happiness lies not in the deed, but in having a secure +credit in the final balance of accounts--happiness, in other words, +lies in the ultimate compensation. This world of fading empires and +dilapidated cities is no home except for the violent and the “worldly.” + +If the idea of utopia loses its practical hold during this period, +the will-to-utopia remains; and the rise of the monastic system and +the attempts of the great popes from Hildebrand onward to establish a +universal empire under the shield of the church show that, as always, +there was a breach between the ideas which people carried in their +heads and the things which actual circumstances and going institutions +compelled them to do. There is no need to consider these partial, +institutional utopias until we get down to the nineteenth century. What +concerns us now is that the Kingdom of Heaven, as a utopia of escape, +ceased to hold men’s allegiance when they discovered other channels and +other possibilities. + +The shift from a heavenly utopia to a worldly one came during that +period of change and uneasiness which characterized the decline of the +Middle Age. Its first expression is the “Utopia” of Sir Thomas More, +the great chancellor who served under Henry VIII. + + +2 + +In the introduction to More’s “Utopia” one gets a vivid impression of +the forces that were stirring men’s minds out of the sluggish routine +into which they had settled. The man who is supposed to describe the +commonwealth of Utopia is a Portuguese scholar, learned in Greek. +He has left his family possessions with his kinsmen and has gone +adventuring for other continents with Americus Vesputius. This Raphael +Hythloday is the sort of sunburnt sailor one could probably have +encountered in Bristol or Cadiz or Antwerp almost any day during the +late part of the fifteenth century. He has abandoned Aristotle, whom +the schoolmen had butchered and had made pemmican of, and through his +conquest of Greek he has come into possession of that new learning +which stems back to Plato; and his brain is teeming with the criticisms +and suggestions of a strange, pagan philosophy. Moreover, he has been +abroad to the Americas or the Indies, and he is ready to tell all who +will listen of a strange land on the other side of the world, where, as +Sterne said of France, “they do things better.” No institution is too +fantastic but that it might exist--on the other side of the world. No +way of life is too reasonable but that a philosophical population might +follow it--on the other side of the world. Conceive of the world of +ideas which Greek literature had just opened up coming headlong against +the new lands which the magnetic compass had given men the courage to +explore, and utopia, as a fresh conception of the good life, becomes a +throbbing possibility. + + +3 + +In setting out for Utopia Sir Thomas More left behind a scene which in +its political violence and economic maladjustment looks queerly like +our own. Indeed, there are a good many passages which need only have a +few names altered and the language itself cast into modern English in +order to serve as editorial comment for a radical weekly review. + +Consider this man Raphael Hythloday, this errant member of the +intelligentzia. Life as he knows it in the Europe of his day no +longer has a hold upon him. The rich are fattening upon the poor; +land is being gathered into big parcels, at least in England; and +turned over into sheep runs. The people who used to cultivate the land +are compelled to leave their few acres and are thrown on their own +resources. Soldiers who have returned from the wars can find nothing +to do; disabled veterans and people accustomed to live as pensioners +on the more prosperous have become destitute. Extravagant luxury grows +on one hand; misery on the other. Those who are poor, beg; those who +are proud, steal; and for their pains the thieves and the vagrants are +tried and sentenced to the gibbet, where by dozens they hang before the +eyes of the market crowds. + +Just as today, people complain that the laws are not strict enough or +that they are not enforced; and everyone stubbornly refuses to look at +the matter through Raphael Hythloday’s eyes and to see that the robbery +and violence which are abroad are not a cause of bad times but a result +of them. + +What can a man of intelligence do in such a world? + +More’s friend, Peter Giles, who is represented as the sponsor for +Raphael, wonders why a man of Raphael’s talent does not enter into the +service of the king--in short, go in for politics. Raphael answers +that he does not wish to be enslaved; and he cannot try to fetch +happiness on terms so abhorrent to his disposition, for “most princes +apply themselves more to the affairs of war than to the useful arts of +peace, and are more set on acquiring new kingdoms right or wrong than +on governing those they possess.” There is no use trying to tell them +about the wiser institutions of the Utopians: if they could not refute +your arguments they would say that the old ways were good enough for +their ancestors and are good enough for them, even though they have +willingly let go of all the genuinely good things that might have been +inherited from the past. + +So much for the help an intelligent man might give on domestic +problems. As for international affairs, it is a mess of chicane and +intrigue and brigandage. While so many people of influence are advising +preparedness and “how to carry on the war,” what chance would a poor +intellectual like Hythloday have if he stood up and said that the +government should withdraw their armies from foreign parts and try +to improve conditions at home, instead of oppressing the people with +taxes and spilling their blood without bringing them a single blessed +advantage, whilst their manners are being corrupted by a long war, and +their laws fall into contempt, with robbery and murder on every hand. + +More, through the tongue of Raphael Hythloday, is painting a picture of +the life he sees about him; but in it we seem to see every feature of +our own national countenance. + +This unhonored and disoriented intellectual is the very emblem of some +of our best spirits today. Rack and ruin have gone too far to admit +of any sort of repair except that which proceeds from the bottom up; +and so Hythloday freely admits that “as long as there is any property, +and while money is the standard of all other things, I cannot think +that a nation can be governed either justly or happily; not justly, +because the best things will fall to the share of the worst men; nor +happily, because all things will be divided among a few (and even these +are not in all respects happy), the rest being left to be absolutely +miserable.” In short, says Hythloday, there is no salvation except +through following the practices of the Utopians. + +So the new world of exploration brings us within sight of a new world +of ideas, and the beloved community, whose seed Plato had sought to +implant in men’s minds, springs up again, after a fallow period of +almost two thousand years. What sort of country is it? + + +4 + +Geographically viewed, the island of Utopia exists only in More’s +imagination. All that we can say of it is that it is two hundred miles +broad, shaped something like a crescent, with an entrance into its +great bay which lends itself to defence. There are fifty-four cities +in the island; the nearest is twenty-four miles from its neighbor, and +the farthest is not more than a day’s march distant. The chief town, +Amaurot, is situated very nearly in the center; and each city has +jurisdiction over the land for twenty miles around; so that here again +we find the city-region as the unit of political life. + + +5 + +The economic base of this commonwealth is agriculture, and no one is +ignorant of the art. Here and there over the countryside are great +farm-houses, equipt for carrying on agricultural operations. While +those who are well-adapted for rural life are free to live in the open +country the whole year round, other workers are sent by turns from the +city to take part in the farm-labor. Every farmstead or “family” holds +no less than forty men and women. Each year twenty of this family come +back to town after two years in the country; and in their place another +twenty is sent out from the town, so that they may learn the country +work from those who have had at least a year’s experience. + +Agricultural economics is so well advanced that the countryside knows +exactly how much food is needed by the whole city-region; but the +Utopians sow and breed more abundantly than they need, in order that +their neighbors may have the overplus. Poultry-raising is also highly +advanced. The Utopians “breed an infinite multitude of chickens in a +very curious manner; for the hens do not sit and hatch them, but vast +numbers of eggs are laid in a gentle and equal heat, in order to be +hatched”--in short, they have discovered the incubator! + +During the harvest season the country magistrates inform the city +magistrates how many extra hands are needed for reaping; a draft of +city workers is made, and the work is commonly done in short order. + +While every man, woman, and child knows how to cultivate the soil, +since each has learned partly in school and partly by practice, every +person also has some “peculiar trade to which he applies himself, +such as the manufacture of wool or flax, masonry, smith’s work or +carpenter’s work”; and no trade is held in special esteem above the +others. (That is a great jump from the Republic where the mechanic arts +are considered base and servile in nature!) The same trade usually +passes down from father to son, since each family follows its own +special occupation; but a man whose genius lies another way may be +adopted into a family which plies another trade; and if after he has +learnt that trade, he wishes still to master another, this change is +brought about in the same manner. “When he has learned both, he follows +that which he likes best, unless the public has more occasion for the +other.” + +The chief and almost the only business of the magistrates is to see +that no one lives in idleness. This does not mean that the Utopians +wear themselves out with “perpetual toil from morning to night, as if +they were beasts of burden,” for they appoint eight hours for sleep and +six for work, and the rest of the day is left to each man’s discretion. +They are able to cut down the length of time needed for work, without +our so-called labor saving machinery, by using the services of classes +which in More’s time were given for the most part to idleness--princes, +rich men, healthy beggars, and the like. The only exception to this +rule of labor is with the magistrates--who are not in the habit of +taking advantage of it--and the students, who upon proving their +ability are released from mechanical operations. If there is too great +a surplus of labor, men are sent out to repair the highways; but +when no public undertaking is to be performed, the hours of work are +lessened. + + +6 + +So much for the daily industrial life of the Utopians. How are the +goods distributed? + +Between the city and the country there is a monthly exchange of goods. +This occasion is made a festival, and the country people come into +town and take back for themselves the goods which the townspeople have +made; and the magistrates “take care to see it given to them.” In back +of this direct interchange of goods between town and country, between +household and household, there are doubtless regulations; and it is +simply our misfortune that Raphael Hythloday did not think it necessary +to go into them. Within the cities, we must add, there are storehouses +where a daily market takes place. + +As with the business of production, the family is the unit of +distribution; and the city is composed of these units, rather than of +a multitude of isolated individuals. “Every city is divided into four +equal parts, and in the middle of each there is a marketplace; what is +brought hither, and manufactured by the several families, is carried +from thence to houses appointed for that purpose, in which all things +of a sort are laid by themselves; and thither every father goes and +takes whatever he or his family stand in need of, without either paying +for it or leaving anything in exchange. There is no reason for giving +denial to any person, since there is such plenty of everything among +them; and there is no danger of a man’s asking for more than he needs; +they have no inducements to do this, since they are sure they shall +always be supplied.” + +More goes on to explain this direct system of exchange, and to justify +it. “It is the fear of want that makes any of the whole race of animals +either greedy or ravenous, but besides fear, there is in man a pride +that makes him fancy it a particular glory to excel others in pomp and +excess. But by the laws of the Utopians there is no room for this. Near +these markets are others for all sorts of provisions, where there are +not only herbs, fruits, and bread, but also fish, fowl, and cattle. +There are also, without their towns, places appointed near some running +water for killing their beasts, and for washing away their filth.” + +In addition to the monthly apportionment of goods by the local +magistrates, the great council which meets at Amaurot once a year +undertakes to examine the production of each region, and those regions +that suffer from a scarcity of goods are supplied out of the surplus +of other regions, “so that indeed the whole island is, as it were, one +family.” + +Taking it all together, there is pretty much the same standard of +well-being that we found in the Republic. More recognizes the instinct +for self-assertion and the exhibitionist element in man’s makeup; but +he does not pander to it. The precious metals are held in contempt: +gold is used to make chamberpots and chains for slaves; pearls are +given to children who glory in them and enjoy them while they are young +and are as much ashamed to use them afterwards as they are of their +puppets and other toys. Gaudy clothes and jewelry are likewise out of +fashion in Utopia. The shopkeepers of Bond Street and Fifth Avenue +would break their hearts here; for it is impossible to spend money or +to spend other people’s labor on articles which lend themselves solely +to conspicuous display, and are otherwise neither useful nor beautiful. +Contrast More’s Utopia with St. John’s vision of heaven, and the +worldly Utopia seems quite naked and austere. Two hundred years later, +in Penn’s city of Philadelphia, we might have fancied that we were +walking about the streets of Amaurot. + + +7 + +The town life of the Utopians, as I have explained, rests upon rural +foundations; there is such a mixture of town and country as Peter +Kropotkin sought to realize in his sketch of “Fields, Factories, and +Workshops.” Let us conjure up the town of Amaurot and see in what sort +of environment the townspeople spend their days. Our Utopian city, +alas! reminds us somewhat of its rivals in latter-day America; for +Raphael tells us that he who knows one of their towns knows all of them. + +Amaurot lies on the side of a hill; it is almost a square, two miles on +each side; and it faces the river Anider which takes its rise eighty +miles above the town, and gets lost in the ocean sixty miles below. The +town is compassed by a high, thick wall; the streets are convenient +for carriages and sheltered from the winds; and the houses are built +in rows so that a whole side of the street looks like a single unit. +(It was so that the great people built their houses in eighteenth +century London and Edinburgh, as Belgrave Square, Charlotte Square, and +the great Adelphi Mansion designed by the Brothers Adam show us.) The +streets are twenty feet broad; and in back of the houses are gardens, +which everyone has a hand in keeping up; and the people of the various +blocks vie with each other in ordering their gardens, so that there +is “nothing belonging to the whole town that is more useful and more +pleasant.” + +In every street there are great halls, distinguished by particular +names, and lying at an equal distance from each other. In each hall +dwells the magistrate of a district, who rules over thirty families, +fifteen living on one side and fifteen on another; and since a family +consists of not more than sixteen and not less than ten people, this +magistrate--or Philarch as he is called--is the “community leader” of +some four hundred people. + +In these halls everyone meets and takes his principal meal. The +stewards go to the market place at a particular hour, and, according +to the number of people in their halls, carry home provisions. The +people who are in hospitals--which are built outside the walls and are +so large they might pass for little towns--get the pick of the day’s +food. At the hours of dinner and supper the whole block is called +together by a trumpet, and everybody joins company, except such as are +sick or in hospital, just as the students and fellows to this day eat +their principal meal in an Oxford college. The dressing of meat and the +ordering of the tables belongs to the women; all those of every family +taking their place by turns. In the same building there is a common +nursery and chapel; and so the women who have children to care for +labor under no inconvenience. + +The midday meal is dispatched unceremoniously; but at the end of the +day music always accompanies the meals, perfumes are burnt or sprinkled +around, and they “want nothing that may cheer up their spirits.” Bond +Street and Fifth Avenue may weep about the absence of conspicuous +waste in Utopia; but at supper time, at any rate, William Penn would +be uncomfortable. There is the odor of an uncommonly good club in the +description of the final meal of the day: the smell of the barracks +or the poorhouse, which we should find later in Robert Owen’s common +halls, does not intrude for an instant. More, when you examine him +closely, does not altogether forget the mean sensual man who dwells +occasionally in all of us! + + +8 + +Now that we have laid the foundations of the material life, we must +observe the limitations that are laid upon the daily activities of the +Utopians. This brings us to the government. + +The basis of the Utopian political state, as in the economic province, +is the family. Every year thirty families choose a magistrate, known +as a Philarch; and over every ten Philarchs, with the families subject +to them, there is an Archphilarch. All the Philarchs, who are in +number 200, choose the Prince out of a list of four, who are named by +the people of the four divisions of the city. The Prince is elected +for life, unless he be removed on suspicion of attempting to enslave +the people. The Philarchs are chosen for a single year; but they are +frequently re-elected. In order to keep their rulers from conspiring to +upset the government, no matter of great importance can be set on foot +without being sent to the Philarchs, “who, after they have communicated +it to the families that belong to their divisions, and have considered +it among themselves, make report to the senate; and upon great +occasions the matter is referred to the council of the whole island.” + +Recollect that each household is an industrial as well as a domestic +unit, as was usual in the Middle Age, and you will perceive that this +is an astute combination of industrial and political democracy on a +genuine basis of common interest. + +The greater part of the business of the government relates to the +economic life of the people. There are certain other matters, however, +which remain over for them; and these affairs constitute a blot on +More’s conception of the ideal commonwealth. One of them is the +regulation of travel; another is the treatment of crime; and a third is +war. + +It is interesting to note that on two subjects which More is mightily +concerned to rectify in his own country--crime and war--he establishes +conditions which are pretty far from being ideal or humane in his +Utopia. A. E. has well said that a man becomes the image of the thing +he hates. Everything that Raphael brings up against the government of +England in the Introduction to Utopia could be brought with almost +equal force, I believe, against the very country which is to serve as a +standard. + +While any man may travel if there is no particular occasion for him +at home--whether he wishes to visit friends or see the rest of the +country--it is necessary for him to carry a passport from the Prince. +If he stay in any place longer than a night he must follow his proper +occupation; and if anyone goes out of the city without leave or +is found wandering around without a passport, he is punished as a +fugitive, and upon committing the offense a second time is condemned to +slavery. This is a plain example of unimaginative harshness; and it is +hard to explain away; indeed, I have no intention to. + +Apparently More could not conceive of a perfectly happy commonwealth +for the majority of men if they still had to perform certain filthy +daily tasks, like the slaughtering of beef; and so he attempts to kill +two birds with one stone: he creates a class of slaves, and he fills +this class by condemning to it people who have committed venial crimes. +In doing this, he overlooks the final objection to slavery in all its +forms; namely, that it tends to corrupt the master. + +Since we are discussing the conditions that undermine More’s +commonwealth, we may remark that war, too, remains; the difference +being that the Utopians attempt to do by strategy, corruption, and +what we should now call propaganda what less intelligent people do by +sheer force of arms. If the Utopian incubator anticipates the modern +invention, their method of conducting war likewise anticipates our +modern technique of undermining the enemy’s morale: these Utopians, in +the good and the bad, are our contemporaries! Among the just causes +of war the Utopians count the seizure of territory, the oppression of +foreign merchants, and the denial of access to land to nations capable +of cultivating it. They take considerable pains to keep their “best +sort of men for their own use at home, so they make use of the worst +sort of men for the consumption of war.” In other words, they regard +war as a means, among other things, of weeding out undesirable elements +in the community. + +It is a relief to turn away from these residual iniquities to marriage +and religion! + +In marriage there is a curious mixture of the personal conception of +sexual relations, which is the modern note, with a belief in certain +formal specifications which was the distinctly mediæval quality. +Thus on one hand the Utopians take care that the bride and the +bridegroom are introduced to each other, in their nakedness, before the +ceremony; and the grounds for divorce are adultery and insufferable +perverseness. When two people cannot agree they are permitted to escape +the bond by mutual agreement under approval granted by the Senate after +strict inquiry. On the other hand, unchastity is sternly punished, and +those who commit adultery are condemned to slavery and not given the +privilege of a second marriage. + +In religion there is complete toleration for all creeds, with this +exception: that those who dispute violently about religion or attempt +to use any other force than that of mild persuasion are punished for +breaking the public peace. + + +9 + +There is not the space to follow the life of the Utopians in all its +details. It is time to discuss the world of ideas by which these +Utopians chart their daily activities. This exposition of the basic +Utopian values has been so admirably put by Sir Thomas More himself +that the greater part of our conclusion will inevitably fall within +quotation marks. + +The Utopians “define virtue thus: that it is a living according to +Nature, and think that we are made by God for that end; they believe +that a man then follows Nature when he pursues or avoids things +according to the direction of reason.... Reason directs us to keep +our minds as free from passion and as cheerful as we can, and that we +should consider ourselves bound by the ties of good-nature and humanity +to use our utmost endeavors to help forward the happiness of all other +persons; for there never was any man such a morose and severe pursuer +of virtue, such an enemy to pleasure, that though he set hard rules for +men to undergo much pain, many watchings and other rigors, yet did not +at the same time advise them to do all they could to relieve and ease +the miserable, and who did not represent gentleness and good nature as +amiable dispositions.... A life of pleasure is either a real evil, and +in that case we ought not to assist others in their pursuit of it, but, +on the contrary, to keep them from it all we can, as from that which is +most hurtful and deadly; or if it is a good thing, so that we not only +may but ought to help others to it, why then ought not a man to begin +with himself? Since no man can be more bound to look after the good of +another than after his own.... + +“Thus as they define Virtue to be living according to Nature, so they +imagine that Nature prompts all people to seek after pleasure, as the +end of all they do. They also observe that in order to further our +supporting the pleasures of life, Nature inclines us to enter into +society; for there is no man so much raised above the rest of mankind +as to be the only favorite of Nature, who, on the contrary, seems to +have placed on a level all those that belong to the same species. +Upon this they infer that no man ought to seek his own conveniences +so eagerly as to prejudice others; and therefore they think that all +agreements between private persons ought to be observed, but likewise +that all those laws ought to be kept, which either a good prince has +published in due form, to which a people that is neither oppressed with +tyranny nor circumvented by fraud, has consented, for distributing +these conveniences of life which afford us all our pleasures. + +“They think it is an evidence of true wisdom for a man to pursue his +own advantages, as far as the laws allow it. They account it piety to +prefer public good to one’s private concerns; but they think it unjust +for a man to seek for pleasure by snatching another man’s pleasures +from him. + +“Thus upon an inquiry into the whole matter, they reckon that all +our actions, and even all our virtues, terminate in pleasure, as in +our chief end and greatest happiness; and they call every motion or +state, either of body or mind, in which Nature teaches us to delight, +a pleasure. They cautiously limit pleasure only to those appetites to +which Nature leads us; for they say that Nature leads us only to those +delights to which reason as well as sense carries us, and by which we +neither injure any other person nor lose the possession of greater +pleasures, and of such as draw no troubles after them.” + +Thus the Utopians discriminate between natural pleasures and those +which have some sting or bitterness concealed in them. The love of fine +clothes is considered by Utopians as a pleasure of the latter sort; +likewise is the desire of those who possess fine clothes to be kowtowed +to by other people. Men who heap up wealth without using it are in the +same class; and those who throw dice or hunt--for in Utopia hunting is +turned over to the butchers, and the butchers are slaves. + +Now Utopians “reckon up several sorts of pleasures which they call true +ones; some belong to the body and others to the mind. The pleasures of +the mind lie in knowledge, and in that delight which the contemplation +of truth carries with it; to which they add the joyful reflections on +a well-spent life; and the assured hopes of a future happiness. They +divide the pleasures of the body into two sorts; the one is that +which gives our senses some real delight, and is performed, either by +recruiting nature, and supplying those parts which feed the internal +heat of life by eating and drinking; or when nature is eased of any +surcharge that oppresses it; when we are relieved from sudden pain, +or that which arises from satisfying the appetite which Nature has +wisely given for the propagation of the species. There is another +kind of pleasure that arises neither from our receiving what the body +requires, nor its being relieved when overcharged, and yet by a secret, +unseen virtue affects the senses, raises the passions, and strikes the +mind with generous impressions; this is the pleasure that arises from +music. Another kind of bodily pleasure is that which arises from an +undisturbed and vigorous constitution of body, when life and active +spirits seem to actuate every part. This lively health, when entirely +free from all mixture of pain, of itself gives an inward pleasure ... +and Utopians reckon it the foundation and basis of all the other joys +of life, since this alone makes the state of life easy and desirable; +and when this is wanting a man is really capable of no other pleasure.” +The crowning pleasure of the Utopian is the cultivation of the mind; +and the leisure hours of the people, as well as the professional +scholars, are spent in the lecture hall and the study. + + +10 + +Such are the goals for which the Utopians direct their social order. +These values are, I need scarcely point out, rooted in the nature of +man, and not in any set of external institutions. The aim of every +Utopian institution is to help every man to help himself. When we put +the matter in these bald phrases, what More brings forward seems weak +and platitudinous. Behind it all, however, is a vital idea: namely, +that our attempts to live the good life are constantly perverted by our +efforts to gain a living; and that by juggling gains and advantages, +by striving after power and riches and distinction, we miss the +opportunity to live as whole men. People become the nursemaids of their +furniture, their property, their titles, their position; and so they +lose the direct satisfaction that furniture or property would give. + +To cultivate the soil rather than simply to get away with a job; to +take food and drink rather than to earn money; to think and dream and +invent, rather than to increase one’s reputation; in short, to grasp +the living reality and spurn the shadow--this is the substance of +the Utopian way of life. Power and wealth and dignity and fame are +abstractions; and men cannot live by abstractions alone. In this Utopia +of the New World every man has the opportunity to be a man because no +one else has the opportunity to be a monster. Here, too, the chief end +of man is that he should grow to the fullest stature of his species. + + + + +CHAPTER FOUR + + How the new Humanism of the Renascence brings us within sight of + Christianopolis; and how we have for the first time a glimpse + of a modern utopia. + + + + +CHAPTER FOUR + + +1 + +A hundred years pass, and the man who next conducts us into Utopia is +a Humanist scholar. After the manner of his time, he answers to the +latinized name, Johann Valentin Andreæ. He is a traveller, a social +reformer, and above all things a preacher; and so the vision he imparts +to us of Christianopolis seems occasionally to flicker into blackness +whilst he moralizes for us and tells us to the point of tedium what +his views are concerning the life of man, and in particular the +conceptions of Christianity which his countrymen, the Germans, are +debating about. Sometimes, when we are on the point of coming to grips +with his utopia, he will annoy us by going off on a long tirade about +the wickedness of the world and the necessity for fastening one’s gaze +upon the life hereafter--for Protestantism seems just as other-worldly +as Catholicism. It is the Humanist Andreæ rather than the Lutheran +Andreæ who paints the picture of a Christian city. While Andreæ sticks +to Christianopolis his insight is deep, his views are sound, and his +proposals are rational; and more than once he will amaze us by putting +forward ideas which seem to leap three hundred years ahead of his time +and environment. + +It is impossible to get rid of the personal flavor of Andreæ: his fine +intelligence and his candor make our contacts with Christianopolis +quite different from the dreary guidebook sketches which some of the +later utopians will inflict upon us. The two other utopians who +wrote in the same half century as Andreæ--Francis Bacon and Tommaso +Campanella--are quite second-rate in comparison; Bacon with his +positively nauseating foppishness about details in dress and his +superstitious regard for forms and ceremonials, and Campanella, the +lonely monk whose City of the Sun seems a marriage of Plato’s Republic +and the Court of Montezuma. When Bacon talks about science, he talks +like a court costumer who is in the habit of describing the stage +properties for a masque; and it is hard to tell whether he is more +interested in the experiments performed by the scientists of the New +Atlantis or the sort of clothes they wear while engaged in them. There +is nothing of the snob or the dilettante about Andreæ: His eye fastens +itself upon essentials, and he never leaves them except when--for he is +necessarily a man of his age--he turns his gaze piously to heaven. + +This teeming, struggling European world that Andreæ turns his back upon +he knows quite well; for he has lived in Herrenburg, Koenigsbrunn, +Tuebingen, Strassburg, Heidelberg, Frankfurt, Geneva, Vaihingen, +and Calw; and he is in correspondence with learned men abroad, in +particular with Samuel Hartlib, who lives in England, and with John +Amos Comenius. Like the Chancellor in Christianopolis, he longs for an +“abode situated below the sky, but at the same time above the dregs +of this known world.” Quite simply, he finds himself wrecked on the +shore of an island dominated by the city of Christianopolis. After +being examined as to his ideas of life and morals, his person, and his +culture, he is admitted to the community. + + +2 + +This island is a whole world in miniature. As in the Republic, the unit +once more is the valley section, for the “island is rich in grain and +pasture fields, watered with rivers and brooks, adorned with woods and +vineyards, full of animals.” + +In outward appearance, Christianopolis does not differ very much from +the pictures of the cities one finds in seventeenth century travel +books, except for a unity and orderliness that these cities sometimes +lack. “Its shape is a square whose side is 700 feet, well fortified +with four towers and a wall.... It looks therefore towards the four +quarters of the earth. Of buildings there are two rows, or if you count +the seat of the government and the storehouses, four; there is only one +public street, and only one marketplace, but this one is of a very high +order.” In the middle of the city there is a circular temple, a hundred +feet in diameter; all the buildings are three stories; and public +balconies lead to them. Provision against fire is made by building +the houses of burnt stone and separating them by fire-proof walls. In +general, “things look much the same all around, not extravagant nor yet +unclean; fresh air and ventilation are provided throughout. About four +hundred citizens live here in religious faith and peace of the highest +order.” The whole city is divided into three parts, one to supply food, +one for drill and exercise, and one for looks. The remainder of the +island serves the purposes of agriculture, and for workshops. + + +3 + +When we look back upon the Republic, with its external organization +so plainly modeled upon military Sparta, we see the camp and the +soldier giving the pattern to the life of the whole community. In +Utopia, the fundamental unit was the farmstead and the family; and +family discipline, which arises naturally enough in rural conditions, +was transferred to the city. In Christianopolis, the workshop and +the worker set the lines upon which the community is developed; and +whatever else this society may be, it is a “republic of workers, living +in equality, desiring peace, and renouncing riches.” If Utopia exhibits +the communism of the family, Christianopolis presents the communism of +the guild. + +Industrially speaking, there are three sections in Christianopolis. +One of them is devoted to agriculture and animal husbandry. Each of +these departments has appropriate buildings, and directly opposite them +is a rather large tower which connects them with the city buildings; +under the tower a broad vaulted entrance leads into the city, and a +smaller one to the individual houses. The dome of this tower roofs +what we should call a guildhall, and here the citizens of the quarter +come together as often as required to “act on sacred as well as +civil matters.” It is plain that these workers are not sheep led by +wise shepherds, as in the Republic, but the members of autonomous, +self-regulating groups. + +The next quarter contains the mills, bake-shops, meat-shops, and +factories for making whatever is done with machinery apart from +fire. As Christianopolis welcomes originality in invention, there +are a variety of enterprises within this domain; among them, paper +manufacturing plants, saw mills, and establishments for grinding +and polishing arms and tools. There are common kitchens and wash +houses, too; for, as we shall see presently, life in this ideal city +corresponds to what we experience today in New York, London, and many +another modern industrial city. + +The third quarter is given over to the metallurgical industries, as +well as to those like the glass, brick, and earthenware industries +which require constant fire. It is necessary to point out that in +planning the industrial quarters of Christianopolis, these seventeenth +century Utopians have anticipated the best practice that has been +worked out today, after a century of disorderly building. The +separation of the city into zones, the distinction between “heavy” +industries and “light” industries, the grouping of similar industrial +establishments, the provision of an agricultural zone adjacent to the +city--in all this our garden cities are but belated reproductions of +Christianopolis. + +Moreover, in Christianopolis, there is a conscious application of +science to industrial processes; one might almost say that these +artisans believed in efficiency engineering; for “here in truth +you see a testing of nature herself. The men are not driven to a +work with which they are unfamiliar, like pack-animals to their +task, but they have been trained before in an accurate knowledge of +scientific matters,” on the theory that “unless you analyze matter by +experiment, unless you improve the deficiencies of knowledge by more +capable instruments, you are worthless.” The dependence of industrial +improvement upon deliberate scientific research may be a new discovery +for the practical man, but it is an old story in Utopia. + + +4 + +What is the character of this artisan democracy? The answer to this +is summed up in one of those sayings that Andreæ, in the midst of his +energetic exposition, drops by the way. + +“To be wise and to work are not incompatible, if there is moderation.” + +So it follows that “their artisans are almost entirely educated men. +For that which other people think is the proper characteristic of a few +(and yet if you consider the stuffing of inexperience by learning, the +characteristic of too many already) this, the inhabitants argue, should +be attained by all individuals. They say that neither the substance of +letters is such, nor yet the difficulty of work, that one man, if given +enough time, cannot master both.” + +“Their work, or as they prefer to hear it called, ‘the employment of +their hands,’ is conducted in a certain prescribed way, and all things +are brought into a public booth. From here every workman receives out +of the stock on hand whatever is necessary for the work of the coming +week. For the whole city is, as it were, one single workshop, but of +all different sorts and crafts. The ones in charge of these duties +are stationed in the small towers at the corners of the wall; they +know ahead of time what is to be made, in what quantity, and of what +form, and they inform the mechanics of these items. If the supply of +material in the work booth is sufficient, the workmen are permitted to +indulge and give free play to their inventive genius. No one has any +money, nor is there any use for any private money; yet the republic has +its own treasury. And in this respect the inhabitants are especially +blessed, because no one can be superior to the other in the amount of +riches owned, since the advantage is rather one of power and genius, +and the highest respect that of morals and piety. They have very few +working hours, yet no less is accomplished than in other places, as it +is considered disgraceful by all that one should take more rest and +leisure time than is allowed.” + +In addition to the special trades, there are “public duties to which +all citizens have obligation, such as watching, guarding, harvesting +of grain and wine, working roads, erecting buildings, draining ground; +also certain duties of assisting in the factories which are imposed +upon all in turn according to age and sex, but not very often nor for +a long time. For even though certain experienced men are put in charge +of all the duties, yet when men are asked for, no one refuses the state +his services and strength. For what we are in our homes, they are in +their city, which they not undeservedly think a home. And for this +reason it is no disgrace to perform any public function.... Hence all +work, even that which is considered rather irksome, is accomplished in +good time, and without much difficulty, since the promptness of the +great number of workmen permits them easily to collect or distribute +the great mass of things.” + +In this Christianopolis, as Mr. Bertrand Russell would put it, the +creative rather than the possessive impulses are uppermost. Work is the +main condition of existence, and this good community faces it. It is a +pretty contrast to the attitude of the leisured classes who, as Andreæ +says, with an entirely mistaken sense of delicacy shrink from touching +earth, water, stones, coal, and things of that sort, but think it grand +to have in their possession to delight them “horses, dogs, harlots and +other similar creatures.” + + +5 + +The place of commerce in this scheme of life is simple. It does not +exist for the sake of individual gain. Hence no one engages in commerce +on his own hook, for such matters are put in the hands of “those +selected to attend to them,” and the aim of commerce is not to gain +money but to increase the variety of things at the disposal of the +local community; so that--and again Andreæ steps in for emphasis--“we +may see the peculiar production of each land, and so communicate with +each other that we may seem to have the advantages of the universe in +one place, as it were.” + + +6 + +The constitution of the family in Christianopolis follows pretty +definitely upon the lines dictated by urban occupations; for Andreæ +is a city man, and since he does not despise the advantages city life +can give, he does not shrink from their consequences. One of these +consequences is, surely, the restriction of domesticity, or rather, the +projection in the city at large of the functions that in a farmstead +would be carried on within the bosom of the family. + +When a lad is twenty-four and a lass is eighteen, they are permitted to +marry, with the benefit of Christian rites and services, and a decorous +avoidance of drunkenness and gluttony after the ceremony. Marriage is +a simple matter. There are no dowries to consider, no professional +anxieties to face, no housing shortage to keep one from finding a home, +and above all, perhaps, no landlord to propitiate with money, since +all houses are owned by the city and are granted and assigned to +individuals for their use. Virtue and beauty are the only qualities +that govern a marriage in Christianopolis. Furniture is provided with +the house out of the public store. If in Utopia the families are +grouped together in a patriarchal household, such as More himself +maintained at Chelsea, in Christianopolis they consist of isolated +couples, four, at most six people in all, a woman, a man, and such +children as are not yet of school age. + +Let us visit a young couple in Christianopolis. We reach the house +by way of a street, twenty feet broad, faced by houses with a wide +frontage on the street, some forty feet in length, and of from fifteen +to twenty-five feet in depth. In our crowded towns, today, where people +pay for land by the front foot, the frontage is narrow and the houses +are deep; and as a result there is a dreadful insufficiency of light +and air; but in Christianopolis, as in some of the older European +towns, the houses are built to get a maximum of air and sunlight. If +it is raining when we make our visit, a covered walk, five feet wide, +supported by columns twelve feet high, will shelter us from the rain. + +Our friends live, we shall say, in one of the average apartments; +so they have three rooms, a bathroom, a sleeping apartment, and a +kitchen. “The middle part within the tower has a little open space with +a wide window, where wood and the heavier things are raised aloft by +pulleys”--in short, a dumbwaiter. Looking out from the window in the +rear, we face a well-kept garden; and if our host is inclined to give +us wine, he may let us take our pick from among the cobwebs of a small +private cellar in the basement, where such things are kept. If it is a +cold day, the furnace is going; or if we happen to make our visit in +the summer time, the awnings are drawn. + +Our host makes apologies, perhaps, for a litter of wood and shavings +that occupies a corner of the kitchen, for he has just been putting up +a few shelves in his spare time, and has borrowed a kit of tools from +the public supply house. (Since he is not a carpenter, he has no need +for these tools the rest of the year; and other people can have their +turn at them.) Coming from Utopia, one of the things that strikes us is +the absence of domestic attendance; and when we ask our hostess about +it, she tells us that she will not have anyone to wait upon her until +she is confined. + +“But isn’t there a lot of work for you to do all by yourself?” we shall +ask. + +“Not for anybody with a college training,” she will answer. “You see +that our furnishings are quite simple; and since there are no gimcracks +to be dusted, no polished tables to be oiled, no carpets to be swept, +and nothing in our apartment that is just for show to prove that we can +afford to live better than our neighbors, the work is scarcely more +than enough to keep one in good health and temper. Of course, cooking +meals is always something of a nuisance; and washing up is worse. But +my husband and I share the work together, in everything but sewing and +washing clothes, and you would be surprised how quickly everything +gets done. Work is usually galling when somebody else is taking his +ease while one is doing it; but where husband and wife share alike, as +in Christianopolis, there is really nothing to it. If you’ll stay to +dinner, you’ll find out how easily it goes. Since you haven’t brought +your rations, my husband will get some cooked meats in the public +kitchen, and that will do for all of us.” + +“No one need be surprised at the rather cramped quarters,” Andreæ +hastens to interject. “People who house vanity ... can never live +spaciously enough. They burden others and are burdened themselves, and +no one measures their necessities, nay even their comforts, easily +otherwise than by an unbearable and unmovable mass. Oh, only those +persons are rich who have all of which they have real need, who admit +nothing else, merely because it is possible to have it in abundance.” + +Carried to its extreme, you will find this philosophy put once for all +in Thoreau’s Walden. We have got our bearings in Utopia, I believe, +when we have determined what a life abundant consists of, and what will +suffice for it. + + +7 + +Suppose that our friends have children. During the early years of +their life they are in the care of their mother. When they have +completed their sixth year, the children are given over to the care of +the community, and both sexes continue in school through the stages +of childhood, youth, and early maturity. “No parent gives closer or +more careful attention to his children than is given here, for the +most upright preceptors, men as well as women, are placed over them. +Moreover,” the parents “can visit their children, even unseen by them, +as often as they have leisure. As this is an institution for the public +good, it is managed agreeably as a common charge for all the citizens. +They see to it that the food is appetizing and wholesome, that the +couches and beds are clean and comfortable, and that the clothes and +attire of the whole body are clean.... If diseases of the skin or body +are contracted, the individuals are cared for in good time; and to +avoid the spreading of infection, they are quarantined.” + +There is scarcely need to examine the program of study except in its +broad outlines. It is enough to observe that “the young men have their +study period in the morning, the girls in the afternoon, and matrons as +well as learned men are their instructors.... The rest of their time +is devoted to manual training and domestic art and science, as each +one’s occupation is assigned to his natural inclination. When they +have vacant time they are permitted to engage in honorable physical +exercises either in the open spaces of the town or in the field.” + +Two points, however, deserve our attention. The first is that the +school is run as a miniature republic. The second is the calibre of the +instructors. “The instructors,” says our zealous humanist, “are not +men from the dregs of human society nor such as are useless for other +occupations, but the choice of all the citizens, persons whose standing +in the Republic is known and who very often have access to the highest +positions of the state.” + +The last phrase again transports me back to the modern world. I see +this fine humanist ideal budding in another place. This time it is +a summer school in the hills of New Hampshire, where the children +govern themselves in the classroom, where there is no punishment +except temporary exclusion from the group, and where, above all, each +instructor is chosen because of his creative practice in the subject +which he teaches: a highly gifted composer teaches music, an athlete +teaches gymnastics, a poet teaches literature. Then I think of all the +casual and wasted talents of people who for little more than the asking +would share their love of the arts and sciences with little children, +if only those who are in charge of little children were not too blind +or too fearful to make use of them. Faraday’s classic lectures on +the physics of the candle, and Ruskin’s addresses to a young ladies’ +boarding school on the function of literature--such things might be +multiplied. It is not the creation of this utopian method that is +difficult; for the thing has already been done: what we need is its +extension. Then children might come to school as gaily as they do in +Peterborough, N. H., on the lush summer mornings; and people would +not turn their backs on learning any more than they would turn their +backs on life. If anyone thinks that Johann Andreæ’s prescription for +a teaching staff is an impossible one, let him visit the Peterborough +School, and examine its records and achievements. + +It remains to record the further stages of learning. The halls of the +central citadel are divided into twelve departments, and except for the +armory, the archives, the printing establishment, and the treasury, +these halls are devoted entirely to the arts and sciences. + +There is, to begin with, a laboratory of physical science. “Here the +properties of metals, minerals, and vegetables, and even the life of +animals, are examined, purified, increased, and united for the use of +the human race and in the interests of health.... Here men learn to +regulate fire, make use of air, value the water, and test the earth.” + +Next to this laboratory is a Drug Supply House, where a pharmacy is +scientifically developed, for the curing of physical disease, and +adjoining this is a school of medicine, or as Andreæ reports, “a place +given over to anatomy.... The value of ascertaining the location of +the organs and of assisting the struggles of nature no one would deny, +unless he be as ignorant of himself as are the barbarians.... The +inhabitants of Christianopolis teach their youth the operations of life +and the various organs, from the parts of the physical body.” + +We come now then to a Natural Science laboratory which is in effect a +Museum of Natural History, an institution founded in Utopia a century +and a half before a partial and inadequate substitute--a mere extension +of the curio chamber of a Country House--was presented to an admiring +world as the British Museum. “This,” as Andreæ says, “cannot be too +elegantly described,” and I heartily agree with him; for he paints the +picture of a museum which the American Museum at New York or South +Kensington in London has only begun to realize within the last decade +or two of their existence. + +“Natural history is here seen painted on the walls in detail, and +with greatest skill. The phenomena of the sky, views of the earth in +different regions, the different races of men, representations of +animals, the forms of growing things, classes of stones and gems, are +not only on hand and named, but they even teach and make known their +nature and qualities.... Truly is not recognition of things of the +earth much easier of competent demonstration if illustrative materials +are at hand and if there is some guide to the memory? For instruction +enters altogether more easily through the eyes than through the ears, +and much more pleasantly in the presence of refinement than among the +base. They are deceived who think it is impossible to teach except in +dark caves and with a gloomy brow. A liberal minded man is never so +keen as when he has his instructors on confidential terms.” + +Going farther, we find a mathematics laboratory and a department of +mathematical instruments. The first is “remarkable for its diagrams of +the heavens, as the hall of physics for its diagrams of the earth.... +A chart of the star-studded heavens and a reproduction of the whole +shining host above were shown,” ... and also “different illustrations +representing tools and machines, small models, figures of geometry; +instruments of the mechanical arts, drawn, named, and explained.” I +cannot help expressing my admiration here for the concrete imagination +of this remarkable scholar: he deliberately anticipated, not in +the vague, allegorical form that Bacon does, but as lucidly as an +architect or a museum curator, the sort of institute which South +Kensington, with its Departments of Physical and Natural Science, +or perhaps the Smithsonian in America, has just begun to resemble. +If our museums had begun with the ideal Andreæ had in mind, instead +of with the miscellaneous rubbish which was the nucleus of their +collections--and still remains the nucleus in many of the less advanced +institutions--the presentation of the sciences would be a more adequate +thing than it is. + +Does Andreæ leave the fine arts out of his picture? By no means. +“Opposite the pharmacy is a very roomy shop for pictorial art, an art +in which the city takes the greatest delight. For the city, besides +being decorated all over with pictures representing the various phases +of the earth, makes use of them especially in the instruction of youth +and for rendering learning more easy.... Besides, pictures and statues +of famous men are to be seen everywhere, an incentive of no mean value +to the young for striving to imitate their virtue.... At the same time +also, the beauty of forms is so pleasing to them that they embrace with +a whole heart the inner beauty of virtue itself.” + +At the summit of art and science we naturally find in Christianopolis +the temple of religion. Alas! the hand of Calvin has been busy in +Christianopolis--recollect that Andreæ once lived in Geneva and admired +its ordinances--and attendance at prayers is compulsory. In order to +get an idea of this great circular temple, three hundred sixteen feet +in circumference and seventy feet high, we must think of a colossal +moving picture theater in a modern metropolis. The comparison is not +essentially sacrilegious; and I believe that those who will take +the trouble to look below the surface will find without difficulty +the common denominator between the profane and the ecclesiastical +institution. (Attendance at motion pictures, I must quickly add for the +benefit of the future historian, has not yet been made compulsory in +the modern metropolis.) + +One-half of the temple is where the public gatherings take place; and +the other is reserved for the distribution of the sacraments and for +music. “At the same time, the sacred comedies, by which they set so +much store, and are entertained every three months, are shown in the +temple.” + + +8 + +We have discussed folk, work, and place in Christianopolis; and we have +dealt in an admittedly sketchy fashion with culture and art. We must +now turn attention to the polity; and here we must note that Andreæ’s +description shifts for once to an allegorical plane, and departs not a +little from the realism of his treatment of science and the arts. + +At the bottom of the polity there are glimpses of a local industrial +association, meeting in the common halls that are provided in the +towers of each of the industrial quarters; and we gather that to +represent the city at large twenty-four councilmen are chosen, while +as the executive department there is a triumvirate consisting of a +Minister, a Judge, and a Director of Learning, each of whom is married, +for metaphorical point, to Conscience, Understanding, and Truth, +respectively. “Each one of the leaders does his own duty, yet not +without the knowledge of others; all consult together in matters that +concern the safety of the state.” + +In the censorship of books, Christianopolis reminds us of the Republic; +in the exclusion of lawyers it calls up nearly every other utopia; and +in its attitude towards crime it has a temperance and leniency that +is all its own, for “the judges of this Christian city observe this +custom especially, that they punish most severely those misdeeds which +are directed straight against God, less severely those which injure +men, and lightest of all those who harm only property. As the Christian +citizens are always chary of spilling blood, they do not willingly +agree upon the death sentence as a form of punishment.... For anyone +can destroy a man but only the best can reform.” + +How shall we sum up this government? Let Andreæ speak his own words; +for he has reached the innermost shrine of Christianopolis and +perceives the center of activity in the state. + +“Here religion, justice, and learning have their abode, and theirs +is the control of the city.... I often wonder what people mean who +separate and disjoint their best powers, the joining of which might +render them blessed as far as may be on earth. There are those who +would be considered religious, who throw off all things human; there +are some who are pleased to rule, though without any religion at all; +learning makes a great noise, flattering now this one, now that, yet +applauding itself most. What finally may the tongue do except provoke +God, confuse men, and destroy itself? So there would seem to be a need +of co-operation which only Christianity can give--Christianity which +conciliates God with men and unites men together, so that they have +pious thoughts, do good deeds, know the truth, and finally die happily +to live eternally.” + +There are some who might object to this statement on the ground that it +smacked too heartily of supernatural religion; but it remains just as +valid if we translate it into terms whose theological reactions have +been neutralized. To have a sense of values, to know the world in which +they are set, and to be able to distribute them--this is our modern +version of Andreæ’s conception of religion, learning, and justice. A +little search might uncover another expression of the Humanist ideal +as complete and magnificent as this; but I doubt if it would find a +better one. In essence, this blunt and forthright German scholar is +standing shoulder to shoulder with Plato: his Christianopolis is as +enduring as the best nature of men. + + + + +CHAPTER FIVE + + How Bacon and Campanella, who have a great reputation as + utopians, are little better than echoes of the men who went + before them. + + + + +CHAPTER FIVE + + +1 + +A Genoese sea-captain is the guest of a Grand Master of the Knights +Hospitaller. This sea-captain tells him of a great country under the +equator, dominated by the City of the Sun. The outward appearance of +this country is a little strange--the city with its seven rings named +after the seven planets, and its four gates that lead to the four +quarters of the earth, and the hill that is topt by a grand temple, +and the walls covered with laws and alphabets and paintings of natural +phenomena, and the Rulers--Power, Wisdom, and Love--with the learned +doctors, Astrologus, Cosmographus, Arithmeticus, and their like: it +is an apparition such as never yet was seen on land or sea. Small +wonder, for this City of the Sun existed only in the exotic brain of a +Calabrian monk, Tommaso Campanella, whose Utopia existed in manuscript +before Andreæ wrote his Christianopolis. + +We shall not stay long in the City of the Sun. After we have become +familiar with the outward color and form of the landscape, we discover, +alas! that it is not a foreign country we are exploring, but a sort of +picture puzzle put together out of fragments from Plato and More. As in +the Republic, there is a complete community of property, a community of +wives, and an equality of the sexes; as in Utopia, the younger people +wait upon the elders; as in Christianopolis, science is imparted, or +at least hinted at, by demonstration. When one subtracts what these +other Utopian countries have contributed, very little indeed remains. + +But we must not neglect to observe two significant passages. One of +them is the recognition of the part that invention might play in the +ideal commonwealth. The people of the City of the Sun have wagons that +are driven by the wind, and boats “which go over the waters without +rowers or the force of the wind, but by a marvelous contrivance.” There +is a very clear anticipation of the mechanical improvements which began +to multiply so rapidly in the eighteenth century. At the tale end of +the sea-captain’s recital, the Grand Master exclaims: “Oh, if you knew +what our astrologers say of the coming age, that has in it more history +within a hundred years than all the world had in four thousand years +before! Of the wonderful invention of printing and guns, and the use of +the magnet....” With the mechanical arts in full development, labor in +the City of the Sun has become dignified: it is not the custom to keep +slaves. Since everyone takes his part in the common work, there is not +more than four hours’ work to be done per day. “They are rich because +they want nothing; poor because they possess nothing; and consequently +they are not slaves to circumstances, but circumstances serve them.” + +The other point upon which Campanella’s observation is remarkably keen +is his explanation of the relation of private property and the private +household to the commonwealth. Thus: + +“They say that all private property is acquired and improved for the +reason that each one of us by himself has his own home and wife and +children. From this self-love springs. For when we raise a son to +riches and dignities, and leave an heir to much wealth, we become +either ready to grasp at the property of the state, if in any case +fear should be removed from the power which belongs to riches and +rank; or avaricious, crafty, and hypocritical, if any is of slender +purse, little strength, and mean ancestry. But when we have taken away +self-love, there remains only love for the state.” + +How shall the common Utopia keep from being neglected through each +one’s concern for his little private utopia? + +This is the critical problem that our utopians have all to face; +and Campanella loyally follows Plato in his solution. It is perhaps +inevitable that each utopian’s personal experience of life should +enter into his solution, and overwhelmingly give it color; and here +the limitations of our utopians are plain. More and Andreæ are married +men, and they stand for the individual family. Plato and Campanella +were bachelors, and they proposed that men should live like monks or +soldiers. Perhaps these two camps are not so far away as they would +seem. If we follow the exposition of that excellent anthropologist, +Professor Edward Westermarck, we shall be fairly well convinced, I +believe, that marriage is a biological institution, and thorough +promiscuity is, to say the least, an unusual form of mating. Plato +perhaps recognized this when he left us in doubt as to whether a +community of wives would be practiced by his artisans and husbandmen. +So he perhaps paves the way for a solution by which the normal life +for the great majority of men would be marriage, with its individual +concerns and loyalties, whilst for the active, creative elements in +the community a less secluded form of mating would be practiced. The +painter, Van Gogh, has given us a kernel to chew on when he says that +the sexual life of the artist must be either that of the monk or the +soldier, for otherwise he is distracted from his creative work. + +We may leave this question in the air, as long as we realize that all +our utopias rest upon our ability to discover some sort of a solution. + + +2 + +Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis is not a utopia in the sense that I +have explained our principle of selection in the preface to the +bibliography. It is only a fragment, and not very good as fragments go; +and it would drop out altogether from our survey were it not for the +hugely over-rated reputation that Bacon has as a philosopher of natural +science--indeed, as _the_ philosopher after Aristotle. + +The greater part of Bacon’s ideas are anticipated and more amply +expressed by Andreæ. When we have deleted Bacon’s multitudinous prayers +and exhortations, when we have disposed of his copious descriptions +of jewels and velvets and satins and ceremonial regalia, we find that +the core of his commonwealth is Salomon’s House, sometimes known as +the College of the Six Days’ Works; which he describes as the noblest +foundation that ever was upon earth, and the lantern of the kingdom. + +The purpose of this foundation is the “knowledge of the causes and +secret motions of things; and the enlarging of the bounds of human +empire, to the effecting of all things possible.” The material +resources of this foundation are manifold. It has laboratories dug into +the sides of hills, and observatories with towers half a mile high; +it has great lakes of salt and fresh water which seem to anticipate +the marine laboratories we know today; and it has engines for setting +things in motion. Besides this, there are spacious houses where +physical demonstrations are made, and sanatoria where various novel +cures are attempted; there are experimental agricultural stations, +too, where grafts and crosses are tried. Add to this pharmaceutical +laboratories, industrial laboratories, and numerous houses devoted +to such things as experiments with sounds, lights, perfumes, and +tastes--which Bacon presents in a wild farrago without any regard to +the essential sciences to which the work he describes is related--and +one has a tally of the “riches of Salomon’s House.” + +Twelve fellows of the college travel into foreign lands to bring +back books and abstracts, and reports on experiments and inventions. +Three make a digest of experiments. Three collect the experiments of +all the mechanical arts, and also of practices which are not brought +into the arts. Three try new experiments. Three devote themselves to +classifications; and another three, known as dowry men or benefactors, +look into the experiments of their fellows and cast about for means +of applying them to human life and knowledge. Three fellows consult +with the whole body of scientific workers and plan new channels of +investigation; and three, who are called interpreters of nature, +attempt to raise the results of particular investigations into general +observations and axioms. + +In telling all this, as in the rest of his New Atlantis, Bacon is +incredibly childish and incoherent: he gives such a description of +Salomon’s House as a six-year-old schoolboy might give of a visit to +the Rockefeller Foundation. Beneath these maladroit interpretations, +however, we see that Bacon had a grasp on some of the fundamentals of +scientific research, and of the part that science might play in the +“relief of man’s estate.” It is nothing more than a hint, this New +Atlantis; but a word to the wise is enough; and as we look about the +modern world we see that, in its material affairs at any rate, the +great scientific institutes and foundations--the United States Bureau +of Standards, for one--play a part not a little like that of the +College of the Six Days’ Works. + +Campanella with his dream of powerful mechanical inventions, in which +he had been anticipated by Leonardo, and Bacon with his sketch of +scientific institutes--with these two utopians we stand at the entrance +to the utopia of means; that is to say, the place in which all that +materially contributes to the good life has been perfected. The earlier +utopias were concerned to establish the things which men should aim +for in life. The utopias of the later Renascence took these aims for +granted and discussed how man’s scope of action might be broadened. In +this the utopians only reflected the temper of their time; and did not +attempt to remold it. As a result of our preoccupation with the means, +we in the Western World live in an inventor’s paradise. Scientific +knowledge and mechanical power we have to burn; more knowledge and more +power than Bacon or Campanella could possibly have dreamed of. But +today we face again the riddle that Plato, More, and Andreæ sought to +answer: what are men to do with their knowledge and power? + +As we skip here and there through the Utopias of the next three +centuries, this question gets more deeply impregnated in our minds. + + + + +CHAPTER SIX + + How something happened in the eighteenth century which made men + “furiously to think,” and how a whole group of utopias sprang + out of the upturned soil of industrialism. + + + + +CHAPTER SIX + + +1 + +There is a gap in the Utopian tradition between the seventeenth century +and the nineteenth. Utopia, the place that must be built, faded into +no-man’s land, the spot to which one might escape; and the utopias of +Denis Vairasse and Simon Berington and the other romancers of this +in-between period are in the line of Robinson Crusoe rather than the +Republic. + +One finds the clue to this lapse in Tiphaigne de la Roche’s Giphantia, +a sketch of what was and what is and what will be, and in particular, +an inquiry into the “Babylonian” mode of life. The author of Giphantia +tells a parable about Sophia, the incarnation of Wisdom, who rejects +the offers of the spendthrift, the merchant, the soldier, and the +student, and accepts the suit of a diffident fellow who had retired in +solitude to the country, to spend his days like a cultivated gentleman. +One remembers the way in which Montaigne spent his declining years; +one remembers Voltaire; and one sees how deeply the ideal of Robinson +Crusoe--a cultivated Robinson Crusoe, surrounded with books and beyond +the reach of any king and court--colored the deepest aspirations of +this period. Rousseau, writing about the corrupting influence of the +arts and sciences, and Chateaubriand, seeking the noble savage in the +American wilderness and finding him in his own bosom--these men struck +the dominating note of the eighteenth century. In a society that was +already painfully artificial and “arranged” the institutes of Lycurgus +and Utopus must have seemed as repressive as those of Louis XIV. So +almost two centuries pass before we find any fresh regions to explore +in Utopia. + + +2 + +The Utopia of Sir Thomas More, and those of the later men of the +Renascence, arose, as I have pointed out, from the contrast between the +possibilities that lay open beyond the sea and the dismal conditions +that attended the breakdown of the town economy of the Middle Age. +Like Plato’s Republic, it attempted to face the difficult problem of +transition. + +In the course of the next three centuries the adventure of exploring +and ransacking strange countries loses its hold upon men’s imagination; +and a new type of activity becomes the center of interest. The conquest +of alien countries and the lure of gold do not indeed die out with +this new interest; but they are subordinated to another type of +conquest--that which man seeks to effect over nature. Here and there, +particularly in Great Britain, untrained men “with a practical turn” +begin to busy themselves with improving the mechanical apparatus by +which the day’s labor is done. A retired barber, named Arkwright, +invents a spinning frame, a Scotchman named MacAdam discovers a new +method of laying roads; and out of a hundred such inventions during +the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries a new world comes +into existence--a world in which energy derived from coal and running +water takes the place of human energy; in which goods manipulated by +machinery take the place of goods woven or sawed or hammered by hand. +Within a hundred years the actual world and the idola were transformed. + +In this new world of falling water, burning coal, and whirring +machinery, utopia was born again. It is easy to see why this should +have happened, and why about two-thirds of our utopias should have been +written in the nineteenth century. The world was being visibly made +over; and it was possible to conceive of a different order of things +without escaping to the other side of the earth. There were political +changes, and the monarchic state was tempered by republicanism; there +were industrial changes, and two hungry mouths were born where one +could feed before; and there were social changes--the strata of society +shifted and “faulted,” and men who in an earlier period would have been +doomed to a dull and ignominious round, perhaps, took a place alongside +those whom inheritance had given all the privileges of riches and +breeding. + +In contrast to all these fresh possibilities were the dismal realities +which were easily enough perceived by people who stood outside this +new order, or who by temperament revolted against the indignities +and repressions and vilenesses that accompanied it. It is not my +particular business here to deal with the facts of history; but unless +one understands the facts of history, the utopias which I am about +to present lose a good part of their meaning. Those machines whose +output was so great that all men might be clothed; those new methods of +agriculture and new agricultural implements, which promised crops so +big that all men might be fed--the very instruments that were to give +the whole community the physical basis of a good life turned out, for +the vast majority of people who possessed neither capital nor land, to +be nothing short of instruments of torture. + +I do not speak too harshly of the early industrial age; it is +impossible to speak too harshly. Take the trouble to read Robert Owen’s +“Essay on the Formation of Character” (Manchester: 1837) and learn what +conditions were like in a model factory run by an enlightened employer: +it is a picture of unmitigated brutality. One must go back to the +blackest periods of ancient slavery for a parallel, if indeed one would +find it, for the Pyramids that were built under the lash have a certain +grandeur and permanence which justify their existence, whilst the goods +which were produced in Yorkshire through the maimed bodies of pauper +children proved to be as impermanent as the lives that were sacrificed +in making them. + +Those who were inside this new order--the Gradgrinds and Bounderbys +whom Dickens pictures in “Hard Times”--sought to realize their utopia +of the Iron Age on earth. When we are through with the genuine utopians +we shall examine the idola by which all the “practical” men of the +nineteenth century, Marx as well as Macaulay, patterned their behavior. +Those who stood out against this new order were not so much opposed to +the new methods as to the purposes for which they were being used: they +felt that an orderly conquest of Nature had turned into a wild scramble +for loot, and that all the goods industrialism promised were being +lost, for the benefit of a few aggressive and unsocialized individuals. +With the host of critics and interpreters and reformers that arose +in the nineteenth century we shall have a little reckoning to make +presently: those who concern us here however belong to the stock of +Plato, More, and Andreæ, in that they attempted to see society as a +whole, and to protect a new order which would be basically sound as +well as superficially improved. Yet with the exception of the utopias +which revolted against industrialism these nineteenth century essays +are partial and one-sided; for they tend to magnify the importance of +the industrial order as much as Gradgrind and Bounderby did, and in +doing this they lose sight of the whole life of man. These industrial +utopias are no longer concerned with values but with means; they are +all instrumentalist. I doubt whether an intelligent peasant in India or +China would get out of the whole batch of these utopias a single idea +which would have any bearing on the life that he has experienced--so +little of human significance remains when the problems of mechanical +and political organization have been disposed of! + +One symptom of this lack of individuality, this lack of what, in the +old-fashioned sense used to be called a philosophy, is the fact that +we can treat all these industrial utopias in groups. The first of +these group-utopias I shall call, perhaps somewhat arbitrarily, the +Associationists. + + +3 + +Among the Associationists, the most influential utopian is Charles +François Marie Fourier. He was a prolific and incoherent writer, and +his Utopia, if the truth be told, exists as disjecta membra rather than +as a single work; but in his case I make an exception to the criterion +of selection; because in every other respect he has a claim upon our +attention. This Fourier was a dry little French commercial traveller, +whose personal fortune was lost in the French revolution and whose +hopes for founding a real eutopia were blasted by the July revolution +of 1830. Again and again he transferred himself from one line of goods +to another in order to increase the area of the territory he covered +and learn more of the workings of society; and so in his writings a +wealth of concrete detail goes hand in hand with personal crotchets +and the opinionativeness which arises almost inevitably out of an +undisciplined solitude. What follows is a distillation of Fourier’s +thought, with the lees and orts left in the bottom of the flask. + +Fourier differs largely from the early utopians in that he is concerned +first of all not with modifying human nature but with finding out what +it actually is. His utopia is to be based upon an understanding of +man’s actual physical and mental makeup, and its institutions are to +be such as will permit man’s original nature to function freely. The +motive which draws his community together is attraction; the power +which sets his institutions going is “the passions.” Under the head of +passions--the original biological equipment--Fourier gives a list of +tendencies which corresponds roughly with the modern psychologist’s +list of instincts. + +Fourier takes these passions as “given”; his utopia is not designed to +“effect any change in our passions ... their direction will be changed +without changing their nature.” As Brisbane says in his Introduction to +Fourier’s philosophy, social institutions are to these passional forces +what machinery is to material forces. A good community, according to +Fourier, is one which will bring all these passions into play, in their +complex actions and interactions. + +As in the Republic, the ideal behind Fourier’s utopia is harmony; +for man has a threefold destiny; namely, “an industrial destiny, to +harmonize the material world; a social destiny, to harmonize the +passional or moral world; and an intellectual destiny, to discover +the laws of universal order and harmony.” What was at fault with +modern civilized societies was that they were incomplete, and in +their functioning they created a social dissonance. To overcome this, +says Fourier, men must unite into harmonious associations which will +give play to all their activities, and which, by erecting common +institutions, will do away with the waste arising in the individual’s +attempts to do for himself all the things which would be done by a +complete community. + +For this perfect association Fourier provides minute plans and tables; +but the general plan can be outlined with brevity. + +First of all, Fourier, too, goes back to the valley section. The +initial nucleus of his utopia is to consist of a company of 1,500 +or 1,600 persons, owning a good stretch of land comprising at least +a square league. Since this experimental phalanx, as Fourier called +it, would have to stand alone, and without the support of neighboring +phalanxes, there will in consequence of this isolation be many gaps +in “attraction,” and “many passional calms to dread in its workings.” +To overcome this, Fourier insists that it is necessary to locate the +phalanx on soil fit for a variety of functions. “A flat country, such +as Antwerp, Leipsic, Orleans, would be totally unsuitable ... owing +to the uniformity of land surface. It will therefore be necessary to +select a diversified region, like the surroundings of Lausanne, or at +the very least, a fine valley, provided with a stream of water and a +forest, like the valley of Brussel or of Halle.” + +This domain would be laid out in fields, orchards, vineyards, and so +forth, according to the nature of the soil and industrial requirements. +By devotion to horticulture and arboriculture, Fourier figures, an +intensive development would supply abundantly the needs of the colony. +The main economic occupation of the phalanx would be agricultural--this +is perhaps the great distinction between Fourier and later +Utopians--but all the arts would be practiced within the phalanstery, +since otherwise the association would be incomplete. + +The principle of the association is concretely embodied in a vast +edifice in the center of the domain: “a palace complete in all its +appointments serving as the residence of the associates. In this palace +there are three wings, corresponding to the Material, the Social, and +the Intellectual domains. In one wing are the workshops and halls of +industry. In another are the library, the scientific collections, +museums, artists’ studios, and the like. In the center, devoted to +the social element, are banquet halls, a hall of reception, and grand +salons. At one end of the palace is a Temple of the Material Harmonies, +devoted to singing, music, poetry, dancing, gymnastics, painting, and +so forth. At the other end is the Temple of Unityism, to celebrate with +appropriate rites man’s unity with the universe. On the summit there is +an observatory with telegraph and signal tower, for communication with +other phalanxes. + +The phalanx men are associationists; but it follows from Fourier’s +theory of the passions that they have private interests as well as +public ones; and these private interests are permitted to flourish +as long as they do not interfere with social solidarity. Thus they +avoid the waste inherent in private housekeeping by having public +kitchens, where, incidentally, the children are trained from an early +age at cooking, as they are today in one or two experimental schools: +nevertheless it is possible to dine in solitude as well as in company. +By the same token, every member of the phalanx is guaranteed a minimum +of food, clothing, lodging, and even amusements without respect to +work; at the same time, private property is sanctioned, and each +member extracts from the common store a dividend in proportion to the +amount of stock he holds in the association. This dividend, it must be +qualified, is considerably reduced by the fact that a system of profit +sharing replaces the pure wage system. There is thus a sort of balance +between private self-seeking and the maintenance of the public good. + +In order to manufacture goods economically, large scale production +is introduced wherever possible, and the division of labor is forced +to its ultimate limits. Fourier takes account of the resulting +monotony, however, and suggests that the monotony be corrected by +having recourse to changing tasks and occupations from time to time. +In commercial exchange, the phalanx acts as a unit; it constitutes a +great self-governing body which traffics in surplus goods with similar +associations, without any middleman, in something of the manner, +perhaps, that the Co-operative Wholesale Societies do today. + +By abolishing the individual household, the phalanx gives a new +freedom to women; and Fourier does not see how it is possible to +maintain the system of monogamic proprietorship once women have a free +choice of mates. So the women of the phalanx are not intellectual +nonentities; and since they no longer preside over the individual home, +they help run the whole community. Is it necessary to add the common +nurseries, the common schools, the informal education of the children, +and the number of other things which follow from this emancipation? + +Perhaps one of the most remarkable characteristics of this utopia is +its utilization of a moral equivalent for war, long before Professor +William James invented the phrase. One of the great functions of the +phalanx is the assemblage of productive armies even as “civilization” +assembles destructive ones. There is a fine passage in which Fourier +pictures an industrial army of golden youths and maidens, “instead of +devastating thirty provinces in a campaign, these armies will have +spanned thirty rivers with bridges, re-wooded thirty barren mountains, +dug thirty trenches for irrigation, and drained thirty marshes.” It is +for lack of such industrial armies, says Fourier, that civilization is +unable to produce anything great. + + +4 + +What strikes us when we put together the fragments of Fourier’s +utopia--as one might put together a jigsaw puzzle--is the fact that he +faces the variety and inequality of human nature. Instead of erecting +a standard for men to live up to, and rejecting mankind as unfit for +utopia because the standard is far beyond its height, the standard +itself is founded upon the utmost capacity which a community might be +able to exhibit. Fourier meets human nature half-way: he endeavors to +project a society which will give regular channels to all its divergent +impulses, and prevent them from spilling unsocially all over the +landscape. In his statement of this aim there are plenty of weaknesses +and absurdities; and I confess that it is hard to take this pathetic +little man seriously; but when one has grappled with Fourier’s thought +one discovers that there is something to take. + +Fourier died without persuading anyone to give a trial to his scheme of +association; and yet his work was not without its practical influence. +The Brook Farm experiment in America was a fumbling attempt to plant +a phalanstery without paying any attention to the conditions which +Fourier would have rigorously imposed; and the “familistere” of the +great steel works of Godin at Guise, in France, is another direct +result of Fourier’s inspiration. He remains, I believe, the first man +who had a plan for colonizing the wilderness of industrial barbarism +that existed at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and redeeming +that wilderness to civilization. + + +5 + +The name of Robert Owen is usually associated with utopianism; but his +work belongs more to the “real” world than to the idola of utopia; +and I pass over him with the briefest mention, for his projects for a +model industrial town have more of the flavor of a poor colony than +that of a productive human society. Let us grant him good intentions, +organizing ability, and moral fervor: without doubt he is a noble +figure, even when his attitude is strained and his tone strident. The +series of essays he wrote on love and marriage are marked by fine +sympathy and common sense; and it is to be regretted that they are not +as widely known as his plans for a new moral world. If this little note +can repair the neglect, I have done Owen ample justice: as an active +figure in English and American public life he is properly a subject for +the social historian. With Owen I must also dismiss John Ruskin, who +began in the last quarter of the nineteenth century to develop plans +for a “Guild of St. George.” This guild was to form a little island +of honest labor and sound education in the midst of the turbid sea of +industrialism; but it did not embrace the whole of society, and it was +utopian only in the sense that the Oneida Community, let us say, was +utopian. While they are full of pregnant suggestions, the plans for the +Guild are as fragmentary as the New Atlantis. + + +6 + +One of the neglected utopias of the mid-nineteenth century is that of +James Buckingham. + +James Buckingham was one of those erratic men of affairs which the +fertile soil of British individualism produces, and which hard British +common sense persistently ignores. Like Owen, Buckingham was acquainted +with industrial and commercial affairs from the inside: he travelled +widely and wrote upon various matters with that copious, amateurish +dogmatism and spirit which marks him, perhaps, as the philistine +counterpart of John Ruskin. If the utopias of the past express the +ideals of the soldier, the farmer, and the artisan, the community +which Buckingham projected represents the ideal of the bourgeoisie. +Buckingham’s Victoria is the ideal aspect of that Coketown which in a +later chapter we shall attempt to describe. + +We talk loosely of the individualism of the nineteenth century; but +in reality it was a period that was thriving with associations. +The scope of joint stock companies and philanthropic societies had +immeasurably widened. Along with the Mudfog Association, “for the +advancement of everything,” which Dickens satirized, there sprang up +a hundred different societies for performing some special function in +the industrial system or realizing some particular purpose in society. +Buckingham gives us a picture of his contemporaries which is also a +criticism: + +“We have the government of the country itself, passing acts of +parliament for the better drainage of towns, and a more ample supply +of water and air for ventilation.... Hence, too, arise associations of +noblemen and others for building model lodging houses for the labouring +classes; associations for improving the dwellings of the poor; +societies for providing baths and bath houses for families unable to +procure such conveniences for themselves; associations for establishing +suburban villages for the working classes, and to get them at night at +least out of the crowded haunts and vicious atmosphere of the towns. +And hence we have Temperance Societies, Tract Societies, Home Missions, +Asylums for Repentant Magdalens, Homes for Seaman out of Employ, and +Houses of Refuge for the Destitute, with soup kitchens and other modes +of temporary relief....” + +What does this all come to? Let Buckingham answer: + +“They are, after all, mere palliatives, and do not reach the seat of +the disease.... This can only be done by uniting the disjointed efforts +of all these well-meaning but partially curative bodies into one, in +order to achieve, by their union of means, influence, and example, the +erection of a “Model Society,” with its model farms, model pastures, +model mines, model manufactures, model town, model schools, model +workshops, model kitchens, model libraries, and places of recreation, +enjoyment, and instruction; all of which could be united in one new +Association.” + +Without inquiring too closely into what a model pasture may be, we may +admit that the notion behind Buckingham’s proposal was not unsound. The +industrial society of his day was in an inchoate, indeed in a chaotic +state. In order to sift out the necessary institutions and put them on +a firm basis, it was the better part of wisdom to start anew on a fresh +area of land and attempt to plan the development of the community as a +whole. It is true that in this proposal of Buckingham’s there is none +of Fourier’s brilliant intuitions of a true social order, and none of +Ruskin’s critical inquiry into what composed a good life: Buckingham +took contemporary values for granted. What he sought to do was to +realize these values completely, and in orderly fashion. Here are the +elements of his proposal. + +There is to be formed a model town association, with a limited +liability, for the purpose of building a new town called Victoria. The +town is to contain every improvement in “position, plan, drainage, +ventilation, architecture, supply of water, light, and every other +elegance and convenience.” Its size is to be about a mile square and +the number of inhabitants is not to exceed 10,000. A suitable variety +of manufactures and handicraft trades is to be established near the +edge of the town; and the town itself is to be surrounded by farm land +10,000 acres broad. All of the lands, houses, factories, and materials +are to be the property of the company, and not of any individual; and +this property is to be held for the benefit of all in proportion as +their shares entitle them. No person is to be a member of the company +or an inhabitant of the town except one who is a bona fide shareholder +to the extent of at least twenty pounds, and who is ready to subscribe +to a drastic series of blue laws which, while permitting freedom in +religious worship and preventing child labor, do away with liquor, +drugs, and even tobacco. + +In addition to these provisions there are to be common laundries, +kitchens, refectories, and nurseries; and medical advice is to be given +free, at home or in the hospital, as in the army and navy. Education is +to be undertaken by the community. Justice, it should be noted by those +who are acquainted with an experiment which has recently been started +in New York, is to be administered by competent arbitrators under a +written code of laws, without the expense, delay, and uncertainty +of ordinary legal proceedings. All members are to sign declarations +accepting arbitration and waiving other legal proceedings against +members of the company. + +All these affairs, especially the manner in which the town is to +be built, are worked out in considerable detail; thus the size and +character of the houses are set forth on the plan, and it is provided +that each workingman is to occupy at least one entire and separate +room for himself; whilst each married couple without children gets +two rooms, and each family in which there are children is to occupy +at least three rooms for domestic purposes. I have set down all these +details baldly because the plan itself is a bald one; and no amount +of fine writing will embellish it. Buckingham’s society is not based +upon a thoroughgoing criticism of human institutions: the ends for +which this society exists are doubtless those which were held good +and proper by the Macaulays and the Martineaus. What is interesting +in Buckingham’s utopia is the definite plans and specifications, +accompanied by drawings; for this is surely one of the first attempts +to put a problem in social engineering on a basis from which an +engineer or an architect could work. + +Buckingham thought that, given a successful model town, the rest of +England might in time be colonized by the surplus population, and +thus the old centers of black industry would be wiped out. Nor was +Buckingham altogether deceived. His utopia was a limited one, but out +of his limitations has come success. In 1848 this utopia was a chimera; +in 1898, Mr. Ebenezer Howard reconstructed it and set it forth in a +persuasive little book called Tomorrow, and as a direct result of +the plans advocated by Mr. Howard, a flourishing garden city called +Letchworth has come into existence; which in turn has propagated +another garden city, called Wellwyn; and at the same time has, by +example, paved the way for numerous garden villages and garden suburbs +in various parts of Europe and in America. + +With this mid-Victorian theorist, we pass over from a pre-scientific +method of thinking to one which sacrifices the artistic imagination to +a realistic grasp of the facts; and in this passage something is gained +and something is lost. Buckingham gains by confining his proposals to +what is immediately practicable. He loses by not having the imaginative +energy to criticize the ways, means, and ends that are sanctioned by +current practise. If utopia begins with Plato’s glorious dream of an +organic community, the image of the just man made perfect, it cannot +end with Buckingham’s invention of a shell. Nevertheless, through the +nineteenth century the superficial utopians, the shell-builders, are +dominant; and we must continue to examine them. + + + + +CHAPTER SEVEN + + How some Utopians have thought that a good community rested at + bottom on the right division and use of land; and what sort + of communities these land-animals projected. + + + + +CHAPTER SEVEN + + +1 + +Before the Industrial Revolution upset the balance of social power, +there were little villages in England where, on a limited scale and to +no very grand purpose, a quiet and placid and fairly jolly existence +must have been the rule of things. These villages were those in which +the land was either held in freehold by small proprietors, or where +there still remained for the use of each inhabitant certain common +pastures and wastes. Under this regime there was a fair degree of +prosperity with which only the wind and the weather and war could +interfere. Something of the savor of this life Mr. W. H. Hudson finely +conveys in his A Traveller in Little Things; and a century ago Cobbett +made a series of excellent snapshots in his Rural Rides. + +When the mediæval order broke down the great proprietors began to +seize this common land; and during the eighteenth century, under the +incentive of big-scale scientific agriculture, the seizure went on at a +merry pace. The peasant without land was forced to migrate to the new +towns, as the Hammonds have pictured in their graphic work on the Town +Laborer; and the labor of the peasant and his family fed the machines +which the Watts and Arkwrights were developing in the eighteenth +century. Industrial progress and social poverty went hand in hand. The +period before the Industrial Revolution seemed in comparison a real +utopia; and the key to this utopia was the land. + +The importance of land in the constitution of civil society was +emphasized by the Diggers of Cromwell’s time; one of them, Gerard +Winstanley, wrote a minor utopia to prove that the land should be held +in common; and this view was reinforced--without the communism--in a +purely political utopia called Oceana by James Harrington, who lived +during the same period. Harrington advocated such a distribution of +land that the landed gentry should be the leaders, and the commonalty +should have the preponderance of power. + +Out of all the modern utopias with which we have to reckon there are +two, in particular, in which the common possession of land is the +foundation of every other institution. These are Spensonia and A Visit +to Freeland. + + +2 + +The early part of the nineteenth century is remarkable for the fact +that men of common stock, usually self-educated, began to apply their +wits to improving the conditions of the class to which they belonged; +and in particular there was in London a peasant named William Cobbett, +a tailor named Francis Place, and a stationer named Thomas Spence who +devoted a good part of what remained over from their working days to +plans for bettering man’s estate. + +Thomas Spence had a shop in High Holborn from which he published +little pamphlets of rough philosophy, called Pig’s Meat; in 1795 he +issued A Description of Spensonia, which was followed in 1801 by The +Constitution of Spensonia: A Country in Fairyland situated between +Utopia and Oceana; brought from thence by Captain Swallow. Spence’s +title to have written a complete utopia rests upon the fact that +he proposes a return to an environment which had once been, in its +fashion, complete. + +Spensonia begins with a parable about a father who had a number of +sons, who built them a ship for traffic, and who provided that the +profits of the enterprise were to be shared in common. This ship is +wrecked upon an island; and the sons quickly awake to the conclusion +that if “they did not apply the Marine Constitution given them by +their father to their landed property, they would soon experience +inexpressible inconveniences. They therefore declared the property of +the island to be the property of them all collectively, in the same +manner as the ship had been, and that they ought to share the profits +thereof in the same way. The island they named Spensonia, after the +ship which their father had given them. They next chose officers to +mark out such portions of the land, as every person or family desired +to occupy, for which they were to receive for the use of the public a +certain rent according to its value. This rent was applied to public +uses or divided among themselves as they thought proper. But in order +to keep up the remembrance of their rights, they decreed that they +should never fail to share at rent-time, an equal dividend, though ever +so small, and though the public demands should be ever so urgent.... +As they had determined, when seeing that every ship they should build +and man, should ... be the property of the crew, so, in conformity +therewith, they decreed that every district or parish which they +should people, should be the property of the inhabitants, and the +rent and police of the same at their disposal.... A National Assembly +or Congress consisting of delegates from all the parishes takes care +of the national concerns, and defrays the expenses of the state and +matters of common utility, by a pound rate from each parish without any +other tax.” + +What is a parish and what is its work? Look around the English +countryside and see. + +A parish, to begin with, is a “compact portion of the country, +designedly not too large that it may the more easily be managed by the +inhabitants with respect to its revenues and the police.” + +“The parishes build and repair houses, make roads, plant hedges and +trees, and in a word do all the business of a landlord.... A parish +has many heads to contrive what ought to be done. Instead of debating +about mending the state, ... (for ours needs no mending) we employ +our ingenuity nearer home, and the result of the debates are in every +parish, how we shall work such a mine, make such a river navigable, +drain such a fen, or improve such a waste. These things we are all +immediately interested in, and have each a vote in executing.” + +There is a rough, homespun quality about this utopia, and it needs +a visit to the English villages of the New Forest or the Chiltern +Hills, where some of the common lands have been kept, to see what a +rural utopia would be like if it could keep itself free from invaders +who sought to live off the fat of the land without contributing their +labor. Spence was not altogether blind to the necessity of keeping +watch over this constitution of equality; and he places his utopia in +the care of two guardian angels--Voting by Ballot and the Universal +Use of Arms--two angels which look less formidable and potent in the +twentieth century than they did in the first decade of the nineteenth, +when the first had still to be tried, and when the second was not +complicated by the invention of machine guns and poison gases. + +At the bottom of Spence’s Utopia, however, lies the conviction which he +shares with Plato and all the other genuine utopians; namely, that in +Thoreau’s words less is accomplished by the thousands who are hacking +at the branches of evil than by one who is striking at the root. +Spence, it must be remembered, wrote in the thick of the agitation +for parliamentary reform which was the keynote of so much nineteenth +century activity--the chartist movement, parliamentary socialism, and +the like, being so many rainbows in the bubble of political effort +which burst with such a bang when the Great War broke out. Spence saw +the futility of these superficial demands. He said: + +“Thousands of abortive schemes are daily proposed for redressing +grievances and mending the constitution, whereas, the shoes were so +ill-made at first, and so worn, rotten, and patched already, that +they are not worth the trouble or expense, but ought to be thrown +to the dunghill; and a new pair should be made, neat, tight, and +easy as for the foot of one that loves freedom and ease. Then would +your controversies about this and the other way of cobbling, that +continually agitate you, be done away; and you would walk along the +rugged and dirty path of life easy and dry-shod.” + + +3 + +The next utopia, Freeland, marks a transition between the utopia in +which the land alone is held by the community and that in which land +and capital and all the machinery of production belong to a national +state. + +The writer of this utopia was an Austrian economist, Theodor Hertzka; +and he first published his view in considerable detail, with reference +to current economic doctrines, in a book called Freeland: A Social +Anticipation. He condensed these doctrines in another book called A +Visit to Freeland, or the new Paradise Regained, an attempt to picture +his freeman’s commonwealth in action. + +These books formed the center of a whirlwind of agitation; a magazine +sprang up; societies were organized in various cities in Europe and +America; and a definite attempt was made to colonize a certain section +of Africa, selected by Hertzka; an attempt which, alas! met with speedy +failure as a result of the obtuseness and international jealousy of +various colonial officials. The first book was published in 1889; and +all this happened in the early nineties. Perhaps the only practical +effect of it was--and this is mere conjecture--to turn the thoughts +of certain Zionists, like Israel Zangwill, from establishing Zion in +Jerusalem to building it up again in some more suitable region in the +heart of Africa. + +Freeland may be described as an individualist Utopia on a social +foundation. Hertzka was filled with sympathy and admiration for the +doctrines that Adam Smith set forth in The Wealth of Nations; and he +desired to realize a society in which the maximum amount of individual +freedom and initiative would prevail, especially in industrial +enterprises. This leads to a paradox; namely, that in order to ensure +freedom it is impossible to practise laissez faire; for the effect of +laissez faire is to permit accidental aggregations of wealth and power +to threaten the freedom that less fortunate individuals seek to enjoy. +So far from being an anarchist utopia, Freeland is a co-operative +commonwealth in which the State acts as an interested party in the +production and distribution of goods. This differs from socialism in +name; and it differed from the practical socialist agitation of the +time in that it relied, not upon turning over established institutions +in Europe, but in turning over a new leaf in the Kenia Highlands of +Africa; but Hertzka’s “individualism” comes to almost the same thing. + + +4 + +A visit to Freeland teaches us little about the arts of social life or +the constitution of a good society. What we can learn is one of the +methods by which--on hypothesis anyway--the industrial mechanism might +be controlled. + +In Freeland there are five fundamental laws; and of these the first is +the most important; namely, that: + +Every inhabitant has an equal right to the common land and to the means +of production which are furnished by the state. + +The other fundamental laws have to do with the support of women and +children, old men, and those otherwise unfit to work, all of whom +have the right of maintenance, corresponding to the amount of credit +belonging to the state; with the provision of universal suffrage for +all above twenty-five years of age; and with the establishment of +independent legislative and executive branches of the government. + +Let us follow the visitor to Freeland as he makes his first +explorations in Edendale, its principal city, and learns how affairs +are conducted. If this is an individualist utopia it is not by any +means free from the services of a bureaucracy; for first of all the +visitor turns to the Central Statistical Office, where records are kept +of the occupations that are open and the amount of pay offered by each. +“Every inhabitant of Freeland,” our visitor finds, “has the right to +become a member of any business he pleases. One has only to present +oneself for this purpose; for the managers only decide upon the manner +in which the members are to be employed, and not on the membership +itself.” In practice, the number of individuals with private businesses +and partnerships seems to be limited, for big companies not merely +operate factories but provide restaurant service, build houses, and +even supply domestic service to private individuals and households. + +(The visitor has his boots blacked by one of these associated menials, +and his hostess explains how the services of a caterer and a valet may +be obtained by calling up a central distributing agency.) + +The sole condition upon which a person or company is allowed to engage +in business is that the public be kept informed of all business +transactions. “The companies are therefore obliged to conduct their +book-keeping openly. The prices at which goods are bought and sold, +the net profits and the number of workmen, must be communicated at +intervals which are fixed according to the judgment of the central +office.” + +Observe that Hertzka reckons with the fact that in an industrial +society, access to machinery is just as important as access to the +land, since, in a manner of speaking, all our modern activities, +even agriculture, are parasitic upon machinery. Hence the collection +and distribution of capital is managed in the interests of the whole +community; the first being taken care of by a yearly tax, which +obviates the need--and perhaps the possibility--of individual savings, +whilst the capital is distributed without interest to the companies +that make application for it. The community pays for the plant through +the added charge which is laid on consumers; the credit advanced is +cancelled out through production. This arrangement does away with the +standing charge for capital which is maintained under present day +production for profit even after the original capital has been paid +off in dividends; and above all, it does away with the practice of +capitalizing increased returns in such a way as to enlarge the amount +of the standing charge for capital. The social use of capital to +advance production, rather than to provide fixed incomes for a rentier +class, is recognized in Freeland. + +Since our visitor is an engineer, he turns to a plant devoted to the +manufacture of railway equipment; and notes that it is run under the +following statutes. + +1. Everyone is free to join the first Edendale Engine and Railway +Manufacturing Co., even if he also belongs to other companies. Everyone +is also permitted to leave the company whenever he chooses. The board +of management decides in what branch of the works the members shall be +employed. + +2. Every member is entitled to an amount of the net proceeds of the +company corresponding to the quantity of work which is done. + +3. The amount of work is calculated according to the number of hours, +to which two per cent. is added to that of the older members, and ten +per cent. to foremen, and ten per cent. for night work. + +4. The engineers are paid as if working from ten to fifteen hours, +according to ability. The value of the manager is estimated in the +general assembly. + +5. Out of the company’s profits a deduction is first made towards +repayment of capital, and after this the tax to the state is deducted. +The remainder is divided among members. + +6. If the company is dissolved or liquidated, the members are +responsible in proportion to the amount of profit which they get +from revenues of the company, and this responsibility for the amount +which is still pledged is proportionately laid upon new members. When +a member leaves the company, his responsibility for debt which has +already been contracted is not extinguished. In case of dissolution, +liquidation, or sale, this responsibility corresponds to the claim of +the responsible member to the means of the company which are in hand, +or to his share in what is sold. + +7. The principal judicial body of the company is the general assembly +in which every member has the same right to speak and exercise the +same active and passive right of choice. The general assembly makes +its determination by simply counting the majority of votes. A majority +of three quarters is necessary for changing the statutes and for a +dissolution or liquidation of the company. + +8. The general assembly practises its right either directly or by means +of chosen officials, who are answerable to it for their actions. + +9. The business of the society is managed by a directorate of three +members who hold office at the will of the general assembly. The +subordinate functionaries are chosen by the managers. + +10. The general assembly selects every year a committee of inspection +which consists of five members. This body has to control and make a +report upon the books and the manner in which the company is conducted. + +Now, as a member of the company, our visitor would have the amount he +has earned credited to him at a Central Bank, which keeps his accounts +and sends him an abstract every week; and through this bank he would +make the larger part of his disbursements. The products of the company, +moreover, are valued, stored, and sold by a Central Warehouse, in much +the same fashion that under the present regime a manufacturer’s whole +output may be disposed of through a big department store or a mail +order house. + +Let us now sum this up. The collection and disposition of capital +belongs to the community; and the total capital available for +further production each year is based directly upon the productive +capacities of the community, without the waste and leakage that arises +in present-day society though what Mr. Thorstein Veblen calls the +conspicuous waste--the futile expenditures--of the leisured classes. +That this collection of a capital tax upon income would be any more +difficult than the present corporation tax or private income tax, +which is now dissipated to the extent of some 90 per cent. or so upon +armies and navies, is seriously to be doubted. In addition to this, the +process of open book-keeping enables the Central Bank and the Central +Warehouse to have an accurate knowledge of potential production, and +thus there exists an accurate basis for apportioning credit. At the +same time the value of commodities comes by this means to have a direct +relation to the costs of production rather than to what the traffic +will bear. + +On all these heads the trained economist will doubtless have many +points to contest; but in their broad outlines there is no abrupt +departure from current practise in any of these items, and not much +reason, perhaps, why they should not be more thoroughly instituted. + +With the various ramifications of Edendale industry and corporate +finance it is not my business to deal; we have gone far enough to see +that very little indeed remains when the question of means has been +gone into. + +The chief good that Freeland seems to offer is freedom in industrial +enterprise. An association of men can get land and capital on demand, +and devote themselves to either agriculture or manufacturing industry; +and the risk of failure is minimized by a complete knowledge of the +probable demand and probable supply calculated by the statistical +bureau. Failing an outlet for industry through association, there +remains the land itself, for individual cultivation. “Every family in +Freeland dwells in its own house, and every house is surrounded by its +great garden, a thousand square meters in extent. These houses are the +private property of the inhabitants, and serve, like the gardens, for +private use. The inhabitants of Freeland do not, as a rule, recognize +any kind of ownership of land; they rather go upon the principle that +the land must be put in everyone’s hands to do with what he chooses. +This, in the most literal and wide sense of the word, means that every +inhabitant of Freeland can cultivate every piece of land whenever he +pleases. But this only relates to the land which is set apart for +cultivation, and not that set apart for living upon.... The inhabitants +of Freeland have agreed, with regard to the size and disposition +of the land, serving for the creation of a dwelling house, to form +regulations, and a kind of building court ... which has to determine +what ground is and what is not to be built upon, parcels out the land +for building, sees to the laying out of streets, canals, and the like, +and especially takes care that not more than one building is erected +upon one building allotment.” + + +5 + + +What sort of life arises out of this kind of industrial association, +these provisions for the common use of machinery and land? It is all +rather dry and colorless, a sort of picture postcard view of the +Promised Land. + +We are told that there are a great number of public buildings in +Edendale--an administrative palace, the Central bank, the University, +the Academy of Arts, three Public Libraries, four Theaters, the grand +central goods warehouse, a great number of schools and other buildings. +In addition, extraordinary means are taken to provide for public +cleanliness, and the aqueducts in Edendale--we seem to be reading a +Chamber of Commerce report!--are “almost without any equal in the +world,” moreover, “they are being extended daily.” The refuse is +cleaned away by a system of pneumatic sucking apparatus. The streets +are entirely macadamized. Electric tramways cross them in every +direction and bind the suburbs to the town. Such glimpses as we get of +Edendale remind us, in fact, of a go-ahead city in California or South +Africa. The utopia of Freeland is progressive enough in all conscience; +for many of these mechanical devices were only vague anticipations in +1889; but it is progressive in a mechanical sense; and when we examine +it carefully, people seem to live the same sort of life here as they do +in a “modern” European or American city. + +There are differences, of course; and I do not seek to minimize their +importance: the slum proletariat has been abolished; everyone belongs +to the middle class and enjoys the felicities of a high-grade clerk +or an engineer or minor official. This is the peculiarity of our +nineteenth century utopians: they do not so much criticize the goods +of their times as demand more of them! Buckingham and Hertzka, though +they differ in details, wish to extend middle class values throughout +society--comfort and security and a plenitude of soap and sanitation. +Even when the means they propose are revolutionary, the institutions +they would erect are conceived very much in the image of current use +and wont, and are unspeakably tame. + +As we pass from Hertzka to Bellamy these facts glare insistently at +us. The slight air of tedium that I have not been able to disguise +in dealing with these utopias arises, I believe, from our excessive +familiarity with their contents. Our nineteenth century utopias, if +we except those of Fourier and Spence and a few more distinguished +ones which we shall presently come to, do not dream of a renovated +world: they keep on adding inventions to the present one. These utopias +become vast reticulations of steel and red-tape, until we feel that we +are caught in the Nightmare of the Age of Machinery; and shall never +escape. If this characterization seem unjust, I beg the reader to +compare the utopias before Bacon with the utopias after Fourier, and +find out how little human significance remains in the post-eighteenth +century utopia when the machinery for supporting the good life is +blotted out. These utopias are all machinery: the means has become the +end, and the genuine problem of ends has been forgotten. + + + + +CHAPTER EIGHT + + How Étienne Cabet dreamed of a new Napoleon called Icar, and + a new France called Icaria; and how his utopia, with that + which Edward Bellamy shows us in Looking Backward, gives us + a hint of what machinery might bring us to if the industrial + organization were nationalized. + + + + +CHAPTER EIGHT + + +1 + +Étienne Cabet opened his eyes upon the year that preceded the meeting +of the National Assembly in 1788, and closed them upon the Empire of +Napoleon III. + +It would be foolish to give an account of Cabet’s Voyage en Icarie +without noting these facts; for the reason that Cabet’s most +impressionable years were drenched with the flamboyant light of the +Napoleonic conquests and the Napoleonic tradition which remained as an +afterglow when the conquests themselves had fallen below the horizon. +The spectacle of a nationalized church and a nationalized system of +education, extending their ministrations to the smallest commune +through a vast system of bureaucracy, must have given a solidity to his +dreams which the interruption of the first Napoleon’s personal downfall +could only have reinforced. + +To understand why the Journey to Icaria, as we may call it, should +have been one of the best sellers among workingmen in 1845, and to see +why Louis Blanc should have attempted to set up an organization of +National Workshops in 1848, one must realize the historic momentum of +Napoleon’s dictatorship. Cabet consciously or unconsciously idealized +the Napoleonic tradition; and in Icaria he consummated it. That Cabet’s +futile will-to-power should have led him, under the inspiration of +Owen, to the swamps of Missouri as the leader of a little band of +communist pioneers is an ironic twist of circumstance: his Icaria was +a national state, with all its pomp and dignity and splendor, and not +a squalid collection of huts in the midst of a dreary prairie. Cabet +died in America, as much perhaps from an outraged sense of dignity as +from any physical disease, and nothing came of his utopia until Edward +Bellamy gave it a fresh outline in Looking Backward. + + +2 + +With the romantic element in the Journey to Icaria--the English lord +and the Icarian family he visits, and the various friendships and love +affairs that are outlined in its pages--I purpose to have nothing to +do. These things add an element of complication to Cabet’s picture +without doing very much to illuminate it. + +Icaria is a country divided into a hundred provinces almost equal +in extent and almost the same in population. These provinces are in +turn divided into ten communes, which are likewise almost equal, +and the provincial capital is in the center of the province, whilst +each communal city is the center of the commune. The elegance and +precision of the decimal system has overlaid the facts of geography +and as one looks over the map of the imaginary country one recalls +the way in which the French revolution divided France into arbitrary +administrative areas called departments, upsetting those ancient +regional groupings which corresponded, roughly, with the natural units +of soil, climate, population, and historic continuity. + +In the midst of Icaria is the city of Icara. Icara is a reconstructed +Paris, built on a reconstructed Seine. It is almost circular, cut +into two equal parts by a river whose banks have been straightened +and enclosed in two straight walls; and the bed has been deepened to +receive ocean vessels. In the middle of the city the river divides +into two arms, which form a rather big circular island--though the +islands formed naturally by the division of a river are inevitably +not circular!--and here is the civic center, planted with trees, in +the midst of which stands a palace. There is a superb garden elevated +on a terrace; in the center, a vast column surmounted by a colossal +statue that dominates all the buildings. On each side of the river +is a big quay, bordered by public offices. The effect is indubitably +metropolitan. + +The city is divided into quarters: Icara has sixty communes of almost +equal size. In each quarter is a school, a hospital, a temple, shops, +public places, and monuments. The streets are straight and wide, the +city being traversed by fifty avenues parallel to the river and fifty +perpendicular to it. How it is possible to reconcile this street plan +with a circular city I have no notion; and Cabet apparently did not +take the trouble to cast his verbal specifications into a definite +picture or plan. Each block has fifteen houses on each side, with a +public building in the middle, and one at each end; and between the +rows of houses are gardens which the inhabitants of Icaria, like +those of Utopia, have a great pride in keeping up. The blocks are +arranged around squares, very much like those of Belgravia and Mayfair +in London; but the gardens are public ones and are cared for by the +inhabitants. + +The Icarian villages are almost as metropolitan as the principal city +itself. One notes a great preoccupation with hygienic conveniences and +sanitary regulations. There are dust collectors of special model; the +sidewalks are covered with glass against rain; and the stations for +omnibuses are also covered. The streets are well-lighted and paved. +Stables, slaughter houses, and hospitals are on the outskirts of the +village. The factories and warehouses are on the railway lines and +canals, and half the streets are closed to all traffic except dog-carts. + +In sum, Icaria enjoys a highly sophisticated and metropolitan form of +life. Everything has been “arranged,” everything has been “attended +to.” There are no upsetting complications and diversities. Even the +weather has been disposed of. Nothing short of a very powerful and +persistent organization could have accomplished these things. What is +this organization? + + +3 + +In the beginning was Icar, the dictator who established the government +of Icaria, and out of Icar there sprang a number of bureaux, +departments, and committees. Let us follow a typical Icarian through +his day, and examine the institutions he comes in contact with. + +Our Icarian is an early riser by necessity, for at 6 A. M. breakfast is +served in a restaurant or factory. It is not a capricious breakfast; +it is such a breakfast, perhaps, as the guardians of Battle Creek, +Michigan, dream of. The food that is served in Icaria is regulated by +a committee of scientists; and while everybody has all that is good +for him, precisely what is good and in what amounts, someone else has +decided in advance. So it is at present in our armies and navies, +and to some extent in our cheap lunchrooms, the difference being that +there remains, outside Icaria, the possibility of breaking away from +the routine and following caprice and appetite without respect for the +committee of dietitians. + +When our Icarian has breakfasted, he goes to his work, seven hours +in summer, six in winter. He works the same number of hours as every +other Icarian, and whether he works in the field or the workshop, the +products of his industry are deposited in public stores. Who is his +employer? The State. Who owns all the instruments of production and +service, down to the horses and carriages? The State. Who organizes the +workers? The State. Who constructs the stores and factories, attends +to the cultivation of the ground, has houses built, and makes all the +things necessary for clothing, lodging, and transport? The same. In +theory, the public is the sole proprietor and director of industry; in +practice--Cabet doesn’t tell us otherwise and it necessarily follows in +a system of national industry--a body of engineers and officials have +taken over the dictatorship of Icar and are running the affairs of the +community. + +How familiar this Icaria seems to us. Utopia--_c’est la guerre_! + +When he is through with his work, our Icarian possibly changes his +clothes. Exactly what clothes are necessary, and what are permissible +has already been prescribed by a committee on clothes; which comes to +saying that every Icarian’s dress is a uniform, even as every Icarian +is an official of the State. Eating, working, dressing, sleeping--there +is no getting away from State regulations. The uniformity that irks +us in modern life and that makes people who have some remnant of free +initiative in their makeup chafe in the civil service, to say nothing +of the army, is extended to the last degree in Icaria. Napoleon’s +conception of a nation in arms is dominant; only now it is a nation in +overalls. + +Our Icarian’s father and mother were married after a six-month interval +of courtship. Since they took advantage of the institution at the +earliest moment permitted by law, he was twenty and she was eighteen. +By education, they had been taught to look upon conjugal fidelity as a +desideratum; and they realized that concubinage and adultery would be +looked upon as crimes by public opinion, even if these crimes were not +punished by law. Before our Icarian was born his mother received public +instruction on maternity. + +Up to the age of five our Icarian’s education was domestic; but from +the fifth to the seventeenth or eighteenth year, domestic instruction +was combined with intellectual and moral education, under a program +laid down by a committee which had consulted all systems of education, +ancient and modern. His general or elementary education was the same as +that of every other Icarian; but at seventeen for girls and eighteen +for men, his professional education began. + +The only industries or professions open to our Icarians were those +recognized and sanctioned by the State; and every year a list is +published telling the number of workers needed in each profession. The +number of workers, in turn, is determined by a committee on industry, +which plans the amount of goods that must be produced during the coming +year. Our Icarian begins work at eighteen, his sister at seventeen; +and he is exempt from work at sixty-five, while she would be exempt at +fifty. The republic, I may note parenthetically, asks from each commune +the sort of industrial and agricultural production which goes best +with its natural resources; delivering its surplus production to other +communes and giving it, in turn, what it may lack. + +Cabet describes all these institutions in the minutest fashion, down +to the noiseless window with which each Icarian’s house is equipt; but +the broad outlines of the industrial and social system are contained +in this picture. What we see is a National State, abundantly organized +for war, and remaining on that footing in the midst of its peace-time +activities. What is not of national importance, in this scheme of +things, is of no importance; and the people who decide what is or is +not of national importance are the officeholders--I find it difficult +to discover a utopian equivalent for this word or to fancy any great +improvement in utopia--in the capital. + +The political activities that regulate these Icarian institutions +do not greatly reassure us. From each of the thousand communes two +deputies are chosen to hold office for two years: this constitutes +the national representation. The basis of this system is the +communal assembly; and from this communal assembly the provincial +representatives are drawn. The national executive consists of sixteen +members, each with a special department; and it is plain that here is +the seat of power; for exactly what business remains in the hands of +the two thousand legislators when the food committee has determined +the amount and variety of food, the industrial committee the quantity +and kind of manufactured products, and the educational committee the +methods, subjects, and aims of education, it is a little hard to +determine. + +There are no newspapers and no means of organized criticism, except +the right of submitting propositions to the popular assemblies. The +only thing resembling public opinion is the collective opinion of +these assemblies. The newspapers are published by the government, one +for the nation, one for the province, and one for the commune; and +they are devoted solely to the presentation of news, divorced from +opinion. For this kind of political system, and for all the power that +it might presume to wield, there is a word in philosophy which has +no substitute--epiphenomenon. The popular system of representation +in Icaria is but a shadow of that dictatorial power which was first +wielded by Icar and was in turn transmitted to the committees and +bureaux. + +If I have been criticizing Icaria in terms of the last century of +political experience, I can only plead that it is because Icaria is so +little like Utopia and so much like the actual order of things. It must +be prepared to stand fire as a _fait accompli_: indeed, in the early +days of the second Russian revolution it came near to being a _fait +accompli_--there was more of Cabet than of Marx perhaps in embryonic +Soviet Russia! Icaria is essentially not an ideal but an idealization; +and it is in order to keep the two from being confused that I have +emphasized its little weaknesses. What is good in Icaria is what is +good in the institution of an army; what is bad is what is bad in the +execution of a war. If the good life could be perpetrated by a junta +of busybodies, as Plato would call them, Icaria would be a model +community. + + +4 + +Looking backward into the future: that was the paradox by which a +young New England romancer, Edward Bellamy, concerned like Thoreau and +Emerson and the rest of the great Concord school with the well-being +of his community, descended from literature to sociology; and stirred +the minds of thousands of people in America in much the same fashion +that Theodor Hertzka, writing at the same time, stirred his European +contemporaries. Having begun to romanticize about reality, Bellamy +during the decade that followed the publication of Looking Backward, +devoted himself to realizing his romance. In a later work, Equality, +he set forth his picture of the New Society of the year 2000 in much +greater detail; just as if the popularity of his first work committed +him to take up seriously the tasks of the economist and the statesman. + +The chief pleasure, nowadays, in both of these books is the familiar +one of recognition; for if Bellamy did not portray a better future he +at any rate, like Mr. H. G. Wells, in his early romances, outlined +many parts of a future that has for us, in the twentieth century, +become an actuality; a fact which makes us realize very poignantly +the limitations of his utopia. In spite of a thin-lipped style, +Bellamy handles his story in a neat, workmanlike way, with a certain +plausibility and familiarity which doubtless explains the fact that it +can still be found, without any difficulty, on the fiction shelves of +our circulating public libraries. + +The preface to Looking Backward is dated: “Historical Section Shawmut +College, Boston, December 26, 2000.” In that preface the work is +presented as an avowed romance which will enable the readers of 2000 +to realize the gaps that separate them from their ancestors, and to +value the prodigious “moral and material” transformation that has taken +place in a few generations. Julius West is a person whom our Shawmut +historian invents, to bridge the gap between the two eras. Julius West, +a young man of wealth, sensitive to the ignominy of his position, and +feeling that, as a “rich man living among the poor, an educated man +among the uneducated,” he “was like one living in isolation among a +jealous and alien race.” In order to overcome his insomnia West sleeps +in a vaulted room in the foundations of his house, and gets put to +sleep by a hypnotist; and so by a dramatic oversight he hibernates for +113 years, and awakens among strange faces. Needless to say, West has +a love affair in the old world which is carried on in the new, through +a descendant of the girl he meant to marry; and it is equally needless +to observe that he reawakens to the world of 1887 as soon as the +institutions of 2000 have been described and the love affair has been +resolved. + +Let us take West’s muzziness, his amazement, and his sense of isolation +for granted, and follow him as he explores his new environment. + + +5 + +If Plato cavalierly disposes of the labor problem of the Republic by +permitting things to remain pretty much as they were, Bellamy makes +the solution of labor organization and the distribution of wealth the +key to every other institution in his utopia. + +In the United States of 1887 the growing organization of labor and the +aggregation of capital into trusts were the two chief economic factors: +Dr. Leete, Julius West’s host, pictures how this aggregation and +combination were continued until, by a mere shift of gears, “the epoch +of trusts had ended in The Great Trust.” In a word, “the people of the +United States concluded to assume the conduct of their own business, +just as one hundred years before they had assumed the conduct of their +own government, organizing now for industrial purposes on precisely the +same grounds that they had organized for political purposes.” Was there +any violence in this transition? Ah no! everything had been prepared +beforehand by public opinion, the great corporations had gradually +trained everybody into an acceptance of large-scale organization, and +the final step of merging all the big corporations into a national +corporation occurred without a jar. With the assumption by the nation +of the mills, machinery, railroads, farms, mines, and capital in +general, all the difficulties of labor vanished, for every citizen +became by virtue of his citizenship an employee of the government, and +was distributed according to the needs of industry. + +In 2000 “the labor army” is not a figure of speech: it is an army +indeed, for the nation is a single industrial unit, and the principle +upon which the working force is recruited is universal compulsory +industrial service. After a man’s education has been completed in the +common school system, which extends straight through college, he must +first serve a term of three years in an unclassified labor army, which +performs all the rough and menial tasks of the community. When this +period is over, he is permitted to offer himself as a recruit in any of +the trades or professions which may be declared open by the government, +and can train for his calling up to the age of thirty, in the national +schools and institutes. In order to attract people into occupations +where they are needed, the hours are reduced and, for the dangerous +trades, volunteers are called for. There are however no discriminations +in pay. Every person is credited with a sum of four thousand dollars +per annum at the National Bank, a sum which he receives because of his +needs as a man and not because of his capacity as a worker. Instead +of being rewarded for giving the full measure of his energies and +abilities, a man is penalized if he fails to do so. It is possible +to shift from one branch of the service to another, under certain +restrictions, even as in the navy one can change one’s rating and +apply for service on a different ship or station, but except for the +possibility of retiring on a half-income at the age of thirty-three, +everyone must remain at work until he is forty-five. + +To this rule there is one exception; and we may note ironically that +it is made in favor of the writer’s guild. If a man produces a book he +may name his own royalties, and live as long from this income as the +sale will allow; and if he wishes to start a newspaper or a magazine, +and can get credit from a sufficient number of other people to support +his enterprise, there is nothing to prevent him from remitting service +to the amount his guarantors are ready to deduct from their personal +income. In other words, a man must “either by literary, artistic, +or inventive productiveness indemnify the nation for the loss of his +services, or must get a sufficient number of people to contribute to +such an indemnity.” This is the one open hole in our militarized, +industrial utopia; and I think it is the most acceptable feature in the +whole system. A community organized as a single unit, directed by a +general staff at Washington, and perpetually exhibiting a herd complex +which every institution would naturally reinforce, might not be a very +genial shelter for the soul of an artist; but if it were, this means of +support would doubtless be fair and excellent for the encouragement of +the arts. + +To go back to our army. The entire field of production and distribution +is divided into ten great departments, each representing a group of +allied industries; and each particular industry is in turn represented +by a subordinate bureau, which has a complete record of the plant and +the force under its control, of the present product, and of the means +of increasing it. The estimates of the distributive department, after +adoption by the administration, are sent as mandates to the ten great +departments, which allot them to the subordinate bureaux, representing +the particular industries, and these set the men at work.... “After the +necessary contingents have been detailed for the various industries, +the amount of labor left for other employment is expended in creating +fixed capital, such as buildings, machinery, engineering works, and so +forth.” + +In order to safeguard the consumer from the caprices of the +administration, a new article must be produced as soon as a certain +guaranteed demand for it has been established by popular petition, +whilst an old article must be continued to be produced as long as +there are customers for it, provision being made that the price rise in +accordance with the greater cost of production per unit. + +Now the general of this industrial army is the president of the United +States. He is chosen from among the corps commanders; and it is +provided that every officer in the army, from the president down to +the sergeant, must work his way up from the grade of common laborer. +The chief peculiarity of this system consists in the way in which the +voting is done. The voters are all honorary members of the guild to +which they belong; that is, men who are over forty-five years old; +this applies not merely to the ten lieutenant generals, but to the +commander-in-chief, who is not eligible for the presidency until he +has been a certain number of years out of office. The president is +elected by vote of all the men of the nation who are not connected +with the industrial army; for any other method, Bellamy thinks, +would be prejudicial to discipline. There are various names for this +practice: one of them is gerontocracy, or government by the aged; and +another, more familiar, is “alumni control.” When we recollect that +the hardships of military service look rather mild and pleasant to +the man who has been mustered out, I doubt if the youngsters in the +industrial army would stand much chance of having their lot improved +if the initiative for a change had to come from the alumni. Yet we +know what even the formation of a worker’s shop committee would be +in an industrial army: it would be mutiny. As for criticism of the +administration, that would be treason; admiration for the practices of +another country would be disloyalty; and advocacy of a change in the +method of industry would be sedition. + +True: corruption and bribe-taking and all the dirty scandals that +we associate today with a financial oligarchy would be wiped out +in utopia; but this merely means that the defects of the old order +would disappear along with its virtues. What would remain would be +the defects that arise when a nation is in arms, and when there is +no escape, by travel or mental withdrawal, from its institutions; in +short, the defects of a state of war. To call this a peaceful community +is absurd: one might as well call a battleship a pleasure-craft because +a modern one possesses a band and shows motion pictures to the crew. +The organization of this utopia is an organization for war; and the +one rule that such a community would not tolerate is “live and let +live.” If this is the peace that “industrial preparedness” ensures it +is scarcely worth having. Any community that liked this state of life +would scarcely need the constant exhortation of the recruiting sergeant +or the final compulsion of a conscription act. + + +6 + +The great part of Looking Backward is a discussion of this perfected +form of industrial organization; the manner in which it is worked; +and the effects of complete economic equality in doing away with the +necessity for the greater part of the legal machinery of the present +day, since crimes with an economic motive would almost, according to +Bellamy, be unthinkable. Here and there however we have glimpses of the +social life of this new age. + +First of all, there floats before our eyes the picture of a vast body +of superannuated persons, who for the most part spend their time in +a sort of country-club existence. They can travel, because the other +countries in the world are likewise nationalized, and by a simple +system of book-keeping foreign credit for goods and personal services +can be transferred from one country to another; and they can take up +special vocations and hobbies during their superannuated years; but +it is equally plain that their work has not done very much to foster +intellectual or emotional maturity, since in relation to the citizens +the state exists as a “Great White Father”; and there is good reason +perhaps for the great interest in sport which characterizes Bellamy’s +utopia. Games are organized, apparently, upon lines of industrial guild +rivalry; just as one has sports nowadays between rival battleship +squadrons perhaps; for “if bread is the first necessity of life, +recreation is a second, and the nation caters for both.” The demand +for bread and circuses, our guide explains, is recognized in the year +2000 as a wholly reasonable one. Both work and play are external to the +citizen’s inner trends and interests; and we should not be surprised +if an infantile element predominated in the character of this happy +republic. + +This externalism, this impersonality, seems to characterize the whole +scene. We follow Julius West and his new love, Edith, into a modern +shop, where everything is displayed by sample, and an order for goods +is sent to a central warehouse, and along with undoubted economies +of space and time, we note that there is an almost complete absence +of personal contacts or relationships: more than ever the worker has +become a cog in the machine, more than ever he deals with a thin, +barren, abstract world of paper notations, more than ever his desire +for social contacts is dammed up; and so, more than ever, there must be +occasion in this new age for stimulants and socialities beside which +the roller coasters of Coney Island and the promiscuities of a modern +dance hall would be insipid things. Bellamy does not show us what these +compensatory institutions would be: but he has invented a high-powered +engine of repression, and he does not fool us when he conceals the +safety-valve. Unless there is a safety-valve his universal army, under +a rigorous discipline for twenty-four years, is bound to blow up the +works. We can guess when we read the cheap illustrated papers, when we +go to the movies, when we watch the behavior of the crowds on Broadway, +what this twenty-first century Utopia would be like--it would be all +that a modern city is, exaggerated. In The New Society, Dr. Walter +Rathenau drew a picture of a socialized modern society, moving along +its present path without any change in its aims and ideals; and that +nightmare of his must be added to Bellamy’s dream in order to define it. + +It is the same with every other institution. There is a big communal +restaurant in which each family of the neighborhood has a private room; +this is the place where the principal meal is ordered by the family, +and served by young conscript waiters. Am I at fault if I point out +that this universal hostelry is a little too elaborate and mechanical; +that there is more promise of a genuine utopia in Plato’s olives and +cheese and beans, simply served, than in the “perfection of catering +and cooking” which the new age boasts. So one could go down the line +and enumerate the mechanical marvels which take the place of a fully +humanized life; marvels like the telephone concerts and sermons which +astoundingly anticipate by thirty-odd years the radio broadcasting +service which is now a prevalent mania in America. Are these things, as +Aristotle would have said, the material bases of the good life, or are +they substitutes for the good life? There may have been some doubt as +to the answer in Bellamy’s time; but I think there need not be any at +present. In so far as these instruments are consonant with humanized +purposes they are good; in so far as they are irrelevant they are so +much rubbish--idiotic rubbish. A free public library is a good thing; +but a free public library devoted exclusively to distributing the +novels of Gene Stratton Porter and the uplift books of Mr. Orison Swett +Marden would not contribute so much as a useful platitude towards a +vivid and stimulating society. + +There is no escaping the problem of ends and the problem of ends, if +I may be permitted a pun, belongs at the beginning. Subordinate to +humanized ends, machinery and organization--yes, complicated machinery +and organization--have undoubtedly a useful contribution to make +towards a good community; unsubordinated, or subordinated only to +the engineer’s conceptions of an efficient industrial equipment and +personnel, the most innocent machine may be as humanly devastating +as a Lewis gun. All this Bellamy overlooked in Looking Backward, and +yet--something remains. + +What remains in Looking Backward is the honest passion that inspired +the man; the play of generous impulses; the insistence that there +is no fun for an ordinarily imaginative person in dining with Dives +whilst Lazarus hangs around the table. Bellamy wanted everyone to +be equally educated, so that everyone might be his companion; he +wanted everyone to be decently fed and sheltered; he wanted to take +his share in the dirty work and to see that accidents of wealth did +not keep other people from taking theirs. He wanted private life to +be simple and public life to be splendid. He wanted men and women +to mate with each other without permitting this relationship to be +compromised by obligations to a father, a mother, or the butcher, +the baker, and the grocer. He wanted the generous, the just, and the +tender-hearted to be as well endowed as the cold-hearted, the greedy, +and the self-seeking. He pleaded for an absence of artificiality and +restraint in the relations of the sexes; for such a candor as has +perhaps come into fashion again--thank heaven!--today, a candor which +permits women physical freedom in dress, and a spiritual freedom in +exhibiting their love, and giving it freely. All this is to the good. +I do not question Bellamy’s fine motives; I question only the outlets +he imagined for them. There is a breach between Bellamy’s conception of +the good life and the structure he erected to shelter it. This breach +is due, I believe, to an over-emphasis of the part that wholesale +mechanical organization, directed by a handful of people, would play +in such a reconstruction. If Bellamy sometimes exaggerated the bad in +modern society, with its muddle of competitive privileges, he likewise +overestimated the good that it contained; and he was more than fair to +the present order of things when he made the future so closely in its +image. + + + + +CHAPTER NINE + + How William Morris and W. H. Hudson renew the classic tradition + of utopias; and how, finally, Mr. H. G. Wells sums up and + clarifies the utopias of the past, and brings them into + contact with the world of the present. + + + + +CHAPTER NINE + + +1 + +It would be a pretty sad thing if the Utopias of the nineteenth century +were all of a piece with those of Buckingham and Bellamy. In general we +may say that all the utopias of reconstruction had a deadly sameness +of purpose and a depressing singleness of interest; and although they +saw society whole, they saw the problem of reconstructing society +as a simple problem of industrial reorganization. Fortunately, the +utopias of escape have something to contribute which the utopias of +reconstruction lack; and if William Morris, for example, seems too +remote from Manchester and Minneapolis to be of any use, he is by that +token a little nearer the essential human realities: he knows that +the chief dignity of man lies not in what he consumes but in what he +creates, and that the Manchester ideal is--devastatingly consumptive. + +Before I go into these utopias of escape, I wish to point out the +strange way in which the three utopias we shall examine return as +it were upon their classic models, each of the returns being, it is +fairly plain, without the consciousness of the writer. Mr. W. H. Hudson +returns upon More; and in A Crystal Age the farmstead and the family +is the ultimate unit of social life. In News from Nowhere the city of +workers, such as Andreæ dreamed of, comes again into being; and in +A Modern Utopia, with its order of Samurai, we are ruled once more +by a highly disciplined class of Platonic guardians. Mr. Hudson is a +naturalist with a deep sympathy for the rural life of England; William +Morris was a craftsman who knew what the English town was like before +it had been blighted by industrialism; and with both of these men we +feel close to the essential life of man and the essential occupations. + + +2 + +As the clouded vision of the traveller to the Crystal Age clears, he +finds himself received in a great Country House, which is inhabited +by a large group of men and women who till the land and perform the +simple operations of weaving and stonecutting and the like. All over +the world, one gathers, these great country houses dot the landscape. +Each of them is no weekend center of social life but a permanent home; +indeed their permanence is almost past believing; for in each house +traditions are carried back thousands of years. The great cities and +the complicated metropolitan customs that they produced have long been +wiped away, as one might wipe away mold. The world has been stabilized; +the itch for getting and spending has disappeared. Our traveller must +bind himself to work for a whole year in order to pay for the garments +his house-mates weave for him, garments whose texture and cut have a +classic turn. + +This household, I say, is the social unit of the Crystal Age: the +house-father administers the laws and customs, and he dispenses the +punishment of seclusion when the visitor trespasses upon the code of +the house. The house-mates work together, eat together, play together, +and listen together to the music of a mechanical instrument called +the musical sphere. At night they sleep in separate little cubicles +which can be opened to the night air. The horses and dogs of the +Crystal Age have a degree of intelligence which our common breeds do +not possess, so that the horses all but harness themselves to the +plow, and the dog teaches the traveller when to leave off working the +animals. Each household has not merely its laws and traditions: it has +its literature; its written history; and the very girl with whom the +traveller falls in love bears a resemblance to the sculptured face of +an unhappy house-mother who lived and suffered in the immemorial past. +These houses, these families, these social relations are built for +endurance. What is the secret of their strength? + +The secret of our Crystal Age Utopia is the secret of the beehive: a +queen bee. The Crystallites have done away with the difficulties of +mating by appointing one woman, in every house, to be the house-mother, +the woman whose capital duty is to carry on the family: the entire +burden of each generation falls upon her shoulders, and in return for +the sacrifice she is treated with the respect due to divinity, like +the young man who was chosen in the Kingdom of Montezuma, as the tales +have it, to represent the chief deity until at the end of a year he +was disembowelled. The wish of a house-mother is a command; the word +of the house-mother is law. For a year before her retirement as mother +she is put into communion with the sacred books of the house, and has +at her command a store of knowledge which the rest of the hive are not +permitted to share. It is she who keeps burning the fires of life. + +For all except the house-mother sex is a matter of purely physical +appearance. The Crystallites, if we may speak irreverently, are +“content with a vegetable love--which would certainly not suit me” +nor, it appears, did it suit our traveller to the Crystal Age, when he +discovers that his passion could never be reciprocated by his beloved, +even if she so far transgressed the laws of the household as to give +way to him. Against the appearance of passion and all the mortal +griefs that it carries with it, the house-mother possesses a remedy. +When in the murk of despair our traveller turns to her for advice and +consolation, she gives him a phial of liquid. He drinks it in the +belief that it will make him as free from passion as his house-mates; +and he is not deceived; for--he dies. + +The social life of the household is not to be wrecked by the storms +and stresses of the individual’s passions. The engines of life are no +longer dangerous: the fuel has been taken away! A “chill moonlight +felicity” is all that remains. + + +3 + +There are times when one may look upon the whole adventure of civilized +life as a sort of Odyssey of domestication; and in this mood the +Crystal Age marks a terminus upon that particular aspect of the +adventure. To the objection that this sort of utopia requires that we +change human nature, the answer, in terms of modern biology, is that +there is no apparent scientific reason why certain elements in human +nature should not be selected and brought to the front, or why certain +others should not be reduced in importance and eliminated. So, for +all practical purposes, there is no apparent reason why human nature +should not be changed, or why we should not be prepared to believe +that in times past it has been changed--communities which selectively +bred for pugnacity and aggression committing suicide and opening the +way for communities which socially selected other traits that made +for survival. It is possible that in times past man has done a great +deal to domesticate himself and fit himself for harmonious social +life; and a utopia which rests upon the notion that there should be a +certain direction in our breeding is not altogether luny; indeed, is +nowadays less so than ever before, for the reason that it is possible +to separate romantic love from physical procreation without, as the +Athenians did, resorting to homosexuality. + +If A Crystal Age opens our minds to these possibilities it is not to +be counted purely as a romance; in spite of the fact that as a romance +it has passages that rival Green Mansions. Between the individual +households and common marriages, the utopia of the beehive is a third +alternative which possibly remains to be explored. + + +4 + +There are regions in the world--I am thinking perhaps of the table +land of South Africa and the Mississippi Valley--where if one dreamed +about utopia the apparatus to support it would be a gigantic network +of steel, and huge communities of people would naturally flow together +and coalesce in complicated patterns, somewhat after the fashion of +those which Mr. H. G. Wells describes in When the Sleeper Awakens. It +would be almost impossible, I fancy, to dream of a simple life and of +handfuls of people in those parts of the earth: the simplicity would +be barrenness, and a handful of people would be lost. + +It is different with the valley of the Thames, that little stream which +begins a short way above Oxford and meanders between banks of lush +grass and bending willows, down through Marlow, where musty ales have +long been made, past Windsor between the Great Park and the Chiltern +Hills, through Richmond and so down to Hammersmith where one might +perhaps ford the river at low tide if an iron bridge did not carry one +across, till below the city of London the estuary becomes a wide tide +of water and expands proudly to meet the sea. Nature has carved this +valley to the human scale: the houses are not dwarfed by the landscape; +and except for the huge warren of London--for which nature is not +responsible--there is a fitness between the actor and the scene which, +without offering any great Olympian moments, gives the naïve and jolly +and whole-hearted effect that one finds in a good English hunting print +or, let us say, in Pickwick Papers. In such an atmosphere, particularly +as one thinks of it on a day late in June, human nature bubbles +naturally into good nature, and whatever harshness remains, a tankard +of ale will drain away. + +It is in this valley of the Thames that William Morris awoke to find +his utopia, after returning to his home in Hammersmith, the last really +urban borough of London as one goes upstream. From that landscape, +sweetened and freshened and ridden of cockney landmarks, Morris evokes +the spirit of the River God, as Socrates and Phædrus, by the banks of +the Ilyssus, call forth the spirit of Pan. + +With all the grime and tedium of the dull ’eighties lying upon his +soul, Morris finds himself transported to a world which has been +cleansed by a revolution of a greater part of the nineteenth century +landmarks. In the meanwhile, grass has laid a decent blanket over many +irretrievable ruins. The house in which he has gone to bed is now a +Guest House; and he is first received into this refurbished world by +a boatman who takes him for a morning swim on the Thames, and knows +about the value of money only as a collector of copper curios might. At +breakfast, he finds himself among a group of friendly people, who call +him “Guest”; and he is taken firmly and sweetly and quite serenely in +hand by the comely young women who preside over the house. These women, +like everyone else in the new Thames valley, are healthy, full-blooded, +athletic, sane, and free from the puling maladies which idleness or +overwork gave to the women of the nineteenth century. The other guests +are a weaver who has come down from the north to take a turn at the +boatman’s job while the latter goes up towards Oxford to help gather in +the hay, and a loquacious dustman in marvellous greens and golds. + +In this new England, work has become what one would call in the +kindergarten “busy work”: in the simplification of the standard of +living and the release from the pressure of artificially stimulated +wants, the main business of getting a living is easily performed, +and the chief concern of everyone is to do his work under the +pleasantest conditions possible--a demand which brings back many of +the handicrafts, and places a great premium on manual skill. Although +the mechanical arts have been improved in certain directions, for in +his trip up the Thames our guest meets with a barge driven by some +internal engine, let us say by electricity, a good many devices have +been allowed to fall into disuse, because, although the output in goods +might be greater, the work itself and the way of life it promotes +are not so beneficial as the simple methods of hand labor. In every +direction, simplicity and direct action and the immediate supply and +interchange of goods out of local produce, has taken the place of +the monstrously complicated system of traffic that prevailed in the +earlier imperialistic world. Work is given freely, and the proceeds of +work exchanged freely, as a man might give of his goods and services +nowadays when he welcomes a friend within his own house. A great +part of the energy of this new community has gone into building; and +architecture, sculpture, and painting flourish in the townhalls and +common dining halls of which each village boasts. + +It follows from this that the big cities have disappeared. London +is again a congeries of villages, mingled in great woodlands and +meadows where in the summer children roam about and camp and pick up +the simple occupations of rural life. Of all the proud monuments of +London that the nineteenth century left, only the Houses of Parliament +remain, as a storage-place for dung. There are shops, where one takes +for the asking, and there are common halls where people eat and have +conversation, as they do now in restaurants--only these new hostels are +beautiful, spacious, and well-served. + +Since economic pressure is absent, the people of the Thames valley seem +to live a life of leisure; but this life of leisure is not the aimless +leisure of the country house, with its artificial stimulants, its +artificial exercises, and the like: the life of dignified leisure is +a life of work; in short, the life of the artist. If other people have +talked of the necessity for labor, the dignity of labor, the heroism of +labor, these simple Englishmen have discovered the beauty of leisurely +work--the simple grace that follows when even the practical arts are +pursued as if they were liberal arts. In this utopia the instinct +of workmanship, the creative impulse, has free play; and since the +majority of people are neither scholars nor scientists, as Sir Thomas +More would have had them, they find their fulfillment in adding beauty +to all the necessities of their daily toil. Where the work itself leads +purely to some useful end, as in the growing of wheat or grass, the +joy of work arises out of the comradeship and good-feeling that bind +together those who perform it, and the comparative lightness of the +tasks that find many hands eager almost to the point of competition to +perform them. + +One looks at the faces of these people, and the effects of their life +are visible. Their women are ten or fifteen years older than we should +judge by their appearance; and on every face is written the healthy +serenity that follows when people do good work, with a good spirit, +in a good place. There is a candor, a plainness, a wholesomeness, an +absence of furtive repressions in their every gesture; and as far as +men can be satisfied and happy in a good environment, this community +is satisfied and happy. There are grumblers, it goes without saying. +One of them is a crusty old fellow who has read ancient history and who +sighs for the cutthroat practices of the competitive era; and there +is another who complains of the tameness of Utopian literature, as +compared with that which dealt with the miseries and warped passion of +an earlier age. + +The only wretchedness in this utopia comes out of the essential human +tragedy--the disparity between one’s aims and one’s attainments, +between one’s desires and the circumstances that clog their +fulfillment. How can unhappiness be altogether wiped out as long as +maids are fickle and sexual passion strong? The boatman, for example, +has been mated with a beautiful girl who leaves him for another +man; but she tires of her new love, and under the eyes of the Guest +her uncle brings the pair together, and the drama of courtship and +mating goes on all over again; for there are no laws to bind people +together when every fibre of their being drives them apart; and in +a civilization that deals kindly even with its adults there is no +difficulty about giving the children all the care they need. For the +most part, those who suffer in love bear their burdens manfully, +without wailing over imaginary wrongs which are associated with the +worship of impossible chastities and reticences; and they turn their +balked impulses into the channels of work and poetry as completely as +they know how. + +Is this the arcadian age of innocence all over again? Are brutality +and lust forever wiped out? Not at all. In sudden passion even murders +occur, no matter how good and helpful the social order; but instead of +compounding murder with an additional murder, the guilty person is left +to his own remorse. Use and wont are more powerful than law, and the +whole guild that earns its living from the frictions and dissidences +of our social life has dropt into limbo. By the same token, the game +of the ins and the outs, which we call political government, has +disappeared; for the only matters in which our community is interested +are as to whether a new field is to be laid under the plow or a bridge +thrown over a stream or a townhall built; and about such things the +local community is competent to decide, without lining up in a purely +fictitious antagonism. + + +5 + +Sanity and health and good-will and tolerance--as one sculls along the +Thames, above Richmond, on a Sunday morning, between boatloads of gay +picnickers and sauntering people, it is not impossible to imagine a +new social order developing on simple lines and bringing these things +into existence. With five million people in England, and perhaps half a +million in the Thames valley, the thing would not be impossible. Then +the whole countryside would be dressed again in green; then buildings +would arise in the landscape like flowers out of the ground; then the +kindliness and spontaneous co-operation of a happy holiday would be +prolonged into the workaday week. We should know how to spend our time +and with what to occupy our heads and hands, if the great wen of London +were removed from the Thames valley, and all the cheap cockney things +that London has conjured into existence were to be blasted away. We +should know all these things, because William Morris has told us about +them; and we should do all these things, because in our heart of hearts +we realize that they would satisfy. + + +6 + +The utopia that remains for consideration is the last important one +in point of time; and it is, curiously enough, the quintessential +utopia, for it is written with a free and critical gesture, and with a +succinct familiarity towards the more important books that came before +it. Mr. H. G. Wells, it is true, has made more than one excursion +into an imaginary commonwealth: The Time Machine is his earliest and +The World Set Free may possibly be considered as his latest. A Modern +Utopia combines the vivid fantasy of the first picture with the more +strict regard for present realities that marks the second; and it is, +altogether, a fine and lucid product of the imagination. + +The assumption upon which Mr. Wells gains entrance into his utopia +differs from those shipwrecks and somnambulisms in which our modern +utopias have been stereotyped. He conceives of a modern man, a little +thickset and protuberant, seated at a desk and brooding over the +possibilities of man’s future; and gradually this image comes to +life and defines his views, and his voice rises into narrative in +something like the fashion of a lecturer, throwing from time to time +his illustrations of a New World upon the screen. He enters utopia by +hypothesis; that is, without any other subterfuge than an act of the +imagination; and in the thickening realities of a utopian community, +first discovered in an Alpine pass, he finds himself in the company of +a sentimental botanist, who is sick with a love affair and is maudlin +about dogs, and who again and again wrecks this exploration of utopia +by dragging into the midst of the scene some petty complication--about +his sweetheart or his doggie--that he has acquired on earth! + +Where and what is this modern utopia? By hypothesis, it is a globe +identical with the one on which we live; it has the same oceans and +continents, the same rivers and minor land-masses, the same animals +and plants; yes, even the same people, so that each one of us has his +utopian counterpart. Conveniently, this new earth is located beyond +Sirius; and for the most part its history is parallel to ours; except +that it had a critical turn for the better at a not too remote period; +so that, while mechanical invention and science and all that sort of +thing is exactly on the same level as ours, the scale and order is +entirely different. + +The scale and order of things is indeed different. Utopia is a world +community; it is a single civilization whose net of monorails and +posts, whose identification bureaux, whose rules of law and order are +the same in England as in Switzerland; and presumably the same in +Asia and Africa as in Europe. In every sense it is a modern utopia. +Machinery plays an important part, and the absence of menial service is +conspicuous from the very first contacts in which our travellers get +the hospitality of an inn, and find that interior decoration has verged +towards the style of the modern lunchroom and subway station, so that +the whole room can be redded, after use, by the guest himself. There +is no harking back to the past in industry, in architecture, or in the +mode of living. All that machinery has to offer has been accepted and +humanized: there is a cleanliness, an absence of squalor and confusion, +in this world-community, which indicates that utopia has not been +purchased by evasion. + +The price of this order and spaciousness is not as heavy as that +which Bellamy was willing to pay in Looking Backward. The land and +its natural resources are owned by the community and are in the +custody of regional authorities; and the means of communication and +travel are in the hands of one common administrative body. There are +great socialized enterprises such as the railways, with planetary +ramifications; there are regional industries, and there are a good many +minor affairs which are still undertaken by private individuals and +companies. Farms are worked by a co-operative association of tenant +farmers, upon lines suggested by Dr. Hertzka in Freeland. Perhaps the +most remarkable feature of utopian organization is the registration +of every individual, with his name, numeral, finger-print, changes of +residence and changes in life; all of which is filed in a huge central +filing office, to become part of a permanent file upon the individual’s +death. Utopian registration gets our travellers into hot water, for +they are naturally mistaken for their utopian doubles; but outside of +its use in the story this little device seems strangely beside the +point, and it arose, I believe, out of Mr. Wells’ temperamental regard +for tidiness--tidiness on a planetary scale--the tagging and labelling +of a well-conducted shop.... + +The people of our Modern Utopia are roughly divided into four classes: +the kinetic, the poietic, the base, and the dull. The kinetic are the +active and organizing elements in the community: as active kinetics +they are the managers, the enterprisers, the great administrators, +as passive kinetics they are the minor officials, the innkeepers, +the shoptenders, farmers, and the like. The poietic are the creative +elements in the community; the “intellectuals” we should perhaps call +them. This follows in general the lines laid down by Comte--chiefs, +people, intellectuals, and emotionals, and perhaps something of the +same classification was outlined by More in his Philarchs, people, +priests, and scholars. This division of classes is a very ancient +one. In that old Indian script, the Bhagavad Gita, we find that the +population is divided into Brahmans, Kshatriyas, Vaisryas, and Sudras, +and that their duties are “determined by the modes that prevail in +their separate natures.” The residual classes of the base and the +dull correspond to the Sudras; they are, of course, the slag of the +community; and the active elements in this class, the criminals, the +habitual drunkards, and the like are exported to various islands in the +Atlantic where they have organized a community of their own in which +they may practice fraud, chicane, and violence to their hearts’ content. + +Like Plato, Mr. Wells is concerned to provide for the education, +discipline, and maintenance of people who will be sufficiently +disinterested and intelligent to keep this vast organization a going +concern--no ordinary politician or captain of industry will do. Hence +there arises a class of Samurai. These Samurai are selected by rigorous +mental and physical tests out of youth who are past twenty-five, up to +which time they may be foolish and unsettled and may sow their wild +oats. These Samurai have a high intellectual standard of achievement. +They live a simple life. They are under strict moral discipline, and +follow a minute regimentation of dress and minor details of conduct. +They cannot marry out of their class. Once a year they are sent out +into the forests, the mountains, or the waste places to shift for +themselves; they go “bookless and weaponless, without pen or paper, +or money”; and they come back again with a new hardness and fineness +and fortification of spirit. It is such an organization as might have +been evolved at the time of the Reformation had the Order of Jesuits +been able to effect a dictatorship of Christendom. I say this without +disparagement of either the Jesuits or the Samurai, in order to point +out that these guardians of A Modern Utopia are plausible historic +characters. All the important economic and political enterprises of +the state, and important vocations like that of the physician, are in +the hands of Samurai. They are as necessary to the social organization +of A Modern Utopia as the research laboratories, which are provided by +charter with each factory, are necessary to its industrial organization. + + +7 + +The glimpses that one gets of this utopia are full of color and light +and movement; there are finely contained cities, surrounded by wide +suburban territories, cities that are not built of paper and alabaster. +Lovers pass arm in arm through the streets in the twilight; and there +is a soft dignity in the women, with their gay, sexually unemphatic +dresses, that charms. There are electric trains weaving silently on +rails over the landscape of Europe, crossing under the English Channel +by tube, and emerging in London with none of the bustle, the grinding, +or the dirt of a modern railway ride. There are well-cultivated +fields and adequate inns. There are no obstreperous patriotisms, as +one suspects in Looking Backward; there is none of the shirking one +might fear in News from Nowhere. (While our travellers are waiting to +be identified they stay for a while in a residential quadrangle at +Lucerne, and are given employment in a toy workshop.) There is less +dogmatism about creeds than in Christianopolis, and an entire absence +of menialism which contrasts with More’s Utopia. + +This modern utopia brings together, compares, and criticizes important +points that all the other utopias have raised; and it does all this +with a deftness and a turn of humor that speaks for Mr. Wells at his +best. Above all, A Modern Utopia strikes a new note, the note of +reality, the note of the daily world from which we endeavor in vain to +escape. More or less, all the other utopias assume that a change has +come over the population; that it has been diminished; that the blind, +the lame, and the deaf have been cured; that the mean sensual man has +been converted and is ready to flap his wings and sing Hallelujah! +There is a minimum of these assumptions in A Modern Utopia. It is above +all other things an accounting and a criticism; and so it forms a +fitting prelude to the remainder of this book. + + + + +CHAPTER TEN + + How the Country House and Coketown became the utopias of the + Modern Age; and how they made the world over in their image. + + + + +CHAPTER TEN + + +1 + +Now that we have ransacked the literature of ideal commonwealths for +examples of the utopian vision and the utopian method, there remains +another class of utopias which has still to be reckoned with, in order +to make our tally complete. + +All the utopias that we have dealt with so far have been filtered +through an individual mind, and whereas, like any other piece of +literature, they grew out of a certain age and tradition of thought, +it is dangerous to overrate their importance either as mirrors of the +existing order or as projectors of a new order. While again and again +the dream of a utopian in one age has become the reality of the next, +as O’Shaughnessy sings in his famous verses, the exact connection +between the two can only be guessed at, and rarely, I suppose, can it +be traced. It would be a little foolish to attempt to prove that the +inventor of the modern incubator was a student of Sir Thomas More. + +Up to the present the idola which have exercised the most considerable +influence upon the actual life of the community are such as have been +partly expressed in a hundred works and never perhaps fully expressed +in one. In order to distinguish these idola from those that have +occupied us till now, we should perhaps call them collective utopias or +social myths. There is a considerable literature that relates to these +myths in French, one of the best known works being M. George Sorel’s +Reflections on Violence; and in practice it is sometimes rather hard to +tell where the Utopia leaves off and the social myth begins. + +The history of mankind’s social myths has still in the main to be +written. There is a partial attempt at this over a limited period +in Mr. Henry Osborn Taylor’s The Mediæval Mind; but this is only a +beginning, and other ages are almost untouched. The type of myth +that concerns us here is not the pure action myth which M. Sorel has +analyzed; we are rather interested in those myths which are, as it +were, the ideal content of the existing order of things, myths which, +by being consciously formulated and worked out in thought, tend to +perpetuate and perfect that order. This type of social myth approaches +very closely to the classic utopia, and we could divide it, similarly, +into myths of escape and myths of reconstruction. Thus the myth of +political freedom, for example, as formulated by the writers of the +American revolution, frequently serves as an excellent refuge for +disturbed consciences when the Department of Justice or the Immigration +Bureau has been a little too assiduous in its harassment of political +agitators. + +Unfortunately, it has become a habit to look upon our idola as +particularly fine and exalted, and as representing the better side of +human nature. As a matter of fact, the myths which are created in a +community under religious, political, or economic influences cannot be +characterized as either good or bad: their nature is defined by their +capacity to help men to react creatively upon their environment and +to develop a humane life. We have still to recognize that a belief +in these idola is not by itself a creditable attitude. Even quite +base and stupid people are frequently governed by ideals; indeed, it +is the ideals that are in many cases responsible for their baseness +and stupidity. Neither is the habit of responding to idola any +evidence of rational thought. People respond to “ideas”--that is, +to word-patterns--as they respond to the stimulus of light or heat, +because they are human beings and not because they are philosophers, +and they respond to projections, to idola, for the same reason, and +not because they are saints. Our myths may be the outcome of rational +thought and practice or not; but the response to these myths is not +perhaps more than ten times in a hundred the result of following the +processes of reason from beginning to end. + +We must think of our idola as a sort of diffused environment or +atmosphere, which differs in “chemical content” and in extension with +each individual. Some of these idola have so uniformly taken possession +of men’s minds in a particular age that they are as much a part of the +environment a baby is born into as the furniture of his house. The +sociologists who follow Émile Durkheim have called a certain part of +these idola collective representations but they are wrong, I believe, +when they limit these “representations” to savage or ignorant groups +for they are an important part of every civilized person’s luggage. +Parallel with The Story of Mankind and with The Story of Utopias, which +I have just told, it would be amusing to write The Story of Mankind’s +Myths. This work, however, would require the scholarship and industry +of another Leibniz, and all that I wish to do here is to put together +the chief social myths that have played a part in Western Europe and +America during the modern period, to contrast these idola with the +utopias of the past and the partial remedies for the present, and to +suggest the bearing of all this upon any new departures we may be ready +to make. + +In selecting these idola--The Country House, Coketown, the +Megalopolis--I have been forced to gauge their strength and test their +quality very largely by their actual results in the workaday world, and +it is a little hard to purify them from the various institutions, old +and new, in which they are mixt. Yet with all this taint of actuality, +these idola are scarcely as credible as the Republic and it will help +matters a little to realize that we are still within the province of +utopia, and may exercise all the utopian privileges. + + +2 + +To understand the utopia of the Country House we must jump back a few +centuries in history. + +Anyone who has ranged through the European castles that were built +before the fourteenth century will realize that they were no more +built for comfort than is a modern battleship. They were essentially +garrisons of armed men whose main occupation was theft, violence, +and murder; and every feature of their environment reflected the +necessities of their life. These castles would be found beetling a +cliff or a steep hill; their walls and their buttresses would be made +of huge, rough hewn stones; their living arrangements would resemble +those of a barracks with an almost complete lack of what we now regard +as the normal decencies and privacies, except possibly for the lord and +his lady; and the life of these feudal bands was necessarily a crude +and limited one. + +Up to the fourteenth century in Western Europe the little fortified +town, or the unfortified town that lay beneath the protection of a +garrison on a hill, was the only other social unit that competed with +the even more limited horizons of the peasant’s village, or with the +spacious claims for the Here and the Hereafter which were put forward +by the Roman Church. To dream of huge metropolises and farflung armies +and food brought from the ends of the earth would have been wilder in +those days than anything More pictured in his Utopia. + +During the fifteenth century in England, and in other parts of Europe +the same thing seems to have happened sooner or later, this life of +agriculture and warfare and petty trade was upset: the feudal power +of the reigning nobles was concentrated in the hands of a supreme +lord, the King; and the King and his archives and his court settled in +the National Capital, instead of moving about from place to place in +the troubled realm. The territories of the feudal lords ceased to be +dispersed; their possessions were confined more and more within what +were called national boundaries; and instead of remaining in their +castles the great lords gave up their crude, barbaric ways, and went up +to the capital to be civilized. In the course of time money took the +place of direct tribute; instead of receiving wheat and eggs and labor, +the lord came into possession of a rent which could be figured in pence +and pounds; a rent which could be transferred to the new trading cities +for the goods which the rest of the world had for sale. There is a +fascinating picture of this change in W. J. Ashley’s Economic History; +and the old life itself is outlined, with a wealth of significant +detail, in J. S. Fletcher’s Memorials of a Yorkshire Parish. + +At the same time that this change was taking place in the physical +life of Western Europe, a corresponding change was taking place in the +domain of culture. Digging about the ruins of Rome and other cities, +the men of the late Middle Age discovered the remains of a great and +opulent civilization; and exploring the manuscripts and printed books +which were getting into general circulation, they found themselves face +to face with strange conceptions of life, with habits of refinement, +ease, and sensuous luxury which the hard life of the camp and the +castle had never really permitted. There followed a reaction against +their old life which was little less than a revulsion; and in that +reaction two great institutions fell out of fashion. Men ceased to +build castles to protect themselves against physical dangers; and they +left off entering monasteries in order to fortify their souls for the +Hereafter. Both the spiritual and the temporal life began to shift to +a new institution, the Country House. The idolum of the Country House +drew together and coalesced; and as a familiar symbol of this change +the colleges at Oxford which date from the Renascence can scarcely +be distinguished in architectural detail from the palaces which the +aristocracy were building in the same period; while our banks and our +political edifices to this day bear almost universally the stamp of +that Roman and Grecian litter which men discovered on the outskirts of +the mediæval city. + + +3 + +We do not know the Country House until we realize, to begin with, +what its physical characteristics are like. There are a great many +descriptions which the reader may consult if he does not happen to live +in the neighborhood of a great Country House: but perhaps instead of +examining the contemporary Country House it will be well to go back +to its beginnings, and see how it was pictured in all its encrusted +splendor at the first movement of the Renascence--in the setting which +François Rabelais, in one of the few downright serious passages in his +great work, Gargantua, sought to provide for the good life. + +Gargantua purposes to build a new Abbey which he calls the Abbey of +Theleme. This Abbey is to be in every respect what the mediæval Abbey +was not. Hence to begin with, the Abbey, unlike the castle, is to +lie in the midst of the open country; and unlike the monastery, it +is to have no walls. Every member is to be furnished with a generous +apartment, consisting of a principal room, a withdrawing room, a +handsome closet, a wardrobe, and an oratory; and the house itself +is to contain not merely libraries in every language, but fair and +spacious galleries of paintings. Besides these lodgings there is to +be a tilt-yard, a riding court, a theatre, or public playhouse, and +a natatory or place to swim. By the river, for the Abbey is to be +situated on the Loire, there is to be a Garden of Pleasure, and between +two of the six towers of the hexagon, in which form the building is +arranged, there are courts for tennis and other games. Add to this +orchards full of fruit trees, parks abounding with venison, and an +archery range, fill all the halls and chambers with rich tapestries, +cover all the pavements and floors with green cloth--and the furnishing +of the Abbey of Theleme is complete. + +The costumes of the inmates are equally splendid and elaborate. In +order to have the accoutrements of the ladies’ and gentlemen’s toilets +more convenient, there was to be “about the wood of Theleme a row of +houses to the extent of half a league, very neat and cleanly, wherein +dwelt the goldsmiths, lapidaries, jewellers, embroiderers, tailors, +gold drawers, velvet weavers, tapestry makers, and upholsterers....” +They were to be “furnished with matter and stuff from the hands of Lord +Nausiclete, who every year brought them seven ships from the Perlas and +Cannibal Islands, laden with ingots of gold, with raw silk, with pearls +and precious stones.” + +The women who are admitted to Theleme must be fair, well-featured, and +of sweet disposition; the men must be comely and well-conditioned. +Everyone is to be admitted freely and allowed to depart freely; and +instead of attempting to practice poverty, chastity, and obedience, the +inmates may be honorably married, may be rich, and may live at liberty. + +The liberty of Theleme is indeed complete; it is such a liberty as one +enjoys at a Country House to this day, under the care of a tactful +hostess; for everyone does nothing except follow his own free will and +pleasure, rising out of his bed whenever he thinks good, and eating, +drinking, and laboring when he has a mind to it. In all their rule and +strictest tie of their order, as Rabelais puts it, there is but one +clause to be observed-- + +“Do what you please.” + + +4 + +When we turn our attention from Rabelais’ conceit of an anti-monastic +order, we discover that he has given us an excellent picture of the +Country House, and of what I shall take the liberty of calling Country +House culture. We see pretty much the same outlines in the introduction +to Boccaccio’s Decameron; it is elaborately described in terms of that +most complete of Country Houses, Hampton Court, in Pope’s Rape of the +Lock; it is vividly pictured by Meredith in his portrait of The Egoist; +and it is analyzed in Mr. H. G. Wells’ cruel description of Bladesover +in Tono-Bungay, as well as by Mr. Bernard Shaw in Heartbreak House. +Whether Mr. W. H. Mallock holds the pattern of Country House culture up +to us in The New Republic or Anton Chekhov penetrates its aimlessness +and futility in The Cherry Orchard, The Country House is one of the +recurrent themes of literature. + +This renascence idolum of the Country House, then, is powerful and +complete: I know no other pattern which has imposed its standards and +its practices with such complete success upon the greater part of +European civilization. While the Country House was in the beginning an +aristocratic institution, it has penetrated now to every stratum of +society; and although we may not immediately see the connection, it +is responsible, I believe, for the particular go and direction which +the industrial revolution has taken. The Country House standards of +consumption are responsible for our Acquisitive Society. + + +5 + +Perhaps the shortest way to suggest the character of Country House +institutions is to say that they are the precise opposite of everything +that Plato looked upon as desirable in a good community. + +The Country House is concerned not with the happiness of the whole +community but with the felicity of the governors. The conditions which +underly this limited and partial good life are political power and +economic wealth; and in order for the life to flourish, both of these +must be obtained in almost limitless quantities. The chief principles +that characterize this society are possession and passive enjoyment. + +Now, in the Country House possession is based upon privilege and not +upon work. The title to land which was historically obtained for the +most part through force and fraud is the economic foundation of the +Country House existence. In order to keep the artisans and laborers +who surround the Country House at their work, it is necessary to keep +them from having access to the land on their own account, provision +always being made that the usufruct of the land shall go to the owner +and not to the worker. This emphasis upon passive ownership points +to the fact that in the Country House there is no active communion +between the people and their environment. Such activities as remain +in the Country House--the pursuit of game, for instance--rest upon +imitating in play activities which once had a vital use or prepared +for some vital function, as a child’s playing with a doll is a +preparation for motherhood. The Country House ideal is that of a +completely functionless existence; or at best, an existence in which +all the functions that properly belong to a civilized man shall be +carried on by functionaries. Since this ideal cannot be realized in the +actual world, for the reason that it is completely at odds with man’s +biological inheritance, it is necessary in the Country House utopia to +fill in by play and sport an otherwise desirable vacuity. + +In the Country House literature and the fine arts undoubtedly +flourish: but they flourish as the objects of appreciation rather +than as the active, creative elements in the community’s life; they +flourish particularly in the fashion that Plato looked upon as a +corrupting influence in the community. In the arts, a gourmandizing +habit of mind--the habit of receiving things and being played upon +by them--prevails; so that instead of the ability to share creative +ecstasy, the chief canon of judgment is “taste,” a certain capacity to +discriminate among sensory stimuli, a capacity which is essentially +just as hospitable to a decomposing cheese as to the very staff of +life. The effect of this gourmandism in the arts can be detected +in every element of the Country House from cellar to roof; for the +result has been to emphasize the collection of good things rather than +their creation, and there is an aspect in which the Country House is +little better than a robber’s hoard or a hunter’s cache--a miniature +anticipation of the modern museums of natural history and art. + +Observe the architecture of our Country House. If it has been built in +England during the last three hundred years, the style is probably that +bastard Greek or Roman which we call Renascence architecture; if the +Country House was built in America during the last thirty years, it is +as likely as not a Tudor residence with traces of castle fortification +left here and there on the façade. On the walls there will be plenty +of paintings; indeed a whole gallery may be devoted to them. In all +probability, however, the paintings have been created in other times by +men long since dead, and in other countries: there may be a portrait +by Rembrandt, a Persian miniature, a print by Hokusai. Some very fine +element in the structure, a fireplace or a bit of panelling, may have +been removed piece by piece from the original Country House in England, +Italy, or France; even as many features of the original Country House +were quarried, perhaps, from some mediæval abbey. The very china +that we use upon our tables nowadays is a Country House importation +which took the place of pewter and earthenware; and wall paper is +another importation. From feature to feature everything is derivative; +everything, in the last analysis, has either been stolen or purchased +from the original makers; and what has not been stolen or purchased has +been basely copied. + +The insatiability of the Country House to possess art is only equalled +by its inability to create it. In the Country House, the arts are not +married to the community, but are kept for its pleasure. + +Let there be no confusion as to either the facts or the ideal we are +examining. There is a vast difference between that fine mingling of +traditions which is the very breath of the arts, as the lover of +classic Greek statuary knows, and the rapacious imperialistic habit of +looting the physical objects of art which has been the essence of the +Country House method in modern times, even as it seems to have been +a couple of thousand years ago in the Roman villa. A genuine culture +will borrow steadily from other cultures; but it will go to them as +the bee goes to the flower for pollen, and not as the beekeeper goes +to the hive for honey. There is a creative borrowing and a possessive +borrowing; and the Country House has in the main limited itself to +possessive borrowing. The Country House ideal, in fact, is limitless +possession: so the great Country House masters have five or six houses, +perhaps, in their name, although they need but a single one to cover +their heads. + +Now the Country House idolum involves a dissociation between the +Country House and the community in which it is placed. If you will +take the trouble to examine mediæval conditions, you will find that +differences of rank and wealth did not make a very great difference +between the life of the lord in his castle, and his retainers: if the +common man could not claim to be as good as his lord, it is plain that +the lord shared most of the common man’s disabilities, and was, for all +the exaggerations of chivalry, just as ignorant, just as illiterate, +just as coarse. In the cities, too, the lowest workman in the guild +shared the institutions of his masters: the churches, the guild +pageants, and the morality plays were all part and parcel of the same +culture. + +The Country House changed this condition. Culture came to mean not a +participation in the creative activities of one’s own community, but +the acquisition of the products of other communities; and it scarcely +matters much whether these acquisitions were within the spiritual or +the material domain. There had of course been the beginnings of such +a split in mediæval literature, with its vulgar Rabelaisian tales and +its refined romances of the court; but with the integration of the +Country House idolum, this divorcement was accentuated in every other +activity of the community. One of the results of this split was that +popular institutions were deprived of their contacts with the general +world of culture, and languished away; or they were transformed, as +the public schools of England were transformed into restricted upper +class institutions. Far more important than this, perhaps, was the fact +that each separate Country House was forced to obtain for its limited +circle all the elements that were necessary to the good life in a whole +community such as Plato described. We shall deal with the effects of +this presently. + + +6 + +Let us admit what is valid in the utopia of the Country House. +Enjoyment is a necessary element in achievement, and by its regard for +the decent graces of life, for such things as an ease in manners and +a fine flow of conversation and the clash of wits and a sensitiveness +to beautiful things, the Country House was by all odds a humanizing +influence. In so far as the Country House fostered a belief in +contemplation and a desire for the arts apart from any uses that might +be made of them by way of civic advertisement; in so far as it urged +that all our pragmatic activities must be realized in things that are +worth having or doing for themselves, the Country House was right, +eminently right. It was no snobbery on the part of Russian soviet +officialism when it opened up some of its Country Houses as rest +houses for the peasants and workers, and then insisted that some of +the airs of the Country House should be acquired there, to replace the +rough usages of the stable, the dungpile, and the field. Ruskin and +Samuel Butler were possibly right when they insisted that the perfect +gentleman was a finer product than the perfect peasant or artisan: +he is a finer product because he is essentially more alive. Even by +its emphasis upon appreciation the Country House did no mean service; +for it called attention to the fact that there were more permanent +standards--standards which were common to the arts of Greece and +China--than those which were looked upon as sufficient in the local +region. In sum, the Country House emphasized a human best, which was +the sum of a dozen partial perfections; and so all that was crude +and inadequate in the old regional cultures was brought to light and +criticized. All these virtues I admit; and they hold just as good today +as they ever did. + +The fatal weakness of Country House culture comes out all the plainer +for this admission. The Country House did not see that enjoyment +rested upon achievement, and was indeed inseparable from achievement. +The Country House strove to put achievement in one compartment and +enjoyment in another; with the result that the craftsman who no longer +had the capacity to enjoy the fine arts no longer had the ability to +create them. The effect of an isolated routine of enjoyment is equally +debilitating; for enjoyment, to the masters of the Country House came +too easily, with a mere snap of the fingers, as it were, and the +tendency of connoisseurship was to set novelty above intrinsic worth. +Hence the succession of styles by which Country House decoration has +become a thing for mockery: Chinese in one age, Indian in another, +Persian in the next, with Egyptian, Middle African, and heaven knows +what else destined to follow in due order. There is nothing to settle +to, because there is no task to be done, and no problem to work out; +and as soon as the first taste for a style gets exhausted it is +speedily supplanted by another. + +It would be impossible to calculate the extent to which the Country +House has degraded our taste but I have little doubts as to the source +of the degradation. The stylicism which has perverted the arts and +has kept a congruent modern style from developing has been the work +of Country House culture. I remember well the contempt with which a +furniture manufacturer in the Chiltern Hills told me about the way +in which he produced an original Sheraton: his knowledge of sound +furniture design was subordinated to some other person’s knowledge of +“style” and the miscarriage of the man’s innate craftsmanship made him +so mordant on the subject that it seemed as though he had been reading +Thorstein Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class. It is the same through +all the arts. A visit to the industrial sections of the Metropolitan +Museum in New York will show how dismally the taste for novelty, which +led the Sheratons and Chippendales to find “classic motifs” in one age, +causes the designers of the present day to seek the motifs of Sheraton +and Chippendale. So much for what happened to the arts when enjoyment +and achievement are separated. + + +7 + +The industrial bearing of the Renascence ideal is of capital importance. + +During the Middle Age the emphasis in industry was upon the production +of tangible goods; the craft guilds set high standards in design and +workmanship; and the aim of the worker, in most of the trades, was to +get a living from his work, and not simply to get enough money to free +himself from the necessity of working. This is a broad generalization, +I need scarcely emphasize, and there is plenty of evidence of pecuniary +interests under the best of conditions; but it seems fair to say that +the dominant ideals of the older industrial order were industrial +rather than commercial. In the trading ventures that the Country House +promoted under its Drakes and Raleighs, ventures which were needed to +bring them “Ships from the Perlas and Cannibal Islands,” the emphasis +shifted from workmanship to sale; and the notion of working and +gambling to acquire multifarious goods took the place of that earlier +ideal which Henry Adams so sympathetically described in Mt. St. Michel +and Chartres. Thus the good life, as I have said elsewhere, was the +Goods Life: it could be purchased. If the whole community no longer +offered the conditions for this life, one might filch what one wanted +from the general store, and try to monopolize for self or family all +that was needed for a good life in the community. + +What is the chief economic outcome of this ideal? The chief outcome, +I think, is to exaggerate the demand for goods, and to cause an +enormously wasteful duplication of the apparatus of consumption. If the +limit to one’s possessions should be simply the extent of one’s purse; +if happiness is to be acquired through obtaining the comforts and +luxuries of life; if a man who possesses a single house is considered +fortunate, and a man who possesses five houses five times as fortunate; +if there are no standards of living other than the insatiable one that +has been set up in the Country House--well, then there is really no +limit to the business of getting and spending, and our lives become the +mean handiwork of coachman, cook, and groom. Our Country House will not +merely be a house: there will be a chapel, an art gallery, a theater, +a gymnasium, as François Rabelais imagined. As the common possessions +of the community dwindle, the private possessions of individuals +are multiplied; and at last, there remains no other community than +a multitude of anarchic individuals, each of whom is doing his best +to create for himself a Country House, notwithstanding the fact that +the net result of his endeavors--this is the drab tragedy and the +final thing to be said against it--is perhaps nothing better than six +inadequate rooms at the end of nowhere in a Philadelphia suburb. + +The Country House, then, is the chief pattern by means of which the +mediæval order was transformed into the modern order. It does not +matter very much whether the Country House is an estate on Long Island +or a cottage in Montclair; whether it is a house in Golder’s Green +or a family manor in Devonshire: these are essentially affairs of +scale, and the underlying identity is plain enough. The idolum of the +Country House prevails even when quarters are taken up in the midst +of the metropolis. More than ever the Country House today tries to +make up by an abundance of physical goods for all that has been lost +through its divorce from the underlying community; more than ever it +attempts to be self-sufficient within the limits of suburbia. The +automobile, the phonograph, and the radio-telephone have only served to +increase this self-sufficiency; and I need not show at length how these +instrumentalities have deepened the elements of acquisitiveness and +passive, uncreative, mechanical enjoyment. + +The Country House’s passionate demand for physical goods has given rise +to another institution, Coketown; and it is the idolum of Coketown, the +industrial age’s contribution to the Country House, that we have now to +consider. + + +8 + +The chief difference between the individual utopias of the nineteenth +century and the “collective representation” of Coketown is that these +individual utopias were concerned to repair certain points where +Manchester, Newark, Pittsburgh, and Elberfeld-Barmen fell short of the +ideal. In repairing these points, Bellamy and Hertzka were ready to +alter the conventional arrangements by which property and land were +held, and capital was accumulated. The final end however was the same; +and the differences are therefore more apparent than real. + +If the illustrative example of the Country House is in the Abbey of +Theleme, that of Coketown is in the sharp picture of industrialism +which Charles Dickens presents in Hard Times. + +Coketown, as Dickens sees it, is the quintessence of the industrial +age. It is perhaps one of the few idola of the modern world which has +no parallel in any earlier civilization that we have been able to +explore. In order to understand what Coketown brought into the world, +we must realize that before Coketown came into existence the center +of every important European city consisted of a marketplace, shadowed +over by a Cathedral, a Market Court, and a Guildhall; and frequently +there would be an adjacent university. This was the typical formation. +The various quarters of the city were subordinated to these central +institutions, and the work which was carried on within the city’s walls +was more or less concretely realized in the local community. + +Coketown, on the other hand, was the outcome of other conditions and +necessities. The center of Coketown’s activity was the mill, set at +first in the open country near falling water, and then as coal was +applied to steam engines, removed to areas more accessible to the coal +fields. The factory became the new social unity; in fact it became the +only social unit; and, as Dickens sharply put it, “the jail looked like +the town hall, and the town hall like the infirmary”--and all of them +looked like the factory, a gaunt building of murky brick that once was +red or yellow. The sole object of the factory is to produce goods for +sale; and every other institution is encouraged in Coketown only to the +extent that it does not seriously interfere with this aim. + +What are the outward physical aspects of Coketown? To begin with, the +city is laid out by an engineer; it is laid out with a mathematical +correctness and with a complete disregard for the amenities. If there +are hills where Coketown ought to stand, the hills are leveled; if +there are swamps, the swamps are filled; if there are lakes, the lakes +are drained away. The pattern to which Coketown’s activities are fitted +is that of the gridiron; there are no deviations and no allowances in +the working out of this plan; never will a street swerve as much as +a hair’s breadth to save a stand of trees or open up a vista. In the +matter of transportation and intercourse, the aim of Coketown is to +“get somewhere”; and it fancies that by laying down straight lines +and joining them in rectangles this aim is expedited; despite the +demonstration in every city of older growth that a radial system of +intercommunication is much more economical than the gridiron. As a +result, there is no terminus to any of the avenues of Coketown; for +they begin on a draughting board and end in infinity. It is impossible +to approach from the front the jails, hospitals, and sanatoria of which +Coketown boasts; the tendency is to run past them. So much for the +physical layout of the industrial city; what remains is obscured by +smoke. + +The factory is the center of Coketown’s social life; and it is here +that the greater part of the population spend their days. At its +purest, that is to say, during the first half of the nineteenth +century, and in a great many centers to this day, the factory is +the only institution that provides anything like a social life, in +spite of the fact that the unremitting toil which accompanies its +routine reduces the graces of social intercourse to such a minimum +that drunkenness and copulation are the only amusements which the +inhabitants can engage in as a relief from their noble duty of +providing the rest of the world with necessities, comforts, luxuries, +and nullities. + +The Coketown idolum has been disintegrating a little during the last +two decades, under the influence of the garden cities movement, +and I am aware that in certain departments I am celebrating a lost +cause and an abandoned idealism; but there still remain in acres and +acres of workingmen’s dwellings, such as one finds in Battersea and +Philadelphia, and in old-fashioned railway stations, and in buildings +like the Mechanics Halls of Pittsburgh and Boston, a notion of what +Coketown stood for when Coketown, the Frankenstein which had been +created by the Country House, had not been repudiated by its master. + +Coketown is devoted to the production of material goods; and there +is no good in Coketown that does not derive from this aim. The only +enjoyment which those who are inured to the Coketown routine can +participate in is mechanical achievement; that is to say, activity +along industrial and commercial lines; and the only result of this +achievement is--more achievement. It follows that all the standards +of Coketown are of a quantitative kind; so many score of machines, so +many tons of gew-gaws, so many miles of piping, so many dollars of +profit. The opportunities for self-assertion and constructiveness in +such a community are practically boundless; and I can never confront +the mechanical felicities of a printing plant without realizing how +fascinating these opportunities are, and how deeply they satisfy +certain elements in our nature. The unfortunate thing about Coketown, +however, is that these are the only sort of opportunities that are +available; and work whose standards are of a qualitative sort, the work +of scholars and artists and scientists, is either frozen out of the +community by deliberate ostracism, or is hitched to the machine; the +artist, for example, being compelled to sing the praises of Coketown’s +goods or to paint the portrait of Coketown’s supreme esthetic +achievement--the Self-Made Man. + +In its pristine state, Coketown is not a complete community. So it is +natural that the idolum should have provided certain additions. In the +first place, the activities of Coketown, whether they are beneficial +or wasteful, satisfy only certain elements in the human makeup; and +although much may be done by compulsory education to discipline the +younger generation to the machine, and to show them the necessity of +doing nothing which would interfere with the continued activity of the +machine--for work in Coketown, as Samuel Butler fearfully predicted +in Erewhon, is in the main simply attendance upon machinery--here +and there the igneous instincts of the workers will break through +the solidified layer of habit which the school and the factory have +produced, and the arcane energies of the population will flow either +into the Country House or into that other simulacrum of the civic life, +Broadway. + +Coketown for the workaday week, the Country House for the weekend, +is the compromise that has been practically countenanced; although +the country houses of the working classes may be nothing more than +a diminutive extension of the urban slum near sea or mountain. But +it must be admitted that there is a permanent Country House and a +permanent Coketown population in the more ideal aspects of the order. +Mr. Wells in the Time Machine has given a picture of Coketown which +is perhaps a little exuberant in some of its details--the picture of +a happy and careless Country House population, living on the surface +of the earth, mid all the graces of a jolly weekend, and that of the +factory population, the Morlocks, living in the bowels of the earth and +performing the necessary industrial functions. Mr. Wells’ presentation +is a little exaggerated, however, and we must be content here with such +a plain and outright description as Messrs. Bounderby and Gradgrind +would approve of. + +In the Coketown scheme of things, all that does not contribute to the +physical necessities of life is called a comfort; and all that does not +contribute either to comforts or necessities is called a luxury. These +three grades of good correspond to the three classes of the population: +the necessities are for the lower order of manual workers, together +with such accessory members as clerks, teachers, and minor officials; +the comforts are for the comfortable classes, that is, the small order +of merchants, bankers, and industrialists; while the luxuries are for +the aristocracy, if there is such an hereditary group, and for such as +are able to lift themselves out of the two previous orders. Chief among +the luxuries, it goes without saying, are art and literature and any of +the other permanent interests of a humane life. + +Let us note what an improvement the three classes of Coketown are +upon the three classes in Plato’s Republic. The custom of limiting +the earnings of the working classes to the margin of subsistence is +singularly effective in keeping them occupied with the business of +production--as long as there is no overplus in the market to throw +them out of work--and it is thus a safeguard of efficiency and +industry which Plato, who was deplorably obtuse in these matters, +did not provide. It is likewise obvious that the life of a middle +class citizen, with plenty to eat and drink, with his life protected +by the policeman, his pocketbook protected by the insurance company, +his spiritual happiness protected by the church, his human sympathies +protected by the charity organization society, his intelligence +protected by the newspaper, and his economic privileges protected +by the State--this middle class citizen is, after all, a much more +fortunate and happy individual than those Platonic warriors whose +life was a perpetual effort to keep the edge on their bodies and +minds. As for the Guardians of the State, it is plain that Plato did +not offer them any inducement to do their work which would attract a +normal commercial man: anyone who was worth a hundred thousand dollars +a year would have thought twice before assuming leadership in Plato’s +impoverished commonwealth, whereas in Coketown he would find that +his simple ability to make money would be taken as sufficient proof +of his education, his insight, and his wisdom in every department of +life. More than that, Coketown, when all is said and done, welcomes +the artist with a cordiality that puts Plato to shame: Coketown can +afford its luxuries since, when you look at the matter squarely, a rare +painting might be worth as much as a rare postage stamp; and it is +accordingly an acceptable addition to the Coketown milieu. + +Coketown has, in fact, only one question for the arts to answer: What +are they good for? If the answer can be expressed in money, the art +in question is taken to be almost as satisfactory as a device to save +labor, to increase speed, or to multiply the output. + + +9 + +There is one phenomenon still to be accounted for in the economy +of Coketown; one monumental instrument without which the wheels of +Coketown would become clogged and the very breath of Coketown be +extinguished. + +I refer to the rubbish heaps. + +The aim of production in Coketown is naturally more production, and it +is only by making things sufficiently shoddy to go to pieces quickly, +or by changing the fashion sufficiently often, that the machinery of +Coketown can for the most part be kept running. The rage and fury of +Coketown’s production has to be balanced off by an equal rage and +fury of consumption--continence would be fatal. As a result, nothing +in Coketown is finished or permanent or settled: these qualities are +another name for death. Coketown makes china to be broken, clothes +to be worn out, and houses to be torn down; and if something remains +over from an earlier age which made things more soundly, it is +either incarcerated in a museum, and derided as the monument of a +non-progressive age, or it is demolished as a nuisance. So powerful +is the idolum of Coketown that in the workaday world building after +building continues to meet with irreparable ruin at the hands of +barbarians from Coketown: why, I have even seen innocent little +half-timbered fifteenth century cottages whose fronts were obliterated +by a nineteenth century plasterer, in the name of progress. + +The status of every family in Coketown can be told by the size of its +rubbish heap. In fact, to “make a pile” in the markets of Coketown is +ultimately to make another pile--of dust and junk and litter--on the +edge of the town where the factory district dribbles off into the open +country. So in Coketown consumption is not merely a necessity: it is a +social duty, a means of keeping “the wheels of civilization turning.” +At times there appears to be a possibility that this utopia may defeat +its purposes by producing goods at such a pace that the rubbish heaps +will fall behind the demands of the market; and while this mars the +theoretic perfection of the Coketown social organization, it is offset +by periods of war, when the market is practically inexhaustible, and +Coketown’s prosperity increases to a point at which the working classes +are on the point of becoming the comfortable classes without having had +sufficient previous training to make their contribution to the rubbish +heap--a serious pass, amidst which confusion the working classes of +Coketown might take to reducing their working days and enjoying their +leisure without sufficient consumptive effort. + +This, then, is the idolum of Coketown. There are certain features in +it which need to be noticed. The first is that there is a certain +solid reality in Coketown that remains when all its pretensions +and idiocies have been incinerated. An environment that is devoted +solely to the production of material goods is obviously no sort of +environment for a good community, for life is more than a matter of +finding what we shall eat and wherewithal we shall be clothed: it is +an interaction with a whole world of landscapes, living creatures and +ideas, in comparison with which Coketown is a mere blister on the +earth’s surface. Nevertheless, with respect to the business of melting +steel and building roads and performing certain essential industrial +operations, the aims of Coketown are, up to a certain point, relevant: +we have already encountered them in Andreæ’s Christianopolis. There is +no need to dismiss the good that lies inside of industrialism because +it does not embrace the good that lies beyond it. + +Up to a certain point, then, using mechanical power rather than human +power is good; so is large-scale production, so is the division of +labor and division of operation; so is rapid transportation; so is +the accurate methodology of the engineer; and so are various other +features in the modern industrial world. One might even say a word for +efficiency, as against “doing things rather more or less.” Coketown +made the horrid mistake of believing that all these things were good in +themselves. New factories, for example, drew a bigger population into +the city: Coketown did not perceive that, as Plato pointed out, beyond +a certain point the city as a social unit would cease to exist. Bigger +and better was Coketown’s motto; and it resolutely refused to see that +there was no necessary connection between these adjectives. The whole +case for and against Coketown rests upon our admission of the phrase +“up to a certain point.” Up to a certain point, industrialism is good, +especially in its modern, neotechnic, electrical phase: Coketown, on +the other hand, believes that there is no limit to the usefulness of +industrialism. + +Up to a certain point--but what point? The answer is, up to the point +at which the cultivation of a humane life in a community of humane +people becomes difficult or impossible. + +Men come together, says Aristotle, to live; they remain together in +order to live the good life. This determination of the good life is +the only check and balance that we can have upon Coketown; and it is +perhaps because we have been so little concerned with it that the +practical effect of the Coketown idolum has been so devastating. +“Invention and organization,” as Mr. George Santayana admirably +points out, “which ought to have increased leisure by producing +the necessaries of life with little labor, have only increased the +population, degraded labor, and diffused luxury.” William Morris +conceived that men in the future might discard many complicated +machines because they could live more happily, aye, work more happily +without them. Whether indeed a good part of modern organization and +machinery could be scrapt is perhaps a debatable question: but the +possibility of scrapping it is at least conceivable once we become more +interested in the actual result of industrialism upon the life and +happiness of the people who are part of the organization than we are in +the profits which pile up upon paper, and are finally realized in an +ever-growing rubbish heap. + + +10 + +By what means can the Country House keep Coketown working for it? The +idolum of the Country House, which was built up during the Renascence, +and the idolum of Coketown, which was formed in the early part of the +nineteenth century, are obviously two separate worlds; and in order +that each might be realized in our daily life, it was necessary that +some connecting tissue be manufactured to keep them together. This +tissue was the social myth, the collective utopia, of the National +State. + +There is a sense in which we may look upon the National State as a +fact; but that great philosopher of the National State, Mazzini, +realized that the National State had continually to be willed; and +its existence lies plainly, therefore, on a different plane from the +existence of a bit of territory, a building, or a city. In fact, it is +only by the persistent projection of this utopia for the last three +or four hundred years that its existence has become credible; for all +the minute descriptions which the political historian gives to the +National State, its origins and its institutions and its people, read +a good deal like that fine story which Hans Andersen told about the +king who walked the streets naked because two rascally tailors had +persuaded him that they had woven and cut up for him a beautiful outfit +of clothes. + +It will help us to appreciate this beautiful fabrication of the +National State if we turn aside for a moment and glance at the actual +world as it is known to the geographer and the anthropologist. Here are +the physical facts in defiance of which the utopia of nationalism has +been clapped together. + + +11 + +The earth that the geographer surveys is divided into five great land +masses. These land masses in turn can be broken up into a number of +natural regions, each of which has within its rough and approximate +frontiers a certain complex of soil, climate, vegetation, and, arising +out of these, certain primitive occupations which the inhabitants +of the region originally practiced and later, through the advance +of trade and invention, elaborated. Between these natural regions +there are occasionally frontiers, such as the barrier of the Pyrenees +which separates “France” from “Spain”; but these barriers have never +altogether prevented movements of population from one area to another. +In order to have a more faithful knowledge of regional groupings in +certain important areas, the reader might with profit consult Professor +Fleure’s Human Geography in Western Europe. (London: Williams and +Norgate.) + +These natural regions are the groundwork of human regions; that is, the +non-political grouping of population with respect to soil, climate, +vegetation, animal life, industry and historic tradition. In each of +these human regions we find that the population does not consist of a +multitude of atomic individuals: on the contrary, when the geographer +plots houses and buildings on a topographic map, he finds that people +and houses cohere together in groups of more or less limited size, +called cities, towns, villages, hamlets. Normally, a vast amount of +intercourse takes place between these groupings; and in the Middle +Age, before the utopia of the National State had been created, the +pilgrim and the wandering scholar and the journeyman and the strolling +player could have been met with on all the highways of Europe. Under +the dispensation of the National State, however, the population, as +the German economist Buecher points out, tends to be more settled, +and we transport goods rather than people. It is important to realize +that, so far as the geographer can discover, this trade and intercourse +between local groups has been a part of Western European civilization +since Neolithic times, at least: it takes place continually between +individuals and corporate groups in one place and another, and as far +as geographical facts are concerned might more easily exist between +Dover and Calais, let us say, than between Calais and Paris. + +Now the interesting thing about the utopia of the National State is +that it has only the most casual relation to the facts of geography. +Wherever it suits the purposes of the Guardians of the State, the facts +are ignored, and an artificial relation is _willed_ into existence. +The human communities which the regional sociologist recognizes do not +always coincide with those which the statesman wishes to incorporate as +“national territory,” and when this conflict occurs, the idea rather +than the reality triumphs, if necessary by brute force. + +In the utopia of the National State there are no natural regions; and +the equally natural grouping of people in towns, villages and cities, +which, as Aristotle points out, is perhaps the chief distinction +between man and the other animals, is tolerated only upon the fiction +that the State hands over to these groups a portion of its omnipotent +authority, or “sovereignty” as it is called, and permits them to +exercise a corporate life. Unfortunately for this beautiful myth, which +generations of lawyers and statesmen have labored to build up, cities +existed long before states--there was a Rome on the Tiber long before +there was a Roman Imperium--and the gracious permission of the state is +simply a perfunctory seal upon the accomplished fact. + +Instead of recognizing natural regions and natural groups of people, +the utopia of nationalism establishes, by the surveyor’s line, a +certain realm called national territory, and makes all the inhabitants +of this territory the members of a single, indivisible group, the +nation, which is supposed to be prior in claim and superior in power +to all other groups. This is the only social formation that is +officially recognized within the national utopia. What is common to +all the inhabitants of this territory is thought to be of far greater +importance than any of the things that bind men together in particular +civic or industrial groups. + +Let us look at this world of national utopias. The contrast between +the politician’s map and the geographer’s would be little less than +amazing were our eyes not used to it, and were we not taught in modern +times to look upon it as inevitable. Instead of the natural grouping +of land masses and regions, one finds a multitude of quite arbitrary +lines: boundaries like those that separate Canada and the United States +or Belgium and the Netherlands are just as frequent as the natural +frontier of sea that surrounds England. Sometimes these national +territories are big, and sometimes they are little; but the bigness of +empires like those of France, England, or the United States is not due +to any essential identity of interests between the sundry communities +of these empires, but to the fact that they are forcibly held together +by a political government. National lines, in other words, continue to +exist only as long as the inhabitants continue to act in terms of them; +are ready to pay their taxes to support customs bureaux, immigration +offices, frontier patrols, and educational systems; and are prepared, +in the last extremity, to lay down their lives to prevent other groups +from crossing these imaginary lines without permission. + +The chief concern of the national utopia is the support of the central +government, for the government is the guardian of territory and +privilege. The principal business of that government is to keep the +territory properly defined, and to increase its limits, when possible, +so as to make the taxable area larger. By stressing the importance of +these concerns, and constantly playing up the dangers of rivalry from +other national utopias, the State builds a bridge between the Country +House and Coketown, and persuades the workers in Coketown that they +have more in common with the classes that exploit them than they have +in common with other groups within a more limited community. It would +seem that this reconciliation of Coketown and the Country House is +little less than miraculous, even as an ideal; and perhaps it would be +interesting to examine a little more carefully the apparatus by which +this is effected. + + +12 + +The chief instrument of the National State is Megalopolis, its biggest +city, the place where the idolum of the National Utopia was first +created, and where it is perpetually willed into existence. + +In order to grasp the quintessential character of Megalopolis we must +shut our eyes to the palpable earth, with its mantle of vegetation +and its tent of clouds, and conceive what might be made of the human +landscape if it could be entirely fabricated out of paper; for the +ultimate aim of the Megalopolis is to conduct the whole of human life +and intercourse through the medium of paper. + +The early life of a young citizen in Megalopolis is spent in acquiring +the tools by which paper may be used. The names of these tools +are writing, reading, and arithmetic; and once upon a time these +constituted the main elements in every Megalopolitan’s education. +There was, however, a good deal of dissatisfaction, on paper, +against this somewhat barren curriculum, and so at a fairly early +date in the history of Megalopolis, various other subjects, such as +literature, science, gymnastics, and manual training were added to +the curriculum--on paper. It is indeed possible for a Megalopolitan +student to know the atomic formula of clay without ever having seen it +in the raw earth, to handle pine wood in the workshop without having +walked through a pine forest, and to go through the masterpieces of +poetic literature without having experienced a single emotion which +would prepare him to appreciate anything different from one of the +influential Megalopolitan magazines, “Smutty Stories”, but as long as +his hours of attendance can be recorded on paper, and as long as he can +give a satisfactory account of his studies on an examination paper, his +preparation for life is practically complete; and so he is graduated +with a paper certificate of education into the industries of Coketown, +or into the multitudinous bureaus of Megalopolis itself. + +The end of this period of paper tutelage is but a prelude to its +continuation in another form; for the religious care of paper is +the Megalopolitan’s life work. The daily newspaper, the ledger, the +card index are the means by which he now makes contact with life, +whilst the fiction magazine and the illustrated paper are the means +by which he escapes from it. Through the translucent form of paper +known as celluloid, it has been possible to do away on the stage +with flesh-and-blood people; and therefore the drama of life, as the +Megalopolitan story writers tell it, can be enacted at one remove +from actuality. Instead of his travelling, the world moves before the +Megalopolitan, on paper; instead of his venturing forth on the highways +of the world, adventure comes to him, on paper; instead of his getting +him a mate, his bliss may be all but consummated--on paper. In fact, +so accustomed does the Megalopolitan become to experiencing all his +emotions on paper that he can be entertained by the representation of +a static bowl of flowers on a moving picture screen; while his cockney +ignorance of nature is so vast that a certain vaudeville performer, +seeking to amuse him by imitating the calls of birds and beasts, finds +it wise to have moving pictures taken of the rooster, the dog, and the +cat, in order to give his mimicries reality in minds destitute of any +personal image. + +The notion of direct action, direct intercourse, direct association, +is a foreign one to Megalopolis. If any action is to be taken by the +whole community, or by any group in it, it is necessary to carry it +through the Megalopolitan parliament, and have it established on paper, +after innumerable people, who have no genuine concern in the matter, +have committed their views about it to paper. If any intercourse is +to be carried on, it must be largely conducted on paper; and if that +medium is not directly available, subsidiary instruments, like the +telephone, are used. The chief form of association in Megalopolis is +that by political party, and it is through the political party that the +Megalopolitan expresses his views, on paper, as to what is necessary +to amend the paper constitution or promote the welfare of the paper +community; albeit he realizes that the promises made by political +parties are written on what Megalopolitans in their more cynical +moments call “non-negotiable” paper, and will probably never pass into +currency. + +By its traffic in Coketown’s multifarious goods and by its command over +certain kinds of paper known as mortgages or securities, Megalopolis +ensures a supply of real foods and real staples from the countryside. +Through incessant production of books, magazines, newspapers, +boilerplate features, and syndicated matter, Megalopolis ensures that +the idolum of the National Utopia shall be kept alive in the minds of +the underlying inhabitants of the country. Finally, by the devices of +“national education” and “national advertising” all the inhabitants +of the National Utopia are persuaded that the good life is that which +is lived, on paper, in the capital city; and that an approximation to +this life can be achieved only by eating the food, dressing in the +clothes, holding the opinions, and purchasing the goods which are +offered for sale by Megalopolis. So the chief aim of every other city +in the National Utopia is to become like Megalopolis; its chief hope +is to grow as big as Megalopolis; its boast is that it is another +Megalopolis. When the denizens of Megalopolis dream of a better world, +it is only a paper perfection of that National Utopia which Edward +Bellamy looked forward to in Looking Backward. + +Working in connection with the Machine Process of Coketown, the +Megalopolis erects a standard of life which can be expressed in +commercial terms, on paper, even if it does not offer any tangible +satisfaction in goods and services and perfections. The chief boast +of this standard is its uniformity; that is, its equal applicability +to every person in the community without respect to his history, his +circumstances, his needs, his actual rewards. Hence such goods as +Megalopolis creates in profusion are for the most part in the line of +plumbing and sanitary devices which, if they do not exactly heighten +the joy of living, at any rate make the routine of Megalopolitan life a +little less formidable. + +The total result of these standards and uniformities is that what was +originally a fiction in time becomes a fact. Whereas the inhabitants of +the national utopia may originally have been as diverse as the trees +in a forest, they tend to become, under the influence of education +and propaganda, as similar as telegraph poles along a road. It is +not a little to the credit of Megalopolis that the National Utopia +has pragmatically justified itself. It has created the sort of mental +environment on paper which is necessary to a smooth adjustment of +Coketown and the Country House. What is Megalopolis, in fact, but a +paper purgatory which serves as a medium through which the fallen sons +of Coketown, the producer’s hell, may finally attain the high bliss of +the Country House, the consumer’s Heaven? + + +13 + +It should be plain that in describing the National Utopia and +Megalopolis I have been trying to outline what Plato would call the +pure form. It is equally clear, I trust, that the pure form is an +idolum to which any existing national state or metropolis approximates +only so far as the idolum does not conflict too grossly with the +real men and women, the real communities, the real regions, the real +workaday occupations which continue, despite the reign of these idola, +to exist, and to occupy our main attention. Formal education has not +altogether taken the place of vital education; loyalty to the state +has not altogether succeeded as a substitute for deeper allegiances +and affiliations: occasionally, here and there, people meet each other +face to face, they eat real food, dig in real earth, smell real flowers +instead of coal tar perfumes that arise from paper bouquets, and embark +quite madly on real love affairs. It is true that these realities are +a disturbing influence: they are always threatening to undermine the +idola which the politicians and journalists and academic handymen +unite so valiantly to build up; but there they are--and even the most +stubborn idealist cannot help himself from occasionally confronting the +world that he denies! + +If you and I were perfect citizens of Megalopolis, we should never +let anything come between us and our loyalty to the State: when the +State called for our taxes, we should never think regretfully of the +amusements we must forego in order to pay them; when the State demanded +that we go to war, nothing like the claims of a family or an occupation +or a moral conviction would ever step between us and our national duty. +By the same token, we should never eat any other food than that which +had been nationally advertized, and never buy anything direct from +the producer when we might buy it from a third person in Megalopolis; +we should never read any literature that is not produced in our own +country, never desire any other climate than our own country can +boast, and never seek to find in any other culture, remote in space or +time, the things which we seem to miss in our own environment. If only +this utopia of nationalism could be realized completely it would be +self-sufficient; and there would be nothing on earth, in heaven, or in +the waters over the earth which did not bear the authentic trademark of +Megalopolis. + + +14 + +The picture of the National Utopia that I have drawn is perhaps a +little too black to stand out clearly; and I must now add a few high +lights for definition. + +As in Coketown, there was a point up to which efficiency in mechanical +production was a good thing, so in the national utopia there is a +point up to which uniformity is a good thing. The National State +seems historically to have arisen in some part through the relief +which the people of the Middle Age experienced in being able to travel +under the protection of the King’s law along the King’s highway, and +their discovery that common laws and customs, common weights and +measures, were on the whole an advantage over a multitude of senseless +irregularities which continued to exist in particular neighborhoods. +It was a distinct triumph for the good life when the men of London and +the men of Edinburgh, let us say, realized that they had something in +common as citizens of a single country, and emphasized the likenesses +which bound them as men rather than the antagonisms that separated them +as cities. If the National State erected barriers of trade against +other countries, it at any rate broke down barriers that had long +existed in even more limited regions, and that have long continued to +exist in certain cities in Italy and France. So much is to the good. + +But uniformity is not a good in itself. It is a good only in so far +as it promotes association and social intercourse. In breaking down +minor barriers, the State created major ones, and it created national +uniformities in regions where they were meaningless. Moreover, +nationalism is inimical to cultural unity, and it perpetuates +irrelevant conflicts in the Kingdom of the Spirit where there should +be neither slave nor free, neither white nor black, neither citizen +nor outlander. As a matter of fact, the two great international +cultural vehicles of the Middle Age--the Latin Language and the Roman +Church--were broken down by the propagation of a National Language, +that spoken at the National Capital, and a National Church, that which +was subservient to the State; and nothing that nationalism has done +since has repaired this loss. On one hand, the idolum of the National +State is too narrow, because the world of culture is man’s common +inheritance, and not the mere segment of it which is called “national +literature” or “national science.” And on the other hand, the idolum +is too big, for the reason that there is no bond except a paper one +between men who are as far apart as Bermondsey and Bombay, or New York +and San Francisco. The temporal community, as Auguste Comte finely +pointed out, is local, restricted, and multiform; this is its essential +nature and limitation. The spiritual community is universal. It was a +great cultural misdemeanor when the National Utopia, in its extension +as imperialism, sought to make the spiritual community restricted and +the temporal community universal; and it is this heresy to the good +life which makes all the pretensions of the national utopia so shabby +and insincere. + + +15 + +If Coketown and the Country House and the National Utopia had +remained on paper, they would doubtless be entertaining and edifying +contributions to our literature. Unfortunately, these social myths +have been potent; they have given a pattern to our lives; and they are +the source of a great many evils that threaten, like stinking weeds, +to choke the good life in our communities. It is not because these +myths are utopias that I have been criticizing them so assiduously; it +is rather because they continue to work such wholesale damage. Hence +it has seemed worth while to point out that they are on pretty much +the same level of reality as the Republic or Christianopolis. We may +perhaps approach our social institutions a little more courageously +when we realize how completely we ourselves have created them; and how, +without our perpetual “will to believe” they would vanish like smoke in +the wind. + + + + +CHAPTER ELEVEN + + How we reckon up accounts with the one-sided utopias of the + partisans. + + + + +CHAPTER ELEVEN + + +1 + +There have been many periods when men did not think it possible to make +life in the community reach much higher levels than it had attained, +without working a change upon human nature. The working of this +change has been one of the chief preoccupations of religion; but no +one can pretend that it has met, during the historic period, with any +overwhelming success. In the eighteenth century men became impatient +with the ministrations of institutional religion, and sought to effect +an improvement in the common life by a different method--by improving +the political, economic, and social mechanisms of society. + +Up to this time the only method that had seemed feasible for improving +the technique of social organization was the mandate of law. Although +Aristotle, for instance, predicted that slavery would come to an end +on the condition that the shuttle should weave by itself and the lyre +play without human hand, no one in the Greek community of his time saw +very much likelihood of improvement through mechanical inventions or +wholesale innovations in agriculture; and no one, apparently, concerned +himself seriously with the mechanical side of affairs. + +It was the same during the Middle Age. If the men of that time were +not exuberantly happy over their civilization, they had the dogmatic +conviction that nothing very satisfactory could come of a race that had +inherited the curse of Adam--a race whose only salvation could come +when its individuals were purged one by one of sin, and delivered, +by the intercession of the saints and the grace of God, into a more +benignly constituted afterworld. One might relieve the pressure a +little if the shoe pinched, perhaps, but scarcely anyone dreamed of +travelling in seven-league boots, or of establishing an Arcadia in +which boots could be dispensed with. It was foolish to look for a more +perfect society in a world that was rife with imperfect men. + +The Renascence, as we have seen, changed all this. Presently a school +of philosophers followed on the heels of the utopians who devoted +themselves to preparing fairly minute plans and specifications for the +social order. In the beginning, these plans were devoted to politics +and criminal reform, like those of Rousseau, Beccaria, Bentham, +Jefferson, Godwin, and the eighteenth century reformers generally; +in the nineteenth century the main accent was economic, and a number +of movements arose which could be traced back to the semi-scientific +investigations of Adam Smith, Ricardo, Proudhon, Malthus, Marx, and +perhaps half a dozen other thinkers of outstanding importance, among +whom we should perhaps include such latter day figures as Mill, +Spencer, and Henry George. + +All of these thinkers have in one way or another influenced our +thoughts and deflected our actions; and if one adds to this galaxy the +reforming elements which remained in the churches and the missionary +brotherhoods and the philanthropic organizations, we can observe, +growing up in the nineteenth century, a multitude of partisan +organizations and movements, each of which is strenuously bent on +realizing its private and partisan utopia. It is these private and +partisan utopias that I purpose to make a slight reckoning with in the +present chapter; but the field is such a huge and formidable one that I +shall limit my criticism in the main to those that attempted to effect +a change in the economic order. + + +2 + +For all the activities that men engage in we have separate words. This +is a great misfortune; for in using these words we tend to believe +that each action takes place in a separate compartment. Instead of +beginning with a whole man interacting in a whole community, we are +likely to consider only a partial man in a partial community, and by a +mental sleight of hand, before we know it, we have let the part stand +for the whole. It is this sort of abstraction, I believe, that has been +responsible for a good deal of fallacious thinking with regard to the +place of industry in the community. The economists seem to have made +the error first by talking of a creature whom they called the Economic +Man, a creature who had no instincts but those of construction and +acquisition, no habits but of working and saving, and no other ultimate +purpose than to become such a captain of industry as would make him a +candidate for the biographic sketches of Mr. Samuel Smiles, and his +present successors in the newspapers and popular magazines. + +Now this Economic Man was the embodiment of honest labor and rapacious +greed. Out of the better quality, Karl Marx painted the picture of +the faithful laborer in Coketown whose masters swindled him out of +the “surplus value” he produced; out of the worse quality classical +economists like Ricardo painted an equally entrancing picture of the +beneficent capitalist, through whose foresight, organizing ability, +and boldness business could be conducted on a scale a simpler age had +scarcely dreamed of. It was out of these conceptions, as they were +elaborated and rationalized in books like Porter’s Progress of the +Nineteenth Century and Marx’s Capital, that there grew up the notion +that the only fundamental problem in the modern world was the labor +problem--the problem as to who should control industry, who should +profit by its advances, and who should own the complicated instruments +by which it was conducted. + +Our business here is not to examine the various programs that were +offered during the last century in answer to these problems; merely +to catalog them with the barest explanation of their purpose would be +an imposing task, were it not for the fact that it has been neatly +done for us by Mr. Savel Zimand. It is enough to see here the common +element in capitalism, copartnery, State Socialism, Guild Socialism, +Co-operation, Communism, Syndicalism, the One Big Union, Trades +Unionism, and the like; whether these movements represent actual facts, +like capitalism, copartnery, or trades unionism, or whether they are +simply projections, like Syndicalism and the One Big Union. + +If our excursion through the classic utopias has been of any use, it +must have shown us how pathetic is this notion that the key to a good +society rests simply on the ownership and control of the industrial +plant of the community. Is it any less absurd when we confess that +most of the movements which were founded upon this assumption were +actuated by generous and humane motives, and that Francis Place, the +tailor of Charing Cross, who believed in a radical application of +laissez faire principles, was just as sincere a believer in the common +weal as Karl Marx, who predicted a dictatorship of the proletariat? +If a great many of these programs have had the notion that industrial +machinery, under socialism or guildism or co-operation was to be used +for the common benefit, what was lacking was any common notion as to +what the common benefit was. + +All that was common to these partisan utopias was a desire to get rid +of positive evils such as overwork or starvation or irregularity of +employment. In their rejection of the existing order of Coketown, with +its rubbish heaps for the disposal of material waste, and its jails, +hospitals, sanatoria, doss houses, Salvation Army Headquarters, and +charitable organizations for the disposal of the human excrement of +industrialism--in turning their backs upon these things and asserting +the simple elements of human dignity, all our radical programs were +right and inevitable. To reject what industrial society had to offer +its members in the filthy factory districts and wretched slums of +Coketown was obviously to reject barbarism and degradation of the worst +sort: the incredible thing about the industrial revolution, indeed, +is not that there were a few riots here and there against the use of +machinery, but that the industrial population has not been in a state +of continual insurrection, and that the industrial towns have not been +looted and razed again and again. It is nothing less than a tribute +to the fundamental good nature and sweetness of human beings that the +strikes by which the workers have expressed their sense of grievance +have not demolished the material hovels that today stand upright in the +valleys of York-Riding, in the valleys of the Ohio and its tributaries, +or in that terrible slum which stretches in back of the Jersey meadows +from Elizabeth into Patterson. There are many districts in these areas +which are scarcely worth the respect of orderly demolition. To give a +grim rejection to the society that produced them only mildly meets the +situation. They should be destroyed by trumpets and God’s wrath--like +Jericho! + +So much for what is sound and valid in the various one-sided programs +for reform. But if their attitude towards the past performances of +industrialism was sound, their gesture towards the future, and their +attitude towards the whole milieu, was little less than indifferent. +There were to be certain gains in money wages, in political control, +in the distribution of products, and so forth; but the realization +of these gains was never projected in any very vivid way--a vague +fellowship in peace and plenty under gay red banners was all that was +left over when the current efforts to “educate the masses,” “revise the +constitution,” or “organize the revolution” were taken for granted. + +In his Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, Friedrich Engels made a plea +for a realistic method of thought, which limited itself to a here and +now, as against what he derided as the utopian method, the attempt +on the part of a single thinker to give a detailed picture of the +society of the future. Yet at the present time it is easy to see that +if the utopian socialism of Owen has been ineffective, the realistic +socialism of Marx has been equally ineffective; for while Owen’s kind +of socialism has been partly fulfilled in the co-operative movement, +the dictatorship of the proletariat rests upon very shaky foundations, +and such success as it has had is due perhaps as much to Marx’s +literary picture of what it would be like as to anything else. I do not +doubt that the partisan movements have achieved many specific gains; +consumer’s co-operation alone has in England measurably lightened the +physical burden of existence for a great many people. Their weakness +consists in the fact that they have not altered the contents of +the modern social order, even when they have altered the method of +distribution; and in addition, a good many of these partisan utopias, +for lack of any definite and coherent scheme of values, crumble away +as soon as they meet the opposition of such powerful collective +utopias as Coketown or the Country House. In America, particularly, +the labor movement is paralyzed by this perpetual movement into the +bourgeoisie--concretely speaking, into Suburbia and the Country +House--and in Great Britain much the same sort of dereliction can be +observed within the narrower group from which the leaders of the trades +unions and the Labor Party are drawn. + +Hence also the less interesting problem of the Tired Radical, which +Mr. Walter Weyl suggestively outlined. There is indeed a pertinent +criticism of the paper environment of Megalopolis, in the tenacious way +in which people continue to cling to abstract programs and to movements +which never approach perceptibly nearer their fulfillment. The marvel +is that the concrete utopia of the Country House has not exercised a +more potent influence than it actually does. When one compares the vast +amount of agitation during the last century--the Chartist Movement, +the Socialist Movement, the International Peace Movement--with the +actual results in the reconstruction of work, place, and people, or +with the actual effects any reconstruction has had upon our polity, +our culture, our art--it is surprising that these movements have had +any effective claim upon our allegiance. Men will indeed work for an +idea--the notion that they will not is a superstition--but sooner or +later the spirit must be made manifest in the flesh, and if it never +comes to birth, or at best is an abortion, the idea is bound to wither +away. + +How long would the parliamentary clatter of socialism have mechanically +kept on--had it not been for the dislocation of war? How long could +its abstract programs have remained in the air, before coming down to +specifications? I obviously cannot answer these questions; but it seems +plain enough that our radical programs have had simply a sentimental +interest: they moved people without giving them a specific task, they +stirred them emotionally without giving them an outlet, and so, at +best, they are but partial utopias of escape, using the powers of +organization, collective meetings, and pronunciamentos to take the +place of the emotional stimuli which the avowed utopia of escape, like +News from Nowhere, supplies by introducing a beautiful girl. In this +aspect, the Socialist Party, with its revolutionary demands, did not +differ in its psychological performance from the Republican Party, +which specialized in the rhetorical device of the full dinner pail; +nor did it differ in any fundamental way from the defunct Progressive +Party, which for a time believed in a new heaven and earth to follow +the initiative, referendum, and recall with an intensity of moral +conviction beside which the social revolutionist was positively tame. + +Who doubts the honesty and sincerity of most of the members of these +parties? Who doubts their devotion to revolution or “uplift”? It is +all beside the point. A machine which doesn’t work because it is badly +constructed is just as useless as one that doesn’t work because its +maker is a deliberate fraud; and all the sincerity and good will and +honesty doesn’t make any one a smile the happier. It is about time that +we faced the facts and realized that in all our sundry mechanisms of +reform “there is a screw loose somewhere.” This pregnant metaphor of +the industrial age is usually applied to neurotic disorder; and I am +using it in the present context with fell intentions. I mean that the +utopia of the partisan is, psychologically speaking, a fetish; that +is to say, it is an attempt to substitute the part for the whole, and +to pour into the part all the emotional content that belongs to the +whole. When a man gets hold of a lady’s handkerchief or garter, and +behaves towards that object with as much intensity and interest as he +would towards its flesh and blood owner, the handkerchief or garter is +said to be a fetish. I hazard the judgment that Socialism, Prohibition, +Proportional Representation, and the various other abstract “isms” are +the fetishes of the partisan: they are attempts to make some particular +instrument or function of the community stand for the whole. It is +doubtless much easier to filch a handkerchief than to win a girl. +By the same token, it is easier to concentrate on the use of liquor +or the ownership of machinery and land than upon the totality of a +community’s activities. It is easier indeed; but it is fatal; for the +result of this fetishism is perhaps that the girl remains unmated, and +the society fails to undergo any fundamental change. Moreover, the +reforming elements in society become incapacitated by their practice +of fetishism to take a normal part in the community’s activities; and +remain so much waste material--at best, they wander between two worlds, +“one dead, the other powerless to be born.” + +We know these disoriented reformers, these disillusioned +revolutionaries, these tired radicals; we could mention names if it +were not so needless and so cruel. Apart from anything else, their +original mistake was to keep their problem within the compartment of +politics and economics, instead of venting it to the wide world. They +forgot that the adjustment of some single activity or institution, +without respect to the rest, begged the very difficulty they were +trying to overcome. If they were anti-militarists, they saw the world +simply as an armed camp; if they were socialists, they saw it as a +gigantic mechanism of exploitation; and alas! they saw only so much of +the world as would conveniently fit within these diagrams. The world +is perhaps an armed camp and a mechanism of exploitation; it is all +that and much more; but any attempt to deal with it on a wholesale plan +by eliminating all the qualifying elements in the problem is bound to +encounter the brute nature of things; and if the nature of things is +essentially antagonistic, the reform itself will fail. + +To say all this is to emphasize the obvious. If any further emphasis +were needed it would be necessary only to compare the doctrines of +Marx, as expounded by Lenin at the beginning of the Russian Revolution, +and the doctrines of Lenin, as tempered by experience and circumstance +a few years later. + + +3 + +There was still another weakness that characterized all the partisan +utopias of the nineteenth century. That weakness was their externalism. + +If the mediæval thinkers were convinced that, on the whole, nothing +could be done to rectify men’s institutions, while men themselves were +so easily bitten by corruption, their successors in the nineteenth +century committed the opposite kind of error and absurdity: they +believed that human nature was unsocial and obstreperous only because +the church, the state, or the institution of property perverted every +human impulse. Men like Rousseau, Bentham, Godwin, Fourier, and Owen +might be miles apart from one another in their criticism of society, +but there was an underlying consensus in their belief in human nature. +They looked upon human institutions as altogether external to men; +these were so many straitjackets that cunning rulers had thrown over +the community to make sane and kindly people behave like madmen; and +they could conceive of changing the institutions without changing the +habits and redirecting the impulses of the people by whom and for whom +they had been created. If one devised neat political constitutions, +with plenty of checks and balances, or laid out pauper colonies and +invited the countryside to make use of them--well, all would be to the +good. + +There was, it is true, one great exception to this notion that +institutions might be reformed without, in that process, making over +men. I refer to the belief in education which accompanied these +classic criticisms of human institutions; for this seems to point to +a perception that men needed a special training and discipline before +they could enter freely into the life of a reconstituted community. But +upon examination, this exception melts away. The emphasis in the new +programs of education was upon the formal, institutional acquirement +of the apparatus of knowledge; and they, too, began with the clean +slate of a new generation, whereas the critical difficulty was that +of getting the adult community sufficiently educated, in a realistic +sense, to be able to make over its educational institutions; and in +this respect the reformers were just as much in Cuckooland as--well, +Campanella. So it follows that the Country House and Coketown shared +honors in building up the new educational organizations; and the +outcome of the sort of education that the public school and college +provided was to make these redoubtable utopias practically unassailable. + +Besides, there were the adults: consider Robert Owen! + +Robert Owen, one of the most sanguine advocates of popular education, +was himself a living example of the need for a different kind of +discipline than his narrow and homiletic mind, with its childish +interpretation of religious belief and its equally childish +rationalism, was capable of framing. No one ever frustrated so many +good ideas, from the plan of garden cities down to the project for +co-operative production than this same Owen, whose bumptiousness, +arrogance, and conceit were bound to provoke reactions in other people +which would have defeated the plans of Omnipotence itself. The capital +difficulty was to get any sort of social improvement in a world that +was full of refractory Owens. A locomotive may, in a sense, be a more +perfect thing than the man who made it; but no social order can be +better than the human beings who take part in it; for whereas the +locomotive can stand apart from its operatives and perform all its +functions effectively even if the workers themselves are deficient in +every other respect than mechanics, with a social order the product and +the producer continue to be one. + +Not merely does a community need a Buddha, let us say, before it +can produce Buddhism; it needs a whole succession of Buddhas if the +religion itself is not to fritter away into the hideous ecclesiastical +grind it became in Thibet. This principle has a general application. +The social critics of the last century confused the mechanical problem +of transforming an institution or of creating a new organization +with the personal and social problem of spurring people to effect +the transformation and see it through. Their tactics were those of +a general who would go into battle without training his army; their +strategy was that of the demagogue who talks of a million armed men +springing up overnight. The personal problem, the problem of education, +was as easy as that! + +If we are to account for the poverty of our achievements in renovating +the community, in contrast with the enormous amount of quite +justifiable economic and political agitation, research, and criticism, +it is perhaps not altogether fair to put the entire burden of failure +upon the partisan’s lop-sided utopia. The plans of our reformers have +indeed been weak and jerrybuilt in themselves; but that is not all. +What has perhaps been even more conspicuously lacking has been people +who are accessible to the existing knowledge, people whose minds have +been trained to play freely with the facts, people who have learned the +fine and exacting art of co-operating with their fellows; people who +are as critical of their own mental processes and habits of behavior as +they are of the institutions they wish to alter. As Viola Paget says: +“The bulk of thinking and feeling intended to help on human improvement +has not really been good enough for the purpose. Not good enough in the +sense of not sufficiently impersonal and disciplined.” + +Between our programs, our utopias, and their fulfillment there has +usually dropt a thick veil of personalities; and were the plan itself +the collaborate product of the best minds of the race; as Mr. H. G. +Wells satirically pictured in Boon, it would still have to take its +chances with the wild asses of the devil that human weakness, apathy, +greed, lust for power, might release. Walt Whitman said of Carlyle +that behind the tally of his work and genius stood the stomach, and +gave a sort of casting vote. So one may say of every social movement, +that behind the tally of its theoretic background and its concrete +programs stand human beings--hale and sick, neurotic and stable, +well-intentioned and malicious--and give the casting vote. + +Anyone who has read an important book, and then met the author, who has +respected an apparently significant social movement, and then met the +leaders behind the scenes, will realize how frequent is the difficulty +of reconciling theoretic agreement with the inaccessibilities and +prejudices and repugnances of particular personalities. No one can join +the work of even the most trivial sort of committee--be it a delegation +to shake hands with the Congressman or a body designated to revise the +rules of a tennis club--without discovering how the work in hand is +perpetually being balked and diverted by the play of personalities. + +It is not a little significant that popular speech gives the word +“personalities” a derogatory meaning. Again and again the success or +failure in large collaborations hinges upon human factors that have no +bearing on the question at issue. Pope’s satiric words about wretches +hanging that jurymen may dine touches the point neatly. Our programs +for reconstruction that have not reckoned with the perpetual cussedness +of human nature and have no method for exorcising it are as shallow as +those older theologies which sought to make men live in grace without +altering the social order in which they functioned. Perhaps they could +learn something from the story of that ancient agitator who cured the +blind, the maimed, the sick, and the halt before he bade them enter +into the Kingdom of Heaven. Emerson well said in his essay on Man the +Reformer that it was stupid to expect any real or permanent change from +any social program which was unable to regenerate or convert--these are +religious phases for a common psychological phenomenon--the people who +are to engineer it and carry it through. + +It would be so easy, this business of making over the world, if it +were only a matter of creating machinery. There has probably never +been lacking the sort of energy and talent that is needed for this +sort of work; and at any rate, during the last three centuries, with +the growth of technology, the mechanical services at the command of +our engineers and organizers are huge and adequate. Unfortunately, we +are still in the same ditch that Carlyle mordantly pointed out in his +essay on Characteristics: Given a world of knaves, we are trying by +various cunning devices to produce an honesty from their united action. +I do not share Carlyle’s contempt for human nature in the raw, but he +is quite right, I believe, in making fun of the superficiality of our +partisan utopias. These utopias were so concerned to alter the shell +of the community’s institutions that they neglected to pay attention +to the habits of the creature itself--or its habitat. That is why +mechanical devices play such an important part, perhaps, in all these +utopias, from Jeremy Bentham, with his Panopticon method of reforming +criminals, down to the hideous cog-and-wheel utopia of Edward Bellamy. + +The conceptions of human life that our reforming groups have had have +been pretty thin and unsatisfying. Any adequate conception of a new +social order would, it seems to me, include the scenery, the actors, +and the play. It is a mark of our immaturity that we never seem able to +get beyond the scene shifting. Our social theorists, in so far as they +consider the actors at all, are inclined to treat them as mechanical +puppets. As for the play itself--the universal drama of courtship +and trial and adventure and contest and achievement, in which every +human being is potentially the hero or heroine--the play itself has +hardly entered into their consciousness. Their values have not been +human values: they have been such values as have been authenticated by +commerce and industry, values such as efficiency, fair wages, and what +not. These, at any rate, have been the immediate objects of effort, +and if human values hung vaguely in the background, they were to be +realized in a distant and unascertainable future. So one often feels +that no matter how base and deteriorated the modern community is, it +nevertheless retains in its totality a greater measure of human values +than many of the groups that have attacked its inadequacy have to offer. + +All this comes out pretty plainly in the attitude of the labor groups +towards the current situation. Whether they are organized for political +action or for industrial warfare, their aims are curiously similar. +In the very act of contending against the present order, they have +accepted the ends for which that order stands and have been content to +demand simply that they be universalized. This perhaps accounts for the +essential uncreativeness of the labor movement. By a revolution they do +not mean a transvaluation of values: they mean a dilution and spreading +out of established practices and institutions. There may indeed be +plenty of excuse for this attitude in any particular situation--a +group of unorganized and semi-destitute workers such as those in many +American steel plants--but the worst of it is that this attitude +characterizes the more advanced and economically secure groups, and +creeps into such ultimate programs as one can deduce from attempts to +create workers’ educational institutions--as if a change in ownership +or the balance of power would alter the face of Coketown so that its +fires would no longer burn and its cinders no longer smut. + +I have emphasized what is the weakness, as it seems to me, of the +labor movement; not because I am necessarily out of sympathy with any +particular measure that might be proposed, but because it illustrates +upon an enormous scale the point which I desire to make. The +prohibition movement, or the charity organization movement--towards +both of which I feel, on the contrary, a cordial antipathy--would +serve just as well for illustration; for they all have this common +distinction: they lack any explicit, consciously projected humane ends +which would make any particular measure that they might offer justified. + + +4 + +Let me now anticipate the answer which this criticism will probably +meet. To some people it will seem that the current movements for +reform are inevitably secular; that they have no business to concern +themselves with the ultimate faith of men; that they inevitably deal +with a limited here and now, a dollar more of wages, a drop less of +liquor, a touch more of uniformity, and so forth. In short, our partial +utopias need not concern themselves with any of the questions that have +to do with the life of the spirit. + +The simple answer to this crude philosophy is--so much the worse for +them. The breach between the institutions that deal with the material +life and those that deal with the ideal life results either in a +complete dissociation, by which each set of institutions becomes +paralytic and imbecile; or, as so often happens, in a capitulation +of the spiritual power to the temporal, and its complete engrossment +in temporal ends. I am aware that these phrases, “spiritual” and +“temporal,” have a certain old-fashioned smell; but they precisely +express my meaning: it is plain that every community contains the +corresponding institutions--one group being devoted to values and +the other to means. When our reforms are not touched by a sense of +values, the result is that purely temporal ends are taken as ultimate, +and we have such notions as efficiency or organization regarded +as the very touchstone of social improvement. This is scarcely an +improvement over the old order of things, with which we are now so +dismally familiar--the state in which our values were not fertilized +by any intercourse with the concrete and actual world about us, and so +remained remote and sterile. In short, unless our reformers concern +themselves with the ultimate values of men, with what constitutes +a good life, they are bound to pander to such immediate faiths and +superstitions as the National State, Efficiency, or the White Man’s +Burden. + + +5 + +There is a final criticism of the partial utopias: our one-sided +reforms have had this fatal defect--they are one-sided. This +partisanship was expressed by their relation to the facts upon which +their programs were based, and in their attitude towards the people who +were to be affected by them. + +The mood of partisanship has been that of a lawyer who is getting up +an argument and is looking for such facts as will bolster up his case. +That mood is inimical to free and intelligent thought: its object +is rhetorical triumph. Now it happens that in all the matters which +intimately concern a community, a person’s attitude towards the facts +not merely seems more important than the facts themselves, but seems so +deucedly important that the facts are ignored. The attitude of a group +of Southern whites who will lynch a negro on the report that he has +raped a white woman before they investigate the truth of the assertion +is a bestial exaggeration of a very natural human tendency. Men are +built for action rather than thought; or rather, since thought, on the +psychologist’s interpretation, is inhibited action, the business of +inhibition naturally comes a little hard to us; and when we are in a +place where we have the rough choice of pushing through the obstacle, +under a strong impulse of resentment (instinct of pugnacity) or may +quietly withdraw from the obstacle, survey it, and frame a plan of +action to circumvent it, our fundamental impulse is to follow the first +mode. + +It is easy to see, for example, how the hideous human suffering +which accompanied the growth of the capitalist organization--and +still exists!--caused the socialists to concentrate attention upon +the subjects of ownership and profits, and long blinded them to the +specific problems of organization, distribution, and control within +the industries that might be affected by the program of socialization. +This concentration upon the particular aspect of a problem, like +the concentration upon a particular aspect of the solution, has +the weakness of ignoring the total situation, and it too crudely +simplifies the difficulties. In their haste to arrive at solutions and +remedies--for the life of man is short and the needs of the moment are +pressing--the partisans neglect to make a complete tally of the facts; +and they are too ready to let “common knowledge” take the place of a +thorough investigation of the data. + +This weakness arises out of an almost instinctive tendency towards +partisanship; and it is one of the reasons that partisanship continues. +If nothing else prevents groups from getting together, their failure +to agree about the facts, and their lack of a method for getting at +the facts and focussing them, is responsible. If an examination of +the facts did nothing else, it might show at least the impossibility +of drawing any conclusion from them, and it might warn the partisan +to step warily. Thus the testimony that was offered for and against +Prohibition came from fairly high authorities on both sides; and if +there had been anything like right reason in the strategically stronger +camp, it would have convinced those who were interested in the welfare +of the community that nothing could be wisely done while the very basis +for judgment--scientific knowledge as to the place of alcoholic stimuli +in the life of the human organism--had not been established. + +It is of course conceivable that men will quarrel and split when they +are fully apprised of the facts: we may well remember the story of +the British ambassador who confessed to his French colleague that +the reason he did not get on very well with the Americans was that +both countries unfortunately spoke the same language; but it is +inconceivable that they should ever reach an intelligent agreement +before they are in common possession of the facts. By ignoring the +necessity for substantiating his claims and assertions the partisan +frequently not merely fails to see his whole problem in all its +implications, but also prevents any one else from seeing it. Even when +the partisan is not intentionally blind, he lacks the discipline which +is essential to an open-eyed judgment of the case. What that discipline +may be I shall attempt to discuss in the next chapter. + +The second weakness of partisanship is that it breaks the community +into vertical divisions, and promotes fictitious antagonisms and +kinships which run against the horizontal affiliations and loyalties of +a man’s life. This tendency was nicely illustrated in a play by Mr. St. +John Ervine, called Mixed Marriage, which dealt with the love affair +of a young girl and a young man who were separated by the religions +that had been handed down by their parents. In Mr. Ervine’s wretched +little Ulster community, these religions served as an excuse to keep +people from being friendly and decent to their neighbors. Now it is +obvious that mating, and making friends with those who have common +interests and sentiments, and mixing freely within the whole community, +are highly important horizontal interests; they tend to unite people +in a common bond which is fundamental for the reason that these +interests and activities are essentially human. The antagonism between +two Christian sects, on the other hand, undermines the good life as a +whole, because it insists that there is no other good than a religious +good--a good embodied in a pope, or in the practice of scoffing at a +pope--while it is obvious to anyone who has possession of his senses +that kissing a pretty girl is good, and having a friendly pipe with +one’s neighbor is good, and that institutions which prevent one from +doing these things at appropriate times are perverted and antisocial. +It is true that people who emphasize religious interests take “high +ground,” as the saying is, and that those who value the friendly pipe +seem by implication to take low ground: but what the partisans fail to +see is that there is a good human case for low ground, and that, for +the great majority of people it may prove to be not merely the only +practicable ground, but in its own right a good and sufficient one. + +Now for Catholic and Protestant in Mr. St. John Ervine’s play one +may substitute Democrat and Republican, White Guard and Red Guard, +Socialist and Financier, Prohibitionist and anti-Prohibitionist and +the results will be just as deplorably the same. There are any number +of interests in a well-wrought life which lie altogether beyond these +categories, and it is the chief misdemeanor of partisanism, as opposed +to utopianism, that it tends to slight these general interests, and +either bring them into the service of the “ism” or urge that they be +neglected in devotion to the “cause.” The first method has been used +by the apostles of nationalism. The National State, recognizing that +art and culture and science could not be altogether engrossed in the +strategy of political warfare, promptly put these goods in the pigeon +hole labelled national resources. The partisans of the State talked +about American science as opposed to German science, of Italian art +as opposed to French art; and thus emphasized the things which men in +America had with other Americans in order to mark off more clearly the +things they had apart from men of similar interests in other countries. +The same thing happened in the Russian communist state, with its +attempt to set aside the common cultural heritage of mankind at large +and define a purely proletarian culture. The results in every case are, +I believe, incurably mischievous; and those who would promote the good +life must cease this infantile practice of asserting vainly that “my +father knows more than your father,” “my mother is more beautiful than +your mother”--and so on. + +For the most part the second method has been indefatigably used. In +the political state the partisans make a great show of the gulf which +separates the political party in power from that which is outside, +and every other interest in life is supposed to be secondary to this +abysmal cleavage. In relatively crude communities, like the United +States and Ireland, these differences seem to be taken by the great +mass of people at their face value; whereas in England, which at least +has the virtues of disillusion, it is the great tradition of Parliament +that all the animosities of the floor are ignored in the bar of the +House of Commons, while all the congenialities and convivialities that +bind men together are emphasized. Lest I be accused of prejudice where +none exists, let me add that in the most substantial reconstruction +movement that Ireland possesses--I refer to agricultural co-operation +as promoted by Sir Horace Plunkett and A. E.--the horizontal interests +which bind men together as farmers and members of a local community +are successfully emphasized to the exclusion of irrelevant vertical +differences, at least in matters touching the organization and conduct +of the Irish Agricultural Organization Society; and that, as far as +I can see, this single organization has done more to promote the +good life in Ireland than any other institution, with the possible +exception of the equally non-partisan literary association which grew +up in Dublin under the leadership of A. E., William Butler Yeats, Lady +Gregory, and the rest of that fine and glorious crew. + +Obviously, it is not altogether for nothing that men have joined +together in vertical organizations which are as broad as a continent, +let us say, or the European world. There is a sense in which the +Christians of Jerusalem have more in common with the Christians of Rome +than they have with the Jews and Mohammedans of their local region. In +the same way, I find myself more deeply drawn to certain friends of +mine in Bombay and London than I am towards my next door neighbor, +with whom the only recognizable bond is our common animus against a +rapacious landlord. So long as the vertical affiliation with people of +the same views in politics or religion or philosophy is a spiritual +affiliation a great deal of good may come out of it. When, however, +the things that draw people together as members of a vertical group +are used as a means of inflicting similar opinions or practices upon +the local community, without respect to its regional qualities, the +results are little less than disastrous. The rain falls on the just and +the unjust; more than that, the food that we grow, the houses that we +build, the roads that we lay down, the thoughts that we think, belong +to us as members of the human species who have inherited the earth and +the fullness thereof; and it is absurd to let differences in our idola +prevent us from participating equally in this common heritage. + +At long last, the things that unite human beings as human beings, +the social inheritance that enables them to realize their stature as +human beings, are more important than any particular element that the +partisan may lay hold of. Whether our partisanism consists in being +first and foremost an American or first and foremost a Theosophist, +it tends to limit the world with which we may have commerce and so +impoverishes the personality. The person who insists upon being a +hundred per cent. American has by that very emphasis become something +less than half a man. By fastening attention upon a segment of the +world, the partisan creates a segment of a personality. It is these +segments or sects that any movement which aims at a general good in the +community must contend against. So long as work for the common welfare +meets with irrelevant partisanisms, so long will we lack the means of +creating whole men and women; and so long will the main concerns of +civilization be side-tracked. + + +6 + +What a vision these partisan utopias present! They are like the +scattered bones that the prophet saw in the terrible valley, and one +doubts whether even the breath of the Lord could knit them together +again into real bodies.... + +One of these partisan utopias issues from a bundle of red-tape; +everything is filed and ticketed and labelled there; and anything in +life that cannot be treated in this fashion does not exist. Another +is a mechanical contraption; somehow it seems to litter little +mechanical contraptions; and its aim is, it would seem, to do away with +vegetation and reproduction, so that everything under the sun might be +performed with the sterile accuracy of the machine. A third utopia of +the partisan calls human beings, with all their color and thickness, +“individuals,” and makes the good life a matter of legal relationships +without any regard to their necessities in time and space; such a +utopia could almost be carried in one’s pocket, so much is it a matter +of verbal statement. We need not go down the line. Singly, it is plain +that not one of these utopias would create a happy community; while if +all of these partisanisms could be realized the result could scarcely +be anything else than discord--such a discord as now exists and every +day becomes more raucous. + +It would seem that we are at an impasse. Even if I have absurdly +exaggerated the futility of the reformers and revolutionaries, their +lack of any fundamental program and their inability to conceive an +essential reorientation in modern society, come out pretty plainly. If +our analysis did not prove this, the atmosphere of disillusion which we +breathe today, and which permeates every branch of literature, would +tell as much. In so far as we have accepted the modern social order we +are in ruin; and the next war that now threatens will, if it actually +comes to pass, only carry the ruin a little further. In so far as +we have pinned our hopes to current movements for reconstruction or +revolution, our plans are sickly and debilitated. In fact, the only +genuine signs of life seem to be in regions like Ireland, Denmark, +India, and China, which have stood outside the movement of industrial +civilization and have retained the values of an order which elsewhere +has been undermined and almost destroyed. It is not a pretty situation +to face; and small wonder that we are so slow and so reluctant to face +it. Whichever way we look, bankruptcy seems to threaten us. + +It is time we endeavored to cash in the paper roubles of the partisan. +If our civilization is to hold together we must place its intellectual +currency on a new basis; we must exchange our abstract idealisms, our +abstract programs, our paperized pursuit of happiness for some of the +golden coinage of life, even though we cannot have our gold without +mixing it with baser metals. + + + + +CHAPTER TWELVE + + How the half-worlds go, and how eutopia may come; and what we + need before we can build Jerusalem in any green and pleasant + land. + + + + +CHAPTER TWELVE + + +1 + +The sort of thinking that has created our utopias has placed desire +above reality; and so their chief fulfillment has been in the realm of +fantasy. This is true of the classic utopias that we have surveyed, +and it is true--though not perhaps quite so apparent--of the partial +utopias that were formulated by the various reconstruction movements +during the last century. + +While the classic utopias have so far been nearer to reality that +they have projected a whole community, living and working and mating +and spanning the gamut of man’s activity, their projections have +nevertheless been literally up in the air, since they did not usually +arise out of any real environment or attempt to meet the conditions +that this environment presented. This defect has been suggested by the +very name of Utopia, for as Professor Patrick Geddes points out, Sir +Thomas More was an inveterate punster, and Utopia is a mock-name for +either Outopia, which means no-place, or Eutopia--the good place. + +It is time to bring our utopian idola and our everyday world into +contact; indeed, it is high time, for the idola that have so far served +us are now disintegrating so rapidly that our mental world will soon +be as empty of useful furniture as a deserted house, while wholesale +dilapidation and ruin threaten the institutions that once seemed +permanent. Unless we can weave a new pattern for our lives the outlook +for our civilization is almost as dismal as Herr Spengler finds it +in Der Untergang des Abendlandes. Our choice is not between eutopia +and the world as it is, but between eutopia and nothing--or rather, +nothingness. Other civilizations have proved inimical to the good +life and have failed and past away; and there is nothing but our own +will-to-eutopia to prevent us from following them. + +If this dissipation of Western Civilization is to cease, the first +step in reconstruction is to make over our inner world, and to give +our knowledge and our projections a new foundation. The problem +of realizing the potential powers of the community--which is the +fundamental problem of eutopian reconstruction--is not simply a matter +of economics or eugenics or ethics as the various specialist thinkers +and their political followers have emphasized. Max Beer, in his History +of British Socialism, points out that Bacon looked for the happiness of +mankind chiefly in the application of science and industry. But by now +it is plain that if this alone were sufficient, we could all live in +heaven tomorrow. Beer points out that More, on the other hand, looked +to social reform and religious ethics to transform society; and it is +equally plain that if the souls of men could be transformed without +altering their material and institutional activities, Christianity, +Mohammedanism, and Buddhism might have created an earthly paradise +almost any time this last two thousand years. The truth is, as Beer +sees, that these two conceptions are still at war with each other: +idealism and science continue to function in separate compartments; +and yet “the happiness of man on earth” depends upon their combination. + +If we are to build up genuine eutopias, instead of permitting ourselves +to pattern our behavior in terms of fake utopias like Coketown, the +Country House, the National State, and all the other partial and +inadequate myths to which we have given allegiance, we must examine +anew the idola which will assist us in reconstituting our environment. +So we are forced to consider the place of science and art in our social +life, and to discuss what must be done in order to make them bear more +concretely upon “the improvement of man’s estate.” + + +2 + +There was a time when the world of knowledge and the world of dreams +were not separated; when the artist and the scientist, for all +practical purposes, saw the “outside world” through the same kind of +spectacles. + +What we call “science” today was in its primitive state part and +parcel of that common stock of knowledge and belief which makes up a +community’s literature, or, as Dr. Beattie Crozier would have said, its +“Bible.” The departure of science from this main body of literature +begins for the Western World, probably, with the death of Plato and +the institution of Aristotle’s collections in natural history; and +from that point onwards the separate sciences, increasingly isolate +themselves from the general body of knowledge, and utilize methods +which had been unknown to the earlier philosophers and sages; so that +by the time the twentieth century dawns the process of differentiation +has been completed, and philosophy, once the compendium of the +sciences, has disappeared except as a sort of impalpable, viscous +residue. + +When Aristotle divided his writing into the exoteric and esoteric +groups, into the popular and the scientific, he definitely +recognized the existence of two separate branches of literature, +two different ways of taking account of the world, two disparate +methods of approaching its problems. The first branch was that of +the philosophers, the prophets, the poets, and the plain people. Its +background was the generality of human experience: its methods were +those of discussion and conference: its criteria were those of formal +dialectics: its interests were specifically those of the community, +and nothing human was foreign to it. With the petrification of +Greek thought that followed the collapse of the Alexandrian school, +the second branch was slow in coming into its own. As late as the +eighteenth century its adherents were called natural philosophers, to +distinguish them from the more humane variety; and it is only with the +nineteenth century that the subject became universally known as science +and its practitioners as scientists. + +In the Phædrus Socrates had expressed the humanist outlook of +literature by saying: “Trees and fields, you know, cannot teach me +anything, but men in the city can.” The shortest way of describing the +attitude of science is to say that it resolutely turned its back on +men in the city and devoted itself to the trees and fields and stars +and the rest of brute nature. If it paid attention to men at all it +saw them--if we may abuse an old quotation--as trees walking. Socrates +had said: Know thyself. The scientist said: Know the world that lies +outside man’s dominion. As science progressed these attitudes became +more rigid, unfortunately, and a conflict grew up between literature +and science, between the humanities and natural philosophy, which +has given both art and science the peculiar twist we shall presently +examine. + +Now the developments in modern science go back, through the Arabic +thinkers, to ancient Greece; but the great advances that have been +made date back scarcely three centuries. On the basis of the precise +knowledge of physical relations which became available in mathematics, +physics, mechanics, and chemistry the startling changes which have been +crudely labelled the “industrial revolution” were carried through. If +the essential relationship between the world of ideas and the world +of action were ever in doubt, the industrial revolution, especially +in its later phases, would be a final demonstration; for beneath the +ostensible skyscrapers, subways, factories, telephone lines, and sewers +of the modern industrial city lie the immaterial foundations of western +physical science, laid down stone by stone in the remote, theoretic +researches of Boyle, Faraday, Kelvin, Leibniz, and the rest of that +great galaxy. With the far reaching effect of the idola of physical +science it is hardly necessary to deal. Everyone realizes how dependent +the advance in technology has been upon theoretic science, even though +the scientist himself, as Kropotkin pointed out, is sometimes slow in +admitting the debt of science itself to practical invention. The actual +world of machinery is at present, it seems fair to say, a parasite upon +this body of knowledge, and it would speedily starve to death if the +host were annihilated. + +Science has provided the factual data by means of which the +industrialist, the inventor, and the engineer have transformed +the physical world; and without doubt the physical world has been +transformed. Unfortunately, when science has furnished the data its +work is at an end: whether one uses the knowledge of chemicals to +cure a patient or to poison one’s grandmother is, from the standpoint +of science, an extraneous and uninteresting question. So it follows +that while science has given us the means of making over the world, +the ends to which the world has been made over have had, essentially, +nothing to do with science. Accordingly, as I have suggested, the idola +of the Country House and Coketown and the National State, which were +built up by literature and art, have given the effective direction to +these transformations. So far, science has not been used by people +who regarded man and his institutions scientifically. The application +of the scientific method to man and his institutions has hardly been +attempted. + +Even when one qualifies this last generalization, its outline remains +pretty sharp. The development of what are called the social sciences +was dimly outlined in Bacon’s Novum Organon; but it was not till the +eighteenth century, with Quesnay and Montesquieu, that the movement +gained any real headway, and down to this day a large part of what is +called science in Economics, Politics, and Sociology is only disguised +literature--work in which the jargon of science is accepted as a +substitute for the scientific method of arriving at factual truth, and +in which the effort to mold conduct overwhelms the attempt to reach +correct conclusions. Indeed, among the economists and sociologists +there has been a persistent dribble of discussion as to whether or not +their subjects entitled them to the august designation of scientists. + +It is not without reason that the social and human sciences have been +distrusted by the devotees of physical science, so that, for example, +the British Association has long had a single section devoted to +the social sciences in which Sociology, the mother of them all, is +permitted to enter as a subclassification of Anthropology! The nearer +the investigator gets to man, the more easily he is overwhelmed with +the complexity of his subject; and the more tempted he is to adopt the +swift and easy partisan methods of the novelist, the poet, the prophet. +The mere concealment of this act of seduction under the rough, grey +cover of scientific jargon means frequently that the social scientist +has added to the offense of not being a good scientist by not even +being a good literary man. + +Hence there is a great gap between the more external part of the world +which has been affected by science, and that part, nearer to man and +man’s institutions, which has yet for the greater part to be conquered. +While the physical equipment of New York compares with that of fourth +century Athens as Athens itself would compare with an Aurignacian cave, +the life of men in the city is perhaps more disordered and futile and +incomplete than the author of the Republic found it. The moral of +this contrast need hardly be pointed in so many words. The idolum of +science is incomplete; for it chiefly touches life in its physical +sector; and it remains to complete the span so that every activity and +condition may be described, measured, and grasped in scientific terms. +With the vast modern improvement in our physical arrangements in view, +it must occur to almost anyone that a permanent advance in social +life depends upon a much more thorough and realistic acquaintance with +the facts than the social sciences have yet been able to provide. +Before an army moves over the land it is well for it to have moved in +someone’s mind over a topographic map. Lacking such maps, all our day +to day improvements have been wasteful sallies into eutopia, proceeding +without order, without a sufficient equipment, and without any general +plan. + + +3 + +There is a point up to which each science may well be left to cultivate +its field for its own sake, without any regard for the fruits. Mr. +Thorstein Veblen, in The Place of Science in Civilization, has well +pointed out the way in which science arises out of idle curiosity; +and science, studied and advanced for its own sake, is surely one of +the great playthings of the race. In this aspect, while science seeks +a quite different path to the contemplative life than art takes, its +end is the same--the dominant interest is an esthetic one, the joy of +pure perception. Science is thus a sort of world in itself, and it is +self-sufficient: there is no need for it to make contact with the real +world in which we fight and love and earn our daily bread. In its own +world, science is no better and no worse than theosophy or astrology or +fables about deity. + +But the divorce of science from the daily life of the community is not +altogether an advantage. If it fosters a whole-hearted cultivation +of science for its own values, it tends to lose sight of realities +without which its values are meaningless. It is hard perhaps to locate +the point at which science, divorced from every day realities, ceases +to have any social relevance; but it seems to me that such a point +exists; and when the sciences remain disparate and unrelated one to +the other, they tend to pass over from a public world to the private +world of the specialist; and the knowledge which obtains in that world +can with difficulty be brought out again to irrigate the common life +of the community; or if it is brought out, as bacteriology is brought +out in relation to the treatment of disease, it is divorced from a +consideration of the total situation in a way that makes so many +specialist advances in medicine, for example, the stamping ground for +the fanatic. + +This loss of contact, I believe, is highly dangerous; for it lessens +the effect of scientific discipline upon daily affairs quite as much as +a cloistered religion, by erecting impossible sanctions, opens the way +for much unalloyed slackness and baseness, and by demanding that Pistol +and Falstaff live like Christ prevents these biological rapscallions +from achieving so much as the level of Robin Hood. The upshot of this +dissociation of science and social life is that superstition takes +the place of science among the common run of men, as a more easily +apprehended version of reality. + +Today the whole corpus of knowledge is in an anarchic state, and it +lacks order precisely because it lacks any definite relations to +the community which creates it, and for which it, in turn, provides +the spectacles through which the world is seen. Against the gains +that have come from the increasing specialization of the sciences, +we have to set off the losses which the community suffers from the +development of crude forms of science, and from quackeries like +astrology and spiritualism which succeed in giving a complete account +of man’s place in the universe in terms that are fairly intelligible +to the lay mind. It seems to me, then, that in the cultivation of the +sciences a definite hierarchy of values must be established which +shall have some relation to the essential needs of the community. The +independence of science from human values is a gross superstition: +the desire for order, for security, for esthetically satisfactory +patterns--along with the desire for fame or the favor of princes--have +all played their parts in the development of science. Though the logic +of science may discount the human factor as far as possible in its +internal operations, it is because men have placed a certain value upon +disinterested intellectual operations that these activities are pursued +in modern communities to the exclusion of other interests and claims. + +Let us put the problem concretely. A community which cultivates +chemical science to the point at which it is able to wipe out a whole +city by a few explosions of poisonous gas is in a pretty treacherous +situation. If the science that it possesses has not helped to found a +eutopia, it has at any rate provided the foundations for a kakotopia, +or bad place: in short, for a hell. Indeed scientific knowledge has +not merely heightened the possibilities of life in the modern world: +it has lowered the depths. When science is not touched by a sense of +values it works--as it fairly consistently has worked during the past +century--towards a complete dehumanization of the social order. The +plea that each of the sciences must be permitted to go its own way +without control should be immediately rebutted by pointing out that +they obviously need a little guidance when their applications in war +and industry are so plainly disastrous. + +We must be prepared to recognize that “truths” do not stand together +on a high and lofty pedestal: some are important and some are trivial, +some are innocent and some are dangerous, and while the pursuit of +truth is a good in itself--_and complete freedom in that pursuit +is a_ sine qua non _of a good social life_--certain departments of +investigation may need to be offset and corrected by work in other +fields. In a modern Western European community, a sociological insight +into the causes and conditions of war and peace is a needed corrective +to the crudities of applied physical science and without such +correction the mere increase of scientific knowledge, of which we boast +so vacuously, may be highly inimical to the practice of the good life +in the community. + + +4 + +If the sciences are to be cultivated anew with respect for a definite +hierarchy of human values, it seems to me that the sciences must be +focussed again upon particular local communities, and the problems +which they offer for solution. Just as geometry in Egypt arose out of +the need for annually surveying the boundaries that the Nile wiped +out, and as astronomy developed in Chaldea in order to determine the +shift of the seasons for the planting of crops, as geology in modern +times developed out of the questions that a practical stone mason, like +Hugh Miller, found himself confronted with--so may the sciences which +are today incomplete and partial develop along the necessary lines +by a survey of existing conditions and intellectual resources in a +particular community. + +On one hand, science must be in contact with the whole idolum of +scientific thought--with that vast overworld of scientific effort which +is the product of no single place or people or time. On the other +hand, it must be related to the definite local community, limited in +time and in space, in which its researches and its speculations will +be realized and applied. Out of these surveys of existing conditions +we should find, I believe, that in social psychology, in anthropology, +in economics there are a vast number of facts and relations which +remain to be described; and that, similarly, certain departments +like craniology and jurisprudence and folklore have been vastly +overcultivated in proportion to any genuine importance that their +researches may have upon our control over the community’s development. +Such an investigation would bring out, above all, the weakness of +contemporary sociological thought, with its diabetic flatulence of +special sociologies, and its lack of any general agreement as to the +field which is to be cultivated. + +Apart from its great function as a plaything, science is valuable +only to the extent that its researches can be brought to bear upon +the conditions in a particular community, in a definite region. The +difference between science as a plaything and science as an instrument +for enabling us to establish more effective relations with other men +and with the rest of our environment, is the difference between firing +a shot at a target and firing at a buck for provender. The practice +one gets in firing at a target is great fun, and incidentally it +improves one’s marksmanship; such idle sport is perhaps one of the +stigmata of a civilized community. Nevertheless, unless one’s skill +can be definitely brought home it remains a personal achievement; and +the community as a whole is not a pound of meat the better for it. If +science is to play the significant part that Bacon and Andreæ and Plato +and the other great humanists desired it to, it must be definitely +brought home and realized in our here and now. + +The need for this humanization of science has already been perceived in +Great Britain. During the last decade a movement has gathered headway +in the schools and extended itself to associations outside the schools. +The title of this movement is “Regional Survey,” and its point of +origin is, I believe, the Outlook Tower in Edinburgh which was well +described more than two decades ago as the “world’s first sociological +laboratory.” + +The aim of the Regional Survey is to take a geographic region and +explore it in every aspect. It differs from the social survey with +which we are acquainted in America in that it is not chiefly a survey +of evils; it is, rather, a survey of the existing conditions in all +their aspects; and it emphasizes to a much greater extent than the +social survey the natural characteristics of the environment, as they +are discovered by the geologist, the zoologist, the ecologist--in +addition to the development of natural and human conditions in the +historic past, as presented by the anthropologist, the archæologist, +and the historian. In short, the regional survey attempts a local +synthesis of all the specialist “knowledges.” + +Such a survey has been conducted in the Southeastern counties of +England under the auspices of various local scientific societies; +and the result of it is a complete description of the community’s +foundations, its past, its manner of working and living, its +institutions, its regional peculiarities, and its utilization of +physical, vital, and social resources. Each of the sciences draws +upon its general body of knowledge to illuminate the points under +observation; and when problems arise which point definitely to the +lack of scientific or scholarly data, new trails are opened and new +territory defined. + +In looking at the community through the Regional Survey, the +investigator is dealing with a real thing and not with an arbitrary +idolum. In so far as the local community has certain elements in common +with similar regions in other countries, or has absorbed elements from +other civilizations, these things will be given their full value, +instead of being disregarded because they weaken the identity of the +local community with that precious myth, the National State. The +greater part of the data that is thus brought to light may be plotted +on a map, graphically presented in a chart, or photographed. In Saffron +Walden, England, there is an admirable little museum devoted to such +an exhibition of its region; and in the Outlook Tower, at Edinburgh, +there used to be a library and an apparatus of exhibition by which one +could begin at the point where one was standing and work outwards, in +thought, to embrace the whole wide world. Knowledge that is presented +in this fashion is available so that whoever runs may read; it has +every feature, therefore, of popular science as it is purveyed in the +cheap newspaper and magazine, whilst it remains real science and is not +presented as something that verges from a miracle to a superstition. + +The knowledge embodied in the Regional Survey has a coherence and +pithiness which no isolated study of science can possibly possess. It +is presented in such a form that it can be assimilated by every member +of the community who has the rudiments of an education, and it thus +differs from the isolated discipline which necessarily remains the +heritage of the specialist. Above all, this knowledge is not that of +“subjects,” taken as so many water tight and unrelated compartments: +it is a knowledge of a whole region, seen in all its aspects; so that +the relations between the work aspect and the soil aspect, between the +play aspect and the work aspect, become fairly simple and intelligible. +This common tissue of definite, verifiable, localized knowledge is what +all our partisan utopias and reconstruction programs have lacked; and +lacking it, have been one-sided and ignorant and abstract--devising +paper programs for the reconstruction of a paper world. + +Regional survey, then, is the bridge by which the specialist whose face +is turned towards the library and the laboratory, and the active worker +in the field, whose face is turned towards the city and region in which +he lives, may come into contact; and out of this contact our plans and +our eutopias may be founded on such a permanent foundation of facts +as the scientist can build for us, while the sciences themselves will +be cultivated with some regard for the human values and standards, as +embodied in the needs and the ideals of the local community. This is +the first step out of the present impasse: we must return to the real +world, and face it, and survey it in its complicated totality. Our +castles-in-air must have their foundations in solid ground. + + +5 + +The needed reorientation of science is important; but by itself it is +not enough. Knowledge is a tool rather than a motor; and if we know +the world without being able to react upon it, we are guilty of that +aimless pragmatism which consists of devising all sorts of ingenious +machines and being quite incapable of subordinating them to any +coherent and attractive pattern. + +Now, men are moved by their instinctive impulses and by such +emotionally colored pattern-ideas or idola as the dreamer is capable +of projecting. When we create these pattern-ideas, we enlarge the +environment, so that our behavior is guided by the conditions which we +seek to establish and enjoy in an imaginary world. However crude the +Marxian analysis of society may have been, it at least had the merit of +presenting a great dream--the dream of a titanic struggle between the +possessors and the dispossessed in which every worker had a definite +part to play. Without these dreams, the advances in social science +will be just as disorderly and fusty as the applications of physical +science have been in our material affairs, where in the absence of any +genuine scale of values, a patent collar button is regarded as equally +important as a tungsten filament if the button happens to bring the +inventor as great a financial reward. + + +6 + +Up to about the middle of the seventeenth century, before modern +physical science had rigorously defined its field, the breach between +literature and science, which Aristotle had made, was not altogether +complete; and while the humanist ideal was intact both literature and +science were regarded as coeval phases of man’s intellectual activity. +The two dominating figures of the Renascence, Leonardo da Vinci and +Michael Angelo, were artists, technicians, and men of science; and in +a comparison between a translation of Michael Angelo’s sonnets and a +photograph of St. Peter’s the sonnets come off rather well. + +The great contribution of the Renascence was the ideal of fully +energized human beings, able to span life in all its manifestations, +as artists, scientists, technicians, philosophers, and what not. This +ideal exercised a powerful influence on lesser figures, like the +Admirable Crichton and Sir Walter Raleigh, and even down to the time +of Descartes it contributed to that exuberance of the intellectual +life which was the Renascence at its best. When John Amos Comenius +wrote his remarkable little book called The Labyrinth of the World +and the Paradise of the Heart in 1623, he combined the outlooks of +science and art in a remarkable synthesis; for the first part of this +work is a picturesque survey of the actual world as Comenius found +it, and the second a picture of the transition to the heavenly world +promised in the Christian religion. The idea behind Comenius’ Labyrinth +was the same that inspired Andreæ; and were it not for the complete +otherworldliness of this theological utopia, the Paradise of the Heart, +Comenius’ discourse would take a high place in the history of utopian +thought. + +There is no genuine logical basis, as far as I can see, in the +dissociation of science and art, of knowing and dreaming, of +intellectual activities and emotional activities. The division between +the two is simply one of convenience; for both these activities are +simply different modes in which human beings create order out of the +chaos in which they find themselves. Such is the humanist view. As an +instance of this, when the Royal Society was projected in England in +the middle of the seventeenth century, Johann Andreæ advised his friend +Samuel Hartlib, then in London, not to neglect the humanities while +furthering the pursuit of the physical sciences. Unfortunately, the men +who gathered together to form the Royal Society were specialists in +physical science; and in the lapse of the humanist tradition through +the religious acerbities of the time, they had lost some of their +desire for a complete life. As a result, the original charter of the +society confined its work to the physical sciences. + +Insignificant as it now appears in the annals of science, this decision +seems to me to mark a definite turning point in human thought. +Henceforth the scientist was to be one sort of person and the artist +another; henceforth the idolum of science and the idolum of art were +not to be cemented together in a single personality; henceforth, in +fact, the dehumanization of art and science begins. It is interesting +to note that with the divorce of the humanities from science, art and +science entered upon separate careers which, for all their diversities, +are curiously similar. Both art and science, for example, ceased to be +the common property of the community; and each of them split up into a +multiplying host of specialisms. In this process, art and science made +many notable advances; so that this period is usually spoken of as a +period of enlightenment or progress; but the result on the community +was what we discovered in our examination of Coketown and the Country +House. + + +7 + +We must now consider the development of the arts in the modern +community. At the height of the Middle Age, as in fifth century Athens, +the arts formed together a living unity. A citizen did not go into +a concert hall to hear music, to a church to say his prayers, to a +theatre to see a play, to a picture gallery to view pictures: it was +a mean town, indeed, that could not boast a cathedral and a couple of +churches; and in these buildings, drama and music and architecture and +painting and sculpture were united for the purpose of ringing changes +on the emotional nature of men and converting them to accept the +theological vision of otherworldly utopia. + +The splitting up of these arts into a number of separate boxes was +part of that movement towards individualism and protestantism whose +effects most people are familiar with in the field of religion alone. +Henceforward, music, drama, painting, and the other arts developed +largely in isolation; and each of them was forced to build up a +separate world. The greater part of the gains that were made in these +worlds was not carried over into the community at large, but remained +the possession of the artists themselves or their private patrons and +critics in the Country House. With such exceptions as the Italian and +Japanese woodcuts of the eighteenth century, and the few survivals +of ballad and drama that slipt over from the Middle Age, popular art +became another name for all that was coarse and stunted and depressed. +The popular architecture of the nineteenth century is the sordid +little redbrick rabbit hutch: popular religion is embodied in the +stunted sheet-iron or brick chapel (as it is called in England) of the +Baptists and Methodists: popular music is the latest barrel organ lilt: +popular painting is the calendar lithograph: and popular literature is +the dime novel. + +The divorce of the art of the cultivated classes from that of the whole +community tended to deprive it of any other standards than the artist +himself was content to erect. Here again the comparison with science +is curiously pertinent. The world of art is in a sense a separate +world, and it can be cultivated for a time without reference to the +desires and emotions of the community out of which it has sprung. But +the motto “Art for art’s sake” turns out in practice to be something +quite different--namely, art for the artist’s sake; and art which is +produced in this manner, without any external standard of performance, +is frequently just an instrument for overcoming a neurosis or enabling +the artist to restore his personal equilibrium. Divorced from his +community, the artist was driven back upon himself: instead of seeking +to create a beauty which all men might share, he devoted himself to +projecting a poignant angle of his personal vision--an angle which I +shall call the picturesque. The cause of this divorce I have already +pointed out in the chapter on the Country House; it is with the effects +of this divorce, for which the artist was not greatly to blame, that we +are here concerned. + +This conflict between “beauty” and the “picturesque” is perhaps common +to all the arts, and with sufficient factual detail I might be able to +trace its effects on literature and music. For the sake of clearness +and simplicity I shall confine myself to painting and sculpture, with +the proviso that our conclusions will apply, by and large, to the whole +field. + +Let me emphasize, before going any further, that I am using the terms +“beauty” and the “picturesque” in quite different senses from the vague +ones that are usually attached to them; and that I use them without +any preliminary judgment as to their place and value in the good life. +The picturesque, in the quite arbitrary sense in which the word is +used here, is an abstract quality of vision, sound, or meaning which +creates what we might call pure esthetic experience. In painting, the +picturesque probably arose with the discovery, on the part of the +leisured classes in the Country House, that it was possible to achieve +rapture, a sort of esthetic trance, a complete state of beatitude, by +the more or less prolonged contemplation of a pictorial subject. Up to +the time of this discovery, painting was simply a branch of interior +decoration; the great paintings of the Christian World served, for the +public, as illustrations to that outline of history which mediæval +theology provided: they had a habitat, a social destination. + +With the splitting off of the picturesque from the main body +of ecclesiastical art, painting came into its own as an end in +itself, apart from any place that it might have in the scheme of +the community’s affairs. The symptom of this change is the rise of +landscape painting: in the search for pure esthetic experience the +painter began to look for themes which were divorced from any human +interest but that of pure contemplation. During the last century +this split between painting as a form of social art and painting as a +means of achieving contemplative ecstasy has become deeper: even those +academic painters who followed the methods of the older artists no +longer have the same field to work in, whilst the revolutionist--the +impressionists of one period, the cubists of another, and the +post-impressionists or expressionists of a third--are forced by the +general irrelevance of art in Coketown to produce work which only the +more or less initiate will appreciate. + +Now, I would not for worlds underrate the gains which have been +achieved by the divorce of art from the whole life of the community. +In their isolation from the social group that produced them the modern +artists have been able to pursue their solitary way to limits which +the common man is probably incapable of reaching: they have widened +the field of esthetic delight and have introduced new values into the +world of painting, values which will remain even though the disease +which created them disappears, just as one can salvage a pearl from an +oyster whose sickness is healed. The view from the mountain top is none +the worse because many people are afflicted with dizziness and nausea +before they have reached the summit; and, like the pursuit of truth, +the pursuit of esthetic values is a good in itself apart from any +values which may be realized in the community. On these terms, Cézanne +and Van Gogh and Ryder, to mention a few of the dead, will hold their +own, and keep the boundaries of art from ever shrinking again, I trust, +to its academic limits. + +Nevertheless, the effects of focussing on the picturesque can no more +be overlooked in art than the dangers of specialization in science. It +is almost a banality to point out how, historically, as the picturesque +developed in art, beauty has tended to disappear from life. Whilst +the cultivated few have become gloriously alive to more exquisite +sensations than their ancestors had probably ever experienced, the +“mutilated many” have been forced to live in great cities and in abject +country towns of a blackness and ugliness such as the world, if we are +to judge by the records that exist, has never seen before. In other +words, we have become more sensitive to experiences--to the contents of +our inner worlds--only to become more callous to things, to the brash +surfaces of the world without. In our preoccupation with the inner +worlds we have to a large extent lost our hold upon beauty, which, +in the limiting sense in which the word is used here, is the quality +by which anything, from a torso to a building, shows its adaptation +to an end and its sensitiveness to esthetic values--values which are +abstracted and intensified in the pure picturesque--that are involved +in such an adaptation. In this sense, the beautiful, as Emerson said, +rests on the foundations of the necessary: it is the outward token of +an inward grace; its appearance is the manifestation of a humanized +life; and its existence and development constitute, in fact, a sort of +index to a community’s vitality. + +The divorce of the artist from the community, and the turning away of +his energies from beauty, in which the picturesque might be fulfilled, +to the picturesque itself, separate from any practical needs, has +scarcely been compensated by the advances that have been made in the +separate world of art. The result has been that work which should +have been done by artists of great capacity has been done by people of +minor or degraded ability. Anonymous jerrybuilders have erected the +greater number of our houses, absurd engineers have laid out our towns +with no thought for anything but sewers and paving contracts; rapacious +and illiterate men who have achieved success in business discourse to +the multitude on what constitutes the good life--and so on. There is +really no end to the number of things which we do badly in the modern +community, for want of the artist to do them at all. + +This generalization applies to the whole range of the arts. The +greater part of the creative dreaming and planning which constitutes +literature and art has had very little bearing upon the community in +which we live, and has done little to equip us with patterns, with +images and ideals, by means of which we might react creatively upon +our environment. Yet it should be obvious that if the inspiration for +the good life is to come from anywhere, it must come from no other +people than the great artists. An intense social life, as Gabriel +Tarde pointed out in his fine utopian fantasy, Underground Man, has +“for its indispensable condition the esthetic life and the universal +propagation of the religion of truth and beauty.” The common man, when +he is in love, has a little glimpse of the way in which the drudgery +of the daily world may be transmuted through emotional stimulus; it +is the business of the artist to make the transmutation permanent, +for the only difference between the artist and the common man is that +the artist is, so to say, in love all the while. It is out of the +vivid patterns of the artist’s ecstasy that he draws men together and +gives them the vision to shape their lives and the destiny of their +community anew. + + +8 + +No matter how the modern artist may use or fritter away his abilities, +it is plain that he has an enormous reservoir of power at his disposal. +What, for instance, has made America so wholly devoted to the conquest +of material things? Why are we so given over to collecting those vast +miscellanies of goods which are temptingly displayed in the advertising +sections of our illustrated weeklies and monthly magazines? The +necessity for ameliorating the hard, crude life of the pioneer has +indeed been an important influence; but the traditions of this life +in turn produced all the minor “artists” or “artlings” who write and +draw for the popular papers, who create the plots of plays and motion +picture scenarios; and since most of these poor wretches have never +been educated in the humanist sense to any degree--since they know no +other environment than New York or Los Angeles or Gopher Prairie, since +they are acquainted with the achievements of no other age than their +own, they have devoted themselves wholeheartedly to idealizing a great +many of the things that are crude or ugly or stupid in their beloved +community. So the idola of business have been perpetuated by “artlings” +who themselves know only the standards of the business man. + +Because of the limited horizons of the American artist, therefore, the +rising generation aspires after the things that Messrs. Jack London, +Rupert Hughes, Scott Fitzgerald, and heaven knows who else have +thought good and fine; the younger generation talks like the heroes +and heroines of a melodrama by Mr. Samuel Shipman, when they do not +attain the higher level of comic cuts; the younger generation thrills +to the type of beauty which Mr. Penryhn Stanlaws sets before its gaze. +The notion that the common man despises art is absurd. The common man +worships art and lives by it; and when good art is not available he +takes the second best or the tenth best or the hundredth best. The +success of Mr. Eugene O’Neil, one of the few playwrights of any girth +who has contributed to the American stage, proves that the only way +that people can be kept away from good art is by not providing it. The +younger generation might just as well have had its idea-patterns shaped +by Sophocles, Praxiteles, and Plato, if our genuine artists were not so +aloof to their responsibilities, and if they were intellectually mature +enough to accept the full burden of their vocation. It is a sign of a +terrific neurosis--and no mark at all of esthetic aptitude--that our +genuine art is so completely disoriented and so thoroughly out of touch +with the community. We must turn to a man of such uneven parts as Mr. +Nicholas Vachel Lindsay before we have anything like a recognition of +the classic rôle of the artist. + +Art for the artist’s sake is largely a symptom of that neurotic +individualism which drives the artist out of a public world which +baffles him into a private world where he may reign in solitude as +an unruly demiurge. Art for the public’s sake, on the other hand, +substitutes the vices of the extrovert for the vices of the introvert. +When I say that art must have some vital contact with the community I +do not mean, let me emphasize, that the artist must cater to public +whim or demand. Art in its social setting is neither a personal +cathartic for the artist, nor a salve to quiet the itching vanity of +the community: it is essentially a means by which people who have had +a strange diversity of experiences have their activities emotionally +canalized into patterns and molds which they are able to share pretty +completely with each other. Pure art is inevitably propaganda. I mean +by this that it is meant to be propagated, and that in so far as it +fails to impregnate the community in which it exists with its ideas +and images, in so far as the community is not changed for better or +worse by its existence, its claims are spurious. Propagandist art, on +the other hand, is inevitably impure since instead of bringing people +together on a common emotional plane, as men, it tends to accentuate +their differences, and to void emotions which are proper to art into a +realm where the emotions of the missionary’s tent or the soapboxer’s +platform hold exclusive sway. It is just because the “artist” in +America has been impure in motive--a propagandist for Pollyanna in +the face of Euripides, a propagandist for “just folks” in the face of +Swift, a propagandist for niceness in the face of Rabelais--that he has +failed miserably as an artist, and has left our communities to stew so +completely in their own savorless juice. + + +9 + +For examples of what the artist might be, and what his proper relation +to the community might be when he was mature enough to recognize it +and discipline himself to it, let us look at Mr. William Butler Yeats +or A. E. There are doubtless a good many other examples that might be +offered in Europe; but these are particularly good; for the reason that +with A. E. one can see in his The National Being how the conceptions +of art enter into the tissues of all his plans for renovating life in +the Irish Countryside. In the work of these artists and their fellows +we have a clue to one of the most promising attempts to establish a +concrete eutopia which shall rise out of the real facts of the everyday +environment and, at the same time, turn upon them and mold them +creatively a little nearer the heart’s desire. + +In the account of Four Years which Mr. Yeats published in The +Dial he explains his attitude towards the literature and social +life of Ireland; and I recommend that account to all the forlorn +revolutionaries and reformers who wonder why the dry bones of their +doctrines remain dry bones, instead of knitting themselves together and +becoming alive. This passage in particular, defines the relation of the +artist both to the tradition of his art and to the community in which +he must find a root: + +“The Huxley, Tyndall, Carolus Duran, Bastien-Lepage coven, asserted +that an artist or a poet must paint or write in the style of his own +day, and this with the Fairy Queen and the Lyrical Ballads and Blake’s +early poems in its ears, and plain to the eyes, in book and gallery, +those great masterpieces of later Egypt, founded upon that work of the +ancient kingdom already further in time from Later Egypt than Later +Egypt is from us.” He dismisses this claim with the just assertion +that the artist is free to choose any style that suits his mood and +subject; for in the world of art time and space are irrelevant; and +he goes on to say, “We had in Ireland imaginative stories, which the +uneducated classes knew and even sang, and might we not make those +stories current among the educated classes, rediscovering, for the +work’s sake, what I have called ‘the applied arts of literature,’ the +association of literature, that is, with music, speech, and dance; and +at last, it might be, so deepen the political passion of the nation +that all, artist and poet, craftsman and day laborer, would accept a +common design. Perhaps even these images, once created and associated +with river and mountain, might move of themselves and with some +powerful, even turbulent life, like those painted horses that trample +the rice-fields of Japan.” + +By citing Mr. Yeats’ conceptions I do not mean to limit the artist +to a single function--that of patterning the good life. It is quite +plain that pure esthetic experience is a good in itself; and when the +artist has rendered this experience in a picture, a poem, a novel, a +philosophy, he has performed a unique and indispensable piece of work. +Could italics keep this passage from being ignored I should employ them. + +What I have called the picturesque is in reality just as +self-sustaining and delightful as the radiant good health which Sir +Thomas More rated so highly in his Utopia. If the community went to +the dogs, it would still be exuberantly self-sustaining, whilst anyone +had the time or the capacity to enjoy it. What I protest against is +the way in which the field of the genuine artist, during these last +three hundred years, has been whittled away, so that it has become +more and more a mark of the artist to concern himself solely with +the narrow province of pure esthetic experience, and to protest his +complete aloofness from anything that lies outside this realm. Such an +attitude would have struck Euripides or Milton or Goethe or Wagner as +undignified and stupid, I am sure, because art is as large as life, and +it does not gain in vigor or intensity by reducing its scope to that of +the puppet stage. The point is that there is an artistic function to be +performed in the community, for the community, as well as in the world +of art, for those who are lifted up to art. + +“Nations, races, and individual men,” as Mr. Yeats says again, “are +unified by an image, or a bundle of related images, symbolical and +provocative of the state of mind that is of all states of mind not +impossible, the most difficult to that man, race, or nation because +only the greatest obstacle that can be contemplated without despair +rouses the will to full intensity.” + +Whether these images shall be provided by patrioteers, hack editors, +politicians, advertising men and commercialized “artists” or whether +they shall be created by genuine playwrights and poets and philosophers +is an important question. The function of creating these images is an +artistic one, and the artist who evades his responsibility is making +life for himself and his kind more difficult, since in the long run +a community whose sacred literature is written by Colonel Diver and +Scadder and Jefferson Brick--the great heroes of Civilization as the +star of empire westward makes its way--will make even the most solitary +cultivation of the arts a thorny and difficult task. + +In the good life, the purely esthetic element has a prominent place; +but unless the artist is capable of moving men to the good life, the +esthetic element is bound to be driven farther and farther away from +the common realities, until the world of the artist will scarcely be +distinguishable from the phantasia of dementia præcox. Already, the +symptoms of this corrosive futility have appeared in literature and +painting in Western Europe and America; and such light as comes forth +from this art is but the phosphorescence of decay. If the arts are not +to disintegrate utterly, must they not focus more and more upon eutopia? + + +10 + +It comes to this then: our plans for a new social order have been as +dull as mud because, in the first place, they have been abstract and +cockney, and have not taken into account the immense diversity and +complexity of man’s environment; and in the second place, they have not +created any vivid patterns that would move men to great things. They +have not been “informed by science and ennobled by the arts.” + +Through the paralysis of the arts and sciences our contemporary +programs for revolution and reform have done very little to lift our +heads over the disorderly and bedraggled environments in which we +conduct our daily business. This failure to create a common pattern +for the good life in each region has made such excellent efforts as +the garden city movement seem weak and ineffectual when we place them +alongside the towns that mediæval civilization, which had such a common +pattern, created. Without the common background of eutopian idola, +all our efforts at rehabilitation--the new architecture, the garden +city movement, the electrification of industry, the organization of +great industrial guilds such as the Building Trades have achieved in +England and the garment workers seem on the point of effecting in +America--without these common idola, I say, all our practical efforts +are spotty and inconsecutive and incomplete. It was not, let us +remember, by any legislative device that the cities of the industrial +age were monotonously patterned in the image of Coketown. It was rather +because everyone within these horrid centers accepted the same values +and pursued the same ends--as they were projected by economists like +Ricardo, industrialists like Stephenson, and lyric poets like Samuel +Smiles--that the plans of the jerrybuilder and the engineer expressed +to perfection the brutality and social disharmony of the community. +The same process that gave us Coketown can, when our world of ideas is +transformed, give us something better than Coketown. + +The chief use of the classic utopias that we have surveyed is to +suggest that the same methods which are used by the utopian thinkers +to project an ideal community on paper may be employed, in a practical +way, to develop a better community on earth. The weakness of the +utopian thinkers consisted in the assumption that the dreams and +projects of any single man might be realized in society at large. +From the bitter frustration of Fourier, Cabet, Hertzka, and even John +Ruskin those who are in search of the beloved community may well take +a warning. Where the critics of the utopian method were, I believe, +wrong was in holding that the business of projecting prouder worlds was +a futile and footling pastime. These anti-utopian critics overlooked +the fact that one of the main factors that condition any future are +the attitudes and beliefs which people have in relation to that +future--that, as Mr. John Dewey would say, in any judgment of practise +one’s belief in a hypothesis is one of the things that affect its +realization. + +When we have projected the pattern of an ideal community and tend +to warp our conduct in conformity with that pattern, we overcome +the momentum of actual institutions. In feeling free to project new +patterns, in holding that human beings can will a change in their +institutions and habits of life, the utopians were, I believe, on solid +ground; and the utopian philosophies were a great improvement over the +more nebulous religious and ethical systems of the past in that they +saw the necessity for giving their ideals form and life. In fact, it +has been in the pictures of ideal commonwealths such as Plato’s that +the “ideal” and the “actual” have met. + +It is true that the pure utopians have overlooked the fact that every +institution has a momentum of its own: its speed may be quickened or +reduced, it may be switched on another track, as the Roman Church +during the Reformation was switched from the main line of civilization +to a subsidiary route; and at times, in the catastrophe of war or +revolution, an institution may jump the track altogether and be +wrecked. The critical problem for the eutopian, the problem of the +transition from one set of institutions to another, from one way of +life to another, was overlooked. Plato’s Republic, for example, was +a fairly attractive place; but one wonders in what Greek city in the +Fourth Century B.C. the transition could have taken place. A transition +implies not merely a goal but a starting point: if we are to move the +world, as Archimedes threatened to with his lever, we must have some +ground to stand on. It is only by paying attention to the limitations +of each region, and by allowing for the driving force of history, that +we can make the earth come to terms with man’s idola. This is perhaps +the most difficult lesson that the eutopian must learn. + + +11 + +What, then, is the first step out of the present disorder? The first +step, it seems to me, is to ignore all the fake utopias and social +myths that have proved either so sterile or so disastrous during the +last few centuries. There is perhaps no logical reason why the myth of +the national state should not be preserved; but it is a myth which has +done very little, on the whole, to promote the good life, and has on +the contrary done a great deal to make the good life impossible; and to +continue to cling to it in the face of perpetual wars, pestilences, and +spiritual devastations is the sort of fanaticism which will probably +seem as blind and cruel to future generations as persecutions for +Christian heresy do to the present one. On the same grounds, there are +a number of other social myths, like the proletarian myth, which run +so badly against the grain of reality that they cannot be preserved +without ignoring a great many values which are essential to a humane +existence; and on pragmatic grounds it would be fine and beneficial to +drop them quickly into limbo. There is no reason to think that there +will be a quick conversion from these myths: the holocaust of war has +only intensified the myth of the National State; and our experience +with religious myths suggests on the contrary that the forms at any +rate will be preserved long after the last shred of reality has +disappeared. But the sooner those who are capable of intellectual +criticism abandon these particular myths, the sooner will these idola +fall into the state which has been happily described as “innocuous +desuetude.” + +If our knowledge of human behavior counts for anything, however, we +cannot put aside old myths without creating new ones. The eighteenth +century agnostics very wisely realized that if they wished to maintain +the values which had been created by Deism, they could not abandon God +without inventing him all over again. In turning away from obsolete and +disastrous social myths I do not suggest that we give up the habit of +making myths; for that habit, for good or bad, seems to be ingrained +in the human psyche. The nearest we can get to rationality is not to +efface our myths but to attempt to infuse them with right reason, and +to alter them or exchange them for other myths when they appear to work +badly. + +Here is where we reap the full benefit of the great utopian tradition. +In turning away from the social myths that hamper us, we do not jump +blindly into a blankness: we rather ally ourselves with a different +order of social myth which has always been vivified and enriched by the +arts and sciences. + +The idolum of eutopia which we may seek to project in this or that +region is not a _carte blanche_ which any one may fill in at his will +and caprice; certain lines have already been fixed; certain spaces have +already been filled. There is a consensus among all utopian writers, +to begin with, that the land and natural resources belong undividedly +to the community; and even when it is worked by separate people or +associations, as in Utopia and Freeland the increment of the land--the +economic rent--belongs to the community as a whole. There is also +a pretty common notion among the Utopians that, as land is a common +possession, so is work a common function; and no one is let off from +some sort of labor of body or mind because of any inherited privileges +or dignities that he can point to. Finally, there is the almost equally +common notion, among the utopians, that the perpetuation of the species +leaves plenty of room for improvement, and that, as far as human +knowledge and foresight are worth anything, it should be applied to +propagation; so that the most reckless and ill-bred shall not burden +the community with the support of their offspring while those of finer +capacity are neglected or overwhelmed in numbers. + +Besides these general conditions for the good life which the utopians +unite to emphasize, there are certain other points in the utopian +tradition of which one writer or another has given the classic +statement. + +With Plato we see the enormous importance of birth and education; we +recognize the part good breeding, in every sense of the word, must +play in the good community. Sir Thomas More makes us aware of the fact +that a community becomes a community to the extent that it has shared +possessions, and he suggests that the local group might develop such a +common life as the old colleges of Oxford have enjoyed. When we turn +to Christianopolis, we are reminded that the daily life and work of +the community must be infused with the spirit of science, and that an +acute practical intelligence such as we find today among the engineers +need not be divorced from the practice of the humanities. Even the +nineteenth century utopias have a contribution to make. They remind +us by their overemphasis that all the proud and mighty idealisms in +the world are so many shadows unless they are supported by the whole +economic fabric--so that “eutopia” is not merely a matter of spiritual +conversion, as the ancient religions taught, but of economic and +geotechnic reconstruction. Finally, from James Buckingham and Ebenezer +Howard we can learn the importance of converting the idolum of eutopia +into plans and layouts and detailed projections, such as a townplanner +might utilize; and we may suspect that a eutopia which cannot be +converted into such specific plans will continue, as the saying is, to +remain up in the air. + +Taken together, there is a powerful impulse towards creating a good +environment for the good life in the classic utopias we have examined: +from one or another utopia we may draw elements which will enrich +every part of the community’s life. By following the utopian tradition +we shall not merely escape from the fake utopias that have dominated +us: we shall return to reality. More than that, we shall return upon +reality and perhaps--who can tell?--we shall re-create it! + + +12 + +In discussing the foundations of Eutopia I am conscious of a certain +abstractness in my method of argument; conscious that I have not been a +good utopian in dealing with these proud idola that we may project in +every region. Let us come down to earth now and realize what all this +amounts to when we turn away from the library and mingle again on the +highways that lead past our door. + +First of all, I conceive that we shall not attempt to envisage a single +utopia for a single unit called humanity; that is the sort of thin and +tepid abstraction which the discipline of the Regional Survey will +tend to kill off even in people who are now inured by education to +dealing only in verbal things. All the human beings on the planet are +a unity only for the sake of talking about them; and as far as that +goes, there is very little profitable conversation that can apply to a +Greenlander, a Parisian, and a Chinaman, except the mere observation +that they are all on the same little boat of a planet and would +probably be much happier if they minded their own business and were not +too insistent about inflicting their institutions and their idola upon +their neighbors. + +We shall have to dismiss, as equally futile, the notion of a single +stratification of mankind, such as the working class, serving as +the foundation for our Eutopia: the notion that the working class +consists simply of urban workers is a cockney imbecility, and as soon +as one rectifies it and includes the agricultural population, we have +“humanity” pretty much all over again. Finally, if we are to give +eutopia a local habitation it will not be founded upon the National +State, for the National State is a myth which sane people will no more +sacrifice their lives to than they would hand their children into the +furnace of some tribal Moloch; and a good idolum cannot be founded on +the basis of a bad one. + +As far as extent or character of territory goes, we will remember that +the planet is not as smooth as a billiard ball, and that the limits +of any genuine community rest within fairly ascertainable geographic +regions in which a certain complex of soil, climate, industry, +institutional life and historic heritage has prevailed. We shall not +attempt to legislate for all these communities at one stroke; for we +shall respect William Blake’s dictum that one law for the lion and +the ox is tyranny. There are some 15,000,000 local communities in the +world, the Postal Directory tells us; and our eutopia will necessarily +take root in one of these real communities, and include within its +co-operations as many other communities, as have similar interests +and identities. It may be that our eutopia will embrace a population +as great as that in the Metropolis of London or New York; but it is +needless to say that the land which lies beyond the limits of the +metropolis will no longer be regarded as a sort of subterranean factory +for the production of agricultural goods. In sum, as Patrick Geddes has +finely said, in the Kingdom of Eutopia--the world Eutopia--there will +be many mansions. + +The inhabitants of our eutopias will have a familiarity with their +local environment and its resources, and a sense of historic +continuity, which those who dwell within the paper world of Megalopolis +and who touch their environment mainly through the newspaper and the +printed book, have completely lost. The people of Newcastle will no +longer go to London for coals, as the people in the provinces have +in a sense been doing this last century and more: there will be a +more direct utilization of local resources than would have seemed +profitable or seemly to the metropolitan world which now has command +of the market. In these varied eutopias, it is safe to say, there +will be a new realization of the fact that a cultivated life is +essentially a settled life: their citizens will have discovered that +the great privilege of travelling from Brooklyn to Bermondsey, and +from Bermondsey to Bombay is scarcely worth the trouble when the +institutions of Brooklyn, Bermondsey, and Bombay, and every other +purely industrial center, are identical--sanitary drinking devices and +canned goods and moving pictures being the same wherever mechanical +duplication of goods for a world market has taken the place of direct +adaptation to local needs. + +It should not surprise us therefore if the foundations of eutopia +were established in ruined countries; that is, in countries where +metropolitan civilization has collapsed and where all its paper +prestige is no longer accepted at its paper value. There was the +beginning of a genuine eutopian movement in Denmark after the war +with Germany in the ’sixties: under the leadership of Bishop Gruntwig +came a revival of folk traditions in literature and a renascence of +education which has renewed the life of the Danish countryside and made +an intelligent farmer and an educated man out of the boor. It would +not be altogether without precedent if such a eutopian renascence took +place in Germany, in Austria, in Russia; and perhaps on another scale +in India and China and Palestine; for all these regions are now face to +face with realities which the “prosperous” paperism of our metropolitan +civilization has largely neglected. + +If the inhabitants of our Eutopias will conduct their daily affairs +in a possibly more limited environment than that of the great +metropolitan centers, their mental environment will not be localized or +nationalized. For the first time perhaps in the history of the planet +our advance in science and invention has made it possible for every +age and every community to contribute to the spiritual heritage of the +local group; and the citizen of eutopia will not stultify himself by +being, let us say, a hundred per cent Frenchman when Greece, China, +England, Scandinavia and Russia can give sustenance to his spiritual +life. Our eutopians will necessarily draw from this wider environment +whatever can be assimilated by the local community; and they will thus +add any elements that may be lacking in the natural situation. + +The chief business of eutopians was summed up by Voltaire in the final +injunction of Candide: Let us cultivate our garden. The aim of the real +eutopian is the culture of his environment, most distinctly not the +culture, and above all not the exploitation, of some other person’s +environment. Hence the size of our Eutopia may be big or little; +it may begin in a single village; it may embrace a whole region. A +little leaven will leaven the whole loaf; and if a genuine pattern +for the eutopian life plants itself in any particular locality it may +ramify over a whole continent as easily as Coketown duplicated itself +throughout the Western World. The notion that no effective change can +be brought about in society until millions of people have deliberated +upon it and willed it is one of the rationalizations which are dear to +the lazy and the ineffectual. Since the first step towards eutopia is +the reconstruction of our idola, the foundations for eutopia can be +laid, wherever we are, without further ado. + +Our most important task at the present moment is to build castles +in the air. We need not fear, as Thoreau reminds us, that the work +will be lost. If our eutopias spring out of the realities of our +environment, it will be easy enough to place foundations under them. +Without a common design, without a grand design, all our little +bricks of reconstruction might just as well remain in the brickyard; +for a disharmony between men’s minds betokens, in the end, the speedy +dilapidation of whatever they may build. Our final word is a counsel +of perfection. When that which is perfect has come, that which is +imperfect will pass away. + + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHY + + +For the benefit of the reader who wishes to travel further along the +trails opened up in this survey of utopias, I am giving a list of the +principal books on the subject. This list includes all the important +utopias that are accessible in English, as well as a few that are not; +but it is not exhaustive, for the region of Utopia has its swamps and +arid places as well as its fertile and cultivated land; and no one but +a scholarly explorer need attempt to enter the more forbidding parts of +the country. + +Needless to say, in dealing with our historic utopias I had a rough +criterion of selection. I set out to treat such plans for the +improvement of the human community as had been embodied in complete +pictures of an ideal commonwealth: this excluded important essays in +politics like Hobbes’ Leviathan and Harrington’s Oceana; and it ruled +out any treatment of abstract idealisms which, however important, did +not exemplify the essential utopian method. Next, I resolved to deal at +length only with those utopias which have exercised some influence on +thought and life, particularly in the Western European world. Third, +I sought to emphasize what was common in the methods and ends of the +classic utopias; making plain their relations within the world of +utopias and their relevance in the present day, rather than attempting +to show in any detail the social milieu in which each utopian wrote. +In dealing with the nineteenth century my criterion became a little +shaky; and I frankly chose the nineteenth century utopias on the basis +of their association with temporal movements like state socialism, the +single tax, and syndicalism, rather than because of their conformity +to standards which served to weed out irrelevant utopias in the earlier +centuries. In devoting a little space to Fourier and Spence and +giving short shrift to Owen I have tried to restore these interesting +and significant figures to the place that they deserve. There will +doubtless be disagreements over my selections and the amount of space +I have allotted to various writers; but at least, where there has been +madness there has also been method. + +Certain parts of the argument are not covered by this list of utopias. +The best introductions to utopian literature in general are in German; +see R. Blueher’s excellent pamphlet on Moderne Utopien; Ein Beitrag +zur Geschichte des Sozialismus, Bonn: 1920. While Mr. Van Wyck Brooks +put me independently on the trail of Rabelais’ Abbey of Theleme I +must acknowledge, with as much grace as possible, that Herr Blueher +anticipated me in grasping this clue to Renascence culture; and if +any credit is due, he deserves it. The most exhaustive catalogue of +pre-nineteenth century utopias is contained in Kautsky’s Vorläufer des +Modernen Sozialismus. Max Beer’s History of British Socialism has an +excellent discussion of the relation of the Utopians to socialism. See +also Moritz Kaufmann’s Utopias; or Schemes of Social Improvement, from +Sir Thomas More to Karl Marx, London: 1879. In the excellent History +of Utopian Thought, by Dr. J. O. Hertzler (Macmillan: 1923), the +phantasists are sympathetically treated. + +The chapter on the Country House might well be prefaced by Mr. +Thorstein Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class, a satire which seems +to me unique in scholarship and originality. The importance of our +social myths and our collective representations has been noted by a +whole school of French sociologists who follow Émile Durkheim; and the +dynamic force of ideas has been treated by Alfred Fouillée. On both +these topics there is a whole literature; and it would give a sense of +false simplicity to single out any particular essay. There is a fairly +popular discussion of the place of myths and ideals in the George +Sorel’s Reflexions on Violence, and Benjamin Kidd’s Science of Power +(especially Chapter V.). + +As a loose illustration of the general method and outlook embodied +in this book I refer to the Making of the Future Series, edited by +Messrs. Patrick Geddes and Victor Branford and published by Williams +& Norgate, London. There is an able exposition of the regionalist +movement and of the fundamental realities upon which this movement +is based in two books published in that series; namely, Professor +Fleure’s Human Geography in Western Europe and C. B. Fawcett’s The +Provinces of England. Two works by the editors, The Coming Polity and +Our Social Inheritance are likewise suggestive. Professor Geddes is +the outstanding exponent of the Eutopian method both in thought and in +practical activity; and the reader should consult his City Development +(1904) and his Town-Planning towards City Development: a Report to the +Durbar of Indore, 2 vols. Indore, 1918. Both of these books are mines +from which all sorts of precious thoughts can be quarried. Remaindered +copies of the first can be obtained from John Grant, Bookseller, +Edinburgh; while the second is sold by Botsford, High Holborn, London. +Professor Geddes’ work exemplifies concretely a good part of what I +have sought to explain and define in not altogether adequate prose. + + + + +UTOPIAS + + + PLATO (427 B.C.–347 B.C.). The Republic. Translated with notes + and essays by Benjamin Jowett. Oxford: 1894. See also Plato’s + Critias and Statesman in the same edition. The Laws, which + is a more detailed attempt to work out the details of a good + polity, is so lacking in Plato’s original inspiration that, + but for Aristotle’s allusion to it, one would promptly take + it for the work of another hand. + + MORE, SIR THOMAS (1478–1535). Utopia. Published originally in + Latin in 1516. There are numerous modern editions. See Ideal + Commonwealths, edited by Henry Morley. + + ANDREÆ, JOHANN VALENTIN (1586–1654). Christianopolis. Published + in 1619 and translated in 1916 by Felix Emil Held under the + title of Christianopolis: An Ideal State of the 17th Century. + Oxford University Press. Mr. Held’s introduction contains an + account of Andreæ’s life. + + BACON, FRANCIS (1561–1626). The New Atlantis. Published in + 1627. Bacon contemplated writing a second part which would + deal with the laws of his ideal commonwealth. See Ideal + Commonwealths. + + CAMPANELLA, TOMASSO (1568–1639). The City of the Sun. Published + in 1637 as Civitas Solis Poetica: Idea Reipublicæ + Philosophiæ. See Ideal Commonwealths. ALLAIS, DENIS VAIRASSE + D’ (--). L’Histoire des Sevarambes. Written in 1672 and + translated into English as The History of the Sevarites, + written by one Captain Siden, London: 1675. In Kautsky’s + Vorläufer des Modernen Sozialismus this utopia is given + high praise and is ranked as the French parallel of More’s + Utopia; but I feel that this is a sad error in judgment which + perhaps arose out of the bare fact that the first law of + the great dictator Sevarias was to put all private property + in the hands of the state, to be disposed of absolutely by + its authority, and to do away with distinctions of rank + and hereditary dignity. There is little that is fresh or + imaginative in Vairasse’s treatment, however, and there + is nothing like More’s detailed effort to guard against + usurpation of power by the ruling classes. As simple fiction, + the History of the Sevarites is, however, readable. See + also L’Histoire des Galligènes, by Tiphaigne de la Roche; + likewise the excellent satire, Giphantia. The description of + Salentum, under Mentor, in Fénélon’s Telemachus should not be + neglected. The Abbé Morelly’s Basiliade is little more than a + definition of his Code de la Nature. + + MERCIER, LOUIS SEBASTIEN (1740–1814). Memoirs of the Year 2500. + Published in French in 1772 and translated into English, + Liverpool: 1802. + + SPENCE, THOMAS (1750–1814). Description of Spensonia. + Constitution of Spensonia. London: 1795. Privately printed at + the Courier Press; Leamington Spa: 1917. + + FOURIER, CHARLES FRANÇOIS MARIE (1772–1837). Traité de + l’Association domestique agricole. 2 vols. 1822. Le Nouveau + Monde Industriel. 2 vols. 1829. See also Albert Brisbane in + his General Introduction to the Social Sciences (Fourier’s + “Social Destinies”), and Selections from the Works of + Fourier, translated by Julia Franklin, with an introduction + by Charles Gide, London: 1901. + + CABET, ÉTIENNE (1788–1856). Voyage en Icarie. Published in 1845 + and numerous editions followed during the next five years; + see that of the Bureau du Populaie, Paris: 1848. + + BUCKINGHAM, JAMES SILK (1786–1855). National Evils and Practical + Remedies, with a plan for a model town. London: 1848. + + BULWER-LYTTON, E. (1803–1873). The Coming Race; or the New + Utopia. London: 185--. A fantastic romance about a people who + live underground, possess detachable wings, and command a + potency known as “vril.” It is perhaps not altogether without + significance that this new hierarchy of industrial angels was + conceived by Lytton in the same decade that saw the building + of the Crystal Palace. + + PEMBERTON, ROBERT (--). The Happy Colony. London: 1854. This is + an appeal to the working class, somewhat similar in temper + and method to Buckingham’s appeal to the middle class. + Pemberton had an individual system of psychology which he + desired to apply in education. This utopia has now only a + limited historical significance. + + BELLAMY, EDWARD (1850–1898). Looking Backward; Boston: 1888. + Equality; Boston: 1897. + + HERTZKA, THEODOR (1845–?). Freeland: A Social Anticipation. + First edition published in German, 1889; English translation + published by the British Freeland Association in 1891. A + Visit to Freeland, or the New Paradise Regained. Translation + published by the above Association, London: 1894. The first + work lays the foundations for the utopia; the second is the + ideal commonwealth in action. + + MORRIS, WILLIAM (1834–1896). News from Nowhere. London: 1890. + There have been numerous editions. + + HOWARD, EBENEZER (1850–?). Garden Cities of Tomorrow. London: + 1902. First published as Tomorrow in 1898. Unique among + utopian books in that its eutopia has been partly realized. + See numerous descriptions of Letchworth, the first Garden + City. + + HUDSON, W. H. (--). A Crystal Age. London: 1906. + + THIRION, ÉMILE (1825–?). Neustria: Utopie Individualiste. Paris: + 1901. This is one of the rare, deliberately individualistic + utopias, founded on work, liberty, and property. It assumes + that a colony of Girondists were able to establish themselves + in South America. + + HERZL, THEODOR (1860–1904). Altneuland. Leipzig: 1903. + + TARDE, GABRIEL (1843–1904). Underground Man. London: 1905. A deft + and well-conceived fantasy, full of excellent criticism. + Towards the past it is a utopia of reconstruction, towards + the future--but herein lies much of its charm!--it is one of + escape. + + WELLS, H. G. (1866-?). A Modern Utopia. New York: 1905. + + CRAM, RALPH ADAMS (1863–?). Walled Towns. Boston: 1919. Dr. + Cram does not classify this work as a utopia; but the + honest critic cannot help giving it that label. Dr. Cram + sees no basis for eutopia without the system of values and + the sanctions perpetuated by the Christian Church; since + this leaves the greater part of humanity in Darkness, I + cannot agree with him. Dr. Cram, however, is a fine scholar + and a stimulating critic; and if one could only grant his + assumptions his conclusions would be magnificent. + + MORLEY, HENRY. Ideal Commonwealths; Plutarch’s Lycurgus, More’s + Utopia, Bacon’s New Atlantis, Campanella’s City of the Sun, + and a Fragment of Hall’s Mundus Alter et Idem, with an + introduction by Henry Morley. London: G. Routledge, 1886. + + + + +Transcriber’s Notes + + +Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a +predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they +were not changed. + +Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation +marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left +unbalanced. + +Chapter One did not indicate the beginning of section “5”. Transcriber +added it by referencing an earlier edition of the book. + +Text mostly uses “utopia” but sometimes uses “eutopia”. Both retained +here. + +Page 104: “the tale end” was printed that way. + +Page 224: “perfunctory seal upon” was printed as “perfunctory real +upon”; changed here. + +Page 231: “advertized” was printed that way. + +Page 294: “A. E.” was the pseudonym of George William Russell. + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75654 *** |