,,the ,,tyranny ,,of ,,shams ,,by ,,joseph ,mc,c,a,b,e ,,new ,,york ,,dodd1 ,,mead ,,company #aiaf ,,preface4 ,,this book is a frank criticism of most of the dominant ideas and institutions of our time3 a confession of faith in nearly all the more daring heresies which hold1 so to say1 the firing line of our literature3 a conception of a new social order and new planetary arrangement4 ,it is therefore candidly egoistic1 and ,i should like to explain the circumstances in which it was designed and written4 ,it was conceived1 and much of it was written1 during the long voyage from ,australia to ,england4 ,at that time ,i had issued1 if ,i may include the introduction to ,english readers of foreign writers1 some fifty publications1 and in these ,i had generally described remote periods of history1 or even remoter periods of the earth's story or distant regions of the universe4 ,many had asked me to tell them things more intimate and important than the way in which stars were formed1 or the manners of extinct ,dinosaurs and ancient empresses3 asked if thirty years' study of philosophy1 science1 and history had given me no interest in1 or light upon1 the problems of the hour4 ,in ,australasia this request was made more insistently than ever4 ,our ancient prejudices have been transplanted into the soil of the new world1 and they have thriven there1 like the gorse1 the sparrow1 the rabbit1 and so many other pests which sentimental colonists have introduced in order to remind them of home4 ,but new ideas also have been imported1 and they find a rich soil in the free1 unconventional1 enterprising colonial mind4 ,men and women are asking the same questions there as in ,london and ,new ,york4 ,the general drift or implication of these questions obsessed me daily during the slow traverse of the ,southern ,ocean4 ,day after day the great liner visibly rounded this vast ball of metal which we call our earth2 and to me there is no more impressive symbol than this of the power and the future of man4 ,some complain that at sea they feel the earth and man and man's concerns made trivial by the great fires which blaze through the darker sky4 ,but largeness is not greatness1 and a vast prairie in some inaccessible region does not make less precious the little plot of earth at your door that you can make beautiful4 ,your predominant feeling1 when you round the globe and see with your own eye its limitations1 is one of power4 ,this sphere1 you feel1 is the principality of man2 and there never was a power so despotic and far-reaching as the power of a united race would be4 ,you fed as if the earth could be embraced in the arms of a giant1 and humanity is the giant4 ,if men were agreed in their designs1 the earth would be as clay in the hand of the potter4 ,it would prove as passive and tractable as the child's ball of plasticine--if all1 or the great part of1 men and women were agreed as to the shape it was desirable to impose on it4 ,in our age differences of ideal restrain the hand and prevent us from giving a fairer face to the earth4 ,the power of a united mankind would be something akin to omnipotence4 ,every man or woman who has seen the earth with this larger vision must seethe with impatience to end this conflict of old traditions and new ideas which paralyses our hands2 to do what he or she can to accelerate that final harmony of conviction which will set free the fingers of the ,great ,potter4 ,that is the controlling sentiment of this little book4 ,it happens that1 before the book reaches the public1 one of those traditions which it assails has spread a ghastly devastation over the face of the earth4 ,for nearly twenty years ,i have used my slender opportunities as speaker and writer to denounce the military machine3 to imagine the mighty resources we waste on militarism and war transferred to those enterprises which seek to brighten the earth and make the hearts of men and women lighter4 ,now the little sermon1 which many feeble voices were preaching1 is taken up by an orator whose voice thunders from pole to pole1 whose words are blood-curdling realities4 ,ten thousand million sterling1 perhaps1 poured into the sea in eighteen months3 ten million men1 perhaps1 prematurely blasted off the earth or stricken for life3 and a trail of blood and tears and misery that all the mighty fertility of the earth will take a generation to obliterate6 ,nor does this outpour of horror merely mean that one feature of our life needs reconsideration4 ,we could not have retained this military machine1 with its ever-present danger of an appalling calamity1 if our minds were generally sane1 alert1 unclogged by shams4 ,one inquires how it is that a generation which boasts of its wisdom and humanity can retain this worst survival of barbarism1 and one finds that the evil is connected with a dozen other evils and protected by a general mental debility4 ,the habit of tracing this calamity to the peculiar criminality of another nation1 and dwelling only on our own heroism and self-sacrifice in meeting this menace1 is in itself a very grave danger4 ,we may be entirely certain that1 as long as we retain the military machinery for settling quarrels1 there will be wars4 ,how came the machinery to linger amongst us in the twentieth century8 ,at once we light upon a dozen other disorders of our life4 ,this remissness in civilising international intercourse argues a grave indifference to a most important task on the part of our political servants1 and an equally grave absence of pressure and direction on the part of their supporters4 ,it reveals a dangerously slovenly condition of our industrial world1 a very serious defect in our educational system1 a standing menace in the encouraged thoughtlessness of the mass of our people1 a general flabbiness1 haziness1 and anmia of what may be called the intellectual part of our public life4 ,this is true of all nations1--it may be the turn of the ,united ,states1 or ,norway1 or ,argentina tomorrow1--but it is most seriously true of ,england4 ,do not let us fuddle our minds with the kind of rhetoric one addresses to schoolboys4 ,we have1 in the first year of the war1 betrayed a sluggishness1 a lack of foresight and initiative1 a feebleness of organisation1 which ought to sober any race1 however wealthy4 ,our ,government knew1 or ought to have known1 since the spring of #aiab1 that just this war was threatening us2 and1 when it occurred1 they made a virtue of the fact that we were the least prepared nation in ,europe4 ,they took nine months to begin to organise our resources1 or to perceive that it was necessary to do so4 ,plainly1 there is something profoundly1 comprehensively wrong with our public life4 ,we shall muddle through1 because we have the resources1 and because the ,allies outnumber their opponents by fifty per cent4 ,but if in a future war we are compelled to face a numerically equal opponent1 ,england will1 if she retains these faults1 see her royal standard in the dust4 ,as it is1 the cost of our ineptitude will be prodigious4 ,so ,i am confirmed in my design to declare what seems to me to be wrong with our life4 ,i choose the form of a direct challenge of old traditions mainly because they so oppress and benumb the public mind that new ideals do not get a fair consideration4 ,but it will be found that behind the series of challenges there is a series of affirmations1 and these make up a constructive ideal of life4 ,probably few will accept this ideal in its entirety1 though each chapter advocates a reform which has millions of adherents4 ,it is1 however1 not based on any 'ism1 least of all on dogmatism4 ,there is a view of1 or attitude toward1 life expounded in the first chapter1 and behind each particular claim4 ,but each section deals with a specific department of life and must find its justification within the limits of that department4 ,if any regret that the work does not embody a profound philosophy of life1 ,i must reply that ,i passed through philosophy thirty years ago1 and came out into science and history in search of reality3 and that philosophers do not seem to me to be either agreed among themselves or in any close relationship to the human problems ,i discuss4 ,many will advise me1 too1 that a man would do well to conceal the more offensive of his heresies1 in order to gain a more patient hearing for the others4 ,that is the usual and prudent practice1 no doubt2 but this book has been written in a mood of fiery impatience with untruth1 and this has forbidden compromise4 ,night by night1 as ,i sit on the deck of the ship1 ,i watch the dark purple pall drop swiftly over the last flush of the tropical sky2 and ,i know that1 each night1 it shrouds the faces of thousands of men1 women1 and children whose chance of happiness is gone for ever4 ,we are arguing to-day about man's ailments just as the ,greeks were arguing in the ,agora at ,athens two thousand years ago1 or as men argued in the garden of ,plato or of ,epicurus4 ,meantime almost countless millions have lived in pain and squalor1 and died in delusive hope1 under the curse of those ancient traditions which we will not discard4 ,therefore ,i am impatient3 ,i cannot sit in quiet enjoyment of the sunshine that is granted me4 ,it will be found that no man appraises more highly than ,i the advance we have made in modern times1 and that ,i nowhere exaggerate the darker features of life4 ,if at times ,i write fiercely1 cynically1 even bitterly1 it is not from pessimism1 but from fulness and fire of optimism4 ,my controlling thought is1 as ,i said1 a consciousness of our power4 ,there are two types of people into whose hands this book may fall4 ,the first is the man or woman whose nerves must not be disturbed by the spectacle of the misery of less fortunate beings3 who finds life good1 and instinctively resents any proposals to tamper with its foundations4 ,these people are no more open to blame1 as a rule1 than the prophet is entitled to praise for his ardour4 ,we do not choose our temperament1 whatever else we choose4 ,but one does not appeal to these comfortable people4 ,they would have refined and pleasant things about them always1 and they shrink from the vaults where1 they dimly know1 ugly and sordid and writhing things are crowded together3 lest their glance fall on some yellow and distorted face whose hollow cheeks1 or eyes bloodshot with pain or brutality1 would disturb the even pleasure of their lives4 ,so be it4 ,let it be written in stark letters on their marble stones1 when the last peach has dropped from their relaxing fingers3 ,my ideal was to enjoy life1 and to let the devil take the hindmost4 ,do not let me be misunderstood4 ,the enjoyment of life is the supreme ideal advocated in this book4 ,i loathe asceticism1 either ,christian or ,stoic4 ,but ,i write for the second type of man or woman3 the people who are strong and healthy enough to enjoy every pleasure that life affords1 yet keep some thought for the unhappiness of others3 who think it a normal part even of a pleasant and refined life1 especially a leisured life1 to spare some hours for seeking how the world may be improved for less fortunate folk3 who1 precisely because they love the sunlight1 ask if it cannot be devised that all men and women and children shall have a larger share of it4 ,their chief difficulty is that1 unhappily1 the new prophets are as discordant as the old4 ,a few centuries ago1 when you crossed ,london ,bridge1 or the ,pont ,neuf at ,paris1 or the ,ponte ,vecchio at ,florence1 a score of rival quacks or charlatans 7in the literal sense7 cried in your ears the virtues of their conflicting remedies4 ,to-day just so many conflicting social physicians cry their wares in the streets4 ,they oppose each other almost as bitterly as they oppose the older traditions4 ,how shall a busy man or woman decide among them8 ,what fixed and unalterable principle1 in this world of dissolving creeds1 can you adopt for the testing of their truth or untruth8 ,a very grave and sincere difficulty4 ,therefore1 again1 ,i have chosen to attack what seem to me to be shams3 which ,i would define as untruths that the millions venerate as truths4 ,the work of reform will proceed very slowly and very precariously until these are resolutely discredited and dethroned4 ,in each case1 it is true1 it will be found that the dethronement of an error enthrones a truth2 but ,i insist that we will pay no grave and practical attention to constructive schemes until we fully realise the blunders and brutalities of our present civilisation4 ,the discord of our social prophets does not excuse us from perceiving these4 ,as to fixed and unalterable principles1 it seems to me that two1 at least1 are not disturbed by the ground-quakes of our time4 ,perhaps they stand with more conspicuous firmness when so many other eternal verities have fallen4 ,the first is the principle of truthfulness or sincerity4 ,of this it need be said only that1 if there are any parts of our human tradition which the larger mind of our age discovers to be untrue1 they ought to be rejected at once2 and the more closely they are woven into our social fabric1 the more speedily and more apprehensively they ought to be torn out4 ,the second and greater principle is the aim of arresting suffering and diffusing happiness as far as possible4 ,i will consider this presently1 and merely state here that these chapters have been written solely in the name and under the inspiration of that ideal4 ,and if my words are at times violent1 the violence is due solely to a great eagerness for the speedier coming of a brighter and more intelligent age and to a sincere abhorrence of cant and shams and all that lengthens this grey twilight of civilisation4 ,j4 ,m4 ,,contents4 ,i4 ,the ,philosophy of ,revolt ,,ii4 ,the ,military ,sham ,,iii4 ,the ,follies of ,sham ,patriotism ,,iv4 ,political ,shams ,v4 ,the ,distribution of ,wealth ,,vi4 ,idols of the ,home ,,vii4 ,the ,future of ,woman ,,viii4 ,shams of the ,school ,,ix4 ,the ,education of the ,adult ,x4 ,the ,clerical ,sham ,,the ,,tyranny ,,of ,,shams ,,chapter ,i4 ,,the ,,philosophy ,,of ,,revolt ,this chapter is1 with a few alterations1 reproduced from ,the ,english ,review1 ,october #aiad4 ,,although this work does not embody any system of speculation about the universe1 any creed or 'ism or large and abstruse set of principles1 it must begin with a careful study of the phenomenon of revolt4 ,never before was there such an age of general and feverish restlessness2 never was there such quaking of the deepest foundations of old institutions1 such tottering of thrones and altars4 ,from every intellectual centre the disturbing waves radiate4 ,round ,london1 ,berlin1 and ,new ,york the rumbling is habitual4 ,already they perceive it in ,tokyo and ,peking and ,constantinople4 ,tomorrow it will break on the ear in ,teheran and ,lhasa4 ,the same questions are asked all over the earth4 ,i have discussed them with millionaires at the ,ritz and with great ladies at ,claridge's3 with students in their universities and miners in their cottages3 with learned professors in ,rome or ,new ,york1 and with notorious anarchists in obscure corners of ,paris3 with working girls in ,melbourne1 with ,maoris in ,wellington1 with ,chinese and ,hindus and alert1 full-blooded ,africans4 ,i have been invited to discuss them with a ,polynesian princess and to lecture on them in ,fiji1 and ,i have had letters on them from ,japanese settlers in ,british ,columbia and negro tailors in ,british ,guiana4 ,the same questions everywhere3 religious doctrines and political forms1 education and industry1 marriage and woman--almost every ideal and institution we have inherited4 ,and the persistent note that resounds from continent to continent is the note of rebellion4 ,very different feelings are inspired by this characteristic fact of modern life4 ,to some it seems that this melting of the rigid framework of traditions is a welcome sign of spring and growth3 that a long winter1 which had slowed the blood of the earth and retarded the development of civilisation1 is over at last1 and little1 shapeless1 promising shoots of new ideals are rising from the loosened soil4 ,to others it seems as if the binding fabric of our civilisation were weakened and we were in danger of returning to barbarism4 ,surely those old traditions did hold together the structure of our civilisation8 ,and surely it is impossible to replace in a few generations the links of a planet-wide human society8 ,the shades of dead ,memphis and ,babylon and ,nineveh1 of ,athens and ,rome and ,bagdad1 of ,venice and ,genoa and ,florence1 pass before their anxious eyes4 ,in each case1 they remind us1 this same moral1 social1 and intellectual restlessness preceded death4 ,the inevitable specialism of our age adds to the confusion4 ,life is a connected whole1 yet neither research nor reform can now be other than sectional4 ,we devote ourselves to a candid study of some particular reform1 and we find it a thoroughly reasonable proposal1 a deduction from principles that we are bound to admit4 ,but we have not had leisure to discover the indisputable principles of other reforms2 and1 when we hear the demand of change and progress rising on one side after another--in the ,church1 the ,state1 the ,home1 the ,school1 and so on--we remark sententiously that rebellion is becoming a fashion1 that our generation is getting feverish or neurotic1 that we must insist on authority somewhere4 ,we repeat plausible phrases about the decay of respect and the wisdom of the race4 ,we fasten on symptoms of disorder--without inquiring very closely whether the disorder is new or has been recently aggravated--and we conclude that conservatism is a social duty3 that1 at all events1 we will admit reform only by the inch4 ,we fancy ourselves the guardians of the palladium4 ,quite apart from purely selfish motives1 some of the closest observers of our age do differ radically in diagnosis and prescription4 ,the same movements are symptoms of health to one man1 symptoms of disease to another4 ,take the enlargement of divorce1 the decay of clerical authority1 the industrial revolt1 or the rebellion of women4 ,there seems to be no common ground left on which the observers may meet with any hope of agreement4 ,the old religious and political standards will now hopelessly divide any roomful of educated men and women4 ,you propose1 perhaps1 to fall back on moral standards--the ground on which all reasonable people unite--and someone quotes against you half a dozen of the most brilliant writers of ,europe and ,america4 ,hopes and lamentations1 inspired by precisely the same facts of life1 mingle confusedly in our literature1 and men and women of large heart and little leisure seem to be condemned to a sterile perplexity or a selfish absorption in business and pleasure4 ,what1 at all events1 is the meaning or purpose of life8 ,and how is this spreading rebellion related to it8 ,first let us examine the grounds of the very distressing forecasts of the ,conservative4 ,in the vast majority of cases that are worth examining one will find that the pessimism has not very firm foundations4 ,your dismal prophet is usually a man with an ancient gospel which we are discarding1 or a new gospel which does not attract us4 ,the appeal to the modern world1 he realises1 must be utilitarian3 he must show us that1 without him1 we perish4 ,so he recklessly heaps up before our eyes statistics of crime and consumption and lunacy and alcohol3 he makes weird and totally inaccurate statements about ,france or the ,united ,states or some other country3 he marshals the shades of dead empires--which seem to have died of a wonderful complication of modern maladies--before us with appropriate rhetoric4 ,now to this kind of conservatism1 which says that we are decaying1 ,i reply that1 on every positive test of national health1 we are more flourishing than we ever were before4 ,dark as the earth is1 it was never brighter than it is to-day1 or more full of promise for the morrow4 ,the war is not inconsistent with this general statement1 as ,i will show later4 ,a failure to advance in one direction does not alter the fact that we have advanced in a hundred others2 and the gross behaviour of one nation does not destroy the gain that half a dozen other nations were ready to behave with a new decency in warfare4 ,as to that lesson of history which is stridently read to us by men and women whose command of history is not otherwise conspicuous1 ,i would remind them that the civilisation of dead empires always reached its height just before1 or at the time when1 they began to decay4 ,does anyone suggest that we ought not further to develop our civilisation lest we also decay8 ,however1 ,i have sufficiently discussed elsewhere this nonsense about laws of history2 and ,i will show later that these older empires decayed1 not because of their high development of intellect and fine sentiment1 which leads to revolt1 but from the natural defect of those very institutions which our conservatives defend4 ,we are not decaying4 ,england is1 for every class of its citizens1 an immeasurably finer place to live in than it was a hundred years ago4 ,i speak on the strength of a rigorous comparison of the moral and social life of ,england a century ago with that of modern ,england1 but ,i cannot give the facts here4 ,let it suffice to make plain that ,i have no sympathy with pessimists and preachers of penance and austerity1 of any school4 ,the world improves1 and improves more rapidly than it ever did before4 ,what stirs one's impatience is the consciousness that we could1 and do not1 move with infinitely greater speed3 that we tolerate abuses and shams which insult our intelligence and mock our professions of humanity4 ,what1 then1 are the grounds of the optimistic view of this widespread revolt8 ,let us admit that conservatism1 in the sense of an attitude of caution1 is a virtue4 ,we would not try unknown drugs on the life of an individual1 and we ought not to apply untried recipes to the life of forty million people4 ,yet it is precisely from this medical world that we gather valuable hints of progress4 ,by two centuries of sober and heroic labour the physician has brought the greater part of our maladies under control4 ,he would tell you1 in private1 that he has a hope of eventually being able to check all disease and prolong life4 ,the laissez-faire attitude is unknown in medical science4 ,it is unknown in our technical and commercial worlds4 ,we have made stupendous progress1 not by conserving1 but by innovating3 not asking if a machine or a system worked well1 but if we could devise a better4 ,in science--in all on which we pride ourselves in modern civilisation--we have followed the progressive principle3 we have cultivated revolt4 ,since we began to do so1 we have raised the level of our civilisation in each generation4 ,it is therefore not surprising that many are asking whether we ought not to extend the progressive principle to our religions1 moralities1 politics1 economic systems1 schools1 domestic and civic and social traditions4 ,it is1 in other words1 quite natural that there should be a demand for1 not one reform only1 but a hundred reforms1 in modern life4 ,we are justly1 wisely proud of what is distinctive and superior in our civilisation3 advance1 better organisation1 economy of waste1 greater efficiency4 ,the mystery is that so many would restrict this improvement to what they call the lower material departments of life1 and keep a strict guard against the reformer at the frontiers of their spiritual or political world4 ,the modern rebellion is a very logical effort to apply these very successful principles to as much of life as is susceptible of improvement4 ,this effort1 further1 coincides with the quite dominant and characteristic note of modern culture3 evolution4 ,we forget sometimes that until half a century ago ,europe was oppressed by an entirely wrong view of the earth's resources4 ,plato put a philosophic anathema on the earth4 ,this material mass1 he said1 was a barren thing4 ,order1 truth1 beauty1 love had to come to it1 in fitful gleams1 from a world beyond1 over which man had no control4 ,we know now that ,plato was wrong4 ,order1 truth1 beauty1 and love have developed on the earth--they are sublunary things--and man can control their sources and enlarge their proportions4 ,they do not properly make men great3 men make them great4 ,they are as surely under our direction as are applied science and commerce and the franchise4 ,we can cultivate them as we now cultivate pansies or sheep4 ,it depends on us if lies and disorder and dishonour are to linger among us1 or if truth and justice and beauty are to prevail4 ,again therefore it is quite natural that we should hear a demand for a more extensive use of these powers of ours4 ,the ships and ploughs and illuminants of a hundred years ago were made by the same men1 or the same generations of men1 as the religions and polities and moralities of the time4 ,why assume that the wisdom of the race was almost infallible in its spiritual and more difficult creations1 but capable of enormous improvement on the material side8 ,conservatism1 as anything more than an attitude of caution and prudence1 has not a plausible air4 ,it is well also to regard the essential or characteristic line of human evolution4 ,apart from a few who are caught by a transient attempt to glorify instinct1 we agree that the development of intelligence is one of the main sources of progress4 ,now this great and general awakening of intelligence in recent decades was bound to lead to a good deal of challenging of old traditions4 ,that was precisely why the grandfathers of our bishops and peers opposed it4 ,this higher intelligence of the race is now assisted in its decisions by a vastly greater and more accurate knowledge of man and the universe than our grandparents had2 and the cheapening of literature dimly conveys this knowledge to millions who were left out of account when the traditional maps of life were drafted4 ,the artisan discusses economics and theology4 ,the ,tonga ,islander works out mathematical problems4 ,i met a pure-blooded negro1 with a ,european degree in philosophy1 who told me that he had been forced to resign his chair in an ,african ,mohammedan college because of his advanced ideas6 ,once ,i discussed with a group of miners industrial questions and religion from twelve to three in the morning1 over pots of beer1 in a little inn on the west coast of ,new ,zealand1 a hundred miles from anything like a town4 ,it is quite impossible for this spreading and better informed intelligence to bow humbly to the ideas of an earlier generation4 ,it is going to think for itself1 at all events4 ,the old traditions must be revised throughout4 ,revision is not particularly dangerous except to errors4 ,and already we have discovered that our political and religious and social oracles have been teaching a good deal of error4 ,we begin to suspect that many things the divine right of kings and the eternal torment of the wicked may not be strictly accurate4 ,we had better reconsider all our ways of living4 ,the second permanent strain of human evolution is the development of fine sentiment4 ,the notion that the world is becoming more preponderantly intellectual1 and that progress along our present lines means a limitation of sentiment1 is inaccurate4 ,we are working toward a healthy equilibrium4 ,sentimental people--those in whom a starving of intellect or disuse of muscle has surcharged the nervous system with morbid energy--will become more balanced1 more intellectual4 ,ancient phrases and modern shibboleths will not be able to induce in them an instinctive warmth or agitation3 they will have to pass the bar of reason before they reach what one might call the executive department of personality4 ,but sentiment--deep and healthy feeling--has a precious use in life4 ,the development of fine sentiment is as necessary as the cultivation of reason to the advance of man and of civilisation4 ,we find this illustrated in all the older civilisations when they reach their highest point4 ,we are picking up this strain of development to-day1 and1 since civilisation is now too widely diffused ever to perish again1 we may assume that it will continue4 ,now this finer sentiment of our time demands the revision of our traditions and institutions no less imperiously than our higher intelligence does4 ,we cannot leave behind the callousness and brutality of the ,middle ,ages and at the same time retain medieval practices4 ,intellectually and emotionally we are improving1 and we must expect that1 as our finer powers grow1 there will be an increasing demand for revision and reconstruction4 ,as ,mr4 ,watson finely says3 ,guests of the ages1 at tomorrow's door ,why shrink we8 ,the long track behind us lies1 ,the lamps gleam and the music throbs before1 ,bidding us enter2 and ,i count him wise ,who loves so well man's noble memories ,he needs must love man's nobler hopes yet more4 ,this is1 ,i think1 a correct analysis of the innovating spirit of modern times4 ,these general considerations to which it is due are quite beyond discussion4 ,one feels that one is almost perpetrating platitudes in describing them4 ,in fact1 we would to-day find only a negligible number of people who oppose progress and innovation altogether4 ,they usually oppose it in one or two departments of life1 and quite warmly applaud it in others4 ,a ,socialist-,ritualist clergyman1 for instance1 fiercely demands advance in the economic field1 yet fences his own department of life with the most rigorous warnings against innovating trespassers4 ,a ,rationalist-,individualist feels that the ,church is the most obvious and urgent field for innovation1 and at the same time guards his economic world against it with a flaming sword4 ,a ,suffragist pours fiery scorn on our obstinate conservatism in regard to the franchise1 and then discovers an even more obstinate and entirely sacred conservatism when other women claim something more than political emancipation4 ,it is this very general sectarianism which compels us to review the philosophy of revolt4 ,these principles apply to the whole of life4 ,all our institutions must be critically examined4 ,the searchlight will not injure them if they are sound4 ,but how comes this sweetly reasonable philosophy to be converted into that passion for reform1 that mordant and exasperating attack on institutions1 which gives a special complexion to the literature of our time8 ,for precisely the same reason as the invisible electric current leaps into incandescence when it passes through the sluggish particles of the filament of carbon or tungsten3 resistance4 ,the old faith is growing dim in our minds1 and we have a suspicion that the thousands of men and women who1 each night1 terminate a life of pain or struggle or burden1 wilt never see the sun rise again1 on this or any other planet4 ,we know that every decade in which we put off1 with worn and hollow phrases1 the abandonment of old errors1 sees another generation pass away with just the same scars and traces of pain as those which scored the hearts of the dead two1 and four1 and six thousand years ago4 ,we are vividly conscious that1 quite apart from the myriads whose lives were embittered by poverty1 or war1 or a galling marriage-yoke1 or the tyranny of some old tradition1 there are further and vaster myriads who1 whatever comfort they knew1 might have been far happier1 and now the sun has gone down on them for ever4 ,there is real and very serious ground for impatience4 ,the acreage of squalor and misery and grossness is still appalling1 and on every land lies the crushing burden of militarism2 and this fearful visitation of war reminds us of the incalculable periodic cost of our folly4 ,the soil of the planet is wet with blood and tears1 and a great part of this inhuman rain might be arrested4 ,much has been done3 it is just that which stings4 ,you cannot look back on the darkness from which the race has issued without perceiving that man has the power to transform the face of the earth3 without entertaining a reasoned and coldly intellectual conviction that a day will yet dawn on this planet when laughter1 as of children on ,may morning1 will ring from pole to pole1 and life1 for all its work1 will be a holiday4 ,and when this reasoned and just belief encounters the sullen or selfish indifference of men and women to their creative power1 their insensitiveness to the evils that they or their fellows endure1 it glows and spits fire4 ,it is quite easy to apologise for strong language3 much easier than to justify the general lack of it4 ,and this impatience cannot be rebuked by reminding us that the remedy of some of our ills is very obscure2 because the majority of people are indifferent to the very idea of reform4 ,they shoulder burdens which they might at any moment lay aside for ever4 ,some of the greatest reforms that are pressed on us are not obscured by any serious controversy4 ,yet in every civilised nation the mass of the people are inert and indifferent4 ,some even make a pretence of justifying their inertness4 ,why1 they ask1 should we stir at all8 ,is there such a thing as a duty to improve the earth8 ,what is the meaning or purpose of life8 ,or has it a purpose8 ,one generally finds that this kind of reasoning is merely a piece of controversial athletics or a thin excuse for idleness4 ,people tell you that the conflict of science and religion--it would be better to say1 the conflict of modern culture and ancient traditions--has robbed life of its plain significance4 ,the men who1 like ,tolstoi1 seriously urge this point fail to appreciate the modern outlook on life4 ,certainly modern culture--science1 history1 philosophy1 and art--finds no purpose in life3 that is to say1 no purpose eternally fixed and to be discovered by man4 ,a great chemist said a few years ago that he could imagine a series of lucky accidents--the chance blowing by the wind of certain chemicals into pools on the primitive earth--accounting for the first appearance of life2 and one might not unjustly sum up the influences which have lifted those early germs to the level of conscious beings as a similar series of lucky accidents4 ,but it is sheer affectation to say that this demoralises us4 ,if there is no purpose impressed on the universe1 or prefixed to the development of humanity1 it follows only that humanity may choose its own purpose and set up its own goal2 and the most elementary sense of order will teach us that this choice must be social1 not merely individual4 ,in whatever measure ill-controlled individuals may yield to personal impulses or attractions1 the aim of the race must be a collective aim4 ,i do not mean an austere demand of self-sacrifice from the individual1 but an adjustment--as genial and generous as possible--of individual variations for common good4 ,otherwise life becomes discordant and futile1 and the pain and waste react on each individual4 ,so we raise again1 in the twentieth century1 the old question of the greatest good1 which men discussed in the ,stoa ,poikile and the suburban groves of ,athens1 in the cool atria of patrician mansions on the ,palatine and the ,pincian1 in the ,museum at ,alexandria1 and the schools which ,omar ,khayym frequented1 in the straw-strewn schools of the ,middle ,ages and the opulent chambers of ,cosmo de' ,medici4 ,we answer1 as men did in all those earlier debates1 according to our temperament4 ,one says culture1 another character1 another happiness1 another pleasure1 another efficiency4 ,this discussion is often a mere exercise of wit1 and very often we use a quite arbitrary standard in fixing what is best1 or the greatest good4 ,probably the modern mind will put to itself the plain question3 ,what is the best purpose for the race1 in its own interest1 to adopt8 ,as we are not now clear that there are any other interests to be consulted1 this is the obvious form of the question4 ,and when we do put it in this form1 the old conflict begins to disappear4 ,we see that a comprehensive ideal1 embracing all the classical answers1 commends itself4 ,we want more--we want as much as possible--culture1 character1 happiness1 pleasure1 and efficiency4 ,we want a quicker and fuller development of man's highest and richest resources4 ,but1 if you look closely into it1 there is one ultimate and commanding element in this broad ideal4 ,it is happiness4 ,culture is a necessity of the race and luxury of the few4 ,character is supremely important1 but you have now to prove to men that it is important4 ,we do not bow any longer to arbitrary commands and categorical imperatives and ,stoic laws4 ,we have to be convinced that the cultivation of a high type of character will lessen suffering and brighten the earth4 ,pleasure1 again1 is1 as ,epicurus insisted1 only a part of a large ideal of happiness4 ,there is1 in fact1 no ground on which you can appeal to the mass of men to-day in favour of cultivation or idealism except this ground that it makes for greater happiness3 and on that ground you may safely appeal to the whole race4 ,sometimes1 when you ascend the slopes of a range of hills1--the idea occurred to me during a walk from ,chamonix to ,montanvert1--the mists close round you1 and the guiding peaks and contours are lost4 ,then1 perhaps1 some point breaks through the clouds1 and you stride on confidently4 ,this must apply to the most sceptical or nebulous mind of our generation4 ,the old dream of a co-operative effort to improve life1 to bring happiness to as many minds of mortals as we can reach1 shines above all the mists of the day4 ,through the ruins of creeds and philosophies1 which have for ages disdained it1 we are retracing our steps toward that height--just as the ,athenians did two thousand years ago4 ,it rests on no metaphysic1 no sacred legend1 no disputable tradition--nothing that scepticism can corrode or advancing knowledge undermine4 ,its foundations are the fundamental and unchanging impulses of our nature4 ,its features are as clear and attractive to the child as to the philosopher4 ,philosophers will1 of course1 declare it superficial2 but we may remind them that all their supposed deeper probing of reality1 from ,pythagoras to ,bergson1 has ended in a confusion of contradictory guesses4 ,churchmen will declare with horror that it is materialistic2 and we may remind them that for fifteen centuries they have taught ,europe to place its highest good in happiness4 ,if the happiness they promised is getting doubtful1 we make sure of what we can4 ,in truth1 however1 no nobler aim ever inspired action1 and none is so fitted to appeal to modern man4 ,it is1 in fact1 the mainspring of nearly all the progressive activity of our time4 ,the more doubtful all else becomes1 the more determined men and women are to be happy in this world4 ,thrones and creeds and institutions1 even moral codes1 are brought to judgment to-day before that ideal4 ,it is more profitable to judge the living than the dead4 ,this ideal is the chief inspiration of the rebellious temper of our age4 ,the revolt which burns in so much of the abler literature of our time is an unselfish revolt1 or non-selfish revolt3 it is an outcome of that larger spirit which conceives the self to be a part of the general social organism1 and it is therefore neither egoistic nor altruistic4 ,it finds a sanction in the new intelligence1 and an inspiration in the finer sentiments1 of our generation1 but the glow which chiefly illumines it is the glow of the great vision of a happier earth4 ,it speaks of the claims of truth and justice1 and assails untruth and injustice1 for these are elemental principles of social life2 but it appeals more confidently to the warmer sympathy which is linking the scattered children of the race1 and it urges all to co-operate in the restriction of suffering and the creation of happiness4 ,the advance guard of the race1 the men and women in whom mental alertness is associated with fine feeling1 cry that they have reached ,pisgah's slope2 and in increasing numbers men and women are pressing on to see if it be really the ,promised ,land4 ,that is the spirit of the reform-movement of our times4 ,popes anathematise our age1 and the clergy of all sects bemoan its materialism1 yet it is exulting in a wider and higher idealism than any that ever yet stirred the heart of man4 ,for we now know from what dark and brutal origins we came1 and we feel that1 if we advance only as we are advancing1 we may reach any height that any prophet ever yet saw in his visions4 ,it is very difficult to avoid what seem to be rhetorical phrases in describing this age of ours3 the age which some profess to find prosy and materialistic in comparison with the earlier age when a handful of plethoric landowners ruled ,england1 and little children worked in filthy rooms for twelve hours a day1 and cut-throats1 in most charming costumes1 slew each other in the fields of ,london4 ,i have not the least desire to use rhetoric2 ,i do but express my feeling1 and what ,i take to be the feeling of advanced people generally1 as it comes to me4 ,but in this poetry there is the solidity of scientific prose4 ,some time ago ,i sailed slowly toward ,teneriffe from the south4 ,eighty miles away1 on a fine morning1 the summit of the ,peak showed its delicate contour in the clouds1 hardly distinguishable from them4 ,we thought it an illusion1 a simulating cloud1 because far below the summit the blue sky seemed to stretch from horizon to horizon4 ,the ,peak floated in the air4 ,but1 as we drew nearer1 the blue band below it grew thinner1 and at last it disclosed the massive bulk of the supporting mountain4 ,speaking as a sober student of history and science1 ,i say that this dream of a brighter and happier earth rests on no less solid a foundation4 ,we see primitive man1 blindly1 and with infinite slowness1 move towards civilisation3 we see civilisation slowly1 with many a tragic interruption1 advance toward the modern age3 and now we see the pace quicken enormously1 and we find a new consciousness of power and a deliberate aim at higher things bear the race onward4 ,the reformer's belief in the future is a scientific deduction from the past4 ,the failure of the mass of people to co-operate in the realisation of this ideal is due1 not to indolence or stupidity1 but to the obsessing influence of the old traditions4 ,they choke the fires of the mind3 they make us insensible to the real enormity of a great deal of our social arrangements4 ,hence it is that the reformer's appeal is cast so frequently in a negative or aggressive form4 ,the most powerful thing in our world is1 not truth1 but untruth2 and the most important thing in the world is to assail it4 ,great is truth1 and it will prevail1 said an ancient writer4 ,but the civilisation which gave birth to that sentiment died1 and all its promising young truths perished with it1 and ,europe fell under the rule of lies for more than a thousand years4 ,untruth is millennia older than truth4 ,its roots run deep into the flesh of the heart1 while the rootlets of truth are struggling for a frail clasp in the intellect4 ,great is untruth1 and it will prevail--unless it is attacked unceasingly4 ,no untruth ever died a natural death4 ,being the sacred truth of yesterday1 it is usually entrenched in powerful corporations1 embodied in the law and life of nations1 enshrined in the tenacious affections of the millions4 ,at one time you incurred sentence of death if you challenged it3 now you incur slander1 misrepresentation1 and mockery4 ,the race has been made docile to it by a kind of negative ,eugenic--perhaps we ought to say ,cacogenic--selection4 ,yet nearly everything which the majority venerate as truth to-day began its career as heresy and will end it as lie4 ,so the first task of the well-wisher of mankind is to distinguish truth from untruth in our traditions4 ,the story of man is a long story of the tyranny of consecrated shams1 with occasional intervals of rebellion and advance to a higher stage4 ,rebellion is the salt of the earth4 ,there comes a time in the history of every civilisation when the mind of a few rises high enough to survey critically that stream of traditions in which the majority lazily float4 ,then comes the inevitable revolt2 hence the close kinship which we feel across the ages with the ,preacher1 with ,socrates1 with ,omar ,khayym1 with ,erasmus1 with ,molire4 ,we are at the same stage of evolution1 with the difference that we moderns have an immense mass of knowledge of history and prehistory to aid us in testing the value of our traditions4 ,already we have discarded scores of old dogmas3 in religion1 politics1 education1 law1 and every department of our common life4 ,it would be folly to attempt to fence off any province of our life from this critical scrutiny4 ,and since we obstinately retain many traditions which a very high proportion of properly educated people regard as unsound and mischievous1 since these traditions are the chief obstacle to the advance of the race1 one of the most pressing needs of our time is1 surely1 a stern campaign for the abolition of this tyranny of shams4 ,,chapter ,,ii4 ,,the ,,military ,,sham ,,in the original conception of this work militarism was selected as the first sham to be assailed because it is at once the most costly and the least excusable4 ,the way to remove many of the blots on our civilisation is by no means plain4 ,a dozen conflicting theories confront you1 and each has a sufficiently large body of adherents to entitle it to consideration4 ,but there are others in regard to which a large and practical measure of agreement has been reached4 ,here we do not need so much the subtle dissection of arguments and proposals as the kindling of that ardent and imperious sentiment which spurs a man or a race to action4 ,the evil is recognised3 the way to remedy it is sufficiently clear4 ,what we need is1 in the mass of the people1 that fiery resentment of a hated tyranny which will shake the lie from its throne4 ,the first1 the gravest1 the most flagrant and most vivid in our minds at the moment of these obvious shams is war1 with the military system which it involves4 ,here there is no sacred legend of a divine origin to confuse the minds of the ignorant4 ,there are legends of divine approval1 it is true1 but the clergy do not press them and they have little influence4 ,war is a practice or institution which we clearly trace to the wild impulses and imperfect social forms of early man3 even to the sheer passion of the beast that was still strong in him4 ,no sophistry can obscure this bestial origin4 ,we men and women of the twentieth century cling to one feature1 at least1 of an age on which we look back with high disdain3 an age with which we would bitterly resent any comparison in point of intelligence and feeling4 ,we may try to gild it with glittering phrases about a nation's honour1 but we know1 all the while1 that the honour of a nation no more demands that it shall dye its hands in the blood of a sister-nation than the honour of an individual requires so barbaric a consolation4 ,we maintain this sham in an age when mechanical progress has made such strides that it has turned the industry of war into our chief and most oppressive occupation4 ,we cannot1 with all our sacrifices1 find the means to carry out most urgent reforms in our social life2 we cannot put flesh on the bones and light in the eyes of poor children1 or ease the lives of worn workers and helpless widows2 because we need these1 and even greater resources1 to sharpen the sabre for our neighbour's throat and enlarge the calibre of the tube that will scatter a hail of death4 ,we have for years stood in such attitude confronting each other1 we civilised nations1 that on any day of any year the bugle might peal1 and the soil and seas of ,europe be reddened with blood1 and the pain which knows no remedy shoot through millions of homes2 and now the tragedy has opened1 grimmer than the dourest prophet had ever pictured it4 ,why have we done this8 ,ultimately1 because man1 the primeval savage1 knowing nothing of our systems of justice1 laid it down that the knife or the club was the guardian of a man's honour or property3 proximately1 because we of this highly cultivated age enthrone still one of the most ghastly shams which barbarism succeeded in enforcing on civilisation4 ,i have described it as a characteristic of our age that we are rising above the stream of traditions which flows from civilisation to civilisation1 and are discovering that some of its sources are tainted4 ,now in the case of warfare this scrutiny of the origin and course of our traditions is comparatively easy4 ,what we have discovered is so well known1 and so little disputed1 that it need hardly be related4 ,it may be useful to state1 at least1 that very early man was probably not a combative and bloodthirsty savage4 ,he lives to-day in such lowly peoples as the ,veddahs and the ,yahgans1 and they are generally peaceful and averse from brawling4 ,in this primitive man1 however1 there slumbered all the impulsive passion of earlier ancestors1 and it was inevitable that a cultural rise should awaken it4 ,when men became organised in tribes1 when they became hunters and tillers of the soil1 when they increased and wandered far afield1 quarrels arose over women and hunting grounds and other necessaries1 and the institution of warfare was established4 ,within the tribe there was already some kind of court1 as a rule1 before which a man could bring his neighbour for wrong-doing4 ,for the quarrel between tribe and tribe there was no judge3 the verdict lay with the heavier weapon and the stouter arm4 ,hence1 the higher the intelligence of the tribe1 the more deadly and widespread became the carnage4 ,ferocity became a useful social quality--a virtue1 indeed1 the supreme virtue1 or virtus 7manliness7--and the primitive genius was expended in making more cruel and lacerating the barbs of the arrow and the spear4 ,the administration of justice advanced1 and a time came when private vengeance1 and even family feuds1 were strictly forbidden and regarded as crimes4 ,but1 while ten men might not go to war against ten men1 ten thousand would march out1 with the sonorous blessing of their priests1 to the more barbaric butchery of war against ten thousand4 ,the mind had to grow larger1 the heart more human1 before the reign of justice would be acknowledged in the relations of masses of men to each other as well as in the relations of individuals4 ,with the dawn of civilisation a terrible paradox occurred4 ,warfare was not abolished1 but made more destructive4 ,again we find this a natural and intelligible development4 ,each early civilisation found itself surrounded by barbaric tribes1 with which no compact of justice could be established or trusted4 ,the great ,stoic humanitarians of ,rome1 who preached the brotherhood of men and denounced violence1 dared not1 in the interest of civilisation1 plead disarmament4 ,there were1 of course1 moral sophisms in support of this plain need4 ,the profit of aggression1 the prestige of conquering1 were adorned with phrases akin to our white man's burden4 ,yet it is true that until modern times warfare could not have been abolished without grave danger to civilisation4 ,the crime of warfare became a crime only in these later centuries4 ,now that fully three-fourths of the race are gathered into civilised states1 a compact of justice1 an international tribunal with an international executive1 is possible2 and we are guilty1 either of a base hypocrisy or a ghastly insensibility to our gravest interests1 in refusing to set up that compulsory international tribunal4 ,no writer will be expected to discuss patiently to-day the pitiful sophistry with which1 until yesterday1 a few defended the retention of the military institution4 ,germany resounded with1 and ,england and ,france and the ,united ,states echoed here and there1 the pompous and hollow claims of its ,treitschkes and ,moltkes4 ,war was a splendid moral discipline3 an institution appointed by ,providence for purging the race of sloth and materialism1 for restoring chivalry and brightening the shield of honour and rebuking selfishness4 ,war has grimly belied its apologists and we need notice them no longer4 ,it has betrayed one of the greatest nations of modern times into horrors and outrages which are a supreme and eternal mockery of their moral claims for it4 ,others more justly claimed that war develops the virility1 the endurance1 the power of men4 ,the lesson of history1 they said1 is on the side of war3 the great empires of the world became great by their heroism and sacrifices on the field of battle4 ,here we must distinguish carefully4 ,it is obviously true that these empires became big1 powerful1 and wealthy by war2 and if any nation candidly confesses that it relies on war to increase its territory1 its power1 and its wealth1 its argument is unanswerable4 ,but there is now no nation in the world that professes to maintain an army and a navy for the purpose of aggression and expansion4 ,even ,germany1 which undoubtedly did construct its massive armament for that purpose1 had not the audacity to admit it4 ,defence is the justifying title and1 in so far as it is sincere1 it is a just title4 ,if1 as long as the military system lasts1 an army and a navy of a certain strength are required1 in the judgment of appointed experts1 for the defence of a country and its institutions1 we pay our share willingly for the maintenance of such an army and navy1 and we respect our soldiers and sailors4 ,i do not for one moment advocate the disarmament of one nation living amidst armed neighbours2 and a partial disarmament1 or an insufficient armament1 is the surest provocation of war4 ,my point is that1 since the world has reached such a pitch of moral development that each nation now professes to arm only against the possible aggression of a neighbour1 the time has come for them to agree upon the infinitely less costly and more reliable way of settling their possible quarrels as individuals do4 ,only one nation1 ,germany1 seems to be genuinely opposed to this1 not so much from native malice of character as from very serious domestic reasons for aggression3 and a perfect opportunity now arises for effectively impressing on ,germany the fact that she has come too late into the family of ,great ,powers for filibustering4 ,as to the development of physique and endurance and discipline1 it is too obvious that this could be attained by athletic contests which are at present left to voluntary interest or to the unattractive manuvres of professional exploiters4 ,for years ,i have followed professional football with keen pleasure1 and ,i was interested when1 at the outbreak of war1 men cried that these footballers were the most superb material for our recruiting agents4 ,it was perfectly true4 ,any ,state which is sincerely eager to develop the physique and endurance of its citizens can do it by the use of devices which will provide most enjoyable spectacles and national or international festivals instead of periodic orgies of blood and tears4 ,the defenders of war must be hard pressed for argument when they plead this necessity4 ,there is1 moreover1 one supreme difference between war and athletics as instruments of training4 ,war destroys what it creates3 athletics keeps its men among our citizens and breeders4 ,the truth is that the whole historical argument for war1 which has had an incalculable influence in the education of ,germany1 is a miserable fallacy4 ,the real lesson of history is that militarism has been a malignant cancer1 transmitted from one empire to another1 and1 by destroying them1 it has hundreds of times suspended the advance of civilisation4 ,it is in a sense a fallacy to claim that any nation became great by war4 ,the tribe which wins ascendancy over its neighbours does so because it is already more powerful1 more numerous1 or more fortunately situated4 ,then comes the period of expansion1 when1 as we admit1 greater power and wealth and territory are undoubtedly won by the sword4 ,this is the seductive phase of history1 leading astray men like ,ruskin as well as men like ,mommsen and ,niebuhr4 ,let us admit all its glories4 ,moral and humanitarian excesses are just as mischievous as immoral excesses4 ,as a result of this successful war and expansion1 the older empires were enabled to foster art1 to protect their growing culture1 to civilise vast stretches of the earth that might otherwise have lain uncivilised for ages4 ,most assuredly war has1 in this sense1 been a most valuable influence in spreading civilisation over the earth4 ,what modern historians forget is that the conditions have totally changed4 ,your empire is no longer surrounded by myriads of barbarians whom you must conquer before you can civilise4 ,germany has been forced to colour its aggression by the stupid pretence that it had a higher ,kultur than its neighbours1 and that1 in endeavouring to impose it on them1 it was carrying out the law of history4 ,it is a pity that science and history ever adopted the word law4 ,what they mean1 of course1 is only a summary of the way in which things uniformly occurred in certain conditions4 ,now that the conditions are entirely changed1 the laws have no application4 ,one might suggest that we still need armies to conquer and civilise the outstanding barbaric peoples4 ,we do not4 ,we need an international armed force to check their aggressions1 but there are other and better methods of civilising them4 ,in any case1 this plea has no relation to the vast armies and navies and the bloody wars we actually endure4 ,but it is the next and final phase of militarism which the historical apologists for war have so grossly overlooked3 the phase when the best stocks of the old race are extinguished on the battlefield or enervated by the luxurious idleness which was bought by the spoils of war4 ,is it not proverbial how the great families which had led the invincible legions of ,rome dwindled in five centuries into a sickly cluster of parasites or wholly disappeared8 ,is it not notorious that it was1 in the first century of the present era1 the healthier provincial stocks which saved ,rome from destruction1 or postponed its destruction8 ,and do we not find1 as time goes on1 men from more and more distant provinces1 in the end men from the barbaric fringes of the ,empire1 coming to lead its legions and support its falling eagles8 ,all through ,roman history war presents itself to the mind of the candid historian as a vampire living on the best blood of the people4 ,only a continuous supply of fresh blood and stout frames from the subject peoples keeps up the illusion of an eternal ,rome4 ,it is only the shell that lasts4 ,the people of ,rome itself and of the neighbouring plains1 from which the old legionaries had come1 were soon exhausted4 ,italy in turn was exhausted and made desolate4 ,then ,gaul and ,spain and ,africa1 and ,thrace and ,dacia and the more distant provinces1 were sucked bloodless and resourceless2 and the great shell of an empire fell with a crash under the blows of ,goth and ,vandal4 ,it is a clerical myth that ,roman strength was sapped by vice4 ,its blood was drunk by war4 ,these things ,niebuhr and ,mommsen forgot when they proposed to ,germany the splendid example of ,rome2 and history will have its revenge on its great interpreters by recording the close in tragedy of this new imperialism which they inspired4 ,other historians boldly quoted ,greece--,alexander of ,macedon--and the fallacy is even more piteous4 ,athens assuredly did not become great by war4 ,its most brilliant period opens after a crushing and devastating reverse1 and its achievements were entirely due to its statesmen1 its artists1 and its thinkers4 ,but from the moment when the shadow of the ,macedonian empire fell on it1 a blight came swiftly over its culture4 ,its glory departed for ever when it became part of a great military power4 ,greece1 as a whole1 was impoverished and ruined by war4 ,sparta itself1 one of the most strenuous military powers that ever lived1 is a classical proof that war invigorates only to destroy4 ,to whatever nation we turn1 we learn the same lesson of history4 ,egypt survived the strain1 owing to the constant infusion of foreign blood1 for eight thousand years1 but sank at last so exhausted that it seems almost beyond the hope of reanimation4 ,assyria and ,babylonia were prepared for destruction by the same steady drain of their healthiest blood4 ,the ,hittites1 the ,lydians1 the ,phnicians1 the ,medes1 the ,persians followed the same course4 ,from the first founding of civilisation in the valley of the ,nile1 ten thousand years ago1 war has brooded over its cities and cornfields1 and has time after time blighted its achievements and its hopes4 ,it is as though some god were jealous of the advance of man1 and maintained on the earth this corroding pest to eat into the life of each successive empire1 and1 by destroying it1 to interrupt the progress of the race4 ,in the history of ,europe since the fall of ,rome we witness the same human tragedy4 ,i do not overlook the other evil influences1 such as fiscal disorder and industrial parasitism1 which have contributed to the fall of empires1 but the share of war in these tragedies was incalculable4 ,the fate of early ,england1 battling against invaders and rent by internal quarrels for centuries1 is typical4 ,the greater ,england of modern times1 or the real greatness of modern ,england1 was built in periods of comparative peace by merchants and manufacturers and scholars4 ,over the whole of ,europe the vampire still brooded1 fastening on each young nation that advanced beyond its fellows4 ,the medieval republics of ,italy were wrecked by war4 ,holland and ,portugal1 once the most promising powers of ,europe1 were exhausted by it4 ,not vice1 not enervation1 not a dwindling birth-rate1--which are rather consequences than causes1--but the incessant exhaustion of their resources on the seas and the battlefield condemned them to decay4 ,italy fell back into the state of impotence which gave ,austria and the ,papacy their ignoble opportunity4 ,once more the advance of civilisation was checked by the jealous god of war4 ,it is1 of course1 true that warfare produced fine types of men2 but for every ,bayard there were ten thousand brutal soldiers1 whose march across ,europe left a broad track of rape and ruin4 ,it is true that the naval or military successes of ,venice and ,genoa and ,florence enabled them to raise marble palaces and to foster the art of painters and the research of scholars2 but it is equally true that prosperity based on such a foundation was generally doomed4 ,the example of medieval ,rome shows that a military basis was not essential4 ,the peoples from whom the tribute had been wrung awaited their hour--the hour when the vampire had sucked the great frame weak and bloodless--and then1 by the same law of might1 they smote the oppressor4 ,the historian who reads the whole chronicle of man is saddened even in contemplating a nation's prosperity4 ,amidst the cries of joy and triumph and love he seems to hear the cynical laughter of the war-god4 ,i need not follow the devastation of war through the later history of ,europe4 ,the ,thirty ,years ,war laid ,germany desolate1 and postponed its cultural development for more than a century4 ,spain1 ,portugal1 and ,holland1 which had won empire by the sword1 lost it to the sword4 ,the ,ottoman ,empire sank into weakness and shame4 ,all this was due1 in the first place1 to what ,count von ,moltke calls the institution of ,god3 the institution without which the world would fall into decay and lose itself in materialism4 ,even while he spoke ,germany was prospering by peace as few nations had ever prospered before4 ,could there possibly be a more perverse reading of the lesson of history8 ,could there be a greater mockery conceived than to imagine ,god smiling on this blood-reeking ,europe1 or to call this a spiritual triumph over materialism8 ,is any man1 with the present desolation of ,europe before him1 tempted to place the soldier above the artist1 the scientist1 or the engineer as an instrument of progress8 ,let us grant militarism all that it has really achieved4 ,it remains1 in the mind of the historian1 the greatest curse that mankind has endured since the primitive humans were first gathered into tribes and disputed each other's spheres of influence4 ,blind to this ghastly tragedy of history1 we have maintained and cherished militarism until it has brought on us in turn the greatest catastrophe that a single year ever embraced4 ,probably our grandchildren1 probably many a child that gazes now with wide eyes on our troops and banners1 will look back on our civilisation with amazement4 ,they may smile at a drill-sergeant like ,count von ,moltke telling illiterate rustics of the glorious moral qualities which war develops in--the men who traversed ,belgium6 ,but we civilians will honestly puzzle them4 ,we had the history of the world unfolded before us1 and we saw this institution plainly emerging from barbarism and leaving its bloody and defacing splashes on every page of the chronicle4 ,we traced the evolution of justice1 and we saw that1 as it was a mighty gain to men when tribunals were set up to adjudicate on the quarrels of individuals or clans1 it would be a far mightier gain to erect a tribunal for settling the quarrels of nations4 ,yet we took this stupid burden from the shoulders of our fathers1 and we made it incalculably heavier for ourselves and our children4 ,i need not set out the weight of the burden in figures4 ,when ,i first wrote this page ,i dilated on the seventy million sterling per year which we ,english were compelled to spend on defence3 ,i imagined it expended on social betterment and human help--on a magnificent scheme of education1 for children and adults1 and so on4 ,then ,i observed--two years ago--with a shudder that at any moment a war might double our ,national ,debt and compel us to find a further #dj1jjj1jjj a year to pay for our militarism4 ,and here1 within less than twelve months1 we have incurred this monstrous burden1 yet we linger still on the very fringe of the mighty battlefield we have to traverse4 ,think what the future may be if we retain militarism4 ,in the past one hundred years1 or a little more1 war has cost ,europe about #d1jjj1jjj1jjj4 ,in one year a modern war has cost ,europe more than that sum1 and may cost it double4 ,add to this1 if you can calculate it1 the value of the millions of the more robust workers who die on the field3 the appalling loss to productive industry3 the portentous devastation of property4 ,i suppose that1 soberly1 the total cost of this war will be something between ten and twenty thousand million sterling4 ,what will be the cost of the next war1 which may come within ten years8 ,and what might we have done in ,europe with ten thousand million sterling8 ,i am not1 it will be observed1 relying on disputed speculations like those of ,mr4 ,norman ,angell4 ,i do not accept his characteristic theory2 but it need not now be discussed1 as our experience rather suggests that a modern war will prove so exhausting1 economically1 that there will be no question of substantial indemnity for the victor4 ,but we must in any case add to this cost of war1 for victor and vanquished alike1 that incalculable damage which is expressed in ruined homes1 ruined fortunes1 and the pain of loss4 ,this also is too vividly present in our minds to need comment4 ,these sacrifices have been borne heroically4 ,those of us who have lost nothing can most sincerely salute both the men who exposed their lives in a just cause and the women who endured as women do4 ,the soldier's trade is an honourable trade while the need for it lasts1 and at such a time it calls for respect and gratitude4 ,but how stupid and brutal in the last degree is the system that imposes these sacrifices1 when we reflect that the honour or the rights of any nation could have been vindicated without the darkening of a single home or the loss of a single citizen4 ,there1 of course1 we have the centre of gravity of the whole discussion4 ,if we can abolish and dispense with the military system1 our retention of it in the twentieth century is the most appalling sham and anachronism of which we are guilty4 ,i do not enlarge on the cost of war4 ,no one to-day can be insensible of it or suggest that any but the most imperious needs would justify us in retaining it4 ,i assume also that1 after the lamentable behaviour of ,germany1 none will question that there will be wars as long as militarism lasts1 and that the cost and carnage will increase prodigiously4 ,the supreme point for us to realise is the comparative ease with which this greatest of reforms can be accomplished4 ,we have no rival schools of economists or moralists or philosophers darkening counsel here4 ,we do not await a genius to discover the path for us4 ,a plain and seriously indisputable ideal is put before us3 arbitration4 ,a court for exercising it has already been established3 the ,hague ,tribunal4 ,let the majority of people in the more powerful nations of the earth agree to submit every international difference to that or some other tribunal1 and we have made an end of militarism and war4 ,if this seem a hasty or superficial view of a grave problem1 reflect on the difficulties which a cautious or conservative thinker might allege4 ,he would1 ,i fancy1 on sincere consideration1 admit that the chief and most serious difficulty is not a reluctance based on specific reasons1 but a general apathy due to want of reflection4 ,i am not for a moment underrating the magnitude of the effort that will be required in overcoming this apathy1 in creating the general will4 ,in this respect1 indeed1 the pacifist reform is peculiarly hampered4 ,pessimistic people ask how we came to boast of moral progress in modern times when this military evil has become greater than ever4 ,they do not reflect on the special conditions of the problem4 ,in attacking almost every other evil--industrial injustice1 say1 or cruel sport1 or a stupid penal code--we have to deal only with our own nation4 ,we can carry the reform within our own frontiers1 whatever other nations do4 ,in the case of militarism we cannot4 ,all the ,great ,powers1 at least1 must advance simultaneously4 ,we have not to educate a nation1 but a planet4 ,pacifists have at times given the impression--generally a wrong impression--that they forgot this2 that they advocated disarmament or relaxation of armament in our own nation1 whether other nations disarmed or no4 ,in this way1 and because many pacifists have weakly opposed or carped at ,england's action in this very grave crisis1 they have done harm by making humanitarianism seem unpractical1 blindly sentimental1 and dangerous4 ,i need not repeat that ,i have not the least sympathy with that sort of pacifism4 ,the reform must be international and thoroughly practical4 ,but this large task of planting a definite conviction in the minds of the majority in many nations does not conflict with what ,i said about the essential clearness and simplicity of the reform4 ,if you set out to attack poverty or to reform marriage1 you have first to settle very serious controversies about the way to do it4 ,there is no such controversy here4 ,there are1 it is true1 a few who still have in their veins some of the blood of the medieval swashbuckler4 ,they say that1 while a quarrel about territory might fitly be referred to a judge1 an outrage on our national honour must be expiated by blood4 ,the idea is purely barbaric4 ,as if this river of human blood were not an immeasurably greater outrage than the heated words of a nervous diplomatist1 or the jibes of a silly journalist1 or the acts of an excited crowd1 or the guilt of a couple of assassins6 ,as if an international court could not devise some means of appeasing injured honour as well as of restoring injured rights6 ,it is dreadful materialism1 they say1 to put honour in the scale with money4 ,so men said in the clubs of ,london a century ago in defence of the duel1 and we recognise in their pleas the lingering1 more or less disguised1 of a barbaric sentiment4 ,most of us recognise that same feature in this last apology for the duel of nations4 ,if we can trust our individual honour to a mediocre magistrate or judge1 or a still worse jury1 we can certainly entrust our national honour to a group of the ablest and most impartial lawyers of the world4 ,it is sheer distrust of justice to refuse it4 ,here again history is wholly on the side of reform4 ,which of the great wars of the nineteenth century involved a point of honour that could not1 with entire decency1 have been submitted to arbitration8 ,was there such a point of honour in the ,napoleonic wars8 ,the ,prusso-,danish8 ,the ,prusso-,austrian8 ,the ,italian8 ,the ,american ,civil ,war8 ,the ,franco-,german8 ,the ,russo-,turkish8 ,the ,south ,african8 ,what point was involved in any of them that could not have been settled with far greater honour to the combatants and greater regard for justice by an impartial tribunal8 ,in most cases they were really wars of aggression and expansion1 like the war in which we are engaged4 ,we may at least ask the men who hold that medieval idea of war to have--since they boast much of their courage--the elementary courage to say so4 ,there is no conceivable quarrel that cannot with perfect honour be submitted to arbitration4 ,and the ostensible ground of this colossal struggle which is now exhausting ,europe--the satisfaction due to ,austria for the assassination of the ,archduke--was pre-eminently a matter for a tribunal4 ,the frivolity and insincerity with which these grave issues are sometimes met are1 to put it on the lowest level1 costly4 ,speaking in a ,london club some time ago1 ,i urged this substitution of arbitration for war4 ,my opponent frivolously observed that he was not sure that a court of great lawyers would be cheaper than war1 and there were some who quite seriously applauded4 ,yet ,europe had then actually expended about #b1jjj1jjj1jjj in the preliminary stages of its great war6 ,wherever there is a considerable and deliberate reluctance to substitute arbitration for war1 wherever these unsatisfactory pleas for war are put forward1 we find a hypocritical concealment of real motives4 ,if we would be practical we must candidly confront these motives1 and we shall find that the most persistent and most dangerous of them is still the desire to gain territory4 ,the spectacle of the decay of the ,ottoman ,empire and the apparent helplessness of the ,balkan peoples had more to do with the militarism of ,european ,powers than they were willing to admit4 ,that source of temptation is now renewed1 and most of the ,powers have1 or soon will have1 all the territory they can reasonably desire4 ,the further distribution of ,african territory could clearly be best controlled by an international court4 ,there remains one ,power that will still feel the lust of territory4 ,germany conspicuously thwarted in ,europe the advance of the pacifist reform because1 as the whole world now sees1 it had an aggressive territorial ambition4 ,we may assume that ,austria will now be cured of its lawless and costly designs1 and that ,germany will remain the one unsated and discontented nation4 ,but ,europe will surely have the elementary wisdom of refusing to maintain its terrible burden on that account4 ,it will pay us better to meet the real economic need of ,germany by a generous colonial deal1 and then to use the power of an international polity to destroy and prevent the revival of militarism in that country4 ,we should thus remove the last serious obstacle to the reform1 and the work might advance rapidly4 ,the tribunal1 as ,i said1 exists1 and has had more experience than is generally realised4 ,the ,hague ,conference of #aijg established a ,prize ,court1 with permanent salaried judges1 and an ,arbitration ,court4 ,a large number of very grave quarrels have since been adjusted by this tribunal1 and1 as ,professor ,schcking observes1 more than a hundred contracts between ,states have been concluded in which1 on each occasion1 two ,states made the ,arbitration ,court obligatory4 ,but1 largely owing to the opposition of ,germany and the general apathy1 the ,court remained optional1 and the ,powers maintained their armies for the settlement of quarrels in the old barbaric manner4 ,the next and last step is for all the ,powers to recognise the ,court as compulsory1 and to furnish it with an executive 7a small international army and navy7 for the enforcement of its decisions4 ,our vast armies and navies then become superfluous and would be disbanded simultaneously1 leaving only a small force in each country for the suppression of native aggression 7with the consent of the ,hague ,court7 and for use by the ,court itself to enforce its verdicts or suppress illegal attempts to arm4 ,there is nothing ,utopian or academic about this reform4 ,a body of high-minded lawyers and statesmen have for years discussed the details of the scheme1 and are ready to launch it whenever the various ,governments are compelled by public opinion to adopt it4 ,the immediate task is to create this pressure of public opinion4 ,we may hope that1 after our ghastly lesson in the price of the military method1 we shall no longer be rebuffed with vapid phrases like3 ,do not force the pace4 ,a business-man who talked nonsense of that kind would soon find his level4 ,we need to conduct our national and international life on business-principles1 to get rid as speedily as possible of a waste and disorder which are an outrage on the intelligence of the race4 ,i look more confidently to business-men than to speech-making politicians and sentimental moralists for the triumph of the reform4 ,certain industries will1 of course1 be gravely dislocated1 even annihilated1 by the change2 and vast bodies of additional workers will1 in most countries1 be thrown upon a crowded labour-market4 ,from the abstract economical point of view it is only a question of transfer4 ,fifty millions which were spent on military industries will now be used in enlarging other industries or creating new4 ,in reality there will be grave confusion2 but that is due to the utterly disorganised nature of our industrial world1 which ,i discuss later4 ,in any case to allege this industrial difficulty as a serious reason against disarmament is a very singular piece of folly4 ,the cost and trouble of adjusting this temporary dislocation would be infinitely less than the cost and trouble of a war4 ,we need1 therefore1 to persuade the public1 which has borne its military yoke and endured the occasional lash of war with the placidity of a draught-ox--that is1 candidly1 how we shall appear in the social history of the future--that it may escape the yoke and the lash when it wills4 ,our ,churches might make some atonement for a long and lamentable neglect of their duty by organising a really spirited collective campaign in this greatest of moral interests4 ,the central educative body should1 however1 be quite unsectarian4 ,i take it that an amalgamation of the various ,peace ,societies1 strengthened by the adhesion of our commercial and industrial leaders1 would form this central educative body4 ,the present war would furnish it with a superb text and an unanswerable argument4 ,it ought1 in the circumstances1 to capture each country in ,europe more speedily than ,cobden's famous league captured ,england4 ,the press would begin to assist at a certain stage of progress4 ,even the politicians would presently lend their oratory2 especially as their prestige1 at least in this country1 would hardly survive a second strain such as this war has put on it4 ,every agency ought to be enlisted in impressing upon the public that1 whatever other reforms may imply1 here we ask no sacrifice2 we indicate a way in which the community may1 when it wills1 rid itself of a stupendous burden and set free enormous resources for social improvement4 ,reformers are widely1 and with some reason1 accused of being dreamy and unpractical4 ,here1 at least1 it will be seen that it is rather the public and the opponents of reform who are dreamy1 romantic1 and unpractical3 that the reform itself is a business proposition of the most attractive and promising character4 ,but let us be even more practical4 ,to forecast the future is an interesting intellectual recreation2 but to close one's mind entirely against the possibilities and dangers of the future is positive folly4 ,let us glance at the future4 ,i have not the faintest hope that the ,allied ,powers will1 as they ought to do1 disarm ,germany and ,austria and then disarm themselves1 when the war is over4 ,then ,germany will concentrate all its marvellous power of organisation1 dissimulation1 and intrigue in a dream of revanche4 ,the appalling incompetence displayed by what we may call1 in the broadest sense1 our ,intelligence ,department and our ,war ,office will return1 when the temporary accession of business-ability has been withdrawn from it4 ,there will be no serious inquiry into our scandalous indolence in the early period of the war1 our complete failure to forecast the conditions of war1 and our heavy somnolence during ,germany's feverish preparations1 although the documents published by the ,french ,government show that1 by #aiac at least1 sharp-sighted foreign representatives saw clearly that war was1 to put it moderately1 highly probable4 ,in point of fact1 our authorities knew that war was gravely imminent4 ,i happen to know1 from a little breach of confidence1 that our ,war ,office secretly warned certain reservists in ,june #aiad 7even before the ,serajevo murder7 to be ready4 ,the men were ready1 and have borne their share superbly2 but our authorities had to confess that1 even after nine months' experience of the war1 they were immeasurably behind ,germany in the production of the two vital necessaries of a modern war--machine-guns and high-explosive shells4 ,our experts will return to this comfortable somnolence4 ,there will be no serious inquiry4 ,politicians and their advisers will escape in a cloud of thrilling emotions and enthusiastic rhetoric4 ,persistent questioners1 who are rudely impatient of party-discipline1 will be snubbed and evaded4 ,any other questioners1 not of the political world1 will be ignored4 ,we shall return to ,british dignity and placidity4 ,germany will work and intrigue as it never worked and intrigued before4 ,there will be grave domestic trouble in ,russia and1 as in the case of ,turkey1 ,german representatives will think while ,british representatives play4 ,the preparations may occupy ten years or twenty years1 but they will proceed4 ,the aim will be a war with ,russia neutral or friendly to ,germany4 ,if it occurs 444 ,one has only to imagine where we should be to-day if ,germany had not made the error of abandoning the ,bismarckian tradition4 ,behind this is a further possibility4 ,china is just as capable as ,japan of learning the use of thirteen-inch guns and maxims4 ,sir ,hiram ,maxim1 in fact1 who knows both ,china and the gun1 quite agrees with me on that4 ,and ,china has1 behind that stoical and almost childlike expression it presents to ,europe1 an acute memory that for thirty years we have treated it with flagrant injustice4 ,it may take decades to undo the evil of ages of ,manchu misgovernment and organise the resources of the country1 but the day will come when an alert and powerful nation of #ejj1jjj1jjj ,orientals will press against its frontiers4 ,we may remember that the ,mongol banners have before now fluttered over ,moscow and reached the ,mediterranean4 ,and the ,mongols are not the only awakening people4 ,we may yet see an anti-,european combination from the ,asiatic shore of the ,pacific to the ,african shore of the ,atlantic4 ,these are some of the possibilities we hand on to our children if we do not in time abandon the military system4 ,to that pass has it brought us4 ,we writhe and groan under the terrible burden it lays on us1 and we shrink from contemplating the future2 yet we might cast off the burden and rid the future of peril when we will4 ,we disavow the buccaneering spirit1 and protest that we arm only in defence against each other2 and one wonders whether to smile or weep at the obtuseness which prevents us from adopting a simple and humane means of defence instead of this exhausting barbarism4 ,we humanise war1 yet cling needlessly to the whole inhuman business4 ,we are teaching the backward nations to arm1--we would gladly supply them with tutors and arms at any time1--and may be thus preparing a more colossal conflict than ever4 ,surely the man or woman of the twenty-first century will find us an enigma6 ,let me close with a repetition of my protest against the misconstruction to which such a book as this is always exposed4 ,i advocate no ,utopian scheme1 but one which some of the ablest lawyers1 statesmen1 and business-men in ,europe have discussed for years and warmly endorsed4 ,i have no wish to conceal technical difficulties under sentimental phrases1 but these men1 to whom ,i refer1 are prepared to meet the difficulties4 ,i regard the work of the soldier as honourable and worthy1 as long as we impose the military system on each other2 and at this particular juncture regret only that ,i am long past the age of bearing arms4 ,i plead1 as long as the system lasts1 for unquestionable efficiency in national defence1 whatever it cost4 ,but ,i say that1 in this military system1 we are enthroning the hollowest and most ghastly sham that ever deluded humanity3 that1 when we have the courage or wisdom to strip it of its tinselled robes1 we will shudder at sight of the gaunt frame of death which has ruled civilisation for so many thousand years3 that nothing is wanting but the general will to dethrone this mockery of a god3 and that1 when we have abolished militarism and war1 we shall advance along the way of social improvement with far lighter steps and vastly increased resources4 ,,chapter ,,iii4 ,,the ,,follies ,,of ,,sham ,,patriotism ,,when warfare is abolished1 and men no longer peep at their foreign neighbours over hedges of bayonets1 there will be a number of less important international absurdities to remove4 ,some three hundred years ago1 we discovered that the earth was a globe4 ,to-day we are appreciating that this globe is the property of the human race1 and that the friendly co-operation of all branches of the race is extremely desirable4 ,national efforts and sacrifices are undone by international waste and disorder4 ,we begin to perceive this1 and the most sober of us must look forward to a time when the scattered and antagonistic elements of the race will agree upon some graceful design of a ,city of ,man1 and unite in constructing it4 ,that familiar phrase1 the ,brotherhood of ,men1 sounds rather hollow in the ears of many4 ,i am avoiding pretty phrases and disputable creeds and subtle philosophies--,i am trying to keep in direct contact with the realities of life--and therefore ,i do not use it4 ,but the sincere sentiment behind it1 the feeling that we men and women do form one large family in possession of an immense and infinitely fertile estate1 and that we will develop our property more advantageously for each of us if we act as though we were brothers1 can hardly be challenged4 ,the question of the exact expression of our relationship to each other may be left to poets and scientists4 ,those lighter shams of patriotism1 which ,i shall describe in this chapter as hampering the march of the race1 will be recognised even by men who1 with ,carlyle or ,nietzsche1 refuse the title of brother to some of their fellows4 ,we ourselves smile at them sometimes1 and at the cheerfulness with which we endure the grave inconvenience they put on us2 and they will certainly provoke the laughter of the scholars who will some day learnedly discuss the question whether we men and women of the twentieth century were or were not civilised4 ,they have1 it is true1 a much more serious aspect2 they are important auxiliaries of the war-god4 ,on the whole1 however1 they are shams that we ought to kill with ridicule and bury with genial disdain4 ,they are practices or institutions which we have plainly inherited from the barbaric past1 when men were slaves of tradition1 kingly or priestly1 and dare hardly use their own intelligence on their own habits4 ,in this age of ours1 when we are at last becoming the masters1 instead of the slaves1 of our traditions1 they are regarded by large bodies of men and women in every civilised country as stupid1 anachronistic1 and mischievous4 ,in fact1 there is here again no serious difference of opinion4 ,one has not to force one's way through some controversial thicket before one can discover the correct path of reform4 ,the way lies perfectly clear before us1 and we can enter it at any time when we have the collective will to do so4 ,one might again describe the proposal1 not as a reform--since many people instinctively shrink from the word reform--but as a business proposition of the simplest and most profitable character4 ,i speak of those false and antiquated freaks of patriotism which keep different groups of human beings speaking different languages1 using different weights and measures1 wrestling with each other's mysterious coinage1 collecting each other's stamps1 and stumbling against the many other irritating diversities which make one part of the earth foreign to another4 ,it may seem to imply some lack of sense of proportion to pass from so grave a subject as war to these matters1 but a very little reflection will show how closely they are connected4 ,the first and most ludicrous of them is the stubbornness with which each fragment of the race prides itself on having a language of its own4 ,this confusion of tongues has irritated and inconvenienced and helped to exasperate against each other the various sections of the human community for thousands of years1 although we could suppress it at will in half a generation4 ,millions of us have an acute and constant experience of the absurdity of the system4 ,in our schools1 where mind and body require the fullest possible attention during the few years of training1 we devote a large proportion of the time to teaching children how the same idea may be expressed by half a dozen different sounds4 ,the higher the class of school1 the more valuable and skilled the teacher1 the more time must be wasted in learning how ancient ,greeks and ,romans1 or how ,germans and ,french and ,italians1 have invented different sounds from ours for expressing the same ideas4 ,the slenderness of the protest one hears against this polyglot system from educators themselves is amazing4 ,they have1 it is true1 begun to rebel in large numbers against the teaching of dead languages1 but comparatively few of them support the increasing demand for that adoption of a common tongue which would do so much for the advance of education4 ,those whose parents did not happen to be wealthy enough in their youth to send them to schools which have the distinction of teaching languages are hampered in a hundred ways4 ,if they travel1 they must pay sycophantic waiters and couriers to give them a dim understanding of the human world through which they pass4 ,even in their own country they cannot order a dinner at any well-ordered restaurant without first studying a lengthy vocabulary of superfluous sounds1 or without practising a dozen little hypocrisies to conceal their ignorance4 ,in large colonial hotels1 where hardly a single person who does not speak ,english is ever found1 one receives a menu with the usual intimidating array of ,french phrases4 ,you ought to supply dictionaries with this sort of thing6 said an angry young squatter1 taking a seat beside me in the ,grand ,hotel at ,melbourne1 to the waiter4 ,if you are travelling for business1 or even transacting business at home1 you must have your foreign correspondents and agents2 and with their aid you follow dimly the very interesting advances and experiments that are being made in your department abroad4 ,our ,governments must pay more heavily for diplomatic and consular service4 ,our books and magazines make a parade of foreign phrases which have not yet become as familiar as ,english4 ,our shopkeepers add twenty-five per cent4 to the cost of our linen by calling it lingerie4 444 ,we are tormented in a hundred ways1 yet we contemplate this absurd muddle and waste with as resigned an air as if we still believed that the ,almighty had1 in a fit of temper1 created the confusion of tongues at ancient ,babel4 ,so subtle and strong is the hold of custom on us that we rarely even ask ourselves whether this is a wise or an unalterable arrangement4 ,we hear with indifference1 if not with amusement1 of societies which propose to adopt one international tongue in the place of this ridiculous confusion2 we languidly picture to ourselves little groups of long-haired faddists meeting in bleak halls to attract our duller neighbours to the cultivation of one more innocent enthusiasm4 ,we have not time for these things4 ,when a sensible man has given adequate time to business and pleasure1 he has1 he says1 no hours to spare for these idealistic luxuries4 ,yet a moment's serious reflection would show us that the sole aim of these faddists is to make life less crowded and laborious1 to lighten our business and add to our pleasure1 to introduce common-sense into a large part of our conduct4 ,to such strange contradictions and absurdities does this resolve to resist innovation bring us4 ,most people are1 perhaps1--if they ever give a thought to the matter1--under the impression that it is a mountainous and impracticable task to introduce such a reform into the life of the world4 ,it is1 on the contrary1 one of the simplest and most practicable reforms to which men could set their hands4 ,it is even less controversial a measure than the abolition of war4 ,there are few prejudices of our time which have not attracted the ingenuity of some faddist or other2 but this is one of the few4 ,more emphatically here than in the case of war1 all that we need is the will of the majority to change our anachronistic practice4 ,when one regards the entirely uncontroversial nature of the reform and the immense economy it will entail1 it is hardly unreasonable to hope that this will of the majority may soon be secured4 ,i assume that1 when we agree to direct our ,governments to carry out this elementary improvement of international life1 they will summon an international commission of philologists1 educators1 and commercial men1 whose business it will be to create a new language4 ,this step will not be taken until the voluntary movement for reform has reached such proportions as to arouse the interest of politicians2 but in the end we rely on governmental action1 as it is necessary to reform schools and ,parliaments4 ,this international commission will1 no doubt1 examine impartially such languages as ,esperanto4 ,possibly these existing international tongues will be found more complex than an ideal language ought to be1 and less attentive to the finer values of speech4 ,for the simple purpose of expression it is possible to create a tongue far less complex than any in use in the civilised world to-day3 a tongue that could be learned in a few months even by the untrained intelligence4 ,it would proceed on the entirely opposite principle to that of modern word-makers3 the principle1 for instance1 that changes fireworks into pyrotechnics 7a piece of bad ,greek for good ,english71 or gardening into horticulture4 ,the use of this debased ,latin and ,greek in science has a certain advantage under our present polyglot system1 as it is an approach toward international agreement1 but it is making more onerous than ever the burden of our languages4 ,we want a simple means of expression and intercourse1 with a power of expanding to meet the advance of thought and discovery without needing to run to such lengths as diaminotrihydroxydodecanoic acid4 ,no existing national speech would meet the purpose1 least of all ,english2 but it would be advisable to have some regard to sthetic interests in framing a new language1 and the old tongues would supply a good deal of material in this regard4 ,the success of the poet depends on qualities of words as well as qualities of imagination1 and we have no wish1 like ,plato1 to exclude poets from the ideal commonwealth4 ,we should retain large numbers of these short expressive words4 ,great numbers of people hesitate in face of this proposal because they feel that it is a very large innovation1 however simple and indisputable it is in principle4 ,they contemplate such things as a nervous child gazes on the sea from the steps of a bathing machine4 ,intellectually1 a few such plunges would be of incalculable service to our generation4 ,one can understand people hesitating before some disputed economic or political scheme1 but to shrink from adopting plain and large reforms such as this is not a sign of health4 ,we need to purge our sluggish imaginations of their prejudices1 to brace our intellectual power1 to take pride in our creativeness4 ,when the new international tongue is ready1 a few years will suffice to make it prevail over the older languages in the leading countries which helped to set up the commission4 ,it will become the one speech of the school1 the press1 commerce1 law1 government1 and1 possibly1 the church4 ,the travelling public will1 as every ,esperantist knows1 at once discover the advantage4 ,the commercial world will find it a splendid economy and a priceless boon to international trade4 ,a man will be able to travel from ,london to ,tokyo with as little difficulty as from ,woolwich to ,ealing2 and it will be found that when the foreign tongue1 which so instinctively suggests to us the uniform of an enemy1 has disappeared1 one of the worst obstacles to mutual good-feeling will be removed4 ,when the ,englishman can talk to the ,berliner with perfect ease1--,i assume that all beginnings of dialect would be suppressed as mercilessly as weeds in a well-kept garden1--just as a citizen of ,london now talks with a citizen of ,new ,york or ,sydney1 a very dangerous chasm will be bridged4 ,it is quite certain that the calamitous attitude of modern ,germany could not have proceeded to such a dangerous pitch if the ,imperialist and other literature which is responsible for it had been intelligible to the whole of ,europe4 ,a few students of particular aspects of ,german life were more or less acquainted with it1 and we refused to believe then4 ,now we discover1 to our amazement1 that a neighbouring nation has for decades been openly educated up to a pitch of unscrupulous aggression1 and the world has been threatened with an incalculable catastrophe4 ,i am not overlooking the real reasons for this development1 but ,i say confidently that it would have been impossible if a national literature were not generally confined within the nation which produces it4 ,in the school the advantage would be very considerable4 ,our overstrained and bespectacled children would be spared several hours a day of their school-work or home-work4 ,the whole ancient and modern-language section of the curriculum would be suppressed1 and this suppression1 with other reforms which ,i will describe later1 would enlarge the teacher's opportunity of giving real education and spare the pupil a great deal of devastating brain-fag4 ,for the education of older people the gain would be almost as great4 ,a ,birmingham artisan could read the latest novel of d',annunzio or latest play of ,hauptmann without the assistance of expert or inexpert translators4 ,all the older literature that is worth preserving would be translated by specially qualified interpreters into the new tongue1 and the originals would then become the toys of leisured pedants4 ,if1 as ,i suggested1 a proper attention to word-values were secured in the making of the new tongue1 there is no reason why it should not express poetical sentiments as gracefully and pleasantly as any existing tongue4 ,is there any ,utopian element in this scheme8 ,most people will probably recognise that the only bit of utopianism in it is the expectation that the majority of any nation can be induced to adopt it4 ,that might seem to justify one in using impatient language about the wisdom of the majority of us1 but it is no reflection on the scheme itself4 ,the reformer1 however1 is ill-advised in reflecting on the intelligence of his fellows4 ,carlyle's twenty-seven millions1 mostly fools1 discovered in the end that all their follies1 which he so vigorously denounced in his ,latter-,day ,pamphlets1 were more permanent and accurate than his eternal verities4 ,it is usually want of leisure or immediate profit which alienates the public from schemes of reform4 ,possibly a scheme which so plainly promises more leisure to us and a very considerable profit may hope to win attention4 ,the reform of spelling ,i1 of course1 take as an integral part of the scheme4 ,but this reform of international intercourse must take a more comprehensive shape than the mere suppression of this confusing plurality of tongues4 ,it is just as foolish of us to maintain a plurality of weights and measures1 of coinage and postage-stamps1 of social and civic and juridical forms4 ,even if we confine our attention to the leading civilised nations1 we find in these respects a confusion which outrages the elementary instincts of commercial life and lays a monstrous burden of superfluous trouble on us all4 ,travellers and business-men endure it year after year with the most amazing patience4 ,men who would be fired to instant action if they found a trace of such disorder in their domestic or commercial concerns resign themselves to this colossal muddle of international intercourse as calmly as if it were a providential and entirely sacred arrangement4 ,i remember once passing rather rapidly from ,lucerne to ,london1 by way of ,wiesbaden1 ,cologne1 and ,brussels3 on another occasion by way of ,cologne and ,amsterdam4 ,the hours one has to spend in calculating coinage 7or lose the exchange-value71 the worry expended in struggling for stamps or dinners in the less familiar tongues1 the confusion of train-rules and street-usages and civic regulations1 reflect a system of chaotic disorder2 to say nothing of the sizes of boots or collars you need1 the weight of tobacco or fruit1 and so on4 ,all this is a portentous example of slavery to tradition1 whether the tradition be reasonable or no4 ,we have not the slightest regard for the historical development of this muddle and the peculiar folly of retaining it in our generation4 ,our earlier ancestors measured their woollens or their corn or their mead by the simple standards that are apt to occur to primitive peoples4 ,even1 however1 where the same standard occurred to1 or commended itself to1 different and remote communities1 its vagueness was fatal4 ,a thousand paces 7a mille1 as the ,romans said7 seemed a fair reckoning for long distances1 but the stretch varied1 and we have ,irish miles and ,german miles and ,english miles and nautical miles4 ,our ounces and yards and pints are as intelligent as most of the other things which the ancient ,briton invented1 but1 being ,british1 they seem sacred to us4 ,a hundred years ago a far superior standard1 the decimal system1 was put before us1 but our fathers felt that it smacked of the ,french ,revolution and ,napoleon and atheism4 ,we smile at their prejudice1 yet we have no greater disposition to alter our unintelligent ways4 ,the ,german would be horrified at having to reckon his distances in kilometres4 ,the ,british lion1 the ,french or ,german or ,russian or ,american eagle1--there is a marvellous love of that symbol of aspiration and progress1--or the rising sun of ,japan1 must have its own system of weights and measures and coins4 ,passing through a strip of ,canada some months ago ,i had1 from lack of the local stamps1 to entrust my post to a kindly waitress2 and was1 of course1 robbed4 ,of late years1 ,australia has patriotically resolved to have its own coins1 and has fought parliamentary battles over its stamps4 ,the often-imagined visitor from another planet would not be so much surprised at this extraordinary and costly muddle of patriotic shams as at our faculty for progress in commerce and industry amidst it all4 ,we seem to be quite blind to the larger applications of our modern doctrine of efficiency4 ,regarded as an economic system1 which it really is1 the international arrangement of our civilised world is full of crudities which are more worthy of a ,papuan pedlar4 ,the contrast between the methods of a large ,chicago store or a ,british or ,german engineering-business and the methods we retain in far larger and more important concerns will one day be a subject of amazement4 ,the evil of which ,i am speaking eats into the very heart of an industrial and commercial system which prides itself on its order1 economy1 and efficiency4 ,yet this comprehensive muddle is contemplated almost without protest by business-men4 ,if it were merely the leisure hours of travellers which were dissipated in this abstruse study of foreign tongues and coins and customs1 we might merely deplore proverbial vagaries of taste4 ,but the abuse is immeasurably greater than this2 the advantage we should gain by this scheme of unification can scarcely be calculated4 ,one would think that the reform was really difficult to achieve1 or lay under the frown of some imposing school of theologians or moralists or economists6 ,i omit from the list of perversities whatever is the subject of serious economic controversy4 ,such things as national tariffs1 for instance4 ,however arguable the question may be in ,england1 even the free-trader usually appreciates in such a country as ,australia the plea for a protective tariff4 ,there is1 at all events1 a very serious controversy on the general issue1 and it would not be expedient to include among plain reforms any scheme of universal free-trade or universal protection4 ,it is enough to point out that certain obvious1 stupid1 and mischievous survivals of old conditions gravely hamper our international intercourse4 ,the prestige of our civilisation1 as well as a common-sense view of our interest1 demand that we shall suppress them4 ,more disputable reforms may be considered afterwards4 ,our usual method is1 one fears1 to discuss the more disputable reforms first4 ,it is difficult to conceive any plea being put forward on behalf of these irrational old customs1 but a sufficiently ingenious and superficial apologist might claim that patriotism bids us maintain them4 ,there is no doubt that the work of reform will have to proceed over the bodies of a number of the pettier patriots4 ,no one can suppose that the task of unification will be accomplished without friction4 ,german professors and ,bulgarian politicians will protest against this pernicious cosmopolitan spirit1 this horrible wish to denationalise us1 this tampering with the sources of national energy4 ,ardent ,irishmen and ,welshmen will form very talkative associations for the defence of the grand old tongue4 ,rival languages will be put forward1 and ,esperanto will strain its hitherto respectable resources in denouncing ,volapk or the new official speech4 ,french and ,english and ,german savants will heatedly press the claims of ideal words in their respective languages to be taken over1 and pamphleteers will discuss whether ,herr ,professor ,doktor ,schmidt did or did not contribute more suggestions than ,professor ,smith4 ,a higher criticism of the new language will spread its pale growth like a parasitic fungus4 ,what is patriotism8 ,in the sense in which the word is still widely1 if not generally1 understood1 it stands for a sentiment that belongs essentially to a pre-rational age and cannot survive unchanged in a rational age4 ,this does not mean that a rational age has no place for sentiments2 it means that the sentiments must not affront reason4 ,we cannot at once pride ourselves on being paragons of common-sense1 yet slaves to a sentiment which common-sense must not examine too closely4 ,loyalty to that larger national family to which we belong3 cordial and generous support of its interests3 sacrifice1 if need be1 for its just ambitions3 pride in its worthy achievements1 even in its worthier superiorities--these are useful and intelligible sentiments1 and it is not unreasonable to make a flag the visible symbol of these just interests and achievements4 ,but a blind and undiscriminating devotion to flag or king1 a glorification of our national family above others in the roystering fashion of the ,middle ,ages1 a refusal to ask if the demands of our rulers are just or if the interests we are pressed to support are sound and equitable1 an obstinate pride in a thing because it is ,british or ,german1 whether it be wise or no--these are sentiments entirely at variance with the best spirit of our age4 ,we may recognise that even the crude old patriotism has contributed much to the advance of civilisation4 ,this gathering of men into rival national groups has forced the pace1 and has at times developed noble qualities4 ,but we must admit also that the same patriotism has inspired hundreds of unjust and stupid wars1 and has maintained on their thrones kings and queens who ought to have been dismissed with ignominy4 ,the progress of civilisation does not entail the suppression1 but the refinement1 of sentiment1 as is very plainly seen in the supposed implications of patriotism4 ,when it is urged that these absurd national diversities of speech and coinage must be sustained on the ground of patriotism1 we ask at once which sound element of patriotism could demand such an anachronism8 ,it is1 surely1 only the spurious medieval sentiment that could dictate so utter an absurdity6 ,will the interests of ,england be endangered because we remove a very serious burden from its economic life and its educational activity8 ,shall we be less prosperous1 less happy1 less respected1 for correcting an antiquated and foolish practice8 ,these things1 we may reflect1 were not stupid at the time when they were developed4 ,the resolute patriot may1 if he wills1 take pride in the relative ingenuity of the people who invented them4 ,each separate national system was the outcome of special conditions1 and the slender commerce between the different communities at the time they were developed did not require a rigorous international standard4 ,one bartered by the piece or the lump4 ,but it is sheer folly to ignore the modern transformation of international life3 to fancy that our unwillingness to exert ourselves1 even for our own advantage1 may be ascribed to some lofty virtue4 ,it need hardly be said that ,i am not cherishing a dream of spreading at once over the entire planet a uniformity of language and coins and standards4 ,the leading civilised nations might1 within a few years1 adopt such a scheme2 and a certain number of the smaller and less advanced nations1 which aspire to membership of the civilised group1 would probably accept the reform speedily enough4 ,on the other hand1 the permeation of the lower races with our ideas would be a slow and difficult process3 a part of that general task of civilising the whole race which we have sooner or later to confront4 ,this difficulty does not at all affect the advantage we should gain by adopting a scheme of unification within the family of civilised nations1 and it cannot be pleaded as a reason for postponement4 ,but all the reforms ,i have hitherto discussed will1 when they have spread over the more highly organised countries1 find a temporary check in this chaotic jumble of peoples on the fringe of civilisation1 and it may be useful to discuss the principles which ought to inform our attitude toward them4 ,our generation looks out upon these backward branches of the race1 not only with a finer sentiment and a stricter regard for principle than any previous generation did1 but with a very much clearer knowledge of their meaning4 ,we may1 of course1 be faithless to our principles in cases3 we may casuistically wrap a piece of frank buccaneering of the old type in hypocritical humanitarian phrases4 ,the general attitude is1 however1 more enlightened1 as these pieces of hypocrisy themselves show4 ,we may or may not hold the doctrine of universal brotherhood2 at least we understand the true relation of these more backward races to ourselves1 and we are in a much better position to determine our right and our duties4 ,we have advanced considerably since1 little more than half a century ago1 a stern moralist like ,carlyle could defend black-slavery and denounce as a gospel of dirt the scientific revelation which threw light and hope on inferior types of manhood4 ,the chief difference is that we now see the true relation of the lower races to the higher4 ,it is false to say1 as ,carlyle did1 that some races were created with higher gifts than others1 and were therefore divinely appointed as the master-races4 ,the notion is as absurd as the old and profitable legend of the laying of a primitive curse on ,ham and his black descendants4 ,difference of geographical conditions is the chief clue to the unequal development of the various branches of the race4 ,i have in various works developed this theme and will not linger over it here4 ,you have at the start the same human material and capacities in all the scattered groups4 ,but some have been for ages isolated from the stimulating contact of races with a different or a higher culture1 and this is the essential condition of advance4 ,others have1 by sheer chance1 been so situated that they enjoyed this stimulation in an extraordinary degree4 ,on this principle we can understand the birth of civilisation in that fermenting mass of peoples which settled between the ,mediterranean and the ,persian ,gulf ages ago1 and the direction of the advancing stream of culture1 partly eastward to ,india and ,china1 but mainly in the more favourable north-western direction4 ,it is1 therefore1 no difference of aboriginal outfit1 but a difference in the chances of migration and situation1 which accounts for the cultural diversity of races4 ,yet we must not at once infer that any lower race can1 on this account1 be drawn from its isolation and lifted to the higher level4 ,there is reason to believe that a race loses its educability if it remains unprogressive for too long a period4 ,the physiological reason may be that the skull closes firmly1 at a relatively early age1 over the brain in a people in which expansion of brain after puberty has not been encouraged4 ,take the three lower races of ,australasia4 ,the ,tasmanian was one of the oldest and least cultured branches of the human family1 and he died out within a century after contact with the whites4 ,the ,maori of ,new ,zealand is the most recent and most advanced of the three aboriginal races4 ,with the ,polynesian1 he is closely related to the ,european or ,caucasic race1 and is certainly educable4 ,the ,australian black comes between the two in culture and in the period of his isolation4 ,australian scientific men who have made the most sympathetic efforts to uplift the black tell me that they have failed1 and the race seems to be doomed4 ,these scientific principles have discredited the old legendary notions about the lower races1 but we must not as yet make dogmas of them4 ,nothing but candid and careful experience will show which races are educable and which ineducable4 ,it is very probable that such peoples as the wild ,veddahs of ,ceylon1 the ,aetas of the ,philippines1 the ,yahgans of ,tierra del ,fuego1 and some of the ,central ,african groups1 will prove ineducable4 ,other races which have been considered savage are already proving educable1 either as a body or in large numbers of instances4 ,many peoples have not been tested at all4 ,we are only just at the fringe of this vast and interesting problem4 ,in regard to the races which1 after humane and thorough experiment1 prove entirely ineducable1 the solution does not offer much difficulty4 ,once their primitive habits are disturbed1 and they begin to live on a pension allotted them by the ,european nations which have seized their territory1 they gradually die out4 ,a very good case may be established by those writers who hold that races which cling incurably to barbarism ought to be painlessly extirpated1 or prevented from multiplying4 ,such races as the ,australian blacks are quite familiar with a process of sterilisation which does not interfere with their enjoyment of life4 ,on the other hand1 the life led by these domesticated but ineducable savages is hardly worth preserving at all4 ,however1 as they are disappearing1 one need not press that point4 ,the claim of sane humanitarians1 that we have no right to interfere with their conditions and seize their territory1 is quite unsound4 ,the human family has a right to see large fertile regions of the earth developed4 ,who regrets to-day that the ,amerinds were pensioned in order to find room for ,canada and the ,united ,states and ,brazil and ,argentina8 ,who does not see the advantage of peopling ,australia with a fine and advancing civilisation of 7eventually7 twenty or thirty million progressive whites instead of a few hundred thousand miserable aboriginals8 ,at the other end of the scale we have1 as ,i said1 peoples who are most probably or certainly educable4 ,at a hazard one might instance the ,thibetans and ,siberian ,mongolians1 the ,koreans1 the ,maoris and ,polynesians1 the ,lapps 7of the same blood as the ,finns71 and a large number of ,asiatic and ,african peoples4 ,we must keep in mind the high civilisation reached by the ,amerinds of ,peru1 whereas their modern descendants1 the ,quichwas1 seem so negligible4 ,in ,africa there is a vast amount of experiment and classification to do1 and already the pure ,bantu races are furnishing scores of men who are susceptible of a university education4 ,i know several of them who are as competent and well-educated as the average ,english university man4 ,has the white race a duty 7the white man's burden7 to attempt to civilise the coloured races8 ,i speak in general terms1 of course4 ,it is sheer insolence to regard the ,chinese or ,burmese--one must not mention the ,japanese--as lower races4 ,now1 speaking in the abstract1 as a matter of general moral principle1 the white has no clear duty to civilise the coloured races4 ,the sentiment of brotherhood may inspire a feeling of duty in some1 but one cannot build firmly on that phrase4 ,it is1 however1 not an abstract ethical question4 ,the white men have1 in point of fact1 spread over the globe1 and they are in a fair way to occupy all the territory on which the coloured races 7except the ,chinese and ,japanese and ,burmese7 were settled4 ,only an attitude of general unscrupulousness could ignore the obligation which this seizure of territory implies4 ,england and ,germany have1 for instance1 occupied the islands of the ,pacific and made their inhabitants a subject race4 ,they have done this1 not only with a gross lack of discrimination between the ,polynesian 7who is certainly educable7 and the much lower ,melanesian1 but with a quite cynical idea of the civilising process4 ,the work has been left to sailors and travellers1 who have decimated the population by spirits and syphilis1 or to the crudities of ,christian missionaries4 ,the joy of native life has been killed1 and the enforcement of clothing 7which the natives naturally cast off in the cooler evening1 when the sensitive ,european was not able to see them7 has led to an appalling amount of pneumonia and phthisis4 ,we have done much to turn a wonderfully happy and healthy people into a gin-drinking swaddled caricature of a ,bank ,holiday crowd4 ,but the lists of our crimes in dealing with the lower races need not be given here4 ,if we white people are to go out among the more backward coloured races1 and to profess that we are assuming the paternal function of administering their territory1 we must act on some principle4 ,it is rather late in the history of the world to send out civilising expeditions which consist of missionaries presenting copies of the ,sermon on the ,mount1 and soldiers and merchants who1 in flagrant contradiction to the ,sermon on the ,mount1 exploit the natives and appropriate their soil4 ,there must be a serious attempt to educate them1 and then an elimination of the unfit4 ,africa will prove a formidable region for this discriminating work4 ,the ,mohammedans themselves have already proved that many of its peoples are capable of culture4 ,we have a special problem in our treatment of races which1 like the ,hindus and ,egyptians1 have already been drawn into the white system4 ,let us be quite candid with ourselves in this matter4 ,we appropriated their territory for our advantage1 not theirs1 and our professed modern sentiments are compelling us to say that we are not in possession of their territory in their interest4 ,we protect the ,hindu from native despots1 the ,egyptian from a cruel ,mahdi or ,pacha1 the retired official tells you4 ,however1 ,i do not propose that we should investigate the title-deeds of all our existing empires as regards their oversea possessions2 nor do ,i in the least advocate the dismemberment of such large unities as the ,british ,empire4 ,but the principle on which some would stake our existence in ,india or ,egypt1 the maxim that ,what we have we hold1--which is often illustrated by a picture of a particularly stupid-looking bull-dog guarding the ,british flag1--is the first principle of the pickpocket and the burglar4 ,modern sentiment has to grant colonial empires a sort of ,bula de ,composicion1 such as the ,spanish ,church1 for a consideration1 grants to pickpockets4 ,the best compromise is that the peoples which are to-day linked in empires should remain linked2 not as dominant and subject peoples1 but as sister-nations working out the destiny of the race according to the highest standards4 ,this implies that1 as they assimilate ,western culture 7as the ,hindus are quite rapidly doing71 they shall be more and more entrusted with the administration of their own countries4 ,the very different situation of colonies need not be discussed4 ,when ,australia and ,canada find1 if they ever do find1 that it is to their interest to set up complete independence1 they will not cut the cable3 they will cast it off as calmly and confidently as they now cast off the cable of an ,orient liner on the quays at ,sydney4 ,along these lines we may forecast the future1 and very slow1 drafting of the more backward peoples into the homogeneous family of the more civilised races4 ,the unification of languages1 coinage1 etc41 will be gradually extended to them4 ,but it is not my purpose in this work to contemplate remote tasks and contingencies4 ,a great and practicable reform lies at our doors4 ,the overwhelming majority of the race are already incorporated in civilised nations1 and the work of organisation amongst these is urgent and comparatively easy4 ,i am not advocating a fantastic and lofty scheme for which one needs to be prepared by the acceptance of advanced humanitarian sentiments4 ,what ,i am pleading for is the application to international life of our treasured maxims of common-sense and efficiency4 ,those simple and indisputable maxims condemn in the most stringent terms the patriotic shams which we suffer to perplex and burden our life4 ,let us run the planet on recognised business-principles4 ,,chapter ,,iv4 ,,political ,,shams ,,the reforms ,i have so far advocated have one peculiar characteristic4 ,they are urgent1 easy to grasp1 indisputable in principle1 and enormously advantageous2 but they need international co-operation1 and we are only just beginning to form those friendly international contacts which may lead to agreement4 ,hence it is that1 although very contentious reforms have already been realised1 these linger1 as we say1 outside the range of practical politics4 ,but this very phrase reminds us at once of another fundamental irregularity of our life4 ,the man who thinks a proposal dismissed because it is not within the range of practical politics illustrates admirably the indolence of mind which ,i am assailing4 ,if a useful and economical device were put before him in his business-capacity1 and he were told that his business had no room for it1 he would at once ask what was wrong with the business4 ,i am contending all through for the application of this progressive spirit to larger concerns than stores or workshops4 ,if our political system1 to which we entrust these large concerns1 absolutely ignores some of our finest chances of profit1 there is something wrong with the system4 ,our servants are not doing what they are paid to do4 ,as ,i have already briefly contended1 our recent experience furnishes a very ghastly confirmation of this suspicion4 ,the ,british ,empire will survive the dangers that beset it1 though it will be deeply impaired economically1 for two fundamental reasons3 the ,allies have double the population of the ,central ,european ,powers1 and they have1 including in this respect the ,united ,states1 far larger ultimate resources in material and money4 ,the fact that we do eventually muddle through will1 one fears1 content the majority of our people1 but the thoughtful patriot will ask two questions4 ,how many hundred millions has our slowness in mobilising our resources cost us1 by protracting the war8 ,and what is likely to be the fate of the ,british ,empire if1 with a similar slackness1 it has at some later date to meet a numerically equal and far more alert enemy8 ,let me briefly recount the facts which show that our national business has been grossly mismanaged4 ,can any person look back on all the facts which are now public property and say that our soldiers and statesmen were innocent in not perceiving the grave possibility of war with ,germany at any time in the last three years8 ,that1 however1 will scarcely be said3 the readiness of our fleet is a sufficient reply4 ,we know further that the general character of the war was foreseen4 ,england was to help ,france and ,belgium1 on ,french or ,belgian soil4 ,england's co-operation on land was1 as events have shown1 vitally necessary4 ,yet the unpreparedness of ,britain for a great continental campaign was entirely scandalous4 ,no doubt there would have been a risk in openly enlarging the army or creating great stores of material4 ,germany would1 in its unamiable way1 have asked questions4 ,tender-hearted ,members of ,parliament would have denounced our provocative proceedings4 ,but a preparation of plans1 a census of our resources1 a scheme for the immediate enlistment of the business-ability of the country and the full use of all our industrial machinery--these and a dozen other most important measures could have been taken in this country as safely and secretly as they were in ,germany4 ,not only were they not taken1 but the military preparations were actually relaxed4 ,it has transpired1 and is not disputed1 that our great ,arsenal was only partially occupied2 and ,mr4 ,a4 ,chamberlain has publicly stated that ,kynochs had for the year #aiad--the expected year of war--a ,government order two-thirds less than they are capable of executing in a week1 and do now execute in a week4 ,the second fact is the remarkable failure to forecast the conditions of the war4 ,if it be urged that a layman cannot judge how far such a failure is culpable1 the answer is prompt3 the ,german authorities1 who had had no more experience of war than we1 did forecast the conditions4 ,their minute and energetic elaboration of the whole scheme of the war contrasts extraordinarily with the sluggish and conventional ease of our authorities4 ,the third and gravest fact is our appalling and costly slowness in mobilising our resources when the war began4 ,six months after the outbreak of war ,i went over a very large engineering shop in the north4 ,out of hundreds of men only a score or two were engaged on war-material3 and one of the two objects on which this mere handful of men were engaged has proved to be wholly valueless4 ,at that time1 and for months afterwards1 the workers of ,britain were encouraged in their easy ways1 and the bulk of the manufacturers were encouraged to go on with their usual business1 by official assurances that no greater effort was needed4 ,when our disgusted soldiers sent us a message that1 not the weather1 but a scandalous shortage of ammunition and machine-guns kept them back1 the ,prime ,minister1 quoting the highest available authority1 publicly declared this to be untrue4 ,we were asked rather to admire the way in which we had dispatched the greatest expeditionary force known in history3 as if the enormous progress of modern times did not make this superiority a matter of course4 ,when criticism increased1 we cried for the gag and the public prosecutor1 and we garlanded the portraits of the very men who had disgraced us2 and we agreed to the retention or promotion of incompetent men1 on obvious party-grounds4 ,happily one minister had the grit and patriotism to call to his aid a group of business-men1 and the facts could no longer be concealed4 ,mr4 ,lloyd ,george admitted that since the beginning of the war1 we had increased a thousandfold our production of munitions1 yet were still far behind the ,germans and far short of our needs2 and at last1 eleven months after the outbreak of war1 we began to organise1 or at least to ascertain1 our resources4 ,again we loudly congratulated ourselves on our energy4 ,we cried shame on all critics and pessimists and people who wanted more4 ,we fancied ourselves in the character of ,atlas1 taking the whole burden on our massive shoulders1 to spare our weaker ,allies4 ,but the sinister light which this late increase of output threw on the first six months1 or more1 of indolent incompetence was quite disregarded4 ,we genially overlooked the fact that the delay of our advance was costing us nearly a hundred millions a month4 ,we allowed less prominent affairs to be conducted with the same indolent insufficiency4 ,the most absurdly inadequate measures were taken to control the prices of food and coal1 and scarcely a thought was given to the tremendous economic problem which will confront us when the war is over1 or to the means of recouping ourselves by a systematic promotion of our oversea-trade4 ,in a word1 the magnificent organisation and ordered national devotion of the ,german people make the conduct of ,england during the first year of the war seem clumsy1 lazy1 and full of danger for the future4 ,for this the chief blame quite obviously falls on our statesmen4 ,english soldiers have at least been second to none in the field3 ,english artisans have1 since the need was acknowledged1 worked magnificently4 ,it is the directing brain that was sluggish and incompetent4 ,the magnitude of the sudden task does not excuse our rulers1 nor does the very large service that was actually done--which ,i do not for a moment overlook--lessen the scandal4 ,if a political machine does not know how to enlarge itself in less than twelve months to meet a new and very urgent task1 especially a task that it ought to have foreseen1 it is unfit to control our national destiny4 ,our governmental system has proved itself most dangerously and mischievously unfit to meet such a national emergency1 and this catastrophic experience may encourage the reader to examine with patience the criticisms which ,i propose to pass on it4 ,here again we submit to the tyranny of a largely obsolete tradition4 ,when the story of the development of human institutions can be written with a detachment of which we are yet incapable1 one of the strangest pages will be that which tells of the evolution of ,church and ,state4 ,from the early days when some exceptionally powerful warrior is raised on his shield and saluted as chief or king1 and when some weird individual earns the repute of being able to control or propitiate the mighty powers of the environing world1 government and religion steadily advance to a commanding position in the life of the people4 ,the two men of power1 the king and the priest1 must have establishments in accord with their value to the tribe1 and the palace and the temple rise in spacious dignity above the mean cluster of huts4 ,time after time the race turns to examine the tradition which has been so deeply impressed on it1 and kings and gods are cast from their thrones2 but new dynasties always arise4 ,of ,rome1 no less than of ,thebes or ,nineveh1 it is the monuments of kings and gods that survive4 ,only a few centuries ago the ,european city consisted mainly of two institutions3 the palace and the cathedral4 ,the bulk of the citizens huddled in squalid fever-stricken houses beyond the fringe of the estates of their secular and priestly rulers4 ,the modern age1 with its inconvenient questions and its bold speech1 arrives4 ,commerce develops1 and the palace and cathedral disappear1 in the forest of soaring buildings4 ,when the roofs of the new commerce and the new commoner rise to a level with the roof of the palace or the cathedral1 when men are no longer overshadowed by the old powers1 the imagination is released4 ,the divine right of kings goes in a fury of revolutionary flame3 kings must henceforth rule by human right and answer at a human tribunal1 which is more exacting and alert than the old tribunal4 ,yet the power of the dead tradition is amazing4 ,in ,england men still bow reverently when the king addresses them as my subjects and talks of my empire3 still crown every entertainment1 spiritual or gastronomic1 with fervent aspirations which would lead an ill-informed spectator to imagine that they regarded the king's health as mystically connected with the health of the nation3 still describe bishops and the heads of families which have been sufficiently long idle and wealthy as their lords4 ,these archological survivals are1 no doubt1 innocuous1 if irritating4 ,the more serious feature is that they help to make so many people insensible of the miserable compromises we endure in our reorganised ,state4 ,they are part of that superabundant ash which clogs and dulls the fire of the nation's life4 ,the nineteenth century1 rightly and inevitably1 adopted a democratic scheme of public administration4 ,it was seen that1 if the king were not so close a friend of the ,almighty as had been supposed1 there was no visible reason why the destinies of the nation should be entrusted to his judgment3 which was1 as a rule1 not humanly impressive4 ,luckily1 certain nations had won the right to do a good deal of talking before the king came to a decision1 or the right to hold ,parliaments1 and ,europe generally adopted this model4 ,the ,parliament ,house now towered upward in the city1 and it did the real business of directing the nation's affairs4 ,the king became a kind of grand seal for the measures enacted by ,parliament4 ,some nations1 the number of which is increasing1 regarded the seal as a costly and avoidable luxury1 and abolished it3 some kept the king1 with all his stately language and pretty robes and sparkling jewellery1 and abolished the lords3 some kept the king and the lords1 but deprived them of real power4 ,the ,english nation1 which is famous for its common-sense1 its audacity1 and its ability1 belongs to the last group4 ,it invented that remarkable phrase1 self-government3 which ingeniously preserves the fiction that someone has a right to govern other people1 yet conciliates the modern spirit by intimating that the people really govern their governors4 ,into the extraordinary confusion of forms and formul which has resulted from this compromise it would be waste of time to enter4 ,does it really matter that we allow our king to put on our coins a flattering portrait of himself1 with an intimation that he rules as by the grace of ,god8 ,he is quite conscious that he rules us--if his melodramatic relation to us may be called ruling--on the understanding that he never contradicts us4 ,we are not now knocked on the head1 except by an intoxicated patriot1 if we refuse to stand while our neighbours chant their insincere incantation about his health3 we go1 not to the ,tower1 but to the ordinary law-court1 if we mention his personal frailties2 and the portentous seriousness with which he takes his robes and his formul injures none1 and amuses many4 ,no doubt1 slovenly mental habits are always to be deplored1 yet these things are not in themselves important enough to be included in a list of serious reforms4 ,what we do need to examine critically is this scheme of self-government by which we now manage our national affairs3 very badly1 it appears4 ,this political machinery is divided into two sections3 municipal government and national government4 ,the former1 from which every element of government except the name has departed1 need not be considered at length4 ,it consists of groups of citizens who are understood to excel in public spirit and self-sacrifice1 so that they devote a large part of their time to the unpaid service of their fellow-citizens4 ,every few years a man1 of whom you had probably never heard before1 calls to implore you1 with a quite painful humility and courtesy1 to allow him to discharge this self-denying function4 ,the next day another man1 of whom also you had never heard before1 calls to inform you1 in discreet language1 that his rival is a spendthrift1 a rogue1 or a fool2 and that he is the man to represent you with due regard to economy and with absolute disinterestedness4 ,you probably refrain from voting for either1 since you have not the abundant leisure of a libel-court4 ,your streets will somehow get paved1 and your children schooled1 and you will pay the bill4 ,but you may discover after a time that the air is thick with charges of jobbery1 or that some local councillor has been promoted to the higher and more lucrative political world on the ground of many years' experience of local administration4 ,if you happen to live in the ,metropolis1 where the intelligence of the nation is clotted1 so to say1 you find municipal life even more complex than this4 ,the eager rivals who solicit the honour of doing your work for nothing are divided into bitterly hostile schools4 ,each school spends hundreds of thousands of pounds in a periodical effort to convince you that the other school is going to swindle you4 ,each plasters the wall with repulsive typical portraits of its exponents1 and you see yourself depicted as a weak and amiable1 but small-witted1 figure 7or1 perhaps1 as a burly and very stupid-looking farmer71 whose pockets are being picked4 ,each produces a most exact statistical proof that its opponents have actually picked your pockets1 and that the reds or blues are the only people with a really disinterested desire to spend some hours every day in the gratuitous discharge of public duties4 ,they spend great sums of money every few years for the purpose of securing this thankless burden and facing the vituperation of their opponents4 ,you seek illumination in the press1 and you find1 in rival journals1 a mass of contradictory statements and mutual accusations of lying4 ,however1 the system is thoroughly ,british in its encouragement of individual action and public spirit1 and you overtook all the direct and indirect corruption it fosters4 ,what is a man to do8 ,one can at least search very rigorously the credentials and the public action of the man who solicits your vote1 and encourage the appearance of really independent and fine-spirited men and women4 ,i have1 naturally1 described the broad features and general abuses of the system1 but there are1 of course1 large numbers of men in it who are sincerely disinterested4 ,in the main1 however1 municipal politics is tainted and complicated by the party-system of the large political world1 and to this we may turn4 ,that section of the political machine which controls national affairs is obviously of the first importance4 ,on its working rests the grave issue of peace or war2 to it is entrusted1 in the last resort1 the great task of educating the nation2 and through it alone can we secure any of those numerous reforms which are to undo the tyranny of shams and abolish so much avoidable misery and confusion4 ,one ought therefore to be gratified to see how large a place politics occupies in the public mind1 which is otherwise so little inclined to serious matters1 and in the public press1 which so faithfully mirrors the thought of the nation3 to see how the prominent or eloquent politician surpasses in public esteem the greatest artist or scientist1 and even rivals in popularity the prettiest actress of the hour3 to see that four-fifths of our public honours are reserved for politicians and statesmen1 and for those less gifted but more wealthy men who give them practical support4 ,unhappily1 when one looks closely into this apotheosis of politics1 one finds that its merit is merely superficial3 that a very large proportion of the more thoughtful people in every civilised community look on politics with disdain1 and that some of the more independent of our politicians confess that one must almost lay aside one's honesty and ideals on entering the political world4 ,a series of grave struggles and threats of civil war in the first half of the nineteenth century inaugurated the present political phase in ,europe4 ,it transpired after ,waterloo that the ,english parliamentary system1 in which our statesmen took such pride1 was a hollow and corrupt sham4 ,a comparatively few wealthy landowners controlled the nation1 and bought votes for their nominees4 ,after some years of agitation the working men of the great manufacturing centres formed armies and threatened to force the doors of ,westminster at the point of the pike4 ,this elicited a system of restricted1 but real1 popular representation4 ,later enlargements of the franchise improved the system1 and to-day some six or seven million adult males elect our legislators4 ,until recently this scheme was largely frustrated by the power of a non-elected ,house to suppress any measure which did not please a privileged minority1 but this is now materially modified4 ,six million free and adult representatives of the nation appoint and control the men who make our laws1 and direct the king how to act4 ,but in practice this admirable theory becomes a mockery and an illusion4 ,it may be taken as a ,euclidean postulate that out of six million people of any civilised nation four or five millions will be--shall we say8--somnolent3 not from want of brain1 but from want of constant exercise of it4 ,a very earnest idealist of the last century1 ,mr4 ,george ,jacob ,holyoake1 proposed that1 for the great efficiency of our political machinery1 every elector should1 before he received a vote1 be compelled to pass an examination in political economy and constitutional history4 ,since few ,members of ,parliament1 to say nothing of voters1 would have passed the examination1 the proposal was rejected1 and the education of the voter was left to the interested political parties and to the press which supported them1 or was supported by them4 ,the result was that two rival organisations1 roughly corresponding to the two attitudes of the modern mind toward new ideas 7progressive and conservative71 gradually increased in wealth and power until they were able to control the electorate and exclude from representation every finer shade of political thought4 ,the machinery by which this is done does not leap to the eyes1 as the ,french say1 and the average elector proudly contrasts our political system with that of most other nations4 ,candidly1 we may take some pride in the contrast4 ,the struggles and sacrifices of our fathers have won for us a system which is far superior to that which has hitherto prevailed in ,russia1 to the despotic medievalism of ,prussia1 to the grave insincerity of ,spanish political life1 to the confusion and occasional corruption of ,french or ,italian politics1 to the remarkable activity which precedes a presidential election in the ,united ,states4 ,our political life is relatively free from large corruption4 ,i happened to be in ,new ,zealand when the ,marconi ,scandal was agitating ,england1 and ,i remember politicians of that progressive little land smiling at the word scandal and hinting that they were more adventurous4 ,some of our discontent is1 no doubt1 due to women writers who magnify the evil in order to persuade us to enlist their refining influence4 ,i do not1 in fact1 think that ,mr4 ,belloc and ,mr4 ,cecil ,chesterton have proved some of the graver charges which they brought in their indictment of our servile ,state4 ,it will need something more than a list of matrimonial connections to persuade us that ,mr4 ,lloyd ,george and ,mr4 ,winston ,churchill were in the habit of meeting1 amiably and clandestinely1 ,mr4 ,bonar ,law and ,mr4 ,f4 ,e4 ,smith for the collusive arrangement of our laws4 ,yet there is enough in the familiar criticisms of our political machinery to justify one in saying that the political sham is1 even now1 intolerable4 ,what1 candidly1 is the procedure8 ,a general election is announced1 and two men call1 or send agents1 to solicit the honour of representing you in ,parliament4 ,in the district in which ,i write at the moment one candidate is a wealthy and muddle-headed ,liberal3 the other is a wealthy and 7politically7 equally muddle-headed ,conservative4 ,neither of them has the remotest idea of representing my national wishes1--they would blush to be suspected of it1--and neither has ever spoken in ,parliament2 so ,i have never yet voted4 ,but ,i am an eccentric man4 ,let us take a normal case4 ,you notice1 as a rule1 that during the few years before the election a wealthy man has been openly suffered1 or directed from his party-headquarters1 to nurse the constituency4 ,hundreds will cast votes for him solely because they fear a withdrawal of his subscriptions to their chapels and football clubs1 and of his open-handed philanthropy4 ,as the election approaches1 another candidate appears4 ,he also is1 as a rule1 a wealthy man1 and he spends between one and two thousand pounds in disturbing the judgment and inflaming the emotions of the voters4 ,pictorial posters1 which might have adorned the walls of some ,pyrenean cavern in the ,old ,stone ,age1 are massed near the doors of some dark committee room or spread over the town4 ,the brain struggles feebly with the contradictory statements of orators and journals4 ,and on the day of the election the two wealthy rivals for the honour of printing ,m4,p4 on their cards1 and the duty of voting as they are directed by their superiors1 flood the district1 although it has an excellent tram-service1 with expensive cars and carriages1 to take the tired working man to the poll4 ,possibly one of the candidates is not a wealthy man1 and you begin to speculate on the source of his thousand pounds1 or even three hundred pounds4 ,very few voters do inquire1 of course2 most of them would be surprised to know how much a man spends in soliciting the honour of representing them--he has usually a great contempt for them--in ,parliament4 ,the more inquisitive voter1 however1 would discover that the poorer candidate is in a special sense the representative of a particular party1 and he would touch the fringe of a peculiar and ingenious system4 ,i happened one day to mention to a friend certain advanced opinions of a ,member of ,parliament4 ,that1 he said grimly1 will interest my father-in-law2 he finances ,mr4 ----4 ,through the party-organisation this wealthy and highly respectable manufacturer paid the election expenses and part of the income--,members of ,parliament had not then a salary--of candidates or ,members in various remote towns4 ,the manufacturer1 or the various manufacturers who do this sort of thing1 will eventually be knighted or baronetted2 their sons will have a chance of a secretaryship1 or even of ,cabinet rank4 ,the secretly subsidised ,member will go to ,westminster1 an automatic voter4 ,in fact1 since a candidate must generally have the sanction of the central organisation of one or other party before he can venture to solicit votes1 even wealth does not usually relieve him of the party-tyranny4 ,what1 then1 is the party8 ,it is not so much a creed as a wealthy and powerful organisation4 ,once it was a group of men who happened to have the same ideas4 ,by a natural evolution of organisation--one sees the same thing in the evolution of ,churches--it has become rather a machine for impressing those ideas on men4 ,in a sense1 it is an oligarchy4 ,we must remember such facts as the dismissal of ,mr4 ,balfour1 and the powerlessness of ,mr4 ,asquith to get rid of a certain ,minister whom he disliked4 ,the power of the front-benchers is not absolute4 ,but on the whole the party is an aristocracy of wealthy men1 titled men1 and able men1 which rules the country for a term of years4 ,its leading agents are the ,ministers and ,whips3 the body of the party is an association for carrying out its will1 and for adding the attractions of parochial entertainment and cheap club-life to the more austere cult of ideas4 ,its revenue is1 to a great extent1 secret2 but the annual lists of honours reveal very plainly that it conducts an unblushing traffic in such things4 ,the reasons allied in the published list are often too ludicrous for words4 ,privately one can often ascertain the exact price4 ,with this wealth the party-aristocracy controls the electoral campaign and the elected ,members4 ,it has1 further1 at its disposal a large number of highly paid positions1 or functions which lead to highly paid positions1 or profitable little occasional jobs1 or political pensions1 or a ,civil ,list 7which is grossly abused71 and so on4 ,these it dangles before the eyes of impecunious or ambitious critics4 ,here are two facts within my slender personal knowledge of these matters4 ,a very influential ,socialist 7my informant7 was invited to a small dinner of the party-aristocrats and diplomatically informed that he might be useful in office3 another drastic critic was assured by a ,cabinet ,minister1 through a mutual friend 7my informant71 that nothing would be done for him until he ceased to criticise4 ,the system is1 on both sides of the ,house1 corrupt1 demoralising1 and intensely prejudicial to the interests of the country4 ,we found its danger during the ,south ,african ,war1 and we perceive it far more plainly to-day4 ,what ought to be the brightest intellectual fire in the land is sluggish1 choked with ash1 served often with inferior material4 ,the permanent departments of ,state which depend on it are correspondingly sluggish4 ,in an emergency it--after a humiliating trial of its own ability--turns to business-men4 ,its whole tradition and procedure are abominable4 ,men who are poor and independent may bruise their shins on the doors in vain4 ,men of no ability are promoted1 even to peerages and the ,cabinet1 because their fathers contributed much to the party's purse or prestige1 and they themselves will at least be loyal4 ,men who raise critical voices in the ,house are snubbed and suppressed3 men who criticise outside are safely ignored4 ,the ablest and the most sincere men in the party--men like ,sir ,edward ,grey and ,mr4 ,lloyd ,george--acquiesce in all this4 ,the electoral system and the procedure of the ,house of ,commons are designed to protect this monstrous scheme4 ,the large fee which is exacted of candidates and the very large sums which wealthy men are allowed to spend on elections intimidate able and independent1 but impecunious1 men4 ,the election is spread over a week or two in order to give wealthy men1 who may be relied upon to support the constitutional parties1 an opportunity of voting in several constituencies1 and in order that ,ministers may give more aid to their weaker supporters4 ,for the polling-day ,saturday is avoided as much as possible1 because on that day a larger percentage of the workers would vote1 and they are apt to vote against the constitutional parties4 ,cars and carriages are permitted because the candidates of the workers will easily be surpassed in this well-known advantage by candidates of the great parties4 ,minorities are hopelessly excluded from representation1 such as they would have under a system of proportional representation1 because they would send to the ,house a number of independent ,members who would disturb all the calculations of the ,whip and all the tricks of party-government4 ,under a system of proportional representation it would be quite easy for some scores of able and earnest men to secure election at very small cost1 by merely circulating declarations of their views2 but this1 or a grave increase of the ,labour ,members1 would wreck the party-system1 and therefore the most democratic of our orthodox politicians maintain all the abuses and injustices of our system4 ,the division of constituencies is further designed to protect this iniquitous and corrupt scheme4 ,universities1 the ,city of ,london1 and boroughs like ,durham1 ,bury ,st4 ,edmunds1 and ,montgomery--each of which has a population of less than #ag1jjj souls--have an equal right to one unit of representation in ,parliament with ,wandsworth1 the ,romford division of ,essex1 or the ,harrow division of ,middlesex1 each of which has more than a quarter of a million inhabitants4 ,eighty-three constituencies1 most of them having a large proportion of the more intelligent workers1 have a population of more than #ajj1jjj each3 forty-four constituencies have a population of less than #dj1jjj each4 ,in other words1 half the people of ,england and ,wales elect #afg ,members of ,parliament3 the other1 and notoriously less intelligent half1 elect #cbc ,members of ,parliament4 ,from ,gladstone downwards even our most democratic statesmen have acquiesced in these enormities of our electoral system2 and they have meantime expended much eloquence on the injustice of the ,prussian system1 and have expressed ardent hopes for the emancipation of the people of ,italy1 or ,bulgaria1 or ,persia1 or some other remote land4 ,yet these features of our electoral scheme are retained solely in order to protect the party-system3 to keep in the hands of a group1 which is largely hereditary and is at all events a small and jealous caste1 all the prestige and emoluments of the higher positions4 ,even the grave peril of a national catastrophe1 owing to this restriction of power and responsibility to a group of moderate talent1 does not shake their tradition4 ,we shall1 when this war is over1 see them resist reform as energetically as ever4 ,within the ,house of ,commons itself a mass of old rules and customs are maintained for the same purpose4 ,the hours of work are still arranged on the old supposition1 that a ,member of ,parliament is a man who1 with great self-sacrifice1 devotes a large part of his time gratuitously to the service of his country4 ,the most important work in the nation's economy is relegated to the hours when every healthy man is disposed to rest and recreate himself3 indeed1 the more important the issue at stake1 the more certain it is to be discussed during the worst working hours out of the twenty-four4 ,one has only to glance at our legislators on their benches after dinner to realise the significance of it4 ,the majority of them are plainly reconciled to the theory that the heads of the party have done the necessary work during the day3 their business is to keep sufficiently awake to vote correctly4 ,the arrangement of business is not less iniquitous4 ,the ,ministry decides that certain measures of reform are needed1 either in the interest of the people or in their own interest1 and1 since they have an assured majority of ,ayes1 the lengthy debate is almost superfluous4 ,the passing of the measure has been secured in advance1 or it would not be put forward4 ,the rare event of miscalculation1 and the still rarer event of independent action1 need not be regarded4 ,no ,member is1 even in these cases1 influenced by the long and tiring speeches which are made about the matter4 ,at one time the debates had a certain elocutionary elegance1 at least2 now they represent an unattractive sham-fight1 and abuse is being increasingly substituted for rhetoric4 ,the most paltry trickery is employed on both sides1 because every man is aware that his speech is really addressed to his followers outside the ,house1 and he must1 in the ,house1 rely on quite other devices than eloquence4 ,yet all this pseudo-gravity is lightened occasionally by sittings in which some measure of the greatest importance1 but not introduced by the ,government1 is treated as flippantly as it would be in a humorous debate during a long sea-voyage4 ,if a man is instructed by his constituents to represent in the ,house some special need of theirs1 or some public reform which has millions to support it1 he finds that the rules of the ,house1 or the rules of the oligarchy1 will not allow him to introduce it4 ,a very small fraction of the time of the ,house is granted for the discussion of such proposals2 but the debate is farcical1 and is often looked forward to in advance as such1 because everybody knows what will be the issue1 even if a majority of the ,house really favours the proposal4 ,measures of grave social importance1 like women-suffrage1 have been arbitrarily crushed by the oligarchs for thirty years1--as early as #ahhf women-suffrage had #cdc supporters on the benches1--and this tyranny and injustice of a few ministers have led to the most violent and bitter recrimination4 ,this is the political machinery to which we entrust the most dedicate and momentous issues of our national life1 and to which we have to look for the realisation of our most treasured hopes of reform4 ,the impartial critic will not question that there are men in the political world as eager for reform as he1 or that during the last half-century some excellent social legislation has been passed4 ,these measures are1 however1 due in great part to a studied endeavour to retain or gain support in the country1--the ,insurance ,act1 for instance1--and many of them--relating to the sale of cigarettes1 to the admission of children into public-houses1 to the flogging of procurers--are small sentimental reforms which occupy time that could be better employed4 ,we think that we open a new epoch of civilisation when we give a very small pension to a very aged worker1 but the problem of the roots of poverty or the abolition of warfare does not enter the party-programme4 ,our bishops enthuse over their success in inducing a complaisant ,home ,secretary to lay the lash on the backs of a sordid little group of criminals1 and even offer to roll up their own lawn sleeves for the job2 but they are indifferent1 or hostile1 when other people would induce our ,ministers to amend those brutalities of our marriage-laws which tend to foster prostitution4 ,this political machine must be radically and comprehensively reformed before it can be a fit instrument for the reform of the nation4 ,all the pyrotechnic distractions and gross irregularities of an election must be suppressed3 all plural voting must be abolished3 the comedy of cars for feeble voters must be forbidden3 all indirect bribery1 either of voters or candidates1 must be rigorously punished4 ,candidates must put a simple and sober statement of their views and proposals before the electorate1 and no further expense should be permitted4 ,some system of proportional representation and secondary elections should ensure that large minorities would not be entirely without representation4 ,the election should be confined to one day1 preferably a ,sunday1 and stripped of all melodramatic nonsense and occasion for corruption4 ,the party-system will1 no doubt1 long survive in ,english political life4 ,within twenty years or so the word ,conservative will1 as in other countries1 pass out of use1 and the ,conservative elements will unite under the banner of ,liberalism1 in opposition to ,labour4 ,it is1 of course1 the dread of this issue which at present unites the constitutional parties in opposing reform4 ,one can1 by studying advancing countries1 even foresee a next phase4 ,the ,conservative elements will unite in a ,labour party against the ,socialists2 and in the dim future we may1 like ,anatole ,france1 foresee a ,socialist commonwealth established and an ,anarchist party furiously assailing it4 ,but1 though the party-system be retained 7very much modified by proportional representation71 this disgusting sale of honours and offices1 this oligarchic tyranny over the ,house and the constituencies1 will not survive4 ,reform of the electoral procedure will enable a large group of independent men--independent of the large parties--to enter ,parliament1 and the removal of the ,irish and other ,members1 who concentrate on a single issue and are willing to traffic on other issues1 will reduce the old majorities4 ,i do not doubt that fresh complications will arise4 ,the weakness of proportional representation is that it will certainly lead to a number of sectarian groups4 ,we ,catholics will1 of course1 return ,catholic ,members1 ready to sell their votes on various issues in the interest of the sect2 and the ,baptists and ,methodists1 and so on1 will be tempted to retort4 ,we shall have a teetotal group1 and a ,puritan group1 and an anti-wallpaper group1 etc4 ,we must hope that the sterner education of the electorate will secure that these trivialities do not endanger grave national interests4 ,the dissolution of the old ,conservative party will leave the ,liberal party unable to defend its abuses2 it will have no opportunity of collusion or retaliation4 ,so we may have in time a political machine--a body of men1 appointing their own leaders1 soberly chosen by each #ajj1jjj of the population1 regarding ,parliament as a grave national council1 not a theatre for the display1 of wit and rhetoric--which will effectively carry out the will of an advancing people and enlist the interest of the most thoughtful4 ,i am in all this assuming that sex-barriers and privileges will be entirely abolished1 but ,i prefer to discuss the position of woman in its entirety in a later chapter4 ,it must be explained1 however1 that in taking #ajj1jjj as a unit of representation1 ,i am contemplating an electorate of thirteen or fourteen million voters4 ,something between a hundred and two hundred ,members of ,parliament are surely sufficient1 and would make a much more practical and alert body than our present stuffy1 sleepy1 and overcrowded ,house4 ,it seems very doubtful if a ,second ,chamber1 in any form1 is a real social need4 ,a ,house of ,lords is1 of course1 an insufferable anomaly and medieval survival4 ,it is amazing that this hereditary transmission of titles--and such titles6--and wealth has so long survived the stinging raillery that men like ,thackeray poured on it long ago3 it is still more amazing when we measure the intelligence and public spirit of our lords4 ,even if we weed out the less intelligent1 or those whose interest in horses or actresses or theology is more conspicuous than their interest in the nation's affairs1 it is preposterous that such a body should retain the least control of a properly elected ,house of ,commons4 ,we may trust that before many decades all hereditary titles will be abolished1 and this will demolish at once the name and the more offensive part of the character of the ,second ,house4 ,the idea that because one had a distinguished or fortunate or unscrupulous ancestor1 or one has large estates or an ,american wife1 one is fitted to control our legislators1 is too ludicrous for discussion4 ,it is sometimes pleaded that they have a large stake in the country4 ,one may surely reply1 not only that they would do well to have their large stake more ably represented1 but that poverty has an even greater and more pressing right to representation4 ,as to the bishops1 it is still more difficult to discover why they are allowed to control secular legislation4 ,they have been chosen for certain doctrinal and administrative functions1 partly because of their ability to discharge those functions1 partly because they had a convenient income1 and partly because they could command political or domestic influence4 ,but even the men who have earned a mitre because they were admirably fitted to wear it1 and could hold together a large group of clergy with conflicting doctrinal ideas1 are not obviously qualified for the work of legislation4 ,their record in the legislative assembly is deplorable4 ,they have for ages blessed our militarist and bellicose traditions4 ,they have1 in their own interest1 resisted nearly every important social reform until recent years1 and even now they display a keen social sense only when there is question of flogging a few score of perverts1 or something of that kind4 ,they have no place in a modern political system1 and their presence in it is an anachronistic reminder of the time when they monopolised education4 ,another element of our ,second ,chamber consists of men who have been promoted from the ,first ,chamber1 generally in order to watch the interest of their party1 or made peers for public service or service to the party4 ,the various creatures of the party are one of the abuses we have to correct4 ,even the others are of questionable value4 ,is ,lord ,morley more judicious1 or more alive to the highest interests of the nation and the race1 than the ,right ,honourable ,john ,morley was8 ,does age give wisdom to ,lord ,gladstone1 or did it enhance that of ,lord ,roberts8 ,is it not a fact that nine men out of ten adopt a sluggish and reluctant attitude in age1 and are unfitted to deal with the proposals of middle-aged men8 ,there is1 at all events1 occasion for very careful discrimination1 whereas our present practice is to reward1 indiscriminately1 a supposed merit or a service rendered to the party with a seat in the ,upper ,house4 ,the third class of peers calls for the same observation4 ,success in manufacture or finance or law1 or a willingness to give large sums to the party-funds1 is not an obvious qualification for controlling legislation4 ,while these men are in the prime of their vigour and judgment the nation dispenses entirely with their services4 ,we invite their co-operation in the national business when they are understood to be too old and inelastic to attend any longer to their less important commercial concerns4 ,it is1 in fact1 impossible to frame a really impressive plea for a ,second ,chamber of any description4 ,i venture to say that if an historical inquiry were made into the services rendered by ,second ,chambers since the beginning of the parliamentary system1 it would be found that they have rendered little or no real service1 while they have obstructed the work of reform in every land4 ,their record--the first thing we ought to consult--condemns them emphatically4 ,if the ,members of a ,second ,chamber are not elected by the people1 they invariably consult class-interests3 if they are elected1 they1 as one sees in ,australia1 are superfluous4 ,this political system is completed by the royal assent to ,bills and the royal power to choose ,ministers4 ,the former is now an idle form3 the latter is an intolerable abuse4 ,if the people are self-governed1 the leading agents in the ,government are ,ministers of the people1 not of the king4 ,the ,members of ,parliament ought to choose the ,ministers4 ,kingship is a medieval survival1 and it is inconsistent with a clear and practical conception of the nation's business to retain these archaic forms and institutions4 ,the trend of political evolution is visibly from kingdoms to republics4 ,a monarch in the twentieth century is as anachronistic as a lord2 an hereditary monarch is an outrage of modern sentiments4 ,once more1 we need to test the institution by its historical merits or demerits4 ,many people seem to regard our ,constitution much as certain lowly tribes regard the mysterious stone which has dropped from heaven amongst them4 ,some even of our politicians display a kind of fetishistic terror if a measure is projected that seems to them to infringe or enlarge our ,constitution4 ,they brandish their spears before the idol and talk of shedding their blood in its defence4 ,they are at times ,balliol ,scholars1 or something of that kind1 yet one would suppose that they were quite unaware how our ,constitution arose1 and what plain and indisputable right we have to revise and improve it4 ,it is a sort of ancient mansion to which a modern owner has added billiard-rooms and workshops and a garage4 ,but it has assuredly not the sthetic charm of a medieval building1 and this age of ours needs to reconsider1 if not reconstruct1 it4 ,it will be a fine day for ,england when we have a ,royal ,commission sitting in judgment on our ,constitution3 calmly discussing1 amongst other matters1 the expediency of asking the throne to retire on half-pay1 and all its parasites to retire on no pay4 ,i have already described the changes which are likely to occur in that large political structure1 the ,empire4 ,the various regions of the earth which constitute it cling together on the understanding that we are quite insincere when we talk of them as our possessions4 ,it is a federation of free nations1 bound together by thinning ties of blood and by the advantage of a collective defence4 ,when the military system is abandoned there will merely be a somewhat faded and amiable sentiment uniting the imperial fragments to each other more closely than to their nearer neighbours4 ,one may hope that they will remain united1 for a large empire is a good thing1 if it has large ideals3 it is a university of civilisation4 ,but unless we purge our correspondence of archaic forms the ,colonies may grow impatient4 ,the ,colonial of the third generation1 and often of the second1 has very little respect for ,england4 ,candid ,australians would make some of our ,imperialists tremble with concern4 ,our colonial governors1 of course1 report that loyalty is undiminished1 because a few hundred families in ,melbourne and ,sydney press with undiminished snobbishness to their garden-parties4 ,these ornamental nonentities ought to be withdrawn4 ,perfect sincerity in our relations with the ,colonies will do most to maintain the federation4 ,the splendid co-operation of ,australia and ,canada in the war has shown that we have little to fear4 ,india and ,egypt form a special problem1 complicated by the fact that1 in their condition of dependence1 they are large and nutritious fields for the employment of our sons4 ,it would1 however1 be foolish to ignore the great change that is taking place in them4 ,hindus tell me that1 when ,lord ,morley became ,secretary of ,state1 the advanced ,nationalists sent him a private message to the effect that they would co-operate with a humanitarian like him2 and he snubbed them4 ,a very large proportion of them are beyond the stage of being impressed by durbars1 and are impatient that the masses should be kept in that childlike state of mind4 ,we set up a fictitious ,oriental imagination1 and try to make the ,orientals live down to it4 ,the example of ,china and ,japan ought to have destroyed our illusions about the ,east4 ,the difference is one of culture1 which may at any time be changed4 ,we shall have to deal more frankly and generously with ,egypt and ,india1 or else cease to rail at ,prussian or ,russian despotism4 ,however1 ,imperialism is not a grave or pressing problem4 ,the ,empire will run its destined evolutionary course4 ,for us the grave matter is the corruption which clogs our political machine and the perverse tradition which prevents the multitude from seeing it4 ,the awarding of honours and lucrative positions should be withdrawn entirely from politicians1 because1 even if we compelled them to publish accounts1 they would still add to their resources or prestige by this inveterate traffic4 ,the king might at least render us the service of purifying this department of national life3 perhaps have a list prepared by the ,privy ,council and checked by independent inquiry4 ,i remember how ,sir ,leslie ,stephen told me that he shrank from being added to the inglorious list of mayors who had entertained princes or coal-owners who had financed elections or built chapels4 ,this would cut one of the chief roots of our present political corruption1 but we need to press for a thorough education of the people4 ,it must realise that the political machine is dangerously clogged and sluggish3 that its democratic character is a sham3 and that its energy is wasted on measures which are insignificant in comparison with the mighty tasks of education1 pacification1 and industrial organisation which it ought to undertake4 ,,chapter ,v4 ,,the ,,distribution ,,of ,,wealth ,,in the last sentence of the last chapter ,i spoke of education1 pacification1 and industrial organisation as the three monumental tasks of a reformed political system4 ,if the supreme object of a central administration--the sooner we cease to talk of government the better--is to make a people healthy1 prosperous1 and happy1 these are surely the three reforms to which it will most resolutely apply itself4 ,i have spoken of the very grave and pressing nature of one of these reforms3 the need to abolish militarism and war4 ,later chapters will deal with education1 in the very broad and rich meaning which ,i assign to the word4 ,here ,i would sketch the problem which seems to me to weigh heavily on us in connection with the distribution of wealth and the present disorganisation of industry4 ,it is useful sometimes to imagine ourselves in the year #cjjj or so looking back with critical eye on the twentieth century4 ,one pictures the future historian--some narrowly specialised expert on the social life of the second decade of the twentieth century--discoursing on us4 ,a strange and interesting people1 he will say4 ,they boasted of their intelligence1 and they really did display a creditable measure of intelligence in their research and their applied science4 ,they regarded themselves as far superior in humane sentiment to the ,middle ,ages1 to which they properly belong1 and they put forward many excellent vague proposals of social improvement4 ,yet it is not easy to understand their slavery to ancient prejudices1 sometimes of a quite barbaric character4 ,a superficial observer would say that the contradiction was due to their unhappy practice of leaving the majority of the community at a low level of culture1 so that the intelligent minority were checked by a slower-minded majority4 ,but it is a singular fact that some of the most intelligent men among the minority1 such as ,mr4 ,a4 ,balfour and ,mr4 ,f4 ,e4 ,smith1 held much the same views as the agricultural workers1 and made a kind of religion1 which they called ,conservatism1 of this obstinate retention of old traditions4 ,they seem1 with all their pride in their culture1 to have mistaken their place in the evolution of the race4 ,no people is entitled to be called civilised which complacently tolerates war1 squalid and widespread poverty1 dense areas of ignorance1 political corruption1 and the many other remnants of barbarism which they tolerated4 ,the twentieth century was the last hour of barbarism1 lit by a few rays of the civilisation which dawned in the twenty-first century4 ,if the infliction of pain and misery is1 as ,i believe1 the worst form of crime1 this retention of war and poverty is the gravest of our social transgressions4 ,but the guilt of our generation in regard to these two crimes is very unequal4 ,the way to abolish war is clear1 but the remedy of this other open sore of our social organism1 a poverty which stunts and embitters the lives of millions in every large civilisation1 is not at all clear4 ,the plain man who1 oppressed by the spectacle of this desolating1 unchanging poverty1 seeks a remedy in social literature1 is at once beset by a dozen rival theorists4 ,the ,socialist1 the ,anarchist1 the ,eugenist1 the ,malthusian1 the ,single-,taxer1 and other austere thinkers press on him their contradictory formulae and their mutual abuse2 these in turn are assailed contemptuously by men who are not less acquainted with economic matters2 and the older political parties observe1 with a sigh1 that poverty seems to be an inherent evil of every industrial order1 and we can do no more than mitigate its hardships4 ,to this last position the plain man usually comes4 ,let us grant at once that the older political parties have done much toward the alleviation of poverty4 ,no one who is acquainted with the condition of the workers a hundred years ago can hesitate to admit this4 ,impatience is too rare a virtue1 it is true1 but this does not dispense us from cultivating wisdom4 ,a great deal has been won1 and generally won by the middle class1 for the oppressed workers4 ,between #ahcj and #ahhj1 at least1 thousands of middle-class men were working in ,europe for the advance and enlightenment of the workers4 ,the old doctrine of laissez-faire has been forced to compromise with decency4 ,we have entirely abolished the horrible exploitation of cheap child-labour which was common early in the nineteenth century4 ,our ,francis ,places and ,robert ,owens have won for the worker the right to form ,trade ,unions1 and others the free education of his children4 ,we no longer permit the employer to fix the conditions and hours of labour as he wills4 ,the cotton-worker of ,manchester1 labouring twelve or fourteen hours a day1 and living in a squalid cellar1 one hundred years ago1 would be amazed if he could visit the factories and homes and places of amusement of his grandchildren4 ,even the poorer workers are no longer left to ,god and the clergy2 while the bulk of the workers have numbers of cheap luxuries which would have seemed an apocalyptic dream to the worker of ,napoleon's day4 ,but let us not imagine that we have got our axe into the roots of poverty and are in a fair way to abolish it4 ,this is one of the most dangerous fallacies of our age2 and against that comfortable assurance ,i1 knowing well all that has been done1 plead that not one of our reforms makes for the abolition or the material restriction of poverty4 ,we pension the very aged worker and the still more aged widow3 on the pauper scale4 ,we build substantial1 if rather cheerless1 homes for the destitute1 and we put warm1 if ignominious1 clothing on the back of the orphan4 ,we appoint minimum wages1 and permit maximum prices4 ,we have labour bureaux1 and district visitors1 and a ,salvation ,army1 and a ,church ,army4 ,all of which means that we give a drink to the crucified2 it might be well to study if we can cease to crucify4 ,the plain man or woman who earnestly wishes to help in the improvement of life will inquire first1 and most resolutely1 what the actual range and depth of poverty are2 will study1 secondly1 how far our measures of reform afford us any hope of curtailing it2 and will1 in the third place1 ask whether there is any other way of action which does offer some hope of restricting1 if not removing1 the evil4 ,in the mind of many people poverty means that somewhere in the darker depths of our cities1 happily remote from the shopping centres1 there are a number of people who1 from lack of skill or excess of drink1 cannot find regular employment1 and must live4 444 ,one does not know exactly how they live1 but certainly on unpleasantly short and dry rations4 ,in earlier times one dropped a half-sovereign into the poor-box at church for these creatures1 if they would come to church and learn resignation4 ,to-day one subscribes to the ,charity ,organisation ,society or the ,salvation ,army1 or joins one of the many enterprising associations which are going to make the poor richer without making the rich poorer4 ,we have a social conscience4 ,we believe in laissez-faire1 but1 being humane1 we will not push it to extremes4 ,at the same time1 being sensible men1 we are not going to push humanitarianism to extremes4 ,the phrase-maker is the great benefactor4 ,for a first acquaintance with poverty ,i would recommend a man to spend a few hours1 some ,saturday evening1 among those markets of the poor which still line many of our more dingy thoroughfares4 ,as the night draws on1 and the oil-lamps begin to flare and splutter over the stalls1 the grim courts and narrow streets of the district discharge their grey streams of life upon the market4 ,there is plenty of laughter1 you observe2 there are plenty of round-faced matrons1 with clean1 honest eyes and comfortable dress4 ,we ain't got much money1 but we do live1 ,i heard one of them remark1 in an interval between bursts of raillery4 ,the wives of regularly employed1 and often not ill-paid1 workers are there1 as well as poorer folk4 ,but study some of the quieter figures which move slowly among the throng or linger enviously before the cheap shops4 ,notice the puny1 shrivelled infants1 with quaint staring eyes1 which1 at the door of the public-house1 lie lightly in the arms of women whose faces are bloated with drink and coarse food3 the lean and ragged boys and girls1 with hollow and prematurely sharpened eyes1 who hang about the fruit-stalls1 ready to dart upon the rotten castaways1 or foster1 in darker spots1 the premature sex-development which will drain their scanty strength3 the woman who1 with drawn face1 waits near the ,red ,lion to see how many shillings her sodden brute of a husband will at length hand her for a week's shopping3 the weary old couple who have seen better days1 and now pass in silence through the babel of vulgarity3 the haggard-faced widow in mouldy black who hides her paltry ,sunday dinner in a worn bag3 the eager eyes of the poorer hawkers1 which light up pathetically when a penny comes their way3 the men whose faces change at a drunken jibe into such faces as we have seen behind the bars of a cage in a zoological garden1 and the crowd of men1 women1 and children rushing to enjoy the gratuitous spectacle of a fight3 the cheap1 middle-aged prostitute1 whose features are a caricature of the features of woman4 ,you may see these things in all parts of ,london--north1 south1 east1 and west--every ,saturday evening1 and many other evenings1 all the year round4 ,you may see them in all the other large towns and cities of ,britain1 and the cities of ,france and ,germany and the ,united ,states and all other great civilisations4 ,i have studied them on ,saturday nights in half the cities of ,britain3 in ,amsterdam and ,brussels and ,cologne1 in ,paris and ,nice1 in ,venice and ,rome and ,naples1 in ,new ,york and ,chicago3 and in the light of our historical research one sees their ancestors in all the great cities of all the great civilisations that ever were4 ,as it was in the beginning 444 ,but that refers to the glory of ,god4 ,follow to their homes these more pathetic figures of a ,london crowd4 ,you need not do so literally1 for more observant and sympathetic visitors have been there before you1 and they told ,london long ago1 as far as ,london was willing to hear1 how the majority of its citizens live4 ,mr4 ,booth's book1 ,life and ,labour in ,london1 had better be suppressed when its work is done1 lest the men and women of a more humane age learn too much about us2 also ,mr4 ,rowntree's book1 which shows this same fetid poverty lying at the feet of a superb minster1 the symbol of ages of ecclesiastical wealth and power2 and many other books4 ,let me summarise the relevant record of the natural history of ,london4 ,we may begin with the lowest depth1 with life as it is lived in some of the streets which still linger about ,covent ,garden1 and in east and west and south4 ,we are beginning to see the grim humour of tolerating the existence of these hotbeds of corruption under the very shadow of our marble palaces of justice and our marble hotels for millionaires1 and we are destroying them2 but the life remains still in sufficient quantity to fill a large town4 ,in tenements of this order fifteen rooms out of twenty are indescribably filthy4 ,legions of bugs lurk by day behind the faded rags of ancient wallpaper or in the crevices of the unwashed floor1 or even venture forth as securely as if they were conscious of free citizenship in these places4 ,the windows are a rough mosaic of dirty glass and roughly plastered paper4 ,the ceiling is pale black1 the floor filthy4 ,a table1 one or two dilapidated chairs1 a kind of bed--the landlord would1 in most cases1 not raise two shillings on the lot--and an entire family of ragged1 vermin-eaten human beings fill this foul box1 which is often only eight or ten feet square4 ,these people are thieves1 cheap prostitutes1 hawkers1 porters1 charwomen1 flower-sellers1 ragmen--the most pitiful of the irregulars which we suffer1 age after age1 to live and breed and die beyond the extreme fringe of our industrial army4 ,sometimes they have nearly as much food to eat as a workhouse-idler3 generally not4 ,drink--the vile mixtures of the cheaper public-house--they have more constantly2 and their children are not in their teens before they are familiar with all the vice and crime and brutality which seven out of ten of these rooms breed as naturally as they breed lice or bugs4 ,in winter the doors and windows are sealed1 and men1 women1 and children huddle together or1 at times1 crouch over a few lighted sticks4 ,and year by year1 century by century1 babies are ushered into this underworld in edifying abundance1 to live its ghastly life until the yellow frame and dull brain are worn out4 ,shocking1 you will say1 but happily rare4 ,do you know that1 according to the best authorities1 #ej1jjj men1 women1 and children in ,london alone live in this atmosphere of squalor and brutality and chronic hunger8 ,let us pass to the next higher circle of the modern ,inferno--the category of casual or very badly paid labour and chronic poverty1 the makers of your cheap furniture and clothes and brushes1 your match-boxes and chocolate-boxes1 the hawkers and costers and regular porters and dockers4 ,now there are generally two rooms to each family1 but the vermin still thrive in more than half of them1 and the rooms are filthy1 and the children breathe an air that is foul with drink and cursing and the most open and gross sexuality3 not now in fifteen cases out of twenty1 it is true1 but in ten cases out of twenty4 ,food is habitually insufficient1 for labour is uncertain1 and profit is infinitesimal2 and1 as a man must drink1 there are constant disturbances to break the monotony and help one to forget the customary hunger4 ,you may have at times noticed the dejected hawker returning1 on a wet summer's day1 with his tomatoes unsold3 or the children eager to collect fragments of the lids of orange-boxes in the winter4 ,countess ,russell told me that she once visited1 unexpectedly1 a group of homes of this class1 within a few minutes' walk of ,gordon ,square1 in the depth of winter4 ,hardly any had the material for a fire1 and few had food in the house4 ,so they live1 year in1 year out2 and all that we propose to do is to give them five shillings a week each if they will sustain the burden honestly for six decades1 or house and feed them in jail if they do not succeed in curbing their criminal impulses4 ,once1 in the ,westminster ,court1 ,i saw a young and humane judge hand certain tickets to the jury1 when they had established the guilt of two petty criminals of this class4 ,these1 gentlemen1 he said1 are permits to inspect the jail2 go some day and see the place to which you send criminals4 ,a very wise and benevolent innovation1 but we still await the judge who will send the jury to inspect the homes in which these men conceive crime4 ,about #djj1jjj citizens of the greatest city in the world belong to this class4 ,if #djj1jjj do not constitute a sufficiently important problem1 let us see the homes of the next category4 ,these are the irregularly employed and badly paid1 though not the worst paid1 workers3 costers1 labourers1 dockers1 etc4 ,there are about a million of them in ,london alone4 ,they know quite well what hunger is3 for weeks together1 sometimes1 the wage does not suffice to buy that minimum quantity of nitrogen and carbon which men of science have declared to be necessary1 and the money is ill expended4 ,they know what cold is1 for many a hard spell of winter finds them in want4 ,they have two or three rooms to each family1 but1 as a rule1 not much of that ,christian reticence on which our clergy congratulate us4 ,to the great majority of these million and a half of ,london's poor1 sexual pleasure is the one cheap luxury2 and we encourage them to breed industriously4 ,my wife1 with other ladies and gentlemen1 addresses them on the subject from the tail of a cart in ,south ,london1 and teaches the heavy-burdened mothers how to avoid having so many children2 and the leader of this little group was sourly and menacingly 7and quite falsely7 told by a distinguished ,churchman1 sitting in a ,royal ,commission1 that they were breaking the law of the land4 ,a friend of mine has been hounded out of the ,united ,states by the police for attempting to give similar information to the poorer mothers of ,new ,york4 ,even in this third and very large category of ,london homes there is much filth2 and the windows1 across which is drawn an odd cloth or a ragged and dirty curtain1 abound in broken panes4 ,they have periods of comparative plenty1 when the children get boots and socks1 and their elders soak in beer and may even venture to a cinematograph show1 if the crude pictures on its garish faade promise a sufficiently silly or sufficiently bloody programme4 ,all that the police and the clergy care about is that not more than an inch or two of underclothing are exhibited in these places4 ,they have also periods of want1 when the clothes go to the pawnshop1 and life runs on the exasperating1 brutalising lines of the lower class4 ,the daily round of life is itself stupefying4 ,at five or six they are dragged out of an insufficient sleep1 and they dully take their tea 7of a kind7 and bread and margarine on a dirty table4 ,after ten or twelve hours of anxious quest of minute profits they return home for a slightly better meal--a kipper1 perhaps1 or a few bits of cheap meat--too tired in mind and body to do more than smoke and drink4 ,they have plenty of fun1 of a sort1 and take their tragedies lightly2 but the angels1 if there are any1 must fold their wings over their faces at the aspect of these fellow-immortals4 ,even a politician might be expected to blush for this self-governing democracy4 ,it is a squalid1 degrading1 stupefying life1 below the level of civilisation4 ,nearly one-third of the citizens of ,london do not rise above this level4 ,the three classes that ,i have described1 or the mass of people who spread continuously over these classes1 were found by ,mr4 ,booth to number #a1cjj1jjj of the four and a half million inhabitants of the city4 ,the figure for the ,greater ,london of to-day is1 of course1 immensely higher4 ,the submerged tenth is a most unfortunate phrase4 ,it leads many1 who know little of these matters1 to suppose that only a tenth of the inhabitants of ,london are very poor4 ,the truth is that a tenth live in a condition of misery1 filth1 and degradation of which the ordinary decent citizen can form no conception4 ,they are the shirkers1 the abnormal1 and the worst casual workers4 ,but the life of this further million--or nearly one-fourth of the total inhabitants of the ,metropolis--the irregular or badly paid workers1 is a grave and accusing problem to every man of decent sentiment4 ,their condition is not consistent with civilisation4 ,certainly large numbers of them live clean and cheerful lives1 but even in these cases it is scandalous that sober and willing toil should receive wage enough only to secure cleanliness and the necessaries of life2 while a far larger number sink under the burden1 and are dirty1 intemperate1 gross1 and improvident4 ,conceive the extension of this class all over ,britain3 the further vast contingents of this army of poverty in the slums of ,glasgow and ,liverpool and ,manchester1 in all our great manufacturing and shipping towns1 even in the heart of pretty rural ,england1 where the wretched wage and low standard and large family stunt and degrade our agricultural worker4 ,it is a very serious error to imagine that this is merely an unhappy issue of the crowding in our great cities4 ,in picturesque and highly respectable ,york ,mr4 ,rowntree found that thirty per cent4 of the citizens lived in very real poverty3 that ten per cent4 did not earn money enough to buy a normal and sufficient quantity of plain food1 to say nothing of luxuries4 ,this is the problem of poverty4 ,if you want it in figures1 a fourth of the inhabitants of ,london1 where rents are appalling1 live on from eighteen to twenty-one shillings weekly per family1 and some hundreds of thousands live on less than this4 ,one might with some profit and pertinence go on to inquire into the life of the half of the population of ,london who are described as comfortable workers4 ,whether the little luxuries they have are a fit reward for the hard work they usually do1 whether there can be any development of distinctively human powers among them1 whether we may cherish a feeling of entire security in basing our political system on that foundation1 are questions worth putting2 and some day they will put them to us4 ,but it is better for the moment to confine ourselves to that pitiful fourth of the community which lives in degrading poverty because it has only irregular or wretchedly paid employment4 ,is it an exaggeration to suspect that this vast acreage of poverty will make the future historian hesitate to class us as civilised8 ,our social structure is of the nature of a pyramid4 ,at its apex1 glittering in the sun1 calling forth our pride and praise1 are culture and wealth and power1 and all the fine things they bring into existence4 ,at its base are the supporting stones1 crushed into the soil by the towering mass3 the millions of stunted or brutalised lives4 ,i know both extremes of this social order1 and ,i have felt1 hundreds of times1 that if it is permanently to retain this pyramidal form1 the refined lives and great achievements of the few resting on this broad base of squalid and undeveloped lives1 civilisation is an impossible dream4 ,i have felt that1 if men and women realised the full meaning and range of poverty1 they would suspend the progress of art and science1 of commerce and industry1 for a hundred years1 if need were1 in order to concentrate the best intelligence of the race upon the search for the remedy of this vast disorder4 ,and1 if it be true1 as ,i think1 that these people1 once dead1 are dead for ever1 and that the tradition of a hundredfold reward in heaven for their privations on earth is an illusion with which pastors and masters have reconciled them to their burdens1 ,i would1 if ,i could1 send that assurance like a trumpet-blast through the slums of the world and make this vast army of the stricken summon us1 the intelligent minority1 to a tardy judgment4 ,i do not1 as will appear later1 advocate the equal distribution of wealth4 ,i do assuredly not plead that one who has wealth should give it to the poor3 to see it gather again1 perhaps1 in less worthy hands4 ,i add the contrast of wealth at this point only in order to make quite sensible the darkness of the life of millions4 ,one's first task is to establish1 with what faint power the pen has1 the appalling magnitude of the evil4 ,if any very large number of us did really grasp the human significance of these facts and figures1 the industrial problem would not long be resigned1 as it is1 to bloodless economists and obscure propagandist bodies4 ,and the second aim of those who would see the world bettered is1 as ,i said1 to inquire into the effect of the remedies we actually trust and apply4 ,here we enter the mistier region of controversy1 and ,i can but set out the grounds of my sincere convictions4 ,of labour bureaux1 in the first place1 it will not be doubted that they are an advantage to employed and employers4 ,they are an advance toward organisation4 ,they bring the worker more promptly to the work that awaits him4 ,but they1 obviously1 do not add one iota to the insufficient work1 for which myriads are struggling3 they do not add one penny to the wage that is earned3 and they are of little or no service to the poorest workers1 who chiefly concern us4 ,old age pensions and insurance and free education are1 similarly1 great advantages to the workers1 in which we may justly take some pride1 but they do not promise to abolish or greatly diminish poverty4 ,the pension1 or the insurance benefit1 is necessarily granted on the poverty scale1 and is in some sense a recognition of it as one of the permanent institutions of life2 and the elementary instruction which we give has raised the qualifications for work1 as well as the equipment1 so that the proportion of unemployed1 or ill-employed1 is little changed4 ,nor would it be entirely wrong to say that1 in relieving the poor man of the direct charge of education and insurance1 we have put the difference on his rent4 ,of our poor-law system1 that lamentable compromise with a stupid old tradition1 it is difficult to speak with patience4 ,the able-bodied idlers of our workhouses and our countryside are a mockery of the workers4 ,the tramp1 the professional idler in search of idleness1 maintained in his repulsive ways by an undiscriminating system of poorhousing and by a large body of charitable women1 is one of the quaintest survivals of an older order4 ,his father idled through life before him1 and he in turn drags along the road a mate and children who will sustain the ignoble tradition4 ,he ought to be washed1 clothed1 and put on an industrial estate2 and1 if his disease prove incurable1 he ought to be anthetised out of existence1 or at least prevented from reproducing his like4 ,then there are the emigration societies4 ,one fears that in large part they transport to the colonies either the men whom the colonies do not want1 the men who will enlarge the slum-area of colonial cities1 or the men whom we ought not to spare4 ,at the best1 emigration is a means of leaving the problem of poverty to our grandchildren1 who will find no more open spaces for the dumping of our human surplus4 ,in point of fact1 however1 apart from the dispatch of a small proportion of specially prepared boys1 emigration is not affecting our problem of poverty4 ,the half-million very poor of ,london1 with the corresponding hundreds of thousands in our other cities1 do not make emigrants at all2 and very few of the next and far larger class are1 or could be1 fit for agricultural deportation4 ,lastly of these devices which the less thoughtful are apt to regard as relieving poverty1 we have the ,salvation ,army1 which is quite the most preposterous social sham of our age4 ,but its religious-social burlesque1 its pretentious concealment of bad results and loud proclamation of good results1 its refusal to print a plain balance-sheet from which a social student can measure the definite good done and the cost of it1 its undercutting of existing work1 and so on1 have been sufficiently exposed to excuse us from dwelling on it4 ,it contains some earnest men and women1 and has had undoubted successes1 but the system is too nebulous1 garrulous1 and wasteful to merit serious attention4 ,let us turn to graver matters4 ,the mass of the workers1 apart from the more advanced bodies of ,socialists and ,syndicalists1 believe that the solution of the problem of poverty will be found in the development of ,trade ,unions and of the political power of ,labour4 ,by political power1 with the aid of sympathetic members of the middle-class1 they have won the right of combination and a whole code of labour-laws2 by an increased political power1 ultimately a political all-power1 they will secure all the legislation they deem expedient4 ,in spite of the distraction of many of the workers by ,anarchists and ,syndicalists1 who despise political action1 and in spite of the restrictions of the franchise which are maintained by the older political parties1 it seems plain that at some not very remote date the workers will control the world4 ,ever since the door of the political world was opened to ,demos1 eighty years ago1 he was certain eventually to reach the throne1 no matter how long he might be seduced to tarry by the way4 ,those who think otherwise must put their trust in the permanent unintelligence of the workers4 ,the interests of the mass of workers are so far identical that they must finally combine to promote them4 ,we are plainly moving1 all over the world1 in this direction4 ,in ,australasia1 where the virgin soil permitted an exceptionally rapid growth1 we see the farthest point yet reached1 and within a decade or so ,labour will have unshakable power all over ,australia1 at least4 ,conservatism has already disappeared1 or changed its name to ,liberalism4 ,in ,germany and ,france and ,belgium we see the same disposition of the rival parties to unite in face of advancing ,demos4 ,in ,england there are signs that we shall at no distant date see a similar redistribution of political forces1 and it is anticipated in the ,united ,states4 ,in all countries the political energies are slowly gathering about two poles3 ,liberal 7including the old ,conservatives7 and ,labour4 ,even in such countries as ,spain1 ,russia1 ,turkey1 ,japan1 and ,china the initial stages of the development may be detected4 ,when the workers at last unite and secure an absolute majority-power1 they will legislate on familiar lines4 ,wages will rise1 hours of labour will be shortened1 and place will be found for larger numbers of workers4 ,it is little use moralising on this change4 ,it is coming on like the tide4 ,there will1 no doubt1 be temporary abuses of power1 as there have always been1 but the workers will learn the vital needs of an industrial order1 and they will not starve the roots of their new prosperity4 ,let us assume that a state of equilibrium has been reached3 that the workers have paramount political power1 and wages are considerably increased4 ,does this promise a solution of the problem of poverty8 ,i am purposely leaving out of account the contemporary growth of rings and trusts4 ,paradoxical as it may seem to say so1 they are not an essential element of the problem4 ,the employers will 7as is happening7 form unions in face of the men's unions1 and the strain laid on individual employers and small companies will favour the growth of trusts4 ,in so far as these make for economy1 they are clearly useful2 but no doubt they will be tempted to use their monopoly to dictate arbitrary prices4 ,when1 however1 the workers have a majority-power1 they can either slay the trusts or draw their teeth4 ,on the other hand1 a beneficent or labour-saving trust will not afford any advantage to the less skilful workers1 who make up the great army of the poor1 and it will reduce prices only by an unimportant fraction4 ,the chief significance of trusts is that they tend to annihilate the individualist employer1 who was once considered an indispensable institution1 and they may thus dispose obstinate admirers of the older industrial order to welcome a radical change4 ,they are more deadly to the middle-class than to the working-class4 ,the really vital question is whether the raising of wages and reduction of hours1 accompanied by a large amount of secondary legislation to the advantage of the worker1 will solve the social problem3 which is not the problem of the existence of a few thousand prostitutes1 but the problem of the existence of1 in every country1 several million people who live in privation and squalor1 and cannot develop human personalities4 ,on this ,i offer two or three observations4 ,does the price of commodities rise in proportion to the rise of wages8 ,if it does1 the securing of a nominally higher wage is clearly a delusion4 ,this seems1 however1 to be our experience4 ,in ,england1 during sixty or seventy years of trade-combination1 wages have risen1 and hours and conditions of labour have been improved1 to a remarkable extent1 in spite of open competition in an overcrowded market4 ,but prices and rents also have risen1 and it is not clear that there has been a net advantage to the worker4 ,it is very difficult to answer the question precisely1 because other factors 7such as the application of science7 have increased the productiveness of labour and have cheapened certain commodities 7books1 clothes1 pictures1 tea1 etc474 ,the workers have shared these advantages1 and are in a position of far greater comfort than they were formerly4 ,but in seriously testing the claim and promise of the ,trade ,unionist and the ,labour politician we have to endeavour to subtract the improvement in the workers' condition which is due to the application of science1 and of better methods1 to production and distribution4 ,when we make allowance for this1 it is certainly not clear that the rise of wages shows a margin over the increased price of commodities3 that1 in other words1 the higher wage is a real advantage4 ,it is difficult to see how it could be otherwise4 ,when wages are raised1 who pays the increment in the cost of production8 ,the employer or the consumer8 ,it is a familiar experience1 and an inherent necessity of our industrial order1 that the consumer does2 and the consumer is the worker--the middle-class or wealthy consumer generally gets the difference in other ways4 ,it would be bold to say that our employers have paid even a fraction of the increased wage out of their own pockets4 ,more usually they put a fifth of a penny on commodities when the worker has secured a sixth4 ,competition alone restrains them1 and this is largely superseded by agreements4 ,we have had innumerable instances of this during the war4 ,class after class of workers claimed a higher wage1 and prices rose higher and higher on account of the increased cost of production4 ,if a ,labour ,government were to prevent employers from increasing the cost of commodities and raising rents in exact proportion to the demand for higher wages--were1 in other words1 to direct the employers to pay the increase of wage out of their own profits--we should soon see the end of this industrial order4 ,the ,state would be compelled to become the employer4 ,this seems to be true of practically all the legislation which a political power of ,labour could secure4 ,compensation1 pennons1 and insurance are typical instances4 ,the new demand on the employer's profits is met in one of two ways3 he withdraws voluntary contributions to these or similar purposes1 or he raises the price of his goods4 ,the larger consumer meets the burden by raising his rents or fees4 ,the unreflecting worker imagines that the country pays for these things2 he forms1 in this respect1 a larger proportion of the country than he thinks4 ,the second and more important consideration is that this power to dictate wages and pass measures in favour of the workers does not hold out a prospect of absorbing that surplusage of labour which is our real problem4 ,i am assuming that even the poorer and unskilled workers will have their unions and their share of the political power4 ,their wage will rise1 and the price of their food and clothing and rooms will rise2 but it is of greater consequence to reflect that the less competent workers on the fringe of the industrial army will receive little advantage4 ,some benefit they will certainly have1 since the curtailment of hours and the slowing of the pace of production will make room for more workers in each industry2 though we must remember that the pay of these new workers will either be taken from the older workers1 whose hours are shortened1 or--which comes to the same thing--will be put on the commodities4 ,the total production will not be increased1 and the employer will not relinquish his profit4 ,in any case1 even this method of finding room for more workers will affect relatively few4 ,again ,i may quote the experience of ,australia1 where the workers have very great power4 ,in ,melbourne1 alone1 in #aiac1 ,i found #cj1jjj men unemployed2 and there and in other cities the tainted area of poverty and distress was increasing4 ,all the elaborate organisation and political power of the workers could not add to the sum of available work and thus absorb the surplus of labour4 ,i am contending that until we do this we do not solve the poverty-problem4 ,the chief cause of this appalling social disease is the inequality of natural endowment--either of muscle or nerve--in face of an unorganised system of production4 ,there is not work1 with regular and decent wage1 for all4 ,the weaker1 the lazier1 the more drunken1 and the slower of intellect1 are crowded out of the ranks and driven to casual employment4 ,this is the tap-root of poverty1 and the benefits secured for those who are in regular employment will not affect it4 ,thirdly1 this labour-legislation will not touch the second chief root of poverty1 the extreme inequality of the distribution of wealth4 ,since wealth is1 in this regard1 a fixed quantity1--we are not concerned here with the effect of fresh applications of science to production1--an accumulation of commodities at one point leads to thinness at another4 ,i am not pleading for equality of income4 ,many workers have an exaggerated idea of the gain they might have by an equal distribution of wealth4 ,the total annual income of the population of the ,united ,kingdom is now believed to be about #b1djj1jjj1jjj4 ,if this were distributed equally amongst the heads of our ten million families and our large army of unmarried workers1 the result would be barely #bjj a year2 and the equalisation of taxation1 the granting of substantial pensions1 etc41 would further reduce it4 ,there is1 however1 no serious need to discuss this idea4 ,i see no moral principle which forbids that we should reward a man according to his productiveness or inventiveness or other value to the community1 although his fellows are not responsible for their lesser capacity2 and it is idle to speculate on some imaginary phase of human development in which the more gifted and more useful will refuse to be more richly rewarded than the less useful4 ,but it does not follow that the community has no right to control the distribution of wealth4 ,at one time such a proposal would have been branded robbery4 ,to-day even ,conservatives do not threaten to remove the death-duties and graduated income-tax by which we confiscate some of the wealth of the more fortunate4 ,the only question is1 to what extent we may or ought to prevent the excessive accumulation of wealth1 or to disperse it after accumulation4 ,there occur at once two methods of enrichment which invite careful attention4 ,one is the power to transmit wealth to one's descendants in perpetuity1 or until they choose to dissipate it4 ,most of us will admit that in a social order at all resembling our own--and ,i do not care to speculate about ,utopian or imaginable orders--the power to win advantages for one's children as well as for oneself is a sound incentive to work4 ,but the wish to relieve one's descendants of the need to work1 to make them for ever a burden on the community1 is a perverse ideal4 ,it is one of those unsound primitive traditions which we detect in the actual stream of our ideas and sentiments1 and instances are not unknown in our time of such holders of hereditary wealth revolting against the tradition4 ,when we realise that this inherited wealth means1 in plain terms1 the right to have a hundred or a thousand fellow-men working for us or our descendants in perpetuity1 for no merit or service on our part1 and when we consider the folly and waste which so commonly follow large inherited fortunes1 we must regard this tradition as evil and indefensible4 ,one wonders how long the working community is going to sustain this burden1 and how long refined men and women will imagine that they have a right to live like ,oriental potentates because they had a shrewd or a gifted ancestor4 ,it is sometimes said in their favour that they employ labour with their wealth4 ,i have heard bishops give them this foolish consolation4 ,as if the wealth would cease to exist1 and to employ labour1 if it were in the pockets of a thousand men1 instead of the pockets of one ,duke of ,norfolk or ,duke of ,westminster6 ,the only difference would be that this wealth1 instead of paying a thousand servants and tradespeople to work for the comfort of one family1 would pay a thousand men1 who would lose nothing by the change of employment1 to produce comfort for a thousand families4 ,meantime1 the ,duke is embarrassed by his wealth1 or spends it on superfluous things1 and the thousand families live in vicious misery4 ,their babies die for lack of good milk in the hot summer1 and the rich youth or maiden--,i have known this done--carelessly takes a bath of milk4 ,let us understand clearly this economic truth3 great wealth is the accumulation in one man's hands of the right or power of a thousand families to employ labour4 ,the second source of wealth which invites consideration is the unearned increment on ground-values1 or any other unearned and accidental increase of value4 ,it is now very commonly admitted that this belongs to the community1 and ,i need not enlarge on it4 ,we have1 as ,i said1 admitted the community's right to interfere with this scandalous clotting of wealth1 and no doubt a ,labour-majority would increase death-duties until money could not be transmitted beyond1 at most1 the third generation1 and not in quantities sufficient to make men and women a lifelong burden on the working community4 ,possibly some day there will be a general scrutiny of titles to wealth3 not merely as far back as the enclosure of the commons a hundred years ago1 but back to the landing in this country of ,william of ,normandy4 ,possibly a day will come when men and women will conceal the fact that their ancestors came over with the ,conqueror1 since it generally implies that the descendants of those lucky adventurers have not done an honest day's work since that time4 ,possibly the sons of some of our captains of industry of a century ago will burn the family records1 lest some prying historian should learn by what horrible exploitation of child-labour the fortune was made4 ,prescriptive right is a purely artificial right created by the community1 and it may be withdrawn by the community4 ,such measures as these a ,labour ,government will1 no doubt1 eventually take1 and they will do much to relieve poverty and increase the production of commodities of general use4 ,but they will add rather to the comfort of workers who are already above the poverty-line1 and they will not prevent an excessive accumulation of wealth1 though they may finally disperse it4 ,this means the continuance of deep poverty4 ,as long as a gifted man may amass a fortune in a comparatively short time1 without adding to the wealth of the community1 there will be squalid poverty somewhere4 ,in sum1 if the political ideal of ,labour were fully realised1 it would not put an end to1 and might not very materially lessen1 our widespread poverty4 ,it would not enlarge the amount of available productive employment1 and so the weak in body or mind or character would still form a pitiable army of slum-dwellers4 ,it would1 having no more control of industry than the present ,parliament has1 be unable to meet any grave disturbance of the industrial world1 such as the release of hundreds of thousands of workers by disarmament4 ,it would have no power to secure for the workers their full share of the advantage of any new application of science1 and it would be unable to guide into new positions the men displaced by this application4 ,we should continue to suffer the disadvantage of an imperfectly organised industrial system2 each new enlistment of the great forces of nature or of the cunning of science in the service of man would enrich a few and impoverish many4 ,in order to meet all these grave difficulties--in order to do more than secure certain advantages for the better equipped workers--a ,labour ,power would be forced radically to alter its principle and undertake the organisation of employment4 ,this organisation of industry seems to be the only device which will gradually restrict1 and finally abolish1 poverty4 ,the opposition to it of middle-class workers and of so many artisans is unintelligible4 ,it is time that we ceased to confine the term workers to the poorer and less cultivated caste among those who work3 time that the lawyer and actor and housewife claimed that honourable title no less than the carpenter or navvy4 ,in restricting the term to manual and badly paid workers we have concealed from ourselves the real community of interest of all who work4 ,all of us1 except those who live on the labour of others1 have an interest in the proper organisation of the work of the world and the removal from our shoulders of this intolerable burden of the irregular workers and the idlers4 ,the middle-class has an even greater interest than what is narrowly called the working-class1 because the tendency of ,labour-legislation is1 and will increasingly be1 to put the heavier charge1 not on large employers1 who easily evade it1 but on the middle-class generally4 ,here again the war has luminously illustrated our position4 ,both employers and employed 7in the current industrial sense7 have made great profit by it3 the middle-class generally has suffered severely4 ,a proper organisation of work would have prevented this4 ,it can easily be shown that this national organisation of employment1 with graded incomes according to service rendered1 is the only remedy of poverty4 ,the chief root of poverty is1 as ,i said1 the insufficiency of properly paid work1 and this is entirely due to the haphazard and unsystematic nature of our industrial order4 ,the private employer looks only to the actual demand of commodities1 or to the actual funds for buying commodities4 ,he has no interest in the moneyless unemployed2 indeed1 he finds it a convenience to have a large number from which he may select his workers4 ,as a result1 a large proportion of our people are unable to demand their normal share of commodities because they are not employed1 or because they have no wage2 and they are not employed because they do not demand commodities4 ,plainly1 the community alone can alter this paradoxical state of things2 and1 since the community is now compelled by its more humane sentiments to carry the poor on its shoulders1 it may at length be induced to see that it would be better to set them on their own feet4 ,in a properly organised industrial system a worker will be paid by the commodities which he or she actually produces1 or their exchange-value4 ,there can be no such thing as a superfluous worker4 ,it is only a lamentable issue of our perverse pre-scientific system that millions must lack the food and clothing and luxuries which they themselves could and would1 under a more orderly system1 produce4 ,this implies1 of course1 the transfer to the community1 at a just payment1 of the land1 the mines1 and the means of transit1 and the gradual extension of municipal enterprise to productive and distributive industries4 ,i am contending only for principles1 and would refer the closer inquirer to such detailed constructive works as those of ,mr4 ,h4 ,g4 ,wells4 ,it would be futile to construct a rigid scheme of collectivist organisation4 ,such industries as the press1 literature1 art1 etc41 present difficulties which it would be foolish to override4 ,but these affect comparatively few workers1 and it is pedantry of an unintelligent kind to wrangle over them while we have a clear case in regard to other industries which involve many millions of workers4 ,we would do well1 however1 to remember that the middle-class industries themselves are overcrowded and chaotic1 and that most members of that class would gain by organisation1 wherever it is possible4 ,instead of shrinking from it and inventing difficulties1 we ought to be eager to discover its possibilities4 ,i ignore also certain more or less academic objections which have been made against this proposal to organise employment4 ,mill's essay ,on ,liberty is a monument of the futility of this kind of reasoning4 ,mill was a civil servant1 and1 except in the case of the idle and criminal1 no restriction of individual liberty is proposed other than that which ,mill cheerfully endured4 ,middle-class men are apt to take fright at the word ,socialism4 ,it ought to be by this time generally known that half a dozen very different theories pass under that name1 and it is particularly unintelligent to confuse the extreme and the moderate proposals4 ,nearly the whole of the employment in any civilisation could be organised without laying on any who are willing to work a greater restraint than is laid on officials of the postal service4 ,as to confiscation1 it will be gathered from an earlier page that ,i favour generous compensation to actual holders of land or mines1 but no perpetual pensions4 ,i do not anticipate from this change all the advantages which some ,socialist writers expect4 ,their schemes of high universal prosperity seem to me to have an absurdly slender basis of actual work4 ,mr4 ,william ,morris conjectured that if all of us were to work for four hours a day there would be enough produced for all of us to live in luxury2 whereas ,mr4 ,sidney ,webb calculates that it would need six hours' work a day1 on the part of all1 to produce the necessaries of life4 ,it is true that a very large body of middlemen1 commercial travellers1 footmen and other servants1 and duplicate workers in rival industries would be set free for sound productive or distributive or professional work2 but the easing of the hours of our actual workers1 the removal of the young from the market1 and other collateral improvements1 must be taken into account4 ,if we take one hour a day from the actual workers in our heavier industries1 we absorb at once more than a million new men without increasing production4 ,in any case1 it is lamentable to dangle before the eyes of men the ideal of working only four hours a day4 ,we want more of ,browning's gospel of work with cheerfulness4 ,no doubt the idea is that1 if the hours of labour are reduced1 the leisure will be employed in reading ,bergson and mastering ,brahms4 ,this optimistic theory seems to be at variance with our experience4 ,improvement of financial position more usually means the substitution of ,bass or ,dewar for cheap ale1 and of stalls for the gallery at the variety theatre4 ,a later chapter will1 however1 discuss our interests in this connection4 ,the fact remains that collectivism is the only remedy of poverty4 ,the redistribution of wealth1 or the prevention of excessive wealth1 would1 in my view1 add comparatively little to the wages of the millions2 and we must not put to the credit of an economic scheme the profit of such changes as disarmament4 ,it is not this1 but the note of efficiency1 organisation1 and economy which appeals to me in the ,socialist ideal4 ,it would abolish a vast amount of duplicate and unnecessary work1 and it would conduct to their proper place in the industrial order the large army of casual workers4 ,london or ,new ,york is a colossal monument of industrial inefficiency4 ,our chaotic mass of duplicate and triplicate rival grocers1 bakers1 butchers1 etc41 our rival railways and other purveyors and producers1 with their separate staffs and their appalling waste in advertisement1 are a reproach to our intelligence4 ,we want an orderly and economical system both of production and distribution1 and only the municipality 7or else a vast and tyrannical trust7 can conduct it4 ,most of all we want a power that will sweep the myriads of costers1 hawkers1 newspaper-youths1 flower-girls1 casual porters1 loafers1 musicians1 etc41 off our streets1 and put them to productive work4 ,we want a great curtailment of certain luxury-industries and fictitious industries4 ,this would give us an immensely increased volume of productive work1 and a great saving in distribution4 ,the middle-class has not less to gain than the workers by such a scheme of organising our resources1 and it offers us the only confident prospect of abolishing poverty and crime and gradually uplifting the mass of the people4 ,naturally1 we should for a long time have to deal with a great deal of refractory material4 ,idleness and crime are diseases1 and they ought to be treated by the methods of modern medicine3 scientific1 humane1 sometimes surgical4 ,certainly we would exercise tyranny in dealing with these4 ,probably in a properly ordered society all citizens would be enrolled in an industrial register4 ,the hyper-sensitive would have the same guarantee of privacy as under our income-tax system1 and the police would have a most effective means of locating the criminal4 ,any who were permanently refractory1 or showed an incurable disposition to revert to crime or to the vagrant industries which disgrace our cities to-day1 would have no moral right to burden us with their existence4 ,the community would offer work and sufficient wage to all4 ,the rest might disappear into segregated homes of idleness1 or1 if we are as wise as we ought to be1 into lethal chambers4 ,this incurably refractory group would1 however1 probably prove smaller than many believe4 ,we are at present a little too much inclined to consult scientific theorists about heredity 7which is still very obscure in science7 and too little inclined to make social experiments4 ,i am assuming that a dozen other reforms would proceed simultaneously with the reform of industry4 ,education would no longer confine itself to giving an elementary literacy to children1 without any further care what use they make of their literacy2 it would1 as ,i will suggest later1 seriously concern itself with the adult population4 ,a bolder treatment of the housing question would stimulate those who have evil traditions2 we should not confine ourselves to building clean rooms for them1 which they might make filthy if they wished4 ,prudential restriction of the birth-rate would be impressed on the poorer class1 with great benefit to themselves and their children and the ,state4 ,eugenic proposals might be practically formulated and encouraged4 ,we should not expect industrial betterment to have some mystic or magical effect of itself in uplifting the mass of the people2 but1 until this betterment occurs1 other efforts to help them will be seriously hampered or entirely futile4 ,the very magnitude of the task would prove a magnificent tonic and stimulation to the jaded mind of the community4 ,an increasing number of middle-class men and women now recognise that this is1 not merely the only solution of the problem of poverty1 but the most profitable scheme of national life for all who are willing to work4 ,so detached an observer as ,mr4 ,carveth ,read1 professor of ,philosophy at ,london ,university1 observes that probably the future lies either with ,co-operation or with ,socialism 7,natural and ,social ,morals1 p4 #baa74 ,on the ,continent1 especially in ,italy1 ,france1 ,holland1 ,belgium1 ,denmark1 ,germany1 and ,russia1 there is a high proportion of cultivated and professional men in the ,socialist movement4 ,no one need fear its advance except the idler and the man whose work does not add to the wealth of the community or facilitate its distribution4 ,it is the application of sound and tried business-principles to national life2 and1 when those principles have first been applied to the governmental machine1 and made it an effective and disinterested administration1 we shall move more quickly toward the ,collectivist ideal4 ,some may wonder that a student of science should come to this conclusion4 ,there is a vague idea abroad that an individualist struggle for existence and survival of the fittest is the supreme and unalterable law of life4 ,this idea1 though encouraged by men like ,mr4 ,kidd1 is due to a merely superficial acquaintance with biology4 ,in past ages nature has certainly evolved higher types mainly by a bloody struggle of individuals or a very calamitous pressure of environment4 ,in the past3 there is the limit of the teaching of biology4 ,a new thing--human intelligence--has now entered the life of the earth1 and it has in countless ways superseded the laws 7that is to say1 practices7 of unconscious nature4 ,the human mind is now a part of nature1 and therefore natural selection is a wholly different matter from what it once was4 ,maurice ,maeterlinck has suggested this with his usual felicity4 ,he imagines himself on a hill1 from which he sees two watercourses stretching toward the sea4 ,one meanders over the plains1 wasting time and space1 blindly finding its way over the uneven ground3 that is the old1 unintelligent method of nature4 ,the other waterway stretches straight across the landscape1 a canal cut by man in the course of a few years1 with no waste of ground3 it is the new1 intelligent method of nature4 ,by this method we now create new species of plants in a thousandfold less time than natural selection 7in the usual sense7 could do2 and we do it precisely by dispensing with the individualist struggle1 by intelligent arrangement and control4 ,early science set up unintelligent nature as a grand model for man4 ,it is time we outgrew this phase of infancy4 ,intelligence must increasingly count in the life of the earth4 ,we first organise a nation1 and presently we shall organise international life4 ,we organise particular businesses1 and presently we shall organise the whole industrial life of the planet4 ,there is no part of human life which calls more urgently for the application of intelligence than this disordered1 wasteful1 pitiless1 poverty-saturated industrial world of ours4 ,let us treat human beings at least as intelligently as we treat our flowers1 and as humanely as we treat our horses4 ,we do not entrust those to the tragedy of struggle and survival4 ,we need not fear that there will be any restriction of the development of personality4 ,under such a ,collectivist system as ,i have in mind1 personality will be developed until every man and woman is conscious of his or her share in the control of the destinies of this planet1 and the sheep-like respect for ancient traditions and abuses1 which impedes our progress to-day1 will be for ever abolished4 ,,chapter ,,vi4 ,,idols ,,of ,,the ,,home ,,among the claims of reconstruction which the insurgent literature of our time puts forward1 none1 perhaps1 so startles and inflames the ,conservative as the demand for a reform of the family4 ,criticism of this institution is1 in fact1 so severely punished or so slanderously misrepresented that it is usually exercised in the more or less impersonal form of the drama or novel4 ,it happens1 however1 that the drama or the novel is now quite the most effective means of inoculating millions with critical ideas1 and at least half the more brilliant novelists and dramatists of ,europe employ their art for this purpose1 or reflect some such sentiments in their work4 ,hence the outcry about the unclean novel3 which is usually far cleaner than the ,old ,testament1 but more critical4 ,positivism had assured us that this institution would be transferred intact to a human foundation1 and ,murillo's ,holy ,family hung reverently over the hearths of the new pagans4 ,now1 half in fear and half in exultation1 the clergy cry that humanism has betrayed its moral poison and its social menace4 ,our favourite phrase here is the saying that the family is the foundation of the ,state4 ,if one patiently considered the matter1 one would discover that the divine right of kings was once regarded with equal confidence as the indispensable foundation of the ,state4 ,it may very well be that the divine duty of the family is no less open to reconsideration4 ,it might be noticed that the change from aristocracy to democracy was at one time hailed with lurid prophecy even by distinguished moralists and sociologists1 yet this change has led to greater efficiency and prosperity4 ,we might perceive that the ,christian dogmas were once thought vital to our welfare1 and it may be that the ,christian ethic is in some points as disputable as the ,christian dogmas4 ,few reflect on these matters1 and the writer who criticises the family is denounced with peculiar bitterness4 ,quite certainly that tomb of dead civilisations yawns ominously before us if we lend ear to this kind of rebel4 ,the family is so plainly indispensable an institution that it must be protected from criticism3 lest we be tempted to dispense with it4 ,i propose1 however1 to make a critical study of the family4 ,indeed1 ,i venture to say at once that our ideal of the family is so encrusted with ancient superstitions that it pressingly invites the critical attention of our age3 that the family is the foundation of the ,state only in an historical sense1 not in the sense that a ,state cannot be based on any other procreative arrangement3 and that the cloak of superstition and rhetoric that we have put about it has covered for ages1 and still covers1 an appalling amount of vice1 hypocrisy1 and misery4 ,my point of view has been stated4 ,the affairs of this planet must be run by men for men4 ,the supreme aim must be to lighten the burden of suffering which we inherit from a less intelligent and less humane past4 ,any creed1 code1 or institution which forbids progress on these lines must be assailed4 ,the first and most damnable superstition in regard to the family is the claim that marriage ought to be indissoluble4 ,in its strict form this belief is held only by ,roman ,catholics1 and by a section of the ,church of ,england which was only partially reformed in the sixteenth century and has a strange ambition to disavow even that limited reform4 ,but the most insidious mischief of this old ideal is that it has embedded deep in our minds the feeling that1 although indissoluble marriage is an intolerable yoke1 we must be very chary and niggardly in granting relief4 ,this feeling we ascribe to a wise concern for our social welfare1 whereas it is due to the subconscious tyranny of the old superstition4 ,recently we have seen the strange spectacle of a non-,christian moralist standing amongst our bishops to bar the way of reform3 seeking to prolong1 in the name of humanity1 a superstition that darkens the homes of a large part of humanity4 ,the bishops may have smiled4 ,a distinguished sociological writer1 ,mr4 ,l4 ,hobhouse1 in classifying forms of marriage1 says1 with unconscious humour3 ,marriage is indissoluble among the ,andamanese1 some ,papuans of ,new ,guinea1 at ,watubela1 at ,lampong in ,sumatra1 among the ,igorrotes and ,italones of the ,philippines1 the ,veddahs of ,ceylon1 and in the ,romish ,church4 ,one trusts that the ,roman 7and ,anglican7 ,catholics like the company they keep2 the peoples enumerated by ,mr4 ,hobhouse are the very lowest and least intelligent savages known to science4 ,the ,church of ,rome has long boasted that its ideal of indissoluble union is the final and culminating point of human wisdom in regard to the family4 ,it now appears that indissoluble marriage was the most primitive human tradition1 and was discarded by the ,roman and all other civilisations when they passed from childhood to manhood4 ,sociologists have been accustomed to say that monogamy was gradually developed out of promiscuity4 ,this was mere speculation1 and ,professor ,westermarck and other recent authorities rightly dissent4 ,the institution is older than humanity4 ,we find monogamic family life among the anthropoid apes and amongst the lowest peoples1 which represent early man2 and many writers on prehistoric man now contend that we find him passing from family to social life1 not in the reverse way4 ,when the last ,ice ,age forced men to live in caves1 and the scattered families clung together and formed large social groups1 the family life was modified1 and few of the higher tribes maintained the primitive form4 ,rclus tells of a ,khond who1 on hearing of the monogamous life of the wild ,veddahs of ,ceylon1 exclaimed in disgust3 ,they live like the apes4 ,we may assume that little hardship arises from incompatibility of temperament among the ,igorrotes or the ,veddahs1 and there is no need to describe the eccentric forms of marriage which arose among higher savages4 ,none of the great civilisations of the past entertained the idea of indissoluble marriage4 ,the clergy1 of course1 know nothing of the real line of evolution1 and 7as ,bishop ,diggle has done7 they represent the ,roman system as a comparative refinement of early promiscuity1 on which ,christianity was to make the final advance4 ,the precious testimony of ,juvenal is invoked 7against the warning of all modern historians73 and we are expected to shudder because ,st4 ,jerome tells us of a ,roman lady who had been married a score of times4 ,it is not stated what harm was done to the lady1 or to anybody else1 or whether she was a freak in her generation4 ,it is enough1 as ,mrs4 ,humphry ,ward knows1 to say that divorce is frequent anywhere1 and thousands of hands will rise to heaven3 what the precise social consequences are the thousand of heads seem to regard as irrelevant4 ,i have read most of the literature of the ,roman ,imperial period1 and have found that the greater part of the statements made about it by clerical moralists are rubbish4 ,every serious student knows that it was precisely the more rigid and intolerable earlier form of ,roman marriage 7the confarreatio7 which led to laxity in the early ,empire2 that the ,roman ,lawyers of the first and second centuries1 who relaxed marriage1 were among the most conscientious that the legal world has ever produced2 and that in the time of ,st4 ,jerome--an embittered and intensely puritanical priest1 who says worse things about his sacerdotal colleagues than he does about the pagans--we have the solid testimony of such documents as the ,letters of ,symmachus and the instructive ,saturnalia of ,macrobius to show that the family life of the pagans was generally healthy1 sober1 and harmonious4 ,there is not a particle of proof that ,roman society suffered because of the facility of divorce1 or generally abused this facility4 ,but the misrepresentation of ,roman morals is light in comparison with the misrepresentation of later ,christian morals4 ,christianity took its ideal from the ,jews4 ,amongst this partially civilised people marriage had been made easy for the male by the retention of polygamy1 and it was not customary to consult the feelings of the woman4 ,in the course of time ,greek influence entered ,juda1 and the ,rabbis held learned debates on marriage and divorce4 ,both the stricter and the laxer view found expression in the ,new ,testament and in early ,christian literature1 but a celibate priesthood obtained supreme power in ,europe and the stricter view was enforced4 ,the moral consequences were disastrous4 ,while the ,roman ,curia1 which could always find a flaw in the marriage of a wealthy man1 was enriched1 ,europe was degraded1 and sexual immorality became general4 ,it is enough to recall that a tradition of looseness1 in strict correspondence with the law of indissoluble marriage1 survives from the ages of faith to our own time in the ,latin countries4 ,some have spoken of the hot southern blood and cast the blame on the climate4 ,i would invite the informed moralist to run his eye over the map of the earth1 and ask himself whether chastity increases1 or the sex-organs lose vitality1 in proportion as nations are removed from the ,equator4 ,it is a ludicrous effort of ,catholics to conceal the evils of indissoluble marriage4 ,until the ,reformation sexual laxity was the same all over ,europe4 ,in ,england the old priest-made law was retained after the ,reformation1 and laxity of morals was general4 ,except for a very few wealthy people1 divorce was impossible until #aheg1 when a slender measure of reform was wrested from the clergy4 ,this1 the present law of ,england1 a miserable compromise with religious prejudice and a permanent source of vice and misery1 puts ,english legislation on an important aspect of the foundation of the ,state below that of any other civilised community4 ,instead of ridding themselves entirely of clerical influence1 and directing civic life on civic grounds1 our legislators looked still to ancient ,juda1 and substituted the less stringent view of the ,rabbis for the more stringent4 ,the legendary leader of a rude ,arab tribe had granted divorce for adultery1 and the ,english nation of the nineteenth century followed his example4 ,the result was the most stupid and mischievous law of marriage outside the sphere of the ,holy ,catholic ,church4 ,english people are proud of their national concern for purity1 yet they tolerate1 and their priests defend as something sacred1 a state of law which is medieval in its crudeness and barbarity4 ,when two people have obeyed our counsel to marry early1 and they discover that they have misjudged each other1 we tell them that there is no relief for them unless they commit adultery3 which1 when it is committed1 we brand as the darkest sin4 ,to the husband we give the further injunction that he must be cruel to his wife before we will release him4 ,we then1 although we take especial pride in the cleanness of our press and literature1 print whole columns about their conduct in suspicious situations1--sometimes entitling the account1 in large type1 to attract attention1 ,a ,horrible ,case1--and we ask each other whether ,england is not in a state of decay and contracting the continental spirit4 ,if there are any who do not choose to commit adultery1 or do not choose to have their servants bribed to describe their conduct for the entertainment of the public1 we grant them a legal permit to be happy and vicious1 or miserable and virtuous1 for the remainder of their lives3 the thing we call a judicial separation4 ,this extraordinary situation is certainly a slight improvement on indissoluble marriage1 but the pride of our bishops and puritans in it is peculiar4 ,one may not expect them to take into account the suffering which hundreds of thousands endure under the law1 but the adultery to which it leads would seem to be a proper subject for their consideration4 ,as a rule1 they entreat us to maintain religion1 whether it be true or no1 in the name of morality3 here they ask us to maintain immorality in the name of religion1--in the name of a supposed ,christian precept1--and we obey even more readily4 ,when a ,royal ,commission recommends that our law be brought into line with the law of other civilised nations1 they burn with indignation and inspire a ,minority ,report3 a remarkable mixture of contradictions1 worthless quotations1 and irrelevant rhetoric4 ,the question of immorality they shirk2 and to the unhappiness which large numbers of our people endure under the present law they are so insensitive that they hardly mention it4 ,such consequences are to be expected as long as we borrow our social legislation from an ancient polygamous nation with a great disdain for women4 ,it is said1 however1 as usual1 that our social interest coincides with the supposed command of ,christ4 ,we have here one of the most singular confusions of the whole controversy4 ,marriage is held to be the foundation of the ,state1 because it is believed to be the surest way to supply it with citizens4 ,this duty of procreation is1 in fact1 the only feature which disposes priests to give their blessing to so distasteful a thing as sexual union4 ,yet when a majority of the ,commissioners recommend that people should be free to remarry if the desertion1 cruelty1 insanity1 or imprisonment of one spouse defrauds the ,state of its supply of little citizens1 the bishops raise their crosiers4 ,even so ascetic and anti-feminist a divine as ,st4 ,augustine could not deny that a man had a right to take a concubine when his wife proved sterile4 ,our divines speak much more fervently than ,st4 ,augustine did of our social interest1 yet they forbid us to consult it4 ,in sum1 we have generally rejected the view that marriage ought to be indissoluble1 and we pride ourselves on curbing the influence of priests2 but our whole attitude toward divorce is shaped by the old superstition and the clergy4 ,in the name of that superstition we condemn large numbers of our fellow-citizens to live in deep and acute misery4 ,which of our social interests would be prejudiced by granting relief to the man or woman whose life is embittered by the desertion1 incurable insanity1 cruelty1 or criminal conduct of his or her partner8 ,the suggestion is preposterous2 and1 if we do not grant this relief1 adultery is in their case a venial offence1 if not a right4 ,some explain that they fear the thin edge of the wedge4 ,as if wedges had a way of pressing deeper by their own weight1 once we have admitted them6 ,if ,england chooses to grant these reforms1 and no others1 she need not be deterred by empty phrases4 ,but ,i believe that the alert and resolute race which is coming will go much further than this4 ,before many generations1 if not in ours1 there will be divorce for incompatibility of temperament in every civilised country4 ,men and women will be divorced1 after due delay1 because they wish1 or when one of them can show grave cause to separate from the other4 ,ill-informed people express a concern about the children or the social consequences4 ,they do not take the trouble to inquire what happens in some of the ,american ,states1 or in ,denmark1 ,norway1 ,sweden1 and ,switzerland1 where there is long and ample experience of divorce by mutual consent4 ,the social consequences are just what any unprejudiced person would expect3 happier homes1 and more healthily engendered and reared children4 ,but the puritan does not want to inquire3 he is not sincere4 ,would he agree to divorce by mutual consent where there are no children or where either or both parents make adequate provision for them8 ,he would not4 ,i will1 however1 return later to the question of children4 ,europe will be far happier when some such humane law as the ,danish is generally adopted1 and1 after a few years' separation1 the discontented are free to remarry4 ,but no one who is acquainted with the tendency and influence of modern literature can fancy that this will be the last state of the old ideal of the family4 ,from the first years when men were free to declare their opinions without fear of the stake1 writers of great power have claimed the right of what has come to be called free love4 ,some would abolish marriage1 but the normal shape of the demand is that men and women shall be free to love and beget children whether or no they ask the blessing of ,church or ,state4 ,by the latter part of the eighteenth century1 when ,goethe took a concubine on the pagan model1 many of the first literary men in ,europe pressed this demand1 and it is sustained by some of the most brilliant writers in every country to-day4 ,the movement exhibits the slow and steady growth characteristic of reforms which eventually triumph4 ,it is no mere bubble on the surface of our effervescent life2 it is the new intelligence of the race examining the old traditions4 ,moralists1 lay and clerical1 have a preposterous way of representing this as a surging of selfish passion against the barriers which human experience or superhuman wisdom has erected4 ,there is1 it is true1 much in our rebellious literature itself which misrepresents the movement4 ,you get the impression that1 as the eighteenth century questioned the divine right of kings and the nineteenth century that of priests1 the twentieth century is challenging the divine right of moralists4 ,but this is due to the common practice of giving a narrow meaning to the word immorality4 ,goethe and ,swinburne became zealous for morality1 but they never altered their opinions on free love4 ,sudermann and ,anatole ,france and ,prez ,galds and d',annunzio1 ,g4 ,b4 ,shaw and ,t4 ,hardy and ,e4 ,carpenter and ,h4 ,g4 ,wells1 are sincere moralists3 they inculcate honour1 truthfulness1 kindliness1 and justice as firmly as our bishops1 and more effectively than most of our clergy4 ,it is not morality that stands at the bar4 ,the real question is whether any sound moral principle implies that marriage alone sanctions sex-union3 whether social good or social evil would result from an alteration of our standards4 ,this is a quite natural and legitimate question1 and any healthy-minded person ought to be able to discuss it without hysteria or vituperation4 ,christian moralists have made some very grave mistakes during the last thousand years4 ,humility and disdain of the flesh were for centuries extolled by them as the supreme virtues3 cruelty was classified as a venial offence4 ,already the bulk of our divines reject the virtue of asceticism1 and they forbear to press on the modern world the kind of humility which turns the other cheek1 or the other pocket1 to the hooligan4 ,they discover that social justice has been singularly neglected by their predecessors1 and they begin to suspect that war or sweating may be worse than unbelief or ,sabbath-breaking4 ,it is not at all unnatural to inquire whether there may not also be some element of error in their sex-ethic4 ,we do not go far in such an inquiry before our suspicion is confirmed4 ,the evolution of the virtue of chastity may some day be traced by a cold scientific investigator1 and in its earlier stages it will prove extremely interesting4 ,it is primarily connected with an ancient superstition or tabu in regard to sex-life3 the kind of primitive and unreasoning feeling which once drove women to the temples of ,ishtar in parts of the ,east1 and still survives1 baldly and ludicrously1 in the purification process to which a recent mother must submit in the ,roman and ,anglican ,churches4 ,this old idea that there was something unclean or mysterious about sex-life1 was more or less discarded when men passed out of the barbaric stage1 but it quite evidently survived in part in the virtue of purity4 ,a man or woman1 it was thought1 had a certain mystic superiority if he or she did not use the organs of sex4 ,hence the widespread veneration of ,vestal ,virgins1 ,pythagorean and ,serapean recluses1 priestesses of ,isis1 ,aztec and ,christian nuns4 ,i call attention particularly to the notion that these celibates were in some sense superior to their fellows1 because it shows clearly the connection with the older idea of a mystic uncleanness about sex4 ,there is1 of course1 no rational ground for this superstition1 though even philosophers have entertained it4 ,there is a large and elegant literature about it1 from the ,enneads of ,plotinus to ,bulwer ,lytton's ,zanoni or the works of ,miss ,corelli4 ,most of us see quite clearly the barbaric strain lingering in this admiration of virginity1 but we do not perceive how far our virtue of purity is a compromise with this ancient superstition4 ,i mean that1 together with sound elements which ,i will discuss presently1 the sentiment of purity or chastity retained a good deal of the old irrational view of sex4 ,luther boldly attacked the theoretical asceticism of the medieval ,church1 but in the end ,protestantism compromised with the old tradition4 ,this again is quite plainly seen when we reflect on the way in which ,church people1 and many of our modern mystics and feminists1 breathe the word lust4 ,it means merely pleasure in sexual intercourse1 but it has to be mentioned as rarely as possible1 and with downcast eyes and an air of very distinct disapproval4 ,the impression is conveyed that it is a thing invented by the devil1 but reluctantly permitted by the ,almighty because the race had to be maintained4 ,the blessing of the ,church made it a barely permissible luxury4 ,we have only to reflect that lust does not mean unwedded love1 but sexual pleasure or desire under any conditions1 to recognise the trail of the old tabu over the whole range of these sentiments4 ,in the nineteenth century the evolution of morals took a strange turn4 ,neither clergy nor laity had before that time1 speaking generally1 observed chastity in practice1 but the rise of non-,christian critics in the eighteenth century had compelled the clergy to be more faithful to their own precepts4 ,this 7and the growth of such movements as ,wesleyanism7 led to more concern about virtue1 and when the ,english ,agnostic school arose its leaders were taunted by the clergy with a wish to rationalise or alter morality4 ,by a natural reaction they cultivated a particular zeal for virtue1 and accepted the old code in its entirety4 ,those moralists who appealed to a categorical imperative or an intuition had no difficulty in doing this4 ,indeed1 any man who to-day accepts the ,stoic idea of morality1 or the sthetic idea 7that virtue is so beautiful that we must cultivate it71 has as much right as the ,christian to profess a regard for chastity4 ,there ensued a kind of rivalry of virtue between the clergy and the new pagans4 ,it has ended in the curious spectacle of our modern clergy1 whose historical knowledge is both slender and peculiar1 claiming that their ,churches are the most faithful preachers of purity the world has ever known1 while ,agnostic moralists indignantly dispute their supposed monopoly4 ,the extreme complexity of this evolution1 and the fact that few of us reflect critically at all on our moral sentiments1 must excuse me for making this lengthy analysis4 ,it shows that our conception of chastity still contains a large amount of the old non-rational tradition1 and that any man or woman who declines 7as so many do to-day7 to bow to mystic and obscure commands has a right to examine it closely4 ,in one of my works 7,life of ,g4 ,j4 ,holyoake1 ii4 #fe7 ,i have shown that so sensitive a moralist as ,j4 ,s4 ,mill admitted this4 ,obviously1 the precept of purity or chastity has a totally different basis from all the other recognised moral precepts4 ,these others are invariably social laws1 and the transgression of them is invariably a social hurt4 ,life itself furnishes the reply if a man asks why he ought to be just1 kind1 and truthful3 the answer is not so obvious when he asks why he ought to be chaste4 ,this will become very much clearer if we examine our resentment of immoral actions4 ,in the majority of cases we condemn them on moral principles quite apart from chastity4 ,europe has in this respect been lamentably misled by its professional moralists1 and we can hardly be surprised that in practice it so largely ignored them4 ,it is quite plain that a man or woman who has married on the usual terms--mutual fidelity--and they remain unaltered1 is bound by honour and justice to observe the contract4 ,adultery is in such a case 7the usual case7 condemned by moral principles which have a very much clearer basis than chastity4 ,again1 justice sternly forbids a man to inflict1 or run the risk of inflicting1 grave injury on a woman by causing her to have a child in a social order which will heavily punish her for doing so4 ,here also there is a firm reason1 apart from chastity1 for moral resentment4 ,when we eliminate these other moral sentiments from our condemnation of immoral acts1 there is certainly no social ground of resentment left2 and1 as ,i said1 ,i am not arguing against a ,stoic or sthetic or theological view4 ,socially1 it would be an enormous improvement if we kept this analysis in mind4 ,if moralists talked less about vice1 which has an academic sound1 and more about crime and honour1 there would be less suffering in the world4 ,the experience of two thousand years has not commended the ,church's practice of denouncing vice when it ought to have appealed to a man's sense of honour or justice4 ,it put the accent on the wrong syllable4 ,many a man will shrink from an act which is unjust1 or may involve cruelty1 if he is accustomed to regard it as such4 ,he is not so effectively intimidated by terms like virtue and vice1 which require a whole moral philosophy or theology to invalidate them4 ,but ,i am not for a moment contending that this removal of the accent from one syllable to another leaves the law as it was4 ,it is1 on the contrary1 the very essence of my contention that the law must1 in the real interest of men and women1 be altered and that a large amount of ethical tyranny1 which has no justification1 must be abandoned4 ,let me first put1 with entire candour1 what seems to me to be the only rational reconstruction of sex-morality on a social basis1 and then we may regard the reasons for advocating it4 ,it is1 as ,i said1 clear that if a man or woman marries on a strict monogamous contract1 and holds his or her partner to that contract1 there is a plain obligation of justice to adhere to it4 ,if1 on the other hand1 a man and woman choose to marry on any other understanding1 or choose to grant each other 7as is now frequently done7 a greater liberty than the contract implies1 their behaviour is entirely their own concern1 and no moralist who takes his stand on purely social grounds has anything to say to it4 ,in regard to unmarried intercourse1 it is further plain that a man commits an immoral or anti-social act who entails on an unmarried woman the grave injury which child-bearing does entail in our social order generally4 ,it must1 however1 be recognised that guilt is in this case entirely relative to circumstances4 ,where public opinion does not make a pariah of such a woman1 where no risk of suffering is involved1 such an act of free love is no concern of the social moralist4 ,hence1 if two people of mature intelligence1 making a just provision for possible children1 choose to live together without marriage1 it is entirely their own concern2 and if any woman1 strong and judicious enough to take the responsibility of her acts1 chooses love without marriage1 it is her own concern4 ,if there seems to be an unfamiliar coldness and deliberation about this defence of licence1 it is enough to recall the familiar circumstances4 ,one cannot1 as a rule1 inquire dispassionately into this subject without raising an hysterical storm4 ,the clergy and other puritans accuse a man of the basest and most selfish motives2 they seem1 indeed1 so incapable of understanding that a man may plead for this moral reconstruction on motives at least as unselfish and elevated as their own that their obtuseness does little credit to their own moral physiognomy4 ,they make fanatical appeals to undiscriminating prejudice1 repeat silly phrases about passion and farmyard morals1 and rely on intimidation4 ,the consequence is1 that ordinary folk openly bow to their rhetoric and secretly ignore it4 ,any properly observant person can find out in a week to what extent ,london observes the virtue of purity4 ,it is then left to rebellious poets and novelists and other artists to make fiery onslaughts on the tyranny3 to speak of virtue as the ash of a burnt-out fire1 to chant the roses and raptures of vice1 or to say scornfully with ,blake3 ,and priests in black gowns were walking their rounds1 ,and binding with briars my joys and desires4 ,therefore ,i have chosen to apply to the issue the cold deductive processes with which experience as a professor of moral philosophy has made me familiar4 ,as ,i said1 the ,christian is free to observe his supposed divine command1 the ,stoic may bow to a mystic and inscrutable law1 the moral sthete may enthuse over the charm of virtue2 but ,i maintain that the sociological or utilitarian view of morals1 which is now generally accepted by the vast number of people who have ceased to be ,christian1 cannot control sex-relations in any other sense than this4 ,a man must avoid injustice and hardship3 a woman must use her discretion4 ,indeed1 as the clergy and the puritans now take their stand commonly on social grounds1 these social considerations are effective against them4 ,but the question is not merely academic4 ,these cold and severe deductions are very properly opposed to the heated phraseology and sentimentality of ,conservatives1 who profess to be concerned about our social welfare1 but ,i am really pleading for the greater happiness of the race1 the lessening of hypocrisy1 the curtailment of a system of prostitution which makes the lives of so many women end in horror4 ,with all their talk about our social welfare1 the clergy and their puritan supporters are in this respect the gravest disturbers and restricters of our social welfare2 and the insolence with which they assail every attempt at reform is ludicrous in view of their own record and gravely prejudicial to the advance of human happiness4 ,it is not a question of abolishing marriage1 or of interfering with the liberty of any4 ,at one moment the clergy represent marriage as so beneficent1 so solidly established in the hearts of our people1 that only a morbid sensualist ever assails it2 and the next moment they suggest1 in effect1 that if we relax our coercion1 people will abandon marriage in such numbers that the social order will be overwhelmed4 ,let us have sincerity and liberty4 ,but neither is it a question of spreading a gospel of free love1 in the perverse sense in which the clergy conceive such a gospel4 ,the considerations ,i have given above should make this plain enough4 ,it is a question of securing freedom and love for the hundreds of thousands of mature women who cannot marry1 or who do not choose to enter upon the very precarious experiment of surrendering their privacy and independence3 a question of breaking the tyranny of an old superstition which1 by means of public opinion1 forbids so many women to have the child they desire to have1 or the share of happiness from which they are excluded3 a question of putting an end to a vast amount of needless suffering and privation and hypocrisy4 ,the ,state would gain rather than lose by this freedom3 it is the ,church only that would suffer4 ,thousands of women already hold these views1 as the open circulation of the ,freewoman 7a few years ago7 and of our bolder novelists shows4 ,the feeling gains ground yearly1 and the time is approaching when that seal of ignominy which our priest-made law puts on the illegitimate child will be removed1 and men and women will cease to speak of lust4 ,sex-pleasure has no more taint than any other1 and the notion that it is justified only as an accompaniment to the begetting of children1 or to lessen the risk of adultery1 is childishly irrational and generally insincere4 ,laws there must be3 but the laws must be made for men1 not men for the laws4 ,it is time that ,europe shook off the conceptions of conduct which were imposed on it by impotent monks like ,gregory ,,vii41 and framed its own rules in accordance with the new and healthier attitude toward life4 ,asceticism is a commercial speculation--the sacrifice of earth for a double share of heaven--which we have no longer reason to appreciate4 ,the progress of this view will be assisted by two contemporary reforms of received opinion4 ,one regards the economic dependence of woman on man1 which ,i will discuss later4 ,i need only recall here that some of the worst evils of our marriage-system--the scheming and bartering and linking for life--are due to this dependence4 ,the other reform is the widespread and increasing rejection of the old idea that a woman must bear as many children as nature will permit her to have4 ,there is amongst us a disgusting amount of hypocrisy in regard to this question4 ,the majority of educated people of all classes1 even many of the clergy1 now practise artificial limitation of the family1 yet we proceed on the fiction that this is a disreputable practice4 ,we turn into pornographic dpts the shops which sell contraceptives1 and we allow an antiquated law to be drastically enforced against men who would be decent purveyors of the things we use in secret4 ,we have talked1 and read journalistic articles1 about the dwindling population of ,france for twenty years1 though it is only within the last year or so that it has even slightly decreased2 and the birth-rate alone shows that ,london and ,berlin and every other great city are rapidly approaching the condition of ,paris4 ,we listen without protest to the lamentations of half-informed faddists on the limitation of the birth-rate in ancient ,rome 7where the practice was confined to a few1 and proved an excellent means of saving the ,state by ridding it of a worn-out nobility7 or the medieval republics of ,italy4 ,and while we perpetrate these and a hundred other follies1 we know that the majority of us who are educated and unprejudiced find the practice humane and commendable4 ,we would1 it seems1 rather leave frail girls to the mercy of quacks and dangerous operators than tell them openly what better-educated ladies do to avoid conception4 ,yet we have not here even the excuse of an antique religious command4 ,the ,catholic ,church1 it is true1 severely condemns the use of contraceptives1 but one finds that its prohibition is based merely on the reasoning of medieval celibates4 ,with those who argue that the practice is against nature one hardly needs to discuss4 ,half the distinctive things of civilisation are against nature1 nor is there any reason why we should not depart from the ways of that ancient and unintelligent dame4 ,hardly less foolish is the alarm about our dwindling birth-rate4 ,with every industry and profession already much overcrowded1 we do not act very intelligently in censuring the modern restriction of production4 ,but these are1 to a great extent1 either wholly insincere expressions or confused repetitions of ancient prejudices4 ,in ,france1 where a society arose for the checking of the practice1 it was found that the members had an average of one child and a half in each family4 ,a similar census among the writers and associations which attack ,malthusianism in ,england might yield an instructive result4 ,one can understand the hostility to ,malthusianism--or1 rather1 ,neo-,malthusianism1 since ,malthus's idea of restricting population by avoiding intercourse is unnecessarily heroic--in a country like ,australia1 which urgently requires population2 though even in ,australia the opposition is futile4 ,one can understand such hostility in a land which has universal conscription1 and neighbours with a superior army2 though ,i have elsewhere pointed out the sensible and natural way to settle this difficulty4 ,but it is quite irrational in such a city as ,london4 ,five-sixths of us1 it has been demonstrated1 do not attend church or take our code of life meekly from the clergy1 as our fathers did2 our labour-market is1 in every division1 enormously overcrowded2 and our army is not affected by the dwindling birth-rate4 ,why1 in these circumstances1 should the women of ,england be asked to undergo the pain and sickness and weariness of a yearly birth1 and wear out their lives in the rearing of a large family8 ,men have1 as a rule1 too little appreciation of the terrible burden they lay on their wives1 but their own interest at least ought to weigh with them4 ,why be constrained to find the resources for rearing and educating a large family when a smaller family will give better chances to the children and conduce to the happiness of the home8 ,to these questions the only answer is an irrational outpouring of antique rhetoric4 ,it is mere lust to have commerce without children3 it is selfish to wish to live in greater comfort by restricting the family3 it is unnatural4 ,the man who would lessen the suffering of his companion in life1 and obtain greater advantages and more loving care for his children by restricting their number1 may smile at the futility of this kind of rhetoric4 ,but it is surely time1 in the second decade of the twentieth century1 to meet it with a frank and curt declaration that we have1 and will use1 a right to any pleasure which this life affords1 provided it hurt no one4 ,the last trace of asceticism should be trodden underfoot4 ,the medieval clergy were a body of a few fanatics leading an army of hypocrites4 ,their ideas have no place in our life4 ,love and joy and comradeship are in themselves as much ours as the scent of the rose or the flavour of wine4 ,it is time that we echoed defiantly the sneering words of the apostle1 and said3 ,yes1 let us eat and drink1 for tomorrow we die4 ,we are not likely to forget that life has other pleasures1 of culture and art1 besides those of the palate or of love4 ,the supreme commandment is1 as old ,egypt said3 ,thou shalt make no man weep4 ,the supreme virtue is to quicken the hearts of men with joy and fill their minds with truth4 ,and the time will come when the clergy1 reading aright for the first time the life of the ages of faith1 will say3 ,we never insisted on our theoretical asceticism until those dour sceptics of the nineteenth century compelled us3 the ,middle ,ages were the ages of liberty4 ,the clergy are1 in fact1 in a dilemma4 ,the cry of the hour is social consequences4 ,there is a vast amount of doleful recalling of dead civilisations and prediction of coming woe2 though ,england was never before so prosperous1 solid1 and free from crime4 ,but dogmas have worn so thin that we must be pressed to maintain them1 even if they are false1 on social grounds4 ,the answer is quite simple4 ,if any social quality or rule of conduct is necessary for our welfare and happiness in this world1 we need no dogmatic foundation for it4 ,men will see that virtue is its own reward4 ,and if any rule of conduct in the ,christian code is not based upon the actual exigencies of life1 there will be no social consequences if we disregard it4 ,the superstitions ,i have assailed belong to this latter category4 ,but a campaign against the artificial restriction of the birth-rate has recently been inaugurated on what are thought to be serious social grounds1 and this leads me to a third and last reform which the family will undergo4 ,i refer to the ,eugenic movement4 ,let me first explain why this hostility of ,eugenists to the restriction of the birth-rate seems a needless and illogical complication of their aims4 ,this hostility is usually expressed in the form of a fear that the restriction of births among the better class and unrestricted increase of the lower class must lead to deterioration4 ,one would think that the proper remedy of this would be to recommend prudential restriction to the mass of the workers1 as the ,malthusian ,league endeavours to do4 ,it is a strange social idealism which would urge over-production all round1 with its train of domestic and industrial evils1 instead of urging restriction all round4 ,it would also be interesting to learn the average number of children to a family among these zealous ,eugenists1 and whether they do not find middle-class professions as overcrowded as the manual industries are4 ,at all events1 since it is now impossible to induce educated mothers to return to the virtuous and exacting industry of their ,victorian predecessors1 the best thing would be to educate the masses in a common-sense view of maternity and of their own interest4 ,it will suffice here1 however1 to deal with the saner side of the ,eugenic movement4 ,it proposes to eliminate bad human stock and promote the mating of good stocks4 ,these are those who find it a degradation to introduce the methods of the breeder into human affairs1 but the objection is merely silly4 ,the methods of the modern breeder are an expression of intelligence1 improving on nature2 these old-fashioned folk would have us disregard the persuasion of intelligence and retain the crude methods of unintelligent nature4 ,the serious question is3 ,is the ,eugenic proposal sound and practicable8 ,as far as positive ,eugenics1 or the selection of good human stocks for breeding1 is concerned1 the recent evolution of the movement seems to show that no firm and practicable proposal can yet be formulated4 ,the truth is that the movement is greatly enfeebled by a general reliance on disputed theories of heredity4 ,some ,eugenists rely on ,weismann's theory3 some on the ,mendelist theory4 ,they do not realise that scientific men are by no means agreed upon these theories1 and it is a serious mistake to build on either4 ,in ,england most of our biologists are ,weismannists 7in a broad sense71 but there is more hostility to the theory in ,germany and the ,united ,states1 and both theories have lately had to confront grave difficulties4 ,any ,eugenic proposal which is based on a theory of heredity must be regarded with reserve4 ,the dogmatic statements of ,professor ,karl ,pearson1 for instance1 in regard to the impossibility of altering by education the innate qualities of a child are entirely unwarranted4 ,heredity is still a mystery3 and the relative importance of heredity and environment 7or nature and nurture7 is not yet determined4 ,detaching the element of theory1 we have a plain proposal to eradicate tainted stocks from the human garden and promote the growth of the sounder4 ,as ,i have said1 the positive proposal to breed has not yet been put before us in a practicable or discussable form4 ,this is largely because ,eugenists fear to alarm the public by pointing out how it affects the position of marriage4 ,there are1 however1 many other difficulties4 ,the extraordinary diversity among children of the same parents warns us that we cannot count on the result of mating human beings1 with their infinitely more complex nervous systems1 as we can count on the issue of mating sheep or dogs4 ,the mediocrity of the living children of our ablest men of the last generation1 even when the mother was an excellent mate1 is another circumstance to be considered4 ,we do not yet know the points to breed for1 and there is no constancy of result4 ,eugenists sometimes refer to the physical or mental superiority of one class of children over another1 but in this they do not attempt to distinguish between the effect of environment and the natural endowment4 ,positive ,eugenics is not yet beyond the stage of research4 ,such research1 if conducted without academic prejudice 7which is too apparent in many ,eugenic papers71 is of very great service2 and1 if ever a firm proposal lies before us1 we may trust that rhetorical phrases and clerical prejudices will not be allowed to bar the way4 ,in the case of negative ,eugenics we are nearer agreement4 ,here again1 however1 research is not always candid4 ,inquiries have been made into the lineage of ,american criminals1 and the large percentage of criminals in one family is held to indicate a tainted stock3 it is not sufficiently noticed that they all lived in the same crime-breeding environment4 ,other ,eugenists try to intimidate us with the cry that lunacy and crime are increasing rapidly3 whereas 7as ,i showed in the ,hibbert ,journal1 ,april #aiab7 there is no proved increase of lunacy and no increase of crime1 in proportion to the growth of population4 ,these methods bring discredit on the ,eugenic proposals4 ,it is1 however1 now agreed that certain diseases1 including certain forms of mental disease1 are transmissible1 and common-sense suggests that we should prevent their transmission4 ,it is well to bear in mind1 however1 that these things affect only a fraction of the community4 ,as is the case with every new social proposal1 ,eugenics is being pressed as a panacea2 and it appeals to many as a fascinating method of healing our social maladies without touching the present distribution of wealth4 ,it is one subsidiary remedy among the hundred which modern civilisation needs to apply4 ,by all means let us discover what tainted stocks1 if any1 there are amongst us2 and let us have the elementary courage and intelligence to extinguish them1 by the isolation1 painless destruction1 or sterilisation of their representatives4 ,the future of the family seems not obscure4 ,malthusian and ,eugenic proposals will alter much of the crudeness and stupidity of the old family ideal1 and ease of divorce will remove the blight it has put on many a home4 ,hundreds of thousands bless marriage with gratitude and sincerity3 tens of thousands curse it with equal sincerity4 ,let there be liberty and life for all4 ,for a modern legislature to ignore a vast amount of vice and misery1 and be guided by the ancient formula of a celibate priesthood1 is one of the most lamentable features of our civilisation4 ,and the unbiased social student may look without concern on the growth of extra-matrimonial love4 ,there is no interest of the ,state which forbids it1 nor any sound principle of morals4 ,the woman of the future will be her own mistress1 responsible neither to priest nor moralist in this respect4 ,if she chooses1 she will marry2 but she will not sacrifice half the joy of life because she cannot1 or does not choose to1 venture upon the experiment of domestic intimacy4 ,,chapter ,,vii4 ,,the ,,future ,,of ,,woman ,,the old tradition of the family is intimately connected with the old ideal of womanhood1 and this in turn is summoned to the bar of modern criticism4 ,a substantial change in the position of woman seems so revolutionary a disturbance1 since it directly affects half the race and must very seriously affect the home and the ,state1 that our ,conservatives employ against the proposal the whole arsenal of controversial rhetoric4 ,we hear of the wisdom of the race--as if the race did not grow wiser as it grows older--and the thin end of the wedge4 ,we are reminded that the ancient civilisations always came to an end when their women rebelled against their natural position4 ,we have private appeals to our sensuous feelings and our instincts of proprietorship1 and open appeals to the ascetic doctrine of the ,pauline ,epistles4 ,we have history put before us1 as usual1 in chosen fragments1 and on the strength of these detached bits of learning we hear impressive sermons on the laws of history and of nature4 ,the appeal to history1 which men like ,dr4 ,emil ,reich have so gravely abused1 is in this case singularly unfortunate4 ,in most cases the candid student of history finds some ancient abuse or irrational tradition making its way from one civilisation to another1 and finds it natural that our more critical and independent generation should at length seek to dethrone it4 ,but in the case of woman the ,conservative has not even the wisdom of the race to appeal to4 ,her position in the past has varied greatly1 but it is very far from true that she had always occupied that state of subjection in which our ,victorian reformers found her4 ,i have elsewhere 7,woman in ,political ,evolution7 surveyed the full story of woman's development1 and will here be content with a summary view which makes the ,feminist movement of our time intelligible4 ,during the greater part of the history of civilisation1 in the ,egyptian and ,mesopotamian empires1 woman had a considerable measure of freedom and respect4 ,when the ,greeks and ,romans entered the stage1 they brought with them a different tradition in regard to woman1 but as soon as they reached the height of their cultural development1 their women 7and many of their men7 rebelled against this tradition4 ,the civilisation of ,greece was extinguished so speedily that the women of ,athens1 aided by so eminent a thinker as ,plato1 had not time to win their emancipation2 but the ,roman women did succeed in lifting themselves from their position of subjection4 ,in the meantime1 however1 the political and religious development of ,europe led to the reappearance of the barbaric tradition in a new form4 ,the ,christian leaders had in their sacred documents the social code of a rude ,semitic tribe1 the ,jews1 which was sternly emphasised by ,st4 ,paul1 and they brooded darkly over the position of woman4 ,tertullian fiercely reminded ,christians that1 but for woman1 the race would never have been damned4 ,ambrose ingeniously reflected that ,eve was made out of a mere rib1 not out of the brain1 of ,adam4 ,augustine regarded woman as an unpleasant institution created by ,providence for the relief of weak-willed males and for the maintenance of the race4 ,jerome frowned heavily on the ,roman woman's claim of emancipation4 ,this quaint mixture of ,jewish contempt and ascetic dread was imposed on ,europe by the triumphant priesthood1 educated mainly in the opinions of the ,fathers1 and woman sank again to a position of inferiority and subjection4 ,women writers of many countries have written this story of the degradation of their sex in ,christian ,europe1 and one can only admire the splendid audacity with which ,bishop ,welldon assures women that ,jesus ,christ 7who never uttered a protest against the ,jewish conception or a warning against the coming abuse of it7 was the first to respect them1 or the ,bishop of ,london describes ,christianity as woman's best friend1 or ,bishop ,diggle represents the ,christian as an advance on the ,roman attitude4 ,our clergy are distinguished for the facility with which they make historical statements without giving us any serious evidence of a command of history2 they have the advantage of being able to assure their followers that it is a sin to read more accurate and less orthodox experts4 ,the historical truth is that the nineteenth century found woman in a position far lower than that she had occupied at ,rome seventeen centuries before--far lower1 indeed1 than she had occupied during 7except for two brief periods7 the many thousands of years of the history of civilisation4 ,it was quite inevitable that a movement for her emancipation and uplifting should find a place among the great reforms initiated in the last century4 ,to conceive this movement as a semi-hysterical rebellion against the settled usage of the race is merely to betray a gross ignorance of history4 ,recent experience has taught us that there is a great deal in the settled usage of the race to rebel against2 but it is false that in this case we are doing so4 ,the undisputed historical truth is that woman had been comparatively free and respected during the greater part of the civilised period3 that1 when the early civilisations of ,greece and ,rome had placed her in subjection for a few centuries1 she1 at the beginning of the ,christian era1 rebelled and won her emancipation3 and that the later period of subjection was merely due to the incorporation in the ,christian religion of the primitive and crude ideal of a polygamous ,arab tribe4 ,against this intolerable superstition modern civilisation has rebelled1 and we are in the midst of a far deeper discussion of woman's nature and position than ever occurred before4 ,the discussion is passing through the three phases which are customary in these controversies4 ,at first the clergy and the ,conservative quoted the ,bible and the ,fathers4 ,then1 when women began to show that they were disposed to examine a little more closely the authority of documents which taught so obvious an injustice1 it was pleaded that in this case the religious view coincided with sound science and sociology4 ,in that phase we are to-day1 discussing claims that nature and our social interest are on the side of the old ideal4 ,in a few more decades1 when the battle is won1 the ,bishop of ,london of the time will be demonstrating that the reform was anticipated by the ,fathers sixteen hundred years ago and was contained1 in germ1 in the ,new ,testament4 ,at present the controversy about woman's position turns largely on the question of her nature1 and the literature of the subject is prodigious4 ,woman has different organs and functions than those of man1 and it is natural to suppose that they will give her a different character4 ,here is the opportunity of the male3 he has a solid scientific fact to build upon4 ,he sagely examines the intellectual life of woman and pronounces it inferior to that of man3 he measures her brain and finds it smaller than that of man1 and thus discovers the scientific basis of her inferiority2 and he never reflects that1 since he1 on the whole1 forbade her to develop her brain and intelligence during the fifteen centuries of ,christian domination1 it may be that her brain is not working with all the energy of which it is capable4 ,he lays down for this dependent creature a certain code of deportment and behaviour1 and1 when it has enfeebled her1 he discourses on her inferior muscular development3 if any girls or women defiantly exercise their muscles and become strong1 he calls them unwomanly and happily exceptional4 ,he observes that woman is more emotional than man2 and1 of course1 he does not ask physiologists whether this may be merely1 or mainly1 the effect 7as it is7 of the muscular and intellectual restrictions he has placed on her4 ,he bids her develop pretty curves on her body for his entertainment1 and never thinks about the physiological and psychological effect of the dead mass of fat and the flabby muscles4 ,he kindly undertakes 7for a consideration7 the care of this weaker companion1 and1 when she begins to prove that she can fend for herself1 he severely censures her for intruding on his labour-market4 ,he learns from novelists that she has a peculiar power of intuition 7in fiction71 and a greater fineness of perception than man 7which exact experiment in ,america has shown to be untrue71 and is altogether a deep and unfathomable being4 ,and he then1 in virtue of his superior understanding of her mysterious nature1 proceeds to dictate to her about her sphere and her capacities4 ,the absurdities and contradictions of male writers on women1 supported by some women writers1 during the last two hundred years1 would fill a volume4 ,they were more or less intelligible1 and certainly entertaining1 in the earlier part of the modern period1 but at a time when we have scientific and historical information to guide us they are neither intelligent nor amusing4 ,we now know that there is no such thing as an unchangeable nature of a living organism4 ,structure and function vary with use and environment1 whatever theory of heredity one follows4 ,forbid the brain and muscles to function for some centuries1 and they will become feebler3 restore their activity and they will return to strength4 ,shut a woman out of politics or business or war1 and she will lose her capacity for it3 reintroduce her to it1 and her faculties are sharpened4 ,when the kings of ,dahomi formed a regiment of women in their army1 the women were found to be more deadly fighters than the men1 and they drank as heavily4 ,as far as the political phase of the modern ,feminist struggle is concerned1 the application of these principles is clear enough4 ,when statesmen can find no better argument against the enfranchisement of women than the fact that 7like the politicians themselves7 they do no military service1 and when scientific men plead only their periodical perturbations and their change of life1 it is time to cease arguing4 ,even in countries which have a system of conscription it has never been proposed that those who are exempt from service should not have a vote4 ,in a country like ,england the objection is supremely foolish3 it reminds one of ,plato's ironical argument1 in this connection1 that men who are bald should not be allowed to make shoes4 ,as to the comparative disturbance of judgment which a certain proportion of women suffer at certain periods1 it is preposterous to suppose that this does not unfit them for more important work1 but does unfit them for casting a vote once in seven years4 ,is it suggested that the ,conservative matron will1 if an election fall in her period of nervous instability1 march in a frenzy to the poll and vote for ,keir ,hardie8 ,even the more or less intoxicated male voter does not overrule a settled conviction so easily4 ,but it is waste of time to discuss such matters4 ,a simple investigation of years of experience in ,america and ,australasia is more valuable than the pedantic declarations of one or two scientific men4 ,even ,conservative ,australians smiled when ,i asked them if the consequences of female enfranchisement1 as they are darkly foreboded by serious people in ,england1 had been observed in their ,commonwealth4 ,the anti-suffrage campaign has been the death-blow of the prejudice against the enfranchisement of women4 ,it has shown the complete futility of the ,conservative position4 ,women would probably have the vote in ,england to-day if a section of those who demand it had not taken a false path4 ,the end1 however sacred1 does not justify criminal means2 nor can any serious statesman yield to violence and intimidation4 ,yet there is nothing in this temporary aberration to strengthen the anti-,feminist position4 ,it was an error of judgment and a misreading of history4 ,i am well acquainted with many of the ladies who did these regrettable things1 and ,i know that the suggestion of hysteria is an insult4 ,it is1 however1 useless to discuss this question further4 ,women will be enfranchised in ,england within a few years1 and in all civilised nations within a quarter of a century4 ,then will begin the campaign for the right to sit in ,parliament1 even in the ,ministry4 ,from sheer force of prejudice the great majority of the enfranchised women will resist this further claim1 and the long story of education and agitation will be repeated4 ,this is the outcome of our habit of persistently compromising with false traditions instead of frankly discarding them4 ,the immortal jokes about women will be retailed in the ,house of ,commons by our legislators2 the same dark warnings will come from scientific ,cassandras who have felt social influence2 the same tragic whispers about what every woman knows will be heard in drawing-rooms4 ,then1 about the year #aicj1 we will discover that woman is really capable of undertaking the not very exacting duties of the average ,member of ,parliament1--if we have not in the meantime abolished these aimless long debates on subjects which all approach with a fixed conviction1--and that it may not be impossible to find a woman with the capacity of ,mr4 ,reginald ,m',kenna or ,lord ,gladstone or ,mr4 ,walter ,long4 ,our ,mrs4 ,humphry ,wards will be the first to compete for the office4 ,i turn to the more serious question of the economic enfranchisement of women4 ,on this side of the ,feminist movement our views are hardly less hazy than in regard to politics4 ,the middle-class1 being the brain as well as the backbone of ,england1 is chiefly responsible for the maxim that woman's place is the home2 but the middle-class is also the great employer of labour1 and it has found that female labour is cheaper than male1 and has therefore concluded that woman's proper place is the office or the workshop4 ,more than a fourth of the girls and women of ,england work outside the home4 ,this material incentive to right views is1 however1 limited in its action4 ,when the middle-class woman in turn seeks economic independence1 she is received with coldness1 if not derision4 ,women may be clerks1 teachers1 actresses1 telegraphists1 hosiery-makers1 etc41 but they ought not to aspire to be doctors1 lawyers1 or stockbrokers4 ,if they ask the reason1 they hear an inconsistent jumble of statements4 ,in the first place1 of course1 they are not clever enough2 in the second place1 however1 they are likely to be so far successful that they would lessen the available employment of men4 ,certainly in such a haphazard industrial world as ours the accession of a fresh army of workers will cause1 and is causing1 confusion4 ,on the laissez-faire principle this overcrowding of the market is good2 it gives a greater play to selection and promotes efficiency4 ,but we have1 as ,i said1 forced laissez-faire to compromise with decency4 ,we prefer a little overcrowding1 but not too much4 ,the opening of the doors of all the professions to woman means a worse overcrowding than ever in the medical and legal worlds1 and we naturally hesitate4 ,naturally1 but not justly or logically4 ,between logic and justice the modern man pleads that he is distracted1 and he asks time for reconstruction2 asks1 in other words1 that we should leave the trouble to another generation4 ,this shrinking from trouble is of no avail4 ,we have sanctioned the principle of female industry outside the home--millions of women are so employed in ,england to-day--and we have absolutely no ground to limit it except the natural disability of woman or the social need for her to undertake other functions4 ,of her natural disability little need be said here4 ,we have had1 in most countries1 decades of experience of the employment of women in many industries--teaching1 nursing1 journalism1 factory-work1 art1 theatre1 post-office1 type-writing1 shop-work1 and so on4 ,what proportion of complaint to the number of workers is there that their periodical functions make them unfit for employment8 ,we do not need learned experts on gynecology to tell us of the acute and exceptional cases which have come under their observation4 ,the scientific and practical procedure is to make a general inquiry into the net result of our employment of millions of girls and women4 ,most of us would await such a report with confidence4 ,as long as the wages of women are lower than those of men1 we hear very little complaint2 nor do we find the work of our schools or the play of our theatres very much interrupted by peculiarly feminine weaknesses4 ,of late years women have shown that they are equally qualified to be dentists1 doctors1 chartered accountants1 etc4 ,common-sense would persuade us1 if we would find the real limits of woman's capacity1 to open to her all the doors of the world of work and learn it by experience4 ,one must give more serious attention to the claim that this economic enfranchisement of women will tend to lessen maternity1 and will therefore endanger our social interests4 ,this question of the birth-rate is1 in fact1 very important from many points of view1 and it is extremely advisable to have a clear and reasoned grasp of it4 ,many people are at once alarmed if it is shown that a practice will tend to lessen the birth-rate4 ,they rarely examine with critical attention the reasons which would be alleged by those who maintain that a lowering of the birth-rate is a social menace4 ,but one needs no lengthy reflection to discover that at the root of all this clamour for maintaining or increasing the birth-rate we have only military requirements4 ,some1 indeed1 urge that a nation needs as many soldiers as possible for her industrial army as well as for her military forces2 but1 seeing that each nation already has more than she can employ1 we are not impressed by this phrase4 ,it is not volume of production1 or gross largeness of revenue1 which makes a nation great4 ,it is the proportion of her revenue to her population1 and in that respect some of the smallest ,states are the most happily situated4 ,the need of a large army alone justifies complaints about a falling birth-rate1 and it is monstrous that we should lay this strain on parents merely in order to produce fodder for cannon4 ,the actual need of each country1 as long as the military system lasts1 must1 of course1 be met1 but--apart from the hope that we will soon cast off the greater part of this military burden--two circumstances show that we have not here a sound and permanent social need4 ,the birth-rate is falling in all civilised countries1 and will eventually reach a common low level2 and the war has shown us that a nation with a reduced population may1 like any nation with a small population1 find compensation for its weakness in alliances4 ,the truth is that the premature advance of ,france in restricting its birth-rate has led to a general fallacy4 ,france exposed itself to a particular danger in face of ,germany1 and this special weakness of ,france was converted into the general statement that any nation which reduces its birth-rate is in danger4 ,not only is the general statement untrue1 but the particular case of ,france is very carelessly conceived4 ,after #ahga the ,german ,empire had such an advantage in population over ,france1 and 7until #ahie7 so much less need of maintaining a fleet1 that even a full birth-rate would not have equipped ,france confidently for a combat4 ,in any case1 we come back always to military needs1 and we may trust that these will not long impose their terrible strain on civilisation4 ,there is1 apart from them1 no reason why the birth-rate should not sink in every country to the level of the death-rate1 and in many countries even lower4 ,on the other hand1 the superficial folk who cry for heavy maternity and full cradles overlook a very important social fact4 ,i am thinking chiefly of the men and women who denounce in principle the practice of restricting births4 ,not only do they ignore the overcrowding of our trades and professions1--and they are usually amongst the most reluctant to organise them1--but they fail to notice that the increasing application of science and humane sentiment to our modes of living threatens the earth1 as a whole1 with enormous over-population1 unless the birth-rate be checked4 ,the population of ,england has increased nearly fourfold in the past hundred years1 whereas it had little more than doubled in the previous two hundred years4 ,the factors which are responsible for this vast modern increase are becoming more active every decade1 and are spreading over the world4 ,how will the population of ,europe and ,asia stand when they are fully applied in ,russia1 ,china1 and ,india8 ,within twenty years the ,united ,states1 according to its agricultural experts1 will have as large a population as it can support1 and we have already seen ,germany very largely thrust into war because of its superabundant population4 ,the future is full of peril and misery if we continue to allow this military demand for men to masquerade as a sound and permanent human need4 ,the birth-rate must be checked4 ,we must therefore refuse to allow the path of reform to be obstructed by either the priest or the drill-sergeant4 ,if ever a time comes when some real interest of the race is endangered by too low a birth-rate1 we may trust the race to see to it4 ,conservatives often imagine that those who would reform life on common-sense lines are devoid of sentiment4 ,they confuse sentiment and sentimentality1 which is sentiment out of accord with reason4 ,the man of the future will be1 in my judgment1 not less1 but more emotional than the man of to-day2 but he will not allow ancient prejudices and mere phrases to have the unchecked support of his feelings4 ,it will not be enough to tell him that divorce is increasing1 or the birth-rate falling1 or respect for the clergy deteriorating4 ,he will ask the precise value in social terms of your bogy4 ,at present we have1 on broad social grounds1 much to gain and nothing to lose by a fall of the birth-rate4 ,indeed1 the prospect of a fall is1 as far as this economic development alone is concerned1 much exaggerated4 ,millions of employed women have1 and will continue to have1 children4 ,under our present system of industry this has undoubtedly certain risks and burdens2 under the organised system of employment for which ,i plead it will be possible to adjust employment to maternal functions4 ,and this brings me to the cardinal issue of the whole controversy3 the economic position of the married woman or the mother4 ,let us face this graver position quite candidly4 ,the industrial disorganisation will right itself in the course of time4 ,the middle-class father of our time whose daughter does a certain amount of work1 not in order to relieve his pocket1 but in order to buy additional luxuries for herself1 has assuredly a grievance4 ,she takes part of a man's work and pay1 yet leaves on him the old burden of maintenance4 ,she makes matters worse by accepting a low wage1 because she is not self-maintaining4 ,i am assuming that women will become independent economic units1 and that the rate of payment will be--equal wage for equal service4 ,but the position of the married woman1 or of the independent woman who undertakes maternal functions1 forms a special and difficult problem1 which is pressing upon us more heavily every decade4 ,there is spreading rapidly through the civilised world a feeling of rebellion against the economic dependence of wife or husband4 ,no ,conservative argumentation1 no censure of new ideas1 no religious preaching of self-sacrifice for a doubtful reward in heaven1 will relieve us of this difficulty4 ,educated women--statistics of college-taught women are available--are increasingly rebelling against the subjection or inferiority which this economic dependence seems to entail4 ,it is the chief motive of the general demand for economic independence 7or an independent place in the industrial world7 and has much to do with the revolt against marriage itself4 ,whether or no we adopt new ideals of social life1 this revolt will spread4 ,one very quickly sees that it is not so much marriage as the traditional practice of husbands which is chiefly responsible for the revolt4 ,the practice varies considerably1 but1 apart from a small class in which the wife brings with her or earns an independent income1 it is still generally true to say that the wife receives what the husband chooses to give4 ,now it is plain that this difficulty may be met in a very large proportion of cases by an equitable voluntary agreement4 ,various domestic experiments of the kind are being tried1 and a comparison of experiences would be useful4 ,many people are agreed in the just view that1 since the wife works at home while the husband works abroad1 all income is joint income4 ,a common fund1 accessible to both1 is assigned for household and saving1 and an equal and fixed personal share is taken by each from the income or wage4 ,such an arrangement is quite easily practised by middle-class people1 and it seems to me to remove every legitimate suspicion of ignominy from the wife's position4 ,when unmarried women have secured economic independence they will be able to demand some such arrangement before marrying4 ,the kind of modesty which would prevent a woman from having an understanding before marriage in regard to income and children is a very costly and foolish luxury4 ,let them insist that the ritual words1 ,with all my worldly goods ,i thee endow1 must mean something more than that they shall have chocolates and pretty dresses if they humour the moods of a husband4 ,our law1 which secures for a wife full maintenance when she has ceased to do any work for it 7after a separation71 but has no interest in her when she is working dutifully for twelve or fourteen hours a day1 is infinitely more dangerous to marriage than are the puritan assaults of ,mr4 ,g4 ,b4 ,shaw4 ,in any case1 a voluntary agreement that a wife has access to the bank and cash-box1 and a right to take for personal use the same sum as her husband1 removes all need of asking money from a husband 7which is justly odious to many women71 and makes a wife economically independent in any important sense of the word4 ,but it would be futile to hope either that the majority of men will thus surrender their privileged position1 or that all women will recognise even such an arrangement as economic independence4 ,a grave conflict undoubtedly lies before us1 and there will be an increasing demand for the ,state-endowment of wifehood1 or at least of motherhood4 ,the suffrage movement has naturally inflamed the difficulty by educating women in a sense of grievance4 ,indeed1 it seems to many of us that ,feminist writers have at times gone far beyond legitimate grievances and set up fictitious and mischievous standards4 ,this is a very common development of propagandist movements which meet with a prolonged resistance4 ,the first generation of agitators says the obvious and just things in regard to the reform3 the next generation must revive the jaded sentiment with stimulating novelties and exaggerations4 ,it seems to me one of these morbid exaggerations to speak of marriage as legalised prostitution2 to imagine that one is selling one's body to a man1 or receiving payment for ministering to his lust4 ,one ,feminist writer of some influence1 and some pretension to knowledge of science1 has actually compared the human male very unfavourably with all other male animals in the world1 on the ground that the latter are content with a restricted period of rut6 ,this mixture of ancient ,puritanism and advanced sociology is as incongruous as it is mischievous4 ,a woman who sincerely regards sex-pleasure in the way generally implied by the use of the word lust--a woman who has not the same healthy desire of it as her partner--has no right to marry3 except1 of course1 to marry a man with similarly antique views4 ,a wife of such a kind may very well consider that she is being paid to surrender her body4 ,the normal wife is not paid for that at all4 ,she is paid--if there is any paying--to care for the home and her children3 which is as well earned a payment as the fee of a lawyer4 ,and from the sentimental point of view it does not make a particle of difference whether she is paid out of her husband's income or out of the coffers of the ,state4 ,she would still sell her body1 if there is any selling of body4 ,but there is not4 ,maternity and sex-pleasure are entirely different matters4 ,i am deliberately trying to undermine the plea for the endowment of motherhood1 because the proposal seems to me to present very grave difficulties which even so penetrating a sociologist as ,mr4 ,h4 ,g4 ,wells has1 apparently1 not appreciated4 ,mr4 ,wells is1 of course1 in a very different position from the ,feminist writers who advocate the complete endowment or maintenance of wives or mothers by the ,state4 ,such a scheme would cost about #cjj1jjj1jjj a year1 and need not be discussed4 ,mr4 ,wells suggests rather a modest contribution per child born 7leaving out1 ,i assume1 wealthier mothers72 a practicable scheme1 with much in its favour4 ,yet it seems to me that such endowment would mean that we would encourage the weakest in will1 the most sensual1 the least intelligent and least provident of our people1 to breed4 ,intelligent women would not abandon the practice of restricting births because the ,state offered them a few shillings per child4 ,the better class--whether of manual or professional workers--would have to pay for the undesirable fertility of the worst class4 ,we are just beginning to realise that quality of children is more precious than quantity1 and the endowment of motherhood would not encourage this saner view4 ,the kind of brute who is at present restrained by the paternity-law would be restrained no longer3 the rougher type of husband--a very numerous type--would pay so much less to his wife when he found the ,state contributing 7either in cash or kind7 to her3 the man who at present practises restriction1 not out of consideration for his wife and family1 but to have more shillings for himself1 would cease to practise it1 and lay a greater burden on his wife4 ,but1 while there seem to be such grave objections to the endowment of motherhood that we do better to strengthen women in their individual demand of justice1 we must remember that the wife will have the advantage of other changes in the home4 ,domestic service is becoming more and more repugnant to girls1 and some form of co-operative and efficient housekeeping1 with common servants and restaurant1 will be adopted4 ,some day a photograph of a twentieth-century suburb will provoke a smile4 ,perhaps the museum of the future will set up models of our establishments1 just as we set up in our ethnographical galleries models of a ,kaffir or a ,papuan household4 ,boys and girls will gaze with admiring delight at the navet of the model3 a thousand brick boxes1 separated by a thousand little gardens1 with three thousand little chimneys smoking1 a thousand amateur cooks perspiring over a thousand fires1 and a thousand inefficient servant-girls flirting with the servants of rival butchers and dairymen4 ,the common nursery will especially relieve the mother and lower the death-rate4 ,the ,state will one day have an interest in seeing that each babe ushered into the world1 at such pain and sacrifice1 becomes a useful citizen4 ,if any mothers care to entrust the child more fully to it1 the ,state will find it profitable to respond4 ,these things can be arranged without more detriment to parental affection than there is in the case of women--often women who write beautiful things in defence of the old tradition--who have nurses for the child and send it later to a distant school for the greater part of the year4 ,reforms of this kind will enormously relieve the home life and enable even mothers to earn1 if they wish1 quite as much as the ,state would ever be able to award them4 ,the work will be better done1 by trained workers1 at less cost4 ,people do not reflect that this change has been proceeding for centuries4 ,once the wife brewed the ale1 and baked the bread1 and spun the linen3 later she entrusted these things to experts working for the community1 and reserved for herself the making of preserves1 pickles1 underclothing1 and antimacassars3 now these things have gone to the expert1 and the wife confines her amateur efforts to scolding children and cooking refractory joints4 ,she will be relieved when it is all over1 and we shall have no more of the beautiful doll or the domestic drudge4 ,the independent position and greater leisure and broader interest in life will make her intellectual activity more similar to that of man's4 ,i speak1 of course1 of the mass of women1 and do not forget that already the intellect of alert and thoughtful women is equal to that of men of the corresponding class4 ,the majority will be1 as it were1 differently orientated toward life by these changes4 ,a saner muscular activity will restore the balance of the system1 and will rid them of the excessive nerve-energy1 particularly of the sympathetic system1 which finds expression in facile and explosive emotion4 ,there will assuredly always be a bias toward sentiment in woman1 and we have no reason to fear a deterioration of the distinctively feminine sentiments of tenderness1 refinement1 and sympathy4 ,the relief from the more irritating domesticities ought to accentuate them4 ,on the other hand1 the idea of obeying the male or practising self-sacrifice for his undue benefit1 will certainly disappear2 and it is quite time that it did4 ,self-sacrifice1 in case of need1 comes instinctively to either sex1 but the kind of self-sacrifice which a selfish masculine tradition has pressed on women is degrading to the man and unjust to wife and daughter4 ,all that is attractive and really beneficent in woman will be fostered1 but on the emotional side it will become less and less characteristic of one sex4 ,the sharp contrast of the sexes tends to disappear4 ,there is something grotesque about the traditional idea that the human male must be distinguished by a greater capacity for taking alcohol and using meaningless expletives and telling sexual stories4 ,even in physical strength and athletic skill the sexes are approaching2 nor does one find any loss of charm or grace in some of the finest women athletes4 ,these changes are proceeding1 and1 apart from inevitable errors and excesses1 on which caricaturists fasten with their genial unscrupulousness1 the result is promising4 ,contemporary expressions of alarm are often ludicrous4 ,thousands of ladies who are horrified at the emergence of a new sex are themselves contriving1 by means which would have caused their prolific grandmothers to raise white hands to heaven1 to limit their families to two children4 ,we take our reform in small doses1 as if complete social health were a thing to be considered very seriously4 ,yet if one patiently traces in imagination the effect of all these changes on the womanhood of the race1 one foresees a generation of women which recalls ,shelley's lines3 ,and women1 too1 frank1 beautiful1 and kind ,as the free heaven which rains fresh light and dew ,on the wide earth1 past2 gentle radiant forms1 ,from custom's evil taint exempt and pure2 ,speaking the wisdom once they could not think1 ,looking emotions once they feared to feel1 ,and changed to all which once they dared not be1 ,yet1 being now1 made earth like heaven2 nor pride1 ,nor jealousy1 nor envy1 nor ill-shame1 ,the bitterest of those drops of treasured gall1 ,spoilt the sweet taste of the nepenthe1 love4 ,grant the poet his licence2 women are not more likely than men to become angels4 ,the moral superiority which some ,feminist writers claim for their sex is founded on a curiously narrow view of life2 if man1 instead of woman1 had to pay the penalty of sexual intercourse1 we should probably find the aggression on the other side4 ,yet the most sober-minded of us must expect from this healthier balance of powers1 this easing of the domestic burden1 this limitation of care to a few children1 and this independence of marital generosity or marital selfishness1 a great advancement in the character and happiness of woman4 ,shelley1 however1 was thinking less of wives than of free women1 and economic independence will swell their numbers4 ,the changes ,i have described will make marriage far less onerous1 but they will also make it easier for a woman to dispense with marriage1 and before the end of the twentieth century there will be in every city a growth of temporary unions and independent conduct4 ,woman will be mistress1 morally and economically1 of her own destiny2 she will consult neither husband nor priest4 ,the plain moral law1 which forbids a man to inflict pain or injustice1 will be more faithfully observed than it ever was before4 ,there will be an immense reduction of the hypocrisy1 the prostitution1 the misery and illness1 which this fictitious law of chastity has always caused2 and the alteration of public opinion will remove from a woman the unpleasant consequences which unwedded love entails at the present time4 ,it is preposterous to say that the ,state will be injured by these changes1 and it seems clear that woman will be happier1 more healthily developed1 and not less tender and graceful than she can be under the present reign of shams4 ,,chapter ,,viii4 ,,shams ,,of ,,the ,,school ,,the constructive scheme which ,i have in mind throughout this criticism of our prejudices and institutions may1 as ,i said1 be summed essentially in two words3 industrial organisation and education4 ,when we have reformed our administrative machinery1 which we miscall government1 and abandoned our military and naval atrocities1 and simplified international life1 our chosen public servants will find that these two are their chief concerns4 ,probably the supreme concern will--once we have constructed an orderly industrial machinery--be education1 in the sense which ,i would attach to the word4 ,every year a million new citizens will join the community1 and it will be the ,state's first business to see that they are thoroughly prepared in every respect to contribute to its weal and happiness1 and that they maintain throughout life sufficient intellectual alertness to control their common concerns with wisdom and in a progressive spirit4 ,it is as a necessary preliminary to this that ,i have dealt critically and reconstructively with the home and the parent4 ,that glorification of indolence which we call the principle of laissez-faire is so successful in this department of our public life that what ought to be the ,state's chief concern is hardly ever mentioned in our orgies of parliamentary debate4 ,we peck at it occasionally4 ,we enact that babies must have orange-boxes1 and that children must not smoke cigarettes or approach within a certain number of yards of a bar 7so that we get bar-scenes outside the door72 and occasionally the representatives of rival sects get up a grand debate on the ,bible in the school4 ,these things emphasise the general neglect4 ,laissez-faire meant originally1 ,leave things as they are--it sounded better in ,french1 but1 like many ancient sentiments1 it was converted into a respectable philosophy3 ,the ,state must leave as much as possible to the individual and the amateur4 ,nineteenth-century ,radicals fought heroically for this ,conservative principle4 ,education1 however1 was so flagrantly neglected by the parent and the ,church that we had to compromise and take the child's mind out of their care3 leaving its body and character to the old hazards4 ,at last it dawns on us that a sound body and character are just as important to the ,state as the capacity to read comic journals and stories3 that the entire being of the child needs expert training1 and it is worth the ,state's while to give it4 ,this broad ideal of education is increasingly accepted by pdagogists and social writers1 and it is already largely embodied in educational practice4 ,it has provoked the usual reaction1 the usual determination that we will not allow our ways to be reformed without a struggle4 ,advanced teachers fight with ,conservative teachers and politicians 7particularly of the vestry type71 and the familiar old hymn-tunes are heard throughout the land4 ,we must not weaken parental responsibility3 we must not lessen the charm of the domestic circle3 we must not encroach on the sphere of the ,church3 we must beware of ,socialism3 we must resist the thin end of the wedge wherever we see one4 ,why did the ,state1 in the first half of the nineteenth century1 undertake the task of educating the young8 ,i do not mean that ,state-education was a new thing in history when a few ,european ,governments adopted it little over a century ago4 ,the ,roman ,empire had had a very fair system of municipal and ,state-education1 and it is one of the gravest charges against the clergy that they suffered it to decay1 and allowed or compelled ninety per cent4 of their followers to remain in a state of gross ignorance for fourteen hundred years4 ,at the end of the eighteenth century1 as the revolt against ecclesiastical authority spread1 the idea of ,state-education was revived4 ,in ,england the clergy warmly resisted the progress of the idea1 but the appalling ignorance of the people proved intolerable to the increasing band of reformers4 ,quakers like ,lancaster and ,agnostics like ,robert ,owen demanded and provided schools for the children of the workers1 and the ,church of ,england was forced to meet this danger of unsectarian education by founding a rival and orthodox association4 ,but for fifty years the schooling remained so primitive1 and the proportion of illiterates remained so enormous1 that at last the bishops were brushed aside and the ,government was compelled to resume the work of the old ,roman municipalities and ,senate4 ,the motives of the reformers and statesmen who secured this advance were complex4 ,some of them were frankly anti-clerical and eager to undermine superstition3 some of them were business-men who pleaded that a lettered worker was worth more to the ,state than an illiterate worker4 ,the predominant feeling was1 as it had been among the ,stoic reformers at ,rome1 humanitarian4 ,the gross ignorance of the mass of the people was a disgrace to civilisation and a source of brutality and crime3 it was a human duty to educate4 ,it was very widely recognised that this sentiment imposed on us a duty of developing the child's character as well as its mind1 but here the ,churches were inflexible4 ,unblushingly asserting that they were the historic educators of ,europe1 they refused to relinquish their last hold on the school1 and the ,state was compelled to accept the compromise of religious instruction in the public schools1 as well as the endowment of sectarian schools4 ,as to the third part of the ideal of education1 the cultivation of the body1 we may admit that science itself was not yet sufficiently advanced to demand it4 ,with the growth of democratic aspirations1 the ,conservative began to see a danger in this plea that the community must see to the full development of all its children1 and new phrases were invented4 ,industrial efficiency was the most plausible of these checks on education4 ,the manual workers were to have their intellects awakened to the slight extent which was needed to make them better instruments of production1 but no further3 lest they should become dissatisfied with their position of inferiority and disturb our excellent industrial order4 ,educators1 however1 refused to be restrained by this kind of sociology4 ,it was their business to develop the child's intelligence1 and they had a fine ambition to do it thoroughly4 ,they built infant-schools1 which took the tender young away from their mothers1 to the great advantage of both4 ,they found that large numbers of children were too poorly fed or too defective in body to receive real education1 and they instituted drill and demanded cheap or free meals and medical inspection4 ,they abolished the half-timer1 and raised the age of compulsory attendance4 ,they began to resent the idea that lessons from the ,bible were a training of character4 ,these developments have alarmed many4 ,they begin to see that in the long-run these things will impose on the ,state the duty of developing the child's whole being--body1 mind1 and character--before the boy or girl is allowed to enter the industrial world4 ,we hesitate1 as we do in face of all large and fully developed ideals1 and look round for ways of escape4 ,the chief of these evasions is still the doctrine of what we call parental responsibility4 ,some day the idea that a parent is the best-fitted person to train a child will be regarded as a medieval superstition4 ,the parent is as amateurish in training children as in cooking or making frocks4 ,the notion that nature tells a mother what to do is part of the crude psychology of the ,schoolmen4 ,from the moment of birth1 and during the months before birth1 the human mother has no inspiration whatever4 ,she goes by tradition1 by the crude advice of elders and neighbours1 as every observer of the arrival of the first baby knows4 ,a cat acts by what we call instinct1--by certain neuro-muscular reactions which natural selection has perfected1--but a human being has intelligence instead of instinct1 and the first thing intelligence enjoins is that experts ought to be trained for particular duties4 ,the death-rate in every civilised country has gone down enormously since we ceased to rely on motherly instinct1 or grandmotherly fables4 ,a time may come1 therefore1 when the ,state will receive a bearing woman in a properly appointed home1 and will care for the child from the moment of birth until1 in its later teens1 it is equipped for work4 ,i will suggest in the next chapter that this ought by no means to be regarded as the completion of education2 here ,i am concerned only with the earlier part4 ,many are convinced that this is the last and logical term of the development on which we have entered4 ,i am avoiding remote ideals as much as possible1 but it is important to meet the prejudice which opposes reform along this line4 ,many people tell us that1 if this unnatural dethronement of the mother and invasion of the home are to be the final terms of our present development1 they will resist it at every step3 on the familiar thin-end-of-the-wedge principle4 ,our beautiful home life must be preserved at all costs4 ,our parental instincts shall not be enfeebled4 ,candidly1 in what proportion of the real homes of ,england1 as distinct from the home of a fiction-writer1 is the life beautiful8 ,in what proportion does it not rather present the spectacle of an overburdened mother struggling heroically to live up to her reputation for gentleness under the strain of ill or wayward children and an irritating husband8 ,in what proportion are the beautiful homes of the novel written by spinsters or bachelors1 or people who restrict the number of their children1 or men whose posthumous biographies do not reveal a very sweet home life8 ,i believe it was ,carlyle who originated that fond boast that no nation in the world has a word for home like the ,english4 ,it was certainly ,dickens who gave us the most touching pictures of domestic tenderness and happiness4 ,how many mothers of the working and lower middle class do not dread the holidays1 when the children threaten to be near them all day8 ,how many are capable of training children8 ,how many do not regard a blow as the supreme moral agency8 ,how many would not welcome the easing of their burden1 and the training of their children by experts8 ,and why in the world should mothers be likely to have less affection for their children because they have infinitely less trouble with them1 and see them only in their smiling hours8 ,the happiest phase of ,english home life is1 surely1 found in those middle-class families which can send the children away to school for four-fifths of the year and welcome them home periodically in the holiday mood4 ,in the vast majority of cases the teacher has to struggle despairingly against the influence of the home and the street2 for it is to the street that the mother entrusts the child4 ,a lady 7an educational expert7 once observed to me that it was remarkable to find the children in ,gaelic districts of ,scotland speaking the purest ,english4 ,on the contrary1 it was wholly natural1 and it points an important pdagogical moral4 ,the children learned ,english from their teachers only2 there was no corrupt ,english dialect in the home or village to undo the teacher's lessons4 ,in other matters besides language the school-lessons are constantly frustrated outside the school4 ,i pass frequently through the stream of children pouring out of a large and handsome suburban school4 ,it is not in a slum4 ,there are broad green fields on every side1 and there are vast and beautiful public spaces not far away4 ,but the homes from which many of the children come are squalid1 and the street-scenes1 especially in front of the local inn1 are often disgusting4 ,on more than one occasion ,i have heard the men openly talk of their practice of unnatural vice4 ,i have seen a girl of ten watch her intoxicated father misconduct himself with a prostitute1 while the mother--whose attention was called to the fact by the child1 in the mono-syllabic language of the district--chatted with a neighbour4 ,and ,i am not surprised to notice that1 when the children burst from school1 which they hate1 numbers of them break into foul language1 indecent behaviour1 and fighting4 ,their world1 outside the school1 is one mighty drag on the teacher's efforts4 ,when they leave school1 with brains half-developed and only the maxims of ancient ,juda 7at which half their world scoffs7 to guide their conduct1 when they enter workshops and laundries and join the company of ring-eyed boys and girls in the first flush of sex-development1 they shed the feeble influence of the school-lessons in a few months4 ,the district ,i have in mind is a very common type of district3 a healthy1 open suburb on the fringe of ,london1 tainted by one of those older villages in which the poorest workers are apt to congregate4 ,it has an expensive ,church-,institute and numerous chapels4 ,you may see the thing in almost any part of ,london1 and most other towns4 ,i have a vivid recollection of passing from a ,catholic elementary school and strict home in ,manchester to a large warehouse thirty-five years ago4 ,there is little change in that respect to-day4 ,a very few years ago a ,manchester boy passed the same way2 and a month or two later1 his father told me1 he returned home chuckling over a funny story about ,christ4 ,the school fails1 not from lack of devotion in the teachers1 but because the child learns more in the street1 and often in the home2 and these lessons are1 somehow1 more congenial4 ,now if we are not satisfied with this comparative waste of effort and sterility of result1 we have to consider candidly the ambition of the educationist4 ,he wants to turn out a young citizen with an active mind1 a sound body1 and a character prepared to resist the more degrading influences of the world he will enter4 ,he cannot carry out this aim in the case of every child entrusted to him1 but he can in most cases1 if the ,state will help him4 ,he must have his children properly nourished3 neither underfed nor stuffed with coarse food by ignorant mothers4 ,he must have them seasonably clothed and shod3 again the mothers need instruction and pressure4 ,he must have1 not only drill and more natural forms of exercise1 but more control over the children outside of school-hours2 he is already beginning1 with great promise of good1 to walk and play with them1 to take them to museums1 and so on4 ,he must have adequate medical assistance1 and must have the support of the law in counteracting dirty homes and careless parents4 ,he must keep the child still a few years longer at school1 because a child only begins to be really educable at thirteen or fourteen4 ,he must have the encouragement of knowing that the more promising boys and girls will find the avenue open to higher schools1 and that the community will make some serious provision of mental stimulation for the adolescent and the adult4 ,and in order to carry out properly this large and promising scheme of training he must have twice as many colleagues as he has1 so that each may be able to give individual attention to pupils1 and in order that too great demands be not made on their hours of rest4 ,but where are we to find the very large sums of money which would be required for carrying out such a scheme8 ,i wish everybody in ,england realised that we should have the funds to carry out this scheme in its entirety1 in its most advanced developments1 if we abolished militarism2 that if we had done this before #aiad1 we should have had1 in the cost of the war1 the funds to carry out such a scheme two or three times over4 ,we have to reflect also whether the increased prosperity of ,england would not pay the cost4 ,there are other considerations which ,i give later1 but ,i would add here at least a word about experience in other lands4 ,at ,new ,york and ,chicago ,i visited schools--elementary and secondary1 but both free--with which we have nothing to compare in this country3 palatial structures with superb equipment and devoted staffs4 ,yet when ,i asked ratepayers how they contrived to spend so lavishly on education1 the three or four public men ,i asked were so little conscious of a burden that they were unable to explain satisfactorily where the funds came from6 ,we are1 however1 making progress here and there1--,bradford1 for instance1 has had the courage to be quite ,socialistic in its care of the young1--and the triple ideal of education is generally1 if at times reluctantly1 recognised4 ,as far as the education of the body is concerned1 in fact1 we have no ground for quarrelling with our teachers1 whatever we may say of some of our educational authorities4 ,medical inspection1 drill1 hygiene1 play1 excursions1 feeding1 etc41 are discussed very conscientiously at every meeting of teachers1 and the reforms proposed are more or less admitted in all places1 even under the ,london ,county ,council4 ,the teachers themselves often go far beyond their prescribed tasks in endeavouring to help the children4 ,in places they yield part of their necessary midday rest to attend to the feeding of poor children3 which ,i found admirably1 and most cheerfully and expeditiously1 done in ,chicago 7where #aejj children at one school were quietly and excellently fed in thirty minutes7 by a committee of ladies of the district4 ,they give ,saturdays and holidays for conducting visits to museums or excursions1 or for controlling sports4 ,what is chiefly needed is that the authorities should deal stringently with backward sectarian schools1 and provide a very much larger supply of teachers and servants4 ,the municipal authority of the richest city in the world--the ,london ,county ,council--is scandalously stingy and reactionary in this respect4 ,when we turn to the question of educating the intelligence1 it is not possible to approve so cordially4 ,no one1 assuredly1 can fail to appreciate the zeal and efforts of educationists and teachers1 especially in the last few decades4 ,hardly any body of professional men and women among us1 certainly no body of public servants1 has a deeper and sounder ambition to conduct its work on the most effective lines4 ,a vast literature is published1 frequent congresses are held1 and the science of psychology is assiduously cultivated4 ,one must appreciate also the fatal limitations of the teacher's activity2 as long as we withdraw children from him at the age of fourteen1 education is impossible4 ,it may seem1 therefore1 ungracious or unwise to criticise1--though ,i am not wholly a layman in regard to education1--but there is at least one feature of our school life to which ,i would draw serious critical attention4 ,the general public is apt to express this feature resentfully by saying that the modern teacher crams4 ,better informed critics have put it that modern education is little more than a process of encephalisation1 or the imprinting of certain facts on the child's brain almost as mechanically as the indenting of marks on the cylinder of a gramophone4 ,each of these criticisms implies an injustice4 ,educationists and teachers have1 of course1 discussed this very point for decades1 and the present system is the formulation of their deliberate judgment4 ,they still differ amongst themselves as to the proportion of memory-work and stimulation-work1 but it is too late in the day 7if accurate at all7 to tell teachers that to educate means to draw out the child's faculties1 not to put in4 ,every elementary teacher knows that he must train the child to think as well as furnish it with positive information4 ,the point one may legitimately raise is whether the general educational practice represents a fair adjustment of the two functions4 ,it is essential in such disputes to have clear principles4 ,what is the aim of education8 ,the current phrase1 to make good citizens1 is far too vague4 ,a good citizen is1 in a large employer's mind1 a man who will work for two pounds a week and not annoy wealthier people by demanding more3 in a clergyman's mind1 one who goes to church4 ,the point is serious and relevant1 because there is a growing tendency among the middle and upper class to insist on a return to the ideal of the old ,church of ,england school society3 the children must not be educated in such a way that they will aspire above the station to which the ,almighty has called them4 ,as1 however1 the educationist will probably reply at once that his duty is to do all in his power to promote intelligence during such period as the ,state thinks advisable1 we need not discuss the larger ideal of developing the child's powers on general humanitarian grounds4 ,but glance at the manuals which are used in our schools1 and consider whether we have as yet realised the true ideal of education4 ,these manuals1 and the methods employed1 are the outcome of a hundred years of critical discussion1 yet ,i venture to say that they need to be entirely rewritten4 ,i pass over the infant-schools and earlier standards1 where the first general ideas are carefully1 and on the whole judiciously1 implanted4 ,as soon1 however1 as the child enters its teens1 it is painfully overloaded with memory-work4 ,i take1 for example1 the manuals of geography and history which are used in educating children of eleven in a first-class ,london secondary school4 ,they are crammed with information which will never be of the least use to one man in ten thousand1 and which we have no right whatever to impose on the young brain with so much necessary work to do4 ,the manual of early ,english history which ,i have before me is a characteristically modern production4 ,instead of the grim old paragraphs1 in alternate large and small type1 on which the eye of the child nearly always gazes with reluctance1 there are vivid sketches of life in successive ages4 ,there is danger1 perhaps1 that the child will pass to the opposite extreme1 and take the manual as a story-book1 a work of ephemeral interest2 at least careful guidance will be needed to enable it to select the necessary material which is to be memorised4 ,but the chief defect still is the overloading of the pages with matter of no serious usefulness4 ,the doings of ,ethelbert and ,ethelfrith and ,redwald and ,penda and ,offa1 whose very names bewilder the young mind1 are compressed into a few forbidding paragraphs1 instead of being relegated to the ,university4 ,later come ,ethelwulf and ,osburh and ,ethelbald and ,ethelbert2 and ,sweyn ,forkbeard and ,olaf ,trygvasson and ,guhilda2 and ,rhodri and ,llywelyn and ,griffith ap ,rees and ,own ,gwynedd and ,egfrith and ,malcolm ,canmore and ,john ,balliol4 ,how many of us know1 or need to know1 a word about them1 and their families1 and their battles8 ,then the ,french wars are told in detail1 and the pages bristle with dates and ,french names and genealogies2 and the ,wars of the ,roses introduce a new series of repellent and useless names and dates4 ,the child1 in a word1 is enormously overburdened with stuff which we adults would refuse to commit to memory or even to read4 ,yet this is a very modern manual1 the last word in the adaptation of history to the mind of a child of ten or eleven4 ,the manual of ,european geography1 also1 is one of the most modern and enlightened that a teacher can choose1 but it imposes a mass of pedantic and useless knowledge4 ,isotherms and isobars and the freezing of the ,oder and ,vistula and ,danube2 the navigability of the ,ebro and ,guadalquiver1 and the wheat-growing areas of ,france and ,spain1 and the industries of ,lille and ,roubaix and ,magdeburg and ,lombardy and ,smyrna2 in a word1 fully one-third of the details in the little manual--the details which it is most difficult to remember1 which tax the child's brain most1 and will be forgotten soonest and with least loss--ought not to have been inserted4 ,the whole plan is academic and pedantic3 it is built on the supposition that the child must have a summary of the kind of knowledge which a geographical expert would have to master4 ,and in later years the child must laboriously cover the whole globe with the same unnecessary attention to useless details4 ,in mathematics1 at least1 the same criticism will hold4 ,geometry is1 of course1 no longer a mere task of memorisation2 but the positive knowledge of problems is not of the least use1 save in a few exceptional cases1 and the training of the mind might be achieved by lessons in natural science4 ,in natural science itself one might quarrel with much of the material given3 not one in ten thousand1 for instance1 will even remember in later years the elements of botany4 ,but at least we are1 in giving scientific information1 training the young to inquire into the nature of positive reality and initiating them to branches of knowledge in which they can easily advance in later years1 since we have so fine a popular literature of science1 and the advance will be a considerable gain in their whole mental outlook4 ,it is chiefly in regard to history and geography that time and labour might be spared1 and more leisure given for ensuring that the child will assimilate the knowledge imparted4 ,mental energy should not be wasted in mastering an immense collection of facts which1 experience shows1 are certain to be forgotten within a few years4 ,i may also recall that1 when we choose to carry out the elementary reform of abolishing the plurality of tongues1 a vast economy will be made in the curriculum1 and really useful knowledge will be imparted more thoroughly and with finer attention to the texture of the child's brain4 ,the academic plea1 that there is excellent training in a thorough study of ,latin and ,greek1 may be freely granted4 ,but there is just as excellent a training in the thorough study of such branches of science as are fitted for the school1 and the positive information gained is permanently useful4 ,if we thus eliminate languages and simplify geography and history we give the modern teacher a more hopeful opportunity4 ,it is surely the universal experience that we forget nine-tenths of the geographical details we learn at school1 and we find little inconvenience in re-learning such as we need to master in later years4 ,a judicious outline-scheme1 with more physiography and less of useless detail1 and a fuller account of one's national geography 7not because it describes the child's country1 but because it is practical information7 would suffice4 ,the remainder1 or part of it1 could be imparted in technical training for commerce4 ,history should be wholly remodelled4 ,it is ludicrous to-day to make the child grow pale and worn over the past royal families and wars of ,england1 and dismiss the general history of the race in a page or two4 ,a fine scheme of the history1 and even the prehistory and origin1 of the human race1 with so much fuller information about the child's own country as is useful for the understanding of its institutions and monuments1 could be imparted in less time1 with more interest1 and with far greater profit4 ,the patriotic sham deeply vitiates our scheme of instruction and makes the training of the child scandalously one-sided and exacting4 ,germany has recently shown us the pernicious results of this political perversion of education4 ,passing to the moral education of children1 we at once find it cruelly distorted and enfeebled by a religious sham of the least defensible nature4 ,such moralists as ,kant and ,emerson hardly exaggerated the human importance of moral law1 however much they failed to understand its human significance4 ,character is the pivot on which life turns4 ,the general diffusion of fine qualities of character would transform the earth1 quite apart from economic and political reform1 and lead to a speedier settlement of our industrial and international difficulties4 ,it is therefore of supreme importance to train the will or character of the child from its earliest years4 ,yet there is no other branch of our education1 and hardly any other branch of our life1 in which we tolerate so crude and ludicrous a pretence of work4 ,the education authority of the ,metropolis of ,england would1 one supposes1 have the advantage of the finest expert advice in the world4 ,enter one of the thousands of schools under its control1 however1 and ask how the training of character is conducted4 ,a teacher informs you that at college he has learned only to impart ,biblical knowledge4 ,he will show you a scheme of lessons founded on the ,old and ,new ,testament4 ,the younger the child1 the more preposterous the lesson4 ,in the lower standards the child must learn the story of the ,creation1 the ,fall1 the ,deluge1 etc4 ,it is still too young to imagine that its teacher may1 at the command of our education authorities1 be grossly deceiving it1 or to perceive that these ancient ,babylonian legends contain no particular incentive to virtue4 ,when it passes to the higher standards it is initiated to some equally remarkable stories about the early history of mankind and the early conduct of the ,deity4 ,the teacher rarely believes these things1 and it may be assumed that men like ,mr4 ,sidney ,webb1 who voted for this scheme of education in the ,l4,c4,c41 do not4 ,if the child has intelligence enough to raise the question of veracity1 it must be snubbed or deceived4 ,a ,london teacher told me that on one occasion1 when he had described some of the remarkable proceedings of the ,israelites in ancient ,palestine1 a precocious youngster asked3 ,please1 sir1 is it true8 ,our education authorities forbid him to reply to such a question4 ,indeed1 his headmaster was a ,nonconformist 7very zealous for ,bible lessons71 and would find a way to punish any departure from the appointed untruths4 ,the lessons from the ,new ,testament are1 it is true1 devoid of this atmosphere of ,oriental animalism1 ferocity1 and superstition which clings to the ,old ,testament lesson1 but here again the teacher is forced to violate the elementary principles of education4 ,he must gravely tell the story of the miraculous birth1 the crucifixion1 and the resurrection of ,christ4 ,he probably knows that some of the most learned divines in ,england and other countries regard these stories as false1 but he must deliberately and solemnly tell the young that ,christ was ,god and that these things are written in the ,word of ,god4 ,he must repeat parables which we know to have been borrowed 7and often spoiled in the borrowing7 from the ,jewish rabbis1 yet teach that this was the unique feature of ,christ's preaching4 ,he must use all his ingenuity to wring a moral lesson out of the parables of the workers in the vineyard1 the royal banquet1 and so on4 ,he must keep up this elaborate deception of the child until it leaves his care2 and he knows that1 in nine cases out of ten in ,london or any large city1 the child is already hearing on all sides sneers at these ancient myths1 and laughing at the system which inculcates them in the name of all that is most sacred4 ,the aim of our ,london authorities1 and education authorities generally in ,england1 is not to train character1 but to teach the contents of the ,bible4 ,why a civic authority should include the teaching of the ,bible no man knows2 and whether a civic authority can be indifferent to the truth or untruth of the lessons it imposes few seem to ask4 ,mr4 ,sidney ,webb1 endorsing these lessons1 said that the ,bible was great literature2 and scores of our parochial legislators1 who were not generally known to admire great literature 7but were known to have numbers of ,nonconformist constituents71 fervently repeated the phrase4 ,does the child appreciate or hear a single word about the literary qualities of the ,bible8 ,does a literary lesson need to be a deliberate lesson in untruth8 ,can we find no great literature which has not the taint of untruth8 ,dr4 ,clifford says that these lessons tend to make good citizens4 ,it is not at first sight apparent why we should go to the literature of an ancient1 mendacious1 polygamous1 and bloodthirsty tribe for lessons in citizenship in a modern civilisation4 ,let us suppose1 however1 that the ingenious teacher has wrung a moral of truthfulness1 fraternity1 respect for women1 self-reliance1 and universal justice out of these peculiar records of ancient ,juda4 ,follow the child1 in imagination1 into the later years of citizenship4 ,he hardly leaves the school before he learns that the whole ,biblical scheme is very generally ridiculed1 and is rejected even by large numbers of learned theologians4 ,before many years1 at least1 he is fairly sure to learn this4 ,the prescriptions of the ,sermon on the ,mount he1 of course1 never had the slightest intention of observing4 ,the teacher1 even while he reads the quixotic counsels1 knows1 and possibly notes with approval1 that the boy's code is3 ,if any smite thee on the one cheek1 smite him forthwith on both4 ,but the boy now learns that from the ,creation to the ,resurrection the whole story is seriously disputed and is rejected by the majority of well-educated people4 ,he looks back on his ,bible lessons and his teacher with derision1 and he discards the whole authority of his code of conduct4 ,surely an admirable foundation for virtue and citizenship6 ,into the larger question of the relation of religious education and crime ,i cannot enter here4 ,i have shown elsewhere that ,france1 ,victoria1 and ,new ,zealand1 the countries with longest experience of secular education1 have the best record among civilised nations in the reduction of crime4 ,the carelessness of clerical writers as to the truth of their statements on this subject is appalling4 ,there is not a tittle of reason in criminal statistics1 or any other exact indications of national health1 for retaining religious lessons in our schools4 ,they are there merely because the clergy find it conducive to their prestige to have their sacred book enthroned with honour in the national scheme of education4 ,as in the case of divorce1 they ask us to maintain immorality in the name of religion4 ,german schools are saturated with religious teaching1 yet we have seen the issue of it all4 ,for one hundred years our ,english school-system has been hampered and perverted by this clerical insistence on religious lessons4 ,parents1 they sometimes say1 desire it2 but when the ,trades ,union ,congress1 the only large body of parents which ever pronounced on the subject1 repeatedly voted for secular education1 by overwhelming majorities1 the clergy1 through the minority of their followers1 could only secure the exclusion of the subject from the agenda4 ,neither do the majority of teachers desire it2 while educationists1 as a whole1 resent this grievous complication of their work4 ,nothing but the complete secularisation of all schools receiving funds from the nation or municipality will enable us to advance4 ,the clergy must do their own work on their own premises4 ,the moral pretext is a thin disguise of an effort to use the nation's resources and authority for the purpose of attaching children to the churches4 ,writers on the subject are not wholly agreed whether we ought to substitute moral lessons for the discarded ,bible lessons4 ,we can in such a matter proceed only on probabilities1 and it seems to me that judicious lessons for the training of character are very desirable4 ,i do not so much mean abstract or direct lessons on the various qualities of character4 ,if such lessons 7on truthfulness1 honesty1 manliness1 etc47 were tactfully and sensibly conducted1 they could be of great service4 ,there is really not much danger of turning the average ,british schoolboy into a prig4 ,but indirect lessons1 especially from history and biography1 should be more effective4 ,in either case our teachers would need special training for the lessons1 and no philosophic or religious or anti-religious view of moral principles should be admitted4 ,experience has surely shown how little use there is in giving children a categorical imperative1 or a set of arbitrary commandments1 or an sthetic lesson on modesty4 ,you cannot in one hour teach the child to think1 and in the next expect it to accept your instruction without thinking1 because you are not prepared to give reasons for your commands4 ,it is sometimes forgotten that even children share the mental awakening of our age1 and must be treated wisely4 ,the ,american or the ,australian child well illustrates the change that is taking place4 ,it is increasingly dangerous to give children dogmatic or mystic instruction in rules of conduct1 nor is it in the least necessary to base this important part of their training on disputable grounds4 ,every quality of character that is inculcated may be related to the child's actual or future experience of life1 and will find an ample sanction therein4 ,life is full of material for such lessons3 material far richer and easier of assimilation than the doings of an ancient ,oriental people with a different code of morals4 ,let these lessons of history and contemporary life be developed1 let the child learn in plain human speech the social significance of justice and honour1 avoiding namby-pamby dissertations on the beauty of virtue1 and there will be placed in the mind of the young1 not an exotic plant which the child will be tempted to eradicate1 but a germ which will grow and bear fruit under the influence of its own experience4 ,the modern ideal of education further implies that the ,state shall provide higher tuition for those youths and maidens to whom it will be profitable to impart it4 ,scholastic evolution is advancing so rapidly in this direction that the ideal hardly needs vindication4 ,seventeen hundred years ago such a ladder of education existed in ,europe2 from the municipally-endowed elementary school the promising youth could pass1 through secondary colleges1 to the imperial schools at ,rome4 ,had that model been retained and improved instead of being abandoned for fourteen centuries1 ,europe would be in an immeasurably greater state of efficiency than it is4 ,we are restoring and improving the pagan model1 and there are signs that in time we shall have a complete system of secondary1 technical1 and higher education1 quite apart from the schools in which the children of more or less wealthy parents learn their traditional virtues and vices4 ,if we have also some means by which able children whose talent has escaped the academic eye 7of which we have many classical instances7 may in later years have a chance of recognition1 we shall exploit the intelligence of the race with splendid results4 ,the cost of this great reform need not intimidate us4 ,enormous sums of money have been given 7by men like ,mr4 ,carnegie7 or bequeathed for the purpose1 and the admirable practice will continue4 ,but we need a searching revision of educational endowments1 foundations1 scholarships1 etc4 ,there is strong reason to suspect that estates which are now of great value are not applied to the scholastic purposes for which they were intended1 or are badly administered1 or are used in giving gratuitous or cheap education to the children of comfortable parents who secure favour or influence4 ,a consolidation of all the endowments which had not in their origin an express sectarian purpose would provide a fund to which the ,state and municipal authorities need add little4 ,the scheme would bring some order into our chaos of schools and colleges1 and1 while the more snobbish establishments would continue to preserve their pupils from the society of the children of tradesfolk1 and would waste valuable resources on uncultivable minds1 the youth of the nation generally1 of both sexes1 would be developed to the full extent of its capacity4 ,these things have a monetary value4 ,a distinguished historical writer told me that1 on sending his son to ,sandhurst1 he proposed that they should study together the campaigns of ,napoleon4 ,the youth presently informed him that the traditions of ,sandhurst did not allow them to do serious work outside the general routine4 ,a few years later we heard the details of our ,south ,african ,war4 ,it will be a part of this increased efficiency to rid our secondary and higher schools of clerical domination4 ,it is futile to say that the clergyman must represent morals and religion in the school4 ,his record as a moralist during fifteen hundred years does not recommend his services4 ,even to-day public schools which retain the tradition of clerical masters are deplorable from the moral point of view4 ,some of them are nurseries of a vice which1 unless it be discontinued when the youth goes out into the world1 may bring on him one of the most degrading sentences of our penal law4 ,the clerical method of character-training--one admits1 of course1 great occasional personalities--has little influence on these things4 ,public-school boys1 and especially young men at our universities1 know that every syllable which the preacher addresses to them is disputed1 and no other ground of right and healthy conduct is1 as a rule1 impressed on them4 ,many will know that the grossest opinion of the clergy themselves is current in our public schools and older universities1 and is embodied in numbers of scurrilous stories4 ,the position of the clergyman in our educational world is false4 ,he is there for the same reason that the ,bible is in the elementary school3 in the interest of the ,churches4 ,we have improved mental education enormously since it ceased to be a monopoly of the clergy4 ,possibly we will make a similar improvement in character-training2 we can hardly do it with less success than they have done4 ,,chapter ,,ix4 ,,the ,,education ,,of ,,the ,,adult ,,if it be granted that it is the interest and the duty of a nation to develop the intelligence of its people1 we must conclude that the work is only half done1 or not half done1 by even an ideal system of what is commonly called education4 ,i am assuming that a time will come when no youth or maiden will enter workshop or office before the age of seventeen1 if not eighteen2 and that the better endowed minority of our children will1 without regard to their private resources1 be promoted to secondary1 technical1 and higher schools4 ,this minority will1 on the whole1 need no further attention4 ,cultural interest and professional stimulation will ensure that their studies continue4 ,but the majority will fall lamentably short of the ideal of developed and alert intelligence4 ,the added three or four years will be enormously valuable to the teacher1 but in the majority of cases the intellectual interest will still be so feeble that the distractions of life will at once extinguish it4 ,if we speak of our actual world1 not of an ideal world1 this fact is too patent to need proving4 ,forty-five years ago a band of enthusiasts fought for the establishment of universal elementary education4 ,the survivors of that band confess that the splendid results they anticipated have not been secured4 ,one is1 indeed1 tempted sometimes to wonder whether there was not more zeal for culture among the workers half a century ago than there is to-day4 ,when you listen to a conversation1 of workers or of average middle-class people1 on politics or theology or some other absorbing topic1 you are astounded at the slender amount of personal thinking and the slavery to phrases which they have heard4 ,their minds seem to resemble the screen of a kaleidoscope1 on which the coloured phrases they have read in journals or cheap literature weave automatic patterns4 ,i speak1 of course1 of the mass4 ,i have given hundreds of scientific lectures to keen audiences of working men1 and ,i know that tens of thousands of them have excellent collections of familiar books4 ,but the result of forty-five years of education is far from satisfactory4 ,it was thought that1 when the people learned to read1 and the ideas of an ,emerson or a ,darwin could be appropriated by any man of moderate endowment1 the level of the race would rise materially4 ,it has not risen as much as was expected4 ,the phrases are learned and repeated3 the ideas are not vitally assimilated1 because the intellect is not sufficiently developed4 ,two classes of people will impatiently retort that there is no need for further development4 ,one class consists of those who dread a higher intelligence in the workers because it leads to discontent with their condition4 ,to which one may reply that this concern comes too late4 ,one needs little intelligence to perceive the inequalities of the distribution of wealth4 ,the workers of the world have perceived it1 and1 although only an extreme ,socialist minority demands equalisation1 the mass of the workers demand a higher reward4 ,midway between ,australia and ,england1 on the deck of a liner1 ,i heard a group of middle-class men and women contrasting the menace of the ,australian workers with the industrial content of the mother-country4 ,we landed1 to find from the journals that the whole ,united ,kingdom was punctuated by strikes1 agitations1 and demands4 ,it is too late4 ,a distinguished ,belgian prelate was taken into a large foundry1 and1 observing the workers1 he impulsively cried3 ,what a slave's life6 ,hush1 they will hear you1 said the manager4 ,in repeating the experience he added3 ,they have heard3 it is too late4 ,it will be better now if1 in the industrial struggle of the future1 there is intelligence as well as principle on both sides4 ,if any large proportion of work in the human economy requires the sacrifice of the intelligence1 there is something wrong with the work4 ,curiously enough1 the other class of people who are impatient of the design to stimulate their minds consists of the mass of the workers themselves4 ,after eight or nine or ten hours of heavy muscular work every day1 they say1 they have no inclination or fitness for serious literature1 serious lectures1 or serious art4 ,they prefer a drink1 a bioscope1 a music-hall4 ,eight hours' work1 eight hours' play1 eight hours' sleep2 that is the ideal4 ,a very natural and symmetrical ideal1 but--it is just the ideal which the capitalist wishes them to cultivate1 and this might suggest reflection4 ,someone will do the thinking while they play4 ,democratic government is a mischief and a blunder unless ,demos is capable of thinking4 ,if the workers of the world have an ambition to control their destinies1 they must realise that their destinies are things too large and complex and important to be controlled by men with sleepy brains4 ,there is no solution of the broad social problem of this planet which does not imply that every adult man and woman1 of normal powers1 shall be alert and informed and self-assertive enough to take an intelligent part in its administration4 ,therefore1 it seems to many that a scheme of education which ceases to operate at the age of fourteen1 which teaches children to read and has no further concern with what they read1 which impresses on their cortex a mass of facts of no utility or stimulation1 is not a fulfilment of a nation's duty1 or a proper consideration of a nation's interest4 ,the grander lessons of history1 the more impressive truths of science1 the vital features of economics and sociology1 the ennobling characters of fine art1 cannot be even faintly impressed on the young mind4 ,yet they can be impressed on the minds of nearly all adults1 and it would be an incalculable gain to the race if they were4 ,what is being done1 and what might be done1 to effect this8 ,the nation at present leaves it to commercial interest and to philanthropy to carry out1 in some measure1 this important function1 and we may at once eliminate the commercial interest4 ,it supplies1 at a proper profit1 what is demanded4 ,a minority ask for cheap works of science and art and history1 and several admirable series of manuals and serial publications are supplied4 ,a majority1 an overwhelming majority1 asks only to be entertained1 and there is a mighty flood of novels and amusing works1 a rich crop of music-halls and bioscope-shows and theatres and skating rinks4 ,it will readily be understood that1 regarding happiness as the ultimate ideal1 ,i regard entertainment as a proper part of life4 ,the comedian and the story-teller and the professional football-player are rendering good service1 and it is intellectual snobbery to murmur that they merely entertain people4 ,a good deal of nonsense is written about sport and entertainment4 ,many of us can1 with pleasant ease1 suspend a severely intellectual task for a few hours to witness a first-class football match4 ,one wonders if some of the ascetics who speak about mudded oafs and the football craze are aware that the game 7except for professional players7 occupies merely an hour and a half a week 7or alternate week7 for little more than half a year4 ,the mischief is that so much of our entertainment appeals to and fosters a state of mind or taste which does exclude culture4 ,we have to-day an army of puritan scouts1 watching our music-halls and cinematograph films1 our picture-cards and novels1 our open spaces by night and our bathing-beaches by day1 calculating minutely what amount of dress or undress or sexual allusion they may permit4 ,certainly we need coercion in these matters4 ,no one who moves amongst our average people1 in any rank of society1 can fail to recognise that there would be in time a volcanic outpour of sexuality if we did not impose restriction4 ,whether this chaste pruriency of the modern ,churches is an admirable thing1 and whether its hirelings are a desirable supplement to the police-force1 need not be discussed here2 but what amuses one is their intense zeal to detect the narrowest fringe of impropriety and their utter obtuseness to graver matters4 ,i have sometimes1 when waiting before a lecture in the dressing-room of a variety theatre1 been confronted with a notice that the curtain will be rung down on any artist who says ',damn' or mentions the lodger1 or1 more candidly 7in the ,colonies73 ,don't swear4 ,we don't care a damn1 but the public does4 ,the general public would1 if it were consulted1 probably make the same reply as the framers of the notice1 and would blame the police for the restriction of liberty4 ,there is1 in a word1 an appalling poverty of taste in the general public1 and it pays the purveyor of entertainment to adapt his wares to it as far as the police will permit4 ,to this lamentable lack of taste and culture 7in the broad sense7 officials and moralists are entirely indifferent as long as the comdienne does not refer to the seventh commandment4 ,the public may be as ignorant and vulgar as they like1 but they must not give expression to a natural effect of this4 ,the music-hall and the bioscope are the great academies of our people to-day1 and their work is largely stupefying4 ,sentimental songs of the most vapid description alternate with patriotic songs of a medieval crudeness and humorous songs which might have appealed to a prehistoric intelligence4 ,bloodthirsty melodramas1 sensational scenes1 and infinite variations of ,the girl who did what we are forbidden to talk about1 evoke and inflame elementary emotions at the lowest grade of culture4 ,clergymen give certificates of high moral efficacy to crude representations of passion in high life which are designed to appeal to raw feelings4 ,the posters alone--the eccentric costumes and daubed faces and attempts at novelty in the way of leering--warn away people of moderate taste or intelligence4 ,the bioscope is almost as bad4 ,apart from a few excellent travel and scenic and scientific pictures1 the show is a mass of crude faking and boorish horse-play which presupposes an elementary intelligence in the spectators4 ,pictorial post-cards add to the monstrosities and puerilities of this kind of public education1 and a large proportion of the stories published1 especially in the periodicals which are read by girls and boys and uneducated women1 fall in the same category4 ,we may trust that the idea will not occur to anyone of making a collection of our picture-cards1 films1 music-hall posters1 novelties1 etc41 for preservation as typical amusements of the twentieth century4 ,it is stupid to watch this lamentable exposure of our low average of culture week by week with complete indifference until more underclothing is displayed than we think proper4 ,the bioscope and music-hall--,i speak of the majority--are not merely entertaining2 they are undoing the work of the educator4 ,they are fostering the raw and primitive emotions which it is the task of education to refine and bring under control1 debasing public taste1 and appealing to a standard which is essentially unintellectual4 ,the idea that fun may be utterly stupid and crude1 provided it is clean1 is the idea of a narrow-minded fanatic1 an enemy of society4 ,when we pass to the next cultural level of entertainment--the better music-hall1 the metropolitan type of theatre1 the concert1 the novel1 etc4--we have a vast provision of entertainment which amuses or interests without cultural prejudice2 rising at times to a positive measure of artistic education or intellectual stimulation4 ,two things only need be noticed here4 ,the first is the stupidity of the kind of censorship which we tolerate2 of which little need be said1 since it is generally recognised4 ,the amateur moral censorship of art reaches the culmination of its absurdity in our dramatic inquisition4 ,the dramatist may deal with sex-passion as pruriently and provokingly as he likes1 provided he leaves enough to the spectator's facile imagination2 but he must not attempt to raise love as an intellectual issue4 ,our people may feel love3 they must not think about it as a serious problem4 ,the other1 and more needed observation1 regards the novel4 ,there are novels of fine artistic value1 like those of ,phillpotts3 novels of great intellectual use1 like those of ,wells3 and novels of a general and more subtle educational value1 like those of ,meredith4 ,there are novels which1 like the melodrama1 counteract education by their low standard of art and intelligence1 and there are novels--the great majority--which entertain without prejudice4 ,since we have as much right to be entertained as to be instructed1 novel-reading is a normal part of a normal life4 ,seeing1 however1 that a very large proportion of the community read nothing but novels1 it has been felt that the novel might be used as a vehicle of instruction1 and the didactic or historical novel has become an institution4 ,many believe that they are being educated when they read this literature4 ,against this comforting assumption it is necessary to protest4 ,even the greatest historical novelists1 ,dumas and ,scott1 have taken remarkable liberties with the known facts1 and added to the picture of the time a mass of imaginative detail4 ,many historical novels1 like ,quo ,vadis or ,kingsley's ,hypatia1 misrepresent personalities or periods for controversial purposes2 and the bulk of modern historical novels are worthless jumbles of fact and imagination4 ,it is1 as a rule1 the same with the sociological novel4 ,you must know the facts in advance--you must know where the facts end and the fiction begins--or else merely regard the book as a form of entertainment4 ,lately ,i read a serious historical work1 by a distinguished writer1 in which ,hypatia 7who was fifty or sixty years old when she was murdered7 is described as a girl-philosopher2 clearly because ,kingsley1 for controversial purposes1 thought fit in his novel to make her a young and rather foolish maiden4 ,thousands of people take their convictions from novels with a purpose1 especially religious or sociological novels1 without reflecting that the author may legitimately give them either fact or fiction4 ,such novels are often profoundly mischievous4 ,a conscientious didactic novelist like ,mr4 ,wells aims rather at raising issues and stimulating reflection1 and in this ,mr4 ,wells has done splendid service4 ,others have done equal disservice1 and have used artificially constructed characters for the purpose of raising prejudice against certain ideas1 or have misled by a calculated mixture of fact and fiction4 ,it was in recommending to the public one of these novels--an exceptionally silly and crude piece of work--that the ,bishop of ,london described ,christianity as woman's best friend4 ,religious literature is particularly offensive in this respect1 but ,i will give special consideration to it later4 ,our press-criticism of books is a very imperfect system of checking the vagaries and prejudices of authors4 ,the criticisms are very frequently marked by ignorance of the subject and by personal or doctrinal hostility to the author1 while the more learned and conscientious journals often show the most ludicrous pedantry4 ,i once published a novel1 pseudonymously1 and was amused to read in a ,london weekly1 which takes great pride in the smartness of its reviews1 that the author had neither an elementary knowledge of the art of writing nor an elementary acquaintance with the subject on which he wrote4 ,i had already at that time written about twenty volumes1 and ,i had had twelve years' intimate experience of the monastic life with which the book was concerned4 ,mr4 ,clement ,shorter1 not knowing the author1 had generously described the book as a brilliant novel4 ,on another occasion an historical work of mine was gravely censured1 though no specific errors were noted in it1 by our leading literary organ1 on the ground that ,i was not an expert on the period4 ,i looked up the same journal's critique of a work written on the same historical period by an academic authority1 and published by his university1 and ,i found that1 though there were dozens of errors in the work1 it had passed the censor with full honours4 ,i add with pleasure that some of the most generous notices of my works have appeared in papers 7such as ,the ,daily ,telegraph and ,the ,spectator7 to which my ideas must be repugnant4 ,but most literary men agree with me that reviewing is1 to a large extent1 prejudiced and incompetent1 and few of us would cross a room to read ordinary press-notices of our books4 ,one might extend this criticism to the general work of the press as the great popular educator4 ,we must1 however1 reflect that the press is hampered by restrictions which the public ought to bear in mind3 a journal is always a commercial transaction with a particular section of the public1 and it is generally pledged to political partisanship4 ,it is only just to remark that this materially restricts the educational ambition of many journalists4 ,the public themselves are to blame that a large section of our press devotes so much space to sensational murders1 adulteries1 burglaries1 royal births and marriages1 wars and other crimes and follies4 ,sunday journals often contain twenty columns of this rubbish1 and the worst parts of it are1 with the most disgusting hypocrisy1 thrust into prominence by especially large head-lines announcing ,a ,painful ,case4 ,one imagines the working man spending five or six hours of the ,sabbath reading this sort of stuff4 ,great and grave things1 which he ought to know1 are happening all over the world1 but he must have sharp eyes if he is to catch the obscure little paragraphs which--if there is any reference at all--tell him how many have been put to death in ,russia in the last quarter1 or how the republican experiment fares in ,portugal1 or how democracy advances in ,australia or the ,united ,states4 ,the space is needed for pictures of burned mansions and notorious murderers and the commonplace relatives of politicians1 for verbatim reports of divorce and criminal cases1 for inquests and royal processions1 and for the magnificent speeches of ,cabinet ,ministers and would-be ,cabinet ,ministers4 ,this stricture applies to the press generally4 ,how far it sacrifices to these meretricious purposes the serious function of educating the public has been painfully impressed on us by recent experience4 ,only one or two journals in ,england surpassed our drowsy politicians in sagacity and foresight4 ,though an extensive reader of ,german literature 7scientific and historical71 it had never been my business to follow political or military utterances2 yet1 when the war broke out and ,i looked back on ,germany's enormous output in this department1 ,i realised that there had been in ,london for a year or two enough ,german literature to convince any moderate observer that war was fast approaching--and this was only a fragment of an enormously larger literature4 ,our press had ridiculed the one or two men and journals who warned the public of the danger4 ,further1 when it transpired that our ,government had met the crisis with painful slowness and inefficiency1 nearly the whole press again conspired to check criticism1 and it is probable that when the war is over the press will unite with the ,churches in cultivating a foolish and dangerous contentment on the part of the public4 ,our press is1 in fact1 very largely an instrument of our corrupt party-system4 ,it never initiates reform1 and it mirrors1 day by day1 all the crimes and follies and maladies of our social order without the least resentment or the faintest suggestion of reconstruction4 ,journals are constantly appearing with the professed intention of correcting these defects1 yet they are almost invariably spoiled by illiberalism in one or more departments of their work1 or by gross exaggerations1 hysterical language1 or impracticable proposals4 ,all this is a reflection of the generally low state of public culture1 and it will not alter until we devote serious care to the education of the general intelligence4 ,we begin at school to cultivate the child's imagination1 though it is the quality of a child's mind which least requires stimulating and is most in need of subordinating to intelligence4 ,in later years1 when the feeble intellectual stimulation we have given is exhausted1 we have to appeal to the imagination or go unheard4 ,i have not read a book since ,i left school1 a music-hall artist observed to me4 ,at twenty-five he had become incapable of doing more than look at illustrations1 as he had done in his childhood4 ,we go on until we make the imagination itself feeble on its constructive side4 ,miles of generally dauby and grotesque posters line our streets2 tons of the trashiest literature for the young are discharged from marble palaces in the neighbourhood of ,fleet ,street2 novels multiply until the general public takes the words author and novelist to be synonymous2 and the daily organ of the millions tends more and more to be a collection of pictures of unimportant events and persons1 with a very slender and peculiar quantity of news4 ,if we agree that democracy will advance until the majority rule in reality1 and not merely in theory1 these things must concern us4 ,it is of little use to point to the occasional periodical with small circulation which endeavours to educate1 to the occasional educative column in more important journals1 or to the occasional lecture or serious concert or drama4 ,the broad fact remains that our future rulers are increasingly encouraged to refrain from mental cultivation1 to mistake an appeal to the imagination for knowledge1 and to debase their taste more and more with raw representations of crime and passion4 ,the working man reads with indignation of fashionable ladies struggling to find a place in court when a man is being tried for a series of sordid murders2 and the working man then reads1 day after day1 a three-column verbatim report of the trial1 and regrets that there is not more of it4 ,in order to meet this grave public need an earlier generation invented night-schools and ,mechanics' ,institutes4 ,many of these still do useful work1 but their number shrinks rather than increases4 ,the ,co-operative ,movement1 again1 set up in the early days a fine ambition to educate its adult members1 but this ambition has not been generally sustained in the vast modern movement4 ,hundreds of lecture-societies were founded1 and hundreds 7about seven hundred in ,great ,britain1 ,i believe7 exist to-day and do some excellent work2 but many of the societies which adhered most faithfully to the educational ideal are in difficulties or extinct4 ,the travel-lecture or funny lecture and the popular concert encroach more and more on the serious programme4 ,free libraries were another hope of the reformers of the last generation1 and they are now endowed by millionaires and maintained by municipalities4 ,they exhibit1 perhaps1 the saddest perversion of social ambition4 ,neither ,mr4 ,carnegie nor any serious municipality thinks it a duty to provide gratuitous entertainment1 but at least two-thirds of their resources are really devoted to this4 ,the enormously greater part of the work of free libraries is to beguile the idle hours of young men and the idle days of young women with novels that rarely contain a particle of intellectual stimulation4 ,public museums were another device for educating the mass of the people1 and they have largely failed4 ,there has been in recent years a little more regard for the public1 as well as for students1 but it is still painful to see crowds passing with bovine eyes amidst our accumulated treasures4 ,the grouping and labelling are still too academic3 the general scheme and the immense wealth of detail daze the eye of the inexpert4 ,more guides and lecturers1 in touch with and informally accessible to the public1 and a closer association with ,university ,extension and ,gilchrist and other lectures1 are very much needed4 ,saturday afternoon in the ,british ,museum is a melancholy spectacle of wasted wealth4 ,a small model museum1 designed solely for the education of the general public1 would be more useful in this respect than our magnificent national museum4 ,unfortunately1 the small museums copy the academic defects of the larger4 ,the curator of one1 on whom ,i urged the needs of the public1 replied wearily3 ,well1 it will take me three years to arrange my ,cephalopods1 and then ,i will see what ,i can do4 ,we need a comprehensive and serious organisation and development of our resources for educating the adult4 ,our ,education ,department needs to throw out a new wing with the purpose of preventing the utter waste of its work upon young children4 ,institutions like the ,british ,museum ought to be relieved of the control of the ,archbishop of ,canterbury and one or two other somnolent gentlemen1 and made the centre of a splendid and energetic system of popular instruction and stimulation4 ,from such centres the educational officials 7as distinct from learned curators and youths from ,oxford and ,cambridge who look upon the public as a nuisance7 might issue attractive invitations and publications1 and be prepared to welcome the non-student1 either with showmen who understand the public mind or by a general and affable accessibility of the whole staff4 ,municipal museums and libraries and picture-galleries could be organised on similar lines by the ,department1 and useful private foundations1 such as the ,bishopsgate ,institute1 could be invited to co-operate1 without interference in their management4 ,the supply of novels ought to be restricted to the great masters of every country and a few moderns4 ,the rich supply of serious literature ought to be made attractive and easily accessible to the public by good bibliographical guidance and constant lectures4 ,these things are1 of course1 being done4 ,it is not so much the local officials one quarrels with as the nation and its leaders4 ,we want an immense co-ordination and development of our resources and efforts out of national funds4 ,lecture-societies and all kinds of educative centres and institutes--there are thousands in the country--need to be affiliated1 encouraged1 advised1 and supplemented4 ,the ,state should not even shrink from publishing4 ,the trade supplies only the actual demand3 the ,state must create a new and larger demand4 ,music would be an integral part of this scheme of education1 and here again we have a large material ready for organisation4 ,any man who has engaged in the work of educating and stimulating the general public will realise how urgently some such scheme is needed1 and how splendid a service it would render4 ,he will realise also that the task will be formidable4 ,i do not for a moment conceive the general public as thirsting for culture4 ,that is very largely due to the way in which the work has hitherto been done4 ,the recent success of small but authoritative manuals of science and history1 and of several cheap series of literary works of high value1 shows that a fairly large public responds to every enlightened effort to assist them4 ,it will become very much larger when the work is organised on a national scale and conceived as a really important function of the ,state4 ,that even then the majority of the nation would rush to the reconstructed libraries and museums and lecture or concert-halls no one will imagine for a moment4 ,we do not undo in a few years the effect of centuries of evil traditions4 ,i am assuming1 however1 that these various reforms ,i am discussing will proceed more or less simultaneously1 and will enormously assist each other4 ,the abolition of war would release rich funds for educational purposes3 the reorganisation of industry would provide a little more leisure and capacity for mental recreation3 other reforms would give a general intellectual stimulation4 ,even now1 however1 much of this work could be done4 ,if we think it sufficient that our people remain in a condition of elementary literacy and half-developed intelligence1 if we fancy that the race will advance because it sets aside a special caste of scholars for the promotion of culture1 we may regard our actual situation without concern4 ,but if we desire that general alertness of mind and decision of character which a democratic rule implies1 we cannot be indifferent4 ,aristocrats justly rail at the democracy of ,athens and ,rome2 it was an uneducated democracy--literate1 but uneducated1 like ours4 ,we need to advance1 if we are not to recede2 and the uplifted race of the days to come will honour the generation that taught men the compatibility of culture and entertainment4 ,i am speaking1 in the main1 of the mass of the workers1 but it would be entirely unjust to insinuate that they alone need adult education4 ,the conventions of social life1 the extraordinary slavery to fashions and artificial rules1 betray an intellectual flabbiness in the wealthier members of society which just as urgently calls for stimulation4 ,we seem at times quite incapable of drawing a line between acts of real courtesy and taste1 which imply a certain grace or delicacy of character1 and conventional usages which have no rational basis4 ,the insistence on these conventional usages is part of that general slavery to false traditions which ,i am assailing4 ,the most flagrant instance of this weakness of mind and character is the docility with which we meet changes of fashion in dress1 or retain eccentric forms of clothing4 ,hardly any other feature so strongly impresses the close observer with the fact that the race1 as a whole 7and ,i speak only of civilised communities71 advances little in intelligence and self-possession in spite of the progress made by its intellectual experts4 ,one would say that here1 especially1 we need a strong draught of the philosophy of ,friedrich ,nietzsche1--the gospel of self-assertion1 of strong personality1 of severe reasoning1--but ,i have not observed that our modern ,nietzscheans differ much from their neighbours in such matters4 ,yet the commercial expansion of modern times is making this tyranny of fashion more ludicrous than it ever was before4 ,the fashion-plates and descriptions contained in ladies' journals have always provoked the furtive smile of the male4 ,a coterie of tradesmen1 who are eager to promote business1 and of wealthy ladies who are equally eager to show that their purses are unlimited1 decree that the hat or costume shall continually vary in shape and colour4 ,the ,anglo-,french jargon of the sartorial journalist then impresses on a larger circle of ladies the need of alertness and the horror of being dmode1--it would be proof of incapacity to say out of fashion1--and1 as the season approaches1 the proclamation of the forthcoming colour or model is awaited with more feverish anxiety than the announcement of the national budget4 ,schools of artists are secretly inventing some variation--the wider the variation the better--on the thousands of costumes which have already graced the feminine frame1 or discussing bold suggestions of reviving an ancient model which has long disappeared even from the shops of wardrobe-dealers4 ,privileged ladies rise in prestige by obtaining and whispering advance information4 ,at length the shop-windows blaze with the new colour1 the journals depict an ingenious new combination of edges and folds and puckers1 and womanhood plunges to the bottom of its purse with an eagerness to avoid the suspicion of financial stringency2 while the discarded hats and dresses percolate romantically through lower strata of society4 ,is it not good for trade8 ,the masculine smile is1 however1 wearing thinner1 as the absurd despotism is now almost as great among the stronger sex4 ,here also a group of commercial mathematicians evolve1 every few months1 a new combination of brim and crown and curve1 and artists design new patterns of cloth and new contours of garment1 and tyrannical journalists hold up to public execration the man of means or position who dares to find last year's fashion sufficiently comfortable or decorative4 ,not worn now1 sir1 says the shopman1 with indulgent smile1 when you go to renew the hat or coat that has pleased you4 ,the bewildering thing is1 not that manufacturers should be eager to sell us new garments every few weeks1 but that we bow with such docility to this ludicrous fiction of monarchy4 ,long trousers or short trousers1 creased trousers or turned-up trousers1 tight coats or loose coats1 bowlers or trilbys--we listen submissively to the mandate1 without the least consideration of our appearance or convenience4 ,indeed1 the only things that are permanent in this extravagant procession of fashions are the things that are ugly1 inconvenient1 or unhealthy1 especially on the masculine side4 ,the silk hat and the hard felt hat linger as if in these extraordinary creations the manufacturer had discovered the ideal head-covering4 ,the swallow-tail coat survives as if sthetics could advance no further in the attiring of wealthy men2 even the buttons at the back1 to which our fiery ancestor attached his sword1 must not be abandoned4 ,the more comfortable dinner-jacket remains a privileged client at the gate until some audacious peer or prince will dispel the oppressive reverence for the ancient swallow-tail2 and peers and princes know how dangerous it is to tamper with the spirit of reverence4 ,the starched collar and shirt are as rigidly prescribed as sacred vestments on high occasions4 ,the lady must still hang a thick and heavy screen of cloth from her hips2 first having it made too long and then holding it up with her hand in order to escape the rich organic deposit on our streets and the filth with which we suffer domestic pets to make our squares hideous4 ,her abdominal organs must1 if one may credit the marvellous photographs published by the corset-makers1 be reconstructed every few years to accommodate the latest scheme of body-curves4 ,and from these upper reaches of our intellectual world1 the tyranny descends through level after level of the community until it lays its last stern injunctions on the junior clerk and the post-office assistant2 or passes beyond the seas and compels the ,chinaman or the ,japanese to discard his beautiful robe in favour of a frock-coat and silk hat1 or a striped tweed and bowler1 when he presents himself at the entrance-gate to civilisation4 ,we find an almost equally ludicrous tyranny of tradition or fashion in almost every part of the ritual of social life4 ,twenty years ago ,i issued from a rite-bound monastery into the free life of the world1 to find it similarly swathed in ritual bonds4 ,i purchased1 and stealthily mastered1 the ceremonial 7as we used to call our rite-book7 of this new world--a book on etiquette--and led for some months a strenuous and exacting life4 ,i entered drawing-rooms with a nervous recollection of about a score of rules that had to be observed in the first five minutes1 while the ritual of the mundane table entailed for a long time a good deal of furtive observation of my fellows and trembling under the butler's eye4 ,to this day ,i am not quite clear at what precise angle the elbow must stand in shaking hands4 ,social life is overspread by a network of these prescriptions of the unwritten law or the judicial decisions of the aristocracy which we call manners4 ,there is1 as a rule1 so little discrimination between the formal rules of an artificial code and the real impulses of a gentlemanly nature that one has often to listen gravely and silently while ladies commend the perfect manners of a man whom one knows to be an adventurous ninny or a beast4 ,we need a new conception of civilisation1 a sustained stimulation of the intelligence throughout life1 a strong infusion of the ,nietzschean gospel of personality and self-assertion4 ,some day we shall regard education as half of the nation's serious business1 and will devote half our national revenue to it4 ,let it not be imagined that this suggests a generation of dour and frightfully serious people who never smoke or play bridge4 ,i omit the function of entertainment only because it has never been neglected4 ,the supreme business of a ,state is to make its people happy1 strong1 and prosperous4 ,we shall approach the ideal when we abolish war and reduce pauperism and crime by registering all workers1 organising all industry1 reforming justice and the penal system1 and removing the morally diseased4 ,in those days education will be a vast1 humane1 scientific scheme for guiding the growth of human embryos into industrious and orderly citizens1 and enabling the adult citizen pleasurably to cultivate his mind and taste4 ,the development of each child will be followed as the development of a pupil is followed in the ,jesuit ,society1 but with a care to develop its individuality fully1 in harmony with the individualities of others4 ,the child will not pass from the sphere of the educator at puberty1 with unformed mind and character1 to swell the great army of the intellectually listless4 ,ruskin's noble ideal of as many as possible full-breathed1 bright-eyed1 and happy-hearted human creatures will replace the narrow standards of our ,education ,department1 with which the child can have no sympathy4 ,from the first dawn of intelligence it will feel that a well-wishing parent1 the community1 is training it to derive all the joy it can from life1 consistently with the joy of others and the day's duties1 when its turn comes to don the toga virilis4 ,it will have learned by that time that a development of its characteristic human powers is the richest possession it can have1 and1 coming to adolescence1 will not at once cast aside the work of the teacher and dissipate its energy in the crude indulgence of elementary passions and futile imaginings4 ,neither child nor adult will shrink from work which stimulates the intelligence or refines the taste1 and a fine alert race1 impatient of untruth1 injustice1 and suffering1 will set itself to develop fully the resources of this planet4 ,,chapter ,x4 ,,the ,,clerical ,,sham ,,throughout the preceding chapters there have been resentful or disdainful references to the ,churches1 and it may be suspected that1 in assailing other people's prejudices1 ,i have cherished and proceeded upon the anti-clerical prejudice4 ,a very cursory examination will1 however1 suffice to show that these criticisms were sound and pertinent1 and are not due to some mysterious antipathy to the profession to which ,i once belonged4 ,few of those ugly or mischievous traditions which form what ,i have called the smothering ash in the intellectual activity of the nation have not the general support of the clergy4 ,few of the reforms here suggested do not meet their hostility4 ,they constitute one of the most injurious conservative forces in modern life4 ,their bodies are strewn over the whole battlefield of the nineteenth century1 and not one in a thousand of them fought on the side of progress4 ,the esteem in which they are still widely held and the pretexts by which they guard this esteem are the last1 and by no means the least1 of those shams which hamper our advance and distract our energy4 ,a full and detailed indictment of the clergy would fill several columns1 and ,i must confine myself here to two or three considerations which are at once sufficiently drastic and easily demonstrable4 ,i will therefore be content to show3 #a4 ,that the clergy claim and receive a large measure of public confidence on the ground that they are the guardians of the most sacred and beneficent truths1 yet impose on the less educated masses a preposterous collection of untruths1 or statements which many of their own scholars1 and most lay scholars1 regard as untrue4 #b4 ,that the clergy pose as the most sensitive and effective custodians of our morals1 yet their procedure is unjust1 spiteful1 and deceptive to an extent which would not be tolerated in any lay profession4 #c4 ,that the clergy represent that their creed civilised ,europe and is necessary for the maintenance of its civilisation1 yet their influence and their ideas retarded the evolution of ,european civilisation for centuries1 and retard it to-day wherever they have sufficient power or are immune from weighty criticism4 ,in enumerating the untruths which are still imposed by the clergy1 ,i will not linger over the ,old ,testament4 ,when you censure them to-day for attaching a sacred value to this collection of ancient ,jewish literature1 they are apt to reply that your criticism is forty years out of date4 ,every educated clergyman1 they exclaim1 now acknowledges that the ,old ,testament is a mixture of ,babylonian legends1 primitive tribal traditions1 and moral literature of a nave and very interesting description4 ,whether this statement is true or no ,i must leave to the judgment of those who have a closer acquaintance with the modern clergy4 ,only two years ago ,i was persuaded1 in an idle hour on a liner1 to listen to a sermon delivered by a young clergyman who had just issued1 with honours1 from a highly modern ,wesleyan college4 ,it was on the miracles of ,moses in the wilderness--ingeniously relieved by references to such other miracles as the appearance of a cross to ,constantine--and accepted them as literally as did ,peter the ,hermit4 ,religious periodicals and books and parish-magazines suggest that there is a good deal still of this medieval credulity2 or that1 at least1 the number of educated clergymen must be somewhat restricted4 ,but let us accept the assurance that the educated clergy do accept the ,old ,testament at its true historical value4 ,in which case we must be content to express our surprise that no clergyman seems to have the least scruple about imposing these things on young children1 and rustic congregations1 and less cultivated races--than which there is no more cowardly form of untruth3 and that some of the most notoriously unreliable and barbaric pages of the ,old ,testament are read1 ,sunday by ,sunday1 as the word of ,god in all the ,christian ,churches of the world1 under the official orders of every ecclesiastical authority in the world4 ,however1 since these cultivated ecclesiastics smile at our criticism of the ,old ,testament1 and see nothing improper in a deception of the ignorant1 of which any body of professional laymen would be incapable1 let us turn to the ,new ,testament4 ,it is always useful to consider the attitude of the clergy in its historical perspective4 ,a hundred years ago they were defending against the ,deists the absolute truthfulness of the ,old ,testament4 ,christ had promised the ,holy ,spirit to the ,church3 the ,holy ,spirit could not possibly tolerate untruth3 therefore the teaching of the ,church for sixteen centuries must be right4 ,within two generations they have1 in a great number1 abandoned the inerrancy of the ,old ,testament1 without abandoning the ,holy ,spirit4 ,it seems only the other day when ,cardinal ,newman pleaded wistfully that we were not compelled1 under pain of eternal damnation1 to believe that ,tobit's dog did really wag its tail4 ,however1 outside ,scotland clergymen do seem to be free to form their own opinions on such allegations as that a whale swallowed a man and housed him for three days4 ,but in thus admitting that inspiration was consistent with error1 they have put the ,new ,testament also in the hand of the critic4 ,it is well to remember1 too1 that this modern criticism of the ,bible is conducted almost entirely by divines4 ,the average churchgoer has an impression that these terrible people who are known as the ,higher ,critics are anti-clerical laymen3 possibly lascivious gentlemen whose real ambition is to undermine the salutary discipline imposed by the ,churches4 ,they are1 of course1 on the contrary1 nearly all ordained clergymen1 and very conscientious clergymen1 of some branch of the ,church4 ,rationalists never criticise the ,bible4 ,it has become a branch of theological scholarship4 ,i once--having been challenged by the local clergyman1 who promptly disappeared when ,i arrived--gave a lecture on the divinity of ,christ to an audience of ,presbyterian artisans1 and assured them that the views and arguments ,i put before them were taken solely from the works of distinguished and highly honoured theologians4 ,their amazement and horror were most amusing4 ,they had not the dimmest idea that controversy on these points lay merely between advanced and not-advanced members of the ,christian clergy2 and that their local oracle had1 in effect1 merely been imposing on them the opinions of the less learned divines in opposition to the more learned4 ,and this fact dispenses me from the need to drag the reader into the somewhat tiring labyrinth of proof and disproof which these warring theologians have constructed4 ,nothing could be further from my mind than the presumptuous and immodest wish to brand the clergy as dishonest1 and their beliefs as superstitious1 because ,i happen to regard those beliefs as false4 ,let the position be clearly understood4 ,a study of the ,hibbert ,journal or any scholarly theological periodical1 or of any batch of learned theological works1 will apprise any person that what are ordinarily conceived to be the fundamental positions of the ,christian religion are challenged by a large proportion of distinguished divines4 ,pleas of reconstruction are constantly put before us2 and at the ,church of ,england ,congress in #aiab it was plainly decided by the presiding ,archbishop of ,york that the advanced theologians had a legitimate place in the ,church4 ,it is not a question of a few controverted points in the scheme of ,christian doctrine4 ,no point that is specifically ,christian is left unchallenged4 ,the divinity and miracles--especially the miraculous birth and resurrection--of ,christ1 the prophecies1 the doctrine of heaven and hell1 the divine guidance of the ,church1 the fall and redemption of man--all these characteristic doctrines are gravely disputed within the frontiers of the ,churches themselves1 wherever freedom of expression is permitted4 ,one would prefer to rely on theologians only in such a matter1 but for my purpose it is not immaterial to add that outside the ranks of the clergy scholarship is overwhelmingly against these doctrines4 ,there has been a good deal of unsubstantial talk about the beliefs of living men of intellectual eminence1 but resolute efforts have been made of late years to wring from them a profession of ,christian belief1 and the result has been so meagre that my statement is fully justified4 ,a large number declare that they are on the side of religion4 ,but one has only to reflect that even ,sir ,oliver ,lodge warmly professes to be a ,christian--and is1 in fact1 welcomed to read the lessons in church--to see how little is conveyed by such expressions4 ,the supreme effort of the ,churches to secure adhesions of this kind is probably found in ,mr4 ,tabrum's ,religious ,beliefs of ,scientists 7#aiaj71 and a study of that extraordinary jumble of the living and the dead1 the distinguished and the obscure1 the really believing ,christians and the men who are notoriously not1 will convince any person of the failure of the ,churches to obtain the literal adhesion of even a respectable proportion of our distinguished men3 not men of science merely--it is a stupid error to suppose that the decay of faith is more or less confined to them--but men of eminence in any department of research or intellectual life4 ,not one in ten of them1 in any educated country of the ,christian world to-day1 has ever professed a belief in the doctrines or statements ,i have enumerated2 and vague professions of a regard for religion do not concern me here4 ,now ,i am1 as ,i said1 not passing any personal opinion on these ,christian teachings3 ,i am merely drawing attention to their position in modern life4 ,the uncultivated masses and the body of the clergy who preach to these masses accept the miraculous birth1 death1 resurrection1 and all the rest1 quite implicitly4 ,here and there one finds a preacher who dissents2 ,i am speaking of the mass4 ,at the middle level of mental culture1 among both clergy and laity1 dissent becomes much more frequent4 ,at the highest level of theological scholarship it would be fair to say that the dissenters are almost1 if not quite1 as numerous as the believers2 and at the higher level of lay culture1 where opinions may be more freely formed and expressed1 the dissenters are the overwhelming majority4 ,these men may be theists or agnostics or ,christians in the broader sense of the word1 but the great majority of them do not believe in these distinctively ,christian doctrines4 ,yet the ,churches1 wherever they are not kept in check by this critical element1 invest these doctrines with the most sacred and confident character3 stamp them as unquestioned truths on the minds of children and uneducated people1 and put them forward as their official and authoritative doctrines4 ,nay1 there is hardly a theologian in any church who does not1 when ,christmas and ,easter annually occur1 lend his official and most solemn countenance to these discarded or disputed traditions4 ,this would not1 could not1 be done in any branch of lay culture4 ,one may justly insist on one's opinion in any disputed theme1 but what would be the attitude of our leaders of culture if any authoritative historian1 philosopher1 or scientist attempted to impose on the inexpert1 as an unquestioned truth1 some older opinion which a large proportion of the expert regarded as false or questionable8 ,what would they say to a responsible teacher in one of these branches of lay culture who read certain statements to those who trusted him1 and said within his own mind3 ,this is what people thought a thousand years ago8 ,a clergyman told me that it was with this mental reservation that he read the creeds and gospels on ,sundays4 ,what would a philosopher1 or historian1 or scientist say1 if his department of culture were an organic association with a public and authoritative teaching1 and this public teaching contained statements which a large proportion of the leading representatives regarded as false8 ,and what would he say to any colleagues who urged him to allow these things to stand because a change might lessen the respect of the general public for their authority8 ,this situation reflects gravely on the character of ,christian ministers4 ,one need not attempt the futile task of estimating what proportion of the clergy believe the things they teach1 but we are constantly receiving proof1 especially posthumous proof1 that large numbers of them do not4 ,i have been severely rebuked for suggesting such a thing1 but when ,i find a group of young ,oxford divines saying plumply1 in an important recent work 7,foundations71 that ,christian theology is out of harmony with science1 philosophy1 and scholarship1 ,i can only say that ,i trust a sufficient number of the clergy are educated enough to know it4 ,the majority of the clergy are1 however1 sufficiently ignorant of science1 philosophy1 and scholarship to be in good faith1 and one ought not to press the indictment in this sense4 ,at sea ,i listen occasionally1 from some safe distance1 to sermons1 and am amazed that even a fair proportion of the passengers can sit with grave faces during the delivery of such empty and ignorant vapourings4 ,one reflects that all over the ,christian world priests are similarly dogmatising on the most profound problems of life1 and not one in a thousand of them has an elementary knowledge of those branches of modern research which a public guide ought to command4 ,it is not the decay1 but the survival1 of churchgoing that perplexes one4 ,there is1 however1 another aspect of the matter which requires serious attention4 ,there have been1 from the earliest ages of the ,christian ,church1 men of superior intelligence and independent character who refused to submit to the dictation of the clergy4 ,there is no need to recall how the clergy dealt with them4 ,christian ministers have in this regard the most abominable record in the whole history of civilised religion4 ,some day it will be put side by side with that of the priests of ,saturn or of ,quetzalcotl1 who offered human sacrifices4 ,all that need be noted here is the effrontery with which modern clerical writers defend their predecessors4 ,if the principles on which they base their defence are valid1 they would again be compelled to burn heretics if they obtained power4 ,the ,church of ,rome is bold enough to acknowledge this4 ,huxley tells how his distinguished ,catholic friend1 ,dr4 ,j4 ,ward1 warmly assented to this1 but we have had since then a more authoritative indication4 ,a work of ,canon ,law which was published at ,rome under the enlightened rule of ,leo ,,xiii41 and with his emphatic personal approval--the ,institutiones ,juris ,canonici of ,father de ,luca--proves at length the duty of the ,church to put to death heretics4 ,however1 we will not waste rhetoric over the past or over an impossible future4 ,what policy have the modern clergy1 who are unable to induce the ,state to burn dissenters1 substituted for that of their predecessors8 ,a policy that is1 to a very great extent1 unjust1 spiteful1 and dishonourable3 a policy that1 in the very name of truth1 is marked by a more flagrant indifference to truth than you will find in any other reputable department of modern life4 ,the first feature of this policy will be seen by any generally informed person who will take the trouble to read a batch of religious works or periodicals4 ,he will find numbers of statements of the most amazing inaccuracy4 ,it is1 no doubt1 an exceptional thing for a clerical writer to make a statement which is1 to his conscious knowledge1 untrue4 ,the very suggestion seems prejudiced1 but is there a vast difference between imposing official untruths on ignorant congregations and supporting these untruths by others8 ,the constant repetition of these ancient and discredited formul does not induce a very punctilious temper in regard to truth4 ,if it is quite lawful to repeat from the ,old or the ,new ,testament historical statements which are not true or are gravely disputed1 why not other historical statements which have got into ecclesiastical currency8 ,usually1 however1 the attitude of the writer seems to be one of culpable indifference to the truth or untruth of the statements he makes4 ,he finds in some previous writer a statement which supports his case1 and he reproduces it without inquiry4 ,if he were a mere layman1 engaged in some branch of profane culture1 he would not dare to repeat1 without further inquiry1 statements which he found made in his own sectarian interest by men of no high authority or original scholarship4 ,the clergy1 however1 do this habitually1 and one is compelled to conclude that they are more or less indifferent about the truth of their assertions1 if those assertions are favourable to religion4 ,just as ,i write the press reports ,dr4 ,r4 ,f4 ,horton telling a congregation that a ,british regiment was saved at ,mons by the appearance of a legion of angels1 and assuring his audience that this silly myth is repeated by so many witnesses that if anything can be established by contemporary evidence it is established4 ,the story has gone the round of our pulpits and religious press4 ,i am speaking1 however1 from a particularly wide experience of religious literature4 ,for thirty years--ten years as a clerical student or professor1 and twenty years as an interested observer of religious controversy--,i have devoted much time to books and journals of this kind1 and ,i repeat that there is no other branch of literature so flagrantly inaccurate and unscrupulous4 ,a religious periodical 7,the ,christian ,world1 #bjth ,august #aijc71 in the course of an editorial on ,candour in the ,pulpit 7meaning lack of candour in the pulpit71 said3 ,a foremost modern theologian1 by no means of the radical school1 has recorded his significant judgment that one of the main characteristics of apologetic literature is its lack of honesty2 and no one who has studied theology can doubt that it has suffered more than any other science from equivocal phraseology4 ,when a journal which has to consult the feelings of a large backward clientele uses this language1 we may conclude that the situation is really bad4 ,in fact1 not even political journalism betrays such gross carelessness as to the truth of the statements with which it assails its opponents4 ,the more sacred our ideas are1 the more savagely we fight for them1 said ,mr4 ,chesterton1 defending the ,inquisition4 ,mr4 ,chesterton's own genial method 7except that one recognises the taint in his ,victorian ,age in ,literature7 disproves his aphorism4 ,there is not the slightest excuse for the gross procedure of religious writers4 ,i have in various works and articles given hundreds of examples of this procedure1 and will be content to deal summarily with two of the chief types of misrepresentation--those relating to history and those relating to science4 ,the classical examples in history are the clerical legends about the morality of the pagans4 ,here the clerical lie goes on its way from age to age without the slightest regard of the progress of historical research4 ,discoveries in the ruins 7such as the ,hammurabi ,code1 temple-literature1 etc47 and a closer scrutiny of the sources used by the ,greek historian ,herodotus have made it quite clear that the old ,mesopotamian civilisations were comparable to ours in moral sentiment and practice4 ,instead of women having to sacrifice their virginity in the temples at ,babylon1 we have abundant evidence that chastity was demanded and valued in brides1 and that the priests insisted on purity4 ,every other moral sentiment was equally developed4 ,we find the same high moral development in ,egypt4 ,all this is disregarded1 and the superiority of the ,hebrew and ,christian sacred books is maintained by a resolute propagation of ancient fables4 ,in regard to ,greece and ,rome the practice is even worse4 ,the exceptional features of their life are described as normal and general features1 and the very abundant literature which has put in its true light the character of ,athens and ,rome is completely ignored4 ,special periods of vice under bad emperors 7who1 in the aggregate1 ruled only seventy years out of three hundred and twenty7 are spread over the whole of ,roman history4 ,the gossip and democratic rhetoric of ,juvenal are pressed literally1 in spite of the judgment of all serious historians4 ,the works which exhibit the better side of ,rome1 and the inscriptions which show a very high degree of character and humanitarianism under the ,stoics1 are wholly suppressed4 ,the balanced verdict of modern historians is scandalously flouted4 ,at all costs it must be shown that ,europe needed regeneration1 and that ,christian morality was far superior to pagan2 and so the clergy continue1 in spite of protests from some of their own lay scholars 7,emil ,reich1 for instance71 to draw a flagrantly untruthful picture of the morals of ,greece and ,rome4 ,but this misrepresentation is venial in comparison with the misrepresentation of later ,european history4 ,the clerical story of the moral change that came over ,europe when it embraced ,christianity is one of the grossest impostures ever laid on the human mind4 ,even clerics like ,dean ,milman sufficiently refuted it decades ago1 but it flourishes as profitably as ever4 ,from the pulpit of ,st4 ,paul's to the tin chapels of ,mudville it is one of the most treasured traditions1 and perhaps no picture is more familiar to ,christian audiences than that of ,rome1 drunk with its vices1 reeling to the foot of the cross and embracing sobriety4 ,it is a calculated clerical myth in every line4 ,the ,stoics reformed ,rome at a time when the ,christians were a mere handful of obscure people1 and the magnificent work done and institutions set up by the ,stoics were not sustained by the ,church4 ,even in regard to the persecutions the clergy still repeat the legend which modern historians recognise as based on a mass of medieval forgeries4 ,civilisation sank rapidly until it touched the depth of the early ,middle ,ages1 and1 as ,milman candidly recognised1 the claim that at least virtue increased is the reverse of the truth4 ,the ,church did not denounce or abolish slavery3 it discouraged education3 it abased woman3 it set back a thousand years the development of culture4 ,yet our clerical writers repeat the medieval falsehoods as fluently as if modern history did not exist4 ,the later period is just as grossly falsified by ,catholic writers1 but here the ,protestant--who has somehow convinced himself that the ,holy ,spirit abandoned ,europe to the devil for a thousand years--begins to cry for candour4 ,much of the ,protestant literature is uncritical and unscrupulous in its use of authorities2 it is1 however1 instructive in comparison with the kind of history purveyed by the ,catholic ,truth ,society4 ,there is hardly a candid historian in the ,church1 even in ,germany and the ,united ,states4 ,the latest historian of the ,papacy1 ,dr4 ,l4 ,pastor1 is certainly entitled to respect for his effort1 though even he does not present all the facts2 while men like ,cardinal ,gasquet are appallingly one-sided4 ,i am1 however1 thinking mainly of the popular literature1 on which no stricture could be too severe4 ,indeed1 when it comes to the modern period1 both ,protestant and ,catholic literature is scandalous4 ,one often finds ,voltaire1 ,rousseau1 and ,paine described as atheists1 and the most slovenly observations on the ,revolution4 ,roosevelt's description of ,paine as a dirty little atheist is a good indication of the kind of literature that even an educated religious man may read4 ,on the scientific side the inaccuracy and carelessness are just as great1 but the field is too vast for consideration here4 ,the conflict in regard to evolution has produced an extraordinary literature on the clerical side1 and1 to the amusement of students of science1 it still flows from the religious press and refreshes suburban faith4 ,men who have never devoted a month to the study of science engage in conflict with the most authoritative masters of biology1 and thrill their ignorant followers with the vigour and dexterity of their fencing4 ,these ,jesuit and other writers have1 of course1 set up a lay-figure for their valiant attacks4 ,they misrepresent the views and motives of the man they oppose1 give garbled quotations from his works1 and support their own antiquated positions by quotations from scientific men who lived in the earlier phases of the controversy4 ,no trick is more common in this class of literature than to justify obsolete statements by quoting authorities who died long ago1 and leaving the inexpert reader to suppose that they are modern men of science2 while clerics who could not distinguish a palolithic from a civilised skull write pompous essays on such subjects as the evolution of man4 ,works of this kind circulate by the hundred in the churches even to-day1 literally deluding millions of people1 while the works of more expert writers are denounced as against religion and unfit to read4 ,still more flagrant is the clerical behaviour in rebutting the general belief that men of science have for the most part abandoned ,christianity4 ,they--with the support of a man like ,sir ,o4 ,lodge--talk glibly of the death of ,victorian materialism and the rebirth of spiritualism2 whereas ,huxley1 ,tyndall1 ,spencer1 ,darwin1 ,clifford1 ,lewes1 and every other ,victorian man of science repudiated materialism4 ,when you ask who the modern men are who have abandoned the views of the ,huxleian generation and come to favour religion1 they produce an extraordinarily confused list of names4 ,i have referred to their magnum opus in this department1 ,tabrum's ,religious ,beliefs of ,scientists4 ,it actually includes two prominent members of the ,rationalist ,press ,association2 while men like ,lodge and ,wallace and ,crookes are included among the more orthodox4 ,of late years it is the fashion to impress ignorant congregations with the names of ,w4 ,james1 ,eucken1 and ,bergson2 whereas ,james and ,bergson are not even theists1 and ,eucken professes a form of theism which any ,church would heatedly repudiate4 ,the members of the various sects are literally and most scandalously duped on this point4 ,i have claimed that the clergy are spiteful and unjust1 as well as careless about truth4 ,there are very few popular religious writers who seem capable of giving a correct account of the views they are criticising1 and there are very many who manipulate quotations with the effect of grossly deceiving their readers4 ,worse still1 the clergy habitually slander their critics1 and these slanders live for years in spite of refutation4 ,seven years ago they began to circulate a silly and obviously incredible charge that ,professor ,haeckel forged illustrations in support of his case1 and1 though the libel was at once thoroughly refuted by ,professor ,schmidt1 it is still current4 ,only a few months ago ,i received from ,india documents which showed that the ,jesuits there were still insisting on it4 ,a friend of mine informed me that he heard one ,scottish preacher1 in the course of a public lecture on ,haeckel1 assure his audience1 on the authority of a friend of ,haeckel's1 that that venerable scientist was a man of most licentious life6 ,no charge is too gross to repeat1 if it discredits an enemy of the faith4 ,dozens of times ,i have heard of the wildest calumnies about myself which circulate throughout the ,english-speaking world1 because ,i have occasionally written a critical work 7always grossly misrepresented in the ,catholic press7 about the ,catholic ,church4 ,i never belonged to the ,catholic priesthood3 ,i was discharged from it for fraud3 ,i left it in order to marry a nun ,i had seduced3 and so on4 ,only the lighter of these things are put in print1 and then always with the name omitted4 ,only a few months ago a priest 7and ,education-,councillor7 in a ,scottish town gravely assured a schoolmistress1 in the presence of an acquaintance of mine1 that his ,church held unshakable proofs of my vicious ways4 ,as usual1 my request that they would say so in print was ignored4 ,most ex-priests have the same experience4 ,one of the most refined and religious of these seceders1 a man who became a most respected professor at ,oxford1 was pursued by the calumny 7never printed7 that he had shown indecent photographs to servant-girls6 ,this tactic of the ,church militant is happily so notorious that little harm is done among the general public1 but ,catholics are gravely deluded1 in the hope that they will be induced to refrain from reading any except their own mendacious literature4 ,yet one of the most familiar themes of the men who pursue this tactic is that they alone can inspire high character6 ,notoriously insincere in their professions1 teachers of doctrines which the higher culture of our time and many of their own leading scholars condemn1 living in an atmosphere of untruth and unreality1 relying on a literature which is generally as indifferent to truth as it is to grace1 unscrupulously repeating idle slanders of their opponents1 they ask us to believe that they are genuinely concerned about the future of society if we continue to reject their authority4 ,it is not strange that the great cities of the modern world are unmoved by their dirges4 ,the third point of my indictment is that the clergy have forged the historical credentials by which they lay claim to our respect4 ,i have already observed that their version of the history of ,europe is peculiar to their own literature1 and ,i have elsewhere 7,the ,bible in ,europe7 shown in detail how worthless it is4 ,the conversion of ,europe to ,christianity in the fourth century was1 as every historian of the period shows1 an enforcement of the new religion on ,europe by imperial authority1 accompanied by the most violent and bloody repression of all other religions4 ,we then have the witness of contemporary ,christian writers that this conversion was followed by a general moral and intellectual decline4 ,the great reforms which ,rome had inaugurated were destroyed1 and ,europe sank into the ignorance1 superstition1 and grossness of the ,middle ,ages4 ,it is quite true that the triumph of ,christianity coincided with the overthrow of civilisation by the northern tribes1 but the ,teutonic tribes were not inferior to the ,arabs or ,turks 7whom ,mohammedanism civilised in the course of a century or two71 and the ,church soon obtained despotic power over them4 ,the ,eastern ,empire1 ,i may add1 was not dominated by the barbarians1 yet it also suffered a grave moral and intellectual decline4 ,the fact is1 that the clergy made no effort to induce the barbarians to restore the old school-system1 to reconstruct the ,roman law1 to free the slaves 7and1 later1 the serfs71 to adjust their high native ideal of womanhood to the new social order1 or to rebuild the fine civic and philanthropic system of the ,romans4 ,culture fell so low that the very promising germs of later ,greek science were allowed to die1 and nearly the whole of the surviving ,greek literature was unknown in ,europe for many centuries4 ,the trade in spurious relics1 the rapacity and unscrupulousness of the ,papacy1 the coarseness of the nobles and people1 and the general sexual licence of priests and monks were almost incredible4 ,this dark age began to receive the first rays of new light in the eleventh and twelfth centuries1 and historians are agreed that the new light came from the civilisation of the ,spanish ,moors4 ,this it was that1 by introducing ,greek literature and its ,arab commentators1 led to the early revival of science4 ,but the cult of the grossest relics and superstitions continued1 and the clergy repressed1 or inspired rulers to repress1 all dissent with more ferocity than ever4 ,during the one general persecution of the early ,christians by the ,romans about two thousand had suffered for the faith2 and only a few hundreds can be added from the earlier sporadic persecutions4 ,but within fifty years of the establishment of ,christianity in the ,empire1 tens of thousands of ,donatists1 ,manichans1 ,arians1 ,pagans1 etc41 were done to death1 and hundreds of thousands ruined or maltreated1 by the triumphant ,christians4 ,in later centuries it was the turn of ,monophysites1 ,monothelites1 etc41 and in the first quarter of the thirteenth century alone more than a million heretics were done to death in ,languedoc4 ,if the ,jews and witches and others who suffered on religious grounds be added1 the butcher's bill of the new religion passes ten millions2 and beyond these are the countless millions of those who suffered something less than death4 ,we look back to-day with feelings of horror on this ghastly carnage1 especially when we remember the absurd character of the doctrines which the heretics assailed and the immorality of the clergy and monks who were primarily responsible for the executions and massacres4 ,but this savage repression of independent thought had consequences of an even more disastrous nature on ,european civilisation4 ,it not only removed from the community many of the more courageous and more intelligent stocks1 but it intimidated others from using their powers1 except in the futile argumentation of the ,schoolmen4 ,the result was a prolonged suspension of the development of the higher culture which was destined to give ,europe its supremacy4 ,it will hardly be doubted to-day that this culture was contained in the scientific works of the ,greeks1 especially the ,alexandrian ,greeks4 ,the ,arabs brought this culture to ,spain1 and1 chiefly through the mediation of the ,jews1 it was slowly introduced into ,europe and inspired such scholars as ,gilbert1 ,roger ,bacon1 ,albert the ,great1 and ,copernicus4 ,physics1 chemistry1 and medicine began their development4 ,but the fate of ,roger ,bacon and ,albert and ,vesalius sufficiently reminds us of the ,church's attitude toward the new culture1 and the story of the hampering of intellectual progress in the exact study of nature has been repeatedly told4 ,the scholastic fever1 which had absorbed the energies of most of the acutest minds in ,europe1 had to disappear1 and the power of the ,church to be enfeebled1 before the civilisation of ,europe could advance4 ,the further introduction of ,greek literature1 when the ,turks drove the ,greeks from ,constantinople1 the invention of printing1 the expansion of commerce and navigation1 and the weakening of ,church-authority by the ,reformation1 opened the modern phase of the development of ,european civilisation4 ,it is only for the last of these changes that a section of the clergy may plausibly claim our gratitude1 and even here we must make reserves4 ,the share of the laity in the ,reformation was greater than the share of the clergy1 and the aim of the ,reformed clergy was by no means to free and stimulate the intelligence of ,europe4 ,they frowned on lay culture1 and burned their opponents1 as inhumanly as the ,roman priests did4 ,it was not until the growth of sects had further enfeebled ecclesiastical authority1 and a large body of lay scholars had arisen1 that ,europe became civilised1 even in a generous sense of the word4 ,then science and philosophy and history grew to the proportions which distinguish modern times1 and a resolute social and humanitarian movement began to remove those appalling injustices of the industrial and political order which the clergy had witnessed in silence for more than a thousand years4 ,i repeat that this is not an eccentric view of the development of ,european civilisation1 but the view taken by historians ever since their science was emancipated from clerical control4 ,the view which the clergy still sedulously propagate1 that the ,christian religion inspired the civilisation of ,europe1 is the most preposterous historical sham which we still entertain4 ,it is unintelligible how a scholar like ,mr4 ,bryce can give even a qualified support to it4 ,in the minds of most people it is a pitiful confusion of ideas associated with one of the most elementary fallacies known to the logician4 ,the fallacy is the syllogism which suffices for the majority of the faithful3 ,europe is the great centre of civilisation1 ,europe was ,christian during the development of this civilisation1 therefore ,christianity was the inspirer of the civilisation4 ,the inference is foolish enough in itself1 but it becomes ludicrous when we reflect on the facts4 ,europe was civilised before it became ,christian2 it inherited all the best culture and experience of ,egypt1 ,mesopotamia1 ,persia1 ,greece1 and ,rome4 ,but ,europe lost its civilisation when it became ,christian1 very largely because the new religion found culture dangerous to its superstitions and repressed it4 ,and ,europe owes its return to civilisation to the revival of pagan ideas1 and it advances in civilisation in proportion as it discards ,christianity4 ,the confusion of ideas is just as foolish as the fallacy4 ,europe is great in two very different senses4 ,most of the white nations are great in the vastness of their territory and the wealth they have derived from subject peoples4 ,to connect this form of greatness with the ,sermon on the ,mount is audacious3 it is a practice which really belongs to the age when ,english merchants who waxed fat on the negro-slave trade could complacently give the name ,jesus to their vessels4 ,this form of greatness frankly rested on buccaneering4 ,europe is great also in intellectual development1 with the scientific and technical achievements to which this has led4 ,we need not ask what particular ,christian sentiment has inspired this2 we know too well the share the clergy have had in repressing it4 ,lastly1 ,europe is great in the cultivation of humane sentiment and the endeavour to practise social justice4 ,it is here that the clergy usually claim their usefulness2 and there is hardly a bolder mis-statement in their literature than this4 ,the ,new ,testament contains not a single moral sentiment that was unknown to the ,greeks and ,romans1 and to the later ,jews3 the moral sentiments of the ,new ,testament are so vague and elementary that not a single priest denounced slavery for nine hundred years1 and not a ,church has denounced war for more than eighteen hundred years3 the ,christian ethic was so uninspiring that ,europe reeked with vice and crime and war and social injustice until the end of the eighteenth or beginning of the nineteenth century3 when the reform began1 in the nineteenth century1 hardly a single priest aided it 7until it had won millions of adherents71 and the bishops almost unanimously opposed it3 and the humanitarianism of modern times is an almost exclusively lay movement1 gaining power and fervour in proportion as we sweep the clergy aside4 ,europe was civilised under the ,roman and ,greek pagans1 and it is civilised1 in the same broad sense1 under the modern pagans2 it was not civilised in the intervening period1 and the worst features of its life to-day are1 not recent outgrowths1 but inheritances from the ,christian past4 ,the pleas which some of the clergy1 who know a little history1 urge against this plain generalisation of the historical facts are curious4 ,the majority1 of course1 knowing nothing of history1 repeat the conventional untruths1 but a few would tell us that this modern humanitarianism is due to a belated appreciation of the ,christian ethic4 ,are justice1 sympathy1 truthfulness1 kindness1 and honour confined to the ,christian ethic8 ,was there ever a great moralist1 or a mature civilisation1 which failed to appreciate them8 ,is not the modern humanitarian movement plainly characterised by a determination to do good to men1 not for a reward in heaven or because ,christ 7like so many others7 enjoined it1 but because you cannot have a fine mind and character without experiencing this determination8 ,were there1 in the fifteen hundred years of ,christian domination1 not enough men with intelligence enough to perceive the practical bearing of ,christ's ethic8 ,have these clerical writers frankly abandoned the claim that the ,spirit of ,god guided their predecessors during those fifteen centuries8 ,and have they read a line of the modern literature which shows that there is not one humane sentiment in the ,gospels that was not well known to the ,jews before the time of ,christ8 ,the case of the clergy is a tissue of sophistry and untruth from beginning to end4 ,they have done nothing as a body for ,european civilisation1 in proportion to their power and leisure and resources4 ,they did not even teach it chastity4 ,they hindered the development of the culture which it vitally needed1 and dissipated its finest intelligence in the tilling of barren soil4 ,they fought fiercely for their own wealth and power1 and were for fifteen hundred years a mighty parasitic growth on the working community4 ,they kept the bandage of illiteracy on the eyes of ninety per cent4 of their people for fifteen hundred years1 and dined merrily with the nobles who exploited the people4 ,they exacted respect in virtue of their supposed close communion with an all-holy ,god2 and they were themselves1 especially in their highest representatives1 immoral and hypocritical in an appalling proportion1 were brutal in coercing their critics1 were traffickers in spurious and sordid relics1 and were1 when noble men and women at last won liberty from them1 ignorant1 slanderous1 and careless of truth as no reputable body of laymen would stoop to become4 ,their record is as poor as their opportunity was great1 and the modern world is1 in strict proportion to the growth of education1 passing disdainfully by the open doors of their churches4 ,of the twelve million inhabitants of the three greatest cities of ,europe hardly two millions attend church2 and if it were not for the incessant1 feverish1 and highly organised efforts of the clergy themselves1 churchgoing would show a further rapid and enormous shrinkage4 ,yet even in this last phase we find them mumbling to ill-instructed congregations about their glorious record in ,europe 7crowned by a war of four hundred million people71 about the wickedness of an age which prefers the indulgence of its passions to their serene guidance1 and about the terrible doom which they foresee for ,europe if it does not return to its medieval guardians4 ,as ,i observed in dealing with the political organisation1 ,christianity is not a set of ideas but a wealthy and powerful corporation4 ,once it was a body of men holding certain beliefs3 now it is1 in essence1 an organisation for the enforcement of those beliefs4 ,it is1 in the main1 this professional or corporate interest which sustains ,christianity in ,europe3 but it is losing heavily4 ,i have shown 7,decay of the ,church of ,rome7 that the oldest branch of the ,church has lost about a hundred million followers in a hundred years4 ,i do not think that the ,protestant ,churches1 being more progressive and less offensive in their tactics1 have lost so heavily1 but the extraordinary decay of churchgoing in cities like ,berlin1 ,london1 and ,new ,york is suggestive4 ,in spite of all the tricks and devices of the clergy--the vestments and concerts1 the matrimonial agencies and philanthropic coercion1 the ,y4,m4,c4,a4's and ,p4,s4,a4's and all the rest--the people still fall away4 ,no proof could be formulated to-day that even the majority of the people of ,europe are ,christians4 ,the thoughtful minority in the religious world are retreating upon the liberal theism which so many of our cultural leaders profess1 or upon some even more vague mysticism4 ,into this further province it is not my intention to go4 ,the world will1 no doubt1 long remain divided in opinion1 or in sentiment1 on fundamental religious issues1 and for my practical purpose this difference is of no account4 ,there is1 however1 one last consideration put forward by the clergy which it may be useful to consider4 ,it is represented that we are in danger of a triumph of materialism1 and it is therefore wise to cling1 in spite of their errors1 to the ,churches which so solidly represent spiritualism4 ,since many people have regarded me as peculiarly exposed to this danger of falling under the evil spell of materialism1 ,i have made eager inquiries among spiritualist writers as to the nature of spirit4 ,i am still hopefully inquiring4 ,most of the anmic mystics who gush over the word cannot tell you what it means4 ,they have a vague conviction that the spiritual is immensely more important and productive of good than the material1 and that therefore materialism is the most appalling blight that can fall on a nation4 ,these prophets of evil are1 as ,i have previously observed1 not strong in history4 ,they do not explain how ,confucianism 7which ,sir ,edwin ,arnold1 accurately enough1 calls materialism7 proved so great an inspiration in ,china and ,japan3 how the ,stoics 7who refused utterly to believe in spirit7 wrought so much good and inspired so fine a character at ,rome3 or how this materialistic age of ours is so idealistic4 ,they know only that we must at all costs cultivate the spiritual--read spiritual writers1 respect spiritual persons1 encourage spiritual clergymen and artists and actors--and loathe materialism from the bottom of our hearts4 ,and it is therefore quite natural to suppose that all that is precious in life and progress depends on the belief in the existence of spirits4 ,in point of fact1 we have here entangled ourselves in an extraordinary confusion4 ,the cultivation of intelligence1 fine sentiment1 and straight character has nothing whatever to do with the question whether the mind of man is or is not divisible into parts1 or has or has not inertia3 which are the only philosophic distinctions between matter and spirit that ,i have discovered4 ,the tradition of the spirituality of the mind is responsible for this confusion4 ,if the mind is a spirit1 then spirit is assuredly the source of the finest things in life1 and is far superior to matter4 ,but that is just the question at issue2 and it really does not matter two pins for practical purposes whether the mind is extended and inert 7in the scientific sense71 or unextended and devoid of inertia4 ,one has only to substitute clear conceptions for vague terms1 and the whole controversy is reduced to absurdity4 ,whichever side wins in the academic battle about the nature of mind1 it remains as true as ever that the cultivation of mind is one of the most important aims that men can set up4 ,why on earth should we be less disposed to cultivate the mind of the race if some sudden turn of scientific advance were to prove it a function of the brain8 ,it remains true that our race owes the position it occupies entirely to mind3 that our civilisation owes its ascendancy over barbarism to mind3 and that we rely entirely on the further cultivation of mind--of intelligence1 will1 and emotion--to destroy those shams which impede our progress and curtail our prosperity and happiness4 ,it is ludicrous to say that we cannot thus cultivate mind unless we believe it to be an indivisible and incomprehensible and indefinable something4 ,it would1 in fact1 be less absurd to say that we should have more confidence in our power to cultivate mind if we regarded it as an organic function1 subject to definite treatment4 ,as to the lapse of a belief in personal immortality1 it is not less absurd to say that this would paralyse our efforts4 ,as ,ruskin says on the point3 ,the shortness of life is not1 to any rational person1 a conclusive reason for wasting the space of it which may be granted him4 ,that magnificent preface to ,the ,crown of ,wild ,olive ought long ago to have silenced these dismal sophists4 ,the fact is1 that this age of ours1 in proportion as it grows indifferent to the old legends and the appeals of the clergy1 rises toward heights which man never climbed before4 ,the clergy are most amusingly puzzled4 ,popes tell us that we are children of perdition1 reeling into an earthly abyss1 to say nothing of a deeper beyond3 archbishops say that we are just beginning to realise the true import of ,christ's teaching4 ,the candid man or woman will look searchingly for himself or herself into the heart of our age1 and1 if he or she have an accurate knowledge of earlier ages1 will recognise that it throbs with a human idealism1 tenderness1 and sympathy which have been unknown in ,europe since the old pagans departed4 ,let me end on that note4 ,the religious person will close this work1 if he perseveres to the end1 with a series of horrified exclamations4 ,socialism6 ,immoralism6 ,republicanism6 ,materialism6 ,malthusianism6 ,i shudder under the shower of horrid epithets1 yet would ask this outraged reader to forget 'isms for a moment and consider a simple statement of the human faith ,i here present4 ,the ideals which ,i hold in supreme regard are truth in our beliefs and statements1 justice and generosity in our actions1 the co-operation of all men to make the earth happier4 ,i am in temperament no hedonist4 ,thirty years of assiduous study1 of much severe trial1 of stoical endurance have left me more or less insensible to what men and women usually call happiness4 ,my personal desires are sated in that ,i may1 in circumstances of peace and modest comfort1 devote myself to intellectual labour and the employment in the cause of progress of such influence as ,i have4 ,i see no purpose imposed on life1 and ,i therefore conclude that men and women are free to put such purpose on their collective life as they deem advisable4 ,no purpose seems to be wiser1 grander1 or more inspiring than that they should seek to assuage the last pang of remediable pain and bring sunshine into the dark places of the earth4 ,for me there is no heaven2 and therefore the spectacle of those thousands passing daily and nightly into the silence1 after lives of pain1 misery1 or brutality1 while we cling to the barbaric traditions or ill-devised institutions that have come down to us1 is an intolerable goad4 ,let us have criticism and scrutiny of all that we do and all that we believe2 and let us have courage to reject all that we think false and purify all that we find corrupted4 ,let us assert that mighty power of which we are conscious2 and1 if it take ages to undo all the errors of the past and agree upon a plan of a regenerated earth1 let us at least strive to awaken men to a consciousness of their power and of the evils they have to remove4 ,these are my suggestions of what is wrong in life and how it may be righted4 ,it may be materialism1 this plain human gospel of mine2 but it seems to me that1 if it could be carried into effect1 there would spread gradually over this earth such joy and freedom and prosperity as men's prophets have babbled of in their dying dreams4 ,the ,end ,,transcriber',s ,,notes4 ,alterations to the text3 ,a few spelling corrections4 ,end of ,book