,note3 ,images of the original pages are available through ,internet ,archive4 ,see https3_/_/archive4org_/details_/ploughsh arepruni#jj;hous ,,ploughshare ,,and ,,pruning-,,hook ,ten ,lectures on ,social ,subjects by ,,laurence ,,housman ,the ,swarthmore ,press ,ltd4 7formerly trading as ,headley ,bros4 ,publishers ,ltd47 #gb ,oxford ,street1 ,london1 ,w#a ,first ,printed ,september1 #aiai ,,preface ,these papers1 originally given as lectures1 make no pretence to the solution of the social or political problems with which they are concerned4 ,they indicate rather a certain standpoint or attitude of mind from which these and like questions may be viewed1 one which may find acceptance with only a few of my readers4 ,even those who are friendly may consider it too idealistic2 those who are adverse will employ other and harder terms4 ,with regard to that standpoint1 while not wishing to avert criticism1 ,i would like to secure understanding2 and if a few words of general application can make that more possible it may be well to offer them here4 ,whether these lectures were primarily intended for the pulpit or the platform it would be hard to say4 ,most of them have been given in both places3 and their drawback to some who heard them in the former was 7,i have been told7 their occasional tendency to make the congregation laugh4 ,that in itself is no special recommendation2 it takes so much less to make a congregation laugh than an audience4 ,between the pulpit and the platform there is bound to be a difference2 even the fact that the preacher is normally immune from interjection or debate tends to give to his statements a complacency which is not always intellectually justified4 ,and ,i remember well that two of these lectures1 after having been accepted in a church with only momentary breaches of decorum1 aroused elsewhere a storm of criticism and rebuke which taught me1 if ,i did not know it before1 that a preacher occupies a very privileged position1 and can turn a church1 if he chooses1 into a place of licence which elsewhere will not be accorded him4 ,but there is one point of difference between the pulpit and the platform1 between the exposition of religion and politics1 which ,i have never been able to understand4 ,after all1 in both cases1 you are dealing with and making your appeal to human nature2 you may be inciting it to virtue1 you may be exposing its imperfections and its faults4 ,why is it1 then1 that in the religious appeal 8conversion0--change of heart--stands for almost everything1 whilst on the political platform it is hardly reckoned with8 ,it is so much easier and safer to tell a congregation that they are 8miserable sinners10 and even to get them 7perhaps conventionally7 to say it of themselves1 than to tell it1 or to extract a like confession from a political audience4 ,in a church we allow ourselves to be taken to task for 8hardness of heart and contempt of ,god's word and commandments02 at a political meeting it is only our opponents whom we so take to task1 while of ourselves and our party we have nothing but praise4 ,it is on these lines that a general election is run--revivalist meetings are held throughout the country to denounce1 not our own sins1 but the sins of others4 ,is it any wonder that it does not produce honest results8 ,having said this1 ,i have given the main standpoint of the papers that follow4 ,i do not believe that we can get home to our political and social problems without self-accusation going quite as deep as anything we say of ourselves in church or chapel--or without making the application very direct and personal4 ,there is no institution in our midst1 religious or secular1 which does not stand quite as much in need of conversion1 change of heart1 as do the individuals for whose benefit or disciplinary treatment it is run4 ,our schools1 prisons1 law courts1 ,state institutions1 ministries1 diplomacies--all those things on which we most pride ourselves--are just as liable1 perhaps more liable1 to hardness of heart and contempt of ,god's word and commandments as we ourselves1 for they are all part of us4 ,it is1 indeed1 one of our social devices to get rid of our consciences by making them institutional4 ,there is a certain class of mind which thinks that if it has established legality it has established a right over conscience--that if it has established order it has established virtue4 ,it has very often established quite the contrary--not virtue but a ,state-regulation of vice2 for if we can turn the hardness of our hearts into a ,state-regulation1 there we have vice enthroned2 and the callousness of the individual is enlarged and becomes a national callousness1 all the more difficult to get rid of1 because it has become identified with law and authority4 ,a very good 7or bad7 example of this was provided by the conduct of the ,bishops in the ,house of ,lords a few years ago1 when1 to provide the ,government with a short cut out of its difficulties in dealing with political prisoners 7mainly caused by its refusal to treat them as political prisoners7 they allowed the rules of the ,house to be suspended for the passing through all its stages in twenty-four hours of the 8,cat and ,mouse ,act40 ,before long its operations horrified them1 and they signed 7or some of them did7 letters and memorials of protest to the ,government1 asking for those operations to be stopped4 ,but not one of them would make a motion in the ,house of ,lords for the suspension or repeal of that ,act for which1 in so special a way1 they had made themselves responsible4 ,by allowing it to become law they had passed on the responsibility to others2 and being thus quit of it1 the last thing probably that occurred to any of them was that they themselves needed 8a change of heart0 in order to recover moral integrity1 or even political honesty4 ,and so1 in these pages1 law and authority are just as much questioned as any other of our social features1 on the direct assumption that like produces like1 and that a form of society which establishes1 encourages1 or condones as 8necessary0 such defilements of human nature as militarism1 prostitution1 sweated labour1 slum-dwellings1 vengeful and unreformative punishment--having its heart so hardened as to tolerate these--is not likely in its institutions and government departments to have escaped from a reproduction of that attitude of mind which makes them possible or regards them as a defensible solution of the social problem4 ,the war has revealed much to us4 ,it has shown how much society is willing to afford for things which it considers worth while2 and has thus shown by implication those things which formerly society did not think worth while--because its heart was not in them4 ,it has had the heart to spend colossal sums1 to conscript millions of young lives to death in defence of its organisation upon the lines of power against a rival organisation willing to pay a similar price4 ,it had not the heart1 in the days of peace and prosperity1 to spend one-hundredth part of that sum in organising even those institutions which it entirely controlled1 on the lines of love4 ,in our own midst1 behind our sea-defences1 we were still competitive1 jealous1 grudging1 parsimonious1 wasteful1 slow to mercy and of great anger2 and the prevailing characteristic of our civil contentions was that no side would ever admit itself to be in the wrong1 or consent to think that a change of its own heart was necessary4 ,and as the very crown and apex to that mountain of self-deception1 stood the ministerial bench in ,parliament4 ,when blunders had been perpetrated and became too obvious for concealment1 we might occasionally be told that to make mistakes was human1 and that government did not claim immunity from the operation of that law2 but ministers would dodge1 and shuffle1 and lie--suppress1 or even falsify information to which only they had access1 rather than admit that they had 8done wrong10 or open their eyes to the fact that what they mainly needed was a change of heart4 ,and as with ministers as a whole1 so as a whole with people4 ,those elements of our national and international relations which were leading steadily on to the great conflagration wherein we were all presently to be involved1 were those in which 7our pride being implicated7 we stubbornly denied that any change of heart was necessary4 ,the ,state would not admit that its exaltation of the ,will to ,power over the ,will to ,love was morally wrong2 it would not admit that the alternative came within the scope of practical politics2 such teaching it left to the advocacy of the ,churches2 and how half-hearted that advocacy had become under pressure of the surrounding atmosphere of national self-sufficiency was revealed when the war came upon us4 ,christianity became almost mute2 the one form of prayer1 special to the occasion1 which the ,church could not or would not use was that which alone is truly ,christian--prayer in identical terms both for ourselves and our enemies4 ,to pray that spiritual strength and moral virtue might be given equally to us and them was beyond us--though in the granting of it war would have ceased4 ,we were not content to pray merely that right should prevail--right1 that most difficult of all outcomes to secure when once1 even for a just cause1 nations embark on war--we insisted on praying that we should prevail3 and so 7praying for things materially established7 not that we should prevail by a clean adherence to the principles of democracy1 but by the instrumentality of a corrupt and secret diplomacy4 ,and so before long--knowingly or unknowingly--we were praying for the success of the secret treaties1 for the successful repudiation of the very principles for which we had set out to fight1 for the suppression of ,ireland's right to self-determination1 for the downfall of the ,russian ,revolution1 which was insisting so inconveniently on a belated return to first principles1 and for other doubtful advantages not at all synonymous with the coming of ,christ's ,kingdom4 ,and we were praying for these things--just as really1 though we did not mention them by name--because our hearts were not set on praying for the well-being of all nations and all governments alike4 ,had we been capable of so praying1 it would have meant that a real change of heart had come to us1 and that we were offering that changed heart to all the world alike for the establishment of the new ,international4 ,but to such change of heart we could not attain--could not even consent2 for it would have implied that there was something morally wrong in our national institutions1 in our government and our whole social structure1 which we would not admit4 ,we would not admit that the chemic elements of our own national life had conduced to war in common with the chemic elements of the nation whose flagrant violation of treaties had given us the immediate materials for a good conscience4 ,we fattened our hearts for war on the immediate material thus provided us1 ignoring those other materials which lay behind1 and which we and all other nations shared alike--though not necessarily in equal degrees4 ,and here we have the essential and fundamental difference between the genuine profession of ,christianity and the profession of ,csarism4 ,for the follower of ,christ to confess that he has done wrong1 that he needs a change of heart1 redounds to his honour--he goes down to his house justified4 ,but when a nation has given itself to ,csar1 its main idea of 8honour0 is to refuse to admit it has done wrong1 or to accept punishment2 it may be beaten1 crushed1 but you cannot extract from it a confession of moral wrong-doing2 a sense of sin is the negation not only of the ,german ,state system1 but of all4 ,a 8proud nation0 will not own that it has been in the wrong1 least of all when it embarks on war2 if it did it would go down to its house in dust4 ,now that being1 as ,i see it1 the moral product of ,csarism1 in all its degrees and kinds--whether autocratic or democratic ,csarism--of the setting up of the ,will to ,power over the ,will to ,love--it follows that the change of heart which ,i predicate in these pages for the solution of our social and international problems1 is almost a ,tolstoian negation of the principle upon which the modern state system stands4 ,as such1 it will be very unwelcome to many of my readers2 but ,i hope that1 as here set down1 ,i have made my standpoint plain4 ,the ploughshare and the pruning-hook are not mine to wield2 ,i only point in the direction where ,i think they are to be found4 ,l4 ,h4 ,,contents ,,page ,great ,possessions #a ,crime and ,punishment #bf ,christianity a ,danger to the ,state #dh ,the ,salt of the ,earth #fc ,the ,rights of ,majorities #he ,discreditable ,conduct #aji ,what is ,womanly8 #ace ,use and ,ornament #aeg ,art and ,citizenship #ahi ,conscious and ,unconscious ,immortality #bah ,,great ,,possessions 7#aiac7 8,you never know yourself10 says ,thomas ,traherne1 8till you know more than your own body4 ,the ,image of ,god was not seated in the features of your face but in the lineaments of your soul4 ,in the knowledge of your powers1 inclinations1 and principles1 the knowledge of yourself chiefly consisteth4444 ,the world is but a little centre in comparison of you 444 like a gentleman's house to one that is travelling1 it is a long time before you come unto it--you pass it in an instant--and you leave it for ever4 ,the omnipresence and eternity of ,god are your fellows and companions4 ,your understanding comprehends the world like the dust of a balance1 measures ,heaven with a span1 and esteems a thousand years but as one day40 ,to this statement of man's comprehensive powers1 a further one might legitimately be added3 ,you shall never know delight1 till you delight in more than your own body4 ,man's body being the crucible wherein such vast things come to be tested1 8,eternal ,delights are10 says ,traherne1 in a further passage1 8its only fit enjoyment40 ,his doctrine is remarkable in this1 that while he tends to see in everything a spiritual significance1 and almost refuses to find beauty in externals alone1 he insists1 nevertheless1 that man was sent into the world to enjoy himself1 to stretch out for new acquisitions with all his faculties1 and take to himself great possessions4 ,he regards even the base and material form of conquest1 expressed in endless covetousness and fierce desire for possession1 rather as a lower type of what man should do and be1 than of what he should not4 ,man's faculties were given him so that he might be divinely unsatisfied1 ever seeking more1 ever assimilating more--regarding this earth not as a vale of misery or a source of temptation1 but as a very ,paradise and the true gate by which ,heaven is to be attained and entered4 8,it is1 indeed10 he writes1 8the beautiful frontispiece of ,eternity1 the ,temple of ,god1 and the ,palace of ,his ,children40 ,in this respect ,traherne's teaching is remarkably like the teaching of ,william ,blake1 who regarded the mere outwardness of things as nothing in comparison with their real inwardness1 and yet was insistent that here and now the spirit of delight and energy and enjoyment was the true and undefiled way of life4 ,but this revolt against the monastic asceticism of the middle ages stands far removed from any implication of sensual indulgence4 8,my mind to me a kingdom is10 wrote one of our poets4 8,the kingdom of ,heaven is within you0 gives in more scriptural phrase precisely the same truth2 and for its application to the conduct of life we have this further scripture3 8,lay not up for yourselves treasure on earth where moth and rust doth corrupt and where thieves break through and steal1 but lay up for yourselves treasure in ,heaven where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt and where thieves do not break through and steal40 ,and if it be a true boast that man's mind is his real and legitimate kingdom1 then he must make that kingdom his ,heaven1 and within that kingdom his treasure must be stored4 ,it is there1 by the power of his mind more than by the power of his hands1 that he must gather and hold together his great possessions4 ,we are accustomed to speak in one single connection 7with book-knowledge1 namely1 and with the use of words7--of 8learning things by heart40 ,it is only 8by heart0 that we can ever really learn anything2 only when our heart is in it do we know and value a thing so as to understand it4 ,the man whose heart is not in his work is not a complete craftsman2 he has not yet learned the 8mystery0 of his trade4 ,when men's hearts were in their work they called their trades 8mysteries10 and did1 as a consequence1 more excellently than we do now1 when we make rather for the price of a thing than for the joy of it4 ,until we have joy in our labour1 all labour is a form of waste--for it wastes the bodies and souls which are put to it1 and is destructive of the most wonderful and valuable commodity which this planet has yet produced--human nature4 ,labour without joy causes it to deteriorate2 and if a man is put to work wherein it is impossible to find joy1 then it were better for the wealth of the nation1 as well as for the wealth of his own individual soul1 that he should be free from it4 ,and if that is impossible then let us not boast ourselves about our 8national wealth0 or our great possessions4 ,nations whose wealth and industries are built up out of the hard and grinding mechanical labour of millions are not capable in any true sense of holding great possessions1 for at their very root is an enormous mass of poverty--impoverished blood1 impoverished brain1 and impoverished spirit4 ,if you would examine into the wealth of this or any other nation1 look not first at its temples or its arts1 but into the bodies and minds and characters--and the faculty for joy--of its men and women4 ,and if these1 in the majority of cases1 are below par1 then the nation's wealth is below par also2 its great possessions are overshadowed by the greater dispossession which stands imposed upon the lives of its people4 ,the word possession itself has1 in our use of it1 a double significance4 ,when we speak of a man 8having a possession10 we may mean two things--either that he possesses1 or else that he is possessed4 ,a man with a possession of jealousy1 or hatred1 lust or covetousness1 has no real possession or control of those things1 but is himself possessed or controlled by them1 and so is rendered not stronger but weaker--subject to a master other than himself4 ,yet the man who is thus possessed is not conscious of any diminution of his individuality1 any reduction of personal power or prowess3 he does not discern from it any closing in of that round horizon to which first his spirit was heir4 ,for that by which he is possessed fills him with such a pressure of emotion--its dynamic forces within him are so strong1 that he may actually imagine his personality to be thereby not diminished but enlarged1 and may 7by reason of the violence with which this distemper discharges itself on others7 be cheated into the belief that thus he secures for himself a broader base1 raising his life to a higher level of consciousness1 instead of what actually is the truth1 turning it to consumption and waste--not opening his senses to new joys but shutting them in2 sharpening them indeed like teeth1 but closing them together with springs made not for expansion but for contraction1 so that they act like a trap destructive of the very life they would control4 ,and as with individual men1 so with nations4 8,would you know a man10 said the ,greek oracle1 8give him power40 ,but that1 though sure as a test of others1 is no sure means for enabling a man to know himself4 ,power all down the ages has been the arch-deceiver of mankind4 ,power which has set itself on great possessions has brought disinheritance to the human race4 ,we do not know what humanity might be--how fair1 how lovely1 and of what good report--that great beatific vision is still hidden from our eyes--mainly because we have interpreted power in terms of possession2 and1 forcing others to go without1 in order that we ourselves may possess1 we stand to-day immeasurably poorer and weaker than we should have been had we interpreted our power and our possessions differently4 ,for centuries of time 7so long1 indeed1 as history records anything7 the leading nations of the world have gone out to conquer other nations and to possess them4 ,and how have they done so8--mainly by depriving them of their liberty1 by reducing their power of initiative1 by undermining and warping their racial characteristics4 ,how much has not that impoverished the history of the world and the real wealth of nations8 ,for people living in subservience or subjection1 accepting and not rebelling against it1 breed less nobly as a consequence--they fail1 then1 to produce great minds or to express themselves greatly in the arts4 ,their life-potency is diminished2 and we1 holding them upon those terms1 are owners of a property which we squander by our very mode of possessing it4 ,quite as much of the art1 the literature and the philosophy of the greatest periods of civilisation has been wiped out and destroyed beyond recovery by these possessive struggles of the past as has been hazardously preserved and passed down to us through interludes of peace2 nor have we any cause to think that in the future we shall be any wiser while our views as to possession show so little change4 ,and that loss in beautiful production is but the symbol1 the outward and visible sign of a loss immensely more great in flesh and blood and spirit1 which has gone on--not only while wars were waged1 but when 7war being ended7 dominance over the conquered was imposed as a condition of peace4 ,every nation that has made itself materially great on these terms1 has done so on a dbris of perished loveliness which does not reach its full amount in the hour of the victors' triumph2 but goes on accumulating till that also which caused it is brought to the dust4 ,it is many years1 for instance1 since we conquered ,india2 and in so far as our dominion has saved it from other conquests and wars of native ,state against ,state1 and creed against creed1 our rule may have been beneficial--though ,i do not think that we ought to take our own word for it1 or indeed anyone's word except that of the native communities themselves and a native press1 free and unfettered for the giving or the withholding of its testimonial4 ,but one thing we assuredly have done3 we have gone on steadily destroying the native arts and 8mysteries10 and substituting for them our own baser code of commercialism and capitalised industry4 ,and in so far as we have done this we have not possessed ourselves1 but have dispossessed ourselves of the real beauties and values of ,indian civilization2 and1 for the sake of trade-profit to our merchants and manufacturers1 we hold in our hand a poorer ,india in consequence1 and are the poorer possessors of it4 ,all that poverty--poverty of invention1 poverty of craft--is the product of a false ideal of possession1 false to human nature1 because quite obviously a cause of deterioration to those visible proofs of man's well-being--the joyous labour of his hand and brain4 ,set against the witness of all that misguidance of the past that wise and lovely saying of ,christ1 so unlikely in its first seeming3 8,blessed are the meek1 for they shall possess the earth40 ,at first it sounds so improbable--so contrary to all we know of man's long struggle for existence up to date4 ,and yet1 7however much we must still qualify the possession of the meek upon earth7 still more must we qualify the possession of the overbearing and the proud1 when we realise what true possession should be4 ,a modern writer has described war as 8the great illusion10 and has set himself to show that all those advantages at which the ,state aims when it turns to military operations1 become as dust in the balance if compared to the real cost in treasure which war entails even for those who are nominally the victors4 ,and war is only one form or aspect of that great strife for possession which has afflicted every race in its progress from the cradle to the grave--merely a larger and more apparent version of the conflict between folly and wisdom which goes on in every human breast4 ,possession is the great illusion through which man physically or intellectually strong seeks to secure power1 and succeeds only in securing weakness--not only for himself but for others4 ,for you cannot test strength truthfully without relation to its surroundings4 ,a tower built upon foundations that shift and give way under its weight is not strong1 however formidably it has been reared1 or however closely its windows are grated and barred4 ,its very bulk and weight may help to bring about its fall4 ,similarly any strength of despotism or government which is reared up and depends for its stay upon the weakness of others is a mere apparition of power4 ,here to-day1 it is gone to-morrow when those upon whose subjection it rested have discovered a strength of their own--or1 because of their weakness1 have failed in its support4 ,true possession can only be had in relation and in proportion to the self-possession of others2 the man who reduces the self-possession of others never adds to his own2 and where self-possession is absent1 no real or strength-giving possession remains possible4 8,what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul10 is one of those profound messages of wisdom which have been obscured by the theological gloss laid upon them4 ,instead of the immediate and practical condemnation of here and now1 the hypothetical condemnation to loss in a future life has been substituted1 and our spiritual preceptors have not concentrated upon making clear to us how1 here and now1 possession of the whole world 7in any material sense7 does actually tend to destroy soul4 ,the possessive outlook1 in its very inception1 sets a limit to the springs of spiritual growth or action1 and to that 8perfect freedom0 the basis of which is service4 ,but if 8service is perfect freedom10 then 8domination is perfect bondage10 as much for those who impose as for those who suffer it4 ,for the man who domineers over his fellows receives in his own soul the reflex or complementary part of that evil effect which he has on others4 ,there is no act done by man to man which is not sacramental in its operation for good or ill2 in all his deeds to his neighbours he both gives and receives1 either for his own help or hindrance4 ,whosoever gives a blow receives one2 and that blow may be the heavier that is not returned in kind4 ,he who does unkindness to others is unkind to his own soul2 he who diminishes the self-possession of others diminishes his own4 ,yet possession--in the sense of realising each one for himself the wealth and enjoyment which life has to offer--is so deep an instinct1 is so knit up with the adventurous and progressive spirit out of which the higher human consciousness is built--that it is useless to turn on man and say to him3 8,possess nothing--rid yourself of all joys1 of all the delights of the senses and the understanding--so only shall you attain to the heavenly stature40 ,that doctrine has been preached in the past2 and the squeals of ,manichean hermits in the wilderness1 and of monastic contortionists1 denying to their senses the very ground upon which they stood1 has been its echoing chorus all down the ages4 ,never were souls more horribly possessed than these fliers from possession2 never were men more defeated in their warfare with the thing they spurned4 ,like a tin tied to a dog's tail the more they ran from it1 the more the flesh afflicted them reminding them of its neglected claims4 ,the loveliest and wisest of these medival sinners against the life which ,god had given them was brought by his own gospel of peace to a death-bed repentance which others did not attain to4 8,brother ass1 ,i have been too hard upon thee10 said ,st4 ,francis1 turning with compunction at last to his much-wronged body1 the one thing to which1 in mistaken piety1 he had denied either consideration or love4 ,the single greed which ate up and destroyed the life of that lovely saint was a greed for mortification2 and he died very literally of blood-poisoning1 brought about by his own suicidal act1 because he willed too possessively to share the passion and sufferings of ,christ--the death instead of the life4 ,that blood-poisoning of the medival saint's was a reaction1 violent and unkind1 against the wrongful version of possession which1 in their day as in our own1 was destroying the peaceful possibilities of human society4 ,yet without a certain quality of possessiveness the human mind cannot grow4 ,wordsworth pictures for us very beautifully that natural possessive element in its age of innocence4 ,behold the ,child among his new-born blisses1 ,a six year darling of a pigmy size6 ,see1 where 'mid work of his own hand he lies1 ,fretted by sallies of his mother's kisses1 ,with light upon him from his father's eyes6 ,see1 at his feet1 some little plan or chart1 ,some fragment from his dream of human life1 ,shaped by himself with newly-learnd art2 ,a wedding or a festival1 ,a mourning or a funeral2 ,and this hath now his heart1 ,and unto this he frames his song4 ,with these mental possessions he is opening his mind to the coming conquests of life3 as much to be conquered by its beauty as to conquer it4 ,but what he gains from his appreciation of earth's loveliness brings loss to none2 in this extension of his mental horizon there is no shutting of others from a like view2 this aspect of the dominion upon which he is now entering is communal1 something illimitable1 which all may share4 ,of possession acquired upon those terms we need never be afraid4 ,and it is a very real possession1 far more real1 as ,i shall hope presently to show1 than any mere power to thwart1 hinder1 or control the freedom of others1 which is the form of possession at which too often man aims4 ,let us start1 in order to realise this1 with certain other experiments of childhood4 ,which child more truly 8possesses0 the life of linnet or hedge-sparrow1 making it in some measure his own3 the child who stays quiet and disciplines himself to watch the bird at the building of its nest1 the hatching of its eggs and the feeding of its young2 or the child who puts an end to all that beauty and complexity of motion by bringing down his bird with a stone8 ,if he comes to tell others of his experience1 what alternatively is there for him to tell8 ,in the one case only his own act of destruction1 a thing done and brought to a dead end2 in the other he has a dozen new things to tell of--discoveries made in a process of life which he has watched with delight and knows still to be going on4 ,from which of these two experiments does he draw the larger consciousness8 ,which of the two most peoples his world for him8 ,step by step as he advances he will find how much1 by interfering with the lives of others1 he can destroy1 but how little he can build up2 he can take hold of the daddy-legs leg by leg and find that they all come off1 and wonder perhaps at the zest with which that eager little martyr fulfils the words of ,scripture1 8,if thy foot offend thee cut it off and cast it from thee40 ,but constant repetition of the experiment1 though it may give him an evil sense of power1 will give him no variety1 no real advance in knowledge concerning the life1 or the use and beauty of flies' legs4 ,he will not treasure--to benefit by them--the legs that he has pulled off1 nor will his brain have stored anything but an added sense of and liking for his own power to destroy4 ,and so will it be with everything on which he experiments destructively4 ,his knowledge and understanding of their nature will remain at a minimum4 ,progressing on these lines1 he will for ever be making things cease to be themselves without making them really his own4 ,but if he reverse that process of experiment by encouraging things to be themselves1 how varied and multitudinous will grow his consciousness of life1 his appreciation of its finer shades1 its delicacy1 its grace1 its adaptability1 its vigour and its freedom4 ,if his interest is in birds1 how much more he will know of them1 and find in them how much more of alertness and beauty1 if he hang food for them outside his window1 rather than cages for them within2 if he will recognise that the beauty of a bird lies too largely in its wings1 for caging to be anything but a contradiction of its true existence4 ,if his interest is in animals1 how far more he will learn of their resources and character1 if he aims not at cowing them and causing them to flee from him in fear1 but at encouraging them in all genuine and characteristic development4 ,that does not mean teaching them to 8perform0 in painful and artificial ways--exploits which are always built up on processes of cruelty1 and do not in the least reveal animal nature as it really is but only impose upon it a mask of concealment--anthropomorphic1 full of conceit and self-flattery--the same fond thing which he did when he began making ,god also in his own image to worship it4 ,there1 indeed1 in man's shaping of ,god to be like himself1 revengeful1 deceitful1 pompous1 inconsiderate1 unmerciful1 one-sided and masculine2 in making ,him1 too1 a performer of tricks1 so that in those attributes he might see himself reflected and stand enlarged in his own eyes--surely there more than in any other department of life has man by his foolish possessiveness brought to the human race poverty instead of wealth1 a curse instead of a blessing4 ,that is but one example of how this narrow possessiveness with which man set out to conquer heaven and earth wears thin and poor under the test of time1 and leaves him in the end no standing monuments but just a heap of rubble on which to gaze--only that1 or perhaps less--perhaps only desert sand4 ,that failure of material ambitions stands immortalised for us in ,shelley's 8,ozymandias03 ,i met a traveller from an antique land1 ,who said3 8,two vast and trunkless legs of stone ,stand in the desert4 ,near them on the sand1 ,half sunk1 a shattered visage lies1 whose frown ,and wrinkled lip1 and sneer of cold command ,tell that its sculptor well those passions read ,which yet survive--stamped on these lifeless things-- ,the hand that mocked them1 and the heart that fed4 ,and on the pedestal these words appear3-- #8,my name is ,ozymandias1 ,king of ,kings2 ,look on my works1 ye ,mighty1 and despair6' ,nothing beside remains4 ,round the decay ,of that colossal wreck1 boundless and bare1 ,the lone and level sands stretch far away60 ,that is a moral which we shall do well to remember4 ,all great possessions materially founded come at last to that1 and the heart that clings to them must go down after them to the grave4 ,it is the same when we base our delight of human relationship in an insistence upon possession3 it serves only to accentuate the place of death in the world and to give it size4 ,the man1 or woman1 whose idea of love lies in the claim to possess and to control others1 dies many deaths before he reaches his final end1 and walks daily with his foot in the grave4 ,these tragedies of possession1 so impoverishing to the spirit1 are all round us2 the world is humanly more full of them than of anything else3 ,husbands who adore their wives1 but cannot let them call their souls their own2 parents1 possessive of their children1 imposing upon them their will up to the legal limit and beyond2 homes devouring the independence of womanhood1 cramping1 constraining1 robbing of initiative and force1 and doing all these things under cover of the claims of love1 of natural affection1 of piety6 ,what is all this really but possession masquerading under another name8 ,i remember once reading a remarkable story by ,mr4 ,john ,gray1 called ,niggard ,truth1 of a woman who took masterful possession of a weak husband and 8ran0 him as an expression1 not of his own personality1 but of hers4 ,and when at last she had very literally run him to earth1 she buried him in a garment of red flannel so that1 as she expressed it1 she might 8see him better0 in the grave4 ,and there1 at the end of a strenuous life1 she sat amid her domestic possessions1 her glass shades1 her family plate1 and her mahogany1 with her mental eye fixed upon a corpse1 and her heart filled with a ,magnificat of self-applause4 ,she was the 8,ozymandias0 of the domestic hearth2 and there are thousands of them in this country to-day4 8,look on their works1 ye mighty1 and despair60 ,i have taken for example the domestic relations1 because there we get in small1 but simple and concise1 that demoralising claim to possession which goes forth with missionary zeal to devastate the world2 and because here1 in the home1 the true social service that is owing is1 in theory at least1 recognised and admitted4 ,the duty--surely the obvious duty--of parents to their children is to assist them1 to the full extent of their means1 toward self-development4 ,we have no right to bring children into the world to warp and stunt their growth1 to make them merely reflections of ourselves1 or to keep them back from independence when they come to man's or woman's estate4 ,what the parent needs1 perhaps1 most to learn is to relax constantly and in ever-increasing degree that hold which was necessary during the early years of childhood1 but which1 even then1 we take too much for granted and employ far too habitually4 ,parents often claim too great a possession of their own children2 they make cages for their characters1 and mould them away from their natural bent to what suits their own family pride1 their own taste1 or their own sense of importance1 sometimes conscientiously believing this to be the parental prerogative4 ,but if parents are to use safely their power to impose moral training they must build up first in their children a sense of self-reliance1 of initiative1 of freedom1 and then trust to it4 ,they have no right to rely for their reward on caged characters1 or1 by any dictation or control1 to exact recompense for the services which 7with whatever devotion7 they have rendered4 ,the same holds good through all human relations1 parental1 marital1 social1 racial3 it is ignoble to claim loyalty or devotion from those whom you have not first made free4 ,gratitude--even filial gratitude--has no moral value save if it comes from a free agent4 ,if it comes from one trained to be not free it partakes of servility4 ,and it is better for parents to forgo gratitude than to exact its imitation or substitute1 by the imposition of any restrictive conditions or claims after the years of tutelage are over4 ,it may well be that gratitude has far too small a place in the human heart2 but ,i am quite sure that the claim for gratitude has too large a one1 and that this in excess brings the very reverse of a remedy when the other is lacking4 ,and what is true in relation to parents and their children is true also in every other human relationship where the claim to possess intrudes to the hindrance of self-realization and self-development4 ,the possessor1 in claiming restrictive possession of others1 loses possession of himself4 ,that is what made slavery as an institution so doubly impoverishing to the human race4 ,it impoverished the mind of the slave1 but it impoverished quite as much the mind of the slave-owner4 ,wherever man has tried to possess others he has lost possession of himself4 ,that is the price inevitably paid by any class or section of the community which seeks to dominate the lives and restrict the liberty of its fellows4 ,tyranny does not strengthen but weakens the moral nature of those who exercise it1 and he who owns slaves cannot himself be free4 ,domination is as destructive to human worth and more destructive to moral integrity than subjection4 ,if 8possession is nine points of the law0 on the material plane1 the tenth point--spiritual in its working--is anarchy to the soul4 ,from time immemorial man has claimed it as his natural right to possess woman4 ,and it is in consequence in relation to woman1 and in matters of sex1 that he has most obviously lost self-possession4 ,and just as he has claimed that to possess woman is the natural prerogative of the male1 so you will hear him maintain that lack of self-possession in regard to woman is natural also--and a certain degree of licence the male prerogative4 ,the two things go together--claim to possess others and you lose possession of yourself3 ,give to all with whom you come in contact their full right of self-possession and self-development1 and you1 from that social discipline and service1 will in your own body and mind become self-possessed4 ,for that is true possession which1 while it brings you a sense of enlargement and joy1 takes nothing from the freedom and the joy of others4 ,of that kind of possession you may be prodigal1 but of that which takes anything from others1 or demands any condition of service from others1 have a care6 ,and look well what the conditions may be4 ,ask yourself constantly what is this or that demand for service or labour doing to other souls8 ,what conditions does it lay upon them8 ,you may boast that you have simplified your life--rid yourself1 for instance1 of domestic service by getting rid of cook and housemaid4 ,you have not4 ,the bread1 the meat1 even the ground flour that comes into your house is all provided by a domestic service which takes place outside your door and which you do not see4 ,and you are as morally concerned for the conditions of that labour as if you yourself supervised it4 ,you need it and use it as much2 it is only done for you at a further remove--out of sight and out of mind--so that it is much easier 7but not more justifiable71 to be callous as to the conditions of those who render it4 ,and if upon those material lines of comfort and luxury you extend your demands1 you are also extending your claim over the lives of others--and your responsibility for those lives1 if they go lacking where you go fed4 ,surely1 for the whole of that part of your life you are under a strict obligation to render service in return--equal to that which you claim4 ,and if you1 by your service1 cannot insure to others an equality of possession in things material 7and make as good and wholesome a use of them as they could make71 those material possessions should be a weight upon your conscience1 till you have got matters more fairly adjusted4 ,take it as your standard of life to consume no more than you1 by your own labour1 in your own lifetime1 could produce4 ,what right has any man to more than that1 except through the bounty and kindness of his fellows8 ,but if he insists on more1 and takes more1 does he really possess it8 ,only in an ever diminishing degree in proportion to his excess1 because as he exceeds he is ever diminishing his true faculty for reception4 ,here is a simple illustration of that truth1 a gross example which ,i read in a newspaper the other day3 ,in ,america a prize is annually given to the man who can eat the largest number of pies at a sitting--each of the pies1 a compound of jam and pastry1 weighing on an average half a pound4 ,the prize-winner became the external possessor of twenty-seven4 ,but internally he could hardly be said to possess them at all--they possessed him1 and made him1 one would imagine1 a thoroughly ineffective citizen for at least the two or three following days4 ,that man would have been far more really the possessor of three or four pies 7seeing that he could have properly digested them7 than it was possible for him to be of the twenty-seven4 ,in this excess he merely injured himself without any gain1 except the monetary bribe which induced him to make a beast of himself4 ,and how many men are there not1 who 7receiving the monetary bribe of our present unequal and inequitable system of reward for industry or for idleness7 proceed to make beasts of themselves--more elaborately1 but just as truly and completely as this pie-eater2 and by making beasts of themselves are by so much the less men of soul and understanding--not more1 but less the possessors of their human birthright4 ,if we store up treasure materially 7treasure of a kind which1 if one has more of it1 another must needs have less7--if we gather about us1 in excess1 creature comforts for the over-indulgence of our bodily appetites1 we are gathering that which is liable to moth and rust and theft--liable to be a cause of envy and covetousness in others2 and when we have gathered to ourselves this excess of perishable delight and have applied it1 the result1 more likely than not1 is a cloying of those very appetites to which we seek to minister--and1 eventually1 deterioration and enfeeblement of the body itself4 ,and as with individuals so with nations2 there is no greatness of possession in holding that which involves the deprivation of others1 the diminution of their freedom1 their happiness1 their power of self-development4 ,that is not true kingdom4 ,it is the manufacture of slaves4 ,but if we lay up treasure in the kingdom of the mind1 in the development of our sense of beauty1 our faculty for joy1 we have something here on earth which neither moth nor rust can corrupt1 nor thieves steal4 ,our possessions then are things that can arouse no base covetousness1 we need not hold them under lock and key1 or make laws for their protection1 for none can deprive us of them4 ,and while you so hold them on such free and noble conditions1 you do not fail to dispense something of their beauty and worth to those with whom you associate4 ,these possessions1 with which you have enriched your lives1 make no man poorer1 rob no fellow creature of his right1 conflict not with the law of charity to all4 ,seeking possession upon those lines1 you shall find that noble things do tend to make possible a form of possession in which all alike may share2 that architecture1 music1 literature and painting do offer themselves to the service of a far nobler and more communal interpretation of wealth than that which would keep it for separate and individual enjoyment4 ,a thousand may look upon the beauty of one picture1 and detract nothing1 in the enjoyment of each1 from the enjoyment of all2 nor has virtue or value gone out of it because so many have looked on it2 and so it is 7or so it may be7 with all beauty whether we find it in nature or in art4 ,if ,i were asked to name the man who in the last hundred years had the greatest possessions1 ,i think ,i would name ,wordsworth4 ,read his poetry with this thought in your mind1 of how day by day he gathered possessions of an imperishable kind1 which needed no guardianship beyond the purity of his mind1 and excited in others no envy4 ,nay1 how much of those wonderful possessions was he not able to give to others8 ,some of his loveliest lines of poetry are a record of possession rightly attained4 ,i give here only one of his poems--one of his simplest in inspiration--to show what ,i mean3 ,i wandered lonely as a cloud ,that floats on high o'er vales and hills1 ,when all at once ,i saw a crowd-- ,a host of golden daffodils2 ,beside the lake1 beneath the trees1 ,fluttering and dancing in the breeze4 ,continuous as the stars that shine ,and twinkle on the ,milky ,way1 ,they stretched in never-ending line ,along the margin of a bay4 ,i gazed--and gazed--but little thought ,what wealth the show to me had brought3 ,for oft when on my couch ,i lie ,in vacant or in pensive mood1 ,they flash upon that inward eye ,which is the bliss of solitude2 ,and then my heart with pleasure fills1 ,and dances with the daffodils4 8,only daffodils0 you say8 ,but he made them for himself and others an eternal possession of beauty and delight4 ,those who have great possessions on these terms need never turn sorrowfully away when the command comes3 8,sell all thou hast and give to the poor40 ,for these are the inexhaustible treasures of the soul1 and are in their nature communal2 and happy is the man or nation that finds them4 ,,crime ,,and ,,punishment 7#aiah7 ,the two words ,crime and ,punishment have come to us in a conjunction which it is very difficult to separate4 ,our fathers have told us1 and our teachers and theologians have strenuously insisted that the one necessarily entails the other4 ,the whole of our social order is based upon the idea that if a man commits crime--an offence1 that is to say1 against the written law of the community--he must be punished for it4 ,if he were not1 social order would go to pieces4 ,but our social order does not lay equal stress upon the idea that if a man lives virtuously he must be rewarded4 ,if a man lives virtuously his reward is in ,heaven--that is to say1 he takes his chance4 ,his virtue may assist or may hinder his worldly advancement2 but we have not yet committed ourselves to the conviction that social order will necessarily go to pieces if virtue is not rewarded4 ,it will only go to pieces if crime is not punished4 ,society can reconcile itself to the one omission2 but it cannot reconcile itself to the other4 ,this inequality of interest in retribution and reward is based perhaps upon the calculation that while you look after the crimes1 the virtues will look after themselves2 and that the virtues will not--for lack of ,birthday ,honours--rebel against the society in which they find themselves4 ,and really1 there is something in it4 ,virtue is already self-governing2 vice is not4 ,the virtuous and humane part of a man--his will to unite and co-operate with others for social development and service--inclines him to accept and make the best of the conditions of life1 to take the rough with the smooth1 the hindrances with the aids1 the good with the evil3 not1 indeed1 passively1 or without some effort to get rid of bad smells1 bad tastes1 bad laws1 bad governments--but with a definite consciousness that in operating against these he is operating not for his own single benefit1 but for the benefit of the community4 ,and that being so1 he can be left1 unrecompensed and unrewarded1 to face a very considerable amount of discomfort1 adversity1 and even injustice1 without becoming either a rebel or a criminal4 ,although if governed unintelligently enough1 or wickedly enough1 he may be turned into both4 ,but with the criminal it is not so4 ,his social sense is more rudimentary2 and when he finds himself up against adverse and perhaps unjust conditions1 he seeks a solution satisfactory to himself alone4 ,and ,i suppose the main idea of the use of punishment 7apart from the vengeful pleasure it gives to those who inflict it7 is that it takes the satisfaction out of him again1 making him feel that1 in a highly organised community1 the individual solution has uncomfortable results4 ,and ,society's calculation1 in thus punishing him1 is 7or has been hitherto7 that it is a less troublesome and expensive way of making him cease to be a nuisance1 than educating him1 or employing him1 or reforming the social conditions which have produced him4 ,so long as we believe that ,society is right in that calculation1 so long1 ,i suppose1 shall we continue to advocate punishment2 but when we come to believe that ,society is wrong1 we shall begin to advocate education1 employment1 social reform1 and1 above all1 human sympathy and understanding as a substitute2 with the idea that they may gradually do away with the necessity for punishment4 ,but pending that consummation so devoutly to be wished1 most of us will probably continue to believe that punishment is just and right2 and will find it very difficult to think of ,society1 and of ourselves--as all equally criminal along with the individual whom our social contempt and neglect have de-socialised and made a fit recipient for punitive treatment4 ,the temptation to think that punishment is just and right has been with us from time immemorial2 it is probably arboreal1 certainly neolithic2 and therefore1 to our atavistic instincts1 it is supremely sacred4 ,we have got it firmly into our heads that punishment is a superior ordering of consequences4 ,and as the law of cause and effect which we see operating in nature is the basis of our moral sense1 we have fallen to the confused notion that punishment is the same4 ,but as a matter of fact the two are entirely different4 ,the law of cause and effect stands for natural consequences2 the law of punishment substitutes artificial consequences2 and we fly to punishment largely as an escape from the results of our age-long indifference to natural consequences4 ,having produced the criminal we set to work to destroy his self-respect1 as a short cut to the preservation of our own4 ,that may sound a puzzling statement2 but the more we accentuate the difference between the criminal and ourselves--the more1 superficially1 are we able to get rid of our sense of brotherhood and responsibility4 ,and so1 when bishops go on to the platform to advocate the flogging of men who live on the earnings of prostitutes1 it helps them to forget that they also are living on the earnings of prostitutes1 and are by their support of a capitalist system involving sweated labour and degraded housing conditions--neatly and efficaciously driving the prostitute into the hands of the male 8bully0--whom they then flog for extracting his profit from a damaged article which1 in the public market of supply and demand1 they have already wrung dry4 ,the very monstrousness of the proposed penalty helps us to forget that we are all links in the same chain of circumstances4 ,in the 8bully0 the degrading brutality of the system finally emerges and becomes patent2 just as in war the degrading brutality of our peace system finally emerges4 ,then we point to it with horror and cry that we are peace-lovers6 ,so we are2 we have loved peace at a price which we would not exceed--we ran it on sweated conditions2 and we pay for it in war4 ,for there exist1 in every nation1 sources of wealth1 sufficient--if equitably distributed and constructively applied for the good of all--to allay that economic unrest which is the main incentive by which modern nations are led into war4 ,but in every country alike there are interests which refuse to pay that price1 and which will1 if threatened1 precipitate their country into war rather than be held at a ransom which would merely readjust wealth more equitably to the true sources of its production4 ,war has come to us--not as a punishment divinely imposed--7a splendid old lady of ninety told me the other day that the war was ,god's visitation upon us for our divorces and for having given votes to women7--war has come upon us1 not as a punishment for these offences against ,taboo1 but as a natural consequence of our social peace conditions4 ,and at present1 in the mentality of nations1 punishment 7not of the system1 but of the criminal act which has finally emerged from it to horrify us7 is the only remedy4 ,and so punishment still appears to us as the very bed of justice--the foundation stone of morality4 ,if you do not insist on it1 social order will go to pieces4 ,and as we have attempted scarcely any criminal reform without punishment--and none till the day before yesterday--the contention is accepted as true for lack of witnesses against it4 ,the standpoint toward human nature of our generally accepted 8moral code0 is that of a devout believer in corporal punishment--of that kind of parent who says3 8,i have to flog my boy because he is so untruthful40 ,and the idea that the untruthfulness is the product of the corporal punishment never enters the parental mind4 ,but this vengeful exercise of parental authority is only a secondary symptom of belief in a vengeful order of ,creation--of a ,god whose method it was to vindicate the moral law1 not by bringing home to ill-doers through natural consequences the defects of certain courses of conduct1 but by expressing ,his moral indignation in exemplary punishments of an arbitrary kind--generally of a miraculous character4 ,when man first conceived of ,god1 he conceived of ,him as a sort of ,dr4 ,busby--one in whose mind the ,rod was the beginning and end of wisdom2 and the ,rod of ,heaven operated by intervention1 over and above the operations of ,nature--the law of cause and effect4 ,natural consequences did not sufficiently vindicate divine justice4 ,a belief in miraculous and vengeful intervention and a belief in 8exemplary0 legal punishment go together2 and will1 ,i believe1 die together4 ,a great deal of ,old ,testament teaching is merely an elaborate extension of ,punch's picture of the ,british workman holding a brick's end over an unfortunate batrachian1 and saying1 8,i'll l'arn ye to be a toad60 ,and all he succeeds in doing is producing a dead toad instead of a live one2 the species itself remaining entirely unaltered4 ,that is a parable of the doings of our theologians1 since theology was invented for the ,fall of ,man4 ,and if humans came to the conclusion that that was the mind of ,god1 it is no wonder that they imitated ,him1 and do so to this day4 ,we must believe in punishment as the proper reward of crime--we must even believe in unreformative punishment as the proper reward of crime1 if we believe in a ,hell to which lost souls are relegated against their will1 and there kept with no hope whatever of cure or betterment from the process4 ,and that is what the whole of ,christendom believed about ,hell when ,christians really did believe in it4 ,unreformative punishment upon earth was a necessary consequence of that belief2 and1 therefore1 belief in punishment for the sake of punishment became universal4 ,and over against it--quite unregarded--stood the new gospel of humanity--8,love your enemies1 bless them that curse you1 do good to them that hate you1 pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you40 ,and then the reason1 the key to it all3--8,that ye may be children of your ,father which is in ,heaven1 for ,he maketh ,his sun to rise on the evil and on the good1 and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust4 ,be ye1 therefore1 perfect1 even as your ,father which is in ,heaven is perfect40 ,the ,sermon on the ,mount1 which threw over the doctrine of punishment on earth1 threw over with equal emphasis the doctrine of punishment in ,heaven--of any arbitrary or miraculous intervention for the betterment 7to moral ends7 of the law of natural consequences4 8,be ye the children of ,creation60 is the real human solution--not by harking back 7as opponents would pretend7 to the savagery of a lower species1 but by accepting the spiritualising impulse of evolutionary forces--which have brought us to this great development from the mentality of the lower animal world--the knowledge that we are all part of one whole4 ,and it is on that recognition of an underlying unity 7from which we are inseparable7 that the great natural revolution of our ideas about crime and punishment must be brought about4 ,if we cling to the violent and the arbitrary1 and the separative solution 7of which miraculous retribution is the corollary7 we are in the ,dark ,ages still4 ,it must have been the experience of many whose work has taken them not only into slums but into prisons and police-courts1 that the oppressive sense of ,evil triumphant1 strong and proud of itself1 has weighed more heavily upon them in the prison and in the police-court than in the slum2 for the slum only represents the neglect of ,society1 but the administration of our penal code represents its stereotyped preoccupation 7with sympathy and understanding almost entirely eliminated7 on a problem which nothing but sympathy and understanding will ever solve4 ,there ,society is in its trenches fighting against the human nature which it first violates and then fears4 ,we1 law-makers and law-abiders1 are in league with--and are dependent for our material prosperity and protection upon--a system which is very nearly as bad as the crimes we denounce4 ,and until we have made our system very much more beautiful1 very much better1 and more convincing to the criminal and the revolutionarist--it is only by fear and a punitive code that we can keep it going4 ,it is not possible to maintain such adjuncts to our social system as profiteering1 exploitation1 class privilege1 wage-slavery1 race-subjection1 international jealousy1 without a penal code and its logical outcome1 war4 ,if we want to get rid of the one we must have a whole mind to get rid of the others too4 ,do not let us pretend to separate them1 for we cannot4 ,not only does the attempt produce weak practical results--it produces also a false mind4 ,the attempt to separate one thing from another1 one human being from another1 is at the root of our belief in punishment4 ,punishment helps to separate1 helps to make us feel separate2 it does not unite4 ,an ,english judge declared quite recently that the main object of punishment was not to reform the criminal but to protect society4 ,and so long as that is true1 the criminal is just as conscious as we are that the discipline laid on him is the expression of a divided standard of morality1 knowing perfectly well that we in like circumstances should not think such punishment good for ourselves or our children4 ,for is it not true that wherever a local or group interest comes to be established1 there the members of that group cease to believe that punishment from any outside power or authority is good for them8 ,take the family--those of you who believe in punishment--those who profess to be law-abiding2 one of its members commits a theft4 ,is he handed over to the police to be dealt with according to law8 ,not at all4 ,on the contrary1 everything is done to enable him to escape the punishment4 ,we don't believe in legal punishment when it comes to our own circle4 ,and we only believe in legal punishment for others1 because1 loving and understanding them less1 we are unwilling to take as much trouble about them4 ,and that same vicious principle of belief in punishment only for others mounts up and up through every communal interest that has established itself in our midst on a unity of feeling closer than that which obtains generally4 ,every class-interest1 every trade-interest1 every party-interest that stands combined for its own benefit does all it can to evade the punishment of its members by the larger and more impersonal authority of the ,state4 ,scandals are hushed up in the police2 scandals are hushed up in the ,army2 scandals are hushed up in the ,cabinet2 everything possible is done to prevent our penal code from acting equally on the vested interests in which we specially are concerned4 ,and yet we say that we believe in punishment6 ,but if we do honestly believe in punishment1 ought we not then to insist not merely that the administration of our law-courts should be impartial and judicial1 but that the source and promotion of our ,state-prosecutions should be impartial also8 ,probably most unreflecting people think that they are4 ,but again and again the ,government1 when it chooses or refuses to put the law into motion and prosecute1 though nominally the accuser1 is really the accused1 using its powers for the saving of its own skin1 to keep the case out of court--sometimes even in spite of the protests of the magistracy itself4 ,again and again the judicial scales have been fraudulently weighted--not in court but out of it by the interests of party government4 ,let us take a rather notorious instance where this was done4 ,within quite recent times1 two men have conspired--the one to raise an army of rebellion if ,home ,rule were imposed on ,ulster2 the other to raise an army of rebellion if conscription were imposed on ,ireland4 ,the crime in each case was precisely the same2 but the punishment was different4 ,the one--the more recent--was sent to prison for it without trial4 ,the other1 equally without trial1 was elevated to ,cabinet rank4 ,now1 each of these men1 in conspiring to break the law1 did probably what he conscientiously thought to be right under the circumstances4 ,that we can believe4 ,but it is very difficult to believe that the ,government 7when1 with the connivance of ,parliament1 it punished the same offence so differently7 thought that it was doing right--the equal and the just thing in each case4 ,it was only doing the convenient thing to cover its own blunders4 ,and the question is1 therefore1 whether--morally--the ,government was not the real criminal4 ,but if we ask whether it is going to be punished for it1 the answer is--probably not4 ,it is not my point to urge that the ,government should be punished1 but only to show how--as administered to-day--punishment is an arbitrary and artificial device1 partially applied or not1 according to the prosecutor's political convenience4 ,the consequence--the logical consequence of this corrupt inequality of ,state-prosecution1 is that a ,government which does such things is misliked and distrusted by men of honest character--and so weakens its hold on the more judicious minds of the community--and eventually1 one may hope1 its power over the country's policy4 ,one might point further to another instance4 ,the ,society of ,friends1 by its official committee1 recently published1 without submitting it to the ,censor1 a pamphlet called ,a ,challenge to ,militarism4 ,for that corporate act of a committee of twenty--all equally guilty--the ,government 7to avoid too great a scandal7 selected two members for prosecution1 and got them sent to prison for six and for three months4 ,about a fortnight later another challenge to militarism1 a pamphlet entitled ,a ,league of ,nations1 was published1 without being submitted to the ,censor1 by ,lord ,grey of ,falloden2 and he has not been sent to prison for it4 ,now if we believed in punishment1 we should want the ,government punished for these acts of corrupt favouritism in ,state-prosecution4 ,but if we believe in natural consequences--those which ,i have already indicated--we shall confidently anticipate that in the end 7the real end7 divine justice will be done2 and that these ephemeral misdoings will eventually help the spirit of man to a better and larger understanding of the follies which are committed when men substitute the ,will to ,power for the ,will to ,love4 ,and if we can--as we are going to--if we can leave injustice when done in conspicuous high places to the natural and logical consequences1 without applying the penal code1 why cannot we trust natural consequences a very great deal more1 where smaller and more humble misdemeanours are concerned1 and give to those natural consequences a greater unity of effect by irradiating them with the true spirit of man--love1 joy1 gentleness1 peace1 against which there is no law8 ,one of the reasons why we dare not be humane and curative instead of punitive to our criminals lies in the fact that the standard of life in which we have allowed honest and hard-working millions to subsist outside our prisons1 has been so inhuman and degraded that if we made our prisons really humane1 really curative1 they would be a reward instead of a punishment4 ,we dare not offer so beautiful a temptation4 ,and so it is separation again--the separation of class from class1 of rich from poor1 which makes impossible the standardising of our prisons from living tombs into genuine reformatories and sanatoria4 ,if we had not separated ourselves in our national life from a sense of responsibility for the poverty and misery around us1 we should not be driven into so separate a treatment of our criminals4 ,we cannot afford to humanise our prisons1 while we will not afford to humanise our slums4 ,again and again1 when you appeal for real prison reform1 the obstructive argument arises3 8,why should we take so much trouble for the criminal1 when hundreds of thousands of the honest struggling poor are so much worse off80 ,but we have to take trouble anyhow2 and the more unintelligently we take trouble the greater is likely to be the cost of our criminals per head to the ,state4 ,in ,new ,york ,state1 ,america1 where ,mr4 ,mott ,osborne has been trying to establish the principle of self-government among the prisoners of ,sing-,sing1 there was actually a danger that 7under an extension of the system7 the prisons might become self-supporting4 ,and at once trade interests did everything they could to get it condemned2 the contractors were afraid of losing their ,state contracts4 ,that is just one little glimpse of what we are up against where vested interests are concerned--interests so strongly represented in the legislatures even of 8free nations40 ,but we are up against something much bigger than that4 ,we are up against a moral reluctance of the whole community to pronounce the word 8,brother40 ,for if the ,state is going to show a really understanding mind toward the criminal1 it has got to show it just as much to the whole social problem of poverty and disease4 ,and that is going to cost the ,state more money than it is prepared to spend on anything--except on ,war4 ,crime is sometimes a very shameful thing4 ,but is not the record of the way powerful ,states have dealt with crime in the past more uniformly shameful even than crime itself8 ,has not that record stood out as a ghastly blind spot in the conscience of ,christian ,society8 ,people of conservative mind are so extraordinarily ready to make excuses for organised ,society which they will not make for the individual4 8,that was a cruel age10 they will say1 when you recall the judicial horrors perpetrated against human nature three hundred1 two hundred1 one hundred years ago2 it was tradition1 it was custom4 ,but there were nations1 professing ,christianity--a doctrine having exactly the same basis then as now--the same creed1 the same gospel1 the same divine life of compassion and mercy exemplary of what ,heaven required in the conduct of man to man2 and there were rulers and administrators with minds and power of reason just as capable as our own--giants of intellect some of them--who1 with all their profession of ,christianity--interpreting it to the supposed needs of the ,state--have left to us this ghastly record of a penal code worse than the crimes it was set to remedy4 ,that penal code--the obsequious servant of ,state-authority--stood hundreds of years behind the average individual conscience of the community4 ,and yet in moral authority we exalt it above the individual6 ,in age after age the conscience1 the living conscience of this country went to prison and to execution to bring it just a little more up-to-date4 ,revolting juries refused to convict because of its savageries2 and still it moved slowly and reluctantly1 cruel in its fear of the human nature it did not understand4 ,less than a century and a half ago a girl of fourteen was sentenced in this country to be burned alive for counterfeit coining2 only eighty-five years ago a boy of nine was sentenced to death for breaking a pane of glass and stealing two pence4 ,the sentences were not carried out1 but they were pronounced4 ,i suppose it was still considered 8exemplary0 to remind the criminal classes of what powers the law had over them4 ,now let us imagine that some individual caught a boy indulging in petty theft2 and to punish him--in hot blood perhaps--took him and hung him up by the neck till he was dead4 ,should we not be inclined to say that so rabid a wild beast must be exterminated from the face of the earth1 lest he should have descendants like himself8 ,yet that is what our own ,courts of ,justice--the authorised instrument of the people of ,england--were doing in cold blood to young boys in the time of ,charles ,lamb4 ,they had not the excuse of national danger1 or war2 yet we don't think that our ancestors ought to have been abolished off the face of the earth for doing it1 or for allowing it4 ,we manage to forgive them1 because after all they were--our ancestors4 ,when it comes to a ,state-act1 the individual shares the responsibility with so many that he is able to shift it from his conscience4 ,but in that process what had the ,state done to itself8 ,in so dealing with the criminal--it had become a criminal1 making of itself a moral monstrosity--all the more foul because in the perpetration of such acts it declared that it was doing no wrong6 ,how1 one may ask1 was it possible for such penalties as these1 and others even more savage than these1 to become embedded in the penal code of a civilised and a ,christian ,state8 ,mainly for two reasons ,i believe3 first the fact 7referred to before7 that the doctrine of unreformative punishment1 as expressive of the ,justice of ,god1 was part of its religion2 and secondly1 that the ,state based itself then1 as now1 on the ,will to ,power1 and not on the ,will to ,love4 ,and seeking its safety in terms of power it perpetrated these atrocities4 ,from those two premises the results were only natural4 ,are we going to salve our consciences to-day by mere degrees of comparison1 by saying3 8,we are not so bad as that now08 ,perhaps we are not so bad2 but the basis on which we continue to act has not altered4 ,the ,will to ,power 7for which the ,state still stands7 must always lag behind the ,will to ,love in its understanding of human nature4 ,and while it lags behind the penal code of the ,state will always be a drag upon the social conscience4 ,now so far we have been considering this doctrine of punishment in relation to the criminal section of society--force and punitive treatment being necessary1 we say1 for the discipline and control of the waste products of our civilisation4 ,but in the whole body politic what does it all come to8 ,what type of mind is finally evolved by the ,state which so deals with its human material8 ,what is the final moral aspect of the ,state itself8 ,examine that question from the international point of view4 ,why is every ,state armed8 ,because every ,state1 when all is said and done1 is a potential criminal whom other ,states cannot trust4 ,and though these ,states look down upon their criminals1 they are proud of themselves4 ,we are grouped to-day1 many ,states together1 in armed alliance for what 7when we took up arms7 we believed to be a great and a just cause2 and while we are so grouped we speak well of our ,allies4 ,but the groupings of to-day are not the groupings of yesterday2 and the international spectacle which we have presented age after age has been simply this3 that no nation could trust any other nation to behave morally1 justly1 humanely1 and for the good of the whole1 where single self-interest was concerned4 ,so like to its own criminals did each nation remain1 that all the others had ever to keep their instruments of punishment ready to hand in case of need4 ,is not that an extraordinary commentary on the law of punishment2 that not merely does it fail to do away with the criminal within its own jurisdiction1 but reproduces his likeness in all the high places of the world--giving him his justification by showing him that1 where community of interest ends1 ,states are no other and no better than he8 ,we all agree that war is a very horrible thing4 ,but at one point it has a moral value which is not shared so obviously by other penal codes2 a value which people are coming more and more to recognise to-day1 and which will--more than anything else perhaps--help to put an end to war4 ,for when you seek to punish wrong by going to war1 then you yourself have to share the punishment4 ,innocent and guilty alike must agonise and suffer and die4 ,to inflict that punishment you must choose out your bravest and your best1 and send them to share equally with those you would punish the sentence of suffering and death4 ,all punishment1 inflicted by penal codes1 really comes back to the community2 but only in war do we see it shared3 actively and voluntarily by some1 passively and unavoidably by others4 ,and perhaps it is that more than anything else which will eventually persuade civilised man that war is intolerable--that he cannot punish without sharing the punishment4 ,it may sound fantastic to suggest that a like condition should be definitely attached to our civil and penal system1 in order to bring home to us that all punishment is shared1 that what we manufacture in our prisons becomes a staple commodity4 ,but ,i can think of no device that would so quickly and effectively get rid of that separation of interest which punishment seems to establish4 ,imagine that for every prisoner sentenced1 a lot fell on someone else1 calling upon him or her to go and share in that demonstration of society's failure to produce only good citizens4 ,imagine the ,prime ,minister1 about to make an important statement in the ,house of ,commons1 called suddenly by lot to share the incarceration of a defender of the liberty of the press or of a robber of hen-roosts6 ,should we have to wait a month--a week--to have our prisons transformed into places where human nature was no longer thrown to waste1 with its energies cut off from sane employment and development8 ,would it not bring home to us--as perhaps nothing else would--the mill-stone weight on the life of the nation of all punishment that is not purely reformative and curative8 ,would it not very soon put an end to punishment in the old sense altogether8 ,you may look upon this suggestion as a fantastic parable2 but spiritually it is what we shall have to do4 8,there is only one sin10 said the unknown writer of one of the most beautiful and famous books of devotion produced during the middle-ages--the ,theologia ,germanica4 8,the only sin is separation40 ,we shall never get rid of the criminal till we cease to separate ourselves from him1 till we make his interest our interest1 till we share1 willingly and consciously1 the responsibility of the society which has produced him4 ,,christianity ,a ,,danger ,,to ,,the ,,state 7#aiaf7 ,the ,state1 which accepts the proposition that force is a remedy1 has logical ground for employing force to secure its ends1 until worsted by the forces opposed to it1 or by some other power4 ,such a ,state1 naturally and logically1 claims the assistance of its subjects in pursuing a course for which1 in time of peace1 and with their apparent consent1 it has made great preparation1 entailing a vast expenditure of the nation's wealth and energy4 ,this claim of the ,state for the personal service of its citizens is always latent even in peace-time2 but in peace-time the great majority of the services it requires are rendered upon a voluntary basis1 and generally in exchange for a monetary equivalent4 ,only1 therefore1 when the ,state is pressed by necessity to make an extreme assertion of its claims for personal service does it find itself actively opposed by citizens who have never in their own lives and consciences accepted the proposition that force is a remedy for evil4 ,it is true that many of these objectors have paid taxes without resistance for the upkeep of ,army and ,navy4 ,if they have done so conscientiously and not merely negligently1 it has probably been upon the lines of 8rendering to ,csar the things which are ,csar's10 and from a recognition that all the devices of barter and exchange 7including a coin-currency7 are a material convenience devised by the ,state1 which may legitimately be given to or withdrawn from the control of the individual without affecting his personal integrity4 ,men so minded may say quite plausibly3 8,my worldly goods you can take or leave2 my pockets you may fill or empty2 but my body is the temple of the ,holy ,ghost1 and if ,i am called upon to give personal service for the infliction of legal penalties1 for the suppression of civil commotion1 or for the prosecution of war1 then ,i am asked for service in a form which ,i can only render if my conscience approves40 ,faced by this contention1 the ,state has often thought wise to admit1 or to make allowance for1 a claim which nevertheless it will not recognise by law4 ,people who object to jury-service for the enforcement of a penal code which is against their conscience1 are frequently excused without fine or penalty4 ,the same allowance would probably be made to excuse any one opposed to capital punishment from assuming the office of hangman4 ,yet capital punishment only exists because a majority in the ,state believes it to be essential to public safety2 and if there were a dearth of hands ready to undertake the task1 it would then become a test of good citizenship for all to offer themselves2 and the conscientious objector1 whose argument was tolerated and respectfully listened to the day before1 would suddenly become a disreputable object to all law-abiding men1 unless the ,state were weak enough1 or wise enough1 to provide him with the right of exemption4 ,if it did so he would immediately cease to be disreputable in the eyes of the law1 his right to a conscience being granted4 ,that concession has frequently been made in the past to people who1 calling themselves ,christians1 have held tenets subversive of ,state-authority4 ,when religious conformity was considered necessary to the spiritual security of the ,state1 ,nonconformists resisted1 till the ,state made allowance for them4 ,when the taking of an oath was considered necessary for the security of truth in the witness-box1 ,quakers resisted1 till the ,state made allowance for them4 ,when the coercion of ,ulster was considered necessary for the well-being of ,ireland1 men who had taken the oath of military obedience threatened a conscientious strike1 and the ,state made allowance for them4 ,incidentally they became the heroes of that party which is to-day most strenuous in its detestation of those later conscientious objectors who refuse to take the oath of military obedience2 but nobody was sent to prison for uttering propaganda in their praise6 ,now the reason why the ,state could tolerate them was not a moral reason2 it was simply upon the calculation that1 while still pursuing its policy of physical force1 it could afford to do without them4 ,it could allow non-conformity based upon ,christian teaching1 or upon conscientious scruples1 to streak the current of its policy1 without thereby suffering any deflection of its course4 ,but it is quite different when the ,state1 driven by its belief in the rightness and the remedial value of physical force1 comes to commit the whole of its resources to the prosecution of war4 ,the existence of the conscientious objector then becomes a more inconvenient factor in the situation2 it may even1 from the ,state's point of view1 become a dangerous one4 ,then those insidious ,christian idiosyncrasies1 which have so often been allowed to withstand authority1 must have all possible ground cut from under them1 lest it should afford standing to a new social ideal4 ,we have it on the authority of the public prosecutor himself that1 if all men became conscientious objectors1 war would no longer be possible2 and from such a catastrophe the ,state must1 of course1 be saved by all possible means4 ,it is at this point1 therefore1 that the latent claim 7which in peace-time is often more honoured in the breach than in the observance7 becomes insistent and active4 ,the ,state must have--if it can get it--the personal service of all its able-bodied citizens4 ,and thus1 practically for the first time1 the rival claims of law and conscience upon a man's allegiance come to be fought out in public on a large scale2 and if the ,nation is engaged in a popular war1 or in one where the vast majority believes that it has righteousness upon its side1 then there will inevitably be much prejudice in the public mind against the conscientious objector2 whereas there might be much sympathy for him 7though not really on the principle for which he contended7 if he were refusing to fight in a war which happened to be unpopular1 or which a great number of people regarded as unjust4 ,but if we want to get to the true basis of the principle against which the conscientious objector is contending 7a principle which cannot logically be separated from any form of government built up on force7 we must not colour our view with the rightness or wrongness 7in our own estimation7 of the war in which we are engaged1 since we obscure thereby that quality of allegiance which is claimed by the ,state4 ,the ,state's claim--latent in peace-time and liable to emerge whenever war or crisis shall arise--is not that its citizens should fight for it when the cause is just and right1 but that they should fight for it in any case1 if it orders them4 ,that claim1 made by every ,state with more or less urgency1 we are now invited to view with horror operating at its full efficiency throughout a ,prussianised ,germany4 ,thus exalted and perfected1 it has become1 we are told1 a danger to the world2 in such a ,state the moral conscience of the individual has become atrophied by subordination1 and he is not free to choose between right and wrong4 ,but war only brings home to us the logic of a situation which in peace-time we have burked2 and now1 in order to combat the evil1 in its fullest manifestation1 men in this country are asked to give their souls into similar keeping--to accept1 that is to say1 the over-riding of individual conscience by the law of ,state-necessity4 ,it is a claim which any ,state1 founded on force1 is bound eventually to make2 it is a claim which anyone who believes force to be evil is bound to repudiate4 ,the follower of the one school draws his ethics from the established rules of the body politic to which he belongs2 the follower of the other draws them1 it may be1 from the personal example and teaching of ,one whom the body politic of his day regarded as a criminal1 and put to death2 of ,one whose followers1 it may be said further1 were persecuted in the early centuries of the ,christian era1 not because of their opinions1 but because1 in practice1 they were a danger to the ,state4 ,the ,roman mind was very logical2 and only when ,christianity had become absorbed in the ,state system and had accepted the view that physical force and persecution were good social remedies1 only then did ,christianity cease to be an apparent danger and a fit subject for persecution4 ,but the primitive ,christian standpoint is always liable to emerge2 and when it does1 then we get the opposing principles of two incompatible schools4 ,and we must keep these principles in mind--the principle of conduct based upon a personal example rejecting force1 and the principle of conduct based upon a social edifice relying upon force for its well-being and advancement2 otherwise we confuse the issue1 and weaken our appreciation of the moral position which each side assumes4 ,it is surely quite evident that the ,state1 while based upon force1 cannot 7except as an indulgence7 countenance the claim of any individual to make the morality of its action the test for personal allegiance and service4 ,and so this ,state-claim must be unequivocably defined1 otherwise we do not really know where we are4 ,now many fervent supporters of the doctrine that ,state-necessity must stand supreme above individual conscience1 confuse matters by importing the moral equation1 and by arguing for the compelling principle from particular instances where moral considerations seem to favour it3 8,our ,cause is just2 therefore1 etc410 is the line on which they contend4 ,but the ,state's claim stands independent of the justice of its cause2 and 8,my ,country right or wrong60 is the real motto which the objector to conscientious liberty is called to fight under4 ,all that the ,state-backers say as to the obligation for ,englishmen to fight ,germany to-day1 applies equally to the obligation for ,germans to fight ,england4 ,so while we continue to assert that a man must fight here with us for the cause of liberty1 honour1 righteousness--in a word1 for ,god--we assert equally that in another country he must subject his conscience to the claims of the ,state1 and fight for oppression1 dishonour1 unrighteousness--in a word1 for the ,devil 7and that in spite of the baptismal vows which oblige him to 8fight manfully under ,christ's banner10 not merely against sin1 as he individually is concerned1 but sin spiritually combined in its symbolic representative1 and defended by the temporalities of the world74 ,from which we must argue that1 if ,christ were here on earth to-day1 born of ,german parents1 he would be called upon to fight in the ranks of ,germany2 that if he were born of ,english parents he would be called to fight for ,england2 while1 if again1 born of ,jewish parents1 he might be accorded the alternative privilege of fighting for ,england which was not his country1 or of being deported to ,russia to fight for the persecutors of his race4 ,the conscientious objector1 on the other hand1 feels bound to take the moral equation of all such particular instances as a guide to his diagnosis of the evils of war2 and he comes thus to regard the expedient of war as altogether so bad a remedy for evil that he dares to doubt whether ,christ would be seen bearing arms on either side2 and he is probably strengthened in that conviction by the fact that modern conditions of war tend more and more to involve the weak1 the innocent1 and the helpless in the ruin and suffering wrought by industrial and financial exhaustion1 invasion and blockade1 and that 8arms of precision0 are so unprecise and blind in action that they are quite as likely1 when directed against towns1 to destroy the non-fighters as the fighters4 ,and the conscientious objector finds a difficulty in seeing ,christ serving a gun for the artillery of either side 7however righteous the cause7 which may have for immediate result the disembowelling of a mother while in the pains of child-birth1 or the dismembering of young children4 ,he holds further 7and it is a tenable argument addressed to any ,power which maintains despotic sway over an alien race1 declaring such sway to be acceptable to the people concerned1 while treating as 8seditious0 any reluctance to regard it as acceptable71 he holds that1 if the worst comes to the worst1 submission to force1 or mere passive resistance thereto1 is more lifesaving1 both morally and physically1 than the setting of force against force even for the defence of 8liberty40 ,he holds1 probably1 that ,finland1 in her policy of passive resistance to ,tsarist domination1 has better conditions and prospects to-day than ,serbia2 that the present fate of ,india1 as the result of submission to a stronger ,power is preferable to the present fate of ,belgium2 even though the ,government forced upon it be more alien to the genius of its races than is the ,german to the ,flemish4 ,he may believe that in the long run ,india is more likely to escape from being ,britainised by bowing to the subjugating ,power1 than ,britain is likely to escape from being ,prussianised by a hurried adoption of a similar system to that which she has set out to destroy4 ,he may even think 7for there is no limit to the contrariety of his views7 that if ,england wins handsomely in this war by adopting the ,prussian system of militarism1 she is more likely to retain it than if she gets beaten4 ,in a word he thinks war the most hazardous of all remedies for the evils it sets out to cure4 ,the ,state1 on the other side1 sees the very gravest danger to that edifice of worldly power which is summed up in the word 8imperial10 if once it allows the individual conscience to pick and choose the moral terms of its allegiance4 ,and the better the argument the conscientious objector can present from political parallels in other countries1 or from the failures and blunders of past history1 the more dangerous becomes his propaganda and the more rigorously must it be suppressed4 ,the ,state's claim to our duty to-day is precisely the same1 neither more nor less1 than it would be if it required our services for the prosecution of a second ,boer ,war1 a second ,opium-trade war against ,china1 or a second war against the ,independence of ,america4 ,the causes of the war might be no more reputable than in these cases1 but the ,state's claim on our allegiance would remain the same4 8,it is not for you10 the ,state says1 in effect1 8to judge whether ,i am right or wrong1 if ,i come to claim your services for war40 ,now nobody1 ,i presume1 is so convinced of the perennial purity of his country's motives1 or that its foreign policy has in the past been so safe-guarded by democratic control1 as to claim that it has never waged foolish or unjust wars4 ,most reasonable people will admit that the ,state is1 in matters of morals1 a fallible authority4 ,the claim is1 therefore1 that of a fallible authority for the unquestioning obedience of its citizens in a course of action which may involve the ruin1 torture1 and death of an innocent people1 or the subjugation of a liberty-loving race4 ,that claim by a ,state which stands based on the doctrine that ,might is a surer remedy and defence than ,right1 is a perfectly logical one4 ,i have not a word to say against it4 ,but when that claim is made for the ,state by followers of ,christianity on ,christian grounds1 then ,i am anxious to relieve the ,state of the entanglement they would thrust upon it4 ,i am sure that a ,state which bases its authority on ,might is weakened and not strengthened by any attempt to sanction its claim as being compatible with the ,christianity taught by ,christ4 ,the less ,christianity a ,state pretends to when it goes to war1 the more is it likely to conduct its war effectively1 and to find no mental hindrance in its way as it advances to its true end--the destruction of its enemies4 ,because our counsels were mixed with a certain modicum of ,christianity1 we had a reluctance early in the war to use asphyxiating gas1 exploding bullets1 and certain other improved devices for adding to the frightful effectiveness of war4 ,we still hesitate to smear phosphorus on our shells so as to make wounds incurable1 or to starve our prisoners because we hear that our fellow countrymen are being starved in ,germany4 ,in some instances with the help of the ,daily ,mail the doctrine of 8an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth0 has carried the day for us2 but it is not a ,christian doctrine1 and elsewhere ,christianity1 or its shadow1 still holds us by the leg4 ,the ,morning ,post1 seeing the national danger we were in from these divided counsels1 rightly demanded a ,government that would 8stick at nothing10 but has only partially succeeded in securing what it wants4 ,now the conscientious objectors have been trying to do us the service1 which we have ignored1 of pointing out from the very beginning that war is not and cannot be ,christian1 and so showing us that when a nation goes to war ,christianity is the real danger4 ,the bigger the bulk of genuine and practical ,christianity in any country1 the more impossible is it for that country to adopt effective methods of war4 ,the reluctance which we feel to shell out phosphorus1 or to starve civilians1 will in the genuinely ,christian ,state make itself felt at a much earlier stage of warlike practice1 long before those particular devices have been applied or even thought of2 and it will arise 7to the discrediting of all power which places ,might above ,right7 from the assertion that 8an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth0 is not ,christian doctrine1 and is1 in result1 no remedy for the evil it sets itself to avenge4 ,this is the real parting of the ways2 it is fundamental4 ,christianity1 based upon the personal example and teaching of ,christ1 is too individualist to be in accordance with ,society as at present constituted4 ,institutional ,christianity1 on the other hand1 has obviously transferred its allegiance in certain matters of moral guidance from ,christ to ,csar2 and claims that those matters have been left for ,csar to decide4 ,i heard it argued1 for instance1 quite recently1 by a ,roman ,catholic1 that as ,christendom in all ages had tolerated war1 all question of conscientious objection thereto by a ,catholic falls to the ground4 ,the answer of the ,christian individualist1 ,i conceive1 would be1 that ,christendom also tolerated torture for the extraction of truth1 and slavery for the extraction of labour2 and that1 nevertheless1 the conscientious objection of resistant minorities succeeded1 in spite of the supineness of ,christendom1 in placing those monstrosities outside the pale of civilized convention4 ,no doubt while those devices flourished under the countenance of ,mother ,church1 ,christians opposed to their abolition would have cried then1 as they cry now about war1 8,how are you to do without them8 ,how can you extract truth from an unwilling witness1 or labour from a subjugated race1 except by compulsion and force80 ,the answer to that apparently insoluble problem now stands written in history--a history which has not eliminated untruth from the witness-box1 or indolence from the labour market2 yet torture and slavery alike have ceased to be practical politics1 except where the ,state still answers with regard to war as it used to answer with regard to these3 8,i cannot do without40 ,there1 in their last real stronghold1 unaffected by ,christian ethics1 slavery and torture still stand4 ,but we have to remember that the ,state's claim1 if we accept it as a binding principle1 comes much closer home to us than it would do if it arose only in time of war4 ,military service1 once we are in it1 involves us in such things as the firing at ,peterloo on defenceless citizens1 in the murder under superior orders of ,sheehy ,skeffington2 in the shooting1 if we are ordered to shoot them1 of conscientious objectors--men who are themselves sworn not to take life4 ,military service1 loyally rendered in ,tsarist ,russia1 involved the riding down1 the sabring to death1 and the drowning of those meek crowds who stood before the ,winter ,palace in ,january1 #aije1 asking for their 8,little ,father0 to come and speak to them words of comfort4 ,these are things unfortunately which ,christians cannot do with a good conscience1 but which the ,state for its safety may say that it requires4 ,let those of us who agree with the ,state's claim to our personal service1 irrespective of conscience1 do our utmost to separate it from the weakening effects which true and genuine ,christianity is bound to have on it4 ,,the ,,salt ,,of ,,the ,,earth 7#aiah7 ,it is a curious commentary upon the confusion of tongues which has descended upon us in our efforts to build towers reaching to ,heaven1 that you would have been misled had ,i given this address its true title4 ,had ,i called it 8the ,value of ,purity0 most of you would have imagined that ,i was going to speak of what is usually called--with such strange one-sidedness--the 8social evil02 just as we call the liquor traffic 8the ,trade40 ,you would have thought1 probably1 that ,i was going to speak about ,regulation #dj ,d1 or some other aspect of the sex problem with which the word 8purity0 has become conventionally allied4 ,it would1 indeed1 be one-sided in the other direction1 to exclude such considerations from the scope of so embracing a theme2 but my intention is rather to disencumber the word 8purity0 from the narrow and puritanical meaning to which it has become limited2 and the 8,salt of the ,earth0 does bring us nearer by its salutary implication to what purity should really mean4 ,for if purity is not a good sanitary principle of fundamental application to all ethical problems alike1 it is merely a pious fad which may easily become a pious fraud--a religious tenet pigeon-holed by crabbed age for the affliction of youth4 ,to departmentalise it in a particular direction leads to impurity of thought2 for we destroy the balance of life and degrade its standards if we do not use our moral weights and measures consistently in all relations alike4 ,and if you allow a particular implication of purity to impose its claim in a society whose impurity in other directions makes it entirely impracticable1 then you are reducing your social ethics to mere pretence and mockery2 and honest youth will find you out1 and will turn away from your religions and your ethical codes with the contempt which they deserve4 ,is not that what is actually happening--more apparently to-day1 perhaps1 than ever before8 ,has not that departmental code to which ,i refer broken down and become foolish in the eyes of honest men and women1 largely because purity is nowhere established in the surrounding conditions of our social life8 ,what is the true aim of social life and social organisation in regard to the individual8 ,what claim has it upon his allegiance if it does not offer the means of self-realisation and self-fulfilment equally to all8 ,and suppose1 instead of doing this in a large majority of cases1 it does the reverse3 starves his imagination1 reduces his initiative1 cripples his development1 makes practically impossible 7at the time when desire awakes and becomes strong7 the fulfilment of his nature instinct for mating2 how does the claim stand then8 ,if you can only offer him marriage conditions which are themselves impure1 unequal laws which are themselves a temptation1 houses incompatible with health or decency1 wages insufficient for the healthy support of home1 and wife1 and children2 if that1 broadly speaking1 has been the marriage condition which society offers to wage-earning youth1 what right has it to babble about 8purity0 in that narrower and more individual relation1 while careless to provide it in its own larger domain8 ,if you have employments--such as that of bank-clerk or shop-assistant--which demand of those engaged a certain gentility of dress and appearance1 but offer only a wage upon which 7till a man is over thirty7 domestic establishment at the required standard of respectability is quite impossible--if that is the social condition imposed in a great branch of middle-class industry--if you tolerate that condition and draw bigger profits from your business1 and bigger dividends from your investments upon the strength of it--what right have you to demand of your victims an abstinence which is in itself unnatural and penurious1 and therefore impure8 ,yet what proportion of sermons1 think you1 have been preached during the last hundred years in churches and chapels against that great social impurity of underpaid labour1 and underfed life which have between them done so far more to create prostitution than any indwelling depravity in the heart of youth8 ,thwarted life1 and sweated labour1 those have been the makings of the 8social evil10 so called2 and they lie at the door of an impure system which has made its money savings at the cost of a great waste of life4 ,that particular instance1 which ,i refer to merely in passing1 has to do with our ordinary application of the word purity4 ,but ,i want to show how all social purity really hangs together1 and how1 unless you have a great fundamental social principle pure throughout1 corruption will carry infection from one department to the other1 making useless or impracticable any ideal of purity which you try to set up in one particular direction4 ,if you do--to put it plainly and colloquially--the doctrine won't wash2 honest minds will find out that the part is inconsistent with the whole4 ,what1 then1 is the whole social ideal which lies at the root of the modern ,state8 ,is it pure1 or is it impure8 ,is it the true 8,salt of the ,earth0 which1 if equally applied1 will benefit all nations and all peoples alike3 those to whom1 in ,president ,wilson's phrase1 we wish to be just1 and those to whom we do not wish to be just8 ,does any modern ,state really present within its own borders1 and in its treatment of all classes and interests1 an example which1 if extended1 would make the world safe for ,internationalism--an end which ,i am inclined to think is more important than making it safe for ,democracy8 ,the phrase 8,salt of the ,earth10 which ,i have taken to illustrate the meaning and value of social purity1 has come to us from that wonderful compendium of ethical teaching known to ,christians as the 8,sermon on the ,mount02 that body of coherent1 consistent1 and constructive doctrine from which ,christianity--so soon as it had allied itself with ,csar and the things of ,csar--made such haste to depart4 ,and the whole process of that departure was 7from the pure ethical standard of the ,sermon on the ,mount7 a process of adulteration--of impurity--an adaptation of a spiritual ideal to a secular practice of mixed motives4 ,but the process really began earlier4 ,it began in the attempt to identify the ,god of the ,sermon on the ,mount with ,jahveh1 the tribal ,god of ,hebrew history4 ,and in that attempted identification 7incompatible ethics having to be reconciled7 ethics became confounded4 ,the ,rabbinical training of ,st4 ,paul1 the ,hebraistic tendencies of the early ,christian ,church 7whose first device was to proselytize the ,jews on the old nationalistic assumption that they were the ,chosen ,people71 all combined to give an impure vision of ,god to the followers of the new faith4 ,the nationalism of ,judaism corrupted the internationalism of the ,day of ,pentecost2 and the primitive ,mosaic code uttered from ,sinai1 and adapted to the mission of racial conquest there enjoined1 stultified the teaching of ,calvary4 ,the two were incompatible2 yet1 somehow or another1 the ,christian ,church had to evolve an ethic which embraced both4 ,and it did so through allegiance to the ,state1 and the setting-up of a compromise between things secular and things spiritual which has existed ever since4 ,you can see for yourselves which of the two is to-day the more recognised and observed among nations which call themselves ,christian4 ,the old tenets of ,judaism--based on the ,mosaic law and summed up in the saying1 8,an eye for an eye1 and a tooth for a tooth0--can be observed by any one to-day in practical entirety with the full approval of the ,state4 ,a strict observance of the ,sermon on the ,mount1 and a practical belief in the teaching of ,calvary land a man in prison or may even render him liable to be shot4 ,rightly or wrongly he is regarded as a danger or a weakness to the modern ,state4 ,personally1 ,i think that he is rightly regarded so2 for ,i do not see how the modern ,state could exist if everyone were a sincere believer in that great peace-offensive1 the ,sermon on the ,mount1 and in its great practical exposition1 the ,death on ,calvary4 ,the only thing ,i am in doubt about is whether the modern ,state is the better alternative4 ,christianity1 sincerely and whole-heartedly practised1 might have strange social results2 it might1 on the other hand1 be unexpectedly pleasant and workable4 ,but of one thing ,i feel quite sure2 it would not--as humanity is at present constituted--be practised by any but a very small minority2 and it would have to work entirely without ,state aid4 ,but that minority would fulfil1 for the purposes of demonstration1 the condition which1 ,i think1 is necessary for all great ethical adventures3 it would be pure and unadulterated4 ,it would succeed or it would fail standing upon its own feet and not upon ,csar's1 not relying on mixed motives or compromise1 but on a single principle--the principle of loving your neighbour as yourself1 and converting him from evil ways by a process of peaceful penetration4 ,and being--and remaining1 a decisive minority in the world's affairs1 its part therein would resemble the part played by salt in the chemical sanitation of the soil out of which grow the clean or the unclean things of earth which feed or which poison us4 ,and that is the first point which ,i ask you to consider2 the extraordinary value to society1 and to the whole evolution of the human race of minorities holding extremist opinions--so extreme that they do not seem at the present day to be practical politics--and yet having a chemic influence 7which would not be otherwise obtainable7 for bringing into being the mind of to-morrow1 which has always been1 all down the ages1 the work of minorities1 and generally of persecuted minorities4 ,for the ,salt of the ,earth is only one single constituent1 which enables a better standard of life to become established where the virtue of its presence is felt4 ,salt is not1 and cannot be1 the general constituent of life2 its essence always remains a minor quantity1 and yet quite definitely it affects the generality of things around it4 ,but in itself it is an extreme1 an uncompromising element2 its most striking characteristic is its saltness4 ,it would be foolish1 therefore1 to blame it for not being sweet1 or for not being acid1 or for not being capable of taking the place of beef or mutton in the dietary of the human race1 or for not making the whole human race in its own image4 7,the only person ,i ever heard of who was turned into an image of salt was ,lot's wife2 and as a human being it made her entirely useless74 ,and yet1 as1 quite literally1 the substance salt has helped the earth to become habitable1 and the human race to become human1 so has that symbolic salt of the earth1 helped the human race to become humane1 and to envisage 7though not to obey7 a new ethic of conduct based upon an ideal conception of the brotherhood of man4 ,it was the extreme expression of a new and higher moral plane to which evolution is only gradually bringing us4 ,had it started upon compromise it would have been useless4 ,its special value was1 and still is1 in its uncompromising enunciation of a principle which we still regard as impracticable4 ,but it had1 at least1 when it was first uttered1 this degree of practicability--it appealed to men's minds2 and it has gone on appealing to them ever since4 ,had it been uttered to neolithic man1 it would have been merely unintelligible1 with no imaginable relation to the experiences of life2 whereas it has a very obvious relation now4 ,earth was then in the toils not of a moral but of a physical problem1 demanding a straightforward physical solution2 and the salting of the earth consisted then very largely in the indomitable courage and obstinacy with which man--the crude struggling biped--stood up against the larger and more powerful forms of life which barred the way of his advance toward civilisation--just as previously1 the salting of the earth 7the preparing it for a higher form of life7 depended upon the huge and uncouth antediluvian monsters which devoured and trod down the overwhelming growths of marsh and jungle4 ,and from that first salting of the earth1 lasting through so many ages1 it is no wonder that much of the old physical recipe still survives2 and that the history of civilisation has shown us a process in which ruthless extermination by war was regarded as the best means of establishing ,god's elect upon earth4 ,the doctrine that force is a remedy1 or a security for moral ends1 dies a slow death in the minds of men4 ,institutional ,christianity has1 by its traditions and its precepts1 done all it could to keep it alive4 ,we still have read to us in our churches--for our approving acceptance--a proposition made by the ,children of ,israel to a neighbouring tribe1 precisely similar to that made five years ago by ,germany to ,belgium4 ,and the inference left on the minds of ,christian congregations1 generation after generation1 has been that ,god quite approved of it 7and of the ruthless devastation which followed7 as a means for making his chosen people the salt of the earth4 ,it is not without significance that the ,christian ,church all down the ages has allowed that sort of teaching to enter the minds of the common people4 ,it is not without significance that the common people five years ago rose superior to their ,bible-teaching1 and regarded its reproduction in the world of to-day as a moral outrage4 ,and yet if the world's affairs1 and its racial problems are to be solved by physical force1 it was a perfectly consistent thing to do2 and the inconsistency lies in our moral revolt against it4 ,the truth is1 of course1 that we are in a period of transition4 ,we are indignant with people who regard successful force as a justification for wrong2 but we are almost equally indignant with those who will not regard it as a remedy for wrong4 ,and we are slow to see that while the school of justification by force remains rampant in the world1 there may be some chemic value for the spiritual development of the human race in the school which denies the efficacy of remedy by force4 ,yet is it not possible that as the past belongs to the one1 so the future may belong to the other8 ,when we started upon this war we declared that it was a war to end war2 and it was quite a popular thing to say that if it did not result in the ending of war1 then the cause of the ,allies would stand defeated4 ,but that was only another way of saying that we should suffer defeat if in the near future the whole world were not converted to the point of view of the conscientious objector4 ,but that would have been a very unpopular way of putting it1 so it was not said4 ,surely this sort of contradiction in which war lands us is only another proof that we are in an age of transition4 ,transition makes consistency difficult4 ,but the inconsistency1 which conditions of war bring into prominent reality1 lies embedded in our social system 7which is itself a compromise between two incompatible principles7--the ,will to ,love and the ,will to ,power2 and there will always be that inconsistency till the world has definitely decided whether ,love or ,power is to form the basis of our moral order4 ,it has not decided it yet4 ,in our own country 7leaving out all question of foreign relations7 we have not decided it yet4 ,it is the condition of impurity resulting from that indecision--and permeating more or less the whole of our social organisation--which ,i ask you now to consider4 ,how it came about is really not difficult to explain4 ,when primitive man began to develop the rudiments of society 7the group1 or the herd7 he did so mainly for self-preservation4 ,in the struggle for existence coordinated numbers gave him a better chance2 and giving him a better chance of life1 they gave him also a better chance of self-development and self-enjoyment4 ,but into that early society man brought not only his social instincts but his predatory instincts as well4 ,and while the group helped him to prey more effectively on those left outside1 it did not prevent him from preying in a certain measure on those within4 ,the exceptionally strong man had an exceptional value in his own tribe2 and he exacted an exceptional price for it--in wives1 or in slaves captured in war1 or in the division of the spoil4 ,it was the same1 as society developed1 with the exceptionally resourceful leader2 brain began to count above muscle2 and the men of exceptional ability acquired the wealth4 ,and you know perfectly well1 without my going further into detail1 that out of the price exacted within the community 7whose broad interests were in common7 separate and conflicting interests arose2 the interest which secured political control exacted from all the dependent interests an unfair price for its services2 and wherever slavery was an established part of social development1 man did not love his neighbour as himself1 he only loved him as his chattel4 ,you may take a big jump through history1 from primitive to feudal1 from feudal to modern times2 and you will still find the same interests strong in every state1 using their inherited control of wealth1 of organisation1 and of law1 to extract advantage to themselves from the weaker1 and the less educated members of the community2 and always doing it in the name of the commonwealth--the strength and stability of the ,state4 ,only the other day 7in a ,state as advanced as any in its democratic faith and its doctrine of equality for all--the ,united ,states of ,america7 the moment there was a temporary breakdown in the legal safeguards against child-labour--there was a great organised rush in certain ,states of conscripted child-labour into industry--conscripted not by the ,state but by capital1 exploiting the increased need of the wage-earning classes brought about by the raised prices of war4 ,the men who do that kind of thing 7and they are men of great power and influence in the ,state7 still only love their neighbours as their chattels1 and still take advantage of all forms of law1 or absence of law1 to keep established as far as they can the conditions of social slavery4 ,you may say that a thing like that lies outside the law1 or that it is an abuse which legislation has not yet overtaken and put an end to2 but what is more important and more significant is that it is an abuse which public opinion in those ,states where it was done had not overtaken and put an end to1 or not merely put an end to1 but made impossible4 ,it makes it impossible for a black man over there to marry a white woman2 and if it can do the one it can do the other4 ,but what are those people doing8 ,they are merely reflecting in their own personal affairs an ideal which lies engrained in every ,state which puts self-interest above the interest of the whole human race4 ,and that1 in our present transitional stage1 is the standpoint of every country to-day4 ,in our heart of hearts we still hold ,nationalism more important than ,internationalism4 ,and 8my country right or wrong0 is still for some people the last word in morality2 rather than admit their country to be in the wrong they will let morality go4 ,in that matter1 indeed1 the world to-day seems to be divided into two schools4 ,there is one school which so exalts the idea of the ,state as to say that the ,state can do no wrong3 that if morality and ,state-interest conflict morality must go under1 or rather that morals only exist to subserve ,state-interests1--and being a ,state-product1 the ,state has the right to limit their application4 ,we are fighting to-day against a race which is charged with having taken up that attitude2 and the pronouncements of some of its most distinguished writers1 as well as certain methods which it has employed in war1 seem to bear out the charge4 ,but when it comes to war1 that particular school of ,state-ethics gives itself away by protesting that the other ,states which are in hostile alliance against it are behaving very wrongly indeed--though by its own doctrine 7,states being above morals7 they are incapable of wrong4 ,it cannot stick to its own thesis4 ,but what are we to say if that other school1 which admits that the ,state can do wrong2 but is not going to allow the ,state to be punished for doing wrong if that ,state happens to be its own8 ,it is not that this school does not believe in punishment2 it believes in it enthusiastically1 rapturously1 so long as it is directed against the wrong-doing of some other ,state4 ,punishment is good for other ,states1 when they do wrong2 without punishment the justice of ,god would not be satisfied4 ,but for their own particular ,state punishment is bad1 and is no longer to be advocated4 ,and so you may say--looking back in history--that your country was quite wrong in waging such and such a war2 but patriotism forbids the wish in that case that right should have prevailed and the justice of ,god been satisfied4 ,now that school was very vocal in ,england during the ,boer ,war2 and ,i daresay during the ,opium ,war with ,china2 and ,i daresay1 also1 during the ,american ,war of ,independence--very loud that we were in the wrong2 but not at all admitting1 for that reason1 that it would be good for us to be beaten4 ,but ,i think it should be one of our proudest boasts that1 in the long run 7not immediately--not perhaps for a generation or two7 the political and moral good sense of this country goes back upon the teaching of that school4 ,i believe that on the whole we are glad that we were beaten in the war with ,america2 and that we are glad we were beaten because we were in the wrong4 ,and1 perhaps1 some day--not yet1 for our fear of the ,yellow ,race is still greater than our fear of any white race you can name--but1 perhaps1 some day we may be sorry that we were not beaten to a standstill in our opium war with ,china4 7,i see1 incidentally1 that to-day we are addressing a sharp remonstrance to the ,chinese ,government1 because it is now doing that very thing which we then compelled it to do at the point of the bayonet--permitting1 namely1 the opium trade to be revived4 ,that remonstrance only came1 however1 after we had sold to ,china sufficient opium to last its medical needs for #adj years67 ,now those acts of our national past1 which we now reprobate1 were only bad prominent expressions of the fundamental idea on which the modern ,state runs its foreign policies--reflecting outwardly something which lives strongly engrained in our midst--the ,will to ,power4 ,it is because that principle is more firmly established in the world of diplomacy than either the ,will to ,serve or the ,will to ,love1 that our policies have been able to shape themselves4 ,it was not because we wished to give the ,heathen ,chinee a good time that we forced our opium upon him2 it was because we wanted to give our opium trade good returns4 ,and that was merely a faithful reflection of what was going on at home4 ,it was because we wanted--or because our ruling classes wanted--to give capital good returns1 that the working classes were not allowed to combine1 that child-labour1 and sweated industries remained like institutions in our midst1 that legislation in the interests of labour and of women and children fell hopelessly into arrears4 ,democracy1 you may say1 has done away with all that3 well1 with some of it4 ,in proportion to the broadening of its power in the ,state1 ,democracy has looked after its own interests4 ,but so long as the average human mind is bent upon securing advantage to the detriment of others1 or upon securing for itself privileges not to be shared by others1 that mind will inevitably be reflected in the way we work our ,state institutions1 and the form we give to our foreign policies4 ,and always1 and in every instance1 you will find1 if you follow it out1 that this inclination to secure advantage to the detriment of others always lands you in an ethical contradiction unless your ideal is entirely inhuman and non-social4 ,it is inconsistent with that community of interest to which social order pretends4 ,we set up laws for the good of the ,state2 and we call them equal laws4 ,and if they are good laws1 and if we love our country1 we must necessarily love the laws which are for the good of our country1 and embrace them with equal fervour1 whether they touch us or whether they touch our neighbours4 ,but when a member of our own family commits a theft1 or a forgery1 we do everything we can to save him from the operation of that law which we think so good for others4 ,and if we do2 then our affection or respect for the law is entirely one-sided and impure4 ,and the people who make laws and devise punishments upon those unequal premises are not at all likely to make their laws just1 or their forms of punishment wise4 ,our whole prison system is bad just because it is not really designed first and foremost to do the criminal good1 and to develop him into a useful citizen2 but only to repress him and make him a discouraging example to others4 ,our prisons are impure because they are lacking in good-will2 we have regarded power instead of love as the solution of the crime problem2 and we have been contented to apply an impatient1 unintelligent1 and soul-destroying remedy to the crimes of others1 which we would not wish to see applied in like case to those of our own family4 ,of course1 ,i know that our prisons have been greatly improved2 because1 as ,i said before1 we are in a state of transition1 and a new school of thought1 whose basis is ,love and ,service1 is fighting an old school of thought whose basis is ,power1 and gradually--only very gradually--getting the better of it4 ,it is the same with ,education2 the old idea of education was largely based on dominance and power--the power of the teacher to punish4 ,the new idea is largely based upon the power of the teacher to interest1 and upon trust in youth's natural instinct to acquire knowledge4 ,it is a tremendous change2 the old system was impure in its psychology1 and corrupted alike the mind of the teacher and the taught4 ,nobody in the old days was so unteachable as a school-master2 and yet his whole profession is really--to learn of youth4 ,and the ethical impurity of the old system came at the point where there was a lack of goodwill--a lack of mutual confidence4 ,in trade again1 how much co-operation has been over-ridden by competition--manuvres of one against the other1 designed to the other's detriment4 ,we have been told that competition is absolutely necessary to keep us efficient in business2 it is precisely the same school of thought which says that war is necessary to keep us efficient as a nation4 ,but in a family you don't need competition2 where there is goodwill1 co-operation and the give-and-take of new ideas for the common stock are enough4 ,to-day we are beginning to wake up to the possibility of co-operation taking the place of competition4 ,it is the purer idea2 and being the purer we shall probably in the end find it the more economical4 ,and what shall we say about politics8 ,does anyone pretend that our politics are pure2 or that the system on which we run them is anything but a vast system of adulteration8--which may perhaps be thus expressed3--,two great bodies of opinion trying to misunderstand each other and trying to make the general public share in their misunderstanding1 in order that their own side may attain to power4 ,when you start on a discussion1 what is the pure reason for that discussion8 ,to try to arrive at a common understanding--mental co-operation4 ,but is it for that purpose that we raise our party cries and run a general election8 ,we are being threatened with that great boon in the near future4 ,and when it takes place a great wave of impurity will rise and will flood through the land2 and men will be strenuously misrepresenting the words and thoughts and motives of their opponents--and very often men will be misrepresenting their own motives--because their end is really power--power over others instead of goodwill to others4 ,and out of that process we shall draw together the ,council of the ,nation6 ,that process--which we see quite well is an impure process--is forced upon us because we are in a stage of transition2 it is difficult as a matter of practical politics to suggest a better4 ,but ought not that obvious fact to make us very humble about our present stage of political development--and humble in general about the position to which we have attained in our moral evolution8 ,is it not a little premature to call ourselves a ,free ,nation8 ,is any ,nation really free till it has found itself on peace and good-will to all8 ,now ,i have put before you these sorry spectacles to show that where the true social ideal of brotherhood and goodwill breaks down1 you arrive at some ethical absurdity of which you have to be ashamed--you find yourself driven into inconsistency1 into impurity4 ,and the only thing that is consistent and is pure 7once you have started with the social idea7 is that we are all one brotherhood--and that harm to one member of the community is harm to all4 ,and when you have once got a nation that has really taken that idea to heart and made a practice of it1 such a nation will never rest content till there is a ,society of ,nations of like mind extending over all the world4 ,i referred just now to the ,sermon on the ,mount4 ,to most of the world its teachings sound impracticable4 ,they are the extreme statement of an ideal2 and it is hard in this world to live ideally4 ,but that statement has about it this merit of commonsense--it is pure1 it is consistent--it is a united whole2 and it is based on something of which we have never yet really allowed ourselves the luxury--a trust in human nature4 ,a belief that if you set yourself whole-heartedly to do good to others--to do good even to your enemies--human nature will respond4 ,we cannot all love our neighbours as ourself--that individual emotion is beyond us4 ,but if we can love our country enough to die for it1 we can also love it enough to give to it laws and institutions and policies that shall prepare the way for the universal brotherhood of man4 ,,the ,,rights ,,of ,,majorities 7#aiab7 ,in every age some fetich of government has been set up designed to delude the governed1 and to induce a blind rather than an intellectual acceptance of authority4 ,to set up in government some point over which you must not argue1 is always very convenient to those who govern2 and so you will note1 throughout the world's history1 that the manipulators of government have always tried to impose some incontrovertible proposition as the basis on which their authority shall rest2 and then1 having done so1 to get the strings of it into their own hands1 and work it to their own convenience4 ,in the present day 8majority rule0 is the pretended fetich2 a majority whose qualification is almost automatic1 whose registration is all done for it by the party agents1 and whose free and independent vote is brought up to the polling-booth very largely by the bribe of a free ride in a motor-car4 ,scores of elections1 that is to say1 are turned by the indifferent voter1 and on this sort of cookery recipe the moral products of majority rule are served up to us as 8a dish fit for a king10 and as giving moral sanction to government4 ,and whatever indigestion comes to us as the result of our swallowing it whole we are to sit down under4 ,if the majority has decided1 the matter 7we are told7 is beyond argument4 ,that is the fetich1 the superstition on which1 in theory1 government rests to-day4 ,in other times there were other fetiches1 quite as respectable4 8,the ,king can do no wrong10 was one of them4 ,and we have had staged before our eyes1 in due order1 the divine right--or the divine sanction2 it is all the same--of ,kings1 of ,property1 of ,inheritance1 of ,slavery1 and of ,war4 ,all these have been maintained as necessities of government--infallible doctrines1 based on ,scripture and the will of ,god4 ,some of them present rather a battered front to-day4 ,the fetich which has taken their place is the 8,right of ,majorities40 ,we do not exactly say 8,majorities can do no wrong40 ,but we do incline to say 7often for the sake of a quiet life1 and for no better reason7 8,majorities must be allowed to do as they please40 ,and that means in effect--those must be allowed to do as they please who can pull the wires by which majorities are manipulated4 ,i need hardly remind you that to-day the wire-pullers are the statesmen1 the leaders of party1 who have secured more and more the control of the party-machine1 and with it the control of the education of the electorate4 ,having secured this control1 they let loose upon you the astonishing doctrine that1 if you have numbers1 there you have your right cut and dried2 that if you have not numbers your right 7politically speaking7 does not exist4 ,now every student of history knows that in the past majorities1 more especially manipulated majorities--or their counterpart force majeure--have done great crimes4 ,but we do not to-day maintain that those majorities had a 8right0 to sack cities1 to violate women1 to massacre1 to exterminate1 and to bring others into subjection4 ,the most we say is that these happenings are an extreme1 and1 under some circumstances1 an inevitable expression of certain bad elements in human nature4 ,is it not1 then1 perfectly absurd to imagine that under internal and domestic conditions all such bad elements have departed from majorities2 and that a consensus of vice1 of self-indulgence1 of unfairness1 of a desire for domination1 may not spread through very large sections of the community1 even through whole peoples where the opportunity so to indulge is accorded--especially if it be accorded by law or embodied as a ,state doctrine8 ,clearly1 therefore1 there must be some limitation or check imposed upon the so-called 8rights0 of majorities2 and some of them may be limitations which those majorities would not choose for themselves1 but will1 all the same1 submit to without revolt if they are properly rubbed home6 ,one of the essential conditions for majority rule 7if it is to carry with it any moral sanction at all7 is that it must be ready to submit to the same conditions which it imposes upon others2 and that it must not set up qualification1 or prohibition from qualification1 without any liability of that prohibition falling upon itself4 ,it must make the liability fairly equal4 ,the specious excuse and justification for government by majority1 as put forward by the materialists1 is that1 latent1 within it1 lies the physical force of the nation4 7,i may say1 in passing1 that the physical force of the nation lies latent in every form of government which secures the assent of the governed2 and only ceases to be latent when some of it gets on to its hind-legs and insists on another form of government2 and to be effective1 that 8some of it0 need not always be a majority47 ,but it is no use talking of physical force being the basis and the moral justification of majority rule--it is no use invoking the physical force argument--unless your majority is also prepared to go to the trouble of exercising it and paying the price for exercising it4 ,and the main phenomenon of our present form of government by majority is that the majority won't take any trouble at all2 that1 taken in the bulk1 they care very little1 and won't put themselves to inconvenience--certainly won't risk physical discomfort and pain--unless government has very seriously incommoded them by damaging or by neglecting their interests4 ,if the physical force basis is to be your full sanction of government--if that is really your argument--then that basis1 that sanction1 is possessed equally by king or despot1 so long as he has his organisation at his command4 ,there are his numbers1 obeying him just as1 with us1 ,m4,p4's1 #gjj strong1 obey the party-whips1 often against their principles1 but from no physical compulsion whatever4 ,what the preachers of physical force seem to ignore in arguing about the basis of government1 is the aim of government4 ,what1 in the minds and consciences of those who believe in government1 is government aiming for8 ,is its aim only to keep order or to be just8 ,does it seek to repress humanity to the utmost extent1 or to develop it8 ,to wrap its talents in a napkin1 or to make it spiritually a ruler of cities8 ,what is humanity out for8 ,to what is it evolving8 ,what has been its impulse1 its motive force in pressing for1 and in extracting from reluctant authorities ,representative ,government1 with its accompanying symbol--the voice of the majority8 ,it has been seeking humane government--in the belief1 surely1 that the nearer you get to really humane government the more will unrest and revolt and crime cease2 and1 by the consequent reduction of the police and of the forces of repression now needed1 repay the ,state a hundred-fold for the liberties it has established4 ,and majority rule is merely a device to get nearer to humane government1 to open up the mind of man to his own humane possibilities1 and to develop his trust in others by reposing trust in him4 ,the more you spread government as an organization of the people themselves1 the more humane1 upon that working basis1 are likely to be its operations--on one condition3 that such organisation of the people1 whatever its numbers1 submits to the operation of its own laws and shares equally in the conditions which it imposes--that1 if it provides a qualification for citizenship1 it provides also the means for all to qualify4 ,now this brings us to the relative duties of those who govern and of those who are governed2 and1 whereas1 fundamentally their duty is the same1 in one important respect it differs4 ,in each case1 broadly and fundamentally1 their duty is toward their neighbour--to do to him as they would he should do unto them4 ,that axiom1 rightly carried out1 covers all the law and the prophets1 being greater than either2 nay1 if it were rightly and universally carried out1 the law and the prophets might safely be shelved4 ,law merely exists as an expedient1 because men have not yet learned thoroughly to do1 or even to wish to do1 their duty toward their neighbour2 and as law is an imperfect thing1 only existing because of1 and only applicable to1 imperfect conditions1 the law and its upholders are not1 and never can be1 a perfect expression of that duty which is mutually owed by all4 ,law is only an expedient for averting greater evils which might1 and probably would1 take place without it in our present very imperfect stage of human development4 ,but there is one obvious difference between the governors and the governed4 ,in the action of the former there is an assertion of authority--an underlying assumption of a power to improve matters by regulating them4 ,in the governed there is no such assumption of moral superiority2 the governed are there whether they like it or no2 and the laws which condition their lives are laid upon them by a power beyond themselves1 even when--under a representative system--they have secured some minute voice in regard to their shaping4 ,the governors1 therefore1 by their assumption of an ability to improve matters1 are in a fiduciary position to the rest of the community--the onus probandi of their beneficence rests upon them and not upon the people4 ,it is their duty to pacify the governed2 it is not the duty of the governed to pacify them2 and if they fail in the work of pacification1 which is their main raison d'tre1 they1 and not the community1 have to meet the charge of functional incompetence4 ,government is a function2 being governed is not a function4 ,humanity in all stages of civilization or of savagery has fallen subject to government without being asked to show any certificate of its fitness to be governed4 ,it is therefore1 the governors who have to prove themselves fit--not the governed2 and if a penal code be found1 or declared1 necessary to enable the governors to secure peace and order1 then 7if your system be just and equal7 the penal code should be applicable in at least equal severity to the governors who impose it1 when instead of producing contentment1 it produces unrest and disorder4 ,liability to impeachment and condemnation under laws of an equal stringency would be1 ,i think1 a very wholesome corrective to the legislative action of ,m4,p4's voting coercive measures which only result in failure4 ,i fancy that under such conditions there would have been1 for instance1 a far smaller majority for the 8,cat and ,mouse ,act10 the futility of which soon became so ridiculously apparent4 ,imprisonment with compulsory starvation1 followed by release upon a medical certificate1 and then by a fresh term of imprisonment would have been a most enlightening form of vacation for certain members of ,parliament4 ,and until we have secured in this country a much more equal adjustment of the relations between governors and governed1 some such corrective for vindictive legislation is certainly needed4 ,it is not a sufficient equivalent1 or safeguard to popular liberty1 to be able merely to dismiss from office a ,minister of the ,crown who has by his administrative blunders brought citizens to death and property to destruction1 or who has sedulously manufactured criminals out of a class whose will is to be law-abiding4 ,he1 if anybody1 deserves punishment2 and ,parliaments 7backed by whatever majority7 which1 through maintaining political inequalities1 produce such results1 are under the same condemnation4 ,the onus probandi of their beneficence rests upon them2 and if1 commissioned to secure peace and order1 they produce only unrest and disorder1 then the proof is against them4 ,listen to these remarkable words by so great a supporter of constitutional authority as ,edmund ,burke3 8,nations10 he says1 8are not primarily ruled by laws1 still less by violence4 ,whatever original energy may be supposed in force or regulation1 the operation of both is1 in truth1 merely instrumental4 ,nations are governed by the same methods and on the same principles by which an individual without authority is often able to govern those who are his equals or his superiors--by a knowledge of their temper1 and by a judicious management of it4 ,i mean--when public affairs are steadily and quietly conducted3 not when government is nothing but a continued scuffle between the magistrate and the multitude1 in which sometimes one and sometimes the other is uppermost1 in which they alternately yield and prevail in a series of contemptible victories and scandalous submissions4 ,the temper of the people amongst whom he presides ought1 therefore1 to be the first study of the statesman4 ,and the knowledge of this temper it is by no means impossible for him to attain1 if he has not an interest in being ignorant of what it is his duty to learn40 ,and further on he says3 8,in all disputes between them 7the governed7 and their rulers1 the presumption is at least upon a par in favour of the people4 ,experience may perhaps justify me in going further4 ,when popular discontents have been very prevalent1 it may well be affirmed that there has been something found amiss in the constitution or in the conduct of government4 ,the people have no interest in disorder4 ,when they do wrong1 it is their error and not their crime4 ,but with the governing part of the ,state it is far otherwise4 ,they certainly may act ill by design as well as by mistake4444 ,and if this presumption in favour of the subject against the trustees of power be not the more probable1 ,i am sure it is the more comfortable speculation2 because it is more easy to change an administration than to reform a people40 ,there1 then1 is a great authority1 ,edmund ,burke1 maintaining that governments are more liable to wilful error than those whom they govern--and the main value of majority rule is that it tends to bring the presumption round to the side of government1 by making the voice of government also the voice of the people4 ,i do not think the claims of majority rule can be put on any higher footing than that--that if the government is really expressive of a governed majority 7and not merely of a majority to whom the constitution has accorded licence and privilege above its fellows7 then the favourable presumption in any conflict comes round to the side of government4 ,but if government claims its sanction from a majority1 then we must enquire further into the composition and character of that majority2 and yet further whether the mandate of that majority is the output of its conscience or merely of its self-interest2 we must watch its workings1 and see what really brings it to the poll--its moral sense1 its pleasure in motor-cars1 or its inclination 7based on a national love of sport7 to select and to back the winner4 ,at whose bidding to-day1 and for what motive1 are we really being governed8 ,our duty toward government can never be greater than toward that voice of sanction on which it rests4 ,and short of a voice of the whole people conscientiously uttered1 and so conditioned as to be really free and equal1 ,i do not see whence an entire sanction of government is to come--though you may have 7under such and such circumstances7 a large increase of presumption in its favour4 ,but obviously there are degrees4 ,we in ,england clearly recognise that4 ,we have recognised it in our own history2 we recognise it in looking abroad upon other countries4 ,and we rather approve--most of us--of revolution against a ,russian or a ,german government which has refused so to aim that the people shall be in some sort their own governors4 ,similarly1 in this country1 the sanction may be imperfect--we may have secured the form but not the substance4 ,if so--if the form is so manipulated as to be virtually of no effect--the moral sanction is by so much lessened4 ,universal franchise--on the unattainable qualification1 let us say1 of standing on one leg for a fortnight1 would be a mockery deserving of instant revolt4 ,and there is some mockery in setting up any qualification of which a willing and painstaking citizen cannot avail himself--or herself4 ,perhaps there is also some mockery--some cheapening of citizenship--in setting up a qualification which requires no willingness and no pains4 ,the moral sanction of government1 therefore1 is ever fluctuant and variable--conditioned always by the sincere relationship of theory to practice1 of form to fact4 ,no amount of form or theory1 however just in appearance1 or legal in fact1 will condone unjust government4 ,and as we would wish to be condemned and punished were we so to impose on others--so must we act towards any government which seeks to impose on us by substituting form for substance4 ,if its moral sanction is imperfect it cannot claim perfect obedience4 ,now if there is not a full and honest wish among those who govern to do as they would be done by--claiming no advantage or privilege for themselves1 and not attempting to keep in order one section of the community rather than another by framing laws which penalise this section rather than that--if there is not this honest wish1 there will all the more be an attempt on the part of the governing section to give to its government in form that virtue which it lacks in practice1--to say to objectors3 8,see how safeguarded on all hands are your interests1 how perfectly you are represented1 how obviously you are the masters of the situation1 and we only the servants40 ,and the nearer the governed are to an intellectual awakening and apprehension of their true condition1 the more elaborate and plausible will be the pretence that the real ultimate power rests--not there in the hands of the governors1 but here in the hands of the governed4 ,and best of all--because most deceptive of all--will be the device which does actually put the means of reforming or of overthrowing government into the hands of the governed1 while so nullifying the application of those means that the fair form1 so fruitful in seeming1 shall be in reality an empty husk4 ,now1 if it be true--as from history ,i have contended--that the moral sanction of government is variable1 and depends on honest conditions and relations1 obviously it is not the mere plausible form which shall decide whether this or that government be deserving of obedience or not4 ,that form which is established by law must bring forth fruit to the satisfaction of the governed--producing1 as proof of its claim1 peaceful conditions and general content4 ,if it fail to do this then it must be suspected1 enquired into1 and1 if need be1 disowned4 ,but it must breed something more than the acquiescence of a majority4 ,the contentment1 or at least the acquiescence of minorities is one of the signs of good government4 ,for while it takes little to make minorities critical1 it takes much to make them revolt--if for no other reason than that the chances are against them4 ,and it is not in human nature to face so heavy odds except for some grave cause4 ,consider first1 then1 in any given case1 8,are those in the minority seeking to keep or filch liberty from you1 or only to obtain such liberty as is already yours8 ,are they seeking to set up equality of condition or inequality8 ,are they pressing for privilege or only for common ground80 ,and if the answer to such questions be that they seek only a like liberty upon common ground and equality with yourselves--then1 ,i care not how large the majority against them--you must open or make available to them that same standing which you claim as your due2 and on whatever basis of public service or private worth you have obtained your right1--that means1 that test1 that qualification must be open also to them1 else your majority rule is nothing more than brute force1 a despotism extended from the embodiment of one or of a few to an embodiment of #aj1 #ae1 or #bj1jjj1jjj4 ,but if you sanction that and make it your base1 then1 to be logical1 you must sanction also 7at least as a test7 the employment of force by a minority to make its position untenable4 ,and remember1 that if among a minority some ten per cent4 are willing to die1 as against only some one or two per cent4 in a majority1 that minority is likely to win1 and all your numbers will be vain4 ,that fact puts no undue or dangerous power into the hands of minorities4 ,consent1 on a just basis1 can be obtained to government whose acts are little to the liking of individual minds or of minorities4 ,but if1 after long trial of expedient1 persuasion1 or coercion1 consent cannot be obtained1 then the weight of evidence 7based on the unfailing document of human nature7 has shifted against government2 and it rests more with the government than with the rebel to prove that its claims are just4 ,when governments establish inequalities affecting the lives and liberties of any1 however few1 ,i see no sanction whatsoever in majorities4 ,one runaway slave had not to wait upon a majority of his fellow-slaves in order to establish his right to escape from slavery--still less upon a majority of the nation which owned him4 ,if he could find a path along which to escape1 that was the highroad appointed for him by ,god from of old2 and if he died in the attempt his grave was still a monument to ,liberty4 ,not the will of a million could destroy the right of that one4 ,and though ,i admit that a society which sanctions slavery must treat as a murderer the slave who kills in his effort to escape1--nevertheless1 by posterity1 and in a society which has repudiated slavery1 that act will be very differently regarded2 and so long as the man's aim when he committed that legal offence was freedom1 we1 who have repudiated slavery1 look upon him not as a murderer but as a fighter in a just cause4 ,we are in a society to-day which tolerates and even sanctions things which to-morrow will be regarded as slavery is regarded now4 ,while society thus chooses to establish evil it is driven in self-defence to treat those who rebel as criminals4 ,but posterity will not so think of them2 and the greater the forces of the majority which stood against them when they struck--the more will it admire and reverence1 and approve4 ,surely a startling commentary on the 8rights0 of majorities3 approval of the minority in an inverse proportion to its size6 ,now1 you might have a ,state almost equally divided into what were1 broadly speaking1 opposed interests2 under certain circumstances1 for instance1 7circumstances which have actually occurred in the past7 manufacturing and agricultural interests might be opposed4 ,if1 then1 you accepted majority rule as a blind dogma1 those two interests would have the right alternately to prey upon and to bleed each other1 according to the fortunes of the polls--and they might do it by putting forward legislative programmes which would bribe the electoral wobblers first to this side and then to that4 ,where1 on such a device does moral right come in8 ,was ever anything so ludicrous as a doctrine8 ,as a doctrine of right1 majority rule has but doubtful ground to stand on4 ,as an expedient1 for practical use under sound conditions1 there is much to be said for it4 ,but when once you recognise it as a mere working expedient1 then its workings must be watched1 proved1 and sometimes corrected and checked--by a minority4 ,majority rule is only tolerable when it has the equal rights of man and woman firmly fixed as its goal2 and it is as tending to the establishment of that doctrine that majority rule is acceptable 7with some caution and reservations7 to our progressive sense of citizenship4 ,in the great historic moments of upheaval which have brought it about1 it has consciously or subconsciously been an attempt to get rid of the bad principle of dominance over others4 ,it expresses the hope1 or it embodies the probability1 that a majority will be so broadly made up of all sorts and conditions--of the whole chemical composition of human society1 that is to say--that in a government prompted and directed by a majority there will be no dominance of one section over another section3 that they will1 in the long run 7or1 if efficiently checked1 in the short run7 correct each other1 strike a balance1 and prevent the rigid and continuous existence in the body politic of any subjected section4 ,but if a majority could so sort its materials as to select for rigid and permanent subjection one section of the community1 then the reason for its existence1 and the grounds for its moral sanction would be gone4 ,if1 then1 two-thirds or three-quarters of the community can secure a greater apparent measure of comfort for themselves by forcing the remaining one-third1 or one-quarter1 to wait upon them and minister to their needs1 the actual size of that dominant majority confers upon it no moral right whatever4 ,there would1 indeed1 be more semblance of right1 or at least more tenable ground1 if a minority could so impose on a majority2 because in that case the power of imposition would arise not from mere brute force so much as from superior ability2 and a minority which can manipulate to its purpose the bulk material of a community has shown better ground for the rule of others 7not very good ground1 ,i admit7 than the mere weight of numbers can supply4 ,weight of numbers as a ground for dominating others gives you no moral or efficient basis at all4 ,weight of capacity does give you an efficient basis1 if not a moral one4 ,now1 if your two-thirds majority is extracting comfort on unequal and compulsory terms from the remaining one-third1 you surely cannot deny the right of the remaining one-third so to diminish the comfort thus compulsorily extracted as to bring it to vanishing point1 or to make it even a minus quantity4 ,and the bigger the majority which is thus extracting sustenance from the minority1 and exploiting it to its own ends1 the more you will admire the minority if it rises in revolt1 and makes the imposed and one-sided bargain unprofitable to the majority4 ,and should the contention be carried to extremes 7as it will be if both sides are sufficiently resolved7 then the majority will have to exterminate the minority1 and 7if it wishes to continue government on the same lines7 will have to extract for exploitation a new minority from its own body--give up one of its own ribs to servitude--and so become a diminished people in its perpetuation of a bad system4 ,now1 these considerations of moral right are irrespective of numbers4 ,it may be the bounden duty of one man to resist the will of hundreds1 or thousands1 or millions4 ,indeed1 every religious system admits1 and history gives clear evidence1 that that is so4 ,a man must obey his conscience2 that is his one ultimate guide4 ,that statement expresses what one may call the atomic theory of human society4 ,it suggests1 at first sight1 an impossible splitting to pieces of all systems of law and order2 but it is not so in reality1 because--and this is the really wonderful thing and the spiritual root of the whole matter--conscience is the most infectious and convincing force in life4 ,in a community there is really a far greater agreement of conscience than of desire or of opinion4 ,a conscientious resister may1 of course1 be mistaken2 but if he is prepared to go on resisting1 making sacrifice1 and enduring suffering for his scruples--that process is the least fallible as a test1 and the most converting in its tendency of all the processes of propaganda that the human mind can conceive2 and by recognizing the moral right of the individual to put himself to that test before the eyes of his fellow citizens1 and so at the same time to test their consciences in the matter1 you are not really encouraging a course which leads to disunion and anarchy1 but a course which1 on the whole1 will best bring about a general consensus of opinion4 ,a community which recognises the moral worth of such tests of its own and of the individual conscience1 will be far less likely to arouse such demonstrations of revolt than one which altogether ignores and despises them2 for the simple reason that such a community will be better based in its duty toward its neighbour2 it will wish each man to do that which it would claim the right to do itself in a like case1 if faced by a superior power backed by greater numbers than its own4 ,if ,i know that my conscientious resistance will be respectfully considered 7though not made easy or cheap to me71 that my test of other consciences may be tried and may be adjudged to fail--,i shall not be more inclined to enter into conflict with so considerate a majority1 but less2 for it is not open-minded justice but close-minded injustice which arouses opposition and rebellion4 ,but while human nature makes it safe1 in the main1 that men and women will not in any appreciable numbers submit themselves voluntarily to continuous discomfort1 deprivation1 loss of liberty and ease1 except for a just cause or a high motive worth looking into1 considering1 and making allowances for3 human nature does not make it safe that those in authority will not be overbearing and unjust1 unless they too are liable to a like test4 ,and here again we come to consider the duty of the law and of law-makers to individuals4 ,the law should be prepared wherever its fallibility stands proved--where1 for instance1 it has done hurt and damage to innocency by its operations--at least to make full reparation4 ,it is not an honourable position1 for that which holds fiduciary together with compulsory powers1 to say to one whom it has falsely imprisoned or unjustly charged--8,you1 on the whole1 benefit by government1 and1 therefore1 must yourself bear this hurt of government which has fallen upon you40 ,the ,state or the community which permits such individual hardship to result from its imposition of a fallible code is not just in its government or dutiful to its neighbour4 ,and if it so acts1 it undermines in the governed their sense of its moral sanction4 ,the ,state cannot so do hurt to its citizens and retain an unimpaired claim on their allegiance2 nor can it with any moral decency claim reparation from its enemies abroad1 if it does not make full reparation for its own miscarriages of justice at home4 8,one10 it is sometimes argued1 8must suffer for the general good40 ,but the general good is not so served4 ,in this connection general good only means 8general cheapness40 ,the ,state1 and not the citizen1 must pay the price of its presumption--or it must look for an altered mind in every citizen whom it so afflicts from its position of immunity4 ,nay1 it may be well that its supposed immunity should occasionally be disproved by a determined and self-sacrificing citizen1 entirely for the general good1 and the ,state forced to pay in extra upkeep for the bad condition of its laws4 ,the careless self-allowance of majorities in wrong done to minorities1 or even to individuals1 is not to the general good2 and one could rather wish to a ,state that its minorities should be alert and pugnacious1 than its majorities self-satisfied and indifferent on the score of mere numbers4 ,numbers1 uncorrected by conscience and uncontrolled by penalties1 may be the cheapest1 nastiest and most unscrupulous form of tyranny4 ,the indifference or acquiescence of hundreds to conditions by which they themselves are not consciously affected cannot have the same moral weight as the discontent of one or of a few who are so affected4 ,that is a consideration which must always qualify the 8rights0 of majorities4 ,in such circumstances the sanction of mere numbers is not sufficient4 ,are minorities1 then1 always to have their way8 ,by no means4 ,we know that they cannot4 ,countless minorities in our political controversies have contended1 have failed1 and have acquiesced in their failure4 ,time has tested them1 and has measured the depth of their grievance by the scale of human nature4 ,but other minorities1 which have persistently refused to acquiesce have won4 ,time has tested them also2 and human nature1 not numbers1 has in the long run proved their case4 ,medical science tells us that there is in the human eye a blind spot1 by the existence of which alone we are enabled to see4 ,if that blind spot were absent the eye would be without focus4 ,in human nature 7however much we hold by the principle of ordered government7 there is a point of revolt which standardises the relations of the individual to government4 ,it cannot be brought into play by mere artifice or calculation1 except for brief spells2 but when naturally aroused it lasts4 ,it is that point of revolt1 latent at all times in a freedom-loving people1 but only aroused by unjust conditions--it is the existence of that point of revolt in human nature which secures good government4 ,minorities1 if determined1 can make unjust government an economic extravagance1 and can indicate to majorities 7with some trouble and cost to themselves7 the limitation of their rights4 ,the sleeping partner of good government is the spirit of revolt4 ,to-day we have not good government2 and that is why the sleeping partner is awake4 ,,discreditable ,,conduct 7#aiae7 ,discreditable conduct1 according to its right derivation1 is conduct provocative of disbelief4 ,it is that kind of conduct which makes us doubt the professions of its agents1 because it is practically inconsistent with the things that they preach4 ,many things are done in this world which are very reprehensible1 vindictive1 cruel1 narrow-minded--,i might go through a whole catalogue of the vices2 but they are not therefore 8discreditable40 ,a man who has gone about the world expressing his undying hatred for another man1 and then ends by killing him1 has done nothing discreditable from his own standard4 ,he has not made you believe less in his professions1 but more2 for he actually did mean what he said1 and has become by his act a creditable witness to the faith that was in him--the dark gospel of hatred4 ,but if1 while nourishing a personal hatred1 he was at the same time laying it down as the duty of all men to love their enemies1 then we have not to wait for the murder in order to look upon him as a tainted and a discredited witness4 ,it is not so much the blood upon his hands as the hatred within his heart which has discredited him as a preacher to others4 ,or1 put the case otherwise2 without pretending to such a counsel of perfection as that he can love his enemies1 a man may yet assert that human life is sacred1 and that he has no right to take the life of his fellow4 ,having done so he begins to set up exceptions3 8,though ,i may not do it at my own10 he says1 8,i may do it at the bidding of others40 ,and this not by orders that he is compelled into on pain of death or torture 7when he might plead a natural human infirmity as his excuse for wrongdoing7 but by voluntary enlistment in an army1 or by voluntary acceptance of the post of public hangman1 or of a judgeship1 or of service upon a jury in cases involving the death-penalty4 ,now1 it may be very commendable to take human life at the bidding of others2 but it is not consistent with the unqualified statement that 8all human life is sacred40 ,the one proposition--it is not my concern here to defend or attack either of them--becomes discredited by the other4 ,the advocate of the judicial extinction of life under the institution of capital punishment1 or of wholesale extinction under the institution of war--if he wishes to be heard as a credible witness1 and to avoid the imputation of discreditable conduct when he gives a hand to it--must reshape his statement something after this manner3 8,human life is so important a thing that one man must not take it on his own responsibility2 but ,society may40 ,and then he will have to make up his mind what he means by ,society1 and why he thinks ,society is more to be trusted than himself4 ,and if he finds himself in a community which permits or even inculcates moral evils which he individually cannot tolerate1 then he must puzzle out for himself why he will trust such a community with the power to kill1 when he sees it make so vile and miserable a misuse of the power to keep alive--or to keep from life in any form that is worth having--so many millions of his fellow-creatures4 ,and he will find presently that his assertion that human life is sacred must--if it is to mean anything--extend from the comparatively easy and simple problem of the death-penalty to those far greater problems1 which lie all around him1 of the cruel life-penalties tolerated or exacted by ,society4 ,so before long what he will find himself up against is this--the necessity of being a creditable or a discreditable witness to the value of ,society itself--of that thing to whose apron-strings he has tied his conscience4 ,for you cannot assert that it is right for ,society to unmake human life unless you also assert that ,society is making human life in a form that is worth having1 in a form1 too1 that would be imperilled were its power of judicial murder to be taken from it4 ,but the point of departure ,i have wished to bring you to is this3 man did not begin to doubt his own moral right to kill other men until there entered into his being an idea of something better able than himself to judge1 to control1 and to provide4 ,and so long as he believed in that idea as protective of a morality superior to his own1 and productive of the fruits of life in better quality1 he could without discredit put into its hands powers which he dared not himself exercise4 ,but when1 on the contrary1 a man comes to the conclusion that the products of ,society as constituted have in them more of evil than of good1 he may quite creditably1 in a strict sense of the word1 start an attack upon ,society1 or upon great social institutions1 and seek to bring them to dissolution4 ,such a course of action may be arrogant1 or may have an insufficient basis of fact1 but it is not discreditable4 ,rather does it prove the man's faith in his professions4 ,history gives record of many such characters1 and posterity has approved of deeds which in their own day were regarded as violent1 arrogant1 and unjustifiable4 ,martin ,luther attacked a far greater social institution of his own day than was comprised under any single form of government4 ,he attacked something much bigger than the ,english or the ,american ,constitution4 ,in deciding to attack it he was more arrogant 7if single unorganised action against large and organised numbers be the proof of arrogance7 than you or ,i could be if we attacked any institution to-day that you like to name1 even the institution of war4 ,now1 the result of that great attack was that it succeeded--not unconditionally1 not universally1 but 7broadly speaking7 racially and territorially4 ,about one-third of ,europe was conquered by it2 and about two-thirds remain to this day--not indeed unaffected1 but certainly not conquered by ,lutheranism4 ,if you are to judge of sacred causes by mere numbers1 there are still more nominal ,catholics than nominal ,protestants in the world2 and1 therefore1 by numbers1 up to date ,luther is condemned4 ,luther's real conquest--the thing that he really did bring about1 and in which numbers are now on his side1 would have horrified him4 ,luther was the root-cause why there are to-day more nominal ,christians in the world who pick and choose doctrines to suit their own taste1 than ,christians who submissively take their doctrines wholesale from others whether from ,luther or from ,rome4 ,it is due to ,luther1 as much as to anybody1 that so many ,roman ,catholics who have no leanings to ,lutheranism1 are only nominal ,catholics4 ,luther1 that is to say1 has brought into existence an enormous number of discreditable ,christians who will not openly admit that they are free-thinkers4 ,you have clergy of the ,church of ,england1 for instance1 who read themselves into their pulpits with the ,thirty-nine ,articles1 and do not believe half of them4 ,the average young man who enters the ministry of the ,church of ,england has been reasonably mothered by a university education2 and when he takes the plunge it is not total immersion4 ,his mother--his ,alma ,mater--still holds him by the heel4 ,it is in consequence1 with a sort of heel of ,achilles that he enters upon divinity2 and over this he draws a stocking with a large hole in it just where the wear of the heel comes hardest4 ,that stocking 7containing forty stripes save one7 is the ,thirty-nine ,articles4 ,it has been loosely knit1 it is warranted to shrink the longer he wears it1 and the hole in consequence gets larger4 ,there you have the weakness of the ,church of ,england4 ,nobody to-day in his senses is prepared to die for the ,thirty-nine ,articles4 ,yet to hold ministry in the ,church he has to swear by them1 and thus at the very beginning of his ministerial career discreditable conduct is imposed on him4 ,it is no wonder that upon that basis the ,church of ,england is permeated with unbelief in the things that it professes4 ,a ,church1 a religion1 may be full of credulity1 bigotry1 superstition--and with all those things it may yet have a true and a living faith3 it may breed martyrs and inquisitors in equal numbers and with equal facility2 but1 in order to do so it must have at its back something definite and distinctive that its members are prepared to die for4 ,and if it has not that1 it is bound to become before long a discredited institution4 ,it is an interesting and a hopeful trait in human nature that it will only believe obstinately1 continuously1 and in spite of persecution1 in those things which seem greatly to matter4 ,when they no longer seem to matter1 belief falls away from them4 ,and1 broadly speaking1 we have come to see that things do not greatly matter unless they affect life and conduct4 8,the ,kingdom of ,heaven0 is within you2 and if your doctrinal test does not produce good ethical results1 you begin to doubt--not the ,kingdom of ,heaven--but the doctrine on which it was made to depend4 ,similarly1 if a doctrine obviously lays itself open to grave abuse1 or presents strong temptation to the infirmities of human nature1 you begin to doubt whether it is so heavenly in origin as it pretends to be4 ,the doctrine held by some cannibal ,african tribe that the bride's mother shall provide the wedding-breakfast in her own person1 is so clearly a truckling to the prejudice against mothers-in-law--which exists even in this country--that such a religious tenet immediately becomes suspect1 and we guess that it emanates not from the gods but from their maker1 man4 ,notice1 too1 how the gradual displacement of miracle has been brought about4 ,so long as miracles appealed to the human mind as a moral and not a licentious expedient for the ,creator of the universe to indulge in1 they remained acceptable to the human understanding and were easily believed4 ,their real dethronement began when it was seen that a belief in them gave the greatest possible assistance to the cruel1 grasping1 and criminal instincts of the human race--that1 from the social point of view1 they opened a way for the terrorising of the weak1 for fraud1 for covetousness1 for murder1 for theft--in a word for priest-craft in all its worst forms4 ,the belief in miracle enabled ,samuel1 with his punitive threats of divine vengeance1 to terrorise first ,eli and then ,saul1 and bring ,israel to such a pass under his priestly government that at no period of that people's early history were they more in subjection to their enemies4 ,the belief in miracle enabled ,elisha to cajole ,elijah into the wilderness and there murder him1 persuading subsequent inquirers that he had gone up to ,heaven in a chariot of fire4 ,everybody believed him except the children2 and when they mocked him and told him to go and do likewise1 he threatened that bears would come and eat them4 ,and ,scripture1 as a warning to us against like conduct1 tells us that they did4 ,that is how miracle was played under the old dispensation2 and 7as long as it could possibly be maintained7 under the new also4 ,then1 as the bad social results of a belief in miracles became accumulatively apparent--when carried outside the canon of ,scripture into contemporary life--then it began to dawn upon some people how bad also a belief in them was for the mind of man in relation to the ,deity4 ,it began to be seen that the institution of a law of nature 7in conjunction with an arbitrary suspension thereof whenever divinely convenient7 was not compatible with what men have now come to regard as 8moral conduct40 ,it was literally 8discreditable02 for it made men disbelieve the law of their own being4 ,in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of a thousand a man was to be guided by experience1 by thought1 reason1 and conscience--by a belief in cause and effect4 ,then--in the off case--unreason and inexperience were to descend upon him like a thunderbolt1 and either beat him to dust1 or lift him1 an ingenuously amazed ,ganymede to the seats of bliss4 ,now1 we may admit--indeed we must--that there are many mysteries and secrets of nature which man has not yet fathomed2 there may be many of which as yet he has no suspicion4 ,a sudden exhibition of any of those powers and mysteries might even to-day seem 8miraculous40 ,when in the past some fortuitous circumstance brought them about1 8miracle0 was the only explanation of them which human understanding was able to offer4 ,but now we are coming more and more to believe that if blind men have suddenly received their sight it has not been by miracle but by law2 if faith has removed mountains literally1 or caused the sun and the moon to stand still1 it has done so by reliance on sources which lay hitherto untapped in the general order of things1 and implicit ever since the creative scheme was established4 ,for if any other explanation is to be offered1 then the work of creation is discredited1 and the meaning and the moral values of those processes which we sum up in the word 8life0 become cheapened1 because we can no longer regard them as a law1 but only as a sort of police-regulation1 arbitrary1 capricious1 and provocative of misconduct1 in that we are unable to depend upon them1 or to have any guarantee that they will be impartially administered4 ,miracle discredits the ordered scheme of creation2 and quite as much does it do so if you believe creation to be the work of a personal ,deity4 ,creation 7science shows us more and more7 was from its inception a process of absolutely related causes and effects--a whole system reared up through millions and millions of years upon a structure involving infinite millions of lives and deaths--and the whole a perfect sequence of causal happenings4 ,that is 8life0 as it is presented to man's reason and understanding2 and if his reason and understanding are not to faint utterly1 he must in his search for a moral principle 8find ,god 7as the ,psalmist puts it7 in the land of the living10 or not at all4 ,for as he estimates the moral value of things solely by that empyric sense which has been evolved in him through a faithful recognition of the inevitable laws of cause and effect1 so must he become demoralised1 if he is to be taught that what he has regarded as inevitable can be capriciously suspended by a power independent of those laws which life has taught him to reverence4 ,do not think1 for a moment1 that ,i am questioning the power of faith or the power of prayer4 ,it is a tenable proposition that they are the most tremendous power in the world2 and yet we may hold that they take effect through the natural law alone1 and have come into existence through the courses of evolution--or1 if you like to put it so--in a faithful following of the ,will which1 in the act of ,creation1 made a compact and kept it4 ,but if the compact of ,creation was not kept1 if that impact of spirit upon matter 7which through such vast eras and through such innumerable phases of life worked by cause and effect7 was ever tampered with so that cause and effect were suspended1 then the whole process becomes discredited to our moral sense1 and its presiding genius is discredited also4 ,are we to suppose that through the earlier millions of years1 when only the elementary forms of life were present upon this globe1 cause and effect went on unsuspended and unhindered1 and that these processes1 having once been started 7engendered1 let us assume1 by the ,immanent ,will71 held absolute sway over the development of life for millions and millions of years1 until a time came when humanity appeared1 and the idea of religion and a ,deity entered the world2 and that this process then became subject to a dethronement8 ,are we to believe that then intervention in a new form1 and upon a different basis 7not of cause and effect7 began to take place8 ,if that is the proposition1 then1 it seems to me1 we are asked 7having accepted the idea of a ,creator7 to impute to ,him discreditable conduct--to believe that a point came in these causal processes which ,he had instituted when ,he could no longer 8play the game0 without arbitrary interference with its rules1 and that the appearance of man upon the globe was the signal for a fatal weakening to ,his character4 ,i have seen a clergyman cheat at croquet4 ,he was the by-word of the neighbourhood for that curious little weakness2 but ,i assure you that the spectacle of that reverend gentleman surreptitiously pushing his ball into better position with his foot instead of depending upon the legitimate use of his mallet1 was no more ignoble a spectacle than that which ,i am asked to contemplate by believers in miracle when they present to my eyes a ,deity who 7upon their assertion7 does similar things4 ,test upon this basis of morality the most crucial of all events in ,christian theology4 ,the idea of the ,incarnation of ,god in human form as the final and logical fulfilment of the ,creative purpose and process--the manifestation of the ,creator in the created--has had for many great thinkers a very deep attraction4 ,but if the process which brings ,him into material being--the so-called ,virgin-,birth--is not a process implicit in ,nature itself and one that only depends for its realisation on man's grasp of the higher law which shall make it natural and normal to the human race--if the ,virgin-,birth is miracle instead of perfectly conditioned law revealing itself1 then1 surely1 such a device for bringing about the desired end is 8discreditable conduct0--because it discredits that vast system of evolution through cause and effect which we call 8life40 ,from such an ,incarnation ,i am repulsed as from something monstrous and against nature2 and the doings and sayings of a being so brought into the world are discredited by the fact of a half-parentage not in conformity with creative law4 ,now when one ventures to question the moral integrity of so fundamental a religious doctrine1 and to give definite grounds as to why adverse judgment should be passed on it1 there will not be lacking theologians ready to turn swiftly and rend one something after this manner3 8,who are you1 worm of a man1 to question the operations of the ,eternal mind1 or dare to sit in judgment on what ,god your maker thinks good80 ,the answer is 8,i don't4 ,it is only your interpretation of those operations that ,i question40 ,but on that head there is this further to say3 8,by the ,creative process ,god has given to man a reasoning mind2 and it is only by the use of the reason so given him that man can worship his ,maker40 ,to give man the gift of reason and then to take from him the right fully to exercise it1 is discreditable conduct4 ,that tendency ,i attribute not to the ,deity but to the theologian--more especially as ,i read in the ,scriptures that where ,god had a special revelation to make to a certain prophet who thought a prostrate attitude the right one to assume under such circumstances1 divine correction came in these words1 8,stand upon thy feet1 and ,i will speak to thee40 ,some people seem to think that the right attitude is to stand upon their heads4 ,it is told in some ,early ,victorian memoirs that a group of ,oxford dons were discussing together the relations of mortal man to his ,god1 and one postulated that the only possible attitude for man to assume in such a connection was that of 8abject submission and surrender40 ,but even in that dark epoch such a doctrine was not allowed to go unquestioned4 8,no1 no10 protested another1 8deference1 not abject submission40 ,and though it is a quaint example of the ,oxford manner1 surely one must agree with it4 ,reason being man's birthright1 8,stand upon thy feet and ,i will speak to thee10 is the necessary corollary4 ,even if there be such a thing as divine revelation--the revelation must be convincing to man's reason1 and not merely an attack upon his nerves1 or an appeal to his physical fears4 ,similarly any form of government or of society which does not allow reason to stand upon its feet and utter itself unashamed is a discreditable form of discipline to impose1 if reason is to be man's guide4 ,now ,i do not know whether1 by characterising the device of a 8miraculous0 birth as discreditable to its author1 ,i am not incurring the penalty of imprisonment in a country which says that it permits free thought and free speech 7at all events in peace-time74 ,a few years ago a man was sent to prison--,i think it was for three months--for saying similar things3 a man who was a professed unbeliever in ,divinity4 ,and quite obviously the discreditable conduct in that case was not of the man who acted honestly up to his professions1 but of this country which1 professing one thing1 does another4 ,and the most discreditable figure in the case was the ,home ,secretary who1 though entirely disapproving of this legal survival of religious persecution1 and with full power to exercise the royal prerogative of mercy which has now become his perquisite1 refused to move in the matter1 and said he saw no reason for doing so4 ,his discredit was1 of course1 shared by the ,cabinet1 by ,parliament and by the ,country--which 7without protest except from a few distinguished men of letters and leaders of religious thought7 allowed that savage sentence to stand on grounds so antiquated and so inconsistent with our present national professions4 ,nationally we are guilty of a good deal of discreditable conduct on similar lines4 ,we profess one thing1 and we do another4 ,our politicians tell us that they rely upon the voice of the people1 yet often they employ the political machine which they control1 for the express purpose of evading it4 ,a few years ago a ,liberal statesman was appointed to ,cabinet-rank1 and had in consequence to go to his constituency for re-election4 ,he belonged to the party which makes a particular boast of its trust in the popular verdict4 ,but in order to make his election more safe--before his appointment became public property--he communicated to his party agent his ministerial knowledge of the coming event so that the date of the bye-election could be calculated4 ,and the agent proceeded to book up all the public halls in the constituency over the period indicated4 ,then1 in order that the scandal might not become too flagrant he generously released a proportion of his bookings to his ,conservative opponent1 but refused to release any at all to his ,labour opponent2 and on those nicely arranged conditions he fought his election--and got beaten4 ,now that was surely discreditable conduct1 for here was a statesman who1 while ostensibly appealing to the voice of the people was doing his level best behind the scenes to deny to it a full and a free opportunity of expression4 ,yet the whole political world was in so discreditable a condition that there were actually people who thought then--and perhaps still think to-day--that that budding politician was unfairly and hardly treated when he was thereafter pursued from constituency to constituency by his cheated opponent1 and successfully prevented from re-entering ,parliament even to this day4 ,probably in other branches of life he was an upright and honourable man1 but politics had affected him1 as religion or social ambition has affected others1 and made him a discreditable witness to the faith which he professed4 ,now when you have great organisations and great institutions thus discrediting themselves by conniving at the double-dealings of those whom they would place or keep in authority--you cannot expect the honestly critical observer to continue to place their judgment above his own1 or to believe 7when some difficult moral problem presents itself7 that there is safety for his own soul in relying upon their solution of it4 ,the sanction of the popular verdict in a community which is true to its professions is very great and should not lightly be set aside4 ,but the sanction of a community or of an organisation which is false to its professions is nil4 ,and it is in the face of such conditions 7to which ,society and religion always tend to revert so long as their claim is to hold power on any basis of inequality or privilege7 that the individual conscience is bound to assert itself and become a resistant irrespective of the weight of numbers against it4 ,and so1 in any ,state where it can be said with truth that the average ethical standard for individual conduct is better than the legal standard1 the duty of individual resistance to evil law begins to arise4 8,bad laws10 said a wise magistrate1 8have to be broken before they can be mended40 ,and to be broken with good effect they must be broken not by the criminal classes but by the martyrs and the reformers4 ,it is not without significance that every great moral change in history has been brought about by lawbreakers and by resistance to authority4 ,when the ,english ,nonconformists of two or three centuries ago were fighting governments and breaking laws1 they were doing so in defence of a determination to hold doctrines often of a ridiculous kind and productive of a very narrow and bigoted form of religious teaching--a form which1 had it obtained the upper hand and secured a general allegiance1 might have done the ,state harm and not good4 ,but1 however egregious and even pernicious their doctrine1 the justice 7and even the value7 of the principle for which they contended was not affected thereby4 ,the life of the spirit must take its chance in contact with the life material1 and ,society must have faith that all true and vital principles will 7given a free field and no favour7 hold their own against whatever opponents4 ,that is the true faith to which ,society is called to-day--but which it certainly does not follow--especially not in war time4 ,we talk a great deal about liberty1 democratic principle1 and government by majority2 but if those ideals have any real meaning1 they mean that--given free trade in ideas and in propaganda on all ethical and moral questions--you have got to trust your community to choose what it thinks good4 ,and to refuse to the general community the means of deciding for itself by the utmost freedom of discussion1 is--in a ,state based on these principles--the most discreditable conduct imaginable4 ,but of what worth1 you may ask1 is this moral sanction of a majority8 ,i am not myself greatly enamoured of majority rule in the sense of a majority exercising compulsion on a minority4 ,compulsion by a majority ,i should often think it a duty to resist4 ,but to the testimony of a majority that refrained from compulsion ,i should attach the greatest possible weight4 ,there you would get a public opinion which by its own self-restraint and scrupulous moderation of conduct would be of the highest moral value4 ,for ,society fearlessly to admit the full and open advocacy of that which it disapproves is the finest proof ,i can imagine of its moral stability1 and of its faith in the social principles it lives by4 ,broadly speaking--with the exception ,i have already referred to--that view is now admitted in matters of religion2 you may hold and you may advocate what religious principles you like4 ,but you are not so free to hold and advocate social and ethical principles4 ,the veto of ,society has shifted1 and you are far less likely to incur opprobrium and ostracism to-day if you advocate polytheism than if you advocate polygamy or pacifism4 ,and the reason for this1 ,i take to be1 that the religion of modern ,society is no longer doctrinal but ethical2 and so our tendency is to inhibit new ethical teaching though we would not for a moment countenance the inhibition of new doctrinal teaching4 ,that is our temptation1 and ,i think that in the coming decade there will be a great fight about it2 we are not so prepared as we ought to be to allow a free criticism of those social institutions on which our ideas of moral conduct are based1 even when they cover 7as at present constituted7 a vast amount of double-dealing4 ,take for instance this ,western civilization of ours which bases its social institutions of marriage1 property1 and inheritance on the monogamic principle1 but persists in moral judgments and practices whose only possible justification is to be found in the rather divergent theory that the male is naturally polygamous and the female monogamous4 ,these two ideals1 or social practices1 make mutually discrediting claims the one against the other4 ,i am not concerned to say which ,i think is right4 ,but on one side or the other we are blinking facts1 and are behaving as though they had not a determining effect upon conduct and character which ,society ought straightforwardly to recognise4 ,the man who maintains that it is impossible for the male to live happily and contentedly in faithful wedlock with one wife and then goes and does so1 commits himself by such matrimonial felicity to discreditable conduct--discreditable to his professions1 ,i mean4 ,and it is1 of course1 the same if his inconsistency takes him the other way about4 ,there may1 however1 be an alternative and more honest solution to this conflict of claims2 both may contain a measure of truth4 ,it may be true that monogamy--or single mating--faithfully practised by man and woman alike1 is ideally by far the best solution of the sex-relations1 and the best for the ,state to recognise and encourage by all legitimate means2 just as vegetarianism and total abstinence may be the best solution of our relation to food1 or non-resistance of our relation to government1 or abject submission of our relation to theological teaching4 ,but though these may be ideals to strive for1 it does not follow that human nature is so uniformly constructed upon one model as to justify us in making them compulsory1 or in turning round and denouncing as moral obliquity either plural mating or the eating of meat1 or the drinking of wine1 or rebellion against civil authority1 or free thought in matters of religion4 ,if the community deliberately decides that one of these courses gives the better social results1 it is within its power to discourage the other course1 without descending to compulsion2 and ,i am inclined to think that this may1 in the majority of cases1 be done by treating the desires and appetites of resistant minorities as taxable luxuries4 ,if the ,state finds1 for instance1 that alcoholism increases the work of its magistrates and police1 and diminishes the health and comfort of home-conditions1 it may quite reasonably tax beer1 wine and spirits1 not merely to produce revenue but to abate a nuisance4 ,but it would be foolish1 were it to go on to say that everybody who incurred such taxes was guilty of moral obliquity4 ,in the same way1 if the ,state wishes to discourage vegetarianism and temperance1 it will tax sugar1 currants1 raisins1 tea1 cocoa and coffee1 and will continue to tax them till it has diminished the consumption2 and incidentally it will let meat go free4 ,but it will not pass moral judgments--having the fear of human nature before its eyes--on those who conscientiously bear the burden of those taxes rather than give up what they think good for them4 ,i could imagine the ,state1 in its wisdom1 seeking to discourage luxury and the accumulation of wealth into the possession of the few1 by imposing a graduated income tax of far more drastic severity than that which is now depleting the pockets of our millionaires--but not therefore saying that all who incurred income tax above a certain scale were guilty of moral obliquity4 ,we have seen a ,state which required an increase of its population setting a premium on children so as to encourage parents to produce them2 and ,i can imagine a ,state which required a diminution in the increase of its population setting a tax on children1 but not therefore joining in the cry of the ,neo-,malthusians that every married couple who produced more than four children were guilty of a kind of moral depravity4 ,and further1 ,i can imagine a ,state which wished to encourage pure and unadulterated monogamy putting a graduated tax1 practically prohibitive in price1 on any other course of conduct productive of second or third establishments4 ,but ,i do not see why the ,state1 as ,state1 should concern itself further1 or why ,society should concern itself more deeply about sexual than it does about commercial and trade relations1 wherein it allows far more grievous defections from the ideal of human charity to exist4 ,leaving it to the individual is not to say that your views as to the desirability of such conduct will not influence your social intercourse1 and perhaps even affect your calling list4 ,a great many things affect our calling lists1 without any necessity for us to be self-righteous and bigoted about the principle on which we make our own circle select4 ,there are some people who will call upon the wives of their doctors1 but not of their dentists2 there are others who will not call upon the organist who conducts them to the harmonies of ,divine ,service on ,sunday1 but would be very glad to call upon ,sir ,henry ,wood1 who conducts their popular concerts for them during the week4 ,we make our selection according to our social tastes and aspirations1 and sometimes those social tastes may include a certain amount of moral judgment4 ,but that moral judgment need not make us interfere2 if it keeps us at a respectful and kindly distance from those whom we cannot regard with full charity1 it keeps us sufficiently out of mischief4 ,take the public hangman1 for instance4 ,i1 personally1 would not have him upon my calling list4 ,i would like to put a graduated tax upon him and tax him out of existence4 ,i think he is lending himself to a base department of ,state service2 but ,i also think that the ,state is tempting him2 and ,i think that1 in a symbolical way1 all of you who approve of capital punishment ought to put the public hangman upon your calling list--or not exclude him because of his profession 7which you regard as useful and necessary71 but only because he happens to be personally unattractive to you4 ,if you exclude him1 because of his profession1 while you consider his profession a necessity--you are guilty1 ,i think1 of discreditable conduct1 and in order to stand morally right with yourselves you had better go 7,i speak symbolically7 and leave cards on him to-morrow4 ,what ,i mean seriously to say is this3 there is a great danger to moral integrity in any acceptance of social conditions which you would refuse to interpret into social intercourse4 ,if you believe prostitution to be necessary for the safety of the home--which is the doctrine of some--you must accept the prostitute as one who fulfils an honourable function in the ,state4 ,if you accept capital punishment1 you must accept the hangman4 ,if you accept meat1 you must accept the slaughterman2 if you accept sanitation you must accept the scavenger4 ,if you accept dividends or profit from sweated labour1 you must accept responsibility for sweated conditions1 and for the misery1 the ill-health1 the immorality and the degradation which spring from them4 ,we may be quite sure that far worse things come from these conditions on which we make our profit than are contained in the majority of those lives which1 because of their irregularities or breaches of convention1 we so swiftly rule off our calling lists4 ,if we are not willing to forego the dividends produced for us out of our tolerated social conditions1 why forego contact with that human material which they bring into being8 ,but if you accept contact there1 then you will have a difficulty in finding any human material of greater abasement to deny to it the advantage of your acquaintance4 ,i have purposely put my argument provocatively1 and applied it to thorny and questionable subjects1 because ,i want to reach no halfway conclusion in this matter1 and because the real test of our spiritual toleration is now shifting from matters religious to matters social1 from questions of doctrine to questions of daily life4 ,to-day we must be prepared to tolerate a propaganda of social ideas--the products of which1 if they succeeded in obtaining a hold1 would in the estimation of many be as regrettable as were the products of ,calvinism or ,puritanism in the past1 when they were much more powerful than now4 ,our hatred of these new social ideas may be just as keen as the hatred of ,catholicism for ,protestantism or of ,protestantism for ,catholicism1 in days when religious doctrine seemed to matter everything4 ,more keen it could not be4 ,the dangers these new ideas present could not be greater in our eyes than in the eyes of our forefathers were the dangers of false doctrine three centuries ago4 ,but the principle which demands that they shall be free to state their case and to make converts remains always the same4 ,nevertheless it is unlikely to be granted without struggle except by an intelligent minority4 ,the religious movement of the twentieth century1 ,i say again1 is not doctrinal but social2 and its scripture is not the ,bible or any written word1 but human nature itself4 ,we are on the brink of great discoveries in human nature1 and many of our ethical foundations are about to be gravely disturbed4 ,the old ,manichee dread of the essential evil--the original and engrained sin--of human nature remains with us still1 and there will be a great temptation1 as there always has been1 not merely to controvert 7which is permissible7 but to persecute and suppress those who preach new ideas4 ,it is against such discreditable conduct that we have now to be on our guard4 ,at the threshold of this new era to which we have come1 with our old civilisation so broken and shattered about us by our own civilising hands1 the guiding spirit of man's destiny has its new word to say1 to which we must listen with brave ears4 ,and first and foremost it is this1 8,stand upon thy feet--and ,i will speak with thee40 ,,what ,,is ,,womanly8 7#aiaa7 ,the title of my lecture has1 ,i hope1 sent a good many of you here--the women of my audience1 ,i mean--in a very bristling and combative frame of mind1 ready to resent any laying down of the law on my part as to what is or what is not 8womanly40 ,i hope1 that is to say1 that you are not prepared to have the terms of your womanliness dictated to you by a man--or1 for that matter1 by a woman either4 ,for who can know either the extent or the direction of woman's social effectiveness until she has secured full right of way--a right of way equal to man's--in all directions of mental and physical activity1 or1 to put it in one word1 the right to experiment8 ,there are1 ,i have no doubt1 many things which women might take it into their heads to do1 which one would not think womanly at their first performance1 but which one would think womanly when one saw their results at long range4 ,no rule of conduct can be set up as an abstract right or wrong2 we must form our ethics on our social results2 and in the world's moral progress the really effective results have generally come by shock of attack upon1 or of resistance to1 some cherished conventions of the day4 ,take1 for example1 a thing which has seemed to concern only the male sex1 but which has really concerned women just as intimately--the history of our male code of honour in relation to the institution of duelling4 ,there was a time in our history when it would have been very difficult to regard as manly the refusal to fight a duel4 ,but it is not difficult to-day to see in such a refusal a very true manliness4 ,we in this country have got rid of the superstition that honour can in any way be mended by two men standing up to take snap-shots at each other2 and now that we are free from the superstition ourselves1 we can understand1 looking at other countries--,germany1 for instance--that it must often require more courage to refuse to fight than to consent4 ,but we have arrived at that stage of enlightenment only because in our own history there have been men courageous enough and manly enough to dare to be thought unmanly and cowardly4 ,and as with our manhood so with our womanhood2 you cannot judge of what is womanly merely on the lines of past conventions1 produced under circumstances very different from those of our own days4 ,you must give to women as you give to men the right to experiment1 the right to make their own successes and their own failures4 ,you cannot with good results lay upon men and women1 as they work side by side in the world 7very often under hard competitive conditions7 the incompatible rules which govern respectively a living language and a dead language4 ,a living language is constantly in flux1 inventing new words for itself1 modifying its spelling and its grammatical construction1 splitting its infinitives4 ,in a dead language the vocabulary is fixed1 the spelling is fixed1 the construction is fixed2 but the use and the meaning often remain doubtful4 ,and so1 if you attempt to determine the woman's capabilities merely by her past record1 and to fix the meaning of 8womanliness0 in any way that forbids flux and development1 then you are making the meaning and the use of the word very doubtful4 ,now1 obviously1 if to be 8womanly0 means merely to 8strike an average10 and be as like the majority of women as possible--womanliness as a quality is not worth thinking about2 it will come of its own accord1 and exists probably a good deal in excess of our social need for it4 ,it stands on a par with that faculty for submission to the unconscionable demands of others which makes a sheep sheepish and a hen prolific4 ,to be what ,henry ,james calls 8intensely ordinary0 is1 from the evolutionary point of view1 to be out of the running4 ,we see this directly we start applying the word 8manly0 to men4 ,for we do not take that to mean merely average quality--if it did1 over-eating1 over-drinking1 and that form of speech which ,i will call over-emphasis--would all be manly qualities--and the evolution of the race would1 according to that doctrine1 lie on the lines of all sorts of over-indulgence4 ,but when we say 8manly10 we mean the pick and polish of those qualities which enable a man to possess himself and to develop all his faculties2 and if it denotes discipline it also denotes an insistence on freedom--freedom for development1 so that all that is in him may be brought out for social use4 ,now1 the great poverty which modern civilization suffers from1 is the undevelopment or the under-development of the bulk of its citizens4 ,and the great wastage that we suffer from lies in the misdirection toward the over-indulgence of our material appetites--of the energies which should make for our full human development4 ,and you may be quite sure that where in a community of over-population and poverty such as ours1 the average man1 as master1 is demanding for himself more of these things than his share1 there the average woman 7where she is in economic subjection7 is getting less than her share4 ,yet there are many people who 7viewing this problem of woman's subjection where the savage in man is still uppermost7 will tell you that it is 8womanly0 to be self-sacrificing and self-denying2 they will say that it is the woman's nature to be so more than it is the man's2 for1 like ,milton1 in his definition of the ideal qualities of womanhood1 they put the word 8subjection0 first and foremost4 ,that condition1 which1 according to ,scripture1 only followed after the curse as its direct product1 was1 you will remember1 predicated by ,milton1 quite falsely1 as essential even to the paradisal state2 and when in ,paradise ,lost he laid down this law of 8subjection0 as the right condition for unfallen womanhood1 he went on to describe the divinely appointed lines on which it was to operate4 ,the woman was to subject herself to man-- 8with submission1 ,and sweet1 reluctant1 amorous delay40 ,those1 surely1 are the qualifications of the courtesan for making herself desired2 and it is no wonder1 if he had such an ,eve by his side as was invented for him by ,milton1 that ,adam fell4 ,where true womanliness is to end ,i do not know2 but ,i am pretty sure of this--that it must begin in self-possession4 ,it is not womanly for a woman to deny herself either in comforts or nourishment1 or in her instincts of continence and chastity in order that someone else--whether it be her children or her husband--may over-indulge4 ,it is womanly 7it is also manly71 when there is danger of hurt or starvation to those for whom you are responsible1 to suffer much rather than that they should suffer2 but it is not in the least womanly or manly to suffer so that they may indulge4 ,the woman who submits to the starving of herself or of her children by a drunken or a lazy husband is not in any positive sense womanly--for she is then proving herself ineffective for her social task4 ,and she would be more effective1 and therefore more womanly1 if she could1 by any means you like to name1 drive that lazy husband into work1 or abstract from that drunken husband a right share of his wages4 ,and if by making his home a purgatory to him she succeeded1 she would be more womanly in the valuable sense of the word than if 7by submission to injustice7 she failed1 and let her children go starved4 ,then1 again1 a woman may see that the children she and her husband are producing ought never to have been born4 ,and if that is so1 is it womanly for her to go on bearing children at the dictates of the man1 even though ,st4 ,paul says1 8,wives1 obey your husbands08 ,is she any more womanly1 if she knowingly brings diseased offspring into the world1 than he is manly in the fathering of them8 ,but now1 come out of the home into ,society--not into any of those departments of unsolved problems where humanity is seen at its worst--pass all those by for the moment--and come to the seat of administration--into that great regulator of ,society1 the law-courts 7in the superintendence and constitution of which woman is conspicuous by her absence74 ,there1 as in matters connected with the male code of honour1 any duty of initiative on the part of women may seem1 at first sight1 to be far removed4 ,but let us see6 ,in the law-courts you meet with a doctrine--a sort of unwritten law--that there are certain cases to which women must not listen4 ,and occasionally 8all decent women0 are requested to leave the court1 when 8decent0 men are allowed to stay4 ,now1 in the face of that request it must be a very painful thing indeed for a woman to hold her ground--but it may be womanly for her to do so4 ,it may be that in that case there are women witnesses2 and ,i do not think our judges sufficiently realise what mental agony it may be to a woman to give evidence in a court where there are only men4 ,i am quite sure that in such cases1 if the judge orders women generally out of court1 he ought to provide one woman to stand by the woman in the witness-box4 ,how would any man feel1 if he were called before a court composed only of women1 women judges1 a woman jury1 women reporters1 and saw all men turned out of the court before he began his evidence8 ,would he feel sure that it meant justice for him8 ,i think not4 ,now these cases to which women are not to listen almost always specially concern women2 yet here you have men claiming to deal with them as much as possible behind the woman's back1 and to keep her in ignorance of the lines on which they arrive at a conclusion4 ,surely1 then1 it would be well for women of expert knowledge and training to insist that these things shall not be decided without women assessors1 and to be so 8womanly0 as to incur the charge of brazenness and immodesty in defending the woman's interest1 which in such matters is also the interest of the race4 ,but it is only very gradually--and in the face of immemorial discouragement--that this communal or social spirit1 when it began to draw woman outside her own domesticity1 has fought down and silenced the reproach raised against it1 of 8unwomanliness10 of an intrusion by woman into affairs which were outside her sphere4 ,the awakening of the social conscience in women is one of the most pregnant signs of the time4 ,but see what 7in order to make itself effective7 it has had to throw over at each stage of its advance--things to which beautiful names have been given1 things which were assumed all through the ,victorian era to be essential to womanliness1 and to be so engrained in the woman's nature1 that without them womanliness itself must perish4 ,the ideal of woman's life was that she should live unobserved except when displayed to the world on the arm of a proud and possessive husband1 and the height of her fortune was expressed in the phrase enviously quoted by ,mrs4 ,norton1 8,happy the woman who has no history40 ,now that ideal was entirely repressive of those wider activities which during the last fifty years have marked and made happy1 in spite of struggle1 the history of woman's social development2 and every fresh effort of that social spirit to find itself and to become effective has always had to face1 at the beginning of each new phase in its activity1 the charge of unwomanliness4 ,compare that attack1 fundamental in its nature1 all-embracing in its condemnation1 with the kind of attack levelled against the corresponding manifestations of the social or reforming spirit in man4 ,in a man1 new and unfamiliar indications of a stirring-up of the social conscience may earn such epithets of opprobrium as 8rash10 8hot-headed10 8ill-considered10 8impracticable10 8utopian0--but we do not label them as 8unmanly40 ,initiative1 fresh adventure of thought or action in man have always been regarded as the natural concomitant of his nature4 ,in a woman they have very generally been regarded as unnatural1 unwomanly4 ,the accusation is fundamental3 it does not concern itself with any unsoundness in the doctrines put forward2 but only with the fact that a woman has dared to become their mouthpiece or their instrument4 ,go back to any period in the last #bjj years1 where a definitely new attempt was made by woman toward civic thought and action1 and you will find that1 at the time1 the charge of 8unwomanliness0 was levelled against her2 you find also that in the succeeding generation that disputed territory has always become a centre of recognised womanly activity4 ,take1 for instance1 the establishment of higher training for girls2 there are towns in this country where the women1 who first embarked on such a design1 were jeered and laughed at1 and even mobbed4 ,and the same thing happened in an even greater degree to the women who sought to recover for their own sex admission to the medical profession3 and while the charge levelled against them was 8unwomanliness10 it was yet through their instincts of reserve and sex-modesty that their enemies tried to defeat them4 ,even when they gained the right of admission to medical colleges there were lecturers who tried1 by the way they expressed themselves in their lectures1 to drive them out again4 ,or take the very salient instance of ,florence ,nightingale4 ,when she volunteered to go out and nurse our soldiers in the ,crimea1 the opposition to a woman's invasion of a department where men had shown a hopeless incompetence at once based itself on the plea that such a task was 8unwomanly40 ,though in their own homes from time immemorial1 women had been nursing fathers1 brothers1 sons1 uncles1 cousins1 servants1 masters1 through all the refined and modestly-conducted diseases to which these lords of creation are domestically subject1 directly one woman proposed to carry her expert knowledge into a public department and nurse men who were strangers to her1 she was told that she was exposing herself to an experience which was incompatible with womanly modesty4 ,well1 she was prepared to let her womanly modesty take its risk in face of the black looks of scandalised officials of ,admiralty or ,war ,office2 and she managed to live down pretty completely the charge of unwomanliness4 ,but the example is a valuable one to remember1 for there you get the claim of convention to keep women from a great work of organisation and public service1 although already1 in the home1 their abilities for that special service had been proved4 ,and so1 breaking with that convention of her day ,florence ,nightingale went to be the nursing mother of the ,british ,army in the ,crimea1 and came home1 the one conspicuously successful general of that weary and profitless campaign1 shattered in health by her exertions1 but of a reputation so raised above mistrust and calumny that through her personal prestige alone was established that organisation of nursing by trained women which we have in our hospitals to-day4 ,take again the special and peculiar opposition which women had to face when they began to agitate against certain laws which particularly affected the lives of women and did cruel wrong to them even in their home relations4 ,read the life of ,caroline ,norton1 for instance--a woman whose husband brought against her a public charge of infidelity1 though privately admitting that she was innocent2 and when1 after that charge was proved to be baseless1 she separated from her husband1 refusing to live with him any more1 then he1 in consequence of that refusal cut her off absolutely from her children1 though they were all under seven years of age4 ,that wrong1 which our laws had immemorially sanctioned1 roused her to action1 and it was through her efforts1 so long ago as #ahch1 that the law was altered so as to allow a mother of unblemished character right of access to her own children during the years of early infancy6 ,and that is how the law still stands to-day--a woman's contribution--the most that could be done at the time for justice to women4 ,but there is no statue to ,caroline ,norton in ,parliament ,square--or anywhere else1 so far as ,i know4 ,but what ,i specially want to draw attention to is this--that when she wrote the pamphlet with which she started her agitation all her relatives entreated her not to publish it1 because it would be an exposure to the world of her own private affairs4 ,by that time1 however1 ,caroline ,norton had learned her lesson in 8womanliness10 and she no longer said 8,happy is the woman who has no history40 ,her answer was3 8,there is too much fear of publicity among women3 with women it is reckoned a crime to be accused1 and such a disgrace that they wish nothing better than to hide themselves and say no more about it40 ,does not that set forth in all its weakness the conventional womanly attitude of the period8 ,the ,bill which1 through her efforts1 was brought three times before ,parliament1 was at first defeated4 ,how8 ,by the votes of the ,judges1 to whom the ,house of ,lords left the matter to be decided4 ,and ,lord ,brougham1 in speaking against that ,bill used this line of argument3 ,there were1 he said1 several legal hardships which were of necessity inflicted on women2 therefore we should not relieve them from those which are not necessary--the necessary hardships being the greater2 and it being bad policy to raise in women a false expectation that the legal hardships relating to their sex were of a removable kind6 ,was ever a more perverted and devilish interpretation given to the ,scripture1 8,to him that hath shall be given1 and from her that hath not shall be taken even that which she hath40 ,let us remember that we are the direct descendants and inheritors of the age and of the men who pronounced these unjust judgments1 and that no miracle has happened between then and now to remove the guilt of the fathers from the third and the fourth generation4 ,heredity is too strong a thing for us to have any good ground for believing that our eyes1 even now1 are entirely opened4 ,there are many of us who cannot drink port at all1 because our grandfathers drank it by the bottle every night of their lives4 ,we inherit constitutions1 personal and political--we also inherit proverbs1 which express so vividly and in so few words1 the full-bodied and highly-crusted wisdom of former generations4 ,those proverbs expressed once--else they had not become proverbs--an almost universal contemporary opinion4 ,some of them are now beginning to wear thin1 have of recent years been dying the death1 and will presently be heard no more4 ,but their source and incentive are still quite recognisable2 and their dwindled spirit still lives in our midst4 ,there was one1 for instance1 on which genteel families were brought up in the days of my youth--a rhymed proverb which laid it down that-- ,a whistling woman and a crowing hen ,are hateful alike to ,god and men4 ,now let us look into the bit of real natural history which lies at the root of that proverb4 ,a crowing hen is a disturbance1 but so is a crowing cock4 ,but the hen is not to crow because she only lays eggs1 and because the bulk of hens manage to lay eggs without crowing4 ,they make1 it is true1 a peculiar clutter of their own which is just as disturbing2 but that is a thoroughly feminine noise and a dispensation of ,providence2 and they don't do it at all times of the night1 and without a reason for it1 as cocks do4 ,but as a matter of fact it is far more easy to prevent a cock from crowing than a hen from cluttering2 you have only to put a cock in a pen the roof of which knocks his head whenever he rears himself up to crow and he will remain as silent as the grave1 though he will continue to do that spasmodic duty by his offspring which is all that nature requires of him4 ,but no such simple method will stop the cluttering of a hen when her egg is once well and truly laid2 the social disturbance caused by the pomp of masculine vain-glory is far less inevitable than the disturbance caused by the circumstances of maternity4 ,yet the normal masculine claim to pomp of sound is more readily allowed in our proverbial philosophy than the occasional feminine claim4 ,and that is where we have gone wrong2 it is really maternity which under wholesome conditions decides the social order of things2 and we have been fighting against it by putting maternity into a compound and setting up paternity to crow on the top rail4 ,we have not learned that extraordinary adaptability to sound economic conditions which we find in many birds and in a few animals4 ,there exists1 for instance1 a particular breed of ostriches1 which mates and lays its eggs in a country where the days are very hot and the nights very cold2 and as it takes the female ostrich some #ac or #ad days to lay all her eggs and some weeks to incubate1 she cannot as she does in other countries deposit them in the sand and leave the sun to hatch them1 because after the sun has started the process1 the cold night comes and kills them4 ,the mother bird finds1 therefore1 that she cannot both produce and nurse her eggs2 yet directly they are laid somebody must begin sitting on them4 ,well1 what does she do8 ,she goes about in flocks1 #ac or #ad females accompanied by an equal number of the sterner sex4 ,and on a given day1 all the hens lay each an egg in one nest1 and one of the father birds is selected to sit upon them4 ,and so the process goes on till all the males are sedentarily employed in hatching out their offspring4 ,and ,i would ask 7applying for the moment our own terminology to that wonderfully self-adaptive breed of sociologists7 are not those male ostriches engaged in a thoroughly 8manly0 occupation8 ,could they be better engaged than in making the conditions of maternity as favourable and as unhampered as possible8 ,yet how difficult it is to make our own countrymen see that the strength of a nation lies mainly--nay1 entirely--in eugenics1 in sinking every other consideration for that great and central one--the perfecting of the conditions of maternity4 ,but let us come back for a moment to whistling4 ,it is an accomplishment which1 as a rule1 men do better than women2 it is the only natural treble left to them after they reach the age of puberty2 and they are curiously proud of it2 perhaps1 because women1 as a rule1 have not the knack of it4 ,now1 the real offence of a woman's whistling was not when she did it badly 7for that merely flattered the male vanity7 but when she did it well2 and no doubt it was because some women managed to do it well that the proverb ,i speak of was invented4 ,we should not have been troubled with such a proverb if crowing hens and whistling women had been unable to raise their accomplishment above a whisper4 ,yet whistling is really quite beautiful1 when it is well done2 and why is woman not to create this beauty of sound1 if it is in her power to create it1 merely because it finds her in a minority among her sex8 ,does it make her less physically fit1 less capable of becoming a mother--less inclined1 even1 to become a mother8 ,no2 it does none of these things2 but it distinguishes her from a convention which has laid it down that there are certain things which women can't do2 and so1 when the exceptional woman does it1 she is--or she was the day before yesterday--labelled 8unwomanly40 ,i do not suggest that whistling is a necessary ingredient for the motherhood of the new race2 but1 as a matter of fact1 ,i have noticed that those women who whistle well have1 as a rule1 strength of character1 originality1 the gift of initiative and a strong organising capacity2 and if these things do go together1 then surely we should welcome an increase of whistling as a truly womanly accomplishment--something attained--which has not been so generally attained hitherto4 ,let us pass now to a much more serious instance of those artificial divisions between masculine and feminine habits of thought and action which have in the past seemed so absolute1 and are1 in fact1 so impossible to maintain4 ,for you can have no code or standard of manhood that is not intimately bound up with a corresponding code or standard of womanhood4 ,what raises the one1 raises the other1 what degrades the one degrades the other2 and if there is in existence1 anywhere in our social system1 a false code of manliness1 there alongside of it1 reacting on it1 depending on it1 or producing it1 is a false code of womanliness4 ,take1 for example1 that matter of duelling already referred to1 in relation to the male code of honour1 and the manliness which it is supposed to encourage and develop4 ,you might be inclined to think that it lies so much outside the woman's sphere and her power of control1 as to affect very little either her womanliness or her own sense of honour4 ,but ,i hope to show by a concrete example how very closely womanliness and woman's code of honour are concerned and adversely affected by that 8manly0 institution of duelling--how1 in fact1 it has tended to deprive women of a sense of honour1 by taking it from their own keeping and not leaving to them the right of free and final judgment4 ,here is what happened in ,germany about seven years ago4 ,a young married officer undertook to escort home from a dance the fiance of another officer2 and on the way1 having drunk rather more than was good for him1 he tried to kiss her4 ,she resented the liberty1 and apparently made him sufficiently ashamed of himself to come next day and beg her pardon4 ,whether she would grant it was surely a matter for herself to decide2 she accepted his apology1 and there1 one would have thought1 the matter might have ended4 ,but unfortunately1 several months later1 word of this very ordinary bit of male misdemeanour reached the ears of the lady's betrothed4 ,it at once became 8an affair of honour0--his affair1 not the lady's affair--his to settle in his own way1 not hers to settle in her way4 ,accordingly he calls out his brother officer1 and1 probably without intending it1 shoots him dead4 ,the murdered man1 as ,i have said1 was married1 and at that very time his wife was in expectation of having a child4 ,the child was prematurely born to a poor mother gone crazed with grief4 ,there1 then1 we get a beautiful economic product of the male code of honour and its criminal effects on ,society2 and if traced to its source we shall see that such a code of honour is based mainly on man's claim to possession and proprietorship in woman--for1 had the woman not been one whom he looked upon as his own property1 that officer would have regarded the offence very lightly indeed4 ,but because she was his betrothed the woman's honour was not her own1 it was his2 she was not to defend it in her own way--though her own way had proved sufficient for the occasion--he must interfere and defend it in his4 ,and we get for result1 a man killed for a petty offence--the offence itself a direct product of the way in which militarism has trained men to look on women--a woman widowed and driven to the untimely fulfilment of her most important social function in anguish of mind1 and a child born into the world under conditions which probably handicapped it disastrously for the struggle of life4#a ,now1 obviously1 if women could be taught to regard such invasions of their right to pardon offence in others as a direct attack upon their own honour and liberty--a far worse attack than the act of folly which gave occasion for this tragedy--and if they would teach these possessive lovers of theirs that any such intrusion on their womanly prerogative of mercy was in itself an unforgivable sin against womanhood--then such invasions of the woman's sphere would quickly come to an end4 ,they might even put an end to duelling altogether4 ,see1 on the other hand1 how acceptance of such an institution trains women to give up their own right of judgment1 to think even that honour1 at first hand1 hardly concerns them4 ,is it not natural that1 as the outcome of such a system from which we are only gradually emerging1 we should hear it said of these conventionally womanly women that they have 8a very low sense of honour40 ,low it must naturally be4 ,for that attitude of complaisant passivity on the part of the woman while two male rivals fight to possess her is the normal attitude of the female in the lower animal world2 but it is an attitude from which1 as the human race evolves into more perfect self-government1 you see the woman gradually drawing away4 ,while it pleases something in her animal instincts1 it offends something in her human instincts2 and while to be fought over is the highest compliment to the female animal1 it is coming to be something like an insult to the really civilized woman--the woman who has the spirit of citizenship awake within her4 ,one remembers how ,candida1 when her two lovers are debating which of them is to possess her--brings them at once to their senses by reminding them that it is not in the least necessary that she should be possessed by either of them2 but she does in the end give herself to the one who needs her most4 ,that may be the truest womanliness under present conditions2 as it may once have been the truest womanliness for the woman to give herself to the strongest4 ,but it may be the truest womanliness1 at times1 for the woman to bring men to their senses by reminding them that it is not necessary for her to give herself at all4 ,to be quite sure of attaining to full womanliness1 let her first make sure that she possesses herself4 ,in the past men have set a barrier to her right of knowledge1 her right of action1 her right of independent being2 and in the light of that history it seems probable that she will best discover her full value by insisting on right of knowledge1 on right of way1 and on right of economic independence4 ,so long as convention lays upon women any special and fundamental claim of control--a claim altogether different in kind and extent from the claim it lays upon men--so long may it be the essentially womanly duty of every woman to have quick and alive within her the spirit of criticism1 and latent within her blood the spirit of revolt4 ,,footnote3 #a ,it may be noted that the war has caused a recrudescence of this brutal 8code of honour0 in our own country4 ,but here it has not troubled to resume the obsolete form of the duel4 ,the 8defender of his wife's honour0 simply commits murder1 and the jury acquits4 ,,use ,,and ,,ornament 7,,or ,,the ,,art ,,of ,,living7 7#aiae7 ,i suppose you would all be very much surprised if ,i said that not use but ornament was the object of life4 ,i refrain from doing so because so definite a statement makes an assumption of knowledge which it may always be outside man's power to possess4 ,the object of life may for ever remain as obscure to us as its cause4 ,it seems1 indeed1 likely enough that the one ignorance hinges necessarily on the other1 and that without knowing the cause of life neither can we know its object4 ,the writers of the ,scottish ,church ,catechism1 it is true1 thought that they knew why man was created4 ,the social products of their cocksure theology cause me to doubt it4 ,i would prefer to worship more ignorantly a more lovable deity than the one which is there presented to my gaze4 ,but though we may never know why we are here1 we may know1 by taking a little thought and studying the manifestations of the life around us1 what aspects of it make us glad that we are here4 ,and gladness is as good a guide as any that ,i know to the true values of life4 ,examining life from that standpoint ,i know of nothing that gives me more delight than the decoration and embellishment with which man has overlaid all the mere uses of existence--things which without those embellishments might not delight us at all--or only as a dry crust of bread delights in his necessity the starving beggar1 or ditch-water one dying of thirst4 ,i can scarcely think of a use in life which ,i enjoy1 that ,i do not enjoy more because of the embellishment placed about it by man1 who claims to have been made 8in ,god's image40 ,nothing that my senses respond to with delight stays limited within the utilitarian aspect on which its moral claims to acceptance are too frequently based--or remains a benefit merely material in its scope4 ,when we breathe happily1 when we eat happily1 and when we love happily1 we do not think of the utilitarian ends with which those bodily instincts are related4 ,the utilitarian motive connects1 but only subconsciously1 with that sense of well-being and delight which then fills us2 and the conscious life within us is happy without stooping to reason4 ,underlying our receptivity of these things is1 no doubt1 the fact that our bodies have a use for them4 ,but were we to consider the material uses alone1 our enjoyment would be less2 and if 7by following that process7 we absorbed them in a less joyous spirit1 our physical benefit1 so science now tells us1 would be less also4 ,for some reason or another1 which is occasionally hard to define1 you find pleasure in a thing over and above its use2 and ,i want to persuade you that the finer instinct1 the genius of the human race1 tends always in that direction--not to rest content with the mere use of a thing1 but to lay upon it that additional touch of adornment--whether by well-selected material1 or craftsman's skill1 or social amenity1 which shall make it a thing delightful to our senses or to our intelligence4 ,take1 for instance1 so simple a thing as a wine-glass1 or a water-glass4 ,materially1 it is subject to a very considerable drawback2 it is brittle1 and if broken is practically unmendable4 ,from the point of view of utility1 strength1 cheapness1 cleanliness1 it has no advantage over hardware or china4 ,but in its relation to beverages beautiful in colour and of a clear transparency1 glass has a delightfulness which greatly enhances the pleasure of its use4 ,there is a subtle relation between the sparkle of the glass1 and the sparkle produced in the brain by the sight and the taste of good wine 7or--let me add1 for the benefit of temperance members of my audience--of good ginger-ale74 ,i think one could also trace a similar delight to the relations subsisting between glass in its transparency and a draught of pure water4 ,that relationship set up between two or more senses 7in this case between the senses of sight1 taste and touch7 brings into being a new value which ,i ask you to bear in mind1 as ,i shall have a good deal to say about it later--the value of association4 ,the more you examine into the matter1 the more you will find that association is a very important element for evoking man's faculties of enjoyment2 it secures by the inter-relation of the senses a sort of compound interest for the appeal over which it presides4 ,and it is association1 with this compound appeal1 which again and again decides 7over and above all questions of use7 what material is the best1 or the most delightful1 to be employed for a given purpose4 ,you choose a material because it makes a decorative covering to mere utility4 ,that beauty of choice in material alone is the beginning of ornament4 ,when ,i began1 ,i spoke for a moment as though use and ornament were opposite or separate principles2 but what ,i shall hope soon to show is that they are so interlocked and combined that there is no keeping them apart when once the spirit of man has opened to perceive the true sacramental service which springs from their union1 and the social discordance that inevitably follows upon their divorce4 ,but as man's ordinary definition of the word 8use0 is sadly material and debased1 and as his approval and sanction of the joys of life have too often been limited by a similar materialism of thought1 one is obliged1 for the time being1 to accept the ordinary limiting distinction1 so that the finer and less realised uses of beauty and delight may be shown more clearly as the true end to which all lesser uses should converge4 ,life itself is a usage of material1 the bringing together of atoms into form2 and we know1 from what science teaches of evolution1 that this usage has constantly been in the direction of forms of life which1 for certain reasons1 we describe as 8higher40 ,emerging through those forms have come manifestations or qualities1 which quite obviously give delight to the holders of them2 and we are able to gather in watching them1 as they live1 move1 and have their being1 that for them life seems good4 ,it is no part of their acceptance of what has come that they are here not to enjoy themselves4 ,thus we see from the upward trend of creation a faculty for enjoyment steadily emerging1 and existing side by side with fears1 risks1 and hardships which the struggle for existence entails--probably an even increased faculty for enjoyment1 as those fears and risks become more consciously part of their lives4 ,and ,i question whether we should think that the wild deer had chosen well1 could it resign its apprehension of death at the drinking-place for the sake of becoming a worm--the wriggling but scarcely conscious prey of the early bird4 ,man 7the most conscious prey of death7 has also his compensations2 but1 wishing to eat his cake and have it1 he insists that his increased self-consciousness is the hall-mark of an immortality which he is unwilling to concede to others4 ,he sees 7or the majority of those see1 who preach personal immortality after death7 no moral necessity for conceding immortality to the worm because the early bird cuts short its career1 or to the wild deer because it enjoys life1 shrinks from death1 and endures pain2 or to the peewit1 because she loves her young2 or to the parrot1 because it dies with a vocabulary still inadequate for expressing that contempt for the human species with which the caged experience of a life-time has filled its brain4 ,yet1 for these and similar reasons applied to himself1 man thinks that immortality is his due4 ,in doing so1 he does but pursue1 to a rather injudicious extent1 that instinct for the ornamentation and embellishment of the facts of life which ,i spoke of to begin with4 ,for whether it be well-founded or not1 a belief in immortality gives ornament to existence4 ,of course1 it may be bad ornament2 and ,i think it becomes bad ornament the moment he bases it upon the idea that this life is evil and not good4 ,if he says 8,life is so good that ,i want it to go on for ever and ever10 and thinks that he can make it better by asserting that it will go on for ever and ever1 that is a playful statement which may have quite a stimulating effect on his career1 and make him a much more charming and social and imaginative person than he would otherwise be4 ,but if he wants a future life merely because he regards this life as a 8vale of misery0--and wants that future life to contain evil as well as good--a ,hell as well as a ,heaven 7in order that he may visualise retribution meted out on a satisfactory scale upon those whom he cannot satisfactorily visit with retribution to-day7 then1 ,i think1 that it tends to become bad ornament1 and is likely to make him less charming1 less social1 and less imaginatively inventive for the getting rid of evil conditions from present existence than he would be if he had not so over-loaded his brain with doctrinal adornments4 ,still1 it is ornament of a kind2 and with ornament1 good or bad 7the moment he has got for himself leisure or any elbow-room at all in the struggle for existence7 man cannot help embellishing the facts of life--the things that he really knows4 ,now that instinct for embellishment is of course latent in ,nature itself1 or we should not find it in man2 and it comes of ,nature 7the great super-mathematician7 putting two and two together in a way which does not merely make four4 ,when two and two are put together by ,nature1 they come to life in a new shape2 and man is 7up-to-date7 the most appreciative receptacle of that fact which ,nature has yet produced4 ,man builds up his whole appreciation of life by association--by studying a method of putting two and two together which comes to something very much more than a dead numerical result4 ,this1 as ,i have said1 is ,nature's way of giving to our investments in life a compound interest4 ,man throws into life his whole capital1 body1 soul1 and spirit2 and as a result of that investment ,nature steadily returns to him year by year--not detached portions of his original outlay1 but something new and different4 ,out of every contact between man's energy and ,nature's1 something new arises4 ,and yet1 though new1 it is not strange2 it has features of familiarity2 it is partly his1 partly hers2 and if his spirit rises above the merely mechanical1 it is endeared to him by and derives its fullest value from association4 ,all beautiful work1 all work which is of real use and benefit to the community1 bears implicitly within it this mark of parentage--of the way it has been come by1 through patience1 skill1 ingenuity1 something more intimate and subtle than the dead impenetrable surface of a thing mechanically formed without the accompaniment either of hope or joy4 ,this creation of new values by association 7which you can trace through all right processes of labour7 is seen even in things which have very little of human about them4 ,the germ of its expression is to be found in that simplest of arithmetic propositions to which ,i have just referred3 two and two make--not two twos but four1 which is1 in fact1 a fresh concept2 and the mind that can embrace so much--the idea of four as a number with an identity of its own has already raised itself above the lowest level of savagery4 ,in that mind something has begun out of which the social idea may presently be developed2 for the man who has conceived the number four will presently be identifying his new concept with a variety of correspondencies under fresh aspects3 he will discover that certain animals have four legs1 whereas1 until then1 his view of them was rather that of the child who said that a horse had two legs in front1 two legs behind1 and two at each side--a statement which shows1 indeed1 that the horse has been earnestly considered from as many points of view as are sometimes necessary to enable a ,cabinet ,minister to make up his mind1 but1 for all that1 never as a whole2 and in such a mind1 though the identity of the horse may be established from whatever point of view he presents himself1 the thought of the horse1 as a being of harmoniously related parts1 having order and species1 has not yet been established4 ,until a man can count1 and sum up the results of his counting in synthesis1 ,nature is composed merely of a series of units--and the mind cannot begin that grouping and defining process which leads to association and from that to the development of the social idea4 ,you will remember in ,alice through the ,looking ,glass1 when the two ,queens set to work to test her educational proficiency--you will remember how the ,white ,queen says 7in order to discover whether ,alice can do addition7 8,what's one1 and one1 and one1 and one1 and one1 and one80 8,i don't know10 says ,alice1 8,i lost count40 8,she can't do addition10 says the ,white ,queen4 ,well--she 8lost count10 and1 therefore1 that series of ones failed to have any fresh meaning or association for her4 ,in the same way the primitive savage loses count2 beyond three1 numbers are too many for him--they become merely a 8lot40 ,but war and the chase begin to teach him the relative value of numbers2 and he finds out that if one lot goes out to fight a bigger lot1 the smaller lot probably gets beaten2 so that1 before long1 calculation of some sort becomes necessary for the preservation of existence4 ,he finds out also 7and this is where ornament begins to come in7 that a certain amount of wilful miscalculation has a beauty and a value of its own4 ,so1 after going out to fight ten against ten1 and defeating them1 he comes back and says to his wives and the surrounding communities by whom he wishes to be held in awe--8,my lot killed bigger lot--much1 much bigger lot40 ,and so1 when he comes later on to set down his wilful miscalculations in records of scripture1 he provides delightful problems for the ,bishop ,colensos of future ages--problems the undoing of which may shake to the foundations the authority of documents which some mid-,victorian school of ,christianity has hitherto held to be divinely and verbally inspired--not realising that the normal tendency of human nature is to be decorative when writing its national history or when giving its reasons for having plunged into war4 ,you begin now1 then1 to perceive 7if you did not before71 the importance of ornamental association1 even when confined to matters of arithmetic2 and the moral value to future ages not merely of calculated truths but of calculated untruths4 ,but this merely figurative illustration of the quickness of the human brain1 in its primitive stage1 to use mathematics to unmathematical ends 7or science to ends quite unscientific7 does not bring us very far upon the road to that self-realisation1 in ornament rather than in use1 which ,i hope to make manifest by tracing to their most characteristic forms of expression the higher grades of civilization4 ,and ,i shall hope1 by and by1 to show that you cannot be social without also being ornamental2 it is the beginning of that connecting link which shall presently make men realise that life is one1 and that all life is good4 ,take1 to begin with1 the earliest instruments by which primitive man began raising himself from the ruck of material conditions2 his weapons--first of the chase1 and then of war4 ,no sooner had he proved their use than he began to ornament them--to make them records1 trophies1 and so--objects of beauty4 ,he cannot stop from doing so2 his delight in the skill of his hands breaks out into ornament4 ,it is the same with the arts of peace1 the work of the woman-primitive--she moulds a pot1 or weaves a square of material1 and into it--the moment she has accomplished the rudiments--goes pattern1 beauty1 something additional and memorable that is not for use material1 but for use spiritual--pleasure1 delight4 ,and that quite simple example1 from a time when man was living the life1 as we should now regard it1 of a harried and hunted beast--with his emergence from surrounding perils scarcely yet assured to him--goes on consistently up and up the scale of human evolution2 and the more strongly it gets to be established in social institutions1 the more noble is likely to be the form of civilization which enshrines it4 ,and the less it shows1 the less is that form of civilization likely to be worthy of preservation1 or its products of permanent value to the human race4 ,it is not the millionaire who leaves his mark on the world so that hereafter men are glad when they name him2 it is the 8maker0 who has turned uses into delights2 not the master of the money-market1 but the ,master of ,arts4 ,the nearest thing we have on earth to that immortality which so many look to as the human goal lies in those forms of ornament--of embellishment over and above mere use--which man's genius has left to us in architecture1 poetry1 music1 sculpture1 and painting4 ,nothing that stops at utility has anything like the same value1 for the revelation of the human spirit1 as that which finds its setting in the ,arts--the sculptures of ,egypt and ,greece1 the ,gothic and ,romanesque cathedrals of ,france1 ,england1 ,germany and ,italy1 the paintings of the ,renaissance1 the masterpieces of ,bach and ,beethoven1 the poems and writings all down the ages of men comparatively poor in monetary wealth1 but rich beyond the dreams of avarice in their power to communicate their own souls to things material and to leave them there1 when their own bodies have turned to dust4 ,in the embellishment they added to life they bestowed on the age in which they lived its most significant commentary4 ,there you will find1 as nowhere else1 the meaning and the interpretation of the whole social order to which these forms were as flower and fruit4 ,ancient ,greece is not represented to us to-day by its descendants in the flesh 7as an expression of that life they have ceased to exist7 but by those works of art and philosophy through which men--many now nameless--made permanent the vision of delight to which1 in the brief life of the flesh1 they had become heirs4 ,the self-realisation of that age--all the best of it that we inherit--comes to us through embodiment in forms transcending material use4 ,run your mind's eye through the various peoples and nationalities of ,europe--of the world--and you will find that their characteristic charm--that which is 8racy0 of their native soil1 marking the distinction between race and race1 lies in the expression they have given to life over and above use4 ,if we had kept to use1 race would have remained expressionless4 ,race expresses itself in ornament2 and even among a poor peasant people 7and far more among them than among the crowded and over-worked populations of our great cities where we pursue merely commercial wealth7 comes out in a characteristic appreciation of the superabundance of material with which1 at some point or another1 life has lifted them above penury4 ,in the great civilizations it extends itself over a rich blend of all these1 drawn from far sources2 and the more widely it extends over the material uses of life1 the higher and the more permanent are the products of that form of civilization likely to be4 ,what does it mean but this8--man is out to enjoy himself4 ,having said that1 need ,i add that ,i put a very high interpretation upon the word 8joy08 ,to that end--man's enjoyment of life--all art is profoundly useful4 ,i put that forward in opposition to the specious doctrine of ,oscar ,wilde that 8all art is entirely useless40 ,but it is usefulness extended in a new direction2 leaving the material uses1 by which ordinary values are measured1 it shifts to the spiritual2 and by the spiritual ,i mean that which animates1 vitalizes1 socializes4 ,to that end it may often be--and is generally the case--that1 in the material sense1 art is a useless addition or refinement upon that which was first planned merely for the service of man's bodily needs4 ,yet where the need is of a worthy and genuine kind1 art never ceases to rejoice at the use that is underlying it4 ,this can be clearly seen in architecture1 where the beauty of design1 the proportion1 the capacity of the edifice--though far transcending the physical need which called it into being--remain nevertheless in subtle relation thereto1 and give to it a new expression--useless indeed to the body--but of this use to the mind1 that it awakens1 kindles1 enlivens1 sensitizes--making it to be in some sort creative1 by perception of and response to the creative purpose which evoked that form4 ,you cannot enter a cathedral without becoming aware that its embracing proportions mean something far more than the mere capacity to hold a crowd2 its end and aim are to inspire in that crowd a certain mental attitude1 a spiritual apprehension--to draw many minds into harmony1 and so to make them one--a really tremendous fact when successfully achieved4 ,now nothing can be so made--to awaken and enlarge the spirit--without some apparent wastefulness of material or of energy4 ,a cathedral will absorb more stone1 and the labour of more men's lives1 before it is finished1 than a tenement of equal housing capacity which aims only at providing warmth and a cover from the elements4 ,to provide so much joy and enlargement to the human spirit1 a kind of waste1 upon the material plane1 is necessary2 and the man without joy or imagination in his composition is likely to say on beholding it3 8,why was all this waste made80 ,bear in mind this accusation of waste which can constantly be made1 from a certain standpoint against all forms of joy evolved by the art of living--possibly against all forms of joy that you can name2 for all joy entails an expenditure of energy1 and for those who do not realise the value of joy such expenditure must necessarily seem wasteful4 ,but when a man employs hand or brain worthily1 straightway he discovers 7latent within that connection7 the instinct of delight1 of ornament4 ,he cannot rejoice in his craftsmanship without wishing to embellish it--to place upon it the expression of the joy which went with the making4 ,all that he does to this end is apparently 7from the material point of view7 useless2 but from the spiritual it is profoundly useful2 and from the spirit 7and this ,i think is important7 it tends to re-act and kindle the craftsman to finer craftsmanship than if he had worked for utility alone4 ,now if spirit thus acts on matter--achieving its own well-being only through a certain waste of material1 or expenditure of labour upon the lower plane1 yet communicating back to matter influences from that state of well-being to which it has thus attained--may it not be that waste of a certain kind 7what ,i would call 8selective waste0 versus 8haphazard waste07 is the concomitant not only of spiritual but of material growth also8 ,may it not be that evolution has followed upon a course of waste deliberately willed and insisted on--and that without such waste1 life--even material life--had not evolved to its present stage8 ,we see a certain wastefulness attaching to many of the most beautiful biological manifestations in the world4 ,up to a certain point1 the construction of flower1 bird1 beast1 fish1 shows a wonderful economy of structure1 of means to end 7it is the same also in the arts74 ,but there comes a point at which ,nature1 8letting herself go10 becomes fantastic1 extravagant--may one not say 8wilful08--in the forms she selects for her final touches of adornment4 ,and is it not nearly always when the matter in hand is most closely related to the 8will to live0--or1 in other words1 in relation to the amative instincts--that the 8art of living0 breaks out1 and that ,nature quits all moderation of design and becomes frankly ornamental and extravagant8 ,just at the point where to be creative is the immediate motive1 where1 in the fulfilment of that motive1 life is found to be a thing of delight1 just there1 ,nature1 being amative1 becomes playful1 exuberant and ornamental4 ,there are some birds which1 in this connection1 carry upon their persons adornments so extravagant that one wonders how for so many generations they have been able to live and move and multiply1 bearing such edifices upon their backs1 their heads1 their tails--that they were not a crushing hindrance to the necessary affairs of life4 ,they certainly cannot have been a help2 and yet--they still persist in them6 ,taking1 then1 these natural embryonic beginnings as our starting point1 ,i would be inclined to trace out the living value of art and ornament somewhat upon these lines3 ,exuberance--the emergence of beauty and adornment1 in addition to the mere functional grace arising out of fitness for use--has always been going on through the whole process of creation among animate nature4 ,we see it established in a thousand forms1 not only in bird1 beast and reptile1 but in the vegetable world as well4 ,the tendency of all life that has found a fair field for its development1 is to play with its material--to show that it has something over and above the straight needs imposed on it by the struggle for existence1 which it can spare for self-expression4 ,it has been lured on to these manifestations mainly by that 8will to live0 which underlies the attractions of sex4 ,that exuberance is an essential feature of the evolutionary process at the point where self-realisation by self-reproduction is the game to play4 ,under that impulse the selective principle begins to assert itself1 and straightway the outcome is ornament4 ,self-realisation 7by self-reproduction under all sorts of images and symbols7 is the true basis of ornament and of art3 self-realisation6 ,the spirit of man1 moving through these means1 impresses itself reproductively on the spirits of others with a far better calculation of effect than can be secured through bodily inheritance4 ,for in physical parentage there is always the chance of a throw-back to tainted origins2 the sober and moral citizen cannot be sure of sober and moral children in whom the desire of his soul shall be satisfied4 ,they may be drawn1 by irresistible forces1 to take after some giddy and disreputable old grandfather or grandmother instead of after him2 for in his veins run the parental weaknesses of thousands of generations2 and over the racial strain that passes through him to others he possesses no control whatever4 ,but the man who has given ornament to life in any form of art--though he commits it to the risks and chances of life1 the destructive accidents of peace and war--is in danger of no atavistic trick being played upon the product of his soul2 he is assured of his effect1 and so long as it endures it reflects and represents his personality more faithfully than the descendants of his blood4 ,now for the satisfaction of that instinct1 the perpetuation of name and identity is not necessary4 ,the artist would not 7if told that his self-realisation was destined to become merged anonymously in the existence of fresco1 or canvas1 or mosaic7--he would not therefore lay down his mallet or his brush1 and say that in that case the survival of these things to a future age was no survival for him4 ,the maker of beautiful inlay would not lose all wish to do inlay if the knowledge that he1 individually1 as the craftsman were destined to oblivion4 ,let the future involve him in anonymity as impenetrable as it liked1 he would still go on expressing himself in ornament2 self-realisation would still be the law of his being4 ,that is the psychology of the artist mind--of that part of humanity which produces things that come nearest1 of all which earth has to show1 to conditions of immortality1 and so presumably are the most satisfying to man's wish for continued individual existence4 ,the makers of beauty do not set any great store on the continuance of their names--the continuance of their self-realisation is what they care about4 ,but the possessors of these works of beauty do very often make a great point of having their own names perpetuated1 even though the vehicle is another personality than their own4 ,and so very frequently we have the names passed down to us of these parasites of immortality--the tyrants for whom palaces1 or arches1 or temples were built--but not the names of the artists who designed them1 whose immortality they really are4 ,and though the official guide may refresh our memory with snippets of history1 and say this1 that1 or the other about the name to which the temple remains attached--the really important thing that lives1 survives1 and influences us is not the externally applied name1 but the invested beauty which has no name1 but is soul incarnate in stone to the glory of ,god--the self-realisation of a being who 7but for that7 has passed utterly from remembrance4 ,that1 as ,i have said before1 is the nearest thing to immortality that we know4 ,and it comes to us1 in a shape which1 7so to be informed with immortality7 cannot limit itself to the demands of use4 ,when all the claims of use are satisfied1 then the life of personality begins to show--the fullest and the most permanent form of self-realisation known to man on earth lies in ornament4 ,of course1 when ,i say 8ornament10 ,i use the word in a very wide sense4 ,what ,i have said of sculpture1 painting or architecture1 applies equally to poetry1 music or philosophy4 ,i would even go further1 and apply it in other directions where no material matrix for it exists4 ,every department of mental activity has its ornament--the culminating expression of that particular direction of the human will4 ,faith is the ornament of destiny1 ,hope the ornament of knowledge1 ,love the ornament of sex4 ,without these ornaments destiny and knowledge and sex would have no beauty that the soul of man should desire them4 ,those additions or glosses were quite unnecessary to existence--up to a point2 for millions of years the world did without them1 and ,evolution managed to scramble along without faith1 without hope1 without love4 ,but ,evolution itself brought them into being2 and then for millions of years they existed in germ1 without self-consciousness2 but steadily1 as they germinated1 they produced beauty and a sense of design in their environment4 ,co-ordination1 dovetailing 7peaceful word671 the harmonising and gentle effect of one life upon another1 as opposed to the savage and predatory1 began to have effect4 ,and in response came ornament2 faith1 hope and love showed their rudimentary beginnings even in the lower animals4 ,one of the most perfectly decorative objects that ,i have ever seen in the animal world 7you will find it in still-life form in our ,natural ,history ,museum7 is the device by which a certain small possum has taught her young to accompany her from branch to branch4 ,along her back she seats her litter1 then over their heads like the conducting-wire of a tram-line she extends her tail--and then 7each like an electric connecting rod7 up go the little tails1 make a loop1 adjust themselves to the maternal guide-rope1 and hang on4 ,and there1 safe from upset1 is the family-omnibus ready to start6 ,of course1 you may say that is use2 but it is use in which the spiritualities1 faith1 hope and love1 begin to appear2 and in the gentleness of its intention it forms a basis for the up-growth of beauty4 ,now all the arts are1 in the same way1 first of all structural--having for their starting-point a sound and economic use of the material on which they are based4 ,music1 architecture1 poetry1 and the rest were all1 to begin with1 the result of an instinctive choice or selection1 directed to the elimination of superfluities1 accidents1 excrescences--which to the craftsman's purpose are nothing4 ,nature1 in her seed-sowing1 has gone to work to propagate by profusion2 her method is to sow a million seeds so as to make sure that some may live2 thus she meets and out-matches the chances that are against her4 ,the seed of ,art sprang up differently2 maker-man took hold of the one selected seed1 not of a dozen1 or of a thousand dozen promiscuously1 and bent his faculties on making that one seed 7his chosen material7 fit to face life and its chances3 if a house--walls and roof calculated to keep out the rain and resist the force of storms3 if a textile--fabric of a staple sufficient to resist the wear and tear to which it would be subjected3 if a putting together of words meant to outlast the brief occasion of their utterance--then in a form likely to be impressive1 and therefore memorable2 so that in an age before writing was known they might find a safe tabernacle1 travelling from place to place in the minds of men4 ,and similarly with music--a system of sounds so ruled by structural law as to be capable of transmission either by instrument1 or by voice disciplined and trained to a certain code of limitations4 ,and being thus made memorable and passed from mouth to mouth1 from one place to another1 and from age to age1 they acquired a social significance and importance2 till1 seeing them thus lifted above chance1 man set himself to give them new forms of beauty and adornment4 ,and the governing motive was1 and always has been1 first man's wish to leave memorable records--beyond the limits of his own generation--of what life has meant for him2 and secondly 7and this is the more intimate phase7 the delight of the craftsman in his work1 the exuberance of vital energy 7secure of its structural ground-work7 breaking out into play4 8,see10 it says1 8how ,i dance1 and gambol1 and triumph6 ,this superfluity of strength proves me a victor in my struggle to live40 ,nothing else does2 for if 7having survived the struggle7 man only lives miserably--scrapes through as it were--the question in the face of so poverty-stricken a result1 may still be--8,was the struggle worth it80 ,and so by his arts and graces1 by his adornment of his streets1 temples and theatres1 by his huge delight in himself1 so soon as the essentials of mere material existence are secured to him1 man has really shown that life is good in itself1 that he can do well enough without the assurance of personal immortality held out to him by the theologians4 ,whether that be or be not his reward hereafter1 he will still strive to express himself2 but for that end mere use alone will not satisfy him4 ,we have seen1 then1 how man1 in his social surroundings1 begins to secure something over and above the mere necessities of life2 and so1 after providing himself with a certain competence of food1 clothing and shelter1 has means and energy left for the supply of luxuries1 ornaments1 delights--call them what you will4 ,and according to the direction in which he flings out for the acquisition of these superfluities--so will his whole manhood develop1 or his type of racial culture be moulded4 ,far back in the beginnings of civilization one of the first forms taken by this surplus of power and energy over mere necessity was the acquisition of slaves and wives4 ,civilization then began to ornament itself with two modes of body-service--the menial attendance of the slave upon his master1 and the polygamous sexual attendance of the woman upon her lord4 ,to-day we think that both those things were1 from a moral point of view1 bad ornament4 ,but you cannot look into the history of any civilization conducted on those lines without seeing that they decorated it--and that1 out of their acceptance1 came colour1 pomp1 splendour1 means for leisure1 for enjoyment--for a very keen self-realisation of a kind by the few at the expense of the many4 ,and the masterful few made that form of decorated civilization more sure for themselves by extending a good deal of the decorative element to the subservient lives around them4 ,the slaves wore fine liveries and lorded it over lower slaves1 the favourite wives lived in luxury and laziness1 eating sweets and spending their days in the frivolous mysteries of the toilet4 ,at a certain point in the social scale this form of ornamental existence produced great misery1 great hardships1 great abasement4 ,but it was not instituted and maintained for that reason4 ,those underlying conditions were a drawback1 they were a misuse of human nature employed as a basis for that ornamental superstructure to build on4 ,and out of that underlying misuse came the weakness and the eventual decay of that once flourishing school of ornament4 ,but when that school of ornament was threatened by other schools1 it was ready to fight to the death for its ornamental superfluities--for polygamy1 for slavery1 for power over others1 which had come to mean for it all that made life worth living6 ,life was quite capable of being carried on without those things--was1 and is1 happily lived by other races to the accompaniment of another set of ornaments which those races think more enjoyable4 ,but no race will consent to live without some sort of ornament of its own choosing2 and when its choice of ornaments1 or of social superfluities1 over and above the needs of existence1 is seriously threatened from without it declares that it is fighting not merely for liberty but for existence4 ,yet we know quite well that the people of invaded and conquered ,states continue in the main to exist--they continue even to wear ornaments2 but these are apt to be imposed ornaments galling to the national pride4 ,and so to-day1 in the midst of a vast belligerency1 we have committees and consultations going on1 to see to it lest1 at the end of the war1 under ,german dominance1 our women should have their future fashions imposed on them from ,berlin instead of from ,paris1 a fearful doom for any lady of taste to contemplate4 ,the example may seem frivolous1 but it is a parable of the truth2 we call our ornaments our liberties1 and if we cannot ourselves die fighting for them1 we make others die for us4 ,let us take up 7for illustration of the same point7 another stage of civilization--that of ancient ,greece4 ,in ,greece the city was the centre of civilization1 and its public buildings became the outward and visible sign of the people's pride of life and of their sense of power4 ,the fact that their private dwellings were very simple1 and that they expended nearly the whole of their artistry upon public works 7things to be shared and delighted in by all the citizens in common7 had a profound influence upon their civilization4 ,that new social ideal of civic pride found its way irresistibly into ornament4 ,you could not have had civic pride in anything like the same degree without it4 ,but ,greek civilization did not fall into decay because of the beauty and perfection with which it crowned itself in the public eye1 but because of certain underlying evils and misuses in the body politic--in which again slavery and the subjection of women had their share4 ,greek civilization fell because it failed to recognise the dignity of all human nature2 it reserved its sense of dignity for a selected race and class2 it failed to recognise the dignity of all true kinds of service1 and prided itself in military service alone--in that and in the philosophies and the arts4 ,it built a wonderful temple to its gods1 but failed in a very large degree to take into ,god the whole body of humanity over which it had control4 ,and so1 ,greek civilization broke up into portions of an unimportant size and perished4 ,at a later day--and again with the city as centre to its life of self-realisation--we get the great period of the ,italian ,renaissance1 a period in which civic and feudal and ecclesiastical influences alternately jostled and combined4 ,and out of these three prides arose a wonderfully complex art--tremendously expressive of what life meant for that people4 ,and you got then 7for the first time1 ,i think71 grouped under the civic arm1 a new life-consciousness--the consciousness of the guilds1 the workers1 and the craftsmen4 ,the dignity of labour began to assert itself2 and when it did1 inevitably it broke into ornament on its own account--not at the bidding of an employer1 but for the honour and glory of the worker himself4 ,and so1 from that date on1 the homes and halls and churches of the guilds became some of the noblest monuments to what life meant for men who had found joy in their labour4 ,now that did not come till the craftsman had won free from slavery and from forced labour2 but when he was a freeman1 with room to turn round1 he built up temples to his craft1 to make more evident that the true goal of labour is not use but delight4 ,and only when it fell back into modern slavery at the hands of commercial capitalism1 only then did labour's power of spontaneous expression depart from it and become imitative and debased4 ,i could take you further1 and show you 7among the survivals from our ,england of the ,middle ,ages7 the 8joy of the harvest0 expressed in the great granaries and tithe-barns which still crown like abbey-churches the corn-lands of ,home4 ,concerning one of these ,william ,morris said that it stood second in his estimation among all the ,gothic buildings of ,europe6 ,think of it6--of what that means in the realisation of life-values by the age which had a mind so to celebrate man's rest after the labour of the harvest6 ,in those days ,england was called 8merry0 and foreigners who came to her shores reported as a national characteristic the happy looks of her people3 even their faces showed adornment6 ,and thus it is that beautiful use always clothes itself in beauty4 ,i have said that all art is useful4 ,to many that may have seemed a very contentious statement4 ,but how can one separate beauty from use if one holds that everything which delights us is useful8 ,on that statement there is only one condition ,i would impose4 ,the use in which we delight must not mean the misuse or the infliction of pain on others4 ,in those periods of civilization to which ,i have referred 7so magnificent in their powers of self-discovery and self-adornment71 there were always dark and cruel habitations where the 8art of living0 was not applied4 ,they were content that the beauty on which they prided themselves should be built up on the suffering1 the oppression1 or the corruption of others4 ,in the lust of their eyes there was a blind spot1 so that they cared little about the conditions imposed by their own too arrogant claim for happiness on the lives that were spent to serve them4 ,and out of their blindness came at last the downfall of their power4 ,so it has always been1 so it always must be4 ,i believe that beauty1 delight1 ornament1 are as near to the object of life as anything that one can name1 and that through right uses we attain to these as our goal4 ,but it is no good claiming to possess delightful things if we do not see to it that those who make them for us have also the means to live delightfully4 ,if man cannot make all the uses and services of life decent and wholesome as a starting-point1 neither can he make life enjoyable--not1 ,i mean1 with a good conscience4 ,if he would see ,god through beauty1 he must see ,him not here and there only1 but in the 8land of the living02 else 7as the psalmist said7 his spirit must faint utterly4 ,our life is built up--we know not to what ultimate end--on an infinite number of uses1 functions1 mechanisms4 ,these uses enable us to live2 they do not necessarily enable us to enjoy4 ,you can quite well imagine the use of all your senses and organs so conditioned that you could not enjoy a single one of them1 and yet they might still fulfil their utilitarian purpose of keeping you alive4 ,i need not rehearse to you in troublesome detail conditions of life where everything you see is an eyesore1 every touch a cause of shrinking1 every sound a discord1 where taste and smell become a revolt and a loathing4 ,our modern civilization derives many of its present comforts from conditions such as these under which thousands1 nay millions1 of subservient human lives become brutalised4 ,so long as we base our ideal of wealth on individual aggrandisement1 and on monetary and commercial prosperity1 and not 7as we should do7 upon human nature itself--making it our chief aim that every life should be set free for self-realisation in ornament and delight--so long will these things be inevitable4 ,but when we1 as men and women1 and as nations1 realise that human nature is the most beautiful thing on earth 7in its possibilities1 ,i mean7 then surely our chief desire will be to make that our wealth here and now1 and out of it rear up our memorial to the ages that come after4 ,,art ,,and ,,citizenship 7#aiaj7 ,the most hardened advocate of 8,art for ,art's sake10 will hardly deny that ,art1 for all its 8sacred egoism10 is a social force4 ,the main question is where does your ,art-training begin8 ,the conditions of the home1 the workshop1 and of social industries do more than the schools and the universities to educate a nation2 and more especially1 perhaps1 to educate it toward a right or a wrong feeling about ,art4 ,and if1 in these departments1 your national education takes a wrong line1 then 7however much you build schools over the heads of your pupils and intercept their feet with scholarships1 and block their natural outlook on life with beautiful objects produced in past ages and in other countries7 your ,art-training will partake of the same condemnation4 ,true education1 as opposed to merely commercial education1 is a training of mind and body to an appreciation of right values2 values1 not prices4 ,the man who has an all-round appreciation of right values is a well-educated man2 and he could not have a better basis either for the love or the practice of ,art than this appreciation of what things are really worth4 ,but1 in the present age1 which prides itself on its inhuman system of specialisation as a means to economy1 such a man is rather a rare phenomenon2 for it is about as difficult to get out of present conditions a true appreciation of life values--a true ,art-training--as it is to get a true artist4 ,where your national conditions shut down the critical faculties1 and make their exercise difficult1 there too1 your creative artistic faculties are being shut down and made difficult also4 ,they are far more interdependent than your average ,art-teacher or ,art-student is generally willing to admit4 ,the idea that he has to concern himself with conditions outside his own particular department threatens him with extra trouble1 and the burden of a conscience that the doctrine of 8,art for ,art's sake10 will not wholly satisfy2 and so he is inclined to shut his eyes1 and direct his energies to the securing of favourable departmental instead of right national conditions4 ,but the man1 or woman1 who embarks whole-heartedly on ,art-training must in the end find himself involved in a struggle for the recovery of those true social values which have been lost 7or the acquisition of those which are as yet unrealised7 and for the substitution1 among other things1 of true for false economics4 ,he cannot afford to live a life of aloof specialisation1 when the conditions out of which he derives and into which he is throwing his work are of a complementarily disturbing kind4 ,if1 that is to say1 the give-and-take conditions between artistic supply and social demand have become vitiated1 if the conditions of the market1 or of society1 are unfavourable to the reception of products of true worth1 then the artist must to some extent be an active party in the struggle for getting things set right4 ,that does not mean that1 if he has a gift for the designing of stage-scenery1 he should necessarily be involved in a struggle to secure a good drainage system 7though even that should have an interest for him7 but it does mean very much that he should be tremendously interested in the education of his own and the public mind to the point of receiving good drama rather than bad1 in order that his art may have worthy material to work upon2 and as good drama largely arises from a lively conscience and the quickening in the community of new ideas1 he will wish his public a keen and open mind on all social questions4 ,similarly a man who designs for textile fabrics should be very much concerned indeed in getting cleanly conditions and pure air in the towns and dwelling-houses where his designs have to live and look beautiful1 or grow ugly and rot4 ,and there you get set before you in small1 the opposition between the interests of ,art and the supposed interests of trade4 ,it is--or it is supposed to be--in the interest of trade that things should wear out or get broken1 and be replaced by other things4 ,it is in the interest of ,art that they should not wear out1 that they should last2 that everything worthy which is given to man's hand to do should have secured to it the greatest possible length of life4 ,and the reason is that the artist1 if he be a true artist1 realises the value of things1 the life value2 that he is on the side of creation and not of destruction1 of preservation and not of waste4 ,he has within his nature an instinct that the greatest possible longevity is the right condition for all manual labour2 that when a man sets his hand to a thing he should have it as his main aim to give good value1 to make it so that it will endure4 ,and in this connection ,i would like to substitute for the words 8art training0 the word 8education40 ,it is in the interests of education that things should be made to last1 and that only things should be made of any lasting material that deserve lasting4 ,nothing should be produced the value of which will become negligible before it is honestly worn out4 ,and so it is in the interest of education1 as of ,art1 that we should eliminate as much as possible the passing and the ephemeral1 the demand of mood and fashion1 the thing cheaply chosen1 cheaply acquired1 and cheaply let go2 and substitute the thing that we shall have a long use for1 and should like to keep permanently--the thing acquired with thought and care1 and thoughtfully and carefully preserved because it has in itself a value4 ,but you won't get any broad exercise of that kind of choice between evil and good until you get a sense of right values--going far away from what apparently touches art--in the mind1 and the public and private life of the community4 ,and so1 as ,i started by saying1 true ,art is bound up with true education and social conditions4 ,good citizenship is one of the conditions for setting national ,art upon a proper basis4 ,a lively sense of your duty to your neighbour cannot fail to have an effect upon your taste in art4 ,now ,i want to bring this view of things home to you4 ,so ,i will ask everyone here to think for a moment of their own homes1 their own living-rooms1 and especially of their parlours or drawing-rooms1 which are by their nature intended to express not so much our domestic necessities as our domestic sense of the value of beauty1 recreation1 and rest4 ,and to begin with1 how do you show your sense of duty to the architect1 who has 7if you are fortunate7 designed for you rooms of pleasant and restful proportions8 ,how many of the objects in those rooms help at all to give a unifying and a harmonious effect1 or are in themselves in any way beautiful--things1 that is to say1 which 7if not of actual use7 we love to set our eyes on1 and feel what fineness of skill in handling1 what clean human thought in design went to their production8 ,have those things been put there quite irrespective of their price and the display they make of their owner's 8comfortable circumstances08 ,are they subordinated to a really intelligent sense of what a living-room should be8 ,or are they merely a crowd1 a litter1 things flung into the room pell-mell by a house-mistress bent on securing for her parlour-maid a silly hour's dusting every day of objects--not of virtue--and for herself the recognition by her neighbours that she has money enough to throw away in making her living-room a silly imitation of a shop for bric-a-brac4 ,can you1 even those of you who do not live in streets where you have to safeguard your privacy--can you look out of the window without being tickled in the face by lace curtains1 blind-tassels1 or potted palm-leaves8 ,can you sit down to the writing-table without entangling the legs of your chair in a woolly mat and your feet in the waste-paper basket1 or get at the drawer of the cabinet without moving two or three arm-chairs1 or play the piano without causing the crocks which stand upon it to jangle8 ,is the rest and recreation you get in that room anything else but a sense of self-complacency based upon pride of possession8 ,i ask you to think what your furnishing of your rooms means1 and remember that to every person who comes into those rooms--and more especially perhaps to the maids whom you set to dust them--you are helping to give either an ,art-training or an anti-,art-training1 a training in true uses and values1 or in misuses and mere waste and wantonness4 ,of course ,i know that to some extent you are victims4 ,you have dear friends who will give you presents1 and you can't hurt their feelings by not putting up another shelf1 or erecting another glass-shade1 where neither are wanted1 or driving another peg into the wall to hang a picture where no picture can be properly seen4 ,and probably the reason you cannot is because you have shown yourself so thoughtless and haphazard in all your ideas about decoration and house-furnishing that even in that house1 which you falsely assert to be your castle1 you stand defenceless before this invasion of ornamental microbes6 ,obviously the house is not yours if others can break in and spoil its borders with their own false taste4 ,but ,i can assure you that those inroads do not happen to people whose rooms show a scrupulous sense of selection4 ,you inspire then 7even in the thoughtless7 a certain dread and respect4 ,though they regard you as uncanny and call you a crank1 you are beginning their ,art-training for them4 ,i remember1 in this connection1 a ,quaker acquaintance whose friends descended upon him at the time of his marriage with certain household monstrosities which he was expected thereafter to live down to4 ,it was a cataclysm which he could not avert2 but he found a remedy4 ,he became a passive resister to the ,education rate1 and year by year he placed at the disposal of the distraining authorities a selection of his wedding-presents till his house was purged of them4 ,i have said that you cannot separate ,art-training from general education2 and here1 at all events1 you find the two happily combined--a war on bad art and on a bad educational system joined economically in one4 ,so much1 then1 for thoughtless superfluity as an impediment to a recognition of true values4 ,i want now to come to the importance of permanence as a condition underlying the aim of all production if it is to be wholesome in its social results4 ,i have said that an instinct for permanence is what differentiates artistic from supposed trade interests4 ,take architecture4 ,do you imagine that architects or builders are likely to design or build in the same style for a system of short leaseholds as they might for freeholds8 ,and is the building which is calculated just to 8save its face0 until the lease expires likely to be so good either in design or workmanship8 ,read1 in that connection1 what ,coventry ,patmore says in his essay on 8,greatness in ,architecture03 8,the house and cottage builder of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was10 he says1 8fully aware that the strength of a rafter lay rather in its depth than its breadth1 and that1 for a time at least1 a few boards two inches thick and ten inches deep1 set edgeways1 would suffice to carry the roof1 which nevertheless it pleased him better to lay upon a succession of beams ten inches square4 ,it is the reality1 and the modest ostentation of the reality1 of such superfluous substantiality that constitutes the whole secret of effect in many an old house that strikes us as 8architectural10 though it may not contain a single item of architectural ornament2 and1 in the very few instances in which modern buildings have been raised in the same fashion1 the beholder at once feels that their generous regard for the far future is of almost as poetical a character as the aged retrospect of a similar house of the time of ,henry ,,vii4 or ,elizabeth4 ,a man10 he goes on1 8now hires a bit of ground for eighty or ninety years2 and1 if he has something to spare to spend on beauty1 he says to himself3 #8,i will build me a house that will last my time1 and what money ,i have to spare ,i will spend in decorating it4 ,why should ,i waste my means in raising wall and roof which will last five times as long as ,i or mine shall want them8' ,the answer is3 ,because that very #8waste' is the truest and most striking ornament2 and though your and your family's enjoyment of a house thus magnanimously built may last but a tenth of its natural age1 there lies in that very fact an #8ornament' of the most noble and touching kind1 which will be obvious at all seasons to yourself and every beholder1 though the consciousness of its cause may be dormant2 whereas the meanness of the other plan will be only the more apparent with every penny you spend in making it meretricious40 ,again1 are you likely to get so good an architectural design where you cannot be fairly sure that the use for which the building is raised is likely to be permanent8 ,and do our modern trade conditions and present enormous demand for thoughtless superfluities tend to make that prospect more probable8 ,if not1 then instability of trade1 or trade directed to the satisfaction of frivolous and ephemeral demands is bad for architecture1 and hinders any worthy development in it of national characteristics4 ,but there1 mind you1 in trade1 lies to-day the very life of the nation2 for the life of our teeming millions depends on it4 ,by our industrial specialisation in the pursuit of wealth vast numbers of us have ceased to be self-supporting in the necessaries of life4 ,and the question for artists is1 are we basing our national life on conditions that cannot secure permanence and stability in the things which we produce8 ,is it a necessary condition of our industrial development that things should have a shorter life and we a shorter use for them than in the old days8 ,to the artist the drawback of machine-made things is not necessarily in the mechanism of their production 7for in some cases your machine relieves the human hand of a hard and wearing monotony71 but there is a very obvious drawback if it imposes upon the worker merely another form of hard and wearing monotony1 and at the same time shortens the life of the thing produced4 ,if handicraft does not offer to the worker worthier conditions for hand and brain1 and insure longer life in the thing produced1 it is no good pinning our faith to it4 ,eliminate it1 and let machinery take its place4 ,you have not1 then1 in the transfer1 destroyed any right values1 and you are not going counter to the conditions which tend to produce national ,art4 ,but1 as an example of the particular value which does sometimes attach to hand labour 7irrespective of its artistic value71 ,i have here a small unused sample of chair-cover material of ,english make1 produced about eighty years ago1 at a probable cost--so ,i am told by experts--of under #b the square yard4 ,the chairs it was made to cover are now in my possession4 ,during the twenty-five years of my own personal acquaintance with them they have had plenty of hard wear2 but even at the corners that material has not yet begun to wear out2 and the colour has only become softer and more mellow in quality4 ,within the last ten years ,i endeavoured to get that covering matched in a modern material1 and ,i paid for the nearest match ,i could get about one-fifth of the price ,i have quoted4 ,that material has already gone shabby2 and where it is most worn and faded the colour1 instead of mellowing1 has gone dead and dirty in quality4 ,the older material will probably outlast my time4 ,there1 then1 are the comparative values of the old and the new material4 ,you pay the higher price for the old1 but in the end it is more economical4 ,and it has this double advantage 7or what would be a double advantage in a ,state where industrial conditions were sound71 that it inclines its possessor to adopt a more permanent style of furnishing1 by making age beautiful and change unnecessary2 and so it sets free a great amount of human labour for other purposes2 not merely the labour of the textile workers who have not to provide new covers1 but the labour of the upholsterers1 who are not called upon to rip off a series of old covers and fit on new ones1 dragging old nails out and driving fresh nails in1 with the result that the framework of the chair itself is presently worn out and a new one required in its place4 ,all that labour is saved4 ,that small example is important because it exemplifies those possibilities of permanence attaching to certain forms of hand-labour out of which can be developed a school of textile manufacture indigenous in character--indigenous in that you give it time to become embedded in its domestic setting1 and to make for itself domestic history4 ,it enables you to develop an appreciation for subtleties of colour1 and to secure tones and harmonies which you cannot get ready-made in a shop3 it gives to a piece of furniture life-value4 ,but it is bad for trade6 ,now why is it bad for trade8 ,it is bad for trade because our modern industrial conditions have brought us to this pass1 that it is no longer our national aim to direct labour and set it free for other work that really needs to be done4 ,our national problem is rather to find work for people1 at times even to invent needs1 and to create a fictitious turnover in trade so that we may not have upon our hands an enormous increase of the unemployed problem4 ,and as hands go begging1 as we have more hands in the country than we can employ on useful and fit labour 7fit1 ,i mean1 for such fine implements as these and for the brains behind them71 therefore hands are inevitably put to degrading uses1 and the joy goes out of work2 and for the delight 7or at least the intelligent patience7 of true craftsmanship is substituted the soul-destroying bondage of mechanical labour at something which is not really worth producing4 ,you may take that1 ,i think1 as a test whether a ,state is in industrial health or disease--whether1 namely1 it tends more in the direction of setting labour free for other and higher purposes 7through the permanent quality of its products71 and so evolving an aristocracy of labour2 or whether 7owing to their ephemeral quality7 it constantly tends to invent work of a lower and more trivial kind1 and to provide jobs of an ephemeral character which are not really wanted4 ,now bad and wasteful taste is directly productive1 not so much of trade as of fluctuations in trade1 because that sort of taste soon tires and asks for change2 and the consequence is that thousands of workers 7especially women1 whose industries used to be home industries before machinery drew them out of the homes7 are in this country constantly being thrown out of one useless employment into another1 and very often have to pass through a fresh apprenticeship at a starvation wage4 ,and so1 when we create frivolous demands for things that we shall not want the day after to-morrow1 we are not 7as we too often think7 doing anything that is really good for trade1 but only something much more horrible1 which you will understand without my naming it4 ,you see1 then1 how very closely the artist's inclination toward permanence of taste may be connected with morality4 ,and if that instinct for permanence 7with an accompanying adaptation of material and design to making things last their full time without waste7 is not present in the craftsmanship of our day1 then we have not got the true basis1 either in spirit or material1 for ,art to build upon4 ,now ,i am going to put before you some quite homely instances1 because ,i think they will stick best in your memories1 in order to show you that the real struggle of the artist to-day is not so much to secure appreciation of beauty in line and texture1 as honesty of construction1 and real adaptation of form to utility and of production to lastingness4 ,i have been noticing1 with quite simple objects of domestic use1 that the trade-purpose toward them seems almost the opposite4 ,the trade purpose is to present us with an article which1 apparently sound in construction1 will break down at some crucial point before the rest of it is worn out4 ,a watering can1 a carving fork1 a kettle1 a dustbin1 a coal scuttle1 the fixings of a door-handle1 are generally made1 ,i find1 on an ignobly artful plan which insures that they shall break down just at that point where the wear and tear come hardest1 so that an article otherwise complete shall be scrapped wastefully or go back to the trade to be tinkered4 ,but leave things the actual design of which you cannot control1 and come to dress1 our own daily wearing apparel4 ,i do not know if the men of my audience are aware that undergarments wear out much quicker if they are tight-fitting and worn at a stretch than if they are loose1 but that is so4 ,and1 in consequence1 a smart shopman has the greatest reluctance to sell you anything that is1 as he conceives it1 one size too large for you4 ,the reason being that the looser fit lasts longer and is bad for trade--that it makes for endurance instead of for galloping consumption4 ,in the majority of houses whose cold water systems ,i have inspected the pipes are nearly always run at the most exposed angle of the containing walls1 so that if there is a frost1 the frost may have a chance of getting at the pipes and bursting them1 and so give the trade a fresh job4 ,again1 every housewife knows that in the ordinary daily conflicts between tea-sets and domestic service more cups get broken than saucers4 ,and ,i suppose every household in ,london has got some corner shelf piled with superfluous saucers 7useless widowers mourning the departure of their better halves72 but it is very exceptional--only in one shop that ,i know--that one is able to replace the cup 7in certain stock patterns7 without encumbering oneself with the saucer which one does not want4 ,the saucers continue to be made in wasteful superabundance1 because waste of that sort is 8good for trade40 ,i have been assured by an observant housewife that certain articles do now and again appear upon the market specially designed to safeguard by little constructive devices1 the main point of wear-and-tear through which they become useless1 and that presently these things disappear and are unobtainable1 presumably because they prove too lasting1 and so are 8bad for trade40 ,and they are allowed to disappear because we1 as a community1 have not sufficiently set our hearts and minds against waste and uselessness4 ,we buy cheaply because we think cheaply1 and because we have lost our sense of honour towards the products of men's hands1 and toward that wonderful instrument itself which we are content to put to such base uses1 letting the workers themselves see how much we despise the things they have made4 ,i have seen in ,london a comic music-hall 8turn0 in which the comedy largely consisted in a continuous breakage of piles of plates by a burlesque waiter1 who1 in the course of his duties1 either drops them1 falls against them1 sits on them1 or kicks them4 ,during the turn ,i should say some thirty or forty plates get broken4 ,they were cheap plates1 no doubt2 but it seems to me that if there is any fun in this monotonous repetition of destruction1 then the greater the cost and waste of human labour the more irresistibly comic should the situation appear2 and the management which provided ,worcester or ,dresden china for its low-comedy wits to play upon would have logical grounds for considering that it was thereby supplying its audience with livelier entertainment more satisfying to its taste4#b ,now what ,i want you to see is that such a production would not be entertaining to an audience which had not come to regard the labour of man's hands with a licentious indifference--which had not developed the gambler's contempt for the true relations between labour and value4 ,and here ,i want to put before you a proposition which may at first shock you1 but which ,i hope to prove true4 ,and that is that labour in itself1 apart from its justification in some useful result1 is bad and degrading2 the man who is put to work which he knows is to have no result comes from that work more degraded and crushed in spirit than the man who merely 8loafs0 and lives 8naturally40 ,perhaps the readiest example of that is the old treadmill system which was once employed in our prisons1 where the prisoner was set to grind at a crank artificially adjusted to his physical strength1 but having no useful result2 and ,i believe that the main reason why prisoners on those machines were not allowed to grind their own bread or put their strength to any self-supporting industry was because it was 8bad for trade0 and brought them into competition with the contractors who supplied food to his ,majesty's prisons4 ,it was not the monotony half so much as the consciousness that it was without result which made that form of labour so degrading and so utterly exhausting to mind and body4 ,you might think it was the compulsion2 but ,i am not sure that compulsion to work may not sometimes be very moral and salutary4 ,at any rate1 here is an instance of the same thing presented under voluntary conditions4 ,a man out of work applied to a farmer for a job2 the farmer had no job for him1 and told him so2 but as the man persisted he started him at half a crown a day to move a heap of stones from one side of the road to the other4 ,and when the man had done that and asked what next he was to do1 he told him to move them back again6 ,but though that man was out of work1 and was on his way to earn the half-crown1 rather than submit his body to the conscious degradation of such useless labour1 he did as the farmer had calculated on his doing1 and threw up the job4 ,that same quality of outrage and degradation attends on all labour that is subject1 within the worker's knowledge1 to wanton destruction1 or is obviously of no real use or of 8faked0 value4 ,and the finer the skill employed the greater the anguish of mind1 or else the hard callousness of indifference which must result4 ,call upon men to make useless things1 or things which you mean wantonly to destroy the day after to-morrow1 or to which by the conditions you tolerate you make a fair length of life impossible--call upon labour to do those things1 and you are either filling its spirit with misery and depression1 or you are making it1 in self-defence1 callous and hard4 ,industrial conditions which encourage the building of houses that are only intended to last a lease2 which permit the destruction of our canal system because that means of transit has proved a dangerous rival to the railway system2 which impose a quick change in fashions on which depend various kinds of ephemeral and parasitic industries2 which encourage a vast production of ephemeral journalism and magazine illustration which after a single reading is thrown aside and wasted--all these things1 which have become nationalised in our midst1 are a national anti-,art training4 ,we ,english have1 as the result of these things1 no national school of architecture2 we have no national costume 7though ,i myself can remember the time when in our ,midland counties not only the farm labourer1 but the small yeoman farmer himself went to church as well as to labour in the beautiful smock-frock worn by their forefathers7 and we have killed out from our midst one of the most beautiful national schools of popular art that ever existed1 the school of the illustrators of the 'sixties2 and we have done these things mainly from our increasing haste to get hold of something new1 and our almost equal haste1 when we have it1 to throw it away again4 ,we have cast our bread upon the waters4 ,the sort of wealth to the pursuit of which nations have committed themselves needs 7it now appears7 an enormous amount of protection4 ,and it cannot have been without some demoralising effect upon the mind of the community that we have been driven by our outstanding necessities to build every year six or seven of those enormous engines of destruction called 8,dreadnoughts10 whose effective lease of life is about #bj years1 something considerably shorter than the lease of life which we allow for our most jerry-built lodging-houses6 ,and on these short-lived products of industry 7which are to-day the sign and symbol and safeguard of our world-power71 our aristocracy of labour has been spending its strength1 and the nation has now to depend on them for its safety4 ,the cost of building a 8,dreadnought0 is about the same as the cost of building ,st4 ,paul's ,cathedral4 ,imagine to yourself a nation building every year six or seven ,st4 ,paul's ,cathedrals1 with the consciousness that in twenty-five or thirty years they will all again be levelled to the dust1 and you will get from that picture something of the horror which an artist is bound to feel at the necessity which thus drives us forward1 even in peace-time1 to the continuous destruction1 on such a colossal scale1 of the labour of men's hands4 ,and the more it is revealed to us to-day 7by the present catastrophe7 as an absolute political necessity1 the more is the disorder of civilization we have arrived at condemned4 ,well1 ,i must leave now1 in that example ,i have set before you1 the wasteful aspect of modern industry1 in order to touch briefly on another1 and an almost equally hateful aspect1 which ,i will call 8the vivisection of modern industry40 ,i mean its subdivision into so many separate departments1 or rather fragments1 that it loses for the mind of the worker all relation to the thing made--that time-saving device at the expense of the human hand and brain1 which we glorify under the term 8specialisation40 ,now1 however much you may defend that system on ground of trade competition1 the artist is bound by his principles to regard it as a national evil2 for anything which tends to take away the worker's joy and pride in the distinctiveness of his trade and to undo its human elements is anti-,art training4 ,and so that inhuman specialisation which 7for the sake of trade cheapness7 sets down a man to the performance of one particular mechanical action all his life1 in the making of some one particular part of some article which in its further stages he is never to handle1 or a woman to stamp out the tin skeleton of a button1 with her eyes glued to one spot for ten hours of the day--all these dehumanising things are anti-,art because they are destructive of life-values4 ,we have erected them into a system1 and while cutting prices by such means at one end1 we are mounting up costs at the other4 ,we are promoting1 maybe1 a quicker circulation of the currency of the realm1 but we are impoverishing the currency of the race4 ,for that hard mechanical efficiency we are paying a price which is eating up all our real profits2 quite apart from its effect in the increase of lunacy and of the unfit birth-rate and death-rate among children1 it is helping to implant in the whole world of labour a bitter and a revengeful spirit which we have no right to wonder at or to blame4 ,and the results affect us not only in our workshops but in our pastimes1 by driving those whose labour is so conditioned into a more consumptive form of pleasure-seeking and relaxation4 ,you cannot put people into inhuman conditions for long hours of each day1 and expect them to be normal and humane when you turn them out to their short hours of leisure4 ,i am pointing to conditions which you know probably as well as1 or better than1 ,i do2 but ,i am pointing to them for the express purpose of saying that you cannot dissociate them from your national appreciation of ,art4 ,the more you can connect the worker with the raw material on the one hand and the finished product on the other1 the more surely you are establishing conditions out of which national ,art can grow2 and the more you dissociate him from these two ends of his material the more you make national ,art impossible4 ,i will give you an instance1 quite away from sweated labour conditions1 where you will see at once how wasteful and opposed to ,art is this system of breaking up craftsmanship into departments4 ,it was an architect who told me that the following system is quite frequently followed in dealing with the stone out of which we build the outside walls of our modern churches4 ,it is hewn at the quarries into a rough surface1 thoroughly expressive of the stonemason's craft1 and not in any way too rough for its purpose4 ,it is then taken and submitted by machinery to a grinding process which makes it mechanically smooth1 and it is then handed over to other workmen who give back to it a chiselled surface of an absolutely uniform and mechanical character which expresses nothing4 ,and with that wanton and wasteful lie we are content to set up temples to the ,god of ,truth6 ,now if the ,church has become so blind to the values of life1 and so lacking in any standard of honour toward the labour of men's hands1 as to allow itself to be so clothed in falsehood1 yet ,i do still plead that those who call themselves artists shall protest by all means in their power against the systematisation of such indignities toward handicraft4 ,that is the sort of thing against which any national ,art training we have ought to fight4 ,how can we fight8 ,best of all1 ,i believe1 by establishing a standard of honour toward manual labour2 and1 quite definitely1 wherever we have ,art schools1 by training all students to hate and despise shams and to loathe all waste of labour4 ,but1 perhaps1 the most direct way would be for the ,state to set up1 in every town1 in connection with its ,art schools and its technical schools1 a standard of honesty by practical demonstration1 in the staple industry of the locality4 ,i would not trouble1 so long as that industry had a useful purpose1 how much or how little it was connected with ,art2 but ,i would give the youth of that place the chance of an honest apprenticeship under true human conditions to the trade in which they might be called upon to spend their lives4 ,i would not have those schools of labour adopt any amateurishness of method or standard2 they should not obstinately reject the aid of machinery where machinery can relieve monotony1 but they should very carefully consider at what stage the dehumanising element came in1 either by substituting mechanism for skill1 or by separating the worker too much from his work in its completed form4 ,and from those schools of labour ,i would allow people to purchase all the work of these ,state-apprentices which their master-craftsmen could pass as being of a standard quality4 ,they would not compete in point of cheapness with the trade article1 for their price would almost certainly be higher1 but they would1 ,i trust1 compete in point of quality and design2 and by exhibiting a standard1 and making the thing procurable1 they might create a demand which the very trade itself would at last be forced to recognise4 ,this is but a very bald and brief statement of the kind of extension ,i mean2 but what ,i want to put to you is this1 that wherever a nation has turned from agriculture to trade1 there1 if you want national ,art you must invade those trade conditions and set up your standard of honour1 not outside1 but in the trades themselves2 you must get hold of those who are going to be your workers and craftsmen and put into them 7by exhibiting to them manual labour under right human conditions7 the old craftsman's pride which existed in the days of the ,guilds1 when the trade unions were not merely organisations to secure good wages1 but to secure good work1 and to maintain a standard of honour in labour4 ,but you must not stop there4 ,to make your training in any true sense national you must make it characteristic1 or rather it must make itself4 ,it must aim at bringing out racial and local character2 and before it can do so we must recover that love of locality which we have so largely lost4 ,a mere multiplication of schools and classes where a departmental system evolved at some city centre is put in force1 is not national3 it is only metropolitan1 perhaps only departmental4 ,you can put such a system1 in a certain superficial way1 into the heads and hands of your local students1 but you cannot put it into the blood4 ,unless your ,art training enters into and links up the lives of those you would teach with a larger sense of citizenship1 it isn't national4 ,they won't carry it away with them into their daily pursuits1 they won't make a spontaneous and instinctive application of it2 they will only come to it at class-hours1 and1 when class-hours are over1 quit again4 ,i have spoken of the necessity of a standard of honour toward labour1 but we need also a standard of honour toward life4 ,it is still1 you see1 values--life-values--that ,i am trying to get at as a basis for ,art4 ,now to some of you ,i must have seemed1 in all conscience1 gloomy and pessimistic in my outlook on present conditions2 and therefore1 before ,i end1 ,i will try to emit a ray of hope4 ,there are certain social developments going on around us which make me hope that we may yet emerge from this valley of the shadows through which we are still stumbling4 ,one is that there has been in the last generation a very general breakdown of the old artificial class notion of the kind of work which was compatible with 8gentility40 ,and one meets to-day people1 whose culture has given them every chance to develop that standard of honour toward life 7without which their claim to be gentry means nothing72 you meet with many such people nowadays who have come back to manual labour in various forms1 in farming1 in horticulture1 and in craftsmanship--some also1 ,i am glad to say1 who have become shopkeepers--and who are bringing1 presumably1 their standard of honour to bear on those trades on which they no longer foolishly look down4 ,among these a definite revival of handicraft is taking place1 and where they are doing their work honestly and well they are undoubtedly inculcating a better taste4 ,it is especially among this class which has come back to handicraft that one meets with domestic interiors of a fine and scrupulous simplicity which we may eventually see imitated 7meretriciously1 perhaps1 but on the whole beneficially7 even in lodging-houses which are at present the dust-hung mausoleums of the aesthetic movement of thirty years ago4 ,another matter for congratulation--not a movement1 but a survival--is the unspoiled tradition of beauty which still exists in the cottage gardens of ,england4 ,there1 in our villages1 you find a note of beauty that has scarcely been touched by the evil of our modern conditions4 ,and ,i take it as a proof that where1 by some happy chance1 we have managed to 8let well alone10 there the instinct for beauty and for fitness is still a natural ingredient of industrial life4 ,that survival of taste in our cottage gardens is culture in the best sense of the word2 and it is still popular4 ,we do not yet dig our gardens by machinery2 when we do they will die the death4 ,and two other bright points of movement1 which ,i look to as having in them the basis of a true ,art training1 are the widespread revival1 in so many of our towns and villages1 through the efforts of ,miss ,mary ,neal1 ,mr4 ,cecil ,sharp and others1 of our old folk-songs and ,morris dances1 and lastly--perhaps ,i shall surprise you--the ,boy ,scout movement4 ,coming into contact with these two movements1 ,i have found that they have in them certain elements in common4 ,instituted with a rare combination of tact and enthusiasm1 they have taken hold of the blood2 they have got home at a certain point in boy and girl nature which has already made them become native4 ,i find that these two organisations tend to develop among their members grace and vigour of movement1 good manners1 a cheerful spirit1 a more alert interest in the things about them1 a feeling of comradeship1 and best of all1 a certain sense of honour toward life4 ,and therefore1 even in a place technically devoted to the training of students1 ,i say boldly that ,i see nowhere better hope of a sound basis for national ,art than in this revival of village dancing and folk-song and in the ,boy ,scout movement4 ,the assertion may perhaps seem strange and ironic to some of you that it is not from a study of beautiful objects that the sense of beauty can be made national1 but only in the recovery of an ordered plan for our social and industrial life1 and in the finding of a true and worthy purpose for all that our hands are put to do4 ,but in that connection you may remember how ,ruskin maintained that great ,art has only flourished in countries which produced in abundance either wine or corn2 in countries1 that is to say1 where the greatest industries were those with which we most readily associate that note of joy which has become proverbial1 the joy of the harvest4 ,it is perhaps too much to dream that we shall ever again see ,england living upon its own corn2 and the greatest forms of ,art may1 therefore1 remain for ever beyond our reach4 ,but until a nation does honour to the human hand as the most perfect and beautiful of all instruments under the sun1 by giving it only honourable and useful tasks--until then ,i must rather wish you to be good valuers1 keen--indignantly keen--to destroy the false values which you see about you1 than that you should be either good draughtsmen or good artists4 ,you can do honest and good work as designers and illustrators and architects1 as workers in wood and metal and stone2 but you are hampered and bound by the conditions of your day1 and you cannot by your best efforts make ,art national till you have established joy in labour4 ,no great school of ,art can ever arise in our midst in such a form as to carry with it through all the world its national character1 until the nation itself has found that voice 7which to-day seems so conspicuously absent1 even when we close our shops to make holiday72 ,i mean the voice of joy4 ,,footnote3 #b ,by that reckoning we in ,europe are to-day the best comedians the world has ever seen4 ,out of peace-conditions nations produce their wars4 ,,conscious ,,and ,,unconscious ,,immortality4 7#aiae47 ,we are frequently told 7more especially by those whose profession it is to preach belief in a revealed religion71 that if man be not endowed with an immortal soul1 then the game of life is not worth the candle4 ,incidentally we are warned that if the bottom were knocked out of that belief1 morals would go to pieces and humanity would become reprobate4 ,now ,i can imagine a similar sort of claim put forward in other departments of life for other pursuits which seem to their advocate to make life more appetising4 ,i can imagine sportsmen saying that without sport men would cease to be manly1 morals and physique would deteriorate and life be no longer worth living4 ,i can imagine the butcher saying that without meat1 and the licensed victualler that without beer1 men were of all things the most miserable4 ,i have recently seen advertisements which say that only by supporting the cinema 7made beautiful by the feet of ,charlie ,chaplin71 can we hope to be victorious in the present war4 ,the assertion that man cannot do without certain things which1 as a matter of fact1 vast numbers of his fellows are constantly doing without--7and with no very marked set-back as regards health1 efficiency1 or general morals7--is a questionable way of forcing home conviction that these things or beliefs are indispensable4 ,it is quite possible that beer1 meat1 the pursuit of game1 the personality of ,charlie ,chaplin1 and a belief in immortality are all alike capable of giving stimulus to the human soul 7especially to those souls which have come by habit to depend upon them74 ,but it is quite certain that other human souls have found without them sufficient stimulus to make life worth living4 ,and though1 against that fact1 it may be argued that these unconsciously receive their driving force1 their social and ethical standards1 from those whose motive power they reject as superfluous1 and that we1 who do not go to see ,charlie ,chaplin on the films1 are winning this war somewhat circuitously through the powers of those who do--the argument is hardly a convincing one1 since it remains for ever in the nature of an unproved hypothesis4 ,but when the majority of those who believe in personal immortality are asked for the ground of their belief1 it generally resolves itself into this3 they have an intense individual conviction that it is so--so intense that to hold the contrary becomes 8unthinkable40 ,but that intense1 individual conviction1 over things we greatly care about1 is a constant phenomenon of the working of the human mind1 and is not limited to belief in a future state4 ,to a convinced ,liberal it is 8unthinkable0 that he should ever pass into such a state of mental annihilation as to become a ,conservative4 ,to a convinced ,conservative it is unthinkable that he should fall from the grace which guides him into the slough of ,liberalism4 ,it is the same with ,protestant or ,catholic1 with ,socialist1 ,universalist1 or ,sectarian3 conviction always presents an adamantine front to opposing forces and arguments--so long as it lasts4 ,the same phenomenon constantly occurs in the domain of the amative passion4 ,the lover 7if he be really in love71 believes that his love will last for ever--that nothing can possibly change it2 and all the evidence in the world that lovers of a like faith have too often lived to see the immortal dream put on mortality1 will fail to convince him 7while he is in the toils7 that his own love is liable to any such change as theirs4 ,the reason is that strongly vitalised forces always carry with them a sense of permanence4 ,the vital spark 7focused within us by strong conviction or emotion71 is but an individually apprehended part of a great whole3 for this thread of life passing through us has already stretched itself out over millions of years1 and countless atavisms have touched it to individual ends which were not ours2 the will to live has clung to it by myriads of adhesions1 feelers1 tentacles1 and not by human hands alone 7though our palms still moisten1 and our arms fly upward to the imaginary branch overhead when danger of falling threatens us1 because the instinct of our arboreal ancestry still prevails in us over reason74 ,and through those atavisms1 the struggle to secure survival for the family1 the clan1 the race1 has left an impress which may very naturally convey from the general to the individual a sense of immortality4 ,for of all these constituent forces the majority knew and thought very little about death1 except in their instinctive and spasmodic efforts to escape from it2 and when at last man began to envisage death consciously and philosophically1 straightway1 with all these atavisms behind him1 he belittled it with dreams of a future life4 ,it was as perfectly natural a thing to do as for the lover to declare that his love for his mistress was eternal and not merely for a season1 since any lesser statement would fail to convey adequately the intensity of the force by which he was moved4 ,moreover1 though in millions of individual cases the statement and the sincere belief that the love experienced will remain changeless and eternal1 are contradicted by later fact1 it is at least true that the passion itself is an ever-recurring phenomenon of life1 and does1 by its infinite recurrence and resurrection in form beyond form through evolving generations1 present to finite minds an aspect of immortality4 ,just as the water we drink is an imperishable thing1 though after drinking it we shall thirst again1 so is that love1 which satisfies the lover's soul1 a principle of life extending illimitably beyond his own use for it4 ,and if that be true about love1 why should it not be true about life8 ,for surely 7put it thus71 when across limited vision a thread passes1 of which the eye can see neither the beginning nor the end1 and when upon that thread1 for the time being1 the limited life hangs all its hopes1 is it not quite natural for that clinging life to identify itself1 through the closeness of its momentary contact1 with the spiritually apprehended whole1 and to identify with that concept of a general continuity its own present degree of individual consciousness4 ,moreover1 in a world governed by cause and effect1 it can hardly be predicated that the results either of love or hatred1 individually indulged1 are not1 or may not be illimitable1 even though the individual spirit be not there to preside consciously over their extended operations4 ,when1 therefore1 so much is true1 when so many elements which pass through our lives have 7by association71 links and connections which to finite minds seem infinite1 they may well impress us 7by reason of the close identification established between us and them for the time being7 with a sense that our own individual share and apprehension of them are addressed also to a universal goal4 8,universal10 for surely mere continuity--a stretching out of length without corresponding breadth--ought not to be the limit of our claim4 ,yet it is significant that1 in their demand for personal immortality1 so many thinkers have found sufficient satisfaction in the idea of an extended survival through time into eternity1 without making a corresponding demand for extension into unity through space4 ,they are willing1 that is to say1 to put up for all eternity with those limitations of personality which they enjoy--the relations of meum and tuum upon which the possessive life of the senses is based1 but not with those limitations 7the prospect of which they do not enjoy71 the termination of those same relationships imposed by death4 ,it seems rather a one-sided way of doing things--this narrowing of the claim in a two-dimensional direction 7one might almost say in a one-dimensional71 yet it has been very generally done--,i shall presently hope to show why--and most of our ,western theology has built up our future hopes for us entirely on those lines4 ,personality1 the sort of personality we have learned to enjoy1 is based upon limitations4 ,abolish limitations in your conception of future life1 and for the majority of those pious minds which now clamour for it as their due you abolish personality also2 it is swallowed up not in death but in a life from which the individual power to focus and to enjoy has disappeared4 ,it is true that there has now begun1 in modern socialistic ,christianity1 a yeasting of desire for an all round1 or expansive1 as well as a forward1 or extensive personality after death2 that an all-embracing and not merely an all-surviving consciousness is more and more predicated for the full satisfaction of man's spiritual need4 ,but that was by no means the form of moral hunger which permeated primitive or medival ,christianity1 and sufficed1 we are to suppose1 to keep poor human nature from that depravity into which it will fall if belief in personal immortality is surrendered4 ,oregon1 as we know1 looked forward to finding in the nether groans of the damned a full completion of the orchestral harmonies of ,heaven2 and in the whole conception of immortality as it has illumined the path of the ,church from its beginning down to quite modern times1 individualism has been rampant4 ,on that basis1 so long as it satisfied his moral conscience1 man did great things with it1 making it shine as a great light by the unflinching witness which he bore to its efficacy through suffering and through martyrdom4 ,it is probably true that an individualistic form to the doctrine was then1 and always will be1 necessary to attract those whose lives have been run from a highly individualised standpoint2 and that1 for them1 death-bed consolation would hardly be achieved in the presentation of a doctrine so defined as to threaten annihilation to all the fetish worship and social values of the past4 8,god would think twice10 said a courtly ,french ,abb of the seventeenth century to a ,king's mistress who1 upon her death-bed1 was seized by spiritual qualms--8,god would think twice before damning a lady of your quality40 ,and no one who holds by class-distinctions really wishes to find in the ,new ,jerusalem any abolition of that respect for persons or prejudices which has1 in this world1 been the main ground on which their self-esteem and their estimate of personality have been based4 ,to them the most 8unthinkable0 proposition would be not the contraction of the future world to narrower and more select limits than those of the one they know1 but a future world conducted on any code of morals which had not their own entire approval and sanction4 ,we are told that the late ,queen ,victoria looked forward with very great interest to a future meeting with the ,hebrew patriarchs1 with ,abraham1 ,moses1 and ,elijah1 but hoped to be excused from any personal acquaintance with ,king ,david on account of his affair with ,bathsheba4 ,and when we realise how very often the hope of ,heaven is really a species of self-love and self-applause1 conditional on ,heaven being what we ourselves want it to be1 one is led to wonder whether the real condition for entry into that state of bliss may not prove to be the precise opposite1 and whether the disciplinary motto upon its portal may not be those mystic words1 hitherto attributed to another place1 8,all hope abandon ye who enter here40 ,that1 after all1 is only a more emphatic way of stating what ,christ ,himself laid down as the path by which man should attain2 that only those namely who were ready to lose life should find it4 ,and ,i rather question whether our ,christian individualists have1 up till now1 been honestly prepared to 8lose life0 in the full sense1 without condition or reserve1 and whether1 7if they have not71 they have yet attained the spiritual standpoint necessary to bring them within the terms of the promise4 ,so far ,i have dealt with the doctrine of immortality as presented to us from the individualistic basis alone4 ,but1 in some form or another1 the doctrine of immortality belongs to many religions and schools 7indeed1 one might almost say to all7 and has1 therefore1 most varied and even contradictory meanings attached to it4 ,in some schools1 as we have seen1 it sets great store on the survival of the individual2 in others individuality is held to be of small account--a diminishing rather than a persistent factor in the ultimate ends of life viewed as a whole4 ,i remember in that connection discussing with the late ,father ,george ,tyrrell1 in the days before ,rome's excommunication fell on him1 the divergent views as to immortality of ,christianity and ,buddhism2 and at that time he held that the superiority of the ,christian faith lay in its insistence on the personal immortality1 conscious and self-contained1 of every human being4 ,some years later1 a month before his death1 we discussed the matter again2 and ,i asked him then1 in what degree1 if at all1 his view as to personal immortality had changed4 ,his answer gave me a curious instance of those scientific analogies by which ,modernism has been seeking to deliver the ,roman ,church from its medival entanglements4 8,in the main10 he said1 8,i have only changed in my apprehension of what #8personality' really is4 ,just as one may find in an hysterical subject five or six pseudo-personalities which reveal themselves in turn1 each one of which is a character quite separately and consistently defined1 but not one of them 7however completely in possession for the time7 a real person1 so it seems to me must we regard all those limitations of #8personality' which find expression in individual form4 ,there is only one true personality1 and that is ,christ2 anything less than the one all-embracing whole is but a simulacrum1 concealing rather than revealing the true substance and form40 ,i cannot pretend to give his actual words1 but ,i believe that ,i have accurately stated the sense of them2 and you will see1 ,i think1 that they go a long way toward the adaptation of the ,christian to the ,buddhistic standpoint4 ,that tendency1 ,i believe1 we shall find more and more at work in the ,christian ,church as time goes on--not merely because by such a definition the doctrine will be better able to hold its own against the inroads of science--but because it gives also a better response to that socialising genius of the human race which is coming more and more to demand a perfect unity as the ultimate expression of good4 ,that1 then1 we shall probably find to be the future tendency of idealism4 ,there remains1 of course1 the ,rationalistic school of thought1 by which the possibility of individual or personal survival after death is from first to last either absolutely denied or very severely discountenanced as an idea based upon wholly insufficient evidence4 ,nevertheless1 in some form or another1 immortality1 conscious or unconscious1 personal or impersonal1 is accepted by all schools alike2 the scientific law of the conservation of energy being one form of it which human reason would now find it very difficult to deny4 ,let us for one moment apply that law to our own individual lives and consciousness4 ,has life convinced us that we are all self-contained persons8 ,through social contact we have undergone many changes1 many damages1 and many repairs4 ,parts of us have gone to other people1 parts of other people have come1 to us4 ,we have shed and have absorbed quite as much spiritually as materially2 and though through our material changes we retain a certain likeness1 so that friends meeting us after a seven years' absence recognise us again in bodies no particle of which have they ever seen before2 and though similarly we can recognise our inner selves across wider intervals of time1 have we any reason to suppose that our identity is more fixed in the spiritual substance than in the material8 ,for myself1 ,i hope not4 ,may one not prefer the idea of interchange between life and life1 to the notion that one is to remain for ever fixed and self-possessed--a thing apart8 ,the more we are compounded of other lives1 the more we have contributed to the lives of others--the more can we recognise our entrance into the only eternal life that we can demonstrably be sure about1 or that can 7so it must seem to many of us71 be sensibly desired or deserved4 ,is ,eternal ,bliss1 in the individual sense1 a more tolerable doctrine than eternal ,hell-fire8 ,though1 indeed1 this latter may be but a scientific statement of fact perverted and made foolish by the theologians4 ,for life1 after all1 is but a form of combustion for ever going on1 and outside of it we know nothing4 ,no doubt the atoms of our being1 whether physical or spiritual1 will forever form part of it2 but ,i see no reason why our spirits should not be as diffused1 through proper elemental changes1 as our bodies are now being diffused from day to day2 or why ,i should repine that ,i personally shall not always be there to preside over the operation and find it good4 ,even if1 at the far end of this earth's history1 everything is again to be reabsorbed in the heat and light out of which it came1 ,i can trust the suns and planets to fulfil their mission of progress--or the will of ,god--quite as well as1 or better than1 in my own small sphere ,i can trust ,constitutional ,governments or ,established ,churches4 ,and since these lesser lights1 in their foolish and providential dealings1 do not confound my faith1 neither do the stars in their courses fight against it4 ,rather do they confirm me in my sense that even the most acute perceptions with which human life is endowed fail of themselves to justify me in any claim to a larger lease of life than can naturally belong to them2 for ,i see in the universe things far greater than any individual man1 doing service and sustaining the life of countless millions1 7which without them could not live at all71 without any prospect of so great a reward4 ,the eye of the sun itself is blind2 and for ever1 while it dazzles us with its light1 blind it must remain4 ,nay1 what need has it for sight at all1 if in blindness it be able to fulfil its mission8 ,and yet implicit within its vast energies1 there lies the gift of sight4 ,for that blind ,eye of ,heaven taught us to see2 our substance came from it1 our eyes were made by it1 and without it was not anything made on earth that was made4 ,and if1 by this gift of sight1 it has opened to us so vast a space for our understanding to dwell in--bestowing so huge a conception of life on this frail vessel of clay--if by so giving of itself through long aeons of time it has opened to us so much more than it knows itself1 cannot we render back without grudging these shorter1 frailer lives of ours1 whose brevity1 perhaps1 is the very price required of us for their enjoyment1 since without such limits our far-reaching comprehension of space and its possessions could never have been gained4 ,should there be any despair1 or any depression in the thought that from the blind eye of day and from the powers of its heat was developed the human brain8 ,for if from that apparent ,blindness of our ,universe came really the eyes of life by which we perceive all things1 can we not commit our spirits back to its keeping with an equal trust that what lies ahead will be at least as good as what lies behind1 though we be not there to see it8 ,but the law of the conservation of energy does not in the least satisfy the aspirations of those who are out for personal immortality in the individual sense4 ,to these it seems a grievance that they should have been called into being for any end not wholly satisfying to that ,ego which is now laying upon their consciousness the weight of its possessive limitations4 ,this separative quality of the ,ego is to them the whole principle of existence2 without it they cannot see life4 ,to them1 life in any less focused or more diffused form would be no better than annihilation1 an obvious setting-back of the evolutionary process by which creation has led step by step to that degree of self-consciousness realised in the human race4 ,do not these objectors forget not merely how considerable a part of human nature already moves and has its being on the lines of a diffused and rather decentralised subconsciousness1 but also how largely the genius of the human race has committed to such conditions of separation from all possible enjoyment by the ,ego1 some of the rarest gifts and highest efforts at self-realisation that the world has ever seen8 ,it is a condition attaching to all the more permanent forms of expression in the arts1 to everything that man designs and makes for the delight of the generations that come after4 ,it is a condition willingly accepted by all who rejoice in their power to throw the influence of their personalities beyond the material uses of their own present existence4 ,and in that willingness to lose out of themselves for future generations--to turn aside from mere physical enjoyment--the life-forces within them1 in that willingness artist1 poet1 and thinker1 have come far nearer to the finding of life than those who live indulgently for ends finished by their own absorption thereof4 ,now it is the supporters of the individualistic school of thought who have generally urged that grave moral dangers would befall the human race were a belief in personal immortality to perish2 and it is at least arguable 7by minds that can only see values individually71 that if man is not to be permanently rewarded or punished for his present and future conduct1 he has no reason for conducting himself as a decent part of the social whole1 and that it would be better for him to break out on entirely individual lines1 live a short and merry life1 and throwing all altruistic and ethical considerations to the winds1 enjoy himself as much as he can while the material is to him4 ,on paper that consideration may seem to hold strong ground2 but when it is put into practice the facts of life are found to be overwhelmingly against it4 ,for one thing excess and self-indulgence fail to produce enjoyment1 for another the socialising of life by mutual aid tends quite obviously to the increase of comfort1 safety1 and happiness4 ,and where apparently it does not is mainly at that point where rampant individualism grasps and warps it to its own ends1 making the social organism subserve not the goodwill of the many but the ill-will of the few4 ,but the ethical argument about the bad effects of non-belief in personal immortality has been considerably discounted by the growing sensitiveness of the modern conscience--more especially among those who are in a serious sense 8free-thinkers0--toward the social ills lying around us4 ,generally speaking1 our sense of duty toward our neighbour is much more lively than it was in the mid-,victorian era2 but our conviction of personal immortality is probably far less4 ,the two things do not go together3 the diminution of church attendance in the last fifty years has not worsened the conditions of labour4 ,it may1 however1 be argued that an instinct for immortality is still subconsciously at work within us1 colouring our actions and directing us on right ethical lines4 ,but if it be a subconscious direction which thus works in us for righteousness1 it may equally be to a subconscious end4 ,the subconscious impulse may merely be guiding us to a subconscious realisation which would not at all satisfy the advocates of conscious immortality after death4 ,what works subconsciously can in all probability find satisfaction in a subconscious reward4 ,the chemic processes of the stomach and of the blood1 for instance1 are largely subconscious in their operation2 and their needs may be subconsciously appeased without the brain being told anything about it through the usual intermediaries of taste and mastication4 ,we have a preference for a conscious performance of the functions of life which we have always been accustomed to perform consciously2 but a very large proportion of our life-functions work themselves out subconsciously and independently of our will4 ,our hearts beat1 our blood circulates1 our nails grow1 our stomachs digest1 our wounds heal1 whether we tell them to or no1 and yet we are quite happy about them4 ,we do not consider 7because they operate by a volition of which we are unaware71 that therefore we carry about with us a body of death from which our conscious ego must needs shrink in disgust--a dead heart1 dead stomach1 dead blood--that the unconsciousness which accompanies health is a state nearer to annihilation1 and so less to be desired1 than the pains accompanying functional disturbances4 ,when those things happen--functional disturbances--we are conscious of something more immediately relating to death than to life3 it is because of local mortification that we become so much aware of things which our immortal part helps us to use unconsciously and without thought4 ,virtue itself1 when engrained1 tends to become instinctive and subconscious instead of an effort4 ,there is quite as much evidence1 therefore1 in our own bodies that unconsciousness is the real gate to immortal life1 and the condition toward which all that is best and highest in us is seeking1 as of the contrary teaching that increased self-consciousness is man's final goal4 ,in the functional working of our own bodies an enormous amount of self-consciousness has been eliminated1 and we do not for our happiness or self-realisation wish it restored to us2 whole tracts and areas are immune from it1 or only make a spasmodic grab at our consciousness when things go ill with them4 8,if you go on doing that10 they say1 when you misuse them1 8we will make you know that we are here40 ,and so you become conscious of them3 but that doesn't make you happier4 ,yet in a sort of way1 ,i suppose1 a man would realise himself more completely if he had sciatica all over him1 and could count up his nerves1 and tell all his bones by the aches and pains attaching to them4 ,now it is easy enough for a man to say 7,i think it was ,h4 ,m4 ,stanley1 the explorer1 who did say so7 that he would rather endure torment for all eternity than accept a state of annihilation4 ,in thus protesting he is talking through his hat of something too far beyond human experience for the mind to realise4 ,toothache he has probably always found bearable1 because he knew that in course of time it would end4 ,on the other hand1 sound dreamless sleep is probably not less bearable to him because during that sleep he has not a ghost of a notion that he will ever wake up again4 ,he is carried1 that is to say1 every day of his life while in health1 into a state closely resembling annihilation of consciousness1 in which such annihilation has no terrors for him at all2 he accepts it as a comfortable part of existence1 and goes to it with delight when his faculties are tired4 ,its attractions for him would naturally be less while all his senses were alert and fresh4 ,but the waking man is not the whole man2 the subconscious life1 acquiescent to imposed conditions1 occupies by far the larger part of him4 ,he can1 therefore1 only predicate the inclinations of his waking hours2 in sleep he may revert to a very strong affinity for that annihilation of self-conscious life against which1 in his waking hours1 he protests his dread4 ,and now a further word of comfort for those moral teachers who assure us that if once we let go the idea of personal immortality1 with its accompanying implications of eternal reward or punishment1 the conduct of the human race is bound to degenerate1 and that man's only logical motto will then be1 8,let us eat1 drink1 and be merry1 for to-morrow we die40 ,to refute that deduction we have but to remember that sociology is a thing of ancestry and evolution1 and has committed us to a weight of facts against which precept and theory are powerless4 ,we have only to look back into ,nature to see how persistently 7without1 one must suppose1 any promise of future reward after death7 a contrary instinct emerges from the establishment of the social bond in nest and herd and hive4 ,and why--if that emerging instinct leads on1 in man's reasoned estimation1 to foolishness--why do we so specially admire the communal life of ant and bee1 and incline sometimes to wonder whether 7behind so marvellous an order of altruistic energy7 there be not concealed more and not less of spiritual apprehension than in the more individualistic forms of insect and animal life8 ,and why1 on the contrary1 has the wise cuckoo become a sort of byword for the singular economy with which it has disentangled its life from care or responsibility8 ,it is surely very unfair thus to erect the cuckoo into a moral emblem for reprobation1 if it is only doing by instinct1 what man would do by reason and logic were the darkness of his own destiny made clear to him4 ,and similarly1 it is surely disingenuous on our part to exalt as a moral emblem the instinct of ant and bee to subordinate the life of the individual to the general--if we deny to ant and bee the immortality by which alone such altruism can be recompensed2 or if we are to believe that a clearer knowledge of their future lot would cause them in logic and reason to declare that life on those terms was not worth living1 and that 8to eat1 drink1 and die to-morrow0 were better than to live longer and labour for a vain repetition of lives like their own indefinitely multiplied4 ,it is ridiculous to impose the moral emblem unless you grant also the justifying conditions4 ,because the bee and the ant live unconscious of their impending doom1 are we1 therefore1 to regard them as a hoodwinked race1 set to labour at the dictates of the ,creative capitalist on terms which contain in them no adequate reward8 ,suppose1 for a moment1 that revelation could descend upon ants' nest and hive1 and tell these workers that beyond death the future held for them no store--that their immortality was the immortality not of individual but of race2 and suppose that thereupon they all struck and went forth to die each singly in their own way--would that moral emblem impress us1 do you think1 as a thing worthy of imitation or of praise8 ,but why 7let us think7 is the predication of such an event so impossible and so grotesque8 ,is it not because the life1 the individual life of ant or bee is so impregnated with that instinct of communalism which gives the species its distinctive character1 that it is impossible to sunder them1 or to imagine the individual capable 7while in the social milieu7 of pursuing individual ends alone1 after a following1 over millions of years1 of life in the communal form4 ,life1 the thread of life which runs through them1 is too much engrained with communism for separatist principles ever again to prevail4 ,and surely it is the same with man4 ,individualism1 separatism1 self-obsessionism1 though still present in the phenomena of existence1 are more and more subject to qualifications from which they cannot escape4 ,and even the most evil form of individualism has to be parasitic or predatory2 it cannot exist alone2 even against its will it becomes conditioned by other lives4 ,and the communal sense of man1 implicit within the innumerable forms of life through which he has evolved1 will continue to lay its hold on the parasitic and the predatory1 and will do so quite effectively on the basis of an evolutionary past1 the tendencies of which were established before ever theological definitions came to give them impulse and strength4 ,is it not almost ludicrous to suggest that that communal instinct will cease to play1 if the hope of individual reward after death is withdrawn from the human race8 ,will man--because he is nobler than the beast1 because at his best he does things more altruistic1 more self-sacrificing1 more self-forgetting1 more self-transcending than any of these--do less nobly because he envisages destiny1 which 7if he see it as destiny7 he will see as the logical outcome of evolutionary law8 ,it is possible1 it is even probable1 that all phases of theological thought have had their use in giving direction and stimulus to the human brain2 if they have done nothing but stimulate rebellion against obscurantist authority they have had value of a positive kind4 ,but we may go even further than this1 for 8everything possible to be believed10 says ,blake1 8is an image of truth40 ,and under many a concept1 distorted by ignorance or guile1 has lain a germ of the true life which draws man on to communal ends4 ,in time that germ puts off the husk that seemed once 7perhaps in some cases actually was7 the protective armoury through which alone it could survive for the use of a later day4 ,but though old reasons have been shed1 the essential value has not changed2 and often it is less by logic and reason than by the strong and subtle links of association that we preserve what is good of past credulities4 ,the doctrine of conscious immortality1 however much belittled by its appeal to selfish individualism1 has done a work for the human race4 ,it has held the germ of an ideal for unity which is receiving a more universal interpretation to-day than the earlier theologians would ever have allowed1 or than man1 in his then stage of development1 could have thought it worth while to hand on to his intellectual heirs4 ,perhaps only because he conceived it in just such a form have its values been preserved4 ,i am reminded in this connection of the method by which the wild swine of the ,new ,forest were taught to obey the voice of the horn by means of which the swine-herd1 called them back each night from their free roaming in the forest4 ,the way he did it was this4 ,having first formed his herd1 some four or five hundred strong1 he penned them in a narrow space where water and warm shelter were to be found2 and there1 in the allotted enclosure1 according them no liberty1 he fed them daily to the sound of the horn4 ,food and music became a sort of celestial harmony to pig's brain--when they heard the one1 good reason was given them for expecting the other4 ,presently1 in a well-fed condition1 they were set free to roam2 and being full and satisfied they did not roam far2 and at night the horn sounded them back to an ample meal1 and continued to sound while again they ate and were satisfied4 ,so at last1 by association1 the horn came to have such a beneficent meaning that the mere sound of it sufficed to bring them back at nightfall to their appointed place of rest4 ,they might roam for miles and miles during the day1 but night and the sound of the horn brought them all back safe to fold4 ,and when that habit had become established1 they did not cease to return even though the swineherd no longer supplied the food which had first given music its charm to those savage breasts4 ,and1 similarly1 ,i doubt not1 that1 though all hope of material profit or reward be withdrawn from man's mind1 that call of the horn which he has heard of old will still bring his spirit to the resting-place at the appointed time2 nor will he wish either to shorten his days or debase his pleasures because the horn has ceased to provide the meal which it once taught him to expect4 ,do not let anything ,i have said be taken as suggesting that the spiritual forces of man's nature may not be conserved1 transmuted1 re-assimilated1 or re-distributed1 as surely and with as little waste as are the material elements of life which pass through disintegration and decay into new forms4 ,the processes by which such changes are wrought may be1 and may ever remain1 a mystery to human sense4 ,there may be yet in the making a new order or plane of evolution by which the process will be quickened and perfected4 ,soul of man may be in the making1 though it may be very far removed from that aspect of individualism with which the anthropomorphic tendencies of theology have burdened it4 ,but--whether life thus rises by unknown law to further ends1 or whether it passes out1 like the life of leaves1 into the general decay with which autumn each year fertilises the bed of mother earth--of one thing ,i would ask you to be confident--that the bandying of words and theories1 and the discussion1 tending this way or that1 of man's destiny after death1 are not in any way likely to alter or to undo those forward-driving forces and communal desires with which1 from an inheritance of so many millions of years1 the life of humanity has become endowed4 ,the will to live will still lift up the race and carry it forward to new ends1 whether man thinks he sees in death the end of his personal existence1 or only a new and a better beginning4 ,and whether he claims or resigns that prospect of reward he will never be able to rid himself of the sense which revives after all failures and crimes1 that man is his brother-man--or be able to refrain at his best from laying down his life1 without calculation of personal benefit to himself1 so that others may live4 ,the highest manifestations of human genius1 the most perfected forms of self-realisation in art1 in literature1 and science1 have been given to us--and will continue to be given to us--independent of any bargain that name and identity shall for ever remain attached thereto while posterity enjoys the benefit4 ,the artist might foresee that his name would1 in a brief time1 become dissociated from his work1 and his memory blotted out from the book of the living2 he would produce it all the same4 ,the reformer might know that his motives would be aspersed1 that his name would become after death a spitting and a reproach2 but1 for the sake of the cause he believed in1 he would still be willing to die a dishonoured death and leave a reprobated name1 to a world that had failed to understand4 ,that is human nature at its best2 and you will not change it or endanger it through any increased doubt thrown by modern thought or science on the prospect of conscious immortality after death4 ,for whether we recognise it or not1 a subconscious spirit1 not perhaps of immortality but of unity1 permeates us all2 and for furtherance and worship of that which his soul desires1 the spirit of man will ever be ready to work and strive1 and to pass unconditionally into dust--if that indeed be the condition on which he holds his birthright in a life worth living4 ,w4 ,h4 ,smith ,son1 ,the ,arden ,press1 ,stamford ,street1 ,london1 ,s4,e4#a ---------------------------------------- --------- ,transcriber's note3 ,obvious typographic errors have been corrected4 ---------------------------------------- ---------