LABOR, SKILL AND CAPITAL.
Nothing written on the subject of slavery from the time of Aristotle, is
worth reading, until the days of the modern Socialists. Nobody, treating
of it, thought it worth while to enquire from history and statistics,
whether the physical and moral condition of emancipated serfs or slaves
had been improved or rendered worse by emancipation. None would
condescend to compare the evils of domestic slavery with the evils of
liberty without property. It entered no one's head to conceive a doubt
as to the actual freedom of the emancipated. The relations of capital
and labor, of the property-holders to the non-property-holders, were
things about which no one had thought or written. It never occurred to
either the enemies or the apologists for slavery, that if no one would
employ the free laborer, his condition was infinitely worse than that of
actual slavery--nor did it occur to them, that if his wages were less
than the allowance of the slave, he was less free after emancipation
than before. St. Simon, Fourier, Owen, Fanny Wright, and a few others,
who discovered and proclaimed that property was not only a bad master,
but an intolerable one, were treated as wicked visionaries. After the
French and other revolutions in Western Europe in 1830, all men suddenly
discovered that the social relations of men were false, and that social,
not political, revolutions were needed. Since that period, almost the
whole literature of free society is but a voice proclaiming its absolute
and total failure. Hence the works of the socialists contain the true
defence of slavery.
Most of the active intellect of Christendom has for the last twenty
years been engaged in analyzing, detecting and exposing the existing
relations of labor, skill and capital, and in vain efforts to rectify
those relations. The philosophers of Europe, who have been thus engaged,
have excelled all the moral philosophers that preceded them, in the
former part of their pursuit, but suggested nothing but puerile
absurdities, in the latter. Their destructive philosophy is profound,
demonstrative, and unanswerable--their constructive theories, wild,
visionary and chimerical on paper, and failures in practice. Each one of
them proves clearly enough, that the present edifice of European society
is out of all rule and proportion, and must soon tumble to pieces--but
no two agree as to how it is to be re-built. "We must (say they all)
have a new world, if we are to have any world at all!" and each has a
little model Utopia or Phalanstery, for this new and better world,
which, having already failed on a small experimental scale, the inventor
assures us, is, therefore, the very thing to succeed on a large one. We
allude to the socialists and communists, who have more or less tinged
all modern literature with their doctrines. In analyzing society; in
detecting, exposing, and generalizing its operations and its various
phenomena, they are but grammarians or anatomists, confining philosophy
to its proper sphere, and employing it for useful purposes. When they
attempt to go further--and having found the present social system to be
fatally diseased, propose to originate and build up another in its
stead--they are as presumptuous as the anatomist, who should attempt to
create a man. Social bodies, like human bodies, are the works of God,
which man may dissect, and sometimes heal, but which he cannot create.
Society was not always thus diseased, or socialism would have been as
common in the past as it is now. We think these presumptuous
philosophers had best compare it in its healthy state with what it is
now, and supply deficiencies or lop off excrescencies, as the comparison
may suggest. But our present business is to call attention to some
valuable discoveries in the terra firma of social science, which these
socialists have made in their vain voyages in search of an ever receding
and illusory Utopia. Like the alchymists, although they have signally
failed in the objects of their pursuits, they have incidentally hit
upon truths, unregarded and unprized by themselves, which will be
valuable in the hands of more practical and less sanguine men. It is
remarkable, that the political economists, who generally assume labor to
be the most just and correct measure of value, should not have
discovered that the profits of capital represent no labor at all. To be
consistent, the political economists should denounce as unjust all
interests, rents, dividends and other profits of capital. We mean by
rents, that portion of the rent which is strictly income. The amount
annually required for repairs and ultimately to rebuild the house, is
not profit. Four per cent. will do this. A rent of ten per cent. is in
such case a profit of six per cent. The four per cent. is but a return
to the builder of his labor and capital spent in building. "The use of a
thing, is only a fair subject of change, in so far as the article used
is consumed in the use; for such consumption is the consumption of the
labor or capital of the owner, and is but the exchange of equivalent
amounts of labor."
These socialists, having discovered that skill and capital, by means of
free competition, exercise an undue mastery over labor, propose to do
away with skill, capital, and free competition, altogether. They would
heal the diseases of society by destroying its most vital functions.
Having laid down the broad proposition, that equal amounts of labor, or
their results, should be exchanged for each other, they get at the
conclusion that as the profits of capital are not the results of labor,
the capitalist shall be denied all interest or rents, or other profits
on his capital, and be compelled in all cases to exchange a part of the
capital itself, for labor, or its results. This would prevent
accumulation, or at least limit it to the procurement of the coarsest
necessaries of life. They say, "the lawyer and the artist do not work so
hard and continuously as the ploughman, and should receive less wages
than he--a bushel of wheat represents as much labor as a speech or
portrait, and should be exchanged for the one or the other." Such a
system of trade and exchange would equalize conditions, but would banish
civilization. Yet do these men show, that, by means of the taxation and
oppression, which capital and skill exercise over labor, the rich, the
professional, the trading and skillful part of society, have become the
masters of the laboring masses: whose condition, already intolerable, is
daily becoming worse. They point out distinctly the character of the
disease under which the patient is laboring, but see no way of curing
the disease except by killing the patient.
In the preceding chapter, we illustrated their theory of capital by a
single example. We might give hundreds of illustrations, and yet the
subject is so difficult that few readers will take the trouble to
understand it. Let us take two well known historical instances: England
became possessed of two fine islands, Ireland and Jamaica. Englishmen
took away, or defrauded, from the Irish, their lands; but professed to
leave the people free. The people, however, must have the use of land,
or starve. The English charged them, in rent, so much, that their
allowance, after deducting that rent, was not half that of Jamaica
slaves. They were compelled to labor for their landlords, by the fear of
hunger and death--forces stronger than the overseer's lash. They worked
more, and did not get half so much pay or allowance as the Jamaica
negroes. All the reports to the French and British Parliaments show that
the physical wants of the West India slaves were well supplied. The
Irish became the subjects of capital--slaves, with no masters obliged by
law, self-interest or domestic affections, to provide for them. The
freest people in the world, in the loose and common sense of words,
their condition, moral, physical and religious, was far worse than that
of civilized slaves ever has been or ever can be--for at length, after
centuries of slow starvation, three hundred thousand perished in a
single season, for want of food. Englishmen took the lands of Jamaica
also, but introduced negro slaves, whom they were compelled to support
at all seasons, and at any cost. The negroes were comfortable, until
philanthropy taxed the poor of England and Ireland a hundred millions
to free them. Now, they enjoy Irish liberty, whilst the English hold all
the good lands. They are destitute and savage, and in all respects worse
off than when in slavery.
Public opinion unites with self-interest, domestic affection and
municipal law to protect the slave. The man who maltreats the weak and
dependant, who abuses his authority over wife, children or slaves, is
universally detested. That same public opinion, which shields and
protects the slave, encourages the oppression of free laborers--for it
is considered more honorable and praiseworthy to obtain large fees than
small ones, to make good bargains than bad ones, (and all fees and
profits come ultimately from common laborers)--to live without work, by
the exactions of accumulated capital, than to labor at the plough or the
spade, for one's living. It is the interest of the capitalist and the
skillful to allow free laborers the least possible portion of the fruits
of their own labor; for all capital is created by labor, and the smaller
the allowance of the free laborer, the greater the gains of his
employer. To treat free laborers badly and unfairly, is universally
inculcated as a moral duty, and the selfishness of man's nature prompts
him to the most rigorous performance of this cannibalish duty. We appeal
to political economy; the ethical, social, political and economic
philosophy of free society, to prove the truth of our doctrines. As an
ethical and social guide, that philosophy teaches, that social,
individual and national competition, is a moral duty, and we have
attempted to prove that all competition is but the effort to enslave
others, without being encumbered with their support. As a political
guide, it would simply have government 'keep the peace;' or, to define
its doctrine more exactly, it teaches "that it is the whole duty of
government to hold the weak whilst the strong rob them"--for it punishes
crimes accompanied with force, which none but the weak-minded commit;
but encourages the war of the wits, in which the strong and astute are
sure to succeed, in stripping the weak and ignorant.
It is time, high time, that political economy was banished from our
schools. But what would this avail in free society, where men's
antagonistic relations suggest to each one, without a teacher, that "he
can only be just to himself, by doing wrong to others." Aristotle, and
most other ancient philosophers and statesmen, held the doctrine, "that
as money would not breed, interest should not be allowed." Moses, no
doubt, saw as the modern socialists do, that all other capital stood on
the same grounds with money. None of it is self-creative, or will
"breed." The language employed about "usury" and "increase" in 25th
Leviticus, and 23d Deuteronomy, is quite broad enough to embrace and
prohibit all profits of capital. Such interest or "increase," or
profits, might be charged to the Heathen, but not to the Jews. The whole
arrangements of Moses were obviously intended to prevent competition in
the dealings of the Jews with one another, and to beget permanent
equality of condition and fraternal feelings.
The socialists have done one great good. They enable us to understand
and appreciate the institutions of Moses, and to see, that none but
Divinity could have originated them.[1] The situation of Judea was, in
many respects, anomalous, and we are not to suppose that its political
and social relations were intended to be universal. Yet, here it is
distinctly asserted, that under certain circumstances, all profits on
capital are wrong.
The reformers of the present day are all teetotalists, and attempt to
banish evil altogether, not to lessen or restrict it. It would be wiser
to assume that there is nothing, in its essence, evil, in the moral or
physical world, but only rendered so by the wrongful applications which
men make of them. Science is every day discovering that the most fatal
poisons, when properly employed, become the most efficacious medicines.
So, what appear to be the evil passions and propensities of men, and of
societies, under proper regulation, may be made to minister to the
wisest and best of purposes. Civilized society has never been found
without that competition begotten by man's desire to throw most of the
burdens of life on others, and to enjoy the fruits of their labors
without exchanging equivalent labor of his own. In all such societies,
(outside the Bible,) such selfish and grasping appropriation is
inculcated as a moral duty; and he who succeeds best, either by the
exercise of professional skill, or by accumulation of capital, in
appropriating the labor of others, without laboring in return, is
considered most meritorious. It would be unfair, in treating of the
relations of capital and labor, not to consider its poor-house system,
the ultimate resort of the poor.
The taxes or poor rates which support this system of relief, like all
other taxes and values, are derived from the labor of the poor. The
able-bodied, industrious poor are compelled by the rich and skillful to
support the weak, and too often, the idle poor. In addition to defraying
the necessary expenses and the wanton luxuries of the rich, to
supporting government, and supporting themselves, capital compels them
to support its poor houses. In collection of the poor rates, in their
distribution, and in the administration of the poor-house system,
probably half the tax raised for the poor is exhausted. Of the
remainder, possibly another half is expended on unworthy objects.
Masters, in like manner, support the sick, infant and aged slaves from
the labor of the strong and healthy. But nothing is wasted in collection
and administration, and nothing given to unworthy objects. The master
having the control of the objects of his bounty, takes care that they
shall not become burdensome by their own crimes and idleness. It is
contrary to all human customs and legal analogies, that those who are
dependent, or are likely to become so, should not be controlled. The
duty of protecting the weak involves the necessity of enslaving
them--hence, in all countries, women and children, wards and
apprentices, have been essentially slaves, controlled, not by law, but
by the will of a superior. This is a fatal defect in the poor-house
system. Many men become paupers from their own improvidence or
misconduct, and masters alone can prevent such misconduct and
improvidence. Masters treat their sick, infant and helpless slaves well,
not only from feeling and affection, but from motives of self-interest.
Good treatment renders them more valuable. All poor houses, are
administered on the penitentiary system, in order to deter the poor from
resorting to them. Besides, masters are always in place to render
needful aid to the unfortunate and helpless slaves. Thousands of the
poor starve out of reach of the poor house, or other public charity.
A common charge preferred against slavery is, that it induces idleness
with the masters. The trouble, care and labor, of providing for wife,
children and slaves, and of properly governing and administering the
whole affairs of the farm, is usually borne on small estates by the
master. On larger ones, he is aided by an overseer or manager. If they
do their duty, their time is fully occupied. If they do not, the estate
goes to ruin. The mistress, on Southern farms, is usually more busily,
usefully and benevolently occupied than any one on the farm. She unites
in her person, the offices of wife, mother, mistress, housekeeper, and
sister of charity. And she fulfills all these offices admirably well.
The rich men, in free society, may, if they please, lounge about town,
visit clubs, attend the theatre, and have no other trouble than that of
collecting rents, interest and dividends of stock. In a well constituted
slave society, there should be no idlers. But we cannot divine how the
capitalists in free society are to be put to work. The master labors for
the slave, they exchange industrial value. But the capitalist, living on
his income, gives nothing to his subjects. He lives by mere
exploitation.
It is objected that slavery permits or induces immorality and ignorance.
This is a mistake. The intercourse of the house-servants with the white
family, assimilates, in some degree, their state of information, and
their moral conduct, to that of the whites. The house-servants, by their
intercourse with the field hands, impart their knowledge to them. The
master enforces decent morality in all. Negroes are never ignorant of
the truths of Christianity, all speak intelligible English, and are
posted up in the ordinary occurrences of the times. The reports to the
British Parliament shew, that the agricultural and mining poor of
England scarce know the existence of God, do not speak intelligible
English, and are generally depraved and ignorant. They learn nothing by
intercourse with their superiors, as negroes do. They abuse wives and
children, because they have no masters to control them, and the men are
often dissipated and idle, leaving all the labor to be done by the women
and children--for the want of this same control.
Slavery, by separating the mass of the ignorant from each other, and
bringing them in contact and daily intercourse with the well-informed,
becomes an admirable educational system--no doubt a necessary one. By
subjecting them to the constant control and supervision of their
superiors, interested in enforcing morality, it becomes the best and
most efficient police system; so efficient, that the ancient Romans had
scarcely any criminal code whatever.
The great objections to the colonial slavery of the latter Romans, to
serfdom, and all forms of praedial slavery, are: that the slaves are
subjected to the cares as well as the labors of life; that the masters
become idlers; that want of intercourse destroys the affectionate
relations between master and slave, throws the mass of ignorant slaves
into no other association but that with the ignorant; and deprives them,
as well of the instruction, as the government, of superiors living on
the same farm. Southern slavery is becoming the best form of slavery of
which we have any history, except that of the Jews. The Jews owned but
few slaves, and with them the relation of master and slave was truly
affectionate, protective and patriarchal. The master, wife and children
were in constant intercourse with the slaves, and formed, in practice as
well as theory, affectionate, well-ordered families.
As modern civilization advances, slavery becomes daily more necessary,
because its tendency is to accumulate all capital in a few hands, cuts
off the masses from the soil, lessens their wages and their chances of
employment, and increases the necessity for a means of certain
subsistence, which slavery alone can furnish, when a few own all the
lands and other capital.
Christian morality can find little practical foothold in a community so
constituted, that to "love our neighbor as ourself," or "to do unto
others as we would they should do unto us," would be acts of suicidal
self-sacrifice. Christian morality, however, was not preached to free
competitive society, but to slave society, where it is neither very
difficult nor unnatural to practice it. In the various family relations
of husband, wife, parent, child, master and slave, the observance of
these Christian precepts is often practiced, and almost always promotes
the temporal well being of those who observe it. The interests of the
various members of the family circle, correctly understood, concur and
harmonize, and each member best promotes his own selfish interest by
ministering to the wants and interests of the rest. Two great stumbling
blocks are removed from the acceptance of Scripture, when it is proved
that slavery, which it recognizes, approves and enjoins, is promotive of
men's happiness and well-being, and that the morality, which it
inculcates, although wholly impracticable in free society, is readily
practised in that form of society to which it was addressed.
We do not conceive that there can be any other moral law in free
society, than that which teaches "that he is most meritorious who most
wrongs his fellow beings:" for any other law would make men martyrs to
their own virtues. We see thousands of good men vainly struggling
against the evil necessities of their situation, and aggravating by
their charities the evils which they would cure, for charity in free
society is but the tax which skill and capital levy from the working
poor, too often, to bestow on the less deserving and idle poor. We know
a man at the North who owns millions of dollars, and would throw every
cent into the ocean to benefit mankind. But it is capital, and, place it
where he will, it becomes an engine to tax and oppress the laboring
poor.
It is impossible to place labor and capital in harmonious or friendly
relations, except by the means of slavery, which identifies their
interests. Would that gentleman lay his capital out in land and negroes,
he might be sure, in whatever hands it came, that it would be employed
to protect laborers, not to oppress them; for when slaves are worth near
a thousand dollars a head, they will be carefully and well provided for.
In any other investment he may make of it, it will be used as an engine
to squeeze the largest amount of labor from the poor, for the least
amount of allowance. We say allowance, not wages; for neither slaves nor
free laborers get wages, in the popular sense of the term: that is, the
employer or capitalist pays them from nothing of his own, but allows
them a part, generally a very small part, of the proceeds of their own
labor. Free laborers pay one another, for labor creates all values, and
capital, after taking the lion's share by its taxing power, but pays the
so-called wages of one laborer from the proceeds of the labor of
another. Capital does not breed, yet remains undiminished. Its profits
are but its taxing power. Men seek to become independent, in order to
cease to pay labor; in order to become masters, without the cares,
duties and responsibilities of masters. Capital exercises a more perfect
compulsion over free laborers, than human masters over slaves: for free
laborers must at all times work or starve, and slaves are supported
whether they work or not. Free laborers have less liberty than slaves,
are worse paid and provided for, and have no valuable rights. Slaves,
with more of actual practical liberty, with ampler allowance, and
constant protection, are secure in the enjoyment of all the rights,
which provide for their physical comfort at all times and under all
circumstances. The free laborer must be employed or starve, yet no one
is obliged to employ him. The slave is taken care of, whether employed
or not. Though each free laborer has no particular master, his wants and
other men's capital, make him a slave without a master, or with too many
masters, which is as bad as none. It were often better that he had an
ascertained master, instead of an irresponsible and unascertained one.
There are some startling social phenomena connected with this subject of
labor and capital, which will probably be new to most of our readers.
Legislators and philosophers often puzzle their own and other people's
brains, in vain discussions as to how the taxes shall be laid, so as to
fall on the rich rather than the poor. It results from our theory, that
as labor creates all values, laborers pay all taxes, and the rich, in
the words of Gerrit Smith, "are but the conduits that pass them over to
government."
Again, since labor alone creates and pays the profits of capital;
increase and accumulation of capital but increase the labor of the poor,
and lessen their remuneration. Thus the poor are continually forging new
chains for themselves. Proudhon cites a familiar instance to prove and
illustrate this theory: A tenant improves a farm or house, and enhances
their rents; his labor thus becomes the means of increasing the tax,
which he or some one else must pay to the capitalist. What is true in
this instance, is true of the aggregate capital of the world: its
increase is but an increased tax on labor. A., by trade or speculation,
gets hold of an additional million of dollars, to the capital already in
existence. Now his million of dollars will yield no profit, unless a
number of pauper laborers, sufficient to pay its profits, are at the
same time brought into existence. After supporting their families, it
will require a thousand of laborers to pay the interest or profits of a
million of dollars. It may, therefore, be generally assumed as true,
that where a country has gained a millionaire, it has by the same
process gained a thousand pauper laborers: Provided it has been made by
profits on foreign trade, or by new values created at home--that is, if
it be an _addition_ of a million to the capital of the nation.
A nation borrows a hundred millions, at six per cent., for a hundred
years. During that time it pays, in way of tax, called interest, six
times the capital loaned, and then returns the capital itself. During
all this time, to the amount of the interest, the people of this nation
have been slaves to the lender. He has commanded, not paid, for their
labor; for his capital is returned intact. In the abstract, and
according to equity, "the use of an article is only a proper subject of
charge, when the article is consumed in the use; for this consumption is
the consumption of the labor of the lender or hirer, and is the exchange
of equal amounts of labor for each other.
A., as a merchant, a lawyer, or doctor, makes twenty dollars a day; that
is, exchanges each day of his own labor for twenty days of the labor of
common working men, assuming that they work at a dollar a day. In twenty
years, he amasses fifty thousand dollars, invests it, and settles it on
his family. Without any labor, he and his heirs, retaining all this
capital, continue, by its means, to levy a tax of three thousand dollars
from common laborers. He and his heirs now pay nothing for labor, but
command it. They have nothing to pay except their capital, and that they
retain. (This is the exploitation or despotism of capital, which has
taken the place of domestic slavery, and is, in fact, a much worse kind
of slavery. Hence arises socialism, which proposes to reconstruct
society.) Now, this capitalist is considered highly meritorious for so
doing, and the poor, self-sacrificing laborers, who really created his
capital, and who pay its profits, are thought contemptible, if not
criminal. In the general, those men are considered the most meritorious
who live in greatest splendor, with the least, or with no labor, and
they most contemptible, who labor most for others, and least for
themselves. In the abstract, however, that dealing appears most correct,
where men exchange equal amounts of labor, bear equal burdens for
others, with those that they impose on them. Such is the golden rule of
Scripture, but not the approved practice of mankind.
"The worth of a thing is just what it will bring," is the common trading
principle of mankind. Yet men revolt at the extreme applications of
their own principle, and denunciate any gross and palpable advantage
taken of the wants, position and necessities of others as _swindling_.
But we should recollect, that in all instances where unequal amounts of
labor are exchanged at par, advantage is really taken by him who gets
in exchange the larger amount of labor, of the wants, position and
necessities of him who receives the smaller amount.
We have said that laborers pay all taxes, but labor being capital in
slave society, the laborers or slaves are not injured by increased
taxes; and the capitalist or master has to retrench his own expenses to
meet the additional tax. Capital is not taxed in free society, but _is
taxed_ in slave society, because, in such society, labor is capital.
The capitalists and the professional can, and do, by increased profits
and fees, throw the whole burden of taxation on the laboring class.
Slaveholders cannot do so; for diminished allowance to their slaves,
would impair their value and lessen their own capital.
Our expose of what the socialists term the exploitation of skill and
capital, will not, we know, be satisfactory to slaveholders even; for,
although there be much less of such exploitation, or unjust exaction, in
slave society; still, too much of it remains to be agreeable to
contemplate. Besides, our analysis of human nature and human pursuits,
is too dark and sombre to meet with ready acceptance. We should be
rejoiced to see our theory refuted. We are sure, however, that it never
can be; but equally sure, that it is subject to many modifications and
limitations that have not occurred to us. We have this consolation,
that in rejecting as false and noxious all systems of moral philosophy,
we are thrown upon the Bible, as containing the only true system of
morals. We have attempted already to adduce three instances, in which
the justification of slavery furnished new and additional evidence of
the truth of Christianity. We will now add others.
It is notorious that infidelity appeared in the world, on an extensive
scale, only cotemporaneously with the abolition of slavery, and that it
is now limited to countries where no domestic slavery exists. Besides,
abolitionists are commonly infidels, as their speeches, conventions, and
papers daily evince. Where there is no slavery, the minds of men are
unsettled on all subjects, and there is, emphatically, faith and
conviction about nothing. Their moral and social world is in a chaotic
and anarchical state. Order, subordination and adaptation have vanished;
and with them, the belief in a Deity, the author of all order. It had
often been urged, that the order observable in the moral and physical
world, furnished strong evidence of a Deity, the author of that order.
How vastly is this argument now strengthened, by the new fact, now first
developed, that the destruction of social order generates universal
scepticism. Mere political revolutions affect social order but little,
and generate but little infidelity. It remained for social revolutions,
like those in Europe in 1848, to bring on an infidel age; for, outside
of slave society, such is the age in which we live.
If we prove that domestic slavery is, in the general, a natural and
necessary institution, we remove the greatest stumbling block to belief
in the Bible; for whilst texts, detached and torn from their context,
may be found for any other purpose, none can be found that even
militates against slavery. The distorted and forced construction of
certain passages, for this purpose, by abolitionists, if employed as a
common rule of construction, would reduce the Bible to a mere allegory,
to be interpreted to suit every vicious taste and wicked purpose.
But we have been looking merely to one side of human nature, and to that
side rendered darker by the false, antagonistic and competitive
relations in which so-called liberty and equality place man.
Man is, by nature, the most social and gregarious, and, therefore, the
least selfish of animals. Within the family there is little room,
opportunity or temptation to selfishness--and slavery leaves but little
of the world without the family. Man loves that nearest to him best.
First his wife, children and parents, then his slaves, next his
neighbors and fellow-countrymen. But his unselfishness does not stop
here. He is ready and anxious to relieve a famine in Ireland, and
shudders when he reads of a murder at the antipodes. He feels deeply for
the sufferings of domestic animals, and is rendered happy by witnessing
the enjoyments of the flocks, and herds, and carroling birds that
surround him. He sympathizes with all external nature. A parched field
distresses him, and he rejoices as he sees the groves, and the gardens,
and the plains flourishing, and blooming, and smiling about him. All men
are philanthropists, and would benefit their fellow-men if they could.
But we cannot be sure of benefiting those whom we cannot control. Hence,
all actively good men are ambitious, and would be masters, in all save
the name.
Benevolence, the love of what is without, and the disposition to incur
pain or inconvenience to advance the happiness and well-being of what is
without self, is as universal a motive of human conduct, as mere
selfishness--which is the disposition to sacrifice the good of others to
our own good.
The prevalent philosophy of the day takes cognizance of but half of
human nature--and that the worst half. Our happiness is so involved in
the happiness and well-being of everything around us, that a mere
selfish philosophy, like political economy, is a very unsafe and
delusive guide.
We employ the term Benevolence to express our outward affections,
sympathies, tastes and feelings; but it is inadequate to express our
meaning; it is not the opposite of selfishness, and unselfishness would
be too negative for our purpose. Philosophy has been so busy with the
worst feature of human nature, that it has not even found a name for
this, its better feature. We must fall back on Christianity, which
embraces man's whole nature, and though not a code of philosophy, is
something better; for it proposes to lead us through the trials and
intricacies of life, not by the mere cool calculations of the head, but
by the unerring instincts of a pure and regenerate heart. The problem
of the Moral World is too vast and complex for the human mind to
comprehend; yet the pure heart will, safely and quietly, feel its way
through the mazes that confound the head.