Werd' ich zunicht, er muss von Noth den Geist aufgeben_.
[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note_.--Angelus Silesius, see _Counsels and
Maxims_, p. 39, note.]
But the empirical point of view also to some extent enables us to
perceive that it is true, or at least possible, that our self can
exist in other beings whose consciousness is separated and different
from our own. That this is so is shown by the experience of
somnambulists. Although the identity of their ego is preserved
throughout, they know nothing, when they awake, of all that a moment
before they themselves said, did or suffered. So entirely is the
individual consciousness a phenomenon that even in the same ego two
consciousnesses can arise of which the one knows nothing of the other.
GOVERNMENT.
It is a characteristic failing of the Germans to look in the clouds
for what lies at their feet. An excellent example of this is furnished
by the treatment which the idea of _Natural Right_ has received at
the hands of professors of philosophy. When they are called upon
to explain those simple relations of human life which make up the
substance of this right, such as Right and Wrong, Property, State,
Punishment and so on, they have recourse to the most extravagant,
abstract, remote and meaningless conceptions, and out of them build a
Tower of Babel reaching to the clouds, and taking this or that form
according to the special whim of the professor for the time being. The
clearest and simplest relations of life, such as affect us directly,
are thus made quite unintelligible, to the great detriment of the
young people who are educated in such a school. These relations
themselves are perfectly simple and easily understood--as the reader
may convince himself if he will turn to the account which I have given
of them in the _Foundation of Morality_, § 17, and in my chief work,
bk. i., § 62. But at the sound of certain words, like Right, Freedom,
the Good, Being--this nugatory infinitive of the cupola--and many
others of the same sort, the German's head begins to swim, and falling
straightway into a kind of delirium he launches forth into high-flown
phrases which have no meaning whatever. He takes the most remote and
empty conceptions, and strings them together artificially, instead of
fixing his eyes on the facts, and looking at things and relations as
they really are. It is these things and relations which supply the
ideas of Right and Freedom, and give them the only true meaning that
they possess.
The man who starts from the preconceived opinion that the conception
of Right must be a positive one, and then attempts to define it, will
fail; for he is trying to grasp a shadow, to pursue a spectre, to
search for what does not exist. The conception of Right is a negative
one, like the conception of Freedom; its content is mere negation.
It is the conception of Wrong which is positive; Wrong has the same
significance as _injury_--_laesio_--in the widest sense of the term.
An injury may be done either to a man's person or to his property or
to his honour; and accordingly a man's rights are easy to define:
every one has a right to do anything that injures no one else.
To have a right to do or claim a thing means nothing more than to be
able to do or take or vise it without thereby injuring any one else.
_Simplex sigillum veri_. This definition shows how senseless many
questions are; for instance, the question whether we have the right to
take our own life, As far as concerns the personal claims which others
may possibly have upon us, they are subject to the condition that we
are alive, and fall to the ground when we die. To demand of a man, who
does not care to live any longer for himself, that he should live
on as a mere machine for the advantage of others is an extravagant
pretension.
Although men's powers differ, their rights are alike. Their rights do
not rest upon their powers, because Right is of a moral complexion;
they rest on the fact that the same will to live shows itself in
every man at the same stage of its manifestation. This, however, only
applies to that original and abstract Right, which a man possesses as
a man. The property, and also the honour, which a man acquires for
himself by the exercise of his powers, depend on the measure and kind
of power which he possesses, and so lend his Right a wider sphere of
application. Here, then, equality comes to an end. The man who is
better equipped, or more active, increases by adding to his gains, not
his Right, but the number of the things to which it extends.
In my chief work[1] I have proved that the State in its essence is
merely an institution existing for the purpose of protecting its
members against outward attack or inward dissension. It follows from
this that the ultimate ground on which the State is necessary is the
acknowledged lack of Right in the human race. If Right were there, no
one would think of a State; for no one would have any fear that his
rights would be impaired; and a mere union against the attacks of wild
beasts or the elements would have very little analogy with what we
mean by a State. From this point of view it is easy to see how dull
and stupid are the philosophasters who in pompous phrases represent
that the State is the supreme end and flower of human existence. Such
a view is the apotheosis of Philistinism.
[Footnote 1: 1 Bk. ii., ch. xlvii.]
If it were Right that ruled in the world, a man would have done enough
in building his house, and would need no other protection than the
right of possessing it, which would be obvious. But since Wrong is the
order of the day, it is requisite that the man who has built his house
should also be able to protect it. Otherwise his Right is _de
facto_ incomplete; the aggressor, that is to say, has the right of
might--_Faustrecht_; and this is just the conception of Right
which Spinoza entertains. He recognises no other. His words are:
_unusquisque tantum juris habet quantum potentia valet_;[1] each man
has as much right as he has power. And again: _uniuscujusque jus
potentia ejus definitur_; each man's right is determined by his
power.[2] Hobbes seems to have started this conception of Right,[3]
and he adds the strange comment that the Right of the good Lord to all
things rests on nothing but His omnipotence.
[Footnote 1: _Tract. Theol. Pol_., ch. ii., § 8.]
[Footnote 2: _Ethics_, IV., xxxvii., 1.]
[Footnote 3: Particularly in a passage in the _De Cive_, I, § 14.]
Now this is a conception of Right which, both in theory and in
practice, no longer prevails in the civic world; but in the world
in general, though abolished in theory, it continues to apply in
practice. The consequences of neglecting it may be seen in the case
of China. Threatened by rebellion within and foes without, this great
empire is in a defenceless state, and has to pay the penalty of having
cultivated only the arts of peace and ignored the arts of war.
There is a certain analogy between the operations of nature and those
of man which is a peculiar but not fortuitous character, and is based
on the identity of the will in both. When the herbivorous animals had
taken their place in the organic world, beasts of prey made their
appearance--necessarily a late appearance--in each species, and
proceeded to live upon them. Just in the same way, as soon as by
honest toil and in the sweat of their faces men have won from the
ground what is needed for the support of their societies, a number of
individuals are sure to arise in some of these societies, who, instead
of cultivating the earth and living on its produce, prefer to take
their lives in their hands and risk health and freedom by falling upon
those who are in possession of what they have honestly earned, and by
appropriating the fruits of their labour. These are the beasts of
prey in the human race; they are the conquering peoples whom we find
everywhere in history, from the most ancient to the most recent times.
Their varying fortunes, as at one moment they succeed and at another
fail, make up the general elements of the history of the world. Hence
Voltaire was perfectly right when he said that the aim of all war is
robbery. That those who engage in it are ashamed of their doings is
clear by the fact that governments loudly protest their reluctance to
appeal to arms except for purposes of self-defence. Instead of trying
to excuse themselves by telling public and official lies, which are
almost more revolting than war itself, they should take their stand,
as bold as brass, on Macchiavelli's doctrine. The gist of it may be
stated to be this: that whereas between one individual and another,
and so far as concerns the law and morality of their relations,
the principle, _Don't do to others what you wouldn't like done to
yourself_, certainly applies, it is the converse of this principle
which is appropriate in the case of nations and in politics: _What you
wouldn't like done to yourself do to others_. If you do not want to
be put under a foreign yoke, take time by the forelock, and put your
neighbour under it himself; whenever, that is to say, his weakness
offers you the opportunity. For if you let the opportunity pass, it
will desert one day to the enemy's camp and offer itself there. Then
your enemy will put you under his yoke; and your failure to grasp the
opportunity may be paid for, not by the generation which was guilty of
it, but by the next. This Macchiavellian principle is always a much
more decent cloak for the lust of robbery than the rags of very
obvious lies in a speech from the head of the State; lies, too, of a
description which recalls the well-known story of the rabbit attacking
the dog. Every State looks upon its neighbours as at bottom a horde of
robbers, who will fall upon it as soon as they have the opportunity.
* * * * *
Between the serf, the farmer, the tenant, and the mortgagee, the
difference is rather one of form than of substance. Whether the
peasant belongs to me, or the land on which he has to get a living;
whether the bird is mine, or its food, the tree or its fruit, is a
matter of little moment; for, as Shakespeare makes Shylock say:
_You take my life
When you do take the means whereby I live_.
The free peasant has, indeed, the advantage that he can go off and
seek his fortune in the wide world; whereas the serf who is attached
to the soil, _glebae adscriptus_, has an advantage which is perhaps
still greater, that when failure of crops or illness, old age or
incapacity, render him helpless, his master must look after him, and
so he sleeps well at night; whereas, if the crops fail, his master
tosses about on his bed trying to think how he is to procure bread for
his men. As long ago as Menander it was said that it is better to
be the slave of a good master than to live miserably as a freeman.
Another advantage possessed by the free is that if they have any
talents they can improve their position; but the same advantage is not
wholly withheld from the slave. If he proves himself useful to his
master by the exercise of any skill, he is treated accordingly; just
as in ancient Rome mechanics, foremen of workshops, architects, nay,
even doctors, were generally slaves.
Slavery and poverty, then, are only two forms, I might almost say only
two names, of the same thing, the essence of which is that a man's
physical powers are employed, in the main, not for himself but for
others; and this leads partly to his being over-loaded with work, and
partly to his getting a scanty satisfaction for his needs. For Nature
has given a man only as much physical power as will suffice, if he
exerts it in moderation, to gain a sustenance from the earth. No great
superfluity of power is his. If, then, a not inconsiderable number of
men are relieved from the common burden of sustaining the existence
of the human race, the burden of the remainder is augmented, and they
suffer. This is the chief source of the evil which under the name of
slavery, or under the name of the proletariat, has always oppressed
the great majority of the human race.
But the more remote cause of it is luxury. In order, it may be said,
that some few persons may have what is unnecessary, superfluous,
and the product of refinement--nay, in order that they may satisfy
artificial needs--a great part of the existing powers of mankind
has to be devoted to this object, and therefore withdrawn from the
production of what is necessary and indispensable. Instead of building
cottages for themselves, thousands of men build mansions for a few.
Instead of weaving coarse materials for themselves and their families,
they make fine cloths, silk, or even lace, for the rich, and in
general manufacture a thousand objects of luxury for their pleasure. A
great part of the urban population consists of workmen who make these
articles of luxury; and for them and those who give them work the
peasants have to plough and sow and look after the flocks as well
as for themselves, and thus have more labour than Nature originally
imposed upon them. Moreover, the urban population devotes a great deal
of physical strength, and a great deal of land, to such things as
wine, silk, tobacco, hops, asparagus and so on, instead of to corn,
potatoes and cattle-breeding. Further, a number of men are withdrawn
from agriculture and employed in ship-building and seafaring, in order
that sugar, coffee, tea and other goods may be imported. In short,
a large part of the powers of the human race is taken away from the
production of what is necessary, in order to bring what is superfluous
and unnecessary within the reach of a few. As long therefore as luxury
exists, there must be a corresponding amount of over-work and misery,
whether it takes the name of poverty or of slavery. The fundamental
difference between the two is that slavery originates in violence,
and poverty in craft. The whole unnatural condition of society--the
universal struggle to escape from misery, the sea-trade attended with
so much loss of life, the complicated interests of commerce, and
finally the wars to which it all gives rise--is due, only and alone,
to luxury, which gives no happiness even to those who enjoy it, nay,
makes them ill and bad-tempered. Accordingly it looks as if the most
effective way of alleviating human misery would be to diminish luxury,
or even abolish it altogether.
There is unquestionably much truth in this train of thought. But the
conclusion at which it arrives is refuted by an argument possessing
this advantage over it--that it is confirmed by the testimony of
experience. A certain amount of work is devoted to purposes of luxury.
What the human race loses in this way in the _muscular power_ which
would otherwise be available for the necessities of existence is
gradually made up to it a thousandfold by the _nervous power_, which,
in a chemical sense, is thereby released. And since the intelligence
and sensibility which are thus promoted are on a higher level than the
muscular irritability which they supplant, so the achievements of mind
exceed those of the body a thousandfold. One wise counsel is worth the
work of many hands:
[Greek: Hos en sophon bouleuma tas pollon cheiras nika.]
A nation of nothing but peasants would do little in the way of
discovery and invention; but idle hands make active heads. Science and
the Arts are themselves the children of luxury, and they discharge
their debt to it. The work which they do is to perfect technology in
all its branches, mechanical, chemical and physical; an art which in
our days has brought machinery to a pitch never dreamt of before, and
in particular has, by steam and electricity, accomplished things the
like of which would, in earlier ages, have been ascribed to the agency
of the devil. In manufactures of all kinds, and to some extent in
agriculture, machines now do a thousand times more than could ever
have been done by the hands of all the well-to-do, educated, and
professional classes, and could ever have been attained if all luxury
had been abolished and every one had returned to the life of a
peasant. It is by no means the rich alone, but all classes, who derive
benefit from these industries. Things which in former days hardly
any one could afford are now cheap and abundant, and even the lowest
classes are much better off in point of comfort. In the Middle Ages a
King of England once borrowed a pair of silk stockings from one of his
lords, so that he might wear them in giving an audience to the French
ambassador. Even Queen Elizabeth was greatly pleased and astonished to
receive a pair as a New Year's present; to-day every shopman has them.
Fifty years ago ladies wore the kind of calico gowns which servants
wear now. If mechanical science continues to progress at the same
rate for any length of time, it may end by saving human labour almost
entirely, just as horses are even now being largely superseded by
machines. For it is possible to conceive that intellectual culture
might in some degree become general in the human race; and this would
be impossible as long as bodily labour was incumbent on any great part
of it. Muscular irritability and nervous sensibility are always and
everywhere, both generally and particularly, in antagonism; for the
simple reason that it is one and the same vital power which underlies
both. Further, since the arts have a softening effect on character, it
is possible that quarrels great and small, wars and duels, will vanish
from the world; just as both have become much rarer occurrences.
However, it is not my object here to write a _Utopia_.
But apart from all this the arguments used above in favour of the
abolition of luxury and the uniform distribution of all bodily labour
are open to the objection that the great mass of mankind, always and
everywhere, cannot do without leaders, guides and counsellors, in
one shape or another, according to the matter in question; judges,
governors, generals, officials, priests, doctors, men of learning,
philosophers, and so on, are all a necessity. Their common task is to
lead the race for the greater part so incapable and perverse, through
the labyrinth of life, of which each of them according to his position
and capacity has obtained a general view, be his range wide or narrow.
That these guides of the race should be permanently relieved of all
bodily labour as well as of all vulgar need and discomfort; nay,
that in proportion to their much greater achievements they should
necessarily own and enjoy more than the common man, is natural and
reasonable. Great merchants should also be included in the same
privileged class, whenever they make far-sighted preparations for
national needs.
The question of the sovereignty of the people is at bottom the same
as the question whether any man can have an original right to rule
a people against its will. How that proposition can be reasonably
maintained I do not see. The people, it must be admitted, is
sovereign; but it is a sovereign who is always a minor. It must have
permanent guardians, and it can never exercise its rights itself,
without creating dangers of which no one can foresee the end;
especially as like all minors, it is very apt to become the sport of
designing sharpers, in the shape of what are called demagogues.
Voltaire remarks that the first man to become a king was a successful
soldier. It is certainly the case that all princes were originally
victorious leaders of armies, and for a long time it was as such that
they bore sway. On the rise of standing armies princes began to regard
their people as a means of sustaining themselves and their soldiers,
and treated them, accordingly, as though they were a herd of cattle,
which had to be tended in order that it might provide wool, milk, and
meat. The why and wherefore of all this, as I shall presently show in
detail, is the fact that originally it was not right, but might, that
ruled in the world. Might has the advantage of having been the first
in the field. That is why it is impossible to do away with it and
abolish it altogether; it must always have its place; and all that a
man can wish or ask is that it should be found on the side of right
and associated with it. Accordingly says the prince to his subjects:
"I rule you in virtue of the power which I possess. But, on the other
hand, it excludes that of any one else, and I shall suffer none but
my own, whether it comes from without, or arises within by one of you
trying to oppress another. In this way, then, you are protected." The
arrangement was carried out; and just because it was carried out the
old idea of kingship developed with time and progress into quite a
different idea, and put the other one in the background, where it may
still be seen, now and then, flitting about like a spectre. Its place
has been taken by the idea of the king as father of his people, as
the firm and unshakable pillar which alone supports and maintains the
whole organisation of law and order, and consequently the rights
of every man.[1] But a king can accomplish this only by inborn
prerogative which reserves authority to him and to him alone--an
authority which is supreme, indubitable, and beyond all attack, nay,
to which every one renders instinctive obedience. Hence the king is
rightly said to rule "by the grace of God." He is always the most
useful person in the State, and his services are never too dearly
repaid by any Civil List, however heavy.
[Footnote 1: We read in Stobaeus, _Florilegium_, ch. xliv., 41, of a
Persian custom, by which, whenever a king died, there was a five days'
anarchy, in order that people might perceive the advantage of having
kings and laws.]
But even as late a writer as Macchiavelli was so decidedly imbued with
the earlier or mediaeval conception of the position of a prince that
he treats it as a matter which is self-evident: he never discusses it,
but tacitly takes it as the presupposition and basis of his advice.
It may be said generally that his book is merely the theoretical
statement and consistent and systematic exposition of the practice
prevailing in his time. It is the novel statement of it in a complete
theoretical form that lends it such a poignant interest. The same
thing, I may remark in passing, applies to the immortal little work of
La Rochefaucauld, who, however, takes private and not public life for
his theme, and offers, not advice, but observations. The title of this
fine little book is open, perhaps, to some objection: the contents are
not, as a rule, either _maxims_ or _reflections_, but _aperçus_;
and that is what they should be called. There is much, too, in
Macchiavelli that will be found also to apply to private life.
Right in itself is powerless; in nature it is Might that rules. To
enlist might on the side of right, so that by means of it right
may rule, is the problem of statesmanship. And it is indeed a hard
problem, as will be obvious if we remember that almost every human
breast is the seat of an egoism which has no limits, and is usually
associated with an accumulated store of hatred and malice; so that
at the very start feelings of enmity largely prevail over those of
friendship. We have also to bear in mind that it is many millions of
individuals so constituted who have to be kept in the bonds of law
and order, peace and tranquillity; whereas originally every one had
a right to say to every one else: _I am just as good as you are_! A
consideration of all this must fill us with surprise that on the whole
the world pursues its way so peacefully and quietly, and with so much
law and order as we see to exist. It is the machinery of State which
alone accomplishes it. For it is physical power alone which has any
direct action on men; constituted as they generally are, it is for
physical power alone that they have any feeling or respect.