THE VIRTUE OF MODERATION
(Attempts to show that wise conduct is an adjustment of means to
ends, and depends upon the understanding of a particular set of
circumstances.)
Some years ago I used to know an ardent single tax propagandist who
found my way of arguing intensely irritating, because, as he phrased it,
I had "no principles." We would be discussing, for example, a protective
tariff, and I would wish to collect statistics, but discovered to my
bewilderment that to my single tax friend a customs duty was "stealing"
on the part of the government. The government had a right to tax land,
because that was the gift of nature, but it had no right to tax the
products of human labor, and when it took a portion of the goods which
anyone brought into a country, the government was playing the part of a
robber. Of course such a man was annoyed by the suggestion that in the
early stages of a country's development it might possibly be a good
thing for the country to make itself independent and self-sufficient by
encouraging the development of its manufactures; that, on the other
hand, when these manufactures had grown to such a size that they
controlled the government, it might be an excellent thing for the
country to subject them to the pressure of foreign competition, in order
to lower their value as a preliminary to socializing them.
The reader who comes to this book looking for hard and fast rules of
life will be disappointed. It would be convenient if someone could lay
down for us a moral code, and lift from our shoulders the inconvenient
responsibility of deciding about our own lives. There may be persons so
weak that they have to have the conditions of their lives thus
determined for them; but I am not writing for such persons. I am writing
for adult and responsible individuals, and I bear in mind that every
individual is a separate problem, with separate needs and separate
duties. There are, of course, a good many rules that apply to everybody
in almost all emergencies, but I cannot think of a single rule that I
would be willing to say I would apply in my life without a single
exception. "Thou shalt not kill" is a rule that I have followed, so far
without exception; but as soon as I turn my imagination loose, I can
think of many circumstances under which I should kill. I remember
discussing the matter with a pacifist friend of mine, an out-and-out
religious non-resistant. I pointed out to him that people sometimes went
insane, and in that condition they sometimes seized hatchets and killed
anyone in sight. What would my pacifist friend do if he saw a maniac
attacking his children with a hatchet? It did not help him to say that
he would use all possible means short of killing the maniac; he had
finally to admit that if he were quite sure it was a question of the
life of the maniac or the life of his child, he would kill. And this is
not mere verbal quibbling, because such things do happen in the world,
and people are confronted with such emergencies, and they have to
decide, and no rule is a general rule if it has a single exception.
There is a saying that "the exception proves the rule," but this is very
silly; it is a mistranslation of the Latin word "probat," which means,
not proves, but tests. No exception can prove a rule. What the exception
does is to test the rule by showing that the result does not follow in
the exceptional case.
The only kind of rule which can be laid down for human conduct is a rule
in such general terms that it escapes exceptions by leaving the matter
open for every man's difference of opinion. Any kind of rule which is
specific will sooner or later pass out of date. Take, by way of
illustration, the ancient and well-established virtue of frugality.
Obviously, under a state of nature, or of economic competition, it is
necessary for every man to lay by a store "for a rainy day." But suppose
we could set up a condition of economic security, under which society
guaranteed to every man the full product of his labor, and the old and
the sick were fully taken care of--then how foolish a man would seem who
troubled to acquire a surplus of goods! It would be as if we saw him
riding on horseback through the main street of our town in a full suit
of armor!
I devote a good deal of space to this question of a fixed and
unchangeable morality, because it is one of the heaviest burdens that
mankind carries upon its back. The record of human history is sickening,
not so much because of blood and slaughter, but because of fanaticism;
because wherever the mind of man attempts to assert itself, to escape
from the blind rule of animal greed, it adopts a set of formulas, and
proceeds to enforce them, regardless of consequences, upon the whole of
life. Consider, for example, the rule of the Puritans in England. The
Puritans glorified conscience, and it is perfectly proper to glorify
conscience, but not to the entire suppression of the beauty-making
faculties in man. Macaulay summed up the Puritan point of view in the
sentence that they objected to bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to
the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators. As a result of
applying that principle, and lacing mankind in a straight-jacket by
legislation, England swung back into a reaction under the Cavaliers, in
which debauchery held more complete sway than ever before or since in
English life.
This is a hard lesson, but it must be learned: there is no virtue that
does not become a vice if it is carried to extremes; there is no virtue
that does not become a vice if it is applied at the wrong time, or under
the wrong circumstances, or at the wrong stage of human development. In
fact, we may say that most vices are virtues misapplied. The so-called
natural vices are simply natural impulses carried to excess, while the
unnatural vices result from the suppression and distortion of natural
impulses. The Greeks had as their supreme virtue what they called
"sophrosune." It is a beautiful word, worth remembering; it means a
beautiful quality called moderation. We shall find, as we come to
investigate, that life is a series of compromises among many different
needs, many different desires, many different duties; and reason sits as
a wise and patient judge, and appoints to each its proper portion, and
denies to it an excess which would starve the others. Such is true
morality, and it is incompatible with the existence of any fixed code,
whether of human origin or divine.
The fixed morality is a survival of a far-off past, of the days of
instinct and servitude. Human reason has developed but slowly, and
perhaps only a few people are as yet entirely capable of taking control
of their own destiny; perhaps it is really dangerous to think for
oneself! But if we investigate carefully, we may decide that the danger
is not so much to ourselves as it is to others. The most evil of all the
habits that man has inherited from his far-off past is the habit of
exploiting his fellows, and in order to exploit them more safely the
ruling castes of priests and kings and nobles and property owners have
taken possession of the moralities of the world and shaped them for
their own convenience. They have taught the slave virtues of credulity
and submission; they have surrounded their teachings with all the
terrors of the supernatural; they have placed upon rebellion the
penalties, not merely of this world, but of the next, not merely of the
dungeon and the rack, but of hellfire and brimstone.
I do not wish to go to extremes and say that the moral codes now taught
in the world are made wholly in this evil way. As a matter of fact they
are a queer jumble of the two elements, the slave terrors of the past
and the common sense of the present. There is not one moral code in the
world today, there are many. There is one for the rich, and an entirely
different one for the poor, and the rich have had a great deal more to
do with shaping the code of the poor than the poor have had to do with
shaping the code of the rich. There is one code for governments, and an
entirely different one for the victims of governments. There is one code
for business, and an entirely different one, a far more human and decent
one, for friendship. Above all, there is one code for Sunday and another
code for the other six days of the week. Most of our idealisms and our
sentimental fine phrases we reserve for our Sunday code, while for our
every-day code we go back to the rule of the jungle: "Dog eat dog," or
"Do unto others as they would do unto you, but do it first." When you
attempt to suggest a new moral code to our present day moral
authorities, it is the fine phrases of the Sunday code they bring out
for exhibition purposes; and perhaps you are impressed by their
arguments--until Monday morning, when you attempt to apply this code at
the office, and they stare at you in bewilderment, or burst out laughing
in your face.
What I am trying to do here is to outline a code that will not be a
matter of phrases but a matter of practice. It will apply to all men,
rich as well as poor, and to all seven days of the week. I am not so
much suggesting a code, as pointing out to you how you can work out your
own code for yourself. I am suggesting that you should adopt it, not
because I tell you to, but because you yourself have taken it and tested
it, precisely as you would test any other of the practical affairs of
your life--potatoes as an article of diet, or some particular sack of
potatoes that a peddler was trying to sell to you. It is not yet
possible for you to be as sure about everything in your life as you can
be about a sack of potatoes; human knowledge has not got that far; but
at least you can know what is to be known, and if anything is a matter
of uncertainty, you can know that. Such knowledge is often the most
important of all--just as the driver of an automobile wants to know if a
bridge is not to be depended on.
So I say to you that if you want to find happiness in this life, look
with distrust upon all absolutes and ultimates, all hard and fast rules,
all formulas and dogmas and "general principles." Bear in mind that
there are many factors in every case, there are many complications in
every human being, there are many sides to every question. Try to keep
an open mind and an even temper. Try to take an interest in learning
something new every day, and in trying some new experiment. This is the
scientific attitude toward life; this is the way of growth and of true
success. It is inconvenient, because it involves working your brains,
and most people have not been taught to do this, and find it the hardest
kind of work there is. But how much better it is to think for yourself,
and to protect yourself, than to trust your thinking to some group of
people whose only interest may be to exploit you for their advantage!