the questions look which have been touched upon to-night. Those
questions have been connected mainly with government and property. And
upon these two factors, it would seem, in the opinion of previous
speakers, all the interests of society turn. But from the point where
we now stand we see clearly that there is a third factor to which these
are altogether subordinate--I mean the family. For the family is the
immediate agent in the production and rearing of children; and this, as
we have seen, is the end of society. With the family therefore social
reconstruction should start. And we may lay down as the fundamental
ethical and social axiom that everybody not physically disqualified
ought to marry, and to produce at least four children. The only
question here is whether the state should intervene and endeavour so to
regulate marriages as to bring together those whose union is most
likely to result in good offspring. This is a point on which the
ancients, I am aware, in their light-hearted sciolism laid great
stress. Only, characteristically enough, they ignored the fundamental
difficulty, that nothing is known--nothing even now, and how much less
then!--of the conditions necessary to produce the desired result. If
ever the conditions should come to be understood--and the problem is
pre-eminently one for science; and if ever--what is even more
difficult--we should come to know clearly and exactly for what points
we ought to breed; then, no doubt, it may be desirable for government
to undertake the complete regulation of marriage. Meantime, we must
confine our efforts to the simpler and more manageable task of securing
for the children when they are born the best possible environment,
physical, intellectual and moral. But this may be done, even without a
radical reconstruction of the law of property simply by proceeding
further on the lines on which we are already embarked, by insisting on
a certain standard, and that a high one, of house-room, sanitation,
food, and the like. We could thus ensure from the beginning for every
child at least a sound physical development; and that without
undermining the responsibility of parents. What else the state can do
it must do by education; a thing which, at present, I do not hesitate
to say, does not exist among us. We have an elementary system of cram
and drill directed by the soulless automata it has itself produced; a
secondary system of athletics and dead languages presided over by
gentlemanly amateurs; and a university system which--well, of which I
cannot trust myself to speak. I wish only to indicate that, in the
eyes of the new generation, breeding and education are the two cardinal
pillars of society. All other questions, even those of property and
government, are subordinate; and only as subordinate can they be
fruitfully approached. Take, for example, property. On this point we
have no prejudices, either socialistic or anti-socialistic. Property,
as we view it, is simply a tool for producing and perfecting men.
Whether it will serve that purpose best if controlled by individuals or
by the state, or partly by the one and partly by the other, we regard
as an open question, to be settled by experiment. We see no principle
one way or the other. Property is not a right, nor a duty, nor a
privilege, either of individuals or of the community. It is simply and
solely, like everything else, a function of the chain of births.
Whoever owns it, however it is administered, it has only one object, to
ensure for every child that is born a sufficiency of physical goods,
and for the better-endowed all that they require in the way of training
to enable them to perform efficiently the higher duties of society.
"And as property is merely a means, so is government. To us of the new
generation nothing is more surprising and more repugnant, than the
importance attached by politicians to formulae which have long since
lost whatever significance they may once have possessed. Democracy,
representation, trust in the people and the rest, all this to us is the
idlest verbiage. It is notorious, even to those who make most play
with these phrases, that the people do not govern themselves, that they
cannot do so, and that they would make a great mess of it if they
could. The truth is, that we are living politically on a tradition
which arose when by government was meant government by a class, when
one man or a few exploited the rest in the name of the state, and when
therefore it was of imperative importance to bring to bear upon those
who were in power the brute and unintelligent weight of the mass. The
whole democratic movement, though it assumed a positive intellectual
form, was in fact negative in its aim and scope. It meant simply, we
will not be exploited. But that end has now been attained. There is
no fear now that government will be oppressive; and the only problem of
the future is, how to make it efficient. But efficiency, it is
certain, can never be secured by democratic machinery. We must, as
Allison rightly maintains, have trained and skilled persons. How these
are to be secured is a matter of detail, though no doubt of important
detail; and it is one that the new generation will have to solve. What
they will want, in any case, is government. MacCarthy's idea of
anarchy is--well, if he will pardon my saying so, it is hardly worthy
of his intelligence. You cannot regulate society, any more than you
can spin cotton, by the light of nature and a good heart. MacCarthy
mistakes the character of government altogether, when he imagines its
essence to be compulsion. Its essence is direction; and direction,
whatever the form of society, is, or should be, reserved for the wise.
It is for wise direction that the coming generations cry; and it is our
business to see that they get it.
"I have thus indicated briefly the view of social and political
questions which I believe will be that of the future. And my reason
for thinking so is, that that view is based upon science. It is this
that distinguishes the new generation from all others. Hitherto the
affairs of the world have been conducted by passion, interest,
sentiment, religion, anything but reasoned knowledge. The end of that
regime, which has dominated all history, is at hand. The old
influences, it is true, still survive, and even appear to be supreme.
We have had ample evidence to-night of their apparent vitality. But
underneath them is growing up the sturdy plant of science. Already it
has dislodged their roots; and though they still seem to bear flower,
the flower is withering before our eyes. In its place, before long,
will appear the new and splendid blossom whose appearance ends and
begins an epoch of evolution. That is a consummation nothing can
delay. We need not fret or hurry. We have only to work on silently at
the foundations. The city, it is true, seems to be rising apart from
our labours. There, in the distance, are the stately buildings, there
is the noise of the masons, the carpenters, the engineers. But see!
the whole structure shakes and trembles as it grows. Houses fall as
fast as they are erected; foundations sink, towers settle, domes and
pinnacles collapse. All history is the building of a dream-city,
fantastic as that ancient one of the birds, changeful as the sunset
clouds. And no wonder; for it is building on the sand. There is only
one foundation of rock, and that is being laid by science. Only wait!
To us will come sooner or later, the people and the architects. To us
they will submit the great plans they have striven so vainly to
realize. We shall pronounce on their possibility, their suitability,
even their beauty. Caesar and Napoleon will give place to Comte and
Herbert Spencer; and Newton and Darwin sit in judgment on Plato and
Aquinas."
WITH that he concluded. And as he sat down a note was passed along to
me from Ellis, asking permission to speak next. I assented willingly;
for Ellis, though some of us thought him frivolous, was, at any rate,
never dull. His sunburnt complexion, his fair curly hair, and the
light in his blue eyes made a pleasant impression, as he rose and
looked down upon us from his six feet.
"This," he began, "is really an extraordinary discovery Wilson has
made, that fathers have children, and children fathers! One wonders
how the world has got on all these centuries in ignorance of it. It
seems so obvious, once it has been stated. But that, of course, is the
nature of great truths; as soon as they are announced they seem to have
been always familiar. It is possible, for that very reason, that many
people may under-estimate the importance of Wilson's pronouncement,
forgetting that it is the privilege of genius to formulate for the
first time what everyone has been dimly feeling. We ought not to be
ungrateful; but perhaps it is our duty to be cautious. For great ideas
naturally suggest practical applications, and it is here that I foresee
difficulties. What Wilson's proposition in fact amounts to, if I
understand him rightly, is that we ought to open as wide as possible
the gates of life, and make those who enter as comfortable as we can.
Now, I think we ought to be very careful about doing anything of the
kind. We know, of course, very little about the conditions of the
unborn. But I think it highly probable that, like labour, as described
by the political economists, they form throughout the universe a single
mobile body, with a tendency to gravitate wherever the access is freest
and the conditions most favourable. And I should be very much afraid
of attracting what we may call, perhaps, the unemployed of the universe
in undue proportions to this planet, by offering them artificially
better terms than are to be obtained elsewhere. For that, as you know,
would defeat our own object. We should merely cause an exodus, as it
were, from the outlying and rural districts. Mars, or the moon, or
whatever the place may be; and the amount of distress and difficulty on
the earth would be greater than ever. At any rate, I should insist,
and I dare say Wilson agrees with me there, on some adequate test. And
I would not advertise too widely what we are doing. After all, other
planets must be responsible for their own unborn; and I don't see why
we should become a kind of dumping-ground of the universe for everyone
who may imagine he can better himself by migrating to the earth. For
that reason, among others, I would not open the gate too wide. And,
perhaps, in view of this consideration, we might still permit some
people not to marry. At any rate, I wouldn't go further, I think, than
a fine for recalcitrant bachelors. Wilson, I dare say, would prefer
imprisonment for a second offence, and in case of contumacy, even
capital punishment. On such a point I am not, I confess, an altogether
impartial judge, as I should certainly incur the greater penalty.
Still, as I have said, in the general interests of society, and in view
of the conditions of the universal market, I would urge caution and
deliberation. And that is all I have to say at present on this very
interesting subject.
"The other point that interested me in Wilson's remarks was not,
indeed, so novel as the discovery about fathers having children, but it
was, in its way, equally important. I mean, the announcement made with
authority that the human race really does, as has been so often
conjectured, progress. We may take it now, I suppose, that that is
established, or Wilson would not have proclaimed it. And we are,
therefore, in a position roughly to determine in what progress
consists. This is a task which, I believe, I am more competent to
attempt perhaps even than Wilson himself, because I have had unusual
opportunities of travel, and have endeavoured to utilize them to clear
my mind of prejudices. I flatter myself that I can regard with perfect
impartiality the ideals of different countries, and in particular those
of the new world which, I presume, are to dominate the future. In
attempting to estimate what progress means, one could not do better, I
suppose, than describe the civilization of the United States. For in
describing that, one will be describing the whole civilization of the
future, seeing that what America is our colonies are, or will become,
and what our colonies are we, too, may hope to attain, if we make the
proper sacrifices to preserve the unity of the empire. Let us see,
then, what, from an objective point of view, really is the future of
this progressing world of ours.
"Perhaps, however, before proceeding to analyse the spiritual ideals of
the American people, I had better give some account of their country.
For environment, as we all know now, has an incalculable effect upon
character. Consider, then, the American continent! How simple it is!
How broad! How large! How grand in design! A strip of coast, a range
of mountains, a plain, a second range, a second strip of coast! That
is all! Contrast the complexity of Europe, its lack of symmetry, its
variety, irregularity, disorder and caprice! The geography of the two
continents already foreshadows the differences in their civilizations.
On the one hand simplicity and size; on the other a hole-and-corner
variety; there immense rivers, endless forests, interminable plains,
indefinite repetition of a few broad ideas; here distracting
transitions, novelties, surprises, shocks, distinctions in a word,
already suggesting Distinction. Even in its physical features America
is the land of quantity, while Europe is that of quality. And as with
the land, so with its products. How large are the American fruits!
How tall the trees! How immense the oysters! What has Europe by
comparison! Mere flavour and form, mere beauty, delicacy and grace!
America, one would say, is the latest work of the great artist--we are
told, indeed, by geologists, that it is the youngest of the
continents--conceived at an age when he had begun to repeat himself,
broad, summary, impressionist, audacious in empty space; whereas Europe
would seem to represent his pre-Raphaelite period, in its wealth of
detail, its variety of figure, costume, architecture, landscape, its
crudely contrasted colours and minute precision of individual form.
"And as with the countries, so with their civilizations. Europe is the
home of class, America of democracy. By democracy I do not mean a mere
form of government--in that respect, of course, America is less
democratic than England: I mean the mental attitude that implies and
engenders Indistinction. Indistinction, I say, rather than equality,
for the word equality is misleading, and might seem to imply, for
example, a social and economic parity of conditions, which no more
exists in America than it does in Europe. Politically, as well as
socially, America is a plutocracy; her democracy is spiritual and
intellectual; and its essence is, the denial of all superiorities save
that of wealth. Such superiorities, in fact, hardly exist across the
Atlantic. All men there are intelligent, all efficient, all energetic;
and as these are the only qualities they possess, so they are the only
ones they feel called upon to admire. How different is the case with
Europe! How innumerable and how confusing the gradations! For
diversities of language and race, indeed, we may not be altogether
responsible; but we have superadded to these, distinctions of manner,
of feeling, of perception, of intellectual grasp and spiritual insight,
unknown to the simpler and vaster consciousness of the West. In
addition, in short, to the obvious and fundamentally natural standard
of wealth, we have invented others impalpable and artificial in their
character; and however rapidly these may be destined to disappear as
the race progresses, and the influence of the West begins to dominate
the East, they do, nevertheless, still persist, and give to our effete
civilization the character of Aristocracy, that is of Caste. In all
this we see, as I have suggested, the influence of environment. The
old-world stock, transplanted across the ocean, imitates the
characteristics of its new home. Sloughing off artificial
distinctions, it manifests itself in bold simplicity, broad as the
plains, turbulent as the rivers, formless as the mountains, crude as
the fruits of its adopted country."
"Yet while thus forming themselves into the image of the new world, the
Americans have not disdained to make use of such acquisitions of the
Past as might be useful to them in the task that lay before them. They
have rejected our ideals and our standards; but they have borrowed our
capital and our inventions. They have thus been able--a thing unknown
before in the history of the world--to start the battle against Nature
with weapons ready forged. On the material results they have thus been
able to achieve it is the less necessary for me to dilate, that they
keep us so fully informed of them themselves. But it may be
interesting to note an important consequence in their spiritual life,
which has commonly escaped the notice of observers. Thanks to Europe,
America has never been powerless in the face of Nature; therefore has
never felt Fear; therefore never known Reverence; and therefore never
experienced Religion. It may seem paradoxical to make such an
assertion about the descendants of the Puritan Fathers; nor do I forget
the notorious fact that America is the home of the sects, from the
followers of Joseph Smith to those of Mrs. Eddy. But these are the
phenomena that illustrate my point. A nation which knew what religion
was, in the European sense; whose roots were struck in the soil of
spiritual conflict, of temptations and visions in haunted forests or
desert sands by the Nile, of midnight risings, scourgings of the flesh,
dirges in vast cathedrals, and the miracle of the Host solemnly veiled
in a glory of painted light--such a nation would never have accepted
Christian Science as a religion. No! Religion in America is a
parasite without roots. The questions that have occupied Europe from
the dawn of her history, for which she has fought more fiercely than
for empire or liberty, for which she has fasted in deserts, agonized in
cells, suffered on the cross, and at the stake, for which she has
sacrificed wealth, health, ease, intelligence, life, these questions of
the meaning of the world, the origin and destiny of the soul, the life
after death, the existence of God, and His relation to the universe,
for the American people simply do not exist. They are as inaccessible,
as impossible to them, as the Sphere to the dwellers in Flatland. That
whole dimension is unknown to them. Their healthy and robust
intelligence confines itself to the things of this world. Their
religion, if they have one, is what I believe they call
'healthy-mindedness.' It consists in ignoring everything that might
suggest a doubt as to the worth of existence, and so conceivably
paralyse activity. 'Let us eat and drink,' they say, with a hearty and
robust good faith; omitting as irrelevant and morbid the discouraging
appendix, 'for to-morrow we die.' Indeed! What has death to do with
buildings twenty-four stories high, with the fastest trains, the
noisiest cities, the busiest crowds in the world, and generally the
largest, the finest, the most accelerated of everything that exists?
America has sloughed off religion; and as, in the history of Europe,
religion has underlain every other activity, she has sloughed off,
along with it, the whole European system of spiritual life.
Literature, for instance, and Art, do not exist across the Atlantic. I
am aware, of course, that Americans write books and paint pictures.
But their books are not Literature, nor their pictures Art, except in
so far as they represent a faint adumbration of the European tradition.
The true spirit of America has no use for such activities. And even
if, as must occasionally happen in a population of eighty millions,
there is born among them a man of artistic instincts, he is immediately
and inevitably repelled to Europe, whence he derives his training and
his inspiration, and where alone he can live, observe and create. That
this must be so from the nature of the case is obvious when we reflect
that the spirit of Art is disinterested contemplation, while that of
America is cupidous acquisition. Americans, I am aware, believe that
they will produce Literature and Art, as they produce coal and steel
and oil, by the judicious application of intelligence and capital; but
here they do themselves injustice. The qualities that are making them
masters of the world, unfit them for slighter and less serious
pursuits. The Future is for them, the kingdom of elevators, of
telephones, of motor-cars, of flying-machines. Let them not idly hark
back, misled by effete traditions, to the old European dream of the
kingdom of heaven. '_Excudent alii_,' let them say, 'for Europe,
Letters and Art; _tu regere argento populos, Morgane, memento_, let
America rule the world by Syndicates and Trusts!' For such is her true
destiny; and that she conceives it to be such, is evidenced by the
determination with which she has suppressed all irrelevant activities.
Every kind of disinterested intellectual operation she has severely
repudiated. In Europe we take delight in the operations of the mind as
such, we let it play about a subject, merely for the fun of the thing;
we approve knowledge for its own sake; we appreciate irony and wit.
But all this is unknown in America. The most intelligent people in the
world, they severely limit their intelligence to the adaptation of
means to ends. About the ends themselves they never permit themselves
to speculate; and for this reason, though they calculate, they never
think, though they invent, they never discover, and though they talk,
they never converse. For thought implies speculation; discovery,
reflection; conversation, leisure; and all alike imply a
disinterestedness which has no place in the American system. For the
same reason they do not play; they have converted games into battles;
and battles in which every weapon is legitimate so long as it is
victorious. An American football match exhibits in a type the American
spirit, short, sharp, scientific, intense, no loitering by the road, no
enjoyment of the process, no favour, no quarter, but a fight to the
death with victory as the end, and anything and everything as the means.
"A nation so severely practical could hardly be expected to attach the
same importance to the emotions as has been attributed to them by
Europeans. Feeling, like Intellect, is not regarded, in the West, as
an end in itself. And it is not uninteresting to note that the
Americans are the only great nation that have not produced a single
lyric of love worth recording. Physically, as well as spiritually,
they are a people of cold temperament. Their women, so much and, I do
not doubt, so legitimately admired, are as hard as they are brilliant;
their glitter is the glitter of ice. Thus happily constituted,
Americans are able to avoid the immense waste of time and energy
involved in the formation and maintenance of subtle personal relations.
They marry, of course, they produce children, they propagate the race;
but, I would venture to say, they do not love, as Europeans have loved;
they do not exploit the emotion, analyse and enjoy it, still less
express it in manners, in gesture, in epigram, in verse. And hence the
kind of shudder produced in a cultivated European by the treatment of
emotion in American fiction. The authors are trying to express
something they have never experienced, and to graft the European
tradition on to a civilization which has none of the elements necessary
to nourish and support it.
"From this brief analysis of the attitude of Americans towards life,
the point with which I started will, I hope, have become clear, that it
is idle to apply to them any of the tests which we apply to a European
civilization. For they have rejected, whether they know it or not, our
whole scheme of values. What, then, is their own? What do they
recognize as an end? This is an interesting point on which I have
reflected much in the course of my travels. Sometimes I have thought
it was wealth, sometimes power, sometimes activity. But a poem, or at
least a production in metre, which I came across in the States, gave me
a new idea upon the subject. On such a point I speak with great
diffidence; but I am inclined to think that my author was right; that
the real end which Americans set before themselves is Acceleration. To
be always moving, and always moving faster, that they think is the
beatific life; and with their happy detachment from philosophy and
speculation, they are not troubled by the question, Whither? If they
are asked by Europeans, as they sometimes are, what is the point of
going so fast? their only feeling is one of genuine astonishment. Why,
they reply, you go fast! And what more can be said? Hence, their
contempt for the leisure so much valued by Europeans. Leisure they
feel, to be a kind of standing still, the unpardonable sin. Hence,
also, their aversion to play, to conversation, to everything that is
not work. I once asked an American who had been describing to me the
scheme of his laborious life, where it was that the fun came in? He
replied, without hesitation and without regret, that it came in
nowhere. How should it? It could only act as a brake; and a brake
upon Acceleration is the last thing tolerable to the American genius.