Do not imagine that it is only in Geneva that Christian
professors realize this peril from the loss of faith. It is never
far from the thoughts of any of them--for, of course, no man can
look at the present system and not wonder how the poor stand it,
and more especially why they stand it. There have been many
thinking men who have given up the miracle-business quite
cheerfully, but have stood appalled at the idea of letting the
lower classes find out the truth. You note that idea continually
in the writings of Professor Goldwin Smith, who was a
free-thinker, but also a bourgeois publicist, with a deep sense
of responsibility to the money-masters of the world. He was about
as honest a man as the capitalist system can produce; he was the
beau ideal of the New York "Evening Post", which indicates his
point of view. He wrote:
It can hardly be doubted that hope of compensation in a future
state, for a short measure of happiness here, has materially
helped to reconcile the less favored members of the community to
the inequalities of the existing order of things.
When I was a student in Columbia University, I took a course
called "Practical Ethics", under a professor by the name of
Hyslop. The course differed from most of the forty that I tried,
in that it gave evidence that the professor was accustomed to
read the morning paper. He had learned that American politics
were rotten; his idea of "Practical Ethics" was to outline in
elaborate detail a complete scheme of constitutional changes
which would make it impossible for the "boss" to control the
government. I think I must have been born with a charm against
bourgeois thought, for the good professor never fooled me an
instant; I remember I used to smile at the idea of how quickly
the "boss" would brush through his constitutional cobwebs. The
reforms required an elaborate campaign of publicity--and of
course long before they could be put into practice, the
politicians would be ready with devices to make them of no
effect.
Soon after this, my ethical professor resigned and went to
hunting spooks. I don't want to be unfair to him; I know that he
is a determined and courageous man, and it seems possible that he
may really have bagged some spooks. All I wish to point out here
is the method he uses in seeking to persuade the heedless rich to
support the spook-hunting industry. The very same argument as we
got from the University of Geneva and the University of Toronto!
Says our head spook-hunter:
There has been no belief that exercised so much power upon the
poor as that in a future life. The politicians, men of the world,
have known this so well as to postpone the day of political
judgment by it for many years.
And again:
The Church, having lost all its battles with science, and having
abandoned a strenuous intellectual defense of its fundamental
beliefs, has lost its power over the poor and the laboring
classes..... The spiritual ideal of life has gone out of the
masses as well as the classes, and nothing is left but a venture
on a struggle with wealth.
And again, more menacingly yet:
The rich will learn in the dangers of a social revolution that
the poor will not sacrifice both wealth and immortality.
What is to be done about this? The question answers itself: Step
up, ladies and gentlemen, and empty your purses into the
Psychical Research hat! So that we may accumulate statistics as
to the cost of milk and honey in Jerusalem the Golden!
You read what I had to say about Bootstrap-lifters, and the
Wholesale Pickpockets' Association making use of their
incantations. You admired my ability to sling language, but not
my taste; and you certainly did not think that I would back my
rhetoric with facts. But what do these quotations mean, unless
they mean what I have said? Are not these three professors men of
culture? Are they not as "spiritual" as any men of learning you
can find in our present-day society?
And now stop for a moment and put yourself in the position of the
young student of the working-class, who goes to these books and
discovers that truth is not truth, but only a bait for a snare.
Who discovers that professors of ethics, practical or
impractical, are not interested in justice among men, but only in
collecting funds for their specialty; that in order to get funds,
they are willing to teach the rich how to paralyze the minds of
the poor! Do you wonder that such young students conclude that
bourgeois thinkers do not know what honesty is, but are
prostitutes, retainers and lackeys, to be kicked out of the
temple of truth?