I have come to the end of my task; but one question troubles me.
I think of the "young men and maidens meek" who will read this
book, and I wonder what they will make of it. We have had a lark
together; we have gone romping down the vista of the ages,
swatting*, every venerable head that showed itself, beating the
dust out of ancient delusions. You would like all your life to be
that kind of lark; but you may not find it so, and perhaps you
will suffer disillusionment and vexation.
I have known hundreds of young radicals in my life; they have
nearly all been gallant and honest, but they have not all been
wise, and therefore not so happy as they might have been. In the
course of time I have formulated to myself the peril to which
young radicals are exposed. We see so much that is wrong in
ancient things, it gets to be a habit with us to reject them. We
have only to know that a thing is old to feel an impulse of
impatient scorn; on the other hand, we are tempted to welcome
anything which can prove itself to be unprecedented. There is a
common type of radical whose aim in life is to be several jumps
ahead of mankind; whose criterion of conduct is that it shocks
the bourgeois. If you do not know that type, you may find
him--and her--in the newest of the Bohemian cafes, drinking the
newest red chemicals, smoking the newest brand of cigarettes, and
discussing the newest form of psycopathia sexualis. After you
have watched them a while, you realize that these ultra-new
people have fallen victim to the oldest form of logical fallacy,
the non sequitur, and likewise to the oldest form of slavery,
which is self-indulgence.
If it is true that much in the old moral codes is based upon
ignorance, and cultivated by greed, it is also true that much in
the old moral codes is based upon facts which will not change so
long as man is what he is--a creature of impulses, good and bad,
wise and foolish, selfish and generous, and compelled to make
choice between these impulses; so long as he is a material body
and a personal consciousness, obliged to live in society and
adjust himself to the rights of others. What I would like to say
to young radicals--if there is any way to say it without seeming
a prig--is that in choosing their own path through life, they
will need not merely enthusiasm and radical fervor, but wisdom
and judgment and hard study.
It is our fundamental demand that society shall cease to repeat
over and over the blunders of the past, the blunders of tyranny
and slavery, of luxury and poverty, which wrecked the ancient
societies; and surely it is a poor way to begin by repeating in
our own persons the most ancient blunders of the moral life. To
light the fires of lust in our hearts, and let them smoulder
there, and imagine we are trying new experiments in psychology!
Who does not know the radical woman who demonstrates her
emancipation from convention by destroying her nerves with
nicotine? Who does not know the genius of revolt who demonstrates
his repudiation of private property by permitting his lady loves
to support him? Who does not know the man who finds in the
phrases of revolution the most effective devices for the seducing
of young girls?
You will have read this book to ill purpose if you draw the
conclusion that there is anything in it to spare you the duty of
getting yourself moral standards and holding yourself to them. On
the contrary, because your task is the highest and hardest that
man has yet undertaken--for this reason you will need standards
the most exacting ever formulated. Let me quote some words from a
teacher you will not accuse of holding to the slave-moralities:
Free dost thou call thyself? Thy ruling thoughts will I hear, and
not that thou hast escaped a yoke.
Art thou such a one that can escape a yoke?
Free from what? What is that to Zarathustra! Clear shall your eye
tell me: free to what?
Canst thou give to thyself thy good and thine evil, and hang thy
will above thee as thy law? Canst thou be thine own judge, and
avenger of thy law?
Fearful it is to be alone with the judge and the avenger of thy
law. So is a stone flung out into empty space and into the icy
breath of isolation.
Out of the pit of ignorance and despair we emerge into the
sunlight of knowledge, to take control of a world, and to make it
over, not according to the will of any gods, but according to the
law in our own hearts. For that task we have need of all the
resources of our being; of courage and high devotion, of faith in
ourselves and our comrades, of clean, straight thinking, of
discipline both of body and mind. We go to this task with a
knowledge as old as the first moral impulse of mankind--the
knowledge that our actions determine the future of life, not
merely for ourselves but for all the race. For this is one of the
laws of the ancient Hebrews which modern science has not
repealed, but on the contrary has reinforced with a thousand
confirmations--that the sins of the fathers are visited upon the
children unto the third and fourth generations.
I get letters from the readers of my books; nearly always they
are young people, so I feel like the father of a large family. I
gather them now about my knee, and pronounce upon them a
benediction in the ancient patriarchal style. Children and
grandchildren of my hopes, for ages men suffered and fought, so
that the world might be turned over to you. Now the day is
coming, the glad, new day which blinds us with the shining of its
wings; it is coming so swiftly that I am afraid of it. I thought
we should have more time to get ready for the taking over of the
world! But the old managers of it went insane, they took to
tearing each other's eyes out, and now they lie dead about us.
So, whether we will or not, we have to take charge of the world;
we have to decide what to do with it, even while we are doing it.
Let us not fail, young comrades; let us not write on the scroll
of history that mankind had to go through yet new generations of
wars and tumults and enslavements, because the youth of the
international revolution could not lift themselves above those
ancient personal vices which wrecked the fair hopes of their
fathers--bigotry and intolerance, vindictiveness and vanity,
envy, hatred and malice and all uncharitableness!
Reader:
For twenty years I have been haunted by the dream that I might
some day be my own publisher. I was waiting till I could afford
the luxury; but many a man has put off a bold action till he
died, so I am publishing this book without being able to afford
it.
The reason is that I do not want to be a writer for the rich. I
want to be read by working-boys and girls, and by poor students.
I offer the book at a low price. In the hope of tempting you to
go out and get your friends to read it, I have made a price in
quantities which will allow no profit at all. A margin has been
figured to cover postage, stationery, circulars, and the cost of
a clerical assistant; but nothing for interest on capital, which
is a gift, nor for the rent of an office, which is my home, nor
for the services of manager and press agent, which is myself.
You have read the book, and its fate is yours to decide. If it
seems worth while, pass it on to someone else. If you can afford
it, order a number of copies and give them away. If you can't
afford it, give your time and be a book-agent.