“La nature est l’injustice même.”—RENAN.
Four articles of Mr. Herbert Spencer’s which appeared in the
CONTEMPORARY REVIEW, have recently been reprinted together, and form
now a work which Mr. Spencer has entitled “The Man _versus_ The State.”
This little volume merits the most attentive study, because in it the
great sociological question of our day is treated in the most masterly
manner. The individualist theory was, I think, never expounded better
or with stronger arguments based on first principles, or supported by
so great a number of clearly analyzed and admirably grouped facts.
These pages are also full of important truths and of lessons, from
whence both nations and governments may derive great benefit. Mr.
Spencer’s deductions are so concise and forcible that one feels oneself
drawn, against one’s will, to accept his conclusions; and yet, the more
I have thought on the subject, the more convinced have I become that
these conclusions are not in the true interest of humanity. Mr. Herbert
Spencer’s object is to prove the error and danger of State socialism,
or, in other words, the error and danger of that system which consists
in appropriating State, or communal, revenues to the purpose of
establishing greater equality among men.
The eminent philosopher’s statement, that in most civilized countries
governments are more and more adopting this course, is indisputable. In
England Parliament is taking the lead; in Germany Prince Bismarck, in
spite of Parliament; and elsewhere either Parliament or town councils
are doing the same thing. Mr. Spencer considers that this effort for
the improvement of the condition of the working-classes, which is
being everywhere made, with greater or less energy, is a violation
of natural laws, which will not fail to bring its own punishment on
nations, thus misguided by a blind philanthropy. I believe, on the
contrary, that this effort, taken as a whole, and setting aside certain
mistaken measures, is not only in strict accordance with the spirit of
Christianity, but is also in conformity with the true principles of
politics and of political economy.
Let us first consider a preliminary question, on which I accept Mr.
Spencer’s views, but for different reasons from his: On what are
individual rights founded, and what are the limits of State power?
Mr. Spencer refutes with pitiless logic the opinions of those who,
with Bentham, maintain that individual rights are State concessions,
or who, like Matthew Arnold, deny the existence of natural rights.
The absurdity of Bentham’s system is palpably evident. Who creates
the government? The people, says he. So the government, thus created,
creates rights, and then, having created rights, it confers them on
the separate members of the sovereign people, by which it was itself
created. The real truth is, that government defines and sanctions
rights, and employs the public strength to enforce their being
respected, but the rights themselves existed before.
Referring to the history of all primitive civilization, Mr. Herbert
Spencer proves to Mr. Matthew Arnold that in familial and tribal
communities there existed certain customs, which conferred recognized
and respected rights, before ever any superior authority which could
be designated by the name of State had been formed. Only, I think Mr.
Herbert Spencer is wrong in making use of the term “natural rights.”
This expression was an invention of the French philosophers of the
eighteenth century, and it is still employed in Germany by a certain
school of philosophers as _Naturrecht_. Sir Henry Maine’s clever and
just criticism of this expression in his book “Ancient Law” should warn
us all of the vague and equivocal meaning it conceals. The jurists
and philosophers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries attached
two very different significations to the term “natural rights.” They
sometimes applied it to the condition of primitive societies, in which
their optimism led them to dream of a reign of justice, liberty, and
equality, and at other times they made use of it when speaking of the
totality of rights which should be possessed by every individual, by
reason of his manhood. These two conceptions are equally erroneous. In
primitive societies, in spite of certain customs which are the embryo
of rights, might reign supreme, as among animals, and the best armed
annihilate their weaker neighbors. Certainly, one would look in vain
there for a model of a political constitution or code suitable to a
civilized people. Neither can it be maintained that the “Rights of
man,” as proclaimed by the American and French Revolutions, belong to
each individual, only because he forms part of the human species. The
limit of rights which may be claimed by any one individual must depend
upon his aptitudes for making good use of them. The same civil code and
the same political institutions will not equally suit a savage tribe
and a civilized nation. If the granting of the suffrage to all were
likely to lead a people to anarchy or to despotism, it could not be
called a natural right, for suicide is not a right.
If one analyze completely the expression “natural rights,” one finds
that it is really not sense. Xavier de Maistre, annoyed by the constant
appeals to nature which are to be found in all the writings of the
eighteenth century, said, very wittily: “Nature, who and what is this
woman?” Nature is subject to certain laws, which are invariable; as,
for instance, the law of gravitation. We may call these “laws of
nature,” but in human institutions, which are ever varying, nothing of
the sort can exist. This superior and ideal right, which is invoked for
the purpose of condemning existing laws, and claiming their reform or
suppression, should rather be called _rational right_—that is to say,
right in conformity with reason.
In every country, and at all times, an order of things may be
conceived—civil, political, penal and administrative laws—which would
best conform to the general interest, and be the most favorable to the
well-being and progress of the nation. This order of things is not
the existing one. If it were, one might say, with the optimists, that
all is for the best in the best of possible worlds, and a demand for
any amelioration would be a rebellion against natural laws, and an
absurdity. But this order of things may be caught sight of by reason,
and defined with more or less accuracy by science; hence its name
of rational order. If I ask for free trade in France, for a better
division of property in England, and for greater liberty in Russia,
I do so in the name of this rational order, as I believe that these
changes would increase men’s happiness.
This theory permits of our tracing a limit between individual liberty
and State power.
Mr. Herbert Spencer proves very clearly that there are certain things
which no man would ever choose to abandon to State power; his religious
convictions, for instance. On the other hand, all would agree that the
State should accept the charge of protecting frontiers and punishing
theft and murder, that is to say, the maintaining of peace and security
at home and abroad; only here, like most Englishmen, Mr. Herbert
Spencer invokes human will. Find out, he says, on the one hand, what
the great majority of mankind would choose to reserve to an individual
sphere of action, and, on the other, what they would consent to abandon
to State decisions, and you will then be able to fix the limit of the
power of public authority.
I cannot myself admit that human will is the source of rights. Until
quite recently, in all lands, slavery was considered a necessary and
legitimate institution. But did this unanimous opinion make it any
more a right? Certainly not. It is in direct opposition to the order
of things which would be best for the general welfare; it cannot,
therefore, be a right.
Until the sixteenth century, with the exception of a few Anabaptists
who were burnt at the stake, all believed that the State ought to
punish heretics and atheists. But this general opinion did not
suffice to justify the intolerance then practised. The following
line of argument, I think, would be most in keeping with individual
interests, and, consequently, with the interests of society in general:
A certain portion of men’s acts ought not to be in any way subject
to sovereign authority, be it republican or monarchical. But what is
to be the boundary of this inviolable domain of individual activity?
The will of the majority, or even of the entire population, is not
competent to trace it, for history has proved but too often how gross
have been the errors committed in such instances. This limit can,
therefore, only be fixed by science, which, at each fresh progress in
civilization, can discover and proclaim aloud where State power should
cease to interfere. Sociological science, for instance, announces
that liberty of conscience should always be respected as man’s most
sacred possession, and because religious advancement is only to be
achieved at this price; that true property, or, in other words, the
fruit of personal labor, must not be tampered with, or labor would be
discouraged and production would diminish; that criminals must not
go unpunished, but that justice be strictly impartial, so that the
innocent be not punished with the guilty.
It would not be at all impossible to draw up a formula of these
essential rights, which M. Thiers called necessary liberties, and
which are already inscribed in the constitutions of America, England,
France, Belgium, Holland, and all other free nations. It is sometimes
very difficult to know where to set bounds to individual liberty, in
the interests of public order and of the well-being of others; and it
is true, of course, that either the king, the assembly, or the people
enacts the requisite laws, but if science has clearly demonstrated a
given fact it imposes itself. When certain truths have been frequently
and clearly explained, they come to be respected. The evidence of them
forms the general opinion, and this engenders laws.
To be brief, I agree with Mr. Herbert Spencer that, contrary to
Rousseau’s doctrine, State power ought to be limited, and that a
domain should be reserved to individual liberty which should be always
respected; but the limits of this domain should be fixed, not by the
people, but by reason and science, keeping in view what is best for the
public welfare.
This brings me to the principal question I desire to treat. I am
of opinion that the State should make use of its legitimate powers
of action for the establishment of greater equality among men, in
proportion to their personal merits, and I believe that this would be
in conformity, not only with its mission properly speaking, but also
with rational rights, with the progress of humanity; in a word, with
all the rights and all the interests invoked by Mr. Herbert Spencer.
I will briefly resume the motives given by Mr. Herbert Spencer to
show that any wish to improve the condition of the working-classes by
law, or by the action of public power, so as to bring about a greater
degree of equality among men, would be to run against the stream of
history, and a violation of natural laws. There are, he says, two types
of social organization, broadly distinguishable as the “militant” and
the “industrial” type. The first of these is characterized by the
_régime_ of status, the second by the _régime_ of contract. The latter
has become general among modern nations, especially in England and
America, whereas the militant type was almost universal formerly. These
two types may be defined as the system of compulsory co-operation.
The typical structure of the one may be seen in an army formed of
conscripts, in which each unit must fulfil commands under pain of
death, and receives, in exchange for his services, food and clothing;
while the typical structure of the other may be seen in a body of
workers who agree freely to exchange specified services at a given
price, and who are at liberty to separate at will. So long as States
are in constant war against each other, governments must perforce be
on a military footing, as in antiquity. Personal defence, then, being
society’s great object, it must necessarily give absolute obedience
to a chief, as in an army. It is absolutely impossible to unite the
blessings of freedom and justice at home with the habitual commission
of acts of violence and brutality abroad.
Thanks to the almost insensible progress of civilization and to gradual
liberal reforms, the ancient militant State was little by little
despoiled of its arbitrary powers, the circle of its interventions
grew narrower and narrower, and men became free economically, as
well as politically. We were advancing rapidly towards an industrial
_régime_ of free contract. But, recently, the Liberals in all countries
have adopted an entirely opposite course. Instead of restricting
the powers of the State, they are extending them, and this leads to
socialism, the ideal of which is to give to government the direction
of all social activity. Men imagine that, by thus acting, they are
consulting the interests of the working-classes. They believe that a
remedy may be found for the sufferings which result from the present
order of things, and that it is the State’s mission to discover and
apply that remedy. By thus acting they simply increase the evils they
would fain cure, and prepare the way for a universal bondage, which
awaits us all—_the Coming Slavery_. Be the authority exercised by king,
assembly, or people, I am none the less a slave if I am forced to obey
in all things, and to give up to others the net produce of my labor.
Contemporary progressism not only runs against the stream of history,
by carrying us back to despotic organizations of the militant system,
but it also violates natural laws, and thus prepares the degeneration
of humanity. In family life the gratuitous parental aid must be great
in proportion as the young one is of little worth either to itself or
to others, and benefits received must be inversely as the power or
ability of the receiver.
“Throughout the rest of its life each adult gets benefit in proportion
to merit, reward in proportion to desert, merit and desert being
understood as ability to fulfil all the requirements of life. Placed
in competition with members of its own species, and in antagonism with
members of other species, it dwindles and gets killed off, or thrives
and propagates, according as it is ill-endowed or well-endowed. If
the benefits received by each individual were proportionate to its
inferiority, if, as a consequence, multiplication of the inferior was
furthered and multiplication of the superior hindered, progressive
degradation would result, and eventually the degenerated species
would fail to hold its ground in presence of antagonistic species and
competing species.” (Page 65.)
“The poverty of the incapable, the distress that comes upon the
imprudent, the starvation of the idle, and the shouldering aside
of the weak by the strong, which leave so many ‘in shallows and in
miseries,’ are the decrees of a large, far-seeing benevolence.” (Page
67.)
When the State, guided by a wrongly inspired philanthropy, prevents
the application of this wise law, instead of diminishing suffering it
increases it. “It tends to fill the world with those to whom life will
bring most pain, and tends to keep out of it those to whom life will
bring most pleasure. It inflicts positive misery, and prevents positive
happiness.” (“Social Statics,” p. 381, edit. 1851.)
The law that Mr. Herbert Spencer desires society to adopt is simply
Darwin’s law—“the survival of the fittest.” Mr. Spencer expresses his
astonishment that at the present day, more than at any other period of
the world’s history, everything is done to favor the survival of the
unfittest, when, at the same time, the truth as revealed by Darwin,
is admitted and accepted by an ever-growing number of educated and
influential people!
I have endeavored to give a brief sketch of the line of argument
followed by Mr. Herbert Spencer. We will now see what reply can be made
to it. I think one chief point ought not to have escaped the eminent
writer. It is this: If the application of the Darwinian law to the
government of societies be really justifiable, is it not strange that
public opinion, not only in England, but in all other countries, is
so strenuously opposed to it, at an epoch which is becoming more and
more enlightened, and when sociological studies are pursued with so
much interest? If the intervention of public power for the improvement
of the condition of the working-classes be a contradiction of history,
and a return to ancient militant society, how is it that the country in
which the new industrial organization is the most developed—that is to
say, England—is also the country where State intervention is the most
rapidly increasing, and where opinion is at the same time pressing for
these powers of interference to be still further extended? There is no
other land in which the effort to succor outcasts and the needy poor
occupies so large a portion of the time and means of the well-to-do and
of the public exchequer; there is nowhere else to be found a poor-law
which grants assistance to even able-bodied men; nowhere else would it
ever have been even suggested to attack free contract, and consequently
the very first principles of proprietorship, as the Irish Land Bill
has done; and nowhere else would a Minister have dared to draw up a
programme of reforms such as those announced by Mr. Chamberlain at the
Liberal Reform Club at Ipswich (Jan. 14, 1885). On the Continent all
this would be looked upon as rank socialism. If, then, as a country
becomes more civilized and enlightened it shows more inclination to
return to what Mr. Herbert Spencer calls militant organization, and
to violate the Darwinian law applied to human society, may we not be
led to conclude that this so-called retrogression is really progress?
This conclusion would very easily explain what Mr. Herbert Spencer
designates as the “wheeling round” of the Liberal party with which he
so eloquently reproaches them.
Why did the Liberals formerly do their utmost to restrict State power?
Because this power was then exercised in the interests of the upper
classes and to the detriment of the lower. To mention but one example:
When, in former times, it was desired to fix a scale of prices and
wages, it was with a view to preventing their being raised, while,
to-day, there is a clamor for a lessening of hours of labor with
increased remuneration. Why do Liberals now wish to add to the power
and authority of the State? To be able to ameliorate the intellectual,
moral, and material condition of a greater number of citizens. There is
no inconsistency in their programme; the object in view, which is the
great aim of all civilization, has been always the same—to assure to
each individual liberty and well-being in proportion to his merit and
activity!
I think that the great fundamental error of Mr. Herbert Spencer’s
system, which is so generally accepted at the present day, consists in
the belief that if State power were but sufficiently reduced to narrow
it to the circle traced by orthodox economists, the Darwinian law and
the survival of the fittest would naturally follow without difficulty.
Mr. Spencer has simply borrowed from old-fashioned political economy
without submitting to the fire of his inexorable criticism, the
superficial and false notion that, if the _laissez-faire_ and free
contract _régime_ were proclaimed, the so-called natural laws would
govern the social order. He forgets that all individual activity is
accomplished under the empire of laws, which enact as to ownership,
hereditary succession, mutual obligations, trade and industry,
political institutions and administrations, besides a multitude of laws
referring to material interests, banking organizations, money, credit,
colonies, army, navy, railways, &c.
For natural laws, and especially the law of the survival of the
fittest, to become established, it would be necessary to annihilate
the immense existing edifice of legislation, and to return to the wild
state of society when primitive men lived, in all probability, much as
do animals, with no possessions, no successions, no protection of the
weak by the State.
Those who, with Mr. Spencer and Haeckel and other Conservative
evolutionists, are anxious to see the law of the survival of the
fittest and of natural selection adopted in human society, do not
realize that the animal kingdom and social organization are two such
totally different domains that the same law, applied to each, would
produce wholly opposite effects. Mr. Herbert Spencer gives an admirable
description of the manner in which natural selection is accomplished
among animals:—
“Their carnivorous enemies not only remove from herbivorous herds
individuals past their prime, but also weed out the sickly, the
malformed, and the least fleet and powerful. By the aid of which
purifying process, as well as by the fighting so universal in the
pairing season, all vitiation of the race through the multiplication
of its inferior samples is prevented, and the maintenance of a
constitution completely adapted to surrounding conditions, and
therefore most productive of happiness, is ensured.”
This is the ideal order of things which, we are told, ought to prevail
in human societies, but everything in our present organization (which
economists, and even Mr. Spencer himself, admit, however, to be
natural) is wholly opposed to any such conditions. An old and sickly
lion captured a gazelle; his younger and stronger brother arrives,
snatches away his prize, and lives to perpetuate the species; the
old one dies in the struggle, or is starved to death. Such is the
beneficent law of the “survival of the fittest,” It was thus among
barbarian tribes. But could such a law exist in our present social
order? Certainly not! The rich man, feebly constituted and sickly,
protected by the law, enjoys his wealth, marries and has offspring,
and if an Apollo of herculean strength attempted to take from him his
possessions, or his wife, he would be thrown into prison, and were
he to attempt to practise the Darwinian law of selection, he would
certainly run a fair risk of the gallows, for this law may be briefly
expressed as follows: Room for the mighty, for might is right. It will
be objected that in industrial societies the quality the most deserving
of recompense, and which indeed receives the most frequent reward, is
not the talent of killing one’s fellow-man, but an aptitude for labor
and producing. But at the present time is this really so? Stuart Mill
says that from the top to the bottom of the social ladder remuneration
lessens as the work accomplished increases. I admit that this statement
may be somewhat exaggerated, but, I think, no one will deny that it
contains a large amount of truth. Let us but cast our eyes around us,
and we see everywhere those who do nothing living in ease and even
opulence, while the workers who have the hardest labor to perform, who
toil from night to morning in mines, or unhealthy workshops, or on the
sea in tempests, in constant danger of death, are paid, in exchange
for all these hardships, a salary hardly sufficient for their means of
subsistence, and which, just now, has become smaller and smaller, in
consequence of the ever-recurring strikes, and the necessary closing of
so many factories, mines, &c., owing to the long-continued depression
of trade. What rapid fortunes have been made by stock-broking
manœuvres, by trickeries in supplying goods, by sending unseaworthy
vessels to sea to become the coffins of their crews! Do not such
sights as these urge the partisans of progress to demand the State’s
interference in favor of the classes who receive so inadequate a
payment for their labors?
The economists of the old school promised that, if the _laissez-faire_
and free contract _régime_ were proclaimed, justice would reign
universally; but when people saw that these fine promises were not
realized, they had recourse to public power for the obtaining of those
results which the much-boasted “liberty” had not secured.
The system of accumulating wealth and hereditary succession alone
would suffice to prevent the Darwinian law ever gaining a footing in
civilized communities. Among animals, the survival of the fittest takes
place quite naturally, because, as generations succeed each other,
each one must create his own position according to his strength and
abilities; and in this way the purifying process, which Mr. Herbert
Spencer so extols, is effected. A similar system was generally
prevalent among barbarians; but, at the present day, traces of it
may be seen only in instances of “self-made men;” it disappears in
their children, who, even if they inherit their parents’ talents and
capacities, are brought up, as a rule, in so much ease and luxury that
the germs of such talents are destroyed. Their lot in life is assured
to them, so why need they exert themselves? Thus they fail to cultivate
the qualities and tastes they may have inherited from their parents,
and they and their descendants become in all points inferior to their
ancestors who secured to them, by labor and industry, the privileged
position they hold. Hence the proverb, _A père économe fils prodigue_
(To a thrifty father, a spendthrift son).
It follows, therefore, that those who wish to see the law of natural
selection, by the transmission of hereditary aptitudes, established
amongst us should begin by demanding the abolition of hereditary
succession.
Among animals, the vitiation of the race through the multiplication of
its inferior samples is prevented “by the fighting so universal in the
pairing season.” In the social order the accumulation and hereditary
transmission of wealth effectually impede the process of perfecting the
race. In Greece after the athletic sports, or in those fortunate and
chimerical days of which the Troubadours sang, “the most beautiful was
sometimes given as a prize to the most valiant;” but, in our prosaic
age, rank and fortune too often triumph over beauty, strength, and
health. In the animal world, the destiny of each one is decided by
its personal qualities. In society, a man attains a high position, or
marries a beautiful woman, because he is of high birth, or wealthy,
although he may be ugly, lazy, and extravagant. The permanent army and
the navy would also have to be destroyed, before the Darwinian law
could triumph. Conscription on the Continent and enlistment in England
(to a less degree) condemn many of the strongest and most warlike men
to enforced celibacy; and, as they are subjected to exceptional dangers
in the way of hazardous expeditions and wars, the death-rate is far
higher amongst them than it would be under ordinary circumstances. In
pre-historic times, or in a general way, such men would certainly have
begotten offspring, as being the strongest and most apt to survive; in
our societies, they are decimated or condemned to celibacy.
Having borrowed from orthodox political economy the notion that it
would suffice to put a check on inopportune State intervention for the
reign of justice to become established, Mr. Herbert Spencer proceeds
to demonstrate that the legislators who enacted the poor-law, and all
recent and present law-makers “who have made regulations which have
brought into being a permanent body of tramps, who ramble from union
to union, and which maintain a constant supply of felons by sending
back convicts into society under such conditions that they are almost
compelled again to commit crimes,” are alone responsible for the
sufferings of the working-classes. But may we not blame law-makers, or,
rather, our own social order, for measures more fatal in their results
than either of these—for instance, the law which concentrates all
property into the hands of a few owners? Some years ago, Mr. Herbert
Spencer wrote some lines on this subject which are the most severe
indictment against the present social order that has ever fallen from
the pen of a really competent writer:—
“Given a race of beings having like claims to pursue the objects of
their desires—given a world adapted to the gratification of those
desires—a world into which such beings are similarly born, and it
unavoidably follows that they have equal rights to the use of this
world. For if each of them ‘has freedom to do all that he wills,
provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other,’ then each
of them is free to use the earth for the satisfaction of his wants,
provided he allows all others the same liberty. And, conversely, it
is manifest that no one or part of them may use the earth in such a
way as to prevent the rest from similarly using it, seeing that to do
this is to assume greater freedom than the rest, and, consequently, to
break the law. Equity, therefore, does not permit property in land.
On examination, all existing titles to such property turn out to be
invalid; those founded on reclamation inclusive. It appears that not
even an equal apportionment of the earth amongst its inhabitants could
generate a legitimate proprietorship. We find that, if pushed to its
ultimate consequences, a claim to exclusive possession of the soil
involves a land-owning despotism. We further find that such a claim is
constantly denied by the enactments of our legislature. And we find,
lastly, that the theory of the co-heirship of all men to the soil is
consistent with the highest civilization; and that, however difficult
it may be to embody that theory in fact, equity sternly commands it to
be done.”
“By-and-by, men may learn that to deprive others of their rights to
the use of the earth is to commit a crime inferior only in wickedness
to the crime of taking away their lives or personal liberties.”
(“Social Statics,” chap. ix.)
Has Mr. Herbert Spencer changed his opinions as to the proprietorship
of the soil since these lines were written? Not at all, for, in the
chapter entitled “The Coming Slavery,” he writes that “the movement for
land-nationalization is aiming at a system of land-tenure equitable
in the abstract.” But if society, in depriving numbers of persons of
their right of co-heirship of the soil, has “committed a crime inferior
only in wickedness to the crime of taking away their lives or personal
liberties,” ought it not, in common justice, to endeavor to repair
the injury done? The help given by public assistance compensates very
feebly for the advantages they are deprived of. In his important book,
“La Propriété Sociale,” M. Alfred Fouillée, examining the question from
another standpoint, very accurately calls this assistance “la justice
reparative.” The numerous and admirable charitable organizations which
exist in England, the keen emotion and deep commiseration manifested
when the little pamphlet, “The Bitter Cry of Outcast London,” was first
published, the growing preoccupation of Government with the condition
of the working-classes, must be attributed, in the first instance
certainly to Christian feeling, but also, in a great measure, to a
clearer perception of certain ill-defined rights possessed by those who
have been kept deprived of national or rather communal co-heirship. Mr.
Herbert Spencer has expressed this idea so closely and eloquently that
I hope I may be allowed to quote the passage:—
“We must not overlook the fact that, erroneous as are these poor-law
and communist theories, these assertions of a man’s right to
maintenance and of his right to have work provided for him, they
are nevertheless nearly related to a truth. They are unsuccessful
efforts to express the fact that whoso is born on this planet of ours
thereby obtains some interest in it—may not be summarily dismissed
again—may not have his existence ignored by those in possession. In
other words, they are attempts to embody that thought which finds its
legitimate utterance in the law: All men have equal rights to the use
of the earth.... After getting from under the grosser injustice of
slavery, men could not help beginning in course of time to feel what a
monstrous thing it was that nine people out of ten should live in the
world on sufferance, not having even standing room save by allowance
of those who claim the earth’s surface.” (“Social Statics,” p. 345.)
When one reads through that substantial essay, “The Man _versus_ The
State,” it appears as if the principal or, indeed, the sole aim of
State socialism were the extension of public assistance and increased
succor for the unworthy, whereas the reality is quite the reverse
of this! Scientific socialism seeks, first of all, the means of so
raising the working-classes that they may be better able to maintain
themselves and, consequently, to dispense with the help of others;
and, secondly, it seeks to find what laws are the most in conformity
with absolute justice, and with that admirable precept, “Benefit in
proportion to merit, reward in proportion to desert.” In the speech
delivered by Mr. Shaw Lefevre, last year (1884), as President of the
Congress of Social Science, at its opening meeting at Birmingham, he
traced, in most striking language, all the good that State intervention
had effected in England of late years: Greater justice enforced in the
relations between man and man, children better educated and better
prepared to become useful and self-supporting members of the community,
the farmer better guaranteed against the exaggerated or unjust demands
of the proprietor, greater facilities for saving offered, health
ensured to future generations by the hours of labor being limited, the
lives of miners further safeguarded, so that there are less frequent
appeals to public assistance, and, as a practical result of this last
measure, the mortality in mines fallen in the last three years to 22·1
per thousand, as compared to 27·2 per thousand during the ten previous
years—a decrease of 20 per cent.! One fact is sufficient to show the
great progress due to this State legislation: in an ever-increasing
population, crime is rapidly and greatly diminishing.
Suppose that, through making better laws, men arrive gradually at the
condition of the Norwegian peasantry, or at an organization similar to
that existing in the agricultural cantons of Switzerland; that is to
say, that each family living in the country has a plot of ground to
cultivate and a house to live in: in this case every one is allowed to
enjoy the full fruit of his labor, and receives reward in proportion
to his activity and industry, which is certainly the very ideal of
justice—_cuique suum_.
The true instinct of humanity has ever so understood social
organization that property is the indispensable basis of the family,
and a necessary condition of freedom. To prevent any one individual
from being deprived of a share in the soil, which was in primitive ages
considered to be the collective property of the tribe, it was subjected
to periodical divisions; these, indeed, still take place in the Swiss
Allmend, in some Scottish townships, in the greater part of Java, and
in the Russian Mir.
If such a _régime_ as this were established, there would be no more
“tramps wandering from union to union,” In such a state of society as
this, not in such as ours, the supreme law which ought to govern all
economic relations might be realized. Mr. Herbert Spencer admirably
defines this law in the following passage:—
“I suppose a dictum on which the current creed and the creed of
science are at one may be considered to have as high an authority
as can be found. Well, the command, _If any would not work, neither
should he eat_, is simply a Christian enunciation of that universal
law of nature under which life has reached its present height, the
law that a creature not energetic enough to maintain itself must die;
the sole difference being, that the law which in one case is to be
artificially enforced is in the other case a natural necessity.”
This passage ought to be transcribed at the commencement of every
treatise on social science as the supreme aim of all sociological
research; only the delusion, borrowed from the old political economy,
which consists in the belief that this dictum of science and
Christianity is in practice in our midst, ought to be suppressed.
Is it not a fact that, everywhere, those who can prove by authentic
documents that, for centuries past, their ancestors have thriven in
idleness are the richest, the most powerful, the most sought after?
Only at some future date will this dictum of science and Christianity
be brought to bear on our social organization, and our descendants
will then establish an order of things which will create economic
responsibility, and ensure to each the integral enjoyment of the
produce of his labor. The difficult but necessary work of sociology
is to endeavor to discover what this organization should be, and to
prepare its advent. Mr. Shaw Lefevre’s speech shows very clearly the
road that ought to be taken.
Mr. Herbert Spencer thinks, however, that this road would lead us
directly to a condition of universal slavery. The State would gradually
monopolize all industrial enterprises, beginning with the railways
and telegraphs as it has already done in Germany and Belgium, then
some other industries as in France, then mines, and finally, after the
nationalization of land, it would also take up agricultural enterprise.
The freedom enjoyed by a citizen must be measured, he says, not by the
nature of the government under which he lives, but by the small number
of laws to which he is subject. The essential characteristic of the
slave is that he is forced to work for another’s benefit. The degree of
his slavery varies according to the greater or smaller extent to which
effort is compulsorily expended for the benefit of another, instead of
for self-benefit; in the _régime_ which is approaching, man will have
to work for the State, and to give up to it the largest portion of his
produce. What matters it that the master under whose command he labors
is not an individual, but society? Thus argues Mr. Herbert Spencer.
In my opinion, the State will never arrive at a monopoly of all
industries, for the very simple reason that such a system would never
answer. It is possible that some day a social organization such
as Mr. Albert Schäffle, formerly Finance Minister in Austria, has
explained, may grow up, in which all branches of production are placed
in the hands of co-operative societies. But, be that as it may, men
would be no more slaves in workshops belonging to the State than in
those of merchants or manufacturers of the present day. Mr. Herbert
Spencer can every easily assure himself of this fact. Let him visit
the State collieries at Saarbruck, or inspect the Belgian railways,
and interrogate all the officials and workmen employed; he will find
that, from the highest to the lowest, they are quite as free, quite as
contented with their lot, as those engaged in any private industry.
There is even far more guarantee against arbitrary measures, so that
their real freedom is greater than elsewhere. The proof of this is the
fact that posts in any industries belonging to the State are always
sought for by the best workmen. If the degree of man’s slavery varies
according to the ratio between that which he is forced to yield up and
that which he is allowed to retain, then it must be admitted that
the majority of workmen and small farmers are certainly slaves now,
for they have very little or no property, and, as their condition
almost entirely depends on the hard law of competition, they can only
retain for themselves the mere necessaries of life! Are the Italian
_contadini_, whose sad lot I depicted in my “Lettres d’Italie,” free?
They are reduced to live entirely on bad maize, which subjects them to
that terrible scourge, the _pellagra_. What sad truth is contained in
their reply to the Minister who advised them not to emigrate!—
“What do you mean by the nation? Do you refer to the most miserable of
the inhabitants of the land? If so, we are indeed the nation. Look at
our pale and emaciated faces, our bodies worn our with over-fatigue
and insufficient food. We sow and reap corn, but never taste white
bread; we cultivate the vine, but a drop of wine never touches our
lips. We raise cattle, but never eat meat; we are covered with rags,
we live in wretched hovels; in winter we suffer from the cold, and
both winter and summer from the pangs of hunger. Can a land which does
not provide its inhabitants, who are willing to work, with sufficient
to live upon, be considered by them as a fatherland?”
The Flemish agricultural laborer, who earns less than a shilling a-day,
and the small farmer, whose rack-rent absorbs the entire net profits;
the Highland crofters, who have been deprived of the communal land, the
sacred inheritance of primitive times, where they could at least raise
a few head of cattle; the Egyptian fellahs, whose very life-blood is
drained by European creditors—in a word, all the wretched beings all
over the world where the soil is owned by non-workers, and who labor
for insufficient remuneration; can they, any of them, be called free?
It is just possible that, if the State were to become the universal
industry director (which, in my opinion, is an impossible hypothesis),
their condition would not be improved; but at all events it could not
be worse than it is now.
I do not believe that “liberty must be surrendered in proportion as the
material welfare is cared for.” On the contrary, a certain degree of
well-being is a necessary condition of liberty. It is a mockery to call
a man free who, by labor, cannot secure to himself the necessaries of
existence, or to whom labor is impossible because he possesses nothing
of his own, and no one will employ him!
Compare the life of the soldier with that of the hired workman either
in a mine or a factory. The first is the type of the serf in “The
Coming Slavery,” and the second the type of the independent man in an
industrial organization under the free contract _régime_. Which of the
two possesses the most real liberty? The soldier, when his daily duties
are accomplished, may read, walk, or enjoy himself in accordance with
his tastes; the workman, when he returns home worn out with fatigue
after eleven or twelve hours’ hard labor, too often finds no other
recreation than the gin-palace. The laborer at his task must always,
and all day long, obey the foreman or overseer, whether he be employed
by a private individual, by the State, or by a co-operative society.
“Hitherto,” says Mr. Herbert Spencer, “you have been free to spend
your earnings in any way which pleases you; hereafter you shall not be
free to spend it, but it will be spent for the general benefit.” The
important point, he adds, is the amount taken from me, not the hand
that takes it. But if what is taken from my revenue is employed to
make a public park which I am free to enter whenever I feel inclined,
to build public baths where I may bathe in summer or winter, to open
libraries for my recreation and instruction, clubs where I may spend my
evenings, and schools where my children may receive an education which
will enable them to make their own way in the world; to build healthy
houses, let at a low rent, which save me the cruel necessity of living
in slums, where the soul and the body are alike degraded; if all this
be done, would the result be the same as if this sum were taken by some
private Crœsus to spend on his personal pleasures and caprices? In
the course of last summer, while in Switzerland and Baden, I visited
several villages where each family is supplied, from forests belonging
to the commune, with wood for building purposes and for fuel; also
with pasturage for their cattle, and with a small plot of ground on
which to grow potatoes, fruit, and vegetables. In addition to this, the
wages of all public servants are paid for from the communal revenue,
so that there is no local taxation whatever.[3] Suppose that these
woods and meadows, and this land, all belonged to a landed proprietor,
instead of to the commune; he would go and lavish the revenue in large
capitals or in travelling. What an immense difference this would make
to the inhabitants! To appreciate this, it suffices merely to compare
the condition of the Highland crofters, the free citizens of one of
the richest countries in the world, and whose race has ever been
laborious, with that of the population of these villages, hidden away
in the Alpine cantons of Switzerland or in the gorges of the Black
Forest. If, in the Highland villages of Scotland, rentals had been, as
in these happy communes of Switzerland and Baden, partly reserved for
the inhabitants, and partly employed in objects of general utility, how
very different would have been the lot of these poor people! Had they
but been allowed to keep for themselves the sea-weed and the kelp which
the sea brings them, how far better off would they have been than they
now are, as is admirably proved in Mr. Blackie’s interesting book, “The
Scottish Highlanders.”
[3] I may mention as an example, the township of Freudenstadt, at
the foot of the Kniebis, in Baden. Not a single farthing of taxation
has been paid since its foundation in 1557. The commune possesses
about 5000 acres of pine forest and meadow land, worth about £10,000
sterling. The 1,420 inhabitants have each as much wood for their
building purposes and firing as they wish for, and each one can send
out to pasture, during the summer, his cattle, which he feeds during
the winter months. The schools, church, thoroughfares, and fountains
are all well cared for, and every year considerable improvements are
made. 100,000 marks were employed in 1883 for the establishment in the
village, of a distribution of water, with iron pipes. A hospital has
been built, and a pavilion in the market-place, where a band plays on
fête-days. Each year a distribution of the surplus revenue is made
amongst the families, and they each obtain from 50 to 60 marks, or
shillings, and more still when an extraordinary quantity of timber has
been sold. In 1882, 80,000 marks were distributed amongst the 1,420
villagers. What a favored country, is it not?
A similar remark may also be applied to politics. What matters it,
says Mr. Herbert Spencer, that I myself contribute to make laws if
these laws deprive me of my liberty? He mentions ancient Greece as an
example to startle us at the notion of our coming state of slavery. He
writes: “In ancient Greece the accepted principle was, that the citizen
belonged neither to himself nor to his family, but to his city—the city
being, with the Greek, equivalent to the community. And this doctrine,
proper to a state of constant warfare, is one which socialism unawares
re-introduces into a state intended to be purely industrial.” It is
perfectly certain that the _régime_ of ancient Greek cities, which was
founded on slavery, cannot be suitable to modern society, which is
based on a system of labor. But we must not allow ourselves to forget
what Greece was, nor all we owe to that Greek civilization, which, Mr.
Herbert Spencer says, the “coming slavery” threatens to re-introduce
amongst us. Not only philosophy, literature, and arts flourished as
they have never done in any other age, but the political system so
stamped characters with individuality that the illustrious men of
Greece are types of human greatness, whose deeds and sayings will
be engraven on the memory of men so long as the world lasts. If the
“coming slavery” gives us such men as Pisistratus, Plato, Aristotle,
Xenophon, Lycurgus, Sophocles, Thucydides, Epaminondas, Aristides, or
Pericles, we shall, I think, have no cause to complain! But how is
it that Greece produced such a bevy of great men? By her democratic
institutions, combined with a marvellous system of education, which
developed simultaneously the faculties of the mind and the body.
The German army, in spite of its iron discipline, arrives at results
somewhat similar, though in a less degree. A rough peasant joins a
regiment; he is taught to walk properly, to swim, and to shift for
himself; his education is made more complete, and he becomes a man of
independent character, better fitted to survive in the struggle for
life. If the authorities in towns levy heavy taxes, and employ the
money in improving the condition of the inhabitants and in forming
those who need forming, even more than in the German army, and after
the fashion of the ancient Greeks, will not the generations yet to
come be better able to earn their own livelihood, and to maintain
an honorable position, than if they had been allowed to pass their
childhood in the gutters? Hr. Herbert Spencer reasons falsely when
he says, “What matters it that I make the laws if these laws deprive
me of my liberty?” Laws which tax me to degrade and rob me are
odious, but laws which deprive me of what I have for my own good and
for the further development of my faculties are well-meaning, as is
the constraint imposed on his children by a wise father for their
instruction or correction. Besides, to contribute to make laws elevates
a man’s character. As Stuart Mill has proved, this is indeed one of the
great advantages of an extension of the suffrage. A man called upon to
vote is naturally raised from the sphere of personal to that of general
interests. He will read, discuss, and endeavor to obtain information.
Others will argue with him, try to change his opinions, and he will
himself realize that he has a certain importance of his own, that he
has a word to say in the direction of public affairs. The elevating
influence of this sentiment over French, and still more over Swiss,
citizens is remarkable.
It is perfectly true that, for political and social reforms to be
productive of fruits, the society into which they are introduced must
be in a sufficiently advanced condition to be able to understand and
apply them, but it must not be forgotten that improved institutions
make better men.
Go to Norway; crimes are hardly known there. In the country people
never close their doors at night, locks and bolts are scarcely known,
and there are no robberies; probably, first, because the people are
moral and religious, but certainly, also, because property is very
equally divided. None live in opulence and none in absolute beggary,
and certainly misery and degradation, which often results from misery,
are the causes of the great majority of crimes.
The rich financier, Helvetius, wrote, very truly, that, if every
citizen were an owner of property, the general tone of the nation would
be conservative, but if the majority have nothing, robbery then becomes
the general aim. (“De l’Homme,” sect. vi. chap. vii.)
In conclusion, let us try to go to the root of the matter. Two systems
are suggested as cures for the evils under which society is suffering.
On the one hand, it may be said, in accordance with the doctrines of
Christianity and socialism, that these evils are the consequences
of men’s perversity and selfishness, and that it behoves charity
and fraternity to remedy them. We must do our best to assist our
unfortunate brethren. But how? By trying, Christ tells us, to imitate
God’s Kingdom, where “the last shall be first and the first last;”—or
by “having all things in common,” say the Apostles in all the ardor of
primitive Christianity, and later on certain religious communities;—or
by the giving of alms and other charitable acts, says the Christianity
of the middle ages;—while socialism maintains that this may be affected
by reforms in the laws regulating the division of property. On the
other hand, political economy and evolutionary sociology teach us
that these miseries are the inevitable and beneficent consequences of
natural laws; that these laws, being necessary conditions of progress,
any endeavor to do away with them would be to disturb the order of
nature and delay the dawn of better things. By “the weeding out of the
sickly and infirm,” and the survival of the fittest, the process of
amelioration of species in the animal kingdom is accomplished. The law
of natural selection should be allowed free and ample scope in human
society. “Society is not a manufacture, but a growth.” Might is really
right, for it is to the general interest that the mighty should triumph
and perpetuate the race. Thus argues what is now called _Science_.
In a book entitled “The True History of Joshua Davidson,” the author
places ideal Christianity and contemporary society face to face, and
shows very clearly the opposition which exists between the doctrines of
would-be science and those of the Gospel:—
“If the dogmas of political economy are really exact, if the laws of
the struggle for life and the survival of the fittest must really be
applied to human society, as well as to plants and animals, then let
us at once admit that Christianity, which gives assistance to the poor
and needy, and which stretches out a hand to the sinner, is a mere
folly; and let us at once abandon a belief which influences neither
our political institutions nor our social arrangements, and which
_ought_ not to influence them. If Christ was right, then our present
Christianity is wrong, and if sociology really contains scientific
truth, then Jesus of Nazareth spoke and acted in vain, or rather He
rebelled against the immutable laws of nature.” (Tauchnitz edition, p.
252.)
Mr. William Graham, in his “Creed of Science” (p. 278), writes as
follows:—
“This great and far-reaching controversy, the most important in the
history of our species, which is probably as old as human society
itself, and certainly as old as the ‘Republic’ of Plato, in which
it is discussed, or as Christianity, which began with a communistic
form of society, had yet only within the past half-century come to be
felt as a controversy involving real and living issues of a momentous
character, and not utopias only remotely bordering upon the possible.”
I think it may be proved that this so-called “doctrine of science” is
contrary to facts, and is, consequently, not scientific; whereas the
creed of Christianity is in keeping with both present facts and ideal
humanity.
Darwin borrowed his ideal of the struggle for existence and the
survival of the fittest from Malthus, from whom he also drew his
theories of evolution and of transformism; but no naturalist ever
dreamt of applying either of these laws to human society. It has
been reserved to sociology to attempt this, because it has accepted,
blindfolded, from the hands of economists, this most erroneous
principle: that society is governed by natural laws, and that it
suffices to give them free scope for the greatest possible happiness
and prosperity to reign. It is manifestly true that, as human society
is comprehended in what we call Nature, it must obey her laws; but
the laws and institutions, in all their different forms, which decree
as to the acquisition and transmission of property or possessions,
and hereditary succession, in a word, all civil and penal laws,
emanate from men’s will, and from the decisions of legislators; and if
experience, or a higher conception of justice, shows us that these laws
are bad, or in any way lacking, we are free to change them. As far as
the Darwinian laws are concerned, it would be perfectly impossible to
apply them to existing society without more radically destroying all
established institutions than the most avowed Nihilist would wish to do.
If it be really advisable that the law of the “survival of the fittest”
should be established amongst us, the first step to be taken would
be the abolition of all laws which punish theft and murder. Animals
provide themselves with food by physical activity and the use of
their muscles. Among men, in consequence of successive institutions,
such as slavery, servitude, and revenue, numbers of people now live
in plenty on their income, and do nothing at all. If Mr. Herbert
Spencer is really desirous to see the supreme principle, “reward in
proportion to desert,” in force amongst us, he must obtain, first of
all, the suppression of the existing regulations as to property. In
the animal world, the destiny of each is decided by its aptitudes.
Among ourselves, the destiny of each is determined by the advantages
obtained or inherited from parents, and the heir to, or owner of, a
large estate is sure to be well received everywhere. We see then, that
before Darwinian laws can become established, family succession must
be abolished. Animals, like plants, obey the instincts of nature, and
reproduce themselves rapidly; but incessant carnage prevents their too
excessive multiplication! As men become more civilized, peace becomes
more general; they talk of their fellow-men as their brothers, and
some philosophers even dream—the madmen!—of arbitration supplanting
war! The equilibrium between the births and the deaths is thus upset!
To balance it again, let us glorify battles, and exclaim, with General
Moltke, that the idea of suppressing them is a mischievous utopia; let
us impose silence on those dangerous fanatics who repeat incessantly,
“Peace on earth, good-will towards men.”
In the very heart of nature reigns seeming injustice; or, as M. Renan
puts it more strongly, nature is the embodiment of injustice. A falling
stone crushes both the honest man and the scamp! A bird goes out to
find food for its young, and after long search is returning to its
nest with its well-earned gains, when an eagle, the despot of the air,
swoops down and steals the food; we think this iniquitous and odious,
and would not tolerate such an instance amongst us. Vigorous Cain
kills gentle Abel. Right and justice protest. They should not do so,
for it is the mere putting in practice “of the purifying process by
which nature weeds out the least powerful and prevents the vitiation
of the race by the multiplication of its inferior samples.” Helvetius
admirably defines, for its condemnation, this Darwinian law which
Herbert Spencer would have society accept:—
“The savage says to those who are weaker than himself: Look up to the
skies and you see the eagle swooping down on the dove; cast your eyes
on the earth and you see the lion tearing to pieces the stag or the
antelope; while in the depths of the ocean small fishes are destroyed
by sharks. The whole of nature announces that the weak must be the
prey of the strong. Strength is a gift of the gods. Through it I
become possessor of all it is in my power to capture.”
(“De l’Homme,” iv. 8.)
The constant effort of moralists and legislators has been to replace
the reign of might by a reign of justice. As Bacon says, _In societate
aut vis aut lex viget._ The object is to subject men’s actions more and
more to the empire of the law, and that the law should be more and more
in conformity with equity. Society has ever been, and still is, to a
great extent, too much a reflection of nature. Violations of justice
are numerous, and, if these are to be put a stop to, we must oppose
ourselves still more to the laws of nature, instead of contemplating
their re-establishment.
This is why Christianity, which is an ardent aspiration after justice,
is in real accordance with true science. In the book of Job the problem
is tragically proposed. The unjust are equally happy with the just,
and, as in nature, the strong live at the cost of the weak. Right
protests against this, and the voice of the poor is raised against
their oppressors. Listen. What deep thought is contained in the
following passage!—“Wherefore do the wicked live, become old, yea, are
mighty in power? Their seed is established in their sight with them,
and their offspring before their eyes. Their houses are safe from fear,
neither is the rod of God upon them” (Job xxi. 7-9). “Some remove
land-marks; they violently take away flocks and feed thereof. They
cause him to go naked without clothing, and they take away the sheaf
from the hungry; which make oil within their walls, and tread their
wine-presses, and suffer thirst” (Job xxiv. 2, 10, 11).
The prophets of Israel raised an eloquent protest against the evils
then reigning in society, and announced that a time should come when
justice would be established upon the earth. These hopes of a Messiah
were expressed in such precise terms that they may serve as a programme
of the reforms which yet remain to be accomplished. “He shall judge
the poor of the people, He shall save the children of the needy, and
shall break in pieces the oppressor. He shall spare the poor and needy,
and shall save the souls of the needy. There shall be an handful of
corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains” (Psalm lxxii. 4, 13,
16). “And the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of
righteousness, quietness and assurance for ever” (Isaiah xxxii. 17).
“Surely I will no more give thy corn to be meat for thine enemies, and
the sons of the stranger shall not drink thy wine, for the which thou
hast labored; but they that have gathered it shall eat it, and praise
the Lord; and they that have brought it together shall drink it in the
courts of My holiness” (Isaiah lxii. 8, 9). In the New Jerusalem “there
shall be no more sorrow nor crying,” “They shall not build, and another
inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat; for as the days of a
tree are the days of My people, and Mine elect shall long enjoy the
work of their hands” (Isaiah lxv. 21, 22).
The prophet thus raises his voice in favor of the poor, in the name of
justice, not of charity and mercy. “The Lord will enter into judgment
with the ancients of His people and the princes thereof: for ye have
eaten up the vineyard; the spoil of the poor is in your houses. What
mean ye that ye beat My people to pieces, and grind the faces of the
poor? saith the Lord God of hosts” (Isaiah iii. 14, 15). “Woe unto them
that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no
place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth” (Isaiah
v. 8). In the future society property will be ensured to all, and every
one will “sit under his vine and under his fig-tree” (Micah iv. 4).
The ideal of the prophets comprehends, then, in the first place,
the triumph of justice, which will bring liberty to the oppressed,
consolation to the outcast, and the produce of their labors to the
workers; and secondly, and chiefly, it will bring the glorification and
domination of the elect people—Israel.
The ideal of the Gospel makes less of this second consideration of
national grandeur and pre-eminence, and places in the foreground the
radical transformation of the social order. The Gospel is the “good
tidings of great joy,” the Εὐαγγέλιον, carried to the poor,
the approach of the Kingdom of God—that is to say, of the reign of
justice. “The last shall be first;” therefore the pretended “natural
order” will be reversed!
Who will possess the earth? Not the mightiest, as in the animal
creation, and as Darwinian laws decree; not the rich, “for it is
easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye than for a rich man to
enter the Kingdom of God.” Lazarus is received into Abraham’s bosom,
while Dives is cast into the place of torment, “where there is weeping
and gnashing of teeth.” The first of biological precepts, the one
respecting the survival of the fittest, as it immolates others for
personal benefit, is essentially selfish, which is a vice incessantly
reprobated in the New Testament. “Look not every man on his own things,
but every man also on the things of others” (Philippians ii. 4). The
chief of all Christian virtues is charity; it is the very essence of
the Gospel. “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness,
and all these things shall be added unto you” (St. Matthew vi. 33).
How very true is the economic doctrine that, with equitable laws, each
should enjoy the integral produce of his labor, and that, were this the
case, personal activity would attain its highest degree. Nothing is
more adverse to the prosperity of a nation than unjust laws; and this
is precisely what the prophets and Christ teach us.
If Darwinian laws were applied to human society, the utility of
history, considered as a moral lesson for both kings and people, would
be destroyed. The history of man might then be looked upon as a mere
zoological strife between nations, and a simple lengthening out of
natural history. What moral instruction can possibly be drawn from the
study of the animal world, where the strong devour or destroy the weak.
No spectacle could be more odious or more demoralizing!
The incomparable sublimity of the Gospel, which is, alas! only too
often misinterpreted, consists in an ardent longing for perfection,
in that aspiration for an ideal of justice which urged Jesus and His
earliest disciples to condemn the world as it then was. Thence sprang
the hatred of evil in its many various forms, the desire for better
things, for reforms and progress! Why do Mahometans stand still in the
march of civilization, while Christian countries advance ever more
and more rapidly? Because the first are resigned to evil, whereas the
second combat and endeavor to extirpate it. The stoicism—the elevated
character of which can hardly be sufficiently admired—the austerity,
and purity of such ancients as Marcus Aurelius, nevertheless, bowed
before absolute facts, looking upon them as the inevitable results of
the actual and natural order of things. Like modern evolutionists, they
glorified the laws of nature, considering them perfect. Their optimism
led them so far as to adore the cosmos as a divinity. “All that thou
wilt, O Cosmos,” says Marcus Aurelius, “is my will; nothing is too
early or too late for me, if it be at the hour thou decidest upon. My
fruit is such as thy seasons bring, O Nature! From thee comes all. Thou
art all. All go towards thee. If the gods be essentially good and just,
they must have permitted nothing, in the arrangement of the world,
contrary to right and justice.” What a contrast between this serene
satisfaction and the complaints of Job, of the prophets, and of Christ
Himself! The true Christian, in direct opposition to stoics and to Mr.
Herbert Spencer, holds that the world is completely infected with evil;
he avoids it carefully, and lives in the hope of a general cataclysm,
which will reduce our globe to ashes, and make place for a new and
purified heaven and earth! The belief of stoics and of evolutionary
sociologists logically advocates inaction, for it respects the present
order of things as attributable to natural laws. The Christian’s belief
leads him to ardently desire reform and progress, but also, when he
is deceived and reduced to despair, it occasionally culminates in
revolutionary violence and in Nihilism.
Not only Jesus, but all great religious reformers, such as Buddha,
Mahomet, Luther, and the great philosophers, especially Socrates
and Plato, and the great law-givers, from Solon and Lycurgus to the
legislators of the French Revolution—all the elect of humanity, in
fact—are struck with the evils under which our race is forced to
suffer, and have imagined and revealed an ideal social order more
in conformity with the ideal of justice; and in their writings they
place this Utopia in contrast with the existing order. The more
Christianity becomes despoiled of dogmas, and the more the ideas of
moral and social reform, contained in Christ’s teachings, are brought
forward as the chief aim, the more Mr. Herbert Spencer’s principles
will be shunned and avoided. In the splendid development of Roman law,
which lasted fifteen hundred years, a similar evolution took place.
In the beginning, in the laws of the twelve tables, many traces of
the hard law in favor of the mighty may be found. This is symbolized
by the lance (_quir_), which gave its name to the quiritarian right.
The father was allowed to sell or destroy his children, as they were
his possession. He had absolute power over his slaves, who were his
“things”. The creditor might throw his debtor in prison, or even cause
him to be cut in pieces—_in partes secanto_. The wife was entirely in
her husband’s power—_in manu_. Little by little, as centuries rolled
on, eminent lawgivers succeeded each other, and gradual changes were
made, so that, finally, just and humanitarian principles penetrated the
entire Roman code, and the Darwinian law, which glorifies might, gave
place to the Christian law, which extols justice.
This movement will most assuredly continue, in spite of all the abuse
it may receive from Mr. Herbert Spencer, and from others who think
as he does. It is a result of the advance of civilization from the
commencement of Christianity, and even from the time of the prophets
of Israel. It will manifest itself, not as it did in the middle ages,
by works of mercy, but, under the control of economic science, by the
intervention of the State in favor of the disinherited, and by measures
such as Mr. Shaw Lefevre approves of, so that each and all should be
placed in a position to be able to command reward in proportion to the
amount of useful labor accomplished.
Darwinian laws, generally admitted in the domain of natural history and
in the animal kingdom, will never be applied to human societies, until
the sentiments of charity and justice, which Christianity engraves on
our hearts, are completely eradicated.—_Contemporary Review._