JANUS IN MODERN LIFE
JANUS
IN
MODERN LIFE
BY
W. M. FLINDERS PETRIE
D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S., F.B.A., &c.
_Fools only learn by their own experience,
Wise men learn by the experience of others._
LONDON:
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO. LTD.
10 ORANGE STREET, LEICESTER SQUARE W.C.
1907.
"There are two roads to reformation for mankind—one through
misfortunes of their own, the other through those of others; the former
is the more unmistakable, the latter the less painful.... For it is
history, and history alone, which, without involving us in actual
danger, will mature our judgment, and prepare us to take right views,
whatever may be the crisis or the posture of affairs."
POLYBIUS.
PREFACE.
These papers essay an understanding of some of the various principles
which underlie the course of political movements in the present age.
There is no attempt at introducing any considerations which are
not familiar to every intelligent person, nor any comparisons with
other instances which are not already well known in history. Why
considerations which seem so obvious when stated, should yet not be
familiar, may perhaps be due to the estrangement between science and
corporate life, which is an unhappy feature of a time of transition
both in education and in motives.
The point of view here is that of public and general conditions and
not of private variations of beliefs. Such moral factors, though
all important to the individual, are not so much the subject of
the direct physical causes and effects which are here considered.
Similarly the beneficial result of private benevolence is not added
to these considerations, because it is largely outside of the effects
of conduct, and finds its good in amending or neutralising the evil
consequences of various actions. It will always have its scope, but in
opposition to, rather than in concert with, the direct effects which we
are here to consider.
Too often the objections to various new views are based upon some
sentiment of one party, rather than upon the reason which is common to
all parties. Here, on the contrary, the aim is to consider the natural
consequences of various actions, apart from personal opinion, and
therefore on a common ground which all readers can equally accept.
The position of a partisan or an advocate has been avoided so far as
possible. No doubt to many of the statements and deductions here, one
party or another would cry, Anathema. As a whole the results are more
in accord with Individualism than with Collectivism; but an attempt
is made to trace what are the limits of a Collectivism that may not
involve deleterious consequences. It may seem a fault to many minds
that no cut and dried definite system or course of action is advocated;
many people prefer a medicine which is guaranteed to relieve all
their complaints, instead of a physiological research on the obscure
causes of their troubles. But, if we are to advance, we must study
the diseases of bodies politic with the same disinterestedness, and
somewhat of the same unfeeling temper, as that of the physiologist in
dealing with "animated nature." Such a line of study will be useless
to the politician, so long as he is an opportunist or a placeman;
and useless to the socialist, so long as he refuses to learn by the
experience of others.
The present time seems to most people so infinitely more important
to them than the past or future, that they are impatient at the
introduction of comparisons which seem to reflect upon their immediate
judgment, or of anticipations which would check their present
gratification. They forget that it is only a fiction to speak of the
present, an infinitely thin division between what has been and that
which will be. Every step of the past has been a present, living,
urgent, imperative, to the whole world; and every such present has
been entirely conditioned by its past, just as the future to us is
conditioned by our present. If any race now cares to learn somewhat
from its own past, and that of others, it may benefit its own future;
if it prefers a blind selfishness, a better race will be welcomed to
its place.
Janus, who looked to the past and to the future, was the god whose
temple stood always open during war, that he might bring peace upon
earth. And in our day it is only the view of the past and the future
which can warn us of evils to come, and save us from violence and
confusion.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
PREFACE v
CHAPTER I.
CHARACTER, THE BASIS OF SOCIETY.
Production of character the most important object, p. 1. The
known conditions of physical variation, p. 2. Mental equivalents
of physical variation in (1) benefits of ability, p. 4; (2)
Inheritance, p. 4; (3) Artificial increase of variation, p. 5;
(4) Excitement of variation, p. 6; (5) Gain by use, p. 6;
(6) Loss by atrophy, p. 7; (7) Variation made permanent by
competition, p. 10. Immutability of general type, physical and
mental, p. 11.
CHAPTER II.
PRESENT CHANGES OF CHARACTER.
Loss of national character by emigration, p. 13; by promotion
of sloth, p. 16. Lack of adaptability, p. 16. Low type of
public pleasure, p. 17. Repression of character by communism,
p. 20. Conditions of successful communism, p. 20. Communism
in early Christianity, p. 23. Intense competition
among herbivora, p. 25. Communism fatalistic, p. 26.
Destruction of character by municipal communism, p. 26.
CHAPTER III.
TRADE UNIONISM, ITS FLOWER AND FRUITION.
Town influence in Rome, p. 28. Decay of the country, p. 29.
Growth of trade unions, p. 30. Trade unions compulsory, p. 30.
Cheap production for the proletariat, p. 32. Sharing of proletariat
burden by a trade, p. 32. All property hypothecated to
the Trade Unions, p. 33. The social burden the destruction of
Rome, p. 34. The growth of the little-Italy party, p. 35. Devolution
of government, p. 36. The state regulation of prices and
wages, p. 37.
CHAPTER IV.
REVOLUTION OR EVOLUTION?
Great effects best produced by small causes, p. 40. Revolution
leads to greater tyranny, p. 40; also leads to military
despotism, p. 41. Radical changes show ignorance, p. 42.
Scope to be allowed for gradual change, p. 43. Variability
tolerated by bye-laws, p. 44. Effects of small changes as seen
in Death Duties and reduced colonising power, p. 44. Income
tax and expulsion of trade, p. 47; benefits of taxing extravagance,
p. 52; Irish tenant right, p. 53; high interest on loans,
p. 55; equalisation of land values, p. 56; growth of cities, p. 57.
Effect of workmen's compensation, p. 58; of old age pensions,
p. 59; of state help for children, p. 60. Effects of wealth in the
hands of different classes, p. 60.
CHAPTER V.
THE NEED OF DIVERSITY.
Variability needful for advance of a species, p. 65. Large
states a necessary result of rapid communication, p. 66. Diversity
needed therefore within the state, as well as between
states, p. 67. No moral obligation to uniformity, p. 67.
Separate states needed for a doubled-centred diversity, p. 70.
Diversity as yet remaining in marriage-law and custom, p. 71.
Society a mixture of many past stages of culture, p. 72. Present
education a bar to progress by diversity, p. 73. Need of diversity
in education, p. 75.
CHAPTER VI.
LINES OF ADVANCE.
Personal initiative essential, p. 78. Prevention of waste the
main principle of advance, p. 79. Gain in health, p. 79. Gain
in amount of activities of life, p. 80. Gain in rapidity, p. 81.
Gain by working instead of playing, p. 81. Gain by saving
waste in renewal, p. 83. Gain by permanent marriage, p. 84.
Gain by high-tending of families, p. 85. Gain by improving or
weeding of bad stocks, p. 86. Gain by individualism, p. 89.
Gain by free combinations, p. 92. Gain by international
labour, p. 93. The meaning of war, by trade, by armament,
and by violence, p. 95. Improvement of checks, p. 99. The
ultimate type of states, p. 100. The ultimate type of man,
p. 101.
INDEX 105
JANUS IN MODERN LIFE.
CHAPTER I.
CHARACTER, THE BASIS OF SOCIETY.
In considering or designing any kind of work the first and most
essential condition is the quality of material that has to be used.
"You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear." And what is
true materially is true also mentally; the character of a people
is the essential basis of all their institutions and government.
If we intend to consider what improvements are possible, or what
degradations may occur, we must treat the matter entirely as a question
of character. "For forms of Government let fools contest, whate'er
is best administered is best," and the administration depends upon
the character of the people. We see on all sides that races of a
low character necessarily pass, by the force of events, under the
domination of other races who have a higher or stronger character. It
is the quality of the race which is the most essential and determining
factor in its history. That every nation has the kind of government
which it deserves, is an old remark, which implies that its character
determines its fate. The diligent but cautious Scot; the slovenly
Slovene; the self-deceived Gaul; the tediously complete and logical
German; these all show the manner in which their administration is the
product of the individual character. Further, happiness is essentially
dependent upon character, and is—by comparison—determined by
character alone, almost apart from external circumstances.
It is therefore a matter of the first importance to consider how
character is produced or modified. Possibly to some it may appear
presumptuous to apply to the mind those natural laws which it is
now generally agreed apply to bodily development. Yet even the
probabilities of chance distribution may be shown to apply to the
varieties of mind; both by rough observation in general, and also
by a test case quantitatively applied (see _Religion and Conscience
in Ancient Egypt_). A feeling against this treatment of the mind
by material law is based on the idea that it implies an absence of
free-will. But, to take an illustration, a railway company may be
certain of carrying very closely the same number of passengers each
day, without in the least embarrassing the free-will of any passenger
as to whether or no he will travel. Let us notice, therefore, how
the various principles of physical modification are applicable also
to mental change. Whether it may be that changes take place by the
inheritance of acquired characteristics, or whether they occur solely
by accidental variation which proves beneficial, is a much debated
question which is not requisite for us to settle here. It is agreed
that in the physical life of all animals it may be seen that: (1)
Favourable variations give a determining advantage to one individual
over another, or to one more than another against a common enemy; (2)
Useful variations tend to be maintained in successive generations;
(3) Artificial conditions tend to produce variation; (4) Greater
variability accompanies unusual developments; (5) Growth is directed
and encouraged by use; and (6), as the total activity is limited,
therefore disuse causes atrophy and degradation, by favouring of parts
more used. To these follows the important corollary (7): Variation
being only of benefit where there is competition in which it gives an
advantage, its improvements will cease to be maintained in the absence
of competition; it is only competition which makes improved variations
permanent. For instance, if there were no carnivora the swifter deer
would not have found their pace a benefit, and there would be no
sufficient cause for their attaining their present swiftness. In place
of looking on selection as merely a struggle we must look on it as the
sole physical means of permanent elevation, the motor which has raised
every species to its present point of ability.
To these principles common to all organic nature must be added another
which is almost peculiar to man alone. We often hear that environment
is the determinant of the nature of both animals and man. But the
distinctive quality of man is the subjection of the environment to the
ruling faculty; man is not necessarily conditioned by his environment,
but a direct measure of his civilisation is the extent to which he
creates his own conditions. Other communal animals, as the ant, the
bee, or the beaver, have anticipated this to some extent; but in man
alone can the ruling faculty rise to an entire reversal of almost
every condition of environment.
The mental equivalents of these physical modifications are obviously
true in common experience and in historical example.
(1) That a favourable variation of mind gives a determining advantage
needs no illustration, as every sharp and able man of business has
shown this in all ages.
(2) That mental qualities are inherited has been pretty generally
recognised, and the work of Galton on Hereditary Genius has enforced
this by statistical example. But the historical consequences have not
been sufficiently noticed; for it is obviously possible by selective
action to increase or diminish not only the bodily activity but
also the mental ability seen in the whole community. The series of
proscriptions of all the leading men of Rome, alternately on one side
and then on the other, from Marius down to Octavius, was so disastrous
a drain of political ability, that only the Julian family was left; and
there was never an able emperor of Roman ancestry after that line was
extinct. The expulsion of the Huguenots from France drained it of the
active middle class minds, and left the great gap in the continuity of
sympathy which made the Revolution possible. The later expulsion or
extermination also of the active upper class minds drained that land of
nearly all the hereditary ability of the race: the consequence has been
to leave at the present day a nation of mediocrities, among whom there
is but a fraction of the genius seen in Germany and England on either
side of it. Almost every leading name is that of a foreigner, as for
instance Waddington, Zurlinden, Eiffel, Reinach, Rothschild, Gambetta,
Maspero. Another very important consideration is that sporadic ability
is not inherited in the same manner as long continued family ability.
Not a single Roman Emperor who rose solely from his individual powers
left a worthy and capable son. The Gordians were a good senatorial
family, and ran through three generations on the throne. In England
the same thing is seen. The main source of new men of ability is from
sturdy Puritan or Quaker stocks that have long practised self-denial
and hard work; old families with long traditions of public service
continue usually on the same line of ability; but the _nouveaux riches_
who have sprung forward on some lucky speculation or trade enterprise
usually go hopelessly to pieces in the next generation. The longer a
useful type has been maintained the more stable it is.
(3) That artificial conditions tend to produce variation is obvious
in every civilisation. The more intense is the artificiality of life,
the greater are the extremes of ability and incompetence, of riches
and poverty, accompanying it. It is often a problem to kind hearts
that there should be such misery and degradation side by side with the
ease and welfare of civilisation. The answer is that it is inevitable,
because the very same artificiality which gives scope to the capable
to rise, equally gives scope for the incapable to fall. Every chance,
every opening, every benefit attainable by exertion, is a means of
advance to him who uses it; but it is accompanied by equal chances of
failure, equal openings to loss, equal injuries resulting from sloth,
which are the equally sure means of degradation for those who have
not the wit or energy to avoid them. The "submerged tenth" is the
inevitable complement of the leading tenth.
(4) Greater variability of mind accompanies unusual development;
this is seen in the great outbursts of mental activity which have
occurred along with external expansion in the times of Elizabeth and of
Victoria. Or in earlier times the growth of Greek literature following
the Periclean expansion, or of Roman literature with the Augustan
settlement of the world.
(5) Mental growth is directed and encouraged by use. This fact is so
obvious that it is proverbial, as in the saying, "The mind grows by
what it feeds upon." All mental training and teaching recognise this,
but it is true in later life as well as in youth. It is well known
how in the least civilised races small children are as advanced—or
more so—than in higher races. The Australian is said to come to a
standstill at ten or twelve years old. The Egyptian seldom advances
mentally after sixteen. A low-class Englishman does not improve after
twenty or so. A capable man will continue to expand till thirty or
forty. And the man of the greatest capacity will continue to grow
mentally, and assimilate new lines of thought, until seventy or eighty.
Thus the greater the power of use and the activity of the mind, the
longer will it continue to grow. This may well be regarded as one of
the main tests of a great mind; and it is strictly in accord with the
system of the well-known embryonic changes passing from lower to higher
stages, and continuing to grow in development into higher and higher
types. The savage ceased to grow mentally even while in childhood; the
sage continues the expansion of mind to extreme old age.
(6) Disuse of mind causes atrophy and degradation. This principle
is one of the most important of all in its practical bearings. The
familiar figure of the later Merovings, the _rois fainéants_, is
an historical example: freed from all necessity of thought by the
assiduity of the mayors of the palace, the family mind atrophied
further in each generation, until the king became a puppet without
volition in royal affairs. The same working may be seen in the
upper classes of many countries, where the spur of the necessity
of action ceases. Within a century of the cessation of the Moorish
wars the chivalry of Spain began to atrophy; the same was seen in a
century after the cessation of civil war in France. In England the
strong tradition of training for the public careers in the civil and
military services and parliament, has saved the upper classes more
than elsewhere. But a rich family without active interests almost
always shows atrophy of mind. There is a fine saying of Mencius,
"Those whom God destines for some great part, He first chastens by
suffering and toil." The same tendency to atrophy is equally seen in
the lower classes, when the necessity of self-help is removed. And many
of the modern movements have been of a degrading tendency, leading
to the holding back of the capable and the artificial help of the
incapable. It is obvious that if persons have retrograded and got into
difficulties, they are presumably less capable than those around them.
If then they are relieved independently of their own exertions, their
incapacity is fostered and they retrograde still further. To compensate
them for their incapacity by relief works, by farm colonies, by outdoor
relief doles, by maintenance of their children, will inevitably lead
to further atrophy of mind. The doctrine of equality of wages in a
trade is a double injury, it encourages the most incapable man that can
possibly squeeze into the trade, and it discourages the capable man who
is worth far more than the average. It must tend to drive capable men
out of the trades which they might have raised by their example and
stimulus, into other lines where capacity can still earn its value.
The mental atrophy that has come over ordinary workmen is appalling,
at least in the region of London. In case after case, the common sense
and intelligence seems to have been entirely lost, and the grossest
blunders will be made by well-paid men; and it is safe to say that in
most business a really capable and active man can do from three to six
times as much as the average workman, beside avoiding the loss of time
by mistakes. In short a certified ease of conditions, and absence of
direct penalties of incapacity, has atrophied the ordinary working mind
to a point which is dangerously low in comparison with that of other
races. The remedy lies in training the incapable by a stern discipline
of gradually teaching them the maximum that they can perform in the
day, with good direction and avoidance of bad conditions. After a
couple of years of such intensive training they should be drafted into
ordinary factories, with the warning that if they fall out of work
again, another year's compulsory hard training will be the result.
In another way this atrophy of mind may be seen and felt as a temporary
condition by members of boards and committees. What is everyone's
business is nobody's business; and when each person feels that he is
not personally responsible, a numbness and inaction ensues which is
characteristic of such bodies. Men, any one of whom would act sensibly
when alone, will succumb to the paralysing sense that they need not
think because nine other men are doing so, and the results are well
known as characterising these assemblies which have "neither a body to
be kicked nor a soul to be damned." There are very few public bodies
which are not really dependent on the individual thought and design of
one person, criticised and amended by the collateral views of others.
In short, all action and rule must be personal and not corporate,
however much the person may be checked and controlled by general
opinion of the public, or of a restricted body. Without personal
initiative atrophy is the result.
Another great theatre of mental atrophy is officialism, where a man
is bound to follow certain rules and routine rather than to think.
A German has remarked to me that a man who is perfectly reasonable
and intelligent in private life becomes quite foolish as soon as he
enters his office. This constant result is the strongest reason for not
extending official control of affairs needlessly, or the management
of public work by officials. Private enterprise will always be more
effective than an official system, because it is solely the result of
individual initiative. The enormous monopolies of railways in England
are on the whole far more beneficial to the public than the State
railways of other countries. The evils of corporate monopoly, checked
by law and supervision of the Board of Trade, are less than the evil of
stagnation by official atrophy. In the Republic of France the principal
line runs its best trains slower than, and at three times the cost of,
the best trains on great English lines.
(7) It is only competition which makes permanent the improved mental
variations which occur. The evils of competition in physical things
almost disappear in the mental field; and, unless misused as in a
foolishly designed examination, there seems an unmixed benefit from
unlimited competition of mind. It is only by such competition that
higher types of ability have been established in the past, and it is
to such that we must look for future improvement. It is true that in
various directions we find a dislike of competition; but that is the
surest sign that it is effective, and therefore beneficial to the whole
body.
We see then that each of those principles which rule in physical
modification is equally true of mental modification.
But though the modes of mental variation may be fairly clear, we
must not be carried away by the view that therefore great changes in
man are to be expected. The effects of various conditions upon the
body are tolerably familiar, yet the average form of man has varied
extraordinarily little during ten thousand years. The highest type
of ancient man differs almost inappreciably from the highest type of
modern man, certainly by not a tenth of the difference that may be seen
between different types at present. It may be practically said that man
is at a standstill in physical development. Sanitary improvements and
better feeding may do great things, but they leave the essential form
and constitution unaltered. The same is true of mind. When we become
familiar with details of early ages nothing is more astonishing than
to see how unaltered the mind of man is in its essentials. In tales
and maxims six thousand years old we see not only the common stock of
primary instincts, but also the _finesse_ of conduct in public life,
the modes of ensuring respect in dealing with superiors and inferiors,
the attention to very varied elements of character, and a fine suavity
and kindliness pervading the whole. There is not a single class or a
single public body at present that practically stands as high as the
ideal of two hundred generations ago. And when we look at the material
civilisation we see still farther back the appreciation of qualities of
work which only a very small proportion of mankind care for now. The
overwhelming zeal for minute accuracy was as perfect a mental state at
4700 B.C. as it is in a Royal Society paper of our day. The subject
and the method have changed; but the mental attitude is the same in a
man who demanded, and in those who executed, beautifully true plane
surfaces, and long measurements exact to far within the variation of
size caused by a hot or a cold day, and the men now who triangulate
a continent and measure the world. The mind is the same, only the
stock-in-trade of it has increased. At the beginning of history the
palaces were adorned with table services cut in the hardest and most
beautiful stones, exquisitely formed and polished; and such homes
were assuredly inhabited by men whose tastes and artistic sense were
closely the same as the best of ours, and who would, like us, have
revolted at most of the products of the present time. Not only was
there the body of highly skilled and intelligent men to do such work,
but there must have been a widely spread standard of taste demanding
this exquisite work as an aesthetic pleasure. The nature of mind is
unchanged, its motives, its feelings, its sense of life; only in
knowledge and the applications of it do we differ from the earliest
civilisation that we can trace.
It is, therefore, quite unreal for us to anticipate any change in the
essential nature of man in the next few thousand years. The increase
of knowledge and its applications will not alter that nature, or the
relation of mind to mind. We shall still desire and admire the same
things, and be moved by the same impulses; and we may neglect as
ignorant dreams all speculations about any essential changes in the
motives or constitution of man.