SOCIAL UNREST
Peace, peace, thou over-anxious, foolish heart;
Rest, ever-seeking soul; calm, mad desires;
Quiet, wild dreams—this is the time of sleep,
Hold her more close than life itself. Forget
All the excitements of the day, forget
All problems and discomforts. Let the night
Take you unto herself, her blessèd self,
Peace, peace, thou over-anxious, foolish heart;
Rest, ever-seeking soul; calm, mad desires;
Quiet, wild dreams—this is the time of sleep.
LEOLYN LOUISE EVERETT.
Inquiry into the causes and the cure of sleeplessness leads us
inevitably to one conclusion: there must be peace of mind, harmonious
action and interaction of mind and body in order to command the most
refreshing sleep. A man may not know which of the many theories of
sleep is correct—indeed, he may not know that there are any theories
about it, but, if he lives a normal physical life and is at peace with
the world, he is likely to sleep well.
Since health of body, mind, and soul is essential to our best
development, and since sleep, restful sleep, is essential to such
health, it would seem that such sleep is one of the things which
rightly belong to every individual. And, if to individuals, then to
groups of individuals, to nations, to the whole race. The race is
subject to the same influence as the individual, and, since the chief
cause of the unrest of individuals is their inharmonious relations
towards one another, so the chief cause of the unrest of the race is
its inherent discord.
Underlying the antagonisms of men to men is the question of
economics—“the science of ... living well for the state, the
family, and the individual,” as the Standard Dictionary defines
it. While the question of how he shall sustain his mere physical
existence—obtain the food, clothes, and shelter so essential to
his maintenance—occupies all a man’s thought and energy, he does
not readily turn toward the consideration of his deeper life. He
feels that every man is his enemy, ready and willing to take from
him, either by superior sharpness, fraud, or force the opportunity
of supplying his needs.
So long as conditions lead anyone to adopt this attitude towards his
fellows, he is not apt to give much time or thought to discovering
his proper relations toward them. Forces stronger than any number of
individuals, acting separately, may drive men into combinations— such
as labor organizations among the masses, or large corporations among
the privileged classes—until we find a sort of spurious co-operation
taking the place of individual effort.
But this co-operation is based upon the necessity of combining to
oppose and crush, not upon the desire to avoid friction and bring about
harmonious relations between men. Wherever either labor or capital
organizes to protect itself from the oppression of the other and to
dictate terms to it, that other in its turn organizes to protect
itself and to crush the opposing power. Neither party to the struggle
sees its dependence upon the other. Capital forgets that labor called
it into existence, that without labor there had been no capital, and
that should labor cease capital would soon disappear. Labor does not
see that capital is its own product, drawn from the land and used to
enable men to produce more wealth. And neither sees that the object
of producing wealth is not wealth for its own sake, but that man may,
through its use, develop himself to an ever higher state.
It is scarcely possible that men should see this under present economic
conditions; how, then, can it be possible for men to understand their
relations to one another or the advantages of harmony?
And, if economic conditions destroy man’s relations to man, how much
more completely do they destroy man’s relation to the higher life,
to Nature or God? Even in his bitterest struggles with his fellows,
man recognizes that he and those who oppose him are alike victims
of circumstances and must fight. The resentment which he feels is
less toward individuals than to the circumstances which make them
antagonists when they should be coworkers, and he does not see that the
circumstances are of man’s own creating.
So long as he regards these conditions as natural, ordained by some
power outside himself, he cannot be expected to feel drawn towards
closer relations with that power. While he has to watch his chance in
the battle of life, he can hardly see that to get in harmony with the
laws of the Universe, to recognize his oneness with all life, is to
leave struggle and unrest behind. If life is nothing but struggle, he
wonders how any attitude can destroy or obviate struggling.
Viewed from his standpoint, he is right. If, as man progresses, the
desire to live well strengthens and deepens, and if this desire can be
gratified only by waging relentless war against men and conditions,
then no study of the relations of man to man or of man to life can
lead to anything but greater cunning and more destructive methods of
opposition. As the individual finds no way to fulfill his desires
without fighting his neighbor, so the nation learns of no way to
advance except through crushing other nations. There can rarely be
true internal peace for the individual and no true rest and healthy
growth for the nation while unjust economic conditions are maintained.
Wherever an individual feels the pressure of economic conditions too
keenly he loses what little poise he may have had. He becomes restless
and sleepless and the whole tone of his mind and body is lowered. Where
the distress from such pressure becomes general, there the nation
loses tone; quarrels are readily picked with other nations, and war is
resorted to as a means of reducing population and of destroying all
forms of wealth, so that a new demand may be created and the economic
pressure for a time be lessened. These conditions recur again and
again at longer or shorter intervals, and always the same futile means
of meeting them is adopted. Man so little understands life that he
has not learned that harmony with the laws of the Universe underlies
his economic relations as well as his physical relations. If he knew
this, he would know that the distress and dissatisfaction common to
all nations could come only from the violation of natural laws, and he
would begin to search out those laws. Men for a long time held false
ideas of the laws of the solar system, and exhausted ingenious devices
and systems to explain its phenomena. Then they began to discover
underlying laws which explain phenomena more satisfactorily: some of
those laws were found, and our knowledge of the solar system to-day is
based upon these sure fundamentals.
It is as possible to make sure of the laws governing our economic
conditions as of those that govern the solar system. They must lie at
the root of all things economic and must explain all phenomena that any
condition of society, whether the most primitive or the most complex,
can produce. Until these laws are discovered and applied the earth will
“turn, troubled in sleep,” and men may not know peace.