Let us try to get at the root error of these false domestic doctrines.
Why was it that the late Samuel Butler, with a conviction that increased
with his experience of life, preached the gospel of Laodicea, urging
people to be temperate in what they called goodness as in everything
else? Why is it that I, when I hear some well-meaning person exhort
young people to make it a rule to do at least one kind action every
day, feel very much as I should if I heard them persuade children to
get drunk at least once every day? Apart from the initial absurdity of
accepting as permanent a state of things in which there would be in this
country misery enough to supply occasion for several thousand million
kind actions per annum, the effect on the character of the doers of the
actions would be so appalling, that one month of any serious attempt
to carry out such counsels would probably bring about more stringent
legislation against actions going beyond the strict letter of the law
in the way of kindness than we have now against excess in the opposite
direction.
There is no more dangerous mistake than the mistake of supposing that we
cannot have too much of a good thing. The truth is, an immoderately good
man is very much more dangerous than an immoderately bad man: that is
why Savonarola was burnt and John of Leyden torn to pieces with red-hot
pincers whilst multitudes of unredeemed rascals were being let off with
clipped ears, burnt palms, a flogging, or a few years in the galleys.
That is why Christianity never got any grip of the world until it
virtually reduced its claims on the ordinary citizen's attention to a
couple of hours every seventh day, and let him alone on week-days. If
the fanatics who are preoccupied day in and day out with their salvation
were healthy, virtuous, and wise, the Laodiceanism of the ordinary man
might be regarded as a deplorable shortcoming; but, as a matter of fact,
no more frightful misfortune could threaten us than a general spread of
fanaticism. What people call goodness has to be kept in check just as
carefully as what they call badness; for the human constitution will not
stand very much of either without serious psychological mischief, ending
in insanity or crime. The fact that the insanity may be privileged,
as Savonarola's was up to the point of wrecking the social life of
Florence, does not alter the case. We always hesitate to treat a
dangerously good man as a lunatic because he may turn out to be a
prophet in the true sense: that is, a man of exceptional sanity who is
in the right when we are in the wrong. However necessary it may have
been to get rid of Savonarola, it was foolish to poison Socrates and
burn St. Joan of Arc. But it is none the less necessary to take a firm
stand against the monstrous proposition that because certain attitudes
and sentiments may be heroic and admirable at some momentous crisis,
they should or can be maintained at the same pitch continuously through
life. A life spent in prayer and alms giving is really as insane as a
life spent in cursing and picking pockets: the effect of everybody doing
it would be equally disastrous. The superstitious tolerance so long
accorded to monks and nuns is inevitably giving way to a very general
and very natural practice of confiscating their retreats and expelling
them from their country, with the result that they come to England and
Ireland, where they are partly unnoticed and partly encouraged because
they conduct technical schools and teach our girls softer speech and
gentler manners than our comparatively ruffianly elementary teachers.
But they are still full of the notion that because it is possible for
men to attain the summit of Mont Blanc and stay there for an hour, it is
possible for them to live there. Children are punished and scolded for
not living there; and adults take serious offence if it is not assumed
that they live there.
As a matter of fact, ethical strain is just as bad for us as physical
strain. It is desirable that the normal pitch of conduct at which men
are not conscious of being particularly virtuous, although they feel
mean when they fall below it, should be raised as high as possible; but
it is not desirable that they should attempt to live above this pitch
any more than that they should habitually walk at the rate of five
miles an hour or carry a hundredweight continually on their backs. Their
normal condition should be in nowise difficult or remarkable; and it
is a perfectly sound instinct that leads us to mistrust the good man
as much as the bad man, and to object to the clergyman who is pious
extra-professionally as much as to the professional pugilist who is
quarrelsome and violent in private life. We do not want good men and bad
men any more than we want giants and dwarfs. What we do want is a high
quality for our normal: that is, people who can be much better than what
we now call respectable without self-sacrifice. Conscious goodness,
like conscious muscular effort, may be of use in emergencies; but for
everyday national use it is negligible; and its effect on the character
of the individual may easily be disastrous.