That doubt is only the expenditure of the treasures of life for future
gain human history bears witness in a striking way. Times of a general
scepticism among any people have always been also times of
conventionalism and utilitarianism towards all things great and small.
To employ again a word used before, this means that life has come to
regard its establishments of all sorts as only "instrumental," not
final. Of course, conventionalism and utilitarianism are commonly
decried, just as the accompanying attitude of doubt is commonly decried;
but the fears, though not altogether idle, are usually short-sighted,
for there is gain ahead. In a certain community, for example,
patriotism, morality, and piety, long identified with specific forms and
customs and doctrines, have come at last to seem quite unsubstantial. A
rising cosmopolitanism perhaps has undone the first, sensationalism
[p.260] or naturalism the second, and mingled ritualism and secularism
the third. But however unsubstantial all three may appear in
consequence, they are nevertheless retained as still useful, as means to
some end, being at least good things to wear or to assume in any way,
and from the change, though it appear so like decline, the community in
the end is most decidedly enriched.
How can this be? In answer, let us beard the very king of the race of
the conventionalists and utilitarians in his forbidding den.
Machiavelli, with his teaching that the end always justifies the means,
and his open advice to the leader who would be successful, to make a
point of at least seeming loyal and good and pious, shows a typical
mingling of the sceptic and the utilitarian in sacred things. Moreover,
what Machiavelli taught was also common practice in his time, and soon
became a principle of brilliant statesmanship all over Europe. And to
add meaning to his case by associating it with others, conspicuously in
Descartes' time, as we have observed, and also in Athens at the time of
the Sophists, and in Jerusalem when the Pharisees flourished, the same
standpoint was much in vogue; while in our own times we do not need to
look far to find it. Education, social life, politics, religion abound
in it, for the tribe of the Machiavellists is no more a lost tribe than
it is one that began with him whose name it bears. If the name is too
offensive to some by reason of its connection with a particular
character and a particular period in Italian history, for Machiavellism
they may substitute institutionalism, certainly a more innocent term at
first sight; but the offensiveness, though hidden, [p.261] or
half-hidden, still remains a part of the fact with which we have to
deal. The meaning of institutionalism is just that of some asserted end
justifying any available means, and so under cover of its peculiar
conceits sanctioning violence. Watch any institution and see how one or
another of life's objects of devotion is become, or fast becoming, a
mere utility. The institution makes life mechanical, and doing this it
is as treacherous as it seems loyal to the treasured things of life, the
developed ideas and established customs; it is even as sceptical towards
them as it seems faithful; and in the spirit, if not in the letter, of
Machiavellism it shows them no longer implicitly worshipped, but in use,
which is to say, "put to the bankers," and so robbed of their character
of sacred treasures. And as for Machiavelli himself, it may be worth
while to remember that with all his offensiveness he has undoubtedly
been very much maligned, and that to any student of history he seems
only a very apt though an unpleasantly outspoken pupil of the most
powerful institution of his time--the Roman Church--for which things
moral and religious had certainly become effective instruments of very
worldly ambitions. So in Machiavellism or in institutionalism, the name
now being indifferent to us, we see worship passing into use; we see
sacred things become secular, or things supposed final becoming only
instrumental; and we see, therefore, what appears like loss or
decline.[1]
[p.262] But can there be anything besides loss or decline? This again is
our question, and the answer now comes quick and decisive, whether we
are thinking of Machiavelli or the Sophists, of the old-time Pharisees,
or of those in our own life. Decline and even fall never tell the whole
story of anything, and just because they mean use, even secular use.
That men must worship is surely true, but also men must and do use, and
the use, in spite of the strain of the offence and resistance which it
is sure to arouse, brings profit always. Use, secular use, may imply
sacrifice of the letter or the established form, but it always leads to
liberation of the spirit. In scepticism, therefore, and the coincident
conventionalism and utilitarianism towards sacred things, in the
institutionalism which harbours all these, though often darkly and
secretly, we may always read, what in truth history has again and again
exemplified, the throes of birth, the birth of the spirit. Must it not
be that any visible institution, be it ecclesiastical or industrial or
political or educational or ceremonial, just because an institution
designed in some way to serve an active, growing life, is always an
outgrown, falling institution? As in the case of the Roman Church in the
days of Machiavelli, an institution upon its establishment actually
justifies its enemies by its own practices, while the enemies, so
justified, do but lay it bare, exposing its hidden thoughts and ways,
forcing reform upon it, and perhaps in the end themselves "remaining to
pray."
So is the spirit born, and so do we see in the personnel of
society what a wonderful triumvirate, working [p.263] for the real
growth of human life with a power that nothing can resist, is made by
the avowed sceptic, the loyalist, always secretly conventional and
utilitarian, and the reformer, the great spiritual leader. Even
Machiavelli in his most offensive pronouncements must have felt
something between his lines which expressed would have transfigured
their meaning, not to say also his reputation, greatly, and, consciously
or unconsciously, he was certainly a party to the development of what is
best in modern life. As for the Sophists, whether we see them as
sceptics or conventionalists, did they not have Socrates among them?
Between them and him, when all is said, the difference was only that
between talent and genius, between great formal ingenuity, which always
means opportunism, and really vital insight, which, shattering
opportunism with its own weapons, means loyalty, not to existing forms,
but to the spirit dwelling in the forms. Much in the same way, too, the
Jewish Pharisees had Jesus, a contemporary, who did but recognize and
earnestly teach what they were really practising, namely, the utility of
the law, or the law for man, not man for the law. Only what for them was
merely a selfish opportunity, absorbed as they were in the vested
interests of their time and generation, was manifest to him--who was a
genius and who used for real gain the talent which they hoarded--as a
great spiritual fact, as a universal truth, bringing opportunity and
freedom to all men under all law, not to some men under one law. Thus
they were institutionalists; he, by merely turning their narrowness into
a principle of all life, became a reformer, and, indebted to them as he
was, he could [p.264] forgive them even when they opposed him. Genius
always forgives; the spirit always recalls and cherishes the letter that
has given it birth.
So the institution as an historical fact, whether we see it with the
eyes of Machiavelli or with those of a pope, with the eyes of Protagoras
or with those of Socrates, with the eyes of the Pharisees or with those
of Christ, may show worship turning into use, the sacred becoming
secular, but it shows also the life of society becoming enriched; it
shows investment for future gain; it shows doubt, not destroying
anything, but achieving only what is real; it shows the life of the
spirit.