MR. MALLOCK'S MISSING SCIENCE.
Before criticising Mr. Mallock's little essay, let us summarize its
contents. The author begins with an analysis of the aims, the
principles, and the "pseudo-science" of modern Democracy. Having
established the evil and destructive character of these things, he sets
himself to show by logical argument that the present state of social
inequality, which Democrats wish to disturb, is a natural and wholesome
state; that the continuance of civilization is dependent upon it; and
that it could only be overturned by effecting a radical change--not in
human institutions, but in human character. The desire for inequality
is inherent in the human character; and in order to prove this
statement, Mr. Mallock proceeds to affirm that there is such a thing as
a science of human character; that of this science he is the
discoverer; and that the application of this science to the question at
issue will demonstrate the integrity of Mr. Mallock's views, and the
infirmity of all others. In the ensuing chapters the application is
made, and at the end the truth of the proposition is declared
established.
This is the outline; but let us note some of the details. Mr. Mallock
asserts (Chap. I.) that the aim of modern Democracy is to overturn "all
that has hitherto been connected with high-breeding or with personal
culture"; and that "to call the Democrats a set of thieves and
confiscators is merely to apply names to them which they have no wish
to repudiate." He maintains (Chap. II.) that the first and foremost of
the Democratic principles is "that the perfection of society involves
social equality"; and that "the luxury of one man means the deprivation
of another." He credits the Democrats with arguing that "the means of
producing equality are a series of changes in existing institutions";
that "by changing the institutions of a society we are able to change
its structure"; that "the cause of the distribution of wealth" is "laws
and forms of government"; and that "the wealthy classes, as such, are
connected with wealth in no other way but as the accidental
appropriators of it." In his third chapter he tells us that "the entire
theory of modern Democracy ... depends on the doctrine that the cause
of wealth is labor"; that Democrats believe we "may count on a man to
labor, just as surely as we may count on a man to eat"; that "the man
who does not labor is supported by the man who does"; and that the
pseudo-science of modern Democracy "starts with the conception of man
as containing in himself a natural tendency to labor." And here Mr.
Mallock's statement of his opponent's position ends.
In the fourth chapter we are brought within sight of "The Missing
Substitute." "A man's character," we are told, "divides into his
desires on the one hand, and his capacities on the other"; and it is
observed that "various as are men's desires and capacities, yet if
talent and ambition commanded no more than idleness and stupidity, all
men practically would be idle and stupid." "Men's capacities," we are
reminded, "are practically unequal, because they develop their own
potential inequalities; they do this because they desire to place
themselves in unequal external circumstances,--which result the
condition of society renders possible."
Coming now to the Science of Human Character itself, we find that it
"asserts a permanent relationship to exist between human character and
social inequality"; and the author then proceeds at some length to show
how near Herbert Spencer, Buckle, and other social and economic
philosophers, came to stumbling over his missing science, and yet
avoided doing so. Nevertheless, argues Mr. Mallock, "if there be such a
thing as a social science, or a science of history, there must be also
a science of biography"; and this science, though it "cannot show us
how any special man will act in the future," yet, if "any special
action be given us, it can show us that it was produced by a special
motive; and conversely, that if the special motive be wanting, the
special action is sure to be wanting also." As an example how to
distinguish between those traits of human character which are available
for scientific purposes, and those which are not, Mr. Mallock instances
a mob, which temporarily acts together for some given purpose: the
individual differences of character then "cancel out," and only points
of agreement are left. Proceeding to the sixth chapter, he applies
himself to setting to rest the scruples of those who find something
cynical in the idea that the desire for Inequality is compatible with a
respectable form of human character. It is true, he says, that man does
not live by bread alone; but he denies that he means to say "that all
human activity is motived by the desire for inequality"; he would
assert that only "of all productive labor, except the lowest." The only
actions independent of the desire for inequality, however, are those
performed in the name of art, science, philanthropy, and religion; and
even in these cases, so far as the actions are not motived by a desire
for inequality, they are not of productive use; and _vice versâ_. In
the remaining chapters, which we must dismiss briefly, we meet with
such statements as "labor has been produced by an artificial creation
of want of food, and by then supplying the want on certain conditions";
that "civilization has always been begun by an oppressive minority";
that "progress depends on certain gifted individuals," and therefore
social equality would destroy progress; that inequality influences
production by existing as an object of desire and as a means of
pressure; that the evils of poverty are caused by want, not by
inequality; and that, finally, equality is not the goal of progress,
but of retrogression; that inequality is not an accidental evil of
civilization, but the cause of its development; the distance of the
poor from the rich is not the cause of the former's poverty as distinct
from riches, but of their civilized competence as distinct from
barbarism; and that the apparent changes in the direction of equality
recorded in history, have been, in reality, none other than "a more
efficient arrangement of inequalities."
* * * * *
Now, let us inquire what all this ingenious prattle about Inequality
and the Science of Human Character amounts to. What does Mr. Mallock
expect? His book has been out six months, and still Democracy exists.
But does any such Democracy as he combats exist, or could it
conceivably exist? Have his investigations of the human character
failed to inform him that one of the strongest natural instincts of
man's nature is immovably opposed to anything like an equal
distribution of existing wealth?--because whoever owns anything, if it
be only a coat, wishes to keep it; and that wish makes him aware that
his fellow-man will wish to keep, and will keep at all hazards,
whatever things belong to him. What Democrats really desire is to
enable all men to have an equal chance to obtain wealth, instead of
being, as is largely the case now, hampered and kept down by all manner
of legal and arbitrary restrictions. As for the "desire for
Inequality," it seems to exist chiefly in Mr. Mallock's imagination.
Who does desire it? Does the man who "strikes" for higher wages desire
it? Let us see. A strike, to be successful, must be not an individual
act, but the act of a large body of men, all demanding the same
thing--an increase in wages. If they gain their end, no difference has
taken place in their mutual position; and their position in regard to
their employers is altered only in that an approach has been made
toward greater equality with the latter. And so in other departments of
human effort: the aim, which the man who wishes to better his position
sets before himself, is not to rise head and shoulders above his
equals, but to equal his superiors. And as to the Socialist schemes for
the reorganization of society, they imply, at most, a wish to see all
men start fair in the race of life, the only advantages allowed being
not those of rank or station, but solely of innate capacity. And the
reason the Socialist desires this is, because he believes, rightly or
wrongly, that many inefficient men are, at present, only artificially
protected from betraying their inefficiency; and that many efficient
men are only artificially prevented from showing their efficiency; and
that the fair start he proposes would not result in keeping all men on
a dead level, but would simply put those in command who had a genuine
right to be there.
* * * * *
But this is taxing Mr. Mallock too seriously: he has not written in
earnest. But, as his uncle, Mr. Froude, said, when reading "The New
Republic,"--"The rogue is clever!" He has read a good deal, he has an
active mind, a smooth redundancy of expression, a talent for
caricature, a fondness for epigram and paradox, a useful shallowness,
and an amusing impudence. He has no practical knowledge of mankind, no
experience of life, no commanding point of view, and no depth of
insight. He has no conception of the meaning and quality of the
problems with whose exterior aspects he so prettily trifles. He has
constructed a Science of Human Character without for one moment being
aware that, for instance, human character and human nature are two
distinct things; and that, furthermore, the one is everything that the
other is not. As little is he conscious of the significance of the
words "society" and "civilization"; nor can he explain whether, or why,
either of them is desirable or undesirable, good or bad. He has never
done, and (judging from his published works) we do not believe him
capable of doing, any analytical or constructive thinking; at most, as
in the present volume, he turns a few familiar objects upside down, and
airily invites his audience to believe that he has thereby earned the
name of Discoverer, if not of Creator.