THE MORAL TEST OF PROGRESS
The phrase "philosophy of history" is at present somewhat in disrepute.
It enjoys much the same unpopularity among historians as does the term
"metaphysics" among scientists, and probably for the same reason. It
is assumed that such a discipline must either violate or exceed the
facts in the interests of some _a priori_ conception. Doubtless some
philosophies of history have been guilty of this charge; but they do
not, I am sure, exhaust the possibilities in the case. In the present
chapter I shall present an outline of what might fairly be regarded as
a philosophy of history, but which nevertheless does no more than
attempt a precise definition of principles which even the historian is
forced to employ.
I shall not attempt to define the task of history, except in the
broadest terms. The form which its results should finally assume is a
matter of dispute among historians themselves. But it is at least
possible to indicate the field of history in terms that will command
general assent. In the first place, history deals with change, with
the temporal sequence of events; and in the second place, it confines
itself to such events as belong to what is called human conduct.
Entirely apart from theories of method or technique, it seems clear
that any established fact falling within this description belongs
properly to that body of knowledge which we call history.
I wish especially to call attention to the fact that history deals with
_human conduct_. It deals, in other words, with actions which serve
interests; with needs, desires, and purposes as these are fulfilled or
thwarted in the course of time. Its subject-matter, therefore, is
moral. It describes the clash of interests, the failure or success of
ambition, the improvement or decay of nations; in short, all things
good and evil in so far as they have been achieved and recorded. And
the broader the scope of the historian's study the more clearly do
these moral principles emerge. The present-day emphasis on the
accurate verification of data somewhat obscures, but does not negate
the fact, that every item of detail is in the end brought under some
judgment of good or evil, of gain or loss in human welfare. All
history is virtually a history of civilization; and civilization is a
moral conception referring to the sum of human achievement in so far as
this is pronounced good.
Now there is a branch of philosophy called {125} "ethics," to which is
committed the investigation of moral conceptions. These conceptions
are as much subject to exact analysis as conceptions of motion or
organic behavior. And such an analysis must underlie all judgments
concerning the condition of mankind in any time or place, if these
judgments make any claim to truth. The application of ethical analysis
to the recorded life of man is a philosophy of history.[1] Such a
discipline is charged with the criticism of the past in terms of
critical principles which have been explicitly formulated. With a
knowledge of what it means to be good or evil one may conclude in all
seriousness whether the fortunes of society in any time or place were
good or evil. One may with meaning distinguish between those who have
been the friends and the enemies of society; and one may refer to the
growth or decay of nations with some notion of what these terms
signify. But it will be the main problem of a philosophy of history to
deliver some verdict concerning the progress or decline of
institutions, and of civilization at large.
It is necessary that we should at once rid our minds of false notions
concerning the meaning of _progress_. This conception has been greatly
confused during recent times through being identified with evolution in
the biological sense. It should be perfectly clear that such evolution
may or {126} may not be progressive; it means only a continuous
modification of life in accordance with the demands of the environment.
Even where this modification takes the direction of increasing
complexity it does not necessarily constitute betterment; and it is
entirely consistent with the principle of adaptation that it should
take the reverse direction. Biological evolution signifies only a
steady yielding to the pressure of the physical environment, whether
for better or for worse. It is also important not to confuse the
conception of progress with that of mere change or temporal duration.
Because society has grown older it has not necessarily on that account
grown wiser; nor because it has changed much has it necessarily on that
account changed for the better. Whether the accumulations of the past
are wealth or rubbish is not to be determined by their bulk.
Progress cleared of these ambiguities means, then, _a change from good
to better_; an increase, in the course of time, of the value of life,
whatever that may be. Taken in the absolute sense it means, not a gain
here or a gain there, but _a gain on the whole_. It is impossible to
reach any conclusion whatsoever concerning progress except in the light
of some conception of the total enterprise of life. Every advance must
be estimated not merely in relation to the interest immediately {127}
served, but in relation to that whole complex of interests which is
called humanity.
In discussing progress I shall therefore with right employ those moral
conceptions which I have already defined. I shall regard as good
whatever fulfils interests, and as morally good whatever fulfils all
interests affected to the maximum degree. Especial importance now
attaches to the principle which I have phrased the _quantitative basis
of preference_. Since progress involves the change from good to
better, it implies an increment of value. The later age is judged to
be _as good and better_. I can see no way of verifying such a
proposition unless it be possible to find in the greater good both the
lesser good and also something added to it and likewise accounted good.
In other words, progress involves measurement of value, and this
involves some _unit of value_ which is common to the terms compared.
The method must be in the last analysis that of superimposition.
Bagehot virtually employs this method in the chapter of his _Physics
and Politics_, which he entitles "Verifiable Progress Politically
Considered." Let me quote, for example, his comparison of the
Englishman with the primitive Australian.
If we omit the higher but disputed topics of morals and religion, we
shall find, I think, that the plainer {128} and agreed-on superiorities
of the Englishmen are these: first, that they have a greater command
over the powers of nature upon the whole. Though they may fall short
of individual Australians in certain feats of petty skill, though they
may not throw the boomerang as well, or light a fire with earthsticks
as well, yet on the whole twenty Englishmen with their implements and
skill can change the material world immeasurably more than twenty
Australians and their machines. Secondly, that this power is not
external only; it is also internal. The English not only possess
better machines for moving nature, but are themselves better machines.
Mr. Babbage taught us years ago that one great use of machinery was not
to augment the force of man, but to register and regulate the power of
man; and this in a thousand ways civilized man can do, and is ready to
do, better and more precisely than the barbarian. Thirdly, civilized
man has not only greater powers over nature, but knows better how to
use them, and by better I here mean better for the health and comfort
of his present body and mind. He can lay up for old age, which a
savage having no durable means of sustenance cannot; he is ready to lay
up because he can distinctly foresee the future, which the vague-minded
savage cannot.[2]
It will be observed that in each case the superiority of the Englishmen
lies in the fact that they _beat the Australians at their own game_.
Australians are as much interested as Englishmen in obtaining command
over nature, in organizing their own powers, and in securing health and
comfort. The Englishmen, however, can fulfil these interests not only
up to but also beyond {129} the point which marks the limit of the
Australians' attainment.
The method of superimposition is virtually employed in all competitive
struggle. The glory and fruits of victory are sought by both
opponents, and the success of one is the failure of the other. The
superiority of the victor to the vanquished is beyond question only
because they had the same interest at stake.
The application of this method to the determination of progress is not
confined to philosophers of history. It is applied by every individual
who realizes that his advance from childhood to maturity has been
attended with growth and development. For the old boundaries of
childhood still remain as evidence of the greater magnitude of the life
which has outgrown them. Similarly every man may mark within himself
the various limits which once bounded him, but which he has since
exceeded in consequence of steady and consecutive effort. The progress
of mankind at large differs only in complexity and range. It can be
tested and determined only because identical interests persist. If men
had not in all times wanted the same things it would be impossible to
measure their attainments. Their successes and failures would be
incommensurable. But the old needs and the old hopes yet remain. The
problem of life which was from {130} the beginning is a problem still.
If it can be shown that the old needs are met more easily, along with
new needs besides, that there is better promise that the hopes will be
fulfilled, and that the general problem of life is nearer a solution,
then human progress will have been demonstrated.
II
I propose, in the first place, to discuss two general principles, the
operation of which is conducive to progress. One of these principles
is _external_, that is, it relates to the environment of life rather
than to its internal economy; and to this I shall turn first.
The external environment of life is in some respects favorable, in
other respects unfavorable. Now, strangely enough, it is the
unfavorable rather than the favorable aspect of the environment that
conduces to progress. Progress, or even the least good, would, of
course, be impossible, unless the mechanical environment was morally
plastic. The fact that nature submits to the organization which we
call life is a fundamental and constant condition of all civilization.
But there is nothing in the mere compliance of nature to press life
forward. It is the _menace_ of nature which stimulates progress. It
is because nature always remains a source of difficulty and danger
{131} that life is provoked to renew the war and achieve a more
thorough conquest. Nature will not permit life to keep what it has
unless it gains more.
The external environment of life embraces not only mechanical nature,
but also such outlying units of life as have not yet been brought into
harmonious relations. Conflict between individuals, tribes, races, or
nations operates in a manner analogous to mechanical nature. It exerts
a constant pressure in the direction of greater strength and
efficiency. In order that man shall not be robbed by his enemies of
what he already has, he must forever be attempting to make himself
impregnable and formidable.
But war and the struggle with nature not only put a premium on the
better organization of life; they also make it a condition of
permanence. Superior individuals survive when inferior individuals
perish in the struggle, or the superior type obtains an ascendency over
the inferior. In human warfare the defeated party is rarely if ever
utterly annihilated; it tends, however, to lose its prestige or even
its identity through being assimilated to the victorious party. In
either case that form of life which in conflict proves itself the
stronger, tends to prevail, through the exclusion of those forms which
prove themselves weaker.
An unfavorable environment has, then, operated externally to develop
coherence and unity {132} in life. But the cost has been prodigious,
and must be subtracted from the gain. For there is no virtue in
conflict save the strength of the victor. Man has made a virtue of
this necessity; but to obviate so dire a necessity becomes one of the
first tasks which civilization undertakes. The attempt to eliminate
conflict, and reduce to a minimum the sacrifice of special interests,
marks the operation of the _internal_ or _moral_ principle of progress.
During the historical period this principle assumes a constantly
greater prominence.
A society may be said to be internally progressive when it can afford
to withdraw some of its energies from the struggle for existence, and
devote them to the improvement of method and the saving of waste. Its
stability and security must be so far guaranteed as to make it safe to
undertake a reconstruction, calculated to provide more fully for its
constituent interests and develop its latent possibilities. There now
obtains, within limits that tend steadily to expand, what Bagehot calls
"government by discussion," that is, the regulation of action by the
invention, selection, and trial of the best means. This substitution
of rational procedure for custom is an irreversible and germinal
process. Let me quote Bagehot's account of it:
A government by discussion, if it can be borne, at once breaks down the
yoke of fixed custom. The {133} idea of the two is inconsistent. As
far as it goes, the mere putting up of a subject to discussion is a
clear admission that that subject is in no degree settled by
established rule, and that men are free to choose in it. . . . And if
a single subject or group of subjects be once admitted to discussion,
ere long the habit of discussion comes to be established, the sacred
charm of use and wont to be dissolved. "Democracy," it has been said
in modern times, "is like the grave; it takes, but it does not give."
The same is true of "discussion." Once effectually submit a subject to
that ordeal, and you can never withdraw it again; you can never again
clothe it with mystery, or fence it by consecration; it remains forever
open to free choice, and exposed to profane deliberation.[3]
The strength of custom or established authority lies in prompt and
undivided action against external enemies; but its weakness lies in its
excessive cost to the interests within. And when there is leisure and
security for deliberation, the policy and organization of society must
respond at once to the claims of these interests. Development is now
due to a moral rather than to a mechanical principle; that is, the
surviving type of life is due not to pressure and elimination from
without, but to a provident concern that emanates from within. There
is a deliberate intention to promote survival, those interests alone
being restricted or suppressed which do not comply with this intention.
There evolves not a selected group of strong individuals, but a strong
community, strong because both full of life, or rich {134} in
incentive, and also harmonious. And within such a community the
strength of individuals lies not in a sheer power to resist the strain
of competition, but in the rational and moral capacity to utilize the
resources of the entire community. Through moral organization the
strong are made stronger at the same time that the weak are made strong.
Strictly speaking, there is only one internal principle of progress,
namely, _rationality_. By rationality, in this connection, I mean the
knowledge of the good, and the correction of existing usages through
which it is accidentally or wantonly frustrated. If fulfilment be the
motive of life, and maximum fulfilment be the good, then any existing
usage stands condemned when it is proved to involve unnecessary
sacrifice. And such usages will be condemned, and in the long run
rejected, wherever there is an opportunity for self-assertion and
discussion among the various interests concerned. But such correction
may be initiated either by a positive or a negative motive. It may
result either from the action of those who seek constructively to
promote the general welfare of society, or from the action of those who
protest against society in behalf of neglected interests. The first is
_constructive reform_, the second, _revolution_.
_Constructive reform_ is the work of disinterested {135} reflection.
It may originate in speculation, as political or social theory; or it
may originate in the solution of a practical problem. Plato has
described the type of mind which in either case it requires: a mind
which is free from individual or party bias, and which represents and
co-ordinates all the interests of the community. Now the failure of
political and social theories as measures of reform is proverbial; none
failed more completely and conspicuously than Plato's own. And it is
not difficult to see why this should be the case; for, as a rule, they
are adapted neither to the habits and intelligence of the time, nor to
the actual instruments of practical efficiency. But it may be observed
that the distance between the philosopher and the man of affairs is
considerably shorter than it used to be. The method of discussion
being once generally adopted, action, both individual and social, is
pervaded with theory. Even the man of affairs cannot easily avoid
being a philosopher.
And even in distinguishing as sharply as I have between theory and
practice, I have simply followed a customary habit of thought that is
on the whole misleading. For, in truth, it is as impossible for the
man of affairs to avoid disinterested reflection, as it is for the
commercial traveller to be unsociable. The activity of the one has to
do with the organization of a wide range of {136} interests, as the
activity of the other has to do with the capitalization of
good-fellowship.
Those of you who are familiar with the First Book of Plato's _Republic_
will remember the account given there of the forced benevolence of the
tyrant. It is, I believe, one of the great classics in ethical theory;
and although its full meaning will not appear until we deal directly
with the problem of government, I must allude to it here for the sake
of the principle involved. The sophist of the dialogue, one
Thrasymachus, attempts to overthrow Socrates's conclusion that virtue
is essentially beneficent, by pointing to the case of the tyrant, who
is eminent and powerful, as every one would wish to be, but who is at
the same time wholly unscrupulous. He is the symbol of success, in
that he can on all occasions do what it pleases him to do, and with no
regard for the feelings of others. Now Socrates in his reply is not
satisfied to show that even the tyrant must have some scruples; he goes
to the length of asserting that the tyrant must of all persons in the
community have the _most_ scruples. And the reason which Socrates
advances is unanswerable. The tyrant is the one person in the
community who has to _please everybody_. He owes his position and
power, not to any directly productive activity, such as agriculture,
industry, or military service, but wholly to his skill in {137}
organizing and promoting interests that are not primarily his own. To
be sure, he has his hire; but to earn it he must pay every man his
price.
Now let us apply this to the general case of the man of affairs. It
follows that just in so far as action is broad in scope, it must be
considerate and just. To conduct enterprises on a large scale involves
contact with many interests, and these interests, once affected, must
either be understood and provided for or else antagonized. The greater
the enterprise, the more truly does it exist by sufferance; it depends
on the support of those who profit by it, and if that support be
withdrawn, it collapses into absolute impotence. The ancient Cynics
were right in thinking that the only man who can afford to be
indifferent to the interests of his fellows is the man who renounces
ambition and retires to his tub.
Once the era of civilization is inaugurated, power depends on moral
capacity, that is, the capacity to protect and promote a considerable
number of interests, and thus win their backing. This is proved in
every field of human activity, military, political, religious,
intellectual, social, or commercial. Commerce and industry afford at
present the most striking examples. The man who succeeds is the man
who can satisfy the greatest number of appetites. And the more his
enterprise grows the more it becomes a public concern; {138} and the
more, therefore, must he be studious of public welfare and responsive
to public opinion. Thus manufacturing, transportation, or banking,
when conducted on a large scale, touch life at so many points, that he
who seeks to gain power or wealth by means of them will gradually and
without any abrupt change of motive approximate the method of
disinterested service. So every station in life, from that of the
ruler to that of the shopkeeper, has its own characteristic form of the
one problem of _meeting, adjusting and fulfilling interests_. The
desire to be successful or to attain eminence in one's station exerts a
constant pressure in the direction of the invention, trial, and
selection of methods that will solve this problem. And such methods
once devised are at once supported by the interests they serve, and
become necessary to the life of the community.
Now the wise leader anticipates the needs and wishes of his followers,
and so enjoys their continued support without ever seeming to depend on
it. But there are very few such wise leaders. The reason for their
scarcity lies in the natural inertia of profitable activities. There
is a universal propensity to let well enough alone. So methods are
allowed to outlive their usefulness, or remain unmodified when more
provident and fruitful methods could be devised. When leadership {139}
thus fails to be statesmanlike and far-sighted, there occurs that
uprising of the disaffected interests which is called _revolution_.
_Revolution_, then, is the self-assertion of the various constituent
interests which do not find room or fair measure within the existing
organization. The evidence of the insufficiency of present methods
being neglected by those in charge, that evidence _makes itself known_.
In the long run this is the surest principle of progress, because it is
brought into operation by those who have a nearer or more indispensable
interest at stake. It is unquestionably to the interest of the
individual who heads an enterprise to conduct it rationally, that is,
to make it always as productive as possible for all the interests which
it serves. But if he fails he may not at once incur the penalty, or be
conscious of it if he does; he may only forfeit an increase of power,
or render his position precarious. On the other hand, to the
constituent interest which is sacrificed, this same failure may mean
loss of bread or even loss of life. Hence the latter is more sure to
move in the matter. Justice is more urgently needed by the slave who
rebels, than by the master who may be brought through enlightenment to
liberate him. Thus neglected interests have been the conscience of
every great human reform. Let me cite the two greatest cases of this
in the history of {140} European civilization, Christianity and the
French Revolution.
Christianity as a social revolution was a protest against the existing
order on the part of interests which it did not recognize. I do not
mean that these interests were not tolerated; they were, of course,
protected, and even given a legal status. But in the reckoning of good
and evil they were not _counted_. Women and slaves, the poor, the
ill-born, and the ignorant, were instruments which the happy man might
use, or incidents of life which might test his charity and magnanimity.
These classes rose to overthrow no single institution, but a whole
conception of life, or standard of well-being which was defined to
exclude them. In paganism, which did not pass with the advent of
Christianity, but still lingers as the creed of the very precious
souls, humanity is conceived only qualitatively, and not
quantitatively. The good of the race is conceived to consist in the
perfection of a few, chosen for their superior endowment and fortune.
The eminent refinement and nobility of these demigods is substituted
for the saving of lives, for the general distribution of welfare and
opportunity. The many are to find compensation for their hardship in
the happiness of the few. But the Christian principle of atonement was
the precise opposite of this: one suffered that all might be blessed.
Christianity {141} looked towards a good that should number every one
in the multitude and endure throughout all time. Now it has since
appeared that this was no more than the truth; and that it might have
been conceived and executed by the wise men, had they only been more
wise. But they were wise only within the limits of their own conceit.
Hence it took the form of an assault on the established enlightenment.
The many, with their yearning for a universal happiness, with their
deep concern for the greater good, and their jealous compassion for all
souls, destroyed the narrow eminence of the few. Thus Christianity was
a revolution, and not a constructive reform.
The French Revolution was a protest not only against apathy, but
against insolence as well. It was a demand of the many not merely to
be happy, but to have what they called their "rights" respected; a
protest against authority, not only because it was cruel, but because
it was arbitrary, tyrannical. Hence it was aimed against priestcraft
as well as against monarchy. It was based on the conviction that no
one is so justly entitled to pass judgment on a man's affairs as a man
himself. But it was a cry from the depths, the bitter resentment of a
long-standing abuse. Therefore it took the form of an uprising against
the established order; and while it opened men's eyes, it was not
conducted in the spirit of enlightenment. {142} In spite of his
inferences, Nietsche has not described the matter falsely:
The slave . . . loves as he hates, without _nuance_, to the very
depths, to the point of pain, . . . his many _hidden_ sufferings make
him revolt against the noble taste which seems to _deny_ suffering.
The scepticism with regard to suffering, fundamentally only an attitude
of an aristocratic morality, was not the least of the causes, also, of
the last great slave insurrection which began with the French
Revolution.[4]
Insurrection, in other words, is the flat, downright, and unqualified
affirmation of interests to which those in charge of affairs have
denied existence. It is a flash in the eyes of those who will not see;
a blast in the ears of those who will not hear. Insurrection asserts
_only_ the interests that have been neglected; hence, though it brings
_new_ light, that light for lack of which the world went in darkness,
it is careless and blind in its own way, and does not concern itself
with restoring the balance. But, as Nietsche prefers not to
comprehend, insurrection demonstrates beyond question the bankruptcy of
aristocratic morality; discredits it as effectually, and in the same
way, as new evidence discredits old theories.
These, then, are the two complementary methods through which
rationality gets itself progressively established: through the
imagination and foresight of constructive minds, and through the
protest or uprising of neglected interests.
{143}
I must mention briefly, before leaving this general topic, an accessory
condition on which this internal principle of progress depends for its
effectual working. It is necessary that the life of society should be
unbroken; that its achievements should be preserved and accumulated
from generation to generation. This is provided for in the permanence
of records, monuments, and institutions; but these are of less
consequence than the _continuity of tradition_. Generations of men do
not come into being and pass away like regiments in marching order.
There is no present generation; unless one arbitrarily selects those of
a certain age to represent the spirit of the day. He who is born now,
enters into the midst of a social life in which the present is blended
with the past through the interpenetration of individual lives of every
stage of maturity. The threads are innumerably many, and their length
is but threescore years and ten; but there is no place at which more
than a few end, so that they are woven into one continuous and seamless
fabric. It does not exceed the facts, then, to say that the life of
society is one life, which may gather headway, increase in wealth, and
profit by experience. Through this continuity society may learn, as
the individual organism does, by the method of trial and error. Costly
blunders need not be repeated, and the waste involved {144} in untried
experiments may steadily be reduced. Furthermore, the advance is by
geometrical, and not merely by arithmetical progression. Every
discovery and achievement is multiplied in fruitfulness through being
added to the capital stock and reinvested in fresh enterprises.
III
Human progress, thus determined by the movement of life towards its
more rational, that is, more provident, organization, is attended in
all its stages with a very significant difference of emphasis. I refer
to the old conflict between _conservatism_ and _radicalism_. If this
were merely a difference of temperamental bias, it would not need to
detain us. But it is really an opposition between exaggerated truths,
in which each is boldly and impressively defined.
The truth of conservatism lies, first, in its love of the existing
order. Every established form of social life has had a certain
wholeness and strength and perfection of its own. This is as true of
savagery as it is of any type of civilization. Interests are in
equilibrium, and are guaranteed security within certain limits that are
generally understood. In other words, _at least a measure of
fulfilment may be counted on_. The conservative is right in valuing
this as a prodigious achievement. He knows that disorder is ruin, not
to {145} any class, but to all; the paralysis, if not the absolute
destruction, of all fruitful activities.
And secondly, conservatism proclaims the truth that since order
conditions all activity, it is impossible to promote human welfare
except by using order. The enemy of order threatens to destroy the
instruments of power, and so to make himself weak and helpless with the
rest. The conservative understands the real delicacy of these
instruments, and the difficulty of remodelling them while still forced
to use them. For nothing puts so great a strain on society as
progress. It tends to destroy its rigidity, to dull its edge, and to
spoil the fine adjustment without which so complex an organization
cannot function. There could be no human life whatsoever, and still
less a progressive life, were not the great mass of men content to
remain steadily in their places, and so form parts of a stable
structure. An organization cannot actually _work_ until it is in
equilibrium.
Now while the conservative fears to "swap horses while crossing the
stream," the radical reminds him that if he does not do so he will
never gain the farther shore. The conservative is satisfied to sit
firmly in the saddle, but the radical thinks only of the long distance
yet to go. There is a common misconception as to who is the real
radical, the real menace to this existing order. {146} He is not the
sceptic, but _the man with a purpose_; the man who believes in the
possibility of better things, and so has a motive impelling him to
abolish and reconstruct the present things. The sceptic, who holds all
order to be conventional and arbitrary, is as well satisfied with one
system as another. His natural course is a cynical acquiescence in the
inveterate folly of mankind. Or, finding order convenient, and fearing
that its true groundlessness will be exposed if it be made a matter for
discussion, he advocates blind obedience to the authority of the day.
Hence the disillusioned, especially if they occupy positions of power
in church or state or trade, may be counted on as the leaders of
conservative policy. The typical radical, on the other hand, is
Socrates, who censured the men of his time because they were satisfied
with something short of the best; and who was condemned because he
offered men _a good reason_ for reorganizing life.
The radical, like the conservative, is right. He is right, in the
first place, because he points out that the stability of the
established order is not proof of its finality. It may be, indeed
always will be, largely due to habit. Society forfeits a greater good
through mere inertia, through the tendency of any organization of
interests which runs smoothly and brings a steady return, to perpetuate
itself. The radical is the critic of {147} custom, condemning it for
timidly clinging to the present good, and abandoning the original
intent of life to attain to the maximum.
The radical is right, secondly, because he protests that so long as
there is the least waste of life, the least wanton suppression or
destruction of interests, the work of civilization is not done. He
represents those interests which under any system are most heavily
taxed, and presses for their relief.
Conservatism and radicalism, then, are the two half-truths into which
the principle of progress is divided by the propensity of every human
activity to override the mark, and by the confusion of mind that cannot
fail to attend so venturesome and bewildering an undertaking as
civilization.
IV
I have said that it is possible to measure progress because of the
persistence throughout the whole course of human history of certain
identical interests and purposes. When such an interest or purpose is
sufficiently broad in its scope, and gets itself permanently embodied,
it is called an _institution_. Thus _government_ embodies the need of
the general regulation of interests within the social community.
_Education_ is due to the individual's prolonged period of helplessness
and dependence, and the need of assimilating him to the order of his
time. _Science_ is man's {148} knowledge of the ways of nature in
detail, when this is recorded, organized, and preserved as a permanent
utility answering to the permanent need of adaptation. And _religion_
expresses in outer form the human need of reckoning with the final day
of judgment, of establishing right relations with the powers that
underly and overrule the proximate sphere of life. There is no limited
number of institutions, but these are notable examples. Government,
education, science, and religion are fixed moral necessities. They
arise out of those conditions of life which are general and constant.
Hence each has a history coextensive with the history of society
itself. And since the function of each remains identical throughout,
the adequacy with which at any given time it fulfils that function may
be taken as a measure of civilization. Government being the most
prominent of institutions, and its improvement being the deepest
concern of society, I shall select it for special consideration.[5]
I have already referred to the Platonic account of government, given in
the _Republic_. It furnishes the starting-point of all political
philosophy. In the First and Second Books, Plato examines two contrary
sceptical criticisms of government, with a most illuminating result.
In the First Book the sceptic urges the view that government represents
the interest of the strong; {149} primarily of the ruler himself,
enabling him to aggrandize himself at the expense of the weak. But in
the Second Book the sceptic is made to suggest that government
represents rather the interest of the weak, since it affords him a
protection which he is not strong enough to afford himself. Now the
moral of this paradox lies in the fact that government represents the
interest neither of the strong nor of the weak, but of the community as
a whole. This moral is virtually pointed in the reply which Plato
makes to the first of these two sceptical positions. The ruler gains
his power and prestige not from the exploitation of the interests of
his subjects, but from his protection of them. His activity touches
all the interests of the community, and is tolerated only in so far as
it conciliates them. In other words, his strength is drawn wholly from
the constituency which he serves. The many individual interests, on
the other hand, owe their security to that concentration and
organization which centres in the ruler. They only participate in a
power which the ruler may exercise and enjoy as a unit. But unless
that power be engaged in their service it ceases to exist. It is not a
personal power, but a permanent function, through which the many
interests of society unite, and so share severally the security, glory,
and resourcefulness of the whole body.
{150}
Government in this sense is both a necessity and an opportunity.
Suppose men to be in contact through propinquity or common descent.
Divided among themselves they are prey to natural forces, wild beasts,
or human enemies. But acting as a unit they are sufficiently strong to
protect themselves. He who wields them as a unit to this end is for
the time-being the ruler; and to submit to his leadership is simply to
submit to the necessity of protection. Or, divided among themselves,
they remain in a condition of poverty and fear; while united they can
wage an aggressive campaign against nature, and against those who
threaten them or possess what they lack. Again, he who settles their
internal differences, accomplishes their organization, and makes it
effective, is their ruler; and he owes his authority to the opportunity
of conquest which his leadership affords.
The fact that government is thus of natural origin, the inevitable
solution of an inevitable problem, has been obscured through confusing
its general necessity with the accidental circumstances connected with
the selection of rulers. The first ruler may have been appointed by
God; or, as is more likely, he may have owed his choice to his own
brutal self-assertion. But this has no more to do with the origin of
the function of government, than the present methods of ambitious {151}
politicians have to do with the constitutional office of a republican
presidency. Government meets a moral need; and no man has ever ruled
over men who has not met that need, however cruel and greedy he may
have been in his private motives.
From the very beginning, then, government exists by virtue of the good
that it does. But there have been enormous differences in the price
that men have paid for that good; and this constitutes its variable and
progressive factor. Tyranny is, in the long run, the most unstable
form of government, because it grossly overestimates the amount that
men will pay for the benefit of order. In the _Antigone_ of Sophocles,
Creon thus justifies his rule:
Than lawlessness there is no greater ill. It ruins states, overturns
homes, and joining with the spear-thrust breaks the ranks in rout. But
in the steady lines what saves most lives is discipline. Therefore we
must defend the public order.
But when his son Haemon protests against his tyranny, Creon states his
understanding of the bargain:
CREON
Govern this land for others than myself?
HAEMON
No city is the property of one alone.
CREON
Is not the city reckoned his who rules?
HAEMON
Excellent ruling--you alone, the land deserted![6]
{152} In other words, Creon does not understand that if he exacts
everything he will possess nothing. There will come a point when the
cost to the community exceeds the gain; and when that point is reached
government must either make more liberal terms or forfeit its power.
The principle of rationality in government is parsimony. When its
benefit involves a wasteful sacrifice of interests and may be purchased
more thriftily, the pressure of interest inevitably in the long run
brings about the change. The interests upon which the burden weighs
most heavily constitute the unstable factor, and since, in order that
equilibrium may be restored, these must be relieved, there is
necessarily a gradual liberalization of governmental institutions. In
the light of these general considerations I wish briefly to examine
three historical types of government, and then to present a summary of
present tendencies.
There is an interesting estimate of the benefits and cost of the
_ancient military monarchy_ in the history of Israel, as recorded by
the writer of the Book of Samuel. The elders have demanded that Samuel
make them a king, to judge them, "like all the nations." But he first
warns them of the price that they will have to pay:
And he said, This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over
you: he will take your sons, and {153} appoint them unto him, for his
chariots, and to be his horsemen; and they shall run before his
chariots; and he will appoint them unto him for captains of thousands,
and captains of fifties; and he will set some to plow his ground, and
to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and the
instruments of his chariots. . . . And he will take your fields, and
your vineyards, and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and give
them to his servants. . . . And he will take your men servants, and
your maid-servants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and
put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your flocks: and ye
shall be his servants. And ye shall cry out in that day because of
your king that ye shall have chosen you.
But the men of Israel were willing to pay even this price, saying:
Nay; but we will have a king over us; that we also may be like all the
nations; and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and
fight our battles.[7]
The benefits of monarchy, in which Israel sought to emulate her
neighbors, were _judgment_ and _military prowess_. Even where the
evils of tyranny were most aggravated these benefits actually accrued
and constituted a rational ground of authority. The king was, at least
in a measure, worthy of his hire. But the cost was extravagant; the
king exacted a disproportionate share of the plunder, and reduced his
subjects to a condition of personal bondage. In the great monarchies,
such as Assyria, Egypt, Persia, and the Roman {154} Empire in its later
period, the benefits of his role were greatly attenuated before they
reached to the depths and extremities of his kingdom, judgment being
reduced to the caprice of an irresponsible officer, and military
prowess to a faint reflection of national glory. Now the weakness of
such a polity lay in its doubtful value to the governed, these failing
to participate fairly in its achievements, and so lacking incentive to
support it. There was no clear and convincing identification of
individual interest and national purpose.
The strength of Greek and Roman oligarchies, on the other hand, lay in
precisely this _morale_, or solidarity of interest. Their small size
and racial homogeneity brought the ruler into direct relations with a
constituency which was clearly conscious of its purpose and held him
closely to it. So even where the kingship lingered on as a form, this
polity was virtually a compact self-governing community. The benefits
of government, to which every other interest was harshly subordinated,
were still judgment and military prowess. But these benefits were
effectually guaranteed; and the sacrifices which they required became a
code of honor, both to be praised and gloried in as parts of happiness.
Those who think that the Spartans felt their discipline to be
essentially a hardship should read the song of Tyrtaeus, {155} which
they recited in their tents on the eve of battle:
With spirit let us fight for this land, and for our children die, being
no longer chary of our lives. Fight, then, young men, standing fast
one by another, nor be beginners of cowardly flight or fear. But rouse
a great and valiant spirit in your breasts, and love not life when ye
contend with men. And the elders, whose limbs are no longer active,
the old desert not or forsake. For surely this were shameful, that
fallen amid the foremost champions, in front of the youths, an older
man should lie low, having his head now white and his beard hoary,
breathing out a valiant spirit in the dust. . . . Yet all this befits
the young while he enjoys the brilliant bloom of youth. To mortal men
and women he is lovely to look upon, whilst he lives; and noble when he
has fallen in the foremost ranks.[8]
But the cost is none the less heavy because it is not felt. In the
first place, there was the cost untold to those whom the oligarchy held
in subjection, a hundred thousand Messenians and twice as many Helots.
Their unequal participation in the benefits of government, necessary
though it may have been, lent instability to the whole polity. It was
the menace of their resentment that forced upon their rulers a policy
of perpetual vigilance and military discipline. And in the second
place, there was the cost to the Spartan himself of attaining to a
physical efficiency equal to that of ten Helots.
{156}
In the rival polity of Athens, the first of these abuses is only in a
measure corrected. The liberal extension of the privileges of
citizenship is the achievement of a later age. But the democracy of
Athens did demonstrate the internal wastefulness of a polity dominated
by purely military aims. The classic representation of this protest
against sacrificing individual taste and capacity, together with all
growth and abundance in the arts of peace, to the harsh rigors and
passive obedience of a soldier's life, is to be found in Thucydides.
In the funeral oration attributed to Pericles there is this account of
the superiority of Athenian institutions:
It is true that we are called a democracy, for the administration is in
the hands of the many and not of the few. But while the law secures
equal justice to all alike in their private disputes, the claim of
excellence is also recognized; and when a citizen is in any way
distinguished, he is preferred to the public service. . . . And we
have not forgotten to provide for our weary spirits many relaxations
from toil; we have regular games and sacrifices throughout the year; at
home the style of our living is refined; and the delight which we daily
feel in all these things helps to banish melancholy. . . . And in the
matter of education, whereas they [the Spartans] from early youth are
always undergoing laborious exercises which are to make them brave, we
live at ease, and yet are equally ready to face the perils which they
face. . . . If then we prefer to meet danger with a light heart but
without laborious training, and with a courage which is gained by habit
and not enforced by law, are we not greatly the gainers? Since we do
not anticipate the {157} pain, although, when the hour comes, we can be
as brave as those who never allow themselves to rest; and thus too our
city is equally admirable in peace and in war. For we are lovers of
the beautiful, yet simple in our tastes, and we cultivate the mind
without loss of manliness.[9]
The political disorders of later Athenian history illustrate the
difficulty of reconciling individualism with order and stability. But
at the same time they prove that the task is a necessary one, and that
until it has been successfully performed, government can enjoy at best
only a false security. For no interests can safely be neglected, least
of all those which arise from the natural activities of men and lie in
the direction of the normal growth of human capacities.
Now these ancient polities illustrate the inevitable pressure in the
direction of liberal government. The original and always the
fundamental values of government are _order_ and _power_. But these
must be obtained with the minimum of personal exploitation on the part
of the ruler; the function of government must be clearly understood and
vigilantly guarded by a body of citizens who identify their interests
with it. And secondly, order and power must be made compatible with
individual initiative, with playfulness and leisure, and with the free
development of all worthy interests. This pressure has been steadily
operative in the evolution of modern political institutions.
{158}
But there has also been another force at work of equally far-reaching
importance. This force is the modern idea of democracy, in which
_justice is modified by good-will_. With the ancients justice meant
"that every man should practise one thing only, that being the thing to
which his nature was most perfectly adapted." [10] Equality upon the
highest plane of human capacity was limited even in theory to a
privileged class. But since the advent of Christianity it has never
been possible for European society to acquiesce with good conscience in
a limited distribution of the benefits of civilization. For the new
enlightenment teaches that when men's potentialities are considered,
rather than their present condition, _there are no classes_. As a
consequence men demand representation not for what they are, but for
what they may become if given their just opportunity. The body of
citizens whose good is the final end of government virtually includes,
then, all men without exception. It is no longer possible simply to
dismiss large groups of human beings from consideration on grounds of
what is held to be their unfitness. For they now demand that they be
made fit. Burke expresses this enlightenment when he says, in speaking
of the lower strata of society:
As the blindness of mankind has caused their slavery, in return their
state of slavery is made a pretence of keeping them in a state of
blindness; for {159} the politician will tell you gravely, that their
life of servitude disqualifies the greater part of the race of man for
a search of truth, and supplies them with no other than mean and
insufficient ideas. This is but too true; and this is one of the
reasons for which I blame such institutions.[11]
And so does every man now demand of the community as a whole that he
shall be permitted to share equally in its benefits, and also, in order
that his claims may be represented, that he shall have a voice in its
councils. Do not misunderstand me. I do not mean that all men,
therefore, must here and now be held to be equal; but only that they
must be held to be capable of being as good as the best until they have
demonstrated the contrary by forfeiting their opportunity. Nor do I
mean that all men must therefore be given the ballot. We are
discussing a question not of instrument, but of principle. I do mean
that there is an idea that the best of life is for all; and that if
there are many that are incapable of entering into it, then they must
be helped to be capable. And I mean, furthermore, that _this idea
works irresistibly_. It commands the support of the whole army of
interests. It will never be abandoned because it makes for the
increase of life on the whole; and hence no social order will from
henceforth be stable that is not based upon it.
This idea that all men alike shall be the beneficiaries of government,
when taken together {160} with the ancient ideas that government shall
be directly responsible to its beneficiaries, and shall make as liberal
an allowance as possible for their individual claims and opinions,
constitutes the general principle upon which the progressive modern
state is founded. Let me briefly recapitulate certain characteristics
of the modern state[12] which indicate its recognition of this
principle, and hence its advance on the whole over earlier types.
1. In the first place, the modern state is essentially a territorial
rather than a racial or proprietary unit. In other words, it is
clearly defined as a necessity and utility arising out of the
circumstance of propinquity. If men are to cast in their lot together
they must submit to organization, and obey laws promulgated in the
interest of the community as a whole. To-day men understand that if
they had no government it would be necessary to invent one; that the
existing government, whatever divinity doth hedge it, is thus virtually
the instrument of their needs.
2. Secondly, this moral function of government is emphasized through
being largely freed from personal or dynastic connections and expressed
as a constitutional office.
3. Thirdly, the requirements of justice and good-will are reconciled
with order through the principle of representation. Without this {161}
principle it would be impossible for societies large enough to afford
men protection, to admit all men to a share in their positive benefits
and to a voice in their councils. Representative government is a
method of political procedure through which authority is made
answerable in the long run to all interests within its jurisdiction.
The more recent tendencies in democratic communities to modify the
representative system indicate the direction in which the pressure of
interests is still urging society forward. It is no longer a question
merely of the extension of the suffrage, but of directness and
publicity. The procedure of government being recognized as of vital
importance to all citizens, it must be straightforward and
businesslike, with its books constantly open to inspection. The
present distrust in elected representatives is not a sign of reaction,
but of the evolution of the democratic intelligence. Where the
machinery of representation becomes wasteful and clumsy, it ceases to
serve the community. But this may mean either direct legislation, that
is, a direct participation in public affairs by the people at large, or
the intrusting of these affairs to a few conspicuously responsible
agents selected for their businesslike competence and owing their
tenure of office to the consent of their constituency. These methods
are entirely consistent with one another; and they owe their {162}
adoption entirely to their better execution of the intent of democracy.
Both presuppose that political authority is empowered by all the
interests of the community to serve them, and that these interests
shall in the end decide whether or not that service is adequately
performed.
4. Fourthly, the modern state lays a constantly greater stress on
questions of internal policy, thus emphasizing its basal function of
conserving and fostering the interests directly committed to its
charge. It is less occupied with war, and more occupied with
education, sanitation, the conservation of national resources, and the
regulation of commerce and industry.
5. Fifthly, the sequel to this is the growing recognition of the folly
and wastefulness of war. War is becoming a last resort, a hard
necessity, rather than an opportunity of national glory. The growth of
the idea of international peace, and the improvement and extension of
the method of arbitration, are evidence of a yielding to the weight of
the collective interests of humanity. They prove the priority of the
principle of construction over that of destruction, and the essentially
thrifty and provident function of the state.
The present form of progressive political institutions will serve as an
index of the times and a pledge of the future. It reflects better than
any other element of civilization that growth of {163} liberality and
solidifying of interests which is the deep current of progress. Human
society is becoming one enterprise, provident of all existing interests
and covetous of the best. Now I know that this is to many but a dreary
spectacle. There are those who feel diminished by it, overwhelmed by
numbers, and degraded to the low level of average capacity and average
attainment. Therefore I wish in conclusion to deal further with this
spirit of the age, to guard it against misunderstanding, and make its
fine quality more apparent.
V
It is charged that modern democracy is contrary to enlightenment
through subordinating the strong man to the multitude of weak men, or
the wise man to the multitude of ignorant men. But the modern idea of
justice is based fundamentally neither on the mere sentiment of pity
nor on fear of the mob, but on love of truth, and respect for all
organs that mediate it. Society cannot afford forcibly to repress the
judgment of any individual or class, lest her deeds be deeds of
darkness. The task of good living is a task of well-nigh overwhelming
difficulty, because it requires that no interest shall be ignored, and
yet that all interests shall be in unison. Interests left out of the
account will inevitably assert themselves, and through their steady
pressure or {164} violent impact destroy the organization which has
excluded them. Hence the need of an order that shall provide for its
own gradual correction; stable enough for security, and pliant enough
to yield without shock to the claims of neglected or abused interests.
This need underlies the modern sentiment of tolerance, and the love of
all the liberties that give a hearing to any sincere demand: freedom of
speech and press, the wide distribution of the franchise, and of
opportunity for power. Contrary to a theory that philosophers have
done much to support, democracy is not a method of confounding
intelligence with the clamor of many voices, but a method of correcting
the single intelligence by the report of whatever other intelligence
may be most advantageously related to the matter at issue. Human
intelligence must operate from a centre, and must always overcome an
initial bias due to familiarity and proximity. The consensus of
opinion, or public opinion, is not essentially a composite opinion, but
a corrected opinion in which such accidents of locality cancel one
another. The following justification of democracy, formulated by
Matthew Arnold, lays bare its insistent and wholly incontrovertible
motive:
If experience has established any one thing in this world, it has
established this: that it is well for any {165} great class or
description of men in society to be able to say for itself what it
wants, and not to have other classes, the so-called educated and
intelligent classes, acting for it as its proctors, and supposed to
understand its wants and to provide for them. They do not really
understand its wants, they do not really provide for them. A class of
men may often itself not either fully understand its own wants or
adequately express them; but it has a nearer interest and a more sure
diligence in the matter than any of its proctors, and therefore a
better chance of success.[13]
This conception of democracy has come latterly to be as fine a point of
honor as any article in the code of chivalry or noblesse. The
arrogance that claims a superiority of class, and the obsequiousness
that loves a lord, all this Nietschean "pathos of distance," whether
felt from the heights or the depths, is sharply repugnant to a new
gentility, that embraces all that have had the joy of promiscuous
social intercourse. From this aristocracy no one is excluded that does
not exclude himself through servility or superciliousness. Its
distinction is liberality, that is, the habit of disputing questions
and judging persons on their merits, with due allowance for that never
wholly negligible possibility that the other man is right. Among those
who are united by this spirit, there is one joke that is an unfailing
touchstone and bond of union--the institution of _lèse-majesté_. It is
a matter for unquenchable laughter, {166} that superiority should
require to be protected against inferiority by the enforced signs of
respect, or by a hedge of reserve.
It is the ridiculousness of the haughty or the prostrate manner that is
absolutely fatal to it. And its ridiculousness appears at the moment
when you let in the light. Class elevation is pretence, not
superiority; complacence, not wisdom; impudence, not power. But the
contempt of the just man for the unjust is edged with knowledge. It
arises out of a sense for things as they are: a recognition of the
breadth and intricacy of life, compared with the pitifully small
understanding of those who propose to regulate it on their own
authority; of the vivid reality and worth of interests that do not
exist for those whose claims are absolute, but who are only the hapless
victims of a narrow and warping tradition.
Many think that the modern democracy is too easy-going; too much
infected with charity. Now it is quite true that it means that no
interest whatsoever shall be cut off through being forgotten or lightly
estimated. The conscience of to-day expresses the persuasion that
there is no stable happiness in any activity which entails cruelty,
which has any other motive than to save. But this is no more than the
full meaning of the Platonic dictum that "the injuring of another can
be in no case just." [14] This sensitiveness to {167} life that is
remote or obscure, this feeling for the whole wide manifold of
interests, is not a weakness; it is enlightenment, a lively awareness
of what is really relevant to the task of civilization. To imagine and
think life collectively, with all its interests abreast, is only to
measure up roundly and proportionately to the practical situation as it
actually is. Upon a mind thus alive to the whole spectacle there at
once flashes the awkwardness here, the waste there, as of an enterprise
only begun. Let me allow another to interpret this latter-day
conscience. I quote from _First and Last Things_, written by Wells:
I see humanity scattered over the world, dispersed, conflicting,
unawakened. . . . I see human life as avoidable waste and curable
confusion. I see peasants living in wretched huts knee-deep in manure,
mere parasites on their own pigs and cows; I see shy hunters wandering
in primeval forests; I see the grimy millions who slave for industrial
perfection; I see some who are extravagant and yet contemptible
creatures of luxury . . . I see gamblers, fools, brutes, toilers,
martyrs. Their disorder of effort, the spectacle of futility, fills me
with a passionate desire to end waste, to create order, to develop
understanding. . . . All these people reflect and are part of the
waste and discontent of my life, and this coordinating of the species
in a common general end, and the effort of my personal salvation are
the social and the individual aspect of essentially the same desire.[15]
But it must not be thought that this is a matter of mere creature
comfort, of distributing staple {168} benefits for which men already
have the appetite. For every step in the organization of life is
attended with the growth of new interests, and especially of interests
fostered or directly evoked by principles that have proved their moral
virtue. Thus the forms of prudence and justice are supported by the
immediate love of these things. And a growing rationality involves an
increasing subtlety and delicacy in desires, the enrichment of life
through the multiplication of such sources of satisfaction as are
consistent with order and liberality. The true democracy is
considerate not only of present interests, but also of the potentiality
and promise of life.
Only when the imagination pictures life in these terms is it possible
to avoid a sense of ignominy and irresponsibility. And, contrary to a
common misconception, there is no other attitude that can reconcile one
to the unavoidable participation in the common life of all men. Only
when thus united with one's fellows in a spirited and ennobling
enterprise can one endure their fellowship. Comrades in arms are not
fastidious. If one confines one's self, on the other hand, to a
cultivation of one's rarity, or to a company of choice spirits, not
only do these values themselves grow stale and vanish away, but the
remainder of mankind becomes a crowd, and civilization a tumult. The
collective life of {169} mankind ceases to be jarring and repugnant
only at the moment when one enters into it and becomes infused with its
morale.
There will be some in whom this prospect arouses no eagerness. The
wise men of any day are, of course, agreed among themselves that the
times are bad--that they are likely to be still worse after they, the
remnant, have departed. But this is an opinion which most men acquire
when they attain to maturity, and happily the world has long since seen
that they cannot help it, and learned on that account not to take it to
heart. The part of Cassandra is always being played somewhere by a
gentleman of middle age with a ripe experience of life. But in any
serious judgment concerning progress this bias of maturity must be
overcome by the use of the imagination, by a rational estimate of human
affairs in their broad sweep, or, if necessary, by an infusion of
youthfulness. We shall wait long if we wait
"Till old experience do attain
To something like prophetic strain."
There is a more serious cause of hopelessness, in the complexity of
modern civilization. Its very teeming life, its wealth, its
multiplicity of activities and passions, overwhelm the mind in its
moments of fatigue like a devouring chaos. One longs for the day when
the house of {170} civilization shall be completed, so that one may
dwell in it in peace.
We are, it is true, in a time when there is still rough work to be
done. But it is not blind work. Never has society been so clear as to
its several special ends, never has so little effort been due to chance
or compulsion. Nor is it ineffective work; for man now works with good
tools and the help of many hands. And there is consolation in the fact
that the foundations of civilization are laid wide and deep in charity
and welfare. There remains the perpetual task of re-establishing a
spiritual order which has been strained and wracked by the heaving of
many forces. But when the sanctuaries and altars are restored it will
prove to be a new order, richer, more liberal, and more complete than
any since men began to live.
{171}