do as they would be done by--claiming no advantage or privilege for
themselves, and not attempting to keep in order one section of the
community rather than another by framing laws which penalise this
section rather than that--if there is not this honest wish, there will
all the more be an attempt on the part of the governing section to give
to its government in form that virtue which it lacks in practice,--to
say to objectors: “See how safeguarded on all hands are your interests,
how perfectly you are represented, how obviously you are the masters of
the situation, and we only the servants.” And the nearer the governed
are to an intellectual awakening and apprehension of their true
condition, the more elaborate and plausible will be the pretence that
the real ultimate power rests--not there in the hands of the governors,
but here in the hands of the governed. And best of all--because most
deceptive of all--will be the device which does actually put the means
of reforming or of overthrowing government into the hands of the
governed, while so nullifying the application of those means that the
fair form, so fruitful in seeming, shall be in reality an empty husk.
Now, if it be true--as from history I have contended--that the moral
sanction of government is variable, and depends on honest conditions
and relations, obviously it is not the mere plausible form which shall
decide whether this or that government be deserving of obedience or
not. That form which is established by law must bring forth fruit to
the satisfaction of the governed--producing, as proof of its claim,
peaceful conditions and general content. If it fail to do this then it
must be suspected, enquired into, and, if need be, disowned.
But it must breed something more than the acquiescence of a majority.
The contentment, or at least the acquiescence of minorities is one
of the signs of good government. For while it takes little to make
minorities critical, it takes much to make them revolt--if for no other
reason than that the chances are against them. And it is not in human
nature to face so heavy odds except for some grave cause.
Consider first, then, in any given case, “Are those in the minority
seeking to keep or filch liberty from you, or only to obtain such
liberty as is already yours? Are they seeking to set up equality of
condition or inequality? Are they pressing for privilege or only for
common ground?”
And if the answer to such questions be that they seek only a like
liberty upon common ground and equality with yourselves--then, I
care not how large the majority against them--you must open or make
available to them that same standing which you claim as your due; and
on whatever basis of public service or private worth you have obtained
your right,--that means, that test, that qualification must be open
also to them, else your majority rule is nothing more than brute force,
a despotism extended from the embodiment of one or of a few to an
embodiment of 10, 15, or 20,000,000. But if you sanction that and make
it your base, then, to be logical, you must sanction also (at least
as a test) the employment of force by a minority to make its position
untenable. And remember, that if among a minority some ten per cent.
are willing to die, as against only some one or two per cent. in a
majority, that minority is likely to win, and all your numbers will be
vain.
That fact puts no undue or dangerous power into the hands of
minorities. Consent, on a just basis, can be obtained to government
whose acts are little to the liking of individual minds or of
minorities. But if, after long trial of expedient, persuasion, or
coercion, consent cannot be obtained, then the weight of evidence
(based on the unfailing document of human nature) has shifted against
government; and it rests more with the government than with the rebel
to prove that its claims are just.
When governments establish inequalities affecting the lives and
liberties of any, however few, I see no sanction whatsoever in
majorities. One runaway slave had not to wait upon a majority of
his fellow-slaves in order to establish his right to escape from
slavery--still less upon a majority of the nation which owned him.
If he could find a path along which to escape, that was the highroad
appointed for him by God from of old; and if he died in the attempt his
grave was still a monument to Liberty. Not the will of a million could
destroy the right of that one. And though I admit that a society which
sanctions slavery must treat as a murderer the slave who kills in his
effort to escape,--nevertheless, by posterity, and in a society which
has repudiated slavery, that act will be very differently regarded;
and so long as the man’s aim when he committed that legal offence
was freedom, we, who have repudiated slavery, look upon him not as a
murderer but as a fighter in a just cause.
We are in a society to-day which tolerates and even sanctions things
which to-morrow will be regarded as slavery is regarded now. While
society thus chooses to establish evil it is driven in self-defence to
treat those who rebel as criminals. But posterity will not so think of
them; and the greater the forces of the majority which stood against
them when they struck--the more will it admire and reverence, and
approve. Surely a startling commentary on the “rights” of majorities:
approval of the minority in an inverse proportion to its size!
Now, you might have a State almost equally divided into what were,
broadly speaking, opposed interests; under certain circumstances, for
instance, (circumstances which have actually occurred in the past)
manufacturing and agricultural interests might be opposed. If, then,
you accepted majority rule as a blind dogma, those two interests
would have the right alternately to prey upon and to bleed each other,
according to the fortunes of the polls--and they might do it by putting
forward legislative programmes which would bribe the electoral wobblers
first to this side and then to that. Where, on such a device does moral
right come in? Was ever anything so ludicrous as a doctrine?
As a doctrine of right, majority rule has but doubtful ground to stand
on. As an expedient, for practical use under sound conditions, there
is much to be said for it. But when once you recognise it as a mere
working expedient, then its workings must be watched, proved, and
sometimes corrected and checked--by a minority.
Majority rule is only tolerable when it has the equal rights of man
and woman firmly fixed as its goal; and it is as tending to the
establishment of that doctrine that majority rule is acceptable (with
some caution and reservations) to our progressive sense of citizenship.
In the great historic moments of upheaval which have brought it about,
it has consciously or subconsciously been an attempt to get rid of the
bad principle of dominance over others. It expresses the hope, or it
embodies the probability, that a majority will be so broadly made up of
all sorts and conditions--of the whole chemical composition of human
society, that is to say--that in a government prompted and directed
by a majority there will be no dominance of one section over another
section: that they will, in the long run (or, if efficiently checked,
in the short run) correct each other, strike a balance, and prevent the
rigid and continuous existence in the body politic of any subjected
section.
But if a majority could so sort its materials as to select for rigid
and permanent subjection one section of the community, then the reason
for its existence, and the grounds for its moral sanction would be gone.
If, then, two-thirds or three-quarters of the community can secure
a greater apparent measure of comfort for themselves by forcing the
remaining one-third, or one-quarter, to wait upon them and minister to
their needs, the actual size of that dominant majority confers upon
it no moral right whatever. There would, indeed, be more semblance of
right, or at least more tenable ground, if a minority could so impose
on a majority; because in that case the power of imposition would
arise not from mere brute force so much as from superior ability; and
a minority which can manipulate to its purpose the bulk material of a
community has shown better ground for the rule of others (not very good
ground, I admit) than the mere weight of numbers can supply. Weight
of numbers as a ground for dominating others gives you no moral or
efficient basis at all. Weight of capacity does give you an efficient
basis, if not a moral one.
Now, if your two-thirds majority is extracting comfort on unequal and
compulsory terms from the remaining one-third, you surely cannot deny
the right of the remaining one-third so to diminish the comfort thus
compulsorily extracted as to bring it to vanishing point, or to make
it even a minus quantity. And the bigger the majority which is thus
extracting sustenance from the minority, and exploiting it to its own
ends, the more you will admire the minority if it rises in revolt, and
makes the imposed and one-sided bargain unprofitable to the majority.
And should the contention be carried to extremes (as it will be if
both sides are sufficiently resolved) then the majority will have to
exterminate the minority, and (if it wishes to continue government on
the same lines) will have to extract for exploitation a new minority
from its own body--give up one of its own ribs to servitude--and so
become a diminished people in its perpetuation of a bad system.
Now, these considerations of moral right are irrespective of numbers.
It may be the bounden duty of one man to resist the will of hundreds,
or thousands, or millions. Indeed, every religious system admits, and
history gives clear evidence, that that is so. A man must obey his
conscience; that is his one ultimate guide. That statement expresses
what one may call the atomic theory of human society. It suggests, at
first sight, an impossible splitting to pieces of all systems of law
and order; but it is not so in reality, because--and this is the really
wonderful thing and the spiritual root of the whole matter--conscience
is the most infectious and convincing force in life. In a community
there is really a far greater agreement of conscience than of desire or
of opinion. A conscientious resister may, of course, be mistaken; but
if he is prepared to go on resisting, making sacrifice, and enduring
suffering for his scruples--that process is the least fallible as a
test, and the most converting in its tendency of all the processes of
propaganda that the human mind can conceive; and by recognizing the
moral right of the individual to put himself to that test before the
eyes of his fellow citizens, and so at the same time to test their
consciences in the matter, you are not really encouraging a course
which leads to disunion and anarchy, but a course which, on the whole,
will best bring about a general consensus of opinion. A community
which recognises the moral worth of such tests of its own and of
the individual conscience, will be far less likely to arouse such
demonstrations of revolt than one which altogether ignores and despises
them; for the simple reason that such a community will be better based
in its duty toward its neighbour; it will wish each man to do that
which it would claim the right to do itself in a like case, if faced by
a superior power backed by greater numbers than its own.
If I know that my conscientious resistance will be respectfully
considered (though not made easy or cheap to me), that my test of other
consciences may be tried and may be adjudged to fail--I shall not be
more inclined to enter into conflict with so considerate a majority,
but less; for it is not open-minded justice but close-minded injustice
which arouses opposition and rebellion.
But while human nature makes it safe, in the main, that men and women
will not in any appreciable numbers submit themselves voluntarily to
continuous discomfort, deprivation, loss of liberty and ease, except
for a just cause or a high motive worth looking into, considering, and
making allowances for: human nature does not make it safe that those
in authority will not be overbearing and unjust, unless they too are
liable to a like test.
And here again we come to consider the duty of the law and of
law-makers to individuals.
The law should be prepared wherever its fallibility stands
proved--where, for instance, it has done hurt and damage to innocency
by its operations--at least to make full reparation. It is not an
honourable position, for that which holds fiduciary together with
compulsory powers, to say to one whom it has falsely imprisoned or
unjustly charged--“You, on the whole, benefit by government, and,
therefore, must yourself bear this hurt of government which has fallen
upon you.” The State or the community which permits such individual
hardship to result from its imposition of a fallible code is not just
in its government or dutiful to its neighbour. And if it so acts, it
undermines in the governed their sense of its moral sanction. The State
cannot so do hurt to its citizens and retain an unimpaired claim on
their allegiance; nor can it with any moral decency claim reparation
from its enemies abroad, if it does not make full reparation for its
own miscarriages of justice at home.
“One,” it is sometimes argued, “must suffer for the general good.” But
the general good is not so served. In this connection general good only
means “general cheapness.” The State, and not the citizen, must pay the
price of its presumption--or it must look for an altered mind in every
citizen whom it so afflicts from its position of immunity. Nay, it may
be well that its supposed immunity should occasionally be disproved by
a determined and self-sacrificing citizen, entirely for the general
good, and the State forced to pay in extra upkeep for the bad condition
of its laws.
The careless self-allowance of majorities in wrong done to minorities,
or even to individuals, is not to the general good; and one could
rather wish to a State that its minorities should be alert and
pugnacious, than its majorities self-satisfied and indifferent on the
score of mere numbers.
Numbers, uncorrected by conscience and uncontrolled by penalties, may
be the cheapest, nastiest and most unscrupulous form of tyranny. The
indifference or acquiescence of hundreds to conditions by which they
themselves are not consciously affected cannot have the same moral
weight as the discontent of one or of a few who are so affected.
That is a consideration which must always qualify the “rights” of
majorities. In such circumstances the sanction of mere numbers is not
sufficient.
Are minorities, then, always to have their way? By no means. We know
that they cannot.
Countless minorities in our political controversies have contended,
have failed, and have acquiesced in their failure. Time has tested
them, and has measured the depth of their grievance by the scale of
human nature.
But other minorities, which have persistently refused to acquiesce have
won. Time has tested them also; and human nature, not numbers, has in
the long run proved their case.
Medical science tells us that there is in the human eye a blind spot,
by the existence of which alone we are enabled to see. If that blind
spot were absent the eye would be without focus.
In human nature (however much we hold by the principle of ordered
government) there is a point of revolt which standardises the relations
of the individual to government. It cannot be brought into play by
mere artifice or calculation, except for brief spells; but when
naturally aroused it lasts.
It is that point of revolt, latent at all times in a freedom-loving
people, but only aroused by unjust conditions--it is the existence of
that point of revolt in human nature which secures good government.
Minorities, if determined, can make unjust government an economic
extravagance, and can indicate to majorities (with some trouble and
cost to themselves) the limitation of their rights.
The sleeping partner of good government is the spirit of revolt.
To-day we have not good government; and that is why the sleeping
partner is awake.
DISCREDITABLE CONDUCT
(1915)
Discreditable conduct, according to its right derivation, is conduct
provocative of disbelief. It is that kind of conduct which makes
us doubt the professions of its agents, because it is practically
inconsistent with the things that they preach.
Many things are done in this world which are very reprehensible,
vindictive, cruel, narrow-minded--I might go through a whole catalogue
of the vices; but they are not therefore “discreditable.” A man who
has gone about the world expressing his undying hatred for another
man, and then ends by killing him, has done nothing discreditable from
his own standard. He has not made you believe less in his professions,
but more; for he actually did mean what he said, and has become by his
act a creditable witness to the faith that was in him--the dark gospel
of hatred. But if, while nourishing a personal hatred, he was at the
same time laying it down as the duty of all men to love their enemies,
then we have not to wait for the murder in order to look upon him as
a tainted and a discredited witness. It is not so much the blood upon
his hands as the hatred within his heart which has discredited him as a
preacher to others.
Or, put the case otherwise; without pretending to such a counsel of
perfection as that he can love his enemies, a man may yet assert that
human life is sacred, and that he has no right to take the life of his
fellow. Having done so he begins to set up exceptions: “Though I may
not do it at my own,” he says, “I may do it at the bidding of others.”
And this not by orders that he is compelled into on pain of death or
torture (when he might plead a natural human infirmity as his excuse
for wrongdoing) but by voluntary enlistment in an army, or by voluntary
acceptance of the post of public hangman, or of a judgeship, or of
service upon a jury in cases involving the death-penalty.
Now, it may be very commendable to take human life at the bidding of
others; but it is not consistent with the unqualified statement that
“all human life is sacred.” The one proposition--it is not my concern
here to defend or attack either of them--becomes discredited by the
other. The advocate of the judicial extinction of life under the
institution of capital punishment, or of wholesale extinction under the
institution of war--if he wishes to be heard as a credible witness, and
to avoid the imputation of discreditable conduct when he gives a hand
to it--must reshape his statement something after this manner: “Human
life is so important a thing that one man must not take it on his own
responsibility; but Society may.” And then he will have to make up
his mind what he means by Society, and why he thinks Society is more
to be trusted than himself. And if he finds himself in a community
which permits or even inculcates moral evils which he individually
cannot tolerate, then he must puzzle out for himself why he will
trust such a community with the power to kill, when he sees it make
so vile and miserable a misuse of the power to keep alive--or to keep
from life in any form that is worth having--so many millions of his
fellow-creatures. And he will find presently that his assertion that
human life is sacred must--if it is to mean anything--extend from the
comparatively easy and simple problem of the death-penalty to those far
greater problems, which lie all around him, of the cruel life-penalties
tolerated or exacted by Society.
So before long what he will find himself up against is this--the
necessity of being a creditable or a discreditable witness to the value
of Society itself--of that thing to whose apron-strings he has tied
his conscience. For you cannot assert that it is right for Society to
unmake human life unless you also assert that Society is making human
life in a form that is worth having, in a form, too, that would be
imperilled were its power of judicial murder to be taken from it.
But the point of departure I have wished to bring you to is this:
man did not begin to doubt his own moral right to kill other men
until there entered into his being an idea of something better able
than himself to judge, to control, and to provide. And so long as he
believed in that idea as protective of a morality superior to his
own, and productive of the fruits of life in better quality, he could
without discredit put into its hands powers which he dared not himself
exercise.
But when, on the contrary, a man comes to the conclusion that the
products of Society as constituted have in them more of evil than of
good, he may quite creditably, in a strict sense of the word, start an
attack upon Society, or upon great social institutions, and seek to
bring them to dissolution. Such a course of action may be arrogant, or
may have an insufficient basis of fact, but it is not discreditable.
Rather does it prove the man’s faith in his professions. History
gives record of many such characters, and posterity has approved of
deeds which in their own day were regarded as violent, arrogant, and
unjustifiable.
Martin Luther attacked a far greater social institution of his own day
than was comprised under any single form of government. He attacked
something much bigger than the English or the American Constitution.
In deciding to attack it he was more arrogant (if single unorganised
action against large and organised numbers be the proof of arrogance)
than you or I could be if we attacked any institution to-day that
you like to name, even the institution of war. Now, the result of
that great attack was that it succeeded--not unconditionally, not
universally, but (broadly speaking) racially and territorially. About
one-third of Europe was conquered by it; and about two-thirds remain
to this day--not indeed unaffected, but certainly not conquered by
Lutheranism. If you are to judge of sacred causes by mere numbers,
there are still more nominal Catholics than nominal Protestants in the
world; and, therefore, by numbers, up to date Luther is condemned.
Luther’s real conquest--the thing that he really did bring about,
and in which numbers are now on his side, would have horrified him.
Luther was the root-cause why there are to-day more nominal Christians
in the world who pick and choose doctrines to suit their own taste,
than Christians who submissively take their doctrines wholesale from
others whether from Luther or from Rome. It is due to Luther, as much
as to anybody, that so many Roman Catholics who have no leanings to
Lutheranism, are only nominal Catholics. Luther, that is to say, has
brought into existence an enormous number of discreditable Christians
who will not openly admit that they are free-thinkers.
You have clergy of the Church of England, for instance, who read
themselves into their pulpits with the Thirty-nine Articles, and do not
believe half of them.
The average young man who enters the ministry of the Church of England
has been reasonably mothered by a university education; and when he
takes the plunge it is not total immersion. His mother--his Alma
Mater--still holds him by the heel. It is in consequence, with a sort
of heel of Achilles that he enters upon divinity; and over this he
draws a stocking with a large hole in it just where the wear of the
heel comes hardest. That stocking (containing forty stripes save one)
is the Thirty-nine Articles. It has been loosely knit, it is warranted
to shrink the longer he wears it, and the hole in consequence gets
larger.
There you have the weakness of the Church of England. Nobody to-day in
his senses is prepared to die for the Thirty-nine Articles. Yet to hold
ministry in the Church he has to swear by them, and thus at the very
beginning of his ministerial career discreditable conduct is imposed on
him.
It is no wonder that upon that basis the Church of England is permeated
with unbelief in the things that it professes. A Church, a religion,
may be full of credulity, bigotry, superstition--and with all those
things it may yet have a true and a living faith: it may breed martyrs
and inquisitors in equal numbers and with equal facility; but, in order
to do so it must have at its back something definite and distinctive
that its members are prepared to die for. And if it has not that, it is
bound to become before long a discredited institution.