TŌKYŌ, August, 1904.
DEAR MR. CROSBY,--A namesake of yours, a young lieutenant in the United
States Army, first taught me, about twenty years ago, how to study
Herbert Spencer. To that Crosby I shall always feel a very reverence
of gratitude; and I shall always find myself inclined to seek the good
opinion of any man bearing the name of Crosby.
I received recently a copy of _The Whim_ containing some strictures upon
the use of the word "regeneration," in one of my articles, as applied
to the invigorating and developing effects of militancy in the history
of human societies. I am inclined to agree with you that the word was
ill-chosen; but it seems to me that your general attitude upon the
matter is not in accordance with evolutional truth. Allow me to quote
from Spencer:--
"The successive improvements of the organs of sense and motion, and of
the internal coördinating apparatus, which uses them, have indirectly
resulted from the antagonisms and competitions of organisms with one
another. A parallel truth is disclosed on watching how there evolves the
regulating system of a political aggregate, and how there are developed
those appliances for offence and defence put in action by it. Everywhere
the wars between societies originate governmental structures, and are
causes of all such improvements in these structures as increase the
efficiency of corporate action against environing societies."
The history of social evolution, I think, amply proves that the
higher conditions of civilization have been reached, and could have
been reached, only through the discipline of militancy. Until human
nature becomes much more developed than it is now, and the sympathies
incomparably more evolved, wars will probably continue; and however
much we may detest and condemn war as moral crime, it will be scarcely
reasonable to declare that its results are purely evil,--certainly not
more reasonable than to assert that to knock down a robber is equally
injurious to the moral feelings of the robber and to the personal
interest of the striker. As for "regeneration"--the Reformation, the
development of European Protestantism and of intellectual liberty,
the French Revolution, the Independence of the United States (to
mention only a few instances of progress), were rendered possible
only by war. As for Japan--immediately after her social organization
had been dislocated by outside pressure,--and at a time when serious
disintegrations seemed likely,--the results of the war with China were
certainly invigorating. National self-confidence was strengthened,
national discords extinguished, social disintegrations checked, the
sentiment of patriotism immensely developed. To understand these
things, of course, it is necessary to understand the Japanese social
organization. What holds true of one form of society, as regards the
evil of war, does not necessarily hold true of another.
Yours faithfully,
LAFCADIO HEARN.
I have reopened the envelope to acknowledge your interesting sketch of
Edward Carpenter.... What an attractive personality.
But I fear that I must shock you by my declaration of non-sympathy with
much of the work of contemporary would-be reformers. They are toiling
for socialism; and socialism will come. It will come very quietly and
gently, and tighten about nations as lightly as a spider's web; and then
there will be revolutions! Not sympathy and fraternity and justice--but
a Terror in which no man will dare to lift his voice.
No higher condition of human freedom ever existed than what America
enjoyed between--let us say, 1870 and 1885. To effect higher conditions,
a higher development of human nature would have been necessary. Where
have American liberties now gone? A free press has ceased to exist.
Within another generation publishers' syndicates will decide what the
public shall be allowed to read. A man can still print his thoughts in a
book, though not in any periodical of influence; within another twenty
years he will write only what he is told to write. It is a pleasure
to read the brave good things sometimes uttered in prints like the
_Conservator_ or _The Whim_; but those papers are but the candlesticks
in which free thought now makes its last flickering. In the so-called
land of freedom men and women are burnt at the stake in the presence
of Christian churches--for the crime of belonging to another race.
The stake reëstablished for the vengeance of race-hatred to-day, may
to-morrow be maintained for the vengeance of religious hate--mocking
itself, of course, under some guise of moral zeal. Competition will soon
be a thing of the past; and the future will be to your stock-companies,
trusts, and syndicates. The rule of the many will be about as merciful
as a calculating-machine, and as moral as a lawn-mower. What socialism
means really no one seems to know or care. It will mean the most
insufferable oppression that ever weighed upon mankind.
Here are gloomy thoughts for you! You see that I cannot sympathize with
the Whitmanesque ideal of democracy. That ideal was the heart-felt
expression of a free state that has gone by. It was in itself a generous
dream. But social tendencies, inevitable and irresistible, are now
impelling the dreamers to self-destruction. The pleasure that in other
times one could find in the literature of humanity, of brotherhood, of
pity, is numbed to-day by perception of the irresistible drift of things.
Ever faithfully yours,
L. HEARN.