during the past hundred years there should also develop a radical
opposition of opinion as to the methods by which such hygiene ought to
be accomplished. There has always been this opposition in the political
sphere; it is natural to find it also in the social sphere. The very
fact that old-fashioned politics are becoming more and more transformed
into questions of social hygiene itself ensures the continuance of such
an opposition.
In politics, and especially in the politics of constitutional countries
of which England is the type, there are normally two parties. There is
the party that holds by tradition, by established order and solidarity,
the maintenance of the ancient hierarchical constitution of society, and
in general distinguishes itself by a preference for the old over the
new. There is, on the other side, the party that insists on progress, on
freedom, on the reasonable demands of the individual, on the adaptation
of the accepted order to changing conditions, and in general
distinguishes itself by a preference for the new over the old. The first
may be called the party of structure, and the second the party of
function. In England we know the adherents of one party as Conservatives
and those of the other party as Liberals or Radicals.
In time, it is true, these normal distinctions between the party of
structure and the party of function tend to become somewhat confused;
and it is precisely the transition of politics into the social sphere
which tends to introduce confusion. With a political system which
proceeds ultimately out of a society with a feudalistic basis, the
normal attitude of political parties is long maintained. The party of
structure, the Conservative party, holds by the ancient feudalistic
ideals which are really, in the large sense, socialistic, though a
socialism based on a foundation of established inequality, and so
altogether unlike the democratic socialism promulgated to-day. The
party of function, the Liberal party, insists on the break-up of this
structural socialism to meet the new needs of progressive civilization.
But when feudalism has been left far behind, and many of the changes
introduced by Liberalism have become part of the social structure, they
fall under the protection of Conservatives who are fighting against new
Liberal innovations. Thus the lines of delimitation tend to become
indistinct.
In the politics of social hygiene there are the same two factors: the
party of structure and the party of function. In their nature and in
their opposition to each other they correspond to the two parties in the
old political field. But they have changed their character and their
names: the party of structure is here Socialism or Collectivism,[248] the
party of function is Individualism.[249] And while the Tory, the
Conservative of early days, was allied to Collectivism, and the Whig,
the Liberal of early days, to Individualism, that correspondence has
ceased to be invariable owing to the confused manner in which the old
political parties have nowadays shifted their ground. We may thus see a
Liberal who is a Collectivist when a Collectivist measure may involve
that innovation to secure adjustment to new needs which is of the
essence of Liberalism, and we may see a Conservative who is an
Individualist when Individualism involves that maintenance of the
existing order which is of the essence of Conservatism. Whether a man is
a Conservative or a Liberal, he may incline either to Socialism or to
Individualism without breaking with his political tradition. It is,
therefore, impossible to import any political animus into the
fundamental antagonism between Individualism and Socialism, which
prevails in the sphere of social hygiene.
We cannot hope to see clearly the grave problems involved by the
fundamental antagonism between Socialism and Individualism unless we
understand what each is founded on and what it is aiming at.
When we seek to inquire how it is that the Socialist ideal exerts so
powerful an attraction on the human mind, and why it is ever seeking new
modes of practical realization, we cannot fail to perceive that it
ultimately proceeds from the primitive need of mutual help, a need which
was felt long before the appearance of humanity.[250] If, however, we keep
strictly to our immediate mammalian traditions it may be said that the
earliest socialist community is the family, with its trinity of father,
mother, and child. The primitive family constitutes a group which is
conditioned by the needs of each member. Each individual is subordinated
to the whole. The infant needs the mother and the mother needs the
infant; they both need the father and the father needs both for the
complete satisfaction of his own activities. Socially and economically
this primitive group is a unit, and if broken up into its individual
parts these would be liable to perish.
However we may multiply our social unit, however we may enlarge and
elaborate it, however we may juggle with the results, we cannot disguise
the essential fact. At the centre of every social agglomeration, however
vast, however small, lies the social unit of the family of which each
individual is by himself either unable to live or unable to reproduce,
unable, that is to say, to gratify the two fundamental needs of hunger
and love.
There are many people who, while willing to admit that the family is, in
a sense, a composite social unit to which each part has need of the
other parts, so that all are mutually bound together, seek to draw a
firm line of distinction between the family and society. Family life,
they declare, is not irreconcilable with individualism; it is merely _un
égoïsme à trois_. It is, however, difficult to see how such a
distinction can be maintained, whether we look at the matter
theoretically or practically. In a small country like Great Britain, for
instance, every Englishman (excluding new immigrants) is related by
blood to every other Englishman, as would become clearer if every man
possessed his pedigree for a thousand years back. When we remember,
further, also, that every nation has been overlaid by invasions, warlike
or peaceful, from neighbouring lands, and has, indeed, been originally
formed in this way since no people has sprung up out of the soil of its
own land, we must further admit that the nations themselves form one
family related by blood.
Our genealogical relation to our fellows is too remote and extensive to
concern us much practically and sentimentally, though it is well that we
should realize it. If we put it aside, we have still to remember that
our actual need of our fellows is not definitely to be distinguished
from the mutual needs of the members of the smallest social unit, the
family.
In practice the individual is helpless. Of all animals, indeed, man is
the most helpless when left to himself. He must be cared for by others
at every moment during his long infancy. He is dependent on the
exertions of others for shelter and clothes, while others are occupied
in preparing his food and conveying it from the ends of the world. Even
if we confine ourselves to the most elementary needs of a moderately
civilized existence, or even if our requirements are only those of an
idiot in an asylum, yet, for every one of us, there are literally
millions of people spending the best of their lives from morning to
night and perhaps receiving but little in return. The very elementary
need of the individual in an urban civilization for pure water to drink
can only be attained by organized social effort. The gigantic aqueducts
constructed by the Romans are early monuments of social activity typical
of all the rest. The primary needs of the individual can only be
supplied by an immense and highly organized social effort. The more
complex civilization becomes, and the more numerous individual needs
become, so much the more elaborate and highly organized becomes the
social response to those needs. The individual is so dependent on
society that he needs not only the active work of others, but even their
mere passive good opinion, and if he loses that he is a failure,
bankrupt, a pauper, a lunatic, a criminal, and the social reaction
against him may suffice to isolate him, even to put him out of life
altogether. So dependent indeed on society is the individual that there
has always been a certain plausibility in the old idea of the Stoics,
countenanced by St. Paul, and so often revived in later days (as by
Schäffle, Lilienfeld, and René Worms), that society is an organism in
which the individuals are merely cells depending for their significance
on the whole to which they belong. Just as the animal is, as Hegel, the
metaphysician, called it, a "nation," and Dareste, the physiologist, a
"city," made up of cells which are individuals having a common ancestor,
so the actual nation, the real city, is an animal made up of individuals
which are cells having a common ancestor, or, as Oken long ago put it,
individuals are the organs of the whole.[251] Man is a social animal in
constant action and reaction with all his fellows of the same group--a
group which becomes ever greater as civilization advances--and socialism
is merely the formal statement of this ultimate social fact.[252]
There is a divinity that hedges certain words. A sacred terror warns the
profane off them as off something that might blast the beholder's sight.
In fact it is so, and even a clear-sighted person may be blinded by such
a word. Of these words none is more typical than the word "socialism."
Not so very long ago a prominent public man, of high intelligence, but
evidently susceptible to the terror-striking influence of words, went to
Glasgow to deliver an address on Social Reform. He warned his hearers
against Socialism, and told them that, though so much talked about, it
had not made one inch of progress; of practical Socialism or
Collectivism there were no signs at all. Yet, as some of his hearers
pointed out, he gave his address in a municipally owned hall,
illuminated by municipal lights, to an audience which had largely
arrived in municipal tramcars travelling through streets owned,
maintained, and guarded by the municipality. This audience was largely
educated in State schools, in which their children nowadays can receive
not only free education and free books, but, if necessary, free food and
free medical inspection and treatment. Moreover, the members of this
same audience thus assured of the non-existence of Socialism, are
entitled to free treatment in the municipal hospital, should an
infective disease overtake them; the municipality provides them freely
with concerts and picture galleries, golf courses and swimming ponds;
and in old age, finally, if duly qualified, they receive a State
pension. Now all these measures are socialistic, and Socialism is
nothing more or less than a complicated web of such measures; the
socialistic State, as some have put it, is simply a great national
co-operative association of which the Government is the board of
managers.
It is said by some who disclaim any tendency to Socialism, that what
they desire is not the State-ownership of the means of production, but
State-regulation. Let the State, in the interests of the community, keep
a firm control over the individualistic exploitation of capital, let it
tax capital as far as may be desirable in the interests of the
community. But beyond this, capital, as well as land, is sacred. The
distinction thus assumed is not, however, valid. The very people who
make this distinction are often enthusiastic advocates of an enlarged
navy and a more powerful army. Yet these can only be provided by
taxation, and every tax in a democratic State is a socialistic measure,
and involves collective ownership of the proceeds, whether they are
applied to making guns or swimming-baths. Every step in the regulation
of industry assumes the rights of society over individualistic
production, and is therefore socialistic. It is a question of less or
more, but except along those two lines, there is no socialism at all to
be reckoned with in the practical affairs of the world. That
revolutionary socialism of the dogmatically systematic school of Karl
Marx which desired to transfer society at a single stroke by taking over
and centralizing all the means of production may now be regarded as a
dream. It never at any time took root in the English-speaking lands,
though it was advocated with unwearying patience by men of such force of
intellect and of character as Mr. Hyndman and William Morris. Even in
Germany, the land of its origin, nearly all its old irreconcilable
leaders are dead, and it is now slowly but steadily losing influence, to
give place to a more modern and practical socialism.
As we are concerned with it to-day and in the future, Socialism is not a
rigid economic theory, nor is it the creed of a narrow sect. In its wide
sense it is a name that covers all the activities--first instinctive,
then organized--which arise out of the fundamental fact that man is a
social animal. In its more precise sense it indicates the various
orderly measures that are taken by groups of individuals--whether States
or municipalities--to provide collectively for the definite needs of the
individuals composing the group. So much for Socialism.
The individualist has a very different story to tell. From the point of
view of Individualism, however elaborate the structure of the society
you erect, it can only, after all, be built up of individuals, and its
whole worth must depend on the quality of those individuals. If they are
not fully developed and finely tempered by high responsibilities and
perpetual struggles, all social effort is fruitless, it will merely
degrade the individual to the helpless position of a parasite. The
individual is born alone; he must die alone; his deepest passions, his
most exquisite tastes, are personal; in this world, or in any other
world, all the activities of society cannot suffice to save his soul.
Thus it is that the individual must bear his own burdens, for it is
only in so doing that the muscles of his body grow strong and that the
energies of his spirit become keen. It is by the qualities of the
individual alone that work is sound and that initiative is possible. All
trade and commerce, every practical affair of life, depend for success
on the personal ability of individuals.[253] It is not only so in the
everyday affairs of life, it is even more so on the highest planes of
intellectual and spiritual life. The supreme great men of the race were
termed by Carlyle its "heroes," by Emerson its "representative men,"
but, equally by the less and by the more democratic term, they are
always individuals standing apart from society, often in violent
opposition to it, though they have always conquered in the end. When any
great person has stood alone against the world it has always been the
world that lost. The strongest man, as Ibsen argued in his _Enemy of the
People_, is the man who stands most alone. "He will be the greatest,"
says Nietzsche in _Beyond Good and Evil_, "who can be the most solitary,
the most concealed, the most divergent." Every great and vitally
organized person is hostile to the rigid and narrow routine of social
conventions, whether established by law or by opinion; they must ever be
broken to suit his vital needs. Therefore the more we multiply these
social routines, the more strands we weave into the social web, the more
closely we draw them, by so much the more we are discouraging the
production of great and vitally organized persons, and by so much the
more we are exposing society to destruction at the hands of such
persons.
Beneath Socialism lies the assertion that society came first and that
individuals are indefinitely apt for education into their place in
society. Socialism has inherited the maxim, which Rousseau, the
uncompromising Individualist, placed at the front of his _Social
Contract_: "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains." There is
nothing to be done but to strike off the chains and organize society on
a social basis. Men are not this or that; they are what they have been
made. Make the social conditions right, says the thorough-going
Socialist, and individuals will be all that we could desire them to be.
Not poverty alone, but disease, lunacy, prostitution, criminality are
all the results of bad social and economic conditions. Create the right
environment and you have done all that is necessary. To some extent that
is clearly true. But the individualist insists that there are definite
limits to its truth. Even in the most favourable environment nearly
every ill that the Socialist seeks to remove is found. Inevitably, the
Individualist declares, because we do not spring out of our environment,
but out of our ancestral stocks. Against the stress on environment, the
Individualist lays the stress on the ascertained facts of heredity. It
is the individual that counts, and for good or for ill the individual
brought his fate with him at birth. Ensure the production of sound
individuals, and you may set at naught the environment. You will,
indeed, secure results incomparably better than even the most anxious
care expended on environment alone can ever hope to secure.
Such are the respective attitudes of Socialism and Individualism. So far
as I can see, they are both absolutely right. Nor is it even clear that
they are really opposed; for, as happens in every field, while the
affirmations of each are sound, their denials are unsound. Certainly,
along each line we may be carried to absurdity. The Individualism of Max
Stirner is not far from the ultimate frontier of sanity, and possibly
even on the other side of it;[254] while the Socialism of the Oneida
Community involved a self-subordination which it would be idle to expect
from the majority of men and women. But there is a perfect division of
labour between Socialism and Individualism. We cannot have too much of
either of them. We have only to remember that the field of each is
distinct. No one needs Individualism in his water supply, and no one
needs Socialism in his religion. All human affairs sort themselves out
as coming within the province of Socialism or of Individualism, and each
may be pushed to its furthest extreme.[255]
It so happens, however, that the capacity of the human brain is limited,
and a single brain is not made to hold together the idea of Socialism
and the idea of Individualism. Ordinary people have, it is true, no
practical difficulty whatever in acting concurrently in accordance with
the ideas of Socialism and of Individualism. But it is different with
the men of ideas; they must either be Socialists or Individualists; they
cannot be both. The tendency in one or the other direction is probably
inborn in these men of ideas.
We need not regret this inevitable division of labour. On the contrary,
it is difficult to see how the right result could otherwise be brought
about. People without ideas experience no difficulty in harmonizing the
two tendencies. But if the ideas of Socialism and Individualism tended
to appear in the same brain they would neutralize each other or lead
action into an unprofitable _via media_. The separate initiative and
promulgation of the two tendencies encourages a much more effective
action, and best promotes that final harmony of the two extremes which
the finest human development needs.
There is more to be said. Not only are both alike indispensable, and
both too profoundly rooted in human nature to be abolished or abridged,
but each is indispensable to the other. There can be no Socialism
without Individualism; there can be no Individualism without Socialism.
Only a very fine development of personal character and individual
responsibility can bear up any highly elaborated social organization,
which is why small Socialist communities have only attained success by
enlisting finely selected persons; only a highly organized social
structure can afford scope for the play of individuality. The
enlightened Socialist nowadays often realizes something of the
relationship of Socialism to Individualism, and the Individualist--if he
were not in recent times, for all his excellent qualities, sometimes
lacking in mental flexibility and alertness--would be prepared to admit
his own relationship to Socialism. "The organization of the whole is
dominated by the necessities of cellular life," as Dareste says. That
truth is well recognized by the physiologists since the days of Claude
Bernard. It is absolutely true of the physiology of society. Social
organization is not for the purpose of subordinating the individual to
society; it is as much for the purpose of subordinating society to the
individual.
Between individuals, even the greatest, and society there is perpetual
action and reaction. While the individual powerfully acts on society, he
can only so act in so far as he is himself the instrument and organ of
society. The individual leads society, but only in that direction
whither society wishes to go. Every man of science merely carries
knowledge or invention one further step, a needed and desired step,
beyond the stage reached by his immediate predecessors. Every poet and
artist is only giving expression to the secret feelings and impulses of
his fellows. He has the courage to utter for the first time the intimate
emotion and aspiration which he finds in the depth of his own soul, and
he has the skill to express them in forms of radiant beauty. But all
these secret feelings and desires are in the hearts of other men, who
have not the boldness to tell them nor the ability to embody them
exquisitely. In the life of man, as in nature generally, there is a
perpetual process of exfoliation, as Edward Carpenter calls it, whereby
a latent but striving desire is revealed, and the man of genius is the
stimulus and the incarnation of this exfoliating movement. That is why
every great poet and artist when once his message becomes intelligible,
is acclaimed and adored by the crowd for whom he would only have been an
object of idle wonderment if he had not expressed and glorified
themselves. When the man of genius is too far ahead of his time, he is
rejected, however great his genius may be, because he represents the
individual out of vital relation to his time. A Roger Bacon, for all his
stupendous intellect, is deprived of pen and paper and shut up in a
monastery, because he is undertaking to answer questions which will not
be asked until five centuries after his death. Perhaps the supreme man
of genius is he who, like Virgil, Leonardo, or Shakespeare, has a
message for his own time and a message for all times, a message which is
for ever renewed for every new generation.
The need for insisting on the intimate relations between Socialism and
Individualism has become the more urgent to-day because we are reaching
a stage of civilization in which each tendency is inevitably so pushed
to its full development that a clash is only prevented by the
realization that here we have truly a harmony. Sometimes a matter that
belongs to one sphere is so closely intertwined with a matter that
belongs to the other that it is a very difficult problem how to hold
them separate and allow each its due value.[256]