maximum producible by a limited number of plants, under the most
favourable circumstances in regard to those conditions which are not
affected by labour, it follows that, if the number of men to be fed
increases indefinitely, a time must come when some will have to starve.
That is the essence of the so-called Malthusian doctrine; and it is a
truth which, to my mind, is as plain as the general proposition that a
quantity which constantly increases will, some time or other, exceed any
greater quantity the amount of which is fixed.
CCLXV
"Virtually" is apt to cover more intellectual sins than "charity" does
moral delicts.
CCLXVI
The notion that the value of a thing bears any necessary relation to the
amount of labour (average or otherwise) bestowed upon it, is a fallacy
which needs no further refutation than it has already received. The
average amount of labour bestowed upon warming-pans confers no value
upon them in the eyes of a Gold-Coast negro; nor would an Esquimaux give
a slice of blubber for the most elaborate of ice-machines.
CCLXVII
Who has ever imagined that wealth which, in the hands of an employer, is
capital, ceases to be capital if it is in the hands of a labourer?
Suppose a workman to be paid thirty shillings on Saturday evening for
six days' labour, that thirty shillings comes out of the employer's
capital, and receives the name of "wages" simply because it is exchanged
for labour. In the workman's pocket, as he goes home, it is a part of
his capital, in exactly the same sense as, half an hour before, it was
part of the employer's capital; he is a capitalist just as much as if he
were a Rothschild.
CCLXVIII
I think it may be not too much to say that, of all the political
delusions which are current in this queer world, the very stupidest are
those which assume that labour and capital are necessarily
antagonistic; that all capital is produced by labour and therefore, by
natural right, is the property of the labourer; that the possessor of
capital is a robber who preys on the workman and appropriates to himself
that which he has had no share in producing.
On the contrary, capital and labour are necessarily, close allies;
capital is never a product of human labour alone; it exists apart from
human labour; it is the necessary antecedent of labour; and it furnishes
the materials on which labour is employed. The only indispensable form
of capital--vital capital--cannot be produced by human labour. All that
man can do is to favour its formation by the real producers. There is no
intrinsic relation between the amount of labour bestowed on an article
and its value in exchange. The claim of labour to the total result of
operations which are rendered possible only by capital is simply an _a
priori_ iniquity.
CCLXIX
The vast and varied procession of events, which we call Nature, affords
a sublime spectacle and an inexhaustible wealth of attractive problems
to the speculative observer. If we confine our attention to that aspect
which engages the attention of the intellect, nature appears a beautiful
and harmonious whole, the incarnation of a faultless logical process,
from certain premisses in the past to an inevitable conclusion in the
future. But if it be regarded from a less elevated, though more human,
point of view; if our moral sympathies are allowed to influence our
judgment, and we permit ourselves to criticize our great mother as we
criticize one another; then our verdict, at least so far as sentient
nature is concerned, can hardly be so favourable.
In sober truth, to those who have made a study of the phenomena of life
as they are exhibited by the higher forms of the animal world, the
optimistic dogma, that this is the best of all possible worlds, will
seem little better than a libel upon possibility. It is really only
another instance to be added to the many extant, of the audacity of _a
priori_ speculators who, having created God in their own image, find no
difficulty in assuming that the Almighty must have been actuated by the
same motives as themselves. They are quite sure that, had any other
course been practicable, He would no more have made infinite suffering a
necessary ingredient of His handiwork than a respectable philosopher
would have done the like.
But even the modified optimism of the time-honoured thesis of
physico-theology, that the sentient world is, on the whole, regulated by
principles of benevolence, does but ill stand the test of impartial
confrontation with the facts of the case. No doubt it is quite true that
sentient nature affords hosts of examples of subtle contrivances
directed towards the production of pleasure or the avoidance of pain;
and it may be proper to say that these are evidences of benevolence. But
if so, why is it not equally proper to say of the equally numerous
arrangements, the no less necessary result of which is the production of
pain, that they are evidences of malevolence?
If a vast amount of that which, in a piece of human workmanship, we
should call skill, is visible in those parts of the organization of a
deer to which it owes its ability to escape from beasts of prey, there
is at least equal skill displayed in that bodily mechanism of the wolf
which enables him to track, and sooner or later to bring down, the deer.
Viewed under the dry light of science, deer and wolf are alike
admirable; and, if both were non-sentient automata, there would be
nothing to qualify our admiration of the action of the one on the other.
But the fact that the deer suffers, while the wolf inflicts suffering,
engages our moral sympathies. We should call men like the deer innocent
and good, men such as the wolf malignant and bad; we should call those
who defended the deer and aided him to escape brave and compassionate,
and those who helped the wolf in his bloody work base and cruel. Surely,
if we transfer these judgments to nature outside the world of man at
all, we must do so impartially. In that case, the goodness of the right
hand which helps the deer, and wickedness of the left hand which eggs on
the wolf, will neutralize one another: and the course of nature will
appear to be neither moral nor immoral, but non-moral.
This conclusion is thrust upon us by analogous facts in every part of
the sentient world; yet, inasmuch as it not only jars upon prevalent
prejudices, but arouses the natural dislike to that which is painful,
much ingenuity has been exercised in devising an escape from it.
CCLXX
From the point of view of the moralist the animal world is on about the
same level as a gladiator's show. The creatures are fairly well treated,
and set to fight--whereby the strongest, the swiftest, and the
cunningest live to fight another day. The spectator has no need to turn
his thumbs down, as no quarter is given. He must admit that the skill
and training displayed are wonderful. But he must shut his eyes if he
would not see that more or less enduring suffering is the meed of both
vanquished and victor. And since the great game is going on in every
corner of the world, thousands of times a minute; since, were our ears
sharp enough, we need not descend to the gates of hell to hear--
sospiri, pianti, ed alti guai.
* * * * *
Voci alte e fioche, e suon di man con elle
--it seems to follow that, if this world is governed by benevolence, it
must be a different sort of benevolence from that of John Howard.
CCLXXI
This may not be the best of all possible worlds, but to say that it is
the worst is mere petulant nonsense. A worn-out voluptuary may find
nothing good under the sun, or a vain and inexperienced youth, who
cannot get the moon he cries for, may vent his irritation in pessimistic
moanings; but there can be no doubt in the mind of any reasonable person
that mankind could, would, and in fact do, get on fairly well with
vastly less happiness and far more misery than find their way into the
lives of nine people out of ten. If each and all of us had been visited
by an attack of neuralgia, or of extreme mental depression, for one hour
in every twenty-four--a supposition which many tolerably vigorous people
know, to their cost, is not extravagant--the burden of life would have
been immensely increased without much practical hindrance to its general
course. Men with any manhood in them find life quite worth living under
worse conditions than these.
CCLXXII
There is another sufficiently obvious fact, which renders the hypothesis
that the course of sentient nature is dictated by malevolence quite
untenable. A vast multitude of pleasures, and these among the purest and
the best, are superfluities, bits of good which are to all appearance
unnecessary as inducements to live, and are, so to speak, thrown into
the bargain of life. To those who experience them, few delights can be
more entrancing than such as are afforded by natural beauty, or by the
arts, and especially by music; but they are products of, rather than
factors in, evolution, and it is probable that they are known, in any
considerable degree, to but a very small proportion of mankind.
CCLXXIII
The conclusion of the whole matter seems to be that, if Ormuzd has not
had his way in this world, neither has Ahriman. Pessimism is as little
consonant with the facts of sentient existence as optimism. If we desire
to represent the course of nature in terms of human thought, and assume
that it was intended to be that which it is, we must say that its
governing principle is intellectual and not moral; that it is a
materialized logical process, accompanied by pleasures and pains, the
incidence of which, in the majority of cases, has not the slightest
reference to moral desert. That the rain falls alike upon the just and
the unjust, and that those upon whom the Tower of Siloam fell were no
worse than their neighbours, seem to be Oriental modes of expressing the
same conclusion.
CCLXXIV
In the strict sense of the word "nature," it denotes the sum of the
phenomenal world, of that which has been, and is, and will be; and
society, like art, is therefore a part of nature. But it is convenient
to distinguish those parts of nature in which man plays the part of
immediate cause, as something apart; and therefore, society, like art,
is usefully to be considered as distinct from nature. It is the more
desirable, and even necessary, to make this distinction, since society
differs from nature in having a definite moral object; whence it comes
about that the course shaped by the ethical man--the member of society
or citizen--necessarily runs counter to that which the non-ethical
man--the primitive savage, or man as a mere member of the animal
kingdom--tends to adopt. The latter fights out the struggle for
existence to the bitter end, like any other animal; the former devotes
his best energies to the object of setting limits to the struggle.
CCLXXV
The first men who substituted the state of mutual peace for that of
mutual war, whatever the motive which impelled them to take that step,
created society. But, in establishing peace, they obviously put a limit
upon the struggle for existence. Between the members of that society, at
any rate, it was not to be pursued _a outrance_. And of all the
successive shapes which society has taken, that most nearly approaches
perfection in which the war of individual against individual is most
strictly limited. The primitive savage, tutored by Istar, appropriated
whatever took his fancy, and killed whosoever opposed him, if he could.
On the contrary, the ideal of the ethical man is to limit his freedom of
action to a sphere in which he does not interfere with the freedom of
others; he seeks the common weal as much as his own; and, indeed, as an
essential part of his own welfare. Peace is both end and means with
him; and he founds his life on a more or less complete self-restraint,
which is the negation of the unlimited struggle for existence. He tries
to escape from his place in the animal kingdom, founded on the free
development of the principle of non-moral evolution, and to establish a
kingdom of Man, governed upon the principle of moral evolution. For
society not only has a moral end, but in its perfection, social life, is
embodied morality.
CCLXXVI
I was once talking with a very eminent physician[4] about the _vis
medicatrix naturae_. "Stuff!" said he; "nine times out of ten nature does
not want to cure the man: she wants to put him in his coffin."
[4] The late Sir W. Gull.
CCLXXVII
Let us look at home. For seventy years peace and industry have had their
way among us with less interruption and under more favourable conditions
than in any other country on the face of the earth. The wealth of
Croesus was nothing to that which we have accumulated, and our
prosperity has filled the world with envy. But Nemesis did not forget
Croes: has she forgotten us?
CCLXXVIII
Judged by an ethical standard, nothing can be less satisfactory than the
position in which we find ourselves. In a real, though incomplete,
degree we have attained the condition of peace which is the main object
of social organization; and, for argument's sake, it may be assumed that
we desire nothing but that which is in itself innocent and
praiseworthy--namely, the enjoyment of the fruits of honest industry.
And lo! in spite of ourselves, we are in reality engaged in an
internecine struggle for existence with our presumably no less peaceful
and well-meaning neighbours. We seek peace and we do not ensue it. The
moral nature in us asks for no more than is compatible with the general
good; the non-moral nature proclaims and acts upon that fine old
Scottish family motto, "Thou shalt starve ere I want." Let us be under
no illusions, then. So long as unlimited multiplication goes on, no
social organization which has ever been devised, or is likely to be
devised, no fiddle-faddling with the distribution of wealth, will
deliver society from the tendency to be destroyed by the reproduction
within itself, in its intensest form, of that struggle for existence the
limitation of which is the object of society. And however shocking to
the moral sense this eternal competition of man against man and of
nation against nation may be; however revolting may be the accumulation
of misery at the negative pole of society, in contrast with that of
monstrous wealth at the positive pole; this state of things must abide,
and grow continually worse, so long as Istar holds her way unchecked. It
is the true riddle of the Sphinx; and every nation which does not solve
it will sooner or later be devoured by the monster itself has generated.
CCLXXIX
It would be folly to entertain any ill-feeling towards those neighbours
and rivals who, like ourselves, are slaves of Istar; but if somebody
is to be starved, the modern world has no Oracle of Delphi to which the
nations can appeal for an indication of the victim. It is open to us to
try our fortune; and, if we avoid impending fate, there will be a
certain ground for believing that we are the right people to escape.
_Securus judicat orbis._
To this end, it is well to look into the necessary conditions of our
salvation by works. They are two, one plain to all the world and hardly
needing insistence; the other seemingly not so plain, since too often it
has been theoretically and practically left out of sight. The obvious
condition is that our produce shall be better than that of others. There
is only one reason why our goods should be preferred to those of our
rivals--our customers must find them better at the price. That means
that we must use more knowledge, skill, and industry in producing them,
without a proportionate increase in the cost of production; and, as the
price of labour constitutes a large element in that cost, the rate of
wages must be restricted within certain limits. It is perfectly true
that cheap production and cheap labour are by no means synonymous; but
it is also true that wages cannot increase beyond a certain proportion
without destroying cheapness. Cheapness, then, with, as part and parcel
of cheapness, a moderate price of labour, is essential to our success as
competitors in the markets of the world.
The second condition is really quite as plainly indispensable as the
first, if one thinks seriously about the matter. It is social stability.
Society is stable when the wants of its members obtain as much
satisfaction as, life being what it is, common sense and experience show
may be reasonably expected. Mankind, in general, care very little for
forms of government or ideal considerations of any sort; and nothing
really stirs the great multitude to break with custom and incur the
manifest perils of revolt except the belief that misery in this world,
or damnation in the next, or both, are threatened by the continuance of
the state of things in which they have been brought up. But when they do
attain that conviction, society becomes as unstable as a package of
dynamite, and a very small matter will produce the explosion which sends
it back to the chaos of savagery.
CCLXXX
Intelligence, knowledge, and skill are undoubtedly conditions of
success; but of what avail are they likely to be unless they are backed
up by honesty, energy, goodwill, and all the physical and moral
faculties that go to the making of manhood, and unless they are
stimulated by hope of such reward as men may fairly look to? And what
dweller in the slough of want, dwarfed in body and soul, demoralized,
hopeless, can reasonably be expected to possess these qualities?
CCLXXXI
I am as strongly convinced as the most pronounced individualist can be,
that it is desirable that every man should be free to act in every way
which does not limit the corresponding freedom of his fellow-man. But I
fail to connect that great induction of political science with the
practical corollary which is frequently drawn from it: that the
State--that is, the people in their corporate capacity--has no business
to meddle with anything but the administration of justice and external
defence. It appears to me that the amount of freedom which incorporate
society may fitly leave to its members is not a fixed quantity, to be
determined _a priori_ by deduction from the fiction called "natural
rights"; but that it must be determined by and vary with, circumstances.
I conceive it to be demonstrable that the higher and the more complex
the organization of the social body, the more closely is the life of
each member bound up with that of the whole; and the larger becomes the
category of acts which cease to be merely self-regarding, and which
interfere with the freedom of others more or less seriously.
If a squatter, living ten miles away from any neighbour, chooses to burn
his house down to get rid of vermin, there may be no necessity (in the
absence of insurance offices) that the law should interfere with his
freedom of action; his act can hurt nobody but himself. But, if the
dweller in a street chooses to do the same thing, the State very
properly makes such a proceeding a crime, and punishes it as such. He
does meddle with his neighbour's freedom, and that seriously. So it
might, perhaps, be a tenable doctrine, that it would be needless, and
even tyrannous, to make education compulsory in a sparse agricultural
population, living in abundance on the produce of its own soil; but, in
a densely populated manufacturing country, struggling for existence with
competitors, every ignorant person tends to become a burden upon, and,
so far, an infringer of the liberty of, his fellows, and an obstacle to
their success. Under such circumstances an education rate is, in fact, a
war tax, levied for purposes of defence.
CCLXXXII
That State action always has been more or less misdirected, and always
will be so, is, I believe, perfectly true. But I am not aware that it
is more true of the action of men in their corporate capacity than it is
of the doings of individuals. The wisest and most dispassionate man in
existence, merely wishing to go from one stile in a field to the
opposite, will not walk quite straight--he is always going a little
wrong, and always correcting himself; and I can only congratulate the
individualist who is able to say that his general course of life has
been of a less undulatory character. To abolish State action, because
its direction is never more than approximately correct, appears to me to
be much the same thing as abolishing the man at the wheel altogether,
because, do what he will, the ship yaws more or less. "Why should I be
robbed of my property to pay for teaching another man's children?" is an
individualist question, which is not unfrequently put as if it settled
the whole business. Perhaps it does, but I find difficulties in seeing
why it should. The parish in which I live makes me pay my share for the
paving and lighting of a great many streets that I never pass through;
and I might plead that I am robbed to smooth the way and lighten the
darkness of other people. But I am afraid the parochial authorities
would not let me off on this plea; and I must confess I do not see why
they should.
CCLXXXIII
I cannot speak of my own knowledge, but I have every reason to believe
that I came into this world a small reddish person, certainly without a
gold spoon in my mouth, and in fact with no discernible abstract or
concrete "rights" or property of any description. If a foot was not set
upon me at once, as a squalling nuisance, it was either the natural
affection of those about me, which I certainly had done nothing to
deserve, or the fear of the law which, ages before my birth, was
painfully built up by the society into which I intruded, that prevented
that catastrophe. If I was nourished, cared for, taught, saved from the
vagabondage of a wastrel, I certainly am not aware that I did anything
to deserve those advantages. And, if I possess anything now, it strikes
me that, though I may have fairly earned my day's wages for my day's
work, and may justly call them my property--yet, without that
organization of society, created out of the toil and blood of long
generations before my time, I should probably have had nothing but a
flint axe and an indifferent hut to call my own; and even those would be
mine only so long as no stronger savage came my way.
So that if society, having, quite gratuitously, done all these things
for me, asks me in turn to do something towards its preservation--even
if that something is to contribute to the teaching of other men's
children--I really, in spite of all my individualist learnings, feel
rather ashamed to say no. And, if I were not ashamed, I cannot say that
I think that society would be dealing unjustly with me in converting the
moral obligation into a legal one. There is a manifest unfairness in
letting all the burden be borne by the willing horse.
CCLXXXIV
It is impossible to insist too strongly upon the fact that efficient
teachers of science and of technology are not to be made by the
processes in vogue at ordinary training colleges. The memory loaded with
mere bookwork is not the thing wanted--is, in fact, rather worse than
useless--in the teacher of scientific subjects. It is absolutely
essential that his mind should be full of knowledge and not of mere
learning, and that what he knows should have been learned in the
laboratory rather than in the library.
CCLXXXV
The attempt to form a just conception of the value of work done in any
department of human knowledge, and of its significance as an indication
of the intellectual and moral qualities of which it was the product, is
an undertaking which must always be beset with difficulties, and may
easily end in making the limitations of the appraiser more obvious than
the true worth of that which he appraises. For the judgment of a
contemporary is liable to be obscured by intellectual incompatibilities
and warped by personal antagonisms; while the critic of a later
generation, though he may escape the influence of these sources of
error, is often ignorant, or forgetful, of the conditions under which
the labours of his predecessors have been carried on. He is prone to
lose sight of the fact that without their clearing of the ground and
rough-hewing of the foundation-stones, the stately edifice of later
builders could not have been erected.
CCLXXXVI