A book of modern social inquiry has a shape that is somewhat sharply
defined. It begins as a rule with an analysis, with statistics, tables
of population, decrease of crime among Congregationalists, growth of
hysteria among policemen, and similar ascertained facts; it ends with a
chapter that is generally called “The Remedy.” It is almost wholly due
to this careful, solid, and scientific method that “The Remedy” is never
found. For this scheme of medical question and answer is a blunder;
the first great blunder of sociology. It is always called stating the
disease before we find the cure. But it is the whole definition and
dignity of man that in social matters we must actually find the cure
before we find the disease.
The fallacy is one of the fifty fallacies that come from the modern
madness for biological or bodily metaphors. It is convenient to speak
of the Social Organism, just as it is convenient to speak of the British
Lion. But Britain is no more an organism than Britain is a lion. The
moment we begin to give a nation the unity and simplicity of an animal,
we begin to think wildly. Because every man is a biped, fifty men are
not a centipede. This has produced, for instance, the gaping absurdity
of perpetually talking about “young nations” and “dying nations,” as
if a nation had a fixed and physical span of life. Thus people will say
that Spain has entered a final senility; they might as well say that
Spain is losing all her teeth. Or people will say that Canada should
soon produce a literature; which is like saying that Canada must soon
grow a new moustache. Nations consist of people; the first generation
may be decrepit, or the ten thousandth may be vigorous. Similar
applications of the fallacy are made by those who see in the increasing
size of national possessions, a simple increase in wisdom and stature,
and in favor with God and man. These people, indeed, even fall short in
subtlety of the parallel of a human body. They do not even ask whether
an empire is growing taller in its youth, or only growing fatter in its
old age. But of all the instances of error arising from this physical
fancy, the worst is that we have before us: the habit of exhaustively
describing a social sickness, and then propounding a social drug.
Now we do talk first about the disease in cases of bodily breakdown; and
that for an excellent reason. Because, though there may be doubt about
the way in which the body broke down, there is no doubt at all about
the shape in which it should be built up again. No doctor proposes to
produce a new kind of man, with a new arrangement of eyes or limbs. The
hospital, by necessity, may send a man home with one leg less: but
it will not (in a creative rapture) send him home with one leg extra.
Medical science is content with the normal human body, and only seeks to
restore it.
But social science is by no means always content with the normal human
soul; it has all sorts of fancy souls for sale. Man as a social idealist
will say “I am tired of being a Puritan; I want to be a Pagan,” or
“Beyond this dark probation of Individualism I see the shining paradise
of Collectivism.” Now in bodily ills there is none of this difference
about the ultimate ideal. The patient may or may not want quinine; but
he certainly wants health. No one says “I am tired of this headache; I
want some toothache,” or “The only thing for this Russian influenza is
a few German measles,” or “Through this dark probation of catarrh I see
the shining paradise of rheumatism.” But exactly the whole difficulty in
our public problems is that some men are aiming at cures which other
men would regard as worse maladies; are offering ultimate conditions
as states of health which others would uncompromisingly call states of
disease. Mr. Belloc once said that he would no more part with the idea
of property than with his teeth; yet to Mr. Bernard Shaw property is
not a tooth, but a toothache. Lord Milner has sincerely attempted to
introduce German efficiency; and many of us would as soon welcome German
measles. Dr. Saleeby would honestly like to have Eugenics; but I would
rather have rheumatics.
This is the arresting and dominant fact about modern social discussion;
that the quarrel is not merely about the difficulties, but about the
aim. We agree about the evil; it is about the good that we should tear
each other’s eyes out. We all admit that a lazy aristocracy is a bad
thing. We should not by any means all admit that an active aristocracy
would be a good thing. We all feel angry with an irreligious priesthood;
but some of us would go mad with disgust at a really religious one.
Everyone is indignant if our army is weak, including the people who
would be even more indignant if it were strong. The social case is
exactly the opposite of the medical case. We do not disagree, like
doctors, about the precise nature of the illness, while agreeing about
the nature of health. On the contrary, we all agree that England is
unhealthy, but half of us would not look at her in what the other half
would call blooming health. Public abuses are so prominent and pestilent
that they sweep all generous people into a sort of fictitious unanimity.
We forget that, while we agree about the abuses of things, we should
differ very much about the uses of them. Mr. Cadbury and I would agree
about the bad public house. It would be precisely in front of the good
public-house that our painful personal fracas would occur.
I maintain, therefore, that the common sociological method is quite
useless: that of first dissecting abject poverty or cataloguing
prostitution. We all dislike abject poverty; but it might be another
business if we began to discuss independent and dignified poverty. We
all disapprove of prostitution; but we do not all approve of purity.
The only way to discuss the social evil is to get at once to the social
ideal. We can all see the national madness; but what is national sanity?
I have called this book “What Is Wrong with the World?” and the upshot
of the title can be easily and clearly stated. What is wrong is that we
do not ask what is right.
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