whom he probably has never seen, and frequently would, as a matter of
personal taste, hesitate to recognize if he did see them. He belongs to
the "local" of a union which is a part of a labour organization which
covers the entire United States and is controlled in all essential
matters from a point from one hundred to two thousand miles away. He
votes for mayor with a group of men, less than one per cent of whom he
knows personally (unless he is a professional politician), with another
group for state officers, and with the whole voting population of the
United States, for President. If he goes to church in a city he finds
himself amongst people drawn from every ward and outlying district, if
he mixes in "society" he associates with those from everywhere, perhaps,
except his own neighbourhood. Only when he is in college, in his club or
in his secret society lodge or the quarters of his ward boss does he
find himself in intimate social relations with human beings of like mind
and a similar social status. He is a cog in a wheel, a thing, a point of
potential, a lonely and numerical unit, instead of a gregarious human
animal rejoicing in his friends and companions, and working, playing and
quarreling with them, as God made him and meant him to be and to do.
Of course the result of this is that men are forced into unnatural
associations, many of which are purely artificial and all of which are
unsound. It is true that the trade union, the professional society, the
club are natural and wholesome expressions of common and intimate
interests, but they acquire a false value when they are not balanced and
regulated by a prior and more compelling association which cuts, not
vertically but horizontally through society, that is to say, the
neighbourhood or community group. The harsh and perilous division into
classes and castes which is now universal, with its development of
"class consciousness," is the direct and inevitable result of this
imperial scale in life which has annihilated the social unit of human
scale and brought in the gigantic aggregations of peoples, money,
manufacture and labourers, where man can no longer function either as a
human unit or an essential factor in a workable society.
It is hard to see just how we are to re-fashion this impossible society
in terms even nearly approaching the normal and the human. It is
universal, and it is accepted by everyone as very splendid and quite the
greatest achievement of man. It is practically impossible for any one
today to conceive of a world where great empires, populous cities, mills
and factories and iron-works in their thousands, and employing their
millions through their billions of capitalization, where the stock
exchange and the great banking houses and the insurance companies and
the department stores, the nation-wide trade unions and professional
associations and educational foundations and religious corporations, do
not play their predominant part. Nevertheless they are an aggregation of
false values, their influence is anti-social, and their inherent
weakness was so obviously revealed through the War and the Peace that it
has generally escaped notice.
There seem but two ways in which the true scale of life can be restored;
either these institutions will continue, growing greater and more
unwieldy with increasing speed until they burst in anarchy and chaos,
and after ruin and long rest we begin all over again (as once before
after the bursting of Roman imperialism), or we shall repeat history (as
we always do) only after another fashion and, learning as we always can
from the annals of monasticism, build our small communities of the right
shape and scale in the very midst of the imperial states themselves, so
becoming perhaps the leavening of the lump. This of course is what the
monasteries of St. Benedict did in the sixth century and those of the
Cluniacs and the Cistercians in the eleventh, and it is what the
Franciscans and Dominicans tried to do in the fourteenth century, and
failed because the fall of the cultural and historic wave had already
begun.
The trouble today with nearly all schemes of reform and regeneration is
that they are infected with the very imperialism in scale that has
produced the conditions they would redeem. Socialism is now as
completely materialistic as the old capitalism, and as international in
its scope and methods. Anarchy is becoming imperial and magnificent in
its operations. Secular reformers must organize vast committees with
intricate ramifications and elaborate systems supported by "drives" for
money which must run into at least seven figures, and by vast and
efficient bureaus for propaganda, before they can begin operations, and
then the chief reliance for success is frequently placed on legislation
enacted by the highest lawmaking bodies in the land. Even religion has
now surrendered to the same obsession of magnitude and efficiency, and
nothing goes (or tries to, it doesn't always succeed) unless it is
conceived in gigantic "nation-wide" terms and is "put across" by
efficiency experts, highly paid organizers, elaborate "teams" of
propagandists and solicitors, and plenty of impressive advertising. A
good deal can be bought this way, but it will not "stay bought," for no
reform of any sort can be established after any such fashion, since
reform begins in and with the individual, and if it succeeds at all it
will be by the cumulative process.
I shall speak of this element of scale in every succeeding lecture, for
it vitiates every institution we have. Here, where I am dealing with
society in itself, I can only say that I believe the sane and wholesome
society of the future will eliminate great cities and great corporations
of every sort. It will reverse the whole system of specialization and
the segregation and unification of industries and the division of
labour. It will build upward from the primary unit of the family,
through the neighbourhood, to the small, and closely knit, and
self-supporting community, and so to the state and the final unifying
force which links together a federation of states. In general it will be
a return in principle, though not in form, to the social organization of
a Mediaeval Europe before the extinction of feudalism on the Continent,
and the suppression of the monasteries and the enclosure of the common
lands in England.
The grave perils of this false scale in human society have been
recognized by many individuals ever since the thing itself became
operative, and every Utopia conceived by man during the last two
centuries, whether it was theoretical or actually put into ephemeral
practice, has been couched in terms of revolt away from imperialism and
towards the unit of human scale. In every case however, the introduction
of some form of communism has been the ruin of those projects actually
materialized, for this in itself is imperialistic in its nature.
Communism implies the standard of the gross aggregate, the denial of
human differentiation and the quantitative standard, as well as the
elimination of private property and the negation of sacred
individuality. Its institution implies an almost immediate descent into
anarchy with a sequent dictatorship and autocracy, for it is the
reversal of the foundation laws of life. Such reversals cannot last,
nothing can last that is inimical to flourishing life; it may triumph
for a day but life itself sloughs it off as a sound body rids itself of
some foreign substance through the sore that festers, bursts and, the
septic conditions done away with, heals itself and returns to normal.
Now the inhuman scale has produced one set of septic conditions in
society while what is commonly called "democratization" has produced
another. We have a bloated society, but also we have one in which a
false theory has grown up and been put in practice, in accordance with
which an uniformity of human kind has been assumed which never has
existed and does not now, and in the effort to enforce this false theory
the achievement of distinction has been impeded, leadership discouraged
and leaders largely eliminated, the process of leveling downward carried
to a very dangerous point, the sane and vital organization of society
brought near to an end and a peculiarly vicious scale and standard of
social values established. I have urged the return to human scale in
human associations, but this does not imply any admixture of communism,
which is its very antithesis, still less does it permit the retention of
the theoretical uniformity and the unescapable leveling process of
so-called democracy.
Before the law all men are equal, that is, they are entitled to
even-handed justice. Before God all men are equal, that is, they are
granted charity and mercy which transcends the law, also they possess
immortal souls of equal value. Here their equality stops. In every other
respect they vary in character, capacity, intelligence and potentiality
for development along any or all these lines, almost beyond the limits
of computation. A sane society will recognize this, it will organize
itself accordingly, it will deny to one what it will concede to another,
it will foster emulation and reward accomplishment, and it will add
another category to those in which all men are equal, that is, the
freest scope for advancement, and the greatest facility for passing from
one social group into another, the sole test being demonstrated merit.
I am prepared at this point to use the word "aristocracy" for we have
the thing even now, only in its worst possible form. The word itself
means two things: a government by the best and most able citizens and,
to quote a standard dictionary "Persons noted for superiority in any
character or quality, taken collectively." There is no harm here, but
the harm comes, and the odium also, and justly, when an aristocratic
government degenerates into an oligarchy of privilege without
responsibility, and when socially it is not "superiority in character or
quality" but political cunning, opulence and sycophancy that are the
touchstones to recognition and acceptance. The latter are the antithesis
of Christianity and common sense, the former is consonant with both and,
paradoxical as it may seem, it is also the fulfilling of the ideals of a
real democracy, since its honours and distinctions imply service, its
relations with those in other estates are reciprocal, it is not a closed
caste but the prize of meritorious achievement, and it is therefore
equality of opportunity, utilization of ability and the abolition of
privilege without responsibility.
Men are forever and gloriously struggling onward towards better things,
but there is always the gravitational pull of original sin which
scientists denominate "reversion to type." The saving grace in the
individual is the divine gift of faith, hope and charity implanted in
every soul. These every man must guard and cherish for they are the way
of advancement in character. But society is man in association with men,
in a sense a new and complex personality, and the same qualities are as
necessary here as in the individual. Society, like man, may be said to
possess body, soul and spirit, and it must function vitally along all
these lines if it is to maintain a normal and wholesome existence.
Somewhere there must be something that achieves high ideals of honour,
chivalry, courtesy; that maintains right standards of comparative value,
and that guards the social organism as a whole from the danger of
surrender to false and debased standards, to plausible demagogues, and
to mob-psychology.
The greater the prevalence of democratic methods, the greater is the
danger of this surrender to propaganda of a thousand sorts and to the
dominance of the demagogue, and the existence of an estate fortified by
the inheritance of high tradition, measurably free from the necessity of
engaging too strenuously in the "struggle for life," guaranteed security
of status so long as it does not betray the ideals of its order, but
open to accessions from other estates on the basis of conspicuous merit
alone, such a force operating in society has proved, and will prove, the
best guardian of civilization as a whole and of the interests and
liberties of those who may rank in what are known as lower social
scales.
But, it may be objected, such an institution as this has never existed.
Every political or social aristocracy in history has been mixed and
adulterated with bad characters and recreant representatives. There
never has been and never will be a perfect aristocracy. Quite true;
neither has there ever been a perfect democracy, or a perfect monarchy
for that matter. As men we work with imperfections, but we live by
faith, and our sole duty is to establish the highest ideals, and to
compass them, in so far as we may, with unfailing courage, patience and
steadfastness. The _ideal_ of democracy is a great ideal, but the
_working_ of democracy has been a failure because, amongst other things,
it has tried to carry on without the aid of true aristocracy. If the two
can be united, first in ideal and in theory, then in operation, our
present failure may be changed into victory.
What, after all, does this imply, so far as the social organism is
concerned? It seems to me, something like this. First of all,
recognition of the fact that there are differences in individuals, in
strains of blood, in races, that cannot be overcome by any power of
education and environment, and can only be changed through very long
periods of time, and that these differences must work corresponding
differences in position, function and status in the social organism.
Second, that since society automatically develops an aristocracy of some
sort or other, and apparently cannot be stopped from doing this, it must
be protected from the sort of thing it has produced of late, which is
based on money, political expediency and the unscrupulous cleverness of
the demagogue, and given a more rational substitute in the shape of a
permanent group representing high character and the traditions of
honour, chivalry and courtesy. Third, that character and service should
be fostered and rewarded by that formal and august recognition, that
secure and unquestioned status, and those added opportunities for
service that will form a real and significant distinction. Finally, that
this order or estate must be able to purge itself of unworthy material,
and also must be freely open to constant accessions from without,
whatever the source, and for proved character and service.
I fear I must argue this case of the inequality in individual potential,
that inequality that does not yield to complex education or favourable
environment, for it is fundamental. If it does not exist, then my
argument for the organization of society along lines that recognize and
regularize diversity of social status and functions, falls to the
ground. I affirm that, the doctrine of evolution and modern democratic
theory to the contrary, it does exist and that the mitigating influence
of education, environment and inherited acquired characters, is small at
best.
Let us take the most obvious concrete examples. There are certain ethnic
units or races which for periods ranging from five hundred to two
thousand years have produced _character_, and through character the
great contributions that have been made to human culture and have been
expressed through men of distinction, dynamic force, and vivid
personality. Such, amongst many, are the Greeks, the Jews, the Romans,
the Normans, the Franks, the "Anglo-Saxons," and the Celts. There are
others that in all history have produced nothing. There are certain
family names which are a guarantee of distinction, dynamic force, and
vivid personality. There are thousands of these names, and they are to
be found amongst all the races that have contributed towards the
development of culture and civilization. On the other hand, there are
far more that have produced nothing distinctive, and possibly never
will.
What is the reason for this? Is it the result of blind chance, of
accidents that have left certain races and families isolated in stagnant
eddies from which some sudden current of a whimsical tide might sweep
them out into the full flood of progress, until they then overtook and
passed their hitherto successful rivals, who, in their turn, would drift
off into progressive incompetence and degeneracy? Biology does not look
with enthusiasm on the methods of chance and accident. The choice and
transmission of the forty-eight chromosomes that give to each individual
his character-potential are probably in accordance with some obscure
biological law through which the unfathomable divine will operates. Now
these chromosomes may be selected and combined after a fashion, and with
a persistence of continuity, that would guarantee character-potential,
for good or for ill, through many generations, or they might be so
varied in their combinations that no distinct traits would be carried
over from one generation to another. As a matter of experience all these
three processes take place and are recorded in families of distinct
quality, good, bad and indifferent. If the character-potential is
predetermined, then manifestly education and environment can play only
the subordinate part of fostering its development or retarding it.
In the same way the character and career of the various races of men are
determined by the potential inherent in the individuals and families
that compose them, and like them the races themselves are for long
periods marked by power and capacity or weakness and lack of
distinction. There are certain races, such as the Hottentot, the Malay,
the American Indian, and mixed bloods, as the Mexican peons and
Mongol-Slavs of a portion of the southeastern Europe, that, so far as
recorded history is concerned, are either static or retrogressive. There
are family units, poverty-stricken and incompetent, in Naples, Canton,
East Side New York; or opulent and aggressive in West Side New York, in
Birmingham, Westphalia, Pittsburgh, that are no more subject to the
cultural and character-creating influences of education and
environment--beyond a certain definite point--than are the amphibians of
Africa or the rampant weeds of my garden.
This is a hard saying and a provocative. The entire course of democratic
theory, of humanitarian thought and of the popular type of scientific
speculation stands against it, and the Christian religion as well,
unless the statement itself is guarded by exact definitions. If the
contention of the scientific materialist were correct, and the thing
that makes man, and that Christians call the immortal soul, were but the
result of physical processes of growth and differentiation, then slavery
would be justifiable, and exploitation a reasonable and inevitable
process. Since, however, this assumption of materialism is untenable,
and since all men are possessed of immortal souls between which is no
distinction in the sight of God, the situation, regrettable if you like,
is one which at the same time calls for the exercise of a higher
humanitarianism than that so popular during the last generation, and as
well for a very drastic revision of contemporary political and social
and educational methods.
The soul of the man is the localization of divinity; in a sense each man
is a manifestation of the Incarnation. Black or white, conspicuous or
obscure, intelligent or stupid, offspring of a creative race or bound by
the limitations of one that is static or in process of decay, there is
no difference in the universal claim to justice, charity, and
opportunity. The soul of a Cantonese river-man, of a Congo slave, of an
East Side Jew, is in itself as essentially precious and worth saving as
the soul of a bishop, of a descendant of a Norman viking or an Irish
king, or that of a volunteer soldier in the late armies of France or
Great Britain or the United States.
Here lies absolute and final equality, and the State, the Law, the
Church are bound to guard this equality in the one case and the other
with equal force; indeed, those of the lower racial and family types
claim even more faithful guardianship than those of the higher, for they
can accomplish less for themselves and by themselves. But the
fundamental and inescapable inequality, in intellect, in character, and
in capacity, which I insist is one of the conditioning factors in life,
is vociferously denied, but ruthlessly enforced, by the people that will
be the first to denounce any restatement of what is after all no more
than a patent fact.
A little less enthusiasm for shibboleths, and a little more intelligent
regard for history and palpable conditions, will show that the assumed
equality between men "on the strength of their manhood alone," the
sufficiency of education for correcting the accidental differences that
show themselves, and the scheme of life that is worked out along
democratic lines on the basis of this essential (or potential) equality,
are "fond things vainly imagined" which must be radically modified
before the world can begin a sane and wholesome building-up after the
great purgation of war.
That equality between men which exists by virtue of the presence in each
of an immortal soul, involves an even distribution of justice and the
protection of law, without distinction of persons, and an even measure
of charity and compassion, but it does not involve the admission of a
claim to equality of action or the denial of varied status, since
race-values, both of blood and of the _gens_ enter in to establish
differences in character, in intelligence and in capacity which cannot
be changed by education, environment or heredity within periods which
are practical considerations with society. If we could still hold the
old Darwinian dogmas of the origin of species through the struggle for
existence and the survival of the fittest, and if the equally august and
authoritative dogma of the transmission by inheritance of acquired
characteristics were longer tenable, then perhaps we might invoke faith,
hope and patience and continue our generous method of imperilling
present society while we fixed our eyes on the vision of that to come
when environment, education and heredity had accomplished their perfect
work. Unfortunately--or perhaps fortunately--science is rapidly
reconsidering its earlier and somewhat hasty conclusions, and the
consensus of the most authoritative opinion seems to be that we must
believe these things no longer. Failing these premises, on which we have
laboured so long and so honestly and so sincerely, we are again thrown
back on the testimony of history and our own observation, and with this
reversal we also are bound to reconsider both our premises and the
constitution of those systems and institutions we have erected on them
as a foundation.
The existence of a general law does not exclude exceptions. The fact
that in the case of human beings we have to take into consideration a
powerful factor that does not come into play in the domain of zoölogy
and botany--the immortal soul--makes impossible the drawing of exact
deductions from precedents therein established. This determining touch
of the divine, which is no result of biological processes, but stands
outside the limitations of heredity and environment and education, may
manifest itself quite as well in one class as in another, for "God is no
respecter of persons." As has been said before, there is no difference
in degree as between immortal souls. The point is, however, that each is
linked to a specific congeries of tendencies, limitations, effective or
defective agencies, that are what they have been made by the parents of
the race. These may be such as enable the soul to triumph in its earthly
experience and in its bodily housing; they may be such as will bring
about failure and defeat. It is not that the soul builds itself "more
stately mansions"; it is that these are provided for it by the physical
processes of life, and it is almost the first duty of man to see that
they are well built.