VII - THE ETERNAL REVOLUTION
The following propositions have been urged: First,
that some faith in our life is required even to improve it; second, that some
dissatisfaction with things as they are is necessary even in order to be
satisfied; third, that to have this necessary content and necessary discontent
it is not sufficient to have the obvious equilibrium of the Stoic. For mere
resignation has neither the gigantic levity of pleasure nor the superb
intolerance of pain. There is a vital objection to the advice merely to grin
and bear it. The objection is that if you merely bear it, you do not grin.
Greek heroes do not grin: but gargoyles do—because they are Christian. And when
a Christian is pleased, he is (in the most exact sense) frightfully pleased;
his pleasure is frightful. Christ prophesied the whole of Gothic architecture
in that hour when nervous and respectable people (such people as now object to
barrel organs) objected to the shouting of the gutter-snipes of Jerusalem. He
said, "If these were silent, the very stones would cry out." Under
the impulse of His spirit arose like a clamorous chorus the facades of the
mediaeval cathedrals, thronged with shouting faces and open mouths. The
prophecy has fulfilled itself: the very stones cry out.
If these things be conceded, though only for
argument, we may take up where we left it the thread of the thought of the
natural man, called by the Scotch (with regrettable familiarity), "The Old
Man." We can ask the next question so obviously in front of us. Some
satisfaction is needed even to make things better. But what do we mean by making
things better? Most modern talk on this matter is a mere argument in a
circle—that circle which we have already made the symbol of madness and of mere
rationalism. Evolution is only good if it produces good; good is only good if
it helps evolution. The elephant stands on the tortoise, and the tortoise on
the elephant.
Obviously, it will not do to take our ideal from
the principle in nature; for the simple reason that (except for some human or
divine theory), there is no principle in nature. For instance, the cheap
anti-democrat of to-day will tell you solemnly that there is no equality in
nature. He is right, but he does not see the logical addendum. There is no
equality in nature; also there is no inequality in nature. Inequality, as much
as equality, implies a standard of value. To read aristocracy into the anarchy
of animals is just as sentimental as to read democracy into it. Both
aristocracy and democracy are human ideals: the one saying that all men are
valuable, the other that some men are more valuable. But nature does not say
that cats are more valuable than mice; nature makes no remark on the subject.
She does not even say that the cat is enviable or the mouse pitiable. We think
the cat superior because we have (or most of us have) a particular philosophy
to the effect that life is better than death. But if the mouse were a German
pessimist mouse, he might not think that the cat had beaten him at all. He
might think he had beaten the cat by getting to the grave first. Or he might
feel that he had actually inflicted frightful punishment on the cat by keeping
him alive. Just as a microbe might feel proud of spreading a pestilence, so the
pessimistic mouse might exult to think that he was renewing in the cat the
torture of conscious existence. It all depends on the philosophy of the mouse.
You cannot even say that there is victory or superiority in nature unless you
have some doctrine about what things are superior. You cannot even say that the
cat scores unless there is a system of scoring. You cannot even say that the
cat gets the best of it unless there is some best to be got.
We cannot, then, get the ideal itself from nature,
and as we follow here the first and natural speculation, we will leave out (for
the present) the idea of getting it from God. We must have our own vision. But
the attempts of most moderns to express it are highly vague.
Some fall back simply on the clock: they talk as
if mere passage through time brought some superiority; so that even a man of
the first mental calibre carelessly uses the phrase that human morality is
never up to date. How can anything be up to date?— a date has no character. How
can one say that Christmas celebrations are not suitable to the twenty-fifth of
a month? What the writer meant, of course, was that the majority is behind his
favourite minority—or in front of it. Other vague modern people take refuge in
material metaphors; in fact, this is the chief mark of vague modern people. Not
daring to define their doctrine of what is good, they use physical figures of speech
without stint or shame, and, what is worst of all, seem to think these cheap
analogies are exquisitely spiritual and superior to the old morality. Thus they
think it intellectual to talk about things being "high." It is at
least the reverse of intellectual; it is a mere phrase from a steeple or a
weathercock. "Tommy was a good boy" is a pure philosophical
statement, worthy of Plato or Aquinas. "Tommy lived the higher life"
is a gross metaphor from a ten-foot rule.
This, incidentally, is almost the whole weakness
of Nietzsche, whom some are representing as a bold and strong thinker. No one
will deny that he was a poetical and suggestive thinker; but he was quite the
reverse of strong. He was not at all bold. He never put his own meaning before
himself in bald abstract words: as did Aristotle and Calvin, and even Karl
Marx, the hard, fearless men of thought. Nietzsche always escaped a question by
a physical metaphor, like a cheery minor poet. He said, "beyond good and
evil," because he had not the courage to say, "more good than good
and evil," or, "more evil than good and evil." Had he faced his
thought without metaphors, he would have seen that it was nonsense. So, when he
describes his hero, he does not dare to say, "the purer man," or
"the happier man," or "the sadder man," for all these are
ideas; and ideas are alarming. He says "the upper man," or "over
man," a physical metaphor from acrobats or alpine climbers. Nietzsche is
truly a very timid thinker. He does not really know in the least what sort of
man he wants evolution to produce. And if he does not know, certainly the
ordinary evolutionists, who talk about things being "higher," do not
know either.
Then again, some people fall back on sheer
submission and sitting still. Nature is going to do something some day; nobody
knows what, and nobody knows when. We have no reason for acting, and no reason
for not acting. If anything happens it is right: if anything is prevented it
was wrong. Again, some people try to anticipate nature by doing something, by
doing anything. Because we may possibly grow wings they cut off their legs. Yet
nature may be trying to make them centipedes for all they know.
Lastly, there is a fourth class of people who take
whatever it is that they happen to want, and say that that is the ultimate aim
of evolution. And these are the only sensible people. This is the only really
healthy way with the word evolution, to work for what you want, and to call
THAT evolution. The only intelligible sense that progress or advance can have among
men, is that we have a definite vision, and that we wish to make the whole
world like that vision. If you like to put it so, the essence of the doctrine
is that what we have around us is the mere method and preparation for something
that we have to create. This is not a world, but rather the material for a
world. God has given us not so much the colours of a picture as the colours of
a palette. But he has also given us a subject, a model, a fixed vision. We must
be clear about what we want to paint. This adds a further principle to our
previous list of principles. We have said we must be fond of this world, even
in order to change it. We now add that we must be fond of another world (real
or imaginary) in order to have something to change it to.
We need not debate about the mere words evolution
or progress: personally I prefer to call it reform. For reform implies form. It
implies that we are trying to shape the world in a particular image; to make it
something that we see already in our minds. Evolution is a metaphor from mere
automatic unrolling. Progress is a metaphor from merely walking along a
road—very likely the wrong road. But reform is a metaphor for reasonable and
determined men: it means that we see a certain thing out of shape and we mean
to put it into shape. And we know what shape.
Now here comes in the whole collapse and huge
blunder of our age. We have mixed up two different things, two opposite things.
Progress should mean that we are always changing the world to suit the vision.
Progress does mean (just now) that we are always changing the vision. It should
mean that we are slow but sure in bringing justice and mercy among men: it does
mean that we are very swift in doubting the desirability of justice and mercy:
a wild page from any Prussian sophist makes men doubt it. Progress should mean
that we are always walking towards the New Jerusalem. It does mean that the New
Jerusalem is always walking away from us. We are not altering the real to suit
the ideal. We are altering the ideal: it is easier.
Silly examples are always simpler; let us suppose
a man wanted a particular kind of world; say, a blue world. He would have no
cause to complain of the slightness or swiftness of his task; he might toil for
a long time at the transformation; he could work away (in every sense) until
all was blue. He could have heroic adventures; the putting of the last touches
to a blue tiger. He could have fairy dreams; the dawn of a blue moon. But if he
worked hard, that high-minded reformer would certainly (from his own point of
view) leave the world better and bluer than he found it. If he altered a blade
of grass to his favourite colour every day, he would get on slowly. But if he
altered his favourite colour every day, he would not get on at all. If, after reading
a fresh philosopher, he started to paint everything red or yellow, his work
would be thrown away: there would be nothing to show except a few blue tigers
walking about, specimens of his early bad manner. This is exactly the position
of the average modern thinker. It will be said that this is avowedly a
preposterous example. But it is literally the fact of recent history. The great
and grave changes in our political civilization all belonged to the early
nineteenth century, not to the later. They belonged to the black and white
epoch when men believed fixedly in Toryism, in Protestantism, in Calvinism, in
Reform, and not unfrequently in Revolution. And whatever each man believed in
he hammered at steadily, without scepticism: and there was a time when the
Established Church might have fallen, and the House of Lords nearly fell. It
was because Radicals were wise enough to be constant and consistent; it was
because Radicals were wise enough to be Conservative. But in the existing
atmosphere there is not enough time and tradition in Radicalism to pull
anything down. There is a great deal of truth in Lord Hugh Cecil's suggestion
(made in a fine speech) that the era of change is over, and that ours is an era
of conservation and repose. But probably it would pain Lord Hugh Cecil if he
realized (what is certainly the case) that ours is only an age of conservation
because it is an age of complete unbelief. Let beliefs fade fast and
frequently, if you wish institutions to remain the same. The more the life of
the mind is unhinged, the more the machinery of matter will be left to itself.
The net result of all our political suggestions, Collectivism, Tolstoyanism,
Neo-Feudalism, Communism, Anarchy, Scientific Bureaucracy—the plain fruit of
all of them is that the Monarchy and the House of Lords will remain. The net
result of all the new religions will be that the Church of England will not
(for heaven knows how long) be disestablished. It was Karl Marx, Nietzsche,
Tolstoy, Cunninghame Grahame, Bernard Shaw and Auberon Herbert, who between
them, with bowed gigantic backs, bore up the throne of the Archbishop of
Canterbury.
We may say broadly that free thought is the best
of all the safeguards against freedom. Managed in a modern style the
emancipation of the slave's mind is the best way of preventing the emancipation
of the slave. Teach him to worry about whether he wants to be free, and he will
not free himself. Again, it may be said that this instance is remote or
extreme. But, again, it is exactly true of the men in the streets around us. It
is true that the negro slave, being a debased barbarian, will probably have
either a human affection of loyalty, or a human affection for liberty. But the
man we see every day—the worker in Mr. Gradgrind's factory, the little clerk in
Mr. Gradgrind's office—he is too mentally worried to believe in freedom. He is
kept quiet with revolutionary literature. He is calmed and kept in his place by
a constant succession of wild philosophies. He is a Marxian one day, a
Nietzscheite the next day, a Superman (probably) the next day; and a slave
every day. The only thing that remains after all the philosophies is the
factory. The only man who gains by all the philosophies is Gradgrind. It would
be worth his while to keep his commercial helotry supplied with sceptical
literature. And now I come to think of it, of course, Gradgrind is famous for
giving libraries. He shows his sense. All modern books are on his side. As long
as the vision of heaven is always changing, the vision of earth will be exactly
the same. No ideal will remain long enough to be realized, or even partly
realized. The modern young man will never change his environment; for he will
always change his mind.
This, therefore, is our first requirement about
the ideal towards which progress is directed; it must be fixed. Whistler used
to make many rapid studies of a sitter; it did not matter if he tore up twenty
portraits. But it would matter if he looked up twenty times, and each time saw
a new person sitting placidly for his portrait. So it does not matter
(comparatively speaking) how often humanity fails to imitate its ideal; for
then all its old failures are fruitful. But it does frightfully matter how
often humanity changes its ideal; for then all its old failures are fruitless.
The question therefore becomes this: How can we keep the artist discontented
with his pictures while preventing him from being vitally discontented with his
art? How can we make a man always dissatisfied with his work, yet always
satisfied with working? How can we make sure that the portrait painter will
throw the portrait out of window instead of taking the natural and more human
course of throwing the sitter out of window?
A strict rule is not only necessary for ruling; it
is also necessary for rebelling. This fixed and familiar ideal is necessary to
any sort of revolution. Man will sometimes act slowly upon new ideas; but he
will only act swiftly upon old ideas. If I am merely to float or fade or
evolve, it may be towards something anarchic; but if I am to riot, it must be
for something respectable. This is the whole weakness of certain schools of
progress and moral evolution. They suggest that there has been a slow movement
towards morality, with an imperceptible ethical change in every year or at
every instant. There is only one great disadvantage in this theory. It talks of
a slow movement towards justice; but it does not permit a swift movement. A man
is not allowed to leap up and declare a certain state of things to be
intrinsically intolerable. To make the matter clear, it is better to take a
specific example. Certain of the idealistic vegetarians, such as Mr. Salt, say
that the time has now come for eating no meat; by implication they assume that
at one time it was right to eat meat, and they suggest (in words that could be
quoted) that some day it may be wrong to eat milk and eggs. I do not discuss
here the question of what is justice to animals. I only say that whatever is
justice ought, under given conditions, to be prompt justice. If an animal is wronged,
we ought to be able to rush to his rescue. But how can we rush if we are,
perhaps, in advance of our time? How can we rush to catch a train which may not
arrive for a few centuries? How can I denounce a man for skinning cats, if he
is only now what I may possibly become in drinking a glass of milk? A splendid
and insane Russian sect ran about taking all the cattle out of all the carts.
How can I pluck up courage to take the horse out of my hansom-cab, when I do
not know whether my evolutionary watch is only a little fast or the cabman's a
little slow? Suppose I say to a sweater, "Slavery suited one stage of
evolution." And suppose he answers, "And sweating suits this stage of
evolution." How can I answer if there is no eternal test? If sweaters can
be behind the current morality, why should not philanthropists be in front of
it? What on earth is the current morality, except in its literal sense—the
morality that is always running away?
Thus we may say that a permanent ideal is as
necessary to the innovator as to the conservative; it is necessary whether we
wish the king's orders to be promptly executed or whether we only wish the king
to be promptly executed. The guillotine has many sins, but to do it justice
there is nothing evolutionary about it. The favourite evolutionary argument
finds its best answer in the axe. The Evolutionist says, "Where do you
draw the line?" the Revolutionist answers, "I draw it HERE: exactly
between your head and body." There must at any given moment be an abstract
right and wrong if any blow is to be struck; there must be something eternal if
there is to be anything sudden. Therefore for all intelligible human purposes,
for altering things or for keeping things as they are, for founding a system
for ever, as in China, or for altering it every month as in the early French
Revolution, it is equally necessary that the vision should be a fixed vision.
This is our first requirement.
When I had written this down, I felt once again
the presence of something else in the discussion: as a man hears a church bell
above the sound of the street. Something seemed to be saying, "My ideal at
least is fixed; for it was fixed before the foundations of the world. My vision
of perfection assuredly cannot be altered; for it is called Eden. You may alter
the place to which you are going; but you cannot alter the place from which you
have come. To the orthodox there must always be a case for revolution; for in
the hearts of men God has been put under the feet of Satan. In the upper world
hell once rebelled against heaven. But in this world heaven is rebelling
against hell. For the orthodox there can always be a revolution; for a
revolution is a restoration. At any instant you may strike a blow for the
perfection which no man has seen since Adam. No unchanging custom, no changing
evolution can make the original good any thing but good. Man may have had
concubines as long as cows have had horns: still they are not a part of him if
they are sinful. Men may have been under oppression ever since fish were under
water; still they ought not to be, if oppression is sinful. The chain may seem
as natural to the slave, or the paint to the harlot, as does the plume to the
bird or the burrow to the fox; still they are not, if they are sinful. I lift
my prehistoric legend to defy all your history. Your vision is not merely a
fixture: it is a fact." I paused to note the new coincidence of
Christianity: but I passed on.
I passed on to the next necessity of any ideal of
progress. Some people (as we have said) seem to believe in an automatic and
impersonal progress in the nature of things. But it is clear that no political
activity can be encouraged by saying that progress is natural and inevitable;
that is not a reason for being active, but rather a reason for being lazy. If
we are bound to improve, we need not trouble to improve. The pure doctrine of
progress is the best of all reasons for not being a progressive. But it is to
none of these obvious comments that I wish primarily to call attention.
The only arresting point is this: that if we
suppose improvement to be natural, it must be fairly simple. The world might
conceivably be working towards one consummation, but hardly towards any
particular arrangement of many qualities. To take our original simile: Nature
by herself may be growing more blue; that is, a process so simple that it might
be impersonal. But Nature cannot be making a careful picture made of many
picked colours, unless Nature is personal. If the end of the world were mere
darkness or mere light it might come as slowly and inevitably as dusk or dawn.
But if the end of the world is to be a piece of elaborate and artistic
chiaroscuro, then there must be design in it, either human or divine. The
world, through mere time, might grow black like an old picture, or white like
an old coat; but if it is turned into a particular piece of black and white
art— then there is an artist.
If the distinction be not evident, I give an
ordinary instance. We constantly hear a particularly cosmic creed from the
modern humanitarians;
I use the word humanitarian in the ordinary sense,
as meaning one who upholds the claims of all creatures against those of
humanity. They suggest that through the ages we have been growing more and more
humane, that is to say, that one after another, groups or sections of beings,
slaves, children, women, cows, or what not, have been gradually admitted to
mercy or to justice. They say that we once thought it right to eat men (we
didn't); but I am not here concerned with their history, which is highly
unhistorical. As a fact, anthropophagy is certainly a decadent thing, not a
primitive one. It is much more likely that modern men will eat human flesh out
of affectation than that primitive man ever ate it out of ignorance. I am here
only following the outlines of their argument, which consists in maintaining
that man has been progressively more lenient, first to citizens, then to
slaves, then to animals, and then (presumably) to plants. I think it wrong to
sit on a man. Soon, I shall think it wrong to sit on a horse. Eventually (I
suppose) I shall think it wrong to sit on a chair. That is the drive of the
argument. And for this argument it can be said that it is possible to talk of
it in terms of evolution or inevitable progress. A perpetual tendency to touch
fewer and fewer things might—one feels, be a mere brute unconscious tendency,
like that of a species to produce fewer and fewer children. This drift may be
really evolutionary, because it is stupid.
Darwinism can be used to back up two mad
moralities, but it cannot be used to back up a single sane one. The kinship and
competition of all living creatures can be used as a reason for being insanely
cruel or insanely sentimental; but not for a healthy love of animals. On the
evolutionary basis you may be inhumane, or you may be absurdly humane; but you
cannot be human. That you and a tiger are one may be a reason for being tender
to a tiger. Or it may be a reason for being as cruel as the tiger. It is one
way to train the tiger to imitate you, it is a shorter way to imitate the
tiger. But in neither case does evolution tell you how to treat a tiger
reasonably, that is, to admire his stripes while avoiding his claws.
If you want to treat a tiger reasonably, you must
go back to the garden of Eden. For the obstinate reminder continued to recur:
only the supernatural has taken a sane view of Nature. The essence of all
pantheism, evolutionism, and modern cosmic religion is really in this
proposition: that Nature is our mother. Unfortunately, if you regard Nature as
a mother, you discover that she is a step-mother. The main point of
Christianity was this: that Nature is not our mother: Nature is our sister. We
can be proud of her beauty, since we have the same father; but she has no
authority over us; we have to admire, but not to imitate. This gives to the
typically Christian pleasure in this earth a strange touch of lightness that is
almost frivolity. Nature was a solemn mother to the worshippers of Isis and
Cybele. Nature was a solemn mother to Wordsworth or to Emerson. But Nature is
not solemn to Francis of Assisi or to George Herbert. To St. Francis, Nature is
a sister, and even a younger sister: a little, dancing sister, to be laughed at
as well as loved.
This, however, is hardly our main point at
present; I have admitted it only in order to show how constantly, and as it
were accidentally, the key would fit the smallest doors. Our main point is
here, that if there be a mere trend of impersonal improvement in Nature, it
must presumably be a simple trend towards some simple triumph. One can imagine
that some automatic tendency in biology might work for giving us longer and
longer noses. But the question is, do we want to have longer and longer noses?
I fancy not; I believe that we most of us want to say to our noses, "thus
far, and no farther; and here shall thy proud point be stayed:" we require
a nose of such length as may ensure an interesting face. But we cannot imagine
a mere biological trend towards producing interesting faces; because an
interesting face is one particular arrangement of eyes, nose, and mouth, in a
most complex relation to each other. Proportion cannot be a drift: it is either
an accident or a design. So with the ideal of human morality and its relation
to the humanitarians and the anti-humanitarians. It is conceivable that we are
going more and more to keep our hands off things: not to drive horses; not to
pick flowers. We may eventually be bound not to disturb a man's mind even by
argument; not to disturb the sleep of birds even by coughing. The ultimate
apotheosis would appear to be that of a man sitting quite still, nor daring to
stir for fear of disturbing a fly, nor to eat for fear of incommoding a
microbe. To so crude a consummation as that we might perhaps unconsciously
drift. But do we want so crude a consummation? Similarly, we might
unconsciously evolve along the opposite or Nietzschian line of
development—superman crushing superman in one tower of tyrants until the
universe is smashed up for fun. But do we want the universe smashed up for fun?
Is it not quite clear that what we really hope for is one particular management
and proposition of these two things; a certain amount of restraint and respect,
a certain amount of energy and mastery? If our life is ever really as beautiful
as a fairy-tale, we shall have to remember that all the beauty of a fairy-tale
lies in this: that the prince has a wonder which just stops short of being
fear. If he is afraid of the giant, there is an end of him; but also if he is
not astonished at the giant, there is an end of the fairy-tale. The whole point
depends upon his being at once humble enough to wonder, and haughty enough to
defy. So our attitude to the giant of the world must not merely be increasing
delicacy or increasing contempt: it must be one particular proportion of the
two—which is exactly right. We must have in us enough reverence for all things
outside us to make us tread fearfully on the grass. We must also have enough
disdain for all things outside us, to make us, on due occasion, spit at the
stars. Yet these two things (if we are to be good or happy) must be combined,
not in any combination, but in one particular combination. The perfect
happiness of men on the earth (if it ever comes) will not be a flat and solid
thing, like the satisfaction of animals. It will be an exact and perilous
balance; like that of a desperate romance. Man must have just enough faith in
himself to have adventures, and just enough doubt of himself to enjoy them.
This, then, is our second requirement for the
ideal of progress. First, it must be fixed; second, it must be composite. It
must not (if it is to satisfy our souls) be the mere victory of some one thing
swallowing up everything else, love or pride or peace or adventure; it must be
a definite picture composed of these elements in their best proportion and
relation. I am not concerned at this moment to deny that some such good
culmination may be, by the constitution of things, reserved for the human race.
I only point out that if this composite happiness is fixed for us it must be
fixed by some mind; for only a mind can place the exact proportions of a
composite happiness. If the beatification of the world is a mere work of
nature, then it must be as simple as the freezing of the world, or the burning
up of the world. But if the beatification of the world is not a work of nature
but a work of art, then it involves an artist. And here again my contemplation
was cloven by the ancient voice which said, "I could have told you all
this a long time ago. If there is any certain progress it can only be my kind
of progress, the progress towards a complete city of virtues and dominations
where righteousness and peace contrive to kiss each other. An impersonal force
might be leading you to a wilderness of perfect flatness or a peak of perfect
height. But only a personal God can possibly be leading you (if, indeed, you
are being led) to a city with just streets and architectural proportions, a
city in which each of you can contribute exactly the right amount of your own
colour to the many coloured coat of Joseph."
Twice again, therefore, Christianity had come in
with the exact answer that I required. I had said, "The ideal must be
fixed," and the Church had answered, "Mine is literally fixed, for it
existed before anything else." I said secondly, "It must be
artistically combined, like a picture"; and the Church answered,
"Mine is quite literally a picture, for I know who painted it." Then
I went on to the third thing, which, as it seemed to me, was needed for an
Utopia or goal of progress. And of all the three it is infinitely the hardest
to express. Perhaps it might be put thus: that we need watchfulness even in
Utopia, lest we fall from Utopia as we fell from Eden.
We have remarked that one reason offered for being
a progressive is that things naturally tend to grow better. But the only real
reason for being a progressive is that things naturally tend to grow worse. The
corruption in things is not only the best argument for being progressive; it is
also the only argument against being conservative. The conservative theory
would really be quite sweeping and unanswerable if it were not for this one
fact. But all conservatism is based upon the idea that if you leave things
alone you leave them as they are. But you do not. If you leave a thing alone
you leave it to a torrent of change. If you leave a white post alone it will
soon be a black post. If you particularly want it to be white you must be
always painting it again; that is, you must be always having a revolution.
Briefly, if you want the old white post you must have a new white post. But
this which is true even of inanimate things is in a quite special and terrible
sense true of all human things. An almost unnatural vigilance is really
required of the citizen because of the horrible rapidity with which human
institutions grow old. It is the custom in passing romance and journalism to
talk of men suffering under old tyrannies. But, as a fact, men have almost
always suffered under new tyrannies; under tyrannies that had been public
liberties hardly twenty years before. Thus England went mad with joy over the
patriotic monarchy of Elizabeth; and then (almost immediately afterwards) went
mad with rage in the trap of the tyranny of Charles the First. So, again, in
France the monarchy became intolerable, not just after it had been tolerated,
but just after it had been adored. The son of Louis the well-beloved was Louis
the guillotined. So in the same way in England in the nineteenth century the
Radical manufacturer was entirely trusted as a mere tribune of the people,
until suddenly we heard the cry of the Socialist that he was a tyrant eating
the people like bread. So again, we have almost up to the last instant trusted
the newspapers as organs of public opinion. Just recently some of us have seen
(not slowly, but with a start) that they are obviously nothing of the kind.
They are, by the nature of the case, the hobbies of a few rich men. We have not
any need to rebel against antiquity; we have to rebel against novelty. It is
the new rulers, the capitalist or the editor, who really hold up the modern
world. There is no fear that a modern king will attempt to override the
constitution; it is more likely that he will ignore the constitution and work
behind its back; he will take no advantage of his kingly power; it is more
likely that he will take advantage of his kingly powerlessness, of the fact
that he is free from criticism and publicity. For the king is the most private
person of our time. It will not be necessary for any one to fight again against
the proposal of a censorship of the press. We do not need a censorship of the
press. We have a censorship by the press.
This startling swiftness with which popular
systems turn oppressive is the third fact for which we shall ask our perfect
theory of progress to allow. It must always be on the look out for every
privilege being abused, for every working right becoming a wrong. In this
matter I am entirely on the side of the revolutionists. They are really right
to be always suspecting human institutions; they are right not to put their
trust in princes nor in any child of man. The chieftain chosen to be the friend
of the people becomes the enemy of the people; the newspaper started to tell
the truth now exists to prevent the truth being told. Here, I say, I felt that
I was really at last on the side of the revolutionary. And then I caught my
breath again: for I remembered that I was once again on the side of the
orthodox.
Christianity spoke again and said: "I have
always maintained that men were naturally backsliders; that human virtue tended
of its own nature to rust or to rot; I have always said that human beings as
such go wrong, especially happy human beings, especially proud and prosperous
human beings. This eternal revolution, this suspicion sustained through
centuries, you (being a vague modern) call the doctrine of progress. If you
were a philosopher you would call it, as I do, the doctrine of original sin.
You may call it the cosmic advance as much as you like; I call it what it
is—the Fall."
I have spoken of orthodoxy coming in like a sword;
here I confess it came in like a battle-axe. For really (when I came to think
of it) Christianity is the only thing left that has any real right to question
the power of the well-nurtured or the well-bred. I have listened often enough
to Socialists, or even to democrats, saying that the physical conditions of the
poor must of necessity make them mentally and morally degraded. I have listened
to scientific men (and there are still scientific men not opposed to democracy)
saying that if we give the poor healthier conditions vice and wrong will
disappear. I have listened to them with a horrible attention, with a hideous
fascination. For it was like watching a man energetically sawing from the tree
the branch he is sitting on. If these happy democrats could prove their case,
they would strike democracy dead. If the poor are thus utterly demoralized, it
may or may not be practical to raise them. But it is certainly quite practical to
disfranchise them. If the man with a bad bedroom cannot give a good vote, then
the first and swiftest deduction is that he shall give no vote. The governing
class may not unreasonably say: "It may take us some time to reform his
bedroom. But if he is the brute you say, it will take him very little time to
ruin our country. Therefore we will take your hint and not give him the
chance." It fills me with horrible amusement to observe the way in which
the earnest Socialist industriously lays the foundation of all aristocracy,
expatiating blandly upon the evident unfitness of the poor to rule. It is like
listening to somebody at an evening party apologising for entering without
evening dress, and explaining that he had recently been intoxicated, had a
personal habit of taking off his clothes in the street, and had, moreover, only
just changed from prison uniform. At any moment, one feels, the host might say
that really, if it was as bad as that, he need not come in at all. So it is
when the ordinary Socialist, with a beaming face, proves that the poor, after
their smashing experiences, cannot be really trustworthy. At any moment the
rich may say, "Very well, then, we won't trust them," and bang the
door in his face. On the basis of Mr. Blatchford's view of heredity and
environment, the case for the aristocracy is quite overwhelming. If clean homes
and clean air make clean souls, why not give the power (for the present at any
rate) to those who undoubtedly have the clean air? If better conditions will
make the poor more fit to govern themselves, why should not better conditions
already make the rich more fit to govern them? On the ordinary environment
argument the matter is fairly manifest. The comfortable class must be merely
our vanguard in Utopia.
Is there any answer to the proposition that those
who have had the best opportunities will probably be our best guides? Is there
any answer to the argument that those who have breathed clean air had better
decide for those who have breathed foul? As far as I know, there is only one
answer, and that answer is Christianity. Only the Christian Church can offer
any rational objection to a complete confidence in the rich. For she has
maintained from the beginning that the danger was not in man's environment, but
in man. Further, she has maintained that if we come to talk of a dangerous
environment, the most dangerous environment of all is the commodious
environment. I know that the most modern manufacture has been really occupied
in trying to produce an abnormally large needle. I know that the most recent
biologists have been chiefly anxious to discover a very small camel. But if we
diminish the camel to his smallest, or open the eye of the needle to its
largest—if, in short, we assume the words of Christ to have meant the very least
that they could mean, His words must at the very least mean this— that rich men
are not very likely to be morally trustworthy. Christianity even when watered
down is hot enough to boil all modern society to rags. The mere minimum of the
Church would be a deadly ultimatum to the world. For the whole modern world is
absolutely based on the assumption, not that the rich are necessary (which is
tenable), but that the rich are trustworthy, which (for a Christian) is not
tenable. You will hear everlastingly, in all discussions about newspapers,
companies, aristocracies, or party politics, this argument that the rich man
cannot be bribed. The fact is, of course, that the rich man is bribed; he has
been bribed already. That is why he is a rich man. The whole case for
Christianity is that a man who is dependent upon the luxuries of this life is a
corrupt man, spiritually corrupt, politically corrupt, financially corrupt.
There is one thing that Christ and all the Christian saints have said with a
sort of savage monotony. They have said simply that to be rich is to be in
peculiar danger of moral wreck. It is not demonstrably un-Christian to kill the
rich as violators of definable justice. It is not demonstrably un-Christian to
crown the rich as convenient rulers of society. It is not certainly
un-Christian to rebel against the rich or to submit to the rich. But it is
quite certainly un-Christian to trust the rich, to regard the rich as more
morally safe than the poor. A Christian may consistently say, "I respect
that man's rank, although he takes bribes." But a Christian cannot say, as
all modern men are saying at lunch and breakfast, "a man of that rank
would not take bribes." For it is a part of Christian dogma that any man
in any rank may take bribes. It is a part of Christian dogma; it also happens
by a curious coincidence that it is a part of obvious human history. When
people say that a man "in that position" would be incorruptible,
there is no need to bring Christianity into the discussion. Was Lord Bacon a bootblack?
Was the Duke of Marlborough a crossing sweeper? In the best Utopia, I must be
prepared for the moral fall of any man in any position at any moment;
especially for my fall from my position at this moment.
Much vague and sentimental journalism has been
poured out to the effect that Christianity is akin to democracy, and most of it
is scarcely strong or clear enough to refute the fact that the two things have
often quarrelled. The real ground upon which Christianity and democracy are one
is very much deeper. The one specially and peculiarly un-Christian idea is the
idea of Carlyle— the idea that the man should rule who feels that he can rule.
Whatever else is Christian, this is heathen. If our faith comments on
government at all, its comment must be this—that the man should rule who does
NOT think that he can rule. Carlyle's hero may say, "I will be king";
but the Christian saint must say "Nolo episcopari." If the great
paradox of Christianity means anything, it means this— that we must take the
crown in our hands, and go hunting in dry places and dark corners of the earth
until we find the one man who feels himself unfit to wear it. Carlyle was quite
wrong; we have not got to crown the exceptional man who knows he can rule.
Rather we must crown the much more exceptional man who knows he can't.
Now, this is one of the two or three vital
defences of working democracy. The mere machinery of voting is not democracy,
though at present it is not easy to effect any simpler democratic method. But
even the machinery of voting is profoundly Christian in this practical
sense—that it is an attempt to get at the opinion of those who would be too
modest to offer it. It is a mystical adventure; it is specially trusting those
who do not trust themselves. That enigma is strictly peculiar to Christendom.
There is nothing really humble about the abnegation of the Buddhist; the mild
Hindoo is mild, but he is not meek. But there is something psychologically
Christian about the idea of seeking for the opinion of the obscure rather than
taking the obvious course of accepting the opinion of the prominent. To say
that voting is particularly Christian may seem somewhat curious. To say that
canvassing is Christian may seem quite crazy. But canvassing is very Christian
in its primary idea. It is encouraging the humble; it is saying to the modest
man, "Friend, go up higher." Or if there is some slight defect in
canvassing, that is in its perfect and rounded piety, it is only because it may
possibly neglect to encourage the modesty of the canvasser.
Aristocracy is not an institution: aristocracy is
a sin; generally a very venial one. It is merely the drift or slide of men into
a sort of natural pomposity and praise of the powerful, which is the most easy
and obvious affair in the world.
It is one of the hundred answers to the fugitive
perversion of modern "force" that the promptest and boldest agencies
are also the most fragile or full of sensibility. The swiftest things are the
softest things. A bird is active, because a bird is soft. A stone is helpless,
because a stone is hard. The stone must by its own nature go downwards, because
hardness is weakness. The bird can of its nature go upwards, because fragility
is force. In perfect force there is a kind of frivolity, an airiness that can
maintain itself in the air. Modern investigators of miraculous history have
solemnly admitted that a characteristic of the great saints is their power of
"levitation." They might go further; a characteristic of the great
saints is their power of levity. Angels can fly because they can take
themselves lightly. This has been always the instinct of Christendom, and
especially the instinct of Christian art. Remember how Fra Angelico represented
all his angels, not only as birds, but almost as butterflies. Remember how the
most earnest mediaeval art was full of light and fluttering draperies, of quick
and capering feet. It was the one thing that the modern Pre-raphaelites could
not imitate in the real Pre-raphaelites. Burne-Jones could never recover the
deep levity of the Middle Ages. In the old Christian pictures the sky over
every figure is like a blue or gold parachute. Every figure seems ready to fly
up and float about in the heavens. The tattered cloak of the beggar will bear
him up like the rayed plumes of the angels. But the kings in their heavy gold
and the proud in their robes of purple will all of their nature sink downwards,
for pride cannot rise to levity or levitation. Pride is the downward drag of
all things into an easy solemnity. One "settles down" into a sort of
selfish seriousness; but one has to rise to a gay self-forgetfulness. A man
"falls" into a brown study; he reaches up at a blue sky. Seriousness
is not a virtue. It would be a heresy, but a much more sensible heresy, to say
that seriousness is a vice. It is really a natural trend or lapse into taking
one's self gravely, because it is the easiest thing to do. It is much easier to
write a good TIMES leading article than a good joke in PUNCH. For solemnity
flows out of men naturally; but laughter is a leap. It is easy to be heavy:
hard to be light. Satan fell by the force of gravity.
Now, it is the peculiar honour of Europe since it
has been Christian that while it has had aristocracy it has always at the back
of its heart treated aristocracy as a weakness—generally as a weakness that
must be allowed for. If any one wishes to appreciate this point, let him go
outside Christianity into some other philosophical atmosphere. Let him, for
instance, compare the classes of Europe with the castes of India. There
aristocracy is far more awful, because it is far more intellectual. It is
seriously felt that the scale of classes is a scale of spiritual values; that
the baker is better than the butcher in an invisible and sacred sense. But no
Christianity, not even the most ignorant or perverse, ever suggested that a
baronet was better than a butcher in that sacred sense. No Christianity,
however ignorant or extravagant, ever suggested that a duke would not be
damned. In pagan society there may have been (I do not know) some such serious
division between the free man and the slave. But in Christian society we have
always thought the gentleman a sort of joke, though I admit that in some great
crusades and councils he earned the right to be called a practical joke. But we
in Europe never really and at the root of our souls took aristocracy seriously.
It is only an occasional non-European alien (such as Dr. Oscar Levy, the only
intelligent Nietzscheite) who can even manage for a moment to take aristocracy
seriously. It may be a mere patriotic bias, though I do not think so, but it
seems to me that the English aristocracy is not only the type, but is the crown
and flower of all actual aristocracies; it has all the oligarchical virtues as
well as all the defects. It is casual, it is kind, it is courageous in obvious
matters; but it has one great merit that overlaps even these. The great and
very obvious merit of the English aristocracy is that nobody could possibly
take it seriously.
In short, I had spelled out slowly, as usual, the
need for an equal law in Utopia; and, as usual, I found that Christianity had
been there before me. The whole history of my Utopia has the same amusing
sadness. I was always rushing out of my architectural study with plans for a
new turret only to find it sitting up there in the sunlight, shining, and a
thousand years old. For me, in the ancient and partly in the modern sense, God
answered the prayer, "Prevent us, O Lord, in all our doings." Without
vanity, I really think there was a moment when I could have invented the
marriage vow (as an institution) out of my own head; but I discovered, with a
sigh, that it had been invented already. But, since it would be too long a
business to show how, fact by fact and inch by inch, my own conception of
Utopia was only answered in the New Jerusalem, I will take this one case of the
matter of marriage as indicating the converging drift, I may say the converging
crash of all the rest.
When the ordinary opponents of Socialism talk
about impossibilities and alterations in human nature they always miss an
important distinction. In modern ideal conceptions of society there are some
desires that are possibly not attainable: but there are some desires that are
not desirable. That all men should live in equally beautiful houses is a dream
that may or may not be attained. But that all men should live in the same
beautiful house is not a dream at all; it is a nightmare. That a man should
love all old women is an ideal that may not be attainable. But that a man
should regard all old women exactly as he regards his mother is not only an
unattainable ideal, but an ideal which ought not to be attained. I do not know
if the reader agrees with me in these examples; but I will add the example
which has always affected me most. I could never conceive or tolerate any
Utopia which did not leave to me the liberty for which I chiefly care, the
liberty to bind myself. Complete anarchy would not merely make it impossible to
have any discipline or fidelity; it would also make it impossible to have any
fun. To take an obvious instance, it would not be worth while to bet if a bet
were not binding. The dissolution of all contracts would not only ruin morality
but spoil sport. Now betting and such sports are only the stunted and twisted
shapes of the original instinct of man for adventure and romance, of which much
has been said in these pages. And the perils, rewards, punishments, and
fulfilments of an adventure must be real, or the adventure is only a shifting
and heartless nightmare. If I bet I must be made to pay, or there is no poetry
in betting. If I challenge I must be made to fight, or there is no poetry in
challenging. If I vow to be faithful I must be cursed when I am unfaithful, or
there is no fun in vowing. You could not even make a fairy tale from the
experiences of a man who, when he was swallowed by a whale, might find himself
at the top of the Eiffel Tower, or when he was turned into a frog might begin
to behave like a flamingo. For the purpose even of the wildest romance results
must be real; results must be irrevocable. Christian marriage is the great
example of a real and irrevocable result; and that is why it is the chief
subject and centre of all our romantic writing. And this is my last instance of
the things that I should ask, and ask imperatively, of any social paradise; I
should ask to be kept to my bargain, to have my oaths and engagements taken
seriously; I should ask Utopia to avenge my honour on myself.
All my modern Utopian friends look at each other
rather doubtfully, for their ultimate hope is the dissolution of all special
ties. But again I seem to hear, like a kind of echo, an answer from beyond the
world. "You will have real obligations, and therefore real adventures when
you get to my Utopia. But the hardest obligation and the steepest adventure is
to get there."
