Part 35 (1/2)

That which really troubles us is this choice, the difficulty of ascertaining just what course is the best, which brings us nearest to our ideal, a.s.sists most effectually in hastening development towards that goal. For there is no course, under existing conditions, which is wholly advantageous to society, none which does not involve some evil.

It follows, from this, that it is insufficient to show that any particular course involves some advantage to some one in order to demonstrate that it is the right one, as also that it is insufficient to show that a course involves evil to some one in order to demonstrate that it is wrong. It is not proved that, because the restraint of any particular desire or pa.s.sion is attended with pain to the individual, it is wrong. The argument has often been, and is still, advanced--seemingly with the idea that it is conclusive--that the indulgence of physical pa.s.sion in youth tends to sobriety and steadiness in later years; and, with a similar idea apparently, a dramatic critic falls into a rhapsody over the manner in which the characters in a recent play come out ”purified by the evil” they have wrought or endured.[275] But even if this argument were scientifically sound, it would not prove the desirability of self-indulgence, since not the individual alone is to be considered. The argument is, however, erroneous. With advancing years comes in general, in any case, a diminution of pa.s.sion, or at least a greater admixture of reason; but apart from this, indulgence tends to increase desire and tendency, except as excess may lead to morbid conditions, or the disregard of higher instincts to disappointment and cynicism. When we are told, in another play than the one mentioned above, and apparently with the idea that the statement is an excuse, that the hero could find no other outlet for the exuberance of his youth than the seduction of an innocent girl, we may see no reason to doubt the a.s.sertion, but we may question whether society has not a right, nevertheless, to suppress a little of such exuberance or turn it into other channels. The man born with fierce and ungovernable fury in his disposition may likewise feel a strong propensity to express the exuberance of his youth in a murder or two; but I see no reason why society should permit him to do so. The pa.s.sion of anger is also a perfectly natural one, and the ungovernable fury which led to murder was not an exception with our ancestors of the savage plane, but the rule.

Not all natural pa.s.sion is to be indulged simply because it is natural; and even the fact that a tendency is good in moderation and under certain restrictions is no proof that it is good or to be indulged in immoderation, or without these restrictions. It can have been only by restriction of the natural savage fury that this fury grew less prominent in character. The cannibal transported into civilized society may still have a strong and perfectly natural hunger for my spareribs, but that is no sufficient reason why he should get them. Jack the Ripper is endowed, evidently, with a very pa.s.sionate love for his human vivisection, and finds it an outlet for an exuberance which also bubbles out otherwise in many ways; yet I think society will be justified in putting a peremptory end to that exuberance, when it gets the opportunity.

Morality is indeed a matter of welfare, and so, of the gratification of desire and tendency; but neither the present alone, nor the single individual in preference to all the rest of society, is to be considered. Effort should be exerted continually for the reduction of pain to a minimum, in every respect possible, with regard to the individual and the minority as well as with regard to the majority, though the greater good and the greater number must always take precedence. The rule of the majority may be a.s.serted to be moral in that it is the best possible expedient where there is disagreement of desires. The necessity for choice between evils is the origin of the principle of the Greatest Good to the Greatest Number, and this, as has been said, covers all the ground, _if rightly applied_. But it offers a temptation to stop with the mere comparison of two sums of individuals and degrees of happiness for the time being, without taking into the problem the wider results of a particular choice to society as a whole, through habit and personal influence. The consideration of these last important factors has led, on the other hand, to such rules as that of Kant,--”Act so that the maxims of thy will might be taken as the principle of universal action”; and this rule, because it goes deeper, is less likely to lead to error. The moral requirement of continual effort to find the best method of reducing the evil still remaining, of recompensing the individual and the minority for the good of which they are necessarily deprived, needs especial emphasis; for the continual direction of attention to effort for progress, even where no outward change is, for the moment, possible, const.i.tutes an inward progress in character which is ever ready to issue in external progress the instant opportunity presents itself. Present pain to individuals is the sign of imperfection in those permitting it and those suffering it, and must result in increase of tendency in this direction of imperfection unless it takes place only in spite of the most vigorous effort for its prevention. Even the reformer must choose that to which he would chiefly apply his endeavor, with some necessary withdrawal of effort from other directions. Yet the neglect of any present opportunity of reform or benefit, though it may sometimes be necessitated for the gain of some more important future good, is still an outer, and also, especially, an inner evil, which can be compensated only by a high degree of superiority in the future good to be obtained. As the man who, perhaps from the fear of failing in thoroughness, leaves all original work until middle age, is likely to find his power of originality much deteriorated by that time, so the man who is cruel to-day, in order to be kind in some wider respect later on, is likely to find, on the final arrival of opportunity, if the period through which the unkindness is exercised be a long one, that his capacity for kindness has diminished. Every neglect of present opportunity is a loss to character as well as an external loss. When the present good pa.s.sed over for the sake of the future includes the welfare of whole lives, the question of choice and the postponement of good becomes still graver; when it includes generations, we need to consider earnestly before we take on ourselves the responsibility of a choice that shall prefer the future. I cannot agree with those who believe or practically live out the idea that the present generation is only or chiefly for the sake of the future generation, the parents only for the sake of their children, or the individual only for the sake of society as a whole. We need to remember that the race includes present and future, and parents and children, and has no existence outside the individuals that compose it. It is difficult to reconcile the many conflicting principles; and thus it appears that morality is not easy, even where earnest desire for it exists, and that different views with regard to it may be conscientiously held. The difficulty only increases the duty of continual endeavor to reconcile the many different conditions of happiness and welfare.

We come thus naturally to a question of the day,--the contest between the Individualist and the Socialist.

What has already been said makes it sufficiently evident that, if Individualism is to be maintained at all, it cannot be upheld on the ground that the doings of the individual are of no importance to society, and his sins may therefore not be interfered with by society.

In ”Social Statics,” Mr. Spencer secures freedom for ”personal vice” by turning his principle that a man has a right to seek his own ends as long as he does not prevent others from the pursuit of their ends, into the entirely different one, that a man has a right to seek a certain end if he does not prevent others from seeking the same end.[276] The argument in this form is applied to drunkenness, but it could as well be used to prove the moral rightness of murder or any other crime, the sole condition being that the murderer did not prevent others from committing the crime also.

Nor is the Individualism less self-contradictory which bases its theory on the principle that it is the office of civil law to guard the rights of the individual. What individual? All individuals? If so, then a.s.suredly it is the duty of the State to see that the laborer is paid a fair price for his work.

Nor can it be shown, as Hoffding a.s.serts, that intellectual labor benefits the whole of society, while manual labor is less valuable because it is for a few. The intellectual laborer knows well of what value to him and his ilk is the manual labor which feeds him, clothes him, and manufactures the thousand and one things necessary for his comfort, leaving him leisure to pursue his studies with all material wants provided for. The satisfaction of our material wants is the very first requisite of life, without which intellectual labor would be an impossibility.

There are, however, many degrees and shades of Individualism. As Hoffding says, Individualism may be identical with Egoism, but it need not be so. And, moreover, as has been noticed, the adherents of theories of Egoistic Morals are not necessarily adherents of any theory of selfishness.

The theories bearing the name of Socialism are also very various,--quite as much so as those included under the head of Individualism. It is, therefore, both confusing to consider Socialism without some notice of the distinction between these various phases of theory, and is likely to lead to protest from one side or the other. But no single party of Socialists can be treated exclusively as ”the” Socialists; a minority of the party cannot expect to be regarded as anything but a minority.

Of the tendency to represent the whole of the present order of society as utterly bad,--a tendency not confined to the Socialist party, but nevertheless strongly developed in many parts of it,--considerable has already been said. As Hoffding remarks, it is difficult to perceive how, in an utterly corrupt society, any foundation may be found on which to build the almost flawless society the Socialist proposes to inst.i.tute.

If the course of evolution has. .h.i.therto been propitious to the increase of evil, it is difficult to find any scientific grounds for a belief that evolution will now proceed to favor the good. If man, as a being possessing reason, has. .h.i.therto chosen, in increasing degree, injustice towards his fellow-man, it is scarcely possible for any one who proceeds upon the supposition of constancy in the action of man as a part of nature to hope that future events will exhibit exactly opposite characters. a.s.suredly, we are far enough from the goal yet, but in order to demonstrate this fact it is not necessary to prove that we are worse than any previous age has been. The tendency to lay stress, by every means, on present evil, in the endeavor to impress its reality and undesirability upon the mind of society, is comprehensible; and doubtless, too, as the troubles of the individual are likely to appear to himself among the hardest possible, so to those on whom the evils of the age press most severely these are likely to seem greater than the evils of any other times. But this method of regarding history is not the less erroneous. ”In the age of chivalry men had at least a common ideal,” said a Socialist to me, not long since. But what an ideal! And unity of purpose is not by any means necessarily a sign of a high plane.

It may, on the contrary, signify stupidity, lack of the power of independent thought. The first result of thought on any particular subject is sure to be a division of opinion, although mutual criticism gradually evolves harmony from the strife, and brings about a degree of unity again, on a higher plane; for the mutual criticism is sure to have been of intellectual use. The Socialists themselves have demonstrated the fact that division of opinion necessarily arises when men begin to think upon any question, for with the development of their party many different phases of socialistic theory have appeared. The history of the division of the Church into sects, and of the mutual criticism of these sects, has been the history of religious progress.

With some Socialists, again, the already criticised idea of a ”return to nature” plays a conspicuous part. But we have never departed from nature; we are as much a part of nature, as natural, as we ever were.

Or, if we are to return, who shall tell us at just what point we leave the ”artificial” and arrive at the ”natural”? There are no stopping-places, no stations or pauses, in the scale of evolution. There is only continual change by inappreciable increments. The theory of evolution carries with it no significance which could authorize us to consider that we had arrived at our goal at one point rather than at another. And, again, if we are to give up the artificial customs of later development and return to earlier habits, then customs of altruistic action, as the most distinctive and characteristic of later forms of conduct, must be chiefly affected. If, however, by a return to nature is meant the adoption of a simpler mode of life in some cla.s.ses in order that a less simple but more healthful one may become possible in other cla.s.ses, the question of the desirability of such a change is, of course, open to discussion; but let us consider it under these terms then. To designate the proposed mode of life as a return to the natural, thus making present modes of life artificial, is to smuggle in an illegitimate a.s.sumption against the latter.

It is the habit of a portion of the Socialist party to represent the laborer as the epitome of all the virtues, the capitalist as his moral opposite. This view cannot be other than erroneous, considered from any standpoint. Moral evil cannot affect one part of a closely united society without affecting the other parts also, though it may a.s.sume different forms in different parts. This should be, in reality, the Socialist's strongest argument, and is, indeed, one which he constantly makes use of in other connections. If the steady labor of one cla.s.s is often a.s.sociated with certain virtues, there are many elements of its surroundings which tend to develop and encourage certain vices also; and if, on the other hand, excessive wealth is often the condition, as well as the result, of selfishness, still the relief from material anxieties may be used, on the other hand, as opportunity for other useful labor, and leaves room, indeed, for a development of finer intellectual and moral qualities. To reply that much greater good would accompany other conditions is irrelevant; for we are not now comparing actualities with ideals, but one cla.s.s of people with another under existing circ.u.mstances.

A somewhat similar phase of idea to that just considered is found in the agitation against machinery. This agitation is not of recent date, however; it began over two centuries ago, and would, if it had succeeded, have deprived the world of nearly all the comforts and conveniences which have, since then, become possible. Doubtless the abolishment of machinery would temporarily furnish labor to all the unemployed. Indeed, it has been computed, from facts supplied by the statistical bureau of Berlin, that it would require about double the number of inhabitants now on the face of the globe to perform the labor accomplished by the steam works of the princ.i.p.al civilized lands. But the increase of the earth's inhabitants depends, to a great extent, on the favorable or unfavorable circ.u.mstances of the environment; and we cannot suppose otherwise than that the sudden accession of abundant means of livelihood would cause a very great acceleration of the rate of increase and so a speedy return of the old problem. Even supposing that a certain recklessness of s.e.xual indulgence would be done away with under better circ.u.mstances which afforded access to other means of pleasure than the purely physical, this over-indulgence leads quite as often to sterility and disease as to excess of offspring. Habit and opinion not being matters of instantaneous or even rapid change, the new order of society would very largely depend upon the character and ideas acquired under the old order, and population must increase with a rapidity fostered by an immense multiplication of regular marriages, and by more healthful surroundings for offspring at all ages. Unchecked, as. .h.i.therto, by the excessive mortality due to famine, filth, and neglect, it must soon arrive at a point where the questions of compet.i.tion again present themselves. But machinery is a relative term. Every tool and device for lightening labor is, in fact, a machine, and takes, by definition, from the labor of the world. When, therefore, we should find ourselves face to face with the former conditions, I do not see that any consistent course would lie before us but the doing away with our more complicated tools, and, later, with our less complicated ones, and so on, as the increase of the world's inhabitants brought again and again the recurrence of questions of compet.i.tion, until we should arrive, at length, at that ancient state of things where all transport would be made by porters, land ploughed by the pointed stick, and clothes--if we consented to withdraw labor from the cultivation of the earth for the manufacture of such luxuries--would require for the preparation of each garment several weeks, months, or even years of work. I do not see where else the theory of the abolishment of machinery for the sake of supplying labor to the unemployed can logically and practically lead, especially as the withdrawal of machinery must mean, in the end, the withdrawal of those opportunities for cultivating the arts and sciences which the leisure from merely mechanical pursuits alone can give. Under more primitive conditions of labor, the ignorance of the ma.s.ses must spread more and more, until its widening circle must take in the great majority of men, as was the case when these primitive conditions prevailed. In other words, the abolishment of machinery means social retrogression, and, if affording temporary relief, leaves the race, in the end, on a lower plane of evolution, with the work of advancement to its former plane all to do over again.

And this brings us to the consideration of another point, namely, the agitation against luxury,--an agitation carried on not, like that against machinery, by only a portion, if a considerable portion, of the Socialist party, but by that party as a whole. We may inquire, then, as to what luxury is. The Socialists find considerable trouble in defining it; they generally content themselves with the word alone, leaving it undefined or referring, with a general indefiniteness, to ”velvets, jewels, and laces,” or ”diamonds and silks”; the German Socialists have sometimes shown particular antipathy to the glace glove; and a society of English Socialists listened, not long ago, to a lecture in which, as an example of the reforms proposed by Socialism, it was prophesied that the evening-dresses of the future would be made of more lasting though not less delicate and beautiful material. This last would a.s.suredly be desirable, if it could be carried out; but it remains to be seen in how far it is practicable. The things which are the most delicate, whether they be clothing or other articles, are ordinarily likewise the most perishable; the union of delicacy of texture with endurance is a problem that can be solved only by gradual improvement if at all; and it is probable that it can be solved only relatively in some cases and not at all in others; yet there are few people who will not find delicacy an attribute of beauty. Few will disagree with M. de Laveleye that beauty of costume must consist rather in harmony of colors and purity of line than in the mere costliness of the goods; however, in a large number of cases, excess of price corresponds to some actual superiority of color, durability, or texture, in the goods. Doubtless it is true that some things (M. de Laveleye instances opium) may cost much money and yet be useless or even harmful; but this very limited a.s.sertion cannot, by any logical method, be converted into an a.s.sertion that the price of an article is an argument against it. Even the extra price demanded and paid for novelties corresponds to an actual, general desire for variety, and if this is often carried too far, the fact still remains that the want is inherent in all human nature, indeed, in all life, and cannot be entirely disregarded. The proposal of M. de Laveleye to reinst.i.tute a national dress is, for this reason, a foolish and inartistic one. No two people are suited to exactly the same costume; and the more society develops the more the individual shows a desire for individuality in dress. No nation with a sense of beauty will ever consent to eternal sameness.

Luxury is relative, as M. de Laveleye himself acknowledges. We might define it, as he does at one point,[277] by excess of price or labor expended. In that case, such articles as those African dresses which it takes several years to manufacture would a.s.suredly come under the head of luxuries, and must, as such, be condemned from the standpoint of the tribal plane of advancement; though they are not equal in texture or taste of ornamentation to many of the cheapest of English goods, within the reach of all but the very poorest. What are, with Europeans, the bare necessities, or comforts of lowest grade, represent the extreme of luxury to the Africans on whose plane our ancestors once stood. Many of the things which are regarded by the average individual of to-day as indispensable--every-day comforts--were within the reach of only the wealthy few, a century ago, and could be had only as rare and choice articles, to be preserved with the greatest care. The comforts of a century ago represent, again, the luxuries of a preceding age, and so on. Almost all products of labor are costly and rare before they can become cheap and abundant. Had our ancestors entertained a socialistic prejudice against the luxuries of their age, and resolved, with one accord, to forego their manufacture as supplying only artificial needs, we should not have had them to-day; but it is doubtful whether the social problem would be any nearer solution than it is. The agitation against machinery, at least, is ill combined with an agitation against luxury; for every removal of machinery must make luxuries out of what were, before, mere comforts, and advance the things now regarded as necessities to the plane of the present comforts, as far as expenditure of labor is regarded. M. de Laveleye distinguishes between rational and primitive needs and irrational, ”superfluous,” or ”spurious,” ones; and he defines the rational ones as those which reason a.s.serts and hygiene determines.[278] But from the merely hygienic point of view, every need bears with it, by its very existence, a t.i.tle to some consideration, health and the gratification of desires being most intimately connected.

Certainly luxury is not necessarily inconsistent with the most healthy physique, or the longest life. Many of the things ordinarily looked upon as luxuries present unusually favorable conditions for health. Nor can the question be decided by arbitrarily p.r.o.nouncing all desires for luxury ”spurious.” To M. de Laveleye and a minority of others they may appear so; but what right has the individual to the a.s.sumption that all needs beyond his own are spurious? Even the poorer cla.s.ses of society would, for the most part, be very glad to possess the luxuries of the rich, and find them desirable; in other words, those desires which M. de Laveleye p.r.o.nounces spurious appertain to very nearly all human beings who have at all formed a conception of their possibility. The savage does not desire what we term luxury in as far as he knows nothing of it.

The argument that luxury is wrong or irrational simply because men once were able to do without it is by no means conclusive. The conditions of life, the employments of human beings, are far different now from those of the time when men ”lived in houses of osier.” ”Primitive” the desire for luxury may not be; but if we attempt to determine what is primitive in man, we shall meet with excessive difficulties. And again, if we decide the question on the basis of any a.s.sumption against the non-primitive, we must, in all consistency, exclude, as has already been said, all higher ethical emotion and the love of art and science; none of these can be p.r.o.nounced primitive. Possibly we might define hunger, thirst, s.e.xual appet.i.te, and the desire for a comfortable degree of warmth, as the most primitive human needs; and these, indeed, are soon satisfied; but the man who has no needs beyond these can not represent the social ideal. The whole history of civilization from century to century is the history of the formation of new needs and the gradual satisfaction of these in larger and larger circles, until their objects, from costly and hardly obtainable rarities, have become articles of common use. With this course of development, coa.r.s.eness has decreased, refinement and taste have become more general. Nor can we, as has before been stated, divide the human being into his separate desires and functions, and a.s.sume that he can get rid of this or that one without influencing all. The desires of the human being are of organic growth, and the desire for luxury has an organic connection with the taste and refinement with which it has grown. It is impossible that the love of beauty in general should develop without the appearance of a desire for beauty in the details of every-day life,--in utensils, clothing, surroundings of every sort; as it is impossible, also, that this desire for beauty in particulars should be dispensed with without a corresponding retrogression in refinement and love of beauty in general.

One of the chief expenses of American entertainments is the profusion of flowers used in decoration, and often most artistically arranged; and whatever else may be said on the subject, the pleasure derived from them can scarcely be termed spurious or irrational. Not all large sums spent by the rich are given for mere display or for sensuality; they may be spent for scientific experiments on a large scale, like those of Edison, for travel, for books, for statuary and fine pictures, for fine architecture, for rich tapestries and carpets, and even in great measure for appliances and methods that secure greater cleanliness and more healthful ways of living altogether. Nor are the appliances of art and culture as desirable in huge museums or draughty and ill-ventilated libraries, or anywhere else where the individual is forced into the noise and numerous other annoyances of a promiscuous crowd, as in his own home, arranged according to his own peculiarities of taste, and a.s.sociated with all the joys of love and domestic freedom. When sympathy has become so general and so strong that not only men but women also can find their best intellectual enjoyment in public places, these reasons will cease to be of any force, but at present they have even moral force; and since inherent character is a matter of evolution, a condition of general sympathy and mutual consideration, and even of universal common decency, must be of slow growth. It may further be said, in particular, that there is no material more used by artists than the so-much-decried velvet; again, many people of taste, who otherwise spend money for little more than the necessities of life, find a peculiar delight in the delicacy of fine laces, and are willing to forego many other pleasures in order to possess them. George Eliot's Dorothea, otherwise simple of habit, content with her plain wool gown, found a peculiar fascination in the colors of an emerald bracelet, and numerous persons confess to a similar pleasure in the changing rainbow of the diamond, or the clear blue of the sapphire. These desires and pleasures exist; they exist in people of comparative taste; they exist as the result of human progress; they are not confined to a few individuals; and they cannot be dismissed with a mere arbitrary definition of them as ”artificial,” ”superfluous,” ”irrational,” or ”spurious.”

The more cultivated Socialist complains of the lack of taste in society; and an artist who is also a Socialist not long ago expressed his regret that art was at present ”unable to prevent” the wearing of unbecoming forms of dress, etc. But we trust that this is not a hint that socialistic government would undertake to decree what forms of dress should be adopted; and we scarcely think that it could supply taste itself to all people, or render differences of taste impossible. Taste is, like everything else, a matter of evolution; it must make its experiments, and undergo many failures for every step in advance. The modern average of taste is as much in advance upon the average of our savage ancestors as the modern average of morals is an advance upon savage morals. The ideal of taste is, by definition, above the average; and it may be doubted whether the time will ever come when there will not be both degrees and differences of taste, and also an aesthetic superiority of taste among those who devote their lives to art that will render the average ”poor” to them.

If, then, we are to condemn luxury on any tenable scientific grounds, we must face the fact that it is an organic feature of the progress of human society in intellectual and moral character, and a part of human happiness; and we must show, over against these undeniable facts, outweighing reasons for condemning it. The matter is more difficult than a superficial Utilitarianism perceives.

The question seems to be one of the relinquishment of certain things on the part of one cla.s.s, in order that another may be elevated to a higher plane. Certainly, no one can deny that the present misery and degradation in society is a moral wrong, and that it is our duty to seek some method by which it may be removed as speedily as possible. But what is the degree of relinquishment which will suffice to raise all the poor to a plane of comfort? Without defining the tastes for the refinements or elegancies of life as ”spurious,” or, except as they are personally injurious or a.s.sociated with idleness, as in themselves bad, we must admit that there are many exaggerations of expenditure for the mere pleasure of the moment to a very small minority of individuals, which, in view of the joys the same sums might secure for mult.i.tudes, cannot be justified. But suppose that we do away with the spending of immense sums for the entertainment of princes and potentates, with the lavis.h.i.+ng of wealth on a single dinner, on a single reception, on carriages built for the mere purpose of carrying a single millionaire bride to the church-door, and with the other expenses of this order; shall we be able, as a result, to supply all the dest.i.tute with comforts? Or to what length must we go, to what grade of luxury must we descend in our reforms, in order to secure this? It would certainly not be for the general good that society as a whole should relinquish all the refinements that it has won in its evolution and be reduced to a mere bread-and-b.u.t.ter level in the equalizing process. Beyond the superficial utilitarian comparison of the two cla.s.ses we have to consider also the welfare of society as a whole. If we cannot morally defend the sacrifice of the general good to one cla.s.s, neither can we defend its sacrifice to another cla.s.s.