Part 8 (2/2)
Self-sacrifice is scarcely possible without some injury to mind or body; as is the case with people who make it a religious duty to read no interesting books and take scarcely any exercise on Sunday. It is further true that ”The continual acceptance of benefits at the expense of a fellow-being is morally injurious”; as ”The continual giving up of pleasures and continual submission to pains are physically injurious.”
Blind self-sacrifice ”curses giver and receiver--physically deteriorates the one and morally deteriorates the other,” ”the outcome of the policy being destruction of the worthy in making worse the unworthy.” No wonder that men are stronger, and also more selfish, than women. Almost all self-sacrifice involves loss of individual liberty. The subjection of women has been deepened by their readiness to sacrifice themselves to those they love; their fondness for martyrdom often leads them into the sin of marrying without love; and generosity of heart facilitates ruin.
Women would really be more virtuous if they felt less obligation to their lovers and more to their race.
IV. Spencer's psychological discoveries were corollaries to that great principle of evolution of which he made the following announcement as early as 1857 in the _Westminster Review_. After declaring his belief in ”that divergence of many races from one race which we inferred must have continually been occurring during geologic time,” he stated that ”The law of all progress is to be found in these varied evolutions of the h.o.m.ogeneous into the heterogeneous,” or in other words, ”out of the simple into the complex.” The discoveries of Darwin and Wallace were not announced before 1858, but Spencer avowed in 1852 his belief in ”the theory of evolution” or ”development hypothesis,” according to which ”complex organic forms may have arisen by successive modifications out of simple ones.” It was without any aid or suggestion from Darwin that Spencer's statement of the law of evolution was brought into the final form published in 1862. Evolution was then described as change, not only from the simple to the complex, but also from the chaotic to the concentric and consolidated, or, in Spencer's own words, ”from an indefinite incoherent h.o.m.ogeneity to a definite coherent heterogeneity.”
Progress, he says, consists in integration as well as differentiation.
There is an increase in permanence and definiteness as well as in variety. Higher forms are not only more complex and unlike than lower ones, but also more stable and more strongly marked.
Spencer has been represented by some Transcendentalists as Darwin's pupil; but the whole system just described would, in all probability, have been built up in substantially its present form, if both Darwin and Wallace had kept their discoveries to themselves. The only difference would have been that Spencer could not have been sustained by such a great ma.s.s of evidence. All these facts were collected by Darwin merely to prove the physical development of men and other animals from lower forms of life; but Spencer showed that all the phenomena of thought and feeling, as well as of astronomy, geology, and chemistry, are results of the great laws of integration and differentiation. All human history and social relations can be accounted for in this way. And if this extension had not been given to the principle of evolution, Darwin's discoveries might soon have ceased to have much interest, except for students of natural history. Each of the two great evolutionists helped the other gain influence; but their co-operation was almost as unintentional as that of two luminaries which form a double star.
V. Spencer has done much to diminish intolerance, by teaching, as early as 1862, that all religions are necessary steps in the upward march of evolution.
He has also attempted to reconcile religion and science, by teaching that the one all-essential belief is in a great unknowable reality, which is not only inscrutable but inconceivable. In writing about this supreme power, he uses capitals with a constancy which would look like an a.s.sumption of knowledge, if the same habit were not followed in regard to many other words of much less importance. He admits that ”We cannot decide between the alternative suppositions, that phenomena are due to the variously conditioned workings of a single force, and that they are due to the conflict of two forces.” ”Matter cannot be conceived,” he says, ”except as manifesting forces of attraction and repulsion”; but he also says that these antagonistic and conflicting forces ”must not be taken as realities but as our symbols of the reality,” ”the forms under which the workings of the unknowable are cognisable.” This creed is accepted by many American evolutionists.
It is the doctrine of one of Spencer's most elaborate and brilliant interpreters, Professor John Fiske, of such popular clergymen as Doctors Minot J. Savage and Lyman Abbott, and of many of the members of that energetic organisation, ”The Brooklyn Ethical a.s.sociation.” _The Open Court_ of Chicago and other periodicals are working avowedly for ”the Religion of Science”; but that is not to be established without much closer conformity to the old-fas.h.i.+oned creeds and ceremonies than has been made by Spencer. His later works seem more orthodox than his earlier ones; but his final decision is that ”The very notions, origin, cause, and purpose, are relations belonging to human thought, which are probably irrelevant to the ultimate reality.” He has also admitted that the proposition, ”Evolution is caused by mind,” ”cannot be rendered into thought.” And he is right in saying that he has nowhere suggested wors.h.i.+p.
Whether he has proposed a reconciliation, or only a compromise, whether evolutionism will ever be as popular in the pulpit as Transcendentalism, and whether there is not more reality in the forces of attraction and repulsion than in Spencer's great unknowable, are problems which I will not discuss. Darwin was an agnostic like Huxley, who held that ”We know nothing of what may be beyond phenomena,” and ”Science commits suicide when she adopts a creed.” Huxley p.r.o.nounced the course of nature ”neither moral nor immoral, but non-moral,” and declared that ”The ethical progress of society depends not on imitating the cosmic process but on combating it.” The severity of his criticism of the Gospel narratives called out threats of prosecution for blasphemy. He avowed ”entire concurrence” with Haeckel, who holds that belief in a personal G.o.d and an immortal soul are incompatible with the fundamental principles of evolution. The German scientist argues in his elaborate history of the development of animals, that life is no manifestation of divine power, working with benevolent purpose, but merely the necessary result of unconscious forces, inherent in the chemical const.i.tution and physical properties of matter, and acting mechanically according to immutable laws. The position of Haeckel and Huxley is all the more significant because Frederic Harrison knows of ”no single thinker in Europe who has come forward to support this religion of an unknown cause.”
VI. A much more important controversy has been called out by Spencer's theory of the limits of government. As early as 1842 he proposed ”the limitation of state action to the maintenance of equitable relations among citizens.” His _Social Statics_ demanded, in 1850, as a necessary condition of high development, ”the liberty of each, limited only by the like liberty of all.” His ideal would be a government where ”every man has freedom to do all he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man.” These propositions are repeated in the revised edition of 1892, which differs from the earlier one in omitting a denial of the right of private property in land, and also a demand for female suffrage. How far Spencer had changed his views may be seen in his volume on _Justice_. Both editions of _Social Statics_ deny the right of governments to support churches, public schools, boards of health, poorhouses, lighthouses, or mints. Spencer would have t.i.tles to land guaranteed by the State, and property-holders protected against unjust lawsuits; but otherwise the government ought to confine itself, he thinks, to managing the army, navy, and police.
This position is defended by an appeal to the fact that the citizen is most energetic and intelligent where he is most free to act for himself.
No American is as helpless before pestilence or famine as a Russian peasant, or as afraid to go to a burning house until summoned by the police. A despotism may begin with a strong army; but it ends, like the Roman Empire, in the weakness which it has brought on by crus.h.i.+ng the spirit of its soldiers. Strong governments make weak men. Never was there a mightier army than was given by the French Republic to Napoleon.
Industrial prosperity depends even more closely than military glory on the energy of men who have been at liberty to think and act freely.
People develop most vigorously where they are least meddled with. The average man knows much more than his rulers do about his own private business; and he is active to promote it in ways which secure the general welfare.
Great stress is laid not only in _Social Statics_ but in Spencer's book on _The Man versus the State_, and in several essays, on the many times that the British Government has increased an evil by trying to cure it.
What is said about its extravagance will not surprise any American who remembers what vast sums are squandered by Congress. The post-office is often spoken of as proof that our Government could run our railroads; but one of Boston's best postmasters said, ”No private business could be managed like this without going into bankruptcy.” The British Government has a monopoly of the telegraph; and introduction of the telephone was very difficult in consequence. In Victoria, the Postmaster-General has abused his privileges so much as to appoint a ”sporting agent”
to telegraph the results of a horse-race; and this same highly protectionist colony has had laws forbidding any shop to be open after 7 P.M., except on Sat.u.r.day, and any woman to work more than forty-eight hours a week in any factory. How governments interfered in former centuries with people's right to feed, clothe, employ, and amuse themselves, seems almost inconceivable at present.
Persecution was one among many forms of mischievous meddling. Locke, in arguing for toleration in 1689, was obliged to take the ground that ”The whole jurisdiction of the magistrate reaches only” to securing unto all the people ”life, liberty, health,” and also ”outward things such as money, lands, houses, furniture, and the like.” ”Government,” he said, ”hath no end but preservation, and therefore can never have a right to destroy, enslave, or designedly to impoverish the subject.”
Clearer language was used by those French patriots who declared in the Const.i.tution of 1791 that liberty consists in ability to do everything which brings no harm to others; and, two years afterwards, that the liberty of each citizen should extend to where that of some other citizen begins. Nearly fifty years later, a theory very like Spencer's was published by Wilhelm von Humboldt, brother of the great naturalist.
Among the many writers who have held that government ought not to be merely limited but repudiated totally was Th.o.r.eau. It was in 1854 that this zealous abolitionist publicly renounced his allegiance to a great anti-slavery commonwealth, and that he a.s.serted, in _Walden_, the necessity of preserving individual liberty by conforming as little as possible to any social usages, even that of working regularly in order to support one's self and family in comfort. That same year, Spencer showed in his essay on _Manners and Fas.h.i.+on_ the difference between a regulation by which public opinion tries to prevent rude people from making themselves unnecessarily disagreeable to their neighbours, and one which encourages dissipation by arbitrarily check-ing innocent amus.e.m.e.nt. Even in the latter case, however, there is, as he says, but little gain from any solitary nonconformity. Reform must be carried on in co-operation.
That powerful a.s.sailant of Transcendentalism, John Stuart Mill, was not an evolutionist; but it was largely due to his liberal aid that the system of differentiation and integration was published. This generosity was consistent with his own position, that all opinions ought to have a hearing, and especially those which are novel and unpopular, for they are peculiarly likely to contain some exposure of ancient error or revelation of new truth. This fact was set forth with such ability in his book, _On Liberty_, in 1859, that several long pa.s.sages were quoted in the public protest, delivered in Ohio five years later by Vallandigham, against the war then carried on for bringing back the seceded States. Mill holds that neither government nor public opinion ought to interfere with any individual, except ”to prevent doing harm to others.” He says, for instance, that there would be no tyranny in forcing parents to let their children have education enough to become safe members of society. Such a law could scarcely be justified by the principle of giving all the liberty to each compatible with the like liberty of all. Among the restrictions which Mill mentions as oppressive are those in England and America against selling liquor, gambling, and Sunday amus.e.m.e.nts. He admits the difficulty of deciding ”how far liberty may be legitimately invaded for the prevention of crime.”
VII. It was in full conformity with the principles of Mill, Spencer, and Locke that the Const.i.tution of Louisiana, as revised in 1879, declared that the only legitimate object of government ”is to protect the citizen in the enjoyment of life, liberty, and property. When it a.s.sumes other functions, it is usurpation and oppression.” Similar sentiments have been occasionally expressed in political platforms. Such narrow limits have not, so far as I know, ever been observed in the United States or in any other civilised land. Few people love liberty so much as not to be willing that the state should give them security against conflagration and contagious disease. There is also a general demand for such safety as is given by roads, streets, bridges, lighthouses, and life-saving stations. The necessity of hospitals, asylums, and poorhouses is manifest. If all this expense had to be met by public-spirited individuals, it is probable that their wealth would prove insufficient. It is further necessary for the public safety that there should be compulsory vaccination during epidemics of smallpox, confinement of dangerous lunatics and tramps, rescue of children from vicious parents, and maintenance of what ought not to be called compulsory but guaranteed education. Marriage has to be made binding for the protection of mothers as well as children. The thirst for drink needs at least as much restraint as is kept up in Scandinavia. And the tendency of bad money to drive out good is strong enough to justify laws against circulation of depreciated currency.
Public schools are particularly important in America, where presidential and congressional elections are apt to turn on financial issues which can scarcely be understood by men not thoroughly educated. Spencer's objections apply more closely to the European system, that of centralisation of management, than to the American. It is well to know also that he was misled by a hasty reference, perhaps by some a.s.sistant, to an English statistician named Fletcher. This high authority did admit, in 1849, that he found ”a superficial evidence against instruction.” He went on, however, to say much which is not mentioned in _Social Statics_, and which proved the evidence to be only superficial.
By cla.s.sifying crimes according to enormity, he showed that the worst were most frequent in the least educated districts. He also discovered that those counties in England where ability to sign the marriage register was most common were most free from paupers, dangerous criminals, and illegitimate children. ”The conclusion is therefore irresistible,” says Fletcher, ”that education is essential to the security of modern society.” Most of the other testimony brought forward in _Social Statics_ is invalidated by Fletcher's method; and Spencer added nothing in the second edition to the insufficient statements in the first.
British education has improved greatly in both quality and quant.i.ty since 1876; but the prisons of England and Wales had only two-thirds as many inmates in 1890 as in 1878, and only one-half as large a part of the population. The most dangerous prisoners were only one-third as numerous in 1890 and 1891 as forty-five years earlier; and the percentage of forgers only one-tenth as great as in 1857. We ought further to remember the almost complete unanimity of opinion in favour of free education wherever it is universal.
Public schools in America are all the more useful because they are superintended by town and city officials, elected in great part by men who know them personally. This is also the case with the boards of health, and the managers of poorhouses, cemeteries, public libraries, and parks. Among other subjects of local self-government are the roads, bridges, streets, and sewers. Our large cities are notoriously misgoverned, but it will be easier to raise the character of the officials than to contract their powers. Much is to be hoped from civil service reform, proportional representation, and nonpartisan elections.
Town affairs are usually so carefully looked after by people not in office as to be managed for the public welfare. Both in towns and cities the tendency is to enlarge rather than contract the functions of the government. A proposal that any city should let tenements or sell coal more cheaply than is done by individuals, would seem to be for the advantage of everybody except a few payers of heavy taxes. The majority of voters would care little about increase of taxation, in comparison with the prospect of more demand for labour and greater activity in business. It is easy to make extravagance popular where the majority rules. Our State const.i.tutions would probably make it impossible for coal to be sold or tenements let by cities and towns; but these latter often carry on gas-works, water-works, electric roads, and other highly beneficial industries. This may be necessary to check the rapacity of corporations; but otherwise there is too much danger of extravagance, discouragement of individual enterprise, and delay in improving the processes monopolised by the munic.i.p.ality. Some evils would be lessened by a transfer of the control of lighthouses and life-saving stations from the national Government to that of the nearest cities, or else of single States.
Our people are much better able to judge of the success of State than of Federal legislation and management. Of course the chief duties of the State are to pa.s.s laws for the protection of life and property against crime, and to manage such indispensable penal, charitable, and educational inst.i.tutions as are not provided by the munic.i.p.alities. It is still necessary for the States of our Union to keep up the militia; but perhaps the best thing that could be done for the public safety would be to have tramps kept from crime, and a.s.sisted to employment by a State police. Owners.h.i.+p of real estate would be more secure, and sale easier, if t.i.tles were guaranteed by the State; and it would also do well, as Spencer suggests, to help people of moderate means resist lawsuits brought to extort money. It seems, at all events, well that our States keep up their boards of health, and their supervision of banks, railroads, steamboats, and factories. There are a great many unnecessary laws, as, for instance, was one in Ma.s.sachusetts for selling coal below market price. This was fortunately decided to be unconst.i.tutional; but whether this commonwealth ought to continue to supply free text-books, especially in high schools, seems to me questionable. Many individualists object to laws against gambling, selling liquor, and other conduct which does no direct injury except to those who take part voluntarily. There are vicious tendencies enough in human nature, I think, to justify attempts to keep temptation out of sight.
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