The Moral Economy Part 6

Bigotry consists essentially in the failure to employ the method of discussion, in the failure to recognize in every rational being a possible source of that truth which all need. It is a stupid forfeiture or waste of the resources of intelligence possessed by one's fellows. The King Creon of Sophocles's _Antigone_ is a masterly representation of the futility of this pride of opinion. Creon angrily resents every impeachment of his wisdom, insisting on instant and unquestioning obedience. But his son Haemon thus attempts to save him from himself:

Father, the G.o.ds plant wisdom in mankind, which is of all possessions highest. In what respects you {103} have not spoken rightly I cannot say, and may I never learn; and still it may be possible for some one else to be right too. . . . Do not then carry in your heart one fixed belief that what you say and nothing else is right. For he who thinks that he alone is wise, or that he has a tongue and mind no other has, will when laid open be found empty.[17]

It was once a practice even among learned men to set personal pride above the truth. The chancellor of the University of Paris complains of this practice in the Middle Ages:

What are these combats of scholars, if not true c.o.c.k-fights, which cover us with ridicule in the eyes of laymen? A c.o.c.k draws himself up against another and bristles his feathers. . . . It is the same to-day with our professors. c.o.c.ks fight with blows from their beaks and claws; "Self-love," as some one has said, "is armed with a dangerous spur." [18]

Egoism and bigotry, then, consist essentially in the exaggeration and immobility of an adopted purpose. As is the case with every variety of materialism, their fault lies in their blindness, in their fatuous rejection of the good that is offered to them. But this is not all.

For in denying the good which is offered to him, the egoist or bigot also virtually denies the reason which offers it. It is this that const.i.tutes the affront which is called _injustice_.

The full meaning of injustice has been recognised only gradually, and it is even now by no means free from confusion. But I think that it {104} will be agreed that the sting of it is a failing in respect.

Violence may be wholly without this taint; and the most bitter injustice may be wholly without violence. To be unjust is to be condescending or supercilious; to a.s.sume superiority on personal grounds, ignoring the equal access to truth which is enjoyed by every rational being. The nice quality of injustice is most clearly to be apprehended where it is accompanied by benevolent intent. It is one of the princely attributes described in the _Book of the Courtier_, and justified in a manner that leaves no doubt of its implied meaning:

True it is that there are two modes of ruling: the one imperious and violent, like that of masters toward their slaves, and in this way the soul commands the body; the other more mild and gentle, like that of good princes by means of laws over their subjects, and in this way the reason commands the appet.i.te; and both of these modes are useful, for the body is by nature created apt for obedience to the soul, and so is appet.i.te for obedience to reason. Moreover, there are many men whose actions have to do only with the use of the body; and such as these are as far from virtuous as the soul from the body, and although they are rational creatures, they have only such share of reason as to recognize it, but not to possess or profit by it. These, therefore, are naturally slaves, and it is better and more profitable for them to obey than to command.[19]

Now the essence of injustice lies in this Platonic manner of cla.s.sifying human beings in terms of {105} limited capacities; in a.s.signing to some the degraded status of the appet.i.tes, and to others a limited faculty of understanding, while arrogating to a few the full power and t.i.tle of Reason. The resentment of this arrogance is no more than the a.s.sertion of that potentiality of reason which distinguishes the animal man; it is his inevitable coming of age, his determination to play the man's part.

V

_Justice_ is the mutual respect through which rational purposes enter into a relation of _fraternal equality_. It is the courteous paying of honor where honor is due. In modern times justice has very properly been identified with _tolerance_, which is the acknowledgment that one is one's self equally liable to error with another, and that another is equally liable to truth with one's self. Justice attaches a certain finality to the judgment of every individual instrument of reason.

Under the form of justice _veracity_ realizes its highest meaning. The truth is not to be administered with paternal indulgence or caution; it is to be yielded as a right to every free and self-determining mind.

The practice and the spirit of justice pervade every highly developed social grouping, such as marriage, friends.h.i.+p, or fellow-citizens.h.i.+p in a democracy. For Aristotle a friends.h.i.+p is "one {106} soul dwelling in two bodies";[20] that is, the same high capacity uniting two individuals in the acknowledgment of its common principles, and in the contemplation of its common objects. Aristotle's other saying, that "man is a political animal," is inspired with the same meaning. To partic.i.p.ate in the life of a state, in which one's fellow-citizens were one's equals, in which men with equal endowments carried on one united activity while acknowledging one another's independence, was to an Athenian the very fulness of life. To be banished from it was, even in the eyes of the law, equivalent to death.

In a chapter of his _Physics and Politics_, ent.i.tled "The Age of Discussion," Bagehot has admirably represented the importance for human progress of an open exchange of opinion on all matters of great consequence:

In this manner all the great movements of thought in ancient and modern times have been nearly connected in time with government by discussion.

Athens, Rome, the Italian republics of the Middle Ages, the communes and states-general of feudal Europe, have all had a special and peculiar quickening influence, which they owed to their freedom, and which states without that freedom have never communicated. And it has been at the time of great epochs of thought--at the Peloponnesian War, at the fall of the Roman Republic, at the Reformation, at the French Revolution--that such liberty of speaking and thinking have produced their full effect.[21]

{107} Elsewhere Bagehot attributes to freedom of discussion, not only the deliverance from narrow and conventional habits, but that general elevation of tone which is characteristic of such an era as the Elizabethan age in England. In short, justice or toleration, since it encourages men to push on to the limit of their powers, promotes not only originality and diversity, but a love of perfection.

It will have been observed that justice and freedom are complementary, for he who is just liberates, and he who is free receives justice.

Together they const.i.tute the basis of all the higher relations.h.i.+ps between men, of a progressive society, and of the whole constructive movement which we call civilization.

But it is possible to construe justice and freedom only negatively, as meaning that the individual is to be allowed to go his way in peace.

Such a misconception is formalistic, in that it rests on a failure to recognize the providence or fruitfulness of justice. The virtue of justice lies not in its disintegration of society, but in its enabling the members of society to unite upon the highest plane of endeavor.

Justice is a method wherewith men may profit collectively, and in their organized effort, from a sum of enlightenment to which every individual contributes his best. _Anarchism_ rests in the negative protest against {108} conformity; forgetting that the only right to liberty is founded on the possession of a reasonableness that inclines the individual to the universal; and forgetting that the only virtue in liberty lies in the opportunity for union and devotion which it provides.

There is a more restricted form of anarchism in _scepticism_ which attaches finality to differences of opinion, and overlooks the fact that these very differences must be regarded as converging approaches to the common truth. For men can differ only in the presence of identical objects which virtually annul their difference. To be free to think as one pleases cannot but mean to think as truly as possible, and so to approach as closely as possible to what others also tend to think.

But a larger importance attaches to that mild variety of anarchism which is commonly called _laissez-faire_, and which Matthew Arnold calls British Atheism or Quietism. The reader will recall Arnold's quotation from the _Times_:

It is of no use for us to attempt to force upon our neighbors our several likings and dislikings. We must take things as they are.

Everybody has his own little vision of religious or civil perfection.

Under the evident impossibility of satisfying everybody, we agree to take our stand on equal laws and on a system as open and liberal as is possible. The result is that everybody has more liberty of action and of speaking here than anywhere else in the Old World.

{109} And from Mr. Roebuck:

I look around me and ask what is the state of England? Is not every man able to say what he likes? I ask you whether the world over, or in past history, there is anything like it? Nothing. I pray that our unrivalled happiness may last.[22]

This is an almost perfect representation of the sentimental interest in justice. In the course of such justice, "none of us should see salvation." It leaves wholly out of account the fact that when men are left free to talk or act or live as they will, they will either stagnate, or they will strive for the best and help it to prevail. If the latter, they will be brought back to the _state as the means of making right reason effective_, and of extending to all not simply the leave to be what they want to be, of following what Arnold calls their "natural taste of the bathos," but the opportunity of learning better.

Justice, like purpose and prudence, is a principle of organization, owing its virtue to the larger fulfilment of interest which it makes possible. Through this principle the individual is granted independence, in order that his freedom may remove every limit from his service. He is delivered from the bondage of violence and convention, but he is delivered into the charge of his own reason, which must give bonds not only that he will keep the peace, but that he will give {110} himself wholly to that true good which he may now discern.

In justice the human secular society is perfected. By a secular society I mean a society held to be self-sufficient as it is; a society in which only those interests are acknowledged which are actually present, or have actually been admitted to a place of power or prestige. But secularism or _worldliness_ in this sense suffers from the general error of materialism, the error of mistaking the _de facto_ good for the whole good. It is only another case of that blindness which is the penalty of all self-sufficiency. The ancient and the modern types of worldliness present an interesting difference which will serve to ill.u.s.trate their common fault.

Greek literature abounds in the glorification of the life already achieved. Thus Solon asks no more of the G.o.ds than to be fortunate and honored: "Grant unto me wealth from the blessed G.o.ds, and to have alway fair fame in the eyes of all men. Grant that I may thus be dear to my friends, and bitter to my foes; revered in the sight of the one, awful in the sight of the other." [23]

To this Pindar adds the pet.i.tion that, "being dead I may set upon my children a name that shall be of no ill report." [24] Even the ideal of the philosophers is only a refinement of this; {111} recognizing the superiority of such activities as engage the imagination or reason, but nevertheless finding happiness to be complete in terms of the fulfilment of the dominant desires within the existing political community. This conception was vaguely distrusted, it is true; but it represents the characteristic enlightenment of the most enlightened centre of Greek life. Its insufficiency was not clearly demonstrated until the advent of Christianity; when it was proved to lie in a lack of _pity_. Now pity is not, as is sometimes supposed, a kind of weakness; it is a kind of knowledge, wherewith men are reminded of obscure and neglected interests. It is easy to understand why the Christian revolution should have been regarded as destructive of culture. For it meant not the qualitative refinement of the good, but the quant.i.tative distribution of it. But it none the less marks an epoch in moral enlightenment; since the bringing of all men up to one level of opportunity and welfare is as essential a part of the good as the cultivation of distinction.

The modern worldliness consists not in a lack of pity, but in a lack of _imagination_. Philistinism, as Matthew Arnold describes it, is a complacent satisfaction with the _kind_ of good that is praised and sought for in any given time. Such complacency is found in its most extreme form among those reformers or even religious leaders who are {112} devoted to the saving of men; for these come to overrate their wares through the very act of pressing them upon others. Matthew Arnold never tires of ill.u.s.trating this from the Liberal propaganda of his day:

And I say that the English reliance on our religious organisations and on their ideas of human perfection just as they stand, is like our reliance on freedom, on muscular Christianity, on population, on coal, on wealth--mere belief in machinery, and unfruitful; and that it is wholesomely counteracted by culture, bent on seeing things as they are, and on drawing the human race onwards to a more complete, a harmonious perfection.[25]

In other words, both humanism and humanitarianism may be lacking in humanity: humanism, on account of its insensibility to pain and hunger and poverty when these lie outside a narrow radius of bright intensive living; humanitarianism, on account of its failure to honor the highest type of attainment and to prefigure a perfection not yet realized.

VI

There is but one economy of interests which furnishes the proper sphere of moral action, namely, the universal economy which embraces within one system all interests whatsoever, present, remote, and potential.

The validity of this economy lies in the fact that the goodness of action cannot {113} be judged without reference to all the interests affected, whether directly or indirectly. To live well is to live for all life. The control of action by this motive is the virtue of _good-will_. It should be added that the good will must be not only compa.s.sionate, but just; offering to help, without failing to respect.

And it must be not only devoted, but also enlightened; serving, but not without self-criticism and insight.

Such a programme need not seem bewildering or quixotic. If my action does not offend those most nearly concerned, it will scarcely offend those removed by s.p.a.ce, time, or indirection. Charity begun at home is spread abroad without my further endeavor. Furthermore, it is good-will rather than a narrow complacency that inspires my a.s.suming of the special tasks and responsibilities defined by proximity, descent, and special apt.i.tude. Life as a whole is built out of individual opportunities and vocations. It is required only that while I live effectively and happily, as circ.u.mstance or choice may determine, I should conform myself to those principles which harmonize life with life, and bring an abundance on the whole out of the fruitfulness of individual effort.

Good-will is the moral condition of religion, where this is corrected by enlightenment. The religion of good-will is best ill.u.s.trated, from the {114} European tradition, in the transition from paganism to Christianity. I have said that the Greeks were not without distrust of that natural and worldly happiness which they most praised. This, for example, is the testimony of Euripides:

Long ago I looked upon man's days, and found a grey Shadow. And this thing more I surely say, That those of all men who are counted wise, Strong wits, devisers of great policies, Do pay the bitterest toll. Since life began; Hath there in G.o.d's eye stood one happy man?

Fair days roll on, and bear more gifts or less Of fortune, but to no man happiness.[26]

This note of pessimism grows more marked among the philosophers, and is at length taken up into the Christian renunciation of the world. The philosophers attempted to devise a way of happiness which the superior individual might follow through detaching himself from political society and cultivating his speculative powers.[27] But the Christian renunciation involved the abandonment of every claim to individual self-sufficiency, even the pride of reason. It expressed a sense of the general plight of humanity, and looked for relief only through a power with love and might enough to save all. Hence there is this fundamental difference between pagan and Christian pessimism: the pagan confesses his powerlessness to make himself impregnable {115} to fortune, while the Christian convicts himself of sin, confessing his worthlessness when measured by the task of universal salvation. The one pities and absolves himself; the other condemns himself.

Now the other-worldliness of Christianity was without doubt a grave error, which it found itself compelled to correct; but it was none the less the vehicle through which European civilization became possessed of the most important secrets of religious happiness. In the first place, all are made sharers, through sympathy, in the failure of the present; and, thus distributed, the burden is lightened. "It is an act within the power of charity," says Sir Thomas Browne, "to translate a pa.s.sion out of one breast into another, and to divide a sorrow almost out of itself; for an affliction, like a dimension, may be so divided as, if not indivisible, at least to become insensible." [28] In the second place, it is understood that there is no such thing as a happiness that is enjoyed at the expense of others and by the special favor of fortune. There is no promise of individual salvation save in the salvation of all. A private and protected happiness is bound sooner or later to be destroyed by an increase of sensibility, by an enlightened awareness of the evil beyond. And to experience evil, to realize it, and yet to be content, lies not within {116} the power of any moral being; it is not merely difficult, it is self-contradictory.