Seriously, is it not amazing that civilized men should espe cially pride themselves on a quality in which they are exeecded br inferior varieties of their own race, and still more eivvevied by inferior ••»"mfi^* f Instead of regarding' a man as manly in proportion as he po<ssesses moral attributes dis tinctively human, -we regard him as manly in proportion as he shows an attribute possessed in greater degrees by beings from whom we derive our words of contempt It was lately remarked by Mr. Greg that we take our point of honour from the prbe-rin^r: but we do worse, — we take our point of honour from beasts. Nay. we take it from a beast inferior to those we are familiar with: for the ~ Tasnianian devil," in structure and intelligence, stands on a much lower level of brutality than our lions and bull-dogs.
That resistance to aggression is to be applauded, and that the courage implied by resistance is to be valued and admired, may be fully admitted while denying that courage is to be regarded as the supreme virtue. A large endowment of it is essential to a complete nature; bat so are large endowments of other things which we do not therefore make oar measures of worth, A good body, well grown, well proportioned, and of such quality in its tissues as to be enduring, should brimr. as it does brn: i. its share of admiration. Admirable, too* in their wavs, are gvxxl stomach and lungs, as well as a vigorous vas cular system -. for without these the power of self-preservation and die power of preserving others will fall short. To be a fine animal is. indeed, essential to many kinds of achieve-- ng1 from in aement; or as it is called.
men, that hearteaowek to show THE EDCCAT10XAL BIAS, 171 circumstances of peril. But while we are thus taught that in admiring courage, we are admiring physical superiorities and those superiorities of mental faculty which give fitness for dealing with emergencies, we are also taught that unless we rank as supreme the bodily powers and those powers which directly conduce to self-preservation, we cannot say that cour age is the highest attribute, and that the degree of it should be our standard of honour.
That an over-estimate of courage is appropriate to cmphase of civilization may be very true. It is beyond doubt that during the struggle for existence among nations, it is needful that men should admire extremely the quality with out which there can be no success in the struggle. While. among neighbouring nations, we have one in which all the males are trained for war — while the sentiment of this nation is such that students slash one another's faces in duels about trifles, and are admired for their scars, especially by women — while the military ascendancy it tolerates is such that, for illusage by soldiers, ordinary citizens have no adequate redress — while the government is such that though the monarch as head of the Church condemns duelling as irreligious, and as head of the Law forbids it as a crime, yet as head of the Army he insists on it to the extent of expelling officers who will not fight duels — while. I say. we have a neighbouring nation thus characterized, something of a kindred character in appli ances, sentiments, and beliefs, has to be maintained among' ourselves. When we find another neighbouring nation be lieving that no motive is so high as the love of glory, and no glory so great as that gained by successful war— when we perceive the military spirit so pervading this nation that it loves to clothe its children in ^«a.si-military ^n **«•««* — when.
we find one of its historians writing that the French army is the great civilizer. and one of its generals lately saying that the army is the soul of France — when we see that the vital energies of this nation run mainly to teeth and claws, and that it quickly grows new sets of teeth and claws in place of those pulled out: it is needful that we. too. should keep our teeth and claws in order, and should maintain ideas and feel ings adapted to the effectual use of them. There is no gain saying the truth that while the predatory instincts continue prompting nations to rob one another, destructive agencies must be met by antagonist destructive agencies; and that this may be done, honour must be given to the men who act as destructive agents, and there must be an exaggerated estimate of the attributes which make them efficient.
It may be needful, therefore, that our boys should be accus tomed to harsh treatment, giving and receiving brutal punish ments without too nice a consideration of their justice. It may be that as the Spartans and as the North- American In dians, in preparation for warfare, subjected their young men to tortures, so should we; and thus, perhaps, the " education of a gentleman " may properly include giving and receiving " hacking " of the shins at foot-ball: boot-toes being purposely made heavy that they may inflict greater damage. So, too, it may be well that boys should all in turn be subject to the tender mercies of elder boys; with whose thrashings and kickings the masters decline to interfere, even though they are sometimes carried to the extent of maiming for life. Possibly, also, it is fit that each boy should be disciplined in submission to any tyrant who may be set over him, by finding that appeal brings additional evils. That each should be made callous, morally as well as physically, by the bearing of frequent wrongs, and should be made yet more callous when, coming into power, he inflicts punishments as whim or spite prompts, may also be desirable. Nor, perhaps, can we wholly regret that confusion of moral ideas which results when breaches of conventional rules bring penalties as severe as are brought by acts morally wrong. For war does not consist with keen sen sitiveness, physical or moral. Reluctance to inflict injury, and reluctance to risk injury, would equally render it impos sible. Scruples of conscience respecting the rectitude of their cause would paralyze officers and soldiers. So that a certain brutalization has to be maintained during our passing phase of civilization. It may be, indeed, that "the Public School spirit," which, as truly said, is carried into our public life, is not the most desirable for a free country. It may be that early subjection to despotism and early exercise of uncon trolled power, are not the best possible preparations for legis lators. It may be that those who, on the magistrate's bench, have to maintain right against might, could be better trained than by submission to violence and subsequent exercise of violence. And it may be that some other discipline than that of the stick, would be desirable for men who officer the press and guide public opinion on questions of equity. But, doubt less, while national antagonisms continue strong and national defence a necessity, there is a fitness in this semi-military dis cipline, with pains and bruises to uphold it. And a dulyadapted code of honour has the like defence.
Here, however, if we are to free ourselves from transitory sentiments and ideas, so as to be capable of framing scientific conceptions, we must ask what warrant there is for this exal tation of the destructive activities and of the qualities implied by them? We must ask how it is possible for men rightly to pride themselves on attributes possessed in higher degrees by creatures so much lower? We must consider whether, in the absence of a religious justification, there is any ethical justifi cation for the idea that the most noble traits are such as can not be displayed without the infliction of pain and death. When we do this, -we are obliged to admit that the religion of enmity in its unqualified form, is as indefensible as the re ligion of amity in its unqualified form. Each proves itself to be one of those insane extremes out of which there comes a sane mean by union with its opposite. The two religions stand respectively for the claims of self and the claims of others. The first religion holds it glorious to resist aggres sion, and, while risking death in doing this, to inflict death on enemies. The second religion teaches that the glory is in not resisting aggression, and in yielding to enemies while not asserting the claims of self. A civilized humanity will render either glory just as impossible of achievement as its opposite.
A diminishing egoism and an increasing altruism, must make each of these diverse kinds of honour unattainable. For such an advance implies a cessation of those aggressions which make possible the nobility of resistance; while it implies a refusal to accept those sacrifices without which there cannot be the nobility of self-sacrifice. The two extremes must can cel; leaving a moral code and a standard of honour free from irrational excesses. Along with a latent self-assertion, there will go a readiness to yield to others, kept in check by the refusal of others to accept more than their due.
And now, having noted the perversions of thought and sentiment fostered by the religion of amity and the religion of enmity, under which we are educated in so chaotic a fashion, let us go on to note the ways in which these affect sociological conceptions. Certain important truths apt to be shut out from the minds of the few wrho are unduly swayed by the religion of amity, may first be set down.
One of the facts difficult to reconcile with current theories of the Universe, is that high organizations throughout the animal kingdom habitually serve to aid destruction or to aid escape from destruction. If we hold to the ancient view, we must say that high organization has been deliberately devised for such purposes. If we accept the modern view, we must say that high organization has been evolved by the exercise of destructive activities during immeasurable periods of the past. Here we choose the latter alternative. To the neverceasiiig efforts to catch and eat, and the never-ceasing en deavours to avoid being caught and eaten, is to be ascribed the development of the various senses and the various motor organs directed by them. The bird of prey with the keenest vision, has, other things equal, survived when members of its species that did not see so far, died from want of food; and by such survivals, keenness of vision has been made greater in course of generations. The fleetest members of a herbivorous herd, escaping when the slower fell victims to a carnivore, left posterity; among which, again, those with the most per fectly-adapted limbs survived: the carnivores themselves being at the same time similarly disciplined and their speed in creased. So, too, with intelligence. Sagacity that detected a danger which stupidity did not perceive, lived and propagated; and the cunning which hit upon a new deception, and so se cured prey not otherwise to be caught, left posterity where a smaller endowment of cunning failed. This mutual perfect ing of pursuer and pursued, acting upon their entire organiza tions, has been going on throughout all time; and human beings have been subject to it just as much as other beings. Warfare among men, like warfare among animals, has had a large share in raising their organizations to a higher stage. The following are some of the various ways in which it has worked.
In the first place, it has had the effect of continually ex tirpating races which, for some reason or other, were least fitted to cope with the conditions of existence they were sub ject to. The killing-off of relatively-feeble tribes, or tribes relatively wanting in endurance, or courage, or sagacity, or power of co-operation, must have tended ever to maintain, and occasionally to increase, the amounts of life-preserving powers possessed by men.
Beyond this average advance caused by destruction of the least-developed races and the least-developed individuals, there has been an average advance caused by inheritance of those further developments due to functional activity. Re member the skill of the Indian in following a trail, and re member that under kindred stimuli many of his perceptions and feelings and bodily powers have been habitually taxed to the uttermost, and it becomes clear that the struggle for ex istence between neighbouring tribes has had an important effect in cultivating faculties of various kinds. Just as, to take an illustration from among ourselves, the skill of the police cultivates cunning among burglars, which, again, lead ing to further precautions generates further devices to evade them; so, by the unceasing antagonisms between human so cieties, small and large, there has been a mutual culture of an adapted intelligence, a mutual culture of certain traits of char acter not to be undervalued, and a mutual culture of bodily powers.
A large effect, too, has been produced upon the develop ment of the arts. In responding to the imperative demands of war, industry made important advances and gained much of its skill. Indeed, it may be questioned whether, in the absence of that exercise of manipulative faculty which the making of weapons originally gave, there would ever have been produced the tools required for developed industry. If we go back to the Stone- Age, we see that implements of the chase and implements of war are those showing most labour and dexterity. If we take still-existing human races which were without metals when we found them, we see in their skil fully-wrought stone clubs, as well as in their large warcanoes, that the needs of defence and attack were the chief stimuli to the cultivation of arts afterwards available for productive purposes. Passing over intermediate stages, we may note in comparatively-recent stages the same rela tion. Observe a coat of mail, or one of the more highlyfinished suits of armour— compare it with articles of iron and steel of the same date; and there is evidence that these desires to kill enemies and escape being killed, more ex treme than any other, have had great effects on those arts of working in metal to which most other arts owe their progress. The like relation is shown us in the uses made of gunpowder. At first a destructive agent, it has. be come an agent of immense service in quarrying, mining, railway-making, &c.
A no less important benefit bequeathed by war, has been the formation of large societies. By force alone were small nomadic hordes welded into large tribes; by force alone were large tribes welded into small nations; by force alone have small nations been welded into large nations. While the fighting of societies usually maintains separateness, or by conquest produces only temporary unions, it produces, from time to time, permanent unions; and as fast as there are formed permanent unions of small into large, and then of large into still larger, industrial progress is furthered in three ways. Hostilities, instead of being perpetual, are broken by intervals of peace. When they occur, hostilities do not so profoundly derange the industrial activities. And there arises the possibility of carrying out the division of labour much more effectually. War, in short, in the slow course of things, brings about a social aggregation which furthers that indus trial state at variance with war; and yet nothing but war could binrig about this social aggregation. These truths,' that without war large aggregates of men cannot be formed, and that without large aggregates of men there cannot be a developed industrial state, are illustrated in all places and times. Among existing uncivilized and semi-civilized races, we everywhere find that union of small societies by a con quering society is a step in civilization. The records of peo ples now extinct show us this with equal clearness. On look ing back into our own history, and into the histories of neighbouring nations, we similarly see that only by coercion were the smaller feudal governments so subordinated as to secure internal peace. And even lately, the long-desired con solidation of Germany, if not directly effected by " blood and iron," as Bismarck said it must be, has been indirectly effected by them. The furtherance of industrial development by aggregation is no less manifest. If we compare a small so ciety with a large one, we get clear proof that those processes of co-operation by which social life is made possible, assume high forms only when the numbers of the co-operating citi zens are great. Ask of what use a cloth-factory, supposing they could have one, would be to the members of a small tribe, and it becomes manifest that, producing as it would in a single day a year's supply of cloth, the vast cost of making it and keeping it in order could never be compensated by the advantage gained. Ask what would happen were a shop like Shoolbred's, supplying all textile products, set up in a village, and you see that the absence of a sufficiently-extensive dis tributing function would negative its continuance. Ask what sphere a bank would have had in the Old English period, when nearly all people grew their own food and spun their own wool, and it is at once seen that the various appliances for facilitating exchange can grow up only when a community becomes so large that the amount of exchange to be facilitated is great. Hence, unquestionably, that integration of societies effected by war, has been a needful preliminary to industrial development, and consequently to developments of other kinds — Science, the Fine Arts, &c.
Industrial habits too, and habits of subordination to social requirements, are indirectly brought about by the same cause. The truth that the power of working continuously, wanting in the aboriginal man, could be established only by that per sistent coercion to which conquered and enslaved tribes are subject, has become trite. An allied truth is, that only by a discipline of submission, first to an owner, then to a personal governor, presently to government less personal, then to the embodied law proceeding from government, could there even tually be reached submission to that code of moral law by which the civilized man is more and more restrained in his dealings with his fellows.
Such being some of the important truths usually ignored by men too exclusively influenced by the religion of amity, ]et us now glance at the no less important truths to which men are blinded by the religion of enmity.
Though, during barbarism and the earlier stages of civiliza tion, war has the effect of exterminating the weaker societies, and of weeding out the weaker members of the stronger so cieties, and thus in both ways furthering the development of those valuable powers, bodily and mental, which war brings into play; yet during the later stages of civilization, the sec ond of these actions is reversed. So long as all adult males have to bear arms, the average result is that those of most strength and quickness survive, while the feebler and slower are slain; but when the industrial development has become such that only some of the adult males are drafted into the army, the tendency is to pick out and expose to slaughter the best-grown and healthiest: leaving behind the physically-in ferior to propagate the race. The fact that among ourselves, though the number of soldiers raised is not relatively large, many recruits are rejected by the examining surgeons, shows that the process inevitably works towards deterioration.
Where, as in France, conscriptions have gone on taking away the finest men, generation after generation, the needful lower ing of the standard proves how disastrous is the effect on those animal qualities of a race which form a necessary basis for all higher qualities. If the depletion is indirect also — if there is such an overdraw on the energies of the industrial population that a large share of heavy labour is thrown on the women, whose systems are taxed simultaneously by hard work and child-bearing, a further cause of physical degen eracy comes into play: France again supplying an example. War, therefore, after a certain stage of progress, instead of furthering bodily development and the development of cer tain mental powers, becomes a cause of retrogression.
In like manner, though war, by bringing about social con solidations, indirectly favours industrial progress and all its civilizing consequences, yet the direct elfect of war on indus trial progress is repressive. It is repressive as necessitating the abstraction of men and materials that would otherwise go to industrial growth; it is repressive as deranging the com plex inter-dependencies among the many productive and distributive agencies; it is repressive as drafting off much ad ministrative and constructive ability, which would else have gone to improve the industrial arts and the industrial organi zation. And if we contrast the absolutely military Spartans with the partially-military Athenians, in their respective atti tudes towards culture of every kind, or call to mind the con tempt shown for the pursuit of knowledge in purely-military times like those of feudalism; we cannot fail to see that per sistent war is at variance not only with industrial develop ment, but also with the higher intellectual developments that aid industry and are aided by it.
So, too, with the effects wrought on the moral nature. While war, by the discipline it gives soldiers, directly culti vates the habit of subordination, and does the like indirectly by establishing strong and permanent governments; and while in so far it cultivates attributes that are not only tem porarily essential, but are steps towards attributes that are permanently essential; yet it does this at the cost of main taining, and sometimes increasing, detrimental attributes — attributes intrinsically anti-social. The aggressions which selfishness prompts (aggressions which, in a society, have to be restrained by some power that is strong in proportion as the selfishness is intense) can diminish only as fast as selfish ness is held in check by sympathy; and perpetual warlike activities repress sympathy: nay, they do worse — they culti vate aggressiveness to the extent of making it a pleasure to inflict injury. The citizen made callous by the killing and wounding of enemies, inevitably brings his callousness home with him. Fellow-feeling, habitually trampled down in mili tary conflicts, cannot at the same time be active in the rela tions of civil life. In proportion as giving pain to others is made a habit during war, it will remain a habit during peace: inevitably producing in the behaviour of citizens to one another, antagonisms, crimes of violence, and multitudinous aggressions of minor kinds, tending towards a disorder that calls for coercive government. Nothing like a high type of social life is possible without a type of human character in which the promptings of egoism are duly restrained by regard for others. The necessities of war imply absolute self-regard, and absolute disregard of certain others. Inevitably, therefore, the civilizing discipline of social life is antagonized by the uncivilizing discipline of the life war involves. So that beyond the direct mortality and miseries entailed by war, it entails other mortality and miseries by maintaining anti-social sentiments in citizens.
Taking the most general view of the matter, we may say that only when the sacred duty of blood-revenge, constituting the religion of the savage, decreases in sacredness, does there come a possibility of emei'gence from the deepest barbarism.
Only as fast as retaliation, which for a murder on one side in flicts a murder or murders oil the other, becomes less impera tive, is it possible for larger aggregates of men to hold together and civilization to commence. And so, too, out of lower stages of civilization higher ones can emerge, only as there diminishes this pursuit of international revenge and re-re venge, which the code we inherit from the savage insists upon. Such advantages, bodily and mental, as the race derives from the discipline of war, are exceeded by the disadvantages, bodily and mental, but especially mental, which result aiter a certain stage of progress is reached. Severe and bloody as the process is, the killing-off of inferior races and inferior individuals, leaves a balance of benefit to mankind during phases of progress in which the moral development is low, and there are no quick sympathies to be continually seared by the infliction of pain and death. But as there arise higher societies, implying individual characters fitted for closer co operation, the destructive activities exercised by such higher societies have injurious re-active effects on the moral natures of their members— injurious effects which outweigh the bene fits resulting from extirpation of inferior races. After this stage has been reached, the purifying process, continuing still an important one, remains to be carried on by industrial war — by a competition of societies during which the best, physically, emotionally, and intellectually, spread most, and leave the least capable to disappear gradually, from failing to leave a sufficiently-numerous posterity.
Those educated in the religion of enmity — those who dur ing boyhood, when the instincts of the savage are dominant, have revelled in the congenial ideas and sentiments which classic poems and histories yield so abundantly, and have be come confirmed in the belief that war is virtuous and peace ignoble, are naturally blind to truths of this kind. Rather should we say, perhaps, that they have never turned their eyes in search of such truths. And their bias is so strong that nothing more than a nominal recognition of such truths is possible to them; if even this. What perverted conceptions of social phenomena this bias produces, may be seen in the following passage from Gibbon:— " It was scarcely possible that the eyes of contemporaries should dis cover in the public felicity the causes of decay and corruption. The long peace, and the uniform government of the Romans, had introduced a slow and secret poison into the vitals of the empire." In which sentences there is involved the general proposition that in proportion as men are long held together in that mu tual dependence which social co-operation implies, they will become less fit for mutual dependence and co-operation. — the society will tend towards dissolution. While in proportion as they are habituated to antagonism and to destructive activities, they will become better adapted to activities requiring union and agreement.
Thus the two opposite codes in which we are educated, and the sentiments enlisted on behalf of their respective precepts, inevitably produce misinterpretations of social phenomena. Instead of acting together, now this and now the other sways the beliefs; and instead of consistent, balanced conclusions, there results a jumble of contradictory conclusions.
It is time, not only with a view to right thinking in Social Science, but with a view to right acting in daily life, that this acceptance in the unqualified forms of two creeds which con tradict one another completely, should come to an end. Is it not a folly to go on pretending to ourselves and others that we believe certain perpetually-repeated maxims of entire selfsacrifice, which we daily deny by our business activities, by the steps we take to protect our persons and property, by the approval we express of resistance against aggression? Is it not a dishonesty to repeat in tones of reverence, maxims which we not only refuse to act out but dimly see would be mischievous if acted out? Everyone must admit that the relation between parent and child is one in which altruism is pushed as far as is practicable. Yet even here there needs a predominant egoism. The mother can suckle her infant only on condition that she has habitually gratified her appetite in due degree. And there is a point beyond which sacrifice of herself is fatal to her infant. The bread-winner, too, on whom both depend — is it not undeniable that wife and child can be altruistically treated by their protector, only on condition that he is duly egoistic in his transactions with his fellow citizens? If the dictate — live for self, is wrong in one way, the opposite dictate — " live for others," is wrong in another way. The ra tional dictate is — live for self and others. And if we all do actually believe this, as our conduct conclusively proves, is it not better for us distinctly to say so, rather than continue enunciating principles which we do not and cannot practise: thus bringing moral teaching itself into discredit?