Home |
Texts |
Next Chapter |
|---|
|
Typos — p. 33: heterogenous [= heterogeneous]
Chapter I The Principle of Private Property
Behind most of the modern hostility towards established and traditional institutions, it is not only a matter of mere caution, but also essentially scientific to suspect a certain amount of physical as well as psychical exhaustion. Modern mankind is tired, both bodily and spiritually. The pale fireless eyes of our urban adults alone ought to make us suspect the truth about this matter. Two thousand years of the increasing complication of Life, during which man's attention has had ever more and more detail to occupy it, together with a feeling of very genuine disillusionment on the part of the most enlightened regarding the highest ideals of the past; two thousand years, moreover, of progressive debilitation, during which the resisting powers of exuberant health have gradually and steadily been worn down — must have had their effect upon recent generations, and materially impaired their ability to face the institutions of their forefathers with their forefathers' spirit, health and understanding. It cannot be repeated too often that it would be gravely unscientific, nay imprudent, to proceed to an examination of the modern hostility to traditional ideas and principles without taking into account It must surely be clear to most of us that, not only we ourselves, but all our contemporaries as well, are radically and incurably weary. Our physical resistance against disease is as seriously in peril as is our spiritual resistance against error, or against those ideals and desires that can appeal only to invalids. Where life is ebbing, however, her most fundamental principles, her most inexorable demands, must be losing the force of their appeal. An ear is therefore lent ever more willingly and eagerly to doctrines and precepts which are non-vital, which already have about them the bitter effluvia of death; and it becomes ever more and more difficult to withstand the fascination of this new persuasiveness. But because Man has reached a degree of lassitude that induces him to listen more patiently and submissively than of yore, to doctrines and precepts of decline and decay, it does not follow that these doctrines are irresistible either in their rational or emotional appeal. It does not even follow that their rational dressing is any more It is suspicion, above all, that is needed wherever we turn in our modern storehouse of ideals and panaceas — suspicion coupled with the conviction that man is desperately weary in body and soul. Now there is a state of weariness and apathy in which things that have become out of gear are no longer readjusted or repaired, but deliberately and ruthlessly destroyed Each of us can picture in our mind's eye, the behaviour of the nervous invalid who, too exhausted to repair a persistently clanging bell, tears down the whole fitting, wires and all, so that the disturbing sound may cease for ever. Such an act is typical of exhaustion. It amounts to a deep-seated surrender of the power of repair. Brain and body tissues that are not themselves regularly repaired or recreated can hardly be expected to devise the means of repairing or recreating other things. Thus we should expect the modern and exhausted mind to proceed in its corrective lust, not by means of readjustment, but by amputation, not by therapeutic art, but by extirpation. There are thousands of bells clanging discordantly in the house of civilisation to-day. The temptation of the modern man is therefore to tear them down, wires and all. Whenever anything goes wrong — and things cannot always work smoothly in society, particularly in vast and complex communities like those of Western Europe — it is If the Lords fail us, the simplest method is to do away with them. If individual enterprise falls short of its promise, a clamour is raised for its abolition. Family life goes wrong, married life goes wrong, and the remedy suggested is to make the dissolution of the marriage tie easier. It does not matter whether you are destroying a portion of your organism and therefore impoverishing yourself thereby, for you are simplifying your task, and this for an invalid is an achievement of maximum importance. Everything thus falls into a process of general disintegration, all troublesome appendages are sloughed off, and the body of civilisation is gradually truncated or dissolved. Meanwhile, however, since every step in this process of decomposition receives the most convincing intellectual support, no one suspects that there are other and better methods of setting to work. It never occurs to the typical modern mind that if institutions are to be abolished as fast as degenerate people show themselves unable to uphold them, then an immediate and far more speedy way of refuting and abolishing all civilisation would be to fill all its leading positions, and to invest all its institutions, with raw savages from the Cannibal Isles. Every institution and tradition would then break down, and presumably the modern mind would be satisfied that the only remedy Long ago the present writer pointed out that to set a buffoon on the throne is not to confute monarchy, and yet this is the principle we work upon in all our reforms. We never once question whether it may not be modern man himself who is wrong or decadent. This at least might lead us to look in the proper direction for improvement. We merely assail with savage fury every institution that modern man can no longer run to his and our own satisfaction. Thus the instinctive and morbid indolence of sickness, to which amputation and suppression are naturally the most tempting corrective methods, becomes the standard of judgment for all ills; and where ignorant minds are added to sick minds, the natural bankruptcy of ignorance joins hands with the destructive lust of the sick, and the two together, hatchet in hand, set out to "reform" the world. Can anyone doubt that this is indeed what we are witnessing on all sides? And does not the very specious seductiveness of the Socialist and Bolshevist propaganda lead us to suspect that here, at least, we are invalids listening to invalids? The principle of Private Property is being assailed on all sides. It is now the fashion to talk glibly of the evanescence of private property, just as it is the fashion to be suffering from pyorrhoea or caries. Private property is another of the features of ancient societies which in this Muddle Age has got out of order; and the consequence is, as we should expect, that it is beginning Now in this new project of vandalism, we have not only one symptom of disease, but two. For, while we have our old friend, the morbid indolence of the sick, which cannot recreate or repair, but must suppress, we also have a frontal attack on Life itself, pressed by the forces of decay and disintegration disguised as Utopians. For private property is a principle of Life. The fact that this is everywhere apparent, does not, of course, prevent the myopic from overlooking it; it should, however, prevent the multitude from being deceived, and we believe the multitude are still not deceived. For it is obviously the multitude, the vast mass of mankind, who have the least of this world's goods, who should be the first to be duped about this matter; and yet how long it is taking to convince them! How tenacious they seem of the old principle! How deeply must they believe in private property in order, with their handful of household sticks and baubles, to resist the morbid lie which is being reiterated by a thousand moribund voices all round them, that private property is wrong. It has been said that private property is a principle of Life. What, then, is its biological value? Its biological value is the same as the biological value of the best life itself. To be quite plain, Life as a whole does not represent a general movement upwards, from the standpoint of quality. On the contrary. The great majority of Life's ac- Development is, therefore, really the exception rather than the rule. It covers only those cases in which a cumulative or forward metamorphosis has taken place. It is characteristic only of those species in which identity has been extended. Indeed, development might be called the law of higher life, or of that life which advances by gradual steps from the homogeneous to the heterogenous, which, in fact, unfolds itself only to reveal and to perpetuate ever fresh and new attributes and activities. Development is a name which, though not descriptive of all organic evolution, * * An enormous amount of confusion has been caused by the loose application of the term "Development," to all processes of change in life. Strictly speaking, development means unfolding. But the process by which the tape-worm has degenerated from the higher species to which it once belonged is not a process of unfolding or development, but one of loss and reduction, one of gradual truncation and limitation. Development in this correct and restricted sense of "growth," thus implies "becoming more," "extending identity." Becoming more, therefore, is a principle of higher life. Now what does this conclusion necessarily involve in the terms of humanity? It means that the ascending line of life in the genus Homo Sapiens, at least, has not only become more and more, but must also have been characterised by the spiritual counterpart of this physical striving, which consists in desiring to become more and more — that is to say, to extend identity. Any slackening, any reversal, any paralysis of this desire to become more and more, may thus be regarded as the beginning of the other movement — the movement of retrograde development, of decline. In each healthy individual of a truly developing species, we should therefore expect to find the conscious counterpart of the principle of higher life, which will be the desire to become more and more, to extend identity. To assail this desire to become more and more is therefore tantamount to a conspiracy against life, it is tantamount to a denial of the healthiest instinct of the species. It is the hand of death outstretched across the ascending road of the animal man. Call this adverse criticism or hostility I shall hardly be called upon to draw the obvious conclusion. How does, how can, the individual of a species that falls naturally under the head of Development, manifest this incessant striving to become more, which is the conscious counterpart of the physical evolution of the race, except by means of private property? How can he achieve this becoming more which, as we have seen, constitutes an extension of his identity, without private property? I do not refer here to those exceptional individuals who are content with a non-material expression of this "becoming more," but to the mass of mankind, in which individual extension must take a material form. Private property is the only means, and this private property is so closely identified with individual extension that, as we know, in certain Ages and climes, wives and children have been included-in the category. It constitutes the gratification, nay the very necessity, of one of the deepest instincts of man. It is indistinguishable, inseparable, from the law of growth; hence the obstinate attachment even the poorest still reveal in regard to it; hence the uphill work which the preachers of Death and Decay, still find their propaganda to be. The very morality of development says It is hardly necessary here to refer to the dawn of the sense of private property in the lower animals. This has been done often enough. Suffice it to point out, however, that in them also it is most apparent where the variety of activities and adaptations is most complex — among the bees, the ants, the dogs and the cats. True, the private property in question is only food, or matter which will one day be used as food. But is this not true of all property? Has not the revolution in Russia shown that all property is merely so much frozen food, so much wealth that can ultimately be bartered for nourishment? And does not this again point to its deep relationship to the highest law of growth? The important outcome of this inquiry into the ultimate relation of private property to biology and to the highest laws of life, however, is that it enables one to recognise the Socialist, the Bolshevist, and the Communist (where they are most sincere and fervent) in their true guise — that is to say, as the convinced and determined opponents, not only of a particular class, but of Life But then is all well with the principle of private property to-day? And are the Socialists, Bolshevists and Communists all wrong? All is certainly not well with the principle of private property as it is allowed to work in our societies at the present day. Hence the colourable warrant that is given to the. attacks of the Socialists and Communists upon it. Hence, too, the plausibility of their claims. For it is the simplest of feats to confuse an issue, and in societies where the right of private property is abused, it is easy to convince the thoughtless that the thing abused, and not the abuse itself, is the real curse. It is, therefore, readily admitted that there is a good deal that is wrong about private property as a principle practised by modern man; the wrong, however, is no more inherent in the principle itself, than cruelty to children, because it happens to occupy the attention of a large and wealthy society in England, is inherent in the principle of parenthood. And it is because the present evils of the distribution of wealth are not inherent in the principle of private property, that it is ridiculous — not only ridiculous, but also highly suspicious — to wish to sweep away the institution itself in order to remedy the evils that now unquestionably account for its disrepute. It has been shown why this desire to (a) Because it is the natural resort of sick and exhausted people, who are incapable of repairing or recreating anything. (b) Because it is the action of people who are hostile not merely to private property, but to Life in general. (The fact that they are usually completely unconscious of this hostility only renders them all the more dangerous.) The recognition of the right of private property is probably the oldest of all human principles. It is seen in all great civilisations. Every great culture has been built upon it. All societies, however, have not created the evils of modern Western civilisation. This alone ought to have provided a hint in the right direction. It ought to have been seen that the evils attending the distribution of wealth to-day, are evils more or less peculiar to the kind of culture we have evolved. What are these evils? (1) The chief evil of all is that by our present method of wealth distribution, the best people are not infrequently the most sorely oppressed, the most severely chastised by poverty and lack of power. The correlative evil to this is that those who are powerful to-day through wealth, are frequently so hopelessly unfitted to hold their position that the system which elevates such people to their present eminence seems as if it must be bad to the root. (2) The next in importance is that life at present is organised in such wise that poverty does not mean merely humbleness (3) The next in importance is that, as society is organised at present, poverty, which might be readily and cheerfully accepted by thousands of us, aye, actually preferred in some cases — now almost necessarily signifies bad air, ugly surroundings, poor food, and consequently an unsecured bill of health. Accessibility to conditions in which good air and beauty are, as it were, happily wedded, is becoming ever more and more the restricted privilege of the wealthy. (4) Owing to a misunderstanding of the true nature of social unity, wealth, or extensive private property, now gives certain classes the power of trespassing upon the life-needs of their fellows, without, however, being amenable to law — cornering markets, levying undue profits, destroying beautiful sites, supporting a host of societies which are simply parasitic pests on the nation's back, unwise disposal of fortunes, etc. (5) Owing to the educational advantages associated with wealth — an association which is quite unessential and arbitrary — modern society imposes a certain measure of benightedness and ignorance as an inevitable inheritance upon poverty, which is not in the least essential to poverty per se. If we consider the first and chief wrong which consists in the fact that private property at the present day frequently elevates to power people who are totally unfitted to wield any power at all, while it as frequently condemns to impotence, obscurity arid ignominy, people who would be eminently fitted to wield power, we realise at once that the fault does not lie in the amount of property held by these people, but upon the significance which current opinion and the prevailing estimate of wealth attaches to the accident of great or small possessions in either case. It is well known, everybody indeed has heard of it, that in certain cultures that have existed and still exist, the significance of great possessions has not been the same as that which Western civilisation has chosen to attach to them. The Brahmin of India, for instance, although he is doomed to poverty in the most literal sense, is the most highly respected among rich and poor alike. He rules and directs opinion, neither because he is rich, nor because he is poor, but because he is profoundly wise, and because power does not happen to be connected, in the enlightened Hindu mind, Evidently, then, the equation Wealth = Importance = Power, is not an inevitable one. It does not depend upon mathematical necessity. It is a perfectly arbitrary association of ideas, which is the result of a singular and quite gratuitous valuation. The fact that it is deeply seated in the prejudices and prepossessions of all Western peoples, appears to give it the sanction almost of a social law. It would, however, constitute the acme of imprudence and superficiality to allow oneself to be led by this apparent unanimity into the belief that it either denotes or implies an ordinance of Fate. The unanimity with which reverence is now felt for wealth alone, is only one of the many instances which it would be possible to give, of the stubborn and determined manner in which an arbitrary valuation strikes root in the heart of whole nations, when once it has been systematically and painstakingly inculcated upon them. It is one of those cases which inspire with hope all those who may be confronted with the apparently thankless task of altering the prejudices and prepossessions of a people. For, if it has been possible erroneously to raise wealth to the highest among our valuations, without a trace of social law to help us, it is clear that it must be possible to alter that valuation, to "transvalue" it, Nobody denies, of course, that when once wisdom, virtue, character and resolution, happen to combine in the same individual, the addition of wealth may make that individual exceptionally precious; but wealth, as we frequently see it to-day, endowing with power people who are neither wise, virtuous, characterful nor resolute, is little less than a national curse. For what does wealth mean? It means simply that the owner of it has a purchasing power over the services of his fellows. It by no means signifies that this purchasing power will of necessity be wisely, virtuously or profitably exercised. Wherever it is not wisely, virtuously and profitably exercised, therefore, it becomes a scourge. The power itself becomes violence; and it is incumbent upon the laws of all well-regulated communities to suppress at least man-made violence. The besetting vice of all Western societies, whether Monarchies, Aristocracies, Republics, or "Democracies," has been and is still that they have never taken adequate steps to suppress this particular kind of violence. But the remedy for such violence would not consist in abolishing the principle of private property. You might just as well abolish knives because they are frequently used by homicidal maniacs. The remedy consists in so modifying the life of the nation, and the prejudices and prepossessions of the All those who question the possibility of such an achievement in the recasting of values, are invited to dwell upon the genesis and growth of the prevalent ruling equation, Wealth = Importance = Power. They are invited, furthermore, to discover the moment in history when another valuation showed signs of becoming prevalent, and to ascertain by what means, foul or otherwise, it was made to fail. Then only, in the light of what they found, will they be able to decide whether a new equation and a new valuation have not even now a chance of being initiated, accepted, and universally believed. * It should be remembered, however, that in a society in which success really did depend upon the possession of the highest moral and bodily qualities that the community could display, — which is by no means the case at present, — poverty or failure would undoubtedly have a certain inexpungeable stigma upon it; and quite rightly too. That which removes the stigma from poverty or failure to-day, in the eyes of the enlightened, is the fact that riches and success are frequently achieved by people who could not possibly lay claim to any high moral and bodily qualities, — not to mention the highest. |
Home |
Texts |
Next Chapter |
|---|