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Typos — p. 160: millenium [= millennium]; p. 173: sensative [= sensitive]


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Chapter VII
Social Reform *

"Things are so bad that, to have any genuine insight to-day, any special human feeling to-day, means perforce to devote these gifts to the social problem, instead of to art and beauty. That is the curse of having been born in this Age." — Extract from a novel of last year.

A certain unaffected hopelessness characterises the mood of modern men, for which it is difficult to find an adequate cause. There is a pessimism rife to-day, which, far from being a pose or a pretence, lies so deeply imbedded in the hearts of most people, that it is their constant effort to conceal, rather than to proclaim it, when they are in the presence of their fellows. A cheerful smile, a laugh that sounds like merriment, a vivacious and buoyant manner — these outward signs of unruffled gaiety may now be simulated by men when they are in company; they may even be enjoined upon all as social etiquette; but when once he is left to himself, modern man smoothens out his laugh-wrinkled cheeks, compresses his relaxed lips, and abandons himself to that attitude of mind now perhaps as universal as it is secret, which for lack of a better term we may describe as settled despondency.

        * The ideas from which this essay has been developed were first embodied in a short article called Happiness and Social Reform, contributed by the present writer to the "Oxford Fortnightly," in November, 1913.

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        Among the cultivated this attitude remains more or less a private concern of the individual. The thinking man, unlike the savage, does not beat his wife and children, or blame his immediate surroundings, if he feels hopeless. He knows the cause is probably more remote than the behaviour of his kith and kin, or circle of friends; and though he may be as incapable as the savage of finding the true cause, he withholds his anger, or postpones the expression of his gloomy thoughts until such time as their true cause becomes apparent to him.
        Among the uncultivated, however, this mood of gloom or of convinced despair, harbouring as it does in minds that are less inclined to be philosophical, renders them litigious and vindictive. Some one or some circumstance not too remote must be responsible, it is thought, for their peevishness; they therefore become irascible and angry, and seek to vent their spleen on that person or thing which, on the strength of its proximity alone, appears to be the immediate cause of their ill-humour. Conditions that satisfied them theretofore now become insufferable and must be changed; prospects that smiled upon them formerly now appear too black to be faced with calm. Pleasure — or rather distraction — is sought feverishly, gluttonously, until, since it leaves them still with the old langour at their hearts, it also is rejected as part of the general conspiracy to depress their spirits. Nothing pleases, nothing beckons. The same aching certainty of discontent always returns, whatever else may go.
        When a nation feels like this, when a

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whole continent feels like this, there arises what politicians are pleased to call a state of "social unrest." By giving it a name it is hoped presumably that it will be explained away. Unfortunately, however accurate the terms of a description may be, they do nothing towards helping to remove the trouble they describe. But in this particular case it may be questioned whether the words "social unrest" form even an accurate description.
        A society that is at rest is not necessarily the ultimate desideratum. A society that is not at rest cannot therefore be necessarily bad. On the contrary, social unrest has been characteristic of all the greatest and most fertile moments in history. What could have been more unrestful than the period that witnessed the spread of the Roman power, or the period of the Renaissance?
        To call the present period simply one of social unrest therefore does not even give us an inkling of the true and alarming symptom of the trouble — the settled despondency that is invading all hearts.
        By the phrase "social unrest," we might, for instance, be led to suspect that the secondary and particular symptoms of the trouble were the primary and general symptoms. What are the secondary and particular symptoms of the trouble? Labour's general and determined dissatisfaction with the conditions of labour all over Europe.
        Suppose we accept the secondary as the primary symptoms, how can we then account for the deep pessimism and gloom of the cultivated — not merely those among the cultivated who fear they may lose by

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Labour's attitude, but those who are disinterested enough to fear nothing except the incurable canker at their hearts? Can they truly be said to share Labour's general and determined dissatisfaction with the conditions of labour all over Europe?
        Labour's dissatisfaction, therefore, cannot possibly be a primary symptom. It is only the proletariat's adaptation to the primary symptom; just as hedonism, neurasthenia, lunacy and frenzied interest in new-fangled creeds and movements, may be the cultivated man's adaptation to the primary symptoms.
        To call the present state of affairs simply social unrest is to magnify unduly a secondary and particular, into the importance of a primary and general, symptom.
        Whatever the subsequent adaptation to it may be, the true primary symptom must be common to both classes, the labouring and the employing classes, and that true primary symptom, it is here suggested, is the mood of unaffected hopelessness that characterises all modern men. And since, as a primary symptom, it is common to all men, it must have a common cause;
        Doubtless a good deal of it may be easily accounted for in the manner outlined at the opening of Chapter I. As everyone knows, physical and spiritual weariness do not need to last very long in order to induce the most stubborn dejection; and since there can be no doubt that, as the result of life's present unprecedented complexity and breakneck speed, modern men of all classes are suffering from physical and particularly nervous exhaustion, we might reason-

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ably expect to find depression as one of its accompanying features.
        To the present writer, however, the recognition of this modicum of melancholy that must be found everywhere wedded to bodily and spiritual weariness, although important, does not seem sufficient to explain the universality of the present existence of secret low spirits. It seems to him that a deeper cause must be sought; for it has come to his own, as it must have come to other people's notice, that the low spirits in question are to be found even where the harassing complications of life and the present high speed of life are least often and least severely felt. It is as if a sentiment, and not a material cause were the chief source of the pessimism that we are now considering. And, since this pessimism is everywhere rife, it must be supposed that the sentiment also is universal, and must have preceded the former in all men's hearts.
        As to the precise nature of this supposed sentiment, there may be various and even conflicting opinions; the hypothesis favoured here, however, is the following:—
        The sentiment that is now lodged in all European hearts, irrespective of class or country, and is responsible for the gloom that has descended upon all nations, is a compound of deep and bitter disappointment on the one hand, with the suspicion of having been duped and left stranded on the other.
        There is a feeling that the leading ideals by which our fathers and grandfathers guided their lives, and to which we, who were born in the last century, also aspired, have proved false ideals. And, coupled with this

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feeling, there is, in the first place, the growing conviction that we should have done better, and shown ourselves more expert in managing our affairs, if, instead of trying to act up to those ideals, we had renounced them altogether; and secondly, that now that we see ourselves compelled to abandon these old ideals, we are stranded without any guiding principles whatsoever.
        The old ideals have proved worthless and even dangerous, and we are therefore abandoning them; but no new ideals have been created to take their place.
        It is this feeling that now constitutes the disease in all men's hearts — the feeling of the enlightened child of besotted and degenerate parents, who, looking back upon them calmly and dispassionately in his maturity, is ashamed of the guileless filial passion he once felt for them in his childhood, and yet knows himself to be terribly cold and alone in his spiritual orphanage.
        "Progress," that toughest among our grandfathers' and fathers' ideals, has been the last to perish; but with it perhaps went our stoutest hopes and our firmest beliefs. We have now buried it, to the accompaniment of the gravest doubts concerning not merely whether we are better, or better off, than the men of the 16th and 17th centuries, but also whether we are better, or better off even than the Cro-Magnon men who lived thirty thousand years before the present era.
        To those who could believe in the existence of an all-powerful, beneficent deity — and which of us had grandfathers or fathers who did not? — there was something supremely

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logical and inevitable in this idea of Progress. How could life fail to improve seeing that a beneficent deity was controlling it, and must therefore be directing all things towards a common good?
        But now the objections to this belief scarcely require to be stated. Everybody knows, everybody sees, that it must be wrong. And those exceptional people whose minds and eyes still need some assistance before they feel able to reject it, have only to examine certain statistics in order to become assured that their conservatism is without foundation.
        And how many ideals have not gone the same way as "Progress"? Who believes in "Democracy" nowadays? Who believes in Parliamentary Government, in the ultimate triumph of Altruism, in the Brotherhood of mankind, in Universal Suffrage? In short, who believes in the desirability of the whole of Western civilisation, or of its extension to countries that are still uncontaminated by it?
        How could the contemplation of such a hecatomb of perverted ideals fail to create despondency, seeing that despite the lack of other ideals to take their place, and everybody's horror at what has occurred, every sane man in every civilised land is convinced that, had the hecatomb not already been made, he would have been compelled to pile it up with his own hands?
        Perhaps it may sound to some an unwarrantable assumption to maintain that a complete negation of the beliefs of a former century — aye, and in some cases, of a former

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millenium — necessarily constitutes a state of deep distress.
        Those who entertain this view can only be recommended to ponder the enormous influence that strong, deep-rooted beliefs play in the lives of large communities, particularly when these beliefs constitute the very confidence, trust and faith which such communities feel in the worthiness and the value of their common aims and endeavours. Shake these beliefs, and the energy which theretofore had been directed evenly towards a certain bourne, a definite goal, finds itself dammed up or lost on the high road; remove them altogether, and it is not impossible that the very generation of energy itself will cease. People become listless, indolent, hopeless; and the acute stage of danger is soon reached when everyone cries openly or in his heart: "What is the good of it all? Cui bono?"
        The repercussion of this state of distress upon language has already been discussed. It is clear that, with the loss of guiding ideals and beliefs, the important leading words connected with these ideals and beliefs become entirely meaningless and devoid of any distinct associations. In addition to finding himself completely astray, therefore, modern man's forlorn condition is complicated by serious bewilderment. A large number of the words which, owing to their long association with deep-rooted beliefs and guiding ideals, still stimulate great emotional excitement in him, have no corresponding meaning in reality — in fact, have no meaning at all. The sounds remain, and from sheer habit evoke certain sensations; but the

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beliefs which gave these sounds some reality have departed.
        Thus even the least sensitive man of the present age, has gradually become conscious of no longer having any secure footing. The ground under his feet seems to be slipping away and he throws out his arms desperately to catch at some support.
        Deep, almost rancorous disappointment, coupled with the suspicion that he has been duped and left stranded — this compound, it is suggested, constitutes the sentiment which is now lodged in the heart of every European. And it is this sentiment which is the cause of the present universal and stubborn pessimism in all countries where Western civilisation prevails.
        Unfortunately the only cure for this kind of chronic melancholy is the promulgation of new beliefs, new goals, new values. A new faith is perhaps the most crying need of all. But where are the great men of to day who could undertake this task?
        In the masses, or proletariat, of all countries, this pessimism, arising out of the sentiment analysed above, expresses itself, as is only natural, in the most irreconcilable discontent. What does the man in the street know of remote causes, particularly when they are spiritual? As we have already hinted above, material causes are the first he thinks of; because they are the first that lie to hand. And when, moreover, he finds every self-seeking agitator ready to prove that material circumstances are the cause of his trouble, how can he any longer doubt that here indeed he has traced his misery to its source?

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        Thus among the masses, the prevailing pessimism takes the form of an economic struggle, which has little or nothing to do with the actual amount of happiness or unhappiness that is to be gained. And in the leisured classes, the same affliction is leading to mad hedonism, neurasthenia, lunacy, and a thirst for new religions and movements, which is frequently out of all proportion to the sanity of the interests these have to offer.
        While, however, the masses, owing to the more precise nature of their demands (always confined to the economic field and never touching upon spiritual needs) and also to the greater volume of their clamour, have succeeded in directing the attention of all would-be reformers upon themselves, the cultivated also, partly hypnotised by the insistence of the proletariat's outcry, have made the mistake of supposing that in material reforms alone can salvation be found.
        In the absence of new ideals, sound beliefs, and a great new faith, that would once again knit modern mankind together in a united effort and a common aim, not only the proletariat, but also large numbers of the cultivated classes, have come to the conclusion that it is in economic changes that a recovery of the joie de vivre is to be found. And such ideals as Communism, Socialism, and Bolshevism, which are purely economic (i.e., material), in their objects and methods, are now held up as panaceas for the ills of the whole world.
        To suppose, however, that economic changes alone will make any difference to the present

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deep depression of man, is to misunderstand the whole nature of his trouble.
        If there is anything in the analysis contained in the preceding paragraphs; if the diagnosis of modern pessimism which it offers is not entirely wrong and beside the mark, it is obvious that economic changes, however drastic, can and will do nothing to alleviate the state of distress in which everybody who lives where Western civilisation prevails, now finds himself.
        Improve the conditions of the indigent how you will, elevate the standard of living as high as you choose, you are nevertheless powerless to reduce even by one gush of tears, the misery and discontent that prevails among all classes in the modern civilised world, unless you understand and can deal with the more profound and more complicated spiritual cause that lies at the root of this misery.
        Nobody in his senses denies that there is yet room for improvement in the standard of living among large sections of the proletariat; nobody who has studied the question doubts for one instant that the conditions of the indigent are frequently directly conducive to both physical and spiritual disease, and therefore that they require modification; but to suppose that the need for this departmental improvement is sufficiently pressing and promising of good far-reaching results, to justify the upheaval of the whole of the existing system of life, is to confess yourself so completely fascinated and hypnotised by a particular aspect alone of modern unhappiness, as it is manifested in one particular section of society, as to have remained blind

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to all other aspects of it which are to be observed in other sections.
        Posterity will certainly look back upon this Age as an epoch in which there existed but one really strong obsession. It will recognise that in matters of religion we were independent, individualistic, disunited, and scattered. It will also see that in the domain of art, literature, and science, divergence of opinion, to the extent of open civil war, was general and commonplace. On one question, however, it will be compelled to acknowledge our complete unanimity and concord, and that question is Social Reform.
        All classes and all political parties at the opening of the 20th century in Great Britain will be declared to have been solidly bent on achieving this one object; and for some obscure reason, which perhaps will for ever remain a mystery even to an enlightened posterity, that social reform will be characterised as having had in view always the amelioration of but one section of the community — the poorer section, from the standpoint of material wealth — that is to say, that it was certainly a downward glance, a downcast eye, that constituted the attitude of its most fervent advocates and their followers.
        Subsequent generations, if they are sufficiently philosophical, will perceive the error here, without perhaps being able to explain it. It may be possible now, however, to forestall their speculations and to shed upon the question some light that may be helpful to them.
        It has been said that misery is at present

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general, that it runs through all classes in all countries.
        Furthermore, it has been suggested that this misery has its root in a sentiment which is a compound of rancorous disappointment and the feeling that we have been duped and left stranded.
        This sentiment has been traced to the failure and demonstrated emptiness of all the leading beliefs and ideals of the last century, and even before that.
        Now the particular expression of this misery which is at present given by the more indigent sections of the community, is discontent with their condition, leading to an economic struggle.
        The expression of this misery which is at present given by the wealthier sections of the community consists in an unusually fierce form of hedonism, insanity, neurasthenia, and religious mania.
        Strange to say, however, the cure for the misery which is being recommended by the proletariat and in the general terms of which large numbers of the plutocracy are already acquiescing, is Social Reform, which, in its more moderate guise, aspires simply to the elevation of the standard of living among the labouring classes; and in its extreme form (as in Russia, for instance) envisages the overthrow of the present system in favour of Communism, Socialism, or Bolshevism.
        Now even if the analysis of modern misery given above were only approximately accurate, it must be plain that:—
        (1) To set out to relieve the misery of only one section of the community — the

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poorer section — when all the community is unhappy, amounts obviously only to attempting a partial cure, in fact to concerning one's self only with one aspect and secondary manifestation of the general trouble.
        (2) To concentrate upon social reform, even in its most moderate form, is to assume that which has yet to be demonstrated: that an improvement in the material conditions of the proletariat is really all that the world wants in order to recover happiness.
        (3) To suppose that any such purely material or economic reform as Communism, can effect a complete cure all round, is to assume that the causes of modern unhappiness are purely material or economic — an assumption which, so far from being supported by the facts, has all the evidence of the unhappiness of the wealthy classes against it.
        Now let these objections be taken one by one in their order, and considered more fully.
        (1) Is it, or is it not a fact, that all classes, rich and poor alike, are now suffering from deep spiritual depression? If it is a fact, it is obviously ridiculous and unfair to attempt even along economic lines (that is by material reforms alone) to alleviate the pain only of one class; and the concentration of attention upon proletarian unhappiness, constitutes an absurd and utterly unjustifiable obsession. If, on the other hand, it is not a fact that all classes are suffering equally from deep spiritual depression, a somewhat formidable array of unpleasant facts are left utterly unexplained

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and unco-ordinated. These are: the steady spread of apathy, cynicism, listlessness and recklessness — always signs of great unhappiness — among the wealthy classes; the frenzied search for new creeds, new movements, new interests, however childish, always a sign of despair; and the unceasing pursuit of pleasure among the non-religious sections of the wealthy classes — a sign of intense boredom, weariness and gloom.
        Now it is only due to the characteristic obtuseness and shallowness of this Age, that no attention has been paid to the unhappiness of the wealthier classes, which in many instances is very severe indeed; and it is due to the absurdly exalted notion of their prestige, and their own extravagant estimate of their dignity, that they themselves have not made more clamour to call the attention of the community to their misery. Labouring under the utterly unsupported modern belief that where economic conditions are sound, everything is sound, we do not find the leaders of the Church organising missions to the mansions of the wealthy in order to make sure that their spiritual life is healthy and free from the blights of gloom and despair; obsessed as everyone is by the supposed inaccessibility of wealth to the common spiritual distempers of the Age. we never hear of charitable charwomen undertaking a course of district visiting to the women of the wealthier classes, in order to investigate the cause of their despondency and to help them to overcome it. And yet, strange as such a procedure would sound to modern ears, is it really so palpably offensive to good sense? The very fact

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that most people would suspect a man of joking who recommended such action, shows conclusively how far we are from realising the extent of the spiritual misery, besottedness and turpitude prevailing among our wealthier classes.
        Is this misery to be left entirely suspended in the air by the proposed economic reforms of the coming era? As a symptom it has been shown that the unhappiness of the wealthier classes is as important and significant as any other phenomenon of modern times. Do people really suppose that certain economic changes, certain improvements in the standard of living of the poor, are going to set the whole world right, including the chronic unhappiness of the present wealthy classes? It has been suggested that this unhappiness of the wealthy has a deep root, and that at its root it joins with the unhappiness of the indigent. How can any tinkering at material conditions possibly be expected to reach that root?
        If social reformers had their way, if in their superficial analysis of modern misery, they were allowed to proceed with their "improvements," the changes they would be able to bring about would leave absolutely intact the whole of the major cause of the trouble that obsesses them. In a trice the "improved" conditions would become habitual conditions, and then, once the diversion had spent its force, the old unhappiness would return with possibly even greater malignity. Anybody who doubts this is invited to dwell on the economic improvements already achieved among the poorer classes of the nation, and to assess the pro-

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portionate amount of increased happiness that has accompanied them.
        (2) Many years ago, George Gissing, than whom no English writer was better qualified to speak with authority on the question of rich and poor, made the following remark: "A being of superior intelligence regarding humanity with an eye of perfect understanding would discover that life was enjoyed every bit as much in the slum as in the palace." In other words, it must have occurred to most thinking people that laughter, if heard at all, is heard quite as frequently. in the kitchen as in the drawing-room, — that is to say, that happiness is relative, and that the possibility of ultimate adaptation to all conditions makes the degree of happiness enjoyed by each human being more or less uniform. At all events, the fact that material conditions are the first, which, if constant, cease to be noticed, and therefore cease to contribute actively to happiness, must have been observed by most people of ordinary acumen. It would therefore constitute a gross misunderstanding both of human nature and of life in general, to suppose that standards of living, even very much lower than those of our present unskilled labouring classes, would necessarily destroy happiness for those compelled to endure them. And, conversely, it would constitute a grave misconception of the nature of happiness to suppose that an improved standard of living necessarily brings happiness in its train, or has anything to do with happiness. All those who, for five years of the Great War, had to live on indifferent food, imperfectly cooked, served

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in inconvenient and frequently filthy quarters, and on unsightly and grubby utensils, will bear the present writer out in this, and will agree with him when he says that material conditions cannot possibly bear the deep causal relation to happiness that so many thousands of solemn would-be philosophers now allege. Beyond a certain point — that is to say, when once the possibility of daily repletion with wholesome food-stuffs, and sufficient daily repose has been attained, material conditions, so far from being conducive to happiness or unhappiness, are not even noticed.
        To improve the material conditions of the proletariat beyond the stage of comfortable security, therefore, will not and cannot increase their general happiness by one iota. It may urge them to the mad hedonism of the rich, it may drive them to the surfeited apathy and neurasthenia of the plutocratic classes and stimulate their appetite for new-fangled creeds and movements, but it will not increase their happiness, neither will it do anything to alleviate the misery that was analysed in the first half of this chapter, under which they, like the wealthier classes, are now groaning.
        (3) Assuming, however, that the whole of the above reasoning is hopelessly wrong and even vicious; taking it for granted, as many undoubtedly will, that the misery here alleged to be common both to the modern rich and the modern poor, which social reform cannot alter, is a pure myth, an ingenious fiction, inspired by the trumpery aims of reaction alone; it may still be asked whether those who concentrate so pains-

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takingly upon material and economic reforms, have satisfied themselves that their diagnosis of the trouble is the correct one. The implication underlying their activities and their programme, is that material and economic conditions should be the principal concern of all. They pin their faith to the amelioration of the standard of living, and whether they wish to achieve this end by Communism, Socialism, or Bolshevism, they confess by the principles they adopt, that they recognise no other avenue to salvation.
        But it is surely no quibble to demand of. them some proof that their proposed cures have been conceived as the result of a scrupulously careful investigation into the causes of the disease. Without necessarily incurring the suspicion of undue prejudice, it is surely not unreasonable to request them, before inaugurating their subversive reforms, to give their critics some demonstration of the accuracy of their diagnosis.
        Has this been done? Has any conclave of accredited psychologists, thinkers and social reformers, ever sat to deliberate upon the true causes of modern misery? And having deliberated, have they published to the world any conclusion to the effect that everything in modern society except only the condition of the poor, can be continued and maintained with impunity, without fears of a recurrence of the present malady?
        Nobody can contend that the advocates of social reform in so far as this is confined to material and economic changes, have even satisfied themselves — still less the rest of the world — that economic causes are the most potent in accounting for the

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misery prevailing in Western Civilisation. Nobody would even argue that they had begun to question the correctness of their materialistic interpretation of "Social Unrest," and since the reforms they propose are drastic and destructive, as witness the Utopia in Russia, the world has a right, and more particularly have the working masses in all countries a right, to insist upon the disease of modernity being thoroughly understood before it is treated.
        It is not claimed for an instant that the analysis given in the first part of this chapter is necessarily the right one; but it is certainly hoped that by suggesting perhaps a new avenue of approach to these problems, it will not only show that there are more ways than one of solving them, but also stimulate thought along lines not habitually followed by social reformers.
        The present writer himself is, at any rate, convinced of two things:—
        First, that social reform, either moderate or in its extreme expression as Communism or Bolshevism, is a modern obsession, resulting from a gratuitous concentration upon the material conditions alone of one class only of the community; and that all changes that are inspired by this obsession are certain to be wrong and utterly disastrous, seeing that it takes no cognisance of the great unhappiness that is unconnected with the state of indigence.
        Second, that the relation of happiness to material conditions is a subject of such deep misunderstanding at the present day that, at all events, reforms which rely too obstinately upon the accepted and general

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view of this relation, are sure to lead to the most distressing blunders, without relieving by one iota, the burden of misery that is borne by the whole population, rich and poor alike.
        In conclusion, the following considerations may prove of value in regard to the general question of social reform, and to the particular question of happiness:—
        The present state of settled despondency in all classes may be the result of a number of agencies, with the continued operation of any one of which it might be fatal to start a new era with any hope of achieving greater happiness.
        The world has come to its present pass by means of the observance of hundreds of values, among which it is possible that the most unsuspected are the most powerful causes of the general decline in the joie de vivre.
        For instance, to make a few suggestions at random, it is possible that the general European attitude of toleration towards disease, crippledom, congenital debility and physical disabilities of all kinds, may be totally wrong. It may be that the steady infection of the healthy mass of the people by the careful perpetuation, preservation and propagation, of the population's unhealthiest elements, may have acted as a gradual poison in four ways: (a) as a depressing spectacle and therefore as a destroyer of joy to the sensative; (b) as an unnecessary burden upon the hale and the hearty, exacting too heavy a toll from their energy and good spirits; (c) as a source of deterioration to the healthiest elements in the race; and (d) negatively, by making it difficult for the desirable percentage of very successful creatures to be

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born, — those creatures who, by their beauty, grace and wanton spirits, ennoble life, by holding up a lofty example of Life's highest possibilities. It is possible, that is to say, that Humanitarianism is merely an inverted form of cruelty; in other words, instead of directing their cruelty against the undesirable, humanitarians direct it against the desirable, and cheerfully sacrifice the hale and the hearty to the physiologically botched.
        It is also conceivable that democratic institutions, by levelling competition and rewards down to the plane of the meanest attainments, have introduced a sort of craft-apathy, or eagerness-mute-stop, into the hearts of all those superior workmen who, along ordinary unrestricted and unconstrained paths, would have delighted in displaying the higher gifts that differentiate them from their fellows, and would thus have increased the sum of general happiness by their contribution of triumphant spirits and the expression of their gratified effort.
        It is possible, too, that life in very large cities, like London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Edinburgh, etc., by bringing each individual man and woman too constantly into touch, in fact into daily irritating contact, with thousands of their fellows, — so that in the thoroughfares of these large cities human beings may truly be said to stand as rank as weeds, — has led to a kind of semi-conscious misanthropy, which steadily depresses the joie de vivre, by destroying the joy that all should feel in the contemplation and society of their fellows. The struggle for room, for sheer air space, is sometimes so acute in these large cities, and in the fight

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for unobstructed progression each advantage is contested with so much malice and spite, that it is not extravagant to suppose that a natural and perfectly instinctive impulse to be friendly and philanthropic, may step by step, be turned to the most irreconcilable hatred and contempt of humanity. It is not even impossible for this change to occur without the person in whom it has taken place being in the least conscious of the true causes of his mental transformation. But upon convinced misanthropy of this sort it is impossible to build a happy and contented community. Hence possibly a goodly portion of the unhappiness of modern times in large cities.
        Again in regard to the very alternative of philanthropic or misanthropic sentiment, in a well-known passage of the moral teaching of most Europeans, there occurs the famous command "Love thy neighbour." And there are not a few sentimentalists who, accepting this doctrine as the remedy for all social evils, proclaim with full-throated fervour, that if only there were more love in the world, all would be well. Now it must surely have occurred to a large number of people, that if there is one human impulse known to all mankind that responds with difficulty to the word of command, it is precisely the impulse to love. A man may, by an effort of will, stop his breathing and die, — it is said that negro slaves constantly did this in the holds of humane British seamen's ships in the 18th century; — a man may by an effort of will obey the command to kill himself and unhesitatingly raise the means of suicide to his throat; — in Japan this command used

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frequently to be given and as frequently obeyed; — but by no effort of will, however severe the command, can a man be made to feel the impulse to love his neighbour. Love springs spontaneously in the human breast. Its provocation is invariably, not a word of command, not a behest, but the charm, grace, or other perfection of an object contemplated. There is therefore little psychological insight in the command "Love thy neighbour." Nobody would deny that to love one's neighbour is an excellent prescription for happy social life; but nobody who was not sadly ignorant of human nature, or divinely insular, would dream of attempting to achieve this end by commanding it. The only way to set about loving one's neighbour, with benignity aforethought, as it were, is, in the first place, to make him loveable. For love is a spontaneous impulse springing up in the breast through contemplation or comprehension of some charming or otherwise alluring object.
        Now it is possible that modern life, with all its besotting, emasculating, and uglifying occupations, with its total absence of any check upon the multiplication of the unsightly and unsavoury, its sickness, and its second-rate, third-rate and fourth-rate healthiness, is pursuing diametrically the opposite aim. It is destroying the aesthetic basis of the impulse to love; and, except where sexual attraction is at work, renders love of one's neighbour a practical impossibility. It would be ridiculous, and eminently unscientific, to overlook this factor in the gradual disintegration and unhappiness of modern society. For a community in which all the

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elements fly asunder when they meet, is unlikely to be either harmonious or happy. Thus the increasing unloveableness of one's neighbour, as the result of the increasing ugliness and unsavouriness of most European populations, cannot be altogether disregarded.
        The above are only a few among the unsuspected and possible contributory causes of modern misery. It would be easy to continue on the same lines at considerable length, and further suggestions will be made in the last chapter; but surely, even at this stage, enough has already been said, to persuade the thoughtful reader that social reform alone, as it is generally understood, both in its moderate and extreme guise, might be completely and even magnificently realised, and yet leave some of the most potent causes of despondency as flourishing and as prevalent as ever.
        Some of our most respected values lie at the root of the contributory causes just outlined. Would it not be wiser, before starting on our wild goose chase in search of new world orders, to decide whether such values as those which are radical to the contributory causes, are sufficiently sound to be maintained? For these contributory and unsuspected causes, which have been outlined above, are all supplementary to the principal cause analysed in the first part of this chapter.
        Thus a good deal of spade work would appear to be both wise and even indispensable, before we can proceed with any confidence to the facile solution of modern misery, consisting in altering our economic

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conditions; * and this spade work, which seems to the thinker to be little more than a measure of ordinary prudence, overlooked though it has been by the Bolshevists, may in the end prove the very means of sustaining the success and ensuring the permanence of whatever economic modifications may subsequently appear necessary and advisable.
        At all events, to proceed along any other lines, would certainly mean that a large number of essential and principal elements in the general causation of modern misery, would run a grave risk of being overlooked; it would therefore mean that the continued presence of these elements would remain to mar any measure of success that any radical economic reform might achieve, and would thus demonstrate to the whole world a fact which, despite the example of Russia, is by no means sufficiently clear: that social reform like Protestantism in the 15th century, like Puritanism in the 17th, and like Republicanism in the 18th, is an obsession, the hypnotic power of which is out of all proportion to the amount of good it can possibly establish by its successful fulfilment.

        * It will not have escaped the careful reader's notice that the reason why social reform and new economic programmes generally have enjoyed so much favour, particularly with the mass of superficial mankind, is that in the midst of misery, they seem to offer immediate "practical" remedies. That word "practical" is the passport, or rather the password, of most of the stupidest beliefs and practices that succeed in becoming popular. Because deeper remedies, and the deeper causes of unhappiness, do not occur to the superficial minds of the masses in all countries, social reform, which is palpably obvious, is called "practical" and thereby canonised by the crowd.

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