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Typos — p. 174: prevaling [= prevailing] - p. 174 - XXIX The Universal Ache of Envy In addition to those causes of the trouble already considered, there are two important factors at the root of much of the unscrupulous and mischievous benevolence and charity now prevaling in modern Anglo-Saxon societies, which are often overlooked, and to one of which I believe I am the first to have called attention. They are:         The vicious principle of Party Politics, which inevitably induces political Parties contending for Office and Power at every General Election, to outbid each other in bribing the Electorate, and to refrain from framing or proposing any measures which, however urgently they may be needed for the good of the nation, would prove unpopular with the masses. It is difficult to see how these two abuses of modern Anglo-Saxon Democracy can be avoided, as their causes lie more in the natural iniquity of Man than in the nature of the political system itself. Given the insensate and vicious system, it is impossible to abolish them. This has of course been noticed by other critics of Democracy. Lord Vansittart, for instance, in 1958, declared that "Our elections have become auctions where the best bidders win." (The Mist Procession, Chap XIX); and Dean Inge, six years earlier, had maintained that "Democracy stands revealed as Government by mass bribery." (Hibbert Journal, July 1952).         Less obvious, but equally undeniable, however, is the second important factor contributing to the exercise of indiscriminate and mischievous benevolence and charity; and that is, as I believe I am the first to have pointed out, the decisive rôle played by the harassing ache of Envy in prompting what Hallam in his Constitutional History termed "the blind eleemosynary spirit." It turns on the secret but almost automatic psychological processes which in people not too clear concern- - p. 175 - ing the motivation of their conduct culminate in compassion and ill considered benevolent action.         One or two of the more penetrating students of mankind — Nietzsche above all — are known to have harboured suspicions that all was not as above-board, self-evident and praiseworthy as many moralists assumed in the emotion Pity and the action it prompts. He even pointed out that, in view of the ignominious features that may often cling to if, it was far from being as laudable as is generally believed. And he thus incurred much bitter criticism in almost every quarter of the civilised West.         Unfortunately he never saw clearly, or explained precisely, how and why the conduct prompted by Pity could be and often is ignominious. Indeed, there is no passage in all his works which indicates that he was himself fully aware of the shameful aspects of the conduct Pity often prompted — its "partie honteuse."         Had he given the matter a little more thought, however, and reached even Schopenhauer's degree of clarity about it, he would inevitably have lighted on the gravamen of the charge that can be made against this much admired emotion; and his failure to do so, together with his equally serious oversight concerning Socrates, constitute the two major blemishes which in my opinion mar his philosophical outlook.         What then is this "partie honteuse" in Pity which he failed to discern?         It is the intimate relation which, in most ordinary people's minds — I speak of people not accustomed to be lucid concerning the nature of their feelings and the motivations of their conduct — exists between Pity and Envy. Because, wherever Envy is widespread, people's peace of mind is naturally disturbed by the spectacle of any marked superiority — whether of health, wealth, personal gifts or merely situation — in a neighbour. Thus, Samuel Johnson, in his Life of Waller two centuries ago, spoke of "That natural jealousy which makes every man unwilling to allow much excellence in another."         But what brings most relief to the ache of Envy? — Obviously, the spectacle of any inferior plight, any misfortune, in a neighbour! Every calamity assailing a human being necessarily appeases the ache of Envy. Nor is this all there is to it. - p. 176 - For the whole gamut of this feeling of relief does not end there. In people not too clear about their mental processes, the sense of relief from Envy may insensibly prompt spontaneous feelings of gratification which incite to acts of generosity, and it often does so. They are ready, if not eager to display this half-conscious gratification by indulging in various kinds of indiscriminate and therefore often mischievous benevolence. The fact that the contemplation of a criminal in the dock, even if he happens to he a murderer, may in some people afford them such relief from Envy as to provoke obscure feelings of benevolence for him and make them forget his victim or victims, shows how unreasoning this kind of charity can be.         This of course does not apply to cases where the misery contemplated happens to be that of a person dearly loved. Then, and only then, there is no accompanying feeling of relief from Envy, there is only grief and despair.         The necessary corollary to all this would then be that where much evidence of impulsive and indiscriminate benevolence and charity prevails, widespread Envy may be suspected in the population.         Do conditions in modern England bear this out? — There is in England to-day abundant evidence, not only of Envy and of the evil consequences of mischievous and indiscriminate benevolence, but also of a passion for concentrating attention on human inferiority and defectiveness and for bending all effort on favouring it even at the cost of the desirable and sound elements in the population.         As Ruskin remarked about a hundred years ago, "Benevolent persons are always by preference busy on the essentially bad, and exhaust themselves in efforts to get maximum intellect from cretins and maximum virtue from criminals." (Fors Clavigera, Letter IX. Sept. 1871).         Yes, of course! That is precisely what we should expect them to do! Because they are naturally drawn to what relieves the pangs of Envy! In the same letter, on a previous page, Ruskin, already aware a century ago of the harm that was done to a population by indiscriminate charity, especially of the kind that concentrates on the least promising and desirable elements in the population, declared, "The right law of it is that you are to take most pains with the best material . . . never waste pains on bad ground." - p. 177 -         Yes! But Ruskin, though obviously sound in his understanding of what conduct in this respect was commendable, did not probe the matter deeply enough to discover what induced the average person of the West, never too clearly aware of the precise nature of his motivations, to prefer being "busy on the essentially bad." Had he for one moment recognised the psychological reflexes accompanying Envy, had he even remembered what Samuel Johnson, a century before the Fors Clavigera letters were written, had said on Envy, he would have had a better understanding of the evil he described so correctly in the last quarter of the nineteenth century.         When therefore we behold all the unwise and reckless benevolence and charity which in modern England is now undermining the will to work in the masses, and converting our prisons into second-rate boarding houses; when we see about us all the inevitable results of the concessions that have been made to popular self-indulgence and lack of self-restraint — the beginnings of which Ruskin clearly saw and which, as a speaker at the annual Conference of the Scottish Conservatives said, "Strikes at the character of our people and should be held responsible for the lack of parental control, the lowering of moral values and the increase of crime" (Times, 22.4.65) — when, I say, we recognise this state of affairs and observe how it discourages public spirit, responsibility and self-reliance in the population, are we entitled to infer that Envy must be rampant in England?         — It would appear to be the only conclusion possible. We have but to think of the endless spiral of wages which threatens to ruin our economy; the proverbial and universal passion to "keep up with the Jones's," and the way in which the incessant quarrels over so-called "differentials" repeatedly holds up industry and impedes production.         Regarding the very question of "Differentials" Baroness Wootton of Abinger remarked ten years ago: "It's twelve letters are an epitome of the acquisitive, competitive, hierarchical, envious nature of the Society in which we live." (Hibbert Journal, Jan. 1956).         Eight years before this statement was made, T. S. Eliot had declared that what caused the prevalence of envy in the population was "the disintegration of class" (Notes Towards The Definition of Culture, Chap. VI), by which he meant, I pre- - p. 178 - sume, the basing of the social hierarchy merely on differences of wealth.         Yet another famous poet had many years previously recognised the decisive rôle played by Envy in the sphere of politics and social reform: for early in the nineteenth century Tennyson had written:         "Envy wears the mask of love, and laughing                 Sober facts to scorn,         Cries to weakest as to strongest                 Ye are equals, equals born"         Another society which, like the modern English, measured worthiness chiefly according to possessions — I mean the ancient Romans — was so vulgar as to know of only one way of assessing even aristocratic and social superiority of any kind whatsoever, and that was by merely ascertaining, not what a man was, but how much he owned. And they were certainly the most envious among the nations of their day. Their literature testifies abundantly to this fact and Seneca, one of their most eminent thinkers, maintained in de ira, that "None can be happy while racked with envy of one happier."         "They were not indiscriminately benevolent!" — No! But they appeased their envy by watching the victims of their cruelty in the arena, and with free bread and circuses they certainly started the practice of Public Assistance.         The inevitable outcome of the form this attitude of mind takes in our Western civilisation is that it leads to the danger, recognised by Ruskin, that people become inclined to devote excessive interest and attention to those of their fellow creatures whose plight provokes pity. And on the extent to which this sentiment relieves their ache of envy, will depend the benevolence it inspires.         Consequently, it is not improbable that the largely unconscious promptings to unwise charity which incessantly operate to day throughout the Western World and particularly in England and America, to undermine the moral fibre and independent character of the masses, are but a further instance of the general lack of psychological insight which, as we have seen, is the peculiar infirmity of all Liberal societies.         In his English Social History (Chap. VI), G. M. Trevelyan maintains that, in the late sixteenth century Envy still exerted - p. 179 - no influence on English life, and it seems as if this halcyon condition endured until the dawn of our Capitalistic Civilisation, for Pope, in the early thirties of the eighteenth century still confined if to "the ignoble mind" alone (Essay on Man, Epistle II); whilst sixty years later Isaac Disraeli, in the Literary Character, was already calling attention to the Envy which even members of the nobility sometimes felt for the literary man. As I have myself had some unpleasant experiences of this kind of envy, I am able to vouch for the accuracy of Disraeli's remarks about it.         It can, however, hardly have failed to strike any observant student of modern life, that Envy is now among the most powerful and prevalent passions of Western society; and no one who sets out to investigate the deeper causes of much of the ill-judged and detrimental benevolence that prevails to-day, can hope to acquire a clear understanding of it unless he takes into account the factor I have described as the relief of the ache of envy that is obtained by the contemplation of any inferior human situation.         Let him follow to its logical conclusion the fact that Pity is easier than Envy, and he cannot fail to recognise how, in impulsive and largely unconscious people it may lead to unwise charity.         It would be quite unfair to hold the masses, whether of England or America, responsible for all these outrageous breaches of Public Spirit; for it is just as unreasonable to expect ordinary human beings to resist opportunities for personal profit which are foisted upon them by governments labouring under a false estimate of human nature, as it is to blame the populations of the West for the anarchy which resulted from their inability to distinguish sharply between Licence and the "Freedom" which they are constantly told constitutes their superiority over less fortunate nations. Equally mistaken, as I have already maintained, is the tendency to charge the epicene electorate with the errors of any past legislation which may have proved injurious to themselves, their country and their future. For how can an ill informed majority of epicene voters be expected to foresee the remote effect on themselves and posterity of measures they have been induced by competing demagogues to approve? Even if they were capable of always taking a long-term view of the policies submitted to their judgment, - p. 180 - such prescience would be beyond their powers. Crowds of ordinary people are not usually able or accustomed to take long-term views of changes they are called upon to sanction.         The palpable nonsense of one man one vote, of majority rights, and of the unilateral power of only a third of the Parliamentary triune originally envisaged by the English Constitution, coupled with the demagogic methods by which members of the Commons now reach their seats in the House, cannot be attributed to any deliberate or concerted action on the part of the populace themselves. But the worst misapprehension of all is to suppose that all this Liberal misunderstanding of human nature can possibly fail in the end to pervert and corrupt the nation and wipe out all the accumulated treasure in virtue and sanity which has been fostered and stored during former, more rational and more tasteful times.         Speaking of Capitalistic Civilisation, the Rev. V. A. Demant maintains and I think with justice, that "the whole development was a productive and commercial success as long as it rested upon a pre-capitalist layer which it eventually ate too far into to survive." (Religion and the Decline of Capitalism, Chap. IV).         On the same principle it is probable that the Civilisation of Liberalism may be said to be still resting on human qualities cultivated in bygone times and is likely to survive only so long as this store of virtue and ability remains not wholly corrupted and frittered away.

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