perpetual decimations; or accidental superiority over neigh- bouring tribes, may have led to the final subjugation and enslaving of these: in any of wliich cases the comparatively peaceful condition resulting, must have allowed progress to commence. Evidently, therefore, firom the very beginning, the conquest of one people over another has been, in the main, the conquest of the social man over the anti-social GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 41 7" man; or, strictly speaking, of the more adapted over the less adapted.
In another mode, too, the continuance of the unsympathetic character has indirectly aided civilization -whilst it has directly hindered it; namely, by giving rise to slavery. It has heen observed — and, as it seems, truly enough — that only by such stringent coercion as is exercised over men held in bondage, could the needful power of continuous application have been developed. Devoid of this, as from his habits of life the aboriginal man necessarily veas (and as, indeed, existing spe- cimens show), probably the severest discipline continued for many generations was required to make him submit contentedly to the necessities of his new state. And if so, the barbarous selfishness which maintained that discipline, must be considered as having worked a collateral benefit, though in itself so radi- cally bad.
Let not the reader be alarmed. Let him not fear that these admissions will excuse new invasions and new oppressions. Nor let- any one who fancies himself called upon to take Nature's part in this matter, by providing discipline for idle negroes or others, suppose that these dealings of the past will serve for precedents. Eightly understood, they will do no such thing. That phase of civiHzation during which forcible supplantings of the weak by the strong, and systems of savage coercion, are on the- whole advantageous, is a phase which spontaneously and necessarily gives birth to these things. It is not in pursuance of any calmly-reasoned conclusions respect- ing nature's intention that men conquer and enslave their fellows — it is not that they smother their kindly feelings to subserve ci-vilization; but it is that as yet constituted they care little what suffering they inflict in the pursuit of gratifica- tion, and even think the achievement and exercise of mastery honourable.; As soon, however, as there arises a perception that these subjugations and tyrannies are not right — as soon as the sentunent to which they are repugnant becomes sufficiently 418 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS.
powerful to suppress them, it is time for them to cease. The question altogether hinges upon the amount of moral sense possessed by men; or, in other -words, upon the degree of adaptation to the social state they have undergone. Uncon- sciousness that there is anything wrong in exterminating in- ferior races, or in reducing them to bondage, presupposes an almost rudiraentary state of men's sympathies and their sense of human rights. The oppressions they then inflict and submit to, are not, therefore, detrimental to their characters — do not retard in them the growth of the social sentiments, for these have not yet reached a development great enough to be offended by such doings. And hence the aids given to civihzation by clearing the earth of its least advanced inhabitants, and by forcibly compelling the rest to acquire industrial habits, are given without moral adaptation receiving any corresponding check. Quite otherwise is it, however, wlien the flagitiousness of these gross forms of injustice begins to be recognised. Then the times give proof that the old regime is no longjer fit. Further progi-ess cannot be made until the newly-felt wrong has been done away or diminished. Were it possible under such circumstances to uphold past institutions and practices (which, happily, it is not), it would be at the expense of a continual searing of men's consciences. The feelings whose predominance gives possibiHty to an advanced social state would be constantiy repressed — kept down on a level with the old arrangements, to the stopping of aU further progress; and before those who have grown beyond one of these proba- tionary states could re-iastitute it, they must resume that in- ferior character to which it was natural. Before a forced servitude could be again estabUshed for the industrial discipline of eight hundred thousand Jamaica blacks, the thirty miUions of English whites who established it would have to retrograde in all things — in truthfulness, fidehty, generosity, honesty, and even in material condition; for to diminish men's moral sense is to diminish their fitness for acting together, and, therefore GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 419 to render the best producing and distributing organizations impracticable. Another illustration this of the perfect economy of Nature. Whilst the injustice of conquests and enslavings is not perceived, they are on the whole beneficial; but as soon as they ai'e felt to be at variance with the moral law, the con- tinuance of them retards adaptation in one direction, more than it advances it in another: a fact which our new preacher of the old doctrine, that might is right, may profitably consider a little.
Contrasted as are their units, primitive communities and advanced ones must essentially differ in the principles of their structure. Like other organisms, the social organism has to pass in the course of its development through temporary forms, in which sundry of its functions are fulfiUed by appliances destined to disappear as fast as the ultimate appliances become efficient. Associated humanity has larval appendages analo- gous to those of individual creatures. As in the common Triton of our ponds, the external lungs or hranchise dwindle away when the internal lungs have grown to maturity; and as during the embryo stage of the higher vertebrata, temporary organs appear, serve their purpose awhile, and are subsequently re-absorbed, leaving only^igns of their having been; so, in the earlier forms of the body poUtic do there exist institutions which after answering their ends for a time are superseded and become extinct.
But deciduous institutions imply deciduous sentiments. De- pendent as they are upon popular character, established poli- tical systems cannot die out until the feeling which upholds them dies out. Hence during man's apprenticeship to the social state there must predominate in him some impulse corresponding to the arrangements requisite; which impulse diminishes as the probationary organization made possible by it, merges into the ultimate organization. The nature and operation of this impulse now demand oui- attention.
420 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS.
" I had so great a respect for the memory of Henry IV.," said the celebrated French robber and assassin, Cartouche, "that had a victim I was pursuing taken refuge under his statue on the Pont Neuf, I would have spared his life." An apt illustration, this, of the co-existence of profound hero-wor- ship with the extremest savageness, and of the means hero- worship affords whereby the savage may be ruled. The neces- sity for some such sentiment to bind men together whilst they are as yet unsympathetic, has been elsewhere shown. For the anti-social man to be transformed into the social man, he must live in the social state. But how can a society be maintained when, by the hypothesis, the aggressive desires of its members are destructive of it? Evidently its members must possess some counterbalancing tendency which shall keep them in the social state despite the incongruity — which shall make them submit to the restraint imposed — and which shall diminish as adaptation to the new circumstances renders restraint less needful. Such counterbalancing tendency we have in this same sentiment of hero-worship; a sentiment which leads men to prostrate themselves before any manifestation of power, be it in chief, feudal lord, king, or constitutional government, and makes them act in subordination to that power.
Facts illustrating this alleged connection between strength of hero-worship and strength of the aggressive propensities, together with other facts illustrating the simultaneous decline of both, were given when the matter was first discussed (p. 197). Now, however, we may appropriately examine the evidence in detail. The proposition is, that in proportion as the members of a community are barbarous, that is, in proportion as they show a lack of moral sense by seeking gratification at each other's expense, in the same proportion will they show depth of reverence for authority. What, now, are the several indica- tions of deficient moral sense? First on the list stands disre- gard of human life; next, habitual violation of pereonal liberty; GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 421 next to that, theft, and the dishonesty akin to it. Each of these, if the foregoing theory he true, we ought to find most prevalent where the awe of power is most profound.
Well, is it not a fact that grovelHng suhmission to despotic mle flourishes side hy side with the practice of human sacri- fices, infanticide, and assassination? We find suttees and thuggee amongst a race who have ever heen abject slaves. In some of the Pacific isles, where the immolation of children to idols, and the burying of parents alive, are common, " so high is the reverence for hereditary chieftainship that it is often connected with the idea of Divine power." Complete abso- lutism uniformly co-exists with cannibalism. We read of human hecatombs in connection with the extremest prostration of subjects to rulers. In Madagascar, where men are put to death on the most trifling occasions, and where the coast is decorated with skulls stuck on poles, the people are governed on the severest maxims of feudal law, by absolute chieftains under an absolute monarch. The head-hunting Djaks of Borneo have petty tyrants over them. There is autocratic government, too, for the bloodthirsty Mongolian races. Both positive and negative proof of this association is given by Mr. Grote, where he says, " In no city of historical Greece did there prevail either human sacrifices or deliberate mutilations, such as cutting off the nose, ears, hands, feet, &c., or castration, or selling of children into slavery, or polygamy, or the feeling of unlimited obedience towards one man; all of them customs, which might be pointed out as existing amongst the contem- porary Carthaginians, Egyptians, Persians, Thracians," &c. If we consult mediaeval history, there, along with loyalty strongly manifested, are the judicial combats, right of private war, con- stant wearing of arms, religious martyrdoms and massacres, &c., to prove that Ufe was held in less respect than now. Glancing over modem Europe, we find the assassinations of Italy, the cruelties of the Croats and Czecks, and the Aus- trian butcheries, illustrating the relationship. Whilst, amongst 422 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS.
ourselves, diminished reverence for authority has occurred simultaneously with diminished sanguinariness in our criminal code.
That infringements of personal liberty are greatest where awe of power is greatest, is in some sort a truism, seeing that forced servitude, through which alone extensive violations of human liberty can be made, is impossible, unless the sentiment of power- worship is strong. Thus, the ancient Persians could never have allowed themselves to be considered the private property of their monarchs, had it not been for the overwhelming influence of this sentiment. But that such submission is associated with a defect of moral sense, is best seen in the acknowledged- truth that readiness to cringe is accompanied by an equal readiness to tyrannize. Satraps lorded it over the people as their king over them. The Helots were not more coerced by their Spartan masters than these in turn by their oligarchy. Of the ser- vile Hindoos we are told that " they indemnify themselves for their passiveness to their superiors by their tyranny, cruelty, and violence to those in their power." During the feudal ages, whilst the people were bondsmen to the nobles, the nobles were vassals to their kings, their kings to the pope. In Eussia, at the present moment, the aristocracy are dictated to by their emperor much as they themselves dictate to their serfs.
And when to these facts we add the significant one elsewhere dwelt upon (pp. 161 and 178), that the treatment of women by tbeir husbands, and children by their parents, has been tyranni- cal in proportion as the seixihty of subjects to rulers has been extreme, we have sufficient proof that hero-worship is strongest where there is least regard for human freedom.
Equally abundant evidence exists that the prevalence of theft is similarly associated with a predominance of the loyalty-pro- ducing faculty. Books of travels give proof that amongst uncivilized races pilfering and the irresponsible power of chiefs co-exist. The same association of dishonesty and submissive- ness is found amongst more advanced peoples. It is so with GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 423 the Handoos, with the Cinghalese, and with the inhahitants of Madagascar. The piracy of the Malays, and of the Chinese, and the long- continued predatory hahits of tlie Arah races, hoth on land and sea, exist in conjunction with obedience to despotic rule. " One quaUty," says Kohl, "which the Lettes show, with all enslaved tribes, is a great disposition to thieving." The Eiussians, to whom worship of their emperor is a needful luxury, confess openly that they are cheats, and laugh over the confes- sion. The Poles, whose servile salutation is, " I throw myself under your feet," and amongst whom nobles are cringed to by the Jews and citizens, and these again by the people, axe certainly not noted for probity. Turning to the superior races, we find that they, too, have passed through phases in which this same relationship of characteristics was strongly marked. Thus, the times when fealty of serfs to feudal barons was strongest, were times of universal rapine. " In Germany a very large proportion of the rural nobility lived by robbeiy; " their castles being built with a special view to this occupation, and that even by ecclesiastics '^. Burghers were fleeced, towns were now and then sacked, and Jews were tortured for their money. Kings were as much thieves as the rest. They laid violent hands upon the goods of their vassals, like John of England and PliiUp Augustus of France; they cheated their creditors by debasing the coinage; they impressed men's horses without paying for them; and they seized the goods of traders, sold them, and pocketed a large part of the proceeds. Mean- time, whilst freebooters overran the land, pirates covered the sea, the Cinque Ports and St. Maloe's being the head quarters of those infesting the English Channel.
Between these days and ours, the gradual decline of loyalty — as shown in the extinction of feudal relationships, in tlie abandon- » " An Archbishop of Cologne having built a fortress of this kind, the goTemor inquired how he was to maintain himself, no revenue having been assigned for that purpose. The prelate only desired him to remark, that the castle was situated near the junction of four cross roads." — TlaUamss Middle Ages.
43-1 GENEKAL CONSIDERATIONS.
ment of di\'iue right of kings, in the reduction of monarchical power, and in the comparative leniency with which treason is now punished — has accompanied an equally gradual increase of honesty, and of regard for people's lives and liberties. By how much men are still deficient in respect for each other's rights, by so much are they still penetrated with respect for authority; and we may even trace in existing parties the constant ratio presei-ved between these characteristics. It has been shown, for instance, that the unskilled labourers of the metropolis, who, instead of entertaining violently democratic opinions, appear to have no poUtical opinions whatever, or, if they think at all, rather lean towards the maintenance of " things as they are," and part of whom (the coalwhippers) are extremely proud of their having turned out to a man on the 10th of April, 1848, and become special constables for the "maintenance of law and order" on the day of the great Chardst Demonstration, — it has been sho'UTi that these same unskilled labourers constitute the most immoral class. The Criminal-Eetums prove them to be nine times as dishonest, five times as drunken, and nine times as savage (shown by the assaults), as the rest of the community. Of like import is the observation respecting convicts, quoted and confirmed by Captain Maconochie, that " a good prisoner {«'. e. a submissive one) is usually a bad man."* If, again, we turn over the newspapers which circulate amongst court satellites, and chronicle the movements of the haut-ion, which ascribe national calamities to the omission of a royal title from a new coin, and which apologise for continental despots; we read in them excuses for war and standing armies, sneeiiags at " peace-mongers," defences of capital punishment, condemnations of popular enfranchisement, diatribes against freedom of exchange, rejoicings over territoiial robberies, and vindications of church-rate seizures: showing that, where belief in the sacredness of authority most lingei-s, belief in the sacred- ness of life, of hberty, and of property, is least displayed.
' See pamphlets on the Mark System of Discipline.
GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 426 The fact that, during civilizatioii, hero -worship and moral sense vary inversely, is simply the obverse of the fact already hinted, that society is possible so long only as they continue to do this. Where there is insufficient reverence for the Divine Law, there must be supplementary reverence for human law; otherwise there will be complete lawlessness or barbarism. Evidently, if men are to live together, the absence of internal power to rule themselves rightly towards each other, necessitates the presence of external power to enforce such behaviour as may mate association tolerable; and this power can become operative only by being held in awe. So that wild races deficient in the allegiance-producing sentiment cannot enter into a civilized state at aU.; but have to be supplanted by others that can. And it must further follow, that if in any community loyalty diminishes at a greater rate than equity increases, there will arise a tendency towards social dissolu- tion— a tendency which the populace of Paris threaten to illustrate.
How needful the continuance of a savage selfishness renders the continuance of a proportionate amount of power-worship, may be perceived daily. Listen to the chattings of men about their afifairs; examine into trade practices; read over business correspondence; or get a solicitor to detail his conversations with clients: — you will find that in most cases conduct depends, not upon what is right, but upon what is legal. Provided they "keep o' the windy side of the law," the great majority are but httle restrained by regard for strict rectitude. The question with your every-day man of the world is, not— May the claimant justly require thus much of me? but rather — "Is it so nomi- nated in the bond? " If " an action will he," such an one will commonly enough take proceedings to obtain what he knows himself not equitably entitled to; and if " the law allows it|pnd the court awai'ds it," will pocket aU he can get without scruple.
426 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS.
When we find doings like these regai-ded as matters of course, and those guilty of them passing for respectable men — when we thus find that so many will deal fairly by their fellows only on compulsion — we discover how requisite is tlie senti- ment fi-om which the compelling insti'umentahty derives its power.
Without doubt this sentiment has begotten many gigantic evils, some of which it still nurtures. The various superstitions that have prevailed, and that still prevail, as to the great things legislatures can do, and the disastrous meddlings growing out of these superstitions, are due to it. The veneration which produces submission to a government, unavoidably invests that government with proportionately high attributes; for being in essence a worship of power, it can be strongly drawn out to- wards that only which either has great power, or is believed to have it. Hence, the old delusions that rulers can fix the value of money, the rate of wages, and the price of food. Hence, the still current fallacies about mitigating distress, easing monetary pressures, and cming over-population by law. Hence, also, the monstrous, though generally-received doctiine, that a legislature may equitably take people's property to such extent, and for such purposes, as it thinks fit — for maintaining state-chm'ches, feed- ing paupers, paying schoolmasters, founding colonies, &c. And hence, lastly, the astounding belief that an act of parliament can abrogate one of Nature's decrees — can, for instance, render it criminal in a trader to buy goods in France, and bring them here to sell, wliilst the moral law saj's it is criminal to prevent him! As though conduct could be made right or wi-ong by the votes of some men sitting in a room in Westminster! Yet, in spite of all this — in spite of the false theories and mis- chievous interferences, the numberless oppressions, disasters, and miseries, in one way or other traceable to it, we must ad- mit that this power-worsliip has fulfilled, and does sdll fulfil, ^\5|?y ™Portant function, and that it may advantageously last as long as it can.
GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 427 That it cannot last longer than needfal may be readily proved. In a way equally simple and perfect it is made to decUne as fast as it can be done ■without. The very feeUng, during whose minority it exercises regency over men, becomes the destroyer of its power. Between the temporary ruler and the ultimate rightful one, there is an unceasing conflict, in which the wane of influence on the one side is necessitated by its growth on the other.
For, as already shown (p. 97), the sense of rights, by whose sympathetic excitement men are led to behave justly towards each other, is the same sense of rights by which they are prompted to assert their own claims — their own liberty of action — their own freedom to exercise their faculties, and to resist every encroachment. This impulse brooks no restraint, save that imposed by fellow feeUng; and disputes all assumption of extra privilege by whomsoever made. Consequently, it is in perpetual antagonism with a sentiment which dehghts in sub- serviency. " Eeverence this authority," suggests power-worship. " Why should I? who set it over me? " demands instinct of freedom. " Obey," whispers the one. " Rebel," mutters the other. " I will do what your Highness bids," says the one with bated breath. "Pray, sir," shouts the other, "who are you, that you should dictate to me?" "This man is Divinely ap- pointed to iTile over us, and we ought therefore to submit," argues the one. " I tell you, no," repUes the other; " we have Divinely-endorsed claims to freedom, and it is our duty to maintain them." And thus the controversy goes on: conduct during each phase of civihzation being determined by the re- lative strengths of the two feelings. Whilst yet too feeble to be operative as a social restraint, moral sense, by its scai'cely- heard protest, does not hinder a predominant hero-worship from giving possibility to the most stringent despotism. Gradually, as it grows strong enough to deter men fi'om the grosser tres- passes upon each other, does it also grow strong enough to 428 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS.
Struggle successfiilly against that excess of coercion no longer required. And when it shall finally have attained sufficient power to give men, by its reflex function, so perfect a regard for each other's rights as to make government needless; then will it also, by its direct function, give men so wakeful a jealousy of their own rights as to make government impossible. A further example, this, of the admirable simplicity of nature. The same sentiment which fits us for freedom, itself makes us fi-ee.