Though there is some recognition of the fact that men's judgments on social questions are distorted by their emotions, the recognition is extremely inadequate. Political passion, class-hatred, and feelings of great intensity, are alone admitted to be large factors in determining opinions. But, as above implied, we have to take account of emotions of many kinds and of all degrees, down to slight likes and dislikes. For, if we look closely into our own beliefs on public affairs, as well as into the beliefs of those around us, we find them to be caused much more by aggregates of feelings than by examina tions of evidence. No one, even if he tries, succeeds in pre venting the slow growth of sympathies with, or antipathies to, certain institutions, customs, ideas, &c.; and if he watches himself, he will perceive that unavoidably each new question coming before him, is considered in relation to the mass of convictions which have been gradually moulded into agree ment with his sympathies and antipathies.
When the reader has admitted, as he must if he is candid with himself, that his opinion on any political act or proposal is commonly formed in advance of direct evidence, and that he rarely takes the trouble to inquire whether direct evidence justifies it; he will see how great are those difficulties in the 136 THE STUDY OP SOCIOLOGY.
way of sociological science, which arise from the various emo tions excited by the matters it deals with. Let us note, first, the effects of some emotions of a general kind, which we are apt to overlook.
The state of mind called impatience is one of these. If a man swears at some inanimate thing which he cannot adjust as he wishes, or if, in wintry weather, slipping down and hurting himself, he vents his anger by damning gravitation; his folly is manifest enough to spectators, and to himself also when his irritation has died away. But in the political sphere it is otherwise. A man may here, in spirit if not in word, damn a law of nature without being himself aware, and without making others aware, of his absurdity.
The state of feeling often betrayed towards Political Econ omy exemplifies this. An impatience accompanying the vague consciousness that certain cherished convictions or pet schemes are at variance with politico-economical truths, shows itself in contemptuous words applied to these truths. Know ing that his theory of government and plans for social refor mation are discountenanced by it, Mr. Carlyle manifests his annoyance by calling Political Economy u the dismal science." And among others than his adherents, there are many belong ing to all parties, retrograde and progressive, who display re pugnance to this body of doctrine with which their favourite theories do not agree. Yet a little thought might show them that their feeling is much of the same kind as would be scorn vented by a perpetual-motion schemer against the principles of Mechanics.
To see that these generalizations which they think of as cold and hard, and acceptable only by the unsympathetic, are nothing but statements of certain modes of action arising out of human nature, which are no less beneficent than necessary, they need only suppose for a moment that human nature had opposite tendencies. Imagine that, instead of preferring to buy things at low prices, men habitually preferred to give high prices for them; and imagine that, conversely, sellers rejoiced in getting low prices instead of high ones. Is it not obvious that production and distribution and exchange, as suming them possible under such conditions, would go on in SUBJECTIVE DIFFICULTIES— EMOTIONAL. 137 ways entirely different from their present ways? If men went for each commodity to a place where it was difficult of production, instead of going to a place where it could be pro duced easily; and if instead of transferring articles of con sumption from one part of a kingdom to another along the shortest routes, they habitually chose roundabout routes, so that the cost in labour and time might be the greatest; is it not clear that, could industrial and commercial arrangements of any kinds exist, they would be so unlike the present ar rangements as to be inconceivable by us? And if this is un deniable, is it not equally undeniable that the processes of production, distribution, and exchange, as they now go on, are processes determined by certain fundamental traits in human nature; and that Political Economy is nothing more than a statement of the laws of these processes as inevitably resulting from such traits?
That the generalizations of political economists are not all true, and that some, which are true in the main, need qualifi cation, is very likely. But to admit this, is not in the least to admit that there are no true generalizations of this order to be made. Those who see, or fancy they see, flaws in politico- economical conclusions, and thereupon sneer at Political Economy, remind me of the theologians who lately rejoiced so much over the discovery of an error in the estimation of the Sun's distance; and thought the occasion so admirable a one for ridiculing men of science. It is characteristic of theo logians to find a solace in whatever shows human imperfec tion; and in this case they were elated because astronomers discovered that, while their delineation of the Solar System remained exactly right in all its proportions, the absolute dimensions assigned were too great by about one-thirtieth. In one respect, however, the comparison fails; for though the theologians taunted the astronomers, they did not venture to include Astronomy within the scope of their contempt — did not do as those to whom they are here compared, who show contempt, not for political economists only, but for Political Economy itself.
Were they calm, these opponents of the political economists would see that as, out of certain physical properties of things there inevitably arise certain modes of action, which, as gen- 138 THE STUDY OP SOCIOLOGY.
eralized, constitute physical science; so out of the properties of men., intellectual and emotional, there inevitably arise cer tain laws of social processes, including, among1 others, those through which mutual aid in satisfying wants is made pos sible. They would see that, but for these processes, the laws of which Political Economy seeks to generalize, men would have continued in the lowest stage of barbarism to the present hour. They would see that instead of jeering at the science and those who pursue it, their course should be to show in what respects the generalizations thus far made are untrue, and how they may be so expressed as to correspond to the truth more nearly.
I need not further exemplify the perturbing influence of impatience in sociological inquiry. Along with irrational hope so conspicuously shown by every party having a new project for the furtherance of human welfare, there habitually goes this irrational irritation in presence of stern truths which negative sanguine anticipations. Be it some way of remedy ing the evils of competition, some scheme for rendering the pressure of population less severe, some method of organiz ing a government so as to secure complete equity, some plan for reforming men by teaching, by restriction, by punish ment; anything like calm consideration of probabilities as estimated from experience, is excluded by this eagerness for an immediate result; and instead of submission to the neces sities of things, there comes vexation, felt if not expressed, against them, or against those who point them out, or against both.
That feelings of love and hate make rational judgments impossible in public affairs, as in private affairs, we can clearly enough see in others, though not so clearly in ourselves. Especially can we see it when these others belong to an alien society. France, during and since the late war, has furnished us almost daily with illustrations. The fact that while the struggle was going on, any foreigner in Paris was liable to be seized as a Prussian, and that, if charged with being a Prus sian, he was forthwith treated as one, sufficiently proves that hate makes rational estimation of evidence impossible. The marvellous distortions which this passion produces were SUBJECTIVE DIFFICULTIES— EMOTIONAL. 139 abundantly exemplified during the reign of the Commune; and yet again after the Commune was subdued. The " pre ternatural suspicion," as Mr. Carlyle called it, which charac terized conduct during the first revolution, characterized con duct during the late catastrophe. And it is displayed still. The sayings and doings of French political parties, alike in the Assembly, in the press, and in private societies, show that mutual hate causes mutual misinterpretations, fosters false in ferences, and utterly vitiates sociological ideas.
While, however, it is manifest to us that among our neigh bours, strong sympathies and antipathies make men's views unreasonable, we do not perceive that among ourselves sym pathies and antipathies distort judgments in degrees, not per haps so extreme, but still in very great degrees. Instead of French opinion on French affairs, let us take English opinion on French affairs — not affairs of recent date, but affairs of the past. And instead of a case showing how these feelings fal sify the estimates of evidence, let us take a case showing how they falsify the estimates of the relative gravities of evils, and the 'relative degrees of blame worthiness of actions.
Feudalism had decayed: its benefits had died out and only its evils had survived. While the dominant classes no longer performed their functions, they continued their exactions and maintained their privileges. Seignorial power was exercised solely for private benefit, and at every step met the unprivi leged with vexatious claims and restrictions. The peasant was called from his heavily-burdened bit of land to work gratis for a neighbouring noble, who gave him no protection in return. He had to bear uncomplainingly the devouring of his crops by this man's game; to hand him a toll before he could cross the river; to buy from him the liberty to sell at market — nay, such portion of grain as he reserved for his own use he could eat only after paying for the grinding of it at his seigneur's mill, and for having it baked at his bakehouse. And then, added to the seignorial exactions, came the exactions of the Church, still more mercilessly enforced. Town-life was shackled as much as country-life. Manufacturers were hampered by almost incredible restrictions. Government de cided on the persons to be employed, the articles to be made, the materials to be used, the processes to be followed, and the 140 THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY.
qualities of the products. State-officers broke the looms and burnt the goods that were not made according to law. Im provements were illegal and inventors were fined.1 " Taxa tion was imposed exclusively on the industrious classes, and in such a manner as to be an actual penalty on produc tion."* The currency had been debased to one seventy- third of its original value. " No redress was obtainable for any injury to property or person when inflicted by people of rank or court influence." 3 And the ruling power was upheld by "spies, false- witnesses, and pretended plots." Along with these local tyrannies and universal abuses and exasperat ing obstacles to living almost beyond belief, there had gone on at the governing centre maladministration, corruption, ex travagance: treasures were spent in building vast palaces, and enormous armies were sacrificed in inexcusable wars. Pro fuse expenditure, demanding more than could be got from crippled industry, had caused a chronic deficit. New taxes on the poor workers brought in no money, but only clamour and discontent; and to tax the rich idlers proved to be imprac ticable: the proposal that the clergy and noblesse should no longer be exempt from burdens such as were borne by tbe people, brought from these classes " a shriek of indignation and astonishment." Arid then, to make more conspicuous the worthlessness of the governing agencies of all orders, there was the corrupt life led by the Court, from the King downwards — France lying " with a harlot's foot on its neck." Passing over the various phases of the break-up which ended this intoler able state — phases throughout which the dominant classes, good- for-nothing and unrepentant, strove to recover their power, and, enlisting foreign rulers, brought upon France invading armies — we come presently to a time when, mad with anger and fear, the people revenged themselves on such of their past tor mentors as remained among them. Leagued, as many of these were, with those of their order who were levying war against liberated France — leagued, as many others were sup posed to be, with these enemies to the Republic at home and abroad — incorrigible as they proved themselves by their plot- tings and treacheries; there at length came down on them the September massacres and the Reign of Terror, during which nearly ten thousand of those implicated, or supposed to SUBJECTIVE DIFFICULTIES— EMOTIOXAL. 14J be implicated, were killed or formally executed. The Nemesis was sufficiently fearful. Lamentable sufferings and death fell on innocent as well as guilty. Hate and despair com bined to arouse an undistinguishing cruelty, and, in some of the leading actors, a cold-blooded ferocity. Nevertheless, rec ognizing all this — recognizing also the truth that those who wreaked this vengeance were intrinsically no better than those on whom it was wreaked — we must admit that the bloodshed had its excuse. The panic of a people threatened with re-imposition of dreadful shackles, was not to be won dered at. That the expected return of a time like that in which gaunt figures and haggard faces about the towns and the country, indicated the social disorganization, should excite men to a blind fury, was not unnatural. If they became frantic at the thought that there was coming back a state under which there might again be a slaying of hundreds of thousands of men in battles fought to gratify the spite of a King's concubine, we need not be greatly astonished. And some of the horror expressed at the fate of the ten thousand victims, might fitly be reserved for the abominations which caused it.
From this partially-excusable bloodshed, over which men shudder excessively, let us turn now to the immeasurably- greater bloodshed, having no excuse, over which they do not shudder at all. Out of the sanguinary chaos of the Revolu tion, there presently rose a soldier whose immense ability, joined with his absolute unscrupulousness, made him now general, now consul, now autocrat. He was untruthful in an extreme degree: lying in his despatches day by day, never writing a page without bad faith,4 nay, even giving to others lessons in telling falsehoods.6 He professed friendship while plotting to betray; and quite early in his career made the wolf-and-lamb fable his guide. He got antagonists into his power by promises of clemency, and then executed them. To strike terror, he descended to barbarities like those of the bloodthirsty conquerors of old, of whom his career reminds us: as in Egypt, when, to avenge fifty of his soldiers, he be headed 2,000 fellahs, throwing their headless corpses into the Nile; or as at Jaffa, when 2,500 of the garrison who finally surrendered, were, at his order, deliberately massacred. Even his own officers, not over-scrupulous, as we may suppose, were 142 THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY.
shocked by his brutality — sometimes refusing to execute his sanguinary decrees. Indeed, the instincts of the savage were scarcely at all qualified in him by what we call moral senti ments; as we see in his proposal to burn " two or three of the larger communes " in La Vendee; as we see in his wish to introduce bull-fights into France, and to revive the combats of the Roman arena; as we see in the cold-blooded sacrifice of his own soldiers, when he ordered a useless outpost attack merely that his mistress might witness an engagement! That such a man should have prompted the individual killing of leading antagonists, and set prices on their heads, as in the cases of Mourad-Bey and Count Frotte, and that to remove the Due d'Enghien he should have committed a crime like in its character to that of one who hires a bravo, but unlike by entailing on him no danger, was quite natural. It was natu ral, too, that in addition to countless treacheries and breaches of faith in his dealings with foreign powers, such a man should play the traitor to his own nation, by stamping out its newly-gained free institutions, and substituting his own mili tary despotism. Such being the nature of the man, and such being a few illustrations of his cruelty and unscrupulousness, contemplate now his greater crimes and their mo tives. Year after year he went on sacrificing by tens of thou sands and hundreds of thousands the French people and the people of Europe at large, to gratify his lust of power and his hatred of opponents. To feed his insatiable ambition, and to crush those who resisted his efforts after universal dominion, he went on seizing the young men of France, forming army after army, that were destroyed in destroying like armies raised by neighbouring nations. In the Russian campaign alone, out of 552,000 men in Napoleon's army left dead or prisoners, but few returned home; while the Russian force of more than 200.000 was reduced to 30,000 or 40,000: implying a total sacrifice of considerably more than half-a-million lives. And when the mortality on both sides by death in battle, by wounds, and by disease, throughout the Napoleonic campaigns is summed up, it exceeds at the lowest computation two mill ions.* And all this slaughter, all this suffering, all this dev astation, was gone through because one man had a restless desire to be despot over all men.
SUBJECTIVE DIFFIC ULTIES— EMOTIONAL.
What has been thought and felt in England about the two sets of events above contrasted, and about the actors in them? The bloodshed of the Revolution has been spoken of with words of horror; and for those who wrought it there has been unqualified hate. About the enormously-greater blood shed which these wrars of the Consulate and the Empire en tailed, little or no horror is expressed; while the feeling towards the modern Attila who was guilty of this bloodshed, is shown by decorating rooms with portraits and busts of him. See the beliefs which these respective feelings imply:— Over ten thousand deaths Two million deaths call for we may fitly shudder and la- no shuddering or lamenta- ment. tion.
As the two millions, inno cent of offence, were taken by force from classes already op pressed and impoverished, the slaughter of them need excite no pity.
There is nothing heart rending in the sufferings of the two millions who died for no crimes of their own or As the ten thousand were slain because of the tyrannies, cruelties, and treacheries, com mitted by them or their class, their deaths are very pitiable.
The sufferings of the ten thousand and of their rela tives, who expiated their own misdeeds and the misdeeds of their class, may fitly form sub jects for heart-rending stories and pathetic pictures.
their class; nor is there any thing pathetic in the fates of the families throughout Eu rope, from which the two mill ions were taken.
That one vile man's lust of power was gratified through the deaths of the two millions, greatly palliates the sacrifice of them.
That despair and the in dignation of a betrayed peo ple, brought about this slaugh ter of ten thousand, makes the atrocity without palliation.
These are the antithetical propositions tacitly implied in the opinions that have been current in England about the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars. Only by ac ceptance of such propositions can these opinions be defended. Such have been the emotions of men that, until quite recently, it has been the habit to speak with detestation of the one set of events, and to speak of the other set of events in words be- 144 THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY.
traying admiration. Nay, even now these feelings are but partially qualified. "While the names of the leading actors in the Reign of Terror are names of execration, we speak of Napoleon as "the Great," and Englishmen worship him by visiting his tomb and taking oft' their hats!
How, then, with such perverting emotions, is it possible to take rational views of sociological facts? Forming, as men do, such astoundingly-false conceptions of the relative amounts of evils and the relative characters of motives, how can they judge truly among institutions and actions, past or present? Clearly, minds thus swayed by disproportionate hates and admirations, cannot frame those balanced conclu sions respecting social phenomena which alone constitute Social Science.
The sentiment which thus vents itself in horror at bad deeds for which there was much excuse, while to deeds incom parably more dreadful and without excuse, it gives applause very slightly qualified with blame, is a sentiment which, among other effects, marvellously perverts men's political conceptions. This awe of power, by the help of which social subordination has been, and still is, chiefly maintained— this feeling which delights to contemplate the imposing, be it in military successes, or be it in the grand pageantries, the sound ing titles, and the sumptuous modes of living that imply su preme authority— this feeling which is offended by outbreaks of insubordination and acts or words of the kind called dis loyal; is a feeling that inevitably generates delusions respect ing governments, their capacities, their achievements. It transfigures them and all their belongings; as does every strong emotion the objects towards which it is drawn out. Just as maternal love, idealizing offspring, sees perfections but not defects, and believes in the future good behaviour of a worth less son, notwithstanding countless broken promises of amend ment; so this power-worship idealizes the State, as embodied either in a despot, or in king, lords, and commons, or in a re publican assembly, and continually hopes in spite of continual disappointments.
How awe of power sways men's political beliefs, will be perceived on observing how it sways their religious beliefs.
SUBJECTIVE DIFFICULTIES— EMOTIONAL. 145 We shall best see this by taking an instance supplied by a people whose religious ideas are extremely crude. Here is an abstract of a description given by Captain Burton: — " A pot of oil with a lighted wick was placed every night by the half-bred Portuguese Indians, before the painted doll, the patron saint of the boat in which we sailed from Goa. One evening, as the weather appeared likely to be squally, we observed that the usual compliment was not offered to the patron, and had the curiosity to inquire why. 'Why?' vociferated the tindal [captain], indignantly, 'if that chap can't keep the sky clear, he shall have neither oil nor wick from me, d— n him! ' ' But I should have supposed that in the hour of danger you would have paid him more than usual attention? ' ' The fact is, Sahib, I have found out that the fellow is not worth his salt: the last time we had an infernal squall with him on board, and if he does not keep this one off, I'll just throw him overboard, and take to Santa Caterina; hang me if I don't — the brother-in-law! ' " [brother-in-law, a common term of insult].7 By us it is scarcely imaginable that men should thus be have to their gods and demi-gods — should pray to them, should insult and sometimes whip them for not answering their prayers, and then should presently pray to them again. Let us pause before we laugh. Though in the sphere of religion our conduct does not betray such a contradiction, yet a contradiction essentially similar is betrayed by our conduct in the political sphere. Perpetual disappointment does not here cure us of perpetual expectation. Conceiving the State-agency as though it were something more than a cluster of men (a few clever, many ordinary, and some de cidedly stupid), we ascribe to it marvellous powers of doing multitudinous things which men otherwise clustered are un able to do. We petition it to procure for us in some way which we do not doubt it can find, benefits of all orders; and pray it with unfaltering faith to secure us from every fresh evil. Time after time our hopes are balked. The good is not obtained, or something bad comes along with it; the evil is not cured, or some other evil as great or greater is produced. Our journals, daily and weekly, general and local, perpetually find failures to dilate upon: now blaming, and now ridiculing, first this department and then that. And yet, though the rec tification of blunders, administrative and legislative, is a main part of public business — though the time of the Legislature is 11 14:6 THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY.
chiefly occupied in amending and again amending, until, after the many mischiefs implied by these needs for amendments, there often comes at last repeal; yet from day to day increas ing numbers of wishes are expressed for legal repressions and State-management. This emotion which is excited by the forms of governmental power, and makes governmental power possible, is the root of a faith that springs up afresh however often cut down. To see how little the perennial confidence it generates is diminished by perennial disappointment, we need but remind ourselves of a few State-performances in the chief State-departments.
On the second page of the first chapter, by way of illustrat ing Admiralty -mismanagement, brief reference was made to three avoidable catastrophes which had happened to vessels of war within the twelvemonth. Their frequency is further shown by the fact that before the next chapter was published, two others had occurred: the Lord Clyde ran aground in the Mediterranean, and the Royal Alfred was seven hours on the Bahama reef. And then, more recently still, we have had the collision of the Northumberland and Hercules at Funchal, and the sinking of a vessel at Woolwich by letting a 35-ton gun fall from the slings on to her bottom. That the au thorities of the Navy commit errors which the merchant service avoids, has been repeatedly shown of late, as in times past. It was shown by the disclosure respecting the corrosion of the Glutton's plates, which proved that the Admiralty had not adopted the efficient protective methods long used by pri vate shipowners. It was shown when the loss of the Ariadne's sailors made us aware that a twenty-six gun frigate had not as many boats for saving life as are prescribed for a passenger- ship of 400 tons; and that for lowering her boats there was 011 board neither Kynaston's apparatus nor the much better ap paratus of Clifford, which experience in the merchant service has thoroughly tested. It was shown by the non-adoption of Silver's governor for marine steam-engines; long used in pri vate steam-ships to save machinery from breakage, but only now being introduced into the Navy after machinery has been broken. On going back a little, this relative inefficiency of administration is still more strikingly shown: — instance the fact that during the Chinese expedition of 1841, a mortality at SUBJECTIVE DIFFICULTIES— EMOTIONAL. 147 the rate of three or four per day in a crew of three hundred, arose from drinking muddy water from the paddy-fields, though, either by boiling it or by filtering it through charcoal, much of this mortality might have been prevented; instance the fact that, within the memory of living officers (I have it from the mouth of one who had the experience), vessels of war leaving Deptford, filled their casks with Thames-water taken at ebb-tide, which water, during its subsequent period of putrefaction, had to be filtered through handkerchiefs before drinking, and then swallowed while holding the nose; or in stance the accumulation of abominable abuses and malversa tions and tyrannies which produced the mutiny at Spit- head. But, perhaps, as all such illustrations, the most striking is that which the treatment of scurvy furnishes. It was in 1593 that sour juices were first recommended by Al- bertus; and in the same year Sir R. Hawkins cured his crew of scurvy by lemon-juice. In 1COO Commodore Lancaster, who took out the first squadron of the East India Company's ships, kept the crew of his own ship in perfect health by lemon-juice, while the crews of the three accompanying ships were so disabled that he had to send his men on board to set