SUBJECTIVE DIFFICULTIES— EMOTIONAL. 157 with this authority not to be gainsaid, he believes in a capacity not to be doubted. Whatever the governing body decides to do, can be done, is the postulate which lies hidden in the schemes of the most revolutionary reformers. Analyze the programme of the Communalists, observe what is hoped for by the adherents of the Social and Democratic Republic, or study the ideas of legislative action which our own Trades- Unionists entertain, and you find the implied belief to be that a Government, organized after an approved pattern, will be able to remedy all the evils complained of and to secure each proposed benefit.
Thus, the emotion excited by embodied power is one which sways, and indeed mainly determines, the beliefs, not only of those classed as the most subordinate, but even of those classed as the most insubordinate. It has a deeper origin than any political creed; and it more or less distorts the conceptions of all parties respecting governmental action.
This sentiment of loyalty, making it almost impossible to study the natures and actions of governing agencies with per fect calmness, greatly hinders sociological science, and must long continue to hinder it. For the sentiment is all-essential. Throughout the past, societies have been mainly held together by it. It is still an indispensable aid to social cohesion and the maintenance of order. And it will be long before social discipline has so far modified human character, that reverence for law, as rooted in the moral order of things, will serve in place of reverence for the power which en forces law.
Accounts of existing uncivilized races, as well as histories of the civilized races, show us a posteriori, what we might infer with certainty a priori, that in proportion as the mem bers of a society are aggressive in their natures, they can be held together only by a proportionately-strong feeling of un reasoning reverence for a ruler. Some of the lowest types of men, who show but little of this feeling, show scarcely any social cohesion, and make no progress — instance the Austra lians. Where appreciable social development has taken place, we find subordination to chiefs; and, as the society enlarges, to a king. If we need an illustration that where there is great 158 THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY.
savageness, social union can be maintained only by great loyalty, we have it among those ferocious cannibals, the Fi- jians. Here, where the barbarism is so extreme that a late king- registered by a row of many hundred stones the number of human victims he had devoured, the loyalty is so extreme that a man stands unbound to be knocked on the head if the king wills it: himself saying that the king's will must be done. And if, with this case in mind, we glance back over the past, and note the fealty that went along with brutality in feudal ages; or if, at the present time, we observe bow the least advanced European nations show a superstitious awe of the ruler which in the more advanced has become conven tional respect; we shall perceive that decrease of the feeling goes on, and can normally go on, only as fast as the fitness of men for social co-operation increases. Manifestly, throughout all past time, assemblages of men in whom the aggressive selfishness of the predatory nature existed without this feeling which induces obedience to a controlling power, dissolved and disappeared: leaving the world to be peopled by men who had the required emotional balance. And it is mani fest that even in a civilized society, if the sentiment of sub ordination becomes enfeebled without self-control gaining in strength proportionately, there arises a danger of social dissolution: a truth of which France supplies an illustra tion.
Hence, as above said, the conceptions of sociological phe nomena, or, at least, of those all-important ones relating to governmental structures and actions, must now, arid for a long time to come, be rendered more or less untrue by this perturb ing emotion. Here, in the concrete, may be recognized the truth before stated in the abstract, that the individual citizen, imbedded in the social organism as one of its units, moulded by its influences, and aiding reciprocally to re-mould it, fur thering its life while enabled by it to live, cannot so emanci pate himself as to see things around him in their real relations. Unless the mass of citizens have sentiments and beliefs in something like harmony with the social organization in which they are incorporated, this organization cannot continue. The sentiments proper to each type of society inevitably sway the sociological conclusions of its units. And among other senti- SUBJECTIVE DIFFICULTIES— EMOTIONAL. 159 monts, this awe of embodied power takes a large share in doing this.
How large a share it takes, we shall see 011 contemplating the astonishingly-perverted estimates of rulers it has produced, and the resulting perversions of history. Recall the titles of adoration given to emperors and kings; the ascription to them of capacities, beauties, powers, virtues, transcending those of mankind in general; the fulsome flatteries used when com mending them to God in prayers professing to utter the truth. Now, side by side with these, put records of their deeds through out all past times in all nations; notice how these records are blackened with crimes of all orders; and then dwell awhile on the contrast. Is it not manifest that the conceptions of State-actions that went along with these profoundly-untrue conceptions of rulers, must also have been profoundly untrue? Take, as a single example, King James, who, as described by Mr. Bisset in agreement with other historians, was " in every relation of life in which he is viewed...equally an object of aversion or contempt;" but to whom, nevertheless, the English translation of the Bible is dedicated in sentences be ginning—" Great and manifold were the blessings, most dread sovereign, which Almighty God, the Father of all mercies, bestowed upon us the people of England, when first He sent Your Majesty's Royal Person to rule and reign over us," &c., &c. Think of such a dedication of such a book to such a man; and then ask if, along with a sentiment thus expressing itself, there could go anything like balanced judgments of political transactions.
Does there need an illustration of the extent to which bal anced judgments of political transactions are made impossible by this sentiment during times when it is strong? We have one in the warped conceptions formed respecting Charles I. and Cromwell, and respecting the changes with which their names are identified. Now that many generations have gone by, and it begins to be seen that Charles was not worthy to be prayed for as a martyr, while Cromwell deserved treatment quite unlike.that of exhuming his body and insulting it; it begins to be seen also, how utterly wrong have been the inter pretations of the events these two rulers took part in, and how 160 THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY.
entirely men's sentiments of loyalty have incapacitated them for understanding those events under their sociological aspects. Naming this as an instance of the more special perverting effects of this sentiment, we have here chiefly to note its more general perverting effects. From the beginning it has tended ever to keep in the foreground of consciousness, the governing agent as causing social phenomena; and so has kept in the background of consciousness all other causes of social phe nomena — or rather, the one has so completely occupied con sciousness as to exclude the other. If we remember that his tory has been full of the doings of kings, but that only in quite recent times have the phenomena of industrial organi zation, conspicuous as they are, attracted any attention, — if we remember that while all eyes and all thoughts have been turned to the actions of rulers, no eyes and no thoughts have, until modern days, been turned to those vital processes of spontaneous co-operation by which national life, and growth, and progress, have been carried on; we shall not fail to see how profound have been the resulting errors in men's conclu sions about social affairs. And seeing this, we shall infer that the emotion excited in men by embodied political power must now, and for a long time to come, be a great obstacle to the formation of true sociological conceptions: tending, as it must ever do, to exaggerate the importance of the political factor in comparison with other factors.
Under the title of "Subjective Difficulties — Emotional," I have here entered upon an extensive field, the greater part of which remains to be explored. The effects of impatience, the effects of that all-glorifying admiration felt for military suc cess, the effects of that sentiment which makes men submit to authority by keeping up a superstitious awe of the agent exer cising it, are but a few among the effects which the emotions produce on sociological beliefs. Various other effects have now to be described and illustrated. I propose to deal with them in chapters on — the Educational Bias, the Bias of Patri otism, the Class-Bias, the Political Bias, and the Theological Bias.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE EDUCATIONAL BIAS.
IT would clear up our ideas about many things, if we dis tinctly recognized the truth that we have two religions. Primitive humanity has but one. The humanity of the re mote future will have but one. The two are opposed; and we who live midway in the course of civilization have to believe in both.
These two religions are adapted to two conflicting sets of social requirements. The one set is supreme at the beginning •; the other set will be supreme at the end; and a compromise has to be maintained between them during the progress from beginning to end. On the one hand, there must be social self- preservation in face of external enemies. On the other hand, there must be co-operation among fellow-citizens, which can exist only in proportion as fair dealing of man with man cre ates mutual trust. Unless the one necessity is met, the society disappears by extinction, or by absorption into some conquer ing society. Unless the other necessity is met, there cannot be that division of labour, exchange of services, consequent industrial progress and increase of numbers, by which a society is made strong enough to survive. In adjustment to these two conflicting requirements, there grow up two conflicting codes of duty; which severally acquire supernatural sanctions. And thus we get the two coexisting religions — the religion of enmity and the religion of amity.
Of course, I do not mean that these are both called religions. Here I am not speaking of names; I am speaking simply of things. Nowadays, men do not pay the same verbal homage to the code which enmity dictates that they do to the code which amity dictates — the last occupies the place of honour.
1G2 THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY.
But the real homage is paid in large measure, if not in the larger measure, to the code dictated by enmity. The religion of enmity nearly all men actually believe. The religion of amity most of them merely believe they believe. In some dis cussion, say, about international affairs, remind them of cer tain precepts contained in the creed they profess, and the most you get is a tepid assent. Now let the conversation turn on the " tunding " at Winchester, or on the treatment of Indian mutineers, or on the Jamaica business; and you find that while the precepts tepidly assented to were but nominally be lieved, quite opposite precepts are believed undoubtingly and defended with fervour.
Curiously enough, to maintain these antagonist religions, which in our transitional state are both requisite, we have adopted from two different races two different cults. From the books of the Jewish New Testament we take our religion of amity. Greek and Latin epics and histories serve as gos pels for our religion of enmity. In the education of our youth we devote a small portion of time to the one, and a large portion of time to the other. And, as though to make the compromise effectual, these two cults are carried on in the same places by the same teachers. At our Public Schools, as also at many other schools, the same men are priests of both religions. The nobility of self-sacrifice, set forth in Scripture- lessons and dwelt on in sermons, is made conspicuous every seventh day; while during the other six days, the nobility of sacrificing others is exhibited in glowing words. The sacred duty of blood-revenge, which, as existing savages show us, constitutes the religion of enmity in its primitive form — which, as shown us in ancient literature, is enforced by divine sanction, or rather by divine command, as well as by the opin ion of men — is the duty which, during the six days, is deeply stamped on natures quite ready to receive it; and then some thing is done towards obliterating the stamp, when, on the seventh day, vengeance is interdicted.
A priori, it might be thought impossible that men should continue through life holding two doctrines which are mutu ally destructive. But their ability to compromise between conflicting beliefs is very remarkable — remarkable, at least, if we suppose them to put their conflicting beliefs side by side; THE EDUCATIONAL BIAS. 163 not so remarkable if we recognize the fact that they do not put them side by side. A late distinguished physicist, whose science and religion seemed to his friends irreconcilable, re tained both for the reason that he deliberately refused to com pare the propositions of the one with those of the other. To speak in metaphor — when he entered his oratory he shut the door of his laboratory; and when he entered his laboratory he shut the door of his oratory. It is because they habitually do something similar, that men live so contentedly under this logically-indefensible compromise between their two creeds. As the intelligent child, propounding to his seniors puzzling theological questions, and meeting many rebuffs, eventually ceases to think about difficulties of which he can get no solu tions; so, a little later, the contradictions between the -things taught to him in school and in church, at first startling and inexplicable, become by-and-by familiar, and no longer attract his attention. Thus while growing up he acquires, in com mon with all around him, the habit of using first one and then the other of his creeds as the occasion demands; and at maturity the habit has become completely established. Now he enlarges on the need for maintaining the national honour, and thinks it mean to arbitrate about an aggression instead of avenging it by war; and now, calling his servants together, he reads a prayer in which he asks God that our trespasses may be forgiven as we forgive trespasses against us. That which he prays for as a virtue on Sunday, he scorns as a vice on Monday.
The religion of amity and the religion of enmity, with the emotions they respectively enlist, are important factors in so ciological conclusions; and rational sociological conclusions can be produced only when both sets of factors come into play. We have to look at each cluster of social facts as a phase in a continuous metamorphosis. We have to look at the conflicting religious beliefs and feelings included in this cluster of facts as elements in this phase. We have to do more. We have to consider as transitional, also, the conflict ing religious beliefs and feelings in which we are brought up, and which distort our views not only of passing phenomena in our own society, but also of phenomena in other societies and in other times; and the aberrations they cause in our in- 1G4 THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY.
fere rices have to be sought for and rectified. Of these two religions taught us, we must constantly remember that during civilization the religion of enmity is slowly losing strength, while the religion of amity is slowly gaining strength. We must bear in mind that at each stage a certain ratio between them has to be maintained. We must infer that the existing ratio is only a temporary one; and that the resulting bias to this or that conviction respecting social affairs is temporary. And if we are to reach those unbiassed convictions which form parts of the Social Science, we can do it only by allowing for this temporary bias.
To see how greatly our opposite religions respectively per vert sociological beliefs, and how needful it is that the opposite perversions they cause should be corrected, we must here con template the extremes to which men are carried, now by the one and now by the other.
As from antagonist physical forces, as from antagonist emotions in each man, so from the antagonist social tenden cies men's emotions create, there always results, not a medium state, but a rhythm between opposite states. The one force or tendency is not continuously counterbalanced by the other force or tendency; but now the one greatly predominates, and presently by reaction there comes a predominance of the other. That which we are shown by variations in the prices of stocks, shares, or commodities, occurring daily, weekly, and in longer intervals— that which we see in the alternations of manias and panics, caused by irrational hopes and absurd fears — that which diagrams of these variations express by the ascents and descents of a line, now to a great height and now to an equivalent depth, we discover in all social phenomena, moral and religious included. It is exhibited on a large scale and on a small scale — by rhythms extending over centuries and by rhythms of short periods. And we see it not only in waves of conflicting feelings and opinions that pass through societies as wholes, but also in the opposite excesses gone to by individuals and sects in the same society at the same time. There is nowhere a balanced judgment and a balanced action, but always a cancelling of one another by contrary errors: " men pair off in insane parties," as Emerson puts it. Some- THE EDUCATIONAL BIAS. lf,5 thing1 like rationality is finally obtained as a product of mu tually-destructive irrationalities. As for example, in the treatment of our criminals, there alternate, or co-exist, an un reasoning severity and an unreasoning lenity. Now we pun ish in a spirit of vengeance; now we pamper with a maudlin sympathy. At 110 time is there a due adjustment of penalty to transgression such as the course of nature shows us — an in flicting of neither more nor less evil than the reaction which the action causes.
In the conflict between our two religions we see this gen eral law on a great scale. The religion of unqualified altru ism arose to correct by an opposite excess the religion of un qualified egoism. Against the doctrine of entire selfishness it set the doctrine of entire self-sacrifice. In place of the aboriginal creed not requiring you to love your fellow-man at all, but insisting only that certain of your fellow-men you shall hate even to the death, there came a creed directing that you shall in no case do anything prompted by hate of your fellow-man, but shall love him as yourself. Nineteen cen turies have since wrought some compromise between these opposite creeds. It has never been rational, however, but only empirical — mainly, indeed, unconscious compromise. There is not yet a distinct recognition of what truth each extreme stands for, and a perception that the two truths must be co ordinated; but there is little more than a partial rectifying of excesses one way by excesses the other way. By these per sons purely-egoistic lives are led. By those, altruism is car ried to the extent of bringing on ill health and premature death. Even on comparing the acts of the same individual, we find, not an habitual balance between the two tendencies, but now an effort to inflict great evil on some foreign ag gressor or some malefactor at home, and now a dispropor- tioned sacrifice on behalf of one often quite unworthy of it. That altruism is right, but that egoism is also right, and that there requires a continual compromise between the two, is a conclusion which but few consciously formulate and still fewer avow.
Yet the untenability of the doctrine of self-sacrifice in its extreme form is conspicuous enough; and is tacitly admitted by all in their ordinary inferences and daily actions. Work, 166 THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY.
enterprise, invention, improvement, as they have gone on from the beginning1 and are going on now, arise out of the principle that among citizens severally having unsatisfied wants, each cares more to satisfy his own wants than to satisfy the wants of others. The fact that industrial activities grow from this root, being recognized, the inevitable implication is that unquali fied altruism would dissolve all existing social organizations: leaving the onus of proof that absolutely-alien social organi zations would act. That they would not act becomes clear on supposing the opposite principle in force. Were A to be care less of himself, and to care only for the welfare of B, C, and D, while each of these, paying no attention to his own needs, busied himself in supplying the needs of the others; this roundabout process, besides being troublesome, would very ill meet the requirements of each, unless each could have his neighbour's consciousness. After observing this, we must in fer that a certain predominance of egoism over altruism is beneficial; and that in fact no other arrangement would an swer. Do but ask what would happen if, of A, B, C, D, &c., each declined to have a gratification in his anxiety that some one else should have it, and that the someone else similarly persisted in refusing it out of sympathy with his fellows — do but contemplate the resulting confusion and cross-purposes and loss of gratification to all, and you will see that pure al truism would bring things to a deadlock just as much as pure egoism. In truth nobody ever dreams of acting out the altru istic theory in all the relations of life. The Quaker who pro poses to accept literally, and to practise, the precepts of Chris tianity, carries on his business on egoistic principles just as much as his neighbours. Though, nominally, he holds that he is to take no thought for the morrow, his thought for the morrow betrays as distinct an egoism as that of men in gen eral; and he is conscious that to take as much thought for the morrows of others, would be ruinous to him and eventually mischievous to all.
While, however, no one is entirely altruistic — while no one really believes an entirely altruistic life to be practicable, there continues the tacit assertion that conduct ought to be entirely altruistic. It does not seem to be suspected that pure altruism is actually wrong. Brought up, as each is, in the THE EDUCATIONAL BIAS. IfiY nominal acceptance of a creed which wholly subordinates egoism to altruism, and gives sundry precepts that are abso lutely altruistic, each citizen, while ignoring these in his busi ness, and tacitly denying them in various opinions he utters, daily gives to them lip-homage, and supposes that acceptance of them is required of him though he finds it impossible. Feel ing that he cannot call them in question without calling in question his religion as a whole, he pretends to others and to himself that he believes them — believes things which in his innermost consciousness he knows he does not believe. He professes to think that entire self-sacrifice must be right, though dimly conscious that it would be fatal.