Chapter VII: , par. 4:--“There is not equal suffrage when every single (3)

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? [p162]

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 [p163] 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 [p164] 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 [p165] 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 [p166] 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 [p167] 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 [p168] 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 proportionate [p169] 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 [p170] 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 foodstuffs, 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 painstakingly [p171] 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 [p172] 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 [p173] 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 [p174] 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 semiconscious 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 [p175] 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 [p176] 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 æsthetic 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 [p177] 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 [p178] conditions;[34] 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 33: 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.]

[Footnote 34: 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.]

[p179] CHAPTER VIII

THE PHYSIOLOGY OF SOCIAL UNREST

“He caused the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service
of man; that he may bring forth food out of the earth; and wine that
maketh glad the heart of man ..... and bread which strengtheneth
man’s heart.”

Psalms, 104, 14, 15.

One day, perhaps, an enlightened generation of historians will arise, who will regard it as their mission to inform mankind concerning the repeated instances in the past when cherished romantic illusions alone--quite apart from economic conditions, the vagaries of monarchs, or the viciousness of laws--have led to disastrous upheavals, both national and universal, in the life of the race. History has not been studied sufficiently from the standpoint of ideology. The tyranny of the individual, whether monarch, statesman or rebel, still remains the obsession of our writers of national annals. We have yet to see a historical work in which the tyranny of an idea, of a principle, and particularly of an illusion, is traced with meticulous care throughout its manifold ramifications; and in which the national, or universal hero, be he soldier, politician or insurrectionist, is depicted realistically merely as the victim of that tyranny.

Such history would fail in its principal object if it were not understood to teach, among other things, the useful lesson that words and the ideas they embody, whether [p180] false or true, can become tyrants far more dangerous and heartless than any human despot has ever been, and if it did not sufficiently emphasise the fact that, a false idea that has been made a universal possession, and the representative term of which has become a household word, is frequently a scourge more terrible than any plague that has ever yet decimated the species.

A child will travel some distance and wear itself out in overcoming any number of obstacles, if it be started off in pursuit of some alluring object by someone whose word its experience has not yet taught it to doubt. The alluring object may be entirely mythical--no matter! Granted that the object has been made to appear sufficiently desirable, the child will pursue its quest, sometimes with heroic perseverance. But is there anyone prepared to maintain that the full-grown adult would behave any differently under the influence of similar inducements? Allowing for the difference between the minds of children and of adults, and postulating for the adult an object which, though quite as chimerical as that chosen for the child, is yet of a kind calculated to fire his imagination, does anyone really question whether the adult’s pursuit of it would be fully as eager and tenacious as that of the child?

Consider, for instance, the time-honoured method of obtaining votaries and adherents for any anti-social scheme. Certain states of mind or body are first posited by the agitators, or would-be reformers, as highly desirable; they are then shown to be unrealisable in the social scheme which it is [p181] proposed to destroy; and finally humanity is told that by destroying the social scheme already existing, those desirable states of mind or body will be procured and enjoyed. These hypothetical states of mind or body which are unrealisable in the social scheme selected for destruction may be entirely fantastic and unrealisable anywhere or how, but this objection the agitators do not trouble to discuss; all they say is: “Here we hold up before you certain desirable states of mind or body” (call them, if you will, “etherealness” and “imponderability,”--qualities that would enable those possessing them to overcome gravitation and all its concomittant inconveniences) “these desirable states of mind or body can be obtained only by breaking up certain traditions. Break up these traditions, and you will possess them.”

It will be seen at once that the examples chosen, “etherealness” and “imponderability,” are sufficiently extravagant to strike even the meanest intelligence as being absurd, and an anti-social agitator depending upon such desiderata alone would stand but a poor chance of gaining followers. Substitute the words representing these vaporous qualities, however, by another word which, though representing a quality equally illusory, nevertheless does not strike the average man immediately as being unrealisable, and the insidious operation of false desiderata straightway becomes evident.

Most honest political thinkers have realised by now, for instance, how visionary and unreal is the accepted notion of the reign of “Justice”--not the justice that is administered [p182] in our Courts of Law, or which we strive to exercise in daily life, but the _justice immanente_ of Gambetta, already discussed, in which natural inequalities and their accompanying disabilities and inconveniences will be for ever removed or neutralised. But the glaring impossibility of this desideratum, and the consequent meaninglessness of the word used to designate it, does not seem to hinder millions from declaring themselves ready to fight and to lose their blood and their lives in trying to effect its realisation. And the same may be said of the ideas embodied in the words “Liberty,” “Equality,” “Fraternity,” etc.

Given sufficient ingenuity in the agitator, therefore, it may be taken for granted that the grand method of fomenting social upheavals is: (1) to postulate a state of mind or body that is impossible in the society which it is intended to destroy--the fact that the particular mental or bodily state would be impossible in any society is either judiciously concealed, or else not known to the agitator; (2) to make the name for that particular state of mind or body a household word representing a universal desideratum; and (3) to exploit any existing disaffection, from whatever cause, in order to add momentum to the general desire to see this hypothetical state of mind or body realised by fair means or foul. In this way it is possible to make millions destroy opposing millions, and violence outrival violence, without anyone becoming aware, until too late, of the futility of the conflict and of the criminality of the hoax. Aye, in the exhaustion and confusion that [p183] follow, people are necessarily so busy overcoming the multifarious difficulties that the struggle has created, that frequently they have not even the time, much less the composure, to ask themselves whether they have really obtained that for which they destroyed their fellows, their own homes, and their civilisation. It is in this way that false ideas often escape condemnation and exposure.

The tyranny of words and the ideas they represent, whether sound or unsound, is therefore obvious enough; and, in the history of peoples it is the principal tyranny of all. Beside it the tyranny of individual monarchs is mere child’s play, and the deeds of a national hero only stage effect. Where the ideas have been false, however, where the desiderata striven and struggled for have been wholly chimerical, this tyranny stands for the most prodigious romanticism of human life,--a romanticism which, like all romanticism, has to be paid for very heavily, and the price of which is frequently the peace, happiness and order of centuries.

Now the extreme danger of the existing ideology of Europe and America is that it is full to bursting with romanticism precisely of this kind, and that in its catalogue of chimerical hopes, objects, and desiderata, there is also many a belief upon which it is impossible to base a sound code of conduct.

The romanticism of the ideology of Western Civilisation can be seen in no feature of modern life more plainly than in the manner in which modern man approaches the problems of his Age. The simple, the obvious, [p184] the elementary solution, the solution nearest to hand, is never the first to be tried; frequently it is not even selected. Western Society believes in machinery in every form, it therefore approaches even its problems mechanically--that is to say, with instruments which, far from being primitive or human, are frequently so thoroughly unfitted to deal with the social wants and ailments of the time (all essentially primitive and human in their nature) that they actually aggravate and complicate these ailments and wants.

Much of this superficiality in statesmanship is due, of course, not so much to the prodigious romanticism of the Age, as to the mediocrity of those whom democratic representation and Parliamentary methods bring to the fore. A majority must consist of mediocre people, and mediocre people cannot exercise judgment except in a mediocre way. The person selected by mediocrities to represent them must therefore be a man capable of appealing to such people, that is to say, a creature entirely devoid of genius either for ruling or for any other function. As a matter of fact, all he need possess is a third-rate actor’s gift for haranguing his electors about matters they can easily grasp, in language calculated to stimulate their emotions, and he must be guaranteed to hold or to express no original or exceptionally intelligent views.

As an instance of this mediocrity both of insight and initiative, observe the attitude of Western Governments to the phenomenon known as Social Unrest. It is either one of complete mystification, or else economic [p185] remedies alone are thought of and applied.[35] With the example of Bolshevik Russia before them, Western Governments have doubtless learnt this easy lesson, that a people who have enough to eat are immune against revolutionary doctrine, and therefore that all questions of grave domestic disorder are primarily physical. It might be imagined, however, that this first step in wisdom would have led them still further afield, and even directed their attention to some of its less obvious consequences. For, if Bolshevik Russia teaches that a well-fed proletariat does not rise in revolt, it also proves, by implication, that the condition of the human body is an all-important factor to be reckoned with in domestic troubles. _The unit in a population manifesting signs of acute unrest may therefore be examined to some purpose with a view to ascertaining his physical condition._

One of the most stubborn beliefs constituting the prodigious romanticism of modern times, is, however, a fatal obstacle in the road leading to this simple discovery; and this belief is that the physical condition of a man can be independent of his attitude of mind, and _vice versâ_. Apart from the one exception to this modern dogma, which has recently been learnt from Russia, and which is to the effect that starvation foments revolt, the modern mind is more or less convinced that the physical condition of a population is not a very important factor in determining their political opinions.

True enough, when we hear anyone make a false claim, or pronounce a harebrained statement, we may ask in jest, “Is he well?”; but not one of us latter-day Europeans, or any creature like us, is convinced that the question is relevant. Since we do not approach with suspicion any specimen of our literature, our poetry, our art, or our philosophy which hails from dyspeptics, cripples, dypsomaniacs, or drug-maniacs, how could we regard such a question as relevant? The absurd levity with which we deal with the physical side of our national life is only one proof of this. It required a great war to prove to our emotional and opportunist Prime Minister, Mr. Lloyd George, that the physical condition of the nation was indeed “appalling,” and it was only the work of the tribunals that brought home to him the extent of our national ill-health.[36] It may be presumed, therefore, that had not the Great War made the medical examination of our younger men necessary and imperative, our popular Premier would still be in ignorance concerning this all-important question.

Apart from actual starvation, therefore, no physical condition is regarded by modern man as an important factor in the etiology of a people’s mental attitude.

And yet we have in the acute social unrest of England alone, a curious phenomenon, sufficiently hard to explain merely on economic lines. For it is not confined to people who are underfed or who do not know where to-morrow’s loaf is coming from. It is not even rooted in them. We find it manifesting itself principally among well-paid and perfectly comfortable artisans and skilled workmen--nay, it actually originates and draws its greatest strength from these elements in the population. Here, then, is a problem which no amount of material improvement in living conditions would appear to hold out any promise of solving. And yet everyone believes--aye, even the restless proletarians themselves are prepared to swear--that the trouble is chiefly economic; while some of the capitalist class might suggest, in addition to economic causes, Bolshevist, German or Socialistic propaganda or gold.

In a previous chapter the present writer has hinted at a number of causes, not altogether obvious, which may lie at the bottom of modern proletarian unrest; he now wishes to discuss that which he regards as one of the principal and most fundamental causes; and that he suggests straightway is _ill-health and debility_.

A jaundiced view of life, a pessimistic outlook, and a general mood of dissatisfaction with all things, may possibly in one or two enlightened and profound thinkers, have a purely intellectual basis. In such men it may be the outcome of a dispassionate and laborious survey of modern conditions and modern aims, and constitute a considered judgment based upon the available data. When, however, it characterises a multitude, particularly a multitude consisting largely of people who never in any circumstances form anything but an emotional opinion on any matter, it is simply wanton prejudice [p188] and romanticism not to suspect and not to presuppose a partly physiological cause for the condition.

The fact that this cause is nowhere suspected, either by journalists, statesmen, Members of Parliament, or the working men of England themselves, does not make its operation any the less conspicuous; but it does show with what stubborn tenacity a false belief--a romantic belief particularly--clings to the minds of a people when once it has been sedulously inculcated upon them. For the fact that physiological causes are operating in the acute social unrest now prevailing in England alone, can be ascertained in two minutes by any one who wishes to examine this unrest at close quarters in the person of any workman representing it.

Any such investigator will discover very speedily that although the masses are probably adequately provided with food, as regards bulk, they are suffering from various forms of slight but sufficiently disturbing debility, owing to the two following causes:--

(_a_) The inferiority of a good deal of the food and drink they consume;

(_b_) Their gross ignorance regarding the proper way of preparing it.

Independent evidence pointing to the conclusion that food is at the bottom of the physiological causes of unrest, apart from an examination of that food itself, may be gathered from the appalling statistics of health recently published by the Ministry of National Service. The temptation in reading this report is to conclude that [p189] unhealthy urban and industrial conditions are the cause of the general debility, of which only the acute cases are noticed in the report. But the compilers of the document itself carefully warn the reader against this facile explanation of the trouble, and call attention to the fact that ill-health is also very great in rural districts. Now, short of a plague, an epidemic, or a condition of universal degeneration, the only factor that can possibly account for ill-health and debility being general both in urban and rural centres, is either food or climate, either of which is common to both kinds of population. Dismissing climate as having been a more or less constant factor, we are therefore left with food.

(_a_) Now it is the present writer’s conviction that much of the present debility of the masses, or at least enough of it to account for some discontent and disaffection, is to be ascribed to the inferiority of the foodstuffs they consume from their earliest infancy to the very end of their days.

In all cases where mothers cannot nurse their children, the trouble begins at the very dawn of life, and starts by disordering a system which is doomed to continuous disturbances until it can find ultimate release only in death. The Baby Welfare Centres recently established are all doing their utmost, it is true, to combat this evil, but they have to fight not merely against the ignorance of parents and of local doctors, but above all against the criminal unscrupulousness of commercial food proprietors. Everywhere advertisements are to be read concerning foods of which it is claimed [p190] that they are an adequate substitute for mother’s milk, and there is no law, no regulation, and no official system of instruction, to prevent ignorant mothers from being taken in by these means of publicity.

The organisations, small and inadequate as they are, which are attempting to fight this evil, are entirely the result of private enterprise. The Government of the country does nothing to secure infants against the double and pernicious operation of these two first enemies of life, Ignorance and its Commercial Exploitation. As growing children and adults, these infants continue under the debilitating influences of their earliest days by being fed on every kind of adulterated food, from impure bread to faked jam; and even when they have had the good fortune to have been reared at the breast, their regimen of inferior food in later life quickly undermines the solid basis of their constitutions.

_It is impossible without some expert knowledge or advice to obtain for love or money a pure loaf of bread in many parts of England to-day._

The fat that is eaten with that bread, and which together with the bread forms a most important part of the food of working-class children, _when it consists of vegetable margarine, is almost useless to the body_.

The various tinned fruits and meats (except perhaps tomatoes) which are also much favoured among working-class women, owing to the ease with which they can be prepared for table, also constitute inferior food, owing to the method by which they are canned. [p191]

The jams, far from containing pure fruit, frequently contain no fruit at all.

Add to this, that the liquor--tea--which is chiefly drunk with these inferior foods, is in every way deleterious, being neither a food, nor a tonic, nor even an innocuous means of quenching thirst; and debility, far from being an exceptional occurrence, would seem almost an inevitable static condition of our masses.

(_b_) But what commercial adulteration of food, and the commercial production of inferior food, may sometimes fail to accomplish, the ignorance of the working-class housewife usually manages to consummate in the secret privacy of her kitchen.

There every imaginable error is perpetrated, even in dealing with first-class foods, such as butcher’s meat and fresh vegetables; and the resulting deteriorated compounds only confirm, in the individual child or adult, a condition which by the adulteration of other foodstuffs we are doing our utmost to establish.

The ignorance among the female population of England, both rich and poor, regarding the _time_ during which meat or vegetables, or milk, or fruit, or fats, can safely be allowed to boil, or to stew, or to simmer, without losing every particle of goodness they ever possessed, is frankly astonishing. One wonders how an occupation such as cooking could possibly have remained by tradition in the hands of a particular sex for generations, without more knowledge, more wisdom--even more rule-of-thumb wisdom--having collected around it, than has collected around the domestic [p192] culinary practices of the British housewife.[37]

Not only is she ignorant of the right thing; she is deeply, firmly, self-righteously and aggressively convinced of the wrong. It is a compliment, an act of grace, to give your husband, your eldest daughter, or your visitor “a nice, strong cup of tea.” Mutton is nicest when it has been boiled to shreds in an effort to attain tenderness. Curries are stimulating even with twice or thrice cooked meat as their most substantial ingredient. Cabbages and, in fact, all greens, should never be eaten _raw_ (even the foolish local practitioner adds his mite of wisdom to the housewife’s in pronouncing this practice injurious to the digestion), though this is really the only form in which they are useful and palatable to the human organism; they must be boiled and boiled in water softened with soda, until the obnoxious steam produced by the process infects the whole house, and ultimately whole streets and neighbourhoods.

Repletion being the principal object aimed at, the means of effecting it are not considered too nicely, and adequate quantities are provided, which, however, can only gravely disorganise and disturb the alimentary canal of all those who cloy their appetites by means of them.

In adult life, in addition to strong tea, there also enters the further disturbing influence of impure beer or spirits; so that it is only with the most extreme good luck that any man, woman or youth in the working-classes, can maintain sufficient health to remain at their daily occupations, not to mention resist and throw off disease, enjoy life and keep good spirits.

No amount of tinkering at working-class children’s teeth, or of careful scientific medical treatment, can ultimately cope with the steady deterioration, which year in and year out is being caused by the incessant consumption of inferior or badly prepared food in poor homes; and yet it is in the highest degree romantic to suppose that by leaving this department of life alone, it will necessarily right itself.[38]

In fact, no belief in the whole ideology of “Democracy” is more pernicious and more crassly stupid than the belief that errors and false practices must in the end right themselves. The natural indolence of mankind in the mass very soon makes a supposed principle of this kind a popular and highly appreciated stand-by in the face of difficult problems, but it does not make it true. With the history of previous civilisations and races before us--civilisations and races which we are now convinced pursued error and false practices with the heartiest and most cheerful conviction to their ultimate doom--with the evidence of biology to hand, which shows us myriads of creatures, all the parasites in fact, having steadily descended from superior and more highly organised creatures, merely through having followed the line of least resistance, it is difficult to account for the prevalence of this utterly stupid notion that evils and errors tend to right themselves. For of this we can feel quite certain, that all those peoples and races who do in fact believe, and act on the belief, that their errors will right themselves, will suffer not only extinction in their culture and civilisation, but also ultimate evanescence in themselves.

Thus, as we have seen, quite apart from the inferiority of the raw material she has to deal with, the working-class woman no longer knows the simplest rule of sound culinary science, and whatever wisdom might still have survived by pure tradition in the kitchens of the poor, has been satisfactorily suppressed by the innovations of commerce and industry.

To deny that the existing food conditions have any bearing upon the spirit and therefore the temper and the outlook of the nation, is to support the doctrine that a man’s physical condition can be independent of his attitude of mind.

Nobody would claim that the peculiar virulence of modern Social Unrest is entirely to be accounted for by the debility of the masses, or that this debility is entirely due to faulty nourishment; but, on the other hand, it would be obviously absurd to attempt to put an end to Social Unrest without giving very serious attention to the people’s debility, or without examining one of its chief contributory causes, which is bad food. And any legislative measure, or economic readjustment or reform which [p195] is brought about without some drastic provisions calculated to meet this important factor in the trouble, is bound to end in failure.

The temperance movement is nothing more than a helpless and non-statesmanlike solution on Puritan lines of the liquor side of the food question. What is required is obviously not the abolition of fermented liquor, for that would be tantamount to depriving the people of a necessary foodstuff,[39] but such reforms in the liquor trade as will secure pure drinks to the masses of the nation.

It is the present writer’s conviction that if the Governments of Europe could secure absolutely pure bread and pure fermented drinks to their various peoples, the gravity of social unrest would immediately be relieved. Granted that pure bread and pure fermented liquor would only constitute a beginning (for there are numbers of other foodstuffs that are adulterated), nevertheless, it would be a good beginning; for bread is the principal food of the working classes, and a sound, healthy beverage added to it would go a long way towards rehabilitating their constitutions.

The fermented liquor recommended by the present writer would be the old English ale of pre-Puritan days, the ale which besides being free from the pernicious properties of hops, was made from pure _unboiled_ malt. The vice of modern beer does not consist only in the fact that it contains properties that are injurious to the human body, such as hops or the many harmful substitutes that are used instead of hops, and other ingredients[40]; but chiefly in the fact that it is prepared from boiled wort, that is to say, wort from which heat has removed all possible trace of the necessary _vitamines_ so valuable to health. The brewers’ objection to a re-introduction of the old ale of pre-Puritan England will of course be this, that it _will not keep_. But what does that matter? There are hundreds of foodstuffs that won’t keep. Does that justify our removing all their most vital properties in order to make them keep? Milk will not keep. Does that prevent it from being purveyed retail to every householder in England every day? The immense value of the old ale of England as a food and health-giving beverage ought alone to ensure its supersession over the utterly worthless “beer” that is universal at the present day[41]; and the fact that in combination with pure bread, it would restore to modern people the staple articles of diet of our mighty peasants of the Poictiers and Agincourt period, should be enough to recommend it.