Evolution and Ethics, and Other Essays Part 13

. . . "For where wages are paid before the object of the labour is obtained, or is finished--as in agriculture, where ploughing and sowing must precede by several months the harvesting of the crop; as in the erection of buildings, the construction of ships, railroads, ca.n.a.ls, &c.--it is clear that the owners of the capital paid in wages cannot expect an immediate return, but, as the phrase is, must "outlay it" or "lie out of it" for a time which sometimes amounts to many years. And hence, if first principles are not kept in mind, it is easy to jump to the conclusion that wages are advanced by capital" (p. 44).

Those who have paid attention to the argument of former parts of this paper may not be able to understand how, if sound "first principles are kept in mind," any other conclusion can be reached, whether by jumping, or by any other mode of logical progression. But the first principle which our author "keeps in mind" possesses just that amount of ambiguity which enables him to play hocus-pocus with it. It is this; that "the creation of value does not depend upon the finishing of the product" (p. 44).

[184] There is no doubt that, under certain limitations, this proposition is correct. It is not true that "labour always adds to capital by its exertion before it takes from capital its wages" (p.

44), but it is true that it may, and often does, produce that effect.

To take one of the examples given, the construction of a ship. The shaping of the timbers undoubtedly gives them a value (for a shipbuilder) which they did not possess before. When they are put together to const.i.tute the framework of the ship, there is a still further addition of value (for a shipbuilder); and when the outside planking is added, there is another addition (for a shipbuilder).

Suppose everything else about the hull is finished, except the one little item of caulking the seams, there is no doubt that it has still more value for a shipbuilder. But for whom else has it any value, except perhaps for a fire-wood merchant? What price will any one who wants a ship--that is to say, something that will carry a cargo from one port to another--give for the unfinished vessel which would take water in at every seam and go down in half an hour, if she were launched? Suppose the shipbuilder's capital to fail before the vessel is caulked, and that he cannot find another shipbuilder who cares to buy and finish it, what sort of proportion does the value created by the labour, for which he has paid out of his capital, stand to that of his advances?

[185] Surely no one will give him one-tenth of the capital disbursed in wages, perhaps not so much even as the prime cost of the raw materials. Therefore, though the a.s.sertion that "the creation of value does not depend on the finishing of the product" may be strictly true under certain circ.u.mstances, it need not be and is not always true. And, if it is meant to imply or suggest that the creation of value in a manufactured article does not depend upon the finishing of that article, a more serious error could hardly be propounded.

Is there not a prodigious difference in the value of an uncaulked and in that of a finished ship; between the value of a house in which only the tiles of the roof are wanting and a finished house; between that of a clock which only lacks the escapement and a finished clock?

As ships, house, and clock, the unfinished articles have no value whatever--that is to say, no person who wanted to purchase one of these things, for immediate use, would give a farthing for either. The only value they can have, apart from that of the materials they contain, is that which they possess for some one who can finish them, or for some one who can make use of parts of them for the construction of other things. A man might buy an unfinished house for the sake of the bricks; or he might buy an incomplete clock to use the works for some other piece of machinery.

Thus, though every stage of the labour [186] bestowed on raw material, for the purpose of giving rise to a certain product, confers some additional value on that material in the estimation of those who are engaged in manufacturing that product, the ratio of that acc.u.mulated value, at any stage of the process, to the value of the finished product is extremely inconstant, and often small; while, to other persons, the value of the unfinished product may be nothing, or even a minus quant.i.ty. A house-timber merchant, for example, might consider that wood which had been worked into the ribs of a ship was spoiled--that is, had less value than it had as a log.

According to "Progress and Poverty," there was, really, no advance of capital while the great St. Gothard tunnel was cut. Suppose that, as the Swiss and the Italian halves of the tunnel approached to within half a kilometre, that half-kilometre had turned out to be composed of practically impenetrable rock--would anybody have given a centime for the unfinished tunnel? And if not, how comes it that "the creation of value does not depend on the finishing of the product"?

I think it may be not too much to say that, of all the political delusions which are current in this queer world, the very stupidest are those which a.s.sume that labour and capital are necessarily antagonistic; that all capital is produced by labour and therefore, by natural right, is the property of [187] the labourer; that the possessor of capital is a robber who preys on the workman and appropriates to himself that which he has had no share in producing.

On the contrary, capital and labour are, necessarily, close allies; capital is never a product of human labour alone; it exists apart from human labour; it is the necessary antecedent of labour; and it furnishes the materials on which labour is employed. The only indispensable form of capital--vital capital--cannot be produced by human labour. All that man can do is to favour its formation by the real producers. There is no intrinsic relation between the amount of labour bestowed on an article and its value in exchange. The claim of labour to the total result of operations which are rendered possible only by capital is simply an a priori iniquity.

[188]

V.

SOCIAL DISEASES AND WORSE REMEDIES

LETTERS TO THE "TIMES" ON MR. BOOTH'S SCHEME.

WITH A PREFACE AND INTRODUCTORY ESSAY.

[1891]

PREFACE

The letters which are here collected together were published in the "Times" in the course of the months of December, 1890, and January, 1891.

The circ.u.mstances which led me to write the first letter are sufficiently set forth in its opening sentences; and the materials on which I based my criticisms of Mr. Booth's scheme, in this and in the second letter, were wholly derived from Mr. Booth's book. I had some reason to know, however, that when anybody allows his sense of duty so far to prevail over his sense of the blessedness of peace as to write a letter to the "Times," on any subject of public interest, his reflections, before he has done with the business, will be very like [189] those of Johnny Gilpin, "who little thought, when he set out, of running such a rig." Such undoubtedly are mine when I contemplate these twelve doc.u.ments, and call to mind the distinct addition to the revenue of the Post Office which must have accrued from the ma.s.s of letters and pamphlets which have been delivered at my door; to say nothing of the unexpected light upon my character, motives, and doctrines, which has been thrown by some of the "Times'"

correspondents, and by no end of comments elsewhere.

If self-knowledge is the highest aim of man, I ought by this time to have little to learn. And yet, if I am awake, some of my teachers--unable, perhaps, to control the divine fire of the poetic imagination which is so closely akin to, if not a part of, the mythopoeic faculty--have surely dreamed dreams. So far as my humbler and essentially prosaic faculties of observation and comparison go, plain facts are against them. But, as I may be mistaken, I have thought it well to prefix to the letters (by way of "Prolegomena") an essay which appeared in the "Nineteenth Century" for January, 1888, in which the principles that, to my mind, lie at the bottom of the "social question" are stated. So far as Individualism and Regimental Socialism are concerned, this paper simply emphasizes and expands the opinions expressed in an address to the members of the Midland Inst.i.tute, delivered seventeen years earlier, [190] and still more fully developed in several essays published in the "Nineteenth Century" in 1889, which I hope, before long, to republish.*

* See Collected Essays, vol. i. p. 290 to end; and this volume, p. 147.

The fundamental proposition which runs through the writings, which thus extend over a. of twenty years, is, that the common a priori doctrines and methods of reasoning about political and social questions are essentially vicious; and that argumentation on this basis leads, with equal logical force, to two contradictory and extremely mischievous systems, the one that of Anarchaic Individualism, the other that of despotic or Regimental Socialism.

Whether I am right or wrong, I am at least consistent in opposing both to the best of my ability. Mr. Booth's system appears to me, and, as I have shown, is regarded by Socialists themselves, to be mere autocratic Socialism, masked by its theological exterior. That the "fantastic" religious skin will wear away, and the Socialistic reality it covers will show its real nature, is the expressed hope of one candid Socialist, and may be fairly conceived to be the unexpressed belief of the despotic leader of the new Trades Union, who has shown his zeal, if not his discretion, in championing Mr. Booth's projects.

[See Letter VIII.]

Yet another word to commentators upon my letters. There are some who rather chuckle, and [191] some who sneer, at what they seem to consider the dexterity of an "old controversial hand," exhibited by the contrast which I have drawn between the methods of conversion depicted in the New Testament and those pursued by fanatics of the Salvationist type, whether they be such as are now exploited by Mr.

Booth, or such as those who, from the time of the Anabaptists, to go no further back, have worked upon similar lines.

Whether such observations were intended to be flattering or sarcastic, I must respectfully decline to accept the compliment, or to apply the sarcasm to myself. I object to obliquity of procedure and ambiguity of speech in all shapes. And I confess that I find it difficult to understand the state of mind which leads any one to suppose, that deep respect for single-minded devotion to high aims is incompatible with the unhesitating conviction that those aims include the propagation of doctrines which are devoid of foundation--perhaps even mischievous.

The most degrading feature of the narrower forms of Christianity (of which that professed by Mr. Booth is a notable example) is their insistence that the n.o.blest virtues, if displayed by those who reject their pitiable formulae, are, as their pet phrase goes, "splendid sins." But there is, perhaps, one step lower; and that is that men, who profess freedom of thought, should fail to see and [192]

appreciate that large soul of goodness which often animates even the fanatical adherents of such tenets. I am sorry for any man who can read the epistles to the Galatians and the Corinthians without yielding a large meed of admiration to the fervent humanity of Paul of Tarsus; who can study the lives of Francis of a.s.sisi, or of Catherine of Siena, without wishing that, for the furtherance of his own ideals, he might be even as they; or who can contemplate unmoved the steadfast veracity and true heroism which loom through the fogs of mystical utterance in George Fox. In all these great men and women there lay the root of the matter; a burning desire to amend the condition of their fellow-men, and to put aside all other things for that end. If, in spite of all the dogmatic helps or hindrances in which they were entangled, these people are not to be held in high honour, who are?

I have never expressed a doubt--for I have none--that, when Mr. Booth left the Methodist connection, and started that organisation of the Salvation Army upon which, comparatively recently, such ambitious schemes of social reform have been grafted, he may have deserved some share of such honour. I do not say that, so far as his personal desires and intentions go, he may not still deserve it. But the correlate of despotic authority is unlimited responsibility. If Mr.

Booth is to take [193] credit for any good that the Army system has effected, he must be prepared to bear blame for its inherent evils. As it seems to me, that has happened to him which sooner or later happens to all despots: he has become the slave of his own creation--the prosperity and glory of the soul-saving machine have become the end, instead of a means, of soul-saving; and to maintain these at the proper pitch, the "General" is led to do things which the Mr. Booth of twenty years ago would probably have scorned.

And those who desire, as I most emphatically desire, to be just to Mr.

Booth, however badly they may think of the working of the organization he has founded, will bear in mind that some astute backers of his probably care little enough for Salvationist religion; and, perhaps, are not very keen about many of Mr. Booth's projects. I have referred to the rubbing of the hands of the Socialists over Mr. Booth's success;* but, unless I err greatly, there are politicians of a certain school to whom it affords still greater satisfaction. Consider what electioneering agents the captains of the Salvation Army, scattered through all our towns, and directed from a political "bureau" in London, would make! Think how political adversaries could be hara.s.sed by our local attorney--"tribune of the people," I mean; and how a troublesome man, on the other side, could be "hunted [194]

down" upon any convenient charge, whether true or false, brought by our Vigilance-familiar!**

* See Letter VIII.

** See Letter II.

I entirely acquit Mr. Booth of any complicity in far-reaching schemes of this kind; but I did not write idly when, in my first letter, I gave no vague warning of what might grow out of the organised force, drilled in the habit of unhesitating obedience, which he has created.

[195]

INTRODUCTORY ESSAY.

THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE IN HUMAN SOCIETY.

[1888].

The vast and varied procession of events, which we call Nature, affords a sublime spectacle and an inexhaustible wealth of attractive problems to the speculative observer. If we confine our attention to that aspect which engages the attention of the intellect, nature appears a beautiful and harmonious whole, the incarnation of a faultless logical process, from certain premises in the past to an inevitable conclusion in the future. But if it be regarded from a less elevated, though more human, point of view; if our moral sympathies are allowed to influence our judgment, and we permit ourselves to criticise our great mother as we criticise one another; then our verdict, at least so far as sentient nature is concerned, can hardly be so favourable.

In sober truth, to those who have made a study of the phenomena of life as they exhibited by the higher forms of the animal world, [196] the optimistic dogma, that this is the best of all possible worlds, will seem little better than a libel upon possibility. It is really only another instance to be added to the many extant, of the audacity of a priori speculators who, having created G.o.d in their own image, find no difficulty in a.s.suming that the Almighty must have been actuated by the same motives as themselves. They are quite sure that, had any other course been practicable, He would no more have made infinite suffering a necessary ingredient of His handiwork than a respectable philosopher would have done the like.

But even the modified optimism of the time-honoured thesis of physico-theology, that the sentient world is, on the whole, regulated by principles of benevolence, does but ill stand the test of impartial confrontation with the facts of the case. No doubt it is quite true that sentient nature affords hosts of examples of subtle contrivances directed towards the production of pleasure or the avoidance of pain; and it may be proper to say that these are evidences of benevolence.

But if so, why is it not equally proper to say of the equally numerous arrangements, the no less necessary result of which is the production of pain, that they are evidences of malevolence?

If a vast amount of that which, in a piece of human workmanship, we should call skill, is [197] visible in those parts of the organization of a deer to which it owes its ability to escape from beasts of prey, there is at least equal skill displayed in that bodily mechanism of the wolf which enables him to track, and sooner or later to bring down, the deer. Viewed under the dry light of science, deer and wolf are alike admirable; and, if both were non-sentient automata, there would be nothing to qualify our admiration of the action of the one on the other. But the fact that the deer suffers, while the wolf inflicts suffering, engages our moral sympathies. We should call men like the deer innocent and good, men such as the wolf malignant and bad; we should call those who defended the deer and aided him to escape brave and compa.s.sionate, and those who helped the wolf in his b.l.o.o.d.y work base and cruel. Surely, if we transfer these judgments to nature outside the world of man at all, we must do so impartially. In that case, the goodness of the right hand which helps the deer, and the wickedness of the left hand which eggs on the wolf, will neutralize one another: and the course of nature will appear to be neither moral nor immoral, but non-moral.

This conclusion is thrust upon us by a.n.a.logous facts in every part of the sentient world; yet, inasmuch as it not only jars upon prevalent prejudices, but arouses the natural dislike to that which is painful, much ingenuity has been exercised in devising an escape from it.

From the theological side, we are told that [198] this is a state of probation, and that the seeming injustices and immoralities of nature will be compensated by and by. But how this compensation is to be effected, in the case of the great majority of sentient things, is not clear. I apprehend that no one is seriously prepared to maintain that the ghosts of all the myriads of generations of herbivorous animals which lived during the millions of years of the earth's duration, before the appearance of man, and which have all that time been tormented and devoured by carnivores, are to be compensated by a perennial existence in clover; while the ghosts of carnivores are to go to some kennel where there is neither a pan of water nor a bone with any meat on it. Besides, from the point of view of morality, the last stage of things would be worse than the first. For the carnivores, however brutal and sanguinary, have only done that which, if there is any evidence of contrivance in the world, they were expressly constructed to do. Moreover, carnivores and herbivores alike have been subject to all the miseries incidental to old age, disease, and over-multiplication, and both might well put in a claim for "compensation" on this score.

On the evolutionist side, on the other hand, we are told to take comfort from the reflection that the terrible struggle for existence tends to final good, and that the suffering of the ancestor is paid for by the increased perfection of the progeny. There would be something in this argument if, in [199] Chinese fashion, the present generation could pay its debts to its ancestors; otherwise it is not clear what compensation the Eohippus gets for his sorrows in the fact that, some millions of years afterwards, one of his descendants wins the Derby. And, again, it is an error to imagine that evolution signifies a constant tendency to increased perfection. That process undoubtedly involves a constant remodelling of the organism in adaptation to new conditions; but it depends on the nature of those conditions whether the direction of the modifications effected shall be upward or downward. Retrogressive is as practicable as progressive metamorphosis. If what the physical philosophers tell us, that our globe has been in a state of fusion, and, like the sun, is gradually cooling down, is true; then the time must come when evolution will mean adaptation to an universal winter, and all forms of life will die out, except such low and simple organisms as the Diatom of the arctic and antarctic ice and the Protococcus of the red snow. If our globe is proceeding from a condition in which it was too hot to support any but the lowest living thing to a condition in which it will be too cold to permit of the existence of any others, the course of life upon its surface must describe a trajectory like that of a ball fired from a mortar; and the sinking half of that course is as much a part of the general process of evolution as the rising.

From the point of view of the moralist the [200] animal world is on about the same level as a gladiator's show. The creatures are fairly well treated, and set to fight--whereby the strongest, the swiftest, and the cunningest live to fight another day. The spectator has no need to turn his thumbs down, as no quarter is given. He must admit that the skill and training displayed are wonderful. But he must shut his eyes if he would not see that more or less enduring suffering is the meed of both vanquished and victor. And since the great game is going on in every corner of the world, thousands of times a minute; since, were our ears sharp enough, we need not descend to the gates of h.e.l.l to hear--

. . . sospiri, pianti, ed alti guai.

Voci alte e floche, e suon di man con elle