Now and then, in the course of the century, a great man of science, like Darwin; a great poet, like Keats; a fine critical spirit, like M. Renan; a supreme3 artist, like Flaubert, has been able to isolate4 himself, to keep himself out of reach of the clamorous5 claims of others, to stand ‘under the shelter of the wall,’ as Plato puts it, p. 2and so to realise the perfection of what was in him, to his own incomparable gain, and to the incomparable and lasting6 gain of the whole world. These, however, are exceptions. The majority of people spoil their lives by an unhealthy and exaggerated altruism—are forced, indeed, so to spoil them. They find themselves surrounded by hideous7 poverty, by hideous ugliness, by hideous starvation. It is inevitable8 that they should be strongly moved by all this. The emotions of man are stirred more quickly than man’s intelligence; and, as I pointed9 out some time ago in an article on the function of criticism, it is much more easy to have sympathy with suffering than it is to have sympathy with thought. Accordingly, with admirable, though misdirected intentions, they very seriously and very sentimentally10 set themselves to the task of remedying the evils that they see. But their remedies do not p. 3cure the disease: they merely prolong it. Indeed, their remedies are part of the disease.
They try to solve the problem of poverty, for instance, by keeping the poor alive; or, in the case of a very advanced school, by amusing the poor.
But this is not a solution: it is an aggravation12 of the difficulty. The proper aim is to try and reconstruct society on such a basis that poverty will be impossible. And the altruistic13 virtues15 have really prevented the carrying out of this aim. Just as the worst slave-owners were those who were kind to their slaves, and so prevented the horror of the system being realised by those who suffered from it, and understood by those who contemplated16 it, so, in the present state of things in England, the people who do most harm are the people who try to do most good; and at last we have had the spectacle of men who have really studied the problem p. 4and know the life—educated men who live in the East End—coming forward and imploring17 the community to restrain its altruistic impulses of charity, benevolence18, and the like. They do so on the ground that such charity degrades and demoralises. They are perfectly19 right. Charity creates a multitude of sins.
There is also this to be said. It is immoral20 to use private property in order to alleviate21 the horrible evils that result from the institution of private property. It is both immoral and unfair.
Under Socialism all this will, of course, be altered. There will be no people living in fetid dens22 and fetid rags, and bringing up unhealthy, hunger-pinched children in the midst of impossible and absolutely repulsive23 surroundings. The security of society will not depend, as it does now, on the state of the weather. If a frost comes we shall not have a hundred p. 5thousand men out of work, tramping about the streets in a state of disgusting misery24, or whining25 to their neighbours for alms, or crowding round the doors of loathsome26 shelters to try and secure a hunch27 of bread and a night’s unclean lodging28. Each member of the society will share in the general prosperity and happiness of the society, and if a frost comes no one will practically be anything the worse.
Upon the other hand, Socialism itself will be of value simply because it will lead to Individualism.
Socialism, Communism, or whatever one chooses to call it, by converting private property into public wealth, and substituting co-operation for competition, will restore society to its proper condition of a thoroughly29 healthy organism, and insure the material well-being30 of each member of the community. It will, in fact, give Life its proper basis and its proper p. 6environment. But for the full development of Life to its highest mode of perfection, something more is needed. What is needed is Individualism. If the Socialism is Authoritarian31; if there are Governments armed with economic power as they are now with political power; if, in a word, we are to have Industrial Tyrannies, then the last state of man will be worse than the first. At present, in consequence of the existence of private property, a great many people are enabled to develop a certain very limited amount of Individualism. They are either under no necessity to work for their living, or are enabled to choose the sphere of activity that is really congenial to them, and gives them pleasure. These are the poets, the philosophers, the men of science, the men of culture—in a word, the real men, the men who have realised themselves, and in whom all Humanity gains a partial p. 7realisation. Upon the other hand, there are a great many people who, having no private property of their own, and being always on the brink32 of sheer starvation, are compelled to do the work of beasts of burden, to do work that is quite uncongenial to them, and to which they are forced by the peremptory33, unreasonable34, degrading Tyranny of want. These are the poor, and amongst them there is no grace of manner, or charm of speech, or civilisation35, or culture, or refinement36 in pleasures, or joy of life. From their collective force Humanity gains much in material prosperity. But it is only the material result that it gains, and the man who is poor is in himself absolutely of no importance. He is merely the infinitesimal atom of a force that, so far from regarding him, crushes him: indeed, prefers him crushed, as in that case he is far more obedient.
Of course, it might be said that the p. 8Individualism generated under conditions of private property is not always, or even as a rule, of a fine or wonderful type, and that the poor, if they have not culture and charm, have still many virtues. Both these statements would be quite true. The possession of private property is very often extremely demoralising, and that is, of course, one of the reasons why Socialism wants to get rid of the institution. In fact, property is really a nuisance. Some years ago people went about the country saying that property has duties. They said it so often and so tediously that, at last, the Church has begun to say it. One hears it now from every pulpit. It is perfectly true. Property not merely has duties, but has so many duties that its possession to any large extent is a bore. It involves endless claims upon one, endless attention to business, endless bother. If property had simply pleasures, we could stand p. 9it; but its duties make it unbearable37. In the interest of the rich we must get rid of it. The virtues of the poor may be readily admitted, and are much to be regretted. We are often told that the poor are grateful for charity. Some of them are, no doubt, but the best amongst the poor are never grateful. They are ungrateful, discontented, disobedient, and rebellious39. They are quite right to be so. Charity they feel to be a ridiculously inadequate40 mode of partial restitution41, or a sentimental11 dole42, usually accompanied by some impertinent attempt on the part of the sentimentalist to tyrannise over their private lives. Why should they be grateful for the crumbs43 that fall from the rich man’s table? They should be seated at the board, and are beginning to know it. As for being discontented, a man who would not be discontented with such surroundings and such a low mode of life would be a perfect brute44. Disobedience, p. 10in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue14. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion. Sometimes the poor are praised for being thrifty45. But to recommend thrift46 to the poor is both grotesque47 and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less. For a town or country labourer to practise thrift would be absolutely immoral. Man should not be ready to show that he can live like a badly-fed animal. He should decline to live like that, and should either steal or go on the rates, which is considered by many to be a form of stealing. As for begging, it is safer to beg than to take, but it is finer to take than to beg. No: a poor man who is ungrateful, unthrifty, discontented, and rebellious, is probably a real personality, and has much in him. He is at any rate a healthy protest. As for the virtuous48 p. 11poor, one can pity them, of course, but one cannot possibly admire them. They have made private terms with the enemy, and sold their birthright for very bad pottage. They must also be extraordinarily49 stupid. I can quite understand a man accepting laws that protect private property, and admit of its accumulation, as long as he himself is able under those conditions to realise some form of beautiful and intellectual life. But it is almost incredible to me how a man whose life is marred50 and made hideous by such laws can possibly acquiesce51 in their continuance.
However, the explanation is not really difficult to find. It is simply this. Misery and poverty are so absolutely degrading, and exercise such a paralysing effect over the nature of men, that no class is ever really conscious of its own suffering. They have to be told of it by other people, and they often entirely52 disbelieve them. p. 12What is said by great employers of labour against agitators53 is unquestionably true. Agitators are a set of interfering54, meddling55 people, who come down to some perfectly contented38 class of the community, and sow the seeds of discontent amongst them. That is the reason why agitators are so absolutely necessary. Without them, in our incomplete state, there would be no advance towards civilisation. Slavery was put down in America, not in consequence of any action on the part of the slaves, or even any express desire on their part that they should be free. It was put down entirely through the grossly illegal conduct of certain agitators in Boston and elsewhere, who were not slaves themselves, nor owners of slaves, nor had anything to do with the question really. It was, undoubtedly, the Abolitionists who set the torch alight, who began the whole thing. And it is curious to p. 13note that from the slaves themselves they received, not merely very little assistance, but hardly any sympathy even; and when at the close of the war the slaves found themselves free, found themselves indeed so absolutely free that they were free to starve, many of them bitterly regretted the new state of things. To the thinker, the most tragic57 fact in the whole of the French Revolution is not that Marie Antoinette was killed for being a queen, but that the starved peasant of the Vendée voluntarily went out to die for the hideous cause of feudalism.
It is clear, then, that no Authoritarian Socialism will do. For while under the present system a very large number of people can lead lives of a certain amount of freedom and expression and happiness, under an industrial-barrack system, or a system of economic tyranny, nobody would be able to have any such freedom p. 14at all. It is to be regretted that a portion of our community should be practically in slavery, but to propose to solve the problem by enslaving the entire community is childish. Every man must be left quite free to choose his own work. No form of compulsion must be exercised over him. If there is, his work will not be good for him, will not be good in itself, and will not be good for others. And by work I simply mean activity of any kind.
I hardly think that any Socialist58, nowadays, would seriously propose that an inspector59 should call every morning at each house to see that each citizen rose up and did manual labour for eight hours. Humanity has got beyond that stage, and reserves such a form of life for the people whom, in a very arbitrary manner, it chooses to call criminals. But I confess that many of the socialistic views that I have come across p. 15seem to me to be tainted60 with ideas of authority, if not of actual compulsion. Of course, authority and compulsion are out of the question. All association must be quite voluntary. It is only in voluntary associations that man is fine.
But it may be asked how Individualism, which is now more or less dependent on the existence of private property for its development, will benefit by the abolition56 of such private property. The answer is very simple. It is true that, under existing conditions, a few men who have had private means of their own, such as Byron, Shelley, Browning, Victor Hugo, Baudelaire, and others, have been able to realise their personality more or less completely. Not one of these men ever did a single day’s work for hire. They were relieved from poverty. They had an immense advantage. The question is whether it would be for the good of Individualism p. 16that such an advantage should be taken away. Let us suppose that it is taken away. What happens then to Individualism? How will it benefit?
It will benefit in this way. Under the new conditions Individualism will be far freer, far finer, and far more intensified61 than it is now. I am not talking of the great imaginatively-realised Individualism of such poets as I have mentioned, but of the great actual Individualism latent and potential in mankind generally. For the recognition of private property has really harmed Individualism, and obscured it, by confusing a man with what he possesses. It has led Individualism entirely astray. It has made gain not growth its aim. So that man thought that the important thing was to have, and did not know that the important thing is to be. The true perfection of man lies, not in what man has, but in what man is. p. 17Private property has crushed true Individualism, and set up an Individualism that is false. It has debarred one part of the community from being individual by starving them. It has debarred the other part of the community from being individual by putting them on the wrong road, and encumbering62 them. Indeed, so completely has man’s personality been absorbed by his possessions that the English law has always treated offences against a man’s property with far more severity than offences against his person, and property is still the test of complete citizenship64. The industry necessary for the making money is also very demoralising. In a community like ours, where property confers immense distinction, social position, honour, respect, titles, and other pleasant things of the kind, man, being naturally ambitious, makes it his aim to accumulate this property, and goes on wearily and tediously p. 18accumulating it long after he has got far more than he wants, or can use, or enjoy, or perhaps even know of. Man will kill himself by overwork in order to secure property, and really, considering the enormous advantages that property brings, one is hardly surprised. One’s regret is that society should be constructed on such a basis that man has been forced into a groove65 in which he cannot freely develop what is wonderful, and fascinating, and delightful66 in him—in which, in fact, he misses the true pleasure and joy of living. He is also, under existing conditions, very insecure. An enormously wealthy merchant may be—often is—at every moment of his life at the mercy of things that are not under his control. If the wind blows an extra point or so, or the weather suddenly changes, or some trivial thing happens, his ship may go down, his speculations67 may go wrong, and he finds himself a poor p. 19man, with his social position quite gone. Now, nothing should be able to harm a man except himself. Nothing should be able to rob a man at all. What a man really has, is what is in him. What is outside of him should be a matter of no importance.
With the abolition of private property, then, we shall have true, beautiful, healthy Individualism. Nobody will waste his life in accumulating things, and the symbols for things. One will live. To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.
It is a question whether we have ever seen the full expression of a personality, except on the imaginative plane of art. In action, we never have. C?sar, says Mommsen, was the complete and perfect man. But how tragically68 insecure was C?sar! Wherever there is a man who exercises authority, there is a man who resists authority. C?sar was very perfect, p. 20but his perfection travelled by too dangerous a road. Marcus Aurelius was the perfect man, says Renan. Yes; the great emperor was a perfect man. But how intolerable were the endless claims upon him! He staggered under the burden of the empire. He was conscious how inadequate one man was to bear the weight of that Titan and too vast orb63. What I mean by a perfect man is one who develops under perfect conditions; one who is not wounded, or worried or maimed, or in danger. Most personalities69 have been obliged to be rebels. Half their strength has been wasted in friction70. Byron’s personality, for instance, was terribly wasted in its battle with the stupidity, and hypocrisy71, and Philistinism of the English. Such battles do not always intensify72 strength: they often exaggerate weakness. Byron was never able to give us what he might have given us. Shelley escaped better. Like Byron, he got out of p. 21England as soon as possible. But he was not so well known. If the English had had any idea of what a great poet he really was, they would have fallen on him with tooth and nail, and made his life as unbearable to him as they possibly could. But he was not a remarkable73 figure in society, and consequently he escaped, to a certain degree. Still, even in Shelley the note of rebellion is sometimes too strong. The note of the perfect personality is not rebellion, but peace.
It will be a marvellous thing—the true personality of man—when we see it. It will grow naturally and simply, flowerlike, or as a tree grows. It will not be at discord74. It will never argue or dispute. It will not prove things. It will know everything. And yet it will not busy itself about knowledge. It will have wisdom. Its value will not be measured by material things. It will have nothing. And yet it will have everything, and whatever p. 22one takes from it, it will still have, so rich will it be. It will not be always meddling with others, or asking them to be like itself. It will love them because they will be different. And yet while it will not meddle75 with others, it will help all, as a beautiful thing helps us, by being what it is. The personality of man will be very wonderful. It will be as wonderful as the personality of a child.
In its development it will be assisted by Christianity, if men desire that; but if men do not desire that, it will develop none the less surely. For it will not worry itself about the past, nor care whether things happened or did not happen. Nor will it admit any laws but its own laws; nor any authority but its own authority. Yet it will love those who sought to intensify it, and speak often of them. And of these Christ was one.
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1
undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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sordid
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| adj.肮脏的，不干净的，卑鄙的，暗淡的 | |
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supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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isolate
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| vt.使孤立，隔离 | |
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clamorous
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| adj.吵闹的，喧哗的 | |
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lasting
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| adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持 | |
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hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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sentimentally
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| adv.富情感地 | |
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sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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aggravation
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| n.烦恼，恼火 | |
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altruistic
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| adj.无私的，为他人着想的 | |
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virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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contemplated
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| adj. 预期的 动词contemplate的过去分词形式 | |
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imploring
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| 恳求的，哀求的 | |
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benevolence
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| n.慈悲，捐助 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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immoral
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| adj.不道德的，淫荡的，荒淫的，有伤风化的 | |
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alleviate
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| v.减轻，缓和，缓解(痛苦等) | |
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dens
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| n.牙齿，齿状部分；兽窝( den的名词复数 )；窝点；休息室；书斋 | |
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repulsive
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| adj.排斥的，使人反感的 | |
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misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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whining
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| n. 抱怨，牢骚 v. 哭诉，发牢骚 | |
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loathsome
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hunch
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lodging
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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well-being
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authoritarian
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| n./adj.专制(的)，专制主义者，独裁主义者 | |
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brink
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| n.(悬崖、河流等的)边缘，边沿 | |
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peremptory
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| adj.紧急的，专横的，断然的 | |
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unreasonable
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| adj.不讲道理的，不合情理的，过度的 | |
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civilisation
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| n.文明，文化，开化，教化 | |
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refinement
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| n.文雅；高尚；精美；精制；精炼 | |
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unbearable
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| adj.不能容忍的；忍受不住的 | |
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contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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rebellious
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| adj.造反的，反抗的，难控制的 | |
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inadequate
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| adj.(for,to)不充足的，不适当的 | |
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restitution
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| n.赔偿；恢复原状 | |
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dole
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| n.救济，（失业）救济金；vt.（out）发放，发给 | |
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crumbs
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| int. (表示惊讶)哎呀 n. 碎屑 名词crumb的复数形式 | |
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brute
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| n.野兽，兽性 | |
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thrifty
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| adj.节俭的；兴旺的；健壮的 | |
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thrift
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| adj.节约，节俭；n.节俭，节约 | |
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grotesque
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| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
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virtuous
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| adj.有品德的，善良的，贞洁的，有效力的 | |
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extraordinarily
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| adv.格外地；极端地 | |
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marred
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| adj. 被损毁, 污损的 | |
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acquiesce
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| vi.默许，顺从，同意 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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agitators
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| n.（尤指政治变革的）鼓动者( agitator的名词复数 )；煽动者；搅拌器；搅拌机 | |
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interfering
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| adj. 妨碍的 动词interfere的现在分词 | |
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meddling
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| v.干涉，干预（他人事务）( meddle的现在分词 ) | |
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abolition
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| n.废除，取消 | |
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tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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socialist
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| n.社会主义者；adj.社会主义的 | |
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inspector
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| n.检查员，监察员，视察员 | |
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tainted
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| adj.腐坏的；污染的；沾污的；感染的v.使变质( taint的过去式和过去分词 )；使污染；败坏；被污染，腐坏，败坏 | |
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intensified
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| v.（使）增强， （使）加剧( intensify的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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encumbering
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| v.妨碍，阻碍，拖累( encumber的现在分词 ) | |
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orb
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| n.太阳；星球；v.弄圆；成球形 | |
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citizenship
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| n.市民权，公民权，国民的义务(身份) | |
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65
groove
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| n.沟，槽；凹线，（刻出的）线条，习惯 | |
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66
delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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67
speculations
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| n.投机买卖( speculation的名词复数 )；思考；投机活动；推断 | |
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68
tragically
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| adv. 悲剧地，悲惨地 | |
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69
personalities
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| n. 诽谤，（对某人容貌、性格等所进行的）人身攻击； 人身攻击；人格, 个性, 名人( personality的名词复数 ) | |
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70
friction
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| n.摩擦，摩擦力 | |
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71
hypocrisy
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| n.伪善，虚伪 | |
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72
intensify
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| vt.加强；变强；加剧 | |
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73
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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74
discord
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| n.不和，意见不合，争论，（音乐）不和谐 | |
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75
meddle
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| v.干预，干涉，插手 | |
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