MORAL EVOLUTION. Crown 8vo, gilt top, $2.00. INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS. i2mo, gilt top, $1.25. HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN, AND COMPANY BOSTON AND NEW YORK INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS BY GEORGE HARRIS PROFESSOR IN ANDOVKR THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY (Cfre fctoetfite $re#, 1897 COPYREGHT 1897 BY GEORGE HARRIS ALL RIGHTS RESERVED To J. A. H. CONTENTS CHAP. I. PREFATORY II. EXISTING AND EXPECTED EQUALITY III. EQUALITY BY BROAD COMPARISONS . . .14 IV. TYPES AND SOCIAL SELECTION ... 21 V. .ECONOMIC EQUALITY A CHIMERA . . 32 — VI. EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY: EDUCATION . 40 """"VTI. EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY: PURSUITS . .50 VIII. .A FAIR CHANCE 63 IX. VARIETY 69 <- * X. PROGRESS PRODUCES VARIETY ... 74 ' XL PROGRESS AND WANTS 82 * XII. VARIETY PRODUCES PROGRESS ... 87 ^ XIII. SUPERIORITY 90 ^ XIV. ARISTOCRACY AND DEMOCRACY . . . 95 ^ XV. RESENTMENT OF SUPERIORITY AND INFERIORITY 110 "~i XVI. Two KINDS OF DISCONTENT .... 116 -~ XVII. ADMIRATION AND INSPIRATION . . . 123 XVIII. THE PROGRESSION OF IDEALS .... 133 XIX. UNIQUENESS AND UNITY 146 XX. CHRISTIANITY AND INEQUALITY .... 155 -/ INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS X? PREFATORY EQUALITY is a charmed word. It fascinates re- formers. Prophets that watch for signs and por- tents as they that watch for the morning are almost unanimous in predictions of a widening social equality. When the word can no longer be used indiscriminately* it is still retained as defining an indispensable principle of progress. This and that necessary qualification may be granted ; it may be smitten on either cheek with staggering blows, but it is sure to come up sanguine and smiling. It has a charmed life. If it is pushed out of the door it comes back through the window. Almost every social theory gets it in somewhere, as a fun- damental condition of human welfare. A century ago there were many who advocated universal equality, by which they meant that all men should be equal in all respects. To-day there are many who advocate equalizing, not in all, but in certain 2 INEQUALITY AND PKOGKE&S respects, as the ideal state towards which society should move. They regard inequality as the chief obstacle to welfare and advancement. Against in^uality the heaviest guns of reform are pointed. S*iss5*3rrogress is thought to consist chiefly in a nearer Approach to political, economic, social, and intel- /lectual equality. Even when the difficulty of real- /izing it is recognized, the conviction remains strong that it is desirable, and that effort should con- l^stantly be directed towards gaining the little or the much that is attainable, — the more the better, — as though there could be no question in a sane mind that inequality is in itself a source of evil. There is undoubtedly some truth — possibly a half-truth — in an idea so persistent. But discrim- ination is needed in the use of a term which is capable of widely different applications, and which means much or little according to the context. I believe that a service may be rendered by go- ing back of various theories to certain fundamental facts of human nature and human development, and thus learning what may and what may not be taken for granted. Before social and political theories are constructed, primal truths concerning the constitution, inheritance, and differentiation of men should be recognized. It is often said that the historic sense should be cultivated by the leaders and reformers of society; that they should first PREFATORY 3 understand the development of the nations through the centuries of history. It might also be said that the ethnologic and anthropologic sense should be cultivated. As knowledge of history, going 1 back for a perspective, gives broader views which moderate expectation of sudden changes, so know- ledge of the laws of human selection and inherit- ance, which lie beneath the movements of history, corrects theories through adjustment of facts. The reader need not, however, be alarmed with apprehension of technical investigation and tiresome research, nor with threats of an excursion into pre- historic times. This small volume is not a scien- tific, a philosophical, nor an economic essay. The facts to be considered are patent to the observation of all. The rnflthod ifl ftrnpirinfy^ ppf. illustrative, not theoretical. Science and philo- sophy are drawn upon so far as they serve the pur- poses of the discussion. Social changes which have occurred, and social programmes which are pro- posed, are frequently mentioned. But the book is no more nor less than a series of observations and reflections which, from various points of view, ex- hibit the variety and the unity of men. I am not concerned about the applications of my conclusions to social schemes. It may be that those who cling to equality as a watchword will find support in the facts and tendencies pointed 4 INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS out in the following pages. It may be that some modification of theories of equality is the more natural application. But the bearing of my opin- ions on particular theories is only illustrative and in- cidental. Least of all do I undertake to construct a definite and complete programme of the coming society. Ignorance alone has confidence enough to attempt that which is possible only to omni- science. Yet certain lines can be traced down the past and into the present clearly enough to show the general direction they will probably take in the future. The title of the book is chosen, not as a chal- lenge exactly, but as the most convenient designa- tion to set against certain errors which are mixed up with notions of equality, and to indicate where the emphasis of the discussion lies. If the title were expanded to define the purpose of the book ^x precisely, it would run: inequality, a condition of • progress : but that is too long a title for so small a book, and is sufficiently implied in the more general statement. Although the negative term, inequality, does not cover the positive and con- structive portions of the book, it is a truthful sign- board planted at the entrance of a path which will pass in due time from the lower levels of criticism to the higher levels of progress. II EXISTING AND EXPECTED EQUALITY THERE is an essential equality of men which already exists. By constitution all are alike or equal in those endowments which make them hu- man beings as distinguished from animals, as wilt appear more fully in the next section. In civilized countries all citizens have certain rights and privi- leges which have been acquired in the course of history. It is believed by many, and may be con- ceded, that the betterment of men hitherto has co- incided with those equalizing processes which have occurred./ It is also believed, but is not necessa- rily conceded, that further progress depends on a j nearer approach to equality in certain respects. ^ " Existing equality is commonly and conveniently - defined as civil and political. That which is yet to be gained is now most frequently defined as equality of opportunity, although some expect more than that, even complete equality. This is a rather broad generalization, yet the line of division is distinct enough to be seen. On one side, the side of civil and political equality, there is the protec- 6 INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS tion of law and the right to vote for rulers and measures, without any distinction of persons. On the other side, the side of opportunity, are econo- mic, intellectual, and social conditions, and on that side there are marked distinctions of possessions, class, and culture. On the hither side of citizen- ship, equality exists. On the yonder side of mate- rial conditions, education and leisure for enjoyment and improvement, decided inequality exists. There are many who maintain that on that yonder side .effort should be made to produce a nearer approach ,to equality, if not of actual possession and enjoy- ^nent, at least of opportunity to enjoy and pos- •? sess. Still further, many believe that from the van- tage-ground of existing civil and political equality the opening of opportunity is to be widened. The leverage of suffrage is to be employed for prying open closed doors of privilege. In a word, demo- cracy can and should direct its power towards those i material, educational, aesthetic, and social values i which are now exclusive by monopoly of the few, and should bring them within the reach of all who have the desire and the will to enjoy them. The belief is entertained that, should all doors of op- portunity be opened, should those restrictions of poverty, of enforced idleness, of inadequate remu- U neration, and of ignorance which hold many in EXISTING AND EXPECTED EQUALITY 7 slavery be removed, should all men be liberated so that no opportunities of labor, skill, or knowledge are closed to them, should there be no grant of monopolies to favored individuals, should adventi- tious advantages of birth and culture be swept away, society would make enormous advance to- wards essential equality. The throwing open of all doors of opportunity would, it is imagined, so V greatly diminish difference of circumstance that I eventually differences j>l culture would be^greatly * reduced. Various methods for the overthrow of barriers and 'the leveling of circumstance are proposed. Collective production and sharing of material goods is a method which has many advocates. Equalling of work and of wealth would, they be- lieve, remove the chief obstacles which now with-( hold from the vast majority of men opportunities' of enjoyment and culture. Material goods are not regarded as an end in themselves, but only as a means to the real objects of life. Those who ex- pend all their energy in toiling for bare subsist- ence are shut off from the higher values to which all men are entitled. The first step is a readjust- ment of the economic system, in order that all may have sufficient maintenance and sufficient leisure for 4^ gaining intellectual and aesthetic culture. Advocacy of collectivism employs argument and statistics in 8 INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS economic treatises, and employs imagination in the novel to exhibit the state of society under such widening of opportunity. This method will come forward for consideration a little later. It is indi- cated here only in order to define or at least to suggest the equality which is demanded by one school of socialists. Another school, which has already been mentioned, does not demand equal possession of material goods, but does demand equal opportunity to gain them under the incen- tive of obtaining thereby the higher values which are possible to the wealthy and the well to do. As a designation, social democracy is preferred to socialism or collectivism, since it suggests social more than economic values, and indicates that democracy is the power by which opportunities of all kinds can be equalized. "We must linger a moment to recognize the actual equality which has been roughly characterized as civil and political. Equal rights and equal votes are the outcome of a long process of history which cannot here be traced. If it were followed out, we should be carried back to the transition from the tribe to the State, from the tribe which was a compact whole made up of men who were not re- garded as individuals having rights of their ow.n, to the State, appearing in Greece and developed in Rome, in which there was law establishing EXISTING AND EXPECTED EQUALITY the rights of persons as persons, and, after many vicissitudes, reappearing in the modern State, which does not, like the ancient State, consist of a central class of freemen with a penumbra of slaves, but includes all and every of the individuals who occupy its territory ; we should be carried back to Judaism with its one personal God requiring the obedience of every person whether freeman or slave, and to Christianity, which recognizes all men as sons of God and as beings of immortal worth, thus stamping every man, even the lowest,- with individuality and infinite worth; we should be led along the history o£ Christendom, and should see, even in the darkness of the Middle Ages, and even in the monastery with its emphasis on the salvation of the individual and its disre- gard of earthly rank and station, a prolonged insistence on the worth of every person ; we should follow the course of the Protestant Keformation with its doctrine of justification by the faith of the individual ; we should perceive the influence of the Church holding its belief in the value of every person, upon the State emerging into democracy. There is no dispute about all this. The essential, even the infinite worth of every individual, is the assumption of Christianity from the first until now. The inclusion of every individual and his right to protection and freedom is the assumption of de- 10 INEQUALITY AND PEOGRESS , mocracy. To civil and political should therefore be added religious equality. Upon the latter, in- \ deed, the former is based. Beside this essential equality of men made in the image of God, capable of knowing him and loving him, and capable of citizenship, of self- government in national life, any other differentia- tions may seem of too slight importance to be re- garded. Yet it is to those other differentiations still existing in society that the exigent demands of social reformers are directed. And it is to the humbler task of recognizing and estimating some of those differentiations that this brief treatise is devoted. An American freeman compared with a Roman slave has vast advantage, and seems, as he is, a very different person. Yet considerable contrast is apparent when American voters are compared with one another. A Christian, know- ing God as his Father and himself as an immortal being, and realizing the law of love in his life, compared with a superstitious or skeptical pagan of antiquity, with the Brahmin longing for extinc- tion of personal being, and with fetich worshipers of Africa, has immense advantage, and seems, as he is, a very different person. Yet considerable variations are apparent when Christians are com- pared with one another. The vast advantage of an American workman over a Roman slave does EXISTING AND EXPECTED not obliterate the contrast between a modern wage- earner and the capitalist who employs him. The advantage of any Christian over any pagan, of an uncultivated Christian over a cultivated pagan, does not efface the difference between a Christian— laborer and his Christian employer who may read the same Bible and worship in the same church, and may do so in spirit and in truth, yet otherwise are marked by wide differences of possession, culture, tastes, and enjoyments. The existence of differentiations in modern democratic Christian society upon the basis of that individuality, that citizenship, and that worth as sons of God which all men have, and which have been realized by the toil and struggle of centuries, is not in question. There are wide contrasts of intellect, taste, and i culture, and of material conditions. To these our attention is turned, yes, is challenged by the de- mand for equality of opportunity. I would not in the least minimize them merely because in com- parison with the common human nature and hu- man rights they may seem to be of little conse- quence, nor because the contemporaneous are less than the historical differences of men. Indeed, it is my purpose to show that inequalities are so con- jj stitutional and persistent that the hope of progress cannot lie in the expectation of obliterating or greatly reducing them, but lies in the expectation 12 INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS of uj^Kzmg and harmonizing them. At all events, the differences which actually exist amongst the citizens of the modern State and amongst the chil- dren of God are the occasion of debated and debatable social theories. The demand for equal- ity of opportunity is the demand for a reduction of some. of those differences. The assumption is made that such equalizing is unquestionably the condition of human betterment and progress. Pro- gress is believed to consist chiefly in a nearer ap- proach to economic, social, and intellectual equality. This assumption I make bold to question. The structure of social reform is, I believe, built on the sand, if equality, in any right or intelligible meaning of the word, is the basis. I propose to show the exact opposite. I contend that inequality always has been and always will be the condition • ofDroress. I shall arue that a state of eualit .^ I shall argue that a state of equality would be a state of stagnation, a reversion to sav- agery and the tribe ; that, should certain kinds of equality which are talked about and aimed at be realized, the result would be an arrest of the onward movement of society ; that equality of op- portunity is both impossible and undesirable ; and that progress can be made only through differences aad unlikenesses. \ Parenthetically, it may be observed that civil and political equality exists only approximately. ' EXISTING AND EXPECTED EQUALITY 13 A pm^gertied man has civil rights which a man without property does not have. Even if there were no private property, the man who renders great service would have rights as to place and function to which an inefficient man would not be entitled. Political equality exists for only one sex, and under an arbitrary limit of age. A vote in Vermont is not worth as much as a vote in Indiana. It is a question whether equal suffrage should be allowed in municipal government or not. Even religious equality is potential only. Not every man realizes his worth and right as a child of God, ,as not every man realizes his worth and right as a "citizen. But the debate is not at those points which stand on the hither side of that civil, polit- ical, and religious equality which is regarded as practically gained. The debate is on the yonder side of those differentiations which pertain to economic, social, and intellectual conditions. Ill EQUALITY BY BROAD COMPARISONS IT is necessary now to take a point of view pretty well back, from which equality and in- equality may be measured. Such equality as ex- ists is relative only. It is some degree of likeness in contrast with a greater degree of unlikeness. Compared with animals men $re alike or equal. Any man is more like any other man than any man is like any animal. The intelligent acts of a chimpanzee excite wonder, not, as Stevenson says of dancing dogs and preaching women, because it does them so well, but because it does them at all. A child capable of understanding and doing no more would be regarded as in a state of arrested development. All men are more like one another than they are like animals. The powers and qual- ities which men have in common distinguish them clearly from the most intelligent animals. The genus homo is made up of individuals who, as human, are the same in kind. The likeness or equality is perceived by comparison. This inclusive likeness and exclusive contrast is EQUALITY BY BEOAJ) COMPARISONS 15 not as marked in comparison of the different races of men, even when the distant extremes are taken. Possibly any Englishman is more like any other Englishman than any Englishman is like any Pata- gonian, although the native ability of some savage chiefs and the dense stupidity of some English- men raises a question. There are, however, cer- tain characteristics of race which all its members N possess and which are not possessed by another race. Compared with Patagonians all English- men may be considered equal. It is on this ground that racial divisions are based. The clas- sification is made differently by different ethnolo- gists. Seven races were recognized fifty years ago, then the number was reduced to five, and now there is agreement upon three. Changed grouping shows the difficulty of clear demarcation. Still, Mongolian, Caucasian, and Ethiopian races are easily distinguished. The Chinese have charac- teristics which appear in every Chinaman and do not appear in any African. By common, and therefore equal, qualities of physical and intel- lectual constitution individuals compose a race. But within every race, over and above the com- mon racial characteristics, there are differentia- tions, the difference of degree in unlikeness from within amounting apparently to as much as the difference of kind in unlikeness from without. 16 INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS The horizontal lines which divide mankind from animals below and race from race above are wide apart, and between those lines are substrata in- numerable. Caucasian is a racial designation which indicates certain common features, as ver- tebrate is a designation which includes animals having a certain physical structure. But the dif- ference between Matthew Arnold and a Neapoli- tan beggar, both Caucasians^ is as great as the difference between those opposite fourfooted com- icalities of nature, the kangaroo, all hind-legs, and the giraffe, all fore-legs, both vertebrates. Nations sprung from the same racial stock are sufficiently unlike to be distinguished. All Ger- mans are so different from all Frenchmen, or, to choose examples more fnfearly related by racial origin, all Germans are so different from all Eng- lishmen that, in comparison, the members of either nation are seen to have that in common which equalizes them. But degrees of difference within 7 a nation are greater than the differences of one ' nation from another. Some men of the same nation are more unlike or unequal than some men of different nations. Gladstone is more like Bis- marck, unlike as they are, than Gladstone is like William Tomlinson, who can earn only two and sixpence a day. The resemblances and contrasts among civilized peoples are individual rather than EQUALITY BY BEOAD COMPARISONS 17 national. Intelligence, culture, and energy follow stratifications which run lengthwise across and through the nations. Manners, refinements, and education trace the lines of affinity almost regard- less of nationality and speech. As modern gentle- •- men dress alike the world over, so modern gentle- men really are alike the world over. When the uniform and the regalia which mark the soldier and the courtier are thrown aside, dress, manners, tastes, interests, draw them together. The com- munity of scholars is intellectually denationalized. A school of artists is no longer French, Italian, German, or American, but impressionist, realistic, or idealistic. The wage-earners of England and Germany have a comradeship which bids fair to have more power than partisan and political affini- ties within either nation. It is only, then, in large, comprehensive group- ings that equality exists. Humanity, as a whole, is human. There is a common endowment of physical structure and form, of reason and of moral sentiments. A race, as a whole, has com- mon characteristics, and at first sight look and seem alike. A nation, as a whole, if immigration has not been extensive, has distinctive and iden- tical marks upon all its citizens. On a superficial glance^only the likenesses are noticed. At a meet- ing of Norwegians in Faneuil Hall on the anniver- 18 INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS sary of the discovery of America by Leif Ericsson, a spectator said that there seemed to be one great mass of yellow hair and ruddy faces. A congre- gation of two thousand negroes in Savannah pre- sented to the eye scarcely any distinctions but sex and age. But we know very well that with closer observation and with acquaintance clearly marked differences would appear. At first all Chinamen look alike, but on acquaintance prove to be dif- ferent. Doubtless Americans at first seem alike to them, but they soon find, indeed, that Ameri- cans are unlike one another, that a missionary in Pekiu is distinguishable from a San Francisco politician. These comparisons have at least elicited the fact that the races themselves are radically unlike. The apostle of equality must be zealous indeed if he expects to fuse all racial characteristics in the alembic of equality. He may hope for fraternity, but only in dreams can expect homogeneity. To be of the Latin stock, — a modern Italian, French- man, or Spaniard — to be of the Anglo-Saxon stock, to be of the negro race, or of Chinese blood, is to have certain characteristics which are part of one's constitution, and which one cannot change any easier than the leopard can change his spots, or the Chinaman or negro his coloring. The apos- tles of equality, therefore, do not yet stretch their EQUALITY BY BROAD COMPARISONS 19 leveling line around the earth. As they would bend it unconsciously, but certainly, with the cur- vature of the earth, so they would deflect it in obe- dience to the heterogeneity and inequality of the races of men on all the face of the earth. It is within the nations of Christendom, however, and chiefly in each of the great nations by itself, that the demand for equality is urged. It is assumed that, on the basis of civil and political] equality already gained, leveling can and should ' proceed still farther on the yonder lines of econo- ) mic, intellectual, and social rights, until remaining / inequalities are either vastly reduced or become so microscopic as practically to disappear. Those who regard this as an easy task assume that the members of a nation are so essentially alike that no more is needed than certain changes of outward circumstance. Those who regard equalizing as a / difficult task recognize some of the differences I which have been mentioned — differences which ^ cleave deeper than outward circumstance. My own/ opinion is that distinctions so radical reside ir the "constitution of men, that a line is therefore reached beyond which equalizing is an impossi- bility, and that progress consists in the realization — « rather than the attempted obliteration of human unlikenesses. Consequently, inquiry must be di- rected next to the original and various types which 20 INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS are found in those who are grouped together in the modern nations. The next section is occupied with consideration of types produced by social selection and by heredity, and will be followed by criticism of certain social theories which are popu- lar, and by definite indication of the actual condi- tions of progress. IV TYPES AND SOCIAL SELECTION AFTER all equalizations brought about by re- ligion, by law, and by. the franchise have been made, the distinct natural differences of men re- main. When artificial conventions and circum- stances have been abolished, the persistent, stubborn facts of inequality survive. Men are variously endowed. The differences are not in a few strata within which all persons are arranged, into three or five kinds of men, into classes of wage-earners, employers, statesmen, scholars, ar- tists. Natural inequalities are in every stratum, / in every class, in every pursuit. Persons in the same class, employment, circumstance are unlike. There are, as we say, scholars and scholars, em- ployers and employers, workingmen and working- men. These variations are not traceable to con- ditions in the past which might have been and should have been different, such as the health, occupation, and education of ancestors. Those conditions doubtless modify but do not create dis- tinct types. Persons who have precisely the same 22 INEQUALITY AND PEOGEESS antecedents and circumstances are unlike. If we trace back the conditions of two individuals and of their ancestors, putting in for one individual what the other had, or taking out from one what the other had not, we may believe that they would now be more nearly alike. Yet the fact remains that two brothers are as different in capacity, tastes, and talents as two men of different family !and descent. The antecedents of brothers back through the generations are almost identical. The health of parents at the two periods of produc- tion may have varied, the season of the year may have changed so that the brothers were not born under the same star, the education of the children may have been slightly different, but no one supposes that the variety of types is accounted for by those infinitesimal causes. The native in- equalities of men are not explained by conditions upon which human control can exert a direct in- fluence. After study of inheritance and develop- ment, after microscopic investigation of germ-cells in the laboratory of reproduction, almost nothing is known concerning the causes which differentiate persons. Professor E. B. Wilson, who is a first- rate authority on cytology, after tracing all the transformations though which cells pass on the way from inception to new individuals in the plant, animal, and human creation, says that we cannot TYPES AND SOCIAL SELECTION 23 close our eyes to the fact " that we are utterly ig- norant of the manner in which the idioplasm of the germ-cell can so respond to the play of physical forces upon it as to call forth an adaptive varia- tion." l There seems to be no possibility of knowing the causes which make men unequal in important respects, so that we could modify them and produce five or ten generations hence a race of equal, identical human beings. If there was a first man he was alike. But we see no absurdity in the tradition that his first two children were unlike. If the race could be put back into the person of its first progenitor, with all the knowledge of his wisest descendant thrown in, there is no reason to believe that his children would be echoes of each other. Much less is it to be supposed that, after the mixed combinings of hundreds of centuries, men can now or ever be made alike, just because all of them sprang from a common source. As well expect in the course of a century, through pro- cesses of interbreeding, to change a mouse into an ox because both are mammalian vertebrata, and are variations from one preexisting species. The differentiation of individuals goes back to germ-cells which must be unlike since the results are unlike. Although analysis can go no farther back at present, even with the aid of vision magni- 1 The Cell in Development and Inheritance, p. 330. 24 INEQUALITY AND PEOGEESS fied a thousandfold, yet results so different are capa- ble of association with corresponding conditions in ancestry. It can thus be seen that certain causes produce certain effects, although we do not know how. These causes in heredity and also in circum- stance after birth are commonly recognized as evolution through selection. At the risk of tedious- ness, I venture to point out some of the causes which are believed to produce human variations, in order to show that they are largely beyond the control of individuals or the enactment of laws. It is now the opinion of anthropologists that the development of the human race depends only in a secondary degree on the struggle for existence and the survival of those who are fittest by mere strength. Two superior stages have been marked, stage is the struggle of social groups with one another. As between tribes, peoples, or nations, warfare has been a struggle for the existence of each group. But within the group coherence and mutual helpfulness unite all the members and give strength to supplant other groups occupying the same territory. To some extent this is true also of animals. While some beasts carry on an indi- vidual solitary struggle, or at most have a single mate, and even prey upon the weaker of their own kind, nearly all animals are gregarious and find in union their strength for struggle with other groups. TYPES AND SOCIAL SELECTION 25 There may be no conflict at all with other animal societies. Sustenance is gained and reproduction proceeds without molestation. Much has been made of this animal altruism as a simulation, at least, of human altruism. But there is another stage of human evolution along lines of progress or of retrogression, a stage higher than the struggle of individuals for exist- ence, higher than the struggle of groups with one another, and higher than the mutual dependence of gregariousness. This stage or method is charac- s terized as social selection. It is a process work- ing within each group and in the intermixture of groups. It is not a process of conflict but of com- bination by means chiefly of reproduction and heredity. A French professor, Monsieur de La- pouge,1 specifies various kinds of social selection, — sexual, military, political, legal, economic, moral, and religious. For example, a Norwegian marries a German. The marriage is not for self-defense in the struggle for existence. It is determined by many circumstances which have brought the two persons together, and by personal predilections which are as little understood as they are com- monly observed. The Norwegian might have mar- ried another Norwegian, the German might have chosen another German. But they marry, and 1 Les Selections Societies. G. Vacher de Lapouge. 26 INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS their children are a result of that voluntary union which fuses the blood of two nationalities. Roy- alty is limited to royalty in marriage. For the rest of the world, although custom amounts almost to law in requiring marriage between persons of the same social station, there is, notwithstanding, a wide degree of freedom which is continually ex- tending. Rank marries wealth. The English or Italian nobleman marries the American heiress. It was not law which prevented the judge from marrying Maud Muller. Opposite temperaments are united. The blue-eyed man is wedded to the black-haired woman. Marriage unites different nationalities, classes, and temperaments. This is an instance of social selection which supersedes the struggle for existence, both the personal and the gregarious struggle. Animals mate closely with those of their own kind. Crosses are infre- quent even when man intervenes to produce them, and the result is sterility. Human beings mate variously, and some degree of contrast seems to be favorable to fertility. Very early in the his- tory of mankind, wives were taken from other tribes, first by capture as trophies of the fierce wars of struggle, then by purchase, and finally with only the fiction of capture or purchase, sur- viving in some of the ceremonies of marriage among modern nations. TYPES AND SOCIAL SELECTION 27 Social selection could be followed out in many directions, nearly all of which affect marriage and reproduction. Military selection is the mighty agency of war. The army draws off the strongest, destroys many of them, leaves the weak stay-at- homes to intermarry and produce children like themselves, and leads to the late marriage of the survivors of war, who have fewer children than those who marry young. War also reduces the v number of workers, so that economic productive- ness is lessened, and poverty, with its accompany- ^ ing weakness and disease, is increased. Keligion has separated people of the same na- tion, and has limited marriage accordingly. The celibacy of the Romish priesthood withdrew supe- rior men from marriage for several centuries. Re- ligious persecution has killed off many of the most virile and intelligent citizens. The charity of an- cient and mediaeval times dumped the inefficient and diseased among the diligent and healthy, and perpetuated the existence and reproduction of the scum of society. These forms of religious selec- tion have had an unfavorable effect. Other forms which have promoted intelligence, independence, and energy of character have had a favorable effect on whole nations. Political selection has been detrimental, when it has put power in the hands of inferior men, and 28 INEQUALITY AND PBOGRESS thus has imposed injurious laws and enormous ex- actions which impoverish millions and reduce their vitality. The increase of the population of cities, called urban selection, draws off the best as well as the worst elements of the rural districts ; mingles all sorts and conditions of men; subjects the pro- sperous to influences of luxury, of high pressure, and of social ambitions which discourage the in- crease of children ; subjects the poor to overcrowd- ing, to unsanitary conditions and to resultant vice ; and tends strongly to degeneration of stock. At the same time the city develops intellectual activity, promotes social intercourse, and stimulates benevo- lence. Economic selection creates healthy and un- healthy pursuits, determines the amount and qual- ity of sustenance, and on a larger scale mingles populations by migrations due to colonization and commerce. The results of these agencies are marshaled by Lapouge and others in voluminous statistics which show the increase of brachy - cephalic (short- headed) people, who are inferior, and the decrease of dolicho-cephalic (long-headed) people, who are superior. The vigor of ancient Greece and Rome and the expansion of the Anglo-Saxon peoples are attributed to the large proportion of dolicho- TYPES AND SOCIAL SELECTION 29 cephalic, the decadence of the modern nations of Southern Europe to the large proportion of brachy- cephalic persons. It is not necessary to exhibit these statistics in detail, nor to accept all the con- clusions which have been drawn from them. But it is unquestionable that these various kinds of social selection, which are largely beyond the con- trol of individuals, create and modify types, and that agencies so various signify an endless variety of types. As evidently, we cannot but be incred- ulous concerning superficial methods of change which are expected to obliterate types in a com- mon equality. These subtle yet powerful agencies can be recognized in part after they have done their work, but cannot be deflected nor arrested to any great degree by the persons who are them- selves the necessary consequences of these irresist- ible forces. Beside racial and national influences the education of this or that individual, an educa- tion directed by those who are products of the same causes, is thought by Lapouge to have only an infinitesimal effect. He takes, I think, too small account of education. The lack of such in- tellectual attainment and discipline as are possible to each individual is almost fatal. Education gives the increment which makes the difference between success and failure in the common envi- ronment. But he does show that other and more 30 INEQUALITY AND PEOGEESS potent causes determine the type, and that educa- tion can, at the best, only improve the existing type to a limited degree. The same conclusion is reached respecting such economic improvement as can be accomplished by a different division of wealth and by better methods of production and distribution, for they touch intellect and native energy only on the surface. There are the types to start with. The types have been produced by causes which have been working through centuries past, and are working still in the obscure region of sexual selection and heredity and in those com- minglings of population which are not controlled by the laws of States nor by the will of individu- als. I shall show later that there is room for in- dividual intelligence and action in the interests l( of progress, and, indeed, that the hope of progress j lies in the leadership of superior persons, but, at present, I am endeavoring to show how deeply , grounded the variety of human nature is. The profound teaching of the parable of the talents declares that for every person the power of increase may double original possession. Two talents may become four; five may become ten. But with equal truth it teaches that there is ori- [ ^gj^al yjarietyijQf endowment. The two talents may, indeed, by use become four, so that the increment \ is equal to the endowment, but to have ten there TYPES AND SOCIAL SELECTION 31 must be five to begin with ; and the man with two, after increment is made, has not the five with which his neighbor was originally endowed. Both were citizens with equal rights of citizenship, and both, in the application, were children of God, having the equality of infinite worth ; but in per- sonal endowments they were as five to two. It seems unlikely that any mechanical, economic, or even educational arrangements directed upon per- sons who are products of obscure, diversified, and potent causes will go far towards overcoming con- stitutional differences. Certain evils and injus- tices which are due to such ^arrangements may be removed ; but if intelligence, energy, character^ type are to be modified, it can be only by modification of the causes which produce themj Power to affect those causes is so limited, that the types may be regarded as persistent, and even as the fulfillment of the Divine intention for man- kind. NOTE. — It is interesting to notice that a more profound and discriminating view of human development has taken the place of views which were considered very scientific one generation ago. Draper, in his Intellectual Development of Europe, attributed racial and national characteristics to climate, and classified peoples on isothermal lines. It is now held that climate and rdgime are secondary influences, com- pared with the various forms of social selection. ECONOMIC EQUALITY A CHIMERA ENOUGH has already been indicated concerning the inexorable facts of diversity to warrant crit- icism of certain theories of equality which have some currency. After the impracticability of those theories has become evident, I shall proceed from | negation of equality to the positive advantage of A inequality as a condition of progress. Since criti- cism should be fair and discriminating, this sec- tion and the three sections following are occupied with an examination of those theories of equality upon which urgent demands are based. The first theory is so crude and so incapable of adjustment to facts that it would be undeserving of notice were it not so persistently advocated. The cham- pions of another sort of equality are as ready as the most extreme individualists to condemn this first theory. Yet it is not without earnest sup- porters, and is commonly, but erroneously, sup- posed to be the theory of all social reformers. For these reasons, therefore, it must receive such con- sideration as it deserves. It is the theory of eco- ECONOMIC EQUALITY A CHIMERA 33 nomic equality. I have no hesitation in awaken- ing prejudice against it by the suggestion of the heading that economic equality is a chimera. A recent publication in the shape of a story which pictures realistically the conditions of life in the coming heaven on earth is an exponent of this theory. The book is entitled " Equality," and is bound in covers stamped with little rectangular blocks which are exactly alike, thus assuming and plainly declaring that some kind of equality be- yond that which now exists is to convert this present Purgatorio (or rather Inferno) into Para- diso. I do not propose to follow the author into all the details of his scheme nor to point out his constant exaggeration of the evils from which men now suffer. I am well aware, also, that scientific socialists do not agree with many of his repre- sentations, and that they have taken pains to de- clare that Bellamyism is not socialism. But the two stories of Mr. Bellamy (" Equality " is simply a continuation of " Looking Backward ") lay down correctly the principle of scientific socialism. That principle is collective ownership and production of wealth. Socialists differ from Mr. Bellamy only about the sharing of income. He would have equal, they would have equitable sharing. Under the literal equalizing imagined in the story, all men and women are to have the same income, in 34 INEQUALITY AND PBOGRESS the shape of an annual credit. All children pre- sumably, though that is not mentioned, are to have equal allowances in their own or their parents' hands. No one can go beyond his credit in the government bank. If any one does not use all his income, no credit is carried forward, but he starts every year anew with the same credit which all others have. This annual credit is placed at a fabulous figure. Every individual is to have four thousand dollars a year, which, in view of public provision for many wants such as " water, light, music, news, the theatre and opera, all sorts of postal and electrical communications, transporta- tion, and other things too numerous to detail," is equivalent to six or seven thousand dollars a year. The author does not condescend to a calculation of the total national income at such an individual rate. If the population of the United States in the year 2000 A. D. (the date chosen) is one hun- dred millions, certainly a moderate increase, the total product of a year would be four hundred billions of dollars, a very pretty sum to divide around every twelvemonth, with little use for it except to pay for board and clothes. However, mechanisms are so marvelously improved (the tides, as Emerson foresaw, doing man's chore for him) that production is increased a hundredfold in manufacture and fifteenfold in agriculture, so ECONOMIC EQUALITY A CHIMERA 35 that there is an immense amount to divide. It is immaterial, however, what figures and amounts are chosen. The point is that every one is entirely free from concern about subsistence, dress, hous- ing, and all other creature comforts, that by work- ing half a day till the age of forty-five years, this ample provision is made, and that thus time and energy are free for culture and enjoyment. Work is reduced to a minimum, and all are living in affluence. None of the sons of Adam eat their bread in the sweat of their faces. It is expected that this economic equalizing will go far towards intellectual and social equalizing* The picture accordingly represents a general level- ing up to a table-land of uniformity above which the mountain peaks show only as little hills. To be sure, some room is left for personal variations, in style of dress and choice of studies and pursuits. The objection that independence and originality are sacrificed is noticed but not answered. The sexes are equalized, men and women dressing alike and engaging in all occupations indiscriminately. All the children are precocious, boys and girls thirteen years of age discoursing like sages about the superseded political economy of the nineteenth century. In the gymnasium scores of young men and women dashed by in a foot-race. " The thing that astonished me was the evenness of the finish. 36 INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS ... In a race of similarly unselected competitors in my day, they would have been strung along the track from the finish to the half." All differ- ences of character, ability, and culture, are cor- respondingly slight. The mere statement of this theory of mechanical equality is its sufficient refutation. Precisely what the condition of society would be if every man, woman, and child had a liberal fortune is not easily guessed. It would be quite reasonable to expect almost universal laziness, the usual result of an easy life, or a good degree of physical compul- sion directed upon the lazy. In fact, the author is obliged to introduce, with the economic revolu- tion, a great religious revival sweeping over the nation and the world, in order to convert the self- ish rich and the lazy poor into industrious, ambi- tious, and altruistic citizens. If there should be economic equality on any probable or possible basis, it is self-evident that the average amount of possession would be but slightly changed. Should existing wealth be divided around equajly, the few in poverty would be better off, the few with enormous fortunes and large incomes would have less, but the vast majority between those extremes would have about what they have now. Five hundred dollars each would be a gen- erous estimate of annual income. The income of a ECONOMIC EQUALITY Rothschild would give a franc to each Frenchman — an inappreciable increment. To secure the ne- cessary product, as much toil by as many toilers would be necessary as at present, with no in- centive but good will. Some compulsion would be necessary to insure sufficient labor. It would be strange if shrewd men failed to find a way of getting more than an aliquot share of the total income. But all these theories are the stuff that dreams are made of. So moderate a subsistence as would • be possible under equal sharing is a lame substi- tute for incentives to self-support from the pos- sibility of bettering one's condition. Above all, since economic conditions alone have not created existing differences, but are only one expression of differences, there is no reason to expect that im- proved economics, without more radical changes in human nature, will obliterate those differences. Causes which lie deeper than material welfare ' and material destitution have made men unequal. Those causes are, to a large degree, beyond human control, and, so far as can be seen, will never cease to operate. I am not contending that the present system of economic production and distribution is capable of no improvement. I do not deny that untoward circumstances restrain some men unjustly, that 38 INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS overwork and underpay withhold some from the health, the time, and the advantages, which would be conducive to welfare and improvement. It is possible, nay, more, it is practicable, so to adjust the kind, amount, and rewards of labor that large numbers of men would be heathier, happier, wiser, and better than they are. The fecundity of the earth and the facilities of production are ample to supply the needs of civilized peoples in such measure that all might have sufficient food, comfortable rai- ment and shelter, and a considerable margin of time for enjoyment and improvement. To hope for this is quite within the bounds of reasonable expectation, if only in view of the betterment of conditions which has made the luxuries of the last century the necessary and accustomed possession of the great majority to-day. What was denied when political economy was called the dismal science be- cause its laws were supposed to be as unchangeable as the laws of nature is now generally recognized, namely, that economics is an ethical science, having to do with health, comfort, happiness, and morals. Certain evils of fifty years ago have been elimi- nated, and further improvements may be expected.^ These changes, however, have not been in the line ; of mechanical equalizing, but have been wrought I by justice, humaneness, and growing intelligence. By striking at acknowledged injustices, in part ECONOMIC EQUALITY A CHIMERA 39 through the power of democracy, and by the ap- plication of ethical principles to economic produc- tion and distribution, there will come, not the dead level of economic equality, but a larger coopera- tion and the constant betterment of all classes. But it is time to turn from speculations concern- ing an impossible economic equalizing to demands which are directed to another form of equality under the existing system as it may be modified. VI EQUALITY OP OPPOKTUNITY: EDUCATION ECONOMIC equality through collective produc- tion is scouted by a school of social reformers who make equality of another kind an important part of their programme. They retain the charmed word, but give it another definition. (Not equal posses- sion of wealth, but equality of opportunity is the ?hief condition of social welfare and progress. ' W'hile they regard private property and the incen- , tives to obtain it as indispensable, they maintain that prerogatives, monopolies, privileges, inherited possessions, and the like, exclude many from opportunities which should be unrestricted. They believe that the civil and political power of demo- cracy should be employed to open doors that are now closed. They are of the opinion that the next task of democracy is the equalizing of oppor- tunity, which men may then use or not use as they see fit. Evidently this is another elastic phrase which means little or much, according to the explanation. When it is defined and qualified into the limits of EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY: EDUCATION 41 the practicable, it may perhaps be convenient and / available to express a real need, although the qual- I ifications will be found to take out the equality — the very thing contended for — while, if there is no qualification, it is contrary to the facts of human nature and fatal to progress. Napoleon said that he would open a career to talents. If some persons of talent were by birth I or station debarred from certain pursuits, and those adventitious disabilities were removed, doors which had been closed would have been opened. That would have been a widening but scarcely an equalizing of opportunity. If only members of the nobility could at that time be professors in the Sorbonne (I am imagining a case) and Napo- leon removed that restriction, he would have been keeping his word by opening a career to talent. But the Sorbonne faculty would have presented no opportunity to an ignoramus. Teaching in the university would not have been an equal opportu- nity to all Frenchmen. Had he repealed a require- ment (I am still imagining a case) that only Frenchmen could be professors, he would have opened a door to Englishmen and Italians, but not to all Englishmen and Italians. The opportunity would not have been universally equal, but equal only for those who had the necessary qualifications. That is, the opportunity would be equal, other 42 INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS tilings being equal. But other things are not equal; and never can be. Napoleon may have joined in the national cry of liberty, equality, fraternity, but he placed a tremendous restriction on the middle term of that high-sounding phrase when he pro- claimed the more modest r81e of opening a career to talents. Two representative examples of equal opportu- nity are sufficient for illustration: provision foif universal education, and the opening of all purf suits. Education and employments cover the greater part of the ground. What now is meant by equality of opportunity in these two most im- portant respects ? Education is already so generally provided in America and other countries, that, without fore- casting imaginary conditions, there is no difficulty in seeing how much equality is given by that op- portunity. All classes of persons are supposed to need education. The public schools, which supply this need, are open to all persons that are under a certain age. The same amount of time is given to all ; the same courses are prescribed for all ; the same teachers are appointed to all. The oppor- tunity is not merely open ; it is forced upon all. Even under a socialistic programme it is difficult to imagine any arrangement for providing the education which all are supposed to need more EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY: EDUCATION 43 nearly equal than the existing system of public schools. Even Mr. Bellamy finds schools in the year 2000 A. D. modeled after those of the nine- teenth century. All things are changed except the schools. With the advantage, then, of a case in hand, nothing need be left to conjecture. Now, the most superficial observation shows that this actual opportunity, which not only invites but con- strains youth to appropriate it, is not and can- not be an equal opportunity for all. Behind fifty desks exactly alike fifty boys and girls are seated to recite a lesson prescribed to all. Could oppor- tunity be more nearly equal for half a hundred youth ? But the algebra is not an opportunity for the boy who has no turn for mathematics. He may throw his head at the book and stand dazed before the blackboard ; but the science is not for him any more than the Presidency of the United States is for a tramp — perhaps not so much. Indeed, the more nearly equal the opportunity out- wardly, the more unequal it is really.- When the same instruction for the same number of hours a day by the same teachers is provided for fifty boys and girls, the majority have almost no opportunity at all. The bright scholars are held back by the rate possible to the average, the dull scholars are unable to keep up with the average, and only the middle section have anything like a fair opportu- 44 INEQUALITY AND PBOGKESS nity. Even average scholars are discouraged be- cause the brighter pupils accomplish their tasks so ^easily and never take their books home. Educators have not solved the problem of edu- cation. Methods are frequently changed, new studies are introduced, the child mind is analyzed, and a psychological order of development made directive. Even the babies in the pre-kindergarten period must all play with round objects of certain colors. And so on, from forms to numbers, words, letters, facts, principles. New methods are contin- ually disparaging old methods, but the fact remains that as yet a common school education does not educate. Not one child in ten after three years in the grammar school speaks grammatically. Not one boy in five, after six. years of arithmetic and algebra, can work out an actual business transac- tion correctly. The failure lies, not in method nor in studies chiefly, but in the attempt at equaliza- tion. Methods are capable, to be sure, palpably capable of improvement. Courses of study may be too narrow or too broad. Manual training may well be added to intellectual training. The tradi- tional curriculum assumes that all the boys are to be bookkeepers and all the girls accountants. Slight additions of botany and geology assume that the pupils are to be scientists. The fact that the great majority of the boys are to be mechanics, EQUALITY OF 'OPPORTUNITY : EDUCATION 45 farmers, operatives, and day-laborers, and that the great majority of the girls are to be wives of workmen, and will have to cook, sweep, make beds, and sew, or become type-writers, saleswomen, dress- makers, and milliners, has not yet distinctly dawned on the mental horizon of educators. At a recent meeting of the National Educational Association, the committee on rural schools (which more than three quarters of all the children attend) actually proposed that instruction should be given in farm- ing and gardening, that school gardens should be " planned and conducted, not merely to teach the pure science of botany, but also the simple princi- ples of the applied science of agriculture and gar- dening." The proposition is evidently novel and startling. Nobody seems to have thought of that before. But, even if education had some sort of correspondence to future employments, it cannot educate so long as it is collective rather than se- lective, that is, so long as it offers the uniformity of equal opportunity. How much practical know- ledge of market gardening will the thirty boys and girls of the West district gain by digging to- gether in the school garden half an hour a day with the schoolmistress ? In all branches of study the difficulty is the equalizing. There should be x small groups and instruction adapted to the vary- ing capacities of pupils. The prime necessity is I 46 INEQUALITY AND PEOGEESS ^ inequality of opportunity in agreement with in- equality of individuals. xThe higher education of negroes in the South is more wisely conducted than that of whites in the North. Industrial training is made as important as book-training. The announcement of Atlanta University says: - " Combined with the higher education, and com- pulsory upon all students, is the industrial train- ing— in carpentry, blacksmi thing, lathe -work in wood and in iron, mechanical and architectural drawing, and printing, for young men ; and in cook- ing, sewing, dressmaking, laundry work, nursing the sick, and printing, for young women. Such i education is individual. Each does his own work by himself in shop and hospital. Eef orm schools devote one half day to manual training, and the boys make as much progress at their books as boys in other schools who spend both sessions in study. In some of the cities and larger towns, manual training has been provided during recent years with the best results. The training is selective rather than collective, and therefore succeeds. Education should be universal, that is, should be provided for all. But universal is not the same as equal opportunity. The uniformity of common schools is a parable which might be applied to all equalizing of opportunities for large numbers of people. EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY: EDUCATION 47 On the higher ranges of education, the inequal- ity of equality is yet more marked. Harvard Uni- versity offers equal opportunities to all. Students1 are received from all States of the Union and from1 foreign countries, from any race, any class, any family. The price of tuition is the same for all. A young man proposes to enter the Freshman class, but is refused. He expostulates, saying that he is of the proper age, has been convicted of no crime, and has the one hundred and fifty dol- lars in his hand. Here is the fee (fee simple indeed). But you did not have the right kind of grandfather. There is a deficiency of gray matter. You can never be a mathematician, a linguist, or a philosopher, but you will be a very good mechanic. If any who choose to do so should attack the courses and be let loose in the laboratories, if the professors should lecture and experiment before the mongrel crew, treating all alike, not one in a hundred would have any opportunity at all. As it is, after examination and selection, the chief difficulties of collegiate education are created by the massing of students in large numbers. Comparison of the ideals of English and Ameri- can universities is occupied with their power to make students work and to adapt instruction to individuals. The lecture method, the tutorial method, the laboratory and seminar method are X 48 INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS estimated from the point of view of adaptation to numbers.1 Small colleges are thought by many to have ad- vantage over thronged universities, because two or three scores of men can be better taught than two or three hundred nten together. Until recently the division of large classes at Yale University was made alphabetically, but is now made by grades of scholarship, for the good of the lower grades quite as much as for the good of the higher grades. Thus both common schools and colleges fail if they attempt to give equality of opportunity. They make no external discrimination, and should make none. Persons are equal so far as class, means, and family are concerned. But indiscriminate, uniform instruction is no instruction at all. Thev $ prime necessity is adaptation to the unequal abili- ties, the various capacities, the different predilecr tions of students^ In fact, unequal opportunities! for unequal persons give a nearer approach to i equality than equal opportunities for unequal per- / ^sons. X)ffering the same opportunity to an ex- tended number brings out inequalities. When Oxford University was open only to Churchmen, many superior men were excluded. When Non- conformists were admitted they took a good share of the prizes and fellowships, defeating those Church- 1 " Jowett and the University Ideal," Professor W. J. Ashley: The Atlantic Monthly, July, 1897. EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY: EDUCATION 49 men who otherwise would have succeeded. The wider competition and selection emphasized in- equality, as equalizing of opportunity always does. Education is an unfortunate example for the advocates of equality of opportunity. They would be more consistent if they demanded unequal op- portunity, since that would make the most rather than the least of those who are inferior. Let everybody go to school, by all means, and in that respect be equal to every other body. But let the opportunities in the schools be as unequal as the persons and as their future vocations. Professor Paulsen, of Berlin, shows that the educational ideal has been tending towards individuality so that each may be taught according to his natural endow- ment, and has been moving away from uniformity by introducing natural science, history, and indus- trial training. He says that the ideal is "vigor and originality, not equality, nor that uniformity which disregards the demands of nature ; for this produces weakness and false culture. Let us exA tend to every individual the liberty of developing \ his talents according to the demands of his nature, / in order that he may reach the summit of his ca-/ pacity." l In this sense culture may and should be universal. There should be no illiteracy. There should be a suitable education for all. 1 " The Evolution of the Educational Ideal," The Forum, August, 1897. VII EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY: PURSUITS THE other demand is for equality in pursuits, occupations, and professions. The complaint is heard that occupations which are open to some are closed to others, and it is maintained that all occu- pations should be equally open to all persons. It is believed that equal freedom to enter any and all {pursuits would greatly relieve the strain of hard- 'ship and poverty by increase of wages, salaries, and ' incomes, and so would put men in the way of obtain- Jing comfort, enjoyment, and culture. What, now, is the nature, and what the reasonableness of this demand ? The nature of the demand is perceived by noticing the causes which are supposed to debar many persons from certain pursuits. Want ofjcapital is one cause. Every productive business requires capital. A man without capital or without credit to obtain it cannot become a woolen manufacturer. Another cause is want j)f influence. The sons of capitalists and manu- facturers are provided with occupation by their fathers. A professional man induces a merchant EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY: PURSUITS 51 who is his client, or patient, or parishioner, to em- ploy his son on a salary with prospect of a small interest in the business. Favoritism thus opens pursuits to some and thereby closes them to others. It is claimed that such opportunities should be equally open to all. Another cause which makes/ opportunities unequal is the combination of capital . in vast amountshelcT 1by "coTporaHons7 trusts, and ' syndicates which crowd out or buy out small manu- facturers. Still another cause is lack of training. / •*-—-^««*-. ,..*.... . •»•»•••••••» % - Men without education cannot be physicians, law- yers, preachers, teachers, editors, architects, musi- cians, and artists. The only pursuits open to those who have no capital, no influence, or no education, are the wage-earning pursuits in manufacture and agriculture, or, at the best, positions as foremen and overseers in shops or mills, and ownership of small farms. The opening of pursuits which require capital is possible only by a radical change in the economic system. The only system under which there can be equality of opportunity is collective production, which is not desired by the advocates of equal op- portunity. And if that system were adopted, the majority would be laborers under direction. Even the economic army of socialism cannot be com- posed entirely of major-generals. It is expected, indeed, that there would not be as many managers 52 INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS as now. There would be only a different method of rewarding the rank and file, who would have the very same pursuits they are now engaged in. Something might be done to limit the amount of capital a corporation can hold, and so increase the number of manufacturers. Trusts and syndicates might be forbidden by law. There are laws on the statute-books to prevent the restraint of trade, and these laws might be rigidly enforced. But considerable massing of capital is essential to cheapness of production. Small factories increase / the price of commodities ; large factories and de- partment stores cheapen prices. Trusts and syndi- cates are exposed to competition, and thus far only a few of them have been successful. So long as private enterprise using private capital is per- mitted, so long the number who are engaged in business for profit must be relatively small. No- thing more is to be desired than that the savings of industry may find investment in profitable busi- riess, as they now do by millions of dollars depos- ited in banks and invested in stocks, and that thrifty men may be able to set up in business for themselves, as they are constantly doing. Possi- bly such use of savings can be made easier by V legislation, and, if^at is equality of opportunity, ^everybody is in favor of it. Profit-sharing, if it should become generally EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY: PURSUITS 53 practicable, would give industrious and skillful workmen a share of the gains and a voice in the conduct of business, but would not give opportu- nity to all to become managers. As to the advantage of favored sons, a good deal could be said for permanence and continuity of man- agement thus secured. As yet, however, instances of such continuity for three or four generations are rare. There are not sons and grandsons enough in some families, or, indeed, all the boys are girls, or there are no children at all, or the sons prefer intellectual pursuits, even if they are not content to live in elegant leisure on allowance and inher- ited income, or inefficient sons are crowded out by more enterprising men. Since charity has become the fashion, poor boys of promise find positions more easily than the sons of professional men. Proteges are more interesting than social equals. An extension of municipal ownership and man- agement is advocated as one way of enlarging opportunity, by opening a great number of posi- tions. If the government is pure, some capable men will be transferred from private to public em- ployments, but the number of occupations will not be increased, nor will incapable men obtain posi- tions. If the government is not pure, favoritism and corruption will limit opportunity, and will be as much inveighed against as capital and family 54 INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS interest are now. The evils of French bureaucracy would be upon us in full force. Municipal provi- sion of enjoyments and facilities, such as parks, museums, libraries, and baths, is not for the pur- pose of opening pursuits, but of promoting the comfort and culture of all citizens, whatever their pursuits. As to public ownership and control which stop short of collectivism, there is a necessary and rather narrow limit in the nature of the case, for they are dependent on taxation, that is, on a por- tion of the earnings and incomes of individual industry. Should public be as extensive as private ownership, half and half, it is obvious that the half of private income would be taken by the tax-gath- erer, and that the people would not have enough left to provide the necessaries of life. They would go without bread in order to have a pleasant park to sit in. Half ownership by city, State, and nation would have to be whole ownership, and we are landed again in universal collectivism. But by the assumption, collectivism is not demanded, and so public control can open but few opportu- nities. If the existing system is not to be essentially changed, if the community is not to go over to col- lectivism, reliance must be placed on training and education for equality of opportunity. Let no man be debarred from as complete an education as EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY: PURSUITS 55 he can acquire, so that all may be fitted for appro- priate pursuits. This conclusion carries us back to what has already been said concerning education. Statistics show that only a small percentage of pupils — about five per centum — pass beyond the grammar schools. A reason alleged is the neces- sity of going to work. It is assumed that, if the education were carried further, if all went through the high school and the scientific or academic schools, they would not be condemned to the posi- tion of wage-earners, or at least not so many of them. It is true that some children are taken out > of school by their parents in order that they may / work and help support the family. But I believe ) that very few bright and promising pupils are thus arrested in the course of education. They are incited by teachers to go on, and their parents desire them to go on. The fact is that the vast \ majority do not wish to study. They are not very \ intelligent, they tire of school, they wish to be earn- ' ing money for themselves. Young persons leave I school because they can engage in occupations ' which they have enough fitness to pursue. The assumption in question furnishes, then, this inter- esting conclusion : pursuits are not open because young men and women are not sufficiently educated ; young men and women leave school early in order to engage in lucrative pursuits. The high schools 56 INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS are depleted by the inducements of waiting occu- pations, but persons do not have occupations be- cause they do not attend the high school. The real reason education is arrested is not objective, but subjective. It is not because circumstances prevent attendance, nor because schools are want- ing, but because young persons prefer work to study. Few American boys that thirst for know- ledge are forced out of school into the mill. My own opinion is that it is a great deal better for the most of the pupils not to remain in school. They are cut out for mechanics, weavers, farmers, arti- sans. To acquire skill in their pursuits they should begin early. A musician said that he could never be a really great pianist because he did not begin till he was twenty years of age. The hand must be developed during the period of growth if one is to be a master. This is equally true of nearly all occupations which require physical skill. Also, by beginning manual work early proper provision can / be made for marriage. Above all, the higher i schools do not fit scholars, but actually unfit them, / for manual pursuits, by giving a smattering of / knowledge and by creating distaste for the humble I tasks to which the majority are best suited. Some \ allowance being made for untoward circumstances, * — an allowance which must be made until at some distant day society comes to perfection, — the real EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY: PURSUITS 57 reason why the vast majority work with their hands the thing that is good, and the small minority work with their brains the thing that is good, the real reason why the higher pursuits are not open to all, is the persons themselves. The personal equa- tion chiefly determines occupation and remunera- tion. A few are capable of directing others ; thd many need direction. Too much opportunity is lack of opportunity. An easy path invites sauntering. A steep path compels climbing. On the other hand, lack of opportunity may become opportunity. Strong pur- pose creates opportunity. The very making of opportunity out of nothing is itself the best pos- sible opportunity. A poor Italian boy, at school in an American city, has musical talent. He picks up tunes by ear and plays the piano when there is singing in the school. The teacher speaks of him to a wealthy woman, who sends him to a mu- sical instructor. The boy makes rapid progress. He practices four hours a day besides attending school five hours. He lives in a home barely raised above poverty. Music is the chief interest, the consuming passion, always a change for the better from home and school. Another boy in better circumstances has as much musical talent. He is put under an instructor and makes consider- able progress. But the chances are that he will 58 INEQUALITY AND PEOGEJESS aot be as fine a pianist as the Italian, because lie has other real interests — reading, studies, society, amusements. Above all, he has no such spur of necessity as the other, to whom music means a livelihood and a career. The boy who has every opportunity may become a better educated and more cultivated man than the other, but is not as likely to become a great musician. It may be said that the teacher and the wealthy woman gave the Italian an opportunity which other poor boys of talent do not have, and that this opportunity is the very thing contended for, that many poor boys might be fine musicians if they had such opportu- nity. So, it is said, there may be potential schol- ars, lawyers, preachers, merchants, and organizers, \ who would be preeminent in the higher pursuits if \ the teacher and rich patroness should be raised up to give them opportunity. Nobody knows how many mute, inglorious Miltons are buried alive in shops and cotton mills before they are finally buried . in country churchyards. This is more than doubt- ful. Their teachers do point out promising pupils and encourage them. Their own ambitions push them on. Their parents are ambitious for them. With rare exceptions they find or create opportu- nities, and by the very effort necessary for making their way, are developed in character and talent as they might not be if the doors of opportunity were EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY: PURSUITS 59 held open for them, and they were' kindly pushed along the line of least resistance rather than obliged to push themselves along the line of greatest resist- ance. Ten to one the Italian would become a professional musician of some kind, patroness or no patroness. Necessity is often a better friend than opportunity. The accident of poverty com- pelled George Eliot to write her first story, " Amos Barton." The great books and great musical com- positions have come as often from men compelled by the pressure of necessity to put their best ener- gies into their work as from those under no other pressure than ambition. The difference between superlative and comparative success has often been the difference between the opportunity of compul- sion and the opportunity of ease. Some of Men- delssohn's admirers think that he would have taken higher rank as a composer if, instead of having every advantage, he had been as poor as other com- posers whose life was a struggle, but who surpassed him. The assumption that there would be many more persons than there are in the higher pursuits, if opportunity were opened, is questionable. There are only a few higher places, and, correspondingly, there are only a few who have ability to fill higher places. A hundred mechanics are needed where one employer is needed. It is as important that 60 INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS those who are capable of being good workmen should be trained for mechanical pursuits as . that those who are capable of organization should be / trained for that. The notion that a large number of young men should aspire to high positions has overcrowded the learned professions in Germany, America, and other countries with men who are doomed to failure in those professions, not so much Kby reason of the overcrowding as by reason of un- fitness, but who would succeed in manual pursuits. I am not maintaining that every one has a suit- able opportunity. The adjustments of society are not yet perfect. I am only claiming that external opportunity has but a small part in the conditions of success, and that, on the whole, persons of char- acter, ability, and energy do find or make oppor- tunities by which they rise to their proper level in the economic, professional, and social scale. I have also hinted that opportunity made easy may be an actual hindrance to success, i There is yet another form of the demand for lequality of opportunity. It is a demand for op- portunities of enjoyment and culture for those who are engaged in the various pursuits of life. There should be public libraries, museums, parks, roads, baths, theatres, concerts, and so forth. But this is merely to define the proper object of good government. Wants which are general and can EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY: PURSUITS 61 be supplied better by concerted than by individual action should be provided for by the municipality or the State. Some of these wants are so nearly universal that municipalities are not only permit- ted but required by law to supply them. These public functions, of which there will probably and properly be further extension, are mentioned here only for the purpose of observing that they do not promote equal opportunities. Schools, universi-, ties, libraries, galleries, operas, and circuses may/ yet be open to all, but they will not be really/ open for those who cannot appreeiate them. Pic- ture-galleries are no opportunity to a blind man, nor to a man aesthetically blind. Symphonies are j no opportunity to a deaf man, nor to a man sestheti- ' cally deaf. Universities are no opportunity to a dull man, nor bull-fights to a refined man. Even if all wealth were possessed by the community and public provision were made for all wants, there - could be no equality. Valuable books might be wanted by only one man. To provide them for him would be unjust, for accumulated wealth would be limited, and money would have to be taken from the common store to endow libraries, leaving too little for the prize-fights, circuses, and bicycles, which the majority would prefer. Opportunities can be equal only if men are equal. Men are not equal now and can never 62 INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS be made equal. At the best, some obstructing mechanisms can be removed. The partitions which divide a railway carriage into first, second, and third class compartments may be knocked out, and the seats and fares made uniform, but the vender of books and magazines, to drive a brisk trade, must still offer a considerable variety. What, now, is the use of talking about equality of opportunity under any economic or political system ? A mouse and an ox may be in the same field, ranging over the same area, but the roots are no opportunity for the ox, and the grass is no opportunity for the mouse. ( Neither can education, pursuits, and public provision for comforts and enjoyments be equal opportunities for unequal persons. VIII A FAIR CHANCE BUT what is really meant, it may be said, is not a literal equality of opportunity which will create equal men, for no one is fool enough to suppose that possible. What is meant is, for every man a fair chance, so that nothing shall stand in the way of his making the most of himself and the best of his powers. But that is a very different proposi- tion from equality of opportunity, taken literally or taken in any intelligible meaning. For every;? man a fair chance means a chance of which this or that man can avail himself, — a fair chance for him. This is the exact converse of equality of opportunity. A fair chance for one man is no1 chance at all for another. There is no chance which is equally fair for any two men on earth. A fair chance is a suitable opportunity, such that one may do what he is fitted to do, may learn that which is useful to him, and may attain all the self-improvement possible. Fair is a word which means just and right and fitting. It means cor- respondence of circumstance to person. It recog- 64 INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS nizes the variety of human powers and capacities. It is the correlative of inequality rather than the synonym of equality. It is not fair to an illiterate man to elect him chairman of the school com- mittee. It puts him at an enormous disadvantage and exposes him to ridicule. It is not fair to a philosopher to keep him on a shoemaker's bench, spite of the case of Boehme, nor is it fair to others. It spoils a good thinker to make a poor shoemaker, as conversely many a good carpenter is spoiled to make a poor preacher. Sutor ne supra crepidamjudicaret. " Blessed is the man who has found his work." And blessed is the born shoe- maker who has found and who sticks to his last. That is the only fair chance for him. Surely he has not an equal opportunity with a statesman, although he has just as fair a chance. The admission of those who demand a nearer approach to equality does not, in fact, go so far as / the fair chance theory goes. They really believe, / after all, that the chances which are appropriate tend to make men equal; that, if all had fair chances, the effect would be leveling up and level- \ ing down ; and that, with the disappearance of ex- \ tremes in material conditions would disappear also, \ to a considerable degree, the intellectual differences of men. This conclusion is more than doubtful. The widening of opportunity and the betterment A FAIR CHANCE 65 of material circumstances which have occurred, and even the education which has become so general that illiteracy scarcely exists in some countries, have not appreciably reduced native differences, have, in fact, accentuated unlikeness. Outward and material equality and external oppor- tunity of education emphasize intellectual, aesthetic, and moral differences, and give the verbal para- dox of the inequality of equality. Even Bellamy has an inkling of this paradox, and sacrifices his central principle to meet one of the most forcible objections to socialism. He says that differences of height are most apparent when men stand on level ground, that economic equality is the leveling of the ground which brings out the natural inequal- ities of men. It did not occur to him that on un- even ground the tall men gain the eminences and the little men are pushed into the hollows, and that on the same level such accidental variations would disappear. But his illustration, spite of himself, tells against his philosophy of equality. Thus, equality of opportunity, even when it is translated into fair chance, is a counter, a catch- word, which merely means that so far as men are equal, opportunities should be equal. But the verry equalizing of opportunity, as in schools, libra- ries, museums, and all that provides for the intel- lectual man, only shows how unequal men are, that 66 INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS groups of equal men are very small and therefore very numerous, in fact throws us back with in- creased force upon the endless variety of individ- ual differences which proceed from the thousand obscure yet potent causes that have produced a human race so diversified that no two men can be found who are precisely alike. It has been as wit- tily as sagaciously observed that the differences between men are not very great, but that what difference there is amounts to a great deal. Asa Gray applied this to the difference between man and the erect animal most nearly like man. The resemblances are great, but the differences, slight as they may seem, amount to a great deal, amount, in fact, to more than the resemblances. Stevenson, with characteristic insight and hu- mor, asking what constitutes a gentleman, reverts to causes which lie back of the individual and of his personal culture. He says that the ancient and stupid belief that to belong to a good family makes one a gentleman implies a modern scientific theory. What he says should be repeated in his own inim- itable style : " The ancient and stupid belief came to the ground with a prodigious dust and the col- lapse of several polities, in the latter half of the last century. There followed upon this an inter- regnum, during which it was believed that all men were born ' free and equal,' and it really did not A FAIR CHANCE 67 matter who your father was. Man has always been so nobly irrational, bandaging his eyes against the facts of life, feeding himself on the wind of ambitious falsehood, counting his stock to be the children of the gods ; and yet perhaps he never showed in a more touching light than when he em- braced this boyish theory. . . . And the ancient stupid belief having come to the ground and the dust of its fall subsided, behold the modern scien- tific theory beginning to rise very nearly on the old foundation, and individuals no longer (as was fondly imagined) springing into life from God knows where, incalculable, untrammeled, abstract, equal to one another — but issuing modestly from a race, with virtues and vices, fortitudes and frail- ties, ready made ; the slaves of their inheritance of blood ; eternally unequal. So that we in the pre- sent, and yet more our scientific descendants in the future, must use, when we desire to praise a char- acter, the old expression, gentleman, in nearly the old sense ; one of a happy strain of blood, one for- tunate in descent from brave and self-respecting ancestors, whether clowns or counts." l The various kinds of equality which find advo- cates have been tracked down to their self-contra- dictions and elusiveness, partly because they seem to many to mark the direction of progress, and 1 Essay on Gentlemen. 68 INEQUALITY AND PEOGEESS partly to show the path along which the real on- ward ascent of men must slowly travel. The inev- itable facts have been pointed out, not merely that the inevitable may be accepted rather than fought against, but that the positive advantage of inequal- ity maybe recognized and utilized. Negative crit- icism of untenable theories therefore gives place, through the remainder of this essay, to positive construction. NOTE. — Poverty presents a problem which lies outside the range of this discussion. Its causes lie chiefly in in- competence, lack of energy, bad heredity, and unhealthy surroundings, rather than in a vicious economic system, or in lack of opportunity. The relief of poverty has become so judicious that few poor persons are left to suffer from want. The prevention of poverty is to be found in good sanitation enforced by the municipality, in suitable education of indi- viduals according to capacity, and in self-help, rather than in economic revolutions or in indiscriminate equality of op- portunity. IX VARIETY INEQUALITY is not the only, nor, for most pur- poses, the best word to express the native and ac- quired unlikenesses of men. It is a negative word, signifying the absence of equality, but affirming nothing. For that matter equality affirms nothing. It is the connecting link ( = ) between two mem- bers of an equation, but the link which means " equal to " does not say whether it stands between tons of iron or bushels of wheat, whether it bal- ances cattle or men in the level scale. I have used the negative designation freely because it is a more emphatic denial of popular theories than any other, because it is the only word which meets equality on its own ground. But as I now attempt to put something into the two sides of the scale, the something which makes one side ascend and the other side descend, I introduce words which have some positive significance. Equality and inequality are comparisons of things which are capable of quantitative measurement and weighing. They cannot be applied exactly to intellectual 70 INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS qualities nor to any of the higher forms of human energy. Power to lift weights can be measured exactly. One man, in that respect, is equal or unequal to another. So running two hundred feet or vaulting over a bar is equal or unequal. Skill is less capable of measurement, except in producing mechanical results, such as the number of yards of cloth different persons can take through two looms in a day. Beyond muscular strength and skill pro- ducing physical results, quantitative measurements are not possible. Resort must be taken to indefi- nite comparisons, expressed by the words, superior and inferior, higher and lower, better and worse, better and best. Even these terms are inexact and sometimes invidious. There is, however, one word which can give no offense, the word " variety ; " and it will now be used to indicate the differing charac- teristics, capabilities, and attainments of men, although the other terms will also be employed for purposes of comparison. Society is often compared to an organism, or even is regarded as a true organisjm. This com- parison or representation is employed to illustrate the variety and coordination of interrelated func- tions. Some writers debate warmly the question whether society is an organism or not. Into that debate we need not enter. At the most, I think a vital organism is only a simile. It may be held VARIETY 71 that society is like an organism, but not that so- ciety is an organism. Even as a figure, it does not apply in all respects, for figures and similes never do. The likeness fails, especially in respect to self- consciousness. A living organism of many mem- bers has one central self-consciousness, or, indeed, as in the case of plants, may have no consciousness at all. Animals and men have one consciousness conditioned on the mutual action and reaction of the members. In the social organism each mem- ber has his own consciousness, but humanity as a whole has no single and central consciousness. To be sure, we speak by accommodation of the social consciousness, the spirit of the age, the Zeitgeist, the national will ; we speak of nations, associations, corporations, churches, and humanity itself, as per- sons ; we apply personal pronouns to social wholes. But we mean those purposes which numerous indi- viduals have in common, and through which they are able to cooperate. The figure of an organism is, however, a very apt figure to express the variety and coordination^ many persons in society. So- ciety is regarded as almost identical in all respects with a true organism, just because there is so much of unity in variety. Society that is worthy of the name can exist only in the cooperation of variously endowed individuals in the economic, the politi- cal, the moral, the purely social, and the religious 72 INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS spheres, and in the coordination of those great interests one with another. Coordinated variety appears not only in the large but in the small. In any community or cir- cle, variety is the law, the life, and the bond of society. Polite society, while certain convention- alities of dress and manner are observed alike by all, brings together persons of diverse gifts. The bond of union and interest is the contribution each makes to the common enjoyment. One is over- flowing with information, another flashes with bril- liancy of repartee, another is a clever raconteur, another supplies musical skill. What agreeable society in this place ! it is said. It is agreeable because, with no clashing, there are so many kinds of talents and gifts.1 But there is no thought of inequality. No one attempts to decide or thinks of deciding whether musical skill is equal to wit or not. There is no standard of comparison. Both are enjoyed. Both are components of the pleasure which depends on variety of contribution. Musi- cians may receive pecuniary compensation, while wits are not yet paid for dining out. But the value of talents is not measured by money. On the larger scale of civilization the functions of individuals are various and are related, but equality and inequality need not be emphasized. The painting of a pic- 1 Moral Evolution, p. 31. VARIETY 73 ture is not equal (nor unequal) to the invention of a telephone transmitter. The authorship of a book is not equal (nor unequal) to the leadership of an orchestra. Successful banking is not equal (nor unequal) to successful preaching. Statesmanship is not equal (nor unequal) to generalship. The work of a farmer is not equal (nor unequal) to the work of an engineer. These are various functions, all indispensable in the one great body of many members. Neither are individuals exhaustively inventoried by their specific functions and contributions. Pro- duction may be single and reception various. One may receive and enjoy more or less than another of that which is supplied by the various functions of many producers. One may have more or less capacity than another for aesthetic or intellectual appreciation, and in that sense the two may be regarded as unequal. But, at any rate, the several functions which are exercised, and the different kinds and degrees of receptiveness, connote the indispensable variety of civilization. PROGRESS PRODUCES VARIETY THE progress of society coincides with increas- ing variety of functions and tastes. In the next section progress will be definitely characterized. Here it is employed in the usual and general sig- nification of advancing civilization. The coincidence of variety with progress may be observed under two methods. One method is by the actual contrast of advanced with rudimentary societies. Savagery is uniformity. The principal distinctions are sex, age, size, and strength. Sav- \ages divide up the work a little. They think alike or not at all, and converse therefore in monosylla- bles. There is scarcely any variety, only a horde of men, women, and children. The next higher stage, which is called barbarism, is marked by in- creased variety of functions. There is some divi- sion of labor, some interchange of thought, better leadership, more intellectual and aesthetic cultiva- tion. The highest stage, which is called civiliza- tion, shows the greatest degree of specialization. Distinct functions become more numerous. Me- PEOGEESS PEODUCES VAE1ETY 75 chanical, commercial, educational, scientific, politi- cal, and artistic occupations multiply. The rudi- mentary societies are characterized by the likeness W of equality ; the developed societies are marked by A I the unlikeness of inequality or variety. As we go down, monotony; as we go up, variety. As we go down, persons are more alike ; as we go up, persons are more unlike. It certainly seems, on , the surface, as though approach to equality is de- A cline towards the conditions of savagery, and as though variety is an advance towards higher civi- lization. ^ The other method by which the coincidence of variety with progress may be observed is an appli- cation, at least by way of analogy, of the law of evolution to social progress. The great apostle of evolution finds a law to which he thinks all de- velopment is obedient, the law of movement from homogeneity to heterogeneity and from heteroge- neity to unity. Without turning aside to examine the entire meaning and the limitations of this law, we recognize its truth for the advance from sav- agery to civilization. The discoveries, inventions, arts, and philosophies of men appear in a certain independence of one another, almost sporadically. Fire, iron, utensils, ornaments, navigation hug- ging the shore or driven out of sight of land, as- tronomy applied to navigation, spears and shields 76 INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS instead of clubs and stones, black ships of the Achaians and fortified walls of Troy, gunpowder, dynamite, electricity, printing, a thousand appli- ances of construction and destruction are stumbled upon. Life is stirring. Dead uniformity is broken up. Homogeneity gives way to heterogeneity. The heterogeneous acquisitions, pursuits, and am- bitions come into collision. Conflict and struggle ensue. Quarrels break out between the herdsmen of Lot and of Abraham, between the Hebrew slave and the Egyptian taskmaster, between baron and serf, between king and baron, between the nobility and commoners, between Protestant and Catho- lic, between Cavalier and Roundhead, between workmen and masters, between tradition and sci- ence, between science and religion. Homogeneity produces no variety and no conflict. Heteroge- neity is collision on the way to adjustment. The old fighting areas become the settled country of cooperation and unity. On the frontier the elements of developing heterogeneity are in con- tention. But contestants become allies. Each receives from the other. Conquerors adopt the arts and laws of the conquered. It has been sa- gaciously observed that after the conflict of science and religion, science is more spiritual and religion is more rational.1 They are as different as ever, 1 President W. J. Tucker in a recent course of lectures at Andover Theological Seminary. PROGRESS PRODUCES VARIETY as different as light and heat, but have the same source in the divine wisdom, power, and love, as light and heat have the same solar source. The antagonism of heterogeneity has given place to the coordination of higher unity. But the new unity is not the old homogeneity. That was uniformity ; this is unity. Savagery and civilization are the same human family dwelling on the same old mo- ther earth. But the wilderness has become a culti- vated field, and the nomad tribe has become the modern State. Mr. M allock makes the acute observation that ! in savagery there is coordination, in civilization I subordination ; that is, that, while savages are not ' so many individuals working with entire independ- ence of one another, each supplying all his own wants, while there is some exchange of products, there is no subdivision of labor, but only a division. Some savages hunt, some fish, some build huts,* some make rude clothing, yet all the processes of each industry are performed by the individual who \ engages in it, — a rude coordination; but in civi- ;, lization each art is organized, each industry is in y many parts by subdivision and subordination of | the less to the greater, the parts to the whole£ | Savage coordination is equality. Civilized subor- • dination is the inequality (if one chooses to call it that) of multiplied variety. 78 INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS When it was believed that the village commu- nity was the primitive society of England and Ger- many and that slavery and serfdom followed as a retrogression which survives in tenancy and wages, some reformers pictured that primitive state as the ideal state to which we should return. There was, yso the theory ran, common ownership of land occu- pied by freemen, with collective tillage, production, and distribution. It seems now to be established that the large section of land occupied and tilled by a community in cooperation was owned in every case by some powerful individual, the overlord, who exacted half or more of the entire labor on his own land which was interspersed in strips or was adjacent, or both, afterwards exacted half or more of the produce, later took money payments in the shape of annual rents, and finally, to some extent, gave life and hereditary leases, which amount to practical though limited ownership ; that the move- ment was from slavery and serfdom (the original condition) to tenancy and possession, that every step was a step forwards, not only in improved agriculture, but also in the betterment of the peo- ple in comfort and intelligence. Even if those early communities were self-governing owners of the soil, working and sharing equally, they were but barely removed from starvation ; there was no incentive to improved methods ; they repeated the PROGRESS PRODUCES VARIETY 79 old two-field and three-field cultivation, and pur- sued the narrow circle of seedtime and harvest in almost entire ignorance of other communities. As soon as some individualism was permitted, as soon as a farmer could have his strips together instead of scattered, as soon as he could have the same sec- tion year after year instead of annual removal to other sections, as soon as his time was his own and he could pay rent, as soon as a life or hereditary lease made him a private proprietor, he and the whole community made progress. Agriculture was specialized and the several products exchanged; some men spent all their time weaving, shoemak- ing, building ; towns and cities grew ; schools and universities arose ; in a word, there was that variety of agricultural, mechanical, commercial, and intel- lectual pursuits which constitutes civilization and marks the path of progress. The only common ownership lay back of those early communities of serfs who were under a lord. It was the tribal system which survived for a long time in Wales and elsewhere. But that was merely the nomadic life of a few hundred men who roamed over an unoccupied territory, whose huts were set up on the shore near good fishing ground and abandoned at any time for other locations, who did not practice agriculture to any great extent, and who occasionally huddled together under chiefs 80 INEQUALITY AND PBOGRESS to fight for the protection of their territory from invasion. All signs, then, point in one direction. Equal- ity is retrogression towards the dead uniformity and precarious life of stupid savagery, of nomadic tribes, and of serfdom. Progress isjnarked by private ownership, by specializing of pursuits, by organization, by unity in variety. Equality of individuals would make society a windmill with so many similar arms which merely turn around and around as the wind may chance to blow, and is forever stationary. At the most, it performs simple and irregular work. Variety of individuals makes society a noble ship, with sails of different shape and size, with nice adjustment of ropes and pullies, with intelligence at the helm, — a structure which takes advantage of every wind and makes constant progress. I was amused to find, after I had hit upon this comparison, that Mr. Bellamy has chosen the windmill as the sym- \ bol of his new society. From the air-ship in which his two chief personages floated over Boston, the \ dome of the State House was noticed, and upon it \ a huge windmill was perceived. " What on earth \ have you stuck up there ? . . . Surely that is an \odd sort of ornament for a public building." "It is not intended as an ornament, but a symbol," replied the doctor. "It represents the modern PROGRESS PRODUCES VARIETY 81 ideal of a proper system of government. The mill stands for the machinery of administration, the wind that drives it symbolizes the public will, and the rudder that always keeps the vane of the mill before the wind, however suddenly or completely the wind may change, stands for the method by which the administration is kept at all times re- sponsive and obedient to the mandate of the peo- ple, though it be but a breath." As they floated over the harbor scarcely a ship was to be seen. Commerce had ceased because each nation pro- vided for all its own wants. With the passing away of the ship and the enthronement of the windmill, we may be well content to let the Social- ism of vacillating equilibrium revolve aimlessly, and may let those who have no more serious busi- ness run a tilt against it in company with Don Quixote and his squire. NOTE. — On page 78 certain theories of the early village communities of England are mentioned. A new theory is advocated in a book recently published by Professor Mait- land of the University of Cambridge. He thinks the early settlers were freemen, but that there was no common own- ership. According to this theory the primitive state was private ownership, and the only communism was joint culti- vation by serfs at a later period. There is no comfort for socialists in that theory. In any case, the primitive state was, as I said, but barely removed from starvation, and pro- gress followed the lines indicated XI PROGRESS AND WANTS IN the preceding section the promise was made that progress would be more definitely character- ized in this section. That promise should not awaken the hope that progress will be described and defined exhaustively; for, even if that were possible, a volume instead of a short section would be required. In one essential respect, however, progress can be characterized definitely, and in that respect it is closely related to the variety and corresponding inequalities of men. Those condi- tions which are seen to be advance rather than stagnation, onward movement rather than repeti- tion and retrogression, have one unfailing mark or note. Progress is increase of legitimate wants which can be satisfied. The repeated satisfaction of old wants may be a good condition, but is not pro- gress. The individual makes progress by the ad- dition of an enjoyment, a knowledge, a possession. He makes a discovery, adds an accomplishment, cultivates a taste, makes a friend. If he merely PROGRESS AND WANTS 83 rotates in a routine of repetition lie may have many satisfactions, as one enjoys three meals every day and eight hours' sleep every night, but he is not making progress. Society advances by the con- sciousness and supply of new wants, from improved methods of locomotion and communication to wid- ening knowledge of nature and history, to more beautiful products of art, to finer culture, to purer morality, and to more spiritual religion. It is characteristic of man that the supply of one want awakens another want, and that thus he makes progress ; and also, since he is not in isolation, but feels wants in company with and dependence on his fellows, that thus society makes progress. I take pleasure in quoting from a discerning writer a statement which can hardly be improved : " Ex- cept the satisfaction of one want plants at the same time the germ of another, there is an end of pro- gress in any given direction. Wants^ jtherefore, the most mysterious outcome of Jbhe process, are at the same time its motive power. There is no intelligent evolution without them. They are the rungs of the ladder by which we mount. Whence they come we know not. Why, when one want is satisfied, another higher up in the scale should take its place, we cannot begin to conceive. Ra- tional creatures though we be, these unforeseen increments of evolution never cease to surprise us. \ 84 INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS Every time a new want makes its appearance we awake to the fact that we are new creatures. It seemed, as we looked forward, as if the require- ments of life would be met by the satisfaction of wants of which we were then conscious. But now, while the old creature is satisfied, the new one has all the restlessness and importunity of youth. This is the pledge to us of the possibility of further evo- lution and of attendant happiness. The true line of progressive being, therefore, is clearly indicated to be that in which there will be no cessation of wants that may be progressively realized." l Progress, then, consists in the increase of wants, or, which is the same thing, in the development of men in the consciousness and satisfaction of capa- cities and tastes. There is apparently no limit to possible additions of intellectual, aesthetic, moral, and religious devel- opment in the satisfaction of corresponding wants. The oldest and, in some respects, the most convin- cing argument for immortality is the inadequacy of the present life for possible attainments and enjoyments. A lifetime is too short for the mas- tery of a single science; yet, so far as capacity goes, given time enough, a scholar might master all the sciences. A thousand years would be none too long for an intellectual man to attain the know- 1 What is Reality ? by Francis Howe Johnson, p. 505. PKOGKESS AND WANTS 85 ledge of science, history, philosophy, fine arts, lit- erature, languages, and religions, which is now at- tained in separate portions by many men. One must be content, just for want of time, to leave vast regions of knowledge unexplored, although one is conscious of capabilities which would enable him to traverse them intelligently. So the scholar marks out his one line and follows it, nor presumes to boast that all knowledge is his province. Only a beginning has been made in those moral dis- cernments, obligations, and reciprocities which will make the perfectly good man in the perfectly good society. To a future century the moralities of to- day may seem as crude as the rude bravery, the bristling honor, and the coarse customs of " Merrie England " seem to us. For communities, nations, society at large, no limit is defined beyond which progress in the awakening and supply of wants cannot go. Sounder economics, wiser and purer politics, more equitable jurisprudence, finer aesthet- ics, better ethics, more humane and spiritual reli- gion are easily imagined and confidently expected. Progress of the individual and of society, which is individuals in relations, consists of accretions of knowledge, justice, beauty, and goodness, which are gained by degrees as the desires for them strengthen into felt and imperative wants. There is no known limit to the development of men in 86 INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS the awakening and satisfaction of various wants, and therefore no limit to the advance of society in the progressive realization of wants. Without lingering to discriminate between wants the satis- faction of which promotes well-being and fancied wants the satisfaction of which is injurious, and without lingering to observe that different indi- viduals have different wants, I proceed at once to consider the relation of progress through the sat- isfaction of legitimate wants to the inequality and variety of individuals. XII VARIETY PRODUCES PROGRESS { COMPARISON of developed with rudimentary so- cieties has shown that progress results in variety of functions.'*! It now appears, in view of the rela- tion of progress to wants, that variety of functions is a necessary condition of progress. The differen- tiation of individuals, which is indicated in their various capacities and pursuits, is a cause quite as much as a result. It both constitutes and produces progress. If wants are to be satisfied, supply must corre- spond to demand. If wants are numerous, sources of supply must be various. -Existing wants, for which provision is constantly made in large mea- sure, are satisfied by the contributions of many dis- similar producers. Provision for one person for a single day is made by numerous toilers. The food and clothing one needs are supplied from all parts of the world by manifold kinds of labor and skill. Transportation from place to place is provided by an army of inventors, constructors of vehicles, engine-drivers, and motor-men. The news- 88 INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS papers and books one reads, the music one enjoys, the pictures one admires, the plays one witnesses, supply wants by the productiveness of many hand and brain workers. One adds his daily mite to the common store, and draws out in return the comforts and enjoyments of his own life. Should no more be done than to maintain present condi- tions, should men have only the advantages of existing civilization, a great variety of unlike and unequal functions must be exercised. Certainly, then, if progress is to be made by added satisfac- tions, there must be even more variety of func- tions, new and finer differentiations of training and pursuits. ' Every step of progress means the addi- tion of a humanlactor that is in some way unlike all existing factors. \ The progress of civilization, then, cannot be a nearer approach to equality, but must be an increasing diversification of the indi- / viduals that compose society, a more complicated 'f<and not a more simple organism. There must be articulation of each new invention and art, of fresh knowledge, and of broader application of moral prin- ciples with the organisms into which they are in- troduced. The new factors multiply the power of those factors which are already active, as a little cog inserted at the right place in a mechanism doubles the revolutions and the transmitted powers of all the wheels. VARIETY PRODUCES PROGRESS 89 Beyond the most meagre margin, the individual cannot supply his own wants, but, as he advances, is more and more dependent on others. He who does all for himself leads a starved and empty life. When as consumer an individual is the only customer of himself as producer ; when he engages in no traffic with another as buyer or seller, if such a condition were possible, he is a man reduced to the lowest terms, not so much of a man as a savage in a tribe ; he is a wild man of the woods. All this is commonplace which may seem to be hardly worth stating. Of course we all are depend- ent on one another, and become more and more dependent as wants increase, as life is more rich and various, as anything worthy the name of pro- gress is achieved. But these trite facts play havoc with theories of equality. They emphasize the growing variety and difference of persons. They show that the nearer man and society approach the ideal state, the more unlike do individuals become ; that even if all have the same amount of money in their pockets, they will use their money in ways as different as wants, desires, tastes, and capacities are different, if for no other reason just because wants, which are many and various, must be supplied by individuals who are unlike in skill and capacity. \ XIII SUPERIORITY THE word "superiority" which was laid aside lest it should seem invidious may now be employed without offense. Every one who contributes to the supply of legitimate and increasing wants is, in respect to his contribution, superior to others, at least in the sense that others are dependent on him. Those who satisfy, for themselves and for others, the higher wants, may be regarded as su- perior to those who satisfy only the lower wants. Above the plane of material wants (although va- riety of function is necessary even to material pro- duction) are intellectual, political, and aesthetic wants, for the satisfaction of which there must be some persons who are superior to others. A youth desires education. He must put himself under teachers who are his superiors, or at least must have recourse to books written by those who have already attained the knowledge he wishes to ac- quire. Directly or indirectly wisdom is received from other minds. Is a man, exactly like me, who knows no more than I know, to make provision for \SUPEEIORITY 91 my intellectual wants ? There is no such thing as^ \ a self-taught man, as there is no such thing as a tself-made man. When a purse-proud merchant Isaid to a would-be son-in-law, " I am a self-made man, sir," there was justice in the reply, "You are under no obligation to confess to me." One who desires to be a pianist looks for a teacher who excels in technique, touch, and interpretation, or has at least been a pupil of some great master. Superiority is insisted upon. That there may be learners there must be teachers in advance of the students. The proficiency and talent of a few is the necessary condition of the progress of the many. But who teaches the teachers ? They teach one another. The teacher himself, not being omni- scient, learns from those who have the knowledge he does not possess. The philosopher must know something of science. But a lifetime is required for the mastery of a single science. The philoso- pher, who relates facts to principles, must be con- tent to take results which specialists have obtained. e^ He regards them as authorities before whom he bows, as they, in turn, should bow before him as an authority in his own province, although scientists have at- tempted, to their confusion, to be their own philo- sophers of tener than philosophers have tried to be 92 INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS their own scientists. The biologist teaches the ge- ologist, they teach the philosopher and are taught by him, and the poet teaches them all. Each, in some particular, is superior to the others, and each discovering, in his own line of research, new facts and truths, stands, for a time, the superior of all, a purveyor to a new want which his discovery supplies. This is just as true in politics. Laws are not self-evident to all men. Government is not auto- matic. There must be those who understand the structure and needs of society, who have know- ledge of political principles, who know what in- terests should be left to individuals, and what provinces of action should be regulated by law, and to whom authority is delegated for the en- actment and execution of laws. It will not be claimed that all citizens are equally well fitted to legislate for the million. There are enough fit men in the United States to govern the nation aright. If the right men were in the right places welfare and progress would be promoted. The mischief is that superior knowledge and fitness are not recognized and enthroned. The interests of economics furnish no excep- tion to the dependence of progress on superiority. There must be organization and therefore organ- izers. There must be workmen under direction. SUPERIORITY 93 Development of productiveness, increase of wealth, and proper distribution of goods are possible as \ superior persons invent and control. Such persons | cannot be drawn by lot nor chosen before trial, t They must be created under strong incentives and t. competitions, which are the conditions of selection for important functions. Economic evils are due to the control of incompetent and unprincipled men and to the misplacement of competent men in subordinate positions ; to grants of artificial monopoly and to corrupt legislation, rather than to a system which offers rewards in the shape of well-earned profits, or to unequal sharing of mate- rial values. The socialist colony of Kuskin, in Tennessee, has a number of by-laws, one of which is : " Every member of this Association shall surrender his natural freedom which leads him to disregard the rights of others, for the sake of civil or social free- dom, which, being based upon the principles of justice, has regard for his rights and for the rights of all." The question at once arises, To whom is natural freedom surrendered? Evidently to cer- tain persons who are supposed to be better capable than others of managing the affairs of the colony. Therefore another by-law provides that " all orders of foremen and superintendents must at all times be obeyed." This is the only possible condition 94 INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS of successful business, although, if individual free- dom is relinquished, it may easily be perverted to tyranny. I have said that every productive person is in some respects superior to others. It may now be observed that two conditions are necessary to pro- gress : one, that each make the most and the best of himself, a condition in which he is dependent on his many superiors; the other, that each render the service of which he is capable in promoting the welfare, the knowledge, or the enjoyment of others, a condition, in respect to such service rendered, in which he is their superior. Then there can be progress all along the line, each person communi- cating a pull which is felt at all points and by all persons. XIV ARISTOCRACY AND DEMOCRACY AT the top and in the lead should be the real aristocracy. That good word has suffered a per- version which has nearly destroyed its signification. Aristocracy means the rule of the best. If the best men have guidance and control, progress is constantly made. If the real aristocracy is set aside in favor of the incompetent, there is confu- sion and every evil work. Honor to the Greeks, who coined the word that stands for the rule of the best. When the word is corrupted so that it signi- fies pride of rank, or birth, or wealth, with com- pulsion of menial service from others, with indo- lence and luxuriousness, both parts of the word I lose their original meaning. The first part no longer means the best, but comes to mean the Tvorst ; the latter part no longer means ruling, but means exaction of homage. But there are those who are fitted to be a political, an economic, an intellectual aristocracy. Place them in their use- ful and rightful positions, let the aristocracy of merit be enthroned as well as acknowledged, and 96 INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS there will be that government, that national wel- fare, and that culture which constitute well-being and insure progress. A great overturning there might be, indeed. Some who are first would be last, and some who are last would be first. Some who are exalted would be abased, and some who are abased would be exalted. But there would still be a few first, a few last, and a multitude at all points between. The ideal society would, no doubt, reverse many positions of the actual society. We are told in the Talmud of a young Jew who had quitted the sphere of earth, but was permitted to return to it and give his impressions of heaven and hell. "What hast thou seen in the other world, my son ? " asked the Eabbi Levi, his father. "I have seen an inverted world; they who here were highly exalted were abased in the depths ; they who are last here take there the highest place." " It is the true world thou hast seen, my son," said the elder Eabbi.1 But even in the ideal state there is no dead level of equality. Francis Galton 2 classified Englishmen according to ability and reputation in seven grades, from A, the lowest, to G, the highest. He found two hundred and fifty thousand in a million in the lowest grade, a decreasing proportion in each superior grade, 1 The Message of Israel , by Julia Wedgwood. 2 Hereditary Genius. ARISTOCRACY AND DEMOCRACY 97 and only fourteen in the highest,' with one left over, marked X, standing solitary and alone above G, carrying his flag high above the social pyramid. An accurate classification might have employed all the letters of the alphabet, or even have used a million numerals to designate the differences in a million people, but there would still be the few who by intellectual superiority and unbounded^ energy are the born leaders, teachers, judges, rulers, and benefactors, — the genuine aristocracy. Otto Ammon 1 points out the striking fact that the idea of equality originated with the aristocracy. "v " The principle," he says, " of equality springs originally from the circle of the nobility, and was first applied to all men by the ideas of the French Revolution. But aristocratic equality is altogether different from democratic equality. The former limits itself downwards against the pressing in of inharmonious elements, and it has a deep thought ; pne shall be as much as another, no one less. Democratic equality limits itself upwards; one shall be as little as another, no one more I Who- ever in spirit and character is superior shall be dragged down into the dust, so that his presence may not violate the principle." Neither of these notions is correct. The true principle is, to every 1 Die Gesellschaftsordnung und ihre Naturlichen Grundlagen, pp. 194, 195. 98 INEQUALITY AND PBOGRESS man his work, his place, and his right, without regard to less or more. But the vivid contrast of ideas makes the two tendencies distinct and implies the truth that there are superior functions, and therefore must be superior men. It implies that, if superior functions are in abeyance, or still worse, if inferior men attempt to exercise functions of leadership, progress will be arrested. The French writer who has already been cited applies to the true leaders and teachers, upon whom national and racial progress chiefly depends, a word signifying well-born, the word eugeniques. He applies it to those who are superior by reason of ability, energy, and character. By well-born he does not mean an hereditary nobility and gentry, but those whose ancestry combines the best physi- cal and intellectual qualities. He maintains that in the golden age of Greece the really great men bore rule in politics, philosophy, and art. He be- lieves that the vitality, enterprise, and expansion of the Anglo-Saxons is due to fortunate strains of blood and the leadership of the true eugeniques. He contends that the decadence of the French is to be attributed to inferior racial mixture and to the promotion of inferior men to positions of power. He finds scientific evidence of his opinion in cra- nial measurements, the long-headed peoples being progressive and the short-headed peoples being ARISTOCRACY AND DEMOCRACY 99 decadent. I cannot go with Lapouge to all his conclusions. But he stands on important facts. I am willing to go with him the mile, although he shall not compel me to go with him twain. The fact that progress depends on the rule, or at least on the influence and service of those who by inher- itance and development are endowed with superior gifts, is a fact which should be gladly acknow- ledged. Eeturning to Ammon, I agree with him that the chief hindrances to progress are unfitness, misplacement, and maladjustment. He points out several conditions of that sort which are detrimen- tal. He regards it as detrimental when gifted men are obliged to employ themselves in subordinate positions and are hindered from passing to their appropriate places ; when incompetent and senes- cent persons are retained in responsible offices ; when talented but ill-balanced and prejudiced men are set to administer justice; when the leading class have excessive power and legislate in their own interest, or the centre of gravity is shifted to the under classes which lack the insight requisite to right decisions, or the whole social interest is directed, even if sympathetically, upon the prole- tariat ; when the household economy of the higher classes presses so hard that anxiety about daily bread prevents free service to the community ; 100 INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS when the independent position of the middle class is lost; when skilled workmen have no assured employment; when, in the education of youth, school organization subjects all pupils to the old- fashioned classical training and does not educate in accordance with their personal bent for mercan- tile, industrial, and scientific pursuits ; and, in gen- eral, when competition is hindered and the develop- ment of energy is arrestedX If the worst men and \ j_^»r the least capable come into control, on the assump- \ tion that one man is as good as another, the aris- tocracy of merit is replaced by a misrule which deserves the ill-meaning and ill-sounding designa- tion, kakistocracy, the rule of the worst, f The task of democracy is practically achieved when it invariably selects the aristocracy of merit and capacity for the highest functions, and matches position to fitness all the way up and down the line. This, indeed, is the fundamental principle^ pf democracy, not to make all men equal, but to recognize superiority and to place power in the hands of the wisest and most capable men, always to put the right man in the right place and to consign the hustling demagogue to the privacy of well-earned obscurity. Democracy should replace the aristocracy which depends on accident of birth by the aristocracy of merit, should set aside the 1 Die Gesellschqftsordnung, pp. 189-192. ARISTOCRACY AND DEMOCRACY 101 aristocracy which buys place with gold for that which earns place by capability and distinguished service. But when democracy stands for a great leveling down and a slight leveling up, when it will have no aristocracy at all, its doom is sealed. That the task of democracy is recognition of the true aristocracy, municipal and national problems plainly show. When closely packed populations unite under one government to become the chief metropolis of a State and, indeed, of the nation, it is seen that the prosperity and the political health of the municipality depend almost entirely on electing to the magistracy the most capable, intelligent, and honest citizen, and on electing as heads of departments those citizens who are best fitted by success in business and public affairs to conduct those departments. It is seen that the worst calamity is promotion of dishonest and in- capable men to a control so responsible. The laws of the charter may be ever so good, but will be in- efficient in the hands of bad or inferior men. The laws may be imperfect, and yet if they are enforced by suitable men, the city will be well governed. The jubilee which celebrates the sixtieth anni- versary of the coronation of Queen Victoria has been the occasion of many inquiries into the rea- sons of the wonderful expansion of Great Britain during her long reign, an expansion unequaled by 102 INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS any nation in any period of history. One writer, after making allowance for the improved mecha- nisms of the century, — steam, electricity, railroads, telegraphs, telephones, all that multiplication of forces which enables one man to do the work of a hundred men, which makes what were formerly the luxuries of the rich the necessaries and con- veniences of all, but which are the common posses- sion of all the civilized nations ; and after making allowance for the freedom which has struck off many shackles from trade and given political rights to all, and which was long regarded as a panacea for all evils, — calls attention to another cause without which freedom would be a fiction, a cause which has given England her superiority over other nations for the last half century. "But freedom is not all. There is something else in the progress of England in this century of which we are conscious, something that we do not perhaps always like to acknowledge, but which, notwithstanding our own millions and our own wealth, we may well envy her. There is no word for it in the dictionaries, it is not celebrated on tombstones or in biographies, but it is a quality without which no nation or individual has ever made any stable progress in the history of the world — perhaps we should say an assemblage of qualities which may be more easily traced in the ARISTOCRACY AND DEMOCRACY 103 effects they produce than named. In this century for the first time a great power, comparable at its height only to that of Rome, has come upon the scene, which has known how, in every department of government, to select the best man for the work. The English judge, the English parliamentary leader and minister, the English consul, ambassa- dor, civil servant, and military and naval officer, form a body of public men such as hardly any other country possesses, and certainly such as Eng- land never possessed before. Not merely is there no corruption among them, but they form a natu- ral class e dirigeante — they are as nearly as may be the picked men of the country. In other words, the English public service draws to itself the char- acter and intelligence of the whole country, and those who govern are in a larger measure than any- where else in the world those who ought to govern." The writer adds that " for this scheme of gov- ernment it was necessary, not, as was supposed in the last century, that we should have a new heaven and a new earth, but that the notion of privilege should be replaced by that of a trust, and that im- provement should be sought through the enlight- ened discharge of duty and not through aggression. The example of England shows that hereafter this view of government is the only one for those who do not wish to fall back into the night of despotism 104 INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS and decay. Whenever England has followed this path, prosperity and power have attended her; whenever she has relapsed into the old system, as has been more than once the case in foreign affairs, the result has been disaster and humiliation." 1 This, in some respects, is a rose-colored view, par- donable in the year of jubilee. England is not without English (and Irish) critics, as witness Lecky's " Democracy." Such criticism is a healthy and hopeful sign. But the writer quoted has un- doubtedly hit upon the cause of the expansion and prosperity of England in this century. It is de- mocracy placing the reins in the hands of its real aristocracy. Mr. Godkin, writing on the " Decline of Legisla- tures," finds the reason for the decline in the inferi- ority of the members. He says : "It is increasingly difficult to get a man of serious knowledge on any subject to go to Congress if he have other pursuits and other sources of income. To get him to go to the State legislature, in any of the populous and busy States, is well-nigh impossible." When Con- gress adjourns, and when the legislature adjourns, a sense of relief pervades the community. Mr. Godkin contrasts legislatures with Constitutional Conventions, which command the highest respect, and shows that the chief difference is in the supe- 1 The Nation, June 24, 1897. ARISTOCRACY AND DEMOCRACY 105 rior ability and character of the members of Con- ventions. His own language should be given : — " Side by side with the annual or biennial legis- lature we have another kind of legislature, the ' Constitutional Convention,' which retains every- body's respect, and whose work, generally marked by care and forethought, compares creditably with the legislation of any similar body in the world. Through the hundred years of national existence it has received little but favorable criticism from any quarter. It is still an honor to have a seat in it. The best men in the community are still eager or willing to serve in it, no matter at what cost to health or private affairs. I cannot recall one con- vention which has incurred either odium or con- tempt. Time and social changes have often frus- trated its expectations, or have shown its provisions for the public welfare to be inadequate or mistaken, but it is very rare indeed to hear its wisdom and integrity questioned. In looking over the list of those who have figured in the conventions of the State of New York since the Eevolution, one finds the name of nearly every man of weight and pro- minence; and few lay it down without thinking how happy we should be if we could secure such service for our ordinary legislative bodies." 1 1 "The Decline of Legislatures," by E. L. Godkin, D. C. L.: The Atlantic MontMy, July, 1897. 106 INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS A wise man said of the Christian society : " God hath set some in the Church; first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly teachers, then gifts of healing, helps, governments, divers kinds of tongues." The divine order in the Church is the order of nature in all progressive human societies. By endow- ment and by corresponding increment of training God hath set some in society : first poets, preachers, and philosophers ; secondly statesmen and legisla- tors ; thirdly teachers, scientists, and inventors ; then merchants, manufacturers, navigators, military commanders, mechanics, farmers, spinners, miners, clerks, cooks, butlers, tailors, athletes. Are all philosophers ? are all statesmen ? are all inventors ? are all mechanics ? are all weavers, cooks, or tail- ors? But the poet cannot say to the farmer, I have no need of thee ; nor yet the weaver to the statesman, I have no need of thee. The same wise man said that, in the harmony of mutual regard and service, persons are not exhaustively defined by nationality, status, and sex; there is neither Greek nor Jew, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, but all are one (not equal) in Christ Jesus, in the life of mutual dependence, and in the spirit of love. One wiser than Paul said that the measure of greatness is the measure of service to others ; " whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister, and ARISTOCRACY AND DEMOCRACY 107 whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant." That is the true social law, apply- ing not only to superior gifts and powers, but to all talent, skill, knowledge, and character; the measure of power the measure of service. Since the service must be various, the gifts and powers must be various. When nature is allowed to determine function, artificial arrangements are broken up, and the first - places are accorded to those who are entitled to them. The seat of honor may be placed here or placed there ; but where McGregor is, there is the head of the table. I was once asked which is the best and most desirable chair in a theological insti- tution, and could only answer, the chair which is occupied by the best man. Misplacements are not without their consolations to observers. A great office does not make its occupant great. A fool, thrust into prominence by holding a high office, only shows more conspicu- ously how great a fool he is. A life-size statue surmounting a dome is dwindled into pygmy in- significance. When the man and the office are in inverse proportion, the sober judgment of the people perceives and deplores the maladjustment. Official promotion may fall to unworthy men, but they do not escape a just estimate of their unfit- ness. It is pretty well known when a man is too 108 INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS small for his place. It is not pleasant, I should think, to perceive surprise on all sides when one is appointed to an important position or receives an honorary degree. Surprise because one is not promoted and honored would be more agreeable. After all, then, promotion is not real unless it is deserved, and is valued almost precisely according to the worth and ability of the man himself. A popular ovation having been given to an unpopular President, a local newspaper significantly observed that the people honor the office. Correct estimate of unfitness is a sure indication that the people wish to enthrone the aristocracy of fitness, and that in the end they will succeed. Professor Paulsen, tracing the educational ideal of the future, says that " the society corresponding to the above ideal would be that of an aristocracy of mind. Is this the type towards which we are leaning? Is the aristocracy of birth and wealth to be supplanted by the aristocracy of personal worth and merit ? This has been the philosopher's dream from the day of Plato's Republic to the present hour. It is the tendency of nature. It would be the aristocracy of nature to have every individual stand independently upon his own per- sonal merit, and not upon the achievements of his father; while the influence of heredity, in the sense of the transmission of personal characteris- AEISTOCEACY AND DEMOCEACY 109 tics, would certainly not be diminished. Such is the aristocracy to which historical development seems to point. Both Church and State have made considerable advances toward the realization of this idea of a personal elite, by bestowing position and influence according t© the degree of personal tal- ent and efficiency without regard to birth and possession." * It follows, with many other conclusions, that those who are capable of great service should not shun it from fear of criticism or of lack of appre- ciation, nor because high office has been degraded by unworthy occupants. We may sympathize with but cannot applaud the choice of Ulysses to be a private citizen, the lot he would have taken if he had had the first instead of the last choice. l The Forum, August, 1897. XV RESENTMENT OF SUPERIORITY AND INFERIORITY KESENTMENT of superiority is a characteristic I mark o£ prevalent discontent. It is a discouraging symptom and a hindrance to progress. Resent- ment of undeserved fortune has some justification. Over-estimation, stamped by conferring honors on \fjnen who are conspicuous only by some happy accident, deserves criticism. But when resent- ment is excited by deserved wealth and by real superiority, it actually prevents the full measure of social service which the wealthy and gifted can render. A gentleman provokes the dislike of a boor just because he is a gentleman. The boor goes out of his way to be rude in order to assert his equality, and chuckles to himself as he makes a coarse and profane reply to a civil question. He does not know how to handle the gentleman, and in the end is defeated, only to resent refinement all the more. Ignorant voters will not tolerate the scholar and the gentleman in politics. They call for an " every-day man " who is " one of the people." On the platform a candidate is tempted RESENTMENT OF SUPERIORITY 111 to condescend to vulgarity and profanity in order to catch votes. Politicians from some sections of the country offend the social proprieties by appear- ing at evening receptions in other than evening garments, for fear of offending their constituents by dressing as gentlemen. He who confers bene- fits must be careful not to assume a tone or man- ner of superiority. Benefactors have to be wary. On their part there may be no pride in their capa- bility of service, no feeling of patronage or conde- scension, and yet they cannot go directly towards the fulfillment of their benevolent designs, but must proceed by indirection, almost by stealth, when they would bestow charity, convey informa- tion, or proffer counsel. The benefactor must not only keep his left hand in ignorance of his right hand's helpfulness to guard against the pride of goodness, but must keep his helpful right hand itself out of the sight of the beneficiary, lest it be bitten by the ingratitude of resentful envy. This resentment of superiority is one of the voices that clamor for equality, but it has no other idea of equality than leveling all superiority down to its own inferiority. There is also resentment of inferiority on the part of the superior, which, although not as igno- ble as the other sort, may be even more unfavor- able to the common welfare. The cry for equality 112 INEQUALITY AND PEOGEESS is in the mouths of some who, with the best mo- tives (let us be charitable), desire to remove the limitations of nature from those who are less amply endowed than others, to carry on a " reform against nature." Early missionaries to savage tribes were stirred by resentment of the natural as well as of the moral inferiority of savages, and attempted to convert them, not only from cruelty to kindness, but also from a rude social state to the refinements of European civilization, to equalize them with those who had had the advantage of generations of edu- cation and culture, and were the product of the finest racial and national stock. Professor F. Eatzel, in his " History of Mankind," referring to a missionary in Terra del Fuego who was instructed to teach the natives agriculture, building, and other arts first, and who accomplished little, asks why the results were so meagre, and replies : " Such an attempt to bring men over from a poor but easy state of existence to one which, though better, demands more of them, can be nothing but an economic revolution which is not only capable of bringing blessings, but also certain to cause mis- chief, and the latter sooner than the former." Some social reformers who cherish dreams of equality resent the condition of those who have little but physical strength and skill by which they can contribute to the supply of common wants. RESENTMENT OF INFERIORITY 113 Such friends, from whom they might pray to be saved, would give them a portion of goods which they would use harmfully, an education of which they are utterly incapable, and refinements which they can assume about as easily as a pine table can take a mahogany polish. As well attempt to impose upon savages the dress, manners, appliances, cul- ture, and art of a ripe civilization as attempt by division of wealth, or by any economic redistri- bution, to put the refinements, cultivations, and enjoyments of the well-endowed into the posses- sion of small endowment and attainment. These reformers impart their own resentment to those for whom it is felt by pointing out the contrast between employer and workman, between capital and labor, between the purple and fine linen of the wealthy and the homespun and calico of wage-earners, — always the material contrast, so easily perceived, but signifying so little for character, contentment, and enjoyment. If we could get at the workers, if we could hear them speak for themselves, while those who pro- fess to speak for them, but are not of them, keep silence for a little space, we might find that resent- ment of superiority is not so general as we had been led to suppose. There is much of it, no doubt, but it is, in so large part, instigated from without rather than incited from within that it is 114 INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS safe to deduct a large discount from the estimate of resentment made by professed reformers. In the grades between the lowest and the highest twentieths of the population (classified according to material possessions), that is, in the grades of employment which are above want and below riches, it is doubtful if there would be much re- sentment of wealth and superiority, were it not for agitators, themselves enjoying competence and leisure, some of them possessing wealth, who pursue the dilettante virtue of social reform, who foment discontent by speeches and writings which tell persons of moderate but sufficient income how much better off some other people are than they are ; were it not also for unscrupulous politicians who hope to rally votes by inciting envy against wealth, but who, between campaigns, are uncon- cerned, or are rolling up for themselves the wealth they have taught others to covet. The minister of a great congregation of German working-people in New York city, after listening to an address be- fore a clergyman's association on the discontent of laborers who, it was alleged, would not long endure existing inequality, quietly remarked that it was not so with his people, that they were indus- trious, comfortable, and contented, and that only three or four times in as many years had he heard a word of complaint, or of envy towards the pro- RESENTMENT OF INFEEIOEITY 115 sperous. The case may be exceptional, but seems to be typical. This does not mean that working- people are without ambition and have no desire to better their circumstances, but it does signify that they are not continually brooding over the con- trast of wealth and wages ; that for the most part they go their ways contentedly, enjoying what they have, and cultivating the common virtues. Some reformers are, in fact, discouraged because many of the people actually do not have and will not be induced to have a proper resentment in view of the superior advantages of the prosperous who live at the other end of the avenue. But, whatever degree of resentment there may be and however it may be incited, it is beyond question that the resentment which would merely deprive others of what they have and would reduce supe- riority to a lower level is harmful chiefly to those who cherish it, and serves only to hinder such im- provement as is possible. XVI TWO KINDS OF DISCONTENT THERE are two kinds of discontent ; a kind to be condemned and a kind to be encouraged : an ignoble and a noble discontent. The first has in view the material possessions and the superior en- dowments of others ; the second has in view one's own possession, achievement, and character. The first is the discontent of envy ; the other is the dis- content of ambition. The envy that is most common and most com- monly appealed to is the envy excited by material values in the possession of others. It covets a neighbor's house, ox, and ass, and the means whereby he can afford to have a manservant and a maidservant. Envy of superior talents and of the eminence they give in literary, academic, and political circles is felt only by persons within those circles, by persons who are engaged in the pur- suits in which a few have made a name for them- selves. Those circles are small, and, within them, the majority are stimulated rather than embittered by the success of their superiors. For one unsuc- TWO KINDS OF DISCONTENT 117 cessful or moderately successful author who is soured and who believes that the popularity of others is undeserved, there are a hundred authors who are genuine admirers and fair critics. But the masses do not so much as know the names of distinguished authors, scholars, scientists, and phi- losophers. Envy is most commonly excited by display of wealth. The envious imagine that the chief good consists in material values, that riches procure complete enjoyment, that money is the measure and the master of all things, that a good share of wealth is all that is necessary for attain- ing the objects of life. The discontent of am- bition, on the other hand, desires the attainment, culture, and character which are dependent on one's own exertions. The discontent of contrast deepens into bitter- ness as it sees that the envied wealth is out of reach. It despises that amount of wealth which is attainable by industry and thrift. It waits for a redistribution through which the poor will become richer by making the rich poorer. Those who nourish this discontent in others by emphasizing contrasts without appealing to personal ambition aggravate envy into hostility which only hinders more equitable adjustment. It is not from such discontent that progress comes. Unless other sen- timents are fostered, the distance between extremes 118 INEQUALITY AND PKOGBESS will be widened. Should the discontent of contrast become violence, the economic structure might, indeed, be overthrown, but only to involve all in ruin. Labor would be a blind Samson crushed itself in pulling down the house of the Philistines. The discontent of ambition sees the better self, the better mechanic, better farmer, better hus- band and father, in existing conditions, sees that improved men make improved conditions, and sees that extremes can be reduced, not by pulling down the superior, but by raising the inferior in the measure of their capacity. Those who have a small share, perhaps too small a share of material goods, will get more, not by redivision of what there is, but by increased productiveness of skill. After a redistribution which gives equal shares to all, ignorance and laziness would soon be as de- stitute as ever. /Even if wealth were parceled out equitably, it would not produce men of intelligence and character, or, at the most, would be only one factor among others for the improvement of men. For the making of character, the gaining of know- ledge, and the right use of wealth, personal ambi- tion and effort are necessary. * True ownership of wealth cannot be gained simply by taking it away from those who possess it. Material values, in that respect, are like men- tal and moral values. Intelligence cannot be TWO KINDS OF DISCONTENT 119 gained by depriving the wise of part of their knowledge ; nor refinement by robbing the culti- vated of their culture ; nor virtue by taking away the character of the good. Those values can be gained only by one's own ambition and toil. The gain of one is not the loss of another, but the gain of each is, or may be, the gain of many ; as with \ religion, of which it has been said that the more * we give away the more we have. Material goods • change hands more easily than mental and moral t goods are transferred, at least so far as legal title ' is concerned, but are not really possessed except i as they are rightly used. Ownership is use. A r man that is unfitted by ignorance, vanity, or selfish- i ness for the right use of wealth- has no ownership , in the goods that stand in his name. He may / buy books enough to fill five hundred square feet t of library shelves, but if he cannot read and ap- / preciate them they are not his. Legal posses- ( sion is not personal ownership. Money buys but t a small part of intellectual and aesthetic value. ' Unless personal ambition incites to attainment and culture, wealth is no addition to resources. An intelligent workman reading a scientific treatise or a volume of history which he takes out of a public library becomes possessor of the value of the book, although it does not belong to him. A rich man who has no taste for reading does not possess his 120 INEQUALITY AND PBOGRESS private library, although he has paid for the costly editions and has placed his name and imported gk ^Ji' ^ r crest in every volume .j An inquisitive boy asked a driver as the horses toiled up the mountain road, " Who owns Mount Washington ? " The driver re- plied that it is owned by the Pingree heirs. But the mountain really belongs to those who admire its beauty and grandeur. Legal ownership has the value only of so much timber. Envy, seeing external possessions and coveting them, is a foolish discontent which could make only a meagre, selfish use of the wealth it would grasp, and would add nothing to the sum total. Ambition, using aright the goods already in hand, increasing them by skill and industry, and aspir- ing after knowledge, culture, and character, makes better men, who are fitted to use as much wealth as they may obtain. The same possessions, enjoyments, and culture are not possible to all, because God has made men unlike. But a degree of improvement is pos- sible to every one. Let each seek that and not grasp at the moon. The important thing is that each know what he can do and what he can be, and strive for that with all his might. Let the rear come up, by all means, so that, if possible, it may stand where the van is to-day. But let no one suppose that the van will wait until all are ranged TWO KINDS OF DISCONTENT 121 along one line. The leaders will be as far in ad- vance as ever. The rear moves up only because those in advance keep moving forward and in their movement lead or draw on those who are behind. I am not preaching a gospel of satisfaction with economic conditions. Changes and improvements are needed and will probably occur. If legislation in the United States favors wealth and monopoly at the expense of toilers, it can be and should be reversed by the people. Yet, were economic' conditions perfect, there would be no gospel of sal-1 vation, apart from the ambition and striving of the ' individual to become his best possible self in the : use of that which he has. Nor are economic con- ditions so bad that right ambition need fail of realizing itself in those increments of intelligence and growths of character of which by endowment the individual is capable. There are, at any rate, voices enough crying in the wilderness to deepen the discontent of contrast. There cannot be too many voices calling individuals to turn from their ^ignorance and shiftlessness and to bring forth fruits worthy of repentance. To most men that are stirred by the ambition of discontent and are asking, What shall we do ? the cry of the ancient voice is still a good answer: to publicans, repre- senting the wealthy, " Extort no more than that 122 INEQUALITY AND PROGBESS which is appointed you; " to soldiers, representing the employed, " Extort from no man by violence, neither accuse any one wrongfully, and be content with your wages ; " and to all classes, " Bring forth fruits worthy of repentance." NOTE. — The statement on page 114= that the majority of workingmen are not envious of the wealthy may perhaps be questioned in view of the large number who are members of Trade Unions. But their object is simply to obtain fair wages, to receive the share to which they are fairly entitled. They understand perfectly that large capital in the hands of a few is the necessary condition of good wages. XVII ADMIRATION AND INSPIRATION IN contrast with resentment of superiority is ad- miration. Admiration creates inspiration, arouses ambition, and promotes progress. Egotism and self-satisfaction make advancement impossible. The Master, as the pupils and friends of the late Pro- fessor Jowett of Oxford loved to call him, remark- ing that one of the two great forms of religion is the sense and practice of the presence of God, says : " The best of humanity is the most perfect reflection of God : humanity as it might be, not as it is ; and the way up to Him is to be found in the lives of the best and greatest men ; of saints and legislators and philosophers, the founders of states and the founders of religions, — allowing for and seeking to correct their necessary one-sidedness. These heroes, or demigods, or benefactors, as they would have been called by the ancients, are the mediators between God and man. Whither they went we also are going, and may be content to follow in their footsteps." This admiration, he adds, is prevented by overweening egotism. " We 124 INEQUALITY AND PBOGRESS are always thinking of ourselves, hardly ever of God, or of great and good men who are His im- age. This egotism requires to be abated before we can have any real idea of His true nature. The ' I ' is our God — What we shall eat ? What we shall drink? What we shall do? How we shall have a flattering consciousness of our own im- portance ? " * Without great men how commonplace, and, it may well be believed, how unprogressive the world N would be. Progress is possible for the individual who admires a superior. It may not be possible by other agencies, in the absence of a genuine ad- miration which inspires ambition. A college pre- sident, who, like the Master of Balliol, awakens enthusiasm for the highest standards, which he himself embodies, gives tone and uplift to the whole community of aspiring youth whom he gov- erns and guides into self-guidance and self-govern- ment. The Governor of a State, who is a cultivated, capable, honest, and courageous gentleman, is the pride of the Commonwealth. He awakens an ad- miration and enthusiasm which raise the standard of citizenship and of official position, and which show that in their hearts the people prefer the refinement and greatness of one of nature's no- blemen to the coarseness and meanness of the 1 Life and Letters of Benjamin Jowett, vol. ii. p. 313. ADMIRATION AND INSPIRATION politician who seeks to gain popularity by cheap arts. Admiration of others is itself admirable. Some nobleness of spirit is needed to recognize noble- ness. The saying that a man is not a hero to his valet has been wittily justified by the explanation that it is not because the hero is not a hero, but because the valet is a valet. Yet servants know the difference between noble and ignoble masters, and are said to be good judges of character. This may very well be true, for the reason that he who controls another reveals his character in the re- quirements he makes. The devotion and respect of servants are precious tributes paid to worth; and they also exalt those who are capable of such admiration and loyalty. Appreciation, which enno- bles those who generously feel it, is found at all points up and down the social and intellectual scale. Darwin, so it is said, after receiving a visit from Gladstone, who was passing through Down, spoke of the visit afterwards, and declared that the great statesman sat and talked as familiarly as a neighbor, and that no one would have dreamed that he was Prime Minister of the kingdom. Appre- ciation of the greatness of the statesman made the scientist forget his own greatness. There is a fine touch in Stevenson's description of the old Scotch- man on an emigrant ship who was filled with 126 INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS admiration of the indifferent performances of a youth on the fiddle, and who repeatedly called on the bystanders to share his enthusiasm. The secret of modesty and of egotism is partly open in view of admiration and the absence of admiration. It is frequently observed that the best and ablest men are the most modest, and that very ordinary men are the most egotistical; that modesty and conceit are in inverse proportion to ability. But it is not as paradoxical as it seems. The modest man compares himself with those who are his superiors in attainments and achievements ; the self-absorbed egotist compares himself with his inferiors, or with nobody at all. One compares himself upwards ; the other compares himself down- wards. One appreciates the talents and acquisi- tions of those who stand first, and is modest ; the other compares himself (if he ever looks out from the closed circuit of his own thoughts and pursuits) with those who are, or who he fancies are, inferior to him, and is inflated with self-conceit. The Phar- isee, who thanked God that he was not as other men are, compared himself, not with the best men of his time, not with Joseph of Arimathea the just counselor, nor with Mcodemus the honest seeker after truth, nor with John Baptist whose call to repentance the Pharisee must have heard, but with those who were worst or supposed to be worst, — ADMIRATION AND INSPIRATION 127 extortioners, adulterers, unjust, or yonder publican who presumes to come into the temple to pray. He did not lie, he did not cheat, he did not company with bad women, and he was not a publican. He compared himself downwards and was completely satisfied. The publican, who did not so much as lift his eyes towards heaven as he cried for mercy, had a vision of honesty and of purity, disclosed to him, no doubt, by some pure and honest soul. He measured himself upwards and was penitent. This is a parable, not only for religious standards, but also for intellectual and moral character. Egotism is wrapped up in its own insignificant self and despises others ; modesty can admire superiority. Modesty inspired with admiration sees and fol- lows the line of improvement ; egotism inflated with pride, self-sufficiency, and contempt, neither conceives nor desires improvement, but dwindles into yet smaller insignificance. " Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? there is more hope of a fool than of him." The saying is true to fact ; *' every one that exalteth himself shall be abased, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted." The ideals which humble also inspire and exalt. To have no ideals is to be abased, both in the estimation of others and in constant deterioration. There is a wide difference between inspiration -^ and imitation. Inspiration touches character — the 128 INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS inner self. Imitation touches externals — the out- ward man. When Phillips Brooks was alive, scores of young Episcopal clergymen tried to preach as he did. He had a habit of speaking rapidly (the quick utterance being due to a tendency to stam- mer), and of expanding his chest and spreading his hands upon it. So these young clergymen spoke rapidly and expanded their chests and spread out their hands. They were putting on the garments of the great preacher, imitating externals; but the garments were too large, and hung very loosely on the smaller men. To many preachers, however, Bishop Brooks was an inspiration. Reality, genu- ineness, freshness, sympathy, became the type of preaching in hundreds of pulpits. It may almost be said that he changed the character of the Ameri- can pulpit. Admiration need not be servility. Servile ad- ulation places the great on an unapproachable pinnacle, and obliterates self. It widens distance. True admiration inspires one to make similar at- tainments, to do kindred deeds, to have the same character. Democracy, on the whole, discourages servility and promotes genuine admiration. When rank and class are impassable, besides those who resent such artificial superiority are many who become servile and obsequious. When distinc- tions of rank and class do not exist, when char- ADMIRATION AND INSPIRATION 129 acter, culture, and achievement give superiority, when no gulf is fixed by externals, there is more of genuine admiration, more inspiration of ex- ample, less servility, and less resentment. It is thought that, in this country, wealth provokes ha- tred in some and servility in others, as hereditary rank does in other countries. There has been, and is, a sickening servility towards the rich. Many are eager to be introduced and to be on bowing (scarcely speaking) terms with the rich, although no possible advantage is to be derived from the acquaintance. But there seems to be some abate- ment of eager running after the wealthy. Enor- mous fortunes are looked upon with suspicion. We wonder how they were come by. For only a short time have we boasted that there are more millionaires in America than elsewhere. We now wish they were fewer. Mr. Howells remarks that it is not only the old-fashioned American who looks on wealth with misgiving, " it is the newest-fash- ioned American, the best educated, the most finely equipped, the young man choosing deliberately a high calling in which he cannot hope to make a fortune — it is he who regards the vast accumula- tions of money, once our admiration, with genuine contentment in his higher aim."1 In another magazine, one writer says of the President of Co- 1 " The Modern American Mood," Harper's Magazine, July, 1897. 130 INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS lumbia University, whom many desire to see Mayor of Greater New York, that, although he is wealthy, he is never spoken of as a rich man, that the fact of his wealth " is obscured by the character, the spirit, the aim of the man, in truth by the man himself. In a time when great wealth excites so much comment, when the ignorant envy its owners, and some of the educated are devising schemes to check its accumulation and even to divide it, it is no small service to the public that one example should be set of wealth utterly forgotten in the per- sonality of its possessor." 1 Now one false form of success and now another may be overvalued in popular estimation, yet in a democracy standards of intelligence and character have the best chance of winning admiration and creating inspiration. Such standards, embodied in superior persons, — in scholars, teachers, statesmen, artists, capitalists, and benefactors, — are the indispensable conditions of progress. There is no danger that the supply of great men will give out, at any rate from lack of favor- able circumstances. As against the prediction that there are not likely to be any more great men, because science can publish no discoveries com- parable to those already made, because all the epic and dramatic situations have been exhausted, and 1 Edward Cary, in Review of Reviews, July, 1897. ADMIRATION AND INSPIRATION 131 because the most momentous political changes are already accomplished, I have observed in an earlier work l that " it is rather rash to predict that there are to be no more distinguished statesmen while Bismarck and Gladstone are still living and are more widely famous than Pitt, or Burke, or Machi- avelli were in their day ; to affirm that there will be no more eminent scientific discoverers, consider- ing that Darwin was unknown forty years ago ; to prophesy that there will be no more great poets when it is remembered that the entire life of Tennyson and Browning was included in the present century. It might with equal force be argued that social dis- content and democratic government furnish unpre- cedented conditions for leadership and fame ; that national relations are so sensitive and the balance of power so delicate that, in use of the modern enginery of war, a soldier may yet appear more famous than any military genius of the past; that not all mysteries of nature are explored ; that life does not cease to be dramatic because it is com- fortable, but with refinement and culture becomes more sensitive, and so will give the poet ample material." Biologists believe that discoveries more important than any yet made await investigation of the germ-cell. It has been said that the next great philosophers and theologians must be accom- 1 Moral Evolution, p. 47. 132 INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS plished biologists. An entirely new school of poetry, making large use of the mechanism of rail- roads, deep-sea cables and ships, of cities, of com- merce, and of modern labor has been founded in this decade by Kipling. National and interna- tional politics are on so large a scale that name and fame may be enhanced beyond any greatness of the past. Great movements require great leader- ship. General improvement and the diffusion of culture have not yet taken the place of great men who marshal and master the multitude. What would become of us if all were equally good and great, and we knew no superiors who inspire to noble deeds and feelings? What would become of us if all were equally small, sordid, and igno- rant? XVIII THE PROGRESSION OF IDEALS IN a previous section attention was directed to the fact that progress is made by th of new wants, that the satisfaction of one want creates a fresh want which had been unforeseen Now, new wants which one endeavors to realize are ideals.^ A want bondexeriftTi^ft is «™ idp^T. Every one, in this sense, has ideals of some kind, material, intellectual, aesthetic, social, moral, re- ligious, or a composite including some or all of those wants. There is one common characteristic of all those who pursue ideals and thereby make advancement. All do not have the same wants or ideals. Some are not capable of comprehending the ideals of others. A child does not understand his father's aims, thinks it a pity his father should waste time over dull books when he might be at play. A scholar's purposes are almost incompre- hensible to an athlete. Who would be a dig when he might be a quarter-back ? Social ambition is meaningless to an artist. The common character- istic is the progression of ideals. The satisfaction 134 INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS of one want creates another want, so that the ideal is always in advance. Unless one rests in a stag- nant state, he is led on by some higher ideal, of the same sort, or of an entirely new sort. V, !> The mfitbpd._of_ progression is also the same for all, whatever the ideal may be. The old ideal is not relinquished unless it is believed to be false and mistaken. The old ideal becomes customary, and upon it desire and effort reach out for the new and higher ideal. That which had been eagerly desired is so welded or woven into experience that it becomes familiar, customary, and almost auto- matic. This familiarizing of ^satisfied wants is worthy of careful notice. x-*v Every one has had experience of novelties be- f fjL^oming commonplace. The rrmgt agfwmskiTig thing, is the rapidity with which astonishing things be- come matter-of-course arrangements. Not long agcTtte beholder was amazed~~at the power of an electric wire to push heavily loaded cars through the streets. To-day he reads his newspaper as he is whirled along, and on every trip makes com- plaint of slowness and delay. The appliances of wealth, which are eagerly coveted by those who do not have them, are every-day conveniences to their possessors who give them scarcely a thought. In- terest is transferred from the habitual to the un- accustomed. A carriage is simply a convenience, THE PROGRESSION OF IDEALS 135 only an appliance to take its occupant to some place where he will do or enjoy something, simply a means to some other end. For pleasure he pre- fers a bicycle or his feet, and leaves his horses to eat off their heads in the stable. As tjie merchant drives through the park in aa equipage perfectly appointed, the envy of pedestrians, he may be ab- sorbed with the anxieties of business, or disturbed with thoughts of his dissipated and disappointing son, or planning a trip to Europe to be rid of the monotonous routine of his office, his daily drive, and his ten-course dinner, or impatient to reach home and take up the unfinished novel or to spend the evening at his club. His conveniences and luxuries actually become an encumbrance. His establishment brings more care than enjoyment. He thinks he envies the laborer who trudges home- ward, puffing his pipe and swinging his empty dinner-pail. He perceives that contentment, like worth, is as likely to go on foot as in a high dog- cart. His wife, poor thing, is at Aix-les-Bains, try- ing to recuperate from nervous prostration, brought on by entertaining, visiting, and the management of twenty servants. The jgassage from old to new satisfactions may be called the extension of automatic action. A child learning to walk makes conscious effort with every uncertain step, and is delighted with his new 136 INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS accomplishment ; but soon walking requires no conscious volition, is automatic, and when walk- ing and running the child's mind is intent on flowers to be picked and games to be played. With painstaking effort the child learns to read. Every word is spelled out. But soon he is not aware of words and letters, but only of the thought expressed. Attention is not wanting, for a mis- spelt word and a misplaced letter is noticed. But the mind is liberated from the act of reading and concentrated on the object of reading. Playing the piano becomes automatic. The performer is not conscious of separate volitions as his fingers strike the keys. Attention is discharged from the mechanical act to the rhythm, harmony, and in- terpretation of the composition he renders. The exercise of nearly all physical and of many intel- lectual volitions which at first is conscious becomes automatic. Even moral actions may be so habit- ual as to become unconscious. The effect of this is not the restriction of voluntary by the extension of automatic action, but the liberation of volitional energy in new and higher directions. A man does not become a machine by changing the unaccus- tomed into the habitual. He only transfers choice and energy from a narrow to a wider circle. Even automatic is not necessitated action, for one can walk, read, add columns of figures, play a musical THE PROGRESSION OF IDEALS 137 instrument, or not, as he chooses. To be sure, one can become an automaton. One can circle about in the narrow range of a few habits without seek- ing new experiences or making fresh attainments. To some it is painful to move out of the grooves of habitual action. They are the unmitigated con- servatives, who get their growth early, and who ^(ould make an end of progress. Jj/The extension of automatic action, instead of be- ing a^Limitation, is the very condition of progress. The mor^TaSguages o"ne ^ean read automatically, the more new knowledge one can acquire. The more automatic musical mechanics, the better ap- preciation of music, old and new. Were there no automatic action, humanity would be forever in leading strings and the alphabet, always beginning everything anew and making no progress. An an- cient writer said that we are to leave first princi- ples and go on unto perfection. He did not mean that first principles should be abandoned. He meant that first principles should be taken for granted, a second nature, and on that basis there should be advancement to new knowledge and finer character. Precisely so a boy should leave arith- metic and go on to geometry; arithmetic is not abandoned, but automatic facility in numbers con- ditions progress in the higher mathematics. This, now, is true of the economic, aesthetic, and moral 138- INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS i life. There is a progression of desires and ideals, and dijjergnt persons areatjifferent stages. The step towards which this one is climbing, that one stands upon or has left beneath. The coveted lux- uries of some are the accustomed conveniences of others. If income were doubled, one thinks one could be content. But wants will double. The first half will only give place and room for the satisfaction of other wants. The laborer wants a better house. The rich man has the house but wants to fill it with pictures and books. The height of an instructor's ambition is to be a professor, but the professor wants to write books, to be made a member of the academy of science, to receive an honorary degree. People might be grouped roughly according to their ideals ; some desiring what others already have, others aspiring to condi- tions which none have attained ; some embracing an ideal realized in material goods, others aiming at literary, aesthetic, philosophic, religious values ; and all, as they reach one vantage ground, stirred by desires for more of what they have, or for that which is different and bettdJj^There is progression of ideals for each improving person, and there is an ascending scale of ideals for society. The scale of ideals is determined partly by circumstance, but chiefly by personality. The highest ideals may stir one who is in the lowest station. The lowest THE PEOGEESSION OF IDEALS 139 ideals may appeal to one who is in the highest sta- tion. There are intelligent and refined working- men and there are ignorant and coarse millionaires. Not, so many ideals corresponding to so many classes, but in every class, many men, many minds ; and with all, progression from one ideal to an- other. Contentment, therefore, is but slightly depend- " ent on circumstances. Every one has observed this. In every condition some are contented and some are discontented. The amount of possessions | seems to have nothing to do with contentment. A wage-earrxer^is as contented and happy as his em-_ ployer. I recall but do not remember a poem of Archbishop Trench's, to the effect that some mur- mur when a single cloud is in a clear sky and / others are thankful for one patch of blue in the darkened heavens. Now, the accepted explanation of this well-known fact is not, I think, the correct,^ or, at least, is not the complete explanation. C6ri-' tentment is due, it is usually said, to the spirit of the person and not to the abundance of the things he possesses, or, in philosophical terms, it is subjec- , tive, not objective. That is perfectly true, but the explanation assumes that a person of the right spirit is satisfied with what he has and asks for nothing more. But he is a very dull and stupid and despicable person who desires nothing more. 7 140 INEQUALITY AND PEOGEESS He has gone to seed. The correct definition is this : contentment is the gaining of the next satis- faction that is really desired. The workingman has some object which he wishes and expects to gain. He is trying to maintain a life insurance of two thousand dollars, or to carry his son through a textile school, or to buy his daughter a piano. See the contentment and delight of the man as he is attaining those objects. They are the natural extensions of his life. A rich man is contented if he is succeeding in a new venture, or secures a val- uable picture which the connoisseurs have been trying to get, or if his son carries off the honors at graduation. His wife is contented if her diplo- macy brings about a good match for her daughter, or if her paper on Browning is applauded by the literary sorosis. The pursuit and attainment of the objects which lie nearest in the path of life contribute reflexively to development of character. Certain virtues are cultivated in the workingman by his ambition for his family. Certain refine- ments of taste, a broader and keener sagacity, the pleasurable sense of success, are added to the per- sonality of the merchant and the merchant's wife. Paul said that he had learned the secret in whatso- ever state he was therewith to be content. It was because he learned that in any outward circum- stance he could further the objects to which he THE PEOGEESSION OF IDEALS 141 was passionately devoted. When he was making tents he converted into Christians Priscilla and Aquila who worked at his side. When he was in prison at Home he brought some soldiers of the pretorian guard into the Christian life, and wrote epistles which became part of the world's immortal literature. When he was shipwrecked he encour- aged the frightened passengers, and was the means of saving two hundred and seventy-six persons. This same philosopher who was contented in any state also declared that he was always forgetting the things behind and reaching out for the things before, ever pressing towards the mark of the prize of a high calling. But that was the very reason he could be content in any outward circumstance. Contentment is anything but stagnation and re- petition without desire for more. It is not, indeed, restless. It is serene, calm, and satisfied, just be- cause it is ever reaching after and gaining some new and worthy end. It might be characterized as a state of moving equilibrium. A ship under sail is more steady than a ship at anchor. Zeno's illustration of the puzzle of motion and rest might be applied to the moving equilibrium of content- ment in the progression of ideals. "The flying arrow rests, " said Zeno, meaning that the swiftest motion is from one state of rest to another state of rest, or is successive states of rest ; that nobody 142 INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS knows how a stationary body can get into motion nor how a moving body can stop moving. In quite another sense, a desire speeding to its aim is the desire of a restful and satisfied spirit. Aimlessness is restlessness. 'T is the flying arrow that rests. The American poet, John S. Dwight, well says : — " Rest is not quitting the busy career; Rest is the fitting of self to its sphere: 'T is the brook's motion, clear without strife, Fleeing to ocean after its life." ^ I Contentment, then, is the continuous satisfaction of new wants. It is the second kind of discontent described in the sixteenth section. The discontent of ambition is the contentment of satisfying the new wants which grow out of old wants. The obvious reason for the disparity between circum- stance and contentment is the different ambitions of different persons. The wants of one man are not the wants of another man, and so the two have different ambitions. A beggar does not want dia- monds, though he may think he wants them. If he had them he would convert them into money and buy the things he really wants. The working- man does not want a masterpiece of Titian. If he had it he would sell it, and from the proceeds would buy a plot of land, build a snug little house, and mount his boys and girls on bicycles. He would realize his own ideals. Having become ac- THE PROGRESSION OF IDEALS 143 customed to them, he would desire other things which appeal to him according to the natural pro- gression of his wants. He is contented in the gradual realization of ideals which the rich man Jong ago left behind and the scholar never had. All who make progress, whatever possessions and attainments thgy already have, must put forth strenuous effort. They cannot saunter on, but must press on to the things which are before. In some sense, therefore, life is a struggle, certainly for all who make appreciable progress, and no one should expect or desire to escape it. Our sympa- thies are excited by the hardships of laborers who are deprived of many comforts. If we knew the hardships and self-denials of scores of instructors in the great universities, we might be equally sympathetic. The instructor has a family, and his salary is small. He must live in a respectable house near the university, must dress decently, must maintain his family in keeping with their social position, must have books, and must respond to many calls of associations and clubs. Such men and their wives have more anxiety about ways and means than the majority of workingmen have. But they practice the denials cheerfully, because they prefer their work and life to any other. They are neither complaining nor envious. They do not ask for sympathy. If a man has an ideal which 144 INEQUALITY AND PKOGKESS is worthy, we do not pity his hardships and strug- gles unless he is actually suffering, y Every man that can earn his living has some / vantage ground from which he can reach the higher ( values. Those values are not the same for all. One does not need to follow all the tracks of an- other. One earns wealth and has the discipline of his labor. Another inherits wealth and has the discipline of study and culture. Still another de- votes his energies to teaching or preaching, with small compensation, rather than to mechanical or mercantile pursuits. The circumstance, after all, is the least of it. Life, indeed, may be made too easy. Comfortable and luxurious circumstances may spoil character as certainly as indiscriminate charity may pauperize able-bodied men and women. " Even in a palace one may live well ; " but the observation marks a great difficulty. The constant preachment that more should be done for working people may lead them to despise the possibilities that are open to their own thrift and ambition. The severest hardship is absence of some incentive of necessity. Let every one always be making advancement from what is to what may be, according to his own ¥ circumstances and ability. We need not compare ourselves with others, but each should comjjftre his actual self with his ideal self, and follow the pro- THE PROGRESSION OF IDEALS 145 gression of his own true and right ambitions. Professor Jowett, after he was sixty years old, fre- quently said that he was always making fresh beginnings. " I always seem to be beginning life again, and may I ever seem to be beginning life again until the end! I have always the feeling that I have lost so much time that I can never have a holiday. I trust that during the last ten years I may work only from the highest motives." Among various maxims to be followed on the ap- proach of age, by a man of sixty years, one is : " He may truly think of the last years of life as the best, and of every year as better than the last, if he knows how to use it." 1 1 Life and Letters, vol. ii. pp. 79, 111. XIX UNIQUENESS AND UNITY IN these days much complaint is made about the separation and antagonism of classes in society, and effort is directed towards the unifying of men. To superficial observation equalizing seems the 'condition of unity. It is thought that the more nearly alike men are in circumstances and culture the closer will be their union. But, in fact, unity depends on unlikeness. Things which are alike are in juxtaposition ; things which are unlike unite to form a whole. Union of equals is a process in addition; union of unequals is a process in mul- tiplication. The Hegelian philosophy finds the unity of society in the uniqueness of individuals. The perfect society would consist of perfect indi- viduals, each self-centred and unique. One writer says, in comment, " If, on one side, we are defective at present because we are not joined closely enough together, we are defective, on the other side, be- cause we are not sufficiently differentiated apart." l 1 Professor J. Ellis McTaggart, The International Journal of Ethics, July, 1897. UNIQUENESS AND UNITY 147 This relation has been suggested in previous sec- tions, but is now re-stated in another form, and with the advantage of the considerations concern- ing variety which have been perceived. The most unique men are the most universal in relations and sympathies. Shakespeare stands alone in intellectual greatness. There is only one Shakespeare. But his distinction is his human- ness. He sounds the entire gamut of human thoughts, hopes, fears, and passions. He is uni- versal. A German theologian finds the unparal- leled power of Jesus in the unlimited range of his sympathies. He stands apart from and above all men in greatness. He is absolutely unique. He is, as Bushnell said, unclassifiable. But is not his uniqueness this, that he is not provincial, local, and narrow, but universal ; that he knew what is in man as no other has known, and that he had power of sympathetic union with men and women of any nation and any religion? He whose uniqueness made him the Son of God was te whose univer- sality made him the Son of man. Dr. Dorner therefore lays down the principle that the unique- ness of Jesus is his universality. The greatness and distinction of any person is measured by his sympathetic range. An educated negro who re- cently read "Uncle Tom's Cabin" for the first time, told me that he was most struck with Mrs. 148 INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS Stowe's knowledge of the feelings and thoughts of people belonging to another race. The universal popularity of the book reveals the unique power of the writer. It is said that Hugh Miller, the geologist, could adapt himself to all sorts of peo- ple ; that he would trudge along the high-road with a workingman, and make the man feel that he was conferring a favor on the great geologist by the companionship. Paul had his limitations. He was a Hebrew of the Hebrews, and showed that he was in every letter he wrote. But he was broad enough to accommodate the presentation of truth to Jews and Greeks, to masters and slaves, to the strong and the weak. It was no reproach that he was all things to all men, but was a mark of versatility and greatness. He was unique in the possession of that very power. A small, common- place man, without unique characteristics, is one thing to all men. He is read at a glance. He shows his one side, or perchance two sides, to every one on first acquaintance. This is true of men as they actually are: that the small men, who are nearly alike, have fewest points of union with others ; that the great men, who are unlike, have many points of union with others ; that the unity of society is conditioned on the uniqueness of un- like individuals, and that unity is therefore the very opposite of homogeneity and uniformity. UNIQUENESS AND UNITY 149 We may now advance a step farther in the same direction. As society makes progress, individuals become more, not less unique. The higher unity is a more complex variety. We therefore perceive that the ideals of persons are more unique than the actual persons ; that, if individuals should be- come their true and best selves, they would be more and more original in distinctive uniqueness. This tendency can be marked in observed improve- ment and retrogression. As persons go down the scale they become alike. Vice, for example, tends to sameness. It degrades, we say ; that is, it grades down. A gallery of rogues, while the faces are somewhat unlike, shows the same coarse, sinister, brutal expression in all the pictures. On the other hand, a gallery of fair women presents variety of type. You look at one face and exclaim with de- light. You look at another face and exclaim again with delight. Yet they are very unlike. One is all smiles, sweetness, gracefulness ; the other is all dignity, reserve, graciousness. Vice and ignorance tend to sameness; beauty and virtue tend to va- riety. If, now, this should be followed out, it would be seen, as I said, that the ideals of per- sons, their perfect selves, are more unlike than the actual selves ; that, as each develops according to his own type, he becomes more, not less, distinctive. Whatever the uniqueness of any person, it will 150 INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS be developed to the utmost ; and everybody, after all, is unique in some respect. Dr. Holmes said that the most commonplace life has material enough to make a three-volume novel. In fact, one school of novelists makes interesting stories by photo- graphing with fidelity the most commonplace char- acters, on the assumption that there are vast pos- sibilities in every life. Let those possibilities be realized, and ordinary persons would have unique interest and charm. Every one, if you please, is an original idea of God's. He sees the man in the child, the ideal man in the actual man ; and he does not repeat himself. We see that idea, each for himself, as we study our tastes and aptitudes, as we choose and succeed in the pursuits which are congenial, as we cultivate ourselves along the lines of our characteristics and endowments. Here is the truth of the old doctrine of Creationism. It is the doctrine that each soul coming into the world is a fresh and immediate creation of God's. The belief was entertained when heredity was not as well understood as it is now. But the truth for which the doctrine stood is apparent in the diver- sity of individuals, even of those who have the same heredity. A curious notion of a French writer, Godet, is the fancy that there are three grades of beings, — animals, men, and angels, — which are distinguished by the relative degrees of UNIQUENESS AND UNITY 151 heredity and individuality. Animals, he thinks, are almost exact reproductions of their kind. The species is continued with but slight variations. Men are under the laws of heredity, but individu- ality is more marked. Angels, who neither marry nor are given in marriage, are not the products of heredity, but are direct creations of distinct indi- viduality. Such a view, although fanciful, has a certain justification in the observed facts of differ- entiated human nature, and in the tendency of progress to make persons more and more unlike. When we reach our ideals (symbolized as angels in heaven), each of us will be perfectly unique. There will be no monotony in heaven. But ideal persons, like the angels of God, will be all the more capable of intellectual and sympathetic union with one another. There is more joy in the pre- sence of pure and spotless angels than in the pre- sence of impure and tainted men over a sinner that repenteth. Unity, then, is anything but uniformity. It is possible only in variety, and is realized through the reciprocal functions of differentiated persons. Nothing is so tiresome as unbroken uniformity, whether it is seven English sisters dressed exactly alike, or Chinese music drummed out on tom-toms, or an interminable plain traversed for weeks on horseback or even for days on a railway train, or 152 INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS any other unvarying repetition. Nothing is so pleasing as unity and harmony in variety. In dress, variety and contrast reflect good taste. It will be a grateful relief when the evening dress of gentlemen exhibits diversity, as already morning costumes allow knickerbockers and colors. Music exists by combinations and contrasts, even by occa- sional discords. Flowers and music are as unlike as the eye and the ear which perceive them, yet go so well together that certain tones suggest certain flowers, or at least certain colors, to some minds. Travelers on the plains rejoice when they pass among mountains and skirt the banks of rivers. Uniqueness, of course, depends on unity with others as truly as unity depends on variety. The health of every member and the health of the whole organism depend on the exercise of the ap- propriate function of each organ in giving and receiving. The hand is a distinct and wonderful member of the body ; but a hand severed from the arm is a hand no longer ; it must receive from the whole body and do its work in the body to be a hand at all ; and the body deprived of the hand is maimed and incomplete. The leaf of a rose after it is pulled out is not a living leaf, but is already decomposing as it falls from your hand to the ground; and the rose minus a single leaf is an imperfect flower with all its petals loosened. So a UNIQUENESS AND UNITY 153 man is not a true man unless he is in vital relation with his fellow men in the great social body of many members, in the consummate flower of a symmet- rical humanity with its manifold and different functions. It is the middle term of the eighteenth century watchword which needs revision, and the middle term only. Had it been liberty, inequality, frater- nity, or liberty, individuality, fraternity, it might not have been resonant enough for popular shout- ing and echo, but the first and third terms would have had some chance of realization. Inequality without liberty and fraternity is indeed an evil. But essential equality would destroy personal free- dom, and would leave as much fraternity as a man enjoys when he looks at himself in a mirror. Lib- erty and fraternity are possible only through the variety of coordination and reciprocity, which is anything but equality. Heal freedom is enjoyed . when one has scope for the exercise of one's own individual powers, as a machine plays freely when it acts according to the peculiar law of its struc- ture, and labors when it is geared to connections too great or too small for its service of foot-pounds. Fraternity is mutual service in variety of functions, from interchange of commodities to interchange of thought. The exchange of ten bushels of wheat for ten bushels of wheat is not commerce. Econo- 154 INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS inic reciprocity is exchange of ten bushels of wheat for a coat. Inequality is the middle term which gives personal liberty on one side and social fra- ternity on the other side. Liberty and fraternity, like peace and righteousness, meet together and kiss each other when every one exercises his pecul- iar gift in service of production and in reception of the various service of others. The gift itself is developed in its use for others. In selfish use of power there can be no greatness. Liberty is gained by rendering the largest service willingly. Thus there is scope for development and a career is opened to talents. Conversely, the very conscious- ness and exercise of ability in promoting the com- mon welfare and happiness strengthen the frater- nal spirit. Thus the highest unity is the reciprocity of unique individuals. XX CHRISTIANITY AND INEQUALITY DEMOCRACY and Christianity have, in important respects, a common task : to secure to every indi- vidual his right, to realize for every individual his worth. Both reach out and reach down to the low- est, so that every man shall be integral part of the whole. Democracy makes every man a citizen. Christianity makes every man a member of the kingdom of God. No one residing within the limits of a nation is to be excluded from the rights and privileges of citizenship. No one within the limits of humanity is to be excluded from the realization of his own worth. Regarded as citizens or as chil- dren of God, all men are essentially equal. There are common experiences of affection, sympathy, sorrow, faith, as there is a common loyalty of all citizens in a nationality. On this basis men are much alike. The grief of a laborer who stands by the dead body of his child commands the respect and sympathy of his employer who knows the same experience and who silently presses the hand of the sufferer. " One touch of nature makes the whole 156 INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS world kin." A great company of worshipers are stirred by the same emotions. One speaker, pre- senting the high themes, the duties and the aspira- tions of religion, sways the minds of a thousand listeners as if they were one person, as an orator moves a vast audience of the most dissimilar indi- viduals by appeal to patriotism. The sculptor de- picts the very same emotion and purpose on the dusky faces of negro soldiers as he brings out on the determined countenance of their cultivated commander. In one sense, and perhaps the lar- gest sense, democracy stands for the basal equality of all citizens. In one sense, and perhaps the largest sense, Christianity stands for the immortal worth of all men as children of God and brethren in one family. These interests of democracy and of Christian- ity are among the great interests of humanity. When the aims and progress of democracy are perceived they seem to be occupied with the equal- ity of citizens. The gospel, in one view of it, has the one aim of bringing all men equally to their right and worth. Concerning all this there need be, there can be, no question. It would be inter- esting to follow the course of democracy reclaim- ing to citizenship man after man, class after class ; and to follow Christianity as it has given slaves their freedom and women their equal place with CHRISTIANITY AND INEQUALITY 157 men, as it has gone down and out to the heathen, the outside peoples, to every class, rank, condition, with its one great sufficient, human salvation, cre- ating the holy church throughout all the world ; and to recognize the mutual action of Christian- ity and democracy in their universalizing work. These facts, with which we started, are repeated that there may be no mistake concerning the equal- ities and the inequalities of men. But the universalizing function of these two great moral powers is not undiscriminating. They do not profess to make all men equal in all respects. Both emphasize the variety of human endowments and functions, as giving the possibility of national and of Christian unity. Democracy brings the strong into the service of the weak, and thus is able to raise the lowest man. It dethrones an aris- tocracy which exists only to exact the service and homage of the weak. It impresses the best talents into the service of the State, and requires of the least their support and the product of their indus- try. It would not and cannot do away with dis- tinctions of great and less, but makes greatness the measure of service, while it excuses no man from the little he can do because it is little. Thus it promotes civilization and guarantees its own per- petuity. A nation is a unity in variety, not an interminable series of identical men. 158 INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS It is the language of Christianity which has just been applied with entire appropriateness to demo- cracy. Jesus had almost as much to say about the differences as about the common salvation of men. He spoke of those who are great, but gave no inti- mation that they ought to reduce their superiority to a common level. The use and misuse of great- ness were his only concern. The great ones among the nations lorded it over the inferior. " It shall not be so among you," Jesus said to his disciples. But he did not say that they were to abdicate such greatness as they had. They were to use it in min- istration to those who, because they need such ser- vice, are not great. On the other hand, the widow is not to withhold her mite because it is not equal to the wealth of those who cast in of their abundance. The woman who anointed Jesus' feet was com- mended because she did what she could. There was no measure, in either case, of less or more, but only the measure of ability. The parable of the talents is based on the unequal endowments of men, and the man who came under condemnation was the man who did not use the little he had. The parable of the pounds is based on the un- equal use of equal endowments. All had the same amount, one pound each, but increments varied from ten pounds to nothing. Both these parables, which are probably different reports of the same CHRISTIANITY AND INEQUALITY 159 parable, emphasize inequality ; one in respect to endowment, the other in respect to increment. Both, therefore, are true to life, for men are un- equal not only in native ability, but also in the use of the same talents. Faithfulness to one's own self in use of what one has is the lesson of both para- bles. Paul teaches explicitly that unity consists in variety. The members of the body are not only numerous but also are different, and in the differ- ences or variety is the unity. So the Church is one body of many members. All grades and kinds of power are enumerated, from apostleship down to any least helpfulness, such as hospitality. More- over, peculiar gifts are developed in their pecul- iarity by exercise in the great united society, and in ministration to the diverse needs of mankind. Every gift or function is to be exercised in its own best and peculiar way : giving is to be with sim- plicity of motive ; mercy is to be shown with cheer- fulness ; prophecy, that is preaching, is to be ac- cording to the proportion of faith, not less nor more than the preacher really believes ; and love is to be without dissimulation. Each characteristic gift is to be exercised characteristically. No man is to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but is to think of himself soberly, that is, correctly, neither overestimating nor underestimat- 160 INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS ing himself. Every member is humbled by the knowledge that he is only a single part of the great social unity, but in that many-sided relation his power of service is multiplied by many other factors. These discriminating and inspiring con- ceptions flow forth from and flow back into the one noble conception of unity in variety, which has a concise and suggestive expression unsurpassed in literature : " For even as we have many members in one body, and all the members have not the same office: so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and severally members one of another." Unity in variety is a favorite thought of the apos- tle. He impresses it on almost every church to which he writes. The thought is so true and so characteristic of Christianity at work that I can- not refrain from quoting entire another fine pas- sage : " Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are diversities of minis- trations, and the same Lord. And there are diver- sities of workings, but the same God, who worketh all things in all. But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit to profit withal. For to' one is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom; and to another the word of knowledge, according to the same Spirit : to another faith, in the same Spirit ; and to another gifts of healings, in the one Spirit; and to another workings of CHRISTIANITY AND INEQUALITY 161 miracles ; and to another prophecy ; and to another discernings of spirits : to another divers kinds of tongues; and to another the interpretation of tongues: but all these worketh the one and the same Spirit, dividing to each one severally even as he will." Why are men so different, so un- equal ? Why is one an apostle, and another only a healer ? That question will never be answered. The Spirit divides to each one severally, even as He will. But otherwise there would be dull, tame, monotonous uniformity, instead of beautiful, har- monious unity. So the healer heals and the apos- tle preaches. The law of earth is the law of the heavens. As there is a terrestrial so there is a celestial unity in variety. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and an- other glory of the stars; for one star differeth from another star in glory. So also is the resur- rection of the dead. Nowhere in the New Testament is there the faintest intimation that the kingdom on earth or in heaven is to be composed of persons who were made equal or have become equal. In fact, there is to be release from the apparent and artificial samenesses by which men had been classified in nations and classes, and individuality is to have its perfect and ample development through knowledge, faith, hope, and love. Class, caste, sex, and na- 162 INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS tionality are not the distinctive marks; but the individual stands out, his own unique self, making the most and the best of himself, after the pattern of Christ, and through the reciprocities of Christian unity in variety. The higher unity transcends the lower unity. " There can be neither Jew nor Greek, there can be neither bond nor free, there can be no male and female ; for ye all are one man in Christ Jesus." And yet, the higher sympa- thetic unity does not destroy the lower unities of nationality, sex, class, and kindred tastes. The seer on Patmos had a vision of the perfected, har- monious society, standing before a great throne and with one voice, as the voice of many waters, ascribing salvation to God. He observed that they were out of every nation, and of all tribes and peoples and tongues. Characteristic marks of na- tionality and speech remained. He does not say that they once belonged to different nations and tribes, but had become indistinguishable. He noticed the differences and reported them. The universal kingdom was seen to be a unity in vari- ety. A very good argument could be made to the effect that the doctrine of election is the calling of nations and individuals to the exercise of their peculiar functions. The elect are the select — those selected according to fitness for their place CHEISTIANITY AND INEQUALITY 163 and work in that kingdom which is universal, be- cause it is capacious of all gifts, endowments, and talents in the reciprocal services of knowledge and of love. The opinions which have been advanced in this volume are, I believe, in the main correct. They have been fortified by facts drawn from many sources. I said at the start that I am not con- cerned about the applications of my conclusions to social schemes. All social theories must reckon with the almost infinite diversity of human nature. The impulse at the heart of socialism is a good and humane impulse. So is the impulse at the heart of individualism. Some so-called socialists, when they pass from the general to the specific, admit the facts which have been pointed out, and are scarcely to be distinguished from those who oppose and deride socialism. All, by whatever name they may be called, all who would promote the welfare and advancement of their fellow men, should re- duce the unknown quantities of large social equa- tions to the lowest concrete terms. The inequal- ity of variety is not merely a stubborn fact which must be set over against vague notions of equality, nor is it simply the inevitable against which it is useless to contend. It is a fact to be welcomed, a fact on which the hope of progress firmly rests. 164 INEQUALITY AND PROGRESS From first to last this essay has been simply an illustration of that variety which gives the harmo- nious, sympathetic, and mutually helpful unity of men. 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. LD 21A-50m-8,'61 (Cl795slO)476B General Library University of California Berkeley YB 06828 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY