as published in "Theosophical Siftings" Volume
-2- 1889-1890
THE writer of
an article on "Brotherhood" in
the December number of "Lucifer" has given an erroneous
impression of Socialism, which, as a student of Theosophy
(I do not know if I can yet call myself a "disciple ")
who has been in a large measure drawn to this great study
through Socialism, I may, perhaps, be allowed to correct.
Indeed, I should feel that I was shirking a task clearly
indicated to me at the present
moment were I to leave such errors, so far as all the readers
of "Lucifer" are concerned, uncorrected.
" T. B. H.," the writer of the article in question — an
interesting and, I believe, useful article in many respects — has,
I venture to conjecture, confused the general system or class
of systems known as Socialism with certain methods of propagating
its principles. Let me commence by quoting the paragraph
in his article to which I take exception. He says ("Lucifer",
No.3, p. 213): —
(1) "Socialism, as preached during this nineteenth
century, it [the Universal Brotherhood, which is the mainspring
of Theosophy] J.B. B.] certainly is not. (2) Indeed, there
would be little difficulty in showing that modern materialistic
Socialism is directly at variance with all the teachings
of Theosophy. (3) Socialism advocates a direct interference
with the results of the law of Karma, and would attempt to
alter the denouement of the parable of the talents by giving
to the man who hid his talent in a napkin a portion of the
ten talents acquired by the labour of his more industrious
fellow".
I will first take the three statements contained in this
paragraph separately, and, for convenience's sake, in inverted
order. The allegation against Socialism contained in the
third is the most specific, and that which, in the eyes of
Theosophists, must appear the most serious. This statement — namely,
that "Socialism requires a direct interference with
the results of the law of Karma, and would attempt,
etc." — constitutes,
in fact, the only definite premise in his argument. Of course,
if Socialists do advocate, consciously or unconsciously,
anything of the sort, they advocate a physical and psychical
impossibility, and their movement is doomed [Page
4] to failure. More than this, if they do so
consciously, they are sinning against
the light, and are impious as well as childish in their efforts.
Of such, clearly, the Universal Brotherhood is not.
But neither
Socialists nor Socialism, "as preached in this nineteenth
century", does anything of the kind.
By "materialistic" Socialism,
I presume "T. B. H." implies (if he has really
studied Socialism at all, which I venture to doubt)
so much of it as can be argued upon purely worldly grounds,
such as the better feeding, housing, etc., of those who do
the active work of society, technical instruction, such general
education as fits a man for the domestic and secular duties
of life, and the reorganization of society with these objects
upon a "co-operative basis", in which public salaried
officials, elected by their fellows, will take the place
of capitalists and landlords, and in which the production
and distribution of wealth will be more systematically regulated.
This system, of course, takes no account of the law of Karma.
In a rough sort of way, however, all Socialists recognise
the law, so far as its effects are visible in this world
in the physical, intellectual, and moral planes. The fact
that " the evil that men do " (and that classes
and nations do also) "lives after them", none
are more ready to own and act upon. The action and re-action
of individual will and individual and social circumstance both upon each other and upon individual and social conditions forms part of the foundations of Socialism. Qua Socialists,
we do not, of course, take any more account of the law of
Karma than do non-Socialistic Christians and Agnostics, but
I maintain that there is nothing whatever in Socialism repugnant
to this law. If anything, indeed, it is the other way. All
Socialists, whether they call themselves Collectionists or
Anarchists, Christian Socialists, Communists, or purely economic
Socialists, are anxious to give freer play to human abilities
and
social impulses, by creating leisure and educational opportunities
for all. We may thus, if it is permitted to me to speculate
while criticising, become the instruments of a greater equalization
and acceleration of Karmic growth, "good" or "evil",
upon and among individual souls during their incarnation
upon this planet. This would come to pass by the transfer
of a great deal of the responsibility for Karmic results — which
now lies with each individual in his personal capacity — to
the collective entities composed of individuals acting in
public capacities, e.g., as nations, provinces, communes,
or trade corporations.
It is surely accurate even now to speak of a collective — e.g.,
a national or municipal — Karma, as we do of a national
conscience. We speak of reward or retribution to nations
and cities as if they had distinct personalities; are these
mere figures of speech ? But what is more important is that
Socialists may prepare the way for a revelation of the [Page
5] noble truths of Theosophy to the multitude;
they may help to raise the intellectual and instinctive moral
standard of the whole community to such an extent that all
will, in the next generation following after the Social Revolution,
be amenable to these truths. In this way, Socialism would
not, indeed, interfere with the results of the law of Karma,
but would, as the precursor of Theosophy, be the indirect
means of enabling multitudes to rise and free themselves
from its bonds.
As to the parable of the talents, well, Socialists
would be only too glad to see its moral better enforced in
this and other civilized countries. To them it seems impossible
that it could be less enforced or taken to heart than it
is now. They see that under the present system of society
—that vast engine of usury, by which whole classes
are held in economic servitude to other classes — many
are encouraged to live in sloth and hide their talents, even
if they put them to no worse use. This could hardly happen
under a régime of economic Socialism (such a régime,
for instance, as Lawrence Grönlund contemplates in his "Co-operative
Commonwealth" ), for these able-bodied or talented citizens
who declined to work would simply be left to starve or sponge
upon their relatives. Under a purely Communist régime,
no doubt there would be a few who would shirk their proper
share of social work, but at least none would be brought
up from infancy, as now, to "eat the bread of idleness".
Finally, on this point, if to advocate such changes as Socialists
advocate — the substitution of social co-operation
for competition; of production with a view to use for production
with a view to profit; of peace between nations, classes,
and individuals, for war; of harmonious organization, to
the advantage of all, for laissez faire and chaos
for the advantage or supposed advantage of a few — if,
I say, to advocate such changes be to advocate an interference
with the results of the law of Karma, so must be every proposal
for the amelioration of the physical or intellectual welfare
of our fellows. And if participation in this and other movements,
which may with equal justice be called materialistic, be
prohibited to Theosophists, they may as well, for all the
good their Universal Brotherhood will do to the masses of
those at present outside it, stay at home and content themselves
with communing with the select few who alone will ever be
in a position to appreciate them. If, for one reason or another,
they do not care to co-operate with Socialists, let them
at least recognise that the latter are preparing their way
for them, doing the dirty (?) and laborious work without
which Theosophy can never descend, from the serene heights
on which it now dwells, to enlighten spiritually this sadly
benighted world. For, apart from a healthier physical and
psychical atmosphere than civilized life engenders in either
rich or poor ( collective Karmic [Page
6] effects),
a fair amount of leisure and freedom from sordid care is
indispensable to most human beings for the higher development
of the perceptive or gnostic faculties.
At present this minimum of leisure and economic independence
is probably unattainable by nineteen-twentieths of the population,
yet this self-same society, with its scientific learning
and experience, its machinery, and its business organization,
contains within it all the germs of such a reconstruction
of the physical environment as shall very shortly place the
means of spiritual and psychical regeneration within the
reach of all.
"T. B. H.'s" second statement is
that "Indeed, there would be very little difficulty
in showing that modern materialistic Socialism is directly
at variance with all the teachings of Theosophy". Such
an expression as "materialistic Socialism" is,
as I have already hinted, erroneous. All Socialism
is materialistic in the sense that it concerns itself primarily
with the material or physical conditions of mankind. So do
chemistry and mechanics, pure or applied; so, in ordinary
politics, do Liberalism and Conservatism. No Socialism
is materialistic in the sense that it is based upon any materialistic
as distinct from spiritualistic or pantheistic conceptions
of the universe. It has hardly any more to do with such questions
than have cotton-spinning or boot-making. I do not, however,
pretend to mistake " T. B. H.'s " meaning. Taking
Socialism in its purely economic aspect (which I admit is
the foremost for the present, and must remain so until disposed
of), he asserts that "there would be very little difficulty
in proving", etc. This is a mere general charge against
it, although, I think, a less plausible and, therefore — from
the point of view of harmony between Socialists and Theosophists — a
less serious one than the particular charge which follows
it, and with which I have already endeavoured to deal.
For my own enlightenment I would like to have some samples,
taken at random, of his skill in showing this variance; but
I doubt if such a demonstration could effect any good. Moreover,
it is impossible to answer the charge on account of
its vague, albeit sweeping and all-comprehensive, character. "All
the teachings of Theosophy" are quite too much for
a student like myself to attempt to compare them with economic
Socialism as a system. Nor do I think one with ten times
the learning and discernment that I can claim would readily
attempt it. I merely record, therefore, my sincere conviction
that on this general point " T. B. H." is also
mistaken, and that it is not Socialism, economic or otherwise,
which he has really been scrutinizing, but the sayings and
doings of some particular "Socialist" whom he
has seen or read of. Individual Socialists have, of course,
many faults which cannot fairly be charged to the social
and economic tenets they profess. Thus one besetting fault
of militant advocates of the cause is the use of violent [Page
7] language
against individual capitalists, police officials, and landlords.
It is so easy, even for men of a calibre superior to the
average, to be drawn on from righteous indignation against
a corrupt system to abuse of the creatures and instruments
thereof, or even, on occasion, to personal violence against
them. Every good cause has its Peters no less than its Judases.
Socialism, unfortunately, has a rich crop of the former.
Another still worse fault on the part of certain agitators,
but one which might easily be predicted from the character
of the struggle and the condition of the classes who must
form the backbone of the Socialistic party, is the frequent
appeal to lower motives, such as revenge and love of luxury.
But such faults, although by all human prevision necessary
incidents in the movement, are by no means inherent in Socialism.
Even the purely "materialistic " Socialism of Karl
Marx, to which “ T. B. H." seems (although, I
think, not with any clear picture of it in his mind) to refer,
aims simply at securing the decencies and ordinary comforts
of life to all as a recompence for more evenly distributed
social labour. The very conditions of life under a co-operative
commonwealth such as Hyndman, Grönlund, and other followers
of the late Karl Marx's economic ideal, have in view, above
all the obligation (virtual, at any
rate) under which every able-bodied member of the community
would find himself or herself to do a few hours of useful
work of one kind or another every day, and the elimination
of the commercial and speculative element, with the wretched
insecurity and dangerous temptations which it involves, would
preclude inordinate luxury. A healthy simplicity of life
would become first “fashionable", then usual.
Communism, of course, goes further than economic Socialism,
as it implies not only the claim of the individual upon the
community for the means of labour and the enjoyment of its
fruits or their equivalent, but his claim for subsistence,
irrespective of the amount and social value of the labour
which he is able to perform. It would abolish, therefore,
not only individual property in the means or production,
but in the products themselves. The practicability of Communism,
the motto of which is " From each according to his abilities,
to each according to his needs", obviously depends upon
the prevalence of more generous motives, of a higher sense
of duty both to work and to give, a more perfect development,
in fact, of the sense of human solidarity. It is for this
very reason more commendable than mere economic Socialism,
as an ideal, to the attention of Theosophists, although its
appreciation, on the national or universal scale, cannot
yet be said to have entered "the sphere of practical
politics".
Communism, which may be either collectivist
or anarchist, leads me to add a few words about Anarchism.
I refer, of course, to the social [Page
8] ideal philosophically
denoted by this name, and not to the means advocated by some
of its supporters for putting an end to the present society.
Anarchism involves Communism as well as extreme decentralization;
more than this, it involves the abolition of all permanent
machinery of law and order such as the State is supposed
to provide, and the abolition of physical force as a method
of suasion even for criminals and lunatics. As a protest
against political domination of all kinds, and an antidote
to the excessive centralization advocated by some State Socialists,
Anarchism may be of some use; but it is obviously further
even than Communism (of the collective variety) from becoming
a school of "practical" politics. It could only
become so after society at large, all the world over, had
grown sufficiently homogeneous and solidaire for its members
to co-operate automatically for all necessary purposes, grouping
themselves into large or small organizations (limbs and organs)
as required, and forming a complete body social, or
Mesocosm, if I may be allowed to coin a word for the purpose.
The erroneous
conceptions of Socialism which I believe " T. B. H." to
have formed do not necessarily invalidate the first statement
in the paragraph of his article upon which I have been commenting,
to wit, that the Universal Brotherhood which he has in view
(and which, I understand
from him, forms a part of the programme of the Theosophical
Society) is not "Socialism as preached in the nineteenth
century, or at any other time, past or future, for that matter
. Still I am inclined to hope that a more intimate study
of Socialism will lead him to see that, whether identical
or not, they are at any rate not antagonistic.
My own belief is that Theosophy and " materialistic " Socialism
will be found to be working along different planes in the
same direction. Any Universal Brotherhood of Theosophists
must be based upon Socialist principles, inter alia, its
foundations may extend further and deeper than those of Socialism,
but cannot be less extensive. Greed and war (political or
industrial), social caste and privilege, political domination
of man over man, are as out of place in a true brotherhood
as wolves in a flock of sheep. Yet the exclusion of these
anti-social demons and the enthronement in their place of
Universal Love and Peace, if effected by such a Brotherhood,
would simply
leave Socialists nothing to do but to organize the material
framework of their co-operative commonwealths. To preach
economic or "materialistic" Socialism to a world
already converted to the highest and completest form of Socialism
would be to advocate the plating of gold with tin or copper.
Modern Socialism, if the noble aspirations of some of its
apostles may be taken as an earnest of its future, is already
developing (incidentally, of course, to its main economic
and. ethical doctrines) strong aesthetic and [Page
9] spiritual tendencies. No reader of William
Morris or Edward Carpenter, to speak of English Socialists
only, will fail to notice this. At present the mass of Socialists
content themselves with basing their social and economic
faith upon the ethical principles of Justice, Freedom, and
Brotherhood. But the highest, because most mystical, of these
principles, that of Brotherhood, or better, Human Solidarity — the
ancient conception of “charity" — forms
the unconscious link between modern Socialism on the one
hand and Esoteric Buddhism, Esoteric
Christianity, and Theosophy
generally, on the other. I say unconscious link, but I mean
to imply that it may soon be rendered conscious and visible.
As the various "orthodox " varieties, first of
Christianity, then of Mahomedanism, perish with the collapse
or destruction of the social systems that have grown up along
with them, this simple religion of Human Solidarity will
take possession of the deserted shrines of Christ and Allah,
and will begin to seek out its own fount of inspiration.
Then will be the time for the Universal Brotherhood of Theosophists
to step into the breach.
I must now turn to certain higher
aspects of Socialism and the modern Socialist movement, at
which, hitherto, I have done little more than hint.
I am
partly guided in this task by Mr. Harbottle's letter in the
January number of "Lucifer", which indicates some
points of variance or misunderstanding existing between us.
I trust that even if this article fails, as it may well do,
to effect a complete reconciliation on all points of disagreement
between Socialists and those Theosophists who are at present
opposed to Socialism, it may at least elicit a few sparks
of truth in the mere process of “clearing the issues". I
shall not attempt to treat the two parts of my subject, that
which refers to the economic and that which refers to the
higher aspects of Socialism, separately, as they are too
intimately connected with each other in their relationship
to the Theosophic movement to permit of their being conveniently
separated.
I have already endeavoured to show that Mr. Harbottle,
and any who think like him, are wrong in supposing that Socialism
or its adherents advocate “a direct (or for that matter,
any kind of) interference with the results of the law of
Karma". I have admitted that if I were mistaken, Socialism
was foredoomed to failure. But surely Mr. Harbottle must
agree with me, for he states, and very justly, that “the
Socialist movement is itself a part of the cyclic Karma". But
I hardly find him consistent with himself when he goes on
to add that “in its endeavour to rectify what seem,
from its limited point of view, injustices, it cannot fail
to be unjust to those, the justice of whose position in life
it declines to recognise". What does this mean?
Can a part, or as I shall prefer to express it, an agent,
of Karma, be accused of injustice ? If so, [Page
10] QUIS
CUSTODIET IPSOS COSTODES ? Surely not either Mr.
Harbottle or myself, or any other contributor to "Lucifer".
When I suggested that Socialists might be regarded as " the
instruments of a greater equalization, distribution, and
acceleration of Karmic growth",and that this would
come about — “by
transferring a great deal. of the responsibility for Karmic
results which now lies with each individual in his personal
capacity upon the collective entities composed of individuals
acting in public capacities", I implied much the same
as I understand Mr. Harbottle to mean when he speaks of the
Socialist movement as a part of the cyclic Karma. But I implied
rather more than he does. Many other much less important
movements than the Socialist may be equally regarded as forming
part of the great cyclic Karma. Even reactionary movements
(that is to say, movements contrary to the now prevailing
tendencies of human and social evolution) may claim, inasmuch
as they form part of the inevitable back current, to be described
in the same language; and those who take part in them may
claim to be the inferior agents of Nature — although,
of course, if they do so in obedience to their own lower
instincts and prejudices, and not "according to their
lights", they will individually suffer for it. The
same, for that matter, applies to those who are helping the
main or forward currents, but from selfish motives.
The real question, then, for Theosophists to consider is
not merely whether Socialism forms part of the cyclic Karma,
for that is not worth their while disputing, but whether
it forms part of the progressive and main evolutionary current,
or of the retrogressive back current. If the former, as I
firmly believe, then those who at present oppose it may not,
indeed, all be constrained to turn back, like Saul of Tarsus,
and fight on its side: some may conceive they have higher
work to perform in Nature's service, or work more adapted
to their powers and opportunities. But let
them, at least, examine and ascertain for themselves, according
to their lights, the true answer to this question before
they continue to oppose Socialism, lest haply they be found
fighting against the gods.
Let my suggestions on the subject
stand for what they are worth. I may state my own position
rather more elaborately and "scientifically",
by saying that I believe we have reached a stage in human
evolution on this planet in which a great many of the activities,
and corresponding responsibilities, formerly attaching to
individuals as such, are about to be, or are actually in
the course of being, transferred to collective entities,
or aggregations of individuals acting in a collective capacity,
such as municipalities, unions or communes, provinces, nations,
and confederations. I do not, of course, mean to imply that
individual activities, individual progress in this life,
will become merged and lost in collective progress, [Page
11] but
simply that in the action and reaction of the individual
and social entities, the importance of the influence of the
latter will increase, while that of the former relatively
decreases.
Physiology teaches us that in the lower forms of animal organisms,
the life of the constituent organs — nay, even of the
constituent protoplasmic cells — is much less dependent
upon that of the entire body, than in the higher forms. So
also in the case of social organisms, as I read evolution.
Since the break-up of the primitive European civilizations
(primitive, at least, so far as extant history, comparative
politics and archaeology enable us to see), which
seem to have developed communistic social organisms on the
tribal scale, the current of social evolution was set, until
quite recently, in the direction of Individualism. [It
is to be remarked that ancient Pantheism decayed about the
same time as ancient Communism, making place for the various
exoteric sects of classical times, and (save for a few lucid
intervals in which great teachers stepped forward to redeem
as much of humanity as possible from the materialistic superstition
in which it was steeped for the newer systems known as Catholicism,
Orthodoxy, Protestantism, Mussulmanism, Modern Buddhism,
etc. In pure philosophy it gave way to various materialistic
and spiritualistic schools of thought; Spiritualism and Materialism
representing simply the face and obverse of the coin of individualistic
philosophy]
This Individualism may be said to have culminated in the
material plane in Modern Industrialism, or individual and
class monopoly in the means of production; in the intellectual
plane in the supremacy of the Baconian method of experiment;
in the moral plane in Utilitarianism, and in the spiritual
(where that retains any substance) in Calvinism. But even
while at the height of its power — say 1850-70 — Individualism
carried within it the seeds of its final destruction. The
principles of a new society had already been formulated by
reformers and "Utopians” of various schools,
while the growth of discontent among the uncomfortable classes
more than kept pace with that of sympathy among the comfortable.
The evolutionary current has now distinctly changed its course
and is running at a daily-accelerating speed in the direction
of a
more perfect Communism — a Communism no longer on the
tribal scale, but on the national, or possibly in some departments
of the social activities on a still larger scale, and founded
on a more complex yet more solid basis. In this higher form
of social life, the interests and destinies of each member
or component cell of the social organism will be more closely
bound up than in the past with the organic whole. Mr. E.
Belfort Bax, of the Socialist League, has recently expressed
the final possibilities of communistic solidarity in a sentence
which I shall do well to quote. It comes at the end of a
series of articles entitled "The New Ethic " ("THE
COMMONWEAL", February 4th to February 25th),
written from a materialist rather than pantheist standpoint,
which contain, nevertheless, a great deal of interest for
Theosophists.
Speaking of "the inadequacy of the individual [Page
12] as an end to himself" — the basis
of the new Ethic — he
suggests that we may regard this growing sense as "the
indication that the final purpose of society, as such, is
not to be merely for the consciousness of its component personalities,
but that they are in the end destined to be absorbed in a
corporate social consciousness; just as the separate sentiency
of the organic components of an animal or human body
are absorbed in the unified sentiency and intelligence of
that body".
But just as in the evolution of animal life,
of man himself, form has preceded substance in its manifestations,
so in the social evolution also. Just as in the physical
body rudimentary organs appear, and develop
almost to perfection before their complete uses are discovered
or revealed, so in the social body, parts, if not the whole
of the framework of the harmonious organisms of the future,
will be evolved (if some of them have not been already) before
the perfect harmony can be attained. There can be very little
doubt that. Economic Collectivism, based partly upon existing
political forms, and upon existing national aggregations,
is the next stage of social evolution, the preliminary or
provisional form in which the new society will manifest itself.
Few Socialists are so sanguine as to suppose that the present
generation will see the realization of the higher ideal,
perfect Communism; but most believe in the possibility — at
any rate in those countries like England, France, Belgium,
and America, where Individualism has most completely run
its course — of realizing economic Socialism, or Collectivism,
within a decade or two. The triumphs of State and Municipal
Socialism on the one side, and of Co-operative Capitalism
on the other, are continually preparing the way for the democracy
to follow as soon as it gets the chance, while the increasing
number of persons engaged in them forms the leaven of administrative
ability which will secure the success of the Collectivist
Common wealths when once they are established.
The first evident advances effected by the Social Revolution
will certainly be in the material domain, and this is the
only sense in which I am ready to admit that the Socialist
movement is materialistic. So, of course, are all other movements
having in view the material welfare of those who suffer
under the present social order, or, rather, disorder. The
abolition of chattel slavery in the British possessions,
and subsequently in those American States which had previously
recognised it, was the result of a humanitarian movement
strictly analogous to and comparable with the modern Socialist
movement, so far as its advocacy by the middle and "comfortable" classes
is concerned; but not nearly so unselfish, since many of
those who advocated it had everything to gain by the abolition
of the competition of slave-labour with that of "free", or
wage-labour. The present middle-class advocates of Socialism,
that is to say of [Page 13] the
abolition of the wage-labour system itself — a system
entailing in many places a much worse and more degrading
form of slavery than that of the plantations [ It
was to the advantage of
the owners of chattel-slaves to take care of them, if only
in order to preserve valuable property in a condition of
efficiency, whereas the capitalist employer of "free” labour
(labour free to accept his conditions or else starve) has
no such sense of interest in the health and well-being of
his "hands", whom
he can replace when worn out without any fresh outlay] — may
fairly claim that there is no element of self-interest in
their advocacy, for the material benefits which would result
to them by the immediate establishment of Socialism, in any
of its forms, are very doubtful.
They would be saved the risks of bankruptcy and ruin, it
is true, but in other respects many of them would have to
give up their existing advantages, and betake themselves
to industries and services, for which their former lives
had ill-fitted them.
As to working-class Socialists, of course they are fighting
for the material redemption and emancipation of their own
class; but I think it ill-becomes their opponents among the
privileged classes, those who under the present system of
society live on their labour, to accuse them of selfishness
and; "materialism" because they wish to relieve
themselves and their children of their present almost intolerable
burdens. Of course, I do not claim for the victims of the
present system that they are as a class
one whit less selfish by nature than their masters and conscious
or unconscious oppressors. Many of them may even be suffering,
as Mr. Harbottle seems to suggest, from the evil Karmic growths
which they have accumulated during past existences. But that
is not for their fellow-men to judge. Nor would it, if true,
justify those who become aware of the material causes of
their suffering in this life, and who are able to help them
in destroying these causes, in raising the old cry, "Am
I my brother's keeper?" What Socialists are now endeavouring
to make plain to all, is that everyone is, in his political
or collective capacity, his brother's keeper. He is shirking
his duty as a conscious agent of evolution, that is of Nature,
if he refuses to recognise this.
Even Economic Socialism,
therefore, has its higher aspect. The cultivation of solidarity
or fraternal co-operation among the wage-slaves and their
friends for the emancipation of labour all the world over,
the cultivation of the sense of collective or corporate
responsibility among all, for the victims of the present
Social Juggernaut of capital and privilege, is the very essence
of the movement, even in this its most "moderate" but
most "materialistic" form. The spirit of solidarity
and collective responsibility must, of course, precede as
well as accompany, and result from, the progress of the economic
movement.
It stands to the latter in the relations of cause, accessory,
and consequence. Modern civilization, with all its rottenness,
has proved a blessing in this [Page 14] respect,
that it has developed within it this motive force for its
final regeneration. Capitalist production has necessitated
the massing together of the workers in large towns, under
miserable conditions compared with those of the independent
artisans of the towns and villages of olden times; but these
very conditions have taught them the necessary lesson of
their material inter-dependence, and enabled them better
to grasp the higher notion of the inter-dependence of Society
and the world at large. Socialism has, then, come to take
hold of and develop this germ of the spirit of solidarity,
guiding the people in their vague aspirations towards social
co-operation, and giving them a definite ideal. Thus the
motive power, generated by past economic conditions, is developed
by Socialists and utilized for the destruction of old and
the production of new economic forms, which in their turn
shall generate new and higher motive forces. This, I think,
must be recognised as Nature's own course of evolution, so
far, at least, as our free-thinking intellect and ordinary
means of observation can ascertain. Thus the Form (Economic
Socialism in practice) will be found to precede the substance
(complete Human Solidarity, or the Spirit of Socialism),
but depends for its own evolution upon a less-perfected Substance
(the Spirit of Solidarity), which is itself the product of
pre-existing Forms.
But both the form and the substance, which will eventually
carry us much further than Economic Collectivism, are evolving
simultaneously; and from the higher standpoint of Theosophic
Pantheism I can see no good in attempting to dogmatize as
to which precedes, or ought to precede, the other. Let us
merely admit that they are so mutually dependent, that the
one cannot be good and the other evil.
But if it be true
that the Socialist movement, in its practical effects, is
confined for the present to the material domain, that its
first victories would be in that domain, and that its present
supporters for the most part do not look beyond it, I cannot
concede that there is nothing in Socialism to command the
attention of Theosophists from higher points of view. The
movement to my mind is simply part of the great evolutionary
current which is bringing back the true Golden Age, the age
in which Humanity and Divinity, Love and Wisdom, will once
more be united as they have never been within historical
times. Economic Socialism I look upon simply as the necessary
form which precedes, and foreshadows, the substance. The
man cannot become a complete man until he has first become
a complete human animal; the divine spark has no temple
yet to occupy. Neither can society at large in any nation
or world become a true spiritualized organism, until it has
first evolved the form necessary for the development of
something like what Mr. Bax has termed a corporate consciousness.
If the present capitalistic régime, with its
seething warrens of [Page 15] human
misery, will come to be regarded by posterity as Laurence
Grönlund
describes it, as the teething period of society, the next,
or collective régime,
will doubtless correspond with the school. Its individual
members having been run for a generation or two into the
same educational mould, and class distinctions and antipathies
having died a natural death (their social and economic roots
being destroyed), society will acquire the cohesion of a
well-ordered family, and the next step, under Communism,
to complete fraternity and solidarity, will be a comparatively
easy one.
It will be for society the zenith of sensual, aesthetic,
and other purely human pleasures, as youth is for the individual.
But the potentialities of the higher life will already have
been realized by many, and all will be growing ripe
for self-revelation of the higher truths.[To prevent
all misapprehension, the writer wishes to say that he has
not himself embraced the higher life, and lays no claim to
any higher intuition than is possible for those who, like
himself, are living both in the world and of it ]. I
look forward to a time when it will be just as exceptional
to find an individual destitute of that auto-gnosis which
may become the instrument of psychic regeneration and development,
as it is now to find one born both deaf and blind, and thus
incapable of intellectual development by educational processes.
The social commonwealths of the future will act first as
physical and intellectual, then as psychical and spiritual,
forcing-houses for humanity. I do not mean to say that any
evolution or revolution of the social structure will change
the sum total of experiences, painful and pleasurable, for
each individual, but that in the existence or existences
which he passes under the coming régime, the
liberties and opportunities for experience of all kinds being
enormously multiplied, he will be ripened at a much
faster rate; also that the difference between the average
and the extremes of individual conditions will be very much
reduced. If I am right in this forecast, I may truly maintain
that Socialism, although itself but part of the evolutionary
current now prevailing, does and will act as the precursor
of supra-evolutionary progress, and is calculated to "raise
the intellectual and instinctive moral standard of the whole
community to such an extent that all will, in the next generation
after the Social Revolution, be amenable to the truths of
Theosophy".
Roughly, my idea as to materialistic and utilitarian tendencies
is that these will, under the social commonwealth, burn
themselves out. The grosser forms of luxury, which have
flourished so easily under modern capitalistic and ancient
slave-owning communities, will be almost impossible in a
state of society in which idle and parasitical classes are
abolished. Industry and social equality will not be fruitful
soil for such vices. On the other hand, free scope will be
given to the development of the more social luxuries, and
especially to the arts. Great [Page 16] reforms
will, no doubt, be introduced at an early period in the physical
education of children, and in the ordinary personal habits
of all the citizens. These reforms, partly individual, partly
collective, in their initiation, will of themselves tend
to extinguish many of the vicious (that is to say, anti-natural)
impulses of the present generation. But vice and sin are,
in many respects, merely relative terms to knowledge. To
whom much is given, from him much will be expected; and there
may be quite as much evil in one age, in relation to its
opportunities, as in another .
I do not assert that the above
represents the general view taken by Socialist thinkers of
the future evolution of society, and its individual components.
Few care to look so far ahead; nor, indeed, would it be profitable
or advisable for those who do to utter their ideas broadcast
among mixed audiences, or to publish them in their militant
Socialist organs. As Socialists, they address themselves
to the mass of their average-thinking fellow-citizens, and
find it a sufficiently hard task to impress the latter with
these fundamental economic truths upon the acceptation of
which the most necessary, immediate work of the movement
depends. But I do assert that the chief writers and expounders
of the different schools of Modern Socialism agree in looking
forward to future results far transcending the economic domain.
No student of the question who has attended lectures of the
educational class delivered by the leaders of the English
Socialist groups, or who has acquainted himself with the
higher views and aspirations published in the text-books,
and in English, French, or German papers and magazines,[ Let
me take this opportunity of naming a few short works, pamphlets,
and periodicals, treating the Socialist question from other
aspects besides that of simple economic justice.
Text-Books, etc. :—
Hyndman and Morris's "Summary or the Principles of
Socialism". (Modern
Press, 13, Paternoster Row.}
Grönlund's "Co-operative Commonwealth". English
Edition, by G. Bernard
Shaw. (Modern Press.)
Edward Carpenter's "England's Ideal". (Swan Sönnenschein
and Co.)
Edward Carpenter's "Towards Democracy".
Krapotkin's "Appeal to the Young". (Modern Press.)
W. Morris's "Art and Socialism". (Reeves, 185,
Fleet Street.)
Periodicals :—
"The Commonweal". Weekly. Revolutionary Collectivism
and Communism.
(Socialist League Offices, 13, Farmington Road.)
"Freedom". Monthly. Communistic Anarchism. (Leaflet
Press, 19 Cursitor
Street, Chancery Lane.)
"Today". Monthly. Socialism in general. (Reeves,
185, Fleet Street, E.C.)
"The Christian Socialist." Monthly. (Reeves, 185,
Fleet Street.)
" Brotherhood". Monthly. (Reeves. 185, Fleet Street.)
"La Revue Socialiste". Monthly. Socialism in general.
(B. Malon, 8, Rue des
Martyrs, Paris.)
The above are all short and low-priced ] will
deny this. The economic revolution is, to the more serious
thinkers in the [Page 17] movement,
merely a stepping-stone to the physical, intellectual, and
moral regeneration of man and society.
An ideal of "Brotherhood" which “begins
and ends in physical existence" is certainly not a
fair description of the Socialists' ideal. Indeed, the very
words employed carry the refutation of their intended application.
When we are speaking of persons allied for some purely material
and either bad or indifferently moral object, such. as the
construction of a road, the consumption of a dinner, stock
exchange "operations", house-breaking, robbery,
and swindling, political party victories, and the spoils
of office, we may call them "bands", “gangs", “syndicates", " groups", or "parties", &c.,
but we should not think of calling them "brotherhoods", unless
in the jocular and ironical sense. Socialism, on the contrary,
like Theosophy and the higher religions, creates such bonds
of spiritual intimacy between its disciples as demand
warmer and closer terms, like “brotherhood", " comradeship", and “solidarity". Socialism,
when completely grasped, rises in the hearts of its disciples
to the rank of a religion, and thus justifies the half-mystic
naturalism of some of its poetry and oratory. Socialists
may already be said to constitute a great Universal Church,
minus dogmas and priestcraft — undesirable appendages
which, let us hope, we may never
be cursed with!
I cannot refrain from quoting here a few sentences from the
end of the twelfth chapter of Grönlund's “Co-operative
Commonwealth", which shows how near to the Theosophic
knowledge even an agnostic Socialist can be carried in his
speculations. Discussing the religion of the New Order, he
says: "The thought of being alive somewhere a thousand
years hence is so pleasant, and life — bounded by the
cradle
and the grave — so futile, that mankind will probably
cling to their belief in immortality, possibly reconciling
it with their intelligence by setting up some distinction
between personal identity and the memory of the transitory
circumstances of our physical life, and holding that the
former persists with alternate consciousness and oblivion,
as in this life, whilst the latter vanishes. The religion
of the future is likely, in our opinion,
to be a form of belief in a will of the Universe. Our own
nature suggests this; evolution illustrates it; and all existing
forms of thought have in common the conception of a Supreme
Will as Providence for humanity, though not for the individual,
entering into vital relations with the individual only through
humanity as the mediator, and commanding the interdependence
of mankind. Religion may thus be elevated from a narrow personal
relation between the individual and his maker into a social
relation between humanity and its destiny".
The attitude
of Socialism towards the various religions existing in [Page
18] different countries, whether orthodox “State" religions
or unorthodox or “Dissenting", is one of supreme
tolerance. State subvention and protection to any form of
religion would, of course, be withdrawn by the Social Commonwealth,
but religious persecution of any kind would be equally conspicuous
by its absence.
Ecclesiastical corporations would probably not be allowed
to occupy land or pursue industries under any different conditions
than those which were permitted to other corporations; but
this would be the only form of restriction to which religious
sects would be subjected. Thus Mormonism and unpopular and
even charlatanesque creeds might be allowed greater liberty
than in America or any other “civilized " State
under the Old Order. The influence of the State under the
New Order would be positive rather than negative or restrictive. “The
Eternal No " would not be heard so
incessantly as it is now. The sphere of the State would be
confined, so far as possible, to the administration (or rather
regulation) [The direct administration of the various
departments of production, distribution, exchange (except
with foreign countries), locomotion, etc.. would probably
be left. In a populous country like Great Britain, partly
in the hands of democratically constituted trade corporations
partly in those of provincial, county, and communal administrations] of
the business of the country, and the education of the young.
The latter would, no doubt, include a great deal more than
it does at present; the physical, aesthetic, and moral
(in the sense of social) education of the children
would be provided for quite as carefully as the purely intellectual.
At the same time, as the object of such education would be
to produce, or rather assist Nature in producing, healthy,
helpful, and self-respecting men and women — good citizens
of this world — and not to instil any doctrines as
to past or future existences, or duties having special reference
thereto, it would be purely secular in its character.
The basis of morality would not be defined either
as religious or as utilitarian. Morality itself, or, as some
would prefer to term it, sociality, would be instilled
into the minds and hearts of the children very much as in
the "well-bred" families
of today; notions of honour and “gentlemanly" or “lady-like" conduct
are instilled: notions and
sentiments which probably exercise quite as important influences
for good or evil on the morals of the present generation,
among the “upper" or privileged classes, as any
religious principles. Social honour, social solidarity, and
finally human solidarity, would replace family honour, "clannishness",
and patriotism. Social life would replace in importance,
without necessarily destroying, family life.
This social life of
the Co-operative Commonwealth of the future will by no means
entail the dull uniformity of habits and character which
some, who have been frightened by the bugbear of equality,
imagine. [Page 19] Artificial
equality is, of course, neither possible nor desirable. The
constituent elements of the new society, ethnological, religious,
intellectual, and otherwise, will necessarily remain as varied
and unequal — for
a generation or so, at any rate — as they are now;
but they will be better assorted, better synthesized and
harmonized. Imperfect types, intellectual or psychical, and
crude beliefs, will not be crushed out under the New Order;
but they will simply die a natural death like bed-sores on
a convalescent patient. The object of Socialists, as distinguished
from Absolutists and pseudo-Socialists, like Bismarck and
some of our legislators at home, is to give Nature a free
hand, or rather, having studied her tendencies, to assist
and co-operate with her; that of the Absolutists and Authoritarians
is either to imprison and "suppress" her, or,
by way of variety, to put her in harness and lash her forward
along a road which she had no intention of taking.
Some of these Absolutists call themselves Revolutionists,
but the revolution which they would prepare is one which
Nature would resent and revenge herself upon by kicking over
the traces in a bloody reaction. Such revolutionists are
far from numerous in the ranks of modern Socialism; when
found, they generally turn out to
be agents provocateurs.
The genuine Social Revolutionist
leaves the dangerous and immoral weapons of compulsion, provocation
and suppression to the enemy — the weapons he advocates
are political and economic liberty and education. Compulsion
and suppression he would only apply to the idlers, the thieves,
the violent, and the dissolute — those ill-favoured
products of a chaotic and corrupt civilization. These he
would coerce only so far as may be necessary for the safety
and welfare of the rest. If the Social Revolution cannot
be effected without violence, that will be, not because
Socialists try to force the changes they wish to realize
upon Society before it is ripe for them, but because the
class or party in power, in its own selfish determination
to suppress them, takes the initiative in violence.
This
leads me to say a few words about Mr. Harbottle's objection
that we Socialists have such "an innate hatred of domination", coupled
with the astounding assertion that "we are prepared
to substitute for the existing domination of intelligence (the
italics are mine), that of mere numbers".
The latter assertion I hardly care to reply to seriously.
Anyone who knows how, even in the most democratic countries
of the present régime, like France and America,
the poor candidate is handicapped, however intelligent, will
agree with me that the field of popular selection is virtually
limited to such intelligence as is coupled with wealth. Now,
such intelligence is not necessarily of the highest order — often
quite the contrary. Socialists, at any rate, mistrust it
very much as a "dominating" force in politics.
Moreover, Mr. Harbottle is [Page 20] perfectly
correct in the first part of his statement — Socialists
have "an
innate hatred" of "domination" of any kind.
The only authority which they agree to recognise is that
of the freely-elected official or administrator during his
term of office, or until dismissed. The present direct electoral
methods, by which one man may be chosen by ten or twenty
thousand to "represent" them in an assembly several
hundred miles off, would not be followed. Bourgeois Parliamentarism
will die with the transitional civilization which has produced
it. The Social Commonwealth will be both an aristocracy
and a democracy in the best sense of those words — the
people will select the best men and women for the time being,
and according to their own collective judgment, to administer
their business, and will pay them fairly for their work;
but will take good care that they do not become their masters.
Domination, indeed, strictly speaking, will be impossible
under any ideal Socialist régime, whether Collectivist
or Anarchist. But when from this premise, viz., our hatred
of domination, Mr. Harbottle argues that no Socialist could
accept a "spiritual hierarchy", he is quite beside
the mark. A spiritual hierarchy, so long as it remains that,
and becomes nothing less, cannot possibly become a domination,
for it is only submitted to voluntarily, by persons
who have made up their minds to the divine character of its
authority; nor is this submission enforced by physical or
spiritual threats.
A papacy is, of course, quite a different thing, but I presume
Mr. Harbottle does not suggest that Theosophists must subject
themselves to such an institution. If so, I fear I am still
far from becoming a perfect Theosophist. For the rest, as
I have said already, citizens of the Social Commonwealth
will be every bit as free to submit themselves to whatever
spiritual control their consciences dictate, as in the freest
of the "free countries" of capitalism.
Of all the
movements of the present day to which thinking minds are
being attracted in large numbers, Socialism is probably that
which
exercises the most educative and expansive effect on the
character, both moral and intellectual. Of course I am placing
Theosophy outside the reckoning; it is a study for which
very few minds are at present matured. But Socialism, in
breaking down the barriers of prejudice and of class or intellectual
conventionalisms, will, in this way, if in no other, prepare
many for that further revolution in thought, and in the aspirations
of the soul, which is implied by the term Theosophy. I maintain
as I have suggested — without attempting to argue it
out — that Socialism will be found by those who study
it impartially to be part, if not the most important part
for the present, of the general Pantheistic movement,
which will culminate in the regeneration (in the highest
sense of the word) of humanity at large on this planet. I
do not read [Page 21] "Light
on the Path" in the exclusive and dogmatic
sense in which Mr. Harbottle construes (as it seems to me)
a certain passage in it, although there is no book that I
have ever read which brings conviction to me of so much
truth in so small a material compass.
After all, no faith can be higher than the truth, and if
I have succeeded in this very imperfect and, I fear, ill-connected
article, in putting others in the way of getting at more
of it than they would have done otherwise, regarding the
relation of Modern Socialism to Theosophy, and in dispelling
some errors regarding the former, I shall not have written
them in vain.
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