§ 5.

The desire to command is essentially a barbarous desire. Whether seen in the ukase of a Czar, or in the order of an Eton bully to his fag, it is alike significant of brutality. Command cannot be otherwise than savage, for it implies an appeal to force, should force be needful. Behind its—You shall,—there lies the scarcely hidden—If you won’t, I’ll make you.—Command is the growl of coercion crouching in ambush. Or we might aptly term it—violence in a latent state. All its accessories—its frown, its voice, its gestures, prove it akin to the ferocity of the uncivilized man. Command is the foe of peace, for it breeds war of words and feelings—sometimes of deeds. It is inconsistent with the first law of morality. It is radically wrong.

All the barbarisms of the past have their types in the present. All the barbarisms of the past grew out of certain dispositions: those dispositions may be weakened, but they are not extinct; and so long as they exist there must be manifestations of them. What we commonly understand by command and obedience, are the modern forms of bygone despotism and slavery. Philosophically considered, they are indentical with these. Despotism may be defined as the making of another’s will bend to the fulfilment of our own: and its counterpart—slavery—as the having our own will subordinated to the will of another. True, we apply the terms only when the rule of one will over another is extreme—when the one wholly, or almost wholly extinguishes the other. But if the subjection of man to man is bad when carried to its full extent, it is bad in any degree. If every man has freedom to exercise his faculties within specified limits; and if, as we have seen (Chap. VIII.), slavery is wrong because it transgresses that freedom, and makes one man use his powers, to satisfy not his Edition: current; Page: [163] own wants, but the wants of another; then, whatsoever involves command, or whatsoever implies obedience, is wrong also; seeing that it too, necessitates the subserviency of one man’s actions to the gratifications of another.—You must do not as you will, but as I will,—is the basis of every mandate, whether used by a planter to his negro, or by a husband to his wife. Not satisfied with being sole ruler over his own doings, the petty autocrat oversteps the boundary dividing his sphere of action from his neighbour’s, and takes upon himself to direct his or her doings also. It matters not, in point of principle, whether such domination is entire or partial. To whatever extent the will of the one is overborne by the will of the other, to that extent the parties are tyrant and slave.

There are, without doubt, many who will rebel against this doctrine. There are many who hold that the obedience of one human being to another is proper, virtuous, praiseworthy. There are many to whose moral sense command is not repugnant. There are many who think the subjection of the weaker sex to the stronger legitimate and beneficial. Let them not be deceived. Let them remember that a nation’s institutions and beliefs are determined by its character. Let them remember that men’s perceptions are warped by their passions. Let them remember that our social state proves our superior feelings to be very imperfectly developed. And let them remember that, as many customs deemed right by our ancestors, appear detestable to us, so, many customs which we think proper, our more civilized descendants may regard with aversion—even as we loathe those barbarian manners which forbid a woman to sit at table with her lord and master, so may mankind one day loathe that subserviency of wife to husband, which existing laws enjoin.

As elsewhere shown (page 29), moral sense becomes a trustworthy guide only when it has logic for an interpreter. Nothing but its primary intuition is authoritative. From the fundamental law to which it gives utterance, reason has to deduce the consequences; and from these, when correctly drawn, there Edition: current; Page: [164] is no appeal. It proves nothing, therefore, that there are some who do not feel command to be improper. It is for such to inquire whether command is or is not consistent with that first principle expressive of the Divine will—that axiom to which the Moral Sense responds. And they will find that, thus judged by the law of equal freedom, command is at once pronounced wrong; for whoso commands, manifestly claims more freedom than whoso is commanded.