X. Beneficence at Large

OHAPTER X. BENEFICENCE AT LARGE. § 471. Most readers have been surprised by much which has, in the foregoing; chapters, and especially the later ones, been included under the head of beneficence. Only special parts of social and political conduct are usually thought of as having ethical aspects; whereas here most parts of them have been dealt with as having such aspects. But the reader who bears in mind the doctrine laid down at the outset and recently re-enunciated, that all conduct which in an indirect, if not in a direct way, conduces to happiness or Inisery, is therefore to be judged as right or wrong, will see that the various topics touched upon could not rightly be olnitted. After the conduct which is of individual concern only, and affects others in but remote ways, if at all; and after the conduct COIU prehended under the head of Justice, which sets forth re straints on individual life irnposed by social life; nearly all the remainder of conduct becolnes the subject-matter of Beneficence, negative or positive. For nearly all this re mainder of conduct pleasurably or painfully affects others from hour to hour.

After thus conceiving the sphere of beneficence, it becomes obvious that even more has to be included than has yet been included. Large space would be (422) BENEFICENCE AT LARGE. 423 required to treat in detail the incentives and restraints which should guide behaviour to those around. There are 'words and tones and facial expressions which through out daily intercourse continually. excite disagreeable emotions, and others which excite agreeable emotions; and the· amounts of happiness or of misery created by them, often far exceed the amounts created by maleficent or beneficent actions of conspicuous kinds. Not, indeed, that agreeableness or disagreeableness of behaviour is to be wholly ascribed to the presence or absence of benefi cent promptings. The presence or absence of a desire for approbation is commonly a chief cause. But the sweet ness of manner which springs from sympathy, is in most cases easily distinguishable. Acted goodness of feeling rarely produces the .same effect as real goodness of feeling.

Though beneficence of other kinds may be produced by general sense of duty, by desire to establish right human relations, by a high ideal of conduct, this kind of benefi cence can be produced only by active fellow-feeling. 'In a few finely-collstituted natures, this fellow-feeling is domi nant, and spontaneously shows itself: beneficence has in so far beconle with them organic. Everyone feels the better for their presence. They are natural centres of happiness. Those of inferior natures, forming the immense majority, can here fulfil the dictates of beneficence only in so far as they can subordinate themselves to an ideal of behaviour; and even then in but a partial way. Occa sionally, it may be possible for them to recognize in time some nascent manifestation of unamia~le feeling and check it, or to perceive with sufficient quickness an opportunity of showing sympathy, and even of arousing it by a quick im agination. of the circumstances. By keeping in mind the requirements of beneficence, SOlne small amount of self-dis cipline may thus be achieved.

Beyond the beneficent regulation of conduct towards 424 THE ETHICS OF SOCIAL LIFE. members of the family and towards friends, there is the beneficent regulation of conduct towards those who oc cupy positions of subordination, or of lower social 8tatu8. A large sphere for the anodyne influence of sympathy is here opened. From the militant 1'egirae, with its gradu ated ranks and obedience coercively maintained, there have descended those nlodes of behaviour which continually recall the relations of superior and inferior. Pervading social life they influence an in ways difficult to resist. Though, among the better-natured on the one side, there is a dislike to usages which Inake others feel their in feriority, and though the nlore independent on the other side, vaguely resent such usages; yet it seems impossible to change forthwith the established manners, and to get rid of the unbenen.cent emotions accolupanying theu1.

Doubtless, along with the substitution of the system of con tract for the systeln of 8tatu8, there has been a relaxation of those customs which renlind men of their respective grades. This has gone so far that in Inodern days a true gentleman is described as aiIning to make those who rank below him in the social scale, at ease in his presence: seeking, not to elnphasize any distinction between himself and them, but rather to obliterate. the consciousness of the distinction. As regulating such intercourse, beneficence has the func tinn of increasing the happiness of the less fortunate by . raising them for the time being to the level of the more fortunate, and making them as much as possible forget the difference in position or in means. § 472. The foregoing paragraphs will probably raise in many Ininds a silent protest, several tiInes before raised, against the tacit acceptance of a social system which they reprobate. Impatient with the lnultitudinous evils which humanity at present suffers, and ascribing these to the existing organization of society, they reject indignantly BENEFICENCE. Arf LARGE. 425 all conclusions· which take for granted that this organization is to continue. Let us hear what they say.

"Your co'nception of beneficence is a radically unbe ne:flcent one. Your remarks about restraints on free 'competition, and on free contract, imply the belief that all men are hereafter, as no\v, to fight for individual gain. Services rendered by the ill-off to the well-off are taken for ~ranted in your renlarks about restraints on blaIne. The various modes of administering charity, condemned or approved by you, assume that in the future there must be rich and poor as at present. And some of the imme diately foregoing exhortations concerning behaviour, pre suppose the continued existence of superior and inferior cla.sses. But those who have emancipated therrlselves froin beliefs imposed by the past, see that all such relations of men to one another are bad and must be changed. A true ethics - a true beneficence - cannot recognize any such inequalities as those you take for granted. If ethical injunctions are to be carried out, then all social arrange ments of the kinds we now know n1ust be abolished, and replaced by social arrangenlents in which there are neither Icaste-differences nor differences of means. And, under the irrlplied systelTI,large parts of the actions you have classed as beneficent "rill have no place. They 'will be ex cluded as needless Qr impossible."

Unquestionably there is an a priori warrant for this protest. A society in vvhich there are markedclass-dis tinctions cannot fulfil the conditions under which only the· fullest happiness can be achieved. Though it is not within the range of possibility that all the units shall be equal in respect of their endowments (a dreadful state, could it be reached),. yet it is possible that there may be reached such kind of equality as results from an approxi mately even distribution of different kinds of powers those who are inferior in some respects being superior in others: so producing infinite variety with a general uni426 THE ETHICS OF SOCIAL LIFE. formity, and so excluding gradations of social position. Some such type of human nature, and consequent social type, are contemplated by absolute ethics. . But it is forgotten that during the stages through which men and society are slowly passing, we are chiefly concerned with relative ethics and not with absolute ethics. The dic tates of absolute ethics being kept before us as the ideal, we have little by little to mould the real into conformity with them, as fast as the nature of things permits. Sudden trans formation being impossible, sudden fulfilment of the highest ethical requirements is impossible.

§ 473. Those who, not content with that progress through small modifications ,vhich is alone pern)anent, hope to reach by immediate re-organization a high social state, practically assume that the human mind can forthwith have its qualities so changed that its bad products will be replaced by good products. Old beliefs in the wonders to be worked by a beneficent fairy, were not Illore baseless than are these ne'w beliefs in the wonders to be 'worked by a revolutionized social system. A 'world which, from the far east of Russia to the' far west of California and from Dunedin in the N ortll to Dunedin at the Antipodes, daily witnesses deeds of violence, from the conquests of one people by another to the aggressions of Inan on Inan, win not easily find place for a social order implying fraternal regard of each for each. A nature which generates international hatreds and intense desires for revenge-which breeds duellists and a contempt for those who do not seek to wipe out a slight by a death, is not a nature out of 'which har monious communities can be moulded. Men who rush in crowds to witness the brutalities of football-Inatches, who roar out ferocious suggestions to the players, and mob the umpires who do not please them, so that police protection is required, are not men who will show BENEFICENCE AT LARGE. 42'7 careful consideration of one another's claims when they have agreed to work together for the common good. Not by any ingenuity can there be framed well-working in stitutions for people who shoot those who will not enter the political combinations tp.ey {orrn, "rho mutilate and torture the cattle of dissentients, who employ emissaries to blow up unconcerned persons and cause a panic, and who then, when the wretches have been convicted, are indignant that they are not released. Only to a wild imagina tion will it seem possible that a social regime higher than the present, can be maintained by men 'vho, as rail way employes, wreck and burn the rolling-stock of companies which will not yield to. their. denlands-men who, as iron workers, salute with bullets those ,vho come to take the wages they refuse, try by dynami te to destroy them along with the houses they inhabit and seek to poison them wholesale-ruen who, as miners, carryon a local civil war to prevent a competition they do not like. Strange, indeed, is the expectation that those who, unscrupulous as to· means, selfishly strive to get as much as possible for their labour and to give as little labour as possible, will suddenly become so unselfish that the superior aluong them will refrain from using their superiority lest they should disadvantage the inferior!

Without having recourse to such extreme illustrations, we may see, on contelTIplating a widely-diffused habit, how absurd is the belief that egoistic conduct may forth with be changed into altruistic conduct. I-Iere, through out the ,vhole community, from the halls of nobles and the clubs frequented by the upper ten thousand, down through the trading classes, their sons and daughters, and even to the denizens of kitchens and the boys in the street, we find gambling and betting; the. universal trait of which is that each wishes to gain by his neighbour's loss. And now we are told that under a new social sys tem, all those who have greater ability ,vill submit to loss 428 THE ETHICS OF SOCIAL LIFE. that those who have less ability may gain! Without any transformation of men's characters, but n1erely by trans forming social arrangements, it is hoped to get the effects of goodness without the goodness!

§ 474. While the majority believe that hUlnan nature is unchangeable, there are SOlne who believe that it may rapidly be changed. Both beliefs are ,vI-ong. Great alter ations may be wrought, but onl.y in course of multitu:.. dinous generations: the small alterations, such as those which distinguish nation from nation, taking centuries, and the great alterations, moulding an egoistic nature into an altruistic one, taking eras. Nothing but a prolonged discipline of social life-obtainment of good by sublnission to social requirements, and suffering of evil from disregard of them-can effect the change. This would scarcely need saying were it not that the education received by the upper classes, and now diligently forced by them on the lo,ver, leaves all with Nature's open secrets unlearned. One of these is that there can be no social or political actions but what are deterlnined by the minds, separate or aggregated, of human beings; that these human beings can have no mental processes and consequent activities which are not parts of their lives, subject to the laws of their lives; and that the laws of their lives are in cluded within those most general laws to which life at large must conform. Could statesmen and politicians and philan thropists and schemers recognize this truth, which pro foundlyconcerns them, they would see that all social phenomena, froln the beginning down to the present, and onwards through the future, must be concomitants of the re-adaptation of mankind to its ne"w circumstances-the change from a nature which fitted men for the wandering and predatory habits of the savage, to a nature which £ts them for the settled and industrial habits of the civilized.

They w·ould see that this long process, during which old _'BENEFICENCE AT LARGE. 429 aptitudes and desires have to dwindle, while new aptitudes and desires have to be developed, is necessarily a pro cess of continued suffering. It would become manifest to them that this suffering, caused by the constant over taxing of some powers and denying to others the ac tivities they crave, cannot by any possibility be escaped. And· they would infer, lastly, that to suspend the process by shielding individuals and classes troln those stern requirements imposed by the social state, must not only fail to prevent suffering but Inust increase it; since the loss of adaptation consequent upon relaxation of the con ditions, has eventually to be made good. The re-adaptation has. to be gone through afresh, and the suffering borne over· again. Thus, along with those permanent functions of benefi cence which will become more dorninant in an ultimate social state, there must, for thousands of years, continue those temporary functions of it proper to our transitional state. After men's attempts to·· realize their ideals, and reform society without reforming thelnselves, have ended in disaster, and, sobered by sufferings, they submit them selves afresh to the hard discipline which has brought 11S thus far, further progress may be made. But there must be great changes . before this progress can go on un impeded. Over the greater part of the Earth, men have ceased to devour one another, and to receive honour in proportion· to their achievements in that way; and when societies shall have ceased to devour one another, and cease to count as glory their success in doing this, the humanization of the .brute lnay become comparati.vely rapid. It is impossible that there can be much advance towards a reign of political justice internally, while there is maintained a reign of political burglary externally.

But when the antagonism between the ethies of anlity and the ethics of .enmity has COlne to an end, there may go on without much check, the rise towards that high state 430 THE ETHICS OF SOCIAL LIFE. vaguely foreshadowed by the distorted visions of our social schelnes. Meanwhile, the chief temporary function of beneficence is to mitigate the sufferings accompanying the tranRition; or rather, let us say, to ward off the superfluous sufferings. The miseries of re-adaptation are necessary; but there are accompanying unnecessary miseries \vhich Inay, with univer sal advantage, be excluded. The beneficence which sitnply renloves a pain must, considered apart from other effects) be held intrinsically good. The beneficence which yields pres ent relief so far as consists with the individual's welfare, is better. But the beneficence which takes into account not only the immediate and remote results to the individual, but also the results to posterity and to society at large, is best. For this is the beneficence which is so donlinated by the sense of responsibility, that it consents to bear im mediate sympathetic pain, rather than be subject to the consciousness of having helped to entail greater and more widespread pains. The highest beneficence is that which is not only prepared, if need be, to sacrifice egoistic pleasures, but is also prepared, if need be, to sacrifice altru istic pleasures.

§ 475. And here we come again to the conclusion once before reached, that these self-sacrifices imposed by the transitional state, gradually diminishing, must eventually occup.y but small spaces in life; while the emotions which pron1pted them, ceasing to be the mitigators of misery, will become the multipliers of happiness. For sympathy, which is the root of all altruism, causes participation in pleasurable feelings as well as in painful feelings; and in proportion as painful feelings become less prevalent, par ticipation in pleasurable feelings must be its almost exclu sive effect. As was pointed out in § 93, quick and wide sym pathies 'w'ould intensify and multiply miseries, did they BENEFICENCE AT LARGE. 431 exist during stages in which the pains of average lives exceeded the pleasures. If the better-constituted and the more fortunately circumstanced, were fully conscious of all which their fellow creatures have to bear, the result - would be-to make them as unhappy as the rest, and so increase the total unhappiness. Life would be intolerable to the highly sympathetic, could they vividly represent to themselves the tortures inflicted on negroes by Arab slave-catchers, the dreadful years passed by kidnapped Kanakas, who are slaves under another nalne, the daily sufferings of Hindu ryots, half-starved and heavily taxed, ,the dreary existence of Russian peasants, conscripted, or even in the nlidst of famine, bled to support conscripts.

Acute fellow-feeling would be a curse to its possessors, did it bring vividly before them the states of body and mind experienced even by the Inasses around-the long per sistence in work under protesting sensations, the poor food often insufficient in quantity, the thin clothing, the insufficient fire, the scanty bedding, the crying children, the wife soured by privation and the husband occasionally brutalized by drink: all joined with hopelessness-with the consciousness that rnost of this has to be borne throughout the rest of life, and much of it to be intensified as old age comes on. Evidently the altruistic sentiments, while they serve in a measure to mitigate the sufferings accompanying the re-adaptation of the race, are continually repressed or seared by the presence of this irremediable misery, and can develop only in proportion as it diminishes. Slightly decreased suffering may be followed by slightly in creased sympathy; and this, rightly directed, may further decrease the suffering; _which, again, may make more sym pathy possible; and so on pari pass-u. But only when the amount of suffering has become insignificant, can fellow feeling reach its full development.

When the pressure of population has been rendered snlan-proximately by prudential restraints and ultimately 43~ THE ETHICS OF SOCI.A.L LIFE. by decrease of fertility-and when long-range rifles, -big' guns, dynamite": shells, and other implements for whole sale slaughter 'which Ohristian peoples have improved so greatly of late, are to be found only in llluseUlllS; sympathy will probably· increase to a degree which we" can now scarcely co~ceive. For the process of evolution must in evitably favour ,all ehanges of nature which increase life and augment happiness: especially such as do this at small cost. 'Na.tures l \ ·which, by the help of a more developed language of' elllotion, vocal and facial, are enabled to enter so fully into Qthers' pleasurable feelings that they can add these to their own, must be natures capable of a beatitude far greater than is_ now possible. In such natures a large part of the mental life Inust result from participation in the mental Iives of others.

Thus, along ·with increasing re-adaptation, altruism will become less and less the assuager of suffering and lllore and more the exalter of happiness. § 476. To 'most this conclusion will not commend itself: dissent' being in some intellectually prompted and in others emotionally. pro:rnpted. The first constitute the class of nlen who,while believing in organic evolution, and know ing that many ~f' the rnultitudinous transformations effected by it are so marvellous as to seenl scarcely credible, never theless tacitly assume that no further transformations will take place-not even such relatively small ones as would raise the higher types of men to a type fitted for harmonious social co-operation. The second constitute the much larger class, to whom the future of humanity is not a matter of much interest ~ and who regard with indifference a conclu sion which holds out no promise of benefit to themselves, either here or hereafter.

But there exist 'a few who differ intellectually from the one of these classes and morally from the other. To them it seems not only rational to believe in some further evoluBENEFICENCE AT LARGE. 433 tion, but irrational to doubt it-irrational to suppose that the causes which have in the past worked such wonderful effects, will. in the future work no effects. Not expecting that any existing society will reach a high organization, northat any of the varieties of nlen now li:ving will become fully adapted to social life,. they yet look forward through unceasing changes, now progressive no,\v retrogressive, to the evolution of a I-Iulnanity adjusted to the requirements of its life.. And along with this belief there arises, in an increasing number, the desire to further the develop ment. The anxieties which in many now go beyond the welfares of personal descendants, and include the welfare of the nation and its institutions, as well as, in' some cases, the welfares of other nations and other races, will more and nlore become an anxiety for human progress at large.

IIereafter, the highest ambition of the beneficent 'will be to have a share-even though an utterly inappreciable and unknown share-in "the making of Man." Experience occasionally shows that there rnay arise extreme interest in pursuing entirely unselfish ends; and, as time goes on, there will be more and more of those whose unselfish" end will he the further evolution of Humanity. While contemplating fronl the heights of thought, that far.,off life of the race never to be enjoyed by them, but only-by a rernote posterity, they will feel a eahn pleasure in the consciousness of having aided the advance towards it. THE ENDo 66 APPENDICES.