Before we can imagine what may be lines of possible advance, for the individual or the community, we should base our ideas on observing what have been the means of advance in the past. Many of the Utopian visions which have been sketched by different writers are in flagrant contradiction of all history and human nature. It is at least far more likely that gain in the future will be on similar lines to those which have been successful in the past, rather than on lines opposed to all previous growth.
The personal, rather than the communal, advance is the main consideration, inasmuch as it is personal initiative of the most able which helps the rest of the community forward. The greatest improvements are the result of a single mind, animating perhaps a small group of similar minds. We all know how such great benefits as prison reform, the abolition of slavery, the restriction of child labour, and similar movements of which the public are now proud, were each originated by one mind, and worked by a small group in the teeth of the bitterest opposition to start with. It goes without saying that the same is the case in all inventions; it takes not only an inventor, but also a commercial organiser (seldom one and the same man), to help the public to any improvement.79 If ten thousand men could be picked out of any one country, so as to remove the most fruitful minds, that country would come to an entire standstill, and would continue in mechanical repetition until a fresh generation gave a chance of the rise of original minds. Probably not more than one in a thousand minds causes useful advance among the others. And the majority of men lead automatic lives, of which the reflexes have been trained by teaching and experience to do what is required, and the daily actions are performed without a single real thought, but only in response to external stimuli of sights and orders. It is therefore in the development of the able individuals, and in giving every chance to such whenever they arise, that the hopes of the great mass must lie.
It is perhaps not too much to say that all general popular advance of the community at large is based on the prevention of waste. Wherever waste exists improvement is possible; and we need not trouble ourselves much about the construction of the social organism, so long as we can lay our finger on the waste and check it. As with a machine we know the amount of force that is put into it, and can see what percentage is yielded up usefully in its output, so it is with a community. The design of the nature and quality of work done by the community or the machine is another matter; though that again comes under the head of waste if the quality is bad. We will now look more precisely at the gains by prevention of waste in health, life, energy, and renewal.
The saving of health is one of the greatest steps that has been made, as it has been suddenly performed80 within a generation. Man had unconsciously conquered bacteria to a great extent by the invention of cooking, and by the experimental learning of cleanliness; but the scientific attack on bacteria and protozoa has given the prospect of preventing all epidemic disease, and largely increasing the efficiency of man in the most fertile countries. This advance means the economic exploitation of the whole tropical regions, which—with cheap transport—will provide an immense fresh basis for the advantage of other lands. The gain in antiseptic surgery, giving safety for operation on all internal organs, as it only affects the small proportion of sick and injured, is not of so much general importance as the conquest of the microorganisms, which have hitherto ruled the best part of the world. It is in the complete domination over all forms of life, however minute, that we shall find one of the greatest lines for future advance. Only a small band of workers, about one in a hundred million of the world\'s population, has made this advance possible.
The saving of life is another great step which will give man far higher power; not only in the mere hindrance of death, but far more in the increased power of work per day. The power of continuity of work is a growth of civilisation; and it is obvious that a man who can do twelve hours\' work per day, instead of six hours, not only lives virtually twice as long, but costs the community only half as much for what he does. This continuity of work, or industry, is seen in both high and low classes of work. Some races can do more than twice as much agricultural work in the day as others. The same is true of scientific or81 commercial work. And there have been some of the highest minds which could only work for two hours a day, while others could work up to fourteen or sixteen hours daily. This power of continuity of work is obviously then a matter improvable by cultivation, both in the individual and in the race; and as it may easily double a man\'s effective life it is certainly a line of great promise for the future.
Another direction for saving a portion of life is in the rapidity of thought and action. It is easy to find a difference of two or three times the amount of work per hour between different men. All that we have just said about the continuity of work applies to its rapidity; and a large gain may be looked for in cultivating pace and vigour. We need hardly note that trades-union ideals would destroy instead of promoting these most promising and fruitful lines of advance.
In transport from place to place the movement at fifty miles an hour instead of five means a gain of several years of life to most men. But here we have probably reached the useful limits, as any possible further saving would not yield much more time.
The saving of energy is another form of the question of continuity of work. The ideal of work—as varied as possible, and as interesting as possible—being the joy of life and the greatest good, is an aim hardly yet grasped by more than a very few persons. To the majority, work is a hateful thing, to be done solely in order to get means for enjoyment in some other way. This essentially savage and uncultivated ideal needs to be steadily rooted out by the better adaptation of work to the individual. An education which started by cultivating the natural interests,82 using them for mental development, and only superadding what further knowledge was really requisite for life, would greatly help to eradicate the false and low idea of work which prevails. There is a common feeling that business cannot be interesting in itself; but there are few, if any, businesses which if intelligently followed will not yield scope for some real interest of observation and study. The greater application of mind to the work of life will leave far less scope for fruitless amusement and—as a great painter remarked—"there is nothing of interest in life to be compared with work."
To minds which are incapable of continuity of work, or of relaxation by variation of work, mere amusements are needful. Darwin\'s health prevented more than two hours\' work a day, and the flimsiest of novels was his needful relaxation. But the need of amusement for this purpose must be taken as the index of incapacity for continuity—as an unfortunate failure of mental and physical health—as a disastrous defect when it occurs along with great abilities which can only thus work at low speed. The same may be said of athletics; the need of physical exercise outside of work is an index of incapacity for physical health adapted to the work, an unfortunate failure of those who are of defective condition. The idea that no one can be too strong and robust is a wild exaggeration; physical strength needs to be proportioned to the nature of work, and a slender wiry man will do far better for indoor life than a plethoric mass of brawn and muscle which needs much exercise to keep in health. Unlimited robustness is not an absolute good, to be pursued at all costs, or else we should83 make every schoolboy a Hun, living without shelter, and feeding on flaps of raw meat which form the only saddle of his horse. In brief, the need of athletics shows a weakness of body to be remedied, or a physical over-development unsuited to the person\'s work in life; it is the mark of unfitness, and the need ceases so soon as a man is adapted to his work. The need of spending any considerable time on amusement is the sign of an incapacity, which has to be removed by strengthening the mind in the individual or in the race. The passion for amusement is the sure evidence of a defective education, which has left the mind incapable of continuity, or bare of interests. An important advance therefore lies in better use of the time which is at present wasted in fruitless action of mind or body; better adaptation and education for the work of life will gradually raise the standard so that this form of waste will be avoided. We do not expect a uniform type of horse to be equally adapted to draught or hunting or racing; and similarly we ought to specialise on different types of men fitted for agriculture, or mechanical work, or office work.
The great subject of the waste by renewal of the population in each generation has an immense variety of aspects; but the essential importance of it is seen when we reflect that about half the labour of the world is swallowed up in this renewal. The burden of production, of rearing, of education, and the waste and loss in the process, exceeds that of any other activity, such as supply of food or shelter, for the adult. Hence any possible saving in this great mass of labour, or reduction of waste, is of the first importance to the individual and the race.
84
Those who have proposed temporary marriage hardly seem to have considered that one of the most important economies adopted, perhaps dating from a pre-human period, was that of permanent marriage. This saved at a stroke the enormous loss of time and energy in the rivalries of repeated mating. The gain to the race by leaving the members free for continuous work is greater than the loss by reproducing inferior stocks. There is no need for the system to have been intentionally adopted for this purpose; but merely a race which economised the time of repeated mating would soon oust a race in which it was customary. For this reason any fancied reconstruction of society without permanent marriage is entirely futile; even if it could be universal, yet the advantage given to the lazy and emotional type of man above the continuous worker would soon pull down the race. One frequent argument for a more revocable union is the number of divorces effected or desired. But nearly all such are among people whose judgment in any other line of life would certainly not be trusted, and who habitually get into trouble over other communal obligations. To abolish marriage for their benefit would be as reasonable as allowing all debts to be repudiated because such people cannot pay their I.O.U.\'s. There is moreover a great gain in permanent marriage when judiciously effected, by the new mental pivot of a sense of permanent ensurance of various of the conditions of life, which liberates the attention of both parties from a large number of points, and leaves each free to concentrate attention on a partial phase of feelings and duties. It is a far higher and a spiritual counterpart85 of a successful business partnership, where each member trusts the other to manage a different part of the affair. All this mental economy and help would be impossible without permanence.
Another wastage which has been greatly reduced in modern times is that of high birth rate and high death rate. The allusions in mediaeval times show a state much like that now described among the Slovenes, where incessant maternity is only balanced by the reduction of children due to filth, neglect, and bad conditions. The modern ideal of a small family carefully tended is an immense advance, both for the individual life and for the saving of waste. But its benefits should be sought and not commanded. If the neglectful, dirty, and wasteful stocks of low type in our midst let their children die off, it is the only balance to their overgrowth, which would soon outnumber the better class of population. The right end to begin at is by insisting on hard work and tidy living, under penal enactments; the saving of the children may then be left to take care of itself. To begin at the sentimental end, as is now the fashion, is to degrade the whole race by swamping it with the worst stocks.
The line of progress in invention is the remorseless "scrapping" of poorer machines. The more serious the progress becomes, the more scrapping needs to be done. We must not be surprised then if a sign of human progress of mind and body should be the large number of inefficients who are thrown out of work on the scrap heap of society.
In another direction advance has been made by general lengthening of the stages of life. The early86 marriage and early deaths of past times brought the cost of renewal at every twenty years, which was a much severer tax on the community than renewal in thirty or forty years. There is probably also a great benefit in the higher development of parents before each generation. It is well recognised how the later children of a family are more able, and of a more finished quality than the earlier; great examples of such a view in older literature being Joseph and David, and in our own history, Alfred. The longer growth of mind before each generation appears to be a great gain of advance for the race. Among the lower races, by far the most advanced are those like the Zulu, which have a long period of hard training and active life before settling down to family duties.
The often debated problem dealing with the human refuse of bad stocks is one which presses most on an advanced civilisation. We will not do like the Christian Norseman, when he put the ne\'er-do-weel family into a wide grave in the churchyard, and wiped his hands of them. We will not even leave them to exterminate themselves by their own follies, vices, and ignorance. But if the state takes up the burden of such wastrels it must have an entire control of them. Responsibility without rule is worse than rule without responsibility. The only safe course is a rigorous enforcement of parental duties; with the alternative of penal servitude in state workshops, the mother and children together, the father elsewhere. There is no middle course, of semi-maintenance by school meals, which will not injure the children by their being correspondingly neglected at home, injure87 the parents by lowering the spur of necessity to work, and injure the state by flooding it with the worst types.
Much more drastic treatment of the unfit has been advocated, as by Dr. Rentoul. In a future period of civilisation a logical course of treatment might have a chance of adoption; but in our age any serious changes of the habits of thought and action will not be tolerated, unless brought about very gradually under small influences, such as we have noticed as acting through taxation. What we need is to try to give effect to the gospel of giving to him that hath, and taking away from him that hath not. The most likely opening for such a line of advance would be giving partial state maintenance to the best stocks, so as to ensure large returns from them, and taxing down the worst stocks—exactly the opposite course to the present craze. Let us try to realise if there be a practical system for this advance.
We should need a Board of Health in each area of about 10,000 inhabitants, composed of three examining doctors. Every child on leaving school, or at about fifteen, should be examined, merely by a glance at the greater bulk of normal cases, but carefully in extreme cases. The finest 5 per cent. both mentally (shown by school-leaving certificates) and physically as well, should be premiated by assisted higher education of suitable type. The worst 10 per cent. should be remanded to a training school where physical and mental development would be scientifically carried out, and as much profit as possible made from their labour toward self-support. This would reclaim the hooligan class effectually before they run amuck, and88 help on those who need care and assistance to get a good footing in life. No course could possibly be kinder for the weaklings. At the age of twenty a further examination of both the best and the worst classes should ensue. The best half of the most able should receive a certificate granting them practically free support for all children they may have after they have reached the age of twenty-five. The worst half of the most incapable, or 5 per cent. of all, should be required to report residence during their lives to the Board of Health of their district, and informed that if they had any children they must pay a heavy fine, or else go into servitude. This would practically mean the segregation of the lowest class of the unfits under compulsory work. It would be cheaper to the state to keep them thus at work, than to pay poor rates to maintain this submerged twentieth and their helpless families.
In all these proposals there would be no Socialistic constraint of the great majority, which is normal in mind and body. But such attention to the unfit would be merely adding a porch to the poorhouse, the hospital, and the asylum, and there sorting over the material which can be possibly saved from a bad end. The nine-tenths of people who were ordinary would be thus left even more free for individual growth than they now are, when hampered by the inefficient residue.
We might not exclude the thought of another favourite idea of some reformers which in a modified shape might be allowed to gradually take root. Since Spencer Wells familiarised the world with an operation for which he will always be remembered, hundreds89 of women have gladly improved their health by a safe treatment, which, if anything, threatened to become too fashionable. Every woman who was, as above, required to report her residence as being unfit, and being liable to heavy penalties on having children, should be offered the option of perfect freedom if she chose the operation. The marriage of such women, with men who were condemned as unfit, would entirely free both parties from reporting and inspection in future, and give the best prospect of happy lives to the weakest and less capable of the community, free from what would be only too truly "encumbrances" to such people. This course might give a permanently safe line of improvement, without any consequent stigma or hardship in the world around; and so gentle a change—beneficial to the individual as well as the community—seems not outside of future possibilities. At least such a course would be the more practicable form of such a proposed change. Of course, no such legislation would be complete in its action, and evasions would often occur. But if it checked even one half of the growth of bad stock it would be an enormous gain.
We now turn to other lines of advance from the communal point of view. The old system of community, in which all the nations of northern Europe lived, was based on each man being his brother\'s keeper; every one was liable to fines if any relative committed a crime, in proportion to their closeness of relation. To this succeeded individual responsibility, both in property and in penalties. This raises the question whether it is possible to separate property and penalty in communism. At present the tendency90 is to a state communism, begun by heavy death duties and taxation (for a variety of purposes which the taxed do not use or require), amounting to a quarter of all property. If this system is extended, and property becomes more largely hypothecated to public purposes, then when a man is condemned in heavy damages or fines his neighbours will suffer by reduction of the rateable property. Will it not be thought more fair for his relatives to be responsible for the public loss? And if so, we indirectly revert to the payment by relatives of a share of all fines.
To anyone who has had experience of combined labour, it is obvious how two people working together do not perform twice as much as one alone. There is always a loss by one waiting on the action of another; and it appears as if the amount of work done only increased as the square root of the number of people working together. Hence the group-work of communistic taste is very wasteful. This is practically seen among the Slavs in Russia, where communal agriculture—which is extolled by its admirers—produces far less per acre on fine land, than is obtained by individual agriculture on poor land in England. Again it is notorious how the Irishman who goes to work apart among individualist people, then flourishes as he never does when held down by the communal claims socially enforced among his own countrymen. This is the root of the success of the Irish out of their own land. Thus we see how communal action is the more wasteful form of labour; and how it............