The Virtual Stoa

Episode Two: “By Whom Are We Challenged?” [First instalment here.]

BY WHOM ARE WE CHALLENGED?

There are several forces in the world which challenge our Scout faith, and many of them have little or nothing in common. We should recognise these forces, however seldom some of us happen to meet the types of people who are swayed by them.

The first type are the atheists - those who do not believe in the existence of any God. They may describe themselves as Materialists, Secularists, Humanists and the rest, but they all say “there is no God”. It is clear that they cannot truthfully take the Scout Promise. No atheist can be a Scout.

The second type are the agnostics - those who say they do not know about God, and therefore neither believe nor disbelieve. They Scout Promise demands a positive belief.

People of both types may try to shake our faith, and that is why it is so important for us to know what we believe. So often we are shaken by some plausible argument when there is a perfectly good answer at hand if we only know what it is. It is, perhaps, tempting to our pride to say that man is sufficient of himself, but two world wars have shown to what depths man can sink when he has no standard higher than himself to aim at. Man may be clever enough to split the atom, but does he know how to control the use of its energy?

The third type is very common, and consists of those who are apathetic about religion, and who are content to follow the world’s standards. They challenge us, rather indirectly, by suggesting that we are too pious, and our standards unrealistic. They may form the majority of the people among whom we live, and it is hard for some of us to be different. We are tempted to copy their example and to follow the easy road.

Next up: “Communism”

Thanks to David, who’s just given me a copy of a splendid and comparatively unknown pamphlet from around 1950, which I’ll be serialising here at the Virtual Stoa over the next few days. It’s very fine, and not very long. Enjoy.

A CHALLENGE TO SCOUTING:
The menace of Communism

INTRODUCTION

The Boy Scouts Association and the Girl Guides Association realise the dangers which their members face by the menace of the present world situation to the values in which they believe. This statement has accordingly been prepared by the two Associations for the use of Scouters and Guiders, but to avoid clumsy repetitions by the use of such phrases as “Scouters and Guiders”, “Scouts and Guides”, each Association is issuing its own statement, using expressions directly applicable to its own members.

The Purpose of the Statement

It is clear that the fundamental beliefs of Scouting are often challenged in the world of today. On all sides our minds are assailed by propaganda, and much of it is specious and clever. Unless we understand what our faith is, and our reasons for holding it, we can easily be taken in by some of this plausible argument.

It is therefore vital that all of us should know what we believe should carry it into practice in our lives, and should be ready to proclaim it to others. We must also realise by whom these beliefs are challenged, and what our answer must be when challenged.

In this statement we seek to remind Scouters of the fundamental beliefs of Scouting, over which there can be no compromise, and to ask them to ensure that their Scouts are well founded in these beliefs by the time that they go out to work, for it is then that the full challenge of the world may meet them for the first time.

We can deal with these great subjects in outline only, but those who feel the need of pursuing them at greater length are recommended to turn to the short list of books in the Appendix.

WHAT WE BELIEVE

Our beliefs are summed up in the Scout Promise which we have take:

“On my honour I promise that I will do my best -
To do my duty to God, and the King,
To help other people at all times,
To obey the Scout Law.”

We believe also in the Scout method of training, which aims at the development of the character of each individual, through the Patrol System, the Badge System and Woodcraft.

Let us look at our beliefs more closely:

Duty to God

This comes first, because we believe that God is the Creator and the Preserver of all mankind, and has revealed Himself to us. The claims of God on our life and service are total, and are indeed the only total claims that can legitimately be made upon men. His love of us demands in return our love, devotion and duty.

It is not enough to say that we accept the teaching about God but that we are not prepared to take part in worship. It is the duty of every Scout to carry out the obligations of his faith.

Duty to the King

The King is the constitutional head of the State that gives us protection and safeguards our liberties. We are therefore pledged to be loyal and law-abiding citizens, to take our share in the good government of our country through our work and our votes, and to take no part in any subversive action.

Helping other people at all times

As citizens of a free country, we are free to keep ourselves to ourselves, or to be good neighbours, as may please us, but as Scouts we are pledged to be good citizens and to do good turns to our neighbours whenever we can. Our individual and corporate good turns are an expression of our religious faith, for loving our neighbours as ourselves is one of the great Commandments.

Obeying the Scout Law

The Scout Law lays down a high standard of behaviour, which we are proud to do our best to maintain. As all men are precious in God’s sight, it matters how we treat each other. So, whatever the standard in the world around us, we expect our Scouts (as we expect of ourselves) to be honourable, loyal, friendly, courteous and cheerful - in fact, to live the good life.

The Scout method of Training

Our method aims at producing good citizens who, through their training, think for themselves, display initiative, and are self-reliant. Each individual counts. But as none of us is good enough by our unaided efforts to live up to the highest that we know, we realise that it is only by asking God for His help and by faith in Him that we can be our best.

Next Instalment [coming soon!]: “By Whom Are We Challenged?”

Sorry about the long delay between episodes six and seven. Perhaps we can get back on track. Now, where were we?

Labour Defended, &c., Episode Seven

[Previous Episodes: One, Two, Three, Four, Five and Six.]

Without troubling myself to quote more passages from these authors, or to transcribe the opinion of other writers, I shall proceed TO EXAMINE THE EFFECTS OF CAPITAL; AND I SHALL BEGIN WITH CIRCULATING CAPITAL. Mr M’Culloch says, “without circulating capital,” meaning the food the labourer consumes, and the clothing he wears; “the labourer never could engage in any undertaking which did not yield an almost immediate return.” Afterwards, he says, “that division of labour is a consequence of previous accumulation of capital;” and quotes the following passage from Dr Smith, as a proper expression for his own opinions.

“Before labour can be divided, ‘A stock of goods of different kinds must be stored up somewhere, sufficient to maintain the labourer, and to supply him with the materials and tools for carrying on his work. A weaver, for example, could not apply himself entirely to his peculiar business, unless there was beforehand stored up somewhere, either in his own possession, or in that of some other person, a stock sufficient for his maintenance, and for supplying him with the materials and implements required to carry on his work, till he has not only completed, but sold his web. This accumulation must evidently be previous to his applying himself for so long a time to a peculiar business.’”

The only advantage of circulating capital, is, that by it the LABOURER is enabled, he being assured of his present subsistence, to direct his power to the greatest advantage. HE has time to learn an art, and his labour is rendered more productive when directed by skill. Being ASSURED of immediate subsistence he can ascertain which, with his peculiar knowledge and acquirements, and with reference to the wants of society, is the best method of labouring, and he can labour in this manner. Unless there were this ASSURANCE there could be no continuous thought, no invention, and no knowledge but that which would be necessary for the supply of our immediate animal wants. The weaver, I admit, could not complete his web, nor would the shipwright begin to build his ship, unless he KNEW that while he was engaged in this labour he should be able to procure food. A merchant certainly could not set out for South America or the East Indies unless he were CONFIDENT that during the period of his absence he and his family could find subsistence, and that he would be able at the end of his voyage to pay all the expenses he had incurred. It is this assurance, this knowledge, this confidence of obtaining subsistence and reward, which enables and induces men to undertake long and complicated operations; and the question is, do men derive this assurance, from a stock of goods already provided, (saved from the produce of previous labour,) and ready to pay them, or from any other source?

I SHALL ENDEAVOUR TO SHOW THAT THIS ASSURANCE ARISES FROM A GENERAL PRINCIPLE IN THE CONSTITUTION OF MAN, AND THAT THE EFFECTS ATTRIBUTED TO A STOCK OF COMMODITIES, UNDER THE NAME OF CIRCULATING CAPITAL, ARE CAUSED BY CO-EXISTING LABOUR.

Here’s some more.

Labour Defended, &c., Episode Five Six

[Previous Episodes: One, Two, Three, Four and Five.]

Capital which thus engrosses the whole produce of a country, except the bare subsistence of the labourer, and the surplus produce of fertile land, is, “the produce of labour,” “is commodities,” “is the food the labourer eats, and the machines he uses;” so that we are obliged to give that enormous portion of the whole produce of the country which remains, after we have been supplied with subsistence, and the rent of the landlord has been paid, for the privilege of eating the food we have ourselves produced, and of using our own skill in producing more. Capital, the reader will suppose, must have some wonderful properties, when the labourer pays so exorbitantly for it. In fact, its claims are founded on its wonderful properties, and to them, therefore, I mean especially to direct his attention.

Several good and great men, whom we must all respect and esteem, seeing that capital did obtain all the large share I have mentioned, and being more willing, apparently, to defend and to explain the present order of society than to ascertain whether it could be improved; have endeavoured to point out the method in which capital aids production. From their writings I shall extract some passages explanatory of its effects. I must, however, beg not to be understood as doing this invidiously. The only motive I have for selecting these authors, as the representatives of the political economists, is, that they are by far the more efficient and eloquent supporters of the doctrine I do not assent to.

Mr M’Culloch says, “The accumulation and employment of both fixed and circulating capital is indispensably necessary to elevate any nation in the scale of civilization. And it is only by THEIR CONJOINED AND POWERFUL OPERATION that wealth can be largely produced and universally diffused.” [This is taken from the Article “Political Economy”, in the Supplement to the Encyclopaedia Britannica — Ed.]

“The quantity of industry,” he further says, “therefore, not only increases in every country with the increase of the stock or capital which sets it in motion; but, in consequence of this increase, the division of labour becomes extended, new and more powerful implements and machines are invented, and the same quantity of labour is thus made to produce an infinitely greater quantity of commodities.

“Besides its effect in enabling labour to be divided, capital contributes to facilitate labour, and produce wealth in the three following ways:

“First. — It enables us to execute work that could not be executed, or to produce commodities that could not be produced without it.

“Second. — It saves labour in the production of almost every species of commodities,

“Third. — It enables us to execute work better, as well as more expeditiously.”

Mr Mill’s account of these effects, though not so precise, is still more astounding. “The labourer,” he says (page 40) “has neither raw materials nor tools. These are provided for him by the capitalist. For making this provision, the capitalist of course expects a reward.” According to this statement, the capitalist provides for the labourer and only, therefore expects a profit. In other parts of his book it is not the capitalist who provides but the capital which works. He speaks of capital as an instrument of production co-operating with labour, as an active agent combining with labour to produce commodities, and thus he satisfies himself, and endeavours to prove to the reader that capital is entitled to all that large share of the produce it actually receives. He also attributes to capital power of accumation. This power or tendency to accumulate, he adds, is not so great as the tendency of population to augment — and on the difference between these two tendencies he and other authors have erected a theory of society which places poor mother-nature in no favorable light.

In one of his more constructive recent interventions at the Virtual Stoa, David Duff interrupted his characteristically repellent and trollish behaviour (see comments threads below in the DSW) in order to ask about definitions of key concepts. As it happens, Hodgskin was just coming around to that…

Labour Defended, &c., Episode Five

[Episode One was posted here, Two here, Three here and Four immediately below.]

“The produce of the earth,” says Mr. Ricardo, — “ALL that is derived from its surface by the united application of labour, machinery, and capital is divided among three classes of the community; namely, the proprietor of the land, the owner of the stock or capital necessary for its cultivation, and the labourers by whose industry it is cultivated.”

“It is self-evident,” says Mr M’Culloch, “that only three classes, the labourers, the possessors of capital, and the proprietors of land, are ever directly concerned in the production of commodities. It is to them, therefore, that all which is derived from the surface of the earth, or from its bowels, by the united application of immediate labour, and of capital, or accumulated labour, must primarily belong. The other classes of society have no revenue except what they derive either voluntarily or by compulsion from these three classes.”

The proportions in which the WHOLE produce is divided among these three classes is said to be as follows: — “Land is of different degrees of fertility.” “When, in the progress of society, land of the second quality (or an inferior degree of fertility to land before cultivated,) is taken into cultivation, rent immediately commences on that of the first quality, and the amount of that rent will depend on the difference in the quality of these two portions or land.” [More here - Ed.] Rent, therefore, or that quantity of the whole produce of the country which goes to the landlords, is, in every stage of society, that portion of this produce which is obtained from every district belonging to a politically organized nation, more than is obtained from the least fertile land cultivated by, or belonging to, that nation. It is the greater produce of all the land which is more fertile than the least fertile land cultivated. To produce this surplus would not break the back, and to give it up would not break the heart of the labourer. The landlord’s share therefore, does not keep the labourer poor.

The labourer’s share of the produce of a country, according to this theory, is the “necessaries and conveniences required for the support of the labourer and his family; or that quantity which is necessary to enable the labourers, one with another, to subsist and to perpetuate their race, without either increase or diminution.” [More here - Ed.] Whatever may be the truth of the theory in other respects, there is no doubt of its correctness in this particular. The labourers do only receive, and ever have only received, as much as will subsist them, the landlords receive the surplus produce of the more fertile soils, and all the rest of the whole produce of labour in this and in every country, goes to the capitalist under the name of profit for the use of his capital.

Apologies for the gap in the serial… We’ll get going again, and post a few more chunks over the next few days.

Labour Defended, &c., Episode Four

[Episode One was posted here, Two here and Three here.]

The claims of capital, are, I am aware, sanctioned by almost universal custom; and as long as the labourer did not feel himself aggrieved by them, it was of no use opposing them with arguments. But now, when the practice excites resistence, we are bound, if possible, to overthrow the theory on which it is founded and justified. It is accordingly against this theory that my arguments will be directed. When we have settled the question, however, as to the claims of capital or labour, we shall have proceeded only one step towards ascertaining what ought now to be the wages of labour. The other parts of the enquiry will, I trust, be entered into by some of my fellow-labourers, and I shall content myself at present with examining the claims of the capitalists, as supported by the theories of political economy.

I admit that the subject is somewhat abstruse, but there is a necessity for the labourers to comprehend and be able to refute the received notions of the nature and utility of capital. Wages vary inversely as profits; or wages rise when profits fall, and profits rise when wages fall; and it is therefore profits, or the capitalist’s share of the national produce, which is opposed to wages, or the share of the labourer. The theory on which profits are claimed, and which holds up capital, and accumulation of capital to our admiration as the mainspring of human improvement, is that which I say the labourers must, in their own interest, examine, and must, before they can have any hope of a permanent improvement in their own condition, be able to refute. They indeed are so satisfied, that by their exertions all the wealth of society is produced, that no doubt on the subject has ever entered their minds. This is not, however, the case with other people, and whenever the labourers claim larger wages, or combine to do themselves justice, they hear, both from the legislature and the Press, little or nothing about the necessity of rewarding labour, but much about the necessity of protecting capital. They must therefore be able to show the hollowness of the theory on which the claims of capital, and on which all the oppressive laws made for its protection are founded. This will, I hope, be a motive with them for endeavouring to comprehend the following observations, as it is my excuse for directing them, not so much to show what labour ought, as to what capital ought not to have.

Quite a bit to get through, and this part doesn’t really need any introducing, so let’s have another tranche of Hodgskin’s opening passages.

Labour Defended, &c. Episode Three

(Follow these links for Episode One and Episode Two.)

Combination is of itself no crime; on the contrary, it is the principle on which societies are held together. When the government supposes its existence threatened, or the country in danger, it calls on us all to combine for its protection. “Combinations of workmen,” however, it says, through Mr. Huskisson, “must be put down.” Frequently has it contracted alliances with other governments or made combinations to carry on war and shed blood; frequently has it called on the whole nation to combine when the object has been to plunder and massacre the unoffending subjects of some neighbouring state; and frequently have such combinations had heaped on them all the epithets of the vocabulary of glory. No other combination seems unjust or mischievous, in the view of government, but our combinations to obtain a proper reward for our labour. It is a heinous crime in the eyes of a legislature, composed exclusively of capitalists and landlords, and representing no other interests than their own, for us to try, by any means, to obtain for ourselves, and for the comfortable subsistence of our families, a larger share of our own produce than these our masters choose to allow us. All the moral evils that ever plagued a society have been anticipated by the Ministers from our persevering in our claims. To put down combination they have departed from principles held sacred for upwards of 200 years. They have made also a law handing us over to the magistrates like vagabonds and thieves, and we are to be condemned almost unheard, and without the privilege and formality of a public trial.

All that we are compelled to suffer, all that we have had inflicted on us, has been done for the advantage of capital. “Capital,” says Mr. Huskisson, “will be terrified out of the country, and the misguided workmen, unless they are stopped in time, will bring ruin on themselves and on us.” “Capital,” says the Marquis of Lansdown, “must be protected. If its operations be not left free, if they are to be controuled by bodies of workmen it will leave this for some more favoured country.” Capital, if we believe these politicians, has improved England, and the want of capital is the cause of the poverty and sufferings of Ireland. Under the influence of such notions, no laws for the protection of capital are thought too severe, and few or no persons, except the labourer, see either impropriety or injustice in the fashionable mode of despising his claims, and laughing at his distresses.

In fact the legislature, the public at large, and especially our employers, decide on our claims solely by a reference to the former condition of the labourer, or to his condition in other countries. We are told to be contented, because we are not quite as badly off as the ragged Irish peasants who are suffering under a more grievous system even than the one which afflicts us. By them also we are destined to suffer; for they are imported here in crowds, and beat down the wages of our labour. We can have no hope, therefore, either of convincing the public or of calling the blush of shame into the cheek of those who are opulent by our toils, and who deride the poverty and sufferings they cause, by referring to the customs of any other society, either in times past or present. To obtain better treatment the labourers must appeal from practice to principle. We must put out of view how labour has been paid in times past, and how it is now paid in other countries, and we must show how it ought to be paid. This I admit is a difficult task, but the former condition of the labourer in this country, and his condition at present in other countries, leaving us no criterion to which we can or ought to appeal, we must endeavour to perform it.

Who was Thomas Hodgskin? Here are the barest of bones, mostly lightly summarised from the introduction to David Reisman’s edition (mentioned in Episode One below).

Thomas Hodgskin was born 12 December 1787, left school at twelve and went to sea, serving twelve years in the Navy before retiring on half pay in 1812. He wasn’t happy with the Navy, and said so in his first published work, An Essay on Naval Discipline (1813). In this 50,000 word polemic, Hodgskin presented himself to the public “as a discontented and disappointed man” and went on to describe and denounce the entire system of discipline in the Navy, repeatedly returning to the idea that the despotic organisation and practices in the Navy stood in sharp and ultimately damaging contradiction to the politics of a free state.

Waterloo opened up the continent again, and Hodgskin travelled extensively in Europe, marrying a German woman in Hanover, returning to Britain in 1818, and publishing in 1820 his two volume Travels in the north of Germany, describing the present state of the social and political institutions, the agriculture, manufactures, commerce, education, arts and manners in that country, particularly in the Kingdom of Hanover. As some of my students sometimes say to me these days, this does just what it says on the tin, but — sadly — does not appear to be anywhere online. In particular, the Travels defended the laissez-faire (lack of?) organisation of modern society, and attacked the over-regulation of German society by government, as well as setting forth his view that “capital is the product of labour, and profit is nothing but a portion of that produce, uncharitably extracted…”

Based in Britain from 1818, Hodgskin studied Ricardo’s economics, set out in his Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1817), had a not particularly happy spell in Edinburgh, 1819-1822, and returned to London in 1822 in order to work as Parliamentary correspondent for the Morning Chronicle. There he became involved in a significant working-class education initiative, the Mechanics’ Institute, and its associated magazine, and it was during his association with these institutions that he published in 1825 his most celebrated work, Labour Defended….

More by way of background, perhaps, later. Let’s have a bit more of the text now, the opening three paragraphs, following on from the previously-posted “Notice”…

Labour Defended, &c., Episode Two

[Episode One was posted here]

Throughout this country at present, there exists a serious contest between capital and labour. The journeymen of almost every trade have combined to obtain higher wages; and their employers have appealed to the legislature for protection. The contest is not only one of physical endurance, or who can stand out longest, but of argument and reason. It is possible for the workmen to force their masters into compliance, but they must convince the public of the justice of their demands. The Press has, at present a great influence over public questions; and by far the greater and more influential part of it is engaged on the side of the capitalist. Through it, however, and through public opinion, must the journeymen find their way to the legislature. They may possibly terrify their masters, but they can only obtain the support of any influential persons by an appeal to reason. To suggest some arguments in favour of labour, and against capital, is my chief motive for publishing the present pamphlet.

The labourers are very unfortunate, I conceive, in being surrounded by nations in a worse political condition than we are; and in some of which labour is still worse paid than here. Labourers are still more unfortunate in being descended from bondsmen and cerfs [sic]. Personal slavery or villanage formerly existed in Britain, and all the living labourers still suffer from the bondage of their ancestors. Our claims are consequently never tried by the principles of justice. The lawgiver and the capitalist always compare our wages with the wages of other labourers; and without adverting to what we produce, which seems the only criterion by which we ought to be paid, we are instantly condemned as insolent and ungrateful if we ask for more than was enjoyed by the slave of former times, and is now enjoyed by the half-starved slave of other countries.

By our increased skill and knowledge, labour is now probably ten times more productive than it was two hundred years ago; and we are forsooth, to be contended with the same rewards which the bondsmen then received. All the advantages of our improvements go to the capitalist and the landlord. When, denied any share in our increased produce, we combine to obtain it, we are instantly threatened with summary punishment. New laws are fulminated against us, and if these are found insufficient, we are threatened with laws still more severe.

A few months ago, you may recall, I serialised Oscar Wilde’s essay, “The Soul of Man under Socialism”, at the Virtual Stoa, republishing it in bite-sized chunks in order that the blog generation — shortened attention span and all — might enjoy a fresh encounter with something that is both a rather fine piece of writing and a significant and often under-appreciated contribution to the literature of the Left.

I’ve been pondering a sequel for a while now, and the text I keep coming back to is Thomas Hodgskin’s pamphlet, Labour Defended Against the Claims of Capital, which was first published in London in 1825 and which went on to be considered one of the classics of the so-called Ricardian socialist economics.

For those who want to read ahead, the pamphlet is available elsewhere on the web, for example, here or here. I’ll be basing this blog edition on the text provided by the Avalon Project website at Yale Law School, checking it against the facsimile of the original edition in David Reisman’s recent Pickering edition.

I’ll supply some further background notes at the start of the second instalment, but - there being no time like the present - it’s time to kick off this new serial with the Notice that appears ahead of the main body of the text…

NOTICE

In all the debates on the law passed during the late session of Parliament, on account of the combinations of workmen, much stress is laid on the necessity of protecting capital. What capital performs is therefore a question of considerable importance, which the author was, on this account, induced to examine. As the result of that examination, it is his opinion that all the benefits attributed to capital arise from co-existing and skilled labour. He feels himself, on this account, called on to deny that capital has any just claim to the large share of the national produce now bestowed on it. This large share he has endeavored to show is the cause of the poverty of the labourer; and he ventures to assert that the condition of the labourer can never be permanently improved till he can refute the theory, and is determined to oppose the practice of giving nearly everything to capital.

So within minutes of posting the final instalment of “The Soul of Man Under Socialism”, “Nyet to Barbie” Sarah pops up in the comments and asks what I’m going to do next, and suggests Debord’s Society of the Spectacle. (Quite a good choice: we could have one paragraph a day for the next 212 days or so: they’re all numbered.)

I’ve quite enjoyed preparing Wilde-by-instalment: the work of picking where the episode breaks come, cleaning up the rather fuzzy electronic text on which I based the serial and thinking a bit about some of the less well-known parts of the essay has had its own rewards. Some of the work has just been rather mechanical proof-reading, but I think that on balance the interesting work has outweighed the tedious stuff here.

But what I’d like to know more about is whether VS-readers have been paying attention. A couple of you have emailed to say you’ve been enjoying the Wilde in bite-sized chunks. I guess that others have scrolled rapidly past instalments to see if there’s anything original underneath. How (if at all) did you engage with the Wilde text? If I did another text, would you prefer more by way of editorial commentary, or just let whatever text it was speak for itself? Another essay in segments, or something longer but filleted? Any opinions — and further thoughts about what else, if anything, to post in this space — would be particularly welcome, either in the comments below or by private email.

Thanks.

The Finale.

Earlier Episodes: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII, XIX, XX, XXI.

“The Soul of Man Under Socialism” by Oscar Wilde, Part Twenty-Two

The evolution of man is slow. The injustice of men is great. It was necessary that pain should be put forward as a mode of self-realization. Even now, in some places in the world, the message of Christ is necessary. No one who lived in modern Russia could possibly realize his perfection except by pain. A few Russian artists have realized themselves in Art, in a fiction that is medieval in character, because its dominant note is the realization of men through suffering. But for those who are not artists, and to whom there is no mode of life but the actual life of fact, pain is the only door to perfection. A Russian who lives happily under the present system of government in Russia must either believe that man has no soul, or that, if he has, it is not worth while developing. A Nihilist who rejects all authority because he knows authority to be evil, and welcomes all pain, because through that he realizes his personality, is a real Christian. To him the Christian ideal is a true thing.

And yet, Christ did not revolt against authority. He accepted the imperial authority of the Roman Empire and paid tribute. He endured the ecclesiastical authority of the Jewish Church, and would not repel its violence by any violence of his own. He had, as I said before, no scheme for the reconstruction of society. But the modern world has schemes. It proposes to do away with poverty, and the suffering that it entails. It desires to get rid of pain, and the suffering that pain entails. It trusts to Socialism and to Science as its methods. What it aims at is an Individualism expressing itself through joy. This Individualism will be larger, fuller, lovelier than any Individualism has ever been. Pain is not the ultimate mode of perfection. It is merely provisional and a protest. It has reference to wrong, unhealthy, unjust surroundings. When the wrong, and the disease, and the injustice are removed, it will have no further place. It was a great work, but it is almost over. Its sphere lessens every day.

Nor will man miss it. For what man has sought for is, indeed, neither pain nor pleasure, but simply Life. Man has sought to live intensely, fully, perfectly. When he can do so without exercising restraint on others, or suffering it ever, and his activities are all pleasurable to him, he will be saner, healthier, more civilized, more himself. Pleasure is Nature’s test, her sign of approval. When man is happy, he is in harmony with himself and his environment. The new Individualism, for whose service Socialism, whether it wills it or not, is working, will be perfect harmony. It will be what the Greeks sought for, but could not, except in Thought, realize completely, because they had slaves, and fed them; it will be what the Renaissance sought for, but could not realize completely except in Art, because they had slaves, and starved them. It will be complete, and through it each man will attain to his perfection. The new Individualism is the new Hellenism.

The Penultimate Part.

For clarification of what follows, I’ll just say that a cenobite (or coenobite) is the opposite of an anchorite (or anchoret). Hope that helps.

(Notice also the comment on medievalism below, which could almost count as an intervention in the commentary surrounding Gibson’s Passion of the Christ…)

Earlier instalments: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII, XIX, XX.

“The Soul of Man Under Socialism” by Oscar Wilde, Part Twenty-One

Sympathy with pain there will, of course, always be. It is one of the first instincts of man. The animals which are individual, the higher animals, that is to say, share it with us. But it must he remembered that while sympathy with joy intensifies the sum of joy in the world, sympathy with pain does not really diminish the amount of pain. It may make man better able to endure evil, but the evil remains. Sympathy with consumption does not cure consumption; that is what science does. And when Socialism has solved the problem of poverty, and Science solved the problem of disease, the area of the sentimentalists will be lessened, and the sympathy of man will be large, healthy, and spontaneous. Man will have joy in the contemplation of the joyous lives of others.

For it is through joy that the Individualism of the future will develop itself. Christ made no attempt to reconstruct society, and consequently the Individualism that He preached to man could be realised only through pain or in solitude. The ideals that we owe to Christ are the ideals of the man who abandons society entirely, or of the man who resists society absolutely. But man is naturally social. Even the Thebaid became peopled at last. And though the cenobite realizes his personality, it is often an impoverished personality that he so realizes. Upon the other hand, the terrible truth that pain is a mode through which man may realize himself exercizes a wonderful fascination over the world. Shallow speakers and shallow thinkers in pulpits and on platforms often talk about the world’s worship of pleasure, and whine against it. But it is rarely in the world’s history that its ideal has been one of joy and beauty. The worship of pain has far more often dominated the world. Medievalism, with its saints and martyrs, its love of self-torture, its wild passion for wounding itself, its gashing with knives, and its whipping with rods — Medievalism is real Christianity, and the mediaeval Christ is the real Christ. When the Renaissance dawned upon the world, and brought with it the new ideals of the beauty of life and the joy of living, men could not understand Christ. Even Art shows us that. The painters of the Renaissance drew Christ as a little boy playing with another boy, in a palace or a garden, or lying back in his mother’s arms, smiling at her, or at a flower, or at a bright bird; or as a noble, stately figure moving nobly through the world; or as a wonderful figure rising in a sort of ecstasy from death to life. Even when they drew him crucified, they drew Him as a beautiful God on whom evil men had inflicted suffering. But he did not preoccupy them much. What delighted them was to paint the men and women whom they admired, and to show the loveliness of this lovely earth. They painted many religious pictures — in fact, they painted far too many; and the monotony of type and motive is wearisome and was bad for art. It was the result of the authority of the public in art-matters, and it is to be deplored. But their soul was not in the subject. Raphael was a great artist when he painted his portrait of the Pope. When he painted his Madonnas and infant Christs, he was not a great artist at all. Christ had no message for the Renaissance, which was wonderful because it brought an ideal at variance with his, and to find the presentation of the real Christ we must go to medieval art. There he is one maimed and marred; one who is not comely to look on, because Beauty is a joy; one who is not in fair raiment, because that may be a joy also: he is a beggar who has a marvellous soul; he is a leper whose soul is divine; he needs neither property nor health; he is a God realising his perfection through pain.

[Final instalment coming soon… Be patient.]

This is the antepenultimate part. (I like that word).

Earlier episodes: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII, XIX.

“The Soul of Man Under Socialism” by Oscar Wilde, Part Twenty

Individualism will also be unselfish and unaffected. It has been pointed out that one of the results of the extraordinary tyranny of authority is that words are absolutely distorted from their proper and simple meaning, and are used to express the obverse of their right signification. What is true about Art is true about Life. A man is called affected, nowadays, if he dresses as he likes to dress. But in doing that he is acting in a perfectly natural manner. Affectation, in such matters, consists in dressing according to the views of one’s neighbour, whose views, as they are the views of the majority, will probably be extremely stupid. Or a man is called selfish if he lives in the manner that seems to him most suitable for the full realization of his own personality; if, in fact, the primary aim of his life is self-development. But this is the way in which every one should live. Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live. And unselfishness is letting other people’s lives alone, not interfering with them. Selfishness always aims at creating around it an absolute uniformity of type. Unselfishness recognises infinite variety of type as a delightful thing, accepts it, acquiesces in it, enjoys it. It is not selfish to think for oneself. A man who does not think for himself does not think at all. It is grossly selfish to require of one’s neighbour that he should think in the same way, and hold the same opinions. Why should he? If he can think, he will probably think differently. If he cannot think, it is monstrous to require thought of any kind from him. A red rose is not selfish because it wants to be a red rose. It would be horribly selfish if it wanted all the other flowers in the garden to be both red and roses. Under Individualism people will be quite natural and absolutely unselfish, and will know the meanings of the words, and realize them in their free, beautiful lives. Nor will men be egotistic as they are now. For the egotist is he who makes claims upon others, and the Individualist will not desire to do that. It will not give him pleasure. When man has realized Individualism, he will also realize sympathy and exercise it freely and spontaneously. Up to the present man has hardly cultivated sympathy at all. He has merely sympathy with pain, and sympathy with pain is not the highest form of sympathy. All sympathy is fine, but sympathy with suffering is the least fine mode. It is tainted with egotism. It is apt to become morbid. There is in it a certain element of terror for our own safety. We become afraid that we ourselves might be as the leper or as the blind, and that no man would have care of us. It is curiously limiting, too. One should sympathize with the entirety of life, not with life’s sores and maladies merely, but with life’s joy and beauty and energy and health and freedom. The wider sympathy is, of course, the more difficult. It requires more unselfishness. Anybody can sympathize with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature — it requires, in fact, the nature of a true Individualist — to sympathize with a friend’s success. In the modern stress of competition and struggle for place, such sympathy is naturally rare, and is also very much stifled by the immoral ideal of uniformity of type and conformity to rule which is so prevalent everywhere, and is perhaps most obnoxious in England.

[Penultimate episode, coming soon]

Earlier episodes: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII.

“The Soul of Man Under Socialism” by Oscar Wilde, Part Nineteen

It will, of course, be said that such a scheme as is set forth here is quite unpractical, and goes against human nature. This is perfectly true. It is unpractical, and it goes against human nature. This is why it is worth carrying out, and that is why one proposes it. For what is a practical scheme? A practical scheme is either a scheme that is already in existence, or a scheme that could be carried out under existing conditions. But it is exactly the existing conditions that one objects to; and any scheme that could accept these conditions is wrong and foolish. The conditions will be done away with, and human nature will change. The only thing that one really knows about human nature is that it changes. Change is the one quality we can predicate of it. The systems that fail are those that rely on the permanency of human nature, and not on its growth and development. The error of Louis XIV was that he thought human nature would always be the same. The result of his error was the French Revolution. It was an admirable result. All the results of the mistakes of governments are quite admirable.

It is to be noted also that Individualism does not come to man with any sickly cant about duty, which merely means doing what other people want because they want it; or any hideous cant about self-sacrifice, which is merely a survival of savage mutilation. In fact, it does not come to man with any claims upon him at all. It comes naturally and inevitably out of man. It is the point to which all development tends. It is the differentiation to which all organisms grow. It is the perfection that is inherent in every mode of life, and towards which every mode of life quickens. And so Individualism exercises no compulsion over man. On the contrary, it says to man that he should suffer no compulsion to be exercised over him. It does not try to force people to be good. It knows that people are good when they are let alone. Man will develop Individualism out of himself. Man is now so developing Individualism. To ask whether Individualism is practical is like asking whether Evolution is practical. Evolution is the law of life, and there is no evolution except towards individualism. Where this tendency is not expressed, it is a case of artificially arrested growth, or of disease, or of death.

[To be continued…]

Not long to go now. I think it’ll run to twenty two instalments, all told.

Earlier episodes: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV, XVI, XVII.

“The Soul of Man Under Socialism” by Oscar Wilde, Part Eighteen

It is evident, then, that all authority in such things is bad. People sometimes inquire what form of government is most suitable for an artist to live under. To this question there is only one answer. The form of government that is most suitable to the artist is no government at all. Authority over him and his art is ridiculous. It has been stated that under despotism artists have produced lovely work. This is not quite so. Artists have visited despots, not as subjects to be tyrannized over, but as wandering wonder-makers, as fascinating vagrant personalities, to be entertained and charmed and suffered to be at peace, and allowed to create. There is this to be said in favour of the despot, that he, being an individual, may have culture, while the mob, being a monster, has none. One who is an Emperor and King may stoop down to pick up a brush for a painter, but when the democracy stoops down it is merely to throw mud. And yet the democracy have not so far to stoop as the Emperor. In fact, when they want to throw mud they have not to stoop at all. But there is no necessity to separate the monarch from the mob; all authority is equally bad.

There are three kinds of despots. There is the despot who tyrannizes over the body. There is the despot who tyrannizes over the soul. There is the despot who tyrannizes over the soul and body alike. The first is called the Prince. The second is called the Pope. The third is called the People. The Prince may be cultivated. Many Princes have been. Yet in the Prince there is danger. One thinks of Dante at the bitter feast in Verona, of Tasso in Ferrara’s madman’s cell. It is better for the artist not to live with Princes. The Pope may be cultivated. Many Popes have been; the bad Popes have been. The bad Popes loved Beauty, almost as passionately, nay, with as much passion as the good Popes hated Thought. To the wickedness of the Papacy humanity owes much. The goodness of the Papacy owes a terrible debt to humanity. Yet, though the Vatican has kept the rhetoric of its thunders, and lost the rod of its lightning, it is better for the artist not to live with Popes. It was a Pope who said of Cellini to a conclave of Cardinals that common laws and common authority were not made for men such as he; but it was a Pope who thrust Cellini into prison, and kept him there till he sickened with rage, and created unreal visions for himself, and saw the gilded sun enter his room, and grew so enamoured of it that he sought to escape, and crept out from tower to tower, and falling through dizzy air at dawn, maimed himself, and was by a vine-dresser covered with vine leaves, and carried in a cart to one who, loving beautiful things, had care of him. There is danger in Popes. And as for the People, what of them and their authority? Perhaps of them and their authority one has spoken enough. Their authority is a thing blind, deaf, hideous, grotesque, tragic, amusing, serious, and obscene. It is impossible for the artist to live with the People. All despots bribe. The People bribe and brutalize. Who told them to exercise authority? They were made to live, to listen, and to love. Some one has done them a great wrong. They have marred themselves by imitation of their superiors. They have taken the sceptre of the Prince. How should they use it? They have taken the triple tiara of the Pope. How should they carry its burden? They are as a clown whose heart is broken. They are as a priest whose soul is not yet born. Let all who love Beauty pity them. Though they themselves love not Beauty, yet let them pity themselves. Who taught them the trick of tyranny ?

There are many other things that one might point out. One might point out how the Renaissance was great, because it sought to solve no social problem, and busied itself not about such things, but suffered the individual to develop freely, beautifully, and naturally, and so had great and individual artists, and great and individual men. One might point out how Louis XIV, by creating the modern state, destroyed the individualism of the artist, and made things monstrous in their monotony of repetition, and contemptible in their conformity to rule, and destroyed throughout all France all those fine freedoms of expression that had made tradition new in beauty, and new modes one with antique form. But the past is of no importance. The present is of no importance. It is with the future that we have to deal. For the past is what man should not have been. The present is what man ought not to be. The future is what artists are.

[To be continued]

Earlier instalments: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV, XVI.

“The Soul of Man Under Socialism” by Oscar Wilde, Part Seventeen

With the novel it is the same thing. Popular authority and the recognition of popular authority are fatal. Thackeray’s Esmond is a beautiful work of art because he wrote it to please himself. In his other novels, in Pendennis, in Philip, in Vanity Fair even, at times, he is too conscious of the public, and spoils his work by appealing directly to the sympathies of the public, or by directly mocking at them. A true artist takes no notice whatever of the public. The public are to him non-existent. He has no poppied or honeyed cakes through which to give the monster sleep or sustenance. He leaves that to the popular novelist. One incomparable novelist we have now in England, Mr. George Meredith. There are better artists in France, but France has no one whose view of life is so large, so varied, so imaginatively true. There are tellers of stories in Russia who have a more vivid sense of what pain in fiction may be. But to him belongs philosophy in fiction. His people not merely live, but they live in thought. One can see them from myriad points of view. They are suggestive. There is soul in them and around them. They are interpretative and symbolic. And he who made them, those wonderful, quickly moving figures, made them for his own pleasure, and has never asked the public what they wanted, has never cared to know what they wanted, has never allowed the public to dictate to him or influence him in any way, but has gone on intensifying his own personality, and producing his own individual work. At first none came to him. That did not matter. Then the few came to him. That did not change him. The many have come now. He is still the same. He is an incomparable novelist.

With the decorative arts it is not different. The public clung with really pathetic tenacity to what I believe were the direct traditions of the Great Exhibition of international vulgarity, traditions that were so appalling that the houses in which people lived were only fit for blind people to live in. Beautiful things began to be made, beautiful colours came from the dyer’s hand, beautiful patterns from the artist’s brain, and the use of beautiful things and their value and importance were set forth. The public were really very indignant. They lost their temper. They said silly things. No one minded. No one was a whit the worse. No one accepted the authority of public opinion. And now it is almost impossible to enter any modern house without seeing some recognition of good taste, some recognition of the value of lovely surroundings, some sign of appreciation of beauty. In fact, people’s houses are, as a rule, quite charming nowadays. People have been to a very great extent civilized. It is only fair to state, however, that the extraordinary success of the revolution in house-decoration and furniture and the like has not really been due to the majority of the public developing a very fine taste in such matters. It has been chiefly due to the fact that the craftsmen of things so appreciated the pleasure of making what was beautiful, and woke to such a vivid consciousness of the hideousness and vulgarity of what the public had previously wanted, that they simply starved the public out. It would be quite impossible at the present moment to furnish a room as rooms were furnished a few years ago, without going for everything to an auction of second-hand furniture from some third-rate lodging-house. The things are no longer made. However they may object to it, people must nowadays have something charming in their surroundings. Fortunately for them, their assumption of authority in these art-matters came to entire grief.

[More in a bit]

Previous episodes: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV.

“The Soul of Man Under Socialism” by Oscar Wilde, Part Sixteen

However, let us leave what is really a very sordid side of the subject, and return to the question of popular control in the matter of Art, by which I mean Public Opinion dictating to the artist the form which he is to use, the mode in which he is to use it, and the materials with which he is to work. I have pointed out that the arts which have escaped best in England are the arts in which the public have not been interested. They are, however, interested in the drama, and as a certain advance has been made in the drama within the last ten or fifteen years, it is important to point out that this advance is entirely due to a few individual artists refusing to accept the popular want of taste as their standard, and refusing to regard Art as a mere matter of demand and supply. With his marvellous and vivid personality, with a style that has really a true colour-element in it, with his extraordinary power, not over mere mimicry, but over imaginative and intellectual creation, Mr. Irving, had his sole object been to give the public what they wanted, could have produced the commonest plays in the commonest manner, and made as much success and money as a man could possibly desire. But his object was not that. His object was to realize his own perfection as an artist, under certain conditions and in certain forms of Art. At first he appealed to the few: now he has educated the many. He has created in the public both taste and temperament. The public appreciate his artistic success immensely. I often wonder, however, whether the public understand that that success is entirely due to the fact that he did not accept their standard, but realized his own. With their standard the Lyceum would have been a sort of second-rate booth, as some of the popular theatres in London are at present. Whether they understand it or not, the fact however remains, that taste and temperament have, to a certain extent, been created in the public, and that the public are capable of developing these qualities. The problem then is, why do not the public become more civilized? They have the capacity. What stops them?

The thing that stops them, it must be said again, is their desire to exercise authority over the artist and over works of art. To certain theatres, such as the Lyceum and the Haymarket, the public seem to come in a proper mood. In both of these theatres there have been individual artists, who have succeeded in creating in their audiences — and every theatre in London has its own audience — the temperament to which Art appeals. And what is that temperament? It is the temperament of receptivity. That is all.

If a man approaches a work of art with any desire to exercise authority over it and the artist, he approaches it in such a spirit that he cannot receive any artistic impression from it at all. The work of art is to dominate the spectator: the spectator is not to dominate the work of art. The spectator is to be receptive. He is to be the violin on which the master is to play. And the more completely he can suppress his own silly views, his own foolish prejudices, his own absurd ideas of what Art should be, or should not be, the more likely he is to understand and appreciate the work of art in question. This is, of course, quite obvious in the case of the vulgar theatre-going public of English men and women. But it is equally true of what are called educated people. For an educated person’s ideas of Art are drawn naturally from what Art has been, whereas the new work of art is beautiful by being what Art has never been; and to measure it by the standard of the past is to measure it by a standard on the rejection of which its real perfection depends. A temperament capable of receiving, through an imaginative medium, and under imaginative conditions, new and beautiful impressions, is the only temperament that can appreciate a work of art. And true as this is in the case of the appreciation of sculpture and painting, it is still more true of the appreciation of such arts as the drama. For a picture and a statue are not at war with Time. They take no count of its succession. In one moment their unity may be apprehended. In the case of literature it is different. Time must be traversed before the unity of effect is realized. And so, in the drama, there may occur in the first act of the play something whose real artistic value may not be evident to the spectator till the third or fourth act is reached. Is the silly fellow to get angry and call out, and disturb the play, and annoy the artists ? No. The honest man is to sit quietly, and know the delightful emotions of wonder, curiosity, and suspense. He is not to go to the play to lose a vulgar temper. He is to go to the play to realize an artistic temperament. He is to go to the play to gain an artistic temperament. He is not the arbiter of the work of art. He is one who is admitted to contemplate the work of art, and, if the work be fine, to forget in its contemplation all the egotism that mars him — the egotism of his ignorance, or the egotism of his information. This point about the drama is hardly, I think, sufficiently recognized. I can quite understand that were Macbeth produced for the first time before a modern London audience, many of the people present would strongly and vigorously object to the introduction of the witches in the first act, with their grotesque phrases and their ridiculous words. But when the play is over one realises that the laughter of the witches in Macbeth is as terrible as the laughter of madness in Lear, more terrible than the laughter of Iago in the tragedy of the Moor. No spectator of art needs a more perfect mood of receptivity than the spectator of a play. The moment he seeks to exercise authority he becomes the avowed enemy of Art, and of himself. Art does not mind. It is he who suffers.

[More soon enough.]

Previous postings: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV.

“The Soul of Man Under Socialism” by Oscar Wilde, Part Fifteen

In old days men had the rack. Now they have the Press. That is an improvement certainly. But still it is very bad, and wrong, and demoralizing. Somebody — was it Burke? — called journalism the fourth estate. That was true at the time, no doubt. But at the present moment it really is the only estate. It has eaten up the other three. The Lords Temporal say nothing, the Lords Spiritual have nothing to say, and the House of Commons has nothing to say and says it. We are dominated by Journalism. In America the President reigns for four years, and Journalism governs for ever and ever. Fortunately, in America, Journalism has carried its authority to the grossest and most brutal extreme. As a natural consequence it has begun to create a spirit of revolt. People are amused by it, or disgusted by it, according to their temperaments. But it is no longer the real force it was. It is not seriously treated. In England, Journalism, except in a few well-known instances, not having been carried to such excesses of brutality, is still a great factor, a really remarkable power. The tyranny that it proposes to exercise over people’s private lives seems to me to be quite extraordinary. The fact is, that the public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing. Journalism, conscious of this, and having tradesman-like habits, supplies their demands. In centuries before ours the public nailed the ears of journalists to the pump. That was quite hideous. In this century journalists have nailed their own ears to the keyhole. That is much worse. And what aggravates the mischief is that the journalists who are most to blame are not the amusing journalists who write for what are called Society papers. The harm is done by the serious, thoughtful, earnest journalists, who solemnly, as they are doing at present, will drag before the eyes of the public some incident in the private life of a great statesman, of a man who is a leader of political thought as he is a creator of political force, and invite the public to discuss the incident, to exercise authority in the matter, to give their views, and not merely to give their views, but to carry them into action, to dictate to the man upon all other points, to dictate to his party, to dictate to his country; in fact, to make themselves ridiculous, offensive, and harmful. The private lives of men and women should not be told to the public. The public have nothing to do with them at all.

In France they manage these things better. There they do not allow the details of the trials that take place in the divorce courts to be published for the amusement or criticism of the public. All that the public are allowed to know is that the divorce has taken place and was granted on petition of one or other or both of the married parties concerned. In France, in fact, they limit the journalist, and allow the artist almost perfect freedom. Here we allow absolute freedom to the journalist, and entirely limit the artist. English public opinion, that is to say, tries to constrain and impede and warp the man who makes things that are beautiful in effect, and compels the journalist to retail things that are ugly, or disgusting, or revolting in fact, so that we have the most serious journalists in the world and the most indecent newspapers. It is no exaggeration to talk of compulsion. There are possibly some journalists who take a real pleasure in publishing horrible things, or who, being poor, look to scandals as forming a sort of permanent basis for an income. But there are other journalists, I feel certain, men of education and cultivation, who really dislike publishing these things, who know that it is wrong to do so, and only do it because the unhealthy conditions under which their occupation is carried on oblige them to supply the pubic with what the public wants, and to compete with other journalists in making that supply as full and satisfying to the gross popular appetite as possible. It is a very degrading position for any body of educated men to be placed in, and I have no doubt that most of them feel it acutely.

[More shortly]

Earlier episodes: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII.

“The Soul of Man Under Socialism” by Oscar Wilde, Part Fourteen

On the whole, an artist in England gains something by being attacked. His individuality is intensified. He becomes more completely himself. Of course, the attacks are very gross, very impertinent, and very contemptible. But then no artist expects grace from the vulgar mind, or style from the suburban intellect. Vulgarity and stupidity are two very vivid facts in modern life. One regrets them, naturally. But there they are. They are subjects for study, like everything else. And it is only fair to state, with regard to modern journalists, that they always apologize to one in private for what they have written against one in public.

Within the last few years two other adjectives, it may be mentioned, have been added to the very limited vocabulary of art-abuse that is at the disposal of the public. One is the word “unhealthy”, the other is the word “exotic”. The latter merely expresses the rage of the momentary mushroom against the immortal, entrancing, and exquisitely lovely orchid. It is a tribute, but a tribute of no importance. The word “unhealthy”, however, admits of analysis. It is a rather interesting word. In fact, it is so interesting that the people who use it do not know what it means.

What does it mean? What is a healthy or an unhealthy work of art? All terms that one applies to a work of art, provided that one applies them rationally, have reference to either its style or its subject, or to both together. From the point of view of style, a healthy work of art is one whose style recognises the beauty of the material it employs, be that material one of words or of bronze, of colour or of ivory, and uses that beauty as a factor in producing the aesthetic effect. From the point of view of subject, a healthy work of art is one the choice of whose subject is conditioned by the temperament of the artist, and comes directly out of it. In fine, a healthy work of art is one that has both perfection and personality. Of course, form and substance cannot be separated in a work of art; they are always one. But for purposes of analysis, and setting the wholeness of aesthetic impression aside for a moment, we can intellectually so separate them. An unhealthy work of art, on the other hand, is a work whose style is obvious, old-fashioned, and common, and whose subject is deliberately chosen, not because the artist has any pleasure in it, but because he thinks that the public will pay him for it. In fact, the popular novel that the public calls healthy is always a thoroughly unhealthy production; and what the public call an unhealthy novel is always a beautiful and healthy work of art.

I need hardly say that I am not, for a single moment, complaining that the public and the public Press misuse these words. I do not see how, with their lack of comprehension of what Art is, they could possibly use them in the proper sense. I am merely pointing out the misuse; and as for the origin of the misuse and the meaning that lies behind it all, the explanation is very simple. It comes from the barbarous conception of authority. It comes from the natural inability of a community corrupted by authority to understand or appreciate Individualism. In a word, it comes from that monstrous and ignorant thing that is called Public Opinion, which, bad and well-meaning as it is when it tries to control action, is infamous and of evil meaning when it tries to control Thought or Art.

Indeed, there is much more to be said in favour of the physical force of the public than there is in favour of the public’s opinion. The former may be fine. The latter must be foolish. It is often said that force is no argument. That, however, entirely depends on what one wants to prove. Many of the most important problems of the last few centuries, such as the continuance of personal government in England, or of feudalism in France, have been solved entirely by means of physical force. The very violence of a revolution may make the public grand and splendid for a moment. It was a fatal day when the public discovered that the pen is mightier than the paving-stone, and can be made as offensive as the brickbat. They at once sought for the journalist, found him, developed him, and made him their industrious and well-paid servant. It is greatly to be regretted, for both their sakes. Behind the barricade there may be much that is noble and heroic. But what is there behind the leading article but prejudice, stupidity, cant, and twaddle? And when these four are joined together they make a terrible force, and constitute the new authority.

[More soon.]

Earlier bits: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII.

“The Soul of Man Under Socialism” by Oscar Wilde, Part Thirteen

But in the case of Shakespeare it is quite obvious that the public really see neither the beauties nor the defects of his plays. If they saw the beauties, they would not object to the development of the drama; and if they saw the defects, they would not object to the development of the drama either. The fact