REVQl>fi\(SMM CIVILIZMION LOTHROP STOEOARD CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY UNDERGRADUATE UBRARY Cornell University Library HM 111.S86 The revolt against civilization; tiie mena 3 1924 016 895 975 I Cornell University 9 Library The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924016895975 BY LOTHROP STODDARD THE EBVOI/r AGAINST CIVILIZATION THE NEW WORLD 01' IBLAU THE RISING TIDE OF COLOR AOAINSr WHITE WOELD-StrPBEMACT CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION THE MENACE OF THE UNDER MAN BY LOTHROP STODDARD, A.M., Ph.D. (Habv.) ACTHOB OF " THB NEW WOBLD OF ISLAM," " THE BISIHa TISB OF COLOB," "THB BTAKBS OF TBB WAB," BTC. NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1933 COPTBIQHT, 1922, BT CHABLES SCBIBNER'S SONS Printed in the United States of America Fubliahed Mar, 19«« UL- PREFACE The revolutionary imrest which to-day afflicts the en- tire world goes far deeper than is generally supposed. Its root-cause is not Russian Bolshevik propaganda, nor the late war, nor the French Revolution, but a process of racial impoverishment, wliich destroyed the great civilizations of the past and which threatens to destroy our own. This grim blight of civilized society has been correctly diagnosed only in recent years. The momentous bio- logical discoveries of the past generation have revealed the true workings of those hitherto mysterious laws of life on which, in the last analysis, all human activity, depends. In the light of these biological discoveries, confirmed and amplified by investigations in other fields of science,' especially psychology, all political and social problems need to be re-examined. Such a re-examination of one of these problems — ^the] problem of social revolution — ^has been attempted in] the present book. LoTHEOP Stoddard. Bbooexine, Masbachosetis, March 30, 1922. CONTENTS CBAPTBB PAQB I. The Burden of Civilization 1 II. The Ikon Law op Inequality 30 III. The Nemesis of the Inferiob 88 IV. The Lure of the Primitive 125 V. The Ground-Swell of Revolt 142 VI. The Rebellion of the Under-Man 177 VII. The War against Chaos 220 VIII. Neo-Aristocbact 237 Index 269 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION CHAPTER I THE BURDEN OF CIVILIZATION Civilization is the flowering of the human species. It is both a recent and a fragile thing. The first glimmer- ings of genuine civilization appeared only eight or ten thousand years ago. This may seem a long time. It does not seem so long when we remember that behind civilization's dawn lies a vast night of barbarism, of sav- agery, of bestiality, estimated at half a million years, since the ape-man shambled forth from the steaming murk of tropic forests, and, scowling and blinking, raised his eyes to the stars. Civilization is complex. It involves the existence of human communities characterized by political and social organization; dominating and utilizing natural forces; adapting themselves to the new man-made environment thereby created; possessing knowledge, refinement, arts, and sciences; and (last, but emphatically not least) com- posed of individuals capable of sustaining this elaborate complex and of handing it on to a capable posterity. This last consideration is, in fact, the crux of the whole matter; the secret of success; the secret, likewise, of those tragic failures which perplex and sadden the stu- dent of history. Man's march athwart the ages has been, 1 2 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION not a steady advance, but rather a slow wandering, now breasting sunlit heists, yet anon plunging into dank swamps and gloomy valleys. Of the countless tribes of men, many have perished utterly while others have stopped by the wayside, apparently incapable of going forward, and have either vegetated or sunk into deca- dence. Man's trail is Uttered with the wrecks of dead civilizations and dotted with the graves of promising peoples stricken by an untimely end. Sharp and insistent comes the query: Why? Civiliza- tion seems so good a thing ! It means relative protection from the blind and cruel forces of nature; abolition of the struggle against savage beasts and amelioration of the struggle between men; opportunity for comfort, leisure, and the development of the higher faculties. Why, then, do we find so many branches of the human species never attaining — ^never really striving after — these eminently desirable boons? Also (yet more note- worthy !) why do we find still other stocks, after having attained civilization, losing it and falling back to the lower levels of barbarism or even of savagery? Mysterious though this may at first si^t appear, there is, nevertheless, an answer: Those stagnant or decadent peoples could not bear the burden of civilization. For civilization is a burden as well as a benefit. This is in- evitable in a universe governed by laws which decree that something may not come out of nothing. Civiliza- tion is not a cause but an efifect — ^the effect of sustained human energy; and this energy, in turn, springs from the creative urge of superior germ-plasm. Civilization is THE BURDEN OF CIVILIZATION 3 thus fundamentally conditioned by race. In any par- ticular people, civilization will progress just so far as that people has the capacity to further it and the abihty to bear the correlative burden which it entails. When this crucial point is reached, the civilization of that people either stagnates or retrogrades. Exactly how the process works becomes clear by a glance at human history. When the ape-man emerged from utter animality, he emerged with empty hands and an almost empty head. Ever since that far-off day, man has been filling both hands and head — ^his hands with tools, his head with ideas. But the filling has proceeded most unequally, because capacity has varied greatly among the different branches of mankind. Whether all himian varieties spring from a single original stock we do not know. What we do know is that the human species early appears di- vided into a number of different varieties contrasting markedly both in physical features and mental capacities. Thus differentiated and ever further differentiating, man- kind plodded the long, long trail leading from bestiality to savagery, from savagery to barbarism, and from bar- barism to civiUzation. Slowly the empty hands and heads began to fill. The hands grasped chance sticks and stones, then trimmed clubs and chipped flints, then a combination of the twain. These same hands pres- ently fashioned the skins of beasts to clothe the body's nakedness against the cold, kindled fires for warmth and roasted food, modelled clay for pottery, tamed wild crea- tures into domestic animals. And behind the hand was the brain, not merely making these purely material in- 4 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION ventions but also discovering others of a highef* order, like speech or even non-material concepts from which sprang the rudiments of social and political existence. All this occurred while man was stiU a savage. With the next stage — ^barbarism — came fresh discoveries, like agriculture and the smelting of metals, together with a variety of new ideas (especially the momentous art of writing), which brought mankind to the threshold of civilization. Now it is obvious that at this stage of his development man was a vastly different creature from the bestial being of earlier times. Starting from naked destitution and brutish ignorance, man had gradually gathered to him- self an increasing mass of tools, possessions, and ideas. This made life much more comfortable and agreeable. But it also made Ufe much more complex. Such a life required vastly more effort, intelligence, and character than had the instinctive, animal existence of primeval days. In other words, long before the dawn of true civili- zation, the burden of progress had begun to weigh upon mankind. Indeed, even the first light burdens had in some cases proved too heavy to be borne. Not all the branches of the himian species attained the threshold of civilization. Some, indeed, never reached even the limits of savagery. Existing survivals of low-t3^e savage man, such as the Bushmen of South Africa and the Australian "Black- feUows," have vegetated for countless ages in primeval squalor and seem incapable of rising even to the level of barbarism, much less to that of civilization. It is for- THE BURDEN OF CIVILIZATION 5 tunate for the future of mankind that most of these sur- vivals from the remote past are to-day on the verge of extinction. Their persistence and possible incorporation into higher stocks would produce the most depressive and retrogressive results. Much more serious is the problem presented by those far more numerous stocks which, while transcending the plane of mere savagery, have stopped at some level of barbarism. Not only have these stocks never originated a civilization themselves, but they also seem constitu- tionally incapable of assimilating the civiKzation of others. Deceptive veneers of civilization may be ac- quired, but reversion to congenital barbarism ultimately takes place. To such barbarian stocks belong many of the peoples of Asia, the American Indians, and the African negroes. These eongenital barbarians have al- ways been dangerous foes of progress. Many a promis- ing civilization has been ravaged and ruined by barbarians without the wit to rebuild what they had destroyed. To- day, the progress of science may have freed our own civi- lization from the peril of armed conquest by barbarian hordes; nevertheless, these peoples still threaten us with the subtler menace of "pacific penetration." Usually highly prolific, often endowed with extraordinary phys- ical vigor, and able to migrate easily, owing to modem facilities of transportation, the more backward peoples of the earth tend increasingly to seek the centres of civi- lization, attracted thither by the high wages and easier Uving conditions which there prevail. The influx of such lower elements into civilized societies is an unmitigated 6 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION disaster. It upsets living standards, socially sterilizes the higher native stockS; and if (as usually happens in the long run) interbreeding occurs, the racial founda^ tions of civilization are undermined, and the mongrehzed population, unable to bear the burden, sinks to a lower plane. So much for savagery and barbarism. Now what about civilization? For the last eight or ten thousand years civilizations have been appearing all the way froin Eastern Asia to Europe and North Africa. At first these civilizations were local — ^mere points of light in a vast night of barbarism and savagery. They were also iso- lated; the civilizations of Egypt, Chaldea, India, and China developing separately, with slight influence upon each other. But gradually civilizations spread, met, interacted, synthesized. Finally, in Europe, a great civilizing tide set in, first displaying itself in the "Clas- sic" civilization of Greece and Rome, and persisting down to the "Western Civilization" of our own days. A remarkable fact about civilization is its intensifica- tion of features already observed on the savage and bar- barian planes. The civilized man has vastly more secu- rity, power, opportunity, comfort, leisure, than has the barbarian or thet savage; he has amassed a wealth of instruments, possessions, and ideas infinitely transcend- ing the paltry hoards of earlier days; he lives in a "man- made" environment astoundingly different from the "state of nature." This is especially true of modem Western civilization. Our civilization may be inferior to others in some respects. It may lack the beauty of THE BURDEN OF CIVILIZATION 7 the Greek, the durability of the Chinese, the spirituality of the Mediaeval. But in dynamic energy, in mastery over the forces of nature, and in all-round efficiency it far transcends anything the world has ever seen. In fact, within the past century we have broken the age-old tempo of material progress and have leaped clear over into a new self-made world. Down to a trifle over a century ago man's material progress had been a gradual — a very gradual — evolution. His tools, though more numerous, were mainly elaborations of those dis- covered by his remote ancestors. A few instruments like the printing-press and the mariner's compass were about the only notable innovations. Man's control over natural resources had likewise not greatly expanded. With the exception of gunpowder, he had tapped no new sources of material energy since very ancient times. His chief source of power was muscle, animal and human (do we not still reckon in "horse-power"?), and, for the rest, he filled his sails with the breeze and turned clumsy water- wheels by using brooks and streams. But the ancients had done all these things. As for methods of communica- tion, they had, if anything, deteriorated. In the year 1800, there was no system of highways which equalled the Roman roads, no posting-service as quick as Caesar's, no method of signalling which could compare with the semaphore "telegraphy" of the Persians, and probably no ship which could not have been overhauled by a Phce- nician galley in a moderate sea. Suddenly, astoundingly, all was changed. The hidden forces of nature yielded themselves wholesale, as though 8 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION at the wave of a magician's wand. Steam, electricity, petrol, and a whole series of mysterious "rays" and "waves" gave man powers of which he had not even dreamed. These powers were promptly harnessed to innumerable machines which soon transformed every phase of human existence. Production and transporta- tion were alike revolutionized, distance was weU-nigh abohshed, and the very planet shrunk to the measxu-e of human hands. In other words, man suddenly entered a new material world, differing not merely in degree but in kind from that of his grandfathers. Now all this inspired modem man with that spirit of confidence and optimistic hope in an iUimitably glorious future which characterized the greater part of the nine- teenth century. And yet, a little reflection and a modi- cum of historical knowledge should have made intelligent persons do some hard thinking. Modem civilization was not the first civilization. It was merely the last of a long series of civilizations which had bloomed gloriously — ^and had then stagnated, decayed, or utterly perished. Fur- thermore, save for a few exceptional cases where civiliza- tions were uprooted in their prime by a blast of foreign conquest, the basic cause of disaster was always a decline or breakdown from within. Here, obviously, was food for thought. And, as a matter of fact, a large number of thoughtful persons gave the matter their earnest consideration. Was our glorious modem civilization ultimately destined to be "one with Nineveh or Tyre"? So it might seem: tin- less, perchance, ours turned out to be the "exception THE BURDEN OF CIVILIZATION 9 which proves the rule." But what, then, was this "rule" which foredoomed aU civilizations to eventual decline? Despite much theorizing, the answers were not convinc- ing. Certain thinkers elaborated "The Law of Civiliza- tion and Decay." This fatalistic theory asserted that civilizations, like individuals, have their cycle of youth, matiirity, senescence, and death. But what was the cycle ? Some civilizations, like those of Egypt and China, endured for thousands of years, others for centuries; still others for a few brief generations. Obviously, no statistical curve could here be plotted, and the idea was discredited. Of course, other theories were elaborated. The ruin of civilizations was variously ascribed to luxury, vice, town life, irreligion, and much more besides. Yet all these theories somehow failed to satisfy. They might be shown to have been contributiag causes in particiolar cases, but they could not account universally for the phenomena of declining civilization. Within the past two decades, however, the rapid prog- ress of biological knowledge has thrown a flood of light on this vexed question, and has enabled us to frame a theory so in accordance with known facts that it seems to offer substantially the correct answer. And this answer is that, in the last analysis, civiliza- tion always depends upon the qualities of the people who are the bearers of it. AU these vast accumulations of in- struments and ideas, massed and welded into marvellous structures rising harmoniously in ghttering majesty, rest upon living foundations — ^upon the men and women who create and sustain them. So long as those men and 10 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION women are able to support it, the structure rises, broad- based and serene; but let the living foundations prove unequal to their task, and the mightiest civilization sags, cracks, and at last crashes down into chaotic ruin. Civilization thus depends absolutely upon the quality of its human supporters. Mere numbers mean nothing. The most brilliant civilization the world has ever seen arose in Athens — b, tiny community where the number of free- men (i e., genuine Athenians) numbered perhaps 50,000 all told. We therefore see that, for civilization to arise at all, a superior human stock is first necessary; while to perfect, or even to maintain that civilization, the human stock must be kept superior. And these are require- ments more exacting than might be imagined. Survey- ing human history, we find that superior stocks are the exception rather than the rule. We have already seen how many races of men have never risen above the planes of savagery or barbarism, while relatively few races have shown the ability to create high and enduring civilizations. Furthermore, even inside the superior racial groups there exists a similar differentiation. When we speak of a "superior race" we do not imply that all the members of that race stand on the same lofty plane. Of course, the average level runs higher than do the averages of less favored races. But besides this statistical considera- tion there is the even more important fact that within the higher group itself there exist a relatively large num- ber of very superior individuals, characterized by imusual energy, ability, talent, or genius. It is this 41ite which leavens the group and initiates progress. Here, again, we THE BURDEN OF CIVILIZATION 11 see the supreme importance of quality. In no human society has the percentage of really superior individuals ever been large — ^in fact, their percentage has been always statistically negligible. Their influence, however, has been incalculable. Athens was not made up of Platos or Xenophons: it had its quota of dullards, knaves, and fools — as is vividly shown in the immortal satires of Aris- tophanes. Yet the dynamic power of its 61ite made Athens the glory of the world, and only when the Athe- nian stock ceased to produce superiors did Athens sink into insignificance. Thus we see that civihzation depends absolutely upon quality, while quality, in turn, depends upon inheritance. Environment may bring out all there is in a man, but heredity predetermines what there is to bring. We now begin to see the fallacy of such fatahstic notions as "The Law of Civilization and Decay." Civilizations, unlike living organisms, have no appointed cycle of life and death. Given a high-type stock producing an adequate quota of superior individuals, and a civihzation might be immortal. Why, then, has this never occurred? It has not oc- curred mainly because of three destructive tendencies which have always, sooner or later, brought civilizations to decline and ruin. These three tendencies are: (1) the tendency to structural overloading; (2) the tendency to biological regression; (3) the tendency to atavistic re- volt. Here are the three grim Nemeses that have dogged the footsteps of the most promising peoples. Let us con- sider them in turn. 12 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION We have observed how civilizations, as they progress, inevitably become more complex. Each succeeding gen- eration elaborates the social environment of the past, makes fresh additions, and passes it on to the next gen- eration, which repeats the process in turn. This ability to transmit social acquirements, both material and men- tal, is one of the chief points marking man off from the animals. It has, in fact, been happily termed "social heredity." Because of "social heredity" each himian generation is able to start at a higher environment level, and is not forced, like the animals, to depend upon in- stinct and blind experience. Indeed, "social heredity" forms the basis of aU those theories which assert that environment is the chief factor in himian progress and which minimize true {i. e., biological) heredity as a minor or even a negHgible factor. These "environmentalist" arguments, however, omit one essential fact which vitiates their conclusions. This fact is that, while hereditary qualities are implanted in the individual with no action on his part, social acquire- ments are taken over only at the cost of distinct effort. How great this effort may become is easily seen by the long years of strenuous mental labor required in modem youth to assimilate the knowledge already gained by adults. That old saying, "There is no royal road to learning," illustrates the hard fact that each succes- sive generation must tread the same thorny path if the acquirements of the past are to be retained. Of course, it is obvious that the more acquirements increase, the longer and steeper the path must be. And this raises the THE BURDEN OF CIVILIZATION 13 query: May there not come a point where the youthful traveller will bo vmable to scale the height — ^where the effort required will be beyond his powers ? Well, this is precisely what has happened numberless times in the past. It is happening to multitudes of in- dividuals about us every day. When it occurs on a suf- ficiently grand scale we witness those social regressions of entire communities which we call a "decline in civili- zation." A "decline in civilization" means that the social environment has outrun inherited capacity. Fur- thermore, the grim frequency of such declines throughout history seems to show that in every highly developed society the increasingly massive, complex superstructure of civilization tends to overload the human fovmdations. Now why does this overloading in high civilizations always tend to take place? For the very simple reason that the complexity (and, therefore, the burden) of a civilization may increase with tremendous rapidity to an inconceivable degree; whereas the capacity of its human bearers remains virtually constant or positively declines. The sobering truth was until recently obscured by the wide-spread behef (first elaborated about a century ago by the French scientist Lamarck) that acquired char- acteristics were inherited. In other words, it used to be thought that the acquirements of one generation could be passed on by actual inheritance to the next. La- marck's theory excited enthusiastic hopes, and young men contemplating matrimony used to go in for "high thinking" in order to have brainy sons, while expectant mothers inspired their months of gestation by reading 14 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION the classics, confident that their ofifspring would be bom with a marked taste for good literature. To-day this amiable doctrine is exploded, virtually aU biologists now agreeing that acquired characteristics are not inherited. An abundant weight of evidence proves that, during the entire historic period at any rate, mankind has made no racial progress in either physical power or brain ca- pacity. The skeletal remains of the ancients show them to have possessed brains and bodies fully equal to our own. And these anatomical observations are confirmed by the teachings of history. The earliest civiHzed peoples of whom we have any knowledge displayed capacities, initiative, and imagination quite comparable to ours. Of course, their stock of social experience was very much less than ours, but their inherent qualities cannot be deemed inferior. Certainly those ancient peoples pro- duced their full share of great men. Can we show greater philosophers than Plato or Aristotle, greater scientists than Archimedes or Ptolemy, greater generals than Caesar or Alexander, greater poets than Homer or Hesiod, greater spiritual guides than Buddha or Jesus? Surely, the peo- ples who produced such immortal personalities ranked not beneath us in the biological scale. But if this be so; if even the highest himaan types have made no perceptible biological advance during the last ten thousand years; what does this mean? It means that aU the increasingly vast superstructures of civiliza^ tion which have arisen during those millennia have been raised on similar human foundations. It means that men have been called upon to carry heavier loads THE BURDEN OP CIVILIZATION 15 with no correlative increase of strength to bear them. The ghtter of civilization has so blinded us to the inner truth of things that we have long beheved that, as a civi- lization progressed, the quaUty of the human stock con- cerned in building it progressed too. In other words, we have imagined that we saw an improving race, where- as all we actually saw was a race expressing itself under improving conditions. A dangerous delusion, this ! Especially for us, whose civilization is the most complex the world has ever seen, and whose burden is, therefore, the heaviest ever borne. If past civilizations have crushed men beneath the load, what may happen to our civihzation, and ourselves? 0\ir analysis has thus far shown that civilizations tend toward structural overloading, both from their own in- creasing complexity and also from the influence of other civilizations, which add sudden strains and stresses hitherto imknown. Even if this were the only danger to which civilizations were exposed, the matter would be serious enough. But the problem is more complex. We have already indicated that other destructive ten- dencies exist. To the second of these tendencies — ^biolog- ical regression — ^let us now turn. Up to this point we have viewed civilization mainly in its structural aspect. We have estimated its pressure upon the human foundations, and have provisionally treated these foundations as fixed quantities. But that is only one phase of the problem, because civilization exerts upon its living bearers not merely mechanical, but also vital influences of the profoundest significance. And, 16 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION unfortunately, these vital influences are mainly of a de- structive character. The stem truth of the matter is that civilization tends to impair the innate qualities of its human bearers; to use up strong stocks; to unmake those very racial values which first enabled a people to undertake its civilizing task. Let us see how this comes about. Consider, first, man's condition before the advent of civilization. Far, far back in its life history the himian species underwent a profoxmd differentiation. Fossil bones tens of thousands of years old, show mankind al- ready divided into distinct races differing markedly not merely in bodily structure but also in brain capacity, and hence in inteUigence. This differentiation probably began early and proceeded rapidly, since biology teaches us that species are plastic when new, gradually losing this plasticity as they "set" with time and development. However, at whatever rate it proceeded, differentiation went on for untold ages, operating not only between separate races but also within the various stocks, so that each stock came to consist of many "strains" varying considerably from one another in both physical and men- tal capacity. Now the fate of these strains depended, not upon chance, but upon the very practical question whether or not they could sxuvive. And since man was then liv- ing in the "state of nature," qualities hke strength, in- telligence, and vigor were absolutely necessary for life, while weakness, dulness, and degeneracy spelled speedy death. Accordingly, individuals endowed with the for- THE BURDEN OF CIVILIZATION 17 mer qualities survived and bred freely, whereas those handicapped by the latter quaUties perished oftener and left fewer offspring. Thus, age after age, nature imposed upon man her individually stem but racially beneficent will; eliminating the weak, and preserving and multi- plying the strong. Surely, it is the most striking proof of human differentiation that races should display such inequaUties after tmdergoing so long a selective process so much the same. However, differentiated mankind remained, and at last the more gifted races began to create civilizations. Now civiKzation wrought profound changes, the most important of which was a modification of the process of selection for survival. So long as man was a savage, or even a barbarian, nature continued to select virtually imhindered according to her immemorial plan — ^that of eliminating the weak and preserving the strong. But civilization meant a change from a "natural" to a more or less artificial, man-made environment, in which natural selection was increasingly modified by "social" selection. And social selection altered survival values aU along the line. In the first place, it enabled many weak, stupid, and degenerate persons to live and beget children who would have certainly perished in the state of nature, or even on the savage and barbarian planes. Upon the strong the effect of social selection was more subtle but equally important. The strong individvM survived even better than before — hvi he tended to have fewer children. The reason for this lessened fecimdity of the superior was that civilization opened up to them a whole new 18 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION range of opportunities and responsibiKties. Under primi- tive conditions, opportunities for self-expression were few and simple, the most prized being desirable mates and sturdy offspring. Among savages and barbarians the choicest women and many children are the acknowl- edged perquisites of the successful, and the successful are those men endowed with quahties like strength, vigor, and resourceful intelligence, which are not only essential for continued survival under primitive conditions, but which are equally essential for the upbuilding and main- tenance of civiHzation. In short, when a people enters the stage of civilization it is in the pink of condition, because natural selection has for ages been multiplying superior strains and eliminating inferiors. Such was the high biological level of the selected stocks which attained the plane of civiHzation. But, as time passed, the situation altered. The successful superiors who stood in the vanguard of progress were alike allured and constrained by a host of novel influences. Power, wealth, luxury, leisiire, art, science, learning, govern- ment — ^these and many other matters increasingly com- plicated life. And, good or bad, temptations or respon- sibilities, they all had this in common: that they tended to divert human energy from racial ends to individual and social ends. Now this diverted energy flowed mainly from the superior strains in the population. Upon the successful superior, civilization laid both her highest gifts and her heaviest burdens. The effect upon the individual was, of course, striking. Powerfully stimulated, he put forth his THE BURDEN OF CIVILIZATION 19 inherited energies. Glowing with the fire of achievement, he advanced both himself and his civilization. But, in this very fire, he was apt to be racially consumed. Ab- sorbed in personal and social matters, racial matters were neglected. Late marriage, fewer children, and ceH- bacy combined to thin the ranks of the successful, diminish the ntmaber of superior strains, and thus grad- ually impoverish the race. Meanwhile, as the numbers of the superior diminished, the numbers of the inferior increased. No longer ruth- lessly weeded by natural selection, the inferior survived and multiplied. Here, then, was what had come to pass: instead of dying off at the base and growing at the top, civilized society was dying at the top and spreading out below. The result of this dual process was, of course, as disastrous as it was inevitable. Drained of its superiors, and satu- rated with dullards and degenerates, the stock could no longer support its civihzation. And, the upper layers of the human foundation having withered away, the civi- lization either sank to a lower level or collapsed in utter ruin. The stock had regressed, "gone back," and the civihzation went back too. 'Such are the workings of that fatal tendency to biolog- ical regression which has blighted past civiHzations. Its effects on our own civihzation and the peculiar perils which these entail will be discussed in subsequent chap- ters. One further point should, however, be here noted. This is the irreparable character of racial impoverish- ment. Once a stock has been thoroughly drained of its 20 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION superior strains, it sinks into permanent mediocrity, and can never again either create or support a high civilizar tion. Physically, the stock may survive; unfortunately for human progress, it only too often does survive, to contaminate better breeds of men. But mentally and spiritually it is played out and can never revive — save, perchance, through some age-long process of biological restoration akin to that seen in the slow reforesting of a mountain range stripped to the bare rock. We have observed that civihzations tend to fall both by their own increasing weight and by the decay of their himian foundations. But we have indicated that there exists yet another destructive tendency, which may be termed "atavistic revolt." Let us see precisely what this implies. Civihzation depends upon superior racial stocks. But stocks are made up of individuals, who, far from being precisely equal, differ widely in qualities and capacities. At one end of the human scale are a number of superior individuals, at the other end a number of inferior in- dividuals, while between the two extremes stands the mass of intermediate individuals, who Hkewise grade up or down the scale. Of course, these "superiors," "inferiors," and "inter- mediates," are not parked off by clear-cut Unes; on the contrary, they shade imperceptibly into each other, and between the classes there lie intermediate zones com- posed of "border-line" individuals whose exact classi- fication is hard to determine. Nevertheless, these classes do exist, just as day and night exist. At dawn or twi- THE BURDEN OF CIVILIZATION 21 light, we cannot say of any particular minute: "This is day, and next minute will be night." Yet day and night are facts of transcendent importance, and we accordingly grade the hours into categories of light and darkness which, though sHghtly arbitrary, are essentially true. Now, among our hxmian categories we have observed that progress is primarily due to the superiors. It is they who found and further civilizations. As for the intermediate mass, it accepts the achievements of its creative pioneers. Its attitude is receptive. This re- ceptivity is due to the fact that most of the intermediate grades are near enough to the superiors to understand ' and assimilate what the superiors have initiated. But what about the inferiors? Hitherto we have not analyzed their attitude. We have seen that they are incapable of either creating or furthering civilization, and are thus a negative hindrance to progress. But the inferiors are not mere negative factors in civilized hfe; they are also positive — ^in an inverse, destructive sense. The inferior elements are, instinctively or consciously, the enemies of civilization. And they are its enemies, not by chance, but because they are more or less un- civilizdble. We mtist remember that the level of society never coincides with the levels of its human units. The social level is a sort of compromise — a balance of constituent forces. This very fact imphes that the in- dividuals must be differentially spaced. And so it is. Superior individuals stand above the social level; some- times far above that level — whence the saying about men "ahead of their times." But what about men "behind 22 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION their times"? They have always been numerous, and, the higher the civilization, the more of them there are apt to be. The truth is that as a civilization advances it leaves behind multitudes of human beings who have not the capacity to keep pace. The laggards, of course, vary greatly among themselves. Some are congenital savages or barbarians; men who could not fit into any civiliza- tion, and who consequently fall behind from the start. These are not "degenerates"; they are "primitives," carried over into a social environment in which they do not belong. They must be clearly distinguished from the true degenerates: the imbecile, the feeble-minded, the neurotic, the insane — all those melancholy waste- products which every living species excretes but which are promptly extirpated in the state of nature, whereas in human societies they are too often preserved. Moreover, besides primitives and degenerates, civili- zation by its very advance automatically condemns fresh multitudes to the ranks of the " inferior." Jtist as " primi- tives" who would be quite at home in savage or barbarian environments are alien to any sort of civiUzation, so, many individuals who rub along well enough in civilization's early phases have neither the wit nor the moral fibre to meet the sterner demands of high, complex civilizations. Most poignant of all is the lot of the "border-liners" — those who jttsf fail to achieve a social order, which they can comprehend but in which they somehow cannot suc- ceed. Such are the ranks of the inferior — ^the vast army of THE BURDEN OF CIVILIZATION 23 the unadaptable and the incapable. Let me again em- phasize that "inferior" does not necessarily mean "de- generate." The degenerate are, of course, included, but the word "inferior" is a relative term signifying "be- low" or "beneath," in this case meaning persons beneath or below the standard of civilization. The word inferior has, however, been so often employed as a synonym for degenerate that it tends to produce confusion of thought, and to avoid this I have coined a term which seems to describe collectively aU those kinds of persons whom I have just discussed. This term is The Under-Man — ^the man who measures under the standards of capacity and adaptabihty imposed by the social order in which he lives. And this term I shall henceforth employ. Now how does the Under-Man look at civiUzation? This civilization offers him few benefits and fewer hopes. It usually affords him little beyond a meagre subsistence. And, sooner or later, he instinctively senses that he is a failure; that civiKzation's prizes are not for him. But this civilization, which withholds benefits, does i^ot hesi- tate to impose burdens. We have previously stated that civilization's heaviest burdens are borne by the superior. Absolutely, this is true; relatively, the Under-Man's intrinsically lighter burdens feel heavier because of his innate incapacity. The very discipline of the social order oppresses the Under-Man; it thwarts and chastises him at every turn. To wild natures society is a torment, while the congenital caveman, placed in civilization, is always in trouble and usually in jail. All this seems to be inevitable. But, in addition to 24 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION these social handicaps, the Under-Man often suffers from the action of better-placed individuals, who take advan- tage of his weakness and incapacity to exploit him and drive him down to social levels even lower than those which he would normally occupy. Such is the Under-Man's unhappy lot. Now, what is his attitude toward that civilization from which he has so little to hope? What but instinctive opposition and discontent? These feelings, of course, vary all the way from duU, imreasoning disUke to flaming hatred and re- bellion. But, in the last analysis, they are directed not merely against imperfections in the social order, hut against the social order itself. This is a point which is rarely mentioned, and still more rarely understood. Yet it is the meat of the whole matter. We must realize clearly that the basic attitude of the Under-Man is an instinctive and natural remit against civilization. The reform of abuses may diminish the intensity of social discontent. It may also diminish the numbers of the discontented, because social abuses predpitate into the depths many persons who do not really belong there; persons who were innately capable of achieving the social order if they had had a fair chance. But, excluding all such anomalous cases, there remains a vast residue of unadaptable, depreciated humanity, essentially uncivi- lizable and incorrigibly hostile to civilization. Every society engenders within itself hordes of savages and barbarians, ripe for revolt and ever ready to -powc forth and destroy. In normal times these elements of chaos go almost THE BURDEN OF CIVILIZATION 25 unperceived. Civilisation automatically evolves strong social controls which keep down the antisocial elements. For one thing, the civilized man instinctively supports his civilization, just as the Under-Man instinctively op- poses it; and when civilization is threatened, its sup- porters instantly rise in its defense. Again, society maintains a permanent standing army (composed of poUcemen, soldiers, judges, and others), which is usually qiiite capable of keeping order. The mere presence of this standing army deters the antisocial elements from mass action. Desperate individuals, of course, break forth into crune> but society hunts them down and elimi- nates them by prison and the scaffold. The Under-Man may thus be controlled. But he re- mains; he multiplies; he bides his time. And, now and then, his time comes. When a civilization falters beneath its own weight and by the decay of its human founda- tions; when its structure is shaken by the storms of war, dissension, or calamity; then the long-repressed forces of atavistic revolt gather themselves together for a spring. And (noteworthy fact !) such revolts usually have able leaders. That is what makes them so formidable. This revolutionary officers-corps is mainly composed of three significant types: the "border-hner," the "disinherited," and the "misguided superior." Let us consider them in turn. We have already noted the "border-liner," the man who cannot quite "make good." We have seen how hard is his lot and how hotly he turns against that social order 26 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION which he just fails to achieve. Most of such persons fail because of some fatal defect — a taint of character or a mental "twist." In other respects they may be very superior, and possess brilliant talents which they can use against society with powerful effect. We have also noted the "disinherited," the man in- nately capable of civilized success but cast into the depths by social injustice or individual wrong-doing. Deprived of their birthright, the disinherited are like- wise apt to be bitter foes of society. They enlist gladly in the army of chaos (where they do not really belong), and if they possess marked talents they may be very dangerous enemies. Lastly, there is the "misguided superior." He is a strange phenomenon! Placed by natiu-e in the van of civilization, he goes over to its enemies. This seems in- explicable. Yet it can be explained. As the Under-Man revolts because civilization is so far ahead of him, so the misguided superior revolts because it is so far behind. Exasperated by its slow progress, shocked at its faults, and erroneously ascribing to mankind in general his own lofty impulses, the misguided superior dreams short cuts to the millennium and joins the forces of social revolt, not realizing that their ends are profoundly different even though their methods may be somewhat the same. The misguided superior is probably the most pathetic figure in human history. Flattered by designing scoun- drels, used to sanctify sinister schemes, and pushed for- ward as a figurehead dming the early stages of revolu- tionary agitation, the triumph of the revolution brings THE BURDEN OF CIVILIZATION 27 him to a tragic end. Horrified at sight of barbarism's unmasked face, he tries to stay its destructive course. In vain ! The Under-Man turns upon his former cham- pion with a snarl and tramples him into the mud. The social revolution is now in full swing. Such up- heavals are profoundly terrible. I have described them as "atavistic." And that is just what they are — "throw backs" to a far lower social plane. The complex fabric of society, slowly and painfully woven, is torn to tatters; the social controls vanish, and civilization is left naked to the assaults of anarchy. In truth, disruption goes deeper still. Not only is society in the grip of its barbarians, but every individual falls more or less under the sway of his own lower instincts. For, in this respect, the indi- vidual is like society. Each of us has within him an " Under-Man," that primitive animaUty which is the heritage of our human, and even our prehuman, past. This Under-Man may be buried deep in the recesses of our being; but he is there, and psychoanalysis informs us of his latent power. This primitive animality, po- tentially present even in the noblest natures, continuously dominates the lower social strata, especially the pauper, criminal, and degenerate elements — civilization's "inner barbarians." Now, when society's dregs boil to the top, a similar process takes place in individuals, to whatever social level they may belong. In virtually every member of the community there is a distinct resurgence of the brute and the savage, and the atavistic trend thus be- comes practically universal. This explains most of the seemingly mysterious phe- 28 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION nomena of revolution. It accounts for the mental con- tagion which infects all classes; the wild elation with which the revolution is at first hailed; the way in which even \yeU-poised men throw themselves into the stream, let it cany them whither it lists, and commit acts which they afterward not only cannot explain but cannot even remember. General atavistic resurgence also accounts for the ferocious temper displayed, not merely by the revolutionists, but by their counter-revolutionary op- ponents as well. However much they may differ in their principles, "Reds" and "Whites" display the same sav- age spirit and commit similar cruelties. This is because society and the individual have been alike rebarbarized. In time the revolutionary tempest passes. Civilized men will not forever endure the misrule of their own bar- barians; they win not lastingly tolerate what Burke rightly termed the tyranny of a " base oligarchy." Sooner or later the Under-Man is again mastered, new social controls are forged, and a stable social order is once more established. But — ^what sort of a social order? It may well be one inferior to the old. Of course, few revolutions are wholly evil. Their very destructiveness impUes a sweeping away of old abuses. Yet at what a cost ! No other process is so terribly expensive as revolution. Both the social and the human losses are usually appalling, and are frequently irreparable. In his brief hour, the Under-Man does his work. Hating not merely civilization but also the civi- lized, the Under-Man wreaks his destructive fury on in- dividuals as well as on institutions. And the superior are THE BURDEN OF CIVILIZATION 29 always his special targets. His philosophy of life is ever a levelling "equality/' and he tries to attain it by lopping off all heads which rise conspicuously above his own. The result of this "inverse selection" may be such a de- crease of superior persons that the stock is permanently impoverished and cannot produce the talent and energy needed to repair the destruction which the revolutionary cataclysm has wrought. In such cases civilization has suffered a mortal woimd and declines to a permanently lower plane. This is especially true of high civilizations. The more complex the society and the more differentiated the stock, the graver the Hability to irreparable disaster. Our own civihzation is a striking example. The destruction to- day being wrought by social revolution in Russia, great as it is, would pale beside the far greater destruction which such an upheaval would produce in the more ad- vanced societies of western Europe and America. It would mean nothing short of ruin, and would almost in- fallibly speU permanent decadence. This grim peril to our civilization and our race future we wiU carefully examine in subsequent chapters. So ends our preliminary survey. We have sketched man's ascent from bestiality through savagery and bar- barism to civilized Hfe.^ We have considered the basic reasons for his successes and his failures. Let us now pass to a more detailed examination of the great factors in human progress and decline, with special reference to the possibilities and perils of our own civilization. '■ For an excellent historical survey of racial movements, see Madison Grant, The Passing of the Great Race (Fourth Revised Edition with Documentary Supplement), New York, 1921. CHAPTER II THE IRON LAW OF INEQUALITY The idea of "Natural Equality" is one of the most per- nicious delusions that has ever afflicted mankind. It is a figment of the hmnan imagination. Nature knows no equality. The most cursory examination of natural phenomena reveals the presence of a Law of InequaUty as universal and inflexible as the Law of Gravitation. The evolution of life is the most striking instance of this fimdamental truth. Evolution is a process of differentia- tion — of increasing differentiation — ^from the simple one- celled bit of protoplasm to the infinitely differentiated, complex life forms of the present day. And the evolutionary process is not merely quantita/- tive; it is qualitative as weU. These successive differen- tiations imply increasing inequalities. Nobody but a madman could seriously contend that the microscopic speck of protoplasmic jelly floating in the tepid waters of the Palaeozoic Sea was "equal" to a human being. But this is only the beginning of the story. Not only are the various life types profoimdly unequal in quali- ties and capacities; the individual members of each type are similarly differentiated among themselves. No two individuals are ever precisely alike. We have already seen how greatly this dual process of differentiation both of type and individual has affected the hmnan species, and how basic a factor it has been in human progress. Furthermore, individual inequaUties steadily increase 30 THE IRON LAW OF INEQUALITY 31 as we ascend the biological scale. The amoeba differs very little from his fellows; the dog much more so; man most of all. And inequalities between men likewise be- come ever more pronoimced. The innate differences be- tween members of a low-grade savage tribe are as nothing compared with the abyss sundering the idiot and the genius who coexist in a high-grade civihzation. Thus, we see that evolution means a process of ever- growing inequality. There is, in fact, no such word as "equality" in nature's lexicon. With an increasingly uneven hand she distributes health, beauty, vigor, in- telligence, genius — ^all the quahties which confer on their possessors superiority over their fellows. Now, in the face of all this, how has the delusion of "natural equality" obtained — ^and retained — so stub- bom a hold on mankind? As to both its antiquity and persistency there can be no shadow of doubt. The slogan of "equality" was raised far back in the remote past, and, mstead of lessening, was never more loudly trum- peted than to-day. It is a ciuious fact that just when the advance of knowledge and the increasing complexity of civilization have enhanced individual differences and rendered superior capacities supremely important, the cry iot equality should have become fiercer than ever, should have been embodied in all sorts of levelling doc- trines, and should have been actually attempted in Bol- shevik Russia with the most fanatical fury and the most appalling results. Here is obviously something requiring careful analysis. As a matter of fact, the passion for "natural" equality 32 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION • seems to spring primarily from ceriiain impulses of the ego, the self, pari;iculariy from the impulses of self- preservation and self-esteem. Every individual is inevi- tably the centre of his world, and instinctively tends to regard his own existence and well-being as matters of supreme importance. This instinctive egoism is, of course, modified by experience, observation, and reflec- tion, and may be so overlaid that it becomes scarcely recognizable even by the individual himself. Never- theless, it remains, and subtly colors every thought and attitude. In his heart of hearts, each individual feels that he is really a person of importance. No matter how low may be his capacities, no matter how egregious his failures, no matter how unfavorable the judgment of his fellows; still his inborn instincts of seK-preservation and self-love whisper that he should survive and prosper, that "things are not right," and that if the world were properly ordered he would be much better placed. Fear and wounded vanity thus inspire the individual to resent unfavorable status, and this resentment tends to take the form of protest against "injustice." Injus- tice of what? Of "fate," "nature," "circiunstances," perhaps; yet, more often, injustice of persons — ^individ- ually or collectively {i.e., "society"). But (argues the discontented ego), since all this is unjust, those better placed persons have no "right" to succeed where he fails. Though more fortunate, they are not really his superiors. He is "as good as they are." Hence, either he should be up with them — or they should be down with him. "We are all men. We are all equal!" THE IRON LAW OF INEQUALITY 33 Such, in a nutshell, is the train of thought — or rather of /eeKngr— underlying the idea of "natural equality." It is, of course, evident that the idea springs primarily from the emotions, however much it may "rationalize" itself by intellectual arguments. Being basically emo- tional, it is impervious to reason, and when confronted by hard facts it takes refuge ia mystic faith. AH levelling doctrines (including, of course, the various brands of modern SociaUsm) are, in the last analysis, not intellec- tual concepts, but rehgious cults. This is strikingly shown by recent events. Dming the past ten years biology and kindred sciences have refuted practically all the in- tellectual arguments on which the doctrine of "natural equality" relies. But has this destroyed the doctrine? Not at all. Its devoted followers either ignore biology, or elaborate pseMctobiological fallacies (which we wiU later examiae), or, lastly, lose their tempers, show their teeth, and swear to kill their opponents and get their own way somehow — ^which is just what the extreme "pro- letarian" ragings mean. Quite useless to point out to such zealots the inequalities of nature. Their answer is that superior endowment is itseU a basic injustice ("in- justice" of nature !) which it is society's duty to remedy by equalizing rewards regardless of ability or service. This is exempUfied by that stock Socialist formula: Dis- tribution according to "needs." Such are the emotional bases of the doctrine of natural equality. But, as we have already stated, these emo- tional bases have been buttressed by many intellectual arguments of great apparent force. Indeed, down to 34 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION • our own days, when the new biological recelation (for it is nothing short of that) has taught us the supreme im- portance of heredity, mankind tended to beheve that environment rather than heredity was the maia factor in human existence. We simply cannot overestimate the change which biology is effecting in our whole outlook on life. It is vmquestionably inaugurating the mightiest transformation of ideas that the world has ever seen. Let us glance at the state of himian knowledge a few short decades ago to appreciate its fviU significance. Down to that time the exact nature of the life process remained a mystery. This mystery has now been cleared up. The researches of Weismann and other modem biologists have revealed the fact that all living beings are due to a continuous stream of germ-plasm which has existed ever since life first appeared on earth, and which will continue to exist as long as any Kfe remains. This germ-plasm consists of minute germ-cells which have the power of developing into hving beings. AU human beings spring from the union of a male sperm-cell and a female egg-cell. Right here, however, occurs the basic feature of the life process. The new individual consists, from the start, of two sorts of plasm. Almost the whole of him is body-plasm— the ever-multiplying cells which differentiate into the organs of the body. But he also contains perm-plasm. At his very conception a tiny bit of the life stuff from which he springs is set aside, is care- fully isolated from the body-plasm, and follows a course of development entirely its own. In fact, the germ-plasm is not really part of the individual; he is merely its THE IRON LAW OF INEQUALITY 35 hearer, destined to pass it on to other bearers of the life chain. Now all this was not only unknown but even unsus- pected down to a very short time ago. Its discovery was in fact dependent upon modem scientific methods. Cer- tainly, it was not likely to suggest itself to even the most philosophic mind. Thus, down to about a generation ago, the hfe stuff was supposed to be a product of the body, not differing essentially in character from other body products. This assumption had two important consequences. In the first place, it tended to obscure the very concept of heredity, and led men to think of environment as virtually all-important; in the second place, even where the importance of heredity was dimly perceived, the r61e of the individual was misunderstood, and he was conceived as a creator rather than a mere transmitter. This was the reason for the false theory of the "inheritance of acquired characteristics," formulated by Lamarck and upheld by most scientists until almost the end of the nineteenth century. Of course, Lamarck- ism was merely a modification of the traditional "en- vironmentalist" attitude: it admitted that heredity possessed some importance, but it maintained environ- ment as the basic factor. Now a moment's reflection must suggest the tre- mendous practical differences between the theories of environment and heredity. This is no mere academic matter; it involves a radically different outlook on every phase of life, from religion and government to personal conduct. Let us examine the facts of the case. 36 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION • Down to our own days mankind had generally believed that environment was the chief factor in existence. This was only natural. The true character of the life process was so closely veiled that it could not well be discovered except by the methods of modem science; the workings of heredity were obscure and easily confounded with environmental influences. The workings of environ- ment, on the other hand, were clear as day and forced themselves on the attention of the dxiUest observer. To the pressing problems of environment, therefore, man devoted himself, seeking in the control of his surround- ings both the betterment of the race and the curing of its ills. Only occasionally did a few reflective minds catch a glimpse of the hereditary factor in the problem of life. That marvellous breed of men, the ancient Greeks, had such glimpses of the higher truth. With their charac- teristic insight they discerned clearly the principle of heredity, gave considerable thought to it, and actually evolved a theory of race-betterment by the weeding out of inferior strains and the multiplication of superiors — in other words, the "Eugenics" theory of to-day. For example, as early as the sixth century B. C. the Greek poet Theognis of Megara wrote: "We look for rams and asses and stallions of good stock, and one be- lieves that good will come from good; yet a good man minds not to wed the evil daughter of an evil sire. . . . Marvel not that the stock of our folk is tarnished, for the good is mingling with the base." A century later Plato was much interested in biological selection as the best method for race improvement. He suggested that THE IRON LAW OF INEQUALITY 37 the state should mate the best with the best and the worst with the worst; the fonner should be encouraged to breed freely, while the offspring of the unfit should be destroyed. Aristotle likewise held that the state should strongly encourage the increase of superior types. Of course, these were but the visions of a few seers, which had no practical results. The same is true of those other rare thinkers who, like Shakespear with his famous lines about "nature" and "nurtm-e," evidently grasped the hereditarian idea. The mass of mankind continued to hold that environment was the great matter for con- sideration. Now a belief in the transcendent importance of en- vironment leads inevitably to certain conclusions of great practical importance. In the first place, if it be true that man is moulded primarily by his environment, it logically foUows that he has merely to gain control over his en- vironment in order to change himself almost at wiU. Therefore, according to the environmentalist, progress depends, not on himian nature, but on conditions and institutions. Again, if man is the product of his environ- ment, human differences are merely effects of environ- mental differences, and can be rapidly modified by en- vironmental changes. Lastly, before the supreme im- portance of environment, all human differences whether individual or racial sink into insignificance, and all men are potentially "equal." Such are the logical deductions from the environmen- talist theory. And this theory was certainly attractive. It not only appealed to those wounded feelings of self- 38 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION preservation and self-esteem among the ill-endowed and the unfortunate which we have previously examined, but it appealed also to many of the most superior minds of the race. What could be more attractive than the thought that humanity's ills were due, not to inborn shortcomings but to faulty surroxmdings, and that the most backward and degraded human beings might pos- sibly be raised to the highest levels if only the environ- ment were sufficiently improved? This appeal to al- truism was powerfully strengthened by the Christian doctrine of the equality of all souls before God. What wonder, then, that philosophers and scientists combined to elaborate theories about mankind of a wholly environ- mentalist character? All the great thinkers of the eighteenth century (who still influence our ideas and institutions to a far greater degree than we may imagine) were convinced believers in "natural equahty." Locke and Hume, for example, taught that at birth "the human mind is a blank sheet, and the brain a structureless mass, lacking inherent or- ganization or tendencies to develop in this way or that; a mere mass of imdefined potentialities which, through experience, association, and habit, through education, in short, could be moulded and developed to an unlimited extent and in any manner or direction." ^ The doctrine of natural equality was brilliantly formulated by Rous- seau, and was explicitly stated both in the American Declaration of Independence and in the French Dedara- tion of the Rights of Man. The doctrine, iu its most - W. McDougall, Is America Safe for Democracy f (Lowell Institute Lectures), p. 21 (New York, 1921). THE IRON LAW OF INEQUALITY 39 uncompromising foim, held its ground until well past the naiddle of the nineteenth century. At that period so notable a thinker as John Stuart Mill could declare roundly: "Of all vulgar modes of escaping from the con- sideration of the effect of social and moral influences on the human mind, the most vulgar is that of attributing the diversities of conduct and character to inherent nat- ural differences." Mills's utterance may be considered an expression of piu-e environmentalism. At the moment when he spoke, however, the doctrine had already been' considerably modified. In fact, by the beginning of the nineteenth centuiy, the progress of science had begun to Uft the veil which obsciu-ed the mystery of heredity, and scien- tists were commencing to give close attention to such matters. At first the phenomena of inheritance were not believed to affect the basic importance of environment. This idea was clearly stated early in the nineteenth cen- tury by the French naturalist Lamarck. Lamarck as- ' serted that the forms and functions of living beings arose and developed through use, and that such changes were directly transmitted from generation to generation. In other words, Lamarck formulated the theory of the "in- heritance of acquired characteristics" which was destined to dominate biological thinking down to a generation ago. This theory, which is usually termed "Lamarck- ism," was merely a modification of the old environmen- talist philosophy. It admitted the factor of heredity, but it considered heredity dependent upon environmental influences. It is difficult to overestimate the tremendous practical 40 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION consequences of Lamarckism, not merely upon the nine- teenth century but also upon our own times. The primal importance of heredity may to-day be accepted by most scientists and by an increasing number of forward-looking persons everywhere, but it has as yet neither deeply pene- trated the popular consciousness nor sensibly modified our institutions. The march of new ideas is slow at best, and however much we may be changing oiu- thinking, we are stiU living and acting under the environmentalist theories of the past. Our political, educational, and so- cial systems remain alike rooted in Lamarckism and proceed on the basic premise that environment rather than heredity is the chief factor in human existence. The emotional grip of Lamarckism is very strong. It is an optimistic creed, appealing to both hopes and sym- pathies. To Lamarckism was due in large measure the cheery self-confidence of the nineteenth century, with its assurance of automatic and illimitable progress. Indeed, in some respects, Lamarckism increased rather than diminished the traditional faith in environment. Before Lamarck, men had believed that the new-bom individual was a blank sheet on which society coiild write. Now came Lamarck, asserting that much of this writing could be passed on by inheritance to succeeding generations with cumulative effect. Considering the powerful agen- cies which society had at its disposal — government, the church, the home, the school, philanthropy, etc., it was easy to believe that a wiser and intenser application of these social agencies offered a sure and speedy road to the millennium. THE IRON LAW OF INEQUALITY 41 Accordingly, "the comfortable and optimistic doctrine was preached that we had only to improve one generation by more healthy sxirroundings, or by better education, and, by the mere action of heredity, the next generation would begia on a higher level of natural endowments than its predecessor. And so, from generation to gen- eration, on this theory, we could hope continually to raise the inborn character of a race in an unlimited prog- ress of cumulative improvement." ^ On this common environmentalist basis all the political and social philosophies of the nineteenth century arose. They might differ widely and wrangle bitterly over which environmental factor was of prime importance. PoHtical thinkers asserted that progress depended on constitu- tions; "naturalists" like Buckle claimed that peoples were moulded by their physical environments like so much soft clay; while Socialists proclaimed that man's regeneration lay in a new system of economics. Never- theless, they were all united by a common behef in the supreme importance of environment, and they aU either ignored heredity or deemed it a minor factor. We need to stress this point, because we must remem- ber that it is precisely these doctrines which still sway the thought and action of most persons — even the edu- cated. "Whether they know it or not, most people who have not made a particular study of the question still tacitly assume that the acquirements of one generation form part of the inborn heritage of the next, and the pres- ' W. C. D. and C. D. Whetham, Heredity and Society, p. 4 (London, 1912). 42 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION ent social and educational systems are foundea in large part on this false foundation." ^ Let us now consider the rise of the new biology, which has already exerted so powerful an influence upon our philosophy of life and which promises to affect profoimdly the destinies of mankind. Modem biology can be said to date from the pubUcation of Darwin's work on The Origin of Species hy Means of Natural Selection, in the year 1859. This epoch-making book was fiercely chal- lenged and was not generally accepted even by the scien- tific world until the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Its acceptance, however, marked nothing short of a revo- lution in the realm of ideas. Darwin estabKshed the principle of evolution and showed that evolution pro- ceeded by heredity. A second great step was soon taken by Francis Galton, the founder of the science of "Eu- genics" or "Race Betterment." Darwin had centred his attention upon animals. Galton applied Darwin's teach- ing to man, and went on to break new groimd by point- ing out not merely the inborn differences between men, but the fact that these differences could be controlled; that the human stock could be surely and lastingly im- proved by increasing the number of individuals endowed with superior quaUties and decreasing the mmiber of in- feriors. In other words, Galton grasped fuHy the mo- mentous imphcations of heredity (which Darwin had not done), and announced clearly that heredity rather than environment was the basic factor in Hfe and the prime lever of human progress. ' Popenoe and Johnson, Applied Eugenics, p. 33 (New York, 1920). THE IRON LAW OF INEQUALITY 43 Like most intelleetual pioneers, Galton had to wait long for adequate recognition. Although his first eugenic writings appeared as early as 1865, they did not attract a tithe of the attention excited by Darwin's work, and it was not until the very close of the nineteenth century that his theory gained wide acceptance even in scientific circles, while the educated pubHc did not become really aware of it until the openiug years of the present century. Once fairly started, however, the idea made rapid prog- ress. In every part of the civilized world scientists took up the work, and soon a series of remarkable discoveries by biologists like Weismann, DeVries, and others put the new science on a sure and authoritative foundation.^ We have already indicated how momentous has been the change in outlook wrought by the new biological revelation, not merely in the field of abstract science, but also in every phase of practical human existence. The discovery of the true nature of the life process, the cer- tainty that the vast inequalities among men are due primarily to heredity rather than environment, and the discovery of a scientific method of race improvement, are matters of transcendent importance. Let us examine some of their practical aspects. One of the most strildng features of the life process is * The mass of modem biological literature is very great, and in a gen- eral work like mine elaborate reference footnotes would be out of place. I will, therefore, merely refer the reader to two excellent manuals on this field, with special reference to its eugenics side: Popenoe and Johnson, Ap- plied Eiigenics (New York, 1920), and S. J. Holmes, The Trend of the Race (New York, 1921). The latter work contains good and fairly full bibUographies at the end of each chapter. From these two manuals the reader who desires to go deeper into the field can find the necessary clews. 44 THE EEVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION the tremendous power of heredity. The marvellous po- tency of the germ-plasm is increasingly revealed by each fresh biological discovery. Carefully isolated and pro- tected against external influences, the germ-plasm per- sistently follows its predetermined course, and even when actually interfered with it tends to overcome the difficulty and resimie its normal evolution. This persistency of the germ-plasm is seen at every stage of its development, from the isolated germ-cell to the mature individual. Consider it first at its earliest stage. Ten years ago biologists generally believed that the germ-plasm was permanently injured — and perma- nently modified — ^by certain chemical substances and disease toxins like lead, alcohol, syphiUs, etc. These noxious influences were termed "racial poisons," and were beheved to be prime causes of racial degeneracy. In other words, here was a field where biologists used to admit that environment directly^ modified heredity in profoimd and lasting fashion. To-day the weight of evi- dence is clearly the other way. While it is still generally admitted that injury to the germ-plasm does occur, most biologists now think that such injury is a temporary "in- duction," that is, a change in the germ-ceUs which does not permanently alter the nature of the inherited traits and which will disappear in a few generations if the in- jury be not repeated. ' The distinction between direct and indirect effects should be kept clearly in mind. Of course, it is perfectly evident that environment does indirectly affect all forms of life — notably by favoring certain types and handicapping others, and so resulting in the increase of the former and the decrease of the latter. THE IRON LAW OF INEQUALITY 45 To quote from an authoritative source: "We are thus in a position to state that, from the eugenist's point of view, the origination of degeneracy, by some direct action on the germ-plasm, is a contingency that hardly needs to be reckoned with. . . . The germ-plasm is so care- fully isolated and guarded that it is almost impossible to injure it, except by treatment so severe as to kill it altogether; and the degeneracy with which the eugenists are called on to deal is a degeneracy which is running along from generation to generation and which, when once stopped by the cessation of reproduction, is in Uttle danger of being originated anew through some racial poison."^ Consider now the Ufe process at its next stage — ^the stage between conception and birth. It used to be thought that the germ-plasm of the growing embryo could be injm*ed and permanently altered, not merely by the "racial poisons" above mentioned but also by certain "prenatal" influences, such as the mother's undernourishment, chronic exhaustion, fright, worry, or shock. To-day such ideas are utterly discredited. There is not a shred of evidence that the mother's circumstances or feelings can affect in any way the gferw-plasm of her unborn child. Of course, the mother's condition may profovmdly affect the embryo's hody-phsm, so that the child may be bom stunted or diseased. But the child will not pass on those handicaps by heredity to its off- spring. Conversely, it is equally certain that nothing the mother can do to improve her tmbom child will better 1 Popenoe and Johnson, op. cit., pp. 63-64. 46 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION its germ-plasm. She may give her child a sotmder body, but its heredity was fixed irrevocably the instant it was conceived. Here, then, is another field where the theory of direct action of environment on heredity has been definitely disproved. Let us pass to the next stage. Birth has taken place. The individual is out in the world and is exposed to en- vironmental influences vastly greater than those which acted upon him during his embryonic stage. But these environmental influences fall upon his ftody-plasm; his g^erm-plasm is as carefully isolated and protected as was his parents', so that the same laws which we have already discussed wfll apply to him as weU as to them. Furthermore, the effect of the environment even upon the body-plasm will depend largely upon what sort of a creature the particular individual may be. Biology- has recently discovered that the effect of environment decreases as we ascend the life scale; in other words, the simpler types are most affected, while man, the high- est biological type, seems to be affected least of all. This is a point of great importance. Certain environmentalist writers have maintained that, even though the germ- plasm were unaltered, man is so moulded by his environ- ment that with each generation the hereditary tendencies are overcome by circumstances and are thus rendered practically of secondary importance. Such writers base their arguments largely upon scientific experiments made upon primitive forms of animal Hfe, where striking bodily changes have been brought about. As applied to man, however, these arguments are misleading, because the THE IRON LAW OF INEQUALITY 47 same influences which profoundly affect lower forms have relatively little effect upon the higher animals and still less upon man himself. Man is, therefore, least affected by, and most independent of, environmental influences. This matter has been ably summed up by the American biologist Woods, who has formulated it as "The Law of Diminishing Environmental Influences."^ Woods shows not only that environmental influence diminishes accord- ing to the individual's rank in the biological scale, but also that, even within the body of the particular indi- vidual, environmental influence dinainishes with the evo- lutionary rank of the tissue affected and in proportion to its age. This is important in connection with possible environmental influence upon the human brain. Says Woods: "It must be remembered that the brain-ceUs, even of a child, are, of aU tissues, farthest removed from any of these primordial states. The cells of the brain ceased subdiAdsion long before birth. Therefore, a priori, we must e3q)ect relatively Uttle modification of brain function." Finally, Woods shows that environmental influence diminishes with the organism's power of choice. This is, of course, of the utmost importance regarding man. For, as Woods says: "This may be the chief reason why human beings, who of all creatures have the greatest power to choose the surroundings congenial to their spe- cial needs and natures, are so httle affected by outward conditions. The occasional able, ambitious, and deter- mined member of an obscure or degenerate family can 'Frederick Adams Woods, "Laws of Diminishing Environmental In- fluences," Popular Science Monthly, April, 1910. 48 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION get free from his uncongenial associates. So can the weak or lazy or vicious (even if a black sheep from the finest fold) easily find his natural haimts." From aU this Woods concludes: "Experimentally and statistically, there is not a grain of proof that ordinary environment can alter the saUent mental and moral traits in any measurable degree from what they were prede- termiijed to be through innate influences." We thus see that man is moulded more by heredity and less by environment than any other living creature, and that the vast differences observable between human beings are mainly predetermined at the instant of con- ception, with relatively little regard to what happens afterward. Let us now observe some of the actual workings of heredity in man, both in the good and bad sense. In the present chapter we will devote our attention mainly to the superior types, leaving our consideration of the inferior for the next chapter. Now what do we know about superior individuals? We know that they exist and that they are due to he- redity. That is a good beginning, but it would not get us very far unless we knew more along the same lines. Fortunately, we not only know that superiors tend to produce superior offspring, but that they produce such offspring according to natural laws which can be deter- mined statistically with a high degree of accuracy. (And, of course, the same is true of the production of inferiors.) The production of superior persons has been studied by modem biologists from Galton down to the present THE IRON LAW OF INEQUALITY 49 day, and a mass of authoritative data has been accumu- lated. Let us examine a few of these instructive investi- gations. To cite the earliest of them, Galton's study on "Hereditary Genius" (1869), Galton discovered that in English history success in life was a strikingly "family affair." From careful statistical investigation of a great number of notable EngHshmen Galton found that a dis- tinguished father was infinitely more likely to have a distinguished son than was an undistinguished father. To cite one case out of many, Galton found that the son of a distinguished judge had about one chance in four of becomiug himself distinguished, while the son of a man picked out at random from the general population had only about one chance in 4,000 of becoming similarly distinguished. Of course, the objection at once suggested itself that environmental influences Uke social opportunity might be predominant; that the son of a distinguished man is pushed forward regardless of his umate abilities, while the son of an obscure man never gets a chance. To test this, Galton turned to the history of the Papacy. For centimes it was the custom for a Pope to adopt one of his nephews as a son, and advance him in every way. Now if opportunity is all that is necessary to advance a man, these adopted sons ought to have reached eminence in the same proportion as the real sons of eminent men. As a matter of fact, however, they reached eminence only as often as the statistical expectation for nephews of great men — ^whose chance of eminence has been dis- covered to be much less than that of the sons of great 50 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION men. Nevertheless, despite dififerent ratios of heritabil- ity, superiority still remains a family affair; Galton found that nearly half of the great men of England had dis- tinguished close relatives. Galton's studies of English greatness have been criti- cised as applying to a country where caste lines are'sharply drawn. To test these objections the American biologist Woods transferred the inquiry to the United States — a. land where opportunities have been much more equal and rigid caste lines virtually absent. How was it with the great men of America? If they were found to have fewer distinguished relatives than the great men of Eng- land, it would be a great feather in the environmentalists' cap, siQce it would tend to show that, given equal oppor- tunity, success does not depend on family stock. On the other hand, if what was true of England should hold good also of America, the theory of hereditary superiority would be much more firmly established. The result of Woods's study* was a striking confirma- tion of Galton's researches. Woods took two groups of distinguished Americans: a large group of 3,500 listed as eminent in the standard dictionaries of biography; and a small group of the 46 very eminent Americans admitted to the "Hall of Fame." Now how were these eminent persons related to each other? If superiority did not "run in families," it is evident that their chances of re- lationship would be no greater than that of the rest of the population— which ratio Woods found to be statis- 1 Frederick Adams Woods, "Heredity and the Hall of Fame," Ptpidar Science Monthly, May, 1913. THE IRON LAW OF INEQUALITY 51 tically 1 in 500. However, as a matter of fact, the 3,500 eminent Americans were found to be related to each other, not as 1 to 500 but as 1 to 5. Furthermore, by- picking out the more eminent among the 3,500 and form- ing a new group, this group was found to be related to each other as 1 to 3, Most striking of all were the re- sults obtained by considering the very superior group listed in the Hall of Fame. Here the ratio of relationship rose to 1 in 2, while if all their eminent relations were coimted in, they averaged more than one apiece. Thus, distinguished Americans are discovered to be from 500 to 1,000 times as much related to other distinguished per- sons as is the ordioary American. Or, to put it in an- other way, something like 1 per cent of the population of the United States is as likely to produce a genius as is all the rest of the country put together — ^the other 99 per cent. It might, to be sure, be objected that even in America the early environment of eminent men might be on the average more favorable than that of the mass of the pop- ulation. This objection is met by another of Woods's investigations — a, very able and elaborate study of the royal famihes of Europe.^ Here is a class of persons where no one can doubt that the environment is imiformly favorable. If opportimity rather than inherited capacity be the cause of success, then most of the members of this * Frederick Adams Woods, Mental and Moral Heredity in Royatty, New York, 1906. See also his book. The Influence of Monarchst New York, 1913, and his article, "Sovereigns and the Supposed Influence of Oppor- tunity," Science, 19 June, 1914, where Doctor Woods answers some criti- .cisms of his work. 52 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION class ought to have succeeded, and succeedea in about the same degree, because to every one of royal blood the door of opportunity stands open. Yet the result of Woods's study was just the reverse of this. Despite the good environment almost imiformly present, superiority in royalty, as in other classes, is found to be a distinctly "family matter." Royal geniuses are not scattered hap- hazard over the genealogical chart; they are concentrated ia isolated chains of closely related individuals. One chain centres ia Frederick the Great, another in Queen Isabella of Spain, a third in WilHam the Silent, and a fourth in Gustavus Adolphvis. And, be it also noted, inferiority in royalty is equally segregated, royal dullards and degenerates also running by families. But how about superior individuals who rise from ap- parently mediocre stocks? Environmentalist writers are forever compiling lists of great men who "came from nothing." These cases have, however, been carefully investigated, and the more they are studied the more convincing grows the evidence that greatness never arises out of "nothing." Take Abraham Lincoln. He was long a shining example for the environmentalist thesis. Lincoln is popularly supposed to have come from "poor white trash" of a very inferior order. But careful in- vestigation proves that this is emphatically not so. As one of the investigators remarks: "So far from his later career being unaccounted for in his origin and early his- tory, it is as fully accounted for as is the case of any man." ^ And a recent authority goes on to state: "The 1 Ida M. Tarbell, The Early Life of Abraham Lincoln, New York, 1896. THE IRON LAW OF INEQUALITY 63 Lincoln family was one of the beet in America, and while Abraham's own father was an eccentric person, he was yet a man of considerable force of character, by no means the 'poor white trash,' which he is often represented to have been. TTie Hanks family, to which the Emanci- , pator's mother belonged, had also maintained a high level of ability in every generation,^ Furthermore, Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks, the parents of Abrar ham Lincoln, were first cousins."^ Of course, there are a considerable number of distin- guished individuals whose greatness genealogy cannot as yet explain. But in most cases this is because very little is discoverable about their ancestors. Furthermore, as Holmes justly remarks: "It should be borne in mind that greatness involves a peculiar complex of quaUties the lack of any one of which may prevent an individual from achieving an eminent position. A great man has to do more than simply exist; he must accomplish labors of a particularly noteworthy kind before he is crowned with fame, and many a man of splendid natural endow- ments has fallen short of achieving greatness through some inherent weakness of character or the lack of suf- ficient inspiration or driving force. Great men not only have to be bom great; they also have to achieve great- ness, and if they receive their proper recognition in the eyes of the world, greatness has to be thrust upon them besides. Great men, it is true, seem to rise higher than '^FoT a study of Lincoln's matemal line, see C. H. Hitduxx^, Nancy Hanks, New Yoifc, 1899. ' Popenoe and JokiBon, »p. cU., p. 333. 54 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATTnxr c their source. Generally they come from an ancestry considerably above mediocrity. And I ventiu-e to ex- press the opinion that a great man has never been pro- duced from parents of subnormal mentality. A great man is more apt to arise if both parents are of very su- perior ability than if only one parent is above mediocrity. Where the great man appears to stand far above the level of his immediate ancestors it is due in large part, I beheve, to the fact that each parent supplied peculiar quaUties lacking in the other, assisted also by quaKties from more remote ancestors which may have conspired to fmnish the necessary complement of hereditary factors. . . . One thing is certain, and that is that you cannot make greatness out of mediocrity or good ability out of inborn dulness by all the aids which environment and education or anything else can possibly offer." ^ Indeed, even if we admit that great men may occa- sionally arise from stocks which had never shown any signs of superiority, this ought to strengthen rather than weaken our behef in the force of heredity. As Woods well says, when it is considered how rarely such an an- cestry produces a great man, it must be evident that his greatness is due to an accidental conjunction of favorable traits converging through his parents and meeting in himself. Finally, how except by heredity can we explain the enormous differences in achievement between great num- bers of persons exposed to the same environment and enjoying similar opportunities? "In terms of environ- •S. J. Holmes, The Trend of the Race, pp. 115-116 (New York, 1921). THE IRON LAW OF INEQUALITY 55 ment, the opportunity to become a great physicist was open to every one of the thousands of university students who were the contemporaries of Lord Kelvin; the op- portunity to become a great musician has been open to all the pupils in all the conservatories of music which have flourished since Johann Sebastian Bach was a choir- boy at Luneburg; the opportunity to become a multi- millionaire has been open to every clerk who has wielded a pen since John D. Rockefeller was a bookkeeper in a Cleveland store; the opportimity to become a great mer- chant has been open to every boy who has attended an American public school since the time when John Wana- maker, at fourteen years of age, was an errand boy in a Philadelphia book store." ^ Such are the investigations of biology concerning hu- man inequahties. They are certainly striking, and they all point to the same conclusions, namely: that such inequalities are inborn; that they are predetermined by heredity; and that they are not inherently modified by either environment or opportunity. But this is only half the story. Within the past twenty years the problem of human inequahty has been ap- proached along a wholly new line, by a different branch of science — ^psychology. And the findings of these psy- chological investigations have not only tallied with those of biology in further revealing the inherited nature of human capacities,' but have also proved it in even more striking fashion and with far greater possibilities of prac- tical application. 'Alleyne Ireland, Democracy and the Human Equaiion, p. 153 (New York:, 1921). 56 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION The novelty of the psychological approach to the prob- lem is evident when we fealize that, whereas biology has been investigatiag mainly the individual's ancestry or actions, psychology examines the mind itself. The best- known instruments of psychological investigation are the so-caUed "Intelligence Tests," first invented by the French psychologist Binet in the year 1905. From Binet's relatively modest beginning the mental tests have in- creased enormously in both complexity and scope, cul- minating in those gigantic investigations conducted by the American army authorities during the late war, when more than 1,700,000 men were mentally tested in a va- riety of ways.^ Furthermore, despite the notable progress which it has abeady made, the psychological method ap- pears to be still in its infancy, and seems likely to yield far more extraordinary results in the near future. Yet the results already attained are of profound signif- icance. It has been conclusively proved that intelligence is predetermined by heredity; that individuals come into the world differing vastly in mental capacities; that such differences remain virtually constant throughout life and cannot be lessened by environment or education; that the present 'mental level of any individual can be definitely ascertained, and even a child's future adult mental level ' The data gathered by the United States army intelligence tests have been published in detail in: Memoirs of the Naiianal Academy of Sciences, vol. XV, edited by Major R. M. Yerkes. A useful abridgment, contain- ing many of the chief conclusions, etc., is the smaller volume by Majors Yerkes and Yoakum: Army Mental Tests, New York, 1920. See also val- uable discussions of this matter in: Puhltcalions of the American Sociolog- ical Society, vol. XV, pp. 102-124. For further discuasions, see books by Conklin, Ireland, and McDougall, already cited. THE IRON LAW OF INEQUALITY 67 confidently predicted. These are surely discoveries whose practical importance can hardly be overestimated. They enable us to grade not merely individuals but whole na- tions and races according to their inborn capacities, to take stock of oiu* mental assets and liabilities, and to get a definite idea as to whether humanity is headed toward greater achievement or toward decline. Let us now see precisely what the intelligence tests have revealed. In the first place, we must remember the true meaning of the word "intelUgence." "Intelligence" must not be confused with "knowledge." Knowledge is the result of intelligence, to which it stands in the rela- tion of effect to cause. Intelligence is the capacity of the mind; knowledge is the raw material which is put into the mind. Whether the knowledge is assimilated or lost, or just what use is made of it, depends primarily upon the degree of intelligence. This intellectual capacity as revealed by mental testing is termed by psychologists the "I. Q." or "intelligence quotient." Psychology has invented a series of mental yardsticks for the measurement of human intelligence, beginning with the mind of the child. For example, the mental capacity of a child at a certain age can be ascertained by comparing it (as revealed by mental tests) with the in- telhgenee which careful examination of a vast number of cases has shown to be the statistical average for chil- dren of that age. This is possible because it has been found that mental capacity increases regularly as a child grows older. This increase is rapid during the first years of life, then slows down until, about the age of sixteen, 58 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION there is usually no further growth of mental capacity — albeit exceptionally superior intellects continue to grow in capacity for several years thereafter. A large number of careful investigations made among school children have revealed KteraUy amazing dis- crepancies between their chronological and their mental ages. In classes of first-grade grammar-school children, where the chronological age is about six years, some pupils are found with ment^ ages as low as three while other pupils are foimd with mental ages as high as nine or ten. Similarly, in first-year high-school classes, where the chronological age is about fourteen years, the mental age of some pupils may rank as low as ten or eleven, while the mental age of others may rise as high as nineteen or twenty. And, be it remembered, the "I. Q." of any individual child, once discovered, can be. counted on as a constant factor, which does not change with the lapse of time. For example: Take two children rated by their birth certificates as being both four years old, but with mental ages of three and five respectively. When they are chron- ologically eight years old, the mental age of the duller child will be about six, while the mental age of the brighter child will be about ten. And when they are chronologically twelve years old, their respective mental ages will be approximately nine and fifteen. Assimiing that growth of mental capacity stops in both children at the chronological age of sixteen, the ratio of their mental ages as then attained will remain constant between them all the rest of their lives. That is why the mental ages THE IRON LAW OF INEQUALITY 59 of persons over sixteen, once ascertained, can be regarded as fixed quantities. The only exceptions are those com- paratively rare individuals of very superior mentality whose intelligence continues to grow a few years longer, and who are consequently very far in advance of their fellows. Two methods of mental grading are employed: children are graded according to "years"; adults are graded according to qualitative ratings ranging from "very superior," through "average," to "veiy inferior." Space forbids any detailed discussion of the actual make-up of mental tests. Their number is legion and their specialization is minute. Yet they aU yield the same general results. "No matter what trait of the individual be chosen, results are analogous. If one takes the simplest traits, to eliminate the most chances for confusion, one finds the same conditions every time. Whether it be speed in marking off aU the A's in a printed sheet of capitals, or in putting together the pieces of a puzzle, or in giving a reaction to some certain stimulus, or in making associations between ideas, or drawing fig- ures, or memory for various things, or giving the oppo- sites of words, or discrimination of lifted weights, or suc- cess in any one of hundreds of other mental tests, the conclusion is the same. There are wide differences in the abilities of individuals, no two being alike, either mentally or physically, at birth or any time thereafter." ^ We thus see that human beings are spaced on widely different mental levels; that they have a variety of men- tal statures, just as they have a variety of physical ' Popenoe and Johnson, pp. 77-78. ' 60 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION statures, and that both are basically due to inheritance. Furthermore, it is extremely significant to observe how closely intelligence is correlated with industrial or pro- fessional occupation, social and economic status, and racial origin. Nowhere does the power of heredity show forth more clearly than in the way innate superiority tends to be related to actual achievement. Despite the fact that our social system contains many defects which handicap superior individuals and foster inferiors; de- spite the fact that our ideas, laws, and institutions are largely based on the fallacies of enviromnentalism and "natural equality"; nevertheless, the imperious urge of superior germ-plasm beats against these man-made bar- riers and tends to raise the superior individuals who bear it — ^albeit only too often at the cost of their racial ste- rility through their failure to leave children. Another noteworthy point is the way psychology has confirmed biological and sociological theories. Both biologists and sociologists have long been coming more and more to regard social and racial status as valid in- dications of innate quality. Now comes psychology, approaching the problem from a new angle and with different methods, and its findings coincide closely with those which the other sciences have already made. How close is this coincidence a few examples wiU show. TaMng first a couple of English researches: a com- parison was made of the intellectual capacity of the boys at a certain private school who were mostly the sons of Oxford "dons" (i. e., members of the university faculty), and the capacity of the boys at a municipal school at- THE IRON LAW OF INEQUALITY 61 tended by boys- from the town population. I will quote the results in the words of Professor McDougall, who supervised the experiment, and of Mr. H. B. English, who conducted it. Says Professor McDougall: "The municipal school was an exceptionally good school of its kind, the teaching being in many respects better than in the other — ^the private school; the boy^ were from good homes, sons of good plain citizens — shopkeepers and skilled artisans, and so forth. Without going into detail I may say, summarily, that the result was to show a very marked superiority of the boys of the school frequented by the intellectual class." ^ And Mr. English states: "Although the groups are small, they are exceedingly homogeneous and thoroughly representative of the chil- dren in two social or economic strata. The writer does not hesitate, therefore, to predicate these results for the children of the entire classes represented or to conclude that the children of the professional class exhibit between twelve and fourteen years of age a very marked superi- ority in intelligence."* And Professor McDougall adds the following interesting comment: "The result is all the more striking, if you reflect on the following facts: First, every boy has two parents and inherits his quali- ties from both. Secondly, it has not been shown that imiversity dons prefer clever wives, or that they are par- ticularly clever in choosing clever wives. It remains, then, highly probable that, if the wives of these men were > McDougall, p. 61. ^ H. B. English, Yale Psychological Studio* (1917), quoted by McDoug- all. 62 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION aU as superior in respect of intellect as their husbands, the superiority of their sons to the boys of the other group would have been still more marked." ^ In this connection, let me quote the conclusions of another British psychologist who made a similar experi- ment with like results: "For all these reasons we may conclude that the superior proficiency at intelligence tests on the part of boys of superior parentage was in- born. And thus we seem to have proved marked in- heritabihty in the case of a mental character of the high- est 'civic worth.' "' Let us now pass to America. The United States offers a more instructive field, because, with its more fluid social structure and its heterogeneous racial make-up, the cor- relations between intelligence, social or economic status, and racial origia can be studied simultaneously. Before discussing these American experiments, let us recall certain facts. For a long time past American biolo- gists and sociologists have been coming more and more to the following conclusions: (1) That the old "Native American" stock, favorably selected as it was from the races of northern Europe, is the most superior element in the American population; (2) that subsequent im- migrants from northern Europe, though coming from substantially the same racial stocks, were less favorably selected and average somewhat less superior; (3) that the more recent immigrants from southern and eastern 1 MoDougall, pp. 61-62. 2 Cyril Burt, "Experimental Tests of General Intelligence," British Journal of Payclwlogy, vol. Ill (1909), quoted by McDougall. THE IRON LAW OF INEQUALITY 63 Europe average decidedly inferior to the north European elements; (4) that the negroes are inferior to all other elements. Now let us see how psychological tests have confirmed these biological and sociological conclusions. One of the most recent of these experiments^ was that conducted upon several hundred school children iu the primary grades. The children were classified in two ways: according to racial origin, and according to eco- nomic-social status of parents. The racial classifications were: (a) children of American-bom white parents; (b) children of Italian immigrants (mostly south ItaHans); (c) colored (negroes and mulattoes). The economic- social classifications of parents were: (1) professional; (2) semi-professional and higher business; (3) skilled labor; (4) semi-skilled and imskilled labor. The "I. Q." (intelligence quotient) of each category was then ob- tained, the object being to discover what correlations (if any) existed between racial origin, economic-social status, and intelligence. Here are the results: Americans of social status (1) I. Q. = 125 " " " " (2) I.Q. = 118 " " " (3) I.Q. = 107 " " " " (4) I.Q. = 92 All Americans grouped together I. Q. = 106 Italians I. Q. = 84 Colored I. Q. = 83 ^ This experiment, conducted by Miss A. H. Arlitt, of Bryn Mawr Col- lege, is quoted by McDougall (pp. 63-64), he having obtained the data directly from Miss Arlitt in advance of her own publication. The experi- ment seems to have been conducted in the year 1920. 64 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION A similar experiment made on children in iNew York City public schools by the well-known authority, Pro- fessor S. M. Terman,^ yields strikingly similar results. In this case the children were graded simply according to racial origin of parents, the classifications being: (1) Parents native-bom white Americans; (2) parents north European immigrants; (3) parents Italian immigrants; (4) parents Portuguese immigrants. Here are the re- sults: American I. Q. = 106 North European I. Q. = 105 ItaHan I. Q. = 84 Portuguese I. Q. = 84 Note how the respective I. Q.'s of both the American and the Italian groups are identical in both experiments, although the children examined were, of course, not the same. Here are the conclusions of Professor Terman regard- ing the correlation between economic-social status of parents and intelligence in children, as a result of his many researches upon school children from New York to California: "Intelligence of 110 to 120 1. Q. (this range is defined as 'superior intelligence') is approximately five times as common among children of superior social status as among children of inferior social status, the proportion among the former being about 24 per cent of all and among the latter only 5 per cent of all. The group of 'superior intelligence,' is made up largely of children of ' S. M. Terman, InteUigemx of School Children, p. 56 (New York, 1919). THE IRON LAW OF INEQUALITY 65 the fairly successful mercantile or professional classes." Professor Terman defines as of "very superior intelli- gence" those children who scored in the tests more than 120 marks. "Children of this group are," he says, "un- usually superior. Not more than 3 out of 100 go as high as 125 I. Q., and only about 1 out of 100 as high as 130 I. Q. In the schools of a city of average population only about 1 child in 250 or 300 tests as high as 140 I. Q. In a series of 476 imselected children there was not a single one reaching 120 I. Q. whose social class was described as 'below average.' Of the children of superior social status, about 10 per cent reached 120 I .Q. or better. The 120- 140 group (i. e., of very superior intelligence) is made up almost entirely of children whose parents belong to the professional or very successful business classes. The child of a skilled laborer belongs here occasionally; the child of a common laborer very rarely indeed." ^ Finally, let us note, in passing, some of the numerous researches which have been made on the intelligence of colored school children.'' Space forbids om- going into this point. Suffice it to say that the results accord with what has been previously stated, namely: that the in- teUigence of the colored population averages distinctly lower than the intelligence of native American whites, and somewhat lower than the intelligence of our least promising east and south European elements. So much for experiments upon children. Now let us consider similar psychological investigations of the in- » S. M. Tennan, The Measurement of Irddligmce, p. 96, New York, 1916. ' Several of these are noted and discussed by McDougall, pp. 55-66, 66 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION telligence of adults. Fortunately, we possess a great mass of valuable data from the mammoth investigations conducted by the United States army authorities upon more than 1,700,000 officers and men during the late war.* These investigations were planned and directed by a board of eminent psychologists. It is interesting to note that they were inspired, not by abstract scientific motives, but by motives of practical efficiency. In the words of two leading members of the investigating board, Majors Yoakum and Yerkes: "The human factors in most practical situations have been neglected largely because of our consciousness of ignorance and our inability to control them. Whereas engiaeers deal constantly with physical problems of qual- ity, capacity, stress and strain, they have tended to think of problems of human conduct and experience either as unsolved or as insoluble. At the same time there has existed a growing consciousness of the practical signif- icance of these human factors and of the importance of such systematic research as shall extend our knowledge of them and increase our directive power. "The great war from which we are now emerging into a civilization in many respects new has already worked marvellous changes in our points of view, our expecta- tions, and practical demands. Relatively early in this supreme struggle, it became clear to certain individuals that the proper utilization of man-power, and more par- ticularly of mind or brain-power, would assure ultimate victory. . . . All this had to be done in the least possible ' See publications already quoted on this point. THE IRON LAW OF INEQUALITY 67 time. Never before in the history of civilization was brain, as contrasted with brawn, so important; never before, the proper placement and utilization of brain- power so essential to success. "Our War Department, nerved to exceptional risks by the stem necessity for early victory, saw and immediately seized its opportunity to develop various new lines of personnel work. Among these is numbered the psy- chological service. Great will be our good fortune if the lesson in human engineering which the war has taught is carried over directly and effectively into our civil in- stitutions and activities." ^ The purposes of these psychological tests were, as stated in the army orders: " (a) to aid in segregating the mentally incompetent, (b) to classify men according to their mental capacity, (c) to assist in selecting competent men for responsible positions." And to quote a sub- sequent official pronouncement after the administration of the tests: "In the opinion of this office these reports indicate very definitely that the desired results have been achieved." So much for the aims behind the tests. Now for the tests themselves. As already stated, they were adminis- tered to more than 1,700,000 officers and men. Great care was taken to eliminate the distiu-bing influence of environmental factors like lack of education and ig- norance of the English language. Separate tests were devised, and the close correlations obtained showed that inborn intelligence had been successfully segregated. ' Yoakum and Yerkes, Army Mental Tests, pp. vii-viii CIntroduction). 68 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION Besides general intelligence gradings, special studies ac- cording to anny rank, civilian occupation, racial origin, etc., were made on large groups consisting of "samples" taken at many points from the general mass. The following is the system of general grading em- ployed to indicate the d^ee of individual intelligence: A = very superior iatellig^ice B = superior intelligraice C + = high average intelligence C = average intelligence C — = low avffl-age intdUgmce D = inferior intelligence D — = very inferior intelligence E = "unteochable men," rejected at once or after a short time Let us now see how the 1,700,000 men examined graded according to intelligence, and what mental age these classifications implied: Grade P«r«Mitstee Mental Age A 9 16J^ 25 20 15 10 18-19 (+) 16-17 15 13-14 12 11 10 B C + c c - D D - This table is assuredly depressing. Probably never before has the relative scarcity of high intelligence been so vividly demonstrated. It strikingly reinforces what biol(^sts and sociologists have long been telling us: that THE IRON LAW OF INEQUALITY 69 the number of really superior persons is small, and that the great majority of even the most civilized popula- tions are of mediocre or low intelHgence — ^which, be it remembered, neither education nor any other environ- mental agency can ever raise. Think of this table's social significance! Assuming that these 1,700,000 men are a fair sample of the entire population of approximately 100,000,000 (and there is every reason to beheve that it is a fair sample), this means that the average mental age of Americans is only about fourteen; that forty-five mil- lions, or nearly one-half of the whole population, will never develop mental capacity beyond the stage repre- sented by a normal twelve-year-old child; that only thirteen and one-half millions will ever show superior intelligence, and that only four and one-half millions can be considered "talented." Still more alarming is the prospect for the future. The overwhelming weight of evidence (as we shall later show) indicates that the A and B elements in America are barely reproducing themselves, while the other elements are in- creasing at rates proportionate to their decreasing intel- lectual capacity: in other words, that intelligence is to- day being steadily bred out of the American population. So much for the general results of the American army tests. Now let us consider some of the special classifica- tions, notably those relating to the correlation of intel- ligence with army rank, civilian occupation, and racial origin. In all these special classifications the correlations were precisely what our study might lead us to expect. First, 70 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION as to army rank: the great majority of officers, Whether actually commissioned or in officers' training-camps, were foimd to be of A and B intelligence. Furthermore, in those branches of the service where a high degree of tech- nical knowledge is required, the highest degree of intel- ligence was foimd. In the engineers and the artillery nearly all the officers graded A; whereas, in the veter- inary corps less than one-sixth of the officers graded A, and nearly two-fifths graded C. Among the non-coms (sergeants and corporals) one-half or more graded C. The rank and file were mostly C men, with a small mi- nority of A's and B's, and a somewhat larger minority of D's (E men, of course, being excluded from the ser- vice). Next, as to the correlation between intelligence and civilian occupations: the professions were found to con- tain a great majority of A and B men; the percentage of superior intelligence sank steadily through the sldUed and semi-skilled occupations, until it was least of all among the conmion laborers, very few of whom were found to possess intelligence grading higher than C, while most of them graded C — or D. Space forbids the tex- tual reproduction of the statistical tables, which are veiy elaborate; but any one who cares to examine them in the works already quoted will see at a glance how sym- metrical and logical are the gradings. finally, as to the correlation between intelligence and racial origin: two separate researches were made. The first of these was a comparison between white and colored drafted men; the other was a double grading of drafted THE IRON LAW OF INEQUALITY 71 men of foreign birth. Let us visualize the results of the intelhgenee ratings of white and colored — ^by the follow- ing table — ^adding one other category (that of the officers) to visualize the difference between the intelligence level of the officers' corps and the levels of both white and colored drafted men: A B c+ C c- D D- E White— Draft Colored— Draft Officers 2.0 .8 55.0 4.8 1.0 29.0 9.7 1.9 12.0 20 6 4 22 15 30 37 8 30 2 7 The above table needs no comment: it speaks for it- self! Now as to the second study concerning the correlation between intelhgenee and racial origin: the grading of foreign-bom drafted men. This investigation, as already stated, was dual: the men were graded both up and down the scale; i. e., both according to superiority and in- feriority of intelhgenee. In the following tables "su- periority" means A and B grades combined, while "in- feriority " means D and E grades combined. TABLE I: PERCENTAGE OF INFERIORITY OountaTT of Birth Oountry of Birth "PiTlprln.Twl 8.7 9.2 13.4 13.6 15.0 19.4 19.5 24.0 Norway 25.6 37.5 39.4 42.0 43.6 60.4 63.4 69.9 Holland Austria Tlflnnoark Irdand SrtrtfclaiMi Turkey Greece Swed^i Russia Italy .'... Pofemd 72 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION TABLE II: PERCENTAGE OF SUPERIORITY Country of Birth Oountry of Birth 19.7 13.0 10.7 10.5 8.3 5.4 4.3 4.1 Ireland 4.1 3.4 3.4 2.7 2.1 .8 .8 .5 Turkey TTollflrTid . .... Austria Canada Russia Greece Denmark Italy ■Rfilgi'imn Norway Poland These tables are very interesting. Note how constant are the positions of the national groups in both tables. Also, note how surely a high percentage of superiority connotes a low percentage of inferiority — ^and vice versa. Of course, these tables refer merely to the intelligence of foreign-bom groups in America; they may not be particularly good criteria for the entire home populations of the countries mentioned. But they do give us a good indication of the sort of people America is getting by immigration from those countries, and they indicate clearly the intelligence levels of the various foreign-born groups in America. And, once more we see a confirma- tion of those biological, sociological, and psychological researches which we have previously mentioned; viz., that the iatelligence level of the racial elements which America has received from northern Europe is far above that of the south and east European elements. We have already indicated how great are the possibili- ties for the practical employment of mental tests, not merely in the army but also in education, industry, and THE IRON LAW OF INEQUALITY 73 the evaluation of whole populations and races.* "Be- fore the war mental engineering was a dream; to-day it exists, and its effective development is amply assured." '^ As yet psychology has not succeeded in measuring emotional and psychic qualities as it has done with in- tellectual faculties. But progress is being made in this direction, and the data accumulated already indicate not only that these qualities are inherited but also that they tend to be correlated with intelligence. Speaking of su- perior military qualities like loyalty, bravery, power to command, and ability to "carry on," Majors Yoakum and Yerkes state: "In the long run, these quaUties are far more likely to be found in men of superior intelligence than in men who are intellectually inferior." ' Furthermore, whatever the direct correlation between intellectual and moral qualities, there is an undoubted practical connection, owing to the rational control exerted by the intellect over the spirit and the emotions. As Pro- fessor Lichtenberger remarks concerning the statement just quoted: "It would seem almost superfluous to add that loyalty, bravery, and even power to command, with- out sxiflSciently high intelligence may result in foolhardi- ness. They are forces of character, and we should devise methods of evaluating them, but, like all forces, organic and inorganic, they are valuable to the extent to which ' For these wider applications, see Yoakum & Yerkes, op. cit, pp. 184- 204; J. P. Lichtenberger, "The Social Significance of Mental Levels," Publications of the American Sociological Society, vol. XV, pp. 102-115; R. H. Piatt, Jr., "The Scope and Significance of Mental Tests," World's Work, September, 1920. ' Yoakum and Yerkes, p. 197. ' Ibid., p. 24. 74 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION they are discipliaed and controlled. The case is sdftiewhat similar with respect to the emotions. . . . Probably it will not be long until we shaU have some method of mea- suring the quality of emotional disturbances, and this will increase the accuracy of our judgments; but to what- ever degree of Independence the emotions may be as- signed, their utility is determined by the discipline of inteUigence. Emotional control is weak in those of low mental level. The higher the level, the greater the pos- sibiHty of rational control." * We have thus far consid^ed the nature of intelligence, and We have found it to be an inborn quality whose ca- pacity is predetermined by heredity. Biologically, this is important, because a man may not make much actual use of his talents and yet pass them on to children who will make use of them. In every-day life, however, ca- pacity is important chiefly as it expresses itself in prac- tical performance as evidenced by knowledge and action. We here enter a field where environment plays an im- portant part, since what a man actually learns or does depends obviously upon environmental factors like edu- cation, training, and opportunity. Let us once more re- call the distinction between "intelligence" and "knowl- edge" : inteUigence being the capacity of the mind, knowl- edge the filling of the mind. Let us also remember the triie meaning of the word "education" — a "bringing forth" of that which potentially exists. Now precisely how does environment affect perform- ance? In extreme cases environment may be of major 1 Lichtenberger, op. dt., p. 104. THE IRON LAW OF INEQUALITY 75 importance. A genius, condanned for life to the fate of !^obinson Crasoe, would obviously accomplish very little; •^hUe, on the other hand, a man of mediocre capacity, if given every possible advantage, might make the utmost of his slender talents. But how is it under ordinary cir- cumstances — especially under those substantially equal circumstances which it is the avowed aim of modem democratic ideals to produce? Before discussing this point in detail, however, let us stop and find out just what we mean by "equal circum- stances." Do we mean equality of opportunity? Or do we mean equality of performance and recompense? The two ideas are poles asunder; yet they are often confused in thought, and frequently intentionally confused in argument. Equality of opportunity means freedom of different individuals to make the most of similar con- ditions, and, by logical implication, freedom to reap re- wards proportionate to respective achievements. Equal- ity of performance and recompense, on the contrary, means the fixing of certain standards according to which action wiU be stimulated and rewards apportioned. This last is what most of the hot-gospellers of levelling "social equahty" have in the back of their heads. They may camouflage their dqctrines with fine phrases, but what they really intend is to handicap and defraud superior intelligence in order to "give everybody a fair show." Even in our present social system we see many instances of the waste and injustice caused by "levelling" prac- tices: bright pupils held back to keep step with dullards, and bright workmen discouraged from doing their best 76 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION by grasping employers or ordered to "go slow" by union rules setting the pace by their less competent fellows. This distinction being understood, let us now see how environment affects performance with individuals under conditions of equal opportunity. How, for example, does equahty of training or education affect individual achieve- ment ? The answer is another striking proof of the power of heredity. Not only is such equahty of conditions un- able to level the inborn differences between individuals; on the contrary, it increases the differences in results achieved. "EquaKzing practice seems to increase differ- ences. The superior man seems to have got his present superiority by his own nature rather than by superior advantages of the past, since, during a period of equal advantage for all, he increases his lead." ^ As McDougall justly remarks : " The higher the level of innate capacity, the more is it improved by education." ^ We thus see that even where superior individuals have no better opportunities than inferiors, environment tends to accentuate rather than equalize the differences between men, and that the only way to prevent increasing in- equaUty is by deliberately holding the superiors down. Certainly, the whole trend of civilization is toward increasing inequality. In the first place, the demands made upon the individual are more and more complex and differentiated. The differences in training and edu- cation between savages are relatively insignificant; the ' Popenoe and Johnson, p. 92. The authors cite several careful psydxolog- ical tests by which this principle is clearly established. * McDougall, p. 48. THE IRON LAW OF INEQUALITY 77 (merences between the feudal baron and his serf were C(^mparatively shght; the differences to-day between casual laborers and captains of industry are enormous. Never before has the function of capacity been so impor- tant and so evident. The truth is that, as civilization progresses, social status tends to coincide more and more closely with racial value; in other words, a given population tends to become more and more differentiated biologically, the upper social classes containing an ever larger proportion of persons of superior natural endowments while the lower social classes contain a growing proportion of in- feriors. The intelHgence tests which we have previously considered show us how marked this tendency has be- come in advanced modem societies Kke England and the United States, and there is every reason to beheve that unless the ciAdHzing process be interrupted this strati- fication wiU become even sharper in the futiure. Now precisely how does this increasing stratification come about? We have already discussed this point in a general way. We have seen how the dynamic urge of superior germ-plasm surmounts environmental barriers and raises the individual socially; while, conversely, in- ferior individuals tend to sink in the social scale. Let us now look at the matter more closely. This process, by which individuals migrate socially upward or downward from class to class, is termed "The Social Ladder." The ease with which people can go up or down this ladder depends on the flexibihty of the social order, and social flexibility in turn characterizes progressive 78 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION civilizations. In the less advanced types of civilization, social flexibility is rare. Society crystallizes into closed castes, sons are compelled to follow the callings of their fathers, superior individuals cannot rise, and high-bom inferiors are kept from sinking to their proper levels. This means waste, inefficiency and imperfect utilization of human resources. However, as civihzation progresses, its very complexity and needs compel greater efficiency; society becomes more flexible; and the "social ladder" works better and better. Latent talent rises more easily from the ranks, while the upper class cuts out more of its dead-wood, and thus tends to free itself from degenerate taints which have ruined so many aristocratic castes. The aboimding vigor of American Ufe, for example, is largely due to the way in which abiUty tends to be recognized wherever it appears and is given a chance to "make good." Thus, in course of time, the superior strains in a population rise to the top, while the inferior elements sink to the bottom. The upper classes are continually enriched by good new blood, while the lower classes, drained of their best ele* ments, are increasingly impoverished and become in-* creasingly inferior. This segregation of populations according to racial value is produced, not merely by the social ladder, but by another process known as " assortative mating." Con- trary to certain romantic but erroneous notions, careful scientific investigation has proved conclusively that "like tends to mate with like." Giants are not prone to marry dwarfs, nor do extreme blonds usually prefer dark bru- THE IRON LAW OF INEQUALITY 79 nettes. And what is true of physical characteristics is equally true of mental and emotional qualities. People tend to marry those not too unlike themselves. And, in addition to the action of personal preference, there is superadded the effect of propinquity. Individuals are usually attracted to those with whom they associate. These are usually of their own class, with common stand- ards, similar tastes, and like educational attainments. But those are the very persons who are apt to be of the same general type. Thus, as populations get more dif- ferentiated, assortative mating widens the class gaps. Superiors tend more and more to marry superiors, medi- ocrity tends to mate with mediocrity, while the inferior and the degenerate become segregated by themselves. At first sight it might seem as though the action of the social ladder would nullify the action of assortative mat- ing. But when we look at the matter more closely we see that this is not the case. Where social flexibility per- mits iudividuals to migrate easily, like tends oftener to associate and hence to mate with Uke. The "self-made man" is more apt to find a wife of his own caJiber, and is not compelled to choose exclusively from among the women of the lower social class in which he was bom. On the other hand, high-bom iucompetents or "black sheep," sinking rapidly, are less likely to drag down with them high-type mates. Thus the social ladder and as- sortative mating, far from conflicting, reinforce each other and sift the population according to trae racial values with cumulative effect. The sustained intermarriage of a well-selected upper 80 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION class raises society's apex iato a sharply defineapeak or cone. Woods has termed this process "Social Conifica- tion."i The members of such "conified" groups di^lay clearly marked traits and possess high average racial value. On the other hand, the lowest social classes, seg- regated and drained of their best elements, similarly "conify" into well-marked racial inferiority. The extent to which these selective processes, working for generations in a highly civilized society, may drain the lower social classes of their best racial elements, is strikingly shown by the case of England. That marked differences of inborn capacity exist between the British upper and lower social strata has, of course, long been realized, but the rapidity with which the gap has been widening has been recently shown by two historical mea- surements of the social distribution of genius and talent in the United Kingdom conducted respectively by Have- lock EUis and Doctor Woods. The results of these studies have been ably summarized by AUeyne Ireland, whom I will quote. Says Ireland: "What these investigations disclose is that over a period of several centuries there has occurred 1 Doctor Frederick Adams Woods has made a number of careful re- searches on this question, his latest being a genealogical study of leading Massachusetts families, with special reference to their intermarriages, traced over a period of approximately three hundred years from the found- ing of the Massachusetts Bay Colony (1630) to the present day. His data have not yet been published, but Doctor Woods has shown them to me in MSS. Furthermore, at the Second International Congress of Eugenics, held at New York City in September, 1921, Doctor Woods read a paper summarizing the results of this study which wiU be pubMied in the Congress's Proceedings. THE IRON LAW OF INEQUALITY 81 a striking and progressive decline in the cultural con- tribution from the 'lower' classes in the United Kingdom, and, of course, a corresponding relative increase in the contribution from the 'upper' and 'middle' classes. " It appears that, from the earliest times to the end of the nineteenth centm-y, the contribution to eminent achievement made by the sons of craftsmen, artisans, and imskilled laborers yielded 11.7 per cent of the total number of names utilized in the inquiry; that the repre- sentatives of that class who were bom in the first quarter of the nineteenth centmy yielded 7.2 per cent of the names; and that those bom during the second quarter of the nineteenth century yielded only 4.2 per cent. These figures are of great interest and importance when considered in relation to the social and pohtical history of England during the nineteenth century. "Everybody knows that in England the nineteenth century witnessed a rapid and all-pervading democratiza- tion of social and pohtical conditions. It was during that century that the English parhamentary system became, for the first time in the six hundred years of its existence, an institution representative of the great mass of the people; that schooling was made available for all; that in industry, ia poHtics, in society, the gates of oppor- tunity were opened wide for any person, of whatever parentage, who could make any contribution in any field of achievement; that peers became business men and business men peers; that any one whose talents had made him prominent in his calling could entertain a reasonable hope of finding wealth in the favor of the 82 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION public, and a title of nobility in the appreciation of the political leaders. . . . "With every circumstance of life grdwing constantly more favorable to the self-assertion of genius and talent in the 'lower' classes in England, how was it that the contributions to eminent achievement from that group fell from an average of 11.7 per cent of the total to a pro- portion of 4.2 pOT cent ? "It seems to me that as the vast improvement in en- vironmental conditions had not only failed to produce an increase in high achievement by those whom this im- provement had done most to serve, but had, on the con- trary, taken place fori passu with a very serious decline in achievement, the cause must be sought in an influence powerful enough to offset whatever beneficent effects improved environment might actually exert upon a sta- tionary class during a single generation. "This influence I deem to have been that of assor- tative mating. Its operation appears to have been of a dual character. On the one hand, the effect in heredity of intelHgence mating with intelligence, of stupidity with stupidity, of success with success — ^to put the matter roughly — ^has been to perpetuate and to increase these traits in the respective groups. On the other hand, the practical social consequences of these effects being pro- duced under conditions of an ever-broadening democ- ratization of social Ufe has been that the more intelligent and successful elements in the 'lower' classes have been constantly rising out of their class into one socially above it. This movement must have the consequence of drain- THE IRON LAW OF INEQUALITY 83 ing the 'lower' classes of talent and genius, and, through a process of social migration, of increasing the genius and talent of each succeeding upper layer in the social series."^ We thus see that, as civilization progresses, inborn superiority tends to drain out of the lower social levels up into the higher social classes. And probably never before in human history has this selective process gone on so rapidly and so thoroughly as to-day. But it may be asked: Is this not a matter for rejoic- ing? Does not this imply the eventual formation of an aristocracy of "supermen," blessing aU classes with the flowerings of its creative genius? Unfortunately, no; not as society is now constituted. On the contrary, if these tendencies continue under pres- ent social conditions, the concentration of superiority in the upper social levels will spell general racial impoverish- ment and hence a general decline of civilization. Let us remember that fatal tendency (discussed in the preced- ing chapter) to use up and exterminate racial values; to impoverish human stocks by the dual process of so- cially sterilizing superior strains and multiplying in- feriors. The history of civilization is a series of racial tragedies. Race after race has entered civilization's por- tals; entered in the pink of condition, fuU of superior strains slowly selected and accumulated by the drastic methods of primitive life. Then, one by one, these races have been insidiously drained of their best, untU, unable ' Alleyne Ireland, Democracy and the Human Equation, pp. 139-142 (New York, ig21>. 84 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION to carry on, they have sunk back into impotent medi- ocrity. The only reason why the torch of civiHzation has continued to flame high is because it has been passed on from hand to hand; because there have always been good stocks still racially protected by primitive condi- tions who could take up the task. To-day, however, this is no longer so. The local civili- zations of the past have merged into a worldrdvilization, which draws insistently on every high-type stock in exist- ence. That is why our modem civilization has made such marvellous progress — ^because it has had behind it the pooled intelligence of the planet. But let us not deceive ourselves! Behind this brave show the same fatal tendencies that have wrought such havoc in the past are still working — ^working as never before ! In the next chapter we shall consider closely these factors of racial decline. Suffice it here to state that in every civi- lized country to-day the "superior elements in the popu- lation are virtually stationary or actually declining in numbers, while the mediocre and inferior elements are rapidly increasing. Such is our racial balance-sheet. And, be it remem- bered: our civilization, vmlike its predecessors, cannot shift the bm-den to other shoulders, because there are no more untapped "racial reserves." No "noble barbari- ans" wait to step forward as in the past; the barbarians and savages who stfll remain in the world are demon- strably of inferior caliber and can contribute httle or nothing to the progress of civilization. If, then, our civilization is to survive, it must conserve THE IRON LAW OF INEQUALITY 85 and foster its own race values. Happily our civilization possesses two great advantages over past times: scientific knowledge and the scientific spirit. To us have been revealed secrets of life our forebears never knew. And to us has been vouchsafed a passion for truth such as the world has never seen. Other ages have sought truth from the Kps of seers and prophets; our age seeks it from scientific proof. Other ages have had their saints and martyrs — dauntless souls who clung to their faith with unshakable constancy. Yet our age has also its saints and martjn-s — ^heroes who can not only face death for their faith, but who can also scrap their faith when facts have proved it wrong. There, indeed, is courage ! And therein hes our hope. This matchless love of truth, this spirit of science which combines knowledge and faith in the synthesis of a higher wisdom, as yet inspires only the eUte of our time. Most of us are still more or less imder the spell of the past — the speU of passion, prejudice, and unreason. It is thus that ideas and ideals clearly disproved by science yet claim the allegiance of multitudes of worthy men. The dead hand of false doctrines and fallacious hopes lies, indeed, heavy upon us. Laws, institutions, customs, ideas, and ideals are all stamped deep with its imprint. Our very minds and souls are imbued with delusions like environmentalism and "natural equality" from whose anotional grip it is hard to escape. Mighty as is the new truth, our eyes are yet bUnded to its fuU meaning, our hearts shrink instinctively from its wilder implications, and our feet falter on the path to higher destinies. 86 THE EEVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION These reactionary forces stubbornly impede fhe prog- ress of those deep-going eugenic reforms which must speedily be undertaken if our civilization is to be saved from decKne and our race from decay. This is serious enough. But there is something more serious still. The reactionary forces which we have just described, though powerful, are, after all, essentially negative in character. With the spread of enUghtenment they would soon wither — ^if they stood alone. But they do not stand alone. Behind them, sheltered by them, lurks a positive, aggressive force: The Under-Man! The Under-Man is unconvertible. He will not bow to the new truth, because he knows that the new truth is not for him. Why should he work for a higher civilization, when even the present civilization is beyond his powers? What the Under-Man wants is, not progress, but regress — regress to more primitive conditions in which he would be at home. In fact, the more he grasps the significance of the new eugenic truth, the ugUer grows his mood. So long as all men believed all men potentially equal, the Under-Man could delude himself into thinking that changed circumstances might raise him to the top. Now that nature herself proclaims him irremediably inferior, his hatred of superiority knows no bounds. This hatred he has always instinctively felt. Envy and resentment of superiority have ever been the badges of base minds. Yet never have these badges been so fiercely flaunted, so defiantly worn, as to-day. This ex- plains the seeming paradox that, just when the character of superiority becomes supremely manifest, the cry for THE IRON LAW OF INEQUALITY 87 levelling "equality" rises supremely shrill. The Undcr- Man revolts against progress! Nature herself having decreed him uncivilizable, the Under-Man declares war on civilization. These are not pretty facts. But we had better face them, lest they face us, and catch us unawares. Let us, then, vmderstand once and for all that we have among us a rebel army — ^the vast host of the unadaptable, the incapable, the envious, the discontented, filled with in- stinctive hatred of civihzation and progress, and ready on the instant to rise in revolt. Here are foes that need watching. Let us watch them. CHAPTER III THE NEMESIS OF THE INFERIOR Racial impoverishment is the plague of civilization. This insidious disease, with its twin symptoms the ex- tirpation of superior strains and the multiplication of inferiors, has ravaged humanity Hke a consuming fire, reducing the proi:fdest societies to charred and squalid ruin. We have already examined the life process which per- petuates both superiors and inferiors according to their kind, so we can now pass to a practical consideration of inferior types. First of aJl, however, let us carefully distinguish between inferiority's two aspects: physical inferiority and mental inferiority. It is mental inferiority which is our chief concern. Physically, the human species seems equal to all demands which are likely to be made upon it. Despite civiHzation's deleteriotis aspects, and despite the combined action of modem medicine and philan- thropy in keepiag alive physically weak individuals, humanity does not appear to be threatened with general physical decay. We are heirs of a physical selection which goes back tens of milHons, perhaps himdreds of millions of years to the very origin of life, and its beneficial in- fluence is so wide-spread and deep-going that a few mil- lennia of partial escape from its workings have pro- duced only superficial effects. 88 THE NEMESIS OF THE INFERIOR 89 Far different is the caae of mental inferiority. The special traits of intelligence which distinguish man from the animals appeared only a few hundred thousand years ago, and have developed strongly only in a few human stocks. Biologically speaking, therefore, high intelli- gence is a very recent trait, which is still comparatively rare and which may be easily lost. The rarity of mental as compared with physical su- periority in the human species is seen on every hand. Existing savage and barbarian races of a demonstrably low average level of intelligence, like the negroes, are physically vigorous, in fact, possess an animal vitaUty apparently greater than that of the intellectually higher races. The same is true of intellectually decadent peoples like those about the Mediterranean, whose loss of ancient mental greatness has been accompanied by no corre- sponding physical decline. Finally, even among the most civihzed and progressive present-day populations, the great disparity between physical and mental superiority is clear. The recent American army intelligence tests are a striking example of this. Those 1,700,000 yoimg men who were examined were nearly all physically fine specimens, yet less than one out of twenty (4J^ per cent) possessed really high intelligence. From all this it is evident that mental superiority is comparatively rare, most men being mentally either mediocre or inferior. We have likewise seen how civilized Ufe has hitherto tended to make mental superiority ever rarer and to increase the proportion of mediocre and inferior elements. Indeed, down to the biological discoveries of our own 90 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION days, this was believed to be a normal, rather^lhan an abnormal, phenomenon. Our forebears considered so- ciety's withering away at the top and breeding from be- low as natural and inevitable. Take the attitude of the Romans, for example. Roman society was divided into six classes. The sixth, or lowest, social class, made up of paupers, vagabonds, and degenerates, was exempt from civic duties, military service, and the payment of taxes. But was this class debarred from having children ? Not at all. On the contrary, it was positively encouraged to do so. These dregs of the Roman populace were termed "proletarians," "producers of offspring"! In other words, a man might be iQcapable of civic duties, incapable of bearing arms, iucapable of paying taxes, but was considered not only capable but specially apt for bearing children, who were accepted as his contribution to society. Think what an attitude on racial matters this implies! No wonder Rome fell! And yet — let us not forget that this was substantially the attitude of our grandfathers, and that it is still the attitude of millions of so-called "educated" persons. Here is once more evident the dead hand of the past, perpetuating old errors and blocking the effective spread of new truths. This mingling of old and new forces is, in fact, mainly responsible for the peculiarly acute nature of our social and racial problems. Traditional influences making for racial decay are as active as ever, perhaps more so. On the other hand, many new factors like universal educar tion, high standards, preventive medicine, and birth control, all of which may become powerful agents of race THE NEMESIS OF THE INFERIOR 91 betterment, have thus far worked mainly in the direction of racial decay, by speeding up both the social steriliza- tion of superior individuals, and the preservation of in- feriors. Perhaps never before have social conditions been so "dysgenic," so destructive of racial values, as to-day. "In the earlier stages of society^ man interfered little with natural selection. But during the last centiuy the increase of the philanthropic spirit and the progress of medicine have done a great deal to interfere with the selective process. In some ways, selection in the human race has almost ceased; in many ways it is actually re- versed, that is, it results in the survival of the inferior rather than the superior. In the olden days the criminal was summarily executed, the weakly child died soon after birth through lack of proper care and medical at- tention, the insane were dealt with so violently that if they were not killed by the treatment they were at least left hopelessly 'incurable,' and had little chance of be- coming parents. Harsh measures, all of these; but they kept the germ-plasm of the race reasonably purified. "To-day, how is it? The inefficients, the wastrels, the physical, mental, and moral cripples are carefully preserved at public expense. The criminal is turned out on parole after a few years, to become the father of a family. The insane is discharged as 'cured,' again to take up the duties of citizenship. The feeble-minded diild is painfully 'educated,' often at the expense of his normal brother or sister. In short, the undesirables of the race, with whom the bloody hand of natural selection 92 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION would have made short work early in life, are now nursed along to old age." ^ And, as already stated, factors like birth control, education, and high social standards are simultaneously extirpating the superior dements at an unprecedented rate. Such is the situation. Now, what is to be done? Re- turn to the grim methods of "natural selection"? Of course not. No sensible person could possibly advocate such a thiog. It wovild not only outrage our moral sense, but it would also yield results far inferior to other methods of race betterment which science has already discovered and elaborated. That is the hopeful aspect of the situa- tion. Grave though our present plight may be, we do not have to waste precious time casting about for theo- retical solutions. Science, especially that branch of science known as "Eugenics" or "Race Betterment," shows us a way far more efficient as well as infinitely more htunane than the crude, wasteful methods of natural selection, which, while killing out most of the bad, took many of the good at the same time. Science, there- fore, offers us a way of escape from impending perils, not by a return to natural selection, but by way of an improved social selection based upon natural law instead of, as hitherto, upon ignorance and haphazard. Detailed discussion of the eugenic programme will be deferred till the concluding chapter of this book. At present, let us continue om survey of human inferiority, in order better to appreciate how imperative the speedy application of eugenic measures to society has come to be. ' Fopenoe and Johnson, pp. 148-149. THE NEMESIS OF THE INFERIOR 93 Inferiority is most plainly manifest in what are known as the "defective classes" — ^the feeble-minded, the in- sane, and certain categories of the deformed and the diseased. Most of these "defectives" suffer from hered- itary defects — ^in other words, from defects which are passed on in the germ-plasm from generation to genera- tion. The "defective classes" are not really sundered by any natural line of demarcation from the rest of the population. They are merely terms used to denote those groups of persons who are so obviously afflicted that they can be classified as such. Besides these acute de- fectives, however, there are vast numbers of persons who show only sUght taints, while still others reveal no out- ward trace whatever, yet cariy the defect in their germ- plasm as a latent or "recessive" quality which may come out in their children, especially if they many persons similarly tainted. Defectiveness (or, as it is frequently termed, "de- generacy") is thus seen to be a problem as complex and far-reaching as it is serious. Defective persons are more or less imfit for holding useful places in the social order and tend to sink into the social depths, where they form those pauper, vagabond, and criminal elements which are alike the biu-den and the menace of society. Few persons who have not studied the problem of degeneracy have any idea how serious it is. Let us conader these "de- fective classes." First of all, the feeble-minded. Feeble-mlndedness is a condition characterized by such traits as dull intel- ligence, low moral sense, lack of self-control, shiftlessness, 94 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION • improvidence, etc. It is highly hereditary, and unfor- tunately it is frequently associated with great physical strength and vitality, so that feeble-minded persons usually breed rapidly, with no regard fof consequences. In former times the numbers of the feeble-minded were kept down by the stem processes of natural selection, but modem charity and philanthropy have protected them and have thus favored their rapid multiplication. The feeble-minded are becoming an increasingly serious problem in every civiHzed country to-day. The number of obviously feeble-minded persons in the United States is estimated to be at least 300,000. During the last few decades, to be sm-e, many of the worst cases have been segregated in institutions, where they are of course kept from breeding; but even to-day the number of the segre- gated is only about 10 or 15 per cent of those who should clearly be under institutional care — ^the balance, mean- while, causing endless trouble for both the present and future generations. The rapidity with which feeble-minded stocks spread, and the damage they do, are vividly illustrated by nu- merous scientiiic studies which have been compiled. Both in Europe and America these studies tell the same stoiy: feeble-minded individuals segregating in "clans," spread- ing like cancerous growths, disturbing the social life and infecting the blood of whole communities, and thriving on misguided efforts to "better their condition," by charity and other forms of "social service."^ > Summaries of several of the best-known of these studies may be found in Holmes, pp. 27-^; Popenoe and Johnson, pp. 159-161. THE NEMESIS OF THE INFERIOR 95 A typical case is that of the "Juke Family," which was first investigated in the year 1877, and re-investi- gated in 1915. To quote from the original study: "From one lazy vagabond nicknamed 'Juke,' bom in rural New York in 1720, whose two sons married five degen- erate sisters, six generations numbering about 1,200 per- sons of every grade of idleness, viciousness, lewdness, pauperism, disease, idiocy, insanity, and criminality were traced. Of the total seven generations, 300 died in infancy; 310 were professional paupers, kept in alms- houses a total of 2,300 years; 440 were physically wrecked by their own 'diseased wickedness'; more than half the women fell into prostitution; 130 were convicted criminals; 60 were thieves; 7 were murderers; only 20 learned a trade, 10 of these in state prison, and all at a state cost of over $1,250,000." ^ By the year 1915, the clan had reached its ninth generation, and had greatly lengthened its evil record. It then numbered 2,820 in- dividuals, half of whom were aUve. About the year 1880 the Jukes had left their original home and had scattered widely over the country, but change of environment had made no material change in their natures, for they still showed "the same feeble-mindedness, indolence, licentiousness, and dishonesty, even when not handi- capped by the associations of their bad family name and despite the fact of their being surrounded by better social conditions."" The cost to the state had now risen to about $2,500,000. As the investigator remarks, aU this evil might have been averted by preventing the repro- 1 Quoted by Popenoe and Johnflon, p. 169. ^Ibid., pp. 169-160. 96 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION duction of the first Jukes. As it is, the Jukes proolem is still with us in growing severity, for in 1915, "out of ap- proximately 600 living feeble-miaded and epileptic Jukes, there are only three now in custodial care."^ A striking illustration of how superiority and degen- eracy are alike rigidly determined by heredity is afforded by the "Kallikak Family," of New Jersey." During the Revolutionary War, one Martin "KaUokak" a young soldier of good stock, had an illicit affair with a feeble- minded servant-girl, by whom he had a son. Some years later, Martin married a woman of good family by whom he had several legitimate children. Now this is what happened: Martia's legitimate children by the woman of good stock all turned out well and founded one of the most distinguished famihes in New Jersey. "In this family and its collateral branches we find nothing but good representative citizenship. There are doctors, law- yers, judges, educators, traders, landholders, in short, respectable citizens, men and women prominent in every phase of social life. They have scattered over the United States and are prominent in their communities wherever they have gone. . . . There have been no feeble-minded among them; no illegitimate children; no unmoral women; only one man was sexually loose."' In sharp contrast to this branch of the family stand the descen- d/bid. * This is, of ooiirse, not the real name of the family. It is a scientific nickname, compounded from the Greek words "good" and "bad"^— in short, "The Good-Bad Family," to characterize the strongly divergent character of its two branches. 'Hohnes, p. 31. THE NEMESIS OF THE INFERIOR 97 dants of the feeble-minded girl. Of these 480 have been traced. Their record is: 143 clearly feeble-minded, 36 illegitimate, 33 grossly immoral (mostly prostitutes), 24 confirmed alcoholics, 3 epileptics, 82 died in infancy, 3 criminals, 8 kept houses of iU fame. Here are two family lines, with the same paternal ancestor, living on the same soil, in the same atmosphere, and under the same general environment; "yet the bar sinister has marked every generation of one and has been imknown in the other." ^ Melancholy genealogies like these naight be cited al- most indefinitely. And, be it noted, they represent only direct and obvious damage. The indirect and less ob- vious damage done by feeble-mindedness, though harder to trace, is far more wide-spread and is imquestionably even more serious, as we shall presently show. Before discussing this point, however, let us consider some of the other acutely defective classes. The insane, though differing in character from the feeble-minded, present an even graver problem in many respects. Insanity is, of course, a term embracing all sorts of abnormal mental states, some of which are transient, while others, though incurable, are not in- heritable, and, therefore, have no racial significance. But many forms of insanity are clearly hereditary ,2 and the harm done by these tmsound strains, spreading through the race and tainting sound stocks, is simply incalculable. ' Popenoe and Johnson, p. 160. ^For a discussion of the forms of insanity, see Hoki]>es, pp. 27-72; Popenoe and Johnson, pp. 157-160; 176-183. 98 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION Unlike feeble-mindedness, insanity is often associated with very superior qualities,^ which may render the af- flicted individuals an acute menace to society. The feeble-minded never overturned a state. An essentially negative element, they may drag a civilization down toward sodden degeneracy, but they have not the wit to disrupt it. The insane, on the other hand, are apt to be intensely dynamic and to misuse their powers for de- structive ends. We shall presently see how many apostles of anarchic violence and furious discontent have been persons of ill-balanced mind. Such persons are, of coTirse, rarely "insane" in the technical sense of being clearly "committable" to an asylum. They represent merely one aspect of that vast "outer fringe" of mental im- soundness which is scattered so widely through the gen- eral population. But even the acute "asylima cases" are lamentably numerous. In the United States, for example, the asylum population numbers over 200,000, and it is well known that besides those actually in insti- tutions there are multitudes of equally afflicted persons in private custody or even at large. Another class of pronounced defectives are the epi- leptics. Epilepsy^ is clearly hereditary, being probably >- An extraordinary idea used to be widely held that genius was a form of insanity. Careful scientific investigatioQ has dearly disproyed this notion. For one thing, elaborate statistical studies of eminent persons have shown them to be leas liable to insanity than is the general popula- tion. Of course, a considerable number of eminent men can be listed who unquestionably suffered from various neuropatibic traits. But it was not those traits that made them eminent; on the contrary, these were hand- icaps. Somewhere back in their ancestry a taint was introduced into a sound, superior strain, and produced this disharmonic combination of qualities. THE NEMESIS GF THE INFERIOR 99 due, like feeble-mindedness and hereditary insanity^ to some factor in the germ-plasm which causes abnormal development. Like insanity, it is often associated with superior mental qualities, but it is even more often asso- ciated with feeble-miadedness, and its victims tend to be dangerously antisocial, epilepsy being frequently con- nected with the worst crimes of violence. The spreading of epileptic strains among sound stocks is unquestionably disastrous, causing grave social dangers and lamentable racial losses. Besides these outstanding causes of degeneracy there are some other forms of defect which, though individually not so serious, represent in the aggregate a distinct bur- den to society and drain upon the race. Among these may be classed congenital deafness and blindness, some types of deformity, and certain crippling diseases like Huntington's chorea. All such defects, being hereditary, inflict repeated damage froria gener^ition to generation, and tend to spread into sotmd stocks. So ends our melancholy survey of the "defective classes." In every civilized country their aggregate num- bers are enormous, and, under present social conditions, they are rapidly increasiag. In the United States, for example, the total number of the patently feeble-minded, insane, and epileptic is estimated to be fully 1,000,000. And, as already stated, even this alarming total repre- sents merely those persons suffering from the more ex- treme forms of taints which extend broadcast through the general population. The extent of such contamina- tion is revealed by several estimates made independently 100 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION by competent investigators who all consider mat over 30 per cent of the entire population of the United States carries some form of mental defect.^ In great part, to be sure, defect is latent in the germ-plasm and does the bearers no harm. Yet the taints are there, and are apt to come out in their children, especially if they marry persons carrying a similar defect in their inheritance. And, even if we exclude from consideration all purely latent defects, the problem presented by those actually, suffering from less acute forms of defect than those pre- viously described is one of almost incalculable gravity for both society and the race. There can be no question that ineflacienoy, stupidity, pauperism, crime, and other forms of antisocial conduct are largely (perhaps mainly) due to inborn degeneracy. The careful scientific inves- tigations conducted in many countries on paupers, tramps, criminals, prostitutes, chronic inebriates, drug fiends, etc., have all revealed a high percentage of mental defect.* When to these out-and-out social failures we add the numberless semi-failures, grading all the way from the "imemployable" casual laborer to the "erratic genius" wasting or perverting his talents, we begin to reaKze the truly terrible action of inherited degeneracy, working generation after generation, tainting and spoil- * Such ia the opmion of some of the membeis of the Eugeniss Record Office, the leading American scientific investigation centre on these prob- lems. The well-known psyehiatrists RosandS and Orr believe that over 31 per cent of apparently normal people are carriers of ikeuropatbic de- fect. ' For simunaxies of several of these investigations, both Am»io«a and European, see Popenoe and Johnson, pp. 157-160; 176-183; Holmes, pp. 73-«7. THE NEMESIS OF THE INFERIOR 101 ing good stocks, imposing heavier social burdens, and threatening the future of civilization. For degeneracy does threaten civilization. The pres- ence of vast hordes of congenital inferiors — ^incapable, imadaptable, discontented, and unruly — ^menaces the social order with both dissolution and disruption. The biologist Humphrey well describes the perils of the situation. "So," he writes, "the army of the poorly endowed grows in every civilized land, by addition as new incompetency is revealed, and by its own rapid multi- plication; and to this level the human precipitate frqm every degenerative influence in civiUzation eventually settles. It is a menace already of huge proportions, but we succeed well in America in covering the extent and rapidity of its growth with soothing drafts of charity. And most of us rather like to remain blind to the increas- ing proportion of poor hmnan material. Human interest centres upon vigor, strength, achievement. Its back is toward those who fail to achieve — ^until, perhaps, their sheer force of numbers brings them into unpleasant view. "As one reviews the latter days of the Roman Empire and reads of the many devices in the way of pubhc enter- tainments for amusing and controlling the hordes of the unsocial who had accumulated most grievously, the ques- tion arises: How soon wiU we arrive at the time when ova unsocial masses shall have become imwieldy? One thing is certain: our more humanitarian methods are bringing the fateful day upon us at a more rapid rate. And our boasted Americanism is not a cure for mental incompetency. The police blotters of our cities will show 102 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION that the mobs which spring up from nowhere at tne sHght- est let-up in police control are mostly American-bom, with scarcely an illiterate among them; yet they revert to the sway of their animal instincts quite as spon- taneously as benighted Russians. "It is foUy to keep up the delusion that more democ- racy and more education will make over these ill-bom into good citizens. Democracy was never intended for degenerates, and a nation breeding freely of the sort that must continually be repressed is not headed toward an extension of democratic liberties. Rather, it is incAdtable that class lines shall harden as a protection against the growing numbers of the underbred, just as in all previous cultures. However remote a cataclysm may be, our present racial trend is toward social chaos or a dictator- ship. "Meanwhile, we invite social turmoil by advancing muddled notions of equality. Democracy, as we loosely idealize it nowadays, is an overdrawn picture of earthly bHss; it stirs the little-brained to hope for an impossible levelling of human beings. The most we can honestly expect to achieve is a fair levelling of opportunity; but every step toward that end brings out more distinctly those basic inequaUties of inheritance which no environ- mental effort can improve. So discontent is loudest in those least capable of grasping opportunity when it is offered." i In this connection we must never forget that it is the "high-grade" defectives who are most dangerous to > Humphrey, pp. 77-80. THE NEMESIS OF THE INFERIOR 103 the social order. It is the "near-genius," the man with the fatal taint which perverts his talents, who oftenest rouses and leads the mob. The levelling social revolu- tionary doctrines of our own day, like Syndicahsm, An- archism, and Bolshevism, superficially alluring yet basic- ally false and destructive, are essentially the product of unsoimd thinking — by unsound brains. The sociologist Nordau ably analyzes the enormous harm done by such persons and doctrines, not only by rousing the degenerate elements, but also by leading astray vast numbers of average people, biologically normal enough yet with in- teUigence not high enough to protect them against clever fallacies clothed in fervid emotional appeals. Says Nordau: "Besides the extreme forms of de- generacy there are milder forms, more or less inconspic- uous, not to be diagnosed at a first glance. These, however, are the most dangerous for the community, because their destructive influence only gradually makes itself felt; we are not on our guard against it; indeed, in many cases, we do not recognize it as ihe real cause of the evils it conjures up — evils whose serious importance no one can doubt. "A mattoid or half-fool, who is full of organic feeUngs of dislike, generalizes his subjective state into a system of pessimism, of 'Weltechmertz' — weariness of life. An- other, in whom a loveless egoism dominates all thought and feeling, so that the whole exterior world seems to him hostile, organizes his antisocial instincts into the theory of anarchism. A third, who suffers from moral insensibility, so that no bond of sympathy links him 104 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION with his fellow man or with any Uving thing, and who is obsessed by vanity amounting to megalomania, preaches a doctrine of the Superman, who is to know no consideration and no compassion, be bound by no moral principle, but 'Uve his own life' without regard for others. When these half-fools, as often happens, speak an excited language — when their imagination, un- bridled by logic or understanding, supplies them with odd, startling fancies and surprising associations and images — ^their writings make a strong impression on im- wary readers, and readily gain a decisive influence on thought in the cultivated circles of their time. "Of course, well-balanced persons are not thereby changed into practising disciples of these morbid cults. But the preachings of these mattoids are favorable to the development of similar dispositions in others; serve to polarize, in their own sense, tendencies of hitherto un- certain drift, and give thousands the courage openly, impudently, boastfully, to confess and act in accordance with convictions which, but for these theorists with their noise and the flash of their tinsel language, they would have felt to be absurd or infamous, which they would have concealed with shame; which in any case would have remained monsters known only to themselves and imprisoned in the lowest depths of their consciousness. "So, through the influence of the teachings of d^en- erate half-fools, conditions arise which do not, like the cases of insanity and crime, admit of expression in figiires, but can nevertheless in the end be defined through their political and social effects. We gradually observe a THE NEMESIS OF THE INFERIOR 105 general loosening of morality, a disappearance of logic from thought and action, a morbid irritability and vacil- lation of public opinion, a relaxation of character. Offenses are treated with a frivolous or sentimental in- dxilgence which encourages rascals of all kinds. People lose the power of moral indignation, and accustom them- selves to despise it as something banal, imadvanced, inelegant, and uninteUigent. Deeds that would formerly have disqualified a man forever from public life are no longer an obstacle in his career, so that suspicious and tainted personaUties find it possible to rise to respon- sible positions, sometimes to the control of national busi- ness. Sovind common sense becomes more rarely and less worthily appreciated, more and more meanly rated. Nobody is shocked by the most absurd proposals, mea- sures and fashions, and folly rules in legislation, adminis- tration, domestic and foreign politics. Every demagogue finds a following, every fool collects adherents, every event makes an impression beyond all measure, kindles ridiculous enthusiasm, spreads morbid consternation, leads to violent manifestations in one sense or the other and to official proceedings that are at least useless, often deplorable and dangerous. Everybody harps upon his 'rights' and rebels against every limitation of his arbi- trary desires by law or custom. Everybody tries to escape from the compulsion of discipline and to shake off the burden of duty." ^ Such is the destructive action of degeneracy, spreading 'Max Nordau, "The Degeneration of Classes and Peoples," HMert Journal, July, 1912. 106 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION like a cancerous blight and threatening to corrodf' society to the veiy marrow of its being. Against these assaults of inferiority; against the cleverly led legions of the de- generate and the backward; where can civilization look for its champions? Where but in the slender ranks of the racially superior— those "A" and "B" stocks which, in America for example, we know to-day constitute barely 13}4 per cent of the population ? It is this " thin red line " of rich, tmtainted blood which stands between us and barbarism or chaos. There alone hes our hope. Let us not deceive ourselves by prating about "government," "education," "democracy": our laws, our constitutions, our very sacred books, are in the last analysis mere paper barriers, which will hold only so long as there stand be- hind them men and women with the intelligence to under- stand and the character to maintain them. Yet this hfe-hne of civilization is not only thin but is wearing thinner with a rapidity which appalls those fully aware of the facts. We have already stated that prob- ably never before in human history have social conditions been so destructive of racial values as to-day, because of both the elimination of superior stocks and the multi- pUcation of inferiors. One dangerous fallacy we must get out of our heads: the fallacy of judging hmnan populations by what we see among wild varieties of plants and animals. Among these latter we observe a marked stabiUty of type, and we are apt to conclude that, for man as for other life forms, "evolution is a slow process" in which a few gen- erations count for little, and therefore that we need not THE NEMESIS OF THE INFERIOR 107 worry overmuch about measures of race betterment be- cause we have "plenty of time." A perilous delusion, this! and a further indication of our unsound thinking and superficial knowledge of the laws of Ufe. A trifle more intelligent reflection would show us the profound unlikeness of the two cases. Ani- mals and plants (where not "domesticated" by man) live in the "state of nature," where they are subjected to the practically imvarying action of "natural selec- tion." Their germ-plasm varies in quality just like hu- man germ-plasm (as skilful breeders like Luther Burbank have conclusively proved) ; but with them natural selec- tion eliminates all but a narrow range of characteristics which keeps the breed at a fixed level; whereas civilized man, living largely under self-made conditions, replaces natural selection by various social selections which pro- duce the most profoimd — and rapid modifications. There is a poiat which we must keep in mind: the rapidity with which the qualities of a species can be altered by a change in the character of biological selec- tion. It is UteraUy amazing to observe how mankind has for ages been wasting its best efforts in the vain attempt to change existing individuals, instead of changing the race by determining vMdi existing individuals should, and should not, produce the next generation. Of course, racial changes by means of social selection have not waited for man to discover them; they have been going on from time immemorial. The trouble is that, instead of lifting humanity to the heights, as they might have done if intelligently directed, they have been 108 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION working haphazard and have usually wrought decadence and ruin. The startling rapidity with which a particular |Stock may be either bred into, or out of, a given population can be accurately determined by discovering its rkte of increase compared to that of the rest of the population. And the ultimate factor in this rate of increase is what is known as the "diEferential birth-rate." It has long been known that populations breeding freely tend to in- crease extremely fast. But what is true of a population as a whole applies equally to any of its constituent ele- ments. Thus, in any given population, those elements which reproduce themselves the fastest will dominate the average character of the nation — and will do so at an ever^ncreasing rate. Let us take a rather moderate ex- ample of a differential birth-rate to show how differences barely noticeable from year to year may in a few genera- tions entirely transform the racial scene. Take two stocks each consisting of 1,000 individuals, the one jiist failing to reproduce itself while the other increases at, say, the rate of the general English population — ^by no means an extreme level of fecundity. At the end of a year the first stock will have become 996, at the end of a century it will have declined to 687, while after two centuries it will number only 472. On the other hand, the second stock will after a year number 1,013, in a century 3,600, and in two centuries about 13,000. In other words, at the end of a hundred years (from three to four genera- tions) the more prolific stock would outnumber the less prolific by 6 to 1, and in two centuries by 30 to 1. As- THE NEMESIS OF THE INFERIOR 109 suming that the decreasing stock possessed marked abil- ity while the prolific stock was mediocre or inferior, the impoverishment of the race and the setback to civiliza- tion can be estimated. Now the example above offered has been purposely simplified by combining other factors like differential death and marriage rates which should be separately considered in estimating the relative rates of increase between different groups or stocks. But it does give a fairly accurate idea of the present average difference in net fecundity between the very superior and the mediocre elements in the leading nations of the civilized world, while it greatly understates the fectmdity of the distinctly inferior elements. The alarming truth is that in almost all civilized countries the birth-rate of the superior ele- ments has been declining rapidly for the past half cen- tury, until to-day, despite a greatly lowered death-rate, they are either stationary or actually decreasing in num- bers; whereas the other elements are increasing at rates proportionate to their mediocrity and inferiority. These facts have been conclusively proved by a multitude of scientific researches conducted throughout Europe and in the United States.^ We can accurately determine the point at which a group should just reproduce itself by discovering its death and marriage rates and then estimating the average number of children that should be bom to those persons 1 For many of these reseaxches, including reproductions of statistical tables and other data, see Holmes, pp. 118-180, 231-234; Popenoe and Johnson, pp. 136-146, 256-272; Whetham, pp. 59-73; McDougall, pp. 154r-168. no THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION who many. TaJdng the civilized world as a whole, it has been found that about four children should be bom per marriage if a stock is to reproduce itself. In a few countries like Australia and New Zealand, and in certain high-grade groups, where the death-rates are very low, an average of three children per marriage may be enough to reproduce the stock, but that seems to be about the absolute minimum of fecundity which will ever suffice. Now bearing in mind these reproductive minima, what do we actually find ? We find that in Europe (excluding the more backward countries) the superior elements of the population average from two to foiu* chOdren per marriage; that the mediocre elements average from four to six children per marriage; that the inferior elements, considered as a whole, average from six to seven and one- half children per marriage; while the most inferior ele- ments like casual laborers, paupers, and feeble-minded defectives, considered separately, average about seven to eight children (illegitimate births of course included). The differential birth-rates in the different quarters of the great European cities are typical. Some years before the late war, the French sociologist Bertillon foimd that in Paris and BerUn the births in the slum quarters were more than three times as numerous as the births in the best residential sections, while in London and Vienna they were about two and one-half times as numerous. In the United States conditions are no better than in Europe — ^in some respects they seem to be rather worse. Outside of the South and parts of the West the old native American stock is not reproducing itself, the birth-rates THE NEMESIS OF THE INFERIOR 111 of immigrant stocks from northern and western Europe are rapidly falling, while the birth-rates among the im- migrant stocks from southern and eastern Europe remain high and show comparatively slight diminution. The^ American intellectual groups are much less fertile than similar European groups. The average number of chil- dren per married graduate of the leading American col- leges like Harvard and Yale is about two, while among the leading women's colleges it is about one and one-half. Furthermore, the marriage-rates of college men and women are so low that, considering married and single graduates together, the statistical average is about one and one-half children per college man and something less than three-fourths of a child per college woman. Pro- fessor Cattell has investigated the size of famihes of 440 American men of science, choosing only those cases in which the ages of the parents indicated that the family was completed. Despite a very low death-rate, the birth- rate was so much lower that, as he himself remarks, "it is obvious that the families are not self-perpetuating. The scientific men tmder fifty, of whom there are 261 with completed families, have on the average 1.88 chil- dren, about 12 per cent of whom die before the age of marriage. What proportion will marry we do not know; but only about 75 per cent of Harvard and Yale graduates mariy; only 50 per cent of the graduates of colleges for women.many. A scientific man has on the average about seven-tenths of an adult son. If three-fourths of his sons and grandsons many, and their families continue to be of the same size, 1,000 scientific men will leave about 112 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION 350 grandsons to marry and transmit their nAies and their hereditary traits. The extermination will be still more rapid in female lines." In sharp contrast to these figures, note the high birth- rates in the tenement districts of America's great cities. In New York, for example, the birth-rate on the East Side is over four times the birth-rate in the smart residential districts. Commenting on similar conditions in Pittsburgh, where the birth-rate in the poorest ward is three times that of the best residential ward, Messrs. Popenoe and Johnson remark: "The significance of such figures in natural selection must be evident. Pittsburgh, like probably all large cities in civilized countries, breeds from the bottom. The lower a class is in the scale of in- telHgence, the greater is its reproductive contribution. Recalling that intelligence is inherited, that like begets like in this respect, one can hardly feel encouraged over the quality of the population of Pittsburgh a few genera^ tions hence." ^ Furthermore, it must not be forgotten that such dif- ferential birth-rates imply for America problems more complex even than those in Europe; because, whereas in Europe they involve mainly shifts in group-intelligence, in America they mean also changes of race with all that that impUes in modifications of fundamental national temperaments, ideals, and institutions. And that is precisely what is taking place in many parts of America to-day. New England, for example, once the prolific nursery of the ambitious, inteUigent "Yankee stock," • Popenoe and Johnson, p. 13&. THE NEMESIS OF THE INFERIOR 113 which trekked forth in millions to settle the West, is fast ceasing to be Anglo-Saxon country. In Massachusetts the birth-rate of foreign-bom women is two and one-haK times as high as the birth-rate among the native-bom; in New Hampshire two times; in Rhode Island one and one-half times — ^the most prolific of the ahen stocks being Poles, Polish and Russian Jews, South Itahans, and French-Canadians. What this may mean after a few generations is indicated by a calculation made by the biologist Davenport, who stated that, at present rates of reproduction, 1,000 Harvard graduates of to-day would have only fifty descendants two centuries hence, whereas 1,000 Rumanians to-day in Boston, at their present rate of breeding, would have 100,000 descendants in the same space of time. To retum to the more general aspect of the problem, it is clear that both in Europe and America the quahty of the population is deteriorating, the more intelligent and talented strains being relatively or absolutely on the • decline. Now this can mean nothing less than a deadly menace both to civiUzation and the race. Let us consider how the psychological experts who formulated the Amer- ican army intelligence tests characterized the upper in- telligence grades. "A" men were described as possessed of "the abiUty to make a superior record in college"; "B" men "capable of making an average record in col- lege"; "C" men "rarely capable of finishing a high- school course," and, on the basis of the army ratings, nearly 75 per cent of the whole population of tiie United States is to-day below the C H- levdl ! 114 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION Since the American population (with the exception of its south and east European immigrant stocks and its negroes) probably averages about as high in intelligence as do the north European peoples, it is not difficult to foresee that if intelligence continues to be bred out of the race at its present rate, civilization will either slump or crash from sheer lack of brains. The fatal effects of a brain famine are well described by Professor McDougaU in the following lines: "The civilization of America depends on your con- tinuing to produce A and B men in fair numbers. And at present the A men are 4 per cent, the B men 9 per cent, and you are breeding from the lower part of the curve. The A men and B men, the college-bred, do not maintain their nmnbers, while the population swells enormously. If this goes on for a few generations, will not the A men, and even the B men, become rare as white elephants, dropping to a mere fraction of 1 per cent? It is only too probable. "The present tendency seems to be for the whole curve to shift toward the wrong end with each successive gen- eration. And this is probably true of moral qualities, as well as of intellectual stature. If the time should come when your A and B men together are no more than 1 per cent, or a mere fraction of 1 per cent, of the popula- tion — ^what will become of your civilization? "Let me state the case more concretely, in relation to one of the great essential professions of whidh I have some inside knowledge; namely, the medical profession. Two himdred or one himdred years ago, the knowledge THE NEMESIS OF THE INFERIOR 115 to be acquired by the medical student, before entering upon the practice of his profession, was a comparatively small body of empirical rules. The advance of civiliza^ tion has enormously multiplied this knowledge, and the very existence of our civilized communities depends upon the continued and effective application of this vast body of medical art and science. The acquiring and the ju- dicious application of this mass of knowledge makes very much greater demands upon the would-be practitioner than did the mastery of the body of rules of our fore- fathers. Accordingly, the length of the curriculum pre- scribed for our medical students has constantly to be drawn out, till now its duration is some six years of post- graduate study. "The students who enter upon this long and severe course of study are already a selected body; they have passed through high school and college successfully. We may fairly assume that the great majority of them be- long to the .4. or B or at least the C + group in the army scale of intelligence. "What proportion of them, do you suppose, prove capable of assimilating the vast body of medical knowl- edge to the point that renders them capable of applying it intelligently and effectively? If I may venture to generaUze from my own experience, I would say that a very considerable proportion, even of those who pass their examinations, fail to achieve such effective assimi- lation. The bulk of modem medical knowledge is too vast for their capacity of assimilation, its complexity too great for their power of understanding. Yet medical 116 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION science continues to grow in bulk and complicity, and the dependence of the community upon it becomes ever more intimate. "In this one profession, then, which makes such great and increasing demands on both the intellectual and the moral qualities of its members, the demand for A and B men steadily increases; and the supply in all prob- ability is steadily diminishing with each generation. "And what is taking place in this one profession is, it would seem, taking place in aU the great professions and higher callings. Our civihzation, by reason of its increasing complexity, is making constantly increasing demands upon the qualities of its bearers; the qualities of those bearers are diminishing or deteriorating, rather than improving."^ The larger aspects of the problem are ably stated by Whetham, who writes: "When we come to consider the birth-rate as at present affecting our social structure, we find that it is highest in those sections of the community which, like the feeble-minded and the insane, are devoid of intelligent personality, or, like many of the imemployed and casual laborers, seem to be either without ideals or without any method of expressing them. In all the social groups which have hitherto been distinguished for co- herence, for industry, for good mental and physical ca^ pacity, for power of organization and administration, the birth-rate has fallen below the figures necessary to main- tain the national store of these quahties. Great men are scarce; the group personality is becoming indistinct and 1 MeDougall, pp. 163-168. THE NEMESIS OF THE INFERIOR 117 the personality of the race, by which success was attained in the past, is therefore on the wane, while the forces of chaos are once more being manufactured in our midst ready to break loose and destroy civilization when the higher tj^es are no longer sufficient in numbers and ef- fectiveness to guide, control or subdue them." ^ The imprecedented rapidity of our racial impoveridi- ment seems due, as already stated, to many causes, some old and others new. We have seen that the stressful complexity of high civilizations has always tended to eliminate superior stocks by diverting their energy from racial ends to individual or social ends, the effects show- ing in an increase of celibacy, late marriage, and few children. Most of the phenomena underlying these racially destructive phenomena can be grouped under two heads: the high cost of living and the cost of high living. Behind those two general phrases stand a multi- tude of special factors, such as rising prices, higher stand- ards, desire for luxury, social emulation, inefficient gov- ernment, high taxation, and 0ast but not least) the pres- sure of ever-multiplying masses of low-grade, incompetent humanity, acting like sand in the social gears and con- suming an ever-larger portion of the national wealth and eneigy for their charitable relief, doctoring, educat- ing, policing, etc. Now all these varied factors, whatever their nature, have this in common: they tend to make children more and more of a burden for the superior individual, however necessary such children may be for civilization and the » Whetham, p. 72. 118 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION race. The fact is that, under present conditions, com- paratively few people of the right sort can afford to raise large faimhes of well-bom, well-cared-for, and well-edu- cated children. This is the basic reason for that sharp drop in the birth-rates of the upper and middle classes of all civilized lands which has occurred during the past haK century. Of course, the drop has been hastened by the simultaneous discovery of various methods for pre- venting conception which are collectively termed "birth- control." However, it was not so much the new methods as the insistent economic and social presstu"e to employ them which accounts for the rapidity in the fecundal decline. Under the conditions of modem life a pro- nounced decline ia the birth-rate was inevitable. To cite only one of several reasons, the progress of medical science had greatly reduced the death-rate and had thus made possible an enormous net increase of population. To have maintained an imchecked birth-rate would have meant for the Westem nations congested masses of hu- manity like those of Asia, dwelling on a low level of poverty. To escape this fate, the more intelHgent and far-sighted elements in every civiUzed land began quickly to avail themselves of the new contraceptive methods and to limit the size of their families in this manner. That raised a great pubhc outcry (largely on religious grounds), and in most countries^ the imparting of contraceptive knowl- ' In a few enlightened communities, notably Australia, Holland, and New Zealand, contraceptive methods were welcomed and birth-control knowledge is freely imparted to all classes. The social and racial results have been excellent, particularly in minimizing differential birth-rates and thus averting sudden group shifts in the population. THE NEMESIS OF THE INFERIOR 119 edge was legally prohibited. Such action was extremely stupid — and very disastrous. To far-sighted communi-, ties it should have been evident that with the appearance of new social factors Uke lowered death-rates, higher liv- ing costs, and rising standards, a lower birth-rate was simply inevitable; that civilized peoples could not, and would not, go on breeding like animals, as they had done in the old days of cheap living and low standards, when a high birth-rate was offset by the unchecked ravages of death. But, a reduced birth-rate being iaevitable, the only questions which remained were: How, and by whom, should it b6 reduced? Should it be by the traditional methods of ceUbacy (tempered by illicit sex-relations and prostitution), deferred marriage, infanticide, and abor- tion;^ or should it be by the new contraceptive methods? Again: Should aU sections of the population lower their birth-rates,' or should only the more intelligent classes? Unfortimately for the race, it was the latter alternative which prevailed. Instead of spreading contraceptive knowledge among the masses and thus mitigating as far as possible the evils of a racially destructive dififeren- tial birth-rate, society succeeded in keeping the masses in ignorance and high fecundity, whereas it emphatically did not. succeed in keeping contraceptive knowledge from the more intelligent, who increasingly practised birth- ' Abortion mus!t be carefully distinguished from prevention of concep- tion. Methods of preventing conception are recent discoveries; abor- tion has been practised since very ancient times. Some of the most primi- tive surviving peoples, likeithe Austr:alian blacks and the South African jbushmen, are highly ^dUed in procuring abortions. 120 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION control — and diminished their contributions to the popu- lation. Here, then, was a great potential instrument of race betterment perverted into an agent of race decadence. With blind insistence upon mere numbers and an utter disregard of quality, society deliberately fostered the in- ferior elements at the expense of the superiors. The re- sults are such as we have already examined in our study of the differential birth-rates of to-day. So ends our survey of the general factors of race im- poverishment. Before closing, however, we must note one special factor of the most melancholy significance — the Great War. The Great War was imquestionably the most appaUing catastrophe that ever befell mankind. The racial losses were certainly as grave as the material losses. Not only did the war itself destroy immeasurable racial values, but its aftermath is proving only slightly less tmfavorable to the race. Bad social conditions and the frightfully high cost of living continue to depress the birth-rates of all save the most reckless and improvident elements, whose increase is a curse rather than a blessing. To consider only one of the many causes that to-day keep down the birth-rate of the superior elements of the population, take the crushing burden of taxation through- out Europe, whidi hits especially the increase of the upper and middle classes. The London Saturday Review ex- plained this very clearly when it wrote editorially : " From a man with £2,000 a year the tax-gatherer takes £600. The remaining £1,400, owing to the decreased value of money, has a purchasing power about equal to £700 a THE NEMESIS OF THE INFERIOR 121 year before the war. No young man will, therefore, think of marrying on lees than £2,000 a year. We are thinking of the young man in the upper and middle classes. The man who starts with nothing does not, as a rule, arrive at £2,000 a year until he is past the mariying age. So the continuance of the species will be carried on almost exclusively by the class of manual workers of a low aver- age cahber of brain." In similar vein the London Times describes in the fol- lowing words what it terms "The Death of the Middle Classes": "The fact is, that with the present cost of living, the present taxation, the present price of houses, a 'family,' as that term used to be understood, is impos- sible. It means, not discomfort, but privation, with con- sequent deterioration of health. It is, therefore, far better to bring up one healthy child and afford it a reasonable education than to attempt to bring up three children on insufficient food and without the»,hope of being able to afford them a training for their life's work. But the mis- chief does not stop there by any means. It is common knowledge that marriages, especially middle-class mar- riages, are being postponed at present on account of hous- ing and food difficulties, and there can be no doubt that many men are avoiding marriage altogether because of the severe financial strain which it imposes. The world is in a gay mood; the attractions of domestic life on a salary barely enough for two are not conspicuous. As a bachelor, a man may indulge his tastes, preserve his free- dom of action, and can afford to amuse himself with his friends. He shrinks from the alternative of stem hard 122 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION work, frugal living, a nm'm'TnnTn of pleasure, anu a maxi- mum of anxiety." Although the war did not hit America as hard as it did Europe, its racially evil effects are evident here also. A recent editorial of the New York Times well describes not merely some of the effects of war, but likewise some of the results of that short-sighted philanthropy which penalizes the thrifty and the self-respecting elements to coddle the charity-seeking and the improvident. Says this editorial: "Health Commissioner Copeland's state- ment that the birth-rate of native Americans is declining in comparison with that of the foreign element in our population contains nothing new, except it be his remark that the decline has been accelerated by the war. That such a result was inevitable has long been evident. A vast preponderance of the foreign element are wage- earners, whose incomes rose doggedly, step by step, with the cost of living. Natives of native parentage are pre- ponderantly brain workers, whose salaries remained much what they had been. The result was a sharp lowering of their standard of living, which could only have checked their already low birth-rate. During the war the Com- missioner of Charities, Bird S. Coler, reported that, for the first time in the history of his commission, educated people who had hitherto been self-sustaining and self- respecting members of the middle class brought him their children, saying that they could no longer provide food and clothing. "Doctor Copeland's statistics of infant mortality tell a similar story. Among infants of native-born mothers THE NEMESIS OF THE INFERIOR 123 the rate is 90 per 1,000 — as against 79 for French mothers, 75 for Bohemian, 69 for Austro-Hungarian, 64 for Rus- sian, 58 for Swedish, and 43 for Scotch. I'his difference Doctor Copeland attributes to the fact that American mothers are less inclined to make use of the Baby Health Stations which are conducted by his department. For- eign-born mothers are 'accustomed to depend on these and other governmental agencies.' It is only under the bitterest compulsion, such as led middle-class parents to bring their children to the Commissioner of Charities, that Americans apply for public aid in their family life. Meantime, these people of native birth pay largely in taxes for the many 'governmental agencies' that aid the immigrant laborer and his family. During the war Henry Fairfield Osbom protested against this inequity on the ground that it was making life impossible for the edu- cated American, whose home is the stronghold of our national traditions. "How serious the situation has become is evident in the statistics of our population. In 1910, there were in New York 921,318 native Americans of native parentage. Of natives of foreign or mixed parentage there were 1,820,141, and of the foreign-bom 1,927,703— a total of 3,747,844, as against the 921,318 natives of native parent- age. Complete figures for 1920 are not yet available, but Doctor Copeland is authority for the statement that the proportion of those whose traditions are of foreign origin is rapidly increasing. His statement ends with an exhor- tation against birth-control, the spirit of which is ad- mirable though its logic is not clear. What he has in 124 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION mind, evidently, is not birth-control but birth-release among Americans of the older immigrations. That, as he apparently believes, is a merely moral matter, but his own statement shows that it has a deeper basis in modem economic conditions. These were doubtless emphasised by the war, but they had been operating for many dec- ades before it and continue to exercise their influence with increasing force." That is precisely it. The war, terrible as it was, merely hastened a racial impoverishment which had been long at work; wore somewhat thinner the life-line of civiliza- tion which was already wearing thin, and spurred to fiercer energy those waxing powers of barbarism and chaos which we shall now directly consider. CHAPTER IV THE LURE OF THE PRIMITIVE The revolt against civilization goes deeper than we are apt to suppose. However elaborate and persuasive may be the modem doctrines of revolt, they are merely con- scious "rationalizings" of an instinctive urge which arises from the emotional depths. One of our hard, but salu- tary, disiUusionments is the knowledge that our fathers were mistaken in their fond beUef about automatic prog- ress. We are now coming to reaUze that, besides progress, there is "regress"; that going forward is no more "natu- ral" than going backward; lastly, that both movements are secondary phenomena, depending primarily upon the character of human stocks. Now when we realize the inevitable discontent of indi- viduals or groups placed at cultural levels above their inborn capacities and their instinctive desire to revert from these uncongenial surroundings to others lower but more congenial, we can begin to appreciate the power of the atavistic forces forever seeking to disrupt advanced societies and drag them down to more primitive levels. The success of such attempts means one of those cata- clysms known as social revolution, and we have already shown how profound is the regression and how great the destruction of both social and racial values. We 126 126 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION must remember, however, that revolutions do not spring casually out of nothing. Behind the revolution itself there usually lies a long formative period during which the forces of chaos gather while the forces of order de- cline. Revolutions thus give plenty of warning of their approach — for those who have ears to hear. It is only because hitherto men have not understood revolutionary phenomena that the danger-signals have been disregarded and society has been caught imawares. The symptoms of incipient revolution can be divided into three stages: (1) Destructive criticism of the exist- ing order; (2) revolutionary theorizing and agitation; (3) revolutionary action. The second and third stages will be discussed in subsequent chapters. In the pres- ent chapter let us consider the first stage: Destructive Criticism. Strong, well-poised societies are not overthrown by revolution. Before the revolutionary onslaught can have any chance of success, the social order must first have been undermined and morally discredited. This is accomplished primarily by the process of destructive crit- icism. Destructive criticism must clearly be distinguished from constructive criticism. Between the two there is all the difference between a toxin and a tonic. Construc- tive criticism aims at remedying defects and perfecting the existing order by evolutionary methods. Destructive criticism, on the contrary, inveighs against current de- fects in a bitter, earplug, pessimistic spirit; tends to despair of the existing social order, and either asserts or implies that reform can come only through sweeping THE LURE OF THE PRIMITIVE 127 changes of a revolutionary character. Precisely what the destined goal is to be is, at the start, seldom clearly de- scribed. That task belongs to the second stage — ^the stage of revolutionary theorizing and agitation. Destruc- tive criticism, in its initial aspect, is little more than a voicing of hitherto inarticulate emotions — a preliminary crystallization of waxing dissatisfactions and discontents. Its range is much wider than is commonly supposed, for it usually assails not merely poUtical and social matters but also subjects like art and literature, even science and learning. Always there crops out the same spirit of morose pessimism and incipient revolt against things as they exist — whatever these may be. A fundamental quality of destructive criticism is its glorification of the primitive. Long before it elaborates specific revolutionary doctrines and methods, it blends with its condemnation of the present an idealization of what it conceives to have been the past. Civilization is assumed either to have begun wrong or to have taken a wrong turning at some comparatively early stage of its development. Before that vmfortunate event (the source of present ills) the world was much better. Hence, the discontented mind turns back with longing to those pris- tine halcyon days when society was sound and simple, and man happy and free. The fact that such a Golden Age never really existed is of small moment, because this glorification of the piimitive is an emotional reaction of dissatisfied natures yearning for a return to more ele- mental conditions in which they feel they would be more at home. 128 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION Such is the "Lure of the Primitive." And Us emo- tional appeal is imquestionably strong. This is well illustrated by the popularity of writers like Rousseau and Tolstoy, who have condemned civilization and preached a "return to nature." Rousseau is, in fact, the leading exponent of that wave of destructive criti- cism which swept over Eiirope in the latter half of the eighteenth century — ^the forerunner of the French Revolu- tion; while Tolstoy is one of the leading figures in the similar nineteenth-century movement that heralded the revolutionary cataclysms of to-day. In discussing Rousseau and Tolstoy we will consider not merely their teachings but also their personalities and ancestry, be- cause these latter vividly illustrate what we have already observed — that character and action are mainly deter- mined by heredity. Take first the case of Rousseau. Jean-Jacques Rous- seau is a striking example of the "tainted genius." He was bom of unsoimd stock, his father being dissipated, violent-tempered, flighty, and foolish. Jean-Jacques proved a "chip of the old block," for he was neurotic, mentally unstable, morally weak, sexually perverted, and during the latter part of his life was imdoubtedly insane. Together with all this, however, he possessed great literary talents, his style, persuasiveness, and charm captivating and convincing multitudes. He ac- cordingly exerted upon the world a profoimd — and in the main a baneful — ^influence, which is working indirectly but powerfully even to-day. Such was the champion of "noble savagery" against THE LURE OF THE PRIMITIVE 129 civilization.^ Rousseau asserted that civilization was fundamentally wrong and that the path of human sal- vation lay in a "return to nature." According to Rous- seau, primitive man was a care-free and whoUy admirable creature, hving in virtuous harmony with his fellows till corrupted by the restraints and vices of civilization — especially the vice of private property, which had poi- soned the souls of aU men and had reduced most men to ignoble servitude. It is perhaps needless to add that Rousseau was a passionate beUever in "natm-al equality," all differences between men being in his opinion due solely to the artificial conventions of civilization. If men would again be happy, free, and equal, asserted Rousseau, the way was easy: let them demolish the fabric of oivihzation, aboHsh private property, and re- turn to his communistic "state of nature." Put thus baldly, Rousseau's gospel may not soimd particularly alluring. Clothed in his own persuasive eloquence, however, it produced an enormous effect. Said Voltaire: "When I read Rousseau, I want to run about in the woods on all fours." Of course, Rousseau's teaching contains a kernel of soundness — that is true of all false doctrines, since if they were whoUy absurd they could make no converts outside of bedlam, and could thus never become dangerous to society. In Rousseau's case the grain of truth was his praise of the beauties of nature and simple Hving. Preached to the oversophisticated, artificial "high so- ' Of course, Rousseau is merely representative of a whole trend of thought and feeling. He was not a pioneer but a popularizer. 130 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION ciety" of the eighteenth centiuy, his words undoubtedly produced a refreshing effect; just as a jaded city man to- day returns invigorated from a month's "roughing it" in the wilds. The trouble was that Rousseau's grain of truth was hidden in a bushel of noxious chaff, so that people were apt to rise from a reading of Rousseau, not inspired by a sane love for simple living, fresh air, and exercise, but inoculated with a hatred for civihzation and consumed with a thirst for violent social experi- ments. The effect was about the same as though our hypothetical dty man should return from his month in the wilds imbued with the resolve to bum down his house and spend the rest of his life naked in a cave. In short: "Although Rousseau's injunction, 'Go back into the woods and become men!' may be excellent advice if interpreted as a temporary measure, 'Go back into the woods and remain there' is a counsel for anthropoid apes." * The effect of Rousseau's teaching upon revolutionary thought and action will be discussed later. Let us now turn to the more recent champion of the primitive, Tolstoy. Count Leo Tolstoy came of a distinguished but eccentric stock. His mature philosophy of life, particularly his dislike of civilization and fondness for the primitive, is clearly accounted for by his heredity. The Tolstoys seem to have been noted for a certain wild- ness of temperament, and one of the family, Feodor Ivanovich Tolstoy, was the famous "American," the "Aleute" of Griboyedoff, who was so obsessed by Rous- » N. H. Webster, World Bevolvtion, p. 2 (London and Boston, 1921). THE LURE OF THE PRIMITIVE 131 seau's teachings that he endeavored to put Rousseauism into practice, had himself tattooed like a savage, and tried to live absolutely in the "state of nature." Leo Tolstoy's life was characterized by violent extremes, ranging from furious dissipation to ascetic frugality and from complete scepticism to boimdless religious devo- tion. Athwart all these shifts, however, we may discern a growing distaste for civilized life as a morbid and un- natural complication, a will to simplify, a metaphysical urge backward toward the condition of primitive man. He repudiates culture and approves all that is simple, natural, elemental, wild. In his writings Tolstoy de- nounces cultm-e as the enemy of happiness, and one of his works, "The Cossacks," was written specifically to prove the superiority of "the life of a beast of the field." Like his ancestor the tattooed "Aleute," Leo Tolstoy early fell under the spell of Rousseau, and was later deeply influenced by Schopenhauer, the philosopher of pessimism. In his "Confessions" Tolstoy exclaims: "How often have I not envied the unlettered peasant his lack of learning. ... I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a himdred or a thousand. Instead of a milUon count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb nail. . . . Simplify, simplify, simplify! Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one, instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce other things in proportion." The celebrated Russian novelist and critic Dmitri Merezhkovski thus analyzes Tolstoy's instinctive aver- sion to civilization and love of the primitive: "If a stone 132 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION lies on top of another in a desert, that is exceUent. If the stone has been placed upon the other by the hand of man, that is not so good. But if stones have been placed upon each other and fixed there with mortar or iron, that is evil; that means construction, whether it be a castle, a barracks, a prison, a customs-house, a hospital, a slaughter-house, a church, a public build- ing, or a school. All that is buHt is bad, or at least suspect. The fisrst wild impulse which Tolstoy felt when he saw a building, or any complex whole, created by the hand of man, was to simplify, to level, to crudi, to destroy, so that no stone might be left upon the other and the place might again become wild and simple and purified from the work of man's hand. Nature is to him the pure and simple; civilisation and culture repre- sent complication and impurity. To return to nature means to expel impurity, to simplify what is complex, to destroy culture." * In analyzing Tolstoy we become aware of a biological problem transcending mere family considerations; the question of Russian folk nature comes into view. The Russian people is made up chiefly of primitive racial strains, some of which (especially the Tartars and other Asiatic nomad elements) are distinctly "wild" stocks which have always shown an instinctive hostility to civilization. Russian histoiy reveals a series of volcanic eruptions of congenital barbarism which have blown to 1 Dmitri Merezhkovski, "Toletoy and Bolshevism," Deutsche AUge- meine Zeitung, 15-16 March, 1921. Quoted from the translation in The laving Age, 7 May, 1921. THE LURE OF THE PRIMITIVE 133 fragments the thin top-dressing of ordered civilization. Viewed historically, the present Bolshevik upheaval appears largely as an instinctive reaction against the attempt to civilize Russia begun by Peter the Great and continued by his successors. Against this process of "Westernization" the Russian spirit has continually protested. These protests have arisen from all classes of Russian society. Peasant sects like the "Old Be- lievers" condemning Peter as "Anti-Christ," or, like the Skoptzi, mutilating themselves in furious fanati- cism; wild peasant revolts like those of Pugachev and Stenka Razine, reducing vast areas to blood and ashes; high-bom "Slavophiles," cursing the "Rotten West," glorifying Asia, and threatening Em-ope with a "cleans- ing blood-bath" of conquest and destruction; Bolshevik Commisars longing to engulf the whole world in a Red tide surging out of Moscow — ^the forms vary, but the underlying spirit is the same. Not by chance have Russians been foremost in all the extreme forms of revolutionary unrest: not by chance was "Nihilism" a distinctively Russian development; Bakunin, the genius of Anarchism; and Lenin, the brains of international Bolshevism. Dmitri Merezhkovski thus admits the innate wildness of the Russian soul: "We fancied that Russia was a house. No, it is merely a tent. The nomad set up his tent for a brief period, then struck it, and is off again in the steppes. The naked, level steppes are the home of the wandering Scythian. Wherever in the steppes a black point appears and grows larger in their vision, the 134 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION Scythian hordes sweep down upon it and level it to the earth. They bum and ravage until they leave the wilder- ness to resume its sway. The craving for unbroken dis- tances, for a dead level, for naked nature, for physical evenness and metaphysical imifonnity — ^the most ancient ancestral impulse of the Scythian mind — ^manifests itself equally in Arakcheyev, Bakunin, Pugachev, Razin, Lenin, and Tolstoy. They have converted Russia into a va- cant level plain. They would make all Europe the same, and the whole world the same." * Econonaists have e^ressed surprise that Bolshevism should have established itself in Russia. To the student of race history, it was a perfectly natural event. Further- more, while the late war may have hastened the catas- trophe, some such catastrophe was apparently inevitable, because for years previous to the war it was clear that the Russian social order was weakening, while the forces of chaos were gathering strength. The decade before the war saw Russia suffering from a chronic "crime wave," known collectively to Russian sociologists as "HooUganism," which seriously alarmed competent ob- servers. In the year 1912, the Russian minister of the interior, Maklakov, stated: "Crime increases here. The nuDSber of cases has grown, A partial explanation is the fact that the younger generation grew up in the years of revolt, 1905-1906. The fear of God and of laws disap- pears even in the villages. The city and rural population is equally itnenaced by the ' Hooligans.' " In the following year (1913) a leadiag St. Petersburg newspaper wrote ' From the article in the Deutsche AUgemeine ZeUung previously quoted. THE LURE OF THE PRIMITIVE 135 editorially: "Hooliganism, as a mass-phenomenon, is un- known to western Europe. The 'Apaches' who terrorize the population of Paris or London are people with a dif- ferent psychology from that of the Russian Hooligan." Another St. Petersburg paper remarked about the same time: "Nothing human or divine restrains the destruc- tive frenzy of the untrammelled will of the Hooligan. There are no moral laws for him. He values nothing and recognizes nothing. In the bloody madness of his acts there is always something deeply blasphemous, dis- gusting, pm-ely bestial." And the well-known Russian writer, Menshikov, drew this really striking pictiu-e of social conditions in the pages of his organ, Novoye Vremya: "All over Russia we see the same growth of 'Hooliganism,' and the terror in which the HooKgans hold the population. It is no secret that the army of criminals increases constantly. The Courts are Uterally near exhaustion, crushed imder the weight of a moimtain of cases. The police are agonizing in the struggle with crime — a struggle which is beyond their strength. The prisons are congested to the breaking-point. Is it pos- sible that this terrible thing will not meet with some heroic resistance? A real civil war is going on in the depths of the masses, which threatens a greater destruction than an enemy's invasion. Not 'Hoohganism,' but Anarchy: this is the real name for that plague which has invaded the villages and is invading the cities. It is not only degenerates who enter upon a life of debauch and crime; already the average, normal masses join them, and only exceptionally decent village youths stiU maintain as much 136 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION as possible a life of decent endeavor. The younger people, of course, make a greater show than the elderly peasants and the old men. But the fact is that both the former and the latter are degenerating into a state of savagery and bestiality." Could there be a better description of that breakdown of the social controls and up-siu-ge of savage iostincts which, as we have already seen, characterizes the out- break of social revolutions? This was precisely what the Russian Nihilists and Anarchists had been preaching for generations. This was what Bakunin had meant in his favorite toast: "To the destruction of all law and order, and the unchaining of evil passions!" For Bakunin, "The People" were the social outcasts — brigands, thieves, drunkards, and vagabonds. Criminals were frankly his favorites. Said he: "Only the proletariat in rags is inspired by the spirit and force of the coming social revolution." Referring once more to the matter of Russian Hooli- ganism prior to 1914, there is good ground for believing that the "crime waves" which have afflicted western Europe and America since the war are of a similar na- ture. Recently a leading American detective expressed his conviction that the "gunmen," who to-day terrorize American cities, are imbued with social revolutionary feelings and have a more or less instinctive notion that they are fighting the social order. Mr. James M. Beck, solicitor-general of the United States, has lately uttered a similar warning against what he terms "the excq)tional revolt against the authority of law," whidi is taking THE LURE OP THE PRIMITIVE 137 place to-day. He sees this revolt exemplified not only in an enormous increase of crime but in the current de- moralization visible in music, art, poetry, commerce, and social life, Mr. Beck's last assertion is one which has been made for years by many keen-sighted critics in the Uterary and artistic worlds. Nothing is more extraordinary (and more ominous) than the way in which the spirit of fever- ish, and essentially planless, unrest has been bursting forth for the past two decades in every field of art and letters. This unrest has taken many shapes — "Futur- ism," "Cubism," "Vorticism," "Expressionism," and God knows what. Its spirit, however, is always the same : a fierce revolt against things as they exist, and a disin- tegrative, degenerative reaction toward primitive chaos. Our hterary and artistic malcontents have no construc- tive ideas to offer in place of that which they condemn. What they seek is absolute "freedom." Hence, every- thing which trammels this anarchic "freedom" of theirs — ^form, style, tradition, reality itself — ^is hated and de- spised. Accordingly, all these matters (sneered at as "trite," "old-fashioned," "aristocratic," "bourgeois," or "stupid") are contemptuously cast aside, and the "Kberated" soul soars forth on the imfettered pinions of his boimdless fancy. Unfortunately, the flight seems to lead backward toward the jungle past. Certainly the products of the "new" art bear a strange likeness to the crude efforts of degenerate savages. The distorted and tormented shapes of "expressionist" sculpture, for example, resem- 138 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION ble (if they resemble anything) the idols of WesT African negroes. As for "expressionist" painting, it seems to bear no normal relation to anything at all. Those crushed, mutilated forms, vaguely discerned amid a riot of shrieking colors; stirely this is not "real" — ^unless bedlam be reaUty! Most extraordinary of all is that ultrarmodem school of "painting," which has largely discarded paint in favor of materials like newspaper chp- pings, buttons, and fish-bones, pasted, sewn, or tacked on its canvases. Almost as extravagent is the "new" poetry, Struc- ture, grammer, metre, rhyme — all are defied. Rational meanings are carefully avoided, a senseless conglomera- tion of words being apparently sought after as an end in itself. Here, obviously, the revolt against form is well- nigh complete. The only step which seemingly now re- mains to be taken is to aboUsh language, and have "poems without words." Now what does all this mean? It means simply one more phase of the world-wide reeoU against dvilizoMon by the unadaptable, inferior, and degenerate elements, seeking to smash the irksome framework of modem so- ciety, and revert to the congenial levels of chaotic bar- barism or savagery. Normal persons may be inclined to laugh at the vagaries of our artistic and hterary rebels, but the popular vogue they enjoy proves them to be really no laughing matter. Not long ago the English poet Al- fred Noyes warned earnestly against the wide-spread harm done by "Literary Bolsheviki." "We are con- fronted to-day," he said, "by the extraordinary spectacle THE LURE OF THE PRIMITIVE 139 of 10,000 literary rebels, each chained to his own solitary- height, and each chanting the same perennial song of hate against everything that has been achieved by past generations. The worst of it is that the world applauds them. The real rebel to-day is the man who stands by xmpopular truth; but that man has a new name — ^he is called 'commonplace.' The literary Bolshevism of the past thirty years is more responsible for the present peril of civiKzation than is realized. One cannot treat aH the laws as if they were mere scraps of paper without a ter- rible reckoning, and we are beginning to see it to-day. "It has led to an aU-round lowering of standards. Some of the modem writers who take upon themselves to wipe out the best of ancient writers cannot write grammatical English. Their art and literature are in- creasingly Bolshevist. If we look at the columns of the newspapers we see the unusual spectacle of the po- Utical editor desperately fighting that which the art and hterary portions of the paper uphold. In the name of ' reality ' many writers are indulging in shabby forms of make-believe and are reducing all reality to ashes." ^ In similar vein, the well-known German art critic, Johannes Volkelt, recently deplored the destructive ef- fects of "expressionist" art and hterature. "The de- moralization of our attitude and sentiment toward life itself," he writes, "is even more portentous than our de- cKning recognition of artistic form. It is a mutilated, deformed, moron hxunanity which glowers or drivels at ' From Mr. Noyes's lecture before the Royal Institution of London on "Some Aspects of Modern Poetry," February, 1920. 140 THE EEVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION us through expressionist pictures. All they suggest is profound morbidity. Their jaded, unhealthy mood is relieved only by absurdities, and where these cast a ray of Kght into their rudimentary composition, it is only a broken and joyless one. Likewise, that which repels us most in the poetry of our younger school is its scornful^ stigmatizing of the past, without giving us anything positive in its place; its pathetic groping in its own self- wreckage; its confused, helpless seeking after some steadfast ideal. The soiJ is exhausted by its ceaseless chasing after nothing. Is life a shallow joke? A crazy dream? A terrifying chaos? Is there no longer sense in talking of an ideal? Is every ideal self-illusion? These are the questions which drive the soul of to-day aimlessly hither and thither. Calm consciousness of power and mastery, the imaffected glow of health, threaten to become lost sensations. Overalert self- consciousness associated with a mysterious revival of atavistic bestiality, and extreme overrefinement hand in hand with slothful love of indolence, characterize the discord which clouds the artistic mind of the period." ^ As might be expected, the spirit of revolt which at- tacks simultaneously rastitutions, customs, ideals, art, literature, and all the other phases of civilization does not spare what stands behind, namely: individuality and intelligence. To the levelling gospel of social revolu- tion such things are anathema. In its eyes it is the mass, not the individual, which is precious; it is quantity, not quality, which counts. Superior intelligence is by 1 Prom the Vienna Neue Freie Prease, 19 April, 1921. THE LURE OF THE PRIMITIVE 141 its very nature suspect — ^it is innately aristocratic, and as such must be summarily dealt with. For the past two decades the whole trend of revolutionary doctrine has been toward a glorification of brawn over brain, of the hand over the head, of emotion over reason. This trend is so bound up with the development of revolu- tionary theory and practice that we had best consider it in the chapters devoted to those matters. Suflace it here to state that it is a normal part of proletarian philosophy, and that it aims at nothing short of the en- tire destruction of modem civiHzation and the substi- tution of a, self-erected "proletarian culture." Above all, the onward march of our hateful civiHzation must be stayed. On this point proletarian extremists and "moderates" appear to be agreed. Cries the "Men- shevik" Gregory Zilboorg: "Beyond all doubt the prog- ress of Western European civilization has already made life unbearable. . . . We can achieve salvation to-day only by stoppiag progress!"^ Yes, yes: "civiHzation is unbearable," "progress must be stopped," "equality must be estabHshed," and so forth, and so forth. The emotional urge behind the revolution is quite clear. Let us now examine precisely what the revolution is, what it means, and how it is pro- posed to bring it about. ' Gregory Zflboorg, The Passing qf the Old Order in Europe, pp. 225-226 (New York, 1920). CHAPTER V THE GROUND-SWELL OF REVOLT Revolxjtionaey unrest is not new. Every age has had its discontented dreamers preaching Utopia, its fervid agitators urging the overthrow of the existing social order, and its restless rabble stirred by false hopes to ugly moods and violent action. Utopian literature is very extensive, going back to Plato; revolutionary agi- tators have run true to tj^e since Spartacus; while "proletarian" risings have varied little in basic character from the servile revolts of antiquity and the "jacqueries" of the Middle Ages down to the mob upheavals of Paris and Petrograd. In all these social revolutionary phenomena there is nothing essentially novel. There is always the same violent revolt of the unadaptable, inferior, and degen- erate elements against civiUzed society, in atavistic reaction to lower planes'; the same hatred of superiors and fierce desire for absolute equaHty; finally, the same tendency of revolutionary leaders to become tyrants and to transform anarchy into barbarous despotism. As Harold Cox justly remarks : "Jack Cade, as described by Shakespeare, is the perfect type of revolutionary, and his ideas coincide closely with those of the modem school of SociaKsm. He tells his followers that 'aU the realm shall be in common,' that 'there shall be no money; 142 THE GROUND-SWELL OF EEVOLT 143 all shall eat and drink on my score; and I will apparel them all in one livery that they may agree like brothers.' A httle later a member of the bourgeoisie is brought before him — a. clerk who confesses that he can read and write. Jack Cade orders him at once to be hanged 'with his pen and inkhom about his neck.' Possibly the intellectual Socialists of Great Britain might hesi- tate at this point; the danger would be getting uncom- fortably near to themselves. But the Russian Bolshe- viks have followed Jack Cade's example on a colossal scale. In another direction Jack Cade was a prototype of present-day revolutionists; for while preaching equal- ity he practised autocracy. 'Away,' he cries to the mob. 'Bum all the records of the reahri. My mouth shall be the ParHament of England.'" ^ Nevertheless, despite its lack of basic originaKty, the revolutionary unrest of modem times is very different from, and infinitely more formidable than, the kindred movements of the past. There is to-day a close alliance between the theoretical and the practical elements, a clever fitting of means to ends, a consistent elaboration of plausible doctrines and persuasive propaganda, and a syndication of power, such as was never known before. In former times revolutionary theorists and men of ac- tion were unable or unwilling to get together. The early Utopian philosophers did not write for the proletariat, which in turn quite ignored their existence. Further- more, most of the Utopians, however revolutionary in theory, were not revolutionary in practice. They sel- • H. Cox, Economic Liberty, pp. 191-192 (London, 1920). 144 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION dom believed in violent methods. It is rather difficult to imagine Plato or Sir Thomas More planning the mas- sacre of the bourgeoisie or heading a dictatorship of the proletariat. In fact, so convinced were these Utopian idealists of the truth of their theories that they believed that if their theories were actually put in practice on even a small scale they would be a prodigious success and would thus lead to the rapid transformation of so- ciety without any necessity of violent coercion. Such was the temper of the "idealistic" Socialists and Com- munists of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, like Robert Owen, who founded various "model com- munities" believing implicitly that these would soon convert the whole world by the mere force of their ex- ample. Thus, down to comparatively recent times, the cause of violent social revolution lacked the support of leaders combining in themselves the quaUties of moral earnest- ness, iatelligence, and forcefulness — ^in other words per- sons most of whom belong to the type which I have previously described as the "misguided superior." De- prived of such leadership, revolutionary tmrest was mainly guided by imbalanced fanatics or designing scoundrels; and it is obvious that such leaders, whatever their zeal or cleverness, were so lacking in intellectual poise or moral soundness that they invariably led their followers to speedy disaster. The modem social revolutionary movement dates from about the middle of the eighteenth century. Ever since that time there has been flowing a continuous stream THE GROUND-SWELL OF REVOLT 145 of subversive agitation, assuming many fonns but essen- tially the same, and ever broadening and deepening, until it has become the veritable flood which has sub- merged Russia and which threatens to engulf our entire civilization. Its most noteworthy achievement has been the working out of a revolutionary philosophy and propa- ganda so insidiously persuasive as to weld together many innately diverse elements into a common league of dis- content inspired by a fierce resolve to overthrow by vio- lence the existing social order and to construct a whoUy new "proletarian" order upon its ruins. Let us trace the stream of social revolt from its eigh- teenth-centiuy source to the present day. Its first nota- ble spokesman was Rousseau,^ with his denunciation of civiHzed society and his call for a return to what he con- ceived to be the communistic "state of nature." The tide set flowing by Rousseau and his ilk presently foamed into the French Revolution. This cataclysmic event was, to be sure, by no means a simon-pure social revolt. At the start it was mainly a poUtical struggle by an aspiring bourgeoisie to wrest power and privilege from the feeble hands of a decrepit monarchy and an effete aristocracy. But in the struggle the bourgeoisie called upon the proletariat, the flood-gates of anarchy were opened, and there followed that blood-smeared debauch of atavistic savagery, "The Rdgn of Terror." During * As already remarked, Rousseau was only one of many vmters and agita- tors. For the r61e of others, particularly those belonging to the revolu- tionary secret societies of the eighteenth csoiwey, such as the "Illuminati," see N. H. Webstra, World BwohMan, chaps. I and II (Londoa and Bos- ton, 1921). 146 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION the Terror all the symptoms of social revolution appeared in their most horrid form: up-surge of bestiaUty, sense- less destruction, hatred of superiors, ruthless enforce- ment of levelling "equality," etc. The most extrava- gant political and social doctrines were proclaimed. Brissot urged communism and announced that "prop- erty is theft." Robespierre showed his hatred of genius and learning by sending the great chemist Lavoisier to the guillotine with the remark: "Science is aristocratic: the Repubhc has no need of savants." As for Ana- charsis Clootz, Hubert, and other demagogues, they preached doctrines which would have reduced society to a cross between chaos and bedlam. After a few years the Terror was broken. The French race was too fxmdamentaUy sound to tolerate for long such a hideous dictatorship of its worst elements. The destruction wrought by the Revolution was, however, appalling. Not merely was France dealt wounds from which she has never wholly recovered, but also spirits of imrest were hberated which have never since been laid. The "apostolic succession" of revolt has remained unbroken. Marat and Robespierre are to-day reincarnate in Trotzky and Lenin. The final eruption of the waning Terror was the well- known conspiracy of Babeuf in the year 1796. This con- spiracy, together with the personality of its leader and namesake, is of more than passing interest. Babeuf, Kke so many other revolutionary leaders of all periods, was a man whose undoubted talents of intellect and energy were perverted by a taint of insanity. His intermittent THE GROUND-SWELL OF REVOLT 147 fits of frenzy were so acute that at times he was Httle better than a raving homicidal maniac. Nevertheless, his revolutionary activities were so striking and his doctrines so "advanced" that subsequent revolutionists have hailed him as a man "ahead of his times." The Bolshevik "Third International," for example, in its first manifesto, paid tribute to Babeuf as one of its spiritual fathers. That this Bolshevik compliment was not undeserved is proved by a study of his famous conspiracy. Therein Babeuf planned nothing less than the entire destruction of the existing social order, a general massacre of the "possessing classes," and the erection of a radically new "proletarian" order founded on the most rigid and level- ling equahty. Not merely were differences of wealth and social station to be prohibited, but even intellectual differences were to be discouraged, because it was feared that "men might devote themselves to sciences, and thereby grow vain and averse to manual labor." Babeuf 's incendiary spirit is weU revealed in the fol- lowing lines, taken from his organ, Le Tribun du Peuple : "Why does one speak of laws and property? Property is the share of usurpers and laws are the work of the strongest. The sun shines for every one, and the earth belongs to no one. Go, then, my friends, and disturb, overthrow, and upset this society which does not suit you. Take everywhere aU that you like. Superfluity belongs by right to him who has nothing. This is not all, friends and brothers. If constitutional barriers are opposed to your generous efforts, overthrow without 148 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION scruple barriers and constitutions. Butcher without mercy tyrants, patricians, the gilded million, all those immoral beings who would oppose your common happi- ness. You are the people, the true people, the only people worthy to enjoy the good things of this world ! The jus- tice of the people is great and majestic as the people it- self; all that it does is legitimate, all that it orders is sacred." Babeuf's plans can be judged by the following extracts from his "Manifesto of the Equals," which he drew up on the eve of his projected insurrection: "People of France, for fifteen centuries you have lived in slavery and consequent unhappiness. For six years^ you have hardly drawn breath, waiting for independence, happiness, and equality. EquaHty! the first desire of nature, the first need of man, the principal bond of all legal association ! "Well! We intend henceforth to live and die equal as we were bom; we wish for real equahty or death; that is what we must have. And we will have this real equal- ity, no matter at what price. Woe to those who inter- pose themselves between it and us ! . . . "The French Revolution is only the forerunner of another revolution, very much greater, very much more solemn, which will be the last. . . . Equality ! We will consent to anything for that, to make a clean sweep so as to hold to that only. Perish, if necessary, all the arts, provided that real equaUty is left to us! . . . Com- munity of Goods ! No more private property in land, * /. e., during the years of the French Revolution since 1789. THE GROUND-SWELL OF REVOLT 149 the land belongs to no one. We claim, we wish for the communal enjoyment of the fruits of the earth: the fruits of the earth belong to every one, . . . "Vanish at last, revolting distinctions of rich and poor, of great and small, of masters and servants, of governors and governed. Let there be no other difference between men than those of age and sex. Since all have the same needs and the same faculties, let there be only one edu- cation, one kind of food. They content themselves with one sun and air for all; why should not the same portion and the same quality of food suffice for each of them? . . . "People of France, Open your eyes and hearts to the plenitude of happiness; recognize and proclaim with us the Republic of the Equals !" Such was the plot of Babeuf. The plot completely miscarried,* for it was discovered before it was ripe, Ba- beuf and his lieutenants were arrested and executed, and his disorganized hoodlum followers were easily repressed. Nevertheless, though Babeuf was dead, "Babouvism" lived on, inspired the revolutionary conspiracies of the early nineteenth century, contributed to the growth of Anarchism, and is incorporated in the "Syndicalist" and Bolshevist movements of to-day — ^as we shall presently see. The modem Uterature of revolt is fuU of striking parallels to the lines penned by Babeuf nearly one hun- dred and thirty years ago. Despite the existence of some extreme revolutionary factions, the first half of the nineteenth century saw com- paratively little violent unrest. It was the period of the "idealistic" Socialists, already mentioned, when men 150 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION like Robert Owen, Saint-Simon, Fourier, and others were elaborating their Utopian philosophies and were founding "model communities" which were expected to convert the world peaceably by the mere contagion of their suc- cessful example. The speedy failure of all these Social- istic experiments discouraged the idealists, and led the discontented to turn to "men of action" who promised speedier results by the use of force. At the same time, the numbers of the discontented were rapidly increasing. The opening decades of the nineteenth century witnessed the triumph of machine industry and "capitalism." As in all times of transition, these changes bore hard on multitudes of people. Economic abuses were rife, and precipitated into the social depths many persons who did not really belong there, thus swelling the "prole- tariat" to unprecedented proportions while also giving it new leaders of genuine ability. The culmination of all this was the revolutionary wave of 1848. To be sure, 1848, like the French Revolution, was not wholly a social revolutionary upheaval; it was largely due to political (especially nationalistic) causes with which this book is not concerned. But, as in 1789, so in 1848, the political malcontents welcomed the aid of the social malcontents, and gave the latter their oppor- tunity. Furthermore, in 1848, as in 1789, Paris was the storm-centre. A galaxy of forceful demagogues like Blanqui, Louis Blanc, and Proudhon roused the Paris mob, attempted to establish a Communistic Republic, and were foiled only after a bloody struggle with the more conservative social elements. THE GROUND-SWELL OF REVOLT 151 Unlike 1789, however, the social revolutionary move- ment of 1848 was by no means confined to France. In 1848 organized social revolutionary forces existed in most European countries, and all over Europe these forces promptly drew together and attempted to effect a general social revolution. At this moment appears the notable figure of Karl Marx, chief author of the famous "Communist Manifesto," with its ringing pero- ration: "Let the ruling classes tremble at a communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Working men of all countries, unite !" The rise of Karl Marx typifies a new influence which, had appeared in the revolutionary movement — ^the in- fluence of the Jews. Before the nineteenth century the Jews had been so segregated from the general popula- tion that they had exerted almost no influence upon popular thought or action. By the year 1848, however, the Jews of western Europe had been emancipated from most of their civil disabilities, had emerged from their ghettos, and were beginning to take an active part in community life. Many Jews promptly adopted rev- olutionary ideas and soon acquired great influence in the revolutionary movement. For this there were sev- eral reasons. In the first place, the Jewish mind, in- stinctively analytical, and sharpened by the dialectic subtleties of the Talmud, takes nattu-ally to dissective criticism. Again, the Jews, feeling themselves more or less apart from the nations in which they live, tended to welcome the distinctly international spirit of social 152 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION revolutionary doctrines. Lastly, the Jewish intellec- tuals, with their quick, clever intelligence, made excellent revolutionary leaders and could look forward to attain- ing high posts in the "officers' corps" of the armies of revolt. For all these reasons, then, Jews have played an important part in aU social revolutionary movements, from the time of Marx and Engels down to the largely Jewish Bolshevist regime in Soviet Russia to-day. The revolutionary wave of 1848 soon broke in com- plete defeat. There followed a period during which radical ideas were generally discredited. Both ideaUstic and violent methods had been tried and had signally failed. Out of this period of eclipse there gradually emerged two schools of social revolutionary thought: one known as "State Socialism," under the leadership of Marx and Engels; the other, "Anarchism," dominated by Proudhon and Michael Bakunin. These two schools were animated by quite different ideas, drew increasingly apart, and became increasingly hostile to one another. Of course, both schools were opposed to the existing social order and proposed its overthrow, but they differed radically as to the new type of society which was to take its place. Marx and his followers believed in an organ- ized Communism, where land, wealth, and property should be taken out of private hands and placed under the control of the state. The Anarchists, on the other hand, urged the complete abolition of the state, the spontaneous seizure of wealth by the masses, and the freedom of every one to do as he liked, unhampered by any organized social control. THE GROUND-SWELL OP REVOLT 153 In their actual development, likewise, the two move- ments followed divergent lines. Anarchism remained an essentially violent creed, relying chiefly upon force and terrorism.^ Marxian Socialism, as time went on, tended to rely less upon revolutionary violence and more upon economic processes and parliamentary methods. This is shown by the career of Marx himself. Marx started out in life as a violent revolutionist. His "Communist Manifesto" (already cited) reads precisely like a Bolshe- vik pronunciamento of to-day; and it is, in fact, on Marx's earher writings that the Bolsheviks largely rely. But, as time passed, Marx modified his attitude. After the failure of '48, he devoted himself to study, the chief fruit of his intellectual labors being his monumental work. Capital. Now, in his researches Marx became saturated with the Utopian philosophers of the past, and he presently evolved a utopia of his own. Just as the "idealistic" SociaHsts of the early nineteenth century believed they had discovered truths which, if applied on even a small scale in "model commimities," would inevitably transform society, so Marx came to believe that modem society was bound to work itself out into the Socialist order of his dreams with Kttle or no neces- sity for violent compulsion except, perhaps, in its last stages. The core of Marx's doctrine was that modem indus- > Of course, there are the "philosophical" Anarchists like Prince Kropot- kin, who do not openly advocate violence. They have, however, remained isolated idealists, with little practical inSuence upon Anarchism as a move- ment, whose driving force has always come from apostles of violence and terrorism like Bakunin. 154 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION trialism, by its very being, was bound rapidly to concen- trate all wealth in a very few hands, wiping out the middle classes and reducing both bourgeois and working man to a poverty-stricken proletariat. In other words, he predicted a society of billionaires and beggars. This was to happen within a couple of generations. When it did happen the "wage-slaves" were to revolt, dis- possess the capitalists, and establish the Socialist com- monwealth. Thus would come .to pass the social revolu- tion. But note: this revolution, according to Marx, was (1) sure, (2) soon, (3) easy. In Marx's last stage of capitalism the billionaires would be so few and the beg- gars so many that the "revolution" might be a mere hohday, perhaps effected without shedding a drop of blood. Indeed, it might conceivably be effected accord- ing to existing political procedure; for, once have uni- versal suffrage, and the overwhelming majority of pro- letarian wage-earners could simply vote the whole new order in. From all this it is quite obvious that Marxian Socialism, however revolutionary in theory, was largely evolutionary ia practice. And this evolutionary trend, already visi- ble in Marx, became even stronger with Marx's suc- cessors. Marx himself, despite the sobering effect of his intellectual development, remained emotionally a revolutionist — ^as shown by his temporary relapse into youthful fervors at the time of the Paris Commune of 1871. This was less true of his colleague Engels, and still less true of later Socialist leaders — ^men like LasaUe and Kautsky of Germany, Hyndman of England, and THE GROUND-SWELL OF REVOLT 155 Spargo of America. Such men were "reformist" rather than "revolutionary" Sociahsts; they were willing to bide their time, and were apt to pin their faith on ballots rather than on barricades. Furthermore, Reformist Sociahsm did not assail the whole idealistic and insti- tutional fabric of our civilization. For example, it might preach the "class-war," but, according to the Marxian hypothesis, the "working class" was, or soon would be, virtually the entire commimity. Only a few great capitalists and their hirelings were left without the pale. Again, the "revolution," as seen by the Reform- ists, was more a taking-over than a tearing-down, since existing institutions, both state and private, were largely to be preserved. As a matter of fact. Reformist Social- ism, as embodied in the "Social-Democratic" political parties of Continental Europe, showed itself everywhere a predominantly evolutionary movement, ready to achieve its objectives by instalments and becoming steadily more conservative. This was so not merely because of the influence of the leaders but also because of the changing complexion of their following. As Marxian Sociahsm became less revolutionary and more reformist, it attracted to its membership multitudes of "Uberals" — ^persons who desired to reform rather than to destroy the existing social order, and who saw in the Social-Democratic parties the best political instruments for bringing reforms about. In fact, Reformist Socialism might have entirely lost its revolutionary character and have become an evolu- tionary hberal movement, had it not been for two handi- 156 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION caps: the spiritual blight of its revolutionary ongin and the numbing weight of Marx's intellectual authority. Socialism had start;ed out to smash modem society by a violent revolution. Its ethics were those of the "class war"; its goal was the "dictatorship of the proletariat"; and its philosophy was the narrow materialistic concept of "economic determinism" — ^the notion that men are moved solely by economic self-interest. All this had been laid down as fundamental truth by Marx in his Capital, which became the infallible bible of Social- ism. Now this was most unfortunate, because Marx had taken the special conditions of his day and had pictured them as the whole of world history. We now know that the middle decades of the nineteenth century were a very exceptional, transition period, iu which society was only beginning to adjust itself to the sweeping economic and social changes which the "Industrial Revolution" had brought about. To-day, most of the abuses against which Marx inveighed have been distinctly ameliorated, while the short-sighted philosophy of immediate seK- interest regardless of ultimate social or racial con- sequences which then prevailed has been profoundly modified by experience and deeper knowledge. We must not forget that when Marx sat down to write Capital,^ modem sociology and biology were virtually unknown, so that Marx believed implicitly in faUades like the omnip- otence of environment and "natural equality" — ^which, ' The first volume of Capital was published in 1867, after many years of research and composition. THE GROUND-SWELL OF REVOLT 157 of course, form the philosophic bases of his "economic determinism." Marx's short-sightedness was soon revealed by the actual course of events, which quickly gave the he to his confident prophecies. All wealth did not concentrate in a few hands; it remained widely distributed. The mid- dle classes did not perish; they survived and prospered. Lastly, the working classes did not sink into a common hell of poverty and squalor; on the contraiy, they be- came more differentiated, the skilled workers, especially, rising into a sort of aristocracy of labor, with wages and living standards about as high as those of the lesser mid- dle classes — ^whom the skilled workers came more and more to resemble. In other words, the world showed no signs of getting into the mess which Marx had announced as the prologue to his revolution. To all this, however, the Socialists were blind. Heed- less of reality, they continued to see the world through Marx's spectacles, to quote Capital, and to talk in terms of the "class war" and "economic determinism." For the Reformist leaders this was not merely fatuous, it was dangerous as well. Sooner or later their dissatisfied followers would demand the fulfilment of Marx's prom- ises; if not by. evolution, then by revolution. That was just what was to happen in the "SyndicaKst" movement at the beginning of the present century. In fact, through- out the later decades of the nineteenth century, Marxian Socialism was a house divided against itself: its Reformist leaders and their liberal followers coimselling time and patience; its revolutionary, "proletarian" elements grow- 158 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION ing increasingly restive and straining their eyes for the Red dawn. Before discussing Syndicalism, however, let us turn back to examine that other revolutionary movement, Anarchism, which, as we have already seen, arose simul- taneously with Marxian Socialism in the middle of the nineteenth century. Of com-se, the Anarchist idea was not new. Anarchist notions had appeared prominently in the French Revolution, the wilder Jacobin dema- gogues hke Hubert and Clootz preaching doctrines which were Anarchist in everything but name. The laimching of Anarchism as a seK-conscious movement, however, dates from the middle of the nineteenth century, its founder being the Frenchman Proudhon. Proudhon took up the name "Anarchy" (which had previously been a term of opprobritun even in revolutionary circles) and adopted it as a profession of faith to mark himself off from the beUevers in State Communism, whom he de- tested and despised. Proudhon was frankly an apostle of chaos. "I shall arm myself to the teeth against civi- lization!" he cried. "I shall begin a war that will end only with my life!" Institutions and ideals were alike assailed with implacable fury. Reviving Brissot's dic- tum, "Property is theft," Proudhon went ou to assail religion in the following terms: "God — ^that is folly and cowardice; God is tyranny and misery; God is evil. To me, then, Lucifer, Satan ! whoever you may be, the demon that the faith of my fathers opposed to God and the Church!" While Proudhon founded Anarchism, he had neither THE GROUND-SWELL OF REVOLT 159 the organizing skill nor the proselyting ability to accom- plish important tangible results. His disciples were few, but among them was one who possessed the talents to succeed where his master had failed. This was the cele- brated Michael Bakxmin. Bakunin is another example of the "tainted genius." Sprung from a Russian noble family, Bakunin early displayed great intellectual bril- liancy, but his talents were perverted by his idle and tur- bulent disposition, so that he was soon at hopeless outs with society and plunged into the stream of revolution, which presently bore him to the congenial comradeship of Proudhon. As stated in the previous chapter, Ba- kunin was truly at home only in the company of social rebels, especially criminals and vagabonds, his favorite toast being: "To the destruction of all law and order and the imchaining of evil passions !" In the period after the storm of 1848, Bakimin was busy forming his party. His programme of action can be judged by the following excerpts from his Bevolution- ary Catechism, drawn up for the guidance of his followers. "The revolutionary," states Bakimin, "must let nothing stand between him and the work of destruction. For him exists only one single pleasure, one single consolation, one reward, one satisfaction — ^the success of the revolu- tion. Night and day he must have but one thought, but one aim — implacable destruction. ... If he continues to live in this world, it is only to annihilate it all the more surely." For this reason no reforms are to be advocated; on the contrary, "every effort is to be made to heighten and increase the evil and sorrows which will at length 160 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION wear out the patience of the people and encourage an in- surrection en masse." It is easy to see how Anarchism, with its measure- less violence and hatred of any organized social control, should have clashed fiercely with Marxian Socialism, becoming steadily more reformist and evolutionist in character. As a matter of fact, the entire second half of the nineteenth century is filled with the struggle between the two rival movements. In this struggle Socialism was the more successful. The Anarchists made a frantic bid for victory in the Paris Commime of 1871, but the bloody failure of the Commune discredited Anarchism and tight- ened the Sociahst grip over most of Europe. Only in Italy, Spain, and Russia (where Anarchy flourished as "Nihilism") did Anarchism gain anything like prepon- derance in revolutionary circles. Nevertheless, Anarchism lived on as a forceful minor- ity movement, displaying its activity chiefly by bomb- throwings and by assassinations of crowned heads or other eminent personages. These outrages were termed by Anarchists the "Propaganda of the Deed," and were intended to terrorize organized society and arouse the proletariat to emulation at one and the same time. The ultimate aim of the Anarchists was, of course, a general massacre of the "possessing classes." As the Anarchist Johann Most declared ia his organ, Frdheit, in 1880: "It is no longer aristocracy and royalty that the people intend to destroy. Here, perhaps, but a cowp de grdce or two are yet needed. No; ia the coming onslaught the object is to smite the entire middle class with annihila- THE GROUND-SWELL OF REVOLT 161 tion." A little later the same writer urged: "Extirmi- nate all the contemptible brood ! Science now puts means into our hands which make it possible to arrange for the wholesale destruction of the brutes in a perfectly quiet and businesslike fashion." In 1881, an International Anarchist Congress was held at London, attended by all the shioing Ughts of Anarchy, including "philosoph- ical" Anarchists like Prince Kropotkia, and the resolu- tions then passed throw a somewhat sinister doubt on the "non-violence" assertions of the "philosophical" faction. The resolutions of the Congress stated that the social revolution was to be facilitated by close interna- tional action, "The Committees of each country to keep up regular correspondence among themselves and with the chief committee for the sake of giving continuous information; and it is their duty to collect money for the purchase of poison and arms, as well as to discover places suitable for the construction of mines, etc. To attain the proposed end, the annihilation of all rulers, ministers of state, nobiUty, the clergy, the most promi- nent capitalists, and other exploiters, any means are permissible, and therefore great attention should be given specially to the study of chemistry and the preparation of explosives, as being the most important weapons." Certain peculiarities in the Anarchist "Propaganda of the Deed," should be specially noted, as they well illus- trate the fundamental natiire of Anarchist thought. Bakunin taught that every act of destruction or violence is good, either directly by destroying a person or thing which is objectionable, or indirectly by making an al- 162 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION ready intolerable world worse than before, and thus has- tening the social revolution. But, in the business of as- sassination, it is often better to murder good persons and to spare wicked ones; because, as Bakunrn expressed it in his Revolutionary Catechism, wicked oppressors are "people to whom we concede life provisionally, in order, that, by a series of monstrous acts, they may drive the people into inevitable revolt." The killing of wicked people implies no really valuable criticism of the exist- ing social order. "If you kill an unjust judge, you may be understood to mean merely that you think judges ought to be just; but if you go out of your way to kill a just judge, it is clear that you object to judges al- together. If a son kills a bad father, the act, though meritorious in its humble way, does not take us much further. But if he kills a good father, it cuts at the root of aU that pestilent system of family affection and loving- kindness and gratitude on which the present system is largely based," ^ Such is the spirit of Anarchism. Now Anarchism is noteworthy, not only in itself but also as one of the prime motive forces in that much more important "Syndical- ist" movement which we wiU now consider. The signif- icance of Syndicalism and its outgrowth Bolshevism can hardly be overestimated. It is no exaggeration to say that it is the most terrible social phenomenon that the world has ever seen. In Sjmidicalism we have for the first time in human history a full-fledged philosophy of i 'Professor Gilbert Murray, "Satanism ani the Woild-Order," Tlte Century, July, 1920. THE GROUND-SWELL OF REVOLT 163 the Under-Man — ^the prologue of that vast revolt against civilization which, with Russian Bolshevism, has ac- tually begun. If we examine Syndicalism in its mere technical eco- nomic aspect, its full significance is not apparent. Syn- dicalism takes its name from the French word Syndicat or "Trades-Union," and, in its restricted sense, means the transfer of the instnmients of production from private or state ownership into the fuU control of the organized workers in the respective trades. Economically speak- ing, Syndicalism is thus a cross betwefen State Socialism and Anarchism. The state is to be abolished, yet a fed- eration of trades-imions, and not anarchy, is to take its place. Viewed in this abstract, technical sense. Syndicalism does not seem to present any specially startling innova- tions. It is when we examine the Syndicalists' animating spirit, their general philosophy of life, and the manner in which they propose to attain their ends, that we realize that we are in the presence of an ominous novelty — the mature philosophy of the Under-Man. This philosophy of the Under-Man is to-day called Bolshevism. Before the Russian Revolution it was known as Syndicalism. But Bolshevism and Syndicalism are basically one and the same thing. Soviet Russia has really invented noth- ing. It is merely practising what others had been preach- ing for years — ^with such adaptations as normally attend the putting of a theory into practice. Syndicalism, as an organized movement, is primarily the work of two Frenchmen, Femand Pelloutier and IW THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION Georges Sorel. Of course, just as there were Socialists before Marx, so there were SyndicaHsts before Sorel. Syndicalism's intellectual progenitor was Proudhon, who, in his writings had clearly sketched out the Syndicalist theory.^ As for Syndicalism's savage, violent, uncom- promising spirit, it is clearly Anarchist in origin, drawing its inspiration not merely from Proudhon but also from Bakunin, Most, and all the rest of that furious company of revolt. "Revolt!" There is the essence of Syndicalism: a revolt, not merely against modem society but against Marxian Socialism as well. And the revolt was well timed. When, at the very end of the nineteenth century, Georges Sorel lifted the rebel banner of Syndicalism, the hoiu" awaited the man. The proletarian world was full of discontent and disillusionment at the long-dominant Marxian philosophy. Half a century had passed since Marx first preached his gospel, and the revolutionary millennium was nowhere in sight. Society had not be- come a world of billionaires and beggars. The great capitalists had not swallowed all. The middle classes still survived and prospered. Worst of aU, from the revo- lutionary view-point, the upper grades of the working classes had prospered, too. The skilled workers were, in fact, becoming an aristocracy of labor. They were •About the year 1860, Proudhon wrote: "According to my idea, rail- ways, a mine, a manufactory, a ship, etc., are to the workers whom they occupy what the hive is to the bees; that is, at the same time their instru- ment and their dwelling, their country, their territory, their property." For this reason Proudhon opposed "the exploitation of the railways, whether by companies of capitalists or by the state." The modem Syn- dicalist idea is here perfectly epitomized. THE GROUND-SWELL OF REVOLT 165 acquiring property and thus growing capitalistic; they were raising their living standards and thus growing bourgeois. Society seemed endowed with a strange vital- ity ! It was even reforming many of the abuses which Marx had pronounced incurable. When, then, was the \ proletariat to inherit the earth? ' The Proletarian That was the key-word. The van, and even the main body of society, might be fairly on the march, but behind lagged a ragged rear-guard. Here were, first of all, the lower working-class strata — the "manual" laborers in the narrower sense, relatively ill- paid and often grievously exploited. Behind these again came a motley crew, the rejects and misfits of society. "Casuals" and "unemployables," "down-and-outs" and diclassis, victims of social evils, victims of bad heredity and their own vices, paupers, defectives, degenerates, and criminals — ^they were all there. They were there for many reasons, but they were all miserable, and they were all bound together by a certain solidarity — ^a sullen hatred of the civilization from which they had so little to hope. To these people evolutionary, "reformist" Socialism was cold comfort. Then came the Syndicalist, promising, not evolution but revolution; not in the dim future but in the here and now; not a bloodless "taking over" by "the workers," hypothetically stretched to in- clude virtually the whole community, but the bloody "dictatorship" of The Proletariat in its narrow, revolu- tionary sense. Here, at last, was living hope — ^hope, and the prospect of revenge! Is it, then, strange that a few short years 166 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION should have seen revolutionary Socialists, Anarchists, all the antisocial forces of the whole world, grpuped under the banner of Georges Sorel ? For a time they w^t xinder different names: Syndicalists in France, Bolshevists in Russia, "I. W. W.'s" in America; but in reality they formed one army, enlisted for a single war. Now what was this war? It was, first of all, a war for the conquest of Socialism as a preliminary to the con- quest of society. Everywhere the orthodox Socialist parties were fiercely assailed. And these Syndicalist assaults were very formidable, because the orthodox Socialists possessed no moral lines of defense. Their arms were palsied by the virus of their revolutionary tradition. For, however evolutionary and non-militant the Socialists might have become in practice, in theory they had remained revolutionary, their ethics continuing to be those of the "class war," the destruction of the "possessing classes," and the "dictatorship of the prole- tariat." The American economist, Carver, well describes the ethics of Socialism in the following lines: "Marxian So- cialism has nothing in common with idealistic Socialism. It rests, not on persuasion, but on force. It does not profess to believe, as did the old idealists, that if Social- ism be lifted up it will draw all men unto it. In fact, it has no ideals; it is materialistic and miUtant. Being materialistic and atheistic, it makes no use of such terms as right and justice, unless it be to quiet the consciences of those who still harbor such superstitions. It insists ihat these terms are mere conventionalities; the con- THE GROUNI>-SWELL OF REVOLT 167 eepts mere bugaboos invented by the ruling caste to keep the masses under control. Except in a conventional sense, from this crude materialistic point of view there is neither right nor wi-ong, justice nor injustice, good nor bad. Until people who still believe in such silly notions divest their minds of them, they will never understand the first principles of Marxian Socialism. " 'Who creates our ideas of right and wrong? ' asks the Socialist. 'The ruling class. Why? To insure their domination over the masses by depriving them of the power to think for themselves. We, the proletarians, when we get into power, will dominate the situation; we shall be the riding caste, and, naturally, shall do what the ruling castes have always done; that is, we shall determine what is right and wrong. Do you ask us if what we propose is just? What do you mean by jus- tice? Do you ask if it is right? What do you mean by right? it will be good for t«. That is all that right and justice ever did or ever can mean.' " * As Harold Cox remarks: "The Socialist is out to de- stroy Capitalism, and for that end he encourages or con- dones conduct which the world has hitherto condemned as criminal. . . . The real ethics of Socialism are the ethics of war. What the Sociahsts want is, not progress in the world as we know it, but destruction of that world as a prelude to the creation of a new world of their own imagining. In order to win that end they have to seek the support of every force that makes for disorder, and * Professor T. N. Carver, in his Introduction to Boris Brasol's Sodalism vs. CivUimtion (New York, 1920). 168 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION to appeal to every motive that stimiilates class hatred. Their ethical outlook is the direct reverse of that which has inspired all the great religions of the world. Instead of seeking to attain peace upon earth and good-will among men, they have chosen for their goal imiversal warfare, and they deliberately make their appeal to the passions of envy, hatred, and malice." ^ Such are the moral bases of Socialism. To be sure, Marxian Socialism had tended to soft-pedal all this, and had become by the close of the nineteenth century a predominantly pacific, "reformist" movement — ^in practice. But this peaceful pose had been assumed, not from any ethical change, but because of two practical reasons. In the first place, Marx had taught that so- ciety would soon break down through its own defects; that the "possessing classes" would rapidly destroy each other; and that Socialists might thus wait for society's decrepitude before giving it the death-stroke, instead of risking a doubtful battle while it was stiU strong. In the second place. Socialism, as a proselyting faith, wel- comed "liberal" converts, yet realized that these would not "come over" in any great numb^s unless it could present a "reformist" face to thmi. Reformist Socialism, as it stood at the close of the nineteenth century, thus rested upon equivocal moral foundations. Its policy was based, not upon principle, but upon mere expediency. The Syndicalists saw this, and used it with deadly effect. When the reformist leaders reprobated the Syndicalists' savage violence, the * Cox, Economic Liberty, pp. 27 and 42. THE GROUND-SWELL OF REVOLT 169 Syndicalists laughed at them, taunted them with lack of courage, and pointed out that morally they were all in the same boat. The Syndicalists demanded that questions of principle be excluded as irrelevant and that the debate should be confined to questions of policy. And here, again, the Syndicalists had the Socialists on the hip. The Syndicalists argued (justly enough) that Marx's automatic social revolution was nowhere in sight} that society was not on its death-bed; and that, if it was to die soon, it must be killed — ^by the violent methods of social revolution. In fact, the Syndicalists invoked Marx himself to this effect, citing his youthful revolutionary exhortations, uttered before he had evolved the Utopian fallacies of Capital. These fallacies, together with all subsequent "reform- ist" accretions, the Syndicalists contemptuously dis- carded. The ethics of the "class war" were proclaimed in all their naked brutality. "Compromise" and "evolu- tion" were alike scathingly repudiated. The Syndi- caHsts taught that the first steps toward the social revolu- tion must be the destruction of all friendship, sympathy, or co-operation between classes; the systematic cultiva- tion of implacable class hatred; the deepening of un- bridgeable class cleavages. All hopes of social better- ment by peaceful political methods were to be resolutely abandoned, attention being henceforth concentrated upon the grim business of the class war. This war was not to be postponed till some favorable moment; it was to begin now, and was to be waged with ever-increasing fury until complete and final victory. 170 THE REVOLT AGAINST- GIVILIZATION According to Georges Sorel: "Violence, class struggles without quarter, the state of war era permanence," were to be the birthmarks of the social revolution. As another French Syndicalist, Pouget, expressed it: "Revo- lution is a work of all moments, of to-day as well as of to-morrow: it is a continuous action, an every-day fight without truce or delay against the powers of extortion." The methods of the class war were summed up under the term "direct action." These methods were numer- ous, the most important being the strike and "sabotage." Strikes were to be continually called, for any or no reason; if they failed, so much the better, since the defeated workers would be left iu a sullen and vengeful mood. Agreements with employers were to be made only to be broken, because all lies, deceit, and trickery were jus- tifiable — ^nay, imperative — ^against the "enemy." Even while on the job, the Syndicalist was never to do good work, was always to do as little work as possible ("ca' canriy"), and was to practise "sabotage" — i. e., spoil goods and damage machinery, if possible without detec- tion. The objects of aU this were to ruin employers, demoralize industry, decrease production, and thus make living conditions so hard that the masses would be roused to hotter discontent and become riper for "mass action." Meanwhile, everything must be done to envenom the class struggle. Hatred must be deUberately fanned, not only among the masses but among the "possessing classes" as well. Every attempt at conciliation or under- standing between combatants weary of mutual injmy must be nipped in the bud. Says Sorel: "To repay wiiii THE GROUND-fiWBLL OF REVOLT 171 black ingratitude the besnevolence of those who would protect the worker, to meet with insults the speeches of those who advocate human fraternity, to reply by blows at the advocates of those who would {)ropagate social peace — all this is assuredly not in conformity with the rules of fashionable Socialism, but it is a very practical method of showing the bourgeois that they must mind their own business. . , . Proletarian violence appeara on the stage at the very time when attempts are being made to mitigate conflicts by social peace. Violence gives back to the proletariat their natural weapon of the class struggle, by means of frightening the bourgeoisie and profiting by the bourgeois dastardliness in order to impose on them the will of the proletariat." The imcompromising, fighting spirit of Syndicalism comes out vividly in the following lines by the American Syndicalist, Jack London: "There has never been anything like this revolution in the history of the world. There is nothing analogous between it and the American Revolution or the French Revolution. It is unique, colossal. Other revolutions compare with it as asteroids compare with the sun. It is alone of its kind; the first world revolution in a world whose history is replete with revolutions. And not only this, for it is the first organized movement of men to become a world movement, limited only by the limits of the planet. "This revolution is unlike all other revolutions in many respects. It is not sporadic. It is not a flame of popular discontait, arising in a day and dying dawn in 172 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION a day. Here are 7,000,000 comrades in an organized, international, world-wide, revolutionary army. . . . The cry of this army is, 'No quarter!' We want all that you possess. We wiU be content with nothing less than aU you possess. We want in our hands the reins of power and the destiny of mankind. Here are our hands. They are strong hands. We are going to take your governments, your palaces, and all your purpled ease away from you. . . . The revolution is here, now. Stop it who can." ^ Syndicalism's defiant repudiation of traditional moral- ity is well stated in the following quotations from two leaders of the "I. W. W." ("Industrial Workers of the World"), the chief Syndicalist group in America. The first of these quotations is from the pen of Vincent St. John, and is taken from his booklet, The I. W. W., Its History, Structure, and Methods. As Mr. St. John is regarded by Syndicalists everywhere as one of their ablest thinkers, his words may be taken as an authori- tative expression of Syndicalist philosophy. Says Mr. St. John: "As a revolutionary organization, the Indus- trial Workers of the World aim to use any and aU tactics that will get the results sought with the least expendi- ture of time and energy. The tactics used are determined solely by the power of the organization to make good in their use. The question of 'right' or 'wrong' does not concern us." In similar vein, another I. W. W. leader, Arturo Giovannitti, writes: "It is the avowed intention of both ■ Jack London, Bevohdion and Other Essays, pp. 4-8 (New York, 1910). THE GROUND-SWELL OF REVOLT 173 Socialists and Industrial Unionists^ alike to expropriate the bourgeoisie of all its property, to make it social property. Now may we ask if this is right ? Is it moral and just? Of course, if it is true that labor produces everything, it is both moral and just that it should own everything. But this is only an affirmation — ^it must be proven. W?, Industrial Unionists care nothing about proving it. We are going to take over the industries some day, for three very good reasons: Because we need them, because we want them, and because we have the power to get them. Whether we are 'ethically' justified or not is not our concern. We will lose no time proving title to them beforehand; but we may, if it is necessary, after the thing is done, hire a couple of lawyers and judges to fix up the deed and make the transfer perfectly legal and respectable. Such things can always be fixed — anything that is powerful becomes in due course of time righteous. Therefore we Industrial Unionists claim that the social revolution is not a matter of necessity plus justice, but simply necessity plus strength." The climax of the class war, as conceived by the Syn- dicalists, is the "general strike." Having sufficiently demoralized industry by a long process of "direct ac- tion" and having converted enough of the workers for their purpose, the Syndicalists will call the general strike. Before leaving the factories the workers will destroy the machinery by wholesale sabotage; the railways and other forms of transport will hkewise be ruined; and economic life will thus be completely paralyzed. The ^ Another name for Sjrudicalists. 174 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION • result will be chaos, which wiU give the Syndicalists their opportunity. In that hour the organized Syndicalist minority, leading the frenzied, starying masses, and aided by criminals and other antisocial elements, will overthrow the social order, seize all property, crush the bourgeoisie, and establish the social revolution. This social revolution is to be for the benefit of (he Proktariat in its most literal sense. Syndicalism hates, not merely capitalists and bourgeois, but also the "in- tellectuals" and even the skilled workers — "the aris- tocracy of labor." Syndicalism is instinctively hostile to intelligence. It pins its faith to instinct — ^that "deeper knowledge" of the undifferentiated human mass; that proletarian quantity so much more precious than indi- vidualistic quality. Both the intellectual ^lite and their works must make room for the "proletarian culture" of the morrow. Intellectuals are a "useless, privileged class"; art is "a inere residuum bequeathed to us by an aristocratic society." ^ Science is likewise condemned. Cries the French Syndicalist, Edouard Berth, in his pamphlet significantly entitled, The Misdeeds of the Intellectuals: "Oh, the little science — la petite science — which feigns to attain the truth by attaining lucidity of exposition, and shirks the obscurities. Let us go back to the subconscious, the psychological source of every inspiration!" Here we see the full frightfulness of Syndicalism- Bolshevism ! This new social revolt, prepared a genera^ tion ago and launched in Soviet Russia, is not merely a iSorel. THE GROUND-SWELL OF REVOLT 175 war against a social system, not merely a war against our civilization; it is a war of the hand against the Irain. For the first time since man was man there has been a definite schism between the hand and the head. Every progressive principle which mankind has thus far evolved: the sohdarity of civilization and culture; community of interest; the harmonious synthesis of muscle, intellect, and spirit — ^all these the new heresy of the Under-Man howls down and tramples in the mud. Up from the dark purlieus of the imderworld strange battle-shouts come winging. The imderworld is to become the world, the only world. As for our world, it is to be destroyed; as for lis, we are to be killed. A clean sweep! . Not even the most beautiful products of our intellects and souls interest these Under-Men, Why should they care when th^ are fashioning a world of their own? A ^Tid-world, not a headr-world. The Under-Men despise thought itself, save as an instrument of invention and production. Their gmde is, not reason, but the "prole- tarian truth" of instinct and passion — the deeper self below the reason, whose sublimation is — ^the mob. Spake Georges Sorel: "Man has genius only in the measm-e that he does not think." The citizens of the upper world are to be extirpated along with their institutions and ideals. The doomed classes are numerous. They comprise not merely the billionaires of Marx, but also the whole of the upper and middle classes, the landowning countryfolk, even the skilled working men; in short, all except those who work with their imtutored hands, plus the elect few who 176 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION philosophize for those who work with their untutored hands. The elimination of so many classes is, perhaps, unfortunate. However, it is necessary, because these classes are so hopelessly capitalist and bourgeois that, unless eliminated, they would surely infect at its very , birth the gestating underworld civilization. Now note one important point. All that I have just said applies to Syndicalism as it stood prior to the Russian Revolution of 1917. Every point that I have treated has been drawn from SyndicaHst pronoimce- ments made before the appearance of "Bolshevism." We must recognize once and for aU that Bolshevism is not a peculiar Russian phenomenon, but that it is merely the Muscovite manifestation of a movement which had formulated its philosophy and infected the whole civi- lized world before the beginning of the late war.. Thus, when in the next chapter we come to contemplate Rus- sian Bolshevism in action, we shall view it, not as a purely Russian problem, but as a local phase of some- thing which must be faced, fought, and mastered in every quarter of the earth. CHAPTER VI THE REBELLION OF THE UNDER-MAN The Russian Bolshevik Revolution of November, 1917, is an event whose significance increases with the lapse of time. It is the opening gim of the organized rebel- lion against civiUzation. Hitherto the proletarian move- ment had been either "in the air" or underground. Proletarian dreamers might formulate doctrines; prole- tarian strategists ipight plan campaigns; proletarian agitators might rouse wide-spread unrest and incite sporadic violence. Yet all this, though ominous for the future, did not menace society with immediate destruc- tion. The Bolshevik Revolution, however, produced a radi- cally new situation, not merely for Russia, but also for the whole world. Falling from the clouds and rising from the cellars, the forces of unrest coalesced in open line of battle, provided with a huge base of operations, vast resources, and great material fighting strength. To have acquired at a stroke the mastery of mighty Russia, covering nearly one-sixth of the whole land- surface of the globe and inhabited by fuUy 150,000,000 human souls, was a material asset of incalculable value. And the moral gains were equally important. "Nothing succeeds like success"; so the triumph of the Russian Bolsheviks set revolutionists eveiywhwe aquiver, firing 177 178 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION their blood, inflaming their "will to power," and nerving their hearts to victory. The Bolshevik triumph in Russia had, it is true, been won by numerically slender forces, the numbers of con- vinced Bolsheviks who formed the ruling "Communist P^rty" numbering only about 500,000 or 600,000 out of a population of 150,000,000. But this was really a powerful stimulant to the "world revolution," because it proved the ability of a determined, ruthless minority to impose its will upon a disorganized society devoid of capable leaders, and thus encouraged revolutionary minorities everywhere to hope that they might do the same thing — especially with the Russian backing upon which they could henceforth rely. As a matter of fact, Bolshevik revolutions have been tried in many lands since 1917, were actually successful for short periods in Hungary and Bavaria, and are certain to be attempted in the future, since in every part of the world Bolshevik agitation is persistently and insidiously going on. The Russian Bolshevik Revolution took most of the world by siuprise — ^particularly the orthodox Socialists, heedful of Marx's prophecy that the revolution would begin in ultra-capitalist countries, and not in economi- cally backward lands like Russia, barely out of the agri- cultural stage. To those who realize the true nature of social revolution and the special characteristics of Russian life, however, the outbreak of social revolution in Russia rather than in Western coimtries is precisely what might have been expected. Social revolution, as we have already seen, is not progress but regress; not a THE REBELLION OF THE UNDER-MAN 179 step forward to a higher order, but a lurch backward to a lower plane. Therefore, countries like Russia, with veneers of civilization laid thinly over instinctive wHd- ness and refractory barbarism, are peculiarly hable to revolutionary atavism. Furthermore, we have seen that the Russian Bolshevik Revolution was not a chance happening but the logical outcome of a process of social disintegration and savage resurgence that had long been going on. For more than half a centmy the "Nihilists" had been busily fanning the smouldering fires of chaos, their methods and aims being alike frankly described by one of their number, Dostoievsky, who wrote fully fifty years ago: "To re- duce the villages to confusion, to spread cynicism and scandals, together with complete disbeUef ki everything and eagerness for something better, and finally by means of fires to reduce the coimtry to desperation! Man- kind has to be divided into two vmequal parts: nine- tenths have to give up all individuahty and become, so to speak, a herd. . . . We wiU destroy the desire for property; we will make use of drunkenness, slander, spying; we will make use of incredible corruption; we will stifle every genius in his infancy. We will proclaim destruction. There is going to be such an upset as the world has never seen before." The growing power of the violent subversive elements showed clearly in the course of the Russian Revolution of 1905. That movement was not primarily a social revolution; it was at first a poKtical revolution, directed by ihe "Intelligentsia" and the Uberal bourgeoisie. 180 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION against the corrupt and despotic Czarist autocracy. No sooner was the Czarist regime shaken, however, than the social revolutionists tried to take over the move- ment and turn it to their own ends. It is instructive to remember that, in the Social Revolutionaiy Party Congress of 1903, the extremists had gained control of the party machinery, and were thenceforth known as "Bolsheviki,"' dominating the less violent "Menshevik" wing. The leader of this successful cowp was none other than Nikolai Lenin. Therefore, when the revolution of 1905 broke out, the social revolutionists, under the leadership of Lenin, were pledged to the most violent action. It was in the autimm of 1905, about six months after the beginning of the political revolution, that the Bol- sheviki attempted to seize control by proclaiming a "dic- tatorship of the proletariat," organized into "Soviets." The attempt, however, failed; but this abortive cowp of the social revolutionists involved the failure of the whole revolutionary movement. Frightened by the spectre of class warfare and social chaos, the pohtical revolutionists cooled, Czarism rallied and re-estabhshed its authority. Russia's hope of a liberal, constitutional government faded away, and Czarism continued in the saddle until the Revolution of March, 1917. This second revolution was almost an exact replica of the first. At the start it was dominated by political ^ Bokheviki, translated literally, means "those in the majority." Their less violent opponents, outvoted at the Congress of 1903, became known as Menshemhi, or "those in the minority." THE REBELLION OF THE UNDER-MAN 181 refonners — liberals like Miliukov and Prince Lvov, allied with moderate Socialists like Kerensky. Behind the scenes, however, the Bolsheviki were working. Both their tactics and their leaders^ were the same as those of 1905, and this time their efforts were crowned with success. In November, 1917, eight months after the outbreak of the Second Russian Revolution, came the Third, or Bolshevik, Revolution, the crushing of both political Uberals and moderate Socialists, and the tri- iraiph of violent Communism. Riossia sank into the hell of class war, bloodshed, terrorism, poverty, cold, disease, and appalling famine in which it has been welter- ing ever since. Furthermore, "Red Russia" appeared like a baleful meteor on the world's horizon. The Bol- shevik leaders promptly sought to use Russia as a lever for upsetting the whole world and supplemented their national organization by the "Third International," whose revolutionary tentacles soon stretched to the re- motest comers of the earth. Into a detailed discussion of Bolshevism's horrors and failures I do not propose to enter. It would fill a book in itself. Sufl&ce it here to say that Bolshevism's so- called "constructive" aims have failed, as they were bound to fail, for the simple reason that Bolshevism is essentially a destructive, retrogressive movement. To be sure, the economic breakdown in Russia has been I It is interesting to remember that it was Leon Trotzky who, in the autumn of 1905, tried to engineer the abortive "dictatorship of the prole- tariat" aJready described. Although Lenin and Trotzky remained un- known to the world at large until 1917, they had been the leaders of the Russian Bolsheviki for many years previously. 182 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION so frightful that, in order to avert utter chaos, the Bol- shevik leaders have been forced to revive some of the despised "capitalist" methods, such as private trading, the employment of high-salaried experts, and certain forms of private property. They have also attempted to stimulate production by estabhshing an iron despotism over the workers, forcing the latter to labor virtually as slaves, so that the Bolshevist regime has come to be known sardonically as a "dictatorship over the pro- letariat." Perhaps these measures may save Russia from absolute ruin; perhaps not. Time alone will tell. But even if things now take a turn for the better, this will be due, not to Bolshevism but to a practical repudia- tion of Bolshevism by its own leaders. It is by its doc- trines, and by its acts done in accordance with those doctrines, that Bolshevism must be judged. Let us see, then, what Russian Bolshevism means, in theory and in applied practice. The fimdamental characteristic of Bolshevism is its violence. Of course, this was also a basic element in Syndicalism, but the Bolshevists seem to stress violence even more than their Syndicalist predecessors. Bol- shevism calmly assumes wholesale class warfare of the most ferocious character on a world-wide scale for an indefinite period, as a normal phase of its development and as necessary for its success. For example: the American journalist, Arthur Ransome, in his conversa- tions with the Russian Bolshevik leaders, found them contemplating a "period of torment" for the world at large lasting at least fifty years. The class wars which THE REBELLION OF THE UNDER-MAN 183 would rage in western Europe and America would be infinitely worse than Russia's, would annihilate whole populations, and would probably imply the destruction of all culttu-e.^ The appalling implications of this Bolshevik principle of "permanent violence" have repelled not merely be- lievers in the existing social order, but also many persons not wholly hostile to Bolshevism and even ready to wel- come a social revolution of a less destructive character. The "Menshevik" Gregory Zilboorg thus criticises Bol- shevism's "mob-psychology*' (and incidentally expoimds the Menshevik theory of revolution) in the following lines: "The Bolshevists have an almost religious, almost frantic faith in the masses as such. Dynamic masses are their ideal. But they overlooked, and still overlook, the fact that the masses, even the self-conscious masses, are often transformed into mobs, and the dynamic power of a mob may scarcely be reasoned with. . . . "The fallacy in the Bolshevist reasoning lies in in- cluding people as well as mob iu the term 'masses.' The blind faith in the 'masses' is a silent but potent indication that they accept the crowd and the crowd- psychology as the most justifiable factors in social life. Such an acceptance implies the further acceptance of two very dangerous factors. The first is that revolu- tion is a blow, a moment of spontaneous destruction. Immediately following this blow there arises the necessity for stabilizing the social forces for a constructive life. » Ransome, Russia in 1919, pp. 83-87 (New York, 1919). 184 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION I take it that the work of construction must begin, not when we have reached a point beyond which we can- not go, but when we have completely changed the social element. As soon as the old codes, as a system, are done with, we must give up destrojong and turn to con- structing. For this purpose we must gather all our intellectual forces, relying on the masses to help us, but not being guided by them. So that when a revolu- tion puts power into the hands of a group or a class, even dictatorial power, we must immediately begin to sohdarize the social forces. The Commimist theory omits the necessity for this solidarization, and, there- fore, admits of no compromise or co-operation. It cre- ates fundamental principles of a rule by a minority. Government by a minority is dangerous, not because it is opposed to the traditional idea of democracy and the traditional worship of the majority, but because such government necessitates the employment of continuous violent methods and maintaining continuously, in the minds of the masses, a consciousness of danger and the necessity for destruction. And that is the second dan- gerous factor. Under such a condition the masses are permanent mobs, able only to hate, to fight, and to de- stroy." ^ In similar vein. President Masaryk of Czechoslovakia (himself a moderate Socialist) asserts that "The Bolshe- viki want revolution at any cost," and continues: "Lenin considers armed revolution the principal constructive • Zilboorg, The Passing of the Old Order in Ewope, pp. 184-186 (New York, 1920). THE REBELLION OF THE UNDER-MAN 185 force in social progress. For the Bolsheviki, revolution is a revelation, and for most of them it is literally a fetish. Consequently, to their eyes, revolution is an end in itself. . . . The Bolsheviki did not know, and they never have known, how to work. They know only how to force others to work. They know how to fight, how to kill, and mm-der, and die, but they are incapable of plodding, productive labor." ^ It was the terrible "price" of prolonged, world-wide warfare that made the celebrated English thinker, Bertrand Russell, reject Bolshevism, to which he had at first been strongly attracted. "Those who reaKze the destructiveness of the late war," he writes, "the devastation and impoverishment, the lowering of the level of civilization throughout vast areas, the general increase of hatred and savagery, the letting loose of bestial instincts which had been curbed during peace — those who realize aU this will hesitate to incur incon- ceivably greater horrors even if they believe firmly that Communism in itself is much to be desired. An eco- nomic system cannot be considered apart from the population which is to carry it out; and the population resulting from such a world war as Moscow calmly contemplates would be savage, bloodthirsty and ruthless to an extent that must make any system a mere engine of oppression and cruelty. ... I am compelled to reject Bolshevism for two reasons: First, because the price mankind must pay to achieve Communism by * T. G. Masaxyk, Revolvtionary Theory in Europe. Translated in The Living Age, 9 J»ily, 1921. 186 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION Bolshevik methods is too terrible; and secondly, be- cause, even after paying the price, I do not believe the result would be what the Bolsheviks profess to desire." ^ In this connection it is instractive to note that the Russian Bolshevik leaders have never repudiated, or even modified, their fundamental reliance upon violent methods. Lenin's famous "Twenty-One Points" Mani- festo, laying down the terms upon which Socialist groups throughout the world would be admitted to the "Third International," commands implacable war, open or se- cret, both against existing society and against all So- cialists outside the Communist fold. And Trotzky, in his recent pronouncement significantly entitled, "The Defense of Terrorism," ^ fiercely justifies aU Bolshevik acts and policies as alike necessary and right. Another of Bolshevism's fundamental characteristics is its despotism — a despotism not only of the Bolshe- vist minority over the general population, but also of the Bolshevik leaders over their own followers. Here, again, Bolshevism is merely developing ideas already formulated by Syndicalism. The SyndicaUsts, abandon- ing the Marxian deference for "the masses" in general, denied the necessity or desirability for heeding their wishes and considered only the "class-conscious" mi- nority of the proletariat — ^in plain language, their own crowd. As the French Syndicalist, Lagardelle put it: •Bertrand Russell, "Bolshevik Theory," The New Republic, 3 Novem- ber, 1920. ^ English translation published in London, 1922. THE REBELLION OF THE UNDER-MAN 187 "The mass, unwieldy and clumsy as it is, must not here speak out its mind." Furthermore, in carrying out their prpgramme, the Syndicalist leaders might rely wholly on force, without even condescending to explana- tion. In the words of the Syndicalist Brouilhet: "The masses expect to be treated with violence, and not to be persuaded. They always obediently foUow when a' single man or a cHque shows the way. Such is the law of collective psychology." The Russian Bolshevik leaders evidently had these ideas in mind when they made their successful cowp d'itdi in November, 1917. Bolshevik theory, as preached to the masses, had hitherto been that the "dictatorship of the proletariat" would be a short transition period ending with the rapid annihilation of the capitalist and bourgeois classes, after which there would be no more "government," but a fraternal Hberty. That the Bol- shevik "dictatorship" might last longer than most pro- letarians expected was, however, hinted at by Lenin himself in a circular issiied shortly before the November coup, and entitled, "Shall the Bolsjieviks remain in Power?" Here Lenin bluntly states his attitude. Of course, he says, we preached the destruction of the State as long as the State was in possession of our enemies. But why should we destroy the State after having our- selves taken the hehn? "The State is, to be sure, an or- ganized rule by a privileged minority. Well, let us in our turn substitute our minority for theirs, and let us run the machinery ! And this is precisely what the Bolsheviks have done. 188 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION Instead of destroying the State, they have built up one of the most iron despotisms that the world has ever seen, with an autocratic governing clique functioning through a centralized "Red" bureaucracy and relying upon a "Red" army powerful enough to crush all disaflfection. No parliamentary opposition, no criticism, is permitted. No book, pamphlet, or newspaper may be printed which disagrees with the Bolshevik Government. Further- more, there are no signs of any relaxation of this despotic attitude. The recent "concessions" like private trad- ing are purely economic in character; the Bolshevik Government itseK has frankly announced that no politi- cal concessions will be made, and that absolute power will remain in its hands. The economic concessions are termed merely "temporary," to be revoked as soon as the Russian people has become sufficiently "educated" along Bolshevik lines to make possible the establishment of pure Commimism. Of course, this means that the "dictatorship" is to be indefinitely prolonged. As Lenin himself candidly remarked recently to a visiting delegation of Spanish Socialists: "We never spoke about liberty. We practise the proletariat's dictatorship in the name of the minor- ity, because the peasant class have not yet become pro- letarian and are not with us. It will continue imtil they subject themselves." But would the dictatorship end even if the whole Russian people should "subject themselves" to Com- munism? It is highly improbable. On this point Bertrand Russell makes some very acute remarks, the THE REBELLION OF THE UNDER-MAN 189 result o( his journey to Russia and keen "sizing-up" of its Bolslipvist rulers.^ Says Mr. Russell: "Advoloacy of Communism by those who believe in Bolshevik methods rests upon the assimiption that there is no slavery except econonaic slavery, and that when all goods are held in common there must be perfect lib- erty. I fear this is a delusion. "There must be administration, there must be officials who control distribution. These men, in a Communist State, are the repositories of power. So long as they control the army, they are able, as in Russia at this moment, to wield despotic power, even if they are a small minority. The fact that there is Communism — to a certain extent — does not mean that there is lib- erty. If the Communism were more complete it would not necessarily mean more freedom; there would still be certain officials in control of the food-supply, and these officials could govern as they pleased as long as they retained the support of the soldiers. This is not mere theory; it is the patent lesson of the present con- dition of Russia. The Bolshevik theory is that a small minority are to seize power, and are to hold it until Conmiunism is accepted practically universally, which, they admit, may take a long time. But power is sweet, and few men surrender it voluntarily. It is especially sweet to those who have the habit of it, and the habit becomes most ingrained in those who have governed 1 It is interesting to note that Mr. Russell's remarks on this particular point roused more anger in Bolshevik circles than did any of his other crit- icisms. The reason is obvious: they hit too much at the heart of things. 190 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION by bayonets without popular support. Is it not almost inevitable that men placed as the Bolsheviks are placed in Russia (and as they maintain that the Communists must place themselves ■ wherever the social revolution succeeds) wiU be loath to relinquish their monopoly of power, and will find reasons for remaining until some new revolution ousts them? Would it not be fatally easy for them, without altering the economic structure, to decree large salaries for high government officials, and so reintroduce the old inequalities of wealth? What motive would they have for not doing so? What mo- tive is possible except idealism, love of mankind — ^non- economic motives of the sort that Bolsheviks decry? The system created by violence and the forcible rule of a minority must necessarily allow of tyranny and ex- ploitation; and if human nature is what Marxists assert it to be, why should the rulers neglect such opportimities of selfish advantage? "It is sheer nonsense to pretend that the rulers of a great empire such as Soviet Russia, when they have become accustomed to power, retain the proletarian psychology, and feel that their class interest is the same as that of the ordinary working man. This is not the case in fact in Russia now, however the truth may be concealed by fine phrases. The government has a class consciousness and a class interest quite distinct from those of the genuine proletarian, who is not to be con- founded with the paper proletarian of the Marxian schema."^ I Russell, op. at. THE REBELLION OF THE UNDER-MAN 191 Thus, in Russia as in social revolutions throughout history^ we see emerging the vicious circle of chaos suc- ceeded by despotism. There is the tragedy of social upheavals — ^the upshot being that the new ruling class is usually inferior to the old, while society has mean- time suffered irreparable cultural and racial losses. How, indeed, can it be otherwise? Let us look once more at Russia. Consider, first of all, the Bolshevik leaders. Some of them, like Lenin, are really able men, but most of them appear to belong to those sinister types ("tainted geniuses," paranoiacs, unbalanced fa- natics, unscrupulous adventm-ers, clever criminals, etc.) who always come to the front in times of social dissolu- tion — ^which, indeed, give them their sole opportunity of success. In fact, this has been admitted by no less a person than Lenin himself. In one of his extraor- dinary bursts of frankness, he remarked in his speech before the Third Soviet Conference, "Among one hun- dred so-called Bolsheviki there is one real BolsheAok, with thirty-nine criminals and sixty fools." It would be extremely instructive if the Bolshevik leaders coiild all be psychoanalyzed. Certainly, many of their acts suggest peculiar mental states. The atroci- ties perpetrated by some of the Bolshevik Commissars, for example, are so revolting that they seem explicable only by mental aberrations Hke homicidal mania or the sexual perversion known as sadism. One such scientific examination of a group of Bol- shevik leaders has been made. At the time of the Red terror in the city of Kiev, in the summer of 1919, the 192 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION medical professors of Kiev University were spared on account of their usefulness to their terrorist masters. Three of these medical men were competent aKenists, who were able to diagnose the Bolshevik leaders mentally in the course of their professional duties. Now their diagnosis was that nearly aU the Bolshevik leaders were degenerates, of more or less imsoimd mind. Further- more, most of them were alcohoHcs, a majority were syphflitic, while many were drug fiends. Such wefe the "dictators" who for months terrorized a great city of more than 600,000 inhabitants, committed the most fiendish atrocities, and butchered many leading citizens, including scholars of international reputation.^ Of covirse, what is true of the leaders is even truer of the followers. In Russia, as in every other social up- heaval, the bulk of the fighting revolutionists consists of the most turbulent and worthless elements of the population, far outnumbering the small nucleus of gen- uine zealots for whom the revolution is a pure ideal. The original "Red Guard" of Petrograd, formed at the time of the November cowp, was a most unsavory lot, made up chiefly of army deserters, gunmen, and foreign adventurers, especially Letts from the Baltic Provinces. The Bolshevik leaders from the start deHberately in- flamed the worst passions of the city rabble, while the ' The most flagrant instance was the murder of Professor Florinsky of Kiev University, an international authority on Slavic history and juris- prudence. Haled before the Revolutionary Tribunal for examination, he was shot in open court by one of his judges — a woman member, named Rosa Schwartz. This woman, a former prostitute, was apparently under the influence of liquor. Irritated by one of the professor's answers to a question, she drew her revolver and fixed at him, killing him instantly. THE REBELLION OF THE UNDER-MAN 193 "pauper" elements in the villages were systematically- incited against the thriftier peasants. When the Bol- shevik Government became firmly established, prole- tarian violence was controlled and directed against its enemies. The spirit, however, remained the same — a spirit of wild revolt, of measureless violence, of frenzied hatred of the old order ia every form. All glory, honor, and triumph to the revolution; to the fury of the proletarian vnll; to the whirlwind of unfettered brute-action; to the madness for doing things! This spirit is vividly portrayed ia Alexander Block's famous poem. The Twelve.^ Block preaches implacable hatred of the old world; of the "lazy bourgeois"; of all that belongs to yesterday, which fancied itseK secm-e and now has become the booty of the Red Guards. "For the bourgeois woe and sorrow. We shall start a world-wide fire, And with blood that fire we'll blend." The "bourgeois," the middle-class man, is hated even worse than the aristocrat and the great capitalist. This attitude is not peculiar to the Russian Bolsheviks; it is shared by all social revolutionists, both of to-day and of yesterday. In the preceding chapter we have seen how fierce was the hatred of the middle classes among * Alexander Block (now deceased) was one of the few Russian "intel- lectuals" of distinction who went over to BolshBvism at the beginning of the revolution. The Twelve are twelve Red Guards, t^ical hoodlums, who are ^orified and are compared to the twelve Apostles of Ohrist. 194 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION Anarchists and SyndicaKsts. In Russia it is felt by all the revolutionary parties. ' Here, for example, is how the Menshevik, Gregory Zilboorg, describes the bour- geoisie: "The great enemy of a genuine revolution is, not capitalism itself, but its by-product, its bastard offspring, the middle class; and as long as the middle class remains iatact in Europe, a revolution is not possi- ble. . . . Materialism demonstrated a certain diabolic getiius in creating its faithful servant, the middle class. The rule of the middle class is nothing less than a 'dictatorship of the propertariat.' While that dictature lasts, the new order of society will remain unborn." ^ Such being the attitude of revolutionists of all shades, the fate of the Russian middle classes after the Bolshevik triumph was a foregone conclusion. As a matter of fact, the Bolsheviks proceeded to shatter this "stumbling- block of the revolution" with a ruthless efficiency un- paralleled in history. The middle classes were pro- scribed en masse, "Boorjooy" becoming as fatal an epithet in Soviet Russia as "Aristocrat" was in Jacobin France. All over Russia the bourgeois were degraded into persecuted pariahs, systematically fenced off like lepers from the rest of the population and condemned to ultimate extinction as unfit to live in the new Com- munistic society. The tragedy that followed baffles description. Multi- tudes of bourgeois fled beyond the frontiers. Other multitudes scattered across Russia as homeless refugees. The bravest joined the "White" armies and fell fighting ' Zilboorg, op. cit., pp. 240-242. THE REBELLION OF THE UNDER-MAN 195 in the civil wars. The rest huddled in their desolate homes, Uke condenaned criminals waiting for death, ex- posed to every hardship and ignominy that their perse- cutors covld heap upon them. The most effective means devised by the Bolsheviks for "eliminating" the bour- geoisie was the "differential food ration." The popu- lation was graded by classes and rationed accordingly, members of the Communist Party faring best, while "Boorjooy" received least of all — ^in Lenin's jocose phraseology, "bread enough to prevent them from for- getting its smell." Their official ration being quite in- sufficient to sustain life, the bourgeois eked out a wretched existence by bartering to food-smugglers such of their goods as had not been seized or stolen, and when these were gone — starved. The result of all this has been the utter ruin (and in large part the physical annihilation) of the old Russian middle classes. Many hundreds of thousands, at the very least, must have perished, while those stiU alive are physically wrecked and spiritually broken. To be sure, there is the so-called "new bourgeoisie," sprimg from the ranks of sly food-smugglers and peasant profi- teers. But this new bourgeoisie is far inferior to the old in everything except low cunning and crass materialism. In fact, the Bolsheviks themselves almost deplore the disappearance of the old bourgeoisie when they con- template its sinister successor. Says Izvestia, the Bol- shevik official organ: "Our old bourgeoisie has been crushed, and we imagine that there will be no return of old conditions. The power of the Soviets has succeeded 196 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION the old regime, and the Soviet advocates equality and universal service; but the fruits of this era are not yet ready to harvest, and there are already unbidden guests and new forms of profiteers. They are even now so numerous that we must take measures against them. But the task will be a difficxilt one, because the new bourgeoisie is more numerous and dangerous than the old. The old bourgeoisie committed many sins, but it did not conceal them. A bourgeois was a bourgeois. You could recognize him by his appearance. . . . The old bourgeoisie robbed the people, but it spent part of its money for expensive fixtures and works of art. Its money went by indirect channels to the support of schools, hospitals, and musemns. Apparently the old bourgeoisie was ashamed to keep everything for itself, and so gave back part. The new bourgeoisie thinks of nothing but its stomach. Comrades, beware of the new bourgeoisie." The fate of the middle classes was shared by other elements of Russian society; by the nobility, gentry, capitalists, and "intellectuals." The tragedy of the intellectuals is a peculiarly poignant one. The Russian intellectuals, or Intelligentsia, as they called themselves, had for generations been Russia's brain and conscience. In the Intelligentsia were concentrated Russia's best hopes of progress and civilization. The Intelligentsia stood bravely between despotic Czardom and benighted masses, striving to Kberalize the one and to enlighten the other, accepting persecution and misunderstanding as part of its noble task. Furthermore, beside the al- THE REBELLION OP THE tJNDER-MAN 197 most caste-like stratification of old Russian society, the Intelligentsia stood, a thing apart. Recruited from all classes, it was not itself a class, but rather a non-class or super-class element. From this it naturally followed that the Intelligentsia was not of one mind. It had its conservatives, its liberals, its radicals, even its violent extremists — ^from which the brains of Nihilism and Bol- shevism were drawn. The prevailing tone was, however, "hberal"; that is to say, a spirit of constructive reform. The Intelligentsia backed the 'political revolutions of 1905 and March, 1917. The latter, in particular, fired it with boundless hopes. The Intelligentsia believed that its labors and trials were at last to be rewarded; that Russia was to become the Hberal, progressive na- tion of its dreams. Then came the Bolshevik cowp of November. The extremist wing of the Intelligentsia accepted Bolshevism with delirium, but the majority rejected it with horror. Bolshevism's narrow class consciousness, savage temper, fierce destructiveness, and hatred of intellect appalled and disgusted the Intelligentsia's liberal idealism. But the Bolsheviks, on their side, had long hated and de- spised the intellectuals, regarding them as enemies to be swept ruthlessly from their path. The result was a persecution of the intellectuals as implacable as the per- secution of the bourgeoisie. The Russian intellectuals were killed, starved, and driven into exile. Multitudes perished, while the survivors were utterly broken and intellectually sterilized. As time passed, to be sure, the economic collapse of Russia (largely through sheer hrain 198 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION famine) compelled the Bolshevik Govenunent to abate its persecution and to offer some of the intellectuals posts iQ its service. However, the offer was coupled with such humiliating, slavish conditions that the nobler spirits preferred starvation, while those who accepted did so only in despair. The martyrdom of the Russian Intelligentsia is vividly described by one of their number in the following poign- ant lines. Says Leo Pasvolsky: "I have seen educated men coming out of Russia; their general appearance, and particularly the crushed hopelessness of their mental processes, is a nightmare that haunts me every once in ai while. They are a Uving testimonial to the processes that are taking place in Russia. . . . Such an exodus of the educated and intelligent as there has been out of Russia no countiy has ever seen, and certainly no coun- try can ever afford. The Intelligentsia has lost every- thing it had. It has lived to see every ideal it revered shattered, every aim it sought pushed away almost out of sight. Embittered and hardened in exile, or crushed spiritually and physically under the present government, the tragedy of the Russian Intelligentsia is the most pathetic and poignant m himian history." * The blows which Bolshevism has dealt Russia's intel- lectual life have been truly terrible. Indeed, it is not too much to say that Bolshevism has beheaded Russia. The old Intelligentsia is destroyed, blighted, or in exile. And, so long as Bolshevism rules, it is difficult to see how ^Leo Pasvolsky, "The Intelligentraa under the Soviets," Atlantie Monthly, November, 1920. THE REBELLION OF THE UNDER-MAN 199 a new Intelligentsia can arise. The Bolshevik Govern- ment has undertaken the herculean task of converting the whole Russian people to Communism, seeing therein the sole guarantee of its continued existence. To this supreme end everything else must be subordinated. But this means that education, learning, science, art, and every other field of intellecttial activity is perverted into propaganda; that all doubtful or hostile ideas must be excluded; that no critical or independent thinking can be tolerated. And history has conclusively demon- strated that where thought is not free there is no true intellectual Kfe, but only intellectual mummies or abor- tions. Furthermore, the still more fimdamental query arises, whether, even if Bolshevik rule should soon end, Russia may not have suffered such racial losses that the level of her intelligence has been permanently lowered. Rus- sia's biological losses have been appalling. For five long years a systematic extirpation of the upper and middle classes has been going on, and the results of this "inverse selection" are hteraUy staggering. The number of Russian exiles alone, to-day scattered to the four comers of the earth, is estimated at from one to two milUons. Add to these the hundreds of thousands who have perished by execution, in prison, in the civil wars, and by disease, cold, and famine; add to these, again, the millions who survive ruined, persecuted, and thus unlikely to rear their normal quota of children; and we begin to realize how the Russian stock has been im- paired — ^how well the Under-Man has done his work! 200 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION To be sure, against all this may be set the fact that Russia's racial losses are probably not so terrible as those which Bolshevism woxild inflict upon the more advaaced Western nations. Russia's very backwardness, together with the caste-like rigidity of old Russian so- ciety, minimized the action of the "social ladder" and hindered that "draining" of talent from the lower into the higher social classes which has proceeded so rapidly in western Europe and America. Nevertheless, even if Russia's racial losses are not so fatal as those which the West would suffer under similar circxmistances, they must be very grave and largely irreparable. Of course these considerations can have no influence whatever upon the conduct of the Bolsheviks themselves, because the philosophy of the Under-Man denies he- redity, believes passionately in "natural equaUty" and the omnipotence of environment, and pins its faith on mass quantity instead of individual quality. Indeed, the Bolsheviks believe that the whole world order, both as it now exists and as it has in the past existed, is hopelessly aristocratic or bourgeois; that to the proletariat it is meaningless and useless; that it should therefore be utterly destroyed; and that in its place must arise a new "proletarian" world order, cre- ated exclusively by and for the proletariat. This theory is absolute. It makes no exceptions; all fields of human activity, even science, art, and hterature, being included. The climax of this theory is the Bolshevik doctrine of "Proletarian Culture," or, as it is termed in Bolshevik circles, Proktrkult. THE REBELLION OF THE UNDER-MAN 201 Of course, here as elsewhere, Bolshevism has invented nothing really new. The idea of "proletarian culture" was preached by the Syndicalists twenty years ago. The Bolsheviks have, however, elaborated the doctrine, and in Russia they are actually attempting to practise it. The Russian Bolsheviks are, to be sure, divided over the immediate cultural poHcy to be pursued. Some assert that, since existing culture is to the proletariat meaningless, useless, and even dangerous, it should be scrapped forthwith. Others maintain that existing ctil- ture contains certain educative elements, and that these should therefore be used for the stimulation of the pro- letarian culture of the future. To the latter faction (which has the support of Lenin) is due the preservation of Russia's art treasures and the maintenance of certain artistic activities like the theatre and the opera along more or less traditional lines. However, these factional differences, as already stated, are merely differences of policy. In principle both factions are agreed, their common goal being the creation of an exclusive, prole- tarian culture. Let us, therefore, examine this doctrine of Prolet-kult as expounded by its partisans in Russia and elsewhere. The arch-champion of Prolet-kult in Russia is Lun^ charsky. He is one of the most powerful Bolshevik lead- ers and holds the post of Commissar of Education in the Soviet Government, so he is well able to make his cul- tural ideas felt. Lunacharsky holds the doctrine of Prolet-kult in its most uncompromising form. His offi- cial organ, Proletarskaia KuUura {Proletarian Culture) 202 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION sets forth authoritatively the Bolshevik cultural view. Let us see precisely what it is. Lunacharsky categorically condemns existing "bour- geois" culture from top to bottom, and asserts that it must be destroyed and replaced by a wholly new pro- letarian culture. Says Lunacharsky: "Our enemies, dur- ing the whole course of the revolutionary period, have not ceased crying about the ruin of culture. As if they did not know that in Russia, as well as everywhere, there is no united common himian culture, but that there is only a bourgeois culture, an individual cultm-e, debasing itself into a culture of Imperialism — covetous, blood- thirsty, ferocious. The revolutionary proletariat aspires to free itself from the path of a dying culture. It is working out its own class, proletarian culture. . . . During its dictatorship, the proletariat has realized that the strength of its revolution consists not alone in a political and military dictatorship, but also in a cultural dictatorship." Ltmacharsky's editorial dictum is enthusiastically in- dorsed by multitudes of "Comrades" who, in prose and verse, enliven Proletarskaia KuUura's edifying pages. The old bourgeois culture is, of course, the object of fierce hatred. Sings one poetic soul: "In the name of our To-morrow we will burn JRafael, Destroy museums, crush the flowers of art. Maidens in the radiant kingdom of the Future Will be more beautiful than Venus de Milo." Science (as it now exists) is likewise imder the ban. For example, one "Comrade" Bogdanoff, desiring to THE REBELLION OF THE UNDER-MAN 203 show what transformations the material sciences and philosophy will have to undergo in order to make them suitable for proletarian vmderstanding, enunciates a series of propositions. Of these the ninth is that astronomy must be transformed from its present state into a "teach- ing of the orientation in space and time of the efforts of labor." To the non-Bolshevik mind these ideas sound iasane. But they are not insane. They are merely a logical recognition of the fact that, in a society organized ex- clusively on proletarian principles, every thread in the fabric, whether it be political, social, economic, or ar- tistic, must harmonize with the whole design, and must be inspired by one and the same idea — class conscious- ness and collectivism. This is clearly perceived by some contributors. Says one: "La order to be a proletarian creator it is not enough to be an artist; it is also neces- sary to know economics, the laws of their development, and to have a complete knowledge of the Marxist method, which makes it possible to expose all the strata and mouldiness of the bourgeois fabric." And another ob- serves: "Marx has estabUshed that society is, above all, an organization of production, and that in this lies the basis of all the laws of its life, all development of its forms. This is the point of view of the social-pro- ductive class, the point of view of the working collec- tive." Indeed, one writer goes so far as to question the need for any art at all in the future proletarian culture. Ac- cording to this Comrade, art arose out of individml 204 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION striving, passion, sorrow, disillusion, the conflict of the individual with the Fates (whatever shapes they might take, whether those of gods, God, or Capitalists). In the Communistic society of the future, where everybody wiU be satisfied and happy, these artistic stimuli will no longer exist, and art will thus become both unneces- sary and impossible. ' This annihilating suggestion is, however, exceptional; the other Comrades assume that proletarian culture will have its artistic side. Proletarian art must, how- ever, be mass art; the concepts of genius and individual creation are severely reprobated. This is, of course, in accordance with the general theory of Bolshevism: that the individual must be merged in the collectivity; that talented individuals merely express the will of the mass incarnated in them. This Bolshevik war against indi- viduahty explains why the overwhelming majority of the Russian Intelligentsia is so irreconcilably opposed to Bolshevism. It also explains why those who have bowed to Bolshevism have ceased to produce good work. They have been intellectually emasculated. The Comrades of Proletarskaia KuUura set forth logi- cally why proletarian culture must be exclusively the work of proletarians. This is because only a proletarian, strong in his class consciousness, can think or feel as a proletarian. Therefore, only to true proletarians is given the possibility of creating proletarian culture. Converts of bourgeois origin may think themselves pro- letarians, but they can never really belong to the creative elect. To this stem rule there are no exceptions. Even THE REBELLION OF THE UNDER-MAN 205 Karl Marx^ is excluded from sharing the proletarian's "deeper experiences"; like Moses, he may "look into the land of milk and honey, but never enter it." Furthermore, this new culture, produced exclusively by proletarians, must be produced in strictly proletarian fashion. The "culture workman," reduced to a cog in the creative machinery, produces cultural commodities like any other commodities, turns out art and literature precisely like boots and clothing. Why not, since cul- ture, like industry, is subject to unbending economic principles and can be expressed in a collective conven- tion symbolized by the machine? Why should not an artist or author be like an ordinary workman, working so many hours a day in the company of other artistic or literary workmen, and poohng their labors to produce a joint and anonymous product? The upshot of all this is the artists' or writers' workshop. Here we have the fine flower of proletarian culture! Bourgeois methods are, it seems, all wrong. They are intolerably antisocial. The boingeois author or artist is an incorrigible individualist. He works on inspiration and in the solitude of his study or studio. For pro- letarian authors and artists such methods are unthinka- ble. Neither inspiration nor individual absorption being necessary to them, they will gather at a fixed hour for their communal labors in their workshops. Let us look in on a writers' workshop as depicted by Comrade Ker- zhentsev: ' Marx was of distinctly middle-class stock. His father was a lawyer, and Marx himself received a good education. 206 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION "The literary work of the studios may be divided into various branches. First, the selection of the subject. Many authors have special abiUty in finding favorable subjects, while utterly unable to develop them respecta- bly. Let them give their subjects to others. Let these subjects, and perhaps separate parts of them — scenes, pictiires, episodes, various types and situations — ^be col- lected. From this treasure of thought, material will be extracted by others. ... It is precisely in such studios that a collective composition may be written. Perhaps various chapters will be written by various people. Perhaps various types and situations will be worked out and embodied by various authors. The whole composi- tion may be finally written by a single person, but with the constant and systematic collaboration of the other members of the studio in the particular work." This appalling nonsense is wittily ptmctured by an English critic in the following pungent lines: "What self-respecting author will submit to the bondage of this human machine, this 'factory of literature'? This scheme, to my mind, is too preposterous to require an answer; yet, if one must be given, it can be contained in a single word: Shakespeare! "Here was m individual who could write a better lyric, better prose, could define the passions better, could draw clearer types, had a better knowledge of human psychology, could construct better, was superior in every department of the literary art to all his contemporaries. A whole 'studio' of Ehzabethans, great as each was individually, could have hardly put together a work of THE REBELLION OP THE UNBER-MAN 207 art as 'collective' (if you will) and as perfect as this one man by himself. Imagine the harmony of Homer bet- tered by a collection of 'gas-bags' meeting to discuss his work ! Imagine the colossal comedy of an Aristophanes 'improved' by the assistance of a lot of solemn-faced sans-culottes, dominated by an idee fixe, whom the comic author might even wish to satirize ! "Would even lesser men consent to it? Imagine WeUs and Bennett and Conrad and Chesterton, with their individual minds, produced in the opulent diversity of nature, collaborating in one room. Picture to your- self, if you can, a literary workshop, shared by Cannan, Lawrence, Beresford, Mackenzie, assisted, say, by Mrs. Humphry Ward, Marie CoreUi, and Elinor Glyn. "To this, the Bolsheviks wiU of course give their stereotyped reply that this diverse condition has been brought about by a bourgeois civilization; for laws of nature, the stumbling-block of good and bad Utopias, do not exist for them. But it is a long way from theory to practice, and they are a long way from having bound the Prometheus of creation to the Marxian rock." ^ The Russian Bolsheviks have, however, tried to do so in at least one notable instance. We have all heard of the famous (or notorious) "House of Science," where Russia's surviving savants have been barracked under one roof and told to get together and produce. Thus far, the House of Science has produced nothing but a high death-rate. 1 John C!oumos, "A Factory of Literature," The New Europe, 20 Novem- ber, 1919. 208 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION So much for Prolet-kult in Russia. Perhaps it may be thought that this is a special Russian aberration. This/ however, is not the case. Prolet-kult is indorsed by Bolsheviks everywhere. For example: those stanch "Comrades/' Eden and Cedar Paul, twin pillars of British Bolshevism and acknowledged as heralds of the Gommimist cause by Bolshevik circles in both England and America, have devoted their latest book to this very subject.^ In this book all "bourgeois culture" is scath- ingly condemned. Our so-called "general culture" is "a purely class heritage." "There is no culture for the 'common people,' for the hewers of wood and the drawers of water." There is no such thing as "scientific" eco- nomics or sociology. For these reasons, say the authors, there should be organized and spread abroad a new kind of education, "Proletcult." This, we are informed, "is a fighting culture, aiming at the overthrow of capitaUsm and at the replacement of democratic culture and bour- geois ideology by ergatocratic culture and proletarian ideology." The authors warmly indorse the Soviet Government's prostitution of education and all other forms of intellectual activity to Communist propaganda, for we are told that the "new education" is inspired by "the new psychology," which "provides the philosophi- cal justification of Bolshevism and supplies a theoretical guide for our efforts in the field of proletarian cultiu-e, . . . Education is suggestion. The recognition that sugges- tion is autosuggestion, and that autosuggestion is the 1 Eden and Cedax Paul, ProletcuM (London and New York, 1921). See also their book CreaHue BeiiohUion (London and New York, 1920). THE REBELLION OF THE UNDER-MAN 209 means whereby imagination controls the subconscious self, will enable us to make a right use of the most potent force which has become available to the members of the human herd since the invention of articulate speech. The fiinction of the Proletculturist is to fire the imagina- tion, until the imagination reahzes itself in action." This is the revolution's best hope, for "the industrial workers cannot have their minds clarified by an educa- tion which has not freed itself from aU taint of boiu"- geois ideology." Such is the philosophy of the Under-Man, preached by Bolsheviks throughout the world. And in practice, as in theory, Bolshevism has everywhere proved strik- ingly the same. As already stated, the triumph of Bol- shevism in Russia started a wave of mihtant unrest which has invaded the remotest comers of the earth. No part of the world has been free from Bolshevik plots and Bolshevik propaganda, directed from Moscow. Furthermore, this Bolshevik propaganda has been extraordinarily clever in adapting means to ends. No possible sotuce of discontent has been overlooked. Strictly "Red" doctrines like the dictatorship of the proletariat are very far from being the only weapons in Bolshevism's armory. Since what is first wanted is the overthrow of the existing world order, any kind of op- position to that order, no matter how remote doctrinally from Bolshevism, is grist to the Bolshevist mill. Ac- cordingly, in every quarter of the globe, in Asia, Africa, Australia, and the Americas, as in Europe, Bolshevik agitators have whispered in the ears of the discontented 210 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION their gospel of hatred and revenge. Every na^onaKst aspiration, every political grievance, eveiy social iiijus- tice, every racial discrimination, is fuel for Bolshevism's incitement to violence and war.^ To describe Bolshevism's subversive efforts throughout the world would fill a book in itself. Let us confine our attention to the two most striking fields of Bolshevist activity outside of Russia— Hungary and Asia. The Bolshevik regime in Hungary represents the crest of the revolutionary wave which swept over Central Europe during the year 1919." It was short-lived, last- ing less than six months, but during that brief period it almost ruined Himgary. As in Russia, the Bolshevik couf in Himgary was effected by a small group of revolu- tionary agitators, taking advantage of a moment of acute political disorganization, and backed by the most violent elements of the city proletariat. The leaders were mainly young "intellectuals," ambitious but not previously successful in life, and were mostly Jews. The guiding spirit was one Bela Kun,^ a man of fiery energy but of rather unedifying antecedents. Kun had evi- 1 For these larger aspects of Bolshevik propaganda., see Paul Miliukov, Bolshevism: An International Danger (Londoii, 1920). For Bolshevik activities in the Near and Middle East, see my book The New World of Islam, chap. IX (New York and London, 1921). For Bolshevik activities in the Far East, see A. F. Legendre, Tour d' Horizon Mondial (Paris, 1920). ' Germany, in particulax, was afflicted with a whole crop of Bolshevik uprisings. In Bavaria, especially Munich, a Bolshevik regime was actually established for a short time, its overthrow being marked by a massacre of bourgeois "hostages." In Berlin there were several bloody risings of the proletariat. In Finland there was a sanguinary civil war, ending in the triumph of the "whites" over the "reds." These are merely the out- standing instances of a long series of revolutionary disorders. ' Ni Cohen. THE REBELLION OF THE UNDER-MAN 211 dently come to disapprove of the institution of private property at an early age, for he had been expelled from school for theft; and later on, during a term in jail, he was caught stealing from a fellow prisoner. Down to 1914 Kun's career was that of a radical agitator. Early in the war he was captured by the Russians, and after the Russian revolution he joined the Bolsheviki. Picked by Lenin as a valuable agent, he was sent home at the end of the war with instructions to Bolshevize Hun- gary. His first efforts led to his arrest by the Hungarian authorities, but he soon got free and engineered the coup which placed him and his associates in power. The new revolutionary government started in on ap- proved Bolshevik lines. Declaring a "dictatorship of the proletariat," it estabhshed an iron despotism en- forced by "Red Guards," prohibited liberty of speech or the press, and confiscated private property. Fortunately there was comparatively little bloodshed. This was due to the express orders of Lenin, who, realizing how ex- posed was the position of Bolshevik Hungary, told Bela Kim to go slow and consolidate his position before taking more drastic measures. Kun, however, found it hard to control the zeal of his associates. Many of these were burning with hatred of the bourgeoisie and were anxious to "complete the revolution." In the last days of the Bolshevik regime, when its fall appeared more and more probable, the more violent elements got increasingly out of hand. Incendiary speeches were made inciting the proletariat to plunder and slau^ter the bourgeois classes. For example, 212 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION Pogany, one of the Bolshevik leaders, launched the following diatribe at the middle classes: "Tremble be- fore our revenge! We shall exterminate you, not only as a class but literally to the last man among you. We look upon you as hostages, and the coming of Allied troops shall be of iU omen for you. Nor need you re- joice in the white flag of the coming bourgeois armies, for your own blood shall dye it red." As a matter of fact, many atrocities took place, espe- cially those cormnitted by a bloodthirsty Commissar named Szamuely and a troop of ruffians known as the "Lenin Boys." However, there was no general massa- cre. The Bolsheviks were restrained by the sobering knowledge that they were siu-rounded by "white" armies, and that a massacre of Budapest bourgeois would mean their own wholesale extirpation. At the very last, most of the leaders escaped to Austria and thence ultimately succeeded in making their way to Moscow. So ended the Hungarian Soviet Republic. Despite the relatively small loss of life, the material damage done was enormous. The whole economic life of the country was disrupted, huge debts were contracted, and Hungary was left a financial wreck. As matters turned out, Soviet Hungary was merely an episode — albeit an instructive episode, since it shows how near Europe was to Bolshevism in 1919. Quite otherwise is it with Asia. Here the Bolshevik onset is very far from having failed. On the contrary, it has gained important successes, and must be seriously reck- oned with in the immediate future. THE REBELLION OF THE UNDER-MAN 213 Asia is to-day full of explosive possibilities. For the past half century the entire Orient has been the scene of a vast, complicated ferment, due largely to the impact of Western ideas, which has produced an increasing unrest — ^political, economic, social, religious) and much more besides.^ Oriental unrest was, of course, enormously aggravated by the Great War. In many parts of the Near East, especially, acute suffering, balked ambitions, and furious hates combined to reduce society to the verge of chaos. Into this ominous turmoil there now came the sinister influence of Russian Bolshevism, marshalling all this diffused unrest by sj^tematic efforts for definite ends. Asia was, in fact, Bolshevism's "second string." Bol- shevism was frankly out for a world revolution and the destruction of Western civilization. It had vowed the "proletarianization" of the whole world, beginning with the Western peoples but ultimately including all peoples. To attain this objective the Bolshevik leaders not only launched direct assaults on the West, but also planned flank attacks in Asia, They believed that, if the East could be set on fire, not only would Russian Bolshevism gain vast additional strength, but also the economic repercussion on the West, already shaken by the war, would be so terrific that industrial collapse would ensue, thereby throwing Europe open to revolution. In its Oriental policy, Russian Bolshevism was greatly ' I have discussed this unrest in its various aspects, with special refer- ence to the Near and Middle East, in my book, The New World of Islam, already referred to. 214 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION aided by the political legacy of Russian imperialism. From Turkey to China, Asia had long been the scene of Russian imperialist designs and had been carefully stud- ied by Russian agents who had evolved a technic of "pacific penetration" that might be easily adjusted to Bolshevik ends. To intrigue in the Orient required no original planning by Trotzky or Lenin. Czarism had already done this for generations, and full information lay both in the Petrograd archives and in the brains of surviving Czarist agents ready to turn their hands as easily to the new work as the old. In aU the elaborate network of Bolshevik propaganda which to-day enmeshes the East, we must discriminate between Bolshevism's two objectives: one immediate — the destruction of Western pohtical and economic power; the other ultimate — ^the Bolshevizing of the Oriental masses and the consequent extirpation of the native upper and naiddle classes, precisely as has been done in Russia and as is planned for the coimtries of the West. In the first stage, Bolshevism is quite ready to back Oriental "nationalist" movements and to respect Ori- ental faiths and customs. In the second stage all these matters are to be branded as "bourgeois" and relentlessly destroyed. Russian Bolshevism's Oriental policy was formulated soon after its accession to power at the close of 1917. The year 1918 was a time of busy preparation. An elaborate propaganda organization was built up from various sources: from old Czarist agents; from the Rus- sian Mohammedan populations such as the Tartars of THE REBELLION OF THE UNDER-MAN 215 South Russia and the Turkomans of Central Asia; and from the nationalist or radical exiles who flocked to Russia from Turkey, Persia, India, China, Korea, and even Japan. By the end of 1918, Bolshevism's Oriental propaganda department was well organized, divided into three bureaus, for the Islamic countries, India, and the Far East respectively. These bureaus displayed great activity, translating tons of Bolshevik hterature into the various Oriental languages, training numerous secret agents and propagandists for "field-work," and getting in touch with disaffected or revolutionary elements. The effects of Bolshevik propaganda have been visible in nearly all the distm-bances which have afflicted the Orient since 1918. In China and Japan few tangible successes have as yet been won, albeit the symptoms of increasing social unrest in both those countries have aroused distinct uneasiness among well-informed ob- servers.^ In the Near and Middle East, however, Bol- shevism has achieved much more definite results. In- dian unrest has been stimulated by Bolshevik propa- ganda; Afghanistan, Tm-key, and Persia have all been drawn more or less into Soviet Russia's poUtical orbit; while Central Asia and the Caucasus regions have been d^nitely Bolshevized and turned into "Soviet Repub- lics" dependent upon Moscow. Thus Bolshevism is to-day in actual operation in both the Near and Middle East. " For revolutionary unrest in China, see Legendre's book, already quoted. For Boeial unrest in Japan, see, Sen Katayama, The Ldbor Mooement in Japan (Chicago, 1918). Katayama is the nioBt prominent leader of Japar nese Socialism. Since writing the book referred to he has grown much more violent, and is now an extreme Bolshevik. 216 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION Soviet Russia's Oriental aims were frankly announced at the "Congress of Eastern Peoples" held at Baku, Transcaucasia, in the autumn of 1920. The president of the congress, the noted Russian Bolshevik leader, Zinoviev, stated in his opening address: "We believe this Congress to be one of the greatest events in histoiy, for it proves not only that the pro- gressive workers and working peasants of Europe and America are awakened, but that we have at last seen the day of the awakening, not of a few, but of tens of thou- sands, of hundreds of thousands, of millions of the labor- ing class of the peoples of the East. These peoples form the majority of the world's whole population, and they alone, therefore, are able to bring the war between capi- tal and labor to a conclusive decision. "The Communist International said from the very first day of its existence: 'There are four or five times as many people living in Asia as live in Europe. We will free all peoples, all who labor.' . . . We know that the laboring masses of the East are in part retrograde. Com- rades, our Moscow International discussed the question whether a socialist revolution fcould take place in the countries of the East before those countries had passed through the capitalist stage. You know that the view which long prevailed was that every country must first go through the period of capitalism before socialism could become a Hve question. We now believe that this is no longer true. Russia has done this, and from that mo- ment we are able to say that China, India, Turkey, Per- sia, Armenia also can, and must, make a direct fight to THE REBELLION OF THE UNDER-MAN 217 get the Soviet system. These countries cg-n, and must, prepare themselves to be Soviet republics. . . . "We array ourselves against the English bourgeoisie; we seize the English imperialist by the throat and tread him under foot. It is against English capitahsm that the worst, the most fatal blow must be dealt. That is so. But at the same time we must educate the laboring masses of the East to hatred, to the will to fight the whole of the rich classes indifferently, whoever they may be . . . so that the world may be ruled by the worker's homy hand." Such is Russian Bolshevism's Asiatic goal. And it is a goal by no means impossible of attainment. Of course, the numbers of class-conscious "proletarians" in the East are very small, while the Communist philosophy is virtually uninteUigible to the Oriental masses. These facts have often been adduced to proVe that Bolshevism can never upset Asia. The best answer to such argu- ments is — Soviet Russia! In Russia an infinitesimal Communist minority, numbering, by its own admission, not much over 600,000, is maintaining an unlimited des- potism over at least 150,000,000 people. And the Orient is, politically and socially, much like Russia. Western coimtries may rely upon their stanch traditions of or- dered Uberty and their highly developed social systems; the East possesses no such bulwarks against Bolshevism. In the Orient, as in Russia, there is the same backward- ness of the masses, the same absence of a large and powerful middle class, the same traditiop of despotism, the same popular acquiescence in the rule of ruthless 218 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION minorities. Plnally, the East is filled with every sort of imrest. The Orient is thus patently menaced with Bolshevism. And any extensive spread of Bolshevism in the East woxild be a hideout catastrophe both for the Orient and for the world at large. For the East, Bolshevism would spell downright savagery. The sudden release of the ignorant, brutal Oriental masses, from their traditional restraints of rehgion and custonl, and the submergence of the relatively small upper and middle classes by the flood of social revolution, would mean the destruction of all Oriental civilization and a plunge into an abyss of anarchy from which the East might not emerge for cen- turies. For the world as a whole the prospect would be per- haps even more terrible. The welding of Russia and the Orient into a vast revolutionary block would speU a gigantic war between East and West beside which the late war would seem mere child's play and which might leave the entire planet a mass of ruins. Yet this is precisely what the Soviet leaders are work- ing for, and what they frankly — even gleefully — ^prophesy. The vision of a revolutionary East destroying the "bom-- geois" West fills many Bolshevists with wild exultation. Says the Bolshevist poet Peter Oryeschin: "Holy Mother Earth is shaken by the tread of millions of marching feet. The crescent has left the mosque; the crucifix the church. The end of Paris impends, for the East has Hfted its sword. I saw tawny Chinamen leering thtough the win- dows of the Urals. India washes its garments as for a THE REBELLION OF THE UNDER-MAN 219 festival. From the steppes rises the smoke of sacrifice to the new god. London shall sink beneath the waves. Gray Berlin shall lie in ruins. Sweet will be the pain of the noblest who fall in battle. Down from Mont Blanc hordes will sweep through God's golden valleys. Even the Kirghiz of the steppes will pray for the new era." Thus, in the East as in the West, the world, wearied and shaken by the late war, is faced by a new war — ^the war against chaos. CHAPTER VII THE WAR AGAINST CHAOS The world is to-day the battle-ground of a titanic strug- gle. This struggle has long been gathering. It is now upon us and must be fought out. No land is immvme. Bolshevik Russia is merely the standard-bearer of a re- volt agaiast civilization which girdles the globe. That revolt was precipitated by the late war and has been intensified by war's aftermath, but it was latent before 1914 and would have ultimately burst forth even if Ar- mageddon had been averted. In the present revolt against civilization there is noth- ing basically new. Viewed historically, it is merely one of a series of similar destructive, retrograde movements. What is new, however, is the elaboratipn of a revolution- ary philosophy which has fired and welded the rebellious elements as never before. As Le Bon justly remarks: "The Bolshevik mentality is as old as history. Cain, in the Old Testament, had the mind of a Bolshevik. But it is only in our days that this ancient mentality has met with a political doctrine to justify it. This is the reason of its rapid propagation, which has been under- mining the old social scaffolding." ^ The modem philosophy of the Under-Maa is at bot- tom a mere "rationalizing" of the emotiwis of the un- 1 GuBtave Le Bon, The World in Revolt, p, 179 (New York, 1921— Eng- lish translation). 220 THE WAR AGAINST CHAOS 221 adaptable, inferior, aad degenerate elements, rebellious against the civilization which irks them and longing to revert to more primitive levels. We have already seen how the revolutionary spirit assails every phase of our civihzation, the climax being the Bolshevik attempt to substitute a "proletarian culture." Most significant of all are the attacks launched upon science, particularly the science of biology. Revolutionists are coming to realize that science, with its stem love of truth, is their most dangerous enemy, and that the discoveries of biol- ogy are relentlessly exposing their cleverest sophistries. Accordingly, the champions of the Under-Man, extrem- ists and "moderates" alike, cling desperately to the exploded doctrines of environmentalism and "natural equality," and dub modem biology mere class snobbery or capitalist propaganda.^ In fact, attempts have been made to invent a "new" biology, more in accordance with proletarian maxims. For example, some Socialist writers* have evolved the theory that social and intellectual evolution is the cause of physical evolution; in other words, that it is his customs and tools which have made man, and not man his tools and customs. Other writers have gone even farther and maintain that "cell intelligence" (which they assume to be present in all protoplasm) is the cause of all forms of evolution.' The logical conclusion of this amazing hy- 1 For instances of this sort of criticism, see the articles by Doctor Robert H. Lovrie in the Radical weekly, The Freeman (New York), during 1920. 'See especially Samuel Butler, Erewhon (London, 1908); A. D. Dar- bishire, Introdtuiion, to a Biology (New York, 1917). > See e^eciaUy N. Quevli, CeiU Intdligeace the Cause tf Etwlution (Min- neapolis, 1916). 222 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION pothesis should apparently be that intelligence is not con- fined to the brain but is diffused over the whole body. Here is good proletarian biology, quite in accord with the Bolshevik doctrine that so-caUed "superior" indi- viduals are merely expressions of the mass intelligence. It is surprising that, so far as can be learned, the theory of cell intelligence is not yet taught in the Soviet schools. ' This is a serious omis^on — ^but it can be remedied. Naturally, these grotesque perversions of science, with their resultant paradoxes worthy of Mr. Chesterton, are easily disposed of by genuine biologists and the under- lying animus is clearly explained. Regarding proletarian biology, Professor Conklin remarks: "Such a conception not only confuses the different lines of evolution and their causes, but it really denies aU the facts and evidences in the case by putting the highest and latest product of the process into its earliest and most elemental stages. It is not a theory of evolution but rather one of involution or creation; it is not a new conception of hfe and its origin but the oldest known conception, . . . Such essays evi- dently owe their origin to emotion rather than to reason, to sentiment rather than science; they are based upon desire rather than evidence, and they appeal especially to those who are able to believe what they desire to be- lieve." ' Proletarian "science" having shown no signs of ability to meet real science in intellectual combat, we may ex- pect to see the proletarian movement fall back upon its ^E. G. Conklin, The Direelwn of Human EvohMion, pp. 73-74 (New York, 1921). THE WAR AGAINST CHAOS 223 natural weapons — ^passion and violence. What seems certain is that science will become increasingly anathema in social revolutionary eyes. The lists are in fact already set for a battle royal between biology and Bolshevism. We have already remarked that the more the Under- Man realizes the significance of the new biological reve- lation, the uglier grows his mood. Science having stripped away its sentimental camouflage, the social revolution will depend more and more upon brute force, relying upon the materiahsm of numbers and racial im- poverishment to achieve final victory. More and more the revolutionary watchword will be that of the French Communist, Henri Barbusse: "Le Couteau entre les Dents !"— "With Your Knife in Your Teeth !" ^ How shall civilization meet the revolutionary onset? By a combination of two methods: one palliative and temporary; the other constructive and permanent. Dis- cussion of the second method will be deferred till the next chapter. Suffice it here to say that it centres about certain deep-going reforms, particularly the improvement of the race itself. Forward-looking minds are coming to reaHze that social revolutions are really social breakdowns, caused (in the last analysis) by a dual process of racial impoverishment — ^the elimination of superior strains and the multiplication of degenerates and inferiors. Inexo- rably the decay of racial values corrodes the proudest civilization, which engenders within itseK those forces of chaos that will one day work its ruin. Said shrewd old 1 This is the title of Barbusse's latest book — a fiery call to instant and relentless class warfare. 224 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION Rivarol, viewing the French Revolution: "The most civiKzed empires are as close to barbarism as the most polished sted is to rust; nations, like metals, shine only on the surface." More and more we are coming to see that hatred of civilization is maioly a matter of heredity; that Bolshe- viks are mostly born and not made. How can we expect a man to support a social order which he instinctively detests or which he is congenitaJly unable to achieve? And how can society expect peaceful progress so long as it spawns social rebels and laggards, and at the same time sterilizes those creative superiors who are at once its builders and its preservers? The fact is that construction and destruction, prog- ress and regress, evolution and revolution, are alike the work of dynamic minorities. We have already seen how numerically small are the talented Elites which create and advance high civilizations; while Jacobin France and Bolshevik Russia prove how a small but ruthless revolutionary faction can wreck a social order and tyran- nize over a great population. Of course, these dynamic groups are composed primarily of leaders — ^they are the officers' corps of much larger armies which mobilize in- stiDCtively when crises arise. Take the present world crisis. In every country the champions of the existing order can coimt upon the resolute support of all those who appreciate our civilization and wish to preserve it from disruption. On the other hand, the revolutionary leaders can coimt with equal confidence upon the im- adaptable, inferior, and degenerate elements, who nat- THE WAR AGAINST CHAOS 225 urally dislike our civilization and welcome a summons to its overthrow. Such are the distinctively "superior" and "inferior" groups — the standing armies of civilization and of chaos. But, even when fully mobilized, these armies are minori- ties. Between them stands an intermediate mass of mediocrity, which, even in the most civiHzed countries, probably constitutes a majority of the whole people. In the United States, for example, this intermediate mass is typified by the various "C" grades of the Army In- telligence Tests — ^the men with mental ages of from twelve to fifteen years, whom the tests indicated comprised 61}^ per cent of the total population. These people are in- capable of either creating or maintaining a high civiliza- tion. For that they are dependent upon the superiors; just as in the army they depend upon the "A " and "B" grades of the oflScers' corps, without whom they would be as sheep without a shepherd. However, these mediocres are not "inferiors" in the technical sense; they are capa- ble of adapting themselves to the ordinary requirements of civilization, and of profiting by the superiors' creative achievements — ^profiting oit&a. so successfully that they attain great wealth and influence. In some respects the mediocre have their social value. Their very lack of initiative renders them natural con- servers of whatever they adopt, and they thus act as social ballast and as a brake to prevent the elite from going too fast and getting out of touch with reality. They also usually support the existing social order, and thus tend to oppose revolution. 226 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION However, the mediocre have the defects of their quali- ties. Their very conservatism is apt to be harmful, and is frequently disastrous. This is because it is imintel- ligent — ^a mere clinging to things as they are, with no discrimination between what is sound and what is un- sotmd or outworn; a mere blind aversion to change just because it is change. This is sheer bourhonism. And bourbonism is dangerous because it blocks progress, prevents reform, perpetuates social evils, breeds discon- tent, and thus engenders revolution. The chief danger of botirbonism is that it is so power- ful. If society were really guided by its creative 6hte, mediocrity might be useful as a sort of "constitutional opposition" stabilizing and regulating progress. Unfor- tunately, society is ruled largely by mediocrity. The most cursory survey of our world is enough to show that in pohtics, finance, business, and most other fields of human activity, a large proportion of the most influential figures are persons of decidedly mediocre inteUigence and character. The number of stupid reactionaries in high places is depressing, and their stupidity is amazing when we consider their oppbrtimities. In fact, these oppor- tunities are the best proof of their inherent stupidity, because the mere fact that so little has been brought out shows that there was very little there to bring. At first sight all this may seem to conflict with what we have previously discovered: that superiors tend to rise in the social scale, and that in advanced modem societies there has been a marked concentration of su- periority in the middle and upper classes. But when we THE WAR AGAINST CHAOS 227 look more closely, we see that there is no real discrepancy. In the first place, the concentration of ability in the upper social strata is not absolute, but relative. Relatively, the upper and middle classes of society undoubtedly contain a higher percentage of superiority than do the lower classes. But this most emphatically does not mean that the upper and middle classes are made up wholly of superior persons while the lower social strata are com- posed wholly of inferiors. On the contrary, the lower social strata unquestionably contain multitudes of valu- able strains which have not yet displayed themselves by rising in the social scale. This is particularly true where the "social ladder" and assortative mating have not drained the lower classes and sharply stratified the popu- lation. For example, in the' American Army Intelligence Tests some of the best scores were made by illiterate, ignorant Southern mountaineers who had never before been outside their native vaUeys. In other words, primi- tive conditions had held back a high-grade Anglo-Saxon stock; but the inteUigence was there, passed on from generation to generation, and only awaiting a favorable opportunity to display itself. We thus see that superior intelligence is not a monopoly of the upper and middle social classes, albeit they do possess a distinct relative advantage in this respect. The next question which naturally arises is: What are the proportions of superiors to mediocres and inferiors within these classes? The question of inferiority need not long detain us. The demands of modem life are suf- ficiently great, and the social ladder works sufficiently 228 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION well to weed out most of the distinctly inferior indi- viduals who arise in the upper and middle strata of so- ciety by socially sterilizing them as economic failures or by forcing them down to lower social levels. With mediocrity, however, it is quite otherwise. A glance at social statistics is enough to prove that a large proportion of both the upper and middle classes must consist of mediocrities. Consider the relative size of social groups. In most Western nations from 5 to 10 per cent of the population should certainly be counted as belonging to the upper social classes, while the middle classes (urban and rural) probably run between 20 and 40 per c^nt. Now compare these figures with the matter of intelligence. We have already seen that biological, sociological, and psychological researches have alike re- vealed the fact that high intelligence is rare. The Amer- ican Army InteUigence Tests indicate that only 4J^ per cent of the American population are of "very superior intelligence" (Grade "A"), while only 9 per cent are of "superior intelligence" (Grade "5"). We have also seen that superior intelligence is by no means exclusively confined to the upper and middle social strata. Yet, even if superior intelligence were so confined, we have every reason to beheve that these strata would still con- sist largely of mediocrities, for the very ample reason that there would not be enough genuine superiors to go around. This raises a third question: Within the upper social strata, what is the relative status of superiors and mediocres, measured by recognized standards of achieve- THE WAR AGAINST CHAOS 229 ment and-by direct influence in the community? This is a matter of great importance. If high intelligence be so rare, it is vital to social progress, and even to social secmity, that it shoiild function with the greatest possible efliciency and should exert the greatest possible effect. ^Now no unbiassed student of modem life can doubt that this is very far from being the case. The melancholy truth is that our stock of high creative intelligence (all too meagre at best) is in the main imperfectly utilized. To be sure, those pessimists who assert that it is nearly all wasted are wrong. Comparatively Kttle real talent is wholly wasted. In advanced modem societies the genuine superior can usually rise, and in niany fields, like science, art, literature, and certain of the professions, he may reasonably hope to rise to the very top. In other fields, however, particularly in politics, finance, and business, this is not the case. Here, too, creative in- telligence does tend to rise, and sometimes rises to the top. But more frequently the highest posts are filled by essentially mediocre personalities — shrewd, aggres- sive, acquisitive, yet lacking that constructive vision which is the birthmark of true greatness. Now this is a serious matter, because it is precisely these fields wherein constructive leadership is supremely important for social progress and social stability. His- tory proves conclusively that revolutions are precipitated mainly by ineflBcient government and unwise finance. Here more than anywhere else the guidance of superior intelligence is a vital necessity. Were our political and economic life to-day guided by our best minds, we should 230 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION have little to fear from social revolution. A series of constructive reforms would safeguard the future, while the present revolutionary onslaught would be summarily repelled. High intelligence is nearly always well poised, and can be depended upon in a crisis to keep cool and do the right thing. Mediocrity, on the other hand, lacks poise and vision. Yet governments are to-day every- where mainly in mediocre hands. Governments shoiild govern; should have faith in themselves and the prin- ciples they stand for; and should meet the challenge of aggressive minorities with intelligent foresight, instant action, and unflinching courage. The mere fact that the revolutionists are a minority is no safeguard, because it is determined nainorities, not passive majorities, that get their way. The lesson of past revolutions, partic- lilarly the Russian Bolshevik Revolution, is that a small but resolute faction possesses the same decisive tac- tical advantage as a small but highly disciplined and enthusiastic army attacking a huge but ill-organized and spiritless foe. In such cases the assailants have the in- estimable advantage of knowing what they want and exactly where they mean to make their attack. The de- fenders, on the contrary, not only do not know their own nmids, but also usually fail to see precisely where, when, and how the attack is coming. They stand, fearful and irresolute, waiting to be hit — ^beaten before they are struck. To avert this danger we need intelligerU action. For one thing, public opinion should be carefuUy informed about the basic issues involved. When people apprecia1« THE WAR AGAINST CHAOS 231 the true nature of social revolution, the irreparable cul- tural and racial losses, the terrible setback to progress, they will realize that all sections of the population ex- cept the inferior and degenerate elements would be the losers, and they will resolve determinedly to preserve civilization from disruption. By "information," however, I most emphatically do not mean "propaganda." The truth about social revo- lution is enough to open the eyes of all who believe in orderly progress; while neither argument nor entreaty can convert those temperamentally predisposed to vio- lent subversive action. We must clearly recognize that there exists an irreconcilable minority of congenital revo- lutionists — ^bom rebels against civilization, who can be restrained only by superior force. This rebel minority has, however, evolved a philosophy peculiarly enticing in these troubled transition times when discontent is rife, old beliefs shattered, and the new goals not yet plainly in sight. Under these circumstances the phi- losophy of revolt has attracted multitudes of persons im- patient of present ills and grasping at the hope of violent short cuts to progress. This is particularly true of cer- tain types of emotional liberals, who play in with the revolutionists — and are used as catspaws. Here we have the chief reasons for that idealization of revolution which has such a vogue in many quarters. However, these unwitting dupes are not at heart irreconcilable enemies of society. They simply do not realize that they are on a path which leads to chaos. If they came to real- ize social revolution's inevitable consequences, most of 232 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION them would stop aiding the revolutionists in their at- tacks on society, and would join forces with those who are striving for constructive progress by evolutionary methods. The real revolutionists would thus be deprived of much of their present strength, and could be more easily dealt with. Now this may be accomplished by instructive informa- tion. It cannot be accomplished by "propaganda." Hysterical denunciations of Bolshevism, speciaJiziag iu atrocity stories and yarns like the "nationalization of women," defeat their own object. They divert attention from fimdamentals to details, generate heat without Hght, spread panic rather than resolution, and invite blind reaction instead of discriminating action. Such propaganda stirs up a multitude of silly people who run around looking for Communists under the bed and calling everybody a "Bolshevik" who happens to disagree with them. This modem witch-finding is not only fatuous; it is harmful as well. Many of those denounced as "Bol- sheviks" are not genuine social rebels at all, but people so harassed by social iUs or personal misfortunes that they blindly take Bolshevism's false promises at their face value. These people need education, not persecu- tion. To dragoon and insult them simply drives them into the Bolsheviks' arms. The thing to do is to under- stand exactly who the real Bolsheviks are, attend to them thoroughly, and then give suspects the benefit of the doubt. The real social rebels should, of course, be given short shrift. No misguided sentimentality should shield those THE WAE AGAINST CHAOS 233 who plot the disruption of civilization and the degrada- tion of the race. Boasting, as they do, that they have declared war upon the social order, let them be taken at their word. These irreconcilables should be carefully watched, strictly punished whenever they offend, and where anything like revolution is attempted — Shunted down and extirpated. They who take the sword against society must perish by society's sword. Yet we should not forget that repression, of itself, solves nothing. Knowing, as we do, that Bolsheviks are mostly bom and not made, we must realize that new social rebels will arise until their recruiting grounds are eliminated. When society takes in hand the betterment of the race, when degenerates and inferiors are no longer permitted to breed hke lice, the floods of chaos will soon dry up. Until then repression must go on. But we must know exactly what we are about. Repression is a dangerous weapon, which should be used only within strictly de- fined limits — and even then with regret. Now what are the limits of repression? They are the limits of adion. Revolutionary action should be in- stantly, inexorably repressed. There the dead-line should be drawn, so clear and plain that aU would know what trespass means. But beyond that forbidden zone— /ree- dom! No tampering with freedom of thought under any circumstances, and no curtailment of free speech except where it incites to violence and thus practically crosses the dead-line. Society should say to its discontented: "You may 234 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION think what you please. You may discuss what you please. You may advocate what you please, except it involve violence, express or implied. If you preach or in- sinuate violence, you will be punished. If you throw bombs, you will be individually executed. If you try revolutions, you will be collectively wiped out. But so long as you avoid doing those forbidden things, you may be watched, but you will not be interfered with." At this point the timid or stupid reactionary may ex- claim: "But this is giving Bolshevism a chance to hide behind legal technicahties!" Granted. "This will allow revolutionists to conduct a camouflaged propaganda!" Granted. "The results may be dangerous!" Granted; all granted. And yet we cannot do otherwise, because all the harm the Bolsheviks might do by clever abuse of their freedom to think and speak, would be as nothing to the harm done by denying them that freedom. This harm would be manifold. In the first place, such action would tend to defeat its own object and to en- courage rather than suppress revolutionary unrest, be- cause for every camouflaged Bolshevik who might be smoked out and laid by the heels ten free spirits would be impelled to become revolutionists, since in their eyes (singular paradox!) Bolshevism would be associated with liberty. In the second place, any serious curtail- ment of free speech would render impossible the forma- tion of that intelligent pubUc opinion which we have already seen to be so necessary for comprehending dif- ficulties and conceiving effective remedies. Lastly, such a policy woiild paralyze intellectual activity, enthrone THE WAR AGAINST CHAOS 235 reaction, and block progress. To protect society from disruption, however necessary, is merely part of a larger whole. Social order must be preserved, because that is the vital prerequisite of constructive progress. But — constructive progress must take place. Things cannot be left as they are, because under present conditions we are headed toward racial impoverishment and cultural de- cline. Our chief hope for the future is the scientific spirit. But that spirit thrives only on unfettered knowledge and truth. Lacking this sustenance, it withers and decays. One of Bolshevism's deadly sins is its brutal crushing of intellectual freedom. Shall we be guilty of the very crime we so abhor in our enemies? What a wretched outcome: to escape the destructive tyranny of Bolshevism only to fall under the petrifying tyranny of bourbonism ! Heaven be praised, humanity is not restricted to so poor a choice. Another path lies open — ^the path of race- betterment. And science points the way. We already know enough to make a sure start, and increasing knowl- edge will guide our footsteps as we move on. That is the hopeful aspect of the situation. We do not have to guess. We know. All we need to do is to apply what we have already learned and keep on using our brains. The result will be such a combined increase of knowledge and creative intelligence that many problems, to-day in- superable, will solve themselves. Furthermore, science, which points the path to the future, gives us hope for the present as well. Materially the forces of chaos may still be growing, especially through racial impoverishment; but morally they are 236 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION being undermined. Science, especially biology, is cutting the ground from under their feet. Even a decade ago, when errors hke environmentalism and "natural equal- ity" were generally accepted, the Under-Man was able to make out a plausible case. To-day the basic impor- tance of heredity and the real nature of inferiority are becomiag more and more widely understood and ap- preciated. Indeed, it is this very spread of scientific truth which accounts largely for the growing violence of social un- rest. Consciously or instinctively the revolutionary leaders feel that the "moral imponderables" have de- serted them, and that they must therefore rely more and more upon force. Does not Bolshevism admit that it cannot peacefully convert the world, but can triimiph only by the dictatorship of a ruthless minority, destroy- ing whole classes, and then forcibly transforming the remaining population by a long process of intensive propa- ganda extending perhaps for generations? What a mon- strous doctrine ! But, also, what a monumental confession of moral bankruptcy! This is the coimsel of desperation, not the assurance of victory. That which maddens Bolshevism is, however, our in- spiration. To us science speaks. And her words are: "Sursum corda! Lift up your hearts! Have faith in yourselves; in your civUization; in yoiu" race. Tread confidently the path I have revealed to you. Ye know the truth, and the truth shall make you free!" CHAPTER Vm NEO-ARISTOCRACY y Stressful transition is the key-note of our time. Un- less all signs be at fault, we stand at one of those mo- mentous crises in history when mankind moves from one well-marked epoch into another of widely different character. Such crucial periods are of supreme impor- tance, because their outcome may determine man's course for many generations — ^perhaps for many centuries. Transition spells struggle. And this is pre-eminently true of to-day. Historians of the distant future, apprais- ing our times, may conclude that the Great War was merely a symptom — ^an episode in a much vaster struggle of ideas and elemental forces which began long before the war, and lasted long after its close. Certainly such a conflict of ideas is to-day raging. Perhaps never in human annals have principles so dissimilar striven so fiercely for mastery of the coming age. Now in this conflict the ultimate antagonists appear to be biology and Bolshevism: Bolshevism, the incarna- tion of the atavistic past; biology, the hope of a pro- gressive future. To call Bolshevism the incarnation of the past may sound paradoxical if we heed its claims to being ultramodern. But we have weighed those claims and have found them mere camouflage. What we have found is that Bolshevism, instead of being very new, is 237 238 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION very' old, that it is the last of a long series of revolts by the imadaptable, inferior, and degenerate elements against civilizations which have irked them and which they have therefore wished to destroy. The only new thing about Bolshevism is its "rationalizing" of rebel- Kous emotions into an exceedingly insidious and per- suasive philosophy of revolt which has not merely welded all the real social rebels, but has also deluded many mis- guided dupes, blind to what Bolshevism implies. Such is the champion of the old, primitive past: intrenched behind ancient errors like environmentalism and "natural equality," favored by the unrest of transition times, and reinforced by ever-multiplying swarms of degenerates and inferiors. Against this formidable adversary stands biology, the champion of the new. Biology is one of the finest fruits of the modem scientific spirit. Ripened by the patient labors of earnest seekers after truth, biology has now at- tained a splendid maturity. Forth from a thousand quiet laboratories and silent library alcoves have emerged discoveries which may completely alter human destiny. These discoveries constitute the new biological revelation — ^the mightiest transformation of ideas that the world has ever seen. Here, indeed, is something new: the im- veiHng of the mysterious life process, the discovery of the true path of progress, the placing ia man's hands of the possibility of his own perfection by methods at once safe and sure. Such is the young science of applied bi- ology; or, as it is more generally termed, "Eugenics" — the science of race betterment. Eugenics is, in fact. NEO-ARISTOCRACY 239 evolving into a higher synthesis, drawing freely from other fields of knowledge like psychology and the social sciences, and thus fitting itself ever more completely for its exalted task. The fundamental change of both ideas and methods involved in the eugenic programme is at once apparent. Hitherto all political and social philosophies, however much they might differ among themselves, have been agreed on certain principles: they have all believed that environment was of basic importance, and they have all proposed to improve mankind from without, by changing existing indiiMuah through the action of various poUtical and social agencies. Eugenics, on the other hand, believes that heredity is the basic factor, and plans to improve the race Jrom within, by determining which existing in- dividuals shall, and shall not, produce succeeding gen- erations. This means the establishment of an improved social selection based upon biological considerations, in- stead of, as hitherto, upon environmental considerations. Of course, this new selection would operate mainly through the old social and political agencies; but these would no longer be regarded as having specific virtue in themselves, and would be applied pnly in so far as they tended to better the race. Eugenics does not deny the effect of environment: on the contrary, it is precisely because of environment's bad effects upon the race that the science of eugenics has become such a vital necessity. What eugenics does say, however, is that environment, however powerful, is an indirect, secondary factor; the direct, primary factor being heredity. Therefore, all 240 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION environmental influences should be considered with ref- erence to heredity, which should always be the fiindar mental consideration. Thus a new criterion of policy and action is set up for every field of human activity, thereby involving a general revaluation of all values. The eugenic programme may be thus succiuctly stated: "The problem of eugenics is to make such legal, social, and economic adjustments that (1) a larger proportion of superior persons will have children than at present; (2) that the average niunber of offspring of each superior person will be greater than at present; (3) that the most inferior persons will have no children; and (4) that other inferior persons will have fewer children than now."^ Of course, eugenics does not propose to attain its ob- jective in a day or at a stroke. Inspired as it is by the scientific spirit, it believes in evolution, not revolution, and is thus committed to strictly evolutionary methods. Eugenics advocates no sudden leap into an untried Utopia; it desires to take no steps which have not been scien- tifically tested, and even then only when these have gained the approval of intelligent public opinion. Eu- genics does claim, however, that the momentous scien- tific discoveries of the past half century enable mankind to make a sound start in the process of race betterment. It further claims that such a start is imperative, because racial impoverishment is to-day going on so fast, and the forces of social disruption are growing so ominously, that delay threatens speedy disaster. The truth is that our race is facing the most acute crisis 'Popenoe and Johnson, Applied Eugemcs, p. v (Preface). NEO-ARISTOCRACY 241 in its history. I'he very progress of science, which af- fords our best hope for the future, has thus far rather intensified the peril.' Not only are all the traditional factors of race decadence operative, but new factors which may become powerful agents of race betterment are at present working mainly in the direction of racial decay, by speeding up both the social sterilization of superior stocks and the multiplication of inferiors. The result is a process of racial impoverishment, extremely rapid and ever accelerating. As the English biologist Whetham justly remarks: "The sense of social responsibility, the growth of moral consciousness, have reached a certain point among us — a point that the student of sociology may well call a dan- ger-point. If, accepting the burden of moulding the des- tinies of the race, we relieve nature of her office of discriminating between the fit and the unfit; if we under- take the protection of the weaker members of the com- munity; if we assume a corporate responsibility for the existence of all sorts and conditions of men; then, imless we are prepared to cast away the labors of our forefathers and to vanish with the empires of the past, we must ac- cept the office of deciding who are the fittest to prosper and to leave offspring, who are the persons whose moral and intellectual worth make it right that they and their descendants should be placed in a position of pre-eminence in om- midst, and which are the families on whose up- bringing the time and money of society are best bestowed. We must acquiesce in the principle that the man who has made his five talents into ten shall profit by the skill 242 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION and energy he has shown, and that the man who has repeatedly failed to use his one talent shall have no further chance of wasting the corporate resources on himself and his descendants."^ The effect of eugenic measures in permanently Ughten- ing social burdens should appeal strongly to a world staggering under diflEculties. This does not mean that established methods of reform should be neglected. But it must be remembered that such methods, affect- ing as most of them do merely the environment, require a constant (if not increasing) expenditure to be kept up. To quote Whetham again: "We must recognize an essential difference between the two methods. To put it briefly, it seems as though work done by heredity was work done once for aU. The destruction of a tainted stock will leave a race eternally the better for its removal, the breeding-out of a good strain causes an irreparable loss; whereas improvements due to environment alone require a constant expenditure of energy to maintain them in existence. The one may be compared to an ac- tual gain of capital as far as the htunan race is concerned; the other involves a constant expenditure of income, perfectly justified as long as the increase in capital is maintained, but unjustifiable when capital must be drawn upon. . . . "Looking at our problem in this light, we see that there must be some relation between the average innate capacity of a nation and the effect likely to be produced 'Whetham, "Decadence and Civilization," Hibbert Journal^ October, 1911. NEO-ARISTOCRACY 243 by the expenditure of a given amount of energy on im- proving the environment. If a race falls back in its in- born qualities; if, owing to the efforts of philanthropists and the burdens of unsoimd taxation, more of the failures of civilization reach matimty and parenthood, and fewer competent persons are brought into existence to sup- port them, not only has the nation less energy to use for the maintenance and improvement of its social con- ditions, but such energy as is available wiU produce a correspondingly smaller effect. The old standard can be maintained, if at all, only by a policy of overspending leading to bankruptcy. We have, in fact, conditions in which retrogression will set in and the environment will follow the heredity down-hiU."^ Another point to be emphasized is the necessity for seeing how environmental measures affect racial interests. One of the gravest objections to environmentalism is its tendency to look at social and political reforms as ends in themselves. Scrutinized from the racial view- point, many of these reforms reveal racially harmful consequences, which more than offset their beneficial as- pects and so require their modification in order to be desirable in the long run. Take the matter of poor relief, for example. Its necessity and desirability are generally acknowledged. Yet, however pathetic may be the ob- jects of public charity, the interests of society and the race alike require that poor relief carry with it one im- perative obligation: habitual paupers should be pre- vented from having children. Otherwise charity will ' Wbetham, op. dt. 244 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION merely mean more paupers — a, result harmful and unfair both to the thrifty and capable members of society who pay the taxes and to society itself which ought to expend its taxes as far as possible for productive purposes. Again, take the question of the "social ladder." We have already observed how the ability of superior in- dividuals to rise easily in the social scale is characteristic of a progressive civilization. This is something which no well-informed and right-thinking man can deny. Ac- cordingly, the furtherance of the "career open to talent" is the constant solicitude of social reformers. And yet, here too, the racial view-point is needed. Suppose the "social ladder" were so perfected that virtually all ability could be detected and raised to its proper social level. The immediate result would be a tremendous display of talent and genius. But if this problem were consid- ered merely by itself, if no measures were devised to covin- teract the age-old tendency toward the social sterilization and elimination of successful superiors, that display of talent would be but the prelude to utter racial impoverish- ment and irreparable racial and cultiu-al dechne. As things now stand, it is the very imperfections of the "so- cial ladder" which retard racial impoverishment and minimize its disastrous consequences. Remembering the necessity for viewing all political and social projects in the light of racial consequences, let us now consider the eugenic programme itself. The problem of race betterment conisists of two distinct pihases: the multiplication of superior individuals and the elimination of inferiors — in other words, the exact NEO-ARISTOCRACY 245 reverse of what is to-day taking place. These two phases of race betterment clearly require totally different meth- ods. The multiplication of superiors is a process of race building; the elimination of inferiors is a process of race cleansing. These processes are termed "Positive" and "Negative" eugenics, respectively. Although race building is naturally of more tran- scendent interest than race cleansing, it is the latter that we will first consider. Race cleansing is the obvious starting-point for race betterment. Here scientific knowl- edge is most advanced, the need for action most apparent, and public opinion best informed. In fact, a beginning has abeady been made. The segregation of the insane and feeble-minded in pubhc institutions is the first step in a campaign against degeneracy which should extend rapidly as society awakens to the full gravity of the situa- tion. We have abeady seen how much graver is the prob- lem than has ordinarily been supposed. We now know that the so-called "degenerate classes" are not sharply marked off from the rest of the community, but are merely the most afflicted sufferers from taints which ex- tend broadcast through the general population. The "degenerate classes" are, in fact, merely the nucleus of that vast "outer fringe" of mental and physical unsound- ness visible all the way from the unemployable "casual laborer" right up to the "tainted genius." Degeneracy is thus a cancerous blight, constantly spreading, tainting and spoiling sound stocks, destroying race values, and increasing social burdens. In fact, de- generacy not only handicaps society but threatens its 246 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION very existence. CongenitaUy incapable oi adjusting themselves to an advanced social order, the degenerate inevitably become its enemies — ^particulalrly those "high- grade defectives" who are the natural fomenters of social unrest. Of course, the environmentalist argues that so- cial unrest is due to bad social conditions, but when we go into the matter more deeply we find that bad con- ditions are due largely to bad people. The mere presence of hordes of low-grade men and women condemned by their very natures to incompetency and failure automat- ically engender poverty, invite exploitation, and drag down others just above them in the social scale. We thus see that our social ills are largely the product of degeneracy, and that the elimination of degeneracy would do more than anything else to solve them. But degeneracy can be eliminated only by eliminating the degenerate. And this is a racial, not a social matter. No merely social measures can ever touch the heart of the problem. In fact, they tend to increase its gravity; because, aiming as thiay do to improve existing indi- viduals, they cany along multitudes of the unfit and enable them to propagate more largely of their kind. If, then, society is ever to rid itself of its worst bur- dens, social reform must be increasingly supplemented by racial reform. Unfit individuals as well as unjust social conditions must be eliminated. To make a better world we must have better men and women. No reform of laws or institutions ^r economic systems will, bring that better world unless it produces better mai and women too. NEO-AMSTOCRACY 247 Society must, therefore, grapple resolutely with the problem of degeneracy. The first step should be the pre- vention of all obvious degenerates from having children. This would mean, in practice, segregating most of them in institutions. Of course, tliat, in turn, would mean a great immediate expense.^ But in the long run such out- lays would be the truest economy. We have already seen how expensive degenerates are to society. A single de- generate family Hke the Jukes may cost the state millions of dollars. And to these direct costs there must be added indirect costs which probably run to far larger figures. Think of the loss to the national wealth, measured in mere dollars and cents, of a sound; energetic stock ruined by an infusion of Jukes blood. Think of the immeasur- ably greater loss represented by a "tainted genius," his talents perverted from a potential social blessing into an actual social curse by the destructive action of a de- generate strain in his here(^ty. / However, even if we leaTjp all indirect damage out of consideration, the direct costs of degeneracy are so ob- vious and so computable that, as a cold financial proposi- tion, the flotation of public bond issues to defray the e:q)enses of immediate, wholesale segregation would be amply justified. The consequent diminution in the * Even in the most oivilized countries oiiJy a small fraction of those who ebould be clearly segregated are to-day under institutional care and thus debarred from all possibility of r6]^roduction. In the United States, for example, which ranks rather high in this respect, only 10 or 15 per cent of the obviously feeble-minded are in institutions. "llie reader wiU recall that, in the year 1915, out of approximately 600 living feeble-minded and epileptic Jukes, only three were in custodial care. To house and care for the vast hosis of defectives now at large would require from five to ten times the present number of institutions. 248 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION numbers of paupers, vagabonds, criminals, etc., would unquestionably enable the State to get all its money back with a handsome profit besides.' Of course, even the rigorous segregation of all clearly defective individuals now alive would not extinguish degeneracy. The vast "outer fringe" would for genera- tions produce large quotas of institutional recruits. But these quotas would get steadily smaller, because the centres of pollution would have been removed. And, this once done, the racial stream would gradually pxuify itself. Remember that race cleansing, once done, is done for good and all. The whole weight of scientific evidence shows that degeneracy is caxised, not by environment, but by heredity; that the degeneracy with which we have to deal is an old degeneracy due to taints which have been carried along in the germ-plasm for generations. If, then, this mass of degeneracy, the accumulation of centuries, could be once got rid of, it would never again recur. Sporadic degenerates might now and then be bom, but these isolated cases, leaving no offspring, would be of negHgible importance. We thus see that a general and consistent application of those methods which even now are approved by public opinion," and are already practised on a small scale would ^ The cost of Buch institutions would not be as great as many persons imagine. The old idea of huge barracks where the iimiates were kept con- fined is giving way to the "farm-colony" idea. Here the patients lead a healthful, out-of-door life, where they are not only contented but earn much of their keep. It must be remembered that many defectiyes possess great physical strength and enjoy hard, muscular exertion. 'Public opinion to-day generally approves the segregation of defec- tives. The principal difficulty to tharougbgoing segregation is the matter of expense. NEO-ARISTOCRACY 249 suffice to cleanse the race of its worst impurities. Of course, if no fiui;her methods were adopted, the process would be a slow one. The imsound "fringe" is so wide, the numbers of less obvious defectives above the present "committable" line are so large, and their birth-rate tends to be so high that unless many of these grades also were debarred from having children, by either segregation or sterilization,^ at least two or three generations would probably elapse before the recurrent quotas of defectives would be markedly reduced. Meanwhile, society would continue to suffer from the burdens and dangers which wide-spread degeneracy involves. Whether these risks are to be run is for public opinion to decide. Public opin- ion is to-day probably not ready to take more than the "first step" suggested above: the wholesale segregation of our obvious defectives. This makes some advocates of race betterment impatient or pessimistic. But it should not. Such persons should remember that the great thing is to make a real start in the right direction. When that first step is once taken, the good results will be so obvious that public opinion will soon be ready for further advances along the same line. One point which should hasten the conversion of pubUc opinion to the eugenic programme is its profound hu- maneness. Eugenics is stem toward bad stocks, but to- ' Sterilization must not be confounded with castration. The method of male sterilization now employed (vasectomy) is a trivial operation pro- ducing no functional disturbances of any sort, and leaving sexual vigor absolutely unimpaired — except, of course, that reproduction does not ensue. Female sterilization as now practised involves a fairly serious operation. Other improved methods of sterilization are, however, in sight (the X-ray, etc.). 250 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION ward the ivdividvnl it is always kind. When eugenics says "the degenerate must be eliminated," it refers, not to existing degenerates, but to their potential offspring. Those potential children, if eugenics has its way, wiU never be. This supreme object once accomplished, how- ever, there is every reason why the defective individual should be treated with all possible consideration. In fact, in a society animated by eugenic principles, de- generates, and inferiors generally, would be treated far better than they are to-day; because such a society would not have to fear that more charity wo;ild spell more in- feriors. It would also be more inclined to a kindly atti- tude because it would reaHze that defects are due to heredity and that bad germ-plasm can be neither punished nor reformed. Furthermore, the very conversion of public opinion to the eugenic view-point would itself tend powerfully to purify the race by voluntary action. Legal measures like segregation and sterilization would apply in prac- tice only to the most inferior elements, whose lack of in- telligence and self-control render them incapable of ap- preciating the interests of society and thus make legal compulsion necessary. The higher grades of unsoimdness would not be directly affected. Right here, however, the pressure of enlightened public opinion would come into play. Later on we shall consider the full implications of the development in the general popiilation of a true racial consciousness — what may be termed a "eugenic con- science," Suffice it here to say that the existence of such an attitude would eliminate the higher grades of mental NEO-ARISTOCRACY 251 defect by voluntary action as rapidly as the acuter grades were being eliminated by legal action. In a society ani- mated by a eugenic conscience the begetting of unsound children would be regarded with horror, and public opin- ion would instinctively set up strong social taboos which would effectively restrain all except reckless and anti- social individuals — ^who, of course, would be restrained bylaw. Such social taboos would not, however, mean wholesale cehbacy. In the first place, a large proportion of those persons who carry hereditary taints in their germ-plasm carry them in latent form. These latent or ''recessive" taints do their bearers personally no harm, and in most cases will not appear in their children xmless the bearers marry persons carrying hke taints. By avoiding unions with these particular people, not only will soimd children be reasonably assured by wise matings, but the taints themselves will ordinarily be bred out of the stock in a couple of generations, and the germ-plasm will thus be purified. Furthermore, even those persons who carry taints which make parenthood inadvisable need not be debarred from marriage. The sole limitation would be that they should have no children. And this Avill be per- fectly feasible, because, when pubhc opinion acquires the racial view-point, the present silly and vicious atti- tude toward birth control will be abandoned, and \m- desirable children wiU not be conceived. By the combination of legal, social, and individual action above described, the problems of degeneracy and inferiority, attacked both from above and from below. 252 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION • would steadily diminish,-- and the racial stream would be as steadily purified. The point to be emphasized is thgt this can be effected almost wholly by a broader and more intelligent appUcation of processes already operating and already widely sanctioned by public opinion. Segr^a- tion of defectives, appreciation of racial principles, vise marriage selection, birth control: these are the main items in the progranome of race pvudfication. This pro- gramme is thus seen to be strictly evolutionary and es- sentially conservative. The first steps are so simple and so obvious that they can be taken without any notable change in our social or legal standards, and without any real offense to intelHgent public opinion. Further steps can safely be left to the futin-e, and there is good reason to believe that those steps wiU be taken far sooner than is generally imagined, because the good results of the first steps win be so apparent and so convincing. Such, briefly, is the process of race cleansing known as "negative" eugenics. Many earnest believers in race betterment are inclined to minimize eugenics' "nega- tive" aspect. Such persons declare that the vital prob- lem is the increase of superiors, and that the "positive" phases of the eugenic programme must, therefore, be equally emphasized from the start. Now in this I think they are mistaken. Of course, the increase of superior types is an absolute prerequisite to the perfecting of the race. But race perfecting is a much more difficult matter than race cleansing and involves measures for most of which public opinion is not yet pre- pared. Also, besides questions of expediency, there is NEO-ARISTOCRACY 253 the more fundamental point that race cleansing will do more than anything else to assm-e that social and intel- lectual stability which will constitute the sure foundation on which race building can take place. In considering the problems of degeneracy and in- feriority, many eugenists are apt to fix their attention upon the so-called "defective classes," and to regard them as a separate problem. This is, of course, not so. The defective classes are not sundered from the rest of society; they are merely the acutest sufferers from de- fects which, in lesser degree, spread broadcast through the general population. These defects, continually spreading and infecting sound stocks, set up strains, dis- cords, and limitations of character and personality of every kind and description. Consequently, the elimina- tion of morbidity, of weakness, of unintelligence, would work wonders not only in harmonizing and stabilizing individual personalities, but also in harmonizing and stabilizing society itself. Picture a society where the overwhelming majority of the population possessed sound minds in sound bodies; wherp the "tainted genius" and the "unemployable" wastrel were ahke virtually unknown. Even though the bulk of the population were still of mediocre intelligence, the gain for both stability and progress would be enor- mous. The elimination of neurotic, irrational, vicious personalities, weak-brained and weak-willed, would ren- der social cataclysms impossible; because even those who could not think far would tend to think straight, and would realize that social disruption could not really bene- 264 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION fit any one who stood to gain by social order and progress. Of course, the mediocre masses would be decidedly con- servative and would hold back progress; but their con- servatism would be much more leavened by common sense, co-operation, and public spirit than is now ihe case, and constructive proposals would thus get a fairer hearing and stand a better chance of adoption. * Now when we contrast this picture with our present- day world, disorganized, seething, threatened with down- right chaos, I submit that some such stabilization as I have described must first be attained before we can de- vote ourselves to creating a super race. Our particular job is stopping the prodigious spread of inferiority which is now going on. We may be losing our best stocks, but we are losing them much more slowly than we are multi- plying our worst. Our study of differential birth-rates* showed us that if these remain unchanged our most in- telligent stocks will diminish from one-third to two-thirds in the next hundred years; it also showed that our least intelligent stocks will increase from six to tenfold in the same time. Obviously, it is this prodigious spawning of inferiors which must at all costs be prevented if society is to be saved from disruption and dissolution. Race cleansing is apparently the only thing that can stop it. Therefore, race cleansiug must be our first concern. Of course, this does not mean that race building should be neglected. On the contrary, we should be thinking hard along those lines. Only, for the immediate present, we should concentrate our energies upon the 1 In Chapter III. NEO-ARISTOCRACY 255 pressing problem of degenel-acy until we have actually in operation legal measures which wiU fairly promise to get it imder control. Meanwhile, the very fact that we are thinking eugenically at all will of itself produce im- portant positive results. These may not take the form of legal enactments, but they will be powerfully reflected in changed ideals and standards of social conduct. The development of that "eugenic conscience" which, as we have already seen, promises to play so important a part in the elimination of the higher grades of degeneracy, will also impel the well-endowed to raise larger families, prefer children to luxuries, and discrimuiate between the high cost of living and the cost of high living. People win think less about "ri^ts" and more about "duties," will come to consider their race much as they do their country, and will make sacrifices for posterity such as they now make for patriotism. In fact, such an attitude will soon render public opinion ripe for considering definite eugenic measures of a con- structive character. One of these measures, which is already foreshadowed, is a remission of taxation propor- tionate to the number of children ia families.* Later on society may offer rewards for the production of desirable children. Such action will, however, have to be very carefully safeguarded. Any indiscriminate subsidizing of large families regardless of their racial value would be extremely disastrous. It would mean merely another » For example: The United States Federal Income Tax grants a larger exemption to married than to single persons, and allows further deduc- tions for "dependents," including, of course, minor children. 256 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION tax burden upon the thrifty and capable for the stimu- lation of the unfit — ^who need no stimulating! Only where the racial superiority of the couples in question is clearly apparent, as shown by proven ability, psycholog- ical tests, and soimd heredity, should such subsidies be granted. These and a few other kindred matters are probably the only definitely constructive legal measures for which public opinion is even partially prepared. But there is nothing discouraging in that. The great thing, as al- ready stated, is to get people thinking racially. With the development of a "eugenic conscience" and the curb- ing of degeneracy, plans for race building will almost formulate themselves. There is the inestimable advan- tage of a movement based on the evolutionary principle and inspired by the scientific spirit. Such a movement does not, like a scheme for utopia, have to spring forth in detailed perfection from the imagination of its creator like Minerva from the brow of Zeus. On the contrary, it can evolve, steadily but surely, taoving along many hnes, testing its own soundness at every step, and win- ning favor by proofs instead of promises. "There are several routes on which one can proceed with the confidence that, if no one of them is the main road, at least it is likely to lead into the latter at some time. Forttmately, eugenics is, paradoxical as it may seem, able to advance on all these paths at once; for it proposes no definite goal, it sets up no one standard to which it would make the human race conform. Taking man as it finds him, it proposes to multiply all the types NEO-ARISTOCRACY 257 that have been found by past experience or present reason to be of most value to society. Not only would it multi- ply them in nimibers, but also in efficiency, in capacity to serve the race. "By so doing, it undoubtedly fulfils the requirements of that popular philosophy which holds the aim of so- ciety to be the greatest happiness for the greatest num- ber, or, more definitely, the increase of the totality of human happiness. To cause not to exist those who would be doomed from birth to give only unhappiness to them- selves and those about them; to increase the number of those in whom useful physical and mental traits are well developed; to bring about an increase in the number of energetic altruists and a decrease in the number of the antisocial and defective; surely such an undertaking will come nearer to increasing the happiness of the greatest number than wiU any temporary social palliative, any ointment for incurable social wounds."^ If social stabihty can be maintained and a cataclysm averted, there is every reason to beheve that our world will soon take a decided turn for the better. The new biological revelation is already accepted by large num- bers of thinking men and women aU over the civilized world, and when it becomes firmly fixed in the popular consciousness it will work a literally amazing transforma- tion in the ordering of the world's affairs. For race betterment is such an intensely practical matter ! When peoples come to realize that the quality of the population is the source of all their prosperity, I Fopenoe and Johnson, Applied Eugenics, p. 165. 258 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION progress, seciirity, and even existence; when they realize that a single genius may be worth more in actual dollars than a dozen gold-mines, while, conversely, racial de- cadence spells material impoverishment and cultural decay; when such things are really believed, we shall see eugenics actually moulding social programmes and polit- ical policies. And, as already stated, there is much evidence to show that this may happen sooner than is now imagined. Many believers in race betterment are imduly pessimistic. Of cotirse, their pessimism is quite natural. Realizing as they do the supreme importance of the eugenic idea, its progress seems to them unconscionably slow. To the student of history, however, its progress seems extraor- dinarily rapid.* Only twenty years ago eugenics was virtually unknown outside of a few scientific circles. To- day it has won a firm footing with the intellectual 61ite of every civilized land and has gained the interested attention of public opinion. History shows that when an idea has reached this point it tends to spread with ever-accelerating rapidity. In my opinion, then, eu- genists, whether laboring in the abstract field of research for the fxirther elucidation of the idea or engaged in en- hghtening public opinion, may one and all look forward hopefiilly to the operation of a sort of "law of increasing returns" that will yield results as surprising as they are beneficent as the next few decades roll on. The one deadly peril to the cause of race betterment is the possibility of social disruption by the antisocial elements — ^instinctively hostile to eugenics as they are NEO-AMSTOCRACY 259 to every other phase of progressive civiKzation. If this peril can be averted, the triumph of race betterment is practically certain, because eugenics can "deliver the goods." When public opinion once realizes this, public opinion will be not merely willing but anxious that the goods be delivered. When society realizes the incalculable value of superior stocks, it will take precious good care that its racial treasures are preserved and fostered. Superior stock will then be cherished, not only for its high average value, but because it is also the seed-bed from which alone can arise those rare personalities of genius who tower Kke moiultain peaks above the human plain and to whose creative influence progress is primarily due. The people which fosters its superior stocks will be thus twice blessed. In .the first place, such stocks will produce, generation after generation, an unfailing supply of men and women of ability, of energy, of civic worth, who will leaven society and advance every field of hu- man endeavor. And, in addition to all this, those same stocks will from time to time produce a "genius" — one of those infinitely rare but infinitely precious nainds which change man's destiny and whose names reverberate athwart the ages. "Every race requires leaders. These leaders appear from time to time, and enough is now known about eu- genics to show that their appearance is frequently pre- dictable, not accidental. It is possible to have them appear more frequently; and, in addition, to raise the level of the whole race, making the entire nation happier and more useful. These are the great tasks of eugenics. 260 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION • America needs more families like that old Puritan strain which is one of eugenics' familiar examples: "At their head stands Jonathan Edwards, and behind him an array of his descendants numbering, in the year 1900, 1,394, of whom 1,295 were college graduates; 13 presidents of oiir greatest colleges; 65 professors in col- leges, besides many principals of other important edu- cational institutions; 60 physicians, many of whom were eminent; 100 and more clergymen, missionaries, or theo- logical professors; 75 were officers in the army and navy; 60 prominent authors and writers, by whom 135 books of merit were written and pubhshed and 18 important periodicals edited; 33 American States and several for- eign countries have profited by the beneficent influences of their eminent activity; 100 and more were lawyers, of whom one was our most eminent professor of law; 30 were judges; 80 held public office, of whom one was vice-president of the United States; 3 were United States senators; several were governors, members of Congress, framers of State consitutions, mayors of cities, and minis- ters to foreign courts; one was president of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company; 15 railroads, many banks, insurance companies, and large industrial enterprises have been indebted to their management. Almost if not every department of social progress, and of the public weal has felt the impulse of this healthy and long-Uved family. It is not known that any one of them, was ever convicted of crime." ^ Such is the record of the Jonathan Edwards strain. ' Popenoe and Johnson, pp. 161-162. NEO-ARISTOCRACY 261 Now compare it with the Jukes strain.* Edwards vs. Jukes! Faced by such evidence, can public opinion re- main much longer blind to the enormous innate differ- ences between human stocks? The Edwards family record illustrate's a principle of vital importance: the infinite diversity of ability. Many' ill-informed or prejudiced critics have asserted that eu- genics visualizes a specific type of "superman" and wants to "breed for points." This is arriant nonsense. No real eugenist wants to do anything of the sort, for the very good reason that the eugenist reahzes better than any one else that the fundamental quality of superior germ- plasm is its generalized creative urge — expressing itself in a multitude of specific activities. What eugenics wants is "more physically sound men and women mth greater ability in any valuable way. Whatever the actual goal of evolution may be, it can hardly be assumed by any except the professional pes- simist that a race made up of such men and women is going to be handicapped by their presence. "The correlation of abiUties is as well attested as any fact in psychology. Those who decry eugenics on the ground that it is impossible to establish any 'standard of perfection,' since society needs many diverse kinds of people, are overlooking this fact. Any plan which in- creases the production of children in able families of vari- ous types wiR thereby produce more ability of all kinds, since if a family is particularly gifted in one way, it is likely to be gifted above the average in several other desirable ways. 1 See Chapter III. 262 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION "Eugenics sets up no specific superman, as a type to which the rest of the race must be made to confonn. It is not looking forward to the cessation of its work in a eugenic millennium. It is a perpetual process, which seeks only to raise the level of the race by the production of fewer people with physical and mental defects, and more people with physical and mental excellences. Such a race should be able to perpetuate itself, to subdue na- ture, to improve its environment progressively; its mem- bers should be happy and productive. To establish such a goal seems justified by the knowledge of evolution which is now available; and to make progress toward it is pos- sible." ^ The eugenic ideal is thus seen to be an ever-perfecting super race. Not the "superman" of Nietzsche — ^that brilliant yet baleful vision of a master caste, blooming like a gorgeous but parasitic orchid on a rotting trunk of servile degradation; but a super race, cleansing itself throughout by the elimination of its defects, and raising itself throughout by the cultivation of its qualities. Such a race will imply a new civilization. Of course, even under the most favorable circumstances, neither this race nor this civilization can come to-day or to-mor- row — ^perhaps not for many generations; because, like all really enduring creations, they will be the products of a progressive, evolutionary process, not of flaming revolution or numbing reaction. Yet this evolutionary process, however gradual, must ultimately produce changes almost beyond our dreams. ^ Popenoe and Johnson, p. 166. NEO-ARISTOCRACY 263 Every phace of human existence will be transfonned: laws and customs, arts and sciences, ideas and ideals, even man's conception of the Infinite. How shall we characterize this society of the future? I believe it may be best visualized by one word: Neo- Aristacracy. The ideal of race perfection combines and hannonizes into a higher synthesis the hitherto conflict- ing ideas of aristocracy and democracy. I am here re- ferring not to the specific political aspects which those ideas have at various times assumed, but to their broader aspects as philosophies of life and conduct. Viewed in this fundamental light, we see democracy based upon the concept of human similanty, and aris- tocracy based upon the concept of human differentiation. Of course, both concepts are, in a sense, valid. Compared to the vast differences between mankind and other life forms, human differences sink into insignificance and mankind appears a substantial unity. Compared with each other, the wide differences between men themselves stand out, and mankind becomes an almost infinite di- versity. If these distinctions had been clearly recognized, de- mocracy and aristocracy would have been viewed as parts of a larger truth, and there might have been no deep antagonism between them. Unfortunately, both concepts were formulated long ago, when science was in its infancy and when the laws of life were virtually un- known. Accordingly, both were founded largely on false notions: democracy upon the fallacy of naMral equaUty; aristocracy upon the fallacy of artijmal isneqmLHy. 264 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION Thus based on error, both democracy and aristocracy worked badly in practice: democracy tending to pro- duce a destructive, levelling equality; aristocracy tend- ing to produce an unjust, oppressive inequality. This merely increased the antagonism between the two sys- tems; because one was continually invoked to cure the harm wrought by the other, and because social ills were ascribed exclusively to the defeated party, instead of being diagnosed as a joint product. For the past half century the democratic idea has gained an imparaJleled ascendancy in the world, while the aristocratic idea has been correspondingly discredited. Indeed, so complete has been democracy's triumph that it has been accorded a superstitious veneration, and any criticism of its fimdamental perfection is widely regarded as a sort of l§se-majest6 or even heresy. Now, this is an unhealthy state of affairs, because the democratic idea is not perfect but is a mixture of truth with errors like "natural equality" which modem science has proved to be clearly imsoimd. Such a situation is unworthy of an age claiming to be inspired by that scien- tific spirit whose basic quality is unflinching love of truth. In a scientific age no idea should be sacrosanct, no facts above analysis and criticism. Of course, criticism and analysis should be measured and scientific — not mere outbursts of emotion. Traditional ideas should receive just consideration, with due regard for the fact that they must contain much truth to have established and maintained themselves. In like manner, new ideas should also receive just consideration so long as their NEO-ARISTOCRACY 265 advocates strive to persuade people and do not try to knock their brains out. But, new or old, no idea should be made a fetich — ^and democracy is no exception to the rule. As an idea, democracy should be thoughtfully, even respectfully, considered, as something which con- tains a deal of truth, and which has done much good in the world. As a fetich, democracy has no more virtue than Mumbo-Jumbo or a West African ju-ju. The fact is that modem science is unquestionably bringing the democratic dogma under review. And it is high time that scientists said so frankly. Nothing would be more laughable, if it were not so pathetic, than the way scientists interlard their writings (which clearly imply criticism of the democratic philosophy) with asides like: "Of course, this isn't really against democracy, you know." Now these little pinches of incense cast upon the demo- cratic altar may keep near-heretics in good standing. But it is unworthy of the scientific spirit, and (what is more important) it seriously retards progress. Genuine progress results from combining old and new truth into a higher synthesis which, bound by inherent affinity, will, like a chemical combination, "stay put." Arbitrarily coupling truth and error, however, results in something which compares, not to chemical synthesis, but to a me- chanical mixture about as stable as oil and water, which will be forever separating and must be continually shaken up. Obviously, out of such a mixture no new synthesis can ever come. When, therefore, believers in race betterment are ac- 266 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION cused of being "undemocratic," they should answer: "Right you are! Science, eepeciaUy biology, has dis- closed the falsity of certain ideas like 'natural equality,' and the omnipotence of environment, on which the demo- cratic concept is largely based. We aim to take the sound elements in both the traditional democratic and aristo- cratic philosophies and combine them in a higher syn- thesis — a new philosophy worthy of the race and the civilization that we visualize." Of course, it may be asked why, if this new philosophy is such a synthesis, it naight not be called "Aristo-democ- raey," or even "Neo-Democracy." To which I would answer that I have no basic objection, provided we all agree on the facts. Labels matter comparatively little. It is the things labelled which count. Yet, after all, labels do have a certain value. If they mean precisely what they say, this in turn means exact information as to the facts and hence avoids the pos- sibility of unsound reasoning based on faiilty premises. Now I believe that, ^o/r the time being at any rate, the new philosophy should be called "Neo-Aristocraey"; be- cause it involves first of all the disestablishment of the democratic cuU and the rehabilitation of the discredited aristocratic idea. For, despite its many unsound ele- ments, the aristocratic idea does contain something en- nohling, which must be preserved and incorporated into the philosophy of the morrow. To-day, therefore, the value of the aristocratic principle should be emphasized as a healthy intellectual reaction against the overweening preponderance of the d^nocratic idea. Generations NEO-ARISTOCRACY 267 hence, when the elimination of degeneracy, and even of mediocrity shall have produced something like generalized superiority, the approach to real equality between men will have become so evident that their philosophy of life may better be termed "Neo-Democracy." Other times, other fashions. Let us not usurp the future. One last point should be carefully noted. When I speak of Neo-Aristocracy as applicable to-day, I refer to outlook, not practice. At present no basic political changes are either possible or desirable. Certainly, any thought of our existing social upper classes as "Neo- Aristocracies" would be, to put it mildly, a bad joke. We have already seen that, while these classes do im- questionably contain the largest percentage of superior strains, they are yet loaded down with mediocrities and are peppered with degenerates and inferiors. We must absolutely banish the notion that Neo-Aristocracy will perpetuate that cardinal vice of traditional aristocracy — caste. Ctosses there probably will be; but these classes, however defined their functions, will be extremely fluid as regards the individuals who compose them. No true superior, wherever bom, will be denied admission to the highest class; no person, wherever bom, can stay in a class imless he measures up to specifications. The attainment of Neo-Aristocracy implies a long political evolution, the exact course of which is probably unpredictable. However, a recognition of the goal and of the fundamental princq)les involved should help us on ovu* way. That way wiU assuredly be long. At best, it will prob- 268 THE REVOLT AGAINST CIVILIZATION • ably take many generations. It may take many cen- turies. Who knows'whether our present hopes are not dreams; whether the forces of chaos will not disrupt civilization and plunge us into a "Dark Age." Well, even so, there would be left us — ^faith. For, may we not believe that those majestic laws of life which now stand revealed will no more pass utterly from human ken than have other great discoveries like the sowing of grain and the control of fire? And, therefore, may we not hope that, if not to-day, then in some better time, the race will insure its own regeneration? To doubt this would be to deny that mysterious, primal urge which, raising man from the beast, lifts his eyes to the stars. INDEX Afi-ica, barbarian stock In, 4, 5; civili- zations appear In North, 6; abortions among Buslmien in South, 119 n. Alexander, 14 America, barbEirian stock in, 5; results of possible revolution in, 29; ratings of racial stocks In, 62 Jf.; birth-rate averages in, 110'#.; infant mortality ta, 122 ff. Anarchism, 103, 136; "Babouvism" contributes to, 149; led by Proudhon and Bakunln, 152; "philosophical," 153 n.; history of, 158 ff.; Interna- tional Congress, 161 Archimedes, 14 Aristocracy, an insufBcient theory, 264 ff. Aristophanes, 11, 207 Aristotle, 14; opinions on biological selection, 37 Arlitt, Miss A. H., experiment quoted, 63 Army intelligence tests. See Intel- ligence tests "Artists' and writers' workshops," 205 ff. Asia, barbarians in, 5; civilizationa in, 6; Bolshevism In, 213 ff. "Assertive mating," IS ff, 82, 227 "Atavistic revolt," 11, 20^.; mob con- tagion in, 28 Atlantic Monthly, Thei Pasrdisky quoted from, 198 Australia, natives, 4; ideal birth-rate in, 110; birth-control in, 118 n. Babeuf, 146 #. Bach, Johann Sebastian, 55 Bakunln, Michael, 134, 136, 152, 164; disciple of Proudhon, 159; character of. 159; Bevolutionary Catechism, 159 Jf.; doctrine of, 161 #. Barbusse, Henri, 223 Bavaria, Bolshevism in, 178 Beck, James M., 136 ff. Berth, fidouard. The Misdeeds of Oie Intellectuals, quoted, 174 Bertillon, 110 Blnet, intelligence tests, 56 ff. Biological regression. See Begression Biology, modern researches in, 84 ^.; foe of Bolshevism, 237 ff. Birth-control, and social sterilization. 90 ff.; good results of, 118 n.; legal prohibitions and questions, 119; po- tential instrument of race better- ment, 120; need of changed attitude toward, 251 Birth-rate, differential, 108 ff.; low in superior classes, 69, 109 ff, 116 ff.; high in Inferior classes, 112, 116; problem in America, 112 Jf.; inevita- ble decline under modern conditions, 118; and taxation in Europe, 120; and salaries in America, 122 ff. Blanc, Louis, 150 Blanqul, 150 Block, Alexander, The Twelve, quoted, 193 and n. BogdanoS, 202 Bolshevism, 103; as levelling doctrine of equality in Russia, 31 ; as reaction against attempts to civilize Bussia, 133; a natural event, 134, 220; "lit- erary," 138 ff.; inspired by French Bevolution, 146 ff.; reliance on Marx, 153; identical with Syndical- ism, 163, 166, 176; under Russian Bevolution, Ch. TI isee also Russian Revolutions); characteristics of, 182 ff. ; despotism in, 186 #. ; government under, 188 ff.; leaders of, 191 ff.; fate of classes under, 194 ff. ; attitude of Intelligentsia toward, 197 ff.; de- struction wrought to Russia by, 198 ff.; undecided cultural policy, 201 ff.; artists' and writers' workshops un- der, 205#.; attack on world-order, 209 #.; in Hungary, 210 #.; in Asia, 213 ff.; opposed by biology, 221 Jf., 237^.; a matter of heredity, 224 #., 233; lessons from, 230; methods against, 233 ff. See also Syndicalism "Boorjooy," 194 Jf. Bourbonism, 226 Brissot, 146, 158 British Journal of Psychology, Burt quoted by McDougall from, 62 270 INDEX Broullhet, 187 Buckle, 41 Buddha, 14 Burbank, Lntbfir, 107 Burke. 28 Burt, OkQ, Experimental Tests of General Intelligerue, quoted by Mo- Dougall, 62 , Bntler, Samuel, Erewhon, as reference, 221 n. Cade, Jack, perfect type of revolution- ary, 142 ff. Oceaar, postal service under, 7; as gen- eral, 14 Carver, T. N., Introduction to Braaol's Socialism vs. Civiliiation, quoted, 166 ff. Cattell, Professor, 111 Century, The, Gilbert Murray quoted from, 162 Cbaldea, civilizations in, 6 Chinese civilization, durability of. 7, 9 Ctiristlan doctrine of equality, 38 Civilization, classic, western and mod- em, 6; progress ia,7 ff.; lav of civili- zation and decay, 9, 11; weight of modern, 15; racial elements of world- civilization, 84; tlireatened by degen- eracy, 101; defense against degen- eracy, 106; increases celibacy, late marriage, few children, 117; threat- ened by destructive criticism, 127 ff.; threatened by revolution, 140 ff.; methods against revolution, 223 ff.\ need of intelligent action by, 230 ff.; spedflc attitudes and actions, 233 ff.; biological support of, 238 ff. Class war, 169 ff., 182 ff. Clootz, Anacharsls, 146, 158 Coler, Bird S., Commissioner of Chari- ties, 122 if. College graduates, marriage and birth- rate among. 111 ff. Communism, attempted in 1848, 150; Marxian, 152; in Russia, 178, 181; theory of, 184; price of, under Bol- shevism, 185 ff.; Russell's desertion of party, 189 ff. Conklln, Bdwin Grant, The Direction of Human Evolution, quoted, 222 Copeland, Health Commissioner, 122 #. Cournos, John, A Factory of Literature, quoted, 207 Cox, Harold, Economic Libertj/i quoted, 142 ff., 167 if. Crime waves, nature of, 136 Criticism. See Destructive critldsm "Cubism," 137 CzaclBm, ISO Darbishire, A. D., Introduction to a Bi- ology, as reference, 221 n. Darwin, The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, 42 ff. Davenport, 113 " Death of the Middle Classes," 121 ff. Declaration of Independence, 38 Declaration of the Bights of Man, 38 Defectives. See Inferiority Defense against revolution, Bolshevism, etc. See Civilization Degeneracy, racial, and germ-plasm, 44 ff.; cause of inferiority, 100; threat to civilization, 101, 245 ff.; leadership in, 102; destructive social Influence of, 102 ff.; elimination of, 246 ff.; insti- tutions to restrict, 247 n., 248^. See also Inferiority^ Democracy, an overdrawn picture, 102; an Insuffldent theory, 264 ff. Destructive criticism, symptom of in- cipient revolution, 126; defined, 126 ff.; glorlflcatlon of the primitive by, 127; Rousseau exponent of, 128 Determinism, economic, 157 Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung,. Merezh- kovskl quoted firom, 131 ff., 133 ff. DeVries, 43 Dostoievsky, 179 Dynamic minorities, 224 if. Edwards, Jonatfaan, family of. 260 ff. Egoism, origin of theory of natural equality, 32 Egypt, civilizations In, 6; endurance of dvUIzatians In, 9 Ems, Havelock, 80 Engels, 152. 154 England, radal and sodal selective processes In, 80 if. English, Horace B., Yale Psychological Studies, quoted by McDougall, 61 if. Environment, contrasted with heredity, 35 ff,; Lamarcklsm stresses Impor- tance of, 40; law of diminishing in- fluences, 47 ff. ; effect upon perform- ance of hereditary Inclinations, 74 ff. Epilepsy, 98 ff. EquaUty, natural. See Natural equality Eugenics, 36; sdenoB fotmded by Fran- cis Galton, 42; to improve soda] selection, 92, 239; foe to Bolshevism, 238 ff.; programme of, 240, 244 ff., 252; "positive" and "negative," 245 ff.; treatment of "stocks" and indi- viduals, 249 ff.; public opinion and, 250 if.; social soimdness and, 253 ff.; conscientiousness toward, 255; taxa- tion and, 255; practicality of, 257^.; a perfecting process, 261 ff. INDEX 271 Europe, dvllteatlons appear In, 6; re- sults of possible revolution In, 29; birth-rate averages In, 110; taxation and birth-rate in, 120 ff. Evolution, instance of Law of Inequali- ty, 30^.; fallacy of parallel between wild life and human beings, 106 ff.; repudiated by Syndicalism, 169. Ste also Heredity, Inequality, etc. "Espreasionism." 137 i^. Feeble-minded, characterization of, 93 ff.; increase under charitable protec- tion, 94; "JukeB Family," 95 ff.; "Kallikalc Family," 96 ff. Florinsky, Professor, 192 n. Fourier, 150 Frederick the Great, 52 Freeman, The, reference to Lowle ar- ticles in, 221 n. French-Canadians, prolific stock in New England, 113 French Revolution, 146 ff. "Futurism," 137 Gsaton, Frands, founder of " Eugenics," 42 ff. ; study of superior persons, 48 ff. Germ-plasm, 34#.; potency of. 44; iso- lation of, 45 ff. Germany, Bolshevism in, 210 n. Giovannetti, Arturo, 172 ff. Greece, classic civilization in, 6; Athe- nian civilization, 10 ff.; discernment of principle of heredity in early, 36 Gustavtls Adolphus, 62 Hall of Fame, Individuals studied by Woods, 50 ff. Harvard graduates, reproduction among. 111, 113 / HSbert, 146, 15S Heredity, 12; social, 12 ff.; contrasted with environment, 35 ff.; Lamarck- ism opposes importance of, 40; im- portance discovered, 43; power of, 44; moulder of man, 48 ff. ; greatness and, 48 ff.; intelligence and, 56 ff. Heslod, 14 Hibbert Journal, Nordau quoted from, 103 #. ; Whetham quoted Drom, 242 ff. Hitchcock, O. H., Nancy Hanks, as reference, 53 n. Holland, birth-control in, 118 n. Holmes, S. J.. The Trend of the Race, as reference, 43 n., 040., 97, 109n.; quoted, 53 ff., 90 Homer, 14, 207 "Hooliganism," 13iff. "House of Sdenoei" 207 Hume, 38 Humphrey, 101 ff. Hungary, Bolshevism in, 178, 210 ff. Hyndman, 154 India, civilizations appear in, 6 Industrial Revolution, 156 Industrial Unionists, same as'Sya&n calists Inequality, law of, 30; individual and type d^erentiatlons, Chap. II; bio- logical investigations of, 30 ff. ; psy- chological investigations of, 55 ff.; social trend toward (summary), 76 ff. See also Evolution and Inferiority Infant mortality, in America, 122 ff. Inferiority, physical and mental aspects of, 88 jr.; civilized life increases men- tal, 89 ff. ; manifestations In defective classes, feeble-minded, insane, etc., 93 ff.; heredity and description of, 94 ff.; number of defectives, 99; dan- gers itom high-grade, 102 ff.; de- mocracy no cure for, 102 Insanity,- hereditary forms, 97 ff.; superiority and, 98 and n.; nimibers of asylum cases, 98 Intelligence, recent biological develop- ment of, 89 ff. Intelligence tests, 56 ff.; for children, 57 ff.; results obtained from, 59 ff.; Intellectual capacity shown by, 60#.; of adults, 66 ff. In the Army; 56, 66 ff.; purposes and methods, 67 ^.; re- sults and ratings, QSff., 89, 113, 225, 227 #. Intelligentsia, 179, 196 ff. International Anarchist Congress, 161 Ireland, Alleyne, Democracy and the Human Equation, quoted, 55, 80 ff.; cited, 56 Isabella of Spain, 52 Italians, intelligence of children in America, 63 ff. ; prolific stock in New England, 113 Italy, Anarchism in, 160 "I. W. W.," 166, 172 Izvestia, quoted. 195 Jesus, 14 Jews, prolific stock in New England; 113; rising influence ia 1848, 151 if. Johnson. See Popenoe Jukes Family, 96 ff., 247, 261 KaUlkEik Family, 96 ff. Kautsky, 154 Kelvin, Lord, 66 Kerensky, 181 Kerzhentsev, 205 ff. Kiev University, 192 and a. 272 INDEX Eropotktn; Prince, 153 n. Eun, Bela, 210 ff. Lagardelle, 186 Jf. Lamarck, 13, 35; tbeory of "Inheritance of acquired characteristics," 39 ff.; importance of teachings, 40 Lasalle, 154 Lavoisier, 146 Le Bon. Oustave, The World in BetoU, Quoted, 220 Legendre, A, 7., Tour d'Borizon Mon- diai, as reference, 210 n. Lenin, Nikolai, 146, 180, 181, 184, 187, 188, 191, 195, 201 "Lenin Boys," 212 Lichtenlierger, J. P., The Social Signifi- cance of Mental Lecels, as reference, 73 n.; quoted, 73 #. Uncoln, Abraham, 62 ff. "literary Bolshevikl," 138 #. Living Age, The, Merezhkovskl quoted flrom, 131 ff., 133 ff.; Masaryk quoted from, 184 ff. Locke, 38 London, Jack, Bevolution and Other Es- says, quoted, 171 ff. London Saturday Review, quoted, 120 ff. London Times, quoted, 121 ff. Lowie, Bobert H., articles in The Free- man, as reference, 221 n. Lnnacharslty. Proletarskaia Kuttura, 201 #. Lvov, Prince, 181 McDougall, William, 65 n. ; Is America Safe for Democracy f quoted, 38, 61 ff., 76, 114^.; as reference, 109 n. MaMakov, Bussian minister of the interior, 134 Marat, 146 Marx, Karl, 151, 164, 165; Communist Manifesto, 151; sponsor of state so- cialism and communism, 152 ff.; Capital, 153, 156; doctrine, 154, 156, 168; limitations, 156 ff.; invoked by Syndicalists (Bolshevists), 169, 203 Masaryk, T. G., Revolutionary Theory in Europe, quoted, 184 ff. MediEBval civilization, spirituality of, 7 Mediocrity, numbers, 225; social vedue, 225 ff.; proportional numbers, 228; status and influence, 229 Menshevikl, 180 and n., 183 Menshlkov, 135 Merezhkovskl, Dmitri, Tolstoy and Bol- shevism, quoted, 131 ff., 133 ff. Methods against revolution, Bolshe- vism, etc. See Oivilization Miliukov, Paul, 181; Bolstievism, An International Danger, as reference, 210 n. Mill, John Stuart, environmentalist, quoted, 39 More, Sir Thomas, 144 Most, Johann, 164; Freikeit, quoted, 160 jr. Murray, Gilbert, Satanism and the World Order, quoted, 162 Natural equality, a delusion, 30; ego as origin of theory, 32; emotional basis of, 33; as environmentalist theory, 37; as Christian doctrine, 38; of op- portimity, performance, and recom- pense, 75 ff. ; Bousseau a believer in, 129; Marx a believer in, 156 Natural selection, 17 #. ; medicine inter- feres with, 91 ff.; slow modifications under, 106 ff. Negroes, Inferiority of, in America, 63; in the army, 71; general, 89 Neo-Aristocracy, 263; outlook toward synthesis of old and new truth, 265 ff. New England, differential birth-rates in, 112 ff. New Republic, The, Bussell quoted bom, 185 ff.; Coumos quoted from, 207 New York Times, quoted, 122 ff. New Zealand, suitable birth-rate In, 110; birth-control in, 118 n. Nihilists, 136, 179 Nordau, Max, The Degeneration of Classes and Peoples, quoted, 103 ff. Novoye Vremya, Menshikov quoted from, 135 ff. Noyes, Alfred, Some Aspects of Modem Poetry, quoted, 138 ff. "Old Believers" in Bussia, 133 Orr, 100 n. Oryeschln, Peter, 218 Osborn, Henry Fairfield, 123 Owen, Bobert, 144, 150 Paris Commune, 160 Pasvolsky, Leo, The Intelligentsia under the Soviets, quoted, 198 Paul, Eden, and Cedar, Proletcutt, and Creative Bevolution, 208 and n. PeUoutier, Femand, 163 Persians, semaphore telegraphy of, 7 Peter the Great, 133 Phoenician galleys, 7 Plato, 14, 142, 144; interested in biologi- cal selection, 36 ff. INDEX 273 Piatt, R. H., Jr.; The Scope and Signifif cance of Mental Tests, as reference, 73 n. Poetry, "new," 138 Pogany, 212 Poles, prollflc stock in New England, 113 Popenoe and Johnson, Applied Eugen- ics, quoted, 41 ff., 45, 59, 76, 91 ff., 95 ff., 97, 112, 240, 256 ff., 259 ff., 261 ff.; as reference, 43 n., 94 n., 100, 109 n. Popular Science Monthly, Woods quoted firom, 47, 53; cited, 50 if. Portuguese, intelligence of school chil- dren in America, 64 Pouget, 170 Prenatal influence, 45 "Prolet-kult," 201 ff. "Proletarian culture," 201 ff., 221 "Propaganda of the Deed," 161, 162 iT. Proudhon, 150, 152, 164 and n.; founds Anarchism, 158 Jf. Psychoanalysis, 27; applied to Bolshe- Tikl, 191 ff. Ptolemy, 14 Quevll, N., Cell Intelligence and the Cause of Evolution, as reference, 221 n. "Bace Betterment." See Eugenics Baciad comparisons of intelligence, U. S. army, 71 ff. Badal impoverishment, factors causing, 117 Jf.; hastened by Great War, 124; as cause of revolutionary tendencies, 223 Bansome, Arthur, Russia in 1919, quated, 182 ff. "Bed Guard," 192. 193, 211 Beformist socialism, 155 ff., 168 ff. Begression, biological, 11, 15 ff., 19. See also "UndeivMan" " Beign of Terror," 145 ff. ' Beproduction. See Birth-rate Bevolution, social, causes and symp- toms. 125 if.; in art and letters, 137 ff.; in other phases of civilization, 140 ff.; emotional urge in, 141; antiquity of. 142 ff., 220, 238; history of mod- em social, 144 Jf.; "Babouvism," 147 ff.; in 1848, 150 ff.; reformist, 155, 157; Syndicalist, 157; Bakunln'8 programme of, 159 ff.; in Bussia (see ' Eussian revolutions); new and old elements to-day, 220; science enemy of, 221, 236; Intelligent action against, 230 ff. Bivarol, 224 Bobespierre, 146 Bockefeller, John D., 55 Bome, classic civilization In, 6; roads, 7; encouragement of low-class reproduc- tion, 90; proletariat amusements, 101 BosanoS, 100 n. Bousseau, Jean-Jacques, 38; exponen' of destructive criticism, 128; a "tainted genius," 128; opinions of, 129; truth and falsity of teachings. 129 ff.; spokesman of revolt, 145 Boyal faiullies studied by Woods, 51 ff. Bussell, Bertrand, Bolshevik Theory, quoted, 185 ff., 189 ff. and n. Bussia. social revolution in, 29. 145; folk nature In, 132 #. ; peasant revolts in, 133 Jf.; "Hooliganism" in, 134 ff.; Nihilism in, 160; Soviet, 174; Bolshe- vik Bevolution, Ohap. VI Busslan revolutions: First: significance, 177; numbers in- volved, 178; roots of. 178 Jf.; politi- cal and social aspects. 179 ff. ; lead- ers. 179; early attempts against Ozarism. 180; failure. ISO Second: 181 Third : crushing of Socialists, triumph of communism. 181; Third Inter- nationale. 181, See also Bol- shevism "Sabotage." 170. 173 St. John. Vincent, The I. W. W., Its History, Structure, and Methods, quoted, 172 Saint-Simon, 150 Schopenhauer, 131 Schwartz, Bose, 192 n. Science, as enemy of Bevolution, 221 Segregation of differentiated sodai levels, 78 ff. Shakespear, 37, 142 Skoptzi sect in Bussia, 133 "Social Oonification." 80 So