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Desirable Mansions:
A
TRACT
Reprinted, with a few alterations, from “Progress, June, 1883.
By
EDWARD CARPENTER.
THIRD EDITION
PRICE
ONE
PENNY.
Published by
THE MODERN PRESS, 13, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
1887.
�BY
THE
SAME
AUTHOR.
Towards Democracy. New edition, with numerous
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�DESIRABLE MANSIONS
FTER all, why should we rail against the rich ? I
think if anything they should be pitied. In nine
cases out of ten it is not a man’s fault.
He is
born in the lap of luxury, he grows up surrounded
by absurd and impossible ideas about life, the innumerable
chains of habit and circumstance tighten upon him, and when
the time comes that he would escape, he finds he cannot. He
is condemned to flop up and down in his cage for the re
mainder of his days—a spectacle of boredom, and a warning
to gods and men.
I go into the houses of the rich. In the drawing-room I
see chill weary faces, peaked features of ill-health ; down
stairs and in the kitchen I meet with rosy smiles, kissable
cheeks, and hear sounds of song and laughter. What is this ?
Is it possible that the real human beings live with Jeames
below-stairs!
Often as I pass and see in suburb or country some “ desir
able mansion ” rising from the ground, I think : That man is
building a prison for himself. So it is—a prison. I would
rather spend a calendar month in Clerkenwell or Holloway
than I would in that desirable mansion. A young lady that
I knew, and who lived in such a mansion, used with her sisters
to teach a class of factory girls. Every now and again one
of the girls would say, “ Eh, Miss, how I would like to be a
grand lady like you ! ” Then she would answer, “ Yes, but
you know you wouldn’t be able to do everthing you liked ; for
instance, you wouldn’t be allowed to go out walking when
�4
you liked.” “ Eh, dear I ” they would say to one another,
“ she is not allowed to go out walking when she likes—she is
not allowed to go out walking when she likes ! ”
Certainly you are not allowed to go out walking when you
like. Reader, did you ever spend a day within those desirable
walls ? I have, many. I wake up in the morning. It is fine
and bright. I think to myself: I will have a pleasant stroll
before breakfast. Yes—man proposes. It is all very well to
meditate a morning walk, but where O where are my clothes ?
I cannot very well go out without them. What can have be
come of them ? Suddenly it occurs to me: James, honest
soul, has taken them away to brush. Good. I wait. Nothing
happens. I ring the bell. James appears. “ My clothes,
James.” “Yes, sir.” Again I wait—an intolerable time.
At last the familiar jacket and trousers appear. Good. Now
*
I can go out. Not so fast—where are your boots ? Boots,
good gracious, I had forgotten them. Heaven knows where
they are—I don’t. Probably fifty yards away. I creep
downstairs. All is quiet. The servants are evidently at
breakfast. It would be madness to hope to get boots brushed
at such a moment. I would like to clean them myself. In
fact I am fond of cleaning my own boots: the exercise is
pleasant, and besides it is just such a little bit of menial
work as I would rather do for myself than have others
do for me; but, as I said before, one cannot do what
one likes. In the first place, in this house where one is
fifty yards away from everything one wants I have not
the faintest idea where my boots are, or the means and instru
ments of blacking them ; in the second place an even more
fatal objection is that if I did succeed in committing this deed
of darkness the consequent uproar in the house would be per
fectly indescribable. The outrage on propriety would not
only shock the feelings of the world below-stairs, but it would
put to confusion the master of the house, upset the whole
domestic machinery, create unpleasant qualms in the minds
* A friend tells me that once, to revenge himself for this sort of trifling,
he concealed his nether garment under the mattrass and then, in the
morning, slyly watched the footman as he vainly sought round the room
for it. The consequence however was that he fell very much in the esti
mation of the latter, who doubtless thought that, like Matthew, Mark,
Luke, and John, his master’s visitor •' had gone to bed with his breeches
on.”
�5
of the other guests, and possibly make me feel that I had
better not have lived. Accordingly, I abandon the idea of my
pleasant stroll. It is not worth such a sacrifice. The birds
are singing outside, the flowers are gay in the morning sun —
but it must not be. Within, in the sitting-rooms, chaos reigns.
Chairs and tables are piled in cheerful confusion upon one
another, carpets are partially strewn with tea-leaves. To
read a book or write an aimless letter to some one (the usual
resource of people in desirable mansions) is clearly impossible;
to do anything in the way of house-work is forbidden—it
being well understood in such places that one may do any
thing except what is useful.
There remains nothing but to
beat a retreat to my chamber again—put my hands in my
pockets and whistle at the open window.
“ Who was that I heard whistling so early this morning ? ”
says my kindly old host at breakfast. “ O, it was you, was
it ? I expect now you’re an early riser ; get up at seven, take
a walk before breakfast; that sort of thing—eh ? ” “Yes, when
I can,” I reply with ambiguous intent. “ Well, I call that
wonderful,” says an elderly matron—not likely, as far as ap
pearances go, to be accused of a similar practice—“ such
energy, you know.” “ What a strong constitution you must
have to be able to stand it! ” remarks a charming young lady
on whom it has not yet dawned that the vast majority of
human kind have their breakfast before half-past nine.
This is not a good beginning to the day ; but the rest is like
unto it. I find that there are certain things to be done—a
certain code of things that you may do, a certain way of doing
them, a certain way of putting your knife and fork on your
plate. When you come down to dinner in the evening you
must put on what the Yankees call a claw-hammer coat. It
is not certain, (and that is just the grisly part of it) what
would happen if you did not do this. In some societies
evidently such a casualty has never been contemplated. I
have heard people seriously discussing—in cases where the
required article was missing—what could be done, where one
might be borrowed, &c.—but clearly it did not occur to them
that anyone could dine in his natural clothes. Sometimes,
when in a fashionable church, I have wondered whether
it would be possible to worship God in a flannel shirt—
but I suppose that to go out to a dinner party in such a
�6
costume would be even more unthinkable. As I said
before, you are in prison. Submit to the prison rules,
and it is all right—attempt to go beyond them, and you
are visited with condign punishment. The rules have
no sense, but that does not matter (possibly some ot
them had sense once, but it must have been a very long time
ago); the people are good people, no better nor worse in
themselves than the real workers, the real hands and hearts
of the world; but they are condemned to banishment from
the world, condemned into the prison houses of futility. The
stream of human life goes past them as they gaze wearily
upon it through their plate-glass windows; the great Mother’s
breasts of our common Humanity, with all its toils and suf
ferings and mighty joys, are withheld from them. Dimly al
last I think I understand why it is their faces are so chill and
sad, their unnourished lives so unhealthy and over-sensitive.
Truly, if I could pity anyone, I would them.
By the side of the road there stands a little girl, crying ;
she has lost her way. It is very cold, and she looks pinched
and starved. “ Come in, my little girl, and sit by my cottage
fire, and you’ll soon get warm; and I’ll see if I can't find you
a bit of something to eat before you go on . . . Eh 1 dear !
how stupid I am—I quite forgot. I am sorry 1 can’t ask
you in, but I am living in a desirable mansion now—and
though we are very sorry for you, yet you see we could hardly
have you into our house, for your dirty little boots would
make a dreadful mess of our carpets, and we should have to
dust the chairs after you had sat upon them, and you see Mrs.
Vavasour might happen to come in, and she would think it
so very odd ; and I know cook can’t bear beggars, and, O
dear ! I’m so sorry for you—and here’s a penny, and I hope
you’ll get home safely.”
The stream of human life goes past. When a rich man
builds himself a prison, he puts up all these fences to shut
the world out—to shut himself in. If he can he builds far back
from the high road. In the front of his house he has a bound
less polite lawn, with polite flower beds, afar from vulgarpeople
and animals. Rows of polite servants attend upon him; and there
within of inanity and politeness he dies. Of what human
life really consists in he has little idea. He has not the
faintest notion of what is necessary for human life or happi
�7
ness. Sometimes with an indistinct vision of accumulated
evil, he says: “ Poor So-and-so, he has only ^200 a year to
keep his wife and family on ! ” No wonder his own daughters
dedicate themselves to “ good works.” They go out with the
curate and visit at neighbouring cottages. Their visits have
little appreciable effect on the people, but are a great benefit
to themselves and the curate. They observe, for the first
time, how life is carried on ; they see the operations of scrub
bing and cooking (removed in their own houses afar from
mortal polite eye) ; perhaps they behold a mother actually
suckling her own babe, and learn that such things are pos
sible ; finally, they “ wonder ” how “ those .people ” live, and
to them their wonder (like the fear of God) is the beginning of
wisdom. The lord of the mansion sits on the magisterial
bench or strides about his fields, and lumps together all who
are not in a similar position to himself as the “ lower
classes.” After dinner in the evening, if the conversation
turns on politics, he and his compeers discuss the importance
of keeping the said lower classes in order, or the best method
of “ raising ” them out of the ignorance and disorder in which
they are supposed to wallow. And during the conversation
it will be noticed that it is by everyone tacitly allowed and
understood, and is, in fact, the very foundation of the whole
argument, that the speakers themselves belong to an educated
class, while the mass of the people are uneducated. Yet this
is exactly the reverse of the truth—for they themselves
belong to an ill-educated class, and the mass of the people
are, by the very nature of the case, the better educated of
the two.
In fact, the education of the one set of people (and it is a
great pity that it should be so) consists almost entirely in the
study of books. That is very useful in its way, and if pro
perly balanced with other things; but it is hardly necessary
to point out that books only deal with phantoms and shadows
of reality. The education of the world at large, and the real
education, lies, and must always lie, in dealing with the
things themselves. To put it shortly (as it has been put
before), one man learns to spell a “ spade,” to write it, to
rhyme it, to translate it into French and Latin—possibly,
like Wordsworth, to address a sonnet to it—the other man
learns to use it. Is there any comparison between the two ?
�8
Now is it not curious that those good people sitting round
their dinner table in the desirable mansion, or listening to a
little music in the drawing-room, should actually be so
ignorant of the world, and what goes on in it, as to think, and
honestly believe, that they are, par excellence, the educated
people in it ? * Does it ever occur to them, I often think, to
inquire who made all the elegant and costly objects with
which they are surrounded ? Does it ever occur to them, as
they tacitly assume the inferiority of the working classes, to
think of the table itself across which they speak—how beauti
fully fitted, veneered, polished ; the cloth which lies upon it,
and the weaving of it; the chairs and other furniture, so light
and yet so strong, each requiring the skill of years to make ;
the silver, the glass, the steel, the tempering, hardening,
grinding, fitting, riveting ; the lace and damask curtains, the
wonderful machinery, the care, the delicate touch, adroit
manipulation ? the piano 1 the very house itself in which they
spend their days ! Is there one, I say, who we will not say
could make even the smallest part, but who even has the
faintest idea how one of these things is.made, where it is
made, who makes it ? Not one. All the care, the loving
thought, the artistic design, the conscientious workmanship
that have been expended, and are daily expended, on these
things and the like of them—go past them unrecognised,
unacknowledged. The great hymn of human labour over the
earth is to them an idle song. There, in the midst of all
these beautiful products of toil and ingenuity, possessing but
not enjoying, futile they sit, and fancy themselves educated—
fit to rule. I have heard of a fly that sat stinging upon the
hindquarters of a horse, and fancied that without it the cart
would not go. Fancied so, I say, until the great beast
whisked its tail, and after that it fancied nothing more.
Doi put these things in a strong light? May be, I do; but I put
them faithfully as I have seen them, and as I see them daily.
* “ . . . . People who roll about in their fine equipages scarcely
knowing what to do with themselves or what ails them, and some of whom
occasionally run to such places as ours to have their carriage linings or
cushions altered, or to know if they *can be altered as they don't feel quite
1
comfortable.' I often think ‘ God help them,’ for no one else can. . .
I insert this extract just to show how these things are regarded from
the side which does not usually find expression. It is from a letter written
by an elderly and gentle-hearted man, employed in a carriage factory.
�9
I do not suppose that riches are an evil in themselves. I do
not suppose that anything is an evil in itself. I know that
even in the midst of all these shackles and impediments,
that wonderfulest of things, the human soul, may work out
its own salvation ; and well I know that there are no condi
tions or circumstances of human life, nor any profession from
a king to a prostitute, that may not become to it the gateway of
freedom and immortality. But I daily see people setting this
standard of well-to-do respectability before them, daily more
and more hastening forth in quest of desirable mansions to
dwell in ; and I cannot but wonder whether they realise what
it is they seek ; I cannot lend my voice to swell the chorus
of encouragement. Here are the clean facts. Choose for
yourselves. That is all.
Respectability ! Heavy-browed and hunch-backed word '
Once innocent and light-hearted as any other word, why now
in thy middle age art thou become so gloomy and saturnine ?
Is it that thou art responsible for the murder of the innocents ?
Respectability! Vision of clean hands and blameless dress—
why dost thou now appear in the form of a ghoul before me ?
I confess that the sight of a dirty hand is dear to me. It
warms my heart with all manner of good hopes and promises.
Often and long have I thought about this matter, and in all
good faith I must say that I fail to see how hands always
clean are compatible with honesty. This is no play upon
words. I fail to see how in the long run, any man that
takes his share in the work of the world can keep his hands
in this desirable state.
How ? The answer is obvious enough—leave others to do
the dirty work. Good ! Let it be so ; let it be granted that
others shall do the scrubbing and baking, the digging, the
fishing, the breaking of horses, the carpentering, build
ing, smithing, and the myriad other jobs that have to be
done, and you at the pinnacle of all this pyramid of work,
above all, keep your hands clean. We shouting to you from
below, exhort you—At all costs, keep your hands cle‘an !
Think how important it is, while the great ships have to be
got into harbour, that your nails should be blameless ! Think
if by any accident you were to do a real good piece of work,
and get your hands thoroughly grimed over it, unwashable
for a week, what confusion would ensue to yourself and
�IO
friends ! Think O think of your clients, or of the next
dinner party, and earnestly and prayerfully resolve that
such a fall may never be yours. Seek, we pray you, some
secure work—some legal, clerical, official, capitalist, or land
owning business, safe from the dread stain of dirty hands,
whatever other dirt it may bring with it—some thoroughly
gentlemanly profession, marking you clearly off from the
vulgar and general masses, and the blessing of heaven
go with you !
Shut yourself off from the great stream of human life,
from the great sources of physical and moral health ; ignore
the common labour by which you live, show clearly your
contempt for it, your dislike of it, and then ask others to do
it for you ; turn aside from nature, divorce yourself from the
living breathing heart of the nation; and then you will have
done, what the governing classes of England to-day have
done, have given full directions to your own heart and brain
how to shrivel and starve and die.
Man is made to work with his hands. This is a fact which
cannot be got over. From this central fact he cannot travel
far. I don’t care whether it is an individual or a class, the
life which is far removed from this becomes corrupt, shrivelled,
and diseased. You may explain it how you like, but it is so.
Administrative work has to be done in a nation as well as
productive work ; but it must be done by men accustomed to
manual labour, who have the healthy decision and primitive
authentic judgment which comes of that, else it cannot be
done well. In the new form of society which is slowly
advancing upon us, this will be felt more than now. The
higher the position of trust a man occupies the more will it
be thought important that, at some period of his life, he
should have been thoroughly inured to manual work ; this
not only on account of the physical and moral robustness
implied by it, but equally because it will be seen to be im
possible for any one, without this experience of what is the
very flesh and blood of national life, to promote the good
health of the nation, or to understand the conditions under
which the people live whom he has to serve.
But to return to the sorrows of the well-to-do—and care
that sits on the crupper of wealth.
This is a world-old and
well-worn subject. Yet, possibly, some of its truisms may
�II
bear repeating. A clergyman, preaching once on the trials
of life, turned first to his rich friends and bade them call to
mind, one by one, the sorrows and sufferings of the poor;
then, turning to his “ poorer brethren,” he exhorted them
also not to forget that the rich man had his afflictions—with
which they should sympathise—amongst which afflictions,
growing chiefly out of their much money, he reckoned “ last,
but not least, the difficulty of finding for it an investment
which should be profitable and also secure 1 ” It has been
generally supposed that the poorer brethren failed to sym
pathise with this form of suffering.
But it is a very real one. What cares, what anxieties,
what yellow and blue fits, what sleepless nights, dance at
tendance on the worshiper in the great Temple of Stocks !
The capricious deity that dwells there has to be appeased by
ceaseless offerings. Usury ! crookfaced idol, loathed, yet
grovelled to by half the world, whose name is an abomination
to speak openly, yet whose secret rites are practised by
thousands who revile thy name, what spell of gloom and
bilious misery dost thou cast over thy worshipers! Is it
possible that the ancient curse has not yet lost its effect:
that to acquire interest on money and to acquire interest in
life are not the same thing ; that they are positively not com
patible with each other; that to fly from one’s just share of
labour in the world, in order to live upon the hard-earned
profits of others, is not, and cannot come to good ? Is it
possible, I say, reader, that there is a moral law in the world
facing us quite calmly in every transaction of our lives by
which it must be so—by which cowardice and sham cannot
breed anything else for us but gloom and bilious misery ? In
this age which rushes to stocks—to debenture, preference,
consolidated, and ordinary stocks, to shares, bonds, coupons,
dividends—-not even refusing scrip when it can get it—does
it ever occur to us to consider what it all means ?—to con
sider that all the money so gained is taken from some one
else ; that what we have not earned cannot possibly be ours,
except by gift, or (shall I say it ?) theft ? How can it then
come with a blessing ? How can we not but think of the
railway operatives, the porters, managers, clerks, superin
tendents, drivers, stokers, platelayers, carriage - washers,
navvies, out of whose just earnings (and from no other
�12
source) our dividends are taken ? ■ Let alone honesty—what,
surely, does our pride say to this ? Is it possible that this
frantic dividend-dance of the present day is like a dance of
dancers dancing without any music—an aimless incoherent
impossible dance, weltering down at last to idiocy and
oblivion ?
Curious, is it not, that this subject (of dividends) is never
mentioned before said wage-receiving classes ? I have often
noticed that. When James enters the room, or Jeffery comes
to look at the gas-fittings, the babble of stocks dies faintly
away, as if ashamed of itself? and while a man will, without
reserve, allude to his professional salary, he is generally as
secret concerning his share-gotten gains as ladies are said to
be about their age.
But, as I said at first, these things are not generally a
man’s fault. They are the product of the circumstances in
which he is born. From his childhood he is trained osten
sibly in the fear of God, but really in the fear of money. The
*
whole tenor of the conversation which he hears round him,
and his early teaching, tend to impress upon him the awful
dangers of not having enough. Strange that it never occurs
to parents of this class to teach their children how little they
can live upon, and be happy (but perhaps they do not know).
Hence, the child of the poor man—even in these adverse
times—grows up with some independence of mind, for he
knows that if at any time he can obtain £50 or ^100
a year by the work of his hands, he will be able to bring
up a little family; while the son of a rich man in the
midst of a family income of fifty times ^50, learns to tremble
slavishly at the prospect of the future ; dark hints of the
workhouse are whispered in his ears ; father and mother,
school-teachers and friends, join in pressing him into a pro
fession which he hates—stultifying his whole life—because it
will lead to ^500, or even ^1,000 a year in course of
time. This is the great test, the sure criterion between
two paths: which will lead to more money? The youth* Or as Mr. Locker has it,
They eat and drink and scheme and plod,
And go to church on Sunday;
For many are afraid of God,
And more of Mrs. Grundy.
�i3
ful tender conscience soon comes to look upon it as a
duty, and the acquisition of large dividends as part of the
serious work of life. Then come true the words of the
preacher: he realises with painful clearness the difficulty of
finding investments which shall be profitable and also secure;
circulars, reports, newspaper-cuttings, and warning letters
flow in upon him, sleepless nights are followed by anxious
days, telegrams and railway journeys succeed each other.
But the game goes on : the income gets bigger, and the fear
of the workhouse looms closer ! Friendsand relations also,
have shares. Some get married and others die. Hence
trustee-ships and executor-ships, increasing in number year
by year, coil upon coil; solicitors hover around on all sides,
jungles of legal red tape have to be waded through, chancery
looms up with its “ obscene birds ” upon the horizon, and
the hapless boy, now an old man before his time, with
snatched meals and care-lined brow, goes to and fro like an
automaton—a walking testimony to his own words that
“ the days of his happiness are long gone past.” Before
God, I would rather with pick and shovel dig a yearlong
drain beneath the open sky, breathing freely, than I would
live in this jungle of idiotic duties and thin-lipped respect
abilities that money breeds. Why the devil should the days
of your happiness be gone past, except that you have lived a
life to stultify the whole natural man in you ? Do you think
that happiness is a little flash-in-the-pan when you are eighteen,
and that is all ? Do you not know that expanding age, like a
flower, lifts itself ever into a more and more exquisite sun
light of happiness—to which Death, serene and beautiful,
comes only at the last with the touch of perfected assurance ?
Do you not know that the whole effort of Nature in you is
towards this happiness, if you could only abandon yourself,
and for one child-like moment have faith in your own mother ?
But she knows it, and watches you, half amused, run after
your little “ securities,” knowing surely that you must at
length return to her.
But wherein the affluent classes suffer most in the present
day perhaps is the matter of health. Into that heaven it is
indeed hard for a rich man to enter. Here again the whole
tradition of his life is against him. If there is one thing
that appears to me more certain than another it is, as I have
�partly said before, that no individual or class can travel far
from the native life of the race without becoming shrivelled,
corrupt, diseased—without suffering, in fact. By the native
life I mean the life of those (always the vast majority of
human kind) who live and support themselves in direct
contact with Nature.
*
To rise early, to be mostly in the
open air, to do some amount of physical labour, to eat clean
and simple food, are necessary and aboriginal conditions of
the life of our race, and they are necessary and aboriginal
conditions of health. The doctor who does not start from
these as .the basis of his prescriptions does not know his
work. The modern money-lender, man of stocks, or what
ever you call him, and his family, live in the continual
violation of these conditions. They get up late, are mostly
indoors, do little or no physical work, and take quantities of
rich and greasy food and stimulants, such as would exhaust
the stomach of a strong man, but which to them, in their
already enervated state, are simply fatal. Hence a long
catalogue of evils, ever branching into more. Hence dys
pepsia, nerves, liver, sexual degeneracies, and general de
pression of vitality ; a gloomy train, but whose drawn
features you will recognise if you peep into almost anyone of
those desirable mansions of which I have spoken. A terrible
symptom of our well-to-do (?) modern life is this want of
health, and one which presses for serious attention. There
is only one remedy for it; but that remedy is a sure one—
the return (or advance) to a simpler mode of existence.
What is the upshot of all this? There was a time when
the rich man had duties attending his wealth. The lord or
baron was a petty king, and had kingly responsibilities as
well as power. The Sir Roger, of Addison’s time, was the
succeeding type of landlord. And even to the present day
there lingers, here and there, a country squire who fulfils that
* It must be noticed that the working masses of our great towns do not
by any means fulfil this condition. Thrust down into squalor by the very
effort of others climbing to luxury, the unnaturalness and misery of their
lives is the direct counterpart and inseparable accompaniment of the un
naturalness of the lives of the rich. That the great masses of our popula
tion to-day are in this unhealthy state does not however disprove the
statement in the text—i.e., that the vast majority of mankind must live in
direct contact with Nature—rather it would indicate that the present
conditions can only be of brief duration.
�j
M
fl! IUHM
15
now antiquated ideal of kindly condescension and patronage.
But the modern rush of steam-engines, and the creation of
an enormous class of wealthy folk, living on stocks, have
completely subverted the old order. It has let loose on
society a horde of wolves !—a horde of people who have no
duties attaching to their mode of life, no responsibility.
They roam hither and thither, seeking whom and what they
may devour. Personally I have no objection to criminals,
and think them quite as good as myself. But, Talk of
criminal classes—can there be a doubt that the criminal
classes, par excellence, in our modern society, are this horde of
stock and share-mongers ? If to be a criminal is to be an
enemy of society, then they are such. For their mode of
life is founded on the principle of taking without giving, of
claiming without earning—as much as that of any common
thief. It is in vain to try and make amends for this by
charity organisations and unpaid magistracies. The cure
must go deeper. It is no good trying to set straight the roof
and chimneys, when the whole foundation is aslant. These
good people are not boarded and lodged at Her Majesty’s
pleasure, but the Eternal Justice, unslumbering, causes them
to build prisons (as I have said) for themselves-—plagues
them with ill-health and divers unseen evils— and will and
must plague them, till such time as they shall abandon the im
possible task they have set themselves, and return to the
paths of reason.
The whole foundation is aslant—and aslip, as anyone may
see who looks. In short, it is an age of transition. No
mortal power could make durable a Society founded on
Usury—universal and boundless usury. The very words
scream at each other. The baron has passed away; and the
landlord is passing. They each had their duties, and while
they fulfilled them served their time well and faithfully.
The shareholder has no duties, and is miserable, and will
remain so till the final landslip, when the foundations having
completely given way, he will crawl forth out of the ruins of
his desirable mansion into the life and light of a new day.
Less oracular than this I dare not be!
As I have
said before there is no conceivable condition of life in
which the human soul may not find the materials of its
surpassing deliverance from evil and mortality. And I for
�one would not, if I had the power, cramp human life into
the exhibition of one universal routine. If anyone desires to
be rich, if anyone desires to gradually shut himself off from
the world, to build walls and fences, to live in a house where
it is impossible to get a breath of fresh air without going
through half a dozen doors, and to be the prisoner of his
own servants; if he desires it so that when he walks down
the street he cannot whistle or sing, or shout across the road
to a friend, or sit upon a doorstep when tired, or take off his
coat if it be hot, but must wear certain particular clothes in
a certain particular way, and be on such pins and needles as
to what he may or may not do, that he is right glad when he
gets back again to his own prison walls ; if he loves trustee
ships and Egyptian Bonds, and visits from the lawyer, and
feels glad when he finds a letter from the High Court of
Chancery on his breakfast table, and experiences in attend
ing to all these things that satisfaction which comes of all
honest work ; if he feels renovated and braced by lying in
bed of a morning, and by eating feast dinners every day, and
by carefully abstaining from any bodily labour ; if dyspepsia,
and gout, and biliousness, and distress of nerves are not
otherwise than grateful to him ; and if he can obtain all
these things without doing grievous wrong to others, by all
means let him have them.
Only for those who do not know what they desire I would
lift up the red flag of warning. Only of that vast and ever
vaster horde which to-day (chiefly, I cannot but think, in
ignorance) rushes to Stocks, would I ask a moment’s pause,
and to look at the bare facts, If these words should come
to the eye of such an one I would pray him to think for a
moment—to glance at this great enthroned Wrong in its
dungeon palace (notffhe less a wrong because the laws coun
tenance and encourage it)—to listen for the cry of the home
less many, trodden under foot, a yearly sacrifice to it—to
watch the self-inflicted sufferings of its worshipers, the
ennui, the depression, the unlovely faces of ill-health, to
observe the falsehood on which it is founded, and therefore
the falsehood, the futility, the unbelief in God or Man which
spring out of it—and to turn away, determined, as far as in
him lies, to worship in that Dagon-house no longer.
�
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Desirable mansions : a tract
Description
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Edition: 3rd ed.
Place of publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Reprinted, with a few alterations, from Progress, June 1883. List of other works by author on p. 2.
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Carpenter, Edward
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The Modern Press
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1887
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T395
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Socialism
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Social change
Socialism
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Text
PRICE ONE PENNY^
AND
EDWARD CARPENTER.
(Reprinted from TO-DAY, February, 1885.^
UonHon :
THE MODERN PRESS,
13, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.
1886.
��HE Progress of Society is a subject which occupies much
attention now-a-days. We hear the shouts and cries of
reformers, and are inclined sometimes to be vexed at their
noisy insistance and brandishing of panaceas ; but when we come to
look into the evils to which they draw our attention-—under our very
noses as it were—and see how serious they are : when we see the
misery, the suffering all around us, and see too how directly in some
cases this appears to be traceable to certain institutions, we can
hardly be human if we do not make some effort to alter these insti
tutions, and the state of society which goes with them; indeed at
times we feel that it is our highest duty to agitate with the noisiest,
and insist at all costs that justice should be done, the iniquity swept
away.
And yet, on the other hand, when retiring from the heat and noise
of conflict, we mount a little in thought and look out over the world,
when we realise what indeed every day is becoming more abundantly
clear—that Society is the gigantic growth of centuries, moving on in
an irresistible and ordered march of its own, with the precision and
atality of an astronomic orb—how absurd seem all our demonstra
tions ! what an idle beating of the air! The huge beast comes on
with elephantine tread. The Liberal sits on his head, and the Con
servative sits on his tail; but both are borne along whether they
will or no, and both are shaken off before long, inevitably, into the
dust. One reformer shouts, “ This way,” and another shouts
“That,” but the great foot comes down and crushes them both,
indifferent, crushes the one who thought he was right and the one
who found he was wrong, crushes him who would facilitate its pro
gress and him who would stop it, alike.
, I confess that I am continually borne about between these two
Opposing views. On the one hand is Justice, here and now, which
must and shall be done. On the other hand is Destiny indifferent,
coming down from eternity, which cannot be altered.
Where does the truth lie ? Is there any attainable truth in the
matter ? Perhaps not. The more I think of it, the more am I
�4
persuaded that the true explanations, theories, of the social changes
which we see around us, that the forces which produce them, that
the purposes which they fulfil, lie deep, deep down unsuspected ; that
the profoundest hitherto Science (Buckle, Comte, Marx, Spencer,
Morgan, and the rest) has hardly done more than touch the skirt of
this great subject. The surface indications, currents, are elusive;
the apparent purposes very different from the real ones; individuals,
institutions, nations, more or less like puppets or pieces in a game ;
—the hand that moves them altogether unseen, screening itself
effectually from observation.
Let me take an illustration. You see a young plant springing
out of the ground. You are struck by the eager vital growth of it.
What elasticity, energy! how it snatches contributions from the
winds and sunlight, and the earth beneath, and rays itself out with
hourly fresh adornment! You become interested to know what is
the meaning of all this activity. You watch the plant. It unfolds.
The leaf-bud breaks and discloses leaves. These, then, are what
it has been aiming at.
But in the axils of the leaves are other leaf-buds, and from these
more leaves! The young shoot branches and becomes a little tree
or bush. The branching and budding go on, a repetition apparently
of one formula. Presently, however, a flower-bud appears. Now
we see the real object!
Have you then ever carefully examined a flower-bud ? Take a
rosebud for instance, or better still perhaps, a dahlia. When quite
young the buds of these latter are mere green knobs. Cut one
across with your pen-knife : you will see a green or whitish mass,
apparently without organisation. Cut another open which is more
advanced, and you will see traces of structural arrangement, even
markings and lines faintly pencilled on its surface, like the markings
that shoot thro’ freezing water—sketches and outlines of what is
to follow. Later, and your bud will disclose a distinct formation ;
beneath an outer husk or film—transparent in the case of the dahlia
—the petals can already be distinguished, marked, though not
actually separated from each other. Here they lie in block as it
were, conceived yet not shapen, like the statue in the stone, or the
thought in the brain of the sculptor. But they are growing mo
mently and expanding. The outermost, or sepals, cohering form a
husk, which for a time protects the young bud. But it also confines
it. A struggle ensues, a strangulation, and then the husk gives way,
falls off or passes into a secondary place, and the bud opens.
And now the petals uncurl and free themselves like living things
to the light. But the process is not finished. Each petal expanding
shows another beneath, and these younger ones as they open push
the older ones outwards, and while these latter are fading there are
still new ones appearing in the centre. Envelope after envelope
exfoliated—such is the law of life.
�5
At last however within the most intimate petals appears the central
galaxy—the group of the sexual organs ! And now the flower (the
petal-flower) which just before in all its glory of form, colour and
fragrance seemed to be the culminating expression and purpose of
the plant’s life, appears only as a means, an introduction, a secondary
thing—a mere advertisement and lure to wandering insects. With
in it lies the golden circle of the stamens, the magic staff of the pistil,
and the precious ark or seed-vessel.
Now then we know what it has all been for! But the appearance
of the seed-vessel is not the end, it is only a beginning. The flower,
the petals, now drop off withered and useless; their work is done.
But the seed-vessel begins to swell, to take on structure and form
just as the formless bud did before—there is something at work
within. And now it bursts, opens, and falls away. It too is a husk,
and no longer of any importance—for within it appear the seeds, the
objects of all this long toil!
Is the investigation finished ? is the process at an end ?—No.
Here within this tiny seed lies the promise, the purpose, the vital
principle, the law, the inspiration—whatever you like to call it—of
this plant’s life. Can you find it ?
The seed falls to the ground. It swells and takes on form and
structure—just as the seed-vessel which enclosed it took on form
and structure before—and as the flower-bud (which enclosed the
seed-vessel) did before that—-and as the leaf-bud (which enclosed
the flower-bud) did before that. The seed falls to the ground ; it
throws off a husk (always husks thrown off!)—and discloses an
embryo plant—radicle, plumule and cotyledons—root-shoot, stem
shoot and seed leaves—complete. And the circle begins again.
*
We are baffled after all! We have followed this extraordinary
process, we have seen each stage of the plant-growth appearing
first as final, and then only as the envelope of a later stage. We
have stripped off, so to speak, husk afLer husk, in our search for the
inner secret of the plant-life—we have got down to the tiny seed.
But the seed we have found turns out (like every other stage) to be
itself only an envelope—to be thrown away in its turn—what we
want lies still deeper down. The plant-life begins again—or rather
it never ends—but it does not repeat itself. The young plant is not
the same as the parent, and the next generation varies again from
this. When the envelopes have been thrown off a thousand and a
hundred thousand times more, a new form will appear; will this be
a nearer and more perfect expression than before of that withinlying secret—or otherwise ?
To return to Society : I began by noting the contrast, often drawn,
between the stern inexorable march of this as a whole, and the
* Though not really a circle any more than the paths of the planets
are really ellipses.
�equally imperious determination of the individual to interfere with
its march—a determination excited by the contemplation of what is
called evil, and shapen by an ideal of something better arising with
in him. Think what a commotion there must be within the bud
when the petals of a rose are forming! Think what arguments,
what divisions, what recriminations, even among the atoms. An
organization has to be constructed and completed. It is finished at
last, and a petal is formed. It rays itself out in the sun, is beautiful
and unimpeachable for a day; then it fades, is pushed off, its work
is done—another from within takes its place.
One social movement succeeds another, the completion of one is
the signal for the commencement of the next. Hence there can be
no stereotyping: not to change is to die—this is the rule of Life ;
because (and the reason is simple enough) one form is not enough to
express the secret of life. To express that require an infinite series
of forms.
Even a crab cannot get on without changing its shell. It outgrows
it. It feels very uncomfortable—pent, sullen and irritable (much as
the bud did before the bursting of the husk, or as society does when
dead forms and institutions—generally represented by a class in
power—confine its growth)—anxious, too, and oppressed with fears,
the crab—retires under a rock, out of harm’s way, and presently,
crack! the shell scales off, and with quietude and patience from
within another more suited to it forms. Yet this latter is not final.
It is merely the prelude to another.
The Conservative may be wron& but the Liberal is just as wrong
who considers his reform as ultimate, both are right in so far as
they look upon measures as transitory. Beware above all things of
utopianism in measures ! Beware, that is, of regarding any system
or scheme of society whatever as final or permanent, whether it be
the present, or one to come. The feudal arrangement of society
succeeded the clannish and patriarchal, the commercial or competi
tive system succeeds the feudal, the socialistic succeeds the
commercial, and the socialistic is succeeded in its turn by other
stages ; and each of these includes numerous minor developments.
The politician or reformer who regards any of these stages or steps
as containing the whole secret and redemption of society commits
just the same mistake as the theologian who looks upon any one
doctrine as necessary to salvation. He is betrayed into the most
frightful harshness, narrow-mindedness, and intolerance—and if he
has power will become a tyrant. Just the same danger has to be
guarded against by every one of us in daily life. Who is there who.
(though his reason may contend against it) does not drop into the
habit of regarding some one change in his life and surroundings as
containing finally the secret of his happiness, and excited by this
immense prospect does not do things which he afterwards regrets,
and which end in disappointment ? There is a millennium, but it-
�7
does not belong to any system of society that can be named, nor to
any doctrine, belief, circumstance or surrounding of individual life.
The secret of the plant-life does not tarry in any one phase of its
growth; it eludes from one phase to another, still lying within
and within the latest. It is within the grain of mustard seed ; it is
so small. Yet it rules and is the purpose of every stage, and is like
the little leaven which, invisible in three measures of meal, yet
leavened the whole lump.
Of the tendency, of which I have spoken, of social forms to stereo
type themselves, Law is the most important and in some sense the
most pernicious instance. Social progress is a continual fight
against it. Popular customs get hardened into laws. Even thus
they soon constitute evils. But in the more complex stages of society,
when classes arise, the law-making is generally in the hands of a
class, and the laws are hardened (often very hardened) class
practices. These shells have to be thrown off and got rid of at all
costs—or rather they will inevitably be thrown off when the growing
life of the people underneath forces this liberation. It is a bad
sign when a patient ‘ law-abiding ’ people submit like sheep to old
forms which are really long out-worn. “ Where the men and women
think lightly of the laws. . . . there the great city stands,” says
Walt Whitman.
I remember once meeting with a pamphlet written by an Italian,
whose name I have forgotten, member of a Secularist society, to
prove that the Devil was the author of all human progress. Of
course that, in his sense, is true. The spirit of opposition to
established order, the war against the continuance (as a finality) of
any institution or order, however good it may be for the time, is a
necessary element of social progress, is a condition of the very life
of Society. Without this it would die.
Law is a strangulation. Yet while it figures constantly as an
evil in social life, it must not therefore be imagined to be bad or
without use. On the contrary, its very appearance as an evil is
part of its use. It is the husk which protects and strengthens the
bud while it confines it. Possibly the very confinement and forcible
repression which it exercises is one element in the more rapid
organization of the bud within. It is the crab’s shell which gives
form and stability to the body of the creature, but which has to give
way when a more extended form is wanted.
In the present day in modern society the strangulation of the
growth of the people is effected by the capitalist class. This class
together with its laws and institutions constitutes the husk which
has to be thrown off just as itself threw off the husk of the feudal
aristocracy in its time. The commercial and capitalist envelope
has undoubtedly served to protect and give form to (and even
nourish) the growing life of the people. But now its function in that
respect is virtually at an end. It appears merely as an obstacle
�8
and an evil—and will inevitably be removed, either by a violent
disruption or possibly by a gradual absorption into the socialised
proletariat beneath.
At all times, and from whatever points of view, it should be borne
in mind that laws are made by the people, not the people by the
laws. Modern European Society is cumbered by such a huge and
complicated overgrowth of law, that the notion actually gets abroad
that such machinery is necessary to keep the people in order —that
without it the mass of the people would not live an orderly life ;
whereas all observation of the habits of primitive and savage tribes,
destitute of laws and almost destitute of any authoritative institutions
—and all observation of the habits of civilised people when freed
from law (as in gold-mining and other backwood communities)—
show just the reverse. The instinct ofamanis to an orderly life,
the law is but the result and expression of this. As well attribute
the organization of a crab to the influence of its shell, as attribute
the orderly life of a nation to the action of its laws. Law has a
purpose and an influence—but the idea that it is to preserve order
is elusive. All its machinery of police and prisons do not, cannot
do this. At best in this sense it only preserves an order advan
tageous to a certain class ; it is the weapon of a slow and deliberate
warfare. It springs from hatred and rouses opposition, and so has
a healthy influence.
Fichte said : “ The. object of all government is to render govern
ment superfluous.” And certainly if external authority of any kind
has a final purpose it must be to establish and consolidate an internal
authority. Whitman adds to his description of “ the great city,”
that it stands “ Where outside authority enters always after the
precedence of inside authority.” When this process is complete
government in the ordinary sense is already “rendered superfluous.’
Anyhow this external governmental power is obviously self-destruc
tive. It has no permanence or finality about it, but in every period
of history appears as a husk or shell preparing the force within
which is to reject it.
Thus I have in a very fragmentary and imperfect way called
attention to some general conditions of social progress, conditions
by which the growth of Society is probably comparable with the
growth of a plant or an animal or an astronomic organism, subject
to laws and an order of its own, in face of which the individual
would at first sight appear to count as nothing. But there is, as
usual, a counter-truth which must not be overlooked. If Society
moves by an ordered and irresistible march of its own, so also—as
a part of Society, and beyond that as a part of Nature—does the
individual. In his right place the individual is also irresistible.
Now then, when you have seized your life-inspiration, your
absolute determination, you also are irresistible, the whole weight
of this vast force is behind you. Huge as the institutions of Society
�are, vast as is the sweep of its traditions and customs, yet in face of
it all, the word “I will ” is not out of place.
Let us take the law of the competitive struggle for existence—
which has been looked upon by political economists (perhaps with
some justice) as the base of social life. It is often pointed out that
this law of competition rules throughout the animal and vegetable
kingdoms as well as through the region of human society, and there
fore, it is said, being evidently a universal law of Nature, it is useless
and hopeless to expect that society can ever be founded on any
r other basis. Yet I say that granting this assumption—and in
reality the same illusion underlies the application of the word
1
“ law ” here, as we saw before in its social application—granting
I say that competition has hitherto been the universal law, the last
word, of Nature, still if only one man should stand up and say, “ It
shall be so no more,” if he should say, “ It is not the last word of
my nature, and my acts and life declare that it is not,”—then that
so-called law would be at an end. He being a part of Nature has
I
as much right to speak as any other part, and as in the elementarylaw of hydrostatics a slender column of water can balance (being at
l
the same height) against an ocean—so his Will (if he understand it
aright) can balance all that can be arrayed against him. If only
one man — with regard to social matters — speaking from the
very depth of his heart says “This shall not be: behold
something better; ” his word is likely stronger than all insti
tutions, all traditions. And why ?—because in the deeps of his
P individual heart he touches also that of Society, of Man. Within
ft himself, in quiet, he has beheld the secret, he has seen a fresh crown
of petals, a golden circle of stamens, folded and slumbering in the
L
bud. Man forms society, its laws and institutions, and Man can
!
reform them. Somewhere within yourself be assured, the secret of
that authority lies.
The fatal words spoken by individuals—the words of progress—
are provoked by what is called evil. Every human institution is
good in its time, and then becomes evil—yet it may be doubted
whether it is really evil in itself, but rather because if it remained
it would hinder the next step. Each petal is pushed out by the
next one, A new growth of the moral sense takes place first withinthe individual—and this gives birth to a new ideal, something to
love better than anything seen before. Then in the light of this
new love, this more perfect desire, what has gone and the actually
existing things appear wizened and false (i.e., ready to fall like the
petals). They become something to hate, they are evil; and the
perception of evil is already the promise of something better.
Do not be misled so as to suppose that science and the intellect
• are or can be the sources of social progress or change. It is the
moral births and outgrowths that originate, science and the intellect
only give form to these. It is a common notion and one apparently
�gaining ground that science may as it were take Society by the hand
and become its high priest and guide to a glorious kingdom. And
this to a certain extent is true. Science may become high-priest,
but the result of its priestly offices will entirely depend on what
kind of deity it represents—what kind of god Society worships.
Science will doubtless become its guide, but whither it leads Society
will entirely depend on whither Society desires to be led. If
Society worships a god of selfish curiosity the holy rites and priest
hood of science will consist in vivisection and the torture of the
loving animals ; if Society believes above all things in material
results, science will before long provide these things—it will surround
men with machinery and machine-made products, it will whirl
them about (behind steam-kettles as Mr. Ruskin says) from one end
of the world to the other, it will lap them in every luxury and
debility, and give them fifty thousand toys to play with where
before they had only one—but through all the whistling of the
kettles and the rattling of the toys it will not make the still small
voice of God sound nearer. If Society, in short, worships the
devil, science will lead it to the devil; aud if Society worships God
science will open up, and clear away much that encumbered the
path to God. (And here I use these terms as lawyers say “ without
prejudice.”) No mere scientific adjustments will bring about the
millenium. Granted that the problem is Happiness, there must be
certain moral elements in the mass of mankind before they will
even desire, that kind of happiness which is attainable, let alone
their capacity of reaching it—when these moral elements are
present the intellectual or scientific solution of the problem will be
soon found, without them there will not really be any serious attempt
made to find it. That is—as I said at the head of this paragraph
—science and the intellect are not, and never can be, the sources of
social progress and change. It is the moral births and outgrowths
that originate; the intellect stands in a secondary place as the tool
and instrument of the moral faculty.
The commercial and competitive state of society indicates to my
mind an upheaval from the feudal of a new (and perhaps grander)
sentiment of human right and dignity. Arising simultaneously
with Protestantism it meant—they both meant—individualism, the
assertion of man’s worth and dignity as man, and as against any
feudal lordship or priestly hierarchy. It was an outburst of feeling
first. It was the sense of equality spreading. It took the form of
individualism—the equality of rights—Protestantism in religion,
competition in commerce. It resulted in the social emancipation
of a large class, the bourgeoisie. Feudalism, now dwindled to a
husk, was thrown off; and for a time the glory, the life of society
was in the new order.
But to-day a wider morality, or at least a fresh impulse, asserts
itself. Competition in setting itself up as the symbol of human
�II
equality, was (like all earthly representations of what is divine)
only an imperfect symbol. It had the elements of mortality and
dissolution in it. For while it destroyed the privilege of rank and
emancipated a huge class, it ended after all by enslaving another
class and creating the privilege of wealth. Competition in fact
represented a portion of human equality but not the whole: in
sisting on individual rights all round, it overlooked the law of charity,
turned sour with the acid of selfishness, and became as to-day the
gospel of “ the devil take the hindmost.” Arising glorious as the
representative of human equality and the opponent of iniquity in
high places, it has ended by denying the very source from whence
it sprung. It passes by, and like Moses on the rock we now behold
the back parts of our divinity !
Competition is doomed. Once a good, it has now become an
evil. But simultaneously (and probably as part of the same pro
cess) springs up, as I say, a new morality. Everywhere to-day
signs of this may be seen, felt. It is felt that the relation which
systematically allows the weaker to go to the wall is not human.
Individualism, the mere separate pursuit, each of his own good, on
the basis of equality, does not satisfy the heart. The right (un
doubted though it may be) to take advantage of another’s weakness
or inferiority, does not please us any longer. Science and the intel
lect have nothing to say to this, for or against,—they can merely
stand and look on—arguments may be brought on both sides. What
I say is that as a fact a change is taking place in the general senti
ment in this matter; some deeper feeling of human solidarity,
brotherliness, charity, some more genuine and substantial apprehen
sion of the meaning of the word equality, is arising—some broader
and more determined sense of justice, Though making itself felt as
yet only here and there, still there are indications that this new
sentiment is spreading ; and if it becomes anything like general,
then inevitably (I say) it will bring a new state of society with it—
will be in fact such new state of society.
Some years ago at Brighton I met with William Smith, the
author of “Thorndale ” and other works—a man who had thought
much about society and human life. He was then quite an invalid,
and indeed died only a week or two later. Talking one day about
the current Political Economy he said : “ They assume self-interest
as the one guiding principle of human nature and so make it the
basis of their science—but,” he added, “ even if it is so now it
may not always be so, and that would entirely re-model their
science.” I do not know whether he was aware that even then a
new school of political economy was in existence, the school of Marx,
Engels, Lassalle, and others—founded really on just this new basis,
taking as its point of departure a stricter sense of justice and a new
conception of human right and equality. At any rate, whether
aware or not, I contend that this dying man—even if he had been
�12
alone in the world in his aspiration—-feeling within himself a deeper,
more intimate, principle of action than that expressed in the existing
state of society, might have been confident that at some time or
other—if not immediately—it would come to the surface and find its
due interpretation and translation m a new order of things. And
I contend that whoever to-day feels in himself that there is a better
standard of life than the higgling of the market, and a juster scale
of wages than “what A. or B. will take," and a more important
question in an undertaking than “ how much per cent, it will
pay ”—contains or conceals in himself the germs of a new social
order.
Socialism, if that is to be the name of the next wave of social life,
springs from and demands as its basis a new sentiment of humanity,
a higher morality. That is the essential part of it. A science it is,
but only secondarily ; for we must remember that as the bourgeois
political economy sprang from certain moral data, so the socialist
political economy implies other moral data. Both are irrefragable
on their own axioms. And when these axioms in course of time
change again (as they infallibly will) another science of political
economy, again irrefragable, will spring up, and socialist political
economy will be false.
The morality being the essential part of the movement, it is im
portant to keep that in view. If Socialism, as Mr. Matthew Arnold
has pointed out, means merely a change of society without a change
of its heart—if it merely means that those who grabbed all the good
things before shall be displaced, and that those who were grabbed
from shall now grab in their turn—it amounts to nothing, and is not
in effect a change at all, except quite upon the surface. If it is to
be a substantial movement, it must mean a changed ideal, a changed
conception of daily life ; it must mean some better conception of
human dignity—such as shall scorn to claim anything for its own
which has not been duly earned, and such as shall not find itself
degraded by the doing of any work, however menial, which is useful
to society; it must mean simplicity of life, defence of the weak,
courage of one’s own convictions, charity of the faults and failings
of others. These things first, and a larger slice of pudding all
round afterwards!
How can such morality be spread ?—How does a plant grow ?—
It grows. There , is some contagion of influence in these matters.
Knowledge can be taught directly ; but a new ideal, a new sentiment
of life, can only pass by some indirect influence from one to another.
Yet it does pass. There is no need to talk—-perhaps the less said
in any case about these matters the better—but if you have such
new ideal within you, it is I believe your clearest duty, as well as
your best interest, to act it out in your own life at all apparent costs.
Then we must not forget that a wise order of society once estab
lished (by the strenuous action of a few) reacts on its members. To
�T3
a certain extent it is true, perhaps, that men and women can be
grown—like cabbages. And this is a case of the indirect influence
of the strenuous few upon the many.
Thus—in this matter of society’s change and progress—(though
I feel that the subject as a whole is far too deep for me)—-I do
think that the birth of new moral conceptions in the individual is
at least a very important factor. It may be in one individual or in
a hundred thousand. As a rule probably when one man feels any
such impulse strongly, the hundred thousand are nearer to him than
he suspects. (When one leaf, or petal, or stamen begins to form on
a tree, or one plant begins to push its way above the ground in
spring, there are hundreds of thousands all round just ready to
form.) Anyhow, whether he is alone or not, the new moral birth is
sacred—as sacred as the child within the mother’s womb—it is a
kind of blasphemy against the Holy Ghost to conceal it. And when
I use the word “ moral ” here—or anywhere above—I do not, I hope,
mean that dull pinch-lipped conventionality of negations which
often goes under that name. The deep-lying ineradicable desires,
fountains of human action, the life-long aspirations, the lightninglike revelations of right and justice, the treasured hidden ideals,
born in flame and in darkness, in joy and sorrow, in tears and in
triumph, within the heart—are as a rule anything but conventional.
They may be, and often are, thought immoral. I don’t care, they
are sacred just the same. If they underlie a man’s life, and are
nearest to himself—they will underlie humanity. “To your own
self be true . . .
Anyhow courage is better than conventionality : take your stand
and let the world come round to you. Do not think you are right
and everybody else wrong. If you think you are wrong then you
may be right; but if you think you are right then you are certainly
. wrong. Your deepest highest moral conceptions are only for a
time. They have to give place. They are the envelopes of Free
dom—that eternal Freedom which cannot be represented—that
peace which passes understanding. Somewhere here is the invisible
vital principle, the seed within the seed. It may be held but not
thought, felt but not represented—except by Life and History.
Every individual so far as he touches this stands at the source of
social progress—behind the screen on which the phantasmagoria
play.
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Victorian Blogging
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An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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Social progress and individual effort
Creator
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Carpenter, Edward
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 13, [3] p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Reprinted from To-day, February, 1885. Publisher's list on two unnumbered pages at the end. List of other works by author on unnumbered page at the end.
Publisher
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The Modern Press
Date
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1886
Identifier
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T394
Subject
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Socialism
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (Social progress and individual effort), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
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Text
Language
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English
Social change
Social Reform
Socialism