THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES EX LIBRIS ERNEST CARROLL MOORE BY THE SAME AUTHOR ZUR KRITIK DER ZE1T ijtk Thousand ZUR MECHANIK DES GEISTES 9'* VON KOMMENDEN DINGEN 6s/A (German original of "In Days to Come") DEUTSCHLANDS ROHSTOFF- VERSORGUNG 39/A PROBLEME DER FRIEDENS- WIRTSCHAFT 35/A STREITSCHRIFT VOM GLAUBEN U/A VOM AKTIENWESEN ao/A DIE NEUE WIRTSCHAFT 4&/A ZEITLICHES 25/A NACH DER FLUT is/A AN DEUTSCHLANDS JUGEND 3Olh DER KAISER so/A DER NEUE STAAT is/A KRITIK DER DREIFACHEN REVOLUTION I4/A DIE NEUE GESELLSCHAFT to/A (German original of " The New Society" recently published by Messrs. Williams & Norgate) AUTONOME WIRTSCHAFT lo/A WAS WIRD WBKDEN to/A In Days to Come By Walther Rathenau Translated from the German by Eden and Cedar Paul NEW YORK ALFRED A. KNOPF (Inc.) 220 WEST FORTY-SECOND ST. 1921 n IV TO MY FATHER'S MEMORY TABLE OF CONTENTS PACE I. INTRODUCTORY . . . > IJ II. THE GOAL ....*. 2 5 III. THE WAY ... 6 3 1. THE WAY OF ECONOMICS .. , . 6 3 2. THE WAY OF MORALS 129 3. THE WAY OF THE WILL . . 184 I INTRODUCTORY I. THIS book treats of material things, but treats of them for the sake of the spirit. It treats of labour, want, and gain ; of goods, rights, and power ; of technical, economic, and political structure : but it neither postulates nor esteems these concepts as ends in themselves. It may well be asked whether oppression and poverty, want, trouble, and injustice, do not rather tend to free man's most genuine forces, to liberate the soul, and to install the kingdom of God on earth. The rejoinder is obvious that human faith and energy require help, not hindrance ; that chill penury is fatal to all the germs of effort ; that growth and blossoming require a sufficiency of warmth and light. But this question and answer does not concern us. The spirit must not be misused either to sustain and extenuate that which exists, or for the gratification of wishes and the fulfilment of conditions ; its powers invariably suffice to compel harmony between the maker and that which he makes. This relationship is no less lucid than the relationship between organic forms and the totality of the conditions of existence ; each new spirit creates its own world, and every one of its evolutions realises itself in a new revolution of life. The antecedent of such a revolution is not demand, but annunciation, which already conceals within itself the first dawn of fulfilment. This annunciation is not the mere vision of a soothsayer ; it is the permeation of the earthly envi- ronment as manifested to our senses with the certainty of spiritual law. For this reason, we do not engage in the spinning of idle dreams, but fulfil our duty and maintain our right when we turn our glance from the contemplation of the living spirit to the shadow play of institutions and forms of life ; 11 12 IN DAYS TO COME for light and darkness comprehend and explain one another. Our epoch, though convinced that any trifle which can be termed a fact is supremely important, lacks courage to read its destiny in its own heart. When, sportively and irrespon- sibly, we sometimes direct our thoughts towards the future, we merely invert the cares and disagreeables of our daily experience, creating mechanical Utopias, wherein, having waved the Hermes' wand of technical progress, we magically create for ourselves a niggard Sunday out of the old weekday existence. Whence will our age draw the courage that will enable it to speak of evolution, the future, and the goals ; to devote half of its activities to coming things ; to work for posterity, discovering laws, establishing values, storing up goods ? We are never weary of studying whence we come, and yet we do not know where we stand to-day, and we do not care to know whither we are going. The best among us, therefore, grow weary of this work which looks only towards to-day. For many, doubt, exhaustion, and despair become the central features of their thought, so that they give themselves up to the enjoyment of the passing hour, and renounce life's finest privilege travail. Others turn to dead dogmas and the promises of dead creeds. They hope to resurrect the old faith by institutions, and by argument, by gentleness and by wrath, by cajolery and by threats. Their hearts are in the right place, for the religion of mankind can never perish ; but intellectually they are at fault, for faith cannot exist without an object, and such an object cannot be forcibly created, or brought into existence by vain talk. It lies in the very nature of faith that unerringly, unconsciously, and infallibly it can create its own object, the object which is within the com- petence of the extant sum of creative forces. But the faith which rested on dogma suffered from the futility of those temporal powers which were too weak to impose it upon the world, too weak to overthrow its competitors, and yet strong enough century after century to protect it with smoked glass from the radiance emanating from the peoples. This faith died when the protecting panes weie shattered. To discover gods, to show forth signs and wonders, to install sacraments such well-intentioned artifices are useless. INTRODUCTORY 13 It is true that there is a profound need of guiding forces ; but no ingenious and human re-interpretation can replace by ethical concepts the old essential of evident miracles ; transcendental convictions continue to live in our hearts, but they demand a new language, new imagery, and fresh illumination. If we explore the innermost recesses, the almost unfathomable depths of our consciousness, we discover that these dark spaces are by no means empty ; we return to the upper world with the certainty of the infinite ; we receive assurance as to the divine character of creation ; we are vouchsafed a revelation of our soul's mission, of our supra-intellectual powers, and of the mystery of the spiritual realm. These matters have been discussed in my book ZUY Mechanik des Geistes [The Mechanism of the Spirit], For our present purpose, we need make only one assumption, namely, that all earthly activities and aims find their justi- fication in the expansion of the soul and its realm. 2. This book strikes dogmatic socialism to the very heart. For socialism is an outgrowth of the material will ; its centre is the distribution of earthly goods ; its goal is a politico- economical order. Even though the socialists are to-day endeavouring to assimilate heterogeneous ideals, derived from alien outlooks, these ideals are not born from the spirit of socialism. Socialism has no need of such ideals, which are in truth disturbing elements ; for the way of socialism leads from the earth to the earth, its most intimate faith is revolt, its strongest force is a common sentiment of hatred, and its ultimate hope is earthly wellbeing. The founders of socialism believed in the infallibility of science. Nay more, they believed in the directive power of science. They believed in inexorable material laws of humanity, and in a mechanical earthly happiness. Now, however, science itself is beginning to recognise that its most finished web can be for the will nothing more than a good map is for the traveller. Here lies a range of mountains, there a river, a town, a lake. If I take the right-hand road, I shall reach this place ; if I turn to the 14 IN DAYS TO COME left, I shall reach that other. This way is shorter, but that way is less hilly. Here I shall find plenty ; there, mountain air. Here is untrammelled nature ; there civilisation. But no map can tell me the route I ought to follow ; no map can tell me whither my heart impels me, or where my duty calls. Science weighs and measures, describes and explains, but it does not furnish a scale of values beyond a purely conven- tional one. But without valuation and choice, we cannot aim at a goal ; and since all rational activity aspires towards an aim and seeks a pole, we learn once again that the heart is the supreme arbiter of all human happenings. There is no place for the will of the heart in the compulsory process enforced upon events in accordance with the materialist conception of history. If the apparent valuations of mankind alter, as they always have altered, blind mechanism, in its unceasing progress, must hurl the will of mankind against its own counterpart. To seek goals implies faith. But that is no genuine faith which, arising out of the desire to escape from a temporal need, denies the extant, to transform the world order into a mere expedient. True faith springs from the poietic energy of the heart, from the imaginative power of love ; it creates an emotional mood, whereby events are determined. This emotional mood is never led astray by institutions ; and because socialism fights for institutions, it remains at the level of politics. It can furnish criticism, can eradicate certain evils, can win rights. But it will never transform our earthly life, for the power to effect this transformation is given only to a philosophical outlook, a faith, a transcendental idea. Although the inadequacy of socialism is manifest, let not those rejoice who combat socialism from an easy-going fondness for that which exists, from a dread of having to make sacrifices, from spiritual sloth. The sacrifices that will be demanded in days to come will be greater, the service will be more arduous, the material reward will be less considerable, than in the socialist common- wealth ; for in days to come there will be required something more than the renunciation of material goods. We shall have to put away from ourselves our dearest vanities, weaknesses, vices, and passions ; upon us will be imposed INTRODUCTORY 15 the duty of cherishing sentiments and performing deeds, which to-day we esteem in theory while despising them in practice ; we shall have to learn by hard experience that our aim in life must not be happiness but fulfilment, that we have to live not for our own sake but for the sake of God. Nevertheless mankind will walk in this path, not because it must but because it will ; because there is no turning backwards from the recognition of faith ; because the blessedness of the divine will interpenetrates us. Mankind will walk in this path amid enmity, scorn, and persecution. Nor will humanity be spared the sorest of all trials, in that it will be blamed by those whom it is seeking to deliver, by those who will inflict bitter punishment and hallowed expiation in return for injustice done. Ingratitude will sanctify the path, hardship will accompany it, and none the less mankind in proud humility will offer up thanks for every painful stride that leads onward towards the light. Not fear, not hope, the motive forces. Not the reasoned striving for the attainment of a mechanical equipoise, not goodness, not even justice. What impels man forward upon that path is faith, arising out of love, arising out of the utmost need and out of God's will. This epoch, which in its inmost self yearns foi self- knowledge and for deliverance from its own hardness, is in 'its essence unfavourable to promethean thought. Hardly has it got beyond the brutal earnestness and obviousness of materialism, than it becomes ashamed of all practical endea- vour, and then becomes ashamed of its own shame, and seeks to hide it, in that with a well-mastered detestation it inter- weaves into its sentiments pitiful apparatus and trimmings of contemporary life. With calculated audacity, it intro- duces arc lamps and hotel gardens into poetry, and is yet more estranged from the world than was its rough predecessor, which participated actively in human affairs and was con- versant with them all. Many persons, wishing to show how remote they are from the steadfast self-confidence of the market-place, choose from out the phenomenal world only that which is most delicate and most multicoloured in 16 IN DAYS TO COME complexion, contenting themselves with coquettish contem- plation, with smiling here at some resemblance and there at some contradiction. Grievously are they deceived ! For only the earnestness of the world, a belief in its meaning and continuity, justifies contemplation and participation. A vigorous belief in the meaninglessness and hopeless confusion of all that exists, leads by logical necessity to an unspiritual life of animal enjoyment and to the restriction of all the moral consciousness to a fear of the police. The man who lives solely for what he can filch from life, gives the lie to the sweat which he squanders and turns to account. He remains a hero only to one of his own kidney, for mankind will not put up with such petty theft. Beyond question, artificially acquired knowledge and culture will not suffice to break up the hard clods of the field entrusted to our care ; the arrogance of the superior person will never fertilise this soil. Yet every genuine earthly experience must be taken seriously. Faithfulness in sensuous perception and devotion of the spirit, lead to the inner comprehension even of everyday occurrences and to the contemptuous rejection of any sipping at the cup of life. If the world be an order, a cosmos, it behoves man to study its interconnections, its laws, and its phenomena; it behoves him to build them up within himself. Plato's, Leonardo's, and Goethe's irruption into the robust world of things was not a mundane aberration but a divine necessity. The poet who, lacking spiritual grasp, despises the present and the future of his world for the sake of artificially selected interests, is not as he fancies a seer, but a purveyor of aesthetic amusement. The Romans declared that the state was everyone's concern. Still more is the saying true of nature, as stage, wilderness, garden, battleground, and tomb for man. To the romanticism of an age which behaves realistically and feels artificially, there will soon succeed the mood which is never lacking in periods when men are unperverted. Experience of the world will replace literary and scholastic experience. Upon the solid and carefully finished foundation of conquered realities, the edifice of ideas can be more securely builded and can rise to greater heights than upon the shifting INTRODUCTORY 17 sands of purely theoretical principles. A pragmatic trend, a sentiment of community among men standing on firm ground, an imaginative life based upon a genuine participation in .the world and upon genuine responsibility to the world, will lead independent thought and feeling out of the hothouse atmosphere of the conventicles on to the highway of fact, of destiny, and of action. The thought and feeling of the world will become firm without being platitudinous, delicate without being weak, imaginative without being high-flown, transcendental without being sanctimonious, practical without, being trivial. Spiritual leadership will pass from women and smirking aesthetes to men, from poetasters and formalists to poets and thinkers. The individualistic nihilism from which we suffer (under the influence of which we lack faith in communalisation, regard the law with suspicion, and look upon activity with contempt), the individualistic nihilism which professes to soothe itself with the contemplation of the incomparable individual, and nevertheless secretly nourishes itself on the law and on action this despairing and false serenity, uncon- vinced ethic, and involuntary renunciation derives from a deep source which never fails to flow when mankind has lost faith. The doctrine runs , Where is there anything worth while ? Everything happens but once. Where is constancy ? Each moment is newly created and without antecedent. How can there be evolution, seeing that everything temporal is illusion ? It is perfectly true that at the inmost core of things all is peace. The farther we get from the centre, the fiercer the wheeling of the shadowy movement. In all great moments the soul senses its sacredly quiescent goal, and like the magnet towards the pole it strains towards the centre from out the confused medley of illusion. Yet this mystery does not enfranchise us from life. That which in the world-all blends into a harmony, seems to us discordant, for we hear it in diverse keys That which exists inalterably, dazzles us by its changing aspects. None the less we are placed in this life that we may perfect it at our own stage ; and our path of tribulation leads through time. If we despise this theatre of existence, all thought is futile, all lofty sentiment 2 18 IN DAYS TO COME is irrational, and all action is folly ; even the striving towards inner perfectionment is activity, and is therefore vain. But this conclusion is self-contradictory, for the hot urge of the soul exists, and is the most vital of all our experiences. Dare to choose this urge, and not the fictive absolute, as the temporary axis of experience, and existence regains its meaning. Thought directed towards the absolute annihilates the will ; but devotion to the transcendental provides thought with adequate aims, it animates the will to love mankind, nature, and divinity, and it makes us masters of action. Although every historico-rationalist method of inter- pretation is in direct conflict with the sense of this apriorist exposition, I may be allowed a remark directed towards the refutation of a traditional error of experience. When we survey the brief span of recorded history, we are inclined to let the light play upon the affective life of the Indians, the Hebrews, the Greeks, and the Teutons a life handed down to us in their works of art and to infer that in the genuine essence of human powers there has been no evolu- tionary progress, that there has been no increase in these powers during the past, and that no such increase is possible for the future. But we must not forget that the bridge of memory passes only from peak to peak ! It affords no measure of the mighty upgrowth in the floor of the valleys. History makes no mention of those who were countless and nameless, for history is ever a chronicle of conquerors and heroes. Nature, however, is faithful in her dealings ; she does not stamp upon the creatures that have been outstripped in the race ; and the people, those who comprise the out- stripped masses, live away from the great main road, dwelling in the bosom of the ancient continents. Nature is not like the chemist who works unrestingly ; she transforms and develops a part of her inexhaustible material, putting the rest on one side, to bear it always in mind, and to work upon it later, unnoticed. In the remote recesses of the African and Asiatic worlds there are still living to-day the shepherds of Canaan and the spearbearers of Troy ; like ourselves made in God's image, but younger and weaker in soul. Yet out of those ancient, fundamentally animal substrata, have sprung races so full of inspiration that they almost reach the heights attained by the extinct heroic stocks. INTRODUCTORY 19 Anyone who has truly become possessed of a language, possesses also, even though he lack the genius of the linguistic creator, the whole spirit of the tongue Anyone who has spiritually comprehended and taken possession of the inheri- tance of one of the great among men, even though not himself a creator, is nevertheless in the spiritual sphere the master's disciple and brother. The legacy of Buddha or of Christ, of Plato or of Goethe, when first bequeathed to our earth, seemed to humanity repellently alien and even unfriendly. It matters not in virtue of what commonplace force the change has been effected ; for now the sacred treasure has germinated in a thousand hearts ; and these hearts, whether in simple isolation or in competitive ardour, are nearer to the soul of the teacher than were in earlier days his chosen disciples. Genius is not the criterion of the soul, but the criterion of all creation is given in the awakening of the soul. Evolution is the thought form of our supra-animal activity, for all action inheres in the concept of time, and the will to fixity is as impossible as the will to the primitive. It is the sign of a sceptical and inert age when the gaze turns back yearningly to the past. If all our approval, all our sympathetic understanding, is concentrated upon our ances- tors, if all their sayings and doings seem to us more important and more intimately akin than the youthful springs of contemporary life, we seek to excuse ourselves by alluding to the curse of our mechanised expedients, and by references to the intolerability of those narrow-minded boasters who extol every mechanical makeshift as a stage on the road to perfection. None the less, this epoch, with all its faults and errors, is worthy of admiration, seeing that its concern is not with individual human beings but with mankind, so that it is the work of creative nature, which may be harsh, but is never unmeaning If the time be difficult, it is our difficult duty to love it, to bore through it with our love until the ponderous mountains of matter yield, and the light beyond grows manifest. Although this love be hard, it grinds to powder not only the unfeeling stone which the age heaps up against us ; it pulverises likewise many a cherished idol of our hearts, for only through this heart can we make our way towards the freedom of the world. 20 IN DAYS TO COME Are we presumptuous in our attempt to foreshadow this way ? Are we arrogant, in that we wrestle with the arduous problem of the science of the spirit-that-is-to-be ? Experience is competent to deduce, but not to bring about evolution. Experience tells me that the lime tree standing before my window grew from a seed ; but experience does not tell me whether the seed in my hand will become a tree or will be reduced to dust. Inference, when applied to contemporary things, remains ambiguous ; its path is beset with dangers, for the number of earthly forms is restricted, the contents grow, and unexpectedly the old vessel is filled with the new spirit. It is permissible to derive tragedy from pastoral, symphony from the dance ; but the spirit of Hamlet and the content of the Ninth Symphony have naught to do with such antiquarian research. Herein we find the limitation imposed upon the value of deduction. It explains, soothes, gives a mechanical inertia to the flux of things ; but it neither consecrates, nor exonerates, nor opens a window towards the future. A thousand times can we learn the lesson from history. A political form, a type of public order, may be anchored securely to its deliber- ately willed historical origins. Then a new spirit seizes it. Its form persists. But in defiance of the historian (whose hallowed structure withers), under the mask of error, mis- interpretation, or force, the inner law pours a new life into the cleansed shell. If experience and tradition negative the striving towards the future, if computation shrivels to arid speculation, we must hold fast to-day to the recognition that all evolution is an ascent of the spirit, and that our inner experience, when purely perceptual and considered apart from the significance given to it by the will, has but the most infini- tesimal influence upon events. Such is the explanation of all prophecy. From the sober recognition of the favourable prospects of a business undertaking, to the adequate under- standing of some necessary political move ; from the sym- pathetic recognition of some stage in human destiny, to the revelatory insight into the image of the universe all the phases of the intellectual and the intuitive symphony show forth the parallelism between the experiential and the objective spirit. Each organised instrument experiences in its own tones the development of the symphony. INTRODUCTORY 21 The inner certitude of this experience is given in the unwilled and inexorably imposed necessity of thought ; the participating sincerity eludes mechanical demonstration. What is demonstrable ? Hardly the past, hardly even the truth of Euclidean geometry. Our feelings are not demon- strable, nor our experiences, not yet our forecasts. Every commercial scheme, every organisatory measure, is debatable ; and nevertheless there remains in the world a confident belief in our power to find the right way. For in the shared and sincere experience of past, present, and future, there inheres a force which compels sympathetic acceptance, examination and faith. Strong feeling speaks strongly ; clear vision throws an inner light ; sincerity creates confidence. Genuine thought gives a bodily feeling of plasticity and stability. By another sign, too, is such a thought distin- guished from the paradoxes and glosses of the day, which seem true enough so long as they are contemplated from one side only. Genuine thought is akin to reality ; it is in touch with everyday life, without being rooted therein. It seems at one and the same time to be realisable and imaginative. For the seeds of the future are everywhere germinating in the soil. That which is to come is marvellous, not because it arises out of nothing, but because it transforms that which is commonplace. All our actions are akin to prophecy, for every step that we take leads towards the future. But if we are to believe in man's prophetic vocation, let us be firm in the faith. If we close our ranks and are animated with good will, then, beneath the joint vision of us all, the deceptive will fade, the right will grow clear. The essential condition is that while our feet remain firmly planted on the earth, our eyes must turn ever towards the stars. II THE GOAL THE world-wide movement characteristic ot our time arises, phenomenally regarded, from two basic factors, which are closely interconnected. An unparalleled concentration of population occurred in those areas which are fitted for civilisation. Its increasing pressure burst the thin integument which hitherto gave the European nations their configuration and restricted their rivalry. This enormous overpopulation rendered a new ordering of economics and life essential if our race were to be maintained and properly cared for. From the piling up of the peoples there resulted a liberation of forces in the old substrata, and this gave birth to the mentality adequate to the work required. The transformative will of mankind had a long path to travel. Before the new order could first come into being and subsequently make good, it was necessary to develop abstract thought and exact science, to improve technical methods, to control and to organise ; it was necessary to modify human wishes, human ideas, and human aims ; it was necessary to inaugurate new modes of life, new art, new outlooks, and a new faith. In my book Zur Kritik der Zeit [A Critique of our Age], I have traced the origins of this order and have described it. To characterise its universality and to indicate the mechanical determinism which distinguished it from all previous orders, I have termed it " mechanisation." For, if we regard it as a whole, we perceive its essential nature to lie in this, that mankind has been interwoven half con- sciously and half unconsciously to form under compulsion a single organisation, so that men, amid fierce mutual struggles and none the less with increasing solidarity, join hands in caring for life and the future. The interconnectedness of these contemporary pheno- mena was early realised, but no one ventured to grasp the 25 26 IN DAYS TO COME phenomenon as a whole, under a single purview. For this reason people continue to speak of capitalism as the charac- teristic modality of our entire epoch, although capitalism is nothing more than the projection of the order as a whole upon a portion of the economic system. Consequently, science is still unwearying in its efforts to deduce the mutual interrelationships of the branches of mechanisation. In ever-changing combinations, capitalism, invention, war, Cal- vinism, Judaism, luxury, the service of woman, are inter- woven as alleged evolutionary factors of the course of events. No one seems to notice that in this way one miracle is con- tinually being explained by another. No one ever thinks of searching for the primary variables which the motley play of events surrounds and involves. No one perceives that while the daughter is being contemplated, the mother is being forgotten. But this basic function is comprised within the most intimate experience of the human race. Regarded from without, it presents itself as growth in numbers and modification in kind ; regarded from within, it is a link in the spiritual evolution of the living. For, on the creative borderline where we now stand, the spirit outstrides the domain of the purposive intelligence which from the days of primitive biological creation down to those of primitive man has controlled the whole of life with its impulses of fear and desire ; it reaches forward now towards the soul, towards the realm of the transcen- dental, freed from purpose and desire. If men are to enter this realm, they must concentrate all the forces of life ; they must strain to the uttermost the energy of the intellect, the only energy over which they have free control ; but simultaneously they must never cease to be aware of the incompleteness, the meaninglessness, of this mighty signi- ficance of the material world. For one of the ways which leads to the soul passes through the intellect. It is the way of knowledge and renunciation, the truly royal road, the way of Buddha. But like all human discipline, this task and mission expresses itself as necessity. As such, self- created, it is supremely arduous, despite ice ages and chaos ; as an impetus, it is the most mighty of all since the origin of our planet. What is man that he should venture to speak of the THE GOAL 27 folly of nature ? Mechanisation, indeed, is man's destiny, and is thus the work of nature ; it is not a product of the arbitrary will or of the errors of any individual or of any group ; none can escape it, for it is decreed by primal law. A pitiful faintheart is he, who would turn back towards the past, who would despise and repudiate the age in which he lives. As evolution and as nature's work we must reverence our epoch, though as necessity we must regard it with enmity. It behoves us to look our enemy in the face, to estimate his strength, to spy out his weakness, that we may overthrow him as fate wills. But as necessity, mechanisation is disarmed as soon as its hidden meaning has been revealed. Nevertheless, until population has been reduced to the standard of the pre-Christian centuries, man will have to serve mechanisation as the form of his material life. Three of the functions of mechanisation suffice to give it dominion over material activities on earth : the division of labour, the control of masses, and the mastery of forces. No one will seriously propose that men should voluntarily renounce the conquest of nature ; no one will suggest that in a false simplicity they should seek to live a miserably restricted life, forgetting all that they have learned, and striving towards the artificial reconstruction of a primitive state. Utterly foolish is the idea of those who, fleeing in weariness from the great cities, seek solitude in some exquisite rural scene, pursuing the simple life with the aid of a good book and a lute, fancying the while that they have eluded mechanisation, and even conceiving that they have destroyed the whole system. For in actual practice, mechanisation is indivisible ; who wills a part, wills the whole. That one axe may be on sale in the market, thousands of men must dig in the bowels of the earth ; if a single sheet of paper is to be made, whole forests must be consumed in the paper- making machines ; if a single postcard is to reach its destination, all the railways of the world must tremble beneath the thunder of the locomotives. An involuntary cheat and an unconscious exploiter is he who would fain allow mechanisation to persist in carefully chosen forms. Such shepherds of arcady should cast away the last thread of spun yarn, the last seed of a cultivated plant, the last 28 IN DAYS TO COME fragment of coined money. But when they have done so, they will be hard put to it to find upon the earth a hand- breadth of space whereon they can play the Robinson Crusoe. The essence of mechanisation involves universality ; through this system, the world is unconsciously brought into a compulsory association, into an absolutely continuous community of production and of economic life. Since it has been a spontaneous growth, and has not been imposed by deliberate volition, since no decree but only a general necessity controls labour and distribution, to the individual this colossal working community assumes the aspect not of solidarity but of strife. It is solidarity in so far as the race maintains itself by purposive activities, and in so far as each one of us supports himself by joining hands with his fellows. It is strife in so far as the individual receives as his share of work and enjoyment so much only as he can secure for himself by struggle and by force. The determinist kernel of the mechanical system of organisation is to be found in the brutally unregulated character of its impulsive and unconscious energies. I insist on the matter here for the first time, and shall subsequently enlarge upon the topic. As a world phenomenon, this aspect of mechanisation, in so far as it depends upon the community of our contest with the forces of nature, is neither good nor evil, but simply necessary. It comes about because united we can work to better effect than we can work individually, and because concentration and organisation are indispensable to the ordering of life's forces. No matter in what, planetary home, any quasi-human population whose numbers have grown considerable and whose intelligence is adequate, will display a collective phenomenon tantamount to what we know as mechanisation. Upon the spiritual strength of the members of this community will it depend, whether they are subordinated to the obscure will of the mechanism, or whether they master its compulsion. On our own planet, mechanisation has fulfilled a large portion of its task. Under the form of civilisation, it has paved the way for an outward understanding, has created the possibility of a tolerably frictionless vital association and organic construction. By the appropriate methods of THE GOAL 29 production and commerce, it has ensured the provision of food, clothing, and shelter for the manifold and continually increasing populations of the woild, seeing that it has developed the natural resources of the earth, centralising manufacture and decentralising distribution. Under the aegis of capitalism it has secured the requisite concentration of the working powers of mankind, and has directed these powers towards orderly and unitary goals. As a national and municipal organisation, it has endeavoured to give expression to every manifestation of grouped will, and to make the general consciousness intelligible. Under the form of journalism, it guides every impression received by the community towards the perceptive centre of that com- munity. In the sphere of politics, it aims at the delimi- tation of nationality, and at promoting the division of labour among the nations. Under the form of science, it aspires towards a collective study of the world spirit. In the domain of technical progress, it equips our intelligence for the struggle with natural forces. No part of the world is now closed to us ; no material tasks are beyond our powers ; all the treasures of earth are within our grasp ; no thought remains hidden ; every undertaking can be put to the test and realised. As far as material construction goes, mankind has grown to become an almost finished organism, one which envelops the globe with senses, nerve fibres, thought organs, a circu- latory system, and a tactile apparatus ; one which penetrates the earth's crust and exploits the earth's energies. No developmental path leads from the organic to the disorderly. Other types of organisation than that of mechanisation are conceivable ; nevertheless, in virtue of their material significance, these also will invariably build up a material structure, one which concentrates human energies for the control of natural forces ; nevertheless, they will invariably expose life to the same danger and oppression in so far as the forces of the soul fail to master them. It was, however, excusable that the world should have been intoxicated by its first works of unification ; it was natural enough that the world should have believed the 30 IN DAYS TO COME material edifice to be habitable by the spirit, that it should have placed its thought and understanding, its feeling and its volition, at the service of the order it had created. And yet, although the building is still far from having been pushed up to the topmost storey, the consciousness of man- kind is astir. For the nonce, only in a crudely mechanical sense ; the disinherited are in revolt ; they wish to destroy the sensual and mechanical order, that they may replace it by another sensual and mechanical order which seems juster to their imaginations and which promises to be more liberal in its gifts. Even the members of the privileged classes suffer from a sense of oppression. They deplore the decline in aesthetic and moral values ; they would like to bring the old days back ; they are willing to sacrifice such portions of the indivisible mechanisation as seem to them irrelevant, such parts as are unessential to their own interests or to their own comfort. Above all, however, there is a dawning consciousness that the system is in- equitable. People are beginning to realise that no one, not even the most fortunate, is safe from inner shipwreck, that greater things are at stake than simple material loss. The skirmish is still no more than an affair of outposts, for the essential nature and the integral might of mechanisation are as yet neither recognised nor understood. Such ques- tions as our general outlook on the universe, capitalism, poverty, and technical methods, are discussed in isolation, apart from the central problem. There is no proper orientation. By turns, humanity, justice, culture, a balance, politics, interest, tradition, nationality, aesthetics, is regarded as the core. Here we see the uneasy conscience of the age, here we see its inward misgivings at work. We have availed ourselves of mechanisation for the sake of its integrating powers ; we have now to call it to account concerning its secret tendencies to promote disintegration. i. Mechanisation is a material order ; constructed out of material will with material means, it gives earthly activity a trend towards the unspiritual. None can wholly escape this trend ; in the mechanistic sense, even the most highly spiritualised human being remains subject to the dominion of economic law, remains one who, that he may live, must either own or earn. The world has become a THE GOAL 31 place of trade and stewardship, and everyone must bear the impress and take the colour of his time. For centuries, constraint has been exercised upon the human spirit with inevitable effect. The era of the division of labour demands specialisation. If the spirit has to move within the rigid and unchanging norms and practical rules of some specialised calling, the while in a thousand varying ways it glimpses the misty panorama of the ruthlessly changing succession of events, it readily comes to regard the small as great, and the great as small ; shallow views prevail ; trivial and irresponsible judgments are favoured. Admiration and wonder perish amid the clamour for novelty and sensationalism ; everything is meanly estimated by number and by size ; thought becomes dimensional. And while size and number guide our estimate of things, success guides our valuation of action ; thus the moral sense is deadened, just as weighing and measuring dulls our sense of quality. The consequences of hasty judgment are inevit- able ; we have to pay for error and illusion ; our minds grow sceptical. We no longer wish to get into things, but to get behind things ; we desire to drive men and forces ; we lose the sense of shame. Knowledge is power, we say, and time is money ; thus knowledge passes unrecognised, and time is wasted joylessly. The things themselves, neglected and despised, no longer furnish joy, for they have become means to other ends. Everything is means to an end, thing, man, nature, God ; behind them, spectral and unreal, stands the thing-in-itself of the endeavour the goal. The unattained, for ever unattainable, for ever unrecognised ; a confused representative amalgam of security, life, posses- sion, honour, and power, of which as much is destroyed as is attained a will o' the wisp which at our death is just as remote as it was when we first sought to approach it. In menacing opposition thereto, more real and a thousand- fold overvalued, rises the dread spectre of want. Allured and driven by these phantoms, man wanders from the unreal to the unreal. This he terms living, working, and creating ; this he bequeathes, as curse and as blessing, to those whom he loves. The condition thus achieved by the mechanised spirit is nothing more than the primitive condition of the lower 32 IN DAYS TO COME races spurred on into the frenzied life of our great cities, the work of those who, at once terror-impelled and seeking a goal, have in their impetus fashioned our epoch. It is more than an atavism ; it is a sinking down of all those who enjoyed the draught, into the depths where dwelt the obscure beings who brewed it. Thus at the zenith of civilisation, we are doomed to experience the life, the moods, the anxiety, and the joys, which our forbears granted their slaves. This mood, however, is endeavour and illusion. An endeavour to which no goal seems adequate, and which is nevertheless so irrational that it comes at last to regard toil as an end in itself ; an endeavour that is so earthbound that it gleans by the wayside everything which glitters, and marches gravewards burdened with the dead freight of things which are but means to an end. It is an illusion to which no fact is real enough, to which no knowledge is too trivial, and which nevertheless shrinks from all which is profound ; it is an illusion which disarticulates and de- spiritualises the world, which slays the sense for mortal life and scorns the sense for immortality. Our pleasures are those of children, slaves, and the baser sorts of women : possessions which sparkle and arouse envy ; amusement ; sensuous intoxication. The delight in possession becomes accentuated to a mad hunger for com- modities, an appetite which grows a hundredfold by what it feeds on, inasmuch as year after year, as the outcome of satiety and by the decrees of fashion, the treasure chambers must be emptied of their now unvalued goods, to be filled with new absurdities and fresh gawds. Utterly debasing are the pleasures of the great city, and the pleasures of that society which, in unconscious irony, terms itself " good." If a thinker, if a lover of his fellows who has visited the places where such people seek enjoyment, or where (to use the common word of common speech) they amuse themselves, and can then turn away without having felt even a moment's despair of the future of mankind, his confidence in the world has indeed endured the hardest test. Intoxication, pleasure, and crime, well up out of poisons and stimulants, for whose provision there is requisite three times as much energy as is devoted by the world to all the tasks of civilisation. THE GOAL 33 2. Mechanisation is a coercive organisation, and it there- fore restricts human freedom. The individual no longer finds the measure of his work and of his leisure in the needs of his life, but in a rule external to himself, in competition. It does not suffice that he should work in accordance with the standard of his own powers and wishes ; his contribution is estimated by com- parison with that which others contribute. Half work or slow work is valueless, being regarded as no better than idling. The work of the world, from that of the military commander to that of the postman, from that of the journeyman to that of the financier, is under the harrow of the competitive wage system ; from each one there is demanded just as much as another can do. The handi- craftsman of earlier days gave the finishing touches to his creative work in the spirit of love and beauty, whereas mechanisation produces under the sign of submission. A minimum of quality and quantity is prescribed ; the lowest price is the best ; love is not remunerated. The limit of tension is reached in the struggle between the groups which grow larger until they reach the dimensions of nations ; and this struggle between groups is decided by the preponderance of a sum of objective forces, wherein the influence of the individual is nil. Man is not even free in the choice and regulation of his activities. It matters not whether an individual is best fitted for specialisation or for generalisation ; our mechanistic order will use him as a specialist. Mankind readily yields to this coercion, generating the born commercial traveller and the born school teacher, just as it generates the born managing engineer and the born entomologist. Nay more, it pro- duces the various types in whatever number and kind may be prescribed by necessity and by pressure of population. Recalcitrancy is punished. If there should appear now and again some man of the old type, warrior, explorer, handi- craftsman, prophet, he is expelled from the working hive, is maligned, or is degraded to the basest and most undifferentiated service. Coercion goes yet further. Men are deprived even of their personal responsibility. For the organisatory essence of mechanisation does not rest until each of its parts and 3 34 IN DAYS TO COME each of its integral wholes has in turn become an organism. Thus all the gaps are filled in, just as in the realm of animate nature every element, however small, however great, pre- sents itself as an organon. Cooperatives, unions, firms, societies, leagues, bureaucracy, occupational, political, and ecclesiastical organisations, unite and divide humanity in a web of incalculable complexity. No one stands on his own feet ; everyone is under subjection, everyone is responsible to others. This state of affairs, elevating in the splendour of the conception and in the elemental grandeur of a destiny uncreated by human hands, becomes a sterile slavery in those vast twilit and obscure regions ruled, not by self-conscious responsibility, but by calcu- lating interest. It is true that the handicraftsman in the medieval guild was dependent, but not in the sense wherein the commercial employee is dependent ; the craftsman's dependence was manifest, indubitable, and was neverthe- less fulfilled with inner freedom. The working of the mechanistic system is masked by an illusion of freedom. The malcontent can formally demand consideration, can say what he thinks, can throw up his job and seek work elsewhere, can emigrate ; but after the lapse of a few weeks, though in respect of names, persons, and localities he will ostensibly be in a new environment, the circumstances of his life will be substantially unchanged. The anonymity of the all-encircling unfreedom has a quasi-magical influence ; it achieves what the despotisms and oligarchies of earlier days could never achieve with their army of catchpolls and spies ; it stabilises dependence. This individual coercion, however, is but a minor evil in comparison with the mass manifestation which overlies it. Mechanisation as a mass organisation requires human energy, not in units, but in streams. All the slaves who built the pyramids of the Pharaohs would not suffice even as a corps of toolmakers for a modern land ; the military strength of Napoleon would not provide numbers sufficient for the working population of a contemporary mining district. Our populations must be ready to arrange and continually rearrange themselves in the changing armies of toil, for our machines with their million upon million of horsepower require millions upon millions of centaur THE GOAL 35 attendants. Not through any inner determinism of the principle of mechanisation, but in virtue of the willingly accepted accompaniments of this evolution, has it resulted that the inevitable division of labour between mental and bodily effort has become perpetual and hereditary. Thereby, in every civilised country, two nations have been created, kindred by blood and yet for ever sundered. These now stand opposed just as in former days the racially dis- tinct upper stratum and lower stratum of population stood opposed. Both are segregated and controlled by the coercion of the dominant system. None belonging to the upper stratum can descend without loss of bourgeois caste and consciousness, without renouncing customary associa- tions, means of enjoyment, and culture. None belonging to the lower stratum can make his way upwards without an initial stroke of luck which gives him possession of capital or intellectual qualification. Such a stroke of luck, apart from the chances afforded by emigration, is so extra- ordinarily rare, that among the thousands of middle-class employees who come under the notice of our captains of industry, hardly one is the son of a genuine proletarian. This segregative coercion is unprecedent.edly severe for those who belong to the second of these two nations. Helotry, bondslavery, and serfdom were types of dependence based upon agricultural production. The work of the serf, while harder and less lucrative than that of the free land- worker, was of the same kind. The serf could enjoy the amenities of rural life, though under supervision, and sub- ject to the compulsory docking of the yield of his labour. The proletarian in his work enjoys the before-mentioned alluring anonymity of dependence ; he does not receive orders, but instructions ; he does not obey a master but a foreman ; he does not serve, but works voluntarily as a freeman ; his human rights are identical with those of the other party to the contract ; he is free to live where he pleases ; the power which controls him is no longer individual, for even though it appears to be that of an individual employer or an individual firm, it is in reality that of bourgeois society. Nevertheless his life, despite this specious freedom, is passed generation after generation in wearisome monotony. No one who has spent but a few 36 IN DAYS TO COME months in the leaden atmosphere of a factory, longing for whistle-blow from seven till twelve and from one till six, can fail to realise how much self-denial is demanded by a life of soulless labour ; never again will he attempt, either by religious or by secular argument, to justify such a mode of life or to represent it as one which can bring satisfaction ; never will he decry as the outcome of greed all attempts to mitigate its dreariness. But when the observer comes to understand that this life is unending, that the dying pro- letarian realises he must bequeath the same fate as an irrevocable legacy to his children and his children's children, the conscience cannot but be profoundly touched. Our age clamours for governmental interference when a cab-horse is illtreated, and yet it seems to most of us perfectly right and reasonable that a nation should for centuries lay this yoke upon its brother nation. A chorus of indignation arises when the members of the oppressed class refuse to vote for the perpetuation of the existing system. The crude dogma of socialism is a product of this bourgeois mood. It is at the same time a profound necessity and a scintillating paradox that this dogma must become the main prop of throne, altar, and bourgeoisie inasmuch as liberalism has been panic-stricken at sight of the red spectre of expropriation, so that the liberals have abandoned free and independent thought, and have sought protection in the ranks of the powers that be. As far as the dominant stratum in the nation is con- cerned, the coercive segregation imposed by the mechanistic system is not a need but a danger. It would seem to be a law of nature that every organism which is relieved even to a small extent from the struggle for existence, thrives at first luxuriantly, and then undergoes relaxation of fibre and falls into decay. Of old, those who experienced this fate were overthrown by conquering invaders, and were brought into recreative contact with the soil. The lords of the earth are no longer conquistadors ; a mere reversal of the strata would lead to the play being replayed with changed roles, but not with renewed energies ; the end would be lamentable. Relief from the burden of bodily toil has been followed by a regime of intellectual strain which has sterilised our great cities both mentally and THE GOAL 37 physically, thus preparing for the arrest of the growth of population in the western world. If we survey this phenomenon of compulsory stratifi- cation, which must be ascribed to the unceasing endeavour of mechanisation towards organisation and the division of labour, we see once more that the movement has circled back to the realm of sensation and action characteristic of its obscure primal progenitors. It has not resulted in the abolition of the original status of slavery. Christianity and western civilisation notwithstanding, mechanisation has known how to impose a relationship of servitude wherein, without legal coercion, without manifest lordship, but through the mere course of ostensibly free economic insti- tutions, there has been established a system of dependence of stratum upon stratum which, though anonymous and speciously reversible, is in reality inviolable and hereditary. 3. Mechanisation did not originate out of a free and deliberate purpose, by the power of man's ethically en- lightened will ; it was generated unintentionally, and indeed unnoticed, out of the law of population. Notwithstanding its intensely rational and coherently logical structure, it is an automatic and unconscious natural process. Reposing non-morally upon the balance of forces, upon struggle and self-help, much as an equilibrium of competing vital forces was secured among the organisms of a primeval forest, mechanisation generalises an outlook upon the world which, leaping backwards in its kinship over the early labours of Christianity and over the political and theocratic ethics of Mediterranean civilisation, aspires once more, though under the cloak and mask of civilisation, towards the condition of primitive humanity. For its outlook, its mood, is one of struggle and enmity. The human heart beats too ardently, thirsting after sustenance and love, for hatred to find open expression as a world-devouring flame ; but the harder and more stiff- necked the generation which suffers from mechanisation, the more fiercely does the inward fire rage within the groaning apparatus. Man of earlier days poured his energy and his love into his work. He existed foi the sake of the thing. Other human beings stood without the circle of his interest ; he 38 IN DAYS TO COME had need of them at rare intervals, for barter, for mutual protection, or for service. Within a narrow circle were his most intimate associates, his own people whom he cherished ; somewhat more remote were the comrades to whom he was leal ; at a much greater distance were the enemies, those with whom he fought. The man of to-day does not live for the sake of a thing. He strives for the neutral good of possession, for the incorporeal notion of a relative but indefinitely extensible sphere of influence. The content of his life is not the affair upon which he is actually engaged, which becomes no more than means to an end ; what concerns him is his career. He must hew out this career for himself through human walls. Whither- soever he looks, wherever he would fain set his foot, there stands another, and that other is his enemy. That he may breach the opposing wall, he makes use of his comrade, of his followers. Not from love does he lead them, not from love do they follow him, but from interest. Each is but means to the other's end, a means to be cast aside when it is no longer of service. To the manufacturer, his fellow man is a competitor, that is to say an enemy ; the con- sumer is a means ; the man who supplies him with raw material is an enemy, his business partner is a means. He wants something from everyone with whom he comes in contact, and, conversely, everyone who encounters him wishes to get something out of him ; both are on their guard, and their reciprocal mood is one of hostility and mistrust. Consequently every one looks upon it as dan- gerous on the one hand and as ill-mannered on the other to awaken the human being in the stranger. It is tradi- tional good manners to treat the stranger as if he were non-existent, until the barren convention of an introduction has secured the customary safeguard of a cold respect. The philanthropic enthusiast who ventures to disregard convention, is met with chill repulsion unless he has some- thing to offer ; but if he can show anything worth coveting, he will soon be made to feel as a reward of his frank confi- dence that he has been degraded to the position of a means. He rightly shares the fate of those who wish to put an end to a generalised state by individual experiments, instead of by working upon the mind and conscience of all. That THE GOAL 39 is why men are so ready to complain of one another and to warn one another, why they boast of their unfortunate experiences, and why they declare themselves pessimists concerning the human race. They do not know that they are condemning themselves. For enmity and baseness are not inherent in human nature ; man's heart is tender, like his bare skin, sensitive to pain and inclined towards affec- tion. If the heart grows hard, it is through fear, through dread of the slave's scourge of mechanisation, which never rests, the scourge whose hiss signifies hunger, contumely, injustice, suffering, and death. In truth, these warning notes are not in themselves terrible, but ways to salvation. Yet this is true only for one who has faith. Mechanisation has been far-seeing enough to buy man's faith, giving him in exchange a trifle of knowledge and sorcery. Enmity between man and man grows to enmity between group and group, tribe and tribe, nation and nation. Man has become an interested party. Some pitiful theory or other has promised him and his kind relief from all concern. They unite to form what they call a party or a represen- tation of their interests. Turning their grievances inside out, they generalise them to constitute a positive ideal notion, and then wax indignant because their opponents, who have set out from other interests, do not reach the same ideal. In this age so prolific in varieties, nothing is harder to find than a man whose conviction and ideal are not on all fours with his interest. This distressing experience culminates in the realisation that there are serious thinkers who will no longer acknowledge that a philosophy, a transcendental conviction, can exist as a form of intuition, as a reflection of the eternal ; they rather regard these as modified repre- sentations of character and interests, look upon them as a sort of clinical history in a word, an idiosyncrasy. To such lengths extends belief in the positiveness of interests, in the autocracy of the intellect, in the material enslave- ment of sentiment. What interest has mechanisation in driving its victims to use their powers to the full under the spur of anxiety and need, under the impulsion of enmity and struggle ? Is it still unrealised that all which is greatest in the world has been the work of love and of brotherly fellowship ? 40 IN DAYS TO COME Can there still be a doubt that while need can in truth break iron, faith can move mountains ? Even if mechanisation should have an inkling of these things, it resembles therein poor Satan, who is powerless on the heights. It has pledged itself to nourish, to amuse, and to enrich the human race, though increased a thousand- fold in numbers. The means it uses are choice and ingenious, and yet coarse, for mechanisation is born of coarse necessity. It drags down men of noble fibre that it may exalt the base to its own level, no higher. It recognises its typical material ; it has destroyed faith, and has scant confidence in good will ; it gains its ends through anxiety and suffer- ing. Where generous rivalry does not suffice, competition compels ; where mutual help is paralysed, struggle compels ; where national fellowship is lacking, class stratification compels. Invariably too, the use of these methods is dominated by the primevally ancient atavism of envy, hatred, anxiety, and greed, under whose sign mechanisation was begotten. Herein, likewise, does it bear witness to its origin, in that it persecutes those who are not created after its own image. The man of freely imaginative mind, the dreamer of divine dreams, the devoted friend of all created things, the lover who takes no thought of the morrow and knows naught of fear, is in its eyes a slothful and visionary slave. For a brief space mechanisation will suffer him to follow the plough, will suffer him in the firing line, or upon foreign seas ; but ere long it determines to replace his hand-tool by a machine, and himself by one more cunning than he. The lover of mankind, who believes, in accordance with the words of the ancient scripture, that the soul is bound to blood, is overwhelmed with despair, for the best blood flows irrevocably. But he who believes that the spirit has lordship over the blood, that, from the stones of Abraham and Deucalion, seed can be awakened, will esteem this flowing blood as the offering of sacrifice, which brings promise that the spirit will be liberated from its mechanistic bonds. We know that all the goods of this earth are nothing but amorphous raw material, neither good nor evil, neither valuable nor valueless, until they are reborn to a second THE GOAL 41 nature. The good which derives from habit and kindly disposition, but which has not been reborn out of the strength of the heart, is not a good ; nature is not nature unless newly created by the seeing ; the masterpiece wins its freedom in that by art it is reborn to nature ; man him- self, unillumined by self-knowledge, and ascent, remains in spiritual matters unborn. Rebirth by self-knowledge and free will, to duty and the work of love, was incompatible with the essence of mechanisation ; for mechanisation makes use of the unimproved method of nature and of war, on a level with self-defence before the coming of law, or with the function of self-maintenance in days that knew nothing of property. Nevertheless, mechanisation is capable of being morally permeated with spirit ; the state, which is the highest and noblest part of the mechanistic system, has been thus permeated through a premature ordination, and could never fulfil its mission without this transfiguration. It is true that the thousandfold attributes of the state flow from nobler sources. The love of home, tribal comradeship, a national fellowship of culture and experience, and a religio- theocratic kinship of sensibility, have founded the realm of the state in the supernatural. But the decisive point is the immanent necessity of the being, not its origin. The decisive point is the recognition that the hallowed institution stands higher than the need of the individual ; the idea that man is not created for the sake of earthly happiness, but for the fulfilment of a divine mission ; the belief that the human fellowship is not as it were a joint stock association, but a home for the soul. This unexpressed consciousness, which endows even the most imperfect form of state with a glimmer of divinity, must in due time awaken for every form and activity of material life, and must seize and permeate mechanisation itself. Activity in science and art, in the army and the state, has always involved the recognition that no work exists irresponsibly for itself alone, that every work owes a reckoning to itself and to the world, that all creation is connected by a chain of duty and necessity, that absolute detachment and arbitrariness are stamped with the shame of selfishness and sensual slavery. The con- sciousness must awaken that to an equal extent all material activity and everything which subserves it, signifies a 42 IN DAYS TO COME building upon the earthly and super-earthly frame of humanity, wherein every step and every hand's turn, every thought and every sound, form nuclei and cells. The con- sciousness must awaken that responsibility to God and gratitude to God make the cause of each the cause of all and the cause of all the cause of each. The consciousness must awaken that there can be no misfortune and no crime for which we do not share a common responsibility ; that there can be neither right nor duty nor happiness nor power, apart from the fate of all. Should mechanisation, too, become permeated with this spiritual consciousness, it will no longer be an empirical condition of equilibrium. It will giow upwards and onwards as a genuine organism, will merge into the totality of the great organon of creation, so that, with unimpeded flow from heart to heart of the god- head, the energies will freely stream, and planetary life will attain perfection in the image of organic theocracy. Let us hopefully contemplate the range of the mechan- istic manifestation. On the technical side, the mechanised order can adequately fulfil its task, which is to nourish and maintain our teeming race. A notable relationship has been established with the forces of nature, with the domain of sensuous experience. In practically useful thought, in the collection and distribution of physical energy, in the mobility of masses and of spirits, successes undreamed-of have been attained. The evil of mechanisation begins where the untamed, unspiritualised force gains control of the inner life, where the vigorous unchained movement, grown irresponsible and freed from the obligations of service, debases man, who should be the master, to be the slave of his own work. Here is the source of unfreedom, insensate toil, enmity, need, and spiritual death. Yet it is within the power of man to bethink himself, and to illumine the confusion with the light of his supra- sensual vision. He will not abandon mechanisation as a material order, until new acquisitions and insights have taught him to make headway against the forces of nature otherwise than by organised labour and research. But he will wage war against mechanisation as the spiritual mistress of existence. He can dethrone her as soon as he degrades practice from an end in itself to a means ; as soon as he THE GOAL 43 chooses to do voluntarily that which to-day he does under coercion ; and as soon as he is willing to exchange the pitiful and ignoble happiness of separateness for the blessing of human fellowship. When we turn away once more from mechanisation as an objective fact and when we comprehend it from within as a spiritual evolution, we realise most intensely that the only thing needed is a reguidance of the spiritual, not of the mechanical. In this light, mechanisation appears to us as the mighty ascent of the earthly creature towards intellect, which, through the unprecedented number of its supporters, through the precision, steadfastness, purposiveness, ramifi- cation, and concentration of its organs, keeps in motion an enormous mass of the lowest kind of spirit. This mass is competent to maintain a balanced opposition to the blind will of nature ; and the first thankful impulse of the recipient world is the childlike confidence that it owes happiness and freedom to the luxuriant powers of the intellect. Here begins error and need, and therewith begins healing. With the advance of thought, there has at length ripened the critical insight that, while intellect suffices for the arranging of ideas, it does not suffice to furnish understanding. Inas- much as this insight now expands to the recognition that the highest duty of the lower forces of the spirit is self- limitation, self-suppression, the renunciation of all claim to act as guides the soil is now made ready for the good seed, which from the dawning of the days has remained alive, though slumbering, in the recesses of the human heart. It is time for the daybreak of the soul ! If to-day we can foreshadow its image, if to-day we can give ourselves up to its powers, we have to thank the need of the epoch in which intellectualism was dominant. That epoch withers, now that its fruit has ripened. This does not mean that henceforward man will renounce the right of thinking and shaping. This right will be practised and strengthened, but always with the full consciousness that the forces utilised are lower forces, born to service, forces which must be administered in a sense of responsibility and lofty mission. But when the first radiations from the soul touch the intellectual world and the mechanistic order which is its form of realisation, we cannot yet say which of the fixities 44 IN DAYS TO COME will first melt away, for the spring is being brought into the world, not by the interconnection of secondary hap- penings, but by the approaching sun of transcendental foreshadowing. The constructive part of my book is to be understood in this modest sense. Its ultimate aim is not to provide a complete inventory of earthly activities in temporal series, but to set forth realisable forms of thought. Its purpose is to show that the spiritual guidance of life and the permeation of the mechanistic order with spirit, will transform the blind play of forces into a fully conscious and free cosmos, into a cosmos worthy of mankind. The task still hovers above us, undisclosed and unnamed. We have formed an estimate of the condition of the environ- ing world. We have recognised the direction that leads to freedom, in that we have realised that the star we are following points the way to the soul. It now behoves us to delineate the pragmatic form which will give earthly lineaments to the aspiring thought, which will make it comprehensible to our epoch. The metaphysical task must be constrained to reveal its physical counterpart. First of all it is needful to say a plain word concerning material institutions and projects. i. What advantage for the inner life are we entitled to expect from the conditions of existence and from the forms of life, from the modification of these conditions and forms ? According to the materialist conception, every advantage. Man owes everything to environing conditions ; blood, air and earth, situation and possession, circumscribe him so completely, that to every change in external conditions there must correspond an equivalent modification of the internal state. This seductive error is one of the strongest weapons in the arsenal of materialism, for history seems everywhere to confirm it. Have not the changes in the earth's crust compelled the evolution of organisms ? Have not the migrations of the human race been determined by physical laws ? Is not the nature and destiny of the nations deducible from tribal inheritance, habitat, and environment In general ? Is not the individual man the product of his ancestors and of the conditions of his existence ? It is THE GOAL 45 incontestable that the centres of highest civilisation have always coincided with the centres of power, of dense popu- lation, of wealth. Solitude, poverty, need, the sacred sources of spiritual elevation, have never bestowed art and thought upon a people. Maritime nations, we are informed, grow clever. Hellas, Rome, Venice, Holland, and England, owe their might to the sea. Germany grew strong in virtue of her racial stock ; France, in virtue of her soil ; America, in virtue of her geographical situation. All this seems to be true. But if we subject the doctrine to the ordeal of its own methods, confidence is speedily shaken. What force was it, then, which drove organic creation forward amid all the transformations of the globe ? Was it the will to live ? That alone could not make fins grow, or wings ; that alone could not teach beings to speak and to think. Was it the racial stock ? That only attained nobility through this same mysterious will. The primal ancestor of the Aryan was a groping creature, far lower in the scale than the Mongols and the Negroes. Was it the soil ? Were not all free to occupy this soil ? Did not the strongest and most enlightened gain possession of it ? Once more, then, we have strength and race. But these advantages may have been due to chance. Enough of such arguments. They presuppose what they have to prove, assuming that body stands first and spirit second, that matter forms spirit. If we believe that we are creatures of the flesh, let him who will, say soft things of life, let him who will, flatter it. Wrestling for God and our soul is vain, and the word lies with those who exist for the useful and the advantageous. But if we believe that the spirit shapes a body for itself, that the aspiring will carries the world upwards, that the spark of divinity lives within us then man is his own work, man's destiny is his own work, man's world is his own work. If this be so, the maritime nation is not the nation upon which the sea has been bestowed, but the nation that wished to have the sea ; the nation which has the treasures of the earth is not a nation of lucky discoverers, but a conquering nation ; the nation whose population acquires the density requisite to progress in civilisation, is not a mere breeding horde, but 46 IN DAYS TO COME a stock desiring progeny and preparing a land for it. If this be so, nobility of race is not a sport of nature, but a product of that spirit which aspires towards self-development. We are ready to meet the rejoinder. Why, it may be asked, should we prize and cultivate forms and goods of life, if it be not they, but quiet and contemplation, which create the highest ? Earthly life signifies the formation and the armament which can be given to the spirit, that the spirit may be enabled to fight for its rights, for its existence, and for the future. If spirit is to be fit for the invisible struggle, it must likewise be fit for the visible struggle. A noble being makes beauty ; a healthy being makes happiness ; a strong being makes power. Not for these goods' own sake, but as the earthly vesture of the spiritual existence. Not in strife and greed, but selflessly and spon- taneously. And just as the bearer rules the weapon, so does the weapon react upon the bearer ; the nation which had the power to become beautiful finds in beauty a fresh spur to inner nobility. It is true that the gates of the soul's realm are flung wide for the poor and the despised ; but the will of the poor and the despised gains wings when a noble nation inspires the seeker with power and longing. To be voluntarily poor among the rich, is fine, and bears an evangelical stamp ; but in a nation of beggars, a beggar offers no contrast, and acquires no specific moral merit. The individual man is an end in himself. In him terminates the series of visible creation, and in him the series of the soul begins. If in him the soul's energy has awakened, he has no further need of earthly privileges and advantages. Poverty, illness, solitude, must serve him and bless him. But the nation is his mother, who watches over him in his earthly pilgrimage, requiring beauty, health, and strength, for the eternal work of generation. Herein is solved the contradiction, What does it signify to covet nothing for oneself, and yet to care for one's neighbour, who neverthe- less in his turn shall covet nothing ? Our neighbours and those who are remote from us are alike the mothers and the brothers of us all ; the sacrifice of our individual life is a small price to pay that they may live and beget. Though, therefore, one should not desire goods and powers for oneself, it is neither unworthy nor material-minded, to THE GOAL 47 long for goods and powers for the community and to bestow them on the community. 2. The second of our preliminary questions runs as follows. How can we justify practical projects, dedicated to the welfare of mankind ? What demonstrative power attaches to them ; what burden of proof is incumbent upon them ? It has been contended that science has had to renounce the right of finding goals. But for all creative thought, the goal is decisive, not the way ; the question is more difficult than the answer. Furthermore, it is easier to find the answer than to seek it. For here intellectual power is at fault. It is competent to assemble a list of grievances, to enumerate the inconveniences of that which exists. Intellectual power is competent to say, This ought not to be though incompetent to distinguish between ordeal and evil, between the need that brings blessing and the need that is harmful. But intellectual power can never decide what is allotted and attainable as the highest good of man- kind ; can never say, We must strive for this, we must wrestle for that. All our will, in so far as it is not animal, springs from the sources of the soul. Early and late must we repeat to those whose admiration for intellectualist thought knows no bounds, that the greater and nobler part of life consists in willing. But all willing is love and pre- dilection, not a thing which can be proved. It appertains to the soul ; and beside it the intellect, numbering, measur- ing, and weighing, stands apart and self-aware like a booking clerk at the entry to the world's theatre. What we create, is created from a profound and un- conscious impulse ; what we love, is that which we yearn for with divine energy ; what we cherish, belongs to the unknown world of the future ; what we believe, dwells in the realm of the infinite. None of this is demonstrable, and yet nothing is more certain ; none of this is palpable, and yet every true step of our life is taken in the name of this inexpressible. What are we doing from early morn till late at eve ? We are living for that which we will. And what do we will ? That which we neither know, nor can know, but in which our faith is inviolable. This faith, however, is sustained by stronger evidence 48 IN DAYS TO COME than by that of intellectual proof. Every logic-chopper can refute what Plato, Christ, and Paul uttered without adducing proofs ; yet their words are undying, and every word has begotten a truer life and has enkindled more faith than any physical, historical, or social theory. If we ask what is demonstrable in the strictest sense of the term, we find that even Euclidean geometry will not stand the test. Yet the world is permeated ever anew with a sentiment of profoundest truth. What, then, is the characteristic of living truth ? It is the energy with which truth strikes at the heart. Every true word has resounding energy ; every thought which is not begotten in the labyrinths of the dialectical understanding, but in the warm womb of sensibility, generates life and faith. All proof, therefore, is but per- suasion, sincere illusion. If a man believe himself called upon to bear witness to the truth, not because he thinks the truth but because he sees and experiences the truth, because the world which he feels within his spirit is more real to him than the world which he sees with his eyes, then he is entitled to speak. If he be the victim of error, then with his dust he will smooth the path for one who follows him coming from the realm of truth. If he utter but a single word instinct with life, this word, cast into the world naked and unarmed, will become the seed of the heart. Thus far the goal. Should anyone endeavour, not merely to glimpse the goal, but further to point the way for those who walk on earth, we find once more that upon this lower level of practice it is not logical demonstration which enlightens the path for him and gives guidance to those who follow him. Never has a leader or forerunner been able to show forth the flawless proofs of his designs. Had he done so, he would have been met with the simple and unanswerable objection, That is impracticable. The only thing which has a persistent influence in the world when the storm of opposition subsides is the voice of con- science. It speaks softly, repeating in the stilly night what the noise of the day has drowned. It speaks, not in the name of an individual, but in the name of the Living. And since the voice of conscience guides always in the same THE GOAL 49 simple path, it is plain that what is disclosed to us is no artificial scheme but a revealed must and may. For this reason, moreover, we can be convinced by the pragmatically designed without being talked over. Herein the same proposal of the man of business and the battle-cry of the prophet are at one, in that a coercive need is felt, re-echoing in the spirit and growing by its own emphasis. Here, like- wise, proof is superfluous. Intuition compels an emotional assent ; that which is seen becomes palpable. In the absence of this childlike energy, we have nothing more than erudite thought-play and aesthetic enjoyment, even though it be triply armed with annotations, demonstrations, and tabular statements. Thus the heart stands sponsor for the goal, the conscience for the way ; and this may serve to guide the writer when aware of the weakness of his words ; this may make him humble when he allows himself to be carried away by some besetting thought. But let the reader be on guard against any thought which claims the force of demonstration ; let him turn earnestly but truthfully towards that which has the characteristic quality of the inner voice. 3. To conclude. If our life be in the highest sense removed from the control of external conditions, if insti- tutions can never create states of mind, if all outward existence signify but the shell and the mask of spiritual experience, can we regard it as meet and right to seek to know the future course of the parable, instead of trustingly following the way cf the spirit in the certainty that on that way there will be room likewise for our bodily footsteps ? We are placed in this bodily existence as it were in a parable whose meaning we have to grasp ; as it were in a prizefight wherein we have to strive for victory. That which we gain in our wrestle with the spirit becomes the reality of life, becomes a paved foothold as starting point for a fresh ascent. So long only as he remains handicrafts- man and master of the tool, will the artist resolve the experi- ence of his heart, uncorrupted and unfalsified ; from his inner self. But the world is the material and the tool of the thinker ; and the thought does not gain the full energy of its truth until the world, judged by the measure of that thought, shows itself to be organic and possible. He who 4 50 IN DAYS TO COME has at any time attempted to anchor in the soil of reality thoughts that have originated in the free region of con- viction, he who knows the arduous and ever unrewarded toil requisite for these labours incomprehensible to the crowd, will perforce have lost all respect for symmetrically rounded theorems and elegant fallacies such as result from the underrating of sensuous experience. The Gospels would be mortal did they but exist as abstract law inscribed on parchment. If their revealer should return to earth, it would not be. like a learned pastor, to speak with anti- quarian phraseology and in Syrian parables, but to talk of politics and socialism, of industry and economics, of research and technical advances not indeed as a reporter to whom such things are in themselves sublime and stupend- ous, but as one directing our gaze towards the law of the stars, towards the law to which our hearts render obedience. After these disquisitions, we must briefly reiterate the question, How does the transcendental task become meta- morphosed into the pragmatic ? The transcendental task was, to promote the growth of the soul. What is the pragmatic task ? Assuredly it is not this, to increase material welfare. Self-evident and easily performed is the duty of abolishing all the more disastrous forms of poverty and want. The cost of a single year's military equipment would suffice to wipe off the blood debt of a society which to-day still endures in its womb hunger and all the resultant crimes. But this task is so simple, so mechanical, and despite its lamentable urgency so trivial, that it belongs rather to the domain of minor civics than to that of ethics. It remains in the last resort indifferent what we do to such an end. The earth is still so abundantly fruitful that there can be ample food, clothing, work, and leisure or the community, in accordance with the extent to which the community wishes in the right manner to produce, to con- sume, and to enjoy Assume it to be true that wealth is and will remain a precondition of an elevated form of life ; a community of millions of productive human beings is infinitely wealthier than were the renowned lesser towns of classical days and of the middle ages ; a railway station THE GOAL 51 devours a hundredfold the work of the Parthenon ; and if the spirit of a noble life remains on the alert, it will readily find materials and tools for its embodiment. Just as little as wellbeing, is equality the outward demand of our souls. What aberrant sense of justice could it have been that happened upon the demand for equality. How little do we know of the profoundest intimacies of our neighbour's life. Words are conventional messages concerning incomparable things. You and I term " red " that which certain series of objects radiate as a colour, and yet we do not know whether the red sensation of one of us may not in fact correspond to the green sensation of the other. In one person, courage may be no more than an inborn heedlessness and lack of caution ; in another, it may embody the result of some dread decision, of some struggle of the soul between two dangers. In one, innocence may be the outcome of lack of temptation, of habit and good fortune ; in another, it may be a treasure prematurely lost, and still longed for in dreams. For one, happiness may be a divine stream welling forth from every revelation of nature ; for another, an artificial edifice, never completed, consisting of a thousand wishes which, though fulfilled, continue in force. These contrasts have been hidden by nature behind the countenances of men. To mitigate them, nature has opened for everyone the way to an infinitely varied existence, to an infinite multiplicity of creation and suffering, so that every impulse has its counterpoise, every partiality its compensatory setting. Into the graciousness of this design what can intrude more unjustly than mechanical justice ? Just as the difference between the heights of two objects is accentuated for the eye when their bases are adjusted to the same level, so the inequality of beings is emphasised to the pitch of cari- cature by a forcible equalisation of the conditions of life. We agree that such mechanisms of life as subserve its fundamental ordering criminal law and police measures, the rights of trade and traffic should strive to promote an equality which shall protect the good against the bad. Any attempt to go beyond this, arises from the thoughtless impulse of an aberrant sentiment of justice, it is the product not of responsibility but of envy 52 IN DAYS TO COME Equality can never realise the earthly demand of our spiritual life. Can freedom do so ? Freedom ! Next to love, it is the most divinely sound- ing word in our language. Yet woe to him who in our land trustingly and enthusiastically assumes it uncritically as his device. Schoolmasters and policemen, equipped with all the distinctions of the philosophers and armed with all the prejudices of the securely established order, will hurl themselves upon the unhappy wight, and will prove to him that the highest freedom is to be found only in the highest unfreedom, so that the struggle for freedom must be stigmatised as no better than civil war. Who can confuse freedom with licence ? To one who contends that in the end my will must be coerced, that the authority to which I bow and the party to which I belong react upon me by limiting my freedom, that the opponent against whom I struggle restricts me, that a human equilibrium can only be established in virtue of restrictions such a disputant is splitting hairs with half- truths, and Is rethrashing straw. A tree grows in freedom, This does not signify that it can move about whithersoever it pleases, or can grow up into the topmost heaven ; these things are forbidden by the limitations of its nature. Nor does it signify that a cell belonging to the trunk can wander up into the crest, that a leaf can transform itself into a flower, that a branch can outgrow all the other branches ; these things are for- bidden by the inner law of organic growth. This law rules in freedom and by means of limitation. It decrees that the stem shall sustain and nourish that the leaves shall breathe and the roots suck, that the solar year shall be greeted with germination and blossoming, shall be blessed with fruit, and shall close with a return to quiescence. Now a wall is built round the tree. The growth of roots and branches is hindered, the wind and the sun are kept away, the stunted and distorted growth takes place under a changed law. However long growth may continue, not now is it self-determined, not now is it the expression of an inner organic necessity, or of voluntarily accepted restrict- tions. A coercive destiny has been imposed from without. Freedom has given place to slavery. THE GOAL 53 Our notion of freedom is perhaps hard to express in words, but its opposite, coercion, is comparatively easy to define. For every organism, for every human being, nation or state, it is that inner or outer law of restriction which is imposed by something other than the intrinsic necessity of the being or its environment. Necessity, therefore, is the criterion of coercion and of freedom ; the advocates of divinely willed subordinations demand proof that this necessity genuinely exists, and that it exists in such a measure that the withdrawal of the restriction will lead to the collapse or atrophy of the organism. It is vain pre- sumption to regard subordination as an end in itself ; such a thought leads to slavery ; organic necessity alone bears the name of God's will. If the cause of the restriction and subordination lies neither in the vital necessity of the being nor in that of its environment, but in the will and the power of an alien organism, a state of bondage arises. Bondage and slavery are not contrary to the spirit of Christianity. They are ordinances which restrict the outward life, but do not exclude the development of the spiritual forces, do not prevent the drawing near to the kingdom of God. Epictetus' strength of mind flourished under slavery ; the spiritual wealth of medieval Christendom blossomed in the cloister. But our problem is differently stated. We do not seek to know how, through the grace of inner freedom, the individual may rise superior to an irrevocable fate ; we wish to dis- cover the apt form of life, the one that will best open the way of the spirit for humanity. But this way requires organic development, requires self-determination and self- responsibility ; it cannot be the way of coercion, the way of outwardly imposed subordination. One thing do we know, that slavery is the antipodes of spiritual progress. Our age is especially proud of the abolition of slavery. There are no longer any serfs Only in arrogant enact- ments is a man now spoken of as a " subject." He terms himself a " citizen " ; he enjoys countless personal and political rights ; tenders obedience to no individual, but only to the state authority ; joins societies, chooses repre- sentatives, and administers affairs. He does not go into " service," but enters into " labour contracts " ; he is not 54 IN DAYS TO COME a thrall or a journeyman, but an employee ; he has no master, but an employer, who may neither revile him nor punish him. He can throw up his job and go where he pleases ; he can take holidays and travel ; he is, as he says, a free man. But now we note a strange thing ! If he be not one of those few who are termed cultured and well-to-do, ere many days he sits in the workrooms of another employer, with the same daily task of eight hours, under the same supervision, with the same wage and the same amusements, with the same freedom and the same rights. No one coerces him, no one blocks his way, and yet his prematurely aging life runs its course without leisure and without mental balance. The mechanical world confronts him as a com- plicated enigma, upon which the partisan newspaper he reads throws a one-sided light ; the higher world is pre- sented to him in the form ol an extract from a second-rate sermon or a popular sketch ; of his fellow human beings, those who belong to alien circles have the aspect of enemies, and those who belong to his own circle are taciturn com- rades ; his employer is an " exploiter/' and his workshop is a " bone-grinding mill." Civil rights exist, and, above all the suffrage in its two forms. But once more we encounter a strange phenomenon ! In his relations with authority the man is always an object The others have a subjective existence, whether as his military superiors they call him " thou " instead of " you," as judges sentence him, as policemen and officials bully him, question him, order him about. He and his fellows may combine and organize, may hold meetings and demon- strate, but he remains always the ruled and the obedient ; on the golden thrones sit men who resemble him in form, but who live in wide streets planted with trees, drive in carriages, and greet one another ceremoniously. For these others, responsibility, dignity and power. Yet civic life is free to all ; competition reigns ; the strong and the pru- dent may venture and win ; the only restrictions are those of a handful of laws and rules ; the arena is open to every- one. But, once more, he has not the entry. The circle is secretly closed ; its sign-manual is money. To him who hath, is given ; what any one possesses, is subject to in- THE GOAL 55 crease, but first of all he must possess. He possesses what belonged to his ancestors, what they bequeathed to him in the form of education and capital. In lands that are both wealthy and unenclosed, it may be possible for saved pennies to grow to pounds ; but the older and less productive the country, the higher the price of admission into the money- making class. Thus wherever he may turn, the disinherited encounters walls of glass, transparent but unclimbable, walls beyond which there lies freedom, self-determination, wellbeing, and power. The keys of the gates that open into this forbidden land are culture and property, and both are heritable goods. Thus vanishes the last hope of the outcast, the hope that his children may succeed where he has failed. He quits the world with the knowledge that his work has been of service not to himself and his offspring, but to others and their offspring, knowing that the destiny of the coming generations is likewise predetermined and inexorable. What does this signify ? It does not signify the old slavery, which was personal in character, and which, inas much as it united (unnaturally, it is true, but beneath a single roof) the destinies of two individuals or of two families, maintained an ultimate human fellowship and participation. The modern relationship which is the counterpart of the old involves, under the semblance of freedom and self- determination, an anonymous subjugation, not of man by man, but of nation by nation, where, although a man may change employer, the law of one-sided domination remains inviolable. This hereditary servitude exists in all civilised countries ; it is found to prevail among persons who have everywhere like antecedents, a like speech, a like faith, and like customs ; they comprise what is known as the proletariat. It is incompatible with the demand for spiritual freedom and spiritual progress, that, when all are equipped by God with a similar bodily form and with similar talents, one half of mankind should keep the other half in perpetual subjection. It avails nothing to say that the two halves live and work, not for themselves but for the community; for the upper half enjoys free self-determination and works for its own ends, whereas the lower half, with no outlook upon a visible goal, is in compulsory servitude to the 56 IN DAYS TO COME upper half, whose ends the lower half fulfils. Never do we see anyone belonging to the upper stratum voluntarily descending to the lower. On the other hand, the ascent of members of the lower stratum is so effectively prevented by the withholding of culture and property, that very few belonging to the circle of freemen are acquainted with any- one in that circle who at one time belonged, or whose father belonged, to the lowest strata. Sloth and the desire for personal advantage are strong forces when they impel in the direction of compounding with that which exists. The abolition of slavery in America and the abolition of serfdom in Russia, secured passionate advocacy, above all on the part of those who were not injuriously affected by the change. The actual owners of domestic animals in human form defended the peculiar institution on grounds identical with those which are adduced to-day by divines, statesmen, and capitalists, on behalf of the necessity of unfreedom. These grounds are, that subordination is estab- lished by God's will, that all service is precious, that humility is a virtue beyond price. As regards proletarians, just as much as regards slaves and serfs, the arguments are always valid for some other person than the one by whom they are voiced. If we enquire how it comes to pass that the privileged and the property owners express such hardhearted views in all good faith, if we ask why the existing system seems to them beyond reproach, firm in its foundations, and abso- lutely inalterable, if we enquire why they think that the only alternative is chaos, we find that the main respon- sibility for this irrational one-sidedness and involuntary harshness attaches to the plan of campaign of the socialist movement. This movement is stamped with the curse handed down to it by its father, who was not a prophet but a man of learning, one who placed his trust, not in the human heart, whence all genuine world happenings well up, but in science. This puissant and unhappy man erred so gravely that he ascribed to science the power of determining values and establishing goals. He despised the forces of transcendental philosophy, of inspiration, and of eternal justice. For this reason, socialism has never acquired any con- THE GOAL 57 structive force. Even when, through the unconscious and undesired influence of socialism on its opponents, such a constructive force has been kindled, the socialists have misunderstood the designs of the opponents and have rejected them. Never has socialism been able to point the way towards a luminous goal ; its most passionate utterances have been complaints and accusations ; its activities have been agitatory and trivial. Instead of formulating a comprehensive philosophy, it has concerned itself about the problem of material goods ; and even this pitiful mine and thine of the riddle of capital was to be solved by business measures in the domain of economics and politics. Although here and there some dissatisfied thinker may have sought a path, may have indicated a path, into the realm of ethics, the realm of the purely human, the realm of the absolute, such men of might have never been honoured as the solar centres of the movement, but have invariably been accorded a scant aesthetic toleration as dull and lesser lights. In the centre of the stage, atheistic materialism was enthroned ; its strength lay not in love, but in discipline ; its revelation was not the ideal, but utility. Out of negation there can arise a party, not a world movement. The prophetic sense and the prophetic word will herald the world movement ; mere programme building can never do so. The prophetic word is a single and ideal word. No matter whether it be named God, faith, father- land, freedom, humanity, or soul, to the prophet, possessions and their distribution are but shadowy incidentals ; to the prophet, even life and death, human happiness, poverty and need, sickness and war, can never be ultimate aims and dangers. Socialism has never enkindled the heart of man, nor has any great and fortunate deed ever been performed in its name. It has awakened interest and aroused fear ; but interests and fears rule for a day, not for an epoch. In the fanaticism of a gloomy absorption in science, in the dread fanaticism of the intellect, the socialists have closed their ranks to form a party, inspired by the incredible error of the belief that a one-sided and disconnected force can exercise enduring influence. The steam-hammer does not 58 IN DAYS TO COME destroy the lump of iron, but consolidates it. He who wishes to transform the world, must not press upon it from without, but must grasp it from within. The world will open to the word which vibrates, however faintly, in every heart ; which helps to change every heart. The blind knocking of a party of interested persons engenders deafness and closes the ears. Taking it all in all, considering in broad outline the purely political activity of the socialist movement during three generations, we perceive that, apart from organisatory influences in the business sphere, the upshot of socialist activities has been to cause an enormous increase in the spirit of reaction, to disintegrate liberal thought, and to depreciate the sentiment of freedom. Inasmuch as socialism reduced the problem of popular enfranchisement to a ques- tion of money and material goods, inasmuch as it was under this ensign that socialism won over the masses, socialism as an ideal proved frustrate. The impulse towards inde- pendence degenerated into greed. A number of the more cultured supporters withdrew from the ranks ; the bour- geoisie was terror-stricken ; the forces of reaction were redoubled ; the reactionaries were enabled to laugh at the poor devils of the multitude, at those who did good while wishing to do evil, at those who strengthened the throne and the altar while extolling the communist commonwealth. Regarded from within, socialism has been a union of inter- ested persons ; contemplated from without, it is a hierarchy of officials. What was to have been a world movement, degenerated into a political party, succumbed to the illusion of numbers, became infected with a popular formula of unity. In contrast with every genuine epoch-making force, socialism continually lost effective strength in proportion as ostensibly it grew strongei. In its reaction against millenniary utilitarian schemes, against bureaucratic and monetary ideals, against shallow and specious formulas, against threats and invectives, Europe has fallen into sloth. We must cast off this lethargy. As soon as we realise its unworthiness, as soon as we are spurred to actual endeavour, we shall fearlessly march for a space along the road leading towards socialism, while rejecting its ultimate goals. If in the inner world we desire the growth of the soul, in the THE GOAL 59 visible world we desire deliverance from hereditary servitude. If we wish to free those who now are slaves, this does not signify that we look upon any particular way of distributing material goods as in itself important ; that we regard any gradation of the privilege to enjoy as in itself desirable ; that we look upon any utilitarian formula as decisive. Consequently, it is not our aim to level the inequalities of human destiny and human pretension ; it is not our aim to make all men independent or well-to-do, to give all men equal rights or equal happiness. Our ideal is the replace- ment of a blind and inexorable system of institutions by self-determination and self-responsibility. We do not wish to force freedom on men, but to open for them the way to freedom. It is of no moment whether the requisite human or moral sacrifices be great or small, seeing that our aspira- tion is not towards utility or profit, but towards divine law. If, through the working of this law, the sum of out- ward happiness on earth were to be diminished, no matter. If the progress of apparent civilisation and culture were to be retarded, this, too, would be a minor drawback. We shall dispassionately consider whether these disadvantages are likely to ensue. If it prove otherwise, this will not serve to encourage us in our design. For we need neither goad nor lure. As far as the visible world is concerned, a longing for a worthy and just existence, and the love of mankind, are sufficient motives ; and in the world that lies beyond vision, the law of the soul is the impelling force. If from now onwards for a time this book be con- cerned with the things of the day, and yet fail to exhibit the experimental, demonstrative, and convincing methods to which matter-of-fact persons are accustomed and which they term practical, this may be explained by the following distinction. We have a thousand books which irrefutably establish the last tenth of some widely extended conviction until the next conviction comes, to destroy the old. There are plenty of books, likewise, which can deduce the most useful conclusions from given pre- mises. In both cases, unfortunately, despite all the mathematical certitude of the methods, there is lacking certitude of aim ; for recognition of the goal can never be 60 IN DAYS TO COME mathematical, but is always intuitive. Here we make no claim for certitude, but thoughtfully expound sentiments and values, inasmuch as this book is not one of practical demonstration, but one which aims at revealing a goal. If to the smallest extent the goal thus revealed corresponds to the sensibilities of the objective spirit, the tracery of realities will without our aid shape itself upon the arches of thought. The goal towards which we strive is the goal of human freedom. Ill THE WAY THE WAY OF ECONOMICS THE historical outlook has served our thought for a century. It is now degenerating, and is becoming harmful, especially when it is applied to institutions. Natural creations undergo change, while maintaining their meaning and purpose, or while these alter very slowly. Institutions remain unchanged in name and important attributes, while changing their content and even their very reason for existence ; a new dweller takes up his residence in the old house. For short, we may speak of this phenomenon as " the Substitution of the Content." It arises from the circumstance that the number of institutional forms is restricted ; from the fact that inertia and parsimony of spirit make us glad to employ established formulas ; and likewise because, owing to the constancy of secular progress, it is difficult to recognise the moment when the choice of a new concept and name is desirable, when we should clear dead organisms out of the way, and when it would be well for us to introduce new outlooks. The historical outlook is invariably attractive and stimulating ; it can clarify many a name and can explain many a fact ; it can establish varieties ; it can throw light upon functional movements and transformations. But it leads to dangerous error when it undertakes to interpret or to develop the extant, living, and working organism. We may learn as an interesting item of historical lore that the pontificate originated out of bridge building ; but it would be a serious fallacy to deduce from the science of engineering, principles applicable to ecclesiastical institutions. It is instructive to trace an evolutionary series from the Athenian Dionysiacs to the light comedies of modern France ; but we 63 64 IN DAYS TO COME should hardly recommend any theatrical manager to be guided by archaeological considerations in judging any play submitted to him for examination. We make fun of the view which found expression in the days of the French enlightenment, that the state came into existence as the outcome of a social contract, and we now trace the origin of the state to prehistoric sources. Nevertheless, in an organism whose existence is dependent upon an equilibrium of forces, we find something more closely akin to a mutual and contractual relationship than to any totemistic or patriarchal function ; in especial, the modificatory move- ments in the structure of the state assume forms very similar to those assumed by the modifications in contractual relationships. Nowhere has the Substitution of the Content been more conspicuously at work than in the nature of the state. Hence the sterility of the attempt to discover a historically comprehensive definition of this organism. For the state, despite its apparent constancy, is refashioned in every generation, though its name remains unchanged. Only under the metaphysical form, as the embodied will of the collective spirit, can it be regarded as a continuous entity a view which has no relation to temporal happenings, and is without practical bearing. From a false application of the historical outlook, there results a false estimate of that which is historically recorded, which is regarded as being endowed with absolute value, so that tradition is conceived to possess a positive force. The value of a historic fact lies in this, that it is a historically transient and perishable thing. It came into existence as a revolutionary innovation ; it passes away when it is obsolete and outworn ; between whiles, it maintains itself for just so long as it is useful and tolerable. The value of tradition lies in the slackening of the movement, which thereby gains constancy ; the less emphatic name of " inertia " illumines this power, which is purely negative, and which, despite its great practical significance, can never possess the value of scientific refutation. It possessed that value in former days in relation to religious and philosophical conviction ; it still claims that value to-day in relation to social and political science. Though it is necessary to repudiate this theoretical value, none the less we must THE WAY OF ECONOMICS 65 recognise that, besides its practical value, tradition has also an aesthetic value. This latter secures expression in formulas, vestments, ceremonies, and festivals, which endow the commonplace with colour, pride, and port, enabling the present to luxuriate with a well-justified complacency in memories of an honourable past. But the aesthetic side of tradition must remain, as it always remains for vigorous nations, acknowledged play-acting ; it must never become an essential part of life. For festal purposes, it is charming that the King of Prussia should occasionally present himself before the public as the elector of Brandenburg ; but it would be undesirable, on this account, to claim for the modern province of Brandenburg a political preference over Silesia or Rhineland. These preliminary remarks were necessary to explain the author's working method and to throw light upon the Substitution of the Content. The old stratification of feudalism was justified in practice by readiness for war, by human superiority, by the organisation and the residential ownership of the territorial conquerors. Teleologically, it was justified by administrative, defensive, and protective considerations, based upon hereditary qualities. This hereditary trans- missibility was exercised through training in the use of arms and in the fighting spirit, through the selective breeding of appropriate bodily and mental characteristics, through religious consecration, and by the enforcement of discipline and good behaviour upon the subject classes. Progressive colonisation and the increasing intensity of economic life prevented the upper stratum from extending concomitantly with the lower stratum. It proved out of the question to provide an adequate equipment for younger sons, so that some of these entered the church, while others emigrated ; some estates were broken up, and others coalesced ; ecclesiastical and territorial principalities came into existence ; in the towns a middle class sprang to life ; and it became impracticable for the rigid and inexpansible upper stratum to cover the enlarging lower stratum. When it became necessary to extend military training to the 5 66 IN DAYS TO COME lower stratum the last justification for the feudalist ordering of society vanished. A new hereditary stratification had already occurred in the body politic, the stratification of ownership. Springing out of territorial suzerainty and ecclesiastical ownership, out of colonies, monopolies, mining rights, and profiteering businesses, masses of capital had come into existence. The mechanisation of industry, manufacture, trade, thought, and research, had seized upon life. The whole movement of the world was guided by the impulse towards the revenues upon capital. The hereditability of the power of capital had issued out of the hereditability of caste and of real and personal property. Since no one doubted its justification, no 'theoretical justification was provided. A certain inward justification might, in case of need, have been furnished at the outset, for capital made its appearance chiefly as the outcome of enterprise. But individual enterprises outlive the generations, and therefore require an unbroken series of ready-made leaders and masters, such as were furnished by hereditary succession, and such as custom already provided for the control of agriculture. Above all, there was as yet no system of popular education. The homes of the well-to-do provided an education which was superior alike in point of theory and practice to the education open to the commonalty. This furnished additional protection for the concentration of means which were unable to work effectively until concentrated. Three circumstances could not fail to threaten the hereditary stratification of capitalism : the elementary school, by destroying the educational advantages possessed by the owners of capital ; the institution of the joint-stock method of financing enterprise, whereby business was deprived of its individual characteristics, so that it was no longer necessary to have a hereditary system for the provision of managers ; and the politico-militarist emancipation which brought about a wide diffusion of administrative experience, and taught people to contemplate wider horizons. If these circumstances were void of effect, this arose from the rapid and enormous increase in the power of capital. The capitalists, by joining forces with such territorial and THE WAY OF ECONOMICS 67 feudalist powers as still remained in existence, by the ramification of relationships and interest, by education and mode of life, by journalistic influence and political indis- pensability, combined to form a class. Having done this, they defended their privileges, in the belief that the assault on these was impelled, not by reason, but by rival interests. Thus the new stratification did not destroy, but rather strengthened, the vestiges of the old stratification. The owning class, since it did not intrude from without but rose up from beneath, could not create any forms of life peculiar to itself. Being therefore compelled to borrow these forms from its predecessors, it became indebted, and had to accept an inferior status. In the second place the members of the ruling houses remained partial to the feudal stratum for old acquaintance' sake, because the feudal magnates had experience in the arts of government and war, because they were settled on the soil and remained inalterable ; and since the members of the feudal nobility were in part dependent upon the crown for the material conditions of existence, they seemed to the crown more trustworthy in relation to direct monarchical claims. In the third place, those who belonged to the two dominant strata had no objection to a system of mutual dependence ; the territorial nobleman who was likewise wealthy possessed a double advantage, and deliberately used this in favour rather of caste than of class. European society, in its play of changing colours, thus exhibits a strange phenomenon, as it were of double refraction. The stratum which is still predominantly feudal has been permeated by the extrinsic capitalist stratum. Both remain hereditary, and they agree in that both create a passive counterpart, which on the capitalist side has become an unescapable human destiny. We have already recognised that this destiny, in its rigid predetermination, is incompatible with the advancement of the spiritual life. It now becomes clear that no future order, however gradated, stratified, and differentiated, can possibly possess the quality of hereditary fixity. Whatever its guiding fundamental law may be, it cannot rest upon coercion and force ; it will entail the reconciliation of the common will with the individual will effecting this 68 IN DAYS TO COME reconciliation upon a moral basis ; it will allow ample room for self-determination, responsibility, and spiritual expansion. Thus the demand for rebirth no longer presents itself solely under the aspect of the liberation of a class, but quite plainly as a moralisation of social and economic ordinances under the law of personal responsibility. We find the way of development to the extent to which we allow ourselves to be guided by the repudiation of injustice. Mutual hostility between the classes arising out of the over-intensification of economic contrasts, the power of a chance success or of an immoral success, the monopo- lisation of culture these are the things which create the forces of oppression. Hereditary transmission perpetuates them. Our way is the right one if it lead to the annihilation of the hostile forces, while at the same time maintaining human order, promoting true civilisation, and enlarging spiritual freedom. The crudest form of the curative impulse is the demand for immediate relief. The tree makes a direct demand for light, space, air, water, and earth ; it takes what it needs, the neighbouring tree may perish, the soil may go sour; the forest carries on a struggle against moor and heath as long as it can ; then the forest dies, and with it even the most successful tree perishes. Forester and educationist, physician and statesman, have long since abandoned the snatching at immediate relief. The physician does not attempt to treat chilled limbs with warm wrappings ; the statesman does not try to still the drunkard's craving by the building of additional breweries. The curative artist surveys the whole life-field of the organism to be protected ; he attacks the disease, not the symptom ; he estimates the totality of the vital forces, and in accordance with a deliberate design he arranges for the distribution of these forces among the various organs, favouring here and inhibiting there, strengthening one and weakening another. Socialism, the doctrine which delights to claim the epithet " scientific," and which nevertheless in its quest for popularity is continually forced to repudiate the THE WAY OF ECONOMICS 69 scientific method, has never got beyond the search for immediate relief. Thus runs the popular argument : What is the goal ? Higher wages. What lowers wages ? The interest on capital. How can wages be increased ? By suppressing interest. How can interest be suppressed ? It would be logical to reply, By dividing up capital. A more scientific answer, however is to say, By nationalising capital. Both answers are equally fallacious. Both misunderstand the law of capital in its contemporary and decisive function. That function is to direct the stream of labour to the place where the need is most urgent. We may recall here the law of the Substitution of the Content. The fundamental question is not, out of what causes and needs an organism has been created in the past ; the fundamental question is, what needs the organism actually subserves at the present day. Let us assume that the social revolution has been completed. The world president for the current year is enthroned in Chicago, governing from that centre the various republics of the world, and supervising through his executive instruments all international affairs. He wields the ultimate authority over the capital of the earth. Among 700,000 proposals submitted to the Department for New Enterprises, three stand out as worthy of serious consideration. The first is for a railway through Tibet ; the second is for the exploitation of petroleum wells in Tierra del Fuego ; the third is an irrigation scheme for East Africa. Politically and technically, all are free from objection ; economically, all seem equally desirable ; but, in view of the available means, one only can be carried out. Which is the president to choose ? In accordance with customs deriving from the capital- istic epoch, three carefully drafted estimates of prospective profits have been sent in. Tibet would " pay " 5 per cent. ; Tierra del Fuego, 7 per cent. ; East Africa, 14 per cent. The habits of the capitalistic era prevail to this extent, that, with the president's approval, the department decides in favour of the East African irrigation scheme. It would seem, the estimates of probable profits might 70 IN DAYS TO COME now be torn up, that labour and materials to the requisite amount might be sent to East Africa, and that the possibility of miscalculation might be ignored. The estimates of possible profits would have been mere arithmetical problems, worked out solely to ascertain the varying degrees of need, and negligible from a practical point of view. Unfortunately, however, six states raise objections. They complain that all the advantage of the new under- taking accrues to the inhabitants of East Africa, who alone will profit by the increased immigration, by the improvement of the conditions of life, climate, etc. Portugal has long been waiting for one thing, Japan for another, and now the world's treasury, which all help to fill, is to be depleted for the sake of one country alone. The president cannot reply, " In future each territorial area must look after itself," seeing that for half a century important enterprises have remained unfulfilled through insufficiency of the communalised means. The only resource open to him is to declare, " The plan will be carried out, but the East African Department of Economy must return a revenue of so much to the world treasury." The resurrection of interest has taken place. In a German manufacturing town an old state factory has to be demolished. It is obsolete and worthless. A clever captain of industry offers at a minimal expense to re-equip the factory for some new object. He is unable to produce proof that the new undertaking will be profitable, but is prepared to shoulder the risk. The provincial prefecture rejects the experiment. The district authority does not relinquish the design ; furthermore, the man who proposed it offers a hundred silver watches and five pianos (borrowed from his friends) as security. It appears that innumerable district authorities have done similar things, and the entrepreneur is instructed to go ahead. The factory is leased to him. Here we have another resurrection of interest. Never, except on the purely ideal plane, can the proper use of capital be secured in any other way than by ascertaining that the return shall be sufficient. Never can the risks of such estimates be met, never can the one-sided expenditure of capital be covered, in any other way than THE WAY OF ECONOMICS 71 by the actual return of interest on the capital not by its return merely on paper. If all the capital in the world were nationalised to-day, it would to-morrow be made over to innumerable borrowers, and would the day after to-morrow be distributed among innumerable owners. The necessity of interest derives from the necessity of choice among rival projects. It is the expression of superlative urgency and lucrativeness among the schemes for satisfying needs. But the indispensability of interest is likewise disclosed by a more independent and more comprehensive consideration of the matter. If we survey the whole field of some national industrial system, the German for instance, in respect of the distribution of capital, a remarkable fact is disclosed. Flourishing and profitable as German industry is, in its mighty aggregate this industry pays nothing out, but draws means in ; the increase in capital and the increase in indebtedness exceed the amount paid in interest. Manufacturing industry is at work only for the increase of its own organism ; it makes no returns ; other fields of economic life must make over their savings for the sustenance of manufacturing industry. At the first glance this seems amazing, but the fact is most instructive. For what happens to the savings of the world ? In so far as they do not create cultural institu- tions, they subserve the purposes of productive institutions. To a moderate extent the various states store up materials of iron and treasures of gold ; the rest is used for economic enterprise, and with the growth of economic enterprise there is a concomitant growth in the paper tokens, the printed formulas of currency. This increase in interest- bearing enterprises must perforce continue while population continues to increase, and so long as the individual still lacks purchasable commodities which he would fain possess. A corresponding growth takes place in the aggregate of the world's investments. The annual increase is precisely equivalent to what is saved from the income of the workers and the income of the recipients of interest after the expenditure of what is needed for current consumption, for the general purposes of civilisation, and for armaments. The savings out of the wages of labour are comparatively 72 IN DAYS TO COME small. We may doubt whether they increase proportionally to the increase in wages, so long as the desires of the average consumer remain unsatiated. Consequently the annual investments of the world consist chiefly of the interest on capital after the deduction of the current consumption of the owners of capital. The amount of this consumption is regulated by various factors, which have nothing what- ever to do with the amount of aggregate interest. These factors are: the distribution of the separate portions of interest ; the average standard of life; moral values. If all the capital in the world were owned by a single individual, so that consumption were thereby reduced to a minimum, then, without danger to economic life, and therefore in actual fact, interest, and therewith the average rate of interest throughout the world, could never be less than corresponds to the expenditure which the world economy needs for its continuous expansion. Fundamentally, therefore, and in its amount, interest is determined by the requirements of world investment ; it is the reserve which the world is forced to make for the maintenance of its economic system ; it is a tax upon production, universally raised at the point of production, as a primary charge. It will be inevitable, even when all the means of production are concentrated into a single hand, indifferently whether the hand be that of an individual, of a state, or of a community of states. It can only be diminished by the amount corresponding to the consumption of the present owners of capital. Thus the nationalisation of the means of production has no economic significance. Conversely, the concentration of capital into a few hands does not entail any economic danger beyond that of arbitrariness in consumption and in the forms of investment. But inasmuch as we have seen that the forms of investment will still be determined by a competition between the interests upon capital, the purely economic difficulty of just distribution is restricted to the domain of consumption. Interest per se is indis- pensable to provide what is annually needed for world investment. Nor does it matter who pays the interest provided always that it is devoted to the purpose of investment. What matters is, whether and how far the THE WAY OF ECONOMICS 73 recipient of interest has the right to use it to the detriment of the community for unprofitable expenditure, how far he has the right to squander it on pleasure. The economic problem becomes a problem of consumption. But further considerations press. First of all comes the question of power. If all capital were concentrated in the hands of an intelligent and sober-minded individual, his personal consumption would be trifling. All the saved interest would accrue, in accordance with the principles of rational selection, to the benefit of the various enterprises, and would be devoted to the increase of their functional capacity. To this extent, our hypothetical recipient of interest would be a useful administrator of the world's economic system. But in another sense he would not be this. For everything in economic life would depend on his favour, likewise everything in political life, and likewise in the last resort all the amenities of civilisation. At his nod, one would be exalted, another degraded ; one district would be favoured, another left desolate. He could stipulate whatever reciprocal service he pleased in return for his favour. The freedom of the world would be destroyed, for ownership in its modern form is power. A further question arises, that of unjust demands. Even if it should prove possible, through the restriction of immoderate consumption, to reduce interest, there would still be no guarantee that the share of the lower classes in the property of the world would be increased. Monopolies, speculative gains, and frauds, would still be possible ; the recipients of interest and legatees, functionless persons, could live as parasites on the community. There would be a state of drones within the state. If the socialistic method of the nationalisation of capital be excluded as impracticable and ineffective, we are confronted with an apparently insoluble antinomy : the concentration of property reduces comparative consumption, and there- with reduces interest, but endangers the balance of power ; the dividing-up of property lessens the concentration of power, but increases consumption, and reduces the functional capacity of interest. Both these alternatives are attended with the danger of unjust demands. We can discern a similar cleavage when we study the 74 IN DAYS TO GOME great natural system of the distribution of the waters that fall on the surface of the globe. An exclusive system of mighty rivers, retaining these waters within their banks, would avoid waste, but would be unpractical in its working, for the plains would be arid. A close network of streams and springs allows much to ooze away and much to evaporate, but it irrigates the meadows and glens, it is not difficult to manage. Nature, however, supplements these systems by a third. By evaporation, the waters are kept in constant circulation. There rise ever from the vast expanses of the sea to pass through the atmosphere streams which are mightier than the visible streams of the land, streams which unwearyingly distribute their riches and besprinkle the fruitful soil. Here, where the fertilising distribution of the possessions of the world is our task, it behoves us to discover the third force which shall create a new mobility. We must discover the force that will effect an up and down movement of the masses in a direction perpendicular to the levels of rigid compulsion ; a force that will create out of superabundance, will supply where there is need ; a force which shall put into the general circulation the resources stored in the reservoirs of the state a state which is not to be, as now, a parched soil of indebtedness, but a life-giving soil, teeming with wealth. Enough of comparisons. We realise that no mechanical management of the property of the world, no mechanical change effected once and for all, can bring about a moral and just regulation of the property system. We shall have to re-examine our ideas concerning property, consumption, and demand, so that we may recognise how much permanent justice, and how much antiquated inheritance of crime and error, are involved in these concepts ; and in order that we may estimate what road will be adopted by reasonable and infallible reality, so that upon the path of the material world we may draw nearer to the goal which is here termed Morality and in the beyond is termed Soul. Property, consumption, and demand, are not private matters. As long as the world was wide and thinly peopled, as long as the economic domains were separate and circum- THE WAY OF ECONOMICS 75 scribed, each one could win for himself from nature whatever he desired in the way of vegetable, animal, or human booty. At will, he could use this booty, barter it, make it serviceable, destroy it. To-day the world has become a densely populated and cunningly articulated structure, permeated by number- less visible and invisible arteries, nerves, partitions, and receptacles ; cared for, protected, watched over, ordered, by innumerable animate and inanimate forces. Every step creates rights, imposes duties, incurs costs, entails dangers ; every step trenches upon alien rights, alien property, alien spheres of life. Every individual has need of the common protection, of the communal institutions, which he did not create ; of the corn, which he did not sow ; of the linen, which he did not spin. The roof under which he sleeps, the street in which he walks, the tool which he handles, have all been made by the community ; and he has no more than that share in them which mutual agreement and custom assign to him. The very air which he breathes is not free ; it is protected and purified from exhalations and vapours, from disease germs and poisons. When we survey this infinitude of restrictions, encum- brances, and obligations, it is difficult to realise the extent of economic freedom which the individual nevertheless possesses. Owing everything to the community, he can work for the community as much or as little as he pleases ; he chooses this work freely, whether it be useful or utterly superfluous ; he can misuse, spoil, or destroy whatever property he possesses ; he can demand from the community guarantees for his ownership, and can even claim from the community a careful provision for the carrying out of his will after his death. In days to come, people will find it difficult to under- stand that the will of a dead man could bind the living ; that any individual was empowered to enclose for his private gratification mile upon mile of land ; that without requiring any special authorisation from the state he could leave cultivable land untilled, could demolish buildings or erect them, ruin beautiful landscapes, secrete or disfigure works of art ; that he conceived himself justified, by appropriate business methods, in bringing whatever portion he could of the communal property under his own private control ; 76 IN DAYS TO COME justified, provided he paid his taxes, in using this property as he pleased, in taking any number of men into his own service and setting them to whatever work seemed good to him, so long only as there was no technical violation of the law ; justified in engaging in any kind of business, so long as he did not infringe a state monopoly or promote any enterprise legally defined as a swindle ; justified in any practice, however absurd and however harmful to the community, provided always he remained able to pay his way. During recent decades we have seen that the bourgeoisie has come to regard as unremunerative art and political trifling everything lying outside the domain of a busy individualist economic life, everything which cannot be explained in terms of profit and loss. Now, at the opening of the second year of the war, it is beginning to dawn upon the bourgeois intelligence that all economic life is rooted in the state, that state policy must take pre- cedence of business, that the individual stands indebted to the community for what he owns and for what he can do. Too long, in economic affairs, has individualistic industry, guided by the rationalist notion of individual rights and liberties, been tardy and mutinous in yielding to the demands of the community. Those who did give ground, felt that injustice was being done them. They yielded in the spirit in which people comply with the demands of some sturdy beggar. The community must ask itself what claims it is entitled to put forward in the name of the higher law. When these demands have been satisfied, there will accrue to individualist economics whatever is left over, whatever is indispensable to the maintenance of its mechanism and to the provision of an adequate standard of life for its overseers. After this discussion of warranties, we must draw attention to the fact that the regulation of consumption will unlock the only storehouse from which the abundance of the available economic materials can be purposively increased. The natural increase in the quantity of produced and producible commodities is not, as many suppose, a mere matter of will. Production is invariably limited by THE WAY OF ECONOMICS 77 the actual supply of means of production and of labour power. At the opening of the present economic era it was currently believed that luxury was advantageous because it led to the circulation of money throughout the community. If we stretch a point, we may concede the truth of this for the early days of industrial activity, when artificial stimulation may be requisite. But in the higher stages of its evolution, economic life depends upon the deliberate concentration of all available energies. Rightly, therefore, does the term economy connote the idea of thrift. When a Roman magnate despatched five hundred slaves to catch a rare fish, or when the Egyptian queen dissolved her pearl in vinegar, to either the expenditure might seem justified, for the slaves were fed during their working day, while the pearl fishers were remunerated for their years of danger. It behoves us to take other views. Working days and working years squandered for brief glitter or fugitive enjoyment are lost beyond recall. They have been taken from the restricted modicum of labour in the world, their yield has been withdrawn from the niggard supply of our planet. All have a title to the product of the labour for whose performance all must work together as if bound by an invisible chain. The years of labour requisite for the production of some delicate embroidery, or some elaborate pageant, have been filched from the clothing of the poorest among us ; the carefully mown lawns of a private garden could with less expenditure of labour have grown wheat ; the steam yacht, with its captain and crew, with its stores of food and coal, has been withheld for the whole term of its existence from the possibility of playing a useful part in the world's commerce. Economically regarded, the world, and still more the nation, is a union of producers. Whoever squanders labour, labour-time, or the means of labour, is robbing the community. Consumption is no private matter, but a communal affair ; it is an affair of state, of morality, of humanity. Here we encounter an antinomy. Everything that is produced, is used up, is used up by consumption. In the most advantageous case, it serves for the production of 78 IN DAYS TO COME new things, which in turn are used up in consumption. If, then, every commodity is created for consumption, and if all consumption serves for the maintenance of life and for the expansion of life, why should one instance of consumption be regarded as justified, and why should another be looked upon as harmful ? If everything passes by the same road, the determinative principle by which our judgment is guided must be the order of importance. Such is actually the case. It is the order of importance in demand, upon which depends the serial arrangement of our ideas, from necessary consumption to frivolous luxury. Any act of consumption is an act of luxury if there remain unsatisfied some primary need which could have been satisfied had the luxurious demand remained unfulfilled. It is not my intention to write a treatise upon luxury, or a manual of casuistry. The notion of elementary and urgent need is a variable one ; this is incontestible, and a matter of trifling significance. No one will insist upon a mechanically precise statement of such a concept. If an entire province is hunger-stricken, we must not unreflectingly censure as extravagant the provision of a special train which is to carry a responsible statesman to the centre of the starving district ; nor is it spendthrift to provide for the intellectual worker the necessary safeguarding from the frictions of daily life, even when this segregation must be purchased by a general sacrifice in the form of space and labour. But the name of luxury must be applied to that which the thoughtless crowd describes as a charity ffite, must be applied to pleasure-seeking expenditure which masquerades under the name of philanthropy, and which with cold-hearted compassion credits its victims with the value of emptied magnums of champagne. It is sufficient for our purpose to know that an order of importance can reasonably be established among our needs. Therewith the antinomy of consumption is solved. If from the outlook of this order of importance we contemplate the world's production of goods, we realise with a terrible sense of shock the fatuity of contemporary economic life. The superfluous, the null, the harmful, and the contemptible, are heaped up in our shops. We find there the useless gauds of fashion, destined to glitter for an THE WAY OF ECONOMICS 79 hour with a spurious light ; intoxicants, stimulants, and anodynes galore ; nauseating scents ; worthless imitations of industrial and artistic models ; articles made not for use but for show ; trash of all kinds which serves as the small change for those who are compelled by convention to give one another presents. Season after season the show-cases are refilled with these most futile of latest novelties. The manufacture, transport, and sale of such articles, require the labour of millions of hands ; demand raw materials, coal, machines, and factories ; occupy nearly a third of the industry and commerce of the world. He who, over his glass, has been extolling the incomparable splendour of our civilisation, should on his way home glance into the shop windows, and convince himself that this same civilisation breeds strange desires. He who sees a garden- plot desecrated by the senseless humour of earthenware gnomes, hares, and toadstools, may contemplate the spectacle as an image of the ill-conducted economy of our day. Were but half of this squandered labour directed into suitable channels, it could provide food, clothing, and shelter for every impoverished wight among the dwellers in civilised lands. At a later stage we shall have to consider the incalculable responsibility for these economic malpractices, and to refer to the share in the blame which unfortunately attaches to women. Enough now to say that by wisely economising the extravagances that disgrace our own epoch, the future can and will create means to generalise a sufficiency of wellbeing. Upon us it devolves to recognise what is amiss, and to seek for a remedy, inspired by the knowledge that the consumption of commodities is not a private matter, and aware that this consumption is derived from the stores of forces and materials which are procurable in strictly limited quantities, and for which each one of us must share responsibility. Consequently the methods of production are not a private affair, but are matters of public interest. If we take a comprehensive view of the wellbeing of our age, no matter whether it seems to be derived from industry or from commerce, we find that in ultimate analysis it depends upon coal, the noblest raw material on our planet. 80 IN DAYS TO COME That which during hundreds of thousands of years grew as a precious vegetation, that which was condensed into balsams and essences of complex composition, and that which, age after age, has been stored up in the bowels of the earth, is torn out from the hidden recesses by the men of our generation, and is devoted by them to the ignoble service of a thoughtless and wasteful burning. It would be a well-merited disgrace if this economic epoch were in the future to be stigmatised as the age of the coal robbers, for it has derived its wealth from the rifling of these hoards. Too late have we learned the value of this true philosopher's stone ; too late are we beginning to husband the treasure. It should be a matter for legislation to promote the careful separation of the fossil substance by distillation and other means, so that only the comparatively valueless residue should be applied to the generation of energy by combustion. It should further be a matter for legislation to take measures against the squandering of energy by the employment of imperfect mechanical appliances, by false parsimony, and by the wasteful use of labour power. If coal were honoured as we honour wheat and bread, the problem of its prime cost of production would cease to trouble us, and therewith the struggle with the miners about wages would cease. Just as economic considerations have been overruled in order that demands for the safety and wellbeing of the workers may be fulfilled, so likewise is it necessary that material objects indispensable to economic life shall be protected against ignorant and thriftless waste. It is obvious that a tabular statement of the outlay on consumption does not include the expenditure of the nations for cultural purposes ; nevertheless, it will be as well to differentiate this expenditure very clearly from the concept of consumption, so that opposing inferences may be linked up with the discussion. Needs have been considered in their serial order of importance, so that we might emphasise the relativity of the notion of luxury ; but no attempt has been made to discuss the question, whither, in the last resort, consumption leads, and what final purpose it subserves. If we believed that the maintenance and reproduction of life comprised the THE WAY OF ECONOMICS 81 whole meaning of the world's work and of its stream of commodities, then sympathy and the love of pleasure would be the meagre energies which, without conviction and without passion, would guide our will on the path to the future. Our will towards perfectionment, ardent and full of faith, presupposes and demonstrates the emergence of absolute values ; inasmuch as we contemplate and proclaim the growth of the soul, we prepare its way by the upbuilding of that intermediate world which is based upon matter and has its summits in the sublime. This world is enduring ; what mankind has glimpsed and experienced in the way of love, art, faith, and thought, can never be lost ; Jacob's dream is realised as the undying work of the human mission. The purport of all earthly economy is the creation of ideal values. For this reason, the sacrifice of material goods which these ideal values demand, is not the expenditure of consumption, but the ultimate fulfilment of the aforesaid mission. Consequently all genuinely cultural tasks elude economic estimates ; they are incommensurable with goods and with life ; they are beyond price, and can be assigned a definite value solely for the purpose of exchanging them for higher idealities ; they are not means, they are not current coin, but self-existent entities. When we are discussing the distribution of property, we shall have to consider the converse of this question, which runs as follows : How is it possible to increase the flow of earthly goods to the sacrificial places where the material is subtilised to become spiritual ? We here approach a matter which will demand fuller discussion at a later stage. I refer to the modification in moral sensibility which must precede and accompany the new outlook in economics. But akeady we touch upon the threefold principle : economics is not a private matter, but a communal matter ; it is not an end in itself, but a means for the attainment of the absolute ; it is not a right, but a duty. To expound the mechanical means, the measures and the laws, requisite for the realisation of these fundamental ideas in any specific country, and above all in Germany, will be my concern in this work only in the case of new-fashioned ideas, which seem to hover in the air, although their connection 6 82 IN DAYS TO COME with the extant and the human in a word their reality has not yet been constructively established. My primary purpose is to indicate goals. Just as the architect can expound the theory of the arch and its value, without producing the designs of any actual building until its size has been prescribed, until its site has been chosen, and the means for its construction have been provided, so we may be content to point out that recognised goals, goals upon whose attainment we can unite, may be reached by innumerable routes which have already been sufficiently explored. The choice from among these routes may be left to be decided in accordance with the circumstances of the time and with mechanical possibilities. Our function here is to save a despised building material from the rubbish- heap of prejudice, and to lay the foundations for the erection of future economic edifices. We have to direct our attention to the idea of legislation for the control of luxury. Taxes upon expenditure, taxes upon luxury, are subject to the commonplace criticism that their results are deceptive, seeing that they restrict consumption. Consequently they seem ineffective when considered from the financial outlook, so that accessory matters are regarded as essential, while the chief effect is looked upon as a harmful accessory. If we invert the problem, so that the restriction of useless consumption is made the primary aim, the riddle of efficiency is spontaneously solved. When we recall that every string of pearls imported into the country corresponds to the expenditure needed for the improvement of a landed estate, or makes us indebted to foreigners for an annual interest equivalent to the yield of a prosperous farm ; when we recall that every thousand bottles of champagne pur- chased from France swallows up the cost of training a technician or a man of learning ; that the money spent upon our imports of silk, plumage, scents, etc., would suffice to relieve all the poverty in Germany ; that the excess of expenditure upon distilled liquors in this country as compared with the United States is equivalent to the burden of our war loans if we think of these and of a hundred different instances, we shall find it difficult to understand how society can tolerate such squandering of the national wealth, and how it can refrain from making effective use of the legitimate THE WAY OF ECONOMICS 83 methods of taxation. People's minds are still dominated by the preposterous notion that luxury promotes the circulation of money, that consumption is a private matter, that people would be thrown out of work by transferring them from destructive occupations to creative occupations. In Germany the levying of income tax is taken as a matter of course. It is even regarded with a certain moral approbation, on the ground that one who has much can easily spare a trifle. The natural inference is that whatever anyone saves is stored up as a snug increase of property, so that it may be just as well to deduct something from this increase. But no one proposes to touch the expenditure upon consumption. In accordance with the views of those who live upon " private means," the claims of the community are like those of some poor relation on an unsolicited visit, who is fobbed off with the minimum of good cheer. It is true that we tax income ; it is true that we tax savings. But the root of the mischief lies in consumption ; and consumption should be taxed in such a way that in the case of any expenditure beyond a reasonable minimum (reckoned at so much per head of population), for each shilling con- sumed, a shilling should accrue to the state. The obvious objection that thereby we shall increase the incentive towards saving, and shall foster the tendency of property towards growth and inequality, will be answered when we come to consider the fate of private property. There are plenty of other ways, and more effective ways, of preventing an increase in inequality. Moreover, the taxation of savings has never prevented saving, but has served merely to mask the incidence of taxation ; whereas we start from the principle that the more taxation is felt, the better, so long as its influence definitely tends towards the reduction of that which is most injurious to the com- munal property towards the reduction of improper con- sumption. From these preliminaries many readers will infer that the author's aim is to extol an ascetic puritanism, solely concerned with hard work adequate nutriment, the provision of durable clothing and solid furniture, supplying at the best an efficient middle-school education, and based upon the 84 IN DAYS TO COME general diffusion of sound religious sentiments. The pro- fession of faith that all inner life must be devoted to the growth of the soul, and all outer life to the increase of ideal goods, should suffice to avert this criticism. In addition, it may be well to point out that the new order must not be devoid of the rainbow vesture of material splendour, luxury, and display, the vesture which to-day is apt to conceal from our enfeebled vision so much of the true glory of the world. Wherever the community presents itself as a host, it will do well as a sign of its freedom and liberality, to surround itself with the apparatus of display, just as did Rome and Athens, Venice and Augsburg, Versailles and Potsdam. But the people of to-morrow take another view of the over-refinement which displays itself in exclusiveness, of the insatiable greed which lurks behind screens and curtains, behind windows and folding-doors, amid cushions and knicknacks. Whilst our age is all too familiar with the idea of display, it seems to have lost touch with the idea of distinction. Display influences a crowd kept at a distance and condemned to an open-mouthed wonderment. Distinction, with a tacit reserve, gives expression to an inner nobility ; its essence is renunciation ; and while it seems to be gently repelling, it is in truth attracting and urging upwards. Sparta and the Prussia of earlier days are distinguished ; Paris and imperial Rome manifest an inseparable combination of display and vulgarity. The inadequately esteemed artistic epoch of the Prussian renais- sance of a century ago may serve to us as an example of the way in which beauty originates, not through the imitation of gorgeous pomp, but through quiet absorption in the most modest of tasks. We have cursorily examined the enormous importance of consumption and its regulation as far as concerns the economic life of the future. Simultaneously, we have formulated a demand for a changed ethical and economic outlook, and for the radiation of this outlook into the legal structure of the state. Now that we turn to consider the distribution of property, we must take new soundings, and must study the movements of the stars, for we shall no longer have THE WAY OF ECONOMICS 85 the guidance previously afforded by our solution of the problem of consumption. We have seen that extreme inequalities in wealth are favourable rather than unfavour- able to the proper regulation of consumption. If all the property in the world were concentrated into the hands of a single person and were administered with a reasonable amount of discretion, there would result so notable a cheapening of commodities that, if the relationship of wages and salaries to the general turnover remained the same, each individual's share would be sufficient to provide the amenities of a middle-class life. As far as our own epoch is concerned nothing more than this is possible. Those theorists are mistaken who expect any socio-political changes to bring about a sudden increase in production and a sudden cheapening of goods, for the quantity of goods manufactured at any time is solely determined by the contemporary supply of the means of production; and a rapid increase in the means of production could only be brought about by a temporary but notable restriction of consumption. Thus what the world has available for consumption each year is a fixed quantity. As we have seen, the operation of this law can only be modified for good by such a modification of production as would convert foolish waste into useful consumption. If we suppose it possible that the aggregate of useful commodities might in this way be increased by one third, we can calculate that in civilised countries the distribution of this surplus would provide everyone with the comforts of middle-class life For this purpose, each family would require to receive an income of about three thousand marks in our currency. Whilst the theory of consumption thus fails us as a guide in the distribution of property, since here, so to speak, we traverse the point where nothing is compared to nothing, it would likewise seem that the demand for proletarian enfranchisement has no bearing upon the question of the distribution of property, however paradoxical the latter assertion may sound. For the condition of the proletariat, hi so far as it finds expression in economic relationships, is not so much an affair of a claim for possessions as an affair of a claim for consumption. If we assume the most extreme case of inequality, wherein a single individual has 86 IN DAYS TO COME become owner of all the property in the world (a development which would not differ economically, even though it might differ morally, from the most extreme presupposition of Utopia, when the individual owner is known as " the state "), it would not be necessary for this monopolist to be confronted by any proletariat. All the rest of us would, indeed, be his employees ; but it would depend upon our own communal feeling and communal activities, what system of distributing the annually produced quantum of commodities would in fact be adopted. Always assuming that the owner of the world's production is a reasonable person, we can conceive of only five fields of distribution. The monopolist must hand over part of the product to us, his workmen and employees. He must reserve a second portion for the renovation and improvement of the productive apparatus and for other purposes useful to the community. He can save up a third portion, consisting of the necessaries of life, as a provision for lean years. He can consume a fourth portion himself. If he should be a malevolent fool, he can destroy a fifth portion. No sixth use for the product is conceivable. Since the fourth and the fifth portions can be neglected, and since the third is unimportant in respect of quantity, we shall only have to treat with our employer concerning the relative assignments of portions one and two. He would contend that care for the future demands an ampler provision for the purposes of future production ; we should rejoin that we too want to live, and that posterity can look after itself. Be it noted that this controversy would run along exactly the same lines whether the owner passed by the name of Rockefeller or by the name of the Socialist State. Let us suppose that this difficulty has been overcome, that a decision has been reached concerning the portion to be reinvested. (It would be at least as large as, and perhaps larger than, the portion reinvested under the existing economic system.) The employer will be little concerned as to how we distribute among ourselves the portion reserved for immediate consumption, provided always that no grave dissatisfaction ensues, and no disinclination to work. ' Once more, if we take the extant aggregate of production as the standard, it will be possible to arrange for an average annual THE WAY OF ECONOMICS 87 expenditure which, in the terms of our present currency, would amount to three thousand marks. Are we now proletarians ? Not at all. There is pro- vision for the education and maintenance of our offspring. No one in the world with the exception of the monopolist, who may also be the state authority has a greater right than we. The entire portion of the world's products that has been allotted for the general consumption is at our disposal ; the distribution of it is in our own hands. Here is a strange paradox. If we push individual ownership to its ultimate extreme the proletarian status disappears. It would seem to be simple to transfer the chain of reasoning from a single universal owner to two, from two to ten, a hundred, a thousand, and to demonstrate that the ownership of property has no bearing upon the proletarian status, since this latter, economically considered, depends rather upon the right of consumption than upon property. The inference would be premature, for it leaves two things out of account, the fact that the proletarian status is that of a hereditary caste, and the fact that ownership gives power. The power of an individual owner of the world would be great, and yet, except to those in immediate relationship with him, it would never be plainly apparent ; it would be greatly restricted if he were confronted by an organised community. His private interests would be little more injurious to this unity than are the family interests of an intelligent dynast who is careful to avoid showing favour to any particular class. The chief interest of the world monopolist would be to retain his position of power and to safeguard his right to transmit it by inheritance. If these two things be assured, he can gain nothing by withholding culture, rights, and responsibilities, from his employees. A multiplicity of owners, on the other hand, will combine to form a class, especially when their rights are hereditarily transmissible. They think of increase as well as of security. They may struggle among themselves, but their chief opponent is the subject class, all the more when members of this class are not formally excluded from ownership, but can acquire property, or perhaps already possess a little. It becomes a matter of pressing interest to the owning class 88 IN DAYS TO COME that the disinherited should be deprived of all power ; that they should be excluded from access to the weapons of culture, organisation, and ownership ; that they should be allowed only such a modicum ot rights and responsibilities as is essential to the maintenance of the existing social equilibrium. The question of the distribution of property becomes more important. Although inequality in this distribution favours a juster method of consumption, two accompaniments come to light, both of which exercise a harmful influence. One of these is power, which is inseparably associated with ownership, and which tends as time passes to come more into the foreground. The other is inheritance, traditionally associated with property, although the association is not perhaps destined to be permanent. In conjunction, the two constitute the power of the owning class. When we have once recognised the nature of these relationships, it will be impossible for us ever again to advocate the free play of forces, whether in respect of the accumulation or in respect of the distribution of private property. We have touched in passing upon the idea of formative education, and have noted that a dominant class will necessarily grudge this momentous advantage to the members of a subject class. Our epoch, which does not venture to think deeply or to take comprehensive outlooks, seeing that it overvalues knowledge and has therefore forgotten how to create, possesses the practical man's keenness of vision for inequalities that lie close at hand. It cannot fail to recognise that every citizen who, from childhood onwards, is denied access to the cultural advantages of his day, is being robbed. Not only is the individual robbed, but the state is likewise cheated. Since they are never backward in grasping at easy solutions, our contemporaries have decided to raise a voice here and there on behalf of equality in education, on behalf of universal and equal education. The demand is well-intentioned, but its fulfilment is hampered by many restrictions. To say nothing of what experience has taught for years past in neighbouring lands, we may conjecture that this direct approximation of the classes in youth tends to accentuate rather than to mitigate THE WAY OF ECONOMICS 89 the bourgeois aristocracy of superior culture. From desirable mansions and from working-class tenements the members of hostile classes are brought together as class neighbours. The former have been well cared for, and possess the class consciousness of the well-to-do ; accustomed to listen to the conversation of cultured parents, they have tolerable manners, express themselves with ease, and are already equipped with the elements of knowledge derivable from an environment of good books and works of art ; they have gained experience from travel, and have often profited by elementary tuition ; they are vigorous and well nourished, with trained bodies, refreshed by quiet sleep. The others, in all these respects, display opposite characteristics. Now there is demanded from them new behaviour, a new speech, and the adoption of a new outlook ; they must leave the familiar circle of life, and while this mere change of scene is already dissipating part of their energy and will power, they must laboriously acquire a new knowledge which comes so easily to their well-dressed schoolmates, and which these already in large measure possess. Embarrassed and helpless, these little citizens often enough grow stubborn when obscurely and painfully they become aware of the great gulf fixed between themselves and their more fortunate companions. Nothing but exceptional strength of will and exceptional talent can bridge over this gulf ; and, even for the exception, talent and will power may prove without influence upon the career. As for the others, after a brief contact, they relapse into utter hopelessness, blaming not merely the outward inequalities of fortune, but their own presumed inadequacies If, on the other hand, the education given be specially adapted to the needs of the weaker and more poverty-stricken among the pupils, then the standard in the classes will be that of the most backward, and the method cannot fail to exercise a retarding, depressing, and blunting influence upon all. The benumbing hostility which our schools display towards talent, the pitiably low level of efficiency, the narrowness, the hidebound pedantry of the educational methods, which have made our young folk miserable, and which are due to the discontent of the stingily treated and overworked teaching profession these futilities have, as 90 IN DAYS TO GOME might be expected, the effect of lowering yet further the general level of culture, and of diffusing intellectual mediocrity. Equality in education can only bear fruit upon the soil of equality in the circumstances of life, equality in domestic conditions, and equality in civic origin. Upon this founda- tion, it is a moral necessity But it will never succeed in overcoming class contrasts, however much it may reduce the general level. Once again we find ourselves compelled by moral necessity to adopt a policy of economic equality. Our purpose is strengthened when we consider matters from a fresh stand- point, when we study the economic relationship of the state to its chief tasks. The states of to-day are mendicants profoundly embar- rassed by a burden of debt. These supreme and all-powerful organisations, which represent the various subdivisions of the human race as embodiments of the collective will ; which are entitled to break down every hindrance to a pure expression of that will ; and are called upon to give to it and its elements suitable form and temporal expression ; these structures, which should be stable yet progressive, serve upon earth to give us the high example and the experimental certainty of collective spiritual fusion and surpassing spiritual unity are to-day concerned about the most trivial of all questions, What does it cost ? and, Is there enough to pay for it ? They are involved in the disastrous economic struggle between fathers and sons which is fought out as the background of every legislative proposal. The struggle ends, either in new taxes, which means that the fathers sacrifice themselves in order that the sons may enjoy ; or else in new debts, which means that the fathers enjoy themselves and leave it to the sons to pay. Each method has grave drawbacks. Consequently the preposterous view prevails that state expenditure is fundamentally evil, that the happiest state is the most parsimonious, that the curtailment of necessary expenses is not a crime but a virtue, that moral duties must be judged from the outlook of class. Unemployment, poverty, endemic diseases, might be eradi- cated ; the expense is too great. A considerable proportion THE WAY OF ECONOMICS 91 of our population is housed in places unfit for human habitation ; at a cost of a few hundred millions these people could all be settled in garden cities but where is the money to come from ? The management of popular education, that task of supreme importance, is entrusted to minor officials, who are ill paid and many of whom are but half- hearted. Rural education is admittedly defective, but money is scarce. Scientific investigations, the promotion of the arts, philanthropic enterprises, are necessary ; but these things have to be left to private initiative, to the community at large. In some cases the expense is defrayed by collections of one sort or another, or a deliberate appeal is made to bourgeois vanity. One third of the cost of the European war would have sufficed to make all the states economically independent for half a century. History, whose teachings are forcible and lucid, will deliver her message when the hurly-burly subsides ; emblematically she will tell us the consequences and leave us to draw our own conclusions ; then, many a word which we utter glibly to-day, will be re-echoed in our ears in a different key. One of these teachings will be most welcome to our petty bourgeois parliaments, for these, partly owing to their mistrust of their duly authorised governments, partly from professional narrowness, partly from fear of the electorate are prone to administer the state as a business enterprise with limited liability and limited means. I refer to the lesson of the extended multiplication table. If the means of the individual should dwindle, if the thaler should shrink to become a mark, all the more will it be necessary that for state expenditure the unit of reckoning should become a milliard instead of a million. Our communal life will not acquire new energy alike inwardly and outwardly, until we determine to serve the commonweal more liberally in days of scarcity than we have served it in days of plenty. The goal, however, is that the state should be unhampered by material restrictions. Its means must enable it to anticipate need, not to limp painfully after need. It must not be compelled to ask the question, How can I raise the money ? It must merely have to ask, How can I best do the work ? It must be able to take effective action, to 92 IN DAYS TO COME relieve distress wherever it may arise, to safeguard the country wherever it is endangered, to undertake any great civilising task which may be necessary, to perform every desirable work of beautification or benevolence. The citizen may with just pride contemplate the power, the wealth, the lavishness of the state ; but he has no right to be proud of the vastness of his own private hoard. Anyone who believes this reallotment of energies is apriori impossible, anyone who has craven fears of rulers, secret service agents, and intriguers, lacks confidence in his nation and in himself. He undervalues his nation if he cannot have faith in the existence of a mighty multitude able to withstand the lure of gold. He undervalues himself if he despair of the power of himself and his fellows to establish a form of government which will place the sincere and the strong in positions of responsibility. Not for a day can any nation be ruled otherwise than it wishes to be ruled and therefore deserves to be ruled. If, however, the state is actually to be wealthier, more free-handed, and more powerful, than any private owner, it must not acquire these qualities at the expense of the poor. We are well aware that the aggregate of commodities, the aggregate of possibilities of consumption, is always limited ; we know full well that only in Cuckoo-Cloudland can anyone believe that a mere transformation of claims and privileges could effectuate an increase in the already intensified world production. What the wealthy own as superfluity in the way of privileges and means, is precisely what is lacking to the state ; between the community and the state stands the insuperable antagonism of ownership. People have always shrunk from the serious consideration of this idea, although it is the underlying affect of all social reform ; nay, is the very core of social reform. The lure of socialism does not depend upon the colourless thesis of the nationalisation of capital, but on the manifest aim of the socialists, which is, no matter by what way, to abolish the heaping up of riches, and thus to improve the lot of the average man. It became necessary to envelop this core in a superfluous theory because people were incompetent to explain away apparent contradictions, both moral and economic. If it remained open to everyone to enrich himself, THE WAY OF ECONOMICS 93 if most people could strive to acquire riches, and if the acquirement of wealth were not illegal, it could not but seem dishonest to rob the successful man of the fruit of his labour. Moreover, it seemed preposterous to lay one's weaknesses bare and to espouse a principle which, to the ineradicable bourgeois prejudice of the revolutionaries them- selves, seemed to involve the encouragement of injustice, brigandage, or stupid favouritism. In addition, there still prevailed a tacit belief that wealth was indispensable for the storing up of capital, for insurance against economic and technical risks, for the launching of great enterprises, for financial foresight. Nothing better could happen to this conception than to be merged in a comprehensive theory, wherein, though not completely dissolved, it at least became invisible. Wealth was to be hard hit, and therefore capital was to be nationalised, a procedure which would indeed put an end to private wealth. It was supposed that this nationalisation would of itself enhance the value of labour, although, as we have seen, it has no bearing on the matter. Unsolved and insoluble, however, remains the problem, how the community, without competition, without any other driving force, without any standard of comparison, would be able in bureaucratic fashion to find a substitute for the fundamental principle without which even nature herself has never been able to perform her evolutionary tasks the principle of the struggle for existence, of selection, of delight in overcoming. The doctrine of social equality will solve the problem in the end, when it is recognised that we must achieve, not merely the equalisation of possessions, but likewise the limitation of individual wealth. We must clearly distinguish between the three effective forms of property : the title to enjoyment ; the title to power ; and the title to responsi- bility. When these distinctions have been made, it will be possible to discover economic forms which, within the bounds of the traditional ordering of property, will satisfy the demands of freedom, human dignity, and justice, and will give free play for development. We are still moving within the domain of the problem of equalising possessions, and we discover that the immediate demands of morality overshadow economic considerations. 94 IN DAYS TO COME It is true that the soul makes no claim to temporal happiness, power, and honours ; it demands no earthly justice. It awakens in the bliss of sorrow ; it lives in the solitude of renunciation ; and ic waxes strong in the happi- ness of sacrifice. Nevertheless, justice as a human notion is not alien to the soul. What would charity be worth if one were to draw the inference that, to one's neighbour likewise, privation must bring more happiness than abun- dance ? What would justice be worth if one were to arrogate the privilege of strengthening one's fellow man by doing him an injustice ? The objective significance of these virtues is that they counteract evil, that they lift the burden of destiny from the world, that they sweep together the opposing pike points and concentrate them upon one's own breast ; but they are very far from either desiring evil or fostering evil. Ere long, in the course of the present study, when we shall have to examine the individual's claim to his share of the world's goods, we shall recognise that the qualities which promote individual ownership, which promote that is to say irresponsibly pleasurable ownership, are mediocre if not ignominious qualities. But here the question arises, what title any man can have to lead a life which by usurpation and devastation, by isolation and exclusiveness, treads into the dust the being and the energy of countless thousands. Ancient customs of lordship, extending pro- tection and demanding privileges in exchange, protection and privileges being extended to wives and passing to off- spring by hereditary right, constitute the only traditional bases for a sumptuous mode of life. A symbolical expression of this relationship is to be seen in the parody of feudalist ceremonial which is affected by members of the new pluto- cracy. They have new-bought cannon on their terraces, banners in their anterooms, powdered menials in attendance on their landings, spurious ancestral portraits hanging on the walls ; they revive obsolete customs for the dinner table, for receptions, and for the chase ; they make a great display of armour, liveries, loving-cups, and the like. To-day, no one but the state can promise protection, nor can anyone receive protection except from those who are commissioned by the state and who give protection in THE WAY OF ECONOMICS 95 its name. Law-courts, town councils, princes of the church, and dynasts, may surround themselves with pomp and circumstance to pay honour to the past, to give the citizen an occasional pageant, and to impress the multitude tactfully endeavouring the while to avoid overstepping the limits which separate dignified pageantry from mummery and farce. But in our own day, as was ever the case in earlier days, the dignity of the man and of the office depends upon responsibility. Where this is symbolised, we have true splendour. Customs and ceremonies are emblems which shine only by the reflected light they derive from the persistence of the energies they typify. If these energies are extinct, nothing remains beyond the withered investiture of formulas and labels. The economic superiority of the bourgeois class, the superior wellbeing of that class, is not, however, based upon any institution. Like many another vigorous reality, it is, genetically considered, an accessory phenomenon, a manifestation which remains innocuous and unregarded so long as it develops within moderate limits and so long as it does not assume dimensions which give it an operative influence in the domain of public life. When an oriental patriarch proved a successful cattle breeder, and was able to multiply his herds a hundredfold, this served to give his tribe an admirable stability, and his wealth remained a private matter unless the expansion became so great as to lead to disputes for drinking-places. When a medieval merchant was successful in the grocery trade, he could build himself a comfortable dwelling, could secure an ample provision of furniture and household linen, and could store up silver in his coffers. His prosperity had no bearing on public life unless it contributed to the establishment of class privileges. Wealth does not become a socially transformative power until, through the pressure of population, the collective organisation of economic life produces a flawless system of mutual dependence. Isolated instances of this pheno- menon occurred already in the later phases of Roman history ; but in its full development, and uncomplicated in form, the manifestation dates only from the opening of the mechanised epoch, that epoch which is somewhat narrow-mindedly termed the capitalistic era. From the 96 IN DAYS TO COME economic outlook, all over the civilised world, we live to-day under the dominion of a mighty plutocracy, which in some of the states has gained control of the totality of the political forces, has acquired the mastery of law and constitution, of peace and war ; whilst in other states the plutocracy wields political influence in conjunction only with powers whose rights date from an earlier age, but none the less the plutocrats exercise undisputed sway over labour. It would be unjust to ignore the important services that have been performed by plutocracy as a world power. The plutocracy has carried the movement of mechanisation to its term ; within a few generations, it has immeasurably enriched the civilised world ; it has provided the various states with mighty means of defence, and thereby, counter- acting its own essential nature, it has strengthened nation- alism. At least during its ascending phase, the plutocracy, animated by a broadly tolerant spirit, enrolled in its ranks the vigorous intelligences from among the nations, enforcing upon them and upon the collective soul of the peoples the mechanistic, rationalistic, and venturesome type of thought. Concomitantly repressing patriarchal, feudah'stic, and nar- rowly corporative outlooks, the plutocracy has created a new and potent spiritual atmosphere though one no less circumscribed than the old. It has contributed to the reorganisation of world politics on an economic basis, and unwittingly it has promoted the growth of such formidable antagonisms that its own existence has been positively threatened by a series of national catastrophes. These developments of plutocracy will be considered more fully when we come to discuss political issues. Here we are concerned with a higher problem, the problem of morals, a problem which has to be solved with the aid of definite principles. Plutocracy is group dominion ; it is oligarchy, and the worst form of oligarchy, for it is not associated with any ideal outlook, with any sacrament. The ancient theocracies of the east derived their rights from the godhead, and lost these rights through degenerating into priestly corporations. The Greek aristocracies appealed for their justification to the titles to lordship devolving upon the sons of the gods. THE WAY OF ECONOMICS 97 The nobilities belonging to the conquering races maintained their sway over the subject indigens in virtue of the hereditary cultivation of regal sentiments and physical beauty, until the distinction between invaders and invaded was lost through the intermingling of the racial stocks. The farmer patriciate of the Romans maintained its dominance in virtue of its exclusive possession of the idea of the state, and in virtue of its pre-eminence in war ; it was replaced by a neutral and uninspired official patriciate ; thereafter, came mingling of the races and the fall of the Roman power. The medieval church, when it accepted the mission of carrying the banner of the faith into a heathen world, became an organisatory oligarchy. After the conversion of Europe had been completed, the evangelist mission gave place to political aims, and the sometime missionary church entered the path which led it from the position of a world power to that of a politically accredited international organisation. European feudalism was based on the ideal concept of the loyalty of vassals, in conjunction with responsibility towards the subjected primal inhabitants of the countries, and in conjunction at a later date with the duty of faith. Christianity became a communal possession ; the diverse strains of population underwent amalgamation ; feudalism was replaced by territorial dominion, and in part by democracy ; the rule of the nobles could be maintained only where the ideal concepts of loyalty to the monarch, of martial duty, and of agricultural patriarchy, still persisted notably in the Slavo-Teutonic north and east. Plutocracy, on the other hand, did not use its influence through ideals, but through common interests. The pluto- crats did not rise to power as members of a conquering stock or as adherents of a common creed. They appeared in isolation, each individual emerging from among the lower strata of the nations through the economic selection of exceptional talent, through chance, or through the fortunate acceptance of risk. All that the plutocracy desires is to maintain itself, and to promote its own enrichment ; it has no community of outlook with any other group, nor is it pledged to any other ; its strength lies in opportunism. It augments through inheritance, and, whenever necessary (since it is wide awake to its own 7 98 IN DAYS TO COME interests), through cooptation ; the partiality of the father is tempered by the wisdom of the partner. As far as spiritual powers are concerned, the plutocracy inherits in the first place culture ; in addition it hands down from generation to generation a certain degree of economic insight and training in enterprise, which are enhanced by the influ- ence of the environment upon the younger members of the plutocracy and by family tradition. Nevertheless, such influences have no permanent effect without the persistent infusion of fresh blood, for the customs of luxurious life and the effects of intellectual narrowness, on the one hand, and the imitation of aristocratic practices, on the other, leads to the exclusion generation after generation of those who in part are enervated, and who in part, as the expression runs, ruin themselves. The occasional acceptance of new elements and the occasional exclusion of elements belonging to the primitive plutocratic stock, do not deprive the plutocratic caste of its peculiarities as a circumscribed unity. Every oligarchy is subject to a moderate degree of change, to the withdrawal of some of its elements and to the introduction of certain new elements. The movement here considered remains without influence, seeing that the increase takes place under a very rigid selection. Moreover, since an identical outlook on life is inexorably demanded from new recruits, recruitment takes place only from classes closely associated with the plutocracy, and never from the people at large. The more stable hereditary elements predominate in determining the character of the plutocracy ; through an imitation of feudalistic ways, they may even transform and petrify the plutocracy into the caricature of a monetary nobility. As long as human imperfection accentuates gradations in capacity, temperament, and spiritual force, until the production of extreme contrasts results, so long also every social order will exhibit like contrasts in the stratification of its responsibilities, needs, and claims. In whatever way this stratification may manifest itself in respect of form and arrangement, there will always be a demonstrable likeness to oligarchic structure. It will depend upon differences of ethical outlook whether this order be actively willed or whether it be passively endured. It will depend upon THE WAY OF ECONOMICS 99 differences in ethical outlook whether the contrasts be increased and perpetuated by closing the entry into the privileged caste, by increasing the number and extent of its privileges, and by consolidating the oligarchy through the right of inheritance ; or whether scope be given for a movement towards equalisation, for the limitation of the inequality of privileges, so that an opportunity for ascent will be offered to every human soul. Then evolution will approximate to that neutral territory where the concept of aristocracy is at one and the same time fulfilled and annulled. For then, the strongest and noblest natures, whatever their origin and type, will bear responsibility for their brothers. Then, the topmost stratum, though it remain circumscribed in its nature, will exhibit unceasing modification in respect of its substance. Then, the name " the rule of the best " will be justified and our conception of aristocracy as the dominance of a caste will be confuted. So ideal a consummation is not precisely the one which is contemplated by those persons of aesthetic temperament who, their minds filled with thoughts of Athens and Venice, suggest as a final aim the consolidation of a cultured and high-principled hereditary stratum. Unless we play with words, unless our terms are without definite meaning, hereditary oligarchy is incompatible with the dignity and freedom of human rights ; it can never be the ethical aim of any thinker who accepts the doctrine of the advance of all souls alike. A plutocratic oligarchy certainly does not belong to the nebulous region of neutral concepts ; its establishment is altogether inadequate as a moral aim. Even though we accept the inequality of natural rights, even though (differing herein from the socialists) we consider the civilisation of the world to be based upon the multiplicity of needs, upon the refinement indispensable to a spiritualised existence, upon the multicoloured complexity which is promoted by an artistic inclination towards joy for oneself and others, nevertheless we cannot approve the free play of forces which upbuilds hereditary plutocracy upon the foundations laid by our economic order upbuilds it, in a sense, as an undesigned and unavowed accessory. Mankind was not born to be subjugated in accordance with a pre- 100 IN DAYS TO COME determined fate, to have the neck bowed beneath the yoke of the chance forces which result from the unfettered working of economic influences. The apportionment of property is no more a private matter than is the right to consumption. We should err were we to adopt the cast-iron precepts of socialism, were we to destroy the thousand-year-old edifice of organically interconnected labour, simply in order to replace competition by bureaucracy, and civic freedom by a title to ampler food-rations and by a more effective relief of indigence. But once again and as a final aim we see ourselves guided towards a reform which shall upbuild a new realm of social freedom upon the foundations of the claim to a just share in articles of consumption, of a more equitable distribution of property, and of a more vigorous prosperity for the state. An interpolation, which will close the circle of what has gone before, inasmuch as it will resolve the last contra- diction between prelude and sequel, may pave the way to the subsequent empirical considerations. As we have seen, superfluous consumption reaches a minimum aggregate in the theoretically extreme case in which all property is concentrated into the hands of a single individual. Is there any danger, should property be equally distributed at a fairly high level of prosperity, that con- sumption would increase to such an extent that the necessary reserves for the expansion and renovation of the world's industry might not be adequately provided ? The danger is not very serious. Indubitably there would be an increase in the average consumption of such com- modities as contribute to the maintenance and to the enrichment of life ; but experience has shown that this expenditure will be adequately compensated by improvements in the amount and quality of work. Expenditure upon the more costly forms of luxury will be reduced, even though the community have acquired the right to manifest much pomp and circumstance in public life. Any individual who has an itch for occasional display, will redress the balance by curtailing his daily disbursements in other directions. Some risk would remain that there might be a general dissipation of means upon needless futilities and foolish THE WAY OF ECONOMICS 101 finery. The power of the economic conscience, whose awakening will be simultaneously cause and effect of the new era, and whereof we shall have to treat when we come to discuss economic ethics, will implant in the minds of a moralised humanity an immeasurable contempt for the toys which delight the men and women of our own day ; it will leave to savage and semi-savage peoples all the lumber, the gauds, the fustian, the novelties, the whimsicalities, the fashionable absurdities, the worthless things that are dignified with hideous names. Thus will be saved for communal uses the labour which is now wasted for the gratification of stupidity and bad taste. A second and new minimum of superfluous consumption will be established upon a natural and moral basis, in the economic order wherein possessions will be equalised. This train of reasoning shows very clearly that the existing economic system, with its contrasts and its plutocracy, deserves condemnation on the additional ground that it misdirects consumption. Here we reach the domain of practice. But before we turn to consider the upbuilding of the new order, it behoves us to examine the prevalent claim to preferential treatment which is made by the individual to-day for his own immediate purposes as contrasted with communalised possessions and communal consumption. When we consider who raises such a claim to wealth and property, when we consider with what moral right he demands guarantees from society and the state, and what protection the community has been able to provide against excessive exactions and injustice, we shall then be able to survey with a clearer vision the economic and moral foundations of a freer and juster order. Who is wealthy, and with what right ? Who is entitled to say : Out of the joint possessions and produce of the world, there is due to me ten times, a hundred times, ten thousand times as much as the average man may own and consume ? Whence does personal wealth come ? How is it acquired ? We need not here concern ourselves with the origins of property. Let it suffice us to know that it was handed down to its present holders by inheritance. Subsequently we shall have to examine this concept of transmission. 102 IN DAYS TO COME But first of all we are concerned with the accumulations that now actually exist. Is wealth savings ? In view of the brevity of human life, a moderate competence is the utmost that can be saved out of the regular income from labour. The incomings which can be heaped up to form riches are not the rewards of labour ; they are winnings of other categories. Erroneous is the popular notion that anyone can grow wealthy simply in virtue of thrift. Possible, though rare, is enrichment by treasure trove. Digging for treasure is no longer profitable in our days, unless for the accumulation of knowledge. The unearthing of Old Masters in curio shops serves mainly to enrich sensational journalists. Nevertheless, the discovery of mineral wealth has made many fortunes in Africa, in Canada, and even in Germany. Generally speaking, if wealth is to accumulate in the hands of a few, thousands must be induced to surrender a part of their possessions, and they will not do this unless some urgent want can be satisfied in return for the sacrifice they are making. Such an urgent want, be it reasonable or be it unreasonable, is known as an effective economic demand. Anyone who desires to become wealthy, must satisfy a widespread economic demand. But this alone does not suffice, for competition plays its part. Competitors appear to satisfy a portion of the demand, and to secure a share in the profits derived from its satisfaction. In the end, the entrepreneur finds that, instead of the anticipated wealth, he earns no more than average profits, receives merely the average return for his trouble. The acquisition of wealth, therefore, is only possible when the entrepreneur can restrict competition, can raise the profits at pleasure, or can indefinitely extend the circle of those who are willing to make the requisite sacrifice. Nothing but a recognised or an enforced monopoly will put him in such a position. A successful inventor can secure a monopoly by taking out a patent, or by a secret process of manufacture. Anyone who infringes his patent, or anyone who endeavours to discover his secret by bribing his workmen, will be punished. The mining of certain minerals furnishes a natural THE WAY OF ECONOMICS 103 monopoly, provided that the mineral deposits are few and far between. Another form of monopoly is that which is secured by the great banking combines, by department stores, and by multiple shops. Those who desire success in these fields must have great means at their disposal ; they must spend years in the overthrow of rival organisations by a system of price-cutting ; and few are inclined to risk their capital in such undertakings. Chemical industries are based on the monopoly of position. In many instances, there is but one optimum site for the industry, some one point at the most favourable distance from the raw materials, the source of energy, the labour power, and the market. The great tenor has the monopoly of rarity in his larynx. Opera houses are commoner than fine tenor voices. Trusts and syndicates enforce a monopoly by bringing the entirety of some particular field of industry under a single control, and by thus excluding competition. The receiver of ground rents enjoys the monopoly of urban sites ; certain individuals find themselves compelled to reside in particular areas ; certain kinds of business, certain industries, thrive only in particular quarters of the town ; demand goes on growing, whereas the supply of suitable land is inexorably restricted. The fashionable emporium enjoys the monopoly of a well-known name, for many persons are quite unhappy when wearing a hat or carrying an umbrella which does not bear the stamp of their favourite firm. The owner of a railway, a waterworks, or a dock, receives his monopoly rights from the state or the municipality ; he exercises a privilege which is tantamount to territorial suzerainty. These and many other monopolies enrich their holders, and there is no other way to wealth. For in the long run, as we may learn apriori from the calculus of probabilities, the yields of hazard and speculation are equalised. Occasion- ally, through withdrawal from the game in a fortunate hour, or through death, the winner may secure his spoils ; but these instances are too rare to affect the truth of the general statement. 104 IN DAYS TO COME If, without prejudice, we question our consciences concerning the ethical status of monopoly, we cannot but feel that in its enforced exactions, its arbitrary standards, and its assignment of uncontrolled power to the individual, monopoly is essentially immoral. Where we have to do with monopoly of pre-eminence and of superior technique, the immorality is less conspicuous. Especially is this true when the monopoly is not exercised by an individual but by a collectivity, for here the advantages of the services rendered are recognisable, and despite the privilege of monopoly there may be a balance of gain to the community derivable from the centralisation of enterprise. Monopoly appears increasingly intolerable in proportion as it is acquired with the minimum of desert, in proportion as it is exercised with the minimum of trouble to the monopolist, and in proportion as it is enforced with the maximum of extortion. Consequently, the monopoly of the urban landowner is one of the most unedifying. At the same time it is obvious that it would be a very simple matter for legislation to regulate all the sources of individual wealth, and if necessary to take them out of individual hands. This is a practical question, and its consideration must be reserved until the theoretical economic discussion is finished. For the nonce we must concern ourselves with the second and decisive aspect of the title to wealth. No more than a small proportion of contemporary private wealth has been acquired by its possessors. To an enormously preponderant extent, property is inherited. Although when we contemplate acquired wealth, and when we have disclosed the sources of its acquisition, an inward monitor arouses in us a sense of injustice done, no such sentiment of injustice is commonly aroused by the phenomenon of the inheritance of wealth. To the modern conscience, the transmission of property by inheritance seems to be based upon inviolable right. The recogni- tion of this fact necessitates a further interpolation ; a methodical discussion of this particular issue. All social and political progress is the outcome of the struggle between tradition and innovation. More than any THE WAY OF ECONOMICS 105 previous age in history, our own epoch inclines to emphasise this contrast, with the manifest (though unconscious) aim of siding with the party of tradition as always happens in uncreative eras. Nevertheless, the contrast, the opposition, depends solely on the point of view ; it has no absolute validity. The revolutionist of to-day will to-morrow be regarded as the saint hallowed by tradition ; the reactionary of to-day is yesterday's revolutionist. Those who contrast the tradi- tional, as a sort of organic adult produced by the play of natural forces, with the innovational as something arbitrarily and dogmatically originated, as something nowise based upon experience or upon justified specialism, fall into confusion. They confuse the qualities of the evolutionary contrasts with the qualities of the individuals in whom these contrasts are embodied. They confuse the species of the traditionalists with the species of the traditional, and they confuse the species of the innovators with the species of the innovational. Innovation, when it becomes actual, is just as organic, has just as definitely grown out of the nature of men and things, as tradition is organic, and as tradition has thus grown. Ere long the innovation, too, will become an established custom, a tradition, a venerable legacy, or a vestigial relic. On the other hand, the individual who has a peculiar fondness for the traditional, is a very different kind of person from the individual who reveals and creates the innovational. The former leans upon experience, upon loving contemplation of the extant, and often enough upon favourite privileges and prejudices ; the latter relies upon the force of need, upon the seer's vision, upon ideals, and at times likewise upon personal dissatisfaction and individual wishes. The virtues of the one are loyalty and rationality ; the virtues of the other are creative energy and intuition. The dangers of the one are narrowness and inertia ; the dangers of the other are dogmatism and instability. Almost every innovation entails these dangers to some extent. It appears at the outset to be dogmatic, to be rationalistically inconsiderate, to lack sufficient understanding for justified specialism. Soon, however, the rough angles are worn down by usage, the crude colours acquire a softer 106 IN DAYS TO COME tone, the tool adapts itself to the hand. A wonder, as the orientals phrase it, never lasts longer than three days. A well-grounded abhorrence of widespread suffering and atrocities, in conjunction with the ingrained tendency of the Slave-Teutons towards an easy-going conservatism, leads our historians astray, inclining them to regard every sudden innovation as reprehensible revolution. With good grounds do we feel unsympathetic towards the great French revolution. Nevertheless, during the tumultuous nights of that stormy epoch, the fundamental principles of local autonomy, of popular education, of the citizen army, came into being through the very force of ideas. Our German political sentiment is monarchical, and herein we discern one of its few strong points. We are passionately inclined to eradicate all republican endeavours as high treason. It is just as well, none the less, that we retain sufficient objectivity to avoid looking upon every Swiss as a descendant of regicides and impious nihilists, and to refrain from persecuting as a jacobin any German who may choose to settle in Basle. From the wide perspectives of history, therefore, the subjective contrast between the traditional and the inno- vational assumes the aspect of a retarding influence, comes to seem a physical influence making for inertia. In the play of the forces that mould universal history, to tradition- alism is assigned the task of steadying the whole movement, of preventing the chariot from overturning, of limiting arbitrary experiments. But it must never be forgotten that this force is a negative one. In semblance, conservatism is an affirmation of the extant ; in reality, however, it is a negation of life and life's growth. In a study which is devoted to the consideration of days to come, an adjustment between these two processes must be continually renewed. Even from the negative trend we have to learn, for it imposes on us the question, What criterion distinguishes between the concept of Utopian fantasy, and the concept of an innovation which, however fundamental, has its place in the organic series ? The pragmatic test will not here suffice to guide our decision, for even the imperfect, even the absurd, can for a time make headway in practice. The only thing that THE WAY OF ECONOMICS 107 wil] help us to a decision is the strength and unity of the general historical outlook. If a contradiction arise between the world outlook and some acquired phase of feeling dependent on individual outlooks, the latter must give way. The universal outlook, however, is determined, not by the judgment seats of the generations, but by the areopagus of the ages. From this matter we return to consider the dominant feeling with regard to inheritance, and we are entitled to attack it fiercely. In contradistinction to enrichment by monopoly and speculation, which arouses an affect of repugnance, to the general sentiment enrichment by inheritance does not seem intrinsically objectionable. The racecourses and other pleasure resorts of a large city are packed with well-clothed and complacent young men, who in a single hour lavish more money upon a horse or a dancer than a poor student, a poet, or a musician requires for a year's support ; their demands upon the productions of their country exceed the expenditure of a prime minister. The return they make takes the form of personal enjoyment and lavish display. According as mood and interest may dictate, everyone who encounters them shows them politeness, respect, or subservience, and they respond, now courteously, now condescendingly. Wherever they go, they take it as a matter of course that a young man of letters or a merchant shall yield them precedence. In popular estimation, though their presumption may sometimes grate, and though their idleness is regarded as regrettable, their privileged situation seems quite inevitable, the expression of a sacred tradition of hereditary pomp and power. A young woman who has married an old man for his money, and who is speedily widowed, may be censured if she apes a princess in her expenditure. But though tongues wag concerning her lowly origin, no one disputes her right to squander the income of a principality, for she can do what she likes with her heritage. Some great industrial undertaking is bequeathed to an incompetent man of full legal age. The managers of the affair make him submissive reports, endeavour to adapt themselves to his whims, beg for increased salaries and 108 IN DAYS TO COME wider powers. Grey-headed business men crowd round the young potentate's carriage door. A well-to-do man dies, leaving a wife and four children. All five of them determine to live on their incomes. The children marry men and women in a similar position. The state is enriched with four family stocks which throughout a century will do no creative work of any kind, though perhaps an occasional scion may study the history of art or may adopt a diplomatic career. In a civilised country how many healthy men under sixty will be found living upon private means ? How many young men found their existence on a wealthy marriage ? How many unproductive families must a country support from generation to generation ? But as far as the public conscience is concerned, such phenomena by no means arouse a feeling of injustice. They may sometimes be regarded as undesirable, but strangely enough no one looks upon them as immoral. Let us put aside the question of expenditure upon the higher purposes of civilisation The vital demands of the unproductive elements, if shared out among the productive elements, would render the performance of higher cultural tasks possible. The labour power of the unproductives, if placed at the service of society, would create new spiritual and economic values. The moral concept of inheritance has been hallowed by the practice of centuries. Consequently the world has failed to realise that here the Substitution of the Content has long since been effected, and that the suppositions upon which the right of inheritance was originally based are no longer valid. In primitive times, equipment of all kinds was just as likely to be interred with the deceased owner as to be handed down by inheritance. Such articles were parts of the outfit of the individual and his dwelling ; outliving the generations, they became attributes of the collective individual, of the family. The same may have applied to flocks and herds, whose generations grew parallel with those of their human owners. It was the same with tilled land and agricultural implements, as soon as individual tillage had given place to family cultivation on permanently settled areas. THE WAY OF ECONOMICS 109 Power, prestige, the right to bear arms, and other privileges, were inherited in accordance with the basis of national stratification. The subject stock, deprived of all rights to nobility, was entitled neither to self-government nor to self-determination ; protection against enemies from without, and patrician authority within the community, could be preserved only by inheritance. Priestly conse- cration, kingship, caste privileges, were all included in this hereditary transmission. The capitalistic era grew unnoted out of the era of hereditary feudalism. By the force of tradition, without intelligent consideration of the question, and in the absence of any analogous instances, the privileges of inheritance accrued to capitalism as indestructible characteristics. The essential reasons for inheritance had vanished. Whereas hereditary nobility entailed duties as well as conferring rights, whereas it demanded and guaranteed protection and service from generation to generation, heritable wealth carried with it nothing but rights, conferred nothing but power and enjoyment, for which no return was demanded. The political community of the Romans was the first to encounter all unawares the stupendous paradox that a dead man should appear upon the scene as the possessor of a live will, as the arbitrary wielder of power, land, business interests, and the right to enjoyment. Rome dealt with this paradoxical situation with the brilliant casuistry of her legal system, until at length the questionable foundation was hidden away beneath an edifice which was, if not organic, at least quasi-organic. To this very day, in every civilised country, the state devotes all its power and prestige to guaranteeing the rights of the dead against the living, to insuring that everyone of the dead man's legally permissible whims shall be fulfilled, that an unknown distant relative shall share in the inheritance, that the heir who is protected by tradition and specified by nomination shall lose no tittle of all the vast store of treasures and privileges, however ill-gotten. Should any one man succeed to-day in getting into his own hands the last acre of land, together with all the works of art and all the writings in his country, and should he leave nothing for the state beyond a few roads and public offices, this same state, so long as certain formulas 110 IN DAYS TO COME were fulfilled and certain taxes paid, would use all the forces at its disposal to hand down the complex of powers undiminished to the universal inheritor, though he were a man of evil repute. The state would give this heir the right to enclose what areas he pleased, and to throw them out of cultivation ; to ruin beautiful landscapes ; to bring useful enterprises to a standstill ; to spread unemployment ; to destroy monuments unless indeed the state should determine to pass exceptional laws assailing the paradox of inheritance. These considerations should suffice to convince us that among those goods of humanity which are inviolable and beyond criticism, the moral concept of the inheritance of wealth and power can find no place. Custom may have made it acceptable to us, but it is nowise sacrosanct. It is nothing more than a dominant ethnological peculiarity which has been uncritically accepted. Its foundations have crumbled, and its consequences lead us to an antinomy. Yet the whole nature of our social stratification, the entire inalterable and dull fixity of the distribution of national forces, reposes upon this moral concept. The living ascent and descent of life which dominates nature, the organic interchange of serving and determinative members, the bountiful play of the golden urns, is benumbed by the dead hand of past generations. This is what con- demns the proletarian to perpetual servitude, and the rich man to perpetual enjoyment. It binds the burden of responsibility upon the weary who would fain repudiate it, and chokes the creative impulse of the functionless, some of whom long for responsibility. The impermeable oily stratum of tradition separates the two solutions which are eager with elective affinity, which strive vainly to mingle; and it increases the tension of an unutilised will. The beginnings of a new moral consciousness are perceptible. There exists a corner of our mind which is no longer content to tolerate without cnticism the claims to the material goods of the world which are based upon the free play of forces in the hallowed neutral spheres of business affairs and of commercial law. The claim of the wealthy legatee, of the man who earns nothing for himself but insistently demands his traditional rights, is being THE WAY OF ECONOMICS 111 assimilated in our minds with the claims of speculators and monopolists, claims universally regarded as immoral. We have traversed the economic domain of consumption, ownership, and claim ; and we are now in a position to formulate as principles the valuations at which we have arrived. 1. The total yield of human labour is always limited. Consumption, like all economic activities, is not an individual affair but a communal affair. All consumption is a charge upon the world's work and the world's produce. Luxury and exclusive appropriation are subject to the communal will, and can only be tolerated in so far as they do not prevent the satisfaction of any immediate and genuine want. 2. The equalisation of property and income is prescribed both by ethics and by economics. Immeasurable wealth is permissible in the state for one only, namely, for the state itself. From the means at its disposal the state must relieve poverty wherever it arises. Certain differences in income and property are permissible, but they must not be so extensive as to produce a one-sided distribution of power and the right to enjoyment. 3. The extant sources of wealth are : monopolies in the widest sense; speculation; and inheritance. There will be no place in the coming economic order for the monopolist, the speculator, or the inheritor of great wealth. 4. The restriction of the right of inheritance, in con- junction with the equalisation of popular education at a higher level, will throw down the barriers which now separate the economic classes of society, and will put an end to the hereditary enslavement of the lower classes. The restriction of luxury will contribute to the same end, for through the restriction of superfluous consumption the world's work will be concentrated upon the production of necessary goods, and the cost of these goods as measured in the yield of labour will be reduced. The system of economy and social freedom must be based upon these principles. The nature of the legislative enactments by means of which this system will be carried into effect, is a matter of minor importance. A study of the legislative institutions 112 IN DAYS TO COME of the various states discloses the ambiguity of all practical solutions. The forms of life have far closer resemblances than have the legislative systems by which these forms are regulated ; the goals are similar, the results are similar, and only the ordinances are different. The decisive point is that goals, that ideal outlooks, should be altered ; changes in institutions will follow, and further changes will ensue in the multiplicity of practical issues. It is of immeasurably greater significance that the coming transformation is preceded by changes in sentiments and ethical values. As a matter of historical experience, this has always happened when new horizons have opened. The sentiments wait for this impulsion. Upon their own initia- tive, while they have the power, they lack the inclination, to get out of the old ruts. Although the goals of desire may have become obsolete, this does not of itself suffice to transform the sentiments effectively, but merely to make them uncertain and discouraged. This discouragement has preceded all the great trans- formations of history. We feel it to-day so strongly because it is associated with the unconscious stirrings of an uneasy conscience. That is why the war was espoused with so much genuine passion, with a passion whose roots struck deeper than those either of political or of national life. People hoped that the war would give a new trend to their sentiments and would furnish a new meaning to life. Nevertheless, whatever the effect of its cleansing fires, the war cannot do these things, seeing that it did not arise out of social and fundamentally human needs, but out of national conflicts. Nationalism constitutes no more than the surface of the collective sensibility and the collective consciousness. The core of these is transcendental, and finds expression in the ethics of social life. The war will shatter many an outworn value, but only in so far as the outwardly operative will of the people is involved ; the fundamental popular consciousness will be no more pro- foundly affected than to the degree with which it is associated with this will. Should the outward will become the very centre of life, the road is shortened ; the war becomes an end in itself ; peace is a weary and idle dream. War without passion and hatred is nothing but inhuman slaughter ; but THE WAY OF ECONOMICS 113 hatred and passion can never be ultimate aims, since the soul fulfils itself in love. The transformation of sentiment will be considered in the next section. At this stage we must undertake a brief study of the casuistry of institutions. i. The most obvious method for regulating consumption is a widely extended system of taxes upon luxury and immoderate consumption. In certain spheres these taxes may have to be practically prohibitive. The purposes of such a system must not be fiscal. The revenues derived from the taxation of luxury are accessory. The primary, the exclusive object of taxation is to restrict consumption. The Tariff must be higher in proportion to the degree to which the imported or locally manufactured product is superfluous and costly. We must never forget that every import is paid for by an export. In exchange for a string of pearls, we must send abroad the total yield of the labour of five German working-class families during a period of ten years. Tobacco and spirits, costly textiles, furs, plumage, precious stones, and, above all, manufactured articles of luxury, must be heavily taxed, to the extent of several times their original cost of production. Since the super- vision of the import of jewelry is a difficult matter, jewelry should be subject to a heavy annual taxation in addition to an import duty. In certain parts of Germany, the average daily con- sumption of beer by each male adult amounts to more than five pints. The national expenditure upon spirituous liquors and upon tobacco is reckoned in milliards of marks. Enor- mous taxes must be imposed upon these particular luxuries, regardless of the interests of the brewers, publicans, manufacturers and retailers to whom abundant com- pensation can be paid. Taxes on production are to be levied in the case of all articles of luxury and fashion, upon all knicknacks and gewgaws produced in the homeland, except those destined for export. The occupation of space must be taxed. Large private parks, extravagant dwelling-places, stables, coachhouses, 8 114 IN DAYS TO COME and garages must pay their quota of taxation. Steeply graduated taxation must be imposed upon domestic service. Horses, carriages, and motors, in so far as these are used for purposes of luxury ; excessive expenditure upon illu- mination ; costly furniture ; rank and title all should be the objects of taxation, not as a source of revenue to the state, but in order to restrict consumption in these directions. 2. The familiar institutions of death duties and income tax will serve to promote the equalisation of property. Not, however, as of old will these be regarded as an ultimate resource for the levying of national revenue, imposed with fear and trembling and paid with reluctance. Such taxes will imply a recognition of the fact that beyond what is necessary for the ordinary amenities of civilised life, the one who acquires means becomes only the conditional owner of that which he acquires, while the state is fully entitled to relieve him of any or all of the surplus. Those who have studied the development of the so-called mixed-economic [gemischtwirtschaftliche] undertakings, which in the case of certain lucrative enterprises of a monopolistic character have already given expression to the view that the state is entitled to claim by far the largest proportion of all profit over and above a very moderate return, will find nothing unnatural in the proposal that in the case of all superabundant income and property the state has a claim to anything beyond a necessary minimum. The objection that the well-to-do will be supplied with a strong motive for emigration, is invalid. For such institutions will only develop to the extent in which they are regarded as justifiable and necessary ; by slow degrees, only, will they reach their terminal form. Now such a recognition will not be confined to a single nation. On the contrary, the demonstration that the country which leads the way in such matters gains enormously in strength, will not merely quicken the pace of progress in other lands, but, further, will bind more firmly to their homeland those wealthy persons who see the happy results of the sacrifices they are called upon to make. When we come to consider the transformation of moral ideas, this perception will appear to us in a new light. Yet more short-sighted is the objection that the proposed THE WAY OF ECONOMICS 115 new regime will supply a motive for extravagance. If anyone is subject to that strange and inscrutable itch for accumulation which is so dominant in our epoch and which forms one of the most powerful driving forces of contemporary economic life, he will not be cured of his passion because it has become difficult to gratify it. Beyond question, poverty never turned a miser into a spendthrift. If, on the other hand, anyone lacks inclination to hoard, if anyone is prone to spend freely, he will be no more thrifty upon a large income than upon a small. A third objection will for the moment be merely stated ; at a later stage it will receive the close attention it deserves. What substitute will be found for the spirit of enterprise which to-day is exclusively sustained by private accumula- tions of capital ? Even the wealthiest state will not be able to offer the means and inducements held out alluringly in a regime of free competition to those who, in a sanguine spirit of discovery, would fain make their way towards new goals. 3. The struggle against private and personal monopolies is a tendency which needs no more than general and open recognition to ensure that in every individual case it will secure its legislative or practical embodiment. Unavowedly, and in part despite opposition, the energies which animate this tendency have been accumulating, so that nothing more is now needed than to pull the trigger. Already, patents, concessions, the right to use natural forces, are granted only for limited periods ; the chancellor of the exchequer has his eye on the exploiters of rare mineral treasures, and upon the unearned increment in land values. For the management of public industries, forms have been discovered which leave scope for the spirit of enterprise without acceding to all the claims of the covetous entre- preneur. The more notable types of monopoly, those due to superior organisation and predominant capital, have heretofore almost escaped attack. It is difficult to eradicate them systematically, for the centralisation they promote stimulates and strengthens economic life. Nevertheless, forms are discoverable, and will be discussed in the immediate sequel, which are beneficial to the community without allowing the individual to grow immoderately rich. 116 IN DAYS TO COME In connection with monopolies and the means for counteracting them, it is necessary to refer to an unprincipled occupation which, though it does not invariably lead to great wealth for those who follow it, does in the totality of its action lead to the withdrawal of vast sums from the community, and tends to place these sums at the disposal of persons whose claim to property conflicts with their qualities and functions as human beings. I am not thinking of any of the old and serviceable varieties of trade or agency business, but of extensive speculations which aim at deriving profit from some special opportunity, the work of middlemen in the foundation of companies and the supply of funds for industrial and other enterprises, speculations in patents and real estate, secret transactions in loan and exchange business. The only remedy here is the imposition of permanent stamp duties and other special taxation upon accidental profits, trade licences, company registrations, and audits. In the same connection, allusion must be made to a form of activity which, though perfectly honourable and well-intentioned, is based upon such obsolete presuppositions that it does far more harm to the economic life of the community than any form of swindling enterprise has done since the rise of the capitalist system, inasmuch as it leads hundreds of thousands of persons who might be engaged in active production to devote themselves to occupations which could be efficiently performed by a few thousands. Any haberdasher will tell you that many times a year the travellers from the wholesale dealer call, that these travellers spend hours in showing novelties, and endeavouring to secure an order for this article or that. Every traveller must make a special journey to effect three or four such visits, which he will attempt to conceal from his rivals ; these visits increase the cost of the goods, and use up his working powers for a day. Millions of working days are wasted year after year in so-called business journeys, which could be saved if the wholesalers would jointly maintain a sample store in every large provincial town, a place which could be visited three or four times a year by every retailer in the neighbourhood. Heavy taxation of all businesses which exist solely on account of the lack of organisatory THE WAY OF ECONOMICS 117 capacity, and which lead to the squandering of the national energies upon useless journeyings, would force retail trade to reform its methods, and would increase the productive energies of the nation by hundreds of millions. While there continue to exist products whose price is enhanced twenty-five per cent, fifty per cent, or sometimes even a hundred per cent, on the way from the producer to the consumer, the commercial system is cryingly in need of reform. It should not be our primary object here to save the consumer's pocket, nor is the enrichment of the middleman the thing we have most to dread. The main troubles are the superfluous carriage of goods to and fro, the immoderate multiplication of shops, the excessive number of middlemen and profit takers at various points on the road by which the goods pass to their destination. Worst of all is the exaggerated regard for the convenience of the purchaser, who thinks it is too long a walk to the nearest street corner ; who demands seven shops in a district where one could supply all needs ; who does not settle his accounts until after much dunning, and who sometimes evades payment altogether. The friction thus attendant upon trade involves an enormous expenditure of national labour and capital. It could easily be avoided, with consequent diversion of energies to production. The nation and the legislature must not look on with indifference when in every great town the powers of an army corps are wasted in providing for the distribution of tobacco, writing paper, and soap. 4. All inheritance over and above a moderate amount of landed property should accrue to the state. The upper limit of heritable real estate will be standardised by the economic reform of agriculture which, according to the present state of our knowledge, cannot be enduringly and successfully conducted except upon a system of hereditary private ownership. On the other hand, all the arguments that are commonly adduced in favour of the maintenance of great landed estates, are either fallacious, or have at best a purely transient validity, seeing that every economic, technical, and capitalistic advantage attaching to large- scale agriculture can be secured by cooperative farming. A gradual transition to state ownership can be secured by means of taxation, heavily graduated in inverse ratio to the 118 IN DAYS TO COME nearness of kinship and in direct ratio to the value of the estate. It is essential that the scandal of the inheritance of landed property outside the limits of close family relationship should be abolished as soon as possible. Exemption from the claims of the state is to some extent permissible in the case of bequests for benevolent purposes, in the case of certain charitable foundations. To this matter we shall return. Within limits, even family settlements may be tolerated, in so far as they subserve educational, ethical, and cultural purposes. The great works and monu- ments of nature, art, and history, should not be transmissible by inheritance. Throughout the domain of moral and social relationships, the effects of such measures will be greater than those of any other revolution known to modern history. External life will be contemplated from a new outlook In addition to his relationship to his class, the individual will acquire a more intimate relationship towards the community to which he belongs. The detached existence of the average man will come to seem unmeaning ; now civic life will be regarded as substantial only in so far as it serves and is fully functional ; whereas it will be looked upon as shadowy in so far as it is functionless. The contemptible life of luxurv will come to an end, and therewith will end hereditary enslavement to caste feelings ; people's sentiments will broaden out to become national. The lordship of vain, grasping, and evil natures will grow rare ; function and respect will become more closely approximated. Education will acquire new forms and renewed efficiency ; what pro- vided before no more than a light equipment, will now furnish adequate weapons and armour for life's battles. The need for studying and favouring every possible aptitude will grow irrefutable ; the community will be enriched by a perpetual harvest of intellectual energies, such as has never before been displayed except during the great epochs of revolutionary transformation. Women will be recalled to that sense of motherly dignity and domestic responsibility which they have lost in a self-seeking life of ladylike ease, amid futilities, or under the burden of everyday cares. To all men of good will, a horizon and a possibility of progress THE WAY OF ECONOMICS 119 will open ; no one will be despised and rejected ; none but detractors will be ostracised. A last contradiction remains to be explained. If we contemplate the extant functioning of large-scale private property, looking at the matter in a purely mechanical way, and leaving the ethico-social implications of the problem unconsidered, we see that such property performs a duty which, however uncongenial it appears in its essential nature, is nevertheless of great importance from the economic outlook. Private property shoulders the risk of the world economy. All the enterprises of the capitalist system share common characteristics ; they all require large means, and they are all risky. The revenue department of any properly organ- ised community can supply the requisite means. Much more difficult, however, is it for a municipality or a state to engage in bold ventures. These corporations lack the passionate stimulus of private enterprise ; the sense of responsibility renders them timid ; they are devoid of that autocratic and instinctive judgment which makes the prospects of success outweigh the possibilities of danger. Onlookers are apt to imagine that specialised skill can provide a substitute for the aforesaid incisive powers of judgment, but the desiderated substitute will not prove effective when the risks of great enterprises are under consideration ; the experts will differ among themselves, and by the time they have settled their differences, the favourable opportunity will have been lost. Private capital secures ample funds by the joint-stock method ; it encounters the risks of enterprise by inde- fatigable endeavours towards success and profit ; it over- comes the uncertainties of the future by exercising the greatest possible care in the choice of its agents, and by the number and variety of its enterprises. Hitherto this demand could be met only by means of the surplus capital which, accumulating in the hands of the well-to-do after these had consumed all they considered requisite for daily life, clamoured for reinvestment and increase. The smaller savings were satisfied with increased security and less risk. 120 IN DAYS TO COME The question now arises, What new capitalistic forms will replace private enterprise when the superfluities of individual wealth have disappeared owing to the diffusion of a general and equalised wellbeing ? If we are to answer this question, we must anticipate in one point what we shall have to say when we come to discuss the moral problems of economic life. We must refer in this place to the progressive suppression of covetousness by the sense of responsibility. If we survey a number of typical enterprises, disregarding their historical antecedents and concerning ourselves solely with the extant (for the Substitution of the Content has universally been in operation), we arrive at the following results : Almost without exception these enterprises assume the impersonal form of the joint-stock company. No one is a permanent owner. The composition of the thousandfold complex which functions as lord of the undertaking, is in a state of perpetual flux. The original arrangement, in accordance with which a number of well-to-do merchants combined for the joint conduct of some business which was too extensive for any one of them to undertake single- handed, has become a matter of purely historical interest. Almost fortuitously, one person or another acquires one or several shares in an enterprise ; he may hold on for a dividend or for a rise in values ; in many cases he has bought merely to sell again as soon as possible. The fact that he has become a shareholder in a limited company hardly enters into his consciousness In a great many instances, all that he has done is to bet upon the prosperity of some branch of business enterprise, and the scrip which he holds is merely the symbol of this bet. The investor, however, is likewise the possessor of other stock and scrip, perhaps in a great many different enterprises ; he is the point of intersection of various rights of ownership, and in each case the ownership is a fluctuating complex. In many cases he knows nothing more of these enterprises than the name ; he may have been personally advised to invest in them ; he may have been attracted by a newspaper article ; he may have followed a popular craze in favour of some particular investment. THE WAY OF ECONOMICS 121 The relationship we have been describing signifies that ownership has been de-individualised. The primitive personal relationship between a man and a tangible, accurately known affair, has given place to an impersonal claim upon a theoretical yield. The de-individualisation of ownership simultaneously implies the objectification of the thing owned. The claims to ownership are subdivided in such a fashion, and are so mobile, that the enterprise assumes an independent life, as if it belonged to no one ; it takes on an objective existence, such as in earlier days was embodied only in state and church, in a municipal corporation, in the life of a guild or a religious order. In the vital activity of the undertaking, this relation- ship manifests itself as a shifting of the centre of gravity. The executive instruments of an official hierarchy become the new centre. The community of owners still retains the sovereign right of decision, but this right grows increasingly theoretical, inasmuch as a multiplicity of other collective organisms (especially banks) are entrusted by the share- holders with the maintenance of their rights, and inasmuch as these fiduciaries in their turn work hand in hand with the directors of the enterprise. To-day, already, the paradox is conceivable that the enterprise might come to own itself inasmuch as with the profits it could buy out the individual shareholders. German law imposes restrictions upon such a process, insisting that the original shareholders must retain their voting rights. Nevertheless, there is no organic contradiction to the complete detachment of ownership from the owner. The de-individualisation of ownership, the objectification of enterprise, the detachment of property from the possessor, leads to a point where the enterprise becomes transformed as it were into a trusteeship, or perhaps it would be better to say into an institution resembling the state. This condition, which I shall denote by the term " autonomy," can be reached by many routes. One of these, the repayment of capital, has previously been mentioned. A second method, the distribution of ownership among the employees and officials of the undertaking, has been followed somewhat closely by one of our German manufacturers. The right of 122 IN DAYS TO COME ownership can be vested in official positions, universities, town councils, governments ; this has happened in the case of one of the oldest mining corporations in Germany. Nothing more is requisite than that there should be adequate and practical stipulations, which provide that the enterprise shall be permanently conducted by the best discoverable instruments. If its constitution be wisely drafted, the enterprise will be able to provide for all future requirements of capital, however extensive these may become. Its first resource will be to lay hands upon the revenues which hitherto from year to year it has distributed to the shareholders. Next, transiently or permanently, it can issue debentures. In case of need, it can retreat a step, and can issue new shares. Above all, if under the protection of a state whose wealth is inexhaustible, and if subjected to the control of this state, it has a right to expect that in case of need the state will provide it with funds in return for sufficient guarantees. Nay more, the state itself will wish and demand that autono- mous enterprises shall be willing at any time, under proper supervision, to take over and to invest surpluses from the state treasury. The counterpart of the objective tendency towards autonomy is the subjective psychological evolution of the enterprise and its organs. In so far as wealthy private entrepreneurs still exist, they have long been accustomed to regard their businesses as independent entities, incorporated objectively as com- panies. Such an entity has its own personal responsibility ; it works, grows, makes contracts and alliances on its own account ; it is nourished by its own profits ; it lives for its own purposes. The fact that it nourishes the proprietor may be purely accessory, and in most cases is not the main point. A good man of business will incline to restrict unduly his own and his family's consumption, in order to provide more abundant means for the strengthening and extension of the firm. The growth and the power of this organism is a delight to the owner, a far greater delight than lucre. The desire for gain is overshadowed by ambition and by the Joys of creation. Such an outlook is accentuated among the chiefs of THE WAY OF ECONOMICS 123 great corporate undertakings. Here we already encounter an official idealism identical with that which prevails in the state service. The executive instruments labour for the benefit of times when, in all human probability, they will long have ceased to be associated with the enterprise. Almost without exception, they do their utmost to reserve for the undertaking the larger moiety of its profits, and to distribute no more than the lesser moiety in the form of dividends, although to the detriment of their individual incomes. They try to preserve for their successors the yield of the period during which they have been the administrators. A leading official in such an enterprise, if offered the choice between having his salary doubled and becoming one of the directors, will prefer responsibility to wealth. The power, the arche- typal reality, of the institution has become an end in itself. Covetousness, as the motive force, has been completely superseded by the sense of responsibility. Thus the psyche of the enterprise works towards the same end as the evolution of the possessional relationships. Both culminate in the production of autonomy. In ultimate analysis, the economic meaning of the whole movement grows clear. It is no longer the wealthy capitalist's desire for gain which shapes the enterprise. The undertaking itself, now grown into an objective personality, maintains itself, creates its own means just as much as it creates its own tasks. It is ready to provide these means out of its own profits, by the temporary issue of debentures, out of state loans, out of foundations, out of the savings of its staff and its workmen or in any way that may be possible. Thus, between the domain of state organisations and the domain of private businesses, there arises a domain of inter- mediate structures. In this we find autonomous enterprises, arising out of and conducted by private initiative, subjected to state supervision, and leading an independent life. Essentially, they are transitional varieties between private economy and state economy. Presumably, in future cen- turies, this objective and de-individualised ownership will become the leading mode of existence for all permanent property. In contrast therewith, property in articles of consumption will remain private, whilst property in goods 124 IN DAYS TO COME of communal utility will continue to be vested in the state. Industrial monopolies will be conducted under the form of mixed-economic enterprises. The laws of property must take into account the character- istics of autonomous undertakings, no less than the character- istics of foundations, which will likewise prove of increasing importance in days to come. Both kinds of institution should be authorised to accept legacies, in so far at least as their aims meet with public approval. Thus the creator of an economic organism will be empowered to give expression to his ideal will, to the will permanently incorporated in his work, without transmitting property rights and revenues to idle generations. The economic will thus secures enduring existence in so far as it works productively, whereas it is mortal in so far as it strives for the accumulation of material goods. The foundation, grown objective, and detached from the individual life, becomes the true monument of an outwardly-working existence. It acquires an analogy with the ideal creation of a work of art, an analogy which is manifest in respect of absolute existence if not in respect of spiritual content. The fact that Germany, where there is so great a love for the essential and the ideal, is so much poorer than the United States or even Greece in foundations which do not subserve narrow family ambitions, shows that the entre- preneur's mentality is not really of German origin, and therefore cannot in our land lead to its ultimate consequences. These consequences (which must not be self-seeking either for the individual self or for the family self, since an organism devoted to self-seeking cannot endure) would make themselves fully manifest directly the right of inheritance, which now by false analogy and uncriticised custom attaches to these creations, underwent a change in character. What is a rare exception to-day, will become a general rule in the future. What one generation creates, will in the next generation acquire universal validity for the service of that generation. The economic unit is no longer exclusively the family stock, but the community. Nevertheless, this community is not merely the schematically associated community of the state. Intermediately between the family and the state, an ideal existence is carried on by economic THE WAY OF ECONOMICS 125 individualities which are not men but embodiments of human will. It is permissible that foundations to a certain extent should subserve the family idea, inasmuch as they contribute in some measure towards the education and vital equipment of individual scions ; it is permissible in so far as these objects can be fulfilled without undue interference with the common good. On no account, however, must we tolerate the degeneration into the support of functionless share- holders, or into the cultivation of privileged castes. If we now survey the economic life of a country which we assume to have realised the principles of the new order, we shall discern the following series of effects. The aspect of production has changed. All the energies of the land have become active ; none but invalids and the elderly are idle. The import and manufacture of needless, ugly, and noxious products has been reduced to a minimum. Thereby a third of the national labour power has been saved, so that the production of necessary goods has been notably cheapened and increased. The concentration of manufacturing energy upon necessary and useful products increases the effectiveness of human labour in relation to the goods produced. The factor of attainability grows. The average share of products available for consumption rises, so that for an equal amount of labour a higher standard of life becomes possible. Whilst the general wellbeing of the country is doubled or trebled by the setting of idle hands to work and by the rationalisation of production, the accumulation of private wealth is checked. Consequently the growth of property must advantage the community. These benefits accrue in two different ways. First of all, the state grows rich beyond imagination. All the tasks it has hitherto performed, can now be performed much better. The state can abolish poverty and unemployment ; it can fulfil to an unprecedented degree all obligations of a generally useful character, without having recourse to increased taxation. Sources of revenue which to-day are utilised by methods that exploit economic life and thus work immense harm, can in the new order be 126 IN DAYS TO COME dealt with apart from fiscal considerations. Considering in this connection one problem alone, that of traffic and trans- port, it is obvious that the abandonment of profit-making considerations by the state would result in a great multiplica- tion of productive capacity and in an almost incredible cheapening of manufacture. For, practically speaking, the whole transport system in the hands of the state would be made free. The effect would be the same as if all the sources of raw material and all the means of production throughout the country had been concentrated into a single area. The same considerations apply to the generation and distribution of mechanical energy. The state becomes the ((J uardian and administrator of enormous means for investment. On the most moderate terms, it places these means at the disposal of all productive occupations, while making it a condition that those to whom such means are ceded shall pay the normal rate of wages. A new middle class comes into existence through the national financing of such medium-scale enterprises as it is expedient to maintain side by side with the large-scale industries. The influx of nationalised capital lowers the rate of interest in industrial undertakings throughout the country and facilitates the establishment of enterprises of moderate proportions. i At the same time the state is enabled to liberate intellectual labour from the "mechanism of material -industry, and to ensure to brainworkers that adequate return which to-day depends upon the chances of an unspiritual success. The artist, the thinker, and the man of learning, grow independent of the decrees of a market which will" not reward the genuine unless it is lucky enough to be con- founded with the spurious. As the state becomes more prosperous, so concomitantly does the wellbeing of the people increase, not indeed through an increase in great private fortunes, but through the general diffusion of civic comfort. Class contrasts have disappeared ; the path towards independence 1 and responsibility has been thrown open to all ; the means of culture are accessible.! every person of talent. No longer has the x man of ability to struggle against the closed phalanx of the privileged ; we see a continuous intermingling, an enduring ascent and THE WAY OF ECONOMICS 127 descent, in the ranks of the active and in the ranks of the leaders. In proportion as, on the one hand, the accumulation of savings facilitates the securing of economic credits, and, on the other hand, the recommencement of existences becomes a daily occurrence through withdrawal into the battalions of the less highly skilled workers wage struggles grow less bitter, all the more so since moral and intellectual qualities are increasingly influential in deciding choice of occupation. Above all we shall find that the conditions of the supply of labour have changed. Whereas to-day hands are at times idle, while machines and the means of production are in excessive demand, in the new or*der, machines and capital will wait for the hands tc^ set them at work, and consequently willing workers will secure an enhanced share of the values produced by labour. The stratum of new structures, the stratum of autonomous enterprises which has been intercalated between the private economy and the state economy, contributes to promote these results. The autonomous economic instrument has its activities predominantly determined by other considera- tions than those of high profit. It aims at the accumulation of surpluses only in so far as is requisite for renovation and extension. The conflict with the interests of the wage- earners is mitigated. Nay more, some of these new organisms will as a matter of principle admit the workers to a share in the profits ; others will seek to secure the advantages of an economic form which is no longer subordinated to the monetary interests oLshareholders and capitalists, by improving the status of tKeir workers through high wages, and thus securing work of better quality and a greater degree of intensity. The existence and the competition of these autonomous enterprises will have a stimulating reaction upoli the labour market. When economic life assumes such characters, it becomes possible to ensure equality in education and the careful selection of all available talent, these measures decisively contributing to strengthen ^the whole life of the nation ; whereas to-day the best attempts towards an unprejudiced popular- education are shipwrecked through the diversities in the domestic circumstances of the pupils, and through the variations in their bodily and mental qualities. A 128 IN DAYS TO COME nation can only come to full maturity, can only develop its spiritual and moral powers to the maximum, when no grain of corn falls on barren ground, and when every shoot secures the care which comports with the worth and the divine calling of the human spirit. Lest any fallacy should creep in to invalidate the understanding of what might seem to be a Utopian picture, the contrast between the existing system and that which is destined to replace it may be briefly summarised : 1. Production and wellbeing must be increased throughout the country, for : extravagance will be put a stop to ; superfluous production will be replaced by useful production ; idleness will be abolished, and all available forces will be harnessed to the work of spiritual and material production ; free competition and the spirit of private enterprise will be preserved ; responsibility will be placed in the hands of those who are most capable both morally and intellectually. 2. The accumulation of immoderate and dead wealth will be checked. 3. Caste barriers will be broken down ; in place of permanently burdened and permanently burdening members, there will be a system characterised by organic movement and by organic ascent and descent. 4. Therewith will increase : the power of the state, its material strength, and its equalising energy ; and simultaneously there will arise an equable condition of average wellbeing, which will permeate all classes, will do away with class contrasts, and will promote throughout the land the highest conceivable development of intellectual and economic energies. THE WAY OF MORALS IT is a common error to-day to repudiate the notion of pro- gressive evolution, which for a century has been so greatly extolled. True enough that evolution is an occurrence in time and space ; and that if we venture to fix our gaze on the absolute, that which is conditioned by time and space is no longer within our field of vision. We are free to describe what is beyond space and time as at rest ; but here, although the space element and the time element approximate to zero, our concept does not wholly escape them. Our pro- cedure is more radical when, as the primal basis of our symbolisation, we demand contrasts of unknown categories. Thus an inadequate image may be secured : rest at the centre of the noumenon ; increasing movement as we advance towards the periphery of the phenomenon. This consideration loses all significance as soon as we step on to the stage of the phenomenal. We are placed in this phenomenal world in order that we may act ; the phenomenal world is dominated by intellectual thought ; in the phenomenal world, the phantoms space, time, and movement, are real requisites. The stage is illumined by light from another realm ; this light is ethics. That transcendental realm whence the light derives, is no longer the domain of the intellect. In man's soul lie the spiritual powers which open the way into this realm. Herein we discern the naive error of philosophy, which has presumed itself competent to force its way into all realms by the power of the intellect, of logic, of the multi- plication table ; and which has never asked itself whether 9 129 130 IN DAYS TO COME this intellectual force was really an absolute, and whether it was to be looked upon as the only power possessed by the spirit ; which has never demanded whether, for every sphere of knowledge, adequate spiritual powers may not be essential ; and whether germs of these powers may not manifest themselves in the intuitive sphere, in the love energy of the soul. The millenniums passed, and again and ever again the multiplication table was applied to the unriddling of problems which even the yearning of the soul was incompetent to solve. Here the two primary outlooks diverge : are we to attempt a description of the absolute in the language of the intellect ; or a description of the phenomenal world in the language of the soul ? From the soul's outlook, the phenomenal world is a parable ; it is a stage on which we have been placed that, in accordance with the will of the Dramaturge, we may create and experience our restless destiny. From the outlook of the intellect, the transcendental is an ascent. The neutral territory between the two viewpoints is our sense of moral obligation. Here stands the need for linking up. Here it is inadmissible to look upon the phenomenal wholly as self-determinative or wholly as the sport of chance. Here the soul teaches the intellect, and proves itself of loftier origin. The intermingling remains inadmissible. We must not obscure real life by the transcendental contemplation of motionlessness ; nor must we violate the transcendental realm by the introduction of earthly ordinances. Upon the side of intellectual contemplation in the realm of the phenomenal, it is our right and our duty to regard the beginning of the soul as ascent and evolution, although from the transcendental outlook the soul has neither begin- ning nor end Contemplation of economic, historical, and social things must always carry with it the awareness that it is operative on the stage of the phenomenal. The observer must take real life seriously ; he must have faith in knowledge and in growth within the limits of their possibilities, and in so far as he is concerned with the extant. But if goals come into his ken, then morality assumes the leadership. For then, although the extant may not become a mere accessory, THE WAY OF MORALS 131 nevertheless it is not the decisive factor. The summons comes from afar, and is none the less powerfully effective, just as the ebb and flow of the tides are conditioned by the pull of remote bodies. The extant stands fixed and is nevertheless plastic, like ductile metal. We can have faith in evolution ; we can trust that evolution, in its dealings with refractory elements, with apparently permanent con- stants, and even with the passions, the wishes, and the illusions of men, will bring about a clearer and more perfect state of affairs, will lead us nearer to the realm of the soul. If we find that, since the extinction of absolute dogmatic ideals, the world has been competent to advance a step or two in addition to busying itself about mechanical defensive measures, this has been rendered possible solely by the fact that in the nooks and crannies of consciousness there are still everywhere to be found vestiges of the faiths of an earlier day, vestiges deriving from transcendental, myth- ological, fetichistic, and animistic sources, and that these, though impotent in isolation, are still collectively competent to point a path. It is inconceivable that this world, with its incredible wealth of spiritual forces, should have been subjected to the chance play of material needs, physical balances, majority decisions, without the counterpoise of one, imperturbable, ethical driving-force. Without the conviction of an abso- lute good for whose attainment we needs must strive. Without faith in a common goal, embracing both life and death. Without a faculty which can form valid estimates, deciding that one thing is good and another bad. Doubtless, interests can likewise create faiths. An agricultural corporation capitalises its annual profits in the form of a religio-political outlook. The free-trading interests crystallise their business ideas in the form of a lucrative deism. The investigator creates for himself a transcendental arch-professor who smiles upon his worshipper's work. A great ruler makes bargains with his divinity. A poor wight takes his revenge and deposes his divinity. Has it never struck anyone that throughout this wide world there does not seem to exist a single being who has a conviction which conflicts with his interests ? Is, then, the world to be guided, is its spiritual will to 132 IN DAYS TO COME be determined, along the diagonals of the parallelograms of forces which are formed by the multiplicity of transcen- dentalised interests ? And yet the realm of the soul, and therewith the ordering of ideals and goals, lies open to the gaze of us all, far better, far more organically arranged than is the confused world of realities. Inconceivable is a second and lesser thing which should be dear to the heart of an age that prides itself on being practical. Man, who believes himself to be a successful student of all realms in the heaven above and the earth beneath, still lacks power to form a true estimate of man himself ; he does not know and cannot value his own immediate neighbour, the one who is just such another as himself. Obsolete systems of valuation deriving from all ages and all regions, intersect in human consciousness, and not one of them can win to headship because of the lack of a leading, fundamental, and universally valid philosophical outlook. In the western popular consciousness and in its aesthetic outlook, the Teutonic polarity of courage and fear pre- ponderates. Highly esteemed is every quality which dis- plays courage ; despised and hated is every defect which arises out of fear. The use of force is invariably pardoned if it be combined with frankness, honesty, and valiancy ; the cowardice of falsehood, subterfuge, and deceit brings dis- grace. The reproach of reproaches is that of cowardice ; honour is almost synonymous with courage. Proof of courage in the duel brings healing to offended honour. Wisdom, energy, piety, mercifulness, are indifferent qualities ; they may be useful or harmful ; they may borrow recognition or disapproval from some neighbouring system of valuation ; but they have no bearing upon the significant and decisive valuation. In imaginative writing, the characteristics of courage and sincerity arouse active sympathy. A hero of fictiorr may be slothful, visionary, violent, foolish, ignorant, or egotistical, and may nevertheless win the reader's approval ; but if a character display cowardice, falseness, or malice, he can never be made the hero of such a work ; the very name of " hero " which is conventionally applied to a THE WAY OF MORALS 133 leading character in a work of fiction connotes this idea of courage In the conflict of the tragical drama, the uncon- scious antinomy of popular sentiment is pushed to an extreme. The hero is courageous, and therefore enlists our sympathies ; he displays excess of certain indifferent qualities, or lack of others ; consequently, as may be dictated by the course of the world or of destiny (to which, strangely enough, these qualities are not indifferent), the hero perishes amid the sympathies of the audience, which is emotionally moved, intellectually astonished, but which half unwittingly understands. In French imaginative literature it suffices that the hero should prove himself courageous, sometimes generous ; for the rest, he will not alienate sympathy if like Julien Sorel in Stendhal's celebrated novel, he lies, suspects, and intrigues. In German and in English litera- ture, on the other hand, if the hero is to arouse our sympathy he must display conspicuous and unalloyed courage. In a frame of mind which can be imparted by education we find that, side by side with esteem for courage, there will exist the oriental esteem for mercifulness and wisdom, for the patriarchal ideal, which was alien to the sympathies of medieval Germany so that she resisted the entry of biblical ideas into the German poetic consciousness. During the last century, through the professional and artistic training of sensibilities, there have originated the rudiments of an intellectual valuation. The increase of intellectual capacity to talent, the increase of intuitive capacity to genius, seem to become decisive, and to achieve detachment from ethical conditions. Mechanised thinking pays honour to success. A new polarity of values came into existence, and enduringly influenced the popular consciousness. I refer to the Ameri- can gradation of working energy, tenacity, resoluteness, and fixity of the imaginative will. When the moral sensibilities undergo precipitation upon the parchments of the law, we have a fragmentary reflection of the motley disorder of the systems. Lying is permissible, even before the judgment seat ; but perjury is forbidden. Offences against property are severely punished, especially when they take the form of cowardly fraud. The duel is forbidden ; and nevertheless, in accordance with popular 134 IN DAYS TO COME and class sentiment, this proof of courage is tolerated within certain limits. Social estimates show the same medley of bourgeois utilities. Cowardice and knavish spite, if publicly dis- played, incur public censure. Falsehood, avarice, cunning, malice, calumny, ruthlessness, arrogance, vanity, ingratitude, ambition, sloth, lasciviousness, bad manners, are tolerated if they do not interfere with bourgeois success. Diligence, energy, force of will, decision, talent, wit, thoughtfulness, are approved, and when they lead to success are greatly admired. Kindliness, magnanimity, self-sacrifice, natural endowments, are esteemed when they are openly recognised. This is an approximately complete inventory of the subconscious, the conscious, the legal, and the social valua- tions of our day. There must, however, be now living in Europe at least a thousand persons who know nothing of one another, though their eyes have been opened. They possess the elements of a new valuation. Nay more, to them has been vouchsafed the momentous insight which transfuses human affairs as light transfuses a crystal. Not only do mouth and eyes speak to them but forehead, form, and hands likewise. The selection and the sound of some chance word ; the unexpressed link in a succession of thoughts ; an involuntary movement ; every choice, pre- ference, or aversion in thoughts, things, and men ; every bond in the environment, in intercourse, in the conduct of life to the favoured few, all these things reveal the essential nature of what they contemplate, with an intensity and clarity which for the majority is rendered possible only by means of the burning-glass of poetic vision. People are fond of referring to the talent of knowing human nature, and many understand by this a kind of suspicious cunning, which seeks to discover the secret motives, artifices, and weaknesses of human beings, in order that the discoverer.may, to better effect, exploit and control his fellows. All that this false and slavish virtue can lead to is but petty and unjust advantage, for it can only be practised by persons of the baser sort and against those of their own kidney. A true knowledge of men is disclosed to none but responsible persons, to those who are puissantly endowed, although they need not possess genius. The royal trust in mankind THE WAY OF MORALS 135 displayed by William I was based upon such a force, and availed for nearly a century to preserve the strictly monarchical ideal. A sympathetic understanding of men never leads us to despise or to overrate human beings. The organic sensation upon which it is based grasps the necessity for the creative abundance which fulfils itself in the simultaneous harmony of all possibilities, in the vigorous upbuilding of all stages. To feel contempt is doubly blind, for it involves blindness towards oneself and blindness towards the multiplicity of nature. Valuation thus loses the pharisaical flavour which attaches to all narrow ethical judgments, and makes them repugnant to creative natures. The question no longer runs, what is better and what is worse, what is commendable and what is contemptible, what is saved and what is damned ? The question runs, what looks towards the future and what looks towards the past ; what craves for responsibility and what craves for an easy time ; what promotes life, and what leads our footsteps deathward ? But if we ask those who have gained the seer s vision in human affairs, towards what poles their unconscious and unerring valuation is directed, they cannot tell us. We know, and we wish to reiterate the assertion, that it is directed towards the nearness and the distance of the soul. These seers have glimpsed the contrast between the soulful and the soulless man, and they perceive transitional varieties between these types in all human manifestations. In earlier writings I have demonstrated a primal con- trast and have thrown light upon its origin : the contrast between the spirits which are centred in the absolute and which find their balance in the fulfilling energies of transcen- dentalism, intuition, and love ; and the spirits which are centred in the phenomenal and find their balance in desires and anxieties. The transcendentalist spirit feels that its function is to serve the unseen ; it fashions and dominates the phenomenal world, not arbitrarily nor for the sake of pleasure, but mindful of its mission and its responsibilities. The terrene spirit is mastered by the world, by the physical, by joys and sorrows, things and men In the endeavour to free itself, it wrestles for life and pleasure, to win power 136 IN DAYS TO COME over the senses ; it strives for knowledge and possessions, that it may gain the mastery over things ; it struggles for power and dominion that it may subjugate men. A three- fold error, refuted by dissatisfaction, doubt, and death. The affect of such a spirit is greed and fear, rationalised as purpose. Its power is that of the purely analytical intellect ; the content of all previous philosophy comprises unavailing endeavours to create a picture of the world or to construct a doctrine of morals out of this narrow, un- transcendental, and tendentious force. Such philosophy has never been able to advance beyond self limitation and the abdication of intellect, for at a single step beyond this point the repressed intuitive forces would have modestly reasserted their rights. Psychologically noteworthy are the diverse manifestations of alarm which are witnessed whenever intellectual energy impinges on the crystal walls of the neigh- bouring realm ; noteworthy, too, are the various ways in which the intellectual energy repudiates that neighbouring realm. Every ethical system based on the purposive in- tellect must of necessity end as utilitarian ; but shame on account of this bondage to earth, and despair on account of the sophistical vaunting of trivial utilities, have led to strange and hybrid mystifications. Above all do the practical ethic and the practical religion of the intellectual spirit remain utilitarian. Neither in morals nor in religion can that spirit get beyond the do ut des of the market-place. At the mere idea of faith that asks no proof, the intellect is once more compelled to abdicate, except in so far as, in secret alarm at the results of its own researches, it clings to historical revelation. Even when it supplements the phenomenal world by a theocratic upper world, and when it supplements our mortal life by a posthumous hereafter, hopes and fears, bargainings and aims, remain decisive. We may call such a compost what we please ; its essential idea is still utilitarian. Very significant is the way in which the purest religions, those deriving from the regions of unalloyed transcendental- ism grow materialised in the hands of nationalities guided by the purposive intellect. Whether it ends at the praying- wheel or at the reliquary, the road invariably leads from unselfish faith to prudent bargaining. THE WAY OF MORALS 137 For the transcendentalist spirit there is no ethical bar- gaining, but, rather, an ethical condition. The pure, unselfish mood, inspired by contemplation and faith, cannot err what- ever happens. It knows nothing of formal rules. It neither has nor wishes to have prescriptions for the attainment of greater happiness than it already possesses. It is happy in virtue of the inflowing energies which are the atmosphere it breathes. Finished, now, are all compromises between vice and virtue, between aspiration and self-indulgence. The ethical process has been withdrawn from the ordering of the intellect, and has entered into the realm of its own fulfilling essence. Again and again I have shown what it is that our age so urgently needs to know, and in what obvious human radiations the nature of the intellectual spirit, swayed by fears and aims, finds expression. I have shown how the cares and ties of earth find expression in egocentric thought and feeling ; how dependence upon men finds expression in ambition and display, in- loquacity and falsehood ; depen- dence upon things, in covetousness and in greed for knowledge ; the whole complex of the untranscendental tendency of the spirit, in a detached, unamiable, and critical attitude towards the world, in vacillating and uninstinctive activities, in contempt for the moment and eagerness for the future, in a fondness for the obvious, the declamatory, and the emotional, in a bent towards superstition and towards interested piety. Never do we find one of these qualities manifesting itself in isolation ; never does their expression elude the discerning gaze. They constitute the outward measure of the soul's distance of the individual and of the nation. They con- stitute its gradual transition to the manifestations of transcendentalism ; to the creative passion, to truth, reality, and intuition ; to freedom from things, men, and the ego ; to absorption in things for things' sake ; to love for love's sake ; to unselfish piety ; to gratefulness, self-sacrifice, and illumination. This is the true path of humanity ; here, whether they pass them or no, are the stations for men and for the peoples ; these are the only true and infallible measures of human development. To one who unconsciously feels these measures to be parts 138 IN DAYS TO COME of himself, such demonstrations can say nothing new. They can only elucidate relationships which it is not difficult to think out. But it is of the utmost importance that the universal valuation should at length foresee what its teaching is to bring to mankind. No longer shall the dead remnants of contradictory ethical systems praise and recommend now this and now that, so that in the long run everyone comes to regard with confident approval the lot he has drawn, and so that the world becomes petrified in self-satisfaction. It is a happy sign that there should exist to-day a moderate number of persons who, without the incitation of prophets and zealots, share this estimate of values in a tacit agree- ment, and who without hatred or proselytising zeal find them confirmed in every individuality. No more than a few decades will elapse before Germany at least will see the human path open before her. The intellect is immensely old ; dating from the days of the prehuman. Mankind has grown grey in this school ; with unconscious mastery our race has wielded the intellect's formulas and utilitarian criteria throughout the unending series of the generations. But the soul is young. Each one of us must toil anew for the acquirement of his share ; its speech is still hesitant ; in its spirit we are children. The nations, youthful structures with no more than a few millen- niums of life behind them, have in their collective conscious- ness mastered the methods of the intellect, and employ these, inwardly for upbuilding, and outwardly for defence. Hitherto, their dawning consciousness of soul has been exclusively manifested in the collective organism of speech ; in morals, tradition and myth ; and in collective works of art, such as town planning, cathedral building, furniture, and folk-song. Religious transcendentalism, on the other hand, has in the collective consciousness invariably been intellectualised and degraded into ritual and ecclesiasticism ; an outwardly operative political conscience has not yet come into being ; the states confront one another as non-moral entities. Among the bequests of the pure intellect, the most important has been the creation ot European science and the materialisation of that science as the mechanistic epoch. I have already described how external and internal cir- THE WAY OF MORALS 139 cumstances the growth of population, the reciprocal actions and reactions of opposing strata of the population, the struggles between the intuitive and the intellectual spirit had to cooperate in order to bring about this movement. It suffices here to insist that the mechanistic epoch, when still far from its climax, begins to nourish within itself the counter forces, which are not indeed destined to destroy mechanisation in its practical workings (for mechanisation will remain indispensable as a lever to overcome the inertia of dead masses) ; but which aie unquestionably destined to deprive mechanisation of its dominion over the spirit, and to make of it the servant of mankind. For the more definitely the new thought-forms, modes of investigation, and methods of action peculiar to mechanisa- tion, whether applied to science, technique, economics, or politics, become a common heritage of civilisation, after they have for two centuries been the secret instruments and the jealously guarded privileges of an intellectual minority; the more these things, absorbed into the realm of the uncon- scious, cease to provide exceptional advantages for the few the more effective and the more indispensable will in turn become the gradations of the purely creative, intuitive, and responsible spirit ; and the more will the manifestations of this latter spirit assume the leadership. Even to-day, above all in the spheres of politics and economics, but likewise in the spheres of technique and science, there is a superfluity of intelligent persons, but an inadequate supply of persons of strong character and good intuitive gifts. We begin to look upon a trained intelligence as a matter of course, and to realise that the intellect is not effective unless supplemented by nobler components. The innate inadequacies of the intelligence grow plain. The intolerable sameness of all that is thought and done, whether in great things or in small, levels the way for the overwhelming pre-eminence of anyone who is able to pile Pelion upon Ossa, for anyone who can use intuition to crown the force of the understanding. A certain measure of intellectual develop- ment is attainable by all, even in spheres which seem almost inaccessible to schooling. Even in artistic work, an average degree of skill can be produced by training ; the painting of a tolerable picture, the writing of a readable novel, requires 140 IN DAYS TO COME nothing more than an average degree of culture, an average imitative faculty, which are often enough mistaken for creative gifts. The ethical significance of the valuation of human qualities attains the level of a social necessity, for none but the higher types of mankind can overcome the tyranny of mechanisation, can turn its forces to good account. Future ages will be amazed that we entrusted leadership, responsibility, and power to the free competition of ignoble and even dishonour- able qualities and talents, simply because we lacked insight and the capacity to draw distinctions ; they will be amazed that we esteemed readiness, a frank contempt for truth, loquacity, brutality, selfishness, fussy activity, a mean calculation of chances, push, and servility, whenever these qualities were embodied in one able to use the lever of mechanisation with notable success ; they will be amazed that we regarded it as an inevitable necessity for these devilish forces to acquire the larger moiety of earthly prestige and pre-eminence. That we were not ashamed to look on calmly while noble natures perished, and could not hold their own in a combat where the weapons were so little to their taste. That we were not even able to recognise the outward signs which are displayed plainly enough at the first glance and at the first word, although the number of the seers was already sufficient for the establishment of a knowledge of human nature which, had it been diffused by the schools and the universities, could have opened the eyes and ears of youth. Instead of this, we cling to the shadowy vestiges of theoretical moral systems diverse in origin and aim ; systems which mutually contradict and mutually annul one another to such a degree, that complete indiffer- entism results, and ultimately all moral demands are satisfied with the surplus remnant, the minimal balance, of so-called respectability. In the sense of this contemporary European morality, a respectable man is one who pays the more urgent among his debts, one who does not allow himself to be caught lying, who does not publicly annoy his neighbours, who conducts his business affairs with due respect to the law, subscribes to charitable funds, gives satisfaction, is well dressed, tolerably well educated, can produce evidence of having been born in lawful wedlock, and that his father THE WAY OF MORALS 141 possessed the like qualities. Throughout all civilised lands, in the year of grace 1915, these endowments suffice, as far as bourgeois moral sensibilities are concerned, to furnish good repute, to satisfy every economic demand, to discharge all human responsibilities, and finally, whenever any excep- tionally useful quality or knowledge is superadded, to open the way to all positions of power. If we are agreed that all economic and social science is nothing more than applied ethics ; that the state, the economic system, and society, deserve to perish if they signify nothing more than a balance of bridled interests, of armed and unarmed associations of producers and con- sumers ; that only the spiritual content of life is worthy to exist ; that the soul creates form and vesture for itself out of things and institutions Which become dead corpses when their spiritual essence takes to flight if this be accepted, it remains to ascertain the mutual relationships between the bed and the stream, between the creative will and the created institution. We have anticipated in describing the institutions which, in the section The Way of Economics we deduced from a general law ; we must study the trans- formations of consciousness which accompany the course of institutions, which must precede and follow that course. A brief commentary has revealed to us the confusionism of the metaphysical and moral consciousness, has made us aware how little true knowledge and how little power of just valuation human beings possess ; the claims which ensue therefrom must be fulfilled, the realisations must be woven into the web of the future. We have seen that renunciation is the guiding star of social morality ; the renunciation of fealty to super- fluities, the renunciation of things as a source of power, the renunciation of the selfishness of the family stock ; an endeavour to promote the most important things of the outward life, to promote solidarity, self-surrender to the community, the abandonment of unjust and immoral claims, the perpetuation of responsibility towards spiritual and moral powers. If this be the visible way, it now behoves us to describe the invisible way, to demonstrate the curve of human opinion 142 IN DAYS TO COME along which the outward movement takes place. We are aware that the contemporary consciousness opposes this kinetic outlook. The mechanism of external life would hamper and constrict our movements even to the point of destruction were it prematurely and without preparation to be forced into new rhythms. Intuition is the primary requisite. Slowly and yet inevitably is it followed by the forms of opinion ; now the rigid system is in motion, seeking a new balance, and already there have originated higher claims and problems, which in their turn are struggling for recognition. We have to examine the spiritual motive forces which preserve the existing system and tend to prevent the inaugu- ration of the new system ; their volatilisation and spiritual- isation will become plain. We must discuss inertia, sensu- ality, passion, vanity, the lust of power, and must consider what forces will counteract these. If we decide that the new equilibrium can only be secured through the permeation of society by a new moral consciousness, this will confirm our view of the futility of the theories of those who hope that freedom and justice will issue from institutions, who opine that the contradictions and insubordinations of human nature can be forcibly abolished, 01 shuffled out of the world by eloquence. Extensive demands are here made upon our capacity for change. There is no place for the illusion that the goal of our desires can be reached by speedy adaptation, by premature exemplars, or even by the self-immolation of a few individuals, for there are no short cuts on this road. On the other hand, we are not concerned with the visionary possibilities of some remote epoch in future history ; the course of the last two centuries has been characterised by greater changes in consciousness than those which we are now demanding. Out of serfs who kissed the hem of the lord's garment and dreaded the lord's whip, there have grown those who in part are men inspired with civic con- sciousness and in part are persons organised for mutual combat. Just as of old, in thirty years, a neglected class of the impoverished and the enslaved originated out of those who had been sturdy burghers and peasants ; so, in thirty decades, from the ruined huts and devastated cities the THE WAY OF MORALS 143 spirits oi our thinkers and investigators, our poets and leaders, have blossomed. Within a few generations, there has come into being in Prussia the class consciousness of the officials and army officers, a moral consciousness unpre- cedented in the world's history, characterised by more splendid simplicity and renunciation than are requisite to meet any of the demands put forward in this book. Within the brief space of a single war, the Spartan spirit of the armed nation, with all its merits of self -sacrifice and love of honour, has been diffused throughout the country a greater upheaval than we anticipate on behalf of the transformation we desire. However, unalterable the deepest stirrings of the heart may be, however unalterable love and hate, joy and sorrow, passion and intuition, correspondingly modifiable are valu- ations and opinions, the choice of controlling and driving forces, convictions. But it is from these latter circling movements that arise the slow transformations leading from animality to humanity, from humanity to divinity. In comparison thereto, all that we expect is no more than one of those trifling changes in values and in will, in repressions and encouragements, that have been manifest ten times over during the two millenniums of German history. If Germany be not the place where all practical activity must be regarded as nothing other than the expression of transcendental ethical values in the form of will, we have deceived ourselves as to Germany's mission. If we believe in the absolute as our duty and our right, Kepler's laws are operative : Human impulses and inclinations no longer abide motionless and impalpable at the heart of the prag- matic movement, for the sun of transcendentalism has now become the centre of the revolving system, and the earth and the planets must pursue paths imposed upon them by primal necessity. The course of the world is not determined by the arbitrary will of our vanities. Intuition leads the way ; institutions follow in intuition's train. Between, walks humanity along its difficult road towards sacrifice and freedom. Now, therefore, we have to ascertain what change in the universal moral consciousness awaits us as antecedent and accompaniment, as a stream of tendency carrying us 144 IN DAYS TO COME with it and carried with us. We already know the economic sacrifices which have to be made. We must renounce a whole series of venal enjoyments ; we must renounce a notable proportion of the yield derived from labour or from prescriptive right ; we must renounce every career which attains its goal by facile service and with trifling expenditure of spirit and character ; we must renounce all permanent economic advantage due to favourable family position. To these four fundamental demands in the economic sphere, there correspond counteracting and furthering motive forces, some working in isolation and some jointly. Sensu- ality, ambition, the love of accumulation, tend mainly to counteract the first and second fundamental demands ; ambition and family pride tend to counteract the third and the fourth ; deficient knowledge of human nature and deficient skill in valuation tend to counteract the third ; the lack of a due sense of the state and the community tends to counteract all four. No detailed treatment of sensuality, inertia, and love of ease, will be undertaken. Not that we regard these impelling or counteracting motives as unalterable ; but in their essential nature they are so closely akin to the physical, that they are affected no more than indirectly by the influence of intuition. All the more urgently necessary is it that we should study the genus of power motives, the really evil powers in the human heart. The good powers say : I will do and be. The bad powers say : I will have and seem. What would you have ? First of all, what suffices. What mitigates poverty, stills sensuality, shortens labour, strengthens freedom. So far, so good. If sensuality and inertia be not excessive, if the freedom you seek be akin to the inward balance, these things do not amount to much. The world could spare three-fourths of its present pains were everyone to be content with such a fate. What more do you desire ? That which furnishes security. That which, for as long as possible, for as far as can be seen into the future, will guarantee the enjoyment of these primary goods for me and mine. Wherefore this ? Because I am working for the future, and because I dread what the future may bring. THE WAY OF MORALS 145 A prudent foresight to guard against the risks of illness and old age is reasonable enough while the inadequacy of our social system is such that the just claims of the invalided and the old are shamefully ignored. In our wealthy epoch, it would be an easy matter to provide all that is requisite under these heads. But here for the first time we encounter the reek of the pit ; we encounter fear, the source of all evil, the primal curse, the heritage of animality, the differentia between ignobility and nobility of blood. You have a sufficiency and you have security ; what more do you want ? I want what others go short of. What makes an impression upon people, what arouses envy, what gives prestige, what confers power. Why ? I do not know. True, you do not know. For all the words you could utter ambition, love of accumulation, lust of dominion, will to power are but a periphrasis for the same enigma. This darkest element in human nature is so widespread, so deeply rooted, so unfathomable, that we no longer regard it as problematical. We accept it as a matter of course. Let us not confuse the vain longings of ambition, lust of power, envy, and pretentiousness, with the splendid energy of will which creates and arranges, which rules by serving and serves by ruling ; with the organic force of responsibility, which finds repose in leadership, and yet only so far as it can bow itself to a higher law and a higher nature ; with the force of self-sacrifice, which bestows itself and receives ungrudging tribute, not to enjoy, but to confer unsullied gifts upon the circulation of necessary order. If to this creative energy we give the name responsibility, and if to the vain desire for the signs and semblances of power (that we may avoid overloading the ambiguous term ambition) we give the name of greed for power, the question runs : How did it come to pass that the greed for power originated, and that it subjugated the world to such a degree that slavery grew up in its name ? Those with an intimate knowledge of nations and races, experts in the study of hereditary qualities, might contend that this greed for power can arise only in timid individuals and timid stocks. It would seem, we shall be told, that the only hope of the timid when writhing under the heel of the oppressor, is that they may some day be able to reverse 10 146 IN DAYS TO GOME the situation, and may be able to set their own heel on the oppressor's neck. In like manner, inordinate ambition develops in talented children when they are grossly ill- treated. Such experts might declare that bitter memories of former enslavement were responsible for the mental characteristics of the tyrannical, ignoring the fact that greed for power is rarely associated with lack of virility. They might explain how the uprising and the mingling of the lower strata of the populations of Europe has brought the timid qualities into the foreground and has permeated the tissue of mankind as a historical entity. These historical experts might be answered as follows : The world-wide phenomenon which, outwardly regarded, we have termed mechanisation, must produce an inward tone of feeling, a time sentiment and a world sentiment, no less narrow, hard, and erroneous than is the movement of mechanisation itself. The flier and the swimmer are animated with the sensation of soaring or of buoyancy, the traveller has a feeling of restful haste. The affect of mechanisation is the greed for power ; the radiations of this affect are inquisitiveness, love of money, fault-finding, scepticism, and disparagement. It will be enough for us to emphasise that we regard the greed for power as the practical denial of all transcen- dentalism. One who finds the essence of being in the sem- blance to which we give the name of reality, can imagine an arrogant happiness, can imagine himself subjugating, owning, and dominating this wonderful medley of colours, tones, and stimuli, much as a child longs to have the star and the butterfly in his grasping and destructive hands. But one for whom the meaning of existence lies outside and above the phenomenal, cannot give himself up to any such destruc- tive pursuit. He feels that possession destroys when it is anything and desires to be anything other than duty and guardianship ; that power corrupts when it is anything and desires to be anything other than responsibility. He knows that his most sacred energies must not degenerate into the voluptuousness of a dream ; he knows that the abyss of non- existence awaits one who repudiates the service of the world and scorns the service of the overworld. Elsewhere it has been shown that morality consists in THE WAY OF MORALS 147 a condition rather than in actions. To find the will's centre of gravity in the soul's sphere, to find rest for the spirit in the transcendental, to follow the urge towards the divine these things are at once morality and blessedness. Within the realm of this steadfastness, action is no longer ponder- able ; the only thing that counts is the bona voluntas of the sentiments The lust for power, measured by the standard of sentiment, declares it to be right for a man to thrust himself into the order of creation that he may defame what he can neither create nor cherish ; it is right to degrade men and things that they may become means to others' ends, to decide claims to vital space under the influence of passion, to assert a divine right of guardianship over persons of full age. Envy declares that in her fellow men she has discerned the deadly germ of unsatiated earthly wishes, a pitiful blindness towards the eternal, a consuming jealousy. She wishes to stimulate and foster this sickness, until an out- break of embitterment or servility destroys the dignity of the image of God and pays allegiance to the hostile power. She thrives upon human weakness and upon the exploitation of men until their very souls are destroyed. She has uttered her judgment, and she stands beside her sister, Malice, at the mouth of the pit. The most terrible unreality, even when contemplated under the cold light of daily reality, gives evidence of the antinomy of the twin forces, ownership and power. What is ownership, apart from bodily comfort and sensual gratification ? It is an array of things which at will can be moved from place to place, locked up, destroyed, or exchanged for other things, that in their turn can be moved about, locked up, and destroyed. A dead life is acquired by these things, which the owner knows and in a sense possesses only when they are comparatively few in number, only when they exercise an influence upon others ; they acquire a living life when they are used creatively, administratively, and with a due sense of responsibility. In that case, however, they lose the quality of ownership ; they become goods held in trust ; they are emanations of their maker, and need not belong to him ; they belong to the owner, and yet they are not his things. The idea of 148 IN DAYS TO COME ownership grows irrelevant. The forest belongs to the forester, not to the commune ; the beautiful countryside belongs to the wayfarer, not to the landowner ; the gallery belongs to the lover of art, not to the public authority. The statue is for ever the sculptor's, not the purchaser's. Power ! Let us ignore the privilege of more convenient approaches, the gratification of not being excluded from certain indifferent circles ; there remain the shameful forms and formulas of those who perforce or self-abasingly pay homage to the man of might ; for the most part because they want something which they cannot create for themselves. Upon whom is it that the crowd lavishes its adulations when one who enjoys a public triumph is passing. A human shell on horseback or in a carriage, bowing to right and to left. The man sits as in a dream, while there breaks upon his senses a wave concerning whose form and meaning he knows nothing. Mouth and ear remain eternally estranged ; at eventide, ere he falls asleep, he is as completely alone with God as is the lowliest of his followers. Love alone can save power from its isolation ; but woe to the man of might should he mistake for love the asseverations of those whose aim it is to get something out of him ; feeling himself to be despised, feeling himself likewise degraded to become the means to others' ends, he lavishes with a dissembled faith in order to save his own face. We say nothing of that unreality whereby the relativity of power is revealed to its holder too late, the unreality which makes him increasingly dependent the higher he rises, increasingly dependent alike on his superiors and his inferiors, so that at last the tyrant is wholly in the power of the mob out of which he has arisen. During the ascent he was doubly despised : hated by those above whom he climbed, scorned by those towards whose heights he aspired. As of ownership, so of power, nothing is left but responsible creation ; and, once more, this creation has no need of power, for the creator has power uncoveted. Creation enjoys all the forms which delight the lover of power, all the forms with which the lover of power would fain rest content ; while creation is spared the cares, the pains, and the toils, which the lover of power abhors. The realm of power is replaced by the sphere of action ; instead of dominion, there is THE WAY OF MORALS 149 responsibility ; instead of intoxication, guardianship. Where power fulfils itself, it neutralises itself. Just as the passions of lust for power and avarice are aimless, so likewise are they fruitless. They are practically unreal no less than they are conceptually unreal. As long as the most brutal ignorance of humanity con- tinues to dominate civilisation, it may and will happen that persons who bear upon their foreheads and their whole frames, plainly recognisable by every pure eye, the speciem reprobationis, the mark of depravity, that men whose words, aspect, and whole behaviour display at the first glance that they are mean and spiritually dead, will find all the roads to respect and confidence freely open to them, whereas noble-minded persons who happen to lack the wisdom of the serpent, are despised and rejected, buffeted by fortune, and perish ignominiously. While this mob blindness pre- vails, the covetous will continue to push forward with their appropriate means of shamelessness, falsehood, cunning, pushfulness, loquacity, obsequiousness, and sordid activity ; and, when they have attained their ends, will continue to be hailed as exemplars of wisdom, resourcefulness, and vigour. Yet even in the realm of uncontrolled mechanisa- tion, amid the unbridled play of the forces of our age, such an individual can make no further progress ; he cannot attain to objective creation ; he cannot serve the world. His possessions may grow, and his power may increase ; but what he covets in the last resort, the necessity for his par- ticular existence, still eludes his grasp. However noxious he may be, owing to his claims upon space, however disas- trous the corruption with which he envenoms public life, however essential it may be that we should defend ourselves against him and his deeds, nevertheless, the ultimate sanc- tuary of responsible power needs no protection, for it belongs to its loyal servitors, to the strength of renunciation, and to the creative force of imagination. Is it, then, rash to maintain that these prime factors of the mechanistic world-movement, the passion for power and the passion for ownership, are mortal, nay more, that, despite the ardours of their present noon-day flourishing, they are now actually moribund ; is it presumptuous to desire their death ? Would it not, rather, be far more pre- 150 IN DAYS TO COME sumptuous to believe that the lying forces, which we have recognised to be thoroughly evil in their trend, to be radically vicious, to be unreal and ineffective, will nevertheless be permitted for all time to befool and to enslave the human race when that race has recognised their futility ? If we are not entitled to believe that intuition and the ethical will can deliver us from the burden of acquired sin and inherited slavery, then there remains for the moral dreamer no more than Hobson's choice quietly and promptly to seek an exit from the world. At this juncture many will say, How can an aging humanity be altered ? Have we ever seen any passion surrendered ? Let us answer, We have seen a greater thing than this. We have experienced many a vicissitude of good and of evil ; we have seen come and go human sacrifices, the murder of the aged, the exposure of infants, incest, idolatry, vendetta, and sexual malpractices of every kind. At all times, every passion, every sin, every folly, is slumbering in man ; every one of them can be awakened and every one controlled. They are controlled by individuals ; by the base through fear, by the noble through spirituality ; by the community they are controlled through the moral con- sciousness. Ever anew, therefore, is the statement heard, Our own time lacks guidance ; the crying evil of our day is that, out of the dying memories of the ages, it vamps up for itself a conscience that lacks conviction. An appeal is made for a new philosophy, competent to produce the requisite tension of the new coordinating forces. Is everyone in these days who makes the sacrifice of love and of life, in his inner- most soul and in his very nature a hero and a lover ? If he be not, he learns to be, and owes his teaching to the directing forces of a community which is strong enough, in a crisis, to command sacrifices. What free will cannot effect, intuition, broadening out to a universal judgment of values, can effect. The conscience of the community, which to-day despises only falsehood and cowardice, will to-morrow condemn lust of power and avarice, pleasure- seeking and vanity, envy and baseness. Not so speedily will individuals free themselves from these vices, and yet their dominion is broken. That which to-day struts proudly, THE WAY OF MORALS 151 will to-morrow be leading a scared life. The world has been freed, and its freedom has in every soul a formative and creative influence. The world is truly free, for all the bitterness of struggle has gone from the world. Let us not forget that that which poisons life is not the struggle for life, but the struggle for the superfluous, the struggle for nullities. If we quench the two fires which supply the motive forces to the pursuit of false joys, we bring relaxation to every limb of the convulsed body of mankind. There will be an end to the fierce belief in money, which leads everyone to defend and secrete his possessions and his gains as the holy of holies of his life. Air and water are more indispen- sable than money, and yet they are free, gladly provided and gladly given, because no one has a passionate dread lest he should go short of these elements, no one is fool enough to hoard them, and no one takes any trouble to secure them. The faith in money demands that we should thank- fully accept a draught of water, and indignantly reject a coin which is not earned. If we draw the wherewithal of life dispassionately and moderately as we draw water from an uncontaminated source, the faith in money will pass away. Such drawings will become easy and free when as individuals we no longer greedily demand superfluities, and when we no longer find that the greed of others leads them to drink all the sources dry because they are constrained to squander a third of the world's labour upon trash and gauds. A reflective person is horrified when he walks the streets and studies the shop windows. Utterly hideous, produced to satisfy vulgar tastes, foolish and harmful, null and perishable, is for the most part what he will see care- fully stored, brilliantly exposed for sale, and offered at high prices. Is it true and is it possible that millions must slave to make, to transport, and to sell these things, to provide and to collect the machinery and the raw materials requisite to produce them ; that other millions must slave in order to be able to buy such horrors ; and that yet other millions covet them and are reluctantly compelled to forgo them ? Great must be the faith of those who continue to believe in a race which lives by such things and for such things. What 152 IN DAYS TO COME do people do with them ? They store them in their houses, consume more of them than they need, hang them on their bodies, stick them in their hair and in their ears, fill their pockets with them, put them into circulation for a second and a third time by way of the secondhand dealer, the auction room, and the pawnbroker's, and finally ship off to Africa whatever has not found an end or a renewal on the dust heap or in the smelting furnace. What does civilised mankind aim at with this ridiculous craving for commodities, this greed for purchasable things ? To some degree, comfort, and the stimulation of the senses. But more than all he aims at display, and yet again display. Anything for a show. The buyer has somewhere seen an article which pleased him, and wants just such another for himself ; if not exactly alike, it must be a passable imitation. One must make an impression ; others must stare enviously. It is enjoyable to appear richer than we are, for, according to the detestable convention of the day, wealth brings honour. This itch for the status of fools and the joy of slaves cannot last for ever. It is not everlasting. Were it so, there would be no further hope that the world would ever know an upright and worthy race of men. It is not ever- lasting Enough that the futility of venal and impure joys, that an intuition of their radical shamefulness and badness, should awaken in a few thousand breasts, for then the Devil's flower falls to pieces. Joy in the beauties which no one covets, now awakens ; nature and pure art, the power and the glory o. the human body, the honour of the spirit and the worship of the divine, become truth ; the chaotic rubbish, which would shame us in the eyes of our grand- children, will flee to dark continents, where it may while away its time until the judgment day. With some hesitation, we modify this confident note by an observation which need not wholly dishearten us, but nevertheless deserves serious consideration. I refer to woman. In other writings I have described how completely the life of woman has been undermined by mechanisation. A century ago the domestic avocations of the middle-class woman came to an end. Owing to the division of labour, THE WAY OF MORALS 153 spinning and weaving, the provision of clothing, light, warmth, and food passed out of her hands ; gardening arid farm work were finished as far as she was concerned ; there remained only housekeeping activities, education, and cooking. Increase in wellbeing created the bourgeois lady ; work was replaced by culture. In the higher circles there now appeared the beginnings of society life. Neighbourly talk in the streets, the relaxation of popular festivals, invaded the houses, whose rooms were opened to social intercourse. The workshop and the office were divorced from the home ; the working hours grew longer ; the business man, the official employee, and the man of learning, began to spend the whole day away from the dwelling ; the enduring com- munity of the household was broken up. Now an external and an internal domain came into existence : the external, where the livelihood was gained, was ruled by man ; the internal, where domestic life was ordered and maintained, was taken over by woman. She became mistress of domesticity ; she was the administratrix ; and, as prescribed by the monetary economy, she was the purchaser. The man earned, the woman spent. In earlier days, it occasionally happened that some kitchen utensil, in rare instances an article of clothing or a piece of furniture, was bought by the wife ; handicraftsmen and other work- men had to do with the husband. To-day the wife is the purchaser, almost exclusively and unremittingly. The shops, streets, and public vehicles of our towns are filled with women ; it is they who order goods and keep accounts, they who furnish and provide, they who construct. The terrible decay of the handicrafts during the last eighty years, a decay which the most arduous efforts have been unable to prevent, has not been the fault so much of machinery as of women buyers. Woman lacks appreciative insight for craftsmanship ; for the good, the useful, and the genuine ; above all, for proportion and artistry. Further- more, she fails as regards a steadfast will for the essential, as regards fixity of resolve. She is influenced by casual stimuli, by a specious appearance of solidity, by bargains, glitter, false reckonings, and by the glib tongue of the sales- man. All the worst customs of retail trade are the outcome of the qualities of women purchasers. Things which enrage 154 IN DAYS TO COME a man who is driven by misadventure into this shop or that, are for the most part customary speculations upon the weaknesses of feminine customers. Here we can make only passing mention of that which is more fully expounded elsewhere, namely, that art and the appreciation of art have inevitably pursued the same downward path since man relinquished to woman the guardianship of culture ; since theatres and concert rooms, art galleries and lecture halls became woman's province ; since woman became the chief reader of books and periodicals, the chief patron of art. The sterile sentimentalism of our literature during the post romanticist epoch was the first fruit of the lady's boudoir. It may well be that the unconscious recognition of this relationship explains the antifeminism of the two last free spirits of our time, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. In the course of the nineteenth century, and through the working of the new economic system, women were suddenly, and forcibly thrust into unprecedented situations. Driven from the seclusion of the home, burdened with culture, taking her place amid the mercenary activities of social intercourse, forced to accept the duties of a more active life, adopting in many instances masculine occupations, women have had to meet the most comprehensive demands ever imposed on unprepared human nature. Woman rose to the occa- sion, and has impressed upon our century the type of the masculinised female. Undesirable accompaniments were inevitable. The motherly strength of woman's nature has not been enhanced by her activities as purchaser, by the life of the streets, by self-determination. Meretricious tendencies, previously kept in check by man, developed. An unedifying product of our civilisation appeared, the woman of luxury. Now that the protective duties were in abeyance, the old-time cere- monial duties of noble dames were extinct. Such graces were despised and derided. In the social life of the newly enriched there was a demand for unrestricted entertainment, where wealth could be displayed and where social advantages could be harvested. Disastrous and impudent display came to be regarded as a duty ; it was a heartless amuse- ment, a business, a life in itself. This life was filled with concern for spacious apartments, trains of servants, adorn- THE WAY OF MORALS 155 ment, dress, hyper-fastidious care of the body, lavish hospitality, distinguished guests. Excitement was provided by profitable amours. Horses, sport, travel, decadent art, supplied the topic of conversation. A specious justification for existence was furnished by pitiful benefactions, court life, and political cabals The work of education and house- keeping was entrusted to paid assistants. Apart from the counselling of her husband where joint interests were involved, the wife's duties were restricted to childbearing twice or thrice, under anaesthesia. For women at the summit of the mechanistic social ladder, this abject life was tolerated and even glorified. At the lower levels were toil and prostitution ; midway on the ascent, anxiety and calculation ; at the top, display, culture, and the grasping at masculine occupations. The degenerate products of mechanised life have influenced the very nature of our women. They have cultivated greed, love of display, swagger, and coquetry qualities which in the Germany of earlier days were known only in the form of innocent and speedily controlled feminine follies. The moral consequences of these defects are grave ; their economic and social con- sequences are immeasurably grave. We sacrifice the daily and nightly toil of millions to women's envy of their neigh- bours, to the lascivious glances of the passer-by, to the com- plaisance of men. What is offered for sale in our shops ? In addition to tobacco and strong drink, we find things which women buy ; needless, hideous, gimcrack articles, which one person buys because another has already bought them, because they are fashionable, because the buyer has seen pictures of such things or has seen them in fine houses, because the buyer must have them, because they are cheap, because they are wonderful bargains. Flimsy finery, designed for the purposes of sensual display, and wearable for just so long as the slightness of the material and the will of the fashionmonger permit. Nameless things, " articles " bought for the sake of buying, and given away that the buyer may be quit of them. All this trash is subject to the laws of fashion, to the periodical recognition that it is utterly valueless, and must therefore be replaced in accordance with the continued working of the same law. These vanities could be tolerated while they still remained 156 IN DAYS TO COME private affairs of a foolish domestic economy. But to-day, when we have recognised that hunger for commodities, the lust of the shopper, are cancers of our national economic life, it has become a matter of state and a primary aim for mankind that a remedy should be found. We should wrong the dignity of women if, with a tolerant smile, we should refuse to make them responsible for the distresses of the age. We must declare to them that, while inconspicuously they may do good works to dry the tears of those who suffer, such sufferings are magnified a hundred- fold by the futilities which are daily brought to their houses in boxes, in parcels, and in vehicles. For every defect in man, his mother is to blame ; for every error and lapse in woman, her lover or husband is to blame. The boy outgrows the mother ; his earlier errors are irrecoverable. Woman remains plastic in the hands of love ; to woman, heaven's gate of repentance is never closed. Knowledge, the world, inner voices, remain avail- able to man ; these things make him responsible ; his blame is the greater. The erring woman can lodge complaints against man, and the most grievous charge of all is the terrible, the uprooted confusion of woman's quest. By the mechanisation of life, man has torn his companion out of the protective environment of domestic life, has driven her into the world and the market-place, has wrenched the key from her hand and given her a purse instead. He has given her the choice between mercenary calculation, coquetry, public activity, on the one hand, and a lonely life on the other. Not the domestic tyrant, the egoist, the slave- driver, has committed the greatest crime, but the wedded idler, who has led her astray into an empty life of amuse- ment, of delight in material things, of lust for pleasure ; who, awakening the undifferentiated womanliness which slumbers in every female breast, corrupts it to meretriciousness, and thus kills the soul. Man is to blame for the fact that negroid primitive passions, which have been held in check for thousands of years, have been revived in the feminine life of our own day, passions to read of which will arouse shame and horror in the minds of our descendants. We have to thank women inasmuch as their eager quest has diffused a movement which errs solely in respect of its THE WAY OF MORALS 157 aim. It behoves us to clarify this aim, which is not grounded upon outward dominion. We must not enforce a return to the neglected farm and garden, to the antiquated distaff and loom, any more than we should advocate an advance to the pulpit and the judicial bench. The first goal is the transformation to a higher humanity, the inculcation of a contempt for purchasable happiness, foolish display, and contemptible idleness ; the final goal is the winning of responsibility for the inner happiness and ordering of the universal human household. The more unmistakably welfare and education the care for life and its adornment, become social responsibilities, the purer and more significant will become woman's new duties. If the content of these duties remains womanly and in the highest sense natural, we need not be alarmed at the forms which these duties may assume, even should they involve organisation, careful upbuilding, concatenation. We have now to examine the last of the motive forces which combine to effect the Impulsion of our mechanistic system ; the self-will of the family stock. We need not consider the error of those who, down to the day of their own death, keep their children on short commons, those who would prefer to transmit their property to unknown grandchildren, and who attempt to justify their miserliness as care for posterity. Nor need we consider the posthumous vanity of those whose chief delight during life is to picture to themselves the astonishment that will ensue upon the reading of their will. The only kind of family pride which is worthy of our opposition is the nobler form which shows itself as delight in the preservation of a famous name, in jubilant memories of the great deeds of progeni- tors, in loving care for the family fortunes and the family happiness For more than a thousand years European society has been split into two strata. Germany can hardly be called a nation, or even a state. But a ruling nobility, a dominant patriciate, must remain a close corporation ; the mingling of its blood is destruction, its impoverishment is ruin. In France during the eighteenth century the perishing nobility took its revenge in the use, for the bourgeoisie and the serfs, 158 IN DAYS TO COME of the contemptuous names " roture " and " canaille." It would seem that the time has now come for us to feel our- selves a nation. There are moments when the sentiment of community is powerful. As we contemplate our armies marching and dying, a unifying love wells up in our hearts, and we are fascinated by the dream of a perfect union. It remains a dream, for the two nations do not unite. We are ruled by the nobility, by a nobility arrogant in its wealth, slowly decaying but to a large extent renewed, adulterated by intermarriage with industrial castes, so that while half its members bear historic names the other half are of bour- geois origin. This nobility monopolises the military and political powers of the state. A plutocratic order controls the great industries, exercising both secret and open influence ; these plutocrats force their way into the fluctuating terri- torial nobility ; they conserve their forces by admitting to their ranks able scions from the remnants of the middle class, and protect themselves against disintegration. A decaying middle class, whose foundation upon handicraft is crumbling, whose standing ground is growing ever more restricted, endeavours to save itself from being pushed down into the proletariat, participates in the movement towards the plutocratic official ladder, marches in the train of the wealthy caste, and is content in the long run, within the camp of the united forces of the well-to-do, to constitute a kind of opposition a detached proletariat which remains defenceless because it does not dare to touch the founda- tions of its own bourgeois existence, even though these foundations have already been hopelessly undermined. The real proletariat, profoundly disturbed but ominously silent, stands beneath ; a nation by itself, a dark sea whence at times a glance and a cry rise. This proletariat epitomises the sins and the errors of mechanised society. To the fourfold compost we give the name of nation. There were short-sighted persons who denied that in the moment of national peril, the community of language, life, and country would suffice to cement a unity of will. There are short-sighted persons who hope that community of sacrifice will be enough to transform a temporary into a permanent renunciation. We reverence the unassuming responsibility of rule and THE WAY OF MORALS 159 the proud delight of service as interchangeable energies of the organic world. We have recognised that the nameless servitude of a hereditary toiling caste, the hopeless con- demnation of a people to unspiritual labour, the degradation of its wishes and its joys, are evil and unjust, are an expulsion from the blessed sphere of the natural. The will to nation- hood and the will to social stratification are mutually exclusive. Anyone who desires that there should be German men and German women, must abstain from wishing that there should be German proletarians. For our part, we know that the only thing which can create a nation is the eternally mutable permeation, the ever renewed interplay, of function and leadership ; we know that where rights and duties, fate and experience, are hereditary, there we can have no nation but only castes. The selfishness of the family instinct is the affect which underlies the hostility to nationhood, which underlies the will to impose an unspeakable subjection upon unborn generations ; this is the affect which underlies the antagon- ism to national brotherhood. Such family pride is self- seeking in so far as it is not content with the bequeathing of a noble name, with the advantages of a privileged education, and with community within a restricted circle of life, but goes on to demand imperishable security for ownership, a permanent right to receive tribute, while all outside the favoured caste are enslaved. Anyone who has grasped the significance of the law that there can be no hereditary ease and comfort without hereditary servitude, anyone who understands that our many-sided human nature degenerates to an equal degree under hereditary freedom from labour and under hereditary compulsion to labour, will realise that family self-will is the original sin of human society. If this be granted, one who persists in the impulse to selfish exclu- siveness will no longer venture to speak of the unity and brotherhood of a nation. Such a one will have to proclaim his open contempt for all those whom fate has condemned to constitute the mob, will have to proclaim his determina- tion that these persons of inferior status shall be kept in permanent subjection. Thus family self-will, with its claim to heritable goods and prerogatives, is excluded from the sphere of the natural 160 IN DAYS TO COME and morally justifiable motive forces of human society ; the world is set free to renew in each generation the choice of its spirits and its powers. Physical and material inherit- ance is replaced by spiritual inheritance, which is already dominant in the immaterial realm ; childlike acceptance of authority is replaced by discipleship ; nepotism is replaced by free choice Traditional morality and sentiment become national property, and education is at length an affair of the community. The ennobled nation, in ruling service and in serving rule, becomes the sustainer of its own destiny and the guardian of its own elect. If this saying is to be truly fulfilled, if the genuine nobility of the people is not to be falsified, if responsibility is to be exercised with moral and spiritual force, if we are to ensure that misleaders and supple-tongued slaves shall not creep into positions of power it is essential that the new force whose dawning we have heralded should come into its own. It is essential that we should possess an unerring knowledge and estimate of human qualities and values. For we have to look this danger squarely in the face, that the more mobile human destiny becomes, the more definitely self-determination prevails, the more the bonds of tradition and birth are relaxed, the freer consequently will become the activity of moral and intellectual forces. But as this freedom grows, concomitantly there increases the possibility of an adventurer's success, scope for intellec- tual humbug and moral chicanery. The extant plutocratic order encourages an immoral allotment of success. In quite a number of careers in the middle stratum of life, the liar and the chatterer, the man endowed with cunning and push, the irresponsible and greedy adventurer, the cringing hypocrite and the impudent cheat, have an incontestable advantage over persons who are genuinely gifted and who perform their work with a full sense of responsibility. We are already confronted with the danger that economic life will become the prey of the freebooter, that public opinion will be guided by the biased advocate, that all the nobler and more retiring qualities of soul will decay. Nevertheless counteracting forces are awakening. If one of the few whose eyes have been opened finds himself in the sublime company of powerful dignitaries, he will THE WAY OF MORALS 161 perceive here and there, will, unexpectedly and with amaze, deduce Irom their appearance and their words, the plain tokens, the unconscious self-revelations which will one day seek safety in concealment and silence, but of which to-day both the dignitaries and the crowd are equally unaware. When men whose eyes have been opened encounter one another, they can hardly realise that what to them is so clearly revealed can still be hidden from the crowd. They smile mournfully when dignitaries display their unspiritual nakedness at the very first word of unsuspecting self-confi- dence ; but they rejoice when the aspect and the sayings of some man of the people reveal a profound, pure, and worthy heart. To-day a man is despised because, owing to some heedless lapse, the taint of prison clings to him ; or because poverty constrains him to one of the more lowly occupations. Others, who bear the stamp of a slave's nature impressed on forehead, limbs, and heart, none the less sit on judgment seats in purple robes, dispense blessings from cathedral pulpits, guide human destinies, and are entrusted with the seals of power. In days to come, no one will be despised, for this senti- ment is a crime against God's dignity. The people of those days will not despise backward persons, who are still slaves in body and in mind, will not torment them, but will lovingly endeavour to lift them upward. From earliest youth, anyone who is backward will be relieved of responsibility until sufficiently enlightened to bear responsibility ; he will not be entrusted with responsibility until he has wrestled his way towards the truth. To the sallies and witticisms of the backward, to their indignant protests, to their cajoleries and rttempts at persuasion, the more advanced will present an imperturbable front. Even in childhood, such poisons will be recognised and avoided, will be described by intelligible names. Occupations in which qualities of this order are requisite, modes of life, fashions in clothing, and methods of enjoyment, which display them, will no longer be con- sidered honourable. The occupation of a sewerman will be more highly respected than that of a gossip or a pushing fellow ; morbid aberrations will be less censured than luxury and display ; sailors' brothels will not be so severely con- 11 162 IN DAYS TO COME demned as will be places where art is coarsely cari- catured. How mighty is the force of a deliberately adopted popular conviction, we may learn from a land which we do not choose for our model, a land where the narrow and unspiritual concept of gentlemanliness and good form has become the canon of all human judgment. Millions are constrained to a rule of behaviour a passably good rule even if it be no more than intellectualist morality by the censure " that is ungentlemanly," or " that is bad form." The transcen- dental duties of the future age cannot be fulfilled by obedience to such shallow imperatives. The question which the future will have to face is, What is worthy of the human soul, what is proper to that soul. Before this categorical watch- word, which utterly outsoars all empirical, intellectual, and utilitarian conceptions of duty, the characteristics and the occupations, the gifts and the rights, which are dominant in the world of to-day, will fade into insignificance. There will ensue that tranquillity of soul wherein men, things, and divinity, come into their own. We now draw near to the last and gravest test. We have been contemplating a future wherein the most power- ful motives which animate extant society are supposed to have been stilled. Love of display, the craving for prestige, the passion for trash and gauds, individual selfishness and family selfishness, are at an end. May it not happen that when society has been deprived of these motive forces, its mechanism will run down ; may it not come to pass that the progress of civilisation will be arrested ; will not the physical and the spiritual goods of mankind fall into decay ? Or will forces remain in operation competent to continue the planetary process under purer conditions ? Were it true that the end justifies, not the means alone, but the motives also ; were it true that the life of this earthly community can be upbuilded on no other foundation than that of bad and foolish impulses, then indeed it would be well and timely that this life should perish. But if we regard the eternal morality of the world process as an inviolable assumption (and only upon such an assumption are we entitled to act morally on other grounds than those THE WAY OF MORALS 163 of vulgar cowardice), then we know full well that we need do no evil in order that we may live. We can readily understand why, in our days, the blessing of labour is spoken of as a struggle for existence, and why this struggle is waged with hatred and grimacing in an arena full of blood and tears. Inhuman is the way in which this society of ours looks on unmoved while the young gladiator, unwarned and untrained, descends into that arena, wherein repeatedly, hour after hour, he has to defend for himself and his dear ones the minimal requisites of food, clothing, and shelter, against the greed and the harshness of others. A glance aside, an incautious step, a momentary weakness, may lead to a fall ; and unless he be inwardly fortified against all the buffetings of fate, this fall may involve the death of his body and the destruction of his soul. Society owes security to every one of its members. It has destroyed the old security of the essential occupations ; out of the oldtime circle of duties, society has created a field of battle whereon the cunning ruse and the poisoned weapon gain the victory. It is absolutely incumbent on society to spend a month's cost of the war that the straggle for existence may be lifted above the plane where life is crudely imperilled. Not until then can that intense anxiety and that profound bitterness disappear with which thousands think of the coming day ; not until then shall we be rid of the poison of unfreedom which falsifies convictions ; not until then shall we have done with the sordid passion associated with the problem of mine and thine. Then only will space have been cleared for the working of the unsullied forces which will animate the future will to live. But these forces are neither new nor alien. Even to-day, they provide the impulse to all activities of a higher grade. We ask no more than that in days to come these forces shall rule in the whole field of endeavour, and that then there shall be no activities of the baser sort. All activity is noble when it is undertaken for its own sake. All activity is trivial when constrained by the spur of desire or the whip of fear, when it is not self-sufficient, when it is not an end in itself but a means to some ignoble end. It was the marvellous, fatherlike, and divine love for the 164 IN DAYS TO COME created object, which gave marrow and life, spaciousness and speech, to the products made in the days of craftsman- ship. The rubbish turned out wholesale to-day simply in order that it may be sold, is barren and false ; its smirking glance squints at the rubbish heap where its ephemeral life comes to an end. The overplus of lavished love which endowed the works of the old craftsmen with their careless beauty and their careful grace, is scorned in the calculated phraseology of machine-made ornamentation. As ultimate reflected glory from the springs of artistic wealth which have dried up, there remains precision, a highly artificialised technical virtue of countless generations in the hereditary series of the various utensils whose family tree is so closely intertwined with the life of mankind. If, however, we raise our eyes from the paltry products of the spirit of gain, to whatever kind of creative work imparts a true meaning to our time, we realise that there only do we find creative life, where things are done or made for their own sake, and not mediately to some other end The artist works for love of the work and because of the formative impulse which moves him ; the scientific investi- gator is impelled by the desire for knowledge and the spirit of order ; the statesman works by force of will and is driven by the urge of ideas ; even those whose occupations are earthbound, desire to realise thoughts and to bring the organisable to life. The financier and organiser who works simply that he may enrich himself, is a mercenary bungler ; never will his hand scatter the good seed ; the word and the work which serve two masters, which serve the cause and serve also selfishness, are weaker, and will be overthrown by the free word and the free work, which serve the cause alone. What, then, is necessary beyond this, that the free spirit of love for the cause, which to-day is the leading motive in all higher activity, should come likewise to domi- nate activities of medium and lesser significance ? There is not a single deed performed upon earth which cannot be ennobled by the spirit and the will, if lovingly executed. Human nature is just, as plastic as human occupations are modifiable ; it produces, not only the born soldier and the born priest, but it produces also the born printer, bicyclist, THE WAY OF MORALS 165 chess player, or stenographer. We must free oin selves from the tyranny of heredity, the tyranny of determinism ; we must be free to choose our own occupations. These conditions have been discussed, and we have seen them to be realisable. Were they fulfilled, there would be no further need for ignoble motives, no further need for the despot's scourges of greed and fear. Then would man be kept alive, not by hunger and lust, but by love. But what of the passionate urge which issues from the impulses to leadership and dominance ? Who will be pre- pared to undertake the twofold labour and care of the struggle for life, of the bettering of life for himself and for others, when vanity is contemned and ambition is tempered ? Can the world dispense with this last and strongest motive, this self-determining instrument of selection ? Even to-day the world has no need of such a motive, and will never need it in days to come. Just as little as the will to gain can engender the true values of economic life, just so little can the will to personal power engender true dominance. The vain ruler is the weakest of rulers ; he is weaker than the ruler of narrow views ; his position is even less secure than that of the evil ruler. Vanity is a fatal defect. Vanity demands a life of its own ; a second life which exists side by side with the life of creative work ; a life which monopolises the vain man's powers, so that no room is left for the lonely, unconcerned, self-sacrificing hours of con- templation and creation. Respect for truth and necessity vanishes ; things and men are no longer regarded as ends in themselves, and become means to an end ; resolve loses character and aim, and becomes a mere sport. He only who is endowed with concentration of aim is able to march on firmly to his goal ; the man who is constant to one direc- tion, no matter which, will make his way through the thicket ; but he who moves in a circle is doomed. Now, when the service of the cause is coupled with the service of the person, the direction is lost. When a man has devoted years of his life to the pitiful work of making a career for himself, for him the world and life are no longer the garden of the Lord, but a stage for cabals and intrigues ; never again will his eye be granted the pure vision, his arm the sinewy force, or his heart the childlike will, which sow 166 IN DAYS TO COME the good seed and ensure the harvest. The cause claims the whole man, claims him by day and by night ; and the strongest and most gifted among the sons of men will fail to meet this test if his mind dwell upon his own life and his own welfare. Nothing of permanent value has ever been created by ambition. One who, in rebuttal of this assertion, would adduce the example of that mighty spirit on the threshold between the old world and the new, the example of the man who slammed the door of the old world behind him, and who forced his way into the realm of the new age, the realm whose true meaning escaped him such a one has failed to understand the nature of the Corsican. He only who lives not for himself but for the object of his quest, can achieve this fanaticism of reality. Even if the object be an idol, even if it be the sport of a foolish and unsub- stantial will, it is none the less of royal worth, since it ennobles the man by freeing him from selfishness and from enslavement to base desires. Not for the sake of the dramatic spectacles in Notre Dame and Erfurt, did Napoleon become inhuman, but for the sake of imperial power. Because, by a vestige of false sentiment, he was rendered incapable of separating the idea of power from the man of might, the man perished. Responsibility is the only force which can demand lord- ship and is justified in wielding it. It will never demand lordship for the sake of its insignia ; it will never demand power for the sake of the man and his pleasure. Responsible lordship is service, but not the mystical service of a despotic god who grants arbitrary power because he himself exercises arbitrary power, who makes the ruler an object of worship because he himself insists on being worshipped ; but the service of an ideal conception which stimulates others to the common work. Responsible lordship makes the king a slave and makes the slave a king not in order that the king may be ruled by the slave, but in order that the slave may be raised in spirit to the level of the king. It does not demand subjection and obedience, but cooperation and dis- cipleship. Genuflection and intrigue are contemptible, pomp and idolatry hateful, to responsible lordship. Whoever wishes to rule over slaves, is himself a runaway slave ; but THE WAY OF MORALS 167 that man is free whom free men freely serve, and who himself freely serves free men. The joy of the despot is joy in self-glorification, in the baseness of mankind, in ease, display, fame, and envy ; and if it sometimes happen that ease is sacrificed, this sacrifice is only made for the acquirement of the delights of further power. But the joy of responsibility is joy in danger, delight in labour and in pains, delight in creation. Self-sacrificing creation is active love, the supreme guarantee of our tran- scendental privileges. Should mortal man ever appear before the judgment seat of the universe, he would be adjudged and acquitted in virtue of the blessed utterance : My happiness was found in creative love. Responsibility is competent to eradicate from the list of human motives the false power of the search for honours, and it is able to effectuate that passionate increase of individual endeavour which is essential if the world is not to go short of leadership. The strong affect is aided, not merely by the steadfastness which is not lacking in the course of a lifetime, but also by the justice of self-deter- minative selection. Ambition is helpful to weaklings and fools, who squander the great opportunity in the pursuit of phantasmagoria ; whereas the will to responsibility is characteristic of the capable, and of the chosen fewfor everyone loves that which he is able to do, and everyone is able to do that which he sincerely and unselfishly loves. We have seen that fundamentally new forms of social ethics are arising ; we have foreshadowed profound modifica- tions in motive forces, in valuations, and in aims. Never- theless, these demands and their fulfilment involve nothing alien to mankind, nothing Utopian. In all the purer spirits of our day, every one of our hopes has unconsciously been realised. Which is the more temerarious ? To expect that many will one day understand what it is already granted to a few to understand ? Or to deny for all time the possi- bility of rising to freer modes of sensibility ? Let him who would venture this denial, realise that all thought and all activity which bears the imprint of the moral will, is pre- destined to give added strength to eternal prerogative and eternal disavowal. The persistency of progress, the transformations arising 168 IN DAYS TO COME out of the germs of time, will anew be made visible when we refashion our image of the civilised world in accordance with the laws of intuitive perception. The life of externals will grow more tranquil, for the cruder allurements and stimuli will have become void of effect ; they will have gone the way of sugar men, glass beads, and toy detonators. The importunate clamour, the impudent misrepresentation of the salesman, will no longer be taken as a matter of course. No longer can any- one be plunged into poverty, and all men will therefore be indifferent to riches. Haste is fear ; the urgency and push which are pardonable to-day as the outcome of people's attempts to save themselves from despair and destruction, will be discountenanced when all are properly cared for ; ruthless attempts to secure personal advantage will be universally condemned. The greed and hustle of the purchaser will cease, and therewith will come a term to the noisy anxiety of money getting and to the squabbles of competing interests. Work will become serious, tranquil, and dignified ; just as we now contemplate the rag-fair of earlier days, so in the future will people look back with amazement upon things which we regard as commonplace. The foci of poisonous luxury and envenomed joys, of un- spiritual pleasures and coarse stimuli, will have migrated, at first to suburbs and manufacturing towns, thence to the Balkans, and at length to tropical dependencies. Anyone who may prefer such places to the abodes of civilised life, will be free to visit them ; but the unrestrained impudence of seduction will be put to shame. Here and there, women may, like negresses, flaunt frippery, plumage, and many- coloured beads through the streets, may lure admirers by a mincing gait, may grimace in cushioned and scented alcoves, and may dazzle the latest victims of their folly ; but they will know full well what they are doing, for by then woman's creative mission will have become a part of the popular consciousness. Enriched merchants may store and display costly furniture and costly food behind gratings and walls, may squander human forces, may isolate for their own pleasure works of art and nature ; the only persons they will find to envy and admire them will be the rare beings of their own quality, who deliberately prefer the obsolete THE WAY OF MORALS 169 pleasures of greed and display to the new vision of the civilised community. The practice of outbidding in material display, which grins in all its vulgarity from house fronts and shop windows, from furniture and clothing, will have come to an end ; personal enrichment will no longer be regarded as a universal, self-evident, and commendable aim ; luxury will then arouse no admiration, but only regretful surprise. As heretofore, technical progress will serve the purposes of life, but the acceleration and enhanced comfort of every institution and appliance will not be made an end in itself. The duty of machinery as the servitor of mankind is, and will remain, to assist in the control of material objects, to spiritualise labour, to relieve human beings of the work of beasts of burden, and to care for the growing number of the inhabitants of the world. To be enraptured by every intensification of stimuli, by every magnification of effect, is childish. It may, for a season, continue to enthuse the Americans, but such a mood is unworthy of an intelligent community. To-day the emotional tone of human relationships is one of estrangement and enmity. People are unwilling to converse with anyone with whom they are unacquainted. A stranger must be encountered with the acerbity which springs from a conflict of interests, tempered with a veneer of politeness. In business matters there is no place for good-nature, said a Prussian minister of state. Between acquaintances, politeness is pushed to the pitch of caricature, while remaining enmity, for it has its baneful roots in the mortal peril of the economic struggle. As soon as human beings are as well protected against homelessness and hunger, against poverty and sickness, as they are already protected to-day against theft and murder, there will no longer be any justification for social hostility, and anyone who displays such a sentiment will thereby avow his own selfishness and cupidity. Suspicion, the cheapest of all the forms of prudence, is under existing conditions regarded by many as the first lesson of life's experience ; and it may be true that a genera- tion so much at fault as ours in the estimation of human qualities, so blind as ours in the interpretation of the signifi- cance of those qualities, is all too familiar with breach of confidence, lying, and malice ; yet this is the very generation 170 IN DAYS TO COME which allows itself to be talked over by thousands of chatterers, to be fooled by salesmen, to be inveigled by gross allurements. When mankind has been freed from fear and covetousness, then self-command, self-respect, and self-con- fidence will be restored. If people become accustomed, with an incorruptible vision which is equally remote from over- valuation and depreciation, to see their neighbours as they really are, alike in body and in spirit, all will know how much they can trust one another, what they have a right to expect from one another, and what they owe to one another. The short -sighted timidity of suspicion will vanish ; we shall look one another in the face, and know that we are brothers. Under the spur of greed and ambition, social enmity becomes accentuated until there arises a fierce competition for the goods of outward life. The cry of the furies, Renounce, that I may possess, Sacrifice, that I may enjoy, Die that I may live, has goaded the nations to madness, has driven them towards annihilation, and has arrayed brothers of the same nation, army against army, in the hereditary struggle of the classes and the castes. All human delibera- tion is complicated by the intrusive problem of mine and thine. No political skill can now direct the forces of a nation towards disinterested goals, no unity of will can endow the inner impulse to justice with the strength of the forces of nature ; all values are contested, and surmounting them all, irresponsible and unchallenged, stands the fateful power of the interests. Nothing but the liquidation and dis valuation of wealth, the bridging over of hereditary cleavages, the ending of the subdivision into permanently burdened and permanently burdening sections, nothing but the amalgamation of human society to constitute a living, labile, self-renovating organism, nothing but this quietly effected and yet tremendous trans- formation surging up from the depths of the moral conscious- ness, will be competent to stay the fratricidal struggle of men and nations. Not for the creation of earthly paradises, not for making existence easier for one and sparing suffering to another, not solely for the sake of justice, and still less for the sake of compassion ; but under the impulsion of eternal duty, as the manifestation of a call to new and THE WAY OF MORALS 171 arduous struggles, lest the world should perish in unworthy bondage to material things, and in order that the world may be led onward towards a new and more strenuous life, the life of the community and of the soul, lived for the fulfilment of God's will. The most intimate and vital sentiment of mankind will be the feeling of solidarity. Whereas to-day whatever is not positively forbidden is regarded as allowable, whereas to-day everyone is on the look-out for the utmost limits of permissible rights, in the future all will endeavour to use their socially helpful powers to the uttermost. Life, liber- ated from the fear and greed of pains and pleasures, will not be subordinated to cold calculation, nor yet will it be the sport of the head and the limbs. Liberated will be the splendid energy of the will, but not for the service of self- destructive aims. We shall act in full consciousness of the divine duty whose fulfilment is the purpose of our life ; the divine duty which makes us responsible for the activity of every muscle of our body and every mood of our soul ; the divine duty which, in virtue of its own laws, demands that we should move steadfastly upwards from the levels of the animal to the levels of the spiritual, and from the levels of the spiritual to the altitudes of the soul. How easy it is to turn away with a smile from this sacred confidence ; how easy, with a sceptical reference to the immutability of human nature, to postpone to distant millenniums all advance towards loftier goals, in order that we may more commodiously devote ourselves to the questions of the hour. These questions of the hour, to which you offer up your days and your nights, what are they ? They are the trickle of springs and rivulets which waste themselves in the moor- land for lack of a spiritual will to guide them into appropriate channels ; here lies a block of wood, there is placed a great stone, so that the wayfarer's footsteps may find some support in the quagmire, though these insufficient aids are ever sinking beneath his weight. They are the renouncement of the self-guidance of the human race by the light of native insight ; surrender to the arbitrary will of the times, which after a wholesale squandering of life may shark up a fluctu- ating balance wherein all energies are stifled until the 172 IN DAYS TO COME avalanche comes, and after an agonising destruction some new nullity is attained. They are the policy of least resis- tance ; the carrying out of that which is easiest, not of that which is needful but difficult of attainment. They are mediation between extant forces of the will, not because these forces have a justified existence, but because they have struck deep root or are frequently encountered. The world leaves to follies, vanities, and petty needs, the decision which shall first be gratified ; and those that make the loudest outcry have always the prior claim. Never before has there been a historical epoch which abandoned the attempt to appraise its volitions and to form them by the guidance of its own intuitive insight. It has been left to our own day, under the dominion of the all-wise and all- knowing intellect, to abandon our earthly and heavenly life to the sport of chance, the majority, tradition, super- stitious remnants and eclectical valuations and to expound the questions of the hour with all the solemnity of a councillor of state. You cannot change human nature ! How fond of this phrase are the well-to-do, those who have much to lose and to whom everything comes without effort, those who have no faith in the future and who none the less give the lie to their own unfaith by their assiduous attention to the works of the day and the questions of the hour. Doubtless, laughter and tears, love and hatred, pleasure and pain are old as well as new : and nevertheless the Bushman and the Papuan still survive as reminiscences of primitive ages ; nevertheless the coming of Christ cleft human existence into two epochs ; nevertheless three centuries have sufficed for the western world to transform human thought ; never- theless in the course of four generations an obscure mass of humanity has been transformed into a supremely vigorous bourgeoisie, and the German body politic has been renewed from within outwards ; nevertheless by the will of a king the Prussian estate of administrators and defenders has been created. So dull-witted, so wilfully blind are the people of our day, that they are accustomed to deny the right of entire nations to exist, although they know that in every social community matricides and cheats, madmen and invalids, thinkers, military commanders, saints, lovers. THE WAY OF MORALS 173 pleasure-seekers, and creative artists, are mingled in like proportions. It is difficult, therefore, to make the people of our day realise that changes in the aspect of society do not signify a transformation of all the individual elements of that society, but the production of a new stratification, a change in guiding valuations, the march of the dominant idea. Nature has a deep-rooted contempt for change ; in chambers which are ever more remote from the actualities of life, she preserves as mementoes the types of a vanished day ; the primevally old mussel and the man of the stone age still exist, and in like manner men of intellectualist type filled with fear and greed will continue to exist for thousands of years ; no longer, however, will such as he rule the world. Time and quantity are of no account to nature ; she does not drive human beings in a troop through the gates of paradise ; she works artist fashion, like the sculptor who will animate with the breath of his soul none but the choicest fragment of stone. The sea is unchange- able, and yet hour by hour it assumes new forms and colours, when the sky is overcast, when the winds ruffle its surface, when clouds hide the face of the sun, and when the moon pierces the mists at night. Thus in every nation, all varieties of faith and knowledge, of thought and will, are simul- taneously present and simultaneously effective ; the spiritual complexion at any particular moment is not determined by the decision of the majority, but by the united activity of the more resolute stratum of the population. The dominant spiritual power is competent to assimilate to itself the neutral-tinted and indifferent elements, so that by degrees its predominance comes to rest upon majority power. All assimilatory influences are effective in virtue of this law. That is why if a nation is to civilise and to colonise, it must be morally homogeneous and must be moved by one consistent will. The aim and the promise of our teaching, the foundations of the future ordering of mankind, are not to be discerned in a radical, rapid, and simultaneous moral transformation among all peoples. There will be an indefinite rise and expansion of a dominant, unifying, and stimulating spiritual power ; the harmony will swell until even unharmonious vessels will vibrate responsively. The first subdued strains 174 IN DAYS TO COME are already audible, hesitating voices are joining in, so that even to-day the summons can be heard. As soon as it crosses the threshold of consciousness for no more than one community, the transformations of the visible life will begin. As soon as, through the working of the law of dominance, these transformations are in full progress, the new day, the day of strenuous endeavour, will have dawned. Whence is our confidence derived ? If we would answer this question, we must return to our starting-point Why, after the lapse of centuries, should we for the first time be justified in our assurance that a new unity of beliefs and values will be vouchsafed us ? We know that our intellectual sed and mechanised world is utterly without convictions ; we know that the spirit of compromise stifles and prohibits all absolute valuations ; we know that the bonds of unity have been rent asunder, and that only the egoistic will has gathered strength. May it not be that, despite the ardency of our faith, we shall be hopelessly involved in the blind course of the majority movement, in the barren compounding of interests and bodily needs, which ultimately and inevitably (as the materialist conception of history prescribes) will be determined by the nameless laws of the natural forces, and will ensure for these forces a victory over the thoughts of man ? Have we not once and for all sacrificed the self- determination of the human spirit to the mechanical destiny of the balance ? The dominion of the unified human will and of moral conviction over the resistance of material things, existed only for so long as revealed religion determined every step of the communal will. That dominion collapsed as soon as wonder vanished out of the natural life of every day, yielding place to law ; as soon as it ceased to be possible for sun and moon to be stayed in their courses by God's command, now that thought had come to prescribe for these bodies unresting repose and dead movement. The collapse was inevitable, seeing that revealed religion experiences no renovation, unless as in the East it is reinvigorated from day to day by new signs and tokens. The primary miracles become ancient history ; faith grows dogmatic ; the divine message degenerates into law ; the godhead is obscured by priest- craft. The communion of saints is replaced by the mechanised THE WAY OF MORALS 175 church ; politics flourish where piety prevailed ; the primi- tive transcendental, through interpretation and misinter- pretation, becomes a terrestrial power, aptly designed for the warfare against realities now that it has lost the faculty of moulding realities. The rule of revealed religion pre- supposes a nation which has not yet traversed the evil road of the intellect ; it presupposes unceasing renewal by signs and wonders, which are able to vivify the primitive trans- cendental content, and which can effect the perpetual reinter- pretation and inviolable regulation of the relationship to the course of reality. The dominance of religious unity is renewed, not by the edict of the priest or by the council of the church, but by the voice of the prophet. Religion was dethroned by reason. The mettle and the conscience of the peoples of Teutonic stock led them to repudiate the materialised comforts of mysticism, and to aim at harmonising faith and thought They created a religious structure which was able to accompany man for centuries on his pathway through time, inasmuch as minds were kept open to the primitive transcendentalism of the Gospels ; but this new religious system was unable to become a universally dominant spiritual power, because it was schismatic, because it was not based upon prophecy, because it placed no restraint upon investigatory thought, and because from the very outset it was subordinated to the political power to which it owed its existence. In ultimate analysis, Protestantism has unceasingly continued to lead a private life, even when in certain monarchical states it was able, under official protection, to win a measure of political influence. It failed to acquire supreme authority as the prescriber of values for life in general It did not even strive to attain such a position, for the court chaplain could not follow in the footsteps of the prophets and the martyrs. Reason held sway over the intellectualised spirit of the nations. Once again, as of old in the days of the naively pre-Christian idea of the state, it devolved on philosophy to prescribe values. But philosophy had a scanty audience. During several centuries the world was exclusively busied with the unprecedented developments of mechanisation ; with science, technique, capital, communications, constitu- tional changes, war, the vestiges of feudalism, modes of 176 IN DAYS TO COME life, art, etc., which had to be adapted to the overpopulation of the world and to the stratification of the body politic. The most extensive of all earthly transformations required the unhampered freedom of the individual ; opposing forces and nationalities had to share among themselves the work of the world ; this work could never have been effectually performed had there not been unbridled freedom of thought and its methods. Grandiose error was inevitable ; trium- phant analytics could venture the last step of all, could impose aims upon mankind much as if the printer were to dictate to the poet, the colourman to the painter, the engine driver to the traveller, or the artilleryman to the military commander. Faithfully and painstakingly did philosophy again and again attempt to assemble the scattered threads, to devise permanent trends, fixed laws, enduring imperatives. Vain was the endeavour ! Philosophy had undertaken a task of universal criticism ; had learned to doubt concepts and the world, God and existence. Nevertheless, under the guidance of pure reason, it had been blind to the simplest of prelim- inary questions, namely, whether the thinking, measuring, and comparing intellect, the art of the multiplication table and of questioning, is and must remain the only force bestowed upon the eternal spirit wherewith to comprehend all things divine and human. It remained intellectual philosophy. The error was like that of a master of the theory of undula- tions who should endeavour with his curves and his diagrams to interpret the significance of a symphony ; like that of a meteorologist who should think that his weather charts could exhaustively represent the rapture of a spring morning ; like that of a hydraulic engineer who should attempt with his calculations to define the elemental energies of the breakers thundering on the shore. Philosophy could not see why the tumultuous yearning of the sentiments could not be explained in mathematical and logical terminology, or why the observation and classification of concepts is not applicable to the supreme experiences of life. Philosophy exhibited no surprise at the inadequacy and baldness of its own definitions when these were presumptuously applied to the innermost forces of love, nature, and the godhead. It did not ask why the coercive power of the absolutely THE WAY OF MORALS 177 categorical was lacking to all its ethical doctrines. Still less was the question mooted upon what presupposition an absolutely binding force must repose. To a demonstra- tion of universal utility, everyone is entitled to answer, I renounce the canon ; and to every theoretical formulation of duty, the objector can reply, I shall stand aside and take the consequences. Logical thought can establish rights and customs, but can never establish absolute valuations and absolute morality, proof against all objections. These can flow from nothing else than the absolute, the inviolably divine. Only if all spiritual paths towards the transcen- dental were closed, would man be entitled to work out con- ventional formulas of morality through the investigatory power of the understanding. But the transcendental path stands gloriously wide. It is not the way of the churches and the cloisters, of dogma and ritual, but the way of spiritual experience and contemplation, and everyone has set his foot upon this way who, freed from the narrow and clamorous aims of intellectual thought, freed from the trammels of desire, has in reverent silence surrendered himself to love, nature, and the godhead. It is true that upon this road we cannot walk by the light of traditional experience ; we cannot walk unamazed as upon the roads which the intellect, far-seeing and unchangeable, has made for itself during millenniums. We go astray, we are struck dumb, we stand abashed before the gates of the realm where the tongue we speak is inadequate to our task. The eternal certainty drives us onwards ; we return home, our eyes filled with imperishable memories ; we rediscover the substance of these memories in the sayings and teachings of the greatest among us, who have all delivered the same message, the message of love ; who have all proclaimed the kingdom of the soul and the experience of God. These are but a few words ; they seem old and outworn, and they are unfathomable. Not a single one of the prob- lems of life, even if it relate to the most remote and trivial matters, but can have the clear nucleus of its truth and worthiness illumined by immersion in this spring. No entanglement and no error can be so gross as to be insus- ceptible of solution in the light of intuited truth. All values shade off into one another ; all judgments become things 12 178 IN DAYS TO COME felt instead of things merely known. Even our fugitive earthly life maintains its rights : not as an ultimate thing, which can presume to deduce good and evil out of its own indigence ; but as the orbis pictus from which we learn while fixing our gaze on higher things, as the school of the heart and the will, as the palestra of the mortal body, which is not an end in itself, nor competent to provide ultimate happiness and ultimate misery, nor worthy of ultimate passion and despair, but which rather signifies to us a duty and a heritage and a fugitive destiny, which we accept seriously and with dignity, nay, which we have to love. It is not the philosophy of the intellect which has shown us the old and the new twofold path to the world and to God ; our guide has been the intuitive force which has been known by many names, and which we shall term spiritual insight. This will take over the old heritage of the leadership of man- kind, the heritage which religion had to relinquish, and which intellectual philosophy was incompetent to take over. Inas- much as we live and die by our faith in this insight, the question as to the certainty of the doctrine does not arise. It might seem to many as if the world and life, con- templated from such an outlook, might no longer be treated seriously ; as if once again there would be a lack of driving energy in the form of active passion ; as if mankind, giving itself up to quietistic contemplation, would become soft and too easily satisfied. It is true that greed and fear, wanton pride and desperate grief, will cease to trouble us. But these are not the passions which have created the great things of the world. Wonderment at the purposive intelli- gence and its mechanistic deeds will pale. Already to-day we realise how easy of acquisition and how routinist in its uniformity is this force, which can level but cannot create, which can see but lacks illuminative insight. Nevertheless the world will not grow unwise. There was a time when walking and speaking were new acquirements, which tasked all the energies of man. To-day these have become easy and automatic ; we can walk and talk at the same time, can talk and think at the same time. Ordinary thought has become a commonplace. Our days and often our nights are filled with it. Sometimes we would fain flee from the pitiless stream of undesired thought. Then we sink into THE WAY OF MORALS 179 sleep while yet meditating. How imperfectly we have mastered even this inconsiderable art of thought, is proved by the fact that we are far more conscious of thought, at least of abstract thought and of fundamental resolves, than we are of breathing. The more scope we give to medita- tive contemplation freed from the trammels of desire, the more frequently the laborious process of judgment is regu- lated by pure intuition, the more easily and confidently does the intellectual spirit do its work, the more profoundly does it become absorbed into the sphere of surmounted things. If we compare the luminous simplicity and confidence which happily trained and free-spirited human beings display in their resolves, with the plodding laboriousness and the indecision of persons whose type is dominantly intellectual, we gain some idea of the unconscious and unassuming mastery to which intellectual thought will ripen. When that day comes, it will render far greater services to man- kind than can be rendered by such as ourselves, envious and parsimonious, and badly and parsimoniously trained even in the use of our own chosen instrument of thought. The spiritual characteristic of those future days will not be unwisdom, but the overcoming of trite wisdom by the certainty of the soul's judgment. The uncertainty of our day, and of the wisest among us, in valuation and judgment is unexampled, for never before has a similar superfluity of unrestrained intellect been let loose upon the world, and never before has the intellect in like manner unleashed and justified the undiscriminating arbitrariness of the feelings. Love and hate in their violent transformations, our judg- ments of what is tolerable, what is just and reasonable, are no less vacillating and unintuitive than our aesthetic judgment, which mars the world. Since everything can be proved, day after day everything is proved, and every proof finds acceptance. Yet every day brings proof to a small number of persons, that even in our own time the few who creatively embody the world because they create their being and their judgment out of the depths of intuition, that these rarest and best, no matter what their origin or what their pro- fession, feel alike and proclaim the same message in all matters of weighty import, to the greater glory of absolute truth. We do not exceed reasonable limits in our hope that 180 IN DAYS TO COME a time is at hand wherein a far greater number will have learned to question heart and mind, and to allow the affairs of the day, the world, and eternity to be regulated by the judgment of innermost sensibility. The result will not be to make of life a cold and calculated game, even though the eager longing for display should vanish, even though many foolish joys and secret lusts should perish. Ardent passions will be enkindled by a higher will ; and since the domain of this will is no longer to be one of need, compulsion, and animality, its seal will be freedom. What the future will bring will not be indifference towards mankind, cold compas- sion, and polite estrangement ; for when the instruments of the baser struggle for bread and respect have been worn out, when competition and rivalry, envy and malice, hypocrisy and lust for power, have come to an end, there will flourish, as to-day among the best, and as in all great epochs, a sense of responsibility, care for the community, communal senti- ment and solidarity. We need not dread the prevalence of the two opposing forms of earthbound mentality, namely, nihilism and materialist credulity; for the despair which impels to scepticism is passing, and with it poverty, which inspires all the false prayers and superstitious petitions for earthly advantage. The spirit of gratitude and self- sacrifice, of silence and of love, will rise to the level of true transcendentalism. The last of the prophets proclaimed to the millenniums the triad of faith, hope, and love ; and all divine, earthly, and human relationships are comprised in these words. A dead epoch, an epoch knowing naught of revelation, has overshadowed them. Faith is regarded as the irksome and yet imperative duty of accepting as true, things of whose untruth one is really convinced ; it is the sacrifice, not only of the intellect, but likewise of the conscience, in obedience to an order. Hope is misinterpreted as the expectation that in accordance with the principle of requital this sacrifice shall not be fruitless but profitable. Vanished is the commandment of love. All that remains is com- passion, and a cold, calculated sentiment in favour of the equalisation of needs. This is the only oasis of peace in the struggle of the desires. Effective love of mankind has not been able to maintain its place beside the love of the sexes, the love of kindred, and the love of friends. THE WAY OP MORALS 181 This is not the place for the discussion of the faith that will prevail in days to come. We reserve the matter for a subsequent work. Here we are dealing with human society. Consequently, as far as our own epoch is concerned, Paul's dictum is to be interpreted in the social sense, and in harmony with the conception of social progress which has already been expounded. Thus interpreted, the saying would mean, self -determining and responsible freedom, solidarity, and transcendentalism. When our descendants look back upon our age, they will be aghast to note how, during the few centuries in which the coalescence of strata was taking place in Europe, intellec- tualist thinking attained its climax, and left behind as the token of its passage the mechanisation of the world. We are profoundly moved by a similar sentiment when we reflect upon the origins of our race, though here we are concerned with stages of development which occupied hundreds of thousands of years. We are amazed when we contemplate the primal discoveries of the upright gait, of speech, and of fire ; but in our sentiment towards our remote progenitors there is mingled none of the bitterness which will animate the judgments of our own posterity. Only the ascent of lower strata that had previously been inconceivably enslaved, will seem to them to explain the base and negroid trails of our epoch, to explain the itch for gauds in women and in men, the prevalence of fear and enmity, the furious hoarding of the means of life, the instability of our valuations, the lack of a standard morality, of responsibility, of self-reliance and solidarity. Just like the ages when feudalism was collapsing, like the age when the system of classical Greece was decaying, like the age when the Roman empire was tottering to its fall, our own epoch will be regarded as at once an end and a beginning. But the unprecedented merit of our generations will be recognised to have been that the rebirth was not the outcome of foreign conquest, but of an inward impulse of the will. We now have to ask, Is it possible and desirable to speed the coming day ; to hasten the birth of the future by laws and institutions, by force or by allurement, by example and precept ? We must never forget that it is feeling which initiates the movement of institutions ; reluctantly, and yet 182 IN DAYS TO COME obediently at last, the world movement is guided by the sentiment, as the hands of the watch obey the impulsion of the spring. The wheel work is driven by the sentiment, not conversely ; and no premature moving on of the hands can influence the machinery. Slowly there is ripening an epoch upon whose profoundest consciousness we are impinging for the first time to-day. Neither the vernal storms of war nor the radiations of peace can force their way into that interior calm of the world where the grain of life germinates. Spirit engenders spirit, whereas things make things. The spirit is not dependent even upon the will itself ; will can neither create nor destroy spirit. When the time is ripe, more numerous will grow the voices of those who demand a new justice, nor will these voices be silenced until there shall have been awakened, out of the night of doubt, the certainty of new values, of the goods of an inviolable truth. These goods, which are disclosed to the new insight of our day, are goods of the soul. The coming of their reign has been announced, to-day, as ages since ; their meaning is unchanged, though their temporal embodiment has been transformed. But the establishment of this kingdom begins in the depths of consciousness, and only after the work has been done in the depths, does the seed germinate and the growth appear in the light of day. Within the dying under- growth of the old system, the everyday will of the individual may lead him, despairingly or hopefully as the case may be, to cut for himself this pathway or that. No matter. The resistance of dead masses can retard nothing ; the sacrificial will that is solely concerned with material objects can hasten nothing. Should an awakened conscience lead anyone to offer sacrifice of his possessions, he will bear witness thereby, but will not perform any decisive deed, for some new injustice will gain the mastery over that which he has sacrificed. The awakening economic conscience will manifest itself. Owner- ship will be regarded as nothing more than the custody of goods held in trust, as a stewardship of which account must be rendered. Ownership will not be arbitrary but responsible. No longer will it be possible for life to be lived or work to be done for the sake of gain or for the sake of enjo3*ment. The significance of the new development may be explained in this way. According to the prevailing political and moral THE WAY OF MORALS 183 creed, the individual's political and moral activities must not be isolated and self-regarding, but must be subjected to the life of a higher unity by give and take, by limitation, and by responsibility. To-day this principle must be ex- tended to the whole field of economic and social existence, so that a higher freedom becomes our aim in place of a lower. Individual freedom belongs to the realm of intuition, of inward experience, and of the things which these create ; it belongs to works of transcendentalism, the heart, art, and thought. If thereby the last realm of human activity, the economic and social sphere, is divested of its apolitical arbitrariness and lifted to the plane of mutual responsibility, divine will, and spiritual ascent ; if a new morality and a new respon- sibility spiritualise even the most material desires of humanity; then it will prove impossible to lay upon any conceivable form of state the burdens of so extensive an organisation and so highly centralised a control. We are faced with the political problem of upbuilding the state in an entirely new sense. We are faced with the problem with which for centuries religion and philosophy wrestled as the highest earthly obligation of theoretical thought, until, at the dawn of the mechanistic and nationalistic eras of historical and racial practice, religious and philosophical theory became subordinated to the balance between tradition and temporal utility. If the unbridled and aimless essence of human movement and association requires anchorage in the transcendental and the absolute, needs the formative energy of a new ethic and new customs, it is obvious that the state cannot rest content with what has been handed down from the past, nor with the minimum obtainable by the least expenditure of effort. Our exposition, therefore, must henceforward be devoted to the political way. We have now made acquaint- ance with the way of ethics. It set out from the law of the soul ; it leads to the law of responsibility, and to a life lived, not for the sake of happiness and power, but for the sake of justice and God. 3 THE WAY OF THE WILL Now that we are preparing to set foot upon the third way, the way of the will, of the communal will which is the mainspring of all political activity, I feel called upon to make a personal avowal, and I shall for the first time in many years refer to my own individual experience. I write these words on the afternoon of July 3ist, 1916. To-morrow is the second anniversary of the opening of the European war. In a thousand cities there will be proud and sad, serious and confident utterances, and the first slight symptoms of weariness will be replaced by hope in victory, power, and happiness. Across the tree tops beneath my window I look out into the tinted distance over the flats, the meadows, and the stubbles, towards the silvery dunes on the horizon. A rich harvest is being carted ; the year's food supply is secure. Far beyond my range of vision, along the blood-stained eastern and western fronts, the mad onslaught of the enemy has, we learn, once again been repulsed. This, we are assured, will prove to have been the last attack ; soon we shall come to terms, and peace will follow. Are we to demand much or little ? The parties are fighting about the How, not about the Whether. It is two years to-day since I felt myself to be so dis- tressingly aloof from the thought of my fellow countrymen, in so far as they looked upon the war as an ordeal which would bring salvation. For years I had foreseen the twilight of the nations, and had heralded it in speech and writing. I discerned its signs in the impudent folly that paraded the streets of our great towns ; in the arrogance of materialised life ; in the 184 THE WAY OF THE WILL 185 mad extravagances of the centenary celebration of 1813 ; in the disgraceful affairs of KOpenick and Zabern ; above all, in the deadly sloth of our wealthier bourgeoisie, immersed in business affairs and shunning responsibility. In the year before the war, for the last time, I drew attention to coming events, saying that evil days would befall through the working of transcendental law, and not as the outcome of political necessity, for Prussia had never been taught anything except by blows. Rejoicing in the July sunshine, the prosperous and happy populace of Berlin responded to the summons of war. Brightly clad, with flashing eyes, the living and those conse- crated to death felt themselves to be at the zenith of vital power and political existence. A shadow of hatred passed across the surging crowd. The report ran that a Russian spy had been arrested on the steps of the cathedral. He had been disguised, it was said, as a postman, and was carrying hand grenades. But soon brows cleared ; the momentary alarm was merged in the multiple tensions of hope for victory and longing for the fight. I could not but share in the pride of the sacrifice and the power. Nevertheless, this tumult seemed to me a dance of death, the overture to a doom which I had foreseen obscurely and with dread with all the more dread in that it had been impossible for me to rejoice at its coming. What time the triumphant armies were surging west- ward, while the towers of Paris were in sight, and while a second victorious crowning at Versailles shimmered before the popular imagination, my own dominant thought was, How shall we be rescued from bitter need, from rigid encircle- ment, from the death-in-life of armed peace ? At that time I was a member of the Prussian ministry for war, contributing such ideas as I could in support of the attempt to break the blockade. The fact that it was necessary to take measures providing for years of war, suffices to show that the anxieties of those days are not exaggerated in my mind by the tricks of memory. I believed then, and I still believe to-day, that God will send us an honourable way out of our troubles. But just as little do I believe now in a peace that will bring us universal happiness, as I believed in any such issue during those 186 IN DAYS TO COME enthusiastic days of our national history For now, as then, the issue will be determined, not by political and militarist influences, but by transcendental considerations. I do not believe in our right to guide the destinies of the world. Nor do I believe that any other nation possesses such a right. Neither ours nor any other nation has earned it. We have no right to decide the destinies of the world, for we have not learned to guide our own destinies. We have no right to force our modes of thought and feeling upon other civilised nations ; for whatever weaknesses these nations may display, we for our part have not yet acquired for ourselves a will to responsibility. Ardently and confidently do I trust in a happy issue. My fears are for what lies beyond. This war is not a begin- ning, but an end ; its legacy will be a legacy of shreds and patches. All will wrangle for the possession of these vestiges nations, parties, classes, churches, families. Were it not that decay ever teems with the germs of new life, we should no longer dare to breathe. The new life can be no other than the awakening of the soul, for it is manifest that this seed alone can germinate when all other kinds of seed have been trampled under foot and destroyed. Does it matter that not one of us who is alive to-day will survive to see the fulfilment ? No and yes. We are sure of the future, but we die as a generation of transition, whose doom it is to serve as fertilising material for the growth of a harvest which we ourselves are unworthy to reap What have these confessions to do with days to come ? They signify a descent out of the free realm of thought in which we were moving, to the sphere of our daily needs. We cannot escape the task of anchoring to reality the thought spheres whose aim and fulfilment are not bound to any definite period of secular progress ; for if they be truth, even though they should seem to conflict with the extant, it is at least necessary to indicate their attachments to the solid structure of the present, to make the breaches through which the first intimations of the new realm will come. Laborious work this ; digging in the extant ; bound in the shackles of space, time, and circumstance. For a while we must lose precision of thought, must lose contact with the sublime We shall need powerful tools. Tapping on THE WAY OF THE WILL 187 the walls, so dear to the heart of the man of culture, will avail nothing. Much that we have learned to love will have to be cleared away with the axe. If the descent from heaven to earth seems oppressive, assuredly we verge upon the inhuman when, to a people bleeding from its wounds, to a people which has been trans- formed into an army, which is doing unheard-of deeds and bearing unheard-of sufferings, if to such a people, a harshness which seems to be ingratitude, though it is really love, offers an obscure and difficult task Yet harder is it if, in the transition from a truce of parties which has been difficult enough to keep, to a struggle of all against all, the voice to be raised is not the voice of peace, but the voice which condemns all the works and all the values which had seemed stable. For a whole year this distressing consideration has pre- vented the continuation of my book. I now resume the writing of it because my duty impels me to deliver the message entrusted to me, and because I believe that, in the conflict between temporal considerations and the urge of the abso- lute, the choice of that which knows nothing of time cannot lead me astray. The first need is to expound a number of preliminary questions which have in part been discussed in preceding sections. i. Tradition and Ideal. In Germany, for a hundred years, the historical method has been the only method em- ployed in the study of political affairs. It may therefore be permissible for once in a way to attack this method with its own weapons. In so far as our commonly recognised aims are not merely transmuted material interests, they do not arise out of the hereditary work of politicians (as in other western lands by the activity of political parties, and in eastern countries by dynastic transmission), but out of the professorial activities of our German men of learning ; for our parties are young, with no experience of responsibility, and blinded by powerful material interests ; and as for the crown, since it has always defended a specific form of government, it has perforce been partisan. 188 IN DAYS TO COME The investigator, by his very nature, stands in polar opposition to the man of action, to the politician and the business man His vehicle is proof, which is diametrically contrasted with unprovable instinct, with intuition. In the field of action, it does not so much concern us whether a thing is true ; our concern is to ascertain which of two or many true things or complexes of things is the weightier. To investigate implies research, and to search is not to weigh. It is true that the conscientious investigator will have occa- sion in the course of his work to weigh things against one another, as for instance when he is faced by the problem as to whether documents are trustworthy ; but this work of weighing and testing takes place in the sphere of the traditional, the weighing is an accessory method, not an essential principle of research. This principle of weighing, however, is not the ultimate principle. The ultimate principle is to feel aware of aims which are not derived from research and study, but which arise in the mind from a consciously or unconsciously intuited outlook on the universe. To the thinker, inviolable knowledge, memory, and well-tried and typical methods of thought, are indispensable aids. To the man of action they are casual props. Again and again he must change the materials with which he is dealing ; his memory must repeatedly be emptied and recharged ; his methods of thought and decision have continually to be improvised and reno- vated. His activity is struggle, and the only fixed point is the goal of his endeavour. He who is fitted for action is not fitted for research. The man of action is paralysed by the demand that he should remain unbiased by others' thought and uninfluenced by collected materials. He who is fitted for research will discern an unreasonable element of venturesomeness in the enduring tension of unprovable resolve. The sphere of action is far more closely akin to the sphere of artistic creation than it is to the sphere of learning. If the man of learning enters the field of political activity, he will find it necessary as far as his aims are concerned to deduce them from the extant. Had Providence followed his methods, there would have been no great turning points in history ; the tendency dominant at any time, continuing THE WAY OF THE WILL 189 in operation, would have led to an ever closer approximation to the unattainable point of indifference. Subjectively, the political method of men of learning manifests itself as an avowed leaning towards tradition, towards deduction from local, temporal, physical, and human data, as an aversion for all that is immediate and ideal, for all that bears the sign of the dogmatic and the speculative. Through an optical illusion, the continuity of the past seems to justify the historico-professorial conception of politics. The illusion is threefold. First of all, we have the rust of the ages. Thereby, things essentially dissimilar seem to grow together, inasmuch as even the paradoxical is encrusted with an outgrowth, with a local historical deposit. The Russian campaign of Napoleon, two thousand years hence when the relevant documents have been destroyed, will perchance, in all its paradoxy, assume the aspect of a sun myth. But to us, who are familiar with the details, this campaign seems characteristically French. Secondly, in continuity itself lies an illusion, for continuity is only recognisable in retrospect. When we are waiting to see the unknown blossoms of a new plant, we may from the stem and the leaves be led to create imaginatively all sorts of possible structures ; only when we see the actual flower will its form and colour seem to us to possess a neces- sary fitness. Thus the observer perceives aposteriori a continuity which he regards as unambiguous, until, from other plants of the same species, he sees some variant of the flower spring, making plain to him the variability of the function. Last of all, retrospective contemplation modifies our presuppositions. When the observer is taken abso- lutely by surprise, in the shock of this surprise he is apt to discover in the obscure antecedents, new determinative qualities which had hitherto been unnoted, and which will henceforward transform for him the past and its pre- suppositions. The image of the present is almost as sub- jective as the image of the future ; and the past, however objective it may appear, is likewise subject to modification. Objectively considered, traditionalism is the element of inertia, and is justified as such. The institutions of a community must not be unduly labile, for, if they are, the 190 IN DAYS TO COME community will resemble a negro republic. In most cases, it is true, the coalescing roots of the interests suffice to stabilise the thing that is. If the weight of tradition be superadded, stability is yet further increased. If tradition dominates, the system becomes unalterable. Should this happen in a country like our own, which in any case is averse from political initiative and from any modifications of form, there will be requisite and enhanced admixture of speculative idealism and intuitive energy if the dead weight of the extant is to be moved. Herein we see the solution of the antimony between tradition and the ideal. The traditional will always be strong enough to assimilate the innovational to itself, and thus to ensure the continuity of events. The ideal, however abstract and unsettling it may seem, must animate with new impulses things that have been petrified by time. 2. The German concept of freedom, which is likewise a creation of erudition, contains, when divested of meta- physical trappings, some such declaration as the following. You do not desire to be free from all restraints. An organic restriction is interposed between licence and freedom. You are riot subjected to any other restriction than this organic, divinely willed restriction. (Proof is rarely adduced in support of this subordinate clause. In many cases, a hint is given that we are no worse than others.) If you recognise this, you have inner freedom In addition you have trans- cendental, moral, aesthetic, and religious freedom. Unquestionably, by this chain of thought the slavery alike of ancient and of modern times, the Inquisition, absolutism, serfdom, the sweating system, and the excesses of colonial policy, can all be justified, for everything depends on the subordinate clause ; the objects of our interest always retain transcendental freedom. But the decisive factor in this subordinate clause is the concept of the organic ; and that this concept is elastically interpreted by those who put forward the above chain of reasoning, is evident from the fact that the hereditary dependence of human being upon human being, of one social stratum upon another, of one religion upon another, and in some cases even of one nation upon another, is held to fall within the limits of things divinely willed. THE WAY OF THE WILL 191 But if in very truth the relationship thus alleged to be divinely willed be not organic at all, it displays the aspect of arbitrary coercion, which cannot be subsumed under the concept of freedom, however philosophically that concept may be defined. Moreover, the intolerability of the coercion increases with the arbitrariness, which can be justified neither by historical tradition nor by authority. Since, however, as concerns the casuistry and the criteria of the German concept of freedom, those who formu- lated that concept, to wit the professional men of learning, have usually had the decisive voice, the civic associations of these persons are determinative for the dominant view. The civic position of the professorial man of learning is decided by the esteem in which he is held by the members of his own profession. He is not, like the professional artist, dependent upon a public ; he is not, like the man of business, dependent upon legislation and favourable turns in affairs ; not, like the statesman, upon parliaments, official superiors, and sovereigns ; not, like the proletarian, upon the employing class. In his civic life, no less than in his spiritual, he lives in a republic of learning, in a state within the state. Apart from the working of Providence and the tax collector, the only interference with the affairs of this inner state comes at intervals from the gentle hand of the minister for education. The position of the profes- sorial caste is assured by a far-reaching authority over those beneath ; a pleasant relationship towards those above is established by traditional forms and amenities, and is embodied in inviolable academic, courtly, and political dignities. This elastic and fluctuating balance within the fluid body of society is quite agreeable to its constitutive elements, and can readily be interpreted as the essence of political freedom. Here we find a well-understood organic association united with spiritual and civic mobility ; authority and dominion united with a perfectly endurable measure of subjection. Praise of the professorial career becomes an apologia for German freedom. Assuming for the sake of argument something that will not occur in actual fact, that the men of learning will hence- forward, recognising themselves to be prejudiced persons, renounce the attempt to arbitrate concerning the iriterpre- 192 I^N DAYS TO COME tation of the concept of freedom we have to ask what possibility of forming a judgment of our own remains to us. Doubtless the criterion of organic association is not an absolute one, for it is hemmed in by certain restrictions. An association ceases to be organic when it ceases to be necessary. It is no longer necessary, when there is reason to believe that the aim is attainable with less restricted means. Now the aim is determined by the dominant philosophical outlook ; and that philosophical outlook is decisive which is deeply rooted in the hearts of men inde- pendently of interests and personal wishes. It might seem as if little had been gained, since the enigma of freedom has been replaced by the enigma of the philosophical outlook. Nevertheless, a great deal has been gained, for henceforward the judgment as to what is freedom and what is tyranny, is taken out of the hands of the historian, the jurist, and the administrator, and transferred to those of the practical statesman, who now decides whether the chains are indispensable, and whose light is derived from him who creates and receives the philosophical outlook. Therewith every individual association has ceased to be a divinely willed end in itself, and no association is inviolable. The problem of freedom grows once more alive, it becomes a problem of evolution and of the most exalted questions. The challenger can no longer be waived away from the threshold in the name of a superior moral consciousness. The burden of proof, both in respect of philosophy and in respect of practice, falls upon those who occupy positions of privilege. Now a philosophy is not a haphazard complex of interests. It is and can be nothing but the harmonious and fixed faith which is rooted in the depths of the human and the divine. He who repudiates that faith and puts trust in the sword for the defence of his power, he who says might is right and takes his stand in the arena of the interests instead of on the ground where the struggle is that of the spirit, may join forces with other interested persons, but he forfeits the right of appeal to our human convictions. Of all political outlooks, there is only one to-day which is based on a philosophy, namely, the conservative outlook, in so far as it is based upon Christianity not in the sense THE WAY OF THE WILL 193 of a creed, but in the sense of an absolute faith. This explains the beautiful simplicity of its sentiments and the way in which its powerful convictions tend to promote the formation of character. Nevertheless, when those who adopt this outlook wish to justify the actual relationships of society, they find that Protestant truth and even the Chris- tian sentiment of the middle ages are altogether inadequate for the purpose, and the conservatives are compelled to have recourse to arguments derived from the sphere of the interests. In contrast with the accepted forms of thought, this book endeavours to deduce all its claims out of the closed system of a philosophy based upon the nature and being of the soul. Consequently these claims transcend to some extent the domain of practical politics, and thus enter the domain of transcendental politics. There is one exception. The pragmatical aims of our concluding section necessitate an empirical postulate, in order that we may enter more deeply into the essence of extant things and institutions. This postulate, which is not susceptible of unconditional transcendental proof, is the principle that the state is entitled to exercise power. Here we come to the third of our pre- liminary problems. 3. Does a great state, which is growing inwardly, require the externals of power ? Self-evident as an affirma- tive answer may seem in the sense of the politics of the interests, the need may appear dubious from the humanist outlook. No one ever thinks of despising the citizens of the Swiss Confederation or the citizens of Holland because these states are not great powers, do not maintain embassies, and do not participate on equal terms in the congresses of the powers. The more advanced the nationalistic decay of Europe, the more frequent become the cases in which medium-sized, small, and even insignificant states, are more eagerly wooed by the powers, than the great and ponderous imperialist states are wooed, for the reason that, in the balance of forces, a most trifling accession may turn the scale. If Europe be still further Balkanised during the next few generations, there will inevitably ensue such a mobility of the various alliances, that, with the exception of a few residual national states, every nationality will 13 194 IN DAYS TO COME constitute a sort of arithmetical unit, which will be allotted now to this group and now to that, and which will exercise power only as part of a sum total and in virtue of the geographical and physical strength of that total. Fallacious, likewise, is the abstract allegation that in the spiritual economy of the world this or that cultural form is absolutely indispensable, the allegation that this or that cultural form must for the general salvation be diffused abroad and universally inoculated with ever increasing energy. Civilisation has an extensive potency, because civilisation is based upon a common standard of life ; but culture has no extensive potency, foi culture is based upon the peculiarity and uniqueness of the spiritual. The strongest and most imperishable of the cultures known to history, the Hellenic culture, was in the days of its most splendid blossoming upborne by a smaller number of free men than live to-day in a single middle-sized provincial German town. After its apparent death, this culture gained the victory over those who had conquered it. Without propaganda, it diffused its reign over Europe, and has extended to China, America, and Australasia. The ethical culture of Palestine, considered apart from the religion of Palestine, spread throughout the whole world after the political extinction of the land of its birth, and to-day for the first time is encountering countervailing forces in unpetrified forms of faith. It would almost seem as if culture, like the red glow of sunset, could not spread across the skies and cover the earth until the star from which it radiates had set. This much, at least, is certain, that no form of culture is ever lost to the world. When the blossoming season of a nation (which rarely coincides with the climax of its political power) is over, unless it be content with a parody of its own past, it can be revived only by the infusion of fresh blood. Nevertheless, that which has been created becomes part of the consciousness of the planetary spirit, and it matters nothing if the records on parchment, metal, and stone have been destroyed. Invincible is the impulse of life. Every creature lives until it is willing to die. But the collective spirit of the nation, like every other spirit, gives visible expression to its life-will in growth and multiplication. Growth signifies THE WAY OF THE WILL 195 will to the destruction of another, for life battens upon death ; and it is only the germinating soul which, through love, can avert the doom of the primal law. Collective spirits like those of the nations are younger and more primitive by hundreds of thousands of years than the individual spirits of the persons out of whom these collec- tivities are made up ; and even though it should become possible to control the murderous impulses of their will to live, nevertheless here as throughout organic nature a comparatively peaceful or a forceful struggle for the essen- tial elements of life will furnish proof of the will to live and the right to live. If we approve the will to live and its militant expression in the form of self-defence, then the secular modification of national life, whose course cannot be foretold for centuries in advance, compels us to admit that the nations have a right to the increase of power. It now behoves us to characterise the secular transfor- mation of the will to power. Its characterisation by the two tendencies of nationalism and imperialism may be accepted, although these signify nothing more than the twofold aspect of the mechanisation of political life. Towards the close of the eighteenth century a millenniary movement came to its term in Europe. I refer to the amalgamation of the two strata of which the historic nations had previously consisted. Up to this time, all history had been exclusively the history of the upper stratum. The life of the lower stratum had been as nnhistorical as the life of the East. Consequently we know almost nothing of the nature and the origin of the subject and the unfree, who were perhaps not very numerous at the opening of the historic epoch, but who multiplied more rapidly than their masters, and whose ranks were further swelled by all those elements which dropped out of the upper stratum into the proletariat. Of their life, their thoughts, and their feelings, we know little, and for the most part that little is negative. They had neither national consciousness nor political will. Protected to a varying degree by laws and institutions, they were property, chattels. It mattered nothing to them whether their gracious lord was an 196 IN DAYS TO COME Italian, a Frenchman, a Pole, or a Swede ; it mattered nothing to them whether this exalted personage was a native or a foreigner, a lay baron or a prince of the church. When the conservative romanticists of our day enthusiastically compare these relationships to those of the patriarchate, we must never forget that in spite of certain prescriptions which remind us of our own laws for the protection of animals, these human beings were vendible commodities and that their owners, without any subflavour of illwill, were in the habit of referring to them simply as churls. The body and the strength of modern Europe are to a predominant extent constituted by the offspring of this inferior stratum. They consumed the crust of varnish which the Teutonic upper strata had imposed upon the European lands ; they deteutonised the nations, and created in respect of appearance, culture, and forms of life the characteristics common to the continental populations. It was they who brought to the front the thought-forms of the mechanised epoch, which were alien to Teutonism and were in conflict with Teutonism. It was they who originated new languages, arts, industries, and conceptions of life, which drew their sap through the roots of the old subor- dinate stratum, and were derived from the sagacity, the disciplined obedience, and the de-individualised industry of the members of this stratum. A widespread popular sentiment has speciously but erroneously attributed to the Jews the authorship of the spiritual transformations of recent centuries, the theory being based on the recognition that Jewish thought is singularly harmonious with the thought of the mechanised era. But we should be promoting the Jews to the intellectual leadership of the world, and should be grossly underestimating the significance of the European nations, were we to assign to a few hundred thousand Jews causal responsibility for the merits and defects of mechanisa- tion arid to do this even for countries where they did not live, and for periods in which they had practically no civil rights. Such a world-wide movement could only occur because western Europe was altering its whole aspect. The change was inevitable because the rising tide of humanity broke through the thinning aristocratic crust of THE WAY OF THE WILL 197 Teutonism, and because for the first time since the days of the great national migrations a new population was spreading over the west. Our historians, thanks to their official position, for the most part contemplated the great French revolution from the outlook of the restoration. They did not consider it to be a basic phenomenon in popular history, but a suspect historical interlude, arising out of mismanagement and malformation, and brought about by a metropolitan mob. They looked upon it as an evil, as something which eventu- ated in a series of amazing dogmatic and rationalistic experi- ments, and a thing which entailed terrible inconvenience upon all well-disposed nations. As alternative to this outlook, which was intended to serve as a deterrent, we have the view that the revolution was the explosive climax of a process of restratification, and that its repercussion in neighbouring lands, by a sort of infective detonation, led to the establishment there also of a new balance. The motley picturesqueness of Germany is in part due to the fact that this repercussion was indirect, that in our land the revolution remained latent, manifesting itself in fragmentary fashion, working itself out in riots and congresses, in party struggles and civil wars. But for the very same reason, the Germans lack a proper sense of political responsibility ; and herein, as we shall see later, lies one of the profounder causes of the present war. Nevertheless, restratification took place here also, and upon this process depends the matter with which we are now concerned, the phenomenon of nationalism. The predominantly Teutonic upper stratum of Europe used to exhibit a kind of internationalism based more or less upon kinship. This internationalism resembled that in virtue of which the extant dynasties and supreme nobility constitute a cosmopolitan family with interconnections that disregard frontiers and differences of creed. This family alliance of the uppermost stratum presented a common front against all the inferior estates. On occasions only, when taking over possessions and lordship acquired by inheritance, marriage, or political eventualities, did its members find it expedient to make a parade of national and religious differences. The untrammelled status of 198 IN DAYS TO COME those in the uppermost stratum was not hampered by any national contrasts. Wherever they might turn, they en- countered the same supremacy of the church, the same knightly customs, the same speech among cultured persons, substantially the same culture. The idea of nationality remained obscure, nationality being conceived as marked out by linguistic frontiers. The beginnings of restratification created the urban bourgeoisie, and so led to national cleavages, which ultimately extended even into the domain of the creeds. By the time when the complete transference of popular energy to the lower strata took place, these cleavages had been completed, and there now ensued a further develop- ment of national sensibility. The lowly born has only one home, one speech, one faith, one tradition that of his fathers. He cannot understand the foreigner ; he hates the foreigner ; he locks and bars his own house ; he regards his neighbour's dwelling with contempt, a neighbouring tribe with suspicion ; a neighbouring nation speaking a foreign tongue is a nation of enemies. Hatred and love alike form a shell. Only the onlooker can understand contrasts and pay due regard to common qualities. A national sentiment which embraces an entire country pre- supposes either great uniformity of physical and mental qualities, or else that people are beginning to raise their eyes. As far as we Germans are concerned, a full and pure national sentiment is only now beginning to awaken. Political nationalism has not so much need of this sentiment as of the real or supposed experience of differentia- tion from the enemy. This latter is a feeling which in all times of political complication and before every campaign, can easily and simply be intensified to an extreme. We find it very difficult to realise that the wars of long ago rarely aroused national bitterness, and frequently left behind no memories of estrangement, except such as might arise from the memory of recent and unaccustomed horrors. For the most part we hardly seem to remember that the German wars of the last three centuries were civil wars almost without exception. War was waged when the ruler wished it and when the auspices were favourable. Those who took the field were professional soldiers. It was a THE WAY OF THE WILL 199 mere matter of chance whether the men who trampled the harvests and fired the roofs were friends and fellow- countrymen or foreigners and foes. The Napoleonic wars formed the great school of nationalism. The enemy was a tangible Frenchman of satanic mien ; his subjects were pitiless ravagers ; his army was a national army, and the mercenary armies of the other European countries could not withstand it. Conse- quently the rulers were compelled to stoop, and to swear a comradeship-at-arms with their subjects, well aware that by doing so they were driving the thorn into their own sides ; that they were completing the restratification of the continent ; that, as they phrased it, they were helping forward the revolution. Yet in France itself, which for nearly a generation had had experience of national enthusi- asm, true nationalism was so little awakened, so undifterenti- ated, that the tsar was hailed as a liberator, and no trace of hatred remained against the conqueror of Paris. If the peoples had not yet become the bearers of their own destinies, they had at least developed their own political consciences. Where ambition and a determinative will had been dominant, they demanded responsibility, or at least enfranchisement from alien lordship ; in addition, they demanded unity . In Germany, the aspirations towards unity were voiced only by a section of the cultured classes. Consequently, unity could not be realised by the people ; it was realised by a dictatorial victor in civil war and on the field of conquest. Thus the nineteenth century was the epoch of the great national segregations and aggregations. To this movement the Osmanli empire forfeited its African and most of its European dominions. The mighty process of solution was the central feature of western political life, and with the exception of the Franco-German settlement of accounts, all the European crises of this period were its outcome. Untouched, hitherto, have been the two composite structures of Austria and Russia, which react on one another in a way to favour mutual disintegration, and at this moment by forcible means. The idea of nationality was enormously accentuated by the economic consequences of restratification. 200 IN DAYS TO COME Increase in population, a general growth in prosperity, the enhanced demand for things which are not directly necessary to the maintenance of life, have rendered the agricultural foundation of civilised and thickly peopled states altogether inadequate. Machine-made products were needed ; and for their production raw materials of every possible kind, animal, vegetable, and mineral, were requisite. No European country is territorially and climatically com- petent to supply all these requirements out of its unaided resources ; they have to be imported and paid for. The payment is made by each country out of its own surplus products ; but in the case of all the continental countries of Europe, when the native products have done their utmost, there still remains a notable residue of imports to be paid for. How can this be done ? There is only one means, that of wage labour. The countries buy more raw materials than they need for their own requirements, and apply labour to transform them into finished products, which can then be sold abroad at a cost greatly above that of the imported raw materials. Thus the previously unpaid portion of imports for home consumption can be balanced. The nations become wage workers in the world's employ ; the countries are workshops to which wages are paid. Since each country is in a position to compete for a share in the general offer of employment, all become competitors in the labour market of the world. This competition takes the form of a struggle between the countries to secure markets for their respective exports. From the economic outlook, export is something more than the mere expression of the manufacturer's desire for gain ; and it is something more than the expansive impulse of vigorous industries. It is the sale of domestic labour power for the payment of the debts incurred for commodi- ties which every one uses. For every one dresses 'in imported wool and cotton ; every one consumes exotic foodstuffs ; every one uses machinery made of imported metal, or uses the products of such machinery, and products manufactured out of imported raw material. Only the Anglo-Saxon countries can dispassionately contemplate this competition in the world's wage market or export market. The Americans can do this because THE WAY OF THE WILL 201 their huge continental realm is the one circumscribed and almost self-sufficient area in the world. The English can be dispassionate because their ancestors, with a discern- ment incredibly in advance of the developmental require- ments of the day, acquired colonial domains which supply the needs of the motherland and receive what is offered them. Furthermore, as leader of European commerce, England was able to effect extensive savings, and these, invested abroad, return a yearly tribute which is supplied in the form of goods to the requisite amount. As far as the other states are concerned, they have as yet no more than an unconscious perception of the nature of their fierce competitive struggle in the labour market. As usual, collective activities are the outcome of obscure instincts, which are understood only in retrospect. But the conduct of the nations has been the logical consequence of the new needs. Why should another enrich himself by the labour which he takes from us ? If he wants to procure from us things of which he has an urgent need, he must pay a high price, and we shall depreciate the currency in which he pays us by imposing difficulties in the process of exchange. This was termed the protection of national labour, for as a matter of actual fact a system of protective tariffs is competent to encourage growing industries and to raise the standard of life in the country which adopts it. A transfer of national sentiment to the sphere of economic interests was the affect in which the logic of the struggle for a livelihood secured unconscious expression. But this did not suffice. There still remained to each country its need for foreign raw materials, and this need again and again compelled the harassed buyers to play the suitor to their creditors. Here, since the American method was unattainable, the English formula was the only one which could avail. The requisites were : a colonial empire, rendering the motherland independent of foreign countries ; a navy to acquire and protect the colonial empire ; land routes, harbours, and coaling stations, to safeguard the whole structure. Two new concepts were created when political economy was invaded by the mechanistic forms of life and thought. 202 IN DAYS TO COME The first of these was economic nationalism as a hostile method of labour competition in the restricted market of the world ; the growth of this idea being accompanied by the transference of a notable part of foreign policy to economic aims. The second was imperialism, the insatiable need for the extension of power over every possible area, since every area could form one stone in the general struc- ture, or could at least have an exchange value in the process of upbuilding an ideal system of self-sufficient universality. The old ideal edifice of the classical economists was consigned to the housebreakers. The theory had been that every one should produce what he could for the world economy ; that he should contribute whatever he could supply well and cheaply ; that free exchange of commodities, a frictionless flow, should lead to the highest possible func- tioning with the least expenditure of effort. But these dogmas no longer secured acceptance. What did it matter that an article should be dearer, so long as it was the product of native energy ? The country whose economic strength was preponderant must prove victor in the struggle ; it could dispose of the world's raw materials, and could pay for its residual needs in any way it pleased. If the seller could not produce cheaply enough to sell at a profit, then, under compulsion, he would have to sell at a loss. So much the worse for him if he became tributary to the buyer, and so much the better for the autocratic purchaser. Nationalism and imperialism are ephemeral tendencies. But as far as our own epoch is concerned, they dominate political thought, they dominate all the sensibilities of our time. They were vital factors of the present war ; they kept the states in a condition of persistent tension by their perpetual demands for military and naval preparations ; by their insistence upon competition they accentuated all the conflicts between the powers of equal rank ; and they will not attain their climax until after the war. This is a side issue. If more space has been given to the origin and nature of these tendencies than would seem to be warranted by the limits of the present work, it is because a clear grasp of the ideas will be requisite in the sequel. For the moment let it suffice to reiterate that, as long as these principles remain dominant (and the end of THE WAY OF THE WILL 203 their reign is not yet in sight), as long as we must guide ourselves by a policy which claims to be realist, so long must we give an affirmative answer to the question whether the state has need of power. The three preliminary questions have now been con- sidered, and we can turn to a brief and general discussion of what is to create the political vesture for the social structure which has been outlined. Every one of the changes which we have demanded, on moral, social, and economic grounds, will strengthen the powers and competences of the state. The state will become the moving centre of all economic life. Whatever society does, will be done through the state and for the sake of the state. It will dispose of the powers and the means of its members with greater freedom than the old territorial potentates ; the greater part of the economic surplus will accrue to it ; all the wellbeing of the country will be incorporated in the state. There will be an end of economico-social stratification, and consequently the state will assume all the powers now wielded by the dominant classes. The spiritual forces under its control will be multiplied. The existing follies of production and the existing irresponsibility of consumption will come to an end ; much misdirected energy will be guided into new channels, becoming available for the sustenance of the state, and in case of need for its defence. The state in which the popular will has thus been embodied and made manifest, cannot be a class state. Should any class divisions persist within its structure, or any hereditary powers maintain themselves even in greatly modified forms (the monarchy alone excepted), the unfreedom from which we suffer would have ripened to the pitch of intolerability, and would be incompatible with the integrity of our subjective and objective existence. We are faced with the demand for a people's state. It is a postulate of the people's state that every group of its population shall secure a due share of influence, that every legitimate peculiarity of the people shall find expres- sion in the state organisation, that every available spirit shall secure an appropriate method of service. As in a well- 204 IN DAYS TO COME ordered household, labour, authority, relationships and responsibility, disposition, expenditure, communal senti- ment and mutual confidence, must cooperate in harmonious union. It must not be as in a factory, where members of the owning class receive the profits ; where the stratum of salaried employees is entrusted with the management ; and where the stratum of the manual workers serves for weekly wages. Nor must it be as in a crown colony, where, under the protection of arms, a small group of free men lords it over the helots. In our day, which is familiar with the problems of organisa- tion both in great matters and in small, it should be needless to point out that the concept of the people's state is not identical with that of popular government, nor even with the extremely theoretical concept of popular sovereignty. In a club or a limited company, who would dream of assigning to the general assembly of the members the conduct of business or administrative concerns ? Collective unities are spiritual elements slow to move and primitive in their judgments. Only after prolonged tensions can they arrive at clear decisions. Administration and the conduct of business affairs involve the performance of complicated tasks, demanding profound insight and rapid resolve. Such duties must be entrusted to individuals. It is the function of the collective spirit to segregate and unite the forces which embody its highest thought and its highest will. At first this selection is roughly performed, but as time passes the method is continually refined. It seems expedient to point out that the mechanical act of selection cannot exclu- sively, or even to a preponderant degree, indicate the form of the segregation. In complete contrast to the organic process which takes place in the upbuilding of every creature endowed with sensation, is the action and reaction of mutually estranged elements, which, in permanent opposition of function and function, reciprocally outweary one another as they exercise a mutual friction. We may ignore the foolish question, whether the idea of the people's state is realised elsewhere. By the same token, it is needless to undertake a detailed examination of the question, whether, considering all things, one nation is better or worse off than another Each nation makes THE WAY OF THE WILL 205 its own lot and formulates its own ideal ; for both of these, each nation is responsible. To stunt and to kill the ideal of one nation by imposing upon it limits derived from the realities of another nation, is the work of the prentice hand. It leads to the downfall of the nation which measures its claims, not in accordance with its own ideal standard, but in accordance with its superficial conception of an alien nation's reality. The people's state is not the outcome of institutions ; it is not engendered by written laws and constitutions ; it is born of the spirit and the will. When the right frame of mind has been acquired, institutions, so far as these are requisite, follow in their proper places. Sometimes we encounter antiquated legal husks which, though dead in point of form, are none the less full of free life within ; sometimes we encounter up-to-date and elastic constitutions which of their own free will stagnate in unfreedom. To destroy the dominion of feudalism, capitalism, and bureaucracy, the essential need is not the change of a written word ; the essential thing is the will, and nothing but the will. But it must be a will surging up from the depths of the folk soul, a will sustained by the power of the nation and guided by a knowledge of the bonds to be broken and of the obstacles to be overcome. In the ensuing examination of German conditions, we shall show why the requisite will has hitherto been lacking to our country. At this stage, however, it will be well to name what it is which restricts and stifles. Not men and things not conscious will and specific institutions ; but something which is intermediate between men and things, something which seems to elude our grasp and of which we are nevertheless aware every time we draw breath. This is what we term spiritual atmosphere These considerations may seem somewhat nebulous, and nevertheless we shall be able to grasp the airy essence, to condense and to filter it, until it is purged of its unwhole- some constituents. Indeed, we must not be vexed if we have to come down to the trite level of everyday occurrences. Enough for the moment to say that this atmospheric element signifies the aggregate of traditions, practical usages, inherited outlooks, self-protection of the classes, cooptive 206 IN DAYS TO COME selection, submission to the law, family relationships, the privileges of wealth, cravings arrogances and obsequious- nesses. With trifling exceptions, these things have nothing to do with legal and constitutional prescriptions. They are the outcome of character and tradition, which remain unnoticed by most persons through deficient faculty for comparison and differentiation. Our atmospherical simile is justified because, like the air we breathe, it is accepted by us as a habitual and uncriticised element, until nose and lungs are made more sensitive by a sudden change of air. We are continually asking why German emigrants never return to the land of their birth, although their love of the homeland is far more ardent and lively than that displayed by men of other nations, and although the thought of dying in a foreign land is peculiarly painful to them. When we encounter these emigrants we find that they have developed new powers of comparison, and we are astonished to learn that they have more complaints to make of their new home than in former days of the old. " But why don't you come back ? " They shake their heads. " No. Never. We could not put up with those conditions." That is all the traveller can get out of them. That is all they themselves know, for they are incompetent to analyse the atmosphere of which they have now become aware. Irishmen, Rus- sians, and Germans enrich the soil of the United States. The reality of what we have termed spiritual atmosphere is proved by the fact that millions of our brethren, lost to Germany, comprise the best strength of these alien states. If we study the laws of the Freemasons or the Jesuits, the written words will teach us much concerning the nature and aims of the respective orders ; but he alone will grasp their innermost being and the ultimate essence of their activity, who can discover the inherited and acquired living spirit of the institutions. The articles of association of our economic undertakings are almost verbally identical, with the exception of the bald statement of objects in the opening paragraphs ; yet how infinitely diverse are the vital content and the customs, the spirit and the will, of the various organisations. ' It is a lamentable defect of our political outlooks that, except as concerns the general THE WAY OF THE WILL 207 characterisation of the various classes, we pay more atten- tion and devote more criticism to institutions than to the spirit which animates them. In our characterisation of the people's state it behoves us to remember that it is not brought into being mainly by laws, but by a free and good will, which must not be restricted in its operations by the ghostly vestiges of ancient and alien ordinances, but which must be directed towards freedom from prejudice, towards justice, objectivity, and trust. Not merely on account of my dislike for electoral intrigues and place-hunting, for the pushing arts of the lawyer and the journalist, do I favour the monarchical ideal. I am influenced by inherited taste, and by the conviction that the supreme power of the state must be entrusted to one who is profoundly responsible ; to one who stands far above all the desires, strivings, and temptations of common life ; a consecrated ruler, not a successful arrivist. So firmly do I hold this conviction, that I feel entitled to point out the conflicts that may arise between monarchy and the people's state. In the bosom of the international family which our European dynasties comprise, views have always prevailed closely akin to the feudalist sentiments of many of our great landed proprietors. The state domain, acquired by inherit- ance, marriage, or in any other way, is regarded as a family property ; the so-called subjects are looked upon as living item in a catalogue of possessions ; the ruler is inclined, over the heads of these masses, to which he may or may not be akin by blood, to enter into ties of caste with neigh- bouring dynasts, to compare with them wealth and rights and power, to consult with them as to common interests and common dangers. The laws of tradition seemed to confirm this view of a close association between the sovereign princes, and of an impassable chasm between the rulers and the masses. Should there be any mingling of the blood royal, with commoners' blood, even though the commoners were fellow countrymen, the offspring of the tainted union must for ever be excluded from the succession ; on the other hand, union with aliens of royal blood provided these belonged to the circle of Christian rulers was permissible. 208 IN DAYS TO COME Liberal-minded and intelligent dynasts have been able to free their minds from the notion of an antagonism between ruler and subjects But it has proved far more difficult for them to rid themselves of another ideal opposition, the effects of which have been overcome in the case of a few only of the monarchies. In retrospect, the dynast perceives that during every one of recent epochs limitations have been imposed upon the power of his house, and upon the power of other ruling houses besides his own ; dynasties have been changed and have been overthrown ; constitutions have been extorted or have been secured by cajolery ; here and there republics have come into being. A century ago, the dynasts spoke of the hostile forces as Jacobinism, revolution, or Bonapart- ism ; to-day they term these forces democracy or radicalism. But since by now the people, or a portion thereof (and at times a highly developed portion), has become the begetter and sustainer of these hostile, limiting forces there occa- sionally results a very vigorous movement of opposition, which may seriously curtail the privileges of dynastic life. In public utterances, the manifestations of this hostile opposition are discreetly ignored, and a naive parade is made of the position of the sovereign as ruler over a harmo- nious people. Even towards old and trusted state servants this pretence is kept up. But within the ruling circle, within the united family of the dynasts, the opposition to monarchy, is contemplated as a serious affair, and as one which concerns them all. The ebb and flow of monarchical sentiment, the possibility of coups d'etat and revolutions, are discussed upon occasions and in ways of which the ordinary public knows nothing. We have learned from Bismarck's revelations how great an influence such discus- SiOns exercised upon the decisions even of William I and his son. The bourgeois conception of the statesman's calling is based upon the assumption that all responsibility is accepted and discharged with self-sacrifice and zeal, so long as the acceptance of responsibility is demanded ; but no one is supposed to grasp at any function ; on the contrary, it is assumed that everyone shrinks from responsibility in pro- portion as the need for personal responsibility wanes. But THE WAY OF THE WILL 209 this conception must not be applied to dynastic relation- ships. For the dominant system of constitutional law makes of the dynast, not as he is often called the first among the servants of the state, but a partner in the nation, equipped with more or less equal rights. Consequently the centre of gravity as between ruler and nation cannot be regarded as absolutely fixed. There seems to be no reason whatever why it should not be shifted in a way unfavourable to the nation. As in all complicated relationships, so here, it seems to me that the best solution of the conflict must be based upon the purely human aspect of the question. If in a household the sons have grown up, if to some extent they have founded households of their own, that is no reason why paternal authority should diminish. This authority will assume forms which no longer rest upon compulsion, but upon a natural balance Healthy nature and confidence will lead the sons to allow due weight to the counsel, prestige, and judgment of the father ; healthy nature, experience, and a comprehensive outlook, will make the father the leader even in the household of adults. This relationship will be all the more firmly established in pro- portion as it is unconscious and uncoerced. If the relationship is based upon a jealously watched contract, upon attack and defence, its essential virtue has evaporated. People are fond, at any rate in Germany, of speaking of a vigorous monarchy. A monarchy is vigorous, not when the number and extent of its privileges and responsi- bilities are exceptionally large, but when it is permanently supported by the most vigorous portion of the population ; it is most vigorous when it is sustained by a profound and imperturbable popular sentiment. For, in the last resort, the essence of this power is not found in written codes or in rights which can be enforced, but in human agreement and human trust. An absolute monarch who in minor details can do anything he pleases, may be utterly incompe- tent to exercise a powerful will where important matters are concerned ; and if he seems to exercise such a will, he may be no more than a tool in the hands of another. A ruler whose powers are apparently limited may none the less exercise almost unrestricted dominion if he is determined 14 210 IN DAYS TO COME that in all conflicts he will have the nation on his side, and that he will act exclusively on behalf of the community. These imponderable things and delicate ties, which are not always considered in an objective and dispassionate spirit, concern us in their action upon the views of the dynasts and in their reaction upon the atmosphere of the people's state. If the monarch be more keenly conscious of the conflict than of the tie if his view of the past be troubled by regrets, his view of the future by fears, if he lay more emphasis upon the defence of his rights and upon the stabilisation of his house than upon the integrity of the relationship between himself and the nation, his thoughts and actions will be marked by that duplicity which so often lends enigmatic and questionable lineaments to the dynastic character. Every step is a double step like the knight's move on the chessboard ; it is intended simultaneously to serve its ostensible objects and the cause of the house. Every relationship to men is a duplex relationship, for the ruler asks himself, How does he serve my avowed aim, and how does he serve me ? Every utterance is two-faced ; it must fulfil twofold aims. In our study of the people's state, we have to place in the foreground the relationship to men and the environment, to examine the essence and the consequences of this relationship. The dynastic family, notwithstanding its supranational relationships and kinships, is a family belonging to the country which it rules. That family has need of social intercourse, and has the right to choose its associates. An element of self-protection enters into the case. To the members of the ruling caste, that caste seems utterly distinct from all others ; and in the remote perspectives which the dynast contemplates, differences of size are hardly per- ceptible. Every subject is looked upon as a circumscribed type or a specialist ; every relationship is one-sided. Nevertheless, a certain gradation is effected, inasmuch as the great families are in approximation with the court, and constitute a society whose members are mutually acquainted, who become personally known to the members of the dynasty and acquire the confidence of these The THE WAY OF THE WILL 211 persons comprising this circle have a common outlook, and all resemble one another in their manner of life. If it should happen that the dynasty, for the reasons above explained, believes itself to be in need of special protection against the destructive tendencies of the populace, and if it should renounce the decision to support itself upon the goodwill of the nation at large, the members of the ruling caste will naturally realise that the hereditary nobility, and more especially the great landowners and the leading members of the military caste, constitute that portion of the nation which has the most to fear from democratisation, the portion whose splendour, position, and calling are closely dependent upon the crown. These persons, the monarch will say to himself, occupy the chief posts in the army and the officialdom, are able in both these spheres to maintain a desirable mood. Consequently, there ensues an exclusive and increasingly intimate community of interests between the nobility and the dynasty. Though conflicts may sometimes arise between the two, this community of interests is persistent. But its workings are scarcely perceptible to those outside the charmed circle, and its effects are all the more enduring and universal because they are not restricted by any written constitution. In other words, every dynasty which does not deliberately aim, in a spirit of the utmost liberalism, and of the most trusting self-sacrifice, at the ideal of the people's state, creates an aristocracy of a militarist and agrarian com- plexion, an aristocracy whose atmosphere permeates the political system and whose trends dominate the nation. As far as Prussia is concerned, it will be a matter for special examination, whether and to what extent elements of visible and invisible feudalism have been preserved. Here we are concerned only with general considerations applying to this question of the people's state. To ensure the absolute dominion of the feudal stratum, it is needless that the whole army and the whole officialdom should be permeated by members of the feudalist caste. Four things only are necessary. First of all, court society, the leading society in the country, must be aristocratic, must constitute the nursery, the school and the testing- 212 IN DAYS TO COME place of moods and customs, so as to secure a suitable choice of tried and representative personalities, and to set an example. Secondly, a notable proportion of the general staff and of the officers of the crack regiments must be drawn from the same circle. This proportion must be sufficiently large and sufficiently well integrated, and the special privileges of these crack regiments must be sufficiently marked, to arouse emulation and imitation throughout the country. For the same reason, the picked troops must not be concentrated in any one place. Thirdly, the adminis- tration must if possible be provided throughout with aris- tocratic leaders, or at least such leaders must occupy all the important posts. Finally, the purely political central authorities for home affairs and foreign affairs must be in the hands of men of aristocratic origin, who must hold all the most conspicuous and influential positions. It is needless to follow up the matter in further detail. A self-evident point is that in mere administrative positions, in provincial officers' corps, in educational establishments, and in local governmental corporations, the dominant caste should occupy leading positions ; but this has very little bearing upon the main question. For since the feudal trend is anchored to the dynastic system, so that there is neither danger nor hope that it can grow entirely out of date ; since at all decisive points controls have been established, and these prevent the passage of hostile elements ; since influential prototypes exist through- out the country in sufficient numbers, so that everyone can readily guide himself by these examples ; since, finally and above all, a caste consolidated by social bonds and ties of kinship exercises in its totality such enormous personal influence that it can sweep away all opposition and can occupy every threatened outpost with its own trusted nominees a completely new manifestation results, namely adaptation to feudalism and imitation of feudalism. This phenomenon is plain for all men to see, and yet it is but little appreciated by onlookers, for even those who are directly involved are not fully conscious of what is in progress. Persons who as regards origin, gifts, outlook, and interests, are remote from aristocratic thought and feeling, become THE WAY OF THE WILL 213 involved in the political and militarist machinery. They are young and plastic, and in the course of a prolonged training in official life, they are stamped with dominant views and customs, and are inspired with profound respect for feudalist institutions and positions. Those who are quite unconvertible quit the service, sacrificing the finest prospects our country offers to its sons. Others grow indifferent. Many, though distressfully aware that they are suspect to themselves and to others, incline towards an exaggerated display of the requisite modes of thought and types of action ; these constitute a broad stratum of aristo- crats by training ; when we compare them with the aristocrats by birth, we see that they exhibit less freedom of movement and that they are far from manifesting the excellencies of the two hereditarily feudal strata. In most cases, under the pressure of inward and outward super- vision, they succumb to an increasing inertia. Sometimes, however, when they are well on in their career, their repressed instincts of independence awaken. In such cases they may either carry on a hopeless fight, or may wearily resign themselves to the inevitable. Since man is seldom aware of his inborn character and is never aware of his acquired character, these products of the educational and formative influences of a coercive atmosphere regard themselves as perfectly free agents, and indignantly reject the imputation that their mentality is imposed upon them by extraneous influences. If some independent observer should declare that our political system, steeped in feudalism, is dominated by aristocratic ideas, it is easy for objectors to prove that persons of bourgeois origin preponderate in official positions. Inasmuch as the theory here adduced, namely that the spirit dominates and the atmosphere proves decisive, is not generally current, the critic, more or less convinced, will admit the force of the rejoinder. When criticism of our institutions conies from foreign sources, it is usually expressed in so offensive a form, that we are disinclined to pay any atten- tion to it. Moreover, foreign critics are not intimately acquainted with the facts ; they describe things by the wrong names ; and in the end their onslaught serves only to strengthen the existing system. 214 IN DAYS TO COME This system, in contrast with other invisible powers like Freemasonry and Jesuitism (whose effects are well known and often over-estimated), remains securely hid. Sometimes a fallen minister of state will moot the question whence a private individual of exalted rank derived the power which drove him from his place. Occasionally such a man will transiently and to a certain extent realise the true condition of affairs. A more frequent incident is for periodicals of the extreme left to contrast the class state with the constitutional state, and to fail hopelessly when asked to prove their case. A constitutional state can exist under the pressure of a feudal atmosphere. A people's state cannot so exist. For in the constitutional state it will again and again happen that part of the people becomes hereditary master of the other part. Thus two distinct peoples are created, and the more numerous of the two will be permanently inspired with an insurrectionary mood. The circle is closed, inas- much as the dynasty secures fresh confirmation of the view that it must be supported by a caste since it can never be supported by the entire people. This circle can only be broken when the dynasty displays absolute trust in the people, and such is the course which must be adopted by the dynasty which would establish a people's state. No less a thing is demanded from the people itself. The people must not look upon the state as a mere means to an end, as an armed association for production and trade ; the people must not regard its appurtenancy to the state as tantamount to the burdensome and costly membership of a club which grants valueless privileges and from which resignation is forbidden. Still less must the people look upon the state as a mere expansion of the police power, intervening uninvited in all human affairs, using instruments which reveal themselves as petty tyrants who therefore stand outside the circle of civic amenities and whose orders it is quite right to evade if they cannot be defied. Least of all must the state become what it is in the degener- ate lands of Latin civilisation, namely, the butt of all possible frauds and unhallowed aspirations, a nursery for venal groups, a treasury where the cunning can enrich themselves at the expense of the stupid. THE WAY OF THE WILL 215 The state should be the second and expanded ego for every individual member ; it should be an ego which gives to each a share of immortality on earth ; it should be the embodiment of the moral and effective communal will. A profound sense of responsibility must be felt by individual citizens for all the activities of their state ; and a like sense of responsibility must make each citizen aware that everything he does concerns the state to which he belongs. Just as from the outlook of the transcendental powers no thought and no action can be trifling or indifferent, so within the state there can be no irresponsible domain. A threefold responsibility, towards the divine power, the inner power, and the power of the state, engenders that marvellous balance of freedom which is allotted to man alone, and through which he is privileged to enter the frontier land of the planetary realm. In so far as the consciousness comes to be so firmly directed towards the state that the trend ceases to be conscious and grows instinctive, we shall have created a sense of the state which will be competent to make of the nation a genuinely supra- individual unity, and to render it immortal. Such an occurrence is moreover only possible within the people's state, and this is why that state must be brought into being before the last claim on the nation is put forward. Within the sphere of influence of the feudalist state, the class state, and the caste state, to believe that a pure sense of the state can be created by requests and adjurations, by threats and promises, is simply to delude oneself and others. Since the authoritative state has power, let it use that power to coerce its subjects while it may ; but let it be frank enough to refrain from expecting grati- tude and self-sacrifice from those who feel the weight of its hand. From this general exposition of political ideals, which has a bearing upon all nations though it concerns no nation in particular, let us now turn to the affairs of the homeland, seeing that to these we must apply the severest examination within the narrowest limits of time and space. As we advance along this path, our task grows increasingly difficult, partly because we have to avoid being overburdened 216 IN DAYS TO COME with a mass of detail and because we are in search of a balance between the demands of the day and absolute ends ; partly, and more especially, because in this distressing but tremendous epoch of the war we cannot escape a conflict in our emotional life. Though there may have been times when we were inclined towards criticism by something more urgent than a com- parison with absolute standards, namely, by concern for a coming and inevitable consummation which, as far as we ourselves were interested, threatened to end us and our constructive activities, and held promise of new begin- nings only for those of a later day though in those times, a harsh and even an angry word might readily escape us it is but human that the splendid doings, the salutary sufferings of our nation to-day, should make us blind with love, so that nothing is left of our vision beyond the percep- tion of light, without power to distinguish form. Yet now more than ever, since we wish to build, do we need perception of form, measure, and outline. Ideal edifices, constructed without regard to counterforces and limitations, are but castles in the air. It is natural to the human disposition that we should wish to estimate the happiest possibilities the future holds for us. We need not be ashamed of this desire, for not merely is it natural and universal, but further it is inculcated by experience. The ground plan of this hypothetical future, as far as it can be roughly committed to paper, can be nothing more than a network of hazy outlines ; but to the inner vision the tinted and well-defined picture is revealed. Germany, and in especial the most significant parts of Germany, the Germany of the north and the centre, with which we are mainly concerned, is, as has been repeatedly explained, the outcome of a mingling of strata. When we speak of the past, we refer to the earlier Teutonic upper stratum which was simultaneously the dominant stratum in other western lands. We know its history, its names and stocks, its ancient tongue, its medieval religion, and its medieval art. We know the transformations which this circumscribed world underwent when the mingling began ; when, during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, elements drawn from the peasantry, from the urban populations, THE WAY OF THE WILL 217 and from the patrician families, were fashioning the German civilisation of the modern age. This epoch endured on into the days of the romanticist movement. During our classical age, creative work was almost exclusively performed by the noble and patrician section of our people. Very rarely did one out of the nameless folk surge upwards, to say and to do strange and untimely things. Nevertheless, by the close of the eighteenth century, the upper stratum had been stretched to the breaking-point. The heirs of names, culture, and property were numbered in thousands ; but the nameless many were numbered in millions. With the opening of the nineteenth century, the people of the lower stratum entered upon the stage of history. There now began in Germany the last transformation in life and thought, in speech and action. Every student of the past knows that there is a deep chasm between the old and the new ; and yet we find it difficult to realise that we have become a new people. Many would rather belong to the world of Goethe, Kant, and Beethoven, a world which we are only now beginning to understand, than to the world of masses and realities in which our lot is cast ; they would rather be offspring and inheritors than progenitors and precursors. Many a thinker would fain account for mechanisation, the basic phenomenon of our day, by ascribing it to foreign influences and to infection from without. But the men who determine and fulfil our epoch and our life are not the sons of the men of that earlier age. Our millions did not spring from those thousands. If proof be asked, glance at the figures and the names, and compare the prominent men of our day with the offspring of the old dominant class in some little area where no mingling has taken place. These millions, closer akin, outwardly and inwardly more similar, to the millions of other nations, than they realise are a new nation. Let them recognise the fact with joy and pride, for a beginning is more difficult and more responsible than an end. Indeed, our beginning was worse than difficult, for in many respects it was gloomy and sinister. Those who brought mechanisation into being, stamped upon the epoch their imprint of ancient servitude. Strain and greed, impatience and misdirected energy, filled the abstract, 218 IN DAYS TO COME mechanical, titanic forms of creation with their earthbound spirit. The new nation was a nation of primitive men with a veneer of civilisation and in a condition of extreme intellectual tension. Had the uprising of the lower stratum in Germany taken place with volcanic energy, had it been revolutionary as it was in other lands, the responsibilities of power would at once have accrued. But the upward movement was a sluggish flow, it was barely conscious, so that the people from the lower stratum, on reaching the surface, acquired the rights of lordship without the corresponding duties. The old ruling caste, in large part absorbed, and over- whelmed by numbers, still continued in existence in the form of small but powerful vestiges. Especially was this the case in Prussia. The aristocrats had to share economic dominion with the new plebeian plutocracy ; adminis- trative power was in part ceded to an official caste assimi- lated to the aristocracy ; territorial dominion remained in the old hands ; political and military control were preserved for the aristocrats by their association with the dynasty. Above all as regards admixture of blood; although the remnants of the upper stratum did not remain absolutely intact, nevertheless they continued physically speaking to exhibit the aspect of thoroughbreds, with the result that the contrast between the nobility and the populace is more conspicuous here at the first glance than in any other country in the world. This contrast becomes exceptionally conspicuous when we contemplate a crack regiment as it passes. The officers are distinguished by more resplendent gold lace, the finer cut and material of their uniforms, the better finish of their weapons, and by neater stripes. They ride thorough- breds, and the horses have silver-mounted bridles, and elegant saddles. But even more marked than the differences in equipment as between officers and men are the differences in physique. The officer's head is narrow ; his profile is sharply cut ; he has soft, fair hair. The common soldier has a short, thick neck ; but the officer's neck is slender and mobile, his back is long and narrow, his figure is willowy. The hands are white and shapely, the lower limbs and feet are slender and well formed. In comparison with these THE WAY OF THE WILL 219 men of truly aristocratic mien, the common soldiers, with the exception of an occasional Holsteiner or Frisian, seem squat and clumsy. The men are profoundly aware of this relationship, wherein bodily expression is given to the contrast between lordship and service. The common soldier reverences the white hand of the officer ; he willingly allows himself to be ordered about ; addressed with a friendly " thou," he answers respectfully with a " you " ; with eager goodwill he throws his whole body into the salute. Towards a cultured superior of his own stock he will display this half- unconscious idolisation only when the object of his regard has earned the highest personal respect, whereas he rever- ences the high-bred superior by natural instinct. Thus in like manner did his father honour the nobleman's father ; thus did the old man, ever ready to chastise his own children, look reverently up towards the youthful son of his lord. A seven year old count, with five centuries of experience to back him, felt himself to be a kindly patron, to whom his people were proteges ; who knew what was good for them and what was bad, what would make them ill and what would make them presumptuous ; who gave what was due to others and exacted what was due to himself, insisting upon respect in return for trust, upon obedience in return for consideration. The lord need never be ashamed before his people ; he had no need to exercise self-restraint, for his peccadilloes and weaknesses were regarded as appropriate to his station. A member of the ruling caste who was free from these blemishes was suspect ; one who in place of them showed the bourgeois qualities of scholarship, zeal, and diligence, did not ring true. For centuries, as between the two castes, there has been a conventional differentiation in respect of language, behaviour, appearance, the topics of conversation ; haughtiness on the one side and subser- vience on the other. All possible types and varieties of character are provided for in this mutual relationship ; every endurable action and reaction is foreseen. Intolerable manifestations are : from above spitefulness, spiritual arrogance, contempt, and sarcasm ; from beneath, fault- finding, refractoriness, grumbling, and insubordination. Millions of persons in Prussia are animated by this self- 220 IN DAYS TO COME sacrificing and servile spirit characteristic of the lower strata. Such sentiments spread upward even into the ranks of the professional classes, to assume forms which are corrupt and morally perilous. In its simpler types, this outlook has a certain childlike beauty, being assimilated to the patriarchal relationship which charms us in the early history of every nation. As far as popular psychology is concerned, these traits are of great value. They fashion the most disciplined and organisable mass that we know. They produce a mass body which, independently of moods and opinions, will perform any task imposed upon it to the utmost limit of its powers ; and they produce a mass spirit which with imperturbable confidence follows every authorised leader who acts and speaks in a way that can be understanded of the people. Enthusiasm is not essential ; explanations are not asked ; criticisms are not uttered. This relationship is not characterised by a sense of duty, for there is no conflict here between duty and desire ; still less is it blind obedience, since the actions are the outcome of free inclination. The most kindred thing to such a spirit is the docility of the child. Two great Prussian organisations are the product of the plasticity of the masses ; the army, which is rural and primary, and the social democracy, which is urban and mechanistic in its origin. The group of qualities we have been considering is not Teutonic. These qualities conflict with all the older descrip- tions of the sturdy, independent, and individualistic nature, of the anarchistic and unorganisable mentality, of the Teutonic stocks ; it conflicts with our historical knowledge of their doings ; above all it conflicts with the character- istics of the surviving Teutonic vestiges in southern Sweden, Frisia, Westphalia, Franconia, and Swabia, and even with those of the pure-blooded patrician and noble stratum. It is a Slavic characteristic with a slight Teutonic admixture, this latter having transformed the feminine softness and melancholy of the semi-orientals into a childlike cheerfulness, which has fortified their passive obedience to become an active obedience through instilling memories of the self- determined allegiance of earlier days. THE WAY OF THE WILL 221 It is difficult to ascertain to what extent the soul of the masses has been permeated by the leading character- istics of the upper stratum of Old Germany, by its creative yearning, its mystical passion, its profundity, and its trans- cendentalism. Hitherto the masses have contributed but little to the highest spiritual life ; folk-song is impoverished, folk-art has not developed, pleasure has replaced joy. The war was not needed to confirm the belief that powerful forces of love, sacrifice, and courage are alive in Germany to-day, forces unexampled in any other nation on earth. Prudence, patience, and industry were the creators of mechanisation. Again and again the writer has expressed his moral estimate of these qualities ; here we have to interpret their political significance with exclusive reference to the national future. Whilst plasticity and pliability, respect for authority and a sense of subordination, promote the most convenient groupings of subordinates, the subordinate person is not the ultimate aim of the state. As in an architectural master- piece, all parts of the edifice must simultaneously support and be supported. If our western neighbour exhibits the unstable organism of a nation where everyone wishes to rule and no one wishes to serve (unless he be duped, or fired with temporary enthusiasm), when we turn our eyes eastward we see an alarming spectacle, the deadly apathy of the masses who, crushed by their burdens, decay, or rise up in furious revolt. Our danger is lack of independence, lack of self-consciousness and desire for responsibility, deficiency of critical faculty. If a childlike disposition and inaptitude for independence are the political raw material which our unsophisticated masses contribute to the structure of the state, we find that the weaknesses of the material are accentuated as soon as we come to examine the masses that have been influenced by mechanisation, as soon as we turn to consider the urban proletariat and the middle class. Here, too, we find the inevitable relationship of depend- ence. Here, likewise, the state is not everyone's affair, but is the administrative preserve of the upper class ; here, too, there is a crowd of superiors from whom the lives of the majority are permanently detached. But this upper 222 IN DAYS TO COME class no longer consists of nobles, of patriarchal personages ; it is comprised of anonymous grades and anonymous official castes, filled by commonplace people. We have capital, represented by the manager, the civil engineer, the head clerk, the foreman, by customers and commission agents. We have the officialdom, represented by the tax-collectors, the policemen, the booking-clerks, and so on. Furthermore, for the two years of their military service people are under the orders of the feudal stratum, represented by the lieutenant and the non-commissioned officer. Obedience to these powers is no longer undifferentiated and instinctive ; nor is it enforced, for our people have no means of comparison such as present themselves to emigrants. It is accepted as a disagreeable necessity, and with the emotional tone of a dutiful obligation. Consequently, even when the obligation is repudiated, the revolt is not a vigorous assertion of right but a deliberate act of insubordination, performed with an uneasy conscience. The word subordination has a disagreeable ring, suggesting the hopeless toleration of an anonymous lordship. Where rebellion is organised, as in the case of the social democracy, the habit of dependence is so ingrained that the form of subordination is promptly resumed. Failing this, the tone of dissatisfaction speedily degenerates into the futile grumbling of servants, into political faultfinding. There is no path leading from the lower classes to the upper. Wealth and culture surround their domains with walls of glass, and the deep chasm between the two forms of life is not bridged by the imitativeness and the ingratiating manners of the south. Profundity ; a sense for the essential of which things are but the reflection ; vigorous individuality and syste- matic universality, leading to a recognition of and due esteem for the counter-possibility to every possibility these supreme qualities have from the first made the German an opponent of form. For all form is limitation and one- sidedness ; it is based upon self-satisfaction ; upon the childlike opinion that side by side with the good there exists a best which cannot be excelled, and that the same considera- tion applies to the well-tried. Doubtless it is based likewise upon the human longing for paradise ; upon the yearning THE WAY OF THE WILL 223 for pure agreement and perfect harmony ; upon that classical sense of balance which shrinks from abysses, be they heavenly or infernal. In the united provinces of the arts and sciences, of individual, social, and political life, we can find hardly a single fundamental form which is of German origin. The forms of architecture, domestic furniture, painting, music, romance and the drama, military life, religion, commerce and industry, joint-stock activities, constitutions all these outward modes and structures which continue to bear foreign names have been derived by the Germans from projectors of other lands. Neverthe- less the German spirit has seized upon one of these vessels after another, has completed its thought-forms with a steady hand and a sympathetic understanding, filling it with a new and fiery inspiration, so that the overflowing receptacle needed new forms. This spectacle has rejoiced us and has enriched the world. Nevertheless we have remained poor in forms because we were taught to despise them ; just as those creators of forms who mocked at us remained poor in spirit. Since, however, the essence of political life is not an absolute thing, but is a struggle between forces and counter- forces, we must realise that we are injured to some extent by this formlessness. We have referred to contrasts in modes of life, and we must admit that in our case they are exaggerated to the point where all uniformity is lost. Nay, since a slothful love of ease and an indifference to appearances are characteristic of the Germans, this is accentuated even to the pitch of an amorphous nonchalance. We are losing the civilising force which is derived from the resolute maintenance of well-tried forms of life. Nay more. Whereas the feeling of dependence which dominates our life, that ignoble sentiment which makes us subservient towards superiors and haughty towards inferiors, renders it difficult for us to be a free nation of masters. In addition, our formlessness contributes in its inward working to lessen the consciousness of lordship, and in its outward working to diminish the capacity for lordship. If, alike within our own borders and in foreign lands, we display so little colonising energy, if we have proved unable to rivet to ourselves our own kinsmen and the nations we have permeated with our 224 IN DAYS TO COME blood, the fault does not lie so much with our institutions as with our lack of inborn capacity for lordship. Now by lordship I do not mean an arrogant deportment, for this may well be inwardly associated with a dependent and servile nature. I mean an instinctive harmony, a harmony which comes without reflection, a harmony of duties and rights ; an inward realisation of the far and the near ; a renouncement of petty claims and a firm grasp of essen- tials ; a sacrifice of the convenient for that which is truly worth while. Above all do I mean remorseless justice free-spirited, independent of prejudice and censoriousness. If dependence be associated with an unstable economic position, the danger of pettiness is close at hand. Per se, positive want need not necessarily involve the loss of independence of mind and of conscious freedom. But he who is able to accommodate himself to a position of undesired dependence, will readily succumb to the temptation of accepting shadows for realities. Yet pretentious display and poverty are ill neighbours. Such a conjuncture gnaws at the root of domestic life ; it entails numerous cares upon women, and trains up the rising generation in the bonds of unfreedom. He for whom unfpe.edom is bred in the bone, who unwittingly recognises that he is lorded over by a dominant caste which he no longer loves and which he sometimes envies, he who has come to regard his own fate and that of his children as irrevocable, finds his consolation in contemplating those who share his lot and who bend under the same burden. In the long run, he will rather bear enhanced oppression from his born superiors than see one of his fellows rise to higher levels and win freedom. Should his companion come to enjoy prosperity or power, this does not make him proud and hopeful, but fills him with bitter- ness, for he knows that the other will henceforward look down on him contemptuously from Olympian heights. The naive delight of the Americans, who are never weary of adding up the dollars of some self-made millionaire, and who love to relate that this master of millions began life as a newspaper boy, is only possible in a land where every- thing remains open to all. The ideal of our malcontents will certainly never be the crude longing for riches THE WAY OF THE WILL 225 characteristic of the transatlantic world. Just as little will it be the desire for unhindered spiritual ascent. Their craving is for the most jejune, unreal, and dangerous of materialistic Utopias, for equality, even if it should be an equality which can only be secured by a general levelling down. It would be unjust to regard such sentiments as deserving the despicable name of envy. But we must never forget that these narrow outlooks endanger political ideals. For inasmuch as every free and desirable condition must be based, not upon inert democracy, but upon the vigorous upward and downward play of spiritual forces, it follows that feelings of illwill are pre-eminently calculated to hinder ascent, and to maintain the power of dying tyrannies simply because people are used to them. If we survey the whole field of great and fine qualities characteristic of our middle and lower classes : their inviolable honesty, common sense, and devotion to duty; their resolute- ness in work, danger, and suffering; their tranquil, earnest, and devout attitude towards God, man, and nature; their love of home and their unselfishness ; their aspiration towards knowledge and fulfilment the shadows in the picture may be ignored, and our nation may deem itself happy that these shadows are so few. But when we come to consider political ideals, which are the touchstone of our investigation, we cannot be so easily satisfied. For unfortunately the few defects among our characteristics are precisely those which can make a nation inapt for political life, and which have long had that effect upon the Germans. We lack independence of mind, a sense of dignity, masterfulness, readiness to accept responsibility, magnan- imity. A grave defect is that we are not free from the spirit of servility towards superiors and haughtiness towards inferiors, that we are not free from pettiness and envy. By this range of sentiments the whole of German politics is determined. The political future of the country is not a question of institutions, but of character. Every statesman of the coming days, unless he be merely one who grasps at power or desires to further private interests, must realise that the awakening of new moral energies is the fundamental prerequisite to social reconstruction, and that institutions 15 226 IN DAYS TO GOME obediently and readily follow human development as the bark follows the growth of the tree trunk. A century ago we became a nation ; fifty years ago we became a state ; now, by an inward rebirth, we must become a political nation and a people's state. It is true that only a few decades ago one who knew our nation as few have known it, left us but little hope. He extols the Germans when he speaks of their loyalty and submissiveness ; he grows bitter when he refers to public opinion, political trends, and a sense of responsibility. He considers that journalists, professors, professional politicians, and dilettantes are responsible for the vulgar errors which endanger his work. He considers that the Germans are like children, and he goes so far as to deny that they possess a direct sense of nationality. Only indirectly, he declares, through the instrumentality of the dynastic sentiment, can an effective consciousness of nationality be roused among our countrymen. During the years before the war, it seemed as if certain forms of patriotism were such as to confirm this harsh judgment. How rarely was there displayed any virile and free-spirited pride in our country, our people, or our commu- nity. How great was the need of symbols of allegiance ; how often did it even seem requisite to stimulate coarse feelings of hatred. Still more distressing was it to raise our ej^es to the topmost levels of bourgeois life, to consider the more powerful members of capitalist society, those who were extremely influential if not the actual leaders. They constitute one of the central forces of political life, and the trend of their energies is symbolised by the behaviour of their political expression, the National Liberal Party in the German Reichstag. This party can extort little, but can block everything ; its responsibilities are greater than it realises. It represents the intelligence of the upper middle class, but it likewise represents the interests of capitalism It preserves the old liberal ideals, blunted by compromises with extant powers. It has an inclination towards free and unprejudiced judgments, but it needs the pecuniary help and the energies of privileged protectors. It might exercise a decisive influ- THE WAY OF THE WILL 227 ence. When we study its history, we see that involuntarily it has served feudalism, and has earned no thanks for the service. If the party thus lacks a definite trend, the same is true of the class which it represents. Here interests take prece- dence of ideals. Property is threatened from beneath, and what interest is higher than that of property ? It is bad enough that by the representative system the votes of the have-nots should enable them to dispose of the possessions of the haves. The first essential, therefore, is that the danger of communism should be averted ; other matters can be left to take care of themselves. Besides, what is the use of politics anyhow ? Politics is only waste of time. Home administration and foreign affairs are in the hands of experts ; and if these do not always perform their tasks perfectly, nevertheless Germany is as well served as other lands. They can be criticised if necessary, and strings can be pulled when the experts show an inclination to invade the sphere of private interests. Daily work is far more important ; a successful business year, the extension of the enterprises we are interested in, dividends, are the matters of chief concern. Perhaps some one will object, saying that these things are built up on a foundation which is never perfectly secure, that they repose upon the power of the state and the welfare of the country. The answer will be ready. Let us first settle this urgent affair and that ; then perhaps there will be time to turn our attention to other than business matters. It would perhaps be better if ... Then comes sharp criticism of various responsible and irresponsible individuals, for the critics neither can nor will understand that the system is responsible for all individuals, and that the nation is responsible for all the systems. But this indifferentism is not the end of the matter. The higher we climb on the bourgeois ladder, the further do we see into the shadows of a voluntary dependence which can hardly be described in any gentler phrase than as a sort of ideal venality. People have to think of positions and careers. They cannot get on without associating with highly placed digni- taries ; if they keep a good house, they must have distin- 228 IN DAYS TO COME guished guests. Furthermore, it is sometimes necessary to gloss over little defects in breeding and education ; nothing can do this better than a thick veneer of gentility. A son's regiment or students' corps, a son-in-law's friends and relatives, must receive due consideration. Social relation- ships demand serious treatment, for there is good chance of a rise in social rank. Even for the lesser satisfactions of bourgeois ambition, the right way of thinking is essential in addition to material advantages. Doubtless there still exist persons who possess a truly patrician consciousness ; who will never ask favours ; who, standing firmly upon their own duties and rights, disdain to be taken for what they are not, and to issue invitations to those who, meeting one another on the doorstep, depre- catingly explain to one another how they became acquainted with the host. Persons of this high calibre are mostly to be found among families whose wealth is of old date. In the case of the newly enriched, who are more numerous in Germany than in any other European land, it may perhaps be accounted a virtue that, stupefied by their own ascent, they should regard nothing as impossible, and should believe themselves to be still climbing when they are only intruding. The intriguing arts of Louis XIV enabled him to control the French nobility by encouraging faith in a new aim, the court. All unawares our feudal system has dealt in like manner with the aspiring bourgeoisie. The bourgeois can rise in the social scale if he has sound views. Imitation of feudalist sentiment was more successful in actual practice than had seemed likely at first sight ; for since it lacks the slight corrective of scepticism which is characteristic of the genuine nobleman, the newly enriched tend to overact their feudalist parts. No matter whether we take these weaknesses seriously or not. As far as political life is concerned they emasculate the class which displays them, inasmuch as they make it parasitic upon another class. In Prussia, therefore, there has been only one real political power, that of feudalist conservatism. The populace is guided by authority. At first it obeyed that of the feudal magnates and the clergy; later, when it had been estranged from these, it obeyed that of the agitators. Socialism can control masses and THE WAY OF THE WILL 229 interests, but it has no spiritual philosophy. Organised Catholicism is more concerned about religious than about political interests. Feudalism alone has a historico-religious philosophy, and this philosophy is most happily inter-con- nected with the political and material interests of the feudal caste. The feudalist conservatives control the executive and the army ; they are closely allied with the royal family ; the most powerful section of the bourgeoisie follows in their train The strongest argument for the extant is success. Were the present war to bring the speedy and unconditional success of complete victory, the realisation of the people's state would not be facilitated for Germany. Yet there is no German who loves his nation and his homeland who would not a thousand times rather endure an accentuated reaction like that of 1815, than witness the slightest detrac- tion from the national power and honour. Nevertheless, however the world struggle may end, that end can only be preparatory, not decisive, as concerns the ultimate aims of the nation, those we are now discussing. We may, however, anticipate that there will be three main outcomes of the war. One of these, the third, has already been carefully examined. To begin with we have the first truly communal experi- ence of the old inferior stratum, now ripened to become the core of the German people. The armies of the nineteenth century were small sections of the population, drawn mainly from the countryfolk, the higher class of the townsmen, and the nobility. To-day for the first time the entire nation is in arms. Nor does the army alone fight, work, and suffer, but every living soul in the country. It was not the August days which fashioned the great amalgamation, however splendid the immeasurable enthusiasm of those days, for they were in the highest sense of the term a festal intoxication. A glance behind the veil of the future would have had a sobering effect, and the few to whom the seer's vision had been granted were, though not chilled, grave in mien. That which unites us to-day is something less joyful, less simply resplendent, and yet it is something which no future disillusionment can darken ; it is a sense 230 IN DAYS TO COME of duty and a sense of responsibility proof against all tests. To-day we are animated by a twofold unity, that of common cares and pains no less than that of common hope and trust. To a greater extent than ever before, this community of life and sorrow creates nationality as tradition, speech, custom, and faith. What is welded under such a pressure, will remain united ; what is separated, will remain for ever apart. Hitherto the lower stratum had been a constituent of the nation, and was the largest of these ; henceforward it will be a limb, and will be the most powerful of all the limbs in so far as it remains aware of its responsibilities. For it is the sense of responsibility in the core of the nation which decides everything. If such a sense can be acquired and maintained, we are and shall continue to be a nation and a people's state. If we do not acquire it, we shall be nothing but the ruled stratum of a political alliance. The vestiges of dependence, immaturity, and inaptness for political life will be swept awav if we learn and hold fast to the truth that state and country are res puUica, the cause of all, not the cause of separate human beings, separate estates, or separate classes ; if we learn and hold fast to the truth that every individual is permanently responsible for this cause, just as much as he is responsible for self, wife, and children, for home, family, and name. Secondly, the decline in European prosperity which will result from the war, the disorganisation* of property and the increase of burdens which will result from it, will every- where reduce the extent and viability of the upper middle class. Wealth may be burdened up to the very limits of what is possible within the existing economic system, and thereby its aggregate will be markedly diminished. The number of individual owners of wealth will be less conspicu- ously reduced, although there may be individual impoverish- ment and changes in the personal composition of the wealthier class. Despite transient difficulties, the class of agriculturists will enjoy enhanced prosperity in the capital- istic sense, and in view of the needs of the general situation, it will be spared an increase of burdens. The lower middle class and the working class will maintain a successful fight for wages that will secure the accustomed standard of life. But persons of independent means, the owners of THE WAY OF THE WILL 231 house property, and persons in the middle grade of business life, will find no compensation for the increased burdens. This class will be weakened. To some extent it will be prole tarianised, and those who will drop out of the plutocratic stratum will not adequately recruit its forces. Now from this middle class is derived an intelligentsia which must nowise be despised, an intelligentsia of pro- fessors, journalists, and bureaucrats. Of late years the body economic has been supplied from this source with its cultured and commercially responsible leaders. The decline of a class which is spiritually indispensable will not merely be painful to the individual members of that class, and will not merely leave serious gaps in the structure of the social organism Above all it will become apparent that the spiritual forces of the nation, no less than its governmental forces, have been established upon too narrow a foundation. This reminder will draw attention to the profound defects of our social structure. On principle, we have retained in its archaic form the assignment of responsibilities to hereditary castes, regardless of the consideration whether these castes were worn out quantitatively and qualitatively. At lower levels there swarms the mass of the people, spiritually inexperienced, dissipating its energies in the monotony of mechanical toil, estranged from the conception of national service. Under the new conditions we shall for the first time be made practically and irrefutably aware that a living body can be permanently renovated and recreated in no other way than by the organic circulation, the organic rise and fall, of its energies and its juices, that the inorganic principle of rigidity must yield before the organic principle of mobility and growth. Thirdly, the war has finally destroyed the freedom from ties characteristic of an individualised economic system, and has paved the way for the development of new forms of communalised economy, for it has made everyone realise that the economic affairs of a civilised state are not the concern of individuals, but the concern of all. Hitherto the state has interfered little with the conduct of private industry. Sanitary and social considerations entailed certain essential restrictions and burdens. The most obvious abuses and frauds were prevented by company 232 IN DAYS TO COME legislation Certain domains of commerce and industry became governmental monopolies and were thus withdrawn from free competition. Foreign trade was regulated to some extent by commercial treaties. From the outlook of those whose one desideratum was a free interplay of forces, these measures were at times onerous and unwelcome. But from the outlook of a rationally planned communalised economy, they were primitive and trivial. Criticism of our war economy (improvised for the occasion, and neverthe- less fundamentally successful) mainly takes the form of complaints that organisation is excessive, and of hopes for a subsequent release from interference. It is doubtless true that there has been some excess of organisation, that the whole structure displays certain pettinesses and contra- dictions, for we are apt to confuse our readiness to be organised with capacity for organisation, and are over zealous in our methods of cataloguing and arranging. Strong organisatory forces are commonly present in the individual German's imagination, for every one of us feels himself to be trained n systematic and schematic thinking. But in real life such forces are rarely manifested, for the decisive powers of excluding the unessential and of judging men, presuppose special talents and long training in practical affairs. We shall, however, have grave need of such powers. Even though the idea of relearning is misapplied in a thousandfold pettifogging ways, this idea will make itself good in one respect. Never again will there be a return to the unregulated activities of the old individualist economy, which to posterity will seem to have been as frankly selfish as to us seem the practices of the days of Robert Macaire. This third effect of the war, the modification of the fundamental economic concept by the acceptance of the principle that economic life is every one's concern, constitutes a first notable step towards the realm of the future. We must therefore undertake a detailed examination of its causes and consequences. i. War has been mechanised, and the issue is decided by machines, by firearms and means of transport. A war-making country must devote all the manufacturing industry of the country to the work of making munitions THE WAY OF THE WILL 233 of war. Equipment for war no longer signifies merely the supplying of weapons, but the transformation of the whole country into an arsenal in which all non-combatants make munitions. Munitions of war are made out of every possible material, and since the aim of equipment is destruc- tion and since the equipment is itself destroyed in the performance of its work, the replacement of what is perpetu- ally being used up is, from the technical outlook, the fundamental task of the war period. The problem of the supply of munitions becomes a problem of labour and material. The seriousness of this problem waxes to become determinative of destiny when the land at war can be encircled and blockaded by the enemy. It is therefore of the first importance to the state to keep careful watch upon all that is produced in its own territories, to ascertain what materials are available, and what are actually being used. The state intrudes into the innermost tissue of production, into the factories and work- shops, into the estate offices of landed proprietors, into the counting-houses of merchants. It drafts plans of mobilisation for the economic campaign ; it supplies managers and labour power ; it controls methods of work, since it is vitally interested in the question whether space, energy, and tools are being wasted. It supervises the supply of foreign raw materials and accessories, which must be used with the utmost frugality, which must if possible be replaced when exhausted, and for which, failing this, substitutes must be found. A new concept, that of the safeguarding of raw materials, is formulated, and this is quite distinct from the familiar protection of industry. Raw materials of domestic origin must be preferentially utilised, quite regardless of purely financial considerations, of the fact that they may be far more costly than foreign raw materials. Accounts must be squared by savings in other directions, and by subsidies. The elasticity of industry, its capacity for extension and modification, must be proved to the uttermost. When compliance with the demands of the state would entail undue sacrifices upon individuals, sub- ventions must be paid, and in the last resort the branch of industry must be completely taken over by the state. 234 IN DAYS TO COME Thereby is abrogated the principle of the freedom of economic life, the principle that it is open to every one to procure money or credit, to start any enterprise he pleases, and to divert to his own ends, in so far as the existing opportunities permit, as much as he pleases of the restricted total of labour and instruments of production, to use up as much as he will of native or imported raw materials, and even to interfere with the course of foreign exchanges. Capital, labour power, and materials have not indeed become the property of the community in accordance with the socialist recipe, but they have been placed under the guardianship of the community. 2. When the days of trial are over, when this supreme ordeal of our political and economic energies is at an end, economic nationalism will perhaps yield to more reasonable outlooks. We must not overestimate the significance of this advance. From the viewpoint of the history of economic development, it may well be that this period of extreme national tension is destined to show that, by an adequate improvement in technical methods, the inhabitants of almost every area can wrest from their own territory the products that are indispensable or desirable. In so far as there is an absolute lack of any necessary articles, these must be procured, as far as possible, in exchange for raw materials which are a natural monopoly of the area concerned. In international arrangements for this purpose export tariffs and export monopolies will assume the importance which was formerly assumed by import tariffs. Further- more, great natural economic groups will combine to form customs unions. Although the prohibitive system still seems to us distasteful, an aesthetic advantage will now accrue to this system. A term will be put to the mechanistic standardisation of articles of consumption. Just as in former days the traveller when he passed from town to town and from country to country was able to take delight in new kinds of fruit, confectionery, furniture, clothing, and buildings, so, under such a system as we are suggesting, the products of each country will display the peculiarities of their own place of origin, and will not appear to have been the products of a single factory. While, therefore, remote posterity will contemplate the THE WAY OF THE WILL 235 return to free international exchange with less emotion than we to-day contemplate the closure of the world market, we have to reckon with the fact that this nationalistic cleavage, so long as it endures, will have a cumulative influence, and will therefore, be it only during a transitional period, profoundly modify the dominant conception of the private character of economic activity. The causes of the extensive economic cleavage we contemplate are obvious. The war, whatever its issue, will not bring satisfaction to the ultimate wishes of the combatants, nor will it compensate any one of them for the sacrifices entailed. But unquestionably the old feelings of hatred will be supple- mented by new feelings of the same kind, aroused and accentuated by the war debts, for in this terrible ordeal, as between any two of the powers, there will be found occasion for mutual recrimination. Nationalism will reawaken, not only upon the political field, but likewise and to a greater extent upon the economic field. For everyone accuses all the others of having ploughed with his heifer ; of having fought against him with his own capital, with his own raw materials, with wealth grown in his own meadows and acquired in his own territory. Everyone feels that within a few decades the sheer might of possession, the brute force of economic life, would have brought victory without any proof of martial superiority. Everyone asks himself how so colossal, so unimaginable an advantage in the economic field could have been acquired. Everyone answers, I have myself contributed to this consummation. Everyone feels that in the system of detached economics, a great many things will be dearer, and many commercial advantages will have to be renounced. But the war has accustomed us to renunciation, and it has accustomed us to high prices. People will rather make sacrifices than gain advantages for themselves by allowing others to gain advantages which may prove politically destructive to us. Even if the conditions of the peace treaties are reasonable, the field will still be left open for chicanery and malice. Each power will be able to avail itself of sanitary, technical, and administrative measures. Towns, territories, harbours, canals, coaling stations, will be open to friends, but closed 236 IN DAYS TO COME to enemies. Besides, these measures will scarcely be requisite, since the mutual hatred of the nations will suffice. We are thus entering an epoch which will be character- ised by economic nationalism, leading, if not to an absolute detachment of the national economic systems, at least to a great restriction of international exchanges. Consequently the balance of trade will acquire a significance even greater than that which was assigned to it on other grounds in the days when French ideas dominated the science of economics. There will arise a new concept, that of the new mercantile system. In the long run, no country, unless it receive large sums as interest upon foreign investments, can pay for imports other than with exported goods, for the whole of its monetary circulation will hardly suffice to pay for a single quarter's imports. Export trade, therefore, is neither an end in itself, nor yet, as is frequently supposed, a sort of economic exuberance. Export is the payment of debt, and the antecedent import is the determinative factor in the economic relationship. If for any reason export were interrupted while the import of indispensable materials continued, the country would have to export its own securities and titles to property, thus gradually transferring economic supremacy to foreigners. In a word, it would be bleeding itself to death. What is generally true of consumption and payment, is true here. I can decide what I will import for consumption ; but the nature of the exports with which I have to pay, is decided by the other party. If he pleases, he can reject the goods I offer, because he dislikes either their quality or their origin ; he can depreciate their value by imposing tariffs which will mulct the seller unless he have a monopoly of what he is offering. Even more effective than tariffs are various artifices for interfering with the freedom of trade. National pride may come into play, inasmuch as a deliberate preference may be given to native products, even if these be more costly. A depreciation of the currency involves higher prices, and since this especially affects the most indispensable and primary products, the country concerned produces at an economic disadvantage, and this adversely influences its power for export. THE WAY OF THE WILL 237 Once more, therefore, just as happened two centuries ago, though from a different motive, economic interest is directed to the balance of trade. As an outcome of the enforced trend towards separate national economies, the new mercantile system concentrates its attention, no longer upon export and the gold reserves, but upon import. Hitherto it has been taken as a matter of course that every one is entitled to buy abroad, and to import, whatever he pleases. We are now beginning to realise that all pur- chases abroad impose a burden upon the community. Every imported machine, pearl, or bottle of champagne, nourishes foreign labour power and sacrifices a share of the national property. But it does more than this, for it puts a lien upon the future production of the community. Because of this import, the community will be deprived of the power to produce what it pleases at its own free will and pleasure, and will be compelled to produce in accordance with foreign dictation in order to pay the foreign debt, to produce goods which the foreigner is willing to buy. In extreme cases it may happen that wealthy persons import luxuries to such an extent that there actually ensues a scarcity of foodstuffs and raw materials, if these happen to be the things which the foreign creditors desire and which the need for the adjustment of the foreign exchanges enables them to procure. These considerations, deduced from a study of the new mercantile system, will render it necessary to supplement the existing agricultural and industrial protection and the before-mentioned protection of raw materials, to establish a general protection in the field of imports. This will apply to all products and commodities which there is a tendency to import, but for which more or less satisfactory substitutes are obtainable from domestic sources. Above all it will apply to imported luxuries. We alluded above to the aesthetic advantage of an economic system which is approximately independent of foreign relationships. It is now necessary to mention a noteworthy aesthetic disadvantage, which will at any rate arise in a period of transition. For reasons which have been repeatedly explained, the mechanised production of artificial articles of consumption is already a sufficiently 238 IN DAYS TO COME lamentable affair. But in the circumstances that have been foreshadowed, there will ensue an extensive manufac- ture of cheap substitutes and more or less fraudulent imita- tions. The results of this process will be far less gratifying than those of the simple living of earlier days when people were content to forego. We must console ourselves with faith in human goodwill and in the prospective growth of a healthy national sentiment, whereby in course of time people will learn to make a virtue of necessity in a literal sense, and will acquire new tastes and characteristics. Thus from the concept of a national detachment of the economic systems there ensues a second abrogation of the principle of individualist economies. 3. Of all the consequences of the war, not excepting any conceivable political transformation, the most momen- tous will be the changes in the stratification of property and the temporary impoverishment of European lands. Reference has already been made to the social consequences. Once more we are faced by the economic problem of the new formation of capital. In post-war conditions this will be rendered more difficult by the origination of a new class of holders of state bonds, by the losses that will have been sustained in labour power and intelligence, by the impending burdens upon trade and traffic, and by enhanced internal friction. Obvious is the need for prolonged labour at high tension, but the limits of this need can be foreseen. More important and more desirable are the prospects of increased efficiency in the utilisation of labour power, raw materials, machinery, economic methods, and capital. These questions including to a great extent the last-named have hitherto been left for decision to the working of the acquisitive impulse and of free competition. This was permissible as long as the increase in wellbeing exceeded all reasonable demands. But henceforward, far more than of old, the national power will be dependent upon material equipment for war, and the measure of this equipment will be dependent upon the competition between the powers regardless of the temporary level of wellbeing a competition which will have been tested in the fires of war. Consequently, the restoration and increase of the national wealth has acquired enhanced THE WAY OF THE WILL 239 political importance. This is a matter for which the community organised as the state will henceforward be responsible. The state will have to intervene when, however favourable the circumstances, free competition has failed to give the best results. It will have to intervene when the power of individual enterprise proves insufficient to secure the desired economic effects. It will have to intervene when the temporary interests of the individual conflict with the permanent interests of the community. The most immediate necessity is that the economic efficiency of manufacturing and agricultural enterprises should be carefully studied. Obsolete appliances, those which waste mechanical power, materials, and labour, must be renovated. If this will not pay, such enterprises must be shut down. There must be a centralisation of the production of energy. Syndicates must be placed under supervision. In so far as they have tended to keep artificially alive, to the detriment of the consumer, enter- prises in an unfavourable situation or badly administered, they can be constrained to close these defective works. Manufacturing companies must be held responsible for the consumption of raw material ; economy in this department must be enforced, together with every possible means for the utilisation of waste products. Small-scale enterprises which lack adequate technical equipment can be amalga- mated to form cooperative institutions. Of greater moment, and more difficult than the develop- ment of the individual enterprises, is it to promote a general increase in the efficiency of economic methods and customs. This is more difficult, because it involves interference with the habits of the consumer. Per se it is a matter of indifference that a cigar or a hairpin, on its way from the producer to the consumer, should have its price increased by a certain percentage, or even that its price should be multiplied many times. In the case of textiles, likewise, this is of little moment, unless we have to do with the indispensable needs of the poor. As far as luxuries are concerned, it is a good thing that consumption should be restricted by high prices. It is to the communal interest that hundreds of thousands of 240 IN DAYS TO COME hands and heads should not be misused ; that the distribu- tion of commodities should not involve needless waiting and travelling, puffery and persuasion ; that millions of the national property should not be dissipated in the pro- vision of countless wholesale, retail, and intermediate depots. Perhaps somewhat less tobacco would be consumed, were it not that at every street corner two partially occupied employees are established to await custom, established in shops whose yearly rent would suffice to plaster their walls with silver. Perhaps less soap and writing paper would be sold if the customer had to walk two hundred yards further before he could buy it. Perchance the petty retail trade in haberdashery would be less strenuous if the shop- keeper had to seek out the wholesaler twice a year, instead of being visited by a glib traveller twice a week. It is possible that ladies would complain if a thousand patterns the less were put upon the market year by year, although half of the stuffs, rejected by the public, are wasted, so that their cost has to be recovered out of the materials actually used. The organised competition for the adver- tising of numerous similar articles may to a certain extent stimulate sales. Nevertheless, all these are questions of individual, not of communal interest. As far as the com- munity is concerned, the only thing that matters is the economising of national labour power and capital. It is for the community to consider whether it is possible to transform the commercial methods and customs of the country, to make large quantities of squandered labour power productive, to avoid the undue multiplication of shops, the spoiling of goods, and the needless increase in prices. Available means for the attainment of these ends are : the formation of cooperatives of producers, traders, and consumers ; agreements for the restriction of patterns and samples ; the standardisation of credit ; a reduction in the number of small shops, and the regulation of the work and the gains of middlemen. The right of the community to dispose of the labour power of the country can be extended. To-day every well- to-do person is free to remain unemployed, thus securing support from the community without any reciprocal service beyond the lending of his means. He is free, though he THE WAY OF THE W^L L 241 lack specialised capacity, to enter one of the liberal profes- sions, and to lead an idle life upon the pretence that he occupies an elevated social position. Nay more, anyone who pleases, may withdraw as much as he likes from the labour energies of the country. As long as he pays his workmen their wages he can set them to any task, no matter whether it is necessary or unnecessary. If he is sufficiently rich, he can employ any number of individuals as servants, thus withdrawing them from productive work. In case of need, such practices must be exposed and restricted. Immediate steps must be taken to do away with the abuses which result from the unrestricted private control of capital. To-day, for instance, everyone is entitled to invest his share of the national property as he pleases, either at home or abroad. The consequence is that private individuals, banks, or limited companies offer values for sale as the state of the capital market may direct, home securities and foreign securities, with no other control than that dependent upon consideration for the reasonable safety of the investment or for a superficial political examination of the relationships between the lending country and the borrowing foreign state. Provided that this state places a few orders for manufactured articles, no one troubles to reflect that this will merely serve to furnish a comparatively trifling immediate advantage, and no one is perturbed because with the proceeds of the loan the borrower proceeds to found an enterprise which maintains foreign wage-earners and employees, and encour- ages foreign production. All that the investor asks is that the capital thus withdrawn from home industries should return a somewhat higher interest than is obtainable upon home investments. The need for an adequate supply of fresh capital will lead to the view that the rate of interest must not be the sole guide in the choice of investment. As regards home investment likewise, the question of general economic demand must be considered, and it must be recognised that the true intensity of this demand is not always reflected in the interest obtainable. Were it so reflected, a gaming house would represent the highest possible economic de- mand. In especial, the export of capital should never 16 242 IN DAYS TO COME be guided by the rate of interest offered upon the invest- ment, but always by consideration of the political and economic returns that are to be anticipated. Only in exceptional cases should foreign investment be approved and permitted. There should not be free trade in capital, but protection. 4. The restratification of property as an outcome of the economics of the war period secures expression in the growth of the national debt. Sums equal in amount to the annual national savings of pre-war days must be levied by the community and handed over as interest to the holders of national bonds, who of course on their side as taxpayers have to contribute a portion of the sum thus levied. In other words, the sum total of the savings flows through the hands of the state, to be redistributed. It is obvious that the levying of such sums cannot be effected by the old means. No matter whether the method of a levy on capital, death duties, monopolies, income tax, a business tax, a tax on production, or the aggregate of these financial measures, be employed the idea of the sanctity of private property is shattered. The notion becomes established that the state is no longer to be regarded as an importunate poor relation and fobbed off grudgingly with a tithe, but that it is entitled to dispose of the capital and income of all its members at its own free will. If, more- over, by the confiscation of property or by the monopoly of certain kinds of enterprise, the state becomes owner and administrator of innumerable economic interests, and if it is entitled at its discretion to assign these interests to semi-state or mixed-economic institutions, then there will have fallen the last barriers which separated the individualist economic system as the reputed affair of private persons from the affairs of the community organised as the state. In a word, like all material activities, economics will have been recognised as being, directly or indirectly, a state concern. The duration of the war and the nature of the peace will determine how speedily and to what extent the changes we have been considering will take place. We started with the assumption that they must only be accounted prepara- THE WAY OF THE WILL 243 tory phenomena ; for though a temporal phenomenon may have a preparatory, accelerating, and solvent influence, yet, however great its dimensions, it cannot change the human heart. The great advances of mankind are brought about by changes in inmost sentiment, in accordance with the operation of ultimate laws. If among the powers moved by the will, there be any one which penetrates into these depths, it is the power of intuition. Even if this be illusion, and if in reality intuition can move nothing, but functions merely as a harmonious accompaniment to the movement decreed by primal laws, nevertheless our duty remains unchanged. In the resulting harmony, we must seek the clarity of intuition with the same freedom and with the same sense of responsibility as if our voice had sung the dominant theme. But even if we regard the consequences of the war (be they grave or be they insignificant) as no more than pre- paratory phenomena, their trend, since it is towards an excessive strengthening of the state vis-a-vis the individual, is of such a character as to demand with renewed emphasis the creation of the people's state. For such a plenitude of power on the one side and so extensive a surrender on the other cannot be demanded and granted as between class and class, but only as between the people and itself. Gross would be the injustice and terrible the responsibility if in oriental fashion hereditary castes were to arrogate quasi-divine powers, and were in the name of God to demand sacrifices which the priest consumes. We have recognised and demonstrated that Germany's demand for the people's state is timely and inevitable. We have studied the political qualities of the Germans ; above all, the qualities which have a restrictive tendency. We have expounded the immediate and the remoter conse- quences of the war, and we have realised that something which has long been stationary has been set in motion. Before we approach the last part of our political task, before we consider the resolves and the measures requisite for the attainment of the goal, we have to realise a strange fact, that this last and extremely practical consideration, however unambiguous it may seem, is far from decisive. Indeed, 244 IN DAYS TO GOME we have to advance a step further, for we must attempt to refute a number of the oldest and most popular political ideas. If anyone wishes to plant a forest, he will choose an appropriate site. He will select trees suited to the local conditions, and will not, for instance, set olives or cypresses in Brandenburg. Trained foresters will supervise the work. For the rest, he will leave matters to the influences of air and sunlight, rain and frost. Without interfering in the struggle of plants and insects, the stems and the crests, he will watch the growth of the green canopy which will shade his children and grandchildren. If anyone is made responsible for a number of economic enterprises, he will lay their foundations, determine their aims, establish the principles which seem to him desirable, thrift or expan- sibility, intensity or multiplicity but unless there is urgent need he will never interfere in the details of organisation, for these will be entrusted to his chosen administrators. Repeatedly we have referred to the atmosphere of the state, as contrasted with the rigid institutions of the state. This atmosphere is nourished by the will of the people, by its convictions, its valuations, its general outlook. Under the influence of these emanations, inappropriate institutions and laws perish ; others are filled with a new content ; others grow. But the atmosphere itself is not the outcome of institutions, although for a time it may be overcast by institutions. It is erroneous to believe that institutions are unambiguous in their determinism. An enterprise loses its creative chief ; under its successor it exhibits new trends. A storm breaks one of the main branches of a tree ; a lesser branch takes on more active growth, and becomes a main branch. A state is conquered in war, and thereupon undertakes new duties and exhibits new formations. Vital energy and a suitable environment are the prerequisites ; the will and the contents of consciousness are determinative ; structure and growth are ambiguous, though always pregnant with destiny. For this reason those are mistaken who regard as primarily decisive, aristocracy and democracy, parliamentarism and absolutism, though these may speciously appear to be funda- mental political forms. When anyone enquires whether I am THE WAY OF THE WILL 245 a democrat or an absolutist, I feel as if he were a schoolman asking me about nominalism and realism. I can only reply with an oracular " Nay, nay I " A radical democracy may disclose itself to be a masked absolutism or a pluto- cratic oligarchy ; an absolutist state system may prove a veneered mob-rule. Each of these categories, when reduced to its simplest form, is absolutely unmeaning. Never can an individual exercise universal power, for this would make him infinite. If demos were really to rule, it would cease to be demos. The institutions of civilised states, whatever names they bear and whatever forms they assume, are, in the composition of their complex balances, far more similar than is commonly supposed. Wonderfully diverse is the spirit wherewith they are animated. Speaking generally, as they mature, they vary from their primitive type : republics grow conservative ; monarchies are liberalised. Should the German people desire it, then, without the changing of a line in the written law, and without the slightest modification of the Prussian suffrage, every wish of the growing people's state could be fulfilled. Were but the summons to responsibility and freedom which this book utters, raised by a thousand clearer voices, were it but to fructify in the souls of the Germans, then, notwithstand- ing vested interests, the thought of all the political parties would be so profoundly modified that, regardless of electoral geometry and arithmetic, the right men would be found and the right ideas would be realised. Parties would cease to be what they are to-day, the champions of interested programmes and the expounders of apologias. They would become the natural oppositions of the How upon the common platform of the What. I do not hesitate to show my cards to the devotees of the thing that is, for I have full confidence in the youthful energy of our newly welded and recently proved people. That people will be concerned about the wine and not about the bottles, though it will doubtless replace some of the old bottles lest too much of the wine should be wasted. Away then with these bugbears of democracy and parliamentarism, oligarchy and absolutism. Even the most rigid absolutism is democracy, falsified in its forms. The absolute dynast has the right and the 246 IN DAYS TO COME power to crush and to destroy any portion of his people upon whom his glance may fall. Nevertheless the uncrushed portions (for he cannot annihilate them all) rule him and rule through him, even though it be under the cloak of Byzantinism. Absolutism is the popular government exer- cised by one portion of the people over another, and this partial democracy shades off into the feudalist or pluto- cratic rule of constitutional monarchies. Invalid is the objection that the person of the dynast constitutes as it were a third power, individual and independent. Even in the great crises of war and peace, the individuality of such a ruler can hardly exercise so fateful a power, can scarcely decree good fortune or ill. The structure of the modern state is so infinitely ramified that this third power cannot exercise permanent influence, even though it be endowed with the enduring independence of genius. In earlier days the dynast could incorporate a third policy, that of the reigning family, that of the church, that of a foreign state, or that of the patriarch. To-day, in and through him, one part of the nation rules another. Nor is an oligarchy in any better case, for this can only establish its plutocracy with the aid of its supporters. A portion of the nation, a portion which ostensibly it controls, but which in reality controls it, must stand behind the oligarchy to enable it to rule the residue of the nation. In like manner democracy as a pure concept is impossible, unless it be in those rare and brief periods of transition wherein the nation is ruled by a mob oligarchy, and wherein for a time traditional authority is in abeyance. If there then exist any orderly forms of government (and no civilised state can carry on its functions for more than a few months without such forms), the people can never exercise this sway. It has no option but to consign its powers, to entrust them to confidential agents, and thus to establish a temporary oligarchy and absolutism to which, for good or for evil, the people will have to commit the most extensive powers over its own self. There will now arise many of those abuses which to us Germans seem to be the inevitable accompani- ments of democracy, and which account for our great hostility towards this pseudo-concept. The people can, whenever it pleases, interfere with the specialist activities THE WAY OF THE WILL 247 of its confidential agents, can harass them by inept meddling, can cashier them at inopportune times, and can appoint incompetent favourites to important posts. A struggle for power begins, and rages unchecked. Noisy electoral campaigns ensue ; the electorate is bribed, the necessary funds being secured by a corrupt use of official powers. Chatterers and clamourers, adventurers and crossuses, lawyers, journalists, speculators, and generals, grapple with one another for power and money. It does not concern us that under changed names the same things may take place in monarchies, as ministerial extravagance, dilettantism, frequent changes of government, intrigues, toadying, bluff, venality, cliquism, militarist authoritarianism, class justice, and the like. Nor does it concern us that exceptionally able dynasts can hold such abuses in leash ; or that good demo- cracies, like that of Switzerland, the Netherlands, Sweden, the Hansa towns, and many of the German municipalities, can minimise the evil trends. These things are not matters of form, but of substance ; they are spiritual traits of the nations in which they originate. What concerns us is this. Democracy itself is not popular government, but the rule of part of the people by another part. In most cases it is the rule of the country dwellers by the town dwellers, of the permanently poor by the permanently rich, of the uncultured by the half-cultured. Vital as differences in constitutional forms may seem, they do not really touch the core of the matter. These diverse forms have similar merits and similar defects, how- ever various their formulas and their rituals. Now one method of government, now another, will work well or ill, will show itself efficient or inefficient. But in one point they are all alike, in that they split the nation into rulers and ruled. Since new ideas make a more definite impression on the mind when they are associated with a new name, it will be well to use the term organocracy to express the demand which the people's state will make of its constitutional structures, whether these in point of form be dynastic or democratic. But it must never be forgotten that in this case likewise it is not the letter which is vital, but the folk-spirit. The term implies that there must be no fixity as between 248 IN DAYS TO COME ruled and ruling masses ; that control must be exercised by the organic movement of life itself in the systole and diastole of spirits and energies. Every member of the nation must be summoned to lordship and to service, to responsibility and to function. Never must the spirit sink into a slough, and never must it languish. Every adequate energy must be entitled to culture and to suitable occupation. We must have, not equality of rights and duties, but equality of opportunity. There will be no universal claim to be chosen, and yet everyone will be summoned to the position for which he is best fitted. The people will not rule, will not exercise lordship, and yet it will constitute the perpetually self- renewing raw material of the rulers and the lords with the exception of the monarchy, which stands apart and will be hereditary, although this ruling family will be able to re- juvenate its stock by an admixture of the healthy blood of the people. Hereditary advantages will always remain, for dispositions, experiences, culture, and talent, can be trans- mitted by inheritance. But we must not assume the existence of these hereditary endowments unless proof is forthcoming. Neither in the case of virtues and gifts, nor in the case of vices and defects, must we deduce their presence in the offspring simply because they have existed in the parent. Popular culture and education will become the supreme task of domestic policy ; the careful selection and development of every kind of talent will be the foundation of all social work. Religion and ritual will be supported by the state, but will be allowed to develop their doctrines in freedom. No one is entitled to misapply the spiritual goods of the nation in order to promote the interests of any class or social group. It is certain that at this point the charge of utopianism will be made. Such a charge can never be rebutted dia- lectically. Everyone who is accustomed in practical life to make resolves and to carry them into effect, is well aware, when he has to encounter hostile criticism, that the most inexorable charge of impossibility is invariably levelled against optimistic ideas. The catchwords of these sterile critics, the formulas that have given the deathblow to many an excellent design, are " fanciful plans," " aimless ideas," " finely conceived but utterly unpractical schemes." We THE WAY OF THE WILL 249 naturally ask in what mood any strong and good undertaking is to be launched into the world. It will certainly not be launched with general approbation, for the average man approves only the things with which he is familiar. Any demand which, though current, is unrealised, must be nuga- tory, for were it otherwise it would long ago have been put into practice by general consent. This is why the world has always greeted new goods with disdain, as everyone is aware who has ever brought such a new good to the world ; anything which is not greeted with a chorus of disapproval, must be a thing of little worth. I know that this principle is not reversible. There are things which appear aimless and really are so. Nevertheless, when there exists an inner certitude though proof be lacking, it is well to justify the confidence which draws its strength from a few experiences. We must not allow our hopes to be dashed by the first accusation of utopianism. No proof can be furnished that it is possible to establish a state structure which, like a living organism, shall draw its best energies from all strata of the body politic ; which, in its dealings with sixty millions, shall aim at reaping a harvest of genius, talent, and character, competent to put the Napoleonic militarist levies into the shade ; a state structure which, without detriment to the diversities of gifts and duties, shall have as its supporters none but free and self-determining individuals. We can give no proof ; we can only adduce analogies. From among all great and flourishing human creations of an organic and self-renovating type, I select a German example the Prussian army. Everyone knows that the professional entry into this organism is not open to all. The restriction does not concern us here. What we have to consider is the process of free and self-acting selection from lieutenant up to general staff officer, regimental commander, and brigadier. In the highest grades, other principles of selection are operative, and these will not now be discussed. The method of tests and observations, the system of training in the military academies, practical work, and work on the staff, are familiar. No one has ever challenged the assertion that this formation of energies by thousands and tens of thousands selects almost unceasingly the ablest for posts of decisive responsibility, 250 IN DAYS TO COME while eliminating the unfit, and retaining those of medium capacity for the performance of average tasks. Since in the first selection of the entrants the feudalist principle has unrestricted play, and thereby the disposition of the entire body of officers is normalised, it results that the process of selection within that body is quite independent of class considerations. Astounding as the assertion may seem, the selection is democratic, not in the sense that promotion is the outcome of a majority vote, but in the sense that there does not exist any superior stratum whose privileges are based upon caste, for the superior stratum continually recruits itself by prescribed methods of selection out of a homogeneous subaltern stratum. The most decisive point is that this recruitment of the upper stratum is effected without any interference from without, without any monopoly conferred by seniority, and without any restriction of competition among the thousands and tens of thousands who have once been admitted to the officers' corps. Even during the reigns of the two unmilitarist kings, Frederick William II and Frederick William IV, the spirit of the army remained unaffected. The body was so healthy, the method was so perfect, that organic growth continued though proper headship was lacking. This brief critical study of fundamental political concepts must not be brought to a close without a reference to the nature of parliamentarism ; for, notwithstanding the well- grounded and increasing dissatisfaction with all existing parliamentary systems, new and important tasks are con- tinually being entrusted to representative governments. The bodies which were originally assemblies of the estates, summoned to approve and apportion taxation, have by the Substitution of the Content been transformed into legislative corporations, and in parliamentary states into governing corporations. Originating in the representation of the interests of estates and in the representation of local interests, they have derived from this origin, and still for the most part retain, the unmeaning, and in modern times disastrous, method of election by local constituencies, which annihilates minorities, breaks up the country into numerous and factitious atoms, and falsifies the electoral act. The ideal working THE WAY OF THE WILL 251 of parliament is manifested in the assignment of powers. The people assigns to an assembly whatever legislative powers it may possess ; under a system of parliamentary government, this assembly assigns the executive power to a committee or cabinet. In theory, the legislative faculty is sharply distinguished from the executive faculty ; in practice, the distinction cannot be maintained, for, in essentials, legislation is initiated by the government, whilst the national assembly, by its power of approval and of veto, is continually interfering with the doings of the executive. Both in respect of the legislative and in respect of the executive function, the work of parliament is critical and restrictive. For the most part parliament alters bills for the worse and disturbs the work of administration. Nevertheless parliaments are indispensable. They have an obvious mechanical advantage in that they enforce publicity, exercise control over public life, and secure a considerable degree of outward conformity with a notable moiety of public opinion. These influences are essential, but the same effects could be obtained by other and simpler means. The real reason, however, why parliaments are indispensable becomes apparent when, theory apart, we study the practical working of popular representation, and especially when we consider states where parliamentary government in the full sense of the term prevails. Parliament is conceived to be a deliberative organ. Theoretically, it is a reduced image, an epitome, of the nation, where the nation's affairs are discussed. But in reality nothing of the kind occurs. It is true that parliament is the nation in miniature, an arithmetically reduced image, and more or less a caricature. It is, in fact, an image of coarsely sketched interests. This image condenses to form majorities, and thus acts as a kind of primitive filter, which is assumed to permit the passage of precisely those legislative proposals that express the wills and the interests of the majority of the people at any particular time. But this also is a fiction, for the people as a rule pays little attention to legislative proposals ; dissolutions of parliament and new elections often change the picture completely ; and the parliamentary majority rarely corresponds precisely with the majority of the people in so far as it is permissible to speak of a majority 252 IN DAYS TO COME of the people as holding any particular view upon a concrete question. Thus there is a certain arithmetical image of the people in parliament, but the image is often a distorted one. It gives its decisions by voting. But it does not consult or deliberate. Parliament is a place where speeches are made. A speech may convey approval or protest ; it may deal with principles or may discuss theories ; but it is not designed to convince any one in the house ; it is a political pronun- ciamento, and its purpose is to influence the government, the speaker's own constituents, or public opinion in general. In the Latin countries, exceptions to this generalisation may occur from time to time ; and they may even happen in Germany in periods of great excitement, when emotion overpowers reason. But if parliament does not consult or deliberate, if it is merely a place where speeches are made and votes are cast, how is parliamentary work effected ? By three semi-official organisations : the political party ; the parliamentary group ; and the caucuses. Where parliamentary government is in full force, the powers of government are concentrated in the hands of the leading permanent committee known as the cabinet. Where semi- parliamentary government obtains, the caucuses negotiate with the government and with one another, except in so far as the business is settled by personal consultation among the party chiefs. It follows that parliament is not an institution for the solidarised representation of the people, or a deliberative council of the nation. It is a party exchange, this term being understood as implying, not a place for the bartering of individual material interests, but a clearing house for the adjustment of such general interests as can secure effective expression. Those among the members of parliament who do not play any notable part in one or other of the before-mentioned semi-official organisations, are supernumeraries, except for occasional speeches, and for interventions on behalf ot some local need of their constituencies. In many ot the Latin countries, the member of parliament can turn his position to account from a business point of view. He may THE WAY OF THE WILL 253 be a genuine amateur ; often he cooperates with some committee or society established to voice a private grievance, and in that case, animated by ideal motives but exercising all the pressure he can command, he worries the authorities in the hope of furthering the cause he has at heart. The party leaders are in very truth agents of the people, or, to be precise, agents of the party to which they belong. Their number is greater and their powers are more extensive in proportion as more comprehensive duties are entrusted to them by the state. Though at the first glance this picture of parliament may seem strange, closer examination will show that it is sub- stantially reasonable. If we dare to look realities in the face, we shall draw the conclusions which enable the parlia- mentary apparatus to be transformed from a necessary evil into a fruitful organism capable of further development. We must therefore for a brief space devote ourselves to the problem of necessity. Independently of the ideal concept of the people's state, a hierarchy of officials (and the normal government is nothing more) cannot, if left entirely to its own resources, remain permanently viable. The comparison with the army is inapplicable in this instance. The duties imposed upon the army are far simpler and far more continuous ; the army has an incomparably greater and more rapidly renewed aggregate of responsible energies ; and the army has ever before its eyes, as a standard of comparison, the attainments of the practically identical institutions in other lands. The achievements of a government, on the other hand, can be compared with those of foreign governments only when terminal results have been achieved, not while the work is still in progress. In earlier days, when the administration of a kingdom was not, qualitatively and quantitatively, something in- comparably greater and more complex than the administra- tion of a large private estate, a patriarchal monarch could supervise the whole country, and could j udge if all were going well by the occasional close inspection of this fraction or that ; he could take the measure of all the instruments of government ; and in a simple testament he could bequeath the principles of thrift, incorruptibility, and energy. To-day 254 IN DAYS TO COME a single department like that of telegraphs or public health is as comprehensive in its demands as was the entire state administration during the reign of Frederic the Great. A ruler of first-class ability who should attempt to make acquaintance with the most vital administrative processes, would be overwhelmed by the multiplicity of facts, even if he should merely aim at exercising the semblance of control. On the other hand, a government entirely freed from outside control, if it did not perish of in-and-in breeding, would not only undergo ossification to become a China, but further would be hopelessly incompetent in face of a developed economic system and a developed public opinion. But the ultimate and independent control can be no better exercised by a senate or a tribunal than by an individual, since neither of these bodies has independent mobility. Nor is any class corporation suitable, for here material and professional interests dominate. In earlier centuries, the church possessed the requisite independent power ; but to-day we can look only to the people. Here, however, difficulties arise. A crowd can neither rule nor deliberate. We cannot expect intellectual decision from a crowd, but only the sketch of a general will. Even the idea of the election of confidential agents, which finds a place in municipal affairs, fails us where the state is concerned. A central power cannot depend upon local confidential agents ; it needs politicians and statesmen. The electorate is incompetent to judge of the capacity of such persons, but it is competent to estimate the worth of a party programme with which it is familiar and which it is able to understand. Once more we encounter the paradox of our electoral systems, which create and will party elections, whilst they prescribe local elections. We shall return to this matter. For the moment the decisive point is that out of the atomistic voluntary elements of election a popular representation arises, but not a body with capacity for work, control, or government. The assignment of powers fails us. It must be replaced or supplemented by a different system, that of a political party, and from this we pass to political chiefs. A political party is the assemblage of a definite portion of the people. Its members are persons of the same way of THE WAY OF THE WILL 255 thinking. They are materially circumscribed, and they exhibit a unified will. Thus they constitute a people within the people. In principalities, provinces, districts, and towns, a crystallisation of local communal interests may occur, and these interests may indirectly become matters of state policy ; but state policy as a whole does not consist of the aggregate of local interests. The political party, on the other hand, has a direct relationship to the centralised will of the nation ; and since it is made up of local groups, it can represent local interests without being based upon them. The party is organisable, self-dependent, constituted for the permanent interchange of ideas and for continuous work ; it is therefore perfectly competent to manage its instruments and to regulate its individual energies. Quietly, therefore, and regardless of the wording of written constitutions, there has come into existence the intermediate organism which makes the giant nations of our days competent to exercise will. This independently originating structure is a healthy organic growth, and conse- quently there is no opposition between it and the demands of the people's state. Thus when we described the essential mechanism of popular representation as the market-place, as the political exchange, of the parties, there was nothing derogatory in this conception. The metaphor serves to give us a clearer understanding of the concrete reality. The more definitely we grasp the nature of this reality, the better do we understand the true significance of the representative assemblies of our day, in so far as these have developed along sound lines. In the political party we have an arithmetical image of the popular will, an image which, though sectional, is closer to the thing it represents than the arithmetical image furnished by parliaments. Thus the political parties form the dynamic substratum of parlia- ment ; they are the props through which parliament is sustained by the people. It would almost suffice if at every general election a pictorial representation of the relative strength of the parties were to be hung up in the parliament house, and if each leader's vote and influence were to correspond to the proved numerical strength of his party. But the strange and at times unedifying parliamentary apparatus is essential because parliament serves or should 256 IN DAYS TO COME serve as a means for selecting and training statesmen and politicians. In countries where complete parliamentary government prevails, these essential characteristics of the political party are more fully developed, both for good and for ill, than is the case in Germany although it does not seem as if, even in those countries, the nature of the phenomenon were clearly understood. Where parliamentary government prevails, the dynamic process is more lively. Often this proves disadvantageous, inasmuch as it is apt to lead to frequent changes of government quite independently of changes in public opinion ; the conduct of public affairs being consequently disturbed. But in proportion to the average mental capacity displayed in such countries, as compared with ours, the process of selection and training is enormously more effective, for on a less fertile soil the crops that are harvested are more abundant and often of better quality. In this connection we are enabled to understand why the German parliaments, and especially the Reichstag, are so unpopular, why they lack substance, why they are so ineffective. The local electoral act is intimidating. The sharking up of an absolute majority in a constituency which may have no definite political views, presupposes methods that are not always purely political. If there is a failure by so much as one vote to secure the requisite majority, tens of thousands of votes have been fruitlessly registered, and a large minority (perhaps consisting of highly intellectual persons) remains unrepresented. Local magnates have an unfair advantage. In many instances the electors are influenced by promises which by no means correspond to the candidate's real desires or intentions. In these circum- stances, the aspirants to parliamentary honours will often be persons who do not shine in respect either of intelligence or of character. German political parties, if we except the socialists and the agrarians, are poorly organised and equipped. Whereas the whole working and thinking intelligence of the nation should discuss the destiny of the state, the actual discussion of these matters, in clubs and public meetings, is left to amateur and professional politicians, and to the ordinary newspaper readers. What we need is that the best political THE WAY OF THE WILL 257 forces of the nation should be in continuous contact with friends and mandatories ; what we need is that stump oratory and carping criticism should be replaced by loyal collaboration for the common good. Now let us turn to the other side of the picture. We have shown why the best energies of the nation are withdrawn from politics, so that our representative assemblies lack insight and power. When we come to examine the position of the Reichstag and to study its methods, we understand why this assembly repels persons of exceptional mental strength. Not everyone can find sufficient compensation for a whole year's work in sitting upon half-empty benches, in carrying out the decisions of parliamentary groups, in listening to stump speeches, varied at times by the thrilling interest of discussing the building of a light railway, or some such subject as goat-tending. The demand for group leaders and members of committees is easily satisfied. The country is weary of parliament, and many a member of the Reichstag must have asked himself with a shrug, " What's the good of it all ? " Where parliamentary government is in force, every member of parliament feels that he has a portfolio in his pocket, and sometimes looks for less commendable opportuni- ties of gratifying his ambition. Such motives may be ignoble, but they are powerful. Bismarck had good reason for speak- ing scornfully of the Reichstag when the creature of his own hands waxed rebellious. Often enough, the lower house has given cause for hostile criticism ; rarely indeed has it proved itself a deliverer in word and deed. It has not shown itself endowed with creative energy ; yet nothing but creative activity will attract the powerful spirits of the nation. In addition, we have certain natural antipathies of the Germans. Our people are repelled by the orator and the propagandist ; they do not feel sure of their ground in political matters, and they are always rendered impatient when promises remain unfulfilled, whereas they have a healthy feeling for human qualities. Finally, the Germans have before their eyes the honest achievements of the government, which are manifestly proof against all the dialectic of the critics. 17 258 IN DAYS TO COME If the political life of the country is to be placed upon a satisfactory basis (quite apart from the demand for a people's state), extensive reforms of German parliamentarism are absolutely essential. The first need is that the existing method of local elections should be replaced by a properly designed system of pro- portional representation. This particular electoral reform is more important than all others, not excepting the reform of the franchise in Prussia and in Mecklenburg. The second need is that political parties should be re- organised. The third essential is that the German parliaments should be given a positive function over and above that of law- botching and roting of supply ; that they should be granted the possibility of creative work. This does not signify an unqualified demand for parliamentary government, a system that is in itself neither good nor bad, though every normal German to-day shivers at the thought of it. If the true significance of popular representation be to act as a corrective to the system of official hierarchy, and to furnish a school for politicians and statesmen, it follows that we must not allow attendance at the school to be regarded as an end in itself by the pupil, nor must we cherish a hope for critical and dialectical successes and for the tolerated influence of a group-leader upon the government. We should trust too much in the capacity of normal natures for ideal self- renunciation were we to expect talented and vigorous men, placed in control of important governmental departments, to content themselves with the role of ill-informed observers, and then to express their approval. Such men would insist upon active intervention. Moreover, the mood consequent upon this attitude is in itself harmful ; it is apt to induce grumbling pessimism, and to effect the atrophy of the last vestiges of joy in creation which had remained to a government subject to excessive control. But above all, the statesman who has been trained only as critic knows nothing of essentials. He has learned parliamentary methods and legislative formalities, but has never acquired responsibility as a doer, a discoverer, and a creator. In ultimate analysis, a man cannot pass judgment upon things he does not know from the inside, upon things he is not himself able to do. No one THE WAY OF THE WILL 259 can be a statesman unless he bears or has borne creative responsibility. One who practises only on a dumb piano will never become a pianist. An irresponsible critic forgets his own weaknesses, and grows impotent because he regards himself as infallible. A man's occupation neither raises him nor lowers him ; but it draws him onwards whenever the man and the occupation are well suited to one another. Once more we are moving in a circle. The occupations of the members of the German parliaments cannot create true statesmen ; those who sit in these parliaments have no power to strive for ultimate aims ; the inadequacy of the function repels competent and responsible combatants ; hence there is no training ground for statesmen and so it goes on. Upon the people, whose representation is secured through the incomplete organisation of wills which passes by the name of political party, the effect of the above-described state of affairs is to dull the political understanding. If party leaders were to return to their constituents after an experience of genuine responsibility ; did they but possess a knowledge of inner incidents, motives, and inhibitive influences ; had they acquired the power of discriminating what is realisable and desirable from what is chimerical and dangerous ; were but the actors on the European stage personally known to them and understood by them then party discussions would be withdrawn from the prejudiced and petty atmosphere of bourgeois politics, and would acquire a practical value. If, in addition, the leading party politicians were enabled and from time to time compelled to enter positions in which they would have new and active re- sponsibilities, this reform would not merely afford a guarantee against sterile interference with state policy, but a con- ception of party responsibility would come into being, and this would have a moderating and stabilising effect. Under the aegis of this party responsibility, there would arise some- thing of inestimable value, something whose importance will have to be considered later, namely, an aggregate con- ception of the genuine transmissible, carefully considered, real and ideal aims of home policy and still more of foreign policy. Thus in place of colourless and verbose party programmes which are differently interpreted from day to 260 IN DAYS TO COME day, our political life will acquire what it needs more than anything else, stability. The lack of stability, and the danger of unconsidered and unanticipated action, which are both dependent on the sudden adoption of obscure and ill- considered aims these things, in conjunction with almost overwhelming military power, a feudalist atmosphere, and the unstinted docility of our nation comprise the group of conditions to which our enemies have given the inapt name of militarism. It would be beneath our dignity to be guided by the arbitrary judgments of our foes ; never- theless it comports with the highest dignity of man to examine every criticism, to purge it from injustice, and to make it instinct with meaning, even when the criticism is hostile. There is no need for the unrestricted acceptance of a complete system of parliamentary government, from which so many sections of the nation recoil, including the interested representatives of feudalism, the beneficiaries of stable and mobile capital, the professors and officials, the politicians who are not sure of themselves, and other sections of the cultured classes which are influenced by these various elements. The arguments adduced against this system are, indeed, beside the point. The disintegration of the political parties would be a favourable, not an unfavourable result, for this would render it necessary to establish coalition governments, and these would involve continuous compromises which would lead to the ascendency of the established principles of government. Since our political temperament is compara- tively cold, variations of mood and ministerial changes would be less frequent and less violent in Germany than in other lands. The experience of local government in this country shows that there is little occasion to dread corruption and the venal pursuit of personal interests. On the other hand, if anything like the same sort of relationship between electors and elected as that which obtains under parliamentary government elsewhere were established in Germany, then the methods of political selection would give us statesmen of an intelligence altogether beyond expectation. Above all it is necessary to refute a trite academic argument, to the effect that Germany's perilous geographical position renders it indispensable for us to retain a more or less rigidly con- servative system of government. The very reverse is true, THE WAY OF THE WILL 261 for the dangers of our position impose the need for great mobility and suppleness, for a system in which there will be an extremely efficient selection of energies. Precisely because of the aforesaid dangers, we must have, in contrast to political dogmatism, the capacity for straining every nerve and for temporary opportunism. The counterpoise to the perils threatening us from without will be found, not in fragility, but in elasticity. Nevertheless, we do not need unrestricted parliamentary government. What we need is that parliaments and poli- ticians should be trained in the school of reality, responsibility, and power ; that the political parties should be educated towards genuine work, towards continuity of political aims ; that the people should be disciplined in political life and in self-determination. The possibilities of realisation are manifold and simple. No written law is requisite. The easiest beginning (which would be difficult enough in view of the prevailing somnolence and sloth) would be for the parliaments to demand that some of the ministerial posts should be filled by members of parliament. The most obvious and the most utterly impracticable of beginnings would be to have recourse to our universal expedient in a difficulty, the appointment of commissions. Parliamentary committees, it need hardly be said, entrusted with ill-defined, meddlesome, and irresponsible powers, to watch the work of the official departments, so that the self-respect and creative joy of these departments would be hopelessly perturbed by demands for information, by the need for justifying their actions and for resisting impracticable proposals. What is the use of people who spend their whole lives criticising others, and will never do a hand's turn of work themselves ? We have several times foreshadowed the closing portion of our exposition, explaining that it was to deal with the essential idea of the future of political life in Germany, and to elucidate the interconnections of that political life with the essence of the people's state. As a sign that we have now reached the inmost sphere of practical life to which the course of supreme intuition has guided us (a sphere where we shall have to tarry for a season, not as those tarry who 262 IN DAYS TO COME have attained their goal, but to gather forces for the next stage and to consolidate the positions for a new advance), henceforward our outlook will be predominantly utilitarian. For in this sphere, advance towards the ultimate, if it is to remain practically realisable, must simultaneously be advance towards something of temporal value. Now the idea of the power and stability of the state has been shown to possess such a practical and utilitarian value. According to the law of the struggle for existence, and according to the image of every individual life and of all collective life, the state per se is defenceless, and in the conflict with its competitors its sole guardian is its own genius. Its heritage consists in the fertility of its soil, in its geographical situation, and in its people. These data are finite, just as the temporal heritage of a human being, an animal, a herd, or a forest, is finite ; finite likewise are the fundamental possessions of its opponents. Infinite, however, is the relation of the effect, for this is indefinitely multiplied by the power of the spiritual. Indeed, this power is competent to modify physical conditions. It can increase tenfold the yield of the soil ; it can rob the earth of its treasures ; it can master the forces of nature ; can shape coastlines and tracts of land and water ; it can cure sickness, fortify the blood, form and perfect unborn generations. Out of material masses, this power can create organisms, endowing them with senses, with energies of thought and will, and with efficient limbs. In the struggle for life this power intervenes with threefold force : externally with fixity of trend and with impulsive energy ; internally with the power of resistance. When two organisms of equal strength are at war, victory is achieved by that one of the two which knows best what it wants. Strength, privilege, and invulnerability grow out of inconspicuous seeds, uncoveted and mobile. The oak tree of a thousand years, which no human power can move by as much as an inch, sprang from an acorn which slipped from the hand of a child ; the direction of a mighty stream was determined at the source by a pebble in the path ; an overseas empire may arise because of an error in navigation ; a race of nobles may spring from the intoxication THE WAY OF THE WILL 263 of a noble progenitor ; a girl's whim may decide the fate of dynasties. Time and persistency of trend unite to form a power which nothing can withstand. Every second, new germs of the imperishable are scattered ; from moment to moment the destinies of the millenniums are being sown, and the enduring direction of the will decides which seed shall germinate. But the best way to ruin all chances of germina- tion is continually to retrample the same ground, repeatedly to break up the clods, and without choice or forethought to plant ever and again new seeds. A great man of action is an unwearying sower, content that others should reap the harvest. He who to-day earnestly promotes that which will be realised to good effect in one, in ten, or in a hundred years, creates freely and without hindrance. To-day people may smile at him, but will not interfere ; later he will be misunderstood and ingratitude will be his reward ; but he fashions as a master whom none can control. The most real of all creation is that effected by the seer, provided that the vision of his forecasting be not a nebulous phantom fashioned out of uncontrolled emotions, but something that will ultimately be realised in tangible form. The vision of the true seer is a vision of reality, reality intuited, and permeated with spirit ; his dreams are solidified by the energy of will, and are safely anchored to the earth. This is the secret of all production. Vigorous creation is rendered impossible by restriction to the aims of the day. He who seeks immediate success ; he who would delight his contemporaries with spectacles of greatness, and who revels in historic moments ; he who day by day would dig up the seed to learn how it is growing ; he who grudges every new event as something which wastes his time, instead of using the best forces of that event to help in the realisation of his distant aims ; he who drudges at the daily task, who balks at obstacles, who settles things out of hand instead of searching for the best way such a one can at most defend a position and temporarily avert collapse. He cannot create life and growth, for everything in nature perishes when it is forced to assume the defensive. Freedom from care in the highest sense ; freedom from all personal wishes or pressure ; superabundance of energy finding expression in humour and in spiritual sovereignty : 264 IN DAYS TO COME such are the conditions requisite for the fixity of political trend. Who realises these conditions in our state system ? Though there were an unending succession of monarchs, Caesar and Charles, Frederick and Bonaparte, this would not suffice to constrain a dynasty to the performance of the requisite duty. The stability of dynastic policy is largely determined by the need for the defence of the dynast's own position. It is influenced by the perilous fluctuations in the relationships with kindred and friends. As Bismarck has told us, it is influenced by women and favourites, and by the alluring possibilities of territorial expansion. Still less can we expect political stability from our irresponsible parliaments. These, as we have seen, have no concerns beyond the daily tasks of criticism and law-botching. They lack cohesion ; they break up into hostile groups ; these groups unfurl colourless party flags which are hardly distinguishable one from another, and under such emblems they work on behalf of petty economic interests. There remain for consideration the various types of minister of state. They possess certain advantages in that they exhibit an identity of political convictions in the sense of a considerable degree of traditional continuity. But whatever they are, they are and must be upon the foundation of that official conservatism, and in that atmosphere of feudalism and professordom of which we have previously spoken. It matters not whether, prior to their appointment, their trends have been liberal or Catholic, they seize the first opportunity of demonstrating normality in political matters, for if they failed to give such a demonstration they could hardly continue to exist for many weeks in a hostile atmosphere. This conformity in the general political outlook of the ministers does not, however, suffice to secure for long periods of time an effective^conformity in home and foreign policy. All the other presuppositions are negative. It matters not if the average ministerial career be extended from five years to ten ; that career is either too long or too short. Too long when a man has transmitted to the state spirit the totality of his life's thought, and henceforward is nothing more than a routinist ; too short when an entire generation THE WAY OF THE WILL 265 is to be encompassed with far-reaching plans. What creative artist will content himself with beginnings which his successor, amid a chorus of approval from subordinates, will thrust aside with a smile ; or which his successor, having modified them till they are unrecognisable, will develop as his own ? Even if a minister were willing to make such a sacrifice, how would it be possible ? Daily needs are pressing, and he has to defend his policy from attack on three or four sides at once. Above him the monarch has the last word ; beneath him parliament makes its decisions ; on one side he is threatened by public opinion ; perhaps on the other side he is menaced by the foreign world. It is almost a miracle if he can steer any course amid these shoals, and it would be asking too much of him that in addition he should aim at the absolute. Want of time imposes further restrictions upon his freedom of action. Half the year is spent in parliamentary work ; in the search for proofs, justifications, and materials ; in bargaining with committees and with the leaders of a parliament which is indefatigable in criticism, which is unused to the presuppositions of creative work, which has no coherent will but only a number of discrete impulses, which is fractious when its suggestions are dis- regarded but does not feel itself bound to help when they are accepted. The life of our state lacks the organ which could ensure fixity of trend. While the constancy of such a force is lacking, while our goals are chosen in accordance with the fancy of the day and not in accordance with the experience of the generations and the centuries, in all that we do we are at the mercy of any prize-fighter who may see a little farther than the rest and may have a little more consistency of purpose. In the struggle for life among the nations, we are inadequately equipped for the competition. The alarming inefficiency of our foreign policy, despite an enormous expenditure of labour and money, is largely due to uncertainty of aim For decades, while we have been firmly convinced that our intentions were peaceful, upright, and innocent, our neighbours have regarded us with unprecedented and almost incredible suspicion. This attitude of theirs depends upon the uncertainty of our policy, which is incomprehensible because of its vacillations, and suspect because of its incom- 266 IN DAYS TO COME prehensibility. States where parliamentarism is absolutely uncontrolled where resolves seem aimless, where changes of government are incessant, have, notwithstanding an apparent disconnectedness of will, excelled us in fixity of trend ; for even a one-sided, phantastic, and fanatical trend achieves its purpose if it do but remain stable. No artificial organ can provide the state with this permanent fixity of trend. It cannot be supplied by the departments of state, by committees, senates, or parliaments Nor can the dynasty fulfil this purpose. Least of all can the requisite consistency of aim be supplied by the pro- fessorial caste which would not exist if its members had been born for action instead of contemplation. The people alone can inspire such a trend ; not as a dominant mob, nor yet as a mass, but as the womb of the spirit out of which the times bring forth fruit ; the politically ripened and thoughtful people, whose spirit has been embodied in parties ; these parties represented by their organisations, and above all by their leaders, statesmen, and thinkers. We must be careful not to measure the foregoing ideas by the lamentable inefficiency of our existing party system. So long as political parties existed merely for such narrow purposes as the raising or lowering of specific duties, taxes, or wages, for the maintenance or abolition of particular privileges, tor defending or attacking particular classes or persons ; so long as they were organisations decked out with phraseological ideals in whose realisation no one believed ; so long as they were organisations consisting of interested persons and the furnishers of funds, on the one hand, and of dilettantists, pothouse orators, and camp-followers, on the other ; so long as the political life of the nation attained its climax in the conflict of interests which found expression in law-botching, while the crown of a political career was to become a successful platform speaker or a professional party chief ; so long as the people was content to shun responsibility and to leave its destinies in the hands of a ruling caste, failing to recognise the community and unity of its own ultimate aims and intoxicated by the struggle of the interests so long also was the people's state impossible of attainment ; so long also was every objective expression of the collective will illusory ; so long also was the political THE WAY OF THE WILL 267 life of the nation incapable of rising to higher levels than those of the district club and of the gymnastic society. The war has shown that a higher life is possible ; the coming need will show that it can endure. Some years ago, in fear and concern, I drew attention to the coming of this need and longed to avert it, but in the medley of money-getting and enjoyment my voice fell on deaf ears. Henceforward and evermore it will be plain to us that however much we may be rent asunder by differences of opinion, we are all members of one household, that it devolves upon ourselves and upon none other to defend and to care for our goods and our blood. Never again must interest and money-getting occupy the first place in our minds, nation and state the second, and God (on Sunday only) the third ; never again must our fate fall into the hands of a moneyed caste and our household into the hands of pothouse politicians ; for if this should happen it would be time for the Germans to set out on a new migration. Need, in the last resort, can and will compel us to develop a political sense, can invigorate us to become a people's state. In no domain will this invigoration work more relentlessly than in the reform of party life. The capable and the strong who have hitherto, breathlessly harnessed to their work, served power, wealth, spiritual creation, contemplation ; who have looked upon the state as something foreign to themselves, to be left to the care of professional experts as one leaves a gasworks, a church, or a theatre ; who have rarely troubled themselves about state concerns, and who whenever they have done so for a moment have turned back to their own work shrugging their shoulders because things were done so badly and were nevertheless done somehow or other these men will at length be inspired with the will to intervene and will feel that it is their duty to intervene ; not, indeed, with the easily satisfied ambition of the party lion making an after-dinner speech, but with the will to action. They will throw into the scales all their possessions and their powers, and will thus outweigh the political bosses. Political life, ceasing to be the sport of daily interests and minor concerns, will become the organisation of the will of the body politic. The facile critic will say that there is a hopeless divergence 268 IN DAYS TO COME of opinions and wills in Germany, and that consequently no definite and voluntary trend can spontaneously emerge from the confusion ; for this reason, they will affirm, we must be taught and guided by a hereditary caste of shepherds. A destructive inhibition can never result from an overplus of varieties and shades of tendency, so long as all these tendencies are positive, in that they lead towards self- preservation and growth. A resultant of forces issues, not merely from two components, but from any number ; and it will issue all the more surely the more notable the com- plexity of the components. The only force which is utterly vacillating and unreliable is that which arises solely out of ephemeral influences ; the traveller who follows his own shadow from dawn till eve, wanders in a circle. If a nation whose internal inhibitions have been overcome by organisa- tion, nevertheless lack power to discover a path through the world under the guidance of its own inner impulses, its history is finished, and it deserves no better fate than to be an instrument of alien wills. Let me again remind the reader that when I speak of the will of a nation, I do not mean the crude physical caprice which decides some matter of the day, nor do I mean the fugitive emotion which stirs a crowd in the street ; I mean the organically distilled essence of the strongest forces of the nation, that which concentrates and spiritualises all the volitions of the body politic. My will and my action are not determined by the transient fatigue, hunger, or inertia of my physical frame, but by the spiritual core of my being. Precisely because we lack fixity of trend, did it come to pass that Bismarck's heritage a solidly constructed state, the arbiter of Europe, old-fashioned in many respects, but equipped with overwhelming military power could be developed by us neither outwardly nor inwardly. For this reason it came to pass that we allowed the hegemony to be snatched from Germany by foreign leagues which we tolerated and even furthered ; that in the partition of the previously unallotted portions of the world, Germany received no share ; that an utter lack of policy, which no one accredited to us, and an ill-humour which was obvious to all, made us uni- versally suspect ; that our body politic put on the layers of fat the growth of which was promoted by the one-sided THE WAY OF THE WILL 269 development of technical skill and finance, and which the war was to sweat off Even worse have been the consequences of the want both of impulsive energy, and of trustworthy leaders. All action and all negotiation proved a failure, every resolve ended in a compromise. Out of a vast number of suggestions, not one could grow to objective greatness ; the problems were merely mooted, to be dismissed with a headshake. This country, whose roots were so healthy that it had for- gotten the feeling of being in a false position, had to relearn the meaning of embarrassment. Its living force was frittered away in personal frictions, was wasted in overcoming the inertias and constraints of individual relationships. The assignment of responsibilities began with perplexity and ended with disillusionment. To be carried away by any powerful will and any rash fancy, smacked of the romantic past. Instead of devoting themselves to organic work, people were on the watch for reputedly historic moments ; they posed for future historiographers ; they indulged in monumental oratory all this being a fit accompaniment to the bombastic architectural products of a money-getting age. Fixity of trend and impulsive energy are the two most important weapons in the struggle for existence among the nations. They are the concern of the peoples. Neither reigning families nor castes can provide these essentials, for one of the rules of the struggle is that all the available powers of a nation should be utilised, including all its forces of spirit and of will. Fixity of trend arises as the distillate of all possible thoughts ; impulsive energy arises as the essence of all conceivable manifestations of human genius. If we restrict the possible sources of supply to a narrow circle of a few hundred or thousand souls, we deliberately impoverish the spirit and the will of a nation, and that nation will perish as soon as its neighbours stake the whole wealth of their possessions against it. A people numbering many millions is metaphysically compelled, at all times and in all spheres of activity, to generate a vigorous trend of will and a complex of its highest talents. Should it fail to do this, or should these forces be diverted to the pursuit of gain, mechanical precision, or ease, or, finally, should these powers be lacking 270 IN DAYS TO COME owing to political indolence and an inadequate sense of responsibility, then this people has passed its own death sentence. Before we turn to consider the conditions of the impulsive energy which must, as we have seen, be the resultant of the spontaneous selection of all the powers and talents of the spirit and the will, we must study the intellectual form of the politically effective spirit. In the eighteenth century governmental work was still purely administrative. In one place only, the supreme position where the royal authority was operative, was there need for initiative, resource, and creative resolve. The prevailing absolutism, known in German history as cabinet government, was an organic not an arbitrary expression of this relationship. In peace no less than in war, the administration was subservient to the supreme estate represented by the patriarchal ruler, this method of govern- ment being a magnified copy of the patriarchal administration of the lesser landed properties. Considered in its simplicity, administration is work in the primitive, unmechanised sense of that term, like agricul- ture and the older kinds of handicraft ; with the authority of patriarchal care superadded. It is characterised by tradition. Rules and aims are agreed upon ; local and human relationships are constants. Every problem has been stated ; every solution is discoverable. Even rare occurrences can be mastered by experience ; that is why we esteem old age. The elder is well informed, and is rarely mistaken ; the youth is inexperienced, and must be broken in by experience. Land and people, the objects of administration, are sub- missive objects. The countryman and the manual worker will never venture to set up their opinions against the opinion of the administrator, for the former are aware of the limitations imposed upon their minds by the traditional character of their occupations, and the thorny field of strange and new resolve is remote from the sphere of their lives. But in that sphere, all sorts of happenings recur : birth, life, and death ; seedtime and harvest ; prosperity anc rising prices ; conflagration and drought ; war and pestilence THE WAY OF THE WILL 271 crime and punishment. A new building, a royal progress, the coming of a menagerie or a conjuror, even a journey, are great and rare incidents. Commoner experiences are law- suits, tumults, callings-up for military service, market brawls. Every one knows what is going to happen next ; work is easy ; and there is plenty of time. All that such people ask of the administration is that it should be incorruptible, experienced, and open-eyed. Unique occurrences take place far above the heads of rulers and ruled. Decisions concerning war and peace, conquest and reform, the church, the law- courts, the taxes, the building of roads, colonisation, come from above if not from heaven, from the king. The spiritual conditions of the art of administration are personal authority, self-confidence, fidelity, and experience ; its roots are a traditional knowledge of moods and practices. These qualities are those possessed by the old territorial nobility. Resourcefulness, imagination, creative energy, desire for innovation, are alien to the thought of these circles ; when encountered here, they mislead towards rebellion, philoneism, and foolhardiness. We have a fine example of this natural conflict in the friction between the young and impetuous Bismarck and the members of his narrow, bucolic environment. The new world of mechanisation arrived, transforming all work into struggle and thought. Technical improvements, expansion of trade, competition, trod on one another's heels ; that which had been accepted practice one day was super- annuated the next ; that which had seemed impossible yesterday, is realised to-day, and will be forgotten to-morrow. Experience no longer counts. Nay, worse than this, it is dangerous, for the experienced man tends to be a routinist. Every situation is new ; every decision is unprecedented ; the goal of activity is shifted from the present into the future. Victory is not to those who look backwards but to those who look forwards. In the struggle, rhythm and acceleration are determined by our hostile competitors, tradition must be discarded and intuition must take its place. The true significance of the Napoleonic storm is that in that storm, for the first time, mechanised thought, thought which ran counter to experience, emerged from the work- shops and the laboratories to gain control of political life. 272 IN DAYS TO COME It mastered, not only the directive and promethean central powers of the state, which had never been subjected to tradition, but it likewise mastered all the accessory and subordinate branches of political life, technical, financial, and administrative. Assailed by this explosive force, traditional Europe collapsed, and could not regain stability until it had acquired at least the primary elements of the new methods of thought and action. As late as the autumn of 1813, the Allies remained for months encamped upon the Rhine, because in a text-book of the history of war they read that a river was an entrenchment, and because the book declared that behind an entrenchment armies must collect their energies and gather forces for a fresh advance. Tradition was the basis of the old art of government. The driving force of modern politics is the talent which creates the organiser, the entrepreneur, the coloniser, and the conqueror. Its characteristic is the power of imagin- atively realising that which does not yet exist ; the talent for the unconscious imaginative reconstruction and experience of the organic world ; the emotional gift which enables sur^ persons to appraise incommensurable effects and motives ; the faculty whereby they can originate the future within their own minds. They work through realist imagination, energy of resolve, daring, and that combination of scepticism and optimism which seems absurd and even repulsive to persons of simple nature, and which has rendered all masters of statecraft unpopular during their lifetime. It is not surprising that the German language should have no name for this complex of energies. I shall employ the expression " aptitude for business " (Geschdftskunst}, a compound teim in which the primary significance of the word Geschaft is perceptible, since Geschaft is derived from schaffen (creation). The caste of the landowning nobility, which, with its offshoots, hangers-on, and imitators, is responsible for government in Prussia, is to-day just as it was in the time of Frederick the Great the undisputed master of the traditional art of administration, whether upon private domains or in the service of the state. Integrity and idealism, justice and distinction, fidelity and a high sense of duty, courage and virility, serve to-day as of old to make this caste one of tho THE WAY OF THE WILL 273 noblest of its kind in history. Neither in the past nor in the present can we find the equal of the Prussian subaltern. The Prussian Landrat, as administrative head of a district, occupies an office which from the theoretical outlook is superfluous ; nevertheless, by his superlative qualities, he has made of this office a political institution of supreme and almost indispensable importance. Our officials of noble birth are highly skilled, not merely in the conduct of administration, but in the fuller develop- ment of administrative work. Overcoming their inborn misoneism, they avail themselves of the most recent scientific and technical methods, even when these are of foreign origin. But for such developmental advances to be possible, the Prussian official must be granted time and familiarisation, seeing that he is naturally averse to the role ol improviser. The full tale of his virtues has now been told. The Prussian official has no fondness for the unique or the novel. It is not his forte to act on his own initiative, to force his way ruthlessly by intuitive insight out of a complicated and perchance embarrassing situation, to create new relation- ships and new things, to prepare for coming events. Here, indeed, a manifest hindrance is encountered. His activities are so thoroughly permeated with the political conceptions of an unquestioning conservatism, that his every judgment of an objective situation is complicated by his perception of the subjective political aim, and his possibilities of choice are thereby restricted. He finds it extraordinarily difficult to put himself in another's place, and this makes him inefficient as a negotiator or a coloniser. He cannot see into the distance or into the future. He has no yearning for the infinite, and those who lack such a yearning have but a jejune vision of the realisable. It is no chance matter that, with the exception of one man who was not of unmixed noble blood, Prussia has not since the death of Frederick the Great produced a single European statesman. It is currently declared that the war has demonstrated the supreme capacity of Prussians for organisation. True enough that the organisation of the army, the railways, and the Central Bank proved equal to all demands. But the things which had to be newly created and improvised, unforeseen contrivances (wherefore unforeseen ?), were, in 18 274 IN DAYS TO COME so far as they showed themselves viable, not the work of the state. Let us now return to the problem of impulsive energy Selection of the traditional capacity for administration does not suffice. We need selection of absolute capacity for statecraft, with definite reference to the demand for " aptitude for business " in the sense previously defined. The caste to which, hitherto, political responsibility has exclusively been assigned, is not merely too small in its ratio of five thousand to a population of fifty-six millions. In addition, the members of that caste are not the most capable persons who could be found for the discharge of duties that lie beyond the field of traditional administration. There is no force in the objection that the calling in of outsiders has hitherto proved an inadequate remedy. As long as there still prevails the atmosphere to which repeated references have been made, the intruder will as a rule display four conspicuous traits. He will be a man whose success in his previous career has been dubious, and who is therefore glad of a change. Organically he will be similar to his new colleagues, to whom he will therefore be a persona grata. He will display a fixed inclination towards mercantile methods of thought and expression, which are regarded as a sign of profundity, and which lead people to expect new things from him. He will manifest a readiness to make indispensable concessions, which are necessary in his new career, but which diminish the prospects of a successful experiment. In the leading western lands, during the long per'od in which parliamentary government has been in force, efficient methods of selection have spontaneously arisen. This has occurred without any legislative action for the purpose, and almost without entering the political consciousness of the nations, which have taken such a development as a matter of course. The methods in question have always eluded our scientific study, for the problem of political selection has never been seriously considered in Germany. It will not here be discussed in detail. Enough to say that the methods are all rooted in parliamentary life. In England, they take the form of deliberate choice, and the training THE WAY OF THE WILL 275 of leaders within the parties ; in France, the foundation is parliamentary and journalistic experience ; in the United States, the foundation is plutocratic and demagogic. It would be difficult to imitate the English method. In England the budding party leader is recognisable among his fellow pupils as possessed of exceptional bodily and mental qualities. A minister takes him up, and, quite outside any hierarchical career, makes of him a private secretary and assistant. He is passed through the finer and yet finer sieves of parliament- ary election, parliamentary practice, and an experimental test of higher responsibility. In so far as he proves his capacity, he secures experience, knowledge of men and things, influence, and office. It is maintained that in England no political talent remains undiscovered, and that no political talent that has been discovered is ever left unutilised. Upon the stage of the most recent history, France made its appearance tottering and crushed, so weak and so pro- foundly humiliated that its envoy adjured the German emperor, of his chivalry, to grant peace. Thanks to French statecraft, France has been enabled during the space of forty years, while Germany was losing the hegemony of Europe, to regain its old powers of offence and defence, to win three colonial empires, and to enter into the strongest alliances in Europe alliances which in contrast with two of ours have stood the test of war. A country which has had to summon financiers and industrial managers from the foreign world, because no sufficient supply of native forces and talents was available, was nevertheless able by appropriate methods of selection and unwearied effort to satisfy its measureless demand for and consumption of states- men. It was able in addition to accumulate such abundant reserves, that for every new task, whether in organisation, finance, diplomacy, or parliamentary life, there were forth- coming men of every possible complexion whereas in Germany many a man has been kept in office simply because there was no possible successor. If we compare the two countries in respect of population, culture, capacity, level of civilisation, and talent, it seems very probable that Germany, did there exist here an automatic method of selection, would be able to excel 276 IN DAYS TO COME France many times over in the supply of competent statesmen. We have no such selective methods ; or rather, we have methods which exercise a reversed selection. What no board of directors, no trade-union executive, no local club, would tolerate, is a thing which Germany practises where the highest welfare of the community is at stake. We confer responsible positions without taking the trouble to convince ourselves that we are giving them to suitable incumbents. The most powerful business enterprise in the world would be hopelessly ruined within a single generation if it were compelled by its articles of association to choose its responsible leaders from a circle of a thousand families. These methods do not suffice for the spiritual defence of the country against fierce competition both without and within ; they do not suffice for a task which involves the very existence of our nation. This incomprehensible can be explained only by another incomprehensible. The ideas of the competitive struggle, of organic work, and of natural endowments, have not yet penetrated into the regions where our destiny is decided. There, where so much is inherited, people believe in the inspiration of office ; in inborn superi- ority over the masses ; in history as it is written on the tables of history ; where line after line the most salient episodes are recorded, although there is no record of the immeasurable labour and the immeasurable expenditure of genius which lay between the incidents recorded in the lines. The history of the world runs its course like a feuilleton, where every figure that is introduced plays its part, whilst in between there is time for aperc.us, harangues, and state proceedings. Otherwise the accessory phenomena would remain inexplicable. How remorseless are the claims upon the time of state officials, and not least on the part of the parliaments. He who has great tasks to perform, requires three hundred and sixty-five times four-and-twenty hours for himself and his work ; he must leave to others the casting up of accounts, holidays, and the laying of foundation stones. The anecdotal conception of history has perhaps never been regarded as acceptable more than once throughout the ages, and even then rather in the eyes THE WAY OF THE WILL 277 of the court chronicler than in reality. I think of the brief acme of the long reign of Louis XIV, when the French realm was still without worthy competitors. A young official applies for an appointment in the diplo- matic service. He bears a noble name, is wealthy, has a distinguished appearance, belongs to one of the best students' corps, has been officer in a crack regiment, and is known to possess sound political views. He has the additional advant- age of occupying a position at court. It is difficult to refuse the application of such a suitor, who, if he had lost his property or had left the service, would very likely have contented himself with making a living by selling motor cars. It is doubtless possible that this privileged applicant may like- wise be endowed with supreme political genius, for nature sometimes bestows her gifts with a lavish hand. Neverthe- less, the cold calculus of probabilities pitilessly maintains its rights in the long run. With every additional qualifica- tion that is demanded, the already small number of suitable candidates shrinks enormously ; and since many of the qualifications that are exacted are not really relevant to the duties which have to be performed, the ultimate result is that the welfare and existence of the state is staked upon a very few cards instead of on all the available energies of the nation. Invalid is the customary answer to this criticism, which is to point to a certain number of outsiders occupying important posts. The newcomers who are assimilated to the dominant atmosphere probably have the double weak- nesses of the class they have left and the class they have joined. Moreover, they grow worse instead of better through having to overact their new parts. We have seen that the spiritual raw material is sifted in accordance with false principles but the danger increases in the subsequent course of promotion. The ultimate choice for positions of great responsibility is not (as in the case of the administrative services of minor importance) a matter of progress by simple seniority, but of appointment by the supreme authority. The idea of infallibility which underlies this method may be justified in exceptional periods. There have at times been dynasts and members of the king's inner council, whose knowledge of men and things was so 278 IN DAYS TO COME transcendent that no other method of selection could be compared to the success of their intuitions. But the institu- tions of a state must provide for the work of centuries ; if the system is liable to break-downs, destruction threatens. It is necessary, therefore, to take into account the possibility of irrelevant and arbitrary trends, the possibility of favourit- ism. We need hardly say that in such epochs, the mere gifts of external appearance, an entertaining manner, fitness for court life, chance services and encounters, may decide the destinies of the state. We have seen that the significance of true parliaments lies in this, that they must promote, not government by the masses, but the spiritualisation of the people, the sublimation of the national thought and will. As well as possessing their traditional and mechanical quality as barometers of the interests, they must in days to come serve as schools for statesmen. If we succeed, as we shall succeed, in raising parliaments to this level, they will be enabled to exercise a popular regulative influence over the appointments to responsible posts. It is not absolutely essential that parliament should nominate the principal ministers of state. But it is absolutely essential that parliament should have at its disposal the persons of supreme gifts who are fitted for nomination to such posts ; and it is essential that the parties from which these chiefs are drawn should give the men in whom they have confidence such unstinted support that all necessary changes can be effected in the bureaucratic structure of the various departments. Neither the bureau- cracy nor the feudal caste will suffer from parliamentary reform and regulation, in so far at least as the bureaucrats and the feudalists are fit to endure competition. They will continue to offer materials from which a selection can be made, and their traditional experience and knowledge of affairs will be valuable. But the reform of parliament, which must advance hand in hand with this development, is the affair of the nation. As we have seen, the nation must help by the creation of appropriate electoral systems, and by the quickening and reorganisation of party life must help to promote the fructification of the perspicacious efforts towards reform which are to-day manifest in exalted circles. THE WAY OF THE WILL 279 A final word is necessary concerning the third of the political forces which acts as coadjutor to the other two, fixity of trend and impulsive energy, giving firmness and stability to the fighting organism. I refer to the power of resistance. All state policy is a permanent test of strength. War, the last intensification of policy, is a test applied in all departments, physical, psychical, and intellectual. In normal conditions, the test is enforced until every field of comparison has been tried. The sitting of the Reichstag on August 4, 1914, demonstrated a thing which our inmost sentiments had already revealed to us, namely that in supreme need there would be no cleavage in our nation. But it immediately became apparent that this inner unity was not a consequence of our institutions, but was a deliberate moral victory over our institutions. Sections of the people whose rights were comparatively small, whose convictions had been regarded as unsocial, and who had been freely stigmatised as anti-patriotic and traitorous, took up arms on behalf of the homeland with no less enthusiasm than those to whom, legally and economically, this homeland belonged. To everyone who feels as a true German, this renunciation will seem a matter of course. But no state can be upbuilded upon privilege and renunciation. Although, in this section of our study, which is devoted to immediately practical matters, the ideal demand for the uplifting of the hereditary proletariat has been thrust into the background, nevertheless the construction of a state out of ruling and ruled sections of the people must be rejected even upon the unemotional ground of a calculus of stability, for such a state is in a condition of unstable equilibrium. Inborn and deeply rooted is the idea that the state is the sole concern of privileged specialists ; that it is the hereditary hunting-ground of family alliances, party groups, and specific philosophies ; that it is a despotic and detached entity, thrusting its tentacular arms out to grasp the lives, rights, and possessions of individuals ; that it is a power to which obedience is rendered, partly perforce, and partly because it fulfils certain public and political functions with more or less success. We are brought up to believe that each one of us must devote himself to his civic occupation, 280 IN DAYS TO COME be it money-getting, the discharge of official duty, or the performance of intellectual labour ; that we must rarely turn our gaze towards what is done by the privileged authorities ; that we must renounce the inclination towards presumptuous and ignorant criticism ; that our critical part in public affairs is adequately discharged by the occasional casting of a vote into an electoral urn, a vote which is lost among millions of others. Impressed with such notions as these, we are hardly capable of regarding the state as res publica, as the common cause, as the joint expression of our earthly wills. We lack standards of comparison. All that history and the surrounding world can offer us in the way of such standards, has the aspect of caricature, distorted by an exaggeration of faults ; for the very few who direct our attention to such comparisons are professors, travelling merchants, and journalists, are persons whose minds run in a groove. We do not hesitate to exclude from participation in official life that moiety of the people which regards our social and economic forms as a system of hostile coercion. We are not afraid to restrict them to agitation and parlia- mentary criticism. We believe ourselves entitled, from the altitude of our loftier knowledge, to make of them the objects of legislative repression, and even the objects of religious and educational patronage. We fail to recognise how disintegrating are the influences engendered by the relentless control of a dispossessed and expanding intelli- gentsia by a possessing and restrictive intelligentsia. We consider it perfectly right that an authoritative government should pursue a rigidly partisan policy, in virtue of which class controls class, and a group controls the masses. We term this policy conservative ; we say that it conduces to the maintenance of the state. But what is it, in organic life, which conduces to permanent maintenance ? Only organic life itself, which renews itself out of itself ; not its temporary and individual forms. That which ostensibly maintains itself, conceals a principle hostile to life, a principle making for retardation and senility. Still worse is it that every policy which is not the policy of all, but a party policy, must in perpetuity serve at least two masters, its objective aim, and its secret partisan conviction. THE WAY OF THE WILL 281 It remains unfree, detached from genuine reality ; and it will be overthrown in the long run by any counter-policy which is free from coercion and independent in the choice of means. For the last two years, people have been endeavouring to discover the metaphysical foundation of our destiny as the outcome of the world war. It is this and no other, that a policy without steadfastness and without success had failed to convince the German people that it was its duty to shoulder the responsibility for its own life and its own fate. The people, entirely immersed in the pursuit of infinite riches, thinking only of business affairs and technical improvements, had been content with murmuring sleepy protests about the defects of some of the departments of state, and had refrained from any attempt to realise the fundamental errors, whose outward symptoms were regarded as chance matters, as things of secondary importance. Everyone was more concerned to secure a few years of personal success than to consider the needs of the com- munity, which, they held, for good or for ill could be left to look after itself. In those days, I repeatedly drew attention in word and writing to the menacing inner logic which, independently of the casual happenings of political life, indicated the approach of the fateful hour. In the popular mind the causes of the war are still misconceived, for it is attributed to what are no more than the minor determinants. But the war had to come, in order that the needs of the community might direct our attention to communal re- sponsibility and communal solidarity. Serving natures exhibit a fine virtue. They devote their lives and possessions, not to mankind, but to another, the master. They merge themselves in his house and occupation, in his destiny and character ; and in due time this sentiment of fidelity is transmitted to posterity Such an existence is good. It may be truly honourable, for every complete human relationship, be it creative or be it serviceable, is an end in itself. This is the fate of one who cannot be master, to whom there has been allotted no house of his own, no impulse towards freedom, no individually fulfilled life and activity. But it is not decreed for the German nation that it should live in a political system which is not in every 282 IN DAYS TO COME sense its own ; it is not decreed that that nation should accept a fate assigned to it by a hereditary caste, or that it should maintain institutions which endow individuals with special privileges. This nation, the most original that has ever existed, must bear witness to its own will and its own duties. If it is ever to be possible to unite, and to maintain in a single state structure, the iridescent individualisms, the fruitful contrasts of natures and interests, with which our land abounds, it will be essential that vigorous nerves and arteries should connect all the mental and bodily limbs with the central organ of decision. Then only will it be possible to achieve a balance of rights and duties, and to awaken the free energies of the nation. We have enumerated the ways by which this goal can be reached. To recapitulate, they are : the reform of political and parliamentary life ; the selection of the most competent ; the collaboration of the more intelligent members of the community in adminis- trative and political work. To promote the state's power of resistance, the most essential thing would appear to be the release of the internal tensions which to-day make the whole structure brittle and fragile. The only efficient structure is a properly organised one, whose parts are inter- connected by healthy and well-arranged sinews. Upon this organism rests all the burden of foreign pressure and of self-defence, for every healthy element desires to participate in the joint effort of self-preservation, and every such element makes itself responsible for the body and contributes its strength to the body's means. Upon it. secure and protected, the monarchy sits enthroned, uplifted above the clash of partisan wills, and joyfully upborne, because in the monarchy alone is incorporated the common weal unaffected by personal wishes, and because everyone who contemplates the monarchy is helped to become conscious of unselfish justice, of enlight- ened zeal for the service of all. Upon it rests the greatest of political goods, the effective sense of the state, inasmuch as no one feels himself to be excluded from participation in the fatherland ; inasmuch as no one who devotes himself to the service of the community suffers from the secret feeling that he is serving only a cunning stratum or class ; inasmuch as everyone enjoys a sense of solidarity and co- THE WAY OF THE WILL 283 operative responsibility, the source of that noble pride in state and monarchy which touches us from afar and is unknown to countries held in thrall. Thus from transient and political considerations we have returned to the people's state, which loomed before us as an incorporation of absolute and ethical ideas. Within the bonds ot space and time we have traversed the domain of our own immediate conditions, in so far as this concerned our heart. We have not done so as a main portion of our task. To borrow the metaphor in the legend of Antaeus, we have done so in order that contact with the soil of the homeland might reanimate the fighting idea with the force of reality. For the last time we embrace the aggregate picture of our social existence in a retrospective glance of farewell. We are borne along by the mightiest movement which affects mankind on this planet, the mechanistic movement. We traced its beginnings, thousands of years ago, in well- watered plains, on sea coasts and in river basins, where the human race settled down and population grew by myriads in Mesopotamia, on the Nile, around the Mediterranean, and in the Far East. This growth of population continued unceasingly on three continents ; the forests were cleared, and the animal realm gave ground. The striving of the individual, the horde, the tribe, for the goods of nature was unceasing ; the victorious campaign of mankind against the totality of natural forces had begun. This is what we have termed mechanisation. We live in the era of mechanisation. As a struggle with the forces of nature, it has not yet attained its acme ; but as a spiritual epoch it has passed the climax, inasmuch as it has become self-conscious. Physically regarded, it is primevally old, seeing that it is an animal struggle for food, life, and happiness ; metaphysically regarded, it is not terminal, seeing that it is the dominion of the lower spiritual force of the intellect. Mechanisation has mastered all human powers all thought and all action. In pursuit of its own mechanistic ends, it has upbuilt science and intellectual philosophy ; for self-maintenance it exploits technique, trade, organisation, and politics. 284 IN DAYS TO COME All practical thought has assumed mechanistic forms. Without exception it moves within the confines of polarity, abstraction, evolution, law, and purpose ; without exception it operates with the instruments of measurement and observa- tion. All metaphysical thought has involuntarily adopted these forms, and has imitated the movements of the purposive intellect. Religion itself, sacrificing its primitive transcen dentalism to the needs of proximate and ultimate material coordinations, works itself out in the mechanised forms of the churches and of organised efforts towards edification and salvation. The rare voices raised throughout the millenniums from India and Palestine, issuing premonitions from Hellas, and springing from the enthusiasts of medieval Germany, making their way here and there through the atmosphere of intellectual thought, have, as far as the general consciousness of the world is concerned, given rise to nothing more than precipitates of mechanised compromise. Yet thought itself, the chained titan of the world, wrestles for freedom. It recognises the necessary power of mechanisation, which is vested in the physical, and it comprehends how poor is mechanisation in transcendental force. It perceives the intuitive might of the contemplative soul, perceives the world-annulling unity of that soul, and does not shrink from the sacrifice of its own self. Mechanisa- tion lies unveiled in earthbound impotence It has sum- moned all the powers of the planets and of the sun, but only to create new masses and new work. It has chained all mankind to a common task, but only that behind the protective shield it may stimulate men to intenser mutual hostility. It has coordinated all thought and all action, but only to drive both into the abyss of unreality The unknown earth spirit whom we had served has now assumed bodily form ; soon it must submit to the seal of Solomon which will constrain it to service. Even though mechanisation performed the incredible, by arraying our spiritual, bodily, and social selves for the struggle with nature, nevertheless mechanisation was incompetent to explain for us the significance of this struggle or to master our primal impulses. Indeed, mechanisation has stimulated and misapplied to the utmost these impulses of fear, greed, selfishness, and hate everything which disintegrates the THE WAY OF THE WILL 285 everlasting spirit for the deception of the ego and its dominion The forms of rapine, wealth, struggle, and slavery, have been befogged and eternalised by mechanism as nameless need. As allurement and menace, mechanisation granted us deprivation and enjoyment, the cold ideals of duty and the makeshifts of intellectual philosophy, the heavenly reflection of our earthly hell, or nothing. The sense of our being has awakened in us independently of purpose and of thought. It is the essence, the growth, and the life, of the soul. Independently of purpose and will, we examine the nature of mechanisation, and at the core of the earthbound work of nature control we recognise a true good, which had been granted to us, but which we have failed to perceive owing to the indistinctness of its outlines. The struggle of mechanisation for the conquest of nature is a struggle of the whole of mankind. All previous endeavour was the work of the individual, the family, the caste, or the tribe. Thus were the wild beasts driven back ; thus were the wastes reclaimed ; thus was the sea conquered. But in the united struggle of the forces of man with the forces of nature, the totality of human existence must participate ; the planetary spirit is struggling as an integer. Practically and obviously, mechanisation has worked on this presupposition. It has welded the human unities in millionfold organisations ; it has bound them in chains forged out of ether, air, water, and metal ; it has united the remotest bodies and the remotest spirits for common action. In spirit, however, it has not recognised the nature of the union and of the communal activity, for it continues to avail itself of the primevally old and slavish stimuli and instincts which take the form of struggle and severance. Covetousness and selfishness, hatred, envy, and enmity, the furies' scourges of primitive ages and of the animal realm, keep the mechanism of our world in motion, separating man from man, community from community. The tears of faith are dried up in the fire of the mechanistic will, and the words of priests must accommodate themselves to the ministry of hate. Chained in the galley, we hew one another to pieces, although it is our bark which we are rowing, and our struggle on whose behalf it set forth. Yet as surely as we know that the awakening soul is the 286 IN DAYS TO COME divine sanctuary for which we live and are, that love is the redeemer who will liberate our innermost good and will weld us to a higher unity, just so surely do we recognise in the inevitable world-struggle of mechanisation the one essential the will towards unity. In so far as we oppose to mechanisation the token at which it pales, namely, transcendental philosophy, spiritual devotion, faith in the absolute ; in so far as we illumine the true nature of mechanis- ation, reaching out to the secret core of the will to unity so far shall mechanisation be dethroned, and constrained to service. We are learning how to see Not for the sake of a subsistence wage, not for the devil's happiness of mere enjoyment and vanity, not for the sake of sloth, selfishness, and freedom from responsibility, shall we barter away the dignity of our manhood and the life of our soul. We are striving for the unity and solidarity of the human common- wealth, for the unity of spiritual responsibility and divine confidence. Woe to the race and to its future should it remain deaf to the voice of conscience ; should it still be petrified in materialistic apathy ; should it rest content with tinsel ; should it submit to the bondage of selfishness and hate. We are not here for the sake of possessions, nor for the sake of power, nor for the sake of happiness ; we are here that we may elucidate the divine elements in the human spirit. Printed in Great Britain by CKWIH BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE r.RESHAM PRESS, WOKIXC AND LONDON UMVERSI1 * ; CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamr ' University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. Ki'C'DLD-URl THK LIBRARY OF uoucge Library HN U9 R18vE A 001 102 025 2