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THE 
 ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 AND OTHER ESSAYS 
 R. M. WENLEY 
 
 Professor of Philosophy 
 in the University of Michigan 
 
 Hi3 
 
 RICHARD G. BADGER 
 
 22n;» (Soriiaffl 9»0b 
 
 BOSTON 
 
Copyright, 1913, by Richard G. Badger 
 
 All Rights Reserved 
 
 The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A. 
 
h 
 
 n ... 
 
 I. M. 
 
 J. M. W. 
 
 (1892-1911) 
 
 Opianda mors est, sine metu mortis m§rt 
 
 464 
 
PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 THESE papers must be taken for what 
 they are, — occasional lectures and ad- 
 dresses. The Anarchist Ideal was read 
 to Quadrangle and to The Club, Ann 
 Arbor (1910). Plutarch and His Age is sub- 
 stantially one of the Carew Lectures, delivered 
 before Hartford Theological Seminary, Hartford, 
 Connecticut (1899). The Movement Towards 
 * Physiological ' Psychology was presented to the 
 Academy of Medicine, Detroit, Michigan (1907). 
 Heredity and Education: Some Facts and Some 
 Guesses was read at the annual meeting of the 
 Michigan Schoolmasters' Club (1909). The 
 University in the United States is the substance of 
 an address to The Circle, Harrogate, Yorks, Eng- 
 land (1906). 
 
 The title paper Is printed for the first time. 
 The others have appeared respectively in The 
 New World (Boston; June, 1900) ; The Popular 
 Science Monthly (New York; May, July, August, 
 September, 1908) ; The Journal of the Michigan 
 Schoolmasters^ Club (Ann Arbor; March, 19 10) ; 
 and The University Review (London; May, 
 1907). 
 
6 PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 I may add that, just as the sheets were passing 
 through press, I had an opportunity to examine 
 Mr. F. M. Cornford's From Religion to Philoso- 
 phy, a Study in the Origins of Western Speculation 
 (London, 19 12). This vigorous work serves to 
 show that the ideas after which I had been grop- 
 ing — often blindly enough — four years ago, in 
 the second part of the title paper, are by no means 
 devoid of basis. 
 
CONTENTS 
 I 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Anarchist Ideal 9 
 
 II 
 
 Plutarch and His Age 72 
 
 III 
 
 The Movement Towards 'Physiolog- 
 ical' Psychology 117 
 
 IV 
 
 Heredity and Education: Some Facts 
 and Some Guesses 189 
 
 V 
 The University in the United States 230 
 
THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 Mist is under and mist above, . . . 
 And we drift on legends for ever, 
 
 Ullam Appietatem ant Lentulitatem 
 valere apud me plus quam ornamenta 
 virtutis existimasf 
 
 ANARCHIST utoplanism is no recent 
 importation from bureaucratic Russia 
 or volatile Italy. Were it needful to 
 drive this platitude home, one could cite 
 Emerson, with his '* the timidity of our public 
 opinion is our disease, or shall I say, the public- 
 ness of opinion, the absence of private opinion " ; 
 or Thoreau On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, 
 with his " I quietly declare war with the State 
 after my fashion ... it must always be unpatri- 
 otic to take your Government's side against your 
 country; " or even Herbert Spencer, drab by com- 
 parison, with his " Government, begotten of ag- 
 gression and by aggression, ever continues to be- 
 tray its original nature by aggression." These be 
 opinions of yesterday. On the other hand, an- 
 archist sentiment runs back to the dim verges of 
 Greek history. So long as mankind has been prone 
 
 9 
 
10 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 to idealise, so long some men could not but ex- 
 claim, " Each of us is a world's history for him- 
 self ... we are free from what we are rid of." 
 The perpetual emigration of fact to hope, the im- 
 migration, almost as perpetual, of hope to fact, 
 Imply no less. And It is Important to note that we 
 uncover a contrast, not between an * eternal yea ' 
 and an ' eternal nay,' not even between a temporal 
 * yea ' and an eternal ' nay,' but between a tem- 
 poral and an eternal * yea.' Whether we revert 
 to the Cynics, the Stoics, the Anabaptists, the Puri- 
 tans and Locke, the Virginians, the eighteenth cen- 
 tury Radicals, hypnotised by Rousseau (whom 
 Plutarch's Lycurgus misled), or to contemporary 
 propagandists, protestantism and Insurgency — 
 that Is, revolt against present institutions and legal- 
 ities — characterise all. And, at the moment, the 
 temporal element jostles us with such insistent 
 familiarity that we cannot place reliance upon our 
 own judgment. Accordingly, we may obtain a 
 juster view If we drop current controversies, and 
 return to a past where we can observe the conflict 
 without partlzanship, undismayed by the apostles of 
 denial, unpersuaded by the subtle charm of the 
 laudator temports acti. Besides, thanks to the 
 simplicity of their economic arrangements, as well 
 as to their intellectual curiosity, there is a profound 
 sense in which we may venture to reaffirm, that 
 " the Greeks walk in light." 
 
THE ANARCHIST IDEAL ii 
 
 Readers of Plutarch will recall that, In his 
 Life of Solon, he makes the sage distinguish be- 
 tween an Ideal order and a practicable system of 
 law, between a perfect scheme and a workable 
 compromise designed to meet a special situation. 
 
 " Yet, though Solon refused the government, he 
 was not too mild In the affair: he did not show 
 himself mean and submissive to the powerful, nor 
 make law to pleasure those that chose him. For 
 where It was well before, he applied no remedy, 
 nor altered anything, for fear lest 
 
 Overthrowing altogether and disordering the state, 
 
 he should be too weak to new-model and recom- 
 pense It to a tolerable condition; but what he 
 thought he could effect by persuasion upon the 
 pliable, and by force upon the stubborn, this he 
 did, as he himself says. 
 
 With force and justice working both in one. 
 
 And, therefore, when he was afterwards asked 
 If he had given the Athenians the best laws that 
 could be given, he replied, * The best they could 
 receive.' . . . Solon, fitting his laws to the state 
 of things, and not making things to suit his laws 
 . . . ordered the Areopagites to examine how 
 every man got his living, and chastise the idle.** 
 
12 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 As elsewhere, so here, Plutarch Is anything but 
 critical. Still, there Is no good reason to doubt 
 that, even In the first decade of the sixth century, 
 men had noted vaguely the contrast between ideal 
 and actual systems, destined to exert such potent 
 Influence on the fortunes of the race later. In 
 Greece, Rome, post-Reformation Europe, and the 
 United States of America. Nevertheless, we 
 have every reason to suspect that the perfect sys- 
 tem of Solon's vision belonged to a divine rather 
 than to a human world. For, although the con- 
 ception of Nomos, unknown to Homer, had been 
 formulated, hazily enough, perhaps, yet the Ho- 
 meric notion of Themis, meaning the Goddess of 
 Justice, and not prescriptive as opposed to statute 
 law, continued to permeate- the Greek mind for 
 at least a century and a half. Many winds were 
 to ruflle the Piraeus ere the opposition between 
 Nomos and Phusis, the law of the Legislature and 
 the law of Nature, could set Issues that still sur- 
 vive — and shout — In the Ideal of latter-day 
 Anarchism. 
 
 Like others elsewhere In all ages, the Greeks of 
 the period ' before the war ' were swayed by many 
 motives In moral conduct. Thus, I suppose, they 
 sometimes anticipated tangible rewards, for judi- 
 cious observance — human amity, divine favour 
 may be; or again, with the better sort, the vulgar- 
 ity of excess, possibly the aesthetic measure of pro- 
 
THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 13 
 
 priety, told Its tale ; or, in other cases, * legal ' mor- 
 ality, customary usage, and the like, pointed the 
 strait gate; or, once more, the pleasure of esteem 
 and the horror of public odium may have influ- 
 enced not a few. But, whatever the immediate 
 impulse, reason had not come to strip motives bare, 
 to wag scornful finger at their lack or surplusage. 
 Hellas had not felt the joy and terror of holding 
 the mirror up to her own nature. The experience 
 was nigh, however. The keen stimulus, destined 
 to tempt Athens 
 
 " To cast the kingdoms old 
 Into another mould," 
 
 overtook her almost like a thief in the night. 
 Emotion ran high in the pregnant years of the 
 Persian war. Thereafter, as with Elizabethan 
 England, national consciousness knew itself; the 
 responsibilities, triumphs and makeshifts of em- 
 pire forced new phases of justice and injustice upon 
 the citizen. At length, the mysterious, cloud- 
 capped righteousness of ^schylus stepped down 
 from Olympus to inhabit the Pnyx. The Just and 
 the Unjust Arguments of Aristophanes were no ab- 
 stract personifications bred by poetic license, but 
 transcripts of * Causes ' debated hourly and every- 
 where by the facile, eager Athenians. Briefly, an 
 age of transition was sweeping Greece, Attica par- 
 ticularly. As often since, plain men were puzzled 
 
14 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 by " the decay and death of a regulative system 
 no longer fit, before another and fitter regulative 
 system has grown up to replace it.'* The ' in- 
 tellectuals ' proclaimed the dizzy matter without 
 compunction and without thought for the morrow. 
 Hippias, as Plato reports, put the question in a 
 nutshell : " All of you who are here present I 
 reckon to be kinsmen and friends and fellow-citi- 
 zens, by nature and not by law; for by nature like 
 is akin to like, whereas law is the tyrant of man- 
 kind, and often compels us to do many things 
 which are against nature." Law, the issue of 
 human convention, is the source of bane ; but ' Na- 
 ture,' decked in sweet simplicity, offers the anti- 
 dote. Therefore, appeal to something higher than 
 law excuses revolt. 
 
 When we come to search for foregleams of 
 recent Anarchism in this hellenic movement, we 
 find that three ' moments ' sway its immediate 
 history. They are: prst^ the Sophists (especially 
 Gorgias and Hippias, so far as evidence permits 
 us to affirm now); second, Socrates; third, the 
 Cynics. Everyone is aware that Socrates was in- 
 comparably the most important for the progress of 
 theory and practice alike. Accordingly, he must 
 occupy the centre of our stage. But, even so, he, 
 and the Sophists, will appear as forerunners of 
 Antisthenes and his kind. 
 
 (i) Gorgias of Leontini, a small town nearby 
 
THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 15 
 
 Syracuse, arrived at Athens, on an embassy, in 
 ,427 B. C. It is on record that he impressed the 
 Athenians profoundly by his skill in public speech, 
 although one must confess that such tags of his 
 talk as are extant render it difficult to see why. 
 He was a professor of the ' art of persuasion.' 
 Like his race always, he suffered from the myopia 
 of anti-intellectualism ; the proper study of Man- 
 kind is man — this gave the substance of the mes- 
 sage. In a word, opportunism was heralded as 
 the rule of life. Pat questions about social and 
 political affairs — the ordinary material for such 
 discussions ever since in free communities — were 
 ventilated. No system was forthcoming but new 
 and seductive ideas found mouthpiece. More- 
 over, there were Sophists and Sophists, just as, 
 among ourselves, there are lawyers and lawyers, 
 from the faithful family adviser to the village 
 shyster who will do anything for fifty dollars. 
 Their business, then, was adroit treatment of cur- 
 rent catchwords : — What is the State ? What is 
 Law? What is Justice? What is Concord? 
 More theoretically, What is Knowledge? What 
 is Truth? And, as a necessary accompaniment, in 
 times when printing was not, they polished the ve- 
 hicle of communication — words and the spoken 
 tongue, or correct and elegant speech. 
 
 It is evident that these sophistic problems cover 
 a vast range, and include subjects which, in modern 
 
1 6 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 practice, would be assigned to inquirers whose sev- 
 eral preparations may, usually do, diverge greatly. 
 Of course, this is a consequence of the minute sub- 
 division of society. And, when it comes to ques- 
 tions concerning the relation of the citizen to the 
 State, one contrast assumes paramount importance. 
 * Private ' life, as we conceive it, had small place 
 in the Greek world. Athens was the Athenian's 
 country, the source of his most elevating tradi- 
 tions; his nation, the fount of his most inspiriting 
 conceptions; his church, the guardian of his finest 
 hopes. From Athens flowed the ideals worth 
 while, the opportunities which, just because he was 
 her citizen, rendered him the highest conceivable 
 type possible for man. On the other hand, his 
 State claimed his time, intelligence, service — his 
 entire life even — in fair compensation for the in- 
 estimable advantages bestowed. There were no 
 men then, only Athenians. And, if this attitude 
 came to clear consciousness so late as the famous 
 Funeral Oration of Pericles, there is a sense in 
 which it had been formative time out of mind, 
 and all over Greece. Plutarch's account of the 
 constitution of Lycurgus, for instance, indicates 
 the ' private ' scope of Greek legislation, like 
 some applications of the term Draconian among 
 ourselves. There were rules for personal mor- 
 ality, rules for physical and mental discipline, 
 rules to prevent misbehaviour of adults with chil- 
 
THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 17 
 
 dren, sumptuary regulations, marriage regulations, 
 and civil disabilities based on matters that we 
 should deem entirely, or almost entirely, our own 
 affair. Inevitably, this attitude, born of centuries, 
 died hard. Even so late as Aristotle we find the 
 remark, that many arrogated to themselves a com- 
 plete knowledge of justice on the narrow basis of 
 acquaintance with the code of their own city. Ac- 
 cordingly, law, and the maxims of lawgivers, came, 
 not only to possess an Importance, but also to take 
 a sweep altogether unfamiliar to us. Plato was 
 perfectly definite on this point years ere he sat 
 down to construct his ideal or his real State. 
 '* When they have done with masters, the state 
 again compels them to learn the laws, and live 
 after the pattern which they furnish, and not after 
 their own fancies. . . . These are given to the 
 young man, in order to guide his conduct whether 
 as ruler or ruled; and he who transgresses them is 
 to be corrected, or, in other words, called to ac- 
 count." It is easy to see, then, that conditions 
 were assembled for the pertinent inquiry. Is the 
 good citizen necessarily the good man — are le- 
 gality and morality identical? The problem 
 awaited the fateful moment, which arrived in 
 season. 
 
 Seeing that the State overshadowed other social 
 institutions, notably the family, changes within its 
 organisation were bound to entail important moral 
 
1 8 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 effects. The codification of Draco (621 B. C.) 
 inevitably produced a distinction between usage, or 
 custom blessed of the gods (the original sense of 
 Dike), and statute (its secondary meaning). As 
 is obvious, the former contained an implicit sug- 
 gestion of the ' higher law ' that came to be ex- 
 plicit afterwards in ' Nature.* It speaks volumes 
 for the strength of Greek religious sanctions, inter- 
 twined with all ' rightness,' whether customary or 
 legal, that open conflict between the implications 
 of ' higher ' and ' lower ' justice did not super- 
 vene till 181 years after Draco, in Sophocles' An- 
 tigone (440 B.C.). Naturally, many earlier 
 references * tremble on the verge,' the most note- 
 worthy, perhaps, in iEschylus' (471 B.C.), 
 Seven Against Thebes (cf. 646 f.). But Sopho- 
 cles was no anarchist, he rather filled the role of 
 high priest in poetry. Yet, it is to be remembered 
 that, two years before the production of Antigone, 
 Euripides gained the tragic prize for the first time ; 
 and, with him, the conflict between ' Nature ' and 
 ' Law,' the unwritten ' higher ' and the written 
 * lower ' command, became a commonplace of the 
 stage, because it had become a commonplace of 
 the streets. And Euripides was of one blood 
 with the Sophists. 
 
 Carlyle's famous saying, that the rise of philoso- 
 phy marks a stage of decline in a people's life, 
 gains its speciousness from the history of Greek 
 
THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 19 
 
 civilisation. But in this, as In much else, Greece 
 was unique. Less than 170 years separate Mara- 
 thon from the biers of Aristotle and Alexander 
 the Great. The martial rise of Hellas, her unex- 
 ampled bloom In politics and art and literature 
 and philosophy, her unholy civil strife, followed 
 by her material collapse, and then by her spiritual 
 supremacy over the Mediterranean world, from 
 Rome to Caesarea PhlllppI, — ay, and farther East, 
 from Alexandria to Aspendus, — Its great theatre 
 still bearing witness In stupendous ruin, — succeed 
 each other In a perfect riot of bewildering changes. 
 When Pericles died (429 B. C.) she stood at the 
 cross-roads already, the old order sinking apace, 
 the new glimmering fitfully. The sophistic move- 
 ment reflected her Indecision, and In two ways. 
 On the one hand, it revealed the compromises and 
 contradictions that beset current standards in prac- 
 tical affairs: on the other. It flogged the failure 
 of the previous ' physical * philosophy, which had 
 cast little, If any, light upon the clamant problems 
 of ethics and politics. But, although the Sophists 
 sowed abundant tares of doubt In the harvests of 
 morals and society, they were by no means averse 
 to share the easy fruits of both. Compromise 
 governed them. They lacked the earnestness to 
 be thorough with either. Enamoured of super- 
 ficial culture, they clutched anything that came to 
 hand, and, indeed, might be termed the Euphuists 
 
20 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 of their day. Set upon gorgeous form, solid mat- 
 ter could not but hamper them. In the first place, 
 then, they gave free tongue to the incompatibility 
 between Individual Independence and the civic ob- 
 ligations, so meddling (as we should say) In Hel- 
 las. And one prominent figure at least — HIppias 
 ' — advocated a return to the self-sufficiency of 
 ' Nature ' almost In the accent of Rousseau. But, 
 what is ' Nature ' ? This asked, a second turn of 
 the sophistic kaleidoscope seems to occur. The 
 subtle polemic of Gorglas against the Eleatic One 
 — that Is, against the Reality wherein all things 
 live and move and have their being — was an as- 
 sault upon an objective, physical substratum whence 
 everything (psychical processes like the rest) 
 emerged. Thus, while Gorglas exorcised the oc- 
 cult, he stimulated men — unconsciously — to 
 obtain a positive content for ' Nature ' from rea- 
 son. The One was not abolished. It cannot be 
 abolished; Its venue was transferred merely. 
 ' Nature,' now as the ' wise man,* with heavy 
 stress on ' wise,' displaced the entity of Parmen- 
 Ides, not in the teaching of Gorglas probably, but 
 in the pragmatic voluntarism of his greatest 
 pupil, Antlsthenes. Accordingly, the Sophists 
 advanced Anarchy by two steps. They bared 
 the transitory and local character of many * legal ' 
 obligations, indicating that, as a consequence, the 
 demands of citizenship led often to infractions of 
 
THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 21 
 
 a ' higher ' law, entangling and bemusing individu- 
 ality. This is the negative element. But no neg- 
 ative is without a positive. Hence, they also ex- 
 alted the individual and, by their very contempt 
 for the old objective science, hinted that the ulti- 
 mate regulative order might be enshrined in his 
 person. He Is the * higher,' and ' Nature,' the 
 Ideal, may derive form and comeliness from him. 
 (2) The second force In the Greek movement 
 towards anarchist Ideals sprang from the person 
 of Socrates. And here we must have heed lest 
 pitfalls entrap us. Hear the note of tense emo- 
 tion that vibrates in those winged words from the 
 Crito : " Our country is . . . higher and holier 
 than mother or father . . . when we are punished 
 by her . . . the punishment Is to be endured In 
 silence. . . . Whether in battle or in a court of 
 law, or In any other place, the citizen must do what 
 his city and his country order him. . . . This Is 
 the voice which I seem to hear murmuring in my 
 ears, like the sound of the flute in the ears of the 
 mystic." No anarchist this. Far rather a just 
 man, who preserved intact the old Greek consecra- 
 tion of citizen to State, with Its devout assent to 
 the will of the tutelary deity. Nevertheless, Soc- 
 rates was a genius who, towering above lesser folk, 
 revealed many aspects, not simply of a rich char- 
 acter, but also of a complicated civilisation redo- 
 lent of a strange past. Hence, If a man will only 
 
22 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 fathom his own nature, recalling Its representative 
 function, then he will know the doctrine, and, as a 
 pendant, know how to serve the gods. In a 
 word, sanctions tend to become subjective and per- 
 sonal with Socrates: to this extent his accusers 
 were right. Individual wisdom, not current cus- 
 tom, offers the clue to righteousness, even if civic 
 habituation remain indispensable for mastery of 
 self. And individual wisdom may well revert to 
 convictions long lost by the general consciousness. 
 As a result, then, virtue is a kind of self-knowl- 
 edge. But, even so, the knowledge of virtue is 
 communicated through the State. Where the 
 legal is the moral, it cannot be otherwise. The 
 State has a single reason for existence — to en- 
 noble men morally. But the State manifests it- 
 self In men; hence, "as a matter of justice, the 
 man who knows not what he ought to know should 
 be content to sit at the feet of those who know, 
 and be taught." Of course, appeal is thus car- 
 ried to the ' wise man.' Yet this type, as Socra- 
 tes thought, learns wisdom, not simply from phil- 
 osophy, but through habituation in society. If 
 only the wise were the governors, the State would 
 be regenerated. With reference to the State as it 
 is, Socrates fails to condescend upon specific re- 
 forms. And a society whose kings are philoso- 
 phers is, unfortunately, no prescription for a so- 
 ciety whose leaders must continue to be ' ward poli- 
 
THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 23 
 
 ticians.' In the Issue, then, despite his emphasis 
 upon education, Socrates did not reveal how the 
 actual Athens might once more merit the confi- 
 dence shaken so sorely by the trend of events. 
 The rift between city and citizen was not stayed, 
 far less closed. 
 
 Inevitably, then, some turned to Socrates' ' wise 
 man,' forgetful of his perfect commonwealth. 
 The one is objective, and might be identified with 
 a person, or, at all events, with certain traits of a 
 person, especially if a Socrates walked the streets. 
 The other is a city not built with hands, 
 
 " As from beyond the limit of the world, 
 Like the last echo born of a great cry." 
 
 Preserve the Image of the vital teacher, whom 
 martyrdom has glorified: heighten his goodness 
 just a hair's breadth and, more than likely, you 
 already have the sage as he ought to be, able to 
 save to the uttermost. By this process precisely, 
 the ' Imperfect ' Socratics, picking and choosing 
 according to their hearts' desire, made a * three- 
 quarter's man ' of Socrates, and then took this 
 torso for an incarnation of the whqle truth in moral 
 conduct. The immediate issue was not doubtful. 
 A new virtue, unexampled In kind possibly, must 
 be created. But, the moment we speak, of a 
 * new ' or * unexampled ' virtue, a paradox assails 
 us. History attests that the dumb masses grasp 
 
24 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 the external accompaniments of morality with com- 
 parative ease. The Internal or spiritual mood ap- 
 peals to the few. Consequently, the ' new ' — al- 
 ways Internal primarily — must needs embody it- 
 self with reference to some contemporary move- 
 ment, usually unconscious In character, ere it can 
 win to power. For example, Rousseau and Ben- 
 tham alike taught a ' new virtue.' But, in both 
 cases, It would have lain cloistered with the liter- 
 ary or philosophical minority had it not found local 
 habitation amid French social and British political 
 tendencies. In proportion as It coincided with the 
 drift of historical circumstances, in economics and 
 legislation mainly, it came to exercise specific in- 
 fluence over the French and English peoples. 
 That is, the ' new ' grew ' old ' ere it attached 
 adherents at large. And this is merely to assert 
 that aspects of the dynamic person of Rousseau, 
 of the dynamic doctrine of Bentham, were selected 
 and stereotyped — then, and then alone, they ex- 
 erted leverage. Reduce the ' new ' to a static 
 form, and It may succeed with the crowd : attempt 
 to preserve it entire In its elusive vitality, and it 
 must remain the secret of the elect. This neces- 
 sary process had remarkable Illustration In the case 
 of Socrates, thanks to his seminal person. So far 
 as he could be absorbed into certain movements of 
 contemporary society — * old ' before his time — 
 he left an Immediate mark in the Cynics and, 
 
THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 25 
 
 through them, a profound readjustment of moral 
 values, motivated chiefly by the Stoics and, later, 
 by the Neo-Cynics of the Roman Empire. On 
 the contrary, in so far as his total person was 
 caught and transfigured by the immortal Plato, the 
 power of the ' new virtue ' had much less prac- 
 tical effect. For, as everyone knows, Plato's 
 monumental spirit has always been mediatorial, 
 but between cultivated men only — men who can 
 be in dead earnest without suffering themselves to 
 become enemies. 
 
 Postponing any attempt at analysis of the Cynic- 
 anarchist ideal for the moment, and confining at- 
 tention to the more or less conventional view of 
 Greek history, Socrates, the familiar of the market- 
 place, seems to have impressed his disciples, Plato 
 conspicuous by exception, in three ways. His en- 
 durance, with its non-Greek touches of asceticism; 
 his independence, with its non-Greek tendency to 
 rise above the State; and his ' inner light,' with its 
 non-Greek hints of a ' higher law,' set over the 
 rules of the city, struck them. Here his real orig- 
 inality was displayed, they thought. 
 
 No doubt, the hellenic Ideal, of a " spiritual na- 
 ture unfolded in strict unity with the body," to 
 adopt Emerson's phrase, received a fatal shock in 
 Socrates. Not that he set the ascetic style. But 
 he felt the burden of life — and consciously. In 
 the circumstances, it could not be otherwise. 
 
26 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 There was something to be borne ; willy-nilly, one 
 must, nay ought to, bear up under it. Things be- 
 ing as they are, endurance enables a man at once 
 to command and to release his inward individu- 
 ality. It was this element of release, of freedom, 
 that appealed to the Cynics and, through them, 
 came to be a transitive force in hellenistic concep- 
 tions of the moral life afterwards. The Socratic 
 implication Is that the highest good is circum- 
 scribed. It Is relative to events; these, in turn, must 
 be mended or ended. According to this interpre- 
 tation of Socrates, the Ideal Inevitably escapes the 
 group-life, which Is always snared in temporary 
 entanglements. Therefore, good becomes the 
 peculiar privilege of the individual, as the Cynics 
 and Stoics taught. Abstract the Socratic endur- 
 ance from the State, In relation to which alone the 
 Master deemed It could be exercised, and it offers 
 a means of escape from this present evil world. 
 Pointedly, it is an end in itself, and for every 
 man by himself. At this, anarchy Is not far off. 
 Nevertheless, Socrates never carried internalism 
 to such extremes. For him well- and ill-doing 
 implied specific adjustments. These presupposed 
 obedience to the laws of the city as the *' gift of 
 the gods, the resolutions of wise men." But, in 
 the absence of a direct Socratic system, independ- 
 ence might be Interpreted as contempt for these 
 very civic rules. And the Cynics, so understand- 
 
THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 27 
 
 ing it, found abundant justification of anarchy* 
 Thus, in respect of Socratic endurance and inde- 
 pendence, they stereotyped the Master, bringing 
 him down to an obvious level. It is highly signif- 
 icant that the same can hardly be said of the doc- 
 trine of the *' inner light." 
 
 The daily duties of the average Greek citizen 
 had a character of their own. They found em- 
 bodiment in certain ceremonial observances, in the 
 performance of obligations to the city, to fellow- 
 citizens, and to the hellenic ethos; as such, they 
 sufficed — reflection did not bite into them. The 
 avowed cardinal virtues betray this openly. In 
 proportion as the duties were specific and de- 
 manded personal obedience or devotion, they lim- 
 ited the scope of moral activity and, likely enough, 
 the liveliness of self-sacrifice. For, regular con- 
 formity might simulate piety, obedience justice, 
 assertiveness courage, and so forth. Thus, we 
 must not wonder to find Socrates facing two ways. 
 On the one hand, he often emphasised the spirit 
 as against the cant letter of moral commonplace. 
 And the point to be noted is that, in this contrast, 
 his reliance upon the Daimon was essentially an 
 appeal to a ' higher law.' Xenophon presents the 
 case with some detail in the famous fourth chapter 
 of the fourth book of the Memorabilia. Here 
 Socrates retorts upon Hippias, the Sophist: " I am 
 in a chronic condition of proclaiming what I re- 
 
28 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 gard as just and upright." And, when Hippias 
 says : " I do not catch what you mean by lawful 
 and just," Socrates explains that the ' upright ' 
 and * just ' are the ' lawful ' and the ' law-ob- 
 servant,' adding, however, an immediate reference 
 to '' certain unwritten lav/s," with the suggestion 
 that they must be divine, not man-made. This is 
 simply the contrast between human motive 
 (gnome) arid unforeseen divine agencies 
 (Tuche), made familiar by Thucydides. In the 
 course of the subsequent conversation, these 
 ' higher laws ' ai*e specified as follows: first, It is 
 a custom everywhere to worship and reverence the 
 gods ; second, To honour parents is also customary 
 everywhere; third. So is prohibition of marriage 
 between parents and children; fourth, It is a cus- 
 tom universally to return good for good, and kind- 
 ness with kindness. Observe, these are not laws 
 known to be of human enactment; they originate in 
 the * nature of things,' and therefore are the work 
 of the gods. This reference to the gods serves 
 to show that, in the judgment of Socrates, the first 
 provision was the ground of the others. And 
 Xenophon takes care to stress this by the declara- 
 tion, put on the lips of Hippias at the close of the 
 discussion: "Yes, Socrates. In all these cases, I 
 admit, there is an implication of divine authority 
 ... a higher than human type of legislator." 
 Thus, in one aspect of it, the Daimon was an 
 
THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 29 
 
 Index to the moral attitude maintained by Socra- 
 tes. It sealed him as a co-worker with the gods, 
 as one not simply attentive to their ritualistic wor- 
 ship, but rather as a chosen vehicle of their veri- 
 table spirit — and, accordingly, elevated above 
 ' common ' law, the real sting In the charges that 
 led to his condemnation. Hence the doctrine, that 
 the human soul, so far as It assimilates Itself to the 
 divine, becomes similarly authoritative. This con- 
 ception had been abroad more or less for a cen- 
 tury at least and, as we shall see. It may Intimate 
 more than ' settled opinion ' about Greek history 
 permits meantime. Now, the practical bearing 
 of such self-likening to deity needs no comment. 
 Briefly, the Daimon Is the living witness to an In- 
 ternal revelation from the gods which, being di- 
 vine, justifies abrogation or extension of the cus- 
 tomary code of the State. 
 
 " Therefore a new conception of the soul 
 Springs of itself; a self-authority 
 Within the reason, self-condemnatory 
 Indeed (if those old premises, proved false. 
 Were still maintained as standpoint of debate), 
 But by the inward dialogue self-proved 
 Final, demonic, In best sense divine." 
 
 Evidently, it Is impossible to square this with 
 Xenophon's plain contention, — even were his wish 
 father to the thought, — that Socrates was a law- 
 
30 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 abiding citizen, a man of ' orthodox ' piety. Pos- 
 sibly, contemporary conditions help to unravel the 
 tangle. The inscriptions of the age, which reflect 
 the popular consciousness, and never lie, suffice to 
 prove that the sanctions of religion had lost vi- 
 tality somewhat. Conformity was Indeed general, 
 nay, emphatic to the point of reaction or obscur- 
 antism. Yet, formalism had marked the Greek 
 for its own. Vows were being paid, honours were 
 being rendered — to self rather than to the divin- 
 ities. Ancient traditions were too crude for re- 
 adjustment to the best mind of a people whose 
 mental alertness has become proverbial. The 
 State, reposing upon divine authority, slackened 
 its grip as Its psychical basis receded more and 
 more into the impenetrable darkness of a mean- 
 ingless past. Socrates* frequent appeal to utility 
 in matters ethical appears to tell that he had 
 sensed the vanity of recourse to tradition or to 
 statute. But he was too tense a soul by far to 
 leave morals at the mercy of mere prudential cal- 
 culation. Hence the " inner light '* of the Daimon 
 did not consist in any simple return to a faith once 
 delivered to the saints, or in a fatuous assertion of 
 an " eternal not-ourselves that makes for right- 
 eousness." On the contrary, the voice he con- 
 tinually heard murmuring in his ears seemed to 
 him the guardian and the guarantee of a new, oh- 
 jective well-being. Nay, he marked an epoch 
 
THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 31 
 
 precisely because he held that Reason can, and 
 must, Illuminate morality by stating Its nature In 
 unequivocal terms. Accordingly, the ethical reve- 
 lation of Reason, backed by the conviction of its 
 religious sanction, constitute at once his originality 
 and the secret of his incalculable influence. 
 
 " Might I not in converse yet explain them 
 The loftier definition and so serve 
 The cause of clear conception in the mind 
 By leading men each to commune alone 
 With self and so experience in self . . . 
 The truth- assurance, hear the voice divine? 
 For thus were I conclusive of mankind, 
 The continuity of other men. 
 Their growth, their self-persuasion, guarantee 
 And w^arrant of authority as truth: 
 Outvi^ardly, as inwardly, that very voice ! " 
 
 This attitude embraces two factors. On the 
 one side, in its Insistence that men must act from 
 the highest principle, it refers to a social whole 
 wherein the many share. On the other side. In its 
 insistence upon the necessity for rational conscious- 
 ness of motives, it exalts the Individual, and tends 
 to minimise the element of goodness present even 
 in naive respectability. As with true genius al- 
 ways, the universal and the Individual confront 
 each other, preferring a characteristic demand for 
 a four-square reckoning. In the person of Socra- 
 
32 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 tes, the Individual went under. How about those 
 who took his name? As circumstances then were, 
 the obvious Interpretation of his doctrine lay In a 
 choice between the two, not In an elucidation of 
 the principle of their Indivisible unity. Xenophon 
 were proof enough, and, just here, he misses the 
 ' historical ' Socrates ! Moreover, thanks again 
 to circumstances, the choice could hardly fall to 
 fasten upon the Individual element. For, as we 
 all know, periods recur when the reformer, de- 
 spite his Intent, Is fated to be construed as if he 
 understood his favourite text — whatever Is not 
 of faith Is sin — only In the antlnomlan, protestant 
 sense. This was to be the sequel now. 
 
 (3) Hence Cynic anarchism merits attention, 
 not as a system, but as an extreme development in 
 practice. It pushes the Inner logic of a situation 
 to a point where balance goes by the board. The 
 sophistic movement, and the political confusion of 
 Greece are taken to warrant the dissolution of all, 
 or nearly all, social bonds. In like manner, the 
 endurance of Socrates becomes contemptuous re- 
 jection of the * resources of civilisation; ' his inde- 
 pendence, bereft of ethical intent, turns to de- 
 fiance ; while his * higher law ' proves a naked ap- 
 peal to untamed ' Nature,' and his confidence in 
 Reason excuses many a caprice. But, even so. 
 Cynicism held the public eye for a time and, if 
 we are to do it justice, in our effort to disentangle 
 
THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 33 
 
 its ideal, we must see it in the light of its environ- 
 ment. 
 
 Ere we proceed, notice that our knowledge of 
 the sect is of the scantiest. The writings have 
 nigh disappeared, and we are dependent upon late 
 reports, salted with gossip and scandal, or upon 
 the incidental remarks of contemporaries who were 
 inimical or contemptuous. Nor can we neglect 
 another, most symptomatic, fact. None of the 
 Cynic leaders were Attic by nature, one alone by 
 nurture. Nay, they came from the fringes of 
 hellenic culture. Antisthenes, the founder, had 
 an Athenian to father; but his mother was a 
 Phrygian slave, and he received his education at 
 the Cynosarges, the school for the base-born. As 
 for the rest, they recall the multitude come to- 
 gether on the day of Pentecost — " out of every 
 nation under heaven." Boeotia, Cyrenaica, Egypt, 
 Galilee, Lydia, Pamphylia, Paphlagonia, Sicily, 
 Northern Syria, and Thrace, to say nothing of 
 the cities of the Peloponnese, contribute their 
 'quota. In a word, the sacred municipal traditions, 
 the sobering privileges no less, must have sat loose 
 to these colonial, slave and ' asianised ' men, some 
 few of them Metics, but most mere vagrant tran- 
 sients in the classical centre of hellenic achieve- 
 ment, all strangers to the pure Athenian ethos. 
 The period of their greatest activity covers the 
 hundred years after the death of Socrates, that 
 
34 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 Is, the fourth century B. C. Antisthenes, the first 
 leader, survived Socrates about twenty-five years; 
 Diogenes, his pupil, died in 323 B. C, while his 
 disciple, Crates, the third and last real leader, 
 reached the height of a considerable influence 
 shortly after the Corinthians placed the symbolic 
 dog of Parian marble upon the grave of his mas- 
 ter. Thereafter the sect seems to have gone to 
 seed in mere quixotry, effrontery, and even vile 
 shamelessness, and is lost to view till it emerges, 
 on a higher level than ever, perhaps, in the Roman 
 Empire, where we find its greatest preacher in the 
 person of Epictetus. This later development no- 
 wise concerns us now. 
 
 With the possible exception of Crates, about 
 whose productiveness, however, we know next to 
 nothing, Antisthenes was the most considerable 
 representative of the movement. We are aware 
 that he was a pupil of the Sophists and of Socra- 
 tes successively. Till near middle life in all likeli- 
 hood, — he was forty-five when Socrates drank 
 the cup, — he sat at the feet of Gorgias, or pur- 
 sued a career of the regular sophistic type. And 
 it is only on the dispersion of the Socratic circle, 
 after the execution, that he steps forth as a mis- 
 sionary of the newest individualism. One gives 
 him no more than his due in saying that, while 
 his pupils and later followers often outdid him in 
 hizarrerie and anti-intellectualism, his teaching 
 
THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 35 
 
 constitutes the substantial body of Cynic doctrine, 
 although his reputation as a peripatetic preacher 
 appears to have been eclipsed by the notoriety of 
 Diogenes, his success as a tireless proselytiser by 
 the indefatigable Crates. In any case, the scien- 
 tific theory of the Cynics, such as it was, belongs 
 to him. We need not dwell upon it at length 
 now. But its temper Is significant. Its anarchist 
 intent lies on the surface. A precise apposition 
 was instituted between percepts and concepts; and, 
 as concerns truth or validity, the presumption was 
 overwhelming for the former, the thrust of all 
 reasoning punctured the latter. For, grant that 
 the sensible world Is the only real existence, and 
 you cannot place any curb upon intellectual anar- 
 chy. Pertinent theoretical grounds are forth- 
 coming for the most destructive conclusions. 
 Every man Is free to make his own terms with 
 Destiny, brilliant irresponsibility Is the rule of life. 
 Thus, replying to Xeniades, his reputed owner, 
 Diogenes phrased the attitude of the sect in an 
 epigram. When Xeniades inquired how he 
 should bury him, Diogenes answered, " on my 
 face, because, In a little while, all things will be 
 turned upside down.'' For the Cynics, as for 
 anarchists always, topsy-turveydom Is the prelude 
 to the realisation of the ideal. And, whatever the 
 ideal, the tale of protest runs smoothly enough. 
 Men are blind to their own follies, for, they 
 
36 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 overlook the practice of virtue, and give heed only 
 to * what is written.' They fail to see that wis- 
 dom is the sole good, and that all else lies at the 
 mercy of any whim of Chance ( Tuche) . But wis- 
 dom has no existence save in the mind of the indi- 
 vidual. Consequently, freedom from social ties 
 — mere encumbrances — ' becomes a clamant 
 necessity, and every external development in or 
 from society must be viewed as irrelevant to the 
 supreme purpose of life. The wise man, who as- 
 pires to goodness must, for this very reason, de- 
 spise all that others value. The higher the store 
 set by popular opinion upon aught, the greater the 
 need for Iconoclasm. For, the resources of civi- 
 lisation are enlisted in a gigantic conspiracy to en- 
 tice humanity from the pursuit of true virtue. 
 The leaders of modern anarchism have no other 
 message: as Tolstoi put it, *' The progress of man- 
 kind is not a means but an impediment to the reali- 
 sation of that ideal of harmony which we carry 
 about in our bosoms." Therefore, renounce, 
 forego the goods of this world, if you would be- 
 gin to approach self-possession, wherein alone 
 genuine moral mastery consists. Return to the 
 original purity of ' Nature.' All this has a 
 strangely familiar ring, thanks to Rousseau and 
 his seed. Did not our own Thoreau make phrases 
 that would have delighted Diogenes? The gist 
 of the matter may be found in his aphorism, racy 
 
THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 37 
 
 of the soil of New England, and of Its great festi- 
 val. " I would rather sit on a pumpkin, and have 
 it to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion." 
 To this point, we have followed the beaten 
 track. It is possible, however, that some sources 
 of Cynicism still escape us. We know, for in- 
 stance, that modern anarchism presents itself under 
 two aspects. On one side, it reverts to the eco- 
 nomic situation consequent upon the industrial rev- 
 olution and upon internationalism; on another, it 
 roots deep in the history of philosophy, offering a 
 strange blend of Anglo-French nominalism and 
 German idealistic realism. It prescribes a Utopia 
 to cure our social Ills, and constructs this from 
 many, even contradictory, doctrines. Perhaps 
 similar, though far from identical, forces underlie 
 the Cynic movement. Granting that we shall 
 trench upon uncertain and controversial ground, 
 especially when utoplanism comes in question, let 
 us attempt no more than a footnote to history. 
 At worst, we may reach a point where we, or the 
 evidences, become muddled. At best, we may 
 only uncover the old truth that fact and fiction are 
 bedfellows. For, even history has been taken in 
 the act of Interference with reality. 
 
 II. 
 
 The Persian war produced severe economic 
 pressure at Athens. But this was not a conse- 
 
38 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 quence of the mere momentary stress. Rather, 
 conditions that had been operative for centuries 
 began to disclose their ultimate sequel. Time out 
 of mind, the Greek communities had fostered their 
 scanty resources in isolation. We might call them 
 cantons, yet with many deductions from the Swiss 
 organisation. The ' lie of the land,' with its 
 mountain ranges, set natural and impassable 
 boundaries, so much so, that self-sufficiency came 
 to be the dominant ideal. If the custom and law 
 of the city determined the ethical outlook of the 
 citizen, then, no less, domestic olive-products and 
 wheat and wine shaped his economic relations. 
 Independent ' states ' could be counted by the 
 dozen, and ' independence ' reposed upon an eco- 
 nomic as much as upon a political foundation. 
 But, as the world loomed larger, as intercourse by 
 sea acquired safety, regularity and importance, and 
 as inter-city leagues were negotiated, the old 
 economic simplicities and the old self-sufficiency 
 met rude shocks. Great displacements made slow 
 and silent, though sure, encroachments. Never- 
 theless, the ancient landmarks, moral and material, 
 did not vanish completely. On the contrary, they 
 remained — at once guides and obstacles. In 
 short, the agricultural (or land-holding) basis, 
 with its hoard of rustic notions, maintained itself. 
 The commercial adjustments demanded by the 
 
THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 39 
 
 price of * empire ' pivoted upon it in great meas- 
 ure. 
 
 It is true, of course, that the resources of civilisa- 
 tion in Greece were crude, nay, a modern magnate 
 of London or New York would deem them ludi- 
 crous, and justifiably. Pericles stated a bare fact 
 when he said, '* We are lovers of beauty, though 
 with thrift; we employ wealth, not for talk and 
 ostentation, but when there is a real use for 
 it:" It could not be otherwise. A Greek ward- 
 robe was an exiguous affair, like a Greek dwell- 
 ing. Food was plain to the verge of parsimony; 
 lighting and heating, as we understand them, 
 did not exist; the arrangements for * personal 
 hygiene ' were uncouth, to say the least. In- 
 deed, such were the expedients that the ordinary 
 round of domestic life cannot but have been full 
 of discomfort. But, the Greek enjoyed a splendid 
 compensation. He was not driven. He felt no 
 spur to toll untimely hours for provision of houses, 
 clothes and food. So, when the necessity for 
 wealth dawned upon him, during the * imperial ' 
 period at Athens, he applied silver and gold, not 
 to the evanescent accompaniments of personal com- 
 fort, but to upbuilding the permanent factors of 
 civilisation, whereby he has led mankind ever 
 since. We lavish millions upon a private resi- 
 dence, almost without notice, but we preen our- 
 
40 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 selves when we can mention thousands for a public 
 church. The Athenians raised the Parthenon 
 partly because Pericles was quite content with an 
 adobe villa. Always poor, Greece never pos- 
 sessed the means to pursue ' big business.* Al- 
 ways rich, she consecrated her ' treasure ' to the 
 embellishment of the Acropolis, and to other 
 mighty works still eloquent in the pathetic appeal 
 of ruin. 
 
 Accordingly, it is not surprising that, prior to 
 the Persian war, commerce played a subordinate, 
 or fitful, part. And even after the Peace of 
 448-45 B. C, when Athens undertook her marvel- 
 lous pubHc works at enormous expense proportion- 
 ate to her funds, the old ideals of citizenship 
 tended to hamper, if they did not wholly thwart, 
 the free development of private enterprise in 
 trade. As time passed, the two interests clashed 
 more and more, and a new consciousness awakened 
 which contributed its share to the origins of the 
 Cynic movement. While we cannot allege that 
 the ancient opposition between oligarchy and de- 
 mocracy was done away, it is plain that the Demos 
 developed a fresh spirit, and for economic reasons 
 chiefly. What a descent, for example, from Xan- 
 thippus, Themistocles, Ephialtes, and even Per- 
 icles, to Cleon and Cleophon; from the magnani- 
 mous man in the Aristotelian mould to a ' smart 
 Aleck* of a tanner! The landed aristocracy and 
 
The anarchist ideal 41 
 
 the yeomanry had been succeeded by the " mer- 
 chants, carpenters, workmen, aliens, foreigners, 
 and Islanders " of the Piraeus. To them the old 
 Athens mattered little, or mattered only as their 
 Athens held command of the sea to the end that 
 profits might multiply exceedingly. Hence the 
 Peloponneslan disaster, culminating In the Sicilian 
 debacle. Security meant larger expenditure, 
 larger expenditure meant Industry and commerce, 
 Industry and commerce meant aUen Immigration, 
 and alien Immigration meant a transformation of 
 the ancient State. As the Old Oligarch wisely ob- 
 served, " When we have a naval power dependent 
 upon wealth, we must be slaves to our slaves per- 
 force. In order that we may collect our slave-rents 
 and let the real slave go free.'* Plutarch's Per- 
 icles serves to show that the change had been In 
 progress for half a century. Athens moved too 
 fast for her economic basis and, as a consequence, 
 the age-old values broke down. The citizen 
 could be free no more, because his State was 
 bound. The State could be free no more, because 
 the citizen had forgotten that freedom Imposes 
 hard terms upon him personally. For, freedom 
 thrives upon large. Impersonal Issues, and takes to 
 hasty flight the moment self-seeking shows Its face. 
 And here the rule of the lesser factor had sup- 
 planted that of the larger, thanks to Inevitable 
 economic change: this accomplished, the pressure 
 
42 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 of urban life offered ample evidence in support of 
 anarchical doctrine. The idealism engendered by 
 social control vanished before the expediencies 
 forced upon the imperial city by her unprecedented 
 economic situation. Integrity fell upon inanition, 
 and the creeds of weary or arid minds found their 
 opportunity. 
 
 The civil war, ending in 403 B. C, with the vic- 
 tory of the * new ' Demos, completed the trans- 
 formation, already far advanced thanks to the 
 twenty-eight years of luckless conflict with Sparta. 
 The temper that could declare, '' We alone regard 
 a man who takes no interest in public affairs, not 
 as harmless, but as a useless member of society," 
 had lost its old surety; disaster had overtaken 
 everything; and a querulous spirit stalked abroad. 
 But, even overwhelming misfortunes cannot erase 
 a mighty past. And the question arises. Had the 
 hellenic consciousness aught to offer those who had 
 eyes to see? Were there ecumenical convictions, 
 not peculiar to Athens or, indeed, to any city- 
 state, but characteristic of the Greek contribution 
 to ' the education of man,' whereon insight might 
 plant firm feet despite the loss of great possessions 
 and the lapse of former purposes? The con- 
 tinued, and continuous, supremacy of Athens in 
 the spiritual realm compels us to answer. Yes. 
 Her political decline was not to be without com- 
 pensation. Nay, it proved the prelude to her as- 
 
 
THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 43 
 
 sured supremacy — in language, Ideas and culture 
 — as the living embodiment of the hellenic genius. 
 Self-sufficiency had gone, but, in the * things of 
 the mind,' Athens had grown for ever synonymous 
 with Greece, the protagonist of the higher cosmo- 
 politanism. The death of material possibilities 
 had liberated gracious facts. In the magic person 
 of Socrates and, later, in the universalism of Plato, 
 the fateful city reverted to that older cos- 
 mopolitanism, born from men of her own kin, 
 and expressed In the recurrent conviction, " the 
 things which are seen are temporal, but the things 
 which are unseen are eternal." Or, in the symp- 
 tomatic words of the dramatist who best caught the 
 inward implications of that age, " Blessed of old 
 are the sons of Erectheus . . . moving luminously 
 through the brightest air, where once, they say, 
 golden-haired Harmony brought forth the nine 
 chaste Muses of Pieria." The ancient pride of 
 the city still preserved Itself, though tuned to 
 vaster Issues than the conquest of Sicily. Athens 
 remained Incomparable, — the very moon shines 
 more beautifully upon her than upon Corinth, — 
 because all that was stable In her had been conse- 
 crated by the memories of men who achieved in- 
 comparably for the whole race. Socrates and 
 Plato, and the rest, are indeed Athenians, but, 
 ** blood-tinctur'd of a veined humanity," they 
 are no less ' heroes ' of humankind. The Utopia, 
 
44 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 the place where all is well, because it is dedicated 
 to lasting purposes satisfying to intellect and emo- 
 tion alike, acts as a philtre, at once troubling and 
 assuaging self-consciousness. And this idea, of 
 " another city, which is an heavenly," had haunted 
 the hellenic world for centuries, giving point and 
 power to the mythical Orpheus, and to the leg- 
 endary Pythagoras. Small wonder that it should 
 reappear in these days of evil omen, pregnant with 
 consequences. 
 
 Careful and troubled about many things, Peri- 
 clean Athenians were beset by doubt concerning 
 essentials. But doubt is often a prelude to larger 
 vision, even though this may illuminate the few 
 only. Thus, if we remember that the Greek 
 drama was a religious exercise, we can see readily 
 how it bore one implication, in the sphere of the 
 Homeric mythology, for the Demos, another, at 
 once freer and yet more dogmatic, for the select 
 spirits. The ' unchangeable decrees ' of Zeus, 
 personified in Nemesis and Ate, in Hybris and 
 Peitho, must have been of peculiar suggestion to 
 men in the Socratic mould, who deemed philoso- 
 phy a ' preparation for death.' The anthropo- 
 morphism became ' anthropormophic enough ' for 
 them, as in the Platonic myths later, and the 
 figures, growing transparent, revealed the unseen 
 and eternal forces that remain imperturbable 
 amid the fitful fever that marks the lot of blind 
 
THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 45 
 
 mortals. But, how to clear them of sensuous ref- 
 erence, how to cleanse them of mere abstract sym- 
 bolism, so perilously nigh superstition? This was 
 the rare opportunity presented to the true philoso- 
 pher! His it was to start from the average cit- 
 izen in average moods; then to discern the transi- 
 tive norms that had bestowed efficacy and power 
 upon the city-group, now obsolescent; finally, to 
 transcend discrepancies, so intrinsic to the ' qual- 
 ities ' whereby the natural world is interpene- 
 trated and, by this ascent to unriddle the most in- 
 sistent of all problems. But, observe, this ascent 
 demands personal experience, an * initiation ' 
 which supersedes the otiose birthright of citizen- 
 ship. As Berkeley said, reproducing the very 
 temper of Socrates: " Whatever the world thinks, 
 he who hath not much meditated upon God, the 
 Human Mind, and the Summum Bonum, may pos- 
 sibly make a thriving earthworm, but will most 
 indubitably make a sorry patriot and a sorry 
 statesman." 
 
 Through Socrates and his magnetic influence, 
 the * cry of the human ' arises to disturb the pre- 
 occupation of the citizen, not querulously, indeed, 
 but by reference to problems which the subordina- 
 tion of the citizen soothed rather than solved. 
 The Athenian or what not, possessed by his city, 
 enjoyed the care of the " gods whom the city 
 recognises," and through the medium of a com- 
 
46 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 mon or group cidtus. Communal custom lent him 
 such support as he craved, such vocation as suf- 
 ficed. Yet, this very citizen was also human, and 
 bound to travel beyond the local and temporary 
 coulisses de societe. Accordingly, the man, pos- 
 sessed by a soul, could not but rise above the city, 
 and worship a deity of whose especial or personal 
 care he sought assurance. At first, therefore, he 
 tended to minimise, and then came to neglect the 
 impersonal Interests of the State In favour of the 
 eternal destiny of the individual. And this im- 
 plied at once an unclvic course of action, and an 
 unclvic sweep of philosophy. To go no further 
 afield, Alclblades, In the Symposium of Plato, tes- 
 tifies to the former, the entire atmosphere of the 
 Phado to the latter. The classical passage, 
 where Alclblades recounts the extraordinary im- 
 pression of individual peculiarity and reserve left 
 by Socrates, runs as follows: "One morning he 
 was thinking about something which he could not 
 resolve; he would not give it up, but continued 
 thinking from early dawn until noon — there he 
 stood fixed in thought; and at noon attention was 
 drawn to him, and the rumour ran through the 
 wondering crowd that Socrates had been standing 
 and thinking about something ever since the break 
 of day. At last, in the evening after supper, some 
 lonians, out of curiosity (I should explain this was 
 not in winter, but in summer), brought out their 
 
THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 47 
 
 mats and slept In the open air, that they might 
 watch him and see whether he would stand all 
 night. There he stood all night until the follow- 
 ing morning; and with the return of light he of- 
 fered up a prayer to the sun, and went his way." 
 This Incident offers an admirable Illustration of 
 one aspect of the Master, an aspect little con- 
 sonant with all we usually ascribe to the care-free, 
 beauty-loving Athenian. As we saw before, Soc- 
 rates had a distinct ascetic strain. Now, in the 
 Greek world, — as, Indeed, always, — asceticism 
 presupposed a definite doctrine, not about human 
 life, but about the nature of the individual man. 
 Taking no account of the citizen or of the alien, 
 of the Greek or of the * barbarian,' this doctrine 
 regarded men, in their separate persons, as the 
 subjects of a twofold being. They are bodies and 
 souls in temporary partnership. At death, the 
 temporal factor, the body, returns to its constitu- 
 ent earthly elements; but the soul, being divine, 
 persists. Thus, true ' philosophy,' in contrast with 
 the ' practical ' arts of the sophist, is a rehearsal 
 of death; a discipline that assures the soul eternal 
 release from its '' garment of strange flesh." The 
 philosopher Is he who has schooled himself to die 
 daily. *' The soul of the true philosopher . . . 
 abstains from pleasures and desires and pains and 
 fears so far as she is able; " for, " each pleasure 
 and pain is a sort of nail which spikes and rivets 
 
48 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 the soul to the body, until she becomes the body 
 . . . and is not likely ever to be pure at her de- 
 parture." This was no new-fangled notion among 
 the Hellenes, although it did not attract Athenians. 
 At the same time, whether its origin be Orphic 
 or Pythagorean, or both, there can be little doubt 
 that Socrates contemplated just such a ' way ' of 
 life. His Daimon held him from the turmoil of 
 local politics, because the larger life called him to 
 " become God from Man," as the Orphic tablets 
 have it. The trance, noted above, was but one 
 mark of a mastery of soul over body, already ac- 
 quired by ascetic discipline, practised, possibly, 
 with an inner circle of ' initiated ' disciples, as 
 Aristophanes seems to indicate. 
 
 Now, this imports, not merely a certain moral 
 rule, but also a distinct type of ontological ideal- 
 ism. Whatever difficulty there may be in proving 
 that the contemptuous criticism of the leaders of 
 the Athenian Demos, given in the Gorgias, rep- 
 resents the attitude of the historic Socrates, we 
 can hardly deny that, from his general point of 
 view as we know it, it has historical warrant; 
 and, at any rate, his Cynic disciples so interpreted 
 him. Nay, Thucydides intimates as much. Devo- 
 tion to the best things was slipping, even Pericles, 
 despite the unmatched Funeral Orationj seems to 
 have felt the insidious change towards the end. 
 At all events principle paled and casuistry, brought 
 
THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 49 
 
 forth to tide an occasion over, waxed. The 
 gracious responsibility, so characteristic of yore, 
 gave way to conditions such as those satirised by 
 Plato In the allegory of the Disorderly Crew. In 
 short, conservation of ethical values was going to 
 pieces. The victorious foes of Athens were they 
 of her own household. As Thucydldes says 
 grimly: ''The sacred places . . . were full of 
 corpses who had died just as they were; " and, af- 
 ter this, anything, — " men . . . became utterly 
 careless of all whether sacred or profane." Natu- 
 rally, then, Socrates " made his companions de- 
 splsers of the existing laws." As the Euthyphro 
 relates, he sought a ' good ' that escaped the civic 
 order, even in its holy things. It is not Impossi- 
 ble that his devotion to Apollo assumed a form 
 distasteful to Athenian worshippers of Apollo 
 Patroos, the deity of the phratrles; that, to use 
 Mr. Farnell's words, Socrates strayed " outside 
 of the proto-Athenian cult-system." While it is 
 improbable that he Introduced ' mysteries ' of a 
 Dionysiac nature, or adopted a cathartic ritual, 
 there are traces of evidence that he entertained 
 ' unofficial ' or Illicit doctrines concerning the 
 soul, perhaps of the kind underlying the associa- 
 tion of Pythagoras with Apollo Hyberoreios. Be 
 this as It may, many were convinced that he ex- 
 hibited tendencies towards a belief In divine * par- 
 ticipation ' beyond the reach of ' orthodox ' cit- 
 
so THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 izens and, therefore, from their standpoint, sub- 
 versive of equal relations with the deities. As- 
 suredly, his imperturbable composure was firmly 
 set on the conviction that there is a sphere where 
 ethical values are conserved. Of this the Daimon 
 furnished him unanswerable witness. Thus, just 
 as there is a dualism between body and soul, so 
 there is a dualism between the human and the di- 
 vine ' states.' The purpose of God is not that 
 of men. What we demand of deity is the preser- 
 vation of ' the Good ' — a condition of spiritual 
 being wherein is salvation. This supplies at once 
 the norm of an adequate life and the ' sufficient 
 initial postulate ' — the coercive principle, as a 
 modern idealist would phrase it — whence any 
 relevant estimate of the meaning of the universe 
 must start. The Good and the Beautiful are true 
 existences in the Divine and, not subject to birth 
 or death, they alone can give a man rest unto his 
 soul. The way of life is a ' way,' because it 
 comes from and leads to them; throughout it, the 
 soul conserves unity with God. Veritable knowl- 
 edge and veritable goodness have, and can find, 
 no other guarantee. If ' citizens ' think other- 
 wise, the simple fact is that they suffer from il- 
 lusions. 
 
 It is still, and long may be, an open question 
 how far these tendencies moulded the teaching of 
 Socrates. But, whatever evidence may be precip- 
 
THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 51 
 
 itated ultimately by further Inquiry, it must re- 
 main certain that Socrates drew no extreme Uto- 
 pian conclusions. He had reached his majority 
 ere the Persian peace, his early and middle man- 
 hood synchronised with the wondrous bloom of 
 Athens. Individualistic utoplanism was out of the 
 question, the traditions of the Greek state persist- 
 ing with unique results, public service still provid- 
 ing a reasonable vocation. Social control was too 
 rooted In Immemorial custom to be foregone even 
 by a Socrates. 
 
 " It is a city and free, 
 The whole folk year by year, in parity 
 Of service, is our King," 
 
 as even the dramatist of scepticism could declare. 
 Spiritual adventure might be undertaken and yet 
 conserve much of the civic ethos, for self-discipline 
 continued vital, as the magnificent passages In the 
 Apology attest, and as many stories about Socrates 
 show. In other words, the Socratic ' quality ' 
 was not out of reach in the spacious days of great 
 Pericles — playing politics apart, perhaps. But, 
 by the time the Master turned fifty, decline 
 had set in apace. And though, so far as we now 
 know, he never lost sentiment for the communal 
 heritage, he had sown seed destined to produce 
 something widely different. He may well have 
 seemed to the Cynic, in many ways, a representa- 
 
52 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 tive of the faith once delivered to the saints. But 
 his conception of equality, as fellowship based on 
 vital fraternity, even if it entirely precluded Cynic 
 anarchism, gave Antisthenes a relevant point of 
 departure. '' When the Athenian is good, he is 
 very good," as the Spartan says in the Laws. 
 Socrates was too good for his Cynic disciples — 
 his person towered above their ken. But, Athens 
 gone, even Socrates must become good, not in and 
 for her, but for the sake of an ' alien ' humanity, 
 shared by him with all men. Assuredly, events 
 led the Cynics so to interpret him; and, thus see- 
 ing, they vulgarised his asceticism, and inverted 
 his unlversalism, stripping it of positive applica- 
 tion. 
 
 If our confidence in the available records be not 
 misplaced sadly, Socrates was a character of the 
 utmost complexity. He appealed strongly, in 
 some cases overwhelmingly, to all sorts and con- 
 ditions of men. Charmides, Plato's uncle, an as- 
 sociate from of old, who became only more at- 
 tached with the lapse of years; Pythagorean mys- 
 tics from Thebes and Phlius; scientific Eleatics 
 from Megara; Crito, a representative and rich 
 Athenian gentleman ; ^schines, a noted litterateur, 
 a familiar of poverty; the aristocratic Plato, 
 splendid in body no less than in mind; Xenophon, 
 another aristocrat, the father of all true amateur 
 sportsmen; Hermogenes, who had spent his sub- 
 
THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 53 
 
 stance upon Sophists, to no purpose; Antisthenes, 
 the bitter Cynic, and many others, lay under his 
 spell. Age, condition, country, Intellectual affili- 
 ation appear to have made no difference. Some- 
 how or other, Socrates transcended class-feeling, 
 the distinctions between wealth and poverty, and 
 the provincialisms of city-states. Among his inti- 
 mates and associates he apparently forecast, in his 
 own person, the encomium upon Athens uttered 
 afterwards by Isocrates; he was " the inaugurator 
 of all human blessings, the guide of men from the 
 life of beasts, the establlsher In fact of the social 
 organism altogether." Naturally, then, when he 
 died, interpretations of his character and teaching 
 differed widely — every associate found what he 
 brought. SImmlas, the mystic, saw one light; 
 Xenophon, the soldier-country-gentleman, another; 
 Plato, the artist-metaphysician, another; the ' sav- 
 age ' Appolodorus, like Antisthenes, social pro- 
 letarians both, yet another. 
 
 Although an Intellectual proletariate did not ex- 
 ist then, as In some modern countries, there were 
 proletarians nevertheless. A hard, even callous 
 school, Athens knew right well that a portion of 
 this world's goods played a necessary part in the 
 * best ' life. But, class-differences had been ac- 
 centuated by the war, all could not work for the 
 city now, at an equal, if modest, wage. More- 
 over, the generous temper of the great building 
 
54 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 era had developed acidity. Listen to the Irony 
 put In the mouths of the envoys at Melos by 
 Thucydides: "We shall not trouble you with 
 specious pretences either of how we have a right 
 to our Empire, because we overthrow the Persians, 
 or are now attacking you because of the Injury that 
 you have done us. You know just as well as we 
 that right, as the judgment of the world runs, is in 
 question only between equals In power; the strong 
 do what they can, and the weak suffer what they 
 must." The old graclousness had evaporated, 
 the squalor remained. Practical preoccupation 
 was trenching upon former llght-heartedness, and 
 seemed to be an unavoidable accompaniment of 
 the social order. Large adjustments were in 
 process with the usual results — unhapplness, in- 
 decision, and much open discontent. Moreover, 
 the view, expressed by Plato a generation later, 
 was rooted more firmly amongst the ' intellectu- 
 als ' at the time of the execution of Socrates. 
 " Poverty results from increase of man's desires, 
 not from the diminution of his property." That 
 Is, the ascetic doctrine of wealth — the good man's 
 chattels will be " such as to be in harmony with 
 his Inward wealth " — had received powerful im- 
 petus from the growth of philosophy. Nor was 
 this all. The position of the ' unproductive ' 
 alien had become more difficult. If the foreigner 
 came to the city to ' make money,' he enjoyed the 
 
 J 
 
THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 55 
 
 same freedom as the citizen, all things considered, 
 — the Piraeus afforded him a ' country.' But, 
 In the things of the spirit, he was more than ever 
 an outsider to the native-born. As Isocrates said, 
 with particular reference to the days of the demo- 
 cratic sea-power: " A city will be happy, not when 
 it collects a multitude of citizens at random from 
 every nation In the world, but when It preserves 
 above all the race of Its original inhabitants.'* 
 The cruel disabilities heaped upon alien women 
 in 403 B. C, and the Impeachment of Socrates 
 itself are straws, showing how the wind blew. 
 Welcome, more or less, from the period of Solon, 
 the alien, thanks to his exclusive vocation as a 
 trader, was now regarded as a ' base ' fellow. 
 When useful, he dealt in leather, honey, oakum, 
 sheep or cheese, as Aristophanes comments sar- 
 castically; for the rest, especially when given to 
 thought, he was a menace, because In morals, re- 
 ligion and the like, a man without a country. 
 Thus, wafted by economic and social forces, the 
 alien thinker moved inevitably towards non-Greek 
 notions, and sometimes sought the fair land of 
 Utopia. Notice, too, that, after Socrates, Plato 
 was the sole native Athenian who achieved uni- 
 versal position in philosophy. Aliens held the 
 leadership from his day till the death of Panae- 
 tius, two and one-half centuries after; and the 
 later native * presidents ' are, for the most part, 
 
S6 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 mere nobodies. Alien outlook, then, no less 
 than native economic transformation, was to put 
 a new face upon Socratic teaching. 
 
 Not without Socratic authority, as we have 
 seen. Individualism, in the modern sense, would 
 have been incomprehensible to a Greek. For 
 him, it always implied some form of hostility to 
 society. The Cynics were fated to make this 
 plain, and by appeal to Socrates. Historical con- 
 ditions during the sixty-seven years between the 
 battles of i^gospotamos and Chaeronea undoubt- 
 edly countenanced their abandonment of his dis- 
 interested criticism in favour of political despair 
 and rejection of all social relations. Like Mill, 
 they deemed Socrates dissatisfied better than a pig 
 satisfied. But they committed the terrible blun- 
 der of supposing that dissatisfaction could furnish 
 a complete ideal. Thus, in one way, the Cynic 
 point of departure is plain enough. Consistency, 
 if not of, then to, thought, as originating the 
 * way ' of life; self-sufficient unity of will in pur- 
 suing this 'way;' and radical departure from 
 convention, based on personalised insight, did in- 
 deed mark Socrates. Dissenting reaction, espe- 
 cially against democratic stupidity and materialism 
 was one aspect of his work. Narrow and disil- 
 lusioned souls learned this lesson readily; for 
 them it became a shibboleth, that the aims of 
 morality must be wholly self-determined. The 
 
THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 57 
 
 ' Socratic vigour,' turned to rigour, alone could 
 render " virtue sufficient for happiness." And, If 
 society outraged the ' self-determined ' Individ- 
 ual, he could retort In kind. He could change So- 
 cratic calm Into violence, replacing sympathetic 
 criticism from within by fierce challenge. We 
 have noted this phase of the situation already; it 
 is part of the accepted tradition about the history 
 of Greek thought. 
 
 But, subtler influences were at work. When 
 the Cynic movement broke forth, the Sophists had 
 completed their mission, and were receding into 
 the past. Other problems had appeared. On 
 the face of it, then, we should not look for the 
 significance of Cynicism primarily in the intellec- 
 tual gymnastics of the fifth century. Certainty in 
 life, not dexterity in dialectic, was the new desid- 
 eratum. And so, even the Cynic logic may well 
 have been based upon discussion of human tem- 
 perament and, for this reason, may have diverged 
 from the usual clever displays of eristic. It may 
 Intend to show that man is one — an impervious 
 unity — according to ' convention ' as well as ac- 
 cording to * nature.' To reach this impalpable 
 essence, one might judge It quite worth while to 
 beggar himself of goods, to forego companionship 
 with his * blind ' neighbours. Popular science, 
 art and education, nay, civic life in general, being 
 utterly inadequate to virtue, the man who would 
 
58 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 be true to self must strike out alone on his own 
 path. What path? The soul experiences a pro- 
 found need " to discourse with herself." She is 
 able to do so morally, because she knows the 
 ' more excellent way ' and this, in turn, points to 
 a peculiar reality conceivable by the ' wise man ' 
 only. For, while ' virtue ' possesses a ' nature,* 
 nevertheless ' convention,' even though it seem to 
 inhabit the sphere of ' virtue,' may be another at- 
 testation of this very ' nature,' if we but see it 
 aright. In any case, we here discover the reason 
 why we are able to name virtue ' virtue.' Hence 
 the possibility of tragedy after the order of Eu- 
 ripides. The decent citizen takes his critics for 
 scoundrels, the critics are keenly aware that he is a 
 victim of mere self-deception. In a word, a real 
 life according to the spirit of Socrates replaced a 
 real life according to the senses. There is no 
 problem as between the two, for the question holds 
 entirely with reference to the implications of the 
 former. Here we strike the basis of Cynic fanat- 
 icism. There was a two-edged sword, dividing 
 unto the bones and marrow. The issue admitted 
 of no paltering. 
 
 If, then, the Cynics, led by Antisthenes, who be- 
 longed to the Socratic inner circle at the death of 
 the Master, set out from the doctrine that " the 
 soul partakes in the divine," they developed th 
 theory in one of the two directions which It may] 
 
THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 59 
 
 take. Like the mystic who, as Plato says in the 
 Gorgias, " creeps into a corner for the rest of his 
 life, and talks in a whisper with three or four 
 admiring youths, but never speaks out like a free- 
 man in a satisfactory manner," they withdrew from 
 political affairs, because, for the most part, eco- 
 nomic conditions had borne harshly upon them. 
 And, unlike Socrates, sentiment for the state left 
 them untouched. Therefore, they contemplated 
 a Utopia having for its legend Menander's phrase, 
 " what a fine thing is a man when he is man." 
 Neglecting the universal element in every man, 
 they thought of the separate individual as uni- 
 versal, and descried ultimate truth in subjectivity 
 of character, the sufficing Utopia in a singular life. 
 They thus served themselves avatars of an apocry- 
 phal Socrates, although in their mendicancy, and 
 in their taboos, they preserved external signs of a 
 doctrine that had affected their master greatly. 
 Like Socrates, and like the ' initiate ' brethren of 
 his " notion-shop," they held that the true philos- 
 opher ranks pleasure very low, that the desires of 
 the body thwart the quest for truth and, conse- 
 quently, that the permanent ' goods ' sought by 
 the true philosopher transcend the senses, be- 
 cause " visible " only to the mind. In all this they 
 agree with the greatest disciple of Socratic mys- 
 ticism. " Plato," as Archer Hind says, " ac- 
 knowledges that the morality of the multitude 
 
6o THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 must be utilitarian, since none other is attainable 
 save by the highly trained metaphysician. There- 
 fore, however superior the morality of those who 
 obey this code may be to that of the oligarchical 
 man, it is sundered from that of the philosopher 
 by a fathomless gulf." They dissent from Plato 
 in that they contemptuously refuse " to desist from 
 their own meditations and give their minds to 
 instructing their fellow-citizens; " fellow-citizens 
 they had none, be it remembered. 
 
 Evidently, then, the Cynics viewed their prob- 
 lems from the height of a knowledge of moral 
 ' realities,' a knowledge connected so closely with 
 ascetic habits, long naturalised in the hellenic 
 world, that it was, apparently, at once their pro- 
 genitor and their offspring. They laboured ' in 
 travail,' and sought ' deliverance ' in the temper 
 of * initiates.' In all this they kept faith with 
 the Socratic ' inner light,' with the Socratic en- 
 durance, and with the Socratic independence, but, 
 lacking the Socratic discipline in citizenship, they 
 were neither canny nor * ironical.' They over- 
 looked the positive humanity in this * wise man.' 
 So, like protestants always, they abstracted the in- 
 dividual, and proceeded to make God from him. 
 Thus, virtue became possible only where society 
 ceased, and they outlawed themselves even from 
 the Socratic fraternity. For, social arrangements, 
 being ' stepped down ' from a transcendent, im- 
 
THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 6i 
 
 material entity, — which they conceal or bemuse, 
 — are fatal to the * reality ' as it is in men here 
 and now. These ancient anarchists stood to So- 
 crates as did Feuerbach and ' Stirner,' fathers of 
 modern anarchism, to Hegel. 
 
 " The state of nature was the reign of God," 
 
 but, man aside, it could not exist. The Cynics 
 would have applauded Quinet's remark, *' the owl 
 has outlived Pallas Athene ; the eagle has outlived 
 Jupiter; they have not shed a feather in the fall of 
 the gods." But, they would have commented, 
 ' our Socrates has added a cubit to his stature in 
 the fall of the gods.' The anarchist ideal cen- 
 tres in this attitude precisely. 
 
 Vague and, of set purpose, evading definition, 
 the Cynic ideal is " distinctively anthropological. 
 By a curious, but characteristic, inversion, mysti- 
 cism gives way to a Selbstanschauung Gottes — 
 in man. The result follows necessarily from the 
 special quality of Cynic as contrasted with Chris- 
 tian asceticism. The latter, not content with re- 
 nouncing the flesh and the world that ministers to 
 it, abandons the human spirit also, abasing both 
 knowledge and will. The Cynics, on the con- 
 trary, minimise the wants of the body and berate 
 the social expedients that at once create and In- 
 dulge them. But they hold fast to human knowl- 
 edge, and will, nay, properly understood, these 
 
62 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 are the universe. Man, the Individual, finds the 
 sole good In them and, so finding, himself becomes 
 the universal. As In democratic Athens all die, 
 so in autocratic Antlsthenes one is made alive 
 again. To have no wants is to be as the gods, to 
 safeguard Independence is to realise the divine 
 nature, because virtue and wisdom are here pre- 
 supposed. But virtue and wisdom are not viable 
 so long as alien ' law ' and alien social ' will ' 
 continue to Interfere. These restraints are de- 
 ceptions palmed o^ as truth, and evil altogether. 
 Social problems do not exist, because any order of 
 civilised society Is Inherently bad. On the other 
 hand, by following the true ' way,' thus narrowly 
 interpreted, man can grow more and more into 
 * likeness ' with the gods, who are self-sufficing. 
 The essential need Is to ' see all things in a cer- 
 tain way.' This done, manhood, if given free 
 course, glorifies itself into divinity. The ' wise 
 man,' when he cultivates his * special endow- 
 ment ' as a human being emancipated from the 
 infractions of society, reveals to his fellows the 
 truth as it is in ' the highest.' He Is ' set apart,' 
 not Indeed as a pensive pietist, but as the " organ 
 of Imperial Reason." Motivated thus, he achieves 
 apotheosis. The patriotism of the city is de- 
 serted for a patriotism of heaven — upon earth. 
 So each man, gifted with Insight, must work out 
 hi§ own salvation In despite of society and, wis- 
 
THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 63 
 
 dom conceded, he has almighty power to attain his 
 end. In other words, we have a purely anthro- 
 pocentric universal, and the anthropos is the self 
 disengaged from entangling alliances with his 
 kind. The knowledge that all else is malignant 
 is, on the theoretical side. Cynicism, on the prac- 
 tical, anarchism. The unintelligible omnipotence 
 of a deity, and the unintelligent governance of a 
 society or state become intelligible — in the tau- 
 tology of the individual life ! 
 
 Confronted with the intense city-pride of the 
 Greeks, this strange issue of Socratic other-world- 
 liness could not escape a certain negative cosmo- 
 politanism, of a kind somewhat in evidence to- 
 day. The kinship appears in common assump- 
 tions. The Cynics assumed, for example, that 
 the State forces restraints upon its citizens and, 
 having accomplished this, its relations with them 
 cease. Now, restraint as such is high treason to 
 the free soul. For, the life of the State and the 
 career of the individual are mutually exclusive. 
 The time had not yet arrived for enunciation of 
 that toothsome anarchist epigram, " the end of 
 all government is to render government super- 
 fluous." But the root of the matter was there. 
 Individual conviction had been set in opposition 
 to civic opinion, and the ' inalienable rights ' of 
 the former had received explicit assertion. Trea- 
 son to the State, as the State judged, had bios- 
 
64 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 somed into identity with truth to self. But, in the 
 Greek world, this never meant that the State was 
 to be seized and overthrown; such a proceeding 
 could not, according to the ancient outlook, profit 
 the individual. It did mean, however, that the 
 State must be abandoned to the fate brought upon 
 it by its own ' divisive courses.' The Cynic 
 preacher taught that all is vanity, and incidentally 
 proved that the greatest of vanities is the preacher 
 himself. For, to be frank, his vanity measured 
 his weakness. His inner unity, manifested in 
 outer oddity, gained no more than a negative suc- 
 cess, the success of a noisy scandal. He saw what 
 his age lacked, never what it needed. His in- 
 communicable peculiarity, a parasitic growth upon 
 the body-politic where he belonged, concealed its 
 own origin. Grasping the liberty wherewith 
 Zeus had made him free, he lost all sense of 
 the complementary fraternity and responsibility. 
 Generating no practicable innovations worth 
 while, he realised no valuable ends, even if he 
 proved a " gad-fly to the Athenians." Notwith- 
 standing his fine notions about " making God from 
 Man," he bogged himself in a paltry conceit of 
 originality. Like austere sectaries in all ages, he 
 must needs abide these condemnations. At the 
 same time, when we bethink the * more excellent 
 way ' whither he set out, another aspect compels 
 recognition. Anarchism is a parasitical growth 
 
THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 65 
 
 doubtless; what of the ready and favourable 
 nidus f 
 
 Symptomatic of a national crisis, the execution 
 of Socrates touched the level of real tragedy. 
 The victim and his judges were equally right. 
 Cynicism formed a sequel — the same tragedy 
 stripped of its touching features. Men do not go 
 about to condemn a Socrates lightly. They must 
 needs be thoroughly in earnest about something 
 which so possesses them that they lapse from 
 calm assurance into the cowardice of intolerance. 
 And a Socrates meets death clear-eyed, because 
 convinced to the uttermost of an indefeasible truth. 
 Athens had " hitched her waggon to a star," and 
 believed deeply in her generous destiny. Invisible 
 things set their seal upon her genius. Jealous for 
 them, public opinion broke forth in intermittent 
 fits of persecution. On the other hand, the ' aris- 
 tocratic ' philosophers caught glimpse of even 
 greater realities which, again, pointed to a wiser 
 adjustment of human life than Athenian provincial- 
 ism permitted. So, Socrates suffered, because, 
 faithful to a mystic call, he was adjudged faith- 
 less to the sacred norms of the social order. But 
 its own vaulting ambition brought this very order 
 to its doom and, with the Cynic movement, the 
 old passion that had bred heroes brought forth 
 martyrs — martyrs to an inverted self-sufficiency. 
 Esoteric Socraticism, which could flourish as a 
 
66 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 truth within the State, appeared as the truth over 
 against the State. The defects of the Greek idea 
 of virtue grown manifest, other elements of good- 
 ness clamoured for recognition, but at a time when 
 the traditional conception was still powerful 
 enough to baulk a new synthesis. 
 
 Fundamentally aristocratic, Greek virtue 
 divided the Hellene from the barbarian, the sub- 
 ject of civic paideia, or culture, from the outsider 
 who, debarred from the requisite nurture, re- 
 mained apaidentos, a hopeless boor. Thus un- 
 derstood, virtue depended upon knowledge; he 
 who knows, as the Greek alone enjoys opportunity 
 to know, cannot fail to choose ' the more excel- 
 lent way,' as Socrates taught. Moreover, en- 
 lightened, he will respect himself, being conscious 
 of his due, and assert himself, being conscious of 
 his ' special endowment.' He will prefer de- 
 mands upon others, because assured of mutual 
 superiority and inferiority. But, curious as it may 
 seem, Socrates also held that the highest virtue 
 can be realised only in a confraternity devoted to 
 mystic doctrines which forbid all self-assertion. 
 Pythagorean communism found an adherent in 
 him, if Plato report correctly. The ordinary aims, 
 even of Athenian citizens, are " a tale full of sound 
 and fury." Accordingly, his gospel is permeated 
 by an unhealed dualism between achievement 
 and aspiration. After his death, political and 
 
THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 67 
 
 economic changes so conspired in Athens that the 
 Demos embraced the lower achievement, and aban- 
 doned the higher aspiration, forgetting the virtue 
 of internal quality in mad haste to acquire external 
 quantity. Consequently, the Cynic, seizing upon 
 self-assertion, and overbalancing the abstract hu- 
 manitarian element In Socratic mysticism, sought 
 his due in that paradox — a social vacuum. The 
 relative anarchy of the actual Athens became ab- 
 solute for him as the paramount condition of any 
 moral life whatsoever. The ' separated ' man, 
 being the sole possible vehicle of the good, rejects 
 as impious the bare suggestion of temporising be- 
 tween himself and the '* city of pigs." Could 
 tragedy go further? Antlsthenes, Crates, Diog- 
 enes and the rest were enunciating a principle 
 that has effected, and must continue to effect, 
 weighty results for civilisation. The " city of 
 pigs " had crowned the Acropolis with the Par- 
 thenon, and was about to give expression to her 
 eternal significance In the Platonic philosophy! 
 
 The standard of revolt raised by the Cynics was 
 a sign of the times. But these protestants denied 
 the times altogether. That Is, their assertion of 
 incompatibility between virtue and society went so 
 far as to be irrational. Nevertheless, they drew 
 attention to the fact that, as amongst men, mutual 
 understanding supplies the only available basis of 
 social Intercourse. The Greek can maintain no 
 
68 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 monopoly here. If society can compass progress, 
 the instrument is intelligence, and anarchy hap- 
 pens to be discarnate intelligence. Along with 
 other anarchists, the Cynics err in an effort to make 
 * rights ' absolute, and succeed by insistence upon 
 a truth so obvious as to be overlooked constantly 
 — rights are empty of significance save for in- 
 dividuals. Matters of degree, they are relative 
 to grades of reality. Ascetic discipline, for ex- 
 ample, reveals value, if it enables a man to de- 
 velop juster estimate of the worths practicable in 
 human life. Yet, even this issue is blank failure, 
 unless others profit, nay, unless the ' wise man ' 
 profit too, by the reaction of his fellows to his 
 teachings. For, individuality being what it is, its 
 strength is made perfect in weakness. Freedom 
 strikes no root in self, it flourishes amid sub- 
 stantial relations between selves. " Cancel 
 these . . . and morality will be left reasonable 
 still, but paralysed; possible to temperaments com- 
 paratively passionless, but with no grasp on ve- 
 hement and poetic natures; and gravitating to the 
 simply prudential wherever It maintains its 
 ground." A moral life is quite inconceivable 
 apart from opportunity to select; and. In so far 
 as selection Is restricted by the crudity or unfruit- 
 fulness of society — it is limited! In so far as 
 it can reach greater adequacy of expression. It pre- 
 supposes richer, profounder, finer social accom- 
 
THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 69 
 
 panlments. This inexpugnable dependence upon 
 society may be termed weakness, if you please. 
 The judgment means nothing; for the strength 
 that renders weakness apparent is itself social. To 
 probe the nature of this social " substance which is 
 immanent in the show of the temporal and tran- 
 sitory " individuals, and is affirmed in their free- 
 dom, forms one main task of intelligence. Thus, 
 at the risk of giving dire offence to " the dema- 
 gogic folk," who are as ready now to rant about 
 the ' un-American ' as they once were about the 
 ' un-Greek,' we must recollect that " freedom to 
 follow a line of business presupposes first of all an 
 established police-power; and then an established 
 system of currency, of transportation, of commer- 
 cial law. Freedom to realise your aims in a 
 learned profession presupposes well developed 
 schools. Freedom to express your opinion de- 
 mands, first, protection from the mob, and then, 
 on a higher plane, an established convention of 
 tolerance and fairness." 
 
 Blind to the paradox that leaders of men are 
 seldom or never ' originals,' the Cynic missed all 
 this. Oppressed by the old self-sufficiency, he 
 could not know that moral advance always imi- 
 tates the letter, as Socrates did, although, in spirit, 
 he was, to adopt Homer's phrase, the friend of 
 all men, not of the Greek merely. It is true, as 
 the Cynics sensed vaguely, that law has relation 
 
70 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 only to outward acts, and that paternalism mis- 
 conceives the nature of morality. On the con- 
 trary, it is equally true that rights are the corre- 
 lates of duties. The great ' free spirits ' are free 
 precisely because representative; hence their au- 
 thority. Sharpened by the negative in Socrates, 
 the Cynics perceived that personal virtue trans- 
 cends the local conditions of the Greek state, just 
 as our anarchists protest that it transcends the 
 ways of contemporary nationality. But both go 
 farther and fare worse. They omit to insist that 
 virtue can never neglect all ties of kin and folk. 
 It is a prize hard won by the efforts of many, not 
 an inalienable possession of one. Had events not 
 cast it in shadow, the positive in Socrates would 
 have revealed that a ' sufficient ' personal life in- 
 cludes devotion to a universal reality. In short, 
 as the Pythagorean Socrates taught, morality is 
 linked indissolubly with the object of religion. 
 The ' philosopher on the throne,' perhaps on ac- 
 count of his ecumenical office, taught no less, even 
 if he failed to pass on to the attendant moral ac- 
 tivity. The '' soul ranges the universe, alike the 
 world of form and the world of void, and reaches 
 forth into eternity, and encompasses and compre- 
 hends the cyclic regeneration of the universe, and 
 perceives that our fathers had no fuller vision, 
 neither will our children behold any new thing. 
 . . . And yet another property of the rational soul 
 
THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 71 
 
 is love of neighbours, truth, self-respect, and that 
 supreme self-reverence which is likewise an at- 
 tribute of Law. And this implies that the law of 
 Reason is coincident with the law of justice." 
 With Marcus Aurelius, the old world says its last 
 word, one manifestation of goodness being proven 
 inadequate to complete expression of the good, so 
 closely are the ' yea ' and the ' nay ' interwoven 
 here below. For, stung by his own universality, 
 the ' wise man ' ever suffers, being in advance of 
 his time. Nevertheless, wisdom deserts him the 
 moment he would reject his fellows, and keep him- 
 self to himself. Justified partially in his criticism 
 of the follies or mischances of a passing day, when 
 civilisation seems to stand puzzled at the cross- 
 roads, he can be justified wholly only on condition 
 that he descry the practicable remedy. And, for 
 the open eye, it lies near at hand. The cure for 
 the known defects of civilisation is — more civili- 
 sation. In this, as In less weighty matters, repudi- 
 ation spells bankruptcy. 
 
PLUTARCH AND HIS AGE 
 
 So was it when ?ny life began; 
 
 So is it now I am a man; 
 
 So be it when I shall grow old. 
 
 Or let me die! . . . 
 And I could wish my days to be 
 Bound each to each by natural piety, 
 
 SYSTEMATIC Philosophy of Religion Is 
 dated usually from Hegel's Lectures on the 
 Philosophy of Religion, published In 1832 
 from the notes of students. Informal, like 
 all lectures, and delivered without thought of 
 print, nevertheless " their very artlessness gives 
 them something of the same stimulating, suggest- 
 ive power which Is attained by the consummate 
 art of the Platonic Dialogues." Now Hegel is 
 responsible, not merely for the application of log- 
 ical principles to the development of religion, but 
 also for the spread of those expert studies, 
 known as the Science of Religions, based upon ob- 
 jective historical Investigation. It has thus come 
 to pass that the Philosophy of Religion Is perplex- 
 ing and debatable ground, because It Involves two 
 problems, distinct in type. The metaphysician and 
 the student of religious history are Interested 
 
PLUTARCH 73 
 
 equally, but each minimises the ofSce of the other. 
 Naturally enough, one might anticipate that diffi- 
 culties of the greatest magnitude would arise with 
 reference to first principles; and, in recent years, 
 progress has lagged here much more than on the 
 historical side. Yet, historical issues detain the 
 investigator at numerous points, nowhere more, 
 perhaps, than in the crowded period intervening 
 between the death of Augustus and the accession 
 of the Antonines. Here ' Hellenism ' and ' Jew- 
 ish-Alexandrianism * have done duty as peri- 
 phrases for mere probability or for compar- 
 ative ignorance. I am quite aware that I 
 have not been able to penetrate their se- 
 crets. But the conviction has grown upon me 
 that, despite scholars to whom Plutarch is 
 no stylist, and thinkers to whom he is no philos- 
 opher, — '* a philosophical washerwoman," — he 
 represents the temper of his age more suggestively 
 than his contemporaries. He exhibits at once the 
 needs, the resources, and the characteristic pov- 
 erty of the time. As is well known, no *single 
 movement exercised decisive influence, for the old 
 system of life was in process of slow dissolution, 
 the new had not arisen to replace it. We do not 
 find a religious crisis, a philosophical drift, or a 
 moral demand so emphatic as to be capable of 
 separate treatment. All intermingle, and the 
 resolution of enigmas is to be sought mainly by 
 
74 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 recourse to principles that can be set forth fully 
 only in a systematic Philosophy of Religion. 
 Meanwhile it may suffice to accept Miss Julia 
 Wedgwood's apt and striking suggestion: "It is 
 not impossible that a second-rate thinker who 
 stands at a turning-point in history, who catches 
 the glow of a coming or departing age, may em- 
 body more of the thoughts and beliefs interesting 
 to posterity than some who stand in the front 
 rank." 
 
 Philosophy always preserves a certain air of un- 
 reality to many minds. It seems to withdraw 
 from contemporary events, or to concern itself 
 little with momentary agitations that absorb popu- 
 lar attention for their brief hour. What once was, 
 as the contention runs, Philosophy may very pos- 
 sibly explain post factum, but immediate problems 
 obtain no heed. This average attitude of sus- 
 picion has its causes in the nature of the case. 
 Thought usually cries in the wilderness of its own 
 generation, and arrives at a kingdom later. Not 
 without manifold reasons. Acquisition of the 
 perspective indispensable to real grasp upon 
 spiritual or intellectual achievements is a slow 
 business, and few there be who attain it. While 
 the goal may differ little from age to age, each 
 epoch views it under distinctive aspects; So, para- 
 doxically. Philosophy must needs meet a double 
 condemnation. Repelling many, because it ap- 
 
PLUTARCH 75 
 
 pears to sit remote from contemporary commo- 
 tions, these very flurries affect the medium through 
 which it must approach its own problems. Ac- 
 cordingly, while it is impossible to cast the bias of 
 the time behind one's back, it is equally impossible 
 to forget that, so far as human insight goes, this 
 very bias, characteristic of all epochs, may inti- 
 mate the final problems. Here, at least, the pe- 
 culiar contribution of an era must be sought; here 
 materials must be gleaned for praise or blame; 
 here, most of all, if not entirely, must the unseen 
 and eternal be winnowed from the seen and tem- 
 poral. Thus, if we cannot affect to recall the 
 Plutarchian, or any other period as it actually ap- 
 peared in its completeness to the actors in the 
 drama, we are not left without a guide to its salient 
 qualities. They conform to a general principle 
 that repeats itself endlessly along the zigzag trail 
 of human aspiration. 
 
 In larger outline, the great movements that com- 
 bine to form the complex heritage of the present 
 have encountered similar vicissitudes. The ideal 
 springs are tapped unawares, and there the leaders 
 of the morrow refresh themselves. Thus invigor- 
 ated, they shake off trammels that hinder others, 
 and generate 
 
 " Thoughts hardly to be packed 
 Into a narrow act, 
 Fancies that break through language and escape." 
 
76 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 So, ideas brimful of evangelical fervour go forth 
 to the masses, turning many to righteousness by 
 their missionary force, renewing the life of a city, 
 a people, maybe of an epoch. Then the usual 
 petrifaction ensues. Forms suitable for preserva- 
 tion of the precious teaching come to be evolved, 
 and permanent safety is sought in subservience to 
 them. As a result, idolatry — always ubiquitous 
 — emerges at a greater or lesser interval. Ob- 
 servance of rites ousts vital belief; respectable con- 
 formity to custom does duty for personal holiness; 
 and, all too often, hypocrisy, most hurtful when 
 least conscious, becomes own mother to iniquity. 
 By a strange somersault, decent indecency rules 
 the roost. When this sham has masqueraded as 
 reality for a due season, detection is brought to 
 potent birth by a few select spirits, of whom it is 
 recorded sometimes, " he hath a devil." In- 
 justices, lies, miseries, the natural brood of a de- 
 cadent stage, beget irritation and resentment. 
 Unrest and criticism trumpet the death of the old 
 oracles. Such junctures tend to repeat themselves ; 
 and they evoke either an imperative demand for a 
 return to ancient, lost aspirations, or a no less ur- 
 gent sense of need for a new revelation. A 
 Plutarch, the true laudator te^nporis acti, arises, or 
 a prophet rouses the land. 
 
 As some investigators would urge now, grievous 
 calumny has been heaped upon the Plutarchian j 
 
PLUTARCH 77 
 
 period. Even so, It were needless to deepen far- 
 ther, by a touch of shadow, the awful blackness 
 that brooded over many of Its dark places. The 
 Rome of Domltlan, although no longer the metrop- 
 olis of that hideous egotist, Nero, still bore 
 faintest adumbration of the City of God. But, 
 while making this admission, we have been too 
 slow to recall that the Mistress of the World was 
 no more than Mistress. To her the civilised uni- 
 verse might Indeed pertain; she did not mirror it 
 entirely. The profound wistfulness of the period, 
 and something of its Incongruous contentment, 
 were partly obscured at the Imperial city. 
 Plutarch embodied both traits. He was well 
 aware that the shrines had ceased to diffuse inspi- 
 ration; he was quite conscious that the former 
 vocation of citizenship no longer afforded Ideals. 
 Nevertheless, he was interested to deploy reasons 
 for the lapse, and pleased to celebrate vanished 
 glories won under a past dispensation. " You dis- 
 cuss what ought not to be argued, when you ques- 
 tion the opinion we hold concerning the gods, and 
 ask reason and proof for everything. For the 
 hereditary and ancestral faith suffices. ... If 
 you demand demonstration about each of the old 
 gods, laying hands on everything sacred and play- 
 ing your sophistry on every altar, you will leave 
 nothing exempt from calumny or from the ordeal 
 of trial." In an age which, as no other, de- 
 
78 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 manded and received its sober defender of the old 
 and its divine revealer of the new, Plutarch stood 
 forth, almost 
 
 " a modern gentleman 
 Of stateliest port," 
 
 as the epitomiser and apologist of Greek culture 
 under Roman rule. He felt the vacuity of re- 
 ligion, shrank from the flaccidity of morals, but he 
 had none of the instant self-sacrifice — an intellec- 
 tual virtue mainly — that seeks to safeguard the 
 future. He lacked the necessary wisdom, with its 
 just perception of relative values; he knew no 
 passion for truth. Hence he fell back upon an- 
 tique supports, and became, in his measure, the first 
 modern defender of divine authority. From him, 
 rather than from any of his more brilliant 
 contemporaries, the inward import of that mys- 
 terious phrase, '* the fulness of the time," may be 
 gathered. He possesses a poise foreign to the 
 rest; and his obvious distaste for novel extremes 
 renders him, not simply genial, but eminently help- 
 ful to the student of the spiritual crisis. Greatly 
 daring, but with rare sagacity, the foremost Eng- 
 lish Plutarch scholar of his day wrote : " Of one 
 special class of students — I mean the theological 
 — it may be safely said that they would receive 
 more direct benefit from an acquaintance with the 
 Greek of Plutarch than from a study of the great 
 
PLUTARCH 79 
 
 masterpieces of the Periclean age." ^ To theo- 
 logical and philosophical students equally Plutarch 
 is as enthralling and important as Philo. Each 
 summed up the tradition of the civilisation that 
 bore him. But, in both, the old culture had for- 
 saken its first seat, had passed into the mighty 
 Roman world and undergone strange transforma- 
 tion. Greek superstition was giving laws to its 
 conquerors, Jewish pride of race was, not merely 
 disdaining or suffering the Gentiles, but was offer- 
 ing them yet another ' mystagogue.' The Boeo- 
 tian and the Alexandrian spoke in the voice of 
 their time, for they were at one in their curious un- 
 consciousness of the real meaning of the momen- 
 tous change that was just upon them. 
 
 Like Shakespeare, Plutarch had no biographer, 
 and, despite his skill as a writer of lives, he left no 
 autobiography. By a tantalising fate, materials 
 for even a bare summary of the chief events in his 
 career are scant. We are unaware, for example, 
 when precisely he was born (about 50 A. D.), 
 when he died (about 120 A. D.), when he visited 
 Rome, Egypt, and Gaul, when he travelled in 
 Greece, when he wrote his principal works, when 
 he held such offices as were then in the power 
 of his countrymen to bestow. True, apposite In- 
 ferences may be drawn with high probability here 
 
 ^ H. A. Holden, in the Introduction to his edition of Plutarch's 
 Life of Sulla, p. vi. 
 
8o THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 and there. But it Is not possible to trace the man's 
 mental development, to watch his growth in char- 
 acter, to mark the circumstances wherein the vari- 
 ous religious Influences that he must have experi- 
 enced came to act upon his views of faith and life. 
 At the same time, as In other conspicuous Instances, 
 counterbalancing advantages ought to be re- 
 marked. Minor Issues aside, we may reconstruct 
 the person from the Lives and the Moralia. Lib- 
 erated from the trivialities whereof modern book- 
 making Is so greedy, we can calmly meas- 
 ure the wider sweep of the writer's mind, and con- 
 centrate attention upon his significant mission as 
 the least sophisticated reporter of his own era. 
 In many ways, his abounding naivete bestows fine 
 compensation for his unrecorded biography. His 
 works savour of himself, and, untouched by the 
 deflecting judgment of others, we keenly enjoy 
 face-to-face communion with an authentic man. 
 His store of anecdotes and his antiquarian lore 
 add a relish to his graver thought, while his many 
 moralislngs portray, not merely his own character, 
 but rather his entire nature, mellowed and 
 chastened by the religious, moral and political con- 
 ceptions of the day. Our acquaintance being thus 
 direct, Plutarch wins upon us and sympathy wells 
 up. It is not hard to see that he was in some 
 sense a deeply religious man living in an age when 
 religion had sunk to superstition, a thinker inter^ 
 
I 
 
 PLUTARCH 8 1 
 
 ested In metaphysical and ethical problems, medi- 
 tating at a moment when an effective philosophy 
 was out of the question. Destined, after centuries 
 of travail, to transmute some hideous evils, the 
 new ideas that were to illumine the Roman uni- 
 verse, mysterious then beyond the ordinary, 
 loomed so near and yet so far that none but puny 
 souls can withhold kindliness, if not affectionate 
 compassion, from this noble among ' greeklings,' 
 searching for light. 
 
 The more Plutarch enlists fellow-feeling, the 
 more one realises how much he has to tell. Hav- 
 ing * little Latin,' he was cut off in a measure from 
 the chief contemporary writers. Despite his 
 wealth of information, he does not quote them, 
 and the absence of their influence is, to say the 
 least, surprising to modern omniscience. Conse- 
 quently he offers a free presentation of his own 
 mind. Sometimes he startles the reader with a 
 novel suggestion that might have proceeded from 
 the nineteenth century, and, taken as a whole, he 
 conveys a complete Impression of an important his- 
 torical phase such as can be obtained nowhere else 
 now. Without the exaggeration of Juvenal, 
 Plutarch has a truer moral interest; without the 
 repressed indignation of Tacitus, he turns the same 
 affectionate gaze upon the good old times, and by 
 them would fain glorify the present; without the 
 tittle-tattle of Suetonius, he is as bright and Inform- 
 
82 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 ing; without the elaborate learning and studied 
 speech of many grammarians and rhetoricians 
 prominent on his stage, he Is more Influential and 
 as persuasive. The secret lies In his humanity — 
 a quality rare always, then exceptional. 
 
 Animas servorum et corpora nostra 
 Materia constare putat parlbusque elementis. 
 
 So Juvenal wrote. Plutarch cannot rest content 
 with these, the pious sentiments, to which some, 
 more distinguished for brilliancy than depth, then 
 gave occasional utterance. He must needs re- 
 habilitate the ancient sanctions of morality and re- 
 ligion, advancing quaint reasons, and never per- 
 mitting himself to stand helplessly dismayed or in- 
 effectually enraged before present defect. If 
 Pliny Major be the most Instructive representative 
 of the culture of that time, Plutarch Is our best re- 
 minder of the entire spiritual condition — of Its 
 spent resources no less than of Its accumulating 
 necessities. And as, by slow degrees, he Intimates 
 the spirit of his generation, we come to learn that 
 he has also given us a self-revelation which only 
 the ideal biographer, who never appears, could 
 have furnished forth. The potent magnetism of 
 natural honesty receives another conspicuous proof. 
 Curiously enough, Plutarch's very attractiveness 
 has long obscured his less obvious but greatest 
 merits. His Lives claim a place alongside 
 
PLUTARCH 83 
 
 Homer, Herodotus, the Bible, the ' Confessions ' 
 of M. Aurelius, and the Imitation of Christ in that 
 select list of books whither, as by an intuition of 
 close kinship, men have continually resorted for 
 rejuvenation, comfort, or wise counsel. Just after 
 Plutarch's death, his works acquired influence. 
 Beginning with Aristides, the apologist for Chris- 
 tianity to Hadrian (about 133 A. D.) , and conclud- 
 ing with Sopater of Apamea in the sixth century, 
 the Lives and the M or alia were quarried for in- 
 formation, or reproduced wholesale in unblushing 
 fashion. When the Revival of Letters rescued 
 classical literature, Plutarch resumed his place 
 among the authors who " can never be read with- 
 out profit." Erasmus discerned his ethical benig- 
 nity at the very outset of the movement. Scaliger 
 knew him. The French in particular welcomed 
 him cordially. Montaigne, little given to enthu- 
 siasm, forgets himself over Plutarch. " In his 
 Parallels (which is the most admirable part of all 
 his works, and with which, in my opinion, he is him- 
 self most pleas'd) the fidelity and sincerity of his 
 judgments equal their depth and weight. He is a 
 philosopher that teaches us vertue.'^ After Mon- 
 taigne, Plutarch's influence flows on persistently 
 through French literature; and, not only in France, 
 but everywhere, he attracts the unlettered many 
 no less than the literate few. Amyot, Rabelais, 
 Boileau, La Fontaine, Saint-Evremond, Pascal, 
 
84 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 Mollere, Racine, Montesquieu, Rollin, Saint- 
 Pierre, Marmontel, Voltaire, Rousseau, La Harpe, 
 Mdme. Roland, De Malstre, Chateaubriand; 
 Henri Quatre and Turenne among men of action; 
 the Semlramis of the North among great women 
 — all dwell upon him. In England, Shakes- 
 peare, Bacon, Jeremy Taylor, Milton, Words- 
 worth, Macaulay and Browning unite to accord 
 him the sincerest flattery — of imitation. Drydeii 
 edits a translation of him, and is more widely read 
 therefor. Emerson expects him to be " perpetu- 
 ally rediscovered from time to time as long as 
 books last." Trench pleads for a better compre- 
 hension of his merits on the basis of all that he 
 wrote, and laments its long delay. Jean Paul and 
 Neander add their homage. Finally, as if to em- 
 phasise yet again Plutarch's universal appeal, one 
 of the most thoughtful women and one of the most 
 valiant men in our own generation, whose paths 
 circle strikingly apart otherwise, combine to sound 
 his praise. " He may almost be called the inter- 
 preter of Greece and Rome to modern Europe," 
 says Julia Wedgwood. And during those slow, 
 sad days of hope deferred at Khartum, the ancient 
 pagan thinker still spoke wisdom to the latest hero 
 of Christendom. " Certainly I would make 
 Plutarch's Lives a handbook for our young of- 
 ficers; it is worth any number of Arts of War or 
 Minor Tactics.^* These brave words, with others, 
 
PLUTARCH 8s 
 
 were penned by Gordon — a relief from the ago- 
 nising anxieties of the final act in the breathless 
 drama of his career. 
 
 Yet, despite this popularity, perhaps because of 
 it, it still remains true that men enjoy Plutarch, 
 finding pleasure and cheer in his company, and 
 forthwith put him aside. Although in the earlier 
 centuries of the Christian era, the Lives and the 
 Moralia were alike plundered impartially, since 
 the Renascence attention has been concentrated 
 with unreasonable exclusiveness upon the former. 
 In practice, so many have acknowledged the unique 
 allurement of the Parallels that to the ' man in 
 the street,' If not to the professional scholar, 
 they represent the most readable compendium of 
 classical times, and constitute a main channel 
 through which the influence of Greek and Roman 
 culture is now experienced consciously. Like 
 Scott's best novels, the Lives have caught the mod- 
 ern reader through the story. Their worth has 
 been taken on sight, at its face value, as it were. 
 Questions seldom obtrude themselves, for does not 
 Plutarch say, " I am not writing histories but lives, 
 and it is not necessarily in the famous action that a 
 man's excellence or failure Is revealed; but some lit- 
 tle thing, a word or a jest, may often show charac- 
 ter better than a battle with its ten thousand slain." 
 It was none of Montaigne's or of Gordon's part to 
 ask whether the pictures show " meni as they 
 
86 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 were " or " men as they ought to have been." 
 The ironical censor of human vanity, and the 
 courageous exemplar of a chastened self-reliance 
 agreed that the biographies contained more than 
 mere characterisation. But they did not tarry to 
 dwell upon reasons or to probe origins. And it 
 thus happens that the Lives have held the field to 
 the exclusion of the M or alia. Philosophers have 
 passed Plutarch by, because he had little interest, 
 and less competence, in ultimate problems — no 
 passion for truth consumed him; scholars, because 
 he did not write Attic Greek. Nevertheless, a 
 large portion of the biographer's charm proceeds 
 from the moralist's insight, and nearly all the edu- 
 cative power of the one collection derives its in- 
 spiration from the inner spirit of the other. 
 
 Plutarch found himself confronted by decrepi- 
 tude in matters that pertain to the things that can- 
 not be shaken. For his own satisfaction, if not 
 always for that of others, he attempted to relieve 
 doubt, and to guide aspiration by setting forth in 
 semi-familiar, semi-reflective style the permanent 
 merit of the chief beliefs whereby classical pagan- 
 ism had sustained its faith. The " teaching of ver- 
 tue," according to Montaigne the note of the 
 Parallels, is but one among several results of 
 Plutarch's life-work. The appeal to the select 
 spirits of antiquity consists in no barren catalogue 
 of their misdeeds or achievements. For, even in 
 
PLUTARCH 87 
 
 detail, Plutarch seldom relapses Into the sign-post 
 system of biography, never In rounded outline. 
 With the possible exceptions of Galba and Otho, 
 the figures appear, not simply as men who were 
 born and wrought and died, but as embodiments 
 of devotion to, or defection from, the old ideals 
 that the writer would fain revivify. If the his- 
 tory of Herodotus have affinity with the epic, that 
 of Thucydides with the drama, Plutarchian biog- 
 raphy may be said to simulate the lyric. It ex- 
 presses the author's personal Interest, springing, as 
 It does, from his sober but persistent determination 
 to justify the old paths of morality and religion by 
 reclaiming them. And while the works manifest 
 little external unity, the pervasive temper of the 
 man is at one with itself throughout. Insight may 
 tarry often, Intention is ever plain. Nay, strange 
 as it may seem, this very intention bestows wis- 
 dom, when precision of knowledge and conscience 
 for evidence are far to seek. Yet, we may admit 
 that Plutarch's inner spirit eludes us still. And 
 our own age seems so like his In some salient fea- 
 tures that the effort to penetrate his secret exerts no 
 little seduction. We may try to obtain glints at 
 least by reference to the ethical environment. 
 
 The social situation in the Roman Empire, as 
 the first century swept to its close, held a strange 
 medley of unassorted opposites. By defect, it 
 presents features that Irresistibly entice those who 
 
88 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 indulge the habit of hysterical denunciation. The 
 influence exerted by the highly partial ' historical * 
 argument, still deemed a necessary accompani- 
 ment of Christian apologetics by some, has made 
 itself felt strongly here. On the other hand, and 
 as an inevitable consequence, contrary judgments 
 may be cited readily. It is alleged, for example, 
 that in this, the epoch of " apathy, debauchery and 
 cruelty " with the apologist, " men sought after 
 moral progress with a zeal which the Christians, 
 if they ever rivalled, never surpassed. ... If you 
 want to find the true spirit of the Founder of Chris- 
 tianity, you will find more of it in the fragmentary 
 literature of Paganism than in all the works of the 
 Fathers put together; and more, not merely of its 
 spirit, but of its actual expression, in Seneca . . . 
 or Plutarch than in Augustine, Jerome, and all 
 their tribe." In short, the period has long fur- 
 nished, and still provides, a favourite battle-ground. 
 But mutually exclusive inferences, akin only in ap- 
 proximate equality of friendly evidence, are trace- 
 able as a rule to a bias arising either from precon- 
 ceived ideas, or from a special purpose in the in- 
 terest of which the records have been approached. 
 Moreover, it must be insisted that, in the present 
 case, take it from what angle one will, a just esti- 
 mate is of exceptional difficulty. Prepossessions, 
 often barely distinguishable from prejudices, satu- 
 rate the very atmosphere we breathe. Moral 
 
 ■ 
 
PLUTARCH 89 
 
 standards are so different; conditions integral 
 to happiness are selected upon such dissimilar 
 grounds ; and, perhaps most of all, the entire fabric 
 of society witnesses to the operation of ideals so 
 antagonistic, that even a sympathetic estimate may 
 be baulked of precision. At the same time, thanks 
 in part to recent epigraphy, exclusive dependence 
 need no longer be placed upon satirists who exist 
 to caricature, upon historians who trade in tale- 
 bearing or express with open impatience the senti- 
 ments of a deposed class. At first sight, the 
 prevalent tone of Plutarch contrasts inexplicably 
 with that of Juvenal, of Suetonius, or of Tacitus. 
 And, in the essay to reconstruct the conditions 
 whence our author sprang — relying much on his 
 own remains, — the ' give and take * in the avail- 
 able evidence may be permitted such free and fair 
 play as the bias of contemporary culture allows. 
 
 The reporters, whose books have coloured sub- 
 sequent opinion concerning Plutarch^s age, were 
 themselves subject to plain limitations. Their ac- 
 counts cannot be taken uncritically, and treated as 
 a just statement of the whole case. Nay, Plu- 
 tarch's own lapses, when he mistook poetry for his- 
 torical fact, afford illustrations in point. Even 
 more than our chief centres of population, Rome 
 acted as a magnet, subtly attracting the best intel- 
 lect, the highest ambition, and no less the sordid 
 and adventurous spirits of the outspread empire. 
 
90 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 The heterogeneity of this hived humanity has 
 never had parallel since, Alexandria in her ' palm- 
 iest ' days, London, and New York notwithstand- 
 ing. The spirit of the republican city-state, im- 
 pelling for all its severity, had evaporated. Rome 
 had ceased to originate moral guarantees, having 
 become rather a receptacle for the shot virtues 
 and vices of the world, bent upon satisfaction after 
 their kind. As a consequence, " Parthians, and 
 Medes, and Elamties, and the dwellers in Meso- 
 potamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, 
 and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and 
 in the parts of Libya around Cyrene, Jews and 
 proselytes, Cretes and Arabians " rubbed shoulders 
 there; yet each retained his cultural tradition in 
 large measure. Accordingly, the notable writers, 
 their moment bending their intuitions, confined 
 themselves to familiar aspects of this motley as- 
 semblage; and, where talent is concerned, famili- 
 arity tends to be distributive. 
 
 True, the poets are at one negatively; they have 
 escaped the wistful sadness of their predecessors 
 — of Lucretius, and Catullus, of Virgil especially. 
 Positively they differ from each other, even al- 
 though they agree to employ satire as a medium. 
 The obscure allusiveness of Persius, the stinging 
 exaggeration of Juvenal, the elaborate heroics of 
 Lucan, the lively dialogue of Petronius, the mor- 
 dant epigram of Martial, constitute a single illus- 
 
PLUTARCH 91 
 
 tration of the manner in which literature parades 
 morals. These qualities are traceable severally, 
 not so much to that essential extract which is of 
 an age, as to the specific conditions and oppor- 
 tunities pertaining to individuals. Persius' educa- 
 tion, Juvenal's contempt for the servility of the 
 parvenu, Lucan's rhetorical ingenuity, blind to 
 ideals, Petronius' unerring eye for minor manners, 
 Martial's cynicism, were determining factors in 
 their respective views of contemporary life. Each 
 sees differently, and for different reasons; not one 
 arrests " the flying moment; " its likeness escapes 
 his most beautiful shapes. Regarded collectively 
 even, they leave this sense of failure, for they are 
 not 
 
 " The only speakers of essential truth, 
 Opposed to relative, comparative 
 And temporal truths." 
 
 Thus It were a fallacy to take the Messalinas and 
 Trimalchios for types of mankind, to forget that 
 they are representative of small coteries. In 
 the same way, not only matters of opinion, 
 but an appreciable element set down as mat- 
 ter of fact, say by Tacitus^ must be appraised 
 in the light of his truly Roman severitas; by Sue- 
 tonius, with deductions enforced by his obvious 
 partiality for scandal. Be they poets, be they his- 
 torians or biographers, the ' divine soliloquy ' Is 
 
92 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 not caught on the inward ear of any, for it cannot 
 be said that the " skies are genial and the earthly 
 air propitious." The kaleidoscopic traits of the 
 great city distract all so much that not one enjoys 
 " final rest atop the mount; " thus they miss the 
 wisdom necessary to finer insight. Not that 
 they falsify, but each Is content to cultivate his own 
 corner of the garden. They possess an Identity 
 principally because personal opinions lord it over 
 universal conceptions. • Even Pliny's praise of the 
 present is obliquely put In a disparagement of the 
 past, and for this there is a reason in which he has 
 private interest. Ideals, when they come to the 
 surface. Immediately disclose their ancient lineage ; 
 seldom are they born of the moment. A bewilder- 
 ing medley of temporary, one might almost say ac- 
 cidental, qualities receives vivid delineation; but 
 of the hidden forces that silently sway the multi- 
 tude In the background few glimpses are afforded. 
 While, then, Plutarch's contemporaries failed 
 to epitomise the era, they preserved, and with 
 keen zest, many prominent characteristics little 
 creditable for the most part to the society of the 
 day. Their tone, too, bears unmistakable witness 
 to the dearth of fructifying motives, or, perhaps, 
 to the absence of opportunities that might have 
 originated for them also the Plutarchian glimmer 
 of the single constructive tendency of the time. 
 Critical mission they had and to spare. But they 
 
PLUTARCH 93 
 
 were blind to the ultimate significance of the 
 Pagan Reaction. Accordingly, they never adopted 
 the VIrglllan motto, applicable so happily to the 
 Chaeronean sage — Sacra deosque daho. Even 
 Juvenal, the most trenchant of the group, shows 
 small ability to read the signs of the times. 
 
 "Our past is clean forgot, 
 Our present is and Is not, 
 Our future's a sealed seed plot, 
 And what betwixt them are we? " 
 
 The truth is that, no matter how valuable the 
 clues offered by the Roman writers, this period 
 can be understood approximately only by refer- 
 ence to the religious and social presuppositions of 
 which it was the last and, in many respects, the 
 decadent expression. These principles, intertwin- 
 ing more and more inextricably from crisis to 
 crisis, alone explain and justify many common 
 qualities that must be associated always, for the 
 modern mind, with the unhappiness inseparable 
 from civic inequality. They also expose much real 
 weakness which we, befogged by our tolerant senti- 
 mentalism, are prone to set aside too lightly. 
 
 The attempt to resuscitate the ancient classical 
 spirit, projected by several recent poets, proves 
 how apt we are to overlook the great gulf fixed 
 between the Graeco-Roman world and ourselves. 
 The formative ideas, in obedience to which modern 
 
94 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 society has fashioned itself, contain their own dis^ 
 tinctive essence. And, while classical learning re- 
 mains an important part of contemporary Euro- 
 pean education, no less a pregnant source of the 
 refinements that mark true knowledge, one cannot 
 allege that Greek and Latin are as they were for 
 Athenian or Roman. They have put on a spiritual 
 body. They are factors in a new creation, and 
 contact with many strange, but integral, influences 
 has transformed their pristine nature. Different 
 sentiments determine our morality; other purposes 
 condition our social arrangements; more than aught 
 else, the revelation derived from another religion 
 has rendered our life concentric to a fresh con- 
 ception of the measure of manhood and the voca- 
 tion of humanity. Inevitably, these later ideals 
 betray their own limitations, inducing peculiar de- 
 fects that breed sad consequences In the resultant 
 organisms of religion, morality, politics and liter- 
 ature. Yet, despite reformers who bewail them- 
 selves occasionally that the sins of Rome, Alex- 
 andria and Corinth may be matched in London and 
 Paris and Berlin, in New York and Chicago and 
 San Francisco, the blemishes are not those of the 
 old pagan world. The fabric is of another sort. 
 If it be true, for the classical as for the modern 
 state, that 
 
 " All are needed by each one ; 
 Nothing is fair or good alone," 
 
 * 
 
PLUTARCH 95 
 
 it Is true In a widely different sense. And the key 
 to the divergence lies In the contrasted views of 
 personality, of the value and use of individual life. 
 To understand Plutarch's age, to appraise Its 
 needs and resources, It Is indispensable to cast aside 
 the media implied In phrases such as ' the rights 
 of man,' and to reconstruct In thought all that was 
 once signified by ' the duties of the citizen.' Our 
 historical descent involves us, all unwitting, in con- 
 stant emphasis upon the privileges — the dues — 
 of manhood. We realise the meaning of Paul's 
 question without difficulty, and we place a definite 
 interpretation upon Its consequences. " And 
 when they had tied him up with the thongs, Paul 
 said to the centurion that stood by. Is it lawful for 
 you to scourge a man that is a Roman and uncon- 
 demned? . . . The chief captain also was afraid 
 when he knew that he was a Roman, and because 
 he had bound him." But we are liable to forget 
 that, while the ' political animal ' of Aristotle en- 
 joyed rights, he paid an extortionate price, as our 
 current estimate would run. For, citizenship was 
 not merely exclusive. The situation Involved 
 something more than a division into Greek and 
 barbarian, or into Roman citizen, subject nation- 
 ality, and slave. Political recognition was based 
 on a total deprivation of ' liberty ' as we under- 
 stand the term. The free-born citizen merged his 
 humanity in his citizenship. And in the earlier 
 
96 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 days of the classical world, he remained uncon- 
 scious of any loss; his sole vocation was govern- 
 ment; he received back double for everything he 
 bestowed. The strength of the city-state, while 
 in full bloom, flowed from that subjection to it in 
 which its members found the only perfect, because 
 the only conceivable, freedom. It was the Utopia, 
 the good place. Take Plutarch's statement about 
 Theseus: "Now, after the death of his father 
 i^geus, forming in his mind a great and wonderful 
 design, he gathered together all the inhabitants of 
 Attica into one town, and made them one people 
 of one city, whereas before they lived dispersed, 
 and were not easy to assemble upon any affair for 
 the common interests. . . . He dissolved all the 
 distinct state-houses, council halls, and magistra- 
 cies, and built one common state-house and council 
 hall on the site of the present upper town, and gave 
 the name Athens to the whole state, ordaining a 
 common feast and sacrifice, which he called the 
 Panathenaea, or the sacrifice of all the united 
 Athenians." Then take Plato's definition of jus- 
 tice: " What at the commencement we laid down 
 as a universal rule of action, when we were found- 
 ing our state, this, if I mistake not, or some modi- 
 fication of it, is justice. I think we affirmed, if 
 you recollect, and frequently repeated, that every 
 individual ought to have some one occupation in 
 the state, which should be that to which his natural 
 
 J 
 
PLUTARCH 97 
 
 capacity was best adapted. . . . That fourth prin- 
 ciple in every child and woman, in every slave, 
 freeman and artisan, in the ruler and in the sub- 
 ject, requiring each to do his own work, and not to 
 meddle with many things." These passages pre- 
 sent in broad outline the presuppositions of the de- 
 velopment of classical society. Every one revelled 
 in a freedom possible only within the social medium 
 of a comparatively small city, but his city. No one 
 sensed the sacrifice unavoidably resultant. Allow- 
 ing for certain lapses, civic vocation supplied room 
 and to spare for action and avocation — till the 
 empire engulfed the world. Nevertheless, every 
 one was bound as a man through the whole period. 
 As Mommsen says, the citizen^s duty was to rule 
 his own household, and, for the rest, to be the 
 obedient subject of the state. So long as all went 
 well, the legitimate authority might respect its own 
 limits; but, these forgotten, the magnitude of the 
 price became evident — and too late. 
 
 The pregnant issues developed naturally from 
 this semi-socialistic conception constitute the inner 
 history of classical civilisation. The ultimate 
 ubiquitousness of Greek culture was conditioned 
 by the subjugation of Hellas to Macedonia, of 
 Achala to Rome. The Hellenes, finding them- 
 selves bereft of their old political interests, became 
 the evangelists of education, and so * gave laws to 
 the conquerors.' The sadness of the later Greek 
 
98 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 thinkers is a corollary to their criticism of a past 
 ideal, and to their debility in the search for a sub- 
 stitute. Their continuous unrest is that of the cit- 
 izen torn from his city; their occasional happiness, 
 that of rediscovering the old vocation anew, though 
 attenuated sorely, in the city-ruled empire of the 
 known world. And with Plutarch, as with the 
 dumb millions In his day, the latter Is for a little 
 the predominant sentiment. Man, untroubled by 
 recognition of his absolute value as such, evinces 
 no regret consequent upon a comparison of what 
 he Is with what It Is in him to be. But the citizen 
 sometimes bemoans the once Athens and the un- 
 bending aristocratic spirit of old Rome. Yet, for 
 the most part, he accepts — and thankfully — the 
 Pax Romana as compensation for loss, and the ac- 
 complished facts of the time generate something 
 of contentment by their sheer immensity. Like 
 Virgil, Plutarch is fain to laud Rome — " the most 
 beautiful of all the works of man." 
 
 Thus it may be said — not. Indeed, as the latter- 
 day democrat would judge, but within the servitude 
 of humanity to the passion for citizenship — that 
 Plutarch's age held means of consolation for many. 
 In the person of Divus Casar, Theseus had 
 
 " Come again and twice as fair; 
 Come 
 With all good things, and war shall be no more." 
 
PLUTARCH 99 
 
 And, although there was no new Athens, no re- 
 vived patrician order, the splendour of the empire, 
 everywhere apparent, dazzled masses into believ- 
 ing that the golden age had arrived at length. 
 Peace on earth had ended the hideous suffering 
 caused by civil war; there was good-will, not in- 
 deed to men, but to those who acquiesced in Roman 
 supremacy. The world may have been dead, but 
 Rome seemed so living that faith in rejuvenescence 
 by drafts upon her energy was not unnatural. 
 
 Indications of this general expectancy, to which 
 Plutarch gave plain utterance, are frequent. 
 Speaking generally, and omitting details for the 
 moment, there can be little question that the reign 
 of Augustus was hailed, not simply by a later and 
 idealising generation, but by men of the time, as 
 the dawn of a better day. The gods were charg- 
 ing themselves with the care of men after an ob- 
 livious interval so long that, but for folk-memory, 
 the gap must have yawned impassable. Thanks 
 to folk-memory, once more, this was recognised 
 even by the people — by the silent multitude that 
 ultimately shapes the destinies of civilisation. The 
 internecine factions and horrid turbulence of the 
 later Republic gave place to the strong and, in Its 
 way, beneficent rule of a single will, guaranteeing 
 grateful liberty to undertake ordinary business with 
 reasonable assurance of effective protection. As a 
 
loo THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 sequel, an expansive system of mythology sprang 
 up round the name of the dead Caesar. A similar 
 contentment, but charged on this occasion with a 
 larger element of hope for the immediate future, 
 thanks to contrast with the nearest past, marked 
 the outset of Nero's principate. The youth started 
 with generous intentions, and he is commonly re- 
 ported to have acted up to them. More than 
 likely, however, the * Golden Quinquennium * was 
 due to the wise policy of Seneca and to the rigid 
 good faith of Burrus. The emperor was still in 
 their leading-strings, and while he thus remained, 
 things went well. But this touching confidence 
 proved baseless all too soon. The stock that 
 spawned Caligula and Claudius had yet another 
 degeneration to reveal. The '' heartless buffoon " 
 broke loose, and the prasens Divus, mortally In- 
 tent to win securer eminence by denuding his vicin- 
 ity of strength, intellect and virtue distinguished 
 enough to command admiration, cut down the " tall 
 stalks." Yet, even at this. It must be remembered 
 that the judgment of Tacitus on the murderous 
 Caesars is full of point: Savi proximis ingruunt. 
 
 Not till the localised horrors of Nero's rule had 
 been spread abroad by the general miseries of civil 
 war, when emperors came to the Golden. House 
 and departed " as If they were players in a booth, 
 going on the stage and off again," to use Plutarch's 
 apt metaphor, did the trouble lay heavy hand upon 
 
PLUTARCH loi 
 
 the whole body of the people. Then, once more, 
 and again to a great extent by contrast, hope, even 
 confidence emerged. Vespasian was the deliverer 
 risen in the East. On this occasion, expectation 
 was to be justified of her children. After Domi- 
 tian, possibly during his reign, there is a species of 
 return to the outward prosperity of the Augustan 
 Jubilee. The heart-sickness of hope deferred dies 
 away. Making allowance for his confusion of re- 
 ligion with theology and his consequent misprision 
 of the spiritual crisis. Gibbon has placed on record 
 the judgment which sums this period most point- 
 edly, if somewhat too absolutely: " If a man were 
 called to fix the period in the history of the world, 
 during which the human race was most happy and 
 prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that 
 which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the 
 accession of Commodus." The deliverance is of 
 general application. It might be said of the Brit- 
 ish, in the same way, that the Victorian era has 
 been the time of their greatest happiness and pros- 
 perity. Nevertheless, in so declaring, detailed 
 reference to the inordinate lust of some few, whom 
 sudden wealth had ruined, to the undisguised scep- 
 ticism of many, upset by half-culture, to patent in- 
 justices, if not crimes, among all classes — special 
 effects springing from the implications of the nine- 
 teenth century social order — would be left out of 
 conspicuous consideration. So, too, with the 
 
102 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 Roman Empire. The progressive sweep of the 
 civilisation Is grandiose; and from this very fact 
 a spirit of self-satisfaction stalks abroad, throwing 
 Into shadow many shameful deeds, distracting at- 
 tention from certain foul customs, and drowning 
 the cry of much awful misery in its world-resound- 
 ing tramp. It has been the fate of the Roman 
 Empire (and, not unlikely it may be that of our 
 federated commercialism, enshrined, as its excres- 
 cences are, in the newspaper press) that the dirt, 
 the dishonour, and the squalor have assumed un- 
 due proportions with a later age. New standards 
 have led observers to see the black spots larger, 
 to forget that, after all, overt wickedness was then 
 the luxury of the few, as it must ever be. Doubt- 
 less the principles implicit in ancient society re- 
 sulted In judgments whereat we may well stand 
 aghast. But, In the nature of things, humanity it- 
 self could not have been fundamentally different. 
 Oppression may not have seemed oppression as we 
 now think, but torture and death and disregard of 
 man's dearest relationships cannot but have over- 
 whelmed many with a frightful burden. And thus 
 a dumb, hopeless acquiescence, destructive of spon- 
 taneous aspiration, cast a shadow over the. outward 
 prosperity of the world-state — a shadow not of 
 earth, but of the spirit. 
 
 On the other hand, the benefits of Roman rule, 
 in the shape of a settled social system, of safety 
 
PLUTARCH 103 
 
 in commerce and travel, of opportunity in educa- 
 tion, and of free intercourse between folk of the 
 most various races through the media of two lan- 
 guages, together universally understood, contrib- 
 uted to the spread of stability, toleration, wealth, 
 and other accompaniments of prosperity. The 
 wisdom of the Roman administration had been 
 such that, with two significant exceptions — the 
 Egyptians and the Jews — the subject nationalities 
 had almost forgotten their former independence, 
 and evinced few traces of desire to regain it. 
 Cosmopolitanism, due to long contact with all 
 sorts and conditions of men, had softened Roman 
 hardness, — even the straitest sect of the Stoics 
 had relaxed its traditional austerity. The vigour 
 of several of the recent provinces, like Gaul and 
 Germany, had done something towards regenerat- 
 ing the Italians, depressed to effeteness by mone- 
 tary exactions, evictions, and civil strife. Strenu- 
 ous efforts were put forth to reorganise agriculture 
 in the ' home counties.' On the whole, the em- 
 perors were distinguished, not by clemency alone, 
 but also by an undeniable, if partial, practice of 
 their profession — to revert to the civic traditions 
 of the best republican times. Military training, 
 still in fashion, afforded scope for the exercise of 
 restraint, and offered a school for the inculcation 
 of obedience, valour, and self-discipline ; while, de- 
 spite their unsavoury associations, it is by no means 
 
104 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 clear that the Lanistae did not exert similar influ- 
 ence. Finally, as Plutarch's Symposia prove, 
 there was another side to the vulgar philistinisni' 
 of the orgy of Trimalchio. Men of culture and 
 learning had their place. A quiet social life, in 
 which rational conversation and sane enjoyment 
 played a chief part, flourished. Despite the mar- 
 riage of usus and the exposure of children, domes- 
 ticity was not dead. In other words, only a small 
 minority felt the pinch of ' keeping up appear- 
 ances ' experienced by those who lived, for the 
 sake of brief and scandalous notoriety, among the 
 fashionable who frequented the metropolis and its 
 appanages, the pleasure-cities. The inscriptions 
 afford clear evidence of this. And, as has been 
 said, in estimating these signs, care must be taken 
 to eschew comparison with modern judgments. 
 For, as Lecky observes, to fall below the standard 
 of a merciful age is often in reality to be far worse 
 than those who have conformed to the judgment 
 of a barbarous time. 
 
 On general and special grounds alike, evidence 
 abounds to prove that Plutarch's age is not repre- 
 sented fairly by pushing to the front the ' favour- 
 ites ' of that ironical goddess. Fortune, who, after 
 their kind in all ages, strutted a short hour in ex- 
 quisite circles at the capital and at those centres of 
 self-indulgence where metropolitan ' society ' was 
 aped. On the contrary, when the immense num- 
 
PLUTARCH 105 
 
 ber of Roman citizens Is taken Into account, Gib- 
 bon's allegation comes nearer the mark. Much 
 misery there was and no little oppression. But, 
 writing off our modern ways of judgment, and add- 
 ing the blessings of security and plenty, there were 
 manifold reasons for confidence, many causes for 
 that thankful cheerfulness so consistently present in 
 Plutarch. Whatever their depth, the social evils 
 that some of his contemporaries were so forward 
 to advertise do not seem to have penetrated the 
 people deeply enough to deflect the bent of the 
 average man. Then, as now, the exceptional re- 
 ceived flamboyant notice, the abnormal or patho- 
 logical was reported with avidity. A good * story ' 
 must needs be * written up.' The great bulk of 
 genial deeds done; of duties faithfully fulfilled 
 day-In, day-out; of kindnesses extended unostenta- 
 tiously, have no historian. Yet in them lies the 
 general savour of average life. Accordingly, we 
 are forced to conclude that Plutarch found not a lit- 
 tle of vaster moment than damnable vice, unspeak- 
 able foulness, and hateful cruelty among the many 
 prominent qualities of the end of the first and the 
 beginning of the second century of grace. 
 
 But If, taking all the evidence Into consideration, 
 Plutarch's age is to be regarded as fairly happy 
 and prosperous — happy and prosperous beyond 
 the average possibly — what of the other side? 
 What of *' the universal corruption " that has 
 
io6 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 evoked such a stream of denunciation? Here, as 
 before, it is necessary to fall back upon the prin- 
 ciples involved in the historical evolution of class- 
 ical society. The free-born citizen, though quite 
 unconscious of the fact, enjoyed his privileges at 
 great cost. Man was not sacred because of his 
 humanity, but on account of his nationality. The 
 city-state imparted its virtue to the citizens only. 
 In exchange it received their lives — a free-will 
 offering, no doubt, embodying the contemporary 
 idea of freedom. When, in consequence, benefits 
 really accrued to individuals, the most characteristic 
 contribution of classical civilisation to the advance 
 of mankind emerged, as in the Athens of Pericles, 
 and in the spacious days of the Roman common- 
 wealth. But, when one city sucked vitality from 
 all the world, and proved unable to render fair re- 
 turn in the shape of civic virtues, a potent cause 
 of inward stagnation, and consequent corruption, 
 appeared. Even in the palmiest years of the Em- 
 pire, but especially in that portion of them to the 
 beginnings of which Plutarch belongs, this defect 
 irritated more or less. Men everywhere felt, 
 though they could not explain, the decline. Yet, 
 even so, a chief reason for the prevalence of the 
 mood is to be sought, not in disregard of the 
 rights of manhood as concerns citizens, but in the 
 poisonous effects emanating from an enormous 
 slave population. 
 
I 
 
 PLUTARCH 107 
 
 For a time, when civic virtue flourished, slavery 
 may have been of positive advantage. The condi- 
 tions whence Greek art, literature and philosophy 
 sprang implied the presence of a leisure class, of a 
 class in whose outlook leisure formed a determin- 
 ing element. In like manner, the Roman genius 
 for government had similar presuppositions. 
 While, in its origin, amongst savage peoples, slav- 
 ery is no more than another Illustration of man's 
 inveterate desire to aggrandise self, it exhibits 
 higher qualities in the socialised community of the 
 city-state. As the spirit of this organisation led 
 the citizen to give himself for his privileges, so it 
 forced the slave to give himself for his life. He 
 thus became an integral part of the polity, and 
 gained, if not rights, at least that consideration 
 apart from which he would have been worthless, 
 because Insubordinate and dangerous. By the 
 necessities of the situation, masters were schooled 
 to exercise a certain amount of forbearance, even 
 although they undoubtedly had opportunities for 
 the exhibition of what we should deem senseless 
 cruelty. More effectually than violence, modera- 
 tion kept relations sweet. In practice, restraint 
 produced a good tendency, even if the moral aim 
 Implied were not according to modern theory. 
 The very contrast between bond and free, like that 
 between barbarian and Greek, generated an esprit 
 de corps among the privileged. For, if the fact 
 
io8 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 of slavery offered depravity occasion to display 
 native wickedness, it also left the better masters 
 free to follow the arts, or to cultivate the sciences 
 of war and government. On the whole, cruelty 
 was probably an exception — certainly an excep- 
 tion as the men of the day understood it; and vir- 
 tue, developed in pursuit of ' aristocratic ' occu- 
 pations, innoculated the old stock. More than 
 likely, too, some benefit accrued to the slaves them- 
 selves. They learned to feel that their masters 
 were necessary to them; frequent are the records of 
 their devotion. On the principle that " he who 
 cannot look up to a superior can never come to re- 
 spect himself,'^ they were affected for the better by 
 the standard Illustrated In the lives of their own- 
 ers. Caprice and brute force were curbed by the 
 humanising influence exercised by a social system 
 from which master and slave were equally insep- 
 arable. 
 
 But the flowering time of such arrangements 
 could not last for ever. The eclipse of moral 
 right, and the Insistence upon duty Imperatively 
 Imposed by current social norms, were factors 
 fated to bring forth consequences spiritually dis- 
 astrous throughout and, in the end, destined to 
 practical or material ruin. Every form of human 
 association has the defects of Its qualities. The 
 resources of life depend ultimately upon the rela- 
 tive perfection of the community. The best so- 
 
PLUTARCH 109 
 
 clety is the one wherein identical, or approximately 
 Identical, Interests spur each to strive for the uplift 
 of all. So the master could not but be degraded 
 eventually by contact with the slave. For, the 
 few gained something at the expense of the many, 
 and, in the issue, as always happens, the privileged 
 had to pay dearly for their uncommon advantages. 
 At first, slavery helped the masters morally by 
 leading them to exhibit their superiority In deed. 
 When this had come to be matter of mere tradi- 
 tion, stagnation ensued, and worse, seeing that, 
 after all, the honour of elevation above a being 
 who has no rights is comparatively barren, and 
 proves Its sterility by acting as a gradual gangre- 
 nous growth upon Ideals. The favoured, being set 
 cheek by jowl with the unfavoured, finally come 
 to be unfavoured themselves. The fear of the 
 Lord is only the beginning of wisdom. And, as a 
 God who is feared, and no more, tends to become 
 a fetich, — something less than the worshipper, — 
 so the master who can always and readily work 
 his sweet will tends to become a slave to otiose im- 
 pulses which, opportunity aiding nature, gain over- 
 whelming Influence. Long ere Plutarch lived, this 
 stage had been reached. 
 
 Furthermore, one must remember that the 
 Circenses not only constituted the *' chief blot " 
 upon Roman civilisation, but were also a prime 
 consequence of that contempt for the dignity of 
 
no THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 man whence, such Is the paradox, the supreme 
 qualities of ' pagan ' culture grew. The constant 
 distributions of wheat, too, and the avidity with 
 which they were accepted or even sought, are wit- 
 ness to the servility of both donors and recipients. 
 The sensuality of men and the license of women 
 are referable also to the opportunities which the 
 low conception of manhood afforded; they were 
 aggravated by the pliability of slaves whose prime 
 hope lay in a manumission to be compassed most 
 speedily by taking special service with the lust, 
 gluttony or voluptuousness of their superiors. 
 While the temptations inseparable from their posi- 
 tion were Intensified by the corruption of the high- 
 est, some accompaniments of imperial rule aggra- 
 vated the mischief of slave depravity farther. 
 The artificial security desiderated by the baser 
 Caesars afforded a new profession. The crime of 
 lese-majeste, literally created all to frequently by 
 the custom of delation, opened a prosperous career 
 to the Informer. And when, on a word from the 
 worst, the best might be done to death, the way to 
 the inrush of all evil passions was plain — to every 
 species of treachery, to meanest revenge for sup- 
 posititious injury, or for the more real Insult of 
 proven superiority which so moves the malicious 
 and the petty. Inexpressibly foul In itself, this 
 practice further restricted the scope for legitimate 
 expression of Individuality, a field already far too 
 
PLUTARCH III 
 
 circumscribed for safety or public weal. Success 
 in life was to be obtained by mere pandering to all 
 that was vilest. The mimes, the painters, the 
 story-tellers, nay, the very priests of religion, were 
 infected. Luxury had attained almost incredible 
 proportions, and its enervating effects were never 
 more potent. In the ranks thus tainted, even the 
 superlative excellence of a Thrasea, itself an out- 
 growth of the peculiar circumstances, could do no 
 more than rise to an acceptance of the inevitable. 
 " We pour out a libation to Jupiter the Deliverer. 
 Behold, young man, and may the gods avert the 
 omen, but you have been born into times when it 
 is well to fortify the spirit with examples of cour- 
 age. 
 
 Nevertheless, we must lay it to heart that this 
 frightful corruption was no more than ari excep- 
 tional instance of the prevalent inertia of moral 
 idealism, a defect necessarily consequent upon the 
 disregard of personality involved in the inner 
 principle of the city-state. Opportunity, which 
 might well have made the majority competitors for 
 distinction in evil, presented itself mainly, if not ex- 
 clusively, to the few. Even in Rome herself, and 
 in Italy, by all accounts the most miserable of the 
 provinces, one stratum was the chief subject of this 
 death to virtue. It may well be doubted whether 
 the dire example spread widely beyond Rome, ex- 
 cept to some cities, the confessed imitators of her 
 
112 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 gross foibles — to Pompeii, Baiae, Sybaris, Alex- 
 andria, Corinth. Appraising the age without ref- 
 erence to modern standards, the worst that can be 
 said of society, as a whole. Is, that moral aspiration 
 was dull, and that, as at no other time, occasion 
 abounded to sin openly and without reproof. 
 Even when this is conceded, the question always re- 
 mains. What was the proportion of the one hun- 
 dred million inhabitants of the Empire to whom 
 such occasion came ? It is an obvious reply that the 
 vices whereby Nero and his court Idealised them- 
 selves into dirt would have been impossible had 
 they been universal. The very satire, hurled at 
 them and their kind, implies the existence of an- 
 other standard, not simply among the masses, but 
 even with those who moved in the ranks that most 
 furnished forth rioters In bestiality. In short, 
 whatever may have been the habit of Vitellius, to 
 take a case in point, we may rest assured that 
 flamingoes' tongues did not form the national dish 
 of the imperial Romans. 
 
 On a broad survey, then. It Is Impossible to es- 
 cape the conclusion that Plutarch's age presents a 
 strange conjunction of characteristics. Outwardly, 
 it was prosperous and avowedly happy beyond the 
 average, possibly beyond any period of recorded 
 history save our own. The supremacy- of Rome 
 was Instilling confidence Into many minds. Yet, in 
 narrow circles, vice held triumphant sway, and 
 
PLUTARCH 113 
 
 servility corrupted with awful success. Accord- 
 ingly, extreme denunciation and extreme praise are 
 equally beside the mark. Society had its quali- 
 ties, most of them due to the socialising principle 
 of the city-state ; and it displayed its defects, most 
 of them bred by the truncated conception of man 
 as a moral being which, notwithstanding, was the 
 presupposition of the mighty heritage of classical 
 paganism. So far as the conduct of life went, 
 then as always there was a chasm between the great 
 and the small of the earth. The practice of spe- 
 cific vices, which testified to the perversion of mem- 
 bers of the one order, did not exist to bear similar 
 witness for the other. If, therefore, the age is to 
 be understood, an attempt must be made to discover 
 the true sources of putrescence. The most serious 
 defect did not consist in the showy sin whereon 
 Juvenal dilated; for we can all fervently echo the 
 wish that Plutarch's essay about Brotherly Love, 
 ay, and much else of his, might be " bound up with 
 the sixth satire of Juvenal, as painting the two 
 aspects discernible in the same era, according to 
 the eyes that saw it." No, the virulent corruption 
 of any epoch is that which permeates it through 
 and through. The happiness of Plutarch's time, 
 chargeable not a little to absence of spiritual curi- 
 osity, or, at all events, to the blunting of moral 
 idealism, is far more significant than the tales of 
 imperial licentiousness. For, the adulteries of 
 
114 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 Roman ladies, the blasphemies, gluttonies, and un- 
 natural excesses of the court and its entourage are 
 not to be mistaken for causes. They were them- 
 selves effects. The good and bad of the time, as 
 it has been too commonly understood, are both ap- 
 pearances. The reality, the ultimate source of 
 much seeming ill, as of much seeming good — 
 superstition, for example — is to be sought deeper. 
 While we may not have the key to this mystery 
 as yet, still we can learn more about the period 
 from Plutarch than from anyone else. And he 
 warrants the assertion that the spirit of the time 
 is not set forth in the freakish beliefs and weird 
 cults of the masses, or in the swinishness of 
 the men about town. The contentment of many 
 and the excess of some are the consequences of 
 qualities wherein the people and the exquisites 
 partook alike. These hidden tendencies are the 
 keepers of the secret of the era. Depressing in- 
 fluences in themselves, they are the seed of those 
 phenomena that have rightly earned for the period 
 its terrible appellation, the Age of Death. ' Plu- 
 tarch was not the sole recorder of the actual truth, 
 but he caught it more justly than his fellows. 
 Spiritual sickness supplied his theme; regeneration 
 formed his ideal, but regeneration by return to a 
 past dispensation. We have misprised him till 
 now, because one whose inspiration seems anti- 
 quarian bears no vital message. But we have for- 
 
PLUTARCH 115 
 
 gotten that he had his own aspirations, that he was 
 a prophet after his kind — the sole kind which a 
 reaction, in this case, the Pagan Reaction — 
 can ever inspire. Great Pan is dead; but, may- 
 hap some other god still ranges the firmament, 
 seeking sincere worship. The dread fact of this 
 death and the need somewhere and somehow for 
 spiritual resurrection, together cohstitute the spir- 
 itual quintessence of the age. Yet every eye seems 
 to have been blind, although Plutarch caught a 
 glimmer here and there. The significance of his 
 insight may be brought home to us, children of a 
 late but like transition, by those lines, from the pen 
 of one of our best exemplars. Mr. Kipling has 
 addressed them appositely — "To whom it may 
 
 The smoke upon your altar dies, 
 
 The flowers decay, 
 
 The Goddess of your sacrifice 
 
 Has flown away. 
 
 What profit then to sing or slay 
 
 The sacrifice from day to day? 
 
 " We know the shrine is void," they said, 
 
 " The Goddess flown — 
 
 Yet wreaths are on the altar laid — 
 
 The Altar-Stone 
 
 Is black with fumes of sacrifice, 
 
 Albeit She has fled our eyes, 
 
ii6 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 For It may be, if still we sing 
 
 And tend the Shrine, 
 
 Some Deity on wandering wing 
 
 May there incline. 
 
 And, finding all in order meet, 
 
 Stay while we worship at Her feet." 
 
THE MOVEMENT TOWARDS ' PHYSIO- 
 LOGICAL ' PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 We believe that the more closely 
 the physiological conceptions approach 
 agreement with the actual facts of 
 structure and function, the more facile 
 the progress of psychology. 
 
 LIKE many words of broad sweep and in- 
 tensive significance, the term ' soul ' has 
 descended to us laden with centuries of 
 righteousness — and iniquity. Even yet 
 some folk roll it as a sweet morsel under the 
 tongue; while others, seeing it is neither hot nor 
 cold, would spue it from their mouths forthwith. 
 Consequently, whereas the very title ' psychol- 
 ogy ' means a study of the soul, to-day one sel- 
 dom hears the too suggestive name inside a 
 psychological laboratory, for there we have no in- 
 clination to the double entendre. And the im- 
 pression has gone abroad that this * strange ' atti- 
 tude dates from very recent times. Accordingly, 
 it is necessary to point out, first, that traces of a 
 psychology rooted in physiology, that is, of psychol- 
 ogy as a natural science, did not begin yesterday, 
 
 117 
 
ii8 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 Indeed, they may be said to antedate physiology 
 itself. While it may be needless to consider 
 Pythagoras' alleged discovery, that the tones in an 
 octave are results of relations between physiolog- 
 ical movements capable of numerical measurement, 
 or Aristotle's extraordinary prevision, of the study 
 of ' soul ' as a question for the physiologist, we 
 cannot omit reference to post-Renascence thought. 
 As happens so often, especially when a recent 
 movement attains vogue, the '* heroes before Aga- 
 memnon " are apt to be robbed of credit. Flushed 
 by the success of experimental methods, some have 
 tended to forget that the forerunners did but what 
 they could. To accuse them of interrogating 
 themselves " without information, experience, ap- 
 paratus, or means of procedure," to blame them 
 for their looseness and mysticism, or for subserv- 
 ience to preconceived beliefs, to popular fancies 
 and predilections, is to evince lack of historical 
 sense. They groped in the dim, grey dawn of 
 science, without our advantages, but they set the 
 problems that we attack hopefully in the bright 
 glow of early morning. If, then, we remember 
 this, we shall be less surprised to learn that, leaving 
 many lesser lights aside, at least two dozen men, 
 between Locke (1690) and Lewes (i860), play 
 their preparatory parts to Fechner, Wundt and 
 the devoted contemporary group of psychological 
 co-workers. To make this clearer, let me adduce 
 
PSYCHOLOGY 119 
 
 some names, adding the approximate dates of most 
 significant activity. Locke, 1690; Berkeley, 1709; 
 Lavatar, 1772; Kant, 1781; Herder, 1785; Gal- 
 vani, 1786; Cabanis, 1801; Volta, 1801; Gall, 
 1 805 ; Spurzheim, 1 8 1 3 ; Young, 1 807 ; Sir Charles 
 Bell, 18 1 1, -George Combe, 1820; Herbart, 1825; 
 Fourier, 1825; Js. Miiller, 1835; Beneke, 1835; 
 E. H. Weber, 1846; du Bois Reymond, 1848; 
 Lotze, 1852; Helmholtz, 1856; Bain, 1857; 
 Lewes, i860; Fechner, i860, and Wundt (1874), 
 the inheritor of all this renown, who, in a manner 
 parallels for psychology Darwin's position in nat- 
 ural history. 
 
 Our next task is to unravel the tangled skein of 
 investigation and tentative hypotheses, of discov- 
 ery and of open problems, for which these names 
 stand. This is no easy thing, because some of the 
 threads cannot be disentangled. But we may 
 contrive to render the situation less puzzling, and 
 so see how we came to stand where we have been 
 for the past thirty years. 
 
 Premising that they cross, recross, and even co- 
 incide occasionally, three lines of development may 
 be traced. These are: First, the philosophical, in 
 the accepted sense of this term, which originates, of 
 course, in a view of human experience as a whole, 
 or, restricting the compass somewhat, emphasises 
 the gross organisation of consciousness; second, 
 the physical, which lays stress on the relation of 
 
120 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 certain events in consciousness to objects presented 
 under the primary conditions of space and time; 
 third, the physiological, which founds on the inter- 
 connection between conscious processes and the 
 structures of the body, particularly the cerebro- 
 spinal system. As every one knows, the first ap- 
 peared earliest, while the second and third, being 
 dependent upon the advance of positive science, 
 had to await what we may call the Newtonian and 
 genetic epochs, the one initiated by Copernicus, the 
 other by Herder and Schelling. Till the age of 
 Kant, philosophy and physics are dominated by 
 British thought, all things considered; from Kant 
 till the first quarter of the nineteenth century 
 French thought acquires increased importance; 
 thereafter, the primacy passes to Germany, where 
 it still remains, the influence of Darwinian ideas 
 aside (and so I shall omit reference to the later 
 British school). For, physiology and 'physio- 
 logical ' psychology, along with the problems issu- 
 ing from the new outlook, are in the main German 
 products. The synthesis of information constitut- 
 ing the modern science of consciousness was '' made 
 in Germany." 
 
 The point of departure, then, lies in the philo- 
 sophical line. Little as he could foresee the future 
 influence of his theory, Locke raised, in a manner, 
 
PSYCHOLOGY 121 
 
 the entire question of the relation between con- 
 sciousness and the physiological organism by his 
 famous distinction between the primary and sec- 
 ondary qualities of body. iQualities like colour, 
 odour, hardness and sound, he called secondary, 
 because they cannot become effective components of 
 consciousness unless the appropriate organs coop- 
 erate. Neither colour nor sound resides in nature, 
 but motions of such and such amplitude. For us, 
 therefore, colour and sound happen to be interpre- 
 tations by eye and ear of something incommensur- 
 able with the perceptions in consciousnss. On the 
 contrary, qualities such as resistance and extension 
 belong to objects in their own right, and persist in- 
 dependent of any cooperation by our sense-organs. 
 Locke did not grasp the philosophical problems in- 
 volved here, much less the extreme complexity of 
 the physiological processes he assumed. How- 
 ever, he does advert to one of the difficulties em- 
 bedded in his view — the ' mystery,' as it remains 
 even yet, of space perception : 
 
 " I shall here insert a problem of that very in- 
 genious and studious promoter of real knowledge, 
 the learned and worthy Mr. Molineux, which he 
 was pleased to send me in a letter some months 
 since; and it is this: — ' Suppose a man born blind, 
 and now adult, and taught by his touch to distin- 
 guish between a cube and a sphere of the same 
 metal, and nighly of the same bigness, so as to tell. 
 
122 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 when he felt one and the other, which is the cube, 
 which the sphere. Suppose then the cube and the 
 sphere placed on a table, and the blind man be 
 made to see: quare, whether by his sight , before 
 he touched them, he could now distinguish and tell 
 which is the globe, which the cube ? * To which 
 the acute and judicious proposer answers, ' Not. 
 For, though he has obtained the experience of how 
 a globe, how a cube affects his touch, yet he has not 
 yet obtained the experience that what affects hi^ 
 touch so or so, must affect his sight so or so ; or that 
 a protuberant angle in the cube, that pressed his 
 hand unequally, shall appear to his eye as it does in 
 the cube.' — I agree with this thinking gentleman, 
 whom I am proud to call my friend, in his answer 
 to this problem; and am of opinion that the blind 
 man, at first sight, would not be able with certainty 
 to say which was the globe, which the cube, whilst 
 he only saw them; though he could unerringly 
 name them by his touch, and certainly distinguish 
 them by the difference of their figures felt. This 
 I have set down, and leave with my reader, as an 
 occasion for him to consider how much he may be 
 beholden to experience, improvement and acquired 
 notions, where he thinks he had not the least use 
 of, or help from them." 
 
 As the last sentence indicates, this reference re- 
 mains incidental rather than determining for 
 Locke. 
 
PSYCHOLOGY 123 
 
 It was left for his successor and critic Berkeley 
 to give special form to the problem for its own 
 sake, In his Essay towards a New Theory of 
 Vision (1709). With remarkable prescience, he 
 writes : 
 
 " Rightly to conceive the business In hand, we 
 must carefully distinguish between the ideas of 
 sight and touch, between the visible and tangible 
 eye ; for certainly on the tangible eye nothing either 
 Is or seems to be painted. Again, the visible eye, 
 as well as all other visible objects, hath been shown 
 to exist only In the mind; which, perceiving Its own 
 Ideas, and comparing them together, does call some 
 pictures in respect to others. What hath been 
 said, being rightly comprehended and laid to- 
 gether, does, I think, afford a full and genuine ex- 
 planation of the erect appearance of objects — 
 which phenomenon, I must confess, I do not see 
 how It can be explained by any theories of vision 
 hitherto made public. In treating of these things, 
 the use of language is apt to occasion some obscur- 
 ity and confusion, and create In us wrong ideas. 
 For, language, being accommodated to the com- 
 mon notions and prejudices of men. It is scarce pos- 
 sible to deliver the naked and precise truth, with- 
 out great circumlocution. Impropriety, and (to an 
 unwary reader) seeming contradictions." 
 
 That Is to say, Berkeley Insists upon the neces- 
 sity for another and more concrete analysis than 
 
124 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 that afforded by the resources of descriptive lan- 
 guage. 
 
 Later, In The Principles of Human Knowledge^ 
 Part I., he seems to indicate that this profounder 
 analysis must take a physiological direction: 
 
 " The philosophic consideration of motion doth 
 not imply the being of an absolute Space, distinct 
 from that which is perceived by sense, and related 
 to bodies. . . . When I excite a motion in some 
 part of my body, if it be free or without resistance, 
 I say there is Space. But if I find a resistance, 
 then I say there is Body: and in proportion as the 
 resistance to motion is lesser or greater, I say the 
 space is more or less pure, . . . When, therefore, 
 supposing all the world to be annihilated besides 
 my own body, I say there still remains pure Space; 
 thereby nothing else is meant but only that I con- 
 ceive it possible for the limbs of my body to be 
 moved on all sides without the least resistance : but 
 if that too were annihilated then there could be no 
 motion, and consequently no Space." 
 
 Knowing little of physiology, Berkeley leaves 
 the problem, stated so far, indeed, but only stated. 
 It is this : How can we derive space, a general con- 
 dition of external objects, from states of the body 
 which. In their very nature, differ utterly from this, 
 their product? Twenty-two years later, he returns 
 to the question, and appears to raise it in fresh 
 
PSYCHOLOGY 125 
 
 form. In the Fourth Dialogue of Alciphron, the 
 Minute Philosopher, he says : 
 
 (Euphranor speaks:) "We perceive distance, 
 not Immediately, but by mediation of a sign, which 
 hath no likeness to It, or necessary connection with 
 it, but only suggests It from repeated experience, as 
 words do things." (Alciphron replies:) "Hold, 
 Euphranor : now I think of it, the writers in optics 
 tell us of an angle made by the two optic axes, 
 where they meet in the visible point or object; 
 which angle, the obtuser it Is the nearer it shows 
 the object to be, and by how much the acuter, by so 
 much the farther off; and this from a necessary 
 demonstrable connection." 
 
 It is needless to add that Berkeley, although he 
 makes physiological reference and research inevi- 
 table, lived long before such a study of " local 
 signs " as that undertaken by Lotze was practic- 
 able. 
 
 Thus, the * mystery ' is simply held over, to 
 be attacked by Kant, in whose person eighteenth 
 century thought was to give place to a very con- 
 trasted movement. For him, space and time, the 
 general forms of human perception of all events 
 in consciousness, are factors not derived from ma- 
 terials supplied by sensation. They belong to the 
 unifying power of perception in its relation to ob- 
 jects which, again, demands the presence of ele- 
 
126 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 ments presented by sensation. Accordingly, he is 
 quite clear that, for example, geometrical truth 
 must be classed as a priori; that is, it cannot be 
 distilled, as it were, from those sense materials ac- 
 quired in the course of experience. Thus Kant 
 forces us to class him as a * nativist.' So, it does 
 not surprise us to observe that he fails to envisage 
 difficulties which were to become capital for 
 ' physiological ' psychology at a later time. For 
 instance: How, as a matter of fact, do we 
 construct our completed perception of space? 
 Granted that it be the product of psychical proc- 
 esses. What are they? Granted that it become 
 effective only in the presence of objects, which 
 presuppose sensuous matter. What does this phys- 
 iological reference gift to our perception? Or, 
 once more, By what subtle alchemy can we explain 
 the obvious fact that we distribute our sensations 
 in space, as it were? How, that is, can we ac- 
 count for localisation? Here we quit the philo- 
 sophical line for a while, premising that its unan- 
 swered questions will reappear in an altered per- 
 spective. 
 
 II. 
 
 In the realm of physics, prior to the systematic 
 inquiries of the nineteenth century, several more 
 or less sporadic references to the connection be- 
 tween physical and psychical phenomena occur. 
 
PSYCHOLOGY 127 
 
 Such, for example, were the discussions, by Euler 
 and Daniel Bernoulli, of " the law governing the 
 motions of strings"; Bernoulli's theory of the 
 mensura sortis, with Laplace's addition of the 
 fortune physique and the fortune morale. These 
 forecast the laws of psycho-physical relationship 
 formulated by E. H. Weber and Fechner. Sim- 
 ilarly, the discoveries of Galvani and Volta led to 
 speculations on a supposed parallelism between 
 the known phenomena of electricity and the so- 
 called * discharges ' of innervation which, in a 
 way, plumbed the depths of quasi-charlatanism in 
 the developments from Mesmer, and touched the 
 heights of scientific advance in du Bois Reymond's 
 classical work Untersuchungen ilher thierische 
 Electricitdt (1848), where the mystical and the 
 physical views passed over to physiology for sys- 
 tematic clarification. 
 
 Again, Fourier's Law, that " any given reg- 
 ular periodic form of vibration can always be pro- 
 duced by the addition of simple vibrations, having 
 vibrational numbers which are once, twice, thrice, 
 four times, etc., as great as the vibrational num- 
 ber of the given motion " ; Ohm's analysis of the 
 " periodic motions perceived by the human ear," 
 and Wheatstone's stereoscope united to demon- 
 strate that the psychical and the physical stand in 
 close connection. 
 
 Finally, Young's colour-theory, with Its threq 
 
128 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 primary colours — red, green and violet — paved 
 the way for a passage from physical to phys- 
 iological considerations; for it led to the hy- 
 pothesis of " specific energies " in the nerve- 
 fibres. 
 
 Ere we pass to the epoch-making transformations 
 of last century, two movements, discredited in 
 many ways it is true, yet of importance as pre- 
 paratory, demand recognition. It may astonish 
 us to find that they are phrenology and physi- 
 ognomy. Gall and Spurzheim, both physicians, 
 substituted for the descriptive and introspective 
 faculty-psychology an anatomical scheme analog- 
 ical essentially in result. They concluded that the 
 faculties can be localised in definite portions of 
 the brain, and that these, in turn, can be traced 
 by reference to the surface formation of the skull. 
 Phrenology created widespread interest early in 
 the ninetenth century — witness George Combe 
 (1828) in Edinburgh, who, it may be interesting 
 to relate, received a call to the chair of philosophy 
 in the University of Michigan, or Caldwell and 
 Godman in this country. Through a long series 
 of fluctuating fortunes their suggestions became 
 effective finally as elements in a scientific * physi- 
 ological ' psychology when Broca (1861) located 
 the brain-centre of speech; and, ever since, thanks 
 to the labours of Hughlings Jackson, Ferrier, 
 Golz, Hitzig and many others, this has provided 
 
 I 
 
PSYCHOLOGY 129 
 
 an Important sphere of study to ' physiological ' 
 psychology. 
 
 In similar fashion, the observations, opinions 
 and speculations of Lavatar, in his Physiognom- 
 ische Fragmente (1772), produced a furore; 
 elicited Sir Charles Bell's famous Essay on the 
 Anatomy of Expression (1806), with its theory 
 of the relation between Intellectual power and the 
 facial angle; and, at last, attained complete scien- 
 tific consecration In Darwin's masterly book. Ex- 
 pressions of the Emotions in Man and Animals 
 (1872). Thus positive error and misleading 
 half-truth sometimes serve to raise problems 
 which, otherwise, might have failed to gain hear- 
 ing. One may conclude fairly, then, that ques- 
 tions about the relation of body to mind were In 
 the air throughout the entire course of the eight- 
 eenth century and, at Its close, had begun to be- 
 come urgent. 
 
 III. 
 
 At this juncture philosophical activity assumed 
 unprecedented proportions and left a solid de- 
 posit destined to a constructive Influence which, I 
 fear, too few scientific men recognise to-day. The 
 years 1780-1840 witnessed an efliorescence of 
 speculative thought unparalleled In western his- 
 tory save once — in that wonderful century (422- 
 322 B. C.) when Socrates, Plato and Aristotle se- 
 
I30 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 cured for the Greeks a far more permanent and 
 formative hold over mankind than was ever 
 achieved by Aristotle's amazing pupil, Alexander 
 the Great. As at Athens, so In the modern 
 period, transitive Intellectual personages are le- 
 gion. Here It must suffice to mention Herder, 
 FIchte, Schelling, Hegel, Herbart and Beneke. 
 FIchte's previsions of a social science, Schelllng's 
 widespread sway over nascent physiology and 
 medicine, and Hegel's splendid mission, as founder 
 of contemporary critlco-hlstorlcal and comparative 
 studies that have altered the face of human na- 
 ture, must be suppressed now. But, for psychol- 
 ogy. Herder, Herbart and Beneke present matter 
 of real import. 
 
 Herder possessed that rarest of endowments, a 
 seminal mind. His thought scattered seeds 
 everywhere, which have come to fruitage since In 
 philology, comparative religion, anthropology and 
 psychology, to name no others. Genetic con- 
 ceptions inspired him, and his command of enor- 
 mous reading enabled him to illustrate them con- 
 cretely. If sporadically. Under the influence of 
 Albrecht von Haller, the eminent Gottingen 
 naturalist, who founded experimental and brain 
 physiology, he foresaw the necessity of physio- 
 logical research for psychology. " According to 
 my thinking," he wrote, as early as 1778, " there 
 is no psychology possible which Is not at every 
 
PSYCHOLOGY 131 
 
 step definite physiology. Haller's physiological 
 work once raised to psychology, and, like Pygma- 
 lion's statue, enlivened with mind, we shall be 
 able to say something of thought and sensation." 
 No less remarkable Is the following. In its prophe- 
 tic insight; "Among millions of creatures what- 
 ever could preserve itself abides, and still after 
 the lapse of thousands of years remains in the 
 great harmonious order. Wild animals and tame, 
 carnivorous and graminivorous insects, birds, 
 fishes and man are adapted to each other." 
 
 But, admitting Herder's vision to the full, his 
 main title to a distinct place in the historical line 
 of psychologists supplies the reason why, strange 
 as it may seem, we must dismiss him briefly in the 
 present context. The most recondite and, at the 
 same time, most potent quality of self-conscious- 
 ness is Its eerie power of objectlfication. Students 
 brood upon this increasingly, sciences like his- 
 torical criticism, sociology and aesthetics offering 
 testimony. Men bandy words about the " social 
 mind," about " mob psychology," about a " na- 
 tional or epochal ethos/^ and so forth. Customs 
 and institutions, myth and religion yield palaeonto- 
 loglcal records, not of individual men, but rather 
 of humanity, a kind of compost of individuals. 
 But the implications hinted here receive their most 
 striking manifestation In language. Herder, to 
 give him his due, must be saluted as the herald of 
 
132 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 Volkerpsychologie and of Sprachwissenschaft. So 
 he stands aside from the line under examination. 
 For, even if it be recalled that phonology can be 
 classed as a physiological science, the matter ter- 
 minates there. Great as have been the contri- 
 butions of W. von Humboldt, Bopp, Grimm, Max 
 Miiller and their co-workers, and much as has been 
 accomplished by Waitz, Lazarus, Steinthal, Mc- 
 Lennan, Spencer, Lubbock, Tylor, Frazer and 
 Westermarck, all sit more or less loose to ' physio- 
 logical ' psychology, which continues to be an in- 
 vestigation of Individual far more than of group 
 processes. Thus, attractive and suggestive as 
 Herder is, perforce v/e rest content now with the 
 bare reference to what I have had the temerity 
 to call his seminal mind. 
 
 When we arrive at Herbart and Beneke the 
 case presents a different aspect. For they stand 
 forth among the last great psychologists who deal 
 with mind as mind, to the exclusion of modern 
 experimental methods applicable chiefly to the 
 body. After a manner their services pale in the 
 glow of the contemporary atmosphere ; their work 
 has been bemused by pedagogists, misprized over- 
 much by psychologists, even if, as Wundt says, 
 he owes most to Kant and Herbart, and even re- 
 membering the researches of Herbartlans like 
 Droblsch, Volkmann, Exner, Striimpell, Cornelius 
 and R. Zimmermann. 
 
PSYCHOLOGY 133 
 
 Note, at the outset, that Herbart (1776-1841) 
 and Beneke (1798-1854) revolt strongly against 
 the dominant Hegelian school, and that both at- 
 tempt a concrete study of consciousness. On one 
 point they differ radically. Herbart's psychology, 
 as the title of his chief work runs, — Psychology as 
 a Science, founded, for the first time, upon Expe- 
 rience, Metaphysics and Mathematics, — possesses 
 a triple basis. Beneke excludes the second and 
 third, emphasising experience as the sole legit- 
 imate foundation. In this respect he takes a 
 pioneer place among those who raised the later 
 cry, "Back to Kant!" 
 
 Thanks to the limits of this paper, Herbart's 
 metaphysical doctrine must disappear with a 
 word. He held that the soul, in its own proper 
 nature, forms an original, changeless and simple 
 entity. Psychological processes originate in its 
 resistance to intrusion from the outside, there- 
 fore, the complexities of consciousness, just be- 
 cause they are complex, fall within the reach of 
 analysis. As results of mechanical interaction 
 they lie open to mathematical methods. " Such 
 procedure, of course, leads straight to experience, 
 and, on the whole, it may be affirmed that, as his 
 psychology prospers, the direct influence of his 
 metaphysic wanes. In this way a long step to- 
 wards psychology viewed as a natural science be- 
 
134 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 comes easy. Let us try to see how Herbart 
 presaged such tendencies. 
 
 He denies that consciousness consists in a bunch 
 of faculties. Mind persists as a system of con- 
 crete relations between its constituent parts. 
 These parts interact mutually, and therefore 
 stand in mechanical relations to one another. As 
 thus related, they constitute a unity of " presenta- 
 tion " which resists " arrest of any of its compo- 
 nents." Accordingly, " presentations " may form 
 series; these series, in turn, may arrest or 
 strengthen, and shorten or intertwine, mutually. 
 While the simple substance of soul (metaphysical) 
 remains unknown qualitatively, its activities, in Its 
 processes of self-maintenance, afford the states of 
 consciousness which psychology studies. In this 
 respect the soul happens to be identical with all 
 other " reals " which, in sum, make Herbart's 
 universe. Therefore, methods peculiar to the 
 positive sciences find application, and mathematical 
 analysis becomes a chief instrument of discovery. 
 Further, the opposition between " presentations " 
 transforms states of consciousness into forces, with 
 the result that a statics and dynamics (mechanics) 
 of mind emerge. It is feasible, accordingly, to 
 calculate the equilibrium and movement of " pres- 
 entations." So, conformably to science, Herbart 
 frames hypotheses and tries to establish them by 
 mathematical methods. He sets himself to show 
 
PSYCHOLOGY 135 
 
 accurately how the indeterminate manifold of 
 sensation, as envisaged by Kant, and the multi- 
 pHcIty of ideas as set forth by the faculty-psychol- 
 ogy, come to an organic unity In apperclplent self- 
 consciousness. In a word, the proper study of 
 psychology is mind which, again, consists precisely 
 in those transforming processes known collectively 
 as " apperception." A very apposite delimita- 
 tion of the psychological field, one would add. 
 And it is both interesting and important to note 
 that. In his theory of apperception, above all else, 
 Herbart continues to resound in contemporary 
 psychological thought. His connection with the 
 modern movement, though by no means clear on 
 the whole, appears In special tendencies : — first, 
 in his complete acceptance of the method of re- 
 gressive analysis; second, in his appeal to experi- 
 ence; third, in the attention which he has com- 
 pelled to the possibility of mathematical applica- 
 tions in this unstable sphere; fourth, in his gradual 
 drift away from his own metaphysical basis as he 
 wrought to render psychology a natural science — 
 to prove that, in mind, as everywhere, natural law 
 reigns supreme. 
 
 Notwithstanding all this, his opposition to any- 
 thing in the nature of a ' physiological ' psychol- 
 ogy seems certain. For this curious hesitation 
 reasons must be sought, not in any antagonism pe- 
 culiar to Herbart himself, as some recent experi- 
 
136 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 mental enthusiasts, blind to history, have hastily 
 supposed, but in the general perspective of his 
 age. Like many of his followers, he was a par- 
 tisan enemy of the speculative philosophy that 
 ruled Germany, and he paid the inevitable price. 
 His judgment on certain scientific developments 
 became warped. He noticed that Schelling's 
 N aturphilosophie exercised profound influence 
 upon contemporary biological science. Physiology 
 behaved like an ally of idealism, therefore he 
 would exclude it rigidly from psychology, as a sure 
 source of trans-experiential contamination. On 
 this he spoke with no uncertain sound — physi- 
 ology, as he saw it, was a dangerous friend for a 
 mathematico-empirical psychology. " Physiology, 
 as an empirical doctrine, has attained a height 
 which nobody can despise. Moreover it pro- 
 ceeds in the light of modern physics. Neverthe- 
 less, it has eagerly sucked up, as the sponge sucks 
 up water, that philosophy of nature which knows 
 nothing, because it began by construing the uni- 
 verse a priori. Towards this error no science has 
 proved so weak, so little capable of resistance, as 
 physiology." The very end for which Herbart 
 toiled so strenuously Is obscured from him by his 
 suspicion of physiological tendencies. Truly, the 
 Time-spirit plays us humans queer tricks ! 
 
 Free from these fears, Beneke brought psy- 
 
PSYCHOLOGY 137 
 
 chology another stage nearer science. He ex- 
 cluded Herbart's metaphysic, demanded concrete 
 treatment of consciousness as the one road to real 
 knowledge, and placed all the other philosophical 
 disciplines In a position of dependence upon psy- 
 chology. His pivotal doctrine exhibits clearly 
 the possibility of scientific procedure In psychology. 
 It may be put as follows. Experience presents two 
 sides — an " outer " and an " Inner." The 
 former consists of sensational phenomena, or as 
 Hume would have said, " sensations, passions and 
 emotions as they make their first appearance In the 
 soul." The latter includes everything that re- 
 lates to memory. Imagination, thought and ratio- 
 cination. Thus science, which deals with the 
 " outer," reaches indirect knowledge of being, 
 while psychology, thanks to its immediate contact 
 with Its object ("inner"), arrives at knowledge 
 of true reality. Consequently, by analogy from 
 our own selfhood, we can acquire relatively suf- 
 ficient knowledge of other men, this sufficiency 
 dwindling, so to speak, as we descend the scale 
 of existence. Accordingly, positive science is con- 
 fined to observation, but psychology considers 
 knowledge — an inference from this same obser- 
 vation. Therefore the methods of science apply 
 as much in the one sphere as in the other. In 
 short, consciousness originates the dualism between 
 
138 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 soul and body, mind and objects. Corporeal proc- 
 esses become conscious in us, and thus fall under 
 direct perception: — 
 
 " There is no kind of corporeal process which 
 cannot under certain circumstances become con- 
 scious, and as a conscious thing be perceived by us 
 directly. . . . Such a revolutionary change of a 
 thing usually not a psychical apprehension to a 
 psychical apprehension, would be unthinkable 
 were it the case that their being was in funda- 
 mental opposition: we are thus led all the more 
 to the conclusion that both kinds of powers in their 
 innermost nature stand very close to one another, 
 and that for the explanation of their inner co- 
 herence and interaction no artificial hypotheses are 
 requisite." 
 
 Evidently, then, psychology investigates all that 
 we apprehend through Internal perception. If we 
 apprehend anything by external perception. It must 
 submit to transmutation by the " inner," in order to 
 enter into experience as an effective component. 
 I am unable to see that any other meaning 
 can be read into this view than that formula- 
 ted in the current theory of psycho-physical paral- 
 lelism. Causal connection between body and 
 body there is none; and the contrasts In our Inner 
 experience of them reside in apprehension, never 
 In actual reality. The plain business of psychol- 
 ogy, therefore, consists In applying observation, 
 
PSYCHOLOGY 139 
 
 experiment and hypothesis to the " inner." Just 
 as with science, regressive analysis supplies the 
 methods. 
 
 Beneke concludes that psychological processes 
 present themselves as complexes fashioned from 
 four primary factors. These are : ( i ) The trans- 
 mutation of sense "excitations"; (2) the forma- 
 tion of new " powers " — analogous, it may be 
 said, to the growth of new tissue; (3) the redistri- 
 bution of "excitations" (sensuous) and of these 
 new "powers" or products themselves; (4) the 
 interpenetration of homogeneous products, ac- 
 cording to their degree of homogeneity. Ob- 
 viously enough, redistribution, or transference, 
 within the psychological complex, forms the domi- 
 nant feature ; and its remarkable similarity to mod- 
 ern energistic conceptions or, as Professor Titch- 
 ener remarks acutely, " to the process by which 
 one body becomes cooler by communicating heat to 
 another," needs no comment. Whatever one may 
 think of Beneke's special doctrines, he stands to 
 his material in the attitude of a positive scientific 
 investigator. If Herbart worked like a mathe- 
 matical physicist, Beneke works like a biologist. 
 Indeed, he reminds one of the French school 
 of so-called ' organicists ' — Bichat, Claude Ber- 
 nard, Delage and, perhaps, Roux. I think a 
 specious case could be framed for a parallelism be- 
 tween Beneke's teaching and Claude Bernard's 
 
140 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 biological conclusion, especially as formulated in 
 the second Leqon in the first volume of his Lecons 
 stir les Phenomenes de la Vie (1874), which con- 
 tains the striking declaration: " la fixlte du milieu 
 interieur est la condition de la vie libre independ- 
 ante." Be this as it may, Beneke brought psy- 
 chology within the field of scientific inquiry. Like 
 Herbart's, his conclusions might be stigmatised, 
 but that both made preparatory contributions there 
 can be little reasonable doubt. The attitude they 
 adopted is of the essence of the matter. And one 
 ought to add that the presence of unconscious or 
 subconscious factors in the physical process, a 
 highly significant phenomenon, follows from the 
 situation as contemplated by them. 
 
 IV. 
 
 This brings us at length to the true physi- 
 ological line, and to the rapid assimilation 
 of psychology to positive science. The start- 
 ing point lies in that French group whom 
 Napoleon nicknamed contemptuously, les Ideo- 
 logues: Cabanis, de Tracy, Laromiguiere, and 
 Maine de BIran. Cabanis and de Tracy were 
 the leaders in all essentials. Their movement 
 formed part of the mighty revolutionary 
 upheaval. By analysis of sensations "and ideas 
 they proposed to discover a method of remould- 
 ing society, government and education for prac- 
 
 A 
 
PSYCHOLOGY 141 
 
 deal purposes. De Tracy (1754-183 6) elabo- 
 rated what Beneke would have termed the 
 " inner " side of ideology. His noteworthy ef- 
 forts lie in the fields of language, grammar and 
 logic, of economics and government, of morals and 
 education. Yet the influence of science upon him, 
 as upon his fellows, produced results that should 
 receive notice here. He anticipated Comte in 
 the view that knowledge, properly so called, con- 
 sists in an organised system of the sciences ; " posi- 
 tive science," as he declares, and to him, more 
 than to Comte and his pupils, we owe this term, 
 now beatified. In the second place, and coming 
 to the physiological reference, he was the first to 
 recognise the importance of muscular activity as a 
 factor in consciousness. This formed his point of 
 contact with Cabanis, who studied what Beneke 
 would have called the '' outer " — the physiological 
 accompaniments of pyschological processes. 
 
 Cabanis (i 757-1 808) inherited the English 
 sensational tendencies represented in France by 
 Condillac, but he added that acquaintance with 
 the human body which he acquired as a physician. 
 In his person the philosophical and physiological 
 lines coincided. His principal work. Rapports 
 du Physique et du Morale de VHomme, grew out 
 of a series of papers read before the French In- 
 stitute and published in its proceedings for 
 1798-99. So far as he possessed any consistent 
 
142 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 philosophical standpoint, Cabanis was a pantheist 
 (and, therefore, in speculative physiology, a vi- 
 talist) , as his posthumous Lettres sur les Causes 
 premieres (1824) and his discussion of the Stoics 
 in the Rapports show. Nevertheless, later ma- 
 terialists find precedent for their most striking 
 metaphor in his pages. As the liver secretes bile 
 and the kidneys urine, so the brain secretes 
 thought; thus ran Karl Vogt's raucous challenge 
 (1847). Cabanis employed the very phrase 
 " secretion of thought " which, as his editor, 
 Peisse, says, '' has remained celebrated." But the 
 classical passage, also in the Rapports, reads as 
 follows: " In order to arrive at a correct idea of 
 those operations from which thought arises, we 
 must consider the brain as a particular organ, des- 
 tined specially to produce it in the same way as 
 the stomach and the intestines are there to per- 
 form digestion, the liver to filter the bile, the paro- 
 tid, maxillary and sublingual glands to prepare the 
 salivary juice." This is the clear summons to a 
 ' physiological ' psychology. Very naturally, Ca- 
 banis aimed to supply what Condillac had omitted. 
 Condillac's sensationalism, like that of the Eng- 
 lish school, found basis in the external senses. It 
 therefore missed those organic and internal 
 changes which physiology alone could set forth. 
 Accordingly, Cabanis insisted that multitudes of 
 impressions proceed continually from the internal 
 
PSYCHOLOGY 143 
 
 organs to the brain, and that the conditions of the 
 cerebro-splnal system form a determining factor 
 In this process. Or, to be more emphatic, as it 
 continues to maintain its unstable equilibrium, the 
 organism originates vital feelings within itself — 
 feelings that bear no direct reference to the ex- 
 ternal world. That Is, the Impressions of Locke 
 and Hume do not play upon a tabula rasa, but are 
 met, and twisted, by these organic feelings. The 
 unconscious joins up with the conscious. Of this 
 process instinct offers a conspicuous example. 
 Here, primordial experiences, traceable to the em- 
 bryo, provide a foundation of organic sensation 
 which (in the light of the doctrine of evolution) 
 would explain away psychological processes as 
 automatic — as epiphenomena of the bodily sub- 
 strate. In this respect Cabanis was a prophet. 
 Nevertheless, despite his studies of age, sex, tem- 
 perament, sensibility, irritability, habit, climate, 
 the foetus and Instinct, he fails to work through his 
 great theme with the necessary grasp upon detail. 
 His epoch would not let him. Yet he saw the 
 promised land afar off. For, to him, psychology 
 was already a natural science. It traffics with 
 phenomena, never with metaphysical realities, and 
 its material must be found in the relation of mental 
 states to physiological conditions. Hampered 
 everywhere by contemporary Ignorance of nervous 
 anatomy, he still contrived to formulate a vivid 
 
144 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 and convincing psycho-physiological schema, for 
 which, we may as well confess, due praise has 
 never been accorded him. Physiology passed to 
 another land, and he fell Into an oblivion rather 
 discreditable to the historical Insight of those who 
 came to elaborate his anticipations. 
 
 Plainly a ' physiological ' psychology cannot 
 emerge in absence of a physiology. The numer- 
 ous accessions of physiological knowledge during 
 the last seventy years tend to obscure the un- 
 propitious outlook at the dawn of the period. 
 Referring to the time (1841) when he became 
 preparateiir to his distinguished predecessor, Ma- 
 gendie, at the College de France, Claude 
 Bernard drew a gloomy picture. The established 
 * natural history ' sciences — geology, botany, zo- 
 ology — possessed fair equipment, particularly on 
 the museum side. While chemistry, thanks doubt- 
 less, to Lleblg's activity at Giessen, made rapid 
 strides. But physiology enjoyed no such advan- 
 tages, was opposed, indeed, even by a genius 
 of the calibre of Cuvier. " So soon as an experi- 
 mental physiologist was discovered he was de- 
 nounced; he was given over to the reproaches of 
 his neighbours and subjected to annoyances by the 
 police." Sir Charles Bell had set forth the con- 
 trasted functions of the anterior and posterior roots 
 of the spinal nerves (1807), but had given no 
 experimental proof: and Marshall Hall (1835) 
 
 J 
 
PSYCHOLOGY 145 
 
 had discovered the reflex function of the spinal 
 cord. But no group of Investigators had arisen 
 such as was to place Germany in the leadership. 
 Her preeminence, unchallenged still for ' physi- 
 ological ' psychology, dates from the life-work of 
 Johannes Miiller, and his profound influence, es- 
 pecially at Berlin, from 1833 till his death. In the 
 year before The Origin of Species (1859). 
 
 At this date the intellectual condition of Ger- 
 many may be called unprecedented without exag- 
 geration. And the fate reserved for unique 
 things has overtaken It. Later men, particularly 
 on the scientific side,. have heaped on it multiplied 
 misunderstanding or even obloquy. Despite the 
 bluster of those who have never studied their 
 works, Schelling and Hegel were no day-dreamers, 
 evolving camels from inner self-consciousness. 
 Both were great men, and Hegel ranks among the 
 few marvellous Intellects of history. But both 
 suffered from their very success. Hegel's philoso- 
 phy formed the seedplot of that comparative and 
 critical Wissenschaft for which human history sup- 
 plies the material. As these disciplines de- 
 veloped, the defects of the Hegelian system be- 
 came more and more irremediable. Yet, the sys- 
 tem lacking, the sciences could not have come to 
 birth. Schelling stood in similar case. German 
 science from 1797, the year of the publication of 
 his Ideen zur einer Philosophie der Natur^ till 
 
146 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 1830 or thereby, drew Inspiration from his hu- 
 mane, If vaulting, spirit. Alex, von Humboldt, 
 as his biographer Bruhns points out, attempted 
 " by means of a comprehensive collation of details, 
 and the Institution of the most searching compari- 
 sons, to give a scientific foundation to the Ideal 
 cosmology of Herder, Goethe, Schelling and their 
 disciples." Further, Schelling stimulated Carus, 
 the comparative anatomist; Oersted, the father 
 of electro-magnetism ; Klelmeyer, an anticipator of 
 biogenesis; I. Dollinger, of Wiirzburg, who Inocu- 
 lated von Baer with genetic ideas; von Baer him- 
 self, who, more objectively than any other scientific 
 man, has estimated the germinal significance of 
 the Naturphilo Sophie; Llebig, the pioneer of 
 laboratory methods In chemistry; Johannes Miil- 
 ler, the first main constructive power in modern 
 physiology; Kiser, the early exponent of plant 
 phytotemy; Schonlein and Roschlaub, leaders in 
 the remarkable band who founded the Berlin 
 school of medicine. Nay more, his power burst 
 forth again, significantly for psychology, as a factor 
 In the equipment of Fechner. Thus, like Hegel, 
 Schelling paved the way for his own fall, by send- 
 ing others to search out the secrets of nature. 
 Accordingly, even If the vagaries of Oken alien- 
 ate, and If Steffens' analogies between the catas- 
 trophles of the human spirit and the disturbances 
 of the earth's crust furnish queer geology, there 
 
PSYCHOLOGY 147 
 
 were no call to ' swear at large,' to rush around 
 shouting ' vitalism 1 ' or otherwise to evince com- 
 plete lack of the balance necessary to an estimate 
 of the crisis. Somnambulists haunt the fringes of 
 all movements, but we fool ourselves when we take 
 them for prototypes. New Ideas ever were 
 heady; this happens to be the price set upon their 
 power to reveal unsuspected problems, as Schell- 
 Ing and his galaxy of scholars did. 
 
 Johannes Miiller, then, found himself born into 
 this romantic age. He tended the new scientific 
 spirit to budding, but, unlike von Baer, he died ere 
 It blossomed. Speaking under reservation, ^s an 
 ignorant man must, I would venture to suggest 
 that he did not enter fully Into Hegel's epoch- 
 making Idea of process. So far as I can compre- 
 hend his activity, he was a student chiefly of the 
 organism in gross, that is, a morphologlst, rather 
 than an investigator of vital processes, a physi- 
 ologist. His Importance lay In his Ideals more 
 than in his results. " A profound teacher," as his 
 pupil Helmholtz declared, he created an atmos- 
 phere which his pupils breathed, and he lives in 
 their splendid work rather than In any single 
 achievement of his own. In essentials this atmos- 
 phere held the modern perspective. For, al- 
 though, as du Bois Reymond has recorded, he 
 " assumed the existence of a vital force . . . 
 which in organisms acts the part of a supreme 
 
148 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 regulator," this ' force ' ruled the realm of the 
 unknown only. In all that could be mastered by 
 contemporary methods and means Miiller ac- 
 cepted the physico-chemical view. His studies of 
 nutrition, animal heat, motion and reflex action, 
 his contributions to acoustics and the phenomena 
 of speech embody, not simply his own work, they 
 also supply a masterly unification of previous 
 knowledge. But, especially as concerns * phys- 
 iological ' psychology, his major result was un- 
 doubtedly his doctrine of " specific energies." No 
 matter what the stimulus, the same nerve always 
 originates the same sensation. " Miiller's law of 
 the specific energies marks an advance of the 
 greatest Importance . . . and Is, In a certain 
 sense, the empirical exposition of the theoretical 
 discussion of Kant on the nature of the Intellectual 
 process In the human mind." Of course, Miiller's 
 views drew criticism, but for us now the point Is 
 that they started activity which, bit by bit, built 
 * physiological ' psychology Into a science. 
 
 Fortunate In his disciples — Briicke, Helm- 
 holtz, du Bois Reymond, Ludwig, Czermak, Bon- 
 ders (most teachers would forego all personal 
 glory gladly to obtain such human material) — 
 Miiller enjoyed luck in the contemporary course 
 of events. For a science more developed and 
 surer of itself than physiology was about to join 
 forces with the newer branch. Magnus, his Berlin 
 
PSYCHOLOGY 149 
 
 colleague in physics, became the focal point of a 
 movement to which Mitscherlich, Liebig, Ohm, F. 
 Neumann, and the brothers Weber all contributed, 
 the first and last notably. The sobering drill of 
 hard, experimental fact gained recognition here. 
 Or, as we say in philosophy, the prose of Kant was 
 added to the romance of Schelling. For ' phys- 
 iological ' psychology the steadying influence came 
 most through Ernst Heinrich Weber, of Leipzig 
 ( 1 795-1 878). Weber, with his younger brothers, 
 Wilhelm and Eduard, worked from the first along 
 distinctively modern lines. The speculative 
 thought, prevalent in his youth, seems to have 
 passed over his head. Exact experimental 
 methods came naturally, as it were, to him and to 
 his brothers. From early life they employed 
 mechanical and mathematical analyses in dealing 
 with physical, physiological and psychological 
 phenomena. Kunze, Fechner's nephew and biog- 
 rapher, goes so far as to say, " They were among 
 the first to raise the study of nature among Ger- 
 mans to the eminence occupied by the philosophers 
 and discoverers of the Latin races." Their first 
 joint research is typical of this. In the JVellens- 
 lehre auf Experimente hegriindet they add to 
 Chladni's acoustic theory a parallel account for 
 light, which leads substantially to the inference of 
 an elastic ether. Prior to this, Weber had pub- 
 lished researches on the Comparative Anatomy of 
 
150 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 the Sympathetic Nerves (1817) and On the Ear 
 and Hearing in Men and Animals (1827). His 
 psychological contributions appeared in Wagner's 
 Handworterhuch der Physiologie, Vol. III., part 
 2 (1831), and in the Archiv fiir anatomische 
 Physiologie (1835). The classical paper, Tast- 
 sinn und Gemeingefiihl, was printed in the former 
 and published separately in 185 1. Weber here 
 applied the method of least observable differences 
 to sensations of pressure and to the measurement 
 of lines by the eye. These experiments resulted 
 in the generalisation to which the name " Weber's 
 Law," or the " Fechner- Weber Law," or the 
 *' Psycho-physical Law," has been given. Refer- 
 ring to this discovery, in the preface to the first 
 great book on ' physiological ' psychology, Fechner 
 affirms: "The empirical law which forms the 
 principal foundation, was laid down long ago by 
 different students in different branches, and was 
 expressed with comparative generality by E. H. 
 Weber, whom I would call the father of psycho- 
 physics." The law summarises mathematically 
 the relation between physiological stimulus and 
 psychical sense-perception. It is based on the 
 fact, familiar in common experience, and now 
 authenticated by numerous observations and ex- 
 periments, that the difference between two> sensa- 
 tions bears no direct proportion to the actual dif- 
 ference between their stimuli. Granted that the 
 
PSYCHOLOGY i^i 
 
 least observable difference be a constant, then, the 
 strength of sensations does not grow in propor- 
 tion to stimulus, but much more slowly. Weber's 
 experiments were directed towards measuring the 
 exact proportions, and involved comparisons of 
 lines by the eye, of weights and of tones. The 
 resultant generalisation has been formulated in 
 various ways. The most direct are as follows: 
 " In order that the intensity of a sensation may 
 increase in arithmetical progression, the stimulus 
 must increase in geometrical progression"; or, as 
 put more briefly by Fechner, " the sensation in- 
 creases as the logarithm of the stimulus " ; or, as 
 Delboeuf has it, " the smallest perceptible dif- 
 ference between two excitations of the same na- 
 ture is always due to a real difference which grows 
 proportionately to the excitations themselves." 
 Like all laws, so-called, this one Is an abstraction 
 from experience. Consequently, it has been sub- 
 jected to various interpretations, has been trans- 
 formed and criticised, and even denied. Again, 
 like all laws, so-called {e. g., Boyle's Law), it 
 holds good only within limits, and round this 
 aspect of the matter multitudinous experiments 
 cluster. Whatever psychological experts may 
 consider to be the present status of the conclusion, 
 Weber's withers are unwrung. His crowning 
 achievement was to have shown that measurements 
 and mathematical methods can be applied in this 
 
152 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 region of experience. He thus served himself the 
 founder of the Leipzig line, the torch passing 
 from him to Lotze, then to Fechner, and finally 
 to Wundt. 
 
 As at the beginning of modern European 
 thought, in Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz, so 
 here in the Leipzig men, philosophical insight and 
 power were joined to scientific competence. I, 
 therefore, leave them for a moment to take a 
 glimpse — it can be no more — at the strictly 
 scientific interest as we see it illustrated in Johannes 
 Miiller's greatest pupil, Helmholtz (1821-94). 
 
 Helmholtz ranks not simply with the foremost 
 scientific intellects of the nineteenth century but 
 with the master minds of all time. His range 
 grasp and Insight combined to render him monu 
 mental. A contributor to at least eight sciences 
 — physics, physiology, mathematical physics, me 
 teorology, medicine, chemistry, anatomy and aes 
 thetics — in three of them he stands high among 
 the foremost. More than this, as Volkmann has 
 recalled, " one of his chief merits was to establish a 
 harmony between the vast accumulation of facts 
 that characterised the period comprehending the 
 middle of this century and the more theoretical 
 studies." Besides, he possessed unusual manipu- 
 lative skill, his inventions of the ophthalmoscope 
 and ophthalmometer alone would have assured 
 any ordinary reputation. Above all, he was a 
 
PSYCHOLOGY 153 
 
 humanist, being an accomplished musician, an art 
 critic, and acquainted with the trend of philo- 
 sophical thought. His discoveries of classical grade 
 amaze one by their thoroughness and versatility. 
 The conservation of energy; the mechanism of the 
 lens of the eye in relation to accommodation; the 
 movements of the eyeballs with the attendant 
 problems of binocular and stereoscopic vision; the 
 profoundest questions of hydrodynamics, ther- 
 modynamics and electrodynamics, the last cul- 
 minating In the revelations of his favourite pupil, 
 Helnrlch Hertz; the axioms of geometry; the 
 dark places of meteorology; the deeps of physi- 
 ological optics and of mathematical physics, all 
 bear witness to his profound, masculine and subtle 
 intellect. But, for our present study, the palm 
 must go to his long struggle with the difficulties of 
 sensation and perception. These absorbed his 
 principal attention from 185.2 till 1867 and, in a 
 lesser degree, till his death. He laid the founda- 
 tion characteristically by his inquiries into the rate 
 of nervous impulse in the motor and sensory nerves, 
 about 1850, and his first paper, on sensation proper, 
 followed In 1852. These labours were crowned 
 magnificently by the publication. In 1863, of his 
 Sensations of Tone, and. In 1867, of his Physiolog- 
 ical Optics — masterpieces both. The former, 
 which involved the most complicated research, has 
 earned the title, '' the Principia of acoustics," and 
 
154 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 must be studied long to be appreciated. For, it 
 not only ranged over the entire subject but, inci- 
 dentally, raised important problems that belong 
 elsewhere, especially to the domains of phonology 
 and aesthetics. Questions about the quality of the 
 human voice and the absolute pitch of vowel 
 sounds lead us away from physical and physiolog- 
 ical laboratories to a very different environment. 
 Similarly, the Physiological Optics, with the 
 Young-Helmholtz theory of colour, presents In- 
 vestigations about which psychologists are bound 
 to trouble for many a day. 
 
 Thus, the significance of Helmholtz's career 
 may be traced to his combination of the mathe- 
 matical and exact-scientific with the humanistic in- 
 terest, a union to which we may attribute our great- 
 est advances alike In science and in Intellectual In- 
 sight. And this fitted him rarely to execute work 
 of abiding value for ' physiological ' psychology. 
 No one has contrived to reach better results in 
 those unplumbed reaches of experience where the 
 joint action of body and mind can be studied with 
 a measure of success. Proceeding from the theory 
 of " specific energy " of his master Muller, he 
 wrought It out In detail, eminently for the mechan- 
 ism of sight and hearing, by experimental methods 
 and by mathematlco-physlcal analyses. Upon the 
 romantic interest In nature stimulated by Schelling 
 he superimposed the critical processes of Kant, 
 
PSYCHOLOGY 155 
 
 armed with all the resources of the most delicate 
 apparatus and rigid analytic procedure. This 
 coalition of endowment and outlook continued in 
 the three leaders who were destined to build pys- 
 chology into an independent science — Lotze, 
 Fechner and Wundt. 
 
 Lotze's (18 17-81) career as an author opened 
 in 1 841, and his psychological contributions rele- 
 vant to the present theme came to an end practi- 
 cally in 1852. Thereafter, save for a few arti- 
 cles, he devoted himself to the elaboration of his 
 highly significant philosophical system. He there- 
 fore antedated the work of Helmholtz. A prom- 
 inent figure in the bitter controversy over vitalism 
 and materialism (1847-60), he suffered grave 
 misunderstanding; nevertheless, thanks to lapse of 
 time, his psychological position admits of no doubt. 
 
 The son of a physician, Lotze entered the Uni- 
 versity of Leipzig to prepare for the paternal pro- 
 fession. Under the influence of Weisse he be- 
 came interested in philosophy, and, upon gradua- 
 tion, qualified as Docent in both the medical 
 and philosophical faculties. Till 1852 the studies 
 proper to the former predominated, philosophy 
 claimed him later, and his system represents more 
 symptomatically than any other the stress resultant 
 upon the cross-currents of modern thought. It is 
 
156 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 meaningful that he occupied successively Herbart's 
 chair at Gottingen and Hegel's at Berlin. 
 
 In 1842 he took a decided stand, or even lead, 
 in the vitalist controversy, and also published his 
 General Pathology and Therapeutics as Mechan- 
 ical Sciences. His General Physiology of the 
 Corporeal Life appeared in 1851 and, in the next 
 year, the work of importance for us now — Medi- 
 cal Psychology, or Physiology of the Soul, 
 Viewed in the perspective of cultural development, 
 especially in Germany, his position seems quite 
 evident. Here is his own statement of it: 
 
 " We have two kinds of scientific knowledge. 
 We know, on the one hand, nature, the essence of 
 the object studied; on the other hand, we know 
 only the external relations that are possible be- 
 tween it and other objects. In the first kind of 
 knowledge, there is a possible question of a cognitio 
 rei only when our intelligence apprehends an ob- 
 ject, not simply under the form of external being, 
 but in an intuition so immediate that we are able, 
 by our senses and Ideas, to penetrate its peculiar 
 nature, and consequently, to know what ought to 
 be, according to its internal and specific essence, 
 the order of such a being. On the contrary, the 
 other kind of scientific knowledge, the external, 
 cognitio circa rem, does not penetrate" to the es- 
 sence of things, but consists mainly in a clear and 
 precise apprehension of the conditions under 
 
PSYCHOLOGY 157 
 
 which the object manifests itself to us, and into 
 which, in consequence of its variable relations to 
 other objects, it is regularly transformed." 
 
 Prior to Lotze's generation, philosophy had 
 shaped scientific learning, leaving, at the same 
 time, a large field open only to strict scientific 
 treatment. In his person, science shapes philoso- 
 phy, leaving, at the same time, a large field open 
 only to strict philosophical treatment. One is sur- 
 prised that such a simple explanation should have 
 escaped notice, and that a presentation of Lotze 
 so fantastic — almost impertinent — as that of 
 Ribot, for example, should have been perpetrated. 
 Lotze's ability to see both sides of a problem, 
 and his consequent sense for the limits of * phys- 
 iological ' psychology (which, in my humble judg- 
 ment, remains completely justified still in essen- 
 tials), provide the clue to his attitude. So, he 
 really presents two kinds of psychology. The 
 one would investigate the factors, combinations 
 and mechanism of consciousness; the other would 
 consider the import of consciousness, and the end 
 (if any) which it subserves in the universe. To 
 understand the latter it is necessary to master his 
 very subtle cosmology {Metaphysics, Bk. II). 
 The former is * physiological ' psychology, and 
 has been presented more particularly in Bks. II. 
 and III. of the Medical Psychology. Here Lotze 
 writes as a scientific man, and the " conception of 
 
158 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 a psycho-physical mechanism" suffices; that is, 
 physical, chemical and physiological causality rules. 
 Thus, he regards " physiology of the soul as an 
 exposition of the mechanical conditions to which, 
 according to our observation, the life of the soul 
 is attached." " The conception of a psycho-phys- 
 ical mechanism can be stated as follows : As ideas, 
 volitions and other mental states cannot be com- 
 pared with the quantitative and special properties 
 of matter, but as, nevertheless, the latter seem to 
 follow upon the former, it is evident that two es- 
 sentially different, totally disparate, series of pro- 
 cesses, one bodily and one mental, run parallel to 
 each other. In the intensive quality of a mental 
 process the extensive definiteness of the material 
 process can never be found; but if the one is to call 
 forth the other, the proportionality between them 
 must be secured through a connection which ap- 
 pears to be extrinsic to both. There must exist 
 general laws, which ensure that with a modifica- 
 tion (a) of the mental substance a modification 
 (b) of the bodily substance shall be connected, 
 and it is only in consequence of this independent 
 rule, and not through its own power and impulse, 
 that a change in the soul produces a corresponding 
 one in the body. ... It is quite indifferent to 
 medicine wherein the mysterious union of soul and 
 body consists, as this is the constant event which 
 lies equally at the bottom of all phenomena. But 
 
PSYCHOLOGY 159 
 
 it Is of the greatest Interest to medicine to know 
 what affections of the soul are connected in that 
 mysterious manner with what affections of the 
 body." Accordingly, his phenomenal psychology- 
 was guided by competent knowledge of physics 
 and physiology, the latter, as we must recall, being 
 a subject which he actually professed. His spec- 
 ulative psychology, dealing with the mysterious 
 union, falls within his philosophy. 
 
 The third book of the Medical Psychology, 
 which still holds lessons for the physician, deals 
 with such subjects as sleep, attention, emotion, the 
 influence of the flow of consciousness upon secre- 
 tion, nutrition, and instinct, and with abnormal 
 psychology. The second book reviews the factors 
 of self-consciousness, especially In the light of the 
 relation between the physiological mechanism and 
 the mind. It thus includes his most distinctive 
 contribution to ' physiological ' psychology — the 
 famous theory of " local signs." This is an 
 integral part of his analysis of space-perception, 
 one of the subtlest ever formulated. His latest 
 presentation of it runs thus: 
 
 " Let It be assumed that the soul once for all 
 lies under the necessity of mentally presenting a 
 certain manifold as in juxtaposition in space; How 
 does it come to localise every individual impres- 
 sion at a definite place In the space intuited by it, 
 in such manner that the entire image thus intuited 
 
i6o THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 is similar to the external object which acted on the 
 eye? 
 
 Obviously, such a clue must He in the impres- 
 sions themselves. The simple quality of the sen- 
 sation ' green ' or ' red ' does not, however, con- 
 tain it; for every such colour can in turn appear at 
 every point In space, and on this account does not, 
 of Itself, require always to be referred to the one 
 definite point. 
 
 We now remind ourselves, however, that the 
 carefulness with which the regular position on the 
 retina of the particular excitations is secured, can- 
 not be without a purpose. To be sure, an impres- 
 sion is not seen at a definite point on account of its 
 being situated at such a point; but it may perhaps 
 by means of this definite situation act on the soul 
 otherwise than if it were elsewhere situated. 
 
 Accordingly we conceive of this in the follow- 
 ing way: Every impression of colour 'r' — for 
 example, red — produces on all places of the ret- 
 ina, which it reaches, the same sensation of red- 
 ness. In addition to this, however, it produces 
 on each of these different places, a, b, c, a certain 
 accessory Impression, «, /?, ;', which is independent 
 of the nature of the colour seen, and dependent 
 merely on the nature of the place excited. This 
 second local impression would therefore" be asso- 
 ciated with every impression of colour ' r,' in such 
 a manner that rcc signifies a red that acts on the 
 
PSYCHOLOGY i6i 
 
 point, a, r/9 signifies the same red in case it acts 
 on the point h. These associated accessory im- 
 pressions would, accordingly render for the soul 
 the clue, by following which it transposes the same 
 red, now to one, now to another spot, or simul- 
 taneously to different spots in the space intuited 
 by it. 
 
 In order, however, that this may take place in 
 a methodical way, these accessory impressions 
 must be completely different from the main impres- 
 sions, the colours, and must not disturb the latter. 
 They must be, however, not merely of the same 
 kind among themselves, but wholly definite mem- 
 bers of a series or system of series; so that for ev- 
 ery impression * r ' there may be assigned, by the 
 aid of this adjoined ' local sign,' not merely a 
 particular, but a quite definite spot among all the 
 rest of the impressions. The foregoing is the 
 theory of * Local Signs.' " 
 
 The best anatomical and physiological researches 
 fail to reveal spatial order as inherent in sensa- 
 tion; and, even if this ignorance be due to the im- 
 possibility of following up the evolutionary re- 
 gress, it is a real difficulty. Lotze therefore con- 
 cluded that " localisation in space belongs to the 
 unconscious product of the soul's action through 
 the mechanism of its internal states." We gain a 
 feld of vision from an ensemble of * local signs ' 
 and, as concerns tactile sense, the same thing hap- 
 
1 62 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 pens, the functions of the corpuscles of touch being 
 like those of the cones and rods of the retina in 
 sight. As a result, our notion of the extended 
 originates in a perception of qualitative differences, 
 from which the mind, by its own power of trans- 
 formation, constructs extensive relations. Later 
 researches into the structure of the peripheral nerve 
 terminations seem to confirm, rather than under- 
 mine, the hypothesis. That it is a typical example 
 of the limitations of hypothesis Lotze acknowl- 
 edged quite frankly. But he claimed, with justice, 
 that it explained the actual phenomena better than 
 any other theory. As a consequence, even if modi- 
 fied, it has been incorporated in ' physiological ' 
 psychology, and, especially as regards vision and 
 touch, must be reckoned with still. To sum up — 
 the point is this : Lotze held that every sensation, 
 say, of colour, was accompanied by an " accessory 
 impression " of locality. The facts made it neces- 
 sary to assume this " accessory impression.'* 
 Now, just because it happens to be an assumption, 
 it lies open to several interpretations. In other 
 words, the principle of the hypothesis may stand, 
 but opinions as to the way in which it may be read 
 can differ widely. However this may be, more 
 than any other psychologist, Lotze has laid bare 
 the numerous pitfalls surrounding the explanation 
 of a psychological fact so obvious and common as 
 space perception. 
 
PSYCHOLOGY 163 
 
 Nascent sciences present a certain family like- 
 ness In their llfe-hlstory. Commonly, they begin 
 as special Inquiries, somewhat off the traditional 
 lines, In the science which bears close or closest af- 
 finity to the future discipline. Such movements 
 continue lonely for a time, systematlsation being 
 difficult or unattainable till many facts have been 
 collected. To the point reached now, we see this 
 stage predominating In ' physiological ' psychol- 
 ogy. Physics and anatomy, physiology and philo- 
 sophy present special departures towards psy- 
 chology, but a unification of the last still lacks. 
 The final step must be associated always with the 
 names of Gustav Theodor Fechner and Wilhelm 
 Wundt (the latter more emphatically), who, 
 building on the accumulations of their predeces- 
 sors, at length gave the new science definite status. 
 
 Fechner (1801-87), like Lotze, studied medi- 
 cine at Leipzig, where he became professor of 
 physics In 1834. Like Lotze, too, he was an ex- 
 pert In philosophy. Both were " masters In the 
 use of exact methods, yet at the same time with 
 their whole souls devoted to the highest questions, 
 and superior to their contemporaries in breadth of 
 view as In the importance and range of their lead- 
 ing Ideas — Fechner a dreamer and sober inves- 
 tigator by turns, Lotze with a gentle hand recon- 
 ciling the antitheses in life and science." In a 
 fashion Fechner^s psychology Is more Intimately 
 
1 64 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 connected with his philosophy than Lotze's, and 
 his phllosophlco-psychologlcal perspective offers 
 points of strong contrast to Wundt's. Indeed, 
 his definition of psycho-physics — a term original 
 with him — hints as much. "I understand by 
 psycho-physics an exact theory of the relations of 
 soul and body, and, In a general way, of the physi- 
 cal world and the psychical world." Undoubt- 
 edly, the psychology may be disengaged from 
 metaphysical entanglements, as Wundt said in his 
 address on the occasion of the Fechner centenary. 
 But, after all, Fechner's panpsychism forms a mo- 
 tive force of his psycho-physics, because, intellec- 
 tually, he was a double personality. His philo- 
 sophical theory teaches a universal parallelism be- 
 tween the physical and the psychical. Or, as 
 Nageli, the botanist, has It: 
 
 *' Sensation Is clearly connected with the reflex 
 actions of higher animals. We are obliged to con- 
 cede It to the other animals also, and we have no 
 grounds for denying it to plants and inorganic 
 bodies. The sensation arouses in us a condition 
 of comfort and discomfort. In general, the feel- 
 ing of pleasure arises when the natural impulses 
 are satisfied, the feeling of pain, when they are 
 not satisfied. Since all material processes are 
 composed of movements of molecules and ele- 
 mentary atoms, pleasure or pain must have Its 
 seat in these particles. Sensation is a property of 
 
PSYCHOLOGY 165 
 
 the albuminous molecules; and if it belongs to 
 these, we are obliged to concede it to the other 
 substances also. If the molecules possess any- 
 thing even remotely akin to sensation, they must 
 have a feeling of comfort when they can obey the 
 law of attraction or repulsion, the law of their 
 own inclination or aversion; a feeling of discom- 
 fort, however, when they are compelled to make 
 contrary movements. Thus the same thread runs 
 through all material phenomena. The human 
 mind is nothing but the highest development on 
 our earth of the mental processes which universally 
 animate and move nature." 
 
 Fechner had worked out this fundamental the- 
 ory ere he arrived at his psychological results. 
 We find glimmerings of it so soon as 1835, in the 
 attractive Little Book on Life After Death, in the 
 tract On the Highest Good (1846); enlarged 
 views in Nanna, or the Soul-life of Plants (1848) ; 
 while the system appears full-fledged in Zend- 
 Avesta, or the Things of Heaven and the Here- 
 after (i85i);ini86ihe returned to it in his book, 
 On the Soul Question, occasioned by contemporary 
 materialism, and in The Three Motives and 
 Grounds of Belief; in 1879 ^^ reaffirmed and re- 
 stated the position in the remarkable volume en- 
 titled. The Day View and the Night View. The 
 essence of his teaching may be summed up in the 
 thought that the material or external world is a 
 
1 66 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 half-truth, a concession to the sensuous, rather 
 than an explanation of the psychical. 
 
 " However complicated our brains may be, and 
 however much we may feel inclined to attach to 
 such a complexity the highest mental properties, 
 the world is unspeakably more complex, since it is 
 a compHcation of all the compHcations contained 
 in it, the brains among them. Why not, there- 
 fore, attach still higher mental properties to this 
 greater complexity? The form and structure of 
 the heavens seem simple only when we consider 
 the large masses and not their details and con- 
 catenation. The heavenly bodies are not crude 
 homogeneous lumps; and the most diverse and 
 complicated relations of light and gravity obtain 
 between them. That, however, the plurality in 
 the world is also grouped, comprehended, and or- 
 ganised into unity does not contradict the thought 
 that it is also comprehended into a corresponding 
 mental unity, but Is In harmony with the same." 
 
 Consequently, the physical symbolises the psy- 
 chical. They are two faces of a single existence. 
 Human research may, therefore, deal with the one 
 or the other, and attain, as it has attained, great 
 success. But the real problem centres in the rela- 
 tion between the two. Of this, ' physiological ' 
 psychology is the science. Accordingly, you can 
 pursue it qua science, but you must never forget 
 the larger setting whence it cannot be riven. 
 
PSYCHOLOGY 167 
 
 Proceeding to the psychology, then, note at once 
 that Fechner envisages the problem rather as a 
 physicist than as a physiologist. So, while he suf- 
 fers from limitations, he gains In precision. Soul 
 and body being a single existence, It Is practicable 
 to Investigate their mutual functioning and to state 
 the results as laws of nature, which. In turn, are 
 no more than assemblages of observations con- 
 cerning phenomenal existence. Of course, a de- 
 veloped psychology would endeavour to extend this 
 plan to the entire range of consciousness. Fech- 
 ner, however, confines himself to a single funda- 
 mental point — the relation between stimulus and 
 sensation as generalised In Weber's law; although, 
 just as Lotze before him, he considers other ques- 
 tions in a most suggestive manner, notably, the 
 seat of the soul, sleep and reminiscence. Pursuant 
 to his early conviction, that soul and body are but 
 opposite sides of an Identical existence (conscious), 
 he took it for granted that their reciprocal action 
 would be proportional. But this was anticipation, 
 not science. Weber's work led Fechner to test 
 the hypothesis, that the increase of physlglogical 
 excitation holds the key to psychological changes. 
 And his interest was stimulated by the fact that, 
 if this could be proven accurately, his philosophy 
 would benefit by so much Indubitable evidence. 
 Consequently, he was moved to verify Weber's 
 Law by numerous experiments, physical, for the 
 
1 68 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 most part. Sensations of pressure and muscular 
 effort, detected by use of weights; sensations of 
 temperature, determined by cold and hot water; 
 sensations of light, detected by the photometer; 
 and sensations of sound, observed by reference to 
 falling bodies, all tended to confirm the same gen- 
 eral relation between stimulus and the psycho- 
 logical event. Given what Herbart called a 
 " threshold of sensation," and having fixed this as 
 a constant for each class of sensation, Fechner 
 found it possible to infer, by strict induction, that 
 the intensity of the sensation is equal to the pro- 
 portion of the stimulus, multiplied by the logarithm 
 of the excitation, divided by the threshold of stim- 
 ulus. In other words, we can obtain a formula 
 for the quantitative relation of physical and psy- 
 chological events considered as magnitudes. This 
 formula, which provides a means of measurement, 
 declares that the sensations Increase proportionally 
 to the logarithm of the stimulus. As a law, Fech- 
 ner affirms dogmatically that it applies for In- 
 ternal (psychological) states and, within limits, 
 reasons for which can be given, for external 
 (physiological or physical) conditions. The re- 
 sult was obtained by three methods. ( i ) The 
 Method of Differences which are Just Observable. 
 This means that the operator finds, first, the least 
 greater or the least smaller stimulus which can just 
 be sensed as different by the subject; and then pro- 
 
PSYCHOLOGY 169 
 
 ceeds to add Increments to this, or, Inversely to 
 subtract Increments from It, till the Intensity or 
 diminution come Into clear recognition. Divide 
 the sum of the initial and the altered stimulus and 
 you arrive at the differential of sensibility. (2) 
 The Method of True (Right) and False 
 (Wrong) Cases. Here the operator applies two 
 stimuli, which differ slightly, to the subject, and 
 inquires whether the first Is greater or smaller 
 than the second. The replies are recorded; the 
 ratio of true judgments to the total number of 
 judgments gives the measure of sensibility, and 
 varies directly with it. (3) The Method of 
 Mean Errors — or of Probability of Error. 
 Given a stimulus, the subject is asked to add an- 
 other just equal to the datum. He deviates more 
 or less; the probable error of the adjustment, in 
 its deviation from the known mean, affords the 
 direct measure of sensibility. The last, so far as 
 an amateur can judge, would seem to be the most 
 important, because the most accurate procedure. 
 As has been said, the resultant generalisation holds 
 within limits, upper and lower. But this is just 
 what one anticipates In any law of nature. And 
 there Is another, much more pertinent, question. 
 Does the law apply to the relation between sensa- 
 tion and neurosis, or merely to that between neu- 
 rosis and excitation? If the former, it is psycho- 
 physiological ; if the latter, it is no more than phys- 
 
1 70 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 iological or, strictly, physical. Now this raises 
 precisely the fundamental problem : Are sensations 
 measurable? And this, in turn, seems to me to 
 depend upon the possibility of differentiating be- 
 tween sensation and perception (the manner in 
 which we experience sensation). So far as I 
 catch the present drift, the central difficulty re- 
 mains sub judice. On the other hand, if one be 
 prepared to accept the theory called * organi- 
 cism,' — the analogue on the metaphysical side of 
 activism on the ethical, — which declares that our 
 whole experience can only be interpreted as a sin- 
 gle vast organism, in which every part bears a re- 
 lation at once of means and end to every other, it 
 follows plainly, in my judgment, that, if not Fech- 
 ner's law, then some law (possibly not yet known, 
 but operative nevertheless) must be present* 
 and, further, that this law, in certain of its 
 manifestations, is capable of discovery and 
 verification by psycho-physiological methods. 
 You see we must not demand finality from 
 a new science in the first generation of its 
 formal career. At this point pitiful errors 
 have beguiled both critics and advocates. The 
 critic who insists that ' physiological ' psychology 
 has nothing to tell is in far too big a . hurry to 
 judge ; and the advocate who urges that ' physi- 
 ological ' psychology can tell everything forth- 
 with deposes his own subject from its possible place 
 
PSYCHOLOGY 171 
 
 as a positive science. It Is fair to add, as opposed 
 to my own view, that the great American psy- 
 chologist, William James, states ( i ) that " Fech- 
 ner's originality consists exclusively in the theoretic 
 interpretation of Weber's law"; (2) that ''the 
 entire superstructure which Fechner rears upon 
 the facts is not only seen to be arbitrary and sub- 
 jective, but In the highest degree improbable as 
 well"; and (3) that "Weber's law is probably 
 purely physical." And he concludes, " the only 
 amusing part of it is that Fechner's critics should 
 always feel bound, after smiting his theories hip 
 and thigh and leaving not a stick of them stand- 
 ing, to wind up by saying that nevertheless to him 
 belongs the imperishable glory of first formulat- 
 ing them and thereby turning psychology Into an 
 exact science ( !) : 
 
 " And everybody praised the duke 
 
 Who this great fight did win." 
 " ' But what good came of It at last? * 
 
 Quoth little Peterkin. 
 * Why, that I can not tell,' said he, 
 ' But *twas a famous victory.^ " 
 
 This Irony need not be taken with too many 
 grimaces. For It merely means that * physiolog- 
 ical ' psychology remains in the ' natural history * 
 stage — it is still absorbed mainly in the assem- 
 blage of facts. And no one would oppose it were 
 
172 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 it not that some foolish partisans, after their kind 
 in all ages, go about to magnify their office. That 
 psychology can never hope to be as ' exact ' as 
 physics, or even, mayhap, physiology, seems prob- 
 able. Yet one attaches little, if any, weight to 
 the remark. For, as physiology ceases to be phys- 
 iology when It assimilates itself to physics or to 
 chemistry, so psychology ceases to be psychology 
 when It attempts to become physiology, just as 
 sociology, masquerading in the guise of psychol- 
 ogy, is no science, but simply a homeless bastard. 
 Sceptical as the conclusion may seem, Fechner, 
 nevertheless, needs no justification, as his work 
 for aesthetics proves abundantly. For, in psy- 
 chology, as in every science, the investigator as- 
 sumes the Intelligibility of nature ; and then, by an 
 attack In detail, attempts to show that natural in- 
 ter-relations are as his conceptual conclusions an- 
 ticipated they would be. And from this process 
 no sphere of experience can be held exempt. 
 Doubtless, the application Is more difficult in psy- 
 chology, because there abstraction from either 
 body or mind leads to positive error. But, here, 
 again, we are only saying that, despite all Its lab- 
 oratories and apparatus, psychology remains that 
 new revelation — a philosophical science. And 
 to my mind Its first-rate Importance grounds in 
 this very fact. 
 
PSYCHOLOGY 173 
 
 VI. 
 
 Now that Herbert Spencer and Eduard von 
 Hartmann have passed away, Wundt stands alone 
 among living thinkers of his generation. The Im- 
 portance of his philosophical contribution ranks 
 second only to his epoch-making career In psy- 
 chology. Space forbids more than this reference 
 to It; but I may add that, very likely, his philo- 
 sophical attitude possesses a future. For he heads 
 a movement which portends that a main business 
 of philosophy in present circumstances is to unify 
 and systematise the manifold results garnered 
 piecemeal by the positive sciences. 
 
 Born In 1832, Wundt began his academic career 
 as a medical student at Heidelberg In 1851, and 
 continued the same studies later at Tubingen and 
 Berlin, where he resided at the close of Johannes 
 Miiller's professorship. In 1856 he worked for 
 a year in the physiological laboratory at Heidel- 
 berg under Helmholtz. On the scientific side he 
 came under the influence of Miiller, Fr. Arnold 
 (In anatomy), Hasse (In pathology), E. H. and 
 W. Weber, Helmholtz, Lotze, Bain and Fechner. 
 Early in life he also made acquaintance with the 
 philosophical work of Leibniz, Kant, Herbart and 
 Lotze. As stated above, he records that. In psy- 
 chology, he owes the largest debt to Kant and 
 
174 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 Herbart; this explains not a few of his later posi- 
 tions, especially those to which younger men, of 
 purely experimental training, have taken excep- 
 tion, without due appreciation sometimes, I fear, 
 of what exactly they opposed. His life-work as a 
 teacher and investigator has lain at Zurich, and 
 Leipzig, whither he was called In 1876, and 
 where, in 1879, he opened the first purely psy- 
 chological laboratory, an example followed since 
 by many of the great universities in civilised lands. 
 Unlike his predecessors, especially Weber, Helm- 
 holtz, Lotze and Fechner, he has not concentrated 
 his attention upon this or that restricted group of 
 psycho-physiological phenomena, but has ranged 
 over the entire field, with the result that psychol- 
 ogy owes to him at once its present systematic form 
 and its definite place In the fellowship of the spe- 
 cial sciences. For these reasons, his Influence and 
 methods have penetrated everywhere. 
 
 A bare list of his principal works suflSces to ex- 
 hibit the range and force of his tireless activity: 
 Beitrdge zur Lehre von den Muskelbewegungen, 
 1858; Beitrdge zur Theorie der Sinneswahrneh- 
 miing, 1859-62; Vorlesungen iiher die Menschen- 
 und Thiers eele, 1863, 5th ed., 191 1 (Eng.. trans.) ; 
 Grundziige der physiologischen Psychologie, 
 1874, 6th ed., 1911 (Eng. trans.); Ueber die 
 Aufgahen der Philosophie in der Gegenwart, 
 1874; Ueber den Einfluss der Philosophie auf die 
 
PSYCHOLOGY 175 
 
 Erfahrungswissenschaften, 1876; Logik, 1906- 
 08; Ethik, 1886, 4th ed., 19 12 (Eng. trans.); 
 System der Philosophie, 1907; Grundriss der Psy- 
 chologic, 1898 (Eng. trans.) ; Volkerpsychologie, 
 1904-09; and many contributions of first-rate im- 
 portance to Philosophische Studien, the organ of 
 his laboratory and philosophical circle, since 188 1, 
 the first year of its publication. When we remem- 
 ber that four of these books are masterpieces, and 
 that one of them is the classic in its subject, some 
 idea of Wundt's importance emerges. 
 
 Seizing the opportunity incident to his historical 
 position, Wundt aimed to deliver psychology from 
 an old reproach — it was merely another instance 
 of more or less loose descriptive classification. 
 He proposed to lift it to the level of scientific ex- 
 planation. By what means? 
 
 " It is experiment that has been the source of 
 the decided advance in natural science, and brought 
 about such revolutions in our scientific views. Let 
 us now apply experiment to the science of mind. 
 We must remember that in every department of 
 investigation the experimental method takes on a 
 special form, according to the nature of the facts 
 investigated. We cannot experiment upon mind 
 itself, but only upon its outworks, the organs of 
 sense and movement which are functionally re- 
 lated to mental processes. So that every psy- 
 chological experiment is at the same time physi- 
 
176 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 ologlcal, just as there are physical sciences cor- 
 responding to the mental processes of sensation, 
 Idea and will. This, of course, is no reason for 
 denying to experiment the character of a psycho- 
 logical method. It Is simply due to the general 
 conditions of our mental life, one aspect of which 
 is its constant connection with the body." 
 
 Or, again : — 
 
 '' Psychology Is compelled to make use of ob- 
 jective changes in order, by means of the influ- 
 ence which they exert on our consciousness, to es- 
 tablish the subjective properties and laws of that 
 consciousness." 
 
 Or, once more : — 
 
 " Physiological psychology is, therefore, first of 
 all psychology. It has in view the same principal 
 object upon which all other forms of psychological 
 investigation are directed: the investigation of 
 conscious processes in the modes of connection pe- 
 culiar to them. It is not a province of physiology; 
 nor does it attempt, as has been mistakenly as- 
 serted, to derive or explain the phenomena of the 
 psychical from those of the physical life. We 
 may read this meaning into the phrase ' physi- 
 ological psychology,' just as we might interpret 
 ' microscopical anatomy ' to mean a > discussion, 
 with illustrations from anatomy, of what has been 
 accomplished by the microscope; but the words 
 should be no more misleading in the one case than 
 
PSYCHOLOGY 177 
 
 they are in the other. As employed in the present 
 work, the adjective ' physiological ' implies simply 
 that our psychology will avail itself to the full of 
 the means that modern physiology puts at its dis- 
 posal for the analysis of conscious processes." 
 
 But, had he gone no farther than this, Wundt 
 would scarcely be exempt from the condemnation 
 of his predecessors, or from that under which some 
 of his scholars have fallen. For, plainly, it could 
 be objected that he had omitted the two most re- 
 markable features of consciousness, — its intensive 
 or individual centralisation, and its extensive de- 
 velopment in society. These aspects of the mat- 
 ter tend to get beyond psychological management, 
 as they assuredly raise ultimate philosophical 
 problems. Wundt's high distinction is attribut- 
 able mainly to his recognition of and attack upon 
 these difficulties. So, his psychology offers a sec- 
 ond, and broader, side, set forth, for example, in 
 his excursus entitled Philosophie und Wissenschaft 
 (Essays, 1881), and present as a constructive, 
 possibly a disturbing, element, in his whole out- 
 look upon the psychological field. For instance, 
 in his System, the theory of the " growth of 
 mental values " bears directly upon thes6 ques- 
 tions. " Mental life is, extensively and Inten- 
 sively, governed by a law of growth of values: 
 extensively, inasmuch as the multiplicity of mental 
 developments is always on the increase ; Intensively, 
 
178 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 inasmuch as the values which appear in these de- 
 velopments Increase in degree." And, on the 
 strictly psychological side, he takes note of the 
 same things as follows : — 
 
 " We may add that, fortunately for the science, 
 there are other sources of objective psychological 
 knowledge, which become accessible at the very 
 point where the experimental method fails us. 
 These are certain products of the common mental 
 life, in which we may trace the operation of de- 
 terminate psychical motives; chief among them 
 are language, myth and custom. In part deter- 
 mined by historical conditions, they are also, in 
 part, dependent upon universal psychological laws; 
 and the phenomena that are referable to these laws 
 form the subject-matter of a special psychological 
 discipline, ethnic psychology. The results of eth- 
 nic psychology constitute, at the same time, our 
 chief source of Information regarding the general 
 psychology of the complex mental processes. In 
 this way, experimental psychology and ethnic psy- 
 chology form the two principal departments of 
 scientific psychology at large. They are supple- 
 mented by child and animal psychology, which, in 
 conjunction with ethnic psychology, attempt to re- 
 solve the problems of psychogenesis Fi- 
 nally, child psychology and experimental psychol- 
 ogy in the narrower sense may be bracketed to- 
 gether as individual psychology, while animal 
 
PSYCHOLOGY 179 
 
 psychology and ethnic psychology form the two 
 halves of a generic or comparative psychology." 
 
 So far the extensive development. On the side 
 of intensive centralisation Wundt's doctrine of 
 " apperception " provides the necessary hypothesis. 
 At these aspects of the subject I can only hint here. 
 
 Turning at once to the Physiological Psychol- 
 ogy, we find that it proceeds, as scientific method 
 dictates, from the simple to the complex. After 
 an introduction. Part I. discusses the bodily Sub- 
 strate of the Mental Life; Part IL the Elements 
 of the Mental Life; Part IIL the Formation of 
 Sensory Ideas; Part IV. the Aiifective Process and 
 Volitional Action; Part V. the Course and the 
 Connection of Mental Processes; Part VI. adds 
 Final Considerations. Thus, we pass from the 
 functions of the nervous system, by way of sensa- 
 tion, feeling and presentation, to consciousness in 
 the formation of ideas and in the train of ideas, 
 which, in turn. Involves attention, apperception, 
 and will, not omitting phenomena such as associa- 
 tion, imagination and emotion. Two reasons 
 make it hard to select this or that, and to say. 
 Here Wundt excels. First, profuse wealth of sug- 
 gestion and result Is scattered everywhere. Sec- 
 ond, the successive editions of the Physiolog- 
 ical Psychology constitute the life-story of Wundt's 
 own mind In relation to the subject as a 
 whole; and only psychologists von Fach can sup- 
 
i8o THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 ply the necessary light and shade. It appears to 
 me that special interest attaches to his discussion 
 of Miiller's theory of specific energies, because it 
 reveals Wundt's view of the part played by the 
 nervous system in the psychological organisation; 
 to his criticism of the Young-Helmholtz theory of 
 colour, because it attacks the ' mystery ' of space- 
 perception; to the treatment of sensation, the dura- 
 tion of mental processes, and association, because 
 they afford typical instances of the new data which 
 experimental psychology can bestow upon analyses 
 of psychical phenomena. Doubtless, professed 
 psychologists would Insist upon other points. For 
 my part, the central interest still attaches to 
 Wundt's theory of apperception and will. I take 
 the former as a typical illustration of the direction 
 in which ' physiological ' psychology moves. 
 
 In apperception the conscious being brings his 
 entire unity of experience to bear on the object 
 within the field of his attention. We light upon 
 an inner and elaborative activity which " bears 
 the stamp of spontaneity." Evidently, a process 
 complex in the highest degree! My colleague, 
 Professor Pillsbury, has analysed it as follows: 
 Apperception Involves four elements: ^'( i) In- 
 crease of clearness in the idea directly before the 
 mind, accompanied by the immediate feeling of 
 activity; (2) inhibition of other ideas; (3) mus- 
 cular strain sensations, with the feelings connected 
 
 'J 
 
PSYCHOLOGY i8i 
 
 with them, intensifying the primary feeling of ac- 
 tivity; (4) the reflex effect of these strain sensa- 
 tions, intensifying the idea apperceived." De- 
 spite this complexity, the apperceptive theory 
 posits fundamentally an inexpugnable " original 
 activity," or " psychical energy," which arises 
 from within consciousness and transforms, as by a 
 synthesis, what, for convenience' sake, may be 
 termed simple factors. Physiological stimulus 
 pales, and subjective transitiveness becomes deter- 
 mining. This activity has close connection with 
 will, often with choice. How can it be explained? 
 For Wundt, the term consciousness possesses a 
 special and restricted meaning. It consists of all 
 contents, such as feelings, ideas, excitations of the 
 will, and — there is no underlying substance or 
 occult being. This represents the analytic aspect; 
 the synthetic remains to be reckoned with. Now, 
 the spontaneous activity of the mind itself, whereby 
 presentations come to be distinguished clearly, ap- 
 pears as appercipient attention, when brought to 
 play upon perceptions or upon the ** stream of con- 
 sciousness," and as volition, when it originates 
 movements of the body. Obviously, the former 
 is the more fundamental, because, in it, I connect 
 my ideas with my will. It " depends, on the one 
 hand, upon the stimuli then at work; and, on the 
 other hand, upon the total state of consciousness, 
 how it is made up, that is, by present impressions 
 
1 82 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 and prior experiences. ... If we would describe 
 more nearly what it is that we experience in our- 
 selves when pleased or pained we cannot do this 
 more concretely than by denoting pleasure as a 
 straining after, and pain as a straining against, 
 an object." We may say, then, that apperception 
 means will brought to bear upon states of con- 
 sciousness and then directed to external muscular 
 acts. For, " there is absolutely nothing outside 
 man or in him which we can call wholly or entirely 
 his own except his will." So Wundt finds the ex- 
 istence of a synthetic activity of consciousness be- 
 yond the range of mere association. Without go- 
 ing far wrong, we might term this the single faculty 
 into which all the faculties of the old psychology 
 are absorbed. For it compares and selects among 
 conscious states; or peradventure, it can be de- 
 scribed as a species of conscious striving. Here, 
 then, the mental unity presents its distinctive na- 
 ture, and, as some have indeed supposed, might 
 be held exempt from the persistent assault of psy- 
 cho-physiological method, secluding itself within 
 its unattainable citadel. But this is a complete 
 mistake; and one should call attention to Wundt's 
 modern position even here, the more that he has 
 been misunderstood, strangely enough, by those 
 who ought to know better. Apperception, or what 
 you please, happens to be a fact of mental life. 
 Accordingly, it must submit to experimental treat- 
 
PSYCHOLOGY 183 
 
 ment. A process exists, therefore analysis Is ap- 
 plicable. And, especially when the problem of 
 duration arises, as It does, a cumulative series of 
 experiments Is In strict order. 
 
 What happens when apperception occurs? 
 Generally, of course, a transformation of sensory 
 Into motor activity. In detail, according to 
 Wundt, a train of processes has supervened, viz.: 
 (i) Transmission from the sense-organ to the 
 brain; (2) entrance Into the " field of view," that 
 Is, existence of simple perception; (3) entrance 
 into the " point of view," when perception becomes 
 discernment; (4) activity of will, with Innervation 
 of the central organism through the motor-nerves, 
 and (5) the resultant excitation of the muscles. 
 Plainly, the crux hides in (3), which Is purely 
 psychological, while the others have a clear 
 physiological reference. Nevertheless, (3) hap- 
 pens to be so surrounded by physiological phe- 
 nomena that It is open to observation and experi- 
 ment and these methods have been concentrated 
 upon a research Into the cerebral changes which 
 accompany perception, apperception and will, re- 
 spectively. These experiments, although elabo- 
 rate, and becoming more elaborate, may be classed 
 under three heads, (i) The Investigation of 
 simple physiological time, that Is, when the subject 
 Is aware of the coming impression, but Is ignorant 
 just when It will take place. (2) Those in which 
 
1 84 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 even this element of Ignorance is eliminated. 
 (3) Those in which wide modifications are pos- 
 sible, because, for example, the subject does not 
 know what the Impression will be, or is unaware of 
 the character of the stimulus In such a way that he 
 does not know how precisely he will be called upon 
 to register it. In sum, these experiments show, 
 as Wundt infers, that the exact moment of apper- 
 clplence is dependent upon the self-accommoda- 
 tion of the subject, particularly in the matter of at- 
 tention. Take the third case. " An indicator is 
 kept moving at a uniform rate over a graduated 
 scale, and so situated that the place of the needle 
 can be clearly seen at each Instant of time. The 
 action of the same clock which moves the needle 
 causes a sound at any moment, but in such a way 
 that the subject of the experiment does not know 
 when to expect it. With what position of the 
 needle, now, will the sensation of sound be com- 
 bined? Will the sound be heard exactly when it 
 occurs, as indicated by the needle ; or later than its 
 real time ('positive' lengthening); or earlier 
 than its real time ('negative' lengthening)? 
 The result shows that one rarely hears the sound 
 without either positive or negative displacement of 
 it ; but most frequently the lengthening is negative 
 — that is, one believes one hears the sound before' 
 it really occurs as measured by the indicator." 
 In this connection, then, the fundamental prob- 
 
PSYCHOLOGY 185 
 
 lem of ' physiological ' psychology is, " to deter- 
 mine the simple reaction-time, and from it to find 
 the factors of psycho-physical time — namely, per- 
 ception-time, apperception-time (or discernment- 
 time), and will-time." 
 
 Along this line laboratory investigation has been 
 able to show that, as a matter of record, the will 
 does occasion changes in the central physiological 
 mechanism, and that these changes possess quanti- 
 tative differences having more or less definite rela- 
 tion to psychical activity. By this I understand 
 that the latent energy of the nerve-cells is sum- 
 moned to activity, and that, as a result, the brain 
 labours hard. In our own laboratory I have seen 
 the subject of an attention experiment pour with 
 perspiration, although physically he was, to all ap- 
 pearance, quite quiescent. No better proof of in- 
 tense cerebral work could be desired. And ex- 
 periment simply attempts to relate this energising 
 to the concomitant psychological states. 
 
 But Wundt has committed himself to the mod- 
 ern attitude even further. In the first and sec- 
 ond editions of his Physiological Psychology, he 
 suggested that the frontal regions of the brain are 
 related to apperception as the " bearers of the 
 physiological processes which accompany the ap- 
 perception of the presentations of sense." In 
 other words, all stages of the apperceptive process 
 are accompanied by definite physiological activity. 
 
1 86 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 Beyond the circumstance that this assigns a func- 
 tion to the frontal regions which, otherwise, stand 
 out of distinct relation to the factors of conscious- 
 ness, it must be regarded as a speculation. 
 Wundt himself, although he does not dismiss the 
 hypothesis, tends to minimise it from his third 
 edition. Yet it serves to show how persistently 
 he clings to the true psycho-physiological method 
 even in regard to the most recondite operation of 
 the mind. 
 
 It remains to note that the influence of mind 
 over body demands study as much as the converse. 
 If apperception be a legitimate supposition — and 
 it would seem to be a hypothesis which at least ac- 
 counts for unquestioned facts, — then it follows 
 that we must estimate it, not by external stimulus, 
 but in terms of internal activity. And this, of 
 course, reminds us that psycho-physiological in- 
 vestigation has proved the existence of an influ- 
 ential voluntaristic element. No doubt, to this 
 point, the former has claimed, and still claims, the 
 lion's share of experimental work. So that, in 
 many ways, the internal problem awaits concen- 
 trated attack. That is to say, physical and phys- 
 iological problems, being so much more readily 
 amenable to the new methods, have tended to 
 crowd out the distinctively psychological material. 
 Nevertheless, we have arrived at something analo- 
 gous to a causal influence of the central nervous 
 
PSYCHOLOGY 187 
 
 system, upon what I shall call ideation. This was 
 the indispensable initial step. But yet, this 
 causality is necessarily in consciousness, and, in so 
 far forth, is not causal at all. For, of nervous 
 states as such we do not know anything, and never 
 can know anything. Accordingly, the other side 
 proffers its claim, which, in the light of this agnos- 
 ticism, is far more modest. This point was ad- 
 mirably taken by Professor Cattell, in his vice- 
 presidential address to the Anthropological Section 
 of the American Association for the Advancement 
 of Science, in 1888. " Much is being written just 
 now regarding the relation of consciousness to the 
 brain. The question is : Do perceptions, thoughts, 
 feelings, volitions, stand in causal interaction with 
 the brain, or are they an epiphenomenon, accom- 
 panying changes in the brain but not influencing 
 them? Are our ordinary actions complex reflexes 
 due to physical stimuli and the structure of the 
 nervous system, or are the changes in the brain 
 that precede movements initiated and directed by 
 consciousness? The question is one of facts that 
 should be settled by scientific methods; and the 
 solution will by no means concern psychology 
 alone. The two greatest scientific generalisations 
 of the present century are the conservation of en- 
 ergy and evolution by the survival of the fit. 
 Now, if consciousness alters, however slightly, the 
 position of molecules In the brain the fundamental 
 
1 88 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 concept of physical science must be abandoned. 
 If consciousness have no concern in the actions of 
 the Individual we have one of the most complex 
 results of evolution developed apart from the sur- 
 vival of useful variations, and the Darwinian 
 theory has failed." 
 
 We conclude then with the suggestive reflection 
 that ' physiological ' psychology Is the keeper of 
 a tremendous oracle. And, on the whole, the 
 oracle contrives to keep silence! 
 
HEREDITY AND EDUCATION: 
 SOME FACTS AND SOME GUESSES 
 
 There be many shapes of mystery. 
 
 Past hope or fear. 
 And the end man looked for cometh not, 
 And a path is there where no man thought. 
 
 So hath it fallen here. 
 
 ^\ TTEREDITY' and 'Education' are 
 
 I I terms beset by numerous subtle- 
 
 ■ I ties. If division of opinion mean 
 -*- -^- aught, they portend ramifications 
 that lie beyond our ken as yet. We must 
 therefore be frank with ourselves and, per- 
 haps, undertake to construct our own meanings. 
 For, truth to tell, the rigid limitations of predilec- 
 tion and ignorance hamper us on every hand. 
 Those who possess competent acquaintance with 
 * Heredity ' and ' Education ' would be the first 
 to acknowledge the need for reasoning by analogy, 
 as an expedient to fill gaps, and to recall, that no 
 logical device lies so open to the insidious attack 
 of fallacy. On the one side are limitations pe- 
 culiar to the writer — in his training, in the bias 
 resultant upon his special work, and Inseparable 
 189 
 
190 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 from his habitual outlook. On the other side are 
 limitations Inherent In the subjects themselves. 
 As to the former: an Investigator cannot be ex- 
 pected to slough the Intellectual associations of a 
 life-time, much less to span knowledge. Thus, as 
 a humble helot in a corner of tlie philosophical 
 field, I am well aware that I harbour but hazy no- 
 tions about many phenomena incident to that com- 
 plex synthesis, ' Heredity.' Nor can I conceal 
 from myself that, often, I fail to follow biological 
 arguments clearly. I lack experience to estimate 
 the precise values of the evidence. Similarly, 
 seeing that my daily duties have familiarised me 
 with analysis and internal exhibition of general 
 concepts, rather than with the Interplay of par- 
 ticular precepts, I am bound to approach the com- 
 binations peculiar to ' Heredity ' and ' Educa- 
 tion ' from a distinct angle. The reader must 
 bear this in mind as I proceed. Above all, it is to 
 be remembered that I have not the remotest claim 
 to ' expert ' knowledge of matters biological, or 
 of the conventions, as I understand them to be, as- 
 sumed by professors of educational practice. As 
 to the latter: 'Heredity' and 'Education,' like 
 similar 'universes' (so philosophers call them), 
 imply various and fluid conditions. For example, 
 after no little study and pains, I doubt whether I 
 grasp precisely the consensus of scientific opinion 
 about ' Heredity ' at the moment. Nay, I am 
 
HEREDITY AND EDUCATION 191 
 
 by no means sure that a consensus exists. While, 
 after years of contact with the mandarins of 
 * Education,' I am fairly certain that this term 
 connotes meanings apt to alter wondrously as it 
 passes from group to group. Thus, as would ap- 
 pear already, outlooks differ. Accordingly, at 
 the outset, I am caught in a sea of troubles, and 
 can scarce *' escape the predestinate scratched 
 face." 
 
 It may not be amiss to begin with an attempt to 
 clear one's mind of cant about ' Heredity.' 
 What is it? First, and generally, even the tyro is 
 aware that an organism comes, complete so far, 
 from its immediate ancestors. As our problem 
 confines us to ' humans,' we may declare bluntly, 
 that men are produced by their parents, and that 
 this genetic relation has its objective basis in the 
 sperm-cell and the egg-cell. ' Heredity ' is no 
 entity ' out there,' but a name bestowed upon a 
 process wherein an organism arises directly from 
 others, maintains their nature, and therefore starts 
 with an outfit whence its career proceeds. Or, to 
 quote Mr. E. B. Wilson: " The life of successive 
 generations of living beings shows no breach of 
 continuity, but forms a continuous vital stream In 
 which, as Virchow said, rules an * eternal law of 
 continuity.' " It is a piece of mere mysticism to 
 
192 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 allege that aught can happen In a human life irre- 
 spective of the physiological basis. Accordingly, 
 the facts of ' Heredity ' circle round the question 
 of continuity. What did you get from your 
 father? from your mother? from your fore- 
 bears? How did you get it? Plainly enough, 
 these Inquiries lead to a comparison between your 
 and their characteristics. But this Investigation 
 need not presuppose any conceptual * explana- 
 tion ' of ' Heredity ' as such. Nor need it pre- 
 suppose a theory of that other basal fact — the 
 fact of Individual life-history — known as ' De- 
 velopment.' Consequently, it appears a legiti- 
 mate inference, that the phenomena of ' Hered- 
 ity ' can be realised most definitely in the at- 
 tendant problems. Thus, the constitution and re- 
 coverable past of germ-cells, controlled breeding, 
 permutations of amphimixis, and the like, yield 
 results that go to the formation of the heredity- 
 concept, because they enable us to present — if 
 little more as yet — the important factors which, 
 under definite rearrangement, are individuals — 
 are ourselves. And, so far as I can see, we have 
 warrant to assert that * Heredity ' involves a 
 concept of mode, not a concept of cause. 
 
 What do we know of this mode? A synoptic 
 answer might run as follows. Germ-cells, in their 
 nuclei especially, are the continuum: the two are 
 identical. The immediate ancestors integrate in 
 
HEREDITY AND EDUCATION 193 
 
 them, as we can specify now to some extent. We 
 have good reason to infer that the respective con- 
 tributions of mother and father reappear In off- 
 spring, even If most variably: and that, sometimes, 
 given elements — whether traceable to parents or 
 to remoter progenitors — manifest themselves 
 strongly or seem, on the contrary, to undergo In- 
 hibition. We are certain that environment Is a 
 necessary condition of these changes, and that It 
 bears relation, not only to the organism In gross, 
 but also to Its constituent factors separately. We 
 are aware that Individual recapitulation (as In the 
 history of the kidneys, for example,) has presump- 
 tive evidence. In short, we are on the track of 
 the modes. On the other hand, we are In no posi- 
 tion to explain the extraordinary potentiality of 
 the germ-cells, nor can we state the principle of 
 order whereby just this Individual emerges finally. 
 That Is to say, cause eludes us. We must rest 
 content with hypotheses here. And we should 
 frame our hypotheses so that they may be capable 
 of verification or of disproof. For, in the nature 
 of the case, hypotheses that furnish no ground for 
 farther verification must rank as logical will-o'-the- 
 wisps. 
 
 But some enthusiast, accustomed to seven- 
 leagued boots, will exclaim: *' Either you are alto- 
 gether too cautious, or this is a miserable account 
 of empty benches. I had thought of ' Heredity ' 
 
194 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 as a talisman rather than as a prosaic pursuit of 
 recondite chemical changes, and so forth. I had 
 associated It with the maternal Impressions that cut 
 such a figure In some popular novels. I had seen 
 It typified by contemporary playwrights In dypso- 
 manla, and worse, Inevitable as the car of Jugger- 
 naut. It had moved my imagination profoundly 
 when I discovered the meaning of that strange 
 word, telegony. My Sunday newspapers had led 
 me to believe that a judicious diet of cakes and 
 ale, or of canvas-back duck and champagne, would 
 enable duly considerate parents to determine the 
 sex of their children. Nay more, being an ' edu- 
 cator,' and well versed In the literature of my pro- 
 fession, I had felt justified In holding that my little 
 charges became, from year to year, shad, 
 monkeys, misslng-llnks, cave-men, savages, In- 
 dians, nomads, shepherds, tillers, and I had tried 
 to train them In accordance with these succes- 
 sive hereditary achievements." To all this — it 
 abounds, worse luck — one can only say: thus do 
 sloppy ' facts ' breed sloppier theories, and add, 
 by way of solemn warning, that. In these matters, 
 we can not keep too watchful eye upon a ubiquitous 
 type, given to frequent teachers' meetings, whom 
 we may well baptise ' Dr. Viewy.' Bad biolog- 
 ical theories, it has been noted, when they die, go 
 to — Pedagogy. 
 
 Nevertheless, these whimsies, which are hardly 
 
HEREDITY AND EDUCATION 195 
 
 a travesty of ' newspaper science ' and popular 
 Impressionism, do possess a certain warrant, even 
 if warped from it by a far-flung drift. For, as 
 Is obvious, problems of ' Heredity ' would never 
 have arisen did not germ-cells, mediated by a 
 genial environment, become such and such indi- 
 viduals, marked by special characteristics. Now 
 this means that these problems stand in close rela- 
 tion to the larger questions of ' Development.' 
 Moreover, some characters may be heritable, 
 others may be doubtful, while still others 
 may be acquired — may be modifications In 
 the strict sense. So, further, the problems of 
 ' Heredity ' impinge upon the facts of Inheri- 
 tance. At this point the Inquiry must proceed by 
 the laborious methods of observation and experi- 
 ment or, as recently, by that suggestive extension 
 of the theory of probability — biometrics. In 
 these fields, rather than in the sphere of ' Hered- 
 ity ' pure and simple, we are apt to be stranded 
 on the shoals of shallow illusion. Besides, the 
 higher one rises In the organic scale, the greater 
 difficulty In dissipation of imaginary notions and 
 irresponsible references. 
 
 II. 
 
 Fortunately or unfortunately for our theme, 
 * Education ' presupposes precisely the highest 
 kind of organisation known to us. It carries one 
 
196 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 at a step from the physical and physiological to 
 the psychological, and to the psychological Inte- 
 grated and reintegrated till, at the first blush, sure 
 footing seems Impracticable. And we may admit 
 frankly that, while theory finds ample room In the 
 circumambient atmosphere, facts tend to elude, 
 are unobtainable In some directions. This leaves 
 little choice in procedure. So, I shall review con- 
 siderations founded on what may be called facts, 
 at least by a slight stretch of courtesy. There- 
 after I shall proceed to a theoretical position — 
 one, perhaps, no less and no more open to destruct- 
 ive criticism, nor worthy of blind faith, than Its 
 near kin, the Intellectual spooks that hover round 
 the biological camp. 
 
 Competent students would agree that the sweep 
 of empirical science has gone far beyond foreign 
 objects In the ' outer ' world. As Interpreted to- 
 day. Nature includes the higher achievements of 
 man no less than his physical environment and his 
 physiological frame. On the contrary, contem- 
 porary science is by no means able to formulate a 
 fundamental synthesis for the ' spiritual,' one that 
 might stand to It as the laws of motion to the 
 stars in their courses. Briefly, while we are 
 aware that ' Heredity,' Variation, and so on, 'de- 
 termine our veritable being, we are unprepared to 
 pronounce upon their laws. Notwithstanding, 
 some things will take no denial. Abnormalities 
 
HEREDITY AND EDUCATION 197 
 
 of sensation, motor defects, the physiological con- 
 ditions of attention and association, the influence 
 of fatigue, the balance of the nervous system, the 
 possibilities of reflex and voluntary concentration, 
 the relation of rhythm to imagery — to select a 
 few instances — cannot be divorced from educa- 
 tional problems in individual cases. Moreover, 
 these persist in the tendencies impressed upon us 
 by our parents and remoter ancestors. So much 
 is probably ascertained. Whatever conclusions 
 may belong eventually to a hidden future, we are 
 bound to be candid with ourselves, and recognise 
 that the roots of our life strike deep in the race 
 whence we spring. Personally, I am of opinion 
 that theory has not achieved a stage where the con- 
 stitutive process can be stated four-square in a 
 single proposition. For example, taking a case 
 from my own side of the house, I am unable to ac- 
 cept Hering's view, that our reproduction of an- 
 cestral traits may be explained as unconscious 
 memory of the past. Persistent undulations, 
 characteristic or even formative of molecules, and 
 stable despite their ready response to change, no 
 doubt offer an account of ' Heredity ' In terms at 
 once of physics, physiology and psychology. But, 
 here we have all the vagaries of panpsychism 
 without compensation. Haeckel's notorious pro- 
 nouncement Is of similar import. " The true and 
 ultimate causa efpciens of the biogenetic process, I 
 
198 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 propose to designate by a single word, Perlgenesis 
 — the periodic wave-generation of the organic 
 molecules or plastldules." This periodicity of 
 " representative particles," in whose ebb and flow 
 lower organisms suffer little loss or gain, while 
 the higher forget and learn much, clouds the issue. 
 Still, theory aside, a few facts do emerge. It is 
 plain that physical and physiological qualities are 
 more stable than psychological and, therefore, that 
 their transmission can be detected more certainly. 
 Or, if you prefer to have it so, the same elemen- 
 tary factors are less likely to undergo annulment, 
 even if the tendencies due to them, as developed in 
 individuals, vary greatly; even if the modalities, 
 to adopt Helmholtz's word, prove less numerous 
 at the lower end of the scale, numerous to con- 
 fusion at the upper limit. This, again, leads to 
 the inference that ' Heredity ' possesses a physico- 
 chemical basis, that, as Gautler says, '' the force 
 which maintains the species, and gives it the char- 
 acter of constancy and resistance, is nothing more 
 than the resultant of the forces which maintain the 
 chemical species of which the organism is com- 
 posed." In any event, these empirical condi- 
 tions enact a role of the highest importance. And 
 we must have a care to emphasise the ' brute fact,' 
 if we would steer clear of mystical fogs. On the 
 other hand, thanks to the present state of positive 
 knowledge, we should have no difficulty in agree- 
 
HEREDITY AND EDUCATION 199 
 
 ing with Hoffding. " Even though the individual 
 organism, which in spite of its completeness and 
 relative independence is still a republic of cells, 
 were to be explained as compounded out of ele- 
 ments, and its origin made intelligible through the 
 law of the persistence of energy, this would not 
 explain the individual consciousness, the forma- 
 tion of a special centre of memory, of action, of 
 suffering. That it is possible for such an Individ- 
 ual centre to come Into being is the fundamental 
 problem of all our knowledge. Each individual 
 trait, each individual property, might perhaps be 
 explained by the power of heredity and the influ- 
 ence of experience; but the inner unity, to which 
 all elements refer, and by virtue of which the in- 
 dividuality is a psychical individuality, remains 
 for us an eternal riddle." Nor can we accuse him 
 of positing a transcendent ' self ' here ; he al- 
 leges simply, that analysis must go farther, and 
 reckon with still other facts. 
 
 Finally, it will not do to dodge these survivals 
 of the ape and tiger by the naive expedient, dear 
 to some, of shifting the venue from individuals to 
 the race. For we may regard it as proven that 
 evolution takes place, not according to this or that 
 quality in this or that individual, but through the 
 mediation of characteristics common in degree to 
 members of a group, characteristics productive of 
 a norm that enables us to note variations of indl- 
 
200 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 viduals, whether by excess or by defect. And, 
 just as the organism exerts a determining influence 
 in the arrangement of intra-individual qualities, 
 so the environment operates with qualities pe- 
 culiar to groups. Every species possesses a phys- 
 ical basis, and the same holds of any conceivable 
 human society. It is undeniable that the configu- 
 ration of France and Germany account to some ex- 
 tent for the differences between the inhabitants. 
 In like manner, the association of rivers with the 
 sites of populous places — so constant in the pre- 
 railroad epoch — has been noted often. Every- 
 body perceives that the accessible material wealth 
 of the United States has determined immigration 
 to us rather than, say, to the Brazilian hinterland, 
 to Australia, or to the frozen coal-fields of the 
 Antarctic. Similarly, climate, with its components 
 of light and temperature and moisture, has af- 
 fected peoples profoundly. There be those who 
 would trace American wit to our atmosphere, 
 where objects stand forth almost stereoscopic, with- 
 out the purple iridescence that suffuses the land- 
 scape in the sea-set isles of our forefathers. Our 
 untravelled folk have not the remotest idea of 
 the cosmic Intimation that choruses in the amber 
 glow of a Scottish sunset. So, too, in the olden 
 time, as far back as Pindar, the Greeks attributed 
 the " swinishness " of their pet butts, the Boeo- 
 tians, to a like cause, as Cicero intimates. 
 
HEREDITY AND EDUCATION 201 
 
 It is interesting to note that this very idea has per- 
 sisted in literature to Carlyle. Further, the def- 
 inite factors of the environment count for much. 
 Water, forests, metals, vegetable and animal life, 
 the physical possibilities of Industry, mould a race 
 just as the bodily frame an individual. The burly 
 habit of the Englishman, his round trunk, his 
 phlegmatic temper, imply his environment, as 
 Shakespeare saw long since. Now, if we are to 
 observe the law of economy in thought, we must 
 permit these empirical explanations to carry us as 
 far as possible. Nay, we ought to go to the phys- 
 ical for the group, to the physiological for the in- 
 dividual, if we desire to gain a vantage whence we 
 may reach something panoplied in the armour of 
 accuracy. There should be no blinking the issue 
 on these points, no misunderstanding of the facts 
 now known, or of their trend. 
 
 III. 
 
 It was necessary to dwell on these aspects with 
 no little emphasis, because, as we shall see, there is 
 a sense in which they may be said to function sub- 
 ordinately when ' Education ' and its special dif- 
 ficulties claim the centre of the stage. The pas- 
 sage to one of the most complex arrangements de- 
 vised by human society transports us at a leap to 
 a world diverse from that of the biologist. But 
 the biological elements remain, assert their pres- 
 
202 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 ence continually, and exact due attention in any 
 reckoning. Thus, we breathe, and blink eyelids, 
 just as the heart beats — automatically. Other 
 actions, like coughing when ' a crumb goes the 
 wrong way,' or sneezing in a dust-laden chamber, 
 are somewhat less simple — reflexes, independent 
 of control by consciousness. Up the scale another 
 step come the higher reflexes — habitual activities 
 requiring, apparently, no interference from the 
 higher nerve-centres; in these man reminds us of 
 wasps and beavers. Next are complex reflexes, 
 involving the higher centres, and yet so inbred 
 that they operate without prior empirical trial. In 
 the two last cases the process, while well balanced 
 in relation to environment, may not need to pass 
 the threshold of consciousness. And on this ob- 
 scure problem theories crowd. But, be theory 
 what it may, biological factors, especially in their 
 presumptive ' psycho-physical ' extensions, pre- 
 dominate. Nay, we must insist that these quasi- 
 psychological events ' survive ' in man. There 
 can be little doubt that — to use a picturesque 
 phrase — " we have lines of least resistance in 
 our brains," and this unconsciously. In like man- 
 ner, mere perceptual reference, below the level of 
 organising reason, is shared by us with other ani- 
 mals. But, man employs them as a kind of 
 spring-board whence he propels himself to a plane 
 whither brutes cannot follow: hence this very 
 
HEREDITY AND EDUCATION 203 
 
 designation — ' brutes.' Opinions pro or con 
 man's exclusive possession of ' reason ' need not 
 delay us here. But no one would dispute for a 
 moment that human reason attains a new dimen- 
 sion, or that, in turn, the evolution of speech, pari 
 passu with other modes of cooperation, has reori- 
 ented man to ' animal ' conditions. So much so, 
 indeed, that he has often mistaken himself for an 
 angel or a devil, occasionally for a deity, and has 
 forgotten his poor cousins on four — or fifty — 
 feet. Little as he may be justified in this self- 
 esteem or superciliousness, he is justified at least 
 to the extent that a fresh group of problems 
 emerges from his development of consciousness. 
 Moreover, new methods of approach and inquiry 
 become necessary. Omit them, and you lag on 
 the fringes of the question. 
 
 One may assert that, till they diverge on this 
 plane, human young, like animal, conserve funda- 
 mental characteristics as received from ancestors, 
 although with numerous variations, slight, but ob- 
 vious; for example, in brothers and sisters. Or, 
 putting it otherwise. Variation revolves about 
 a normal, average, continuum. Further, this 
 holds, with high probability, for the psychological 
 no less than for the physiological. At all events, 
 Pearson's results support this Inference. No 
 doubt. In the nature of the case, as observation 
 and experiment unite to show, mental variations 
 
204 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 tend to be elusive, because their differentiations 
 are wider. This may be, possibly is, due to the 
 reaction of ' memory ' and * reason ' upon the 
 simple reflexes. But, even so, the Issue does not 
 appear to eventuate in anything that amounts to 
 discontinuity. The ' inborn ' set anchors the In- 
 dividual, as it were. That is, In the organism, 
 and in those psychical activities traceable directly 
 to physiological structure or process, permanence 
 of type, and close Identity of coordination, must 
 be held proven. Accordingly, it Is a fair deduc- 
 tion that ' Education ' encounters limits here. It 
 cannot create, although It may elicit or inhibit 
 given capacity — given by ' Heredity.' Thus the 
 facts of ' Heredity ' may clarify our notions 
 of the practicable. They furnish data, more ac- 
 curate than we have had hitherto, about the phys- 
 iological basis. By enabling us to comprehend 
 abnormalities, they offer pregnant hints for the 
 treatment of defectives, in particular cases. 
 They also puncture cranky schemes which, if ap- 
 plied to normals, might well overset their balance. 
 In short, ' Heredity ' throws lambent light upon 
 some dark places. It warns us off hair-brained 
 adventures, by proving that man Is so stable as 
 to defy our puny efforts to extend his • range by 
 any conventional methodism. For, we must rec- 
 ognise that It fixes unilateral adaptation In those 
 senso-motor activities known as instinct, and also 
 
HEREDITY AND EDUCATION 205 
 
 In those secondary manifestations of automatism 
 called habits. In this way, it suggests that men 
 possess definite mental tendencies not amenable to 
 profound alteration by any educational nostrums. 
 For, as Forel says, " Every human race, clearly 
 differentiated, possesses a collection of special 
 mental attributes Inherited in the course of its evo- 
 lution, attributes which no civilisation can either 
 produce or destroy." Thus — and Inevitably so 
 — the study of ' Heredity ' reminds us that a 
 great part of ' Education ' so-called is nothing 
 but instruction. This sort of thing perpetuates, 
 and Is condemned to perpetuate, a type which, 
 later, " will exhibit the talent for all unproductive- 
 ness . . . one of those creatures incapable of in- 
 dividual combination and independence of mind, 
 but gifted with facility." By contrast, we may 
 learn that real ' Education ' must proceed other- 
 wise. It must say Insistently, " Keep your brain 
 for better work. Form your will, your judgment, 
 your Independence of character." But, evidently, 
 we have reached the plane of divergence here. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Man is an animal, and something more, he Is 
 also man. And, while it may be difficult to Indi- 
 cate the precise difference In any brief form of 
 words, I have the temerity to summarise the con- 
 trast as follows. So long as you classify him with 
 
2o6 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 the other animals, and attempt to estimate him by 
 means of this genealogical relationship, you find 
 that man varies little. The stable element en- 
 forced by ' Heredity ' lies heavy upon him. On 
 the contrary, admit the phenomena characteristic 
 of the human plane, and you discover that he is 
 capable of extensive modification. Well, then, 
 what may these phenomena be? 
 
 In the first place, and with special reference to 
 the individual, there appears to be a psychological 
 fork, as it were, where men diverge from animals, 
 although the two paths may continue nearby for a 
 long distance. We know that animals can be 
 taught to form new associations on the basis of per- 
 ception, as numerous experiments show conclu- 
 sively. Perceptions may eventuate in inferences 
 indicative clearly of intelligence, but not yet de- 
 manding for their explanation any reference to the 
 higher reasoning dependent upon power to em- 
 ploy abstract ideas. That is to say, we have ob- 
 vious reactions to a particular group of circum- 
 stances, but not grasp upon a series of kindred 
 groups in such a way as to elicit principles, causes, 
 and the like. Necessarily, too, intelligence fails 
 here to detect an identity of nature .in similar 
 groups which can be ' carried about in the mind,' 
 and applied immediately to other cases. Accord- 
 ingly, in this regard, men and animals may diverge, 
 and still pursue tracks parallel to some extent. 
 
HEREDITY AND EDUCATION 207 
 
 But, sooner or later, a decisive point of departure 
 arrives, where the human skews from the animal 
 with marked emphasis. Then we encounter psy- 
 chical manifestations peculiar to ' reason ' — 
 manifestations impossible except as abstract or 
 general Ideas are used, not only to interpret per- 
 ceptions, but as bases for syntheses between ab- 
 stract ideas. Thus, animals, like many men in a 
 primitive stage of mental development, are Incap- 
 able of science. On the other hand, when science 
 or any similar Weltansicht, makes Its appearance, 
 a new situation confronts us, one in which, as I 
 have hinted, the biological element functions sub- 
 ordlnately. Arrived here, we can no longer 
 adopt the otiose attitude of Pope, and ask blandly, 
 
 " If plagues or earthquakes break not Heav'n's design, 
 Why then a Borgia or a Cataline? " 
 
 For, when abstract thinking, with its generation of 
 transitive ideas, has upthrust its disturbance within 
 him, man begins his eternal struggle to escape the 
 thraldom of Nature. Or, as D. F. Strauss said, 
 " In him Nature endeavoured to transcend herself. 
 Man not only can and should know Nature, but, so 
 far as his powers allow, should rule both external 
 Nature and the natural in himself." 
 
 Yes, ' man ' I Whereupon, secondly, we have 
 stepped beyond the tiny circle of the individual, 
 and suggested already another source, perhaps an- 
 
2o8 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 other kind, of divergence. As was Indicated at 
 the outset, analogical reasoning besets this problem. 
 The thunderous phrase, " man an organic com- 
 munity," echoes from Idea to Idea, resounding on 
 many misty mountain-tops of thought, reverberat- 
 ing in valleys where continuous twilight prevails. 
 Even so, for the present purpose it may suffice to 
 hint that man, the individual, never exists as an 
 individual. Briefly, that definite and apparently 
 separable thing we fain would term a man, faces 
 many ways, all leading from self. As we have 
 seen, the ' omnlprepotence ' of ' Heredity ' as- 
 serts, and with no uncertain sound, that his outlook 
 lies to the past; as an organism he looks backward. 
 Yet, looking, he thinks the while ; whereupon other 
 considerations arise, obscure, because investigation 
 stands but on their threshold. Despite Ignorance, 
 their presence transforms. As a reflective being, 
 man looks around, nay, projects himself into phases 
 of experience that possess nor local habitation nor 
 name. Perchance, this far world of the mind's 
 desire may win to fact at length. To-day it is 
 not ! As a moral and religious being, man looks 
 up, demanding completion. Like Carlyle's famous 
 shoeblack, he would ''require for his. permanent 
 satisfaction and saturation, simply this "allotment, 
 no more and no less: God's Infinite universe alto- 
 gether to himself." Your individual, precisely 
 when he most deserves the epithet ' man,' poses 
 
HEREDITY AND EDUCATION 209 
 
 as the spectator of all time and existence, or, bet- 
 ter still, serves himself the bearer of every age that 
 ever was* to the greater ages that are yet to be. In 
 his capacity as an organism, he may Indeed assume 
 the state and dignity of an ' Individual,' because 
 he cannot communicate Its special modes — sensa- 
 tions. In his capacity as a man, he never earns 
 title to this barren sort of individuality, because 
 the ideas, pursuits, beliefs, and judgments of value 
 that alone suffice to personality — the more it is 
 to be reckoned with, the more conspicuously — 
 have been communicated, must remain communi- 
 cable In essence, so be they would rank as effective 
 components of experience. The specific modes of 
 anything fit for characterisation as Intellect, ideal, 
 or culture, are specific just In proportion as they 
 are communicable. Mutuality makes them what 
 they are. And, worse luck, science fails us on 
 these seductive matters, empirical understanding 
 abdicates. Nevertheless, good cess or bad, ' Edu- 
 cation ' makes its bed just here. 
 
 From the standpoint of biology, of any positive 
 science, Indeed, we meet a whimsical or, as the 
 English would say, Gilbertian, universe on this 
 plane. For, positive science deals with specific 
 relations between objects or, in its psychological 
 extension, with connections between subjects and 
 objects. The typical phenomena are conditioned 
 by a process of actual contact or, as in sight, by 
 
210 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 what is tantamount to contact — the mechanism 
 of waves Impinging upon that photographic cam- 
 era, the eye. Moreover, Investigation concentrates 
 its effort upon the Hnkage of effects with causes. 
 Thus, dualism tends to dominate the situation; 
 causes are of one kind, effects of another. As 
 Huxley observed, in a classical passage, the odour 
 of the musk-rose and the musklness in the rose re- 
 main for ever Incommensurable. But, ' Educa- 
 tion ' arrived, the primary fact happens to be the 
 interpenetratlon of mind by mind. Nothing oc- 
 curs In the nature of the contact just cited, unless 
 we say, by a bit of permissible materialism, one 
 idea caroms off another. We may predict the 
 psychological Issue of a physical sign In certain 
 cases. We are at no such advantage with ideas. 
 What strange ' story ' will a reporter not extract 
 from an address? As often happens, his misrep- 
 resentation will puzzle the wit of all other audi- 
 tors. Two friends meet to discuss a thorny ques- 
 tion; they have not the faintest notion how their 
 intercourse will modify the conclusions of both. 
 The Identical words printed here, not only may, 
 but must Induce contrasted conceptions from reader 
 to reader. For, they are condemned to find their 
 way to due place in that extraordinarily compli- 
 cated whole, the personal experience of each. 
 They cannot escape the twist given by convictions 
 and presuppositions. ' Education ' consists of ma- 
 
HEREDITY AND EDUCATION 211 
 
 terlal common to Individuals, and depends upon 
 the possibility of producing harmony within cultural 
 groups, whose every member forms a group In his 
 or her turn. 
 
 " Let me calmly 
 Face the paradox which leads me to maintain 
 The very phiases of the enemy 
 Over against the championing of friends . . . 
 Who shall be stronger, still must ease his strength 
 As I, in speaking self forth in the speech 
 Of great souls, great by self-pois'd circumstance, 
 Not blindly passion-warp'd, but more and more 
 Personal, comprehensive of world-life ! " 
 
 Needless to insist, problems cluster here, like 
 filings to a magnet. Why is it easy to propagate 
 ideas at a set time, and within a typical civilisa- 
 tion? Why do the same ideas become ' impos- 
 sible ' under other cultural conditions? How hap- 
 pen the quick response and rapid extension? 
 How, on the contrary, the inhibition and even dis- 
 taste? Why should we have denominational 
 'Education;' is not truth one? What transfor- 
 mations are incident inevitably to such processes? 
 Maybe, suggestion might throw light upon these 
 questions. It certainly illuminates phenomena of 
 arrest and reinforcement under the relative circum- 
 stances. But then, again, we pull ourselves up 
 sharply in its presence — It hardly deals with the 
 normal or average occasion. Study of ' mob ' 
 
212 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 psychology might offer hints; but then, the mob 
 happens to wallow in opinion rather than to seek 
 the white rays of knowledge. Contagion, as psy- 
 chologists call it, and ' Education ' indeed com- 
 mingle. But then, the subjects of the mixture 
 must be exceeding fit; therefore, they are exceed- 
 ing few. For, it takes overwhelming persons to 
 propagate or inhibit Ideas Influentially. Thus, 
 mayhap, the most we can tie to here might be ex- 
 pressed in an admission that, after all, the dithy- 
 rambs of some eighteenth century German roman- 
 tics were not so far out. Select Herder, for in- 
 stance. 
 
 *' A primitive people, like a child, stares at all 
 things; fright, fear, admiration are the only emo- 
 tions of which It Is capable, and the language of 
 these emotions consists of high-pitched, Inarticu- 
 late sounds, and violent gestures. This is the first, 
 prehistoric, infantile period In the history of a lan- 
 guage. There follows the period of youth. 
 With the Increasing knowledge of things, fright 
 and wonder are softened. Man comes to be more 
 familiar with his surroundings, his life becomes 
 more civilised. But as yet he is in close contact 
 with nature; affections, emotions, sensuous impres- 
 sions have more influence upon conduct than prin- 
 ciples and thought. This Is the age of poetry. 
 The language now Is a melodious echo of the 
 outer world; it Is full of images and metaphors, it 
 
HEREDITY AND EDUCATION 213 
 
 Is free and natural in Its construction. The whole 
 life of the people Is poetry. Battles and victories, 
 fables and moral reflections, laws and mythology 
 are now contained In song. The third period Is 
 the age of manhood. The social fabric grows 
 more complicated, the laws of conduct become 
 more artificial, the Intellect obtains the ascendency 
 over the emotions. Literature also takes part In 
 this change. The language becomes more ab- 
 stract; It strives for regularity, for order; It gains 
 In Intellectual strength and loses In sensuous fer- 
 vour; in other words, poetry Is replaced by prose. 
 And prose, In Its turn, after It has fulfilled the 
 measure of Its maturity, sinks into senile correct- 
 ness and sterility, thus rounding out the life of a 
 given national literature, and making room for a 
 new development." 
 
 What is the ' gatekeeper of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury ' trying to reach here? He is struggling to 
 liberate himself from subjective feeling, to de- 
 velop a scientific basis on the concept of a norma- 
 tive type. So far as ' Education ' Is concerned. 
 It may be asserted that subsequent work, executed 
 essentially in Herder's temper, has done something 
 to verify his ' type,' at least for the individual. 
 Is it not true that the infant faces the world modi- 
 fiable almost without limit? But, on the con- 
 trary, Is It not true that he has little or nothing to 
 teach? In youth he becomes an adept at imita- 
 
214 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 tion, but hardly gains a point where he can be 
 said to mould others profoundly. In maturity 
 and old age, the positions reverse. Suggestibility 
 loses Its resilience; the man, now made, acts as a 
 standard-bearer, the Imitator comes to be the pat- 
 tern. In a word, paradox though it be, the more 
 the individual Is adopted into his cultural sphere 
 by 'Education,' the less individual he becomes; 
 yet, as a vehicle of this very culture, he has become 
 more Individual than ever. The facts seem to ad- 
 mit of no dispute. And they stand in intimate 
 connection with certain aspects of ' Heredity,' 
 about which we are able to do little more than the- 
 orise. To this side of the matter we may turn in 
 conclusion. 
 
 At this juncture what more natural than that 
 we should seek aid from the professional peda- 
 gogists, even If, In the eyes of many, they are but 
 sons of the marshes of science? To little pur- 
 pose, alas ! For, despite its respectable titulars, 
 ' Education ' wends Its way much like any science 
 ' on the make.' Dubious about its material. It 
 flies for refuge to a familiar expedient. It as- 
 similates Itself to contiguous disciphnes of" superior 
 stability. But yet In the gristle, it leans upon its 
 lustier neighbours, biology or psychology or even 
 sociology, often uncertain what it would be at. 
 
HEREDITY AND EDUCATION 215 
 
 No doubt, it has a mournful linguistic lore of 
 Its own. Principles of stimulation, nourishment, 
 pleasure, habituation. Interest, and so forth; prog- 
 ress from the Known to the Unknown, from the 
 Simple to the Complex, from the Concrete to the 
 Abstract, and all the rest, do aspire to convey an 
 air of verisimilitude. But, we may be forgiven 
 If we ask, — and without levity, — Where does 
 * Education ' come In? Is It, like the pagan gods, 
 merely an abstraction, constantly demanding hu- 
 man sacrifices? Thus our appeal to the mandarins 
 would seem to Issue In a curious result. On 
 " purely pedagogical grounds," we appear com- 
 pelled to class ' Education ' with local option, uni- 
 versal suffrage, the ' credit-elective system,' and 
 '' other grotesque but strictly reasonable abomina- 
 tions." It looks as If we had exchanged the old 
 bondage to Ignorance for one more perilous — to 
 a neologism remote from human actualities. To 
 alter the figure. It remains a possibility, of course, 
 that the fragments assembled with such assiduity 
 by our pedagogical palaeontologists far afield in 
 the Borneo of other sciences may have been sub- 
 jected to speculative restoration. In any case, few 
 will rest content with the conclusion that ' Educa- 
 tion ' must be classed as the fruit of a caprice on 
 the part of that missing link, the State, for the 
 contemporary descendant of David Hume, De- 
 scriptive Psychology. Its obvious relation to ' de- 
 
2i6 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 scent ' notwithstanding, this hybrid holds aloof 
 from our present problem. In another incarna- 
 tion, " the science and art of education " may be 
 able to offer more than a set of anagrams. Mean- 
 time, its advocatus diaboli awaits a discomfiture 
 that belongs to the future. 
 
 Suppose, then, that we attempt another tack, 
 and carry appeal to the sociologist. At the close 
 of his Study of Sociology, Herbert Spencer 
 writes : 
 
 " If we contemplate the order of nature, we see 
 that everywhere vast results are brought about by 
 accumulations of minute actions. The surface of 
 the Earth has been sculptured by forces which in 
 the course of a year produce alterations scarcely 
 visible anywhere. Its multitudes of different or- 
 ganic forms have arisen by processes so slow, that, 
 during the periods our observations extend over, 
 the results are in most cases inappreciable. We 
 must be content to recognise these truths and con- 
 form our hopes to them. Light, falling upon a 
 crystal, is capable of altering its molecular arrange- 
 ments, but it can do this only by a repetition of Im- 
 pulses almost Innumerable. . . . Similarly, before 
 there arise in human nature and human Institutions, 
 changes having that permanence which makes them 
 an acquired inheritance for the human race, there 
 must be innumerable recurrences of the thoughts, 
 feelings, and actions, conducive to such changes. 
 
HEREDITY AND EDUCATION 217 
 
 The process cannot be abridged ; and must be gone 
 through with due patience." 
 
 After Spencer's habit, this looks like a develop- 
 ment of the obvious. But its translucence — as 
 often happens with this writer — serves to clothe a 
 naked fallacy. The suggestion is, that social 
 changes parallel geological and zoological in tardi- 
 ness. It would be difficult to find a more mislead- 
 ing analogy. Relative to our brief day, social 
 achievement indeed lags. Relative to ' epochs,' 
 as science understands them, it is a marvel of ra- 
 pidity. And the interesting point under examina- 
 tion now may be summed in the statement, that 
 social transformation supervenes upon intellectual, 
 and that, consequently, societies alter their outlook 
 in what, for geology at least, would count as ca- 
 tastrophic fashion. As I have said, we know lit- 
 tle about these matters; but the facts stare us in the 
 face, implying much for ' Education.' 
 
 Take the examples set forth a generation since 
 by Mr. Stuart Glennie. Before the sixth century 
 B. C. civilisation was one thing; after this memo- 
 rable era, along a mighty curve from the Hoang- 
 Ho to the Tiber, it became another and far differ- 
 ent thing. We cannot attach less meaning to those 
 wonderful events. Laou-tseu flourished about 
 550 B.C.; Confucius was born near this date, 
 Gotama a decade later. Deutero-Isaiah and Cyrus 
 accomplished their great works about 538; Anax- 
 
21 8 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 agoras was born In 500, while Pythagoras entered 
 upon his epoch-making activity in Italy about 540. 
 Whatever the darkness of a remote past may con- 
 ceal, we are aware that to these synchronous out- 
 bursts, and all they imply, a sudden cultural rise 
 must be traced, one so pervasive that we, inher- 
 itors of the ages, live in its wane, possibly its final 
 wane, at this good hour. For, this pivotal period 
 attained its zenith in Alexander the Great and 
 Aristotle, and won a dominion without rival since. 
 Then followed a second upheaval, initiated by 
 Julius Csesar and Caesar Augustus, that culminated 
 in the victory of Christianity under Constantine — 
 the most important single influence in contemporary 
 civilisation. This was succeeded by a third tran- 
 sitive movement, also of five hundred years' dura- 
 tion, when Muhammadanism, with its creed and 
 polity, burst upon mankind, to furnish stimulus to 
 Byzantine and Mediaeval culture. A fourth ef- 
 florescence, once more lasting some five hundred 
 years, witnessed a new conflict between Asia and 
 Europe, when the Turks, fighting for the Hither 
 East, stung western civilisation into an activity 
 that left four monumental consequences — the 
 eight Crusades, the systems of Scholasticism, the 
 bloom of Romantic Chivalry, and Gothic architec- 
 ture. Finally, the Reformation and Renascence 
 arrived, at the close of whose five-hundred-year 
 
HEREDITY AND EDUCATION 219 
 
 aftermath we live, in a time puzzled by many signs 
 of impending change. The renewed conflict be- 
 tween Asia and Europe in the Russo-Japanese 
 struggle, with its effect upon American, German 
 and British politics, means more, probably, than 
 surface signs indicate. Here, then, we see five 
 extraordinary ' lifts,' as they may be termed, fol- 
 lowing at regular intervals, and intimating discon- 
 tinuity in continuity. What does it all mean? It 
 seems to me that laws, not now on a cosmic-me- 
 chanical, but on a cosmic-human scale, may be in- 
 volved. Unfortunately, we are only in the stage 
 of collection of facts. And this is the more un- 
 lucky that ' Education ' belongs naturally to the 
 milieu distinctive of such events. Perforce, then, 
 we must rest content with a few reflections more or 
 less of a hypothetical nature. 
 
 Setting aside the larger movement, what dare we 
 say? Walking in dusk, if not In darkness, we 
 must command the requisite daring, with Its se- 
 quence of accident. And, remembering the limita- 
 tion, I would answer : — The conviction grows 
 upon me that, whatever may be the biological case, 
 when we come to cultural conditions a primary fac- 
 tor is precisely the constant transmission of ac- 
 quired characters; or, more accurately, of modifi- 
 cations peculiar to and originated by individuals 
 in the course of their unique, personal careers. 
 
220 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 Mercifully, our present subject does not require 
 that we dogmatise about the means. The fact, 
 in some sort, hammers Itself home by recurrence. 
 For Instance, take Shakespeare or Milton, Emer- 
 son or Darwin. One can allege, doubtless, that 
 Shakespeare quired the quintessential quality of the 
 Renascence ; that Milton wrought a wondrous com- 
 bination of Greek beauty with Protestant theology, 
 and Puritan morals; that Emerson grafted FIchte's 
 popular works and European Romanticism upon 
 a new stem, in a new world; that Darwin clinched 
 with serried evidence the suggestive theories of 
 VIco (1722), Montesquieu (1734), Buffon 
 (1749), Monboddo (1773), Erasmus Darwin 
 (1794), Goethe (1795), Malthus (1798), La- 
 marck (1809), G. St. Hilaire (1830), and Cham- 
 bers (1844), to say nothing of the meek, inglo- 
 rious Wells (18 18) and Matthew (1831). For 
 all alike, 'things' were in the air; and this may 
 be taken as the ' Heredity ' aspect. At the same 
 time. It cannot be denied that these men of genius 
 Initiated a fresh intellectual ' lift,' which trans- 
 mitted Itself from them, and became an integral 
 portion of the heritage received by later genera- 
 tions. While it is true that each occupied a place 
 In the order. It is also true that each performed a 
 feat akin to creation — acquired a modification, 
 not present otherwise, and that the acquisition 
 passed on. 
 
HEREDITY AND EDUCATION 221 
 
 ** Such souls 
 Whose sudden visitations daze the world, 
 Vanish like lightning, but they leave behind 
 A voice that in the distance far away 
 Wakens the slumbering ages." 
 
 Thus, on the level where ' Education * abides, 
 the upshot seems to be that two main factors, each 
 complex beyond all present means of analysis, can 
 be detected. And they unite to serve the con- 
 tinuum, to preserve it vital. First, we have the 
 solidarite of a people, race or culture. This ele- 
 ment can be observed at its tensest to-day in 
 France. When the luckless Bazaine, after the 
 surrender of Metz, came before the court-martial, 
 he pleaded in extenuation, that the government had 
 fallen, and that no superior authority remained to 
 consult. Whereupon the Due d'Aumale replied, 
 in a phrase become classical since: "Monsieur, 
 il y avait encore La France! '' We * Anglo- 
 Saxon ' barbarians incline to view this as a piece 
 of quixotry, and to class it with the kindred mani- 
 festation for art, enunciated by M. de Biez, as so 
 much Gallic folly. " Gray, which is the colour 
 of the sky in France, is also the colour of truth it- 
 self, of that truth which tempers the impetuosity 
 of enthusiasm and restrains the spirit within the 
 middle spheres of precise reason." On the con- 
 trary, it amounts to a transcript of fact. The 
 French democracy is nothing if not institutional, 
 
222 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 and offers the best contemporary illustration of 
 ' group-heredity ' on a large scale. Second, we 
 have individual initiative, variation, modification 
 — call it what you please — best seen, possibly, in 
 English idiosyncrasy, and set forth so fully, from 
 the French standpoint, by M. Demolins in his sug- 
 gestive work. The Superiority of the Anglo- 
 Saxons. 
 
 It is also manifested, though after a very differ- 
 ent style, in the confusions due to American lack 
 of organic nationality. An acute novelist of man- 
 ners has pictured it piquantly as follows. The 
 boys of a middle-class, well-to-do, cultivated fam- 
 ily in New England are about to have their an- 
 nual peg-top contest in the barn, and the mother 
 wonders what sort of crowd they will fetch from 
 the common school : — 
 
 " Going to the window, I gazed out; but my 
 thoughts were instantly focussed by the procession 
 coming from the barn, consisting of three or four 
 dogs, Richard, Ian, and their guests. Scanning 
 these last curiously, I saw this strange combina- 
 tion: the son of the Anglican Catholic clergymen; 
 the boy of the Polish shoemaker, suspected to be, 
 though not confessedly, a Jew; Patsy Nally, whose 
 father raises onions and pigs on the far, side of the 
 village; the son of the Italian fruit-dealer, who 
 goes by the nickname of Toney ' Guinea ; ' the 
 Crusiak cripple yclept ' Hop Sticks,' whose Hun- 
 
HEREDITY AND EDUCATION 223 
 
 garlan father Is a flagman at the turnpike railway 
 crossing; and Sidney Holllster, the only child of 
 the richest magnate of Oaklands and Bridgeton 
 combined! " 
 
 Now, so far as complex civilisation Is concerned 
 ^ Education ' maintains itself in unstable equili- 
 brium between these two factors which, again, are 
 cooperant throughout the continuum. Remember- 
 ing this. How shall we overestimate the value of 
 fuller knowledge about the ' Heredity ' element 
 on the culture-plane? Further, any solid facts 
 that we can glean must spell hope, and in large 
 letters. For, obviously enough, an unbroken con- 
 flict between two tendencies affects the entire edu- 
 cational process, and is responsible for much pres- 
 ent hesitation, not to say confusion. One effort 
 ever bends Itself to impress the traditional, or ap- 
 proved culture and normal aims of the community 
 upon the Individual. So much so that, as Ruskin 
 objurgated, " Modern education for the most part 
 signifies giving people the faculty of thinking 
 wrong on every conceivable subject of Importance 
 to them." But, on the contrary, these very 
 achievements of a society would die the death 
 by inanition unless vivified by exceptional persons. 
 Here we light upon the reason why significant 
 men In the various forms of social activity tend to 
 line up against one another. On the whole, we 
 observe two antipathetic types — the formalist and 
 
224 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 the idealist. Thus, in philosophy, there are the 
 sophists or professorlings versus the sages; in re- 
 ligion, the ceremonialists and ecclesiastics versus 
 the saints and mystics; in literature, the philologers 
 versus the artists; in science, the methodists versus 
 the naturalists ; in politics, the aldermen versus the 
 statesmen; in education, the mandarins versus the 
 humanists. In every case, the one side stresses 
 approved social achievements, the other looks for 
 life in and from individuals. And, as a rule, the 
 children of this world hold the children of light in 
 bondage, to the bedevilment of long-suffering hu- 
 manity. For, the higher a thing is, the less likely 
 its success. Its appeal flies over — or, as often, 
 through — the heads of the average. 
 
 The raison d'etre of ' Education ' may be defined 
 as the development of intelligence; that is, to lead 
 man to discover a stable order in his own spiritual 
 nature and in his relations with his kind. All that 
 subserves this end may count as good relatively, 
 the rest as bad or, at best, superfluous. For, as 
 Spinoza has it, in a very wise document: " Before 
 all things, a means must be devised for improving 
 the understanding and purifying it, as far as may 
 be at the outset, so that it may apprehend things 
 without error, and in the best possible way." But 
 the individual cannot compass this great aim of 
 himself, he must use the heritage wrung from Na- 
 ture by universal experience. Nevertheless, and 
 
HEREDITY AND EDUCATION 225 
 
 inevitably, an Individual must accomplish this — 
 abstract ideas are not found energising down our 
 avenues. So, from this standpoint, the educa- 
 tional problem may be stated as the unification of 
 social achievement with individual initiative. No- 
 body can fail to see that, in one aspect of it, this is 
 just the problem of ' Heredity ' and variations, 
 or modifications. Institutions — the school a fair 
 representative — tend to become static, and so to 
 treat men as means rather than as ends. On the 
 other hand, the dynamic power of individuality 
 alone possesses virtue to Inoculate the old forms 
 with the asepsis of well-being. We must remem- 
 ber that those persons who nurture the best in the 
 group are " nearly always superior, for the pur- 
 pose in hand, to the average capacity of its mem- 
 bers." How far we miss a solution of this funda- 
 mental question may be gathered from a pro- 
 nouncement by one of our foremost biologists. 
 
 '* It would be an Interesting subject to debate 
 whether we could nurture such a man; whether a 
 Darwin, were he entered at a Columbia, a Har- 
 vard, a Princeton, could develop mentally as 
 Charles Darwin did at Cambridge in 1827. I 
 believe that conditions for the favourable nurture 
 of such a mind are not with us. They are, repose, 
 time for continuous thought, respect for the man 
 of brains and of Individuality and of such peculiar 
 tastes as Darwin displayed in his avidity for col- 
 
226 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 lecting beetles, freedom from mental convention, 
 general sympathy with nature and, above all, ar- 
 dour in the world of ideas. If the genial mind 
 cannot find the kindred mind, it cannot develop. 
 Many American school and college men are 
 laughed out of the finest promptings of their na- 
 tures. In short I believe our intellectual environ- 
 ment would be distinctly against a young Darwin 
 of to-day." 
 
 We teachers, oppressed by our Institutionalism, 
 too often succumb to a defect, noted also in the 
 Darwin connection, and right caustically, by the 
 President of the New York Academy of Sciences. 
 " It happened merely, that what most of his teach- 
 ers were prepared to impart he was not consti- 
 tuted to receive ; and so one of the acutest observ- 
 ers the world has ever known was thought to be 
 inattentive and unreceptive. During all the school 
 days of his childhood . . . not only were his su- 
 perb gifts wholly unrecognised, but no attempt was 
 ever made to find out if he had any such gifts. 
 . . . The one ceaseless effort of his schoolmasters 
 was to crowd him into the common mould." 
 
 How long will these things be ? How long will 
 we rest satisfied smugly with a mechanical system 
 calculated to drag the average man up to a very 
 average level of average social competence, and 
 neglect vital energies of the hidden spiritual life? 
 How long will we confuse a certain " breathless- 
 
HEREDITY AND EDUCATION 227 
 
 ness of effort " with " quiet and assured power " ? 
 In this respect we have still to confront a most 
 troublesome problem of method: How can the 
 best that the continuum affords be re-impressed 
 upon individuals without undue danger to their 
 Initiative ? Solve it, and you grasp a most specific 
 hope. Moreover, another problem lurks close by. 
 It relates to the question of educational values, 
 and might be put thus : How can we keep the aver- 
 age man in the stream of the continuum and, at the 
 same time, system notwithstanding, humanise him 
 specifically? Beyond doubt, we must exert tire- 
 less effort to naturalise all citizens in the main me- 
 dium of our civilisation. But this culture, as we 
 assert in our too frequent fits of vainglory, looks 
 to the future for its portion. Likely enough, 
 things may so run, but upon one condition only. 
 Exceptional Individuals must serve themselves 
 bearers of the dawn that is to the noon that Is to 
 be. Schools for the deficient we have — a tribute 
 to our pitifulness; schools for apprenticeship to our 
 familiar arcs of vocation we have, and to spare — 
 a tribute to our practical adroitness. But, where 
 are our schools for the efficient, for the ten right- 
 eous men who, peradventure, will save the city? 
 Echo answers, Where? — a tribute to our Incor- 
 rigible lack of foresight. " The trouble with us 
 Is the prevalence of a sprawling, gossiping self- 
 content that does not know or care whether such 
 
228 THE ANARCHIST IDKAL 
 
 things as manners, art, and literature exist or not." 
 We tend to shout for joy as we hand munificent 
 endowments to that most deceptive species of rot 
 — dry-rot. But we have evolved no scheme for 
 the education and selection of the initiative that 
 can be bestowed upon us only by the higher Initi- 
 ates. That is, we have never so much as thought 
 about one entire half of the ' Heredity ' problem. 
 We starve the Idealist, because we cannot detect 
 Immediate dollars bulging in his jeans. Our 
 schools are common! This indicates at once their 
 besetting sin and their constant opportunity. For, 
 * Education,' if it rise to the height of its mission, 
 must have concern, not merely with equality of in- 
 struction at the moment, but also with quality of 
 manhood on the morrow. Its raw material, while 
 formal and fiscal, on one side, cannot but be organic 
 and racial on another. 
 
 Hence, I live In good hope that, when the facts 
 of ' Heredity ' become generalised on the edu- 
 cational level, when, in particular, we command 
 some valid knowledge of the laws peculiar to the 
 soclo-psychological plane, especially in Its wonder- 
 ful ' lifts,' the causes of our present discontents 
 may come within the bounds of diagnosis. The 
 humanist, panoplied In the research we have be- 
 stowed upon everything except ourselves and our 
 creations, will then be in position to announce a 
 new commandment: Equality to the equal, in- 
 
HEREDITY AND EDUCATION 229 
 
 equality to the unequal, and all for the preserva- 
 tion of the larger whole. Such a law, as I humbly 
 think, roots in the nature of the case. For, as 
 one serene, sweet master has noticed and said, 
 " All human culture, spiritual as well as natural, 
 hangs upon inequality of souls." 
 
 f. 
 
THE UNIVERSITY IN THE UNITED 
 STATES 
 
 To be educated by the best intelli- 
 gence and the best morality of our age, 
 this is freedom, this is life. 
 
 IS It possible to convey to the untravelled Eng- 
 lishman a definite impression of the univer- 
 sity as it functions in the United States un- 
 der the special conditions bequeathed by his- 
 tory, and modified by contemporary society? I 
 place this question in the fore-front, partly because 
 it sums the attempt I am about to make, partly 
 because I doubt whether any picture can reproduce, 
 for a complete stranger, the fact in its precise 
 truth. At all events, it hints my difficulties, and 
 may therefore serve to palliate my shortcomings. 
 Contrasted types as Oxford and Glasgow are, 
 mediaevalism developed both. And the mediaeval 
 flavour tends to persist. Does not Birmingham 
 confess herself the daughter of Glasgow? 
 Thanks to propinquity, is she able to escape in- 
 fluences from Oxford? Now, although Harvard 
 was founded when Charles I. sat on the throne, 
 
 230 
 
W| THE UNIVERSITY 231 
 
 when Locke and Bunyan and Dryden were small 
 boys, no mediaeval society bore her, and, within 
 the compass of a generation, she has departed 
 completely from her once form, largely from her 
 once ideal. The difficulty, then (and it cannot be 
 urged too often or too strongly), of forcing the 
 Englishman to understand, proceeds from insist- 
 ent contrasts of environment, with the endless 
 ramifications attendant. 
 
 The needs of the sects or, as Americans call 
 them, religious societies, presided over the birth 
 of the early colleges. Harvard, Yale, Princeton, 
 King's (now Columbia) arose to supply the com- 
 mon demand for an educated ministry. Of 
 course, one can trace a relic of mediaevalism here. 
 Time was when the * clerk ' alone required 
 ' higher ' education. The English, their luckless 
 Education Bill — which says nothing about edu- 
 cation — still in fresh memory, can remind them- 
 selves how this past, often deemed dead and bur- 
 ied, continues to disturb the present. Why should 
 the clergy, rather than an expert lay profession, 
 train the youth? Mediaeval society holds the re- 
 ply: one class possessed a monopoly of learning 
 then. And notwithstanding numerous influences 
 hostile to such tendencies, a parallel condition se- 
 cured long lease of life in the United States. So 
 late as 1850 the great majority of the graduates 
 in Arts from Yale were destined to the Christian 
 
232 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 ministry. In so far forth, therefore, the trivium 
 or qiiadrivium ruled the curriculum; and the pro- 
 portion of * reverends ' on the staff Indicated 
 where the college expected to find competent teach- 
 ers. So immense has been the change that, to-day, 
 a majority of Yale bachelors go Into business, 
 while, In my own university, with a staff of 420, 
 but three own the title ' reverend,' and I greatly 
 doubt whether one-third of their colleagues are 
 even aware of these clerical antecedents. Obvi- 
 ously, then, the American university, seeing that it 
 dates from 1636 (Harvard), possesses a his- 
 tory and, within this history, remarkable transi- 
 tions have occurred. Accordingly, we must look 
 back for a moment. 
 
 ( I ) English example and ecclesiastical organ- 
 isation moulded the young university in America. 
 To be quite plain, there was no university, but a 
 single college, of the Oxford or Cambridge pat- 
 tern, ruled by a president and fellows (names still 
 retained in some eastern institutions, but standing 
 now for nothing quite like their English ancestry, 
 wherein the old tradition has been preserved more 
 continuously) . It had few teachers, — ten or a 
 dozen, — and few students, three hundred being 
 an extreme limit. It conformed to clerical (usu- 
 ally In the sense of dissenting) standards, shaped 
 Its pupils on intense, often narrow, lines, and, on 
 the whole, remained in seclusion, nay, unspotted 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 233 
 
 from the gross world beyond.^ Briefly, it repre- 
 sented low living and high thinking, not, however 
 thinking in an intellectual, but in a spiritual sense, 
 and this quasi puritanical. Further, strange as it 
 may seem, — for seven generations import enor- 
 mous alterations in the human affairs of a new 
 land, — this species of establishment maintained 
 itself, unchanged substantially, till the third quar- 
 ter of the nineteenth century. My colleague, the 
 late Dr. B. A. Hinsdale, in his day the foremost 
 authority on the history of education in the United 
 States, told me that, at the time of the War of the 
 Rebellion, there were but two universities in the 
 United States — Virginia and Michigan. Vir- 
 ginia (now happily rehabilitated) went to pieces 
 after the war; men are still alive who remember 
 Michigan so far conformed to the sectarian college 
 that chairs were ' passed round ' in turn to ap- 
 proved representatives of the prominent religious 
 denominations; and, at a dire moment, theological 
 rancour came nigh wrecking the university. But, 
 
 1 In my judgment, it is of the first importance that two men, 
 each of whom will leave a great university as his monument, — 
 a unique opportunity uniquely taken, — should set down their 
 recollections of their college training, and compare this with the 
 dominant ideals of the splendid foundations that they have in 
 large measure created. We need the reflections of Emeritus 
 President Angell upon Brown College, as it was in the forties of 
 the nineteenth century, contrasted with the twentieth century 
 University of Michigan ; equally, we need the reflections of 
 Emeritus President Eliot upon the Harvard College of his 
 youth compared with Harvard University as he has made her. 
 
234 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 even admitting these two, the rest were small col- 
 leges of the kind described above. Thus, the jirst 
 point to be grasped by the Englishman is, that the 
 present university in the United States happens to 
 have sprouted since 1870. 
 
 (2) Nor does the tale close even with a con- 
 sideration so startling. The early colleges re- 
 sponded, not merely to ecclesiastical, but to eco- 
 nomic stress. The States of the young Republic, 
 while still In the gristle, found the bare main- 
 tenance of civil functions enough ado. Moreover, 
 as in older countries at that time, the supreme sig- 
 nificance of education for the efficiency of the en- 
 tire body politic had not been realised. Thus, not 
 the State and its resources In general taxation, but 
 the self-sacrifice of groups and individuals within 
 it, founded and nursed these nascent homes of 
 learning. But yesterday the patent absurdity, of 
 a great modern university governed by " Fourteen 
 Congregational Ministers of Connecticut," was 
 mitigated. Nevertheless, time out of mind, these 
 ministers and their people had laid their gift upon 
 the altar, and to them, in all justice, control be- 
 longed at the outset. His appropriations for non- 
 conformist seminaries (which do not affect the uni- 
 versity question) aside, recollection fails the Eng- 
 lishman of a similar contingency. So he must 
 realise, as a second point, differentiating the 
 United States, that in a sparsely settled continent, 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 235 
 
 with few manufactures or other resources, commu- 
 nities within the State, rather than the government, 
 originated and tended the first colleges, and that 
 religious bodies alone enjoyed strength or devel- 
 oped interest equal to the task. Straitened, crude, 
 even reactionary as these beginnings may appear 
 to us now, they embody a heroic story of hardship 
 borne for an Ideal, and borne cheerfully — a wit- 
 ness to that inner eye which saw, and seeing, 
 aroused motive to build what was intended con- 
 sciously to be a civitas Dei, a testimony to the 
 spiritual, if in a dogmatic theological aspect. It 
 may aid understanding if I add that the analogue 
 to this spirit, native in the Motherland, is exempli- 
 fied in the perfervidum ingenium Scotorum, where- 
 by the Scot has seized power within the British 
 Empire so entirely disproportionate to his numbers 
 and his material resources. Sir Henry Reichel in- 
 forms me that, for a generation, something similar 
 has been afoot in Wales. 
 
 (3) But, once more, what happened in the New 
 England States two centuries ago has been hap- 
 pening west of the Alleghanles ever since. As 
 population pursued the setting sun, the conditions 
 once peculiar to the Atlantic seaboard migrated 
 also. Hence an immense system of ' higher * 
 education, organised and subsidised by the various 
 churches, spread everywhere. In the four North 
 Central States — Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa 
 
236 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 — more than one hundred institutions exist char- 
 tered to confer the degree of A.B. Of these, 
 ninety per cent, at least sprang from religious as- 
 sociations ; and while some few, persuaded by Car- 
 negie pensions, now profess to have discarded sec- 
 tarian bias, all retain many birth-marks. For it is 
 useless to disguise the plain fact that they do not 
 contribute a single member to the comparatively 
 small class which an American would designate 
 the ' great universities.' Hence follows the third 
 point to be sensed by the Englishman. Thanks 
 to the historical and economic causes, suggested 
 synoptically above, more than six hundred and 
 thirty foundations in the United States are 
 chartered to confer the degree of A.B. The vast 
 majority of them had origin in sectarian sources 
 
 — Baptist, Disciples, Lutheran, Methodist, Pres- 
 byterian, and so on in a long list ; they still revert 
 to the type represented by Yale and Princeton one 
 hundred and fifty years ago. I have heard a 
 prominent educationist call them " frauds on the 
 public." I beg to dissent. Their service in keep- 
 ing the lamp of education alight in waste places 
 cannot well be exaggerated. Besides, even if 
 their intellectual work be oftentimes shabby, occa- 
 sionally pretentious almost to the point of misrep- 
 resentation, I think some of them can render ef- 
 fective assistance still under our unique conditions. 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 237 
 
 Yet, doing them every justice, they eliminate them- 
 selves when the question of " the university In the 
 United States " comes under review. For, in a 
 current American colloquialism, so quaint to Eng- 
 lish ears, they are " schools." To a modicum of 
 Latin and Greek, which would seem rudimentary 
 and, moreover, rough, to a fourth form master In 
 an English Public School, they add mathematics, 
 history, English literature, political economy, a lit- 
 tle philosophy, Immunised by copious Injections of 
 theological antitoxin, and so forth. Their spirit 
 possesses little or nothing In common with the pur- 
 suit of truth for the sake of truth. The arriere 
 pensee of dogmatic sentiment, in life no less than 
 in Intellect, sets their perspective. And, as I un- 
 derstand the matter, this attitude consorts with the 
 desires of those whose Interest It is to maintain 
 them. As Dr. Edward Everett Hale has said: 
 ** The colleges have been endowed and carried on 
 very largely under ecclesiastical auspices. This 
 has frequently come out In absolute absurdity, for 
 there are now colleges in the United States where 
 a man may not teach the difference between the 
 optative and subjunctive moods in the Greek lan- 
 guage if he Is not sound as to the inspiration of the 
 book of Jonah, or as to the government of the 
 church In New Padua." Their function, there- 
 fore, must not be confounded with that of the uni- 
 
238 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 versity as understood In Germany or France, In 
 Britain, or In the universities proper of the United 
 States.2 
 
 These three Introductory points made clear, we 
 may proceed to grapple with our original question. 
 
 Towards the middle of last century Americans 
 began to frequent the German universities, at first 
 by twos and threes, then by scores, — some forty 
 could be counted at Heidelberg In 1864,^ — finally 
 by hundreds. If from early colonial days till the 
 
 2 It is well-nigh impossible to bring home to an English 
 university man the ' kind of thing ' implied. But, teste, here 
 is the letter-head spread atop a communication from the office 
 of a certain 'College President': — "Christian University. 
 For Ladies and Gentlemen. College of Arts and Sciences. Col- 
 lege of the Bible. Business College. Conservatory of Music. 
 Correspondence Bible School. Faculty Strong. Instruction 
 Thorough. Curriculum Full. Expenses Light." And here are 
 a few specimens of questions actually submitted on a printed 
 form to the unhappy wretches who aspire to appointment as 
 * professors ' in another precious ' college ' : — " On about how 
 many days in the past year was unable to do full work? 
 On about how many days in the past year was medicine taken? 
 How long a Christian? Has taught Sunday School? Has led 
 Prayer Meetings? Uses wine or liquor? Uses tobacco? Be- 
 longs to a Secret Society? Who can testify to success in 
 Christian work?" "Christian," as here used, means in effect 
 a species of Plymouth Brother. I am well aware that English- 
 men will accuse me of exaggeration. I therefore hasten to 
 add that these elegant extracts are culled from original docu- 
 ments in my possession; and to say that I could a tale unfold 
 farther! Of course, to a stranger, the gulf between this kind 
 of thing and the great universities is so tremendous as to be 
 (practically inconceivable. Yet, from Harvard to this circle 
 of the Inferno there is a gradation of descent. Le sage entend 
 a demi mot! 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 239 
 
 discovery of the Far West (say 1870), the United 
 States remained tutelary to England, alike in cul- 
 ture and education; thereafter, in a special intel- 
 lectual or academic sense, a second colonial period 
 appeared, Germany standing sponsor. This new 
 movement followed, then paralleled, a native 
 change. As early as 1765 a school of medicine 
 had grown up alongside Franklin's college at Phil- 
 adelphia; and by 18 17 we find Harvard consist- 
 ing of the College (i. e., Faculty of Arts) together 
 with the '* Schools " of Medicine, Divinity and 
 Law. Thus, on her own initiative, the United 
 States had contrived to broaden the original " Col- 
 lege of the Liberal Arts " which, indeed, was al- 
 ready on its fateful way to the present redundant 
 university. When German influence asserted it- 
 self with the return of the beatified Ph.D.'s, the 
 Arts course, proper to the college, underwent far- 
 ther extension and transformation. The inherent 
 tendencies acquired momentum rapidly after 1875, 
 and at length swept all before them after 1895. 
 During the stage of transition, incidental difficul- 
 ties were palliated or dodged by a species of com- 
 promise. The multiplication of degrees conferred 
 by the Arts faculty offers an impressive instance 
 of this process. The old A.B. found itself at- 
 tended by three parvenus, as it were. For, in this 
 light, the Bachelor of Philosophy, the Bachelor of 
 Science, and the Bachelor of Letters were re- 
 
240 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 garded at first. Thanks to such expedients, it was 
 still possible to conserve a systematic course, on a 
 basis of required subjects, and yet to permit the 
 flexibility of choice demanded by the Intrusion of 
 new subjects. The A.B. Implied a classical edu- 
 cation, and retained primacy both In academic and 
 popular estimate. For Ph.B. the Greek require- 
 ment was dropped, to be replaced by a modern 
 language (German or French). For the B.S. all 
 classical requirements were eliminated, and science 
 (chemistry, physics or biology) was substituted. 
 For the B.L. also classical requirements disap- 
 peared, English and the modern languages coming 
 to bulk large In the compulsory studies, and the 
 degree never attained much repute; It was as- 
 sociated with the ' lame ducks.' Thus, the rapid 
 extension of subjects found scope in a more 
 or less clumsy manner, although traditional dis- 
 ciplines, so-called, continued to enjoy ' protection ' 
 after a fashion. Plainly this marked an era of 
 unstable equilibrium. For, as subjects multiplied 
 within the university, the representatives of the 
 A.B. requirements, especially the classics, became 
 gradually a minority; while, without the univer- 
 sity, as public opinion altered and as social pres- 
 sure for practical and technical education Increased, 
 the proven studies lost their lead rapidly. At last, 
 when these two streams of tendency joined, the 
 less coveted degrees were abolished, and the B.S. 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 241 
 
 professionalised. Then ensued the full flood of 
 the Elective System, when all subjects came to 
 count equally for the A.B., which, as a result, rep- 
 resented for a time anything in the heavens above, 
 on the earth below, or in the waters beneath the 
 earth. Small wonder! I have heard tell of the 
 President of a Far Western university ( !) who 
 perpetrated the sage aphorism, " There is no cul- 
 ture except agriculture." And a few months since, 
 afn English Public School boy, who is reforming an- 
 other " sage brush " institution, informed me that 
 his predecessor doubted the culture even of agricul- 
 ture! 
 
 On the whole, then, with the adoption of the 
 Elective System, the difference between the colo- 
 nial college and the modern university might be 
 expressed by saying that, in the latter, the Arts 
 degree ceased to indicate any systematic or com- 
 pulsory discipline. It is true that, in the Fresh- 
 man year, the undergraduate found his free feed- 
 ing limited to subjects which presumably linked 
 with his school curriculum. But liberty existed 
 even here. He might omit Greek, or mathe- 
 matics, or both. It is true also, that English, in 
 the sense of composition and paragraph-writing, 
 was obligatory, and that pedagogy was imposed 
 upon prospective teachers, if they would escape an 
 easy, though irksome, State examination. But, 
 these restrictions aside, the entire field of informa- 
 
242 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 tlon, from pure mathematics and nervous anatomy 
 to " oratory " and retail trade, lay open to the in- 
 genuous youth without let or hindrance. I have 
 known a case, not unique either, where a student 
 gained the A.B. with four-fifths of his entire un- 
 dergraduate course In chemistry. The Inevitable 
 result was, as a professor of chemistry who taught 
 him said, " he does not know chemistry." Others, 
 again, attained the same degree without Greek, 
 Latin, English literature, philosophy, or modern 
 languages, as the case might be. Many equally 
 curious possibilities might or did occur. In a 
 word, the A.B. had become a routeless omnibus. 
 As a consequence, a general movement for reform 
 has taken place within the last few years. Ex- 
 amination of the Arts curricula Imposed at a score 
 of the greater universities justifies these general 
 statements. ( i ) There Is a distinct tendency to 
 differentiate between the character of the work 
 proper respectively to the first two and the last two 
 years. This implies that Freshmen are to con- 
 tinue school studies rather on a school than on a 
 university level; that Sophomores (second year 
 students), while continuing school subjects, are 
 permitted to elect studies peculiar to the univer- 
 sity, such as elementary philosophy and economics. 
 In short, the grade of work proper to these years 
 is what is known In the United States as " college," 
 that Is, part school, part university. (2) Re- 
 
 i 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 243 
 
 quired work in foundation subjects — chemistry, 
 English, a foreign language, history, philosophy, 
 mathematics, physics and, sometimes, classics — 
 ought to be overtaken in the " college " years. 
 (3) In the last two years (Junior and Senior) 
 real university work is introduced, usually on the 
 basis of a Group System. Here the candidate 
 chooses a major subject; to this he must devote a 
 minimum of one-third or a maximum of two-thirds 
 of his time. Certain minor, or supporting, courses 
 must be elected; and some free election is per- 
 mitted. The general idea is to ensure concen- 
 tration and, at the same time, to bring the stu- 
 dent into contact with the main realms of knowl- 
 edge. 
 
 From the English viewpoint, when a scheme of 
 this sort rules the great universities, the educational 
 question pushes itself back a stage, namely, to the 
 secondary schools. Obviously, if they were or- 
 ganised and conducted in such a way as to furnish 
 material sufficiently competent, even this Lernfrei- 
 heit might operate as efficaciously as in Germany. 
 But the difficulty, like the difference, nucleates 
 here. All things considered the high school in the 
 United States presents no precise parallel to cog- 
 nate institutions in England, Germany, or France. 
 Furthermore, the American has adopted and ap- 
 plied in all grades of education the German idea 
 peculiar to the university only, according to which, 
 
244 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 Wissenschaft Is its own reward. Severe examina- 
 tions, competitions and other forms of stimulus, 
 so familiar to the English, are unknown. It seems 
 to have been forgotten that, outside the university, 
 such tests obtain everywhere In Germany. The 
 Arbiturientenexamen has no analogue In the 
 United States, nor the State medical and legal ex- 
 aminations. Consequently, not only is the Amer- 
 ican school unprepared to produce the kind of 
 student upon whom the organisation of the Ger- 
 man university depends, the youth whose ascer- 
 tained competence justifies Lernfreiheit, but also 
 no entrance tests are imposed comparable In sever- 
 ity to the Scottish or the London Preliminary. 
 Hence the judgments passed upon the Rhodes 
 Scholars by their Oxford Tutors. " They are at- 
 tractive and attracted, but restless, volatile and 
 never educated grundlichJ' " They seldom or 
 never settle down to do a long spell of work." 
 *' They seem to me to lack accuracy and (as a 
 rule) the power of hard grind." " They have a 
 general knowledge, but have been taught nothing 
 very precisely, and have not been accustomed to 
 write and express themselves clearly and with pre- 
 cision. They do not appear to study a subject as 
 a whole, as we do, but, after attending courses on 
 a portion of a subject, they appear to drop that 
 and never revise it again. They never appear to 
 have any comprehensive examination on the whole 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 245 
 
 of a subject." Besides, the goal of the German 
 university is the doctorate, designed for those 
 whose preliminary general education enables them 
 to specialise profitably, whereas the end of the 
 American course is the A.B., itself a testimony to 
 much the same general education presupposed by 
 the German university. In a word, the teutonisa- 
 tion of the American undergraduate course has 
 so eventuated that students who know nothing 
 thoroughly about a single subject have been made 
 free to choose as if they knew all. Here, at least, 
 praise cannot be perfected out of the mouths of 
 babes and sucklings. 
 
 This consequence ensued particularly, some 
 would say exclusively, in the Arts faculty. In 
 the professional faculties a hard and fast system 
 operates, and is so organised that the undergradu- 
 ate issues informed and moulded within the limits 
 of his chosen technique — a philistine, may be, 
 but so far an efficient philistine. The pressure of 
 American life has a great deal to do with this; 
 the professional " school " is a direct prepara- 
 tion for one or other of the careers to ' success,' in 
 the American interpretation of this term. I ques- 
 tion if even the Scottish medical course, a severe 
 mill, is so exacting as the best American schools 
 • — Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Michigan, Pennsyl- 
 vania. In the same way, the foremost engineer- 
 ing schools — Cornell, Massachusetts Institute 
 
246 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 of Technology, Michigan, Pennsylvania — equal 
 the European In continuous demands upon the un- 
 dergraduate. But, plainly, the Arts faculty, 
 which means " the university " so largely for the 
 Englishman, differs widely from Its British con- 
 gener. In what remains I shall attempt to punctu- 
 ate this contrast as clearly as I can. 
 
 At the outset, let me repeat the platitude, that 
 two types of university flourish side by side in the 
 United States. In the Eastern States we find in- 
 stitutions of private endowment — Harvard, Yale, 
 Johns Hopkins, and so on. For the most part, 
 these are ancient foundations; they have been 
 paralleled recently In younger communities by 
 Chicago and Leland Stanford. West of the Al- 
 leghanies the other great universities were erected 
 by State governments, and are maintained by pub- 
 lic taxation as " the cap-stone of the educational 
 system." Even allowing for wide divergence of 
 social condition, it may be declared at once that 
 no such variation separates these types as is famil- 
 iar In Britain, between Oxford and Glasgow, for 
 example. In a word, the same general situation 
 repeats itself universally. Or, as it might be put 
 otherwise, Michigan the representative State uni- 
 versity, tends to become more like Harvard, the 
 typical private university, while Harvard has not 
 remained untouched by the example for which 
 Michigan stands. Accordingly, local and tern- 
 
 i 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 247 
 
 porary contrasts admitted, one may assert that a 
 dominant trend of system spreads everywhere. 
 
 As a rule, the American youth enters the uni- 
 versity possessed of more worldly wisdom than 
 his British cousin, and, with reference to practical 
 life, his character presents markedly greater adap- 
 tability. He might be termed a boy-man. But 
 nearly always he knows no subject with compar- 
 able thoroughness, and very rarely has any equal 
 body of systematised information at immediate, 
 available command. To use an apt phrase, " he 
 has never been put through the mill." On en- 
 trance, few American matriculants could satisfy, 
 say, the Balliol dons, of competence to read for an 
 honour degree, and a distinct majority would go 
 down before the Scottish Leaving Certificate or 
 the London Preliminary Examinations. On the 
 other hand, they carry an assortment of Intellec- 
 tual light baggage beyond the Etonian's ken, and 
 are decidedly less hampered by English mauvaise 
 honte or by the Dorian self-consciousness of the 
 Scot. Consequently, the early terms of residence 
 pertain rather to school than to university studies, 
 and the spirit is accordant. The Freshman " re- 
 cites " just as he did in his preparatory school. 
 That is to say, he must keep up to the mark day-in, 
 day-out, on the prescribed "lessons," and his 
 " standing " Is determined by his response to viva 
 voce examination in the class-room. Further, as 
 
248 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 Professor Hart, of Cornell, has said pointedly: 
 " From the day of his matriculation to the day of 
 his graduation he is under surveillance more or 
 less intrusive, his attendance is noted down, his 
 performances are graded " — grading means 
 marked in the " instructor's " roll-book. Here 
 one of the most striking features of the American 
 university emerges, one, too, which the English- 
 man can realise with difficulty, if at all. Degrees 
 do not depend upon examinations^ instituted ad 
 hoc, but upon class-room work from week to week 
 throughout the whole period of attendance. Let 
 me attempt an explanation. To obtain the A.B. 
 the undergraduate must earn so many " hours." 
 This is known as the " credit system," and it op- 
 erates thus. Suppose that the A.B. represents 
 one hundred and twenty *' hours of credit " on the 
 books of the university, and that the course ex- 
 tends over four years, each of two terms (semes- 
 ter is the common American word). Obviously, 
 to graduate, the student must gain fifteen hours in 
 every term. He accomplishes this by selecting 
 courses which aggregate fifteen hours: say, Eng- 
 lish, four hours; Latin, four hours; mathematics, 
 four hours; history, three hours. Accordingly, 
 during the semester, he must attend the English, 
 Latin and mathematical classes respectively for 
 one hour per day on four days of the week, the 
 history class on three days. Then, provided that 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 249 
 
 his daily " recitations," his '' reports," or written 
 exercises, meet the standard, and that at the end 
 of the semester (which runs about seventeen 
 weeks), he passes the "terminal" examination 
 on the work of the class, he will be " credited " 
 with four or three hours in the several subjects as 
 the case may be; the same course cannot be " cred- 
 ited " twice. Should he fail, one of two things 
 will happen. Either he will be returned " not 
 passed," and lose all credit pertaining to the par- 
 ticular course; or he will be set down ''condi- 
 tioned," and must pass a supplemental examina- 
 tion at a set time, to " remove his condition." If 
 the " condition " run more than a stated period 
 (usually a few months) without removal, it be- 
 comes a " not-pass " automatically. When, on 
 this plan, the undergraduate has accumulated one 
 hundred and twenty " hours " on the books of the 
 Registrar, he forthwith proceeds to the A.B. at 
 the first Commencement. All degrees in Arts are 
 gained in this way, the British distinction of poll 
 and class being unknown, except in certain sub- 
 jects at Princeton. 
 
 As I see it, the main objection to this system 
 issues from its failure to put any premium, even 
 the slightest, upon high attainment and academic 
 distinction. Accordingly, undergraduates think 
 of ' university honours ' as appertaining to of- 
 ficial positions in student associations, and the like, 
 
250 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 hardly ever in terms of intellectual attainment. 
 For example, here are the ' university honours ' 
 of a ' distinguished ' student, printed in the list 
 of his class, in a book issued by his fellow students 
 just previous to their graduation: "Freshman 
 Glee Club; Smoker Committee; Athletic Com- 
 mittee; Senior Reception Committee; Social Com- 
 mittee; Class Football Team; Michigamua 
 (Senior Society)." The student was thus 'hon- 
 oured ' because he ' made ' these organisations. 
 In the same book, the name of the ablest A.B. 
 of the year passes absolutely without comment. 
 Thus, the tendency to rest content with a bare 
 pass meets all too favourable environment. Con- 
 sequently, the real credit for the pass must be 
 viewed as relative to the difficulty of securing it 
 on the lowest level. The greatest genius and the 
 greatest goose go forth stamped with the same 
 hall-mark. Ability is not emphasised, dullness is 
 flattered. And the further effect upon the supply 
 of teachers, particularly to the secondary schools, 
 cannot be called reassuring. The legend, " Only 
 graduates in Honours need apply," so often in- 
 scribed in advertisements of vacancies for Eng- 
 lish and Scots masterships, would be rendered 
 meaningless by the " credit system." • Why the 
 university should be the sole place where every 
 man is not rewarded according to his deserts, re- 
 mains a mystery to me, especially as the Ameri- 
 
THE UNIVEJ^SITY 251 
 
 cans are an eminently practical folk, and devoted 
 to education. Once more, the system is disad- 
 vantageous because final for degrees. It ought 
 to be final for courses in class only. Having com- 
 pleted the necessary " credits," the candidate ought 
 to be subjected to a special degree examination of 
 a more extensive and thorough character than is 
 possible in connection with a mere class examina- 
 tion. The result is that the A. B. has come to be 
 regarded, not as a certificate of competence, but 
 rather as a diploma of respectable undergraduate- 
 hood. For no test of any real difficulty, either ex- 
 tensively or intensively, has been met. As Mr. 
 Bryce says : '* At no point in his career is the stu- 
 dent expected to submit to any one examination 
 comparable, for the combined number and diffi- 
 culty of the subjects in which he Is questioned, to 
 the final examinations at Oxford or Cambridge." 
 And I have noticed the press — for whose vice 
 of exaggeration some deduction must be allowed, 
 no doubt — hall the Oxford entrance, to which the 
 Rhodes Scholarships candidates are held, as a 
 horrible crucifixion! I do not say that the 
 *' credit system " Is thoroughly bad, but I do affirm 
 that the astounding disparities, all covered by one 
 undifferentiating sign, are too marked for comfort, 
 and for educational safety. Lastly, It is a serious 
 defect that the teachers should be the examiners. 
 Better far to have independent examiners read 
 
252 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 the papers, adjust passes in consultation with 
 the teachers, and incur entire responsibility for 
 the final results. The teacher ought not to 
 be put in the position of playing special provi- 
 dence — he is all too human for this. In some 
 aspects of it, then, the " credit system " looks sus- 
 piciously like a conspiracy on the part of medi- 
 ocrity to render academic circumstances as favour- 
 able as possible to such standards as it can meet 
 with comparative safety. 
 
 On the other hand, the flexibility of the plan Is 
 marvellous, and accommodates admirably a com- 
 munity where social changes are rapid and start- 
 ling. Nevertheless, it produces one internal evil 
 of no little magnitude, to which President Hadley, 
 of Yale, adverted, in his 1906 Report, though 
 rather in a different connection. In the first and 
 second years of the academic course not a little 
 work is included that can be overtaken with suf- 
 ficient efficiency by " instructors " {Angelice 
 tutors) who possess few claims to the ability and 
 distinction requisite In a university professor. The 
 school teacher type — that of the average Board 
 school in England — thus gains entrance Into the 
 Arts faculty, bringing his undesirable associations. 
 And, If an " Instructor" remain in this' grade of 
 service long enough, very possibly, by simple lapse 
 of time, he may receive promotion to the profes- 
 soriate; If the head of department be himself a 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 253 
 
 weakling, he will recommend this promotion al- 
 most certainly. It thus happens that men attain 
 the chair sometimes who are fit to be no more than 
 school drill-sergeants, and they inoculate the en- 
 tire academic body with their baleful tendencies. 
 So, one occasionally finds sitting on the same sen- 
 ate, and exercising the same powers over high aca- 
 demic policy, scholars equal to the best anywhere, 
 and other Individuals whose presence on an Eng- 
 glish or German university staff would be almost 
 inconceivable. Now this is only to acknowledge 
 that, whether for student or teacher, the system 
 has paid a price hitherto for its adaptation to the 
 peculiar conditions. My personal impression is 
 that this presence of the pedagogue personnel and 
 ideals presents one of the practical problems fated 
 to be met soon by the university in the United 
 States. It proves the identity of university with 
 school work, and as, by an Inevitable process, the 
 former becomes more differentiated, the overlap- 
 ping must cease for ever. Meanwhile, it consti- 
 tutes a constant source of friction, as Dean after 
 Dean has informed me. 
 
 To render our picture more concrete, other in- 
 stances of the tendency towards the persistence of 
 a school atmosphere may be cited. The manage- 
 ment of athletics, of student publications, of the 
 funds of undergraduate associations, and so forth, 
 by committees of the instructional force, furnish 
 
254 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 cases In point. As straws serve to show how the 
 wind blows, the Englishman will sense at once that 
 the climate is very different from that prevalent in 
 his own universities. I may add that it consorts 
 with a trait characteristic of general society in the 
 United States. Individuals tend to seek a level, 
 which is not that of the most distinguished intel- 
 lectually, nor of those who have differentiated 
 their special originality. Personal idiosyncrasy, so 
 marked in British academic and political life, finds 
 little elbow room and no encouragement. I could 
 adduce several astonishing, almost incredible, cases 
 of this drawn from my own experience as a pro- 
 fessor. 
 
 The '* professional schools " have been noticed 
 already. It should be mentioned further, that 
 they stand in a peculiar relation to the Arts faculty, 
 or may so stand. The absence of an honour A.B. 
 in mathematical and physical science, in jurispru- 
 dence, in chemistry or biology, in Hebrew and 
 oriental languages, or in theology, operates to this 
 end. Thanks to the public educational system, the 
 American student is unable to begin his university 
 career soon enough. If he spend four years in 
 Arts, and another three or four years in a profes- 
 sional faculty, he may very well reach the age of 
 twenty-five to twenty-seven ere he can take the 
 first step in the work-a-day world. This difficulty 
 h^s caused some searching of heart in the past 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 255 
 
 fifteen years. Proposals have arisen to limit the 
 Arts course to three or even two years, and the 
 former alternative has adherents. As a general 
 rule, however, another plan has commended itself 
 to the authorities, so drawn that a candidate may 
 obtain both the Arts and the professional degree in 
 six years. Thus, for certain cognate subjects, 
 *' hours " count in two faculties, with the result that 
 so much Arts " credit " goes to Law or Medicine, 
 so much legal or medical " credit " receives recog- 
 nition for the A.B. While of clear value as a 
 useful makeshift in organisation, this arrangement 
 disrupts general education, by restriction of possible 
 elections, and by determining beforehand many of 
 the subjects to be studied. In other words, a boy 
 turns himself into a professional long ere he has 
 made such a voyage of self-discovery as to be able 
 to tell what he can pursue for his own highest de- 
 velopment, nay, he forestalls such a voyage. For 
 example, of the large numbers who now elect his- 
 tory or political economy, many follow these sub- 
 jects, not because the studies exert any charm over 
 them, but because they offer an avenue to a com- 
 mercial career, or to the combined Arts-Law de- 
 grees at the end of six years. To some extent the 
 same holds true on the medical and engineering 
 sides of what ought to be pure science. One 
 could imagine, without great difficulty, a success- 
 ful staff in physics, on an Arts faculty, without ^ 
 
256 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 single physicist — electric engineers, et hoc genus 
 omne, would serve! A parallel tendency mani- 
 fests itself, particularly among women students, 
 at the co-educational universities. Many of them 
 — like some few men — intend to teach in pri- 
 mary and secondary schools under local Boards. 
 Thus, their elections are determined largely, not 
 by the desire for the kind of education calculated 
 to train and transform their talents, or to endue 
 them with the culture so indispensable in the 
 teacher, but by the subjects which they propose to 
 teach school fashion. And this movement is in- 
 tensified to fatuity, as many think, by the intrusion 
 of pedagogy into the Arts course. The prepara- 
 tion in this subject is no less professional than in 
 Law or Medicine, — with no solid body of pro- 
 fessional knowledge, unfortunately — and has its 
 proper place either in the Graduate Department, 
 or in a professional " school." Scholars find the 
 consequences exasperating, sometimes ludicrous, 
 were they not so pitiable. In effect the university 
 is set to compete with the normal schools, and quasi 
 science obtains the time that should be spent upon 
 the real article. Thus, in every direction one wit- 
 nesses steady adulteration of the Arts faculty by 
 professionalism and, pari passu, a gradual eclipse 
 of the true academic ideal — the production of 
 such and such a type of humane being, differen- 
 tiated by a crystalline intellectual sensibility or in- 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 257 
 
 sight. Moreover, the general ethos of the na- 
 tion moves decidedly in this direction. Vocation 
 — the man as a tool — crowds out avocation — 
 the man as a humanised being. Culture for the 
 sake of culture has fallen upon evil days; knowl- 
 edge for use, and for immediate use at that, ag- 
 grandises itself by leaps and bounds. Pursuits 
 multiply, while personalities decay or even disap- 
 pear. 
 
 What, then, does all this mean? It implies, 
 first, that society in the United States demands, 
 and obtains, an education sufficient to equip many 
 of its members for citizenship in such a way that 
 they can conduct their affairs with the efficiency of 
 self-respecting folk, and take part in the battle of 
 life with an intelligence and mobility impossible 
 to most Europeans of relative social rank. It 
 implies, second, that society demands, and ob- 
 tains, excellent facilities for fitting any of its mem- 
 bers, who so desire, to do specific work, more par- 
 ticularly that tending to the successful exploitation 
 of the resources present in an undeveloped con- 
 tinent; to do work that places a man in position 
 to be of immediate practical use to the community, 
 whether in medicine, dentistry, invention, en- 
 gineering, law, commerce, mining, agriculture, and 
 the like. So far, so good. But it implies, 
 thirdly, that when individuals possessing special 
 talent or evidencing unusual Geist try to be some- 
 
258 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 thing more than their fellows, they find them- 
 selves inhibited, partly by less excellent facilities, 
 and partly by the inevitable inertia of society as a 
 whole embodied, as it always is, in unconscious 
 conventions. Consequently, the most promising 
 spirits are too often sucked into the vortex of prac- 
 tical affairs, where the ceaseless round of the mo- 
 ment kills personal development, except along nar- 
 row lines dictated by the daily circumstances; or, 
 having achieved the added ten talents up the hill 
 of unnecessary difficulty, young men find social ad- 
 justment slow, being left without obvious function 
 to perform or place to fill, and unable to descry a 
 congenial environment. The admirable technico- 
 professional training effects the one result, the 
 craze for ' safe ' men produces the other. Briefly, 
 individualised development of the intense per- 
 sonal sort wanes, because society, such is its 
 present condition, does much — all unconsciously, 
 of course — to discourage its nurture. Emerson 
 noted this, in his address. The American Scholar, 
 so long ago as 1837. " The class which with its 
 adherents has so long governed England," as Mr. 
 Hillaire Belloc wrote so acutely, " the class which 
 gives all their spirit to our two universities, the 
 Houses of Parliament and the learned professions, 
 produces a peculiar isolation of type within itself; 
 a self-development, a self-discovery in individuals. 
 . . . The Englishman of the upper class who is 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 259 
 
 destined to attain the highest places in his career, 
 and therefore to influence his generation in some 
 degree, pushes to the uttermost extreme passion 
 for private experience, private adventure, and the 
 private solutions of the problems around him. 
 He pursues . . . throughout life that eccentricity 
 or search vi^hich distinguishes the youth of the 
 middle class in the universities of other countries." 
 Mr. Belloc might have added to the last sentence, 
 " except of the United States." The English- 
 man must understand, therefore, that subtle con- 
 trasts of social temperament affect the American 
 universities. Where differentiation of individuals 
 occurs, as the mark of efficiency, and this of neces- 
 sity — namely, in the universities and, to a less 
 degree, in the secondary schools, — there precisely 
 American differentia becomes most apparent and, 
 many would add, American weakness. By a si- 
 lent process, which, of course, only a small mi- 
 nority of native Americans note, plans are culti- 
 vated that fit men to serve society In practical pur- 
 suits; on the other hand, plans calculated to help 
 men to become their distinctive selves are omitted, 
 perhaps frowned upon. No other interpretation 
 can be put upon the following phenomena. The 
 disproportion of girls among those who complete 
 the high school course; the increasing proportion 
 of women in the teaching profession; the supe- 
 riority of scientific and especially professional as 
 
26o THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 compared with literary training in the institutions 
 of the higher education, and the will to spend so 
 much more money upon its needs; the efficiency of 
 the crafts, judging by their human products, as 
 contrasted with the mediocrity of scholarship, 
 literature, art, and philosophy; the comparative 
 futility of pure science in face of the startling 
 triumphs In the applied branches, to which such an 
 authoritative publication as Science Is ever re- 
 turning. Americans point with legitimate pride 
 to their Edisons, Westinghouses and Brushes; but 
 when it comes to Kelvin and Rayleigh and J. J. 
 Thomson and Larmor and Ramsay and Ruther- 
 ford, they can show only an occasional Rowland. 
 All this Is no accident, but the most meaningful 
 consequence of a diffused and deep-seated cause, 
 flesh of the flesh of the whole sociological evolu- 
 tion. As the Mosely Commission said: '* On 
 buildings and equipment the expenditure is lavish; 
 unfortunately there is too often undue parsimony 
 in the far more important matter of salaries, and 
 the supply of adequately equipped teachers who in- 
 tend to stick to the profession is very insufficient.'* 
 Even more serious, " exceptional ability is 
 hardly, if at all, recognised." The fact is, one 
 can trace a dislike or suspicion of any human ma- 
 terial which, unusual in spiritual efficiency, is 
 bound by Its very existence to constitute a criticism 
 upon the average man. And, by a process of 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 261 
 
 selection, the system of education eschews precisely 
 this product. Not without compensation, how- 
 ever. 
 
 Under the conditions I have attempted to de- 
 scribe, the Englishman will see at once that the 
 university in the United States is a popular insti- 
 tution to a degree unknown, perhaps impossible, 
 in England or even Scotland, the severe entrance 
 examination having transformed the once char- 
 acter of the northern universities. Now, one of 
 the most noteworthy and symptomatic facts of con- 
 temporary life in the United States centres in the 
 rush to the universities. The statistics are aston- 
 ishing. The present enrollment of the fourteen 
 great universities is 62,196; omitting the three 
 small Institutions, it Is 57,948, an average of 
 5,268. Seven years ago the respective figures 
 were: 42,291; 39,793 5 the average 3,608. 
 While in 1897 the figures read: 27,712; 24,972; 
 and the average 2,270. The present average at- 
 tendance at the four largest universities is 6,236; 
 seven years ago It was 4,505; In 1897 it was 
 2,643. Needless to say. In view of the hints 
 thrown out above, the most striking Increase per- 
 tains to the professional schools, especially law 
 and engineering. In 1897, my own university 
 had 275 students In engineering, 575 in law. 
 Late figures show 1,243 In the former, 902 In the 
 latter. In the same period the Arts faculty rose 
 
262 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 from 1,269 to 1,895, ^ growth by no means com- 
 mensurate, and affected not a little by the presence 
 of the *' joint-course " professional students. It 
 were superfluous to indicate that these phenomena 
 influence the spirit of a university profoundly; the 
 humanist is fighting nigh for his life. Besides, 
 the Englishman must try to understand that, 
 Honours being absent, the Arts degree offers no 
 such rosy gateway to life in the United States as 
 in the Motherland. In England, a graduate in 
 high honours already has his foot on the first rung 
 of several ladders. The learned professions, 
 pure science, the careers of diplomacy or politics, 
 the government Services, the Indian Civil, and the 
 like, afford spheres where a good degree counts 
 for righteousness. Special distinction renders a 
 favourable start sure, while distinction determines 
 the direction whither a hopeful beginning may be 
 made. Why? Just because a high degree im- 
 plies, almost guarantees, a definite type of man. 
 Nothing of the sort can happen in the United 
 States, mainly, perhaps, because the A.B. is " the 
 night in which all cows are black." Brand the 
 best scholar and the worst dunce with the same 
 mark; you must take the consequence — you can- 
 not know the " mavericks." 
 
 At the same time, a *' college education " does 
 possess an indefinable social value. Wherein 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 263 
 
 this consists may be felt more readily than de- 
 scribed in good set terms. When — especially in 
 some coulisses de societe — an Englishman men- 
 tions casually, '* I was at Oxford with Blank," in- 
 dicating this or that cabinet minister or prominent 
 personage, something immediately stands to his 
 credit. If you can imagine a vague and faint 
 reproduction of this, divested completely of impli- 
 cations of social status, and having reference, not 
 so much to a class or ' set ' as to the entire body 
 politic, you may obtain a shadowy idea of the 
 value of a " college education " in the eyes of the 
 average American. As I sense the matter, it im- 
 plies that university graduates tend to gravitate to 
 the ' directing ' classes, and also that they often 
 represent some of the best moralising influences in 
 the civic life of the day. Or, yet again, their ad- 
 vantage is symptomatic of the zeal for education 
 which, after a kind, marks the American, just as 
 the Englishman thinks of It as a Scottish character- 
 istic, although he attaches small ' social ' value to 
 an Aberdeen degree. Like this, the American 
 degree bears no stamp of social superiority, but it 
 induces respect and, sometimes, expectancy. At 
 the same time. Its worth Is general, never specific. 
 For the A.B. lacks utterly the prestige attaching 
 to a high Honour degree in Britain. It may 
 mean something, no doubt, but this something may 
 
2^4 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 turn out anything. It will be objected here, and 
 properly, that " anything " is synonymous with 
 nothing. 
 
 We may ask, accordingly, Is it possible to 
 assign specific causes for the value attached to 
 a "college education"? I am inclined to think 
 not. The reference must be rather to the main 
 drift of society as it reflects the attitude of the uni- 
 versal middle class that is so prominent the 
 United States over. This is an elusive cause, un- 
 questionably, but the real one nevertheless. 
 Americans may claim, without fear of contradic- 
 tion, that in their common schools, technical in- 
 stitutes, engineering, medical, legal, agricultural, 
 mining, and cognate university departments, they 
 supply to the whole body of the people, none be- 
 ing in any way excepted, a kind of preparation that 
 fits men in an admirable manner for the work ex- 
 acted by their geographical environment and civil 
 conditions. The development of the material re- 
 sources of the United States since the Civil War 
 amounts to a miracle. And the educational 
 scheme concentrates itself upon rendering the 
 same development more rapid and much more in- 
 tensive within the coming years. Europe begins 
 to study the situation, partly because these traits 
 are present, partly because success has ensued, 
 partly because the resources constituting the point 
 of attack are endless; even Americans hardly 
 
 d 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 265 
 
 realise that their country is but scratched. Thus, 
 in a word, American higher education represents 
 an amazing achievement In so far as It nourishes 
 the body of life, an achievement the more 
 splendid on account of its national or popular 
 availability. This holds especially with respect to 
 the State universities, from Michigan westward. 
 " The whole thing Is Intensely practical — pos- 
 sibly too practical for the retention of a high 
 standard of liberal education and traditions of 
 culture ; for the pressure of commercial life seems 
 to be driving the universities to shorten or whittle 
 down the academic and literary side of their train- 
 ing. To the outsider it seems as if some of the 
 universities and colleges were trying to do too 
 many things In too great a hurry, without taking 
 pains to define and consolidate the foundations of 
 liberal culture which a university training is usu- 
 ally supposed to guarantee.*' As a consequence, 
 university men are seldom so differentiated from 
 the masses as to turn popular prejudices topsy- 
 turvy. They do not '* behave themselves 
 strangely," to adopt Lander^s phrase, nor exasper- 
 ate by exacting a standard too high for the * com- 
 mon ' man, or quite beyond his horizon. Hence 
 the university hall-mark, being *' of and from '* 
 the people, acquires a certain significance unfamil- 
 iar in England. Because the universities "pro- 
 vide fairly well for the Intellectual needs of the 
 
266 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 average citizen," and " hardly enough for the 
 training of special ability," they are rehearsals 
 of life, and therefore come to be taken at their 
 word. The graduate finds a place easily, but not 
 a special place. He achieves better than his fel- 
 low who has not had " the advantage of a college 
 education." But he achieves as his fellow, not in 
 other pursuits which presuppose something dis- 
 tinctive and to be obtained only in the academic 
 halls. In brief, the gregariousness of the A.B. 
 Is the root of his — and its — prestige ! Statistics 
 show that the " college " graduate adds to the 
 period of individual productiveness, and that he 
 increases public happiness. And as the public is 
 intent precisely upon material productiveness and 
 upon happiness, it tends to appreciate the mani- 
 fest advantages of the higher education which 
 favours these results. Or, to use a phrase con- 
 stantly upon the lips of administrators the uni- 
 versity, through its graduates is " the great asset 
 of the commonwealth." As an Item on the bal- 
 ance sheet, an Item which all can grasp, the de- 
 gree carries clear value. So much for the pass- 
 man. 
 
 I must not conclude, however, without refer- 
 ence to that part of the university organisation 
 unexampled In Britain, I mean the " Graduate 
 School," and the " Higher Degrees." Just as 
 the early college was a reproduction of a single 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 267 
 
 Oxford or Cambridge college of that day, so the 
 modern Graduate School may be called a repro- 
 duction of the German university; at all events, 
 German methods rule it, not English. It is the 
 machine for the preparation of specialists — 
 scholars and scientific men. After graduation, the 
 A.B. may proceed to an A.M. at the end of one 
 year, or to a Ph.D. at the end of three years' far- 
 ther residence and study. The Master's degree 
 may be dismissed — at present it has not found 
 its function. But the Ph.D. enjoys decided rank, 
 because it has become, and tends to be more and 
 more the conventional path to appointment on a 
 college or university stafF. Its qualities, like its 
 defects, are traceable to Its 'commercial' value; 
 " I need it in my business," as one of my students 
 said to me a few weeks ago. The method is this. 
 Having proven his competence or discovered his 
 bent in the A.B. course, the candidate selects a 
 major study in the graduate school; with this one 
 or two minor studies are associated. As a rule 
 the subjects are more or less closely cognate. 
 This, for instance, is a common case in my own 
 experience: candidates for a doctorate, with a 
 major In Greek or Latin, tend to take Latin or 
 Greek as their first, and ancient philosophy as 
 their second, minor. The actual work proceeds 
 on the German Seminar model, and ought to be 
 under the direction of the ablest and most experi- 
 
268 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 enced scholars on the staff. The ideal Is not so 
 much to impart information as to develop original 
 research. Very likely, in many cases, this re- 
 mains, and must remain, an ideal. In the second 
 year, the candidate adopts an approved subject for 
 a thesis, on which considerable stress is laid. It is 
 expected that he will here make a first-hand con- 
 tribution to learning or discovery, however slight. 
 The thesis is presented and adjudicated towards 
 the end of the third year of post-graduate study, 
 and, if accepted, the candidate may then proceed 
 to examination. The examination is oral, as a 
 rule, although certain departments exact a pre- 
 liminary written test. All things considered, it 
 may be viewed as a remnant of the mediaeval dis- 
 putatio. In the case of the smaller colleges gen- 
 erally, and often in that of universities of the sec- 
 ond rank, the candidate quits his alma mater, and 
 proceeds to one of the great universities, where 
 facilities are superior; oftentimes he goes abroad, 
 commonly to Germany. Migration from uni- 
 versity to university does not take place in Amer- 
 ica as in Germany during the period of 
 graduate study, however. Whether a bachelor 
 can be received as a supplicant for the doctorate 
 depends on the grade of Institution whence he 
 came; and some universities, like my own, will ac- 
 cept no ' foreign ' A.B. as a candidate for the 
 Ph.D. till he has proved himself by one year of 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 269 
 
 residence and trial. Englishmen who have 
 studied in Germany will understand at once the 
 methods and ends of the Graduate School. 
 Those who have not enjoyed this experience will 
 sense the situation with difficulty. They might, 
 no doubt, as they sometimes do, compare the 
 Ph.D. with the B.A. in Honours. But one 
 great difference is written large everywhere. 
 Taking my own experience: I have seldom ex- 
 amined a Ph.D. candidate who commanded such 
 a store of learning as the good English or Scots 
 first-class man, and, only once, an examinee who 
 could set forth his knowledge with similar ele- 
 gance or even skill. Farther, the oral examina- 
 tion is neither so severe and sustained nor so wide 
 in range and thorough as a British Honours 
 school. On the other hand, an American of equal 
 ability with the British first-class man is rather 
 more likely to become a contributor to the ad- 
 vance of knowledge, especially in some of the 
 laboratory sciences, because a very different en- 
 vironment surrounds him. He is never a ** com- 
 petition wallah," to use Sir George Trevelyan^s 
 phrase, but studies, or should be taught to study, 
 purely for the sake of mastery in his subject, and 
 with a conscious endeavour after productive 
 scholarship. The aim of his teachers is to place 
 him in a position of independence, whence he can 
 review the field for himself. Without doubt the 
 
270 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 Graduate School sometimes falls lamentably short 
 of these ends; and, so far as I can see, it will con- 
 tinue to do so until a more systematised and severe 
 preliminary requirement comes into general force. 
 If the American universities were to grade their 
 bachelors, and permit only those of the first rank 
 to enter the Graduate School, then the value of 
 the preparation presupposed would become en- 
 hanced immensely. The present weakness of the 
 doctorate course arises from the haphazard supply 
 of human material. Within the universities 
 themselves, it is occasionally regarded as a luxury, 
 or as a mere appanage, and not as the university 
 course par excellence, which happens to be Its real 
 purport, as it should be its actual status. It is 
 also most desirable, if not altogether indispen- 
 sable, that the doctorate itself should be graded, 
 as in Germany. To place all doctors, good, bad 
 and indifferent, on the same level constitutes an 
 unfortunate error, and tends to bring the degree 
 into disrepute. A specialist should stand forth 
 stamped at his precise worth. For, the degree Is 
 not, as so many view it, an end in Itself, but simply 
 a token. 
 
 In conclusion. It may be remarked that the 
 United States has not yet evolved a distinctively 
 native university organisation, developed from 
 her peculiar conditions and needs without reference 
 to foreign models. At present a period of rapid 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 271 
 
 transition prevails, and the end no man can tell or 
 dare prophesy. Still, one problem looms so large 
 that It begins to compel attention. There is abso- 
 lutely no reason why the American university 
 should not, In the future as In the past, supply the 
 masses of the people with good general oppor- 
 tunities. Indeed, to divert It from this service 
 would be perilous in the extreme. But most ap- 
 posite reasons exist why the system of training 
 should be overhauled, particularly in the humani- 
 ties. It Is necessary beyond all else, to furnish 
 definite provision for the discovery and nurture 
 of exceptional talent, and to stamp this as the dis- 
 tinctive product of the Mother Faculty. The 
 English universities have contrived to accomplish 
 this far more effectively, and for two causes. 
 First, they possess the Honours system, which 
 everywhere differentiates ability. Second, their 
 conventions proceed from a dominant social group 
 to whose amplitude of spirit, in the matter of 
 personal culture, American Institutions offer 
 hardly any parallel. The American problem Is 
 to continue to serve the average man, and to find 
 and train the exceptional personality — to de- 
 velop a new level of culture. The same methods 
 as the British are impracticable, without doubt. 
 But the university In the United States Is perfectly 
 well able to evolve Its own means to Its own salva- 
 tion. The cure depends upon courage and Insight 
 
272 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 to detect present ailments. And the men who 
 fight this battle through will serve themselves the 
 greatest benefactors American education has seen 
 since the Puritan forefathers, who laid the founda- 
 tions broad and sure in the lives of the folk. The 
 necessity is to breed humane beings. The cry for 
 men to direct trades has been upon the United 
 States for a generation; the yearning for masters 
 to mediate life must follow — all history wit- 
 nesses this surety. But, be this as it may. It must 
 be plain to the English that the university in the 
 United States presents a complication of features 
 quite unfamiliar to them; that it may be misunder- 
 stood easily in general conversation; and that it 
 is not to be grasped after a few weeks' rush over 
 the continent. Immense drafts of energy, as of 
 money, are being enlisted in the evolution of the 
 great universities, and another quarter of a cen- 
 tury will see profound changes. Indeed, the dif- 
 ficulty of my subject resides here. So rapid and 
 manifold are transitions in the United States that 
 what is true to-day may be false to-morrow, and 
 what holds for one part of the continent may be 
 inapplicable completely to another. " The Land 
 of Contrasts " baffles synoptic presentation. 
 
 It needs no prophet, however, to speak a def- 
 inite word about the future. Not long since I had 
 the pleasure of receiving an expert, sent by the 
 German Government, to investigate the universi- 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 273 
 
 ties of the United States. He remarked that men 
 were apt to be about thirty years behind the times 
 in their average conceptions of foreign institu- 
 tions. In Germany, he continued, we hear some- 
 times of Harvard and Columbia and Chicago, but 
 no one has any conception of universities like 
 Michigan and Illinois — their magnitude and 
 resources are uncomprehended. Little wonder, 
 one may Interpolate. Twenty years ago, the total 
 income of the two universities was about equal to 
 the present budget of the University of Edin- 
 burgh — £95,000: to-day, it presses hard upon 
 the combined annual resources of Oxford and 
 Cambridge — reaching no less than £785,000! 
 My colleagues, he went on, will hardly believe 
 me when I return and tell them that I found sev- 
 eral German books in your library, on a special 
 subject now engaging my attention, which I could 
 not obtain at home. Little wonder, one may in- 
 terpolate again. Twenty years ago, the number 
 of volumes In the Michigan and Illinois libraries 
 was but 108,000; to-day, the total reaches 
 600,000 1 The Michigan librarian records, in a 
 recent report to the Regents, that the library has 
 doubled during his incumbency, which covers a dec- 
 ade only I The moral is, that for twenty years 
 past, the great American universities have been 
 laying deep foundations. And when certain diffi- 
 culties, due mainly to over-lapping, are removed 
 
274 THE ANARCHIST IDEAL 
 
 from the educational system, it Is safe to say that 
 " the University in the United States " will chal- 
 lenge, possibly — I think probably — lead the 
 world. The uneasiness of the American in his edu- 
 cational Zion augurs wonderful advances to come. 
 Troubled by this spirit, many scholars would be 
 less pessimistic about the immediate future were 
 they and their colleagues delivered from three be- 
 setting sins, as they deem them. They recognise 
 that they are required to teach too much, that the 
 grad-grind of routine is apt to dull them. Thanks 
 to certain national tendencies of civil life, repro- 
 duced in academic government, politics absorb and 
 cannot well be escaped — and university politics 
 were ever unfriendly to intellectual achievement. 
 Finally, they are under continuous pressure to con- 
 struct nice text-books that have no particular sig- 
 nificance for the advancement of knowledge, and 
 often foster baseless self-satisfaction. The more 
 widespread the consciousness of these limitations, 
 — and it grows apace, — the greater the propor- 
 tion of Influential men who recoil from Beau- 
 marchais' cynical advice, Mediocre et rampant, et 
 Von arrive a tout. 
 
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